Chapter VI: The Tentacles Close in Upon Susan

Joe Houghton's absence from home to attend the Cashtown cattle sale gave Susan a blessed four days' respite from his persistent wooing.

She had declined his urgent invitation to accompany him to Cashtown.

"The ride over is awful nice. Plenty of scenery and all like that--you're so much fur scenery, I took notice a'ready. They ain't nothin' about you escapes me, you bet you!"

"Isn't there!" Susan returned with a gentle mockery quite lost upon Joe.

"You bet there ain't! You better come with. You'd see lots of people at the sale--if people interest you."

"But I wouldn't think of closing my school for an outing."

"Ain't I president of the school board? What I say goes."

"I wouldn't neglect my work no matter who said I might."

"Nor me, neither! _I_ never let my work fur no pleasure-seekin'." Joe so approvingly agreed with her commendable declaration that she instantly felt like repudiating it. "And I'm wery glad," he added, "to find you so conscientious, too, like me. Fur if you're that pertikkler over your school work, you'll be the same at your housework, oncet we're married."

"Oh, is _that_ why you are so pleased with me? I thought for a minute that you were public spirited and concerned for the education of White Oak Station."

"Och, no, me, I always think of myself before I think of the education of the rising generation," Joe frankly admitted. "I'd sooner have you along to Cashtown than to have White Oak Station good educated. But I ain't startin' in by encouragin' you to slight work. That _would_ be a bad beginnin'!"

"A bad beginning of what?"

"Of our life together, Miss Susie."

"Dream on," said Susan, "if it amuses you."

He had pressed another invitation upon her which she had also declined.

"If you won't go _with_, then I wisht you'd stay at my house whiles I'm off, and see to it that that there mean-actin' housekeeper I got don't _let_ Josie and go runnin'! I can tell her that you'll wisit her to keep her comp'ny."

"I can't stay away from home; father is not well," Susan had objected to this plan; for the tenant-farmer's cosy cottage at White Oak Farm where Joe now lived was only a few rods away from the mansion in which his brother resided.

"I thought mebby," said Joe, greatly disappointed at her refusal, "that if I could get you inter_est_ed in Josie, you might want to get married to me just fur the sake of havin' sich a cute little cuss all ready made fur you!"

"I am interested in Josie, but, you see, I love all babies and I couldn't possibly marry all their fathers."

Ever since the day when, for an instant, Susan had held Sidney Houghton's baby boy in her arms, after picking him up from his overturned coach in front of her school-house, she had wondered at herself that with her feeling for Sidney so dead her heart could yet yearn over his child as it had done then, and every time since then, that she had caught a glimpse of the appealing little fellow. Joe's boy, Josie, was a dear baby, too, but he did not attract her in the poignant, irresistible way that Georgie did.

"One would think I would shrink from the successful rival of my child," she marvelled.

"I promise you," she had answered Joe, "that I shall run into your cottage and see after Josie three times a day while you are away: before and after school and at the noon recess."

And with this Joe had had to be satisfied.

This afternoon, as she was about to leave her school-house for her final visit of the day to the baby of the cottage, she was detained a moment by the irate mother of one of her pupils, who had tramped a half mile from her home to complain to "Teacher" that her boy's "dinner kittle" had been tampered with.

"I fixed him sich a nice kittle; and he saved back a piece of snitz pie to eat on the way home; but till he come to look fur that there snitz pie after school, here he seen it was swiped! Yes, it's some swiper in this here school of yourn, Teacher!"

Susan promised Mrs. Kuntz that she would hound down the criminal. Mr. Kuntz was a school director, so it behooved the teacher to placate Mrs. Kuntz. Susan was, by this time, very familiar with the ways of school directors. To be sure, any teacher of White Oak Station whom Joe Houghton favoured did not need to concern herself much about the rest of the school board, for Joe held a mortgage against the land of more than half of them. The wives of the directors were sometimes inclined to give themselves airs with the teacher who held her "job" by the votes of their husbands. But it was of course so widely known that Susan Schrekengust was a prime favourite with the wealthy widower that she enjoyed an unusual immunity from "airs". However, she was only too well aware that just so soon as Joe realized, finally and irrevocably, that she would not marry him, his spite would wreak itself upon her, not only by seizing their home from her parents, but by taking her school away from her. Her heart stood still with dread sometimes when it was borne in upon her how completely he held her and hers in his power.

As soon as Mrs. Kuntz had left her Susan came out from her school-house, locked the door, and went across the road for her visit to the baby, Josie. Mrs. Kuntz, who saw where she went, reported to her son that evening at supper that Joe Houghton was "not doin' all the courtin'."

"Teacher's helpin' along a little herself. Joe he wasn't there to fetch her to-day, like you say he _is_ every day, so she went after _him_! Yes, you bet you she's doin' her part, too, in the courtin'!"

