A MAN'S BUSINESS
Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.
—DICKENS.
Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday dinner.
We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous, unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals, they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyond the newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House delighted in this Sabbath evening spread.
"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin' service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman, either, is livin' in a hotel because they ain't got no home ner nobody to make 'em feel glad to see 'em. If they're goin' to patronize the Cambridge House they're goin' to get the best that's comin' to 'em right then."
So the old dining-room was a joy at this time of the week, with all that a good cook can make attractive to the appetite.
Mary Gentry, sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one in Seattle, and one in New York City. Both in high places of trust and financial importance.
One October Sabbath afternoon, O'mie fell into step beside Marjie on the way from Sabbath-school. Since his terrible experience in the Hermit's Cave five years before, he had never been strong. We became so accustomed to his little hacking cough we did not notice it until there came a day to all of us when we looked back and wondered how we could have been so inattentive to the thing growing up before our eyes. O'mie was never anything but a good-hearted Irishman, and yet he had a keener insight into character and trend of events than any other boy or man I ever knew. I've always thought that if his life had been spared to mature manhood—but it wasn't.
"Marjie, I'm commissioned to invite you to the Cambridge House for lunch," O'mie said. "Mary wants to see you. She's got a lame arm, fell off a step ladder in the pantry. The papers on the top shelves had been on there fifteen minutes, and Aunt Dollie thought they'd better put up clean ones. That's the how. Dr. John Anderson's most sure to call professionally this evening, and Bill Mead's going to bring Bess over for tea, and there's still others on the outskirts, but you're specially wanted, as usual. Bud will be there, too. Says he wants to see all the Andersons once more before he leaves town, and he knows it's his last chance; for John's forever at the tavern, and Bill Mead is monopolizing Bess at home; and you know, Star-face, how Clayton divides himself around among the Whatelys and Grays over at Red Range and a girl he's got up at Lawrence."
"All this when I'm starving for one of Aunt Dollie's good lunches. Offer some other inducement, O'mie," Marjie replied laughingly.
"Oh, well, Tillhurst'll be there, and one or two of the new folks, all eligible."
"What makes you call me 'Star-face'? That's what Jean Pahusca used to call me." She shivered.
"Oh, it fits you; but if you object, I can make it, 'Moon-face,' or 'Sun-up.'"
"Or 'Skylight,' or 'Big Dipper'; so you can keep to the blue firmament. Where's Bud going?"
Out of the tail of his eye O'mie caught sight of Judson falling in behind them here and he answered carelessly:
"Oh, I don't know where Bud is going exactly. Kansas City or St. Louis, or somewhere else. You'll come of course?"
"Yes, of course," Marjie answered, just as Judson in his pompous little manner called to her:
"Marjory, I have invited myself up to your mother's for tea."
"Why, there's nobody at home, Mr. Judson," the girl said kindly; "I'm going down to Mary Gentry's, and mother went up to Judge Baronet's with Aunt Candace for lunch."
Nobody called my father's sister by any other name. To Marjie, who had played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to hasten to something definite in his case of courtship.
"When she's my wife," he had boasted to Tell Mapleson, "I'll put a stop to all this Baronet friendship. I won't even let her go there. Marjie's a fine girl, but a wife must understand and obey her lord and master. That's it; a wife must obey, or your home's ruined."
Nobody had ever accused Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfish to marry again. Certainly matrimony was not much in his thoughts.
The talk at the tavern table that evening ran on merrily among the young people. Albeit, the Sabbath hour was not too frivolous, for we were pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach the Word faithfully through the years, whose hand-clasp means fellowship, and in whose tongue is the law of kindness.
"Say, Clate, where's Bud going?" Somebody called across the table. Bud was beside Marjie, whose company was always at a premium in any gathering.
"Let him tell; it's his secret," Clayton answered. "I'll be glad when he's gone"—he was speaking across to Marjie now—"then I'll get some show, maybe."
"I'm going to hunt a wife," Bud sang out. "Can't find a thoul here who'll thtay with me long enough to get acquainted. I'm going out Wetht thomewhere."
"I'd stay with you a blamed sight longer if I wasn't acquainted with you than if I was," Bill Mead broke in. "It's because they do get acquainted that they don't stay, Bud; and anyhow, they can run faster out there than here, the girls can; they have to, to keep away from the Indians. And there's no tepee ring for the ponies to stumble over. Marjie, do you remember the time Jean Pahusca nearly got you? I remember it, for when I came to after the shock, I was standing square on my head with both feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking like flies on the ceiling."
Marjie's memories of that moment were keen. So were O'mie's.
"Well, what ever did become of that Jean, anyhow? Anybody here seen him for five years?"
The company looked at one another. Bud's face was as innocent as a baby's. Lettie Conlow at the foot of the table encountered O'mie's eyes and her face flamed. Dr. John Anderson was explaining the happening to Tillhurst and some newcomers in Springvale to whom the story was interesting, and the whole table began to recall old times and old escapades of Jean's.
"Wasn't afraid of anything on earth," Bill Mead declared.
"Yeth he wath, brother," Bud broke in, while Bess Anderson blushed deeply at Bud's teasing name. Bill and Bess were far along the happy way of youth and love.
"Why, what did he fear?" Judson asked Dave Mead at the head of the table.
"Phil Baronet. He never would fight Phil. He didn't dare. He couldn't bear to be licked."
And then the conversation turned on me, and my virtues and shortcomings were reviewed in friendly gossip. Only Judson's face wore a sneer.
"I don't wonder this Jean was afraid of him," a recent-comer to the town declared.
"Oh, if he was afraid of this young man, this boy," Judson declared, "he would have feared something else; that's it, he'd been afraid of other things."
"He was," O'mie spoke up.
"Well, what was it, O'mie?" Dr. John queried.
"Ghosts," O'mie replied gravely. "Oh, I know," he declared, as the crowd laughed. "I can prove it to you and tell you all about it. I'll do it some day, but I'll need the schoolhouse and some lantern slides to make it effective. I may charge a small admission fee and give a benefit to defray Bud's expenses home from this trip."
