XV

“That will do,” said Miss St. Clair, crisply. “Mr. Perkins, may I ask as a favour that you will not speak to me again?” She marched out with her head high, and Mr. Perkins, wholly unstrung, buried his face in his napkin.

Harlan laughed—a loud, ringing laugh, such as Dorothy had not heard from him for months, and striding around the table, he grasped Dick’s hand in tremendous relief.

“Let me have it,” he cried, eagerly. “Give me all of it!”

“Sure,” said Dick, readily, passing over both sheets of paper.

Harlan went into the library with the composition, and presently, when Dick was walking around the house and saw bits of torn paper fluttering out of the open window, a light broke through his usual density.

“Whew!” he said to himself. “I’ll be darned! I’ll be everlastingly darned! Idiot!” he continued, savagely. “Oh, if I could only kick myself! Poor Dorothy! I wonder if she knows!”

XVTreasure-Trove

The August moon swung high in the heavens, and the crickets chirped unbearably. The luminous dew lay heavily upon the surrounding fields, and now and then a stray breeze, amid the overhanging branches of the trees that lined the roadway, aroused in the consciousness of the single wayfarer a feeling closely akin to panic. When he reached the summit of the hill, he was trembling violently.

In the dooryard of the Jack-o’-Lantern, he paused. It was dark, save for a single round window. In an upper front room a night-lamp, turned low, gave one leering eye to the grotesque exterior of the house.

With his heart thumping loudly, Mr. Bradford leaned against a tree and divested himself of his shoes. From a package under his arm, he took out a pair of soft felt slippers, thepaper rattling loudly as he did so. He put them on, hesitated, then went cautiously up the walk.

“In all my seventy-eight years,” he thought, “I have never done anything like this. If I had not promised the Colonel—but a promise to a dying man is sacred, especially when he is one’s best friend.”

The sound of the key in the lock seemed almost like an explosion of dynamite. Mr. Bradford wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead, turned the door slowly upon its squeaky hinges, and went in, feeling like a burglar.

“I am not a burglar,” he thought, his hands shaking. “I have come to give, not to take away.”

Fearfully, he tiptoed into the parlour, expecting at any moment to arouse the house. Feeling his way carefully along the wall, and guided by the moonlight which streamed in at the side windows, he came to the wing occupied by Mrs. Holmes and her exuberant offspring. Here he stooped, awkwardly, and slipped a sealed and addressed letter under the door, heaving a sigh of relief as he got away without having wakened any one.

The sounds which came from Mrs. Dodd’s room were reassuringly suggestive of sleep. Hastily, he slipped another letter under her door, then made his way cautiously to the kitchen. The missive intended for Mrs. Smithers was left on the door-mat outside, for, as Mr. Bradford well knew, the ears of the handmaiden were uncomfortably keen.

At the foot of the stairs he hesitated again, but by the time he reached the top, his heart had ceased to beat audibly. He tiptoed down the corridor to Uncle Israel’s room, then, further on, to Dick’s. The letter intended for Mr. Perkins was slipped under Elaine’s door, Mr. Bradford not being aware that the poet had changed his room. Having safely accomplished his last errand, the tension relaxed, and he went downstairs with more assurance, his pace being unduly hastened by a subdued howl from one of the twins.

Bidding himself be calm, he got to the front door, and drew a long breath of relief as he closed it noiselessly. There was a light in Mrs. Holmes’s room now, and Mr. Bradford did not wish to linger. He gathered up his shoes and fairly ran downhill, arriving at hisoffice much shaken in mind and body, nearly two hours after he had started.

“I do not know,” he said to himself, “why the Colonel should have been so particular as to dates and hours, but he knew his own business best.” Then, further in accordance with his instructions, he burned a number of letters which could not be delivered personally.

If Mr. Bradford could have seen the company which met at the breakfast table the following morning, he would have been amply repaid for his supreme effort of the night before, had he been blessed with any sense of humour at all. The Carrs were untroubled, and Elaine appeared as usual, except for her haughty indifference to Mr. Perkins. She thought he had written a letter to himself and slipped it under her door, in order to compel her to speak to him, but she had tactfully avoided that difficulty by leaving it on his own threshold. Dick’s eyes were dancing and at intervals his mirth bubbled over, needlessly, as every one else appeared to think.

“I doesn’t know wot folks finds to laugh at,” remarked Mrs. Smithers, as she brought in the coffee; “that’s wot I doesn’t. It’s a solemn time, I take it, when the sheeted spectresof the dead walks abroad by night, that’s wot it is. It’s time for folks to be thinkin’ about their immortal souls.”

This enigmatical utterance produced a startling effect. Mr. Perkins turned a pale green and hastily excused himself, his breakfast wholly untouched. Mrs. Holmes dropped her fork and recovered it in evident confusion. Mrs. Dodd’s face was a bright scarlet and appeared about to burst, but she kept her lips compressed into a thin, tight line. Uncle Israel nodded over his predigested food. “Just so,” he mumbled; “a solemn time.”

