Part 17

"Then the only thing you need to establish your absolute right in one third of the income of the coal lands (now enjoyed by your step-children and excluding you) is the proof that the title to those lands was vested absolutely in your husband at the time of his death. If it wasn't, you have no case. If it was, you've plenty of money! You see, my brother-in-law is a lawyer and I've imbibed a little bit of legal knowledge. But I have an intimate friend, Miss Catherine Hamilton, who knows nearly as much law as Daniel does and I'll get her to look up the court-house records for your husband's title to that land, and _then_, my dear, if we find it---- Oh, my stars!"

"But, Margaret," the old woman protested fearfully, "you'll get 'em all down on you if you go and do somepin like _that_!"

"You see," Margaret gravely explained, "_I_ am living on this money which belongs to you, and my children will be living on it, inheriting it. I couldn't bear that, of course."

"Do you mean," faltered Mrs. Leitzel, "you think they _cheated_ me? There's others tried to hint that to me and I wouldn't never listen to it. Why, Hiram's a Christian minister and they're all church members and professin' Christians! They wouldn't _steal_, my dear--and from an old woman like me!"

"It's been done, however, by church members and professing Christians. We'll investigate it, my dear," Margaret firmly repeated.

"But I wouldn't want to be the cause of you and Danny's fallin' out, little girl! That I certainly wouldn't. And, dear me!--if you got Jennie down on you yet!"

"She couldn't be much more down on me than she is. And during all these years, you know, _you've_ stood up to them for the sake of a sacred promise. I hope I haven't less courage."

"Don't you think Danny's too smart a lawyer, my dear, for you to get 'round him?" Mrs. Leitzel anxiously tried to avert the disaster which Margaret's suggestion surely presaged.

"My brother-in-law is a smart lawyer, too. I'll write to him this very night, put the case to him (omitting names) and ask his advice. Oh," she suddenly lowered her voice, "here come 'the girls.' Do not breathe a word of what I've said to you!"

"Oh, no, indeed I won't. I know how cross they'd have at me! My dear," she added, clinging to Margaret's hand, "stay by me, will you? Please! Jennie and Sadie won't like it so well that I come. I conceited I'd get away before they got back, and they're likely to scold me some, my dear, and----"

Margaret stooped over her impulsively and kissed her forehead. "Come out to the porch with me and see the babies." When a moment later Jennie and Sadie came into the room they saw, through the long French window opening on to the porch, their step-mother bending over the sleeping infants in the big double coach, and Margaret standing at her side, her arm about her waist.

XXIII

"Why!" exclaimed Jennie as she grudgingly shook hands with her step-mother when Margaret returned with her to the sitting-room. "You _here_! We saw Danny downtown just now and he said he gave you money to get home."

"Yes," added Sadie, also shaking hands reluctantly, "we didn't look to see you here. Anyhow _Danny_ thought you went to the depot from his office."

"But," smiled Margaret, "she gave me the pleasant surprise of a call. I am so glad, because I wanted so much to know her, my husband's mother and the babies' grandmother! How pretty your flowers look, Sadie!" she added diplomatically and quite insincerely, for she groaned inwardly at the bunch of little artificial roses Sadie girlishly wore on the lapel of her coat.

"What is _this_ to do?" Jennie suddenly demanded as her eyes fell upon the tea-table.

"We've been having tea and toast."

"Well!" breathed Sadie.

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Jennie. "You stopped Emmy in her Sa'urday's work to make tea and toast in the middle of the afternoon yet!"

"It took her just fifteen minutes."

"She ain't ever to be hindered in her Sa'urday's work! She has a cake to bake for Sunday then!"

"But you know," said Margaret patiently, "you stopped her on wash day to make tea for Mrs. Ocksreider."

"Well, but Mom ain't used to tea in the afternoon and Mrs. Ocksreider is. Anyhow, who's keeping house here, Margaret?"

"But surely I may have a cup of tea with your mother if I wish to, in this house!"

"But it up-mixes my accounts when you do somepin like this. Danny pays half of all the expenses here and Sadie and I pay half."

"Oh, I see," Margaret breathed rather than spoke. "But after all, Jennie, it's quite a simple matter--charge the tea, sugar, milk, bread, and butter to Daniel's side of your account and I'll take the responsibility of it."

Jennie turned abruptly to her step-mother. "It's getting late on you, Mom, to get out home. You don't want to get there after dark, with a half a mile to walk from the station yet. Before I take off my coat and hat, I better see you on the street car that'll take you to the depot for the five o'clock train."

"Yes, Jennie," the old woman submissively answered, "I was just a-goin' to start to go when you come."

She rose with an effort from the comfortable chair before the fire in which Margaret had again placed her. But Margaret at once pressed her back into her seat.

"You will be glad to know, Jennie, that I have persuaded mother to spend the night with us," she said, "as she is too tired from her journey to go back before to-morrow."

"She never stops the night with us, Margaret," Jennie coldly returned. "Come on, Mom, I'll put you on the street car."

"But isn't it nice," cried Margaret, holding her arm around Mrs. Leitzel to keep Jennie off, "that I've succeeded in _coaxing_ her to stay to-night? Such a pleasant surprise for Daniel when he comes home, to find you here, dear! What is home without a grandmother? Good discipline for Daniel, too, to have to give up this armchair for one evening! Even I have to get out of it when he wants it. But naturally he can't put his _mother_ out of the only really comfortable chair in the house."

"But Danny paid for that chair," explained Sadie. "It would be funny--ain't?--if he couldn't sit in his own chair when he wants!"

"The spare-room bed ain't made up," Jennie frowned at Margaret. "And nobody has time to make it up at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon! Anyhow, strangers stopping over night is apt to give Sadie the headache. And Mom never _wants_ to be away from her own bed. She won't can home herself in a strange bed, can you, Mom?"

But Margaret spoke before Mrs. Leitzel could reply. "_I'll_ make up the guest bed. It won't take me ten minutes. Mother"--she patted Mrs. Leitzel's shoulder--"I'll be right downstairs again in ten minutes."

But Mrs. Leitzel clung to her hand. "Don't let me alone with--stay by me, Margaret----" she pitifully pleaded.

"You shall come upstairs with me, then, to my room," Margaret said, helping her, now, to rise to her feet.

"No, Margaret, Mom's to go back on the five o'clock train," affirmed Jennie peremptorily. "Our Danny give her the money to go back. It ain't for _you_ to be using our clean linens to make up the spare bed. Come on, Mom."

Jennie laid an ungentle grasp upon her step-mother's arm, but Margaret, her face suddenly ablaze with indignation, confronted her.

"Jennie! This is my husband's home, and his feeble mother shall be his guest and mine until to-morrow morning."

"She ain't his mother, she ain't even a blood relation. And what right have _you_, I'd like to know, to meddle in our family affairs?" Jennie fiercely demanded. "It's just your con_tra_riness that makes you want to do everything that you see will spite us; for what other reason would a person like you have for taking up with an uneducated old woman like Mom? You wouldn't _look_ at a person like her if it was not to spite us!"

"What right have I? The right of the humane to protect the helpless from brutality, under any and all circumstances, without exception. She shall not leave this house to-day!"

"Now, Mom," Sadie turned on her step-mother, "you see what you make by coming here like this, without leaving us know! Ain't you worrying us enough all the time, without raising more trouble between us and Danny's wife yet?"

"Yes, yes, I'll go. Please, my dear"--she turned to Margaret,--"leave me go. I'd rather die on the way home than stay and make it unhappy for you, Margaret! Danny will take up for them, you know, so I can't stay and make trouble. Leave me go, my dear!"

"But if you don't make your mother welcome here," Margaret addressed both Jennie and Sadie, "I shall have to go with her. I can take her to Catherine Hamilton's for the night. Or," she added with sudden inspiration, "to Mrs. Ocksreider's, and ask _her_ if she won't give her a bed until the morning. She shall not take that journey to-night!"

Jennie glared in baffled fury, while Sadie turned white with dismay.

"Danny won't leave you do such an outrageous thing!" the elder sister said hoarsely.

"Daniel can't stop me. Come, mother."

"You don't mean to say you'd do as mean a thing as that--take _Mom_ to _Mrs. Ocksreider's_!"

"But I am so sure that Mrs. Ocksreider is the very person who would be very glad to receive her for the night."

