Everybodys Chance | Page 9

the post-office, and
wherever else men and women chanced to meet.
"It seems too bad," said one of the village pastors at a grocer's, where
he chanced to meet old Pruffett. "I am not given to romance-- my
calling forbids it, through the stern realities which I am obliged to
encounter in the experiences of my flock; but that girl has always
seemed to me to be worthy of far greater opportunities than our village
affords, yet now she seems to have given herself to a young man who
shows as few signs of rising as any one whom I know, and who has
much, for which he is not responsible, to keep him down. Two young
people more utterly unlike in nature I have seldom met."
"Ah, well," replied Pruffett, "let us hope that it is according to the
designs of Providence. If like were always to marry like, the world
would soon be full of petrified cranks, Dominie."
"I suppose," said the minister cautiously, "that you are right, on general
principles, but I confess that the present application distresses me."
"Every one owes something to the community in which he lives,"
continued Pruffett. "If there is anything in this story which has no

authority but common report-- perhaps it accounts for the wonderful
change that has come over the entire Wurring family. Charley is
working as hard as any farmer in the county, and his father is working
with him, and seems to be taking no liquor."
"Charley's mother looks happier than I have seen her for years,"
admitted the minister; "I noticed it from the pulpit only last Sunday,
and it inspired me in both preaching and praying. All of her children
were at church, too-- an unusual occurrence."
"Wurring has picked up a good deal of manliness in some way,"
remarked the grocer. "I've had to refuse him credit very often of late
years-- I hated to do it, for he used to be a good customer of mine; still,
a man can't conduct a grocery business on bygones if he expects to pay
his own bills. The other day, though, when he bought a small bag of
flour, I told him he might as well take a barrel, and pay me out of the
wood that he and Charley are clearing from that marsh for Champ and
his father, but Wurring flushed up and said rather grandly that he
couldn't do it, for the wood belonged entirely to Charley. It wasn't so
long ago that he used to beg me for small credits, to be paid when
Charley got his pay from the school board."
"Luce herself certainly looks happier than she used to," said the
minister.
"Then I guess that everybody ought to be happy," said old Pruffett,
although he doubted his own words as he thought of Champney Bruff
and his dismal secret. He could not help recalling the days, that strung
out sadly into months and years, in which he himself had tried to live
down his disappointment at losing Luce's mother.
As time went on, however, people began to whisper to one another that
matters did not seem to be as they at first had been with Charley and
Luce. The woodpiles multiplied rapidly in the Bruff marshland, and
Charley himself grew more and more manly in appearance to those
who saw him on his way to work in the morning or returning late at
night. He went as often to the Grews', but Luce did not look as happy
as usual when people chanced to see her. She certainly did not seem to

have stopped liking Charley, for those church-goers who spent their
time in looking at other people during service said that she had her eyes
upon him almost all the while except during prayer time. Veteran
gossips, experienced at cross-questioning in ways that would
occasionally put the shrewdest and most self-contained natives off their
guard, waylaid Luce's little brothers and sisters and asked many
questions, but learned nothing; it was evident, therefore, that the young
couple did not converse freely in the family circle. What could the
matter be?
"Luce," Charley had said one evening, after the girl had several times
rallied him on his unusual solemnity, "you do love me, don't you? I
don't ask you to say that you care as much for me as I for you, because
there's not as much of me to care for, but--"
"Love you? Indeed I do," murmured Luce, "as much as I know how to.
You must remember that it is something new to me, while you say you
have loved me a long time. I've never been in love before, nor thought
much about it, but you know I am very, very fond of you."
"So fond that no