After three days' sickness Evan realized, and the doctor emphasized it, that he had been near to nervous collapse.
"The country and outside work for you now, young man," said the physician; "leave offices to men with broad shoulders, like Mr. Robb's."
"Yes," observed Robb, present at the consultation, "let them kill the man who wants to die. I think you're right, doctor; Nelson needs a dose of farming. I have it, Evan! .... I know a fine fellow on a fruit and vegetable farm near Hamilton. He'll be tickled to death to have you, as long as you want to stay; and you'll save money, too."
"A good idea," added the physician, to whose profession money usually looks good.
In a day or two Evan was ready to go in search of health. A telegram from Robb to the Hamilton man brought a phone response that fixed a salary of thirty dollars a month with board. It looked like a fortune to the ex-bankclerk, and he was eager to begin work.
"Before I go, Mr. Robb," he said, somewhat backwardly, "I want to ask you to do something for me."
"Name it," said Sam.
"I don't want my folks to know I'm out of the bank. If they knew I was farming for my health they'd be offended because I didn't go to Hometon. But I can't bear the thoughts of going back home down-and-out—-you know how it is."
Sam nodded. "I understand how you feel about it."
"Well, I'm going to forward the weekly letter I write to mother and let you re-mail it from Toronto, addressed on the typewriter. I'll only be a month getting in shape, and then I'll have an office job somewhere."
An "office job" embodied Evan's conception of success, as it did that of his relatives, and many another golden-calf worshipper. He had yet to be weaned.
"I'll do it, my lad," replied Robb, cheerfully; "now then, off with you. And don't forget to write. If, after a month or so, I run across anything in town that I think would appeal to you, I'll wire. Japers lives right in the suburbs of Hamilton, and has a telephone."
The "T. H. & B." carried westward a considerably happier mortal than had been in Evan Nelson's shoes for many a day.
Japers' farm showed up to advantage on a fine May morning. So did his daughter, Lizzie. She was plump, pretty, and peasant-like. Her efforts to sneak cream and sugar into the new "hand's" tea a second and third time were evidence of her normal good nature, if nothing more.
The first day out the ex-bankclerk did not do much. He was busy admiring the symmetry of gardens and orchards, though not of daughters. In his part of the country those who took any interest in fruit raising allowed the trees to grow up, out, and into each other without molestation, believing in the ever-lasting benevolence of Providence and the frailty of pests; with the result that fruit became wormier and scarcer every year. But in the "Fruit Belt" conditions were different; everywhere was order and care; the budding blossoms made the well-ordered fruit patches fairy groves for beauty. The first day of his sojourn Evan opened his nostrils, closed his eyes, forgot the bank, and thanked God some doctors knew their business.
His employer would have had him rest a second day, and particularly would Miss Japers have done so, but Evan wanted to show that he was a worker, and also had an eye on the coming dollar per day. So he walked manfully up the rhubarb patch and set to work. Occasionally a muscle slipped and he jerked a whole root out of the ground; but this error was remedied immediately by clawing a little dirt around the root and leaving it—to die. Evan, of course, was innocent of harm done: he saw no reason why rhubarb should not grow in loose dirt as well as tight.
In his sleep, the second night, he wandered in a field of burdocks, plucking the largest stalks for Burdock Blood Bitters. He stopped to chat with a buxom girl possessed of an innocent, rustic manner, and thought she laughed at his white, feminine hands. Next day, as a coincidence with his dream, Lizzie Japers did remark about the ex-clerk's hands, but the stains on them and not their whiteness elicited her observations—and decided her to telephone to the grocer's for a box of snap.
When his back got used to bending Evan began to enjoy gardening. He felt like a bird that had flown out of a cellar into a garden. Lake Ontario sent a breeze up to him, to carry his mind away on its wings. Peach blossoms were turning more pink; sight of them and the smell of them made the world irresistibly charming. Was it really he who had wallowed in janitor's dust and vault damps with a monster called "Cash Book?" Was not that but a figment of those vague nightmares he had had as a child, when he fell asleep with his clothes on?
Anyway, it did not exist now; and the superb happiness of that realization made the days fly—and days brought dollars. Of course, money did not matter so much now that he had no landlady to pacify; he would have been satisfied with fifty cents a day and board. Such meals as he got!—onions, radishes, lettuce, cream, butter made from real cream, eggs still bearing traces of the hen, and everything to build without poisoning.
During the first week a letter came from Hometon. It had been addressed in care of Mrs. Greig, Toronto, and forwarded by Robb. It was from Evan's mother. She complained of not having received much news lately, and hoped nothing was wrong. Above all things she hoped her son was not working too hard. The son smiled as he read; if his mother could only see him sitting in a lettuce patch, dairied and sleeves up, what would she think? What would Lou and Frankie think?
The letter Evan answered with was diplomatic. It went, in part, like this: "I am feeling better than I have felt for two years. The work I am doing is not hard on me; I like it mighty well. My health was bad for a while after landing in the city, but now it is changing for the better every day. My appetite is past the decent stage. And what do you know about this?—I'm saving money at last!" There were no committals in the letter.
The second Saturday of Nelson's engagement with Jim Japers, the old gentleman came around and said: "About time you was ringin' off, Mr. Nelson." (He always addressed his new man respectfully: could an ordinary mortal come out of a bank?) "It's Saturday, you know. Me and wife always goes into town a-Saturday, and sometimes the kid. We count it a day off, and now that's what we wants you to do."
A countryman always enjoys getting to anything pleasant in a roundabout manner. Evan felt the good news coming and warmed up to a full appreciation of it. Saturday afternoon in the bank had always been a time for cleaning up loose ends of work.
"Thank you, Mr. Japers," he said, warmly; "I believe a showwoulddo me good. I didn't have time to see many in Toronto."
"That's right, my boy, enjoy yourself. They say them Toronto shows isn't as good as we get here. What do you think, now?"
"I don't imagine they are," replied Evan, quickly; and then, in one of those absurd rushes after an idea to make plausible a consciously absurd utterance, "I suppose it sort of—they sort of—"
"Yes, you're right," rejoined Japers, fully believing that he and Nelson between them could outwit most theatrical critics. The gardener and his assistant blathered away until Miss Japers was obliged to float her ribbons out of the front door in a dazzling hint that the family party was ready.
The Japers did not wait for Evan to dress; Lizzie was constrained to do so, but her mother looked so uncomfortably fussed up that the girl had compassion, and left the romantic excitement of a bankclerk's presence for the less alluring sensation of Hamilton's main street.
An hour or so later Evan sauntered up town. He did not feel exactly lonesome, there by himself in the Saturday crowds, but rather out of his environment. It seemed strange to him to have no immediate task on hand, to have nothing to balance or look up. His mind felt almost vacant, for want of something to burden it; but the vacant feeling was, oh, such a relief! Only the weary clerk can understand this thing; he knows so well what it means to carry a burden with him on a pleasure trip. "Pleasure" is not the adjective to qualify such a trip, where trees and flowers are decked with figures and where the mind sees phantoms of accumulated and accumulating work, waiting, waiting like Fate. Stories have been told of criminals carrying the body of a victim around on their backs until they stood on the brink of insanity. Hundreds of bankboys know what it is to feel the weight of corpse-like figures on their backs. One cannot get away from the horrible burden, it clings until the heart is sick and the stomach nauseated. And these monsters are not victims of the bankclerk's, either; the clerk is their victim; nor does he in any way merit the unnatural attachment—someone else digs them out of their graves (the bank "morgue" of accumulated back-work) for plunder, and saddles them on him.....
Evan's mind felt vacant; that was much better than having it loaded with worry, worry that could result in nothing but harm to the clerk and nothing but cold dollars to the bank.
The young ex-banker refreshed himself with a solitary sundae and then took steps in the direction of a theatre advertising the old drama, "East Lynne." He bought an economic half-dollar seat and entered while the orchestra was playing one of the reddest rags out. He had read "Mrs. Henry Wood's" great book, but he searched his memory in vain for a clue to the propriety of ragtime as a preface to the story.
A moment before the curtain lifted a girl came into the theatre and was ushered to a lonesome seat beside Evan. He was, gardener fashion, watching for his money's worth, and paid no attention to the person beside him until first intermission, when a squint told him that here was someone very like Hazel Morton of Mt. Alban. Then he looked fully into her eyes and held out his hand. She seemed surprised.
"Don't you know me, Miss Morton?"
"Why—I'm afraid—why, yes I do!"
They regarded each other a minute.
"You seem to have changed, Hazel!"
He was sorry he had said it. She blushed and did not look him squarely in the face as she replied:
"Hard work."
Evan sat wondering, in silence. Hazel had had a nice home in Mt. Alban. Had she run away from it? And how was it that she looked so subdued?—she used to be a vivacious creature, fond of dresses and gaiety. Now she wore a plain white waist and a skirt of cheap blue serge. The Mt. Alban color was gone, and pensiveness dusked her intelligent face.
It was, doubtless, to break the embarrassing silence creeping between them that Hazel asked Evan if he worked hard in Hamilton. How long had he been in that branch of the bank?
"I'll tell you after the show," he answered, "if you'll have dinner with me at the —— Hotel. We can go for a paddle afterwards."
She smiled and said it was very kind of him and that she would just love to spend the evening in that way.
In the second act Evan noticed that Hazel wiped her eyes frequently with a miniature handkerchief. He felt like doing it himself in the next act, and Hazel sobbed audibly. Of course, she was not the only weeping woman at that matinee.
