CHAPTER XVIII.

IN SEARCH OF A PERFECT MAN.

Ciscasset, perhaps most beautiful of Maine towns near the Canadian border, was particularly beautiful on the morning after 'Tilda Jane's departure from Hobart Dillson's cottage. The sun was still shining fervently--so fervently that men threw open their top-coats or carried them on their arms; the sky was still of the delicate pink and blue haze of the day before, the wind was a breath of spring blown at departing winter.

It was still early, and beautiful Ciscasset was not yet really astir. Few women were to be seen on the streets,--only a score of shop-girls hurrying to their work,--but men abounded. Clerks were going to their desks and counters, and early rising business men to their offices. Market-men swarmed in from the country in order to be the first to sell their produce in the prosperous little town with the Indian name.

Other towns and villages might direct their search across the sea for European titles for streets and homes. Ciscasset prided itself on being American and original. The Indian names were native to the State, and with scarcely an exception prevailed in the nomenclature of the town. Therefore the--in other places Main Street--was here Kennebago Street, and down this street a group of farmers was slowly proceeding. They had sold their farm produce to grocers and stable-keepers, and were now going to the post-office for their mail.

Assembled a few moments later in a corner of the gray stone building, and diligently reading letters and papers, they did not see a small figure approaching, and only looked up when a grave voice inquired, "Air you too busy to speak to me a minute?"

The men all stared at the young girl with the dog in her arms, the heavy circles around her eyes, and the two red spots on her cheeks.

"What do you want?" asked the oldest farmer, a gray-haired man in a rabbit-skin cap.

"I want to find the best minister in this place."

A smile went around the circle of farmers. They were all amused, except the gray-haired one. He was nearest to 'Tilda Jane, and felt the intense gravity of her manner.

"In the town, I mean," she went on, wearily. "I want to ask him something. I thought they'd know in the post-office, but when I asked behind them boxes," and she nodded toward the wall near them, "they told me to get out--they was busy."

The old farmer was silent for a moment. Then he said, gruffly, "You look beat out, young girl, like as if you'd been out all night."

"I was," she said, simply, "I've been pacin' the streets waitin' for the mornin'."

The attitude of the younger men was half reproachful, half disturbed. They always brought with them to the town an uneasy consciousness that they might in some way be fooled, and 'Tilda Jane's air was very precocious, very citified, compared with their air of rustic coltishness. They did not dream that she was country-bred like themselves.

The older man was thinking. He was nearer the red spots and the grieving eyes than the others. The child was in trouble.

"Bill," he said, slowly, "what's the name o' that man that holds forth in Molunkus Street Church?"

His son informed him that he did not know.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Price," said the farmer, leaving the young farmers, and sauntering across to the other side of the post-office, where a brisk-looking man was ripping open letters. "Can you give us the name of the preacher that wags his tongue in the church on Molunkus Street?"

"Burness," said Mr. Price, raising his head, and letting his snapping eyes run beyond the farmer to the flock of young men huddling together like gray sheep.

"Would you call him the best man in Ciscasset?" pursued the farmer, with a wave of his hand toward 'Tilda Jane.

Mr. Price's snapping eyes had already taken her in. "What do you mean by best?" he asked, coolly.

"I mean a man as always does what is right," said 'Tilda Jane, when the question was left for her to answer.

"Don't go to Burness, then," said Mr. Price, rapidly. "Good preacher--poor practiser."

"Ain't there any good practisers in Ciscasset?" asked the farmer, dryly.

"Well--I know some pretty fair ones," responded Mr. Price. "I don't know of one perfect person in the length and breadth of the town. But I know two people, though, who come near enough to perfection for your job, I guess," and his brilliant glance rested on 'Tilda Jane.

"Who be they?" asked the farmer, curiously.

"Is it this young girl that wants 'em?" asked Mr. Price.

"Yes, sir," said the farmer, "it is."

"Then I'll tell her," said his quicksilver friend, and he flashed to 'Tilda Jane's side. "Go up Wallastook Street to Allaguash Street. Ask for Reverend Mr. Tracy's house. Any one'll tell you--understand?"

"Yes, sir--thank you; and thank _you_, too," and with a grateful gesture toward the farmer, she was gone.

The farmer gazed after her. "I hate to see a young one in trouble. Someone's been imposin' on her."

Mr. Price felt sympathetic, but he said nothing.

"Who'd you send her to?" inquired the farmer. "I'd give a barrel of apples to know."

"To me?" inquired Mr. Price, smartly.

The farmer laughed. "Yes, sir--I'd do it. You've put me in the way of business before now."

"I sent her to a man," replied Mr. Price, "who might be in Boston to-day if he wanted to. He gave up a big church to come here. He's always inveighing against luxury and selfishness and the other crowd of vices. He and his wife have stacks of money, but they give it away, and never do the peacock act. They're about as good as they make 'em. It isn't their talking I care about--not one rap. It's the carrying out of their talk, and not going back on it."

"My daughter wants to go out as hired help. I guess that would be an A number one place, if they'd have her," observed the father, meditatively. "Good enough," said Mr. Price, "if you want her to ruin her earthly prospects, and better her heavenly ones," and he went away laughing.

The farmer stepped to the post-office door. 'Tilda Jane was toiling up the sidewalk with downcast head. The shop windows had no attractions for her, nor was she throwing a single glance at the line of vehicles now passing along the street; and muttering, "Poor young one!" the farmer returned to his correspondence.

