“Virginia, come here!” roared Obadiah on the morning after the trip up the river.
There was a rough commanding note in his voice which made the girl spring to her feet, and, shaken by dread of impending calamity, with throbbing heart and startled eyes, hurry down stairs to where he awaited her in the living room.
He stood before the great mantel. The morning paper was stretched between his hands, his nervous fingers crushing its edges. His face was flushed with passion and his eyes, as they met those of his daughter, were cruel in their anger. “Look here! See what you have done,” he cried, in a voice which shook with the intenseness of his emotion. In his haste he tore a corner from the paper as he thrust it towards the trembling girl.
She accepted the sheet as if she were in a dream. Never had he spoken so to her. Never had she seen him in such a rage. Fear of him–of the primitive masculinity of the man–clutched at her heart. Everything seemed unreal. It was as if she were in the midst of a horrible nightmare from which she might, if she would, release herself. She sank into a chair, the paper across her knees. As her eyesdropped, the print danced queerly for a moment before her vision cleared. There, she read in staring headlines, “The Wreck of theNancy Jane.”
The comical side of the vicissitudes of theNancy Jane, with its passenger list of mothers and babies had so impressed the reporter that he had prepared his story in a humorous vein. Unfortunately, he had elected to weave his story about Obadiah Dale, the manufacturer, and his daughter, instead of about Mrs. Henderson or any humble individual. The story was funny. The way the scribbler linked the generosity of Obadiah towards the babies, the navigation of the Lame Moose by theNancy Jane, and Elgin’s Grove, was a scream to those who knew the selfishness of the mill owner, the shallow depth and harmlessness of the Lame Moose and the lurid history of the grove. The editor-owner of the paper had little use for Obadiah and in running this article–good natured and harmless on its face–he had hit the manufacturer in a vulnerable spot. Obadiah could not stand ridicule.
While Virginia read, the wide toed shoes of her father resounded, as he tramped excitedly up and down the room. She finished the article and looked up at him. Little chills of fright thrilled up and down her spine, and yet she found no reason for it in the column she had been reading. That struck her as rather silly.
As she dropped the paper, Obadiah glowered down at her. “Now,” he yelled, in his high voice, “I hope that you are satisfied. You have made me the laughing stock of this town–made a perfect ass out of me.” He shook a long forefinger at her. “I’ve stood enough of your foolishness and it’s got to stop.” Theold man was nearly frantic with anger as he scowled at her, a pale, crushed little thing in the big arm chair. “I’m tired of it,” he raged. “You make me ridiculous by your failure to appreciate that there is such a thing as personal dignity. You’ve mixed me in the most nonsensical affairs. Think of it! Parading down the main street of this town behind a minstrel band with a load of negroes!” He almost gnashed his teeth at the thought. “You got up that fool band concert at the Old Ladies’ Home. It was a farce with the fire department dashing up in the middle of it. Now,” he bellowed, “you had to go and get mixed in this mess on the river.” Obadiah had to pause in the catalogue of his grievances to catch his breath. His temper was choking him. “I’ve always tried to protect my reputation,” he went on. “I’ve minded my business and let other people attend to theirs. But you have to drag me into this. My name is a hiss and a byword in this town today. I’ll never hear the last of it. You are to blame for it all.” Self-pity brought Obadiah to the verge of tears.
But immediately a returning wave of anger engulfed his sorrow. “You are extravagant–wickedly so. You force me to pay out large sums of money. You’ve made me buy ice cream for the old ladies, the veterans, the firemen and all the mothers and babies, too.–Pretty nearly the whole town has been entertained at my expense,” he groaned. “Worst of all,” he continued with renewed temper, “were your fool admissions and asinine agreement which forced me to endow that room at the hospital.
“It’s time to call a halt,” he raved. “I’ll stand itno longer. It must stop.” He paused before the shrinking girl and shook his fist in the air. “Hereafter you will mind your own business and not interfere in the troubles of others. You’ll stay at home where you belong and quit gadding about.”
Stunned by his vehemence and crushed by his words, the forlorn little figure raised pleading eyes to him as he strode out of the room. “Daddy,” she cried after him, but he took no notice of it.
In her own room, tears brought relief to Virginia, and in time she was able to review her father’s behavior with a degree of calmness. She trembled anew as she remembered his anger. Then, with a start, she awakened to the fact that he had forbidden her to continue to do those things which she had done in the spirit of her mother’s message. Her mind traveled over his actions in the past and reconsidered remarks that he had made. Suddenly she realized that he had never been in sympathy with her, that he had frankly told her so, and that she had refused to believe him. With sickening alarm, she awakened to the conflict between the ideals of her father and her mother. She sat upon the bed, a dejected heap of sorrow, and gazed at the wall with dry eyes, frightened and unseeing. What must she do? That was the question. It smothered her acute grief at his angry words. Worshiping the mother whom she had never known with all the hunger of a lonely heart, it was a solemn and tragic decision which she forced upon herself. The gravity of it urged her to physical action. She could not bear to lie there, she must move about.
It was a sad eyed girl who went downstairs. FromSerena she learned that her father had telephoned that he would not be home for lunch.
The old negress used all of her arts to persuade her mistress to eat something. “Ain’ yo’all gwine pick at dis yere salad an’ tast’tes some o’ de custard ah fix special fo’ ma honey chil’?” she begged. To comfort Virginia she belittled the episode of the morning. “You’ Daddy done git mad fo’ er minute caze dat ole boat stick in de mud. He gwine fo’git it quick. He ain’ tek no ’count o’ de babies wot ’joy deyse’fs er eatin’ an’ er sleepin’.”
The girl ate sparingly as Serena forced food upon her.
Suddenly the old servant reached out and patted her mistress gently upon the shoulder, her black face filled with a great tenderness as she said, “You’ Mammy done say, ef er pusson try to do right, dey ain’ nothin’ else wot mek no diffe’nce. Dat’s jes wot Miss Elinor she say.
“Yas’m, she done say dat right befo’ ma eyes,” explained Serena, and then she hastened away to answer the door bell, leaving Virginia gazing dreamily out of a window, wonderfully comforted.
The shrill voice of a woman uplifted in excitement sounded in the hall. “We must see some one. We have come a long distance and Mr. Dale is not at his office.”
“Dey ain’ nobody heah fo’ yo’all to talk no business to. You might jes as well go ’long,” Serena answered with firmness.
“Mr. Dale has a daughter,” the voice suggested.
“She ain’ gwine be ’sturbed. She jes er chil’ an’ain’ know nothin’ a tall ’bout her pappy’s business. Bettah gwan away f’om heah.”
“What is it, Serena?” asked Virginia, hurrying into the hall.
“Jes some pussons dat ain’ know whar dey ’long,” snarled the old negress, beginning to vibrate under the stress of anger as she glared at three highly indignant women waiting without.
Virginia felt that it was necessary to interfere in the tense situation. “I am Miss Dale. I shall be glad to talk to you if you wish to come in,” she told the strangers, to Serena’s disgust.
The hostility of these visitors melted in a degree at this display of hospitality; but their manner was cool as they followed the girl into the living room.
“We are a committee from the Women’s Civic Club of Amity, a town situated ten miles below here on the river,” explained Mrs. Duncan, a stern faced female, after they had introduced themselves. “We ask that you inform your father of our call.”
“I shall be glad to do that,” Virginia promised. “Am I to explain the purpose of your visit to him?”
Mrs. Duncan gazed questioningly at the girl. “We ask you to do that, and if you have a heart we hope that you will use your influence in our behalf. You may tell him–” her eyes blazed–“that we come on the part of the women of Amity to protest against his killing us by putting poison in our drinking water.”
“What?” gasped an astonished Virginia.
“We don’t propose to sit quiet and allow Obadiah Dale to murder our children.”
“I don’t understand.”
The very evident amazement and horror of the mill owner’s daughter at her words caused Mrs. Duncan to expand upon them in the cause of clearness. “Amity gets its water supply from the Lame Moose River,” she explained. “The waste from your father’s mill has made the water unfit for human consumption. It has been getting worse for years and now we have much sickness, especially among children, which the doctors trace to this cause.”
“Why, that is terrible. I am sure that my father knows nothing about it,” cried Virginia with great earnestness.
Mrs. Duncan gave an audible sniff of disbelief. “Oh, I think that he does. We tried to get him to do something before we took the matter up with the State Board of Health, but he wouldn’t. They have taken samples of the water and have decided that the waste makes it unfit for the use of human beings. So that is settled.”
“If that is true why don’t they take the matter up with my father? Why should you come to him?” asked Virginia, suspiciously.
“Because,” Mrs. Duncan continued, “your father is rich and powerful, and even if the Board of Health orders him to stop running waste into the river he may take the matter into court and fight it for years. That is what we are worrying about now. Must Amity go on drinking poisoned water while your father and the Board of Health fight in the court? Our purpose is to attempt to persuade him not to contest the decision of the Board.”
“If my father is certain that the waste from hismill is making people sick, he surely will stop running it into the river.”
“It is the only decent thing for him to do,” agreed Mrs. Duncan, greatly mollified by the attitude of the girl. “Perhaps the Board of Health has not notified him of its final decision,” she conceded. “Of course our Club is greatly interested and we have kept in close touch with the case. Our representatives have called frequently at the office of the Board.” She laughed. “We even had a committee which used to go with Mr. Joe Curtis, the Board’s representative, every time he took samples of water at Amity.”
“Who took the samples?” asked Virginia, instantly alert.
“A young man by the name of Curtis. He used to come out on a motorcycle. He worked for the Board of Health.”
“I’ll take the matter up with my father, tonight,” Virginia promised the women when they left. “You can be sure that he will do the right thing about it.”
Her old confidence in her father surged up in the presence of the callers; but after they had gone the remembrance of the morning’s episode, with her new realization of her father, persisted in returning. She caught herself wondering if it were possible that he, knowing that the waste from his mill was polluting the water and causing sickness, had done nothing about it. Loyally she fought back the thought. He wouldn’t do that–a wicked thing. He didn’t know the truth–if the waterwasbad. That was the point. Before she talked to him she ought to be certain about it. Joe Curtis knew and could tell her the truth. Herfather, hearing it from her, would be glad to do the right thing.
Yet, regardless of her hopeful reasoning, the memories of the morning–of her father’s temper torn face in all of its selfish cruelty of expression–came back to her and filled her with strange indefinite forebodings of evil.
So, it was a different Virginia who came to Joe Curtis that afternoon. It was one in whose face there were vague shadows of anxiety and sadness which, regardless of pathetic efforts at disguise, spoke of an unquiet heart.
He sensed the change in her as she greeted him. But his cheery salutation and his boyish bursts of humor could not arouse the care free girl whom he had known.
She came quickly to the matter which was uppermost in her mind.
“Joe, you work for the State Board of Health, don’t you?”
His face sobered at her question, as if he recognized the approach of complications. He nodded affirmatively.
“You took samples of the river water to find out if it were made unfit for people to drink by the waste from my father’s mill, didn’t you?”
He delayed his response so long that she was forced to repeat her question before she could get even a nod of admission.
“Joe, does my father’s mill spoil the water?”
His head moved uneasily upon his pillow; but he was silent.
“Please answer me,” she urged. “It is very important.”
He turned upon her almost shortly. “How can I tell? I never analyzed the water. I couldn’t do it if I wanted to. You know that I am working my way through college. I have only had one year of chemistry. On the rolls of the Board of Health, I am carried as a laborer. I get samples and certify to the time and place I took them. The laboratory analyzes them.”
“You were around the laboratory. You brought in the samples. Naturally you must have had some interest in the matter–in your work. Won’t you tell me what you know?”
“Why ask me?” he complained sharply. “I shouldn’t discuss this matter with you, Virginia. Talk to your father. He knows all about the case. Let him tell you.”
“My father knows!” she exclaimed. She leaned over the bed and gazed down at him. Though she had guessed his answer, she must have it in words. “Joe,” she whispered, “you promised to be my friend. I must know the truth. I can trust you. Please tell me about the water.”
There was a pathetic pleading in her eyes which tore at his heart. He tried to resist the spell she cast about him but his face softened beneath her gaze. “I’m sorry, little girl,” he whispered, and then blurted suddenly, “Everybody connected with the Board of Health knows that the waste makes the water fierce. It’s not fit for a dog to drink.”
