People grow older, even on the Cape, where hurry—except by the automobiles of summer residents—is not considered good form and where Father Time is supposed to sit down to rest. Judge Baxter, Ostable's leading attorney-at-law, had lived quietly and comfortably during the years which had passed since, as Marcellus Hall's lawyer, he read the astonishing letter to the partners of Hamilton and Company. He was over seventy now, and behind his back Ostable folks referred to him as “old Judge Baxter”; but although his spectacles were stronger than at that time, his mental faculties were not perceptibly weaker, and he walked with as firm, if not so rapid, a stride. So when, at eleven in the forenoon of the day following Mary's dinner at the Howes' home, the Judge heard someone enter the outer room of his offices near the Ostable courthouse, he rose from his chair in the inner room and, without waiting for his clerk to announce the visitor, opened the door himself.
The caller whose question the clerk was about to answer, or would probably have answered as soon as he finished staring in awestruck admiration, was a young lady. The Judge looked at her over his spectacles and then through them and decided that she was a stranger. He stepped forward.
“I am Judge Baxter,” he said. “Did you wish to see me?”
She turned toward him. “Yes,” she said simply. “I should like to talk with you for a few moments if you are not too busy.”
The Judge hesitated momentarily. Only the week before a persistent and fluent young female had talked him into the purchase of a set of “Lives of the Great Jurists,” the same to be paid for in thirty-five installments of two dollars each. Mrs. Baxter had pronounced the “Great Jurists” great humbugs, and her husband, although he pretended to find the “Lives” very interesting, was secretly inclined to agree with her. So he hesitated. The young woman, evidently noticing his hesitation, added:
“If you are engaged just now I shall wait. I came to see you on a matter of business, legal business.”
Judge Baxter tried to look as if no thought of his visitor's having another purpose had entered his mind.
“Oh, yes, certainly! Of course!” he said hastily, and added: “Will you walk in?”
She walked in—to the private office, that is—and the Judge, following her, closed the door. His clerk stared wistfully at his own side of that door for a full minute, then sighed heavily and resumed his work, which was copying a list of household effects belonging to a late lamented who had willed them, separately and individually, to goodness knew how many cousins, first, second, and third.
In the private office the Judge asked his visitor to be seated. She took the chair he brought forward. Then she said:
“You don't remember me, I think, Judge Baxter. I am Mary Lathrop.”
The Judge looked puzzled. The name sounded familiar, but he could not seem to identify its owner.
“Perhaps you would remember me if I told you my whole name,” suggested the latter. “I am Mary Augusta Lathrop. I think perhaps you used to call me Mary-'Gusta; most people did.”
Then the Judge remembered. His astonishment was great.
“Mary-'Gusta Lathrop!” he repeated. “Mary-'Gusta! Are you—? Why, it scarcely seems possible! And yet, now that I look, I can see that it is. Bless my soul and body! How do you do? It must be almost—er—seven or eight years since I have seen you. South Harniss is only a few miles off, but I am getting—er—older and I don't drive as much as I used to. But there! I am very glad to see you now. And how are Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton? There is no need to ask how you are. Your looks are the best answer to that.”
Mary thanked him and said she was very well. Her uncles, too, were well, she added, or they were when she last heard.
“I am on my way home to them now,” she added. “For the past two years I have been at school in Boston. I left there this morning and got off the train here because I wished very much to see you, Judge Baxter. Yesterday—last evening—I heard something—I was told something which, if it is true, is—is—”
She bit her lip. She was evidently fighting desperately not to lose self-control. The Judge was surprised and disturbed.
“Why, Mary!” he exclaimed. “I suppose I may call you Mary still; as an old friend I hope I may. What is the matter? What did you hear? What do you wish to see me about?”
She was calm enough now, but her earnestness was unmistakable.
“I heard something concerning myself and my uncles which surprised and shocked me dreadfully,” she said. “I can hardly believe it, but I must know whether it is true or not. I must know at once! You can tell me the truth, Judge Baxter, if you only will. That is why I came here this morning. Will you tell it to me? Will you promise that you will answer my questions, every one, with the exact truth and nothing else? And answer them all? Will you promise that?”
The Judge looked even more surprised and puzzled. He rubbed his chin and smiled doubtfully.
“Well, Mary,” he said, “I think I can promise that if I answer your questions at all I shall answer them truthfully. But I scarcely like to promise to answer them without knowing what they are. A lawyer has a good many secrets intrusted to him and he is obliged to be careful.”
“I know. But this is a secret in which I am interested. I am interested in it more than anyone else. I must know the truth about it! I MUST! If you won't tell me I shall find out somehow. WILL you tell?”
Judge Baxter rubbed his chin again.
“Don't you think you had better ask your questions?” he suggested.
“Yes; yes, I do. I will. How much money did my stepfather, Captain Marcellus Hall, have when he died?”
The Judge's chin-rubbing ceased. His eyebrows drew together.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, after a moment.
