There was no faster runner in the village than Alec Stoker. In the
last two field-day contests he had carried off the honours, and now
he surpassed all previous records in that mad dash from the hotel to
the burning house.
Swift as he was, however, the flames were bursting from the windows
of his room by the time he reached the gate, and curling up over the
eaves with long, licking tongues. It was as he had feared. He had
forgotten to put out the light, the curtains had blown over it, and,
fanned by the rising wind, the fire had leaped from curtain to bed,
from mosquito-bar to wall, until the whole room was in a blaze.
Shielded by the tall cedars in front of the house, it had burned some
time before a passing neighbour discovered it. By the time the alarm
brought any response, the upper story was full of stifling pine
smoke. The yard swarmed with neighbours when Alec reached it. In and
out they ran, bumping precious old family portraits against wash-tubs
and coal-scuttles, emptying bureau drawers into sheets, and dumping
books and dishes in a pile in the orchard, in wildest confusion.
Everything was taken out of the lower story. Even the carpets were
ripped up from the floors before the warning cry came to stand back,
that the roof was about to fall in. The fire brigade turned its
attention to saving the barn, but that was old, too, and burned like
tinder, as the breath of the approaching storm fanned the flames
higher and higher.
As Alec leaned back against the fence, breathless and flushed from
his frantic exertions, Philippa came up to him, carrying the parlour
clock and her best hat.
"Come on," she said; "we've got to get all these things under shelter
before the storm strikes us, or they'll be spoiled. Mrs. Sears has
offered us part of her house. There are four empty rooms in the west
wing, and Aunt Eunice says that we can't do any better than to take
them for awhile."
Again the neighbours came to the rescue, and, spurred on by the
warning thunder, hurried the scattered household goods into shelter.
They were all piled into one room in a hopeless tangle.
"We'll not attempt to straighten out anything to-night," said Miss
Eunice, looking round wearily when the last sympathetic neighbour had
departed in time to escape the breaking storm. She and Philippa had
accepted Mrs. Sears's offer of her guest-chamber for the night.
Macklin had gone home with the minister's son. Alec had had many
invitations, but he refused them all. With a morbid feeling that
because his carelessness caused the fire he ought to do penance and
not allow himself to be comfortable, he pulled a pillow and a
mattress from the pile of goods into the empty room adjoining, and
threw himself down on that.
In the excitement of the scene through which he had just passed, he
had entirely forgotten the engagement he had run away from. Now, as
he stretched himself wearily out on the mattress, it flashed across
his mind that he had failed to keep his appointment, and that the man
had gone. A groan of disappointment escaped him.
"If I wasn't born to a dog's luck!" he exclaimed, "to miss a position
like that just when we need it the most. Goodness only knows what we
are going to do now. But I needn't say that. It's a hard world, and
there's no goodness in it."
The next instant, he pulled the sheet over his eyes to shut out the
blinding glare of lightning that lit up the empty room. The crash of
thunder that followed seemed to his distorted fancy the defiant
challenge of all the powers of darkness. All sorts of rebellious
thoughts flocked through the boy's mind, as he lay there in the
darkness of the empty room, thinking bitterly of his thwarted plans.
Midnight always magnifies troubles, and as he brooded over his
disappointments and railed at his fate, not only his past wrongs
loomed up to colossal size, but a vague premonition of worse evil to
come began to weigh on him. It was nearly morning before he dropped
into a troubled sleep.
Refreshed by a long night's rest and the tempting breakfast Mrs.
Sears spread for her three guests, Philippa soon recovered her usual
gay spirits. The news that Alec had disclosed the night before, which
sent her stunned and heart-sick to her retreat in the old apple-tree,
had faded into the background in the excitement of the fire. She
thought of it all the time she was dressing, but the keenness of her
distress was not so overwhelming as it had been. It was like some old
pain that had lost its worst sting in the healing passage of time.
She was young enough to take a keen pleasure in the novelty of the
situation, and ran up-stairs and down with hammer and broom, laughing
and joking over the settlement of every picture and piece of
furniture with contagious good humour. Alec could not understand it.
Even his Aunt Eunice was not as downcast as he had pictured her in
the night, over the loss of her old home. With patient, steady
effort, she moved along, bringing order out of confusion, and when
Philippa's fresh young voice up-stairs broke out in the song that had
come to be regarded as the family hymn, she joined in, at her work
below, with a full, strong alto:
"Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
Though tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings:
I know that God is good."
"Jine in, Br'er Stoker," called Philippa, laughingly waving her
duster in the doorway. "Why don't you sing?"
Alec, who was prone on the floor, tacking down a bedroom carpet,
hammered away without an answer. After waiting a minute, she dropped
down on the floor beside him, upsetting a saucer full of tacks as she
did so. "Say, Alec," she began, in a confidential tone, "what did the
man at the hotel say last night? Is he going to take you?"
"Of course not," was the sulky reply. "You didn't suppose I'd be
lucky enough for that, did you? I didn't even see him. Another fellow
was there ahead of me, and the fire-alarm sounded while I waited, and
then it was all up. I couldn't dally round waiting for an interview
when our home was burning, could I?"
"Maybe he left some word for you," she suggested.
"No; I ran down to the hotel to inquire, just as soon as I got the
kitchen stove set up this morning. He left on the nine o'clock train
last night, as he warned me he would, and as I didn't come according
to my agreement, that's the last he'll ever think of me. Such luck as
mine is, anyhow! It was my anxiety to get the place that made me go
off and leave the lamp burning, and now I've not only missed the last
chance I'll ever have, but I've been the means of burning the roof
off from over our heads. You haven't any idea of the way I feel,
Flip. I'm desperate! It fairly sets my teeth on edge to hear you go
round singing of 'The Eternal Goodness' when I'm knocked out every
way I turn, no matter how hard I try."
"But, Alec," she answered, between taps of his noisy hammer, "it's
foolish of you to take it so to heart, and look on nothing but the
dark side. Of course, it is dreadful to be burned out of house and
home, but it might have been lots worse. All the down-stairs
furniture was saved, and the insurance company is going to put us up
a nice little cottage as soon as possible. We were not without a roof
over our heads for one single hour. Before the old one fell in, Mrs.
Sears offered these rooms, and already things are beginning to look
homelike. Mrs. Sears was one of our 'islands.'
"There we were, you see. It was black night, and we didn't know which
way to turn, but here were these empty rooms, all nice and clean,
waiting for us. And it will be the same way about your getting a
place if you don't lose faith and courage. You'll float along awhile
farther, and when you're least expecting it, you'll come on your
island that's been waiting for you all the time."
"Oh, you don't know what you're talking about, Flip," answered Alec,
impatiently, pounding away harder than ever. "You make me tired."
"I do know what I'm talking about," she retorted, scrambling to her
feet; "and I'll let you know, sir, my singing doesn't set your teeth
on edge half as bad as your sour looks do mine. I wouldn't be such a
grumble-bug! You act like a baby instead of a boy who prides himself
on being old enough to shave."
With this parting thrust, she flounced out of the room, unmindful of
what he called after her, but she thought, guiltily, as she ran, "Now
I've done it! He'll be furious all day; but I just had to! He needed
somebody to shake him up out of himself, and I don't care!"
Nevertheless, she sang no more that day, and a few tears dropped on
her books, as she made a place for them on the shelves. All Alec's
had been burned. He had lost more than any of them, for his was the
only up-stairs room that was occupied. Philippa loved her brother too
dearly not to suffer with him in all his losses and disappointments.
It was a day of hard work for all of them, but four energetic,
determined people can accomplish much, especially when one is a
ten-year-old boy, whose sturdy legs can make countless trips up and
down stairs without tiring, and another is an athletic young fellow
with the endurance of a man.
Late in the afternoon, Alec made a final round of inspection.
Up-stairs the two bedrooms were in spotless order. They were
furnished even better than those in the old house, for the library
rugs and curtains had found place there, with some of the best
pictures and ornaments. Down-stairs Philippa was standing in the
centre of the room, about to remove the cover and lamp from the
dining-room table.
"Now it is the parlour," she said, gaily, waving her hand toward the
old piano, the bookcases, and the familiar bric-a-brac on the mantel.
"But shut your eyes a minute, and--_abracadabra!_ it's the
dining-room." As she spoke, she whisked a white cloth on the old
claw-footed mahogany table, and, throwing open a closet door,
displayed the orderly rows of china.
"We'll not have much for supper to-night, but I'm bound it shall be
set out in style to celebrate our house-warming; so, Mack, if you
have any legs left to toddle on, I wish you'd run out and get me a
handful of purple asters to put in this glass bowl. I am glad that it
wasn't broken. Some kind but agitated friend pitched it out of the
window into the geranium bed."
She rattled along gaily, with a furtive side-glance at Alec. He had
had nothing to say to her since her outburst up-stairs, and now,
ignoring her pleasantries, he walked into the kitchen in his most
dignified manner.
"Is there anything more you want me to do, Aunt Eunice?" he asked.
