Chapter IV: Part 4

Thus when Barbara Preston was impelled, she knew not how, to send forth her strange and piteous little appeal to the unknown, it found instant response, and proceeded to fit itself into the scheme of things as perfectly and as cunningly as a tiny bit in a picture puzzle. The paper in which it appeared passed into the hands of a great number of persons, who glanced carelessly at its glaring headlines or searched painstakingly through its losts and founds or things offered, or help wanted, according to their varied tastes or necessities. On the second day thereafter, as was also to be expected, the particular edition containing the queer little unclassified appeal, found its way to many ash-cans, waste-paper baskets, bureau drawers, and pantry shelves; in its progress it helped to build numberless fires, it wrapped parcels of every conceivable shape and size; it fluttered out of car windows, across decks of steamers and ferry-boats; it floated and dissolved in many waterways, and finally disappeared, swallowed in the abyss which appears always to yawn for all things of human creation. Having vanished mysteriously, unobtrusively, as must every printed page sooner or later, it nevertheless left its mark on the lives of many. Plans were changed, voyages undertaken or abandoned, marriages made and unmade. In a word, prosperity, ruin, joy, sadness, glory, despair—all came about through its appearance, and persisted in ever widening circles after it had passed from sight and mind.

Four men and ten women, to be exact, of those who chanced to notice Barbara’s somewhat absurd little advertisement, cut it out of the doomed sheet, and placed it in securer quarters, for further consideration. Of the women four wrote to Barbara asking for references; of the men, one conceived it to be “a business opportunity,” not to be written of here; one was a widower blessed with three small unruly children and little appetite for further matrimonial experience; another a rich, crabbed old miser, bent on escaping designing relatives, and the fourth an enterprising young mining engineer, very deeply in love with a pretty girl and anxious to marry her and take her with him to a region remote from civilization. The girl had sighed, demurred, wept—she was of the delicate, clinging vine variety, and totally unfit for the hard experiences of a mining camp. But to this fact the amorous engineer was quite naturally oblivious. He dilated glowingly upon the wonderful efficiency of Chinese servants, who could, he assured her, beat creation in the expert disguising of the inevitable “canned goods,” which formed the staple of provision. Her questions and those of her mother elicited the fact that there were no women to be hired in any capacity, the wives of the miners, for the most part, being of a free and independent nature, and, moreover, entirely occupied with their own affairs.

Mamma looked at Ethel, and Ethel looked at Mamma; Mamma’s glance being dubious and Ethel’s timidly imploring.

“I couldn’t think of allowing darling Ethel to go away out there to that dreary, lonely place, with no one to wait on her and take care of her except a Chinese man,” Mamma said tearfully. She added that Ethel was delicate, very delicate.

“The mountain air will make her strong,” declared the engineer enthusiastically. Then he gazed lovingly at the slight, pale, fashionably gowned young woman who somehow managed to hold the wealth of his honest affections in her small, highly manicured hands, and in whom he fancied all possible happiness was embodied “forever” (as he would have put it).

The end of it all was Mamma’s ultimatum, strongly backed up by Ethel’s dutiful acquiescence, to the effect that a suitable maid must be secured; a person who would combine in one the capabilities of cook, ladies’ maid, seamstress, and nurse, and who would accompany the timid bride on her long journey away from Mamma’s side.

Imagine, then, the bridegroom’s dilemma, and his anxiety to secure the advertising young person, who upon further inquiry promised so exactly to fill the conditions of his happiness.

These persons, therefore, or their representatives foregathered at the Preston farm on the morning of the eighteenth of May. With them also appeared a half dozen or so of neighbors, curious and prying, and the usual complement of shabby individuals, mysteriously aware of the unusual, and always to be seen at village weddings, funerals, and public auctions.

Thomas Bellows, alert, business-like, came early in the morning.

“Say, if you want to back out even now,” he said to Barbara, “I c’n tell th’ folks th’ auction’s off. I guess you’re feelin’ kind of frightened an’ sorry you was so rash, ain’t you?”

“No,” said Barbara composedly. “I am not—frightened or sorry.” But her face was unnaturally white, and her eyes, deeply circled with shadowy blue, belied the statement. “Must I—stand up and be—sold, like—like——”

“No, ma’am!” exclaimed Mr. Bellows decidedly. “Not by a jugful! You’ve heard from some of the folks interested, you said?”

“Yes,” said Barbara, “I’ve had a number of letters. Two women are looking for a girl to do all their housework; one needs a nursery governess—she is going with her family to South America to stay five years; another requires a reliable person to look after an imbecile child.”

“Huh!” exploded Mr. Bellows, “that all?”

By way of answer Barbara produced the letter of the elderly man who required a competent housekeeper, and that of the widower, the engineer, and the type-written communication of the person who promised a luxurious home in exchange for “slight occasional services of a sort easily rendered.”

“Huh!” commented Mr. Bellows, after a deliberate perusal of these epistles. “Did you tell ’em all to show up to-day?”

He looked sharply at the girl, as he tapped the rustling sheets with a blunt, tobacco-stained forefinger. “The sale ’ll have to be made conditional on satisfactory evidence that the highest bidder is an honest, respectable sort of person.

“The’s folks,” he added darkly, “‘at I wouldn’t sell a cat to—if I cared shucks ’bout the cat.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Barbara, “to do any sort of work.”

“Mebbe not,” Mr. Bellows acquiesced dryly. “Wall, guess I’ll wait till I git a good look int’ their faces. I’ll bet,” he added, “‘at I c’n size ’em up all right. An’ I’ll see t’ it ’at the right bidder gits the goods. An’ now I’ll tell you what to do. You set here inside the parlor, same’s if you was the corpse, we’ll say, at a funeral, an’ I’ll let the bidders come in one b’ one an’ kind o’ size you up. ’Course they’ve got to know the general specifications, an’ mebbe they’ll want to ask a few questions. But you’d best let me talk up the article like I know how. That’s m’ business; an’ I won’t make no fool mistakes.”

