Chapter VI

Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard.—_Othello_, iii,
7.

The Matrimonial Bureau had proved successful in meeting the demands of two of its clients, but the third name on its records still baffled Miss Adams. It seemed to her that the only possible mate for Helen Fairbanks was a being so far above and beyond the ordinary mortal that it would be impossible to find him outside the glass doors of her mahogany bookcases.

“He might be in there,” she thought, looking toward a favorite corner where the fairy books were, “or even in there,” she added, as she glanced at the Thackeray shelf; “but one thing is certain, he never would be in a newspaper, so there’s no use looking there. I suppose he’s in the directory, but I don’t know what letter his name begins with, so I can’t find him there. I don’t know how I shall find him. I don’t believe there are many of that type of men in the world. The only one I ever knew was a woman. Cousin Emily Westcott—of the Chester Adams branch—is just the kind of person I mean. It’s a pity she is a woman, though of course she is too old for Helen. Let me see,—Cousin Emily must be sixty by now; she had four boys, and nice, well-behaved young chaps they were. I wonder if they are all married. I remember sending Roger his piece of the old Adams silver two years ago, and Emily wrote that Hugh was engaged. Still, that leaves two, and if they take after their mother they’re just the kind of men I want. I will write to her, too, and I’m sure one of them will be all right for Helen. They’re Adamses, anyway.”

The president of the Matrimonial Bureau now resigned the chair in favor of the secretary, and Miss Esther began the clerical work. She wrote first to Lieutenant Putnam Adams and invited him to spend his vacation with her that summer. “I do not know,” she wrote, “whether the state of the country is such as to allow officers of the army anything like vacations, but if there is any for you this summer, please come up and visit your old cousin. I haven’t seen a real live Adams for a long time, and I want to thank you for the cast. Even if your visit must be a short one, I hope you can come, and come soon.”

To her cousin Emily Westcott Miss Esther wrote very frankly, saying that Lieutenant Putnam Adams was coming to visit her, and asking that one of the two younger Westcott boys come at the same time. She informed Mrs. Westcott that she wished her to send the one who was most distinctly an Adams, and said further that she would trust the mother’s judgment in the matter.

“But they’re _all_ Adams—both of them!” exclaimed Mrs. Westcott, as she read this letter. “I’ll have to send them both!”

Miss Esther’s letter to Hiram Briggs, the philanthropist of Nashua, was a more trying ordeal. For once in her life she found it difficult to express herself, and it was nearly midnight when she completed the following business-like if unconventional epistle:—

WHITFIELD, June 22.

MR. HIRAM BRIGGS, NASHUA, N. H.

DEAR SIR,—I have just read in the morning paper an account of
the art school which you have founded. I have been thinking the
matter over, for I am much interested in such philanthropic
movements, and I have a special reason for a peculiarly personal
interest in this one.

It is apparent, from the facts stated in the account of your
worthy undertaking, that you are an art patron, and are
therefore alive to the possibilities in the development of the
artistic effort. I am quite certain that a man with the name of
Hiram Briggs, and who is the proprietor of a button manufactory,
must be possessed of sound common sense and fully able to
appreciate and understand the proposition which I am about to
make.

I have a young girl friend who believes that she is well on the
way toward becoming a great artist, and who certainly has the
artistic temperament. Her ambition is to go abroad for the study
of art, but at present she has not the means to do this.

From the fact that the praiseworthy memorial which you have
built must have taken several years to complete, I assume that
Mrs. Briggs must have long since been laid to rest. My young
friend is eminently fitted to assist in the carrying out of the
plans which you have evidently made for this great work which
you have begun, and further, her education and accomplishments
are such as to enable her to take her place in any social
sphere.

I trust, my dear Mr. Briggs, that you will receive this
communication in the spirit in which it is written, and if at
any time you wish to call on me I should be pleased to welcome
you to my home in Whitfield.

Most sincerely yours,
ESTHER ADAMS.

The next morning Miss Esther was favored with a visit from her young neighbor, Jack Remington. Jack was a social character and often dropped in, apparently for no particular reason. These fortuitous calls were liable to happen on baking days, or when he felt the need of Miss Esther’s moral support in his seasons of tribulation. Ten years old, sturdily built, stolidly minded, he was of the stuff of which Lincolns are made, rather than Michael Angelos or Robert Brownings. Miss Esther had been obliged to recognize this fact, but she still hoped to train his young ideas into grooves of her own choosing. Though as yet no visible progress had been made, she did not despair, but continued in a course which gave her much pleasure and did not bother Jack.

