“Yes, it’s just as if I gave you my five dollars to use and you gave me ten cents each week for lending you the five dollars till I wanted it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly. Well mother thought she would have about six hundred dollars each year, and everything seemed all right, and so we came to live here because it was less expensive. But, oh, Jean, my miserable experiments! My dreadful chemicals! When the insurance company began to look into the cause of the fire and learned that I had gasoline, and those powerful acids in my room, and the box of excelsior in which they had been sent out from the city was in the room where the fire started, they—they would not settle the insurance, and all the money we had paid out was lost, and we could hardly collect anything. And it was all my fault. All my fault. But I did not know it! I did not guess the harm I was doing. I only thought of what I could learn from my experiments. And see what mischief I have done,” and poor Eleanor’s story ended in a burst of sobs, as she buried her head against the little sister whom she had just been comforting.
Jean was speechless for a moment. Then all her sympathies were alert, and springing from Eleanor’s lap she flung her arms about her crying:
“Don’t cry, Nornie; don’t cry! You didn’t mean to. You didn’t know. You were trying to be good and learn a lot. You didn’t know about those hateful old companies.”
“But I ought to have known! I ought to have understood,” sobbed Eleanor.
“How could you? But don’t you cry. I’m glad now I did run away with the box, ’cause I’ve found a way to make some money every single Saturday and I’m going to do it, Mammy or no Mammy. Baltie is just as much my horse as hers, and if he can’t help us work I’d like to know why. Now don’t you cry any more, ’cause it isn’t your fault, and I’m going right straight down stairs to talk with mother, and tell her I’m sorry I frightened her but I’m not sorry I went,” and ending with a tempestuous hug and an echoing kiss upon her sister’s cheek, little Miss Determination whisked out of the room.
[CHAPTER XVI—United We Stand, Divided We Fall]
It need hardly be stated that Mrs. Carruth had passed anything but a tranquil morning. Indeed tranquillity of mind was almost unknown to her now-a-days, and her nights were filled with far from pleasant dreams.
From the hour her old home had burned, disasters had crowded upon her. Her first alarm lest the insurance upon her property had lapsed, owing to her inability to meet the premium punctually, had been allayed by Mammy’s prompt action and all seemed well. No one had given a thought to the conditions of the agreement, and, alas! no one had thought of Eleanor’s laboratory. Indeed, had she done so, Mrs. Carruth was not sufficiently well informed upon such matters to have attached any importance to it. But one little clause in the policy had expressly prohibited the presence of “gasoline, excelsior or chemicals of any description upon the premises,” and all three had been upon it when the house burned; and, fatal circumstance, had been the cause of the fire.
Such investigations move slowly, and weeks passed before these facts were brought to light and poor Mrs. Carruth learned the truth. She strove in every way to realize even a small proportion of the sum she could otherwise have claimed, and influential friends lent their aid to help her. But the terms of the contract had, unquestionably, been broken, even though done in ignorance—and the precautions taken for so many years ended in smoke.