That afternoon Obadiah arrived home early.Perhaps he meant to patch up a peace with his daughter. He asked for her as soon as he entered the house and seemed disappointed when he learned that she had gone out.
Virginia came back from the hospital soon after the arrival of her father. Serena met her when she arrived, after having viewed her employer with great hostility through an opening in the portières. The old negress’ eyes were keen enough to read the shadow of apprehension lurking in the depths of the blue eyes. To the faithful servitor it indicated the approach of sorrow or tragedy to this peaceful domestic haven. She sought to intervene against fate. “Ain’ you bettah res’ youse’f befo’ dinner, honey chil’? You’ Daddy, he’s a readin’ his papah an’ ain’ want to be ’sturbed,” she urged.
There was determination in the girl’s face. She pushed aside the black hand which in kindness would have detained her. “No, Serena, I must see him at once,” she said, and passed on into the living room.
“Hello, Virginia. Where have you been hiding yourself?” was her father’s friendly greeting, but he gave her a sharp glance.
She sat down as she told him. “I have been to the hospital, Daddy.”
Obadiah’s face hardened and he scanned the page before him.
She watched his movements with unconcealed anxiety. She was very pale and it was only with an effort that she could calm herself to say, “A committee of ladies from Amity came to see you this afternoon.”
“What did any committee of women want with me? Money?” he suggested, with a suspicious eye upon his daughter.
“No, they came, they said, because the waste from the mill is spoiling the river water and causing sickness in their town.”
“Why didn’t they come to my office about that?”
“They did, but you were not in.”
He shifted uneasily in his chair. “Did you talk to them about it?”
“Yes. They explained the matter to me. They said that the Board of Health has found that the water is unfit to drink. They wanted to persuade you not to go into court about the decision. A law suit might last for years.”
He laughed harshly. “They are waking up, are they? They thought that they could scare me with the Board of Health. Did you say anything to them?”
“Yes, Daddy, I told them that if you were assured that the waste from your mill was making people sick you would stop running it into the river.”
There was a crackling sound as he crushed the paper in his hands.
“You see, Daddy,” she went on, “I was careful to make the point that you could not be expected to do anything unless you were sure that it was the waste from your mills which was responsible.”
Obadiah leaped to his feet. A smile of relief swept over his face. “You caught the point exactly, dear. How do I know that my mill is responsible for the trouble?”
She did not respond to his change of mood but continued, “The ladies assured me that the Board of Health, after a careful investigation, has decided that it is.”
“Is that so?” he sneered.
She looked up at the change in his tone. His manner seemed to make her more resolute as she spoke again. “The matter was so important that I wanted to be sure that you knew the truth about it.” Her voice was trembling now. “I went to the hospital and asked Mr. Curtis. It was he who took the samples of water for the Board of Health, and I knew that he would tell me the truth.”
“What?” demanded Obadiah, his voice pitched high.
“I asked him if the waste from your mill made the water bad.”
“Well of all the preposterous interferences–”
“Joe said that it wasn’t fit for a dog to drink.”
“What does that booby know about it?”
“As he works for the Board of Health, even though he is only a laborer, he knows what they think about it, and–” she looked squarely at her father–“I believe him, Daddy.”
“Believe that idiot?” shouted Obadiah, his face black as night. “He didn’t have sense enough to gouge me when your fool admissions gave him the whip hand. He’s a fine specimen of a man for you to be running after,” declared the mill owner with scorn. “It’s a nice thing for a respectable girl to be doing. You’ll get yourself talked about if I don’t watch you.”
A change came over Virginia. She stiffened andher fear seemed to leave her. There was a glint of anger in her eyes as they showed large against her pale face. Her soft round chin set in an almost comical reflection of his obstinate jaw. She arose, and her level gaze met his angry glower, unafraid. “Stop, father.” She spoke with wonderful self-restraint. “You have said quite enough about Mr. Curtis. We are talking about something else. The waste from your mill is making people sick. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” cried Obadiah, in his wrathful falsetto, his face working convulsively. “I’ve been running waste into the river for years. If people don’t like it, let them make the most of it–go thirsty for all I care. I’ll give them a real fight.”
“Do you mean that, knowing your mill is poisoning the water which people are forced to drink, you’ll fight the matter in court as they were afraid you’d do?”
“I’ll drag them through the courts until they get so warm that any water will look good to them.” Suddenly his temper blazed anew. “What did I tell you this morning?” he demanded. “I warned you that I would no longer tolerate your silly interference in other people’s business. I certainly will not permit you to butt into my affairs. You go too far–you and the friends whom you pick up in the street. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. You spoke too plainly this morning for me to misunderstand your meaning–as you are doing now. Daddy, I know that I have made many mistakes. Yet, everything which you criticizewas done to aid some one else and in a small way they did spread happiness.”
“If you had minded your own business you’d be happier now.”
“I was trying to help other people.”
“God helps him who helps himself,” quoted Obadiah, virtuously.
“That doesn’t mean to think only of yourself.”
Her quiet voiced argument infuriated him. “You’ll attend to your own business in the future,” he bellowed.
She did not flinch before his bluster but held her ground in white faced determination. “You want me to lead a life of selfishness when there are so many opportunities to help others?”
“Call it what you like, only get into your head the idea that hereafter you will attend to your own affairs and let the rest of the world do the same.”
Abruptly her mood changed. She gazed at him with a great longing. “Oh, Daddy dear, surely you are not so selfish as all that. I know that deep in your heart you are not.”
For an instant it seemed as if his mood were softening to hers; but his obstinacy reasserted itself and he hardened himself against her appeal. “I have always managed to take care of myself and I expect the other fellow to do the same,” he rapped. “In the future, you and I will follow that course and avoid this sort of trouble.”
“‘I must choose between your way and the way of my Mother’”
“‘I must choose between your way and the way of my Mother’”
For a moment the pleading look of the girl faded into one of utter helplessness. She fought to regain control of herself as if, having reached a decision, she needed to arouse the physical force to carry it out. Turning slowly, she moved over to the center table. From its drawer she took the book which had belonged to her mother.
He watched her, silenced, as he perceived the emotional conflict which was shaking the girl strangely.
