The Ffolliots of Redmarley

The Ffolliots of Redmarley, by L. Allen Harker

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Title: The Ffolliots of Redmarley
Author: L. Allen Harker

Release Date: October 17, 2007 [eBook #22999]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
by
L. ALLEN HARKER

JOHN MURRAY

TO
MABEL VIOLET JEANS.
For that dread "move" you saw me through, For all the things you found to do. For china washed and pictures hung-- And oh, those books, the hours among! For merry heart that goes all day, For jest that turns work into play, For all the dust and dusters shared, For that dear self you never spared: And most of all, that all of it Was light with laughter, spiced with wit-- Take, dear, my love, and with it take The little book you helped to make.

First Edition . . . . . . . July, 1913 Cheaper Edition . . . . . . September, 1919 Reprinted . . . . . . . . . January, 1925

THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
CHAPTER I
ELOQUENT
"Father, what d'you think we'd better call him?" Mrs Gallup asked, when the baby was a week old; "have you thought of a name?"
"I've fixed on a name," her husband replied, triumphantly. "The child shall be called Eloquent."
"Eloquent," Mrs Gallup repeated, dubiously. "That's a queer name, isn't it? 'Tisn't a name at all, not really."
"It's going to be my son's name, anyhow," Mr Gallup retorted, positively. "I've thought the matter out, most careful I've considered it, and that's the name my son's got to be called . . . Eloquent Gallup he'll be, and a very good name too."
"But why Eloquent?" Mrs Gallup persisted. "How d'you know as he'll be eloquent? an' if he isn't, that name'll make him a laughing-stock. Suppose he was to grow up one of them say-nothing-to-nobody sort of chaps, always looking down his nose, and afraid to say 'Bo' to a goose: what's he to do with such a name?"
"There's no fear my son will grow up a-say-nothing-to-nobody sort of chap," said Mr Gallup, boastfully. "I'll take care of that. Now you listen to me, mother. You know the proverb 'Give a dog a bad name'----"
"I never said it was a bad name," Mrs Gallup pleaded.
"I should think you didn't--but look here, if it's true of a bad name, mustn't it be equally true of a good one? Why, it's argument, it's logic, that is. Call a boy Eloquent and ten to one he'll be eloquent, don't you see?"
"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired almost tearfully. "What good will it do him--precious lamb?"
"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked, mysteriously.
"Who? More children?" asked Mrs Gallup. "I don't see as he'd need to be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."
"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me. That babe lying there on your knee with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude." Mrs Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer. "He's going to be one of those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"--here Mr Gallup unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily--"over"--he paused for a simile--he had been going to say "land and sea," but it didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded, rather lamely.
Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a politician. Some day he'll stand for parlyment, and he'll get in, and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."
And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him, the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.
A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup. Abel was a concession to his mother's qualms. It was his father's name, and by her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should Eloquent prove a misnomer.
"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E if it suits 'im. 'Tain't always them as has most to say does most, that's certain; and why his father's so set on him being one of those chaps forever standing on platforms and haranguing passes me. I never see no good come of an election yet, an' I've seen plenty of harm: what with drinkin' and