Oh, by the way--about that visit East. I reckon we'll have to call it
off this year. Too bad; but can't seem to see my way clear.
Bye-bye, J.
Harriet Clayton did not cry this time. She stared at the letter long
minutes with wide-open, tearless eyes, then she slowly folded it and put
it back in its envelope.
"Harriet, mebbe-" began the old man timidly.
"Don't, Thaddeus--please don't!" she interrupted. "I--I don't want ter
talk." And she rose unsteadily to her feet and moved toward the kitchen
door.
For a time Mrs. Clayton went about her work in a silence quite unusual,
while her husband watched her with troubled eyes. His heart grieved over
the bowed head and drooping shoulders, and over the blurred eyes that
were so often surreptitiously wiped on a corner of the gingham apron.
But at the end of a week the little old woman accosted him with a face
full of aggressive yet anxious determination.
"Thaddeus, I want ter speak ter you about somethin'. I've been thinkin'
it all out, an' I've decided that I've got ter kill one of us off."
"Harriet!"
"Well, I have. A fun'ral is the only thing that will fetch Jehiel and--"
"Harriet, are ye gone crazy? Have ye gone clean mad?"
She looked at him appealingly.
"Now, Thaddeus, don't try ter hender me, please. You see it's the only
way. A fun'ral is the--"
"A 'fun'ral'--it's murder!" he shuddered.
"Oh, not ter make believe, as I shall," she protested eagerly. "It's--"
"Make believe!"
"Why, yes, of course. _You'll_ have ter be the one ter do it,
'cause I'm goin' ter be the dead one, an'--"
"Harriet!"
"There, there, _please_, Thaddeus! I've jest got ter see Jehiel and
Hannah Jane 'fore I die!"
"But--they--they'll come if--"
"No, they won't come. We've tried it over an' over again; you know we
have. Hannah Jane herself said that if anythin' 'serious' came up it
would be diff'rent. Well, I'm goin' ter have somethin' 'serious' come
up!"
"But, Harriet--"
"Now, Thaddeus," begged the woman, almost crying, "you must help me,
dear. I've thought it all out, an' it's easy as can be. I shan't tell
any lies, of course. I cut my finger to-day, didn't I?"
"Why--yes--I believe so," he acknowledged dazedly; "but what has that to
do--"
"That's the 'accident,' Thaddeus. You're ter send two telegrams at
once--one ter Jehiel, an' one ter Hannah Jane. The telegrams will say:
'Accident to your mother. Funeral Saturday afternoon. Come at once.'
That's jest ten words."
The old man gasped. He could not speak.
"Now, that's all true, ain't it?" she asked anxiously. "The 'accident'
is this cut. The 'fun'ral' is old Mis' Wentworth's. I heard ter-day that
they couldn't have it until Saturday, so that'll give us plenty of time
ter get the folks here. I needn't say whose fun'ral it is that's goin'
ter be on Saturday, Thaddeus! I want yer ter hitch up an' drive over ter
Hopkinsville ter send the telegrams. The man's new over there, an' won't
know yer. You couldn't send 'em from here, of course."
Thaddeus Clayton never knew just how he allowed himself to be persuaded
to take his part in this "crazy scheme," as he termed it, but persuaded
he certainly was.
It was a miserable time for Thaddeus then. First there was that hurried
drive to Hopkinsville. Though the day was warm he fairly shivered as he
handed those two fateful telegrams to the man behind the counter. Then
there was the homeward trip, during which, like the guilty thing he was,
he cast furtive glances from side to side.
Even home itself came to be a misery, for the sweeping and the dusting
and the baking and the brewing which he encountered there left him no
place to call his own, so that he lost his patience at last and moaned:
"Seems ter me, Harriet, you're a pretty lively corpse!"
His wife smiled, and flushed a little.
"There, there, dear! don't fret. Jest think how glad we'll be ter see
'em!" she exclaimed.
Harriet was blissfully happy. Both the children had promptly responded
to the telegrams, and were now on their way. Hannah Jane, with her
husband and two children, were expected on Friday evening; but Jehiel
and his wife and boy could not possibly get in until early on the
following morning.
All this brought scant joy to Thaddeus. There was always hanging over
him the dread horror of what he had done, and the fearful questioning as
to how it was all going to end.
Friday came, but a telegram at the last moment told of trains delayed
and connections missed. Hannah Jane would not reach home until
nine-forty the next morning. So it was with a four-seated carryall that
Thaddeus Clayton started for the station on Saturday morning to meet
both of his children and their families.
The ride home was a silent one; but once inside the house, Jehiel and
Hannah Jane, amid a storm of sobs and cries, besieged their father with
questions.
The family were all in the darkened sitting-room--all, indeed, save
Harriet, who sat in solitary state in the chamber above, her face pale
and her heart beating almost to suffocation. It had been arranged that
she was not to be seen until some sort of explanation had been given.
"Father, what was it?" sobbed Hannah Jane. "How did it happen?"
"It must have been so sudden," faltered Jehiel. "It cut me up
completely."
"I can't ever forgive myself," moaned Hannah Jane hysterically. "She
wanted us to come East, and I wouldn't. 'Twas my selfishness--'twas
easier to stay where I was; and now--now--"
"We've been brutes, father," cut in Jehiel, with a shake in his voice;
"all of us. I never thought--I never dreamed-father, can--can we
see--her?"
In the chamber above a woman sprang to her feet. Harriet had quite
forgotten the stove-pipe hole to the room below, and every sob and moan
and wailing cry had been woefully distinct to her ears. With streaming
eyes and quivering lips she hurried down the stairs and threw open the
sitting-room door.
"Jehiel! Hannah Jane! I'm here, right here--alive!" she cried. "An' I've
been a wicked, wicked woman! I never thought how bad 'twas goin' ter
make _you_ feel. I truly never, never did. 'Twas only myself--I
wanted yer so. Oh, children, children, I've been so wicked--so awful
wicked!"
Jehiel and Hannah Jane were steady of head and strong of heartland joy,
it is said, never kills; otherwise, the results of that sudden
apparition in the sitting-room doorway might have been disastrous.
As it was, a wonderfully happy family party gathered around the table an
hour later; and as Jehiel led a tremulous, gray-haired woman to the seat
of honor, he looked into her shining eyes and whispered:
"Dear old mumsey, now that we've found the way home again, I reckon
we'll be coming every year--don't you?"