A MATTER OF PERSONAL PROPERTY

In deference to the wishes of J.R.C.  Tuckerman, I had formed a habit of breakfasting in summer on the little back porch that overlooks the river.  Less radical departures from orthodox custom, it is true, have caused adverse comment in our watchful little town; but the spot was secluded from casual censors.  And it was pleasant to sit there on a summer morning over an omelette and bacon, coffee such as no other Little Arcadian ever drank, and beaten biscuit beyond the skill of any in our vale save the stout, short-statured, elderly black man who served me with the grace of an Ambassador.  Moreover, I was glad to please him, and please him it did to set the little table back against the wall of vines, to place my chair in the shaded corner, and to fetch the incomparable results of his cookery from the kitchen, couched and covered in snowy napkins against the morning breeze.

John Randolph Clement Tuckerman he was; Mr. Tuckerman to many simple souls of our town, and “Clem” to me, after our intimacy became such as to warrant this form of address.  A little, tightly kinked, grizzled mustache gave a tone to his face.  His hair, well retreated up his forehead, was of the same close-woven salt-and-pepper mixture.  His eyes were wells of ink when the light fell into them,—­sad, kind eyes, that gave his face a look of patient service long and toilsomely, but lovingly bestowed.  It is a look telling of kindness that has endured and triumphed—­a look of submission in which suffering has once burned, but has consumed itself.  I have never seen it except in the eyes of certain old Negroes.  The only colorable imitation is to be found in the eyes of my setter pup when he crouches at my feet and beseeches kindness after a punishment.

In bearing, as I have intimated, Clem was impressive.  He was low-toned, easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb.  As he served me those mornings in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had been the associate of gentlemen.

As I ate of his cooking on a fair Sunday, I marvelled gratefully at the slender thread of chance that had drawn him to be my stay.  Alone in that little house, with no one to make it a home for me, Clem was the barrier between me and the fare of the City Hotel.  Apparently without suggestion from me he had taken me for his own to tend and watch over.  And the marvel was assuredly not diminished by the circumstance that I was beholden to Potts for this black comfort.

Events were in train which were to intensify a thousand fold my amazement at the seeming inconsequence of really vital facts in this big life-plot of which we are the puppets—­events so incredible that to dwell upon their relation to the minor accident of a mere Potts were to incur confusion and downright madness.

Apparently, fate had never made a wilder, more purposeless cast than when it brought Clem to Little Arcady with Potts.