Chapter 9

"She said more, but I didn't even listen. I was back with Jimmy by the roadside, and his 'Don't--tell--the--folks' was ringin' in my ears. I understood it then, the whole thing from the beginnin'; an' I felt dazed an' shocked, as if some one had struck me a blow in the face. I wan't brought up ter think lyin' an' deceivin' was right.

"I got up by an' by an' left the house. I paid poor Jimmy's bill fer clothes--the clothes that I knew he wore when he stood tall an' straight in the doorway ter meet his mother's adorin' eyes. Then I went home.

"I told Sam that Jimmy's things got burned up in the fire--which was the truth. I stopped there. Then I went to see the girl--an' right there I got the surprise of my life. She knew. He had told her the whole thing long before he come home, an' insisted on givin' her up. Jest what he meant ter do in the end, an' how he meant ter do it, she didn't know; an' she said with a great sob in her voice, that she didn't believe he knew either. All he did know, apparently, was that he didn't mean his ma should find out an' grieve over it--how he had failed. But whatever he was goin' ter do, it was taken quite out of his hands at the last.

"As fer Bessie, now,--it seems as if she can't do enough fer Sam an' Mis' Hadley, she's that good ter 'em; an' they set the world by her. She's got a sad, proud look to her eyes, but Jimmy's secret is safe.

"As I said, I saw old Sam an' his wife in the cemetery to-night. They stopped me as usual, an' told me all over again what a good boy Jimmy was, an' how smart he was, an' what a lot he'd made of himself in the little time he'd lived. The Hadleys are old an' feeble an' broken, an' it's their one comfort--Jimmy's success."

Uncle Zeke paused, and drew a long breath. Then he eyed me almost defiantly.

"I ain't sayin' that Jimmy did right, of course; but I ain't sayin'--that Jimmy did wrong," he finished.

A Summons Home

Mrs. Thaddeus Clayton came softly into the room and looked with apprehensive eyes upon the little old man in the rocking-chair.

"How be ye, dearie? Yer hain't wanted fer nothin', now, have ye?" she asked.

"Not a thing, Harriet," he returned cheerily. "I'm feelin' real pert, too. Was there lots there? An' did Parson Drew say a heap o' fine things?"

Mrs. Clayton dropped into a chair and pulled listlessly at the black strings of her bonnet.

"'T was a beautiful fun'ral, Thaddeus--a beautiful fun'ral. I--I 'most wished it was mine."

"Harriet!"

She gave a shamed-faced laugh.

"Well, I did--then Jehiel and Hannah Jane would 'a' come, an' I could 'a' seen 'em."

The horrified look on the old man's face gave way to a broad smile.

"Oh, Harriet--Harriet!" he chuckled, "how could ye seen 'em if you was dead?"

"Huh? Well, I--Thaddeus,"--her voice rose sharply in the silent room,--"every single one of them Perkins boys was there, and Annabel, too. Only think what poor Mis' Perkins would 'a' given ter seen 'em 'fore she went! But they waited--_waited_, Thaddeus, jest as everybody does, till their folks is dead."

"But, Harriet," demurred the old man, "surely you'd 'a' had them boys come ter their own mother's fun'ral!"

"Come! I'd 'a' had 'em come before, while Ella Perkins could 'a' feasted her eyes on 'em. Thaddeus,"--Mrs. Clayton rose to her feet and stretched out two gaunt hands longingly,--"Thaddeus, I get so hungry sometimes for Jehiel and Hannah Jane, seems as though I jest couldn't stand it!"

"I know--I know, dearie," quavered the old man, vigorously polishing his glasses.

"Fifty years ago my first baby came," resumed the woman in tremulous tones; "then another came, and another, till I'd had six. I loved 'em, an' tended 'em, an' cared fer 'em, an' didn't have a thought but was fer them babies. Four died,"--her voice broke, then went on with renewed strength,--"but I've got Jehiel and Hannah Jane left; at least, I've got two bits of paper that comes mebbe once a month, an' one of 'em's signed 'your dutiful son, Jehiel,' an' the other, 'from your loving daughter, Hannah Jane.'"

"Well, Harriet, they--they're pretty good ter write letters," ventured Mr. Clayton.

