Chapter III: Part 3

"There ought to be some way out of it."

"Where there's a will, there's a way," Caleb suggested.

Philip frowned, then laughed, and said:--

"Suppose you think up a way--but don't let there be any delay about getting the piano back to the house."

"Well, it's a means of grace at the church."

"So it is at home, and I need all the means of grace I can get, particularly those that are nearest home, while I am breaking myself in to a new business."

Caleb had the piano brought back to the parlor, but he reverted to it again and again, in season and out of season, until Philip told Grace that there was no doubt that his uncle was right when he wrote that Caleb would sometimes insist on being helped with projects of his own.

"That wasn't all," Grace replied. "He wrote also that he advised you to give Caleb his way at such times, or your life would be made miserable until you did, and that the cost of Caleb's projects would not be great."

"H'm! I wonder if uncle knew the cost of a high-grade upright piano? Besides, I need all my time and wits for the business, and Caleb's interruptions about that piano are worrying the life out of me. To make matters worse, there's a new set of commercial travellers coming in almost every day--this is the season, while country merchants are beginning to get money, in which they hope to make small sales for quick pay, and they take a lot of my time."

"You ought to have a partner--and you have one, you know--to see those people for you; and she will do it, if you'll let her."

"My partner knows that she may and shall do whatever she likes," said Philip, "but, dear girl, 'twould be like sending a sheep among wolves to unloose that horde of drummers upon you."

"I've had to deal with men, in some city stores in which I worked," Grace replied, "and some of them reminded me of wolves--and other animals; but I succeeded in keeping them in their places. I know the private costmarks on all of our goods, and I know the qualities of many kinds of goods better than you or Caleb, and both of you will be within call for consultation whenever I'm puzzled; so let me try. 'Twill give me an excuse to spend all of my spare time in the store; so whenever a drummer comes in, you can refer him to me. Say I'm the buyer for the concern. 'Twill sound big; don't you think so?"

"Indeed I do! I wonder where a young woman got such a head for business."

"Strange, isn't it," Grace replied, with dancing eyes which had also a quizzical expression, "as she's been several years behind counters, great and small, and listened to scores of buyers and drummers haggle over fractions of a cent in prices?"

"And for about that much time," said Philip, reminiscently, "her husband was a mere clerk and correspondent, yet thought himself a rising business man! Have your own way, partner--managing partner, I ought to say."

The next day was a very busy one, yet Caleb found time to say something about instrumental music as a means of grace in churches, and to get a sharp reply. Several commercial travellers came in and were astonished at being referred to a handsome, well-dressed young woman. Grace disposed of them rapidly and apparently without trouble. When husband and wife sat down to supper, Philip said:--

"How did the managing partner get along to-day?"

"I bought very little," Grace replied.

"You saved Caleb and me a lot of time. I've never seen Caleb so active and spirited as he has been this afternoon. It made me feel guilty, for I was rude to him this morning for the first time. Just when I was trying to think my hardest about something, he brought up again the subject of the church and the piano."

"Poor Caleb! But he won't do it again, for I've settled the matter."

"You've not been tender-hearted enough to give up the piano?"

"Oh, no, but I--we, I mean--have taken the county agency for a cabinet-organ firm."

"I see--e--e! And you're going to torment the church into buying one, and you and Caleb are going to get up strawberry festivals and such things to raise the money, and the upshot will be that I'll have to subscribe a lot of cash to make up the deficiency. Ah, well, peace will be cheap at--"

"Phil, dear, don't be so dreadfully previous. The bargain is that the firm shall send us, without charge, a specimen instrument, which I've promised to display to the best advantage, and I've also promised to give elementary instruction to every one who manifests interest in it."

"Grace Somerton! The house will be full from morning till night. Country people will throng about such an instrument like children about a hand-organ. 'Twill be the end of your coming into the store to talk to the drummers, or even to see me."

"Oh, Phil! Where are your wits? I'm going to have the organ kept at the church, and let the most promising would-be learners and possible buyers do their practising there. The organ firm sells on instalments; we'll guarantee the instalments, for I'll select the buyers--who will want only smaller instruments--from among women who bring us chickens and butter and eggs and feathers and such things. So the church will be sure of an instrument more appropriate to congregational singing than a piano, and our piano won't be coveted, and we will make a little money, and by the time the next revival season arrives there will be at least a few people who can play, and perhaps some who are accustomed to closed windows and stuffy air, and won't get splitting headaches and lose five pounds of weight in a week, as I did."

"Allow me to catch my breath!" said Philip. "Give me some tea, please, quick!--no milk or sugar. I hope 'tis very strong. You've planned all this, yet there you sit, as natural and unassuming as if you'd never thought of anything but keeping house and being the sweetest wife in the world!"

"Thank you, but shouldn't sweetness have any strength and character? And what is business for, I should like to know, but to enable women to keep house--and keep their pianos, if they have any?"

"Caleb," said Philip, on returning to the store, "I want to apologize for answering you rudely this morning about that enraging piano. I was in a hard study over--"

"Don't mention it," said Caleb, with a beatific smile. "Besides, 'Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' as the Bible says in hundreds of different ways. I s'pose your wife's told you what she's done about music for the church? Je--ru--salem! Ain't she a peeler, though?"

"She is indeed--if I may assume that a 'peeler' is an incomparable combination of goodness and good sense."

