Treasure Valley
by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor · English · Gutenberg #29023 · 461,602 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Treasure Valley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Treasure Valley
Author: Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
Release date: June 3, 2009 [eBook #29023]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29023
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURE VALLEY ***
Produced by Al Haines
TREASURE VALLEY
BY
MARIAN KEITH
_Author of "Duncan Polite," "The Silver Maple," etc,_
JENNINGS & GRAHAM
CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, KANSAS CITY,
SAN FRANCISCO
1909
Copyright, 1908, by
GEORGE H. DORAN
J. F. TAPLEY CO.
New York
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
TOC
I. THE HERMIT THRUSH SINGS
II. AN ADVENTUROUS EXPEDITION
III. HIS FIRST PATIENT
IV. THE ORPHAN ARRIVES
V. THE MILKSTAND CLUB
VI. A FAMOUS PRACTITIONER
VII. THE TRAINING OF THE ORPHANS
VIII. A STRANGE COMRADESHIP
IX. THE SONG IN THE NIGHT
X. THE SECRET OF THE BLUE SILK GOWN
XI. THE COMING OF ROSALIE
XII. A RUSH FOR THE GOAL
XIII. THE TREASURE-BOOK
XIV. THE HERALD OF SPRING
XV. THE ELOPEMENT
XVI. THE CALL OF THE BANSHEE
XVII. THE DAWN
XVIII. THE END OF THE WAITING
XIX. THE HERMIT SINGS AGAIN
ETOC
TREASURE VALLEY
CHAPTER I
THE HERMIT THRUSH SINGS
Then twilight falls with the touch
Of a hand that soothes and stills,
And a swamp-robin sings into light
The lone white star of the hills.
Alone in the dusk he sings,
And the joy of another day
Is folded in peace and borne
On the drift of years away.
--BLISS CARMAN.
Other years, by the time the mid-June days were come, the little brook
that sang through John McIntyre's pasture-field had shrunk to a mere
jeweled thread of golden pools and silver shallows, with here and there
only the bleached pebbles to mark its course. But this summer was of a
new and wonderful variety. Just two or three brilliant, hot days, and
then, as regular as the sun, up from the ocean's rim would rise
dazzling cloud-mountains, piling themselves up and up into glorious
towers and domes and battlements; and when the earth had begun to droop
beneath the sun's blaze, with a great thunder signal they would fling
their banners to the zenith, and pour from their dark heights a rain of
silver spears, till the thirsty hills were drenched with bounty, and
the valleys laughed and sang.
And so there had never before been such a June, not even in Acadia:
such lavish wealth in orchard and garden, such abundant promise of
harvest in fields choked with grain. And that was why John McIntyre's
little brook ran brimful to the clumps of mint and sword-grass, high up
on its banks, so content that it made no murmur as it slipped past the
Acadian orchards to the sea.
John McIntyre leaned against the fence that bordered his hay-field, his
feet deep in the soft grass at the water's edge. His straw hat was
pushed back, showing the line where his white forehead met the tan of
his face. His hands were in his pockets, a sprig of mint in his mouth;
his eyes were half closed in lazy content.
Away down yonder, where the little stream met the ocean, the sun was
sinking into the gleaming water, a great, fiery ball dropping from an
empty sky. Far over in the east one lonely cloud reflected its glory,
blossoming up from the darkening hills like a huge white rose, flushed
with pink.
The fiery ball touched the ocean's rim, and the whole world kindled
into a glory of color. The fading green fields brightened, quivered
and glowed, as over them fell a veil of lilac mist. Through them wound
the little river, a stream of molten gold. Just at John McIntyre's
feet it passed lingeringly through a bed of rushes, where the dark
green of the reeds turned the golden water to a glittering bronze.
Their shadows wrought a marvelous pattern on the glossy surface, a
magic piece of delicate bronze filagree such as nature alone could
trace. Above it the swallows wheeled in the violet shadows, or soared
up, flashing, into the amber light.
John McIntyre's eye followed their dizzy curves into the vast crystal
dome. Yes; to-morrow would surely be a fine day. For to-morrow he was
to take Mary and the children away down to that dazzling line of jewels
on the horizon, where the winds and the waves of the Bay of Fundy
tumbled about and buffeted one another joyously in the coolness of the
ocean spray. It was their one great day in the year--the anniversary
of their wedding. They had never missed its celebration in their eight
happy years of married life. And there would be six altogether in the
party to-morrow, besides Martin. How a man's family did grow, to be
sure! The smiling content in John McIntyre's eyes deepened. He turned
toward the white house on the face of the rising slope, half hidden in
a nest of orchard trees. A woman's figure swayed to and fro beneath
the vines of the veranda. The sunlight glanced on her fair hair and
her light gown, as she swung from the green shadows into its golden
pathway in time to the sweet notes of his baby's lullaby. The words
came faintly across the hay-field:
"_Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!_"
Down the dim lane that led to a farther pasture-field a boy was driving
a slow-moving line of cows. Around them a frisky terrier darted here
and there, barking encouragingly. The boy was whistling gaily. He,
too, knew that to-morrow promised to be fair.
A little breeze stirred the reeds in their bronze setting, and brought
up a tang of the sea. The man slowly turned, and, skirting the edge of
the hay-field, walked toward the house. His pathway ran parallel to
the public highway, and from it there arose the clatter of a wagon
approaching through a clump of woodland. John McIntyre waited, smiling.
Down the road it came, bumping noisily. The driver was a young man,
with a dashing air and a merry, kindly eye. He was sitting on the
extreme edge of the wagon-box, his feet swinging in the dust, and his
hat stuck rakishly on the side of his head, and was giving forth to the
echoing landscape a long, tragic "Come-all-ye" in an uproariously
joyful voice:
"_Come all yez true-born shanty byes,
Whoever yous may be,
I'd have yez pay atten-ti-on,
To hear what I've got for to say,
Concerning six Can-a-jen byes,
Who manfully and brave,
Did break the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks,
And met a wat-e-ry grave!_"
"Whoa! Hold up!" shouted John McIntyre, as the horses' heads appeared
beyond the line of timber. "What do you mean by making such a row on
the road at night and disturbing peaceable citizens?"
The driver pulled up, and the two eyed each other with that air of
severity which men affect when they are afraid of displaying the fact
that their love for each other is deep and tender.
"And what do you mean by holdin' up a peaceable citizen on the Queen's
highway like this?" demanded the younger man, threateningly.
"You seem to be mighty gay about something. Another letter from Annie
Laurie?"
"Aw, go an' choke yourself! No, siree. It'd be more like it if I was
weepin' instead o' singin'. I bet you'd have been, if you'd heard the
news I did to-day. Who d'ye suppose is to be your next-door neighbor?"
"I don't know."
"Satan Symonds--no less!"
John McIntyre's fine, gentle face expressed only surprised interest.
"Well, let him come. He won't eat us."
"Won't he, though?" cried the young wagoner, vigorously. "He's got his
eye on your farm, John McIntyre; yes, and one claw, don't forget that!
I'd rather have the devil himself runnin' the next farm to me."
The man in the field leaned his bare, brown arms on the top of the
fence-rails and surveyed his friend with an indulgent smile.
"I'm afraid he's closer than that to most of us already, Martin," he
said, shaking his head. "Don't you worry about Joe Symonds. Why, we
were boys at school together. There's no harm in him."
The younger man looked at his friend with mingled admiration and
impatience in his eyes. "Lookee here, John, you're far too easy. You
take a warning in time, and don't let that sneak get his claws any
further into your wool than you can help. I'd shut off every bit of
dealings with him. He's as sharp as a weasel. Don't you forget that
he's got a hold on you already."
"Tuts! That's nothing. I'll pay that next fall, if the crops turn out
only half as well as they look now."
The other shook his head. "John McIntyre," he said, with affectionate
severity, "you're too honest for this world. Symonds belongs to a
crooked stock. His father before him was crooked, and his grandfather
was crookeder, and he's the crookedest o' the whole bunch. I--I"--he
hesitated, boyishly--"I hate to go away thinkin' he's livin' next farm
to you--that's all."
"Well, then, why don't you rent the River Farm yourself," said John
McIntyre, banteringly, "instead of running off West like this? You and
that little Ontario girl would run things just fine down there, and
show Mary and me how to do it right."
A warm flush mingled with the tan on the younger man's cheek. "Maybe
we will, some day," he said, with a wistful note in his voice, "but
I'll have to wait till that kid is on his own feet. That won't be
long, either. I bet he'll plank down all the money I've lent him
before he's through college. And then I'll come scootin' home, an'
there'll be a lot o' things happen all at once, 'round about that date."
"I hope so, Martin; I hope so. It's a big thing you're doing for that
boy. I hope he'll never forget it."
"Not him! Bless me, it was a bigger thing he did for me. When he gets
to be an M.D. I'll go back to Ontario and get little Annie Laurie, and
we'll run Symonds into the river, and set up housekeeping on his
tombstone. Well, so-long, John. We're goin' to have a bully day for
your honeymoonin' to-morrow. Tell Mary to put up a clothes-basket o'
them lemon pies, 'cause I'll be holler 'way down past my boot-soles.
Good-night, John."
He started off noisily, but turned to shout back through a cloud of
dust: "Mind you don't let that snake come any o' his monkey-shines over
you, John! Good-night!"
The wagon rattled away down the lilac road, the driver's voice rising
gaily, if jerkily, above its clatter:
"_O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o! They broke the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks,
And met a wat-e-ry grave!_"
The other man was still smiling as he turned and made his way along the
edge of the wood. Good old Martin! Where was there another such a
friend as he? When John McIntyre's spirit rose in thankfulness to his
Maker for the many temporal blessings lavished upon him, he never
forgot to say, "And I thank thee, Lord, most of all, for Martin
Heaslip!"
The fiery ball had sunk beyond the rim of the sea; the earth was still
darkly radiant, pulsating with the thought of his departed glory. The
great rose on the eastern horizon was fading to a tender mauve. The
wooded glen was dark and silent. From its warm depths arose the
perfume of the young, green earth. John McIntyre stood for a moment on
the pathway, where its shadows met the lights of the open fields. He
threw back his head and looked up into the quivering deep of the
heavens. Involuntarily his eyes closed against their glory. He was
overcome, too, with the glory of a sudden devout thought. God, away up
there, encompassed by ineffable light and beauty, was like His own
abiding place--too blindingly radiant to be gazed at by mortal eye, and
therefore inscrutable and mysterious, but all-bountiful, nevertheless,
sending down each day His largess of blessings, just as the heavens
sent down their life-giving rains. At the thought John McIntyre took
off his hat.
And as he stood, out of the hush of the woods there stole the last
wondrous miracle of the departing day. The spirit of the twilight took
voice, a marvelous voice, indescribably sweet. Away in the depths of
the forest there arose a strain of music, the hermit thrush, in his
woodland sanctuary, raising his hymn to the night. Calm and serene,
carrying an exquisite peace, it floated out over field and hill and
river, until the very heavens seemed flooded with its harmony.
"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"
That was what the voice seemed to say to John McIntyre as he stood in
the lush June grass, just on the borderland between the purple and the
amber, and held his breath to listen. God had sent more than one
prophet into the wilderness to prepare His way, he thought in reverent
awe. For this voice spoke to him of all his Maker's goodness. What
more could a man desire than he possessed, he asked, in a rush of
gratitude; to live out his life of healthful toil in God's free
sunshine, with the happy home nest, holding Mary and their little ones
safe under his eye; with a friend's strong arm to help when the day's
burden grew heavy; with the world a garden of beauty and light, and at
night the solemn voice of the hermit; calling him to prayer?
Once more the strain poured forth, pure, celestial:
"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"
John McIntyre turned and went up the hill, smiling, his face to the
light.
CHAPTER II
AN ADVENTUROUS EXPEDITION
Sing a song of loving!
Let the seasons go;
Hearts can make their gardens
Under sun or snow;
Fear no fading blossom,
Nor the dying day;
Sing a song of loving
That will last for aye!
--ELIZABETH ROBERTS MACDONALD.
The village of Elmbrook had the finest situation for seeing what its
neighbors were about of any place in the Province of Ontario. It stood
on the crest of a high ridge, from which the whole earth fell away in
beautiful undulations. From almost any house in the village one could
see for miles down the four roads that wound up to it, and there was
always a brisk competition in progress as to who should be the first to
spy an approaching traveler.
Mrs. William Winters, who was the smartest woman in the township of
Oro, made it her boast that many a time she had sighted a buggyload of
her Highland relatives coming down from the MacDonald settlement above
Glenoro, when there wasn't a bite to eat in the house, and she had
fried the liveliest rooster in the barnyard and slapped up a couple of
pies before they drove up to the gate.
For many years she easily maintained first rank among the Elmbrook
sentinels, and might have done so to the end of her life had not one
family taken an unfair advantage by calling in the aid of machinery.
Silas Long, the postmaster, was a great student of astronomy, and could
talk like a book on comets and northern lights, and all other
incomprehensible things that sailed the heavens. So no one objected
when he bought a telescope--in fact, the minister had advised it; but
before long every one knew that while Si studied the celestial bodies
at night the female portion of his family kept the instrument turned on
objects terrestrial during the day. Old Granny Long, Silas' mother,
was the one who put Mrs. Winters in the background. She was a poor,
bedridden body, but lay there, day after day, happy as a queen, with
her bed pulled up to the window, and the telescope trained on the
surrounding country; and there was little went on between Lake Simcoe
and the northern boundary of the township that she did not see. She
knew the precise hour of a Monday morning at which the family washings
were hung out, and which was the cleanest. It was she who made truancy
an impossible risk, for no matter in what out-of-the-way place one
might go nutting or swimming, Granny Long was sure to see, and report
to the schoolmistress. It was from her, also, that her grandson
received the heart-breaking intelligence that young Malcolm Cameron had
kissed Marjorie Scott, the minister's oldest girl, at the jog in the
road, on the way to prayer-meeting one evening, and if it had not been
for her vigilance probably no one would have discovered that Sawed-off
Wilmott, who managed the cheese factory down on the Lake Simcoe road,
allowed his pigs to run in and out of the factory at will. Indeed, as
the deposed and indignant Mrs. Winters often declared, a body didn't
dast blow their nose inside the township without Granny Long hearing it
through that everlasting spyglass.
But on this particular early May morning a hostile army might have
marched up and seized Elmbrook unobserved. For there were great doings
inside the village that demanded concentrated attention. All the
bustle and activity of the place seemed to be gathered at one small
house. In the lane, by the side door, stood a team of farm horses
hitched to a large double buggy. A big, lumbering lad of about
fifteen, half asleep, on the front seat, was holding the reins in his
limp hands. But he was the only creature on the premises, except the
horses, that was not acutely awake and supremely busy. Even the hens
and geese, scratching and squawking about the garden, seemed to know
that something unusual was in progress, and gathered about the door in
excited groups. Inside the house there was a tremendous clatter;
dishes rattled, feet ran hither and thither, voices called frantically.
Every few moments a woman would dart out of the doorway, sending a
startled whirl of chickens before her, deposit something in the back of
the vehicle, and dash back again.
There seemed to be but one man on the premises, a big,
benevolent-looking fellow, whose placid face wore an unaccustomed
expression of nervous tension. He came stumbling out of the house, and
walked abstractedly around the horses. He was making strange motions
with his head, strongly indicative of a tendency to strangulation, and
ever and anon he clutched his white collar and looked toward the house
with an air of desperation. He made three aimless pilgrimages around
the equipage and then paused, and addressed the goose and gander that
had been following him: "We'll miss that train as sure as blazes," he
remarked, stonily.
A slim little woman, in a faded lilac gown that matched her fading
beauty, came staggering down the steps with a heavy basket. The big
man put out one brawny arm and lifted it, without an effort, into the
back of the vehicle. "We'll miss that train, Arabella, just as sure as
blazes," he repeated.
The sound partially awoke the young man on the front seat. He turned
and contemplated the basket with an injured air. "What in thunder are
they taking a set of dishes for, Arabella?" he asked, wearily.
"It's jist a basket o' things Hannah put up. She's afraid the orphan
might get hungry on the road home; and besides, she wanted to take some
cookies an' cheese to Jake's folks in town."
The man was making another circuit of the buggy, followed closely by
Isaac and Rebekah, the pet goose and gander. They came to a standstill
in front of the steps, and he raised his face to the morning skies and
shouted, as though invoking some higher power, "Hannah! Hannah! Are
ye 'most ready?"
A woman's face shot out between the starched lace curtains of an
upstairs window. It was a perfectly circular face, framed in thin,
fair hair, which was parted in the middle, and brushed down so smooth
and shiny that it looked like a coat of dull yellow paint. The face
had the same good-humored, benevolent expression as the man's, mingled
with the same strained air of desperate resolve. "'Most ready, Jake!"
she mumbled through a mouthful of pins, "'most ready! Arabella!
Arabella! Did you put in the bottle of raspberry vinegar?"
"Yes, yes, Hannah! Don't you worry?" cried the little faded lilac
woman, reassuringly.
"An' the cookies, an' the pound cake, an' the home-made cheese?"
A third woman bounded down the steps, and charged through the chickens
with a bundle of wrappings. She was a smart, tidy little body, with a
sharp face and a determined manner. At the sight of her the big man's
gloomy face took on an expression of hope.
"Susan! Susan Winters! D'ye think you could get us off?" he implored.
"We'll miss that train as sure as blazes!"
She paid not the slightest attention. "Ras'berry vinegar!" she
shrieked. "Hannah Sawyer, don't you know that there orphant may be an
infant in arms, an' if it is, it'll die of colic on the road home if
you fill it up with such stuff!"
The face which had disappeared from between the curtains came into view
again, red and alarmed. "Mercy me, Susan! I didn't know. I'll give
it to Jake's cousin. Arabella, did you put in the pound cake and the
home----" The words died away amid the curtains.
"Couldn't you get us off somehow, Susan?" besought the big man again,
looking down, helplessly, at the small woman, much as a becalmed
frigate might at a noisy little tug.
"Well, Jake Sawyer, if half them trollops o' weemin in there would
clear out and leave me alone, I'd 'a' had you at the station by this
time. Hannah!" she addressed the window peremptorily, "you hurry up
there an' come down, whether you're ready or not! I never agreed to
this wild-goose chase after an orphant, but now that you're half ready
you've got to go!"
There was another fleeting vision of the face between the curtains, and
a choking voice gasped something about being "jist ready."
"What that orphant's got to have is a bottle o' fresh milk!" cried Mrs.
Winters, darting back into the kitchen. A tall young lady, with a high
pompadour, was striving to squeeze two large lemon pies into a small
basket. She glanced up half apologetically as the village martinet
entered.
"Hannah said last night she didn't know whatever she'd do if it cried
on the road home, so ma thought I'd better bring over these pies. They
keep awful well, and the basket'll easy slip under the seat in the
train. When our Wes was a baby there was nothing would quiet him like
a piece o' lemon pie."
"Well, Ella Anne Long, there won't be no orphant to bring home if you
folks has your way!"
The exasperated little woman darted down the cellar steps, her voice
coming up from the cool depths, indistinct, but plainly disapproving:
"Lemon pie an' ras'berry vinegar! If Providence hasn't given folks
children, it's a sign they didn't ought to have any! An' it's jist
goin' clean against nature for them to go an' adopt one, that's what
I'll always say!"
The young lady with the pies glanced irresolutely toward a stout woman
who had just entered the back door, carrying a crock of butter. "You
put them pies in, if Hannah wants them," whispered the newcomer,
looking apprehensively toward the cellar, "an' say no more about it.
Half the mischief in the world's done by talking about things." She
hurried out to the vehicle and planted her contribution beside the
bundle of wrappings.
"That there butter's for the children at the Home, Jake. Don't forget
to give it to them poor things. Like as not they give 'em lard or
someth'n'."
"Davy!" she called to the young man on the front seat.
"What, maw?"
"For pity's sake don't forget to call us when the train hoots for
Cameron's Crossin'. 'Cause they've jist got to start then."
The boy in the buggy opened his eyes, stretched and yawned.
"I will, if it hoots good 'n' loud," he remarked, indifferently.
The maelstrom of hurry and bustle surged around Master David Munn,
leaving him placid and undisturbed, but to the rest of the gathering
the affair was of no small moment. Had the Sawyers been setting out on
a polar expedition it is doubtful if Elmbrook could have been more
exercised. For ten years, ever since their only baby had brightened
their home for one week, and then gone back to heaven, Jake and Hannah
Sawyer had wanted to adopt a child. That they had not done so long
before was not their fault, but because the village in general, and
Mrs. Winters in particular, who ruled the village, could never be
brought to consent. For already the Sawyers were about as great a
burden as Elmbrook could shoulder. They were the orphan children of
the village themselves, and needed to be perpetually adopted. They
were as good-hearted and lovable a pair as it was possible for man and
woman to be; all the stray dogs and hungry cats and needy tramps found
their way to the Sawyer house by unerring instinct, and Jake was never
to be seen on his way to or from his mill without a troop of children
climbing all over him. Nevertheless, he and his wife were a great care
to their neighbors. Not once had Hannah Sawyer got through her spring
house-cleaning or her fall pickling and preserving without help. Never
yet had the two arrived in time at church or prayer-meeting, and they
could not even go to town of a Saturday to do a half day's marketing
without Mrs. Winters' eye on them. As for Jake's flour mill, if his
partner, Spectacle John Cross, hadn't been a capable man, and an honest
one, every one declared it would have gone up in smoke long ago.
So, naturally, the village was reluctant about adopting a third orphan;
but Jake and Hannah had pleaded so, that the minister had advised Mrs.
