Chapter V: Part 5

"I suppose so," growled Bartlett, and trailed from the room to finish dressing.

They found the girls in the dining-room, unaware of what had befallen them. They had slept late and the clock on the mantel registered half-past nine as the three men filed into the room. The general was calm, pompous, austere, but Henrietta had not lived with him for five and thirty years without having acquired the ability to read his every mood.

"Father," she asked, "what's the matter? Have your sins found you out?"

The general waited for the slatternly maid-servant to give them their breakfast and leave the room before he spoke.

"We have been robbed," he said calmly, casually, as one would mention the weather. His tones implied that he was perfectly willing to listen to reason, but that he knew who the thief was and anything stated to the contrary was not reason.

"I spend my whole life, father," said Henrietta, "finding the articles you have been robbed of. Your system is all right. You have a place for everything, but you never remember the place."

The Watermelon pulled out the linings of his empty pockets and held out his wrists that they might see the cuffs tied together by a bit of string.

Henrietta and Billy stared.

"I have never had a thief in my room," cried Billy. "I would like to see how it feels."

"I'm not robbed," said Henrietta, making a hurried examination of the small-sized trunk she carried as a hand-bag.

"It's the stable-boy," said the general. "I noticed him carefully last night. He would not look any one in the face."

"He goes home every night," objected Henrietta. "Mrs. Parker told me so."

"That's no reason he couldn't come back," said the general.

"No," said Henrietta. "But because a boy won't look at you is no reason to say that he is a thief."

"He does look at you, anyway," said Billy innocently. "He looked at me."

"It was clever in him to take our checkbooks," said Bartlett.

"He will forge our names," declared the general. "I made a check out to pay for the board here, signed it, too, I remember, and then I found some cash and thought I would use that and went to bed and forgot to destroy the check. I know it was the stable-boy for my room has a balcony in front, over the porch, and last night it was so warm I left the door open."

"Maybe it was," agreed Henrietta. "I hate to suspect him, though."

*CHAPTER XVII*

*ALPHONSE RIDES AWAY*

"The stable-boy would have access to the back of the house, too," said the general, who felt that if he had not become a general and had escaped being a master mechanic, he would have been a famous detective.

"Yes," agreed the Watermelon. "But I don't think it is the boy. I was out until after eleven, and just before I came in I saw him drive up with the girl. They had been out to some dance and he left her and drove on."

The girl appeared in the doorway wiping a plate, slip-shod and awkward. Henrietta blushed, the general was painfully confused and the other three turned their attention hastily to their food.

"Want anything?" asked the girl.

"No, thank you," replied Henrietta gently, feeling that in judging the stable-boy she had somehow injured the girl.

The girl lingered a moment, glanced significantly at the clock, and went out.

"Who could it be?" asked Billy, pleasantly excited.

"Why, this is terrible," said Henrietta. "If the boy didn't do it, there is no one else who could have, but the family."

"It looks that way," admitted the Watermelon.

"What shall we do?" gasped Billy. "What shall we pay them with?"

The slatternly girl again appeared in the doorway much to the general's nervousness.

"Want anything?" she asked, and glanced again at the clock.

"No," said Henrietta. "No, thank you."

"I will speak to Parker," declared the general as the girl left.

"I wish you didn't have to," sighed Henrietta. "It's horrid to lose your money, but it must be so much worse to need money so that you would steal it."

"But that's the test of honesty," declared the general. "To need money and not steal."

"I know," admitted Henrietta, pushing aside her coffee cup. "I do admire strong people who can resist, but I'm so much sorrier for the weak who can't. It's pitiful, that's what it is."

"Yes," cried Billy, as usual carried away by her feelings. "Let's not say a thing."

The door opened for the third time, but instead of the ineffective maid-servant, the farmer's wife, fat, red-cheeked, good-natured, entered.

She approached the table and smiled jovially from one to the other.

"I hope you liked everything," she said with a gentle hint in her tones that they had lingered around the breakfast table long enough. "Have you had plenty, General? Can't I get you some more coffee, Miss Crossman?"

"No, thank you," said the general, confused and unhappy.

Mrs. Parker smiled still. "I am glad you liked everything. Your man should be back soon. He hasn't had any breakfast yet."

"Where'd he go?" asked the general, feeling that that was safe enough ground.

"My husband thinks that he went out in one of the automobiles very early, for he found one of them gone."

"Did your husband see him go?" asked Bartlett.

"Oh, no, but he thinks he must have gone because there is only one automobile--"

"Oh, yes," said Henrietta, and stared at the others, fearful of reading her own crushing suspicion in their eyes.

Alphonse, the quiet, blase, peerless Alphonse? Could it be he? That Alphonse had gone for an early morning spin lured by the dew on the clover fields, by the sweet chorus of awakening birds, borne by the unsuppressible desire to see the shy, sweet advent of a new day creeping up the flushed and rosy sky, was wholly out of the question. Alphonse's soul, in the early morning hours, was filled only with the beauty and glory of bed. The general had always been forced to arouse his serving-man and the process had often been painful, calling for sternness and suppressed wrath on the general's part. Alphonse a thief was more believable than Alphonse getting out of bed uncalled.

Billy was the first to speak.

"The car," she whispered.

"Oh, yes," said the landlady hastily, not quite sure what had happened or was to happen by the expression on the faces before her. "Oh, yes," reassuringly, "he took the car. My husband wasn't up when he went--"

The general rose, his face red with anger. "If he has taken my car," he thundered, "I shall have him prosecuted whether Henrietta likes it or not."

