Graham did not seem to forget his friends entirely while he was gone.
The boys received a number of post-cards from time to time, and a lot
of fine views of California, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon, and
other spots of interest. A wonderful picture-book came for Doris, with
Chinese pictures, and rhymes printed on crêpe paper. The next morning
a tiny sandalwood fan arrived for Carol with Graham's compliments, and
a few days later a big box of oranges for Mrs. Hollister with no clew
whatever as to their sender. Shirley began to wonder what her part
would be and what she should do about it, and presently received--a
letter! And then, after all, it was only a pleasant request that she
would not pay the rent, about which she had always been so punctual,
until his return, as no one else understood about his affairs. He
added a few words about his pleasant trip and a wish that they were all
prospering,--and that was all.
Shirley was disappointed, of course, and yet, if he had said more, or
if he had ventured to send her even a mere trifle of a gift, it would
have made her uncomfortable and set her questioning how she should
treat him and it. It was the perfection of his behavior that he had
not overstepped a single bound that the most particular might set for a
landlord and his respected tenant. She drew a deep sigh and put the
letter back into the envelope, and as she did so she spied a small
card, smaller than the envelope, on which was an exquisite bit of
scenery, a colored photograph, apparently, and underneath had been
pencilled, "One of the many beautiful spots in California that I am
sure you would appreciate."
Her heart gave an unforbidden leap, and was promptly taken to task for
it. Yet when Shirley went back to her typewriter the bit of a picture
was pinned to the wall back of her desk, and her eyes rested on it many
times that day when she lifted them from her work. It is questionable
whether Shirley remembered Miss Harriet Hale at all that day.
The garden was growing beautifully now. There would soon be lettuce
and radishes ready to eat. George had secured a number of customers
through people at the store, and was planning to take early trips to
town, when his produce was ripe, to deliver it. They watched every
night and looked again every morning for signs of the first pea
blossoms, and the little green spires of onion tops, like sparse hairs,
beginning to shoot up. Every day brought some new wonder. They almost
forgot they had ever lived in the little old brick house, until George
rode by there on his bicycle one noon and reported that it had been
half pulled down, and you could now see the outline of where the stairs
and closets had been, done in plaster, on the side of the next house.
They were all very silent for a minute thinking after he told that, and
Mrs. Hollister looked around the great airy place in which they were
sitting, and then out the open door where the faint stain of sunset was
still lingering against the horizon, and said:
"We ought all to be very thankful, children. George, get the Bible and
read the thirty-fourth psalm." Wonderingly George obeyed, and they all
sat listening as the words sank into their souls.
"Now," said the mother when the psalm was finished and those last
words, "The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them
that trust in him shall be desolate"; "now let us kneel down and thank
Him."
And they all knelt while she prayed a few earnest, simple words of
thanksgiving and commended them to God's keeping.
By this time Mrs. Hollister was so well that she went every day for a
little while into the garden and worked, and was able to do a great
deal in the house. The children were overjoyed, and lived in a
continual trance of delight over the wild, free life they were living.
Carol's school had closed and Carol was at home all day. This made one
more to help in the garden. George was talking about building a little
pigeon-house and raising squabs for sale. The man who did the
ploughing had given him a couple to start with and told him there was
money in squabs if one only went about it right. George and Harley
pored over a book that told all about it, and talked much on the
subject.
The weather was growing warm, and Shirley was wishing her vacation came
in July or August instead of the first two weeks in September. Somehow
she felt so used up these hot days, and the hours dragged by so slowly.
At night the trolleys were crowded until they were half-way out to
Glenside. She often had to stand, and her head ached a great deal.
Yet she was very happy and thankful--only there was so much to be done
in this world, and she seemed to have so little strength to do it all.
The burden of next fall came occasionally to mar the beauty of the
summer, and rested heavily upon her young shoulders. If only there
wouldn't be any winter for just one year, and they could stay in the
barn and get rested and get a little money ahead somehow for moving.