Winters to yield. And so the day had arrived when they were to take
the train to a neighboring town, near which was an orphan home, and
there they were to secure their long-yearned-for prize.
Of course, it was out of the question to suppose that the Sawyers could
get up and catch the six-thirty train without assistance; so the
Camerons had loaned their team, and the Longs their buggy, to take them
to the station; Davy Munn was detailed to drive them, and all the rest
of the village to get them ready.
Jake had just returned from a despairing march to the gate. "We'll
miss that train, Harriet Munn, as sure as blazes!" he cried, with the
air of one who has a disagreeable formula to recite at stated
intervals, and is relieved to get it off his mind. He tramped back
again with an agonized glance at the upstairs window.
The boy in the buggy stirred to life once more.
"Say, maw!"
"What, Davy?"
"What on earth's Hannah scratching 'round upstairs so long for? That
orphant'll be growed up before they get it."
"She's jist ready," remarked his mother, hopefully, "an' there's no use
talkin' about it, either. It jist wastes time. Jake!" she called,
anxiously. "Are you sure you're all ready now?"
The man turned a desperate face toward her.
"I think so, Harriet. But if this collar don't bust soon an' give me a
breath, I'll choke."
"Did you find your pipe?"
Mr. Sawyer dived absently into his coat pockets. "We'll miss that
train as sure as---- Where in the nation's that pipe o' mine got to?"
He rummaged despairingly. "Oh, I forgot! Susan Winters said I wasn't
to take it, for fear the smoke might be bad for the orphant's eyes.
D'ye think it would, Harriet?" he inquired, wistfully.
"Tuts!" she cried, disdainfully, "not a bit. Davy, there, was brought
up on smoke. You go and get that pipe and put it in your pocket."
Mr. Sawyer started hopefully for the kitchen door. Davy Munn might not
be exactly a bright and shining example to set for the bringing up of
the orphan, but at least he looked healthy, and Jake was even more than
usually helpless when bereft of his pipe. He paused on the way indoors
to make one more despairing appeal to the power above. "Hannah!
Aren't you 'most ready?"
Hannah's face, round and red, like the full moon, appeared for an
instant from its cloudy curtain. "Harriet! Harriet Munn!" she called,
"and you, Arabella, could you run up here a minit an' pin on these blue
cuffs o' mine? An' I can't find my Sunday gloves, high nor low, nor
my----"
The rest was lost in the curtains, but the two friends had already
disappeared inside, and were charging up the stairs. Mrs. Winters, who
was emerging from the kitchen door with the bottle of milk, turned and
darted after them. "She ain't goin' to put them blue cuffs on that
black dress!" she screamed.
"Ella Anne," whispered Jake, sidling up to the young lady with the high
pompadour, "could you take a look 'round, and see if you can find my
pipe? I can't seem to think where I've laid it."
Miss Long strolled around the kitchen, casting an absent eye here and
there.
"Davy!" called a sharp voice from the upstairs window. "Davy Munn!
Don't you dast to forget to call when the train hoots for Cameron's
Crossing!"
The only calm person on the premises glanced up with half-closed eyes.
"Hoh!" he ejaculated, planting his feet upon the dashboard and
expectorating disdainfully in the direction of Rebekah's head,
"Gabriel's trump'll hoot 'fore this shootin' match goes off! Gosh
blame, if here ain't another one!"
A tall woman was coming up the lane. She was a stately, severe person,
with iron-gray hair and a stern gray eye, behind which a kindly twinkle
hid itself carefully from view. She had a commanding way, which,
combined with the fact that she had taught the Elmbrook school for
twenty years, and was the only woman in the village who neither feared
Mrs. Winters nor regarded Granny Long's telescope, had earned her the
title of the Duke of Wellington.
"Are you not away yet, David?" she demanded; and the boy sat up as
though he had received an electric shock.
"N-no, but we're jist startin'," he said, apologetically. She passed
him to where Mr. Sawyer stood in the doorway wrestling with his collar.
"Do you remember this, Jake?" she asked, holding up a baby's rattle.
"I bought it for your little Joey, and put it away in my desk till he
would be big enough to use it, and it's been there ever since. Maybe
the new baby'll like it."
The man's eyes grew misty as he took the little toy and gazed at it
tenderly. The woman's face had lost all its sternness; her gray eyes
were very kind.
"Well, well, well," he stammered, with masculine dread of giving
expression to anything like sentiment. "It--it looks quite--new." He
hesitated, then his face brightened as he found himself once more on
familiar ground. "Say, d'ye think you could help them weemin folks in
there to find my pipe? It seems to have got laid away somewheres, an'
I'm afraid we're goin' to miss that train as sure as--anything." He
ended up lamely, making the polite alteration out of respect for the
Duke's dignity.
Miss Weir marched into the kitchen. It was a scene of wild disorder.
"Hello!" giggled Miss Long. "We're having an awful time. Hannah ain't
ready, of course."
"_Isn't_ ready, Ella Anne."
"Well, isn't or ain't, it's all the same; she's not started yet. An'
mind you, Mrs. Munn's upstairs helping, too, and her expecting the new
doctor any minit. Say, Miss Weir, when she comes down, ask her whether
he's married or not, aw, do. She's the closest creature. I can't get
anything out of her."
Before the schoolmistress could rebuke Miss Long's undue curiosity
regarding the young doctor Mrs. Winters came flying down the stairs,
having successfully routed the blue cuffs.
"Good-morning, Miss Weir. We're here yet, you see. If these folks
ain't a caution, and no mistake! Davy! Davy Munn! Are you listening
for that there train?"
"Did ye look on the pantry shelf?" whispered Jake, cautiously, putting
his head in at the door, and avoiding Mrs. Winters' eye. "Sometimes I
leave it there."
"Just like you," grumbled the tidy schoolmistress, rummaging among the
cans of spice and pickle bottles.
"Perhaps it's in the sewing-machine drawer," suggested Mrs. Munn, who
had come panting down the stairs. "Hannah's jist ready, Jake," she
added, hopefully.
"What'll you do if the new doctor comes on this train?" asked Miss
Long, peeping at her pompadour in the little mirror above the sink.
"I dunno," answered the new doctor's housekeeper. "It's no use talkin'
about it, anyhow. There's more harm done by talkin' over things than
anything else in the world."
Miss Long shrugged her shoulders impatiently. That was Mrs. Munn's
invariable answer. She had been old Dr. Williams' housekeeper for ten
years, and had met all questions regarding his private affairs by the
vague formula, "I dunno." A close woman was Mrs. Mum, as the village
called her; a treasure of a woman, old Dr. Williams had said, when he
recommended her to his young successor.
Ella Anne sighed. "That pipe must 'a' fell down the well," she
remarked, with an accent of despair that was not all caused by the
supposed catastrophe.
"Is he going to have them three downstairs rooms for his offices, or
only two?" she ventured again.
Mrs. Munn stared vacantly. "I dunno," she said. "Mebby he is."
"There! If there isn't that troublesome pipe right under your nose,
Ella Anne!" cried Miss Weir, pouncing upon it where it lay on the
window-sill. "Your head is so full of the new doctor you can't see
straight. Here, Jake!"
She started for the door, but before she reached it a great many things
happened. First, Mrs. Sawyer, gowned, bonneted and shawled, though the
sun promised to be blazing hot before it set, came down the stairs at a
reckless pace. She was followed by Miss Arabella Winters, half hidden
beneath a bundle of coats and wraps suited for children of all ages.
As the two ran for the door, Mrs. Winters with a bottle of milk, Miss
Long with a forgotten pie, and Mrs. Munn, who had snatched up a basket
of newly laundered clothes, under the mistaken idea that they, too,
were for the orphan, all rushed at the same instant for the same
portal, and jammed together between the door-posts. The Duke of
Wellington, still grasping the rescued pipe, threw herself upon the
human wedge and drove it, helter-skelter, down the steps; and
simultaneously there arose, loud and clear, not from Cameron's
Crossing, some miles distant, but just from the ravine bridge, scarcely
a quarter of a mile away, the shrill whistle of the train.
The six women turned and looked at each other in an instant's paralyzed
dismay. Jake Sawyer opened his mouth and gave forth a slight variation
of his despairing motto, "We've missed that train, as sure as blazes!"
No one had courage to deny the assertion. When the Lakeview & Simcoe
Railroad Company laid a line across the township of Oro they had
treated Elmbrook in a shabby fashion by placing the station a mile from
the village. The inconvenience of this arrangement was largely
obviated, however, by the obliging ways of Conductor Lauchie
McKitterick. For if any one in the village was late in starting for
the station, all one had to do was to wave a towel at the back door as
the train slowed up over the ravine bridge, and Lauchie would wait at
the station. Of course, it was understood that the belated traveler
was already on the way thither, taking the path across McQuarry's
fields. But of what use to wave all the bed-sheets in Elmbrook this
morning? For though a delay of half an hour or so was neither here nor
there to the Lakeview & Simcoe Limited Express, it was impossible to
expect even so neighborly a body as Lauchie to wait until the big,
heavy buggy and Cameron's farm team should be driven along the
cross-road and down the concession. And as for Hannah Sawyer's 185
pounds being transported across the fields and over the fences in less
time--not to speak of all the orphan's clothes and the pies and the
pound cake and the crock of butter--well, there was no use thinking
about it!
But Mrs. Winters, the indomitable, rose to even this emergency. She
sprang to the buggy and began dragging out the baskets. "We'll stop
him at the bridge!" she screamed. "We can run down the back lane!
Davy Munn, you jump out of that rig an' run ahead! No--Miss Weir, you
go! Lauchie'll have to stop if you tell him!"
It was the first time in her life Mrs. Winters had ever paid a tribute
to the Duke of Wellington's power. Though it was wrung from her by the
exigencies of the case, the schoolmistress accepted it. She snatched a
white garment off the clothes-line, darted through the barnyard, and
ran at top speed down the back lane toward the track, waving it on
high, all unconscious that it was Jake's white mill overalls. Close
upon her flying footsteps came the orphan-adopting expedition: Mrs.
Winters, the bottle of milk leaving a white-sprinkled trail behind her;
Jake, dragging the heaps of wraps and the basket of provisions, with
which little Miss Arabella was vainly trying to assist him; Ella Anne
Long, the basket of pies on her arm, the forgotten one in her other
hand; Mrs. Munn, with the crock of butter; poor Hannah herself far
behind; and lastly, Isaac and Rebekah, their necks outthrust, their
wings wide, streaming along like a pair of comets, with a long,
spreading tail of hens, all noisily hopeful that this unusual commotion
meant an unusual meal.
Down the lane zigzagged the swift procession, Hannah floundering
farther and farther in the rear. She raised her voice once in a
despairing protest: "Oh, Jake! Jake!" she wailed, "I've forgot my
false teeth!"
Her husband, desperately intent on his destination, did not hear the
appeal, but the little woman who was generaling the flying column did,
and realized that this sign of giving way must be peremptorily crushed.
"You'll jist have to gum it, Hannah!" she shrieked relentlessly over
her shoulder. "Come on, come on!"
Master Davy Munn, still enthroned calmly upon the front seat of the
useless vehicle, contemplated the tumultuous line with supreme
contempt. Mr. Munn never hurried. Should all Elmbrook have risen up
one morning and gone hurtling down to Lake Simcoe, it would have left
him seated alone, undisturbed, on its vacated ridge.
He turned leisurely and chirped to the horses. "Jim Cameron lent yous
to haul that outfit to the station," he complained, as they lumbered
out through the gateway, "but I'll be darned if I promised to run 'em
there, so yous kin git home."
Meantime, the vanguard of the Orphan Rescue Expedition had reached the
railroad track. Just on the outskirts of the village lay a deep
ravine, spanned by a bridge. Over this the train moved slowly, and
here, with his eye on the lookout for white signals, the conductor
spied the Duke of Wellington in the middle of the track, waving a white
banner. Being an Elmbrook man, Lauchie took in the situation at once.
Jake and Hannah were late, of course; too late even to run across the
fields while he waited at the station. He gave the signal, and the
train slowed down, the snorting engine coming to a standstill within a
foot of the flaunting garment.
Engine Driver Nick Boyle, who would have willingly stopped at Elmbrook
every day in the week, to talk over the back fences with the pretty
girls, but who objected on principle to all that his chief did, poked
his head out of his black box, grimy and disapproving. "What in
thunder's Brass Buttons up to now?" he demanded. Miss Weir, who had
thrashed Nick times without number in his youth, fixed him with her
steady gray eye.
"He stopped because I signaled him to, Nicholas Boyle," she said tartly.
The Duke was still standing in the middle of the track, waving the
overalls, as though the train were a wild animal to be kept quiet by
having its attention diverted. The sight tickled the engineer.
"Golly, it must be a weddin'," he remarked, facetiously. "Who's
gettin' hitched? You, Miss Weir?"
"Hold your tongue!" she commanded, and the abashed young man collapsed
into his box.
By this time Hannah had arrived, and was being helped aboard. The
wraps, the pies, the bottle of milk, the crock of butter, the basket of
provisions, and her husband, were bundled after her. The group of
friends stood waving good-by with sunbonnets and aprons, the
schoolmistress, still holding Jake's forgotten pipe, and still
faithfully brandishing the overalls, stepped off the track to let the
train start, and the expedition was just drawing a breath of relief,
when they were suddenly thrown back into their former state of
consternation. Conductor Lauchie leaned down from the platform, and,
with his thumb pointing over his shoulder, announced in a loud whisper,
"Losh keep us, I would be forgetting! He'll be aboard, Harriet Munn!
Your new pill-mixer'll be aboard!"
Mrs. Munn stared at him in dismay. "Not him! Not the new doctor!"
The conductor looked abashed, as though he had brought the wrong parcel
from town. "Och, he would be as fine a lookin' young man as you'll see
in Oro!" he whispered, apologetically. "Will I jist be puttin' him off
here?"
"Don't you dast to do such a trick, Lauchie McKitterick!" cried Mrs.
Winters, shaking her fist in his face. "Harriet's been up helpin'
Hannah all mornin', an' she ain't ready for him. Take him on to the
station, an' we'll run up an' help her red up before he comes. An'
mind you go slow!"
The conductor hastily acquiesced. He was a native of Elmbrook, and
knew his place when Susan Winters was giving orders. "Awl aboard!" he
shouted.
The group gave one final, farewell flourish toward the train, and then
turned and sped up the lane to meet the new emergency. Jake and
Hannah, their faces settled once more into their accustomed expressions
of good-humored placidity, leaned from their windows and waved their
hands. Hannah smiled a toothless but happy smile, and Jake's eyes
beamed a great content as he sat back in his seat, and, holding the
rattle between his teeth, fumbled happily for a match. He looked
across at his wife, and their eyes met in a rapturous smile; for at
last, after years of striving and longing, they were on their way to
the fulfilment of their great ambition; they were to have a child of
their very own!
And so, as the train sped in one direction, and the group of women in
another, no one noticed the stooped, gaunt man who dropped from the
rear end of the baggage car, and, creeping down the bank of the ravine,
disappeared into the green tangle of underbrush.
CHAPTER III
HIS FIRST PATIENT
Oh, the dainty, dainty maid to the borders of the brook
Lingered down as lightly as the breeze;
And the shy water-spiders quit their scurrying to look;
And the happy water whispered to the trees.
--C. G. D. ROBERTS.
Dr. Gilbert Allen, gold-medalist of the Toronto School of Medicine, and
just home from a post-graduate course in London and Edinburgh, had his
coat off, his sleeves rolled up, and was busy arranging bottles on the
shelf of his tiny dispensary. He was whistling cheerily. It was young
Dr. Allen's nature to be cheerful even under adverse circumstances, and
this morning all his prospects were bright. For after years of
spending money--and largely another man's money, too--he was at last on
his feet. His college life had been a very happy one, it is true; so,
also, had been the years since his graduation, the first two spent as
house surgeon in a Toronto hospital, the last, and best of all, in the
Old Land. They had given him breadth and experience; but though
Gilbert was willing to concede that experience teaches, he was equally
assured that she does not pay bills. Now he was a free man, and master
of his profession. He used the last phrase modestly; he was ready and
anxious to make the mastery more complete, and at the same time to win
a name for himself and a home and a fortune for Rosalie.
As he stacked the bottles noisily in their places he glanced around the
little room, and wished he might turn a handspring, just to let off
steam and be able to write to Harwood and the other fellows to say his
office was big enough to admit of the feat. He wisely crushed the
desire, for he recognized the fact that he was under surveillance.
Just outside the windows stretched a little lawn, with a star-shaped
flower-bed in the middle. Up and down this green space, following a
leisurely and devious course, journeyed a lawnmower, propelled by a
long-limbed youth. His straw hat hung limply from his head, his coat
flapped limply from his shoulders, and his trousers bulged limply from
his big top-boots. Nevertheless, he had a certain lumbering airiness
of movement, and such a mien of lofty indifference to his surroundings
that the beholder was impressed with the idea that he was a very
sprightly gentleman indeed, and need never work unless he was so
minded. Just why he should spend a whole morning cutting a few square
yards of short May grass was a problem the doctor had not yet solved.
But even in his brief acquaintance, Gilbert had learned that the
actions of this young man, who had entered into an important relation
to himself as groom and general factotum, were not to be measured by
any rational standard.
The slow clatter of the lawnmower grew louder, and finally ceased
beneath the window. The doctor turned, a bottle in each hand. The
open sash was filled by a straw hat which formed the frame for a broad,
smiling countenance.
"Want any help?" the visitor inquired, genially.
"No, thank you," answered the doctor, adding, pointedly: "You have
other work to do, you know."
"Oh, I ain't worryin' about that," responded his man-servant,
reassuringly. "Old Doc. Williams uster say he'd make kindlin' wood o'
me, when I didn't hustle round, but it never fizzed on me." He hung
himself over the window-sill with a sigh of satisfaction, and gazed
admiringly at his employer.
A wire door, leading from the veranda to the main portion of the house,
swung slowly open, and a woman, wearing a big, blue-checked apron, and
carrying a long pewter spoon, looked out anxiously. "Davy!" she called
in a loud whisper, "why don't you get on with your work?"
"I'm helpin' the doctor with his mixtures," he answered, in a tone of
remonstrance.
The woman's tight mouth closed emphatically. "Well, hish!" she said,
raising her spoon warningly. "Susan Winters is sittin' on her porch,
an' she'll hear if you don't look out. It's no use talkin' about
things, anyhow."
The wire door creaked again, Mrs. Munn sailed away, and her son hung
himself farther over the window-sill. Evidently he had inherited none
of his mother's reticence.
"Say," he ventured, confidentially, "Elsie Cameron's home; came
yesterday, the very day you came. Ain't that funny?"
The young doctor did not seem to see anything humorous in the
coincidence. He glanced meaningly toward the lawnmower.
"I bet she thinks it's a kind of a come-down to come back an' work on
the farm after doin' nothin' but sing for so long. She's a bully
singer, I tell you, only she's got red hair."
He waited for some comment, but as there was none forthcoming, except a
louder clatter of bottles, he continued: "Everybody thinks she's so
awful good-lookin', but I don't think she's half as pretty as
Jean--that's her sister. Say"--his voice sank to a whisper--"did
anybody tell you about her sister yet?"
There was a note of strained anxiety, almost amounting to terror, in
the boy's tone, that commanded Gilbert's attention. He looked around.
Perhaps it was some serious illness, and the new doctor was badly in
need of a patient.
"No. What's the matter with her?" he asked, interestedly.
Davy glanced about him fearfully, as though he were about to disclose
the young woman as the author of a deadly crime. He leaned still
farther into the room. "She's--_she's my girl_!" he exploded, in a
loud whisper.
The new doctor turned his back suddenly. There was a long pause. "I
must congratulate you," he said at last, in a smothered voice.
Davy gazed at his broad back uncertainly. He had heard that formula
before, but it had always been delivered to the newly wed. He was
afraid the doctor was under a pleasant misapprehension.
"We're jist kind o' keepin' company--yet," he explained carefully.
"An' Jean, she's an awful girl to laugh. An' then there's old lady
Cameron--that's her mother. She's a blasted bother. There's never a
fella' goes to see them girls but she has to sit 'round an' do all the
talkin'. It ain't fair." His tone was deeply aggrieved. "You won't
like it any better'n' me if you keep company with Elsie," he added,
after a pause.
The doctor turned, and his expression was so alarming that the youth
slipped back several feet into the garden. "That's what everybody's
been sayin'," he stammered, in self-defense. "All the folks was sayin'
you'd be sure to keep company with Elsie when she came home. I thought
it would be kind o' handy 'count o' me goin' to see Jean. We'd be
company home, nights."
The indignation that had been rising in the young doctor's gray eyes
vanished. He turned quickly to his bottles and indulged in a spasm of
silent laughter. But his face was very grave when he looked around
again. "Look here, David," he said firmly, "I'd advise you not to
discuss my affairs. Neither you nor the rest of the village had better
even speculate upon them. You're almost dead sure to be wrong. Now go
on with your work."
The boy slowly and reluctantly detached himself from the window-sill,
and set the lawnmower on another zigzag journey. His hat, his coat,
and his trousers hung limper than ever. He moved wearily, and at the
end of the garden he sat down under a cherry-tree to muse on the
strange, sad fact that his new employer promised to be not one whit
more companionable than old Doc. Williams.