Barbara drew a deep breath.

“What,” she faltered, “are you going to say?”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry none ’bout what I’ll say. I’ll crack you up sky-high same’s I would a first-class horse. All you’ve got to do is to set right still an’ let me do th’ auctioneerin’. I’ll run you up to fifteen hunderd, if I kin.”

“Tell them I—I’ll work—hard and faithfully,” faltered Barbara.

She choked a little over the last word, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“If I was you, ma’am, I’d put on a red ribbon or—or somethin’ cheerful-lookin’,” advised Mr. Bellows, with awkward sympathy. “I like a good bright red m’self. An’ say, don’t you worry none. You ain’t ’bliged to accept anybody’s bid, unless you feel like it. I’m goin’ t’ bid ye in m’self, if things don’t go right. Where’s the little boy?” he asked suddenly.

Barbara controlled herself with an effort.

“In school,” she replied briefly. “He—Jimmy isn’t to know, till—till afterward.”

“Mebbe you c’n take him along,” hazarded Mr. Bellows, “to—South America, say, or——”

“I shall leave him here,” Barbara told him with stony calm. “I have arranged everything.”

A stamping of feet on the porch brought a defiant light to the girl’s eyes and a scarlet flush to her cheeks; Mr. Bellows surveyed her with open satisfaction.

“That’s right!” he encouraged her. “Perk right up! You look wo’th th’ money now all right. I’ll open the front door and let the folks pass right in. Ye don’t need to do a thing but set right still an’ let me manage things. Biddin’ ’ll begin at ten-thirty, sharp!”

And he bustled away full of importance.

Barbara stood quite still in the spot where he had left her, her eyes fastened with a kind of fascinated terror upon the groups of persons coming toward the house. The day was bright and warm and the clumps of old-fashioned shrubs on either side of the driveway, lilac and bridal wreath and snowball, were in full bloom. On the other side of the fence long lines of apple trees laden with odorous pink and white bloom, lifted their gnarled limbs to the blue sky. Barbara saw a woman pointing out the trees to the man at her side. She knew the woman, and fancied she might be speaking of the great yield of fruit to be expected that year from the once famous Preston orchards.

For two years past the girl had been toiling to bring the trees back to a thrifty condition; this spring for the first time they promised heavy returns for all her labors.

She clenched her strong brown hands in a passion of unavailing protest against the cruel fate which flaunted the myriads of blossoms in her face to-day.

More people were coming than she had expected. Her face burned with shame at sight of the two shabby hired hacks among the groups of pedestrians. A woman in one of them thrust her head out of the window and asked some questions of the driver. He nodded his head and presently drew up in front of the house.

“Well, I declare,” she heard in a high-pitched feminine voice, “this seems like quite a nice place. I thought——”

The buzzing of tongues in the rooms across the narrow hall increased; the people were congregating there. She could hear the occasional sound of Mr. Bellows’ creaking boots and his loud authoritative voice, as he answered questions and arranged the chairs, which two of the shabby men under his direction were bringing from various parts of the house.

There was something dreadfully suggestive of a funeral in the subdued hum of voices, the solemnly inquisitive glances levelled towards the house, and the active, creaking steps of Mr. Bellows. Alone in the dim old parlor, peering through the shutters, alternately cold with apprehension and hot with shame, Barbara found herself threatened with hysterical laughter. They will come in presently and look at me, she thought, and stiffened into instant rigidity at sound of the creaking knob.

“Yes, ma’am,” she heard the old auctioneer saying. “You’ll find the young woman right in here. She’s ready t’ be interviewed, an’ I’ll guarantee she’s wo’th double the price anybody’ll bid for her. One at a time, if you please. An’ five minutes only allowed.”

The door opened, and a tall, showily dressed woman entered. She stared at Barbara through a lorgnette.

“Are you the young woman who is to be sold at auction?” she asked, in an unbelieving voice. “I am Mrs. Perkins, the housekeeper at Clifton Grange. I wrote you, with reference to a boy of six. He is large of his age, and not easy to care for. But his mother, who is an invalid, won’t hear to his being sent away from home. Yes; I received your references. But you don’t look old enough to attempt the position I speak of. But I shall have to bid, I suppose, for we can’t keep a nurse in the house. They simply will not stay through more than one of his fractious spells. And of course, if we buy you, you’ll be obliged to remain. Are you strong in your hands?”

“Yes, very,” said Barbara, conscious of the increasing dryness of her lips and throat.

“You have rather a nice face,” observed the woman dubiously. “And I do hope you’re naturally lively and cheerful; you’ll get along better with _him_ if you are. If he takes a notion to you, he’ll be pretty good most of the time. But if he don’t—— Are you used to children?”

“I have a brother.”

“How old?”

“Six years.”

“Well, I declare! Quite a coincidence. Is your brother an ordinary child?”

“He is perfectly normal, if that is what you mean,” Barbara managed to say. It was being harder than she thought.

“One thing more,” the woman was saying. “You didn’t answer one question I asked. How did you ever come to think of doing anything so strange as selling your services at auction? And why should you demand all the money at once? If your references—your pastor’s letter and others—hadn’t been so satisfactory, we shouldn’t have thought of considering you. But we do want to secure someone who will stay, and of course you’ll be obliged to; though I’m not allowed to bid above a certain sum. Now I shall expect a truthful answer to——”

Mr. Bellows obtruded his puckered face into the room.

“Time’s up, ma’am,” he said authoritatively. “Other bidders waitin’ their opportunity.”

Barbara could not afterward recall all that passed during the intolerable period before the bidding began. She was vaguely aware of women, tall and short, curious, eager, clutching hand-bags, presumably containing large sums of money. There were men, too. The representative of the Boston widower, the young mining engineer, more eager and determined than ever after his short interview with Barbara.

“I’ll bid every cent I can on you,” he assured the girl, with boyish sincerity. “You’re just the one for us, and I know you’d enjoy the life out there. We wouldn’t treat you like an ordinary servant; you’d be more like a friend, I can see that, and I’m sure Ethel—Mrs. Selfridge [he blushed at his own delightful mendacity] will like you very much. She’ll want to see you at once, if I am the lucky winner.”

