Chapter XX

In Tar’s town many men like Lawyer King and Judge Blair did not go to church. Doctor Reefy never went. They were on the square. You could trust them.

There was a “bad” woman came to town in Tar’s time. Every one said she was bad. No good woman in town would have anything to do with her.

She was living with a man and wasn’t married. He may have had another wife--somewhere. No one knew.

They came to town on a Saturday and Tar was at the station selling papers. Then they went to the hotel and later to the livery barn where they got a horse and buggy.

They drove around town and then rented the Woodhouse place. It was a big old place and had been empty a long time. The Woodhouses were all dead or had moved away. Lawyer King was agent. He let them have it--of course.

They had furniture to buy, stuff for the kitchen, everything.

How every one knew the woman was bad, Tar did not know. They just did.

Of course all the merchants sold them stuff, fast enough. The man threw his money around. Old Mrs. Crowley worked for them in their kitchen. She didn’t care. When a woman is old like that and poor, she doesn’t have to be so particular.

Tar didn’t either. A boy doesn’t. He heard the men talking--at the station, the livery barn, the barber shop, the hotel.

The man bought everything the woman wanted and then went away. After that he came week-ends, about twice a month. They took the morning and afternoon papers and a Sunday paper, too.

What did Tar care? It made him tired the way people talked. Even the children, girls and boys coming home from school, made a kind of shrine of the place. They went around that way purposely and when they came to the house--it was surrounded by a high hedge--they all became suddenly silent.

It was as though some one had been murdered there. Tar went right in--with the papers.

People said she had come to town to have a baby. She wasn’t married to the man, who was older than she was. He was a city man and rich. He spent money like a rich man. So did she.

At home--in the city where the man lived--he had a respectable wife and children. Every one said so. It might be he belonged to a church, but now and then--week-ends--he sneaked off to Tar’s little town. He was keeping a woman.

Anyway, she was pretty and lonesome.

Old Mrs. Crowley, who worked for her, wasn’t much. Her husband had been a drayman and was dead. She was one of the muttering kind of cross old women, but she could cook pretty well.

The woman--the “bad” woman--began to take notice of Tar. When he brought the paper she began to talk to him. It wasn’t because he was anything special. It was the only chance she had.

She asked him questions about his mother and father, about John and Robert and the babies. She was lonesome. Tar sat on the back porch of the Woodhouse place talking with her. There was a man named Smoky Pete working in the yard. Before she came he never had any regular job, was always hanging about saloons and cleaning out spittoons for a drink--jobs like that.

She paid him as much as though he had been any good. At the end of the week, when she settled with Tar, suppose she owed him twenty-five cents.

She gave him a half dollar. Well, she would have given him a dollar but was afraid it would be too much. She was afraid he would be ashamed or have his pride hurt and wouldn’t take it.

They sat on the back porch of the house and talked. Not a woman in town had been to see her. Every one said she had come to town just to have the baby by a man she wasn’t married to but, although he watched closely, Tar saw no signs. “I don’t believe it. She’s regular size--slim if anything,” he said to Hal Brown.

Then she got to having a horse and buggy from the livery barn afternoons and taking Tar with her. “Do you think your mother will care,” she asked. Tar said, “No.”

They went into the country and got flowers, oceans of them. Mostly she sat in the buggy and Tar gathered the flowers, crawling up hillsides, going down into gullies.

When they got home she gave him a quarter. Sometimes he helped her carry the flowers into the house. Once he went into her bedroom. Such dresses--fine flimsy things. He stood looking, wanting to go and touch, as he had always been wanting to touch the bits of lace his mother wore on her one good black Sunday dress when he was small. His mother had the same one good dress yet. The woman--the “bad” one--saw the look in his eyes and, getting all the dresses out of a big trunk, spread them on the bed. There must have been twenty. Tar had never dreamed there could be such beautiful things in the world.

That afternoon, when Tar was leaving--the woman kissed him. It was the only time she ever did.

* * * * *

The “bad” woman left Tar’s town as suddenly as she came. No one knew where she went. She got a telegram in the afternoon and left on the night train. Every one wanted to know what was in the telegram, but of course the telegraph operator, Wash Williams, wouldn’t tell. What is in a telegram is a secret. You don’t “dast” tell. An operator isn’t allowed, but Wash Williams was a grouch anyway. He might have leaked a little, but he enjoyed having every one hint around and then not saying a word.

As for Tar, he got a note from the woman. It had been left with Mrs. Crowley and had five dollars in it.

Tar was a good deal upset, having her leave that way. All her things were to be sent to an address in Cleveland. The note said, “Good-bye, you’re a good boy,” nothing more.

Then later--about two weeks later--a bundle came from the city. It had in it some clothes for Margaret and Robert and Will and a new sweater for himself. Nothing else. The express was prepaid.