The last house in the village on the road to Economy was the
Harricutt's. It was built of gray cement blocks that the elder had taken
for a bad debt, and had neither vine nor blossom to soften its grimness.
Its windows were supplied with green holland shades, and its front
door-yard was efficiently manned with plum trees and a peach, while
the back yard was given over to vegetables. Elder Harricutt walked to
Economy every day to his office in the Economy bank. He said it kept him
in good condition physically. His wife was small and prim with little
quick prying eyes and a false front that had a tendency to go askew.
She wore bonnets with strings and her false teeth didn't quite fit; they
clicked as she talked. She kept a watch over the road at all times and
very little ever got by her unnoticed.
In wholesome contrast next door was the trim little white cottage where
Tom McMertrie and his mother Christie lived, smothered in vines and
ablaze with geraniums all down the front walk. And below that, almost
facing the graveyard was a little green shingled bungalow. Mary Rafferty
kept her yard aglow with phlox, verbenas and pansies, and revelled in
vines and flowering shrubs.
These two women were wonderful friends, though forty years marched
between them. Mary's hair was black as a crow's wing above her great
pansy-blue eyes with their long curling lashes, while Christie's hair
was sandy silver and her tongue full of brrrs. They had opposite pantry
windows on the neighboring sides of their houses, where they often
talked of a morning while Christie moulded her sweet loaves of bread
or mixed scones and Mary made tarts and pies and cake for Jim's supper.
Somehow without much being said about it they had formed a combination
against their hard little knot of a neighbor behind the holland shades.
The first house on the side street that ran at right angles to the main
thoroughfare, just below Rafferty's, was Duncannon's. A picket fence
at the side let into the vegetable gardens of the three, and the quiet
little Mrs. Duncannon with the rippley brown hair and soft brown eyes
often slipped through and made a morning call under cover of the kindly
pole beans that hid her entrances and exits perfectly from any green
holland shaded windows that might be open that way. Jane Duncannon
formed a third in this little combination.
On the Monday morning following the session meeting Mary Rafferty and
Christie McMertrie were at their respective pantry windows flinging
together some toothsome delicacies for the evening meal, that all might
move smoothly during the busy day.
A neat line of flopping clothes glimmered in each back yard over the
trim “green” that stretched across in front of the back door, and the
irons were on in both kitchens preparing for a finish as soon as a
“piece” should show signs of dry.
“Hev ye haird whut the extra session meetin' was called for, Mary?”
asked the older woman looking up from her mixing bowl. “Tom went to the
mill to tak the place of the noight watchman. His feyther's dyin' ye
ken, and Tom's not come by yet. I thot ye might hev haird.”
Mary lifted her eyes with troubled glance:
“Not yet,” she said, “but I'm thinkin of running over to Duncannons as
soon as I get these pies in the oven. The clothes won't be dry for a
while, an' I'll take my pan of peas to shell. She'll know of course.
Maybe it's nothing much,--but Jim said they held up Mark Carter and made
him come in. It was ten minutes of ten before he got away--! You don't
suppose anybody's taken the gossip to the session do you?”
“There's one we know well would be full cawpable of the same,” affirmed
Christie patting her biscuits into place and tucking the bread cloth
deftly over them, “But I'd be sorry to see a meenister an' a session as
wud be held up by one poor whimperin' little elder of the like of him.”
“Mr. Severn won't, I'm sure o' that!” said Mary trustingly, “but there
comes Mrs. Duncannon now, I'll run over and see what's in the wind.”
Mrs. Duncannon had grown a smile on her gentle face that was like as two
peas to her husband's wide kindly grin, but there was no smile on her
face this morning as she greeted her two friends, and dropped into a
chair by the door of Christie's immaculate kitchen, and her soft
brown eyes were snapping: She had an air of carrying kindly mysterious
explosives:
“Did ye hear that the old ferret held up Mark Carter last night and as
good as called him a murderer in the face of the whole session?” she
asked breathlessly.
“And whut said our meenister to thot?” inquired Christie.
