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THE WALL BETWEEN

By Sara Ware Bassett

The Taming Of Zenas Henry

The Wayfarers At The Angel’s

The Harbor Road

The Wall Between

And now, by some miracle, here were the blossoms of Martin’s raising. Frontispiece. See page 159.

The Wall Between

BY

SARA WARE BASSETT

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

NORMAN PRICE

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1920,

by Sara Ware Bassett.

All rights reserved

Published August, 1920

CONTENTS

1

THE WALL BETWEEN

CHAPTER I

A MODERN RICHELIEU

The Howe and Webster farms adjoined, lying on a sun-flooded, gently sloping New Hampshire hillside. Between them loomed The Wall. It was not a high wall. On the contrary, its formidableness was the result of tradition rather than of fact. For more than a century it had been an estranging barrier to neighborliness, to courtesy, to broad-mindedness; a barrier to friendship, to Christian charity, to peace.

The builder of the rambling line of gray stone had long since passed away, and had he not acquired a warped importance with the years, his memory would doubtless have perished with him. All unwittingly, alas, he had become a celebrity. His was the fame of omission, however, rather than of commission. Had he, like artist or sculptor, but affixed his 2 signature to his handiwork, then might he have sunk serenely into oblivion, “unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” But unfortunately he was a modest creature. Instead, he had stepped nameless into the silence of the Hereafter, leaving to those who came after him not only the sinister boundary his hands had reared, but also a feud that had seethed hotly for generations.

If within the narrow confines of his last resting place he had ever been conscious of the dissension for which he was responsible and had been haunted by a desire to utter the magic word he had neglected to speak in life, he at least gave no sign. His lips remained sealed in death, and his spirit was never seen to walk abroad. Possibly he retired into his shroud with this finality because he never found it imperative, as did Hamlet’s ghost, to admonish posterity to remember him.

Only too well was he remembered!

The Howes and Websters who followed him hurled against the sounding board of heaven the repeated questions of who built the wall, and whose duty was it to repair it. Great-grandfather Jabez Howe quibbled with Great-grandfather Abiatha Webster for a lifetime, 3 and both went down into the tomb still quibbling over the enigma. Afterward Grandfather Nathan Howe and Grandfather Ebenezer Webster took up the dispute, and they, too, were gathered into the Beyond without ever reaching a conclusion. Their children then wrangled and argued and slandered one another, and, like their forbears, retired from the field in impotent rage, leaving the combat a draw.

In the meantime the outlines of the ancient landmark became less clear-cut. Rocks toppled from its summit; yawning gaps marred its sharp edges; and at its base vines and growing things began to creep defiantly in and out the widening fissures that rent its foundation. Almost imperceptibly year by year dissolution went on, the crude structure melting into picturesqueness and taking on the gentle charm of a ruin until Martin Howe and Ellen Webster, its present-day guardians, beheld it an ignominious heap of stone that lay crumbling amid woodbine and clematis.

Far more beautiful was it in this half-concealed dilapidation than ever it had been in the pride of its perfection. Then it had stood boldly out against the landscape, naked and 4 aggressive; to-day, clothed in Nature’s soft greenery, it had become so dim a heritage that it might easily have receded into the past and been forgotten had not the discord of which it had become the symbol been wilfully fanned into flame.

As in a bygone age one runner passed a lighted torch on to another, so did one generation of Howes and Websters bequeath to the next the embers of a wrath that never died. Each faction disclaimed all responsibility for the wall, and each refused to lay hand to it.

Adamantine as was the lichen-covered heap of granite, it was of far more mutable a quality than were the dispositions of those who had so stubbornly let it fall into decay. Time’s hand had softened the harsh stone into mellow beauty; but the flintlike characters of the Howes and Websters remained uncompromising as of yore.

And now that Martin Howe and Ellen Webster reigned in their respective homesteads, neither one of them was any more graciously inclined toward raising the fallen boundary to its pristine glory than had been their progenitors. But for their obstinacy 5 they might have agreed to dispense with the wall altogether, since long ago it had become merely an empty emblem of restriction, and without recourse to it each knew beyond question where the dividing line between the estates ran; moreover, as both families shunned the other’s land as if it were plague-ridden territory there was scant temptation for them to invade each other’s domains. But the man and the woman had inherited too much of the blood of the original stock to consider entering into an armistice.

They had, it is true, bettered their predecessors to the extent of exchanging a stilted greeting when they met; but this perfunctory salutation was usually hurtled across the historic borderline and was seldom concluded without some reference to it. For Ellen Webster was an aggravating old woman dowered with just enough of the harpy never to be able to leave her antagonist in peace if she saw him at work in his garden.

“Mornin’, Martin,” she would call.

“Good mornin’, Miss Webster.”

“So you’re plowin’ up a new strip of land.”

“Yes, marm.”

“I s’pose you know it would save you a deal 6 of cartin’ if you was to use the stones you’re gettin’ out to fix up your wall.”

Then the hector would watch the brick-red color steal slowly from the man’s cheek up to his forehead.

To pile the stones on the heap so near at hand would, he recognized, have saved both time and trouble; nevertheless, he would have worked until he dropped in his tracks rather than have yielded to the temptation.

His wall, indeed! The impudence of the vixen!

Angry in every fiber of his body, he would therefore wheel upon his tormentor and flash out:

“When you see me tinkerin’ your tumbledown wall, Miss Ellen Webster, I’ll be some older than I am now. I’ve work enough of my own to do without takin’ in repairs for my neighbors.”

At that he would hear a malicious chuckle.

For some such response Ellen always waited. She liked to see the fire of rage burn itself through Martin’s tan and feel that she had the power to kindle it. He never disappointed her. Sometimes, to be sure, she had to prod him more than once, but eventually his retort, 7 sharp as the sting of an insect, was certain to come. From it she derived a half-humorous, half-vindictive satisfaction, for she was a keen student of human nature, and no one knew better than she that after the cutting words had left his lips proud-spirited young Martin scorned himself for having been goaded into uttering them.

A tantalizing creature, Ellen Webster!

Silent, penurious, shrewd to the margin of dishonesty; unrelenting as the rock-fronted fastnesses of her native hills; good-humored at times and even possessed of swift moods of tenderness that disarmed and appealed—such she was. She stood straight as a spruce despite the burden of her years, and a suggestion of girlhood’s bloom still colored her cheek; but the features of her crafty countenance were tightly drawn; the blue eyes glinted with metallic light; and the mouth was saved from cruelty only by its upward curve of humor.

She had been an only daughter who since her teens had nursed invalid parents until death had claimed them and left her mistress of the homestead where she now lived. There had, it is true, been a boy; but in his early youth he had shaken the New Hampshire dust from off 8 his feet and gone West, from which Utopia he had for a time sent home to his sister occasional and peculiarly inappropriate gifts of Mexican saddles, sombreros, leggings, and Indian blankets. He had received but scant gratitude, however, for these well-intentioned offerings. It had always been against the traditions of the Websters to spend money freely and Ellen, a Webster to the core, resented his lack of prudence; furthermore the articles were useless and cluttered up the house. Possibly the more open-handed Thomas understood the implied rebuke in the meager thanks awarded him and was hurt by it; at any rate, he ceased sending home presents, and by and by Ellen lost trace of him altogether. Years of silence, unbroken by tidings of any sort, followed. Ellen had almost forgotten she had a brother when one day a letter arrived announcing his death.

The event brought to the sister no grief, for years ago Thomas had passed out of her life. Nevertheless the message left behind it an aftermath of grim realizations that stirred her to contemplate the future from quite a new angle. She had never before considered herself old. Now she suddenly paused and reflected 9 upon her seventy-five years and the uncertainty of the stretch of days before her.

Through the window she could see her prosperous lands, her garden upon the southern slope of the hill where warm sun kissed into life its lushly growing things; her pasture pierced by jagged rocks, and cattle-trampled stretches of rough turf; her wood lot where straight young pines and oak saplings lifted their reaching crests toward the sky; her orchard, the index of her progenitor’s foresight. All these had belonged to the Websters for six generations, and she could not picture them the property of any one bearing another name; nor could she endure the thought of the wall being sometime rebuilt by an outsider.

What was to be the fate of her possessions after she was gone? Suppose a stranger purchased the estate. Or, worse than all, suppose that after she was dead Martin Howe was to buy it in. The Howes had always wanted more land.

Imagine Martin Howe plowing up the rich loam of her fields, invading with his axe the dim silences of her wood lot, enjoying the fruit of her orchard, driving his herds into her pasture! Fancy his feet grating upon the threshold 10 of her home, his tread vibrating on her stairways! The irony of it!

Martin was young. At least, he was not old. He could not be more than forty. He might marry sometime. Many a man more unapproachable even than Martin Howe did marry.

And if he should marry, what would be more likely than that he would give to his maiden sisters—Mary, Eliza, and Jane—the Howe farm and take for his own abode the more spacious homestead of the Websters?

Ellen’s brows contracted fiercely; then her mouth twisted into a crooked smile.

What a retribution if, after all, it should be Martin whose fate it was to rebuild the wall! Why, such a revenge would almost compensate for the property falling into his hands! Suppose it should become his lot to cut away the vines and underbrush; haul hither the great stones and hoist them into place! And if while he toiled at the hateful task and beads of sweat rolled from his forehead, a sympathetic and indulgent Providence would but permit her to come back to earth and, standing at his elbow, jeer at him while he did it! Ah, that would be revenge indeed! 11

Then the mocking light suddenly died from the old woman’s eyes. Maybe Martin would not buy the farm, after all.

Or if he did, he might perhaps leave the wall to crumble into extinction, so that the rancor and bitterness of the Howes and Websters would come to an end, and the enmity of a hundred years be wasted!

Would not such an inglorious termination of the feud go down to history as a capitulation of the Websters? Why, the broil had become famous throughout the State. For decades it had been a topic of gossip and speculation until the Howe and Webster obstinacy had become a byword, almost an adage. To have the whole matter peter out now would be ignominious.

No. Though worms destroyed her mortal body, the hostility bred between the families should not cease. Nor should her ancestral home ever become the prey of her enemies, either.

Rising decisively, Ellen took from the mahogany secretary the letter she had received a few days before from Thomas’s daughter and reread it meditatively.

Twice she scanned its pages. Then she let 12 it drop into her lap. Again her eyes wandered to the stretch of land outside across which slanted the afternoon shadows.

The day was very still. Up from the tangle of brakes in the pasture came the lowing of cattle. A faint sweetness from budding apple trees filled the room. Radiating, narrowing away toward the sky line, row after row of low green shoots barred the brown earth of the hillside with the promise of coming harvest. It was a goodly sight,—that plowed land with its lines of upspringing seeds. A goodly sight, too, were the broad mowings stirring gently with the sweep of the western breeze.

Ellen regarded the panorama before her musingly. Then she seated herself at the old desk and with deliberation began to write a reply to her brother’s child.

She was old, she wrote, and her health was failing; at any time she might find herself helpless and ill. There was no one to care for her or bear her company. If Lucy would come to Sefton Falls and live, her aunt would be glad to give her a home.

“As yet,” concluded the diplomat, with a Machiavelian stroke of the pen, “I have made no will; but I suppose I shall not be able to 13 take the Webster lands and money with me into the next world. You are my only relative. Think well before making your decision.”

After she had signed and blotted the terse missive, Ellen perused its lines, and her sharp eyes twinkled. It was a good letter, a capital letter! Without actually promising anything, it was heavy with insidious bribery.

Be the girl of whatsoever type she might, some facet of the note could not fail to lure her hither. If a loyal Webster, family obligation would be the bait; if conscientious, plain duty stared her in the face; if mercenary, dreams of an inherited fortune would tempt her. The trap was inescapable.

In the meantime to grant a home to her orphan flesh and blood would appeal to the outside world as an act of Christian charity, and at the same time would save hiring the help she had for some time feared she would be driven to secure,—a fact that did not escape the woman’s cunning mind.

She was not so strong as formerly, and of late the toil of the farm taxed her endurance. There was milking, sewing, the housework, and the care of the chickens; enough to keep ten 14 pairs of hands busy, let alone one. Oh, Lucy should earn her board, never fear!

As nearly as the aunt could calculate, her niece must now be about twenty years old,—a fine, vigorous age! Doubtless, too, the girl was of buxom Western build, for although Thomas had not married until late in life, his wife had been a youthful woman of the mining country. This Lucy was probably a strapping lass, who in exchange for her three meals would turn off a generous day’s work. Viewed from every standpoint the scheme was an inspiration.

Ellen hoped it would not fail. Now that she had made up her mind to carry through the plan, she could not brook the possibility of being thwarted.

Once more she took the letter from its envelope and read it. Yes, it was excellent. Were she to write it all over again she could not improve it. Therefore she affixed the stamp and address and, summoning Tony, the Portuguese lad who slaved for her, she sent him to the village to mail it.

For two weeks she awaited an answer, visiting the post office each day with a greater degree of interest than she had exhibited 15 toward any outside event for a long stretch of years.

Her contact with the world was slight and infrequent. Now and then she was obliged to harness up and drive to the village for provisions; to have the horse shod; or to sell her garden truck; but she never went unless forced to do so. A hermit by nature, she had no friends and wanted none.

Her only neighbors were the Howes, and beyond the impish pleasure she derived from taunting Martin, they had no interest for her. The sisters were timid, inoffensive beings enough; but had they been three times as inoffensive they were nevertheless Howes; moreover, Ellen did not care for docile people. She was a fighter herself and loved a fighter. That was the reason she had always cherished a covert admiration for Martin. His temper appealed to her; so did his fearlessness and his mulish attitude toward the wall. Such qualities she understood. But with these cringing sisters of his who allowed him to tyrannize over them she had nothing in common. Had she not seen them times without number watch him out of sight and then leap to air his blankets, beat his coat, or perform some service they 16 dared not enact in his presence? Bah! Thank Heaven she was afraid of nobody and was independent of her fellow men.

Save for the assistance of the hard-worked Tony whom she paid—paid sparingly she confessed, but nevertheless paid—she attended to her own plowing, planting, and harvesting, and was beholden to nobody. The world was her natural enemy. To outwit it; to beat it at a bargain; to conquer where it sought to oppress her; to keep its whining dogs of pain, poverty, and loneliness ever at bay; to live without obligation to it; and die undaunted at leaving it,—this was her ambition.

The note she had mailed to her niece was the first advance she had made toward any human being within her memory; and this was not the cry of a dependent but rather the first link in a plot to outgeneral circumstances and place the future within her own control. She prided herself that for half a century she had invariably got the better of whosoever and whatsoever she had come in contact with. What was death, then, but an incident, if after it she might still reign and project her will into the universe even from the estranging fastnesses of the grave? 17

Therefore the answer from Lucy was of greater import than was any ordinary letter. It would tell her whether the initial step in her conspiracy to triumph over Destiny was successful. What wonder that her aged fingers trembled as she tore open the envelope of the message and spread the snowy paper feverishly on the table?

Summit, Arizona,

May 5, 1917.

Dear Aunt Ellen:

I can’t tell you what a surprise it was to hear from you, and how much greater a surprise it was to have you ask me to come and live with you.

I had decided to go abroad and do Red Cross work, and was about to accept a position that had been offered me when your letter arrived. (“Humph!” murmured Ellen.)

But you write that you are alone in the world and not very well, and this being the case, I feel my place is with you.

You are my only relative, and I should be a very poor-spirited Webster indeed did I not acknowledge that your claim comes before any other. Therefore I shall be glad to come to New Hampshire and avail myself of your hospitality. I presume you have found, as I have, that living entirely for one’s self is not very satisfactory after all. Since my father’s death 18 I have had no one to look after and have felt lonely, useless, and selfish in consequence.

I am certain that in attempting to make you happy, I shall find happiness myself, and I assure you that I will do all I can to be helpful.

If all goes well I should arrive at Sefton Falls in about ten days. In the meantime, I send my warmest thanks for your kindness and the affectionate greetings of

Your niece,

Lucy Harmon Webster.

After she had finished reading the letter, Ellen sat tapping her foot impatiently upon the floor. She was nettled, angry.

She did not at all relish having this child turn the tables on her charity and make of it a favor. As for the girl’s sentimental nonsense about its not being satisfactory to live alone, what was she talking about? Living alone was the most satisfactory thing in the world. Did it not banish all the friction of opposing wills and make of one a monarch? No, she did not like the letter, did not like it.

If this Lucy were sincere, she showed herself to be of that affectionate, conscientious, emotional type Ellen so cordially detested; besides, she held her head too high. If on the other hand, she were shamming, and were in 19 reality endowed with a measure of the Howe shrewdness, that was another matter.

Her aunt laughed indulgently at the girl’s youthful attempt at subterfuge. She hoped she was humbugging. Worldly wisdom was an admirable trait. Had not the Websters always been famed for their business sagacity? She would far rather find Thomas’s daughter blessed with a head than with a heart.

But the letter proved that the child was still a novice at the wiles of the world, dissemble as she would.

Had she been older and more discerning, she would have realized she had not actually been promised anything, and she would not have been decoyed into journeying hundreds of miles from home to pursue the wraith of an ephemeral fortune.