At dinner a glow of the girl's old-time color came back, and with it a charm that Evan had noticed in her eyes at Mt. Alban dances, when a certain bankclerk was hovering near.
"Do you know what a boarding-house appetite is, Ev—Mr.—?"
"Did you say 'Mr.'? I've been calling you 'Hazel,' you know."
She laughed. "I meant 'Evan.'"
Evan suddenly recalled the last time he had bandied names with a Mt. Alban girl.
"Yes," he replied, "you bet I do. But I'm eating farm-meals now."
She looked surprised, and he told her about resigning from the bank, "because the work was too hard," and about coming to the Fruit Belt to recreate.
"You're what I call a sensible boy, Evan.... I wish....."
Hazel did not finish her wish. She blushed instead.
"You don't know how good it seems to meet you here like this, Hazel," Nelson observed, to relieve the situation. He knew perfectly well that her wish was about Bill Watson.
"I don't think you can enjoy it half so well as I."
"Why?" His question was curious, but thoughtless.
"Well—I'm lonesome," she hesitated; "I hardly ever go out—except when Billy comes over."
It was out at last, and then they became more intimate. As they walked down the street to the wharf, later, Hazel pressed his arm and cried softly:
"Did you see that? Don't you know her?"
"You mean the girl that just passed—the one in green? I was just thinking—wondering if that could be Sadie Hall, Alfy Castle's girl."
"That's who it was."
"Why didn't she speak, Hazel?"
The girl looked up into his eyes as she answered:
"I've met her on the street several times. First time I was with Billy, who had come over for a visit. Sadie nodded, and went on with the friend, at whose home here she is visiting. The second time I was standing in front of a confectionery talking to a girl who—well, who hasn't a very good name in Hamilton; but she works where I do, and anyway I would not snub her for the world."
"And Miss Hall has stopped speaking entirely, eh?"
Hazel smiled impishly.
"I gave her a fine chance to turn up her nose just now; I winked at her."
Evan laughed until his companion caught the contagion.
"They're well mated, Hazel—Castle and she."
"Yes, indeed."
When they were skimming through the bay in a canoe, Miss Morton's mind again reverted to Castle.
"Hasn't he always been a snob?" she asked.
"Don't mention him—it makes me sick to think of him. He takes it after his uncle, I think."
Nevertheless, Evan kept on thinking about the Castles, as he faced Hazel in the canoe, until at last and by degrees his story came out.
"Oh, the criminals!" cried Hazel. "Why do so many boys put up with it!.... Evan," she said earnestly, after a pause, "you have confided in me, now I want to confide in you." A canoe, it is said, affects people like that.
"It's something about Billy," she continued. "Will you tell me what I want to know?"
"If you ought to know, Hazel."
"Well, I should.... I—he—" The tears filled her eyes, and she seemed undecided whether to give them vent or wipe them away and be brave. She wiped them away.
"I left a good home and came here to work just so that I could be near him and help him. I've told him that I'll wait as long as I need to. I didn't want to go to Toronto, because I knew everyone in Mt. Alban would then say I tagged Billy. I'm willing to wait, but Billy seems so discouraged at times I am often afraid he'll run away or do something rash. Tell me, Evan, is he all right? Does he drink or—anything?"
Evan tried to recall something Bill had said that would cheer the waiting girl, but could not think of anything. He did remember the lectures Watson had delivered on the follies of clerkship; but to Hazel they would only indicate recklessness and dissatisfaction. And, too, Bill did take a drink frequently; in fact, Evan suspected that he made a night of it occasionally to "drown his sorrow."
"Hazel," he said seriously, "Bill is one of the finest fellows I ever worked with. I'm sure he's honest and true. He hates Castle and Castle hates him: that's something to his credit—but it may keep him back in the bank. But he'll never be false to a friend or a girl, I'm sure of that."
The girl in the canoe looked wistfully at Nelson. "Somehow I wish you were working in the same office with him. I always felt as though you were—a solid sort of a chap, Evan."
The last few words were accompanied by a little laugh, to counteract the suspicion of flattery that clung to them. But for that feminine interpretation Evan might not have so fully appreciated her meaning. He got a suggestion from her words: would it not be a good idea to write Bill and tell him of the evening spent with Hazel? It might give the slaving city-teller new vim for the eternity of figures and celibacy before him.
On Sunday Evan did write to Watson. He described Saturday's pleasure excursions with Hazel, dwelling on the enjoyment it gave himself and upon the sincerity with which she spoke of "Billy." Evan meant the letter to appeal. He knew that Bill knew him and would not resent perfect candor, when properly mixed with the right brand of sympathy. He thought, as he wrote, of the peculiar independence of character and cynicism of Watson; the combined traits amounting almost to recklessness. But he could not conceive of Bill's going wrong. He reflected that Hazel must love Bill, in spite of her fear that he was weak, and wondered at the tenderness of woman. Why was she so little considered in this world of business?