Jane Duncannon flashed her a twinkle of appreciation:
“He just clapped the senior elder in the chair as neat as a pin in a
pincushion an' moved an expression of confidence, _utmost_ confidence
was the word--!”
“Mmmmmmmm! I thot as much!” commented Christie, “The blessed mon!”
“Oh, I'm so glad!” sighed Mary Rafferty sinking into a chair, “Jim
thinks the sun rises and sets in Mark Carter. They were kids together
you know. He says people don't know Mark. And he said if they turned
Mark down at the church now, if they didn't stand by him in his trouble,
he had no more use for their religion!”
“Don't you believe it, Mary Rafferty! Jim Rafferty loves the very ground
the meenister walks on!”
“What was that?” exclaimed Jane Duncannon running to the side window. “A
strange car! Mary, come here! Is that the Chief of Police from Economy?”
Mary darted to the window followed by the elder woman:
“Yes, it is!” she exclaimed drawing back aghast, “You _don't_ suppose
he's going to Carter's? He _wouldn't_ do that would he?”
“He huz to do his dooty, doesn't he?” mused Christie, “But thot's not
sayin' he _loikes_ it, child!”
“Well, he might find a way not to frighten his mother--!”
Mrs. Duncannon stretched her neck to see if he was really stopping at
the parsonage, and Christie murmured: “Perhaps he will.”
The little group lingered a moment, till Mary bethought her of her pies
in the oven and the three drifted thriftily back to their morning tasks,
albeit with mind and heart down in the village.
Presently on the glad morning air sounded again the chug chug of the
motor, bringing them sharply back to their windows. Yes, there was the
Chief's car again. And Mark Carter with white haggard face sat in the
back seat! Apprehension flew to the soul of each loyal woman.
But before the sound of the Chief's motor bearing Mark Carter
Economyward had passed out of hearing, Jane Duncannon in a neat brown
dress with a little round brown ribboned hat set trimly on her rippley
hair, and a little round basket on her arm covered daintily with a white
napkin, was nipping out her tidy front gate between the sunflowers and
asters and tripping down Maple street as if it had been on her mind to
go ever since Saturday night.
Even before Mary Rafferty had turned from her Nottingham laced parlor
window and gone with swift steps to her kitchen door Christie McMertrie
stood on her back step with her sunbonnet on and a glass of jelly
wrapped in tissue paper in her hand:
“She's glimpsed 'em,” she whispered briefly, with a nod toward the
holland shades, “an' she's up in her side bedroom puttin' on her Sunday
bunnit. She'll be oot the door in another two meenits, the little black
crow! If we bide in the fields we can mak Carters' back stoop afore she
gets much past the tchurch!”
Mary Rafferty caught up her pan of peas, dashed them into a basket that
hung on the wall by the door, and bareheaded as she was hastened out
through the garden after her friend for all the world as if she were
going to pick more peas. Down the green lane between the bean poles they
hurried through the picket gate, pushing aside the big gray Duncannon
cat who basked in the sun under a pink hollyhock with a Duncannon smile
on its gray whiskers like the rest of the family.
“Jane! Jane Duncannon!” called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow
echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of steaming
cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as words
could have done that no one was at home.
“She's gone!”
The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the
street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie babies
playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and then
ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope, crossed
a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the opposite bank.
Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some one was coming
out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a black veil. They
hurried on. There were two more fences separating the meadows.
Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest of
the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's just
as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a glimpse
back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she had won.
By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her soft brown
eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her errand, and
together the three entered the Carter house by the side entrance, with a
neighborly tap and a call: “Miz Carter, you home?”
Quick nervous steps overhead, a muffled voice calling catchily, “Yes,
I'm coming, just set down, won't you?” and they dropped into three
dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with their
handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.
Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came hurriedly
down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on the qui vive,
and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair was damp about
her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from one to another
of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond them as if
looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway puzzled.
“This is a s'prise party, Miz Carter,” began Jane Duncannon laughing,
“We all brought our work along and can't stay but a minute, but we
got an idea an' couldn't keep it till Ladies' Aid. You got a minute
to spare? Go get your knitting and set down. _Now_! It's Miz'Severn's
birthday next Sat'day an' we thought 'twould be nice to get her a
present. What do you think about it?”
