A weatherworn, disreputable hammock swung lazily between two big fruit laden apple trees beside Aunt Kate’s home. Time was when it had been a gaudy, betasseled thing taken into the house each night. But familiarity breeds contempt for choice possessions as well as friends. Now the hammock hung unwatched from June until October. No longer a cherished chattel, it was left to face the ravages of time and weather and man.
Yet, in its ripe old age, it had achieved the goal of all good hammocks. It had found its place, not, of course, in the sun–that not being the custom of hammocks–but in Aunt Kate’s household. It had become a place of conference, of discussion, aye, even of mutual confession for Helen and her cousin Virginia.
It swung lazily in the light breeze of the morning. Not slothfully, but in the relaxation of resting strength prepared instantly to meet its burdens and responsibilities. It was well that this was so. Upon the self-same breeze which swung it, came sounds of laughter and the patter of small feet. With sudden strain and elastic resistance, carried even to the uppermost twigs of the trees, the hammock received the two girls as they precipitated themselves into its lap.
“I beat,” cried Helen with the pride of victory, changed suddenly into a wail of anguish as a dislodged Bell-flower apple dropped upon her head. “Oh-o-o-o,” she groaned; “those apples make me mad. This is the second time that one of them has struck me on the head and I am getting tired of it.”
In her own end of the hammock Virginia was coiled in a most precarious position. She was so interested in her letter that she failed to give her cousin the full measure of tender sympathy to which that maiden felt herself entitled.
Helen rubbed her head with vigor. “Say something ‘V.’ Is anything the matter with your heart?” she exclaimed, fixing reproachful eyes upon her absorbed companion.
“Did it hurt?” Virginia, deep in her letter, politely inquired. Her words, however, lacked that warm condolence for which the head and heart of her cousin yearned.
“Did it hurt?” mimicked Helen in disgust. “What a question! It is exactly as bad as if a brick had fallen off the chimney on my head. Yet you sit there and ask if it hurt. What do you think my head is made of?”
“Fudge,” cried Virginia as the wind twisted her letter so that she could not read it.
“Wh-a-at?” Helen was highly indignant until she discovered that her cousin’s remark was not a personal allusion. “Never mind,” she threatened; “see how I treat you the next time that you get hurt.”
Virginia finished her letter. She wiggled over towards Helen, an operation which placed both girls inimminent danger of being pitched upon their faces. “I am sorry for your poor head, dear,” she giggled, “or should I be sorry for the apple? Let me look.”
Helen thrust aside the inquisitive fingers. “Let me alone, you unsympathetic wretch. Wait until my turn comes. Even if you writhe before me in great agony, I shall laugh. Laugh coldly–ha–ha.”
Virginia disregarded future calamities. “I have a letter from Joe Curtis. It happens to be one which I might read to you, if you are real nice.”
Instantly, feminine curiosity caused Helen to forget injuries and pledged vengeance. “Please, ‘V.,’ I should love to hear it,” she begged, and then listened with rapt attention as her cousin read,
“My dear little girl:“This morning Miss Knight brought your letter to me on the grounds where I had been taken in the roller chair. She was grumbling about it being the business of the Post Office Department to establish a rural free delivery route and not expect her to chase around with my mail.“I spend most of my time in the chair, now. Soon I’ll be on crutches, and after that it won’t be long before I am discharged.“But this letter is written to give you the big news. The room for motorcyclists is open for business. Miss Knight took me to see it and it is dandy. I asked her what she thought about it now, seeing that she had so much to say when we were planning it. Her answer was, ‘It’s the best cure for blues I know. If I am downhearted, all I have to do is to come up here andthink about you two innocents and I laugh myself sick.’“I told her that her ideas of humor led towards the psychopathic ward and warned her to beware of alienists or squirrels because they might develop a personal interest in her.“What do you think? The very day they opened the room it had a patient. You never would guess who it was. It was that fellow Jones who works in your father’s office. He must be a regular dare devil of a rider. When the accident happened, he had cut in front of a moving street car. The machine hung in the fender and Jones went on and landed in a city trash wagon at the curb. His head and face were cut but the trash was soft. He bled so that the by-standers decided that he was dying and sent him to the hospital. Of course, the doctors kept him.“Miss Knight said that, from the odor about Jones when he came in, she guessed people were careless about separating trash from garbage. She told Jones that he must have thought he was among old home folks when he landed.“To be neighborly, I called upon him. Everything was beautiful in the room but him. I told him that he looked as out of place as a dead rat in a flour barrel. That peeved him, so I asked him if he hadn’t felt more at home in the trash wagon. He got sore and grabbed up a glass. ‘I’ll bounce this off your ventilator if you don’t get out of here,’ he yelled.“That made me mad. ‘You can't put me out,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got more right in here than you. If you don’t stop yapping around my heels I will pull you out of that bed and get in it myself.’“He got crazy then and started to climb out of the bed but Miss Knight came in and shoved him down on his pillow. ‘Take that big cheese out of here before I break his other leg,’ he bawled.“She began to laugh fit to kill herself and said, ‘Joe, what kind of gentle sympathy do you give the weak and injured which makes them wish to rise up and fight?’–when she rolled me away from that wild man.“Your letter made me homesick for the north country. I have fished all over that pond. You wouldn’t catch hornpouts if you fished in the right place and used the proper kind of bait. I used to go to the north end of the pond by the lily pads. Bait your hook with a live minnow and drop it in there about sundown. The fun will come suddenly. Mr. Pickerel strikes with the speed of an express train. Try it. When I come up we will go fishing.“A tray is coming my way so I must stop. I think of you every day and, believe me, just as soon as this hospital turns me loose I am going to go where I can see and talk to the nicest girl in all the world.“Good bye, Miss Hornpout catcher.
“My dear little girl:
“This morning Miss Knight brought your letter to me on the grounds where I had been taken in the roller chair. She was grumbling about it being the business of the Post Office Department to establish a rural free delivery route and not expect her to chase around with my mail.
“I spend most of my time in the chair, now. Soon I’ll be on crutches, and after that it won’t be long before I am discharged.
“But this letter is written to give you the big news. The room for motorcyclists is open for business. Miss Knight took me to see it and it is dandy. I asked her what she thought about it now, seeing that she had so much to say when we were planning it. Her answer was, ‘It’s the best cure for blues I know. If I am downhearted, all I have to do is to come up here andthink about you two innocents and I laugh myself sick.’
“I told her that her ideas of humor led towards the psychopathic ward and warned her to beware of alienists or squirrels because they might develop a personal interest in her.
“What do you think? The very day they opened the room it had a patient. You never would guess who it was. It was that fellow Jones who works in your father’s office. He must be a regular dare devil of a rider. When the accident happened, he had cut in front of a moving street car. The machine hung in the fender and Jones went on and landed in a city trash wagon at the curb. His head and face were cut but the trash was soft. He bled so that the by-standers decided that he was dying and sent him to the hospital. Of course, the doctors kept him.
“Miss Knight said that, from the odor about Jones when he came in, she guessed people were careless about separating trash from garbage. She told Jones that he must have thought he was among old home folks when he landed.
