"A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE"
While G. B. Stiles and the big Swede were taking their drive and
bargaining away Harry King's liberty, he had loitered about the town,
and visited a few places familiar to him. First he went to the home of
Elder Craigmile and found it locked, and the key in the care of one of
the bank clerks who slept there during the owner's absence. After
sitting a while on the front steps, with his elbows on his knees and
his head in his hands, he rose and strolled out along the quiet
country road on its grassy footpath, past the Ballards' home.
Mary and Bertrand were out in the little orchard at the back of the
house, gazing up at the apple blossoms that hung over their heads in
great pale pink clouds. A sweet odor came from the lilacs that hung
over the garden fence, and the sunlight streamed down on the peaceful
home, and on the opening spring flowers--the borders of dwarf purple
iris and big clusters of peonies, just beginning to bud,--and on the
beehives scattered about with the bees flying out and in. Ah! It was
still the same--tempting and inviting.
He paused at the gate, looking wistfully at the open door, but did not
enter. No, he must keep his own counsel and hold to his purpose,
without stirring these dear old friends to sorrowful sympathy. So he
passed on, unseen by them, feeling the old love for the place and all
the tender memories connected with it revived and deepened. On he
went, strolling toward the little schoolhouse where he had found dear
Betty Ballard sleeping at the big school desk the evening before, and
passed it by--only looking in curiously at the tousled heads bent over
their lessons, and at Betty herself, where she sat at the desk, a
class on the long recitation bench before her, and a great boy
standing at the blackboard. He saw her rise and take the chalk from
the boy's hand and make a few rapid strokes with it on the board.
Little Betty a school-teacher! She had suffered much! How much did she
care now? Was it over and her heart healed? Had other loves come to
her? All intent now on her work, she stood with her back toward him,
and as he passed the open door she turned half about, and he saw her
profile sharply against the blackboard. Older? Yes, she looked older,
but prettier for that, and slight and trim and neat, dressed in a soft
shade of green. She had worn such a dress once at a picnic. Well he
remembered it--could he ever forget? Swiftly she turned again to the
board and drew the eraser across the work, and he heard her voice
distinctly, with its singing quality--how well he remembered that
also--"Now, how many of the class can work this problem?"
Ah, little Betty! little Betty! Life is working problems for us all,
and you are working yours to a sweet conclusion, helping the children,
and taking up your own burdens and bearing them bravely. This was
Harry King's thought as he strolled on and seated himself again under
the basswood tree by the meadow brook, and took from his pocket the
worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him and read it again.
"Out of my life, and into the night,
But never out of my heart, my own.
Into the darkness, out of the light,
Bleeding and wounded and walking alone."
Such a tender, rhythmic bit of verse--Betty must have written it. It
was like her.
After a time he rose and strolled back again past the little
schoolhouse, and it was recess. Long before he reached it he heard the
voices of the children shouting, "Anty, anty over, anty, anty over."
They were divided into two bands, one on either side of the small
building, over which they tossed the ball and shouted as they tossed
it, "Anty, anty over"; and the band on the other side, warned by the
cry, caught the ball on the rebound if they could, and tore around the
corner of the building, trying to hit with it any luckless wight on
the other side, and so claim him for their own, and thus changing
sides, the merry romp went on.
Betty came to the door with the bell in her hand, and stood for a
moment looking out in the sunshine. One of the smallest of the boys
ran to her and threw his arms around her, and, looking up in her face,
screamed in wildest excitement, "I caught it twice, Teacher, I did."
With her hand on his head she looked in his eyes and smiled and
tinkled her little bell, and the children, big and little, all came
crowding through the door, hustling like a flock of chickens, and
every boy snatched off his cap as he rushed by her.
Ah, grave, dignified little Betty! Who was that passing slowly along
the road? Like a wild rose by the wayside she seemed to him, with her
pink cheeks and in her soft green gown, framed thus by the doorway of
the old schoolhouse. Naturally she had no recognition for this bearded
man, walking by with stiff, soldierly step, yet something caused her
to look again, turning as she entered, and, when he looked back, their
eyes met, and hers dropped before his, and she was lost to his sight
as she closed the door after her. Of course she could not recognize
him disguised thus with the beard on his face, and his dark, tanned
skin. She did not recognize him, and he was glad, yet sore at heart.
