CHAPTER XIX
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER
From Mrs. Rebecca Winter to Mrs. John S. G. Winslow,
Fairport, Iowa.
And it was delightful to discover that you were so distressed about me. I must be getting a trifle maudlin in my old age, for I have had a lump in my throat every time I have thought of Johnny and you actually starting out to find me; I am thankful my telegram (Please, Peggy, do not call it a wire again—to me! I loathe these verbal indolences) reached you at Omaha in time to stop you.
Really, we have not had hardships. Thanks to Israel Putnam Arnold! I have a very admiring gratitude for that man! In these days of degeneracy he builded a stanch enduring house. With union labor, too! I don’t see how he contrived to do it. Generally, when they build houses here, they scamp the underpinning and weaken the joists and paint over the dirt instead of washing it off; and otherwise deserve to be killed. The unfortunate man opposite had just that kind of house, which tumbled down and burned up, at once; but, alas! it killed some of the people in it, not the guilty masons and carpenters.
Our chimneys have been inspected and we are now legally as well as actually sound; but we did not suffer. We cooked out on the sidewalk, and supplemented our cooking with young Tracy’s stove.
I told you of Janet’s engagement. Confidentially, my dear Peggy, I am a bit responsible. They met by chance on the train; and I assure you, although chance might have parted us, I did not let it. I clung to Nephew Bertie. I’m sure he wondered why. I knew better than to let him suspect. But a success you can’t share is like a rose without a smell. So I confess to you, I have made this match. But when you see Millicent she will tell you that she helped things along. She has abused Janet like a pickpocket; but now, since she has discovered Janet didn’t draw the Daughters’ caricature of her, she regards her as one of the gems of the century.
We are recovering from the terrible events of which we wrote. It is certainly a relief that Atkins is killed. He was one of the two scoundrels who sneaked into the patio and put the bombs into the automobile. Bertie shot him. You have no doubt heard all about Mr. Keatcham’s death. He was killed by the man whose wickedness he had unconsciously fostered. He did not know it, but I make no doubt his swollen fortune and the unscrupulous daring of its acquiring had a great influence in corrupting his secretary.
And his corruption was his master’s undoing. I must say I sympathize with young Tracy, who said last night: “I feel as if I had been put to soak in crime! That bomb was the limit. In future, me for common or garden virtue; it may be tame but I prefer tameness to delirium tremens!”