DAWN
As the train pulled out, a half hour later, Alva, now quite steady and
serene, waved her hand, and then turned away so as not to see Lassie,
weeping, yet clinging close to the strong arm thrown before her like a
guard.
"You'll come home with me, my dear," said Mrs. O'Neil, who had come to
the station, too; "you look a little tired and pale, and I'll help you
finish your own packing, and then you must have some good hot tea and
gingerbread."
Alva laid her hand in the kindly, warm hand of the other. "Yes, let us
go home," she said; "but I'm not going to-night, so my packing can
wait."
"You aren't going! Oh, I am glad. Then you'll have a little time for
rest. You need it." Mrs. O'Neil was so frankly pleased that Alva was
forced to thank her kindliness in spirit. The racked are so grateful to
a tender touch after their sharpest agony.
They went across the tracks and up the little cinder-path. Mary Loretta
and the cat came running out to meet them, and Mary Cody had the
teakettle boiling.
"She's not going to-night," said Mrs. O'Neil, getting out the tea and
handing it to Mary Cody, who was now cutting gingerbread. "I'm so glad;
it would be so lonesome without her."
Mary Cody assented.
"And those two young people are happy, too," Mrs. O'Neil said to Alva,
in the dining-room a minute later, "such a nice-looking couple!"
"I hope she'll be happy," said Alva, staring out of the window as she
sat by the table waiting idly. "She will have everything to make for her
happiness now." Lassie and Ingram had ceased to matter to her. Her brain
could not include them in this hour.
Mrs. O'Neil's eyes filled as she glanced that way. The still, quiet face
and form by the window had some tragedy written in every line, although
the lips stayed closed and the bright-faced hostess felt what she could
not know.
"There, my dear, there's the tea; let me pour your cup," she said. "Do
put in some cream just for once, it's so nourishing; and why, I declare,
if here isn't Mrs. Ray, just in time to have a cup with us!"
Mrs. Ray had passed the window and now opened the door and came in.
There was an air of strongly repressed excitement about her.
"So she's gone," she said briskly. "I was peeking out watching the
mail-bag to see that no one else stuck a letter in the strap on me, and
I saw you all seeing her off. Pretty she is,--and it's plain to be seen
what's going to happen next, and I'm very glad for them both."
"Yes," said Mrs. O'Neil, smiling; "we're all that."
"I come down for several reasons," said Mrs. Ray. "First," she turned to
Alva, "there's a letter that come this morning, and heaven knows how it
happened--with all my care--but it slipped under those pesky government
scales and I found it when I dusted out this afternoon. I hope it isn't
very important."
Alva took the letter with its typewritten address and put it in her
pocket. "Don't worry, Mrs. Ray," she said, "Lassie's gone; I'm going
very soon; nothing can matter much now, can it?" She managed to smile.
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Ray. "That's your view because you're
going, but I can't say that I shall feel really settled in my mind till
the dam's settled."
"But I thought the quicksand was going to settle the dam," said Mrs.
O'Neil; "somebody said so."
"You can't settle even a quicksand with a legislature," said Mrs. Ray;
"I guess I know. The United States Government is a great eye-opener,
especially when you have to tend a post-office according to any new
rules it finds time to have printed and mail you. I've had four pages of
new rules sent me to-day."
"Here's your tea, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs. O'Neil; "do sit down. Bring some
more gingerbread, Mary. And won't you have a little jam? I've a lot of
nice fresh this-autumn, plum jam."
"No, I don't want any jam," said Mrs. Ray, seating herself; "but,
Nellie, I've been hearing that legally your husband can't do nothing
with the Lathbuns."
"Well, that isn't the worst," said Mrs. O'Neil, her face clouding
considerably; "what do you think I've up and done? I was so mad I threw
that old hair-brush over into the gorge, and I've thereby made Jack
liable for a suit of damage for breaking into the luggage a guest leaves
without due cause, or else for willful destruction of personal property
belonging to another and unoffending party who has reposed trust only to
be betrayed. Jack will have to go to the lawyer to-morrow to find out
which. Oh, they were slick--those two. They've got the law down fine."
"Well, did you know they're caught?" Mrs. Ray brought this statement
forth as the cannon does the cannon ball.
Mrs. O'Neil jumped in her chair. "Caught? No, I did not know it. When?"
"They just told me over at the station that they were arrested about
three o'clock. I guess it's true. I hope so."
"Oh, to think of it," said Mrs. O'Neil, "to think of them sleeping here
last night and in Geneseo to-night!"
