Mother Cary sat down in her little low rocking chair, and laid her crutch on the brick floor of the front walk, always a sign of her settling down for a real talk. Things had been going worse and worse with the Tobets; Rosamund and Yetta went down almost daily, but beyond their friendly visits there seemed little they could do. The Government's suspicions were centering on Joe, the big, born leader of rough elements, and on his band of four or five other men, who would follow him to death or worse. Jim Allen was one; but now, repentant and sobered by the baby's death, he was at home nursing his wife. Grace had sped through the woods in the night to warn Joe and his followers more than once; yet even to Ogilvie she denied any knowledge of Joe's business.
"It's squirrels he's after," she said, "and sometimes drink; all this talk of moonshine's jest foolishness. I'd know it ef 'twas so. It ain't so!"
"Well, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor replied, "your squirrel stew would not be to my liking! Better keep the lid on the pot while it's cooking!"
He saw too many evidences of the moonshine's work to believe her; but he had seen Joe Tobet come home, and he honored Grace, too familiar with human nature to marvel at her faithfulness. Mother Cary alone knew all that Grace Tobet knew; all secrets were safe in her kind old heart, and even from Pap she hid this one, for Father Cary was not one of those who hold councils of compromise with the Evil One. Therefore, when Rosamund suggested Grace Tobet, Mother Cary sat down to think it out.
After a few minutes' silent pondering, she said, "Honey, I've never been one to advise the partin' of husband and wife! Howsomever, if there's any good left in Joe Tobet, it may be the surest way o' bringin' him back to straight ways o' livin', ef we can coax Grace to leave him for a while."
"I'm afraid I can't give a thought to Joe's salvation," Rosamund declared. "But Grace—oh, she's too fine to be left there! I should like to give her one winter of comfort!"
"Well, you haven't got a holt of her yet," Mother Cary reminded her, "an' it wouldn't be but half comfort for her, the outside half, anyways, away from her man. But I can't see what anybody could do better than to keep little Tim and Yetta up here out o' harm's way, and maybe save Grace Tobet an' Joe, too. Land's sake, dearie, you must be quite well off!"
It seemed to come to Mother Cary suddenly, and was the first spark of curiosity Rosamund had ever known her to show. Until now her wisdom had seemed all-embracing; but that a young woman, that Rosamund, who had lived so quietly in her house all summer, could carry out a suddenly formed plan of buying a house and sheltering three people—this was evidently quite outside of her experience. She looked up with unwonted surprise in her face. Rosamund bent and kissed the wrinkled pink cheek.
"Dear, dear Mother Cary," she said, "I am so well off that I could probably buy every house at the Summit, and build as many more! I am so well off that I have never in all my life, until this summer, had a chance to find out how well off I am! I am so well off that I did not know how poor I have been, nor how much people can need the wretched mere money, nor how very, very little it can really do! I have only begun to find out what life is made of, and so I'm not well off at all!"
Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and she turned her head away; but Mother Cary's hand was stretched towards her, instantly. Presently she said, in the low tone which was the tenderest and sweetest of all: