Chapter III: Part 3

"Fine girl!" declared Mr. Higgins, as Helena, with the Patriarch's arm in hers, disappeared inside the cottage. "'Pears she must have money, an' I'm right glad 'count of the Patriarch--said her father an' mother was dead an' she was alone in the world--them jewels she wore must have cost a pile. Reckon she's been used to livin' kinder different from the way folks down here do--hope 'tain't goin' to be so hard on her she won't want to stay."

"I was thinking about that myself," said Madison gravely, knotting his brows as he nodded his head. "There's no doubt it will be a big change for her, but I imagine she had some sort of an idea what to expect--it is certainly greatly to her credit that she would give up her own interests unselfishly and come here to devote her life to the care of a relative whom she had never seen before. I've an idea that the girl who would do that is the kind of a girl who's got grit enough to see it through."

"So she be," said Mr. Higgins heartily. "Ain't every one 'ud do it--not by a heap!"

"I'll give you a hand with the trunks," said Madison thoughtfully.

They carried the large trunk between them into the cottage and, as Helena called to them, down the little hallway past what Madison knew to be the Patriarch's bedroom, and stopped before the next door, which was open. Madison remembered the room, when nearly two weeks ago now the Patriarch had shown him through the cottage, as a sort of store-room full of odds and ends. Mr. Higgins, too, evidently had known it only in that guise, for he whistled softly and reached for his whiskers.

"Well now, if that ain't right smart of the Patriarch!" he exclaimed. "Real set he must have been on makin' you feel to home, Miss Vail--an' never said a word to no one, neither."

"Yes," said Helena, "isn't it pretty? And did he really fix this up for me all by himself?"--she was looking at Madison, as she stood in the center of the room beside the Patriarch.

"Must have," said Madison, surveying the room.

It wasn't luxurious, the little chamber, nor was there over much of furniture, nor was that even of a high order--there was a bed with a red-checkered crazy-quilt; a washstand with severe, heavy white crockery; a rocking chair, homemade, of hickory; a rag mat, round, many-colored; and white muslin curtains on the windows. It wasn't luxurious, the little chamber--it was fresh and sweet and clean.

Upon the Patriarch's face was a sort of pleased expectancy, and Helena promptly took his arm and pressed it affectionately.

"Isn't it perfectly dear of him!" she said softly. "To think of him going to all this trouble for me when he could scarcely see!"

"Well, 'tain't no more'n you deserve," said Mr. Higgins gallantly, as he slewed the trunk around against the wall. "I'll lug them other trunks in myself, ain't but small ones, they ain't"--and he hurried from the room, as though fearful that Madison might secure a share in the honors.

"I guess you've made a hit with Mr. Higgins, Helena," observed Madison, with a grin.

"Have I?" returned Helena absently; then abruptly: "This is a real nice lay you've steered me into, John Madison."

"Yes; not bad," said Madison complacently. "Bring your uncle into the front room, Helena; and then you can get Hiram to show you the well and the old oaken bucket and where the pantries and cupboards are, he knows more about them than I do--it's pretty near time for you to be thinking about getting supper."

"Are you going to stay for it?" inquired Helena pertly.

"For the first attempt!" ejaculated Madison, with a wry face. "Good Heavens, no! I'm just convalescing from a serious illness."

In the front room Madison settled himself to a study of the Patriarch's beaming, happy face, while Helena under Mr. Higgins' attentive guidance explored the cottage.

"D'ye know, old chap," he said, and leaned across the table to touch the Patriarch's hand, "I feel like a blooming philanthropist. An outsider might think I was playing you pretty low and taking advantage of you, and even Helena's got a budding hunch that way it seems--but just think of the mess you'd have been in if it wasn't for me, just think of the good you're going to do, and just look at yourself and see how pleased and happy you look."

The Patriarch smiled responsively to the touch upon his hand.

"Of course you are," said Madison affably.

Presently there came the sound of an axe busily at work, and a moment later Helena came laughingly into the room.

"He's filling up the wood-box," she explained, and darting across to Madison put her arms around his neck. "Aren't you going to tell me you're glad to see me?" she whispered coyly. "Oh, I've been longing so for you! Kiss me"--she held out tempting little red lips, invitingly pursed up.

"Nix on that!" said Madison, smiling but firm, as he disengaged her arms. "Soft pedal, Helena, my dear."

"But he can't see or hear," pouted Helena.

"I should hope not!" said Madison, with a gasp. "But you never know who else might, or when they might--we begin right, and run no risks--see? People have a charming habit of dropping around informally here--everybody's at home."

"Don't you love me any more?" inquired Helena, unconvinced, and still pouting.

"Of course, I do!" asserted Madison, laughing at her. "Don't be a goose, Helena. You remember what I told you all in the Roost, don't you? Well, I haven't been living in a Maine village ten days or two weeks for nothing, and what I said then goes now more than ever. Now, don't get sore, kid--there's a big stake up, and if we're going to play the game we've got to play it to the limit. We live perfectly, ultra-proper, decent lives, mentally, morally, physically, till we beat it out of here for keeps."

"Ain't we going to have a nice time!" murmured Helena sarcastically.

"Oh, cheer up!" said Madison. "It may be quiet for a day or two--but not much longer than that. Now tell me about the Flopper and Pale Face before Higgins gets back--have they got things straight? And pat your uncle's hand while you talk, Helena--get the habit."

"I don't have to get the habit," said Helena a little crossly, perching herself on the arm of the Patriarch's chair and taking his hand. "I think he's a perfect dear, and for us to sit here and take advantage of him when he trusts us is--"

"Now cut that out," said Madison cheerfully. "Think of those gondolas in Venice when we get through with this--that'll make you feel better. Go on about the Flopper and Pale Face--can the Flopper speak any English yet?"

