MY LADY BOUNTIFUL
That was a wonderful breakfast at the Casino. Not that Helen ever
remembered much about what she ate, although Dud had ordered choice fruit
and heartier food that would have tempted the most jaded appetite instead
of that of a healthy girl who had been riding horseback for two hours and
a half.
But, it was so heartening to be with people at the table who "talked one's
own language." The Stones and Helen chattered like a trio of young crows.
Dud threatened to chloroform his sister so that he and Helen could get in
a word or two during Jess's lapse into unconsciousness; but finally _that_
did not become necessary because of the talkative girl's interest in a
story that Helen related.
They had discussed many other topics before this subject was broached. And
it was the real reason for Helen's coming East to visit the Starkweathers.
"Dud" was "in the way of being a lawyer," as he had previously told her,
and Helen had come to realize that it was a lawyer's advice she needed
more than anything else.
"Now, Jess, will you keep still long enough for me to listen to the story
of my very first client?" demanded Dud, sternly, of his sister.
"Oh, I'll stuff the napkin into my mouth! You can gag me! Your very first
client, Dud! And it's so interesting."
"It is customary for clients to pay over a retainer; isn't it?" queried
Helen, her eyes dancing. "How much shall it be, Mr. Lawyer?" and she
opened her purse.
There was the glint of a gold piece at the bottom of the bag. Dud flushed
and reached out his hand for it.
"That five dollars, Miss Helen. Thank you. I shall never spend this coin,"
declared Dud, earnestly. "And I shall take it to a jeweler's and have it
properly engraved."
"What will you have put on it?" asked Helen, laughing.
He looked at her from under level brows, smiling yet quite serious.
"I shall have engraved on it 'Snuggy, to Dud'--if I may?" he said.
But Helen shook her head and although she still smiled, she said:
"You'd better wait a bit, Mr. Lawyer, and see if your advice brings about
any happy conclusion of my trouble. But you can keep the gold piece, just
the same, to remember me by."
"As though I needed _that_ reminder!" he cried.
Jess removed the corner of the napkin from between her pretty teeth. "Get
busy, do!" she cried. "I'm dying to hear about this strange affair you say
you have come East to straighten out, Helen."
So the girl from Sunset Ranch told all her story. Everything her father
had said to her upon the topic before his death, and all she suspected
about Fenwick Grimes and Allen Chesterton--even to the attitude Uncle
Starkweather took in the matter--she placed before Dud Stone.
He gave it grave attention. Helen was not afraid to talk plainly to him,
and she held nothing back. But at the best, her story was somewhat
disconnected and incomplete. She possessed very few details of the crime
which had been committed. Mr. Morrell himself had been very hazy in his
statements regarding the affair.
"What we want first," declared Dud, impressively, "is to get the _facts_.
Of course, at the time, the trouble must have made some stir. It got into
the newspapers."
"Oh, dear, yes," said Helen. "And that is what Uncle Starkweather is
afraid of. He fears it will get into the papers again if I make any stir
about it, and then there will be a scandal."
"With his name connected with it?"
"Yes."
"He's dreadfully timid for his own good name; isn't he?" remarked Dud,
sarcastically. "Well, first of all, I'll get the date of the occurrence
and then search the files of all the city papers. The reporters usually
get such matters pretty straight. To misstate such business troubles is
skating on the thin ice of libel, and newspapers are careful.
"Well, when we have all the facts before us--what people surmised, even,
and how it looked to 'the man on the street,' as the saying is--then we'll
know better how to go ahead.
"Are you willing to leave the matter to me, Helen?"
"What did I give you a retainer for?" demanded the girl from Sunset Ranch,
smiling.
"True," he replied, his own eyes dancing; "but there is a saying among
lawyers that the feminine client does not really come to a lawyer for
advice; rather, she pays him to listen to her talk."
"Isn't that horrid of him?" cried Jess, unable to keep still any longer.
"As though we girls talked any more than the men do. I should say not!"
But Helen agreed to let Dud govern her future course in trying to untangle
the web of circumstance that had driven her father out of New York years
before. As Dud said, somebody was guilty, and that somebody was the person
they must find.
It encouraged Helen mightily to have someone talk this way about the
matter. A solution of the problem seemed so imminent after she parted from
the fledgling lawyer and his sister, that Helen determined to hasten to
their conclusion certain plans she had made, before she returned to the
West.
For Helen could not remain here. Her uncle's home was not the refined
household that dear dad had thought, in which she would be sheltered and
aided in improving herself.
"I might as well take board at the Zoo and live in the bear's den,"
declared Helen, perhaps a little harsh in her criticism. "There are no
civilizing influences in _that_ house. I'd never get a particle of
'culture' there. I'd rather associate with Sing, and Jo-Rab, and the boys,
and Hen Billings."
Her experience in the great city had satisfied Helen that its life was not
for her. Some things she had learned, it was true; but most of them were
unpleasant things.