"Would you really do that, O'mie?" Mary Gentry asked him.
But the query, "Where's Phil, now?" was going the rounds, and the answers were many. My doings had not been reported in the town, and gossip still was active concerning me.
"Up at Topeka," "Gone to St. Louis," "Back in Massachusetts." These were followed by Dave Mead's declaration:
"The best boy that ever went out of Springvale. Just his father over again. He'll make some place prouder than it would have been without him."
Nobody knew who started the story just then, but it grew rapidly from Tillhurst's side of the table that I had gone to Rockport, Massachusetts, to settle in my father's old home-town.
"Stands to reason a boy who can live in Kansas would go back to Massachusetts, doesn't it?" Dr. John declared scornfully.
"But Phil's to be married soon, to that stylish Miss Melrose. She's got the money, and Phil would become a fortune. Besides, she was perfectly infatuated with him."
"Well," somebody else asserted, "if he does marry her, he can bring her back here to live. My! but Judge Baronet's home will be a grand place to go to then. It was always good enough."
Amid all this clatter Marjie was as indifferent and self-possessed as if my name were a stranger's. Those who had always known her did not dream of what lay back of that sweet girl-face. She was the belle of Springvale, and she had too many admirers for any suspicion of the truth to find a place.
While the story ran on Bud turned to her and said in a low voice, "Marjie, I'm going to Phil. He needth me now."
Nobody except Bud noticed how white the girl was, as the company rising from the table swept her away from him.
That night Dr. Hemingway's prayer was fervent with love. The boys were always on his heart, and he called us all by name. He prayed for the young men of Springvale, who had grown up to the life here and on whom the cares of citizenship, and the town's good name were soon to rest; and for the young men who would not be with us again: for Tell Mapleson, that the snares of a great city like St. Louis might not entrap him; for James Conlow, whose lines had led him away from us; for David Mead, going soon to the far-away lands where the Sierras dip down the golden slope to the Pacific seas; for August Anderson, also about to go away from us, that life and health might be his; and last of all for Philip Baronet. A deeper hush fell upon the company bowed in prayer.
"For Philip Baronet, the strong, manly boy whom we all love, the brave-hearted hero who has gone out from among us, and as his father did before him for the homes of a nation, so now the son has gone to fight the battles of the prairie domain, and to build up a wall of safety before the homes and hearthstones of our frontier." And then he offered thanksgiving to a merciful Father that, "in the awful conflict which Philip, with a little handful of heroes, has helped to wage against the savage red man, a struggle in which so many lives have gone out, our Philip has been spared." His voice broke here, and he controlled it by an effort, as in calm, low tones he finished his simple prayer with the earnest petition, "Keep Thou these our boys; and though they may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, for Thou art with them. Amen."
It was the first intimation the town had had of what I was doing. Springvale was not without a regard for me who had loved it always, and then the thought of danger to a fellow citizen is not without its appeal. I have been told that Judge Baronet and Aunt Candace could not get down the aisle after service until after ten o'clock that night and that the tears of men as well as women fell fast as my father gave the words of the message sent to him by Governor Crawford on the evening before. Even Chris Mead, always a quiet, stern man, sat with head bowed on the railing of the pew before him during the recital. It was noted afterwards that Judson did not remain, but took Lettie Conlow home as soon as the doxology was ended. The next day my stock in Springvale was at a premium; for a genuine love, beside which fame and popularity are ashes and dust, was in the heart of that plain, good little Kansas town.
Bud called to say good-bye to Marjie, before he left home.
"Are you going out West to stay?" Marjie asked.
"I'm going to try it out there. Clate'th got all the law here a young man can get; he'th gobbled up Dave and Phil'th share of the thing. John will be the coming M. D. of the town, and Bill Mead already taketh to the bank like a duck to water. I'm going to try the Wetht. What word may I take to Phil for you?"
"There's nothing to say," Marjie answered.
To his words, "I hoped there might be," she only said gayly, "Good-bye, Bud. Be a good boy, and be sure not to forget Springvale, for we'll always love your memory."
And so he left her. He was a good boy, nor did he forget the town where his memory is green still in the hearts of all who knew him. His last thought was of Springvale, and he babbled of the Neosho, and fancied himself in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. He clung to me, as in his childhood, and begged me to carry him on my shoulders when waters of Death were rolling over him. I held his hand to the last, and when the silence fell, I stretched myself on the brown curly mesquite beside him and thanked God that He had let me know this boy. Ever more my life will be richer for the remembrance it holds of him.
Bud left Springvale in one of those dripping, chilly, wet days our Kansas Octobers sometimes mix in with their opal-hued hours of Indian summer. That evening Tell Mapleson dropped into Judson's store and O'mie was let off early.
The little Irishman ran up the street at once to the Whately home. Mrs. Whately had retired. Eight o'clock was bed time for middle-aged people in our town. Marjie sat alone by the fire. How many times that summer we had talked of the long winter evenings we should spend together by that fireplace in Marjie's cosy sitting-room. And now she was beside the hearth, and I was far away. I might have been forgiven without a word had I walked in that evening and found her, as O'mie did, alone with her sad thoughts. Marjie never tried to hide anything from O'mie. She knew he could see through any pretence of hers. She knew, too, that he would keep sacred anything he saw.
"Marjie, I'm lonesome to-night."
Marjie gave him a seat beside the fire.
"What makes you lonesome, O'mie?" she asked gravely.
"The wrongs av the world bear heavily upon me."
Marjory looked at him curiously to see if he was joking.
"What I need to do is to shrive myself, I guess, and then get up an inquisition, with myself as chief inquisitor."
Marjie, studying the pictures in the burning coals, said nothing. O'mie also sat silent for a time.
