Part 12

“The genuine Irish orator's mouth,” thought Mrs. Carriswood.

Tommy, however, was not a finished orator, and Mrs. Carriswood herself deigned to help him with his graduating oration; Tommy delivering the aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the Grand Opera House, to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid tremendous applause and not the slightest prod-dings of conscience.

Really the speech deserved the applause; Mrs. Carriswood, who had heard half the eloquence of the world, spent three evenings on it; and she has a good memory.

Her part in the affair always amused her; though, in fact, it came to pass easily. She had the great fortune of the family. Being a widow with no children, and the time not being come when philanthropy beckons on the right hand and on the left to free-handed women, Mrs. Carriswood travelled. As she expressed it, she was searching the globe for a perfect climate. “Not that I in the least expect to find it,” said she, cheerfully, “but I like to vary my disappointments; when I get worn out being frozen, winters, I go somewhere to be soaked.” She was on her way to California this time, with her English maid, who gave the Lossing domestics many a jolly moment by her inextinguishable panic about red Indians. Mrs. Derry supposed these savages to be lurking on the prairie outside every Western town; and almost fainted when she did chance to turn the corner upon three Kickapoo Indians, splendid in paint and feathers, and peacefully vending the “Famous Kickapoo Sagwa.” She had others of the artless notions of the travelling English, and I fear that they were encouraged not only by the cook, the “second girl,” and the man-of-all-work, but by Harry and his chum, Tommy; I know she used to tell how she saw tame buffalo “roosting” on the streets, “w'ich they do look that like common cows a body couldn't tell 'em hapart!”

She had a great opinion of Tommy, a mystery to her mistress for a long time, until one day it leaked out that Tommy “and Master Harry, too,” had told her that Tommy's great-grandfather was a lord in the old country.

“The family seem to have sunk in the world since, Derry,” was Mrs. Carriswood's single remark, as she smiled to herself. After Derry was dismissed she picked up a letter, written that day to a friend of hers, and read some passages about Harry and Tommy, smiling again.

“Harry”--one may look over her pretty shoulder without impertinence, in a story--“Harry,” she wrote, “is a boy that I long to steal. Just the kind of boy we have both wanted, Sarah--frank, happy, affectionate. I must tell you something about him. It came out by accident. He has the Western business instincts, and what do you suppose he did? He actually started a wee shop of his own in the corner of the yard (really it is a surprisingly pretty place, and they are quite civilized in the house, gas, hot water, steam heat, all most comfortable), and sold 'pop' and candy and cakes to the boys. He made so much money that he proposed a partnership to the cook and the setting up a little booth in the 'county fair,' which is like our rural cattle shows, you know. The cook (a superior person who borrows books from Mrs. Lossing, but seems very decent and respectful notwithstanding, and broils game to perfection. And SUCH game as we have here, Sarah!)--well, the cook made him cream-cakes, sandwiches, tarts, and candy, and Harry honorably bought all the provisions with his profits from the first venture. You will open your eyes at his father permitting such a thing, but Henry Lossing is a thorough Westerner in some ways, and he looks on it all as a joke. 'Might show the boy how to do business,' he says.

