XIIHer Gift to the World
“I regret, my dear madam,” said Lawyer Bradford, twisting uneasily in his chair, “that I can offer you no encouragement whatsoever. The will is clear and explicit in every detail, and there are no grounds for a contest. I am, perhaps, trespassing upon the wishes of my client in giving you this information, but if you are remaining here with the hope of pecuniary profit, you are remaining here unnecessarily.”
He rose as though to indicate that the interview was at an end, but Mrs. Holmes was not to be put away in that fashion. Her eyes were blazing and her weak chin trembled with anger.
“Do you mean to tell me,” she demanded, “that Ebeneezer voluntarily died without making some sort of provision for me and my helpless little children?”
“Your distinguished relation,” answered Mr. Bradford, slowly, “certainly died voluntarily. He announced the date of his death some weeks before it actually occurred, and superintended the making of his own coffin. He wrote out minute directions for his obsequies, had his grave dug, and his shroud made, burned his papers, rearranged his books, made his will—and was found dead in his bed on the morning of the day set for his departure. A methodical person,” muttered the old man, half to himself; “a most methodical and systematic person.”
Mrs. Holmes shuddered. She was not ordinarily a superstitious woman, but there was something uncanny in this open partnership with Death.
“There was a diamond pin,” she suggested, moodily, “worth, I should think, some fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars. Ebeneezer gave it to dear Rebecca on their wedding day, and she always said it was to be mine. Have you any idea where it is?”
Mr. Bradford fidgeted. “If it was intended for you,” he said, finally, “it will be given to you at the proper time, or you will bedirected to its location. Mrs. Judson died, did she not, about three weeks after their marriage?”
“Yes,” snapped Mrs. Holmes, readily perceiving the line of his thought, “and I saw her twice in those three weeks. Both times she spoke of the pin, which she wore constantly, and said that if anything happened to her, she wanted me to have it, but that old miser hung on to it.”
“Madam,” said Mr. Bradford, a faint flush mounting to his temples as he opened the office door, “you are speaking of my Colonel, under whom I served in the war. He was my best friend, and though he is dead, it is still my privilege to protect him. I bid you good afternoon!”
She did not perceive until long afterward that she had practically been ejected from the legal presence. Even then, she was so intent upon the point at issue that she was not offended, as at another time she certainly would have been.
“He’s lying,” she said to herself, “they’re all lying. There’s money hidden in that house, and I know it, and what’s more, I’m going to have it!”
She had searched her own rooms on the night of her arrival, but found nothing, and the attic, so far, had yielded her naught save discouragement and dust. “To think,” she continued, mentally, “that after two of my children were born here and named for them, that we are left in this way! I call it a shame, a disgrace, an outrage!”
Her anger swiftly cooled, however, as she went into the house, and her fond sight rested upon her darlings. Willie had a ball and had already broken two of the front windows. The small Rebecca was under the sofa, tempering the pleasure of life for Claudius Tiberius, while young Ebeneezer, having found a knife somewhere, was diligently scratching the melodeon.
“Just look,” said Mrs. Holmes, in delighted awe, as Dorothy entered the room. “Don’t make any noise, or you will disturb Ebbie. He is such a sensitive child that the sound of a strange voice will upset him. Did you ever see anything like those figures he is drawing on the melodeon? I believe he’s going to be an artist!”
Crushed as she was in spirit by her uncongenial surroundings, Dorothy still had enoughtemper left to be furiously angry. In these latter days, however, she had gained largely in self-control, and now only bit her lips without answering.
But Mrs. Holmes would not have heard her, even if she had replied. A sudden yowl from the distressed Claudius impelled Dorothy to move the sofa and rescue him.
“How cruel you are!” commented Mrs. Holmes. “The idea of taking Rebbie’s plaything away from her! Give it back this instant!”
Mrs. Carr put the cat out and returned with a defiant expression on her face, which roused Mrs. Holmes to action. “Willie,” she commanded, “go out and get the kitty for your little sister. There, there, Rebbie, darling, don’t cry any more! Brother has gone to get the kitty. Don’t cry!”
But “brother” had not gone. “Chase it yourself,” he remarked, coolly. “I’m going out to the barn.”
“Dear Willie’s individuality is developing every day,” Mrs. Holmes went on, smoothly. “There, there, Rebbie, don’t cry any more. Go and tell Mrs. Smithers to give you a big piece of bread with lots of butter and jam onit. Tell her mamma said so. Run along, that’s a nice little girl.”
Rude squares, triangles, and circles appeared as by magic on the shining surface of the melodeon, the young artist being not at all disturbed by the confusion about him.
“I am blessed in my children,” Mrs. Holmes went on, happily. “I often wonder what I have done that I should have so perfect a boy as Willie for my very own. Everybody admires him so that I dwell in constant fear of kidnappers.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” said Dorothy, with ill-concealed sarcasm. “Anybody who took him would bring him back inside of two hours.”
“I try to think so,” returned the mother, with a deep sigh. “Willie’s indomitable will is my deepest comfort. He gets it from my side of the family. None of the children take after their father at all. Ebbie was a little like his father’s folks at first, but I soon got it out of him and made him altogether like my people. I do not think anybody could keep Willie away from me except by superior physical force. He absolutely adoreshis mother, as my other children do. You never saw such beautiful sentiment as they have. The other day, now, when I went away and left Rebbie alone in my apartment, she took down my best hat and put it on. The poor little thing wanted to be near her mother. Is it not touching?”
“It is indeed,” Dorothy assented, dryly.
“My children have never been punished,” continued Mrs. Holmes, now auspiciously launched upon her favourite theme. “It has never been necessary. I rule them entirely through love, and they are so accustomed to my methods that they bitterly resent any interference by outsiders. Why, just before we came here, Ebbie, young as he is, put out the left eye of a woman who tried to take his dog away from him. He did it with his little fist and with apparently no effort at all. Is it not wonderful to see such strength and power of direction in one so young? The woman was in the hospital when we came away, and I trust by this time, she has learned not to interfere with Ebbie. No one is allowed to interfere with my children.”
