TO LOVE AND BE LOVED
The girl whom Cap'n Ira Ball found in the kitchen of the old house
on Wreckers' Head when he hobbled out of his bedroom the next
morning was not the Ida May he had been wont to find of late, ready
with his shaving materials, hot water, and a clean and voluminous
checked apron to be tucked in about the neckband of his shirt.
All was in readiness as usual, but the girl herself was smileless,
heavy-eyed, and slack of step. That she had suffered both in body
and mind since the day before, the least observant person in the
world would have easily comprehended.
"I swan, Ida May!" gasped the old man. "Whatever's happened to you?"
"I did not sleep well, Uncle Ira," she told him faintly.
"Sleep? Why you look as though you'd been standing double watch for
a week of Sundays! I never see the beat! Has that crazy gal coming
here set ye all aback this way?"
"I--I am afraid so."
"'Tis a shame. I won't stand to have that gal come here again.
Prudence has been starting and crying out all night, too. She's as
much upset as you be. I cal'late you don't feel like shaving of me
this morning, Ida May."
"Oh, yes, I do, Uncle Ira! Don't mind how I look."
"But I do mind," he grumbled. "Folks' looks is a great p'int. I've
always held to it. Talk about a singed cat being better than it
looks--I doubt it!"
"People of my complexion always look worse after a sleepless night,"
explained Sheila, trying to smile at him.
"That's a pity, too. And I feel the need of being spruced up a good
deal myself this morning, Ida May," he continued. "D'you see how
straggly my hair is gettin'? Do you think you could trim it a mite?"
"Why, of course I can, Uncle Ira," she rejoined cheerfully.
"I swan! You be a likely gal, Ida May," said the old man, both
reflectively and gratefully. "What would Prue and me do without you?
And no other girl but just you would have begun to fill the bill o'
lading. That's as sure as sure! See now," he went on, with emphasis,
"suppose you'd been such a one as that half-crazy critter that come
here yesterday! Where'd Prudence and me been with her in the house?
Well!"
"She--she may not be as bad as she seemed under those particular
circumstances," Sheila said hesitatingly. "If she had come here--had
come here first and you and Aunt Prue had not known me at all--"
"I swan! Don't say no more! Don't say no more, I tell ye!" gasped
Cap'n Ira. "It's bad luck to talk such a way; I do believe it is.
Come on, Ida May. You tackle my hair and let's see what you can do
with it. I know right well you'll make it look better than Prudence
used to do."
Cap'n Ira was talking for effect, and the result he wished to
achieve was bringing a smile to Sheila's face and a brighter light
into her eyes, the violet hues of which were far more subdued than
he desired. His success was not marked, but he changed to some
degree the forlorn expression of the girl's countenance, so that
when Prudence appeared in the midst of the operation of shaving,
Sheila could greet the old woman with a tremulous smile.
"You deary-dear!" crooned Prudence, with her withered arms about the
strong, young frame of the girl, drawing her close. "I know you've
suffered this night. That mad girl was enough to put us all out o'
kilter. But don't let any thought of her bother you, Ida May. Your
uncle and I love you, and if forty people said you didn't belong
here, we should keep you just the same. Ain't that so, Ira?"
"Sure is," declared the captain vigorously. "No two ways about it.
We couldn't get along without Ida May, and I cal'late, the way
things look, that I'd better get that high fence I spoke of built
around this place at once. We're likely to have somebody come here
and carry the gal off almost any time. I can see that danger as
plain as plain!"
Prudence laughed, yet there was a catch in her voice too. She kissed
the girl's tear-wet face tenderly. Sheila's heart throbbed so that
she could scarcely go on with the task of shaving Cap'n Ira. How
could she continue to live this lie before two people who were so
infinitely kind to her and who loved her so tenderly?
And the girl loved them in return. It was no selfish thought which
held Sheila Macklin here in the old house on Wreckers' Head. She had
put aside all concern for her own personal comfort or ease. Had it
not been for her desire to shield Tunis and continue to aid and
comfort Cap'n Ira and Prudence, she might quickly and quietly have
left the place and thus have escaped all possibility of punishment
for the deception she had practiced.