20

CHAPTER II

THE HOWES

Within the confines of his own home Martin Howe, as Ellen Webster asserted, was a czar. Born with the genius to rule, he would probably have fought his way to supremacy had struggle been necessary. As it was, however, no effort was demanded of him, for by the common consent of an adoring family, he had been voluntarily elevated to throne and scepter. He was the only boy, the coveted gift long denied parents blessed with three daughters and in despair of ever possessing a son.

What rejoicings heralded his advent! Had half the treasures an eager father and mother prayed Heaven to grant been bestowed upon the child, he would unquestionably have become an abnormality of health, wealth, and wisdom. But Destiny was too farseeing a goddess to allow her neophyte to be spoiled by prosperity. Both his parents died while 21 Martin was still a pupil at the district school, and the lad, instead of going to the city and pursuing a profession, as had been his ambition, found himself hurried, all unequipped, uneducated and unprepared, into the responsibilities of managing the family household.

Farming was not the calling he would have chosen. He neither liked it, nor was he endowed with that intuitive sixth sense on which so many farmers rely for guidance amid the mazes of plowing and planting. By nature, he was a student. The help he had sporadically given his father had always been given rebelliously and been accompanied by the mental resolve that the first moment escape was possible, he would leave the country and its nagging round of drudgery and take up a broader and more satisfying career.

To quote Martin’s own vernacular, farming was hard work,—damned hard work. It was not, however, the amount of toil it involved that daunted him, but its quality. He had always felt a hearty and only thinly veiled contempt for manual labor; moreover, he considered life in a small village an extremely provincial one.

It was just when he was balancing in his mind the relative advantages of becoming a 22 doctor or a lawyer, and speculating as to which of these professions appealed the more keenly to his fancy, that Fate intervened and relieved him of the onerousness of choosing between them.

Martin could have viewed almost any other vocation than that of farmer through a mist of romance, for he was young, and for him, behind the tantalizingly veiled future, there still moved the shadowy forms of knights, dragons, and fair ladies; but with the grim eye of a realist, he saw farming as it was, stripped of every shred of poetry. Blossoming orchards and thriving crops he knew to be the ephemeral phantasms of the dreamer. Farming as he had experienced it was an eternal combat against adverse conditions; a battle against pests, frosts, soil, weather, and weariness. The conflict never ceased, nor was there hope of emerging from its sordidness into the high places where were breathing space and vision. One could never hope when night came to glance back over the day and see in retrospect a finished piece of work. There was no such thing as writing finis beneath any chapter of the ponderous tome of muscle-racking labor.

The farmer stopped work at twilight only 23 because his strength was spent and daylight was gone. The aching back, the tired muscles, could do no more, and merciful darkness drew a curtain over the day, thereby cutting off further opportunity for toil until the rising of another sun.

But although night carried with it temporary relief from exertion, it brought with it little peace. As one sat at the fireside in the gathering dusk, it was only to see in imagination a sinister procession of specters file past. They were the things that had been left undone. On they swept, one unperformed task treading upon the heel of its predecessor. There still remained potatoes to spade, weeds to pull, corn to hoe. A menacing company of ghosts to harass a weary man as his eyes closed at night and confront him when he opened them in the morning!

And even when, with the zest the new day brought, he contrived to mow down the vanguard of the parade, other recruits were constantly reënforcing its rear ranks and swelling the foes arraigned against the baffled farmer. Struggle as he would, the line was sometimes longer at evening than it had been at dawn. What wonder that a conscientious fellow like 24 Martin Howe felt farming less a business to be accomplished than a choice of alternatives? What rest was there in sleep, if all the time one’s eyes were closed a man was subconsciously aware that cutworms were devouring his lettuce and that weeds were every instant gaining headway? Even the rhythm of the rain was a reminder that the pea vines were being battered down and that the barn roof was leaking.

Yet to flee from this uncongenial future and seek one more to his liking did not occur to Martin Howe. He had been born with an uncompromising sense of duty, and once convinced of an obligation, he would have scorned to shirk it. The death of his parents left him no choice but to take up his cross with New England Spartanism and bear it like a true disciple. All the Howe capital was invested in land, in stock, and in agricultural implements. To sell out, even were he so fortunate as to find a purchaser, would mean shrinkage. And the farm once disposed of, what then? Had he been alone in the world, he would not have paused to ask the question. But there were Mary, Eliza, and Jane,—three sisters older than himself with no resources for earning 25 a living. Even he himself was unskilled, and should he migrate to the city, he would be forced to subsist more or less by his wits; and to add to his uncertain fortunes the burden of three dependent women would be madness. No, the management of the family homestead was his inevitable lot. That he recognized.

What the abandonment of his “Castles in Spain” cost Martin only those who knew him best appreciated; and they but dimly surmised. Resolutely he kept his face set before him, allowing himself no backward glances into the dolce-far-niente land left behind. As it was characteristic of him to approach any problem from the scholar’s standpoint, he attacked his agricultural puzzles from a far more scientific angle than his father had done, bringing to them an intelligence that often compensated for experience and opened before him vistas of surprising interest. He subscribed to garden magazines; studied into crop rotation and the grafting of trees and vines; spent a few months at college experimenting with soils and chemicals. He investigated in up-to-date farming machinery and bought some of the devices he felt would economize labor.

Gradually the problem of wresting a living 26 from the soil broadened and deepened until it assumed alluring proportions. Farming became a conundrum worthy of the best brain, and one at which the supercilious could ill afford to scoff. Martin found himself giving to it the full strength both of his body and mind.

By the end of the first year he had become resigned to his new career; by the end of the second interested in it; by the end of the third enthusiastic.

In the meantime, as season succeeded season, the soil he had so patiently tended began to give him thanks, returning ever increasing harvests. The trees in the old orchard bent under their weight of apples; the grapevines were lush with fruit. The Howe farm acquired fame in the neighborhood.

The boy was proud of his success and justly so. Not alone did it represent man’s triumph over Nature, but it also meant the mastery of Martin’s own will over his inclinations. And all the while that he was achieving this dual victory he was developing from a thin, over-grown lad into a muscular young giant,—keen-eyed, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-armed. He was lithe as an Indian and almost as unwearying. If through the cross rifts of 27 his daily routine there filtered occasional shadows of loneliness, he only vaguely acknowledged their existence, attributing his groping longing for sympathy to the lack of male companionship and the uncongeniality that existed between himself and his sisters.

He had, to be sure, a few masculine acquaintances in the village, but most of them were older and less progressive than he, and they offered him little aid in his difficulties. Having farmed all their lives and been content with the meager results they had obtained, they shrugged their shoulders at Martin’s experiments with irrigation and fertilizer, regarding his attempts as the impractical theories of a fanatic. Of youth, Sefton Falls contained only a scattering, the more enterprising young men having gone either to the city or to the War.

Thus bereft of friends of his own sex, and turned back from a professional or a soldier’s career by Duty’s flaming sword, Martin reverted to his own home for comradeship. But here, alas, he was again disappointed.

Mary, Eliza, and Jane were not of a type to fill the void in his life that he sought to have filled. It would be unfair to say he had not 28 a warm regard for his sisters, for he was a person of inherent loyalty, and ties of blood meant much to him. Had he not sacrificed his own dreams that his family might retain their old home? Nevertheless one may have a deep-rooted affection for one’s kin and yet not find them congenial; and Martin was compelled to acknowledge that Mary, Eliza and Jane—estimable women as they were—had many fundamental characteristics that were quite out of harmony with his ideals of life. It was possible their faults were peculiar to the entire feminine race. He was not prepared to say, since his knowledge of the sex had never extended beyond the sill of his own doorway. But whether general or particular, the truth remained that the mental horizon of his sisters, bounded as it was by the four walls of the kitchen and such portion of the outside world as could be seen from its windows, was pitiably narrow.

Beyond the round of their daily duties none of the three women had an interest in life. Over and over again they performed their humdrum tasks in the same humdrum fashion, arguing over each petty detail of the time-worn theme until he marveled they could 29 retain a particle of zest for routine they never varied from year to year.

Reading and experimenting brought a freshness to his work that stimulated detours into untraveled paths. But Mary, Eliza, and Jane never sought out the uncharted way. Evidently monotony suited their stolid temperaments; or if it did not, they never rebelled against it or tried to shake off its fetters. Matter-of-fact, timid, faithful, capable, middle-aged,—they were born to be plodders rather than explorers.

Martin admitted that to their undeviating system he owed a great measure of the comfort and tranquillity of his well-ordered house, and hence he struggled earnestly not to complain at the bondage that resulted from their cast-iron methods. Long since he had despaired of expecting adaptability from them. They must cling to their rut or all was lost. Once out of their customary channel, and they were like tossing ships, rudderless and without an anchor.

Their solicitude for him was another source of exasperation. There were days when the brute in him rose and clamored to strike Mary for tagging at his heels with coats and 30 medicines, and Eliza for her lynxlike observation of every mouthful he ate. But he curbed the impulse, shamefacedly confessing himself to be ungrateful.

Had his tolerance been reënforced by insight, he would have understood that the very qualities which so exasperated him sprang from his sister’s laudable desire to voice a gratitude they could not put into words by neglecting no act which would promote his welfare; but Martin, alas, was not a psychologist, and therefore was unable to translate his annoyances in these interpretative terms.

In truth, what Mary, Eliza, and Jane were as individuals concerned him very little. He always thought of them as a composite personality, a sort of female trinity.

Nevertheless Mary, Eliza, and Jane Howe were not a trinity. They were three very distinct beings.

Mary had had spinsterhood thrust upon her. At heart she was a mother, a woman created to nurse and comfort. Her greatest happiness was derived from fluttering about those she loved and waiting upon them. Had she dared, she would have babied Martin to an even greater extent than she did. As it was, when 31 she was not at his elbow with warmer socks, heavier shoes, or a cup of hot coffee, she was worrying about Mary and Eliza, brewing tonics for them, or putting burning soapstones in their beds. It was a pity Life had cheated her of having a dozen babies to pilot through the mazes of measles and whooping cough, for then Mary would have been in her element. Yet nature is a thing of inconsistencies, and through some strange, unaccountable caprice, Mary’s marital instincts stopped with this fostering instinct. In every other respect she was an old maid. Men she abhorred. Like Jennie Wren, she knew their tricks and their manners—or thought she did—which for all practical purposes amounted to the same thing. Had it been necessary for her to prove some of the theorems she advanced concerning the male sex, she would have been at a loss to do so, since the scope of her experience was very limited. Nevertheless, with genuine Howe tenacity, she clung to her tenets even though she was without data to back them up.

Eliza, on the other hand, had in her girlhood been the recipient of certain vague attentions from an up-State farmer, and these had bared to her virgin imagination a new world. True, 32 the inconstant swain had betaken himself to the next county and there wed another. But although the affair had come to this ignominious end and its radiance had been dimmed by the realities of a quarter of a century of prosaic life, Eliza had never allowed time to obscure entirely the beauty of that early dream, nor the door thus opened into the fairy realms of romance to be wholly closed. Though she knew herself to be old, silver-haired, and worn, yet within the fastnesses of her soul she was still young and waited the coming of her lover. The illusion was only an illusion—a foolish, empty fantasy. However, it helped her to be content with the present and harmed no one. That Eliza had never quite “quit struggling” was borne out by the ripples into which she coaxed her hair and by the knot of bright ribbon she never failed to fasten beneath her ample chin.

Of the trio, Jane was the best balanced. Although the youngest of the sisters, it was to her judgment they were wont to appeal in times of stress. She was more fearless, more outspoken; and any mission she undertook was more certain of success. Therefore, when it became necessary to present some cause to 33 Martin, it always fell to Jane’s lot to act as spokesman. Once when a controversy concerning Ellen Webster had arisen, Jane had actually had the temerity to denounce her brother’s attitude to his face, declaring that should the old woman fall ill she would certainly go and take care of her. Martin had met her defiance with rage. The Websters and all their kindred might die before he would cross their threshold or allow any of his family to do so. Before the violence of his wrath, Mary and Eliza, who within their souls agreed with Jane, quailed in terror; but Jane was undaunted.

This lack of what Martin termed proper pride in his sisters was a source of great disgust to him. He was quite conscious that although they did not openly combat his opinions, they did not agree with him, and not only regretted being at odds with their neighbors but also condemned his perpetuation of the old feud as unchristian. Hence it was a cause for much rejoicing to his mind to reflect that one male Howe at least survived to bolster up a spineless, spiritless, and decadent generation. To love one’s enemies was a weak creed. Martin neither loved them nor pretended to. 34 Never, never, would he forgive the insults the Websters had heaped upon his family. He wished no positive harm to Ellen Webster; but he certainly wished her no good.

Mary, Eliza, and Jane had too much timidity and too great a craving for peace not to conform outwardly at least to their brother’s wishes. Accordingly they bent their necks to his will; for did not Martin rule the house?

Had you inquired of any of the sisters the Howes’ breakfast hour, you would have been told that breakfast was served when Martin pleased. It was the sound of his step upon the stair that set preparations for the morning meal in motion. So it was with every other detail of the home. When he appeared in the doorway his handmaidens sprang to serve him, and so long as he lingered beneath the roof they stayed their impatient hands from any task that would create noise or confusion, and disturb his tranquillity. It was not until the ban of his presence was removed that they ventured to resume the mopping, dusting, or cooking in which they had been engaged before his entrance.

It would have been interesting to know how 35 Martin explained to himself the lack of machinery in his household, and how he reconciled the spotlessness of his home with the apparent idleness of his sisters. His hearth was always swept; the dishes noiselessly washed; the beds made as if by magic; and the cleaning done without shadow of inconvenience to him. So long as these processes were not forced upon his consciousness and were faultlessly performed, he accepted the results without comment. But let one cog of the wheel slip, setting the mechanism of his comfort awry, and he was sure to mention it.

Possibly it was because he himself performed his out-of-door duties well that he demanded, and felt he had the right to demand a similar perfection within doors. In fact, he drew the lines of demarkation between the masculine and feminine spheres of service so sharply that his sisters would have died before they would have asked his aid in any domestic difficulty. Faithfully he met every obligation he considered to be within a man’s province,—bringing wood, coal, and kindlings with the courtesy of a courtier; but the fowl browning in the oven might have burned to ebony before Martin would have lifted a finger to rescue it. To 36 oversee the cooking was not his duty. No autocrat ever reigned with more absolute power than did Martin Howe; and no monarch ever maintained a more sincere faith in his divine right to rule. He simply set the crown of sovereignty upon his own brows because he believed it to belong there. And had his faith in his destiny wavered, there were always his slaves Mary, Eliza, and Jane to bow their foreheads in the dust at his feet and murmur with true Oriental submissiveness:

His lordship being thus acknowledged, was it any wonder that Martin cast about himself a mantle of aloofness and dignity and rated as trivial the household routine and petty gossip of his sisters? When he listened to their chatter at all it was with the tolerance of a superior being toward a less intelligent rabble.

Hence when he returned from the field one night and was greeted by the breathless announcement that a strange young woman with her trunk had just arrived at the Websters’, it was characteristic of him to quiet the excited 37 outburst of his sisters with the chilling and stately reply:

“What does it matter to us who she is, or what she’s come for? Ellen Webster’s visitors are no concern of ours.”

38

CHAPTER III

LUCY

In the meantime the being whom Martin had dismissed with this majestic wave of his hand stood in the middle of the Webster kitchen, confronting the critical eyes of its mistress.

“Yes, Aunt Ellen,” the girl was saying, catching the elder woman’s stiff fingers in hers, “I’m Lucy. Do you think I look like Dad? And am I at all what you expected?”

Ellen drew her hands uncomfortably from the impulsive grasp but did not reply immediately. She was far too bewildered to do so.

Lucy was not in the least what she had expected,—that was certain. In the delicate oval face there was no trace of Thomas’s heavily modeled features; nor was Lucy indebted to the Websters for her aureole of golden hair, the purity of her blond skin, or her grave brown eyes. Thomas had been a massively formed, kindly, plain-featured man; but his daughter was beautiful. Even Ellen, who 39 habitually scoffed at all that was fair and banished the æsthetic world as far from her horizon as possible, was forced to acknowledge this.

In the proudly poised head, the small, swiftly moving hands, and the tiny feet there was a birdlike alertness which was the epitome of action. The supple body, however, lacked the bird’s fluttering uncertainty; rather the figure bespoke a control that had its birth in an absence of all self-consciousness and the obedience of perfectly trained muscles to a compelling will.

Without a shadow of embarrassment Lucy endured her aunt’s inspection.

“Anybody’d think,” commented Ellen to herself in a mixture of indignation and amusement, “that she was a princess comin’ a-visitin’ instead of bein’ a charity orphan.”

Yet although she fumed inwardly at the girl’s attitude, she did not really dislike it. Spirit flashed in the youthful face, and Ellen admired spirit. She would have scorned a cringing, apologetic Webster. Unquestionably in her niece’s calm assurance there was no hint of the dependent.

As she stood serenely in the center of the room, Lucy’s gaze wandered over her aunt’s 40 shoulder and composedly scanned every detail of the kitchen, traveling from ceiling to floor, examining the spotless shelves, the primly arranged pots and pans, the gleaming tin dipper above the sink. Then the roving eyes came back to the older woman and settled with unconcealed curiosity upon her lined and sharply cut features.

Beneath the intentness of the scrutiny Ellen colored uneasily.

“Well?” she demanded tartly.

Lucy started.

“You seem to have made up your mind about me,” went on the rasping voice. “Am I what you expected?”