“Apparently not,” remarked Mrs. Carr, somewhat cynically.
“It is beautiful to be a mother—the most beautiful thing on earth! Just think how much I have done for the world!” Her sallow face glowed with the conscious virtue bestowed by one of the animal functions upon those who have performed it.
“In what way?” queried Mrs. Carr, wholly missing the point.
“Why, in raising Willie and Ebbie and Rebbie! No public service can for a moment be compared with that! All other things sink into insignificance beside the glorious gift of maternity. Look at Willie—a form that a sculptor might dream of for a lifetime and never hope to imitate—a head that already has inspired great artists! The gentleman who took Willie’s last tintype said that he had never seen such perfect lines, and insisted on taking several for fear something should happen to Willie. He wanted to keep some of them for himself—it was pathetic, the way he pleaded, but I made him sell me all of them. Willie is mine and I have the first right to his tintypes. And a lady once painted Willie at his play in black and white and sent it to one of the popular weeklies. I have no doubt they gave her a fortune for it, but it neveroccurred to her to give us anything more than one copy of the paper.”
“Which paper was it?”
“One of the so-called comic weeklies. You know they publish superb artistic things. I think they are doing a wonderful work in educating the masses to a true appreciation of art. One of the wonderful parts of it was that Willie knew all about it and was not in the least conceited. Any other child would have been set up at being a model for a great artist, but Willie was not affected at all. He has so much character!”
At this point the small Rebecca entered, dragging her doll by one arm, and munching a thick slice of bread, thinly coated with molasses.
“I distinctly said jam,” remarked Mrs. Holmes. “Servants are so heedless. I do not know that molasses is good for Rebbie. What would you think, Mrs. Carr?”
“I don’t think it will hurt her if she doesn’t get too much of it.”
“There’s no danger of her getting too much of it. Mrs. Smithers is too stingy for that. Why, only yesterday, Willie told me that she refused to let him dip his dry breadin the cream, and gave him a cup of plain milk instead. Willie knows when his system needs cream and I want him to have all the nourishment he can get. The idea that she should think she knew more about it than Willie! She was properly punished for it, however. I myself saw Willie throw a stick of stove wood at her and hit her foolish head with it. I think Willie is going to be a soldier, a commander of an army. He has so much executive ability and never misses what he aims at.
“Rebbie, don’t chew on that side, darling; remember your loose tooth is there. Mamma doesn’t want it to come out.”
“Why?” asked Dorothy, with a gleam of interest.
“Because I can’t bear to have her little baby teeth come out and make her grow up! I want to keep her just as she is. I have all my children’s teeth, and some day I am going to have them set into a beautiful bracelet. Look at that! How generous and unselfish of Rebbie! She is trying to share her bread with her doll. I believe Rebbie is going to be a philanthropist, or a college-settlement worker. See, she is trying to give the dollthe molasses—the very best part of it. Did you ever see such a beautiful spirit in one so young?”
Before Mrs. Carr could answer, young Ebeneezer had finished his wood carving and had grabbed his protesting twin by the hair.
“There, there, Rebbie,” soothed the mother, “don’t cry. Brother was only loving little sister. Be careful, Ebbie. You can take hold of sister’s hair, but not too hard. They love each other so,” she went on. “Ebbie is really sentimental about Rebbie. He loves to touch and stroke her glorious blonde hair. Did you ever see such hair as Rebbie’s?”
It came into Mrs. Carr’s mind that “Rebbie’s” hair looked more like a plate of cold-slaw than anything else, but she was too wise to put the thought into words.
Willie slid down the railing and landed in the hall with a loud whoop of glee. “How beautiful to hear the sounds of childish mirth,” said Mrs. Holmes. “How——”
From upstairs came a cry of “Help! Help!”
Muffled though the voice was, it plainly issued from Uncle Israel’s room, and under the impression that the bath cabinet had finally set the house on fire, Mrs. Carr ranhastily upstairs, followed closely by Mrs. Holmes, who was flanked at the rear by the grinning Willie and the interested twins.
From a confused heap of bedding, Uncle Israel’s scarlet ankles waved frantically. “Help! Help!” he cried again, his voice being almost wholly deadened by the pillows, which had fallen on him after the collapse.
Dorothy helped the trembling old man to his feet. He took a copious draught from the pain-killer, then sat down on his trunk, much perturbed.
Investigation proved that the bed cord had been cut in a dozen places by some one working underneath, and that the entire structure had instantly caved in when Uncle Israel had crept up to the summit of his bed and lain down to take his afternoon nap. When questioned, Willie proudly admitted that he had done it.
“Go down and ask Mrs. Smithers for the clothes-line,” commanded Dorothy, sternly.
“I won’t,” said Willie, smartly, putting his hands in his pockets.
“You had better go yourself, Mrs. Carr,” suggested Mrs. Holmes. “Willie is tired. He has played hard all day and needs rest.He must not on any account over-exert himself, and, besides, I never allow any one else to send my children on errands. They obey me and me alone.”
“Go yourself,” said Willie, having gathered encouragement from the maternal source.
“I’ll go,” wheezed Uncle Israel. “I can’t sleep in no other bed. Ebeneezer’s beds is all terrible drafty, and I took two colds at once sleepin’ in one of ’em when I knowed better ’n to try it.” He tottered out of the room, the very picture of wretchedness.
“Was it not clever of Willie?” whispered Mrs. Holmes, admiringly, to Dorothy. “So much ingenuity—such a fine sense of humor!”
“If he were my child,” snapped Dorothy, at last losing her admirable control of a tempestuous temper, “he’d be soundly thrashed at least three times a week!”
“I do not doubt it,” replied Mrs. Holmes, contemptuously. “These married old maids, who have no children of their own, are always wholly out of sympathy with a child’s nature.”
“When I was young,” retorted Mrs. Carr, “children were not allowed to rule the entire household. There was a current superstitionto the effect that older people had some rights.”
