Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

Billy never joined them, but sat under the butternut tree where Jerrie had refused him, for hours and hours watching the sluggish river, and wondering what the world would be to him if Jerrie were not in it. Had Billy been with Tom and Dick, he could not have whittled as they did, for all the nerve power had left his hands, which lay helplessly in his lap, and when he walked he looked more like a withered old man than a young one of twenty-seven.

Maude was the first to rally—her first question for Harold, her second for Jerrie—and her father, who was with her, answered truthfully that Harold had not returned, and that Jerrie was sick and could not come to her. He did not say how sick, and Maude felt no alarm, but waited patiently until Jerrie should appear. For Maude, on her brass bedstead with its silken hangings, and every possible luxury around her, there were hired nurses and a mother's care, with many kind inquiries, while it would seem as if every hand in town was stretched out to Jerrie, who was a general favorite. Flowers and fruit and delicacies of every kind were sent to the cottage, carriage after carriage stopped before the door, offer after offer of assistance was made to Mrs. Crawford, while Nina and Marian Raymond were there constantly; and Billy went to Springfield for a chair in which to wheel his sister to the cottage, for she could not yet mount into the dog-cart; and Tom and Dick whittled on until the cross and the grave-stone were finished, and, with a sickly smile, Tom said to Dick:

'Would you cut Jerrie's name upon it?'

'No; oh, no!' Dick answered, with a gasp. 'She may be better to-morrow.'

When, after a few days, the crisis was past, and Jerrie's strong constitution triumphed over the disease which had grappled with it, the whole town wore a holiday air as the people said to each other gladly: 'Jerrie is better; Jerrie will live!'

Her recovery was rapid, and within a week after the fever left her and she awoke to perfect consciousness, she was able to sit up a part of every day, and had walked across the floor and read a letter from Harold to his grandmother, full of solicitude for herself and enthusiasm for his trip over the wild mountains and across the vast plains to the lovely little city of Tacoma, built upon a cliff and looking seaward over the sound.

'Dear Harold,' Jerrie whispered. 'I shall be so glad when he comes home. Nothing can be done till then, and I am so bewildered when I try to think.'

In her weak state, everything seemed unreal to Jerrie, except the fact that she had found her mother—and such a mother!—and many times each day she thanked her God who had brought her this unspeakable joy, and asked that she might do right when the time came to act. She knew the bag was safe, for she had climbed to the top shelf and found it just where she had put it. But where were the diamonds? Had Harold taken them with him? Had he told any one? Did his grandmother know anything about them? she wondered. She tried in many ways to draw Mrs. Crawford out, but was unsuccessful, for there were now too much pain and bitterness connected with the diamonds for Mrs. Crawford to speak to her of them. The poisonous breath of gossip had been at work ever since Harold went away, quietly aided and abetted by Mrs. Tracy, who never failed to roll her eyes and shrug her shoulders when Harold's name was mentioned, and openly pushed on by Peterkin, until Tom Tracy went to him one day and threatened to have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail, if he ever breathed Harold's name again in connection with the diamonds.

'Wall, I swow!' was all Peterkin said, as he put an enormous quid of tobacco in his mouth, and walked away, thinking to himself, 'Twould take an all-fired while to scrape them tar and feathers off of me, I'm so big, and I b'lieve the feller meant it. Them high bucks wouldn't like no better fun than to make a spectacle of me; so I guess I'll dry up a spell.'

But the trouble did not stop with Peterkin's talk, for a neighboring Sunday paper, which fed its readers with all the choicest bits of gossip, came out with an article headed 'The Tracy Diamonds,' and after narrating the story in the most garbled and sensational manner, went on to comment upon the young man's having run away, rather than face public opinion, and to comment upon the law which could not touch him because the offence was committed so long ago.