"Letters!" wailed his wife. "I can't hug an' kiss letters, though I try to, sometimes. I want warm flesh an' blood in my arms, Thaddeus; I want ter look down into Jehiel's blue eyes an' hear him call me 'dear old mumsey!' as he used to. I wouldn't ask 'em ter stay--I ain't unreasonable, Thaddeus. I know they can't do that."

"Well, well, wife, mebbe they'll come--mebbe they'll come this summer; who knows?"

She shook her head dismally.

"You've said that ev'ry year for the last fifteen summers, an' they hain't come yet. Jehiel went West more than twenty years ago, an' he's never been home since. Why, Thaddeus, we've got a grandson 'most eighteen, that we hain't even seen! Hannah Jane's been home jest once since she was married, but that was nigh on ter sixteen years ago. She's always writin' of her Tommy and Nellie, but--I want ter see 'em, Thaddeus; I want ter see 'em!"

"Yes, yes; well, we'll ask 'em, Harriet, again--we'll ask 'em real urgent-like, an' mebbe that'll fetch 'em," comforted the old man. "We'll ask 'em ter be here the Fourth; that's eight weeks off yet, an' I shall be real smart by then."

Two letters that were certainly "urgent-like" left the New England farmhouse the next morning. One was addressed to a thriving Western city, the other to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In course of time the answers came. Hannah Jane's appeared first, and was opened with shaking fingers.

_Dear Mother_ [read Mrs. Clayton aloud]: Your letter came two or three days ago, and I have hurried round to answer it, for you seemed to be so anxious to hear. I'm real sorry, but I don't see how we can get away this summer. Nathan is real busy at the store; and, some way, I can't seem to get up energy enough to even think of fixing up the children to take them so far. Thank you for the invitation, though, and we should enjoy the visit very much; but I guess we can't go just yet. Of course if anything serious should come up that made it necessary--why, that would be different: but I know you are sensible, and will understand how it is with us.

Nathan is well, but business has been pretty brisk, and he is in the store early and late. As long as he's making money, he don't mind; but I tell him I think he might rest a little sometimes, and let some one else do the things he does.

Tom is a big boy now, smart in his studies and with a good head for figures. Nellie loves her books, too; and, for a little girl of eleven, does pretty well, we think.

I must close now. We all send love, and hope you are getting along all right. Was glad to hear father was gaining so fast.

Your loving daughter

HANNAH JANE

The letter dropped from Mrs. Clayton's fingers and lay unheeded on the floor. The woman covered her face with her hands and rocked her body back and forth.

"There, there, dearie," soothed the old man huskily; "mebbe Jehiel's will be diff'rent. I shouldn't wonder, now, if Jehiel would come. There, there! don't take on so, Harriet! don't! I jest know Jehiel'll come."

A week later Mrs. Clayton found another letter in the rural delivery box. She clutched it nervously, peered at the writing with her dim old eyes, and hurried into the house for her glasses.

Yes, it was from Jehiel.

She drew a long breath. Her eager thumb was almost under the flap of the envelope when she hesitated, eyed the letter uncertainly, and thrust it into the pocket of her calico gown. All day it lay there, save at times--which, indeed, were of frequent occurrence--when she took it from its hiding-place, pressed it to her cheek, or gloried in every curve of the boldly written address.

At night, after the lamp was lighted, she said to her husband in tones so low he could scarcely hear:

"Thaddeus, I--I had a letter from Jehiel to-day."

"You did--and never told me? Why, Harriet, what--" He paused helplessly.

"I--I haven't read it, Thaddeus," she stammered. "I couldn't bear to, someway. I don't know why, but I couldn't. You read it!" She held out the letter with shaking hands.

He took it, giving her a sharp glance from anxious eyes. As he began to read aloud she checked him.

"No; ter yerself, Thaddeus--ter yerself! Then--tell me."

As he read she watched his face. The light died from her eyes and her chin quivered as she saw the stern lines deepen around his mouth. A minute more, and he had finished the letter and laid it down without a word.

"Thaddeus, ye don't mean--he didn't say--"

"Read it--I--I can't," choked the old man.

She reached slowly for the sheet of paper and spread it on the table before her.

_Dear Mother_ [Jehiel had written]: Just a word to tell you we are all O. K. and doing finely. Your letter reminded me that it was about time I was writing home to the old folks. I don't mean to let so many weeks go by without a letter from me, but somehow the time just gets away from me before I know it.

