The squire laid the purse on the table with an air which spoke volumes.
"It certainly is mysterious how things do work out," he said. He was
always deliberate in speech, but fortunately, he said little. His
particularly impressive method of procedure was to look wise.
Miss Eliza glanced at the purse. It was not attractive. Touched with
mildew, soiled and almost filthy, it was rather repulsive. She had
learned that Sam was not one to be questioned when he had a story to
tell. The only way was to let him go slowly and interpolate with
indifferent matters of all sorts.
"There ain't much to tell about the finding of the purse," he began.
Then Eliza understood. But she did not reach forward to seize what might
contain something which would reveal Beth's identity. It came to her
that that meant losing Beth. For an instant she felt that she could not
give her up.
"We were fixing the old stone wall at Paddy's Run," continued Sam. "The
Morris Brothers have the contract, and Ab Morris came and asked me if
I'd hand--."
"No use of telling all the details," said the squire sharply. "Keep to
the point. There's no use telling what Ab said to you or you to Ab."
"Well, no need to cut me short. There's plenty of time to tell details,
as you call them, and everything else that pertains to this here subject
which we have in hand. We've been a wantin' to know these things for ten
years and couldn't. Then what's the use of gettin' in a rush and tell
everything in a minute."
"There's no danger of you ever doing those two things--getting in a rush
and telling everything in a minute. You couldn't do it, Sam." The squire
was habitually sarcastic.
"We'll drive slow. It may be a rough road, and we're driving in the
dark, so to speak. We were fixing the wall, anyway. Bill Yothers, he was
knocking out the loose stone, when he stops and says to me, 'Sam, that
looks mighty like a purse, that I've knocked down there. You'd better
get it.' Well, I did. I dropped the reins and went over and picked it
up. I examined it carefully before I opened it, and--."
Eliza had taken up the purse. No doubt it had dropped from the carriage
when Old Prince took his mad leap, and had lodged among the stones in
the wall to be hidden away for over ten years. It had been partially
protected from the weather.
Miss Eliza opened it gingerly. It almost fell to pieces as she did so.
The leather flap at the top fell from it. Within the double compartment
were pieces of paper thick with mildew. These were intact enough to show
that they once were bills. There was a little silver, and a trunk check
of brass. This was green with corrosion, so that the number had been
effaced.
Without a word, Eliza took it and went to the kitchen. Beth was close at
her side. Neither could speak, but the atmosphere was fairly vibrating
with suppressed emotion. Eliza took down her scouring soap from the
shelf and began rubbing the check.
"This will do little good," she said after a moment. "I'll dip it in lye
and scour it with ashes."
"Yes," said Beth, hurrying into the wash-house and returning with the
can of lye. Eliza put the check on a saucer and covered it for an
instant with the lye. Then she rubbed it with wood ashes.
The men had grown impatient and had followed her into the kitchen. They
came to the door just as Eliza had finished her inspection. "It has
Baltimore on it," she said. "The number is 4536. It's very plain."
"Little good it will do you," said Sam. "That just shows you that it was
checked from there. It doesn't show who sent it."
"It may tell us a great deal," said Eliza. Keeping the check in her
hand, she led the way back into the living room. The men followed and
seated themselves. She had been wishing that they would go. She wanted
to be alone and think of the matter. She could see that Beth was very
much excited, although she sat very quiet.
But the fire was too comfortable for Sam to leave. He had taken the most
comfortable chair in the room. He put his legs far apart, bent over so
that his elbows could rest on his knees, and his chin in turn upon the
upturned palm. He began a recital of all the incidents of the day when
Old Prince went wild, and he had first found Eliza and the child, and he
continued telling how strange it seemed that he should be the one to
find the purse.
"But there'll nothing come of it now," he concluded. "And to my way of
thinking, it's just as well. The little girl has been well took care of.
Her mother's dead, we know that. We buried her out there in the old
Wells' lot, alongside of your own parents, Eliza. If she had a father,
no doubt he's gone and married again and has other children. It's just
as well not to try to hunt 'em up."
Eliza thought so, too, for other reasons. She could not give her up. She
would be too lonely without her. She simply could not live without her.
While these thoughts were in her mind, another slipped in there too. She
was not conscious that it was there. "The tramp would leave in the
spring." He had said that weeks before. She never called him that any
more, nor had she permitted Beth to do so.
In her own thoughts she had no name for him. He was just "he," nothing
more. She told herself that she would miss his magazines and his help
about her flowers. She had kept up with Beth in all her studies. She had
read Latin, and worked out Algebra. Now this would be gone. There would
be nothing at all left to her, except her stories, which she had still
continued, and her club in town. But what would they mean, with Beth and
him gone?
While she thought over these matters, Sam Houston kept up his monologue.
Now and then Squire Stout flung in a sharp word, but Eliza heard nothing
which was being said.
At length the men rose to go. Sam was yet busy narrating the events that
led up to the find. The squire led him away. Eliza came to the door with
them and held a lamp high in her hand to light the way. She heard Sam
talking, as the two men walked on down the slope.
