Produced by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY
[Illustration: "THE ONLY REAL HOLE IS WHERE HE SAT DOWN ON AN ENGINE
SPARK AT THE STATION."]
IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY
BY ANNE WARNER
AUTHOR OF "THE REJUVENATION OF AUNT MARY"
"SUSAN CLEGG AND HER FRIEND MRS. LATHROP"
"AN ORIGINAL GENTLEMAN," ETC.
_Illustrated by_ J. V. McFALL
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1909
_Copyright, 1909_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published April, 1909
Electrotyped and Printed at
THE COLONIAL PRESS:
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCING MRS. RAY
II. THE COMING OF THE LASSIE
III. INTRODUCING LASSIE TO MRS. RAY
IV. THE DIFFERENCE
V. THAT DISPASSIONATE OBSERVER, MRS. RAY
VI. WHEN DIFFERENCES LEAD TO WHAT IS EVER THE SAME
VII. THE LATHBUNS
VIII. MISS LATHBUN'S STORY
IX. PLEASANT CONVERSE
X. THE BROADER MEANING
XI. THE WAR-PATH
XII. ANOTHER PATH
XIII. AND STILL ANOTHER PATH
XIV. DEVOTED TO COATS AND CASE-KNIVES
XV. LEARNING LESSONS
XVI. THE WALK TO THE LOWER FALLS
XVII. RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE
XVIII. IN THE HOUR OF NEED
XIX. DOUBTS
XX. SHIFTING SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS
XXI. THE POST-OFFICE
XXII. AFTERMATH
XXIII. THE DARKNESS BEFORE
XXIV. DAWN
XXV. THE BREAKING OF ANOTHER DAY AND WAY
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THE ONLY REAL HOLE IS WHERE HE SAT DOWN ON AN ENGINE SPARK AT
THE STATION"
"IT'S HER THAT BOUGHT THE OLD WHITTACKER HOUSE"
"SURELY YOU REMEMBER ME"
ALVA
"IF YOU'VE LENT MONEY TO THE LATHBUNS YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE IT"
IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING MRS. RAY
"'He moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,'" sang Mrs. Ray,
coming in from the wood-shed and proceeding to fill up the stove, with
the energy which characterized her whole person. A short, well-knit,
active person it was, too,--a figure of health and compact muscular
strength, a well-shaped head with a tight wad of neat hair on top,
bright eyes, and a firm mouth.
Mrs. Wiley, a near neighbor, sat by the table and watched her friend
with the after-nightfall passivity of a woman who has to be very active
during daylight. Mrs. Wiley was not small and well-knit, neither was she
energetic. Life for Mrs. Wiley had gone mainly in a minor key composed
largely of sharps, and as a consequence she sighed frequently and sighed
even now.
Mrs. Ray slammed the stove door and caroled louder than ever, as if to
drown even the echo of a sigh in her kitchen. "'He moves in a mysterious
way His wonders to perform,'" she sang, and then, folding her arms on
top of her bosom in a manner peculiarly her own, she spoke to Mrs.
Wiley in that obtrusively cheerful tone which we use to those who sigh
when feeling no desire to sigh with them: "That's my motto--that
song--yes, indeed. It fits everything and accounts for everything and
comes in handy anywhere any time, even if I never have wondered myself,
but have been dead sure all along. Yes, indeed."
Mrs. Wiley sighed again, and her eyes moved towards a large, awkward
parcel rolled in newspaper, which lay on the end of the table by her.
"I'm so glad you feel able to undertake it, Mrs. Ray. I don't know how I
ever could have managed it, if you'd said no. Mr. Wiley _will_ have a
new pig-pen this year, and the pigs never can pay for it themselves. So
you were my only way to a new winter coat. I'm so glad you didn't say
no. Besides it's father's suit, and I shall love to wear it for that
reason, too."
"I never do say no to any kind of work, do I?" said Mrs. Ray, looking at
the clock, and then all over the room; "this would be a nice time of
life for me to begin to sit around and say no to work. What with Mr.