"It's an outrage," sympathized Bartlett. "We can telegraph the police."

"Oh," moaned Henrietta, "I did love that car."

The landlady sought to reassure them in a calm, placid manner that savored of a big, gentle-eyed cow. "Why, he has only gone for a ride. He went--"

The general paused in the doorway. "He went last night, madam," said he coldly, and slightly dramatically, for the general never believed in spoiling a good story by a mild delivery. "And he took not only the car, but all our money."

Led by the general and followed by the landlady, they made for the barn. There, in the middle of the floor where last night two cars had stood side by side, a red and a blue, was now only one, a big, blue Packard. A few hens stepped daintily here and there, around and under it, while the cat cleaned her paws contentedly from her seat on the running-board.

The general stopped in the doorway and stared. His car? And such a wave of thanksgiving rushed over him that it was not his car that was missing that he felt he owed Alphonse a debt of gratitude and forgave him immediately.

"My car," said he, and chuckled with relief.

"Where's mine?" demanded Bartlett, growing red and angry.

"Where's Alphonse?" suggested the Watermelon significantly.

Henrietta laughed with positive gratitude to her erstwhile serving-man. "Why," she cried, "he left us ours."

"Alphonse was very fond of me," said the general with some little pride, as he patted his car tenderly.

"Yes," agreed Bartlett, "I can see that. He demonstrated it fully. I am glad he didn't love you or he might have killed Billy and me."

The landlord, followed by the slatternly maid-servant and the shifty-eyed stable-boy, trailed into the barn.

"Man gone off with your car?" asked the landlord. "I locked up last night about twelve. He must have left before then."

"The general's man did," said Bartlett, who felt that the general was in some way to blame.

"He has taken all our money," added Henrietta.

"A thief, eh?" said the landlord.

"Can't we follow the car by the tracks?" asked Henrietta. She went to the door and peered eagerly at the many wheel tracks in the dust of the drive.

The general waved the suggestion scornfully aside. "You can't tell whether the tracks are coming or going," said he.

"All detectives do," said Billy, following Henrietta to the door.

"I'm sorry," whispered the Watermelon in Billy's ear.

Billy laughed. "We have more cars at home," said she. "It doesn't bother me at all. That's the trouble of being rich, you can't be robbed and feel badly about it."

"Batchelor, you say that you were up until after eleven," said the general, feeling that the occasion called for intelligence. "Did you see Alphonse go out?"

"No," said the Watermelon.

"The landlord says, however, that he must have gone before twelve," went on the general. "Then don't you see how Alphonse could not have stolen the money? Those thefts were not committed until after twelve."

"I don't see how you work that out," said Henrietta, puzzling over it with knit brows.

"Don't you see, Henrietta, that if Alphonse stole our money after twelve, he could not have gone out in the car before eleven, so if he went out in the car before twelve, he did not steal the money. He either stole the money or the car."

"Maybe he didn't take the money," said Henrietta, feeling vaguely and disappointedly that she was not a person with detective-like instincts.

"You see," said the general, "if Alphonse took the car, he did not take the money; if he took the money, he did not take the car."

"He certainly did take the money," snapped the farmer.

"And my car," added Bartlett angrily.

"He could not have taken both," declared the general.

"You were robbed last night, weren't you?" demanded the farmer. "Well, then?"

"And my car is gone, isn't it?" demanded Bartlett.

"Yes, yes," acknowledged the general, feeling that every word he said only made the other two angrier, but still clinging to his deductions as to his life's principles. "Yes, of course; but Alphonse could not have done both. He went off with the car before eleven, so he could not have robbed us after twelve--"

"Sir," interrupted the farmer with a quiet dignity that was impressive, "do you accuse any of us of stealing?"

"No, no," protested the general, now hopelessly rattled. "But if Alphonse stole the money--"

"Alphonse swiped both," said the Watermelon, and that settled it as far as the general was concerned, for the general had boundless faith in the young man's deductive abilities. "I went in about eleven. He took the car out, ran it down the road a bit and then came back and sneaked our things."

"Certainly," said Bartlett, who could not help feeling irritated with the general for the fault of his man.

Billy laughed. "All this bother about nothing," said she. "Dad, what's one car, more or less?"

"A car is a car, Billy," said Bartlett coldly, refusing to be comforted for the ruin of his plan to keep Batchelor away from the city over Saturday.

"Yes," agreed Henrietta sympathetically, "any one hates to lose a car."

"But when you have seven," objected Billy.

"We haven't got them here, have we?" asked Bartlett.

"No, but we have one, and that's enough for five," declared Billy, finding the usual difficulty in persuading people to count their blessings. "We didn't need two, anyway."

"Yes, we did," said the Watermelon, thinking of the tonneau with only Billy and him, the general in front completely absorbed with the car.

"Why?" asked Billy.

"Why," stammered the Watermelon, who no longer cared to flirt with Billy and who had spoken without thinking, "why, so the general and your father could each run a car," he explained weakly.

"Oh, yes," chirped Billy. "What will they do now?"

The Watermelon turned and glanced out of the wide doors, down the tree-shaded road, and thought pityingly of the unfortunate Alphonse, gone off at the wrong time, with the whole country-side on the watch for a lone youth in a big red touring car. That the car was of a different make from the one they were hunting for would not impress the sheriffs so forcibly as the fact that the youth also carried a time-piece as big as a clock, along with a cigarette case, cuff links and stick pin, all marked plainly and beyond question, with the damning initials, W.H.B.

