"Yes, Miss Higgins got yer telegram," answered Deacon Brewer, as they
drove slowly along the river in the dusty heat of the early July
morning. "Ef she hadn't I reckon she'd 'a' gone nigh crazy."
They were in an open two-seated buck-board. McAllister, holding Abby in
his lap, occupied the front seat with the Deacon, while Wilkins sat
behind with the valise and the pasteboard box.
"It was a tiresome delay and really a very fortunate escape," responded
McAllister. "Abby behaved beautifully."
"She's a good child," said the Deacon. "Her mother was a fine woman, and
she's goin' to be just like her."
"Are we nearly home?" asked the little girl, rubbing her eyes.
"'Most," answered the Deacon. "Are ye hungry?"
"I got her some bread and milk at a farm-house," explained McAllister,
"but none of us have had any breakfast yet."
"Wall, I reckon Miss Higgins'll be prepared for ye," said the Deacon.
"She's a liberal woman an' a smart woman, but all the same, the farm's
going to be sold for taxes next week."
Abby had fallen asleep, but the clubman started and looked anxiously at
her at this piece of intelligence.
"She don't know nuthin' about it," said the farmer. "Miss Higgins can't
run a hard-scrabble farm, nor no one can and make a livin' out'n it. It
ain't worth five dollars an acre."
"What will she do?" asked the clubman.
"Darn ef I know," responded the other. "She kin help around some, I
guess. Deacon Giddings has a powerful lot of company. 'N any woman kin
sew. She kin make out, I reckon."
"But the child?" whispered McAllister.
"Her Uncle Moses'll hev to take her," answered the Deacon.
"Jiminy!" ejaculated the clubman, recalling the little girl's
description of her uncle's wife. "She won't like that."
"Beggars can't be choosers," said the Deacon dryly.
A turn in the road brought them within view of a small, low farm-house,
with good-sized barn, lying in a field between the woods and the river,
here about a quarter of a mile in width. The pines grew close to the
road upon the left, but upon the other side the land had been well
cleared to the Penobscot's bank. Huge piles of stones, ten or twelve
feet long, five or so broad, and four or five feet high, were monuments
to the energy and industry of some former owner.
"Gosh, how Henery worked to clear this farm!" remarked the Deacon. "He
hove stone for twenty years, an' then died. Look at them trees!"
He pointed dramatically to a large orchard containing row upon row of
young apple-trees.
At the sound of the wheels a woman came slowly out of the side door and
watched their approach. She had the pale, sickly countenance of the wife
of the inland Maine farmer, and her limp dress ill concealed the
angularity of her form. Her eyes showed that she had passed a sleepless
night. McAllister leaped out and lifted Abby down. The woman neither
spoke to nor kissed the child, but clutched her tightly in her arms.
Then she nodded to the new-comers.
"I'm obliged to ye, Deacon Brewer," she said. "Is this the man who sent
the telegram? Won't ye come in and set down?"
"Oh, yes," cried Abby ecstatically. "Get out, Mr. Wilkins! I want to
show you the black horse, and all the hens."
"I must be gettin' back," muttered the Deacon.
"Could you let us have a bite of breakfast?" inquired McAllister. "My
train doesn't go until twelve o'clock." To return to Bangor at this
particular time did not suit him.
"Such as it is," replied Miss Higgins.
"Could you arrange to call out for me in an hour or so?" asked
McAllister.
"I reckon I kin," said the Deacon with some reluctance. "I'll hev ter
charge ye fifty cents."
"Of course," said McAllister.
Wilkins took down the parcels, and the Deacon drove slowly away.
"I'll scrape somethin' together in a few minutes," said Miss Higgins.
"How much was that telegram?"
"Oh, that's all right!" said the abashed clubman.
"No, it ain't. Money's money. Was it ez much ez a quarter?"
McAllister acknowledged the amount.
"I thought so," commented Miss Higgins. "It was wuth it." She had the
money all ready and handed it to McAllister.
Etiquette seemed to demand its acceptance.
"Did you say your name was McAllister? Who's this man?"
"His name is Wilkins."
"Well," said Aunt Abby, "one of ye might split up that log, if ye don't
mind, while I get the breakfast."
She turned into the house.
McAllister looked doubtfully at the wood-pile.
"Let Mr. Wilkins chop the wood!" shouted Abby; "I want to show you the
ba-an."
"Wilkins," said McAllister, "wood-chopping is an art sanctified in this
country by tradition."
"Very good, sir," answered Wilkins.
Abby grasped McAllister's hand and tugged him joyfully over the
poverty-stricken farm. They visited the orchard, the pig-sty, the
hen-house, admired the horse that had been a girl, and ended at the
water's edge.
"We ketch salmon here in the spring," explained Abby; "and smelts."
Across the eddying river quiet farms slept in the hot sunshine. Two men
in a dory swung slowly up-stream. At their feet the clear water rippled
against the stones. In his mind the clubman pictured the stifling city
and the squalor of relative existence there.
