"I have a little heathen god—Gautama; alabaster—and a mummied cat."
"And you're very fond of that? But no matter. Shoemaker and milliner and furniture man; that makes eleven."
He lengthened his list on the margin of a newspaper.
"Well, I never paid Van Nostrand for that painting, and I've even forgotten how much he said it would be. And there's a photograph bill—a perfectly scandalous one—and another dressmaker; Mrs. Edgar; I went back to her after Meg's woman got crusty, but she never'll sue me. And the Japanese furniture shop and—another photographer—and here's the bill for bric-a-brac—that's sixteen. The wine account—there is one, but it ought to be Mrs. Whitney's; for entertaining. I suppose Pa and Ma would say that was a very wicked bill, now wouldn't they, Schoolmaster?"
"They would indeed, Helen 'Lizy; I'm not sure that I don't agree with them. By the way, does your father know about all this?"
"Yes, a little. I've begged him for money, but he won't mortgage the farm. And Judge Baker knows. He wants me to come back to his house, but of course I won't do it. I guess he's sent for Father; Pa's coming East soon, on a cattle train pass."
"A cattle train!"
John stabbed the paper viciously, then he said more gently:—
"A cattle train is cold comfort for a substantial farmer at his time of life; and I don't think we will let him mortgage."
That young man will need discipline; but I imagine he was thinking less about my poor old father than about—well, I needn't have mentioned the Baker house, but what does he really know of how I came to leave it? Perhaps suspicion and bitter memories made my retort more spirited than it need have been.