Chapter V

As the road to the foot of the trail grew steeper, Rob Kendall found an increasing difficulty in guiding his team with one hand. His bride drew herself from his encircling arm reluctantly.

"You'd better look after the horses," she said, with a vivid blush. "What'll grandmother think of us?"

The young fellow removed the offending arm and reached back to pat the old lady's knee.

"I ain't afraid of grandmother," he said joyously. "Grandmother's a brick. If she stays out here long, she'll soon be the youngest woman on the mesa. I shouldn't wonder if she'd pick up some nice old gentleman herself--how's that, grandmother?" He bent down and kissed his wife's ear. "Catch me going back on grandmothers after this!"

"You haven't changed a bit, Rob," said Ethel fondly; "has he, grandmother?" She turned her radiant smile upon the withered face behind her.

The old woman did not answer. The newly wedded couple resumed their rapturous contemplation of each other.

"How's that funny old man, Rob?" asked Ethel, smoothing out her dimples.

"Old Mosey? He's pretty rocky. I'm afraid he won't pull through." Rob strove to adjust his voice to the subject. "I'd 'a' got a house down in town, but I didn't like to leave him. We'll have to go pretty soon, though. I'm afraid you'll be lonesome up here."

The old woman on the back seat leaned forward a little. The young couple smiled exultantly into each other's eyes, with superb scorn of the world.

"Lonesome!" sneered the girl.

Her husband drew her close to him with an ecstatic hug.

"Yes, lonesome," he laughed, his voice smothered in her bright hair.

The old woman settled back in her seat. The team made their way slowly through the sandy wash between the boulders. When they emerged from the sycamores, Rob pointed toward the cabin. "That's the place!" he said triumphantly.

The sunset was sifting through the live-oaks upon the shake roof. Two tents gleamed white beside it, frescoed with the shadow of moving leaves. Ethel lifted her head from her husband's shoulder, and looked at her home with the faith in her eyes that has kept the world young.

"I've put up some tents for us," said the young fellow gleefully; "but you mustn't go in till I get the team put away. I won't have you laughing at my housekeeping behind my back. Old Mosey's asleep in the shanty; the doctor gives him something to keep him easy. You can go in there and sit down, grandmother; you won't disturb him."

He helped them out of the wagon, lingering a little with his wife in his arms. The old woman left them and went into the house. She crossed the floor hesitatingly, and bent over the feeble old face on the pillow.

"It's just as I expected; he's changed a good deal," she said to herself.

The old man opened his eyes.

"I was sayin' you'd changed a good deal, Moses," she repeated aloud.

There was no intelligence in his gaze.

"For that matter, I expect I've changed a good deal myself," she went on. "I heard you'd had a fall, and I thought I'd better come out. You was always kind of hard to take care of when you was sick. I remember that time you hurt your foot on the scythe, just after we was married; you wouldn't let anybody come near you but me"--

"Why, it's Angeline!" said the old man dreamily, with a vacant smile.

"Yes, it's me."

He closed his eyes and drifted away again. The old wife sat still on the edge of the bed. Outside she could hear the sigh of the oaks and the trill of young voices. Two or three tears fell over the wrinkled face, written close with the past, like a yellow page from an old diary. She wiped them away, and looked about the room with its meagre belongings, which Rob had scoured into expectant neatness.

"He doesn't seem to have done very well," she thought; "but how could he, all by himself?" She got up and walked to the door, and looked out at the strange landscape with its masses of purple mountains.

"I've got to do one of two things," she said to herself. "I've just got to own up the whole thing, and let the girls be mortified, or else I've got to keep still and marry him over again, and pass for an old fool the rest of my life. I don't believe I can do it. They've got more time to live down disgrace than I have. I believe I'll just come out and tell everything. Ethel!" she called. "Come here, you and Rob; I've got something to tell you."

The young couple stood with locked arms, looking out over the valley. At the sound of her voice they clasped each other close in an embrace of passionate protest against the intrusion of this other soul. Then they turned toward the sunset, and went slowly and reluctantly into the house.

Lib

A young woman sat on the veranda of a small redwood cabin, putting her baby to sleep. The infant displayed that aggressive wide-awakeness which seems to characterize babies on the verge of somnolence. Now and then it plunged its dimpled fists into the young mother's bare white breast, stiffened its tiny form rebelliously, raised its head, and sent gleams of defiance from beneath its drooping eyelids.

It was late in March, and the ground about the cabin was yellow with low-growing compositæ. The air was honey-sweet and dripping with bird-song. Inside the house a woman and a girl were talking.

"Oh, he's not worrying," said the latter. "What's he got to worry about? He lets us do all that. Lib's got the baby and we've got to bear all the disgrace. I"--

"Myrtie," called a clear voice from the veranda, "shut up! You may say what you please about me, and you may say what you please about him, but nobody's going to call this baby a disgrace."

She caught the child up and kissed the back of its neck with passionate vehemence. The baby struggled in her embrace and gave a little cry of outraged dignity.

Indoors the girl looked at her mother and bit her lip in astonished dismay.

"I didn't know she could hear," she whispered.

A tall young woman came up the walk, trailing her tawdry ruffles over the fragrant alfileria.

"Is Miss Sunderland"--She colored a dull pink and glanced at the baby.

"I'm Lib Sunderland. Won't you come in?" said Lib.

The newcomer sank down on the upper step and leaned against the post of the veranda.

"No. I don't want to see any one but you. I guess we can talk here."

The baby sat up at the sound of the stranger's voice and stared at her with round, blinking eyes. She drew off her cotton gloves and whipped her knee with them in awkward embarrassment. She had small, regular features of the kind that remain the same from childhood to old age, and her liver-colored hair rolled in a billow almost to her eyes.

"Maybe you'll think it strange for me to come," she began, "but I didn't know what else to do. I'm Ruby Adair."

She waited a little, but her statement awoke no response in Lib's noncommittal face.

"I don't know whether you know what they're saying over at the store or not," the visitor went on haltingly.

"No," said Lib, with dry indifference; "there ain't any men in our family to do the loafin' and gossipin' for us."

