GRANNY THORNTON'S SECRET
The second day following these happenings, Tim Reardon sat on a bank of
the stream, a short distance above the Ellison dam, fishing. There was
no off-season in the matter of fishing, for Little Tim. Nobody else
thought of trying for the pickerel now. But Tim Reardon fished the
stream from early spring until the ice came; and, in the winter, he
chopped through the ice, and fished that way, in the deep holes that he
knew.
He was no longer barefoot, for the days were chilly. A stout pair of
shoes protected his feet, which he kicked together as he dangled a long
pole out from the shore. He was fishing in deep water now, with a lead
sinker attached to his line; and, beside him, was a milk-can filled with
water and containing live shiners for bait. These he had caught in the
brook.
The fish weren't biting, but Little Tim was a patient fisherman. He was
so absorbed, in fact, in the thought that every next minute to come he
must surely get the longed-for bite, that he failed to note the approach
of a man from the road. And when, all at once, a big hand closed upon
his coat collar, he was so surprised and gave such a jump that he would
have lost his balance and gone into the stream, if the hand had not held
him fast. Squirming about, in the firm grasp of the person who held him,
Tim turned and faced Colonel Witham.
"Well, I reckon I've got yer," was Colonel Witham's comment. "No use in
your trying to wriggle away."
The fact was quite evident, and Tim's face clouded.
"I haven't done anything to hurt," he said. "Lemme go."
"Who said you had," replied Colonel Witham, grimly. "I didn't say you
had--and I didn't say you hadn't. I wouldn't take chances on saying that
you hadn't done a whole lot of things you oughtn't to. You've got to
come along with me, though. I'm not going to hurt yer. You needn't be
scared."
He changed his grip on the boy, from the latter's collar to one wrist,
which he held firmly.
"Pick up your stuff," he said, "and come along with me. No use jumping
that way. I've got you, all right."
Little Tim, thinking over his sins, reached down and picked up the can
of bait.
"I haven't done anything to hurt," he repeated.
"Hm!" exclaimed the colonel. "Reckon you've done a lot of things to
hurt, if people only knew it. Here, I'll take that can. You carry your
pole. Now come along."
"What for?" asked Tim, obeying the colonel's command to "come along"
with him.
"I'll show you what I want," replied Colonel Witham. "You know well
enough, I guess, without any of my telling. Oh, I know you'll say you
don't; but I don't care anything about that. Just come along."
They proceeded out to the road, whence they turned and went in the
direction of the inn. Tim thought of the pumpkin, and his heart sank. He
was going to "catch it" for that, he thought.
They came up to the flag-staff presently, and Tim repressed a chuckle
with difficulty; for there, as on the night they had sent it aloft, hung
the big pumpkin, grinning down on them both.
"There," said Colonel Witham, "you didn't have any hand in that--oh, no!
You wouldn't do it, of course. You never did nothing to hurt. I know
you. But see here, youngster"--and he gave a twist to Tim's
wrist--"you've got to get it down, do you understand?"
Tim gave a sigh of relief. It wasn't a "whaling," after all.
"Now," continued Colonel Witham, eying him sharply, "perhaps you had a
hand in that, and perhaps you didn't. I don't know and I don't care.
What I want is, to get it down. You needn't say you didn't do it,
because I wouldn't believe any of you boys, anyway. But I'm going to do
the right thing." The colonel hesitated a moment. "I'm going to be
handsome about it. You get that down and I'll give you a
quarter--twenty-five cents, do you hear?"
Little Tim nodded.
"Well," Colonel Witham went on, "you give me that fish-pole. I'm not
going to have you cut and run. I'm too smart for that."
So saying, the colonel seized the boy's fish-pole, and relinquished his
grasp of his wrist.
"Reckon you won't run away long as I've got this," he said. "Now can you
shin that pole?"
"Sure," replied Tim. He glanced up at the lofty peak of the flag-staff,
then began removing his shoes and stockings. He was up the pole the next
moment like a squirrel, clinging fast with arms and bare toes. Half-way
up he rested, by clutching the halyard and twisting it about his arm.
"Little monkey!" ejaculated Colonel Witham; "I'd give a dollar to know
if he put it up there. Well, reckon I've got to give him that quarter,
though, as long as I said I would."
