The tramp had found work as a laborer in the glass factory through the
efforts of some of the good Presbyterian women whose wood piles had been
supplying his breakfasts and dinners for some time. He worked feebly and
with great effort and managed to maintain his rôle of semi-elderly
invalid who was doing his best.
He was working with a gang of other men shovelling sand into a cart when
Silver Greeves came by with a basket of broth and oranges and a lovely
dolly for the little Mary who was now on the high road to recovery.
The tramp paused in the monotony of his service. He put in regularly one
shovelful to the other men’s two. He always paused longest for
interruptions and rested his weary back. The other men paused also and
watched the progress of the lithe girl as she stepped down the roughly
cobbled path and entered the cottage.
“That’s that girl from the Silver family,” said one of the men. “Take
notice of her? She’s been comin’ down to that wop’s house every day.
She’s been takin’ care of the sick kid.”
“Well, they’d oughtta do things like that. They got aplenty ain’t they?
Don’t we keep ’em in cash with our labor? They couldn’t sell this sand
if we didn’t shovel it, could they? She’d make a pretty hand shovellin’
sand, now, wouldn’t she? How would she live if we didn’t shovel her sand
fer her? I ask you.”
“Oh, they got aplenty else ’thout sand anymore. They got stacks and
stacks of money. I heard they got sompin like a million fer the railroad
right of way. She’d oughtta take notice of the poor folks. I guess that
family wasn’t named Silver fer nothin’.”
The tramp gazed steadily at the door where Silver had disappeared and
began to turn around what he heard in his cunning old brain. He let his
companions heave five shovelfuls before he started in again at a rapidly
diminishing sand pile, and his face wore a thoughtful look. Whenever he
stopped to rest he eyed the house where Silver had entered. When she
finally came out, lingering on the doorstep to talk with the smiling
dark-eyed mother he took another siesta and studied the scene carefully,
taking in details of dress and height and coloring. Then his cunning
eyes dropped to his task again and lifted for an instant to meet hers
only when Silver passed opposite to him, as she smiled and greeted them
all in a friendly way.
“Some gurrul!” remarked a short burly man with red curls and a brogue,
“the master must be proud o’her. I guess he’d not take all his millions
for the likes of her!”
“Yes, she’s a fine lady! But it’ll take a plenty millions to keep her in
all she’ll want,” grouched the other man.
“Well, what’s a lady!” said the tramp as he lifted another shovelful of
sand.
Down by the bridge Silver met Bannard and lingered there to watch the
little fishes darting in the stream. She had much to tell him of the
condition of some of the families she had visited. Sam was bringing his
wife over from Italy, and Carmen was having trouble getting his
citizen’s papers. Something about his questionnaire during the war. He
had not understood enough English to make out what they were asking him,
and he couldn’t write it himself, so some absurd mistake had been made.
Could he see the County Judge and straighten it out?
Bannard finally turned and walked back with her through Sweetbriar lane,
into Aunt Katie’s for a moment to get a taste of the honey cakes she was
baking, and so on through the hedge into the sweet old Silver garden.
They lingered talking beside the sun-dial, tracing the quaint figures on
its face, watching the slow, sure march of the sun from point to point.
There was powdered gold in the air and sunshine, powdered fire
shimmering over the tulip bed. The birds sang with joyous abandon as
though they would split their throats. Greeves looked out of his window
from his work, and his heart was at rest. That was a nice fellow. A bit
wrong in his head knowledge, and, his beliefs, but all right in his
heart and living. And after all if one could believe in the old legends
they were a wonderful safeguard. Far be it from him to disturb such
saintly faith. He would be careful what he said about unbelief. It
almost seemed as if what the minister had said had been true. Things had
settled down into a pleasanter way. The siege was lifting, but of course
God had nothing to do with it. It was merely the adjusting of all
elements to environment. It was sound philosophy anyway, to be patient
and wait for things to adjust themselves. Then he went back to his
preface which he was writing with great care.
“If the present advance of science—” How was it he had meant to phrase
that sentence?
And down in the garden the two had sauntered into the summer house and
were telling each other about their early life. It is a beautiful stage
of friendship when two who admire one another reach that point. It is
the building of a foundation for something deeper and truer.