"Since you moved over here from Bunch Grass Valley, they're saying that Thad Farnham is the--is--you know he was in the tile works over there a year or more ago."

"Yes, I know." Lib's voice was like the crackling of dead leaves under foot.

"I think it's pretty hard," continued Miss Adair, gathering courage, and glancing from under the surf of her hair at her listener's impassive face; "him and me's engaged!"

Lib's eyes narrowed, and the velvety down on her lip showed black against the whiteness around her mouth.

"What does _he_ say?" she asked.

"What can he say?" Thad's fiancée broke out nervously, "except that it ain't so. But that doesn't shut people's mouths. Nobody can do that but you. I think"--she raised her chin virtuously and twisted her gloves tight in her trembling hands--"that you ought to come out plain and tell who the man is--I mean the--you know what I mean!"

"Yes," said Lib dully, "I know what you mean."

There was a little silence, broken only by the mad twitter of nesting linnets in the passion-vine overhead.

"Of course," resumed the stranger, "I wouldn't want you to think but what I'm sorry for you. You've been treated awful mean by somebody."

A surprised look grew in the eyes Lib fixed upon her visitor. The baby stirred in its sleep, and she bent down and rubbed her cheek against its hair.

"You needn't waste any time being sorry for me," she said.

"It's too bad," continued Miss Adair, intent upon her own exalted charity, "but that doesn't make it right for you to get other folks into trouble. You'd ought to remember that."

"If you think he's all right, why don't you go ahead and marry him?" asked Lib.

"My folks would make such a fuss, and besides I don't know as it would be just right for me to act like I didn't care, after all that's been said--and me a church-member!"

Miss Ruby bent her head a little forward, as if under the weight of her moral obligations.

"Has he joined the church?" inquired Lib in a curious voice.

"He's been going to the union meetings regular with me, and he's stood up twice for prayers, but I dunno 's they'd take him into the church with all these stories going about. You'd ought to think of that, too--you may be standing in the way of saving his soul."

"If his soul was lost, it would be awful hard to find," said Lib quietly.

Her listener's weak mouth slackened. "Wh-at?" she asked, with a little stuttering gasp.

"Oh, I dunno. Some things _are_ hard to find when they're lost, you know."

"And you'll speak up and tell the truth?" The visitor arose, gathering her flounces about her with one hand.

"If I speak up, I'll tell the truth, you can bet on that," said Lib.

Miss Adair waited an instant, as if for some assurance which Lib did not vouchsafe. Then she writhed down the walk in her twisted drapery and disappeared.

Thad Farnham and his father had been cutting down a eucalyptus-tree. The two men looked small and mean clambering over the felled giant, as if belonging to some species of destructive insect. The tree in its fall had bruised the wild growth, and the air was full of oily medicinal odors. Long strips of curled cinnamon-colored bark strewed the ground. The father and son confronted each other across the pallid trunk. The older man's face was leathery-red with anger.

"The story's got around that the kid's yours, anyway," he announced. "I don't care who started it, but if it's true, you'll make a bee-line for the widow's and marry the girl. D'you hear?"

Thad dropped his eyes sullenly and made a feint of examining the crosscut saw.

"I don't go much on family," continued old Farnham, "and I never 'lowed you'd set anything on fire excepting maybe yourself, but I'm not raising sneaks and liars, and what little I've got hain't been scraped together to fatten that kind of stock!"

"Who said I lied?"

"Nobody. But I'm going to take you over to face that girl and see what she says. If you don't foller peaceable, I'll coax you along with a hatful of cartridges. I hear you've been whining around the revival meetings. I never suspected you till I heard that!"

"I don't see why you suspect a feller for lookin' after the salvation"--

"Oh, damn your salvation!" broke in the old man.

"Well, I dunno"--

"Well, I _do_!" roared the father; "I know you can't make an angel without a man to start with, and I'll do what I can to furnish the man, seein' I'm responsible for you bein' born in the shape of one, and the preachers may put in the wing and the tail feathers if they can! Now start that saw!"

* * * * *

Old Farnham and his son sat in the small front room of the widow Sunderland's cabin. The old man's jaw was set, and he grasped his knees with his big hairy hands as if to steady himself.

Neither of the men arose when Lib came into the room with the baby. The old man's eyes followed her as she seated herself without so much as a glance at his companion.

"My name's Farnham," he began hoarsely. "This is my son Thad. You've met him, maybe?" He stopped and cleared his throat.

Lib did not turn her head.

"Yes, I've met him," she said quietly.

The old man's face turned the color of dull terra-cotta.

"They say he took advantage of you. I don't know. I wasn't much as a young feller, but I wasn't a scrub, and I don't savvy scrubs. I fetched him over here to-day to ask you if it's true, and to say to you if it is, he'll marry you or there'll be trouble. That don't square it, but it's the best I can do."

There was a tense stillness in the little room. The baby gave a squeal of delight and kicked a small red stocking from its dimpled foot. The old man picked it up and laid it on Lib's lap. She looked straight into his face for a while before she spoke.

"I guess you're a good man, Mr. Farnham," she said slowly. "I wouldn't mind being your daughter-in-law, if you had a son that took after you. I think the baby would like you very well for a grandpap, too. The older he grows, the more particular I'm getting about his relations. I didn't think much about anything before he came, but I've done a lot of thinkin' since. I guess that's generally the way with girls."

She turned toward Thad, and her voice cut the air like a lash.

"Suppose you _was_ the father of this baby, and had to be drug here by the scruff of the neck to own it, wouldn't you think I'd done the poor little thing harm enough just by--by _that_, without tackin' you onto him for the rest of his life? No, sir!" She stood up and took a step backward. "You go and tell everybody--tell Ruby Adair, that I say this child hasn't any father; he never had any, but he's got a _mother_, and a mother that thinks too much of him to disgrace him by marrying a coward, which is more than she'll be able to say for _her_ children if she ever has any! Now go!"

For Value Received

A soft yellow haze lay over the San Jacinto plain, deepening into purple, where the mountains lifted themselves against the horizon. Nancy Watson stood in her cabin door, and held her bony, moistened finger out into the tepid air.

"I believe there's a little breath of wind from the southeast, Robert," she said, with a desperate hopefulness; "but the air doesn't feel rainy."

"Oh, I guess the rains'll come along all right; they gener'lly do." The man's voice was husky and weak. "Anyway, the barley'll hold its own quite a while yet."

"Oh, yes; quite a long while," acquiesced his wife, with an eager, artificial stress on the adjective. "I don't care much if the harvest isn't earlier'n usual; I want you to pick up your strength."

She turned into the room, a strained smile twitching her weather-stained face. She was glad Robert's bed was in the farthest corner away from the window. The barley-field that stretched about the little redwood cabin was a pale yellowish green, deeper in the depressions, and fading almost into brown on the hillocks. There had been heavy showers late in October, and the early sown grain had sprouted. It was past the middle of November now, and the sky was of that serene, cloudless Californian blue which is like a perpetual smiling denial of any possibility of rain.

"Is the barley turning yellow any?" queried the sick man feebly.

Nancy hesitated.

"Oh, not to speak of," she faltered, swallowing hard.

Her husband was used to that gulping sob in her voice when she stood in the door. There was a little grave on the edge of the barley-field. He had put a bit of woven-wire fence about it to keep out the rabbits, and Nancy had planted some geraniums inside the small inclosure. There were some of the fiery blossoms in an old oyster can at the head of the little mound, lifting their brilliant smile toward the unfeeling blue of the sky.

"There's pretty certain to be late rains, anyway," the man went on hoarsely. "Leech would let us have more seed if it wasn't for the mortgage." His voice broke into a strained whisper on the last word.

Nancy crossed the room, and laid her knotted hand on his forehead.

"You hain't got any fever to-day," she said irrelevantly.

"Oh, no; I'm gettin' on fine; I'll be up in a day or two. The mortgage'll be due next month, Nancy," he went on, looking down at his thin gray hands on the worn coverlet; "I calc'lated they'd hold off till harvest, if the crop was comin' on all right." He glanced up at her anxiously.

The woman's careworn face worked in a cruel convulsive effort at self-control.

"It ain't right, Robert!" she broke out fiercely. "You've paid more'n the place is worth now; if they take it for what's back, it ain't right!"

Her husband looked at her with pleading in his sunken eyes. He felt himself too weak for principles, hardly strong enough to cope with facts.

"But they ain't to blame," he urged; "they lent me the money to pay Thomson. It was straight cash; I guess it's all right."

"There's wrong somewhere," persisted the woman, hurling her abstract justice recklessly in the face of the evidence. "If the place is worth more, you've made it so workin' when you wasn't able. If they take it now, I'll feel like burnin' down the house and choppin' out every tree you've planted!"

The man turned wearily on his pillow. His wife could see the gaunt lines of his unshaven neck. She put her hand to her aching throat and looked at him helplessly; then she turned and went back to the door. The barley _was_ turning yellow. She looked toward the little grave on the edge of the field. More than the place was worth, she had said. What was it worth? Suppose they should take it. She drew her high shoulders forward and shivered in the warm air. The anger in her hard-featured face wrought itself into fixed lines. She recrossed the room, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"How much is the mortgage, Robert?" she asked calmly. The sick man gave a sighing breath of relief, and drew a worn account-book from under his pillow.

"It'll be $287.65, interest an' all, when it's due," he said, consulting his cramped figures. Each knew the amount perfectly well, but the feint of asking and telling eased them both.

"I'm going down to San Diego to see them about it," said Nancy; "I can't explain things in writing. There's the money for the children's shoes; if the rains hold off, they can go barefoot till Christmas. Mother can keep Lizzie out of school, and I guess Bobbie and Frank can 'tend to things outside."

A four-year-old boy came around the house wailing out a grief that seemed to abate suddenly at sight of his mother. Nancy picked him up and held him in her lap while she took a splinter from the tip of his little grimy outstretched finger; then she hugged him almost fiercely, and set him on the doorstep.

"What's the matter with gramma's baby?" called an anxious voice from the kitchen.

"Oh, nothing, mother; he got a sliver in his finger; I just took it out."

"He's father's little soldier," said Robert huskily; "he ain't a-goin' to cry about a little thing like that."

The little soldier sat on the doorstep, striving to get his sobs under military discipline and contemplating his tiny finger ruefully.

An old woman came through the room with a white cloth in her hand.

"Gramma'll tie it up for him," she said soothingly, sitting down on the step, and tearing off a bandage wide enough for a broken limb.

The patient heaved a deep sigh of content as the unwieldiness of the wounded member increased, and held his fat little fingers wide apart to accommodate the superfluity of rag.

"There, now," said the old woman, rubbing his soft little gingham back fondly; "gramma'll go and show him the turkeys."

The two disappeared around the corner of the house, and the man and woman came drearily back to their conference.

"If you go, Nancy," said Robert, essaying a wan smile, "I hope you'll be careful what you say to 'em; you must remember they don't _think_ they're to blame."

"I won't promise anything at all," asserted Nancy, hitching her angular shoulders; "more'n likely, I'll tell 'em just what I think. I ain't afraid of hurtin' their feelin's, for they hain't got any. I think money's a good deal like your skin; it keeps you from feelin' things that make you smart dreadfully when you get it knocked off."

Robert smiled feebly, and rubbed his moist, yielding hand across his wife's misshapen knuckles.

"Well, then, you hadn't ought to be hard on 'em, Nancy; it's no more'n natural to want to save your skin," he said, closing his eyes wearily.

"Robert Watson?"

The teller of the Merchants' and Fruitgrowers' Bank looked through the bars of his gilded cage, and repeated the name reflectively. He did not notice the eager look of the woman who confronted him, but he did wonder a little that she had failed to brush the thick dust of travel from the shoulders of her rusty cape.