“To be neighborly, I called upon him. Everything was beautiful in the room but him. I told him that he looked as out of place as a dead rat in a flour barrel. That peeved him, so I asked him if he hadn’t felt more at home in the trash wagon. He got sore and grabbed up a glass. ‘I’ll bounce this off your ventilator if you don’t get out of here,’ he yelled.
“That made me mad. ‘You can't put me out,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got more right in here than you. If you don’t stop yapping around my heels I will pull you out of that bed and get in it myself.’
“He got crazy then and started to climb out of the bed but Miss Knight came in and shoved him down on his pillow. ‘Take that big cheese out of here before I break his other leg,’ he bawled.
“She began to laugh fit to kill herself and said, ‘Joe, what kind of gentle sympathy do you give the weak and injured which makes them wish to rise up and fight?’–when she rolled me away from that wild man.
“Your letter made me homesick for the north country. I have fished all over that pond. You wouldn’t catch hornpouts if you fished in the right place and used the proper kind of bait. I used to go to the north end of the pond by the lily pads. Bait your hook with a live minnow and drop it in there about sundown. The fun will come suddenly. Mr. Pickerel strikes with the speed of an express train. Try it. When I come up we will go fishing.
“A tray is coming my way so I must stop. I think of you every day and, believe me, just as soon as this hospital turns me loose I am going to go where I can see and talk to the nicest girl in all the world.
“Good bye, Miss Hornpout catcher.
“Affectionately,“Joe.”
Virginia’s face was aglow with happiness as she finished reading and turned to Helen. “He is the nicest man. Doesn’t he write interesting letters to me?” she murmured softly.
The sentimental Helen gazed into the distance, lostin dreams conjured by this epistle. “Yes, he does,” she agreed. “You must adore him, dear.”
Virginia’s face crimsoned at this bold remark. “We are only friends,” she protested.
“Sincere friendship and complete understanding between two is wonderful,” sighed Helen from her eighteen years’ experience of the vicissitudes of life, and she displayed further keen insight into the problems of existence, when she continued, “Sympathetic appreciation strengthens one to meet sorrow.”
Virginia gazed raptly at her cousin.
“Such sincere friendship should be cherished as some tender flower,” Helen went on. “Is it not written that from the mouths of babes shall come wisdom?”
“You do express yourself so well, Helen. You have so much feeling in your nature–such breadth to your character, dear,” responded Virginia.
The two girls pensively viewed the pond, possibly recuperating from the strain of their conversation.
“It almost seems that I know him,” Helen whispered.
Virginia turned suspiciously upon her cousin. “Did you know Joe Curtis? Did you go to school with him?” she demanded.
“I can’t remember the name, ‘V.’ What does he look like?”
Very valiantly Virginia attempted a word picture of Joe. “He is a big fellow. His eyes are black–and large–and dreamy.” She mused for a moment and resumed with animation. “His eyes are bright–and snapping–and brave–” again she paused andthen she concluded very softly–“and sweet. He has a smile which tears your heart.”
“How wonderful he must be!” sighed Helen. She shook her head emphatically. “If I had met him, I should have remembered him until the last hour of my life.”
There followed a dreamy silence devoted to maidenly meditation concerning the manifold charms of Joe Curtis until an idea caused Helen to cry, “Virginia, you should go fishing in the place Joe wrote about. I know where it is. Think of it, you would fish in the same place, in the same water and by the same lily pads where he has been. We couldn’t catch the same fish but we might catch relatives.”
“Let’s go now,” agreed Virginia, moved greatly by Helen’s sentimental suggestion.
It was a long pull in the row boat to the head of the pond; but they took turns at the oars and at last arrived at their destination. The day was warm and the exercise at the oars did not cool the girls.
Helen noted the position of the sun which yet hung high. “Nothing will bite, now ‘V.,’” she objected. “We came hours too soon. He said to fish at sundown. We had better go ashore and wait.”
Glad to get out of the burning sun, they rowed to the shore and, clambering up the bank, dropped down in a shady spot.
Suddenly Helen became restless. “I hear a strange humming noise,” she worried.
Virginia was likewise nervously alert. “I hear it, too. It’s a low buzzing–much louder than mosquitoes,” she agreed.
“What can it be?” Helen troubled.
“It’s my hornets’ nest,” cried a childish voice behind them.
With startled exclamations, the girls turned their heads.
Looking over the top of a granite bowlder a short distance away was a small boy. He was a very thin and delicate child about five years old, wearing a pair of faded khaki rompers and a shirt of the same material.
“Don’t you know any better than to sit under a hornets’ nest?” he exclaimed in disgust. “Do you want to get yourselves stung to death?”
The two girls raised their eyes. Partially concealed by the lower branches of the tree, a great cone of clay hung above them. From it and the insects flying about it came the buzzing sound.
“Crawl, Virginia, and don’t you dare make a noise,” whispered Helen.
From the top of the rock the infant witnessed the ignominious retreat from dangerous territory. “Come over here,” he urged. “Much hornets never come near me.”
Relying upon the superior judgment of the masculine mind, the girls turned and humbly crept towards this place of refuge.
“I guess you might stand up, now,” the boy told them. “If the hornets had wanted to sting you, they’d have done it before.”
They arose and forthwith began to dust their skirts.
“Stop!” commanded the child in a voice of alarm. “Haven’t you got any sense? Want to get me stung?If you make a noise the hornets will come sneaking over to see what is going on.” His manner changed to one of great politeness as he went on, “I have a house back here. You can come over there and dust yourselves if you want to.” He slid down back of the rock. When he reappeared around its corner, he made funny little skips and for the first time they noticed that he used a crutch. One of his legs was flexed by distorted muscles until he carried it a couple of inches above the ground. Notwithstanding this handicap, he moved rapidly along a pathway ahead of him. Where the grass of the meadow began at the edge of the woods, he waited for them and pointed with pride to a small opening in a clump of birches. “This is my house,” he told them.
Virginia dropped upon her knees and peeped in. “How lovely,” she cried.
Before her the flat top of a rock projecting slightly above the surface of the ground served as a floor. A thick hedge of birch saplings grew about it, constituting the walls. The branches arching it had been cut away as high as a man’s head. Above this they joined in a dense mass, forming the roof of the bower.
Following their little host, the girls entered.
“What a lovely house,” said Helen. “Did you make it?”
“God made most of it,” he answered with great solemnity. “Mother cut away the high branches and I cut the low ones and it was done. I didn’t have it all, at first, though.”
“How was that?” Helen inquired.
“Mr. Woodchuck lived in the cellar beneath thestone. There is his stairway.” He pointed to an opening at the edge of the rock, surrounded by pebbles and clay. “As soon as I moved in Mr. Woodchuck moved out.”
“Are you all alone now?”
“Oh, no indeed, a chipmunk lives over there, who is very friendly. Up in that tree is a bird’s nest; but the young ones have gone away now. Then there are the hornets and a snake lives under the rock over there.”
“Snakes!” screamed both of the girls.
“Yes, a grass snake.” The infant was openly disgusted at the display of feminine timidity. “Who’s afraid of an old snake? I’m not. That snake is so afraid that I will catch him that he don’t dare come out.”