Ray's second wife's children not all educated yet, and his first wife's
children getting along to where they're beginning to be left widows with
six apiece and no life insurance, I'm likely to want all the work I can
get for some years, as far as I can see. Yes, indeed."
Mrs. Wiley sighed heavily.
"Mr. Wiley thinks we'd ought to insure our lives in favor of Lottie
Ann," she said, feeling for her pocket-handkerchief at the thought;
"she's so dreadful delicate--but I think it's foolish--she's so
_dreadful_ delicate."
"Why don't you insure Lottie Ann, then?" Mrs. Ray glanced at the clock
again, frowned a little and puckered her lips. "If you don't mind taking
that chair the cat's in, Mrs. Wiley, I believe I've got just about time
enough to sprinkle the clothes before the mail comes in; it looks so to
me."
Mrs. Wiley slowly and gravely exchanged seats with the cat. "Do you take
much washing in now? I shouldn't think you had time."
"Time!" Mrs. Ray was dragging a clothes-basket from under the table and
filling a dipper with water. "I never stop to think whether I have time
or not, any more. 'He moves in a mysterious way--' there's where my
motto comes in again. Yes, indeed. I move just the same way myself. I
don't see how I get so much done, but I've no time to stop and study
over it, or I'd be behind just that much. There's more than you wonder
where I get time from, Mrs. Wiley. They asked me if I had time for the
post-office. And I said I had. They asked first if I could read and
write, and I said I could; and then they asked me if I had time, and I
said I had. And that settled it."
"Why, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs. Wiley, watching the clothes-sprinkling, which
was now going forward, attentively, "that's one of the waists from that
girl at Nellie O'Neil's, isn't it?"
"Yes, indeed. She asked Nellie for a French laundress, and Nellie put
her shawl right over her head and run up and asked me if I had time for
that, too. I said I was willing to try, so I'm a French laundress too,
now. 'He moves'--"
"What do you think of those two young people at Nellie's, anyway?" Mrs.
Wiley dropped her voice confidentially. "I was meaning to ask you that,
right at first."
"Well, if you ask _me_," said Mrs. Ray, "I can't make him out, and I
think she's mooney. I'm a great judge of mooney people ever since I
first knew Mr. Ray, and that girl looks very mooney to me. Look at her
coming here and hiking right over and buying the Whittacker house next
day--a house I wouldn't send a rat to buy--not if I had a real liking
for the rat. And now the way she's pulling it to pieces and nailing on
new improvements, with the trees all boxed up, as though trees weren't
free as air--oh, she's mooney, very mooney--yes, indeed."
"Nellie don't think they act loving," said Mrs. Wiley; "and Joey Beall
says they don't act loving even when they're alone together. He's been
building a culvert for Mr. Ledge, and he's seen 'em alone together
twice. Joey knows how people ought to act when they're alone together.
He always knows when folks are in love, before they know themselves. He
tells by seeing them alone together. Why, he knew when you was going to
be married--he saw you and Mr. Ray alone together that day you walked to
the Lower Falls."
"But it wasn't through our acting loving that he knew it," said Mrs.
Ray, energetically ruminative between the dipper of water and the
clothes to be sprinkled; "my, but I was mad that day! It was the first
and last time anybody ever fooled _me_ into walking to the Lower Falls.
Yes, indeed. I like to of died! If Mr. Ray hadn't asked me to marry him,
I'd never have forgiven him getting me to go on that walk. Those flights
of steps! And those paths! All the way down I was wanting to turn round
and go back. I made up my mind never to take Mr. Ray's word for nothing
again. And I never did. He fooled me into that walk, but he never fooled
me again. Yes, indeed. Never!"
"But Joey Beall saw you that day," said Mrs. Wiley, whose mind was of
that strength which is not to be swept beyond its gait by any other
mind's rapidity, "and he said right off that night you'd marry him."
"Maybe he saw Mr. Ray take his first and second wife down to the Lower
Falls, and knew it from his looks with them--Mr. Ray took 'em both down
there, and asked 'em each to marry him coming back. All the way down he
was telling me what they each said to everything they saw. And coming
back he showed me where he asked 'em each. Mr. Ray never made any secret
of his first and second wife to me. I'll say that for him. Yes, indeed.