The teller was a slender, immaculate young man, whose hair arose in an alert brush from his forehead, which was high and seemed to have been polished by the same process that had given such a faultless and aggressive gloss to his linen. He turned on his spry little heel and stepped to the back of the inclosure, where he took a handful of long, narrow papers from a leather case, and ran over them hastily. Nancy did not think it possible that he could be reading them; the setting in his ring made a little streak of light as his fingers flew. She watched him with tense earnestness; it seemed to her that the beating of her heart shook the polished counter she leaned against. She hid her cotton-gloved hands under her cape for fear he would see how they trembled.

The teller returned the papers to their case, and consulted a stout, short-visaged man, whose lips and brows drew themselves together in an effort of recollection.

The two men stood near enough to hear Nancy's voice. She pressed her weather-beaten face close to the gilded bars.

"I am Mrs. Watson. I came down to see you about it; my husband's been poorly and couldn't come. We'd like to get a little more time; we've had bad luck with the barley so far, but we think we can make it another season."

The men gave her a bland, impersonal attention.

"Yes?" inquired the teller, with tentative sympathy, running his pencil through his upright hair, and tapping his forefinger with it nervously. "I believe that's one of Bartlett's personal matters," he said in an undertone.

The older man nodded, slowly at first, and then with increasing affirmation.

"You're right," he said, untying the knot in his face, and turning away.

The teller came back to his place.

"Mr. Bartlett, the cashier, has charge of that matter, Mrs. Watson. He has not been down for two or three days: one of his children is very sick. I'll make a note of it, however, and draw his attention to it when he comes in." He wrote a few lines hurriedly on a bit of paper, and impaled it on an already overcrowded spindle.

"Can you tell me where he lives?" asked Nancy.

The young man hesitated.

"I don't believe I would go to the house; they say it's something contagious"--

"I'm not afraid," interrupted Nancy grimly.

The teller wrote an address, and slipped it toward her with a nimble motion, keeping his hand outstretched for the next comer, and smiling at him over Nancy's dusty shoulder.

The woman turned away, suddenly aware that she had been blocking the wheels of commerce, and made her way through the knot of men that had gathered behind her. Outside she could feel the sea in the air, and at the end of the street she caught a glimpse of a level blue plain with no purple mountains on its horizon.

Someway, the mortgage had grown smaller; no one seemed to care about it but herself. She had felt vaguely that they would be expecting her and have themselves steeled against her request. On the way from the station she had thought that people were looking at her curiously as the woman from "up toward Pinacate" who was about to lose her home on a mortgage. She had even felt that some of them knew of the little wire-fenced grave on the edge of the barley-field.

She showed the card to a boy at the corner, who pointed out the street and told her to watch for the number over the door.

"It isn't very far; 'bout four blocks up on the right-hand side. Yuh kin take the street car fer a nickel, er yuh kin walk fi' cents cheaper," he volunteered, whereupon an older boy kicked him affectionately, and advised him in a nauseated tone to "come off."

Nancy walked along the smooth cement pavement, looking anxiously at the houses behind their sentinel palms. The vagaries of Western architecture conveyed no impression but that of splendor to her uncritical eye. The house whose number corresponded to the one on her card was less pretentious than some of the others, but the difference was lost upon her in the general sense of grandeur.

She went up the steps and rang the bell, with the same stifling clutch on her throat that she had felt in the bank. There was a little pause, and then the door opened, and Nancy saw a fragile, girl-like woman with a tear-stained face standing before her.

"Does Mr. Bartlett live here?" faltered the visitor, her chin trembling.

The young creature leaned forward like a flower wilting on its stem, and buried her face on Nancy's dusty shoulder.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you," she sobbed; "I thought no one ever _would_ come. I didn't know before that people were so afraid of scarlet fever. They have taken my baby away for fear he would take it. Do you know anything about it? Please come right in where she is, and tell me what you think."

Nancy had put her gaunt arm around the girl's waist, and was patting her quivering shoulder with one cotton-gloved hand. Two red spots had come on her high cheek-bones, and her lips were working. She let herself be led across the hall into an adjoining room, where a yellow-haired child lay restless and fever stricken. A young man with a haggard face came forward and greeted her eagerly. "Now, Flora," he said, smoothing his wife's disordered hair, "you don't need to worry any more; we shall get on now. I'm sure she's a little better to-day; don't you think so?" He appealed to Nancy, wistfully.

"Yes; I think she is," said Nancy stoutly, moving her head in awkward defiance of her own words.

"There, Flora, that's just what the doctor said," pleaded the husband.

The young wife clung to the older woman desperately.

"Oh, do you think so?" she faltered. "You know, I never _could_ stand it. She's all--well, of course, there's the baby--but--oh--you see--you know--I never could bear it!" She broke down again, sobbing, with her arms about Nancy's neck.

"Yes, you can bear it," said Nancy. "You can bear it if you have to, but you ain't a-goin' to have to--she's a-goin' to get well. An' you've got your man--you ought to recollect that"--she stifled a sob--"he seems well an' hearty."

The young wife raised her head and looked at her husband with tearful scorn. He met her gaze meekly, with that ready self-effacement which husbands seem to feel in the presence of maternity.

"Have you two poor things been here all alone?" asked Nancy.

"Yes," sobbed the girl-wife, this time on her husband's shoulder; "everybody was afraid,--we couldn't get any one,--and I don't know anything. You're the first woman I've seen since--oh, it's been _so_ long!"

"Well, you're all nervous and worn out and half starved," announced Nancy, untying her bonnet-strings. "I've had sickness, but I've never been this bad off. Now, you just take care of the little girl, and I'll take care of you."

It was a caretaking like the sudden stilling of the tempest that came to the little household. The father and mother would not have said that the rest and order that pervaded the house, and finally crept into the room where the sick child lay, came from a homely woman with an ill-fitting dress and hard, knotted hands. To them she seemed the impersonation of beauty and peace on earth.

That night Nancy wrote to her husband. The letter was not very explicit, but limited expression seems to have its compensations. There are comparatively few misunderstandings among the animals that do not write at all. To Robert the letter seemed entirely satisfactory. This is what she wrote:--

I have not had much time to see about the Morgage. One of their
children is very sick and I will have to stay a few days. If the
cough medisine gives out tell mother the directions is up by the
Clock. I hope you are able to set up. Write and tell me how the
Barley holds on. Tell the children to be good. Your loving wife,

NANCY WATSON.

