Again it snowed all night. "My goodness me!" sighed Carolyn May the next
morning when she arose, to find all the paths filled up again. "Don't it
_ever_ stop snowing till springtime comes around again, Aunty Rose?"
"Oh, yes," answered the housekeeper, smiling quietly. "But I thought you
loved the snow?"
"I do," the child responded. "Anyway, I guess I do," she added. "But--but
couldn't they spread it out a little thinner? Seems to me we must be
getting it all at once. Why, I can't see any of the walls or fences!"
That was true enough. Uncle Joe had even to dig Prince out of his house
that morning. After that, when it stormed, Prince was allowed to lie by
the kitchen fire--certainly a great concession on Aunty Rose's part.
This was really the heaviest storm of the season, so far. When Carolyn
May floundered to school, with Prince going in front to break the path,
there was a huge bank of snow piled against one corner of the
schoolhouse. This quite closed up the boys' door, and only the girls'
entrance could be used.
But the boys got to work at recess and tunnelled through the great
drift, so that there was a passage to their door. The wind had packed
the snow hard, and the crust had frozen, so there was a safe roof over
the tunnel through the snow.
At noon some of the girls went through the passage, too; and among them
was Carolyn May. As she went down the steps she laughed gleefully,
crying:
"Oh, it's like going into the subway, isn't it?"
"What's the subway?" asked Freda Payne instantly. "You don't mean to say
you have snow tunnels like this in the city, do you? You said men carted
the snow all away in wagons, or melted it. Can't be much snow where you
come from, Car'lyn May."
"Oh, no; not snow tunnels," the city child explained. She had to do a
good deal of explaining these days. "The subway's just a hole in the
ground, and you go down steps into it, and it's all--all marble, I guess,
'cause it's white and shiny. And trains come along, and you get on, and
you ride all the way from One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street down to
papa's office, and----"
"Oh, Car'lyn May Cam'ron!" shrieked Freda.
"Trains under the ground?" demanded another of her schoolmates.
"Yes," said the little city girl.
"Trains of _cars_? Like our trains up here?"
"Ye-es," said Carolyn May slowly, feeling that her tale was disbelieved.
"My mercy!" declared the black-eyed girl. "That's the biggest story
you've told us yet. I'm going to tell my mamma about that. She says
you've got such a 'magination. But I know _this_ is just plain fib, and
nothing else--so there!"
It hurt Carolyn May sorely to have her word doubted. She had begun to
shrink from telling her little friends about any of the wonders which
had been such commonplace matters to her when she had lived in New York.
They simply could not believe the things the city child said were so.
It was on this very day, and at noon time, when Mr. Stagg was returning
to the store, that a most astounding thing happened.
Had Mrs. Gormley seen it, that good woman would have had such a measure
of gossip to relate as she had not enjoyed for a long time. It was,
indeed, a most amazing occurrence.
Mr. Stagg was walking briskly towards Sunrise Cove in his big felt
snow-boots, such as all men wore in that locality, and was abreast of
the Parlow shop and cottage--which he always sought to avoid looking
at--when he heard a door open and close.
He tried not to look that way. But his ear told him instantly that the
person who had come out was Miss Amanda, rather than her father. Knowing
this, how could he help darting a glance at her?
For more years than he cared to count, Joseph Stagg had been passing
back and forth along this road. Sometimes, in his secret heart, he
wished the Parlow place would burn down, or be otherwise swept from its
site. It was an abomination to him. Yet he was always tempted to steal a
glance as he passed, in hope of seeing Miss Amanda. He often saw Mr.
Parlow staring from his shop at him, his grey old face puckered into a
scowl, but the carpenter's daughter was seldom in evidence when Mr.
Stagg went by. She might be, at such times, behind the front-room blinds
peering out at him; but he did not know that.
It had not always been so. As Chet Gormley's gossipy mother had told
Carolyn May, time was when the hardware dealer--then having just opened
his store in Sunrise Cove--and the carpenter's daughter were frequently
together.
Often when Joseph Stagg came in sight of the Parlow residence Amanda was
at the gate. She sometimes walked to town with him. He even
remembered--but that was still earlier in their lives--pulling her on his
red sled. There had never been any other girl Joe Stagg cared for. And
now----
He ventured another quick glance towards the Parlow side of the road.
