THE NEXT DAY
Mrs. Jason Pegrim needed no urging in the matter of making haste to go
to her brother's assistance. During the nine years that she had lived in
her farm-house on the hill, her one desire had been to get back to the
village, and ever since her brother had been appointed postmaster she
had spent many sleepless nights in fruitless schemes for bringing it to
pass. For if the clock-maker's little shop had been a place of social
opportunities to the alert widow, how much wider a field could she find
in the post-office?
Now the opportunity had almost dropped out of a dream, as she told
'Lisha Potts, when she hurried to admit him in the early dawn, her
toilet being so far from complete that hairpins bristled from her mouth
and rendered still more incoherent her announcement. "There now, and
folks say there's nothing in dreams! To be sure, the man in my dream
last night that came to price the heifer was dark and you're sandy, and
while I went to lead her out, he stole my best spoons out of the
clock-case, and slipped out of the back door, which, of course, no Potts
would do, even in a dream. But where it comes out true is that a man
did come, which is a matter for thankfulness, the first that's opened
that gate in a week."
As 'Lisha explained his errand, his native shrewdness making him tell as
little as possible, brief as the time was, Mrs. Pegrim finished the
securing of the doorknob coil of hair at the back and freed her tongue
for better action.
"Brother Oliver has his hands full and wants me to come down and help
him out for a week? You're sure he doesn't feel sick and doesn't want to
allow it? Or mebbe he's minded to get the spring cleaning done early; if
so, he's too forehanded, for March cleaning won't hold over till fall,
not but what I'm glad to go down and get three miles nearer to the
news."
While her tongue flew, her hands and feet were not idle, for, shoving
'Lisha before her into the kitchen, Mrs. Pegrim quickly assembled a
pick-up breakfast, of which she motioned him to eat in expressive
pantomime, while continuing her questions.
"Do you reckon he'll want me for more than a week? If I thought he
would, I'd put in my Sunday pelerine, but if not, I'd hate to muss it.
Didn't specify any length of time, only said fetch her down? That's like
a man. Anyhow, I'll tell neighbor Selleck to feed my fowls and the cow
and heifer until he hears contrary, besides which, you'll have to get
him to milk for you this morning if you're going to drive me down.
Oliver must be in some sort of strait if you can't even wait to milk and
do your chores first."
Having packed a capacious carpet-bag, drawn down the gayly painted paper
window-shades, emptied and dried the tea-kettle, and made sure that not
an ash was at large on the hearth, for she still cooked in the open
chimney over a bed of wood embers by the aid of pot hook, crane, and
trammel, Satira joined 'Lisha at the table and poured herself a cup of
coffee. She had barely raised it to her lips when she set it down so
suddenly that the coffee splashed upon her cherry-colored bonnet
strings.
"'Lisha Potts," she adjured solemnly, "I know what it is! Oliver is
going to take a second and he wants me to put things in shape! And why
shouldn't he if he wishes? He's got a tidy sum laid by and a trade and a
position under government. Of course I'll go and help him, not but what
a widow must feel, losing her only brother twice, so to speak, but if I
suspicioned who she is, I could ride down easier, and resign my spirits
better if I knew it wasn't widow Baker."
"It isn't marrying anybody, so you're way off the track. It's just
unexpected company that Oliver ain't got time to entertain suitable, and
the quicker we get down there, the sooner you'll know all about it,"
said 'Lisha, indulging in what for him was a wild flight of fancy.
After the Sellecks had received instructions as to her live stock,
Satira Pegrim relapsed into a silence that lasted for almost a mile.
"How much company is there?" asked Satira, launching the question
suddenly in the hope of taking 'Lisha unawares.
"Two!" he replied, a gleam of amusement flitting across his grim visage.
"Males or females?"
"One of each."
"Married couple?"
"Nope."
"Brother and sister?"
"I reckon not."
"Just friends, then?"
"I guess you've hit it now, pretty near, though I should call them two
down to Gilbert's more sort of travelling companions that was on the way
to growin' real friendly." More than this, Satira Pegrim could not
extract, and she contented herself by weaving romance about the unknown
couple, paying no attention to the beauty of the morning, wherein every
ice-covered twig glistened in the sun.
'Lisha pulled up at the post-office-house door, and after steering Mrs.
Pegrim carefully along the slippery path to the side porch, having
suddenly made up his mind to stay down at the village for another day,
he led the horse and bobbing two-wheeled chaise to Gilbert's barn that
stood at the end of the lot against the high bank that made John Angus's
boundary.