“And yet,” Mrs. Holmes continued, meditatively, “as the editor ofThe Ladies’ Ownso pertinently asks, what is a house for if not to bring up a child in? The purpose of architecture is defeated, where there are no children.”
Uncle Israel, accompanied by Dick, hobbled into the room with the clothes-line. Mrs. Holmes discreetly retired, followed by her offspring, and, late in the afternoon, when Dorothy and Dick were well-nigh fagged out, the structure was in place again. Tremulously the exhausted owner lay down upon it, and asked that his supper be sent to his room.
By skilful manœuvring with Mrs. Smithers, Dick compelled the proud-spirited Willie to take up Uncle Israel’s tray and wait for it. “I’ll tell my mother,” whimpered the sorrowful one.
“I hope you will,” replied Dick, significantly; but for some reason of his own, Willie neglected to mention it.
At dinner-time, Mr. Perkins drew a rolled manuscript, tied with a black ribbon, from hisbreast pocket, and, without preliminary, proceeded to read as follows:
TO THE MEMORY OF EBENEEZER JUDSON
A face we loved has vanished,
A voice we adored is now still,
There is no longer any music
In the tinkling rill.
His hat is empty of his head,
His snuff-box has no sneezer,
His cane is idle in the hall
For gone is Ebeneezer.
Within the house we miss him,
Let fall the sorrowing tear,
Yet shall we gather as was our wont
Year after sunny year.
He took such joy in all his friends
That he would have it so;
He left his house to relatives
But none of us need go.
In fact, we’re all related,
Sister, friend, and brother;
And in this hour of our grief
We must console each other.
He would not like to have us sad,
Our smiles were once his pleasure
And though we cannot smile at him,
His memory is our treasure.
When he had finished, there was a solemn silence, which was at last relieved by Mrs. Dodd. “Poetry broke out in my first husband’s family,” she said, “but with sulphur an’ molasses an’ quinine an’ plenty of wet-sheet packs it was finally cured.”
“You do not understand,” said the poet, indulgently. “Your aura is not harmonious with mine.”
“Your—what?” demanded Mrs. Dodd, pricking up her ears.
“My aura,” explained Mr. Perkins, flushing faintly. “Each individuality gives out a spiritual vapour, like a cloud, which surrounds one. These are all in different colours, and the colours change with the thoughts we think. Black and purple are the gloomy, morose colours; deep blue and the paler shades show a sombre outlook on life; green is more cheerful, though still serious; yellow and orange show ambition and envy, and red and white are emblematic of all the virtues—red of the noble, martial qualities of man and white of the angelic disposition of woman,” he concluded, with a meaning glance at Elaine, who had been much interested all along.
“What perfectly lovely ideas,” she said, in a tone which made Dick’s blood boil. “Are they original with you, Mr. Perkins?”
The poet cleared his throat. “I cannot say that they are wholly original with me,” he admitted, reluctantly, “though of course I have modified and amplified them to accord with my own individuality. They are doing wonderful things now in the psychological laboratories. They have a system of tubes so finely constructed that by breathing into one of them a person’s mental state is actually expressed. An angry person, breathing into one of these finely organised tubes, makes a decided change in the colour of the vapour.”
“Humph!” snorted Mrs. Dodd, pushing back her chair briskly. “I’ve been married seven times, an’ I never had to breathe into no tube to let any of my husbands know when I was mad!”
The poet crimsoned, but otherwise ignored the comment. “If you will come into the parlour just as twilight is falling,” he said to the others, “I will gladly recite my ode on Spring.”
Subdued thanks came from the company, though Harlan excused himself on the scoreof his work, and Mrs. Holmes was obliged to put the twins to bed. When twilight fell, no one was at the rendezvous but Elaine and the poet.
“It is just as well,” he said, in a low tone. “There are several under dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s roof who are afflicted with an inharmonious aura. With yours only am I in full accord. It is a great pleasure to an artist to feel such beautiful sympathy with his work. Shall I say it now?”
“If you will,” murmured Elaine, deeply honoured by acquaintance with a real poet.
Mr. Perkins drew his chair close to hers, leaned over with an air of loving confidence, and began:
Spring, oh Spring, dear, gentle Spring,
My poet’s garland do I bring
To lay upon thy shining hair
Where rests a wreath of flowers so fair.
There is a music in the brook
Which answers to thy tender look
And in thy eyes there is a spell
Of soft enchantment too sweet to tell.
My heart to thine shall ever turn
For thou hast made my soul to burn
With rapture far beyond——
Elaine screamed, and in a twinkling was on her chair with her skirts gathered about her.It was only Claudius Tiberius, dressed in Rebecca’s doll’s clothes, scooting madly toward the front door, but it served effectually to break up the entertainment.
XIIIA Sensitive Soul
Uncle Israel was securely locked in for the night, and was correspondingly restless. He felt like a caged animal, and sleep, though earnestly wooed, failed to come to his relief. A powerful draught of his usual sleeping potion had been like so much water, as far as effect was concerned.
At length he got up, his lifelong habit of cautious movement asserting itself even here, and with tremulous, withered hands, lighted his candle. Then he put on his piebald dressing-gown and his carpet slippers, and sat on the declivity of his bed, blinking at the light, as wide awake as any owl.
Presently it came to him that he had not as yet made a thorough search of his own apartment, so he began at the foundation, so to speak, and crawled painfully over the carpet, paying special attention to the edges. Next,he fingered the baseboards carefully, rapping here and there, as though he expected some significant sound to penetrate his deafness. Rising, he went over the wall systematically, and at length, with the aid of a chair, reached up to the picture-moulding. He had gone nearly around the room, without any definite idea of what he was searching for, when his questioning fingers touched a small, metallic object.
A smile of childlike pleasure transfigured Uncle Israel’s wizened old face. Trembling, he slipped down from the chair, falling over the bath cabinet in his descent, and tried the key in the lock. It fitted, and the old man fairly chuckled.
