Little Lord Fauntleroy
the quare little ways of him--and his ould-fashioned sayin's! Didn't
he come into my kitchen the noight the new Prisident was nominated and
shtand afore the fire, lookin' loike a pictur', wid his hands in his
shmall pockets, an' his innocent bit of a face as sayrious as a jedge?
An' sez he to me: 'Mary,' sez he, 'I'm very much int'rusted in the
'lection,' sez he. 'I'm a 'publican, an' so is Dearest. Are you a
'publican, Mary?' 'Sorra a bit,' sez I; 'I'm the bist o' dimmycrats!'
An' he looks up at me wid a look that ud go to yer heart, an' sez he:
'Mary,' sez he, 'the country will go to ruin.' An' nivver a day since
thin has he let go by widout argyin' wid me to change me polytics.”
Mary was very fond of him, and very proud of him, too. She had been with
his mother ever since he was born; and, after his father's death, had
been cook and housemaid and nurse and everything else. She was proud of
his graceful, strong little body and his pretty manners, and especially
proud of the bright curly hair which waved over his forehead and fell in
charming love-locks on his shoulders. She was willing to work early and
late to help his mamma make his small suits and keep them in order.
“'Ristycratic, is it?” she would say. “Faith, an' I'd loike to see the
choild on Fifth Avey-NOO as looks loike him an' shteps out as handsome
as himself. An' ivvery man, woman, and choild lookin' afther him in his
bit of a black velvet skirt made out of the misthress's ould gownd; an'
his little head up, an' his curly hair flyin' an' shinin'. It's loike a
young lord he looks.”
Cedric did not know that he looked like a young lord; he did not
know what a lord was. His greatest friend was the groceryman at the
corner--the cross groceryman, who was never cross to him. His name was
Mr. Hobbs, and Cedric admired and respected him very much. He thought
him a very rich and powerful person, he had so many things in his
store,--prunes and figs and oranges and biscuits,--and he had a
horse and wagon. Cedric was fond of the milkman and the baker and the
apple-woman, but he liked Mr. Hobbs best of all, and was on terms of
such intimacy with him that he went to see him every day, and often sat
with him quite a long time, discussing the topics of the hour. It was
quite surprising how many things they found to talk about--the Fourth
of July, for instance. When they began to talk about the Fourth of July
there really seemed no end to it. Mr. Hobbs had a very bad opinion of
“the British,” and he told the whole story of the Revolution, relating
very wonderful and patriotic stories about the villainy of the enemy and
the bravery of the Revolutionary heroes, and he even generously repeated
part of the Declaration of Independence.
Cedric was so excited that his eyes shone and his cheeks were red and
his curls were all rubbed and tumbled into a yellow mop. He could hardly
wait to eat his dinner after he went home, he was so anxious to tell
his mamma. It was, perhaps, Mr. Hobbs who gave him his first interest
in politics. Mr. Hobbs was fond of reading the newspapers, and so Cedric
heard a great deal about what was going on in Washington; and Mr. Hobbs
would tell him whether the President was doing his duty or not. And
once, when there was an election, he found it all quite grand, and
probably but for Mr. Hobbs and Cedric the country might have been
wrecked.
Mr. Hobbs took him to see a great torchlight procession, and many of the
men who carried torches remembered afterward a stout man who stood near
a lamp-post and held on his shoulder a handsome little shouting boy, who
waved his cap in the air.
It was not long after this election, when Cedric was between seven and
eight years old, that the very strange thing happened which made so
wonderful a change in his life. It was quite curious, too, that the
day it happened he had been talking to Mr. Hobbs about England and
the Queen, and Mr. Hobbs had said some very severe things about the
aristocracy, being specially indignant against earls and marquises. It
had been a hot morning; and after playing soldiers with some friends
of his, Cedric had gone into the store to rest, and had found Mr. Hobbs
looking very fierce over a piece of the Illustrated London News, which
contained a picture of some court ceremony.
“Ah,” he said, “that's the way they go on now; but they'll get enough
of it some day, when those they've trod on rise and blow 'em up
sky-high,--earls and marquises and all! It's coming, and they may look
out for it!”
Cedric had perched himself as usual on the high stool and pushed his
hat back, and put his hands in his pockets in delicate compliment to Mr.
Hobbs.
“Did you ever know many marquises, Mr. Hobbs?” Cedric inquired,--“or
earls?”
“No,” answered Mr. Hobbs, with indignation; “I guess not. I'd like to
catch one of 'em inside here; that's all! I'll have no grasping tyrants
sittin' 'round on my cracker-barrels!”
And he was so proud of the sentiment that he looked around proudly and
mopped his forehead.
“Perhaps they wouldn't be earls if they knew any better,” said Cedric,
feeling some vague sympathy for their unhappy condition.
“Wouldn't they!” said Mr. Hobbs. “They just glory in it! It's in 'em.
They're a bad lot.”
They were in the midst of their conversation, when Mary appeared.
Cedric thought she had come to buy some sugar, perhaps, but she had not.
She looked almost pale and as if she were excited about something.
“Come home, darlint,” she said; “the misthress is wantin' yez.”
Cedric slipped down from his stool.
“Does she want me to go out with her, Mary?” he asked. “Good-morning,
Mr. Hobbs. I'll see you again.”
He was surprised to see Mary staring at him in a dumfounded fashion, and
he wondered why she kept shaking her head.
“What's the matter, Mary?” he said. “Is it the hot weather?”
