Chapter 16

“No, we didn't sell cigarettes,” said Lynn with satisfaction, “That wasn't what we were there for. We had a few for the wounded and dying who were used to them and needed them of course, but we didn't sell them.”

“And then I tried to get some doughnuts and coffee, but would you believe it, they wouldn't let me have any till all the fellows in line had been served. They said I had to take my turn! They were quite insulting about it! Of course they did good, but they ought to have been made to understand that they couldn't treat United States Officers that way!”

“Why not? Were you any better than any of the soldiers?” she asked eyeing him calmly, and somehow he seemed to feel smaller than his normal estimate of himself.

“An _officer?_” he said with a contemptuous haughty light in his eye.

“What is an officer but the servant of his men?” asked Lynn. “Would you _want_ to eat before them when they had stood hours in line waiting? They who had all the hard work and none of the honors?”

Laurie's cheeks were flushed and his eyes angry:

“That's rot!” he said rudely, “Where did you get it? The officers were picked from the cream of the land. They represent the great Nation. An insult to them is an insult to the Nation--!”

Lynn began to smile impudently--and her eyes were dancing again.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, you must not forget I was there. I knew both officers and men. I admit that some of the officers were princely, fit men to represent a great Christian Nation, but some of them again were well--the scum of the earth, rather than the cream. Mr. Shafton it does not make a man better than his fellows to be an officer, and it does not make him fit to be an officer just because his father is able to buy him a commission.”

Laurie flushed angrily again:

“My father did not buy me a commission!” he said indignantly, “I went to a training camp and won it.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, I meant nothing personal, but I certainly had no use for an officer who came bustling in on those long lines of weary soul-sick boys just back from the front, and perhaps off again that night, and tried to get ahead of them in line. However, let's talk of something else. Were you ever up around Dead Man's Curve? What division were you in?”

Laurie let his anger die out and answered her questions. For a few minutes they held quite an animated conversation about France and the various phases of the war. Laurie had been in air service. One could see just how handsome he must have looked in his uniform. One would know also that he would be brave and reckless. It was written all over his face and in his very attitude. He showed her his “croix de guerre.”

“Mark was taken prisoner by the Germans,” she said sadly as she handed it back, her eyes dreamy and faraway, then suddenly seeming to realize that she had spoken her thoughts aloud she flushed and hurried on to other experiences during the war, but she talked abstractedly, as one whose thoughts had suddenly been diverted. The young man watched her baffled:

“You seem so aloof,” he said all at once watching her as she sewed away on the bit of linen, “You seem almost as if you--well--_despised me_. Excuse me if I say that it's a rather new experience. People in my world don't act that way to me, really they don't. And you don't even know who I am nor anything about me. Do you think that's quite fair?”

Lynn looked at him with suddenly arrested attention:

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I didn't mean to be rude. But possibly you've come to the heart of the matter. I am not of your world. You know there's a great deal in not being able to get another's point of view. I hope I haven't done you an injustice. I haven't meant to. But you're wrong in saying I don't know who you are or anything about you. You are the son of William J. Shafton--the only son, isn't that so? Then you are the one I mean. There can't be any mistake. And I do know something about you. In fact I've been very angry at you, and wished I might meet you and tell you what I thought of you.”

“You don't say!” said Laurie getting up excitedly and moving over to a chair next to hers regardless of his lame ankle, “This certainly is interesting! What the deuce have I been doing to get myself in your bad graces? I better repent at once before I hear what it is?”

“You are the one who owns the block of warehouses down on ---- street and won't sell at any price to give the little children in all that region a place to get a bit of fresh air, the grass and a view of the sky. You are the one who won't pull down your old buildings and try new and improved ways of housing the poor around there so that they can grow up decently clean and healthy and have a little chance in this world. Just because you can't have as many apartments and get as much money from your investment you let the little children crowd together in rooms that aren't fit for the pigs to live in, they are so dark and airless, and crowded already. Oh, I know you keep within the law! You just skin through without breaking it, but you won't help a little bit, you won't even let your property help if someone else is willing to take the bother! Oh, I've been so boiling at you ever since I heard your name that I couldn't hardly keep my tongue still, to think of that great beautiful car out there and how much it must have cost, and to hear you speak of one of your other cars as if you had millions of them, and to think of little Carmela living down in the basement room of Number 18 in your block, growing whiter and whiter every day, with her great blue eyes and her soft fine wavy hair, and that hungry eager look in her face. And her mother, sewing, sewing, all day long at the little cellar window, and going blind because you won't put in a bigger one; sewing on coarse dark vests, putting in pockets and buttonholes for a living for her and Carmela, and you grinding her down and running around in cars like that and taking it out of little Carmela, and little Carmela's mother! Oh! How can I help feeling aloof from a person like that?”

Laurie sat up astonished watching her:

“Why, my dear girl!” he exclaimed, “Do you know what you're talking about? Do you realize that it would take a mint of money to do all the fool things that these silly reformers are always putting up to you? My lawyer looks after all those matters. Of course I know nothing about it--!”

“Well, you _ought_ to know,” said Lynn excitedly, “Does the money belong to your lawyer? Isn't it yours to be responsible for? Well, then if you are stealing some of it out of little Carmela and a lot of other little children and their mothers and fathers oughtn't you to know? Is your lawyer going to take the responsibility about it in the kingdom of heaven I should like to know? Can he stand up in the judgment day and exempt you by saying that he had to do the best he could for your property because you required it of him? Excuse me for getting so excited, but I love little Carmela. I went to see her a great deal last winter when I was in New York taking my senior year at the University. And I can't help telling you the truth about it. I don't suppose you'll do anything about it, but at least you ought to know! And _I'm not your dear girl, either!_”

Marilyn rose suddenly from her chair, and stood facing him with blazing eyes and cheeks that were aflame. It was a revelation to the worldly wise young man that a saint so sweet could blossom suddenly into a beautiful and furious woman. It seemed unreal to find this wonderful, unique, excitable young woman with ideas in such a quiet secluded spot of the earth. Decidedly she had ideas.

“Excuse me,” he said, and rose also, an almost deprecatory air upon him, “I assure you I meant nothing out of the way, Miss Severn. I certainly respect and honor you--And really, I had no idea of all this about my property. I've never paid much heed to my property except to spend the income of course. It wasn't required of me. I must look into this matter. If I find it as you think--that is if there is no mistake, I will see what I can do to remedy it. In any case we will look after little Carmela. I'll settle some money on her mother, wouldn't that be the best way? I can't think things are as bad as you say--”

“Will you really do something about it?” asked Lynn earnestly, “Will you go up to New York and see for yourself? Will you go around in _every room_ of your buildings and get acquainted with those people and find out just what the conditions are?”

“Why--I--!” he began uncertainly.

“Oh, I thought you couldn't stand that test! That would be too much bother--You would rather--!”

“No, Wait! I didn't say I wouldn't. Here! I'll go if you'll go with me and show me what you mean and what you want done. Come. I'll take you at your word. If you really want all those things come on and show me just what to do. I'm game. I'll do it. I'll do it whether it needs doing or not, _just for you_. Will you take me up?”

“Of course” said Lynn quickly, “I'll go with you and show you. I expect to be in New York next month helping at the Salvation Home while one of their workers is away on her vacation. I'll show you all over the district as many times as you need to go, if it's not too hot for you to come back to the city so early.”

He looked at her sharply. There was a covert sneer in her last words that angered him, and he was half inclined to refuse the whole thing, but somehow there was something in this strange new type of girl that fascinated him. Now that she had the university, and the war, and the world, for a background she puzzled and fascinated him more than ever. Half surprised at his own interest he bowed with a new kind of dignity over his habitual light manner:

“I shall be delighted, Miss Severn. It will not be too hot for me if it is not too hot for you. I shall be at your service, and I hope you will discover that there is one officer who knows how to obey.”

She looked at him half surprised, half troubled and then answered simply:

“Thank you. I'm afraid I've done you an injustice. I'm afraid I didn't think you would be game enough to do it. I hope I haven't been too rude. But you see I feel deeply about it and sometimes I forget myself?”

“I am sure I deserve all you have said,” said Laurie as gravely as his light nature could manage, “but there is one thing that puzzles me deeply. I wish you would enlighten me. All this won't do _you_ any good. It isn't for _you_ at all. _Why_ do you care?”

Marilyn brought her lovely eyes to dwell on his face for a moment thoughtfully, a shy beautiful tenderness softening every line of her eager young face:

“It's because--” she began diffidently, “It's because they all are God's children--and I love _Him_ better than anything else in life!”

The swift color made her face lovely as she spoke, and with the words she turned away and went quickly into the house. The young man looked after her and dared not follow. He had never had a shock like that in his life. Girls had talked about everything under heaven to him at one time or another, but they had never mentioned God except profanely.

Marilyn went swiftly up to her room and knelt down by her bed, burying her hot cheeks in the cool pillow and trying to pray. She was glad, glad that she had spoken for her poor city children, glad that there was a prospect or help perhaps; but beside and beyond it all her heart was crying out for another matter that was namelessly tugging away at the very foundations of her soul. Why, Oh _Why_ had Mark gone away with that queer girl? He must have seen what she was! He must have known that it was unnecessary! He must have known how it would hurt his friends, and that the man she came to see could have gone as well as he and better. Why did he go? She would not, she could not believe anything wrong of Mark. Yet _why did he go_?

XX

Billy had no appetite for the nice supper that Aunt Saxon had ready when he came dejectedly home that night. He had passed the parsonage and seen through the dining-room window that the rich guy was sitting at the supper table opposite Marilyn laughing and talking with her and his soul was sick within him. That was his doing! Nobody else but himself to blame!

Aunt Saxon had apple dumplings with plenty of “goo,” black with cinnamon just the way he loved it, but he only minced at the first helping and scarcely tasted the second. He chopped a great many kindling after supper, and filled the woodbox, and thoughtfully wound the clock. Then instead of going out with his usual “I gotta beat it!” he sat languidly on the doorstep in the dusk, and when she anxiously questioned if he were sick he said crossly:

“Aw, Gee! Can't ya let a fella _alone_! I'm all in, can't ya _see_ it? I'm gonta _bed_!” and knowing he had said the most alarming thing in the whole category he slammed upstairs to his own room and flung himself across his bed.

Aunt Saxon filled with vague fears crept softly up after him, tapping at his locked door:

“Willie, what is the matter? Just tell auntie where the pain is and I'll get you some medicine that will fix you all up by morning. I'll get you a hot water bag--!”

“DON'T WANT NO HOT WATER BAGS!” roared the sore hearted Billy. “Can't ya lemme _alone_?”

Silence a moment while Aunt Saxon pondered tearfully and sighfully, then:

“Willie, is it the tooth ache?”

“NoooOH!” roared Billy.

A pause, then:

“Billy, you've had a fall off that wheel and hurt yer head or cut yer knee, I know, I've always thought you'd do that, that old wheel! You oughtta have a new one. But I'll bring the arnica and bathe it. And we'll paint it with iodine--where was it Willie? Yer knee?”

Billy's shoes came to the floor with a bang:

“Aw gee! Can't ya keep yer mouth shut an' let a fella have a little sleep. It ain't _Nowhere_! It ain't _Nothin'_ an' I didn't have no fall an' I don't want no new bicycle. D'ye hear? I don't want nothin' 'cept just to be let alone. I wantta go ta sleep. Ain't I ben tellin' ya fer the last half hour? It ain't _sinful_ fer a fella to wantta take a little sleep is it when he's been up half the night before taking care of a fella on the mountain?--But if I ain't allowed, why then I'll get up an' go out somewheres. I know plenty of places where they'll lemme sleep--”

“Oh _Wil-lee_!” sobbed Aunt Saxon. “That's all right dear! Just you lie right down in your bed and take a good sleep. I didn't understand. Auntie didn't understand. All right Willie. I'll keep it real still. Now you lie down won't you? You will won't you? You'll really lie down and sleep won't you Willie?”

“Didn't I say I would?” snapped Willie shamedly, and subsided on his bed again while Aunt Saxon stole painfully, noiselessly over the creak in the stair, closed the house for the night and crept tearfully to her own bed, where she lay for hours silently wiping the steady trickle of hopeless tears. Oh, Willie, Willie! And she had had such hopes!

But Billy lay staring wide eyed at the open square of his window that showed the little village nestling among the trees dotted here and there with friendly winking lights, the great looming mountains in the distance, and Stark mountain, farthest and blackest of them all. He shut his eyes and tried to blot it out, but it seemed to loom through his very eyelids and mock him. He seemed to see Mark, his idol, carried between those other three dark figures into the blackness of that haunted house. He seemed to see him lying helpless, bound, on the musty bed in the deserted room, Mark, his beloved Mark. Mark who had carried him on his shoulder as a tiny child, who had ridden him on his back, and taught him to swim and pitch ball and box, Mark who let him go where even the big boys were not allowed to accompany him, and who never told on him nor treated him mean nor went back on him in any way! Mark! _He_ had been the means of putting Mark in that helpless position, while circumstances which he was now quite sure the devil had been specially preparing, wove a tangled maze about the young man's feet from which there seemed no way of extrication.

Billy shut his eyes and tried to sleep but sleep would not come. He began to doubt if he would ever sleep again. He lay listening to the evening noises of the village. He heard Jim Rafferty's voice going by to the night shift, and Tom McMertrie. They were laughing softly and once he thought he heard the name “Old Hair-Cut.” The Tully baby across the street had colic and cried like murder. Murder! _Murder!_ Now why did he have to think of that word of all words? Murder? Well, it was crying like it wanted to murder somebody. He wished he was a baby himself so he could cry. He'd cry harder'n that. Little's dog was barking again. He'd been barking all day long. It was probably at that strange guy at the parsonage. Little's dog never did like strangers. That creak was Barneses gate with the iron weight hitched on the chain to make it shut, and somebody laughed away up the street! There went the clock, nine o'clock! Gee! Was that all? He thought it must be about three in the morning! And then he must have dozed off for a little, for when he woke with a start it was very still and dark, as if the moon had gone away, had been and gone again, and he heard a cautious little mouse gnawing at the baseboard in his room, gnawing and stopping and gnawing again, then whisking over the lath like fingers running a scale on the piano. He had watched Miss Lynn do it once on the organ.

He opened his eyes and looked hard at the window. The dim outline of Stark mountain off in the distance began to grow into form, and what was that? A speck of light? It must be his eyes. He rubbed them sleepily and looked again. Yes, a light. Alert at once with the alertness that comes to all boys at the sound of a fire bell or some such alarm, he slid from his bed noiselessly and stole to the window. It was gone! Aw, Gee! He had been asleep and dreamed it. No, there it was again, or was it?

Blackness all before his eyes, with a luminous sky dimly about the irregular mountain top fringed with trees. This was foolish. He felt chilly and crept back to bed, but could not keep his eyes from the dark spot against the sky. He tried to close the lids and go to sleep, but they insisted on flying open and watching. And then came what he had been watching for. Three winks, and stop, three winks, stop, and one long flash. Then all was dark. And though he watched till the church clock struck three he saw no more.

But the old torment came back. Mark and Cherry and Lynn. The guy at the parsonage and the girl with the floured face and base ball bats in her ears! Aw Gee! He must have a fever! It was hours since the clock had struck three. It must be nearly four, and then it would soon be light and he could get up. There seemed to be a light somewhere down the street through the trees. Not the street lamp either. Somebody sick likely. Hark! What was that? He wished he hadn't undressed. He sat up in bed and listened. The purr of a car! Someone was stealing Mark's car! Mark was away and everybody knew it. Nobody in Sabbath Valley would steal, except, perhaps over at the plush mill. There were new people there--Was that Mark's car? _Some car_!

With a motion like a cat he sprang into the necessary garment which nestled limply on the floor by the bed, and was at the window in a trice. A drop like a cat to the shed roof, down the rainwater spout to the ground, a stealthy step to the back shed where old trusty leaned, and he was away down the road a speck in the dark, and just in time to see the dim black vision of a car speeding with muffled engine down the road toward the church. It was too dark to say it was Mark's car. He had no way but to follow.

Panting and puffing, pedalling with all his might, straining his eyes to see through the dark the car that was flying along without lights, his hair sticking endwise, his sleepy hungry face peering wanly through the dark, he plodded after. Over the Highway! He slowed down and wasn't quite sure till he heard the chug of the engine ahead, and a few seconds later a red light bloomed out behind and he drew a new breath and pedalled on again, his heart throbbing wildly, the collar of his pajamas sticking up wildly like his hair, and one pajama leg showing whitely below his trouser like a tattered banner. The pedals cut his bare feet, and he shivered though he was drenched with perspiration, but he leaned far over his handle bars and pedalled on.

Down past the Blue Duck Tavern, and on into the village of Economy the car went, not rapidly now as though it were running away, but slower, and steadier like a car on legitimate business and gravely with a necessary object in view. Billy's heart began to quake. Not for nothing had he learned to read by signs and actions at the feet of the master Mark. An inner well-developed sense began to tell him the truth.

The car stopped in front of the Chief's house, and a horn sounded softly once. Billy dismounted hastily and vanished into the shadows. A light appeared in the upper window of the house and all was still. Presently the light upstairs went out, the front door opened showing a dimmer light farther in, and showing the outline of the Chief in flannel shirt and trousers. He came down the walk and spoke with the man in the car, and the car started again and turned in at the Chief's drive way, going back to the garage.

Billy left his wheel against a hedge and hiked noiselessly after, slinking behind the garage door till the driver came out. _It was Mark!_

He went down the drive, met the Chief at the gate and they went silently down the dark street, their rubber heels making no noise on the pavement. Economy was asleep and no wiser, but Billy's heart was breaking. He watched the two and followed afar till they turned down the side street which he feared. He stole after and saw them enter the brick building that harbored the County Jail. He waited with shaking limbs and bleeding heart, waited, hoping, fearing, dreading, but not for long. The Chief came out alone! It was as he had feared.

Then as if the very devil himself pursued him, Billy turned and fled, retrieving his bicycle and whirled away noiselessly down the road, caring not where he was going, ready to hang himself, wild with despair and self-condemnation.

The dark lay over the valley like a velvet mantel black and soft with white wreaths of mist like a lady's veil flung aside and blown to the breeze, but Billy saw naught but red winking lights and a jail, grim and red in the midnight, and his friend's white face passing in beneath the arched door. The bang of that door as it shut was echoing in his soul.