ONE WONDERFUL AUTUMN DAY.
The months flew by. The summer came and went. It was the hour for
closing on a "Saturday-half," a whole year since Amy Kaye first visited
the mills of Ardsley, and now she felt as they were a part of her very
life. Beginning at the bottom she had industriously worked her way
upward till she had just been promoted to the pleasant and well-paying
task of "setter," in the big clean room, where the open windows admitted
the soft air of another Indian summer.
Away, at the extreme end of the long apartment, was a sunshiny office,
lately constructed for the personal use of Archibald Wingate. This
office was partitioned from the setting room by a glass sliding door,
and through this, as Amy now lifted her eyes, she could see the broad
back of her relative bending above a desk full of correspondence.
At every setting frame there are two operators, for left hand and for
right; and it was Amy's good fortune to have Mary Reese for her comrade,
and a more sunshiny pair of workers could be found nowhere.
For Hallam, also, it had been a busy, happy year. Like Amy, having
begun with the humblest task and smallest wage, he had now advanced to
be bookkeeper in one department, while he still retained his work of
coloring and preparing the patterns for use in the weaving of the famous
Ardsley carpets. He looked a far stronger, healthier lad than of old,
and his disposition to think upon the dark side of things had now no
time to develop, for activity effectually prevents brooding.
Fayette was still a member of the Kaye household, and seemed to belong
there as much as any of the others. He had been busy, too, all the year
through, with his mushroom-raising, his gardening, and now that the
autumn had come round again, with odd jobs at the mill. His deftness
would always procure him employment of some sort, yet only that morning
Mr. Metcalf had remarked to Hallam, confidentially:--
"Queer, but I can never trust 'Bony.' He seems as honest and reliable as
possible for a time, and then, suddenly, he will do something to
disappoint me. I don't like his demeanor toward the 'boss.' Ever since
Mr. Wingate returned, late this summer, and took to coming here every
day, 'Bony' has come too. Have you noticed?"
"I know he comes. I hadn't connected the two comings, however. I guess
he's all right. There's a splendid side to that poor lad's nature, if
you but knew it. Some day, I hope before very long now, he and I are to
surprise the world."
"Why, Hal, you're as gay as a blackbird. What's the surprise, eh? Too
precious to disclose even to me?"
"At present, yes. In a little while, a few days--Heigho!" and the lad
looked significantly toward his crutches, leaning against the desk where
he wrote.
But the superintendent did not observe the glance. His mind was full of
misgiving. Within a day or two he had had occasion to suspect that the
half-wit had some uncanny scheme on hand. The lad's dislike of the old
mill owner appeared to grow with the passage of time. The dull brain
never forgot an injury, and it always seemed to Fayette that Mr. Wingate
had wronged him. From the old days of his "bound out" life on the farm,
when whippings and punishments were of almost daily occurrence, to the
present, there had been no diminution in the mill boy's resentment. Now
there was this later injury, or injustice, as he believed, about the
money found in the cellar of "Charity House."
The facts were these: the glittering coins had, when estimated, been of
about one thousand dollars' value. To Fayette this seemed an enormous
sum; to Mr. Wingate, a trifle. In the chest with the treasure had been
also a time-yellowed letter, or memorandum, signed by the wife of Jacob
Ingraham, and decreeing that the property thus hidden had been placed by
her own hands in the wall of the cellar of "Spite House" for the
"benefit of my nearest of kin."
The document, in itself, was as curious as its hiding-place, and proved
that the ancient dame had been a keen observer of men's failings, if not
their virtues.
"For I have seen, in this, my lifetime, that gold profits a man nothing.
It is ever a bone of contention, and he who has it is poorer than he who
has it not. I hope this chest will do him good who finds it; and if it
is never found, then the earth will be so much the richer by this small
portion of the wealth it has lost. In any case, to prevent evil, and, if
possible, to secure a blessing, I have said one prayer over each coin
herein disposed, and so, in duty to my conscience, I lock the box and
throw the key down the old well of this Bareacre knoll."
The letter had further added that nobody, not even Jacob Ingraham, had
known of this bestowal of the chest, because had anybody, "most of all,
he," so known, it would have been excavated and its contents scattered.