"That's about the meanin' of it, in my dictionary." Then Caleb fixed his eyes inquiringly upon Philip's face and kept them there so long that Philip asked:--

"What now, Caleb?"

"Nothin'," said Caleb, suddenly looking embarrassed. "That is, nothin' that's any o' my business."

"If 'twas mine, you needn't hesitate to mention it. You and I ought to be fair and frank with each other."

"Well," said Caleb, counting with a stubby forefinger the inches on a yardstick, "I was only wonderin'--that is, I want to say that you're a good deal of a man, an' one that I'm satisfied it's safe to tie to, an' I'm mighty glad you're in your uncle's place, but--for the land's sake, how'd you come to git her?"

Philip laughed heartily, and replied:--

"As most men get wives. I asked her to marry me. First, of course, I put my best foot forward, for a long time, and kept it there."

"Of course. But didn't the other fellers try to cut you out?"

"Quite likely, for most men have eyes."

"Wa'n't any of 'em millionnaires?"

"Probably not, though I never inquired. As she herself has told you, Mrs. Somerton was a saleswoman. Millionnaires do their courting in their own set, where saleswomen can't afford to be."

"That was great luck for you, wasn't it? Are there any women like her in their set?"

"I don't doubt they think so. Mrs. Somerton says there are plenty of them in every set, rich and poor alike. As for me,--'There's Only One Girl in the World'--you've heard the song?"

"Can't say that I have," Caleb replied, suddenly looking thoughtful, "but the idea of it's straight goods an' a yard wide. Well, sir, it's plain to me, an' pretty much ev'rybody else, that that wife o' yourn is the greatest human blessin' that ever struck these parts. Good women ain't scarce here; neither is good an' smart women. I s'pose our folks look pretty common to you, 'cause of their clothes, but they improve on acquaintance. Speakin' o' clothes--ev'rybody, even the best o' folks, fall short o' perfection in some particular, you know. The only way Mis' Somerton can ever do any harm, 'pears to me, is by always bein' so well dressed as to discourage some other women, an' makin' a lot of the gals envious an' discontented. She don't wear no di'monds nor gewgaws, I know, but for all that, she looks, day in an' day out, as if she was all fixed for a party or Sunday-school picnic, an'--But, say, 'I shouldn't wonder if I was on dangerous ground,' as one of our recruits remarked to me at Gettysburg after most of our regiment was killed or wounded."

"Aha!" exclaimed Philip, when he rejoined his wife after the store closed for the day. "'Pride must have a fall'--that is, supposing you were proud of silencing Caleb concerning the piano. He has a torment in preparation for you, personally. He thinks you dress too handsomely--wear party clothes every day, and are likely to upset the heads of the village girls, and some women old enough to know better."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Grace, flushing indignantly. "I've absolutely no clothes but those I owned when we were poor. I thought them good enough for another season, as no one here would have seen them before, and none of them was very badly worn." She arose, stood before the chamber mirror, and said:--

"This entire dress is made of bits of others, that were two, three, or four years old, and were painfully cheap when new."

"Even if they weren't," said Philip, "they were your own, and earned by hard work, and if ever again Caleb opens his head on the subject, I'll--"

"No, you won't! I don't know what you were going to do, but please don't. Leave Master Caleb to me."

"You don't expect to reason him into believing that you're less effectively dressed than you are?"

"I expect to silence him for all time," Grace replied, again contemplating herself in the mirror, and appearing not dissatisfied with what she saw. The next day she asked Caleb which, if any, of the calicoes in the store were least salable; the cheapest, commonest stuff possible, for kitchen wear. Caleb "reckoned" aloud that the best calico was cheap enough for the store-owner's wife, but Grace persisted, so she was shown the "dead stock,"--the leavings of several seasons' goods,--from which she made two selections. Caleb eyed them with disfavor, and said:--

"That purple one ain't fast color; the yaller one is knowed all over the county as the Scare-Cow calico. We might 'a' worked it off on somebody, if the first an' only dress of it we sold hadn't skeered a cow so bad that she kicked, an' broke the ankle of the gal that was milkin' her."

"Never mind, Caleb; the purple one can afford to lose some of its color, and--oh, I'll see about the other."

Three days later Grace, enveloped in a water-proof cloak, hurried through a shower from the house to the store, and on entering the back room, threw off the cloak. Caleb, who was drawing vinegar from a barrel, arose suddenly, with a half-gallon measure in his hands, and groaned to see his employer's wife, "dressed," as he said afterward, "like a queen just goin' onto a throne, though, come to think of it, I never set eyes on a queen, nor a throne, either." More deplorable still, she looked proud, and conscious, and as if demanding admiration. There was even a suspicion of a wink as she exclaimed:--

"Be careful not to let any of that vinegar run over and splash near me, Caleb! You know the purple isn't fast color!"

"Je--ru--salem!" exclaimed Caleb, dropping the measure and its contents, which Grace escaped by tripping backward to the shelter of a stack of grain-sacks. When she emerged, with a grand courtesy followed by a long, honest laugh, Caleb continued:--

"Well, I've read of folk's bein' clothed in purple an' fine linen, but purple an' Scare-Cow knocks me flat! Dressed in 'dead stock,' from head to foot, an' yit--Hello, Philip! Come in here! Oh! You're knocked pretty flat, too, ain't you? Well, I just wanted to take back what I said the other day about some folk's clothes. I don't b'lieve a dress made of them grain-sacks would look common on her!"