The neighborhood distrust relieved the fears of the visitors and they began to make themselves comfortable.
“Oh, ‘V.,’ this would be a grand place to eat our lunch,” suggested Helen and to the boy she said, “We have something to eat in our boat. May we bring it here and will you have lunch with us?”
“That would be fine,” he agreed. “You get your lunch and I will get some milk for us to drink from my mother.”
“Don’t disturb her,” protested Virginia. “We have plenty. And we have a thermos bottle of water, too.”
“My mother won’t care a bit. She loves to have me eat and she wants me to drink lots of milk so that I will grow big and strong to take care of her. Ihaven’t any father, you see.” Without further words the lad disappeared.
Taking care to avoid the hornets, the girls brought their lunch from the boat and were soon joined by the boy bringing a pitcher of milk and some tin cups.
“Mother said that she was glad for us to have the milk and that after lunch I am to bring you up to see her. Please come,” he begged. “I want my mother to know both of you so that after you are gone I can talk to her about you and she will understand. I don’t often have visitors at my house.” In a burst of confidence, “I never had any before. Please do come.”
The pleading face of the boy was very attractive to Virginia as she looked into it. Its wistfulness persuaded her. “We will go and see your mother,” she promised.
A happy, satisfied smile came into his face. There was something familiar about that to Virginia. Her eyes became dreamy.
“I’m going to kiss you,” Helen suddenly announced.
He resisted violently but was overpowered and force prevailed. “What do you want to do that for?” he objected, unappreciative of the favor so generously showered upon him by the fair Helen. “It spoils the fun. Don’t you know any better than to want to kiss a feller all the time?” he complained.
The sight of food pacified the infant as the girls spread the lunch. They all enjoyed the feast in the leafy bower and consumed a remarkable quantity of sandwiches, doughnuts, apple pie and milk. “My, but that was good!” he announced. “Don’t you think that my house is a good place to eat in? I told mymother that if I could eat here all of the time I would get fat; but she said that I would become a worse little savage than I am.”
The boy chattered on as he led them over the meadow towards the back of a weather-beaten farmhouse. “Moth-er, Moth-er,” he shouted, as they approached the back door.
A middle aged woman of good appearance came to the door. Trouble had deeply marked her face. “Won’t you come in?” she urged. “Charles Augustus,” she reproved her son, “you should bring ladies to the front of the house, not to the kitchen door.”
“What’s the difference?” he argued. “You can get in either way, mother, and this is the nearest.”
The girls, much amused at the reasoning of Charles Augustus, followed his mother through a spotless kitchen and dining room into a very plainly furnished front room.
For a time Charles Augustus sat most sedately in a chair, listening to the conversation of the girls with his mother; but as the minutes passed; he became restless.
Recognizing this, his mother suggested that he get some sweet apples from a tree in front of the house for their guests.
Passing out of the open front door, he paused upon the stoop and began a shrill little tuneless whistle. As he moved forward, his foot or his crutch slipped. He lurched forward as if about to plunge headlong down the flight of steps which led to the yard below.
The eyes of the women had followed the little fellow, and as he swung forward they were filled withalarm. With half suppressed screams they sprang to their feet, thrusting out their arms as if they might catch him.
By a marvelous effort, the boy recovered his balance. He resumed his whistling as if nothing had happened and clumped heavily down the steps, disappearing from their view.
With a sigh of relief the girls sank back into their chairs.
But the mother remained standing, her eyes yet upon the doorway through which her son had departed. Her raised hands dropped to her side and the look of horror passed from her face, leaving it old and tired looking.
Helen arose and, with a word of explanation, disappeared after Charles Augustus.
Virginia marked the hands of the woman yet trembling from her shock. She reached forward and, gently pulling her down into a chair, pressed her soft cheek against the wrinkled face.
The woman fought to control her emotion, but her face sank into her hands and she began to weep. After a time her sobs lessened and she became calmer. She tried to smile through her tears at the girl. “He is my baby,” she whispered; “my lame, helpless boy.” A change came over her. She threw back her head and resistance blazed in her eyes. “He shan’t be lame,” she cried, shaken by the intensity of her feelings. Quickly the mood merged into one of utter helplessness. “If I could get the money,” she groaned, but almost instantly her former temper returned. “I will get it,” she resolved. “My boy shall have a fair startin life if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get it for him.”
Virginia endeavored to soothe the almost hysterical woman. At last the tense nerves relaxed and self-control returned.
“You must think me silly and weak,” the woman told her. “I have been worrying too much. I am so alone with my thoughts here.”
“You have Charles Augustus,” suggested Virginia, as she stroked the bent shoulders.
“Yes,” admitted the woman. “But he goes to bed at six o’clock and that leaves the long evening in which to sit and think–and hate,” she blazed. Yet, in an instant her anger had departed and she went on sadly, “It is very lonely after Charles Augustus is asleep.”
“Is he your only child?” the girl asked.
“No, I have another boy, much older. He is big and strong and handsome and can take care of himself and his mother,” she explained with pride. “But he is young and is working his way through college. His pay is small and he has had some bad luck, but he is a joy and happiness in my life.”
Virginia watched the woman as if fascinated.
Thought for the comfort of her callers returned with composure to the mother of Charles Augustus. “My dear,” she said kindly, “I suppose that you are in Maine for a vacation. You don’t look like a native. It’s a shame for me to spoil this beautiful afternoon for you with my tears and troubles. I am nervous and overwrought. I had wonderful news yesterday. News which may make me glad all of the rest of my days or make me always sad.”
“Please tell me about it,” begged Virginia.
The woman yielded to the girl’s entreaties and explained that, on the previous day, Charles Augustus had been taken to a physician in Old Rock because of some infantile disease. After treating the boy, the doctor had examined his leg with great interest. Hunting up a copy of a recent medical journal he had shown the mother a description of an operation for a similar case in a New York hospital. It had resulted in the complete recovery of the use of a crippled limb. “That boy’s leg could be cured if we could get him on an operating table before he is too old,” the doctor had declared with confidence.
The news of the possibility of her son’s cure had filled Charles Augustus’s mother with joy; but her inability to raise the money for such an operation had almost driven her frantic.
When she ended, Virginia took hold of her hands. “Won’t you let me help you?” she begged softly. “There must be a way to do it and I should like to, for–” she hesitated a moment and then–“the sake of Charles Augustus.”
The woman looked into the girl’s eyes. She found a sweetness there which appealed to her. “I would have no right to refuse any help which would rid my boy of that crutch,” she answered.
At the door Virginia glanced back. “Charles Augustus’s crutch would make nice kindling wood,” she called. “A motorcycle would be much nicer for him.”
A hopeful smile crept over the tired face of the woman. “Life would be very beautiful if my CharlesAugustus could run and play and ride a wheel like other boys,” she said.
Virginia found her cousin and the lad in the midst of a great romp. He beamed at Helen, of whom he had become a great admirer, regardless of her sentimental tendencies. “We didn’t miss your cousin one bit, did we?” he announced, and then, “I don’t see anything in that to laugh at,” when the girls gave vent to their merriment.
“We are going now, Charles Augustus,” Helen told him. “Kiss me good bye.”