Eagerly watching for an opportunity, Mrs. Holmes dived into the barn, and emerged, cautiously, with the spade concealed under her skirts. She carried it into her own apartment and hid it under Willie’s bed. Mrs. Smithers went to look for it a little later, and, discovering that it was unaccountably missing, excavated her own private spade from beneath the hay. During the afternoon, the poet was observed lashing the fire-shovel to the other end of a decrepit rake. Uncle Israel, after a fruitless search of the premises, actually went to town and came back with a bulky and awkward parcel, which he hid in the shrubbery.

Meanwhile, Willie had gone whimpering to Mrs. Dodd, who was in serious trouble of her own. “I’m afraid,” he admitted, when closely questioned.

“Afraid of what?” demanded his counsellor, sharply.

“I’m afraid of ma,” sobbed Willie. “She’s a-goin’ to bury me. She’s got the spade hid under my bed now.”

Sudden emotion completely changed Mrs. Dodd’s countenance. “There, there, Willie,” she said, stroking him kindly. “Where is your ma?”

“She’s out in the orchard with Ebbie and Rebbie.”

“Well now, deary, don’t you say nothin’ at all to your ma, an’ we’ll fool her. The idea of buryin’ a nice little boy like you! You just go an’ get me that spade an’ I’ll hide it in my room. Then, when your ma asks for it, you don’t know nothin’ about it. See?”

Willie’s troubled face brightened, and presently the implement was under Mrs. Dodd’s own bed, and her door locked. Much relieved in his mind and cherishing kindly sentiments toward his benefactor, Willie slid down the banisters, unrebuked, the rest of the afternoon.

Meanwhile Mrs. Dodd sat on the porch and meditated. “I’d never have thought,” she said to herself, “that Ebeneezer would intend that Holmes woman to have any of it, but you never can tell what folks’ll do when their minds gets to failin’ at the end. Ebeneezer’s mind must have failed dretful, for I know he didn’t make no promise to her, same as he did to me, an’ if she don’t suspect nothin’, what did she go an’ get the spade for? Dretful likely hand it is, for spirit writin’.”

Looking about furtively to make sure that she was not observed, Mrs. Dodd drew out of the mysterious recesses of her garments, the crumpled communication of the night before. It was dated, “Heaven, August 12th,” and the penmanship was Uncle Ebeneezer’s to the life.

“Dear Belinda,” it read. “I find myself at the last moment obliged to change my plans. If you will go to the orchard at exactly twelve o’clock on the night of August 13th, you will find there what you seek. Go straight ahead to the ninth row of apple trees, then seven trees to the left. A cat’s skull hangs from the lower branch, if it hasn’t blown down or been taken away. Dig hereand you will find a tin box containing what I have always meant you to have.

“I charge you by all you hold sacred to obey these directions in every particular, and unless you want to lose it all, to say nothing about it to any one who may be in the house.

“I am sorry to put you to this inconvenience, but the limitations of the spirit world cannot well be explained to mortals. I hope you will make a wise use of the money and not spend it all on clothes, as women are apt to do.

“In conclusion, let me say that I am very happy in heaven, though it is considerably more quiet than any place I ever lived in before. I have met a great many friends here, but no relatives except my wife. Farewell, as I shall probably never see you again.

“Yours,

“Ebeneezer Judson.

“Ebeneezer Judson.

“P.S. All of your previous husbands are here, in the sunny section set aside for martyrs. None of them give you a good reputation.

“E. J.”

“E. J.”

“Don’t it beat all,” muttered Mrs. Dodd to herself, excitedly. “Here was Ebeneezer atmy door last night, an’ I never knowed it. Sakes alive, if I had knowed it, I wouldn’t have slep’ like I did. Here comes that Holmes hussy. Wonder what she knows!”

“Do you believe in spirits, Mrs. Dodd?” inquired Mrs. Holmes, in a careless tone that did not deceive her listener.

“Depends,” returned the other, with an evident distaste for the subject.

“Do you believe spirits can walk?”

“I ain’t never seen no spirits walk, but I’ve seen folks try to walk that was full of spirits, and there wa’n’t no visible improvement in their steppin’.” This was a pleasant allusion to the departed Mr. Holmes, who was currently said to have “drunk hisself to death.”

A scarlet flush, which mounted to the roots of Mrs. Holmes’s hair, indicated that the shot had told, and Mrs. Dodd went to her own room, where she carefully locked herself in. She was determined to sit upon her precious spade until midnight, if it were necessary, to keep it.

Mrs. Smithers was sitting up in bed with the cold perspiration oozing from every pore, when the kitchen clock struck twelve sharp, quick strokes. The other clocks in the housetook up the echo and made merry with it. The grandfather’s clock in the hall was the last to strike, and the twelve deep-toned notes boomed a solemn warning which, to more than one quaking listener, bore a strong suggestion of another world—an uncanny world at that.