Helena laughed in spite of herself.

"I've had a dream of a time with him," she said. "He's broken his neck trying, at any rate; and he's not so bad as he was--quite."

"Good!" said Madison. "And?"

"I read them your last letter saying they were to come together and work the train on the way down," she continued. "The Flopper got the postmaster's letter, too."

"How did it size up as a testimonial?" inquired Madison.

Helena's dark eyes flashed with amusement.

"Lovely!"

"Too thick--fishy?" asked Madison.

"Oh, no," said Helena, "not if you have faith--just strong. It's all right, though; I told him he could use it--it's a drawing card in itself, for some of them would be curious enough to get off and see the finish. Everything is all fixed--they'll be here to-morrow."

"Good girl!" said Madison approvingly. "We'll pull it off out there on the lawn where all the multitude can see--you'll have to lead his nibs out and guide him to the Flopper while the hush falls and you look kind of scared--you know the lay. There's no one can touch you when it comes to playing up to the house. And now, there's just one thing more--you'll need some one around here to help you and keep an eye on the offerings when they begin to come in. Well, that's the Flopper's role in the second act--see? Overwhelmed with gratitude at his cure, he attaches himself to the Patriarch with dog-like fidelity--beautiful thought!--get the idea? And--"

"Hush!" cautioned Helena. "Here's Mr. Higgins coming."

"All right," said Madison, rising and moving to the door. "I'm going now, then--guess you understand. See you in the morning for the final touches. Tell Mr. Higgins I'm waiting outside for him to drive me home." He raised his voice. "Good afternoon, Miss Vail," he said, and stepped out onto the lawn.

--VIII--

IN WHICH THE BAIT IS NIBBLED

There was a group around the Flopper on the Portland platform beside the Bar Harbor express; some wore pitying expressions, others smiled a little tolerantly--Pale Face Harry, from the circle, sneered openly.

"Nutty!" he coughed, and touched his forehead. "Nothing doing in the upper story--some one ought to look after him."

The Flopper, a crippled thing on the ground, fixed Pale Face Harry with a pointed forefinger.

"Youse don't look like you had many weeps to spare for anybody but yerself--yer fallin' to pieces," said the Flopper. "I didn't ask you nor any of youse to butt in--I was talkin' to dis lady here"--he motioned toward a young woman in a wheeled, invalid chair, who, between a trained nurse on one side and a gentleman on the other, was regarding him with a startled expression in her eyes.

She turned now and spoke to the gentleman beside her.

"Robert," she said, in a low, anxious tone, "do you think that--that there can be anything in it?"

"Have you lost your head, Naida?" the man laughed. "The age of miracles has passed."

"But he is so _sure_," she whispered.

"Poppycock!" said her companion contemptuously.

The Flopper, in good, if unfashionable and ready-made clothes, fresh linen, and a clean shave, turned a bright, intelligent face on the man at this remark.

"I guess youse are de kind," he said, with a grim smile, "dat ain't had to kill yerself worryin' much about any kind of trouble, an' it ain't nothin' to you to cut de ground of hope out from another guy's feet an' let him slide. Mabbe you think I'm nutty too, because I know I'm goin' to be cured--but it don't hurt you none to have me think so, does it? Mabbe someday you might like to hope a little yerself, an' if--"

"'Board! All aboard!"--the conductor's voice boomed down the platform.

The young woman leaned forward in her chair toward the Flopper.

"I know what it is to hope," she said softly. "Will you come back into our car after awhile? I'd like to have you tell me more about this. Please do."

"Sure," said the Flopper amiably. "Sure, mum, I will, if youse wants me to."

The crowd broke up, hurrying for the train; and the Flopper, dragging a valise along beside him, jerked himself toward the steps.

"Swipe me, if I ain't got a bite already!" said the Flopper to himself. "An' outer a private car, too--wouldn't dat bump you! An' say, wait till you see de Doc t'row up his dukes when he listens to me handin' out me sterilized English!"

The brakeman and a kindly-hearted fellow passenger helped the Flopper into the train--and thereafter for an hour or more, in a first class coach, the Flopper held undisputed sway. The passengers, flocking from the other cars, filled the aisle and seriously interfered with the lordly movements of the train crew, challenging the conductor's authority with passive indifference until that functionary, exasperated beyond endurance, threatened to curtail the ride the Flopper had paid for and put him off at the next station--whereat the passive attitude of the passengers vanished. The American public is always interested in a novelty, and on occasions is not to be gainsaid--the American public, as represented by the patrons of the Bar Harbor express, was interested at the moment in the Flopper, and they passed the conductor from hand to hand--it was the only way he could have got through the car--and deposited him outside in the vestibule to tell his troubles to the buffer-plate.

The Flopper was in deadly, serious earnest; there was no doubt, no possible room for doubt on that score--one had but to look at the flush upon his cheeks and note the ring of conviction in his voice. Even Pale Face Harry's gibes and sneers melted before the unshakable assurance, and he became, with reservations, noticeably impressed.

A metropolitan newspaper man was struck with the idea of a humorous series of articles to pay for his vacation, entitled, "Characters I Have Met In Maine"--and forthwith, perched on the back of the seat behind the Flopper, proceeded to sketch out the first one, with the mental determination to get off at Needley for the local color necessary to its climax.

A soap drummer nudged a fellow drummer whose line was lingerie.

"Ever do Needley?" he grinned.

The lingerie exponent had a sense of humor--he grinned back.

"My house is everlastingly rubbing it into me to open up new territory," said the soap salesman.

"Me too," responded the white-goods man.