The Watermelon laughed softly, and glancing at Billy, laughed again. With Bartlett going directly back to the city, he would not have to confess to make things right. He could leave them at the telegraph office and drift away on some pretext or another, leaving Billy gaily, head up, as became a successful financier, not slink away like a whipped dog, with only the scorn and loathing in her eyes to remember, to obliterate all the other memories of that one nearly perfect week.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*OH, FOR A HORSE*

The farmer forgave the general with lofty dignity and turned to Bartlett with suggestions and offers of help. There was a telephone in the village store. They could telephone Boston or Portland, or they could telephone Harrison and Harrison could telegraph the larger cities. With the police notified promptly, Alphonse would not be able to get far.

Bartlett meditatively chewed a straw and pondered the suggestion, leaning against the nearest stall and frowning thoughtfully at the general's car, while the others stood around him in a semicircle.

They were ten miles from the nearest railroad, and the train service, when they did strike a road, was decidedly poor in that out-of-the-way locality. Still, by good luck, quick work and prompt connections, Batchelor would be able to reach Boston late that afternoon or evening and New York before ten A.M., Saturday morning, and at ten A.M. Saturday the last fight was to be fought, the last stand made. Without their brilliant young leader, the opponents to the cotton ring would be outnumbered and outclassed, hopelessly beaten. Bartlett's fighting blood was up at the thought. Was he to have his week spoiled by the worthless Alphonse's deviltry? Batchelor should not run the slightest chance of reaching Boston that day, if he could help it. Henrietta had a little money in her bag that would tide them over. Better avoid anything to do with telegraph and telephones as long as possible. They could make an attempt to reach Harrison and get lost. But getting lost wasn't as easy as it appeared, when the general was along, thoroughly determined not to get lost. Bartlett's thoughts were broken in on by the Watermelon in a way that caused him quick alarm. The young man had at last awakened to the gravity of the situation, as Bartlett had been expecting him to do ever since the trip began.

"We had better telephone," said the Watermelon, "as Parker says. We can telephone for money and have it sent to Harrison, and we can ride to Harrison and probably get there the same time as the money does and get the train for Boston. It's time we were back in New York, anyway."

The trip was ended and the sooner he left Billy the better. He could give them the slip at Harrison and once more hit the road.

"Telephoning from here won't help matters at all," objected Bartlett, fighting for that opportunity to get lost again, just for one more day--twelve hours would be enough. "We can drive to Harrison and telegraph from there. It is only a ten-mile drive. We can make it in fifteen minutes."

"No joy-riding," warned Henrietta, "when we haven't any money to pay the fines. I don't want to do my time in the workhouse."

"We will do it in twenty minutes, then," laughed Bartlett, who saw another way to create a delay that might be used with advantage. The Parkers scorned to accept the few dollars Henrietta still had in the dark recesses of her bag.

"You can send it to us," said they, and the farmer added, heaping coals of fire on the general's unfortunate head, "We trust you perfectly."

The Watermelon looked sharply at Bartlett and wondered if he were up to any tricks. The Watermelon had only ten more miles of Billy and he didn't want to shorten the precious time by a confession if there were no need for one.

"Let's hurry," said he. There was no need of prolonging the misery in the thought of the parting.

"Worrying over his affairs," thought Bartlett. "He has come to at last."

The general insisted upon driving, and as it was his car, Bartlett perforce had to be content. He protested, however, that he knew the road thoroughly, and could direct the general with no instructions at all from the farmer, waving them all good-naturedly aside.

They were all quiet as they started down the road. Henrietta was depressed thinking about Alphonse. She had always stood in awe of his superlative virtues, and the fact that he lacked several was a bit of a shock. The general also was grieved. He had trusted Alphonse and Alphonse had failed him. Billy was silent, for she wanted to think, and all her thoughts were of the youth beside her, tall, slim, good-looking, with his merry eyes and devil-may-care indifference.

They could all go to New York together, she planned, and later, when her father and herself went to their summer place on the coast of Maine, they would get him to visit them there in their own home. And in the winter--and Billy's thoughts lost themselves in the hazy rosy glow of the future, with its possibilities and pleasures.

It was after three. The day was intensely warm, even in the shady wooded road on which they found themselves. They had been running through the woods for nearly an hour, and apparently had not reached the end of it. The last abandoned farm-house, gray, weather-beaten, forlorn, had long ago been passed. The birds chattered shrilly in the leafy profusion overhead; somewhere out of sight in the underbrush a brook gurgled refreshingly over its stony bed, and once, far away and very faintly, they heard the wild loon's dismal cry.

The general stopped the car and turned sidewise to face those on the back seat. "We are lost," said he. "Look at the odometer. We have come twenty miles since we left Stoneham and we are no nearer Harrison than when we started."

"Lost again," wailed Henrietta. "How very stupid we are!"

"It's my fault," admitted Bartlett truthfully, but with contrition. "I said to take this turn back there near that barrel factory."

"We can go back," suggested Billy.

"Parker told me last night," said the general gloomily, "that there was no settlement north of here for forty miles. We have probably come north."

"If we have come twenty miles, we can go twenty more without dying," said Bartlett.