"How stupid of me!" Grace exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of the grain-sacks? I might have corded the seams with heavy dark twine, or piped them with red carpet-binding."

"I don't know what cordin' an' pipin' is," said Caleb, "but after what I've seen, I can believe that you'd only need to rummage in a big rag-bag awhile to dress like a queen--or look like one."

VIII--THE PORK-HOUSE

COLD weather and the pork-packing season had arrived, and the lower floor of Somerton's warehouse was a busier place than the store. At one side "dressed" hogs, unloaded from farmers' wagons, were piled high; in the centre a man with a cleaver lopped the heads and feet from the carcasses, and divided the remainder into hams, shoulders, and sides, which another man trimmed into commercial shape; a third packed the product in salted layers on the other side. At the rear of the room two men cut the trimmings, carefully separating the lean from the fat, and with the latter filled, once in two or three hours, some huge iron kettles which sat in a brick furnace in the corner. At similar intervals the contents of the kettles were transferred to the hopper of a large press, not unlike a cider press, and soon an odorous wine-colored fluid streamed into a tank below, from which it was ladled through tin funnels into large, closely hooped barrels. The room was cold, despite the furnace; the walls, windows, and ceiling were reminiscent of the dust and smell of many pork-packing seasons. Early in the season Philip had dubbed the pork-packing floor "Bluebeard's Chamber," and warned his wife never to enter it. After a single glance one day, through the street door of the warehouse, Grace assured her husband that the prohibition was entirely unnecessary. She also said that she never had been fond of pork, but that in the future she would eschew ham, bacon, sausage, lard, and all other pork products.

When the sound of rapid, heavy hammering was audible in the Somerton sitting room and parlor, and when Grace asked where it came from, Philip replied, "The pork-house;" the cooper was packing barrels of sides, hams, or shoulders for shipment, or tightening the hoops of lard-barrels which were inclined to leak. When Grace wondered whence came the great flakes of soot on table-linen which had been hung out of doors to dry, Philip replied, "The pork-house;" probably the fire in the furnace was drawing badly and smoking too much. Frequently, when she went to the store and asked Caleb where her husband was, the reply would be, "The pork-house." If Philip reached home late for a meal, and Grace asked what had kept him, he was almost certain to reply, "The pork-house," and if, as frequently occurred later in the season, he retired so late that Grace thought she had slept through half the night, he groaned, in answer to her inevitable question, "The pork-house."

Then came a day when Grace detected an unfamiliar and unpleasing odor in the house. She suspected the napkins, then the tablecloth, and examined the rug under the dining-room table for possible spots of butter. Next she inspected the kitchen, which she washed and scoured industriously for a full day. Occasionally she detected the same odor in the store, as if she had carried it with her from the house, so she examined her dresses minutely, for the odor was reminiscent of cookery of some kind, although she had but a single dress for kitchen wear, and never wore it out of the house. She mentioned the odor to Philip, but he was unable to detect it in the air. One day it inflicted itself upon her even in church, and became so obnoxious that she spoke of it, instead of the sermon, as soon as the congregation was dismissed.

"I'm very sorry, dear girl, that you're so tormented," said Philip. "I wish I could identify the nuisance; then possibly I could find means to abate it. I know an odor is hard to describe, but do try to give me some clew to it."

"It reminds me somewhat of stale butter," Grace replied slowly, "and of some kinds of greasy pans, and of burned meat, and of parts of some tenement-house streets in the city, and some ash-cans on city sidewalks on hot summer mornings--oh, those days!--and of--I don't know what else."

"You've already named enough to show that 'tis truly disgusting and dreadful, and I do wish you and I could exchange the one of the five senses which is affected by it, for I never had much sense of smell."

By this time they were at home. Philip was unclasping his wife's cloak when Grace exclaimed suddenly:--

"There it is!"

"There what is?"

"That dreadful odor! Why, Phil, 'tis on your coat-sleeve! What, in the name of all that's mysterious--"

"That was my best coat in the city last winter, and I've never worn it here, except on Sundays."

"Then it must have taken the odor from some other garment in your closet."

Philip hurriedly brought his ordinary weekday coat to the sitting room, Grace moved it slowly, suspiciously, toward her nose, and soon exclaimed:--

"There it is--ugh! But what can it be?"

At that instant a well-known knock at the door announced Caleb, who had been invited to Sunday dinner.

"Don't be shocked, Caleb," said Philip; "we're not mending clothes on Sunday. 'Twill scarcely be an appetizer, apparently, but won't you pass this coat to and fro before your face a moment, and detect an odor, if you can, and tell us what it is?"

Caleb took the coat, did as requested, touched the cloth with his nose, and replied:--

"The pork-house."

"What do you mean?" Philip asked, while Grace turned pale.

"It's the smell of boilin' fat, from the lard-kettles. It's powerful pervadin' of ev'rythin', specially woollen clothes, an' men's hair, when the pork-house windows an' doors are shut. It makes me mortal sick sometimes, when the malary gets a new grip on me; at such times I know a pork-house worker when I pass him in the street in the dark. To save myself from myself I used to wear an oilcloth jacket an' overalls when I worked in the pork-house--your uncle an' I used to have to put in a good many hours there. There was somethin' else I used to do too, when I got to my room, though I never dared to tell your uncle, or he'd never ha' stopped laughin' at me."

