The Bread-winners | Page 6

"trifling"; a word which bore with it in
the local dialect no suggestion of levity or vivacity, for Luke Matchin
was as dark and lowering a lout as you would readily find. But it meant
that he became more and more unpunctual, did his work worse month
by month, came home later at night, and was continually seen, when
not in the shop, with a gang of low ruffians, whose head-quarters were
in a den called the "Bird of Paradise," on the lake shore. When his
father remonstrated with him, he met everything with sullen silence. If
Saul lost his temper at this mute insolence and spoke sharply, the boy
would retort with an evil grin that made the honest man's heart ache.
"Father," he said one day, "you'd a big sight better let me alone, if you
don't want to drive me out of this ranch. I wasn't born to make a nigger
of myself in a free country, and you can just bet your life I ain't a-going
to do it."
These things grieved Saul Matchin so that his anger would die away.
At last, one morning, after a daring burglary had been committed in
Buffland, two policemen were seen by Luke Matchin approaching the
shop. He threw open a back window, jumped out and ran rapidly down
to the steep bluff overlooking the lake. When the officers entered, Saul
was alone in the place. They asked after his boy, and he said:
"He can't be far away. What do you want of him? He hain't been doing
nothing, I hope."
"Nothing, so far as we know, but we are after two fellows who go by
the names of Maumee Jake and Dutch George. Luke runs with them
sometimes, and he could make a pile of money by helping of us get
them."
"I'll tell him when he comes in," said Saul, but he never saw or heard of
his son again.
With his daughters he was scarcely more successful. For, though they
had not brought sorrow or shame to his house, they seemed as little

amenable to the discipline he had hoped to exert in his family as the
boys were. The elder had married, at fifteen years of age, a journeyman
printer; and so, instead of filling the place of housemaid in some good
family, as her father had fondly dreamed, she was cook, housemaid,
and general servant to a man aware of his rights, and determined to
maintain them, and nurse and mother (giving the more important
function precedence) to six riotous children. Though his child had thus
disappointed his hopes, she had not lost his affection, and he even
enjoyed the Sunday afternoon romp with his six grandchildren, which
ordinarily took place in the shop among the shavings. Wixham, the
son-in-law, was not prosperous, and the children were not so well
dressed that the sawdust would damage their clothes.
The youngest of Matchin's four children was our acquaintance Miss
Maud, as she called herself, though she was christened Matilda. When
Mrs. Matchin was asked, after that ceremony, "Who she was named
for?" she said, "Nobody in partic'lar. I call her Matildy because it's a
pretty name, and goes well with Jurildy, my oldest gal." She had
evolved that dreadful appellation out of her own mind. It had done no
special harm, however, as Miss Jurildy had rechristened herself Poguy
at a very tender age, in a praiseworthy attempt to say "Rogue," and the
delighted parents had never called her anything else. Thousands of
comely damsels all over this broad land suffer under names as revolting,
punished through life, by the stupidity of parental love, for a slip of the
tongue in the cradle. Matilda got off easily in the matter of nicknames,
being called Mattie until she was pretty well grown, and then having
changed her name suddenly to Maud, for reasons to be given hereafter.
She was a hearty, blowzy little girl. Her father delighted in her coarse
vigor and energy. She was not a pretty child, and had not a particle of
coquetry in her, apparently; she liked to play with the boys when they
would allow her, and never presumed upon her girlhood for any favors
in their rough sport; and good-natured as she was, she was able to
defend herself on occasion with tongue and fists. She was so full of life
and strength that, when she had no playing to do, she took pleasure in
helping her mother about her work. It warmed Saul Matchin's heart to
see the stout little figure sweeping or scrubbing. She went to school but

did not "learn enough to hurt her," as her father said; and he used to
think that here, at least, would be one child who would be a comfort to
his