“Because I do. Because it is very important that I should. It is my right to know. Was he a rich man?”
“Um—er—no. I should not call him that. Hardly a rich man.”
“Was he very poor?”
“Mary, I don't exactly see why—”
“I do. Oh, Judge Baxter, please don't think I am asking this for any selfish reasons. I am not, indeed I'm not! All my life, ever since I was old enough to think of such things at all, I have supposed—I have been led to believe that my stepfather left me plenty of money—money enough to pay my uncles for taking care of me, for my clothes and board, and now, during these last two years, for my studies in Boston. I never, never should have consented to go to that school if I hadn't supposed I was paying the expenses myself. I knew my uncles were not well-to-do; I knew they could not afford to—to do what they had already done for me, even before that. And now—last night—I was told that—that they were in great financial trouble, that they would probably be obliged to fail in business, and all because they had been spending their money on me, sacrificing themselves and their comfort and happiness in order that 'an adopted niece with extravagant ideas' might be educated above her station; that is the way the gentleman who told me the story put it. Of course he didn't know he was talking to the niece,” she added, with a pathetic little smile; “but, oh, Judge, can't you see now why I must know the truth—all of the truth?”
Her fingers clasped and unclasped in her lap. The Judge laid his own hand upon them.
“There, there, my dear,” he said soothingly. “Tut, tut, tut! What's all this about your uncles failing in business? That isn't possible, is it? Tell me the whole thing, just as it was told to you.”
So Mary told it, concluding by exhibiting Isaiah Chase's letter.
“It must be very bad, you see,” she said. “Isaiah never would have written if it had not been. It is hard enough to think that while I was enjoying myself in Europe and at school they were in such trouble and keeping it all to themselves. That is hard enough, when I know how they must have needed me. But if it should be true that it is their money—money they could not possibly spare—that I have been spending—wasting there in Boston, I—I—Please tell me, Judge Baxter! Have I any money of my own? Please tell me.”
The Judge rose and walked up and down the floor, his brows drawn together and his right hand slapping his leg at each turn. After seven or eight of these turns he sat down again and faced his caller.
“Mary,” he said, “suppose this story about your uncles' financial and business troubles should be true, what will you do?”
Mary met his look bravely. Her eyes were moist, but there was no hesitation in her reply.
“I shall stay at home and help them in any way I can,” she said. “There will be no more Boston and no more school for me. They need me there at home and I am going home—to stay.”
“Whether it is your money or theirs which has paid for your education?”
“Certainly. Of course I never should have gone away at all if I had not supposed my own money were paying the expenses. Judge, you haven't answered my question—and yet I think—I am afraid that you have answered it. It was their money that paid, wasn't it?”
Judge Baxter was silent for a moment, as if in final deliberation. Then he nodded, solemnly.
“Yes, Mary,” he said, “it was their money. In fact, it has been their money which has paid for most things in your life. Shadrach Gould and Zoeth Hamilton aren't, maybe, the best business men in the world, but they come pretty near to being the best MEN, in business or out of it, that I have met during seventy odd years on this planet. I think, perhaps, it will be well for you to know just how good they have been to you. Now, listen!”
He began at the beginning, at the day of Marcellus Hall's funeral, when he read the letter to Shadrach and Zoeth, the letter intrusting Mary-'Gusta to their care. He told of Marcellus's unfortunate investments, of the loss of the latter's fortune, and how, when the estate was settled, there were but a few hundreds where it was expected there might be a good many thousands.
“Don't make any mistake, Mary,” he said earnestly. “Your uncles knew there was little or no money when they decided to take you. They took you simply for yourself, because they cared so much for you, not because they were to make a cent from the guardianship. Everything you have had for the past two years their money has paid for and you may be absolutely certain they never have grudged a penny of it. The last time I saw Captain Gould he was glorying in having the smartest and best girl in Ostable County. And Mr. Hamilton—”
She interrupted him. “Don't, please!” she said chokingly. “Please don't tell me any more just now. I—I want to think.”
“There isn't any more to tell,” he said gently. “I am going into the next room. I shall be back in a few minutes. Then, if you care to, we can talk a little more.”
When he returned she had risen and was standing by the window looking out into the back yard. She was calm and even smiled a little as he entered, although the smile was a rather pitiful one. Of the two the Judge looked the more perturbed.
“Whew!” he exclaimed, after carefully closing the door behind him. “I've been doing a little thinking my self, young lady, since I left you here. I've been thinking that I had better take a trip to Canada or China or somewhere and start in a hurry, too. When your uncles find out that I told you this thing they have succeeded in keeping from you all this time—well, it will be high time for me to be somewhere else.” He laughed and then added gravely: “But I still think I was right in telling you. Under the circumstances it seems to me that you should know.”
“Of course I should. If you had not told me I should have found it out, now that my suspicions were aroused. Thank you, Judge Baxter. Now I must go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Home—to South Harniss.”
“Nonsense! You're not going to South Harniss yet awhile. You're going to have dinner with my wife and me.”
