"I am not aware!" Mr. Jordano waved his notebook in some agitation. "I hoped to find information here, to tell the truth. A distang lady—oh, very distang indeed—quite unknown to me. I failed in my endeavor to interrogate John Tucker; his movements are so extremely quick-wick-wick!"
He looked anxiously from one face to another;the ladies returned his look with another equally anxious. Mr. Mallow, however, nodded importantly.
"Yes!" he said. "I was just goin' to tell the ladies when you come in, Very. I had asked Kitty to join us here this evening, but she is kept at home by a visitor. Ahem!"
Mr. Mallow was too human not to enjoy prolonging the suspense a moment; he was too kind to prolong it further.
"Johanna Ross!" he announced explosively. "Iwassurprised!"
"Johanna Ross!" all the ladies cried out in chorus.
"Well, I never did!" Mrs. Wibird further elucidated the situation.
"How unexpected!" said Miss Almeria gravely.
"Yet not unnatural, sister!" Miss Egeria murmured gently. "Kitty's own aunt, you know!"
"I am fully aware of that, my love!" Miss Almeria bent her head with dignity. "Nothing could be more natural, under ordinary circumstances; but Johanna is—peculiar, I am obliged to say."
"I never could get over her not comin' to Doctor's funeral!" Mrs. Wibird lamented. "I was brought up with Johanna, but I never could get over that. And that message she sent! They were takin' stock, and John would understand. I hope he did, for I'm sure nobody else did."
Mrs. Wibird gave a shiver of reprehension, and set her thin lips. She was a forlorn little lady, the opposite in every way of her brother. Marshall Mallow would have looked—and been—well nourished onbread and cheese, if he had enough of it. Marcia Mallow had always looked, as Mrs. Sharpe expressed it, like the thin end of a pea-pod, and the most generous diet never added a pound to the ninety-nine she owned to. Melissa had tried more than once to "flesh her up," without success. But then, "they" said she gave all the nice things her brother sent her to "that Wilson." Melissa always looked hungry, too; even to-night, after that excellent lobster supper. Cyrus collectively hoped that that Wilson would get his come-uppance some day. Melissa Wibird would be a pretty girl if she didn't look starved.
"Has she come to stay, think?" asked Mrs. Wibird. "Did Kitty say, Marsh? Whatdidshe say?"
"She just said she was sorry she couldn't come, her Aunt Johanna had arrived."
"And you didn'taskher whether she was comin' to stay? Now, Marshall!"
"A—if I may venture a conjecture"—Mr. Jordano waved his notebook with a gesture expressive of deprecatory delicacy—"the lady in question would appear to intend to pass some time in our—shall I say midst? Her trunks—four of them—were of ample size. I should hardly suppose that for a brief sojourn——"
"She's come to stay!" Mrs. Wibird ejaculated positively; the Misses Bygood bent their heads and murmured, "she has doubtless come to stay!"
"So there's an end to my fine projectile!" said Mr. Mallow, with a sigh. Then in answer to inquiring looks:
"A projectile—a plan I had. I thought maybe Kitty would come and keep house for me; asked her, in fact. She promised to think it over; but, of course, there's an end of it now."
"Why, Marshall!" Mrs. Wibird prepared to shed tears. "You know Melissa and I would comeanytime to keep house for you: you know I have offered to, over and over again, but you always said——"
"Never mind, mother!" Melissa broke in. "That was different! I understand entirely, Uncle Marsh."
Mr. Mallow had been winking both eyes rapidly, a sign of embarrassment with him. He was very good to his sister, and really fond of Melissa, poor child, but—well, Lissy understood!
"A singular coincidence!" Miss Egeria fluttered into the breach. "Sister and I had also hoped—had asked dear Kitty to make her home with us, Mr. Mallow. Of course we had no idea——"
"Why," cried Melissa, "the Chanters expected her to live with them, Zephine told me so this very morning. The boys are going to move into the barn chamber, and the girls into their room, so Kitty can havetheirroom, the girls'. They spoke as if it were all settled."
"Miss Kitty is in great demand: in great demand! Grando demando, as we say in Italy. I happen to know for a fact that Madam Flynt had made a similar plan for Miss Kitty's future. I had the honor of calling upon that estimable lady this afternoon, and she said quite confidently that she expected our young friend to take up her abode—in short, to share herelegant mansion with her. Miss Kitty had promised to think it over, but Madam Flynt appeared to have little doubt-tout-tout——"
"I must say I think Kitty has been rather sly!" said Mrs. Wibird, compressing her thin lips. "It's all very well to keep your own counsel, but there is such a thing as being too close-mouthed, tomymind!"
"Oh, mother!" protested Melissa. "You're entirely mistaken!"
"No doubt!" Mrs. Wibird folded her hands meekly. "I am usually mistaken, I admit; still I have my opinions, poor as they are."
