TOBY LASSITER returned from the West one sultry evening at dusk, and went straight to the house of his employer. He found the banker seated on the front porch without his coat, and cooling himself with a big palm-leaf fan. “So you are back?” he said, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder into the unlighted hall. “Get that chair and pull it up close. If my wife happens to come out while you are talking, sort o' switch off to something else—the market reports—anything under high heavens except what you went off for. She never took to Fred noway, and anything in his favor or otherwise sets her tongue going. She thinks he is plumb out of my present calculations, and any hint that he was getting on his feet would give her tantrums. She is back in the kitchen, seeing to the supper things. She is as close as the bark of a tree, and is afraid that nigger woman will lug off supplies. I took her because she was stingy. I sort o' admired it at first, but it ain't as becoming in a woman as it is in a man. I don't know why, but it ain't. Well, fire away. What did you do?”
“I went straight out to Gate City, Mr. Walton,” the clerk began, in the tone of a man full of an experience. “I would have written home, but I didn't get on to much of importance the first three days, and then I knew I could get back about as quick as a letter could.”
“Yes, of course,” Walton said. “Well?”
“I found it about the most hustling town I ever struck, Mr. Walton. It is wide open, I tell you. Of course, it isn't anything like as big, but it was as busylooking on the main streets as Atlanta or Nashville. I thought best not to be seen about the verycentre, you know, so I took board in a little hotel in what they call 'Railroad Town,' on the east side, among the machine-shops. I pretended to be looking for a job.”
“You did, eh? You say you did?”
“Yes, sir; and I found that it was a pretty good trick, for it set folks to chatting about the different enterprises in town. You may think it is funny,” Toby laughed, impulsively—“I know I did when I finally got the key to it—but I could hardly start any sort of talk with anybody who didn't sooner or later ring in the wonderful rise of a certain fellow by the name of 'Spencer,' who was in this same Whipple's employ. They all said he'd come there without a cent—a ragged tramp, in fact; but that he had taken hold in Whipple's big store, and forged ahead till he was the old man's mainstay and chief manager. They told about all sorts of deals that this 'Spencer' had helped Whipple put through. I got kind o' tired of it all, and would every now and then ask if there wasn't a young fellow by the name of 'Walton' working there; but they said if there was they had never heard of him, and went on about Spencer. I was beginning to think there might be something crooked in that fat man's tale to you, and at one time I laid awake all night troubled powerfully. You see, the fellow who called here and paid the three thousand might have been just using Whipple's name and reputation to help him work some scheme.”
“Oh, you thought that!” and Walton drew his brows together and bit his lip.
“Yes; but not for long, Mr. Walton. The next day I ventured closer in to the centre of the town, and was looking about on the main street at the up-to-date improvements on all sides, when I saw a fellow thumping along the sidewalk that looked so much like our man that I dodged into the front part of a bar-room and waited till he went by. Then I pointed him out to a policeman, and asked him who it was.
“'Why, that,' said the cop—'that is our big grocery king, Stephen Whipple. He is a self-made man, and as rich as goose-grease. He built us a fine church, a library out of white marble, and donated the land for a city park, and done a lot of other things.'”
“Oh, he was all right, then!”
“Yes, sir, as I substantiated later,” Toby ran on, enthusiastically. “But the best thing is to be told, Mr. Walton. A few minutes after that who should I see but Fred himself rushing along the street with some account-books under his arm, as if he was in a great hurry. He was dressed as fine as a fiddle, and folks all along the street was bowing to him as if he owned the town. I dodged back into the bar and let him pass, and when I slipped out a minute later the same policeman nabbed me and pointed Fred out as he was walking on. 'That,' said the policeman, 'is Mr. Spencer, the old man's adopted son—the young man he has just taken into partnership. They are hanging a new sign down at the store now.'”
“Adopted son!” fell from the-banker's lips. “Spencer was Fred's middle name. Great Lord, Toby, do you reckon it's true?”
“True as gospel, Mr. Walton. I heard a lot about it on all sides, but I saw enough with my own eyes to convince me that there was no mistake. I went out to where the Whipples live one dark, cloudy night, and walked clean round the house. I could see into the sitting-room, for it was lighted up bright. Whipple was there, and a gray-haired, kind-looking old lady that was his wife, I reckon, and Fred. They were all sitting round a green lamp on a table. From where I stood, of course, I couldn't hear a word that was said, but it seemed like Fred was telling some funny yarn or other, like he used to do here at home, you know, and both the old folks were laughing. I don't know when anything ever has affected me as much as that sight did. I reckon I was homesick myself, away out there playing the sneak, like I was, and it made me awful blue. You know, sir, I alwaysdidlike Fred, and I don't believe many folks ever knew how much he missed his mother. And somehow, when I saw him in an entirely new home like that, away off from old ties, why—well—it sort o' got the best of me. Maybe, as I say, it was because I was homesick, but I never wanted to speak to anybody in all my life as much as I did to him at that minute.”