Finding that there was nothing just then, he went out to the side
porch opening off the room which was to be used as both dining-room
and parlour. He had hung the hammock there a little while before, and
he threw himself into it with a sigh of relief. Swinging back and
forth in the shelter of the vines, the feeling of comfort began to
steal over him that comes with the relaxation of tired muscles. The
rattle of dishes and aroma of hot coffee coming out to him were
pleasantly suggestive to his healthy young appetite.
He closed his eyes, not intending to go to sleep, but the hammock
stopped swinging almost instantly, and he did not hear the footsteps
going past him a few minutes later, nor his Aunt Eunice's surprised
cry of welcome as a tall, bearded stranger knocked at the door.
The continuous murmur of voices finally roused him, and he lay there
blinking and listening, trying to recognize the deep bass voice that
laughed and talked so familiarly with his aunt.
"The Lord has certainly sent you, Dick," Alec heard her say in a
tremulous tone, and then he knew instantly who had come.
[Illustration: "'THE LORD HAS CERTAINLY SENT YOU, DICK.'"]
All his life he had heard of Dick Willis, one of the many boys his
grandfather had befriended and taken into the shelter of his home for
awhile. Dick had lived five years in the old house that had just
burned, when Eunice and Sally Macklin were children; and all the
stories of their school days were full of their foster-brother's
mischievous sayings and doings.
That the harum-scarum boy had given place to this middle-aged,
successful business man, with the deep voice and big whiskers, was
hard for Alec to realize, for in all Miss Eunice's reminiscences he
had kept the perennial prankishness of youth. But now Alec,
listening, learned the changes that had taken place since the man's
last visit to his home. He had thought every year that he would come
back for another visit, he told Miss Eunice, but he had put it off
from season to season, hard pressed by the demands of business, and
now it was too late for him to ever see the old homestead again. He
had seen an account of the fire in a paper which he read on the train
on his way East, and he decided to stop his journey long enough to
run over to the old place for a few hours, and see if she did not
need his help. He wanted her to feel that he stood ready to give it
to the extent of his power, and expected her to call upon him as
freely as if he were a real brother.
Then it was that Miss Eunice's tremulous voice exclaimed again: "The
Lord has certainly sent you, Dick! I have been worried for weeks over
Alec's future. There is no outlook here in the village for him. If
you could only get him a position somewhere--" She paused, the tears
in her eyes. Alec listened breathlessly for his answer.
"Why didn't you write me before this, Eunice? My business, travelling
for a wholesale shoe house, takes me over a wide territory and gives
me a large acquaintance. I am sure that I can get him into something
or other very soon. You know that I would do anything for Sally's
boy, and when you add to that the fact that he is Alexander Macklin's
grandson, and I owe everything I am under heaven to that man, you may
know that I'd leave no stone unturned to repay a little of his
kindness to me."
Alec's heart gave a great throb of hope. The good cheer of the hearty
voice inspired him with a courage he had not felt in weeks. There was
a patter of bare feet down the garden path, and, peering out between
the vines, Alec saw one of the neighbour's boys coming in with a big
dish covered carefully with a napkin.
"It's fried chicken," announced the boy, with a grin, as Alec went
down the step to meet him. "Mother said to eat it while it was hot.
She knew you all would be too tired to cook much to-night."
Without waiting to hear Alec's thanks, he scampered down the path
again and squeezed through the gap in the fence made by a missing
picket. Alec carried the dish round the house to the kitchen, where
Philippa was putting the finishing touches to the supper, in her
aunt's stead.
"Did you know that Uncle Dick has come?" she asked, joyfully. "Oh,
how good of Mrs. Pine to send the chicken! We didn't have anything
for supper but coffee and rolls and eggs. He's certainly bringing
good things in his wake. How delicious that chicken does smell! Let's
take it as a good omen, Alec, a forerunner of better days. He'll
surely get you out of your slough of despond."
"Who, Flip? The chicken or Uncle Dick?" asked Alec, in his old
jesting way, giving one of her long braids a tweak as he passed. A
heavy load seemed to lift itself from Philippa's heart at this sign
of Alec's return to his merry old self. All during supper she kept
glancing at him, for, absorbed in their guest's interesting
reminiscences, he seemed to have forgotten the grievances he had
brooded over so long, and laughed and joked as he had not done for
weeks.
To their great regret, Uncle Dick had to leave that night. Alec
walked to the station with him, feeling that he was being subjected
to a very close cross-examination as to his capabilities and
preferences. The train was late, and as they sat in the waiting-room,
the man fell into a profound silence, his hands thrust into his
pockets and his brows drawn together in deep thought.