“No,” said Mary; “but there's strange things happenin' to us.”
“Has the sun given Dearest a headache?” he inquired anxiously.
But it was not that. When he reached his own house there was a coupe
standing before the door and some one was in the little parlor talking
to his mamma. Mary hurried him upstairs and put on his best summer
suit of cream-colored flannel, with the red scarf around his waist, and
combed out his curly locks.
“Lords, is it?” he heard her say. “An' the nobility an' gintry. Och! bad
cess to them! Lords, indade--worse luck.”
It was really very puzzling, but he felt sure his mamma would tell him
what all the excitement meant, so he allowed Mary to bemoan herself
without asking many questions. When he was dressed, he ran downstairs
and went into the parlor. A tall, thin old gentleman with a sharp face
was sitting in an arm-chair. His mother was standing near by with a pale
face, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
“Oh! Ceddie!” she cried out, and ran to her little boy and caught him
in her arms and kissed him in a frightened, troubled way. “Oh! Ceddie,
darling!”
The tall old gentleman rose from his chair and looked at Cedric with his
sharp eyes. He rubbed his thin chin with his bony hand as he looked.
He seemed not at all displeased.
“And so,” he said at last, slowly,--“and so this is little Lord
Fauntleroy.”
II
There was never a more amazed little boy than Cedric during the week
that followed; there was never so strange or so unreal a week. In the
first place, the story his mamma told him was a very curious one. He was
obliged to hear it two or three times before he could understand it. He
could not imagine what Mr. Hobbs would think of it. It began with earls:
his grandpapa, whom he had never seen, was an earl; and his eldest
uncle, if he had not been killed by a fall from his horse, would have
been an earl, too, in time; and after his death, his other uncle would
have been an earl, if he had not died suddenly, in Rome, of a fever.
After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl, but,
since they all had died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that HE
was to be an earl after his grandpapa's death--and for the present he
was Lord Fauntleroy.
He turned quite pale when he was first told of it.
“Oh! Dearest!” he said, “I should rather not be an earl. None of the
boys are earls. Can't I NOT be one?”
But it seemed to be unavoidable. And when, that evening, they sat
together by the open window looking out into the shabby street, he
and his mother had a long talk about it. Cedric sat on his footstool,
clasping one knee in his favorite attitude and wearing a bewildered
little face rather red from the exertion of thinking. His grandfather
had sent for him to come to England, and his mamma thought he must go.
“Because,” she said, looking out of the window with sorrowful eyes, “I
know your papa would wish it to be so, Ceddie. He loved his home very
much; and there are many things to be thought of that a little boy can't
quite understand. I should be a selfish little mother if I did not send
you. When you are a man, you will see why.”
Ceddie shook his head mournfully.
“I shall be very sorry to leave Mr. Hobbs,” he said. “I'm afraid he'll
miss me, and I shall miss him. And I shall miss them all.”
When Mr. Havisham--who was the family lawyer of the Earl of Dorincourt,
and who had been sent by him to bring Lord Fauntleroy to England--came
the next day, Cedric heard many things. But, somehow, it did not console
him to hear that he was to be a very rich man when he grew up, and that
he would have castles here and castles there, and great parks and deep
mines and grand estates and tenantry. He was troubled about his friend,
Mr. Hobbs, and he went to see him at the store soon after breakfast, in
great anxiety of mind.
He found him reading the morning paper, and he approached him with a
grave demeanor. He really felt it would be a great shock to Mr. Hobbs
to hear what had befallen him, and on his way to the store he had been
thinking how it would be best to break the news.
“Hello!” said Mr. Hobbs. “Mornin'!”
“Good-morning,” said Cedric.
He did not climb up on the high stool as usual, but sat down on a
cracker-box and clasped his knee, and was so silent for a few moments
that Mr. Hobbs finally looked up inquiringly over the top of his
newspaper.
“Hello!” he said again.
Cedric gathered all his strength of mind together.
“Mr. Hobbs,” he said, “do you remember what we were talking about
yesterday morning?”
“Well,” replied Mr. Hobbs,--“seems to me it was England.”
“Yes,” said Cedric; “but just when Mary came for me, you know?”
Mr. Hobbs rubbed the back of his head.
“We WAS mentioning Queen Victoria and the aristocracy.”
“Yes,” said Cedric, rather hesitatingly, “and--and earls; don't you
know?”
“Why, yes,” returned Mr. Hobbs; “we DID touch 'em up a little; that's
so!”
Cedric flushed up to the curly bang on his forehead. Nothing so
embarrassing as this had ever happened to him in his life. He was a
little afraid that it might be a trifle embarrassing to Mr. Hobbs, too.
“You said,” he proceeded, “that you wouldn't have them sitting 'round on
your cracker-barrels.”
“So I did!” returned Mr. Hobbs, stoutly. “And I meant it. Let 'em try
it--that's all!”
“Mr. Hobbs,” said Cedric, “one is sitting on this box now!”
Mr. Hobbs almost jumped out of his chair.
“What!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” Cedric announced, with due modesty; “_I_ am one--or I am going to
be. I won't deceive you.”
Mr. Hobbs looked agitated. He rose up suddenly and went to look at the
thermometer.
“The mercury's got into your head!” he exclaimed, turning back to
examine his young friend's countenance. “It IS a hot day! How do you
feel? Got any pain? When did you begin to feel that way?”
He put his big hand on the little boy's hair. This was more embarrassing
than ever.