The head of the banker went down, his chin rested on his breast, and he was silent for a few minutes. Then he looked up, threw a cautious, half-fearful glance back into the house, and rose to his feet.
“Let's walk down to the gate,” he said, in a low, unsteady voice. “I want to talk, Toby, and yet I don't hardly know what a body could say. I have faced lots of criticism and slurs in my day and time, and never cared much what was said; but, between me and you, this thing strikes me down deep. You see, it is pretty tough the way it turned out—this having other folks give a body's son a home, and all that, and I hate to think that folks here in Stafford will get onto it and chatter. I understand 'em well enough to know, in advance, what they will say. I don't care what they think about me losing money, and the like, for that's just business. But the other thing cuts—it cuts deep. I reckon the boy didn't get any too much attention at home after I married the last time, and I reckon, if the truth was known, I was influenced against him some by his stepmother's constant nagging about his ways. I say IreckonI was influenced, for I hardly think I'd have been quite as tight on the boy if there had been just me and him left at home after his mother died. My first wife was a good woman, Toby. I never knew how good and loving she was till she was put away forever. But the town will talk now good fashion. They will say Fred served me' right to go off and get appreciated and loved by folks that was no blood kin, but who simply took him on merits I was too mean to see. They will have the laugh on me. They will call me an old hog, and I reckon I deserve it. You know, yourself, that I come within an inch of clapping handcuffs on him. I'd actually have done it if you hadn't shown me that it would go against my pocket.”
“I think you look at it too seriously, Mr. Walton,” Toby ventured to say, as the two leaned on the gate and looked down the gas-lighted street. “You mustn't forget that Fred has been longing for your forgiveness all these years. What he did was wrong, it is true, and at present it may be the chief bar to his content. Besides, me and you are the only persons who know about his shortage. You have never been a man to talk of your private affairs, and, for allthistown knows or everneedknow, you may have been in touch with Fred all these years. In fact, they may not know but what the—theother matterwas the only cause of Fred's leaving.”
“Toby, you are a good un! You'll do, you'll do! Of course, the woman business is bad, but the world somehow don't condemn it as heavy as some other things. No, you are right; this blasted town needn't know about the trouble between me and him. He won't want to come back here nohow till the other matter is arranged some way, and, between me and you, we can sort o' spring his big success on the town—kind o' off-hand, you know, as if it ain't nothing to wonder at.”
“A good idea, Mr. Walton!” Toby declared, enthusiastically. “It will set 'em wild.”
“But we'll leave the adopted-son part out, Toby.”
“Of course, sir; oh yes, sir; that needn't go in!”
“We might just tell about his being a partner in the business, or something along that line.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And I'll go out there, Toby. It will be like pulling eye-teeth, but I'll go. I'll knuckle, too, I reckon, to that fat chump. I'll make my will in the boy's favor and show it to Whipple, with an itemized list of my holdings, here and there. He won't sneer then, I reckon. Besides, Fred won't go back on me. Blood's thicker than water, and if I have been harsh—well, even if Ihave, my money will be as acceptable as that old skunk's. Yes, I'll run out in a day or so. And, Toby, I'll not even touch on the woman-and-child affair. He may think it never got out; he may believe she's kept it quiet. In the letters he wrote me, he never once alluded to it, and that shows he is not ready to admit it, anyway. No, we won't push that on him at such a time; he neverwouldwant to come home if he knew there had been such an uproar.”
SIMON WALTON had been away a week, and the force at the bank had not heard from him, when one morning Toby received a telegram from him dated that day in Atlanta. The carefully chosen ten words ran as follows:
“Meet me with horse and buggy at afternoon up train.”
So Toby went down to the old man's house, and, unassisted, got out the gaunt animal and the time-worn vehicle with the dilapidated leather hood, and drove to the station. He was in a fine glow of appreciation of the compliment implied by the telegram's being addressed solely to him, and by the additional fact that on returning from former journeys Walton had either walked home or taken the cars. Toby told himself, with no little unction, that it meant that his employer had something of a confidential nature to impart.
The train had scarcely come to a standstill when Simon, who was on the front platform of the first passenger-coach, sprang down, valise in hand, and, looking much the worse for the dust and fine cinders that lay on him like frost of the infernal regions, walked stiffly toward Toby and the buggy.
“Well, I see you got my wire,” was his greeting, as he relinquished the valise and allowed Toby to put it behind the seat in the buggy.
“Yes, I got it all right,” the clerk responded. “Shall we drive home or to the bank?”