The young doctor finished his work, and went up the stairs three steps
at a time, making a commotion that brought Mrs. Munn from her
pie-baking in hurried alarm. He washed his hands, resumed his coat,
and, leaning out of the window, wished with all his might that he had
something to do. He was seized with an honest, pagan desire that some
one would get sick, or that there might be an accident in the
mill---just a mild accident, of course; or, better still, that that
queer specimen of humanity sitting under his cherry-tree, down there,
should be smitten with paralysis. He confessed that this last seemed
the most hopeful outlook, then laughed at himself for his monstrous
wishes. He seized his hat and ran downstairs. He would go out and
explore the village. He must do something, he warned himself, or he
would be in danger of rushing into the street and lacerating the first
man he met, just for the sake of sewing him up again.
He passed out to the gate. The long, shady village street, bordered by
tall, swaying elms, stretched away on either hand, peaceful and
deserted. To the new doctor the place looked half asleep, and
uncompromisingly healthful. The clear May morning air was filled with
a chorus of robins and orioles. A bluebird in the orchard bordering
his lawn was singing ecstatically. Far up the street the musical
cling-clang of the blacksmith's anvil, and from the depths of the
ravine, in the opposite direction, the hum of the sawmill, served only
like a lullaby to make the silence more dreamy.
He stepped out upon the boardwalk that ran along the street. Overhead
the maples and elms met, making a cool tunnel. In this green canopy
nest-building was being carried on, on a great scale and with
tremendous commotion. The doctor picked his way carefully along the
undulating surface of the sidewalk, for the boards were damp and
rotten, and liable to fly up at one end and break a limb; and though he
was anxious for a patient, he did not fancy serving in that capacity
himself.
The quiet houses, surrounded by their demure gardens, gave no
indication that he was being watched from behind many a window-blind.
Neither was there any stir to give hint that from the upstairs window
of the village shop at the end of the street a telescope was pointing
at him, while Granny Long informed the breathless circle about her bed
that his necktie was of blue-gray satin, and that his hair was thick
and wavy.
Quite unconscious of the sensation he was creating, the new doctor
walked on. He passed a tiny white house set in a square garden bright
with early blossoms. A little woman, in a faded lilac gown, sat sewing
on the porch, and a green parrot, in a cage at her side, stalked to and
fro on his perch, muttering sullenly. At sight of the stranger the
bird gave an indignant stare, then swung, head downward, from his perch
and shouted, "Oh, Lordy, ain't we havin' a slow time!"
The remark so exactly coincided with the new doctor's sentiments that
he looked over the cedar hedge at the speaker with a feeling of
friendly regard. But the little lilac lady seemed quite of another
mind. She sprang up in dismayed haste, scattering thimble and scissors
out on the pathway, and, seizing the cage, fled with it indoors.
Gilbert passed on, feeling that there was one creature, at least, in
this new place who was in sympathy with him. His eye traveled with
satisfaction along the double row of trim houses and neat gardens; they
spoke of thrift and prosperity. There was only one exception, the
place next to the home of the ennuied parrot. Hens scratched merrily
in the midst of desert flower-beds, or nested under the lilac bushes, a
handsome goose and gander passed in stately promenade up and down the
front veranda, and the whole place had a happy, go-as-you-please air.
The last in the line was the schoolhouse, a big, square building,
scarred and worn, standing in the middle of a yard trampled bare of
grass, and surrounded by the forlorn skeleton of a fence. From the
battered pump in one corner, to the dilapidated woodshed in the other,
the whole premises had the appearance of having just weathered a long
and terrible siege. The commanding voice of the Duke of Wellington
coming through the open windows added to its military suggestiveness.
When he had passed the school the stranger found himself at the end of
the village. The row of houses stopped at a rustic bridge spanning a
ravine. Away up this valley he could see the tall smokestack of the
sawmill, with its waving plume of smoke coming up out of a fairy mass
of delicate May foliage. The mill-pond gleamed, green and golden
brown, between the willow clumps along its margin. From the dam a
stream issued in a little, noisy, silver waterfall. It babbled across
the road, under the old bridge, among bracken and mint, and wound this
way and that through the deep valley until it lost itself in a swamp
far to the south. A hard, beaten path led from the street down into
the gold and green depths. It was an alluring path, and Gilbert
stepped into it. He slid and stumbled down the steep bank, catching at
blossoming dogwood bushes and fragrant cedar boughs. A boyish light
came into his eyes as they caught the flash of the tiny river; here
green under an overhanging willow, there snow white under a rain of
cherry blossoms, now silver as it ran around a shallow curve, and again
gold in the sunlight filtered through a tangle of elm boughs and
bitter-sweet.
The little valley was as level as a floor at the bottom, carpeted with
vivid green grass spangled with dandelions, and intoxicating with the
perfume of the wild-cherry blossoms. A cow stood knee deep in the
stream, and another was feeding off the underbrush half way up the
bank. At a sudden curve in the brook a great elm stretched up from a
bank of blue violets. On its topmost limb, swinging gaily, an oriole
was blowing gloriously on his little golden trumpet.
Gilbert flung himself down on the violet bank. He had been born and
bred a country boy, and now, after years of city life, the old charm of
the free open spaces of earth and sky came over him stronger than ever.
He wondered if Rosalie would not be happy, too, if she were to come
down into this green-and-gold Paradise with him, and listen to the
brook babbling along over the pebbles. And yet, how could he ask her
to leave the wealth and ease of her city home and come to this dull
village? He reflected, with a deep sigh, upon the humiliating fact
that Rosalie would not consider the proposition for an instant, even if
he had the courage to make it. Well, he would work hard, and by and by
he would go back to the city, and then she would listen--she must
listen. He leaned back against the elm and dreamed of that day. He
could see the light in Rosalie's eyes as he had seen it that last day
in Toronto. He would have been happier to-day if they had not been so
bright and merry on the occasion of his departure. But what beautiful
eyes they were! Blue--so blue; as blue as--he was gazing at something
the exact color--a spot of vivid azure that had appeared from among the
trees at the top of the opposite bank. It moved, and Gilbert saw that
it was the figure of a girl in a violet gown. She made a pretty rural
picture as she stood for a moment poised upon the fence-top, a white
sunbonnet on her head and a basket on her arm. She descended sedately,
holding her basket with great care, and tripped down the zigzag path to
the edge of the stream. Here some big, white stones, peeping from the
golden pools, made a passage to the other side, and the trim lassie
began to pick her way daintily across. Gilbert watched her with amused
pleasure. He seemed to have stepped into some old rustic ballad. What
was that song the boys used to sing at college? Something about the
pretty, dainty maiden, going a-haying, or a-Maying, or a-something, all
of a bright May morning, tra la la! This one was just like her, only
she should be in her bare feet, and carry a pail and a stool, and be
coming down to milk that cow standing so placidly in the stream. He
felt an almost irresistible desire to sing out, "Where are you going,
my pretty maid?" If he were only a gallant youth, in a velvet cloak
and silken hose, he reflected, instead of a commonplace
nineteenth-century young man in gray tweed, he would go down the bank
and assist her over. The situation absolutely demanded it.
Suddenly he arose, with a smothered laugh. He would have to take a
part in the pretty comedy, after all, for the dainty damsel was in
distress. She stood poised on a stone in midstream, like a bird
desiring, yet not daring, to fly. A long leap was needed to land her
on the next stone, and she paused, perplexed, evidently mindful of her
eggs. Gilbert came quickly down the bank, his eyes twinkling.
"May I help you across?" he asked, coming toward her, hat in hand. He
felt that the words fell into a sort of jaunty rhythm of their own
accord.
The girl looked up quickly, startled at his sudden appearance. The
movement caused her sunbonnet to slip back, revealing her face, and
Gilbert felt suddenly and unaccountably abashed, for the girl looked
straight into his amused face with a glance of grave and unapproachable
dignity. He did not even notice, at first, how pretty she was. He saw
only those serious eyes. They were wonderful eyes, too; deep, and of a
strange, elusive amber, like the water at her feet. They held the
mystery of its deep brown pools, and the light of the golden flecks
upon its surface. There were the same brown shadows and golden lights
repeated in the masses of bronze hair piled like a crown on the top of
her shapely head.
From some impulse he did not understand, Gilbert felt a vague desire to
apologize for his very existence. It seemed as though that searching
glance had read the frivolous thoughts in which he had been indulging.
He wondered, in deep mortification, if she had noticed any faint tinge
of familiarity in his manner.
"I--I beg your pardon. I hope I did not startle you," he said, half
stammering. "I hope you will let me help you across."
"Thank you, you are very kind." Her voice was low, and very musical,
her manner was dignity itself. "I did not know the spaces were so
wide." She spoke with a frank simplicity, looking at him very honestly
and very gravely, and Gilbert felt tacitly rebuked. He was struck by
the fact that this country girl, in the coarse dress and sunbonnet,
whom he had whimsically likened to a rustic lass, to be helped across a
brook for a kiss, had instantly, by a mere glance, clothed the
situation in an impregnable mantle of conventionality. He took her
basket and held out his hand, feeling as though he were about to assist
a princess from her carriage. With a touch she sprang past him and
stepped quietly up the bank. "Thank you," she said, sedately, as she
took the basket from him. "I think it is Dr. Allen to whom I am
indebted, is it not?"
Gilbert clutched his hat again. "Yes, I am very fortunate to have had
the privilege," he said, feeling with relief that he was beginning to
recover.
"I am Miss Cameron," she said, with a stateliness that seemed to
convert the sunbonnet into a crown, and the basket of eggs into a
scepter.
Gilbert's mind dived back into the remembrance of his stableboy's
remarks of a few minutes earlier. What had he said? He could not
remember, except that the village had designated some one of that name
as the object of his future attentions, and there was something, too,
about red hair. He thought her hair beautiful--quite wonderful,
indeed, in its bronze splendor.
He murmured some polite remark, and was wondering if he might ask to be
allowed to carry the basket of eggs up the hill, or if he would be
committing an outrage by so doing, when he was saved from making a
second mistake by a shout from the opposite bank:
"Elsie! Elsie, lassie! Would yon be the new doctor body ye've got
there?"
The voice came from a little old man, hobbling, with the aid of a
stick, along the water's edge. His small body was almost bent double,
and his whole person seemed engulfed in a huge straw hat, from under
which appeared his only prominent feature--a long, wispy, red beard.
The girl gave a little inarticulate sound, and Gilbert glanced at her.
Her stately gravity had vanished, her face was lit with a radiant
smile. She ran down to the brink of the stream.
"Yes, Uncle Hughie," she called, in a clear, silvery tone, with a new
caressing quality in it, "it's Dr. Allen. Do you want to speak to him?"
"Yes, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Come away across, man! Come away!
There's a poor, sick body lying down the glen a wee bit. Come away,
man, and try your hand on him whatefer."
Gilbert glanced at the girl again, half doubtfully. This was so unlike
the first call to a patient which he had so often pictured that he was
taken unawares. She seemed to divine his thoughts.
"Will you go?" she said gently. "It is my uncle. He is always helping
some one in trouble. Perhaps there has been an accident in the mill."
"Of course, of course, I shall be glad," he cried, filled with
compunction; and with a word of farewell he sprang nimbly across the
stepping-stones.
"Do you need my help, Uncle Hughie?" called the silvery voice behind
him.
"Och, it's the good lassie you will be!" came from under the straw hat.
"No, no. It is jist a poor tramp body, and the doctor will be curing
him."
Gilbert reached the other side, and the queer little figure hobbled
toward him with outstretched hand. He took off his hat and made a
stately bow, and the young man looked at him with pleasure and
surprise. The little old man's face was wrinkled and brown, and bore
the marks of pain, but his eyes shone out with a warm, kind brilliancy
that went straight to the stranger's heart. They were the girl's eyes,
exactly, but with none of her lofty reserve.
"Ech! hech!" he cried, disappearing once more within the hat. "Indeed
and indeed, and it's the new doctor! Hoch, yes, yes, it is welcome you
will be to Elmbrook. Eh, and we would not be expecting such a
fine-looking one. Indeed, no! And it would be a fine Scottish name,
too, oh, a fine name indeed, Allen. And--you would not be hafing the
Gaelic, I suppose?" His eyes gleamed wistfully from between the hat
and the whiskers.
"No," said Gilbert, smiling. "My mother spoke it, but she did not
teach us children."
"Och, och, well, well," he said, reassuringly. "It will not be the way
of the young Canadians, and perhaps it is better. Come away, now, come
away! I would be finding a poor tramp body down the glen here, ech,
ech, the peety of it! The peety of it!"
He hobbled away ahead, talking volubly. Gilbert glanced back as he
followed, but the princess in the violet gown had disappeared.
"Eh, now, it would jist be the good Lord that would be sending him to
me, indeed. Eh, the Almighty would be giving me everything in the
world that I could be wanting. But I will jist be an awful complainin'
body, and sometimes I would be saying, if I would only have the chance
to help some one. That's it!" he cried, turning a flashing eye upon
Gilbert. "That will be the only thing worth while in this world. Eh,
it is you that will be finding that out, Dr. Allen, and a happy man you
will be, oh, yes, indeed. It is the doctor bodies that has the
chance." He stopped and turned again. "Eh, did ye ever think He would
be a doctor Himself?" he added, in an awed whisper. "Yes, yes, most
folks now would be thinkin' He would jist be a preacher. But I would
be rastlin' things out sometimes at night, when the rheumatics would be
keeping me awake. The rheumatics would be a fine thing to make a body
think, doctor, oh, yes, a fine thing, and I would be wishing one night
that old Dr. Williams would be curing me, and then I would be rastlin'
it out that He would jist be a doctor Himself. Oh, hoch, yes, yes,
indeed it would be wonderful; yes, yes, wonderful!"
The young man regarded him curiously. Some strange emotion stirred in
his heart: a memory of those days when his mother made the Great
Physician a very real person to him. It seemed so long ago that he had
almost forgotten, and yet he experienced a feeling as though he had
suddenly come face to face with a long-lost friend.
"I am afraid such rheumatism as you must endure would keep me from
thinking of anything but myself," he said, his professional eye taking
in the signs of the painful disease in the old man's crippled frame.
His companion gave a joyous laugh. "Hoots! It will jist be a wee
tickle sometimes. But I will be an awful complainin' body, doctor.
Old Dr. Williams could be telling you I would be a terrible burden to
him, indeed; and you will be finding me a bother. Yes, oh, yes. That
is why I would be so pleased that the Almighty would be sending me a
chance to help. For I would jist be grumblin' and a burden all the
days--eh, yes, yes, och, hoch!" His voice suddenly dropped to a
pitying, caressing tone, such as one might use to a hurt child. "Here
he is," he whispered. "Eh, the peety of it!"
A man was half sitting, half lying, on the grassy bank of the stream,
supported by a pile of balsam boughs. His long body, in its worn,
patched clothing, was pitifully emaciated. His face was ghastly, and
deeply marked with the sad lines that grief alone can trace. His hair
was white, and yet, somehow, he did not seem aged, except by suffering.
He opened his eyes as the young doctor bent over him. There was the
pathetic look in them of an animal that had received its death-wound.
But as the light of consciousness returned there was resentment in his
glance as well as pain. He looked like a man who had been pushed to
the edge of despair, but who could still fight, not in hope, but in
fierce anger against his lot.
"He must be moved to some house at once," the doctor announced after a
brief examination. "He seems to be suffering from exhaustion and
hunger."
Old Hughie Cameron was fussing about him, making inarticulate, pitying
remarks. "Oh, yes, yes, he will jist be coming with me, then," he
cried eagerly. "The Cameron door will always be on the latch indeed!
Oh, yes, the folks will be real pleased, whatefer."
The sick man looked up suddenly and spoke with unlooked-for strength.
"I will accept charity from no living man," he said curtly.
"Hoots, toots!" cried Uncle Hughie, in gentle remonstrance. "Charity!
It would jist be a bit of a neighborly act, man! Come away, now,
come." His voice was coaxing. "Here is the doctor, now, waiting to
help you. Yes, yes, a fine new doctor, indeed," he added enticingly.
"Come," said Gilbert authoritatively. "You must have food and shelter
at once. You can't stay here."
The man opened his eyes again. "I haven't a cent of money," he said
weakly, but defiantly. "But if you will take me to some place I can
rent, I will earn money and pay for it after. But I will enter no
man's house. I will stay here and die--it would be best, anyway." He
closed his eyes indifferently.
Old Hughie suddenly plucked the puzzled young doctor's sleeve. "There
will be an old shanty down the glen here, a wee step," he whispered,
"jist by the Drowned Lands. It belongs to Sandy McQuarry, but he would
be giv----" He paused, for the fierce eyes opened upon him--"renting
it," he substituted hastily.
"I will go there," whispered the sick man, and Gilbert stooped and
raised him gently.
"And what will your name be?" asked Uncle Hughie, striving in his pity
to say something friendly which this strange man would not resent.
"My name," said the man slowly, "my name"--he stood and looked about
him in a dazed way--"yes, yes, it's McIntyre--John McIntyre." He
wavered a moment, then fell, fainting, in the young doctor's arms.
CHAPTER IV
THE ORPHAN ARRIVES
O little wild feet, too softly white
To roam the world's tempestuous night,
The years like sleet on my windows beat,
Come in and be cherished, O little wild feet.
My heart is a house deep-walled and warm,
To cover you from the night and storm.
--C. G. D. ROBERTS.
Miss Arabella Winter and her parrot lived alone in a tiny house, next
door to her brother's home, and were "managed," in company with the
rest of the village, by her smart sister-in-law. In all Susan Winters'
realm there was no more obedient subject than the meek little lilac
lady.
She had been very pretty in her youth, and much of her girlhood's
beauty lingered yet in the faint pink of her cheeks and the droop of
her long lashes. Her golden-brown hair was still abundant and wavy,
though in accordance with her sister-in-law's instructions she pulled
it back so tightly that its undulations were quite smoothed out. And
just so Miss Arabella tied down and smoothed out all the beauty curves
of her life to suit the rigid lines of Susan's methods. That she ever
longed for more breadth and freedom could never have entered the head
of any one in the village. But then the village did not know the real
Miss Arabella.
She was hurrying through her morning's work, for a column of smoke
curling up from the other side of her next neighbor's orchard told that
the Sawyers had returned; and if Susan did not mind, she hoped she
might run over and see what kind of baby Jake and Hannah had brought
home.
She shook the breakfast tablecloth out at the back door, and the hens
came running to pick up the crumbs. Like all houses in Elmbrook, Miss
Arabella's front door looked out upon the narrow confines of the
village street, with its double row of elms and maples; but her back
door commanded a view of a whole world of sky and field and wood. High
up in an apple-tree of the Sawyers' orchard a bluebird was caroling
joyously. Miss Arabella had never heard of the man who said that the
bluebird carried the sky on his back, but she involuntarily glanced
from the brilliant azure dot in the tree-top to the vivid blue of the
heavens. "They're awful alike," she whispered, with a smile; then she
glanced inside, "and it's the same color, too! I've a good mind"--she
paused guiltily and glanced toward her brother's house. "I'll just
take one glimpse," she added hurriedly. She put the tablecloth away in
its drawer and ran into the little sitting-room. The old floor, under
its gay covering of rag-carpet and home-made rugs, sank and creaked
with even her light weight. At the sound a querulous voice from the
veranda called "Arabella, Arabella!"
Miss Arabella looked severe. "Polly!" she cried, appearing at the
door. "Now, Polly, be good. You were jist awful yesterday, when the
doctor was passing. You'll try not to say that awful thing, won't you,
Polly?"
"Oh, Annie Laurie, Annie Laurie, Annie Laurie!" gabbled Polly, walking
along her perch head downward. "I'll be good, I'll be good."
Thus assured, Miss Arabella slipped into her spare bedroom. It was a
tiny room, with a close, hushed air. Most of the space was taken up by
a huge feather-bed, whose white surface bulged up like a monstrous
baking of bread. Against the crinkly spars of the low headboard two
stiff pillow-shams stood erect, like signboards, each bearing the
legend, worked in red, "Sweet Dreams." The floor was covered with a
home-made rug, displaying a branch of yellow roses, upon which stood a
mathematically straight line of purple-breasted robins. The one window
was draped in stiff, white lace curtains that fell from the ceiling in
a billowing cascade and flowed out into the middle of the room. Here
the flood was dammed, very appropriately, by two large, pink-tinted
seashells. In one corner stood a high, old-fashioned chest of drawers,
covered with a white cloth worked in red to match the "Sweet Dreams" on
the pillows. It held a small looking-glass flanked by a couple of
china figures; a gay Red Riding-Hood, with a pink wolf, set primly
opposite a striped Bo-peep and a sky-blue lamb. There were pebbles and
shells and pieces of coral, and baskets of beadwork, and many other
ornaments dear to Miss Arabella's heart. She closed the old, creaking
door, placed the one chair against it, and trembling as though she were
about to commit a burglary, she stealthily opened the lowest drawer of
the dresser and took from it a large parcel. She sat down on the low
rocker and carefully untied the string. Her breath was coming fast,
her eyes were shining. The stiff paper opened, and revealed a roll of
bright blue silk, just the tint of the May skies. Miss Arabella
touched it lovingly.
"You're the very color," she whispered; "you've never faded a bit, and
it's been such a long time--oh, an awful long time!" She sighed deeply;
her little face looked wan and old.
"But you haven't started to ravel yet." Her fingers had been running
carefully up and down the silk, and she stopped with a start of dismay.
She hurried to the low window. Yes, there along several of the folds,
the blue fabric was showing signs of wear! Miss Arabella sank back
into her chair and sat motionless, gazing at the bright heap in her
lap. Slowly two big tears gathered, and slipped down her cheeks. She
hastily covered the precious silk from possible damage, wiped her eyes
with her apron, and replaced the bundle in the drawer.
"It must be a sign," she whispered tremulously. "It 'ud never 'a'
begun to wear if it was goin' to be any use to me. It's a sign!" She
locked the drawer, and went out slowly. Her little figure had a more
pronounced droop, her eyes were very piteous.