“No.”

The monosyllable came quietly.

“What sort of an aunt were you lookin’ for?”

Lucy waited a moment and then replied with childlike directness:

“I thought you’d be more like Dad. And you don’t look in the least like an invalid.”

“You’re disappointed I ain’t sicker, eh?” commented Ellen grimly.

“No, indeed,” answered Lucy. “I’m glad to find you so strong. But it makes me feel 41 you do not need me as much as I thought you did. You are perfectly able to take care of yourself without my help.”

“Oh, I can take care of myself all right, young woman,” Ellen returned with an acid smile. “I don’t require a nurse—at least not yet.”

Lucy maintained a thoughtful silence.

“I don’t quite understand why you sent for me,” she presently remarked.

“Didn’t I write you I was lonesome?”

“Yes. But you’re not.”

Ellen laughed in spite of herself.

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“You don’t look lonesome.”

Again the elder woman chuckled.

“Mebbe I do, an’ mebbe I don’t,” she responded. “Anyhow, you can’t always judge of how folks feel by the way they look.”

“I suppose not.”

The reply was spoken politely but without conviction.

“An’ besides, I had other reasons for gettin’ you here,” her aunt went on. “I mentioned ’em in my letter.”

“I don’t remember the other reasons.”

Ellen stared, aghast. 42

“Why—why—the property,” she managed to stammer.

“Oh, that.”

The words were uttered with an indifference too genuine to be questioned.

“Yes, the property,” repeated Ellen with cutting sarcasm. “Ain’t you interested in money; or have you got so much already that you couldn’t find a use for any more?”

The thrust told. Into the girl’s cheek surged a flame of crimson.

“I haven’t any money,” she returned with dignity. “Dad left me almost penniless. His illness used up all we had. Nevertheless, I was glad to spend it for his comfort, and I can earn more when I need it.”

“Humph.”

“Yes,” went on Lucy, raising her chin a trifle higher, “I am perfectly capable of supporting myself any time I wish to do so.”

“Mebbe you’d rather do that than stay here with me,” her aunt suggested derisively.

“Maybe,” was the simple retort. “I shall see.”

Ellen bit her lip and then for the second time her sense of humor overcame her.

“I guess there’s no doubtin’ you’re a 43 genuine Webster,” she replied good-humoredly. “I begin to think we shall get on together nicely.”

“I hope so.”

There was a reservation in the words that nettled Ellen.

“Why shouldn’t we?” she persisted.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you like your aunt?”

“Not altogether.”

The audacity of the reply appealed to the older woman, and her eyes twinkled. “Not altogether, eh?” she echoed. “Now I’m sorry to hear that because I like you very much.”

Lucy smiled. It was a radiant smile, disclosing prettily formed white teeth and a lurking dimple.

“That’s nice.”

“But you ain’t a-goin’ to return the compliment?”

“Not yet.”

It was long since Ellen had been so highly entertained.

“Well,” she observed with undiminished amusement, “I’ve evidently got to be on my good behavior if I want to keep such an independent young lady as you in the house.” 44

“Why shouldn’t I be independent?”

A few moments before Ellen would have met the challenge with derision; but now something caused her to restrain the retort that trembled on her tongue and say instead:

“Of course you’ve got a right to be independent. The folks that ain’t ought to be made way with.”

Her affirmation surprised her. She would not have confessed it, but a strange sense of respect for the girl before her had driven her to utter them.

Lucy greeted the remark graciously.

“That’s what I think,” she replied.

“Then at least we agree on somethin’,” returned Ellen dryly, “an’ mebbe before I put my foot in it an’ lose this bit of your good opinion, I’d better take you up to your room.”

She caught up the heavy satchel from the floor.

“Oh, don’t,” Lucy protested. “Please let me take it. I’m used to carrying heavy things. I am very strong.”

“Strong, are you?” questioned Ellen, without, however, turning her head or offering to surrender the large leather holdall. “An’ how, pray, did you get so strong?” She passed 45 into the hall and up the stairs as she spoke, Lucy following.

“Oh, driving horses, doing housework, cooking, cleaning, and shooting,” the girl replied. Then as if a forgotten activity had come to her mind as an afterthought, she added gaily: “And sawing wood, I guess.”

“You can do things like that?”

“Yes, indeed. I had to after Mother died and we moved to Bald Mountain where Dad’s mine was. I did all the work for my father and ten Mexicans.”

“You? Why didn’t your father get a woman in?”

Lucy broke into a merry laugh.

“A woman! Why, Aunt Ellen, there wasn’t a woman within twenty miles. It was only a mining camp, you see; just Dad and his men.”

“An’ you mean to tell me you were the sole woman in a place like that?”

Lucy’s silvery laughter floated upward.

“The ten Mexicans who boarded with us were engineers and bosses,” she explained. “There were over fifty miners in the camp besides.”

Stopping midway up the staircase Ellen wheeled and said indignantly: 46

“An’ Thomas kep’ you in a settlement like that?”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

“Why not?”

“’Twarn’t no place for a girl.”

“It was the place for me.”

“Why?”

“Because Dad was there.”

Something in the reply left Ellen wordless and made her continue her way upstairs without answering. When she did speak, it was to say in a gentler tone:

“Mebbe you’ll like the room I’m going to give you. It used to belong to your Dad when he was a little boy.”

She lifted the latch of a paneled door and stood looking into a large bedroom. The sun slanted across a bare, painted floor, which was covered by a few braided rugs, old and worn; there was a great four-poster about which were draped chintz curtains, yellowed by age, and between the windows stood a mahogany bureau whose brasses were tarnished by years of service; two stiff ladder-back chairs, a three-cornered washstand, and a few faded photographs in pale gilt frames completed the furnishings. 47

With swift step Lucy crossed the room and gazed up at one of the pictures.

“That’s Dad!”

Ellen nodded.

“I’d no idea he was ever such a chubby little fellow. Look at his baby hands and his drum!”

She paused, looking intently at the picture. Then in a far-away tone she added:

“And his eyes were just the same.”

For several minutes she lingered, earnest and reminiscent.

“And is this you, Aunt Ellen?” she asked, motioning toward another time-dimmed likeness hanging over the bed.

“Yes.”

A silence fell upon the room. Ellen fidgeted.

“I’ve changed a good deal since then,” she observed, after waiting nervously for some comment.

“You’ve changed much more than Dad.”

“How?”

Curiosity impelled her to cross to Lucy’s side and examine the photograph.

“Your eyes—your mouth.”

“What about ’em?” 48

“I—I—don’t believe I could explain it,” responded Lucy slowly.

“Mebbe you’d have liked me better as a little girl,” grinned her aunt whimsically.

“I—yes. I’m sure I should have liked you as a little girl.”

The reply piqued Ellen. She bent forward and scrutinized the likeness more critically. The picture was of a child in a low-cut print dress and pantalettes,—a resolute figure, all self-assurance and self-will.

It was easy to trace in the face the features of the woman who confronted it: the brows of each were high, broad, and still bordered by smoothly parted hair; the well-formed noses, too, were identical; but the eyes of the little maiden in the old-fashioned gown sparkled with an unmalicious merriment and frankness the woman’s had lost, and the curving mouth of the child was unmarred by bitter lines. Ellen stirred uncomfortably.

As she looked she suddenly became conscious of a desire to turn her glance away from the calm gaze of her youthful self. Yes, the years had indeed left their mark upon her, she inwardly confessed. She did not look like that 49 now. Lucy was right. Her eyes had changed, and her mouth, too.

“Folks grow old,” she murmured peevishly. “Nobody can expect to keep on looking as they did when they were ten years old.”

Abruptly she moved toward the door.

“There’s water in the pitcher, an’ there’s soap and towels here, I guess,” she remarked. “When you get fixed up, come downstairs; supper’ll be on the table.”

The door banged and she was gone. But as she moved alone about the kitchen she was still haunted by the clear, questioning eyes of the child in the photograph upstairs. They seemed to follow her accusingly, reproachfully.

“Drat old pictures!” she at last burst out angrily. “They’d ought to be burnt up—the whole lot of them! They always set you thinkin’.”

50

CHAPTER IV

THE EPISODE OF THE EGGS

The next morning while Ellen stood at the kitchen table slicing bread for breakfast, Lucy, her figure girlish in a blue and white pinafore, appeared in the doorway.

“Good morning, Aunt Ellen,” she said. “You will have to forgive me this once for being late. Everything was so still I didn’t wake up. Your nice feather bed was too comfortable, I’m afraid. But it shan’t happen again. After this I mean to be prompt as the sun, for I’m going to be the one to get the breakfast. You must promise to let me do it. I’d love to. I am quite accustomed to getting up early, and after serving breakfast for twelve, breakfast for two looks like nothing at all.” As she spoke she moved with buoyant step across the room to the table.

“Shan’t I toast the bread?” she inquired. 51

“I ain’t a-goin’ to toast it,” returned Ellen in a curt tone. “Hot bread an’ melted butter’s bad for folks, ’specially in the mornin’.”

Lucy smiled. “It never hurts me,” she replied.

“Nor me,” put in her aunt quickly. “I don’t give it a chance to. But whether or no, I don’t have it. When you melt butter all up, you use twice as much, an’ there ain’t no use wastin’ food.”

“I never thought about the butter.”

“Them as has the least in the world is the ones that generally toss the most money away,” the elder woman observed.

The transient kindliness of the night before had vanished, giving place to her customary sharpness of tone. Lucy paid no heed to the innuendo.

“I might make an omelet while I’m waiting,” she suggested pleasantly. “Dad used to think I made quite a nice one.”

“I don’t have eggs in the mornin’, either,” replied Ellen.

“Don’t you like eggs?”

“I don’t eat ’em.”

“How funny! I always have an egg for breakfast.” 52

“You won’t here,” came crisply from her aunt.

Lucy failed to catch the gist of the remark.

“Why, I thought you kept hens,” she said innocently.

“I do.”

“Oh, I see. They’re not laying.”

“Yes, they are. I get about four dozen eggs every day,” retorted Ellen. “But I sell ’em instead of eatin’ ’em.”

As comprehension dawned upon Lucy, she was silent.

“Folks don’t need eggs in the mornin’ anyway,” continued Ellen, still on the defensive. “This stuffin’ yourself with food is all habit. Anybody can get into the way of eatin’ more ’n’ more, an’ not know where to stop. Bread an’ coffee an’ oatmeal is all anybody needs for breakfast.”

If she expected a reply from her niece, she was disappointed, for Lucy did not speak.

“When you can get sixty-six cents a dozen for eggs, it’s no time to be eatin’ ’em,” Ellen continued irritably. “You ain’t come to live with a Rockefeller, Miss.”

Receiving no answer to the quip, she drew a chair to the table and sat down. 53

“You’d better come an’ get your coffee while it’s hot,” she called to Lucy.

Slowly the girl approached the table and seated herself opposite her aunt.

The window confronting her framed a scene of rare beauty. The Webster farm stood high on a plateau, and beneath it lay a broad sweep of valley, now half-shrouded in the silver mists of early morning. The near-at-hand field and pasture that sloped toward it were gemmed with dew. Every blade of tall grass of the mowing sparkled. Even the long rows of green shoots striping the chocolate earth of the garden flashed emerald in the morning sunlight; beyond the plowed land, through an orchard whose apple boughs were studded with ruby buds, Lucy caught a glimpse of a square brick chimney.

“Who lives in the next house?” she inquired, in an attempt to turn the unpleasant tide of the conversation. If she had felt resentment at her aunt’s remarks, she at least did not show it.

“What?”

“I was wondering who lived in the next house.”

“The Howes.”

“I did not realize last night that you had 54 neighbors so near at hand,” continued the girl brightly. “Tell me about them.”

“There’s nothin’ to tell.”

“I mean who is in the family?”

“There’s Martin Howe an’ his three sisters, if that’s what you want to know,” snapped Ellen.

Lucy, however, was not to be rebuffed. She attributed her aunt’s ungraciousness to her irritation about the breakfast and, determining to remain unruffled, she went on patiently:

“It’s nice for you to have them so near, isn’t it?”

“It don’t make no difference to me, their bein’ there. I don’t know ’em.” For some reason that Lucy could not fathom, the woman’s temper seemed to be rising, and being a person of tact she promptly shifted the subject.

“No matter about the Howes any more, Aunt Ellen,” she said, smiling into the other’s frowning face. “Tell me instead what you want me to do to help you to-day? Now that I’m here you must divide the work with me so I may have my share.”

Although Ellen did not return the smile, the scowl on her forehead relaxed. 55

“You’ll find plenty to keep you busy, I guess,” she returned. “There’s all the housework to be done—dishes, beds, an’ sweepin’; an’ then there’s milk to set an’ skim; eggs to collect an’ pack for market; hens to feed; an’——”

“Goodness me!”

“You ain’t so keen on dividin’ up, eh?”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” returned Lucy quickly. “I was only thinking what a lot you had to do. No wonder you sent for me.”

It was a random remark, but it struck Ellen’s conscience with such aplomb that she flushed, dismayed.

“What do you mean?” she faltered.

As Lucy looked at her aunt, she observed the shifting glance, the crafty smile, the nervous interlacing of the fingers.

“Mean?” she returned innocently. “Why, nothing, Aunt Ellen. We must all work for a living one way or another, I suppose. If I prefer to stay here with you and earn my board there is no disgrace in it, is there?”

“No.”

Nevertheless Ellen was obviously disconcerted. There was an uncanny quality in Lucy that left her with a sense that every 56 hiding place in her heart was laid bare. Were the girl’s ingenuous observations as ingenuous as they seemed? Or were they the result of an abnormal intuition, a superhuman power for fathoming the souls of others?

Eager to escape the youthful seer, the woman pushed back her chair and rose.

“I must go out an’ see what that boy Tony’s up to,” she said. “While I’m gone you might tidy up round here a bit. There’s the dishes an’ the beds; an’ in the pantry you’ll find the eggs with the cases to pack ’em in. An’ if you get round to it you might sweep up the sittin’ room.”

“All right.”

Drawing on a worn coat Ellen moved toward the door; when, however, her hand was on the knob, she turned and called over her shoulder:

“The washin’s soakin’ in the tubs in the shed. You can hang it out if you like.”

Lucy waited until she saw the angular figure wend its way to the barn. Then she broke into a laugh.

“The old fox! She did get me here to work for her,” she murmured aloud. “Anyway, I don’t have to stay unless I like; and I shan’t, 57 either. So, Aunt Ellen Webster, you’d better be careful how you treat me.”

With a defiant shake of her miniature fist in the direction her aunt had taken, Lucy turned to attack the duties before her. She washed the dishes and put them away; tripped upstairs and kneaded the billowy feather beds into smoothness; and humming happily, she swept and polished the house until it shone. She did such things well and delighted in the miracles her small hands wrought.

“Now for the eggs!” she exclaimed, opening the pantry door.

Yes, there were the empty cases, and there on the shelf were the eggs that waited to be packed,—dozens of them. It seemed at first glance as if there must be thousands.

“And she wouldn’t let me have one!” ejaculated the girl. “Well, I don’t want them. But I’m going to have an egg for breakfast whether she likes it or not. I’ll buy some. Then I can eat them without thanks to her. I have a little money, and I may as well spend part of it that way as not. I suppose it will annoy her; but I can’t help it. I’m not going to starve to death.”

During this half-humorous, half-angry 58 soliloquy, Lucy was packing the eggs for market, packing them with extreme care.

“I’d love to smash them all,” she declared, dimpling. “Wouldn’t it be fun! But I won’t. I’ll not break one if I can help it.”

The deft fingers successfully carried out this resolution. When Ellen returned from the garden at noontime, not only was the housework done, but the eggs were in the cases; the clothes swaying on the line; and the dinner steaming on the table. She was in high good humor.

“I forgot to ask you what you had planned for us to have this noon,” explained Lucy. “So I had to rummage through the refrigerator and use my own judgment.”

“Your judgment seems to have been pretty good.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“The Websters always had good judgment,” the woman observed, as she dropped wearily into a chair. “Yes, you’ve got together a very good meal. It’s most too good, though. Next time you needn’t get so much.”

Lucy regarded her aunt mischievously.

“Probably if I’d been all Webster I 59 shouldn’t have,” she remarked demurely. “But half of me, you see, is Duquesne, and the Duquesnes were generous providers.”

If Ellen sensed this jocose rebuke, she at least neither resented it nor paid the slightest heed to its innuendo.

“The Duquesnes?” she questioned.

“My mother was a Duquesne.”

“Oh, she was?”

“Didn’t you know that?”

“Yes, I reckon I did at the time your father married, but I’d forgot about it. Thomas an’ I didn’t write much to one another, an’ latterly I didn’t hear from him at all.”

“It was a pity.”

“I dunno as it made much difference,” Ellen said. “Likely he didn’t remember much about his home an’ his relations.”

“Yes, indeed he did,” cried Lucy eagerly. “He used to speak often of my grandparents and the old house, and he hoped I’d come East sometime and see the place where he had lived as a boy. As he grew older and was sick, I think his early home came to mean more to him than any other spot on earth.”

“Queer how it often takes folks to their dyin’ day to get any sense,” declared Ellen 60 caustically. “Where’d your father pick up your mother, anyway?”

Lucy did not answer.

“I mean where did he get acquainted with her?” amended Ellen hastily.