It was going to be so hard to leave that wide, beautiful abiding-place,
barn though it was.
One morning nearly four weeks after Graham left for California Shirley
was called from her desk to the outer office to take some dictation for
Mr. Clegg. While she was there two men entered the outer office and
asked for Mr. Barnard. One of them was a short, thick-set man with a
pretentious wide gray mustache parted in the middle and combed
elaborately out on his cheeks. He had a red face, little cunning eyes,
and a cruel set to his jaw, which somehow seemed ridiculously at
variance with his loud, checked suit, sporty necktie of soft bright
blue satin, set with a scarf-pin of two magnificent stones, a diamond
and a sapphire, and with the three showy jewelled rings which he wore
on his fat, pudgy hand. The other man was sly, quiet, gray,
unobtrusive, obviously the henchman of the first.
Mr. Clegg told the men they might go into the inner office and wait for
Mr. Barnard, who would probably be in shortly, and Shirley watched them
as they passed out of her view, wondering idly why those exquisite
stones had to be wasted in such an out-of-place spot as in that
coarse-looking man's necktie, and if a man like that really cared for
beautiful things, else why should he wear them? It was only a passing
thought, and then she took up her pencil and took down the closing
sentences of the letter Mr. Clegg was dictating. It was but a moment
more and she was free to go back to her own little alcove just behind
Mr. Barnard's office and connecting with it. There was an entrance to
it from the tiny cloak-room, which she always used when Mr. Barnard had
visitors in his office, and through this way she now went, having a
strange repugnance toward being seen by the two men. She had an innate
sense that the man with the gaudy garments would not be one who would
treat a young girl in her position with any respect, and she did not
care to come under his coarse gaze, so she slipped in quietly through
the cloak-room, and passed like a shadow the open door into Mr.
Barnard's office, where they sat with their backs toward her, having
evidently just settled down and begun to talk. She could hear a
low-breathed comment on the furnishings of the office as indicating a
good bank-account of the owner, and a coarse jest about a photograph of
Mr. Barnard's wife which stood on his desk. It made her wish that the
door between the rooms was closed; yet she did not care to rise and
close it lest she should call attention to herself, and of course it
might be but a minute or two before Mr. Barnard returned. A pile of
envelopes to be addressed lay on her desk, and this work she could do
without any noise, so she slipped softly into her seat and began to
work.
"Well, we got them Grahams good and fast now!" a coarse voice, that she
knew for that of the man with the loud clothing, spoke. "The young
feller bit all right! I thought he would. He's that kind." He
stopped for a laugh of contempt, and Shirley's heart stood still with
apprehension. What could it mean? Was it something about her Grahams?
Some danger threatening them? Some game being played on them? He
looked like the kind of man who lived on the blindnesses of others.
What was it they called such? A parasite? Instinctively she was on
the alert at once, and automatically she reached for the pad on which
she took dictation and began to write down in shorthand what she had
just heard. The voice in the other room went on and her fountain pen
kept eager pace, her breath coming quick and short now, and her face
white with excitement.
"He went out to see the place, you know, examine the mines and all
that. Oh, he's awful cautious! Thought he took a government expert
with him to test the ore. We fixed that up all right--had the very man
on tap at the right minute, government papers all O.K.--you couldn't
have told 'em from the real thing. It was Casey; you know him; he's a
crackerjack on a job like that,--could fool the devil himself. Well,
he swore it was the finest kind of ore and all that kind of dope, and
led that Graham kid around as sweetly as a blue-eyed baby. We had a
gang out there all bribed, you know, to swear to things, and took
particular pains so Graham would go around and ask the right ones
questions,--Casey tended to that,--and now he's come home with the
biggest kind of a tale and ready to boost the thing to the skies. I've
got his word for it, and his daddy is to sign the papers this morning.