“Thank you. I can't. I must go at once. By the next train.”
“There isn't any train until nearly four o'clock.” Then, noticing her look of disappointment, he went on to say: “But that shan't make any difference. I'll send you over in my nephew's automobile. I'm not sufficiently up-to-date to own one of the cussed—excuse me things, but he does and I borrow it occasionally. I don't drive it; good heavens, no! But his man shall drive you over and I'll guarantee you beat the train. If you don't, it won't be because you go too slow. Now, of course, you'll stay to dinner.”
But Mary shook her head. “You're very kind, Judge,” she said, “and I thank you very much, but—”
“Well, but what?”
“But I—I can't. I—I—Oh, don't you see? I couldn't eat, or even try to—now. I want to get home—to them.”
“And so you shall, my dear. And in double-quick time, too. Here, Jesse,” opening the door to the outer office and addressing the clerk, “you step over and tell Samuel that I want to borrow his car and Jim for two hours. Tell him I want them now. And if his car is busy go to Cahoon's garage and hire one with a driver. Hurry!”
“And now, Mary,” turning to her, “can you tell me any more about your plans, provided you have had time to make any? If this story about your uncles' business troubles is true, what do you intend doing? Or don't you know?”
Mary replied that her plans were very indefinite, as yet.
“I have some ideas,” she said; “some that I had thought I might use after I had finished school and come back to the store. They may not be worth much; they were schemes for building up the business there and adding some other sorts of business to it. The first thing I shall do is to see how bad the situation really is.”
“I hope it isn't bad. Poor Zoeth certainly has had trouble enough in his life.”
There was a significance in his tone which Mary plainly did not understand.
“What trouble do you mean?” she asked.
The Judge looked at her, coughed, and then said hastily: “Oh, nothing in particular; every one of us has troubles, I suppose. But, Mary, if—if you find that the story is true and—ahem—a little money might help to—er—tide the firm over—why, I—I think perhaps that it might be—ahem—arranged so that—”
He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing the sentence. Mary did not wait to hear the end.
“Thank you, Judge,” she said quickly. “Thank you, but I am hoping it may not be so bad as that. I am going back there, you know, and—well, as Uncle Shadrach would say, we may save the ship yet. At any rate, we won't call for help until the last minute.”
Judge Baxter regarded her with admiration.
“Shadrach and Zoeth are rich in one respect,” he declared; “they've got you. But it is a wicked shame that you must give up your school and your opportunities to—”
She held up her hand.
“Please don't!” she begged. “If you knew how glad I am to be able to do something, if it is only to give up!”
The car and Jim were at the door a few minutes later and Mary, having said good-by to the Judge and promised faithfully to keep him posted as to events at home, climbed into the tonneau and was whizzed away. Jim, the driver, after a few attempts at conversation, mainly concerning the “unseasonableness” of the weather, finding responses few and absently given, relapsed into silence. Silence was what Mary desired, silence and speed, and Jim obliged with the latter.
Over the road by which, a dozen years before, she had driven in the old buggy she now rode again. Then, as now, she wondered what she should find at her journey's end. Here, however, the resemblance ceased, for whereas then she looked forward, with a child's anticipations, to nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful adventures, now she saw ahead—what? Great care and anxiety and trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure and disappointment and heartbreak. And behind her she was leaving opportunity and the pleasant school life and friends, leaving them forever.
She was leaving Crawford, too, leaving him without a word of explanation. She had had no time to write even a note. Mrs. Wyeth, after protesting vainly against her guest's decision to leave for the Cape by the earliest train in the morning, had helped to pack a few essential belongings; the others she was to pack and send later on, when she received word to do so. The three, Mrs. Wyeth, Miss Pease, and Mary, had talked and argued and planned until almost daylight. Then followed an hour or two of uneasy sleep, a hurried breakfast, and the rush to the train. Mary had not written Crawford; the shock of what she had been told at the Howes' and her great anxiety to see Judge Baxter and learn if what she had heard was true had driven even her own love story from her mind. Now she remembered that she had given him permission to call, not this evening but the next, to say good-by before leaving for the West. He would be disappointed, poor fellow. Well, she must not think of that. She must not permit herself to think of anyone but her uncles or of anything except the great debt of love and gratitude she owed them and of the sacrifice they had made for her. She could repay a little of that sacrifice now; at least she could try. She would think of that and of nothing else.
And then she wondered what Crawford would think or say when he found she had gone.
The main street of South Harniss looked natural enough as the motor car buzzed along it. It was but a few months since Mary had been there, yet it seemed ever so much more. She felt so much older than on those Christmas holidays. When the store of Hamilton and Company came in sight she sank down on the back seat in order not to be seen. She knew her uncles were, in all probability, there at the store, and she wished to see Isaiah and talk with him before meeting them.
Isaiah was in the kitchen by the cookstove when she opened the door. He turned, saw her, and stood petrified. Mary entered and closed the door behind her. By that time Mr. Chase had recovered sufficiently from his ossification to speak.