"Needley," said he of the soap persuasion, "would be virgin soil for any drummer."

"I'd like to see the finish," said the lingerie man--still grinning.

"Well?" inquired the soap man--still grinning. "What do you say?"

"You bet!" said the man with eight trunks full of daintiness in the baggage car ahead. "It's Needley for ours--you're on!"

The Flopper was an artist--and he was in his glory. Where his position was indubitably weak, he side-stepped with the frank admission that he knew no more than they. He knew only one thing, and that was the only thing he cared about, the rest made no odds to him, he was going down to Needley to be cured--and he let them see Mr. Higgins' letter.

A porter from the rear car squirmed and wriggled his way down to the seat occupied by the Flopper.

"Mistah Tho'nton, sah," he announced importantly, "would like to see you in his private car, if you could done make it convenient, sah."

"Sure!" said the Flopper.

The passengers crowded up, standing on the seats and arm-rests, to make room for the Flopper to crawl down the aisle, while the porter preceded him to open the doors.

Through the car in the rear of the one he had occupied, the regular parlor car, the Flopper, a piteous spectacle, made his way--chairs turned, the occupants craned their necks after the deformed and broken creature, while smothered exclamations and little cries of sympathy from the women followed him along. The Flopper's eyes never lifted from the strip of carpet before him, but his lips moved.

"Gee!" he muttered. "Dis has de gape-wagon skun a mile. Wish I could pass de hat--I'd make de killin' of me young life. Pipe de hydrogen hair on de gran'mother wid de sparkler on her thumb an' weeps in her eyes, an' look at de guy wid de yellow gloves rolled back on his wrists to heighten de intelligint look on his face, dat she's kiddin'--I could play dem to a fare-thee-well if I only had de chanst. Oh, gee!"--the Flopper sighed--"an' I got to let it go!"

With regret still poignantly affecting him, the Flopper passed on into the private car, and the porter ushered him into a sort of combination observation and sitting-room compartment. The Flopper's eyes lifted and made a quick, comprehensive tour of his surroundings. The young woman who had spoken to him on the platform was reclining on a couch; the nurse sat on the foot of the couch; and the man was tilted back in an armchair against the window.

The young woman raised herself to a sitting posture and held out her hand.

"I am Mrs. Thornton," she said, with a smile. "This is my husband, and this is Miss Harvey, my nurse. It was very good of you to come, Mr.--?" she paused invitingly.

"Coogan," supplied the Flopper. "Michael Coogan."

"Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Coogan," said Thornton, a little ironically, pushing one toward the Flopper. "Or would you be more comfortable on the floor?"

The Flopper's eyelids fell--covering a quick, ugly glint.

"T'anks!" he said--and swung himself, by his arms, into the chair.

"I want you to tell me all about this strange man in Needley, and how you came to hear of him and believe in him," said Mrs. Thornton. "I was only able to get just the barest outline of it out there on the platform with the crowd around."

"Dat's easy," said the Flopper earnestly. "Sure, I'll tell you. I saw a piece about dis Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so I writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if he was on de level--see?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. "And what did the postmaster say?"

The Flopper took Hiram Higgins' letter from his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton.

"Youse can read it fer yerself, mum," he said, with an air of one delivering a final and irrefutable argument.

Mrs. Thornton read the letter carefully, almost anxiously.

"If only a part of this is true," she said wistfully, passing it to her husband, "it is perfectly wonderful."

Mr. Thornton read it--with a grin.

"I don't know, I am sure," he observed caustically, handing the letter to Miss Harvey, "how the medical profession would stand on this--would your school endorse it, nurse?"

Miss Harvey read it with her back to the others--then she glanced at Mrs. Thornton--and checked herself as she was about to speak. She folded the letter slowly and returned it to the Flopper without comment.

Robert Thornton, master of millions, hard-headed and practical for all his youth, leaned forward in his chair toward the Flopper.

"Look here," he said bluntly, "you don't mean to say that you believe this seriously, do you?"

"Oh, no!" said the Flopper softly. "Nothin' like dat! Of course I don't believe it! I'm only guyin' myself--see? I'm just goin' dere fer fun--an' spendin' me last red to get dere. Say"--his voice snapped--"wot do youse t'ink I am, anyway?"

"Surely, Robert," said Mrs. Thornton gently, "it is evident enough that he believes it."

Thornton did not look at her--he was still gazing at the Flopper, his brows knitted.

"How long have you been like this?" he demanded sharply.

"All me life," said the Flopper. "I was born dat way."

"And you expect to go down here and by some means, which I must confess is quite beyond my ability to grasp, be cured in a miraculous manner!"--Thornton smiled tolerantly.

"Sure, I do!" asserted the Flopper doggedly. "If he's done it fer de crowd dere, why can't he do it fer me? Didn't de postmaster say all yer gotter have is faith? Well, I got de faith--an' I got it hard enough to stake all I got on it. Dis time to-morrow--say, dis time to-morrow I wouldn't change places wid any man in de United States."

Thornton's tolerant smile deepened.

"I guess you're sincere enough," he said; "and I'm not trying to cut the ground of hope out from under your feet, as you put it out on the platform--but it seems to me that it is only the kindly thing to do to warn you that the more faith you put in a thing like this the worse you are making it for yourself--you are laying up a bitter disappointment in store that can only make your present misfortune the more unbearable."

The Flopper shook his head.

"If he's done it fer others, he can do it fer me," he repeated, with unshaken conviction. "An' dat goes--I can't lose."

Thornton tilted his chair back again, and stared at the Flopper with pitying incredulity.

There was silence for a moment; then Mrs. Thornton spoke.

"Robert," she said slowly, "I want to stop at Needley."

