_DA'S TURN_.
The wind was whistling down the Black Creek Valley, carrying heavy
flakes of snow that whirled and eddied around them, as Rance Belmont
and Evelyn made their way to the Stopping-House. The stormy night
accorded well with the turmoil in Evelyn's brain. One point she had
decided--she would go back to her father, and for this purpose she
asked her companion if he would lend her one hundred dollars. This he
gladly consented to do.
He was discreet enough to know that he must proceed with caution,
though he felt that in getting her separated from her husband and so
thoroughly angry with him that he had made great progress. Now he
believed that if he could get her away from the Stopping-House his
magnetic influence over her would bring her entirely under his power.
But she had insisted on going in to the Stopping-House to see Mrs.
Corbett and tell her what she was going to do. It was contrary to
Evelyn's straightforwardness to do anything in an under-handed way, and
she felt that she owed it to Mrs.
Corbett, who had been her staunch friend, to tell her the truth of the
story, knowing that many versions of it would be told.
Mrs. Corbett was busy setting a new batch of bread, and looked up with
an exclamation of surprise when they walked into the kitchen, white
with snow. It staggered Mrs. Corbett somewhat to see them together at
that late hour, but she showed no surprise as she made Mrs. Brydon
welcome.
"I am going away, Mrs. Corbett," Evelyn began at once.
"No bad news from home, is there?" Mrs. Corbett asked anxiously.
"No bad news from home, but bad news here. Fred and I have quarrelled
and parted forever!"
Mrs. Corbett drew Evelyn into the pantry and closed the door. She could
do nothing, she felt, with Rance Belmont present.
"Did you quarrel about him?" she asked, jerking her head towards the
door.
Evelyn told her story, omitting only Rance Belmont's significant
remarks, which indeed she had not heard.
Mrs. Corbett listened attentively until she was done.
"Ain't that just like a man, poor, blunderin' things they are. Sure and
it was just his love for you, honey, that made him break out so
jealous!"
"Love!" Evelyn broke in scornfully. "Love should include trust and
respect--I don't want love without them. How dare he think that I would
do anything that I shouldn't? Do I look like a woman who would go
wrong?"
"Sure you don't, honey!" Mrs. Corbett soothed her, "but you know Rance
Belmont is so smooth-tongued and has such a way with him that all men
hate him, and the women like him too well. But what are you goin' to
do, dear? Sure you can't leave your man."
"I have left him," said Evelyn. "I am going to Brandon now to-night in
time for the early train. Rance Belmont will drive me."
Something warned Mrs. Corbett not to say all that was in her heart, so
she temporized.
"Sure, if I were you I wouldn't go off at night--it don't look well.
Stay here till mornin'. The daylight's the best time to go. Don't go
off at night as if you were doin' something you were ashamed of. Go in
broad daylight."
"What do I care what people say about me?" Evelyn raged again. "They
can't say any worse than my husband believes of me. No--I am going--I
want to put distance between us; I just came in to say good-bye and to
tell you how it happened. I wanted you and Mr. Corbett to know the
truth, for you have been kind friends to me, and I'll never, never
forget you."
"I'd be afraid you'd never get to Brandon tonight, honey." Mrs. Corbett
held her close, determining in her own mind that she would lock her in
the pantry if there was no other way of detaining her. "Listen to the
wind--sure it's layin' in for a blizzard. I knew that all day. The
roads will be drifted so high you'd never get there, even with the big
pacer. Stay here tonight just to oblige me, and you can go on in the
morning if it's fit."
Meanwhile John Corbett had been warning Rance Belmont that the weather
was unfit for anyone to be abroad, and the fact that George Sims, the
horse trader from Millford, and Dan Lonsbury, had put in for the night,
made a splendid argument in favor of his doing the same. Rance Belmont
had no desire to face a blizzard unnecessarily, particularly at night,
and the storm was growing thicker every minute. So after consulting
with Evelyn, who had yielded to Mrs. Corbett's many entreaties, he
agreed to remain where he was for the night. Evelyn went at once to the
small room over the kitchen, which Mrs. Corbett kept for special
guests, and as she busied herself about the kitchen Mrs. Corbett could
hear her pacing up and down in her excitement.
Mrs. Corbett hastily baked biscuits and "buttermilk bread" to feed her
large family, who, according to the state of the weather and the
subsequent state of the roads, might be with her for several days, and
while her hands were busy, her brain was busier still, and being a
praying woman, Maggie Corbett was looking for help in the direction
from which help comes.
The roaring of the storm as it swept past the house, incessantly
mourning in the mud chimney and sifting the snow against the frosted
windows, brought comfort to her anxious heart, for it reminded her that
dominion and majesty and power belong to the God whom she served.
When she put the two pans of biscuits in the oven she looked through
the open door into the "Room," where her unusual number of guests were
lounging about variously engaged.
Rance Belmont smoked cigarettes constantly and shuffled the cards as if
to read his fate therein. He would dearly have loved a game with some
one, for he had the soul of a gambler, but Mrs. Corbett's decree
against card-playing was well known.