“Wait till I tell Belinda,” he muttered, delightedly. Then a crafty second thought suggested that it might be wiser to keep “Belinda” in the dark, lest she might in some way gain possession of the duplicate key.
“Lor’,” he thought, “but how I pity them husbands of her’n. Bet their graves felt good when they got into ’em, the hull seven graves. What with sneerin’ at medicines and things a person eats, it must have been awful, not to mention stealin’ of keys and a-lockin’ ’emin nights. S’pose the house had got afire, where’d I be now?” Grasping his treasure closely, Uncle Israel blew out his candle and tottered to bed, thereafter sleeping the sleep of the just.
Mrs. Dodd detected subdued animation in his demeanour when he appeared at breakfast the following morning, and wondered what had occurred.
“You look ’s if sunthin’ pleasant had happened, Israel,” she began in a sprightly manner.
“Sunthin’ pleasant has happened,” he returned, applying himself to his imitation coffee with renewed vigour. “I disremember when I’ve felt so good about anythin’ before.”
“Something pleasant happens every day,” put in Elaine. The country air had made roses bloom on her pale cheeks. Her blue eyes had new light in them, and her golden hair fairly shone. She was far more beautiful than the sad, frail young woman who had come to the Jack-o’-Lantern not so many weeks before.
“How optimistic you are!” sighed Mr. Perkins, who was eating Mrs. Smithers’s crisp, hot rolls with a very unpoetic appetite. “Tome, the world grows worse every day. It is only a few noble souls devoted to the Ideal and holding their heads steadfastly above the mire of commercialism that keep our so-called civilisation from becoming an absolute hotbed of greed—yes, a hotbed of greed,” he repeated, the words sounding unexpectedly well.
“Your aura seems to have a purple tinge this morning,” commented Dorothy, slyly.
“What’s a aura, ma?” demanded Willie, with an unusual thirst for knowledge.
“Something that goes with a soft person, Willie, dear,” responded Mrs. Holmes, quite audibly. “You know there are some people who have no backbone at all, like the jelly-fish we saw at the seashore the year before dear papa died.”
“I’ve knowed folks,” continued Mrs. Dodd, taking up the wandering thread of the discourse, “what was so soft when they was little that their mas had to carry ’em around in a pail for fear they’d slop over and spile the carpet.”
“And when they grew up, too,” Dick ventured.
“Some people,” said Harlan, in a polite attempt to change the conversation, “nevergrow up at all. Their minds remain at a fixed point. We all know them.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Dodd, looking straight at the poet, “we all know them.”
At this juncture the sensitive Mr. Perkins rose and begged to be excused. It was the small Ebeneezer who observed that he took a buttered roll with him, and gratuitously gave the information to the rest of the company.
Elaine flushed painfully, and presently excused herself, following the crestfallen Mr. Perkins to the orchard, where, entirely unsuspected by the others, they had a trysting-place. At intervals, they met, safely screened by the friendly trees, and communed upon the old, idyllic subject of poetry, especially as represented by the unpublished works of Harold Vernon Perkins.
“I cannot tell you, Mr. Perkins,” Elaine began, “how deeply I appreciate your fine, uncommercial attitude. As you say, the world is sordid, and it needs men like you.”
The soulful one ran his long, bony fingers through his mane of auburn hair, and assented with a pleased grunt. “There are few, Miss St. Clair,” he said, “who have your fine discernment. It is almost ideal.”
“Yet it seems too bad,” she went on, “that the world-wide appreciation of your artistic devotion should not take some tangible form. Dollars may be vulgar and sordid, as you say, but still, in our primitive era, they are our only expression of value. I have even heard it said,” she went on, rapidly, “that the amount of wealth honestly acquired by any individual was, after all, only the measure of his usefulness to his race.”
“Miss St. Clair!” exclaimed the poet, deeply shocked; “do I understand that you are actually advising me to sell a poem?”
“Far from it, Mr. Perkins,” Elaine reassured him. “I was only thinking that by having your work printed in a volume, or perhaps in the pages of a magazine, you could reach a wider audience, and thus accomplish your ideal of uplifting the multitude.”
“I am pained,” breathed the poet; “inexpressibly pained.”
“Then I am sorry,” answered Elaine. “I was only trying to help.”
“To think,” continued Mr. Perkins, bitterly, “of the soiled fingers of a labouring man, a printer, actually touching these fancies that even I hesitate to pen! Once I saw thefair white page of a book that had been through that painful experience. You never would have known it, my dear Miss St. Clair—it was actually filthy!”
“I see,” murmured Elaine, duly impressed, “but are there not more favourable conditions?”
“I have thought there might be,” returned the poet, after a significant silence, “indeed, I have prayed there might be. In some little nook among the pines, where the brook for ever sings and the petals of the apple blossoms glide away to fairyland upon its shining surface, while butterflies float lazily here and there, if reverent hands might put the flowering of my genius into a modest little book—I should be tempted, yes, sorely tempted.”
“Dear Mr. Perkins,” cried Elaine, ecstatically clapping her hands, “how perfectly glorious that would be! To think how much sweetness and beauty would go into the book, if that were done!”
“Additionally,” corrected Mr. Perkins, with a slight flush.
“Yes, of course I mean additionally. One could smell the apple blossoms through the printed page. Oh, Mr. Perkins, if I only hadthe means, how gladly would I devote my all to this wonderful, uplifting work!”
The poet glanced around furtively, then drew closer to Elaine. “I may tell you,” he murmured, “in strict confidence, something which my lips have never breathed before, with the assurance that it will be as though unsaid, may I not?”
“Indeed you may!”
“Then,” whispered Mr. Perkins, “I am living in that hope. My dear Uncle Ebeneezer, though now departed, was a distinguished patron of the arts. Many a time have I read him my work, assured of his deep, though unexpressed sympathy, and, lulled by the rhythm of our spoken speech, he has passed without a jar from my dreamland to his own. I know he would never speak of it to any one—dear Uncle Ebeneezer was too finely grained for that—but still I feel assured that somewhere within the walls of that sorely afflicted house, a sum of—of money—has been placed, in the hope that I might find it and carry out this beautiful work.”