It was Miss Almeria who spoke now, with quiet dignity. "I do not understand, Marcia, that Kitty has done more in any case than agree to think over the invitation received by her. It seems to me in every way proper that she should do so. On the whole——" Miss Almeria paused, to give weight to her words, "on the whole, sadly as we are disappointed, my sister and I rejoice, I am sure, that matters have so arranged themselves that Kitty can remain in her own home. We have not intended to be selfish, friends and neighbors, but we may have been so unconsciously. Kitty is tenderly attached to her own home; I for one am surprised that I did not realize this more fully. It seemed—it would have been such a pleasure to have her——"
"Dear child!" murmured Miss Egeria. "It would indeed! but you are perfectly right, sister!"
"Doubtless Johanna realized this situation. I applaud, though I deplore in certain aspects, her action."
All through Miss Almeria's address, pronounced with much dignity, Mr. Jordano had been making little bows of admiring approbation. When she paused, he took up the word eagerly.
"Applause is doubtless indicated, Miss Almeria. I—a—heartily agree; heartily! A—would it be permissible for me to ask—I am not aware that Miss Ross has visited Cyrus during the years of my sojourn here—" (Mr. Jordano came from Tinkham, but, as every one said, he was not responsible for that, and he came away the very moment he was grown up)—"a—a—in short, are there any items that you would feel at liberty to communicate to the Scribe?"
There was a silence. Cyrus loves to talk, but there are some subjects on which it is reserved. Johanna Ross is one of them. All looked at Miss Almeria, who was turning a hem with exquisite nicety. She felt the look and responded, a slight flush rising to her smooth cheek.
"Miss Ross is a native of Cyrus," she said, "but has not lived here for many years. Twenty, I think, sister?"
"Twenty!" assented Miss Egeria; there was a general confirmatory murmur.
"She is a person of marked abilities, and has always felt—I believe—that Cyrus did not afford sufficient scope for these abilities. She has occupied a responsible position in a large establishment—wholesale—in the city of New York. This has absorbed all her time and energies; she has not felt—until now—that Cyrushad any claim upon them. May I trouble you for the eighty cotton, Mr. Mallow?"
"Certingly! certingly, Miss Bygood!" Mr. Mallow, in his haste to comply with the request, upset his big basket, and spools, tape, buttons, flew in every direction. How the ladies flew after them! How gracefully Miss Egeria glided in pursuit of the big spool of linen thread! how majestically Miss Almeria bent to capture the flood of buttons that poured into her silken lap! how Mrs. Wibird pounced, and Melissa hopped and fluttered! As for Mr. Jordano, he had an encounter with a skein of darning cotton, and entangled himself with it in a quite unbelievable way, and had to be rescued by Miss Egeria. It was a most exciting incident; they spoke of it for weeks after. Mr. Mallow, meantime, sat with the overturned basket still on his knees, grasping it tight, as if he feared it would follow the rest, and ejaculating, "My! my! Iamsurprised!"
"I make my 'pologies!" he said finally, when the last button had been restored to its place. "I make my 'pologies, ladies! I don't know as I ever did such a thing before. Quite a cat's trophy, I'm sure."
Flushed and breathless with agitation and vicarious exertion, the good gentleman took up his work again, but uttered an exclamation of discomfiture. "There! I've unthreaded my needle. Lissy, you know what I say; I'm no dromedary—I would say camel! Thread it for me, will you, dearie?"
While the threading was in process, Miss Almeria was advising with Mr. Jordano in low tones, as tothe precise wording of the item which was to reveal to Cyrus at large the advent of Miss Johanna Ross. He had already, the evening before, submitted to her his account of Kitty's arrival, a piece of writing of which he was modestly proud. It began, "Flushed with oriflammes was the western sky, and Old Sol still shed his cheering ray over Cyrus and environs——"
At this moment the door flew open, and Mrs. Sharpe appeared, with Cissy close behind her. Well! theydidlook like an old vixen and a young one, there was no doubt about it, though of course Tom ought not to have said it.
"Good-evenin', all!" Mrs. Sharpe was panting, as if she had hurried. "I thought I'd make a run-in: I calc'lated I should find you here, Almeria 'n' Egeria. I want to know if you've heard——" her voice failed her, and she sat down, fanning herself with the "cloud" she had pulled off her head. "I hastened too much," she panted. "I got to get my breath!"
"I don't know as anybody's in a hurry, Mis' Sharpe!" Mr. Mallow's tone was less cordial than usual. He did not like Mrs. Sharpe, or her "run-ins." He didn't see, he had confided to Miss Egeria, why a person should have no privation just because he thought fit to keep a hotel. "It isn't as if she was a guest," he said, "paying or invited."
The rest of the company regarded the newcomers with mingled disfavor and curiosity.
"What is it, Cissy?" Mrs. Wibird asked, the latter sentiment overcoming the former.
"Why," began Cissy, nothing loth; "Miss Johanna——"
"Now you hush up, Cissy!" said her mother, sharply. "You told over to Jebuses, and I'm going to tell here. Johanna Ross has come home!" she announced, with an air of dramatic triumph. "She came this afternoon. I saw her with these eyes." She indicated a pair—well, perhaps not exactly a pair—of yellowish eyes, decidedly too near together for beauty.
"We are aware of that!" replied Mr. Mallow majestically. Sitting with his needle poised in air, his knees rather wide apart, to support the big basket firmly and prevent further "cat's trophy," he looked like a mild and rosy Rhadamanthus about to give judgment.