When she confronted him again, her face was tragic in its sorrow. In those few seconds she had aged. She had leaped from a girl into womanhood. Her poise was maintained by sheer power of will. When she spoke it was in a forced voice, as if the muscles of her throat strained to hold back the sobs which her tones confessed to be near. “Daddy, there are two persons whom I should obey,” she said. “You, my father, and–” her eyes filled with tears as she raised the book and clasped it to her breast and whispered ever so tenderly–“my mother.”
Wonder held Obadiah speechless in its grasp.
“A moment ago,” she went on, “you condemned me to a life of selfishness.” She held the worn little volume towards him, and then clutched it to her heart. “In this book is a message from my mother. It is as plain and clear to me as if I had heard it from her own lips. She tells me to be unselfish and to think of others. I must choose between your way and the way of my mother. I do it now in your presence.” The girl’s voice softened into an ineffable sweetness. “Perhaps mother is here, too, and understands about it. I choose her way, Daddy.”
Her manner was firmer now, except for the telltale twitchings of the muscles of her face, as she continued. “Knowing my mother’s wishes, I could not live as youwould have me. I must go away.” Her voice caught. “I must go where I can try to be unselfish. You can’t object to my going to Aunt Kate’s–she has asked me to visit her so often.” She swayed. Her hand clutched at the table for support. For an instant her face worked convulsively, and then, with a little cry of utter misery, she ran from the room, holding the book to her breast.
Late that evening Serena softly knocked at Virginia’s door. When she was bidden to enter, the crumpled and disheveled form upon the bed and the tear streaked face told the story of grief to the big hearted negress. “Ain’ you gwine eat er li’l suppah, honey chil’?” she urged.
“No, Serena, I’m not hungry.” A great sob shook the girl.
“Bettah lemme han’ yo’all er cup o’ tea an’ suthin’ to pick on,” the old darkey pleaded. “Ah fetch it in er minute.”
“No, Serena, I can’t eat. I don’t believe that I will ever want to eat again.” A paroxysm of sobs wrenched the little frame of the girl and she dabbed frantically with a moist handkerchief at the great tears which welled up in the blue eyes.
The springs of the bed groaned and strained as Serena seated herself upon its edge. A gentle mothering look was in her face, and she began to rub the white arm gently with her big black hand. “Res’ youse’f, ma li’l honey baby,” she murmured. “Serena ain’ gwine let nobody hu’t her baby gal.” Suddenly she bristled. “Dis yere hu’tin’ ma honey chil’ bettah stop. Ah bus’ somebody plum wide open,” shegrowled ferociously. “Ah fights fo’ ma baby agin de whole wo’ld.”
The girl’s sobs lessened enough for her to speak. “I am going away, Serena.”
“Whar you gwine go, chil’?” exclaimed the old woman with much excitement.
“I am going to Aunt Kate’s home in Maine.”
“W’en is we gwine start?”
“I go day after tomorrow,” explained Virginia sorrowfully. “You stay here, Serena.”
“Howcum? Who plan dat foolishness? Wot gwine keep me heah w’en ma honey chil’ done leave? Ah bets ah follers ma baby ef ah has to clim’ ba’foot th’ough fiah an’ brimstone. Yas’r.”
“You must stay and take care of my father, Serena.”
“Wot ah wor’y ’bout him fo’? He done mek ma baby cry disaway. Ah follers yo’all.”
“But, Serena, he is my father.”
“Ain’ ah know dat? But ain’ you ma baby?” Serena arose in great excitement and pointed a quivering finger towards the hallway. “You’ Ma done give you to me,” she cried. But her voice softened tenderly as she resumed, “De day you’ Ma pass ovah de rivah, ah wuz er settin’ by de baid er tryin’ to ease ’er wid er fan. She know dat de good Lord gwine call ’er home presen’ly, an’ she wuz er waitin’ fo’ de soun’ o’ de angel’s voice. Her eyes wuz closed jes as dough she wuz er sleepin’. Jes afo dusk she open ’em an’ look up with er smile, jes like yourn, honey chil’. She say, ‘Is you still thar, Serena?’ Ah say, ‘Yas’m, Miss Elinor.’ She say, ‘Ain’ you bettah res’ youse’f ondat pallet ovah thar.’ Ah say, ‘Ah ain’ ti’ed none, Miss Elinor.’ Den you’ ma she look at me kinder pleadin’ like, an’ say, ‘Serena, you is gwine tek good caah o’ ma li’l baby, ain’ yer?’ Ah answer, ‘Is ah gwine ’sert ma own baby?’ Den she ’pear mo’e at ’er ease. De smile come back ag’in. She whisper kinder sof like, ‘Yes, Serena, you' own baby,’ Den Miss Elinor close ’er eyes an’ in er li’l w’ile she heah de sweet voice er callin’ ’er home.” Great tears rolled down the black cheeks of the old negress. Burying her face in her apron, she began to sob, and a muffled voice pleaded pathetically, “Ah caint let ma own baby go away f’om me.”
Before the sorrow of her faithful servitor, Virginia’s own grief was temporarily subdued. She sat up on the bed and met the unexpected interference with her plans with firmness. “Serena, I must go. I know that my mother would want me to go.”
“How you know?” demanded the practical Serena.
“I am sure of it. Something deep in my spirit moves me.”
“Ef de spi’it move you chil’ you gotta go,” she admitted, greatly persuaded.
“But, Serena, even if my mother wants me to go, she wouldn’t want me to take you away and break up my father’s home. That would be dreadful. What would happen to the house? Ike would get into all sorts of mischief.”
Serena gave thoughtful heed to the catastrophe which her departure would bring down upon the house of Dale.
“I am not going to stay away from you forever,Serena,” Virginia continued, as she made a sorry attempt to smile through her tear stained eyes. “You know that I wouldn’t desert you. Promise me to take good care of Daddy while I am gone, Serena,” pleaded the girl. “Nothing must happen to him. He must not be disturbed or made uncomfortable.”
“Why ah gwine wor’y ’bout him fo’?” demanded the old negress, obstinately.
“My mother loved him, Serena, and so do I. Won’t you take care of him for us?”
This plea weakened her stand. “Ah promises to do de bes’ ah knows how fo’ a w’ile but ef yo’all stays too long ah gwine pack ma duds an’ come whar you is. Yas’m.”