Walton waited till Toby was in the seat beside him; then he replied: “Well, we may as well head for home, though I reckon we could take a sort o' roundabout direction through the edge of town. I want to tell you what I did out there, and we might not have as good a chance later. My wife will be nagging the life out of me for particulars, and while there are no particulars in this thing that she has any concern in, if I was to be cornered somewhere with you right at the start she'd think it strange. Then, on the other hand, if me and you slid off together the very minute I got to the bank, the rest might think I was partial, and so I thought this slow ride was the very idea.”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Walton. I suppose you saw Fred?”
“Oh yes, but not the first shot out of the box.” Walton took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, upon which lay the red imprint of his hatband, and smiled sheepishly. “The truth is, Toby, the nigher I got to that blamed town the sillier I felt, till by the time I was there and duly quartered at what they told me was their best hotel I hardly knew my hat from a hole in the ground. You see, my predicament was peculiar, and would have been odd toanyman in the plight I was in. I didn't know but two souls in the town. One of 'em was not only the great high mucky-muck of the place, but a man I'd called a thief and a liar and kicked plumb out of my sanctum when he had called to do me afavor; and the other was—well, he was my only son, who I had treated like a yellow dog. You see, I knew that downright apologies was what I owedbothof 'em; but, Toby, let me tell you something odd—I don't know how to account for it: but, as just and upright as I've always been in my dealings in ageneralway, I never, in so many plain words, ever told a human being I was sorry. I have been that way, and was willing to try to sort o'lookit, in cases where I wasdeadwrong; but I'd rather take a thousand lashes on my bare back any day than come right out and beg a fellow's pardon.”
“I understand,” Toby said, sympathetically. “A great many folks are that way.”
“Well, I don't think I'm like a great many folks,” Walton replied, as his eyes rested on the back of his horse, “but I couldn't swallow that pill. So there I was, registered at that fine joint, with a front room all to myself, overlooking the street, and the clerks and nigger porters looking at me, same as to say, 'Well, what is your game? Are you a whiskey drummer, bank-examiner, detective, stock-drover, or escaped convict?' I was like a fish out of water. I didn't know what to do or how to make any sort of start. I sat round the office half the time, and the rest I was flopping about in my room. The first day passed that way, and the next night, in which I had hardly got a wink of sleep. There was a bar-room and gambling-hell right under me, and I could hear some whizzing thing and balls rolling, and a deep voice calling out in some game or other. It was a gay town, and I was in the middle of it. The next morning I determined I'd write Fred a note and let him know where I was at, but I'd no sooner got it ready and backed and sealed than I recalled that Fred wasn't using his own name, and that a note addressed to him in the old style might cause talk, and so I tore it up. Then I ventured out and, half-scared to death, actually walked by the big store—on the opposite side of the street, though—and peeped in through the windows. It was as busy as a beehive during a swarm, but I couldn't see head nor tail of Fred. All at once I took the bit in my mouth and started across the street to go in, but was stopped short. And what do you reckon done it, Toby?”
“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton,” said the clerk, deeply interested.
“Toby, it was that new sign you spoke about—'Stephen Whipple & Son.' It was on the front of the big red building, and seemed to me to be just so many long, black letters stalking clean across the sky. 'Stephen Whipple & Son,' and the last word, small as it was, overtopped all the rest. The thing simply knocked me silly. Wasn't it Saint Paul (it wasoneof them fellows in the good Book) that fell down in some great light that blazed out over him? Mine wasn't a light; it wasn't wind; it wasn't a kick in the jaw from an army mule, but it hit me like all three combined. I was mad; I was sorry; I was ashamed; but I couldn't walk under that dad-blasted sign. It hung over them doors like a long white sword of an enemy ready to chop me into halves.
“I whirled about and went back to my room and actually hid the rest of the day, wondering how on earth I was going to do the job. Once I packed up my valise and started down to pay my bill, with the intention of shirking the whole thing; but I saw that wouldn't do. So I passed another day. I read my Bible a little, and I reckon I prayed some. I don't know, Toby, but I would have bowed down before a heathen idol to have got help out of my predicament. I remembered what you said about seeing Fred at Whipple's house, and the next night I went out and inquired the way to his place. I found it, and, having nothing better to do, I walked clean around it like you did. Nobody was in sight, but I could see lights inside, and then the thought came to me that Fred, my son, maybe, was at that very minute in there keeping company with that old man and woman, and that made me feel as bad as the sign had. I tried to argue that I'd been right in pinning down on the boy for what he had done; but I knew there was no stability to my point, for that fat chap had secured better results through a different method, andhewasn't no bloodkin. So I went back to the hotel, and made another night of it. I wasn't like you. I couldn't talk to strangers in an off-hand way about it. I tried once to the clerk behind the counter, but I couldn't make it go. He looked at me mighty curious, and I changed the subject. I think I asked him if that State wa'n't heavy on hog-raising.”