"You up and tell me to my face you'd disgrace us like that!"

"But where would the _disgrace_ come in?" asked Margaret innocently.

"Where would the disgrace come in?" repeated Jennie hotly. "_Don't_ you see any disgrace in telling Mrs. Ocksreider that we won't leave our mother (even if she is our step-mother) sleep at our place over night?"

"Then you admit that you _are_ acting disgracefully in turning her out?"

"You wait till Danny comes home and he'll show you if you can go against me like this in his house!" Jennie violently threatened, more furious than ever at being trapped by her own words. "Now you leave Mom be till I take her out to the car!"

"No, Jennie, if she goes I go with her--to our friend, Mrs. Ocksreider. Therefore, it behooves you----"

But it was just at this instant that the sitting-room door opened and Daniel walked into their midst.

"Margaret! I've got an automobile at the door. Get your hat----"

He stopped short in astonishment at sight of his step-mother, at Margaret's attitude of shielding her against the evidently furious antagonism of Jennie and the cold disapproval of Sadie.

"Well?" he demanded testily. "What's up? How did you get up _here_, mother?"

"Yes, how did she, when you gave her the money to go home yet?" scolded Sadie.

Margaret, leaving the statement of the situation to Jennie, remained silent.

"Who brought you up here?" Daniel inquired of the old woman.

"I come by myself, Danny. I wanted to see your wife and the twinses, and I conceited I'd be gone before the girls got home. But I'll go right aways now. I'm sorry I come. I didn't want to make no trouble--I----"

She made a movement from Margaret's side, but the latter clasped her firmly.

"Margaret," commanded Daniel, "let her go."

"I have invited her to spend the night here, Daniel. She is not able to go home to-night."

"I'll take care of that--this is not your affair. Let her alone! Take your hands off her!"

"Will you let her spend the night here?"

"I said I would take care of that. Take your hands off her."

Margaret obeyed.

"Now come here, mother."

Mrs. Leitzel walked feebly toward him, but Margaret walked beside her.

"Now, you see, Danny, how con_tra_ry she acts!" Jennie broke forth. "I wanted to take Mom out to the trolley car and Margaret would not leave her come along, when Mom said she _wanted_ to come, too!"

"Well, _I'm_ here now," returned Daniel grimly. "I'll take you to the station, mother," he pronounced conclusively, taking the old woman's arm.

"Daniel! Your mother can't go home alone this evening! It will be cruel of you to send her!"

Daniel, ignoring her, led his mother to the hall.

"I tell you I'm going to stop this cruelty!" cried Margaret, darting upstairs to get her wraps.

She was down again almost immediately, her coat over her arm, but when she reached the sidewalk the automobile containing her husband and his mother was beyond her reach.

"I may be able to get to the station before that five o'clock train!" she thought, starting almost on a run to go the length of the town to the depot, putting on her coat and gloves as she went. "I believe his mother will die on the way if she goes, and has to walk that half-mile alone in the dark, after being subjected to all this horrible scene! Oh, my God! What people they are!"

She realized, on her way, that her purse was empty, her monthly allowance having been spent, and that she had not even money for trolley car fares--a serious handicap in her efforts to help Mrs. Leitzel.

When, panting for breath, a sharp pain in her side, she reached the station, the train to Martz was just pulling out.

Daniel, smiling blandly, came toward her along the platform.

"God help me!" was the cry of her heart, "that I cannot even hate him--he is too utterly pitiable! If I could hate him, there might be some hope for us!"

"Want to take a little ride, my dear?" he inquired, waving his hand to the waiting automobile.

"Take me home," she returned weakly, feeling suddenly collapsed and helpless.

"You know," he said as he helped her into the car, "you ought not to excite yourself like this--it's bad for Daniel Junior's milk--about something, too, that is no concern of yours. And I want to warn you also," he added, lowering his voice so that the chauffeur might not hear him, as the car turned into the street, "that you've _got_ to refrain from offending Jennie and Sadie so constantly. They have a _lot_ of money to leave to our children. Keep on offending them as you are doing and they'll will all they have to Hiram's children!" said Daniel in a tone that expressed all the horror that such a possibility contained for him.

Margaret did not reply.

"You get me?" Daniel inquired.

