Chapter 18

“Oh, well,” said Laurie with an assured shrug, “That's all right if I don't mind, isn't it?”

“Well, no,” said the minister smiling broadly now, “You forget that she might mind, you know.”

“I don't get you,” said Laurie looking puzzled as he fitted on his immaculate driving glove, “She might mind, what do you mean?”

“I mean that my daughter minds very much indeed whether her men friends ask in a certain tone of voice for something to _drink_ at midnight, and use language such as you used when you first arrived here, smoke continual cigarettes, and have friends like the young woman who visited you last Sunday.”

“Oh! I see!” laughed Laurie thoroughly amused, “Well, after all, one doesn't have to keep on doing all those things you know--if it were worth one's while to change them.”

“I'm afraid,” said the minister still amused, “that it would have to be worth your while to change before she would even consider you as a possibility. She happens to have a few ideas about what it takes to make a man, her ideal man, you know.”

Laurie smiled gaily:

“Perhaps I can change those ideas.”

“Help yourself young man. You'll find it a task, I assure you.”

“Well, I'm coming back, anyway.”

“We shall welcome you,” said the minister politely, but not at all gladly, and Laurie departed without his usual complacency, assuring the minister that he had found Sabbath Valley the garden spot of the world and meant to return soon and often.

Billy watched him from the graveyard enclosure whither he had retired to write a letter, and he made a face and wasted a gesture of defiance after his departing car. So much Billy felt he had accomplished toward reparation. He was now attempting a third act.

On the smooth end of the old stone he had a newspaper spread, and upon that a sheet of letter paper which he had extracted from Aunt Saxon's ancient box in the old secretary in the corner of the kitchen. Kneeling beside the stone he carefully inscribed the following words:

“Yoors to cummand, B. Gaston.”

He folded the paper with his smudgy fingers, and stuffed it into a soiled envelope on which he wrote Mark's name, and as he had seen Lynn write down in the corner of a note that he had taken to Monopoly for her, “Kindness of Billy,” so he wrote “Kindnus of Cheef.” Then he mounted his wheel and rode to Economy. After some apparently aimless riding he brought up at the back of the Chief's garage where he applied a canny eye to a crack and ascertained just how many and what cars were inside. He then rode straight to the bank where he was pretty sure the Chief would be standing near the steps at this hour. Waiting a time of leisure he handed him the envelope:

“Say, Chief, c'n I trouble you to d'liver that?”

The Chief looked at the envelope and then at Billy and opened his lips to speak, but Billy forestalled him:

“I know you don't know where he is at all now, Chief, o' course, but I just thought you might happen to meet up with him sometime soon. That's all right, Chief. Thank ya.” Billy ended with a knowing wink.

The Chief turned the envelope over, noted that it was unsealed, grinned back and put it in his pocket. They had been good friends, these two, for several years, ever since Billy had been caught bearing the penalty for another boy's misdemeanor.

“That's all right Billy,” said the Chief affably, “I won't forget it--if I see him! Seen anything more of those automobile thieves?”

“Nope,” said Billy sadly, “but I gotta line on 'em. 'f'I find anythin' more I'll callyaup!”

“Do!” said the Chief cordially, and the interview was closed.

Billy bought some cakes at the bakery with ten cents he had earned running an errand from the grocery that morning, and departed on important business. He had definitely decided to give up his thirty pieces of silver. No more blood money for him. His world was upside down and all he loved were suffering, and all because he had been mercenary. The only way to put things right was to get rid of any gain that might accrue to himself. Then he would be in a position to do something. And Pat was his first object now. He meant to give back the money to Pat! He had thought it all out, and he meant to waste no time in getting things straight.

He went to the Economy post office and on the back of a circular that he found in the waste basket he wrote another note:

“Pat. This is blood money an' I can't kep it. I didunt no when I undertuk the job wot kind of a job it was. Thers only one way fur yoo to kep yur hid saf, an that is to tel the trooth abot wot hapuned. If yoo ar wiling to tel the trooth put a leter heer sayin so. If yoo don't I am havin' you watshed an you will los yoor job an likely be hanged. We are arumd so be keerful. This aint yella. This is rite.