"Oh, you are! Some one got ahead of me!"
Mrs. Sharpe darted a suspicious glance round the friendly circle.
"Well, do you know what she is up to? That—thatstay-away—her that Cyrus isn't good enough for, that wouldn't attend her own brother's funeral because she was too stuck-up—do you know what has come to her in judgment? She has come back to Cyrus because she wasobligedto! she has come back to saddle herself on her brother's child, that she has neglected ever since she was born; she hastaken to her bed, and there she is to remain. Yes, Mr. Mallow! yes, girls! Mr. Jordano, you can put it in the paper, if you're a mind to. Miss Johanna Ross, the fine New York lady who shook the dust of Cyrus off her feet, is abedridden invalid!"
She gazed around with eager triumph, drinking in the looks of dismay like wine.
"A bedridden invalid!" she repeated. "What do you think of that?"
"Who told you this?" asked Marshall Mallow abruptly.
"A—precisely!" chimed in Mr. Jordano, in whom incredulity and good feeling were wrestling with the journalistic instinct. "What ground, so to speak, is there for this hypothesis-sis-sis?"
"Mother heard her say so!" Cissy hastened to put in. "Now, Mother, you might let me say a word! She heard the telephone, and——"
"I thought 'twas our ring!" cried Mrs. Sharpe. "I took up the receiver, and astrange voicewas speakin'. I knew 'twas no one in Cyrus: I thought mebbe somethin' was wrong and I ought to notify the marshal. And these words I heard: 'No, Madam Flynt, I'm sorry, but I can't come, because I am taking to my bed, there to remain.' And Madam Flynt said, 'Oh, Johanna!'Then I knew!"
Again, Mrs. Sharpe swept the circle with eager eyes. She had made the sensation of her life and was greedy of its sweets. But before any one could respond a rustle of skirts arose outside, a hubbub of voices, and in came The Boarders.
Some of the Boarders were ready enough to sup "outside" on Wednesday evening. Mrs. Scatter and her sister Miss Pringle went regularly to Judge Peters's, and looked forward, and back, to it all the week through. Not that the Judge's Mary was a"patch" upon Mr. Mallow's Rosanna, but it made a change, and there was always a sense of distinction in supping with "my cousin, the Judge." In the same way, the Misses Caddie (Miss Pearl in the Bank, Miss Ruby in the Telegraph Office) were glad and proud of their weekly evening with Madam Flynt. But it was hard on those who had no life-long ties with Cyrus. Mr. and Mrs. Bagley (he traveled in oil—mystic phrase—she worked in hair, and "chiropodded," as Mr. Mallow put it) had only been there a matter of ten years, and they had no resource but the Dew Drop Inn, a very inferior little hostelry down by the station. It was harder still on the "transients." A tired bond salesman, let us say, just in from a long journey, and looking forward to one of the famous Mallow House suppers, was not pleased, after giving up his bag and taking his key, to be told, "No supper to-night, sir!" He might protest, in angry bewilderment, asking if this called itself a hotel, etc., etc. It made no difference: Billy had the one reply, "Wednesday: no supper, sir!" If the angry guest still protested, Mr. Mallow would come out of the office, smiling and urbane. Very sorry, but it was a Rule of the House. The Help, you see, their evening out; they had to be considered, times like these. Dew Drop Inn wasn't but a step; Billy would go down with him and bespeak a good supper.
"We'll make it up to you at breakfast!" the guest was cheerfully assured, as Mr. Mallow bowed him toward the door, and this assurance was amply fulfilled. Now and then a traveler called for his bagand went in a huff to spend the night at the Dew Drop Inn; but he never did it twice.
Now, as I said, the Boarders were back, and rustling in with a pleasant sense of home-coming. There were two or three salesmen to-night, old customers, who knew and accepted the Mallow House ways; they were not Cyrus people, however, and it would have been highly improper to continue the conversation recently begun. Even the Sharpes realized this.
"Come on, Mother!" whispered Cissy, pulling her mother's shawl. "You won't get another word in to-night! They are just as glad, too, I can see that."
Mother and daughter departed, and the others followed, after a suitable interchange of greetings with the newcomers. Wilson Wibird had come upstairs with the Sharpes, and had been hanging about the doorway, half curious, half sullen. He had been annoying Billy all the evening in the office, and had finally been dismissed by that apostle of silence, with "Go 'long! work to do!" He resented having to escort his mother and sister home, but there was no choice, with Mr. Mallow's eye upon him.
"Here's Wilson, all ready!" said the kindly potentate. "Wilse, you'll find a basket in the back entry that Rosanny packed for your Ma. Take it along, but be sure to bring it back in the morning; Rosanny wants it. Good-night, Marshy; good-night, Lissy! Sleep tighty, flea bitey!"
Mr. Jordano, as was his custom, offered his escort to the Misses Bygood, and they walked off togetherin the fashion of other days, the gentleman giving an arm to each.
"A highly agreeable occasion!" he said. "Friend Mallow is the ideal host-tost-tost."