Dan Lonsbury, close beside the table lamp, read a week-old copy of the
Brandon _Times_. George Sims, the horse-dealer, by the light of his own
lantern, close beside him on the bench, pared his corns with minute
attention to detail.
Under the wall lamp, which was fastened to the window frame, Da
Corbett, in his cretonne-covered barrel-chair of home manufacture, read
the _War Cry_, while Peter Rockett, on his favorite seat, the wood-box,
played one of the Army tunes on his long-suffering Jew's-harp.
"They can't get away as long as the storm lasts, anyway," Mrs. Corbett
was thinking, thankful even for this temporary respite, "but they'll go
in the mornin' if the storm goes down, and I can't stop them--vain is
the help of man."
Suddenly Mrs. Corbett started as if she had heard a strange and
disturbing noise; she threw out her hands as if in protest. She sat
still a few moments holding fast to the kitchen table in her
excitement; her eyes glittered, and her breath came short and fast.
She went hurriedly into the pantry, fearful that her agitation might be
noticed. In her honest soul it seemed to her that her plan, so
terrible, so daring, so wicked, must be sounding now in everybody's
ears.
In the darkness of the pantry she tried to think it out. Was it an
inspiration from heaven, or was it a suggestion of the devil? One
minute she was imploring Satan to "get thee behind me," and the next
minute she was thanking God and whispering Hallelujahs! A lull in the
storm drove her to immediate action.
John Corbett came out into the kitchen to see what was burning, for
Maggie had forgotten her biscuits.
When the biscuits were attended to she took "Da" with her into the
pantry, and she said to him, "Da, is it ever right to do a little wrong
so that good will come of it?"
She asked the question so impersonally that John Corbett replied
without hesitation: "It is never right, Maggie."
"But, Da," she cried, seizing the lapel of his coat, "don't you mind
hearin' o' how the priests have given whiskey to the Indians when they
couldn't get the white captives away from them any other way? Wasn't
that right?"
"Sure and it was; at a time like that it was right to do anything--but
what are you coming at, Maggie?"
"If Rance Belmont lost all the money he has on him, and maybe ran a bit
in debt, he couldn't go away to-morrow with her, could he? She thinks
he's just goin' to drive her to Brandon, but I know him--he'll go with
her, sure--she can't help who travels on the train with her--and how'll
that look? But if he were to lose his money he couldn't travel dead
broke, could he, Da?"
"Not very far," agreed Da, "but what are you coming at, Maggie? Do you
want me to go through him?" He laughed at the suggestion.
"Ain't there any way you can think of, Da--no, don't think--the sin is
mine and I'll take it fair and square on my soul. I don't want you to
be blemt for it--Da, listen--" she whispered in his ear.
John Corbett caught her in his arms.
"Would I? Would I? Oh, Maggie, would a duck swim?" he said, keeping his
voice low to avoid being heard in the other room.
"Don't be too glad, Da; remember it's a wicked thing I'm askin' you to
do; but, Da, are you sure you haven't forgot how?"
John Corbett laughed. "Maggie, when a man learns by patient toil to
tell the under side of an ace he does not often forget, but of course
there is always the chance, that's the charm of it--nobody can be quite
sure."
"I've thought of every way I can think of," she said, after a pause,
"and this seems to be the only way. I just wish it was something I
could do myself and not be bringing black guilt on your soul, but maybe
God'll understand. Maybe it was so that you'd be ready for to-night
that He let you learn to be so handy with them. Sure Ma always said
that God can do His work with quare tools; and now, Da, I'll slip off
to bed, and you'll pretend you're stealin' a march on me, and he'll
enjoy himself all the more if he thinks he's spitin' me. Oh, Da, I wish
I knew it was right--maybe it's ruinin' your soul I am, puttin' you up
to such wickedness, but I'll be prayin' for you as hard as I can."
Da looked worried. "Maggie, I don't know about the prayin'--I was
always able to find the card I needed without bein' prayed for."
"Oh, I mean I'll pray it won't hurt you. I wouldn't interfere with the
game, for I don't know one card from another, and I'm sure the Lord
don't either, but it's your soul I'm thinkin' of and worried about.
I'll slip down with the green box--there's more'n a hundred dollars in
it. And now good-bye, Da--go at him, and God bless you--and play like
the divil!"
Mr. John Corbett slowly folded up the _War Cry_ and placed it in his
pocket, and when Maggie brought down the green box with their earnings
in it he emptied its contents in his pocket, and then, softly humming
to himself, he went into the other room.
The wind raged and the storm roared around the Black Creek Stopping-
House all that night, but inside the fire burned bright in the box-
stove, and an interested and excited group sat around the table where
Rance Belmont and John Corbett played the game! Peter Rockett, with his
eyes bulging from his head, watched his grave employer cut and deal and
gather in the stakes, with as much astonishment as if that dignified
gentleman had walked head downward on the ceiling. Yet John Corbett
proceeded with the game, as grave and solemn as when he asked a
blessing at the table. Sometimes he hummed snatches of Army tunes, and
sometimes Rance Belmont swore softly, and to the anxious ear which
listened at the stovepipe-hole above, both sounds were of surpassing
sweetness!