Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had opened an inner door for ventilation.
Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man, there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily over his shoulder,—the door being behind him.
Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."
There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and Uncle Jabez returned to the thread of his discourse:
"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange, now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full six months. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a good story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she came back right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"
He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that the sceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes—I suppose—I'm sure you would."
This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:
"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after she died, pretty well beat out,—entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin' some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy to help me. The cattle was contrai-ry,—contrai-rier'n common; and I remember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check, that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember. I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but I rode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barely sense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. I had a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quite confident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' a number of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had got mislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one by one, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and the linin', and made it a good deal bigger,—but that's neither here nor there,—and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,—- that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then I tried my pockets, one after the other,—four in my coat, four in my overcoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any of them, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my only sale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill and buy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose a hunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched away from you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n half rested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on the check and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn't find it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, and they wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em. Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best you could of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits. So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that I couldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,—she was a thin-skinned little critter, and if I didn't eat the same as usual she'd always take it into her head there was something wrong with the victuals. I fell asleep in my cheer right after supper, and slept till nine o'clock; and then Gracie woke me, and ast me if I didn't think I'd better go to bed. I said yes, I s'posed I had; but by that time I was hungry, and I ast her what she had good in the pantry. She brightened up wonderful at that,—though when I come to look closer at her I see she'd been cryin',—and she said there was doughnuts, fresh fried that day, and the best half of a mince pie. I told her that was all right so far as it went, but I'd like somethin' a little solider to begin with: so she found me a few slices of cold pork and one of her cowcumber pickles, and I eat a right good supper. She picked at a piece of pie, by way of keepin' me company, but she didn't eat much. Now, I tell you this, which you may think isn't revelant to the subject, to let you see I went to bed comfortable. We laughed and talked over our little supper, and pretended we was city-folks, on our way home from the theater, gettin' a fancy supper at Delmonico's. And I forgot all about the check for the time bein', as slick and clean as if I'd never had it nor lost it. But, nevertheless, when I went to sleep I begun to dream about it, and was to the full as much worried in my dream as I was when I was awake. I seemed to myself to be huntin' all over the house, in every hole and corner I could think of, and sometimes I'd come on pieces of paper that looked so like it outside I'd make sure I'd found it, and then when I opened 'em they'd be ridickilous rhymes, 'ithout any sense to 'em; when all of a sudden I heard Lavina's voice, as plain as you hear mine now. It seemed to come from a good ways off just at first, callin' 'Father,'—she always called me 'Father,' partly because she didn't like the name of Jabez, and it is a humbly name, I'm free to confess,—and then again nearer, 'Father;' and then again, as if it was right at the foot of the stairs. And this time it went on to say, loud and plain, so's 't I could hear every word, 'You look in the little black teapot on the top shelf of the pantry, where I kep' the missionary money, and see what you'll find.' And with that I heard her laugh; and I'd know Lavina's laugh among a thousand. I was too dazed like to do it right away, and I must 'a' fell asleep while I was thinkin' about it, for when I woke up it was broad daylight and Gracie was callin' to me to get up. But I hadn't forgot a word that Lavina'd said, and I went for that teapot as quick as I was dressed, and there was the check, sure enough, in good order and condition!"
He paused to look round at his audience and see the effect of this statement, and the schoolmaster took advantage of the pause to ask, "Were you in the habit of putting money in that teapot for safe-keeping, Uncle Jabez?"
"Young man, I was not," said Uncle Jabez emphatically, and evidently annoyed both by the question and by the tone in which it was uttered. "It was a little notion of Lavina's, and I'd never meddled with it, one way or the other. But I'd left it be there after she died, because I liked to look at it. I'd no more 'a' dreamed of puttin' that check in it than I would of puttin' it into Gracie's work-box. But there it was, and how it come there it wasn't vouchsafed me to know.