Now Archibald Wingate was, on his mother's side, the last direct
descendant of Mrs. Ingraham, and the property was clearly his. To him,
as soon as he returned from his prolonged stay out of town, the broken
chest and intact contents had been given by the superintendent, who, Mr.
Kaye promptly decided, would be the proper guardian of the treasure
until his employer returned.
There had been a terrible scene with Fayette when Cleena told him this
decision, and for several days thereafter the lad had not been visible.
Some thought he had gone off in one of his wanderings through the woods
and fields; but the truth was, he had been kept under lock and key by
the energetic and masterful Cleena Keegan. She had assured that patient
listener, herself, that:--
"Sure, it do be right. Will I lose all the good we have gained for the
sake o' bad temper? The end's in sight,--the blessed end o' the secrecy,
an' the weary struggle o' keepin' me gineral's nose to the grindstone,
and now to leave go? Not while Cleena Keegan draws a free breath, an'
can handle a silly gossoon, like him yon."
From the first it had been a strange and powerful influence that this
good woman exercised over the foundling she adopted, and fortunately his
imprisonment was not so very long, else it would have been impossible to
conceal it from the rest of the household; not one of whom did, however,
suspect such a proceeding.
When the object for which she had restrained him of his liberty seemed
quite gained, Cleena let Fayette go; and, oddly enough, after his
liberty was granted him, he no longer cared for it. He kept close to
Bareacres, bare no longer, but teeming with the rich vegetation
resulting from his own labor, guided by Frederic Kaye's trained
judgment. The summer had proved a most interesting as well as busy one
to both these gardeners. The results of their mutual labor were
harvested and stored for the family's winter use, and Fayette had
returned to the mill. Idleness, or the want of that regular employment
he had enjoyed, now reawoke the dark thoughts which had disturbed his
clouded brain during the time of his "retreat" under Cleena's compelling
will.
This day, when Amy watched her cousin through the glass partition, and
waited with Mary for Hallam to complete his own task in a room adjoining
the private office of Mr. Wingate, Fayette was hanging about the mill,
as if himself waiting for some one.
Amy called to him once, and received a surly answer:--
"I'll go when I get ready. I ain't hurting nobody--yet."
"Of course not, who'd suppose so? I'd think you'd like a run in the
woods after hours. There was a frost a few nights ago. There may be
hickory nuts to gather."
"Gather 'em, then, if you want 'em. I don't. I've got other fish to fry.
I'll fry 'em, too."
"Well, you're cross, 'Fayetty, me gineral.' I'll not wait much longer,
even for Hal. You can come home with him, and help him bring the
patterns he is to show father, please."
"I thought you wanted to see Mr. Wingate, too, Amy," observed Mary,
"about that legacy of yours. You're the queerest girl. Any other would
be wild to have things fixed, but you don't seem to care a bit."
"Why should I? We are very comfortable at 'Charity House.' Mrs. Burn,
dear Adam's daughter-in-law, has gone abroad again. If she had time,
she'd cheerfully help us--if she could. We think the letter of
instruction will sometime be found, and that will make all clear. We
don't like law, and Adam would have hated it. No; we'll wait for a time
longer, but I promised father I'd consult Cousin Archibald, and see when
he would meet either father or Uncle Fred to discuss it.
"Meanwhile, old Israel and his wife are doing just the same at Burnside
as if their master were still there. All I could think of taking the
property for, it seems to me, would be to give my father such a lovely
home again."
"Well, Amy, I must go. I want to finish reading that book Mr. Kaye lent
me, this afternoon. I'll see you at the club to-night. Good-by."
With a kiss and a hand pressure, which revealed the depth of their
friendship, Mary departed, and Amy turned to the open window to watch
the cloud shadows drift over the lovely valley, wherein the Ardsley
leaped and sparkled. As she gazed, thinking of many things, she became
conscious, in an idle sort of fashion, that Fayette had passed out of
doors, and was walking close beneath, or along the building's wall, and
in a stealthy manner, suspicious in itself.
"Heigho! What now, I wonder. He's up to some mischief, I'm afraid. How
queer he is at times. Why, even when he was told that Mr. Wingate knew
him for the person who horsewhipped him last Christmas and had refused
to take any notice of it, except to thank Uncle Fred for his
rescue--even then Fayette would not say that he thought my cousin good.
