The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1898-11-11
V .
A CUP OF TEA.

A CUP OF TEA.
Mr.. Frederick Bingham, of the Big
Horn mine, was the detrimental mem
Der of an old New York family, far too
proud and united to be willing to own
to the world that it had failed in the
person of its eldest son. Therefore his
brothers. sagacious, responsible men,
and conscientious, for the most part, in
the use of their name, had never ques-
toned but it was their right to use it
for Fred-to repair his mistakes, and
cover up his failures, and procure him
another chance; and for years, with
constant devotion to the private before
the public obligation, to sentiment be-
fore principle, they had saddled the
family problem, in the person of their
unremunerative brother, upon one
hopeful young enterprise after another
OF the broad and charitable west.
!. His little daughters letters followed
him, from this remote mining camp, or
cattle station, to the next one, inclosed
in long, fluent, circumstantial epistles
from her aunts, explaining and apollo
giving concerning matters relating to
hefchild to which he had never given
thought, or had forgotten all about
These he glanced over and smiled at,
and often did not trouble himself to
read. After a time his brothers were
informed, in dignified phrases, that he
had resigned" from the disappointing
affairs of the new scheme which he
had last had in charge, and he present
ly returned, and was on their hands
once more; little older and fatter,
little harder in the expression and
loosen in the structure of the face, and
a trife less sure of himself in the COM
pany to which he was bred; and his
sisters WINGED and blushed at his free
comments upon themselves, the life of
the home and of the east, as it appeared
to him after an interval of absence;
and his mother wistfully took note of
her boys gray hairs and his old, tired,
'unspiritual appearance, but would not
discuss him or hear him criticised; and
his brothers pointedly requested him
to pay visit to their tailor, and they
sometimes forgot to mention to mutual
dinner-giving friends that Fred was in
town. Yet they thought he might be
presentable enough, according to west
ern standards. He had, at his best, a
good manner, trif1e out of date, to be
sure; he had the indurate remains of
an expensive. education; he drank too
much, undoubtedly, though that was
not an exceptional failing with the men
of their set. They did not conceive the
manner of his drinking when he was
at his lonely posts of unmatched re-
fvs ho 6y.or L oil I'd
continued idiotically replenishing, in
solitary boredom; how he drank with
his interiors lest they should think him
proud, and with his subordinates, of
course, because at an isolated mine the
managers 'boys" are his sole compan-
ions and sometimes better-bred men
than himself; nor the perilous stuff
that a man drinks, at those attitudes,
who is careless of himself. These
things the mothers heart OWNED,
shrinkingly, without question or
fact. But the prosperous eastern broth
ers, sensible of the continental scope
and Importance of their own affairs,
thought that seccnd-rate man might
do well enough for such places as they
sought for Fred. It could not be ex-
pected that frSt-claSS men would be
willing to exile themselves to holes and
corners of the earth, at any price. So
the good name, and the good manner
that was not quite up to date, and the
family influence, we're in requisition
once more to cover up the inner facts
of Fred's latest failure (what the facts
were his brothers hardly knew, and
they had not been very particular in
their inquiries), and he was passed on.
like a counterfeit coin, to his next OPP
portunity, at some other persons ex-
pense.
OF late years friends of the family
had hesitated to ask: what is Fred
doing now?" He changed his occupa-
ton SO often-or it seemed often to per-
sons who thought of him only once in
three or four years; and they said to
! one another: what a mercy that he