The side door being open, Mrs. Pegrim went in without knocking, found no
one in either kitchen, bedroom, or pantry, though the general confusion
told its own story; as she almost fell over the cradle, its bedding
tumbled about as if to air, the last straw was added to the mystery.
With a gasp, combined of suppressed speech and astonishment, she seized
her bag and going up to the room over the kitchen that she had
previously occupied, donned a gown of stout indigo print, and throwing
over head and shoulders a wonderful shawl of her own knitting, a
marvellous blend of gray and purple stripes, resolutely crossed the
passage between house and post-office, and entering by the workshop
door, peered through into the office in an effort to see without being
seen.
An unusual number of men for the time of the morning when chores are
most pressing stood about the stove, while two women, one being the
objectionable widow Baker, were actually holding an animated
conversation with Gilbert through the delivery window of the beehive,
standing a-tiptoe in their endeavors to see some object within the
sacred precinct. At the same time Mrs. Baker exclaimed--"The darling!"
in a wheezy tone that was meant to be confidential.
To the searching eye of his sister, Gilbert looked completely unnerved.
His hair, usually so sleek and divided low over the left ear, stood on
end; his beard was buttoned under his collarless blue flannel shirt,
giving his face a curiously chopped-off appearance, while his hands
shook as he fumbled with the letters, and he continually cast furtive
glances behind him.
Finally, Satira Pegrim made a dive through the group of men, and,
without appearing to see the women, slipped through the door at the back
of the sorting bench, only to trip over a soft something on the floor,
and suddenly find herself kneeling and very much jarred upon the edge of
a bright patchwork quilt, in the centre of which sat the lady baby,
alternately feeding herself and the puppy with a thick slice of bread
which she held butter side down. In the dull morning light, the child
looked more pathetic than pretty, for she had an unmistakable snuffly
cold, and a pair of tears that had been quivering on her long lashes
rolled down her cheeks as she looked up at Mrs. Pegrim.
The puppy gave a shrill bark and began to play tug-of-war with a corner
of the cherished shawl. At the sound Gilbert turned, a look of infinite
relief spreading over his face when he saw his sister.
"Thank the Lord you've come," he jerked out over his shoulder as he
handed widow Baker ten three-cent stamps that she had bought merely to
prolong the interview. "Take 'em right back to the house and I'll come
over soon as I can. She's got a cold and is wheezy; if you can't fix her
up, I calculate 'Lisha'd better go for the doctor."
"Yes, I will, Oliver; the minute I set eyes on her it flashed through
me, lard and nutmeg, on the chest, that's what she needs. But who _be_
they, 'nd how'd they come here without parents is what I'd like to know;
that is, the child, I mean, for lots of puppies don't have any."
"That's what we don't know and have got to find out. Didn't 'Lisha
explain?"
"Not a word, only rigmarolled about company."
"'Lisha," called Gilbert to the backwoodsman, who had now come in, "will
you go over home with sister Pegrim? She wants to talk to you 'bout last
night."
"I reckon if it isn't against the law, I'd ruther step in there and dish
out the rest of them letters," said 'Lisha; so brother and sister, the
lady baby muffled in the quilt, and wow-wow nipping at the heels of
Gilbert's carpet slippers, went together.
The door had no sooner closed behind them than the men began questioning
'Lisha all together, propounding their theories of the event before
which the war news had temporarily paled; for never, even in the memory
of Selectman Morse, the oldest of them, had a baby been abandoned in the
township,--much less a well-grown child of a year.
Mr. Morse, in view of his position, appointed two of the men present to
take up the clew; for in these good old days of New England, the First
Selectman was virtually mayor of the township and was so chosen.
'Lisha, by reason of his being the first to discover the child, was
deputed to go to the stable at Westboro with the buffalo-robe, after
which the course of the search would depend upon what the stableman
could tell.
"Gilbert, are you willing that the child should stay here while we
investigate?" the Selectman asked when the postmaster returned and
'Lisha had driven off to Westboro; "or would you rather she were handed
over to proper authorities right now?"
"Who might those be?" asked Gilbert, by way of reply.
"Well, now, that raises a question of some moment," said the Selectman,
fitting the tips of his fingers together precisely and making a flywheel
of his thumbs, at the same time adjusting his upper teeth in place with
a clicking sound. That it was the wandering disposition of these teeth
that had prevented their owner from becoming an orator in the cause of
patriotism, he firmly believed.