“Guess I’ll go along,” said Dick to himself, yawning and stretching. “I might just as well see the fun.”

Mrs. Smithers, with her private spade and her odorous lantern, was at the spot first, closely seconded by Mrs. Dodd, in a voluminous garment of red flannel which had seen all of its best days and not a few of its worst. Trembling from head to foot, came Mrs. Holmes, carrying a pair of shears, which she had snatched up at the last moment when she discovered the spade was missing. Mr. Perkins, fully garbed, appeared with his improvised shovel. Uncle Israel, in his piebald dressing-gown, tottered along in the rear, bearing his spade, still unwrapped, his bedroom candle, and a box of matches. Dick surveyed the scene from a safe, shadowy distance, and on a branch near the skull, Claudius Tiberius was stretched at full length,purring with a loud, resonant purr which could be heard from afar.

After the first shock of surprise, which was especially keen on the part of Mrs. Dodd, when she saw Uncle Israel in the company, Mrs. Smithers broke the silence.

“It’s nothink more nor a wild-goose chase,” she said, resentfully. “A-gettin’ us all out’n our beds at this time o’ night! It’s a sufferin’ and dyin’ shame, that’s wot it is, and if sperrits was like other folks, ’t wouldn’t ’ave happened.”

“Sarah,” said Mrs. Dodd, firmly, “keep your mouth shut. Israel, will you dig?”

“We’ll all dig,” said Mrs. Holmes, in the voice of authority, and thereafter the dirt flew briskly enough, accompanied by the laboured breathing of perspiring humanity.

It was Uncle Israel’s spade that first touched the box, and, with a cry of delight, he stooped for it, as did everybody else. By sheer force of muscle, Mrs. Dodd got it away from him.

“This wrangle,” sighed Mr. Perkins, “is both unseemly and sordid. Let us all agree to abide by dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s last bequests.”

“There won’t be no desire not to abide by’em,” snorted Mrs. Smithers, “wot with cats as can’t stay buried and sheeted spectres of the dead a-walkin’ through the house by night!”

By this time, Mrs. Dodd had the box open, and a cry of astonishment broke from her lips. Several heads were badly bumped in the effort to peep into the box, and an unprotected sneeze from Uncle Israel added to the general unpleasantness.

“You can all go away,” cried Mrs. Dodd, shrilly. “There’s two one-dollar bills here, two quarters, an’ two nickels an’ eight pennies. ’T aint nothin’ to be fit over.”

“But the letter,” suggested Mr. Perkins, hopefully. “Is there not a letter from dear Uncle Ebeneezer? Let us gather around the box in a reverent spirit and listen to dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s last words.”

“You can read ’em,” snapped Mrs. Holmes, “if you’re set on hearing.”

Uncle Israel wheezed so loudly that for the moment he drowned the deep purr of Claudius Tiberius. When quiet was restored, Mr. Perkins broke the seal of the envelope and unfolded the communication within. Uncle Israel held the dripping candle on one sideand Mrs. Smithers the smoking lantern on the other, while near by, Dick watched the midnight assembly with an unholy glee which, in spite of his efforts, nearly became audible.

“How beautiful,” said Mr. Perkins, “to think that dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s last words should be given to us in this unexpected but original way.”

“Shut up,” said Mrs. Smithers, emphatically, “and read them last words. I’m gettin’ the pneumony now, that’s wot I am.”

“You’re the only one,” chirped Mrs. Dodd, hysterically. “The money in this here box is all old.” It was, indeed. Mr. Judson seemed to have purposely chosen ragged bills and coins worn smooth.

“‘Dear Relations,’” began Mr. Perkins. “‘As every one of you have at one time or another routed me out of bed to let you in when you have come to my house on the night train, and always uninvited——’”

“I never did,” interrupted Mrs. Holmes. “I always came in the daytime.”

“Nobody ain’t come at night,” explained Mrs. Smithers, “since ’e fixed the ’ouse over into a face. One female fainted dead awaywhen ’er started up the hill and see it a-winkin’ at ’er, yes sir, that’s wot ’er did!”

“‘It seems only fitting and appropriate,’” continued Mr. Perkins, “‘that you should all see how it seems.’” The poet wiped his massive brow with his soiled handkerchief. “Dear uncle!” he commented.

“Yes,” wheezed Uncle Israel, “‘dear uncle!’ Damn his stingy old soul,” he added, with uncalled-for emphasis.

“It gives me pleasure to explain in this fashion my disposal of my estate,” the reader went on, huskily.

“Of all the connection on both sides, there is only one that has never been to see me, unless I’ve forgotten some, and that is my beloved nephew, James Harlan Carr.”

“Him,” creaked Uncle Israel. “Him, as never see Ebeneezer.”

“He has never,” continued the poet, with difficulty, “rung my door bell at night, nor eaten me out of house and home, nor written begging letters—” this phrase was well-nigh inaudible—“nor had fits on me——”

Here there was a pause and all eyes were fastened upon Uncle Israel.