All he did say was: 'Well, he better not. He knows too much. If he
locked me up or had me fined, I'd lick him again soon's I got out. He
ain't no fool. But that don't make me feel any different. He ain't
jailed me, but he's got my money. _Mine_; I dug it out the cellar an'
blasted, to the risk o' my life. He keeps it, when he's got a bank full,
they say. Kept Balaam, too, or give him to one of them Metcalf
youngsters. Well, his time'll come. I'm not forgettin', if I do keep my
mouth shut for a spell.'"
Recalling this speech, Amy tried to put herself in the half-wit's place,
which effort made her pity him the more, yet watch his present
manoeuvres none the less closely. But presently he disappeared in a
distant lower doorway, and she forgot him and returned to her happy
day-dreams.
Fayette had bided his time. On such an afternoon, at such an hour, he
judged that nobody would be in the mill building save the distant
watchman and that indefatigable toiler, Archibald Wingate, with whom was
the half-wit's present business. He had seen the last whisk of Mary's
blue skirt disappearing above the back-stairway, and, knowing that Amy
and she were waiting for Hallam, concluded that the trio had departed
together.
So he entered the little basement door gleefully. All seemed propitious,
yet he meant once more and carefully to examine the preparations he had
made, to see if there was any flaw anywhere. He was so absorbed, so
excited, that he scarcely breathed as he crept slowly along the inside
of the wall, just as a moment before he had passed along its outer
surface. At one spot he paused and tried a simple-looking tube that had
been brought from the outside, through a convenient aperture, into the
inside of the building. The thing looked harmless, yet it ran along the
groove where the floor and wall joined, clear into that cheery inner
office, where Archibald Wingate sat that very moment, signing his name
to one of the most generous letters of his life.
"There," he reflected, as he leaned back in his chair and tossed aside
his pen; "there, that is foolish enough to satisfy even my impractical
small kinswoman, bless her! A thousand dollars isn't much, but it's--a
thousand dollars; and when I double it by another thousand, which has
never been buried by any ancient ancestress, it makes a tidy sum for a
foundling lad. Poor 'Bony,' he hates me like poison. I wonder, when he
finds out that I've done this for him, when I place it in his hands
myself, and tell him, furthermore, that I have asked Fred Kaye to send
west for several more of those burros he's given us a sample of, and
that one is for the 'Rep-Dem-Prob' himself--I wonder, will there rise in
his stunted heart some perception of what life should mean; of what it
shall mean, during my last brief hold of it, to me? and all because of a
girl's bright trustfulness and love."
It was a day for musings. Even Fayette, intent on evil, had his
own--like Amy and the lonely old man in the silent office. He wondered,
pausing for a moment, how "it would feel to be blown up. That day when I
found the money he's took from me, if I'd had a bigger charge of powder,
would I ha' knowed what struck me, if it had gone off sudden? Hmm. I
almost hate to do it. He seems--he'll never guess, though, and he hadn't
any right. He's been again' me from the first. I'll do it. He hain't had
no mercy--I won't, neither."
So he crept softly back to the low entrance, and stooping, struck a
match. The match burned well, and in an instant had communicated its own
flame to the cheap fuse that ran along the wall. In the far-off office,
concealed beneath the mill owner's desk, there was already waiting a
powerful explosive, which Fayette had purloined from the store of the
workmen who were excavating for the new wing of the building. In a
moment more the fuse would have burned unnoticed to its fatal end, and
an awful crime, of whose enormity the dull criminal had no real
comprehension, would have been committed.
But Hallam had caught the prevailing mood. He, like the others left
lingering about the silent building, had fallen into a reverie which,
judging by his bright expression, was full of happiness. For many
months, and for the first time in his life, he had kept a secret from
his father and Amy. If that can be called a secret which was known also
to Cleena, to Uncle Frederic, and to Fayette, upon whose aid alone the
success of this mystery had depended. The lad had been faithful. At most
times his help had been rendered freely, out of love and sympathy; at
others there had been compulsion on Cleena's side and from the other one
of the quartette, who had himself suffered false blame and the disgrace
of suspicion because of the secret.