“Eh—eh—by time!” he gasped. “I snum if it ain't you!”
Mary nodded. “Isaiah,” she asked quickly, “are you alone? Are my uncles, both of them, at the store?”
But the cook and steward had not yet completely got over the effect of the surprise. He still stared at her.
“It IS you, ain't it!” he stammered. “I—I—by time, I do believe you've come home, same as I asked you to.”
“Of course I've come home. How in the world could I be here if I hadn't? DON'T stare at me like that, with your mouth open like a—like a codfish. Tell me, are Uncle Shad and Uncle Zoeth at the store?”
“Eh—Yes, I cal'late they be. Ain't neither of 'em come home to dinner yet. I'm expectin' one of 'em 'most any minute. I'll run up and fetch 'em. Say! How in the nation did you get here this time of day?”
“I shall tell you by and by. No, I don't want you to get my uncles. I want to talk with you alone first. Now, Isaiah, sit down! Sit down in that chair. I want you to tell me just how bad things are. Tell me everything, all you know about it, and don't try to make the situation better than it is. And please HURRY!”
Isaiah, bewildered but obedient, sat down. The command to hurry had the effect of making him so nervous that, although he talked enough to have described the most complicated situation, his ideas were badly snarled and Mary had to keep interrupting in order to untangle them. And, after all, what he had to tell was not very definite. Business was bad at the store; that was plain to everyone in town. “All hands” were trading at the new stores where prices were lower, stocks bigger and more up-to-date, and selling methods far, far in advance of those of Hamilton and Company.
“About the only customers that stick by us,” declared Isaiah, “are folks like 'Rastus Young and the rest of the deadbeats. THEY wouldn't leave us for nothin'—and nothin's what they pay, too, drat 'em!”
The partners had not told him of their troubles, but telling was not necessary. He had seen and heard enough.
“They are right on the ragged edge of goin' on the rocks,” vowed Isaiah. “Zoeth, he's that thin and peaked 'twould make a sick pullet look fleshy alongside of him. And Cap'n Shad goes around with his hands rammed down in his beckets—”
“In his what?”
“In his britches pockets, and he don't scurcely speak a word for hours at a stretch. And they're up all times of the night, fussin' over account books and writin' letters and I don't know what all. It's plain enough what's comin'. Everybody in town is on to it. Why, I was up to the store t'other day settin' outside on the steps and Ab Bacheldor came along. He hates Cap'n Shad worse'n pizen, you know. 'Hello, Isaiah!' he says to me, he says. 'Is that you?' he says. 'Course it's me,' says I. Who'd you think 'twas?' 'I didn't know but it might be the sheriff,' he says. 'I understand he's settin' round nowadays just a-waitin'.' And Zoeth was right within hearin', too!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary indignantly.
“Yup, that's what he said,” went on Isaiah. “But I got in one dig on my own hook. 'The sheriff don't wait much down to your house, Abner, does he?' says I. 'You bet he don't,' says he; 'he don't have to.' 'Well, he'd starve to death if he waited there long,' says I. Ho, ho! His wife's the stingiest woman about her cookin' that there is on the Cape. Why, one time she took a notion she'd keep boarders and Henry Ryder, that drives the fruit cart, he started to board there. But he only stayed two days. The fust day they had biled eggs and the next day they had soup made out of the shells. Course that probably ain't true—Henry's an awful liar—but all the same—”
“Never mind Henry Ryder, or Abner Bacheldor, either,” interrupted Mary. “How did you happen to send for me, Isaiah?”
“Eh? Oh, that just came of itself, as you might say. I kept gettin' more and more tittered up and worried as I see how things was goin' and I kept wishin' you was here, if 'twas only to have somebody to talk it over with. But I didn't dast to write and when you was home Christmas I never dast to say nothin' because Cap'n Shad had vowed he'd butcher me if I told tales to you about any home troubles. That's it, you see! All through this their main idea has been not to trouble you. 'She mustn't know anything or she'll worry,' says Zoeth, and Cap'n Shad he says, 'That's so.' They think an awful sight of you, Mary-'Gusta.”
Mary did not trust herself to look up.
“I know,” she said. “Go on, Isaiah.”
“Well, I kept thinkin' and thinkin' and one day last week Ezra Hopkins, that's the butcher cart feller, he and me was talkin' and he says: 'Trade ain't very brisk up to the store, is it?' he says. 'Everybody says 'tain't.' 'Then if everybody knows so much what d'ye ask me for?' says I. 'Oh, don't get mad,' says he. 'But I tell you this, Isaiah,' he says, 'if Mary-'Gusta Lathrop hadn't gone away to that fool Boston school things would have been different with Hamilton and Company. She's a smart girl and a smart business woman. I believe she'd have saved the old fellers,' he says. 'She was up-to-date and she had the know-how,' says he. Well, I kept thinkin' what he said and—and—well, I wrote. For the land sakes don't tell Shad nor Zoeth that I wrote, but I'm glad I done it. I don't know's you can do anything, I don't know's anybody can, but I'm mighty glad you're here, Mary-'Gusta.”
