CHAPTER XXXV
A FISTIC ENCOUNTER
It is summer again, but in Batemans the town in which we now find our friends, the Pells, this banner season of the year, does not deck itself with all the attractions that caused it to be eagerly looked forward to in Marley.
There are no creek, no hills, no trees, nothing but board walks, board houses, board fences, and the “boarders we take,” as Rex would conclude the sentence. And these are the same in summer as they are in winter, except that they are all hotter and more unpleasant than ordinary.
Batemans is a far Western town. A friend of Mrs. Pell’s was putting up a hotel there at the time of her trouble. He had appealed to her for some woman to run it.
“I don’t want a man,” he wrote. “There are too many men out here now. I want somebody who will give home comforts which I want to make a speciality of, in place of a bar.”
Mrs. Pell considered it a providential opportunity. She replied stating that she would take it herself if she could have her children to help her. And they had gone out there in February.
Mr. Darley had been kindness itself. He not only refused to prosecute Sydney, but wanted to settle a portion of his fortune on the Pells.
“You are fully entitled to this,” he said. “It is through you that my boy has been restored to me.”
But Mrs. Pell was firm as Rex had been firm.
“It is enough that you allow us the time in which to make our plans,” she returned.