"To-morrow, please God, it shall end. I couldn't bear to tell them, who
love me so, until I was sure, sure. The old surgeon said it might be a
miracle would be enacted for my benefit. Well, it has, it has! I've
known it, really, almost from the beginning, though it's been so hard
and at times so seemingly hopeless. But if I hadn't loved them even more
than myself, I wouldn't have kept on trying. To-morrow--the experiment
in their presence! Will it ever come!"
The lad stood up and arranged the papers in his own desk. Then he heard,
or fancied that he did, a slight sound in the deserted building. The
corps of operatives had been well drilled to watch for any sign of that
dreaded element, fire, and he was alert now,--the more that, following
this, there was a slight odor, pungent and more alarming than even the
first sound.
He wheeled about and--what was that? In the dimness of the angle where
it lay, away out toward that closed office with its unsuspecting
occupant, a tiny spark was making its steady, creeping progress. For an
instant Hallam gazed at it astonished, the next he realized its full
meaning and horror. Could he reach it? Was there time?
With a shriek of warning he rushed forward,--stumbling against, leaping
over obstacles,--gaining upon that menacing point of fire and fume,
which now seemed to race him like a living thing.
The miracle was wrought--two miracles! A few more seconds, and it would
have been too late; but now the lame walked and, as it were, the dead
came back to life.
Hallam's shriek, the uproar of overturned obstructions, reverberated
through the empty building and brought Archibald Wingate, Amy, and poor
Fayette face to face with the panting, excited rescuer. All comprehended
at once what had been attempted and how prevented. The mill owner laid
an iron grip upon the half-wit's shoulder, who made no effort to escape;
for at last, at last, there had penetrated to his dim intelligence the
wide, the awful difference between good and evil. When he saw the once
crippled lad, whom his own hands had restored to health, thus fling
away his life with unstinted hand, that he might save the life of
another,--once his enemy also,--there had roused within the dormant
brain of the foundling a sudden perception of Hallam's nobility and his
own baseness. Therefore, stunned by this new knowledge, he stood humble
and unresisting.
Amy's great heart comprehended just what and how her poor protege was
suffering. With her, to think was to act. She sprang to him and laid her
small hand on his other shoulder, and the tender sympathy of this touch
thrilled him more than the hard grasp of his master.
"Oh! but Hallam--Hallam--you _walked_! _walked!_ you ran! You--you--who
never--"
Her voice choked, ceased, and she turned from Fayette to fling herself
headlong into her brother's arms. For the first time in their lives he
could receive her and support her firmly. Then she stepped back and
shook him. Gently at first, then violently. His crutches were--nobody
cared where, though certainly not at hand; yet he stood fixedly,
resisting her attacks, and again catching her to him with that
overflowing joy that only such as he could guess.
"But I don't understand. Tell--tell; not here, though. Is all safe? No
danger any more?"
"No," said Fayette to her demand, "there ain't no danger. Not 'less the
fuse had burned out to the end. It's under the desk. He'll find it.
I--I--but it's put out. I--"
"You didn't mean it, did you, boy? You could not. You didn't
understand."
"No, I didn't, I didn't," whimpered the stricken fellow.
Mr. Wingate relaxed his hold. How could he retain his fury against such
an enemy? It was too unequal. The lad was dangerous, he must be
punished, he--
Hallam read these unspoken thoughts.
"For my sake, Cousin Archibald, forgive him. It is he who has made me
able to save you this day, even though it was he who put you in such
peril. Months ago, Amy read in a paper how a lad was cured whose case
was just like mine. There was only will power on the cripple's part, and
the daily, sometimes hourly massage by one of those persons whose
physical magnetism, or whatever it is, was strong. 'Bony' was such a
person, and I just such a cripple. We began. For weeks I couldn't move
my legs without using my hands to help. Then one day I found, just after
the rubbing was over, that I could push one foot along the floor a tiny
way. That gave us both courage. He has been untiring. We were soon on
the road to what I believed, though with lots of set-backs, would be a
cure. Uncle Fred knew; that's why he wouldn't let Fayette be arrested or
punished for assaulting you. He took the blame himself, if the boy would
stick to me. Cleena knew, too--"
"And not us, father nor me!" exclaimed Amy, in a hurt tone.
