Everybodys Chance | Page 3

which elicited a smile which Champ regarded fixedly, although the longer he looked the whiter and more fixed it became. Suddenly it appeared to him that old Pruffett was regarding him intently, and as he did not care to be looked at closely at that particular moment he abruptly left the hall and started homeward.
So Charley Wurring and Luce Grew had come to an understanding.
And Luce Grew was the one woman of Brundy whom Champney Bruff had ever thought he could love. Could love? Had he not loved her for years? He had not dared tell her so, for how could he? He was the oldest member of his father's family; his mother was dead, his father unfit for work; and the farm was one which required steady work and rigid economy if it was to support all of Champ's brothers and sisters. The farm would be better if he could clear and drain about twelve acres of marshy woodland that belonged to it, and to clear that land had been his special effort for two or three years; but after the usual farm routine had been gone through with, even in winter, he could find time to chop down only two or three trees a day, and after all the trees were gone there would still be the stumps, and after the stumps the ditching. When all this had been done, he would propose to Luce Grew, but now, evidently, his chance or his duty, which to the lecturer had seemed to mean the same thing, was the finishing of that clearing-- while Luce Grew loved another man and would marry him.
He heard footsteps behind him, and in a moment old Pruffett joined him with:
"Not a bad lecture, Champ?"
"Not for those who found their chances while the lecture was going on," was the reply, in words that sounded as if each had been savagely bitten off. There was a moment of silence before the old man said:
"I guess I know what you mean. I'm very sorry, too-- for you. Yet Luce herself seemed to be happy; I suppose that's what you've longed to see her? You'd have done anything to make her happy eh?"
"Yes; anything in my power."
"Good. Now's your chance."
"What on earth do you mean, Mr. Pruffett?"
"Merely what I say. If you loved her, not yourself, or loved her more than you loved yourself, you can do a great deal to make her happy; far more than Charley Wurring can."
"I wish I knew what you were trying to say, Mr. Pruffett."
"Do you? Then I'll try to make myself understood. Charley is a well-meaning fellow, but nowhere near enough of a man to marry a girl like that. Splendid girls sometimes accept a husband of that kind after waiting a long time in vain for a better one; the range of choice in this town is rather small, you know. Charley's much the best of his family; indeed, he hasn't any bad habits of his own, and he has learned to hate all that he might have inherited, but you know his fix; a father who has drunk himself into incapacity for anything, and a mother who is utterly discouraged and bad-tempered. Luce will have many occasions for feeling sorry for her choice; and Charley will often have to feel desperate, for what chance can he see, at present, of marrying and supporting a wife?"
"Well!" exclaimed Champ, savagely.
"Well, you know what the lecturer said about chances? Yours is right at hand-- right now. Why don't you put Charley into that wooded marshland of yours, to clear it? Give him the wood in payment; you'd not lose a cent by that. Get his father to help him, the weakest man has enough romance in him to want to help his son to a good wife. Work is the best cure for drunkenness, and the fellow daren't and can't drink while his son is with him all the while. By doing this you would be improving a chance to greatly benefit three people; such a chance seldom comes to any one."
"And I would also help another man to marry the woman whom--"
"Whom you love? Well, for what do you love her? For her sake or for your own?"
Champ remained silent; the old man went on:
"You don't seem to know. It's well, then, that you didn't chance to marry her."
"Mr. Pruffett," exclaimed Champ-- he almost roared it-- "do you know what you are saying? Are you human? Are you a man, like other men?"
"I am, my boy," replied the old man calmly. "I don't mind telling you, in strict confidence, that I loved Luce's mother-- God bless her!-- forty years ago. I never loved any other woman-- I tried to, but I couldn't. I had an awful fight with myself, after Grew