"If the child's an orphan foundling, she goes to the county asylum; if
merely abandoned by worthless parents, she goes to the poor-house free;
while if she can be attributed to a living male parent, he must pay her
board either to the town or her mother."
"It appears to me," said Gilbert, moistening his lips nervously, and
dangerous gleams shooting from his keen gray eyes, "that as you don't
know where to send her, and you've no authority to take her, she will
stay right where she was left! And now, boys, while I'm obliged to ye
all for your interest, this matter isn't federal business, nor connected
with this post-office, so if there's anything to say, come 'round to the
house later on and have it out. Under anything that may come out, the
child is innocent, and it might come pretty hard a score of years from
now if she knew she was made light of by you fellows." Gilbert's voice
broke at this juncture, and the boys were looking at each other
sheepishly when a team rattled up to the door and 'Lisha and Beers, the
Westboro liveryman, came in together, having met at the lower end of
town.
"They hired a sleigh from Beers's all right and hushed the bells," cried
'Lisha, triumphantly.
"Who?" chorused the boys.
"The man and woman who brought the child here, of course."
"I didn't say it was a man _and_ a woman," put in Beers, cutting off a
generous quid of tobacco and passing the remainder around, as though
preparing for a social occasion that would be a strain on the juices of
speech.
"This here was the way of it," he said, settling himself within easy
range of the box of sawdust by the stove, while Gilbert came from the
hive to lean over the case where a collection of stationery,
knickknacks, cigars, and packages of lozenges was kept.
"You know how late the mail-train was last night, and how it stormed?
Well, the last train was late by that much too; after waiting 'round a
spell I came home and I made up my mind I wouldn't send a team over to
the depot again but trust to any folks that wanted one coming over, for
it was near midnight. I suppose I must have dozed off by the stove in
the office, because the first thing I knew, a man stood there by the
fire stamping his feet to warm them, the spring bell on the door having
waked me. 'I've got off at the wrong station, intending to go on to
Harley's Mills,' says he in a voice like he'd an awful cold; 'can I get
a team to drive my wife over? She's at the depot.'
"'A team you can have,' says I, 'but I've not a driver I could send out
to-night. What part are you going to?'
"'To the post-office,' says he. 'Maybe you'd let me put up the team
there and bring it back in the morning. I'll pay you ten dollars down
for security,' says he, coughing and acting tired like.
"Thinks I, this isn't any night for horse thieves and if I give him
Spunky Pete, it'll be a safe risk, for he won't go but just such a ways
from the stable when he balks and bolts back.
"'All right,' says I, 'what kind of a team do you want, chaise or
sleigh?' He thought a minute and says, 'A sleigh'll jar less a night
like this, and if you've got any old rag of a robe, just pile her in.'
Well, he started off all right toward the depot, the bells jingling
nice, and pretty soon I see the sleigh come back with somebody else
within and go up the turnpike this way, and so I went upstairs and
turned into bed. It was after I'd got into a good first sleep when
something seemed to be pounding me in a dream and I started up with wife
pulling my sleeve and calling, 'There's somebody pounding away on the
front stoop and yelling like mad. Do you suppose one of the mules could
have broke loose?'
"'One of the mules? That's Spunky Pete and no other,' says I, tumbling
into my clothes and grabbing a lantern. He always pounds and screeches
that way if I don't give him his feed first of the bunch. Yes, sure
enough, there was Pete pounding away on the porch. At first I thought
he'd served them some trick and upset them, but when my eyes fell on the
lines, I knew different; they were tied to the dash rail with a bit of
string!
"That made me suspicious and I looked Pete over as I led him to the
stable. For a cold night he had surely sweat more than the short run
warranted. Then I noticed the bells didn't jingle--the string on the
girth was gone (I found it after under the seat) and the two big ones on
the shafts were hushed by being wrapped in paper. 'I wonder what's up,'
says I, 'the horse has come back safe, but there's something amiss
somewhere. A man doesn't give up ten dollars to ride three miles on any
straight errand.' So this morning I started up to find if any company
had come up to Mr. Gilbert's, and I met 'Lisha here with the buffalo,
which, I declare, I hadn't missed, and he told me the rest."
"Did you keep the bits of newspaper?" asked Gilbert.
"Yes, they're down home; they're torn from _The Boston Traveller_ of
last Friday."
"I wonder if any one took the milk freight down last night; it carries a
passenger car," ventured the Justice of the Peace. "Nobody, so far as
Mr. Binks the agent saw; he loaded on some milk, but the ticket-office
isn't open for that train," said 'Lisha.