The boy had a passion for battle-ships, and his highest ambition was to build one. He had already begun it, but obstacles often confronted him, and he depended on Miss Esther both for advice and for more material assistance. She did not know much about battle-ships, but her elementary knowledge was supplemented by furtive consultations of the encyclopedia between Jack’s visits. Afterward, she conversed on these subjects with much erudition, and Jack’s admiration grew, for she was the only woman of his acquaintance who even knew on which end of a ship the bow was placed. Miss Esther really cared very little about the technical construction of any ship, but she was fond of the boy and had her own notions as to his future career. Of these notions Jack was entirely aware, but since, in his opinion, they were totally unnecessary to a builder of ships, he ignored them with the superiority of a ten-year-old.

With a view to gracious influences, the would-be architect of Jack’s fortunes had endeavored to induce a friendship between him and a golden-haired siren of four, who was her neighbor on the other side. Her name was Amabel, but for obvious reasons she was known as Chub. Miss Esther’s efforts toward the foundation of this friendship had resulted disastrously. On their first introduction the children had cordially approved of each other, and Amabel had not changed her mind. But just as the friendship was ripening, Jack discovered Chub’s calamitous ignorance concerning the necessity for guns on battle-ships. She had promised to sail with him on his to the great naval battle which he assured her was imminent. More, she had promised to assist in any capacity in the working of the ship, when, in an impulsive burst of generosity, Jack responded that she might man one of the guns.

“Gunth!” and Chub suddenly sat down on the floor and shrieked. Her terror-stricken squeals brought Miss Esther to the scene. She looked from the screaming baby on the floor to the disdainful ship-builder, who stood with his legs apart and his hands in his pockets, surveying the disturbance with an expression of absolute disgust.

“If she yells like that when I say guns,” said he, contemptuously, “I wonder what she’ll do when the shooting begins.”

“Thooting!” exclaimed Chub, her demonstrations checked for the moment, “who we going to thoot?”

“The enemy,” said Jack, tersely.

“Won’t it hurt ’em?”

“It’ll _kill_ ’em!”

Chub’s wails began again with redoubled force. “Take her away,” said Jack. He turned to continue the building of his warship with the fixed resolve that henceforth and forever womankind should have no part or parcel in his life.

But the young misanthrope made an exception of Miss Esther Adams. He relied implicitly upon her knowledge and judgment, not only in nautical matters, but regarding all the vicissitudes which beset his somewhat strenuous existence. His mother always accompanied the application of court-plaster with a reproof. When Miss Esther bound up his wounds, a delectable doughnut added largely to the healing qualities of her ministrations.

On this particular morning, however, the doughnut was of minor importance. He ate it, and even abstractedly took a second one, but without enthusiasm. Not observing any necessity for sticking-plaster, Miss Esther concluded the distress was mental and awaited developments.

Jack wriggled into one of the big veranda chairs opposite Miss Esther, and with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands stared moodily into space. Miss Esther waited.

“I got to be a minister,” he said at last.

“Have you, dear? When?”

“Soon’s I’m big enough. ’Tain’t fair, jes’ ’s I got my ship most done, and was goin’ to be a sailor like Dewey or somebody, and now I got to be an old minister; mother told me so las’ night.”

“But perhaps you’ll like being a minister,” suggested Miss Esther.

“No sirree! I bet I won’t. I know the stunt. I was over to Dr. Bushnell’s jes’ now, and I asked him what a fellow had to do to be a minister, but he said, don’t be ’reverent, little boy, and I wasn’t. But I know my own self what they got to do. Preach and bury people and marry ’em and baptize kids and have prayer-meetin’s and donations and wear high hats and never smoke nor go to circuses nor go in swimmin,’—least I never seen Dr. Bushnell in,—and where’s any fun in all that, I’d like to know. But they was another man there a-visitin’ the minister, and he asked me what I wanted to be, and I told him a sailor and he said ’s that so. And I told him you and me was a-buildin’ a battle-ship and asked him to come over ’n see it and he said he would and he’s comin’ to-morrow mornin’ and he give me this card with his name on it.”

The name on the card was

THEODORE WINTHROP BREWSTER.

Although the surname meant nothing to Miss Esther, she remembered that there had been a Theodore Winthrop in her mother’s line. “Possibly he may be of that family,” she thought.

“I wish mother’d let me be a sailor,” went on Jack, wistfully.

“Well, wait until Mr. Brewster comes over here to-morrow,” said Miss Esther, “and we’ll see what he thinks about it.”

Jack, much comforted at the thought of a possible escape from the reverend calling, went whistling to the kitchen, where he enjoyed another doughnut with an appetite unhampered by a depressed mentality.

“It would be strange,” said Miss Esther, still looking at the card she held, “if this man were one of our Winthrops. I don’t remember the Brewster connection, but I’ll look it up in the book.”