Mary sighed. “I'm glad I am here, too, Isaiah,” she agreed, “although I, too, don't know that I can do anything. But,” she added solemnly, “I am going to try very hard. Now we mustn't let Uncle Shad or Uncle Zoeth know that I have heard about their trouble. We must let them think I am at home for an extra holiday. Then I shall be able to look things over and perhaps plan a little. When I am ready to tell what I mean to do I can tell the rest. . . . Sshh! Here comes one of them now. It's Uncle Zoeth. Look happy, Isaiah! HAPPY—not as if you were choking to death! Well, Uncle Zoeth, aren't you surprised to see me?”
Surprised he certainly was; at first, like Isaiah, he could scarcely believe she was really there. Then, naturally, he wished to know WHY she was there. She dodged the questions as best she could and Zoeth, innocent and truthful as always, accepted without a suspicion her vague explanation concerning an opportunity to run down and see them for a little while. Dinner was put on the table and then Isaiah hastened up to relieve Shadrach at the store in order that the partners and Mary might eat together.
The Captain arrived a few minutes later, red-faced, vociferous, and joyful.
“Well,” he shouted, throwing his arms about her and kissing her with a smack which might have been heard in Abner Bacheldor's yard, “if THIS ain't a surprise! Zoeth said this mornin' he felt as if somethin' was goin' to happen, and then Isaiah upset the tea kittle all over both my feet and I said I felt as if it HAD happened. But it hadn't, had it! Well, if it ain't good to look at you, Mary-'Gusta! How'd you happen to come this time of year? Has the schoolhouse foundered?”
Mary repeated the excuse she had given Mr. Hamilton. It was sufficient. The partners were too happy at having her with them to be overcurious concerning her reasons for coming. Captain Shad talked and joked and laughed and Zoeth nodded and smiled in his quiet way. If Mary had not known their secret she would not have guessed it but, as it was, she noticed how pale and worn Mr. Hamilton looked and how the Captain had become prone to fits of unwonted silence from which he seemed to arouse himself with an effort and, after a glance at her, to talk and laugh louder than ever, Once she ventured to ask how business was and it would have been almost funny if it had not been so pathetic, the haste with which they both assured her that it was about the same.
After dinner she announced her intention of going up to the store. Her uncles exchanged looks and then Zoeth said:
“What makes you do that, Mary-'Gusta? Nice day like this I'd be out of door if I was you. We don't need you at the store, do we, Shadrach?”
“Not more'n a fish needs a bathin' suit,” declared the Captain, with conviction. “You go see some of the girls and have a good time, Mary-'Gusta.”
But Mary declined to go and see any of the girls. She could have a better time at the store than anywhere else, she said. She went to the store and spent the afternoon and evening there, watching and listening. There was not much to watch, not more than a dozen customers during the entire time, and those bought but little. The hardest part of the experience for her was to see how eager her uncles were to please each caller and how anxiously each watched the other's efforts and the result. To see Zoeth at the desk poring over the ledger, his lips moving and the pencil trembling in his fingers, was as bad as, but no worse than, to see Captain Shadrach, a frown on his face and his hands in his pockets, pace the floor from the back door to the front window, stop, look up the road, draw a long breath that was almost a groan, then turn and stride back again.
At six o'clock Mary, who had reasons of her own for wishing to be left alone in the store, suggested that she remain there while her uncles went home for supper. Neither Mr. Hamilton nor the Captain would consent, so she was obliged to go to the house herself and send Isaiah up once more to act as shopkeeper. But at eleven that night, after unmistakable sounds from their rooms were furnishing proofs that both partners of Hamilton and Company were asleep, she tiptoed downstairs, put on her coat and hat, took the store keys from the nail where Zoeth always hung them, and went out. She did not return until almost three.
The next day she spent, for the most part, at the store. She wrote several letters and, in spite of her uncles' protests, waited upon several customers. That evening, as she sat behind the counter thinking, a boy whom Captain Shadrach identified as Zenas Atkins' young-one rushed breathlessly into the store to announce between gasps that “Mary-'Gusta Lathrop's wanted on the phone. It's long distance, too, and—and—you've got to scrabble 'cause they're holdin' the wire.” Mary hurried out and to the telephone office. She had not answered Shadrach's question as to who she thought was calling. She did not know, of course, but she suspected, and for a cool-headed young business woman, a girl who had ruthlessly driven all thoughts except those of business from her mind, her heart beat surprisingly fast as she entered the closet which acted as a substitute for a telephone booth, and took down the receiver. Yet her tone was calm enough as she uttered the stereotyped “Hello.”
The wire hummed and sang, fragments of distant conversation became audible and were lost, and then a voice, the voice which she was expecting but, in a way, dreading to hear, asked: “Hello! Is this Miss Lathrop?”