“You never heard the story?”

“No.”

“Oh, it was the sweetest thing,” began Lucy enthusiastically. “You see, Grandfather Duquesne owned a coal mine up in the mountains, and Dad worked for him. One day one of the cages used in going down into the mine got out of order, and Grandfather gave orders that it was to be fixed right away lest some accident occur and the men be injured. But through a misunderstanding the work was not done, and the next day the cage dropped and killed nine of the miners. Of course the men blamed poor Grandfather for the tragedy, and they marched to his house, intending to drag him out and lynch him. Dad knew the truth, however, and he rushed to the place and held the mob back with his pistol until he could tell them the real facts. At first they were so angry they refused to listen, but by and by they did, and instead of killing Grandfather they went and found the engineers who were to blame.” 61

Ellen waited.

“What did they do to them?” she demanded at last.

“Oh, they hung them instead of Grandfather,” answered Lucy simply.

“How many of them?”

“I don’t know. Three or four, I guess.”

It was evident that Lucy was quite indifferent to the fate of the unlucky engineers.

“Mercy on us!” Ellen gasped.

“But their carelessness caused the death of the other men. It was only fair.”

“So that’s the way you settle things in the West?”

“Yes. At least, they did then.”

The mountain-bred girl obviously saw nothing amiss in this swift-footed justice.

“And where did your mother come in?” asked her aunt.

“Why, you see, Grandfather Duquesne afterward made Dad the boss of the mine, and when Mother, a girl of sixteen, came home from the California convent, where she had been at school, she saw him and fell in love with him. Grandfather Duquesne made an awful fuss, but he let her marry him.” 62

Lucy threw back her head with one of her rippling laughs.

“He had to,” she added merrily. “Mother’d have married Dad anyway.”

Ellen studied the tea grounds in the bottom of her cup thoughtfully.

How strange it was to picture Thomas the hero of a romance like this! She had heard that once in his life every man became a poet; probably this was Thomas’s era of transformation.

Her reverie was broken by the gentle voice of Lucy, who observed:

“And that’s what I’d do, too.”

“What?” inquired Ellen vaguely. In her reverie about Thomas she had lost the connection.

“Marry the man I loved no matter what anybody said. Wouldn’t you?”

“I—I—don’t know,” stammered Ellen, getting to her feet with embarrassment at having a love affair thrust so intimately upon her. “Mebbe. I must go back now to Tony an’ the weedin’. When you get cleared up round here, there’s plenty of mendin’ to be done. You’ll find that hamper full of stockin’s to be darned.” 63

After Ellen had gone out, Lucy did not rise immediately from the table, but sat watching the clouds that foamed up behind the maples on the crest of the nearby hill. A glory of sunshine bathed the earth, and she could see the coral of the apple buds sway against the sky. It was no day to sit within doors and darn socks. All Nature beckoned, and to Lucy, used from birth to being in the open, the alluring gesture was irresistible.

With sudden resolve she sprang up, cleared away the confused remnants of the meal before her, dashed to her room for a scarlet sweater, and fled into the radiant world outside.

She followed the driveway until it joined the road, and then, after hesitating an instant, turned in the direction of the Howe farm. A mischievous light danced in her brown eyes, and a smile curved her lips.

The road along which she passed was bordered on either side by walls of gray stone covered with shiny-leaved ivy and flanked by a checkerboard of pastures roughly dotted with clumps of hardback and boles of protruding rock. Great brakes grew in the shady hollows, and from the woods beyond came the cool, moist perfume of moss and ferns. 64

The girl looked about her with delight. Then she began to sing softly to herself and jingle rhythmically the coins in her pocket.

It was nearly a quarter of a mile to the Howes’ gate, and by the time she reached it, her swinging step had given to her cheek a color that even the apple orchard could not rival.

A quick tap on the knocker brought Mary Howe to the door. She was tall, angular, and short-sighted, and she stood regarding her visitor inquisitively, her forehead lined by a network of wrinkles.

“Could you let me have a dozen eggs?” asked Lucy.

Mary looked at the girl in waiting silence.

“I am Miss Webster’s niece,” explained Lucy, with an appealing smile. “We live next door, you know. Aunt Ellen didn’t seem to have any eggs to spare, so——” she stopped, arrested by Mary’s expression.

“Maybe you don’t sell eggs,” she ventured.

“Yes, we do,” Mary contrived to articulate, “but I don’t know—I’m afraid——” She broke off helplessly in the midst of the disjointed sentence and, raising her voice, called: “Eliza, is Jane there?” 65

“She’s upstairs. I’ll fetch her down,” responded Eliza, coming to the door. “What is it?”

“It’s Miss Webster’s niece askin’ for eggs.”

“Miss Webster’s niece! Ellen Webster’s?”

The explanation had in it an intonation of terror.

“Yes.”

“My land, Mary! What shall we do? Martin will never——” the awed whisper ceased. “I’ll call Jane,” broke off Eliza hurriedly.

Lucy heard the messenger speed across the floor and run up the stairs.

“I’m afraid I’m making you a great deal of trouble,” she remarked apologetically.

“No.”

“Perhaps you haven’t any eggs to spare.”

Mary did not reply to the words; instead she continued to look with bewilderment at the girl on the doorstep.

“Did Miss Webster send you?” she at last inquired.

Lucy laughed.

“No, indeed,” she answered. “She didn’t even know I was coming. You see, I only 66 arrived from Arizona last night. I’ve come to live with my aunt. We didn’t seem to agree very well about breakfast this morning so I——”

“Oh!”

The explanation was pregnant with understanding.

“I just thought I’d feel more independent if I——”

A swish of skirts cut short the sentence, and in another moment all three of the Howe sisters were framed in the doorway.

Although a certain family resemblance was characteristic of them, they looked little alike. Eliza, it was true, was less angular than Mary and lacked her firmness of mouth and chin; but nevertheless the Howe stamp was upon her black hair, heavy, bushy brows, and noble cast of forehead. It was Jane’s face, touched by a humor the others could not boast, that instantly arrested Lucy’s attention. It was a fine, almost classic countenance which bespoke high thinking and a respect for its own soul. The eyes were gray and kindly, and in contrast to the undisguised dismay of her sisters, Jane’s attitude was one of unruffled composure. 67

“You want some eggs?” she began with directness.

“If you can spare a dozen.”

“I reckon we can.”

“Now, Jane——” interrupted Mary nervously.

“Do be careful, Jane,” chimed in Eliza.

“I have a right to——” but the resolute Jane was not permitted to finish her declaration.

“Martin won’t——” interpolated Mary.

“You know Martin will be dretful put out,” protested Eliza at the same instant.

“I can’t help it if he is,” asserted Jane impatiently. “I ain’t obliged to think as he does, am I?”

“He’ll be—oh, Jane!” Eliza implored.

“I’ll take all the blame.”

“I don’t know what he’ll say,” pleaded Mary.

“Well, I’m going to get the eggs, anyhow,” announced Jane, cutting short further argument by moving away.

During this enigmatic dialogue, Lucy’s mystified gaze traveled from the face of one woman to that of another. What was it all about? And who was this Martin that he should inspire such terror? 68

“I’m afraid,” she called to the retreating Jane, “you’d rather not——”

“It’s all right, my dear,” replied Jane cordially. “We’re glad to let you have the eggs. I’ll get them right away. It won’t take me a second.”

She disappeared behind the paneled door at the end of the hall, and presently Mary and Eliza, who had loitered irresolutely, uncertain whether to go or stay, followed her.

Left to herself, Lucy looked idly across the sunny landscape. Against the sky line at the top of the hill she could see a tall, masculine figure delving in the garden.

“That must be Martin-the-Terrible,” she observed. “He doesn’t look like such an ogre.”

The banging of the door heralded Jane’s approach. She held in her hand a neatly tied package, and over her shoulders peered Mary and Eliza.

“The eggs will be sixty-seven cents,” Jane said in a businesslike tone. “That is the regular market price. I’d carry the box this side up if I were you.”

Lucy counted the change into the woman’s palm. 69

“You have such a pretty home,” she murmured as she did so.

“We like it,” replied Jane pleasantly.

“I don’t wonder. The view from this porch is beautiful. Sometime I hope you’ll let me come over and see you.”

Lucy heard two faint simultaneous gasps.

“I’d be glad to have you,” came steadily from Jane.

“And I’d like you to come over and see me some day, too—all of you,” went on the girl.

“We don’t have much time for goin’ out,” returned Jane. “There’s such a lot to do that——” she stopped, appearing for the first time to be confused.

“I know there is,” Lucy assented serenely. “I am afraid I have kept you too long from your work as it is. You must forgive me. Thank you very much for the eggs.”

She extended a slender hand, which Jane grasped warmly. A smile passed between the two.

But as Lucy turned down the driveway and the door of the Howe homestead closed, a tragic babel of voices reached her ear, piping in shrill staccato the single word:

“Jane!”

70

CHAPTER V

A CLASH OF WILLS

When Lucy reached home she found her aunt in the sitting room bending disapprovingly over the basket of undarned stockings.

“I see you haven’t touched these,” she observed, in a chiding tone. “Where’ve you been?”

“I went to get some eggs.”

“Eggs! What for?”

“For my breakfast to-morrow. You said you couldn’t spare any, so I’ve bought some.”

“Where?”

The word expressed mingled wrath and wonder.

“Next door.”

The woman looked puzzled. She thought a moment.

“Where’d you say?” she asked after a pause.

“Next door—at the Howes’.” 71

“The Howes’!” Ellen fairly hissed the name. “You went to the Howes’ for eggs?”

“Why not?”

With a swift motion her aunt strode forward and snatched the box from Lucy’s light grasp.

“You went to the Howes—to the Howes—an’ told ’em I didn’t give you enough to eat?”

Livid, the woman crowded nearer, clutching the girl’s arm in a fierce, merciless grip; her blue eyes flashed, and her lips trembled with anger.

“I didn’t say you didn’t give me enough to eat,” explained Lucy, trying unsuccessfully to draw away from the cruel fingers that held her.

“What did you tell ’em?”

“I just said you couldn’t spare any eggs for us to use.”

“Spare eggs! I can spare all the eggs I like,” Ellen retorted. “I ain’t a pauper. If I chose I could eat every egg there is in that pantry.” She shook her niece viciously. “I only sell my eggs ’cause I’d rather,” she went on.

“I thought you said we couldn’t afford to have eggs when they where so high,” explained Lucy. “You said they were sixty-six cents a dozen.” 72

“I could afford to eat ’em if they was a dollar,” interrupted Ellen, her voice rising. “If they were two dollars!”

“I didn’t understand.”

“’Tain’t your business to understand,” snapped her aunt. “Your business is to do as I say. Think of your goin’ to the Howes—to the Howes of all people—an’ askin’ for eggs! It’ll be nuts for them. The Howes.” The circling fingers loosened weakly.

“I wonder,” she continued, “the Howes sold you any eggs. They wouldn’t ’a’ done it, you may be sure, but to spite me. I reckon they were only too glad to take the chance you offered ’em.”

“They weren’t glad,” protested Lucy indignantly. “They didn’t want to sell the eggs at all, at least two of them didn’t; but the one called Jane insisted on letting me have them.”

“What’d they say?”

“I couldn’t understand,” Lucy replied. “They seemed to be afraid of displeasing somebody called Martin. They said he wouldn’t like it.”

“Martin wouldn’t, eh?” Ellen gave a disagreeable chuckle. “They’re right there. 73 Martin won’t like it. They’ll be lucky if he doesn’t flay them alive for’ doin’ it.”

“But why, Aunt Ellen? Why?” inquired Lucy.

“Because the Howes hate us, root an’ branch; because they’ve injured an’ insulted us for generations, an’ are keepin’ right on injurin’ an’ insultin’ us. That’s why!” Ellen’s wrath, which had waned a little, again rose to a white heat. “Because they’d go any length to do us harm—every one of ’em.” Again the grip on Lucy’s arm tightened painfully.

Dragging the girl to the window the old woman cried:

“Do you see that pile of stones over there? That’s the wall the Howes built years an’ years ago—built because of the grudge they bore the Websters, likely. Did you ever look on such an eyesore?”

“Why don’t they fix it?” asked Lucy naively.

“Yes, why don’t they? You may well ask that!” returned Ellen with scathing bitterness. “Why don’t they? Because they’re too mean an’ stingy—that’s why. Because they think that by lettin’ it go to ruin an’ makin’ my place look like a dump heap, they can drive me 74 to spend my money to do it, so’st they can save theirs. Because they’re such lyin’, deceitful critters they actually pretend the wall don’t belong to ’em anyhow—that it’s mine! Mine! That’s why. So they leave it there, lookin’ like the devil’s own playground, hopin’ that some day I’ll get so sick of seem’ it that way that I’ll build it up.”

She choked for breath.

“But I shan’t,” she went on. “I never shall, long’s I live. If I was to be drawn an’ quartered I wouldn’t do it. No. If Martin Howe thinks he’s the only person in the world who can hold out for a principle, he’s mistaken. I’ve got a will that can match his, match his an’ beat it, too, an’ he’ll learn it sometime. I can put up with seein’ that wall just as long as he can.”

A light of understanding began to break in on Lucy’s bewilderment.

“I don’t see——” she began, then halted before her aunt’s stern gaze.

“You don’t see what? Out with it.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t build it up together.”

“You don’t!” sneered Ellen contemptuously, “You’d help those Howes fix their 75 wall, I s’pose, same’s you’d go an’ buy their eggs.”

The withering intonation of the words echoed through the room.

“I’m goin’ to tell you right now, Lucy Webster, that if you have a spark of pride, an atom of regard for your father, your grandfather, or your great-grandfather, you’ll put all such notions as that plumb out of your head. You’ll have no dealin’s with the Howes. You’ll just hate ’em as your folks have always hated ’em; an’ you’ll vow from now on that if Heaven ever gives you the chance you’ll get even with ’em.” The tense voice ceased.

Through the stillness the whispers of the great elm on the lawn could be heard blending with the song of a vesper sparrow. Already twilight had folded the valley in mystery until only the peaks of the hills were tipped with light.

Contrasted with the peace of the night, man’s strivings seemed peculiarly out of harmony. But to Ellen’s heart the scene brought no tranquillity.

“Now you know what your duty is,” she concluded, with a final vindictive outburst. 76

“If it is my duty,” the girl answered, her eyes still upon the distant landscape.

“Of course it’s your duty. There ain’t no question about that.”

“Each of us must settle with his own conscience what his duty is,” Lucy observed slowly.

“Not if it’s been handed down to him,” put in Ellen quickly. “I guess your duty’s chalked out for you pretty plain; an’ I reckon if you’re any sort of a Webster you’ll do it an’ not go branchin’ off followin’ notions of your own—not after all these years.”

“I don’t believe in keeping up traditions unless they are good ones.”

The older woman’s lips tightened.

“You mean you’d break off from what your folks thought?”

“If I felt it to be right, yes.”

Ellen drew a quick, impatient breath.

“You mean to say you’d set yourself up as knowin’ mor’n your people before you did?”

“I believe each generation grows wiser, or ought to—wiser and kinder.”

“Kindness has nothin’ to do with it.”

“Yes, it has,” persisted Lucy softly. “Unless we become more kind, how is the world ever to become better?” 77

“Pish!” ejaculated Ellen. “Now see here. You ain’t comin’ into my house to preach to me. I’m older’n you, an’ I know without bein’ told what I want to do. So long’s you stay under this roof you’ll behave like a Webster—that’s all I’ve got to say. If you ain’t a-goin’ to be a Webster an’ prefer to disgrace your kin, the sooner you get out the better.”

“Very well. I can go.”

There was no bravado in the assertion. Had there been, Ellen would not have felt so much alarmed. It was the fearless sincerity of the remark that frightened her. She had not intended to force a crisis. She had calculated that her bullying tone would cow rather than antagonize her niece. The last result on which she had reckoned was defiance. Instantly her crafty mind recognized that she must conciliate unless she would lose this valuable helper whose toil could be secured without expense.

“Of course I don’t mean—I wouldn’t want you should go away,” she hastened to declare. “I’m just anxious for you to do—well—what’s right,” she concluded lamely.

Lucy saw her advantage.

“Now, Aunt Ellen, we may as well settle this right now,” she asserted. “I am quite 78 willing to go back to Arizona any time you say the word. I have no desire to remain where I am not wanted. But so long as I do stay here, I must be the one to decide what it is right for me to do. Remember, I am not a child. I have a conscience as well as you, and I am old enough to use it.”

Ellen did not speak. She realized that Greek had met Greek and in the combat of wills she was vanquished. Nevertheless, she was not generous enough to own defeat.

“S’pose we don’t talk about it any more,” she replied diplomatically.

She was retreating toward the door, still smarting under the knowledge of having been vanquished, when her eye fell upon the box of eggs, which, in her excitement, she had forgotten was in her hand. A malicious gleam lighted her face. A second afterward there was a violent crash in the kitchen.

“The eggs!” Lucy heard her cry. “I’ve dropped ’em.”

The eggs had indeed been dropped,—dropped with such a force that even the cooperation of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would have been useless.

When Lucy reached her side Ellen was 79 bending over the wreck on the floor, a sly smile on her lips.