Miss Amanda stood on the porch, looking directly at him.
"Mr. Stagg," she called earnestly, "I must speak to you."
Save on the Sunday when Prince had killed the blacksnake, Miss Amanda
had not spoken directly to the hardware merchant in all these hungry
years. It rather shocked Joseph Stagg now that she should do so.
"Will you come in?" she urged him, her voice rather tremulous.
There was a moment of absolute silence.
"Bless me! Yes!" ejaculated the hardware man finally.
He turned in at the path to the gate, opened the latter, and reached the
porch. He was quite himself when he arrived before her.
"I assure you, Mr. Stagg," Miss Amanda said hurriedly, "it is no
personal matter that causes me to stop you in this fashion."
"No, ma'am?" responded the man stiffly.
He was looking directly at her now, and it was Miss Amanda who could not
bring her gaze to meet his. Her face had first flushed, and now was
pale. The long lashes, lowered over her brown eyes, curled against her
smooth cheek. Like Carolyn May, Mr. Stagg thought her a very lovely
lady, indeed.
"I want you to come in and speak with this sailor who was hurt," she
finally said. "Carolyn May has told you about him, hasn't she?"
"The whole neighbourhood has been talking about it," returned Joseph
Stagg grimly.
"Yes, I suppose so," Miss Amanda said hastily. "There is something he
can tell you, Mr. Stagg, that I think you should know."
To say that he was puzzled would be putting it mildly. Mr. Stagg felt as
though he were in a dream as he followed Miss Amanda indoors. And he
expected an awakening at any moment.
"My father has gone into town, Mr. Stagg," explained Miss Amanda,
leading the way through the hall, or "entry," into the kitchen.
The cheerful little kitchen, full of light and warmth, was very
attractive to Mr. Stagg. He had not been in it for a long time. The big
rocking-chair by the window, in which Miss Amanda's mother had for
several years before her death spent her waking hours, was now occupied
by the sailor. His head was still swathed in bandages, but his grey eyes
were keen, and he nodded briskly to the storekeeper.
"This is the little girl's uncle, Benjamin," Miss Amanda said quietly.
"He will be interested in what you have already told me about the loss
of the _Dunraven_. Will you please repeat it all?"
"The _Dunraven_?" gasped Mr. Stagg, sitting down without being asked.
"Hannah----"
"There is no hope, of course," Amanda Parlow spoke up quickly, "that
your sister, Mr. Stagg, and her husband were not lost. But having found
out that Benjamin was on that steamer with them, I thought you should
know. I have warned him to be careful how he speaks before Carolyn May.
You may wish to hear the story at first hand."
"Thank you," choked Joseph Stagg. He wanted to say more, but could not.
Benjamin Hardy's watery eyes blinked, and he blew his nose.
"Aye, aye, mate!" he rumbled, "hard lines--for a fact. I give my
tes-ti-mony 'fore the consul when we was landed--so did all that was left
of us from the _Dunraven_. Me bein' an unlettered man, they didn't run
me very clos't. I can't add much more to it.
"As I say, that purser's boat your sister and her sickly husband was in
had jest as good a chance as we had. We nigh bumped into each other soon
after the _Dunraven_ sunk. So, then, we pulled off aways from each
other. Then the fog rolled up from the African shore--a heap o' fog,
mate. It sponged out the lamp in the purser's boat. We never seen no
more of 'em--nor heard no more."
He went on with other particulars, but all, so Mr. Stagg thought, futile
and pointless. He knew the steamship, _Dunraven_, had sunk; and what
mattered it whether Hannah and her husband had gone down with her or
gone down with the purser's boat a few hours later? In his agony of
spirit, he said something like this--and rather brusquely--to the old
seaman.
"Aye, aye," admitted Benjamin Hardy. "'Twould seem so to a landsman. But
there is many a wonder of the sea that landsmen don't know about, sir."
"Tell Mr. Stagg about the fog and the current, Benjamin," urged Miss
Amanda.
Joseph Stagg looked across the room at Miss Amanda, but he listened to
the sailor. Benjamin Hardy had plainly thought much about the incidents
surrounding the loss of the _Dunraven_. Perhaps, as time passed, and he
saw those incidents in better perspective, his wondering about them had
evolved theories. Whether these theories were to be accepted without
suspicion was another matter.