“Have you hunted?” demanded Elaine, her eyes wide with wonder.
“No—not hunted. I beg you, do not useso coarse a word. It jars upon my poet’s soul with almost physical pain.”
“I beg your pardon,” returned Elaine, “but——”
“Sometimes,” interrupted the poet, in a low tone, “when I have felt especially near to Uncle Ebeneezer’s spirit, I have barely glanced in secret places where I have felt he might expect me to look for it, but, so far, I have been wholly unsuccessful, though I know that I plainly read his thought.”
“Some word—some clue—did he give you none?”
“None whatever, except that once or twice he said that he would see that I was suitably provided for. He intimated that he intended me to have a sum apportioned to my deserts.”
“Which would be a generous one; but now—Oh, Mr. Perkins, how can I help you?”
“You have never suspected, have you,” asked Mr. Perkins, colouring to his temples, “that the room you now occupy might once have been my own? Have no poet’s dreams, lingering in the untenanted spaces, claimed your beauteous spirit in sleep?”
“Oh, Mr. Perkins, have I your room? I will so gladly give it up—I——”
The poet raised his hand. “No. The place where you have walked is holy ground. Not for the world would I dispossess you, but——”
A meaning look did the rest. “I see,” said Elaine, quickly guessing his thought, “you want to hunt in my room. Oh, Mr. Perkins, I have thoughtlessly pained you again. Can you ever forgive me?”
“My thoughts,” breathed Mr. Perkins, “are perhaps too finely phrased for modern speech. I would not trespass upon the place you have made your own, but——”
There was a brief silence, then Elaine understood. “I see,” she said, submissively, “I will hunt myself. I mean, I will glance about in the hope that the spirit of Uncle Ebeneezer may make plain to me what you seek. And——”
“And,” interjected the poet, quite practical for the moment, “whatever you find is mine, for it was once my room. It is only on account of Uncle Ebeneezer’s fine nature and his constant devotion to the Ideal that he did not give it to me direct. He knew it would pain me if he did so. You will remember?”
“I will remember. You need not fear to trust me.”
“Then let us shake hands upon ourcompact.” For a moment, Elaine’s warm, rosy hand rested in the clammy, nerveless palm of Harold Vernon Perkins. “Last night,” he sighed, “I could not sleep. I was distressed by noises which appeared to emanate from the apartment of Mr. Skiles. Did you hear nothing?”
“Nothing,” returned Elaine; “I sleep very soundly.”
“The privilege of unpoetic souls,” commented Mr. Perkins. “But, as usual, my restlessness was not without definite and beautiful result. In the still watches of the night, I achieved a—poem.”
“Read it,” cried Elaine, rapturously. “Oh, if I might hear it!”
Thus encouraged, Mr. Perkins drew a roll from his breast pocket. A fresh blue ribbon held it in cylindrical form, and the drooping ends waved in careless, artistic fashion.
“As you might expect, if you knew about such things,” he began, clearing his throat, and all unconscious of the rapid approach of Mr. Chester, “it is upon sleep. It is done in the sonnet form, a very beautiful measure which I have made my own. I will read it now.
“SONNET ON SLEEP
“O Sleep, that fillst the human breast with peace,
When night’s dim curtains swing from out the West,
In what way, in what manner, could we rest
Were thy beneficent offices to cease?
O Sleep, thou art indeed the snowy fleece
Upon Day’s lamb. A welcome guest
That comest alike to palace and to nest
And givest the cares of life a glad release.
O Sleep, I beg thee, rest upon my eyes,
For I am weary, worn, and sad,—indeed,
Of thy great mercies have I piteous need
So come and lead me off to Paradise.”
His voice broke at the end, not so much from the intrinsic beauty of the lines as from perceiving Mr. Chester close at hand, grinning like the fabled pussy-cat of Cheshire, except that he did not fade away, leaving only the grin.
Elaine felt the alien presence and looked around. Woman-like, she quickly grasped the situation.
“I have been having a rare treat, Mr. Chester,” she said, in her smoothest tones. “Mr. Perkins has very kindly been reading to me his beautifulSonnet on Sleep, composed during a period of wakefulness last night. Did you hear it? Is it not a most unusual sonnet?”
“It is, indeed,” answered Dick, dryly. “I never before had the privilege of hearing one that contained only twelve lines. Dante andPetrarch and Shakespeare and all those other ducks put fourteen lines in every blamed sonnet, for good measure.”
Hurt to the quick, the sensitive poet walked away.
“How can you speak so!” cried Elaine, angrily. “Is not Mr. Perkins privileged to create a form?”
“To create a form, yes,” returned Dick, easily, “but not to monkey with an old one. There’s a difference.”
Elaine would have followed the injured one had not Dick interfered. He caught her hand quickly, a new and unaccountable lump in his throat suddenly choking his utterance. “I say, Elaine,” he said, huskily, “you’re not thinking of hooking up with that red-furred lobster, are you?”
“I do not know,” responded Elaine, with icy dignity, “what your uncouth language may mean, but I tolerate no interference whatever with my personal affairs.” In a moment she was gone, and Dick watched the slender, pink-clad figure returning to the house with ill-concealed emotion.
All Summer, so far, he and Elaine had been good friends. They had laughed and jokedand worked together in a care-free, happy-go-lucky fashion. The arrival of Mr. Perkins and his sudden admiration of Elaine had crystallised the situation. Dick knew now what caused the violent antics of his heart—a peaceful and well-behaved organ which had never before been so disturbed by a woman.
“I’ve got it,” said Dick, to himself, deeply shamed. “Moonlight, poetry, mit-holding, and all the rest of it. Never having had it before, it’s going hard with me. Why in the devil wasn’t I taught to write doggerel when I was in college? A fellow don’t stand any show nowadays unless he’s a pocket edition of Byron.”
He went on through the orchard at a run, instinctively healing a troubled mind by wearying the body. At the outer edge of it, he paused.