"Considerations like that, Daniel, have never entered into my philosophy of life, thank God!"

"Margaret, you really must break yourself of this dreadful habit of swearing! It's so unladylike! And so unchristian!"

"Oh, my good Lord, Daniel! Don't dare to talk to me about anything's being 'unchristian,' when you have just done a cruel, _cruel_ thing to your aged, helpless mother! I don't profess and loudly flaunt _my_ 'Christian principles,' but I do believe in the Golden Rule. Evidently you don't. Don't _speak_ to me!"

"Hoity-toity! Cut out these tantrums, Margaret; they're bad for the boy, you know."

"Why don't you tell the Y.W.C.A. about your smart 'deal' with your tenant, George Trout, and your treatment of your step-mother? Maybe they'd send you another congratulatory letter that you could have published in the _Intelligencer_."

"You heed my warning about offending Jennie and Sadie," was Daniel's reply.

"At the time of your father's death was the title of the farm at Martz vested absolutely in him?"

Margaret had the satisfaction of seeing Daniel start and turn red at her question, as he turned abruptly and looked at her.

"What makes you ask that?" he nervously demanded.

"Was it?" she repeated.

"Why do you wish to know?"

"It was," she affirmed.

"_How_ do you know?" he sharply questioned.

"That same old Woman's Intuition."

"I insist on your answering me intelligibly! What do you know of business matters like that anyhow?"

"Not much, but a little."

"Understand, Margaret, once and for all, that my business affairs and that of my folks are no least concern of yours!"

"_Yours_ are."

"They are not!"

"Oh, yes, they are, Daniel. You and I are life partners and I am the mother of your heirs. Therefore, I have _every_thing to do with your business. Neither I nor my children shall live on stolen money."

"Stolen money! You talk to _me_ of 'stolen money,' when I stand in this community as the one honest, upright, Christian lawyer! Gracious, Margaret, I certainly expected that after the children were born I'd have back again the sweet girl I married! I'm beginning to feel that I've been awfully taken in!"

Margaret leaned back in the automobile, closed her eyes, and did not answer. During the remainder of the ride the silence between them was unbroken.

XXIV

Immediately after dinner Margaret went to her room, got into a negligé, and sitting down to her writing-desk, began a letter to Walter.

She stated the case of the Leitzel coal lands under the guise of Western gold mines and asked her brother-in-law to give her all possible light on the legality of the case for the benefit of the "grandmother."

"If the laws governing such a case differ greatly in the different states," she wrote, "please give me all the _general_ information on the subject that you can. This is a very important matter to me, Walter, though I can't tell you _why_; nor can I explain to you why I consult you rather than Daniel on a question of law. The fact is, I am preparing a little surprise for Daniel."

At this point in her letter she paused, resting her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand. "Walter will see right through my disguises and subterfuges," she reflected. "He will understand _perfectly_ what the surprise is that I am preparing for Daniel. And in his reply he will undoubtedly tell me what the law of _Pennsylvania_ is governing such a case as I've outlined. Well," she drearily sighed, "I can't help it if he does see through it, I can't be a party to defrauding that old woman, as I _would_ be if I consented to live here on money that ought to be hers."

She took up her pen again and dipped it into her ink, but the bedroom door opened and Daniel entered.

She looked so pretty in the dainty pink negligé which she wore, and with her abundant dark hair hanging in two heavy braids down her back, that Daniel, despite the coldness which had prevailed at dinner, came to her side, put his bony arm about her shoulders and patted her bare arm.

"Writing to Walter, I see," he remarked; and quickly she covered her letter with a blotter.

"Yes," she answered.

"Glad you are. I've not _yet_ got an answer out of him. Are you, my dear, repenting of your unwifely behaviour and writing to him what I want you to?"

"I'm doing what I consider my wifely duty, yes."

"Good! I knew I'd get my sweet girl back again! Let me see what you've written. All this!" he exclaimed, reaching across the desk to pick up her letter; but Margaret, looking at him in startled amazement, held him off.

"I haven't said you could read my letter, Daniel."

"Do you have secrets from me, Margaret?"

"Do you have any from me, Daniel?"

"That's neither here nor there. Come, let me see your letter, my dear!"