It was all strange, dream-like, and for the most part intolerable. Barbara raised her heavy eyes once more at the sound of the hard-shut door. Stephen Jarvis stood looking at her in silence. She felt rather than saw that some great though subtle change had come over him.

“Why,” he asked in a voice as changed as his looks, “have you done this thing?”

She did not answer, and he drew a step nearer.

“Tell me,” he said under his breath, “will you give it up? if I—agree to all that you asked for—time to meet the payments?”

He hesitated as if choosing his words with care.

“You were right about the orchards,” he went on. “There will be a good yield—more than enough.” He stretched out his hands imploringly, “Spare me, Barbara,” he entreated. “Don’t put yourself and me to shame before them all!”

The door swung open a little way.

“Did you say the young woman was in here?” inquired a feminine voice, sharp with curiosity. Barbara caught a momentary glimpse of a militant-looking turban glittering with jet beads. Jarvis shut the door, and stood against it, a tall sombre figure of authority.

“Let me put a stop to it all, Barbara,” he urged. “Barbara!—in God’s name! I can’t let you do it!”

“It is—too late,” she said, speaking slowly because of the dryness of her throat and mouth. “Don’t you see—I must go on with it, and I—shall pay you—every cent!”

He drew a difficult breath that was almost a sob.

“You—will—pay—me,” he repeated, a dreadful self-loathing struggling with the despair in his eyes. Then he went away, quietly, as he had come.

XI

PEG MORRISON smote the rough brown backs of his horses with a practised slap of the lines.

“Y’ remind me o’ the sect in gen’ral,” he observed, in a loud, critical voice, as the off member of the team backed and fidgeted uneasily. “When y’ want a female, woman er hoss, to go, thet’s th’ pertickler time they elect t’ stan’ still, an’ when y’ want ’em to stan ’still—— Whoa, thar; can’t ye?”

Mr. Morrison paused to wipe the moisture from his brow with an ancient handkerchief of red and white, while he gazed lovingly at the wide expanse of glistening brown earth which had been deeply ploughed, and more or less levelled into smoothness under the action of the harrow which the horses were dragging.

“Planted t’ onions,” he went on, still addressing his observations to the horses, whose heads drooped sleepily toward the fresh-smelling ground, “this ’ere ten acres ’ll net, anyway you figger it, four hunderd an’ fifty dollars t’ the acre; an’ that’ll total—l’me see, somethin’ like——”

Mr. Morrison’s gaze being wholly introspective at this stage of the mental problem under consideration, he failed to notice the man who came swinging along the road at a smart rate of speed. At sight of the old man leaning meditatively against the fence, a spent dandelion stalk in his mouth, the pedestrian halted.

“Why, hello, Peg!” he called out in a clear and somewhat authoritative voice.

The stranger wore a rough suit of weather-stained tweeds; and his felt hat, set at a becoming angle on his curly head, shaded a face bronzed by sun and wind almost to the color of the full brown beard curling away from his red mouth with a careless boldness repeated in the humorous blue eyes which roved over the shabby old figure by the fence.

He laughed outright at the puzzled look in Morrison’s face.

Then he folded his arms on top of the fence.

“Well, how goes it, old man?” he inquired. “Same lazy old horses—eh? Same job, same season of the year, same old clothes, I should say—even to the red and white bandanna. Makes me feel as if I’d been dreaming. Maybe I have; who knows?”

“Who be ye?” demanded Peg. “Seems ’s ’o I’d seen ye somewhars; but I can’t think whar.”

“Don’t be hasty, my friend,” advised the other, pulling his hat over his laughing eyes. “You’ve forgotten me, and so, apparently, has everyone else. I saw Al Hewett at the station and he told me Miss Preston was unmarried and still at home, and that old Don Preston had gone to his reward a couple of years ago.”

“I c’n see you used t’ live ’round here,” hazarded Peg, shaking his head, “but I can’t seem t’ rec’lect who ye be; ’nless—— If I didn’t know he was dead I might think you was the young feller ’at used t’ teach school in th’ village. Whitcomb, his name was. But he’s been dead a matter o’ three years.”

“That being the case,” said the stranger coolly, “perhaps you’ll tell me about the auction up at the farm. I heard some women asking questions about it at the station.”

“Auction?” repeated Peg. “The’ ain’t no auction at our place—not yet. But you sure do remind me o’ that young school-teacher feller. He got gold crazy, an’ went off——”

“Yes, I know; and got lost on a trail and froze to death,” interrupted the stranger. “So I heard. Sad, wasn’t it? Did they find the body?”

“Not,” said Peg, his puzzled eyes still searching the stranger’s face, “as I heerd tell of.”

“Then you think the coast is clear up at the farm? Is Barbara—Miss Preston—at home?”

“Miss Barb’ry was to home when I come away at six-thirty this mornin’. Say, are you——?”

“I’ll walk over and call on her,” interrupted the young man, with some impatience. “Perhaps Barbara will remember an old friend. Her eyes used to be bright enough.”

Peg unhitched the harrow with fine deliberation.

“Hold on a minute,” he requested, “an’ I’ll step ’long with ye. It’s gittin’ ’long towards noon, anyhow.”

He was furtively studying the younger man’s face and figure, as he let down the bars and drove his horses through.

“B’en doin’ any school-teachin’ sence ye left these parts?” he drawled, as the two struck the road at a pace commensurate to the unhurried gait of the old horses.

“No,” said the stranger. He plunged his hands deep in his pockets, the merriment suddenly gone from his face and eyes.

“Ye look consid’ble older’n ye did,” observed Peg mildly, “an’ the whiskers gives ye a diff’rent look; but come t’ take notice, most anybody’d know ye, though ye must hev knocked ’round consid’able. Hev any luck minin’?”

Whitcomb laughed, throwing back his head as if the question afforded him a vast deal of amusement.

