AUNTIE SUE'S PROPOSITION.
During the next few days, Brian Kent rapidly regained his strength. No
one seeing the tall, self-possessed gentleman who sat with Auntie Sue on
the porch overlooking the river, or strolled about the place, could have
imagined him the wretchedly repulsive creature that Judy had dragged
from the eddy so short a time before. And no one,--exempting, perhaps,
detective Ross,--would have identified this bearded guest of Auntie
Sue's as the absconding bank clerk for whose arrest a substantial reward
was offered.
But Mr. Ross had departed from the Ozarks, to report to the Empire
Consolidated Savings Bank that, to the best of his knowledge and belief,
Brian Kent had been drowned. Homer T. Ward, himself, wrote Auntie Sue
about the case, for the detective had told the bank president about his
visit to the little log house by the river, and the banker knew that his
old teacher would wish to hear the conclusion of the affair.
The facts upon which the detective based his conclusion that Brian Kent
was dead, were, first of all, the man's general character, temperament,
habits, and ambitions,--aside from his thefts from the bank,--prior to
the time of his exposure and flight, and his known mental and physical
condition at the time he disappeared from the hotel in the little river
town of Borden.
The detective reasoned (and there are thousands of cases that could
be cited to support his contention) that by such a man as Brian
Kent,--knowing, as he must have known, the comparative certainty of
his ultimate arrest and conviction, and being in a mental and nervous
condition bordering on insanity, as a result of his constant brooding
over his crime and the excessive drinking to which he had resorted for
relief,--by such a man, death would almost inevitably be chosen rather
than a life of humiliation and disgrace and imprisonment.
Acting upon the supposition, however, that the man had gone down the
river in that missing boat, and that the appearance of suicide
was planned by the fugitive to trick his pursuers, the detectives
ascertained that he had provided no supplies for a trip down the river.
The man would be compelled to seek food. The mountain country through
which he must pass was sparsely settled, and for a distance that would
have taken a boat many days to cover, the officers visited every house
and cabin and camp on either side of the river without finding a trace
of the hunted man. The river had been watched night and day. The net set
by the Burns operatives touched every settlement and village for many
miles around. And, finally, the battered and broken wreck of the lost
boat had been found some two miles below Elbow Rock.
“. . . And so, my dear Auntie Sue,” Banker Ward wrote, in conclusion,
“you may rest in peace, secure in the certainty that my thieving bank
clerk is not lurking anywhere in your beautiful Ozarks to pounce down
upon you unawares in your little house beside the river. The man is
safely dead. There is no doubt about it. I regret, more than I can
express, that you have been in any way disturbed by the affair. Please
think no more about it.
“By the way, you made a great impression upon detective Ross. He was
more than enthusiastic over your graciousness and your beauty. I
never heard him talk so much before in all the years I have known him.
Needless to say, I indorsed everything he said about the dearest
old lady in the world, and then we celebrated by dining together and
drinking a toast to Auntie Sue. . . .”
Auntie Sue went with the letter to Brian, and acquainted him with that
part of the banker's communication which related to the absconding
clerk; but, about her relation to the president of the Empire
Consolidated Savings Bank, she said nothing.
“Isn't it splendid!” she finished, her face glowing with delight.
“Splendid?” he echoed, looking at her with grave, questioning eyes.
“Why, yes, of course!” she returned. “Aren't you glad to be so dead,
under the circumstances? Think what it means! You are free, now. No
horrid old detectives dogging your steps, or waiting behind every bush
and tree to pounce upon you. There is nothing, now, to prevent your
being the kind of man that you always meant to be,--and really ARE,
too,--except for your--your accidental tumble in the river,” she
finished with her low chuckling laugh. “And, some day,” she went on,
with conviction, “when you have established yourself,--when you have
asserted your REAL self, I mean,--and have paid back every penny of the
money, Homer T. Ward and Mr. Ross and everybody will be glad that they
didn't catch you before you had a chance to save yourself.”
“And you, Auntie Sue?” Brian's voice was deep with feeling: “And you?”
“Me? Oh, I am as glad, now, as I can ever be, because, you see, to me it
is already done.”
For a long minute he looked at her without speaking, then turned his
face away to gaze out over the river and the hills; but his eyes were
the eyes of one who looks without seeing.
Slowly, he said: “I wish I could be sure. There was a time when I
was--when I believed in myself. It seems to me, now, that it was years
and years ago. I thought, then, that nothing could shake me in my
purpose; that nothing could check me in my ambition. I saw myself going
straight on to the goal I had set for myself as certainly as--well, as
your river ever there goes on to the sea. But now--” He shook his head
sadly.