He had had all he could bear, and for the rest of the morning he wrote
letters, sitting in his room at Decker's hotel. Only two letters, but
one was a very long one--to Amalia Manovska. Out in the world he dared
not use her own name, so he addressed the envelope to Miss McBride, in
Larry Kildene's care, at the nearest station to which they had agreed
letters should be sent. Before he finished the second letter the gong
sounded for dinner. The noon meal was always dinner at the hotel. He
thrust his papers and the unfinished letter in his valise and locked
it--and went below.
G. B. Stiles was already there, seated in the same place as on the day
before, and Harry took his seat opposite him, and they began a
conversation in the same facile way, but the manner of the dry-goods
salesman towards him seemed to have undergone a change. It had lost
its swagger, and was more that of a man who could be a gentleman if he
chose, while to the surprise of Stiles the manner of the young man was
as disarmingly quiet and unconcerned as before, and as abstracted. He
could not believe that any man hovering on the brink of a terrible
catastrophe, and one to avert which required concealment of identity,
could be so unwary. He half believed the Swede was laboring under an
hallucination, and decided to be deliberate, and await developments
for the rest of the day.
After dinner they wandered out to the piazza side by side, and there
they sat and smoked, and talked over the political situation as
they had the evening before, and Stiles was surprised at the young
man's ignorance of general public matters. Was it ignorance, or
indifference?
"I thought all you army men would stand by Grant to the drop of the
hat."
"Yes, I suppose we would."
"You suppose so! Don't you know? I carried a gun under Grant, and I'd
swear to any policy he'd go in for, and what I say is, they haven't
had quite enough down there. What the South needs is another licking.
That's what it needs."
"Oh, no, no, no. I was sick of fighting, long before they laid me up,
and I guess a lot of us were."
G. B. Stiles brought his feet to the floor with a stamp of surprise
and turned to look full in the young man's face. For a moment he gazed
on him thus, then grunted. "Ever feel one of their bullets?"
"Oh, yes."
"That the mark, there over your temple?"
"No, it didn't do any harm to speak of. That's--where something--struck
me."
"Oh, you don't say!" Harry King rose. "Leaving?"
"No. I have a few letters to write--and--"
"Sorry to miss you. Staying in town for some time?"
"I hardly know. I may."
"Plans unsettled? Well, times are unsettled and no money stirring. My
plans are all upset, too."
The young man returned to his room and continued his writing. One
short letter to Betty, inclosing the worn scrap of paper the wind had
brought him; he kissed it before he placed it in the envelope. Then he
wrote one to her father and mother jointly, and a long one to Hester
Craigmile. Sometimes he would pause in his writing and tear up a page,
and begin over again, but at last all were done and inclosed in a
letter to the Elder and placed in a heavy envelope and sealed. Only
the one to Amalia he did not inclose, but carried it out and mailed it
himself.
Passing the bank on the way to the post office, he dropped in and made
quite a heavy deposit. It was just before closing time and the clerks
were all intent on getting their books straight, preparatory to
leaving. How well he remembered that moment of restless turning of
ledgers and the slight accession of eagerness in the younger clerks,
as they followed the long columns of figures down with the forefinger
of the left hand--the pen poised in the right. The whole scene smote
him poignantly as he stood at the teller's window waiting. And he
might have been doing that, he thought! A whole lifetime spent in
doing just that and more like it, year in and year out!
How had his life been better? He had sinned--and failed. Ah! But he
had lived and loved--lived terribly and loved greatly. God help him,
how he loved! Even for life to end here--either in prison or in
death--still he had felt the tremendous passions, and understood the
meaning of their power in a human soul. This had life brought him, and
a love beyond measure to crown all.
The teller peered at him through the little window behind which he had
stood so many years peering at people in this sleepy little bank, this
sure, safe, little bank, always doing its conservative business in the
same way, and heretofore always making good. He reached out a long,
well-shaped hand,--a large-veined hand, slightly hairy at the wrist,
to take the bank notes. How often had Harry King seen that hand
stretched thus through the little window, drawing bank notes toward
him! Almost with a shock he saw it now reach for his own--for the
first time. In the old days he had had none to deposit. It was always
for others it had been extended. Now it seemed as if he must seize the
hand and shake it,--the only hand that had been reached out to him
yet, in this town where his boyhood had been spent.
A young man who had preceded Harry King at the teller's window paused
near by at the cashier's desk and began asking questions which Harry
himself would have been glad to ask, but could not.
He was an alert, bright-eyed young chap with a smiling face. "Good
afternoon, Mr. Copeland. Any news for me to-day?"