“Yes, Crawford.”
“Mary, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“I have just called at Mrs. Wyeth's and learned that you had gone. I am awfully disappointed. I leave for home tomorrow and I had counted on seeing you before I went. Why did you go without a word to me?”
“Didn't Mrs. Wyeth tell you?”
“She told me a good deal, but I want to know more. Is it true—that about your uncles?”
“I am afraid it is.”
“Great Scott, that's too bad! I am mighty sorry to hear it. Look here, isn't there something I can do? Do they need—”
“Sshh! we mustn't talk about it over the phone. No, there is nothing you can do. I have some plans partially worked out; something may come of them. Please don't ask more particulars now.”
“All right, I understand; I won't. But mayn't I come down and see you? I can start West the day after tomorrow just as well and that would give me time—”
“No, Crawford, no. You mustn't come.”
“I've a good mind to, whether or no.”
“If you do I shall not see you—then or at any other time. But you won't, will you?”
“No, Mary, I won't. It's mighty hard, though.”
Perhaps it was quite as hard for her, but she did not reply.
“Will you write me—every day?” he went on. . . . “Why don't you answer?”
“I was thinking what would be best for me to do,” she said; “best for us both, I mean. I shall write you one letter surely.”
“ONE!”
“One surely. I want you to understand just what my coming here means and what effect it may have upon my future. You should know that. Afterward, whether I write you or not will depend.”
“Depend! Of course you'll write me! Depend on what?”
“On what seems right to me after I have had time to think, and after you have seen your father. I must go, Crawford. Thank you for calling me. I am glad you did. Good-by.”
“Wait! Mary, don't go! Let me say this—”
“Please, Crawford! I'd rather you wouldn't say any more. You understand why, I'm sure. I hope you will have a pleasant trip home and find your father's health much improved. Good-by.”
She hung up the receiver and hastened back to the store. Shadrach and Zoeth looked at her questioningly. Finally the former said:
“Anything important, was it?”
“No, Uncle Shad, not very important.”
“Oh!”
A short interval of silence, then—
“Mrs. Wyeth callin', I presume likely, eh?”
“No, Uncle Shad.”
Shadrach asked no more questions, and Zoeth asked none. Neither of them again mentioned Mary's call to the phone, either to her or to each other. And she did not refer to it. She had promised her Uncle Shadrach, when he questioned her the year before concerning Crawford, to tell him “when there was anything to tell.” But was there anything to tell now? With the task which she had set herself and the uncertainty before her she felt that there was not. Yet to keep silence troubled her. Until recently there had never been a secret between her uncles and herself; now there were secrets on both sides.
At twelve o'clock on a night late in the following week Captain Shadrach, snoring gloriously in his bed, was awakened by his partner's entering the room bearing a lighted lamp. The Captain blinked, raised himself on his elbow, looked at his watch which was on the chair by the bed's head, and then demanded in an outraged whisper:
“What in the nation are you prowlin' around this hour of the night for? You don't want to talk about those divilish bills and credits and things, I hope. What's the use? Talkin' don't help none! Jumpin' fire! I went to bed so's to forget 'em and I was just beginnin' to do it. Now you—”
Zoeth held up his hand. “Sshh! sshh!” he whispered. “Hush, Shadrach! I didn't come to talk about those things. Shadrach, there's—there's somethin' queer goin' on. Get up!”
The Captain was out of bed in a moment.
“What's the matter?” he demanded, in a whisper. “What's queer?”
“I—I don't exactly know. I heard somebody movin' downstairs and—”
Shadrach grunted. “Isaiah!” he exclaimed. “Walkin' in his sleep again, I'll bet a dollar!”
“No, no! It ain't Isaiah. Isaiah ain't walked in his sleep since he was a child.”
“Well, he's pretty nigh his second childhood now, judgin' by the way he acts sometimes. It was Isaiah of course! Who else would be walkin' around downstairs this time of night?”
“That's what I thought, so I went and looked. Shadrach, it was Mary-'Gusta. Hush! Let me tell you! She had her things on, hat and all, and she took the lantern and lit it and went out.”
“Went OUT!”
“Yes, and—and up the road. Now, where—?”
Shadrach's answer was to stride to the window, pull aside the shade and look out. Along the lane in the direction of the village a fiery spark was bobbing.
“There she goes now,” he muttered. “She's pretty nigh to the corner already. What in the world can she be up to? Where is she bound—at twelve o'clock?”
Zoeth did not answer. His partner turned and looked at him.
“Humph!” he exclaimed. “Why don't you tell me the whole of it while you're about it? You're keepin' somethin' back. Out with it! Do YOU know where she's bound?”
Zoeth looked troubled—and guilty. “Why, no, Shadrach,” he faltered, “I don't know, but—but I kind of suspect. You see, she—she did the same thing last night.”
“She DID! And you never said a word?”