Regardless of his earlier attitude, the lad succumbed to the allure of a beautiful woman as has man since the beginning of things.
“Are you coming again soon?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Virginia answered. She was very serious and thoughtful as she followed the lad and the gay and talkative Helen another way to the pond. As she passed the mail box, she raised her eyes and upon it read the name, “Curtis.”
“I knew it,” she whispered. “Joe has his mother’s eyes.”
The next morning Virginia wrote Mrs. Henderson about the case of Charles Augustus. She wrote also to Joe Curtis, but in her letter she did not refer to her meeting with his mother and lame brother or to her visit to his home. Afterwards she went out and sat in the hammock. Swinging gently, she gazed with serious eyes at the landscape; but her thoughts gave but little heed to the beautiful scenery which lay before her.
With motherly interest, Aunt Kate watched her niece through the kitchen window. Wise in the habits and customs of young women, she noted unfavorable portents. “Lands sakes,” she called to Helen, “Virginia is moping away in the hammock trying to make herself homesick. Hurry out and cheer the poor child up. Don’t let her get lonesome and unhappy.”
Helen obediently entered upon her kindly mission. Seating herself by her cousin, she put an arm about her and gave her cheery greeting, “Hello cuticomes. Of whom are you dreaming?”
“I am thinking of Charles Augustus.”
“He is a darling kid. I could eat him for candy.” The cannibalistic Helen smiled anything but fiercely at the thought of her tender prey.
“He is so sweet, Helen. That makes it sadder.”
“Makes what sad?”
“His lameness. It is dreadful. Think of it, Helen, never to be able to run and play in comfort.”
Shadows of unhappiness clouded the usual cheerfulness of Helen’s face. “It is terrible,” she sighed.
“All through his life,” the melancholy Virginia went on, “that crutch must be with him. Even when he proposes to a girl it will be beside him at her feet.”
“He could leave it in the hall with his hat.” Helen’s optimism attempted to thrust aside the enshrouding gloom.
“No.” Virginia was determined that no ray of light should brighten the dark picture she was painting. “When Charles Augustus proposes, unless the crutch is near, he can’t get from his knees.”
Helen conceded the point by a helpless nod. “It won’t be a bit romantic. It will be pathetic,” she whispered.
“Not if the girl loves him truly. Not if he is the answer to the call of her heart.”
“He would be the Knight of her thoughts then,–the Prince of her dreams,” interjected Helen, the sentimental.
“With a crutch. He will rest on it even at his wedding.”
“When they go away on their wedding trip, the rice and old shoes will beat against it,” groaned Helen.
“It will be at his bedside when he dies.” Virginia’s eyes filled with tears. “Were he a soldier it would be a badge of honor–a mark of patriotic suffering; but poor Charles Augustus was always that way and mustalways remain so unless some one will pay for an operation.” Virginia buried her tear-drowned eyes in her handkerchief.
The sympathetic Helen succumbed to the prevailing sorrow of the occasion and wept also.
From her watch tower at the kitchen window, Aunt Kate espied the sorrowing ones. “My sakes alive, what has got into those girls?” she exclaimed. “They must be hankering for a funeral.” Hastening forth, she planted herself before them and viewed the weepers with stern eyes. “What is all of this crying about?” she demanded.
They told her, abating no jot or tittle of gloom.
“Was Charles Augustus unhappy yesterday?”
“No,” they admitted.
“Well then,” Aunt Kate’s voice rang forcefully, “what’s the use of crying over happiness? Tears are to wash sorrows away.” Her final remark pointed her thoughts in a practical direction. “You two can wash the surrey as well as for me to pay Tom fifty cents to do it. You can use some of those tears around here if you get tired of pumping water.”
So the grief stricken arrayed themselves in bathing suits and tugged the surrey into the sun. They hitched the hose to the force pump and labored diligently amidst floods of conversation and torrents of water. They polished and, inadvertently or with malice aforethought, turned water upon one another until peals of laughter echoed into the kitchen. A complacent Aunt Kate gave but little heed to them until they presented themselves before her, much bedrabbled but in an exceedingly cheerful frame of mind.
She gazed over her glasses at them and said, “Mercy sakes, I told you girls to wash the surrey not yourselves. Get off those wet clothes before you catch your death of cold.” As they disappeared towards the stairs she called after them, “You girls were bound to have a moist morning. Now I hope that you are satisfied.”
Days passed which Aunt Kate, in her wisdom, saw were busy ones. At last an answer came to Virginia’s letter to Mrs. Henderson. Hennie had a habit of accomplishing the things which she undertook and her response was most satisfactory. She had arranged for the operation upon Charles Augustus at the New York hospital. A place had been found for Mrs. Curtis to stay and tickets had been placed at the Old Rock station for her and her son.
Sufficient funds had been raised to cover everything but the operating fee. But as soon as the case came to the attention of the surgeon, he had suggested that, as the matter of age was a very important factor in the ultimate success of his efforts, the operation be performed at once. He was quite willing to await the result of Mrs. Henderson’s further exertions for the payment of his bill.
A very happy and delighted Virginia cried the good news aloud to Aunt Kate and Helen. “Right after lunch we will go and see Mrs. Curtis and Charles Augustus and tell them the good news,” she planned. “Isn’t Hennie perfectly splendid?”
Aunt Kate was making pies. Her eyes twinkled as she told Virginia, “I don’t gather from this letter that your friend Mrs. Henderson spent much timeweeping over Charles Augustus’s crutch. She is going to get rid of the old thing. That line or two you wrote did the lame boy much more good than all the tears you and Helen wasted around here the other morning.”
Virginia bobbed her head in agreement with the wisdom of her aunt. Then she climbed the stairs to make ready for her trip, lifting a sweet little voice in song.
As Aunt Kate heard her, she smiled gently; but her face grew suddenly stern as she muttered, “Until I settle brother Obadiah’s hash, I’d better keep an umbrella and a mackintosh handy if I don’t want to get wet”; after which she dusted the flour from her hands with great vigor.
The two girls gave little time to their lunch that noon, and soon afterwards started up the pond in a canoe. Helen was filled with energy. She dug her paddle into the water and pulled mightily.
“Stop, Helen, we are turning around,” protested Virginia.
“Paddle your share, ‘V.’,” retorted Helen with an air of injury. “Remember, you are not a passenger.”
By vigorously wielding her paddle, Virginia managed to hold the canoe on its course. “Please don’t make me work so hard, Helen,” she objected. “We want to hurry and get there.”
“We are doing that splendidly, ‘V.’ We can’t go very fast if you want to sit and dream. Paddle, dear heart–work your way.”
“‘You are my sweetheart,’ the brazen Helen told him”
“‘You are my sweetheart,’ the brazen Helen told him”
So it came to pass that Virginia paddled to keep up with Helen and that young woman paddled to make her cousin work, and thus the light canoe was driven over the water with speed and they soon reached the end of their voyage.
Charles Augustus espied their approach afar off and hobbled down the meadow path to meet them with joyous outcry. “Hello, you came to see me, didn’t you?”
“Of course. You are my sweetheart,” the brazen Helen told him.
“My!” he sighed, shaking his head after the manner of an elderly philosopher. “It’s been a long time since I saw you. I expected you every day. Mother said that she guessed you were busy people.”