"No; that was to be my blessed surprise for you two. It was to your own
suggestion, which I suppose you forgot soon after, with the newspaper
scrap you brought, that I owe the beginning. It was Cleena kept us at
it. She wouldn't let us give it up,--no, not if she had the whole crowd
under lock and key on a bread and water diet; eh, Fayette?"
The shamefaced fellow looked up, with a slight gleam in his eye, then
dropped his gaze again.
Hallam went on: "To-morrow, the First Day that mother loved, I was going
to make an experiment before you all--my surprise. I have practised in
private continually, and uncle, as well as Cleena, has urged me to tell
you before; but I kept it till the anniversary--you know."
"Ah," said Archibald Wingate, with a sudden recollection, "so it is. She
was my best friend, my best beloved. You are her children. All my hard
middle life seems to have slipped out of my memory, like a bad dream,
and I am back in our youth-time again, with Salome and Cuthbert and
Fred,--all gay and glad together. I wonder, I wonder what she would bid
me do to you, poor fellow," he finished, regarding the abject natural
with a pitying air.
"I know! Forgive him, else thy Salome and my mother were not one."
"Amy, thee is right. Come into the office, all of you."
"Is it safe?" she asked, hanging back.
"We'll make it safe. 'Bony,' or Fayette, take that stuff you put under
the desk and step out there to the Ardsley. Behind that rock is a deep
hole. I used to fish there as a lad. I can see if you obey. Drop that
death powder into the stream and come back."
Fayette obeyed, and they watched him, shivering. But when the water
flowed on after an instant, undisturbed and merrily singing its
deathless song, they breathed deeply and with complete relief.
"Look here, Fayette; you think I've been a hard man. So I have--so I
have. You've been a bad boy too, eh?"
"Yes; I won't never--"
"Of course you won't. Look here, I say. What's this--this heap of stuff
I took out of the safe? Did you ever see it before?"
"Yes; it's the money I blasted out."
"Well, if it were yours, would you promise never again to blast anything
or anybody or anywhere? Your very own to keep forever, if you liked."
"Huckleberries! Do you mean it?"
"If you promise, I mean it."
"Oh, I do--I do. I'll keep my word. I meant to try and I did. But it's
over. I'm glad; I wasn't happy, never. I promise, whether or no, money
or not."
"I believe you'll keep that promise: Hallam and Amy, here, are
witnesses. Now, listen: I, too, promise. I'll not only give you this old
hoard, but this besides." He swept into view a pile of golden eagles,
larger than any there save himself had ever seen, and placed it beside
that time-worn lot of similar material. In bestowing his gift he had
provided to have it in such shape as he knew the half-wit would best
comprehend. "This is for you, also. It is just as much more as you
found. I give it to you because my little cousin here has taught me it
is better to give than to receive. You must take both piles, in this new
hand-bag, and ask Mr. Metcalf to take care of it for you. You trust
_him_, don't you?"
"Yes--yes," answered Fayette, in breathless eagerness.
"Now, the condition: if you ever again, by word or deed, do any sort of
injury to any human being or to any helpless animal, I will have you
punished, punished in full for all you have done wrong in the past. Do
you understand?"
"Yes," sobbed the grateful and greatly excited youth. Somewhere he had
heard, maybe from Cleena's lips, something about heaping coals. He felt
at that moment as if the living coals were lying upon his own poor head.
"Then go; and if it will give you any pleasure to know it, I believe
that you are now about the richest of the mill operatives living in
Ardsley village."
Stumbling, through his tears, and truly far more grateful for the
prevention of his crime than even for his unexpected good fortune and
full forgiveness, Cleena's Fayetty went.
As his footsteps died away, Amy, who seemed given to outbursts to
relieve her full heart, threw her arms about the old man's neck and
kissed him over and over.
"That's better, child, that's better. The first time thee planted it on
my nose, I seemed to have a dim perception that this was not the
regulation feature for such gifts, but it answered; though I like them
better on my cheek, child. Thee's improving. Now let's go home. Yes;
it's the carryall. There's room for us all. On the way I'll tell thee--"
"No, no; wait till we get home. Don't let's leave anybody out any more.
By thy face I can see it's something delightful thee is going to tell.
Oh, make the old horse travel, travel--fast, fast!"