She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood shaking
himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers.
"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough
fingers as she waited for his answer.
"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself
forward, baby-fashion.
"Where you been?" she persisted.
As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell ma. Where
you been?"
"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this time,"
with an air of triumph.
"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly.
He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull
voice.
A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on his
knees before the open oven-door.
"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid her
hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded. "You
mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked."
She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered, "and
I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag."
"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the
floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in there
makes me cold."
"You spoil all your pa's shoes that away," said Mrs. Brenner, her head
bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet with 'em any
more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees your shoes. I'll
have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home. Anyways," with a
breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red clay from the hill.
That never comes off."
The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents of
his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its fluttering
contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a crow of triumph
the boy shut the lid.
"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an awful
hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma," the boy
urged. She shook her head.
"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get these
shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll get a
awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad. Better get
into bed."
"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen pa already. I want my supper out here! I
don't want to go to bed!"
Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was pa?" she asked.
But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he
muttered.
Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly.
"Go get in bed," she said.
"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded. Two
big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded world he had
learned one certain fact. He could almost always move his mother with
tears.
But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him. "Mebbe
if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And I'll try
to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took the grimy box
from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand, pulled him to
his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom.
When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the box
on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something on her
hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye and she
straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light from the shelf
caught it.
"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It must
'a' been on those lacings of Tobey's."
The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched. "Olga! Blood
on his hands!"
Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her
hand quickly on her dirty apron, and held it up again to see the cut.
But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from? From
Tobey's shoes?
And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself enwrapped
in a mist of puzzling doubts.
She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But the
wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the slimy
water-weeds of the beach clung to them.
Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she
became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door and
held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing lights of
torches. A voice carried down to her.
"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these
trees. And right there I found his body!"
"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice.
"Stone-dead!"
Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately. She
stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring eyes
glazing.
Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had
hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had seen
him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. But little
subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and feared his
father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his half-witted son.
What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had occurred, Tobey had not
been on the hill. His shoes bore mute testimony to that. And the scream
had been on the slope. She frowned.
Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove and
laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to the
rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again the sound
of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not stumble. They
were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the shoes, gathered
them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings caught on a nail on
the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, and the jerking loosened
her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter they fell at her feet.
In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice, and
evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His shaggy
head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike, hung
almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his rough,
bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture.
"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you,
didn't I?"
He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering
terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril,
that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left a
wet track on the floor.
"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please,
Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on the
beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em."
Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into herself,
waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the probable blow.
Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered, she stared at him in
a dull silence.
"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she
stretched out her hand.
"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud off."
Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling.
"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still
tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room.
Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his
black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability.
Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears to
listen.
A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey, no
muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her husband
came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He stopped and
looked intently at his own muddy tracks.
"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off."
As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put out a
long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled again.
She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the wet
ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a compassionate
moment as she thought how wet and cold his feet must be.
"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em."
Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp knock
followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair close to
the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's there!" he
ordered.
She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step,
the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she
recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the
village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them;
young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers.
"Well?" she asked ungraciously.
"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said.
She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling off
their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the center of the room.
Her husband reluctantly stood up.
"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?"
"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked."
Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast.
"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some,"
she urged.
The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment Munn
said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner."
"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her meager
stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls.
"Set down?" suggested Mart.
Munn sat down with a sigh, and his companions followed his example. Mart
resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into the
capacious black maw of the oven.
"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy
jocularity.
Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach all
afternoon."
"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn
spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the
thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the
air.
Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became fixed
on the tracks of red clay.
"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside to-night, for the bay
was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly.
"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn persisted.
"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?"
"Oh--nothing," said Munn.
Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the
table.
Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished his soup
before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As Munn finished the
last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a wicked-looking black pipe,
crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it.
Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, "Been
any strangers around to-day?"
Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. He
was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till the sun
come out. I don't know whether he did or not."
"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?"
Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass
nobody."
The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours still
catching butterflies?" he asked presently.
Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their floods
of butterflies. But he did not answer.
"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He
puffed several times before he spoke again.
"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?"
Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced fingers locking
themselves.
"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart
said carelessly.
"Yes." Her voice was a breath.
"Was your boy out to-day?"