CHAPTER XI.
GRAN’THER HEARS FROM EVA.
During the winter that Eva had spent in the insane asylum at Weston, changes had come to the old home, Stony Ledge.
Grandfather Groves had never been as well and strong as before the night of the Hallowe’en tragedy, although fortune’s fickle wheel had begun to turn in his favor.
The long-hoped-for drill had been put down on his rocky farm by capitalists of his section to bore for oil. If the greasy fluid spouted as expected, old Mr. Groves would be a rich man.
Once the excitement would have thrilled his heart with joyful expectancy, but now it awakened only slight interest, although the twins could not talk of anything else.
Said Patty joyously:
“If we strike oil, gran’ther, mayn’t we move down to Clarksburg, to live in a nice house? I should admire to live in the city, and see and be seen!”
Lydia added:
“We should want fine clothes and jewelry, too, and to go to the theatres every night, and money to buy chocolates every day. Oh, I shall be so happy! And what if we could afford to go to Niagara Falls, thedream of my life!” she clapped her hands in delight, while Miss Ruttencutter chimed in:
“The dream of my life is to have a brown silk frock, with jet trimmin’s onto it; an’ a brown velvet bonnet, all covered in green feathers; an’ a seal plush cape to go with ’em. An’ if I had a ch’ice to go anywheres on the kyars, I’d ruther go to Charleston an’ see the gov’ner an’ the legislatour, an’ all the big men o’ our State.”
“A fig for the big men, unless I could marry one, and I don’t know as I care so much about that! I’ve heard tell that all these celebrated men have to get old before they get famous, and I don’t want any old man, thank you, but a handsome young one!” cried Patty. “If I could go to any grand place, ’twould be New York, where all the poor girls have romantic adventures and marry grand swells!”
“Pooh, that’s only in novels, Pat!” laughed Lydia.
“I’d take my chances on its being true!” Patty retorted confidently, with a glance at her glowing brunette charms in the little cracked mirror.
Thus they beguiled the long, snowy days of the dreary winter with hopeful anticipations, but with Gran’ther Groves it was quite different. To the two girls life was in its hopeful spring, but his in the sere and yellow leaf.
And the tragedy of Hallowe’en had added years to his age in a night. The breakdown of that night had left him nervous and ill; too ill to go to the grave with Terry, when two days later they bore him solemnlyto his long repose in the family burial ground on top of the hill, from whence the granite headstones of the family could be seen far in the distance shining in the sun.
Gran’ther could only sit by the window with a neighbor for company and watch the solemn funeral train driving away with the hoped-for prop of his old age hidden away under the black pall, and his heart sank with grief and despair, for his two best beloved grandchildren, Terry and Eva, were now gone from him forever—Terry to the lonesome grave; Eva, as he doubted not, to her rich father in New York, where she would have all the luxuries of life, except the love of her old grandfather, he thought, arguing to himself that no one else could ever love her as well as he had done before her sin turned his love to hate.
All the neighborhood, as well as himself, believed that Eva was indeed in New York.
There were three exceptions—the ones who had secretly appropriated the money given to Eva for her trip; but they kept their own counsel.
They sometimes wondered where the young girl had gone, and dreaded lest she should come back and be forgiven by the weak old man; but they remained as ignorant as any of her whereabouts until two weeks later old Sam Brown dismounted from his bay mare at their gate, and stalking into the warm kitchen, announced without preamble that Eva was at his house, mad as a March hare, and he was going to send her to Weston.
“’Cause how I’ve had two doctors setting on the case, and they both pernounce her crazy, poor little thing, and though not violent now, she may git so any time, and it’s better to let the State take care of her, unless you folkses want her back here!” he said pointedly.
“Oh, why did you blurt it out before gran’ther? ’Tis so dreadful, we didn’t want him to know!” frowned Patty. But she was too late. The old man had heard all.
He could not speak; he only gazed at his visitor with glazing eyes and a horrified face, while Patty, emboldened by his silence, added angrily:
“No, indeed, we don’t want her back here, she who caused our poor Terry to be murdered for her badness! Gran’ther drove her away, and he won’t never take her back. He hates her like poison! You can send her off to Weston to-morrow. We don’t want no crazy people at Stony Ledge!”
