CHAPTER XIXEXTRACT FROM A LETTER
From Mrs. Rebecca Winter to Mrs. John S. G. Winslow,
Fairport, Iowa.
And it was delightful to discover that you were so distressed about me. I must be getting a trifle maudlin in my old age, for I have had a lump in my throat every time I have thought of Johnny and you actually starting out to find me; I am thankful my telegram (Please, Peggy, do not call it awireagain—to me! I loathe these verbal indolences) reached you at Omaha in time to stop you.
Really, we have not had hardships. Thanks to Israel Putnam Arnold! I have a very admiring gratitude for that man! In these days of degeneracy he builded a stanch enduring house. With union labor, too! I don’t see how he contrived to do it. Generally, when they build houses here,they scamp the underpinning and weaken the joists and paint over the dirt instead of washing it off; and otherwise deserve to be killed. The unfortunate man opposite had just that kind of house, which tumbled down and burned up, at once; but, alas! it killed some of the people in it, not the guilty masons and carpenters.
Our chimneys have been inspected and we are now legally as well as actually sound; but we did not suffer. We cooked out on the sidewalk, and supplemented our cooking with young Tracy’s stove.
I told you of Janet’s engagement. Confidentially, my dear Peggy, I am a bit responsible. They met by chance on the train; and I assure you, although chance might have parted us, I did not let it. I clung to Nephew Bertie. I’m sure he wondered why. I knew better than to let him suspect. But a success you can’t share is like a rose without a smell. So I confess to you,Ihave made this match. But when you see Millicent she will tell you thatshehelped things along. She has abused Janet like a pickpocket; but now, since she has discovered Janet didn’t draw the Daughters’ caricature of her, she regards her as one of the gems of the century.
We are recovering from the terrible events of which we wrote. It is certainly a relief that Atkins is killed. He was one of the two scoundrels who sneaked into thepatioand put the bombs into the automobile. Bertie shot him. You have no doubt heard all about Mr. Keatcham’s death. He was killed by the man whose wickedness he had unconsciously fostered. He did not know it, but I make no doubt his swollen fortune and the unscrupulous daring of its acquiring had a great influence in corrupting his secretary.
And his corruption was his master’s undoing. I must say I sympathize with young Tracy, who said last night: “I feel as if I had been put to soak in crime! That bomb was the limit. In future, me for common or garden virtue; it may be tame but I prefer tameness to delirium tremens!”
I used to think that I should like to match my wits against a first-class criminal intellect; God forgive me for the wish! I have been matching wits for the last month; and never putting on my shoes without looking in them for a baby bomblet or feeling a twinge of indigestion without darkly suspecting the cook—who is really the best creature in the world, sent Mr. Arnold by a good Chinese friend of mine. (I had a chance to do agood turn to my friend, by the way, during the earthquake and thus repay some of his to me.)
Archie is well and cheerful. Isn’t it like the Winter temperament to lose its melancholy in such horrors as we have seen? Archie is distinctly happier since he came to California. As for Janet and Rupert—oh, well, my dear, you and Johnnyknow! The house has been full of people, and we have had several friends of our own for a day or two. I got a recipe for a delicious tea-cake from Mrs. Wigglesworth of Boston. She didn’t save anything but her furs and her kimono and a bridge set, besides what she had on; she packed her trunk with great care and nobody would take it down-stairs. Of course she saved her bag of jewels, which reminds me that poor Mr. Keatcham left Janet some pearls—that is, the money for them. He was very much attached to her.
We buried him on the crest of the hill; later, when more settled times shall come, he may take another and last journey to that huge mausoleum where his wife and mother are buried. Poor things! it is to be hoped they had no taste living or else that they can’t see now how hideous and flamboyant is their last costly resting place. Butif Keatcham hadn’t a taste for the fine arts he had compensating qualities. I shall never forget the night of his burial. It was a “wonderful great night of stars,” as Stevenson says. A poor little tired-out clergyman, in a bedraggled surplice, who had been reading prayers over people for the last ten hours and was fit to drop, hurried through the service; and the town the dead man loved was flaming miles beyond miles. About the grave was none of his blood, none of his ancient friends, but the men I believe he would have chosen—men who had fought him and then had fought for him faithfully. They were haggard and spent with fighting the fire; and they went from his burial back to days and nights of desperate effort. He had fought and lost and yet did not lose at the last, but won, snatching victory out of defeat as he was wont to do all his life. The heavy burdens which have dropped from his shoulders these others whom he chose will carry, maybe more humbly, perhaps not so capably, but quite as courageously. And it is singular how his influence persists, how it touches Kito and Haley, as well as the others.
“Shure,” said honest Haley (whose wit you are likely to sample in the near future, for he haselected to be the Rupert Winters’ chauffeur; they don’t know it yet, but theywillwhen it is time); “shure,” says he, “whin thot man so mashed up there ye cudn’t move him for fear ye’d lose the main parrt of him, whinhewas thinkin’ of the town and nothin’ else, I hadn’t the heart to be complainin’ for the loss of a few teeth and a few limps about me! An’ I fair wu’ked like the divil. So did Kito, who’s a dacint Jap gintleman and no haythin at all.”
Poor Keatcham, he had no childhood and his wife died too soon to revive the fragrance of his youth; but I can’t help but think he had a reticent, awkward, shy sort of heart somewhere about him. Well, he was what Millicent would call “a compelling personality.” I use plain language and I call him a great man. He won the lion’s share because he was the lion. And yet, poor Lion, his share was a lonely life and a tragic death.
THE END