Mrs. Curtis came to the door at the sound of voices. Her face lighted when she recognized them. “Charles has been watching for you each day,” she told them. “I tried to persuade him that you might have interests besides visiting small boys; but I wasn’t very successful.”
Charles Augustus balked in the pathway, pulling at the hand of Helen. “Don’t let’s go in. It’s much nicer out here. Let’s play as we did the other day.”
Mrs. Curtis nodded understandingly when Helen bowed to her admirer’s wishes, and led Virginia into the house. “It is nice of you to come and see me again so soon,” she told the girl when they were seated in the front room; “especially after the way I must have tired you with my troubles and drowned you with my tears.” Her forced gaiety could not deceive one to whom she had opened her heart. The marks of trouble and anxiety showed too plainly in her face.
Virginia saw the opportunity to transmit the good tidings she had brought. Its very bigness embarrassed her. “I have some good news for you,” she cried, and abruptly thrust the letter towards the older woman, her eyes big and tender with the joy of her message. “There!” she stammered. “Read–read that, please.”
Mrs. Curtis took the letter from Mrs. Henderson and began to peruse it.
It seemed to Virginia that she would never finish.
At last Mrs. Curtis turned towards the girl. Her face was pale and the stress of her emotion weakened her. “I can’t thank you,” she whispered in a queer strained voice. Suddenly her strength swept back to her. Under the force of the joy which enveloped her she spoke in a dead monotone, staring ahead of her with unseeing eyes. “My Charles will walk and play like other boys. In a few weeks–perhaps before Thanksgiving Day–he can throw aside his crutch.”
Virginia, agitated by the intenseness of the other’s feelings, watched in silence.
Mrs. Curtis had forgotten her visitor now. She was thinking aloud. “What a happy day it will be for Joe and Charles and me,” she murmured,–“the happiest since my husband died.”
The gladness of the other thrilled the girl.
Like a flash there came a change in Mrs. Curtis’s mood. Her joy came into conflict with a defiant pride. Her face became cold and hard. “It’s charity,” she wailed, “just plain charity. Am I a beggar now?”
She turned furiously upon Virginia, transformedby passion, “If my husband had lived–if I, a weak woman, had been given a fair chance to make an honest living in this land of the free,” she sneered, “I too would ride in my automobile in silks and diamonds and extend charity to the poor. If there were justice among men I would not be in a position where people could offer me charity.”
A bewildered Virginia listened timidly as the woman, almost beside herself, went on, “There is no justice–there is no right,” Her eyes seemed ablaze to the startled girl. She thrust her arms above her head. “The wicked prosper and the good are ruined. It’s all wrong–wickedly wrong,” she screamed and, rushing into an adjoining room, cast herself across the bed, sobbing convulsively.
Amazed at the effect of Hennie’s letter, Virginia was tempted to run away. She hesitated, however. Through the doorway she could see the shaking form of Joe’s mother upon the bed. Quickly the passion died out of the sobs of the weeping woman and in its place came a note of pathetic helplessness which clutched at the girl’s heart and seemed to call her.
In a moment Virginia was at the side of the bed. Leaning over, she took one of the toil worn hands into her own. There came an answering pressure and the girl seated herself by the bed-side holding the knotted fingers in her own. The sobs lessened, the quivering form became calmer, and at length Mrs. Curtis sat up and raised wet eyes to those of her visitor. “You must think me lacking in appreciation of the generosity of your friends,” she choked, still shaken by the reflex of her sobs. “It’s not true, though. That wasa display of my silly pride. It’s about all that I have left of the happiest days of my life. Forget my words, dear, and forgive me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for what you have done for my boy and me. To have him walk without a crutch, on my hands and knees I’d scrub the most crowded street in the world. There is no humiliation too great for me to undergo for him. I would glory in it.” In the glow of mother love her face softened and became beautiful. Now she seemed to grasp the full significance of the news and to be filled with unrest as if afraid that the opportunity might escape. “When can we go?” she worried–“tomorrow?”
“Today, if you wish,” Virginia explained.
Her woes cast aside and filled with excitement, Mrs. Curtis dried her tears and returned to the other room with the girl. Through the window Charles Augustus could be seen hobbling about in a game with the active Helen. His mother watched his awkward movements intently for a moment. “In a few months he will be running about without the crutch,” she whispered and, swinging about, she seized Virginia by her shoulders, looked deep into her eyes as she murmured gently, “May God bless you and yours for what you are doing for me and mine, and may happiness be yours and theirs until the end of time.”
Charles Augustus displayed greater interest in the journey he was about to take than in the fact that he might no longer need his crutch. As he passed through the meadow with the girls he explained his position. “It’s great fun to travel on the cars. I don’t care a bit where I go, so it’s some place else.” Possibleobjections arising from the change struck him. “When I come back, will you come and see me, even if I don’t have a crutch?” he asked Helen.
The enchantress caught him in her arms and answered him with a kiss.
Regardless of this attention, dissatisfaction crept into his face. “If I don’t have my crutch, I will catch you all of the time. There’ll be no fun in playing with a girl who always has to be ‘it.’”
His fears did not impress Helen the agile. “When you are able to play without your crutch,” she promised him, “I shall fly with delight.”
“Like an aeroplane?” inquired Charles Augustus with great seriousness.
They left him standing upon the shore. As they paddled away he was leaning on his crutch, watching something. Suddenly he made a hopping dart and dropped to the ground. Instantly he was up again, shouting triumphantly, “Look–look at the old bullfrog I caught.” He held the slimy creature aloft, by one of its legs, for the admiration of the girls and asked, “Do you think that my mother will let me take him to New York with me?”
“Ask her,” suggested the diplomatic Helen.
Notwithstanding the happy outcome of her efforts to help Charles Augustus, Virginia was very silent and preoccupied that evening.
“That child is homesick,” Aunt Kate thought, as she kissed her good night and watched her slowly ascend the stairs, candlestick in hand.
As Virginia undressed, she was very thoughtful. She went over to the dresser and, holding Mrs.Henderson’s letter close to the candle’s flame, re-read it. There was a wistful, helpless look in her face when she was ready to climb into bed. “Oh, Daddy, Daddy,” she whispered sadly, “please believe as mother did, so that I can come back home.” An hour afterwards she fell asleep upon a pillow moistened with tears.
The two girls were at the station in the morning to say good bye to Charles Augustus and his mother as they departed for New York.
Before the train left Charles Augustus complained to Helen, “Mother wouldn’t let me take my frog to New York.”
“That is too bad,” commiserated the deceitful Helen.
“Mother said that the frog wouldn’t care for New York. He might get lonesome there.”
Helen gravely considered the problem. “Your mother is right, Charles. A frog would find few friends and little amusement in New York.”
Virginia bade Mrs. Curtis good bye at the car steps. “You will write and tell us about everything, won’t you?” she begged.
The older woman embraced her. “Good bye,” she murmured. “Words can’t tell what I would say to you, dear. Of course I will write.”
Again the days passed and the best of news came from New York. The operation was performed and the twisted muscles worked into place. The surgeon was confident of the success of his efforts and felt sure that, at the worst, Charles Augustus would only have a slight limp which would disappear with age.
Yet Virginia was not happy. Very sweet she was and thoughtful of others; but she was serious and often, too, a look of sadness rested on her face.
Aunt Kate watched her with the vigilant eye of a mother in those days. One afternoon she discovered her niece alone in the hammock, viewing the pond with a melancholy countenance. “Land sakes, that child is moping again,” she groaned. Leaving her work, she joined the girl and commanded, “Tell me your thoughts, Virginia?”
For the moment the girl was startled. “I was thinking about South Ridgefield,” she confessed timidly.
“I knew it,” Aunt Kate exclaimed, apparently much puffed up by her mind-reading ability. “You are trying to see how unhappy you can make yourself and every one else who looks at you.”
Virginia was mute before this accusation.
“Were you thinking of your father?” asked Aunt Kate, proceeding with her examination of the witness.
The girl nodded sadly.
“Why do you think of him?” Aunt Kate seemed shocked at the depraved taste of Obadiah’s daughter.
“Oh, Aunt Kate, I do wish that he would pay for Charles Augustus’s operation. I would feel as if there might be some chance of my going home some day.”
“I am sorry that you don’t care for the company of Helen and me, Virginia.”
The girl gave her aunt a pleading look. “You know what I mean. I love you and Helen dearly.”
The older woman softened, patting her niece upon the cheek; but she stuck to the business at hand. “That water business would cost your father a lot of money, wouldn’t it?”
“I think so,” Virginia agreed.
“Hum,” muttered Aunt Kate. “We’d better give Obadiah a light dose to begin on.”
“I don’t understand you, Aunt Kate,” said the girl.
“No matter,” responded the older woman. “What I want to know is, have you asked your father to pay for the operation on that lame boy?”
“No, he knows nothing about it,” admitted Virginia. “Aunt Kate, I would be afraid to ask him after the way he talked to me.”
“Afraid!” Aunt Kate was filled with astonishment. “Afraid of Obadiah? My stars and garters! You must begin some place! How on earth do you expect him to give to something he never heard of? Don’t you know child, that to get a Dale to do anything which costs money you must ask them not once, but thrice. Seventy times seven is about right for Obadiah.”
“But, Aunt Kate, after what my father said, I couldn’t ask him to help pay Charles Augustus’s bill.”
“Why not?” demanded Aunt Kate.
“I don’t know why. I am sure, though, that I couldn’t.”
“I know why,” declared Aunt Kate. “It is obstinacy–plain Dale obstinacy sticking out of you.”
Virginia was silent for a moment, possibly reviewing her personal characteristics as illuminated by heraunt. Then she asked, “You think that I should ask him?”
“Certainly, give brother Obadiah a chance.”
“But, Aunt Kate, he will refuse.”
“We will write him then that you are going to stay with me.”
“Oh,” groaned Virginia, great tears springing into her eyes opened wide with alarm. “Then I could never go home as long as I live. I’d never see Daddy or Serena or even Ike again.”
“Fiddlesticks, child, don’t be a weakling.” Her eyes twinkled. “This is no tragedy. It is only a difference of opinion, with brother Obadiah, as usual, wrong.”
“It would be a tragedy if I could never go and see my father.” Virginia shook her head sorrowfully. “I have been thinking about it lots lately, and sometimes I wonder if my mother would want me to stay away from home much longer.”
Aunt Kate put her arm about the girl. “Won’t you trust to the judgment of your old aunt, who knew your mother before you? I don’t want your efforts to help other people to be turned into a punishment.”
“I have thought of that, too.” Virginia was very solemn as she spoke. “Perhaps I went about it the wrong way. If I had done things differently perhaps I wouldn’t have made Daddy angry.”
“You must not allow yourself to worry, dear. We will give your father a chance to help Charles Augustus. If he doesn’t do it, something else will come up and we will keep on giving him the opportunity. Inthe end everything will work out for the best, I am sure.”
So that afternoon Virginia wrote to her father and asked him to contribute towards the expense of the operation upon Charles Augustus. It was a cheery letter and in no word of it could one guess the tears and longings between the lines.
Obadiah’s answer, as befitted a good business man, was prompt. While he admitted the sadness of the case he could see no reason why he should be asked to pay for an operation upon a boy of whom he knew nothing. He enclosed a small check and concluded his letter with directions that his daughter return home at once.
“Just as I expected,” announced Aunt Kate, when Virginia, the bewildered subject of conflicting emotions, brought it to her. “Obadiah is wild to have you home. That is our strength. Don’t you surrender to him, Virginia. I wouldn’t be a slave to any man and certainly not to brother Obadiah. I always made him step about, I can promise you. And if you follow my advice you can, too.”
Virginia’s face was wistful. “I don’t want to make Daddy step about, Aunt Kate.”
“You started this revolution, Virginia, and you must see it through. Now, I am in it. The only slave in that big house in South Ridgefield is going to be Obadiah. My dander is up, child, and I am going to make him sweat. I must finish the job of training which I started years ago. He never disobeyed me then and he had better not try it now.” Her eyes flashed and her manner was extremely menacing. “Inthe meantime,” she stormed, “he has brought you into the world, which complicates matters but does not relieve me of my responsibilities.”
The second letter to Obadiah was in the hand of Virginia but it breathed the words and spirit of his sister Kate. It was an independent document. Every line of it bristled with the spirit of ’76. It regretted his decision not to help in the case of Charles Augustus and also that Virginia had not completed her visit so that she could return to South Ridgefield. In vague terms it referred to a home with her aunt, and discussed a career, as well as certain positions for teachers available in and about Old Rock.
Virginia copied the letter and signed her name. Then she re-read with increasing alarm the ultimatum which she had approved. Had she been alone it would have been instantly destroyed; but under the stern eye of her aunt she was helpless. Obediently she addressed the envelope and, shaking way down in her very boots, she watched her aunt fold, seal and bear away for personal mailing the bolt which was to be cast at her father’s head.
At the door Aunt Kate turned and, with the greatest assurance, told the fear-shaken girl, “Mark my words! This letter will make brother Obadiah sit up and take notice.”
As it is written that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own house, it is deemed just that such matters as have to do with the coming to pass of Aunt Kate’s prediction concerning her brother Obadiah should be duly set forth herein that they may be not suppressed through local jealousy.
Obadiah received Virginia’s letter late one afternoon as he was about to return home. He did not immediately read it, but carried it with him that he might enjoy it in the greater seclusion of his own domicile. What took place thereafter is best described in the words of a confidential communication from Serena to Ike. “Dat ole man is er ra’in’ an’ er ta’in’ ’roun’ in dyar jes lak sumpin done stung ’im. It’s de badness er wo’kin’ out. De hot fiah o’ to’ment singe ’im an’ de cont’ary spi’it cry aloud fo’ he’p lak er lamb afo’ er ragin’ lion in de wilde’ness.”
Ike received these tidings concerning the spiritual pass of his employer with an interest that lacked the kindly sympathy which should be extended to a brother struggling with the forces of evil. He made answer in a casual manner, “Mr. Devil done run dat ole man to ea’th er long time ergo. He jes er settin’ back, lafin sof’ to hisse’f, er watchin’ de houn’s er scratchin’an’ er clawin’. He gwine dig ’im out presently. Ah ’spects dat de ’pointed hour is at han’.”