Mr. Copeland was an elderly man of great dignity, and almost as much
of a figure there as the Elder himself. It was an act of great
temerity to approach him for items of news for the _Leauvite Mercury_.
Of this fact the young reporter seemed to be blithely ignorant. All
the clerks were covertly watching the outcome, and thus attention was
turned from Harry King; even the teller glanced frequently at the
cashier's desk as he counted the bank notes placed in his hand.
"News? No. No news," said Mr. Copeland, without looking up.
"Thank you. It's my business to ask for it, you know. We're making
more of a feature of personal items than ever before. We're up to
date, you see. 'Find out what people want and then give it to them.'
That's our motto." The young man leaned forward over the high railing
that corralled the cashier in his pen apart from the public, smilingly
oblivious of that dignitary's objections to an interview. "Expecting
the return of Elder Craigmile soon?"
At that question, to the surprise of all, the cashier suddenly changed
his manner to the suave affability with which he greeted people of
consequence. "We are expecting Elder Craigmile shortly. Yes. Indeed he
may arrive any day, if the voyage is favorable."
"Thank you. Mrs. Craigmile accompanies him, I suppose?"
"It is not likely, no. Her health demands--ahem--a little longer rest
and change."
"Ah! The Elder not called back by--for any particular reason? No.
Business going well? Good. I'm told there's a great deal of
depression."
"Oh, in a way--there may be,--but we're all of the conservative sort
here in Leauvite. We're not likely to feel it if there is. Good
afternoon."
No one paid any attention to Harry King as he walked out after the
_Leauvite Mercury_ reporter, except Mr. Copeland, who glanced at him
keenly as he passed his desk. Then, looking at his watch, he came out
of his corral and turned the key in the bank door.
"We'll have no more interruptions now," he said, as he paused at the
teller's window. "You know the young man who just went out?"
"Sam Carter of the _Mercury_. Old Billings no doubt sent him in to
learn how we stand."
"No, no, no. Sam Carter--I know him. Who's the young man who followed
him out?"
"I don't know. Here's his signature. He's just made a big deposit on
long time--only one thousand on call. Unusual these days."
Mr. Copeland's eyes glittered an instant. "Good. That's something. I
decided to give the town people to understand that there is no need
for their anxiety. It's the best policy, and when the Elder returns,
he may be induced to withdraw his insane offer of reward. Ten thousand
dollars! It's ridiculous, when the young men may both be dead, for all
the world will ever know."
"If we could do that--but I've known the Elder too long to hope for
it. This deposit stands for a year, see? And the ten thousand the
Elder has set one side for the reward gives us twenty thousand we
could not count on yesterday."
"In all the history of this bank we never were in so tight a place.
It's extraordinary, and quite unnecessary. That's a bright boy--Sam
Carter. I never thought of his putting such a construction on it when
I admitted the fact that Mrs. Craigmile is to remain. Two big banks
closed in Chicago this morning, and twenty small ones all over the
country during the last three days. One goes and hauls another down.
If we had only cabled across the Atlantic two weeks ago when I sent
that letter--he must have the letter by now--and if he has, he's on
the ocean."
"This deposit tides us over a few days, and, as I said, if we could
only get our hands on that reserve of the Elder's, we'd be safe
whatever comes."
"He'll have to bend his will for once. He must be made to see it, and
we must get our hands on it. I think he will. He'd cut off his right
hand before he'd see this bank go under."
"It's his son's murder that's eating into his heart. He's been losing
ground ever since."
The clerks gradually disappeared, quietly slipping out into the
sunshine one by one as their books were balanced, and now the two men
stood alone. It was a time used by them for taking account of the
bank's affairs generally, and they felt the stability of that
institution to be quite personal to them.
"I've seen that young man before," said Mr. Copeland. "Now, who is he?
Harry King--Harry King,--the Kings moved away from here--twelve years
ago--wasn't it? Their son would not be as old as this man."
"Boys grow up fast. You never can tell."
"The Kings were a short, thickset lot."
"He may not be one of them. He said nothing about ever having been
here before. I never talk with any one here at the window. It's quite
against my rules for the clerks, and has to be so for myself, of
course. I leave that sort of thing to you and the Elder."
"I say--I've seen him before--the way he walks--the way he carries
his head--there's a resemblance somewhere."
The two men also departed, after looking to the safe, and the
last duties devolving on them, seeing that all was locked and
double-locked. It was a solemn duty, always attended to solemnly.