She went back to her tasks in the tiny kitchen with a dull, hopeless
air. She had just set a pail of soapy water on the back doorstep,
preparatory to scrubbing the porch floor, for Susan insisted that this
must be done once a week, no matter how clean it might be, when Polly's
voice reached her. It was raised in uttering that shocking phrase
which her mistress had forbidden, and which Polly refused to unlearn.
Miss Arabella hurried out to the front veranda, fearful lest the
minister or the new doctor might be within earshot.
"Good-morning, Arabella!" called a sweet voice from the other side of
the cedar hedge.
Miss Arabella ran joyfully to the gate. "Oh, Elsie, is it you? Come
away in and sit a minute; do, now."
"No, thank you, Arabella; not this morning. Mother sent me up to see
what sort of baby Jake and Hannah have adopted. Come with me."
"I'd like to." Miss Arabella glanced wistfully across the orchard, but
the vision of her sister-in-law hoeing in the garden quenched the light
of hope in her eyes. "I can't go for a little bit," she added. "I
haven't done the back stoop yet."
The girl stood looking down at her, a splendid contrast, in her strong,
erect beauty, to the little, drooping figure. Miss Arabella looked up
at her with adoring eyes. There was a strange comradeship between
these two.
"Oh, Arabella, dear," cried the girl, half pityingly, half laughingly,
"why don't you run away?"
Miss Arabella looked up with a sudden fire in her eyes and a flush on
her cheek. "Oh, Elsie! You don't mean it--really?"
"Of course I don't really mean it, Arabella," she answered, half
alarmed at the unexpected effect of her words. "Where would you run?
Only I do wish you didn't have so much managing."
Miss Arabella's head drooped. She seemed ashamed of her sudden
outburst. "Oh, I'm all right," she said, in some confusion, and then,
to hide it, added: "It seems awful nice to have you back, Elsie. I
missed you dreadful."
The girl patted her hand affectionately. "Well, you're not likely to
miss me any more for a long time," she said, with rather a forced smile.
"I s'pose you've learned near everything there is to know about singing
now, anyway, haven't you?" asked Miss Arabella comfortably.
Elsie Cameron laughed. "I feel as if I'd just begun to get the
faintest notion of it."
"Well, well, well! Music must be awful slow work. Is that why you got
tired of it?"
"Tired of it?"
"Yes; your ma was saying you didn't want to go back, though they'd all
coaxed you."
The girl looked down the long, elm-bordered street; her golden-brown
eyes had a hurt look, but her mouth was firm. She turned again to Miss
Arabella with a faint smile. Her answer was apparently irrelevant.
"Don't you remember how Uncle Hughie used to be always telling us never
to 'rastle' against the place we're put in?"
Miss Arabella looked at her, uncomprehending. In contrast to her
narrow experience, Elsie Cameron seemed to possess all that heart could
desire.
"Your Uncle Hughie's a wonderful wise man, Elsie," she said vaguely;
then, with a deep sigh, "I suppose it's wicked to be always wantin' to
do things you ain't doin'; but--I--it ain't very bad to pretend you're
doin' them, so long as you do the real things, is it?" Her color was
rising, and the girl looked at her with a kind curiosity. Even she
knew little more of the real Arabella than the rest of the village did.
"Do you know, Arabella," she cried merrily, "I've long suspected you of
leading a double life. And why shouldn't you? Why, Uncle Hughie says
it's one of his greatest blessings. When he gets tired or racked with
pain, he just pretends he's a chieftain of the Clan Cameron, living on
his estates, and he says he's far happier than if he really were."
Miss Arabella smiled almost tearfully. It was the first time in her
life she had heard her romantic day-dreaming condoned.
"Now I must run, Arabella. Good-by, Polly. Are you good to-day?"
"Oh, Annie Laurie, Annie Laurie," cried Polly, "I'll be good, I'll be
good!"
Miss Arabella stood gazing after the trim figure. She sighed
enviously. "She's the lucky girl," she whispered, "but it's awful
queer she don't want to go on with her singin'."
A smart vehicle turned out of a gate farther up the street and came
whizzing past. The young man driving raised his hat with an air of
deference as he passed the girl by the roadside. Miss Arabella leaned
farther over the gate.
"He looked at her awful pleased like," she said; and then her face grew
pale with a sudden thought. "I'll give it to her," she whispered,
choking down a rising sob. "He'll marry her, I'm sure he will, and if
he does I'll give it to her, and I won't be foolish any more, so I
won't." The prospect of speedy wisdom seemed a very doleful one, and
Miss Arabella's figure drooped and shrank as she moved indoors.
"Arabella!" called a sharp voice over the fence, "have you got your
place all red up yet?"
"Not quite, Susan," was the apologetic answer. "I've jist to do the
back stoop."
"Well, don't be so long, for pity's sakes. I'm goin' up to see what
sort of a baby Jake and Hannah's got, and you can come along jist as
soon as you're done."
"All right, Susan." The little woman returned to her task meekly. Her
small, slim hands and her frail body did not look at all suited to
heavy toil, yet no one in the village worked harder than the little
lilac lady. For when her own house was set in order, and brushed and
swept and scrubbed, exactly as Susan demanded, Miss Arabella crossed
the orchard and washed and baked, and sewed for her brother's children.
She had just finished the lowest step of the porch when she was
startled by a tremendous uproar in the Sawyer orchard, and the next
moment something came hurtling over the fence and landed with a splash
in the pail at her feet. It was a round object, brightly colored and
shining.
"Oh, Lordy, ain't we havin' a slow time!" screamed Polly, most
inappropriately.
"Save us!" ejaculated Miss Arabella.
The Sawyer orchard was separated from Miss Arabella's garden by a high
board fence, further fortified by Miss Arabella's long, neat woodpile.
Hitherto, the place had been used exclusively as a parade-ground for
Isaac and Rebekah, and the Sawyers' hens; but now it seemed to have
been suddenly populated by all the children in the village, shrieking,
scolding and laughing. Could the orphan be big enough to run at large?
And had the McQuarry and the Cross and the Williams children all met to
celebrate its arrival?
"Save us!" ejaculated Miss Arabella again, "they must 'a' got a noisy
one!"
There was a scrambling, tearing noise on the other side of the fence,
and a head arose above it, followed by the figure of a boy. It was a
queer, wasted, tiny figure, with one shoulder higher than the other.
The face was pinched and weird-looking, with that strange mixture of
childishness and age that is seen in the countenances of the
unfortunate little ones who are called out too early into the battle of
life. A long, claw-like arm reached out, and a finger pointed at the
object in Miss Arabella's pail.
"That there's our ball!" said the elf sharply. "Give us a throw!"
Miss Arabella stared, motionless.
"Are--are you Jake Sawyer's orphant?" she asked incredulously.
The boy grinned, a queer contortion of his wizened little face with
more mischief in it than mirth.
"Naw, I'm just the tail of it," he answered enigmatically. "Say, when
did the folks in that there house adopt you?"
Miss Arabella was too much astonished and abashed to reply; and just at
that moment a second object appeared on the woodpile. It arose from
the Sawyer orchard like the first, swinging itself up feet foremost in
some miraculous fashion. This time it was a girl, larger and more
robust than the boy, but plainly younger. Her eyes were wild, her face
was bold, and she had a mad mop of bushy black hair. She perched
herself astride the top board of the fence and gave back Miss
Arabella's stare with interest.
"Where on earth did you come from?" cried Miss Arabella.
"None o' your business!" was the prompt retort. "Hand over that there
ball!"
Miss Arabella had no time to obey, for a third apparition arose out of
the Sawyer orchard, feet first, and perching itself astride the fence,
commanded, "Histe over that there ball!" It was another girl, exactly
like the first, except that her mad mop of hair was yellow instead of
black. Miss Arabella rubbed her eyes, and wondered, in dismay, if she
had been gifted with a new kind of double vision.
"Oh, my land alive!" she whispered. "Has Jake Sawyer been and gone and
brought home all the orphant asylum? Mercy me! Is the yard full o'
ye?" For still another head was struggling to make its appearance
above the fence-top. It was a fiery red head this time, covered with
crisp little curls. It belonged to a very small boy, the youngest of
the quartette. His round, impish face was full of delighted grins.
His dancing eyes radiated laughter and good-nature.
The four surveyed Miss Arabella's evident consternation with great
enjoyment, while that startled lady stood and stared at the array with
something of the feelings that Cadmus must have experienced when he
beheld the fierce warriors rise from the planting of the dragon's teeth.
"We're the Sawyer orphant," said the eldest imp, with apparent relish.
"An' if you don't hand over that there ball mighty quick we'll all come
after it."
Galvanized into action by this threat, Miss Arabella flung the toy far
among the orchard trees, and with shrieks the four small figures
disappeared. Miss Arabella darted around to the front porch in a
panic, and carried her parrot into the comparative safety of the house.
Fortunately the noise had scared the bird into silence. But if those
four wild things should once get into her garden, she reflected, what
ever would become of Polly?
She ran out again, but there was no sign of the newcomers, and the
noise was retreating in the direction of Jake's stable. She flung off
her apron, and running to an opening in the woodpile, proceeded to
climb the fence. She must go over to Hannah's immediately; yes, even
if Susan objected, and see what was the meaning of this sudden
inundation of orphans.
She was balanced on the top of the fence when the doctor's landlady
appeared, walking leisurely up the street to buy a pound of butter at
Long's store for the doctor's dinner.
Any other woman in the township would have expressed surprise at Miss
Arabella's remarkable position, and evident perturbation, but the
silent Mrs. Munn looked at her unconcernedly.
"Somethin' awful's happened, Harriet!" cried Miss Arabella. "Hannah's
got her orphant, an' what d'ye s'pose it's like?"
"It's got red hair," ventured Mrs. Munn, undisturbed.
"Red hair! It's got red hair, an' three other kinds. An' it's got
four heads!"
"What!" shrieked Mrs. Munn, shaken out of her accustomed indifference.
"Arabella! You don't mean----"
But here Miss Arabella's hold on the fence relaxed, and she disappeared
into the orchard. Mrs. Munn turned her back on Long's store and
hurried up the street in the same direction. New doctor or no new
doctor, this crisis must be met at once. The innocent and facile
character of the Sawyers had long been a problem in Elmbrook, but who
could have dreamed that, even in their weakest moment, Jake and Hannah
could have been decoyed into adopting a four-headed monster!
Mrs. Munn's heart was heavy with dread as she hurried up the lane.
Miss Arabella had already arrived, and nearly all the other women of
the village were there. As she reached the door a chorus of shouts and
screams broke from the enclosed yard at the back of the house. Mrs.
Munn shivered. They had evidently tied up the fierce creature in the
stable, where it was exercising its four pairs of lungs all at once!
But the next Instant the stable door flew open, and four figures, two
mop-headed little girls in abbreviated skirts, a small, red-headed
toddler, and a queer, limping boy, the fleetest of all, were
precipitated into the yard. They flung themselves over the fence and
went, shrieking, away across the field. Mrs. Munn drew a great breath;
there was relief in it, and yet terror. It was not quite so bad, but
bad enough. What was to become of Elmbrook if the Sawyers had adopted
four orphans?
Mrs. Sawyer was sitting in the middle of a wildly disordered kitchen,
surrounded by her neighbors. She had the air of a child who has done
wrong, and knows it, but hopes for mercy. Evidently the orphans had
refused to be displayed to the visitors, for their foster-mother was
apologizing for their non-appearance. "They're kind o' wild yet," she
explained meekly, "not ever bein' out of a big city in their lives.
But Jake says jist to let them loose, an' they'll kind o' tame down all
the sooner. There ain't no use callin' after them," she added
resignedly, as Mrs. Winters made a threatening movement toward the
door. "It jist makes them run all the harder, an' mebby they'll get as
far as the pond. We'd better jist let them be."
"Well, go on wi' your story, Hannah," said old Miss McQuarry. "What
possessed ye to take all the bairns, wumman?"
Mrs. Sawyer folded her hands in her lap and continued:
"It kind o' came on us gradual like. Jake an' me jist couldn't help
it. Ye see, his idea was always for a little boy with red hair, like
our Joey would 'a' been, an' I was always wantin' a little girl with
yellow curls. Well, Jake, he knowed what I wanted, and he said if we
seen a nice little girl with curly hair we'd take her; but I knowed his
heart was set on a red-headed boy all the same, an' I stuck out for a
boy. We talked about it so hard all the way there that we near forgot
to get off when we got to the station, an' only that Minnie Morrison's
aunt was there, we'd 'a' never moved. As it was, we forgot the basket
with the pound cake and the cookies and the home-made cheese--and--and
the crock o' butter," she faltered, with a contrite glance toward
Harriet Munn.
"Oh, my, what a pity!" groaned Miss Arabella, remembering all she had
suffered in toiling down the lane with the basket.
"It don't matter much, though," continued the narrator placidly. "Jake
said somebody'd get them that likely needed them worse than Minnie
Morrison. Well, in the afternoon, after we'd visited a while, Jake
hired a livery rig an' we drove out to the orphant home. We talked
quite a while to the lady that's head over all--the matron they call
her; an' then she took us into a room near as big as our mill, an'
there was about two dozen or more children playin' 'round. And the
very minit we got inside that door Jake he hollers out, 'Oh,
geewhittaker!' An' I seen his eyes were shinin' like a cat's in the
dark. An' there he was, starin' as if he'd found a gold mine, at the
wee, red-headed fellow we've got. An' no wonder, either; for he's as
like our Joey would 'a' been as two peas. The matron she saw Jake was
took with the wee fellow, an' she calls him over, an' Jake says,
'What's your name?' An' he says, as cute as cute, 'It's Joey.' An'
with that, Jake grabs him up, an' the little fellow climbed up to his
shoulder an' crowed like a little rooster, an' Jake looked near ready
to cry, he was that pleased. 'Well,' I says, 'I guess we've got our
orphant all right,' an' Jake says, 'Oh, Hannah, but your girl!' 'Never
mind the girl,' says I, 'this one was made for us, an' his name, too.'
Well, we jist turned 'round to tell the matron, when I sees a wee girl,
with curly hair, standin' straight in front o' Jake an' starin' at him,
with her lip quiverin'. That's the fair one o' the twins. An' she
says in a wee, wee voice, as if she was tryin' fearful hard not to cry,
'Are ye goin' to take our Joey away?' she says. 'Is he your brother?'
says I. She jist nods her head. An' she says again, in a whisper,
'Are you goin' to take him away?' Well, Jake he looked at me, an' I
looked at him, an' we could both see we were thinkin' the same thing.
'She's the kind of a girl you want,' says Jake, 'an' mebby she'd help
take care o' the wee chap.' 'D'ye think we can afford it?' says I; an'
then she kind o' sidles up to me, an' says she, 'Aw, you won't take
Joey away, will you?' An' then the matron says, 'She's a good little
girl, Mrs. Sawyer; you won't ever regret it if you take her.' An' I
thought how lovely I'd make her hair curl, an' tie it up with a pink
ribbon, an' jist then she ups an' puts her two little arms around my
neck, an' she whispers, 'We couldn't get along without our Joey,' jist
awful pitiful like. An' I looks at Jake, an' Jake looks at me, an' he
nods, an' I says, 'All right.' It was the only thing to do, now,
wasn't it?"
Hannah paused, and gazed around appealingly.
"She got me 'round the neck, an' I couldn't no more make her let go
than I could fly," she added, as an unanswerable argument.
"Well, we jist got up to go, when there was the most awful racket
started up you ever heard tell of, and that other girl, the one with
the black head, comes runnin' up an' starts to dance 'round an' yell
an' scream. An' at that, my girl she ups an' hollers, too, an' I never
heard such a bedlam, each one screamin' they didn't want to leave the
other. Jake he shouted out to a big girl standin' there to know what
was the matter, an' she yells that they was twins an' hadn't never been
apart. An' then I seen that they were jist as alike as two peas,
except for the hair. Well, the black-headed one was makin' such a
fearful holler that the matron she says to the big girl, quite sharp
like, 'Take her up to the ward,' whatever place that may be. An' the
big girl she grabs the poor child by the arm an' begins to haul her to
the door, an' the tears streamin' down her little face.
"Well, with that, Jake he puts the red-headed one down with a bang, an'
he makes one leap for that big girl. I never seen Jake look like that
before, only once, and that was when Joel McMurtry kicked his dog an'
broke its leg, thirteen years ago next twenty-fourth. It was an awful
look. An' he jist grabs that child away from her, an' he says--he
says--oh, I'd be ashamed to tell you the dreadful bad word he said! I
wouldn't have the minister hear about it for all the earth, for Jake's
been a member of the church ever since before we were married, an'
never used a bit o' bad language in his life, to my knowledge. An'
then he says, in a ter'ble voice, 'You leave that child alone, she's
goin' with me,' he says. An' with that she puts her arms 'round his
neck an' hangs on, an' calls him all the sweet names you ever heard.
"Well, that was bad' enough, but it seems we weren't done yet. We were
jist beginnin' to get collected to start again, when one o' the twins
commenced to yell again. It was the black-headed one, but I ain't sure
o' their names. One's Lorena, an' the other's Lenora--ain't they awful
pretty names? But I think they must change them 'round, 'cause I can
never remember which is which, nor Jake, neither. Well, anyhow, the
black one starts to holler louder'n ever, an' she kept screamin' in
between hollers, 'I don't want to leave Timmy! I don't want to leave
Timmy!' An' with that, the other girl starts up the same, an' the wee
red-head he gets at it harder'n the rest, an' there was the three o'
them cryin' an' takin' on, 'Oh, let Timmy come, too! Let Timmy come,
too!' 'Who's Timmy?' says Jake to the matron. 'Is he their dog?' says
he. 'No,' says she, 'he's their brother,' says she. 'Lord 'a' mercy!'
says I, 'don't tell me there's another one!' 'Yes, there he is,' says
she, an' she points to him. He was settin' on the edge of a long seat,
all humped up, an' queer, watchin' everything, without sayin' a word,
but if I live to be a hundred I'll never get the look o' that child's
face out o' my mind. It was so kind o' awful lonesome an' forsaken an'
hungry-lookin', an' so fearful old, an' him not quite ten."
Hannah paused to wipe her eyes.
"I knew, the minit I seen him, we'd jist got to adopt him, or I'd wake
up nights seein' his poor little face lookin' at me with them terrible
eyes. But he never asked to be took. He jist looks at the others, an'
he says, kind o' gruff like, 'Go on, yous; don't you mind me.'
"Well, it was my turn this time, an' I jist bust out louder'n the
twins. An' I says, 'Oh, Jake,' I says, 'he'll die if we don't adopt
him, too, an' so'll I!' I says. An' Jake, he jist snaps his fingers at
the little fellow, an' he says, 'Come along, then, little shaver, we'll
take you, too.' An' he gives one spring off the bench an' catches Jake
around the legs like a big spider, an' mind you, all the three others
was hangin' on to him already like leeches, an' Jake, he looks 'round
kind o' helpless like, an' he says to the matron, 'There ain't any more
belongin' to this family, is there?' says he. 'Cause you might as well
trot 'em out.' But the matron she laughs, an' says that was all, and
were we sure we could adopt so many. Jake says, 'I dunno, I'm sure,'
says he, 'but it seems as if they'd adopted us, and we can't help
ourselves.' That set everybody laughin', 'stead o' cryin', an' we
picked up them four orphants an' brought them home last night, an' here
we are."
She stopped, and looked around anxiously at the circle of neighbors.
"I know it was awful of us to do it. But I hope you won't mind, will
you? We jist couldn't help it."
"Well, yen's true, Hannah," exclaimed old Miss McQuarry emphatically.
"It was jist the Lord's wull, wumman."
Every one looked at Mrs. Winters for her verdict.
"It's a pity to part flesh and blood, that's a fact," she admitted
reluctantly. "But how you an' Jake is ever goin' to tame down them
four wild things is more'n I can tell."
"You send them to school," said the Duke of Wellington, as she arose to
start for that institution herself, "and I'll answer for them the
biggest part of the day."
Mrs. Sawyer's face lightened. "Indeed we will, jist as soon as we can
get them to settle down a bit. An' Jake says the boys'll help him in
the mill, an' the girls'll help me in the house, an' we'll get along
somehow."
"Well," said Mrs. Munn, rising, and forestalling any further
discussion, "there's no use talkin' about things, anyhow; that does
more harm than good."
The company arose and drifted toward the door.
"D'ye think they'll be awful hard to bring up, Harriet?" whispered Mrs.
Sawyer tremulously, detaining the doctor's landlady for a moment behind
the others.
Mrs. Munn looked steadily into Hannah Sawyer's kindly eyes. These two
had been stanch friends since the days when they had sat together in
school and shared dinner-pails. Only to this old comrade did Harriet
Munn's reticent tongue speak out the deep thoughts of her heart. She
laid her hand on Mrs. Sawyer's shoulder.
"It's jist the Lord's hand that's led you, Hannah," she said quietly,
"that's what it is, and you don't need to be afraid o' nothin'."
Hannah Sawyer's homely face grew radiant. "That's jist what the
minister said last night!" she exclaimed. "We'll jist do our best, an'
I'm sure, with Jake an' the Lord to look after us, we ain't likely to
come to want."
CHAPTER V
THE MILKSTAND CLUB
He that sees clear is gentlest of his words,
And that's not truth that hath the heart to kill.
--ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
The Cameron homestead could scarcely be said to belong to Elmbrook, but
formed a suburb all by itself. It was a comfortable-looking red-brick,
set away back in its orchards and fields, and was further cut off from
the village by the ravine where the mill-stream ran.