"What was it? Tell me--quick!" said Philip.

"Why, I bought a bottle of Floridy water out of the store,--it's a stuff that some of the gals use,--an' I sprinkled a little ev'ry day, mornin' an' evenin', on the carpet."

Philip hurried to a bed-chamber, and came back with Grace's cologne-bottle, the contents of which he bestowed upon the rug under the dining table.

"That ort to kill the rat," said Caleb, approvingly.

The dinner was a good one, but Grace ate sparingly, though she talked with animation and brilliancy unusual even for her, Philip imagined. For himself, he felt as he thought a detected criminal, an outcast, must feel. Excusing himself abruptly, he relieved his feelings somewhat by throwing out of doors the offending coat and the garments pertaining to it; then he threw out all the woollen garments of his wardrobe. Caleb was not due at Sunday school until three o'clock, but he excused himself an hour early. As he started, he signalled Philip in a manner familiar in the store, to follow him, and when both were outside the door, he said:--

"I reckon she needs quinine, or somethin'. Touchiness 'bout smells is a sign. I'd get Doc Taggess to come down, if I was you."

Philip thanked him for the suggestion; then he hurried to the bath-room, washed his hair and mustache, and exchanged his clothes for a thinner suit which he exhumed from a trunk. It was redolent of camphor, which he detested, but it was "all the perfumes of Araby" compared with--the pork-house. Then he rejoined Grace and made haste to officiate as assistant scullion, and also to ejaculate:--

"That infernal pork-house!"

"Don't talk of it any more to-day," Grace said, with a piteous smile.

"How can I help it, when--"

"But you must help it, Phil dear. Really you must."

Philip made haste to change the subject of conversation, and to cheer his wife and escape from his own thoughts he tried to be humorous, and finally succeeded so well that he and Grace became as merry in their little kitchen as they ever had been anywhere. Indeed, Grace recovered her spirits so splendidly that of her own accord she recalled the pork-house, and said many amusing things about "Bluebeard's Chamber," and told how curious and jealous Philip's prohibition had made her, and Philip replied that it contained more trunkless heads than the fateful closet of Bluebeard, and that it was a treasure-house besides; for through it passed most of the store's business that directly produced money. Then he dashed at the piano and played a lot of music so lively that it would have shocked the church people had they heard it, and Grace lounged in an easy-chair, with her eyes half closed, looking the picture of dreamy contentment. Later she composed herself among the pillows of a lounge, and asked Philip to throw an afghan over her, and sit beside her, and talk about old times in the city, and then to remind her of all their newer blessings, because she wished to be very, fully, reverently grateful for them. Philip was not loath to comply with her request; for though the month's work had been very exacting and hard, he had been assured by Caleb, within twenty-four hours, that it was the largest and most profitable month of business that the Somerton store had ever done, and that beyond a doubt the new proprietor had "caught on," and held all the old customers, and of his own ability secured several new ones, which proved that the people of the town and county "took to" him.

All this Philip repeated to Grace, who dreamily said that it was very good, and a satisfaction to have her husband prominent among men, instead of a nobody--a splendid, incomparable, adorable one, but still really a nobody, among the hundreds of thousands of men in New York. Then both of them fell to musing as the twilight deepened. Musing, twilight, and temporary relief from the strain of the week's work combined to send Philip into a gentle doze, from which he suddenly roused himself to say:--

"What are you laughing at, Miss Mischief?"

"I'm--not--laughing," Grace replied.

"Crying? My dear girl, what is the matter?"

"I'm--not--crying. I'm--merely--shivering. I'm cold."

"That's because you've a brute of a husband, who has been so wrapped up in his affairs and you that probably he has let the fire go out." He made haste to replenish the stove and to throw over his wife a traveller's rug. Then he lighted a shaded candle, looked at the thermometer, and said:--

"How strange! The mercury stands at seventy-two degrees."

But Grace continued to shiver, and, stranger still, she felt colder as the fire burned up and additional covers were placed upon her. Finally she exclaimed:--

"Oh, Phil! I'm frightened! This is something--different from--ordinary cold. It must be some--something like--paralysis. I can't move my arms or feet."

"I'll run for Doctor Taggess at once!" said Philip; but as he started from the room, Grace half screamed, half groaned:--

"Don't leave me, if you--love me! Don't let me--die--alone!"

"At least let me go to the door and raise a shout; some one will hear me, and I'll send him for the Doctor."

As he opened the door he saw a light in the window of Caleb's room, over the store. Quickly seizing the cord of the alarm signal, of which Caleb had previously told him, he pulled several times, and soon Caleb, finding the door ajar, entered the room.

"Won't you get the Doctor, Caleb--quick?" said Philip. "We're awfully frightened; my wife has a strange, dreadful attack of some kind. It acts like paralysis."

Caleb, glancing toward the lounge, saw the quivering covers and Grace's face.

"Poor little woman!" he said, with the voice of a woman. "But don't be frightened. 'Tisn't paralysis. It's bad enough, but it never kills. I know the symptoms as well as I know my own right hand, an' Doctor'll do more good later in the evenin' than now."