The front legs of Thornton's chair came down on the heavy carpet with a dull thud, and he whirled around in his seat to stare at his wife.

"You don't mean to say, Naida," he gasped, "that you've got faith in this thing, too!"

"No; not faith," she answered pathetically. "I hardly dare to _hope_. I have hoped so much in the last year, and--"

"But this is sheer nonsense!" Thornton broke in with irritable impatience. "I can understand this man here, in a way--he has the superstition, if you like to call it that, due to lack of education, if he'll pardon my saying so in his presence; but you, Naida, surely you can't take any stock in it!"

She smiled at him a little wanly.

"I have told you that I didn't even dare to hope," she said. "But I want to see--I want to see. I have tried sanatoriums and consulted specialists until it has all become a nightmare to me and I am no better--I sometimes think I never shall be any better."

"But," exploded Thornton, rising from his chair, "that's nothing to do with this--this is rank foolishness! Nurse, you--"

Miss Harvey, too, had risen, and was regarding Mrs. Thornton anxiously.

"It is better to humor her than to excite her," she said in a low voice.

Mrs. Thornton had dropped back on the couch and her face was turned away from the others, but she stretched out her hand to her husband.

"I am not asking very much, Robert, dear--am I?" she said. "Not very much. Won't you do this for me?"

Thornton bit his lips and scowled at the Flopper.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered--and moving to the side of the car pushed a bell-button viciously. "Sam," he snapped, as his colored man appeared, "go and tell the conductor that I want my car put off on the siding at Needley."

"Yes, sah," said Sam.

Thornton sat down again heavily.

"Mabbe," announced the Flopper tactfully, "mabbe I'd better be gettin' back to me valise--we're most dere, ain't we?"

Mrs. Thornton turned toward him.

"No; please don't go, Mr. Coogan--it's too hard for you to get through the train. Sam will get your things as soon as he comes back. Do stay right where you are until we get to Needley."

"No; don't think of going, Mr. Coogan," said Thornton savagely.

The Flopper looked at Mrs. Thornton gratefully, and at Mr. Thornton thoughtfully.

"T'anks!" said the Flopper pleasantly--and wriggled himself into a more comfortable position in his chair.

Half an hour later, the train, that stopped only on signal to discharge eastbound passengers from Portland, drew up at Needley--and Hiram Higgins, on the platform, stared at a scene never before witnessed in the history of the town.

It was not one passenger, or two, or three, that alighted--they streamed in a bewildering fashion from every vestibule of every car. It is true that the majority got back into the train later, but that did not lessen the effect any on Mr. Higgins. Mr. Higgins' jaw dropped, and he grabbed at his chin whiskers for support.

"Merciful daylights!" he breathed heavily. "Now what in the land's sakes be it all about?" His eyes, following the hurrying passengers, fixed on the twisted shape of the Flopper, being helped to the platform from the private car.

"Three cheers for Coogan!" yelled some excitable passenger.

The cheers were given with a will.

"Good luck to you, Coogan!" shouted another--and the crowd took it up in chorus: "Good luck to you, Coogan!"

"_Coogan!_"--Mr. Higgins' face paled, and he took a firmer grip on his whiskers. "Now if you ain't gone an' put your fool foot in it, Hiram Higgins," he said miserably. "If that there's the fellow that you writ to, you've just laid out to make a plumb fool of the Patriarch, 'cause I reckon the Almighty knew His own mind when He made a critter like that, an' didn't calc'late to have His work upsot much this side of the grave--not even by the Patriarch."

--IX--

THE PILGRIMAGE

Faith is an inheritance common to the human race; and the human race in its daily life, in its daily dealings, man to man, could not go on without it--but faith is a matter of degree. Faith, in the abstract, the element of it, is inborn in every soul; and while dormant, until put to a crucial test along any given line, is boundless and unlimited--a sort of tacitly accepted, existing state, unquestioned. Faith in many is a sturdy, virile thing--to a certain point. It is the fire that proves.

Needley had faith in the Patriarch--a faith that never before had been questioned. But Needley had more than that--Needley held the Patriarch in affection, as a cherished thing, almost sacredly, almost as an idol. Faith the simple people of Needley had always had--to a certain point--but it faltered before this grotesque, inhuman, twisted shape that squatted in the road before the Congress Hotel like a hideous caricature of an abnormal toad. Their faith failed to bridge the span that gave the Patriarch power over such as this, and they saw their idol shattered in their own eyes, and held up to mockery before the eyes of these strangers who had so suddenly and tempestuously swarmed upon them.

Hiram Higgins, seeking out Doc Madison inside the hotel, was in a state bordering on distraction.

"I druve him over from the station 'cause he couldn't walk, him an' a man, an' two women, an' a wheel-chair," Mr. Higgins explained. "But what's to be done now? He wants me to drive him out to the Patriarch's. I got faith in the Patriarch, but I never said he could work miracles--there ain't no one on earth could straighten that critter out. Don't stand to reason that the Patriarch's to be made a fool of."

"Certainly not," agreed Madison emphatically. "It's most unfortunate. I suppose all of us here in Needley"--he looked around at the assembled group of leading citizens--"feel the same way, too?"

"Of course we do," said Mr. Higgins helplessly. "Couldn't feel no ways else."

Madison laid his hand suddenly, impressively, upon Mr. Higgins' shoulder and looked meaningly into Mr. Higgins' eyes--and into the eyes of the selectmen, the overseers of the poor, the general-store proprietor, and the school committee.

"Don't drive him over, then," he said significantly. "Don't any of the rest of you do it either--and tell everybody else not to. Make him _crawl_. If he's determined to go, let him get there by himself if he can, make him crawl--he'll never be able to do it."