Cousin Tab and Lydia backed her up in her declaration so vehemently that the old farmer regretted he had ridden nine miles through nipping cold, on his errand of mercy.
But yet he thought Gran’ther Groves ought to have leave to express himself, so turning to him he said:
“Do you ’low your women folkses to speak for you, gran’ther, ’ithout a word for yourself?”
Gran’ther Groves mumbled something in a voice of agony, but his words were indistinguishable because his tongue had suddenly begun to swell in hismouth and his eyes were rolling wildly about in their sockets, presenting a ghastly sight.
Patty stamped her foot at Mr. Brown in a towering rage, hissing:
“You silly old fool, let him alone! Don’t you see you’re tormenting him into another of his awful fits, and may be the cause of his death with your meddling?”
“Lordy, I never meant to rile you wimmen folkses up! ’Cause I understand that poor little Eva’s disgrace goes agin’ her with you all! But I thought as it might be diff’runt with that ole sinner that turned her out o’ doors to freeze and starve to death! I had a mind he might be repenting by now, but if he lets you wimmen folkses speak for him, I’ve done with meddling, as you call it. So good-by, and may God reward you all according to your evil works!” testily answered Brown, striding toward the door.
But before he reached it he turned his head unwillingly at sound of a blood-curdling groan from gran’ther, and saw him falling from his chair in a fit, as Patty had foreboded.
It was only Christian charity to run back to help them, but Miss Ruttencutter said severely:
“It will jest make him ten times wuss to come to hisself an’ find you here! He would ricolleck it all ag’in in a minute! You kin help us more by going for Doc Binks than by staying.”
At this curt dismissal Farmer Brown bounced violently out of the kitchen and into the saddle, diggingthe astonished mare sharply with his spurs as a vent for his angry feelings, sputtering as he galloped to the physician’s office:
“I’ll be dinged if them wimmen has any better manners nor a hog! I swan it will be a month o’ Sundays before I set foot in that house again! Seems as if ole gran’ther must be afeared to say his soul’s his own before that sassy pack, as why did he sit there glum as a dog, and let ’em lay down the law for him, by gosh?”
Doctor Binks was out, so he left his message on the slate and hurried to the nearest tavern to refresh himself and the mare before returning to Goody with the news of his rebuff at Stony Ledge—a rebuff that made them enemies to the Groves family forever after.
And it did not occur to either of the good old souls that gran’ther, instead of being under the dominion of his womenkind, and afraid to speak, had struggled with might and main to have his say, and been totally unable to make himself understood.
“So she will have to go,” Goody said, looking pitifully at poor demented Eva, yet not feeling that her duty required her to keep her when her own folks cast her out.
So she had the commission on lunacy report the case to the proper authorities, and a few days later a ward attendant from Weston was sent to take charge of Eva and convey her to the asylum.
Poor little soul, she knew no one or nothing. She went meekly with the woman on the short journeyof a few hours, and the heartless women at Stony Ledge breathed freer when they saw in the country newspaper that she had gone.
As for Granfather Groves, he remained ill in bed for a week—so ill they would not let him talk, though they understood but too well the mute pain in the fading blue eyes.
At last he could sit up, feeble and tottery, in his old armchair in the warm corner, with the big dog’s head between his knees; and then they all three agreed that it was time to let him ask questions and have it out with him once for all.
“I mind what Neighbor Brown had to say about little Eva being at his house, and crazy, and all that. And did they send her to Weston?” he asked, with painful slowness, so that Cousin Tab ejaculated spitefully:
“Massy, how slow an’ poky you talk, gran’ther! Slow as cold merlasses! Yes, Eva was violent crazy, an’ they sent her to Weston. She was sick, too, they say, and will die soon. And now me an’ the other girls is plum down resolved that we don’t want to hear even her name spoken under this roof ag’in, seeing it’s insulting to decent wimmin to be named in the same breath!”