The Morton girl's companionship, quite naturally, took Nelson back to Mt. Alban, and Mt. Alban was only a few miles from Hometon and Frankie. He did not consider it likely that Julia Watersea or Lily Allen were still thinking of him; but he sighed when a vision of Frankie, with blue skirt and cheap white waist like Hazel's, rose before him. He wrote her a letter, the first in months, wishing her well, but saying nothing of love. A dollar a day with board wasn't much, truly, to apply against the great debit of matrimony, and why mention love at all if it could not be consummated?
To Robb, the vegetable-man also wrote, and to A. P. Henty at his home village.
Sunday night Lizzie Japers again fluttered her ribbons, and dropped a hint about church. Afraid of losing his job, Evan accepted the bait and walked with the fair Liz toward the altar. It must have been hard for the organist to keep his fingers off a wedding march when he saw, in his mirror, the pair walking up the aisle.
Days sped again. June was come. Blossoms were falling and berries grew larger on the vines and bushes. A forwarded note came from Hometon, rejoicing in the promotion Mrs. Nelson had read between the lines of her son's letter, and in the miraculous recuperation spoken of. Lou had enclosed a slip of paper confiding to her brother the opinion that she should have a fellow, being now eighteen, and asking him to seek out an eligible and bring him home for the summer holidays. There was no word from Frankie. A fat, scrawly letter came from Henty.
"Dear Evan," it said, "after you left Banfield, old Penton was like a bear-cat. He tore around the office like something with the pip, took to chewing tobacco and spitting in the waste-baskets, and raised proper —— with the pups. He came up to me one day with Uncle Harry looking out of his eyes and gave me a short biography of myself. I stood it as long as I could, and then I seemed to be pitching in an exciting ball game. My right hand shot out, and before I knew it Penton was lying down at my feet. When he got up he almost cried, and tried to tell me he was just fooling. I noticed that night that the guns were missing from the cage drawer, and fearing that Penton had them in store for me, I packed my grip and beat it. A fellow's foolish to take a chance with a guy like W. W. My father was glad to have me home. He consulted a lawyer about my bond, and the lawyer said the bank wouldn't dare do anything about it under the circumstances; he said it would make too much of a stir and would hurt business. I imagine they'll fire Penton over the head of it; but I hope Filter doesn't lose his job—it would kill him. I wish you were farming like me; it feels mighty good after office work. Write soon. A. P."
When his muscles had grown until he felt the vigor of school days returning, Evan began to look higher than rhubarb and asparagus tops; he even looked beyond the Mountain, and saw himself in an easy chair with a telephone at his elbow and a stenographer in front of him. He wrote an answer to quite a few advertisements in Toronto papers; those to which he got a reply asked for references, as did those written in answer to his own insertions. Disgusted, he stopped advertising and answering ads.
"By Japers," he said to himself one day, "I'll beat it to Buffalo—there are no Canadian Banks over there!"
The idea took root in him. Also, he was counselled to leave the happy home of the Hamilton gardener by the actions of Elizabeth. She not only persisted in her cream-and-sugar attentions, but wheedled the "hired man" into taking her places, and finally began to speak of him as her "friend." Evan was willing to be friendly with most people, but the significant proprietorship implied in the tone with which Liz said "friend" was extremely discomfiting. The ex-clerk saw plainly that he must make a get-away.
Toronto offered nothing, neither did Hamilton; they were both bank strongholds. Buffalo, on the other hand, was in another country—a country to which almost every young Canadian turns his face, if not his steps, at one time or another. It was free from Canadian influence, a new world in fact, and yet only a short distance away. Inquiring at the ticket office as to fare, Evan learned that in two days there was an excursion to New York for only twice as much as the regular fare to Buffalo. New York! The name suggested adventure. Why not go there instead of Buffalo? It was only a night's or a day's journey from Toronto!
New York it would be! Evan sent the news sailing to Henty and Robb, but not home. Hometon would find it out when he had a position in the American metropolis. He called and bade Hazel Morton good-bye, and insisted on taking her out to the theatre. On their way home they dropped into a cafe for ice-cream. Again they met Miss Hall of Mt. Alban. She stared hard at Evan while he was not looking, and kept whispering to her lady companion.
"We don't care, Hazel, do we?" said Nelson.
Miss Morton smiled:
"What if she should go back to the Mount and tell Julia?"
Evan felt his heart sink.
"Hazel," he said, with awe, "you're not serious, are you?"
"Are you, Evan?"
"No. Why, I haven't heard from her in months."
The Morton girl looked at him in surprise.
"Do you think," she asked, wide-eyed, "that months mean anything to a woman?"
He showed his distress unmistakably. Hazel at last began to laugh, softly, with increasing merriment.