"Can you describe the man?" asked the Justice of the Peace, poising his
pencil.
"That's just what I've been trying to do for myself," said the
liveryman. "Not suspecting anything, I wasn't particular, and he had a
dark cloth cap with a chin piece that pretty well covered his mouth. He
was short and thick-set, 'n' I think his eyebrows were light, but that's
about all, except that he had a long scar between the two first fingers
of his right hand. I noticed that when he slapped the ten-dollar note
down on the table."
"He asked you how far it was to Harley's Mills Post-office?" said
Gilbert. "Then wherever they came from and whoever they are, they
_meant_ to leave the child here, it wasn't mere chance. Do you hear
that, all?"
"Yes," answered the Justice of the Peace; "but as you've said that you
have no kin that she could come from, mightn't she be of some distant
kin Down East of old Curtis's, who didn't know he was dead? He'd had the
office about ever since there was one and was reputed rich, you know."
Gilbert winced as though some one had rudely touched a vital spot, and
then, turning to the First Selectman, said quietly: "I don't know
whether it's law or not, but I think a notice should be put in the best
county paper. I reckon those from whom the child was stolen should have
as much chance to know of it as if one of us had found a good horse tied
at his gate. Then in a month's time, if there is no clew, other plans
can be made. Meantime, as it seems she was left here with intention,
sister Pegrim and I will look after her."
"That's well said--liberal too, for a man of your years--with prices
what they are--" were some of the comments.
"That'll do for the present," said the First Selectman, gathering his
gray long-shawl about him and steadying himself with his cane; "but we
have a mystery among us for the first time, boys, and we must not treat
it lightly. If Mr. Allan Pinkerton was not at this time needed by Mr.
Lincoln, I should vote that we put the case before him."
Then, led by 'Lisha Potts, who announced that he was going to finish the
day by asking a few questions at the Bridgeton station, the group,
having already shortened their working day by a couple of hours, drifted
away.
Oliver Gilbert watched them go, and mechanically took his seat before
the sorting table. He was dizzy from lack of sleep and the rush of many
emotions that he had almost forgotten he had ever felt before, blended
with others wholly new. His life had been slow in blossoming, the
crippled hip from his very childhood had kept him aloof and apart. Then
he had lived in the full for three years and twilight again fell around
him; for a while he had struggled against it, and then, as the neighbors
said, "become resigned." Now, everything was upheaved; work, his
consoler, lay on the bench untouched; the sun melted the ice from the
halyards, and yet he did not go to raise the flag of victory where it
must be seen from John Angus's windows. The hour struck and then the
next before noon; he did not even remember that he had not eaten
breakfast. Presently the outer door opened and a pair of small, heavily
shod feet clumped across to the delivery-window, through which their
owner could not look, even on tiptoes, and after waiting for a few
moments, the piping voice of a boy of six or so called, "It's me, Mr.
Gilbert. I've come over to see your little girl, please."
Gilbert started from his revery and came toward the voice. "Oh, it's
you, is it, Hughey, and who told you about her, pray?"
"Nobody told me 'xactly, but I heard Mr. Morse telling father and
mother, and I asked her if I might come right down, and she said yes.
You see, there wasn't any school this morning because it was too
slippery, but now it's all wet. Broken for spring, father says. See my
new rubber-boots, Mr. Gilbert; all red inside," and he held up one
sturdy leg.
"As it's so close on to noon I guess I'll shut up, and we'll go in
together and see little missy. Isn't this about the time of day for a
barley stick, sonny?" said the postmaster, taking one from the glass
case as he passed.
The kitchen was in its usual order; a boiled dinner was under way on the
stove, beneath which the puppy slept, while Mrs. Pegrim sat mending some
socks with the rocker drawn up close to the lounge upon which the lady
baby was enthroned and playing gayly with a string of spools. When she
saw Gilbert, she dropped them and tried to roll off the sofa to her
feet.
"No, no!" said Mrs. Pegrim, pleasantly but decidedly, "it's too cold
down there for little girls." Her face flushed, puckered up to cry;
then, for some reason, she changed her mind and held out her arms.
"So she knows daddy already, does she?" crooned Gilbert, "and here's a
little boy come to see her, the very first caller. Satira, this is Hugh
Oldys from the Mills--Richard Oldys's boy, you know."