"He is indeed!" said Miss Egeria, "and it is so remarkable, Mr. Jordano, for a lone man, so to speak, to be such an excellent housekeeper. I am told that the Mallow House is known far and wide as an ideal hostelry. It is very gratifying to know that Cyrus institutions (for the Mallow House is surely an institution) rank so high throughout the State."
"Bello hotello! bello hotello," assented Mr. Jordano warmly. "House and host are well matched, well matched. May I ask, Miss Bygood, if you attach any—serious—a—importance to Mrs. Sharpe's—shall I say singular statement?"
Miss Almeria pondered. "It is hard to say!" she pronounced finally. "The method by which the information was obtained—but we will not speak of that!" she closed her eyes for a moment, as if to shut out an unlovely vision. "Miss Rossispeculiar: there is no gainsaying that. She has always gone her own way, with no guidance—that I am aware of—beyond her own wishes. But she is a woman of character and education, and I cannot for a moment believe that matters are as—as we have heard them represented. Doubtless we shall know all in good time. Meanwhile—may I ask if you were contemplating the possibility of altering or adding to your item, Mr. Jordano?"
Mr. Jordano fluttered perceptibly.
"Not if it would appear in any way unsuitable to a lady—to ladies"—with a little bow to Miss Egeria, "whose exquisite refinement of taste is equal to their—ahem! shall I say, other characteristics? Not for worlds, Miss Bygood, if you advise against it. At the same time, if—if the information is to be—a—generally disseminated, it might—the official organ—it might be expected by the people—il Publico, you understand-tand-tand—I will do whatever you advise, Miss Bygood!" the poor gentleman concluded.
It was heroic, though none of the three fully realized it. To relinquish such a "story," leave it to unofficial babblers and—Mr. Jordano feared—spiteful gossips, when it might be set down with gravity and ornamented with flowers of speech—yes, it was heroic. The two ladies thought it very nice of Mr. Jordano; but they thought no more than that, and Miss Almeria gave thecoup de gracewith unfaltering hand.
"It will be best, I am convinced," she said, "to leave the item as it stood before Mrs. Sharpe's entrance. I will say, her unseemly entrance. Your own instinctive delicacy is so well known, Mr. Jordano——"
"Oh! grazier! grazier!" murmured Mr. Jordano, trying to bow gracefully, a difficult thing with a lady on either arm—"too much, Miss Almeria!"
"So well known," Miss Almeria repeated, with a gracious bend of her own stately head, "that all Cyrus will appreciate your motive for abstaining from comment upon what we have heard. If it proves true, we shall know it soon enough; if false——" Miss Almeria'sgesture was eloquent as well as dignified.
"If false," cried Mr. Jordano,—they were now at Mr. Bygood's door, and the ladies withdrew their arms, enabling him to fling his cloak over his left shoulder with a noble gesture—"if false, it has no place in the columns of theCyrus Centinel."
CHAPTER VIIIthe trivial round
These things and many more happened in the winter; in February, to be exact. A month later, when I came to make my annual visit in beloved Cyrus, things had "simpered down," as Mr. Mallow said. The excitement of Kitty's arrival, followed by the nine days' wonder of Miss Johanna Ross's return, were—not forgotten, no indeed! but laid away in spiritual camphor, as it were, to be aired and shaken out from time to time.
"My dear," said Madam Flynt (one's first visit was always to Madam Flynt, one's second to the Misses Bygood: it was a Propriety of Cyrus!)—"it is not only that we could not get along without Kitty: we have forgotten that we ever did get along without her. She drives too fast; I go in fear of my life when we turn a corner; but except for that, it is an ideal arrangement."
"The dear Doctor always drove fast!" Miss Croly looked up pensively from her knitting. "I suppose Kitty learned it naturally from him."
"I suppose she did; but the dear Doctor never broke my neck, Cornelia Croly."
"Kitty has not broken it, Clarissa, has she?"
"Not yet, and I don't mean she shall. Where are you going, Cornelia?"
"To get your milk-posset!" Miss Croly was rolling up her knitting methodically. "It is four o'clock."
"I don't want milk-posset: get me some orange-juice!"
"The Doctor recommended milk-posset!" Miss Croly's tone was mild, but firm. "I will try to make it palatable, Clarissa."
"I tell you I won't have it! Whose house is this, I should like to know?"
"Yours, assuredly, Clarissa. I can leave it at any moment you desire, but while here I must do my duty as I see it."
"What a pretty scarf, Miss Croly!" I said hastily. How natural to be a buffer again! "Is it for a baby?"
Madam Flynt uttered something between a snort and a chuckle.
"Baby, indeed! I don't wonder you ask, my dear. Tell her what it's for, Cornelia Croly!"
"For the deep-sea fishermen, my love!" Miss Croly glowed softly. "Most people send them gray mufflers, you know, but I feel as if a little variety, a touch of color, in their dangerous lives, would be desirable. The ocean! so grand, but so fraught with peril!"
"In a storm, you understand," Madam Flynt actually snorted this time; "a pink, blue and yellow muffler would be more comforting than a gray one. Of course! Any one can see that!"