"Marjie," he said at length, "when you see things goin' all wrong end to, and you know what's behind 'em, drivin' 'em wrong, what's your rale Presbyterian duty then? Let 'em go? or tend to somethin' else besides your own business? Honest, now, what's what?"
"I don't know what you're up to, O'mie." She was looking dreamily into the grate, the firelight on her young face and thoughtful brown eyes making a picture tenderly sweet and fair. In her mind was the image of Judge Baronet as he looked the night before, when he lifted his head after Dr. Hemingway's prayer for his son. And then maybe a picture of the graceless son himself came unbidden, and his eyes were full of love as when they looked down into hers on the day Rachel Melrose came into Judge Baronet's office demanding his attention. "What's the matter, O'mie? Is Uncle Cam being imposed on? You'd never stand that, I know."
"No, little girl, Cambridge Gentry can still take care of Cam's interest and do a kind act to more folks off-hand better than any other man I know. Marjie, it's Phil Baronet."
Marjie gave a start, but she made no effort to hide her interest.
"Little girl, he's been wronged, and lied about, and misunderstood, by a crowd av us who have knowed him day in and day out since he was a little boy. Marjory Whately, did anybody iver catch him in a lie? Did he iver turn coward in a place where courage was needed? Did he iver do a cruelty to a helpless thing, or fight a smaller boy? Did he iver decaive? Honestly, now, was there iver anything in all the years we run together that wasn't square and clane and fearless and lovin'?"
Marjie sat with bowed head before the flickering fire. When O'mie spoke again his voice was husky.
"Little girl, when I was tied hand and foot, and left to die in that dark Hermit's Cave, it was Phil Baronet who brought in the sunlight and a face radiant with love. When Jean Pahusca, drunk as a fury, was after you out on the prairie with that cruel knife ready, the knife I've seen him kill many a helpless thing with when he was drunk, when this Jean was ridin' like a fiend after you, Phil turned to me that day and his white agonized face I'll never forget. Now, Marjie, it's to right his wrong, and the wrongs of some he loves that I'm studyin' about. The week Phil came home from the rally I took a vacation. Shall I tell you why?"
Marjie nodded.
"Well, Star-face, it was laid on me conscience heavy to pay a part av the debt I owe to the boy who saved me life. I ain't got eyes fur nothin', and I see the clouds gatherin' black about that boy's head. Back of 'em was jealousy, that was a girl; hate, that was a man whose cruel, ugly deeds Phil had knocked down and trampled on and prevented from comin' to a harvest of sufferin'; and revenge, that was a rebel-hearted scoundrel who'd have destroyed this town but for Phil; and last, a selfish, money-lovin' son of a horse-thief who was grabbing for riches and pulling hard at the covers to hide some sins he'd never want to come to the light, being a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. All thim in one cloud makes a hurricane, and with 'em comes a shallow, selfish, pretty girl. Oh, it was a sight, Marjie. If I can do somethin' to keep shipwreck not only from them the storm's aimed at, but them that's pilin' up trouble fur themselves, too, I'm goin' to do it."
Marjie made no reply.
"So I took a vacation and wint off on a visit to me rich relatives in Westport."
Marjie could not help smiling now. O'mie had not a soul to call his next of kin.
"Oh, yis, I wint," he continued, "on tin days' holiday. The actual start to it was on the evenin' Phil got home from Topeka. The night of the party at Anderson's Lettie Conlow comes into the store just at closin'. I was behind a pile of ginghams fixin' some papers and cord below the counter. And Judson, being a fool by inheritance and choice of profession, takes no more notice of me than if I was a dog; says things he oughtn't to when he knows I'm 'round. But he forgits me in the pride of his stuck-uppityness. And I heard Judson say to her low, 'Now be sure to go right after dark and look in there again. You're sure you know just which crevice of the rock it is?' Lettie laughed and said, she'd watched it too long not to know. And so they arranged it, and I arranged my wrappin'-cord, and when I straightened up (I'm little, ye know), they didn't see my rid head by the pile of ginghams; and so she went away. When I got ready I wint, too. I trailed round after dark until I found meself under that point av rock by the bushes in the steep bend up-street. I was in a little corner full of crevices, when along comes Lettie. She seemed to be tryin' to get somethin' out of 'em, and her short fat arm couldn't reach it. Blamed inconvanient bein' little and short! She tried and tried and thin she said some ugly words only a boy has a right to say when he's cussin' somethin'. Just thin somethin' made a noise between her and the steps, and she made a rush for 'em and was gone. My eyes was gettin' catty and used to the dark now, and I could make out pretty sure it was Phil who sails up nixt, aisy, like he knowed the premises, and in his hand goes and he got out somethin' sayin' to himself—and me:
"'Well, Marjie tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was so deep.'
"Marjie, maybe if that hole's too deep for Lettie to reach clear in, there might be somethin' she's missed. I dunno'. But niver moind. I took me vacation, went sailin' out with Dever fur a rale splurge to Kansas City. Across the Neosho Dever turns the stage aside, U. S. mail and all, and lands me siven miles up the river and ferries me on this side again. Dever can keep the stillest of any livin' stage-driver whose business is to drive stage on the side and gossip on the main line. He never cheeped a chirp. I come back that same day and put in tin days studyin' things. I just turned myself into a holy inquisition for tin mortial days. Now, what I know has a value to Phil's good name, who has been accused of doing more diviltry than the thief on the cross. Marjie, I'm goin' to proceed now and turn on screws till the heretics squeal. It's not exactly my business; but—well, yes, it's the Lord's business to right the wrongs, and we must do His work now and then, 'unworthy though we be,' as Grandpa Mead says, in prayer meetin'."
"O'mie, you heard Dr. Hemingway's prayer last night?" Marjie asked, in a voice that quivered with tears.
"Oh, good God! Marjie, the men that's fighting the battles on the frontier, the fire-guards around them prairie homes, they are the salt of the earth." He dropped his head between his hands and groaned. Presently he rose to say good-night.