“I didn't know what to say. I heard her go and I looked out of the window and saw her. She come back about three. I thought sure she'd speak of it this mornin', but she didn't and—and—But tonight I watched again and—Shadrach, she's taken the store keys. Anyhow, they're gone from the nail.”
The Captain wiped his forehead. “She's gone to the store, then,” he muttered. “Jumpin'! That's a relief, anyhow. I was afraid—I didn't know—Whew! I don't know WHAT I didn't know! But what on earth has she gone to the store for? And last night too, you say?”
“Yes. Shadrach, I've been thinkin' and all I can think of is that—that—”
“Well—what?”
“That—that she suspicions how things are with us—somebody that does suspicion has dropped a hint and she has—has gone up to—”
“To do what? Chuck it overboard! Speak it out! To do what?”
“To look at the books or somethin'. She knows the combination of the safe, you recollect.”
Captain Shadrach's eyes and mouth opened simultaneously. He made a dive for the hooks on the bedroom wall.
“Jumpin' fire of brimstone!” he roared. “Give me my clothes!”
A half-hour later an interested person—and, so far as that goes, at least every second person in South Harniss would have been interested had he or she been aware of what was going on—an interested and, of course, unscrupulous person peeping in under the shades of Hamilton and Company's window would have seen a curious sight. This person would have seen two elderly men sitting one upon a wooden chair and the other upon a wooden packing case and wearing guilty, not to say hang-dog, expressions, while a young woman standing in front of them delivered pointed and personal remarks.
Captain Shadrach and Zoeth, following their niece to the store, had peeped in and seen her sitting at the desk, the safe open, and account books and papers spread out before her. A board in the platform creaked beneath the Captain's weighty tread and Mary looked up and saw them. Before they could retreat or make up their minds what to do, she had run to the door, thrown it open, and ordered them to come in. Neither answered—they could not at the moment. The certainty that she knew what they had tried so hard to conceal kept them tongue-tied.
“Come in!” repeated Mary. “Come in! And shut the door!”
They came in. Also Captain Shadrach shut the door. Just why he obeyed orders so meekly he could not have told. His niece gave him little time to think.
“I did not exactly expect you,” she said, “but, on the whole, I am glad you came. Now sit down, both of you, and listen to me. What do you mean by it?”
Zoeth sat, without a word. Shadrach, however, made a feeble attempt to bluster.
“What do WE mean by it?” he repeated. “What do YOU mean, you mean! Perusin' up here in the middle of the night without a word to your Uncle Zoeth and me, and—and haulin' open that safe—and—”
Again Mary interrupted.
“Be still, Uncle Shad!” she commanded. “Sit down! Sit down on that box and listen to me! That's right. Now tell me! Why have you been telling me fibs for almost a year? Answer me! Why have you?”
Zoeth looked at Shadrach and the latter looked at him.
“Fibs?” stammered Mr. Hamilton. “Fibs? Why—why, Mary-'Gusta!”
“Yes, fibs. I might use a stronger word and not exaggerate very much. You have led me to think that business was good, that you were doing as well or better than when I was here with you. I asked you over and over again and you invariably gave me that answer. And now I know that during all that time you have scarcely been able to make ends meet, that you have been worrying yourselves sick, that you—”
Captain Shad could stand it no longer.
“We ain't, neither!” he declared. “I never was better in my life. I ain't had a doctor for more'n a year. And then I only had him for the heaves—for the horse—a horse doctor, I mean. What are you talkin' about! Sick nothin'! If that swab of an Isaiah has—”
“Stop, Uncle Shad! I told you to listen. And you needn't try to change the subject or to pretend I don't know what I am talking about. I do know. And as for pretending—well, there has been pretending enough. What do you mean—you and Uncle Zoeth—by sending me off to school and to Europe and declaring up and down that you didn't need me here at home?”
“We didn't need you, Mary-'Gusta,” vowed Zoeth eagerly. “We got along fust-rate without you. And we wanted you to go to school and to Europe. You see, it makes us feel proud to know our girl is gettin' a fine education and seein' the world. It ain't any more than she deserves, but it makes us feel awful pleased to know she's gettin' it.”
“And as for the store,” broke in the Captain, “I cal'late you've been pawin' over them books and they've kind of—kind of gone to your head. I don't wonder at it, this time of night! Hamilton and Company's all right. We may be a little mite behind in some of our bills, but—er—but. . . . DON'T look at me like that, Mary-'Gusta! What do you do it for? Stop it, won't you?”
Mary shook her head.
“No, Uncle Shad,” she said, “I shan't stop it. I know all about Hamilton and Company's condition; perhaps I know it better than you do. This is the fifth night that I have been working over those books and I should know, at least.”
“The FIFTH night! Do you mean to say—”
“I mean that I knew you wouldn't tell me what I wanted to know; I had to see these books for myself and at night was the only time I could do it. But never mind that now,” she added. “We'll talk of that later. Other things come first. Uncle Shad and Uncle Zoeth, I know not only about the affairs of Hamilton and Company, but about my own as well.”
