ELDER MINNETT HAS HIS SAY
Another night counted among the interminable nights which have
dragged their slow length across the couch of sleeplessness. To
Sheila, lying in the four-poster--a downy couch, indeed, for a quiet
conscience--the space of time after she blew out her lamp and until
the dawn passed like the sluggish coils of some Midgard serpent. An
eternity in itself.
She came down to her daily tasks again with no change in her looks,
although her voice had the same placid, kindly tone which had
cheered the old people for these many weeks. But they both were
worried about her.
"Maybe she's been working too hard, Prudence," ventured the old man.
"Can it be so, d'ye think?"
"She says she likes to work. She's a marvel of a housekeeper, Ira. I
don't mean to put too much on her, but I can't do much myself, spry
as I do feel this fall. And she won't let me, anyway."
"I know, I know," muttered Cap'n Ira. "She's with you like she is
with me. Always running to help me, or to pick up something I let
fall, or to fetch and carry. A kinder girl never breathed. I swan!
What should we do without her, Prue? That Tunis--"
"Sh!" Prudence begged him. "Don't chaff no more about that, Ira."
"Why not?" he asked. "Though I don't feel much like chaffing when I
think of them getting married. 'Tis a pretty serious business for
us, Prudence."
"I had a chance to hint about it last night when you went outside
with Zebedee," whispered his wife, "I spoke about Tunis. She--she
says she'll never leave us to marry Tunis or any other man."
"What's that?" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "He wouldn't agree to come and
live here, I reckon. What would become of his Aunt 'Cretia? I don't
guess there's any fear of her getting married, is there?"
"No, no! Don't be funnin'! But Ida May said just that--in so many
words."
"She's mad with him, do you cal'late? They had a tiff!" cried her
husband. "And they were like two turtledoves the night that other
gal come here. It don't seem possible. I swan! _That's_ why she's so
on her beam ends, I bet a cake!"
"It may be. She wouldn't say much. I didn't understand, though,
that they had quarreled. Only that she'd made up her mind that she
wouldn't marry."
"Oh, she'll change her mind!" said Cap'n Ira, wagging his head.
"Do you think so? Not so easy. You'd ought to know by this time how
firm Ida May can be."
"The Lord help Tunis then," said Cap'n Ira emphatically. "But his
loss is our gain. Ain't no two ways about that."
Sheila's secret thoughts were not calculated to calm her soul. Her
determination braced her body as well as her mind to go about her
daily tasks with her usual thoroughness, but she could not confront
the old people with even a ghost of her usual smile. So she kept out
of their way as much as possible and communed alone with her bitter
thoughts.
The uncertainty of what Ida May was doing and saying down there in
Big Wreck Cove was not all that agitated Sheila. Her conscience, so
long lulled by her peaceful existence here with the two old people,
was now continually censuring her.
Sin brings its own secret punishment, though the sinner may hide the
effects of the punishment for a long time. But Sheila could not now
conceal the effect of the mental pain and the remorse she suffered.
Of one thing she might be sure. The neighbors had not as yet heard
about the real Ida May or heard her story. Otherwise some of the
women living on the Head would have been in to hear the particulars
from Prudence.
But that afternoon the throaty chug of Elder Minnett's little
car--it had created almost a scandal in Big Wreck Cove when he
bought it--was heard mounting the road to the Head.
"I swan!" commented Cap'n Ira, who sat at the sunny sitting-room
window, for it was a cold day. "Here comes that tin wagon of the
elder's. But he's alone. Get on your best bib and tucker, Prudence,
for there ain't any doubt but what he's headin' in this way."
"Oh, dear me!" fluttered his wife. "I wonder what he's going to say.
Make the tea strong, Ida May. The elder likes it so it'll about bear
up an egg. And open a jar of that quince jam. I wish we had fresh
biscuits, although them you made for dinner were light as feathers."
"I'll make some now. There's a hot oven," replied the girl.
"No, no," interposed Cap'n Ira firmly. "I want you should sit in
here with us and hear all the elder's got to say."
"Perhaps, Uncle Ira, he will want to talk to you and Aunt Prue
privately."