Minnie is well and deep in spring sewing and house-cleaning. I know--because dressmaker's bills are beginning to come in, and every time I go home I find a carpet up in a new place!

Our boy Fred is eighteen to-morrow. You'd be proud of him, I know, if you could see him. Business is rushing. Glad to hear you're all right and that father's rheumatism is on the gain.

As ever, your affectionate and dutiful son, JEHIEL

Oh, by the way--about that visit East. I reckon we'll have to call it off this year. Too bad; but can't seem to see my way clear.

Bye-bye, J.

Harriet Clayton did not cry this time. She stared at the letter long minutes with wide-open, tearless eyes, then she slowly folded it and put it back in its envelope.

"Harriet, mebbe-" began the old man timidly.

"Don't, Thaddeus--please don't!" she interrupted. "I--I don't want ter talk." And she rose unsteadily to her feet and moved toward the kitchen door.

For a time Mrs. Clayton went about her work in a silence quite unusual, while her husband watched her with troubled eyes. His heart grieved over the bowed head and drooping shoulders, and over the blurred eyes that were so often surreptitiously wiped on a corner of the gingham apron. But at the end of a week the little old woman accosted him with a face full of aggressive yet anxious determination.

"Thaddeus, I want ter speak ter you about somethin'. I've been thinkin' it all out, an' I've decided that I've got ter kill one of us off."

"Harriet!"

"Well, I have. A fun'ral is the only thing that will fetch Jehiel and--"

"Harriet, are ye gone crazy? Have ye gone clean mad?"

She looked at him appealingly.

"Now, Thaddeus, don't try ter hender me, please. You see it's the only way. A fun'ral is the--"

"A 'fun'ral'--it's murder!" he shuddered.

"Oh, not ter make believe, as I shall," she protested eagerly. "It's--"

"Make believe!"

"Why, yes, of course. _You'll_ have ter be the one ter do it, 'cause I'm goin' ter be the dead one, an'--"

"Harriet!"

"There, there, _please_, Thaddeus! I've jest got ter see Jehiel and Hannah Jane 'fore I die!"

"But--they--they'll come if--"

"No, they won't come. We've tried it over an' over again; you know we have. Hannah Jane herself said that if anythin' 'serious' came up it would be diff'rent. Well, I'm goin' ter have somethin' 'serious' come up!"

"But, Harriet--"

"Now, Thaddeus," begged the woman, almost crying, "you must help me, dear. I've thought it all out, an' it's easy as can be. I shan't tell any lies, of course. I cut my finger to-day, didn't I?"

"Why--yes--I believe so," he acknowledged dazedly; "but what has that to do--"

"That's the 'accident,' Thaddeus. You're ter send two telegrams at once--one ter Jehiel, an' one ter Hannah Jane. The telegrams will say: 'Accident to your mother. Funeral Saturday afternoon. Come at once.' That's jest ten words."

The old man gasped. He could not speak.

"Now, that's all true, ain't it?" she asked anxiously. "The 'accident' is this cut. The 'fun'ral' is old Mis' Wentworth's. I heard ter-day that they couldn't have it until Saturday, so that'll give us plenty of time ter get the folks here. I needn't say whose fun'ral it is that's goin' ter be on Saturday, Thaddeus! I want yer ter hitch up an' drive over ter Hopkinsville ter send the telegrams. The man's new over there, an' won't know yer. You couldn't send 'em from here, of course."

Thaddeus Clayton never knew just how he allowed himself to be persuaded to take his part in this "crazy scheme," as he termed it, but persuaded he certainly was.

It was a miserable time for Thaddeus then. First there was that hurried drive to Hopkinsville. Though the day was warm he fairly shivered as he handed those two fateful telegrams to the man behind the counter. Then there was the homeward trip, during which, like the guilty thing he was, he cast furtive glances from side to side.

Even home itself came to be a misery, for the sweeping and the dusting and the baking and the brewing which he encountered there left him no place to call his own, so that he lost his patience at last and moaned:

"Seems ter me, Harriet, you're a pretty lively corpse!"

His wife smiled, and flushed a little.

"There, there, dear! don't fret. Jest think how glad we'll be ter see 'em!" she exclaimed.

Harriet was blissfully happy. Both the children had promptly responded to the telegrams, and were now on their way. Hannah Jane, with her husband and two children, were expected on Friday evening; but Jehiel and his wife and boy could not possibly get in until early on the following morning.