"I don't wish to. Why do you want to?"

"You are writing something to your brother-in-law you don't want me to know about?" he accused her, his narrow gaze piercing her.

Margaret quickly decided to resort to guile.

"Daniel," she smiled upon him, "I'm preparing a little surprise for you."

"A surprise?" he repeated suspiciously.

"Yes. Now, while I am finishing my letter, I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

"What?"

"Is there any way of finding out by telephone or telegraph," she asked, her eyes big and sad, her lips drooping, "whether your poor mother is by this time safe at home? I shan't sleep a wink to-night from worrying over that half-mile walk she had to take after dark!"

"She didn't have to take the half-mile walk. I arranged for that. I gave her a quarter to pay for a 'bus ride from the station to her house and I 'phoned to Abe Schwenck to meet her train with the 'bus. Could I have done _more_?"

"You really did all that?" she asked, her face lighting up with relief.

"I did all that. So you see I'm not 'cruel' and hard-hearted. I did all that for one who is no relation to me and has no claim on me."

"The claim of gratitude?" Margaret suggested; "or of mere humanity?"

"As for gratitude, haven't we repaid her for her ten years' service for us by our thirty years of taking care of her?"

"Taking care of her?"

"We've never charged her a cent of rent for the only home she has had for thirty years."

"_Why_ wouldn't you let her stay here to-night?"

"Because we don't want to start that kind of thing, or she'd be here on our hands _all_ the time. Once we take her in, we'll never be able to shake her off, and we don't want her."

"I see."

"Of course you see. Now give me a kiss, and promise me you will turn over a new leaf and not be so stubborn about the care of the babies and about Catherine Hamilton and about all the other little matters in which you tease me so that I've got indigestion!" he said fretfully.

"I act only as I must, Daniel," said Margaret sadly. "It gives me worse than indigestion!"

"Look at Hiram's Lizzie! _She_ never antagonizes the girls the way you do!" he complained, genuine anxiety in his voice.

"She doesn't live with them."

"Well, but don't you see that's where we have the advantage over Hiram? They'll get more attached to our children because they'll see more of them. If you acted toward my sisters as you should, as your duty to me and to your children requires that you should, they might leave nearly all they have to our children, giving Hiram's children merely small bequests."

"If I should let them have their way with our babies, they certainly would leave all their money to Hiram's children, for there wouldn't _be_ any babies in this house. They'd kill them off with slow torture."

"Hiram's children haven't died and Lizzie does with them as Jennie and Sadie have always advised her to do."

"Exceptions to every rule," Margaret briefly replied, perfectly willing to shield Lizzie.

"Well," said Daniel emphatically, "you keep up your present injudicious course, and the day will come when your children themselves will reproach you for having deprived them, by your sheer perversity, of what was justly their due."

"I hope to bring them up too well for that."

"And I hope to bring them up to have a little more judgment about money than you have, my dear! Well, I should say so! or they would be ill-prepared to take care of all they will inherit!"

"They will inherit a great deal, will they?" Margaret casually inquired.

"Enough to need some common sense in the management of it."

"Couldn't you spare a little from what they'll inherit to keep that dear old step-mother of yours for her remaining years?"

"Margaret!" said Daniel curtly, "I tell you again I want no interference from you in my family affairs!"

"Well, then, can you, or can you not, _afford_ to give me more than ten dollars a month for pocket money? I find it embarrassing to be out of money so often as I am. It is my right to know what you can afford to let me have."

"If you would keep an account and submit it to me, I could judge better of the justice of your request for more. Ten dollars a month seems to me considerable money for a woman to spend on _nothing_, for you are not expected to buy your clothing and food with your allowance!"

Margaret, toying with her pen, her eyes downcast, did not answer.

"If I did increase your allowance, it would be just like you to pass it on to my step-mother! Positively, I believe that's what you do want to do with it!"

"You are giving me credit I don't deserve. I was asking for the money for myself. I am so often embarrassed for lack of money. I had to borrow a dollar from Catherine Hamilton yesterday to pay Mrs. Raub for washing my hair. Catherine said she'd collect it from you."

"Jennie and Sadie wash their own heads."

"My hair is so thick I can't dry it myself and, you know, it would be bad for the baby's food if I took cold."