“You were in an embarrassing position,” Toby remarked, as he shook the drooping lines over the plodding horse's back.
“I never would have got out of it if it hadn't been by pure accident,” Walton said. “The office of the hotel was a sort of meeting-place for the young men of the town of an evening, and there was a little smoking and writing room off of it. I was sitting there on the third evening, and the office was thronged with young chaps. Some sort of entertainment was on hand at the opera-house across the street, for a band was playing outside, and the young men in their best outfits were smoking and chatting in the office, when who should I see come in but Fred. He came in at the front door in a swallowtail suit with a light overcoat on his arm, and I tell you the crowd all made way for him. Toby, I am an old man; I've been through the rubs; I've seen near and dear comrades shot down at my side on the field of battle; I have had all sorts of experiences; but the sight of my boy there looking so much older and more dignified than when I last saw him—a sort of king among his kind—with this one and that one giving him the glad hand, and hailing him right and left with words and smiles of welcome while I was slinking off there—well, Toby, I don't want to live that over again; I don't; as God is my Creator, I don't! I sat there watching him through the door like—well, you'll have to imagine it, and draw your own conclusions; I can't tell you how I felt. I was dumb; I was speechless. It was like a double nightmare. I haven't shed enough tears in my life to drown a gnat, but I wanted to cry good and hearty then.”
“And you met him—I know you did,” Toby broke in. “I see it in your face.”
“Yes, as luck would have it, by accident; he left the others and come right into the room, and I saw that he'd recognized me, for he turned pale as death, and stopped in front of me. Then I saw him steady himself, and a pitiful, resigned look come over him. If I live through eternity, I'll never forget his first words. What do you think he said?”
“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton.”
“Toby, he said this—he said this, and the words will haunt me to my grave. They will go with me into the very depths of my last abode. He said: 'Oh, father, you have caught me! You have come to take me back! Well, I am ready!'
“Toby Lassiter, talk about your—your hells on earth; talk about your flames of despair, the worm that dieth not, and the like. I had 'em all. I couldn't speak. I didn't even have the sense or power to shake hands, and the poor boy misunderstood even that. He pulled up a chair, shaking like a leaf. Nobody was in the room but us two. Then somehow I managed to say that he was mistaken, and that I hadn't come there forthatreason. I wanted to talk to the point and justify myself, but I was worse than a stuttering idiot at a spelling-bee. Like a fool, I started in to say that I had heard a lot about the progress of the town, and he thought I had some speculation on foot and had run on him by accident. I no sooner saw that he thought that than I got tangled up worse than ever. Nothing short of begging his forgiveness would set things straight, and I couldn't have got that out to have saved my soul from perdition.”
“That certainlywasawkward,” Toby burst out, like an enthusiast at a play. “It was bad.”
“I reckon we never would have understood each other, Toby, but we started to walk out together, and went along to a side street that run into a park where it wasn't so light. Somehow we went inside, and before I knew it I had laid my hand on his arm. I never had done a thing like that in all my life, and all of a sudden we stopped and he looked right in my face. It was too much for me, Toby. I couldn't hold in any longer. But it didn't do any harm, for I saw he understood me, and that was enough. He was the happiest creature I ever laid eyes on; he laughed and cried and petted me, and said that he loved me a hundred times more than he did old Whipple and his wife. Then we sat down on a bench under the trees and talked it all over. He talked to me more openly than he ever did before. He wanted to come home above all things, but he wanted to put it off awhile. He told me about him and Margaret Dearing. She was the only real sweetheart he'd ever had, he said, and he could never care for anybody else. It seems that they met by accident awhile back in New York, and she gave him to understand that she didn't care any more for him. He said it was because she knew of his shortage at the bank. But I told him how you and me had kept that quiet, and not to let that bother him. But he told me something that we didn't know: he said he had confessed it to her brother the night he left. He said a woman as high and proud as she was never could overlook anything bordering on dishonesty, no matter how much it was atoned for.”
“She wouldn't be so hard on him ifthatwas all, Mr. Walton,” Toby said. “But, of course, she heard about the other thing; in fact, the girl and the child are right there under her eyes.”
“That occurred to me while me and him was talking,” Walton said; “but I simply couldn't bring up a nasty thing like that at such a time. I thought that might as well rest; in fact, it looked to me like he thought his name had never been mixed up with it. You see, Toby, maybe the woman promised that it shouldn't get out, and has kept him from knowing of the report in order to bleed his pocket. At any rate, he don't seem to suspect what folks are saying here at home. I know he wants to keepmein the dark, for he boldly asked me about Dora Barry, among other inquiries. I was astonished at it, but he wanted to know if she'd ever got married, and when I told him no, he went on to say that she was the best friend he'd ever had among the home girls, and that she had a beautiful character, and the like. He went on to say that she was the finest painter of pictures he had ever seen, and that when he left he was sure she would make a great artist out of her turn that way. He asked me if she had put her talent to any use, and I told him if she had I hadn't heard about it. Then he said—he did—that he was going to sit down and write her a friendly letter, and tell her where he was at, now that me and him had made up. I thought he was piling it on pretty heavy, you know, but I never let on.”