"Shall I do it, little sister? See to what's not my business at all, at all, and start a fire in this town big enough to light the skies clear to where Phil is this rainy night, and he can read a welcome home in it?"
"They said last night that he's going to be married soon to that Massachusetts girl. Maybe he wouldn't want to come if he did see it," Marjie murmured, turning her face away.
"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. Niver did want to get back when he was away. But, say, Marjie Star-face, Fort Wallace away out on the Plains ain't Rockport; and rich men's homes and all that gabble they was desecratin' the Sabbath with at supper last night—" O'mie broke off and took the girl's trembling hand in his. "Oh! I can look after that rascal's good name, but I don't dare to fix things up for you two, no matter what I know." So ran his thoughts.
The rain blew in a bitter gust as he opened the door. "Good-night, Marjie. It's an ugly night. Any old waterproof cloak to lend me, girlie?" he asked, but Marjie did not smile. She held the light as in the olden time she had shown us the dripping path, and watched the little Irishman trotting away in the darkness.
The Indian summer of 1868 in Kansas was as short as it was glorious. The next day was gorgeous after the rain, and the warm sunshine and light breeze drove all the dampness and chill away. In the middle of the afternoon Judson left the store to O'mie and went up to Mrs. Whately's for an important business conference. These conferences were growing frequent now, and dear Mrs. Whately's usually serene face wore a deeply anxious look after each one. Marjie had no place in them. It was not a part of Judson's plan to have her understand the business.
Fortune favored O'mie's inquisition scheme. Judson had hardly left the store when Lettie Conlow walked in. Evidently Judson's company on the Sunday evening before had given her a purpose in coming. In our play as children Lettie was the first to "get mad and call names." In her young womanhood she was vindictive and passionate.
"Good-afternoon, Lettie. Nice day after the rain," O'mie said, pleasantly.
She did not respond to his greeting, but stood before him with flashing eyes. She had often been called pretty, and her type is always considered handsome, for her coloring was brilliant, and her form attractive. This year she was the best dressed girl in town, although her father was not especially prosperous. Whether transplanting in a finer soil with higher culture might have changed her I cannot say, for the Conlow breed ran low and the stamp of the common grade was on Lettie. I've seen the same on a millionaire's wife; so it is in the blood, and not in the rank. No other girl in town broke the law as Lettie did, and kept her good name, but we had always known her. The boys befriended her more than the girls did, partly because we knew more of her escapades, and partly because she would sometimes listen to us. A pretty, dashing, wilful, untutored, and ill-principled girl, she was sowing the grain of a certain harvest.
"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are a contemptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's what you are."
"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith, and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?"
"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you."
O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I didn't give him credit for that much insight."
"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that."
"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed.
Lettie's face burned angrily.
"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do."
She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The twinkle in his eye only angered her the more.
"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and her mother."
"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you please—Lord, it couldn't hurt me—but you, nor nobody else, man or woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything more to say, say it quick."
Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? There's Phil Baronet, now,—the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes."
"Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled."
"Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing who your father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago."
"I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?"
"Nothing except this. After what Dr. Hemingway said last night Springvale's gone crazy about Phil again. Just crazy, and he's sure to come back here. If he does"—she broke off a moment—"well, you know what you've been up to for four months, trackin' me, and tellin' things you don't know. Are you goin' to quit it? That's all."
"The evidence bein' in an' the plaintiff restin'," O'mie said gravely, "it's time for the defence in the case to begin.
"You saved me a trip, my lady, for I was comin' over this very evenin' to settle with you. But never mind, we can do it now. Judson's havin' one of his M. E. quarterly conferences up at the Whately house and we are free to talk this out. You say I'm a contemptible spy. Lettie, we're a pair of 'em, so we'll lave off the adjective or adverb, which ever it is, that does that for names of 'persons, places, and things that can be known or mentioned.' Some of 'em that can be known, can't aven be mentioned, though. Where were you, Lettie, whin I was spyin' and what were you doin' at the time yoursilf?"
"I guess I had a right to be there. It's a free country, and it was my own business, not somebody else's," the girl retorted angrily, as the situation dawned on her.
"Exactly," O'mie went on. "It's a free country and we both have a right to tend to our own business. Nobody has a right to tend to a business of sin and evil-doin' toward his neighbor, though, my girl. If I've tagged you and spied, and played the dirty coward, and ain't no gintleman, it was to save a good name, and to keep from exposure a name—maybe it's a girl's, none too good, I'm afraid—but it would niver come to the gossips through me. You know that."
Lettie did know it. O'mie and she had made mud pies together in the days when they still talked in baby words. It was because he was true and kind, because he was a friend to every man, woman, and child there, that Springvale loves his memory to-day.
"Second, I wish to Heaven I could make things right, but I can't. I wish you could, but some of 'em you won't and, Lettie, some of 'em you can't now.
"Third, you've heard what I said about you. Why, child, I've said the worst to you. No words comin' straight nor crooked to you, have I said of you I'd not say to yoursilf, face to face.
"And again now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of 'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything but foolish to-day, but I'm glad you did come to me; it may save more 'n Phil's name. Your own is in the worst jeopardy right now. You said, in conclusion, that I was trackin' you, and you ask, am I goin' to quit it? The defendant admits the charge, pleads guilty on that count, and throws himself on the mercy av the coort. But as to the question, am I goin' to quit it, I answer yes. Whin? Whin there's no more need fur it, and not one minute sooner. I may be the very trash av the earth, with no father nor mother nor annybody to care for me" (I can see, even now, the pathetic look that came sometimes into his laughing gray eyes. It must have been in them at that moment); "but I have sometimes been 'round when things I could do needed doin', and I'm goin' to be prisent now, and in the future, to put my hand up against wrong-doin' if I can." O'mie paused, while that little dry cough that brought a red spot to each cheek had its way.
"Now, Lettie, you've had your say with me, and your mind's relieved. It's my time to say a few things, and you must listen."
Lettie sat looking at the floor.