"The complaints will come pouring in," said Mrs. Ray; "everybody has got
a bill against 'em. I don't believe they'll be out of jail in years."
Alva turned her face again to the window. She had not thought much of
the two unfortunate creatures during the past few hours, and their
misery bore in upon her with a vivid, headlong shock.
"And those case-knives, too," Mrs. Ray continued; "did they have 'em on,
I wonder."
"Oh, the case-knives don't count," said Mrs. O'Neil; "they were left
here by a travelling man. He was around to-day and asked if it was here
that he left them. I meant to tell you, but dear, dear, I've had so much
to do, seems like."
Mrs. Ray was much taken aback, but quickly recovered herself.
"Oh, well, they could have used a hat-pin just as well. Anyhow, they
might have got up in the night and murdered him some way. Mrs. Lathbun
could have held him while Hannah Adele just stuck anything handy into
him in every direction. I never could see what they had the case-knives
for, anyhow, if it wasn't on the chance of some such game. For two women
to carry six case-knives instead of combs and tooth-brushes is very
suspicious in itself, I think."
"But, they weren't carrying them," said Mrs. O'Neil. "Jack thought they
had them for opening windows, but to think of them staying here three
weeks and no baggage. It makes me wild."
"Well, you and Mr. O'Neil are easy," said Mrs. Ray; "you're very mooney,
both of you. You can't deny that, Nellie,--you and your husband haven't
got real good common sense, or you'd have nailed their windows on from
the outside the day you first mistrusted them."
"Well, we won't be mooney any more, anyhow," said Mrs. O'Neil; "the
drillers came to-day with two freight cars of machinery, but Jack had
them pay a week in advance. He says he won't even trust the State after
this."
"I don't trust the United States any further than I can see 'em," said
Mrs. Ray; "but this has been a good lesson for you, Nellie. You won't be
letting any sharper that comes along wear your gran'mother's Paisley
shawl while he spies out the road he's going to skip out over next,
again."
"Indeed and I won't," said Mrs. O'Neil feelingly.
"Sammy Adams was in to spend the afternoon," Mrs. Ray went on. "We
talked the question of my marrying him all over again. He always asks me
when he comes for the whole afternoon like that, and he had such a hard
time getting it all out to-day with people running in to talk about the
Lathbuns every second, that I just had to appreciate the way he stuck to
it clear through to the end."
"What did you say?" asked Mrs. O'Neil.
"I didn't say much. I was too busy talking to the others, you know. Yes,
indeed. But I was sorry for him. He's _so_ scared sleeping alone in his
house for fear of maybe being swindled in his bed before he knows it.
And now he's worried for fear the dam is going to drown him
unexpectedly, too. They say if that dam is built and does bu'st, the
Johnstown Flood won't be in it with Rochester. The folks that want the
Falls saved'll get their chance to say, 'I told you so' then; but that
won't help Sammy much."
"What did you say?" Mrs. O'Neil asked again.
"Well, when I got a chance, I told him I'd despise a man who'd let me
keep on working as hard as I work now, but that if any man was to ask me
to give up the church, or the post-office, or my chickens, that would
show he didn't know me, right in the start."
"What did he say to that?" Mrs. O'Neil asked with interest.
"He didn't know what to say at first, but then he's the kind of man that
never does know what to say. I declare, Nellie, I do think men that want
to marry women act too foolish for words. Yes, indeed. If a man wants to
do anything else in the world he gets to work and does it; but if he
wants to marry a woman he just sits still and looks silly and leaves it
to the woman to be done or not."
"Do you think so?" said Mrs. O'Neil.
"Think so," said Mrs. Ray; "I know so. I've had men acting foolish
around where I was all my life. I've tripped over 'em while sweeping,
cooking, washing, tending Mr. Ray's family by his second wife, sorting
mail,--why, I've had men thinking what a good wife I'd make all my life,
and looking so like idiots while they thought it that I wouldn't look at
it like they did for any money. They stop by the fence when I'm
ploughing, and just grin with thinking what a hired man I'd make. I was
cleaning the long aisle carpet at the church last Wednesday, and that
minister that's visiting our minister couldn't keep away from the
window. When I take my eggs and chickens to market, the buyer down there
looks at how I've got those eggs packed and pinches my chickens, and
then he turns to me and goodness, but his glance is loving."
"Well, you're a very smart woman, you know," said Mrs. O'Neil.
"I know that; I know it just as well as you do. But I'm a woman, and I'd
like to meet one man as was a man. I know men pretty well; I knew Mr.