"But what is it, man?"

"Malary--fever an' ager. She's never had a chill before, I reckon?"

"No--o--o," said Grace, between chattering teeth.

"Don't wonder you was scared, then. If religion could take hold like an ager-chill, this part of the country would be a section o' kingdom-come. The mean thing about it is that it takes hardest hold of folks that's been the healthiest. Try not to be scared, though; it won't kill, an' 'twon't last but a few minutes. Then you're likely to drop asleep, an' wake pretty soon with a hot fever an' splittin' headache; they ain't pleasant to look forward to, but they might seem worse if you didn't foresee 'em. I'll go for Doc Taggess right off; if he ain't home, his wife'll send him as soon as he comes. Taggess himself is the best medicine he carries; but if he's off somewhere, I'll come back an' tell your husband what to do. Don't be afeared to trust me; ev'ry man o' sense in this section o' country knows what to do for fever and ager; if he didn't, he'd have to go out o' business."

Caleb departed, after again saying "Poor little woman!" very tenderly. As for Philip, he took his wife's hands in his own and poured forth a torrent of sympathetic words; but when the sufferer fell asleep, he went out into the darkness and cursed malaria, the West, and the impulse which had made him become his uncle's heir. He cursed many things else, and then concentrated the remainder of his wrath into an anathema on the pork-house.

IX--A WESTERN SPECTRE

AFTER her fever had subsided, Grace went to sleep and carried into dream-land the disquieting conviction that she was to have a long period of illness, and be confined to her bed. Philip had given her the medicines prescribed and obtained by Caleb, for Doctor Taggess had gone far into the country and was not expected home until morning. Then Philip had lain awake far into the night, planning proper care for his precious invalid; finally he decided to get a trained nurse from New York, unless Doctor Taggess could recommend one nearer home. He would also get from the city a trained housekeeper; for, as already explained, there was no servant class at Claybanks, and of what use was "help" when the head of the house was too ill to direct the work? He would order from the city every cordial, every sick-room delicacy, that he could think of, or the Doctor might suggest. Expense was not to be thought of; there was only one woman and wife in the world--to him, and she had been cruelly struck down. She should be made well, at whatever cost. Meanwhile he would write the firm by which he had been employed in New York, and beg for his old position, for the reason that the climate of Claybanks was seriously undermining his wife's health; afterward, as soon as Grace could be moved, he would take her back to the city, and give up his Claybanks property, with its train of responsibilities, privations, and miseries.

When he awoke in the morning, he slipped softly from the room, which he had darkened the night before, so that the morning light should not disturb the invalid, and he moved toward the kitchen to make a fire--a morning duty with which he had charged himself and faithfully fulfilled since his first day in his uncle's house. To be in the store by sunrise, as was the winter custom of Claybanks merchants, compelled Philip to rise before daylight, and habit, first induced by an alarm clock, had made him wake every winter day at six, while darkness was still deep.

He was startled, therefore, when he tip-toed into the dining room, to be welcomed by a burst of sunlight. Evidently his wakefulness of the previous night had caused him to oversleep. Hurrying to the kitchen, he was again startled, for breakfast was cooking on the stove, and at the table, measuring some ground coffee into a pot, stood Grace, softly singing, as was her custom when she worked.

"What?" he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. "Was it I who was ill, instead of you, or have I been bereft of my senses for a fortnight or more?"

"Neither, you poor, dear boy," Grace replied, though without looking up. "Yesterday I was more scared than hurt; to-day I feel as well as ever--really, I do."

Philip stepped in front of her, took her head in his hands, and looked into her face. The healthy glow peculiar to it had given place to a sickly yellow tint; her plump cheeks had flattened--almost hollowed, her eyes, always either lustrous or melting, were dull and expressionless, and her lips, usually ruddy and full, were gray and thin. As her husband looked at her, she burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder.

"I could have endured anything but that," she sobbed. "I don't think I'm vain, but it has always been so delightful to me that I could be pretty to my husband. I wasn't conceited, but I had to believe my mirror. But now--oh, I'd like to hide my face somewhere for a--"

"Would you, indeed?" murmured Philip, tenderly. "Let me hide it for you, a little at a time; I promise you that not a bit shall be neglected."

"Do let me breathe, Phil. I don't see how you can kiss a scarecrow--and continue at it."

"Don't you? I could kiss a plague-patient, or the living skeleton, if Grace Somerton's heart was in it. I don't understand your reference to a scarecrow. Your mirror must have been untruthful this morning, or perhaps covered with mist, for--see!"

So saying, he detached the late Mr. Jethro Somerton's tiny mirror from the kitchen wall and held it before his wife, whose astonishment and delight were great as she exclaimed:--

"Phil, you're a witch! Now I'm going to make believe that there was no yesterday, and if yesterday persists in coming to mind, I shall scold myself most savagely for having been a frightened, silly child."

"You really were a very sick woman," Philip replied. "I was quite as frightened at you while the chill had possession of you, and you had a raging fever afterward. You've had headaches in other days, but yesterday's was the first that made you moan."

"'Tis very strange. I feel quite as well to-day as ever I did. Perhaps 'tis the effect of Caleb's medicine. Poor Caleb! When he saw me, I really believe he suffered as much as I."