Tim did the topmost length of the pole cautiously. It was a high one,
with a slim topmast spliced on with iron bands. He knew how to climb
this like a sailor; careful to hold himself close in to the slender
stick, and not throw his weight out, so as to put a strain on it that
might cause it to snap and let him fall; careful not to get it to
swaying.
Then, almost at the very top, he rested again for a moment, sustaining
part of his weight by the halyards, as before. When he had got his
breath, he drew himself up close to where the big pumpkin hung, on the
opposite side; dug his toes in hard, and held on with them and one hand.
He reached his other hand into a trousers' pocket, and drew forth a
knife that he had opened before he began the ascent.
Holding fast to the pole, he cut the rope that held the pumpkin. It
fell, grazing one of his knees, and would have dislodged him had he not
guarded against it. The next moment, it landed with a crash at the base
and was shattered into fragments.
Little Tim laboriously loosened the knot Harvey had tied, and let the
halyard run free. A moment more, and he was on the ground with Colonel
Witham.
The colonel eyed the wreck of the hobgoblin with satisfaction. Then he
turned to Tim.
"You're a smart little rascal," he said, "and a plucky one. I'll say
that for you. There's your fish-pole and your can."
Colonel Witham paused, and reluctantly put his hand in his trousers
pocket. With still greater reluctance, he drew forth a twenty-five cent
piece and tendered it to the boy.
"Here," he said, "it's a lot of money, but I won't say as you haven't
earned it."
To Colonel Witham's astonishment, however, the boy shook his head.
"I don't want any money," he said. "I wouldn't take it for that."
Another moment, he had slipped into shoes and stockings, snatched up his
pole and can, and was walking quickly down the road.
Little Tim had a conscience.
"Well, if that don't beat me!" exclaimed the amazed Colonel Witham, as
he stood staring at the boy. "Who'd ever have thought it?"
But soon a great light dawned upon him.
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "The little rascal! He stuck it up there, or my
name's not Witham. That's why he wouldn't take the money for getting it
down. Reckon I ought to have given him a taste of that stick, instead of
offering him a quarter."
But even Colonel Witham, when he came to think upon it, knew deep down
in his heart that he had a sort of admiration for Little Tim.
In the meantime, Henry Burns, turning over in his mind the secret that
had been partly revealed to him, through the words of Grannie Thornton,
could not make up his mind just what to do about it. He had almost
decided to entrust what he knew to Lawyer Estes, for him to unravel,
when the lawyer was called out of town for several weeks, on an
important case. Again, another event intervened to cause delay. Miss
Matilda Burns made a visit to her home in Massachusetts, and took Henry
Burns with her; and it was well into November, close upon Thanksgiving,
in fact, when they returned to Benton. By this time early winter had set
in, and some heavy snow falls had buried all the country around and
about Benton deep under drifts.
"You're just in time," said Harvey, as he and Tom Harris greeted Henry
Burns on the latter's return. "We've got a week's holiday, and look what
I've made for us."
Harvey proudly displayed a big toboggan, some seven feet in length, in
the making of which he had expended the surplus time and energy of the
last two weeks. "No easy job steaming those ends and making 'em curl up
together even," he added; "but she'll go some. Say, you ought to see the
slide we've got, down the mountain above Ellison's. Well go up this
afternoon, if you like."
They were up there, all of them, early in the afternoon, George and
Young Joe Warren driving one of the Warren horses hitched to a sleigh,
and drawing a string of toboggans after. Blanketing the horse some
distance above the Ellison dam, they proceeded up the surface of the
frozen stream to the slide.
It was, as Henry Burns said, enough to make the hair on one's fur cap
stand on end, to look at it. From the summit of what might almost be
termed a small mountain--certainly, a tremendous hill--to the base, down
a precipitous incline, the boys had constructed a chute, by banking the
snow on either side. This chute led down on to the frozen stream, where
a similar chute had been formed for a half-mile or more down stream.
Moreover, a temporary thaw, with a fall of sleet, had coated the bed of
the chute with a glassy surface, like polished steel, or glare ice.
Henry Burns, standing beside the slide, half-way up the mountain, saw a
toboggan with four youths dash down the steep incline, presently. Little
Tim sat in front, yelling like an Indian at a war-dance. They fairly
took Henry Burns's breath away as they shot past him. He looked at
Harvey and shrugged his shoulders.
