“Not with the witness I have,” Joe insisted.
“Well, what about this wonderful witness of yours?” chuckled Hezekiah, comfortable in the assurance of holding the master hand.
“My witness” (the calmness of his voice did not quite conceal a note of exultation in it) “is Virginia Dale.”
CHAPTER VIII
ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY
In the Dale home, dinner was served in the middle of the day on Sunday, and Serena caused the meal to partake of the nature of a banquet. Abstemious in week day luncheons, Obadiah succumbed to the flesh pots on the seventh day and thereafter relapsed into slumber during digestion even as a boa-constrictor.
He was sleeping off his Sunday engorgement in a porch chair. His head drooped awkwardly and he had slumped into his best clothes, while from time to time he choked and coughed and made weird noises. All about him lay the peace of a summer Sabbath broken only by the low hum of the bees gathering sweetness from the blooming honeysuckle vine near by. Only the energetic resisted the combined attacks of plenteousness and the somnolent afternoon.
Virginia had not surrendered to the soporific tendencies of the hour. She had conversed with her father until made aware that, mentally speaking, he was no longer with her. Such knowledge is discouraging even to the most enthusiastic of female dialogists, and so, as the minutes passed, her words lost force and her sentences fire. Compelled to seek other fields of interest, the girl strolled aimlessly about the lawn until she came to the gate. The street looked cool and inviting beneath its arching elms and she moved down it slowly. She had almost reached the corner when a woman’s voice sounded from an awning shaded porch, “Virginia, come here. Don’t you pass my house without stopping.” It was Mrs. Henderson.
“Yes, Hennie, I’m coming. I was sure that you were taking a nap.” The girl turned up a walk, bordered with blooming rose bushes, towards an old-fashioned house. “You are as busy as usual, I suppose?” she continued, after she had been affectionately greeted by her hostess.
Mrs. Henderson nodded. No other woman in South Ridgefield gave as much of her time and, proportionately, of her wealth to help others as did this strangely constituted widow. Hers was a frank nature, given to the expression of its views without regard to time or place. She had the faculty of so phrasing her remarks that they cut their victim cruelly and convulsed her hearers. So, respected for her innate goodness, and feared for her sharp tongue, Mrs. Henderson had many acquaintances but few friends. She was judged in the light of a magazine of high explosives, dangerous to those near, but likely to blow up if left without attention. Many were her friends because they were afraid not to be, but there were those who appreciated her character. Strangely, these were they who had waged mighty battles with her, to emerge from strife her devoted adherents. Having felt her sting, they dubbed her harmless as a dove, delighting in her intimate companionship. Such a one had been Virginia’s mother.