KATY AND MASTER SIMON SNEED VISIT THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP.
The court in which Katy lived had once been the abode of many very respectable families, to use a popular word, for respectable does not always mean worthy of respect on account of one's virtues, but worthy of respect on account of one's lands, houses, and money. In the former sense it was still occupied by very respectable families, though none of them possessed much of the "goods that perish in the using" Mrs. Redburn, the seamstress, was very respectable; Mrs. Colvin, the washer-woman, was very respectable, so were Mrs. Howard, the tailoress, Mr. Brown, the lumper, and Mr. Sneed, the mason.
Katy's mother lived in a small house, with three other families.
She occupied two rooms, for which she paid four dollars a month, the amount of rent now due and unpaid. Dr. Flynch took a great deal of pleasure in telling Mrs. Redburn how his humanity and his regard for the welfare of the poor had induced him to fix the rent at so cheap a rate; but he always finished by assuring her that this sum must be promptly paid, and that no excuses could ever have any weight.
The next house to Mrs. Redburn was tenanted by Mr. Sneed, the mason. I don't know whether I ought to say that Mr. Sneed had a son, or that Master Simon Sneed had a father, being at a loss to determine which was the more important personage of the two; but I am not going to say anything against either of them, for the father was a very honest mason and the son was a very nice young man.
Katy knocked at the door of this house, and inquired for Master Simon Sneed. She was informed that he had not yet finished his dinner; and she decided to wait in the court till he made his appearance. Seating herself on the door stone, she permitted her mind to wander back to the narrative her mother had related to her. She glanced at her coarse clothes, and could hardly believe that her grandfather was a rich merchant, and lived in a fine house. How nice it would be if she could only find the old gentleman! He could not be cross to her; he would give her all the money she could spend, and make a great lady of her.
"Pooh! what a fool I am to think of such a thing!" exclaimed she impatiently, as she rose from the door stone. "I am a beggar, and what right have I to think of being a fine lady, while my poor sick mother has nothing to eat and drink? It is very hard to be so poor, but I suppose it is all for the best."
"Do you want me, Katy?" said a voice from the door, which Katy recognized as that of Master Simon Sneed.
"I want to see you very much," replied Katy.
"Wait a moment, and I will join you."
And in a moment Master Simon Sneed did join her; but he is so much of a curiosity, and so much of a character, that I must stop to tell my young readers all about him.
Master Simon Sneed was about fifteen years old, and tall enough to have been two years older. He was very slim, and held his head very straight. In 1843, the period of which I write, it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear straps upon their pantaloons; and accordingly Master Simon Sneed wore straps on his pantaloons, though, it is true, the boys in the street used to laugh and hoot at him for doing so; but they were very ill-mannered boys, and could not appreciate the dignity of him they insulted.
Master Sneed's garments were not of the finest materials, but though he was a juvenile dandy, it was evident that it required a great deal of personal labor to make him such.
Clearly those straps were sewed on by himself, and clearly those cowhide shoes had been thus elaborately polished by no other hands than his own. In a word, the appearance of his clothes, coarse as was their texture, and unfashionable as was their cut, indicated the most scrupulous care. It was plain that he had a fondness for dress, which his circumstances did not permit him to indulge to any very great extent.
Master Simon Sneed was a great man in his own estimation; and, as he had read a great many exciting novels, and had a good command of language, he talked and acted like a great man. He could hold his own in conversation with older and wiser persons than himself. He could astonish almost any person of moderate pretensions by the largeness of his ideas; and, of late years, his father had not pretended to hold an argument with him, for Simon always overwhelmed him by the force and elegance of his rhetoric. He spoke familiarly of great men and great events.
His business relations--for Master Sneed was a business man--were not very complicated. According to his own reckoning, he was the chief person in the employ of Messrs. Sands & Co., wholesale and retail dry good Washington Street; one who had rendered immense service to the firm, and one without whom the firm could not possibly get along a single day; in short, a sort of Atlas, on whose broad shoulders the vast world of the Messrs. Sands & Co.'s affairs rested. But according to the reckoning of the firm, and the general understanding of people, Master Simon was a boy in the store, whose duty it was to make fires, sweep out, and carry bundles, and, in consideration of the fact that he boarded himself to receive two dollars and a half a week for his services. There was a vast difference between Master Simon Sneed's estimate of Masters Simon Sneed, and the Messrs. Sands &
Co.'s idea of Master Simon Sneed.