"Nancy was always a great hand around where there's sickness," Robert commented to his mother-in-law. "I hope she won't hurry home if she's needed."

He wrote her to that effect the next day, very proud of his ability to sit up, and urging her not to shorten her stay on his account. "Ime beter and the Barly is holding its own," he said, and Nancy found it ample.

"This Mrs. Watson you have is a treasure," said the doctor to young Bartlett; "where did you find her?"

"Find her? I thought you sent her," answered Bartlett, in a daze.

"No; I couldn't find any one; I was at my wits' end."

The two men stared at each other blankly.

"Well, it doesn't matter where she came from," said the doctor, "so she stays. She's a whole relief corps and benevolent society in one."

Young Bartlett spoke to Nancy about it the first time they were alone.

"Who sent you to us, Mrs. Watson?" he asked.

Nancy turned and looked out of the window.

"Nobody sent me--I just came."

Then she faced about.

"I don't want to deceive nobody. I come down from Pinacate to see you about some--some business. They told me at the bank that you was up at the house, so I come up. When I found how it was, I thought I'd better stay--that's all."

"From Pinacate--about some business?" queried the puzzled listener.

"Yes; I didn't mean to say anything to you; I don't want to bother you about it when you're in trouble an' all wore out. I told them down at the bank; they'll tell you when you go down." And with this the young man was obliged to be content.

It was nearly two weeks before the child was out of danger. Then Nancy said she must go home. The young mother kissed her tenderly when they parted.

"I'm so sorry you can't stay and see the baby," she said, with sweet young selfishness; "they're going to bring him home very soon now. He's _so_ cute! Archie dear, go to the door with Mrs. Watson, and remember"--She raised her eyebrows significantly, and waited to see that her husband understood before she turned away.

The young man followed Nancy to the hall.

"How much do I owe"--He stopped, with a queer choking sensation in his throat.

Nancy's face flushed.

"I always want to be neighborly when there's sickness," she said; "'most anybody does. I hope you'll get on all right now. Good-by."

She held out her work-hardened hand, and the young man caught it in his warm, prosperous grasp. They looked into each other's eyes an instant, not the mortgagor and the mortgagee, but the woman and the man.

"Good-by, Mrs. Watson. I can never"--The words died huskily in his throat.

"Papa," called a weak, fretful little voice.

Nancy hitched her old cape about her high shoulders.

"Good-by," she repeated, and turned away.

* * * * *

Robert leaned across the kitchen table, and held a legal document near the lamp.

"It's marked 'Satisfaction of mortgage' on the outside," he said in a puzzled voice; "and it must be our mortgage, for it tells all about it inside; but it says"--he unfolded the paper, and read from it in his slow, husky whisper,--"'The debt--secured thereby--having been fully paid--satisfied--and discharged.' I don't see what it means."

Nancy rested her elbows on the table, and looked across at him anxiously.

"It must be a mistake, Robert. I never said anything to them except that we'd like to have more time."

He went over the paper again carefully.

"It reads very plain," he said. Then he fixed his sunken eyes on her thoughtfully. "Do you suppose, Nancy, it could be on account of what you done?"

"Me!" The woman stared at him in astonishment.

Suddenly Robert turned his eyes toward the ceiling, with a new light in his thin face.

"Listen!" he exclaimed breathlessly, "it's raining!"

There was a swift patter of heralding drops, and then a steady, rhythmical drumming on the shake roof. The man smiled, with that ineffable delight in the music which no one really knows but the tiller of the soil.

Nancy opened the kitchen door and looked out into the night.

"Yes," she said, keeping something out of her voice; "the wind's strong from the southeast, and it's raining steady."

Nancy Watson always felt a little lonesome when it rained. She had never mentioned it, but she could not help wishing there was a shelter over the little grave on the edge of the barley-field.

The Face of the Poor

Mr. Anthony attached a memorandum to the letter he was reading, and put his hand on the bell.

"Confound them!" he said under his breath, "what do they think I'm made of!"

A negro opened the door, and came into the room with exaggerated decorum.

"Rufus, take this to Mr. Whitwell, and tell him to get the answer off at once. Is any one waiting?"

"Yes, suh, several. One man's been there some time. Says his name's Busson, suh."

"Send him in."

The man gave his head a tilt forward which seemed to close his eyes, turned pivotally about, and walked out of the room in his most luxurious manner. Rufus never imitated his employer, but he often regretted that his employer did not imitate him.

Mr. Anthony's face resumed its look of prosperous annoyance. The door opened, and a small, roughly dressed man came toward the desk.

"Well, here I am at last," he said in a tone of gentle apology; "I suppose you think it's about time."

The annoyance faded out of Mr. Anthony's face, and left it blank. The visitor put out a work-callous hand.

"I guess you don't remember me; my name's Burson. I was up once before, but you were busy. I hope you're well; you look hearty."

Mr. Anthony shook the proffered hand, and then shrank back, with the distrust of geniality which is one of the cruel hardships of wealth.

"I am well, thank you. What can I do for you, Mr. Burson?"

The little man sat down and wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief. He was bearded almost to the eyes, and his bushy brows stood out in a thatch. As he bent his gaze upon Mr. Anthony it was like some gentle creature peering out of a brushy covert.

"I guess the question's what I can do for you, Mr. Anthony," he said, smiling wistfully on the millionaire; "I hain't done much this far, sure."

"Well?" Mr. Anthony's voice was dryly interrogative.

"When Edmonson told me he'd sold the mortgage to you, I thought certain I'd be able to keep up the interest, but I haven't made out to do even that; you've been kept out of your money a long time, and to tell the truth I don't see much chance for you to get it. I thought I'd come in and talk with you about it, and see what we could agree on."

Mr. Anthony leaned back rather wearily.

"I might foreclose," he said.

The visitor looked troubled. "Yes, you could foreclose, but that wouldn't fix it up. To tell the truth, Mr. Anthony, I don't feel right about it. I haven't kep' up the place as I'd ought; it's been running down for more'n a year. I don't believe it's worth the mortgage to-day."