"That's so," said Mr. Higgins, brightening, while the others nodded; then, dubiously: "But s'pose he _does_ get there--how be we goin' to stop him?"

"If he can get there by himself you can't stop him," said Madison seriously. "You can't do anything like that. To use force would be carrying things too far, and would only place the Patriarch in a worse light. If this fellow--what's his name?--Coogan?--can crawl there, let him--that's his own business. None of _us_ are encouraging him, the Patriarch didn't ask him to come, and no one has a right to expect miracles--so it can't hurt the Patriarch seriously under those conditions. Besides, if this Coogan has got faith enough to crawl that mile, who knows what might happen--make him crawl."

Mr. Higgins, with a grim nod, headed a determined exodus from the hotel office--and Madison strolled out onto the veranda.

Needley was in a furor. The news spread like an oil-fed conflagration. The farmers left their work in the fields and hurried into the village; from the houses and cottages came the women and children to cluster around the Congress Hotel; from the station, scarcely of less interest to the inhabitants than the Flopper himself, straggled in those curious enough to have left the train, nearly a dozen of them--and amongst them Pale Face Harry coughed, as he trudged laboriously along.

Larger and larger grew the circle around the Flopper, filling and blocking the road, overflowing into front yards, and massing on the little lawn of the hotel clear up to the veranda--until fields and houses were deserted, and to the last inhabitant Needley was there.

Upon the ground squatted the Flopper, his eyes sweeping the ring of faces that was like a wall around him--the grinning faces of his fellow passengers from the train; the stony, concerned and rather sullen faces of the men of Needley; the anxious, excited faces of the women; the bewildered, curious and somewhat frightened faces of the children, who pushed and shoved their elders for better vantage ground.

The Flopper licked his lips, and renewed the appeal he had been making for nearly five minutes.

"Ain't no one goin' to drive me out to de Patriarch's?"

"Horses are all busy in the fields," said a voice, uncompromisingly.

"Yes," said the Flopper, with bitter irony, "drivin' each other around, while youse are here starin' at me an' won't help."

His eyes caught Doc Madison's from the veranda and held an instant to read a message and interpret the almost imperceptible, but significant, movement of Madison's head.

"Gee!" said the Flopper to himself, as his eyes swept the faces around him again. "Dis is a nice game de Doc's planted on me--he wants me to do de wiggle out dere fer de rubes! Ain't dey a peachy lot--look at de saucer eyes on de kids!"

Mrs. Thornton, in her wheel-chair on the inner edge of the circle, turned to her husband.

"It's very strange that no one seems willing to drive him," she said.

"Oh, not very," responded Thornton, with a short laugh. "I don't blame them--they don't want this healer of theirs made a monkey of."

"If no one will drive him, he shall have my wheel-chair," announced Mrs. Thornton impulsively. "I think it is a perfect shame--the poor man!"

"Nonsense!" said Thornton gruffly. "You'll do nothing of the kind."

"Yes, Robert, I will," declared Mrs. Thornton with determination. She leaned forward and called to the Flopper. "Mr. Coogan," she said anxiously, "if you can't find any other way of getting out there, I want you to take this chair of mine--you'll be able to manage with it, I am sure."

The Flopper looked at her with gratitude--but shook his head--mindful of Doc Madison.

"T'anks, mum," he said, "but I couldn't t'ink of it--you needs it more'n me."

"Please do," she insisted.

"T'anks, mum," said the Flopper again, "but I couldn't. You needs it, an' I can get along widout it. Dey're stallin' on me, but I can get dere by myself if any one'll show me de way."

"I'll show you, mister," piped a shrill voice--and young Holmes on his crutch hopped into the circle. "I'll show you, mister--an' 'tain't fur, neither."

"Swipe me!" muttered the Flopper, as he surveyed the lad. "Dis is de limit fer fair!" Perturbed and uncertain what to do, he tried to catch Doc Madison's eye again, but a movement in the crowd had hidden Madison.

Some one in the crowd, the lingerie drummer, getting the grim humor of the situation, laughed--and the laugh came like a challenge, taunting the quick-tempered, turbulent soul of the Flopper.

"Come on, mister!" urged the boy excitedly. "'Tain't fur--I'll show you."

"God bless you, son," said the Flopper, while he flung an inward curse at the man who had laughed. "Son, God bless you fer yer good heart--go ahead--I'll stick to you."

The crowd opened, making a lane through which the boy stumped on his crutch, his face flushed and eager, and through which the Flopper followed, slowly, rocking from side to side as he helped himself along with the palm of his left hand flat in the dust of the road, trailing his wobbling leg behind him.

The crowd closed in behind and moved forward.

Mrs. Thornton's face was fever-flushed, her eyes bright; in her weak state she was on the verge of nervous hysteria.

"I want to go, Robert," she cried. "I must go."

"But, my dear," protested Thornton harshly, "this is simply the height of absurdity. For Heaven's sake be sensible, Naida. Just imagine what people would say if they saw us here with this outfit of idiots--they'd think we'd gone mad."

"I don't care what they'd think," she returned feverishly, her frail fingers plucking nervously at the arms of her chair. "I must go--I must--I must."

Thornton glanced at the nurse, then stared at his wife--Miss Harvey's meaning look was hardly necessary to drive home to him the fact that Mrs. Thornton was in no condition to be denied anything.

Red-faced, Thornton strode to the back of the chair and began to push it along.

"Of all the damned foolishness that ever I heard of," he gritted savagely, "this is the worst!" His face went redder still with mortification. "If this ever leaks out I'll never hear the last of it. Look at us--bringing up the rear of a gibbering mob of yokels! We're fit for a padded cell!"