Suspended by a singularly strong bit of twine, a small, grinning skull hung from the lower branch of an apple tree, far out on the limb. “Cat’s skull,” thought Dick. “Wonder who hung it up there?”
He lingered, idly, for a moment or two, then observed that a small patch of grass directly underneath it was of that season’sgrowth. His curiosity fully awake, he determined to dig a bit, though he had dug fruitlessly in many places since he came to the Jack-o’-Lantern.
“Uncle couldn’t do anything conventional,” he said to himself, “and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want any of his relations to have his money. Here goes, just for luck!”
He went back to the barn for the spade, which already had fresh earth on it—the evidence of an early morning excavation privately made by Mrs. Smithers in a spot where she had dreamed gold was hidden. He went off to the orchard with it, whistling, his progress being furtively watched with great interest by the sour-faced handmaiden in the kitchen.
Back in the orchard again, he worked feverishly, possessed by a pleasant thrill of excitement, somewhat similar to that conceivably enlivening the humdrum existence of Captain Kidd. Dick was far from surprised when his spade struck something hard, and, his hands trembling with eagerness, he lifted out a tin box of the kind commonly used for private papers.
It was locked, but a twist of his muscularhands sufficed to break it open. Then he saw that it was a spring lock, and that, with grim, characteristic humour, Uncle Ebeneezer had placed the key inside the box. There were papers there—and money, the coins and bills being loosely scattered about, and the papers firmly sealed in an envelope addressed “To Whom it May Concern.”
Dick counted the coins and smoothed out the bills, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life. He was tempted to open the envelope, but refrained, not at all sure that he was among those whom it concerned. For the space of half an hour he stood there, frowning, then he laughed.
“I’ll just put it back,” he said to himself. “It’s not for me to monkey with Uncle Ebeneezer’s purposes.”
He buried the box in its old place, and even cut a bit of sod from a distant part of the orchard to hide the traces of his work. When all was smooth again, he went back to the barn, swinging the spade carelessly but no longer whistling.
“The old devil,” he muttered, with keen appreciation. “The wise old devil!”
XIVMrs. Dodd’s Fifth Fate
Morning lay fair upon the land, and yet the Lady Elaine was weary. Like a drooping lily she swayed in her saddle, sick at heart and cast down. Earnestly her company of gallant knights strove to cheer her, but in vain. Even the merry quips of the fool in motley, who still rode at her side, brought no smile to her beautiful face.
Presently, he became silent, his heart deeply troubled because of her. An hour passed so, and no word was spoken, then, timidly enough, he ventured another jest.
The Lady Elaine turned. “Say no more, fool,” she commanded, “but get out thy writing tablet and compose me a poem. I would fain hear something sad and tender in place of this endless folly.”
Le Jongleur bowed. “And the subject, Princess?”
Elaine laughed bitterly. “Myself,” she cried. “Why not? Myself, Elaine, and this foolish quest of mine!”
Then, for a space, there was silence upon the road, since the fool, with his writing tablet, had dropped back to the rear of the company, and the gallant knights, perceiving the mood of their mistress, spoke not.
At noon, when the white sun trembled at the zenith, Le Jongleur urged his donkey forward, and presented to Elaine a glorious rose which he had found blooming at the wayside.
“The poem is finished, your highness,” he breathed, doffing his cap, “but ’tis all unworthy, so I bring thee this rose also, that something in my offering may of a certainty be sweet.”
He would have put the scroll into her hand, but she swerved her palfrey aside. “Read it,” she said, impatiently; “I have no mind to try my wits with thy poor scrawls.”
So, with his voice trembling, and overwhelmed with self-consciousness, the fool read as follows:
The vineyards, purple with their bloom,
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
The maidens in thy lonely room,
Thy tapestry on silent loom—
But hush! Where is Elaine?
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
Thy castle in the valley lies,
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
Where swift the homing swallow flies
And in the sunset daylight dies—
But hush! Where is Elaine?
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
Night comes at last on dreamy wings,
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
’Mid gleaming clouds the pale moon swings,
Thy taper light a faint star brings,
But hush! Where is Elaine?
Elaine, hast thou forgotten?
Harlan had never written any poetry before, but it had always seemed easy. Now, as he read the verses over again, he was tremendously satisfied with his achievement. Unconsciously, he had modelled it upon an exquisite little bit by some one else, which had once been reprinted beneath a “story” of his own when he was on the paper. He read it aloud, to see how it sounded, and was more pleased than ever with the swing of the verse and the music of the words. “It’s pretty close to art,” he said to himself, “if it isn’t the real thing.”
Just then the luncheon bell rang, and hewent out to the midday “gab-fest,” as he inwardly characterised it. The meal proceeded to dessert without any unusual disturbance, then the diminutive Ebeneezer threw the remnants of his cup of milk into his mother’s face, and was carried off, howling, to be spanked. Like many other mothers, Mrs. Holmes resented her children’s conduct when it incommoded her, but not otherwise, and though milk baths are said to be fine for the complexion, she was not altogether pleased with the manner of application.
Amid the vocal pyrotechnics from the Holmes apartments, Harlan escaped into the library, but his poem was gone. He searched for it vainly, then sat down to write it over before he should forget it. This done, he went on with Elaine and her adventures, and presently forgot all about the lost page.
“Don’t that do your heart good?” inquired Mrs. Dodd, of Dorothy, inclining her head toward Mrs. Holmes’s door.
“Be it ever so humble,” sang Dick, strolling out of the room, “there’s no place like Holmes’s.”
Mrs. Carr admitted that her ears were notyet so calloused but that the sound gave her distinct pleasure.
“If that there little limb of Satan had have throwed his milk in anybody else’s face,” went on Mrs. Dodd, “all she’d have said would have been: ‘Ebbie, don’t spill your nice milk. That’s naughty.’”