"My dear boy," she said, "what a serious fellow you are! The girl who falls in love with you for good and all, well—"
He gazed at her questioningly, gradually feeling a load leave him, a load that he did not know he carried. Hazel was speaking:
"Julia had a habit of juggling with bankers' hearts. She's married now, you know."
Hall's lawn was decorated with Japanese lanterns. The little Mt. Alban boys who passed in the dusk wondered if the time would ever come in their lives when they should be eligible for a real garden-party. Such a wondrous condition seemed very far off, like Heaven. And the little girls who passed peeked through the hedge, like fairies seeking admittance to a nymph gathering. There was no music as yet, for the evening had scarcely set in, but the tables were set and the lanterns threw a glimmer over the flower-beds and through the trees.
The party was, ostensibly, a welcome to the newly-married couple, James and Julia Watersea Simpson; actually it was to announce that Miss Sadie Hall had returned from Hamilton to accept the boredom of Mt. Alban again for a little season.
It is not for this bank story to enter upon details of that garden party; to spy on the sons of villagers behind dark balsams devouring cigarettes borrowed from the village cut-up; to play dictagraph to the gossips, or to hang around where the girls are chattering. However, there were characters at that lawn social more or less concerned in our story, and of whom we therefore ought to make mention.
Those characters occupied a place of prominence at the function, being seated close to Miss Hall herself. She was paying them flattering attention.
"Mr. Perry," she said, smilingly, "who would have thought you were going to turn out such a sport?"
Far from being offended, Porter grinned gleefully, and incidentally wondered where the money was coming from to pay the rent of the roadster that had brought him up to see his Hometon girl visiting in Mt. Alban.
"Well," he replied, "I never was what you'd call a willy, eh?"
"No," said Sadie, "but—well, you were so young, you know."
Porter's "girl" was talking in a low tone with a new bank junior who was beginning to realize what a juvenile and unromantic affair school had been. Sadie nudged Perry.
"You want to watch out," she whispered, so that the others could hear, "or you'll be losing your friend."
Frankie Arling blushed. The junior did too.
"N-n-no danger," he stammered, without knowing exactly what he said.
"Why no danger?" asked Miss Hall, anxious to say something interesting.
For answer the junior looked at Perry with the deference due a teller. Porter pouted—not like a child, but like a pigeon.
"Have some ice-cream, girls," he suggested, determined to convert the junior's respect into awe.
No one declining, the "porter" played a part long before assigned him in the Mt. Alban bank, and brought back a tray that had cost him eighty cents.
"Do you remember, Miss Hall," he said, to still a beating of the heart occasioned by the admiring glances of two strange girls in the circle, "the social we had here just two years ago?"
"Oh, yes," replied Sadie, after pretending to look backward through a great many sumptuous entertainments; "yes."
"All the boys were here. There was Bill Watson, myself, Mr. Castle, Nel—"
"Yes, that reminds me," interrupted Sadie, "I saw Mr. Nelson on the street in Hamilton the other day, and met him again in a cafe. Both times he was with—"
Sadie hesitated. Frankie was looking astonishedly at her.
"Why, Ev—Mr. Nelson hasn't been moved, has he?"
The question and the expression of voice behind it seemed to give Sadie an idea.
"I forgot—he comes from your town, does he not, Miss Arling?"
"Yes."
"Who was he with?" asked Perry, stupidly, "anyone we know?"
"Why—yes. Hazel Morton."
Frankie's question was not answered; but now she did not care to have it answered. She had been in Mt. Alban three days, therefore she had heard all about the Morton girl leaving a nice home to "be in a city where she can act as she likes,"—which, Mt. Alban females ruled, was wickedly.
It takes a girl, and especially one of Sadie Hall's stamp, to notice embarrassment or disappointment in another girl. Frankie was rather silent and downcast. She never talked much at any time, but even to Perry, with whom she was sometimes quite speechless, she seemed more than commonly quiet during the remainder of the evening. Of course, Porter may have been considerably on the alert.
"Is she related to him or anything?" Sadie asked Perry, on the side.
"Well—no," he hesitated; "their families are old friends, though."
"I could tell her something very interesting about him," replied Sadie; "he's been dismissed from the bank."
"What!"
"Sh-sh! Alfred wrote me about it. And that's not the worst of it—he's suspected of being a crook."
"For G—'s sake!" murmured Perry; and thought a while.
"Had I better tell her?" asked Sadie.
"I guess so; she'll soon find out, anyway."
Miss Hall found Frankie admiring a flower-bed, lonesomely, and approached her with the news she had. She knew that her Alfred hated Evan, who in his turn hated Alfred, and it was quite a satisfaction to circulate the truth about an enemy when it was unpleasant. To give her credit, Sadie was rather sorry she had done it, when she saw the effect produced on Frankie.
The following day Miss Hall met the girl whom Frankie Arling, of Hometon, had been visiting.
"Where's your friend?" she asked.