Perhaps this was partly the reason why the Cameron family seemed a
little exclusive. There was a deep suspicion throughout Elmbrook that
old lady Cameron, as she was called, thought herself above ordinary
folks, and unconsciously Elmbrook thought so, too. The father had died
when the children were all little, but she had kept them together
through poverty and hardship, imbuing them all with her splendid,
self-sacrificing spirit, until now the elder ones had each taken an
honorable position in life. James, the eldest, lived on the farm, and
had lately paid off the mortgage and built a new house and barn; Hugh
was a lawyer in a neighboring city; Mary was married to a minister--the
greatest achievement of all; Elsie promised to be a singer, and by
making special sacrifices the family had succeeded in giving her a
year's training under the best teachers in the land; Malcolm was going
to be a doctor, had finished his second year with honors, in fact; and
Jean and Archie were still to be given their chance.
Old lady Cameron's brother-in-law, Uncle Hughie, was the best-known
member of the family. He was the village philosopher, and spent his
time hobbling about the farm, doing such odd jobs as his rheumatism
would permit, and "rastlin'" out the problem of human life. He was
sitting on the milkstand just now, his small, stooped body almost
covered by his straw hat, his long beard sweeping his knees. He was
swinging his feet, and singing, in a high, quavering voice, his
favorite song, "The March o' the Cameron Men."
When Sawed-Off Wilmott started a cheese factory down on the Lake Simcoe
road each of his patrons had built, just at the gate, a small platform,
called a milkstand, from which the cans were collected. The Cameron
milkstand had a flight of steps leading up to it, and a grove of
plum-trees surrounding. It was a fine place to sit, of an evening, for
one could be isolated and yet see all that was going on up in the
village. Here Uncle Hughie regularly gathered about him a little group
of friends. Next to the minister, he was considered the most learned
man in the community, and the Cameron milkstand was a sort of
high-class club, where only the serious-minded were admitted, and where
one heard all sorts of profound subjects discussed, such as astronomy
and the destiny of the British Empire.
To-night the club was to assemble for a special purpose. Uncle Hughie
had promised the minister that they would all accompany him down the
ravine to give a welcome and a kind word to the poor tramp who had come
to live in Sandy McQuarry's old shanty by the Drowned Lands. So the
philosopher was waiting for his friends, and as he sang he gazed
expectantly up the village street.
From across the ravine, growing purple in the evening shadows, came the
sound of children's voices at play, and the joyous bark of a dog. Down
in the river pasture hoarse shouts, mingled with a dull thud, thud,
told that the young men were playing football. Women could be seen
gossiping across from their home gates, for while the men might gather
in groups at the store or the post-office, Elmbrook was not
sufficiently advanced to have yet felt the woman's club movement. The
soft, plashy sound of the little waterfall, pouring down under the
bridge, made a charming accompaniment to the mingled harmony.
"_Oh, there's many a man o' the Cameron Clan,_"
sang Uncle Hughie.
There was a ring of triumph in his voice, for he had finished the whole
line with one start, a most unusual achievement. He generally started
on a high key, and as the tune climbed up the word "Cameron" was far
beyond the range of human voice. He would make a shrieking attempt at
it, collapse, and start again, quite cheerfully. But by some strange
misunderstanding between his ear and his vocal cords, no matter how
deep he might lay the foundations of his song, he would raise upon it
such a lofty structure that the pinnacle was sure to be unattainable.
He always saw the heights ahead, and made a gasping effort to gain
them, his voice strained to its utmost, his face wearing a look of
agony. He failed many a time, but invariably succeeded in the end, and
with a broad smile of triumph would sweep into the refrain:
"_I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding,
Deep o'er the mountain and glen._"
Old Uncle Hughie's whole pain-racked life had been like that song. He
was always striving for the heights, often slipping back, frequently
failing just as the top was reached, but ever starting off again with
renewed hope and faith, and in the end always attaining.
There was a wild patter of feet down the lane, and a harum-scarum girl,
half woman, half child, came scrambling recklessly over the fence, and
tumbled upon the ground at his feet. She sprang up and tossed her hair
back from her handsome, mischievous face.
"He's coming!" she announced tragically. "Where'll I hide? I saw him
paddlin' across the creek like a silly old gosling!"
Uncle Hughie's golden-brown eyes danced with laughter.
"Hoots, toots! Och, hoch, but it is the foolish lass you will be!
Poor Davy, ech, poor lad! When I would be going sparkin' the lassies,
it wasn't running away they would be."
"Oh, but then you must have been so handsome and so fine, Uncle
Hughie," said the girl diplomatically. "If I go up into the village
will you tell mother you said I might?"
Uncle Hughie was not impervious to flattery, but he looked doubtful.
Running up into the village in the evening was strictly forbidden to
the younger members of the Cameron household.
"I'll jump into the pond if he comes," she declared. "Go on, Uncle
Hughie. Aw, haven't you got some errand for me?"
"Well, well," said the old man indulgently, "let me see. Oh, yes, now.
You might jist be stepping up to Sandy McQuarry's and tell him not to
be forgetting that this is the night to go and see poor John McIntyre."
"Goody! You're a duck, Uncle Hughie. John McIntyre--isn't that the
tramp you found in the hollow?"
"Yes; but indeed I will be thinking that it's no ordinary tramp he will
be, whatever. Poor man, eh, eh, poor buddy. If ever the Lord would be
laying His hand heavier on a man than He did on Job, that man's John
McIntyre, or I will be mistaken. Ay, and it would be a fine Hielan'
name, too--McIntyre."
The girl danced away up the street, dodging skilfully from tree to
tree, and keeping a sharp eye on the figure climbing leisurely up the
bank of the ravine.
"Don't be forgetting, Jeannie, child," the old man called after her,
"not to let Sandy know the minister will be coming."
The girl nodded over her shoulder, and Uncle Hughie continued his talk
to the milkstand.
"Ay, yes, oh, yes indeed. The peety of it, the peety of it. Well,
well. Hoots! The Almighty will be knowing all about you, John
McIntyre. Oh, yes, indeed, never fear. I will be thinking He will be
meaning you some good yet. Oh, yes, yes, never you fear----
"_'Oh, there's many a man o' the Ca----'_"
His voice broke on the high note, and he did not start again, for a
figure was coming down the street toward the bridge. It was Silas
Long, storekeeper, postmaster and astronomer, with his telescope under
his arm. He paused on the bridge, where he was joined by several
others. They came straying down the street in aimless fashion, hands
in pockets, shoulders drooping. It was the custom to assemble in the
most casual manner, for it would never do to confess, even to oneself,
that one had started deliberately to spend an evening in idleness.
The group straggled slowly forward, Silas Long, William Winters, the
blacksmith, Jake Sawyer, and a new member of the club, a very small
person, whose red, curly hair shone like a halo in the light of the
evening sun. Holding this little figure by the hand, Jake Sawyer
walked along with a tremendous swagger, the proudest man in the county
of Simcoe.
Another man was strolling toward them across the golden-lighted pasture
field. It was John Cross, Jake Sawyer's partner, called Spectacle
John, to distinguish him from a half dozen other John Crosses who
didn't wear spectacles. At sight of him Uncle Hughie sniffed, and
ejaculated "Huts!" Spectacle John was an Irishman, of a rather
frivolous turn of mind, and the philosopher disapproved of him, and
discouraged his attendance. Moreover, he and Silas Long were always at
variance, and when the two met the milkstand lost its dignity and
became a center of futile argument.
One by one they arrived, and dropped upon the steps of the milkstand or
the pile of stones by the gate, with a casual remark about the weather.
In Elmbrook one did not say "Good-morning" or "Good-evening," in
greeting; but "Fine day," "Cold night," as the case might be. So as
each man sank into his place, with a sigh for the long day's toil, he
remarked "Fine night," looking far off at the horizon, and Uncle Hughie
also examined that boundary, and remarked "Fine." As Jake Sawyer
seated himself, and raised the youngest orphan to his knee, he added
proudly, "An' a fine boy, too, eh, folks?"
"Oh, yes, indeed! And indeed, yes!" cried Uncle Hughie, patting the
little, curly head, and resorting to the Gaelic for terms sufficiently
endearing.
"And how many are there in your family now, Jake?" inquired Spectacle
John facetiously. "Got another carload shipped since I seen ye last?"
The company laughed heartily. The women of the village regarded the
Sawyers' large family as a serious problem, but the men treated it as a
huge joke.
"Aw, I bet my head any one o' yous would be glad to own a family half
as smart," remarked Jake proudly. "Golly, Miss Weir says that oldest
boy kin go through the 'rithmetic like a runaway team; an' as for the
girls, well, sirs"--Jake slapped his knee--"there jist ain't anythin'
they can't' do 'round the house, an' Hannah'll tell you the same."
"There don't seem to be much they can't do 'round the mill," grunted
Spectacle John, whose days were made weary routing his partner's family
from his place of business. "You won't raise that oldest boy if he
shows his face to me 'round the mill again, I promise you that."
"Speakin' o' mills," said William Winters, "when I was at Neeag'ra
Falls I seen a mill that you could put this whole village into an'
never notice it, an' it run by electricity, too."
The population of the milkstand settled more firmly into its place.
When the blacksmith got started on his favorite topic there was no
knowing when he might stop. He had visited the Toronto Exhibition and
Niagara Falls one autumn, and ever since had lived in the afterglow of
that achievement. Not the most astounding phenomena that the milkstand
could produce, either in song or story, but he could far surpass from
the wonderful experiences of that visit. The Niagara Falls mill was
only half finished when a new arrival interrupted.
"Fine night," said a voice with a deep Scottish burr.
"Fine," acquiesced the milkstand.
"Oh, and it will be you, Sandy?" said Uncle Hughie, making room for the
newcomer beside him. "Come away, man, come away."
Sandy McQuarry was a thick-set man, with a face like a Skye terrier.
He stood looking down at the contented, round-shouldered assembly, with
little columns of smoke curling up from pipes of peace, and his
disapproving brows bristled as though he were about to burst into loud
barking.
"Jeannie said ye wanted me," he remarked, by way of explaining his
presence. Sandy McQuarry was a busy man, and a great money-maker, and
did not want any one to think he could afford to spend his evenings in
idle gossip on a milkstand, as some folks did.
"Oh, yes, indeed, it would be very kind of you to be troubling. You
must jist be coming with us to see that poor McIntyre body now, down in
your shanty. And what would you be thinking of him?"
"He's a dour body. Ah couldna git a ceevil word oot o' him."
"He would mebby be a good workman, for all?" said Uncle Hughie
insinuatingly.
"Ah dinna ken. He's got a bad e'e in his heid, yon man."
"Hoots! It's not wicked the man would be!" cried Uncle Hughie
indignantly. "It's a broken heart that ails him, or I'll be mistaken."
"That's jist what I say," agreed Jake Sawyer. "I jist got one squint
at him yisterday, when I was down at the Drowned Lands, huntin' our
oldest"--Jake tried in vain to keep the quiver of pride from his
voice--"an' he looked to me like a dog that was meant to be
good-natured, but had jist been kicked straight ahead till it turned
surly."
"I'm thinkin' ye could surely give him some light job, Sandy,"
continued old Hughie. "Night watchman, now--it's the only job he could
be doin', he's that sick, poor body."
Sandy McQuarry looked obstinate. "I was thinkin' o' settin' our Peter
at that job this summer."
"Eh? But you could be helping the Lord to give the poor man better
days, Sandy, and that would be grand work, whatever. Eh, indeed,
indeed, we can never tell, when we do a kind act, how far it will
reach." Uncle Hughie began to grow philosophical. "Here would be
Jake, now, taking all these lambs into his home, and the Lord only can
tell how much good it will do to other people he will be knowing
nothing about. Oh, indeed, when we would be giving the Lord a helping
hand, it would jist be starting all the machinery in the world, and
mebby beyond it."
"That there's true, 'Ughie, that's true!" cried Silas Long, laying down
his telescope. "Wen you're doin' the right thing by your neighbor
you're jist 'elpin' along the turnin' o' the earth."
There was an impatient movement from Spectacle John. Silas had touched
their chief point of dispute. The shape and motions of the planet they
inhabited had long served as a fierce battle-ground between these two.
The astronomer held the generally accepted opinion on these matters,
and could prove Columbus' theory beyond gainsaying. But, whether from
honest disbelief, or a stubborn resolve to disagree with his adversary
upon all subjects, Spectacle John scouted his arguments as moonshine.
"The turnin' o' the earth!" he repeated scornfully. "You'll never
catch me takin' a hand at anny such fool chore as that!"
Uncle Hughie gazed indignantly over the golden mill-pond and hummed
"The March o' the Cameron Men."
"Well, sir, that McIntyre man has a hard row to hoe," said Jake Sawyer,
wisely steering away from the dangerous topic. "It's a caution now,
ain't it, how some folks seems to have everything they want in this
world, an' others gets all the things nobody wants?"
"Man, did you ever think what a queer, botched-up world we live in,
anyhow?" inquired William Winters, who, whenever he found himself
beyond the influence of his well-managed home, was always in a
rebellious state. "The minister, now, 'ud like to make ye believe
everything's ordered for our good, but it don't look that way to me.
Gosh! Sometimes, when I'm patchin' up somethin' at the shop, I think I
could take my hammer an' bang things up into better shape myself than
the Almighty's done."
"Lord love ye, William!" cried Silas Long in alarm. "Take care wot
ye're sayin'!"
"Well, when I was at Neeag'ra Falls," persisted the blacksmith, "there
was a man preachin' there on the streets that said he didn't believe
there was any God at all----"
'"Ere, William," interrupted the astronomer, shoving his telescope into
Winters' hand, as one would give a new toy to a complaining child, "you
take a squint through this 'ere spyglass, an' if you ain't convinced in
five minutes that there is a God, well, sir, you can smash it, that's
all."
Sandy McQuarry regarded the blacksmith sternly. For sufficient reasons
of his own, he never entered the Elmbrook church, but for all that he
was as strict in religious matters as he was at gaining a penny in a
bargain.
"Ye've no right to creeticize the Almighty yon way, Weeliam," he
admonished. "If He wishes to make one vessel to honor, and another,
such as this MacIntyre, to dishonor, it is the Lord's wull, an' we maun
jist abide by it."
The blacksmith, one eye inside the telescope, paid no attention.
"That's so," agreed Spectacle John, with suspicious cordiality,
"especially as He's made an occasional vessel jist to hold money."
"That's better than bein' a bag to hold wund, like some folks you
admire, John," said Sandy McQuarry with deep meaning.
"Lookee 'ere, Sandy," said Silas Long solemnly, "criticizin' the
minister is next thing to criticizin' the Almighty. You'd better take
a warnin'." His voice dropped to a whisper. "It ain't safe, Sandy,
now, that's wot it ain't."
Sandy McQuarry grunted scornfully. "Ony man," he announced darkly,
"that's so licht in his heid that he doesna ken ony better than to
liken the land o' Burns to a few miles o' barren stones, is no a fit
person to expound the Word o' God."
The milkstand began to look uncomfortable. There had been a day when
Sandy McQuarry was an elder in the church, and as stanch a friend as
the minister possessed. But just the summer before he had been
grievously offended. Mr. Scott had gone on the annual excursion of the
Sons of Scotland to Muskoka. Here the endless chain of jeweled lakes,
the fairy islands floating on the dark waters, the rugged, barren rocks
set in masses of soft greenery, and above all the wild spirit of
freedom that pervaded this new beauty land, had enchanted the
minister's tired soul. So, upon his return, he had declared in a
tea-meeting speech at the church that Muskoka reminded him of Scotland.
The next Sabbath Sandy McQuarry drove past the Elmbrook church and
worshiped, fifteen miles away, with the Glenoro congregation, and there
he had worshiped ever since.
"Och, well, indeed," remarked Uncle Hughie, wisely reverting to an
earlier subject, "it will be a question that puzzles the greatest men
in the world, why some people must suffer. But, indeed, it is our own
selves that will be responsible. And as long as there will be one man
sinning in this world the race must suffer. Oh, yes, we will not be
beginning to learn that lesson yet, but will be fighting against each
other! Och, hoch! it will be a peety, indeed. But it will all come
out right in the end, never you fear. He came to show us how it's
done, oh, yes. The Almighty will be knowing what He is about, indeed."
"It's my opinion that the Almighty lets things go pretty much as they
please," grumbled the blacksmith. "When I was at Neeag'ra Falls----"
"Hoots!" cried the philosopher impatiently, "that would be jist child's
talk, William. There will be an unerring law governing everything man
does, jist as there's a law governing----" He hesitated for a
comparison.
"The movements o' this 'ere ball that we're standin' on," finished
Silas Long, with marked emphasis, and a meaning glance at his
unbelieving enemy.
"Standin' on a ball!" repeated Spectacle John wearily. "We'd better
all go an' join a circus, an' be done with it!"
"Well," said Jake Sawyer reasonably, "most o' the eddicated folks'll
tell you that's what the world is. Miss Weir, now, was tellin' that to
our twins jist to-day."
Spectacle John sniffed. "Huh! That young Graham, that teached here
before her, was loony on the same notion. He's sit up half the night
argifyin' with me that the earth was spinnin' 'round like a dog after
its tail. I uster ask him how it was we didn't tumble off when we was
danglin', head downward, in the dark, an' that uster to give him the
blind staggers every time. He was a terror for argifyin', though, that
chap; an' one night he got me to give in that it was mebby round like a
cheese and us livin' on the flat top. It was in Sawed-Off Wilmott's
cheese factory he was shootin' off that time. Well, I went that far,
but further than that there's no livin' man'll get me to go."
A tall figure had crossed the bridge and was nearing the group. There
was a perceptible stir, and all conversation ceased. "'Ere's the
minister," said Silas Long. "We'd better get started."
"Mr. Scott's been tryin' all day to get a light job for that McIntyre,"
said Jake Sawyer innocently, "but he don't seem to've got anything easy
enough yet."
Uncle Hughie darted a warning glance at the indiscreet miller, but it
was too late.
"He'll be well looked after, then, I'm thinkin'," said Sandy, promptly
rising. "There'll be no need o' me goin' with ye the night, Hughie.
Maister Scott'll likely give him a job in"--he paused to let the heavy
weight of his sarcasm fall resoundingly--"in Muskoky!"
He tramped away, and, climbing the fence, strode across the fields in
the direction of his mill.
"Ain't 'e a caution, now?" asked Silas Long in a tone of fear. "You
mark my words, now--jist mark my words--that man's goin' to meet a
judgment some day. It ain't safe to act like that to the minister,
that's wot it ain't."
"Fine night," the assembly remarked unanimously. Mr. Scott was a
good-looking man of middle age, tall and straight, with a massive head,
covered with thick iron-gray hair. He had deep blue eyes, with little
lines at their corners showing they were prone to kindly laughter.
"What's the question to-night?" he asked, the lines around his eyes
deepening. "Have you found a new star, Silas?"
"Eh, eh, mebby, mebby," answered Uncle Hughie. "If it is, it seems to
be a fallen one, whatever. We would jist be talkin' about yon poor
body we're goin' to see. Come away, now."
The milkstand arose leisurely. Silas Long shouldered his telescope,
Jake Sawyer slung his orphan over his back, and the group turned up
Cameron's lane, crossed the orchard, and went down the winding pathway
into the ravine.
The little stream danced along at their side, touched here and there
with the gold of the sunset, the vesper sparrows had gathered for their
twilight chorus, and the valley was vibrating with music.
No matter at what hour of the day, or season of the year, it might be
viewed, the ravine where the mill-stream ran was a treasure-house to
any one who had the seeing eye. Long before, when Elmbrook was merely
a "Corners," with one or two houses, there came to the place a queer
Englishman, who wandered all day about the fields, and painted pictures
and read strange, dry books by a man named Ruskin. He first entered
the valley on an October morning, when it was all gold and crimson, and
lay shrouded in a soft violet mist. The man had sat for hours gazing
down the winding stream, and afterward he had said it was the Golden
River, and that the place should be called Treasure Valley. But Sandy
McQuarry's father, who was living then, said that onybody with a head
on him could see that it was clean ridic'l'us to give a place such a
daft name. McQuarry's Corners it had been called for years, and
McQuarry's Corners it would stay. The queer Englishman left, and was
never heard of again, and old Sandy died, and when the post-office came
old lady Cameron named the place Elmbrook; but Treasure Valley still
remained with the little Golden River flowing through it, showing new
beauties with every recurring season.
About a mile below the village the walls of the ravine disappeared, and
the brook was lost in a deep swamp, a maze of tangled foliage and deep
pools and idly wandering streams. As the water advanced the forest
became submerged, and formed a desolate stretch known as the Drowned
Lands. Its slimy, green surface was dotted with rotten stumps and
fantastic tree-trunks, pitched together in wild confusion, and above it
rose a drear, dead forest of tall pine stems, bleached and scarred, and
stripped of every limb. Around this silent, ghostly place the swamp
formed a ring through which it was dangerous to pass, for near the edge
of the Drowned Lands it was honeycombed with mud holes, into which it
was sure death to slip. Terrible tales were related of lives lost in
this swamp. Folks said that a banshee or a will-o'-the-wisp, or some
such fearsome creature, wandered to and fro at nights over the surface
of the desolate waters, waving her pale lantern and calling for help,
or in other ways enticing unwary travelers to their death. Some had
been lured into the depths by her voice and had never returned.
It was in this drear, lonely place that the tramp had taken up his
abode. Just where a corduroy road, now abandoned and grass-grown,
passed out of the ravine and along the edge of the swamp, stood Sandy
McQuarry's old lumber shanty, and here Uncle Hughie Cameron and the
doctor had taken John McIntyre. Before it lay the swamp, and through
occasional gaps gleamed the still waters of the Drowned Lands.