"So it seemed to me," said Philip. "I wonder how a little, sickly, always-tired man can have so much sympathy and tenderness?"

"You forget that he, himself, is malaria-poisoned, as your uncle's letter said. Probably he's had just such chills as mine. Let's make haste to thank him."

After a hurried breakfast, husband and wife went together to the store, and found Caleb awaiting them at the back door. He had already seen Grace's figure at the window of the sitting room.

"Je--ru--salem!" he exclaimed, looking intently at Grace. "I never saw a worse shake than yourn, which is sayin' a mighty lot, considerin' I was born an' raised in the West. But you look just as good as new. Well, there's somethin' good in ev'rythin', if you look far enough for it--even in an ager-chill."

"Good in a chill, indeed!" Philip exclaimed.

"Yes; its good p'int is that it don't last long. Havin' a chill's like bein' converted; if somethin' didn't shut down on the excitement pretty quick, there'd be nothin' left o' the subject. Well, seein' you're here, I reckon I'd better take a look in the pork-house."

"He has sprinkled the floor with Florida water!" said Grace, as she entered the store. "Evidently he didn't doubt that I'd be well this morning, and he remembers yesterday."

Within an hour Doctor Taggess and his wife bustled into the store, and Mrs. Taggess hurried to Grace, and said:--

"I'd have come to you yesterday, my dear, if I hadn't known I could be of no use. Chills are like cyclones; they'll have their own way while they last, and everything put in their way makes them more troublesome."

The Doctor consulted Philip, apart, as to what had been done, approved of Caleb's treatment, and gave additional directions; then he turned upon Grace his kind eyes and pleasant smile, which Caleb had rightly intimated were his best medicines, and he said:--

"Well, has Doctor Caleb found time to give you his favorite theory, which is that a chill or any other malarial product is a means of grace?"

"Caleb values his life too highly to advance such a theory at present," Philip answered for his wife.

"Just so, just so. Well, there's a time for everything, but Caleb isn't entirely wrong on that subject. There are other and less painful and entirely sufficient means of grace, however, from which one can choose, so chills aren't necessary--for that particular purpose, and I hope you won't have any more of them. I'm afraid you forgot some of the advice I gave you, the first time we met, about how to take care of yourself until you had become acclimated."

Philip and Grace looked at each other sheepishly, and admitted that they had not forgotten, but neglected. They had felt so well, so strong, they said.

"Just so, just so. Malaria's just like Satan, in many ways, but especially in sometimes appearing as an angel of light. At first it will stimulate every physical faculty of a healthy person like good wine, but suddenly--well, you know. I had my suspicions the last time I noticed your splendid complexion, but between mending broken limbs and broken heads, and old people leaving the world, and young people coming into it, I'm too busy to do all the work I lay out for myself. You may have one more chill--"

"Oh, Doctor!"

"'Twon't be so bad as the first one, unless it comes to-day. They have four different and regular periods--every day, every other day, once in three days, and once in seven days, and each is worse than all of the others combined--according to the person who has it. I'll soon cure yours, whichever kind it may be, and after that I'm going to get Mrs. Taggess to keep you in mind of the necessary precautions against new attacks, for I've special use for you in this town and county. I wonder if Caleb has told you that you, too, are a means of grace? No? Well, he's a modest chap, but he'll get to it yet, and I'll back him up. This county has needed a visible standard of physical health for young women to live up to, and you entirely fill the bill."

"I shouldn't wonder, Doctor," said Philip, while Grace blushed, "that, religious though you are, you sometimes agree with the sceptic who said that if he'd been the Creator of the world he'd have made health catching, instead of disease."

"No, I can't say that I do. Heaven knows I'm sick enough of sickness; no honest physician's bills pay him for the miseries he has to see, and think of, and fight; but health's very much like money--it's valued most by those who have to work hardest to get it: those who come by it easily are likely to squander it. I can't quite make out, by the ordinary signs, how your wife came by her own. I wonder if she'd object to telling me. I don't ask from mere curiosity, I assure you."

"I'm afraid 'twill stimulate my self-esteem to tell," Grace replied, with heightening color, "for I'm prouder of my health than of anything else--except my husband. I got it by sheer hard, long effort, through the necessity for six years, of going six days in the week, sick or well, rain or shine, to and from a store, and of standing up, for nine or ten hours a day while I was inside. To lose a day or two in such a store generally meant to lose one's place, so a girl couldn't afford to be sick, or even feeble."

"Aha! Wife, did you hear that? Now, Mrs. Somerton, Claybanks and vicinity need you even more than I'd supposed. But--do try to have patience with me, for I'm a physician, you know, and what you tell me may be of great service to other young women; I won't use your name, if you object. Did you have good health from the first?"

"No, indeed! I was a thin, pale, little country girl when I went to the city; I'd worked so hard at school for years that all my vitality seemed to have gone to my head. Work in the store was cruelly hard,--indeed, it never became easy,--and I had headaches, backaches, dizzy times--oh, all sorts of aches and wearinesses. But in a great crowd of women there are always some with sharp eyes, and clear heads, and warm hearts, and sometimes the mother-feeling besides. I wasn't the only chronically tired girl in the place; most of the others looked and felt as I did. Well, some of the good women I've mentioned were perpetually warning us girls to be careful of our health, and telling us how to do it."

