The Iron Rule; Or, Tyranny in the Household

On reaching his seventeenth year, Edward had been placed in a store by his father, for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of mercantile affairs. A young man in this position, if he has any ambition to make his way in the world, soon gets his mind pretty well filled with money-making ideas, and sees the way to wealth opening in a broad vista before him. Every day he hears about this, that, and the other one, who started in business but a few years before, with little or no capital, and who are now worth their tens of thousands; and he thus learns to aspire after wealth, without being made to feel sensibly the fact, that the number who grow rich rapidly are as one to a hundred compared with those who succeed as the result of small beginnings united with long continued and untiring application. Long before Edward reached his twenty-first year, he had so fully imbibed the spirit of the atmosphere in which he breathed, that his mind was made up to go into business for himself as soon as he attained his majority. This idea Mr. Howland sought to discourage in his son; but Edward never gave it up. Soon after he was twenty-one, an offer to go into a business, that promised a large return was made, provided a few thousand dollars capital could be furnished. Not a moment did Edward rest until he had prevailed upon his father, ever too ready to yield a weak compliance to the wishes of this son, to place in his hands the amount of money required. To do this, was, at the time, no easy matter for Mr. Howland, whose own business was far from being as good as usual and whose pecuniary affairs were not in the most easy condition. Six thousand dollars was the amount of capital he was obliged to raise, and it was not accomplished without considerable sacrifice.

Edward and his partner were what are usually called "enterprising young men," and they drove ahead in the business they had undertaken at a kind of railroad speed, calculating their profits at an exceedingly high range. It is not surprising that, by the end of the first year, they required a little more capital to help them through with their engagements, the furnishing of which fell upon Mr. Howland; who, in this emergency, passed his notes to the new firm for several thousand dollars.

It is not our purpose to trace, step by step, the progress of this young man in the work of ruining his father and disgracing himself by dishonest practices in business. Enough, that in the course of three years, the "enterprising young men," who made from the beginning such rapid strides toward fortune, found their course suddenly checked, and themselves involved in hopeless bankruptcy. But, with themselves rested not the evil consequences of failure; others were included in the disaster, and among them Mr. Howland, who was so badly crippled as to be obliged to call his creditors together, and solicit a reduction and extension of the claims they had against him. To Mr. Howland, this was a crushing blow. He was not only a man who strictly regarded honesty in his dealings, but he was proud of his honesty, and in his pride, had often been harsh in his judgment of others when in circumstances similar to those in which he was now placed. To be forced to ask of his creditors both a reduction and an extension, humiliated him to a degree, that for a time, almost deprived him of the power of doing business. From that time, there was a perceptible change in the man of iron. His tall, erect form seemed to shrink downward; his head bent toward his bosom, and the harsh lines on his brow and around his less tightly closed lips grew softer. His indignation against Edward was so great, when he finally comprehended the character of the transactions in which he had been engaged, involving as they did a total absence of integrity, that he turned his back upon him angrily, saying, as he did so—

"Never come into my presence again, until you come an honest man!"

On the day after this utterance of the father's indignant feelings, Edward left the city; and it was the opinion of many that he went with a pocket full of money. They were not far wrong.

Thus, of all his children, only the youngest remained with Mr. Howland. All the rest were estranged from him; and in spite of all his efforts to push the conviction from his mind, he could not help feeling that he was to blame for the estrangement.

CHAPTER XI

NEARLY eight years from the time Andrew Howland left his home have passed, and we now bring him before the reader as a discharged United States' dragoon, having just concluded a five years' service in the far West. He had enlisted, rather than steal, at a time when he found it impossible to obtain employment, and had gone through the hard and humiliating service of a trooper on our extreme frontier, under an assumed name, omitting to write home during the entire period, lest by any chance a knowledge of his position might be communicated to his mother, and (her memory had never faded) to Emily Winters. The images of these two, the only ones he loved in the world, were green in his bosom. They were drawing him homeward with a force of attraction that grew stronger and stronger as the end of his service approached. Nearly three years had elapsed since he had met any one recently from the East who was able to answer, satisfactorily, the few inquiries he ventured to make; and now he was all impatience to return.

