LAST GLIMPSE OF OAK CITY.
There was much surprise when it was known that Mrs. Percy and Clarice
were again in their cottage, and many remarks were made as to the
probable state of Clarice’s feelings, and much wonder expressed at her
changed demeanor. She had studied her role and decided to make herself
popular. She was affable to every one. She went at once to call upon
Mrs. Ralston to tell her about Paul, appearing as natural when she
talked of him as if he had never been more than an ordinary
acquaintance. From the Ralston House she went to see Miss Hansford to
tell her of Elithe, and how much she was admired in the American colony,
and was so gracious and sweet that Miss Hansford concluded she must have
met with a change and thought she would find out. Referring to the
camp-meeting, which had been unusually interesting, she spoke of some
young people whom Clarice knew and who, she said, had come forward and
were enjoying religion.
“I wish you were of the number. Maybe you are,” she added.
Clarice laughed and replied, “I hope I always enjoyed it in a measure.”
“Pretty small measure, if I am any judge,” was Miss Hansford’s mental
comment.
She was, however, very sociable, and gave Clarice a glass of root beer
and introduced her to Roger when he came in from a long walk across the
fields, where he had been to visit a sick family. Clarice had not
expected much of a poor missionary from Samona, and was surprised to
find him so courteous and gentlemanly. He was very glad to meet her, for
she could tell him of his daughter, and, for a full half hour, she sat
answering his questions and asking some of her own concerning Jack, to
whom he had been so kind. Evidently, the two were much pleased with each
other, and before Clarice had left she had promised to attend a sewing
society to be held in the church parlors for the purpose of working on
cassocks for the surpliced choir the rector was training.
Up to this point Miss Hansford had joined in the conversation, but, at
the mention of cassocks, she left the room hurriedly, banging the door
hard, and did not return to say good-bye to Clarice. She was very proud
of Roger and he was very popular, as a new rector, earnest in his work,
good-looking, fairly young and unmarried, is apt to be. He had entered
heart and soul into his work and in an atmosphere more congenial than
that of Samona was expanding and developing in more ways than one. All
this pleased Miss Hansford, who gave liberally for the maintenance of
the church, and went occasionally to hear him preach, until he began to
intone the services, when she quit, saying she couldn’t stand that
whang-tang, and she didn’t believe the Lord could, either. At the
cassocks, which she at first called _hassocks_ she rebelled more hotly
than at the whang-tang, and gave Roger many a sharp lecture, but never
made the slightest impression upon him. He laughed at her good-humoredly
and told her she was behind the times, and conducted his services in his
own way. Once she thought of suggesting to him to find another boarding
place, not on account of his ritualistic proclivities, but on account of
his four boys, who nearly drove her wild.
They had very early made the acquaintance of Sherry, who had been left
at the Ralston House, and who spent the greater part of every day at the
cottage. They picked up two stray cats and brought them home, to the
infinite disgust of Jim, growing old and fat, and jealous of intruders.
They had a wheel and a kite and stilts. They played ball and croquet on
her grounds; they chewed gum, and left little balls of it everywhere.
They raced through the house, with Sherry after them. They brought all
the boys in the neighborhood to play with them and the place resounded
with the merry shouts from morning till night. With all this, they were
lovable boys, with bright, handsome faces and pleasing manners, and Miss
Hansford doted upon them and, knowing she would be very lonely without
them, decided finally to keep them and “stand the racket.” It was
something to have so good a man as Roger under her roof and she was very
happy until Clarice came as a disturbing element.
From his first introduction to her Roger became interested. He knew her
history and, because he knew it, he was very kind to her. He could read
the human heart better than his aunt, and he felt sure that in Clarice’s
there was a pain she was trying to hide, and he was sorry for her. He
did not know how much the interest she began at once to manifest in
church matters was feigned, nor how much real. Nor did he care. If she
were willing to help, he was very willing to have her, and, knowing it
would divert her mind, he put upon her a good deal of work, which she
accepted cheerfully. This threw them together a good deal, and before
winter was half over people began to gossip. When this reached Miss
Hansford she gave Roger a rather unpleasant half hour, and the next day
wrote a long letter to Elithe, telling her to come home and see to her
father, who was making a fool of himself in more ways than one.
“He’s got a vested choir of girls and boys,—thirty of ’em,” she wrote,
“gathered from all over town. Seems as if folks were crazy. They want
the training for their children, they say. Training! I should say it was
general training; the way they march down one aisle and up another. Your
brother Rob leads the van with a big cross. They call him something
which sounds like an _aconite_. ’Tain’t that, of course, but I’m so
disgusted I won’t ask any questions. Artie is in it, and you know he
can’t sing a note. But he is small and pretty and makes his mouth go,
and that pleases the people. They have candles on the altar in broad
daylight. Symbols Roger calls them, and tries to convince me it is all
right. Maybe it is, but it looks to me like a show. Give me a good,
plain meeting, I say, with now and then an Amen that _is_ an Amen,
without a _broad a_ in it. Candles and cottas and cassocks ain’t all. I
could stand them if I wan’t afraid your father had a notion after——.
You’ll never guess _who_ in the world, so I may as well tell you and
done with it. _Clarice!_ Did you ever! You know they are staying here
all winter, and as there ain’t any carousin’ or dancing going on, she’s
turned religious, and really does seem different. The way she teeters
round Roger makes me sick. She plays the organ,—helps him train the
children,—and he goes home with her from rehearsal. She teaches in
Sunday school, too. No more fit to teach than a cat. Artie is in her
class and says she tells them stories mostly, which he likes, of course.