“Luck?” he echoed. “Certainly; a man’s bound to strike luck of one sort or another.”

“That’s a fac’,” agreed Peg sententiously, “an’ you can’t most always sometimes tell one sort f’om the other. What passes fer the worst sort o’ luck ’ll frequent turn out to be fust-rate. I knew a man once——”

He stopped short, his jaw dropping at sight of the numerous vehicles congregated near the house which they were approaching. “I swan!” he ejaculated. “It sure does look like—— But Miss Barb’ry never said nothin’ t’ me. She never tol’ me——”

“I’m going in,” said David Whitcomb, scowling.

Several women congregated near the door stared at him with a resentful air as he made his way masterfully among them.

At one end of the long, low room, his back to the open windows, stood Thomas Bellows, a small bare table in front of him, on which he rested the flat of his outspread hands while haranguing the company ranged on either side, the women for the most part comfortably seated, the men standing in the rear, as if half ashamed to be present.

“Eight hunderd, do I hear?” inquired the auctioneer in a tone of passionate protest, “it bein’ understood there’ll be a five years’ lease on the prop’ty in question? Ladies an’ gents, that ain’t right! Eight hunderd ain’t a patch on what she’s worth. I’ve told you what sort of goods you’re biddin’ on an’ you’ve had the opportunity to see fer yourselves. Eight hunderd ten, do I hear? Who’ll make it a fifty? Eight hunderd fifty; who’ll make it nine hunderd? Come! let me hear some good lively biddin’ on the part of the lady in the green dress. This lady is lookin’ fer an honest, permanent hired girl; she told me so b’fore the biddin’ begun. She’s had a terrible time with hired help; she’s paid ’em high wages, an’ they break her china dishes, steal her clo’es, an——

“That’s right! eight hunderd sixty-five from the young man in the comer. That gentleman knows what’s what; an’ he’s lookin’ fer an A number one helper t’ take west t’ help his wife do the cookin’. W’y, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, an’ if you let it pass—eight hunderd seventy dollars I’m offered, who’ll make it nine hunderd? I’ll tell ye, straight, ladies, this perfec’ly healthy, honest, willin’, agreeable, faithful young woman ain’t goin’t’ be knocked down t’ any of ye at nine hunderd dollars. Don’t think it fer a minute! She’s goin’ to git her price, an’ I know what it is.”

“For God’s sake, what’s going on here?” asked Whitcomb of a man in a fashionable light suit, with a diamond in his shirt-front. “What is the man selling?”

By way of answer the man held up his two hands, the fingers outstretched.

“There you are, ten hunderd dollars I’m offered; one thousand dollars! Who’ll make it eleven? A thousand dollars may sound like a pretty good sum t’ slap down all at once, ladies; but do a little figurin’, if you please! You pay eighteen, twenty, twenty-five dollars a month for a raw, untrained foreigner; can’t speak English, can’t cook, can’t do nothin’, an’ once you get her trained off she goes’s lively’s a flea. Five years of domestic peace in yer home! Five years of perfec’ happiness! Ain’t it worth more’n a measly thousand dollars? The gentleman in the comer says it is; he bids ten hunderd fifty. Ten hunderd fifty, ten hunderd sixty! Oh, come, let’s run ’er up faster! I can’t stan’ here all day foolin’. The gentleman in the corner again. Yes, sir, eleven hunderd! Who’ll make it twelve?”

“Stop long enough to tell me what you’re selling, man,” called the latest comer, in a loud, clear voice. “I didn’t get here in time to find out, and no one will tell me.”

A general murmur of protest arose all over the room. A tall woman, with a high-peaked nose set midway in a large expanse of purplish-red face, arose.

“I’m through!” she announced acidly. “Let me out of here.”

“No, you ain’t, ma’am. Kindly set down in that nice comf’table cheer you’ve been occupyin’ fer about ten minutes longer. I’ll answer this gentleman quick an’t’ the p’int an’ we’ll go on with the biddin’. I’m auctionin’ off five years o’ faithful work an’ service; I’m auctionin’ peace an’ happiness in the home; I’m auctionin’ the educated brains an’ han’s an’ feet of the smartest young lady in this ’ere United States of Ameriky! An’ that’s Miss Barbara Preston. Do you want to bid? Eleven hunderd dollars I’m offered; who’ll make it twelve?”

“It’s an outrage on civilization!” cried the man who had interrupted. “I protest against the sale!”

“Put him out! Put him out!” shouted a dozen voices.

In the midst of the tumult some one signalled twelve hundred, and Thomas Bellows caught the figures. Pounding on the table with his mallet, he commanded order.

“The sale will be continued, and I’m offered twelve hunderd dollars; remember, gentlemen; remember, ladies, your bids will be cancelled if you do not live up to your part of the previous agreement. Spot cash before you leave the room, and a guarantee of honorable service and kind treatment. Gentlemen! Ladies! Your attention, please! Twelve hunderd dollars I’m offered! Twelve hunderd, going! Twelve hunderd dollars! Twelve hunderd, fifty? Yes, sir! Twelve hunderd, sixty! Thirteen hunderd dollars I’m bid by the gentleman by the door. Come down front where we can all see you, sir. Thirteen hunderd, going!—Fourteen hunderd! Now this is something like! Isn’t there any lady present who’ll make it fifteen?”

The woman in the green dress rose in her place.

“This is preposterous!” she cried. “No servant is worth——”

“Be quiet, madam,” commanded the auctioneer. “I’m runnin’ this sale. Fourteen hunderd dollars. Is there any lady or gent in the room who’ll raise it? Fourteen hunderd fifty. Fifteen hunderd!”

“Sixteen hundred!”

The young man in the travel-stained tweeds shook his fist in the face of the small, seedy man, who drawled out his bids in a hoarse, scarcely audible voice.

“Sixteen hunderd I’m offered by the gentleman who has just arrived. Sixteen hunderd, going!”

“Two thousand!” piped the little man in the creased checked suit.