“They’re gone, every one of ’em,” she announced with feigned regret. “But it ain’t any matter. You can have all, the eggs you want anytime you want ’em. I ain’t so poverty-stricken that we can’t have eggs—even if they are sixty-six cents a dozen.”

She got a cloth and began to wipe up the unsightly mass at her feet.

“I paid sixty-seven cents for those,” Lucy said.

“Sixty-seven cents! How long have the Howes been gettin’ sixty-seven cents for their eggs, I’d like to know?” Ellen demanded, springing into an upright position.

“I couldn’t say. Jane told me that was the regular market price.”

“Why didn’t I know it?” her aunt burst out. “They must ’a’ gone up a cent, an’ I sellin’ mine at the store for sixty-six! Ain’t it just like that meachin’ Elias Barnes to do me out of a penny a dozen, the skinflint.”

In the face of the present issue, the battle between Howe and Webster was forgotten.

To be cheated out of a cent by Elias Barnes and at the same time to have her business 80 ability surpassed by that of Martin Howe! No indignity could have equaled it.

“Well, I’ll get even with Elias,” she blustered. “I’m fattening some hogs for him, an’ I’ll tuck what I’ve lost on the eggs right on to ’em. He shall pay that cent one way or ’nother ’fore he gets through. He needs to think to beat me. Sixty-seven cents, and I never knowin’ it!”

Then the words brought still another bitter possibility to the woman’s mind.

“You didn’t mention to the Howes I was gettin’ only sixty-six cents a dozen for eggs, did you?” she asked, wheeling on Lucy.

“No, I didn’t speak of price.”

“That’s good,” said her aunt, slightly mollified. “At least Martin Howe can’t go crowin’ over me—that is, unless Elias Barnes tells him. ’Twould be exactly like Elias to do it. He is just that mean.”

Although Ellen did not own it, Lucy knew that had the case been reversed, she would have been the first to crow unhesitatingly not only over Elias but over Martin. Pityingly she looked at the old woman.

“If you ever get the chance to speak to those Howe women again,” her aunt concluded, with 81 affected nonchalance, “you might tell ’em we never used their eggs. You could say I smashed ’em. I’d like Martin Howe to know it.”

82

CHAPTER VI

ELLEN ENCOUNTERS AN ENIGMA

Nevertheless, in spite of this bellicose admonition, Lucy had no opportunity during the next few weeks to deliver to the Howes her aunt’s message, for Ellen, feeling that she was now blessed with an able assistant whose time must not be wasted, seized upon the mild May weather to deluge her home from top to bottom with soapsuds, sapolio, and fresh paint. From morning until night Lucy worked, scrubbing and scouring, brushing and beating.

As she toiled up the stairs, carrying pails of steaming water, she caught through the windows glimpses of the valley, its verdant depths threaded by the river’s silvery windings. The heavens had never been bluer. Everywhere gladness was in the air, and the thrill of it filled the girl with longing to be in the heart of its magic.

Ellen, however, was entirely oblivious to the 83 miracle taking place in the universe about her. The glory of the awakening season, with its hosts of unfurling leaves and opening buds, was nothing to her. Had she not been dependent on the sun to make her garden grow, she would probably never have lifted her face to its golden rays. Only as nature furthered her projects did she acknowledge its presence.

The Howes seemed, to some extent at least, to share this disregard for the out-of-door world, for like Ellen they, too, surrendered themselves to a household upheaval quite as merciless as that of the Websters. No sooner would Martin disappear with horse and plow in the direction of the garden than the three sisters could be seen feverishly dragging mattresses on to the piazza roof for a sunning; shaking blankets; and beating rugs.

Now and then, when the sound of their measured blows reached Ellen’s ears, she would leap to close the windows on the side of the house where there was danger of the Howe germs drifting in and polluting the Webster Lares and Penates.

It was one day after being thus impelled that Lucy was surprised to see her linger and stare intently. 84

“What are them women a-doin’?” she exclaimed at last. “Do come here, Lucy.”

Discarding her mop, the girl crossed the room.

Through the gaps in the trees Mary, Eliza, and Jane Howe were plainly visible. They had shovels in their hands and were struggling with the turf at the foot of the big linden tree beside the house.

“They seem to be digging a hole,” Lucy said, after watching a moment.

“What for, do you suppose?”

Ellen fidgeted at the casement for a short time and then disappeared, only to return with an old pair of field glasses. Adjusting them to her eyes, she stared at her neighbors with unconcealed curiosity.

“They are diggin’ a hole,” she declared presently. “A good deep one; whatever can they be settin’ out to do?”

For an interval she looked on with interest. Then suddenly she exclaimed in an excited voice:

“They’re goin’ to bury somethin’! My land! What do you s’pose it is? Somethin’ all done up in a bag!” She forced the binoculars 85 into Lucy’s hand. “You look and see if you can’t make out.”

Lucy scanned the scene with mild inquisitiveness.

“They have a canvas sack,” she said, “and evidently they are trying to bury it.”

She handed the glass back to Ellen.

“They act as if they were in an almighty hurry,” observed Ellen, as she looked. “They keep watchin’ to see if anybody’s comin’. Likely they’re afraid Martin will catch ’em. I wish he would. What do you reckon is in that bag? I’d give worlds to know.”

“I can’t imagine.”

Lucy had returned to her cleaning and was busy wringing out the mop. The doings of the women next door failed to interest her. But not so Ellen who, tense with speculation, hovered at the casement.

“They’ve got the hole dug,” she announced triumphantly, “an’ they’re lowerin’ the bag into it. It must be heavy ’cause they seem to be havin’ a hard time lettin’ it down in. They act as if they were afraid to touch the thing. What can it be?” she repeated for the twentieth time.

“I don’t know,” Lucy replied wearily. 86

She was tired and hungry and wished Ellen would abandon spying on her neighbors and give her a helping hand.

“Yes,” commented Ellen from the window, “those women handle that bag as if they had a chiny image in it. I can’t for the life of me figger out what can be in it.”

For an interval there was silence. Lucy set the mop and pail out in the hall and began to clean the paint.

“They’ve started to cover it up,” chronicled Ellen, after a pause. “They’re shovelin’ in the dirt—at least Mary and Jane are; Eliza’s stopped helpin’ ’em an’ gone to see if anybody’s comin’. There’s somethin’ dretful queer about it all. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know,” answered Lucy a trifle impatiently.

Again Ellen studied the distance.

“Look!” she cried an instant later. “Look! ’Liza’s callin’ an’ motionin’ to ’em. They’re droppin’ their shovels and runnin’ for the house like a lot of scared sheep. Probably Martin’s comin’, an’ they don’t want him to catch ’em. There! What did I tell you? It is Martin. I can see him drivin’ over the hill. Watch ’em skitter!” 87

Lured more by the desire to see Martin than to observe his panic-stricken sisters, Lucy went to the window. It was even as Ellen had said. There were the retreating forms of the three female Howes disappearing in at the side door; and there was Martin, his tall figure looming in sight at the heels of his bay mare.

“He’s a fine looking man, isn’t he?” Lucy remarked with thoughtless impulsiveness.

“What!”

“I say he is fine looking,” repeated the girl. “What broad shoulders he has, and how magnificently he carries his head!”

“You call that fine looking, do you?” sniffed her aunt.

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“Martin Howe ain’t my style of man.”

“But he’s so strong and splendid!”

“I never saw a splendid Howe yet,” was Ellen’s icy retort.

She turned from the window, took up a cloth, and went to scrubbing the paint viciously.

Lucy, realizing the tactlessness of her observation, tried by light, good-humored chatter to efface its memory; but all attempts to blot it from her aunt’s mind were useless, and the 88 relations between the two women remained strained for the rest of the day. So strained and uncomfortable were they that Lucy, wearied out by her hard work, was only too glad to bid Ellen good night and seek her own room early.

Through its windows long shafts of moonlight fell across the floor, flecking it with jagged, grotesque images of the trees outside. Once alone, she did not immediately start to undress, but lingered thoughtfully looking out into the night. Every muscle in her body ached, and in her heart was a sinking loneliness. For the first time since her arrival at Sefton Falls she surrendered herself to the distaste she felt toward her aunt and her surroundings. Could she stay, she asked herself. The narrowness of the environment raised an issue vital enough; nevertheless, grave as it was, it sank into insignificance when weighed against the vastly more potent factor of Ellen’s personality. The girl had come east with the intention of nursing and caring for her father’s sister. She felt he would have wished her to come; and casting every other inclination aside, she had obeyed what seemed to her the voice of duty. But she had been misled, disappointed. 89 None of her father’s kindliness lurked in this embittered, malicious-matured woman, toward whom, although bound by ties of blood, she felt neither respect nor affection. Nor did her aunt need her. After all, was it her duty to remain and waste her youth to no purpose? Could she face the horror of a stretch of years that held in them no human sympathy? What should she do? What ought she to do? Should she go or stay?

As she lingered in the darkness, her weary head heavy against the window frame, she wrestled with the future and conscientiously tried to reach some conclusion. She was eager to do what was right. Had Ellen been sick or feeble, as she had been led to suppose, she would not have questioned leaving her, querulous and tyrannical though she was. But this woman was all-sufficient and needed no one. Why should she bury her life in this cruel, rancorous atmosphere? Would her own sweetness survive the daily companionship of such a person; rather, dominated by Ellen’s powerful character, might she not become inoculated by its poison and herself harden into a being as merciless and self-centered? So deep was her reverie that she did not hear the tap upon the 90 door. A second afterward the knob turned softly and her aunt entered.

“You ain’t in bed?” she inquired in a high-pitched whisper.

“No.”

“That’s lucky, I hoped you wouldn’t be. Come in my room quick. I want you should see what the Howes are doin’. They’re out fussin’ again over that thing they buried this afternoon.” Ellen was obviously excited.

Sure enough! From the window that looked toward the Howe farm, three figures could be seen in the silvery light, grouped together beneath the old linden. They were armed, as before, with shovels, and all of them were digging.

“It doesn’t look as if they were filling in the hole,” Lucy remarked, interested in spite of herself. “They seem to be digging up what they buried.”

“That’s just what I thought,” responded Ellen.

“Yes, they are shoveling the dirt out again,” declared the girl.

For quite a while the two stood watching the frenzied movements of their neighbors.

Then Ellen gave a cry. 91

“See! See!” she ejaculated. “They’re histin’ the bag out. Did you ever see such doin’s? I’d give my soul to know what they’re up to. Nothin’ good, you may be sure of that—or they wouldn’t take the dead of night to do it. There, they’ve got the thing out now, and two of ’em are tugging it off between ’em. The other one’s fillin’ in the hole and trampin’ down the earth. Seem’s if I’d simply have to go over there an’ find out what it’s all about!”

Lucy smiled at her aunt’s exasperated tone.

“Why don’t you?” she asked mischievously.

Ellen gave a short laugh.

“The only way the Howes will ever get me on their land will be to chloroform me,” said she grimly. “But I should like to know before I go to bed what they’ve been doin’. I s’pose it’s no use to set up any longer, though, tryin’ to figure it out. We’d both better go to sleep. Good night.”

“Good night,” Lucy returned.

Only too glad to escape, she hurried back to her own room, slipped out of her clothes, and was soon lost in heavy, dreamless slumber.

The day had been a strenuous one, and she was very tired, so tired that she might not have been awakened promptly had she not stirred 92 in her sleep and become dimly conscious of a flood of radiance upon her pillow. The morning sunshine was brilliant in the chamber, and standing in its circle of gold she beheld Ellen.

“It’s six o’clock,” she announced breathlessly, “an’ I want you should get right up. Martin Howe’s gone off to the village in his wagon, an’ I can’t help a-thinkin’ that now he’s out of the way them sisters of his will start doin’ somethin’ more with that bag.”

“What bag?” yawned Lucy sleepily.

“Why, the bag they were buryin’ last night.”

“Oh, yes.”

Slowly the girl’s latent faculties aroused themselves.

“You hurry up and dress while I go and watch,” panted Ellen. “Be quick’s you can, or we may miss somethin’.”

She went out, closing the door; but in a few moments her niece heard her shrill call:

“They’re comin’ out with it! What’d I tell you? Two of ’em have got it, carryin’ it across the lawn. Ain’t you ’most dressed?”

“Yes, I’m coming.”

Fastening her belt as she went, Lucy hurried to her aunt’s side. 93

Amid the sparkling, dew-kissed glory of early morning, she could plainly see the three Howes making their way through the wet grass in the direction of their pasture.

“Bless me! if they don’t mean to sink it in the brook!” whispered Ellen. “Oh, I never can stand this. I’ve got to foller ’em an’ find out what they’re doin’.”

“You wouldn’t!” exclaimed Lucy in dismay.

“Indeed I would,” her aunt retorted. “I’d go to any length to see what’s in that bag. If they were younger——” she broke off abruptly. “Anyhow, it’s somethin’ they’re ashamed of, I’m certain of that. They couldn’t ’a’ murdered anybody, I s’pose. Bad’s I hate ’em, I’d hardly think they’re that wicked. Still what can it be?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Well, I’m goin’ to track ’em down, anyhow,” Ellen announced. “Ain’t you comin’?”

“No.”

To spy on the actions of others did not appeal to the younger woman’s honest mind.

“You can get breakfast while I’m gone then,” Ellen said, catching up her coat, “and if I don’t come back pretty soon, you go ahead 94 and eat yours. I’d a thousand times rather ferret out what those Howes are tryin’ to bury than eat. I’d be willin’ to starve to do it.”

95

CHAPTER VII

THE UNRAVELING OF THE MYSTERY

LEFT to herself Lucy stood for an instant watching her aunt’s resolute figure make its way under the fringe of lilacs that bordered the driveway. Then she turned her attention to preparing breakfast, and the Howes and their mysterious doings were forgotten.

In the meantime Ellen walked on, skirting the shelter of the hedge until she came into the lee of a clump of elder bushes growing along the margin of the brook at the juncture of the Howe and Webster land. Here she secreted herself and waited.

The brook was quite deep at this point and now, swollen by the snows that had recently melted on the hillsides, purled its path down to the valley in a series of cascades that rippled, foamed, and tinkled merrily.

As she stood concealed beside it, its laughter so outrivaled every other sound that she had difficulty in discerning the Howes’ approaching 96 tread, and it was not until the distinct crackle of underbrush reached her ear that she became aware they were approaching. She peered through the bushes.

Yes, there they were, all three of them; and there, firm in their grasp, was the mysterious bag.

It was not large, but apparently it was heavy, and they handled it with extreme care.

“Let’s put it down,” puffed Mary, who was flushed and heated, “an’ look for a good deep place. Ain’t you tired, ’Liza?”

“I ain’t so tired as hot,” Eliza answered. “Warn’t it just providential Martin took it into his head to go to the village this mornin’? I can’t but think of it.”

“It was the luckiest thing I ever knew,” assented Mary. “I don’t know what we’d ’a’ done with this thing round the house another day. I’d ’a’ gone clean out of my mind.”

“I still can’t understand why we couldn’t ’a’ left it buried,” Eliza fretted.

“I explained why to you last night,” Jane answered, speaking for the first time. “There warn’t a spot on the place that Martin might not go to diggin’ or plowin’ up sometime. He 97 might even ’a’ dug round the roots of the linden for somethin’. Ain’t he always fertilizin’ an’ irrigatin’? I didn’t dare leave the bag there. If he’d ’a’ gone stickin’ a pick or a shovel into it sudden——”

“I see,” interrupted Eliza. “’Twas stupid of me not to understand before. ’Course that wouldn’t do. Yes, I guess you were right. There ain’t much to do but sink it in the brook. Would you ’a’ dreamed there could be anything in the world so hard to get rid of? All I’ve got to say is I hope neither Martin nor old Miss Webster finds it. What do you s’pose they’d say?”

“I wouldn’t want Martin to come on to it unexpected. ’Twould worry me to death.” Eliza shuddered.

“But you don’t care about old Miss Webster,” Jane observed with a laugh.

“I never wished Miss Webster ill, goodness knows that,” returned Eliza gravely. “None of us ever did ’cept Martin, an’ he’s got no business to. I s’pose he’d like nothin’ better than to have her run across this thing. You don’t s’pose there’s any danger that she will, do you, Jane?”

“Danger of her findin’ it?” 98

“No. I mean danger of her gettin’ hurt with it,” explained Eliza timidly.

“Mercy, no. How could it harm her if it was wet?”

“I dunno,” whimpered Eliza. “I’m so scat of such things.”

“Well, it’s certainly made us trouble enough!” put in Mary, with a sigh. “I’ve felt like a criminal ever since the thing came to light. It’s seemed as if we’d never get rid of it.”

Jane smiled. “I know it,” she said. “Who’d ’a’ believed ’twould be so hard. When I think what we’ve been through tryin’ to make way with it, I wonder folks ever are wicked. It’s so much trouble. ’Tain’t half as easy as it looks. You’ve got to have your wits about you every second. This affair’s taught me that. Ain’t I been all over the face of the earth tryin’ to find a safe place to hide this pesky bag! First I tried the mountain. Then I was afraid the woodcutters might find it, so I had to cart it home again. Then it come to me to drive down to the river and dump it in. Anybody’d have said that was simple enough. But halfway there, I met Elias Barnes walkin’ to the village, an’ he asked for a ride. I s’pose 99 he couldn’t see why I couldn’t take him in; I had an empty seat an’ had often done it before, so I had to. But when he started lightin’ up his pipe——”

“What did you do, Jane?” cried Mary.