Yes, had these other considerations not been involved, she would
have run away! Although she chanced to have no money just at this
time, she would have left the Ball homestead and Wreckers' Head and
the town itself and walked so far away that nobody who knew her
would ever see her again. She had thought of doing this even as far
back as the time when she was so lonely and miserable in Boston.
Now, she would willingly have become a tramp for the purpose of
getting out of the affliction which enmeshed her.
She could not, nevertheless, yield to this temptation. If she ran
away from the Balls and Big Wreck Cove, she would tacitly admit the
truth of all Ida May Bostwick's claims, and possibly involve Tunis
in the wreckage. Therefore she held to her determination of keeping
her place here until she was actually driven forth.
As a last resort, having now worked out the detail of that plan in
her mind, she believed she could save Tunis from much calumny if it
became positively necessary for her to depart under this cloud and
abandon her place to the real Ida May. The latter must, however,
come with positive proof of her identity--evidence sufficient to
convince Cap'n Ira and Prudence--before Sheila Macklin would release
her grasp upon what she had obtained by trickery and deceit.
Not for a moment did the girl try to excuse to herself what she had
done. In spite of the Balls' need of her, and in spite of Tunis'
love, Sheila did not try to deceive herself with any sophistry about
the end justifying the deed. Such thinking could not satisfy her
now.
Sheila's eyes were opened. She beheld before her both the wide and
the narrow way. If she took the pleasanter path, it was with a full
knowledge of what she did. Yet would it be the pleasanter path? She
doubted this. If she continued to fight for a place which was not
hers by right, she must walk for all time in a slippery way. This
claim of the real Ida May might be perennial; the girl might return
again and again to the attack. For years--as long as the Balls lived
and Sheila remained with them--she must be ever on the alert to
defend her position with them.
And after the good old people died--what then? Their property here
on the Head and their money would no more belong to Sheila Macklin
than it did now. She shrank in horror from the thought of swindling
the real Ida May out of anything which might legally be hers when
the Balls were gone. Of course, Cap'n Ira and Prudence could will
their property to whom they pleased. Still, Ida May was Prudence's
niece!
As the day dragged on, Ida May did not appear, but the old folks
talked about her continually, until Sheila thought she must cry
aloud to them to stop.
"The poor thing must be half-witted, of course," Mrs. Ball said
ruminatively. "Can't be otherwise. But she must have known
something about Sarah Honey and her folks."
"Seems likely," agreed Cap'n Ira.
"Now, you know, Ira, Sarah was an orphan and I was her mother's only
relation--and only that in a kind of a left-handed way, for I wasn't
really her aunt. That branch of the Honeys--Sarah's father's
folks--had all died out. Sarah lived about--kinder from pillar to
post as you might say--till she went to Boston and met Mr. Bostwick.
Isn't that so, Ida May?"
"Yes. So I understand," agreed the girl faintly.
"Now, you don't remember your mother much, Ida May," pursued
Prudence confidently. "You was too young when she died. And you
being brought up among the Bostwicks, you didn't know much about us
down here on the Cape. But don't you remember any neighbor that
lived near you there in Boston that had a gal something like this
crazy one that come here?"
"I swan!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "You're coming out strong, old
woman, I do say."
Sheila could only shake her head.
"Why, see," said Prudence, encouraged by her husband's commendation,
"there might have been a neighbor woman that Sarah--your mother, you
know, Ida May--was close acquainted with. Maybe she used to talk
with this neighbor a good deal about her young days, and how she
lived down here. You know women often gossip that way."
"I'll say they do!" put in Cap'n Ira, tapping the knob of his cane.
"Well, now," said the old woman, greatly interested in her own idea,
and a little proud of it, "suppose that neighbor had a little girl
who heard all these things Sarah Bostwick might have said. And if
that child's brain wasn't just right--if she was a little
weak-minded, poor thing--what's more reasonable than that she
treasured it all up in her mind and after years, in one of her
spells of weak-mindedness, she got the idea _she_ was Ida May
Bostwick, and determined to come here and visit us!"
"I swan, Prudence!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "It's like a story-book--a
reg'lar novel."
"Well, it might be," said his wife, smiling quite proudly.