Her imitation of the fond mother’s tone and manner was so wickedly exact that Dorothy laughed heartily. The others had fled to a more quiet spot, except Willie and Rebecca, who were fighting for a place at the keyhole of their mother’s door. Finally, Willie gained possession of the keyhole, and the ingenious Rebecca, lying flat on her small stomach, peered under the door, and obtained a pleasing view of what was going on inside.
“Listen at that!” cried Mrs. Dodd, her countenance fairly beaming with innocent pleasure. “I’m gettin’ most as much good out of it as I would from goin’ to the circus. Reckon it’s a slipper, for it sounds just like little Jimmie Young’s weepin’ did the night I come home from my fifth honeymoon.
“That’s the only time,” she went on, reminiscently, “as I was ever a step-ma to children what wasn’t growed up. You’dthink a woman as had been married four times afore would have knowed better ’n to get her fool head into a noose like that, but there seems to be only one way for folks to learn things, an’ that’s by their own experience. If we could only use other folks’ experience, this here world would be heaven in about three generations, but we’re so constituted that we never believe fire ’ll burn till we poke our own fingers into it to see. Other folks’ scars don’t go no ways at all toward convincin’ us.
“You read lots of novels about the sorrers of step-children, but I ain’t never come up with no epic as yet portrayin’ the sufferin’s of a step-ma. If I had a talent like your husband’s got, I’ll be blest if I wouldn’t do it. What I went through with them children aged me ten years in less ’n three.
“It was like this,” she prattled on. “I’d never seen a one of ’em, they livin’ far away from their pa, as was necessary if their pa was to get any peace an’ happiness out ’n life, an’ that lyin’ creeter I married told me there was only three. My dear, there was eight, an’ sixteen ordinary young ones couldn’t have been no worse.
“Our courtin’ was done mainly in the cemetery. I’d just laid my fourth away in his proper place an’ had the letterin’ all cut nice on his side of the monumint, an’ I was doin’ the plantin’ on the grave when I met my fate—my fifth fate, I’m speakin’ of now. I allers aimed to do right by my husbands when they was dead no less ’n when they was livin’, an’ I allers planted each one’s favourite flower on his last restin’-place, an’ planted it thick, so ’s when the last trump sounded an’ they all riz up, there wouldn’t be no one of ’em that could accuse me of bein’ partial.
“Some of the flowers was funny for a graveyard. One of ’em loved sunflowers, an’ when blossomin’-time come, you could see a spot of light in my lot clear from the gate when you went in, an’ on sunny days even from quite a piece outside.
“Geraniums was on the next grave, red an’ pink together, as William loved to see ’em, an’ most fittin’ an’ appropriate. He was a queer-lookin’ man, William was, all bald except for a little fringe of red hair around his head, an’ his bald spot gettin’ as pink as anythin’ when he got mad. I never could abide red an’ pink together, so I did my best not torile him; but la sakes, my dear, red-haired folks is that touchy that you never can tell what’s goin’ to rile ’em an’ what ain’t. Some innercent little remark is as likely to set ’em off as anythin’ else. All the time it’s like carryin’ a light into a fireworks place. Drop it once an’ the air ’ll be full of sky-rockets, roman candles, pinwheels, an’ set pieces till you’re that dazed you don’t know where you’re livin’. Don’t never take no red-haired one, my dear, if you’re anyways set on peace. I never took but one, but that was enough to set me dead against the breed.
“Well, as I was a-sayin’, James begun to woo me in the cemetery. Whenever you see a man in a cemetery, my dear, you can take it for granted that he’s a new-made widower. After the first week or two, he ain’t got no time to go to no grave, he’s so busy lookin’ out for the next one. When I see James a-waterin’ an’ a-weedin’ on the next lot to mine, therefore, I knowed his sorrer was new, even though the band of crape on his hat was rusty an’ old.
“Bein’ fellow-mourners, in a way, we struck up kind of a melancholy friendship, an’ finally got to borrerin’ water from each other’ssprinklin’ cans an’ exchangin’ flower seeds an’ slips, an’ even hull plants. That old deceiver told me it was his first wife that was a-lyin’ there, an’ showed me her name on the monumint. She was buried in her own folks’ lot, an’ I never knowed till it was too late that his own lot was plum full of wives, an’ this here was a annex, so to speak. I dunno how I come to be so took in, but anyways, when James’s grief had subsided somewhat, we decided to travel on the remainin’ stretch through this vale of tears together.
“He told me he had a beautiful home in Taylorville, but was a-livin’ where he was so ’s to be near the cemetery an’ where he could look after dear Annie’s grave. The sentiment made me think all the more of him, so ’s I didn’t hesitate, an’ was even willin’ to be married with one of my old rings, to save the expense of a new one. James allers was thrifty, an’ the way he put it, it sounded quite reasonable, so ’s that’s how it comes, my dear, that in spite of havin’ had seven husbands, I’ve only got six weddin’-rings.
“I put each one on when its own proper anniversary comes around an’ wear it till the next one, when I change again, though forone of the rings it makes only one day, because the fourth and seventh times I was married so near together. That sounds queer, my dear, but if you think it over, you’ll see what I mean. It’s fortunate, too, in a way, ’cause I found out by accident years afterward that my fourth weddin’-ring come out of a pawn-shop, an’ I never took much joy out of wearin’ it. Bein’ just alike, I wore another one mostly, even when Samuel was alive, but he never noticed. Besides, I reckon ’t wouldn’t make no difference, for a man that’ll go to a pawn-shop for a weddin’-ring ain’t one to make a row about his wife’s changin’ it. When I spoke sharp to him about it, he snickered, an’ said it was appropriate enough, though to this day I’ve never figured out precisely just what the old serpent meant by it.
“Well, as I was sayin’, my dear, the minister married us in good an’ proper form, an’ I must say that, though I’ve had all kinds of ceremonies, I take to the ’Piscopal one the most, in spite of havin’ been brought up Methodis’, an’ hereafter I’ll be married by it if the occasion should arise—an’ we drove over to Taylorville.