"You are pleased to be facetious, my dear Clarissa;" Miss Croly paused, her hand on the door;"but I conceive that in case of disaster, the attention of a—of a bark of rescue would be more readily attracted by the waving of a bright object than of a dull one!"
She slipped out quickly and shut the door quietly upon the last word. Madam Flynt looked after her with an air of exasperation.
"The most provoking woman—I have half a mind to call her back! What were you saying, my dear?"
I was saying as quickly as I could how very well Madam Flynt was looking. I hoped the rheumatism was fairly routed this time. The dear lady's brow cleared at once.
"Much better! I am bound to say that it is much better than I ever expected it to be. Cornelia Croly, who has really more sense than you would give her credit for"—she cast another exasperated glance at the door—"says that I seem ten years younger, and I certainly do move much more freely than I have for years. It is partly the driving: Kitty is a delightful companion, you know, and she keeps me out a good part of the afternoon, instead of skimping the last ten minutes of the hour, as Flanagan did—old wretch! His carriage was uncomfortable, too, and as for his horses! Every day he would ask regularly whether I would have 'the plain hoss or the double-speeder:' the double-speeder went about four miles an hour; as for the other—well, he's dead, and Flanagan, too, so no matter. John Tucker's horses, and the cee springs, and Kitty and all, makes driving a very different matter, I can tell you. But besides that, my dear, I verilybelieve"—Madam Flynt nodded this time, till her green cap ribbons quivered—"I verily believe Johanna has something to do with it!"
"Johanna?"
Well, I had only arrived the day before, and Kitty was out when I flew into Ross House on my way to Madam Flynt's: going to Kitty's did not count as a visit, of course!
"You don't mean you haven't heard? My dear!" Madam Flynt's handsome hands were trembling with eagerness, her lips began to shape the words before she could find voice to utter them. "You don't mean you haven't heard?" she repeated. Madam Flynt was no gossip, but she loved to talk, and going out so little, she had fewer opportunities than the Gadderenes, as Dr. Ross used to call some of his neighbors. One's first visit was made to her, as I have said: but ten to one Cissy Sharpe or her mother had waylaid one on the way from the station, with "Oh, howdy do! quite a stranger! Have you heard"—and before getting free one had heard.
"Johanna Ross—Kitty's aunt, the Doctor's only sister; very likely you never heard of her, my dear, just visiting as you do"—(Oh, Madam Flynt! as if I were not Cyrus born and bred, and exiled through no fault of mine!)—"but—well, anyhow, she has come home aftertwenty yearsof absence; and what is more she hastaken to her bed, and there she is!"
Madam Flynt drew herself up and nodded gravely: the green satin cap ribbons following suit.
"Is she seriously ill?" I asked, wondering.
"My dear! shesaysthere is nothing whatever the matter with her except fatigue. I can understand that!" she nodded again. "Perfectly. One doesn't always care to discuss chronic or deep-seated troubles. Sometimes when people say 'rheumatism' to me, I want to throw the fire-irons at them. I don't mean you, my dear; perfectly natural and right for you to ask; I should have been hurt if you hadn't. Well! there Johanna is, as I said. I go over to see her once a week—walk over, with the step of youth, Cornelia Croly says, and there I find her in her bed, looking as permanent as the Pyramids."
At this moment Miss Croly came in softly with the milk-posset. Madam Flynt took it with an absent-minded, "Thanks, Cornelia!" drank it off, then paused with a look of discomfiture.
"I told you I wouldn't take it!" she said sharply.
"Your natural good sense"—murmured Miss Croly with a glance at the empty cup—"the Doctor recommended——"
"Hang the Doctor! and you, too!" exclaimed Madam Flynt. "You—you—you—go away, Cornelia Croly! go and"—Miss Croly was already at the door, aggressive meekness in every line of face and figure—"and bring me my smelling-salts, if you will have the goodness!"
The last words were spoken with austere dignity: but, the door once closed, Madam Flynt's sense of humor was too much for her. Her lips began to twitch, her eyes to twinkle even under the bent browsof anger. She struggled for a moment, then burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
"The old fox!" she cried. "She gets the better of me every time! every time, Mary! She's chuckling to herself now, but she'll come in as sober as—thank you, Cornelia! I hope you haven't over-exerted yourself!" as Miss Croly, still aggressively meek, retired to a corner with her rainbow scarf. Dear me! yes, she always sat in that uncomfortable chair when they had had a tiff.
"What was I saying, my dear?" Madam Flynt rubbed her nose with her silver spectacle-case, and threw a vexed glance toward the corner.
"Oh, yes, Johanna! like the Pyramids, my dear, I assure you! I don't mean in looks" (I had a moment's vision of Cheops with a nightcap tilted over his apex) "she looks like a picture—but in permanence. Sits up morning and evening to have her bed made: and, as Cornelia Croly says, in some mysterious way it makes me feel younger just to look at her. Cornelia, stop being ridiculous, and come out of that corner. I didn't really swear at you, though you are enough to make one."