Some of the weariness disappeared from Mr. Anthony's face. He laid his arms on the desk and leaned forward.

"You don't think it's worth the mortgage?" he asked.

"Not the mortgage and interest. You see there's over three hundred dollars interest due. I don't believe you could get more'n a thousand dollars cash for the place."

"There would be a deficiency judgment, then," said the millionaire.

"Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. I supposed the law was arranged some way so you'd get your money. It's no more'n right. But it seems a kind of a pity for you and me to go to law. There ain't nothing between us. I had the money, and you the same as loaned it to me. It was money you'd saved up again old age, and you'd ought to have it. If I'd worked the place and kep' it up right, it would be worth more, though of course property's gone down a good deal. But mother and the girls got kind of discouraged and wanted me to go to peddlin' fruit, and of course you can't do more'n one thing at a time, and do it justice. Now if you had the place, I expect you could afford to keep it up, and I wouldn't wonder if you could sell it; but you'd have to put some ready money into it first, I'm afraid."

Mr. Anthony pushed a pencil up and down between his thumb and forefinger, and watched the process with an inscrutable face. His visitor went on:--

"I was thinking if we could agree on a price, I might deed it to you and give you a note for the balance of what I owe you. I'm getting on kind of slow, but I don't believe but what I could pay the note after a while."

Mr. Anthony kept his eyes on his lead pencil with a strange, whimsical smile.

"Edmonson owed me two thousand dollars," he said, "the mortgage really cost me that; at least it was all I got on the debt."

The visitor made a regretful sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"You don't say so! Well, that is too bad."

The thatch above the speaker's eyes stood out straight as he reflected.

"You're worse off than I thought," he went on slowly, "but it don't quite seem as if I ought to be held responsible for that. I had the thousand dollars, and used it, and I'd ought to pay it; but the other--it was a kind of a trade you made--I can't see--you don't think"--

Mr. Anthony broke into his hesitation with a short laugh.

"No, I don't think you're responsible for my blunders," he said soberly. "You say property has gone down a good deal," he went on, fixing his shrewd eyes on his listener. "A good many other things have gone down. If my money will buy more than it would when it was loaned, some people would say I shouldn't have so much of it. Perhaps I'm not entitled to more than the place will bring. What do you think about that?" There was a quizzical note in the rich man's voice.

Burson wiped the back of his neck with his handkerchief, dropped it into his hat, and shook the hat slowly and reflectively, keeping time with his head.

"If you'd kep' your money by you, allowin' that you loaned it to me,--because you the same as did,--if you'd kep' it by you or put it in the bank and let it lay idle, you'd 'a' had it. It wouldn't 'a' gone down any. You hadn't ought to lose anything, that I can see,--except of course for your mistake about Edmonson. That kind of hurts me about Edmonson. I wouldn't 'a' thought it of him. He always seemed a clever sort of fellow."

"Oh, Edmonson's all right," said Mr. Anthony; "he went into some things too heavily, and broke up. I guess he'll make it yet."

Burson looked relieved. "Then he'll straighten this up with you, after all," he said.

Mr. Anthony whistled noiselessly. "Well, hardly. He considers it straightened."

Burson turned his old hat slowly around between his knees.

"He's a fair-spoken man, Edmonson; I kind of think he'll square it up, after all," he said hopefully. "Anyway, it doesn't become me to throw stones till I've paid my own debts."

The hair that covered the speaker's mouth twitched a little in its effort to smile. He glanced at his companion expectantly.

"Could you come out and take a look at the place?" he asked.

Mr. Anthony slid down in his chair, and clasped his hands across his portliness.

"I believe I'll take your valuation, Burson," he answered slowly; "if I find there's nothing against the property but my mortgage, and you'll give me a deed and your note for the interest, or, say, two hundred and fifty dollars, we'll call it square. It will take a few days to look the matter up, a week, perhaps. Suppose you come in at the end of the week. Your wife will sign the deed?" he added interrogatively.

Burson had leaned forward to get up. At the question he raised his eyes with the look that Mr. Anthony remembered to have seen years ago in small creatures he had driven into corners.

"Mother didn't have to sign the mortgage," he said, halting a little before each word, "the lawyer said it wasn't necessary. I don't know if she'll"--

Mr. Anthony broke into his embarrassment. "Let me see." He put his hand on the bell.

"Ask Mr. Evert to send me the mortgage from Burson to Edmonson, assigned to me," he said when Rufus appeared.

The negro walked out of the room as if he were carrying the message on his head.

"Mother doesn't always see things just as I do," said Burson; "she was willing to sign the mortgage, though," he added, "only she didn't need to; she wanted me to get the money of Edmonson."

He put his hand into his pocket, and a light of discovery came into his face.

"Have a peach," he said convivially, laying an enormous Late Crawford on the corner of the desk. Mr. Anthony gave an uncomprehending glance at the gift. "Hain't you got a knife?" asked Burson, straightening himself and drawing a bone-handled implement from his pocket; "I keep the big blade for fruit," he said kindly, as he laid it on the desk.

Mr. Anthony inspected the proffered refreshment with a queer, uncertain smile; then he took the peach from the desk, drew the wastebasket between his knees, opened the big blade of the knife, and began to remove the red velvet skin. The juice ran down his wrists and threatened his immaculate cuffs. He fished a spotless handkerchief from his pocket with his pencil and mopped up the encroaching rivulets. His companion smiled upon him with amiable relish as the dripping sections disappeared.

"I errigated 'em more than usual this year, and it makes 'em kind of sloppy to eat," he apologized; "it doesn't help the flavor any, but most people buy for size. When you're out peddling and haven't time to cultivate, it's easy to turn on the water. It's about as bad as a milkman putting water in the milk, and I always feel mean about it. I tell mother errigating's a lazy man's way of farming, but she says water costs so much here she doesn't think it's cheating to sell it for peach-juice."

Rufus came into the room, and bore down upon the pair with deferential disdain. Mr. Anthony gave his fingers a parting wipe, and took the papers from the envelope.