When he wakes up one of these fine days he'll find himself minus a
hundred thousand or so, and nobody to blame for it, because how could
anybody be expected to know that those are only pockets? He'll
recommend it right and left too, and we'll clean out a lot of other
fellers before we get done. Teddy, my boy, pat yourself on the back!
We'll have a tidy little sum between us when we pull out of this deal,
and take a foreign trip for our health till the fracas blows over. Now
mind you, not a word of this to Barnard when he comes in. We're only
going to pave the way this morning. The real tip comes from Graham
himself. See?"
Shirley was faint and dizzy with excitement as she finished writing,
and her brain was in a whirl. She felt as if she would scream in a
minute if this strain kept up. The papers were to be signed that
morning! Even now the deed might be done and it would be too late,
perhaps, to stop it. And yet she must make no sign, must not have the
men know that she was there and that they had been heard. She must sit
here breathless until they were gone, so they would not know she had
overheard them, or they might manage to prevent her getting word to
Graham. How long would they stay? Would they talk on and reveal more?
The other man had only grunted something unintelligible in reply, and
then before more could be said an office boy opened the outer door and
told them that Mr. Barnard had just phoned that he would not be back
before two o'clock.
The men swore and went out grumbling. Suddenly Shirley knew her time
had come to do something. Stepping quickly to the door she scanned the
room carefully to make sure they were gone, then closing her own door
she took up the telephone on her desk and called up the Graham number.
She did not know just what she meant to say, nor what she would do if
Sidney Graham were not in the office,--and it was hardly probable he
would be there yet if he had only arrived home the day before. He
would be likely to take a day off before getting back to work. Her
throbbing heart beat out these questions to her brain while she waited
for the number. Would she dare to ask for Mr. Walter Graham? And if
she did, what would she say to him? How explain? He did not know her,
and probably never heard of her. He might think her crazy. Then there
was always the possibility that there was some mistake--and yet it
seemed a coincidence that two men of the same name should both be going
West at that time. It must be these Grahams that the plot was against.
But how explain enough over the phone to do any good? Of course she
must give them a copy of what she had taken down in shorthand, but
first she must stop the signing of those papers, whatever they were, at
all costs.
Then all at once, into the midst of her whirling confusion of thoughts,
came a voice at the other end of the phone, "Hello!" and her frantic
senses realized that it was a familiar one.
"Oh, is this,--this _is_ Mr. Sidney Graham, isn't it? This is Shirley
Hollister."
There was a catch in her voice that sounded almost like a sob as she
drew in her breath with relief to know that he was there, and his
answer came in swift alarm:
"Yes? Is there anything the matter, Miss Shirley? You are not ill,
are you?"
There was a sharp note of anxiety in the young man's voice, and even in
her excitement it made Shirley's heart leap to hear it.
"No, there is nothing the matter with me," she said, trying to steady
her voice, "but something has happened that I think you ought to know
at _once_. I don't know whether I ought to tell it over the phone.
I'm not sure but I may be overheard."
"I will come to you immediately. Where can I find you?"
Her heart leaped again at his willingness to trust her and to obey her
call.
"In Mr. Barnard's private office. If you ask for me they will let you
come right in. There is one thing more. If there is anything
important your father was to decide this morning, could you get him to
wait till you return, or till you phone him?"
There was a second's hesitation, and the reply was politely puzzled but
courteous:
"He is not in the office at present and will not be for an hour."
"Oh, I'm so glad! Then _please hurry_!"
"I will get there as soon as I can," and the phone clicked into place.
Shirley sat back in her chair and pressed her hands over her eyes to
concentrate all her powers. Then she turned to her typewriter and
began to copy off the shorthand, her fingers flying over the keys with
more than their usual swiftness. As she wrote she prayed, prayed that
nothing might have been signed, and that her warning might not come too
late; prayed, too, that Mr. Barnard might not return until Mr. Graham
had been and gone, and that Mr. Graham might not think her an utter
fool in case this proved to have nothing whatever to do with his
affairs.