"I don't know why I have to listen," she spoke defiantly.
"Nor do I know why I had to listen to what you said. You don't need to, but I would if I was you. It may be all the better for you in a year if you do. You spake av bein' tagged wherever you go. Who begun it? I'll tell you. Back in the summer one day, two people drove out to the stone cabin, the haunted one, by the river in the draw below the big cottonwood. Somebody made his home there, somebody who didn't dare to show his face in Springvale by day, 'cause his hand's been lifted to murder his fellow man. But he hangs 'round here, skulkin' in by night to see the men he does business with, and meetin' foolish girls who ought never to trust him a minute. This man's waiting his chance to commit murder again, or worse. I know, fur I've laid fur him too many times. There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name has been counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to warn the varmint roostin' there. In her haste she dropped a bow of purple ribbon which with some other finery a certain little store-keeper gives her to do his spyin' fur him. It's a blamed lovely cabal in this town. I know 'em all by name.
"Spakin' of bein' paupers and bein' kept by Judson, Lettie—who is payin' the wages of sin, in money and fine clothes, right now? It's on the books, and I kape the books. But, my dear girl,"—O'mie looked straight into her black eyes—"they's books bein' kept of the purpose, price av the goods, and money. And you and him may answer for that. I can swear in coort only to what Judson spends on you; you know what for."
Lettie cowered down before her inquisitor, and her anger was mingled with fear and shame.
"This purple bow was found, identified. Aven Uncle Cam, short-sighted as he is, remembered who wore it that day; aven see her gallopin' into town and noticed she'd lost it. This same girl hung around the cliff till she found a secret place where two people put their letters. She comes in here and tells me I've no business taggin' her. What business had she robbin' folks of letters, stealin' 'em out, and givin' 'em into wicked hands? Lettie, you know whose letter you took when you could reach far enough to git it out, and you know where you put it.
"You said you could ruin Phil. It's aisy for a woman to do that, I admit. No matter how hard the church may be on 'em, and how much other women may cut 'em dead for doin' wrong things, a woman can go into a coort-room and swear a man's character away, an' the jury'll give her judgment every time. The law's a lot aisier with the women than the crowd you associate with is." O'mie's speech was broken off by his cough.
"Now to review this case a bit. The night av the Anderson's party you tried to get the letter Marjie'd put up for Phil. You didn't do it."
"I never tried," Lettie declared.
"How come the rid flowers stuck with the little burrs on your dress? They don't grow anywhere round here only on that cliff side. I pulled off one bunch, and I saw Phil pull off another when your skirts caught on a nail in the door. But I saw more 'n that. I stood beside you when you tried to get the letter, and I heard you tell Judson you had failed. I can't help my ears; the Almighty made 'em to hear with, and as you've said, I am a contemptible spy.
"You have given hints, mean ugly little hints, of what you could tell about Phil on that night. He took you home, as he was asked to do. But what took you to the top of the cliff at midnight? It was to meet Jean Pahusca, the dog the gallows is yappin' for now. You waited while he tried to kill Phil. He'd done it, too, if Phil hadn't been too strong to be killed by such as him. And then you and Jean were on your way out to his cabin whin the boys found you. You know Bill and Bud was goin' to Red Range, that night in the carriage when they overtook you. It was moonlight, you remember; and ridin' on the back seat was Cris Mead, silent as he always is, but he heard every word that was said. Bud come all the way back with you to keep your good name a little while longer; took chances on his own to save a girl's. It's Phil Baronet put that kind of loyalty into the boys av this town. No wonder they love him. Bud's affidavit's on file ready, when needed; and Bill is here to testify; and Cris Mead's name's good on paper, or in coort, or prayer meetin'. Lettie, you have sold yourself to two of the worst men ever set foot in this town."
"Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the two worst men in this town," Lettie cried.
"It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty God, and don't sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin' Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good God! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the days I used to tie your apron strings when your short little fat arms couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?" His voice was kind, even tender.
"I'll never tell you!" Lettie blazed up like a fire brand.
"Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, too?" His voice did not change.
"I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till I am ready, and—" She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her. "I'm going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and some others'll wish they could leave it."
"All right, then," O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the door, "if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder," he went on, "who got that letter the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after. I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one. Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now."
CHAPTER XX
THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK
And yet I know past all doubting truly,
A knowledge greater than grief can dim,
I know as he loved, he will love me duly,
Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him.
—JEAN INGELOW.
While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale she took the steep way up to our "Rockport." Had she known what was going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices.
"It's just this way, Mrs. Whately," Judson declared, when he had formally opened the conference, "it's just this way. With all my efforts in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?"
"Partly," Mrs. Whately replied faintly.
She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a noble, loving husband, and her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered over her affairs.
Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's character and leads an erring nature into consummate villainy.
"Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon), then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant, a—a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be poor with nobody to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman, you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off for you, but it's comin'—ugly disgrace for you and Marjory."
Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on.
"I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your mind."
This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs. Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after each conference. The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to dreaded expectation with her.
"Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense. I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace."
"Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this. Whately, your deceased first husband"—Judson always used the numeral when speaking of a married man or woman who had passed away—"Whately, he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up, and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived. That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein' obliged to assoom control on his said demise at Chattanoogy, I naturally found out all about his affairs. To be short, Mrs. Whately, he never had the property he said he had. Nobody could find the money. There was an awful shortage. You can't understand, but in a word, he was a disgraced, dishonest man—a thief—that's it."
Mrs. Whately buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.