Steadily, for a long time, had the young man looked forward to this period; and in order to have the means of effecting a thorough change in his external appearance, and to be able to support himself after his return East, until he obtained some kind of employment, he had left nearly all his pay in the hands of the disbursing officer. It now amounted to nearly two hundred dollars.

It was in Santa Fe that Andrew obtained his discharge from the United States' service. This was soon after the conclusion of the peace with Mexico, and about the time when the first exciting news came of golden discoveries on the tributaries of the Sacramento.

On the day after Andrew received his discharge, and while making preparations for his journey eastward, a company, in which were several new recruits arrived from the Wachita. Among them he discovered a young man from P—, to whom he put the direct question.

"Do you know a Mr. Howland of your city?"

"Andrew Howland, the merchant?" inquired the young man, who was not over twenty-one years of age.

"Yes," returned Andrew, in a tone of affected indifference.

"His store is in the same block with my father's."

"Indeed! What is your father's name?"

The young man's eyes fell to the ground, and his face became overspread with crimson.

"Winters," he replied, at length recovering himself.

Andrew turned partly away to conceal the sudden emotion this intelligence had created. Mastering his feelings with a vigorous effort, he lifted his eyes to the countenance of the young man and at once recognized in him the brother of Emily. Restraining the eagerness he felt to press many questions, Andrew asked him about his journey from the last military post, and after getting a number of answers to which he scarcely listened, said—

"How long is it since you left P—?"

"About six months," replied young Winters.

"Do your friends know where you are?"

"No, indeed! Nor would I have them. So, please bear that in mind. I answered your question almost on the spur of the moment."

"Do you know anything about Mr. Howland or his family?" asked Andrew, without seeming to notice the young man's remark.

"Nothing very particular; only that the old gentleman failed in business about a year ago."

"Ah! How came that?"

"His son Edward broke him up."

"His son Edward?"

"Yes. The old man set him a going in business; but he soon run himself under, and his father into the bargain. He made a terrible bad failure of it."

"Who?"

"Edward Howland. He went off soon after, and they do say, carried his pockets full of money. And I imagine there is some truth in it. He wasn't exactly the clear grit. Some people called him a smooth-faced hypocrite, and I guess they were not very far wrong."

Andrew asked no more questions for some time, but sat, thoughtful, with his face so far turned away from the young man, that its expression could not be seen.

"Mrs. Howland is living, I presume?" said he, at length, in a tone as indifferent as he could assume; but which was, nevertheless, unsteady.

"Yes. She was living when I came away."

Andrew drew a quick breath, and then his laboring chest found relief in a long expiration.

"Poor old man! I'm sorry for him," came from his lips in a few moments afterwards. The tone was half indifferent, yet expressed some sympathy.

"Everybody seems sorry for him," said Winters. "It has broken him down very much. He looks ten years older."

"Is he entirely out of business?" asked Andrew.

"No; he is still going on; but he doesn't appear to do much. I think the family is poor. They've sold their handsome house, and are living in a much smaller one. I heard father say that Mr. Howland had received an extension from his creditors, but that he was too much crippled to be able to go through, and would, in the end, break down entirely."

There was another pause, and then Andrew changed the subject by asking the young man something about himself, and led on the conversation, from step to step, until he got him to mention the fact that he had a sister named Emily.

"Is she older than yourself?" inquired Andrew.

"Oh, yes. Some four years older," was replied.

"Married, of course," said Andrew.

The very effort he made to say this with seeming unconcern gave so unnatural an expression to his tone of voice, that young Winters looked at him with momentary surprise.

"No, she is not married," he answered.

"She's old enough," said Andrew, speaking now in a tone of more real indifference.

"Yes; but she'll probably die an old maid. She's had two or three good offers; but no one appears just to suit her fancy. Father was very angry about her rejecting a young man some two or three years ago, who afterwards disgraced himself, and broke the heart of a young creature who had been weak enough to marry him."

"Then I should say that your sister was a sensible girl," remarked Andrew, in a cheerful voice.

"Yes, she is a sensible girl; and, what is more, a good girl. Ah, me! I wish I were half as sensible and half as good."

With what a free motion did the heart of Andrew beat after receiving this intelligence!