"I don't know," laughed Henrietta. "I am famished now."

"So am I," wailed Billy. "Henrietta, haven't we a thing to eat?"

"Not a thing," said Henrietta.

"Hit her up," cried Bartlett jovially. "We will break some more speed laws, by George. I want something to eat."

"We have heard nothing from father," teased Henrietta, her laughing eyes on the Watermelon's face, full of tender amusement. He was so young and looked so serious and almost unhappy that she was unhappy herself.

The Watermelon was unhappy. By this time they should have been in Harrison, with the parting over, and he wanted it over. The thought that they would probably be together a day longer did not please him. The sooner he took to the road again and became a bum and a hobo, the better. Billy did not care for him. He was the only one who would suffer, and every moment he was with her only made the suffering worse. He turned to Henrietta with relief from the thoughts that were insistently bothering him and would not let him alone.

"Father was never in a motor-car," said he. "He used to say that his funeral would be just another irony of fate. The only chance he had to ride, he wouldn't be able to appreciate it."

"I know that it is terrible to be poor," said Henrietta, "but I think people ought to enjoy other things than just those that money can give."

"What things?"

"Why, the woods and fields, a beautiful day--"

"Rent day, probably, and no rent money. Father used to say when you're poor, every day is rent day."

"We're nearing the end of the woods," cried Bartlett. "And I think I see a house."

And then the car stopped.

"Gid ap," chirped Bartlett.

Henrietta leaned forward. The general was hastily trying all the brakes, slipping one lever then the other, fussing here and fussing there, and Henrietta knew the symptoms of approaching trouble.

"Father, is there anything the matter?"

"Oh, no," pleaded Billy. "Not here?"

The Watermelon leaned forward and opened the door. "Every one get out," he ordered. "We can walk to the house. We mustn't monkey with the car unless we want a pile of junk on our hands."

He stepped out and turned to help the girls.

"Not at all," declared the general. "I know all about a car. I can fix it directly." He alighted and started to raise the bonnet. The Watermelon intervened.

"Look in the gasolene tank first," he begged.

The general was already deep in the mechanism, oblivious to all else. "It's the carburetor--"

"Carburetor nothing," pleaded the Watermelon. "It's the gasolene."

"Yes," agreed Henrietta indiscreetly, "maybe it is."

"That won't help us any," snapped the general angrily. "Where can we get more? Much better to have something else wrong--"

"Not for the car," said the Watermelon. "None of us would be able to fix it."

"My dear sir," said the general warmly, "I have owned this car for a year--"

"I know," murmured the Watermelon. "I think it marvelous."

"I am perfectly capable--"

"Will you bet with me," interrupted the Watermelon, "that it's the gasolene? Alphonse may have filled the other car at the expense of this one."

It was the gasolene, or rather the lack of gasolene, that had stopped the car.

"That's where a horse beats a car," lamented Henrietta. "You don't have to keep bothering with their works."

She sat down on the car step and clasped her hands in her lap. "We could spend the night here, but in the morning we wouldn't be any nearer gasolene than we are now."

"I'm not fretting about gasolene," said Bartlett. "I want something to eat. Let's all go to that house--"

"We can't leave the car," objected the general.

"No one could go off with the car," argued Henrietta.

"And we can get them to send a horse," added Bartlett. "I am starving."

"I feel like the car," said Billy. "I have no gasolene."

"I can not leave the car," reiterated the general, and Henrietta realized that that settled it as far as the general was concerned, and that it would take her greatest tact to unsettle it.

"I will go and get a farmer and a horse," said the Watermelon, unexpectedly siding with the general. "We would have to be here anyway, to see that they towed it in right."

"A horse would do," said Billy gravely. "We don't need the farmer."

"I have hopes of Billy sometimes," said Bartlett, regarding his daughter quizzically. "I sometimes even think that she may grasp the difference between sunshine and rain and realize it's best to keep out of the latter."

Billy looked hurt. "Father doesn't like me any more," said she, adding shrewdly, "He thinks I'm getting rather too old for him, anyway."

Bartlett blushed, Henrietta laughed and the general roared.

"You grown-up daughters are so hard to explain," said he. "Not once do you offer to be a sister to us."

"I wouldn't be a sister to father for anything," protested Billy. "He must be fifty, at least."

Bartlett flushed angrily. He dared not glance at Henrietta. "I am forty-five," said he coldly, which was at least two years and a half as near the truth as Billy's rash statement.

"Yes," sneered Billy. "And I'm only eighteen."

Henrietta changed the subject. When one is eighteen one can announce the fact loudly and cheerfully. When one is thirty-five, one prefers to talk of other things.

"Why not all go for the horse? The car will be all right, father; and I am so hungry," she added pathetically.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*A BROKER PRINCE*

"I am going," said Billy with determination.

"We can't leave the general alone," objected Bartlett.

"I don't see how I would be able to help the general any," returned Billy in injured accents.

"I thought you could push him in the car," explained Bartlett with gentle sarcasm.

"You all wait here," said the Watermelon. "I will go and get you something to eat and see about having the car towed, also about rooms for the night."

"Why not all go?" pleaded Henrietta. "Why wait here starving--"

"I can go faster alone," answered the Watermelon.

"Certainly, certainly," seconded the general. "We would have to help you girls over every wooden fence and under every barb wire one we came to. You would probably even then get stuck on one or under the other."

"I never get stuck on anything," contradicted Billy perversely.