It was after Susan's visit to Joe's cottage, when she was walking through Sidney's private grounds to the highroad (her only way out), that suddenly, at a bend in the path, she saw approaching her, a few yards distant, Mrs. Sidney Houghton, strolling leisurely in the May afternoon sunshine, followed by two big dogs that jumped about her playfully, to whose demonstrations she responded affectionately.

She was a slim, graceful woman, very tastefully dressed. An apparently unconscious haughtiness was manifest in the poise of her small head and in the way she carried herself.

As she came nearer, Susan saw that the radiant bloom of the young girl whom, a year ago, she had seen for a few tragic moments in Sidney Houghton's rooms was gone, and that a blighted, almost soured, aspect had taken its place.

The thought flashed upon Susan, "In her place, even if I were disappointed in Sidney, I couldn't look like that if I had that baby boy!"

And then, at that moment, Susan saw the baby boy escape from his nurse on the lawn and come toddling toward his mother and her dogs; a child supposed to be only seven or eight months old walking alone!

But his mother pushed him away and kept the dog at her side. The child, to balance himself when pushed, caught at his mother's skirt, a spotless, creamy broadcloth, with his grimy little hands.

"Clara!" Mrs. Houghton called sharply to the nurse, "come take him away! See what he's done!" displaying the soiled spots on the skirt she had jerked from his clutch. "Why don't you keep him cleaner? He's always so disgustingly dirty! Take him away from me!"

Clara snatched the child from her and shook him, but her roughness met with no reproof from the baby's mother.

As he was borne away sobbing Mrs. Houghton unconcernedly continued her stroll, her dogs leaping about her as she stretched toward them caressingly her gleamingly white hands.

Susan felt a suffocating indignation at this spectacle, at the same time that she was desolated with the deepest sadness by it.

"Such a dear little boy! How can she? How can she?" she asked herself with a heavy heart.

It was not until she and Mrs. Houghton drew near to each other in the path that it occurred to her to wonder whether Sidney Houghton's wife would recognize her. But they had seen each other for such a brief moment that day over a year ago; and Susan was sure she never would have known this woman to be the Laura Beresford of that terrible day if she had met her anywhere but here.

When in a moment Mrs. Houghton suddenly saw her, there was, in the surprised inquiry of her glance, an absolute absence of any recognition. As the lady and her two dogs quite filled the path Susan was unable to get by at once, and the two women stopped, for an instant, face to face.

Susan reflected with some complacency how little she looked like a country school teacher. Mrs. Houghton probably mistook her for a visitor. This supposition was confirmed by Mrs. Houghton's hesitatingly offering her hand.

"You wished to see me?" she asked.

"No," answered Susan, "I have just come from an errand at the tenant-farmer's cottage."

Mrs. Houghton, without a comment, stepped back upon the lawn to allow the intruder to pass.

Susan thought, as she continued on her way, how incongruous it did seem for that high-bred, distinguished looking woman to be the sister-in-law of a man like Joe Houghton.

"She would not even ask to her table that man who thinks himself quite worthy to marry me!" thought Susan, a vague wonder in her heart at life's incongruities.

She found herself actually feeling, however, that if Joe's baby were as appealing to her as Georgie was, she could almost be persuaded, as Joe had suggested she might be, to marry him for the delight of having such a child to cherish!

"And Georgie's own mother doesn't realize her blessed privilege! Prefers those dogs!"

She had several times caught glimpses of Sidney playing with his little son about the grounds of White Oak Farm and there could not be a moment's doubt of his devotion and tenderness to his child.

Upon her arrival at home, this afternoon, she saw, as she stopped at the gate, her father standing beside the road which ran back of the house past his truck garden, talking to a man in a big touring car.

Susan instantly recognized that car; it was the most luxurious she had ever seen; it belonged to Sidney Houghton. She could not be mistaken, surely. Her heart began to beat thickly. Could it be Sidney Houghton who was talking to her father? What could they possibly have to say to each other?

It flashed upon her that perhaps Sidney had learned through Joe of her father's dire financial straits and was trying to take advantage of their predicament by offering a bribe to her father if he would move away from this vicinity where her presence so threatened the Houghtons' domestic security.

But why did her father, with his deep and bitter hatred of this man who had injured his daughter, consent to parley with him, to exchange a single word with him?

"I'll find out who is in that car!" she quickly decided.

Dropping the gate latch, she started on a run toward the truck garden.

But when at the sound of her steps her father looked around and saw her hurrying through the orchard toward the road, he abruptly concluded his interview with his visitor, the car almost instantly moved on, and Mr. Schrekengust, walking as rapidly as his feebleness allowed, went back across the road to his garden.