Mrs. Carter who had stood tensely in the doorway, her fingers whitely
gripping the woodwork, her face growing whiter every minute, suddenly
relaxed with relief in every line of her body, and bloomed into a smile:
“Oh, why, _is_ it? Of course! What'll it be? Why, couldn't we finish
that sunburst bed quilt we started last year while she was away? If we
all get at it I think we could finish. There's some real fast quilters
in the Aid. Wait, till I get my apples to pare. I promised Mark I'd have
apple sauce for lunch!”
A quick glance went from eye to eye and a look of relief settled down on
the little company. She _expected Mark home for lunch_ then!
They were in full tide of talk about the quilting pattern when a knock
came on the front door, and Mary Rafferty jumped up and ran to open it.
They heard the Harricutt voice, clear, sharp, incisive:
“I came to sympathize--!” and then as Mary swung her face into the
sunlight the voice came suddenly up as against a stone wall with a gasp
and “Oh, it's _you_! Where's Mrs. Carter? I wish to see Mrs. Carter.”
“She's right back in the dining-room, Mrs. Harricutt. Come on back.
We're talking over how to celebrate Miz Severn's birthday. Do you like
a straight quilting or diamond, Miz Harricutt: It's for the sunburst
coverlet you know!”
“The sunburst coverlet!” exclaimed Mrs. Harricutt irately, as though
somehow it were an indecent subject at such a time as this, but she
followed Mary back to the dining-room with a sniff of curiosity. She
fairly gasped when she saw Mrs. Carter with her small sensitive face
bright with smiles:
“Just take that chair by the window, Mrs. Harricutt,” she said affably,
“and _excuse me_ fer not getting up. I've got to get these apples on the
fire, for I promised Mark some apple sauce for lunch, and he likes it
stone cold.”
Mrs. Harricutt pricked up her ears:
“Oh, Mark is coming home for _lunch_ then!” Her voice was cold, sharp,
like a steel knife dipped in lemon juice. There was a bit of a curl on
the tip of it that made one wince as it went through the soul. Little
Mrs. Carter flushed painfully under her sensitive skin, up to the roots
of her light hair. She had been pretty in her girlhood, and Mark had her
coloring in a stronger way.
“Oh, yes, he's coming home for lunch,” she answered brightly, glad of
this much assurance. “And he has to have it early because he has to
drive that strange young woman from the parsonage back somewhere down in
New Jersey. She came alone by herself yesterday, but the mountain passes
sort of scairt her, and she asked Mark to drive back with her.”
“Oh!” There was a challenge in the tone that called the red to Mrs.
Carter's cheek again, But Christie McMertrie's soft burring tongue slid
in smoothly:
“What wad ye think o' the briar pattern around the edge? I know it's
some worruk, but it's a bonnie border to lie under, an' it's not so
tedious whan there's plenty o' folks to tak a hand.”
They carried the topic along with a whirl then and Mrs. Harricutt had no
more chance to harry her hostess. Then suddenly Mary arose in a panic:
“I left my pies in the oven!” she cried, “They'll be burned to a crisp.
I must go. Miz Harricutt, are you going along now? I'll walk with you.
I want to ask you how you made that plum jam you gave me a taste of the
other day. Jim thinks it is something rare, and I'll have to be making
some or he'll never be satisfied, that is if you don't mind--!” and
before Mrs. Carter realized what was happening Mary had marshalled the
Harricutt vulture down the street, and was questioning eagerly about
measures of sugar and plums and lemon peel and nuts:
“Now,” said Christie setting down her jelly glass that she had been
holding all this time, “We'll be ganging awa. There's a bit jar of
raspberry jam for the laddie with the bright smile, an' you think it
over and run up and say which pattern you think is bonniest.”