Seeing reconciliation imminent, I slipped away, to find my Kitty in the stable. My Kitty! I was just as foolish about her as any one else. I had not seen her since all the happenings, but by and by we were quiet and comfortable, and combing out Pilot's beautiful mane, as if we had never been away, either of us. Kitty confided to me that she was awaiting John Tucker's return in trepidation, not to say terror. Shehad bought a new horse, bought it all by herself, without John Tucker's seeing it. That is, not actually bought it, but taken it on trial.
"How could I? Mary, I don't know! We had decided that we must have a third horse. The business is growing so, my dear! Mr. Chanter's horse is lame, and I have to take the dear man on his out-of-town calls.Suchfun! well, this morning—oh! oh! Mary! here is John Tucker. Now I must confess to him. Stay by me, won't you?"
Dan and John Tucker came into the stable, a sturdy, handsome pair. I was warmly greeted (I, too, had been Don Tutter's Dal when time was) and allowed to lead Dan into his stall. I hurried to the harness room in time to hear Kitty's confession, she standing like a schoolgirl with her hands behind her, John Tucker in that state of glowing pride in her that he could hardly take in the situation.
"John Tucker, dear, I have bought a horse!"
"You have, Miss Kitty? Youhave? Well, to be sure! the spirit of you! I'll bet he's a good one."
"He's a miracle, John! A beautiful bright bay, with a star on his forehead, and four white stockings; you know I never could abide odd stockings."
"No, Miss! To be sure not. Where did you get him, if I may make so bold, Miss Kitty?"
"Don't talk about making bold, John Tucker. It's I who have been making bold. I am scared out of my wits, you know I am, but heissuch a beauty! Let's sit down, John Tucker dear, and I'll tell you all about it."
Perched sidewise on the arm of a chair, her hands clasped on her knee, her chin tilted up, Kitty was so enchanting an object that I could not wonder at John Tucker's fatuous expression. Probably if she had told him of the purchase of a giraffe or an elephant, he would have looked no less fatuous. As it was——
"You see, John," Kitty began slowly, taking out a hatpin and jabbing it into the arm of the chair to punctuate her remarks, "I took Mr. Chanter to see a poor old Thing who is sick, and in trouble besides; sad trouble, I'm afraid. Her son hasn't been doing well lately; but—well—he is a good son to her, only he has been unfortunate. He deals in horses——"
John Tucker looked up. "What was the name, did you say, Miss?"
"I didn't say, John Tucker dear, but the name is Boody; Mrs. L. M. Boody. Her son is L. M., too. I don't know——"
"Ellum Boody: Slippery Ellum!" murmured John Tucker. "Scuse me, Miss Kitty. Luke his name is, but he's known like I say. Scuse me, Miss Kitty!"
"Oh, Ihopehe isn't slippery, John Tucker, dear. Let me tell you! I was sitting out in Mr. Chanter's buggy, when he—Boody, I mean—drove into the yard with this horse. His name is Hero, John; good name, don't you think? I was taken with him at once; such a beautiful color, and holds his head so well! The man touched his hat, and was very civil; I said how handsome the horse was, and he wasmostenthusiastic. Said he had never had such a fine horse in his stable, and he wouldn't part with him for a goldmine if things weren't just as they were. So I asked was he thinking of selling him, because you know we decided wehadto have one, John; and he said yes, if the right party could be found. 'For sell that hoss to the wrong party is what I couldn't do, not if he was the Angel Gable!' he said. Then I asked about him, you know; six years old, sound and kind, a lady's horse every inch of him, Boody said, and wouldn't I like to take a turn behind him while I waited. So I did, and he is agoodroadster, John; eight or ten miles an hour, I should think; Boody says twelve, but I'm not sure——" I glanced at John Tucker and saw that he was not sure. "Good action! lifts his feet alittlehigh, but Boody says that is his spirit; and as to his disposition, John, justthinkwhat he did one day! Some women hired him, Boody says, and put him in their own wagon, andforgot to fasten the breeching. They drove him seven miles over that rough road by Gambrel Hill, all ups and downs, you know, and henever did a thing! What do you think of that, John Tucker?"
"Sounds as if he might be some hoss!" said John Tucker cautiously. "You've took him on trial, you say, Miss Kitty?"
"Yes, John, a week. I thought in that time—why, here he is now, this very minute!"
A man was driving into the yard in a light trotting sulky. We all hastened out into the yard.
"Youwerequick, Mr. Boody!" cried Kitty. "This is Mr. Boody, John Tucker, and this is Hero: isn't he a beauty?"
"Mornin', Slip!"
"Mornin', Tucker!"
Both men spoke gravely. Seeing that they knew each other, Kitty exchanged a glance with me, and we slipped back a pace. Followed remarks on the weather. It was seasonable, take it by and large, but dry. What we wanted was a nice warm rain. That was right; dry May made poor hay, no two ways to that. John Tucker, still grave, inquired for the health of Mr. Boody's Ma; he trusted she was smart these days. It appeared that she was slim, Mr. Boody was obliged to John Tucker for askin'. Her victuals didn't nourish her: any one gettin' on in years, they had to be nourished, you understand. John Tucker expected that was right, too. Upon this, both men pondered; John Tucker scrutinizing a wart on his left knuckle, Mr. Boody whistling through his teeth and looking up at the clouds. Presently:
"Got a new hoss, I see!" said John Tucker.