Zoeth leaned forward and stared at her. He seemed to catch the significance of the remark, for he looked frightened, whereas Shadrach was only puzzled.
“You—you know what, Mary-'Gusta?” faltered Zoeth. “You mean—”
“I mean,” went on Mary, “that I know where the money came from which has paid my school bills and for my clothes and my traveling things and all the rest. I know whose money has paid all my bills ever since I was seven years old.”
Shadrach rose from his chair. He was as frightened as his partner now.
“What are you talkin' about, Mary-'Gusta Lathrop?” he shouted. “You know! You don't know nothin'! You stop sayin' such things! Why don't you stop her, Zoeth Hamilton?”
Zoeth was speechless. Mary went on as if there had been no interruption.
“I know,” she said, “that I haven't a penny of my own and never did have and that you two have done it all. I know all about it—at last.”
If these two men had been caught stealing they could not have looked more guilty. If, instead of being reminded that their niece had spent their money, they had been accused of misappropriating hers they could not have been more shaken or dumbfounded. Captain Shadrach stood before her, his face a fiery red and his mouth opening and shutting in vain attempts at articulation. Zoeth, his thin fingers extended in appeal, was the first to speak.
“Mary-'Gusta,” he stammered, “don't talk so! PLEASE don't!”
Mary smiled. “Oh, yes, I shall, Uncle Zoeth,” she said. “I mean to do more than talk from now on, but I must talk a little first. I'm not going to try to tell you what it means to me to learn after all these years that I have been dependent on you for everything I have had, home and luxuries and education and opportunities. I realize now what sacrifices you must have made—”
“We ain't, neither!” roared the Captain, in frantic protest. “We ain't, I tell you. Somebody's been tellin' lies, ain't they, Zoeth? Why—”
“Hush, Uncle Shad! Someone HAS been telling me—er—fibs—I said that at the beginning; but they're not going to tell me any more. I know the truth, every bit of it, about Father's losing his money in stocks and—Uncle Shad, where are you going?”
Captain Shad was halfway to the door. He answered over his shoulder.
“I'm goin' home,” he vowed, “and when I get there I'm goin' to choke that dummed tattle-tale of an Isaiah Chase! I'll talk to YOU after I've done it.”
Mary ran after him and caught his arm.
“Come back, Uncle Shad!” she ordered. “Come back, sit down, and don't be foolish. I don't want you to talk to me! I am going to talk to you, and I'm not half through yet. Besides, it wasn't Isaiah who told me, it was Judge Baxter.”
“Judge Baxter! Why, the everlastin' old—”
“Hush! He couldn't help telling me, I made him do it. Be still, both of you, and I'll tell you all about it.”
She did tell them, beginning with her meeting with Mr. Green at the Howe dinner, then of her stop at Ostable and the interview with Baxter.
“So I have found it all out, you see,” she said. “I'm not going to try to thank you—I couldn't, if I did try. But I am going to take my turn at the work and the worry. To begin with, of course, you understand that I am through with Boston and school, through forever.”
There was an excited and voluble protest, of course, but she paid no heed whatever to commands or entreaties.
“I am through,” she declared. “I shall stay here and help you. I am only a girl and I can't do much, perhaps, but I truly believe I can do something. I am a sort of silent partner now; you understand that, don't you?”
Shadrach looked doubtful and anxious.
“If I had my way,” he declared, “you'd go straight back to that school and stay there long's we could rake or scrape enough together to keep you there. And I know Zoeth feels the same.”
“I sartin do,” agreed Zoeth.
Mary laughed softly. “But you haven't your way, you see,” she said. “You have had it for ever so long and now I am going to have mine. Your new silent partner is going to begin to boss you.”
For the first time since he entered the door of his store that night—or morning—Shadrach smiled. It wasn't a broad smile nor a very gay one, but it was a smile.
“Um—ya-as,” he drawled. “I want to know, Mary-'Gusta! I am gettin' some along in years, but my memory ain't failed much. If I could remember any day or hour or minute since Zoeth and me h'isted you into the old buggy to drive you from Ostable here—if I could remember a minute of that time when you HADN'T bossed us, I—well, I'd put it down in the log with a red ink circle around it. No, sir-ee! You've been OUR skipper from the start.”
Even Zoeth smiled now and Mary laughed aloud.
“But you haven't objected; you haven't minded being—what shall I call it?—skipped—by me, have you?” she asked.
The Captain grinned. “Mind it!” he exclaimed. “Umph! The only time when we really minded it was these last two years when we ain't had it. We minded missin' it, that's what we minded.”
“Well, you won't miss it any more. Now help me put these things back in the safe and we'll go home. Yes, home! Tomorrow morning—this morning, I mean—we'll talk and I'll tell you some of my plans. Oh, yes! I have plans and I am in hopes they may do great things for Hamilton and Company. But no more talk tonight. Remember, the skipper is back on board!”
So to the house they went and to bed, the Captain and Mr. Hamilton under protest.