“Well, they had a ravishing display, so Alma, the cook, and William, the man, assured me--per Derry. All the sadder its fate; for alas! a gang of rowdy boys fell upon Harry, and while he was busy fighting half of them--he is as plucky as his uncle, the general--the other half looted the beautiful stock in trade! They would have despoiled our poor little merchant entirely but for the opportune arrival of a schoolmate who is mightily respected by the rowdies. He knocked one of them down and shouted after the others that he would give every one of them a good thrashing if they did not bring the plunder back; and as he is known to be a lad of his word for good or evil, actually the scamps did return most of the booty, which the two boys brushed off and sold, as far as it went (!) The consequence of the fray has been that Harry is unboundedly grateful to this Tommy Fitzmaurice, and is at present coaching him on his graduating oration. Fitzmaurice has studied hard and won honors, and wants to make a show with his oration, to please his father. 'You see,' says Harry, 'Tommy's father has saved money and is spending it all on Tommy, so's he can be educated. He needs Tommy in the business real bad, but he won't let him come in; he keeps him at school, and he thinks everything of his getting the valedictory, and Tommy, he worked nights studying to get it.' When I asked what was the father's business, Harry grew a bit confused. 'Well, he kept a saloon; but'--Harry hastened to explain--'it was a very nice saloon, never any trouble with the police there; why, Tommy knew every man on the force. And they keep good liquors, too,' said Harry, earnestly; 'throw away all the beer left in the glasses.' 'What else would they do with it?' asked innocent I. 'Why, keep it in a bucket,' said Harry, solemnly, 'and then slip the glass under the counter and half fill out of the bucket, then hold it under the keg LOW, so's the foam will come; that's a trick of the trade, you know. Tommy says his father would SCORN that!' There is a vista opened, isn't there? I was rather shocked at such associates for Harry, and told his mother. Did she think it a good idea to have such a boy coming to the house? a saloon-keeper's son? She did not laugh, as I half expected, but answered quite seriously that she had been looking up Tommy, that he was very much attached to Harry, and that she did not think he would teach him anything bad. He has, I find myself, notions of honor, though they are rather the code of the street. And he picks up things quickly. Once he came to tea. It was amusing to see how he glued his eyes on Harry and kept time with his motions. He used his fork quite properly, only as Harry is a left-handed little fellow, the right-handed Thomas had the more difficulty.

“He is taking such vast pains with his 'oration' that I felt moved to help him. The subject is 'The Triumph of Democracy,' and Tommy civilly explained that 'democracy' did not mean the Democratic party, but 'just only a government where all the poor folks can get their rights and can vote.'

“The oration was the kind of spread-eagle thing you might expect; I can see that Tommy has formed himself on the orators of his father's respectable saloon. What he said in comment interested me more. 'Sure, I guess it is the best government, ma'am, though, of course, I got to make it out that way, anyhow. But we come from Ireland, and there they got the other kind, and me granny, she starved in the famine time, she did that--with the fever. Me father walked twenty mile to the Sackville's place, where they gave him some meal, though he wasn't one of their tenants; yes, and the lady told him how he would be cooking it. I never will forget that lady!'

“I saw a dramatic opportunity: would Tommy be willing to tell that story in his speech? He looked at me with an odd look--or so I imagined it! 'Why not?' says he; 'I'd as soon as not tell it to anyone of them, and why not to them all together?' Well, why not, when you come to think of it? So we have got it into the speech; and I, I myself, Sarah, am drilling young Demos-thenes, and he is so apt a scholar that I find myself rather pleasantly employed.” Having read her letter, Mrs. Carriswood hesitated a second and then added Derry's information at the bottom of the page. “I suppose the lordly ancestor was one of King James's creation--see Macaulay, somewhere in the second volume. I dare say there is a drop or two of good blood in the boy. He has the manners of a gentleman--but I don't know that I ever saw an Irishman, no matter how low in the social scale, who hadn't.”

Thus it happened that Tommy's valedictory scored a success that is a tradition of the High School, and came to be printed in both the city papers; copies of which journals Tommy's mother has preserved sacredly to this day; and I have no doubt, could one find them, they would be found wrapped around a yellow photograph of the “A Class” of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional barber for the occasion.

It was the story of the famine that really captured the audience; and Tommy told it well, with the true Irish fire, in a beautiful voice.

In the front seat of the parquette a little old man in a wrinkled black broadcloth, with a bald head and a fringe of whisker under his long chin, and a meek little woman, in a red Paisley shawl, wept and laughed by turns. They had taken the deepest interest in every essay and every speech. The old man clapped his large hands (which were encased in loose, black kid gloves) with unflagging vigor. He wore a pair of heavy boots, the soles of which made a noble thud on the floor.