I’ve given Roger my opinion, and he laughed me in my face, told me I
needn’t worry and asked if I s’posed he could ever forget Lucy. Lucy,
indeed! I don’t think she stands much chance with Clarice Percy purrin’
round. I b’lieve she thinks Roger is to be my heir, but she’s mistaken.
I’ve made my will and left everything to the boys. Bless their hearts! I
never thought much of boys, but I could not live without these four, and
can hardly live with them. Such a noise as they make, with balls and
kites and dogs and cats. There’s two here now, besides Jim, and I expect
they’ll bring a litter of kittens they have found somewhere in the
woods. They have wonderful stomachs and are always wanting something to
eat, and a pie is nothing to them. I make one every day,—sometimes two.
Everybody likes Roger, and he seems to be more like a son than nephew,
if he is cracked on ritualism, but I’ll never take in Clarice,—never!”
When Elithe, who was in Rome, read this letter she cried out loud and
Paul laughed louder than she cried.
“Clarice, your stepmother! My stepmother-in-law! that would be rich,” he
said.
Then, when he saw how really distressed Elithe was, he tried to comfort
her, but she would not be comforted.
“Oh, Paul,” she sobbed, “we must go home and stop it!”
“Stop what?” he asked. “The vested choir?”
“No-o,” Elithe replied.
“Do you want to blow out the candles?”
“No. I don’t care if they have a hundred!”
“Well, do you want to stop Rob from being an _aconite_?”
“No-o. You know better. It’s,—oh, Paul! I don’t want father to marry
Clarice! It would be so ridiculous!”
“That’s it, is it?” Paul said, beginning to laugh again. “Don’t be
alarmed,” he continued, “Clarice must amuse herself some way, and just
now it suits her to help your father run the church. But she will never
marry him. Don’t let that trouble you. We hav’n’t half done Europe yet.
Next summer will be time enough to go home, and I doubt if we find
Clarice there.”
Paul was right in his conclusions. One winter, with nothing more
exciting than helping run a church was enough for Clarice, and as early
in the spring as they could get their house she and her mother returned
to Washington and a more congenial atmosphere. When last heard from, a
millionaire, old enough to be her father, was in constant attendance
upon her, and rumor said, with more truth than it frequently does, that
she was soon to be mistress of his handsome home on Massachusetts
Avenue.
For more than a year Paul and Elithe staid in Europe, accompanied by
Tom, whose devotion to them knew no bounds. He did not, however, take
kindly to foreign customs and foreign languages, and was glad when at
last, on a bright day in July, the boat which had taken him from Oak
City drew up to the wharf, where as great a crowd was assembled to meet
the returning party as had been there when Paul came home with Clarice.
Elithe was with him now, radiant with happiness, as she stepped ashore
and was surrounded by her father and brothers and aunt and Mr. and Mrs.
Ralston, all talking at once to her and then to Paul and then to Tom,
who had never been so happy in his life. Max Allen was there, not in the
capacity of constable. He had resigned that office, and during Tom’s
absence had been Mr. Ralston’s coachman.
“Hello, Tom,” he said, with a hearty hand grasp. “Here’s the hosses and
the kerridge. I’ve been mighty proud to drive ’em, but I give ’em up to
you, or would you rather walk this once?”
Tom preferred to walk, and followed the carriage to the house, where the
more intimate friends of the family were waiting to receive them. That
was a very happy summer for all the parties concerned. The Ralston House
was filled with guests. The Smuggler’s room was thrown open to the air
and the light of heaven. From the look-out on the roof a flag was always
floating as a welcome to the coming guests and a farewell to the
parting. Paul was more popular than ever and an object of so much
attention from his friends and curiosity to the strangers in the place
that he was glad when the season was over, and they returned to their
home in Boston, where they were to pass the winter.
The story of the tragedy is still told in Oak City, the place pointed
out where Jack was shot and Tom pointed out as the man who shot him. The
window from which Paul escaped and the cell where he was confined is
visited by the curious ones, fond of the marvelous. Miss Hansford
pursues the even tenor of her way, scolding and petting and spoiling the
boys, glad that she has nothing to fear from Clarice and watching
vigilantly every marriageable woman who is polite to Roger. If not
reconciled to his candles and cassocks and cottas and intoning, she
holds her peace, satisfied that he is a good man. Her bones still do
their duty, and she has had a chance to wear her gray silk gown to a
reception at the Ralston House, where she helped receive the guests and
was reported in the papers. Paul and Elithe are very happy, although the
memory of the terrible days which he passed in prison and in hiding
sometimes casts a shadow over Paul and makes him very sad. But when he
looks at Elithe he says: “Only for that she would not have been my wife,
and so I thank God for it!”
THE END.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
142 The next time Paul came he staid The next time Paul came he staid
longed than usual,—complimented longer than usual,—complimented
246 Paul’s cherry “How are you, Paul’s cheery “How are you,
Max?” Max?”
263 not belief he intended to kill not believe he intended to kill
Jack Percy, and she wondered Jack Percy, and she wondered
342 here there. Don’t you remember? her there. Don’t you remember?
And you are home. And you are home.
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.