Ray better than he knew himself. Mr. Ray thought he was doing me an
honor to marry me, and I knew he wasn't, and I lived with him fifteen
years and never threw it in his face once. I let him talk about his
ancestors and I never talked about mine. He thought I didn't have any;
he never realized I kept still so as to keep from telling such stories
as he did. His ancestors! I'd like to know what sort of ancestors he
had! If he'd had any ancestors, he'd have been bound to be descended
from them, I should think, in which case he wouldn't have been a Ray.
The fact that he and his father called themselves Jared and spelt it
Jarrod was enough for me; but to make a long story short I'm going to
marry Sammy Adams, and I ran down to tell you that at the same time that
I brought the letter."
There was an outbreak of exclamations and then a beginning at
congratulations, but Mrs. Ray stopped those.
"I don't want congratulations," she said; "there isn't anything to
congratulate me about, for I never tried to get him, so I haven't had a
success or anything to be proud of. It's just that the dam is so likely
to be going to drown him out that he wants to rent my second floor and
pay the rent every first Monday in the month. I'm going to go straight
on with my life, and continue to save my own money to finish educating
Mr. Ray's children by his second wife. We shall go to church together,
and he'll sit with me evenings when I ain't too tired, or when he's
nervous over case-knives and swindling. He's going to pay me for all his
tailoring and all his hair-cuts, but he's to say when he thinks he needs
anything new or it's getting too long. He'll buy our potatoes and
chickens of me at the regular price, but I'll furnish my own eggs, like
I always have."
"It's settled, then?" said Mrs. O'Neil, with a slight smile.
"Yes, it's settled. I don't believe the dam will ever be dug, but I'll
marry Sammy all the same."
"You're right about the dam, Mrs. Ray," Alva said, speaking for the
first time. "I don't believe it will ever be built, either; the Falls
have too many friends. Besides, there must come a time when the God of
All will say to our American Mammon, 'So far and no further shalt thou
go,' and I believe the time is now and that the place is here."
"Well, I don't know about all that," said Mrs. Ray; "but Josiah Bates
drove the surveyors home yesterday, and he gathered from them that if
they built that dam and made that lake, the lake was pretty sure to
burst out around back of the Wiley place--that low place you know--and
we'd have a new waterfall in through the Wiley cow-pasture, even if we
didn't have nothing worse."
"Goodness me!" cried Mrs. O'Neil, "what would the Wileys say to that!"
"I don't know what the Wileys would say to that," said Mrs. Ray; "but it
made me know what I'd say to Sammy. Yes, indeed. If there isn't going to
be any dam, the summers here are going to go on exactly as they used to,
and I've got to have a man to bring up my ice! You know my motto, 'He
moves in a mysterious way,' and I can see now why the Lathbuns and the
dam both come. I had a dreadful time last summer getting my ice up, and
as long as everybody's been betting all along that I'd always marry
Sammy some day, I might as well do it now as any time. Yes, indeed."
"You are very sensible," said Alva, rising, "and I'm sure that you will
be very happy. I congratulate you." She held out her hand. "Good-bye."
"I'm sorry you're going so soon," said Mrs. Ray, clasping it warmly,
"you've meant such a lot of cancellation, and then I've got very fond of
you, too."
Alva smiled. "I'm only going out on the bridge just now for a little,"
she said, turning to Mrs. O'Neil. "I'll be back shortly."
Mrs. O'Neil glanced towards the window. "It's snowing harder and
harder," she said; "wrap up warm."
Alva went quietly out. When they were alone, Mrs. Ray shook her head.
"She looks bad," she said; "I'm not sure that she didn't care for him,
after all. She's got that mooney look. I know just the look. I'd have
looked just that way by spring, if I'd taken Gran'ma Benton and the
parrot. I'm glad I've decided to marry Sammy, instead."
"You won't take them, then?" asked Mrs. O'Neil.
"No, I couldn't stand Sammy and a parrot at once, and then, too, he
might quarrel with the parrot, or Gran'ma Benton might make trouble
between Sammy and me. I never allowed any one to make trouble between
Mr. Ray and me, and I won't allow trouble this time, either. If I'm
going to be unhappy married, I won't marry. That's flat."
"I wonder if Jack knows they're arrested!" said Mrs. O'Neil,
thoughtfully.
"I stopped in the bar on purpose," said Mrs. Ray, "I thought he ought to
know right away."
"Was he there?" asked the wife.
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Ray, calmly, "but I did what I could, Nellie, and
nobody can be expected to pass _that_, you know."