“’T wa’n’t a fit!” he screamed. “It wasa involuntary spasm brought on by takin’ two searchin’ medicines too near together. ’T wa’n’t a fit!”

“Nor children——”

“The idea!” snapped Mrs. Holmes. “Poor little Ebbie and Rebbie had to be born somewhere.”

“Nor paralysis——”

“That was Cousin Si Martin,” said Mrs. Dodd, half to herself. “He was took bad with it in the night.”

“He has never come to spend Christmas with me and remained until the ensuing dog days, nor sent me a crayon portrait of himself”—Mr. Perkins faltered here, but nobly went on—“nor had typhoid fever, nor finished up his tuberculosis, nor cut teeth, nor set the house on fire with a bath cabinet——”

At this juncture Uncle Israel was so overcome with violent emotion that it was some time before the reading could proceed.

“Never having come into any kind of relations with my dear nephew, James Harlan Carr,” continued Mr. Perkins, in troubled tones, “I have shown my gratitude in this humble way. To him I give the house and all my furniture, my books and personal effectsof every kind, my farm in Hill County, two thousand acres, all improved and clear of incumbrance, except blooded stock,——”

“I never knowed ’e ’ad no farm,” interrupted Mrs. Smithers.

“And the ten thousand and eighty-four dollars in the City Bank which at this writing is there to my credit, but will be duly transferred, and my dear Rebecca’s diamond pin to be given to my beloved nephew’s wife when he marries. It is all in my will, which my dear friend Jeremiah Bradford has, and which he will read at the proper time to those concerned.”

“The old snake!” shrieked Mrs. Holmes.

“Further,” went on the poet, almost past speech by this time, “I direct that the remainder of my estate, which is here in this box, shall be divided as follows:

“Eight cents each to that loafer, Si Martin, his lazy wife, and their eight badly brought-up children, with instructions to be generous to any additions to said children through matrimony or natural causes; Fanny Wood and that poor, white-livered creature she married, thereby proving her own idiocy if it needed proof; Uncle James’s cross-eyed third wifeand her two silly daughters; Rebecca’s sister’s scoundrelly second husband, with his foolish wife and their little boy with a face like a pug dog; Uncle Jason, who has needed a bath ever since I knew him—I want he should spend his legacy for soap—and his epileptic stepson, whose name I forget, though he lived with me five years hand-running; lying Sally Simmons and her half-witted daughter; that old hen, Belinda Dodd; that skunk, Harold Vernon Perkins, who never did a stroke of honest work in his life till he began to dig for this box; monkey-faced Lucretia and the four thieving little Riley children, who are likely to get into prison when they grow up; that human undertaker’s waggon, Betsey Skiles, and her two impudent nieces; that grand old perambulating drug store, Israel Skiles; that Holmes fool with the three reprints of her ugliness—eight cents apiece, and may you get all possible good out of it.

“Dick Chester, however, having always paid his board, and tried to be a help to me in several small ways, and in spite of having lived with me eight Summers or more without having been asked to do so, gets two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars whichis deposited for him in the savings department of the Metropolitan Bank, plus the three hundred and seventy dollars he paid me for board without my asking him for it. Sarah Smithers, being in the main a good woman, though sharp-tongued at times, and having been faithful all the time my house has been full of lowdown cusses too lazy to work for their living, gets twelve hundred and fifty dollars which is in the same bank as Dick’s. The rest of you take your eight cents apiece and be damned. You can get the money changed at the store. If any have been left out, it is my desire that those remembered should divide with the unfortunate.

“If you had not all claimed to be Rebecca’s relatives, you would have been kicked out of my house years ago, but since writing this, I have seen Rebecca and made it right with her. It was not her desire that I should be imposed upon.

“Get out of my house, every one of you, before noon to-morrow, and the devil has my sincere sympathy when you go to live with him and make hell what you have made my house ever since Rebecca’s death.Get out!!!

“Ebeneezer Judson.”

“Ebeneezer Judson.”

The letter was badly written and incoherent, yet there could be no doubt of its meaning, nor of the state of mind in which it had been penned. For a moment, there was a tense silence, then Mrs. Dodd tittered hysterically.

“We thought diamonds was goin’ to be trumps,” she observed, “an’ it turned out to be spades.”

Uncle Israel wheezed again and Mrs. Smithers smacked her lips with intense satisfaction. Mrs. Holmes was pale with anger, and, under cover of the night, Dick sneaked back to his room, shame-faced, yet happy. Claudius Tiberius still purred, sticking his claws into the bark with every evidence of pleasure.

“I do not know,” said Mr. Perkins, sadly, running his fingers through his mane, “whether we are obliged to take as final these vagaries of a dying man. Dear Uncle Ebeneezer could not have been sane when he penned this cruel letter. I do not believe it was his desire to have any of us go away before the usual time.” Under cover of these forgiving sentiments, he pocketed all the money in the box.