“That was best, of course,” Toby opined, reflectively. “Folks are not apt to throw up a thing like that to a man who has turned over a new leaf, and it may be many a year before he discovers how much has really been talked on that line. But you didn't tell me, Mr. Walton. Did you see Fred's—did you see Mr. Whipple?”
“It went powerfully against the grain, but I had to,” the banker said, gruffly. “I was in for making a beeline back home without having to swallow that dose, but Fred wouldn't hear to it. He said the old skunk would feel hurt. I didn't care a dad-dratted cent whether he felt hurt or not; in fact, I felt hurt to have him dragged in at all. I'm glad the boy has landed in such a pile of clover, but I don't like Whipple any too much, and I reckon that dang sign of his was my Belshazzar's warning on the wall. But it is this way—well, you know what I mean. I reckon a body can look at it from any direction—level, sink, or angle—and the fact will still stick out that the boy is divided, and will have to remain divided from now on. That ain't usual, Toby; it is crooked. It sort o' gives the lie to my success as a father. I won't go into it any further. The whole thing out there, though, would have gone off smooth enough if that old cuss hadn't been in it. He had a slobbery way of talking to Fred, and put his hands on him every chance he got. They asked me out to dinner at Whipple's house to meet the old woman, but I drew the line at that. I was sure she'd act the fool as bad, or worse, than Whipple had, and so I wouldn't go. I never was mushy in that way myself, and I can't stomach them that are. Whipple is going to leave him all he's got, and I want Fred to get all he can of the good things in life, but I'll be dad-blamed if I wanted 'em to come exactly that way.
“Whipple set there in his office and made out a list of his possessions, and it looked to me like he was making everything look as big as he could out of pure spite. Not once did he say—Toby, he didn't say a single time that I hadanysort of justification in pinning down on the boy like I did. He might have done it, but he didn't. He always cocked himself up and talked in a roundabout, sneaking fashion, like he was giving underhanded digs. Toby, I want the boy back here, that's all. I want him back here in the bank to take my place after I'm gone. I don't think I could stand it to be beat to a cold, dead finish by that old chump in a fight of exactly this kind. Whipple said Fred could sort o' play between the two places—stay awhile here and awhile there, but I want to tie him down good and tight to old Stafford. I've got an idea how to do it, Toby, and it ain't a bad one.”
“What is it, Mr. Walton?” the clerk asked, eagerly.
“Why, Toby, I ain't much at match-making, but I am going to try my hand at the game. Now, if I could only persuade Margaret Dearing to be sensible, like most women always have been in regard to the early slips of the men they marry—if I could persuade her to overlook the only thing that now remains against the boy—”
“They would get married, and both would prefer to live here!” Toby broke in, eagerly.
“That's the point, Toby,” Walton said. “You've hit it. Now drive me home.”
ONE afternoon, three days after this, Simon Walton drove down the street to Dearing's, and, alighting at the front gate, he carefully haltered his horse to the hitching-post with a rope he always carried under the buggy-seat. Then he opened the gate and trudged up the walk to the door.
Margaret saw him from the window of her room upstairs, and, thinking that he had called to see her uncle or her brother, she hurried down-stairs.
“Did you want to see my uncle?” she asked, sweetly.
“No, I didn't, Miss Margaret.” Walton had taken off his broad-brimmed felt hat, and stood shifting it awkwardly from one hand to the other, a look at once grave and agitated on his gaunt face.
“Well, mybrotheris at his office,” the girl threw tentatively into the pause that had ensued; “at least, he said he was going there when he left here about two o'clock.”
“I didn't want to see him,either,” and the old man tried to smile, but the effort was a grim failure. “The truth is, Miss Margaret, if I may make so bold, I wanted to seeyou. There is a little matter I sort o' thought you and me might talk over maybe to mutual gain and profit.”
“You want to see me, really?” Margaret started. “Well, won't you come in?”
Walton glanced into the wide hall doubtfully and fanned himself with his hat. “I don't know; it must be kind o' stuffy inside on a sweltering day like this, ain't it?” he said, awkwardly. “Ain't there a place out under the trees somewhere where we could set a minute? I was here one day with the General, and round that way—” Walton nodded his shaggy head to the right and broke off helplessly.