Virginia awakened the next morning with a bad headache. Serena busied herself around her mistress and finally persuaded her to take a long walk. The brisk exercise in the fresh air refreshed the girl, and she decided to go to the hospital and see Joe Curtis for the last time before she left South Ridgefield.
In the hall of the institution she met Dr. Jackson.
“You should have seen my patients this morning,” he told her. “Those infants are a gay lot. They cried so loud that they gave me a headache. None of that fretful weeping with which they serenaded me last week. That trip up the river helped those kids wonderfully, and, with the cool weather we are having now, some of those youngsters are going to see snow fly who never would have done so if it hadn’t been for the voyage of theNancy Jane.”
Miss Knight came up and slipped an arm about Virginia’s waist. “Tell the doctor and his babies goodbye. He will talk a week about them if you’ll stand and listen to him,” she laughed, and as she drew the girl away, explained, “I have a surprise for you, dear.”
“I can guess it. The room for the motorcyclists is ready.”
“No, you’re wrong. I’ll have to show you.” The nurse led the girl through a door which opened upon a small porch and pointed over the railing at the grounds which, lay on the side of the building. “There,” she said proudly. “Look.”
Virginia did as she was told. In the shade of a tree was Joe Curtis seated with outstretched leg in a roller chair. He answered their waving hands, and his face lighted up with a smile of pleasure which still remained when the girl descended the stairs and came to him.
“Isn’t this fine!” she exclaimed, her delight at seeing him out of bed dwarfing her own anxieties. “It seems now as if you were getting better.”
His eyes danced with pleasure at her coming. Yet, when he recognized, regardless of her efforts at concealment, that the gloomy influence, the shadow of which had cloaked her spirits at their last meeting, had not departed, his face clouded. He was conscious that his own disclosures, even though forced from him by her, might have had some part in causing her unhappiness and he endeavored to make amends by cheering her. “I asked Miss Knight to send for my motorcycle engine,” he informed her. “I told her that I wanted to hitch it to this chair and get a little speed out of the thing. I promised her, ‘Whither thou goest, Knightie, thither will I roll.’”
Virginia expressed interest in the nurse’s reply.
“After bawling me out for calling her Knightie, she said that I was getting so attached to her that I spent my waking hours devising schemes to get hurt so as not to have to leave her.”
His visitor’s smile of appreciation comforted Joe greatly. He took a deep breath and flinched when his tender ribs rebelled. His eyes roamed over the grass and trees and he watched the fleecy clouds floating in the azure sky. He pursued his campaign of encouragement. “It is great to take a breath of air without the ether flavor. It’s a wonderful old world anyhow,” he announced, as he again viewed his surroundings with great complacency. “Gosh!” he went on, “I wish I may never again see the inside of a building. Me for a job in God’s own sunshine.”
In spite of the consolatory nature of Joe’s remarks, a great loneliness had descended upon her. As she looked at him it seemed impossible that such a change could have come into her life since they two had planned for the hospital room. Then she had everything to make her happy. Now she was pledged to leave her father, her home, the few friends of her childhood, to go to a relative who was almost a stranger except in name. As she pictured the future, its loneliness frightened her. There came the temptation to bow to her father’s will–to do anything to avoid that cheerless future.
Then, in a moment, she was filled with sweet and tender thoughts of her mother and the creed of unselfishness. Straightway her resolution was strengthened. She would follow the way of her mother and be true to the message, no matter what the cost.Surely, God would make her father understand. Until that time she must wait.
Joe’s eyes returned to the girl at his side, when, lost in her own thoughts, she was unconscious of his scrutiny. The unhappiness which he caught in her face troubled him anew. “What makes you so sad, little girl?” he demanded uneasily.
“Nothing,” she maintained, with a smile so forced that it pathetically denied the truth of the statement.
“There is something wrong, I know,” he worried. “Am I in any way to blame?”
She shook her head violently and then told him, “I am going away.”
“How long will you be gone?” He could not watch her averted face; but something told him that this was no ordinary trip.
“I can’t say, Joe. Perhaps always.”
As he watched the soft curls at the nape of her neck, the thought came to him that only owls and prairie dogs find lodgment in the same hole with a rattlesnake; whereupon the youth ceased to question and announced as a fact of noteworthy interest, “So long as nobody is dead, there is always a way to mend things.”
There was a suspicion of moisture in her eyes when she turned to him and said, “Joe Curtis, you are certainly a cheerful somebody.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I might have been killed in the accident and I wasn’t. Now I’m nearly well.” Into his optimism came tenderness, as he whispered, “Best of all, I met you.”
“Was it worth it?” She was moody for the moment.
“You bet your life,” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you glad that you met me?”
Her eyes answered him.
After a moment, he went on. “Will you tell me where you are going, Virginia?”
“I am going to Maine. To Old Rock.”
“Old Rock, Maine!” he shouted in surprise.
“Yes. Why not?”
“It is near the home of my mother. The place is so small that it seems strange that, with all of the rest of the world to go to, you should be going there.”
Virginia arose from the bench and came over by his chair. “Good bye, Joe,” she said, very softly. “I hope that you will soon be well.” A sad little face looked down at him. “Please, forgive me for hurting you. I am so sorry.” Her lips trembled.
“Forget it,” he said roughly; but there was that in his face which contradicted his tone. “I ran into you.”
“We can’t agree, can we?” she said thoughtfully, and her voice broke as she continued, “I want to ask a favor of you, Joe.”
“Sure.” He eyed her expectantly.
“Will you see that the room–is nicely arranged?”
“You bet I will.”
“When I am gone there will be no one to care–but you.” She fought back the tears and put up a brave front. “Good bye, Joe.”
“Wait a minute,” he commanded.
She reached for his hand and repeated, very sweetly, very softly, “Good bye, Joe.” She moved away a fewsteps; but turned back to cry very tenderly, “Good bye, Joe.”
“Come back, please, Virginia,” wailed Joe.
She hesitated, battling with tears.
“Please, come back, Virginia. Remember, I am helpless. I can’t come after you.”
She retraced her steps. “What is it?” she asked, her averted gaze apparently interested in the street beyond the grounds.
“Perhaps this is not good bye.”
She looked at him now with great interest.
He seized her hand and drew her closer to the chair, smiling up into her face, as he explained, “It may not be good bye for us, because–if I were quite sure that you wanted to see me–I might come up to Old Rock.”
