THE TEMPEST
Mr. Cross Moore was not a man who easily or frequently recanted before
either public or private opinion. As political "boss" of the town he
had often found himself opposed to many of his neighbors' wishes.
Neither sharp tongue nor sharp look disturbed him--apparently, at least.
Besides, Mr. Moore loved a fight "for the fight's sake," as the
expression is. He had backed Lem Parraday in applying for a liquor
license, to benefit his own pocket. It had to be a good reason indeed,
to change Mr. Moore's attitude on the liquor selling question.
The hotel barroom held great attractions for many of Cross Moore's
supporters, although Mr. Moore himself seldom stepped into that part of
the hotel. The politician did not trust Lem Parraday to represent him,
for Lem was "no wiser than the law allows," to quote his neighbors.
But Joe Bodley, the young barkeeper, imported from the city, was just
the sort of fellow Cross Moore could use.
And about this time Joe Bodley was in a position where his fingers
"itched for the feel of money." Not other people's money, but his own.
He had scraped together all he had saved, and drawn ahead on his wages,
to make up the hundred dollars paid Hopewell Drugg for the violin,
and----
"Seems ter me that old fiddle is what they call a sticker, ain't it,
'stead of a Straddlevarious?" chuckled Walky Dexter, referring to the
instrument hanging on the wall behind Joe's head.
"Oh, I'll get my money back on it," Bodley replied, with studied
carelessness. "Maybe I'll raffle it off."
"Not here in Polktown ye won't," said the expressman. "Yeou might as
well try ter raffle off a white elephant."
"Pshaw! of course not. But a fine fiddle like that--a real
Cremona--will bring a pretty penny in the city. There, Walky, roll
that barrel right into this corner behind the bar. I'll have to put a
spigot in it soon. Might's well do it now. 'Tis the real Simon-pure
article, Walky. Have a snifter?"
"On the haouse?" queried Walky, briskly.
"Sure. It's a tin roof," laughed Bodley.
"Much obleeged ter ye," said Walky. "As yer so pressin'--don't mind if
I do. A glass of sars'p'rilla'll do me."
"What's the matter with you lately, Walky?" demanded the barkeeper,
pouring the non-alcoholic drink with no very good grace. "Lost your
taste for a man's drink?"
"Sort o'," replied Walky, calmly. "Here's your health, Joe. I thought
you had that fiddle sold before you went to Hopewell arter it?"
"To tell ye the truth, Walky----"
"Don't do it if it hurts ye, Joe. Haw! haw!"
The barkeeper made a wry face and continued:
"That feller I got it for, only put up a part of the price. I thought
he was a square sport; but he ain't. When he got a squint at the old
fiddle while Hopewell was down here playing for the dance, he was just
crazy to buy it. Any old price, he said! After I got it," proceeded
Joe, ruefully, "he tries to tell me it ain't worth even what I paid for
it."
"Wal--'tain't, is it?" said Walky, bluntly.
"If it's worth a hundred it's worth a hundred and fifty," said the
barkeeper doggedly.
"Ya-as--_if_," murmured the expressman.
"However, nobody's going to get it for any less--believe me! Least of
all that Fontaine. I hate these Kanucks, anyway. I know _him_. He's
trying to jew me down," said Joe, angrily.
"Wal, you take it to the city," advised Walky. "You kin make yer spec
on it there, ye say."
There was a storm cloud drifting across Old Ti as the expressman
climbed to his wagon seat and drove away from the Inn. It had been a
very hot day and was now late afternoon--just the hour for a summer
tempest.
The tiny waves lapped the loose shingle along the lake shore. There
was the hot smell of over-cured grass on the uplands. The flower beds
along the hilly street which Janice Day mounted after a visit to the
Narnays, were quite scorched now.
This street brought Janice out by the Lake View Inn. She, too, saw the
threatening cloud and hastened her steps. Sharp lightnings flickered
along its lower edge, lacing it with pale blue and saffron. The mutter
of the thunder in the distance was like a heavy cannonade.
"Maybe it sounded so years and years ago when the British and French
fought over there," Janice thought. "How these hills must have echoed
to the roll of the guns! And when Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain
Boys discharged the guns in a salvo of thanksgiving over Old Ti's
capture--Oh! is that you, Nelson? How you startled me."
For the young schoolmaster had come up the hill behind her at a
breathless gait. "We've got to hurry," he said. "That's going to be
what Marty would call a 'humdinger' of a storm, Janice."
"Dear me! I didn't know you were in town," she said happily.
"We got the last of the hay in this morning," said the bronzed young
fellow, smiling. "I helped mow away and the elder was kind enough to
say that I had done well and could have the rest of the day to myself.
I fancy the shrewd old fellow knew it was about to rain," and he
laughed.
"And how came you down this way?" Janice asked.
"Followed your trail," laughed Nelson. I went in to Mrs. Beaseley's of
course. "And then at Drugg's I learned you had gone down to see Jim
Narnay's folks. But I didn't catch you there. Goodness, Janice, but
they are a miserable lot! I shouldn't think you could bear to go
there."
"Oh, Nelson, the poor little baby--it is so sick and it cheers Mrs.
Narnay up a little if I call on her. Besides, Sophie and the little
boys are just as cunning as they can be. I can't help sympathizing
with them."