"Good! Good! What did they say--in general?"

"Nothing," said Grace, laughing, and then remaining silent a moment, as she seemed to be looking backward. "For each said something in particular. All had hobbies. One thought diet was everything; with another it was the daily bath; others harped on long and regular sleep, or avoidance of excitement, or fresh air while sleeping, or clothes and the healthiest way to wear them, or exercise, or the proper position in which to stand, or on carrying the head and shoulders high, or deep breathing, or recreation, or religion, or avoidance of the tea, cake, and candy habit."

"Well, well! Now tell me, please, which of these hobbies you adopted."

"All of them--every one of them," Grace replied, with an emphatic toss of her head. "First I tried one, with some benefit, then another, and two or three more, and finally the entire collection."

"Hurrah!" shouted the Doctor. "You can be worth more to the women hereabouts than a dozen doctors like me, if you will--and of course you will. Indeed, you must. One more question,--positively the last. You couldn't have been the only woman who profited by the advice you received?"

"Oh, no. In any of the stores in which I worked there were some strong, wholesome, grand women who had literally fought their way up to what they were, for small pay and long hours, and weariness at night, and many other things combined to make any special effort of self-denial very, very hard--too hard for some of the girls, I verily believe. I don't think I'm narrow or easily satisfied; sometimes I've been fastidious and slow in forming acquaintances, but among all the other women I've seen, or heard of, or read about, there aren't any for whom I'd exchange some of my sister--shopgirls."

"Saleswomen, if you please," said Philip.

"Well, well!" drawled the Doctor, who had been looking fixedly at Grace. "I don't wonder that you're what you are. Come along, wife."

As Doctor and Mrs. Taggess departed, Grace said to her husband:--

"That is the highest compliment that I ever had." And Philip replied:--

"I hope 'tis good for chills."

X--SHE WANTED TO KNOW

GRACE'S malarial attack was soon repulsed, but the memory of that Sunday chill remained vivid. So Grace followed the Doctor's instructions as carefully as if she were an invalid on the brink of the grave, and she compelled Philip also to heed the counsel of precaution which Doctor Taggess had given to both. From that time forward she took personal sympathetic interest in all malarial victims of whom she heard, especially in those who purchased from the great stock of proprietary medicines in Somerton's store. Not infrequently a farmer or villager would be seized by a chill while talking or transacting business in the store, and Grace, despite her own experience in a warm room and under many woollen coverings, could scarcely help begging him to accept the loan of heavy shawls from the store's stock, and to sit undisturbed by the fire in the back room. When she planned a Sunday dinner, at which Doctor Taggess and his wife were to be guests, it was partly for the purpose of questioning the Doctor about the origin of malaria, and of its peculiarities, which seemed almost as numerous as cases; but Philip assured her that busy doctors, like other men of affairs, hated nothing so much as to "talk shop" out of business hours.

Fortunately she gradually became too busy to have time in which to become a monomaniac on malaria. The specimen organ arrived, and was placed in the church, to the great edification of the people. Grace was for a time the only performer, but to prepare relief for herself, improve the quality of the congregational singing, and not without an eye to business, she organized an evening music class, and quickly trained several young women to play some of the simpler hymn-tunes,--and also to purchase organs on the instalment plan.

From music lessons to dress-making is a far cry, but the fame of the purple and "Scare-Cow" dress had pervaded the county, and all the girls wanted dresses like it, which was somewhat embarrassing after the stock of the two calicoes had been exhausted. Then there arose a demand for something equally lovely, pretty, nice, sweet, or scrumptious, according to the vocabulary of the demander, and Eastern jobbers of calicoes and other prints and cheap dress-goods were one day astonished to receive from "Philip Somerton, late Jethro Somerton," a request for a full line of samples--the first request of the sort from that portion of the state. To be able to ask in a store, "How would you make this up?" and to get a satisfying answer, was a privilege which not even the most hopeful women of Claybanks had ever dared to expect, so the "truck trade" of the town and county--the business that came of women carrying eggs, butter, chickens, feathers, etc., to the stores to barter for goods--drifted almost entirely to Somerton's store, and caused John Henry Bustpodder, a matter-of-fact German merchant on the next block, to say publicly that if his wife should die he would shut up the store and leave it shut till he could get to New York and marry a shopgirl.

By midspring Grace had quite as few idle moments as her husband or Caleb; for between housekeeping, music-teaching, talking with commercial travellers, and selling goods, she seldom found time to enjoy the horse and buggy that Philip had bought for her, and she often told her husband, in mock complaint, that she worked longer hours than she had ever done in New York, and that she really must have an advance of pay if he did not wish her to transfer her abilities and customers to some rival establishment. Yet she enjoyed the work; she had a keen sense of humor, which sharpened the same sense in others, and when women were at the counter, she frequently found excuse to start a chorus of laughter. To her husband, a customer was merely a customer; to Grace he was frequently a character, and she had seen so few characters in the course of her New York experiences that she rejoiced in the change. She was sympathetic, too, so the younger women talked to her of much besides "truck" and goods. When one day a country matron rallied her on being without children, another matron exclaimed, "She's second mother to half the gals in the county"--a statement which Grace repeated to Philip in great glee, following it with a demure question as to the advisability of living up to her new dignity by taking to spectacles and sun-bonnets.