"Guess that's pretty near as exciting as cruising in Samoset bay, isn't
it?" he remarked. "Well, you hold the tiller, Jack, and I'm game; though
it's new sport to me. I never spent a winter in Maine before."
"Oh, there isn't much steering to do here," replied Harvey; "you only
have to keep her in the chute, and not let her get to swerving. It's
easy. You'll like it."
It certainly did seem a risky undertaking, to a novice, standing at the
very summit of the mountain and looking along down the icy plunge of the
chute, far below to the stream. It took all of Henry Burns's nerve, to
seat himself at the front end of the toboggan, while Jack Harvey gave a
shove off. For the first moment, it was almost like falling off a
steeple. Then he caught the exhilaration of the sport, as the toboggan
gathered speed and shot down the incline at lightning speed.
Henry Burns had hardly time to gather his thoughts, and to glory in the
excitement, when they were at the foot of the descent, and gliding
swiftly along the surface of the stream.
"My, but that's great!" he exclaimed. "It's next to sailing, if it isn't
as good. Come on, let's try it again."
The mountain was admirably situated for such a sport; for it rose up
from the shore where the stream made a sharp bend in its course, forming
a promontory that overlooked the surrounding land. Thus the chute,
after leaving the base of it, continued in a straight line down stream.
The sport, thrilling as it was, however, grew tame for Young Joe. He
wanted something different. He had brought along, also, a steel-shod
sled, known to the boys as a "pointer," because its forward ends ran out
to sharp points, protected by the turning up of the steel runners. He
declared himself ready to make the descent on that.
"Don't be a fool, Joe," remonstrated his elder brother; "you can't
handle that here. You'll go so fast you can't steer it."
If Young Joe had had any misgivings and doubts upon the matter before,
however, this remonstrance settled them. A little opposition was all
that was needed to set him off. Modestly calling the attention of all
the others to the fact that he was about to attempt a feat never before
tried, Young Joe lay at full length upon the sled and pushed off.
Certainly, never before had any object shot down the mountain side at
the speed Young Joe was travelling. Fortunately for him, the sides of
the chute were sufficiently high to keep the sled within bounds, and on
its course. The sled made the descent in safety and darted out across
the surface of the stream, still within the chute. Then something
unexpected happened.
The chute had been designed for toboggans, and continued only as far as
the fastest one of them would travel. Watching Young Joe's daring feat,
the boys saw him make the descent and speed along the level, until he
reached the spot where the toboggans usually stopped. And there, also,
Young Joe's sled did stop, its sharp points digging into the crust and
sticking fast.
But not Young Joe. Like an arrow fired from a crossbow, he left the sled
and continued on over the icy surface of the crust downstream. It was a
smooth, glare surface, and he slid as though it were greased. Far down
stream, they saw him finally come to a stop--the most astonished youth
that ever slid down a hill. He ended in a little drift of snow blown
against a projecting log, and arose, sputtering.
Strangely enough, thanks to thick mittens, and a cap drawn down to cover
his face, he was not even scratched. He picked himself up, looked about
him, dazed for a moment, and then walked slowly back.
And after all, the upshot of Young Joe's experiment was, that sleds
became popular on the chute, and almost came to exclude the toboggan;
only the boys continued the chute for fully a mile down stream,
shovelling away to the glare ice. Young Joe had introduced a new and
more exciting form of sport.
The next two days afforded rare enjoyment, for the slide was at its
best, and the weather clear and bracing. But the afternoon of the third
day was not so propitious. It began to grow cloudy at midday, and some
light flakes of snow fell, as they ate their luncheon and drank their
coffee, beside a fire of spruce and birch at the summit of the
mountain, near the head of the slide.
They continued till about five in the afternoon, however, when the snow
began falling steadily, and they took their last slide. A party of three
of them, Harvey and Henry Burns and George Warren, had proceeded nearly
to the Ellison dam, on their way to Benton, when Henry Burns suddenly
stopped, with an exclamation of annoyance.
"I've got to go back," he said; "I've left my buckskin gloves and Tom's
hatchet up by the fire."
"Oh, let 'em go till to-morrow," said Harvey, who was feeling hungry.