"Now, Mrs. Whately, you mustn't take on and you must forget the past. It's the present day we're livin' in, and the future that's a-comin'. Nobody can control what's comin', but me." He rose up to his five feet and three inches, and swelled to the extent of his power. "Me." He tapped his small chest. "I'll come straight to the end of this thing. Phil Baronet's been quite a friend here, quite a friend. I've explained to you all about him. Now you know he's left town to keep from bein' mixed up in some things. They's some business of his father's he was runnin' crooked. You know they say, I heard it out at Fingal's Creek, that he left here on account of a girl he wanted to get rid of. And if they'd talk that way about one girl, they'll say Marjie was doin' wrong to go with him. You've all been friends of the Baronets. I never could see why; but now—well, you know Phil left. Now, it rests with me"—more tapping on that little quart-measure chest—"with me to keep things quiet and save his name from further talk, and save Marjie, too. Many a man, a business man, now, wouldn't have done as I'm doin'. I'll marry Marjie. That saves you from poverty. It saves Irving Whately's name from lastin' disgrace, and it saves Baronet's boy. I can control the men that's against Baronet, in the business matter—some land case—and I know the girl that the talk's all about; and it saves Marjory's name bein' mixed up with this boy of Judge Baronet's."
Had Judson been before Aunt Candace, she would have thrust him from the door with one lifting of her strong, shapely hand. Dollie Gentry would have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs. Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence.
"Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty. She'll come to me for safety soon as she knows what you do. She'll have to, to save them that's dearest to her. You and her father and her friendship for the Baronets ought to do somethin'; besides, Marjie needs somebody to look after her. She's a pretty girl and everybody runs after her. She'd be spoiled. And she's fond of me, always was fond of me. I don't know what it is about some men makes girls act so; but now, there's Lettie Conlow, she's just real fond of me." (Oh, the popinjay!) "You'll say yes, and say it now." There was a ring of authority in his last words, to which Mrs. Whately had insensibly come to yield.
She sat for a long time trying to see a way out of all this tangled web of her days. At last, she said slowly: "Marjie isn't twenty-one, but she's old for her years. I won't command her. If she will consent, so will I, and I'll do all I can."
Judson was jubilant. He clapped his hands and giggled hysterically.
"Good enough, good enough! I'll let it be quietly understood we are engaged, and I'll manage the rest. You must use all the influence you can with her. Leave nothing undid that you can do. Oh, joy! You'll excuse my pleasure, Mrs. Whately. The prize is as good as mine right now, though it may take a few months even to get it all completely settled. I'll go slow and quiet and careful. But I've won."
Could Mrs. Whately have seen clear into the man's cruel, cunning little mind, she would have been unutterably shocked at the ugly motives contending there. But she couldn't see. She was made for sunshine and quiet ways. She could never fathom the gloom. It was from her father that Marjie inherited all that strong will and courage and power to walk as bravely in the shadows as in the light, trusting and surefooted always.
Judson waited only until some minor affairs had been considered, and then he rose to go.
"I'm so sure of the outcome now," he said gleefully, "I'll put a crimp in some stories right away; and I'll just let it be known quietly at once that the matter's settled, then Marjie can't change it," he added mentally. "And you're to use all your influence. Good-evening, my dear Mrs. W. It'll soon be another name I may have for you."
Meanwhile, Marjie sat up on "Rockport," looking out over the landscape, wrapped in the autumn peace. Every inch of the cliff-side was sacred to her. The remembrance of happy childhood and the sweet and tender memories of love's young dream had hallowed all the ground and made the view of the whole valley a part of the life of the days gone by. The woodland along the Neosho was yellow and bronze and purple in the afternoon sunshine, the waters swept along by verdant banks, for the fall rains had given life to the brown grasses of August. Far up the river, the shapely old cottonwood stood in the pride of its autumn gold, outlined against a clear blue sky, while all the prairie lay in seas of golden haze about it. On the gray, jagged rocks of the cliff, the blood-red leaves of the vines made a rich warmth of color.
For a long time Marjie sat looking out over the valley. Its beauty appealed to her now as it had done in the gladsome days, only the appeal touched other depths of her nature and fitted her sadder mood. At last the thought of what might have been filled her eyes with tears.
"I'll go down to our post-office, as O'mie suggested," she declared to herself. "Oh, anything to break away from this hungry longing for what can never be!"
The little hidden cleft was vine-covered now, and the scarlet leaves clung in a lacework about the gray stone under which the crevice ran back clean and dry for an arm's length. It was a reflex action, and not a choice of will, that led Marjie to thrust her hand in as she had done so often before. Only cold stone received her touch. She recalled O'mie's picture of Lettie, short-necked, stubby Lettie, down there in the dark trying to stretch her fat arm to the limit of the crevice, and as she thought, Marjie slipped her own arm to its full length, down the cleft. Something touched her hand. She turned it in her fingers. It was paper—a letter—and she drew it out. A letter—my letter—the long, loving message I had penned to her on the night of the party at Anderson's. Clear and white, as when I put it there that moonlit midsummer night, when I thrust it in too far for my little girl to find without an effort.
Marjie carried it up to "Rockport" and sat down. She had no notion of when it was put there. She only knew it was from my pen.
"It's his good-bye for old times' sake," she mused.
And then she read it, slowly at first, as one would drink a last cup of water on the edge of a desert, for this was a voice from the old happy life she had put all away now. I had done better than I dreamed of doing in that writing. Here was Rachel Melrose set in her true light, the possibility of a visit, and the possibility of her words and actions, just as direct as a prophecy of what had really happened. Oh! it cleared away every reason for doubt. Even the Rockport of Rachel's rapturous memory, I declared I detested because only our "Rockport" meant anything to me. And then she read of her father's dying message. It was the first time she had known of that, and the letter in her trembling hands pulsed visibly with her strong heart-throbs. Then came the closing words:
"Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know now and always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or shadow-checkered paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other than as I do now. You are life of my life; and so again, good-night."
The sun was getting low in the west when Marjie with shining face came slowly down Cliff Street toward her home. Near the gate she met my father. His keen eyes caught something of the Marjie he had loved to see. Something must have happened, he knew, and his heartbeats quickened at the thought. Down the street he had met Judson with head erect walking with a cocksure step.
The next day the word was brought directly to him that Amos Judson and Marjory Whately were engaged to be married.