"There won't be no private talk about you, Ida May," snorted the
captain, his keen eyes sparkling. "Not much! If he's got anything to
say to your aunt and me, he's got to say it in your hearing."
The elder was a tall and bony man with a stiff brush of gray beard
and bushy hair to match, which seemed as uncompromising as his
doctrinal discourses in the pulpit. He was an old-fashioned
preacher, but not wholly an old-fashioned thinker.
Sheila had thought, on the few occasions when she had met him away
from his pulpit, that there was an undercurrent of humanity in him
quite equal to that in Cap'n Ira Ball, but his personal appearance
and rather gruff manner made it difficult for one to be sure of the
measure of his tenderness.
How Elder Minnett appeared in the sick room or in the house of
sorrow, she did not know. She could not very well imagine his being
tender at any time with the sinner at whom he thundered from the
pulpit. Secretly she trembled at the old clergyman's approach.
"Well, Elder!" was the warm greeting of Prudence at the front door
when the rattling automobile came to a wheezing halt before the
gate. "Do tell! Ira said he see you coming up the road, and I was
determined you shouldn't drive by without speaking. Do come in."
"I propose to, Sister Ball," was the grim-lipped reply.
He came into the house and took the proffered chair in the sitting
room. They spoke of the weather, of the tide, and of the clam
harvest. The farm crops back of Big Wreck Cove did not interest
Cap'n Ira.
"Well," said the elder finally, clearing his throat, "I've come up
here on an errand you can possibly guess, Cap'n Ira and Sister
Ball."
"Maybe we can and maybe we can't," observed the captain with a
countenance quite as wooden as the elder himself displayed.
"I come on behalf of that young woman who was here to see you the
other day."
"It's my opinion you'd done better to have gone to the insane asylum
folks about her," rejoined Cap'n Ira.
"Now, Ira!" said Prudence softly.
"Seeing it as you do, Cap'n Ira," the elder remarked quite equably,
"I conclude that you might think that. But you formed your judgment
in the heat of--well, not anger, of course--but without sufficient
reflection."
"Humph!" grunted Cap'n Ira noncommittally.
"I have talked with that young woman on two occasions," said the
elder.
"With what young woman?" interrupted Cap'n Ira.
"With the girl staying at the Widow Pauling's. The girl who claims
to be your niece."
"You'd better talk with the other young woman," said Cap'n Ira
sternly. "Ida May! Just you come in here and sit down. You are as
much interested as we be, I guess. _This_ is Ida May Bostwick,
Elder Minnett," he added, as Sheila entered.
"Yes, yes. I have had the pleasure," said the elder, bowing gravely
without offering to shake hands. He turned abruptly to Prudence.
"You are quite convinced in your own mind, Sister Ball, that the
young woman at the Pauling's is not your niece?"
"Why, Elder Minnett," returned Prudence, "how _can_ she be? Ida May
is Sarah Honey's only child, and Sarah was only distantly related to
me. There never was another girl in the family--not like that one
that came here the other day, for sure!" And the old woman shook her
head emphatically.
"That girl you got down there at the port, Elder, is crazy--crazy as
a loon," put in Cap'n Ira harshly.
"I am not so sure of that," the clergyman said shortly.
"I swan! Beg your pardon, Elder. No offense. But you don't mean to
say that she seems sane and sensible to you?"
"Sane--yes! As for being sensible, that is another thing," confessed
Elder Minnett.
"Huh! What do you mean by that?" asked Cap'n Ira curiously.
"She has told her story in full to me, and told it twice alike,"
said the grim-visaged minister, looking at Sheila as he answered the
query. "An insane person is not so likely to do that, I believe. But
she is not what I would call a sensible young woman. Not at all."
"I should say not!" gasped Prudence.
"But I have heard her, and I have reflected on what she has said. I
do not see, if she is an impostor, how she could have made up that
story."
"Then she _must_ be loony," muttered Cap'n Ira.
"I presume she told the same story to you that she did to me,"
pursued Elder Minnett. "I do not understand Tunis Latham's part in
it, but the rest of her story seems quite reasonable."
"Reasonable?" repeated Prudence, with some warmth. "Do you call it
reasonable to say what she did about Ida May?"