The Reverend Mr. Tracy was having his breakfast in the big yellow house set up on terraces, which were green in summer and white in winter. The house was large, because it was meant to shelter other people beside the Tracys and their children, but there was not a stick of "genteel" furniture in it, the new housemaid from Portland was just disdainfully observing to the cook.

"You'll get over that soon," remarked the cook, with a laugh and a toss of her head, "and will be for givin' away what we've got an' sittin' on the floor. There's the door-bell. You'd better go answer it; it's time the beggars was arrivin'."

Mr. Tracy was late with his breakfast this morning, because he had been out half the night before with a drunken young man who had showed an unconquerable aversion to returning home. Now as he ate his chop and drank his hot milk, fed a parrot by his side, and talked to his wife, who kept moving about the room, he thought of this young man, until he caught the sound of voices in the hall.

"Bessie," he said, quietly, "there's your new maid turning some one away."

His wife stepped into the hall. The housemaid was indeed assuring a poor-looking child that the master of the house was at breakfast and could not see any one.

"Then I'll wait," Mrs. Tracy heard in a dogged young voice. The front door closed as she hurried forward, but she quickly opened it. There on the top step sat a small girl holding a dog.

"Good morning," she said, kindly; "do you want something?"

"I want to see the Reverend Tracy," responded the little girl, and the clergyman's wife, used to sorrowful faces, felt her heart ache as this most sorrowful one was upturned to her.

"Come in," she went on, and 'Tilda Jane found herself speedily walking through a wide but bare hall to a sunny dining-room. She paused on the threshold. That small, dark man must be the minister. He was no nearer beauty than she was, but he had a good face, and--let her rejoice for this--he was fond of animals, for on the hearth lay a cat and a dog asleep side by side, in the long windows hung canaries in cages, and on a luxuriant and beautiful rose-bush, growing in a big pot drawn up to the table, sat a green and very self-possessed parrot. She was not screeching, she was not tearing at the leaves, she sat meekly and thankfully receiving from time to time such morsels as her master chose to hand her.

The little, dark, quiet man barely turned as she entered, but his one quick glance told him more than hours of conversation from 'Tilda Jane would have revealed. He did not get up, he did not shake hands with her, he merely nodded and uttered a brief "Good-morning."

"Won't you sit here?" said Mrs. Tracy, bustling to the fireplace, and disturbing the cat and the dog in order to draw up a chair.

"I think our young caller will have some breakfast with me," said the minister, without raising his eyes, and stretching out his hand he pushed a chair beyond the rose-bush, and by a gesture invited 'Tilda Jane to sit in it.

She seated herself, crowded Gippie on her lap under the table, and mechanically put to her mouth the cup of steaming milk that seemed to glide to her hand. She was nearly fainting. A few minutes more, and she would have fallen to the floor. The minister did not speak to her. He went calmly on with his breakfast, and a warning finger uplifted kept his wife from making remarks. He talked a good deal to the parrot, and occasionally to himself, and not until 'Tilda Jane had finished the milk and eaten some bread and butter did any one address her.

Then the minister spoke to the bird. "Say good morning to the little girl, Lulu."

"Good morning," remarked the parrot, in a voice of grating amiability.

"Say 'It's a pretty world,' Lulu," continued her owner.

"It's a pretty world, darlin'," responded the parrot, bursting into hoarse, unmusical laughter at her own addition. "Oh, it's a pretty world--a pretty world!"

To the gentleman and his wife there was something cynical and afflicting in the bird's comment on mundane affairs, and they surreptitiously examined their visitor. Did she feel this?

She did--poor girl, she had been passing through some bitter experience. There was the haunting, injured look of wounded childhood on her face, and her curled lip showed that she, too, young as she was, had found that all was not good in the world, all was not beautiful.

The parrot was singing now:

"'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home, home, sweet, s-we-e-e-t ho-o-o-me,"

but at this point she overbalanced herself. Her uplifted claw swung over and she fell backward among the rose-branches.

The bird's rueful expression as she fell, her ridiculous one as she gathered herself up, and with a surprised "Oh, dear!" climbed back to her perch, were so overcoming that the minister and his wife burst into hearty laughter.

'Tilda Jane did not join them. She looked interested, and a very faint crease of amusement came in a little fold about her lips, but at once faded away.

The minister got up and went to the fire, and taking out his watch earnestly consulted its face, then addressed his wife.

"I have a ministers' meeting in half an hour. Can you go down-town with me?"

"Yes, dear," replied Mrs. Tracy, and she glanced expectantly toward 'Tilda Jane.

The little girl started. "Can I ask you a question or so afore you go?" she asked, hurriedly.

"No, my dear," said the man, with a fatherly air. "Not until I come back."

"I guess some one's told you about me," remarked 'Tilda Jane, bitterly.

"I never heard of you, or saw you before a quarter of an hour ago," he replied, kindly. "Do you see that sofa?" and he drew aside a curtain. "You lie down there and rest, and in two hours we shall return. Come, Bessie--" and with his wife he left the room.

'Tilda Jane was confounded, and her first idea was of capture. She was trapped at last, and would be sent back to the asylum--then a wave of different feeling swept over her. She would trust those two people anywhere, and they liked her. She could tell it by their looks and actions. She sighed heavily, almost staggered to the sofa, and throwing herself down, was in two minutes sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion.