Chapter 15

FACING HARD FACTS.

"Make haste. Drive on."

The words sang themselves into Amy's brain as she urged Balaam up the slope, and for days thereafter they returned to her, the last vivid memory of that happy time before bereavement came.

Then followed a season of confusion and distress; and now that a fortnight was over she sat beside a freshly made mound in Quaker burying-ground, trying to collect her thoughts and to form a definite plan for her future.

The end of a gentle, beneficent life had come with merciful suddenness, and the face of Salome Kaye was now hidden beneath this mound where her child sat, struggling with her grief, and bravely endeavoring to find the right way out of many difficulties. Finally, she seemed to have done so, for she rose with an air of grave decision and kneeling for one moment in that quiet spot, rose again, and passed swiftly from the place.

Hallam was at the cemetery gate, resting sadly against the lichen-covered stone post, and waiting for her return. Indian summer had come, a last taste of warmth and brightness before the winter closed, and despite their sorrow nature soothed them with her loveliness. In any case, whether from that cause or from her own will, the girl found it easier than she had expected to speak with her brother upon their material affairs.

"Shall we stop here a little while, Hal dear, to talk, or will we go on slowly toward home? I've been thinking, up--up there beside mother, and I've found a way, I hope."

"I don't care where, though I'd rather not talk. What good does it do? I hate it. I hate home. I hate this place worse--Oh, it's wicked! It's cruel! Why did she ever have to leave Fairacres! She might be--"

Amy's hand went up to Hallam's lips. "Hush! Do you suppose God blunders? I don't. If He had meant her to stay with us, He would have found a way to cure her. To think otherwise is torture. No. No, no, indeed no! Father is left and so are we. We have got to live and take care of him and of ourselves."

"I should like to know how. I--a miserable good-for-naught, and you--a girl."

"Exactly, thank you, just a girl. But a girl who loves her brother and her father all the more because--_she_ loved them too. A girl who has made up her mind to do the first thing and everything that offers, which will help to make them comfortable; who is going to put her family pride in her pocket and go to work. There, it's out!"

"Go--out--to--work, Amy--Kaye!"

"Yes, indeed. Don't take it so hard, dear."

In spite of himself he smiled. Then he remembered. "I don't see how you can laugh or jest--so soon. As if--but you _must_ care."

"Just because I do care, so very, very much. Oh, Hal, don't dream I'm not missing her every hour of the day. I fancy I hear her saying now, this moment, as she used to say when I'd been naughty and was penitent: 'If thee loves me so much, dear, thee will try to do the things I like.' The one thing she liked, she _lived_, was a brave helpfulness toward everybody she knew. She didn't wait for great things, she did little things. Now, the first little things that are facing us are: the earning of our rent and of our food."

Hallam said nothing. He knocked a stone aside with the end of his crutch, and groaned.

"I'm going to work in the mill," she continued.

"Amy! Father expressly forbade that, or even any mention of it. You, a Kaye!"

"He has given me permission, even though I am a Kaye." She tried to smile still, but found it hard in the face of his want of sympathy, even indignation.

"Do you think he knew what he was saying when he did it?"

"Yes, Hallam, I do. It seems to me that father is more like other folks since this trouble came than he was before. I was worried and asked the doctor, for I remembered mother always used to spare him everything painful or difficult that she could. The doctor said:--

"'It may be that this blow will do more to restore him than all her tender care could do.'

"And then I asked him something else. It was--what was the matter with him--if it was all his heart. He said, 'No, indeed. It's his head.' He was in a great fire, at a hotel where he was staying, a long time ago. He was nearly killed, and many other people were killed. For a while he thought that mother had been burned, they had gotten separated some way, and it made him--insane, I suppose. But when she was found, in a hospital where he was taken, he got better. He isn't at all insane now, the doctor says, but is only a little confused. Mother never had us told about it, because she wanted we should think our father just perfect, and for that reason she drew him into this quiet life that we always have lived. If he wanted to spend money foolishly, she never objected. She hoped that by not opposing any wish he would get wholly well. Part of this Cleena has told me, for she thought we ought to know, now, and part the doctor said. Oh, Hal, I think it will be grand, grand, to take care of him as nearly like she did as we can. Don't you?"

Hallam's eyes sparkled. "Amy, I always said she was the most beautiful woman in the world, in character as well as person."

"To us, she certainly was. My plan is this: I will go to Mr. Metcalf and ask him to give me a place in the mill. If those other girls can work, so can I."

"Do you know who owns the mills now?"

"Yes; our cousin Archibald Wingate."

"And you would work for him? You would demean yourself to that? Yet you know how, when he offered us money last week, or to do other things for us, both father and I indignantly declined."

"Yes, I know. I, too, was glad we didn't have to take it, though I do not believe he is as bad as we think. We look at him from _this_ side; but if we could from the _other_, he might not seem so hard-hearted. He said he was sorry. He seemed to feel very badly."

"Yes, and when he came and asked Cleena to let him see--her, just once more, she gave him a reproof that must have struck home. She told him he was practically the cause of mother's death,--his driving her from Fairacres,--and I shall always feel so, too."

"I hope not, dear."

"Well, I hate him. I hope I can sometime make him suffer all he has made us."

"But, Hal, that is vindictive. To be vindictive is not half as noble as to be just. Mother was just. While it grieved her to leave her home, she fully appreciated how much he must long for it. It was their grandmother's, you know, and he felt he had a right there. I do not blame him half as much as I pity him. He's such a lonely old fellow, it seems to me."

"Humph! I wouldn't work for him and take his money. I should feel as if it were tainted."

For a moment Amy was staggered by this view of her brother's. Then it dropped into its proper place in the argument, and she went on:--

"It would be pleasanter to work for somebody else. But there _is_ nobody else. I think Mr. Wingate has very little to do with the employees of the mill. It's Mr. Metcalf who pays them, and he's a dear, good friend already. I'm going to see him this afternoon. I asked Gwendolyn to tell him I was coming, but I suppose he thinks it is about selling Balaam. He's ready to take him off your hands if you want to part with him. That seventy-five dollars he paid for Pepita and the saddle and harness was such a blessing. It carried us through; we couldn't have done without it, unless we'd let Mr. Wingate help."

"Never! Well, I suppose he'll have to take him. If I can't work, I can give up, as well as you."

"No, Hal, I don't want to sell him yet. Wait till the last thing and we can't help it. Do try to think kindly of what I'm doing, dear. Down in my heart I'm pretty proud, too. But you start home. I'll take a bit of lunch and then start out to seek my fortune. Wish me luck, laddie; or, rather, bid me God-speed."

She lifted her face for his kiss, and he gave it heartily. It was to the sensitive, proud, undisciplined boy the very hardest moment of his life, save and apart from his bereavement.

"To think, Amy, little sister, that I, who should be your protector and supporter, am just--this!"

"Hush! you shall not point so contemptuously to those poor legs. I think they are very good legs, indeed. There's nothing the matter with them except that they won't move. They've been indulged so long--"

"Amy, I don't understand you. First you seem so cheerful; then you make light of my lameness. Are you forgetful, or what?"

"Not forgetful, nor hard-hearted. Just 'what,' which means that I believe you could learn to walk if you would."

"Amy! _Amy!!_"

"Hallam!"

"Do you suppose I wouldn't if I could?"

"Hal, do you ever try?"

He looked at her indignantly; then he reflected that, in fact, he never did try. But to convince her he made an effort that instant. Tossing his crutches to the ground, he tried to force his limbs forward over the ground. They utterly failed to respond to his will, and he would have fallen had not Amy's arms caught and supported him.

"There, you see!"

"For the first attempt it was fine. Bravo! _Encore!_"

Yet she picked up his "other legs" and gave him, then led Balaam away from the late thistle blooms he was browsing. Hallam mounted, crossed his crutches before him, and lifted his cap. Amy tossed him a kiss and turned millward, while he ascended the hill road. But no sooner was she out of sight than her assumed cheerfulness gave way, and for a time it was a sad-faced girl who trudged diligently onward toward duty and a life of toil.