Henrietta laughed. "Billy, cheer up. The worst is yet to come."

"That house may be empty," said the Watermelon. "Then we would be all over there and have to come back."

"We've been in empty houses before," said Henrietta crossly.

"But what good would that do, to be over there without food?" asked the Watermelon.

"What good to be here without gasolene?" retorted Henrietta.

"I can not leave the car," reiterated the general.

"Father," exclaimed the exasperated Henrietta, "some night I will find that you have taken the car to bed with you."

"Suppose we leave the car here--" began the general argumentatively.

"We can't," sighed Henrietta. "Such a supposition would be impossible with you the owner of the car."

The Watermelon laughed. "Aw, cut out the conversation," said he. "I will be right back."

"So will I," said Billy.

Now the Watermelon objected. He did not feel equal to a _tete-a-tete_ with the adorable Billy, adorable still, though a bit cross.

"Cut out the conversation," mimicked Billy, and scrambled with more speed than grace under the broken bars of the worm-eaten fence.

The Watermelon leaped the fence after her. Henrietta slipped under the fence after the Watermelon. Bartlett hesitated one moment, glanced guiltily at the deserted general and then followed Henrietta.

Billy and the Watermelon were young and light of foot and soon outdistanced the stout Bartlett, who did his gallant best to keep up with the nimble Henrietta, but found that the years of good living told against him.

Henrietta waited politely for him at the stone wall which Billy had just scaled and the Watermelon jumped.

"What are we hurrying for?" asked Bartlett, removing his hat to wipe his heated brow.

"I am sure I don't know," laughed Henrietta. "Monkey see, monkey do, I suppose. That is why there is such a thing as style. No one thinks."

"If we waited here," suggested Bartlett, "our dinner would come to us."

"As the office to the man," agreed Henrietta.

"Precisely."

Henrietta sat down on the wall and Bartlett leaned beside her, gazing over the field to the distant woods. He felt thoroughly comfortable and contented. No matter what happened now, Batchelor could not reach the city by Saturday. The cotton ring was saved.

The scene before them was a typical Maine landscape, rugged, hilly, beautiful, with the long shadows of approaching evening creeping across the fields. From where they rested, the farm seen from the road was hidden from sight. The whole place seemed desolate, primeval, with a beauty and a charm that were all its own.

Henrietta drew a quick sigh of pleasure and fell silent, with dreaming eyes wandering into the mysterious shades of the distant woodland, her hunger for the time forgotten. The place, the time of day, just at eventide, suggested romance, the one man and the one woman, and the world not lost, but just attained. She wished she was Billy, young and foolish and pretty, and that Bartlett was the Watermelon, long-limbed, broad-shouldered, with the glory of youth that sees only glory down the pathway of the future.

Bartlett broke in upon her reveries. "See that hill?" and he waved toward the slope ahead of them.

Henrietta nodded, still wrapped in her dream. "The hill of life," said she, "with glory at its top."

"A railroad," said Bartlett, prosaically matter-of-fact, "a railroad has been cut through the hill. See, there go the children, suddenly out of sight."

Henrietta came back to earth. "How do you know? Maybe there is just a steep incline the other side and that is why they disappeared so quickly."

"No, there is a cut up there. Don't you notice how abrupt it looks, and there are no trees or bushes. They haven't had time to grow since the cut was made. And those big lumps, see, covered with grass, they are the earth thrown up out of the cut. It's the Grand Trunk. It runs through Maine, you know, into New Hampshire."

Henrietta nodded and frowned. "There is no more romance," and she threw out her hands with a graceful gesture of hopeless disappointment. "It went when the first steam-engine came."

Bartlett looked at her, amused, with a man's tolerance. "What do you want romance for? A railroad pays better."

"Pays, pays, pays," cried Henrietta. "I want something that doesn't pay--that isn't associated with returns. You men have nothing but a bank-book for a heart. It's so lovely here, so quiet. Don't you feel it? With the shadows creeping across the pasture? I was young and beautiful--"

"And a princess."

"No, a goose maid. My hair was brown and thick and hung over each shoulder in two long braids. I was bare-headed, with sleeves rolled to the elbows of my shapely arms--"

"You would have got malaria," said Bartlett. "It's very damp here. I think there must be a pond over there in the woods. You can hear the frogs."

"Oh, yes," agreed Henrietta. "I would have had malaria and rheumatism, but I wouldn't have cared, then--for you see, I had come after the geese, and down here in the tiny glen, with the hush of evening over all, I had met him--"

"Who? Me?"

"My lover," said Henrietta.

"Me," said Bartlett softly, and to Henrietta's surprise he laid his hand gently on hers.

Henrietta blushed and looked away. Her lover, this stout, grim, hard-eyed man of business? She raised her hands to her cheeks and her heart fluttered so she could hardly breathe, while before her startled gaze swam the vision the years had been unconsciously forming. Had romance come to her thus late, in this guise? Was a middle-aged member of the New York Stock Exchange her prince?

"Henrietta," he asked gently, leaning toward her, "shall I finish the story?"

"Why no," said Henrietta, "there was no finish. It had just begun."

"Just begun," whispered Bartlett, and took her suddenly into his arms.

"Oh, please," begged Henrietta, feeling that modesty called for some remonstrance.

"Please," he taunted. "When you were the goose girl and I was the prince, you didn't say please."

Henrietta laughed. "And neither did the prince," she dared him.