"Gone," replied the other girl. "She took it into her head to go home on the noon train, and we couldn't coax her out of it. I think she was lonesome."
"No doubt," replied Sadie, abstractedly.
Mrs. Nelson sat reading a letter, with tears in her eyes; another letter lay on the table. The one she read was from a woman-friend in Toronto. One paragraph of it puzzled Mrs. Nelson; it read: "One of the bankboys who boards here told me that your son had been discharged from the S—— Bank on suspicion. I think my boarder has made a mistake; he declares it was Evan Nelson of Hometon, though. Let me hear from you, Caroline, for I'm anxious to know that there has been a blunder."
The letter on the table was from Evan; one of those garden compositions sent through Sam Robb. It spoke about health, a good time and good board.
Frankie and Lou entered the kitchen where Mrs. Nelson sat in misery. She showed them the letter from Evan and the other one from Toronto. Frankie was silent, but Lou exclaimed:
"Why, mother! I'm surprised! Do you think for a minute that Evan would deceive us like that?"
"I can't believe it, dear; but what am I to do?"
"There's a mistake somewhere," replied Lou; "why, even if they have fired him it's all a mistake. 'On suspicion'—imagine! Why brother wouldn't take a—a—"
The thought was too much for Lou. What with lonesomeness for her brother and anger at the mere thought of anyone suspecting him, she gave way to a June storm.
Frankie was not free from signs of lamentation, either. She filled up more and more until there were raindrops from that quarter, too, and Sadie Hall's story came out.
Mrs. Nelson was overcome. Why had not her boy written about the trouble?
"Oh, Louie," she cried, "it's terrible! They suspect him of stealing! And he's discharged! Whatever are we to do?"
Lou raised her lovely face and forced a smile.
"Mother, dear," she said, "you know what a fellow Evan is. He doesn't want us to know about it until the thing is straightened out. It must straighten out, because we know he isn't guilty."
Such is a sister's logic. Mrs. Nelson telephoned her husband to come up at once. He came, and was told the news.
"Good!" he said.
"Why, George, how can you say that? They've ruined our boy."
Mrs. Nelson was taking it badly.
"Tut tut," said her husband, kindly, "don't get all worked up about it. He'll come around. There'll be an explanation from him some of these days. Jerusalem! but I'm glad he's out of it. I knew he'd get a lesson. Blast the banks!"
After this mild explosion Nelson walked to the water-pail and drank a dipper of water.
"But what's he doing in Hamilton?" asked the mother.
"That's only a fifty-cent trip from Toronto," answered Nelson; "the lad was probably over for a boat-ride."
"Well, what's he doing now?"
"I've got no more idea than you have, Carrie. But he won't do anything desperate, be sure of that. If he gets down-and-out he knows we're here."
At last Mrs. Nelson was consoled. She made her husband wire Evan at Toronto to come home. The telegraph operator surmised enough from the telegram to invent a story; it was supplemented by whisperings from Mt. Alban; and eventually the town gabs were wondering where Evan could have deposited the $50,000 he stole.
Besides the telegram, George Nelson sent a letter, telling his son not to worry, and enclosing a cheque for fifty dollars. Frankie Arling, in her little room at home, also wrote a letter:
"Dear Evan,—We have heard that you are out of the bank. I think you were foolish to ever go into it. There are ridiculous rumors floating around that you were dismissed on suspicion. I know they're not true, and everybody else does; but still we are surprised you didn't write home something about it.
"I don't suppose Hometon matters very much to you any more. The town is not so dull as it used to be, though. There is a new bunch of bankboys here, and we have plenty of good times. Mr. Perry rents a car occasionally and gives us girls a ride. He surely is a good-hearted chap. We all like him.
"You will be surprised when I tell you that he has proposed to me. I don't think he'll ever make much money, but he'll always be free with what he has, and mighty good to a girl. He wants me to visit in London during summer vacation; he lives there. If I go he says he'll see that I meet a nice crowd. I haven't asked mother yet.
"I guess you won't be coming home for vacation this summer, now you're out of the bank. It wouldn't be like you to come back a failure. It seems funny that you shouldn't have got along in banking as well as Porter: you are just as smart as he is. That fellow surprises me sometimes, though! I've been at him to quit the bank and go into something else. He shouldn't be proposing on six hundred dollars a year, should he? Well, good-bye. Yours sincerely,
"FRANK."
After signing the letter Frankie dropped the pen and rested her chin on her hands. She gazed into space until the tears rolled down her cheeks; then she hid her face lest the looking-glass might see her.
"To think," she murmured, "that Evan sees girls likethat!"
Girl-like, she had said nothing about Hamilton or Hazel Morton in the letter. She wanted to wound. Perry had helped her make Evan jealous once before. She was afraid mention of Hamilton would call forth explanations from Evan, and she didn't want him to explain. Even though he were innocent, she felt that she must hate him now, for she was jealous.