"Yep!" Mr. Boody's gaze came down with alacrity. "The lady thought she'd like to try him. Best hoss ever I had in my stable, bar none. Pequot out of Lady Lansing: sound and kind anywhere; lady's hoss every inch of him. Rising six, and not an out about him. You get that hoss and you'll get——"
Boody paused abruptly. John Tucker had lifted one of the bay's hind feet, and was examining it carefully. Presently he straightened himself and looked at Boody.
"I was to Rochester Fair last fall!" he said.
"You was?" A curious change came over Mr.Boody's countenance. It seemed to flatten itself in a singular way, while his mouth widened into an uneasy grin. "Pooty good show, wasn't it?" he said.
"Pooty fair! good truck, and middlin' stock. The most re-markable thing I see at that fair"—John Tucker spoke slowly, and there was a certain metallic quality in his voice that made Kitty look at him quickly—"the most re-markable was a young hoss; bright bay, as it might be this hoss: same color, same markin's; he was a pictur' to look at, he sure was. Well, sir, I see that hoss take and kick the wagon he was hitched to into pieces that the biggest of 'em wouldn't sell to a match factory. I was surprised!"
There was a silence. Then L. M. Boody spoke, a hint of bluster in his voice.
"Wal!" he said. "A kicker is a poor hoss, sure enough; but all kickers ain't bay, nor all bays ain't kickers. I brung this hoss for the lady to try, like she said for me to. Where shall I leave him? Is she boss here, or are you?"
His speech was insolent, his look craven. John Tucker stepped forward, his sixty years resting very lightly on him. His meditative drawl gave place to quick, ringing speech.
"Miss Ross is boss here," he said, "and that hoss shall go anywhere she tells me to put him. Before she gives her orders, she's going to hear what I have to say—if you have the time to spare, Miss—Miss Ross!" He turned to Kitty with a bow and gesture that would not have shamed a court. Kitty's cheeks were flushing and her eyes widening and darkening.One knew precisely what the Chanters meant by saying that her eyes were sometimes a mile round.
"If you please, John!" she said quietly.
Then John Tucker, standing very straight, thus delivered himself.
"Miss Kitty, I'm a common man, and I may be mistook; but if I know anything—anythingat all, let alone hosses—this young hoss is that identical young hoss that I see kick that shay to slivers over to Rochester. How do I know? Well, his color is the same, his markin's is the same, his shape and his action is the same. But that ain't all! That young hoss over to Rochester, he was a pictur' fer looks, same as this one; but yet when I looked in his countenance, I felt someways or another as if I couldn't say nothin' favorable about him. Don't know how 'tis, but that feelin' 'll come over me, 'bout a hoss or 'bout a bein', 'cordin' to; and when it comes,I know it's right. Now that same feelin' has come over me about this young hoss. And why?" John Tucker's voice rose. "Because he is the same hoss! But that ain't all!" as Mr. Boody was about to speak. "You might say one bust don't set a hoss down a kicker. That is so, but I say this ain't a case of one bust; I say this hoss has been kickin' within twenty-four hours."
"Like to see you prove it!" said Boody. "Easy there, Hero! He knows you're slanderin' him. You can't fool this hoss. You'll get into trouble, John Tucker. I'll have the law of you if——"
The horse had laid back his ears, and was settling back in a curious way.
"Look out!" said John Tucker sharply.
Boody, with a muttered curse and a savage look, laid his whip heavily over the horse's withers. The animal hesitated a moment, then sprang forward; another moment, and they had vanished round the corner in a cloud of dust.
John Tucker turned to Kitty with an apologetic air.
"I'm sorry, Miss Kitty!" he said. "I'm real sorry. I would of if I could——"
"Oh, John Tucker, don't!" Kitty was scarlet, her eyes flashing, her hands clenched. "Thehorridman! Oh, I am so grateful to you, John! But howdidyou know?"
"Well, Miss Kitty, you see, 'twas easy enough, look at it one way. I'd seed the hoss before, seed him at his tricks, too. Yes'm: I'd seed him before, and—" a joke began to twinkle in John Tucker's eyes, and spread all over him till he became incandescent; you could have lighted a match at him; "and now I've seed him behind! haw! haw! You see me lift up his off hind foot? Well, why did I do that? Because when he shifted his footin' I see a spark of yeller. Come to look, and lo ye, his hoof was kind o' crushed in above the shoe, where he'd struck iron, and there was a flake of yellow paint on it big as my thumb nail."
"And he knew that!" Kitty was pale now, not with fear but with anger. "The scoundrel!"
"Well!" John Tucker pulled out his jack-knife and made a thoughtful incision in the door-jamb. "I dono as I'd just say that; I dono as he's a scoundrel; he's a trader! I've heard it said,—I dono as it's so, and Idonoasit is—but I've heard it said that there ain't no one, not even a minister of the Gospel, a holy man, but what he'll stretch the truth just a little grain in a hoss trade."