Susan hesitated to follow him. Her heart ached, these days, for her old father, so broken because of her who had been the pet of his life. If he was trying to avoid her she would not torment him.

She turned away and with slow, thoughtful step, went back to the house.

In the past year she had grown accustomed to the sudden silences that would often fall upon her family at her approach. Just now, as she unexpectedly entered by the kitchen instead of by the front of the house, she surprised an earnest conversation between her sisters over their preparations for supper.

"A child brought up so, what will it anyhow give out of this child?" Lizzie was exclaiming, emotionally.

"Yes, anyhow!" Addie sadly responded.

"It wonders me if Susie----" began Lizzie, but she stopped short as, turning from the stove, she saw her young sister standing near the kitchen door.

"Och, Susie!" she gasped. "What fur do you come in so quiet, a body never hears you?"

"Why should it frighten you?" asked Susan, sinking wearily into a chair by the table on which Addie was spreading the cloth for supper.

"It didn't just to say frighten me--but it drawed my breath short! You most always come by the front door in!"

"What child do you mean, Lizzie?"

Lizzie stooped, before replying, to pick up from the floor the fork she had just noisily dropped.

"I was talkin' about Joe Houghton's baby you tol' us about a'ready, that's left to the hired housekeeper all the time; and how she _lets_ it so much and goes off."

"But some mothers are even worse," said Susan, pensively. "Some mothers care more for their pet dogs than for their own children!"

"Och!" cried Lizzie, "does it give such mothers as that in the world, Susie?"

"Who was that talking to Father just now out by the truck garden?" asked Susan.

"Was he talkin' to someone? Och, just look," Lizzie changed the subject, as she suddenly turned to the window, "how these here wines is owerhangin' the windah yet! I got to make my wines down off of this here windah, or it'll give dark in the kitchen; ain't?"

"Never mind your vines, Lizzie, _please_! Whose big car was that out by the truck garden a few minutes ago?"

"I didn't take notice to a car out," returned Lizzie, keeping her face turned away to the window. "Was it a car out?"

Susan could almost have been moved to smile at this futile duplicity; for in the quiet monotony of the village life a touring car stopping at any home in Reifsville was an event only rivalled in interest and importance by a death, a marriage, or a crime.

Susan turned to Addie. "Will _you_ tell me, Addie, please--what was Father talking about to--to Sidney Houghton?"

The name came with difficulty from her lips in the presence of her chaste sisters.

"It wasn't him!" cried Lizzie almost hysterically. "As if Pop or any of us _would_ speak to him! How you talk, Susie! Say, Addie," she cried, pointing to the waffle iron on the stove, with obvious intent to divert the subject, "will you look how our neighbour sent back our waffle iron busted yet! Ain't she the dopplig* housekeeper, anyhow! This is the last time I'm ever a-goin' to borrow away _any_thing!"

* Awkward.

"You ought not to have secrets from me, Lizzie, about--about Sidney Houghton," persisted Susan.

"Och, Susie, us we ain't got no secrets from you! I got awful nice creamed chicken fur your supper. That chicken we had Sundays was so big. It wonders me such a young chicken could be so big; ain't?"

"It's the _kind_ of it," explained Addie. "Them Wyandottes gives awful big chickens at a wery young age."

Susan, with a long, tired breath, gathered up her school books, left the kitchen and went upstairs to her own bedroom.

Later, when in answer to a summons to supper, she went down again, she noticed, as the family gathered about the table, that her father was very white.

Should she annoy him, she asked herself, with the question which tormented her? Evidently the family was concealing something from her; and it would go so hard with her father to have to lie to her; he had no sophistry to justify any deviation from the straight and simple tenets of his creed.

But while she hesitated he spoke; and the wholly unwonted irritability in his usually bland voice struck a chill to her heart.

"Warmed-over chicken again!" he said, fretfully, as he pushed away the platter his wife offered him. "I have sick of that there chicken you've been offerin' me ever since last Sabbath a'ready! I work hard and I need fresh meat _some_times!--and not sloppy hash all the time!"

"But us we can't afford to buy fresh meat, Pop," said Lizzie, looking distressed. "We are got to use the pork and chickens we are got a'ready."

The old man's tense mood seemed suddenly to collapse. "Och, I know, I know," he admitted, dully. "To be sure, I know we can't buy fresh meat."

"It does seem," said Susan, "as if the people who do the hard work ought to have the fresh, nourishing meat. But it is the 'idle rich,' the women who contribute nothing to the common good, but only prey upon society--some of them not even taking care of their own children--it is they who have the best food; while the labourer, who _needs_ strong nourishment, has the poorest and the least! Things are very badly regulated!"

"Och, yes," agreed Mr. Schrekengust, pessimistically; "and as fur our government, it's spoiled through!"