In the crowd, Madison rubbed shoulders for a moment with Pale Face Harry.

"Who's the party with the wheel-chair behind?" he asked.

"Millionaire--Chicago--private car--Flopper's got the wife going hard--rode down with them," coughed Pale Face Harry behind his hand.

"I guess I'll get acquainted," said Madison. "Circulate, Harry, and cough your head off--don't hide your light under a bushel--circulate." And Madison fell back to scrape acquaintance with the man of millions.

Close-packed upon the road, the procession spread out for a hundred yards behind the Flopper--bare-footed children; women in multi-colored gingham and calico; men in the uncouth dress of the fields, the uncouthness accentuated by the sprinkling of more pretentious clothing worn by those who had come from the train. And slowly, very slowly, this conglomerate human cosmorama moved on, undulating queerly with the variant movements of its component parts, snail-like, for the Flopper's pace was slow--as strange a spectacle, perhaps, as the human eye had ever witnessed, something of grimness, something of humor, something of awe, something of fear exuding from it--it seemed to contain within itself the range, and to express, the gamut of all human emotion.

On the procession went--so slowly as to be almost sinister in its movement. And a strange sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover over it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. Three hundred voices, men's, women's and children's, rose and fell, rose and fell--at first in a medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, earnest dispute and children's prattle--a strange composite sound indeed! But as the minutes passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the Flopper paused to rest, and moved on and stopped and moved on again, gradually this changed, very gradually, not abruptly, but as though the scoffings and the laughter were dying away almost imperceptibly in the distance. For as the Flopper stopped to rest, those near him gazed upon his face, distorted, full of muscular distress, sweat pouring from his forehead, pain and suffering written in every lineament--and drew back whispering into the crowd, giving place to others until all had seen. And so the strange sound from this strange congregation grew lower, until it was a sort of breathless, long-sustained and wavering note, a prescience, a premonition of something to come, a ghastly mockery or a tragedy to befall, until it was an awe-struck murmuring thing.

Some spoke to him now and in pity offered to get him a horse and wagon, offered even to carry him--but the Flopper shook his head.

"'Tain't goin' to be but a few minutes now," he panted in an exalted voice, "before I'm cured--I got de faith to know dat--I got de faith."

And the crippled lad upon the crutch beside him urged him on. The boy's face was strained and eager, full of mingled emotions--pride in the leading part he played, wonder and expectancy.

"Come on, mister, come on!" he kept saying, impatiently accommodating his own restricted pace to the Flopper's still slower one.

Through the wagon track, through the woods beneath the trees, the dead, slow, shuffling tread went on--and now even the murmuring sound was hushed. Men and women stared into each other's faces--children sought their elders' hands. What did it mean? Faith--yes, they had had faith--but never faith like this. They looked at the awful deformity over one another's heads, crawling inch by inch along before them--watched the stubborn, bitter struggle of pain and suffering of the wretched man who led them, spurred on by a faith cast in a heroic mold such as none there had ever dreamed of before--and they spoke no more. There was only the sound of movement now--and that curiously subdued. Men seemed to choose their footing, seeking to tread noiselessly, as though in some solemn presence that awed them and held them in an intangible, heart-quickening suspense.

Onward they went--following the lurching, wriggling, reeling, broken thing before them--following the Flopper, his right hand and arm curved piteously inward to his chin, his neck thrown sideways, his sagging leg seeming to hold only to his body by spasmodic jerks to catch up with the body itself, like the steel when detached from the magnet that bounds forward to re-attach itself again, his eyes starting from his head, his face bloodless with exertion and twisted as fearfully as were his limbs, but upon his lips a smile of resolution, of indomitable assurance.

Onward they went--a huddled mass of humanity, literate and illiterate, of all ages, of all conditions, and none laughed, none grinned, none smiled, none spoke--all that was past. They stopped, they moved again--as the Flopper stopped and moved. Occasionally a child cried out--occasionally there came a discordant, racking cough--that was all.

Tenser grew the very atmosphere they breathed--heavier upon them fell the sense of something almost supernatural, beyond the human and the finite. Skeptic and faint believer, sinner, Christian and scoffer, they were all alike now in the presence of a faith whose evidence was before them in harrowing vividness, in the torment and agony of a fellow creature who sought again through faith a restoration to the image of his kind. There was no creed, no school of ethical belief, no conflicting orthodoxy to quibble over, no ground on which atheist and theologian even might stand apart--there was only _faith_--a faith whose trappings none might take issue with, for it was naked faith and the trappings were stripped from it--it was faith in its very essence, boundless, utter, simple, limitless, staggering, appalling them.

Its consummation? That was another thing--a thing that in the presence of such faith as this brought human pity, sympathy and sorrow to its full, brought dread and terror. Faith such as this they had never conceived; faith such as this, if it was to prove a shattered thing, was for its exponent to drink the very dregs of misery and despair--and yet, rising above that possibility, flinging grim challenge at their doubts, stood this very faith, mighty in itself, perfect in its confidence, heroic in its agony, that all might gaze upon from a common standpoint and know--as faith.

No whispering breeze stirred the young leaves in the trees; in the stillness of the afternoon came only the heavy, pulsing throb of Nature's breathing. One hundred, two, three hundred, they moved along, slow, sinuous, troubled, their eyes straight before them or upon the ground at their feet--only the children looked with frightened, startled eyes into their parents' faces, and clung the closer.

Out upon the wagon track they debouched and spread in a long, thin line beneath the maples on either side of the Flopper--and waited.