John Tucker closed his jack-knife with a snap. "Forget it, Miss Kitty!" he said, and his tone expressed finality. "You won't have no more trouble with Slippery Ellum. He thought he'd try it on, that's all, to keep his hand in, like; tradin' is like drink to him. Hark! there's that hen again!"
"What hen, John?"
John Tucker chuckled and made a gesture of caution.
"Now I'll show ye something curious, gals. I would say young ladies. You hear that hen cackle? Well, it's that little Brown Leghorn. She's made her nest in Dan's manger, and she won't lay nowhere else, not if the President was to ask her. Easy now! Don't let Dan see you!"
Cautiously, we followed him into the stable, flattening ourselves against the wall so that we could not be seen from the loose boxes; very cautiously we peeped round the window opening. Dan, wisest of horses since old Victory died, was standing in the middle of the box, every fibre of him alert, his eyes fixed on a corner of the manger. In this corner sat a Brown Leghorn hen, proclaiming to the world that she had laid an egg. Having made this perfectly clear, she rose slowly from her nest, clucked, cocked an approving eye at the egg, clapped her wings, said, "Scraw!" several times, finally hopped down to thebarn floor and departed, presumably in search of corn. In a flash, Dan's velvet nose was in the nest. Carefully he lipped the egg, daintily he took it in his teeth; a crack, a gulp; luncheon was over, and Dan looked up as we advanced, with eyes of innocent welcome.
"Why, Dan!" cried Kitty. "You old fox! Do you mean that he does this regularly, John?"
"Reg'lar every day since she begun to lay. I'd ought to stop him, but honest, he's so cute, and so quick, I'd need to spend the mornin' watchin'!"
"Sugar, please!" said Dan. "I am very hungry!"
"You really ought to be ashamed, Dan." Kitty was searching in her pocket. "You are extremely greedy, beloved. You shall have only one lump, and Pilot shall have two, because he has had no egg. Oh, me! there is the supper bell. We must run, Mary!"
Sarepta, at the kitchen door, bell in hand, addressed us with severity.
"Supper's ready, girls. Come in just as you are, Kitty, or the waffles will be leathery. Hasten, now!"
"Mary," said Kitty, as we scurried across the yard, "do you suppose I shall ever be more than ten years old, in blessed Cyrus?"
CHAPTER IXthe skeleton in cyrus' cupboard
Perhaps no one was enjoying Kitty and her horses more at this time than the Reverend Timothy Chanter. When he came to Cyrus, to replace the Reverend Holdfast Baxter, deceased after a pastorate of forty-seven years, he took over the parsonage as it stood, and with it Gudgeon the sexton, Felicity the cat and Podasokus the horse. The age of Podasokus might be anywhere from twenty to forty years. The children, who had known him all their lives, supposed him to be a hundred. He was a singular, moth-eaten old creature, seeming to slope all ways at once; I don't know how else to describe him. He could trot rather fast when he wished, but this was seldom; he preferred to jog or single-foot at a rate of three miles an hour. This had suited Mr. Baxter well enough, for he composed his sermons while driving; as for his parish calls, if he could not compass them, he was all the better pleased. But Mr. Chanter, deep in his heart, had an inborn love of good horses and fast driving. It was part of his simple creed to deny himself anything he specially liked; it was an affair between himself and his Maker—or so he thought. The neck of the fowl was alwayshis portion, till Mrs. Chanter took the carving into her own hands; he found the fireside too hot in winter, the shady corner too cool in summer. Much of his wife's time was devoted to circumventing "Pelican Pa," as he was disrespectfully called in the bosom of the family. Acting on this principle, Mr. Chanter had never thought of exchanging Podasokus for a better animal. He was there. If one could "live well in a palace," one could also drive a slow horse. So, when he was in a hurry, he walked, or borrowed the boys' bicycle. When he had plenty of time, he drove Podasokus.
When Podasokus felt that he must have a nap in the middle of the high road, Mr. Chanter hauled the wagon to the hedge, and read the works of the late R. J. Ingersoll, which he particularly disliked, till the steed woke up again and jogged along.
These things being so, Mr. Chanter found it hard to grieve deeply when "Pod" went lame, and he must call upon Kitty Ross for his longer expeditions. The parish was a straggling one; Cyrus itself is compact as a pie, but South, East and West Cyrus stretch far over hill and dale. What more delightful than to drive to South Cyrus behind Dan or Pilot, with Kitty holding the reins? Kitty was the perfect companion, Mr. Chanter said. She talked just enough and not too much; and she always seemed to know when one was inclined to meditate or—a—"or sleep!" assented Mrs. Chanter, who had "put Kitty wise" on certain points. "Exactly!"
On a pleasant April morning the two were thusdriving along the South Cyrus road. Pilot was in the shafts, and in high spirits. The day before had been rainy, and he had not been out; now he sped along the sun-dappled road as if every stride were a pleasure; now and then breaking into a canter of rejoicing, to be checked by Kitty with affectionate firmness. When they had climbed and dipped the intervening hills and the plain stretched before them like a floor, Mr. Chanter leaned back in his seat and rubbed his hands.
"This is delightful!" he said. "This is de-lightful, Kitty! ha! the poetry of motion.