LOOKING BACKWARD
Doctor Morrison declared that it was due to Betty's skill in nursing
more than to his drugs, but it is certain that, once started, the
aunts gained steadily. In two or three days from the time they first
sat up he pronounced it safe for them to be dressed, and while they
were still a bit shaky, they took great delight in walking about the
house.
Bob was introduced to them off-handedly one morning by the doctor,
and though both old ladies started at his name, they said nothing.
After the physician's car had gone, Miss Hope came out on to the back
porch where Betty was peeling potatoes and Bob mending a loose
floor-board.
"My sister and I----" stammered Miss Hope, "we were wondering if you
were a neighbor's boy. We've seen so little of our neighbors these
last few years, that we haven't kept track of the new families who
have moved into the neighborhood. I don't recollect any Hendersons
about here, do you, Sister?"
Miss Charity, who had followed her, shook her head.
Bob looked at Betty, and Betty looked helplessly at Bob. Now that the
time had come they were afraid of the effect the news might have on
the sisters. Bob, as he said afterward, "didn't know how to begin,"
and Betty wished fervently that her uncle could be there to help them
out.
"A long time ago," said Miss Hope dreamily, "we knew a man named
Henderson, David Henderson. He married our younger sister."
Caution deserted Bob, and, without intending to, he made his
announcement.
"David Henderson was my father," he stated.
Miss Hope turned so white that Betty thought she would faint, and
Miss Charity's mouth opened in speechless amazement.
"Then you are Faith's son," said Miss Hope slowly, clinging to the
door for support. "Ever since Doctor Morrison introduced you, I
wanted to stare at you, you looked so like the Saunders. Faith
didn't--she was more like the Dixons, our mother's people. But you
are Saunders through and through; isn't he, Charity?"
"He looks so much like you," quavered Miss Charity, "that I'd know in
a minute he was related to us. But Faith--your mother--is she, did
she----?"
"She died the night I was born," said Bob simply. "Almost fifteen
years ago."
The sisters must have expected this; indeed, hope that their sister
lived had probably deserted them years ago; and yet the confirmation
was naturally something of a shock. They clung to each other for a
moment, and then Miss Hope, rather to Bob's embarrassment, walked
over to him and solemnly kissed him.
"My dear, dear nephew!" she murmured.
Then Miss Charity, more timidly, kissed him too, and presently they
were all sitting down quietly on the porch, checking up the long
years.
When Bob's tin box was finally opened, and the marriage certificate
of his parents, the picture of his mother in her wedding gown, and
a yellowed letter or two examined and cried over softly by the
aunts, Miss Hope began to piece together the story of their lives
since Bob's mother had left them. Bob and Betty had found Faith's
photograph in the family album, but Miss Hope brought out the old
Bible and showed them where her mother had made the entry of the
marriage of his mother and father.
"They went away for a week for their wedding trip, and then came back
to get a few things for housekeeping," said the old lady, patting
Betty's hand where it lay in her lap. Bob was still looking over the
Bible. "Then they said they were going to Chicago, and they drove
away one bright morning, eighteen years ago. And not one word did we
ever hear from Faith, or from David, not one word. It killed father
and mother, the anxiety and the suspense. They died within a week of
each other and less than a year after Faith went. Charity and I
always wanted to go to Chicago and hunt for 'em, but there was the
expense. We had only this farm, and the interest took every cent we
could rake together. How on earth we'll pay it this year is more than
I can see."
"What do you think was the reason they didn't write?" urged Miss
Charity, in her gentle old voice. "There were almost three years
'fore you came along. Why couldn't they write? I know David was good
to Faith--he worshiped her. So that couldn't have been the reason.
Bob, is your father dead, too?"
"I'll tell you, though perhaps I shouldn't," said Bob slowly. "If I
give you pain, remember it is better to hear it from me than from a
stranger, as you otherwise might. Aunt Hope--and Aunt Charity--I was
born in the Gladden county poorhouse, in the East."
There was a gasp from Miss Hope, but Bob hurried on, pretending not
to hear.