"It's all right, Burson," he said after a little, "you needn't mind about your wife's signature. I'll risk it. Come back in about a week, say Thursday, Thursday at ten, if that suits you. I'll have my attorney look into it."

Burson got up and started out. Then he turned and stood still an instant.

"Of course, I mean to tell mother about the deed," he said; "I wouldn't want you to think"--

"Oh, certainly, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Anthony with an almost violent waiving of domestic confidence. "Good-afternoon, Mr. Burson." He whirled his revolving chair toward the desk with a distinct air of dismissal, and picked up the package of papers.

After the door closed he sat still for some time, looking thoughtfully at the mortgage; then he made a memorandum in ink, with his signature in full, and attached it to the document. Rufus opened the door.

"Mr. Darnell and two other gentlemen, suh."

The millionaire set his jaws. "Show them in, Rufus. Damn it," he said softly,--"damn it, why can't they be honest!"

* * * * *

"Do you mean to tell me, Erastus Burson, that you deeded him this place, and gave him your note for two hundred and fifty dollars you didn't owe him?"

"Why, no, mother; didn't I explain to you there'd be a deficiency judgment?"

"Well, I should say there was. But if anybody's lackin' judgment I'd say it was you, not him. The idea! Why he's as rich as cream, and you're as poor"--

"Well, his being rich and me being poor hasn't got anything to do with it, mother; we're just two men trying to be fair with each other, don't you see? You and the girls wouldn't want me to be close-fisted and overreachin', even if I am poor. I think we fixed it up just as near right as a wrong thing can be fixed. Of course I don't like to feel the way I do about Edmonson, but Mr. Anthony don't seem to lay up anything again him, and he's the one that has the right to. Edmonson treated him worse than anybody ever treated me. I don't know just how I'd feel toward a man if he'd treated me the way Edmonson treated Mr. Anthony."

Mrs. Burson laid the overalls she was mending across her knee in a suggestive attitude.

"I don't call it close-fisted or overreachin' to keep a roof over your family's head," she argued; "if the place isn't ours, I suppose we'll have to leave it."

"No; Mr. Anthony wants us to stay here, and take care of the place for the rent. I feel as if I'd ought to keep it up better, but if I'm to peddle fruit and try to pay off the note, I'll have to hustle. I want to do the square thing by him. He's certainly treated me white."

Mrs. Burson fitted a patch on the seat of the overalls, and flattened it down with rather unnecessarily vigorous slaps of her large hand.

"I wouldn't lose any sleep over Mr. Anthony; I guess he's able to take care of himself," she said, closing her lips suddenly as if to prevent the escape of less amicable sentiments.

"Well, he doesn't seem to be," urged her husband, "the way Edmonson's overreached him. My! but I'd hate to be in that fellow's shoes: doin' dirt to a man that a way!"

Mrs. Burson sighed audibly, and gave her husband a hopelessly uncomprehending look. "You do beat all, Erastus," she said wearily. "Here's your overalls. I guess you can be trusted with 'em. They're too much patched to give to Mr. Anthony."

Burson returned her look of uncomprehension. Fortunately the marital fog through which two pairs of eyes so often view each other is more likely to dull the outline of faults than of virtues. Mrs. Burson watched her husband not unfondly as he straddled into his overalls and left the room.

"A man doesn't have to be very sharp to get the better of Erastus," she said to herself, "but he has to be awful low down; and I s'pose there's plenty that is."

The winter came smilingly on, tantalizing the farmer with sunny indifference concerning drouth, and when he was quite despondent sending great purple clouds from the southeast to wash away his fears. By Christmas the early oranges were yellowing. There had been no frost, and Burson's old spring-wagon and unshapely but well-fed sorrel team made their daily round of the valley, and now and then he dropped into Mr. Anthony's office to make small payments on his note. Pitifully small they seemed to the mortgagee, who appeared nevertheless always glad to receive them, and gave orders to Rufus, much to that dignitary's disgust, that the fruit-vender should always be admitted. The handful of coin which he so cheerfully piled on the corner of the rich man's desk always remained there until his departure, when Mr. Anthony took an envelope from the safe, swept the payment into it without counting, and returned it to its compartment, making no indorsement on the note.

"I'd feel better satisfied if you'd drive out some time and take a look at things," said Burson to his creditor during one of these visits; "you'd ought to get out of the office now and then for your health."

"Maybe I will, Burson," replied the capitalist. "You're not away from home all the time?"

"Oh, no, but I s'pose Sunday's your day off; it's mine. Mother and the girls generally go to church, but I don't. I tell 'm I'll watch, and they can pray. I can't very well go," he added, making haste to counteract the possible shock from his irreverence; "there ain't but one seat in the fruit-wagon, and when the women folks get their togs on, three's about all that can ride. Come out any Sunday, and stay for dinner. We mostly have chicken."

The following Sunday Mr. Anthony drew up his daintily-stepping chestnut at the fruit-peddler's gate. Before he had descended from his shining road-wagon, his host ran down the walk, pulling on his shabby coat.

"Well, now, this is something like!" he exclaimed. "Got a hitching-strap? Just wait till I open the gate; I believe I'd better take your horse inside. There's a post by the kitchen door. My, ain't he a beauty!"

Burson led the roadster through the gate, and Mr. Anthony walked by his side. When the horse was tied, the two men went about the place, and Erastus showed his guest the poultry and fruit trees, commenting on the merits of Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorns as layers, and displaying modest pride in the condition of the orchard.

"I've kep' it up better this year. The rains come along more favorable and the weeds didn't get ahead of me the way they did last winter. Look out, there!" he cried, as Mr. Anthony laid his hand on the head of a Jersey calf that backed awkwardly from under his grasp. "Don't let her get a hold of your coat-tail; she chawed mine to a frazzle the other day; the girls pet her so much she has no manners."

When the tour of the little farm was finished the two men came back to the veranda, and Erastus drew a rocking-chair from the front room for his guest. It was hung with patchwork cushions of "crazy" design, but Mr. Anthony leaned his tired head against them in the sanest content.

"Now you just sit still a minute," Erastus said, "and I'm a-going to bring you something you hain't tasted for a long time."