"In speaking of the young woman's reasonableness I mean in regard to
the personal details she gave me. What she said in her anger to, or
of, other people has no influence whatsoever on my judgment."
"Well, it has on mine!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "I'd have drove out a
dozen gals that spoke as she did to Prudence and Ida May--crazy or
not!"
"You would be wrong, Cap'n Ball," said the elder severely.
"Well, let's have the p'ints the girl makes!" growled the old
shipmaster. "I will listen to 'em."
Elder Minnett bowed formally and began Ida May's story, checking off
the several assertions she had made when she was at the Ball house
far more clearly than the girl herself had done. As Sheila
listened, her heart sank even lower. It was so very reasonable! How
could the Balls fail to be impressed?
But Cap'n Ira and Prudence listened with more of a puzzled
expression in their countenances than anything else. It seemed
altogether wild and improbable to them. Why! There sat Ida May
before them. There could not be two Ida May Bostwicks!
"Say!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira suddenly, after Elder Minnett had
concluded, "that girl says she worked at Hoskin & Marl's?"
"Yes."
"Why, ain't that where you worked, Ida May?"
"Yes," was Sheila's faint admission.
"You never see her there, did you?"
"I do not remember of having seen her until she came here," the girl
said quite truthfully.
"Ought to be some way of proving up that," muttered Cap'n Ira.
"I have written to Hoskin & Marl, at the other young woman's
instigation, and have asked about her," said Elder Minnett.
"Well, I never!" gasped Prudence, and her withered, old face grew
pink.
"I hope you will not take offense," said the visitor evenly. "You
must understand that the young woman has come to me in trouble, and
it is my duty to aid her if I can--in any proper way. That is my
office. _Any_ young woman"--he looked directly at Sheila again as he
said it--"will find in me an adviser and a friend whenever she may
need my help."
"We all know how good you are, Elder Minnett," Prudence hastened to
say. "But that girl--"
"That girl," he interrupted, "is a human being needing help. I have
advised her. Now I want to advise you."
"Out with it, Elder," said Cap'n Ira. "Good advice ain't to be
sneezed at--not as I ever heard."
"I have the other young woman's promise that she will tell her story
to nobody else--nobody at all--until I can hear from those whom she
says are her employers. But with the understanding that you will do
your part."
"What's that?" asked Cap'n Ira quickly.
"She wants to come up here and stay with you. She says she is sure
you are her relatives. She says if you will let her come, she
will be able to prove to you that she is the real niece you
expected--whom you sent for last summer."
"Why, she's crazy!" again cried Cap'n Ira.
"I--I am almost afraid of her," murmured Prudence, looking from
Sheila to her husband.
"I assure you, Sister Ball, she is not insane. She is harmless."
"She didn't talk as though she was when she was here--not by a
jugful," declared Cap'n Ira bitterly.
"That was because she was angry," explained Elder Minnett
patiently. "You must not judge her by her appearance when she came
here the other day and found--as she declares--another girl in her
rightful place."
"I swan!" exclaimed the old shipmaster, bursting out again. "I won't
stand for that. Her rightful place, indeed! Why, if she was forty
times Prudence's niece and we didn't want her here, what's to make
us take her, I want to know?"
"Do you think we ought to, Elder?" questioned Prudence faintly.
"I think, under all the circumstances, that it is your Christian
duty. Know the girl better. See if there is not something in her
that reminds you--"
"Avast there!" shouted Cap'n Ira, pounding with his cane on the
floor. "That's going a deal too far. 'Christian duty,' indeed! How
about our duty to Ida May setting there, and to ourselves? Prudence
is afraid of that crazy gal in the first place."
"I give you my word she is not insane."
"That's your opinion," said the captain grimly. "I wouldn't back it
with my word, Elder, unless I was prepared to go the whole v'y'ge.
Do you mean to say that you accept that gal's story as true--in all
partic'lars?"
"I don't say that."
"Then I shall stick to my opinion. She's as loony as she can be. And
I am plumb against insulting our Ida May by letting the girl come
up here. What do you say, Prudence?"
The old woman was much perturbed. Elder Minnett was a minister of
the gospel. To be told by him that it was her Christian duty to take
a certain course bore much weight with Prudence Ball.