Turning back into the room, she went to where Beth sat huddled up and
took a seat close to her.
"This has disturbed us," she said. "But it should not. I think the check
will mean nothing at all. It will make no difference to you or me. You
and I have been happy so far and we can continue to be. You will always
be my little girl."
"I know, Adee, I know." The tears would have fallen, had not Beth by
pure force of will kept them back. Her lips trembled so that she could
not speak. She was silent a moment, until she was able to control
herself. Then she said again, "I know, I know, Adee, that you will
always want me for your little girl; but it is dreadful to have no
people of your own."
Eliza could not debate that. It was true, and could not be disputed. She
put her arm about Beth and drew her close. Thus they sat without saying
a word for a long, long time. The log in the grate burned out. Then
Eliza broke the silence.
"Go to bed now, Beth. I must attend to some work before I come up."
Beth obediently arose, kissed Adee good-night and left the room. She
went to bed, but could not sleep. She could hear Adee moving about in
the room below. When it grew quiet, Beth closed her eyes. She was yet
wide awake, but she could see plainly a picture that had come to her
again and again for as long as she could remember. It was a little white
bed in which she herself lay, and a beautiful woman with flowers in her
hair and a long, soft, shimmering gown stood over her. "That is
something that I saw often before I came to Adee's," she told herself.
"It is so clear. Always the woman's face slips away. I cannot see it."
Meanwhile Eliza in the room below strengthened herself to do her duty.
She wanted to keep Beth--oh, how much she wanted her; but if she could
find out from where she came, it was only right, for the child's sake,
to do so. If Beth had kin living, it was Eliza's duty to do everything
to find them, even if her own heart-strings were torn to shreds in doing
so.
After reaching this decision, she went to her writing desk and wrote to
the baggage agent of that particular road, at Baltimore. She told him
the circumstances of the check and asked him to spare no pains to find
out where it came from or where the trunk was now.
"There may be letters or clothing in the trunk which will lead us to her
people," she told herself as she sealed the letter.
Neither she nor Beth could sleep much that night. They were two
sorry-looking individuals the following morning. They were heavy-eyed,
tired and listless. They had little to say at the breakfast table. They
had worn themselves out with lying awake and letting their minds dwell
on the matters which lay nearest their hearts.
There is an old adage that "troubles never come singly." Better change
it to suit the new philosophy of the day, "Joys never come singly."
Sometimes lives may move serenely on for months and months, or even
years. They are like a broad stretch of level plain. They would grow
monotonous after a time. The finest are lands interspersed with valleys
and mountains. So it is with life--here the valley of humiliation, there
the mountain of joyful exultation.
Eliza mailed her letter. She lost no time, but sent Beth off to the
post-office immediately after breakfast, lest she regret and prove weak
enough to keep it back.
That evening the "tramp" came up the slope earlier than usual. The
ground was white with snow. The drifts were deep in the ravine, but he
had kept the path broken. He stepped more briskly than usual. He
whistled and sang exultingly. He carried a milk-bucket and had under his
arm several letters and magazines. In one hand was a great bouquet of
crimson roses, wrapped in oiled paper to keep them from the biting cold.
His feet were eager to reach the Wells home. He sang and then laughed
aloud to himself. He was a most peculiar sort of tramp. One could tell
that from the great coat he wore. Rough cloth on the outside and black,
shaggy fur within. Wind and weather never kept him back. There was
something unusual in the air this night. He was fairly bubbling over
with excitement.
He knocked at Miss Eliza's door and entered before she could respond. He
came directly to where she stood, removed the oiled paper and let a
score of crimson roses nod and smile at her.
"I want to be the first to lay my homage at the feet of the famous one,"
he said. "Permit me, madam, to present the roses to her who is making
her name a household word."
He thrust the flowers between her hands. Eliza was confused. His manner
was strange. Then, too, no one had ever offered her homage, or had
bought her roses. Roses with the mercury ten degrees below zero. Eliza
had never seen roses except in June.
Her face grew crimson. She tried to speak, but could find no words.
"You're all at sea. This will explain." Opening one of the magazines, he
laid it on the table, holding it with finger and thumb that it might not
close.
"Why--why--it's our house," cried Beth.
"And it's our Adee," said the man, turning the page where was a picture
of Eliza herself standing under the trees with the leaves about her.
"I had my camera set for a week before I could get that," he cried
triumphantly. "I was bound to get it by fair means or foul."
Eliza was mechanically turning the leaves with one hand. The other held
the roses close in her arm. She could not understand. She tried to read
the titles. A few lines, and the understanding came.
"You have printed my foolish little stories," she said.
"The editors did not think they were foolish," he said. "You'll find a
number there. Here are the checks for them. My, my, you'll become a
bloated capitalist. Poor Beth and I will take a back seat. It will be
awful hard on the nerves, Beth, to live with a celebrity."