“THE KID.”

It was a long job and he was tired when it was finished, for his days at school had been full of so many other things besides lessons that literary efforts were always strenuous for him. When he had finished he went out and carried three parcels for the meat market, receiving in return thirty cents, which exactly made up the sum he had spent from his tainted money. With this wrapped bunglingly in his note he proceeded to ambush near Pleasant Valley. He had other fish to fry, but not till dark. Meantime, if that underground telephone was being used at other times in the day he wanted to know it.

He placed the note and money obviously before the little hidden telephone from which he had cleared the leaves and rubbish that hid it, and then retired to cover where he settled himself comfortably. He knew Pat would be busy till the two evening trains had arrived, after that if he did not come there would likely be no calls before morning again, and he could go on his way. With a pleasant snack of sugar cookies and cream puffs he lay back and closed his eyes, glad of this brief respite from his life of care and perplexity. Of course he couldn't get away from his thoughts, but what a pleasant place this was, with the scent of sassafras and winter green all around him, and the meadow lark high in the air somewhere. There were bees in the wild honeysuckle not far away. He could hear their lazy drone. It would be nice to be a bee and fly, fly away from everything. Did bees care about things? Did they have troubles, and love folks and lose 'em? When a bee died did the other bees care? Aw Gee! Mark in--j--_No_! He wouldn't say it! Mark was in New York! Yes, of course he was. It would all come right some day. He would catch those crooks and put 'em in jail--no, first he'd use 'em to clear Mark. When he got done here he was going up to watch the old house and find out about that noise, and he'd see whether Link and Shorty would put anything more over! Link and Shorty and Pat, and that sissy Shafton and Sam, whoever Sam was! They were all his enemies! If Mark were only here how they would go to that old haunted house together and work this thing out. He ought to have told Mark everything. Fool! Just to save his own hide! Just to keep Mark from blaming him! Well, he was done saving himself or getting ill gotten gains. Him for honesty for the rest of his life.

The bees droned on and the lark grew fainter and fainter. Billy's eyes drooped closer shut, his long curling lashes lay on his freckled cheeks the way they lay sometimes when Aunt Saxon came to watch him. That adorable sweep of lash that all mothers of boys know, that air of dignity and innocence that makes you forget the day and its doings and undoings and think only, this is a man child, a wonderful creature of God, beloved and strong, a gift of heaven, a wonder in daytime, a creature to be afraid of sometimes, but weak in sleep, _adorable!_

Billy slept.

The afternoon train lumbered in with two freight cars behind, and a lot of crates and boxes to manipulate, but Billy slept. The five o'clock train slid in and the evening express with its toll of guests for the Lake Hotel who hustled off wearily, cheerily, and on to the little Lake train that stood with an expectant insolent air like a necessary evil waiting for a tip. The two trains champed and puffed and finally scampered away, leaving echoes all along the valley, and a red stream of sun down the track behind them from a sky aflame in the west preparing for a brilliant sunset. The red fingers of the sun touched the freckles on Billy's cheek lightly as if to warn him that the time had come. The shutters slammed on at the little station. The agent climbed the hill to his shack among the pines. Pat came out the door and stood on the platform looking down the valley, waiting for the agent to get out of sight.

And Billy slept on!

XXII

Three days later a pall hung over Sabbath Valley. The coroner's inquest had brought in a verdict of murder, and the day of the hearing had been set. Mark Carter was to be tried for murder--was _wanted_ for murder as Elder Harricutt put it. It was out now and everybody knew it but Mrs. Carter, who went serenely on her way getting her regular letters from Mark postmarked New York and telling of little happenings that were vague but pleasant and sounded so like Mark, so comforting and son like. So strangely tender and comforting and more in detail than Mark's letters had been wont to be. She thought to herself that he was growing up at last. He spoke of a time when he and she would have a nice home together somewhere, some new place where he would get into business and make a lot of money. Would she like that? And once he told her he was afraid he hadn't been a very good son to her, but sometime he would try to make it up to her, and she cried over that letter for sheer joy. But all the rest of the town knew that Mark was suspected of murder, and most of them thought he had run away and nobody could find him. The county papers hinted that there were to be strange revelations when the time of the trial came, but nothing definite seemed to come out from day to day more than had been said at first, and there was a strange lack of any mention of Mark in connection with it after the first day.

Lynn Severn went about the house quiet and white, her face looking like an angel's prayer, one continual petition, but she was sweet and patient, and ready to do anything for anybody. Work seemed to be her only respite from the gnawing horror of her thoughts. To know that the whole village believed that Mark, her life long playmate, had been guilty of a crime so heinous was so appalling that sometimes she just stood at the window and laughed out into the sunshine at the crazy idea of it. It simply could not be. Mark, who had always been so gentle and tender for every living thing, so chivalrous, so ready to help! To think of Mark killing anyone! And yet, they might have needed killing. At least, of course she didn't mean that, but there were circumstances under which she could imagine almost anyone doing a deed--well what was the use, there was no way to excuse or explain a thing she didn't understand, and she could just do nothing but not believe any of it until she knew. She would trust in God, and yes, she would trust in Mark as she always had done, at least until she had his own word that he was not trustable. That haughty withdrawing of himself on Sunday night and his “I am not worthy” meant nothing to her now when it came trailing across her consciousness. It only seemed one more proof of his tender conscience, his care for her reputation. He had known then what they were saying about him, he must have known the day before that there was something that put him in a position so that he felt it was not good for her reputation to be his friend. He had withdrawn to protect her. That was the way she explained it to her heart, while yet beneath it all was the deep down hurt that he had not trusted her, and let her be his friend in trouble as well as when all was well.

She had written him a little note, not too intimate, just as a sister might have written, expressing her deep trust, and her sincere desire to stand by and help in any time of need. In it she begged him to think her worthy of sharing his trouble as he used to share his happiness, and to know always that she was his friend whatever came. She had read it over and over to be sure she was not overstepping her womanly right to say these things, and had prayed about it a great deal. But when it came to sending it she did not know his New York address. He had been strangely silent during the last few months and had not written her. She did not want to ask his mother. So she planned to find it out through Billy. But Billy did not come. It had been two days since Billy had been around, or was it three? She was standing at the window looking down the road toward the Saxon cottage and wondering if she wanted to go down and hunt for Billy when she saw Miss Saxon coming up the street and turning in at the gate, and her face looked wan and crumpled like an old rose that had been crushed and left on the parlor floor all night.

She turned from the window and hurried down:

“Miss Marilyn,” Aunt Saxon greeted her with a gush of tears, “I don't know what to do. Billy's away! He hasn't been home for three days and three nights! His bed ain't been touched. He never did that before except that last time when he stayed out to help Mark Carter that time on the mountain with that sick man, and I can't think what's the matter. I went to Miz Carter's, but she ain't seen him, and she says Mark's up to his business in New York, so Billy can't be with him, and I just know he's kilt, Miss Marilyn. I just know he's kilt. I dreamt of a shroud night before last and I can't help thinkin' he's _kilt!_” and the tears poured down the tired little face pitifully.

Marilyn drew her tenderly into the house and made her sit down by the cool window, brought a palm leaf fan and a footstool, and told Naomi to make some iced orangeade. Then she called her mother and went and sat down by the poor little creature who now that somebody else was going to do something about it had subsided into her chair with relief born of exhaustion. She had not slept for three nights and two of those days she had washed all day.

“Now, Miss Saxon, dear, you're not to worry,” said the girl taking the fan and waving it gently back and forth, touching the work-worn hand tenderly with her other hand, “Billy is not dead, I'm sure! Oh, I'm quite sure! I think somehow it would be hard to kill Billy. He has ways of keeping alive that most of us don't enjoy. He is strong and young and sharp as a needle. No one can put anything over on Billy, and I have somehow a feeling, Miss Saxon that Billy is off somewhere doing something very important for somebody. He is that way you know. He does nice unusual things that nobody else would think of doing, and I just expect you'll find out some day that Billy has been doing one of those. There's that man on the mountain, for instance. He might be still very sick, and it would be just like Billy to stay and see to him. Maybe there isn't anybody else around to do it, and now that Mark has gone he would feel responsible about it. Of course he ought to have told you before he went, but he wouldn't likely have expected to stay long, and then boys don't think. They don't realize how hard it is not to understand--!”

“Thas'so, Miss Marilyn,” sniffed Miss Saxon, “He don't hardly ever think. But he mighta phomed.”

“Well, it isn't likely they have phones on the mountain, and you haven't any, have you? How could he?”

“He mighta phomed to you.”

“Yes, he might, but you know how boys are, he wouldn't want to bother anybody. And if the man was in a lonely cabin somewhere he couldn't get to a phone.”

“Thas'so too. Oh, Miss Marilyn, you always do think up comfort. You're just like your ma and pa. But Billy, he's been so kinda peaked lately, so sorta gentle, and then again sorta crazy like, just like his mother useta be 'fore her husband left her. I couldn't help worryin'.”

“Well, now, Miss Saxon, I'll inquire around all I can without rousing any suspicion. You know Billy would hate that.”

“Oh, I know he would,” flushed the little woman nervously.

“So I'll just ask the boys if they know where he is and where they saw him last, and don't you worry. I'll tell them I have a message for him you know, and you just stop crying and rest easy and don't tell a soul yet till I look around. Here comes mother. She'll help you better than I can.”

Mrs. Severn in a cool white dimity came quietly into the room, bringing a restful calm with her, and while Lynn was out on her errand of mercy she slipped a strong arm around the other woman's waist and had her down on her knees in the alcove behind the curtains, and had committed the whole matter to a loving Heavenly Father, Billy and the tired little Aunt, and all the little details of life that harrow so on a burdened soul; and somehow when they rose the day was cooler, and life looked more possible to poor Aunt Saxon.

Presently came Lynn, brightly. She had seen the boys. They had met Billy in Economy day before yesterday. He had said he had a job, he didn't know how long it would last, and he might not be able to come to base ball practice. He told them who to put in his place till he got back.

“There, now, Miss Saxon, you go home and lie down and take a good sleep. You've put this whole thing in the hands of the Lord, now don't take it out again. Just trust Him. Billy'll come back safe and sound, and there'll be some good reason for it,” said Mrs. Severn. And Aunt Saxon, smiling wistfully, shyly apologetic for her foolishness, greatly cheered and comforted, went. But Lynn went up to her little white room and prayed earnestly, adding Billy to her prayer for Mark. Where was Billy Gaston?

When Miss Saxon went home she found a letter in the letter box out by the gate addressed to Billy. This set her heart to palpitating again and she almost lost her faith in prayer and took to her own worries once more. But she carried the letter in and held it up to the window, trying her best to make out anything written therein. She justified this to her conscience by saying that it might give a clue to Billy's whereabouts. Billy never got letters. Maybe, it might be from his long lost father, though they had all reason to believe him dead. Or maybe--Oh, what if Albert Gaston had come back and kidnapped Billy! The thought was too awful. She dropped right down in the kitchen where she stood by the old patchwork rocking chair that always stood handy in the window when she wanted to peel potatoes, and prayed: “Oh, God, don't let it be! Don't bring that bad man back to this world again! Take care of my Billy and bring him back to me, Amen!” Over and over again she prayed, and it seemed to comfort her. Then she rose, and put the tea kettle on and carefully steamed open the letter. She had not lost all hope when she took time to steam it open in place of tearing it, for she was still worse afraid that Billy might return and scold her for meddling with his precious letter, then she was afraid he would not return. While the steam was gathering she tried to justify herself in Billy's eyes for opening it at all. After her prayer it seemed a sort of desecration. So the kettle had almost boiled away before she mustered courage to hold the envelope over the steam, and while she did this she noticed for the first time significantly that the postmark was New York. Perhaps it was from Mark. Then Billy was not with Mark! But perhaps the letter would tell.