“Oh yes, and there are some chairs there, too,” Margaret answered. She was now quite grave, and she led the way with a certain erectness of carriage and with an air of restraint that was visible even to the crude sensibilities of her caller.
The chairs under the trees were reached. Walton seized the most comfortable-looking one, and for no obvious reason settled it firmly on the sod. “Now,” he said, and with bended body he waited for her to take it. When she had complied, he took a seat himself, dropping his hat on the grass beside him, only to recover it without delay, that it might rest on his sharp, unsteady knee. He looked up at the unclouded sky, at the overhanging boughs of the big oaks under which they sat. He cleared his throat, looked at Margaret, and then glanced over his shoulder at the roof and gables of the old house.
“You said, I think, that you came to see me,” Margaret reminded him, with as much voice as she could command, for all sorts of bewildering possibilities were flitting through her brain.
“Yes, I did, Miss Margaret,” he said, with a slight start. “If you was a man, now, I think we could get this thing over with in a short time; but I never had much dealings with women—that is, except in a purely business way. I can tell a woman she is over-checking, or offering me bad security, or needs better identification than a pair of bright eyes and rosy cheeks will furnish; but this thing that's riz between me and you is plumb different. In the bank they come tome, but in this case, you see,I'mthe supplicant. Miss Margaret, I've come to see you about my boy—about Fred.”
“Oh, you want to find him, and you think that perhaps I—” She went no further. Her first impulsive thought was that Walton had in some way heard of her meeting with Fred in New York and had come to obtain information as to his address.
“Oh no; I know where he is well enough.” The way seemed easier to the old man now, and he went on rapidly. “He is at Gate City, Oklahoma, Miss Margaret. He has been there all this time, and is doing mighty well; in fact, he has gone and got rich. You know the West is a powerful field for fresh, young blood to forge ahead in, and Fred struck it just right. He is a partner in a whopping big wholesale business there. He has been writing to me—that is, off and on. Therewasa little cash difference between his account and mine, and he finally made it good out of his earnings. I—I never was much of a hand to talk my business, you know, so I've never let on here at Stafford exactly how hewasmaking out, but a time has come when I want to set him as nigh straight as possible before the community he was born and raised in; in fact, I want him to come home.”
“Yes, of course.” Margaret's cold, pale lips formally dropped the words as her visitor paused and wiped his perspiring brow and fanned himself with his hat..
“Yes, I've just been out there to sort o' settle up a little deal betwixt me and the man—twixt me and Fred's business partner, and I must say the whole outlook was good. You know I reckon that everybody in this town sort o' thought before Fred went off that he never would amount to much in a business way, but he is all right now. So, having nothing much to do at the bank this hot day, why, I thought I'd drive up here and see you about it.”
“Seemeabout it? I really don't understand,” the young lady faltered.
“Well, to come right to the point, Miss Margaret”—Walton avoided her wavering glance for a moment as he kicked the toe of his boot into an unoffending tuft of grass and fairly uprooted it—“out there in Gate City one night me and Fred had a sort o' confidential talk about old times, and one thing or other, and finally he broke down and told me how much attached he had always been to you—never had cared for no other woman, nor never would as long as the sun shone on the earth, and other things to that effect.”
“Oh, Mr. Walton, please don't!” Margaret cried out; but there was a glow of irrepressible delight rising in her face, and her beautiful eyes were sparkling. “I don't think I want to talk about it.”
“Ihaveto,” the banker insisted, firmly. “I want him back here, Miss Margaret; and, as it stands now, I'm afraid he never will come unless you yield a point or two. He said his one and only spur to making a man of himself had been the hope that—seeing that you hadn't yet chosen a partner—that you might some day or other consider his proposal. He says, though, that he met you in New York, awhile back, and that you deliberately turned him down. He said he couldn't blame you, after all that had happened, but he couldn't help thinking that maybe it would be as well for him never to come nigh you again. That was the way, I say, thathelooked at it, blue and down-in-the-mouth, as the poor fellow was during our confab; but I threw out a straw to him, so I did, Miss Margaret. I cited numbers and numbers of cases where young men had eventually lived down early mistakes, and finally been reinstated, to become, in the end, an honor to the land of their birth. He didn't think, after the way you acted in New York, that there was any chance for him at all, but, being anxious to make headway, I told him I was sure you was too much of a Christian at heart to refuse a request like his, offered in the spirit it is offered in. He's sorry for many things that's he done, and wants to wipe 'em out.”
Old Walton's eyes shifted almost significantly from her face to the low roof of Mrs. Barry's cottage, and instinctively Margaret's glance followed; then, becoming conscious of the fact, she quickly looked down, and a tinge of color climbed into her pale cheeks.
“I think we'd better not say any more about that, Mr. Walton,” she said, more firmly than she had spoken since his arrival. “I am sure your son understands how I feel.”