"No, it won't do," replied Henry Burns, looking back wearily to where
the faint smoke of the day's fire still showed through the light
snow-fall. "You fellows needn't wait, though. Keep on, and perhaps I'll
catch up."
He started back, plodding slowly, for he was tired with the frequent
climbing of the mountain throughout the day. The others, thinking of the
supper awaiting them, continued on the way home.
It was a little more than a mile that Henry Burns had to go; and, by the
time he was half-way there, it was snowing hard. The storm had increased
perceptibly; and, moreover, the wind was rising, and it blew the snow
into his eyes so that he could hardly see. He kept on stubbornly,
however.
Presently, there came a gust that reminded him of a quick squall on the
water. It seemed to gather a cloud of the driving snow and fairly bury
him under it. He staggered for a moment and stood still, holding his
hands to his face for protection.
"That's a three-reef blow, all right," he muttered, and went on again,
finally beginning the ascent of the mountain. But there he found himself
suddenly assailed by a succession of gusts that made it impossible to
try to climb. Moreover, the air was rapidly becoming so thick with snow
that he saw he was in danger of being lost.
He made up his mind quickly, realizing the danger he was in, and started
back down stream. He must gain shelter soon, or he would be unable to
find his way. He was not any too hasty in his decision. In a few minutes
the outlines of the stream and its banks were blended into a blurred
white mass. Then he could no longer see the shore at any distance, and
even the path was being blotted out.
He found, too, it was with difficulty that he could breathe, for the
incessant flying of the snow into his nostrils. Estimating, as best he
could, where the Half Way House must lie, he struck off from the stream
and headed for that. He stumbled on blindly, till his progress was
suddenly arrested by his bumping into an object that proved, most
fortunately, to be Colonel Witham's flag-pole. Even at that short
distance, the inn was now hidden; but he knew where it must be, and
presently stood safe upon its piazza.
It was an odd situation for Henry Burns. Once before, had Colonel Witham
refused him shelter under this roof, and that, too, in a storm. But he
knew there was no help for it now. He had got to enter--and he had got
to stay. No human being could go on to-night. He hesitated only for a
moment, and then opened the door and stepped within.
The office was vacant, and the air was chilly. The remains of a wood
fire smouldered, rather than burned, in the fireplace. There was no lamp
lighted, although it was quite dark, with the storm and approaching
evening. The place seemed deserted.
Henry Burns stepped to the desk, took a match from a box and lighted the
lamp that hung there. It cast a dismal glow, and added little to the
cheer of the place, although it enabled him to distinguish objects
better. He turned to the hearth, raked the embers together, blew up a
tiny blaze and replenished the fire from the wood-box. He threw off his
outer garments, and drew a chair toward the blaze.
But now, from an adjoining room, the door of which was slightly ajar,
there came unexpectedly a thin, querulous voice that startled him. He
recognized, the next moment, the tones of old Granny Thornton.
"Is that you, Dan?" she asked.
Henry Burns opened the door and answered. She seemed afraid, until he
had told her who he was, begging him to go away from the place and not
harm a poor, lone woman. But she recognized him, when he had spoken
again, and had lighted another lamp and held it for her to look at him.
She sat in an arm-chair, in which she had been evidently sleeping,
propped up with pillows; and looked ill and feeble.
"I'm cold," she said, and shivered.
Henry Burns dragged her chair out into the office, by the fire, while
she clung to the arms of it, as though in terror of tumbling out on to
the floor. And, in that brief journey from room to room, it flashed over
Henry Burns that the time and opportunity had come for him to know the
secret she possessed.
"Dan won't like to find you here," she muttered. "He ought to be
here--leaving me all alone. My, how it blows! How'd you get here,
anyway? Don't mind what Dan says; you'll have to stay."
"He'll not be here to-night, with this storm keeping up," answered Henry
Burns, "Where is he?"
"He went to town with Bess," said she. "Why don't she come? I'm lonesome
without her. I'm hungry, too. She ought to make me a cup of tea."
"I'll make it," said Henry Burns; "and I'll get something for myself,
too. I'll pay for it, so Witham won't lose by it."