“Ain't it wonderful the like of them young craters can talk like that!” he cried; “shure, Molly, that young lady who'd the essay--where is it?”--a huge black forefinger travelled down the page--“'Music, The Turkish Patrol,' No--though that's grand, that piece; I'll be spakin' wid Professor Von Keinmitz to bring it when we've the opening. Here 'tis, Molly: 'Tin, Essay. The Darkest Night Brings Out the Stars, Miss Mamie Odenheimer.' Thrue for you, mavourneen! And the sintiments, wasn't they illigant? and the lan-gwidge was as foine as Pat Ronan's speeches or Father--whist! will ye look at the flowers that shlip of a gyirl's gitting! Count 'em, will ye?”

“Fourteen bouquets and wan basket,” says the little woman, “and Mamie Odenheimer, she got seventeen bouquets and two baskets and a sign. Well,” she looked anxious, but smiled, “I know of siven bouquets Tommy will git for sure. And that's not countin' what Harry Lossing will do for him. Hiven bless the good heart of him!”

“Well, I kin count four for him on wan seat,” says the man, with a nod of his head toward the gay heap in the woman's lap, “barrin' I ain't on-vaygled into flinging some of thim to the young ladies!”

Harry Lossing, in the seat behind with his mother and Mrs. Carriswood, giggled at this and whispered in the latter lady's ear, “That's Tommy's father and mother. My, aren't they excited, though! And Tommy's white's a sheet--for fear he'll disappoint them, you know. He has said his piece over twice to me, to-day, he's so scared lest he'll forget. I've got it in my pocket, and I'm going behind when it's his turn, to prompt him. Did you see me winking at him? it sort of cheers him up.”

He was almost as keen over the floral procession as the Fitzmaurices themselves. The Lossing garden had been stripped to the last bud, and levies made on the asparagus-bed, into the bargain, and Mrs. Lossing and Alma and Mrs. Carriswood and Derry and Susy Lossing had made bouquets and baskets and wreaths, and Harry had distributed them among friends in different parts of the house. I say Harry, but, complimented by Mrs. Carriswood, he admitted ingenuously that it was Tommy's idea.

“Tommy thought they would make more show that way,” says Harry, “and they are all on the middle aisle, so his father and mother can see them; Tim O'Halloran has got one for him, too, and Mrs. Macillarney, and she's got some splendid pinies. Picked every last one. They'll make a show!”

But Harry knew nothing of the most magnificent of his friend's trophies until it undulated gloriously down the aisle, above the heads of two men, white satin ribbons flying, tinfoil shining--an enormous horseshoe of roses and mignonette!

The parents were both on their feet to crane their necks after it, as it passed them amid the plaudits.

“Oh, it was YOU, Cousin Margaret; I know it was you,” cried Harry.

He took the ladies over to the Fitzmaurices the minute that the diplomas were given; and, directly, Tommy joined them, attended by two admiring followers laden with the trophies. Mrs. O'Halloran and Mrs. Macillarney and divers of the friends, both male and female, joined the circle. Tommy held quite a little court. He shook hands with all the ladies, beginning with Mrs. Carriswood (who certainly never had found herself before in such a company, jammed between Alderman McGinnis's resplendent new tweeds and Mrs. Macillarney's calico); he affectionately embraced his mother, and he allowed himself to be embraced by Mrs. Macillarney and Mrs. O'Halloran, while Patrick Fitzmaurice shook hands with the alderman.

“Here's the lady that helped me on me piece, father; she's the lady that sent me the horseshoe, mother. Like to make you acquainted with me father and me mother. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzmaurice, Mrs. Carriswood.”

In these words, Tommy, blushing and happy, presented his happy parents.

“Sure, I'm proud to meet you, ma'am,” said Fitzmaurice, bowing, while his wife courtesied and wiped her eyes.

They were very grateful, but they were more grateful for the flowers than for the oratorical drilling. No doubt they thought that their Tommy could have done as well in any case; but the splendid horseshoe was another matter!