"The worst thing that can happen to any one, it seems to me," said Susan, "is to inherit a fortune; not to have to work for what you have."

"Yes, well, but me, I'd like it awful well if someone would inherit a fortune to _me_," said Lizzie, "so's I could live without workin'."

"So would I!" Susan ignominiously agreed with her.

"Them thoughts is of the Enemy," her father admonished them. "Remember you got to give an account to Gawd for your words as well as fur your deeds."

"It seems to me," said Susan, recklessly, "that He'll have to give an account to _us_, for all the bitter suffering and wrong in this world! _We_ didn't create it! If we are evil then the source from which we exist must be evil! Oh, I think He owes a very large accounting to us poor human wretches!"

"Tut, tut, Susie!" cried her father, shocked. "Somepin'll happen to you if you talk so wicked!"

"It often wonders me," sighed Mrs. Schrekengust, "what Gawd must think of us mortals the way we live so carnal and disobey to Him so!"

"What must we think of _Him_ for putting us into a world like this, of turmoil and hate and injustice and suffering!" Susan persisted. "It's up to Him, not us, _to make good_!"

Her father, instead of admonishing her again, looked at her strangely. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "Here's us that has worked hard all our lives, all of us, and always--or nearly always," he added, with conscientious accuracy, "tried to do right; and now in our old age, me and Mother has got to get out of our home here where we lived all our married lives together. I got to tell yous all," he stated, slowly, his voice heavy with sadness, despair in his eyes, "that we got to make up our minds to move away from Reifsville right aways!"

Susan realized from the startled looks of her sisters and her mother that she was perhaps the least astonished of them all at this announcement. They had, indeed, faced the possibility of having to leave their home, but they had never dreamed of leaving the village itself, where Mr. and Mrs. Schrekengust had lived all their lives; nor had they expected to be obliged to leave their house immediately.

"I got a offer of a good little place," continued Mr. Schrekengust, "forty mile from here----"

"Och, Gott!" cried his wife. "Forty mile yet! Who ever heard the likes, Pop! I couldn't home myself that fur off!"

"Since we are got to leave this here house anyhow, Mom, we might as well go fur off as near by. It's a awful good offer I got--a nice truck farm on wery easy terms."

"Who makes you this offer, Father?" asked Susan in a low voice, her tone very gentle.

"A business man I done a favour fur oncet. He wants this here land here, preferable to the place he offers me over in Fokendauqua. He'll gimme that there place over there, with two horses and two cows throwed in; and in exchange, he'll take over our place here _with the mortgage on it_. We'd be free of debt and I'd anyhow let a home over your heads when I am gone."

"And who is this man?" persisted Susan in an ominously quiet tone, "that makes you this very extraordinary offer?"

"It's neither here nor there who he is," replied her father, querulously. "It's too good a offer fur us to throw down. Us we'll be out on the road soon, without no home at all, if we don't look out! I _got_ to take this here offer!"

"No, you don't, Father!"

"Yes, I do, Susie! I tell you I got to."

"But if you move to Fokendauqua, I could not live at home--for I don't want to give up my school; I had a hard enough time to get it. And I might not be able to get a school near Fokendauqua."

"I won't leave you stay on here if we go!" cried her father so fiercely that she winced as at a deformity, so unlike him it was to speak ungently. "And you ain't to keep on teachin' that there school, _whether_ or no! Right acrost the road from that there dirty rascal's place!--where any day you can run acrost him! You'll go with us _along_ when we move away!"

"If you are moving just to get me away from that school, then I will give up the school, Father, and try to get my old position here in Reifsville, so that you need not leave here. You and Mother are rooted here and _couldn't_ live anywhere else!"

"You needn't try to get back your old school here, fur even over here, you're too near to that there scoundrel! We want to get as fur away from him as we otherwise _can_ get!"

"But it is he that is making you this offer, Father!" cried Susan, utterly bewildered.

"No, it ain't! What fur do you say it's him? It ain't him!"

"I saw his automobile in the road by the truck garden when I came from school."

"It wasn't hisn."

"Whose was it?"

"A stranger astin' the road to White Oak Station."

"Father," said Susan, ignoring this obvious evasion, "_why_ do you have any dealings with Sidney Houghton? Don't you know that we would all rather be homeless on the highroad than accept a favour from him? _Why_ are you letting him bribe you to give up----"

She stopped short. Her father's head had suddenly sunk upon his breast; and now his hands slipped from the table and hung limply at his side; the blood which had rushed to his forehead was slowly receding, leaving the hue of death upon his old worn face.

The stricken old man who had dreaded the ordeal of leaving his home and going into strange surroundings had suddenly, without a moment's warning, taken his departure alone to that far country to which none might go with him, of those who loved him.