Auntie Sue laughed. “You foolish boy. My river out there doesn't go
straight at all. It meets all sorts of obstacles, and is beset by all
sorts of conflicting influences, and so is forced to wind and twist and
work its way along; but, the big, splendid thing about the river is that
it keeps going on. It never stops to turn back. No matter what happens
to it, it never stops. It goes on and on and on unto the very end, until
it finally loses itself in the triumph of its own achievement,--the
sea.”
“And you think that I can go on?” he asked, doubtingly.
“I know you can go on,” she answered with conviction.
“But, why are you so sure?”
“Perhaps,” she returned, smiling, “seventy years makes one sure of some
things.”
Ho exclaimed passionately: “But you do not know--you cannot know--how
my life, my dreams, my plans, my hopes, my--everything--has been broken
into bits!”
She answered calmly, pointing to Elbow Rock: “Look there, Brian. See
how the river is broken into bits. See how its smoothly flowing, onward
sweep is suddenly changed to wild, chaotic turmoil; how it rages and
fumes and frets and smashes itself against the rocks. But it goes on
just the same. Life cannot be always calm and smoothly flowing like the
peaceful Bend. But life can always go on. Life must always go on. And
you will find, my dear boy, that a little way below Elbow Rock there is
another quiet stretch.”
When he spoke again there was a note of almost reverence in his voice.
“Auntie Sue, was there ever a break in your life? Were your dreams and
plans ever smashed into bits?”
For a little, she did not answer; then she said, bravely: “Yes, Brian;
several times. Once,--years and years ago,--I do not know how I managed
to go on. I felt, then, as you feel now; but, somehow, I managed, and
so found the calm places. The last hard spot came quite recently.”
She paused, wondering what he would do if she were to tell him how he
himself had made the hard spot. “But, now,” she continued, “I am hoping
that the rest of the way will be calm and untroubled.”
“I wish I could help to make it so!” he cried impulsively.
“Why, you can,” she returned quickly. “Of course you can. Perhaps that
is why the current landed your boat at my garden, instead of carrying
you on down the rapids to Elbow Rock. Who can say?”
A new light kindled in the man's eyes as his sensitive nature took fire
at Auntie Sue's words. “I could do anything for a woman like you, Auntie
Sue,” he said quietly, but with a conviction that left no room for
doubt. “But you must tell me what I am to do.”
She answered: “You are simply to go on with your life--just as if no
Elbow Rock had ever disturbed you; just as the river goes on--to the
end.”
She left him, then, to think out his problem alone; for the teacher of
so many years' experience was too wise not to know when a lesson was
finished.
But when the end of the day was come, they again sat together on the
porch and watched the miracle of the sunset hour. And no word was spoken
by them, now, of life and its problems and its meanings. As one listens
to the song of a bird without thought of musical notes or terms; as one
senses the fragrance of a flower without thought of the chemistry of
perfume; as one feels the presence of spring in the air without thought
of the day of the week, so they were conscious of the beauty, the glory,
and the peace of the evening.
Only when the soft darkness of the night lay over the land, and river
and mountain and starry sky were veiled in dreamy mystery, did Auntie
Sue speak: “Oh, it is so good to have some one to share it with,--some
one who understands. I am very lonely, sometimes, Brian. I wonder if you
know?”
“Yes, Auntie Sue, I know, for I have been lonely, too.”
And so the old gentlewoman, whose lifework was so nearly finished, and
the man in the flush of his manhood years, whose life had been so nearly
wrecked, were drawn very close by a something that came to them out of
the beauty and the mystery of that hour.
The next day, Brian told Auntie Sue that he would leave on the morrow.
“Leave?” she echoed in dismay. “Why, Brian, where are you going?”
“I don't exactly know,” he returned; “but, of course, I must go
somewhere, out into the world again.”
“And why must you 'go somewhere, out into the world again'?” she
demanded.
“To work,” he answered, smiling. “If I am to go on, as you say, I must
go where I can find something to do.”
“If that isn't just like you--you child!” cried the old teacher. “You
are all alike,--you boys and girls. You all must have something to do;
always, it is 'something to do'.”
“Well,” he returned, “and must we not have something to do?”
“You will do something, certainly,” she answered; “but, before you
can DO anything that is worth doing, you must BE something. Life isn't
DOING;--it is BEING.”
“I wonder if that was not the real reason for my wretched failures,”
said Brian, thoughtfully.