“Me neither,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Anyhow,I’m goin’ to stay. No sheeted spectre can’t scare me away from a place I’ve always stayed in Summers, ’specially,” she added, sarcastically, “when I’m remembered in the will.”

Mrs. Smithers clucked disagreeably and went back to the house. Uncle Israel looked after her with dismay. “Do you suppose,” he queried, in falsetto, “that she’ll tell the Carrs?”

“Hush, Israel,” replied Mrs. Dodd. “She can’t tell them Carrs about our diggin’ all night in the orchard, ’cause she was here herself. They didn’t get no spirit communication an’ they won’t suspect nothin’. We’ll just stay where we be an’ go on ’s if nothin’ had happened.”

Indeed, this seemed the wisest plan, and, shivering with the cold, the baffled ones filed back to the Jack-o’-Lantern. “How did you get out, Israel?” whispered Mrs. Dodd, as they approached the house.

The old man snickered. It was the only moment of the evening he had thoroughly enjoyed. “The same spirit that give me the letter, Belinda,” he returned, pleasantly, “also give me a key. You didn’t think I had no flyin’ machine, did you?”

“Humph” grunted Mrs. Dodd. “Spirits don’t carry no keys!”

At the threshold they paused, the sensitive poet quite unstrung by the night’s adventure. From the depths of the Jack-o’-Lantern came a shrill, infantile cry.

“Is that Ebbie,” asked Mrs. Dodd, “or Rebbie?”

Mrs. Holmes turned upon her with suppressed fury. “Don’t you ever dare to allude to my children in that manner again,” she commanded, hoarsely.

“What is their names?” quavered Uncle Israel, lighting his candle.

“Their names,” returned Mrs. Holmes, with a vast accession of dignity, “are Gladys Gwendolen and Algernon Paul! Good night!”

Just before dawn, a sheeted spectre appeared at the side of Sarah Smither’s bed, and swore the trembling woman to secrecy. It was long past sunrise before the frightened handmaiden came to her senses enough to recall that the voice of the apparition had been strangely like Mrs. Dodd’s.

XVIGood Fortune

The next morning, Harlan and Dorothy ate breakfast by themselves. There was suppressed excitement in the manner of Mrs. Smithers, who by this time had quite recovered from her fright, and, as they readily saw, not wholly of an unpleasant kind. From time to time she tittered audibly—a thing which had never happened before.

“It’s just as if a tombstone should giggle,” remarked Harlan. His tone was low, but unfortunately, it carried well.

“Tombstone or not, just as you like,” responded Mrs. Smithers, as she came in with the bacon. “I’d be careful ’ow I spoke disrespectfully of tombstones if I was in your places, that’s wot I would. Tombstones is kind to some and cussed to others, that’s wot they are, and if you don’t like the monument wot’s at present in your kitchen, you know wot you can do.”

After breakfast, she beckoned Dorothy into the kitchen, and “gave notice.”

“Oh, Mrs. Smithers,” cried Dorothy, almost moved to tears, “please don’t leave me in the lurch! What should I do without you, with all these people on my hands? Don’t think of such a thing as leaving me!”

“Miss Carr,” said Mrs. Smithers, solemnly, with one long bony finger laid alongside of her hooked nose, “’t ain’t necessary for you to run no Summer hotel, that’s what it ain’t. These ’ere all be relations of your uncle’s wife and none of his’n except by marriage. Wot’s more, your uncle don’t want ’em ’ere, that’s wot ’e don’t.”

Mrs. Smithers’s tone was so confident that for the moment Dorothy was startled, remembering yesterday’s vague allusion to “sheeted spectres of the dead.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Miss Carr,” returned Mrs. Smithers, with due dignity, “ever since I come ’ere, I’ve been invited to shut my ’ead whenever I opened it about that there cat or your uncle or anythink, as you well knows. I was never one wot was fond of ’avin’ my ’ead shut up.”

“Go on,” said Dorothy, her curiosity fully alive, “and tell me what you mean.”

“You gives me your solemn oath, Miss, that you won’t tell me to shut my ’ead?” queried Mrs. Smithers.

“Of course,” returned Dorothy, trying to be practical, though the atmosphere was sepulchral enough.

“Well, then, you knows wot I told you about that there cat. ’E was kilt by your uncle, that’s wot ’e was, and your uncle couldn’t never abide cats. ’E was that feared of ’em ’e couldn’t even bury ’em when they was kilt, and one of my duties, Miss, as long as I lived with ’im, was buryin’ of cats, and until this one, I never come up with one wot couldn’t stay buried, that’s wot I ’aven’t.