Well for them that the garden was located behind the house, with tall
hedges surrounding, and that neither the Weldons nor Vandemeeters could
penetrate therein, and only the kindly eye of Aunt Katie knew where they
were, or the whole town would have been agog. They found so much to talk
about that the minister forgot to go back to the Flats until the lunch
bell rang in the Silver house, and then he made his sudden apologies and
departed hastily over the fence. Silver went in with flushed cheeks and
bright eyes thinking how wonderfully life was opening out for her who
had been but such a short time before bereft and alone.
Athalie came home from school quite pleasant and tractable. She had an
armful of books and she seemed interested in them. Her father looked the
books over and talked with her a little about them, gave her a few hints
how to concentrate in studying, and went away to his library again
entirely satisfied that he was doing the father-part as well as could be
expected. Perhaps after he got used to it it wouldn’t be so bad after
all.
Meantime Athalie up in her room was working with needle and thread and
scissors to transform several of her new frocks against the coming of
Friday evening, while her books lay in a heap on the floor not to be
touched until the next morning, and her thoughts were wandering a
woolgathering.
* * * * *
About half a mile below the bridge at the lower end of Silver Sands, to
the left of the road where it curves around to go to Frogtown there
rises a little hill. On its top, set in a thick grove of maples, birches
and oaks with plenty of undergrowth, there stands a little one-roomed
hut. It had been built of field stones a long time ago, when the grove
was a big woods of sugar maples, perhaps for a shelter at sugaring off
time. There was a fireplace at one end, a little prison-like window and
a sagging wooden door. The window was boarded up and the door had stood
ajar for years. The boys of the town used to use it for a rendezvous but
had long since deserted it for newer quarters below the bridge where
some enterprising seniors in high school had built a camp among the
pines.
The tramp had sighted this empty dwelling, and after watching it for
several days and sampling its hospitality at night, he took up his abode
therein, repaired the door, unnoticeably, left the window boarded up,
and built his meagre fires at night when no one would see the smoke.
There was plenty of wood around for the rustling.
The floor was the bare earth, and in one corner a pile of leaves and
moss made a bed, with an old blanket he had taken from somebody’s
clothes line down in the village. In a big packing box that he had found
behind the cannery quite early one morning, he kept his frugal stores:
eggs, butter, bread, tobacco, half a ham, and a big black bottle. The
top of the box served as his table. Here he crept at evening when his
shovelling was done, taking care to arrive by a circuitous route, and to
close the door before lighting his bit of a candle. Here at evening he
sat with his pipe and pondered many a scheme, or went over and over the
various mistakes and failures of his life which had landed him in
confinement within stone walls for a time, and searched how he might
carry something through yet again.
That same night he crept to his lair and sat on the sheltered side
looking away toward the village thinking. Through its nest of trees he
could see the white pillars of the Silver house standing as it did at
the eminence of the street, lifting its head just a trifle above all the
other houses. As the twilight deepened and darkness gave opportunity for
Sin to walk abroad unrecognized, he loitered down the hill and crept by
unused paths into the town where he had a few patrons who kept their
little odd jobs for him at night. They talked about him in their sewing
circle and said he was a self-respecting man, and one had given him a
shirt, and one some pairs of much darned socks and they talked about
helping him to find a place to board where he could look after the
furnace for his keep when winter came on. Drab he was as he walked along
in the shadow side of the moonlit street, and drab he faded into space
when he came to a high hedge. Carefully he stole around the old Silver
place, and felt out the garden paths, rubber tired he surrounded the
spot and peered in cautiously at all the windows. He studied the lines
of Patterson Greeves’ thoughtful face as he sat at his desk working on
that preface, and judged it cannily with the eye of a specialist. He put
his ugly mask to the very pane of glass beside Silver’s head as she sat
reading in the big easy chair at the other end of the library. He
cautiously searched the darkened drawing room with a pocket flash, and
he took in the dining room, especially the silver on the sideboard while
Anne and Molly were setting the table for breakfast. The kitchen was not
so easy, but he managed it while Joe and Molly and Anne sat eating their
dinner.
“I thought I saw a face at the window, Joe, go out and see if someone is
looking for you,” said Anne in her calm voice, and Joe shoved back his
chair noisily and went out, but came back presently and reported that
Anne was “seein’ things.”
“It must be the young huzzy upstairs is gettin’ on yer nerves, Anne.”
“The young lady’s all right the last two days,” said Anne complacently,
Athalie’s church going and willingness to go to school had done much
toward mollifying Anne. “And _I saw_ a face at the window. It was likely
Jock Miller brought back that sickle you lent him. I’m not so old that I
can’t tell a face at the window when I see it.”