“I guess I nearly screamed,” answered Jane, laughing. “He looked some surprised; anyhow, I told him I just remembered somethin’ I’d left behind, an’ I drew up an’ put him down quicker’n chain lightnin’. Then I turned round and drove off lickety-split for home, leaving him stock still in the middle of the road starin’ after me.”

“You showed good nerve, Jane, I’ll say that,” Mary declared with open admiration.

“Now if it had been me, I’d ’a’ just given the whole thing away. I ain’t no good at thinkin’ quick.”

“Well, we ain’t got to think about it any more, thank goodness,” Jane exclaimed, rising from the grass and laying a hand on the bag. “Let’s put an end to the whole thing now and go home. Take a holt of the other end, and we’ll flop it in.”

“Wait!” Eliza protested, seized by a sudden idea.

“Well.” 100

“You don’t s’pose there’ll be any danger ’bout the cows drinkin’ here, do you?” Eliza inquired anxiously. “They do drink here, you know, and in the summer, when the water’s low, they often wade right in. If they was to——”

She stopped.

“I never thought of that,” Jane said in a discouraged tone. “Oh, my land, what are we going to do with it?”

She let the bag sink to the ground and, straightening herself up, confronted her sisters. “We’ve simply got to get it off our hands before Martin gets back.”

“Oh, yes, yes!” pleaded Mary, affrighted. “Do something with it, Jane, no matter what. I never could stand it to have it carted back to the house and hidden there. ’Tain’t safe. Besides, in these days of German spies, ’twould be an awful thing to be found on us. S’pose the house was to be searched. We never could make the police believe how we came to have it. They might take us and shut us all up in prison—Martin and all.”

Her voice shook with terror.

“I guess they wouldn’t go arrestin’ us, Mary,” declared Jane soothingly. “Still, I 101 agree with you that it’s just as well for us to be clear of such a thing; let me think.”

While she stood meditating her two sisters watched her with perturbed faces.

“Ellen Webster’s cows don’t come up to this end of the pasture much, do they?” she remarked at last.

“No. Leastways I’ve never seen ’em here,” replied Mary.

“Then why don’t we sink the bag just across the wall?”

“On her land?” gasped Eliza.

“It wouldn’t do any harm,” argued Jane. “She never comes up here, nor her cows nor horses either. We’ll climb right over and dump the thing in. That’ll settle Martin’s ever finding it, an’ everythin’.”

“But s’pose——” Eliza objected once more.

“Oh, ’Liza, we can’t stay here s’posin’ all day!” Jane declared decisively. “We got to put this bag somewheres, an’ there ain’t any spot that ain’t got some out about it. We must take a chance on the best one we can find.”

“I’m frightened to death!” wailed Eliza.

“So’m I!” Mary echoed. “Oh, Jane!”

“No matter. Pull yourself together,” 102 ordered Jane sharply. “You two take a hold of the bag an’ bring it along, while I climb the wall.”

Ellen, stooping behind the elderberry bushes, held her breath. She saw Jane clamber over the barrier and help Mary and Eliza to mount it and lower the sack into her hands; then, just when the three invaders were all ready to drop their mysterious gray burden into the stream, she stepped noiselessly into the open and said loudly:

“What you doin’ in my brook?”

A cry rose from the two more timorous Howes, and even Jane paled a little.

“What are you sinkin’ in my brook?” repeated Ellen.

No answer came. Angered by their silence, the woman stepped nearer.

“What you got in that bag?” she demanded sternly.

Still there was no reply.

“You ain’t got nothin’ good in it, I’ll be bound,” went on the tormentor. “If you had, you wouldn’t be so mighty anxious to get rid of it. Come now, long’s you’re intendin’ to heave it into the water on my side of the wall, s’pose you let me have a peep inside it.” 103

Striding forward, she seized a corner of the canvas roughly in her hand.

There was a scream from the three Howes.

“Don’t touch it!”

“Keep away!”

“You’d better leave it be, Miss Webster,” Jane said in a warning voice. “It’s gunpowder.”

“Gunpowder!” repeated Ellen.

“Yes.”

“An’ what, may I ask, are you doin’ with a bag of gunpowder in my brook? Plannin’ to blow up my cows, I reckon.”

“No! No, indeed we’re not!” protested Mary.

“We wouldn’t hurt your cows for anything, Miss Webster,” put in Eliza.

“Humph! You wouldn’t? Still you don’t hesitate to dam my brook up with enough gunpowder to blow all my cattle higher’n a kite.”

“We were only tryin’ to——” began Mary; but Jane swept her aside.

“Hush, Mary,” she said. “You an’ ’Liza keep still an’ let me do the talkin’.”

Drawing herself to her full height she faced Ellen’s evil smile.

“The day before yesterday, when we were 104 cleanin’ the attic, we found a little door under the eaves that we’d never come across before,” she began desperately. “We discovered it when we were movin’ out a big chest that’s always stood there. We were sweepin’ behind all the trunks an’ things, an’ long’s we were, we decided to sweep behind that. ’Twas then we spied the door. Of course we were curious to know where it went to, an’ so we pried it open, an’ inside we found this bag together with an old rusty rifle. It must ’a’ been there years, judgin’ from the dust an’ cobwebs collected on it. We were pretty scared of the gun,” declared Jane, smiling reminiscently, “but we were scared a good sight worse when after draggin’ the bag out we saw ’twas marked Gunpowder.”

She waited an instant.

“We didn’t know what to do with it,” she went on, speaking more hesitatingly, “because you see my brother doesn’t like us to turn the house upside-down with cleanin’; he hates havin’ things disturbed; an’ we were afraid he would be put out to find what we’d done. So we decided to wait till some time when he wasn’t round an’ make way with it.”

Jane caught her breath. 105

“We’ve tried lots of ways,” she confessed wearily, “but none of ’em seemed to work. First I thought of hidin’ it up near Pine Ridge, but I was afraid some woodsman might happen on it; then I started to take it down to the river in our wagon; but Elias Barnes would get in an’ light his pipe, and I was so afraid a spark from it might——”

“I wish it had!” interpolated Ellen Webster with fervor.

“In order to get rid of him I had to turn round an’ come back,” narrated Jane, paying no heed to the interruption. “Then we tried to bury it, but afterward we dug it up for fear Martin might plow it up sometime an’ get——”

“’Twould ’a’ been an almighty good joke if he had!” again piped Ellen.

“So there didn’t seem to be any other way,” concluded Jane with dignity, “but to drop it in the brook; an’, as you never seemed to use this end of your pasture, we decided to sink it here.”

The narrative was true, every word of it. Ellen knew that. No one who looked into Jane Howe’s frank face could have doubted the story. 106

But Ellen was an ungenerous enemy who saw in the present happening an opportunity to put a screw upon those who had been thus compelled to throw themselves upon her mercy.

“So! That’s how you lie out of it, is it?” she cried scornfully. “An’ you expect me to believe a yarn like that! Do you s’pose I don’t know this country’s at war, an’ that the authorities are on the lookout for folks concealin’ gunpowder in their houses? How do I know you weren’t goin’ to make the stuff into bombs, or carry it somewheres an’ blow up somethin’ or other with it?”

“Indeed, oh, indeed we weren’t,” Mary cried, thoroughly alarmed.

“Oh, what shall we do!” Eliza sobbed, wringing her hands.

“Nonsense,” cut in Jane. “You know perfectly well, Miss Webster, we ain’t no German plotters. I’m sorry——”

“You’re sorry I caught you before you had a chance to drop that bag in my brook,” said Ellen, a twinkle in her eye. “I’ll bet you are. Have you thought that I can have you arrested for trespassing on my land?”

“Oh, Jane!”

The horrified voices of Mary and Jane 107 greeted with concern this new danger. Ellen was exulting in her triumph.

“You can, of course, have us arrested if you wish to,” said Jane.

“Well, I ain’t a-goin’ to—at least I ain’t, on one condition. An’ I’ll promise not to give you over to the police as spies, neither, if you do as I say.”

“What do you want us to do?” inquired Mary and Eliza breathlessly.

Jane was silent.

“Mebbe you’d like to know the condition,” sneered the old woman, addressing Jane.

She waited for a reply, but none came. Ellen looked baffled.

“You’d better accept the chance I give you to buy yourself off,” she said.

“That is my affair.”

“Do, Jane! Do promise,” begged Mary and Eliza. “Please do, for our sakes.”

“Very well,” Jane returned. “But I only do it to protect my sisters. What is the condition?”

With head thrown back she faced Ellen coldly.

“The condition is that you take that bag of gunpowder back home to your brother Martin 108 an’ tell him Ellen Webster sent it to him with her compliments. He can use it blastin’ out stones to fix up his stone wall.”

Then, with a taunting laugh, the woman turned and without more adieu disappeared in the direction of the Webster homestead, leaving a speechless trio of chagrined Howes behind her.

109

CHAPTER VIII

WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY

May came and went, and June, rich in days of splendor, made its advent, and still Lucy caught only fleeting glimpses of the Howes.

Martin, to be sure, was daily abroad, toiling with the zest of an Amazon in garden and hay-field. Against the homely background of stubble or brown earth, his sturdy form stood out with the beauty of a Millet painting. But his sisters held themselves aloof, avoiding all possibility of contact with their neighbors.

Doubtless the encounter with Ellen had left its scar; for against their will they had been compelled to take up the sack of powder and tug it homeward; and then, in compliance with their promise, deliver it over to Martin who had first ridiculed their adventure; then berated them; and in the end set the explosive off so near the Webster border line that its defiant boom had rattled every pane of glass in the old house. 110

Ellen had chuckled at this spirited climax to the episode. It was like Martin, she said. But Lucy regretted the whole affair and found difficulty in applauding her aunt’s dramatic imitation of the affrighted Howes and their final ignominious retreat. Of course it was only to be expected that the women next door should resent the incident and that they should include her, innocent though she was, in this resentment. Nevertheless, it was a pity that the avenue to further friendly advances between herself and them should be so summarily closed.

Lucy was very lonely. Having been the center of a large and noisy household and received a disproportionate degree of homage from her father’s employees, the transition from sovereign to slave was overwhelming. She did not, however, rebel at the labor her new environment entailed, but she did chafe beneath its slavery. Nevertheless, her captivity, much as it irked her, was of only trivial importance when compared with the greater evil of being completely isolated from all sympathetic companionship. Between herself and her aunt there existed such an utter lack of unity of principle that the chasm thereby 111 created was one which she saw with despair it would never be possible to bridge. Had the gulf been merely one of tastes and inclinations, it would not have been so hopeless. But to realize they had no standards in common and that the only tie that bound them together was the frail thread of kinship was a disheartening outlook indeed.

It was true that as time went on this link strengthened, for Ellen developed a brusque liking for her niece, even a shamefaced and unacknowledged respect. Notwithstanding this, however, the fundamentals that guided the actions of the two remained as divergent as before, and beyond discussions concerning garden and home, a few anecdotes relating to the past, and a crisp and not too delicate jest when the elder woman was in the humor, their intercourse glanced merely along the shallows.

Over and over, when alone, Lucy asked herself why she stayed on at Sefton Falls to sacrifice her life on the altar of family loyalty. Was not her youth being spent to glorify an empty fetish which brought to no one any real good?

But the query always brought her back to the facts of her aunt’s friendlessness and 112 infirmity. For defy Time as she would, Ellen was old and was rapidly becoming older. Whether with the arrival of a younger and more energetic person she was voluntarily relinquishing her hold on her customary tasks, or whether a sudden collapse of her vitality forced her to do so, Lucy could not determine; nevertheless, it was perfectly apparent that she daily attacked her duties more laggingly and complained less loudly when things were left undone.

When, however, Lucy tried to supplement her diminishing strength by offers of aid, Ellen was quick to resent the imputation that she was any less robust than she had been in the past, and in consequence the girl confronted the delicate problem of trying to help without appearing to do so.

Parallel with this lessening of physical zeal ran an exaggerated nervous irritability very hard to bear. Beneath the lash of her aunt’s cruel tongue Lucy often writhed, quivered, and sometimes wept; but she struggled to keep her hold on her patience. Ellen was old, she told herself, and the self-centered life she had led had embittered her. Moreover, she was approaching the termination of her days, and to 113 a nature like hers the realization that there was no escape from her final surrender to Death filled her with impotent rage. She had always conquered; but now something loomed in her path which it was futile and childish to seek to defy.

Therefore, difficult as was Lucy’s present existence, she put behind her all temptation to desert this solitary woman and leave her to die alone. Was not Ellen her father’s sister, and would he not wish his daughter to be loyal to the trust it had fallen to her to fulfill? Was she not, as a Webster, in honor bound to do so?

In the meantime, as if to intensify this sense of family obligation, Lucy discovered that she was acquiring a growing affection for the home which for generations had been the property of her ancestors. The substantial mansion, with its colonial doorways surmounted by spreading fans of glass, its multi-paned windows and its great square chimney, must once have breathed the very essence of hospitality, and it did so still, even though closed blinds and barred entrances combined to repress its original spirit. Already the giant elm before the door had for her a significance quite different 114 from that of any other tree; so, too, had the valley with its shifting lights. She loved the music of the brook, the rock-pierced pasture land, the minarets of the spruces that crowned the hills. The faintly definable mountains, blue against the far-off sky, endeared themselves to her heart, weakening her allegiance to the barren country of her birth and binding her to this other home by the magic of their enchantment.

Here was the spot where her forefathers had lived and toiled. Here were the orchards they had planted, the fields they had tilled, the streams they had fished, the hills they had climbed; and here was the house built by their hands, the chairs in which they had rested, the beds in which they had slept. Her former life had contained none of these elements of permanence. On the contrary, much of the time she had been a nomad, the mining settlements that gave her shelter being frankly regarded as temporary halting places to be abandoned whenever their usefulness should become exhausted.

But here, with the everlasting hills as a foundation, was a home that had been and should be. Tradition breathed from the very 115 soil, and Lucy’s veneration for the past was deep-rooted. Therefore, despite her aunt’s acrimonious disposition, the opposition of their ideals, despite drudgery and loneliness, she stayed on, praying each day for increased patience and struggling to magnify every trace of virtue she could discover in Ellen.

Now that the planting was done, the weeding well in hand, the house-cleaning finished, the girl contrived to so systematize her work that she should have intervals of leisure to escape into the sunshine and, beneath the vastness of the arching heaven, forget for the time being at least all that was rasping and petty.

It was absurd to be lonely when on every hand Nature’s voices spoke with understanding. Was she joyous? The birds caroled, the leaves danced, the brook sang. Was she sad? The whisper of the great pines brought peace and balm to her spirit.

It was in search of this sympathy that she had set forth along the highway to-day. The late afternoon was a poem of mystic clouds and mysterious shadows. Far off against the distant horizon, mountains veiled in mists lifted majestic peaks into the air, their summits lost amid swiftly traveling masses of whiteness; 116 rifts of purple haze lengthened over the valley; and the fields, dotted with haycocks, breathed forth the perfume of drying grass.

As Lucy walked along she began singing softly to herself. Her day’s work was done; and her aunt, who had driven with Tony to bring home a load of lumber from the sawmill, would not return until late in the evening. Six delicious hours were her own to be spent in whatever manner her fancy pleased. It was an unheard-of freedom. Never since she had come to Sefton Falls had she known such a long stretch of liberty. What wonder that she swung along with feet scarce touching the earth!

A redwing called from the bracken bordering the brook, and the girl called back, trying to mimic its glad note. She snatched a flower from the roadside and tucked it in her hair; she laughed audaciously into the golden face of the sun. Her exuberance was mounting to ecstasy when she rounded a curve and suddenly, without warning, came face to face with Jane Howe.

The woman was proceeding with extreme care, carrying in either hand a large and well-heaped pail of berries. 117

Before Lucy thought, she stepped forward and exclaimed impulsively:

“Do let me help you! They must be dreadfully heavy.”

“’Tain’t so much that they’re heavy,” Jane answered, smiling, “as that they’re full. I’m afraid I’ll spill some.”

“Give me one pail.”

“Do you really mean it?”

“Of course. I’d be glad to take it.”

“All right,” replied Jane simply. “I’m sure I’d be only too thankful if you would. After trampin’ miles to pick raspberries, you ain’t so keen on losin’ ’em when you’re within sight of home.”

“Indeed you’re not,” Lucy assented. “These are beauties. Where did you go for them?”

“Most up to the pine ridge you see yonder. I took my lunch an’ have been gone since mornin’.”

“How I wish I could have gone with you!”

“Would you have liked to?” queried Jane incredulously. “Then I wish you might have. It was just the sort of a day to walk. I don’t s’pose, though, your aunt would have spared you for an all-day picnic.”

There was a hint of scorn in the words. 118

“I don’t often have time to go far from the house,” replied Lucy gently, ignoring Miss Howe’s challenge. “There is so much to do.”

“So there is,” agreed Jane hastily. “Certainly we manage to keep busy all the time. When it ain’t one thing, it’s another. There never seems to be any end to it. But I did steal off to-day. The berries were really an excuse. Of course we can make ’em into jam. Still, what I really wanted was to get out in the air.”

“I’ve stolen off too,” said Lucy, with a smile. “My aunt and Tony have gone over to the Crossing for lumber and won’t be back until dark, so I am having a holiday.”