“’E ’ated ’em like poison, that’s wot ’e did. The week afore your uncle died, he kilt this ’ere cat wot’s chasin’ the chickens now, and I buried ’im with my own hands, but could ’e stay buried? ’E could not. No sooner is your uncle dead and gone than this ’ere cat comes back, and it’s the truth, Miss Carr, for where ’e was buried, there ain’t no sign of a cat now. Wot’s worse, this ’ere cat looks per-cisely like your uncle, green eyes, whiteshirt front, black tie and all. It’s enough to give a body the shivers to see ’im a-settin’ on the kitchen floor lappin’ up ’is mush and milk, the which your uncle was so powerful fond of.

“Wot’s more,” continued Mrs. Smithers, in tones of awe, “I’ll a’most bet my immortal soul that if you’ll dig in the cemetery where your uncle was buried good and proper, you won’t find nothin’ but the empty coffin and maybe ’is grave clothes. Your uncle’s been livin’ with us all along in that there cat,” she added, triumphantly. “It’s ’is punishment, for ’e couldn’t never abide ’em, that’s wot ’e couldn’t.”

Mrs. Carr opened her mouth to speak, then, remembering her promise, took refuge in flight.

“’Er’s scared,” muttered Mrs. Smithers, “and no wonder. Wot with cats as can’t stay buried, writin’ letters and deliverin’ ’em in the dead of night, and a purrin’ like mad while blamed fools digs for eight cents, most folks would be scared, I take it, that’s wot they would.”

Dorothy was pale when she went into the library where Harlan was at work. He frowned at the interruption and Dorothysmiled back at him—it seemed so normal and sane.

“What is it, Dorothy?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Oh—just Mrs. Smithers’s nonsense. She’s upset me.”

“What about, dear?” Harlan put his work aside readily enough now.

“Oh, the same old story about the cat and Uncle Ebeneezer. And I’m afraid——”

“Afraid of what?”

“I know it’s foolish, but I’m afraid she’s going to dig in the cemetery to see if Uncle Ebeneezer is still there. She thinks he’s in the cat.”

For the moment, Harlan thought Dorothy had suddenly lost her reason, then he laughed heartily.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “she won’t do anything of the kind, and, besides, what if she did? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

“And—there’s another thing, Harlan.” For days she had dreaded to speak of it, but now it could be put off no longer.

“It’s—it’s money,” she went on, unwillingly. “I’m afraid I haven’t managed very well, or else it’s cost so much for everything,but we’re—we’re almost broke, Harlan,” she concluded, bravely, trying to smile.

Harlan put his hands in his pockets and began to walk back and forth. “If I can only finish the book,” he said, at length, “I think we’ll be all right, but I can’t leave it now. There’s only two more chapters to write, and then——”

“And then,” cried Dorothy, her beautiful belief in him transfiguring her face, “then we’ll be rich, won’t we?”

“I am already rich,” returned Harlan, “when you have such faith in me as that.”

For a moment the shimmering veil of estrangement which so long had hung between them, seemed to part, and reveal soul to soul. As swiftly the mood changed and Dorothy felt it first, like a chill mist in the air. Neither dreamed that with the writing of the first paragraph in the book, the spell had claimed one of them for ever—that cobweb after cobweb, of gossamer fineness, should make a fabric never to be broken; that on one side of it should stand a man who had exchanged his dreams for realities and his realities for dreams, and on the other, a woman, blindly hurt, eternally straining to see beyond the veil.

“What can we do?” asked Harlan, unwontedly practical for the nonce.

“I don’t know,” said Dorothy. “There are the diamonds, you know, that we found. I don’t care for any diamonds, except the one you gave me. If we could sell those——”

“Dorothy, don’t. I don’t believe they’re ours, and if they were, they shouldn’t be sold. You should keep them.”

“My engagement ring, then,” suggested Dorothy, her lips trembling. “That’s ours.”

“Don’t be foolish,” said Harlan, a little roughly. “I’ll finish this and then we’ll see what’s to be done.”

Feeling her dismissal, Dorothy went out, and, all unknowingly, straight into the sunshine.

Elaine was coming downstairs, fresh and sweet as the morning itself. “Am I too late to have any breakfast, Mrs. Carr?” she asked, gaily. “I know I don’t deserve any.”

“Of course you shall have breakfast. I’ll see to it.”

Elaine took her place at the table and Dorothy, reluctant to put further strain on the frail bond that anchored Mrs. Smithers to her service, brought in the breakfast herself.

“You’re so good to me,” said the girl, gratefully, as Dorothy poured out a cup of steaming coffee. “To think how beautiful you’ve been to me, when I never saw either one of you in my whole life, till I came here ill and broken-hearted! See what you’ve made of me—see how well and strong I am!”

Swiftly, Dorothy bent and kissed Elaine, a strange, shadowy cloud for ever lifted from her heart. She had not known how heavy it was nor how charged with foreboding, until it was gone.

“I want to do something for you,” Elaine went on, laughing to hide the mist in her eyes, “and I’ve just thought what I can do. My mother had some beautiful old mahogany furniture, just loads of it, and some wonderful laces, and I’m going to divide with you.”