She smiled at him. It was as if storm clouds had broken and let the rays of the sun through. “Oh, Joe,” she cried, “it would be lovely if you came up. Old Rock seems to be a dreadfully lonesome place.”
“Old Rock lonesome!” he protested. “Not a bit of it, Virginia. There are lots of interesting things to do. We can take grand tramps.” In his enthusiasm for his home town, Joe forgot his game leg. “Some evening, I’ll take you down to the big granite bowlder, from which the town gets its name, on the shore of the pond. We can get on top of it and watch the moon come up over the tree covered hill on the other side until it makes a shimmering pathway across the water and turns the old white church on the hill into a castle of silver. I love to sit there and watch the lights of the village go out, one by one. It’s lovely then. The only sounds are the song of the crickets, the distant tinkle of a sheep bell, the splash of a leaping bass or maybe the hooting of an old owl. It is a beautiful place, Virginia, and with you there it would be wonderful.”
“‘I think that I shall love it,’ she said softly”
“‘I think that I shall love it,’ she said softly”
She listened to his words, her eyes big with interest, and a new happiness struggling in her heart. “I think that I shall love it,” she said softly, and, after a moment’s hesitation, “How long–how soon will you be able to come, Joe?”
An attendant approached to take the injured motorcyclist back to the ward.
Virginia hastily withdrew her hand from Joe’s grasp and immediately gave it back to him, when he cried, “Not good bye but until we meet in Old Rock.”
As she watched the attendant wheel the injured man away and turned to leave the hospital grounds, the girl was wonderfully cheered, and her mind accepted Joe Curtis’s picture of Old Rock by moonlight as conclusive evidence that this ancient village was not lonesome.
Virginia sank limply into the parlor car seat. After a moment she raised herself and looked out through the wide window upon the busy platform of the South Ridgefield station. Serena and Ike waited by the car nervously, endeavoring to locate the position of their mistress by peering into the coach. The old negress was publicly weeping.
As they caught sight of the girl, the train started and with rapidly increasing speed moved down the platform. Ike grinned a cheerful farewell while Serena screamed her adieu, and, as if unable to bear the separation, started to waddle along with the train, frantically waving her black hands.
Virginia signaled back and shouted embarrassed little good byes, subconsciously aware that they would be heard by no one except her traveling companions. As the two negroes were swept from her sight, a feeling of utter loneliness wrapped her in its gloomy folds. Pent up tears flooded her eyes, and so, through a mist, she saw at the end of the platform a man and woman, waving handkerchiefs from an automobile, who looked remarkably like Hezekiah Wilkins and Mrs. Henderson. Likewise, through a curtain of moisture, when the train crossed the bridge, she perceived the strandedNancy Jane, symbolical of her own wrecked efforts.
As the roar of the train upon the bridge died away, the girl sank back again into her seat and succumbed completely to her grief. During those last few hours at home she had steeled herself not to display her feelings. She had met her father on the previous day and explained her plans quite as calmly as if she were about to take an ordinary vacation trip.
The decision of his daughter to leave him, based as it was upon the inspiration of her mother, dead these seventeen years, had left him strangely helpless. In his passion he had thrust aside the cloak of idealism in which she had arrayed him and exposed his true character. She had struck back, unwittingly selecting a weapon which had swept aside his momentary anger and left him shaken and perplexed at the edge of the abyss which had opened between them. Obadiah, too, had been unhappy in those hours. He loved Virginia with all the affection of which his nature was capable. There had been moments when he would have surrendered abjectly to his daughter on her own terms but for the grim obstinacy which obsessed him.
It may be that she intuitively appreciated his mental struggles, because, excepting only her determination to leave home, she treated him with the tenderest consideration. In his perplexity, Obadiah drifted for the moment and blindly followed the girl’s lead, as if through her alone could come the solution of the problem which separated them. Their breakfast that morning had been a difficult ordeal as had been their leave taking. He had displayed no desire to accompany her to the train and had parted from her with a grim indifference which his troubled face belied.
Now, at least, there was relief in the luxury of a good cry; but after a time the tears ceased and a weary peace came. Resting her head against the back of her chair she gave herself up to thoughts of the few little happinesses which gleamed like bright stars in the darkness with which she was surrounded.
She thought of Joe Curtis and thrilled when she remembered the long hand clasp. His picture of Old Rock comforted her anew as she assured herself that such a place could not be lonely. She reviewed the few moments in which she had bidden farewell to Mrs. Henderson. She had dreaded Hennie’s embarrassing questions. But, strangely, Hennie was not inquisitive. She had broken away to rush into her kitchen crying loudly that something was burning. This belief, from certain remarks which had floated back, had irritated Carrie, her cook, exceedingly. Returning, she had enveloped the girl in a wealth of motherly tenderness, so that in reality the visit had consisted of much sobbing upon the older woman’s shoulder to an accompaniment of soothing endearments and a train of explosive exclamations from which little could be gathered.
Soon she began to think of her Aunt Kate and of the new home to which she was going. Little enough she knew. Once, shortly before the death of Elinor Dale, Mrs. Kate Baker had visited South Ridgefield. At the time, she had a baby daughter of Virginia’s age and was mourning the death of her husband. For years there had been irregular correspondence; but, as far as Virginia was concerned, her father’s sister and her cousin were merely names.
The day of tiresome travel slowly passed. Therewere times when, in a wave of despair, Virginia pictured herself adrift on a sea of sadness, where all was dark and cheerless; but there were moments when sweet thoughts of her mother strengthened her and made her resolve to stand by her colors, no matter what the cost.
It was late that evening when the train arrived at Old Rock. The unusual excitement and the fatigue of traveling had brought on a persistent headache, so that it was a most forlorn and miserable Virginia who was helped down from the car. Hardly had her bag been dropped at her side when the train moved on. As the metal doors clanged shut, it seemed to the girl as if it were the sound of the gates of her old life closing against her. She gazed timidly about the station. It was very dark to this girl of the city–this child of the electric lights. The fear of the unknown seized her. Sick, frightened, every limb of her trembling, she hesitated helplessly.
A figure approached through the gloom, and the soft, cheery voice of a girl inquired, “Cousin Virginia?”