“Twenty-one hundred!” shouted the latest comer, his eyes blazing.

“Twenty-three hundred!” said the engineer in a dogged monotone.

“Twenty-five hundred!” wheezed the man in checks, squinting through his glasses at the paper on which he was setting down the bids with painstaking neatness.

“Twenty-five hunderd dollars I’m offered!” shrilled the auctioneer. “Do you raise it?” He turned to Whitcomb.

“Twenty-six hundred!” cried the engineer excitedly.

“Three thousand!” the hoarse voice of the shabby little stranger interposed.

“Three thousand, one hundred!” snapped Whitcomb.

“Three thousand one hunderd! Who’ll make it four thousand?” The old auctioneer’s voice trembled. He leaned far out over the table, brandishing his mallet wildly.

The man in the checked suit nodded.

“Four thousand dollars I’m bid; who’ll raise it to five?”

The young fellow who had tacitly acknowledged himself to be David Whitcomb groaned aloud.

“I can’t do it!” he said.

There was a general stir and turning of heads as Peg Morrison forced his way through the excited crowd.

“Hold on thar!” he cried, in a loud, tremulous voice. “I’ve been up an’ got my money an’ counted it. I’ll bid on Miss Barb’ry myself. She ain’t a-goin’ t’ leave this ’ere farm t’ go with nobody, ’f I c’n help it! I bid fifty-eight dollars an’ sixty-five cents on Miss Barb’ry, an’ it’s all I’ve got in the world!”

“Four thousand dollars I’m bid!” cried Mr. Bellows, his professional tones easily dominating the babel of voices. “Four thousand dollars, going! Four thousand dollars, going! Four thousand dollars, gone! And sold to this ’ere gentleman. Your name, please!”

The small man, in the checked clothes, cleared his throat weakly and blinked, as he strapped the leathern memorandum book.

“My name’s Smith,” he said, in an apologetic whisper.

“Well, Mr. Smith, you c’n settle right here and now, an’ I’ll give you a signed receipt.”

“Hold on!” blustered Whitcomb, his face flushed to a wrathful crimson. “Who is this fellow, and what does he mean to do with—Barbara?” The last word was a groan of rage and disappointment.

“Excuse me, sir; I’ve got a bad cold an’ can’t talk. I’ll explain to Mr. Bellows here in private. Yes, sir; I’ve got the money all right.”

The woman in the jetted turban and the tall lady in green advanced in a determined way, backed up by three women of the village, burning with neighborly zeal; the countenances of all five expressed blended curiosity and disapproval. The small man in the checked suit endeavored to shrink behind Mr. Bellows’ portly person, but the lady in the jetted turban fixed him with her glittering eye.

“I command you to tell me at once why you bid four thousand dollars for the services of the young person in the other room,” said this person in a militant voice. “I suspect your motives, sir! I doubt your respectability.” She turned to the other women. “Tell me,” she demanded, “does this man look honest?”

Mr. Smith blinked weakly at his inquisitors.

“I’m all right, ma’am,” he said hoarsely, “an’ puffec’ly honest. An’ I ain’t biddin’ for myself, but for another party.”

“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed the five women in unbelieving chorus. “Who is your principal?” snapped the indignant lady in green. “Of course we all know the girl can’t be worth eight hundred dollars a year, in any respectable employment.”

The little man coughed apologetically.

“She’s wanted,” he said, “by a responsible party to look after a little boy—a very nice, respectable little boy.”

“Is he a widower?” shrieked the ladies in unison.

“No, ma’am,” replied the little man, ducking his head fearfully and edging away. “He ain’t old enough to be married yet.”

“Not old enough to be married? Oh! you mean the boy?”

“Come on, sir, an’ we’ll settle,” put in the auctioneer, taking Mr. Smith by the arm, as if he feared he might be planning an escape.

But Mr. Smith appeared entirely ready, even anxious, to settle. In the privacy of the kitchen he counted off from a sizable roll four thousand dollars in bills of large denominations, repeating in a painstaking manner what he had already told the women.

“Yes, sir; the young woman’s wanted to look after a child.”

“Whereabouts?” inquired the auctioneer.

“W’y, I don’t rightly know,” wheezed Mr. Smith. “M’ asthma’s terrible bad this morning.”

“So I see! so I see,” observed Mr. Bellows, rubbing his chin dubiously. “An’ you can’t tell me——”

“The young woman is to stay right here till she’s called for,” repeated the gentleman in checks. “No, sir; I couldn’t say when that ’ll be. She must be ready to start most any day. But she’s to stay right here till called for. You tell her. Yes, sir. I’ve got references. Everythin’ O.K. Tell her that, will you? An’, say, you’ll pass the money right over to her, will you? To-day; yes.”

“Less fi’ per cent,” said Mr. Bellows unctuously. “Pretty good mornin’s work,” he added, rubbing his hands. “I never thought o’ such a thing’s runnin’ her up to such a figure. An’ you’d ’a’ bid more, I take it, if you’d had to? As ’twas, you was kind of reckless towards the last.”

“Mebbe I did go a little higher’n I needed to,” acknowledged Mr. Smith mildly. “But I thought I might as well.” He coughed and blinked weakly. “It didn’t make no difference to me,” he said. “I wuz prepared to secure the services of the young woman at any figure. Yes, sir.”

XII

“I CONGRATULATE ye, ma’am, on the success o’ your idee,” Thomas Bellows said, when an hour later he handed to Barbara the roll of bills from which he had complacently peeled off his own tidy commission. “This ’ere ’ll pay off the lien on your prop’ty, I take it, an’ leave you a pretty good nest-egg besides.”

“Who,” said Barbara, her face pale and troubled, “bought—me?”

“W’y, as t’ that,” confessed the auctioneer, “I can’t tell you exactly. I was asked to hand you this ’ere letter. It contains further perticklers, I persoom.”

He produced a thick square envelope bearing her name and address in type-written characters.