Joseph Stagg was not a credulous man. Indeed, he was, in a business
sense, suspicious. Mr. Parlow had said that Joe Stagg bit every quarter
he took in over his counter to find out whether it was lead or silver!
The hardware dealer listened now to the sailor's rather wandering tale
with more patience than interest. Indeed, it was as much out of
politeness to Miss Amanda as anything that kept him from interrupting.
"It was the current confused us. The purser had a sea anchor out," said
Benjamin Hardy. "Something like a drag, mister. Kept his boat from
driftin'. And that's how us in the first officer's boat come nigh
smashin' into him. There's a strong set of the current towards the
African coast in them parts.
"Well, sir, after the two boats come so nigh smashin' into each other,
the purser must have slipped his drag. Anyway, the fog come up thick
from the south and hid their lights from us. We never heard no cry, nor
nothin'. Then, after day-break, the French battleships that had stood by
picked us up, but we couldn't find the purser's boat.
"The fog still lay as thick as a blanket to the so'th'ard--how thick and
how far we didn't know. And the Frenchman, I reckon, was afraid it might
hide more of the enemy, and she was crippled. No, sir, if the purser's
boat had drifted off that way--and the set of the tide was that way, I
know--we couldn't have seen nor heard her if she was more'n a mile off."
"And were Hannah--were my sister and her husband in that boat?" queried
Mr. Stagg thoughtfully.
"I am sure, by the details Benjamin has given me," said Miss Amanda
softly, "that your sister and Mr. Cameron were two of its passengers."
"Well, it's a long time ago, now," said the hardware dealer. "Surely, if
they had been picked up or had reached the coast of Africa, we would
have heard about it."
"It would seem so," the woman agreed gently.
"You never know what may happen at sea, mister, till it happens,"
Benjamin Hardy declared. "What became of that boat----"
He seemed to stick to that idea. But the possibility of the small boat's
having escaped seemed utterly preposterous to Mr. Stagg. He arose to
depart.
"Of course, you won't say anything to the child to disturb her mind," he
said. "Poor little thing! It's hard enough for her as it is."
"I'll keep my jaws clamped shut like a clam, mister," declared the
sailor.
Miss Amanda followed the hardware dealer to the outer door. She
hesitated to speak, yet Mr. Stagg's unhappy face won an observation from
her.
"Oh, don't you suppose there is _any_ chance of their being alive?" she
whispered.
"After all these months?" groaned Mr. Stagg. "The old fellow may tell
the truth, as far as he's gone, and as far as he knows; but if they were
alive we'd have heard about it before now. That African coast isn't a
desert--nor yet a wilderness--nowadays. Those Arabs have been pretty well
tamed, I reckon. No, we'd have heard long before this."
"I'm sorry," said Miss Amanda simply.
"Thank--thank you," murmured Joseph Stagg before she closed the door.
He went on to town, his mind strangely disturbed. It was not his
sister's fate that filled his heart and brain, but thoughts of Miss
Amanda.
She had deliberately broken the silence of years! Of course, it might be
attributed to her interest in Carolyn May only, yet the hardware dealer
wondered.
He could not get interested in the big ledger that afternoon. Old Jimmy,
the cat, leaped upon his desk, purring, and walked right across the fair
page of the book, making an awful smudge where the ink was not dry, and
Joseph Stagg merely said: "Scat, Jimmy!" and paid no further attention.
Out through the office window he stared, and out of the transom above
the front door. He could see a blue patch of sky, across which now and
then a grey-white cloud floated. In those floating clouds Mr. Stagg
began to read a future which had little to do with the dull prospect of
the hardware store itself.
"_Look up!_"
The thought came to him while his countenance was a-smile. His reverie
had surely inspired a pleasanter feeling within and a happier expression
without. Carolyn May's reiterated phrase rather startled Joseph Stagg.
"Why, the child's right," he murmured. "It's looking up makes a man
dream of happiness. But--it's only a dream, I reckon. Only a dream."
His immediate thoughts did not fall into the old groove, however. Not at
once. When he went home to supper that evening he boldly stared at the
Parlow house, on the watch for something. There were lights in the
kitchen and the dining-room. And was that a figure moving cautiously
behind the lace curtains at the front-room window?