CHAPTER XXIV.
Lottie was so vexed and indignant that, for a moment, she could neither move nor speak. Eva, too, was perplexed, and whispered into Lottie’s ear:
“What does the woman want? Is she going to take our things away from us?”
Before Lottie could reply, the man who had been loitering around the barn and outside premises, came up to the door, and, with a smile meant to be ingratiating, bade them good-morning.
Lottie started at the sound of his voice. She thought she recognized it, but was not quite sure. She rose from her chair and returned the greeting.
“I’m one of your new neighbors,” continued the visitor, planting himself in the doorway and resting a hand upon the frame upon either side. “The old woman an’ me thought we’d come over an’ git acquainted. I reckon she has told you who we air?”
Lottie listened to this speech with intent ears. Yes, the voice was the same she had heard that evening, weeks before, plotting to deprive them of their home.
She did not doubt that it was he who had persuaded Jimmy to run away; that he was the “friend” who had promised the boy work and wages and independence, and so had gotten him out of his way.
Lottie crossed the room, Eva still clinging to her hand, and, when but a few steps distant from the man in the doorway, stopped, and, looking him straight in the eye, said:
“Yes, Mr. Highton, I know who you are. Will you please tell me where my brother Jimmy is?”
Mr. Highton’s hands dropped from the door-frame, and he took a step backward. A dark flush spread over his countenance; his eyes wavered and fell. But he recovered himself almost instantly, and, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh, made answer.
“Tell you where your brother Jimmy is? Why, miss, I didn’t know you had a brother Jimmy. Has the young man been gittin’ himself lost?”
“No, he has not been getting himself lost; but some one, pretending to be his friend, has persuaded him to leave us, promising him money and good times. And, Mr. Highton, I believe that you are the man!”
Mr. Mart Highton laughed again, more harshly and boisterously than before. Then he said, still pretending to be amused:
“I declare I didn’t expect to be treated this way, or I shouldn’t ’a come to see you. I’ll send one o’ the boys next time, an’ mebbe you’ll treat ’em better. You hain’t so much as invited me in to take a seat!”
Lottie turned indignantly away, and, without giving the solicited invitation, retreated to the sitting-room.
Here she found Mrs. Highton, seated in the big arm-chair, looking about her with a self-satisfied air.
As Lottie and Eva entered, she exclaimed:
“Well, you an’ Mart’s been gittin’ acquainted, I reckon. I heerd you laughin’ together. He’s mighty friendly, an’ easy to git acquainted with. We all be, fer that matter. Some folks is so kind o’ stuck up, or somethin’, that it takes a month o’ Sundays to git to know ’em. But the Hightons ain’t that way!”
Lottie made no reply to these remarks. She was troubled and disgusted, and did not know how to get rid of her unwelcome visitors. She sank, silently, upon the couch by the window.
Mrs. Highton stopped her rocking, and turned her chair so that she could face her listeners, and resumed:
“Mart an’ me’s bin talkin’ ’bout the way you children’s situated here. Mrs. Green told me all about it, afore she went away. An’ she says to me, says she, ‘Them poor, motherless, orphant children hadn’t orto be livin’ over there by theirselves,’ says she; ‘but the oldest girl’—that’s you, I reckon”
nodding at Lottie—“‘is mighty sot an’ determined, an’ is bound to stick to the place.’
“So Mart an’ me, we’ve been talkin’ it over, an’ we concluded to come an’ hev a talk with you. He says to me, says he, ‘If the children want to go to their relations, we’ll buy their housell stuff—fer we’re a-needin’ the things—an’ they kin take the money an’ go. But if they’d ruther stay, why, let ’em stay.’”
Mrs. Highton paused a moment, as if expecting to be thanked for this generous concession. But as Lottie made no response, she continued:
“Him an’ me thought that if you was so sot to stay here, mebbe you’d be willin’ to let us move in with you. His brother Ike’s got a big family, an’ they’re about took possession of the cabin the Greens moved out of. The boys is goin’ to put up shanties on their claims, but we’d like to git settled quick as we kin, for we’ve been livin’ jest ‘anyhow’ long ’nough. We could all live together in one family, an’ that way your livin’ wouldn’t cost you a cent. Mart says he’d look after things on the place, an’ I’d be a kind o’ mother to you. It wouldn’t be near so lonesome fer you, an’ it would be a ’commodation to us. Our gittin’ the use o’ the house an’ sich like would make you square about the board-bill. Now, what do you say to our offer?”
MR. HIGHTON SHIFTED IN HIS SEAT, AND SAID, IN AN INSINUATING TONE, “YOU SEEM TO HEV A VERY POOR OPINION OF ME, MISS.”
Lottie shuddered at the idea of living in the house with these people. And, being forewarned, she was quick to see that this was a plan designed to entrap her—that the Hightons wished to get possession of the house, and a hold upon the place, so as to oust her completely; for that they would not scruple to get rid of herself and Eva, when it suited them to do so, she was well assured. Jimmy, poor, credulous boy, had already been gotten out of the way. Oh, why did not her father come?
Her heart felt as if it would burst, and for a moment she could not utter one word. But she struggled bravely for composure, and presently said, in a voice that in spite of her trembled a little:
“I cannot make any such arrangement. I hope and expect my father home soon. And he would not be pleased to find his house filled with strangers. Eva and I are getting along very well, and we have plenty to live on.”
“It seems to me you orto be satisfied by this time that your father ain’t never goin’ to come back,” replied Mrs. Highton, in a harsh voice. “It’s orful silly of you to stick to that notion! An’ you orto consider ’tain’t fit fer you two girls to be livin’ here alone. There ain’t no knowin’ what might happen. It would be ’nough sight better if you had somebody here to look after you. Then ag’in, you wouldn’t be tied down to home like you be now. You’d hev somebody to leave the little girl with, an’ could git out an’ enjoy yourself like other young folks.
You’d better think twice afore you say ‘no’ fer good an’ all.”
Lottie felt Eva’s fingers closing tightly upon her own, the poor child was imagining herself left to the care of Mrs. Highton! She pressed the quivering little hand reassuringly and rose to her feet.
“I don’t need to think any more about it. I have given you my answer,” she said, firmly.
At that moment a heavy step was heard crossing the porch, and Mr. Highton, with a sneering smile upon his face, thrust his head through the open window.
“Come, old woman,” he said to his wife, “you go along home an’ see ’bout gittin’ dinner, an’ I’ll settle this matter with little miss, here.”