“That means a flat no, then,” the banker said, and with a heavy sigh he slowly stood up. “Well, I've pleadhiscase as well as I know how, but I hain't yet touched onmine. Miss Margaret, you could do me a big, lasting favor if you'd let this thing go through. I'm a plain man. Folks hain't never said I was much of a hand to show affection, and they are right, I reckon; but the way matters stand now is getting me down, and if you don't extend a helping hand I'm afraid I'll feel bad the rest of my life. It ain't justFredthat's concerned—it's me—me!As long as a father can make himself believe he is treating his son justly, he can hold his head up and meet the eye of the world; but, if the truth must be told, I reckon I didn't give Fred a good enough show. I driv' him off, with threats of the law, and away off in a strange land, under a new name, he forged ahead. He made friends by the stack, and the old man—his partner that I told you about—loves him like he was his own; in fact, he calls him his 'adopted son.' Think of that! The only child the Lord ever give me is now claimed by a blamed old cuss that understood him better than I ever did! He has willed him all he's got, and he's got plenty, too—a sight more than I'll ever have if I keep on till the end of the chapter. I want to hold my own, Miss Margaret. I hain't never been clean beat yet, and this, somehow, would be the worst fall I ever had. I just can't stomach the idea! I want my boy to loveme, and lean onme,and not on a fat, pudgy old idiot that never had a thing to do with his baby days. I want that worse than I ever wanted anything, and I don't see how I'm going to get it if you don't help a little. If your pride won't let you do it forhim, maybe it will for an old chap like me, that is begging for one more throw of the dice. I simply want him back, and he won't come unless you will let bygones be bygones.” He paused. Something very much like strong emotion was in his whole dejected attitude as he stood bowed before her. She started to speak, but stopped, clasping her delicate hands undecidedly in front of her. She stood silent for a moment, and then she said, softly:
“I see; it is hard on you. It is a pity you have to suffer on account of it.”
“Promise me this, Miss Margaret.” Old Walton leaned forward eagerly. “Promise that you will think it over for a day or so. It ain't a thing, anyway, to be decided in a second, like buying a hat or a pair of gloves of such and such a color or material. If you have to go plumb against the boy, do it after mature deliberation. Won't you study over it a day or two?”
“Yes, I can promise that,” Margaret consented. “I'll stop in at the bank and see you soon.”
“Well, that's all a bodycouldask,” Walton said, gratefully; and, bowing low, he trudged across the grass to his horse and buggy.
WHEN he had disappeared down the street, Margaret sat staring at the ground, her color still high, her eyes holding a delicate, spiritual effulgence, her breast rising and falling under stress of fiercely contending impulses, my Christian duty to forgive,” she argued. “I know he has repented, and he couldn't have been wholly to blame. His grosser nature was tempted. He fell, but he lovedmein a different way. He loves me still, or he wouldn't want me now. He showed it in New York. He has suffered enough, and I ought to take him back. But can I?CanI? How could I forget, with her and his child right under my eyes? Perhaps, if I went to see her, that might help me decide. I ought to have gone, anyway. She really has had a hard life.”
With her hand on her breast, as though the thought had given her actual physical pain, she bowed for a few minutes; then she calmly rose, fastened the strings of her graceful hat under her pretty chin, and walked deliberately down to Mrs. Barry's. Lionel was playing with some colored building-blocks on the porch, and looked up in vast surprise.
“Where is your mother?” Margaret asked, timidly. “May I see her?”
“She is in the studio,” the child said. “She is making a picture.”
At this moment Dora stepped out into the hall from a room on the right, and with a look of undisguised and almost perturbed surprise she came forward.
“Oh, sheisbeautiful—beautiful!” ran like a dart through the visitor's brain. “She is a thousand times more now than she used to be; she has grown, developed. Such hair, such eyes, such color, such a perfect figure!”
“I think I heard you asking for me,” Dora said, calmly, something—perhaps it was the sheer immunity of genius and conscious purity of purpose—lifting her above the embarrassment of the situation.
“Yes, I came to see you,” Margaret said, bewildered by Dora's appearance and the growing sense of her wonderful and forceful personality. “I ought to have come before, I am well aware; but I hope you won't turn me away.”
“Why should I, Margaret?” Even in the unruffled voice of the recluse there was a mellow hint of oblivion to the social degradation the outside world had draped her with. “Would you mind coming into my workroom? It is about as cheerful as our stuffy little parlor.”
“Oh, you still paint?” Margaret cried, as she stood in the doorway and saw the pictures leaning here and there and tacked to the wooden partition.
“Yes, I had to have some occupation,” Dora responded, quite frankly, “and I took it up. I think I should have died but for my art.”
“And did you really do all these?” Margaret stared in admiration. “Oh, they are lovely, lovely!”