“You was to stay right here on call, I was asked t’ inform you. No, ma’am; it wa’n’t any o’ them folks that wrote t’ you beforehand. A man, name of Smith; said he was the agent of the party as bid you in. You’re to stay right here till called for.”

Barbara had opened the envelope and was scanning the few lines of type-writing in the middle of the large square sheet.

“Miss Barbara Preston [she read] will hold herself in readiness to enter upon the term of her service, previously understood to be five years. It is impossible, at the present instant, for the writer to state when the call will come; but the term of service will be reckoned from this eighteenth day of May, 19——. Miss Preston’s duties will comprise the conduct of a home, and the care and guardianship of a little child.”

There was also enclosed a stamped and addressed envelope, containing a paper drawn up in legal form, binding one Barbara Preston, spinster, for and in consideration of the sum of four thousand dollars (herein acknowledged), to a term of continuous service, beginning on the eighteenth day of May, 19— and terminating on the same day of the month in the year 19—. The document was duly witnessed and bore, in lieu of signature, the imprint of a seal, with a device of crossed battle-axes and the single word _Invictus_.

“You’re t’ sign right here,” said Mr. Bellows, indicating with his blunt forefinger the space below the seal. “Me an’ Peg Morrison ’ll witness the signature. I told him to wait outside, in case the’ was papers to sign. I’ll see to forwardin’ it for you. Le’ me see that there envelope; likely it’ll shed a little light on th’ identity o’ the party.”

But the envelope bore merely the number of a post-office box, in a distant city.

Mr. Bellows scratched his head and squinted his eyes into puzzled slits as he surveyed this unsatisfactory bit of evidence from every possible angle.

“Wall, I don’t know,” he burst out at length, “es I’d trust that proposition teetotally, if it wasn’t fer the references. The man as bid ye in satisfied me the party he was representin’ was O.K. es t’ character an’ intentions.”

He glanced shrewdly at the girl; but Barbara asked no questions. She was beginning to realize that while the shackles which had bound her to Jarvis were about to be loosed, this unknown master of her future had forged a new and perhaps heavier fetter. But her composed features betrayed nothing while she wrote her name clearly—Barbara Allen Preston—below the red seal, with its short but significant motto.

Thomas Bellows went away after a little, taking with him the contract, duly signed, sealed, and ready to deliver, and Barbara, left quite alone in the disordered house, quietly locked the money away in a drawer of her desk.

She turned to find Peg Morrison staring at her with eyes full of grief and consternation.

“Miss Barb’ry,” he began, “why in creation didn’t ye tell me what you was goin’ t’ do? Sellin’ yourself—sellin’ your own flesh an’ blood, like you was an Aferc’n slave! What d’you s’pose your folks ’d a said t’ what took place in this ’ere house t’-day—huh? I’ll bet your grandmother Preston ’d think you’d gone crazy. Where be you goin’? What you goin’ t’ do with th’ Cap’n? Whar do I come in in this ’ere deal? Them’s questions ’at I want answered right now. I’ve a notion,” he added darkly, “that you be kind o’ cracked. ’N’ I don’t wonder at it much.”

Barbara was putting the furniture in place, straightening the rugs, and otherwise restoring to its wonted order the scene of the recent auction. Her cheeks and lips were bright with color; her eyes sparkled as she faced the old man.

“You are entirely mistaken, Peg,” she said impatiently. “Just listen, will you? If I had waited a few days longer we should have been sold out under the hammer—farm, house, furniture, stock. Now we shan’t be. Do you understand? This very day I’m going to settle with the Honorable Stephen Jarvis [her red lips curled a little over the words], and I’ll pay Abe Hewett, too, and all the others. Oh! I’m glad I did it—glad! Jimmy will have the farm, and there’ll be plenty left to fix the fences, and buy the fertilizers we need and mend the broken roof and maybe paint the house. Don’t you see, Peg, what a splendid thing it will be?”

“But where are you goin’, Miss Barb-ry?” The old man’s voice held the sound of tears. “An’ who’s goin’ to take care o’ the Cap’n?”

Barbara compressed her lips sternly.

“I don’t know where I shall go,” she said, “but wherever I am I can write to—to Jimmy; and Peg, I want you to stay, just as you have; only I shall pay you good wages. I shall pay up all that I owe you, too, and——”

“Will I hev charge o’ the Cap’n?” inquired the old man anxiously. “Five years is a long time, Miss Barb’ry, he’ll be—l’ me see. W’y, the Cap’n ’ll be ’leven years old time you’re at liberty.”

Barbara drew her fine dark brows together.

“I’ve engaged Martha Cottle to come here and keep house and take care of Jimmy,” she said. “She’s coming this afternoon.”

Mr. Morrison’s jaw dropped.

“Marthy Cottle!” he ejaculated. “W’y, that female—she don’t know no more ’bout little boys ’an—’an a Holstein steer. She’s an old maid schoolmarm, cut an’ dried.”

“She can help Jimmy with his lessons,” Barbara said doggedly. “She’s good and honest, and she’ll do her best to——”

“Gosh!” murmured the old man, shaking his head. “She’ll do her best, mebbe, but—wall, I’ll do what I kin fer the Cap’n t’—keep him f’om gittin’ too awful lonesome an’ discouraged. Marthy Cottle! Huh! We’ll hev t’ make out the best we kin after you’re gone. Does—the Cap’n know—hev you tol’ him you’re a-goin leave him?”

“No,” said Barbara, in a harsh voice. “I haven’t, and I don’t intend to, either. I—I’ll leave word. I—couldn’t, Peg.”

Her young voice broke in an irrepressible sob.

“Don’t you feel bad, Miss Barb’ry,” the old man essayed to comfort her. “You meant it fer the best, I know you did, Miss Barb’ry. An’ mebbe it’ll turn out all right. I wouldn’t cross no bridges till I got to ’em, ef I was you. I s’pose,” he went on, his shrewd eyes on her face, “‘at you seen young Dave Whitcomb this mornin’—him ’at used to teach school in th’ village?”

Barbara’s face whitened.