“It is the real reason for most of our failures,” she returned. “And so
you are not going to fail again. You are not going away somewhere, you
don't know where, to do something you don't know what. You are going to
stay right here, and just BE something. Then, when the time comes, you
will do whatever is yours to do as naturally and as inevitably as the
birds sing, as the blossoms come in the spring, or as the river finds
its way to the sea.”
And more than ever Brian Kent felt in the presence of Auntie Sue as
a little boy to whom the world had grown suddenly very big and very
wonderful.
But, after a while, he shook his head, smiling wistfully. “No, no,
Auntie Sue, that sounds all true and right enough, but it can't be. I
must go just the same.”
“Why can't it be, Brian?”
“For one thing,” he returned, “I cannot risk the danger to you. After
all, as long as I am living, there is a chance that my identity will be
discovered, and you--no, no; I must not!”
“As for that,” she answered quickly, “the chances of your being
identified are a thousand times greater if you go into the world again
too soon. Some day, of course, you must go; but you are safer now right
here. And”--she added quickly--“it would be no easier for me, dear boy,
to--to--have it happen somewhere away from me. You are mine, you know,
no matter where you go.”
“But, Auntie Sue,” he protested, “I am not a gentleman of means that I
can do nothing indefinitely; neither am I capable of living upon your
hospitality for an extended period. I must earn my bread and butter.”
The final sentence came with such a lifting of his head, such a look
of stern decision, and such an air of pride, that the gentle old
school-teacher laughed until her eyes were filled with tears; and Judy,
at the crack in the kitchen door, wondered if the mistress of the little
log house by the river were losing her mind.
“Oh, Brian! Brian!” cried Auntie Sue, wiping her eyes. “I knew you
would come to the 'bread and butter' at last. That is where all our
philosophies and reasonings and arguments come at last, don't they? Just
'bread and butter,' that is all. And I love you for it. Of course you
can't live upon my hospitality,--and I couldn't let you if you would.
And if you WOULD, I wouldn't let you if I could. I am no more a lady of
means, my haughty sir, than you are a gentleman of independent fortune.
The fact is, Brian, dear, I suspect that you and I are about the two
poorest people in the world,--to be anything like as pretentiously
respectable and properly proud as we are.”
When the man could make no reply, but only looked at her with a
much-puzzled and still-proud expression, she continued, half-laughingly,
but well pleased with him: “Please, Brian, don't look so haughtily
injured. I had no intention of insulting you by offering charity. Far
from it.”
Instantly, the man's face changed. He put out his hands protestingly,
and his blue eyes filled, as he said, impulsively. “Auntie Sue, after
what you have done for me, I--”
She answered quickly: “We are considering the future. What has been, is
past. Our river is already far beyond that point in its journey. Don't
let us try to turn the waters back. I promise you I am going to be very,
very practical, and make you pay for EVERYTHING.”
Smiling, now, he waited for her to explain.
“I must tell you, first,” she began, “that, except for a very small
amount in the--in a savings bank, I have nothing to provide for my last
days except this little farm.”
“What a shame,” Brian Kent exclaimed, “that a woman like you can give
her life to the public schools for barely enough salary to keep her
alive during her active years, and then left in her old age with no
means of support. It is a national disgrace.”
Auntie Sue chuckled with appreciation of the rather grim humor of the
situation. What would Brian Kent, indignant at the public neglect of the
school-teacher, say of the man who had robbed her of the money that was
to provide for her closing years? “After all, most public sins are only
individual sins at the last,” she said, musingly.
“I beg your pardon,” said Brian, not in the least seeing the relevancy
of her words.
Auntie Sue came quickly back to her subject: “Only thirty acres of my
little farm is under cultivation. The remaining fifty acres is wild
timberland. If I could have that fifty acres also in cultivation, with
the money that the timber would bring,--which would not be a great
deal,--I would be fairly safe for the--for the rest of my evening,” she
finished with a smile. “Do you see?”
“You mean that I--that you want me to stay here and work for you?”
“I mean,” she answered, “that, if you choose to stay for awhile, you
need not feel that you would be accepting my hospitality as charity,”
she returned gently. “I am not exactly offering you a job: I am only
showing you how you could, without sacrificing your pride, remain in
this quiet retreat for awhile before returning to the world.”
“It would be heaven, Auntie Sue,” he returned earnestly. “I want to stay
so bad that I fear myself. Let me think it over until to-morrow. Let me
be sure that I am doing the right thing, and not merely the thing I want
to do.”
She liked his answer, and did not mention the subject again until Brian
himself was ready. And, strangely enough, it was poor, twisted Judy who
helped him to set matters straight.