“I’d be willing to try and find out,” said Keturah, sententiously.
Mermaid looked at her speculatively. “If there’s a chance of it, I’ll help you all I can to get rich!” she declared with so much seriousness that Keturah was uncertain how to take her, and so took her in silence.
Probably Mermaid’s words were not really so ironical as they sounded. The girl was generally in earnest when she was not plainly in fun; as children usually are. She had only the vaguest notion of Miss Smiley’s means, and a very vivid notion of her money-stinting ways; Mermaid, however, liked her Dad’s sister in spite of the difficulties of living with her. Miss Smiley was “square” for all her harshness and even hardness; she said cutting things which were, however, never mean, and seldom really unkind. She could be wrathful, but she did not sneer, and she had only scorn for those who sneered at her. Very little mercy, but a rigid adherence to what she thought just, distinguished Keturah in the girl’s eyes. And no one, Mermaid concluded, could live with Miss Smiley and not be struck by the fact that she was thoroughly unhappy. What would make her happy Mermaid had not the least idea; but if the child could have given it to the woman she would have done it, even at some cost to herself. For she was a generous child and she felt generosity all about her, guarding her, befriending her, helping her. Her Dad’s and her uncles’ liberality to her always touched her heart. She knew now, at the age of eleven, that her Dad was not really her Dad and that her uncles were not related to her by blood or marriage. She knew she was a nameless child of unknown lineage, washed ashore from the wreck of the ship by whose name she was known. Everyone except Miss Smiley called her Mermaid; Miss Smiley called her Mary when she called her by name at all, or “Missy,” when Mermaid had irritated her. From the first the girl had called the woman Miss Smiley; it had never occurred to her to address her as “Aunt Keturah,” and no one, not even her Dad, had suggested it.
II
In the evening of the day when Mermaid ran out to meet young Dick Hand on the sidewalk, sprites were abroad. As if it had conspired with Dick and Mermaid, the wind refrained all day long from blowing and rattling Keturah Smiley’s unfastened shutters, and thus giving the two youthful conspirators away. But at night there came a wrenching sound, as if the broadside of the house were being ripped off. Keturah Smiley gave an exclamation and jumped to her feet. She rushed from the room and returned a moment later carrying a pistol.
Mermaid saw it and screamed. Then she flung herself at the woman.
“No, no! Miss Smiley,” she implored in little gasps. “It’s only boys! It’s only Hallowe’en!”
“Nonsense,” Keturah retorted, holding the pistol out of reach and checking the girl with her other hand. “I’m not going to murder ’em. I’m only going to frighten ’em into behaving themselves, and leaving my property alone!”
She moved quickly to the door, opened it, and fired two shots. From the darkness came an awful cry, as of mortal pain, followed by whimpers and the sound of scurrying feet. Keturah became utterly pale, and her tall figure seemed to lose its rigidity.