“You don’t mean——” she faltered.

“Dave was here t’ the auction,” pursued Mr. Morrison. “I heerd him put in two or three big bids on ye. He was ready to pass out his entire pile t’—save ye f’om bein’ took away; I’ll say that much fer Dave.”

He turned, with his hand on the door.

“I didn’t hev nothin’ when it come t’ biddin’,” he groaned. “I might ’a’ saved m’ breath t’ cool m’ porridge. But I’d ’a’ give the best fi’ years off’n m’ life t’ ’a’ kep’ ye right here at home, where ye b’long. I swan I would, Miss Barb’ry.”

“I know you would, Peg,” Barbara said gently. Her eyes, the beautiful clear eyes of her father in his first unspoiled youth, were misty with tears, but she smiled bravely. “Five years isn’t long,” she reminded him. “It’ll soon be over. And you can raise five crops of those wonderful onions while I’m gone.”

Stephen Jarvis was at home and alone in his library that afternoon when Barbara asked to see him. It might even have been inferred that he expected her; but if he did, he made no sign. His manner was cool and calm, quite in keeping with the business of the hour, as he took pains to explain to her a number of details connected with the accumulated interest upon interest, delinquent tax accounts, and other matters pertaining to the estate which Barbara, in her poverty, had been forced to ignore.

“I can pay it all,” she said to him, the fruit of her triumph sweet upon her lips. “That is why I am here—to pay—everything I owe.”

He looked at her quietly.

“You are doubtless to be congratulated upon the success of your scheme,” he said. “I hear you realized quite a handsome sum on the sale of——” he hesitated for the fraction of a minute—“your future.”

“It will be only five years,” Barbara said defiantly. “I shall be glad to work—hard, for Jimmy.”

“When,” he asked, “do you expect to leave town?”

“To-day, to-morrow—I cannot tell. I am ready to go now.”

“To be gone five years,” he said thoughtfully. “Very well; we will finish this business at once. Let me advise you to attend to your taxes promptly hereafter; and if——”

“Thank you,” interrupted Barbara haughtily. “I shall be able, I am sure, to meet all obligations in the future. The farm may be worthless, worn out, but it will pay for itself.”

He did not appear to have heard her last words. He was busily arranging various papers. And presently he handed her the cancelled bond and mortgage, and the receipted tax bills, all neatly arranged. In return she counted out to him, with fingers which trembled in spite of herself, the crisp bills for which she had sold her youth.

“There!” she said rather breathlessly. “Is that all?”

“All,” he repeated quietly. “And it is all quite right. Thank you.”

She looked at him uncertainly. His head was bent, his eyes fixed upon the pile of rustling bank-notes which she had just pushed toward him.

A sudden unreasoning sense of dismay fell upon the girl, shadowing the triumph in her face. She made swift retreat toward the door, casting a half-frightened backward look at the sombre figure behind the desk.

He did not lift his eyes from their unseeing contemplation of the money, even when the jarring sound of the hard-shut door told him she was gone.

Left quite alone Stephen Jarvis slowly folded the notes, sealed them securely in a stout envelope and locked them in his safe.

XIII

YOUNG WHITCOMB sat quite at his ease in Donald Preston’s big arm-chair, one leg flung carelessly over the other, his handsome head thrown back, its riotous curls shining in the lamp-light. His blue eyes, full of laughter, were set upon Barbara.

“So you thought I was dead, did you?” he asked, in a bantering tone; “but it didn’t appear to bother you much. You’re looking handsomer than ever, Barbara. I had an idea I’d find you—changed.”

He waited for some sort of reply; but Barbara was trying hard to reconcile the ruddy, smiling man, who sat so unconcernedly in her dead father’s place, with the pallid, serious, large-eyed phantom of her dreams. She had been looking at him in puzzled silence, and now her glance disengaged itself from his with an effort.

“I’ll wager,” he said, “that you have been thinking of me with ’a crown upon my forehead, a harp within my hand,’ the way we used to sing in Sunday school when we were kids. Now own up! And you’re disappointed to find that I’m such a commonplace, live-looking chap—eh, Barbara?”

“I find you—changed,” she confessed, in a low voice, “greatly changed.”

David Whitcomb laughed triumphantly.

“Yes; I flatter myself that the pious pedagogue has been pretty well knocked out of me in the last five years. Good Lord! what a solemn, sentimental ass I must have been in those days. It was a lucky thing for me that you sent me about my business. Still,—Barbara, I’d give a gold nugget to know just what you thought when they told you I’d passed in my checks. Did you picture poor David lying cold and pale under some frozen cairn along the Yukon trail? That’s the way they dispose of unlucky prospectors up north; just dig a hole in the snow and drop ’em in; then pile stones on top to keep off the wolves. Ugh! I can hear ’em howl, if I stop to to think, now. Did you drop a tear on that imaginary grave of mine up in the Arctic; did you, Barbara?”

Her eyes evaded his smiling blue gaze.

“Why should you ask?” she hesitated. “It was a great surprise—a great shock.”

“You refer, of course, to the news of my death,” he said. “But you survived the shock, as you call it, and—you are far more beautiful than I remembered you.”

He leaned forward and rested his head on his clasped hands, his eyes searching her face with smiling boldness.

“There are not many men,” he went on, “who come back from the grave the way I did to find—everything so unchanged.”

He sprang from his chair and paced the floor excitedly.

“If I’d only come yesterday!” he cried. “I had saved enough—I could have prevented that absurd fiasco.”

He stopped in front of her.

“Why didn’t you answer my letter, Barbara?”

“I couldn’t read it,” she murmured, a sudden vivid color fluttering in her cheeks. “Jimmy lost it on the way home from the office, and it lay out in the rain a week. I knew, though, that you were not—dead.”

“And that I had not forgotten you,” he urged. “You must have wondered, though, why I had not written before. But I couldn’t. I swore when I went away that I would get money—somehow. That I would get enough to save you out of the slavery you were in then. I meant to hire a caretaker for your father, a nurse for the boy. But I had the devil’s own luck. Three times I won, only to lose. Then I made a little pile—not enough; but still I thought—I hoped—— Do you want me to tell you what I hoped, Barbara?”