In George Eliot's story of "The Mill on the Floss," the author gives to one chapter the title, "How a Hen Takes to Stratagem." The two cases are not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's mother had had time to think over what had come about, her conscience upbraided her. Away from the little widower and with Marjie innocent of all the trouble—free-spirited, self-dependent Marjie—the question of influence did not seem so easy. And yet, she knew Amos Judson well enough to know that he was already far along in fulfilling his plans for the future. For once in her life Mrs. Whately resolved to act on her own judgment, and to show that she had been true to her promise to use all her influence.
"Daughter, Judge Baronet wants to see you this afternoon. I'm going down to his office now on a little matter of business. Will you go over and see how Mary Gentry's arm is, and come up to the courthouse in about half an hour?"
Mrs. Whately's face was beaming, for she felt somehow that my father could help her out of any tangle, and if he should advise Marjie to this step, it would surely be the right thing for her to do.
"All right, mother, I'll be there," Marjie answered.
The hours since she found that precious letter had been alternately full of joy and sadness. There was no question in her mind about the message in the letter. But now that she was the wrong-doer in her own estimation, she did not spare herself. She had driven me away. She had refused to hear any explanation from me, she had returned my last note unopened. Oh, she deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but leave town? So ran the little girl's sad thoughts; and then hope had its way again, for hers was always a sunny spirit.
"I can only wait and see what will come. Phil is proud and strong, and everybody loves him. He will make new friends and forget me."
And then the words of my letter, "In sunny ways, or shadow-checkered paths, I cannot think of you other than as I do now. You are life of my life," she read over and over. And so with shining eyes and a buoyant step, she went to do her mother's bidding that afternoon.
Judge Baronet had had a hard day. Coupled with unusual business cares was the story being quietly circulated regarding Judson's engagement. He had not thought how much his son's happiness could mean to him.
"And yet, I let him go to discipline him. Oh, we are never wise enough to be fathers. It is only a mother who can understand," and the memory of the woman glorified to him now, the one love of all his years, came back to him.
It was in this mood that Mrs. Whately found him.
"Judge Baronet, I've come to get you to help me." She went straight to her errand as soon as she was seated in the private office. "Marjie will be here soon, and I want you to counsel her to do what I've promised to help to bring about. She loves you next to her own father, and you can have great influence with her."
And then directly and frankly came the whole story of Judson's plan. Mrs. Whately did not try to keep anything back, not even the effort to shield my reputation, and she ended with the assurance that it must be best for everybody for this wedding to take place, and Amos Judson hoped it might be soon to save Irving's name.
"I've not seen Marjie so happy in weeks as she was last night," she added. "You know Mr. Tillhurst has been paying her so much attention this Fall, and so has Clayton Anderson. And Amos has been going to Conlow's to see Lettie quite frequently lately. I guess maybe that has helped to bring Marjie around a little, when she found he could go with others. It's the way with a girl, you know. You'll do what you can to make Marjie see the right if she seems unwilling to do what I've agreed she may do. For after all," Mrs. Whately said thoughtfully, "I can't feel sure she's willing, because she never did encourage Amos any. But you'll promise, won't you, for the sake of my husband? Oh, could he do wrong! I don't believe he did, but he can't defend himself now, and I must protect Marjie's name from any dishonor."
It was a hard moment for the man before her, the keen discriminating intelligent master of human nature. The picture of the battle field at Missionary Ridge came before his eyes, the rush and roar of the conflict was in his ears, and Irving Whately was dying there. "I hope they will love each other. If they do, give them my blessing." Clearly came the words again as they sounded on that day. And here was Irving Whately's wife, Marjie's mother, in the innocence of her soul, asking that he should help to give his friend's daughter to a man whom he was about to call to judgment for heinous offences. And maybe,—oh, God forbid it,—maybe the girl herself was not unwilling, since it was meant for the family's welfare. What else could that look on her face last night have meant? Oh, he had been a foolish father, over-fond, maybe, of a foolish boy; but somehow he had hoped that sweet smile and the light in Marjie's eyes might have meant word from Fort Wallace. What he might have said to the mother, he never knew, for Marjie herself came in at that moment, and Mrs. Whately took her leave at once.
Marjie was never so fair and womanly as now. The brisk walk in the October air had put a pink bloom on her cheeks. Her hair lay in soft fluffy little waves about her head, and her big brown eyes, clear honest eyes, were full of a radiant light. My father brought my face and form back to her as he always did, and the last hand-clasp in that very room, the last glance from eyes full of love; and the memory was sweet to her.
"Mother said you wanted to see me," she said, "so I came in."
My father put her in his big easy-chair and sat down near her. His back was toward the window, and his face was shadowed, while his visitor's face was full in the light.
"Yes, Marjie, your mother has asked me to talk with you." I wonder at the man's self-control. "She is planning, or consenting to plans for your future, and she wants me to tell you I approve them. You seem very happy to-day."
A blush swept over the girl's face, and then the blood ebbed back leaving it white as marble. Men may abound in wisdom, but the wisest of them may not always interpret the swift bloom that lights the face of a girl and fades away as swiftly as it comes.
"She is consenting," my father assumed.
"If you are satisfied with the present arrangement, I do not need to say anything. I do not want to, anyhow. I only do it for the sake of your mother, for the sake of the wife of my best friend. For his sake too, God bless his memory!"
Marjie's confusion deepened. The words of my letter telling of her father's wishes were burning in her brain. With the thought of them, this hesitancy on the part of Judge Baronet brought a chill that made her shiver. Could it be that her mother was trying to influence my father in her favor? Her good judgment and the knowledge of her mother's sense of propriety forbade that. So she only murmured,
"I don't understand. I have no plans. I would do anything for my father, I don't know why I should be called to say anything," and then she broke down entirely and sat white and still with downcast eyes, her two shapely little hands clenched together.