Jane was silent a moment.

“Why shouldn’t you come over and have tea with us then?” she asked abruptly. “We’re all alone, too. My brother’s gone to the County Fair an’ ain’t comin’ back ’til to-morrow.”

Lucy’s eyes lighted with pleasure.

“You’re very kind,” she cried, a tremor of happiness in her tone. “I’d love to come.”

They walked along, balancing their burden of berries and chatting of garden, weather, and housework. 119

As they turned in at the Howe gate, Jane motioned proudly toward three rows of flourishing vines that were clambering up a network of sustaining brush.

“Those are our sweet peas,” she remarked. “The first row is Mary’s; they’re white. Then come Eliza’s—pink ones. Mine are purple. Martin won’t plant his over here. He has ’em longside of the barn, an’ they’re all colors mixed together. We don’t like ’em that way, but he does. He’s awful fond of flowers, an’ he has great luck with ’em, too. He seems to have a great way with flowers. But he never cuts one blossom he raises. Ain’t that queer? He says he likes to see ’em growin’.”

They were nearing the house.

“I reckon Mary an’ ’Liza will be surprised enough to have me come bringin’ you home,” observed Jane a trifle consciously. “We ain’t done much neighboring, have we?”

“No,” returned Lucy quickly, “and I’ve been sorry. It seems a pity we shouldn’t be friends even if——” she stopped, embarrassed.

“Even if your aunt an’ Martin do act like a pair of fools,” interrupted Jane. “Senseless, ain’t it! Besides, it ain’t Christian livin’ 120 at odds with people. I never did approve of it.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

Jane nodded.

“We imagined you were like that,” she said. “I told Mary an’ ’Liza so the day you come for the eggs. ‘She ain’t like her aunt,’ I says to Mary, ‘not a mite; an’ you can be pretty sure she won’t be in sympathy with all this squabblin’ an’ back-bitin’.’”

“Indeed I’m not.”

“We ain’t either, not one of us. We’d like nothin’ better’n to be neighborly an’ run in. It’s the only decent way of doin’ when folks live side by side. But Martin wouldn’t listen to our doin’ it, even if your aunt would—which I know she wouldn’t. He’s awful set against the Websters.”

“How silly it seems!”

“That’s what I tell him,” Jane declared. “Of course your aunt’s an old woman, an’ ’tain’t surprisin’ she should harbor a grudge against us. But Martin’s younger, an’ had oughter be more forgivin’. It’s nonsensical feelin’ you’ve got to be just as sour an’ crabbed as your grandfather was. I don’t humor him in it—at least not more’n I have to to keep the 121 peace. But Mary an’ ’Liza hang on to every word Martin utters. If he was to say blue was green, they’d say so too. They’d no more do a thing he wouldn’t like ’em to than they’d cut off their heads. They wouldn’t dare. I ’spect they’ll have a spasm when they see you come walkin’ in to-night.”

“Maybe I ought not to come,” Lucy murmured in a disappointed voice.

“Yes, you ought,” Jane said with decision. “Why should we keep up a quarrel none of us approve of? Martin ain’t home. It’s nothin’ to him.”

“Well, if you’re sure you want me,” Lucy laughed and dimpled.

“If I hadn’t wanted you, you may be pretty sure I shouldn’t have asked you,” retorted Jane bluntly. “Mary an’ ’Liza will likely be scat to death at first, but they’ll get over it an’ thaw out. Don’t pay no attention to ’em.”

Jane had ascended the steps and her hand was on the latch.

“I feel like a child playing truant,” said Lucy, a flush of excitement tinting her cheek. “You see, my aunt wouldn’t like my being here any more than Mar—than your brother would.” 122

“What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em,” was Jane’s brief answer.

“Oh, I shall tell Aunt Ellen.”

“I shan’t tell Martin. He’d rage somethin’ awful.”

She threw open the door. Lucy saw her stiffen with resolution.

“I picked up Miss Lucy Webster on the road an’ brought her home to tea!” she called from the threshold.

Mary and Eliza were busy at the kitchen table. At the words they turned and automatically gasped the one phrase that always sprang to their lips in every emergency:

“Oh, Jane!”

“Martin’s away an’ so’s Ellen Webster,” went on Jane recklessly. “Why shouldn’t we do a bit of neighborin’ together, now we’ve got the chance?”

“But—but Martin!” Eliza managed to stammer.

“He’ll never be the wiser—unless you tell him,” replied Jane merrily. “Come, Miss Lucy, take off your hat an’ make yourself at home. Supper’ll soon be ready, I guess.”

The phrase was a fortunate one, for it brought back to the disconcerted Howes the 123 memory of their domestic prowess, a thing in which they took great pride. By nature they were hospitable, and here was a chance to exercise that long unexercised faculty.

Mary bustled to the stove.

“Yes,” she answered, “the biscuits are in the oven, an’ I was just makin’ the tea.” Then, as if emboldened by Jane’s attitude, she added timidly: “We’re real glad to see you, Miss Webster; don’t think we ain’t.”

“Yes,” Eliza echoed, “we really are.”

The first shock of the adventure having passed, it was amazing to see with what rapidity the Howe sisters increased the warmth of their welcome. From the top shelf in the pantry they brought forth the company preserves; fruit cake was unearthed from the big stone crock in the dining-room closet; and, as a final touch to the feast, Jane beat up a foamy omelet and a prune whip. In their enjoyment they were like a group of children, an undercurrent of delight in the forbidden tinging their mirth.

Lucy told stories of her western life, and the three women listened as if to the tales of Sir John Mandeville. The hours passed, twilight deepened, night fell, but the revelers heeded 124 it not. What a sweet, wholesome evening it was! And how kindly, Lucy thought, were these simple souls whose feeling toward every breathing creature was so benign and sympathetic. Contrasted with the antagonistic atmosphere of the Webster house, this home was like paradise. It restored her faith in human nature and in Sefton Falls. Every one in the place was not, then, bitter and suspicious. What a comfort to know it!

In the meantime Mary, having reached a pitch of hilarity almost unprecedented, was starting to tell a story when suddenly her face stiffened and, turning white, she half rose from her chair.

There was a scuffling of feet in the hall and in another instant Martin Howe entered.

“The fair wasn’t worth my stayin’ to,” he explained from the doorsill, “so I came along home to-night instead of waitin’ till to-morrow. Looks to me as if I was just in time for a snack of supper.”

Standing in the lamplight, his stern face softened by a smile and a glow of good humor, he was attractive to look upon. The firm countenance was lined, it is true, but the lines gave it strength and brought into harmony the 125 clear eyes, resolute mouth, and well-molded chin. He had a fine smooth forehead from which his black hair, lightly sprinkled with gray, was tossed aside in picturesque abandon. Health and power spoke in every curve of the lithe frame and in the boyish grace with which he moved.

With his coming a hush fell upon the room. Had a group of conspirators been unexpectedly confronted with their own crimes, they could not have been more abashed than were the four women seated at the table.

Jane was the first to recover herself. In a voice that trembled but did not falter she said courageously:

“Miss Lucy Webster’s havin’ tea with us, Martin.”

There was an awkward pause.

Lucy, whose glance had dropped to the floor, raised her eyes appealingly to the man’s face; but she found in it no answering sympathy. In the short interval it had changed from geniality to a sternness almost incredible of belief. It was hard now—merciless.

Perhaps, to do Martin justice, he could not have spoken at that moment had he tried. This creature, with her wealth of golden hair, her 126 radiant eyes, flashed upon his vision with the glory of a new star. She was a phenomenon hitherto unknown. No matter what her name, the simple fact of her presence would have put to flight every other thought and left him dumb. The proudly poised head, the rounded white throat, the flushed cheek with its elusive dimples, the tiny hands were all marvels unfamiliar to Martin Howe.

Could this nymph, this dryad be a product of the same planet that had given birth to Mary, Eliza, and Jane?

With no attempt to conceal his artless scrutiny, he looked, and before his ingenuous wonder Lucy felt her pulse bound.

“I must go home,” she said, struggling to appear composed and ignoring the speechless Martin as if he were in reality as many miles away as she had supposed him. “I had no idea it was so late. Good night and thank you for my pleasant evening.”

None of the Howes attempted to stay her departure, although Jane followed her with feigned imperturbability to the door, remarking by way of conversation:

“It’s dretful dark outside, ain’t it?”

Lucy smiled. 127

“Yes, but I don’t mind.”

To have escaped Martin Howe’s eyes, which continued to rest upon her, she would have plunged into a den of lions. The beating of her heart, the burning of her cheek angered and disconcerted her.

Jane unfastened the door. Then she started back in consternation.

“Mercy!” she cried. “It’s rainin’!”

“Rainin’?” Eliza exclaimed.

“Yes, pourin’. It’s an awful shower.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” asserted Lucy, impatient to be gone. “I never mind the rain.”

“But this is a regular downpour. You’ll get wet to your skin,” Jane objected. “I ain’t a-goin’ to let you go out in it in that thin dress. Ain’t we got an umbrella somewheres, ’Liza?”

“I dunno,” Eliza answered vaguely.

The sudden shower and the furious tossing of the trees did not impress themselves on her dull mind. Only one thought possessed her brain,—the sinking dread of the moment when Lucy should be gone and Martin would empty the vials of his waiting wrath on all their heads.

“Indeed I don’t in the least need an 128 umbrella,” Lucy protested. “I’ll run right along. Please do not bother.”

“You’ll get wet an’ be sick,” Mary declared, launching into the conversation at the mention of possible chills and fevers.

Lucy laughed unsteadily.

“Oh, no, I shan’t. Good night.”

She had crossed the veranda and was at the brink of the flight of steps when heavy feet came striding after her.

“Wait! I’m goin’ with you,” said a tense voice. It was Martin.

“Thank you very much, but I really don’t need anybody.”

“I’m goin’,” repeated the man doggedly.

“I don’t want you to,” Lucy returned curtly, nettled into irritability.

“Likely not,” observed Martin with stolid determination.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” fretted Lucy angrily. “I’d much rather——”

It was like a child helplessly dashing itself against a wall. Martin paid no attention to her protests. With a lighted lantern in one hand and an umbrella in his other, he set forth with Lucy down the driveway.

Overhead the trees wrenched and creaked, 129 and above the lashings of their branches the rain could be heard beating with fury upon the tossing foliage. Once in the blackness Lucy stumbled and, following the instinct for self-preservation, put out her hand and caught Martin’s arm; then she drew her hand quickly away. They proceeded in silence until they reached the gate at the foot of the long Webster driveway; then the man spoke:

“’Tain’t fur now,” he said, halting short. “I’ll give you the umbrella.” He held it out to her.

“But you’ll get drenched.”

“No, indeed!”

“But you will,” insisted Lucy with spirit.

“No matter.”

“It is matter. Besides, I can’t see my way to the house without the lantern. It’s dark as pitch.”

“Take ’em both, then.”

“Of course I shan’t,” replied the girl indignantly. “And anyway, if I did, I couldn’t carry the two in this wind. If I can’t have but one, I’d rather have the lantern.”

“That’s nonsense!” Martin returned.

“What use was there in my bringin’ you home if you get soaked now?” 130

“But I can’t see an inch before my face without a light.”

“Just as you say, then. Here it is.” Holding out the lantern, he took back the umbrella.

“But you certainly are not going to leave me to go up that long avenue in the rain,” burst out Lucy.

“You said you didn’t mind rain,” retorted the man ironically.

He stood immovable in the torrent, but the lantern glow showed his face to be working convulsively.

Lucy, who could not believe that in the present emergency his stubbornness would persist, waited.

“I ain’t comin’,” he remarked half to himself with dogged determination, as if he were bolstering up some inward wavering of principle. “I ain’t comin’.”

The touch of her hand still vibrated upon his arm, and he could feel the flutter of her dress against his body.

“I ain’t comin’,” he repeated between his closed teeth.

“Very well.”

With dignity, Lucy picked up her limp skirts, preparatory to breasting the storm. 131 “I can’t go with you,” he suddenly burst out. “Don’t you see I can’t?”

A wailing cry from the wind seemed to echo the pain in his voice. The girl did not answer. Refusing both the light and shelter he offered her, she stepped resolutely forth into the blackness of the night. Helplessly he watched her go, the lantern’s rays reflecting her white gown.

“I shan’t bother you again, Mr. Howe,” she called bitterly.

Martin made no reply but raised the lantern higher that it might brighten the rough path. Unheeding him, the girl stumbled through the darkness, the rain beating down upon her.

As she neared the house a faint glow flickered through the shrubbery, making it evident that her aunt had already arrived home. Nervously she mounted the porch and turned to look behind her. At the foot of the drive stood Martin, the lantern high in his hands.

Now that Lucy was safely within the shelter of her own domain, her sense of humor overcame her, and with an irresistible desire to torment him, she called mischievously from her vantage ground on the veranda:

“Thank you so much for bringing me home, Mr. Howe. Can’t I persuade you to come in?” 132

There was a smothered exclamation of wrath in the distance, and she saw a gleam of light precipitate itself hastily into the road, where, for a moment, it flashed along the tree trunks, then disappeared.

Lucy laughed.

Ellen was in the kitchen when she entered.

“Where on earth have you been?” she demanded. “I should ’a’ thought you might ’a’ come back in time to start the fire up an’ get supper. It’s awful late. Was it Tony you was talkin’ to outside?”

“No.”

“It warn’t?” she turned a hawklike glance on her niece. “Who was it?” she asked inquisitively.

“Mr. Howe.”

“Mr. Ho—— Not Martin Howe!”

Lucy nodded.

“Yes.”

“Martin Howe here—on my land! What was he doin’?”

“He wasn’t on your land,” Lucy said. “He left me at the gate. He was seeing me home. I’ve been there to supper.”

“What!”

Never had the girl heard so many sensations 133 crowded into one word. There was surprise, unbelief, scorn, anger. But anger predominated.

“An’ how long, pray tell me, have you been goin’ backwards an’ forrads to the Howes, an’ consortin’ with their brother?”

“Only to-night.”

Ellen looked at her niece as if, had she dared, she would have torn her in pieces. “I s’pose it never entered your head it was a mean advantage for you to take when I was gone,” she said shrilly. “You wouldn’t ’a’ dared do it if I’d been here.”

“I’m not so sure.”

The fearless response was infuriating to Ellen.

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” she shouted, bringing her clenched hand down on the table with such force that every dish rattled. “You ain’t to repeat this night’s performance! If you ain’t got pride enough not to go hob-nobbin’ with my enemies, I’ll forbid it for good an’ all—forbid it, do you hear? I ain’t a-goin’——”

Something in the quiet dignity of the girl before her arrested her tongue. Her eye traveled over the white, rain-drenched figure. 134 Then the corners of her mouth twitched and curved upward.

“So Martin Howe saw you home, did he?” she observed sarcastically. “Much good his comin’ did! Had you tramped ten miles you couldn’t ’a’ got much wetter. I guess he needs some lessons in totin’ ladies round same’s he does in most everything else. I always said he didn’t have no manners—the puppy!”

135

CHAPTER IX

JANE MAKES A DISCOVERY

Martin Howe moved home as if in a trance, the voice of Lucy Webster ringing in his ears. He recalled every glance, every smile, every gesture of this enslaving creature, who, like a meteorite, had shot across his firmament, rocking its serenity with the shock of her presence. How exquisite she was! How wonderful! He had never realized there were women like that. Was it to be marveled at that men pursued such enchantresses to the borderland of eternity? That they were spurred to deeds of courage; abandoned home, friends, their sacred honor; even tossed their lives away for such?

Lucy’s advent seemed to mark a new era in existence. All that went before was not; and all that came after, apart from her, mattered not. Only the vivid, throbbing present was of consequence, and the intensity of it swept him out of his balance with a force that was appalling. 136

He was not the Martin Howe of yesterday, nor could he ever again be that happy, emotionless being. Within him warred a tumult of new sensations that seethed, flamed, maddened, consumed. The fact that they were the fires of a volcano that must forever smolder its passion out did not at first impress his consciousness. All that he knew was that Lucy Webster was to him what no other woman had ever been or could be; she was his ideal, his mate, his other soul; the completing element of his incomplete nature. The emptiness of his life, of which he had hitherto been only vaguely aware, now translated itself into the concrete terms of heart, mind, and sex. He had been struggling to make of himself a whole when in truth he was but a half; to construct from imperfect parts a unit; and not sensing the hopelessness of the attempt, he had reaped only failure and disappointment.

How blind he had been not to understand that alone he could never hope to still loneliness, heartache, and the stirrings of his physical nature. He had lived a life in which no one shared and with which no one sympathized. His fostering instincts had lain dormant until they had reverted to the receptivity of the 137 protected rather than serving their natural functions and making of him a protector. All the masculinity of his being had been dwarfed, stifled. Now it awakened, clamoring to possess, guard, cherish, worship.

What an amazing miracle it was—what a glad, transforming touch of magic! He laughed in delight! Years slipped from him, and his youth surged up in all its warmth and eagerness. Why, he was a boy again! A boy at the threshold of life’s wonderland. He was looking open-eyed into a garden of beauty where his foot had never trod. Mystic realms were there, mazes of fairy dreams, lights and colors he had never seen. At last the place of his desire was before him.