“No, you’re not,” returned Dorothy, warmly. She felt that Elaine had already given her enough.

“It isn’t meant for payment, Mrs. Carr,” the girl went on, her big blue eyes fixed upon Dorothy, “but you’re to take it from me just as I’ve taken this lovely Summer from you. You took in a stranger, weak and helpless andhalf-crazed with grief, and you’ve made her into a happy woman again.”

Before Dorothy could answer, Dick lounged in, frankly sleepy. “Second call in the dining car?” he asked, taking Mrs. Dodd’s place, across the table from Elaine.

“Third call,” returned Dorothy, brightly, “and, if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you two to wait on yourselves.” She went upstairs, her heart light, not so much from reality as from prescience. “How true it is,” she thought, “that if you only wait and do the best you can, things all work out straight again. I’ve had to learn it, but I know it now.”

“Bully bunch, the Carrs,” remarked Dick, pushing his cup to Elaine.

“They’re lovely,” she answered, with conviction.

The sun streamed brightly into the dining-room of the Jack-o’-Lantern and changed its hideousness into cheer. Seeing Elaine across from him, gracefully pouring his coffee, affected Dick strangely. Since the day before, he had seen clearly something which he must do.

“I say, Elaine,” he began, awkwardly. “That beast of a poem I read the other day——”

Her face paled, ever so slightly. “Yes?”

“Well, Perkins didn’t write it, you know,” Dick went on, hastily. “I did it myself. Or, rather I found it, blowing around, outside, just as I said, and I fixed it.”

At length he became restless under the calm scrutiny of Elaine’s clear eyes. “I beg your pardon,” he continued.

“Did you think,” she asked, “that it was nice to make fun of a lady in that way?”

“I didn’t think,” returned Dick, truthfully. “I never thought for a minute that it was making fun of you, but only of that—that pup, Perkins,” he concluded, viciously.

“Under the circumstances,” said Elaine, ignoring the epithet, “the silence of Mr. Perkins has been very noble. I shall tell him so.”

“Do,” answered Dick, with difficulty. “He’s ambling up to the lunch-counter now.” Mr. Chester went out by way of the window, swallowing hard.

“I have just been told,” said Miss St. Clair to the poet, “that the—er—poem was not written by you, and I apologise for what I said.”

Mr. Perkins bowed in acknowledgment. “It is a small matter,” he said, wearily,running his fingers through his hair. It was, indeed, compared with deep sorrow of a penetrating kind, and a sleepless night, but Elaine did not relish the comment.

“Were—were you restless in the night?” she asked, conventionally.

“I was. I did not sleep at all until after four o’clock, and then only for a few moments.”

“I’m sorry. Did—did you write anything?”

“I began an epic,” answered the poet, touched, for the moment, by this unexpected sympathy. “An epic in blank verse, on ‘Disappointment.’”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” continued Elaine, coldly. “And that reminds me. I have hunted through my room, in every possible place, and found nothing.”

A flood of painful emotion overwhelmed the poet, and he buried his face in his hands. In a flash, Elaine was violently angry, though she could not have told why. She marched out of the dining-room and slammed the door. “Delicate, sensitive soul,” she said to herself, scornfully. “Wants people to hunt for money he thinks may be hidden in his room, and yetis so far above sordidness that he can’t hear it spoken of!”

Seeing Mr. Chester pacing back and forth moodily at some distance from the house, Elaine rushed out to him. “Dick,” she cried, “heisa lobster!”

Dick’s clouded face brightened. “Is he?” he asked, eagerly, knowing instinctively whom she meant. “Elaine, you’re a brick!” They shook hands in token of absolute agreement upon one subject at least, and the girl’s right hand hurt her for some little time afterward.

Left to himself, Mr. Perkins mused upon the dread prospect before him. For years he had calculated upon a generous proportion of his Uncle Ebeneezer’s estate, and had even borrowed money upon the strength of his expectations. These debts now loomed up inconveniently.

The vulgar, commercial people from whom Mr. Perkins had borrowed filthy coin were quite capable of speaking of the matter, and in an unpleasant manner at that. The fine soul of Mr. Perkins shrank from the ordeal. He had that particular disdain of commercialism which is inseparable from the incapableand unsuccessful, and yet, if the light of his genius were to illuminate a desolate world, Mr. Perkins must have money.

He might even have to degrade himself by coarse toil—and hitherto, he had been too proud to work. The thought was terrible. Pegasus hitched to the plough was nothing compared with the prospect of Mr. Perkins being obliged to earn three or four dollars a week in some humble, common capacity.

Then a bright idea came to his rescue. “Mr. Carr,” he thought, “the gentleman who is now entertaining me—he is doing my own kind of work, though of course it is less fine in quality. Perhaps he would like the opportunity of going down to posterity as the humble Mæcenas of a new Horace.”

Borne to the library in the rush of this attractive idea, Mr. Perkins opened the door, which Harlan had forgotten to lock, and without in any way announcing himself, broke in on Harlan’s chapter.