All this brought scant joy to Thaddeus. There was always hanging over him the dread horror of what he had done, and the fearful questioning as to how it was all going to end.

Friday came, but a telegram at the last moment told of trains delayed and connections missed. Hannah Jane would not reach home until nine-forty the next morning. So it was with a four-seated carryall that Thaddeus Clayton started for the station on Saturday morning to meet both of his children and their families.

The ride home was a silent one; but once inside the house, Jehiel and Hannah Jane, amid a storm of sobs and cries, besieged their father with questions.

The family were all in the darkened sitting-room--all, indeed, save Harriet, who sat in solitary state in the chamber above, her face pale and her heart beating almost to suffocation. It had been arranged that she was not to be seen until some sort of explanation had been given.

"Father, what was it?" sobbed Hannah Jane. "How did it happen?"

"It must have been so sudden," faltered Jehiel. "It cut me up completely."

"I can't ever forgive myself," moaned Hannah Jane hysterically. "She wanted us to come East, and I wouldn't. 'Twas my selfishness--'twas easier to stay where I was; and now--now--"

"We've been brutes, father," cut in Jehiel, with a shake in his voice; "all of us. I never thought--I never dreamed-father, can--can we see--her?"

In the chamber above a woman sprang to her feet. Harriet had quite forgotten the stove-pipe hole to the room below, and every sob and moan and wailing cry had been woefully distinct to her ears. With streaming eyes and quivering lips she hurried down the stairs and threw open the sitting-room door.

"Jehiel! Hannah Jane! I'm here, right here--alive!" she cried. "An' I've been a wicked, wicked woman! I never thought how bad 'twas goin' ter make _you_ feel. I truly never, never did. 'Twas only myself--I wanted yer so. Oh, children, children, I've been so wicked--so awful wicked!"

Jehiel and Hannah Jane were steady of head and strong of heartland joy, it is said, never kills; otherwise, the results of that sudden apparition in the sitting-room doorway might have been disastrous.

As it was, a wonderfully happy family party gathered around the table an hour later; and as Jehiel led a tremulous, gray-haired woman to the seat of honor, he looked into her shining eyes and whispered:

"Dear old mumsey, now that we've found the way home again, I reckon we'll be coming every year--don't you?"

The Black Silk Gowns

The Heath twins, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, rose early that morning, and the world looked very beautiful to them--one does not buy a black silk gown every day; at least, Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia did not. They had waited, indeed, quite forty years to buy this one.

The women of the Heath family had always possessed a black silk gown. It was a sort of outward symbol of inward respectability--an unfailing indicator of their proud position as members of one of the old families. It might be donned at any time after one's twenty-first birthday, and it should be donned always for funerals, church, and calls after one had turned thirty. Such had been the code of the Heath family for generations, as Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia well knew; and it was this that had made all the harder their own fate--that their twenty-first birthday was now forty years behind them, and not yet had either of them attained this _cachet_ of respectability.

To-day, however, there was to come a change. No longer need the carefully sponged and darned black alpaca gowns flaunt their wearers' poverty to the world, and no longer would they force these same wearers to seek dark corners and sunless rooms, lest the full extent of that poverty become known. It had taken forty years of the most rigid economy to save the necessary money; but it was saved now, and the dresses were to be bought. Long ago there had been enough for one, but neither of the women had so much as thought of the possibility of buying one silk gown. It was sometimes said in the town that if one of the Heath twins strained her eyes, the other one was obliged at once to put on glasses; and it is not to be supposed that two sisters whose sympathies were so delicately attuned would consent to appear clad one in new silk and the other in old alpaca.

In spite of their early rising that morning, it was quite ten o'clock before Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia had brought the house into the state of speckless nicety that would not shame the lustrous things that were so soon to be sheltered beneath its roof. Not that either of the ladies expressed this sentiment in words, or even in their thoughts; they merely went about their work that morning with the reverent joy that a devoted priestess might feel in making ready a shrine for its idol. They had to hurry a little to get themselves ready for the eleven o'clock stage that passed their door; and they were still a little breathless when they boarded the train at the home station for the city twenty miles away--the city where were countless yards of shimmering silk waiting to be bought.