"My father, they think, was killed in a railroad wreck," he said. "At
least there was a bad wreck several miles from where they found my
mother nearly crazed and with no baggage beyond this little tin box
and the clothes she wore. Grief and exposure had driven her almost
out of her mind, and in her ravings, they tell me, she talked
continuously about 'the brakes' and 'that glaring headlight.' And
then, toward the end, she spoke of her husband and said she couldn't
wake him up to speak to her. There is small doubt in my mind but that
he died in the wreck. Mother died the night I was born, and until I
was ten I lived in the poorhouse. Then I was hired out to a farmer,
and the third year on his place I met Betty, who came to spend the
summer there. An old bookman, investigating a pile of old books and
records at the poorhouse, found that Saunders was my mother's maiden
name and he traced my relatives for me."
Bob briefly sketched his trip to Washington and his experiences
there, and during the recital the aunts learned a great deal about
Betty, too. Their first shock at hearing that their sister had died
in the poorhouse gradually lessened, but they were still puzzled to
account for the three years' silence that had preceded his birth.
"I'll tell you how I think it was," said Bob. "This is only
conjecture, mind. I think my father wasn't successful in a business
way, and he must have wanted to give my mother comforts and luxuries
and a pleasant home. He probably kept thinking that in a few weeks
things would be better, and insensibly he persuaded her to put off
writing till she could ask you to come to see her. If she had lived
after I was born, I am sure she would have written, whether my father
prospered or not. But I imagine they were both proud."
"Faith was," assented Miss Hope. "Though dear knows, she needn't have
hesitated to have written home for a little help. Father would have
been glad to send her money, for he admired David and liked him. He
was a fine looking young man, Bob, tall and slender and with such
magnificent dark eyes. And Faith was a beautiful girl."
All the rest of that day the aunts kept recalling stories of Bob's
mother, and in the attic, just as Betty had known there would be,
they opened a trunk that was full of little keepsakes she had
treasured as a girl.
Bob handled the things in the little square trunk very tenderly and
reverently and tried to picture the young girl who had packed them
away so carefully the week before her wedding.
"They're yours, Bob," said Miss Hope. "Faith was going to send for
that trunk as soon as she was settled. Of course she never did. The
farm will be yours, too, some day; in fact, a third of it's yours
now, or will be when you come of age. Father left it that way in his
will--to us three daughters share and share alike, and you'll have
Faith's share. Poor Father! He was sure that we'd hear from Faith,
and he thought he'd left us all quite well off. But we had to put a
mortgage on the farm about ten years ago, and every year it's harder
and harder to get along. Charity and I are too old--that's the truth.
And some stock Father left us we traded off for some paying eight per
cent., and that company failed."
"You see," explained Miss Charity in her gentle way, "we don't know
anything about business. That man wasn't honest who sold us the
stock, but Hope and I thought he couldn't cheat us--he was a friend
of Father's."
"Well, don't let any one swindle you again," said Bob, a trifle
excitedly. "You don't have to worry about interest and taxes, any
more, Aunts. You have a fortune right here in your own dooryard; or
if not exactly out by the pump, then very near it!"
The sisters looked bewildered.
"Yes, yes," insisted Betty, as they gazed at her to see if Bob were
in earnest. "The farm is worth thousands of dollars."
"Oil!" exploded Bob. "You can lease or sell outright, and there isn't
the slightest doubt that there's oil sand on the place. Betty's
uncle will know. Uncle Dick is an expert oil man."
Miss Hope shook her head.
"My dear nephew," she urged protestingly, "surely you must be
mistaken. Sister and I have seen no evidences of oil. No one has ever
mentioned the subject or the possibilities to us. There are no oil
wells very near here. Don't you speak unadvisedly?"
"I should say not!" Bob was positive if not as precise as his aunt.
"There's oil here, or all the wells in the fields are dry. The farm
is a gold mine."
Betty rose hurriedly and pointed toward the window in alarm. They had
been sitting in the parlor, and she faced the bar of late afternoon
sunlight that lay on the floor.
"I saw the shadow of some one," she whispered in alarm. "It crossed
that patch of sunlight. Bob, I am afraid!"