“What do you mean?” demanded the irate author. “What business have you butting in here like this? Get out!”

“I—” stammered Mr. Perkins.

“Get out!” thundered Harlan. It soundedstrangely like the last phrase of “dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s last communication,” and, trembling, the disconsolate poet obeyed. He fled to his own room as a storm-tossed ship to its last harbour, and renewed the composition of his epic on “Disappointment,” for which, by this time, he had additional material.

Harlan went back to his work, but the mood was gone. The living, radiant picture had wholly vanished, and in its place was a heap of dead, dry, meaningless words. “Did I write it?” asked Harlan, of himself, “and if so, why?”

Like the mocking fantasy of a dream as seen in the instant of waking, Elaine and her company had gone, as if to return no more. Only two chapters were yet to be written, and he knew, vaguely, what Elaine was about to do when he left her, but his pen had lost the trick of writing.

Deeply troubled, Harlan went to the window, where the outer world still had the curious appearance of unreality. It was as though a sheet of glass were between him and the life of the rest of the world. He could see through it clearly, but the barrier was there, and must always be there. Upon the edgeof this glass, the light of life should break and resolve itself into prismatic colours, of which he should see one at a time, now and then more, and often a clear, pitiless view of the world should give him no colour at all.

Presently Lawyer Bradford came up the hill, dressed for a formal call. In a flash it brought back to Harlan the day the old man had first come to the Jack-o’-Lantern, when Dorothy was a happy girl with a care-free boy for a husband. How much had happened since, and how old and grey the world had grown!

“I desire to see the distinguished author, Mr. Carr,” the thin, piping voice was saying at the door, “upon a matter of immediate and personal importance. And Mrs. Carr also, if she is at leisure. Privacy is absolutely essential.”

“Come into the library,” said Harlan, from the doorway. Another interruption made no difference now. Dorothy soon followed, much mystified by the way in which Mrs. Smithers had summoned her.

Remembering the inopportune intrusion of Mr. Perkins, Harlan locked the door. “Now, Mr. Bradford,” he said, easily, “what is it?”

“I should have told you before,” began theold lawyer, “had not the bonds of silence been laid upon me by one whom we all revere and who is now past carrying out his own desires. The house is yours, as my letters of an earlier date apprised you, and the will is to be probated at the Fall term of court.

“Your uncle,” went on Mr. Bradford, unwillingly, “was a great sufferer from—from relations,” he added, lowering his voice to a shrill whisper, “and he has chosen to revenge himself for his sufferings in his own way. Of this I am not at liberty to speak, though no definite silence was required of me later than yesterday.

“There is, however, a farm of two thousand acres, all improved, which is still to come to you, and a sum of money amounting to something over ten thousand dollars, in the bank to your credit. The multitudinous duties in connection with the practice of my profession have prevented me from making myself familiar with the exact amount.

“And,” he went on, looking at Dorothy, “there is a very beautiful diamond pin, the gift of my lamented friend to his lovely young wife upon the day of the solemnisation of their nuptials, which was to be given to the wife ofMr. Judson’s nephew when he should marry. It is sewn in a mattress in the room at the end of the north wing.”

The earth whirled beneath Dorothy’s feet. At first, she had not fully comprehended what Mr. Bradford was saying, but now she realised that they had passed from pinching poverty to affluence—at least it seemed so to her. Harlan was not so readily confused, but none the less, he, too, was dazed. Neither of them could speak.

“I should be grateful,” the old man was saying, “if you would ask Mr. Richard Chester and Mrs. Sarah Smithers to come to my office at their earliest convenience. I will not trespass upon their valuable time at present.”

There was a long silence, during which Mr. Bradford cleared his throat, and wiped his glasses several times. “The farm has always been held in my name,” he continued, “to protect our lamented friend and benefactor from additional disturbance. If—if the relations had known, his life would have been even less peaceful than it was. A further farm, valued at twelve thousand dollars, and also held in my name, is my friend’s last gift to me, as I discovered by opening a personalletter which was to be kept sealed until this morning. I did not open it until late in the morning, not wishing to show unseemly eagerness to pry into my friend’s affairs. I am too much affected to speak of it—I feel his loss too keenly. He was my Colonel—I served under him in the war.”

A mist filled the old man’s eyes and he fumbled for the door-knob. Harlan found it for him, turned the key, and opened the door. Mrs. Dodd, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Smithers, and the suffering poet were all in the hall, their attitudes plainly indicating that they had been listening at the door, but something in Mr. Bradford’s face made them huddle back into the corner, ashamed.

Feeling his way with his cane, he went to the parlour door, where he stood for a moment at the threshold, his streaming eyes fixed upon the portrait over the mantel. The simple dignity of his grief forbade a word from any one. At length he straightened himself, brought his trembling hand to his forehead in a feeble military salute, and, wiping his eyes, tottered off downhill.

Back to IndexNext