"Do save some of your sympathy for other folks, Janice," said Nelson,
rather ruefully. "You ought to have seen the blisters I had on my
hands the first week or two I was a farmer."
"Oh, Nelson! That's too bad," she cried, with solicitude.
"Too late!" he returned, laughing. "They are callouses now--marks of
honest toil. Whew! see that dust-cloud!"
The wind had ruffled the lake in a wide strip, right across to the
eastern shore. Whitecaps were dancing upon the surface and the waves
ran a long way up the beach. The wind, rushing ahead of the
rain-cloud, caught up the dust in the streets and advanced across the
town.
Janice hid her face against the sleeve of her light frock. Nelson led
her by the hand as the choking cloud passed over. Then the rain, in
fitful gusts at first, pelted them so sharply that the girl cried out.
"Oh, Nelson, it's like hail!" she gasped.
A vivid flash of lightning cleaved the cloud; the thunder-peal drowned
the schoolmaster's reply. But Janice felt herself fairly caught up in
his arms and he mounted some steps quickly. A voice shouted:
"Bring her right this way, school teacher! Right in here!"
It was Lem Parraday's voice. They had mounted the side porch of the
Inn and when Janice opened her eyes she was in the barroom. The
proprietor of the Inn slammed to the door against the thunderous rush
of the breaking storm. The rain dashed in torrents against the house.
The blue flashes of electricity streaked the windows constantly, while
the roll and roar of the thunder almost deafened those in the darkened
barroom.
Joe Bodley was behind the bar briskly serving customers. He nodded
familiarly to Janice, and said:
"Bad storm, Miss. Glad to see you. You ain't entirely a stranger
here, eh?"
"Shut up, Joe!" commanded Mr. Parraday, as Janice flushed and the
schoolmaster took a threatening step toward the bar.
"Oh, all right, Boss," giggled the barkeeper. "What's yours, Mister?"
he asked Nelson Haley.
A remarkable clap of thunder drowned Nelson's reply. Perhaps it was as
well. And as the heavy roll of the report died away, they heard a
series of shrieks somewhere in the upper part of the house.
"What in good gracious is the matter now?" gasped Lem Parraday,
hastening out of the barroom.
Again a blinding flash of light lit up the room for an instant. It
played upon the fat features of Joe Bodley--pallidly upon the faces of
his customers. Some of them had shrunk away from the bar; some were
ashamed to be seen there by Janice and the schoolmaster.
The thunder discharged another rolling report, shaking the house in its
wrath. The rain beat down in torrents. Janice and Nelson could not
leave the place while the storm was at its height, and for the moment,
neither thought of going into the dining room.
Again and again the lightning flashed and the thunder broke above the
tavern. It was almost as though the fury of the tempest was centered
at the Lake View Inn. Janice, frankly clinging to Nelson's hand,
cowered when the tempest rose to these extreme heights.
Echoing another peal of thunder once again a scream from within the
house startled the girl. "Oh, Nelson! what's that?"
"Gee! I believe Marm Parraday's on the rampage," exclaimed Joe Bodley,
with a silly smile on his face.
The door from the hall flew open. In the dusky opening the woman's
lean and masculine form looked wondrous tall; her hollow eyes burned
with unnatural fire; her thin and trembling lips writhed pitifully.
With her coming another awful flash and crash illumined the room and
shook the roof tree of the Inn.
"It's come! it's come!" she said, advancing into the-room. Her face
shone in the pallid, flickering light of the intermittent flashes, and
the loafers at the bar shrank away from her advance.
"I told ye how 'twould be, Lem Parraday!" cried the tavern keeper's
wife. "This is the end! This is the end!"
Another stroke of thunder rocked the house. Marm Parraday fell on her
knees in the sawdust and raised her clasped hands wildly. The act
loosened her stringy gray hair and it fell down upon her shoulders. A
wilder looking creature Janice Day had never imagined.
"Almighty Father!" burst from the quivering lips of the poor woman.
"Almighty Father, help us!"
"She's prayin'!" gasped a trembling voice back in the shrinking crowd.
"Help us and save us!" groaned the woman, her face and clasped hands
uplifted. "We hear Thy awful voice. We see the flash of Thy anger.
Ah!"
The thunder rolled again--ominously, suddenly, while the casements
rattled from its vibrations.
"_Forgive Lem and these other men for what they air doin', O Lord!_"
was the next phrase the startled spectators heard. "_They don't
deserve Thy forgiveness--but overlook 'em!_"
The Voice in the heavens answered again and drowned her supplication.
One man screamed--a shrill, high neigh like that of a hurt horse.
Janice caught a momentary glimpse of the pallid face of Joe Bodley
shrinking below the edge of the counter. There was no leer upon his
fat face now; it expressed nothing but terror.
Lem Parraday entered hastily. He caught his wife by her thin shoulders
just as she pitched forward. "Now, now, Marm! This ain't no way to
act," he said, soothingly.
The thunder muttered in the distance. Suddenly the flickering
lightning seemed less threatening. As quickly as it had burst, the
tempest passed away.
"My jimminy! She's fainted," Lem Parraday murmured, lifting the woman
in his strong arms.