Richard Oldys was one of the representative men of this section of New
England. He had rebuilt the original Harley's Mills near the mouth of
the Moosatuck, for which the town had been named, and made them a great
distributing centre of flour and all grains. The land had come down to
his wife, whose mother had been a Harley and was, therefore, kin of the
Misses Felton, who also had Harley blood in the female line. While a man
of less wealth than John Angus, Oldys was so much more liberal with it,
so much broader in his sympathies and culture, that nothing of
importance was undertaken in the community without his advice and
sanction. As for his wife,--in that clannish and conservative little
town, almost old-world-like in its simplicity and loyalty to
tradition,--it was a belief that a real Harley could do no wrong.
Coupled with this, Pamela Oldys was a rare woman, almost too highly
keyed to the needs and wishes of others for her own peace, and wrapped
up in this boy Hugh, the only child that her frail health had allowed
her.
Hugh surveyed the lady baby in silence for a moment, and then gravely
shook her hand, saying, "How do you do?" A crow came from the prettily
curved lips by way of answer, and she began a sort of game of
peek-a-boo, covering her face with her hands and then peeping out.
Evidently she had lived among responsive people.
"I suppose God sent her the same as usual," remarked Hugh, in the most
matter-of-fact way. "She's nice and big though, being so new; they're
mostly blinky and queer at first, like kittens. We've never had a baby
at our house; they often have them next door, but not as nice as this
one."
At this moment the puppy spied Hugh's rubber-boots that had been left at
the door, and made a dash for them, for if there is anything a young dog
loves, it is either shoe leather or shoe rubber.
"Hi! there's a puppy. Is it yours, Mr. Gilbert? I had a puppy once and
it died, and father's going to buy me one of a better kind next
Christmas. I'll be seven then. There's so many cats around the mill
that I hope they won't scratch its eyes out."
"That pup belongs to the lady baby," answered Gilbert, who was now
brushing his tousled hair in front of the mirror over the sink.
"Did it come with her?" asked Hugh, eagerly.
"It surely did; she had it right in her little arms," answered Gilbert,
busy with a collar button and not thinking ahead.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Hugh, clapping his hands, "for now I know that
if dogs come from heaven, they must go back there too, and I was afraid
that my puppy would be dreadful lonely if he couldn't go where there
were little boys and girls, for he just loved them."
Satira Pegrim looked at her brother with a horrified expression. Her
lips opened to speak, but something that she saw in his face made her
close them again. Whatever her feelings as a hard-shell Baptist upon the
future state of dogs might be, she did not propose to shorten her visit
to her brother by expressing them.
"Have they got names yet?" asked Hugh, his attention now embarrassingly
divided between the lady baby and the pup.
"No, sonny; that is, I'm not plumb sure, so I'm going to take time, say
until along about the first of the month, to think out a name for the
lady baby. As for the pup, suppose you help me out with that. Think up
all the names that's short and slick, and then we'll have a choosing
bee."
"Dinner is ready," called Mrs. Pegrim from the pantry, where she was
slicing bread. "Won't you set up to the table, Hugh, and eat with us?"
"I think I'd better go home now, mother didn't say anything about
dinner. Next time I come, I'm going to bring you something, lady baby,"
Hugh said, gently kissing the dimpled hand she thrust into his face,
"and byme by, when you can walk, I'll bring you up to my house to see my
mother and lend you part of her, 'cause you've only got a daddy."
"That's just it, at best there'll only be a daddy," murmured Gilbert,
drawing his chair to the table and eating as in a dream, in which the
wording of the notice for the papers was the chief theme, until he was
roused by a spoon pounding his hand vigorously, and found that the child
was seated close beside him in Marygold's high-chair, her eyes fastened
on his face.
"Look a-here now, Oliver," said Satira Pegrim, resting her arms on her
elbows, with knife and fork raised in midair; "I've been thinking,
suppose'n the Oldys took a fancy to adopt her. Wouldn't that square up
everything for everybody just right? For it's plain to see that Hugh's
just achin' for a sister."
Again the forbidding expression settled on Gilbert's face, but Satira
did not see it until too late.
"Mrs. Pegrim, I don't know just how long you may be called to visit
here, but longer or shorter, recollect one thing, you'll have no call to
_think_ about my business nor to _talk_ about it to me, but just to keep
quiet."
"Don't you want me to visit or have speech with the neighbors?" pleaded
Satira, her cheery voice dropping to a ludicrous whimper, as the vision
of social cups of tea flavored by neighborhood gossip began to fade.
"I don't ask anybody to do what they manifestly according to nature
can't; I said _me_!" retorted Gilbert, about whose long forefinger the
lady baby had gripped her hand as a bird clings to its perch.