At dinner Obadiah was in a surly mood which he vented upon Serena by making cutting criticisms concerning the food and service. She received his comments in silence, storing them up until a more propitious hour of reckoning. Meanwhile she solaced herself by certain outbursts at Ike.
Unconscious of impending disaster, the chauffeur had seated himself adjacent to the range. Here he rested from the labors of the day, having in view a tempting repast of chicken and sweet potatoes. He endeavored by agreeable conversation, to make smooth, or grease if you wish, its pathway to his stomach. “Miss Sereny, yo’all is er movin’ mighty peart dis evenin’,” he remarked in tuneful tones, as the old negress hastily re-entered the kitchen, severely wounded by a barbed dart of Obadiah’s temper.
She whirled upon him and snapped, “Shet up dat big mouf. Yer ’minds me o’ er ole alligator er settin’ thar workin’ yer jaws an’ ain’ say nothin’.”
A glance at Serena’s face showed Ike that storm signals were unmistakably flying. He thought to assuage the tempest by the tender of assistance. “Caint ah he’p you, Miss Sereny? Ah ’spects dat yo’all is plum ti’ed er wo’kin’ in dis yere hot kitchen.”
She fixed him with smoldering eyes. “He’p me, he’p me,” she repeated indignantly. “De onlies way er lazy nocount lummox lak yo’all kin he’p me is by er movin’ yer triflin’ carcass out o’ ma kitchen stid o’ layin’ ’round ma stove lak er houn’ dawg. Lif youse’f off dat chair, boy.”
Ike, the indirect victim of Virginia’s letter, removed himself in haste from his comfortable corner and retired to the cool steps of the back stoop, to allow the domestic cyclone to blow itself out before attempting again to procure his evening’s nourishment.
Obadiah had an uncomfortable night. A remembrance of the lance like thrusts of Aunt Kate, which, in the name of his daughter, had so cruelly lacerated him in spite of his armor of egotism, drove sleep away. Tossing upon a bed of discomfort, he heard the clocks toll out each passing hour until, weary and tired eyed, he left his bed, ill prepared to face the burdens and perplexities of the new day.
At breakfast, Serena served Obadiah efficiently; but her attitude was hostile. The wounds of the proceeding night were yet raw. When he had eaten, she faced him sternly and demanded, “When is yo’all ’spectin’ Miss Virginy is er gwine come home?”
“One of these days,” he answered with indifference.
She was not to be thus summarily dismissed. “Dat day bettah be er comin’ mighty quick,” she threatened. “Ah is er gittin ti’ed er waitin’ ’roun’ yere. Presen’ly, ah gwine pack ma duds an’ go whar she at.”
“You attend to your own business,” he snarled petulantly.
His irritation was an elixir of strength to her. Hands on hips she gazed defiantly at him. “Ma business is whar Miss Virginy is. Ah ain’ promise Miss Elinor dat ah tek care o’ yo’all. Ah gives ma word to watch dat chil’. Ef you is er countin’ on me er stayin’ in dis yere house yo’all bettah git dat gal backquick. Ah ain’ got no time fo’ no man so se’fish dat ’is own kin folk done turn again ’im.”
Before the righteous indignation of his own servant Obadiah fled from his dining room, speechless with indignation.
He entered his office at nine o’clock. The sound of Mr. Jones’s typewriter should have greeted him and he should have perceived Kelly recording profits in the great ledgers. This morning their seats were vacant. There was a lonesomeness about the place distasteful to the manufacturer. His sleepless night and the altercation with Serena had caused him to develop a fit of indigestion which was not allayed by the lack of punctuality on the part of his heretofore punctual subordinates.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, also happy laughter. Tardy employees approached their work joyously, not stealthily, as is the normal custom of such miscreants. No cheery smile of cordial welcome mantled Obadiah’s face. No well turned quip, to amuse his minions in their hours of toil, was upon his lip. He sternly awaited the coming of these frivolous and delinquent workers.
As Mr. Jones and Kelly entered, there were glad smiles upon their faces. There was something different about the stenographer. There was a marked outward change in him. His clear complexion proclaimed good health. He carried himself as if in complete control of his muscles. In place of awkwardness had come a distinct grace of carriage.
There were more subtle changes in Mr. Jones, also. A clearness of eye, a steadiness of gaze and a quietself-confidence were a novelty to his friends of other days.
But, strangest of all, the private secretary’s old time beauty was marred by a discoloration of the right eye, poorly disguised with powder, by several small cuts upon his face and by certain bandages on his hands.
Obadiah gave Mr. Jones a sweeping glance which failed to grasp details essential to a clear understanding of a subordinate. “What do you mean, loafing in here at noon?” he demanded most inaccurately, “I pay you to get here at nine o’clock. What does this mean?” The cruel glance of Obadiah’s eye pierced the optic of Mr. Jones as if to plumb the depths of his soul and wrest his innermost secrets forth to be exposed, naked and ashamed, in the pitiless light of publicity.
The mill owner’s efforts to read the stenographer’s mind through the eye were futile. Had he succeeded, the result of his research would have shocked him. Believing himself to be peeping into the eyes of a turtle dove, he would have become aware that he might, with greater safety, have attempted to stare down the baleful glare of a Bengal tiger.
Lacking in the ability to read the human mind, Obadiah could not know that Fate, seeking a recipient for her favor, had plucked a peaceful soul from in front of a typewriter and made it fierce.
Had the manufacturer been able to view Mr. Jones’s mind as the scenes of a movie, he would have beheld thrilling events taking place upon the previous evening. He would have observed his stenographersimply arrayed in trunks, socks and shoes, with eight ounce gloves laced upon his hands, give battle for the feather-weight championship of the Fifth ward, before a multitude of wildly excited male citizens.
Had Obadiah by similar means reviewed the mind of Kelly, he would have watched the battle as through the eyes of a second. He would have seen, beneath the electric lights, the muscles of the little fighting men play, panther like, under the healthy pink of their skins. If one drop of red blood remained in his anæmic old body, the mill owner would have thrilled as Mr. Jones, his arms playing smoothly as well oiled connecting rods, treading upon his toes softly as a cat, advanced, retreated and side stepped, ever warily studying the face of his opponent. He would have perceived that his stenographer ducked and dodged with incredible swiftness, his gloved hands playing always to feign, to ward and to deliver blows which resounded with the thud of leather against quivering flesh. Obadiah’s eyes would have recognized the rich red of blood smearing the marble of human flesh, and he would have tingled at the excitement of the spectators when, rising from their seats, they tumultuously applauded the giver of a lucky blow.
Through five gruelling rounds of fighting the manufacturer would have followed the fortunes of his private secretary until that final moment when, panting and heaving, he stood over the prone form of his adversary, counting the motions of the referee’s hands, whose voice could not be heard above the thunderous applause which acclaimed him victor.
But no picture of this battle could have toldObadiah that in the moment of triumph the spirit of Mr. Jones was reborn; that from the building, into the portals of which he had been almost dragged by Kelly, he had come forth a red-blooded fighting man whose gore had mixed with that of his antagonist.
