"THICKER THAN WATER"
Essie Tisdale pulled aside the coarse lace curtains starched to
asbesteroid stiffness which draped the front windows of the upstairs
parlor in the Terriberry House, and looked with growing interest at an
excited and rapidly growing group on the wide sidewalk in front of the
post-office.
Such gatherings in Crowheart nearly always portended a fight, but since
the hub of the fast widening circle appeared to be Mr. Percy Parrott
gesticulating wildly with a newspaper, she concluded that it was merely
a sensational bit of news which had come from the outside world. Yet the
citizens of Crowheart were not given to exhibiting concern over any
happening which did not directly concern themselves, and Dr. Lamb was
running. From a hurried walk he broke into a short-stepped, high-kneed
prance which was like the action of an English cob, while from across
the street dashed Sohmes, the abnormally fat butcher, clasping both
hands over his swaying abdomen to lessen the jar.
She turned from the window, and one of the waves of gladness which kept
rising within her again swept over her as she realized that the affairs
of Crowheart meant nothing to her now. A gulf, invisible as yet, but
real as her own existence, lay between her and the life of which she had
been a part such a little time before.
She looked about her at the cotton plush furniture of dingy red, at the
marble-topped centre table upon whose chilly surface a large,
gilt-edged family Bible reposed--placed there by Mrs. Terriberry in the
serene confidence that its fair margins would never be defiled through
use. Beside the Bible, lay the plush album with its Lombroso-like
villainous gallery of countenances upon which transient vandals had
pencilled mustaches regardless of sex. She looked at the fly-roost of
pampas grass in the sky-blue vase on the shelf from which hung an
old-gold lambriquin that represented the highest art of the Kensington
cult--water lilies on plush--and at the crowning glory of the parlor, a
pier glass in a walnut frame.
It was tawdry and cheap and offended her eye, but it was exclusively her
own and she looked about her with a keen thrill of pleasure because of
the condition which her occupancy of it represented. Somehow it seemed
years ago that she had walked around the hole in the ingrain carpet in
the bare room which looked out upon the heap of tin-cans and corrals of
the Terriberry House.
Through the door which opened into her bed-chamber she saw the floor
littered with boxes and papers, the new near-silk petticoat draping a
chair, the new near-tailored suit which represented the "last cry" from
the General Merchandise Store, the Parisian hat which the clairvoyant
milliner had seen in a trance and trimmed from memory, but the lines of
which suggested that the milliner's astral body had practised a
deception and projected itself no further than 14th Street.
A fresh realization of what these things meant, namely the personal
interest of some one who cared, brought a rush of tears to her eyes.
They were still moist when Mr. Richard Kincaid appeared in the parlor,
his eyes twinkling above a pillar of boxes and bundles which he carried
in his arms.
"What's the matter, Esther? What has happened?" He dropped the packages
and went to her side.
She threw her arms impulsively about his neck and laid her head upon his
breast while she said between little sobs of tears and laughter--
"I'm so happy! happy! _happy!_ Uncle Dick--that's all. And so grateful,
too. I love you so much that I want to cry, and so happy that I want to
laugh. So I do both. I didn't have to learn to love you. I did from the
first. It came with a rush just as soon as I found out who you
were--that we belonged to each other, you know. All at once I felt so
different--so safe--so sure of you, and so secure--and so proud to think
we were related. I can't explain exactly, but just being _me_, so
long--not knowing who I was or where I came from--and belonging to no
one at all--it seems a wonderful thing to have you!"
She turned her face to his shoulder and cried softly.
He patted her cheek and smiled--a smile that was of sadness and
understanding.
"I know what you mean, Esther; I comprehend your feelings perfectly.
It's the bond of kinship which you recognize, the tie of blood, and let
me tell you, girl, there never was a truer saying than the old one that
'blood is thicker than water.' Disguise it as you will, and bitter
family feuds would sometimes seem to give it the lie, but it's a fact
just the same. It takes time to find it out--a lifetime often--but deep
in the heart of every normal human being there's an instinctive,
intimate, personal feeling for one's own flesh and blood that is like
nothing else. Their successes and their failures touch us closer, for
the pride of race is in us all.
"There's none who realize more strongly the limitations of strangers'
friendships than those, who, like you and I, have been dependent upon
them as a substitute for the affection of our own. But there, that's
done with, loneliness is behind us, for we have each other now; and,
bottled up within me, I've the longings of twenty years to spoil and
pamper somebody. When I was the marrying age I was off in the hills;
since then I've been too busy and too critical. So you see, Esther
Kincaid Tisdale, you are filling a long-felt want."
He kissed her with a smack and she hugged his arm in ecstasy.
"I'm going to try and make up for what we both have lost. No harm can
come to you so long as I have a dollar and the brains to make more."
"It's like stories I've dreamed!" she breathed happily.
"But tell me,"--some thought made him hold her at arms' length to read
her face--"has there been no one, no one at all who has figured in these
dreams of yours in a different way from which I do?"
He watched with something like consternation the tell-tale color rise in
her face and her eyes drop from his own.
"There was--one," she faltered, "but he--I--misunderstood--I was vain
enough to think he cared for me. It was a mistake--a stupid mistake of
mine--he just liked me--he was lonely--I suppose--that's all." She
swallowed hard to down the rising lump in her throat.
"Who was he?"
"I don't know exactly who he was; he just came here; rode in on
horseback--for his health, he said. They used to say he was a hold-up
getting the lay of the town to make a raid, or a gambler, but he wasn't,
he _wasn't_ anything like that. _You'd_ have liked him, Uncle Dick, I
know you would have liked him!" Her eyes were sparkling now. "He talked
like you, and when he was interested enough to exert himself he had the
same sure way of doing things. But he went away about three weeks ago
and did not even say good-by."
"What's his name?"