“The roads was dretful, but bein’ experienced in marriage, I could see that it wasn’t that that was makin’ James drop the whip, an’ pull back on the lines when he wanted the horses to go faster, an’ not hear things I was a-sayin’ to him. Finally, I says, very distinct: ‘James, dear, how many children did you say you had?’
“‘Eight,’ says he, clearin’ his throat proud and haughty like.
“‘You’re lyin’,’ says I, ‘an’ you know you’re lyin’. You allers told me you had three.’
“‘I was speakin’ of those by my first wife,’ says he. ‘My other wives all left one apiece. Ain’t I never told you about ’em? I thought I had,’ he went on, speakin’ quick, ‘but if I haven’t, it ’s because your beauty has made me forget all the pain an’ sorrer of the past.’
“With that he clicked to the horses so sudden that I was near threw out of the rig, but it wasn’t half so bad as the other jolt he’d just give me. For a long time I didn’t say nothin’, an’ there’s nothin’ that makes a man so uneasy as a woman that don’t say nothin’, my dear, so you just write that downin your little book, an’ remember it. It’ll come in handy long before you’re through with your first marriage an’ have begun on your second. Havin’ been through four, I was well skilled in keepin’ my mouth shut, an’ I never said a word till we drove into the yard of the most disconsolate-lookin’ premises I ever seen since I was took to the poorhouse on a visit.
“‘James,’ says I, cool but firm, ‘is this your magnificent residence?’
“‘It is,’ says he, very soft, ‘an’ it is here that I welcome my bride. Have you ever seen anythin’ like this view?’
“‘No,’ says I, ‘I never have’; an’ it was gospel truth I was speakin’, too, for never before had I been to a place where the pigsty was in front.
“‘It is a wonderful view,’ says I, sarcastic like, ‘but before I linger to admire it more, I would love to look upon the scenery inside the house.’
“When we went in, I thought I was either dreamin’ or had got to Bedlam. The seven youngest children was raisin’ particular Cain, an’ the oldest, a pretty little girl of thirteen, was doin’ her best to quiet ’em. There wassix others besides what had been accounted for, but I soon found that they belonged to a neighbour, an’ was just visitin’ to relieve the monotony.
“The woman James had left takin’ care of ’em had been gone two weeks an’ more, with a month’s wages still comin’ to her, which James never felt called on to pay, on account of her havin’ left without notice. James was dretful thrifty. The youngest one was puttin’ the cat into the water-pitcher, an’ as soon as I found out what his name was, I called him sharp by it an’ told him to quit. He put his tongue out at me as sassy as you please, an’ says: ‘I won’t.’
“Well, my dear, I didn’t wait to hear no more, but I opened my satchel an’ took out one of my slippers an’ give that child a lickin’ that he’ll remember when he’s a grandparent. ‘Hereafter,’ says I, ‘when I tell you to do anythin’, you’ll do it. I’ll speak kind the first time an’ firm the second, and the third time the whole thing will be illustrated so plain that nobody can’t misunderstand it. Your pa has took me into a confidence game,’ says I, speakin’ to all the children, ‘but I was never one to draw back from what I’d putmy hand to, an’ I aim to do right by you if you do right by me. You mind,’ says I, ‘an’ you won’t have no trouble; an’ the same thing,’ says I to James, ‘applies to you.’
“I felt sorry for all those poor little motherless things, with a liar for a pa, an’ all the time I lived there, I tried to make up to ’em what I could, but step-mas have their sorrers, my dear, that’s what they do, an’ I ain’t never seen no piece about it in the paper yet, either.
“If you’ll excuse me now, my dear, I’ll go to my room. It’s just come to my mind now that this here is one of my anniversaries, an’ I’ll have to look up the facts in my family Bible, an’ change my ring.”
At dinner-time the chastised and chastened twin appeared in freshly starched raiment. His eyes were swollen and his face flushed, but otherwise his recent painful experience had remarkably improved him. He said “please” and “thank you,” and did not even resent it when Willie slyly dropped a small piece of watermelon down his neck.
“This afternoon,” said Elaine, “Mr. Perkins composed a beautiful poem. I know it is beautiful, though I have not yet heard it. Ido not wish to be selfish in my pleasure, so I will ask him to read it to us all.”
The poet’s face suddenly became the colour of his hair. He dropped his napkin, and swiftly whispered to Elaine, while he was picking it up, that she herself was the subject of the poem.
“How perfectly charming,” said Elaine, clearly. “Did you hear, Mrs. Carr? Poor little, insignificant me has actually inspired a great poem. Oh, do read it, Mr. Perkins? We are all dying to hear it!”
Fairly cornered, the poet muttered that he had lost it—some other time—wait until to-morrow—and so on.
“No need to wait,” said Dick, with an ironical smile. “It was lost, but now is found. I came upon it myself, blowing around unheeded under the library window, quite like a common bit of paper.”
Mr. Perkins was transfixed with amazement, for his cherished poem was at that minute in his breast pocket. He clutched at it spasmodically, to be sure it was still safe.
Very different emotions possessed Harlan, who choked on his food. He instinctively guessed the worst, and saw his home in luridruin about him, but was powerless to avert the catastrophe.
“Read it, Dick,” said Mrs. Dodd, kindly. “We are all a-perishin’ to hear it. I can’t eat another bite until I do. I reckon it’ll sound like a valentine,” she concluded, with a malicious glance at Mr. Perkins.
“I have taken the liberty,” chuckled Dick, “of changing a word or two occasionally, to make better sense of it, and of leaving out some lines altogether. Every one is privileged to vary an established form.” Without further preliminary, he read the improved version.
“The little doggie sheds his coat,
Elaine, have you forgotten?
What is it goes around a button?
I thought you knew that simple thing,
But ideas in your head take wing.
Elaine, have you forgotten?
The answer is a goat.
“How much is three times humpty-steen?
Elaine, have you forgotten?
Why does a chicken cross the road?
Who carries home a toper’s load?
You are so very stupid, dear!
Elaine, have you forgotten?
“You think a mop of scarlet hair
And pale green eyes——”