Finally he said: "You want to be a banker, like your grandfather.
Well, I can't manage that, my boy. My influence doesn't lie in that
direction. The best I can do is to get you in with the firm that
manufactures all the shoes I sell. It is a big concern. The general
manager of the factory at Salesbury is a good friend of mine, and I
happen to know he is on the lookout for a reliable young fellow to
put in training as his assistant. He is constantly giving somebody a
trial, but nobody measures up to his requirements. Whoever takes it
must go through a regular apprenticeship in the factory and learn the
business from the ground up. According to his ideas, you'd not be
fitted until you'd tried your hand at every piece of machinery in the
factory, and knew how to turn out a pair of shoes from the raw
leather. The wages will be small at first. Some of the duties are
disagreeable, many of the requirements exacting, but promotion is
rapid, and probably by the end of the year you'd be in the office,
learning to take an oversight of the different departments; that is,
if you had proved there was good stuff in you. If money is what you
are after, this opening is better a thousand times than anything the
village bank could give you in years, and in my opinion it's just as
respectable a calling to handle leather as lucre. You'll have to work
and work hard."
"I don't mind how hard the work is," answered Alec. "I hate to give
up the one thing that has been my ambition all my life, but I have
come to the point where I'd do anything honest to get a place
somewhere out of this town. I'd even scrub floors. You don't know
what I've been through this summer, Uncle Dick. Of course, you know
about my father?"
He asked the question with such bitterness of tone that his listener
scanned his face intently, then sympathetically.
"Well, I must get away from that," Alec continued. "It's an awful
handicap. The thought of it made me desperate at times. If they
should hear about him in Salesbury and turn me down on his
account--well, I'd just give up! I couldn't stand any more than I
have already suffered on his account."
There was no answer for a minute, then the deep voice answered,
cheerily: "Alec, your grandmother Macklin once told me that when she
was a very small child she went to visit her grandmother; quite a
remote ancestor of yours that would be, wouldn't it? For some reason,
she was put to sleep in a trundle-bed in the old lady's room, and
along late in the night she was awakened by a very earnest voice. She
sat up in the little trundle-bed to listen, and there was the old
saint on her knees, praying for--now, what do you suppose? For 'all
her posterity to the latest generation!' She said she didn't
understand then what the words meant, but years afterward, when she
held her first baby in her arms, they came back to her with a feeling
of awe, to think that prayers uttered for him, long years before he
was born, were still working to his blessing.
"It is the same with you, Alec. Evil influences were set afloat by
your father's crime that will undoubtedly work against you many a
time, but you must remember all the good that lies on the other hand
to counteract them. Even your great-great-grandmother's prayers must
count for something in your behalf. I remember that Alexander Macklin
planted an apple orchard after he was eighty years old. He never
lived to gather even its first harvest, but you have been enjoying it
all your life. He did a thousand unrecorded kindnesses that brought
him no returns seemingly, but 'bread cast upon the waters' does come
back after many days, my boy, every time. And you will be eating the
results of that scattering all your life. The little that I may be
able to do for you will only be the result of kindness he showed me,
and which I could not repay, but am glad now to pass it on to his
grandson. Don't grow bitter because of your father, and say that fate
has handicapped you. That admission of itself will sap your courage
and go far toward defeating you. Say, instead, '_The Eternal
Goodness_ will more than compensate for the evil that this one man
has wrought me.' Then go on, trusting in that, and win in spite of
everything. The harder the struggle the more praise to the victor,
you know."
The whistle of the approaching train brought his little sermon to a
close, and, seizing his satchel, he started hurriedly to the door.
"I'll see the manager in a few days," he continued, hurriedly. "I
have only a few stops to make this time on my way to Salesbury.
Probably I'll have something definite to write you the last of the
week. Good-bye and good luck to you!" He shook hands heartily, swung
himself up on the platform, and disappeared into the car.
Philippa was waiting in the hammock with a shawl over her head when
Alec returned. The moonlight nights were chilly, but she could not
bear to go inside until she heard the result of their conversation.
"Oh, Alec," she exclaimed, as he came up wide awake and glowing from
his walk and his hopeful interview, "wasn't it just like a lovely
story to have the traditional uncle drop down long enough to restore
the family fortunes and then disappear again?"
"Yes, you're a good prophet," he laughed. "I drifted on to my island
when I least expected it, and in the middle of my darkest night.
Salesbury is four hundred miles from here, Flip, and we sha'n't see
each other often, so if it will be any comfort to you, you may say,
'I told you so,' three times a day, from now on until I leave."