“I'm glad you like them,” Dora said, appreciatively. “I am sorry I happen to have only these. Just last week I sent a box of the best away. I may as well tell you that I sell them—or, rather, have them sold for me.”
“Oh, you do, really? How nice!—how very nice!” Margaret sat down almost in utter bewilderment. The whole thing was like a dream—the wonderful intellectual poise of the girl-like artist; her beauty; her charm; the far-away look of almost conscious superiority in the long-lashed, indescribable eyes. “And you intend to go on with your art?”
“Oh yes, to the end—to the very end of life, and beyond, too, perhaps,” answered Dora, with a merry, philosophical laugh. “I am working toward a glorious goal. Far-off Paris beckons me, Margaret, even in my sleep. Mother and I read of nothing else now, and think of nothing else. We study French in our poor way, and speak it together. Even Lionel lisps a word of it now and then. Yes, Paris and my boy mean all to me now. This has been a prison for our little family, but there the breath of art animates all life. The people are not narrow; they rank essential purity above the sordid hypocrisy of mere convention. There my boy might grow up unconscious of—but you know what I mean.”
“Yes, yes,” Margaret said, a vast womanly sympathy springing up within her that fairly swept her from the condemnatory position she had so long held.
“And we hope to manage it very soon now,” the artist continued. “We are hoarding up my earnings for that, and nothing else. Lionel has the soul of a poet, artist, or musician, and in Paris he can grow and expand, and there—there he will not have to face what would inevitably be his portion if he remained here. His misfortune, if it can be called that, was not of his making, and God will help me to wipe it out of his consciousness—to blot it from his fair young soul.”
“Yes, yes,” Margaret said, helplessly, and she rose to go. There was nothing she could say. Dora, in some unaccountable way, seemed beyond her mental reach, a glorious, sublimated creature more of spirit than of matter. The things she had striven for in her solitude had raised her higher than her surroundings. From a narrow point of view she had lost, from a higher and broader she had gained; she was the youthful forerunner of a future army of women who would be judged by the radiance of their souls rather than by the shadows of their bodies.
Dora seemed to feel her sudden nearness in spirit to her old friend. For a moment she was silent. There was a clatter of blocks on the floor of the porch, followed by the soft click-click of the pieces of wood as the child put them together again from the heap into which they had fallen.
“I have always wanted to have a good, long talk with you about Fred,” Dora suddenly began, “but I hardly knew how to propose it to you after—at least, after he went away so suddenly. I felt that I ought to see you personally, and yet my pride would not let me. He had his faults, Margaret, but there were many beautiful things in his character.”
“I know, I know.” Margaret's heart fairly froze, and she stared coldly and held herself quite erect. Was it possible that the woman would dare to intimate that she cared to hear about that shameful intimacy? Had her ideas of art, her dreams of France and bohemian freedom from conventional laws, led her into the error of thinking that she, Margaret Dearing, would for a moment listen to such a confidence?
“Only to-day I received a long letter from him,” Dora went on, unobservant of the change that had come over her visitor. “Let me get it. I am sure you will think more kindly of him when you have read what he writes. His father has been out to see him, and they are quite reconciled now. It has made Fred very happy. You see, there is no reason now why he may not come home. I want you to see the letter, for he mentions you in it, and I am sure, seeing how sweet and kind you are to me, that—”
“I don't care to see it!” Margaret broke in, frigidly. “Please don't ask me. I am just going. I only had a few moments. I thank you very much for showing me your pictures.”
Dora dropped her eyes in surprise, for the gaze of her haughty visitor was full of undisguised anger.
“I didn't mean to offend you,” she said, humbly, “and I hope you will pardon me. I was only trying to do Fred a good turn, and I suppose I did it awkwardly. It is very good of you to come. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.” And Margaret swept from the room. As she crossed the porch and passed the little architect of a church of no mean design, he raised his eyes and said:
“Look, lady; that is the tower for the big bell (ding-dong!), and this is the door—” But she paid no heed to him, as, with a shrug, almost of disdain, she passed on to the gate.
“He is writing to her; he has been writing to her all these years,” she said within herself. “Perhaps he has even met her—she may have been to see him in other places. That is why she's lived so quietly—it gave her the chance to go and come as she liked. Perhaps he has put those ideas of Paris and free-love into her head. When he talked to me in New York he didn't mean that—that he cared for me deeply. He meant only that he wanted me and the rest of us here to overlook what he had done. When he told his silly old father that he would not come back unless I forgave him, he meant—he thought—he was trying to apologize—actuallyapologize—for having made love to me. I have lowered myself by going to her. It gave her that sly chance to stab me. She thinks I care. She thinks that I have been crying my eyes out about him. They have talked me over time after time. Oh, the shame of it—the uttershameof it!”