Whether this prophecy was or was not a true one remained, of course, to be seen, but at all events the Wheeler household had joined the general exodus from Harniss. The gatherings in the post office at mail times had shrunk almost to mid-winter size. Reliance found time to do her housekeeping in the manner which, according to her New England ideas, housekeeping should be done, and to attend to her own dressmaking. On this particular afternoon, Abbie Makepeace had gone home early to write her column for the Item.
Millard Fillmore Clark was on duty in the little room behind the racks of letter boxes. Mr. Clark had passed a most unhappy eighteen hours. The trouble began immediately after his return home the previous evening, following the impromptu excursion to and from Denboro. He had delayed that return until ten, hoping that Reliance might have gone to bed. She was up and awaiting him, however, and he was subjected to a questioning which developed into a cross-examination and continued as a tongue lashing lasting far into the morning. He slunk upstairs with a very definite idea of the position he occupied in his sister’s estimation.
Rising, cowed and humble, he ate a lonely breakfast, washed the dishes and then, still in obedience to orders, reported at the millinery shop. Reliance was out, but she had left instructions with Miss Makepeace. He was to go into the little room at the rear of the letter boxes and stay there. “She said for me to tell you she was likely to be away most of the forenoon,” said Abbie, “and that you was to ’tend the office till she came back, no matter what time it was. And—oh, yes!—she said to be sure and tell you to remember this wasn’t healthy weather for you to go outdoors in. I don’t know what she meant by that. Are you sick, Millard? You don’t look real lively this mornin’, that’s a fact.”
Millard grumbled something to the effect that he didn’t know but he was a little mite under the weather and shut off further conversation by closing the door between the post office and millinery department. He spent the forenoon waiting upon the few customers who came for their mail or to buy stamps, looking out of the window of his prison cell, reading every postal card available, and reflecting dismally upon his prospects for the immediate future. They were dismal enough. In the course of their midnight session Reliance had expressed pointed opinion concerning the pleasant little games of “seven-up” at the scallop shanty.
“I wondered what was keepin’ you out half the night four nights in a week,” she said. “I thought of a good many things that might be doin’ it—of course I never paid any attention to what you told me; I knew better than that—but I never once thought of your bein’ down in that shanty, gamblin’ with that crew. You, a Clark! I declare! I am more ashamed of you than ever, which is sayin’ somethin’.”
“Now, now, hold on, Reliance! I wasn’t gamblin’. That is— Why, confound it all, how could I gamble, if I wanted to? I don’t have money enough in my pocket to buy tobacco hardly. Here I am, workin’ for the United States government, takin’ care of all the mail that comes into this town—a responsible position, by godfreys! And what do they pay me for all the work and responsibility? Eh? I ask you now! What do I get for it?”
“Oh, be still! In the first place the government doesn’t hire you. I hire you, and I pay you about twice what I could get real help for. If I paid you what you were worth you would owe me money every Saturday night. But you are my half-brother—more shame to me—and so— Oh, well, never mind! We won’t argue about that. You say you weren’t gamblin’. You were playin’ cards for money, weren’t you?”
“Why—why, I don’t know’s you’d call it money. Some of the fellows there seemed to think that heavin’ cards back and forth across the table for nothin’ was kind of dull work, so they figgered ’twould be better to have a little mite on the cards. Say a cent a point, or somethin’ like that, you understand.”
“Yes, yes!” sharply. “I understand well enough. A cent a point! And you without money enough in your pocket to buy tobacco! How much have you won since these interestin’ games got goin’?”
Millard fidgeted. “We-el,” he confessed, “I—well, you see, Reliance, I haven’t really won much of anything, as you might say. I have had the darnedest streak of bad luck. All the boys say it’s as bad a streak as they ever saw.”