This other self, this woman, Lucy Webster,—the name brought with it an arresting chill that fell upon the fever of his passion with the breath of a glacier. The girl was a Webster! She was of the blood of those he scorned and hated; of a kin with an ancestry he had been brought up to loathe with all his soul. Had he not been taught that it was his mission to thwart and humble them? Had he not continually striven to do so? He must have been bewitched to have forgotten the fact for an 138 instant. No doubt this creature with her rare beauty was a decoy brought hither to tempt him to betray his heritage.

Ellen Webster was quite capable of formulating such a scheme and setting it in motion, if only for the cruel pleasure of seeing him ensnared in its toils. Perhaps even Lucy herself was an accomplice in the plot. Who could tell? To be sure she appeared artless enough; but what Webster was to be trusted? And were she only the innocent tool of a more designing hand it redeemed her but little for, blameless or guilty, she was nevertheless a Webster. No power under heaven could wipe out her inheritance; for the penalty of her blood she must pay the price.

Ah, how near he had come to playing the fool! Was it not Delilah who had shorn Samson of his might? He, Martin Howe, to be false to his traditions, forfeit his pride, and become a spiritless weakling, forgetting his manhood in the smile of a woman!

“Bah!” He cried the word aloud into the teeth of the gale. To think he had almost walked blindfolded into the trap Ellen Webster had baited for him! Ah, she should see he was not to be enticed away from the 139 stronghold of his principles by any such alluring snare.

What a sly old schemer Ellen was! She would have liked nothing better than to behold him on his knees at the feet of this niece of hers and then wreck his hopes by snatching away every possibility of their fulfillment. Perhaps she expected that with the girl’s beauty as a bribe she could make him forget his dignity to the extent of rebuilding the wall.

She was mistaken! He was not to be thus cajoled. He had already, to some extent, betrayed his vows that night by befriending Lucy. Bitterly he repented of his weakness. Doubtless at this very moment Ellen Webster was exulting that he had so easily been duped and hoodwinked.

Hot anger sent the blood to his cheek. He had been blind to be thus caught off his guard. Into what madness had this woman beguiled him! Well, in the future the siren should chant her Lorelei songs to deaf ears. Her spell would be in vain.

He had found himself now. His wayward feet had recovered their stand upon the solid rock of principle, from which for the moment they had been tempted into straying. He 140 would demonstrate to this Lucy Webster that any friendliness between them was done and over.

What an ass a clever woman could make of a man! That any one could so circumvent him was unbelievable. Shaking the rain viciously from his umbrella, he mounted the steps, blew out the lantern, and stalked into the house.

Mary, Eliza, and Jane looked up expectantly as he entered. It was evident that a multitude of questions trembled on their lips.

He hoped they would offer an apology or explanation for their conduct and thereby furnish him with the opportunity for berating them and relieving his soul of the bitterness that rankled there. To lash somebody, anybody, with his tongue would have been a solace.

But although Jane faced him defiantly, and Mary and Eliza with anticipatory timidity, no one of the three spoke. They seemed to be waiting for him to strike the first blow. Twice he attempted it, assuming first an injured then an outraged attitude. But on second thought, he abandoned the attack. After all, what was there to say? Should he rail at them for asking Lucy to the house?

The fair face with its uplifted eyes came 141 before his vision. No, he was not sorry the girl had come. Though he must never see her again, must never speak to her or touch her hand, he was glad he had been vouchsafed this one glimpse into Paradise.

He might forbid his sisters ever to have anything more to do with her. But he could not bring himself to do that either. And even suppose he were to make the demand. Jane might refuse to comply with it. There was mutiny in her eyes, a mutiny he might not be able to suppress unless he resorted to drastic measures; and, smarting as he was from the scorn and humiliation of his recent defeat, he was in no mood to cut himself off from the only sympathy within his reach by creating a breach between himself and his sisters.

Therefore he loitered self-consciously before the stove as if to dry his wet clothing and then ambled across the room, remarking in offhand fashion:

“It’s settin’ in for quite a rain.”

“Yes, it’s a hard shower,” Mary ventured, turning a puzzled glance upon her brother. “We need it though.”

“Yes, the ground was like chalk,” agreed Martin. 142

Thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, he took a few nervous strides around the room and, prompted by an impulse he could not have explained, he stopped and absently drew down the window shade on the side of the kitchen toward the Webster homestead.

“You didn’t get any supper after all, did you, Martin?” Jane remarked presently. “Why don’t you let me bring you a piece of fruit cake an’ a glass of milk?”

“It would taste kinder good.”

Although he had no wish for the food, the solicitude that accompanied the suggestion was just then very soothing.

“We could cook you somethin’,” Jane said, rising.

“No, no,” broke out the man impatiently. “Don’t go fussin’. I don’t want much. Just get me anything you have handy.”

Jane went to the pantry and returned with two thick slices of “war cake” and a tumbler of creamy milk.

“This is the sort of cake you liked so much the other day,” she said, putting it upon the table. “It’s somethin’ amazin’ how it keeps moist. I s’pose it’s the apple sauce in it.”

She watched him while he broke it listlessly 143 into fragments. It was obvious that he was not hungry.

“You’re tired, Martin,” she murmured at last, in a gentle tone.

“I guess I am a little.”

“The trip to the fair was a hard one, I’m afraid.”

Again the man found comfort in her voice.

“Oh, no; not particularly hard,” he answered with gruff kindness, “but the train was close an’ dusty.”

There was a quality in the tone that caused Jane to ponder. Furtively she studied the bowed head, the twitching fingers, the contracted brow; nor did the jaded, disheartened droop of the mouth escape her. She could not recall ever having seen Martin like this before.

Something must be weighing on his mind, something that had not been there when he had left home in the morning and had not been there when he returned. The shadow, whatever it was, had fallen since, and she felt it had some connection with the happenings of the evening. This unprecedented forbearance of his was a part of it. Of that she was sure. What did it portend? Was he angry? Or had Lucy Webster dropped some remark that 144 had shown him the folly and uselessness of his resentment? Jane would have given a great deal to know just what had occurred on that walk in the rain. Perhaps Lucy had openly attacked Martin’s codes and forced a quarrel. She was fearless enough to do so; or perhaps she had simply reproached him and set him thinking.

Well, it was useless to ask questions. Jane knew her brother too well to presume to do this. If he had come to his senses, so much the better. It was not to be expected that he would admit it. That was not his way. Any change in his mental attitude would be quickly apparent, however, in his actions, his deeds confessing the faults his lips were too proud to utter. She must await developments.

Hence when he rose, she offered him her customary casual good night and listened to his slow tread upon the stairs. That unelastic step only served to further convince her that something recent and deep-acting had taken hold on the man and was tormenting him.

She was roused from her musings by Eliza’s voice:

“What can be the matter with Martin?” she said in a tense whisper. “He never said 145 a word. Here I was shakin’ in my shoes, dreadin’ every minute to have him launch out in one of his tirades. You could ’a’ knocked me over when he didn’t do it.”

“Maybe he’s goin’ to wait until to-morrow,” Mary replied.

“No. He never waits,” Eliza declared. “When he’s mad he lets fly while his temper is up. You know that as well as I do. There’s no coolin’ off with him an’ then warmin’ up the leavin’s of his rage the next mornin’. He believes in servin’ things hot an’ fresh.”

“I never knew him to be so sort of cowed down,” reflected Mary. “You don’t s’pose he’s sick, do you, Jane?”

Mary turned anxious eyes toward her sister.

“Of course not,” Jane retorted promptly. “Don’t go worryin’, Mary, an’ start to brew him some thoroughwort in the hope of havin’ him down with a fever.”

“I don’t hope he’ll have a fever,” objected Mary in an injured tone.

Jane laughed.

“Now you know you’d love to have Martin sick so you could take care of him,” said Jane provokingly. “Don’t deny it.”

“Jane Howe!” 146

“Well, you would. But he isn’t sick, Mary. He’s just tired. I wouldn’t bother him about it if I was you. He hates bein’ fussed over.”

A sudden light of understanding had broken in on Jane’s soul.

It came like a revelation, in an intuitive flash, backed neither by evidence nor by logic. Had she tried to give a reason for the astonishing conviction that overwhelmed her, she could not have done so. Nevertheless she was as certain of it as she was that the night would follow the day. Martin was neither hungry, angry, tired, worried, nor ill.

He was in love!

147

CHAPTER X

A TEMPTATION

Martin was indeed in love! Before a week had passed no one knew it better than he.

During the solitary hours when his hands were busy thinning lettuce or weeding young corn, his mind had abundant leisure for reflection, and the theme on which his thoughts turned with increasing activity was always the same. Defy Fate as he would, he faced the realization that he loved Lucy Webster with every fiber of his being.

It was a mad and hopeless affection,—one which, for the sake of his own peace of mind if for no other reason, it would be wiser to strangle at its birth. Nevertheless, he did not strangle it; on the contrary, he hugged the romance to his breast and fed it upon all the tender imaginings of a man’s first dream of love, conjuring before his vision one empty fantasy after another. 148

It was evening, and under the silver light of a thin crescent hanging low in the heaven he paced beneath the trees, Lucy upon his arm. Or lovely with the freshness of early morning, she stood with him in the field, the brightness of her eyes as sparkling as the flash of the dew-drops on the grass. Again she came before him, gliding quietly amid a maze of humble domestic tasks, transforming each with the grace of her presence. Or perhaps she sat quietly watching the embers of a winter’s fire that touched her hair to a glory of glinting copper.

But wherever she moved, the land upon which she trod was his land; the home where she toiled his home; the hearth that warmed her his hearth.

There were long hours when he was alone in the twilight with only his pipe for company, when through the smoke he seemed to see her close beside him. Sometimes she smiled down into his eyes; sometimes she raised her sweet lips to his; and once she came to him with madonna-like holiness, a sleeping child in her arms,—her child—and his.

Then Martin would rouse himself to find his pipe smoldering, the lamp dim, and the chill 149 of the night upon him. With an impatient shrug he would spring to his feet and tramp upstairs, hoping to find in slumber an escape from these fair but tormenting reveries. Sleep, however, came but fitfully, and even from the sacred confines of its privacy it was impossible to banish subconscious mirages of the day. There was no place to which he could flee where thoughts of Lucy Webster did not pursue him.

He saw her often now, very often, tripping buoyantly from house to barn, from barn to garden and back again, her round young arms bearing baskets of vegetables, or laden with shining milk pails.

How proud her head! How light her step!

One morning she skirted the wall so close that his whisper might have reached her had he chosen to speak. He could see the fringe of dark lashes against her skin, the rise and fall of her round bosom, the lilacs that filled her hands. But he did not speak and neither did she. In fact, she seemed not to see him, so busy was she toying with her flowers. She must be fond of flowers, for she was seldom without one tucked in her gown.

These glimpses, however, were fleeting, and 150 after he had yielded to the temptation of indulging in them he was wont to tax himself severely for his folly. Was he not already tortured with pain too poignant to be endured? Why rivet more tightly the fetters that goaded him?

He had fled once and for all from Circe’s magic, vowing that never again should the sorceress work her charm upon him; and that vow he intended to keep. Nevertheless, it did not prevent him from stealing an occasional peep at the enchantress, if only to assure himself that her spell was as potent and deadly as he had supposed it. Surely, if he did not consort with her, looking could do no harm. Therefore he indulged his fancy, watching Lucy whenever she was within sight and each time becoming more helplessly entangled in her fascinations, until any escape from the thralldom of her beauty became impossible. His days were a cycle of tantalizing visions which ceased only with the coming of darkness; and when with the night he would have found release from their misery, it was only to discover that night an endless stretch of hours that intervened betwixt him and the moment when the visions might return again. 151

Poor Martin! He endured a hell of suffering during those radiant summer days. He was melancholy, ecstatic, irritable by turns, ascending to the heights and plunging into the depths with an abruptness and unaccountability that was not only enigmatic to himself but to every one else with whom he came in contact. He kept Mary in a ferment of excitement trying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would be sure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite pains would brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draught could be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-of vitality. Ah, she would reason, it must be his appetite that was at the bottom of the trouble. She must stimulate his desire for food. No sooner, however, was her concoction of herbs simmering on the stove than her erratic patient was devouring everything within sight with the zest of a cannibal. So it went, the affliction which oppressed him one day giving place to a new collection of symptoms on the morrow.

“I’d have Doctor Marsh to him if I had any opinion of the man,” remarked Mary one night. “But I ain’t ever been able to muster up my 152 respect for that critter’s principles since he left that medicine for ’Liza marked ‘Keep in a Dark Place.’ That was enough to shake my confidence in him forever. It was so under-handed. I’d rather had ’Liza sick for the rest of her life than that she should ’a’ been dosed up on some stuff we had to keep hidden away lest somebody see it. If he was ashamed of the medicine, or it was anything we’d hadn’t ought to had, he shouldn’t ’a’ given it to us. I never said nothin’ to nobody ’bout it, but I poured the whole bottleful down the sink, and told Doctor Marsh that he needn’t come again. He pretended he couldn’t see why, but I guess he understood, an’ I hope the lesson did him good,” concluded Mary with righteous zeal.

“So that was the reason Doctor Marsh stopped comin’!” Jane exclaimed. “I always wondered. You never told me that before.”

“No,” said Mary with dignity, “I never did.”

“But, Mary,”—Jane broke into a laugh.

“You needn’t laugh, Jane. It was a very serious matter.”

“If you’d only explained it, Mary, I could have told you——”

“That is precisely why I didn’t explain it, 153 Jane,” Mary answered. “I knew you would interfere, an’ I felt it was somethin’ that laid between me an’ my conscience. No matter what you’d ’a’ said, I should ’a’ felt the same way about it. Matters of right an’ wrong are the affairs of me an’ my Maker. Nobody else on earth can settle ’em.”

There were instances when it was useless to argue with Mary, and Jane saw that this was one of them.

Had she so willed she could not only have cleared up the mystery about Doctor Marsh’s medicine, but she could have furnished her sister with the key to Martin’s caprices, and thereby saved the metaphysician not only much worry but also much physical labor.

Mary and Eliza, however, lived in such a miniature world that Jane knew if Martin’s secret were divulged it would become the unending topic of conversation from that moment on. Moreover, so intense would be his sisters’ excitement concerning the affair, and so keen their interest and curiosity that they might blunder into destroying the delicate fabric of the romance altogether. Hence Jane kept her own council, speculating with amusement as to how long it would be before his two solicitous 154 but blinded relatives should stumble upon the truth.

In the meantime the neighboring between the two families, so bravely begun, was not continued. Mary and Eliza Howe had not the courage or the initiative to attempt a second clandestine tea-party, much as they would have enjoyed it; and Jane saw no use in urging Lucy to the house. If Martin decreed to further the affair, he was quite capable of doing so without any aid of hers; and if he ordained to abandon it, as he evidently did, wild horses could not turn him from his purpose. Therefore Jane gave up all her aggressive attempts to heal the breach between Howe and Webster, and contented herself with waving to Lucy over the wall and calling a cheery greeting to the girl whenever she came within hailing distance.

Lucy was disappointed by this retreat of her neighbors into their former aloofness. Of course their action was traceable to Martin. It was his fault. No doubt he had gone home and berated his sisters for their friendliness and had so intimidated them that they had no choice but to bow to his will. Jane was the only one of them anyway who had the spirit to defy her 155 brother, and presumably she had decided that the game was not worth the candle. Perhaps, too, she was right. To live in a daily purgatory made of life a sorry existence. She herself had found that out.

Her aunt was continually becoming more irritable and less sound of judgment, and there were times when Lucy feared that the warped mind would give way under the strain of repeated paroxysms of anger. Could Ellen have been persuaded to surrender the management of her affairs entirely into her niece’s hands, she might have been spared much annoyance; but frail as she was, she persisted in retaining to the last her scepter of supremacy.

She went each day into the garden and put Tony out of humor by finding fault with everything he did; having demoralized his temper, she would return to the house to rasp Lucy’s patience by heaping upon the girl’s blameless head such remnants of wrath as she still cherished toward the long-suffering Portugese.

For sometime she had contented herself with this daily programme, not varying it by venturing away from the place, even to carry her garden truck to market. Therefore Lucy was 156 astounded when one morning her aunt appeared at breakfast, dressed in her shabby black cashmere and wearing her cameo pin, and announced she was going to drive to town.

“I’ve an errand to do,” she said without preamble, “an’ I shan’t be home till noon. You needn’t go falutin’ over to the Howes’, neither, the minute my back is turned, as you did the last time I went off.”

Lucy smiled good-humoredly.

“I’m goin’ to see a lawyer,” her aunt went on. “Lawyer Benton.”

No reply appearing necessary, Lucy did not speak.

“Well!” piped Ellen, after waiting a moment.

“Well, what?” Lucy asked.

“Ain’t you got no interest in what I’m goin’ for?” the woman demanded querulously.

“I’m always interested in anything you wish to tell me,” answered the girl, “but I thought it was not my place to inquire into your business.”

“It is my business, an’ I can keep it to myself,” said Ellen tartly. “But I’ll tell you this much—I’m goin’ to get my will made.” 157

The hard blue eyes fixed themselves on Lucy’s face narrowly.

“My will!” repeated Ellen, a challenge in her tone. “I s’pose you thought it was all made long ago; but it warn’t. I’m goin’ to make it to-day.”