Back in the lilac bushes among the lilies-of-the-valley a drab shape
huddled, listened, and presently shrunk away, puzzling. That wasn’t the
young lady he saw pass the fire house that day. Were there two?
For the rest of that week life settled down into the grooves of what a
well regulated family life should be and Patterson Greeves took heart of
hope and plunged into his book. Athalie had been regular at school, late
only once, and seemed to be giving actual attention to her studies. She
professed to be deeply interested in education for the first time in her
life, and took her books upstairs to her room immediately after dinner
at night. Her father began to hope that perhaps she had inherited his
love of study. Several times she came to him with some question about
her lessons. Usually some unusual question. She was sharp as a needle.
Would he ever learn to be proud of her? If she only weren’t so fat, so
sort of fleshly.
Friday morning as Athalie was about to start for school she stepped into
the dining room where Anne was crumbing the table preparatory to taking
off the breakfast cloth and said loftily:
“Oh, Truesdale! Have plenty of cake ready this afternoon. I’m bringing
guests.”
“There’s always plenty of cake in the house,” said Anne stiffly. She
wasn’t sure she cared for being called Truesdale. Of course it was
English, but she had an inkling that in this case it was intended for
patronage.
“I mean—_lots_!” said Athalie. “There’ll be about twelve of us
altogether.”
“There’s always cake enough in the house for twenty if need be!” Anne
froze.
“They’ll all be here for dinner I think,” added Athalie as she closed
the door and ran down the steps, “I told dad about it.”
Now it happened that “dad” had gone to the city on the seven o’clock
train to consult a book in the library.
“It’s strange he said nothing to me about it. He’s always that
particular about making trouble,” said Anne as she reported the invasion
to Molly.
“Aw, that’s all right, Anne,” said Molly cheerfully, “you’d oughtta be
glad she’s going to be friendly with the townspeople. We’ll just get up
a real dinner Anne, and let her have a good time. The master’ll like it.
He seems real satisfied with the way she’s took to school.”
“Yes,” agreed Anne grudgingly, “but I’d a been better satisfied if the
master had a spoke to me hisself. Howsomever!”
The house was always spick and span. Anne saw to it that there were
flowers in the vases, and the best doilies as if for a company of
ladies.
“Because them childer has eyes and tongues in their heads,” she
explained to Molly who came in to consult her as to whether she should
make hard sauce or boiled sauce for the bread pudding that was destined
for lunch.
Athalie telephoned at noon that she was not coming home to lunch.
“She’ll be taking it with some of the girls!” she said happily, “it’s
nice to think of her gettin’ in and bein’ like other girls. Mebbe she’ll
get rid of her queer hair and eyebrows some day. I think she might be
passable lookin’ if she didn’t dress so queer! Now them dresses he
bought her. They looked real simple, but when she gets um on they
somehow look diffrunt. But I’m sorry she didn’t come home, I wanted to
ask her more about who’s coming? How’ll we know to set table?”
“Oh, there’ll be time when she comes! Half past three is aplenty.” So
they set about the delightful task of getting up a young dinner party
again in the old house which had not happened since master Pat’s
twenty-first birthday.
* * * * *
It was nearing three o’clock when a taxi from the city drew up at the
door causing great sensation over at the Vandemeeter’s. They had seen
Mr. Greeves go away early in the morning. They could not figure out who
this might be.
A young woman got out and paid the driver, preceding him up the walk to
the house as he carried two armfuls of luggage.
“She’s all tails around her feet,” said grandma Vandemeeter, “and I can
see myself without any glasses that she’s got a painted face even if she
has got a mosquito netting over her hat.”
“This is Marcella Mason,” announced the stranger as Anne opened the
door. “I suppose you’re expecting me. I’ll just have my bags carried up
to my room at once. I’m frightfully dusty. Hot water please. I suppose
you have plenty of it here in the country? If not please heat it at
once. I’m accustomed to a hot bath.”
A silver dollar skillfully manipulated slid into Anne’s astonished hand
and out again to the floor quicker than it went in. She stepped back
indignantly, with blazing cheeks and snapping eyes.
“Is that your money, Miss? You dropped it!” she said crisply.
“Why, that’s your tip!” laughed the girl, “don’t you want it?”
“Tip?” repeated Anne with her chin aloft, “tip? I don’t understand you.