"Only after all, that gal didn't seem so very weak-minded," muttered
Cap'n Ira. "She seemed more mean and ugly than weak."
Sheila had thought somewhat along this line herself. At least, she
knew how weak the real Ida May's story must sound to most people in
the neighborhood, unless the claimant had actual proof of birth and
name to bolster her attempt to win the Balls. There was but a
tenuous thread connecting Ida May with Big Wreck Cove, or any other
part of Cape Cod. The Bostwicks--the girl's immediate family, at
least--were dead.
These facts, already gathered by Sheila from Aunt Prudence's
conversation with the neighboring women, were the foundation on
which she had built her desperate hope of keeping up the deception
and thwarting the other girl, no matter how bitterly the latter
might press her claim.
Nor was she, Sheila felt, depriving Ida May of anything which the
latter, if she obtained it, would actually prize. The shallow girl
was not the sort of person to appreciate the kindness of the two old
people or give them any comfort and sympathy in return. Why, both
Cap'n Ira and Prudence already shrank from the new claimant!
This fact, however, did not cause Sheila, the imposter, to lose
sight of the point that Cap'n Ira and his wife could both be very
stern in attitude and speech toward the evildoer. They made no
compromises with evil.
Even the old man, philosophical as he was and wont to look upon most
human frailities with a lenient if not a humorous eye, would not
excuse actual crime. And something very like a crime had been
committed.
The day passed without any reappearance of Ida May upon Wreckers'
Head, but just after nightfall and while the supper dishes were
being cleared away, Zebedee Pauling knocked at the kitchen door. All
three of the Ball household looked upon the young fellow
expectantly when he stepped in.
"I was just passing by and thought I'd look in and see how you all
were," said Zeb, with his usual shy manner and apologetic smile.
"Come in and set down, Zeb," said the captain eagerly. "I cal'late
you've got some news for us."
"I don't know," said Zeb thoughtfully, "but what you've got some
news that might satisfy mom and me. That is, about that girl Tunis
brought to the house."
"What about her, Zeb?" queried Prudence anxiously.
"Mom and I would be glad to know what you know about her," said
Zebedee. "She--she 'pears to have a--a great imagination."
"I shouldn't wonder," Cap'n Ira snorted.
"She don't act crazy, but she certainly talks crazy," the visitor
went on emphatically. "Why, she says the most ridiculous things
about--about Miss Bostwick!" He bowed and blushed as he spoke the
name and looked penitently toward Sheila. "Why, she declares _her_
name is Bostwick!"
"That's what she done up here," said Cap'n Ira grimly. "I cal'late
she means to kick up a fuss. Is she still stopping with your mother,
Zeb?"
"Yes. She paid a week's board money down. I expect mom wouldn't have
taken her, or it, if Tunis hadn't brought her."
"That wasn't Tunis' fault," snapped the old man. "He had to get
shet of her somehow. We expect she'll try to make trouble."
"Oh, as for that," said Zeb, with some relief, "I don't see, even if
she is your niece, why she should expect you to take her in if you
don't want to!"
"She ain't," said Cap'n Ira flatly. "You can take that from me,
Zeb."
"Not any relation at all?"
"None at all, as far as we know," declared the captain.
"Then what does she want to talk the way she does, for?" cried the
young man. "I told mom she was crazy, and now I know she is."
"I guess likely," agreed the old man, taking upon himself the burden
of the explanation. "None of us up here ever saw the gal before.
Neither Prudence nor me nor Ida May. She's loony!"
"I told mom so," reiterated Zeb, with a great sigh of relief. "I
know what she said must be a pack of foolishness. But you know how
mom is. I--"
"She's soft. I know," returned Cap'n Ira.
"She's so tender-hearted," explained Zeb. "The girl talks so. She's
talked mom not into believing in her, but into kind of listening and
sympathizing with her. And now, to-night, she's took her to see
Elder Minnett."
"What? I swan! To see the elder!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "What she
needs is a doctor, not a minister. What do you think of that,
Prudence?"
"I hope Elder Minnett will be able to put her in better mind,"
sighed his wife. "That girl must have a very wicked heart, indeed,
if she isn't really crazy."