He made his way to the kitchen and the pantry; lighted a fire in the
kitchen stove, and made tea for himself and Granny Thornton; and toasted
some bread for her. Then he foraged for himself and ate a hearty meal,
for he was ravenously hungry. And, all the while, he was thinking what
he should do and say to the old woman, nodding in the chair out in the
office.
He returned there, and put more wood on the fire, so that it blazed up
brightly, and the sparks shot up the flue with a roar. The roar was more
than answered by the wind outside. It rattled the glass in the windows,
and dashed the snow against them as though it would break them in. It
found a hundred cracks and crevices about the old inn, to moan and
shriek through, and blew a thin film of snow under the door.
Old Granny Thornton shook and quivered, as some of the sharper blasts
cried about the corners of the house. She seemed frightened; and once
she spoke up in a half whisper, and asked Henry Burns if he believed
there were ever spirits out on such a night as this. He would have
laughed away her fears, under ordinary circumstances; but it suited his
purpose better now to shake his head, and answer, truthfully enough,
that he didn't know.
Presently, the old woman started up in her chair and stared anxiously at
one of the snow-covered windows.
"They might be lost!" she cried, hoarsely. "They could be lost to-night
in this storm, like folks were in the great blizzard twenty years ago.
Oh, Bess"--she uttered the girl's name with a sob--"I hope you're safe.
You'd die in this snow. Say, boy, do you suppose they've got shelter?
It's not Dan Witham I care for, whether he's dead or not, but Little
Bess."
Henry Burns stepped in front of the old woman, and looked into her eyes.
"What do you care whether Bess is lost or not?" he asked. "She don't
belong to you. She's not yours. You're not her grandmother."
At the words, so quick and unexpected, Granny Thornton shrank back as
though she had received a blow. Her eyes rolled in her head, and she
seemed to be trying to reply; but the words would not come. She gasped
and choked, and clutched at her throat with her shrunken hands.
Henry Burns spoke again, grasping one of her hands, and compelling her
to listen.
"Somebody else wants her home more than you do," he said. "Why don't you
give her back? She's too smart and bright to go to the poorhouse, when
you die. Why do you keep her here?"
He spoke at random, knowing not whether he was near the secret or not,
but determined that he would make her speak out.
But she sank down in her chair, huddled into an almost shapeless,
half-lifeless heap. Her head was buried in her hands. She rocked feebly
to and fro. Once she roused herself a bit, and strove to ask a question,
but seemed to be overcome with weakness. Henry Burns thought he divined
what she would ask, and answered.
"I know it's so," he said. "You can't hide it any longer. I've found it
out."
It seemed as though she would not speak again. The minutes went by,
ticked off in clamorous sound, by a big clock on the wall. Granny
Thornton still crouched all in a heap in her chair, moaning to herself.
Henry Burns remained silent and waited.
Then when, all at once, the old woman brought herself upright, with a
jerk, and spoke to him, the sound of her voice amazed him. It was not
unlike the tone in which she had answered Colonel Witham, the night
Henry Burns overheard her. It was shrill and sharp, though with a
whining intonation. What she said was most unexpected.
"Have you been to school?" she queried.
Henry Burns stared hard. He thought her mind wandering. But she
continued.
"Don't stare that way--haven't you any wit? Can you write? Hurry--I'm
afeared Dan will be here."
Henry Burns understood, in a flash. He sprang to the desk, got the pen
and ink there and a block of coarse paper, the top sheet of which had
some figuring on it. He returned to the old woman's side and sat down,
with the paper on his knees. She stared at him blankly for a few
moments--then said abruptly:
"Write it down just as I tell you. I'm going to die soon--Don't stare
like that--write it down. Dan Witham can't harm me then, and I'm going
to tell. Her name isn't Bess Thornton--it's Bess Ellison."
Henry Burns's hand almost refused to write. But he controlled himself,
and followed her.
"Dan shan't have her," she continued. "I'll give her up, first. Twelve
years ago last June she was born. And she weren't as pretty as my girl's
baby, that was born the same day--though they looked alike, too.
"My girl's name was Elizabeth, but she's dead. She was a sight prettier
than Lizzie Anderson that married Jim Ellison. But my girl married Tom
Howland, and he ran away and left her, and that just before the baby was
born. And her baby, Elizabeth Howland, was born the same day, I tell
you, as Lizzie Ellison's baby. That one was named Elizabeth,
too--Elizabeth Ellison. That's Bess.
