“Oh! You men are so stupid!” sighed Mrs. Clough. “But come, promise me.”
And he promised—as we all do—always.
Having despatched her appeal, Mrs. Welch did not waste time waiting for a response, but was as good as her word and, like an energetic soul, without waiting a day, sickle in hand, entered the field alone. Her first step was what she termed “informing herself.” She always “informed herself” about things; it was one of the secrets of her success, she said.
Her first visit on this tour of inspection was to the Bend. She selected this as the primary object of her visitation, because she understood it was the worst place in the community, and she proposed to go at once to the very bottom. Dr. Cary had spoken of it as “a festering spot”; General Legaie had referred to it as “a den of iniquity.” Well, if it were a festering sore it ought to be treated; if it were a den it ought to be opened to the light, she declared. She found it worse than she had expected; but this did not deter her. She forthwith set to work to build a school-house near the Bend, and sent for a woman to come down and take charge of it.
She was no little surprised one day when she called at a cabin where she had been told a woman was ill, to have the door opened by Mrs. Cary. Mrs. Cary invited her in and thanked her for calling, quite as if she owned the house. Mrs. Welch had her first gleam of doubt as to whether she had stated the case to her Society with entire correctness. She observed that the woman’s sheets were old and patched, and she said she would have her Society make new ones. How could she know that Maria’s old mistress had just brought her these and that she and Blair had mended them with their own hands?
It does not require an earthquake to start talk in a rural community—and Mrs. Welch had not been in her new home a month, or, for that matter, a week, before she was the most talked-of woman in the County.
Notwithstanding Hiram Still’s desire to keep secret the fact that he was trying to sell a part of Red Rock to Major Welch, it was soon rumored around that Major Welch was to buy the Stamper place and a considerable part of the old Gray estate. Leech, it was reported, had come up from town, given a clean title and prepared a deed which was to be delivered on a certain day. Allowing for exaggerations, it is astonishing how accurate the bureau of advanced rumor often is.
Steve Allen and Jacquelin Gray held sundry conferences in the clerk’s office, with the papers in Still’s old suit before them, and it got abroad that they were not going to permit the sale.
The day before that set by this exact agency for the final consummation of the purchase, a letter was brought for Major Welch. The messenger who brought it was a handsome, spirited-looking boy of seventeen or eighteen, evidently a gentleman’s son. Major Welch was away from home; but Ruth happened to be in the yard when the boy rode up. He was mounted on a handsome bay with white feet, which Ruth recognized as that which Captain Allen rode. Ruth loved a fine horse, and she went up to him. As she approached, the boy sprang to the ground and took off his hat with a manner so like Captain Allen’s that Ruth smiled to herself.
“Is—is Major Welch at home?” he asked. He had pulled a paper from his pocket and was blushing with a boy’s embarrassment.