"No decent lover would," said Bartlett, bending and kissing her full on her whimsical mouth.

After some little time they saw the others reappear over the top of the hill. Henrietta had returned to her seat on the fence and Bartlett was beside her, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder with a simplicity truly bucolic. So might the Parkers' shifty-eyed stable-boy be wooing the slatternly maid-servant in some secluded place behind the barn.

Henrietta straightened quickly and blushing crimson after the manner of the maid-servant, raised her hands to her hair so that one side of her coiffure might not appear unnecessarily flattened before the sharp eyes of the youthful Billy.

"Aren't we silly?" said she, glancing at Bartlett with the same expression with which the maid-servant would have glanced at the stable-boy.

"Why silly?" demanded Bartlett. "We love each other, don't we? Why shouldn't I put my arm around you?"

"Oh," said Henrietta, "you should, but--er--er we seem so old for such things."

"Old?" Bartlett laughed. "Love is the oldest thing in the world."

"I know," agreed Henrietta, "but not before people."

"Why not before people? People have become too artificial. They must not love, nor hate, nor have any feelings, apparently, before people. Feelings are interesting and we ought to show them more."

Henrietta laughed. "Oh, you are silly, silly, silly. I never knew a New York broker could be so silly, so mushy."

"There's not a man living whom the right woman can't make mushy. Women never realize how silly men are at bottom, my own. They are frightened by our exteriors, by the ingrain fear of the chattel for her master, born in women since Eve handed the larger share of the apple to Adam."

"I always thought that I would be dignified and sweet--"

"You are, my love."

"No, I am as silly as you. I put my head on your shoulder just as these girls do whom you see in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. I never thought that I would be like that."

"You have never loved before--"

"Indeed, I have. I have loved nearly every one I have ever met. Most all girls do."

"That isn't love. Merely an increased vibration of the muscles of the heart. Love--ah, Henrietta, do I have to tell you what love is?"

"No," whispered Henrietta. "It's just giving."

She paused, gazing before her into the deepening shadows of the evening with misty eyes, for the first time realizing the completeness of life.

She nodded after a moment toward the approaching Billy and the Watermelon. "What's the matter with the children? They look so serious, and yet they must have something to eat, for they are carrying bundles."

"Probably couldn't arrange for a tow for Charlie's car and see where we sit up with it all night and hold its head."

*CHAPTER XX*

*THE SEVEN O'CLOCK EXPRESS*

As Bartlett said, the hill was cut through by a railroad. The deep gully brought Billy and the Watermelon to a halt when they had outstripped Bartlett and Henrietta, leaving them behind at the foot of the hill. The sides of the gully were overgrown with grass and tangled briers, but a narrow foot-path led down to the tracks and up the incline on the other side. The Watermelon helped Billy down one side and dragged her up the other.

"I would hate to be a tramp," panted Billy as she reached the other side and paused a moment for breath. "I would get so cross if I were hungry and knew I couldn't get anything to eat for a long time."

The Watermelon flushed hotly, but she was not looking, and when he spoke he spoke carelessly enough. "You would get used to it," said he. "You can get used to anything. Father used to say that the idea of hell for all eternity was an absurdity--you were sure to get used to it and then it wouldn't count any more as a punishment."

"I suppose that's so," agreed Billy. "But how do you know? You weren't ever a tramp, were you, Jerry?"

"A tramp, kid, is the only man in America to-day, besides the millionaire, who is his own master. Do you know that?"

"I would kind of hate that sort of master," said Billy.

"A tramp never has to worry about rent--"

"I know, but I should think the house might be worth the worry."

The Watermelon changed the subject.

A grim, elderly woman, thin and work-worn before her time, listened to their troubles in the faded, weather-gray farm-house. Her man, she explained, was out in the fields with the horses, but when he returned, she would send him around and he would tow the car in for them. She never took boarders. The house was a sight, but if they didn't mind, she did not and they could have two rooms. She wrapped some bread, fruit and cookies up for them in newspapers, and they started back to wait with the others by the machine until the farmer came.

The still hush of evening was over everything, creeping with the lengthening shadows across the pasture. A flock of turkeys was making noisy preparations for bed in some trees near by. The frogs had begun to croak and once in a while a whippoorwill called from the woods. In an adjoining hay-field, hurrying to get in the last load before dark, the Watermelon saw the farmer. A pair of sorry looking nags drooped drearily, attached to the cart with its high, shaky load of new-mown hay.

"I'm going to speak to him myself," said the Watermelon, stopping. "It will save time. You wait here. I won't be long."

"Give me the food," said Billy. "I will take it to the others. Poor things, they must be starving."

"I won't be long," objected the Watermelon. "You can't carry it alone."

"Indeed, I can," protested Billy.

The Watermelon laughed down at her. "You couldn't get up the other side of the crossing," he teased.

"A girl," said Billy sagely, "is a lot more capable when she is alone than when she is with a man."

She took the ungainly bundle and he watched her hurry away across the fields, slim and graceful, dainty and sweet, while he was--a tramp! His eyes darkened with pain and he threw one hand out after the small figure in a gesture that was full of mingled longing and hopelessness.

"Billy, Billy," he whispered, then turned from the thoughts which were coming thick and fast and started toward the distant field and the farmer.