"And when the two babies were born, why we were poor and Jim Ellison was
well-to-do. The Thorntons got in debt, and he bought up the mortgages.
And when Bess Ellison was born, her mother was so ill she didn't see the
baby for many weeks; and my girl went up to the house in about three
weeks to nurse both babies, we being poor. And I went up, too, to look
after things.
"I guess my girl was wild, too, though I won't blame her now. One day
she went to town and didn't come back; and she left me a note, saying
she wouldn't ever come back, anyway. And I could bring up the
baby--which I didn't like to do, because I'd brought up one, and now
she'd run away.
"So I was getting ready to go back to the house and take the baby with
me; and I took care of both babies for a day or two. And just as I was
planning to go back, there lay the two, side by side in the bed; and I
could hardly tell which was which--they looked so much alike.
"Then what put it into my head, I don't know. But I thought that, if I
changed the two, nobody'd know, because Bess Ellison's mother hadn't
seen her. And I thought of how the property would come back to the
Thorntons that way, if I put my girl's Bess in the other's place. And I
up and did it, quick.
"Then, when I got home with Lizzie Ellison's baby, why I found I'd been
so hasty I'd brought away a chain and bit of money, that they'd put
about her neck. It was an old coin that had been in the family for
years, and was thought to carry good luck--so I learned afterwards. I
meant to take it back, but I couldn't, right away, and then I lost the
coin. Oh, how I hunted for it! But I never could find it.
"Now are you putting it all down? Be quick, or Dan might come in. It was
all for nothing--what I did--for my girl's baby died two years later.
Let me look what you've got there. I know school-writing. I went to
school once. Give me the pen. I'll put my name down to that. Hold my
hand, so it won't shake. That's my name. It don't look like much, I
guess. But that's it."
Tremblingly, the old woman took the pen and, guided by Henry Burns,
subscribed her name to what he had written. Then she spoke again:
"Go into that bed-room and look in the top drawer. There's a key there.
That's the key to the old house."
Henry Burns followed her instructions, and brought forth the key. She
bade him keep it, and go the next day and get the stuff in the attic:
the chain, minus its locket; the little dress, and a pair of shoes. She
mourned the loss of the coin, lest her strange story might not be
believed by Mrs. Ellison, without that evidence--not knowing that the
coin had even now come into Mrs. Ellison's own hands.
She sank into a doze not long after; and Henry Burns also slept, on a
couch in the office, with a buffalo robe over him. He woke early next
day, waded through the drifts to the old house, and got the things from
the drawer. Then he went down the road.
Below the old mill, near the road that ran up to the Ellison farm, a
horse and sledge came in sight, travelling slowly. Henry Burns's pulse
beat quicker as he recognized Colonel Witham and Bess coming up from
Benton, where they had passed the night. Colonel Witham scowled upon
him, but the girl smiled.
"Hello," she said. "Isn't everything pretty, all covered with snow?
Where'd you come from so early?"
Henry Burns could hardly answer her. He faced Colonel Witham.
"Granny Thornton's got an errand up at the Ellisons' for Bess," he said.
"I just came from the inn, I left the money for my lodging, too. Mrs.
Ellison wants to see Bess."
Colonel Witham grumbled. "I won't wait for her," he said. "She'll have
to foot it up through the snow."
"I don't care," exclaimed the girl, and sprang lightly out.
Henry Burns never did remember what was said on that walk up to the
farm. His mind was taken up with one subject. He had a vague
remembrance, after it was all over, of knocking at the door, and of
their being both admitted; of his almost ignoring the greeting of the
brothers; of his finding himself and Bess somehow in the parlour with
Mrs. Ellison.
He remembered, afterward, of handing the writing he had done, at old
Granny Thornton's bidding, to Mrs. Ellison, and of her starting to read
it and breaking down suddenly; of her asking him many questions about
it, and of his answering them almost in a daze. He remembered that Mrs.
Ellison resumed the reading, the tears streaming down her cheeks; of how
he laid down the little bundle of stuff he had brought from the attic,
and pointed it out to Mrs. Ellison.
He remembered that Mrs. Ellison sprang up and seized the child in her
arms--and just about that time Henry Burns stole out and left the two
together; so that he never did know just what happened next.