While the Mt. Alban garden party was in progress Evan attended one in New York—the Madison Square Garden party. There were no Chinese lanterns in evidence (although there were some Chinese), and the creatures who participated were not particularly young or care-free: there were the burning lights of Broadway and the Square, and wretched figures huddling on, beside, and under, the benches.
"And this is New York!" murmured Evan.
The melancholy sight fascinated him; he found it hard to leave Madison Gardens, although the White Way called to the youth and love of gaiety within him. He had never before seen so plainly the line of demarcation between sunlight and shadow. The startling proximity of riches to poverty, gladness to sadness, shocked him; he had a vague fear of something, he did not know what. Maybe it was the readjustment to come.
It is quite evident, from his loitering, that Evan was not worrying about himself. He had a job, therefore he sat and pitied those who did not have—and who did not want—work. Realizing at last that it was folly to pity without aiding, and that he was too poor to actually aid the wretches around him, he wandered across to Fifth Avenue and stared in the windows of a book store.
He had come to "town" (his room was in Brooklyn) with the intention of seeing a play, but the Madison garden party had taken away his breath, and left him without a desire to squander money on himself, when he had deliberately held it back from the hungry and the naked. Further reflection brought about a reaction in his mind, and eventually he compromised with himself by going to a ten-cent picture show. Afterwards he took subway and surface cars back to Eastern Parkway and found himself sitting thoughtfully in his little room.
Like a writer who gets "copy" on the streets and fixes it up in his garret, Evan thought the environment of his room would help him to arrange the impressions a trip to town had created, but—again like the writer—he found his head so full of notions that he could not think, and he understood perfectly that ideas apart from thought were poor things. So he turned in, bidding Madison Square and memories of Hometon good-night.
Quite early next morning he arose, fresh and eager, all vain philosophizing gone, prepared to hold his own in a big city. New York had not, from the moment he landed, frightened him. Like the child that looks into the fire, he saw only wonders. He had his health back, he knew he was a good bookkeeper, board in New York was cheap—why worry? He hadn't worried, and he had got work first crack! It is not hard to get a job in New York, unless you are in rags; but it is hard to get a good salary.
For a week now Evan had been engaged. The cashier, Phillips, told him he was going to be a good man for the firm. Phillips did not ask him where he had received his training: New Yorkers have no time for life-stories or autobiographies. Evan was surprised that they did not ask him more about himself, and for recommendations. Instead of saying: "What are your references, sir?" the boss had said: "What can you do?"
"I'm a bookkeeper."
"What experience?"
"Two years and a half in Canadian banking."
"Sounds good. What made you come over here?"
"Like every young Canadian," replied Evan, "I wanted to see New York."
Conscious of no guilt, he felt bold and spoke without fear.
"Well," replied the employer, "we'll give you a chance."
"Do you want a recommendation?" asked the Canadian.
"Nah," grunted the boss; "what good is that? If you can deliver the goods, all right; if you can't, out you go. As for your honesty, we depend on our ability to read character; after all, wouldn't you rather have your own opinion of a fellow than somebody else's? If ever you get to be cashier here we'll know you all right; not from Toronto references, but from daily observation. We learn to spot honesty here in Noo Yo'k: it's so dawn rare."
Evan smiled in spite of a desire to look solemn. He liked the "old man," and knew work with him would be pleasant. The office staff he liked, too, for they were free and easy, though mightily busy. It was a great change from the bank. No one seemed to be afraid of anybody else. The cashier was no bullier; although there was occasional friction, there was no subordination.
Everybody worked fast, but, for Evan, there was not the strain of a Canadian city bank. He knew there was no Alfred Castle watching him, and he knew that if a ledger went wrong requiring night work, the man who worked on it would be paid for every minute of overtime. Already he made fifteen dollars a week, and that was just as big as fifteen dollars would be in Toronto—it was bigger; it would buy more food and pleasure in New York than in any other city on the continent. Evan found it ample.
"If you keep on," said the cashier one day, "we'll be giving you more work to do."
Evan was surprised, and gratified. "I'll keep on," he said.
A few days after determining to keep on he asked for a half-day off to humor a headache. He was allowed an afternoon's leave.
On the way down to the ocean beach, where he hoped to soothe his palpitating cerebellum, he called at the Brooklyn room and found two letters and a telegram awaiting him. They had been forwarded by Sam, who had scribbled on the back of the telegram: "I knew you would have it in a few hours or I would have re-despatched the message." Evan smiled at his mother's anxiety—a letter had gone to her explaining everything; he had told her he was afraid his father would want to fight the bank in the courts, so he had kept the matter quiet until another position turned up. "No one ever wins in a suit against the bank," he said, "and Dad needs his money."