You’d best pick it up, Miss or it’ll get lost. You can step this way.”
She led the way up the wide stair, thinking rapidly. It was not in the
possibility that this upstart should occupy one of the best rooms. Anne
led her down the back hall to a little bedroom off the sewing room where
a seamstress sometimes stayed. Neat and trim it was with a single iron
bed, a bit of a bureau and a stationary washstand. Silver house was not
behind the times in the matter of conveniences.
“You can put your things down on the chair,” said Anne indifferently.
The stranger advanced and surveyed the room.
“Oh, I’m afraid this room won’t do for me!” she looked around. “No pier
glass. And don’t you have private baths? What other rooms have you? I
came first to make my choice. This seems to be a large house.”
“This is the only one, Miss. You can take it or leave it as you like.
I’m busy just now. You’ll have to excuse me. Miss Athalie will be home
from school in a short while.”
“School! You don’t mean to tell me she goes to school! That’s rich! She
swore she’d never enter a school room again!”
Anne gave her a withering glance and departed in high dudgeon.
“You should see the huzzy now!” she told Molly. “Rings on her fingers
and jewels on her toes. And the impertinence of her! Offering me money
like a porter in a hotel. Well, I wonder what the master’ll be saying
now!”
“The master just called up whilst you was upstairs. He says he may miss
the first train and not to wait for him, to go right on and have dinner.
I guess he thought he’d like to get out of the fuss of it.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder! I wish Miss Athalie was here. Miss Silver
hasn’t got back from the Flats yet, has she? She’s a good girl. She
would go see to that thing upstairs. Keep watch for her comin’ and tell
me. I’ll warn her afore she goes up the stair.”
But Silver was helping an Italian woman to make a little dress for her
baby and did not come home until five o’clock. Before that time many
things had happened.
Before Athalie arrived the three o’clock train had come in and a troop
of young people, shouting, laughing, hooting at every person they
passed, criticizing the houses, jeering at the stores, came pouring down
the street. Their baggage followed in Hoskin’s express wagon, with two
men on behind to help and observe. The girls were attired in most
striking costumes, and lolled on the boys’ arms, pulled off each other’s
hats and threw them into the street, and in general conducted themselves
with great indiscretion. The villagers came to their front windows in
astonishment and deep disapproval and one woman even telephoned for the
police who happened to be away from his headquarters at that moment.
They stormed up on the Silver front veranda like a hurricane, having
enquired of everyone they met where “Greeveses” lived, and while they
awaited the answer to their continuous and imperious knocking, two girls
and a young man had a skirmish in the yard incidentally breaking off
three of Joe’s most cherished hyacinth blooms.
Then down the stairs with boisterous laughter tripped the young woman
who had arrived in a taxi; and opened the door before the scandalized
Anne could get farther than the pantry.
“Oh, boy! I guess I put one over on you this time!” screamed the girl.
The horde swarmed in, flinging caps and handbags in every direction.
“Here’s Marcy! I say that isn’t fair, Marcy! You got the best room! You
always do.”
“Come on up and take your choice. There’s not so awful many as I thought
there’d be. The old prune that showed me up gave me a sort of servant’s
room, but I got rid of her and went around till I found what I wanted. I
take the left hand front, and I’ve got my door locked so you needn’t try
to get in. I’ll take Maebeth with me and nobody else. There’s plenty of
room. I’ve been everywhere. You two girls better take that other front
room. There’s somebody’s things in there, but you shouldn’t worry.
Possession is how many points? I forget. Violet better go with Ath. Her
things are in that second door. Say, boys, did you bring the booze?
Plenty of it? Isn’t that great. We’ll have a real time! You boys better
go up to the third story. There’s five big rooms up there! Come on Beth,
let’s hurry and get dressed before Ath comes. She goes to school! Isn’t
that the limit? She must have some old grouch of a governor! Don’t say
anything. His clothes must be in this closet and I’m going down to
dinner in _his dress suit_—!”
“Oh Marcy! Do you _dare_, Marcy?”
“My soul!” said Anne Truesdale, “what’ll we do? Do you think maybe I
better send for the minister? Oh, I wish you had told me master Pat was
on the phone.”
“But you didn’t know it then.”
“Well, no, but I coulda told him about there being company.”
“Well, you didn’t. I guess that harum scarum’ll be home pretty soon.
There she comes now, running! I’d give her a piece of my mind, I
certainly would!”