“It was just beautiful of you all to come--” said little Mrs. Carter
looking from one to another in painful gratitude--“why it's been just
_dear_ for you to run in this way--”
“Yes, a regular party!” said Jane Duncannon squeezing her hand with
understanding. “See, Mary has left her peas. You'd best put them on to
boil for Mark. He'll be coming back pretty soon. Come, Christie, wumman,
it's time we was back at our worruk!” and they hurried through the hedge
and across the meadows to their home once more, but as they entered the
Duncannon gate they marked Billy Gaston, head down, pedalling along over
on Maple Street, his jaws keeping rhythmic time with his feet.
One hour later the smooth chug of a car that was not altogether
unfamiliar to their ears brought those four women eagerly to their
respective windows, and as the old clock chimed the hour of noon they
beheld Mark Carter driving calmly down the street toward his own home in
his own car. _His own car!_ and Billy Gaston lounging lazily by his side
still chewing rhythmically.
Mark's Car! Mark! Billy! _Ah Billy!_ Three of them mused with a note of
triumph in their eyes.
And Mrs. Harricutt as she rolled her Sunday bonnet strings mused:
“Now, how in the world did that Mark Carter get his own car down
to Economy when he went up with the Chief? He had it down here this
morning, I know, for I saw him riding round. And that little imp of a
Billy! I wonder why he always tags him round! Miss Saxon ought to be
warned about that! I'll have to do it! But how in the world did Mark get
his car?”
Billy enjoyed his lunch that day, a bit of cold chicken and bread, two
juicy red cheeked apples, and an unknown quantity of sugary doughnuts
from the stone crock in the pantry. He sat on the side step munching the
last doughnut he felt he could possibly swallow. Mark was home and all
was well. Himself had seen the impressive glance that passed between
Mark and the Chief at parting. The Chief trusted Mark that was plain.
Billy felt reassured. He reflected that that guy Judas had been
precipitate about hanging himself. If he had only waited and _done_ a
little something about it there might have been a different ending to
the story. It was sort of up to Judas anyway, having been the cause of
the trouble.
With this virtuous conclusion Billy wiped the sugar from his mouth,
mounted his wheel and went forth to browse in familiar and much
neglected pastures.
He eyed the Carter house as he slid by. Mrs. Carter was placidly shaking
out the table cloth on the side porch. Mark had eaten his apple sauce
and gone. He passed Browns, Todds, Bateses, chasing a white hen that had
somehow escaped her confines, but in front of Joneses he suddenly became
aware of the blue car that stood in front of the parsonage. It had come
to life and was throbbing. It was backing toward him and going to turn
around. On the sidewalk leaning on a cane stood the obnoxious stranger
for whose presence in Sabbath Valley he, Billy Gaston, was responsible.
He lounged at ease with a smile on his ugly mug and acted as if he lived
there! There was nothing about his appearance to suggest _his_ near
departure. His disabled car still stood silent and helpless beside the
curb. Aw _Gee_!
Billy swerved to the other side of the road to avoid the blue car at a
hair's breadth, but as it turned he looked up impudently to behold the
strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in
her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving. Billy
nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his balance
in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been observed
by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the road. Beyond
the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the graveyard, casting
a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he was glad not to
discover even the flutter of a garment to show that Lynn Severn was
about. That guy was there, but Miss Lynn was not chasing him. That
was as it should be. He breathed a sigh from his heavy heart and stole
sadly, back to the old mossy stone where so many of his life problems
had been thought out. Still, that guy _was there! He_ had the advantage!
And Mark and that lady! Bah! He sat down to meditate on Judas and his
sins. It seemed that life was just about as disappointing as it could
be! His rough young hand leaned hard against the grimy old stone till
the half worn lettering hurt his flesh and he shifted his position
and lifted his hand. There on the palm were the quaint old letters,
imprinted in the flesh, “Blessed are the dead--” Gosh yes! _Weren't_
they? Judas had been right after all. “Aw Gee!” he said aloud, “Whatta
fool I bin!” He glanced down at the stone as he rubbed the imprint
from the fleshy part of his hand. The rest of the text caught his eye.
“Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!” There was a catch in that
of course. It wasn't blessed if you didn't _die in the Lord_. “In the
Lord” meant that you didn't do anything Judas-like. He understood. The
people who didn't die in the Lord weren't blessed. They didn't go to
heaven, whatever heaven was. They went to _hell_. Heaven had never
seemed very attractive to Billy when he thought of it casually, and he
had taken it generally for granted that he being a boy was naturally
destined for the other place. In fact until he knew Lynn Severn he had
always told himself calmly that he _expected_ to go to hell sometime,
it had seemed the manly thing to do. Most men to his mind were preparing
for hell. It seemed the masculine place of final destiny, Heaven was
for women. He had ventured some of this philosophy on his aunt once in
a particularly strenuous time when she had told him that he couldn't
expect the reward of the righteous if he continued in his present ways,
but she had been so horrified, and wept so long and bitterly that he
hadn't ever had the nerve to try it again. And since Marilyn Severn had
been his teacher he had known days when he would almost be willing to
go to heaven--for her sake. He had also suspected, at times, that Mr.
Severn was fully as much of a man as Mark Carter, although Mark was _his
own_, and if Mark decided to go to hell Billy felt there could be no
other destiny for himself.
But now, face to face with realities, Billy suddenly began to realize
what hell was going to be like. Billy felt hell surrounding him. Flames
could not beat the reproach that now flared him in the face and stung
him to the quick with his own sinfulness. He, Billy Gaston, Captain of
the Sabbath Valley Base Ball team, prospective Captain of the Sabbath
Valley Foot Ball team, champion runner, and high jumper, champion
swimmer and boxer of the boy's league of Monopoly County, friend and
often tolerated companion of Mark Carter the great, trusted favorite of
his beloved and saintly Sunday School teacher, was _in hell_! He could
never more hold up his head and walk proud of himself. He was in hell
at fourteen for life, and by his own act! And Gosh hang it! Hell didn't
look so attractive in the near vision stretching out that way through
life, and _then some_, as it had before he faced it. He'd rather walk
through fire somewhere and stand some chance of getting done with it
sometime. “Aw Gee! Gosh! Whatta fool I bin!”
And then he set himself to see just what he had done, while the high
walls of sin seemed to rise closer about him, and his face burned with
the heat of the pit into which he had put himself.
There was that guy Shafton--sissyman!--He had put him in the parsonage
along with his beloved teacher! If he only hadn't taken that ten dollars
or listened to that devil of a Pat, he wouldn't have put up that detour
and Shafton would have gone on his way. What difference if he had got
kidnapped? His folks wouldda bailed him out with their old jewels and
things. Whaddid anybody want of jewels for anyway? Just nasty little
bits of stone and glass! Mark had seen the guy there in church. Mark
didn't like it. He knew by the set of Mark's mouth. Of course Mark went
with Cherry sometimes, but then that was different! Lynn was--well, Lynn
was Miss Marilyn! That was all there was about it.
And if he hadn't put up that detour Mark would have gone home that night
before twelve and his mother would have known he was home, and likely
other people would have seen him, and been able to prove he wasn't
out shooting anybody, and then they wouldn't have told all those awful
things about him. Of course now Mark was safe, _of course,_ but then it
wasn't good to have things like that said about Mark. It was fierce to
have a thing like that session meeting to remember! He wanted to kill
that old ferret of a Harricutt whenever he thought about it. Then he
would be a murderer, and be hanged, and he wouldn't care if he did
mebbe. _Aw Gee!_
A meadow lark suddenly pierced the sky with its wild sweet note high in
the air somewhere, and Billy wondered with a sick thud of his soul how
larks dared to sing in a world like this where one could upset a whole
circle of friends by a single little turn of finance that he hadn't
meant anything wrong by at all? The bees droned around the honeysuckle
that billowed over the little iron fence about a family burying lot, and
once Lynn Severn's laugh--not her regular laugh, but a kind of a company
polite one--echoed lightly across to his ears and his face dropped into
his hands. He almost groaned. Billy Gaston was at the lowest ebb he
had ever been in his young life, and his conscience, a thing he hadn't
suspected he had, and wouldn't have owned if he had, had risen up within
him to accuse him, and there seemed no way on earth to get rid of it.
A conscience wasn't a _manly_ thing according to his code, yet here he
was, he Billy Gaston, with a conscience!
It was ghastly!