As the visitors emerged from the valley there was a loud hallo from the
hill-top, and a small, limping figure came hurrying down the slope.
The little fellow perched upon Jake Sawyer's shoulder gave a squeal of
welcome, and Jake's face lit up.
"Hello, you, Tim!" called the big man cordially, as the youngster came
limping toward him, "what you been up to now?"
The boy glanced around the group and placed himself as far as possible
from Spectacle John. "Jist been fishin'," he remarked vaguely; "and
I'm goin' with you," he added, with that mixture of defiance and appeal
which the orphans had already learned was sure to move their
foster-parents.
"Ye'd better watch out! The banshee'll git ye," threatened Spectacle
John.
"Speakin' o' a banshee," put in the blacksmith, "when I was at Neeag'ra
Falls----" By the time the story was finished the company had come in
view of the old shanty.
The sick man was seated in the doorway. His figure had a despairing
droop, his eyes were fixed on the forest of dead tree-trunks. There
was something of a corresponding dreariness in his whole attitude, as
though the waters of tribulation had gone over his life and left it a
veritable Drowned Land, its hopes engulfed, its greenness dead.
The company fell silent as they passed through the bars that served as
a gateway and went up the slope to the shanty door. So absorbed was
the man in his reflections that he did not notice any one approaching
until the minister's foot struck a stone. He turned sharply and arose.
Mr. Scott had visited him twice as he lay in bed, and the man
recognized him with a brief word. But there was no cordiality in the
way he put out his hand to meet the minister's proffered one, and he
took no notice whatever of the others.
"Good-evening," said Mr. Scott pleasantly. "Some of the neighbors
thought they would like to drop in and give you a word of welcome to
the village. I'm glad to see you are looking much better."
"I am quite better." The man's answer was curt and dry.
He did not offer his visitors a seat, nor ask them to enter, but stood
there, bent, shabby and forlorn, and looked at the minister with
haggard eyes that besought him to go. But the look only made him more
anxious to stay.
"Do you mind if we sit a moment?" he asked, glancing at an old log near
the doorway.
The man hesitated. "It is a poor thing to refuse a welcome to any
man," he said at last, with a quiet dignity, "and in the years that I
had a fit roof to my head none was turned away; but"--he paused, as
though he disliked to say the words--"but I have spent my life alone
these last few years, and I find it better. So I am afraid I cannot
offer you a seat, sir."
The minister was as much surprised by the stately manner in which the
words were delivered as by the astonishing declaration itself. Yet he
could not feel angry at his dismissal; the man's eyes awakened only
compassion.
"But it is not good for us to shut ourselves away from our fellow-men,"
he said gently. "We miss much happiness and kindness."
"And cruelty," added John McIntyre, with sharp bitterness. "And as to
its being good for me, or otherwise, that matters nothing to any one."
"Ah, but that is where you are mistaken," said the minister eagerly.
"It matters very much to our Father. We are very precious in His
sight. The Almighty----"
He was interrupted by a harsh laugh.
"Hoh!" cried John McIntyre derisively, "what is the use telling that to
a man who knows the world? That's a tale for children and old women!
What do you know about the Almighty's care?" His eyes ran fiercely
over his visitor. "You! Because you are well fed and well clothed,
and prosperous, you think that all the world is the same, and that your
God is a miracle of kindness. He may be to you. But there is another
side. Your God causes the wicked to prosper, and sees the innocent
trampled upon, and never puts forth a hand to help. And you call Him
the Almighty! If there is an Almighty, then He takes pleasure in the
pain of His creatures. He gives them the good things of this life only
that He may take them away and enjoy their suffering. And because your
turn hasn't come yet you would make me believe that every one is as
well off as yourself. Hoh! Lies! Old women's lies!"
The minister stepped back in shocked amazement. He had lived his life
among a prosperous, God-fearing people, where such blasphemous words,
if ever uttered, were never allowed to reach his ears. Nothing aroused
his righteous indignation like a slighting reference to the Master whom
he served, and in his quick resentment he forgot the suffering written
on John McIntyre's face.
"How dare you speak so of your Master?" he demanded hotly.
The man laughed again, and the minister broke forth in stern rebuke.
People said that when Mr. Scott denounced sin there was something of
the fearless candor of the ancient prophets about him. But in this
instance he forgot that the greatest Prophet was always gentle and
tender in the presence of pain. He denounced John McIntyre roundly for
his irreverence, showed him plainly the appalling evil of his ways, and
quoted Scripture to prove that he was hastening to everlasting
perdition.
At the mention of his inevitable destiny John McIntyre interrupted.
"Hell!" he shouted. "I've been there for months already!" As he spoke
he turned swiftly and caught up an old spade lying by the doorstep.
"Get out of my sight!" he hissed fiercely, holding the weapon aloft.
"Leave me, or I'll send you where I'm going! Go!" His voice was
almost beseeching. "Go, before I do you harm!"
The Rev. James Scott was afraid of no living man, but there was a
terrible gleam in John McIntyre's eyes that hinted of insanity. He
looked at him a moment and then, with a motion as though washing his
hands of him, he turned away. The rest of the company had fallen back
from the doorway, and now followed the minister in speechless concern.
They tramped along the old grassy road, followed by the call of the
whip-poor-will from the darkening hillside above, and the lonely cry of
the loon floating across the Drowned Lands. Uncle Hughie was the first
to break the dismayed silence.
"Well! well! well! well! Ech! hech! Hoots! toots!" he ejaculated
incoherently, quite unable to express his feelings.
"Man, ain't he a caution?" whispered Jake Sawyer fearfully.
"Gosh! now there's some truth in what he says," remarked the melancholy
blacksmith in an undertone.
"D'ye think he would be right in his mind, poor body?" asked Uncle
Hughie, searching for some palliation of John McIntyre's outrageous
conduct.
"Mebby he's had notions about the earth spinnin' 'round like a top, an'
they've drove him loony," suggested Spectacle John. "That often
happens, they say."
But Silas Long was too deeply concerned over the tramp's wickedness to
pay any heed to this frivolous remark.
The minister was walking ahead, in gloomy silence. His heart was still
full of hot indignation, but it was mingled with regret and deep
disappointment. He had wanted to do this lonely, sad man good, and in
his haste, he feared, he had done him only harm.
But there was one pair of eyes that had regarded John McIntyre's action
with perfect approval. Those eyes were now looking up at Jake Sawyer,
alight with unholy joy. "Say," whispered the eldest orphan, jerking
his foster-father's coat, "I like that man. He's awful bad, an' I
think he's just bully."
The next day the tale of the tramp's outrageous treatment of the
minister flew through Elmbrook like the news of a fire in the mill.
Sandy McQuarry had been away in Lakeview all day, and did not hear it
until he was seated with his family and the mill-hands at the supper
table.
Miss Euphemia, his sister, who had been his housekeeper since Sandy's
wife, as folks said, worked herself to death, was the first who dared
to broach the subject, any reference to Mr. Scott being rather
hazardous.
"Yon's a fearfu' buddy ye've got in yer shanty doon yonder, Sandy," she
began solemnly. "Ah'd no let him sleep there anither nicht."
Her brother was busy distributing the fried pork around the table, a
performance at which he was an adept. In spite of a keen desire for
money-making, Sandy was a generous man at his own table, and he had a
way of serving his family that was the admiration of the whole mill
staff. If a man but held up his plate as a slight indication that he
was ready for more, the host could flip him a slice of beef or pork
with the dexterity of a sleight-of-hand magician. At his signals,
"Here, Bob, mon!" "Hi, Peter, lad!" "Look oot, Sam!" away flew each
man's portion, hitting his plate with unerring precision. He had never
been known to miss anybody in his life, not even Miss Euphemia, away at
the other end of the table.
He paused now, his fork suspended, and looked at his sister from under
his bristling brows. "What's he been doin'?" he demanded.
Now that the ice was broken, every one was ready with a different
version of the tale. John McIntyre was an infidel and an outcast, and
had spoken blasphemy and driven the minister and old Hughie Cameron and
a half dozen others away from his door, threatening them with violence.
The company waited, expecting to hear an order summarily evicting the
tramp from his refuge by the Drowned Lands. But the mill-owner made no
comment. "Huh!" he remarked, an enigmatic ejaculation that left all in
doubt as to his feelings. But the next night the village knew how deep
was the elder's resentment against the minister, for early in the
evening Sandy repaired to the Cameron milkstand, and, to the
philosopher's joyful amazement, announced that he had decided, after
all, to hire John McIntyre as night watchman.
CHAPTER VI
A FAMOUS PRACTITIONER
But dere's wan man got hees han' full t'roo ev'ry kin' of wedder,
An' he's never sure of not'ing but work an' work alway--
Dat's de man dey call de doctor, when you ketch heem on de contree,
An' he's only man I know--me, don't get no holiday.
--WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND.
When the new doctor's horse arrived, and he began to drive about the
country, even the outrageous conduct of Sandy McQuarry's new watchman,
and the antics of the orphans, became matters of secondary interest to
the village. When he drove away of a morning, every one ran across to
every one else's house to debate the question as to whether he had gone
to see a patient or only to exercise his horse. Of course, when some
one came for him the problem was solved; but sometimes he went off on
an independent excursion, and that was always puzzling. Miss Weir had
once known a doctor who used to drive like mad all over the country,
with his satchel set up on the seat, where every one could see it, and
never go to see one solitary patient for weeks at a time. Ella Anne
Long was sure the new doctor wasn't that kind; and anyway, Davy Munn
had told Jean Cameron that the doctor often told him, when he drove
away, that he was just going to give his horse some exercise.
Of course, it was no use asking Mrs. Munn. As usual, she "didn't
know." Even when some one called for the doctor, in his absence, and
had every legitimate right to be apprised of his whereabouts, it was
with the greatest difficulty that any hint of it could be extracted
from his housekeeper. She always spoke in broad generalities. Yes, he
was gone away. To see a patient? Well, likely. Mrs. Munn couldn't
tell. Where? Oh, out in the country. It might be up Glenoro way, or
down by Lake Simcoe. She was not sure, now, but that she had seen him
drive out east, or was it west? She hadn't remembered right. When
would he be back? How could she tell? She didn't know how fast he was
going to drive, that is, if he was driving at all. Mebby he was
walking. People knew Mrs. Munn of old, and did not waste much time on
her. They passed the office door and went on to the stable, where
information, though often highly colored, and tinged with the product
of David's imagination, was at least easily procured.
Granny Long was the one reliable source of supply. As soon as the
doctor drove out of the gate the telescope was turned upon him, and
bulletins as to his movements issued at various intervals. He was
sighted turning the corner at Cameron's Crossing, and was likely going
down to see old Mrs. McKitterick; or he had turned around at Long John
McLeod's old clearing, and would be back in fifteen minutes, maybe
less, at the rate he was going; so it was only a drive. And one
morning, when he started off early and drove so swiftly down the Lake
Simcoe road that every one was sure some one must be dying, public
opinion was much relieved when Granny Long sent Ella Anne out with the
news that it wasn't a patient, after all, but that the doctor had just
been down to Lake Simcoe, and was coming back. And she could not be
quite sure yet, but his hair looked damp and shiny, and she suspected
he had been in swimming; she could tell for certain in a few minutes.
And while the village discussed him, Dr. Allen drove up and down the
Oro hills to exercise his horse, and wished with all his heart that he
had more to do. One evening, when time was hanging more heavily than
usual on his hands, he went for a stroll down the village street. As
he passed out to the gate Davy Munn was mowing the lawn. His groom's
assiduous attention to this one branch of industry, to the exclusion of
all other labor, still remained a mystery. "He's got a dark-blue
necktie on this time," was the whispered remark made in Granny Long's
bedroom, "and it looks as if he was growing a mustache. He's comin'
this direction."
"Sakes alive! I wonder if he's comin' here!" cried Ella Anne's mother,
all in a flutter.
Ella Anne flew down the stairs. She softly opened the front door, and
seating herself at the organ, pulled out all the stops. Miss Long was
organist in the church, and had the loudest voice in the township of
Oro. She had a favorite solo, which she had sung at three tea-meetings
the winter before.
"_Oh, meet me! Oh, meet me!
When you hear the first whip-poor-will's song!_"
Here was a splendid chance to let the new doctor hear her sing. As the
musical invitation came pouring through the Longs' parlor door, the
innocent cause of it stopped for an instant on the unsteady sidewalk,
overcome by the deluge of song. Then, full of alarm, he turned off the
street, and made his escape up the willow-bordered path that ran along
the edge of the mill-pond, where the sound of the waterfall, as it
poured in a silvery cascade beneath the bridge, alone broke the
silence. Looking back past the bridge, Gilbert caught a glimpse of the
valley, with its fairy windings, where he had met his first patient and
the princess in the milkmaid costume. The pond lay like a colored
mirror in its frame of feathery willows. As he advanced the trees
disappeared, and his footfall was muffled in the soft sawdust. The
sweet, clean scent of the newly sawn lumber mingled with the cool
breath of the water.
The big mill, so noisy and busy in the daytime, was silent and
deserted, except for the watchman. He was seated in the wide doorway
of the engine-room. Behind him, in the warm darkness, shone a red line
from beneath the furnace door. Gilbert had not seen him since his
illness, and was struck with the man's expression of utter dejection.
"Good-evening," said the young doctor cordially, stopping in his walk.
The man looked up with a curt response.
"I was just strolling about, viewing things," continued Gilbert. "You
are night watchman here now, I believe?"
"Yes."
"I hope you are feeling better?"
The man looked up into the speaker's face, and seemed to recognize him.
"You are the doctor?" he said, half inquiringly.
"Yes. I came to Elmbrook lately, like yourself. My name is
Allen--Gilbert Allen."
"Allen!" repeated the dark man. He arose, and gave the other a
searching look. "Are you the Gilbert Allen who saved the life of a man
once in Nelson Mills?"
"Yes," answered Gilbert, surprised; "that is, I helped to, somewhat.
Do you know----"
The man interrupted with a harsh laugh, such as had startled the
minister. It was as unmirthful as a cry of pain. "Yes, I know more
than you think. I know _you_, Gilbert Allen!" His voice was harsh
with scorn. "Many, many a time I've heard your name--spoken with the
highest praise--oh, the very highest. But you are like all the rest of
the world. You would let your best friend starve. Selfishness and
dishonesty!" he cried, clenching his hands, "selfishness and
dishonesty! Those are the commonest things in this world--the only
things!"
He picked up his lantern, and turning his back on his astonished
visitor, disappeared into the dark recess of the engine-room.
The young doctor stood staring after him, undecided whether to follow
or not. Was the man mad? There was a wild gleam in his eye, but
Gilbert's professional knowledge told him it was rather a gleam of
anguish than insanity. He took a step forward, then turned and walked
away, wondering, and hotly indignant. He was filled with rage that any
man should dare to speak to him so, and wished with all his heart that
John McIntyre's hair had not been so white, nor his shoulders so
stooped and thin.
But with his amazement and indignation there was struggling a new
feeling. The May night was cool, but he felt suffocatingly hot. He
shrugged his shoulders. Nonsense! The man certainly was mad. How
could any sane person accuse him of leaving his best friend to starve?
And yet--
A figure in white was coming down the village street. It was the
princess of the ravine. She was dressed as suited her now, in a long,
white, filmy gown, which she held up daintily. She wore no hat, and
the bronze hair crowning her shapely head caught the sunset light and
shone like gold.
She spoke to him, with a stately sweetness that recognized their
previous acquaintance, but invited no further advance. The deep,
searching look in her eyes, the same as in her old uncle's, made
Gilbert feel uncomfortable. It seemed as if she knew, and every one
knew, that he had been guilty of "selfishness and dishonesty."
He did not worry long over the strange man and his stranger accusation,
for his fortune took a sudden happy turn.
Down on the Lake Simcoe road, about a couple of miles below the
village, lived old Mrs. McKitterick, the mother of Conductor Lauchie.
For years she had been an invalid, and a great sufferer, and poor
Lauchie had spent half his earnings on doctors' bills; but still she
lay in her bed weary month after weary month. They called in the new
doctor, and he tried a new form of treatment, a simple operation, and
before a month was gone the old lady walked to the barnyard gate and
waved her shawl at Lauchie's train as it came puffing out of the swamp.
And the conductor blew her such a joyous salute that folks thought
there must be an accident, and Jake Sawyer stopped his mill and ran up
the track to see if any of the orphans had been run over.
The real cause of the uproar was soon proclaimed from Long's upstairs,
and with it went ringing over the countryside the fame of the new
doctor.
Gilbert awoke one morning to find himself the most important man in the
township of Oro, and the busiest. Patients came from all directions,
and Speed, his trim little mare, went flying over the hills and dales
as though she, too, were heartily glad that work had begun. Lauchie
McKitterick advertised him at every station along the line, and when
the doctor wanted to go anywhere on the train Davy Munn needed only to
brandish his mother's sunbonnet from the window of the stable loft, and
the Lakeview and Simcoe express stopped just below his back gate. He
was soon so busy that Granny Long had to give up her afternoon nap to
keep track of his swift movements. There was always something doing in
the village, too. There was often an accident in the mill, and there
was always an accident at Jake Sawyer's. The eldest orphan fell into
the mill-pond, and was nearly drowned; the twins took a dose of Paris
green just to see if it really would turn their hair into grass; and
Joey ate all the early green apples off a Duchess tree. Then there was
Granny Long's neuralgia and Uncle Hughie Cameron's rheumatism; and Mrs.
Winters declared she believed folks got sick on purpose, for the sake
of calling the doctor in.
There was some shadow of truth in this, for as the young man came and
went among the people's homes their admiration for his skill was soon
mingled with a warmer feeling. He had such a "takin' way" with him,
old Granny Long declared, that a body just couldn't help being glad to
see him; and old Mrs. McKitterick said the sight of his face was like a
dose of medicine, a compliment the young doctor accepted gratefully in
its true meaning. Even Mrs. Winters, and all the other famous nurses
of the district, who, over an afternoon cup of tea, would give him full
instructions upon how to treat this case and that, agreed that the
doctor was generally right. And then, though he always had his own way
in the end, he took their advice with such good humor, and never
scoffed, the way old Dr. Williams did. He would walk into the house
and order things in a way that commanded the admiration of even the
Duke of Wellington. He scolded the mothers roundly whenever he was
called to see a sick baby. He denounced pork and pickles as a child's
diet, and made such a fuss about air-tight bedrooms that Jake Sawyer,
who, in company with his wife, lived in terror lest a draught of night
air should blow on the orphans' precious heads, was forced into the
patient complaint that though the doctor was a fine young man, and
their eldest was just crazy over him, still he believed, if he had his
way, he'd turn folks out of house and home, to live in the road, like
tinkers.
The busier Gilbert became the happier he grew. Elmbrook stood, in the
center of a rich agricultural district, his patients were mostly
wealthy farmers, and he began to feel that he was not so far from his
ambition, after all. He would be well enough off at the end of two
years to set up a city practice and make a home for Rosalie.
Among the doctor's first social appearances was tea at the manse, where
he met again the beautiful Miss Cameron. She came with her brother
Malcolm, who was Gilbert's assistant since he had returned from
college. When he was not too busy in the fields, or in dancing
attendance on Marjorie Scott, the young man rendered the doctor
considerable help.
It was a warm evening, and when tea was finished the company sat out on
the veranda. The manse and the church were in full view of the
village, half a mile distant, and a fine target for the telescope, as
the minister's wife well knew. But here they were screened from
observation by the vines.
"You have never heard Miss Cameron sing, have you, Dr. Allen?" asked
the minister's wife. "Then there's a treat in store for you. Run in
and give us a song, Elsie, dear."
Gilbert murmured something polite. He was quite sure Miss Cameron's
singing would be very sweet and pretty, like herself; but he still had
tingling recollections of the whip-poor-will song, and his anxiety to
hear more Elmbrook talent was only mild.
The girl arose from the steps and returned to the twilight of the
parlor. "Give us 'Abide with me,' Elsie," called the minister, leaning
back in his worn armchair with a contented sigh.
"That's the one father always asks for," said his wife, with a smile.
"He says he'd rather hear your Elsie sing that, Malcolm, than listen to
the best minister in Canada preach."
Young Malcolm turned reluctantly. He was seated on the bottom step,
engaged in an absorbing conversation with the minister's eldest
daughter, and did not like to be interrupted; but he knew better than
to neglect Marjorie's mother.
"Yes, Elsie whoops it up not so badly, sometimes," he remarked with
brotherly candor not unmixed with pride. "I like to hear her, all
right, when she's singing an out-and-out song that's got a head and
tail to it. But when she gets on to those hee-ha, hee-ha Italian
fireworks things, away up in G, I generally cut for the barn."
"Hush!" said the minister gently. The first notes of the prelude came
floating out of the dusk, and then, soft and sweet, and uttered with a
perfect enunciation, the words:
"_Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!_"
The voice was pure and full, and as clear as a bird's; but there was
something deeper in it than mere beauty, some subtle, compelling
quality that made the tears rise unbidden, and that forced the heart to
join in the prayer it uttered.
No one moved until the last line rang out triumphantly.
"In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!"
When she had finished, Gilbert spoke no word of admiration. It had
been so much better than he had dreamed that words seemed inadequate.
She sang again and again; now the song was gay, now grave, and she
ended with an ecstatic spring song that had in it the sparkle of the
stream, the song of the robin, and all the glorious delight of earth's
resurrection.