But when she looked at Sheila, sitting there so pale and silent, and
realized that on her head all this was falling, the old woman rose
up, burst into tears, and threw herself into the girl's arms.
"No, no!" she sobbed. "Don't let her come here, Ira. We don't want
her. We don't want anybody but Ida May whom we love so dear, and who
we know loves us. We can't do it, Elder Minnett! Why, if they should
come and tell me--and prove it--that Ida May wasn't our niece and
that other girl was, I couldn't bear the creature 'round. No, I
couldn't. I couldn't forgive anybody that would separate us from
this dear, dear girl!"
Cap'n Ira had got upon his feet and was leaning forward on his cane.
With a shaking finger he drew the elder's attention to the two
women, rocking in each other's arms.
"You hear that? You see that?" demanded the captain brokenly, the
tears starting from his own eyes and finding gutters down his
cleanly shaved cheeks. "That's your answer, Elder! You have some
idea how Prudence and I longed for young company in this house, and
somebody to help and comfort us. _And we got her._
"Ida May come to us like the falling of manna in the wilderness for
them spent and wandering Israelites. She has been to us more than
ever we dared hope for. If she was our own child and had growed up
here on Wreckers' Head our own born daughter, I couldn't think no
more of her.
"And you come here and ask us to give countenance for a moment to a
half-witted girl that says she belongs here in Ida May's place, and
claiming Ida May's name. More than that, she saying that our own
girl that we love so is a liar and an impostor and altogether
bad--such as she must be if she had fooled us so. I swan! Elder, I
should think you'd have more sense." And Cap'n Ira concluded
abruptly and with a return to his usual self-control.
The silence which ensued was only broken by the old woman's sobs.
Cap'n Ira, frankly wiping his own eyes with the great silk
handkerchief which he usually flourished when he took snuff, strode
across the room and patted Prudence's withered shoulder. He said
nothing, nor did the elder. It was Sheila who broke the silence at
last.
She had stood up. Now she put Prudence tenderly into Cap'n Ira's
arms. She gave him, too, such a thankful, beaming glance that the
old man was almost staggered. For he had not seen one of those
smiles for more than two days.
"Elder Minnett," Sheila said, and her voice was quite steady, "I
think it is my place to speak."
"Yes?" was the noncommittal response of the grim old minister.
"I should not think for a moment of doubting your judgment in such a
matter. If you say Cap'n Ira and Mrs. Ball should receive this--this
girl here while the matter is being examined, I hope they will agree
with you and allow her to come."
"Why, Ida May!" gasped Prudence.
"That gal's an angel! She ain't nothing but an angel!" marveled
Cap'n Ira.
"But I think," said Sheila, "that the girl should be made to promise
that while she is here, and if she comes here, that she will not
speak to anybody outside this room at the present time of the claim
she makes--especially as it seems to affect Captain Latham."
"I swan! That's so! He's got a wage and share in this thing, ain't
he? And he ain't here to defend himself, if we be."
The elder nodded slowly. His gaze did not leave Sheila's face.
"I think I can promise that in her name. Indeed, I had already
extracted such a promise before I would undertake to come up here. I
have warned Mrs. Pauling not to repeat a word the girl said to her.
And Zebedee is a prudent young man."
"I told Zeb myself to keep his hatch battened," growled Cap'n Ira.
"But, I swan, Ida May! I don't see how you can bear to have the
crazy critter here. And Prudence--"
"If Ida May says she is willing," sighed the old woman, glad to be
able to set a course not opposed to her minister's advice.
"Thank you, young woman," Elder Minnett said, speaking grimly enough
to Sheila. "Those who have nothing to fear can afford to be
generous. You have done right."
The subject was dropped--to the relief of all of them. Tea was
poured from the marble-topped, black-walnut table, and Sheila passed
biscuit, jam, cakes, and other delicacies. She performed her part of
the ceremony with apparent calm. She did not speak to the elder
again, nor he to her, save when she ran out to carry forgotten
gloves to him when he had climbed into the automobile.
The grim old man shot her through with the keenest of keen glances
as he accepted the gloves.
"I don't think, young woman," he said softly, "that you are likely
to put poison in that other girl's tea--as she says she's afraid you
will."
Then he drove away.