--X--

THE MIRACLE

There was utter silence now--the tread of shuffling feet was gone--no man moved--it seemed as though no man _breathed_--they stood as carven things, inanimate, men, women and children strained forward, their faces drawn, tense and rigid. In the very air, around them, everywhere, imprisoning them, clutching like an icy hand at the heart, something unseen, a dread, intangible presence weighed them down and lay heavy upon them. What was to come? What drear tragedy was to be enacted? What awful mockery was to fall upon this maimed and mutilated creature within whose deformed and pitiful body there too was a human soul?

From the cottage door across the lawn came two figures--a girl in simple, clinging white, her head bowed, the sun itself seeming to caress the dark brown wealth of hair upon her head, changing it to glinting strands of burnished copper; and beside her walked the Patriarch, his hand resting lightly upon her arm, a wondrous figure of a man, majestic, simple, grand, his silvered-hair bared to the sun, his face illumined.

"There he is, mister!" whispered young Holmes hoarsely. "There he is! Go on, mister, go on--see what he can do for you!"

There came a sound that was like a great, gasping intake of breath, as men and women watched. Out toward the Patriarch, alone now, the Flopper began to wriggle and writhe his way along. God in Heaven have pity! What was this sight they looked upon--this poor, distorted, mangled thing that grovelled in the earth--that figure towering there in the sunlight with venerable white beard and hair, erect, symbolic of some strange, mystic power that awed them, his head turned slightly in a curious listening attitude, the sightless eyes closed, upon the face a great calm like a solemn benediction.

Fell a stillness that was as the stillness of death; came a hush until in men's ears was the quick, fierce pound and throb of their own hearts. On, on toward the Patriarch slithered and twisted that frightful deformity that they had followed over that long, torturing mile--on, on he went, and they watched scarce drawing breath, their faces white, their very limbs held as in a palsied, fearsome spell--and then, sudden, abrupt, terrifying, there rose a shriek, wild, hysterical, prolonged, in a woman's voice, the cadence wavering from guttural to shrill and ending in a high-pitched, broken scream.

The Flopper halted and turned himself about, while his left hand swept his livid face, brushing from it the spurting drops, sweeping back the damp, tangled hair from his eyes--faced them till they saw an agony on human countenance that struck, stabbing, to their souls--faced them while his eyes traversed the long, long line of ghastly white faces before him, out of which eyes everywhere, row on row of them, straining, fixed, fascinated, seemed to burn like living fires as they held him in their focus.

He had not gone far, perhaps ten yards--no more. By the group around the wheel-chair, almost in the center of the line, stood Madison, his chin in his hand in a meditative, thoughtful attitude, the single soul who watched the scene from under lowered lids; Thornton had involuntarily edged a little forward from behind the chair until he stood now at its side in a strange, abashed way as though his own personality were over-ruled, obliterated, his face with a white sternness upon it, his eyes, like all other eyes, agleam with an unnatural fire; Mrs. Thornton had pulled herself forward in the chair, one hand clutching at her breast, the frail fingers of the other woven in a grasp so tight around the arm of the chair that the flesh was bloodless; a little way off, a group of three, the two salesmen and the metropolitan newspaper man, seemed as though stricken into stone, stripped of all assurance, all complacence, awed, tense, palpitant, as the patched, bare-legged tatterdemalion of ten from the fields, that stood beside them, was awed and tense and palpitant.

And away on either side stretched the line of white, rigid faces, the never-ending, burning eyes--but the silence with that shriek was gone now, for another woman and another, overwrought, needing but that sudden shock to unnerve them utterly, shrieked in turn--and through the line seemed to run a shudder, and it moved a little though no foot stirred, moved with a strange, sinuous, rocking, swaying movement, from the hips, backward and forward and to either side. Men raised their eyes, stole frightened, questioning glances at their neighbors--and fixed their eyes on the Flopper again--on the Flopper and that majestic figure in the center of the lawn, so calm of mien, of attitude and pose.

Once again the Flopper's eyes swept the scene. A few feet in advance of the crowd, as though drawn irresistibly forward, young Holmes hung upon his crutch. The boy's soul seemed in his face--hope, a world of it, as he gazed at the Patriarch, sickening fear as he looked at the Flopper; his lips moving without sound, his body trembling with emotional excitement. Still once again the Flopper's eyes swept the line of men and women and children, fast reaching toward a common ungovernable hysteria--and then he turned with an unbalanced, impotent, broken movement, flung out his good arm toward the Patriarch in piteous supplication, and, jerking himself forward, went on.

Slowly, very slowly at first, he resumed his way, crawling it seemed by no more than a painful inch on inch, in mortal pain, in mortal agony and struggle--then gradually his movements began to quicken, as though growing upon him were a mad, elated haste that he could not control--quicker and quicker he went, pitching and lurching wildly; from a pace that was beyond him.

A strange, low, moaning sound rose from behind him, fluttering, inarticulate, that voiceless utterance that seeks to find some vent for human emotion when human emotion sweeps with mighty surge to engulf the soul. It rose and died away and rose again--and died away--and children began to whimper with a fear and terror that they did not understand, and seeking solace in their elders' faces found added cause for fear instead.

Nearer to that saintly figure who stood so calm, so quiet, the massive white-locked head still turned a little in that curious listening attitude, beside whom, close drawn now, was that white-clad girlish form, whose eyes were lowered, whose sweet face seemed to hold a heaven of pity and infinite compassion, upon whose lips there was a smile of divine tenderness, drew that piteous mockery of the image of a man, whose every movement appeared one of agony beyond human power to endure--and the agony found echo in the watchers' souls, and a low, muffled groan as of men in pain and hurt, ran tremulously along the line.

Still nearer to the Patriarch drew the Flopper. More heart-rending was his every movement, for with his quickened pace he sought to move without the aid of the only member that was as other men's, his left hand and arm that, in pleading, yearning supplication, was stretched out before him to the Patriarch.