But in her sober moments, and sometimes in the hurry of business, a spectre of malaria would suddenly intrude upon her thoughts. Occasionally she saw cases of rheumatism, rickets, helpless limbs, twitching faces, and other ailments that caused her heart to ache, and prompted her to ask the cause. The answers were various: "malary"--"fever an' ager"--"malarier"--"chills"--"malaria," but the meanings were one. One day she burst in an instant from laughter into tears at seeing a babe, not a year old, shaking violently with a chill. Straightway Grace went to the minister--poor minister!--and demanded to know how the Lord could permit so dreadful an occurrence. One day, after engaging Doctor Taggess in general conversation, she abruptly said, despite Philip's reminder that physicians dislike "shop talk":--

"I wish you would tell me all about malaria; what it is, and where it comes from, and why we don't get rid of it."

"My dear woman," the Doctor replied, "ask me about electricity, of which no one knows much, and I can tell you something, but malaria is beyond my ken. I know it when I see it in human nature; that is, I treat almost all diseases as if they were malarial, and I seldom find myself mistaken, but, beyond that, malaria is beyond my comprehension."

"But, Doctor, it must be something, and come from somewhere."

"Oh, yes. 'Tis generally admitted that malaria is due to an invisible emanation from the soil, and is probably a product of vegetation in a certain stage of decay. It seems to be latent in soil that has not been exposed to the air for some time,--such as that thrown from cellars and wells in process of excavation,--and all swamps are believed to be malaria breeders; for when the swamp land of a section is drained, the malarial diseases of the vicinity disappear."

"Then why aren't all swamps drained?"

"Because the work would be too expensive, in the sections where the swamps are, I suppose. Look at this township, for example: while all the ground is open,--that is, not frozen,--the farmers and other people have all they can do at planting, cultivating, harvesting, etc. Swamp land makes the richest soil, after it has been drained, but who's going to drain his own swamp when he already has more good land than he can cultivate? Some of the farmers work at it, a little at a time, but it is slow work,--discouragingly slow,--besides being frightfully hard and disgustingly dirty."

"Then why doesn't the government do it?"

"I thought you'd come to that, for every woman's a socialist at heart until she learns better. Still, so is every man. Well, governments have no money of their own; all they have is taken from the people, in the form of taxes, and any increase of taxes, especially for jobs as large as swamp drainage in this state, would be too unpopular to be voted. Besides, while it would be of general benefit to the many, it would specially and greatly benefit the owners of the swamp land, which would start a frightful howl. Private enterprise may be depended upon to banish swamps and malaria; but first there must be enough population, and enough increase in the value of land, to justify it. I wish 'twould do so in this county and in my day. 'Twould lessen my income, but 'twould greatly increase my happiness, for doctors have hearts. By the way, have you yet heard from Caleb on malaria as a means of grace? There's a chance to learn something about malaria--to hear something about it, at least; for Caleb talks well on his pet subjects. Poor fellow, I wish I could cure his chronic malarial troubles. I've tried everything, and he does enjoy far better health than of old, but the cause of the trouble remains. That man came of tall, broad-shouldered stock on both sides--you wouldn't imagine it, would you, to look at him? He's always been industrious and intelligent; everybody likes him and respects him; but at times it's almost impossible to extract an idea or even a word from him--all on account of malaria. Again, he'll have the clearest, cleverest head in town. Seems strange, doesn't it?"

Grace improved an early opportunity to say to Caleb that perhaps she had done wrong in recovering so quickly from her attack of chills, for she had been told that he regarded malaria as a means of grace.

"Well, yes, I do--'bout the same way as some other things--air, an' light, an' food, an' money, for instance. Anythin' that helps folks to make the most of their opportunities can be a means of grace; when it isn't, the folks themselves are the trouble. Reckon nobody'll dispute that about good things. But when it comes to things that ain't popular,--like floods, an' light'nin'-strokes, an' malary,--well, folks don't seem to see it in the same light, and they suspect the malary most, 'cause it's far an' away the commonest. I've been laughed at so often for my notions on the subject that I've got hardened to it, an' don't mind standin' it again."

"Oh, Caleb! Please don't say that! You don't believe I would laugh at anything you're earnest about, do you?"

"Well, I don't really b'lieve you would, an' I'm much 'bliged to you for it. You see, my idee is this. You remember what's said, in one of the psalms, about they that go down to the sea in ships, and what happens to them when a big wind comes up--how they are at their wit's end, because they're in trouble too big for them to manage, so they have to call unto the Lord?--somethin' that sailors ain't b'lieved to be given to doin' over an' above much, judgin' by their general conversation as set down in books an' newspapers. Well, malary's like the wind, an' the spirit that's compared with it; you can't tell where it's comin' from, or when, or how long it's goin' to stay, or what it'll do before it goes. It puts a man face to face with his Maker, an' just when the man can't put on airs, no matter how hard he tries. I think anythin' that kicks a man into seein' his dependence on heaven is a means of grace, even if the man's too mean to take advantage of it. When a man's shakin' with a chill that's come at him on the sly, as a chill always does, an' finds all his grit an' all the doctor's medicine can't keep him from shakin'--snatches him clean away from his own grip, which is the awfullest feelin' a man can have--"

"You're entirely right about it, Caleb," said Grace, with a shudder.