When she came out to them again and her audience expressed their
pleasure, Gilbert looked at her with a sharp feeling of pity. They had
enjoyed her singing, no doubt, but they had no idea how wonderful it
was. And to be able to sing like that, and not be appreciated, was
tragic.
"I suppose you are going back to Toronto to study, next autumn?" he
said, when she was seated again on the veranda steps.
"No, I think not," she said, with what seemed to him shocking
indifference. "Not for some years at least, if ever."
"Why--you--you are surely not going to give up studying music!" he
cried bluntly. "You, with a voice like that!"
His tone was unconsciously flattering. The girl smiled gratefully.
She looked at him very gravely, as though about to speak, when she
caught her brother's eye upon her, and paused with an embarrassed air.
"That's just what we're all saying to her, doctor," he said. "She
ought to go, but she won't."
"Oh, I may, some time," she said lightly, "but I have had enough
lessons for a while. Now, Marjorie, aren't you going to play for us?"
Gilbert went home, wondering over this strange young woman, and feeling
toward her a strong impatience. Either she did not know the magnitude
of the talent she possessed, or she was wofully lacking in ambition.
With that voice, and a little spirit, there was nothing she might not
accomplish; while here she was, content to feed chickens, and carry
eggs to the corner store, with the placid assurance that she "had had
enough lessons for a while." If she had not been so stately, he felt
he would like to shake her.
He did not meet her again for some time; for even when he found leisure
to attend a social gathering, she was seldom present. But he was on
the lookout for her. He determined that the next time he met her he
would give her some much-needed advice. She ought to be stirred up.
These country folk had no ambition.
Her brother seemed to have no lack of it, he discovered. He took young
Malcolm with him to see a patient occasionally, and on one long drive
the boy confided in him something of the struggle it had been to give
them all an education. It was a lucky thing that Elsie didn't want to
go on with her music, he said, for the expense of her training would be
so great that both he and Jean would have to stay home for some years,
and Jean was dying to go to the high school in the fall. Both Uncle
Hughie and mother had declared that Elsie must have first chance, but
Elsie didn't want to go, and it certainly was lucky, though they were
all sorry, of course, that she wasn't going on.
Gilbert wondered a little over the lad's remarks, but forgot them until
the next occasion when he met Miss Cameron.
He had been up to see a patient among the Glenoro hills, and was
driving homeward. The road was a narrow, lonely one, winding here and
there through the dense wood. On either side the trees and underbrush
made a towering green wall. Through it the eye could catch occasional
glimpses of the flower-spangled earth, or a vista of splendid trunks
with the sunlight making golden splashes on their spreading boughs.
Gilbert pulled up Speed and drove slowly. Her hoofs made but a
smothered pad, pad in the soft leaf-mold. The air was cool, and laden
with the delicious scents of moss and bracken and leaf-strewn earth.
Far away in the green depths a whitethroat was sending forth his long,
clear, silvery call, in endless praise of "Canada! Canada! Canada!"
As Gilbert turned a curve in the road a figure appeared ahead, a figure
that seemed to add the finishing touch to the almost perfect scene--a
girl, her arms full of marigolds, walking along the flower-bordered
pathway.
She wore a pale-green gown, her bronze hair was shaded by a big straw
hat, and she seemed a harmonious part of the gold-and-green picture of
the summer woods.
The young doctor drew up at her side. She was a little pale and
weary-looking from her long, hot walk, and she gladly accepted his
invitation to ride. Jim had needed another man for the haying, she
said, and she was the only one who could be spared to go and seek one;
she was very fortunate to get a ride home.
As Gilbert helped her into his buggy he looked at her wonderingly. Was
she really content with her homely tasks, or could it be possible that
she was making this sacrifice voluntarily?
"Can you be quite content to settle down here in Elmbrook, when you
might be making fame for yourself in a big city?" he asked. "I don't
believe you realize that you might some day move throngs with your
voice."
She smiled, with a tinge of sadness. "Well, you see, I am quite sure
of my work here," she said half playfully, "and one could never be
certain of a steady supply of 'moved throngs.'"
"You could," he cried earnestly. "You are wasting your talents."
She shook her head. "It is better to waste one's talents than
something better."
"What, for instance?"
"One's life."
"How could it be better employed, in your case, than by giving the
world your voice? You need to be more ambitious," he added bluntly.
She turned upon him that steady, scrutinizing glance that, from the
first, had made him conscious of inner unworthiness. Her eyes were
bright, and had lost the tired look; the cool breeze had brought back
the rose-leaf tints to her face, and had blown one bronze curl across
her forehead.
"You ought to hear Uncle Hughie on that subject," she said, with
apparent irrelevance. "He is always 'rastlin'' out some problem for
other people. One cannot live with him and be in doubt of one's duty."
"And he has taught you that it is your duty to remain at home?"
"Perhaps," she said, looking away into the mass of greenery by the
roadside. It was evident that she did not care to pursue the subject.
"Duty is generally the thing a fellow doesn't want to do," he remarked,
by way of making the conversation less personal.
"It's Uncle Hughie's pet hobby. He lost the chance of a college
education, and many other privileges, through adhering to it, and says
he has never regretted his action for a moment."
Gilbert was silent. The unbelievable thing must be true, then. This
girl was sacrificing her own chance of advancement for the sake of her
brother and sister. He looked at her with a feeling of reverence. To
give up so much was commendable, but to give it up quietly, without a
murmur, without even the chance of commendation--that was splendid.
"'You are in line with the universe,'" he quoted.
She glanced at him as if in alarm, and quickly changed the subject.
Gilbert understood; he was tacitly informed that her sacrifice was to
remain a secret.
He stifled a sigh. He could not help remembering, just then, that he
had acted quite a different part when duty had called to one path, and
ambition and pleasure to another. He had merely postponed the duty, of
course; that was not really shirking it, for he intended to perform it
to the last jot. Nevertheless, he wished that it had been done years
ago; and then he recalled the words of the dark watchman, and felt
himself grow hot again.
They turned another curve, and came out of the cool, green silence into
the hard, white, sunlit road that ran straight up to Elmbrook.
"I wonder if the telescope's on us!" cried the doctor, with a boyish
desire to get away from his uncomfortable reflections. He checked
himself, abashed, and glanced at his companion. Her stately gravity
made him half afraid of her. He thought of Rosalie's irresistible
gaiety, and longed for her radiant companionship. To his surprise,
Miss Cameron's eyes twinkled. Apparently, she had a sense of humor,
after all.
"That shows how thoroughly un-Elmbrooked you still remain. It's been
resting in the northeast window ever since you drove away, and Granny
Long has been wheeled in there to watch for your return." Gilbert felt
vastly more at his ease.
"You make me feel as if I were a new constellation."
"Or a rising star--I hope you are."
"Thank you. When you get to be the second Albani----"
"And you the greatest consulting physician in Canada----"
"Of course I shall remember that you encouraged me."
"It isn't really a joke, you know," she said with sweet seriousness.
"I don't think--I know you don't realize how important you are in the
eyes of the people about you. It is an"--her eyes were very grave--"an
exacting position, Dr. Allen."
They had reached her gate, and Gilbert was assisting her to alight. He
understood. She was paying him a delicate compliment, and with it was
the hint that he must line up to the Elmbrook ideal.
"I feel overcome with humiliation at the thought," he said, standing
before her, hat in hand, "when I consider my shortcomings."
She shook her head. "You ought to be glad. One can scarcely help
attaining to an ideal that is set before one so persistently every day."
Gilbert drove away humbled. This girl, with her splendid talent, had
quietly laid aside her chance of a great career because the road to
fame deviated from the path of duty. And she had done it without a
word or hint of martyrdom. And he--what had he done? How much thought
had he spent in the past ten years on the man who had given him his
chance in life? Suppose he had been to him all that he should have
been? Then he would have lost Rosalie and the two years abroad that
had brought him nearer her social level. Gilbert saw that there had
never been a moment when he had met the issue squarely. He had merely
put it aside, saying "Next year, next year." Well, what did it matter,
anyway? Martin was not in want. If he had needed the money it would
have been quite different; and when the time came he was going to do
something splendid for him. And he was doing so well now that the time
was not far off. But Gilbert was honest with himself. He knew well
that when the two years' work which he had laid out for himself in this
little backward place were ended it was not the neglected duty he would
consider, but a city practice, and a fine home worthy of Rosalie. For
the first time in his life the prospect brought him no pleasure.
CHAPTER VII
THE TRAINING OF THE ORPHANS
Off on de fiel' you foller de plough,
Den w'en you're tire' you scare de cow,
Sickin' de dog till dey jomp de wall,
So de milk ain't good for not'ing at all--
An you're only five an' a half dis fall,
Little Bateese!
--WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND.
In Elmbrook, parental discipline was simple and direct, and consisted
of but one method of procedure: when the rising generation departed
from the ways of its mothers it was promptly spanked back into the path
of rectitude, and no more about it.
But when the Sawyers found themselves possessed of a large and lively
family, all methods of discipline, whether sanctioned by long custom or
invented on the spur of the moment, through the extreme urgency of the
case, alike failed.
The orphans presented an entirely unique problem in the rearing of
children. In the first place, the community was completely taken aback
by their unexpected character. Not one of them at all conformed to the
picture of a forsaken child, as conceived by the village. The Elmbrook
ideal was the sort that languished on the front page of the
Sunday-school library books. It was quiet and pensive and hungry, and
gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken
father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing.
There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of
pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and
uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were
strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved,
body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive
that he was looked upon as the biggest counterfeit of the crowd.
During school hours the three eldest were kept in some sort of
conformity to law and order by the strong hand of the Duke of
Wellington; but at home and abroad they were a law unto themselves, and
kept the whole community in a state of apprehension, like people living
near the crater of an active volcano.
Their life had been largely spent in the slum district of a crowded
city, and the change to the freedom of the Oro fields and woods was
almost too much for the orphans. After school hours they all, with one
consent, went mad, and ranged far and wide over hill and dale, until
Granny Long's old hands grew weary readjusting the telescope. Then
when she did catch sight of them it was only to be grossly insulted;
for whenever the small scalawags guessed they were within range of the
spyglass they would stand in line, and go through frightful contortions
of the face and body, expressive of contempt for the instrument and
everything behind it.
Wherever the orphans went, depredations of all sorts followed. They
chased the neighbors' cows from the fields out to the road, and the
pigs from the road into the fields. They climbed trees and stole
birds' nests. They dammed the creek and flooded Cameron's pasture.
They teased Sandy McQuarry's old ram until it was mad with rage, and
butted the ex-elder all over the barnyard. They smashed windows, and
broke down fences, and, in fact, were a caution, and no mistake.
But in spite of all, their foster-parents lived in happy
unconsciousness of their imperfections. For they were so wonderfully
clever that Jake and Hannah were lost in admiration.
Certainly they worked a reform in the slow-moving Sawyer household.
They started with the garden, and even Mrs. Winters had to admit they
made an improvement there. Jake and Hannah had long felt the
humiliation of their scratched and scarred front yard, in such ugly
contrast to its trim surroundings, but they had never been able to
better matters. Hannah had received a present, some years before, of
twelve new fowls, which, as was their pious custom, she and Jake
presented with Bible names, calling them for the twelve sons of Israel.
And now each, like its namesake, had many descendants that had
multiplied upon the face of the garden, and turned that promising land
into a desert. Every year Jake faithfully dug flower-beds, and Hannah
as faithfully planted seeds; but, just as regularly, they were
scratched up by the Twelve Tribes.
But when the orphans arrived the marauders were taught their true
place. Though it was late in the season, the twins planted a half
bushel of flower seeds, and dug and raked enough for a plantation.
Then, the first time the Twelve Tribes emigrated from the back yard
they were promptly shooed across the street and over into the doctor's
garden. Davy Munn, indignant at this unsolicited presentation, as
promptly shooed them back again, and war was declared. Tim had
hitherto looked upon the gardening enterprise with contempt, but now he
entered heartily into it, and the battle raged tumultuously. Each side
was bombarded with sticks and stones and clods of dirt and hysterical
hens, until Granny Long sent word to the doctor that if he didn't want
to be buried alive he'd better do something to the orphans, and that
right speedily. So the young man marched into the field, routed both
sides, and chased the Twelve Tribes back to their own country. For a
long time the eldest orphan felt the terrifying strength of the arm
that had lifted him from the ground and shaken him till his teeth
chattered. Thereafter he had such a profound admiration for the doctor
that his viceroy, Davy Munn, was allowed to rule his own yard in peace.
But the hens had still to be conquered, so the orphans set to work and
built around the back yard a lofty fence of wire and laths, borrowed
from the sawmill when Sandy McQuarry was away. Inside this the Twelve
Tribes were shut up in Egyptian bondage until the garden was in bloom.
Even Isaac and Rebekah were permitted to promenade in the barnyard
only, among the dogs, cats and rabbits with which that interesting
place swarmed.
Within the house, too, the children accomplished a revolution. The
girls did nearly all the work, Hannah declared, and did it so swiftly
they left her in a state of dazed admiration. Of course, they were
liable to drop an unfinished task and take a sudden excursion to field
or wood, but, on the whole, even Mrs. Winters was forced to confess
that they were a caution, and no mistake, and might be smart
housekeepers some day, if Hannah would only make them behave.
Sometimes a doubt of their absolute perfection would darken, for a
moment, their foster-mother's placid sky, but even then her blame was
tempered with praise.
"Well! well! well!" she remarked one evening, "yous youngsters is awful
smart, that's a fact; but I'm 'most scared you're too smart."
This confession was wrung from her by the black-haired twin's dexterity
in catching a plate that the fair-haired one had let fall, and at the
same instant administering a sharp slap to the delinquent's ear.
Hannah was preparing the evening meal, with spasmodic assistance from
the family. She stood over the stove, frying pancakes, while the
orphans darted about her like swallows. Tim, always the swiftest, in
spite of his lameness, was rushing about in his usual capacity of
superintendent, cramming more wood into the already red-hot stove,
tasting the pancakes to see if they were just right, and rapping Joey
over the head with the dripping batter-spoon when he attempted to
follow his example. At brief intervals he would dart into the
dining-room to settle a dispute between the belligerent twins.
The latter were setting the table with the best china teaset, a
precious relic handed down from Jake's grandmother, and used only when
there was distinguished company. No visitors were expected to-night,
but the twins loved variety, and had arrayed the table in its best as a
pleasant surprise for daddy. Joey was busiest of all. He had wailed
loudly for a task, and Hannah had given him permission to fill the
woodbox and the water-bucket. He was diligently carrying out her
instructions, with one slight variation that showed him to be a true
orphan. He filled the bucket with sticks, and then went paddling to
and from the water-barrel, leaving a wet and muddy trail behind him,
and gleefully deposited dipperfuls of water into the woodbox. He was
finally discovered by his brother, promptly cuffed, and set to reverse
the order of his going.
The arrival of Jake from the mill was the signal for a shrieking exodus
in his direction, and soon afterward they were all seated around the
table. The twins were placed opposite each other, to prevent
hair-pulling--making faces did not cause much disturbance--and Jake and
Hannah sat at either end, gazing at the array with much the same air as
that with which a pair of good-tempered, puzzled hens might regard a
swarm of agile ducklings.
After Jake had rapturously praised the fine appearance of the table,
the orphans were, with some difficulty, prevailed upon to sit still
while the blessing was being asked; and then the pancakes and the hot
biscuits and the maple syrup began to disappear in an amazing manner.
"Well, an' how's daddy's little woodpecker?" asked Jake, passing his
big hand fondly over Joey's red curls. "Been a good boy to-day?"
"Yep," answered the baby in muffled tones. He looked up at his
foster-father cunningly. "You won't t'rash me w'en I been a good boy,
will yeh?"
"Bless the baby's heart! Who'd talk o' thrashin' you?" roared the big
man. "If any fellow lifts a finger to you, you let daddy
know--an'--an'--he'll bash their heads in for them!" he added
explosively.
The elder boy glanced up at the man with an admiring flash in his old,
weary eyes. "Ole Mis' Cummins uster lambaste him when she came home at
night," he said in a hard voice. "That's what's made them marks on his
legs."
Jake Sawyer set his teeth and Hannah sighed and shook her head. Any
mention of the old drunken woman with whom the children had lived,
before the Home rescued them, the orphans well knew always stirred
their foster-parents' tender hearts.
"Tim uster throw stones at her, an' stick pins into her when she was
drunk!" cried the black-haired twin, in shrill triumph. "An' she uster
pull my hair, too, an' Lennie's, an' we stole her scissors an' cut it
off awful short. But it didn't do no good, 'cause she uster whack us
over the heads with her walkin'-stick."
"Well, there ain't nobody goin' to whack any o' yous any more," said
big Jake Sawyer grimly. "'Ceptin' it's me, when you're bad," he added
warningly.
This awful threat was received with loud laughter, and Joey hammered
the table with his spoon and shouted joyfully, knowing there must be a
grand joke somewhere.
Hannah looked across the table and nodded to her husband; it was a good
time to disclose an important secret.
"Now we want yous to be awful good kids to-night," said Jake, pushing
back his plate, and taking Joey on his knee, "because the minister's
comin' to see you."
"The minister! Why, he's been here already!" cried the black-haired
twin indignantly. "What's he comin' again for?"
"That was jist a call," said Hannah. "This is different. It's a
pastoral visitation this time," she added solemnly. The orphans looked
at each other apprehensively.
"What's that?" demanded Tim.
"It's when he comes to hear you say your verses an' your catechism,"
explained Jake soothingly; "and you'll all show him how much you know;
an' then he prays, and you must be awful good and quiet. Eh, little
woodpecker?"
The black-haired twin looked across the table at the fair-haired twin,
and each read aright the other's rebellious thought; one sharp glance
from Tim, and the matter was settled. The minister might make his
pastoral visitation, if he wanted to, but if he thought they were going
to stay home to say verses, and be quiet, he was mistaken.
The Sawyer parents were dreading signs of rebellion, and Hannah now
added enticingly: "We're goin' to pass 'round the gingerbread and the
ras'berry vinegar, and Susan Winters said yous girls could dress up in
your new plaid dresses."
The twins looked doubtful. Gingerbread and their new frocks! This
gave the pastoral visitation a festive aspect. They slipped away from
the table, and followed their elder brother out to the back yard.
"Whatter ye goin' to do, Tim?" asked the black-haired twin, divided
between dread of what the pastoral visitation might bring forth and a
natural curiosity to sound its unknown depths.
"Mammy says we can wear our Sunday dresses," said the fair-haired one
weakly.
Tim was drifting slowly, but surely, toward a hole in the back fence.
"Yous can stay, if ye wanter, but you bet I don't!" He wagged his head
ominously.
"Why, what'll he do?" The black-haired twin balanced herself
miraculously on the edge of the water-barrel and stared.
"He'll ast ye"--Tim's voice was sepulchral--"he'll ast ye if ye're
saved."
"If ye're what?" cried the twins, in alarm.
"If ye're saved. Preachers always does that. It means if ye're goin'
to the bad place."
"Well, I ain't," said the black-headed twin stoutly.
"Me neither," promptly echoed her sister.
Their brother regarded them darkly. "You can't never tell," he
answered ominously. "You'd better look out, when the minister's
'round. He ast Billy Winters if he'd got his soul saved."
"His sole?" The fair-haired twin looked down at the flapping and worn
foundation of the shoes so lately purchased, and then at the family
oracle.
"Aw, it ain't your boot-sole," he said disdainfully; "it's somethin' in
your insides; an' if ye don't get it fixed up, an' saved, the
minister'll send ye to the bad place, sure. He'll ast ye about it," he
added threateningly.
This was too much for the courage of the twins. Even the charms of the
gingerbread and their new plaid dresses could scarcely compensate for
the terrors of that occult something concerning whose mysteries the
minister would be sure to inquire.
Their brother was backing through the hole in the fence. "He'll tell
ye ye've gotter to be awful good, too," he added, more explicitly.
That settled it. This was something one could understand, and was not
to be tolerated for a moment. The twins made a dive after him, and the
three did not stop running until they began to roll down the bank of
the ravine. When they were safely hidden in the green depths Tim
delivered his ultimatum. "Yous two kids ain't goin' to tag after me,
mind ye that," and swaggered away.
The black-haired twin stood for a moment glaring after him, in dark
rebellion. She opened her mouth to scream imprecations, but thought
better of it. Tim had a long memory, and an uncomfortable way of
exacting penalties for any such indignity. She soothed her outraged
feelings somewhat by throwing a stone after the little, limping figure,
her erratic aim saving her from discovery.
"Le's go an' play lady," said the fair-haired twin comfortingly. "I
bar be Elsie Cameron."
"No, you don't!" cried her stronger-minded sister. "I'm goin' to be
Elsie. You can be old Arabella Winters, an' you can have Rebekah for
your parrot," she said derisively.
But the fair-haired twin, though of a yielding disposition, was subject
to stubborn fits. "I won't play, then," she said, sitting down heavily
upon a stone.
Her sister understood the sign, and compromised.
"Well, we'll say 'Eevery ivery,' an' see who's to be her," she
suggested.
"All right." The answer was delivered in a weary tone and with a total
lack of interest.
The black-haired one mounted a stone, and pointing her finger
alternately at herself and at her sister, went through the incantation:
"_Eevery, ivery, ickery Ann,
Fillacy, fallacy, Nicholas Dan;
Queevery, quavery,
English navy,
Come striddle, come straddle, come out!_"
The last word was uttered as she pointed at her sister, and the
fair-haired twin sprang up in triumph. "It's me!" she chanted, "it's
me! I'm to be Elsie Cameron!"
Her sister succumbed to the inevitable as good-naturedly as possible.