Virginia’s throat was dry and husky. “Yes.” Her answer was only a whisper. A frightened little sound, but it was all that she could make.
Now a hand seized her arm and she was led along the platform. They came under a station lamp, and again the voice spoke as they faced a tall, angular, plainly dressed woman. “Here she is, mother.”
Virginia looked up into a face which made her gasp in astonishment. In the eyes, the mouth, the deep cut lines, was resemblance to her father but, oh, with what a difference. It was Obadiah sweetened by love and affection. The harshness, the obstinacy, the selfishnessof him were memories here. In their place lay a gentle, motherly look beneath the soft, white hair and from the eyes beamed a tender welcome to the lonely girl.
As Virginia hesitated diffidently, the lamp overhead brought out the pallor and the pathos of her wan tired little face. With never a word but just a soft exclamation she sank into the outstretched arms of her aunt.
“You poor tired darling,” whispered Aunt Kate. She fixed a look of great severity over Virginia’s shoulder at her own daughter. “Helen,” she cried, “do you expect visitors to carry their own baggage? Take Virginia’s bag to the surrey.” As Helen obediently departed, Aunt Kate gave her guest a motherly hug, meanwhile making strange noises in her throat. Releasing one arm with great care lest the girl be disturbed, she endeavored to wipe a tear from her wrinkled cheek with a finger. “Come, child,” she said sharply. “You must get to bed. How do you feel?” When she learned of the headache she commiserated with her niece. “You poor child. Sleep is the best treatment for that.”
A surrey drawn by a remarkably fat horse was waiting for them back of the station.
“Don’t you feel well, Cousin Virginia?” inquired Helen from the front seat.
“It’s only a headache, Cousin Helen.”
There was sincere relief in Helen’s voice as she replied, “I am so glad that it is nothing worse.”
Virginia and her Aunt climbed into the back seat of the conveyance.
“Hush,” cried Helen in a loud whisper. “Archimedesis asleep. It’s a shame to disturb him. I haven’t the heart to hit him,” she giggled.
“Be careful and don’t strike that horse cruelly, Helen,” Aunt Kate warned her daughter, as if that maiden were habitually guilty of cruelty to animals.
Helen disregarded her mother’s remark. “Archimedes is dreaming of corn and oats and hay and green pastures. He must dream of such things, as he never thinks of anything else,” she laughed.
“Stop your nonsense, Helen. I have a sick girl here who should be in bed.”
“I’m better already,” protested Virginia.
“Get up, Arch,” cried Helen.
Archimedes stood fast.
“Arch,” she called again.
No movement followed.
“Pull on the reins, Helen,” suggested Aunt Kate.
“Mother, how many times must I tell you that to pull on the reins is no way to start a horse. A logical minded animal would expect you to push on the lines when you want him to stop, and that wouldn’t do at all.” That mischievous giggle came again and Helen gave the horse a smart tap with the whip.
The lazy steed flinched slightly and moved slowly forward.
“Don’t be cruel, Helen, and keep in the gutter.”
“Mother, there are no automobiles out at this time of night. For once, when we have company, we should drive in the middle of the road. As we pay taxes, we have a right there,” argued Helen. “I am getting curvature of the spine from driving with one wheel in the gutter.”
“It is so much safer, Helen. Archimedes can’t get out of the way quickly.”
“Why should he? Let the automobiles make room for us once. Are we frightened chickens to flee from them?”
“It makes the people in the machines so cross, Helen. They say such unkind things.”
Delightful remembrances returned to Helen. “Mother, are you thinking of the man who offered to lend us his jack to move Archimedes out of the road?”
“That man was very angry.”
“He was, mother. I hope that he has gotten over it by now,” laughed Helen. She clucked energetically and went on, “As you are with us tonight, we will pursue our usual humble way in the gutter. But,” she declared emphatically, “when Virginia and I go driving we will take the middle of the road and keep it in spite of all the horn-blowing goggle-eyed men in the state of Maine. Archimedes shall not be insulted. His proud spirit rebels.”
They jogged along, the proud spirit of Archimedes being well content with a modest speed. Turning into a driveway, they ascended a slight incline and drove into a large barn.
“This is my department,” Helen told her cousin with pride as she unharnessed Archimedes. When he was safe in his stall she paused before the white face of a Holstein cow. “Cowslip,” she giggled, “this is your cousin Virginia who has come to visit you.”
A door opened and Aunt Kate called, “Helen, bring your cousin in. Don’t keep her out in that barn when she has a headache.”
So, with an arm about her cousin’s waist, Helen guided her on her first trip along a Maine domestic pathway which begins in the stable, or even chicken house, and runs under one roof to the parlor.
Virginia paused in a doorway that opened into a large oblong room. In its center was a great, square, brick chimney which divided it into a cosy kitchen forming a most convenient part of the dining room, and a dining room which was a most pleasant part of the kitchen. The low room with its old-fashioned paper, its white-curtained, square-paned windows and its painted floor, was delightfully homey and cheerful. It seemed particularly so to Virginia, with the motherly face of her aunt smiling a kindly welcome and the arm of her pretty blonde cousin drawing her affectionately towards its comfort.
A few minutes later, with a bag in one hand and a candlestick in the other, Helen led her cousin up the stairs to the cosiest little bed room imaginable. Its low ceiling sloped with the roof except where broken by dainty curtained dormer windows. A mahogany four poster, a highboy and a table with some chairs constituted its furniture, while upon the floor were round rugs of woven rags.
After Helen had departed and she had removed the traces of her journey, Virginia seated herself in a rocker for a moment. She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The fear of the unknown, which had so terrified her, was gone. In spite of her sadness, when she thought of her father, she felt reassured and comforted. As the girl sat there, a tender dreamy look of indescribable sweetness crept into herface. Her lips moved and she whispered ever so softly, “Mother, your way is not so hard.”
The simple little supper, to which the three women sat down that evening was delightful to Virginia. And afterwards, what a gay time they had with the dishes. The city cousin, whose headache was now a thing of the past, donned an apron and assisted in drying them. Never had Serena permitted her this proud privilege and how pleased she was to do it now. She polished the few plates upon which she had the time to apply her intensive treatment until they shone and sparkled bravely beneath the lamplight.