The farmer listened with blunt stupidity, hot and tired and cross. Yes, he would come for the car as soon as he could, but the hay had to be got in first. It was late now. That train whistle you could hear was the seven o'clock express. His horses were tired, too, but, of course, if he were paid, why that made a difference. He would be around as soon as he could get his load in. It was the last load, anyway.

The Watermelon turned and far in the distance, echoing and reechoing through the hills, he heard again the scream of the approaching train.

"Billy win be across the tracks by this time," he thought. "I will have to wait for it to pass. Glad it ain't a freight."

He hurried moodily through the field. His position had become intolerable and yet he could find no chance to get away without revealing his identity, and to do that now would do no good. They could not reach the railroad any sooner than they were trying to. He longed for the morrow that would end it all and yet dreaded the barrenness of the future without Billy.

As he approached the cut, he saw the smoke of the train rising above the bushes, an express, tearing its way through the evening calm like some terrible passion searing the soul. The Watermelon stepped to the edge of the cut and glanced carelessly downward.

There was Billy on the track, struggling to free herself from the rail which held one small foot. Around the bend came the huge engine with its headlight already lit for the wild night run.

The next two minutes were ever after a blank to the Watermelon. He was in the cut, beside the white-faced, struggling girl almost simultaneously with seeing her. As he shot down the bank, he felt for and drew his knife. The engineer had seen them and the engine screamed a warning, while the emergency brakes shrieked as they slipped, grinding on the rails. On his knees, with one slash, the Watermelon cut the lacings which, becoming knotted, had held her prisoner, then with one and the same move, he had regained his feet and forced her flat against the bank, as the train whirled by in a cloud of dust and cinders, brakes grinding, wheels slipping, whistle screaming, a white-faced engineer leaning horrified from the cab window.

Trembling violently, Billy clung sobbing to the Watermelon, her face hidden in his breast. The Watermelon crushed her to him as if he would never let her go, his arms tightening with the agony of remembrance. He was trembling as much as she from the horror of that terrible moment. His head rested on her hair and he talked, poured out his love in a rush of misery and thankfulness. Words tumbled over themselves and were repeated again and again, in phrases hot from his lips came all his pent-up longing for the girl.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart," he whispered with white lips as Billy still sobbed. "Darling, hush. Dear heart, my love, my Billy."

After a time her sobs stopped and she raised her face. The Watermelon bent his head and they kissed frankly with the simplicity of perfect understanding, perfect love. For a moment they clung together, still, then Billy was the first to rally.

"We've got to go," said she, her hands raised to her tumbled hair as she tried her best to laugh.

The Watermelon caught her hands and forced them down, drinking her in with hungry eyes. Then he bent his head and buried his face for a moment in the backs of her small hands, while something like a sob shook his shoulders.

"Jerry," whispered the girl, a woman now, tender, compassionate, gracious.

The Watermelon dropped her hands and turned abruptly. "I'm a damn fool," he muttered and picked up the bundle, still beside the track.

"Why did you come?" she asked, all solicitude for him. "You might have been killed."

The Watermelon did not answer. He stalked across the track to the other foot-path and Billy perforce had to follow.

Henrietta and Bartlett had not even heard the wild scream of the engine as it shrieked past, and when the Watermelon and Billy joined them, were too preoccupied to notice anything for long in any one else. All four returned to the general, quiet and apparently depressed. The general was depressed himself. He did not see how it would be possible to get gasolene in that neighborhood, and without gasolene they might as well be without a car.

Billy divided the bread and fruit, and without a word, they sat side by side and partook of their humble repast, the two girls, the general, the tramp and the financier. The color returned to Billy's face and in her eyes was a great and shining light every time she looked at the Watermelon, where he sat on the step of the car, bread in one hand, an apple in the other, a part of the paper spread on his knees to serve for napkin.

But he would not look at her. His face was still white and he read the paper before him that he might not think. Billy knew of his love and loved in return, white, pure, decent Billy, and he a filthy piece of flotsam washed for the moment from the slime of the gutter. Slowly, precisely, he reread the article he had just read without having comprehended a word of it.

The parting that evening was slightly prolonged, much to the general's annoyance. He was tired and wanted to go to bed, and why the others should prefer to linger on the small stoop which served for porch, he could not understand, and what he could not understand always vexed him. Bartlett wanted to take a stroll before turning in, and when the general kindly offered to accompany him, he decided suddenly and rudely, the general thought, that he didn't care to go. Henrietta wanted to sit on the stoop apparently all night. Billy wanted to walk, too. Walking, the general decided, ran in the Bartlett family, but instead of taking a stroll with her father, she hung around the stoop with Henrietta; while the Watermelon did not know what he wanted to do as far as the general could make out. He was quiet, strangely uncommunicative, seemed to be thinking deeply on some important subject. Worried over the past week, thought the general. Irritated and tired, the general could not bother with such nonsense and tramped off to bed.

The Watermelon felt that he could not say good night alone with Billy. He had read the desire in her eyes for a bit of a walk with him and to escape the temptation, he wished them all good night and followed the general up to bed.

All the strength of the man cried constantly for the girl, for her sweetness, her charm, her grace. But he loved with the love that is love, that will give all and ask nothing, a love that is rare and fine and that comes to king and peasant alike, and to no one twice, to some not at all. His week was up. He would slip away that night when they were all asleep. Billy would forget him and he would be better with his old cronies, fat blear-eyed Mike and James of the bon-ton.