And like enough Joey was around then. He's always round when people are
alone together."
"But he doesn't think these young people act loving," Mrs. Wiley went
on, recurring to the main issue under discussion. "Joey says they don't
have the right way at all. He says they don't disagree right, either.
They're on opposite sides of the dam, the same as if they were married
folks, but they don't seem to feel interested in their discussing.
Nellie says they're real pleasant, but she can't understand them;
Nellie's very far from making them out."
"Oh, Nellie can't make nothing out. She and Jack is dead easy. Look at
those other boarders they've got. She says she can't make them out,
either. I should think not."
Mrs. Wiley's standpoint refused to stretch to the other boarders. She
sighed again.
"She seems a very nice girl," she said, sadly.
"Oh, yes, nice enough--but mooney," said Mrs. Ray. "I know the kind as
soon as I see 'em. I could almost tell 'em by their legs, when they get
down from the train on the side away from me. She's got ideas about
souls and scenery, that girl has; but that young man's got his living to
earn, and he hasn't no time for any ideas. I like him! We both work for
the United States Government, and that's a great bond. Yes, indeed. That
young man knows if the dam goes through here, he'll be fixed for life
digging it, and the girl's just the kind he wants, for he's practical
and she's mooney--she's so mooney she's bought a house to live in while
he digs the dam, and yet she's solemnly hoping there won't be no dam.
She says so."
"Perhaps she don't mean it," suggested Mrs. Wiley.
"Yes, she does mean it," said Mrs. Ray; "yes, indeed, she means it. I'm
a great judge of character and that girl means what she says."
"About the dam?"
"Yes, about everything. She's very friendly with me. She buys lots of
stamps, and cancels up like a lady. I'm very fond of her."
"What did she say about the dam?"
"Oh, lots of things. She said it was a desecration for one thing, and
then I was singing one day and she said I was very right, for the Lord
did move in a very mysterious way, and He would save the falls."
"Was she as sure as that?" asked Mrs. Wiley, appalled.
"She seemed to be. Oh, but she's very mooney."
"She's expecting a friend on to-night's train," said Mrs. Wiley; "Nellie
says it's a girl younger than she is."
"There'll be trouble then," said Mrs. Ray, with the calmness of all
prophets of evil; "a girl younger than she is is going to make her look
awful old."
"I wonder how long they'll stay!"
"I don't know. You never can tell how long any one will stay here. Some
come and say 'Oh, it's so quiet,' and the next morning the express has
got to be flagged to take 'em right away; and others come and say 'Oh,
it's so quiet,' and send for their trunks and paint-boxes that night.
You never can tell how this place is going to strike any one. Mr. Ray's
first wife cried all the time, till she died of asthma brought on by
hay-fever; and his second wife liked to be where she could go without
her false teeth, and she just loved it here! Yes, indeed."
"It isn't so very long till the train now," said Mrs. Wiley; "I guess
I'll go down to the station. I always like to see the train come in.
It's so sort of amusing to think it's going to Buffalo. Lottie Ann says
it's so funny to think of something being right here with us, and then
going right to Buffalo. I wish Lottie Ann could travel more. Lottie Ann
would be a great traveller if she could travel any."
Mrs. Ray took up the lamp. "Well, if you must go," she said, "I'll put
the light in the post-office and get down cellar, myself. I'm raising
celery odd minutes this year, and getting the beds ready to lay it under
is a lot of work."
Mrs. Wiley rose and moved slowly towards the door. "I wonder how long
those other two will stay at Nellie's," she said.
Mrs. Ray's lips drew tightly together. "I can't say I'm sure," she said;
"I know nothing about them. Folks who never write letters nor get
letters don't cut any figure in my life. Good night, Mrs. Wiley,"--she
opened the door as she spoke--"good-by."
"They've been there--" murmured Mrs. Wiley, but the door closing behind
her ended her speech.