So she opened the flap very carefully, and pulled out the single sheet of paper, stepping nearer the window to read it in the late afternoon light. It read: “Dear Kid, shut your mouth and saw wood. Buddy.” That was all.

Aunt Saxon lifted frightened eyes and stared at the lilac bush outside the window, the water spout where Billy often shinned up and down, the old apple tree that he would climb before he was large enough to be trusted, and then she read the letter again. But it meant nothing to her. It seemed a horrible riddle. She took a pencil and a scrap of paper and quickly transcribed the mysterious words, omitting not even the punctuation, and then hurriedly returned the letter to its envelope, clapped the flap down and held it tight. When it was dry she put the letter up in plain sight on the top of the old secretary where Billy could find it at once when he came in. She was taking no chances on Billy finding her opening his mail. It never had happened before, because Billy never had had a letter before, except notices about base ball and athletic association, but she meant it never should happen. She knew instinctively that if it ever did she would lose Billy, if not immediately, then surely eventually, for Billy resented above all things interference. Then Aunt Saxon sat down to study the transcription. But after a long and thorough perusal she folded it carefully and pinned it in her bosom. But she went more cheerily down to the market to get something for supper. Billy might come any time now. His letter was here, and he would surely come home to get his letter.

Down at the store she met Marilyn, who told her she looked better already, and the poor soul, never able to hold her tongue, had to tell the girl about the letter.

“He's had a letter,” she said brightening, “about a job I guess. It was there when I got back. It's sawing wood. The letter doesn't have any head. It just says about sawing wood. I 'spose that's where he is, but he ought to have let me know. He was afraid I'd make a fuss about it, I always do. I'm afraid of those big saws they use. He's so careless. But he was set on a grown-up job. I couldn't get him to paste labels on cans at the factory, he said it was too much of a kid game.”

“Oh,” said Marilyn, wondering, “Sawing wood. Well, that's where he is of course, and it's good healthy work. I wouldn't worry. Billy is pretty careful I think. He'll take care of himself.”

But to herself on the way home she said: “How queer for Billy to go off sawing wood just now! It doesn't seem like him. They can't be so hard up. There must be something behind it all. I hope I didn't start anything asking him to stick by Mark! Oh, _where_ is Mark?”

That afternoon Marilyn took a horseback ride, and touched all the points she knew where there might be likely to be woodsawing going on, but no Billy was on the job anywhere.

As she rode home through Economy she saw Mrs. Fenner scuttling down a side street from the jail, and hurrying into her own side gate like a little frightened lizard.

Marilyn came back home heart sick and sad, and took refuge in the church and her bells. At least she could call to Billy across the hills somewhere by playing the songs he loved the best. And perhaps their echoes would somehow cross the miles to Mark too, by that strange mysterious power that spirit can reach to spirit across space or years or even estrangement, and draw the thoughts irresistibly. So she sat at the organ and played her heart out, ringing all the old sweet songs that Mark used to love when the bells first were new and she was learning to play them; Highland Laddie, Bonnie Bonnie Warld, Mavourneen, Kentucky Home, songs that she had kept fresh in her heart and sometimes played for Billy now and then. And then the old hymns. Did they echo far enough to reach him where he had gone, Mark sitting alone in his inferno? Billy holding his breath and trying to find a way out of his? Did they hear those bells calling?

“Oh, God our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come! Our refuge from the stormy blast, And our eternal home!”

The soul of the girl in the little dusky church went up in a prayer with the bells.

“Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God! A thousand years the same!”