"Marjie, this is very embarrassing for me," my father said kindly, "and as I say, it is only for Irving's sake I speak at all. If you feel you can manage your own affairs, it is not right for anybody to interfere," how tender his tones were, "but, my dear girl, maybe years and experience can give me the right to say a word or two for the sake of the friendship that has always been between us, a friendship future relations will of necessity limit to a degree. But if you have your plans all settled, I wish to know it. It will change the whole course of some proceedings I have been preparing ever since the war; and I want to know, too, this much for the sake of the man who died in my arms. I want to know if you are perfectly satisfied to accept the life now opening to you."
Marjie had seen my father every day since I left home. Every day he had spoken to her, and a silent sort of parental and filial love had grown up between the two. The sudden break in it had come to both now.
Women also may abound in wisdom but the wisest of them may not always interpret correctly.
"He had planned for Phil to marry Rachel, had sent him East on purpose. He was so polite to her when she was here. I have broken up his plans and his friendship is to be limited." So ran the girl's thoughts. "But I have no plans. I don't know what he means. Nothing new is opening to me."
A new phase of womanhood began suddenly for her, a call for self-dependence, for a judgment of her own, not the acceptance of events. When she spoke again, her sweet voice had a clear ring in it that startled the man before her.
"Judge Baronet, I do not know what you are talking about. I do not know of any plans for the future. I do not know what mother said to you. If I am concerned in the plans you speak of, I have a right to know what they are. If you are asked to approve of my doing, I certainly ought to know of what you mean to approve."
She had risen from her chair and was standing before him. Oh, she was pretty, and with this grace of womanly self-control, her beauty and her dignity combined into a new charm.
"Sit down, Marjie," my father said in kind command. "You know the purpose of Amos Judson's visit with your mother yesterday?"
"Business, I suppose," Marjie answered carelessly, "I am not admitted to these conferences." She smiled. "You know I wanted to talk with you about some business affairs some time ago, but—"
"Yes, I know, I understand," my father assured her. They both remembered only too well what had happened in that room on her last visit. For she had not been inside of the courthouse since the day of Rachel's sudden appearance there.
"Judge Baronet thinks I have nothing to bring Phil. I've heard everywhere how Phil wants a rich wife, and yet the Baronets have more property than anybody else here." So Marjie concluded mentally and then she asked innocently:
"How can Amos Judson's visit make this call here necessary?"
At last the light broke in. "She doesn't know anything yet, that's certain. But, by heavens, she must know. It's her right to know," my father thought.
"Marjie, your mother, in the goodness of her heart, and because of some sad and bitter circumstances, came here to-day to ask me to talk with you. I do this for her sake. You must not misunderstand me." He laid his hand a moment on her arm, lying on the table.
And then he told her all that her mother had told to him. Told it without comment or coloring, sparing neither Phil, nor himself nor her father in the recital. If ever a story was correctly reported in word and spirit, this one was.
"She shall have Judson's side straight from me first, and we'll depend on events for further statement," he declared to himself.
"Now, little girl, I'm asked to urge you for your own good name, for your mother's maintenance, and your own, for the sake of that boy of mine, and for my own good, as well, and most of all for the sake of your father's memory, revered here as no other man who ever lived in Springvale—for all these reasons, I'm asked to urge you to take this man for your husband."
He was standing before her now, strong, dignified, handsome, courteous. Nature's moulds hold not many such as he. Before him rose up Marjie. Her cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and lay over the arm of her chair. Looking steadily into his face with eyes that never wavered in their gaze, she replied:
"I may be poor, but I can work for mother and myself. I'm not afraid to work. You and your son may have done wrong. If you have, I cannot cover it by any act of mine, not even if I died for you. I don't believe you have done wrong. I do not believe one word of the stories about Phil. He may want to marry a rich girl," her voice wavered here, "but that is his choice; it is no sin. And as to protecting my father's name, Judge Baronet, it needs no protection. Before Heaven, he never did a dishonest thing in all his life. There has been a tangling of his affairs by somebody, but that does not change the truth. The surest way to bring dishonor to his name is for me to marry a man I do not and could not love; a man I believe to be dishonest in money matters, and false to everybody. It is no disgrace to work for a living here in Kansas. Better girls than I am do it. But it is a disgrace here and through all eternity to sell my soul. As I hope to see my father again, I believe he would not welcome me to him if I did. Good and just as you are, you are using your influence all in vain on me."
Judge Baronet felt his soul expand with every word she uttered. Passing round the table, he took both her cold hands in his strong, warm palms.
"My daughter," neither he nor the girl misunderstood the use of the word here, "my dear, dear girl, you are worthy of the man who gave up his life on Missionary Ridge to save his country. God bless you for the true-hearted, noble woman that you are." He gently stroked the curly brown locks away from her forehead, and stooping kissed it, softly, as he would kiss the brow of a saint.
Marjie sank down in her seat, and as she did so my letter fell from the pocket of the cloak she had thrown aside. As Judge Baronet stooped to pick it up, he caught sight of my well-known handwriting on the envelope. He looked up quickly and their eyes met. The wild roses were in her cheeks now, and the dew of teardrops on her downcast lashes. He said not a word, but laid the letter face downward in her lap. She put it in her pocket and rose to go.
"If you need me, Marjie, I have a force to turn loose against your enemies, and ours. And you will need me. As a man in this community I can assure you of that. You never needed friends as you will in the days before you now. I am ready at your call. And let me assure you also, that in the final outcome, there is nothing to fear. Good-bye."
He looked down into her upturned face. Something neither would have put into words came to both, and the same picture came before each mind. It was the picture of a young soldier out at Fort Wallace, gathering back the strength the crucial test of a Plains campaign had cost him.
"There'll be the devil to pay," my father said to himself, as he watched Marjie passing down the leaf-strewn walk, "but not a hair of her head shall suffer. When the time comes, I'll send for Judson, as I promised to do."
And Marjie, holding the letter in her hand thrust deep in her cloak pocket, felt strength and hope and courage pulsing in her veins, and a peace that she had not known for many days came with its blessing to her troubled soul.