Gwendolyn had delivered her message, and the superintendent welcomed Amy to his office at the mill with a friendly nod and smile; but, at that moment, he was deep in business with a strange gentleman, negotiating for a large sale of carpets, and after his brief greeting he apparently forgot the girl. She remained standing for some moments, then Mr. Metcalf beckoned an attendant to give her a chair and the day's newspaper.

Her heart sank even lower than before. The superintendent appeared a different person from the friend she had met in his own home. Her throat choked. She felt that she should cry, if she did not make some desperate effort to the contrary; so she began to read the paper diligently, though her mind scarcely followed the words she saw, and would deflect to those she heard, which were very earnest, indeed, though all about a matter no greater than one-eighth cent per yard.

"How queer! Two great grown men to stand there and argue about such a trifle. Why, there isn't any such coin, and what does it mean? Well, I'm eavesdropping, and that's wrong. Now I will read. I will not listen."

Running in this wise, her thoughts at last fixed themselves upon a paragraph which she had perused several times without comprehending. Now it began to have a meaning for her, and one so intense that she half rose to beg the loan of the newspaper that she might show it to Hallam.

"The very thing. The very thing I heard those doctors talking about in mother's room. I'll ask for it, or copy it, if I can, and show my boy. Who knows what it might do?"

There was a little movement in the office. The gentleman in the big top-coat, with his eyeglasses, his gold-handled umbrella, and his consequential air, was leaving. He was bowing in a patronizing sort of way, and Mr. Metcalf was bowing also, smiling almost obsequious. He was rubbing his hair upward from his forehead, in a way Amy had already observed to be habitual when he was pleased. Evidently he was pleased now, and greatly so, for even after the stranger had passed out and entered the cab in waiting, the superintendent remained before the glass door, still smiling with profound satisfaction.

Then, as if he had suddenly remembered her, he turned toward Amy.

"Well, miss, what can I do for you to-day? I saw you were interested in our argument over the fraction of a cent, and I'm glad to tell you I won. Yes, I carried my point."

The girl was disgusted. Though she liked to know her friends from every side of their characters, she was not pleased by this glimpse of Mr. Metcalf's.

He saw her feeling in her face and took it merrily, dropping at last into the manner which she knew and liked best.

"A small business, you're thinking, eh? Well, Miss Amy, let me tell you that on this one deal, this one sale, my gaining that fraction of a cent means the gaining to my employer of several thousand dollars. And that is worth contesting, don't you think?"

"It doesn't seem possible. Just that tiny eighth! Why, how many, many yards you must sell!"

"Indeed, yes. The mills are constantly turning out great quantities and, fortunately, the market is free. We dispose of them as fast as we can finish. We could sell more if we could manufacture more. But this is not what has brought you here, I fancy. Tell me your errand, please. I have much to get through with before closing."

The return to his business manner again chilled Amy's enthusiasm, but she thought of her father and what she hoped to do for him, and needed no other aid to her courage.

"I've come to ask a place in the mill. I want to work and get paid."

"Certainly. If you work, you will be paid. What makes you want to do it? Does your father know?"

"He has consented. I think he understands, though he didn't seem to care greatly, either way. I must do it, sir, or something. It was the only thing I knew about."

"You know nothing about that, really. The girls here are from an altogether different class than that to which you belong. You would not find it pleasant."

"That wouldn't matter. And aren't we all Americans? Equal?"

"Theoretically. How much do you suppose you could earn?"

"I don't know. Whatever my work was worth."

"That, at the beginning, would be not more than two dollars a week, and probably less. It would be fatiguing, constant standing in attending to your 'jenny.' I really think that you would better abandon the idea at once. Try to think of something nearer what you have known."

Yet he saw the deepening distress in her face and it grieved him. He was bound, in all honesty to her, to set the dark side of things before her, and he waited for her decision with some curiosity.

"If you'll let me try, I would like to do so."