"I'd rather hire some lady to come out to Sunset and live with me and
teach me how to act gracefully in society, and all that. There are a lot
of 'poor, but proud' people who would be glad of the chance, I know."
But on this day--after she had left her riding habit at a tailor's to be
brushed and pressed, and had made arrangements to make her changes there
whenever she wished to ride in the morning--on this day Helen had
something else to do beside thinking of her proper introduction to
society. This was the first day it had been fit for her to go downtown
since she and Sadie Goronsky had had their adventure with the old man whom
Sadie called "Lurcher," but whom Fenwick Grimes had called "Jones."
Helen was deeply interested in the old man's case, and if he could be
helped in any proper way, she wanted to do it. Also, there was Sadie
herself. Helen believed that the Russian girl, with her business ability
and racial sharpness, could help herself and her family much more than she
now was doing, if she had the right kind of a chance.
"And I am going to give her the chance," Helen told herself, delightedly.
"She has been, as unselfish and kind to me--a stranger to her and her
people--as she could be. I am determined that Sadie Goronsky and her
family shall always be glad that Sadie was kind to the 'greenie' who
hunted for Uncle Starkweather's house on Madison Street instead of Madison
Avenue."
After luncheon at the Starkweathers' Helen started downtown with plenty of
money in her purse. She rode to Madison Street and was but a few minutes
in reaching the Finkelstein store. To her surprise the front of the
building was covered with big signs reading "Bankrupt Sale! Prices Cut in
Half!"
Sadie was not in sight. Indeed, the store was full of excited people
hauling over old Jacob Finkelstein's stock of goods, and no "puller-in"
was needed to draw a crowd. The salespeople seemed to have their hands
full.
Not seeing Sadie anywhere, Helen ventured to mount to the Goronsky flat.
Mrs. Goronsky opened the door, recognized her visitor, and in shrill
Yiddish and broken English bade her welcome.
"You gome py mein house to see mein Sarah? Sure! Gome in! Gome in! Sarah
iss home to-day."
"Why, see who's here!" exclaimed Sadie, appearing with a partly-completed
hat, of the very newest style, in her hand. "I thought the wet weather had
drowned you out."
"It kept me in," said Helen, "for I had nothing fit to wear out in the
rain."
"Well, business was so poor that Jacob had to fail. And that always gives
me a few days' rest. I'm glad to get 'em, believe me!"
"Why--why, can a man fail more than once?" gasped Helen.
"He can in the clothing business," responded Sadie, laughing, and leading
the way into the tiny parlor. "I bet there was a crowd in there when you
come by?"
"Yes, indeed," agreed Helen.
"Sure! he'll get rid of all the 'stickers' he's got it in the shop, and
when we open again next week for ordinary business, everything will be
fresh and new."
"Oh, then, you're really not out of a job?" asked Helen, relieved for her
friend's sake.
"No. I'm all right. And you?"
"I came down particularly to see about that poor old man's spectacles,"
Helen said.
"Then you didn't forget about him?"
"No, indeed. Did you see him? Has he got the prescription? Is it right
about his eyes being the trouble?"
"Sure that's what the matter is. And he's dreadful poor, Helen. If he
could see better he might find some work. He wore his eyes out, he told
me, by writing in books. That's a business!"
"Then he has the prescription."
"Sure. I seen it. He's always hoping he'd get enough money to have the
glasses. That's all he needs, the doctor told him. But they cost fourteen
dollars."
"He shall have them!" declared Helen.
"You don't mean it, Helen?" cried the Russian girl. "You haven't got that
much money for him?"
"Yes, I have. Will you go around there with me? We'll get the prescription
and have it filled."
"Wait a bit," said Sadie. "I want to finish this hat. And lemme tell
you--it's right in style. What do you think?"
"How wonderfully clever you are!" cried the Western girl. "It looks as
though it had just come out of a shop."
"Sure it does. I could work in a hat shop. Only they wouldn't pay me
anything at first, and they wouldn't let me trim. But I know a girl that
ain't a year older nor me what gets sixteen dollars a week trimming in a
millinery store on Grand Street. O' course, she ain't the _madame_; she's
only assistant. But sixteen dollars is a good bunch of money to bring home
on a Saturday night--believe me!"
"Is that what you'd like to do--keep a millinery shop?" asked Helen.
"Wouldn't I--just?" gasped Sadie. "Why, Helen--I dream about it nights!"
Helen became suddenly interested. "Would a little shop pay, Sadie? Could
you earn your living in a little shop of your own--say, right around here
somewhere?"
"Huh! I've had me eye on a place for months. But it ain't no use. You got
to put up for the rent, and the wholesalers ain't goin' to let a girl like
me have stock on credit. And there's the fixtures--Aw, well, what's the
use? It's only a dream."
Helen was determined it should not remain "only a dream." But she said
nothing further.