Ignorant of these happenings, Obadiah angrily awaited an answer from his unpunctual servants.
The smile had faded from the face of Mr. Jones at Obadiah’s rough greeting. He failed to behave in accord with the best usages among private secretaries. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath, thereby greatly straining a gusset only recently let into the back of his vest. Suddenly he shoved his head forward. As his face advanced, it changed into an ugly countenance with a nasty eye, such an one as would make its recipient ill at ease. This was Mr. Jones’s fighting face, developed with care under the kindly advice of Kelly. Sporting characters considered it a valuable asset.
Mr. Jones’s expression startled Obadiah. For years, when at a loss for words or thoughts, he had studied the lamb like face of his stenographer. That timid look was gone now, replaced by a countenance which had borrowed coldness from the glance of a rattlesnake and combined it with a grizzly bear’s cruelty of aspect. To Obadiah it spoke of arson, of the assassination of capitalists, of the proletariat running mad. He quailed before it.
“Where do you get that noon stuff?” snarled Mr. Jones.
Obadiah turned towards the clock as if to place the blame for any misstatements of time upon thatinstrument. The hands pointed to five minutes past nine thereby also indicating their owner to be a liar.
Again Mr. Jones spoke. Roughness replaced refinement.
“For five years I have worked overtime for you, two or three afternoons a week, sometimes fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour. I also put in many an evening and some Sundays for you. I never received a word of thanks for it. Now, because I am delayed by important business and come in five minutes late, you put up a squeal as if I’d stepped on your sore corn. Say, what kind of a cheap skate are you?” the stenographer roared in conclusion.
Obadiah ignored the question in haughty but uneasy silence.
“You think so much of your ugly old self that you can’t think of anything else. But believe me, everybody else has got your number and they’re wasting no time loving you. Say,” growled Mr. Jones so roughly that Obadiah jumped, “have you a friend in the world?”
For an instant it appeared that the manufacturer contemplated a hurried retreat from his own office, but the pugnacious stenographer barred the way.
“You hain’t,” announced Mr. Jones ungrammatically but emphatically, producing a gigantic roll of currency from his pocket. It was his share of the fight receipts, and, although the denominations averaged low, it bulked large to the surprised eyes of Obadiah. Mr. Jones shook the money in the face of his employer. “See that?” he inquired, as if suspecting that his employer suffered from failingeyesight. “I don’t care to hold it too near to you or you might try to pinch it.”
Obadiah viewed the roll of bills with a repugnance astounding in him.
“I had to work to get that money, last night,” Mr. Jones continued. “It wasn’t the easy kind of money that you pull down. But that isn’t the point. Kelly and I have bought a gymnasium up the street. We intended to treat you fair–to give you full notice so that you could fill our places before we left. But as you’ve had to be a little meaner than usual this morning, I think we’ll bid you good-bye right now. How about it, Kelly?”
“I say we will,” agreed that successful trainer with emphasis, and he and the fighter abruptly left the room.
Obadiah closed the door of the office with a resounding slam behind his departing staff and, taking a bunch of unopened letters from Mr. Jones’s former place of labor, he bore them into his own lair. As he sank down behind his desk he thumbed them over and, selecting one, opened and read the paper it contained. It was a formal order from the State Board of Health forbidding the further discharge of waste from the dye house at his mill into the Lame Moose River. As the manufacturer grasped the import of the document, his face purpled with rage and the paper shook in his hands. Finally he petulantly cast it aside and groaned aloud at a twinge of indigestion. Dropping back in his chair he took Virginia’s letter from his pocket and re-read it. “I’ve had bad luck ever since she left,” he growled. “Things don’t break right. I can’t keep my mind on my business. She must come home.”Unhooking his telephone, he asked Hezekiah Wilkins to come to him.
Hezekiah responded, smiling pleasantly. “Good morning,” he exclaimed. “What has happened to the boys? Not sick, I hope.”
“I fired them,” Obadiah rapped. “They were too fresh around here and I let them go.” His anger and resentment displayed itself. “They are no good. I wouldn’t give them recommendations as dog catchers.”
“Hump,” ejaculated Hezekiah. “Both at once? It leaves you short handed.”
Obadiah invited the attention of his attorney to business by handing him the order of the Board of Health.
Hezekiah read the document with care and, returning it to the manufacturer, gazed at the ceiling reflectively.
“Well, what do you think of it?” Obadiah’s manner was short.
“I have been expecting it,” the lawyer replied with calmness. “What else could you expect? You are ruining the water that people have to drink.”
“I can’t be forced. They won’t drive me,” Obadiah maintained with his usual obstinacy.
“They’ll drive you into court fast enough, if you don’t obey that order,” Hezekiah warned him with a chuckle.
“That’s just where I want to be. It’s up to you to develop a plan to flim-flam that bunch of fool doctors. You’re losing your ‘pep’ or you’d have worked out something before this,” sneered Obadiah.
“Perhaps I am losing my ‘pep,’” Hezekiahmimicked, and his eyes flashed as he went on. “I have enough mental alertness left to advise you not to bite off your nose to spite your face.”
Obadiah flushed angrily but controlled his temper. “Listen,” he snarled, “while I tell you what I pay you to tell me. The Lame Moose is a navigable stream, isn’t it?”
Hezekiah nodded, his eyes dancing with amusement.
Obadiah frowned at his attorney and continued, “We’ll raise a federal question and get the case into the U. S. Courts and with dilatory pleas, continuances and appeals it will take years before a final decision is handed down. How’s that?”
Hezekiah laughed. “As your legal adviser, I can’t approve it. The waste from the dye-house at your mill is spoiling the water that some thousands of people have to drink. There is a simple remedy open to you but they have none. Common justice demands that you consider the rights of these beings.” The attorney turned loose his oratorical voice. “Common justice demands it, sir.”
The manufacturer flushed and shifted uneasily. Quarrelsome as he was, he could not afford a break with this man.
Hezekiah relapsed into a careful study of the metal cornice over the way.
“Think it over. Think about it,” snapped Obadiah after a moment’s silence. “You may be able to catch my point of view. I have another subject which I want to discuss with you–an embarrassing personal matter.”
Hezekiah gave him a covert glance but immediatelyresumed inspection of the metal work across the street.
“It’s about my daughter,” continued Obadiah. “I have a letter from her which I wish you to read.”
Hezekiah perused Virginia’s letter with great care and attention. “Did she write that?” he asked abruptly, as he returned the communication.
“It’s in my daughter’s handwriting but I suspect that my sister Kate may have had a hand in it. Virginia never wrote such a letter to me before. It is an unusual letter.”
“Yes, it is an unusual letter,” Hezekiah agreed. There was merriment in his eyes but otherwise he presented the serious aspect befitting a counsellor in the presence of a client. “It is an implied threat to sever domestic relations. Such counsel as I give should have in contemplation the facts which led up to this–ahem–veiled ultimatum.”
This reasonable request embarrassed Obadiah greatly; but after some hesitation he explained the circumstances under which Virginia had left home as the act of a defiant, headstrong girl.