Long he lay on his narrow cot and stared at the gray square of the window, while the gentleman he was born fought gallantly with the tramp he had become.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*RICH AND POOR ALIKE*

He lay staring at the window while Bartlett's and the general's snores rose and fell, mingling in a steadily growing crescendo of sound. As he stared, he noticed suddenly a faint glow in the east. It was too early for daybreak and the glow was of a different color, brighter, more orange in tint. He watched it a while without comprehending, waiting until it was time for him to steal away from Billy, back to the road again. And as he watched, he was brought to quick consciousness of what it was by a tiny crimson flame which appeared for an instant and was gone.

The Watermelon leaped to the window. The barn, which, fortunately, was unlike Maine barns, stood some little way from the house instead of being attached to it. With a mighty burst of flames the roof caught from the sides, which had been slowly smoldering. Every moment the flames mounted higher and higher, fanned by a bit of a wind that had arisen when the sun went down. The place was filled with the summer hay, and even as the Watermelon took in the scene, he knew that there was no hope to do more than to save the live stock, if they could do that.

Turning he aroused the general and Bartlett.

"Get up," he whispered, not to disturb the girls, "the barn's on fire."

Bartlett was up and half in his clothes before the general had opened his eyes. The Watermelon had already slipped quietly from the room.

"Fire," cried the general hoarsely, at last awake. He stood a moment in the window, brightly lighted now from the dancing flames in the summer darkness. Then he swore.

"My car!"

"Quick." snapped Bartlett. "The gasolene--"

"There was no gasolene," said the general sadly, as one would talk about a loved and dying friend. He turned mournfully from the window.

The fire had gained too much headway to leave the slightest possibility of saving the barn. The farmer, with the help of the Watermelon, Bartlett and the general, had barely time to lead out the horses and turn the cows into a temporary shelter. When that was done there was nothing more that could be done but to watch the walls crumble and the roof fall in a shower of sparks and a roar of flames, leaping and dancing in a mad riot of destruction. All night the fire burned and all night the four men and the three women turned their efforts to protect the house.

The general, by right and instinct, took command. He formed a bucket brigade, stationing the Watermelon on the roof, at one end of the line, and the girls and the farmer's wife at the well to fill the buckets at the other end of the line. They worked hard and quietly, as people work when face to face with the grim forces of nature. Under the general's able management the few sparks which did threaten were quickly extinguished and save for a slight scorching here and there the house was safe. In the excitement no one but the general thought of the general's car.

The cold, gray streaks of dawn found them worn out, excited and hungry. Unable to console the farmer and his wife, the five drew in a semicircle around the smoldering heap which had been the barn, and forlornly watched the last tiny flames licking around the twisted, blackened ruin that had once been a motor-car.

"Gone," said the general sadly.

And Billy sniffed.

"Better Alphonse had taken it," lamented Henrietta.

"What shall we do now?" asked Bartlett. It was Saturday and Batchelor would not be able to reach New York now no matter what happened. He had won, the ring was safe, but he turned sadly to the general, and laid his hand kindly on his old friend's shoulder. "Hard luck, man," said he. "Hard luck."

"We will have to go home," said Henrietta dully.

"We have no money," replied the general quietly, unmoved by his penniless condition, thinking only of the motor-car that was no more.

"I have a little," said Henrietta. "About six dollars."

"We owe at least all of that here for supper and rooms," said Bartlett.

Henrietta glanced from one to the other, then laughed, a gay little bubble of mirth. They had no money, but what did that matter? What did anything matter when one loved and is loved? She felt guilty because she was not sorrier over the loss of the car, and she patted the general lovingly on the shoulder.

"Cheer up, daddy, we haven't a cent, none of us," she crooned.

"We can telegraph," suggested Billy.

"From where?" asked Bartlett shortly.

"Why, we can drive somewhere where we can," returned Billy desperately, under her father's calm scrutiny of amusement.

"Drive what?" asked Bartlett.

"A horse," said Henrietta mildly.

"What horse?" questioned Bartlett. "There are two. The farmer wants them both to help clear up and to go to a neighbor's for assistance. What shall we drive?"

"Shank's mare," said Henrietta. "At the nearest farm, we can get a team and drive to some town where we can telegraph."

Bartlett and Billy agreed. The general said nothing. There was nothing to say. The dream of his heart, the occupation of his days, was gone. What was there to say?

The Watermelon also was silent. He felt that he could not leave them, now that they were again in trouble. When they reached the town and had telegraphed, he would go--back to the road. He was chewing a straw, hands in his pockets, gazing with the others in dull apathy at the remains of the car, and he raised his head instinctively to read the sky for approaching storms. There would be a moon that night and a good breeze, which would make walking easy.

"Hungry?" asked Billy gaily, smiling at him, her eyes asking what the matter was. Had she done anything to offend him since the evening before when they had climbed the railroad cut together?

"I'm always hungry, Billy," said he and joined the general on the way to the house.

Billy stood a moment, hurt and flushed, then she followed the others in to breakfast.

The farmer's wife had made some hot coffee, strong and black, and fried some bacon, and with thick slices of bread and butter, they all ate ravenously at the bare deal table in the kitchen, with no pretense whatever of tablecloth or napkins. The Watermelon and the farmer's wife stood alone in the kitchen after the others had left and he looked down kindly at her with the camaraderie felt only by one unfortunate in trouble for another in a like place.

"It's damn hard on you," he said.

"And on him," said the woman. "All the hay was just in."