"It's beautiful, Abby," he said.
"It's the loveliest place in the whole world," she answered, holding his
hand tightly. "And I shall never, never go away."
Behind them came the shrill tones of Aunt Abby's voice bidding them to
breakfast. Wilkins, coatless, was bearing some mangled fragments of log
toward the kitchen. His beaded face spoke unutterable dejection.
"Well, set daown; it's all there is," said Miss Higgins.
McAllister sat, and Abby climbed into a high chair. Wilkins remained
standing.
"Ain't ye goin' to set?" inquired Miss Higgins.
Wilkins reddened.
"Well, ye be the most bashful man I ever met," remarked the lady. "Set
daown and eat yer victuals."
"Sit down," said McAllister, and for the second time master and man
shared a meal.
The little room was bare of decoration except for some colored
lithographs and wood-cuts, which for the most part represented the
funeral corteges of distinguished Americans, with a few hospital scenes
and the sinking of a steamship. A rug soiled to a dull drab made a sort
of mud spot before the fireplace; a knitted tidy, suggestive of the
antimacassar, ornamented the only rocker; at one end stood the stove,
and hard by two fixed tubs. Everything except the carpet was
scrupulously clean.
Miss Higgins brought to the table a dish of steaming boiled eggs, half a
loaf of white bread, and a vegetable dish with a large piece of butter.
"I'll have some coffee for ye in a minute," she remarked as she placed
the dishes before them.
McAllister broke some of the eggs into a tumbler and cut the bread.
"What might be your business?" inquired Miss Higgins.
"Er--well--" hesitated McAllister. "I've travelled quite a bit."
"I had a cousin in the hardware line," remarked the hostess
reminiscently. "He travelled everywheres. Has it ever taken you ez fur
as St. Louis?"
"No," said McAllister. "My line never took me so far."
"Andrew died there--of the water. What's your business?" continued Miss
Higgins to Wilkins.
"I'm with Mr. McAllister, ma'am."
"Oh! same firm?"
Wilkins coughed violently and evaded the interrogation.
"Mr. Wilkins handles gents' clothing, underwear, haberdashery, and
notions," interposed McAllister gravely.
Wilkins swayed in his seat and grew purple around the gills.
"Oh, Mr. Wilkins!" cried Abby, "what's the matter? You will burst! Take
a drink of water."
The valet obediently tried to do as she bade him.
"How much is land worth around here?" asked the clubman. "And what do
you raise?"
Miss Higgins looked at him suspiciously.
"We raise pertaters, some corn and oats, and get a purty fair apple crop
in the autumn."
"Must have been hard work clearing the farm," added McAllister, "if one
can judge by the piles of stones."
"Work? I guess 'twas work!" sniffed Miss Higgins. "You travellin' men
hain't got no idee of what real work is. There ain't a stone in the
nineteen acres of farm land. Henery picked 'em all up by hand."
"Are you Abby's guardian?" asked McAllister.
"Yes," said Miss Higgins. "I'm all the folks she's got, except Moses,
down to Portsmouth, and a lot of good he is with that wife he's got!"
Wilkins now asked awkwardly to be excused.
"That friend of yourn seems to be a dummy!" remarked Miss Higgins after
the valet had disappeared.
"He isn't much in the social line," admitted his master. "But he knows
his business."
"I'm goin' out to show Mr. Wilkins the beehive," cried Abby, slipping
down from her chair. "Come right along, won't you?"
"I'll be there in just a minute," said McAllister.
Abby grabbed up her sunbonnet and ran skipping out of the kitchen.
"She's a dear little girl," said McAllister. "I hope she'll have a
chance to get a good education."
"Education behind a counter in Bangor is all she'll get," answered her
aunt.
They sat in silence for a moment, and then McAllister, feeling the
craving induced by habit, drew an Obsequio from his pocket, and asked:
"Do you object to smoking?"
Miss Abby bristled.
"I don't want none o' them se-gars in this house, so long's I'm in it!"
she exclaimed. "Ain't out-doors good enough for you, without stinkin' up
the kitchen?"
"I didn't mean any offence," apologized McAllister. "I'll wait till I go
out, of course."
"One of the devil's tricks!" sniffed Miss Abby.
McAllister, terribly embarrassed, got up and stepped to the window. The
coffee had been execrable, but a benign influence animated him. Down the
slope toward the gently flowing Penobscot little Abby was leading
Wilkins by the hand. The boy-horse kicked his heels in a daisy-flecked
pasture beyond the barn.
"What did you say the farm was worth?" asked the clubman.
"There's a hundred and eighty-one acres o' woodland, and the cleared
land just makes two hundred. It ought to be worth eighteen hundred
dollars."
"I know a man who wants a farm. He says some day all this river front
will be valuable for a summer resort. I'm authorized to buy for him.