The cheque from home for fifty dollars looked good to Evan, but he hesitated before accepting it. Suddenly, however, he recollected a few little Ontario debts, and slipping the cheque in his pocket he thought what an unbusinesslike father he had. He sent a special letter of thanks, just as he would have done to any benefactor; he was not of the persuasion that everything is coming to the man who happens to be a son.
As a child saves the best bite of cake till the last, the New York clerk stowed Frankie's letter in his pocket until he reached Coney Island. He opened it as he sat on the sand, not far away from a group of attractive girls. Frankie's mention of Perry caused Evan to take note of a chilly breeze that was blowing over the surf. When the letter persisted and persisted in Porter, he suddenly thought the sun was mighty hot for June.
"Let her have him," the reader muttered; "she's welcome to him!"
Evan tried to make himself believe he had meant to say: "Lethimhaveher," but that was not what he had said, and he knew it. He knew, too, that he could not coax himself to say it.
"She makes me mad," he muttered again; "what does she see in that mutt? Confound my head, what's the matter with it, anyway?"
Tearing the letter to bits, he ran into the surf. The girls had been watching him read and had been laughing over the expression on his face. They followed him into the water, and one of them managed to slip over the ropes beside him. The others made a fuss; and, not being used to swimming flirtations, Evan thought a real accident had happened. He bravely swam under the rope and rescued the water-nymph. An hour later, when they were all acquainted, he discovered that she could out-do him thrice over as a swimmer. But he was glad to know somebody in big, busy New York, and Ethel Harris was both pretty and smart.
Thus it was that the ex-bankclerk came to pass over Frankie Arling's letter, which had hurt him, and to take an interest in the pleasures of the present. Frankie and Perry, like the Past, were gone into eclipse.
In the course of months Evan became fairly familiar with New York, and with Miss Harris. The city stood scrutiny, and the girl—she was mighty fine. There was this difference between Ethel and New York, however: she was fathomable, as a girl should not be, and the city was not. Madison Square always reminded Evan of a dream he had dreamt in every fever of childhood—a nightmare in which a great wheel ran smoothly and little wheels crookedly; ran until the sleeper's brain was ready to burst with a sort of frenzy.
The people of New York turned out to be like the people of Toronto—and Hometon. Some were clever, and some were ignorant and dull. All of them were trying to make a living (except the predatory class) just as the farmers in Ontario were. Young men fell in love with girls and married them (occasionally), three meals a day were eaten, and sleep was popular.
And yet there was something about New York that was new and mysterious; its life was extraordinarily exhilarating. So many ten-thousands went to work and came from work every day at the same hours, it was like gazing upon the Creation to watch them. They lost their individuality, their human, insignificant (?) individuality, in the mass, and became a part of Adam's seed. Country people were less interesting than these New Yorkers, because country people were more independent. New Yorkers never looked at each other, but they felt each other; the atoms of the great mass, though separated by never-closing spaces, were held together by an eternal potentiality. There was a sympathy in the mass of city-folk, unspoken and even unobserved by many, but mighty—it was much more wonderful than the simple, verbal friendship between Jake Zeigler and Mat Carrol, neighbors at Bill's Corners. The power that held the atoms of the great mass together was the very same that gave each atom its individuality. Evan was impressed with the magnetism of New York, but he did not comprehend its strength. He came across atoms that had strayed off gradually, and been drawn back like lightning; but he understood but vaguely how the force operated, and why. In fact, who does understand?
The life he led, which was the New York life, kept the Canadian ex-clerk stimulated to a point beyond his power of physical resistance; he worked harder than the cashier wanted him to work. Those crowds that surged in every thoroughfare seemed to be behind him pushing him, and he could not take things easy. The strain was telling on him, though he tried to convince himself that it was not. Probably the lure of a great city would have held him up to the point of a break-down, had not a letter from his father set him thinking thoughts that changed his life once more.
"When you build a house, Evan," said the letter, "you always want to have a solid foundation. So it is with a career. I hope you will, after a while, find your niche—I'm quite sure you have not found it yet. But don't worry—you'll get there: you have Grandpa Nelson in you.
"P.S.—I forgot to tell you that the bank's guarantee company and the general manager of the bank itself have dunned me for your part of the Banfield loss, fifty dollars. I laughed at them and told them to sue."
The postscript took Evan's mind back. It caused a burning in him that he knew must some day flare up. Unable to quench the resentment that filled him he bought some fruit and ate it as he walked along Wall Street, westward.
"Great heavens!" he muttered, waving his hand toward the marble halls of finance around him, "my country's got you backed into East River when it comes to a combination of Trusts!"
A few minutes after muttering this soliloquy he was in the crowds on Broad Street, directly opposite the Stock Exchange. A newsy thrust a paper into his hand, which he took and glanced at automatically. The first thing to catch his eye was a small headline over a news-item in one corner of the front page:
"CANADIAN BANKCLERK SUICIDES."