He darted into the house, and returned with a pitcher and two glasses.

"Sweet cider!" he announced, with a triumphant smile. "I had a lot of apples in the fall, not big enough to peddle,--you know our apples ain't anything to brag of,--and I just rigged up a kind of hand-press in the back yard, and now and then I press out a pitcher of cider for Sunday. I never let it get the least bit hard; not that I don't like a little tang to it myself, but mother belongs to the W.C.T.U., and it'd worry her."

He darted into the house again, and emerged with a plate of brown twisted cakes.

"Mother usually makes cookies on Saturday, but I can't find anything but these doughnuts. Maybe they won't go bad with the cider."

He poured his guest a glass, and Mr. Anthony drank it, holding a doughnut in one hand, and partaking of it with evident relish.

"It's good, Burson," he said. "May I have another glass and another doughnut?"

His host's countenance fairly shone with delighted hospitality as he replenished the empty glass. There were crumbs on the floor when the visitor left, and flies buzzed about the empty plate and pitcher as Mrs. Burson and her daughters came up the steps.

"Mr. Anthony's been here," said Erastus cheerfully; "I'm awful sorry you missed him. We had some cider and doughnuts."

The three women stopped suddenly, and stared at the speaker.

"Why, Paw Burson!" ejaculated the elder daughter, "did you give Mr. Anthony doughnuts and cider out here on this porch?"

"Why, yes, Millie," apologized the father; "I looked for cookies, but I couldn't find any. He said he liked doughnuts, and he did seem to relish 'em; he eat several."

"That awful rich man! Why, Paw Burson!"

The young woman gave an awe-stricken glance about her, as if expecting to discover some lingering traces of wealth.

"Doughnuts!" she repeated helplessly.

"Why, Millie," faltered the father, mildly aggressive, "I don't see why being rich should take away a man's appetite; I'm sure I hope I'll never be too rich to like doughnuts and cider."

"Didn't you give him a napkin, paw?" queried the younger girl.

"No," said the father meekly, "he had his handkerchief. I coaxed him to stay to dinner, but he couldn't; and I asked him to drive out some day with his wife and daughter--he hasn't but one--they lost a little girl when she was seven"--

The man's voice quivered on the last word, and died away. Mrs. Burson went hurriedly into the house. She reappeared at the door in a few minutes without her bonnet.

"Erastus," she said gently, "will you split me a few sticks of kindling before you put away the team?"

* * * * *

Mrs. Burson was fitting a salad-green bodice on her elder daughter. That young woman's efforts to see her own spine, where her mother was distributing pins with solemn intentness, had dyed her face a somewhat unnatural red, but the hands that lay upon her downy arms were much whiter than those that hovered about her back. A dining-table, bearing the more permanent part of its outfit, was pushed into a corner of the room, and covered with a yellow mosquito-net, and from the kitchen came a sound of crockery accompanied by an occasional splash and a scraping of tin. Now and then the younger girl appeared in the doorway and gazed in a sort of worshipful ecstasy at her sister's splendor.

"Do you think you'll get it finished for the Fiesta, maw?" she asked, between deep breaths of admiration. Mrs. Burson nodded absently, exploring her bosom for another pin with her outspread palm.

Her husband came into the room, and seated himself on the edge of the rep lounge. His face had a strange pallor above the mask of his beard.

"You're home early, Erastus," she said; then she looked up. "Are you sick?" she asked with anxiety.

"Mr. Anthony is dead," Burson said huskily.

"Dead! Why, Erastus!"

Mrs. Burson held a pin suspended in the air and stared at her husband.

"Yes. He dropped dead in his chair. Or rather, he had some kind of a stroke, and never came to. It happened more than a week ago. I went in to-day, and Rufus told me."

Mrs. Burson returned the pin to her bosom, and motioned her daughter toward the bedroom door.

"Go and take it off, Millie," she said soberly. She was shamefacedly conscious of something different from the grief that stirred her husband, something more sordid and personal.

"It hurt me all over," Burson went on, "the way some of them talked in town. They looked queer at me when I said what I did about him. I don't understand it."

"I guess there's a good many things you don't understand, Erastus," ventured the wife quietly.

A carriage stopped at the gate, and a young woman alighted from it, and came up the walk. Erastus saw her first, and met her in the open doorway. She looked at him with eager intentness.

"Is this Mr. Burson?" she asked gently. "I am Mr. Anthony's daughter."

Mrs. Burson got up, holding the scraps of green silk in her apron, and offered the visitor a seat. Erastus held out his hand, and tried to speak. The two faced each other in tearful silence.

"I wanted to bring you this myself," the girl faltered, "because--because of what is written on the outside." She held a package of papers toward him. "I have heard him speak of you, I think. Any friend of my father must be a good man. We want to thank you, my mother and I"--

"To thank me?" Erastus questioned, "to thank me! You certainly don't know"--

"I know you were my father's friend," the girl interrupted; "I don't care about the rest. Possibly I couldn't understand it. I know very little about business, but I knew my father."

She got up, holding her head high in grief-stricken pride, and gave her hand to her host and hostess.

The younger Burson girl emerged from the kitchen, a dish-towel and a half-wiped plate clasped to her breast, and watched the visitor as she went down the path.

"Her silk waist doesn't begin to touch Millie's for style," she said pensively, "and her skirt doesn't even drag; but there's something about her."

"Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Burson, "there is something about her."

Erastus sat on the edge of the old rep lounge, looking absently at the papers.

"In the event of my death, to be delivered to my friend Erastus Burson," was written on the package.

His wife came and stood over him.

"I don't know just what it means, mother," he said, "there's a deed, and my note marked 'Paid,' and a lot of two-bit and four-bit pieces. I'll have to get somebody to explain it."

He sat quite still until the woman laid her large hand on his bowed head. Then he looked up, with moist, winking eyes.

"I don't feel right about it, mother," he said. "I wish now I'd 'a' dropped in oftener, and been more sociable. It's a strange thing to say, but I think sometimes he was lonesome; and I'm sure I don't know why, for a kinder, genialer man I never met."