“No,” she said faintly. “I—can’t listen.”

“Why?” he urged. “Do you—love someone else?”

She looked at him imploringly.

“You were here, and you know——”

“Yes,” he said sharply. “I know what happened. You must have been out of your mind with anxiety, Barbara, to have thought of such a thing. Why did you do it?”

“I wanted to save the farm—for Jimmy.”

He shrugged his shoulders, with a muttered exclamation.

“You got the money?”

“Yes.”

“And so you’re sold into slavery for five years?”

She made no reply.

“Now, see here, Barbara. I won’t stand for anything of the sort. It’s an outrage. I haven’t enough—quite—to pay the other fellow out; but I’ll arrange it with him—or her. Is it a man or a woman slave-holder, Barbara?”

She hesitated.

“I—don’t know,” she said, “not yet.”

“You don’t know?” he echoed. “Why, this is more preposterous than the other. Of course you’ll have to know.”

“It is quite true,” she said quietly. “I only know that I must be ready to leave home at a minute’s notice.”

He bent over her with sudden passion.

“Marry me, Barbara,” he begged in a low, shaken voice. “If you only will, I’ll manage it somehow.”

“I—can’t,” she murmured. “I am in honor bound. Don’t you see? I’ve accepted the money, and paid a part of it for debts.”

He threw himself down in his chair and pulled it toward hers impatiently.

“Let me think,” he said quickly. “You’ve paid off your mortgage. How much was it?”

She told him, and he set down the figures rapidly.

“Who held your mortgage?” he wanted to know.

“Stephen Jarvis,” she said, with a singular reluctance at which she wondered, even while she perceived it.

“Miserly old crab; I remember him,” said David Whitcomb.

His face brightened suddenly.

“Hurrah!” he cried. “I have it! With what you’ve got left and my little pile we’ve more than enough to buy you back. Don’t you see? Marry me, dear, and we’ll call the sale off, pay back the money, and——”

He stopped short at sight of her unresponsive face.

“I’ve signed a contract,” she objected.

“What if you have?” he urged. “The contract can be quashed. You’ll give me the right to get you out of it, Barbara?”

She hesitated, her eyes averted from his anxious face.

“Do you mean that you don’t—that you can’t—? Barbara, do you prefer slavery—to me?”

“I mean,” she said slowly, “that I cannot—promise you anything until——”

“But don’t you see, dear, that it would be better, safer that way? As your husband—even as your promised husband—I could—Good Lord! what a preposterous situation! You must give me the right to get you out of it.”

She shook her head.

“I did it voluntarily,” she said, “and I must fulfil my agreement.”

His face reddened with quick anger.

“Then you will go peacefully away with this person—man or woman—and stay five years, when the matter might easily be arranged by paying back the money, and by proving a prior claim. My claim is prior, Barbara. I loved you five years ago. I love you now. Give me the right to break this absurd bond. Won’t you, Barbara?”

His lips, his eyes, pleaded with his eloquent voice. He dropped to his knees beside her chair; his arm stole about her waist.

“Barbara!” he murmured, his face close to hers.

She broke from him with a little shuddering cry.

“What is it? What have I done?”

“Do you know—did you hear how my father—died?” she asked, in a frightened voice.

He sprang to his feet, his face crimson with shame and fury.

“I drank a glass of wine before I came here to-night—a single glass,” he said. “Is it that you mean?”

His eyes demanded instant answer.

“If you had suffered what I suffered——” she began; then her voice broke. “I couldn’t help it, David; I—remembered.”

It was the first time she had called him by his name. He looked at her in silence for a minute.

“I understand,” he said gently. “I won’t offend again. I promise you.”

“To-morrow,” she went on hurriedly, “I shall hear; someone will call for me. I am all ready—to go. But I will—try, I will explain——”

She put out her hand to forestall his quick protest.

“No; please. I—cannot promise anything—yield anything, until I have arranged the matter. If I succeed——”

He waited for her to go on.

“I must have time to think,” she murmured. “I—am not sure of myself.”

He went away, bidding her a brief good-night, his eyes hurt and angry.

Barbara watched his straight, lithe figure, as he strode away from the little circle of her lamp-light into the dripping gloom of the spring night. So had she sent him away from her long ago into the rain and the darkness. Then, as now, she was in honor bound to a lonely task.

She turned to find her newly engaged housekeeper standing behind her in the semi-obscurity of the passage. Martha Cottle was a tall, angular woman with a pallid, uncertain complexion, a long thin nose, and an air of perpetual inquiry.

“Was that the party you expect to work for?” she demanded. “I thought,” she added, with a slightly offended air, “that you’d call me in and introduce me. I was waiting in the dining-room.”

Barbara wondered if the spinster’s large, flat ears had caught any of the conversation, carried on unguardedly on the other side of the door.

She shook her head. “That wasn’t the person,” she said. “Perhaps to-morrow——” She hesitated. “Of course it will be soon.”

Miss Cottle pushed authoritatively into the room where Barbara had been sitting.

“I haven’t had a real good opportunity to talk things over with you,” she said. “If you’re expecting to be called away sudden, perhaps this will be as good a time as any. I want to tell you what I think about that child.”

Barbara drew a deep breath.

“Well?” she murmured interrogatively.

“I see you’ve spoiled him pretty completely,” pursued Miss Cottle. “But I’ll soon get him in hand.”

She compressed her thin lips.

“He got into a regular tantrum to-night because I took a book of his to look at. ‘Vallable Inf’mation,’ he calls it. Nearly every word in it is spelled wrong. I wonder at you for permitting anything of the sort. I took the book away from him. Here it is.”

Barbara looked at the woman in a sudden panic of apprehension.

“Oh!” she protested, “you ought not to have done that. The book was a birthday present. It is one of Jimmy’s dearest treasures.”