The extreme ends of the long line of watchers curled a little inward, almost imperceptibly, a half step taken without volition. The crippled boy, swaying upon his crutch, his lips parted, trembling in every limb, edged forward hesitantly, fearfully, now a foot, now another, now the bare space of a single inch. And now down the entire length of the line from end to end that wavering, rocking movement in swaying, pregnant unison grew stronger--men knew not what they did--it seemed the very air they breathed must smother them--and, in that dull, weird, lingering note, rose again the sound of moaning that seemed to beat in consonance with the distant mournful rhythm of the endless beat of surf on shore.

Women clutched at their breasts now; men's knuckles went white beneath the tight-drawn skin; the children drew behind their mothers' skirts and, terror-stricken, cried aloud. Surcharged, on the edge, the bare and ragged edge of frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony--that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power--the thought of which very power, once loosed, chilled them with panic-dread.

Yet still they watched--it was beyond their power to turn their eyes--enthralled, a moaning, swaying, rocking mob, they watched. Madness was creeping upon them rampant. Like a mighty tide, the ocean weight behind it, hurling itself against flood-gates that could never stand, it mounted higher and higher; and already, as the water first seeps between the gates, grim forecast of what was to come, it showed itself now in that long, sobbing, convulsive inhalation, in that strange, sinuous, restless movement.

On went the Flopper. There was still a yard to go--two feet--_one_. Stopped in a sudden deathless hush was all sound. The Flopper flung himself forward upon his face at the Patriarch's feet. Stopped was all movement, haggard and tense every face, strained every eye. For a moment that seemed to span eternity, in a huddled heap, that crippled, twisted thing lay there before them motionless, without sign of life--the venerable face above it, still intent, still listening, turned slowly downwards. Then there was a movement, a movement that blanched the watching faces to a more pallid white--that dangling, wobbling leg drew inward slowly, very slowly, and hip and knee, as though guided by some mighty power, immutable, supreme, came deliberately into normal form.

A shriek, a cry, a wail, a sob, a prayer--it came now unrestrained--hysteria was loosed in a mad ungovernable orgasm--men clutched at each other and cowered, hiding their faces with their hands--women dropped to their knees and, sobbing, screaming, prayed. Loud it rose, the turmoil of human souls aghast and quailing before a manifestation that seemed to fling them face to face, uncovered, naked, before the awful power and majesty and might of Heaven itself.

They looked again--fearfully. The twisted thing was standing now, standing but still deformed--with crooked neck, with curved, bent, palsied arm. And nearer had drawn little Holmes, his head thrust forward, shaking as with the ague as he gazed on the group before him, oblivious to all else around him.

A twinge of frightful torture swept the Flopper's face--and with that same slow, awful deliberation the misshapen arm straightened out. Men cried aloud again and again--a woman fainted, another here, another there--children wailed and ran, some shrieking, some whimpering, for the woods.

Again the spasm crossed the Flopper's face, a shuddering, muscular contortion--and from the shoulder rose his head.

Inward drew the ends of the line of paroxysm-stricken people--not far, not near to that hallowed group for something held them back; but inward gradually until the line, no longer straight, was half a circle, crescent shaped. Louder came that harrowing medley of sounds, its component parts voicing the uttermost depths of the soul of each separate individual man and woman there--some moaned in terror; some prayed, mumbling, still upon their knees; some laughed hoarsely, wildly, their senses for the moment gone; and some were dumb; and some shrieked their prayers in frenzy. Louder it grew--the end had come--that deformed thing stood erect, a perfect man--he turned his face toward them--he stretched out his arms--and they answered him with their wails, their sobs, their moans, their cries--they answered him in their terror, in their shaken senses, clutching at each other again--answered him from their knees, their voices hoarse--answered him with trembling lips and tongues that would not move.

And then suddenly, as though riven where they stood and kneeled and crouched, all movement ceased--and every heart stood still as ringing clear above all else, shocking all else to stunned, petrified silence, there came a cry--a cry in a young voice. It rang again and again, trembling with glad, new life, vibrant, a cry that seemed to thrill with chords of happiness and ecstasy immeasurable. Again it came, again, exultant, pulsing with a mighty joy--young Holmes had _flung his crutch from him_, and, with outstretched arms, was running toward the Patriarch across the lawn.

For an instant more that stunned, awed silence held. All eyes were riveted and fixed upon the scene--none looked at Madison--if any had they would have seen that his face had gone an ivory white.

--XI--

THE AFTERMATH

"I am cured, Robert! Robert! Robert! See, I too am cured! Oh, Robert, what wondrous joy!"--Mrs. Thornton had left her wheel-chair and was standing beside her husband, standing alone, unaided for the first time in many months.

"Naida!"--it was a hoarse cry from Thornton. Then his hand passed heavily across his face as though to force his brain to coherent action, to lift the spell of what seemed a wild phantasm in all around him. "Naida!"--he sought now to control his voice--"Naida, get back into your chair again."

She laughed--a little hysterically--but in the laugh too was the uplift of a soul enraptured.

"But I am cured, Robert. See, dear, can't you understand?" She shook his arm. "See--I am cured. I can walk just as I could before I was ill. Oh, Robert, Robert! See! See!"--she went from him, walking a little, running a little--and laughing in a low, rippling, glorious laugh that was like the music of silver chimes ringing out in glad acclaim.

He stared at her, both hands now to his temples; then he turned to look strangely at the empty chair--but it was not empty. Miss Harvey, the nurse, on her knees, had flung herself across it and, with buried head, was sobbing unrestrainedly.