No one ever dreamed of calling into question the final decision of the
mystic rhyme. They flew down the bank to a green bower which had been
their playhouse ever since their arrival, and soon were amicably
engaged in a charming drama, in which Lenora was Miss Cameron, and
Lorena Dr. Allen, who, mounted upon a barrel-hoop, dashed gallantly up
to the door to take the young lady for a drive.
Meantime, Tim was still hurrying up the ravine, fired with a new
purpose. Ever since the day he had seen the strange, dark man of the
Drowned Lands defy the minister, the eldest orphan had regarded the
offender with worshiping interest. Among the other peculiarities of
the child's queer, twisted nature, was a feeling of comradeship with
the wicked and outcast. He had belonged to that class all his life,
and as public opinion grew in strength against John McIntyre, in like
proportion grew Tim's admiration.
To-night he was resolved to visit him. It was a fine opportunity, for
he could let the man see that he, too, was frightfully wicked, and
despised ministers--in fact, had left home that night because one was
coming.
As he scrambled along beneath the bridge he heard footsteps and voices
above him. He crouched down among the bracken. Billy Winters and the
other fellows might be there, and he did not want them when he went to
visit a man like John McIntyre. The voices passed, and he peeped out.
It was only Dr. Allen and that Cameron girl who sang. Tim decided not
to throw a stone, after all. The girl had come over and sung Joey to
sleep when he was sick, and the doctor was an uncomfortable sort of
person to hit with a rock.
He limped along the bank of the pond, dodging behind the willows, until
his feet sank in the soft sawdust. Then he paused behind a heap of
logs to reconnoiter.
Yes, there was the man sitting in the doorway of the engine-room, and
looking as dark and wicked as he had done that night when he had
thrilled Tim's heart by his shocking conduct. The boy drew slowly
near, half fearful of his own daring. What if the dark man should not
at first recognize him as a kindred spirit, and should leap at him with
a hand-spike? John McIntyre looked up.
"What do you want?" he asked harshly. "You'd better go home."
This was not a propitious beginning, and the visitor squirmed around in
embarrassment. His pride was rather hurt at the man's failure to
recognize him, and he could scarcely announce, just at the outset, that
he had run away from the minister and had come to him as a companion in
iniquity. Suddenly he thought of a remark that had hitherto never
failed to arouse the liveliest interest in a new acquaintance.
"I'm one o' the Sawyer orphants," he announced proudly.
The dark man looked no whit impressed. He made no reply, and Tim
gained courage to sidle up closer, and finally seated himself, in an
insinuating manner, on the extreme end of a piece of timber that lay
before the door. He turned cautiously and peered with absorbed
interest into the engine-room. The great black monster lay there,
dimly outlined in the warm darkness, giving forth a hissing sound, like
a giant breathing heavily in his sleep. The man arose and opened the
furnace door. That was like the giant's mouth, and he was eating his
supper of porridge, Tim thought, as the watchman shoveled in the
sawdust. The red glow lit up the dark man's face and arms, and the
boy's small, pinched countenance, and sent a red splash out on the
surface of the pond. The door slammed, and again only one bright line
beneath the damper showed against the darkness. The man came back, and
in silence resumed his seat. Tim was vastly interested in all
machinery, and Spectacle John, knowing the eldest orphan's peculiar
propensity toward accidents, had ordered him, on pain of sudden death,
not to show his face in the flour mill. Now, here was a chance to
examine a far bigger engine than Spectacle John's. There was another
charm besides his wickedness in this strange man. Tim became very
ingratiating.
"Who made that engine?" he asked in a friendly tone.
There was no reply. The man seemed unaware of his presence.
"Must have been somebody awful smart," added the visitor insinuatingly.
Still no answer.
"Mebby God made it," he ventured, just to see what effect this pious
remark would have on such a wicked unbeliever.
The man turned and looked at him. "You know better than that," he said
sharply.
Tim felt ashamed. John McIntyre would think him young and innocent,
like Billy Winters and Johnny McQuarry, who believed everything their
Sunday-school teacher said.
"Huh! I bet God ain't smart enough to make an engine like that," he
said profanely. He waited for the effect of this, but there was
apparently none; so he proceeded to give forth some more of the
unorthodox views that never failed to shock pretty Miss Marjorie Scott,
his Sunday-school teacher. "I don't believe half folks tell about God,
'cause I'm a--I'm a----" He hesitated, rummaging through his memory
for that terribly wicked name that Silas Long had given the new
watchman. It came to light at last. "I'm a infiddle!" he burst forth
proudly.
He waited, but even this tremendous disclosure called forth no remark.
Probably the man had consorted with infidels and such like all his
life, and thought nothing of them. Tim drew a deep breath. It gave
one a feeling of ecstatic fear to be able to utter such statements
unrebuked. He tried another.
"Miss Scott says--she's my Sunday-school teacher, only I don't go to
Sunday-school much, you bet--she says God made everybody, but I told
her if He made Spectacle John Cross He'd orter be ashamed. An' I bet
the devil made ole Mis' Cummins. She was the woman that brought us up,
an' I say, she was a corker!"
The man slowly turned his weary eyes and fixed them on the child's
face. The reflected light from the glimmering pond lit up the small,
wizened countenance, and for the first time he noted the signs it bore
of cruel suffering and ill usage.
"Another," he said, half aloud.
"What?" asked Tim, glad to have elicited even one word.
The man did not repeat it. "Where do you live?" he asked.
"Up at Jake Sawyer's. I'm one o' the Sawyer orphants, I told you."
It was impossible for even John McIntyre, living a life apart, though
he did, not to have heard something of the Sawyer orphans' fame. He
nodded.
"Are they good to you?"
Tim hesitated. He would have liked to tell a tale of woe and terrible
tortures, but his genuine regard for his foster-parents forbade. "Yes,
course," he answered shortly. "Only they tried to make me stay home
to-night 'cause the preacher was comin'. But I cut out, you bet; I
can't stand preachers."
The man made no comment. His sudden interest seemed to have as
suddenly vanished. He arose and took up his lantern.
"You must go home now," he said. "I have work to do."
He spoke in a voice that the child understood must be obeyed. Tim
arose and moved away, slowly and reluctantly.
"I'm comin' another night," he called back, in a voice half appealing,
half threatening. The man took no notice, and accepting this as
permission, the boy limped away, whistling gaily.
Meanwhile, at home, dire events were pending for the orphans. When the
minister arrived, and Jake and Hannah could produce only Joey as the
sole representative of their large family, they were covered with
humiliation. Never before, except in cases of severe illness, had it
been known throughout the whole Elmbrook congregation that the family
had failed to appear in full force at an official visit from the
minister. The visitor himself did not treat the matter lightly. He
hinted that Jake and Hannah had better keep a firm hand on their
children, if they intended to do their duty by them, and that obedience
must be exacted, at all costs. When he was gone the husband and wife
sat despondently in the empty parlor, while Joey ate the remains of the
gingerbread and drank all the raspberry vinegar, unnoticed. This was a
serious problem. The orphans had really disgraced themselves this
time, and something must be done.
"Let's go and ask Susan Winters; she'll know," suggested Hannah.
"Mebby hers might 'a' run away once when the minister called."
Jake shook his head mournfully. He was quite sure such a thing could
never have happened in the Winters' well-managed family. Nevertheless,
he shouldered Joey, and they went down the street to consult the
village oracle. The Duke of Wellington had dropped in for a chat, and
the two vigorously took up the case of the absconded orphans. Mrs.
Winters, backed up by the schoolmistress, declared that the family's
only salvation lay in a thorough, all-around thrashing; and after much
scolding, and dire prophecies of the gallows as the termini of the
orphans' careers, Jake and Hannah, like two frightened children, were
driven to make the desperate promise that as soon as the culprits
returned they would administer to each a severe castigation.
When the stern parents returned home, and sat on the front step to
consider what was before them, they were filled with dismay.
"If the little woodpecker'd been into it I wouldn't 'a' promised--no,
not even for Susan Winters," announced Jake gloomily, as he watched
Joey tumbling about the grass with Joshua, the dog. "Spankin' kids
ain't a man's work, anyhow," he added, glancing meaningly at his wife.
"Oh, Jake!" she cried tremulously, "you wouldn't think o' makin' me do
it? I--jist couldn't!"
"Well, somebody's got to," said Jake, setting his teeth, "'cordin' to
Susan an' the Dook. What does an old maid like her know about bringin'
up kids, anyhow?" he added rebelliously.
A scrambling noise, and the sound of smothered giggles, floated from
the back yard.
"That's them!" cried Jake in a terrified voice. "You go and order them
to come 'round here, Hannah," he added, with the air of one who is
putting off the day of execution, "an' I'll get the gad."
Hannah arose and slowly passed out to the back door. The three truants
were trying to make themselves invisible behind the pump.
"Come on 'round to the front, children!" called their foster-mother, in
a voice that trembled. "You've been awful bad children, so you have!"
With this bold statement Hannah's courage vanished. She turned and
fled indoors to find refuge with Jake. But, alas for the poor wife!
In the most trying ordeal of her life her husband had basely deserted
her. Neither Jake nor Joey was to be seen. The instrument of
execution, a small, twig-like branch from the lilac bush, was lying
upon the doorstep. Mrs. Sawyer took it up with a Spartan air. If Jake
could so meanly fly from his duty then she must so much the more face
hers.
"Yous youngsters has been awful bad," she reiterated, returning to the
back door, and shaking the innocent-looking branch menacingly, "an'
you've jist got to be--to be--whipped," she ended up faintly.
The orphans stared at her for a moment in open-mouthed amazement; then,
with shrieks of hysterical laughter, the twins bounded off the veranda
and scrambled up to the safe sanctuary of the woodpile.
Tim alone stood his ground. He surveyed the meager weapon in the
woman's hand, contempt in his wise old eyes. "Ye kin lick me, if ye
like, for the hull o' them," he said, with weary indifference. "I
don't care. I'm used to it."
At this pathetic confession, Mrs. Sawyer threw down the disciplining
rod and sank upon the doorstep. She buried her face in her apron and
burst into sobs. At the sight of her grief, so inexplicable, so
terrifying, the twins pitched themselves off the woodpile and flung
themselves upon her. They wound their arms chokingly about her neck;
they petted and caressed, and besought her not to cry; they bewailed
their own shortcomings, and made unconditional promises of perfection
in the future. And even Tim sidled up, and volunteered a vague hint
concerning contemplated reformation.
So Hannah dried her tears, and lighting a lamp, fetched more
gingerbread and raspberry vinegar from the cellar, and they all
repaired to the parlor to celebrate the family reunion. They were in
the midst of the feast when there came a stealthy movement at the back
door, and Jake crept sheepishly in, leading Joey by the hand. He
looked at his wife with an expression of mingled contrition and
frightened inquiry. Hannah beamed back perfect forgiveness and
assurance, and in his overwhelming relief Jake caught up the twins and
swung them over his head. The whole family immediately gave itself up
to riot, and when the Duke of Wellington and Mrs. Winters came over to
see if the orphans had been properly subdued they found the
undisciplined household, Hannah included, engaged in a glorious game of
blind man's buff. Even while the two officers of the law were peeping
through the kitchen window, Jake upset the water-pail, and the twins
broke a glass pitcher, all unheeded.
Mrs. Winters and the Duke turned, and marched indignantly homeward.
"Well!" exclaimed the exasperated village manager, as she stumbled
through the Sawyers' lumpy garden, "what we've got to do 'fore we can
raise them orphants, is to raise them two old fools they've got for a
father and mother, and I guess it's about fifty years too late!"
Not till the still unchastened orphans were in bed and asleep did Jake
again broach the subject of corporal punishment. For some time he
walked up and down the kitchen, scratching his head, as he always did
when worrying out a mental problem.
At length he gave a sigh of satisfaction, and paused before the table
where Hannah sat mending Tim's riven trousers.
"We ain't a-goin' to try that Winters dodge no more, Hannah," he
announced firmly, "an' that's all about it."
Hannah looked up joyfully. "Oh, Jake, I'm awful glad! I couldn't do
it--I jist couldn't!"
"Of course you couldn't," he cried sympathetically, "An', what's more,
you don't have to try any more. We'll do our best by them kids other
ways, an' the good Lord'll see they don't turn out bad. But there's
one thing dead sure, an' you can tell Susan Winters, and the Dook,
too--I ain't a-goin' to raise my hand to no motherless child; no, not
if they burn down the mill; and may the Lord help me so to do!"
CHAPTER VIII
A STRANGE COMRADESHIP
O wind of death, that darkly blows
Each separate ship of human woes
Far out on a mysterious sea,
I turn, I turn my face to thee.
--ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
In spite of the excitement attendant upon the orphans' waywardness and
the doctor's growing practice, Elmbrook did not lose sight of the new
watchman in the mill.
Since the minister's rebuff, the village generally had ceased all
advances; but they watched John McIntyre from a distance, with deep
interest, not unmixed with fear. There was something in his whole
conduct to arouse apprehension. Every evening at dusk he came stealing
up the valley from the Drowned Lands, and every morning, in the gray
dawn, he stole away again. Silent and morose, avoiding all contact
with his fellow-men, he came and went with the darkness, until he
seemed a creature of night and shadows. One or two of the more kindly
souls of the village still made vain attempts to be friendly. Old
Hughie Cameron visited the mill several evenings, and Silas Long
carried his telescope down to the engine-room door, and strove to
introduce the strange man to the joys of star-gazing. Even the
minister, grieved at his former harshness, paid him a second visit.
But all alike were repulsed. John McIntyre would accept kindness from
no man, and one by one they were forced to leave him to himself. Some
of the women, too, tried to pierce his reserve, with as little effect.
The Longs lived near the mill-pond, and Mrs. Long had been in the habit
of sending Jerry Coombs, the former watchman, a nightly lunch. So one
evening she borrowed Davy Munn, and sent him down to the mill with a
strawberry pie and a plate of cookies that would have tempted any
living man. They were returned with dignified thanks, and Silas and
his wife sat and exclaimed over the strange man's obstinacy, while Davy
Munn and the eldest orphan despatched the despised viands. Mrs. Long
told her story the next afternoon at Miss McQuarry's, where the village
mothers had met to make a quilt for the Sawyer twins' bed. Every one
agreed that John McIntyre certainly was a caution, and the hostess
declared, with a sigh, that she was jist terrible feared he would bring
retribution upon Sandy for his treatment of the minister.
Ella Anne Long remarked, between stitches, that his house was a sight
to behold, and no mistake.
"Did you see into it with the spyglass?" inquired Mrs. Winters, from
the other end of the quilt, glad to get a slap at the mischievous
instrument.
"No, I didn't!" said Miss Long indignantly. "It was when Arabella and
me were down there, pickin' strawberries in the old clearin'. You can
ask Arabella, there, if you don't believe me."
Miss Arabella, with an apologetic glance at her sister-in-law,
corroborated the statement. They had seen inside the door that day
quite by accident, and the place was a dreary sight: a broken-down old
table, and only a piece of a log for a seat, and a heap of rags and
straw in an old bunk for a bed.
"Eh, poor man! poor buddy!" cried old lady Cameron pityingly. "An' him
with such a fine Hielan' name, too!"
Mrs. Winters suggested that they make a raid upon the place some
evening after he had left for the mill, and scrub and clean up. It was
a disgrace to the village to have such conditions not a mile from your
very door!
But old lady Cameron did not quite sanction such extreme measures. A
man's home was his castle, her brother Hughie always said, and no one
had any right to enter without his permission. So the quilting-bee
ended in a great deal of talk, and John McIntyre's condition remained
unbettered.
The Elmbrook Temperance League next took him up. Spectacle John Cross
was president of the society, and was assured that it was drink that
ailed John McIntyre. No one had ever seen him overcome with liquor,
neither had he ever been known to go to Lakeview, where was the nearest
point at which it could be obtained. But Spectacle John said you could
never tell. He might run a private still in that old place away back
in the swamp, and he just looked like the kind that could carry a
gallon and yet walk steady. Spectacle John had met that sort often on
his temperance campaigns.
So they sent invitations to John McIntyre to join their ranks, all of
which he emphatically refused. Spectacle John received little
encouragement from the milkstand. Old Hughie Cameron was of the
opinion, having rastled it out one evening to the tune of "The Cameron
Men," that to ask that poor buddy to join his bit of a society was like
asking the folks at a funeral to come and play hop-scotch. Likely, the
man never touched liquor; and, anyway, his trouble was a sad one,
whatever it was, and needed a remedy that would go deeper.
While the village thus pondered over John McIntyre's case, there was
one person who was slowly, but surely, piercing his armor of reserve.
Ever since his first visit, the eldest orphan had felt the fascination
of the wicked watchman growing, and gradually he fell into the habit of
paying him a short visit every evening. He had various reasons for
going. First, he really felt a strange affinity for this outcast.
John McIntyre was very bad, he hated good people and law and order, and
Tim was convinced that he also was the enemy of all such. Then, too,
when the boys at school learned that he was McIntyre's intimate it
threw an evil glamor over him. He added to it by dark hints of the
plots he and the watchman were hatching; the breaking of the dam and
the burning of the mill being among the smallest. Then there was that
wonderful engine he was free to examine. And last of all, Tim noticed
a strange and delightful circumstance that often attended his visits to
McIntyre. When he had been spending an evening at the mill, old Hughie
Cameron was often on the bridge as he came down the willow path; and he
never failed to pat him on the head and slip a cent into his hand.
At first, Jake and Hannah were greatly exercised over the growing
intimacy between their boy and the wicked man who had defied the
minister. They even had horrible visions of resorting to Mrs. Winters'
extreme measures once more to keep their eldest away from the mill; but
old Hughie Cameron allayed their fears. John McIntyre would never harm
a child, he declared firmly. So, much relieved, the Sawyers let the
boy have his way.
At first the man merely tolerated the child's presence in silence; but
as he grew accustomed to it he sometimes caught himself glancing down
the willow-bordered path to see if the little, hobbling figure, in the
scant trousers and the big straw hat, were yet in sight. All
conversation remained, for a time, one-sided. It consisted chiefly of
a string of questions on the boy's part, interspersed with reluctant
answers from the man. Sometimes, weary of seeking information
unsuccessfully, Tim would deliver it himself, and would talk all
evening about his past hard life. After some of its sad disclosures he
noticed that his companion was less taciturn, and he seized such
opportunities for wringing from him something of his views on religion.
"Who made this pond?" he asked one night, when the water was a radiance
of golden ripples.
"I don't know," answered his companion shortly.
"But who d'ye s'pose made it?"
"I suppose it was Sandy McQuarry, when he put the mill here."
"How did he do it?"
"He dammed the creek."
"Oh, and who made the crick?"
"It was always there."
"Yes, but who made it in the first place?"
No answer.
"Was it God?"
"I--I suppose so."
"Oh, ain't you dead sure? Who could it 'a' been, then?"
Still silence.
"Was it God?"
"Yes."
Tim looked surprised. "Miss Scott, she says God made everything, but
she never knew ole Mother Cummins, or she'd never 'a' said that. She
don't know much, though," he added, with a sigh for the narrow
experience of his Sunday-school teacher. "You don't s'pose God would
'a' let anybody like ole Mother Cummins live if He bothered much about
things, do you?"
The man flashed a look of sympathy into the child's old, pinched face.
This boy's problem was his. How could the Almighty care, and yet
permit such things to be? John McIntyre had answered that question for
himself by saying that the Almighty--if there were an Almighty--did not
care; but when he looked into the child's hungry, questioning eyes his
unbelief seemed inadequate.
"D'ye think He would?" persisted the boy.
John McIntyre hesitated. For the first time he recoiled from
expressing his contempt for God and humanity. "Most people are bad,
but----" He paused. Then, to his own surprise, he added: "There's
your new father and mother, you know."
"Yes, God must 'a' made them, all right," agreed Tim emphatically.
"Mebby he couldn't help folks like ole Mis' Cummins an' Spectacle John.
Ole Hughie Cameron said Spectacle John was a son of Belial, an' I bet
that's right, 'cause he won't let us go near daddy's mill. Say"--he
looked up, and put the question in an awed whisper--"are you a son o'
Belial, too? Silas Long said you was."
There was no reply to this, and the boy sat regarding John McIntyre
thoughtfully. He was beginning to fear he was not so gloriously wicked
as the village believed.
"Say, you ain't a--a infiddle, after all, are you?" he added, in a
disappointed tone. And John McIntyre did not deny the charge.
Little by little, the man was inveigled into conversation. At first,
his few remarks were merely about the engine or the lumber, as the boy
followed him on his rounds through the mill. But the field gradually
widened, until one night he was led to speak of his past--those days of
love and peace, now separated from him by years of bitter sorrow. It
was a little bird that opened the door into those golden days. The two
incongruous figures were sitting, as usual, in the wide, dark doorway.
In front lay the shining water, in its feathery willow frame, and still
rosy with the last faint radiance of the sunset. As the pond slowly
paled to a mirror-like crystal, the moon, round and golden, rose up
from the darkness of the Drowned Lands. It sent a silver shaft down
into the shadowy ravine, and a gleam from the brook answered. Just as
its light came stealing on through the willowy fringe to touch the
waters of the pond there arose, from the dark grove opposite the mill,
a rapturous song.
"What's that?" cried Tim, in startled joy.
"A catbird," answered John McIntyre.
"Oh, say! That's the little beggar that was meyowing jist now, ain't
it?"
"Yes."
"Billy Winters always said it was a wildcat, and was scarder'n a
rabbit. Hello! There he goes again! Say! ain't he a little corker,
though? Did you ever hear him before?"
"Yes."
"Any other place than here?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Far away."
"Where you uster live 'fore you came here?"
"Yes."
"Were there
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/29023