In the city that night at least six clerks went home with an unusual weariness in their arms, which came from lifting down and displaying almost their entire stock of black silk. But with all the weariness, there was no irritation; there was only in their nostrils a curious perfume as of lavender and old lace, and in their hearts a strange exaltation as if they had that day been allowed a glad part in a sacred rite. As for Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia, they went home awed, yet triumphant: when one has waited forty years to make a purchase one does not make that purchase lightly.

"To-morrow we will go over to Mis' Snow's and see about having them made up," said Miss Priscilla with a sigh of content, as the stage lumbered through the dusty home streets.

"Yes; we want them rich, but plain," supplemented Miss Amelia, rapturously. "Dear me, Priscilla, but I am tired!"

In spite of their weariness the sisters did not get to bed very early that night. They could not decide whether the top drawer of the spare-room bureau or the long box in the parlor closet would be the safer refuge for their treasure. And when the matter was decided, and the sisters had gone to bed, Miss Priscilla, after a prolonged discussion, got up and moved the silk to the other place, only to slip out of bed later, after a much longer discussion, and put it back. Even then they did not sleep well: for the first time in their lives they knew the responsibility that comes with possessions; they feared--burglars.

With the morning sun, however, came peace and joy. No moth nor rust nor thief had appeared, and the lustrous lengths of shimmering silk defied the sun itself to find spot or blemish.

"It looks even nicer than it did in the store, don't it?" murmured Miss Priscilla, ecstatically, as she hovered over the glistening folds that she had draped in riotous luxury across the chair-back.

"Yes,--oh, yes!" breathed Miss Amelia. "Now let's hurry with the work so we can go right down to Mis' Snow's."

_"Black_ silk-_black_ silk!" ticked the clock to Miss Priscilla washing dishes at the kitchen sink.

"You've got a black _silk_! You've _got_ a black _silk!"_ chirped the robins to Miss Amelia looking for weeds in the garden.

At ten o'clock the sisters left the house, each with a long brown parcel carefully borne in her arms. At noon--at noon the sisters were back again, still carrying the parcels. Their faces wore a look of mingled triumph and defeat.

"As if we _could_ have that beautiful silk put into a _plaited_ skirt!" quavered Miss Priscilla, thrusting the key into the lock with a trembling hand. "Why, Amelia, plaits always crack!"

"Of course they do!" almost sobbed Miss Amelia. "Only think of it, Priscilla, our silk--_cracked_!"

"We will just wait until the styles change," said Miss Priscilla, with an air of finality. "They won't always wear plaits!"

"And we know all the time that we've really got the dresses, only they aren't made up!" finished Miss Amelia, in tearful triumph.

So the silk was laid away in two big rolls, and for another year the old black alpaca gowns trailed across the town's thresholds and down the aisle of the church on Sunday. Their owners no longer sought shadowed corners and sunless rooms, however; it was not as if one were _obliged_ to wear sponged and darned alpacas!

Plaits were "out" next year, and the Heath sisters were among the first to read it in the fashion notes. Once more on a bright spring morning Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia left the house tenderly bearing in their arms the brown-paper parcels--and once more they returned, the brown parcels still in their arms. There was an air of indecision about them this time.

"You see, Amelia, it seemed foolish--almost wicked," Miss Priscilla was saying, "to put such a lot of that expensive silk into just sleeves."

"I know it," sighed her sister.

"Of course I want the dresses just as much as you do," went on Miss Priscilla, more confidently; "but when I thought of allowing Mis' Snow to slash into that beautiful silk and just waste it on those great balloon sleeves, I--I simply couldn't give my consent!--and 'tisn't as though we hadn't _got_ the dresses!"

"No, indeed!" agreed Miss Amelia, lifting her chin. And so once more the rolls of black silk were laid away in the great box that had already held them a year; and for another twelve months the black alpacas, now grown shabby indeed, were worn with all the pride of one whose garments are beyond reproach.

When for the third time Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia returned to their home with the oblong brown parcels there was no indecision about them; there was only righteous scorn.

"And do you really think that Mis' Snow _expected_ us to allow that silk to be cut up into those skimpy little skin-tight bags she called skirts?" demanded Miss Priscilla, in a shaking voice. "Why, Amelia, we couldn't ever make them over!"

"Of course we couldn't! And when skirts got bigger, what could we do?" cried Miss Amelia. "Why, I'd rather never have a black silk dress than to have one like that--that just couldn't be changed! We'll go on wearing the gowns we have. It isn't as if everybody didn't know we had these black silk dresses!"