I'll give you sixteen hundred and fifty. Is it a bargain?"
Miss Abby turned pale.
"Oh, I don't know! It seems dreadful to sell it, after all the years
Henery put into cleanin' of it up. I was hopin' somehow that maybe I
could get work on the farm from them as bought it and keep Abby here
for a while longer."
"That's all right," said McAllister. "My principal is buying it on a
speculation. You can stay indefinitely."
"How about rent?" asked Miss Abby.
"You can take care of the farm, and he won't charge you any rent."
The terms having been finally arranged to Miss Abby's satisfaction,
McAllister drew a small check-book from his pocket and filled out a
voucher for the amount.
"We can sign the papers later," said he with a smile.
Miss Abby took the slip of paper doubtfully.
"How do I know I ain't gettin' cheated?" she asked. "Suppose this should
turn out to be no good?"
"Then you'd have the farm," said McAllister.
He fumbled in his pocket until he found a clean letter-back and with his
stylographic pen rapidly wrote the following:
"I hereby give and convey the Henry Higgins farm, heretofore purchased
by me, to my friend Abigail Martha Higgins, in consideration for much of
value of which no one knows but myself. In witness whereof I sign my
name and affix a seal."
He found a used postage-stamp that still had a trifle of gum on its back
and made use of it as a fragmentary seal.
While in some doubt as to the legal sufficiency of this instrument,
McAllister felt that its intendment was unmistakable. Having replaced
his pen, he carefully folded the document and thrust it into his pocket.
Just at this moment Miss Higgins announced the return of Deacon Brewer,
who was wheeling slowly into the gate. Toward the orchard McAllister
could see, as he stepped to the door, little Abby still tugging along
Wilkins, whose massive and emotionless face was glistening with the
heat.
"Hit's very 'ot, sir!" he remarked tentatively to his master. "I've been
to see the 'ives."
"How funny Mr. Wilkins talks!" said Abby. "He told me he knew a boy once
who got stung, and said the bee _bit 'im in 'is 'ead_! Do all drummers
talk like that?"
"Drummers!" exclaimed Wilkins.
"Aunt said you were both drummers; I s'pose you left your drums
somewhere. I don't like 'em; they make too much music. They have them in
the circus parade in Bangor every year."
"Be you folks ready to start?" inquired Deacon Brewer. "Purty nice view
of the water from here, ain't they? There's a good well on the place,
too, and a few boat-loads of manure would give you crops to beat--all.
Don't know enybody thet wants to speckalate a little in farmin' land, do
ye? This here is a good, likely place. Reckon you kin buy it cheap."
"Sh-h!" said McAllister, laying his finger on his lips.
"No one sha'n't ever buy this farm," said Abby; "I'm goin' to live here
always."
"Wall," said the Deacon, "better be movin'. I don't like to keep the
mare standin' in the sun."
"Are you goin' away?" cried Abby in agonized tones. "You'll come back
soon, won't you?"
"I hope so, very soon," said McAllister. "Don't you want to show me the
boy-horse before I start?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" she cried, seizing his hand.
The stout clubman and the little girl walked slowly across the
grass-grown drive to the daisy field beside the barn, talking busily.
"Your friend's bought this farm," announced Miss Abby to Wilkins.
"'Oly Moses!" ejaculated the valet.
"By gum!" exclaimed the Deacon. "What did he give?"
"Sixteen hundred and fifty dollars."
"Gee!" said the Deacon.
"An' we're to stay on rent-free 's long 's we want!"
"I swan!" commented the pillar of the local Baptist Church. "Some folks
doos hev luck!"
He went over to adjust a bit of harness.
"It'll keep 'em out o' the poor farm," he muttered. "But, by gosh, thet
feller must be a fool!"
Over in the daisy field, McAllister, to the wonder of the boy-horse,
pulled the despised cigar from his pocket, cut off the end, and began to
smoke with infinite satisfaction.
"What a beautiful, beautiful, lovely ring!" exclaimed Abby joyfully,
examining with delight the embossed paper of red and gold.
"Do you remember about the lonely man who lived in the big white house I
told you of?" asked McAllister.
"Of course I do," sighed Abby. "Poor man! he was so good, and nobody
loved him."
"Do you love him?" asked McAllister.
"Dear man! I love him, all my heart!" cried the child.
"Then the man is very, very happy," said McAllister softly.
Overhead a single black crow, wheeling out of a stumpy pine, circled to
investigate this strange love-scene. Satisfied of its propriety, he
cawed loudly and resettled himself upon the shaking topmost bough.
McAllister drew the golden band from his cigar and took the folded paper
from his pocket.
"Here's a love-letter," said he. "Your aunt will read it for you when
I've gone."
Abby took it sadly.
"Now hold up your left hand," said McAllister, smiling. As he slipped
the paper circle over her fourth finger he said gravely:
"'With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee
endow.' Give me a kiss."
She did so, in wonder.
"Now we are married," said he.