Chapter VII: Part 7

She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow. Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.

So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and incredulous than the rest of us.

Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to think or to raise objections.

"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."

Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him, for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.

One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better: a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement; but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never failed to include a message to Nat.

Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked them (these statements being made in the order of their relative importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.

Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable than the other.

Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered, sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be long deferred.

In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.

Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....

He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which, coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....

There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night, along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey. Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which eventually excited Duncan's attention.

He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"

Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I was thinkin', I guess."

"Anything gone wrong?"

"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of cheer.

Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"

"No-o, but..."

"Well?"

"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.

"Say on, Mr. Tanner."

The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said, aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."

"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's likewise your boss."

"I know. But it's diff'runt."

"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system, Tracey."

"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."

"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."

"But, Mr. Duncan..."

"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."

Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted. "Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."

"Do you ever think about anything else?"

"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'--"

"Well?"

"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.

"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him, and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat) from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on Angie."

The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone to school, an'--an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town--and I was 'fraid 't you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you to pick out s'mother girl."

Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me you must be in love with Angie."

The boy gulped. "I--I am."

"And I think she's rather partial to you."

"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"

"I do. Do you want to marry her?"

"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate, "it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man Tuthill's so rich--not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same--an' I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'--all that--an'--"

"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."

"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"

"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.

"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to see how it works."

"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."

Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.

"Sa-y, lis'en...."

"Proceed, Tracey."

"Say, Mist--Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."

"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here: I'm on the wagon."

"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd--I'd like to help you the same way, if I could."

"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was coming.

"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that will." "Speak, I beg."

"You--er--you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"

"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.

"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."

"Just how do you figure that out?"

"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."

"To-night?"

"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin' for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein' her."

"Heavens, what a blow!"

"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."

"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."

"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean 'bout bein' a true friend?"

"Why should I?"

"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether you mean what you're sayin' or not."

"Oh, don't say that."

"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't understand you, half the time."

Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder, "do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be understood?"

Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.

"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?" he demanded heatedly.

"Because... _Hm_." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile. "Well, because the rules don't require it."

"What d'you mean by _that_?" Tracey exploded.

Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"

"Yep, but--"

"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."

Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.

"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.

"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."

"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."

"But, Tracey..."

The boy paused at the door. "What?"

"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do that."

"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."

"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone of deepest melancholy.

"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."

"You think so, Tracey?"

"All you got to do's ask Josie--"

"I'm almost afraid you're right."

"Why? Don't you want to git married?"

"Well"--Nat smiled--"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any rate."

"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."

"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl asks me, I must."

He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got a few months left...."

XVIII

A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN

So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley, Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to secrecy.

He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the _menage_ bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store, which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.

To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed, both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the wall--so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham, and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that branch of the business alone.

Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville _Citizen_), to say nothing of the social position of his daughter--meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical advantage of each.

Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her homecoming.

Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent. Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible; and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more home-like residence in all Radville--and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the reception of Betty Graham....

It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously-- seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....

Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg held his promise....

It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the _Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This, however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.

Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat, and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened apprehension.

The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in May, I remember, and a Friday at that.

It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated _hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.

"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him. "_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"

He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!" he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in thunderation are you doing here?"

Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"

"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!" He paused for breath. "And you?"

"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight to heal the blind."

"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it? Pipe my shop!"

Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great, old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."

"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long you're going to be here."

"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in the West isn't pressing."

"Good!"

"Which is the least worst hotel?"

"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style, too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"

"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"

"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a good look at you."

Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"

"Every singletary one."

"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"

"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_ it."

"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"

"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see the sky."

"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond affections of Lockwood's daughter?"

"Certainly not!"

"Not--?"

"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a play for me."

"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"

"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned away from his friend, looking out of the window.

Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"

"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our modern slang.

"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.

"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."

"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let her take her time."

"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point where I have to keep dodging her."

"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her back up."

"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't understand."

"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"

"I wish I were."

"But why? Is there another----?"

"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth. "Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry out the rest of the agreement?"

"Most certainly I do. Why not?"

"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on her money to make good to you."

"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show of disappointment and disgust.

"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible. Now... well, it's different."

"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"

Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm afraid I'm beginning to like it."

"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend your life here slaving away in this measly store?"

Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"

"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived just in time!"

"In time for what?"

"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ... and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."

"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything-- what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been of some service to people who were worth it----"

"Who? Sam Graham?"

"He and his daughter----"

"Oh, his daughter!"

"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it. Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to you!"

"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.

"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly at her once in a while..."

"That's the way to work it."

"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ... These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"

Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend, listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"

"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely related to the saints."

"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll have nothing to say."

"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain. I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."

"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have forgiven you.'"

"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."

"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."

"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as Tracey gets back."

XIX

PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG

A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.

It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon as he felt the business could afford it.

Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering, stayed him. Later he was glad of this.

"Nat..."

He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back from New York.

She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his eyes, then reviewed the store.

"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.

"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.

"Oh, quite...."

"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."

He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What about, Josie?"

"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for me?"

"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides," he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't want to interrupt you."

"So you left me to go home with him?"

"Why, what else--"

"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.

"_I_, Josie?"

"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."

"How could I know that?"

"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind. Besides, I told you once."

"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."

"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.

"Why, if I do--ah--"

"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."

"Why, Josie!"

"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad to see me."

"You should _know_ I am...."

"You don't act like it."

"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.

"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"

"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"

She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"

"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"

"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"

"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.

"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.

"Now I've said it!"

Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it, Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt me--ah--because----"

She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm. "Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you happy to know I really meant it?"

"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"

"Then please believe me, when I say it."

"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.

"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to avoid me."

"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.

"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't want it to, do you?"

"Why, no; of course I don't."

"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as I like you----"

He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're saying."

"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about me."

"Oh, Josie, please----"

"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant shoulder to him.

"How could I?"

"Why couldn't you?"

"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of desperation.

"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated-- "ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."

But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He told me so."

He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was after your money?"

"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound conviction.

"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you know, they might be right. How do you know that------"

"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things! I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and _he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would rather see me your wife than any------"'

"Josie!"

The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what, Nat?" she asked, rising.

"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."

"Oh, Nat!"

"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.

_"Oh, Nat!"_

"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you into caring for me!"

"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."

"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"

"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"

"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.

"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"

He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips warm upon his own.

"Josie!" he gasped.

"Nat, my darling!"

With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl. "Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the agreement!"

She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"

"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably. And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the square, with her...."

Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.

In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he seemed unable to credit his sight.

"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why, Nat...!"

Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time. "Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it. Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."

Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all my heart."

"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.

"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."

Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet you, I'm sure."

"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before long."

"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."

"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"

"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.

"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke in nervously.

"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"

"Yes--sure."

"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."

"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for a little while."

"Good-bye..."

"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone. "I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."

"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't turn them off again."

"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.

"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then you can walk home with me."

"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.

Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from a cut on his forehead.

"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"

He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's happened to you?"

"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.

XX

ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND

"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little pale, went quickly to the door.

Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he stammered.

"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."

Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he turned back to Pete.

The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."

"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th' house at me, I think."

"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.

The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.

"Oh, don't say that...."

Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!" he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's live with her, anyway."

"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been drinking again, hadn't you?"

"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."

"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.

"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd I hope y' won't never have."

"But I'm going to be married, Pete."

The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to argue the matter.

"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it. Take warnin' from me."

"But I'm engaged, Pete."

"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm. "F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin' rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"

"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"

"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."

"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."

Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face, and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."

"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."

"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to straighten up."

"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep with the horse."

"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.

"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m' wife."

He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.

Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement, anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the aggressor.

"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"

Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight of Nat. "I want to see you."

"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland, and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge, just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added sweetly.

"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."

Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's. "Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.

Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right, Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."

The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.

"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly! Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."

"Now, say! Do you think----"

At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside just in time.

"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."

"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.

"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."

"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin' m' wife. G'night, everybody."

He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the door and into the deepening dusk.

"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.

His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's apt to have trouble," he concluded.

"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"

"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't leave Josie Lockwood alone."

"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.

"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."

A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.

"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly, stepping nearer.

"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."

"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"

"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind. "'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."

So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back files in the Citizen office!

"Indeed?"

"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin', but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."

"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"

"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You can't fool me!"

A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his fingers were itching.

"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"

"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr. Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"

Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.

"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening, thanks."

"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"

"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."

"You better agree----"