Aunt Kate watched her strenuous efforts for a time in silence and then burst forth, “Good land, if I weren’t sure that the blue on that old willow ware was burned deep, child, I’d be afraid you’d rub it off.”
“Virginia is exercising, mother,” laughed Helen.
“If she exercises that hard on each dish, she won’t have either the strength or time to do the rest of her work. No man would want to marry a girl who puts in her time wiping dishes. Most of them would rather look at good things to eat in their plates than at the reflection of their own faces, I’ll warrant you.”
How the two girls did enjoy Aunt Kate’s sage remark and what a pleasant little chat they had when supper was over.
Aunt Kate sat in her easy chair and sewed, and now and then interjected a word of wisdom into their conversation which convulsed them. Finally she yawned, and, looking at the old wooden cased clock upon the mantel, announced, “It’s time all honest folks were in bed and rogues were movin’.”
A short time after this pointed remark, Virginia, tingling with the chill of the northern night which swept in as she opened her windows, climbed into bed, and, pulling the blankets about her, she gave a little sigh and, very much like her old self, plunged into a deep and dreamless slumber.
When she awakened the next morning, sunlight was streaming into the room. Filled with curiosity over her new surroundings, she sprang from her bed and gazed out of the window. Across the road, which ran in front of the house, a newly mowed meadow rolled down to the shore of a lake or pond a short distance away. Its surface, rippled by the morning breeze, glittered and sparkled in the sun. Beyond the water, rising abruptly from its edge, was a great hill, its slope covered with a forest of pine and fur and hemlock. The green expanse of the meadow was broken by islands of maple and oak while several huge granite bowlders stood forth against the sod in all of their grey majesty. The color of the soft, rich summer sky, dotted with floating masses of fleecy white, was reflected in the flashing water. The trees and grass, yet glistening with the morning dew, were a moist green, untouched by the yellow of sun scorch or drought. It was a restful verdancy which spoke of frequent rains, of cool days and of cooler nights.
“Virginia, are you awake?” came the voice of her aunt from the hall.
She climbed hastily back into bed as her aunt entered.
Aunt Kate smiled sweetly down at the girl whose serious eyes reflecting the color of the morning sky,gazed at her from a mass of wavy black hair. “How is the headache?” she asked.
“It left last night, Aunt Kate, and hasn’t come back.”
“That’s good.” Aunt Kate’s voice was very gentle and sympathetic. She sat upon the edge of the bed and, leaning forward, patted the soft cheek of her niece.
Again, in the lined face of her aunt, Virginia recognized that resemblance to her father, so wonderfully softened by kindness and sweetness. The thought came to the girl that her mother would have had such a tenderness of look had she lived. A flood of memories swept down upon her and tears welled up in her eyes.
Her aunt gathered her into those mothering arms again, and almost before the girl appreciated what she was doing she had opened her heart and told her woes in the gloomiest way possible.
After she had soothed her niece, until she could give a teary little smile, Aunt Kate arose and, moving to the window, viewed the familiar landscape with a stern eye, sniffing portentously. In a moment she began to speak. “We Dales are a selfish and obstinate family. We were always so.” There was a note of pride in her voice. “The men are worse than the women–much worse–more obstinate and selfish, dear,” she repeated. “I know my brother Obadiah–better than he knows himself. I am very glad, child, that you told me about the whole thing.” Suddenly her voice became sharp and emphatic and she fastened a severe look upon Virginia. “Don’t you for a minute get itinto your head that you have run away from home. If you had, I should take you back myself. You should have visited your cousin Helen and me a dozen times before, and now we will make up for your neglect and give brother Obadiah a chance to calm himself after the disturbances you have created.” She paused for a moment and then went on, smiling sweetly, “I want you to be your own sweet self here and have a jolly time with Helen.” Her tones became gentle. “Follow the way of your mother until the end of your life. Sometimes it will lead through gloomy valleys but it is the road which leads to the sunshine of the heights. Hum,” she cried sharply, “read ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ child. It says the same thing, but better.”
A much cheered Virginia came down to breakfast, and, like the very healthy young person she was, in obedience to her aunt’s command and the natural law of youth, forgot the unhappiness of yesterday in the joys of the present.
The days which followed were crowded with happy hours. There were drives long in time but short in mileage behind the majestic Archimedes over tree-shaded roads. Unaccompanied by the timid Aunt Kate, they forsook the humble gutter and seized the crown of the road. With peals of ringing laughter, they pursued their slow way, unmindful of irate tourists filled with the belief that the road and the width thereof was theirs to be covered at fifty scorching miles an hour, and that delays from slow moving taxpayers were an interference with their vested rights as well as to their progress towards the uttermost parts of the earth.
There were plunges into the cold depths of the pond followed by wild scrambles, when, with chilled muscles, they ran through the cool air over the meadow to the house.
There were long paddles in the canoe where every curve and bend of a stream opened a new vista of loveliness, of woods, of stream, of hill, of rolling meadow.
There were tramps through forests of fir and pine where their feet sank into the soft cushion of needles and they climbed until they came out on the rugged tops of hills where, resting in weariness, they drank deep of the pure air and feasted their eyes upon the pleasing prospect below them.
Tired and weary but happy beyond relief, they would return in the evening and, catching sight of Aunt Kate waiting upon the porch, greet her with gay shouts and, both speaking at once, relate stirring adventures of field and flood with cows and frogs and sheep and dogs.
Jolly feasts these three women had when sore muscles rested after the day’s effort. Never were such vegetables grown as came from the garden back of the barn. Where else, pray tell, could such desserts be found as Aunt Kate made? Or what could be more delicious than those big bowls of raspberries or blueberries afloat in Cowslip’s rich, thick contribution to the feast?
Afterwards, Virginia would write letters until too soon a nodding head and leaden eyelids would force her to bed. Her correspondence was large in those days. She wrote to Mrs. Henderson and Serena andJoe Curtis; but more often she wrote to her father, telling him all that she did.
Regularly to her, came letters from him. They were formal, precise epistles in a style which might be described as having commercial tendencies and obviously prepared by Mr. Jones at the dictation of Obadiah.
As the weeks passed “V,” as Helen nicknamed her cousin, developed muscle and flesh and grew amazingly, and the coat of tan she acquired would have been a scandalous thing in any beauty parlor in the land.