A Busy Year at the Old Squire's Part 16

The old Squire nodded again. "I see. Perhaps we can." Then, after a minute, "And what about letting this be known?"

"Willis is scared," I said. "Addison thinks it would be about as well now to settle up if we can and say nothing."

The old Squire did not reply to that for some moments. I thought he was not so well pleased. "I do not believe that, in the circ.u.mstances, Willis need fear being imprisoned," he said finally, "and I see no reason for further concealment. True, several months have pa.s.sed and people have mostly forgotten it; perhaps not much good would come from publishing the facts abroad. We'll think it over."

After a minute he said, "I'm glad you told me this," and, turning, shook hands with me gravely.

"Ad and I don't want you to think that we expect you to square this up for us!" I exclaimed. "We want to do something to pay the bill ourselves, and to pay you for Lib, too."

The old Squire laughed. "Yes, I see how you feel," he said. "Would you like me to give you and Addison a job on shares this fall or winter, so that you could straighten this out?"

"Yes, sir, we would," said I earnestly. "And make Willis help, too!"

"Yes, yes," the old Squire said and laughed again. "I agree with you that Willis should do his part. Nothing like square dealing, is there, my son?" he went on. "It makes us all feel better, doesn't it?"

And he gave me a brisk little pat on the shoulder that made me feel quite like a man.

How much better I felt after that talk with the old Squire! I felt as blithe as a bird; and when we got home I ran and frisked and whistled all the way to the pasture, where I went to drive home the Jersey herd.

The only qualm I felt was that I had acted without Addison's consent; but his first words when I had told him relieved me on that score.

"I'm glad of it!" he said. "We've been in that fox bed long enough. Now let Willis squirm." And when I told him of the old Squire's arrangement for our paying off the debt, he said, "That suits me. But we'll make Willis work!"

We went over to tell Willis that evening. He was, I think, even more relieved than we were; in the weeks of anxiety that he had pa.s.sed he had determined that nothing would ever induce him to use poison again for trapping animals.

At that time many new telegraph lines were being put up in Maine; and the old Squire had recently accepted a contract for three thousand cedar poles, twenty feet long, at the rate of twenty-five cents a pole. Up in lot "No. 5," near Lurvey's Stream, there was plenty of cedar suitable for the purpose; the poles could be floated down to the point of delivery. The old Squire let us furnish a thousand of those poles, putting in our own labor at cutting and hauling. And in that way we earned the money to pay for the damage done by our fox pills.

Mr. Cutter, the owner of the Percheron, was willing to settle his loss for one hundred dollars; and during the winter, by dint of many inquiries, we heard of another sorrel, a three-year-old, which we purchased for a hundred and fifteen dollars. We took Mr. Kennard into our confidence and with his connivance planned a pleasant surprise for his wife. While Theodora and Ellen, who had accompanied us to the village, were entertaining Mrs. Kennard indoors, the old Squire and Addison and I smuggled the colt into the little stable and put her in the same stall where Sylph had once stood. When all was ready, Mr.

Kennard went in and said:

"Louise, Sylph's got back! Come out to the stable!"

Wonderingly Mrs. Kennard followed him out to the stable. For a moment she gazed, astonished; then, of course, she guessed the ruse. "Oh, but it isn't Sylph!" she cried. "It isn't half so pretty!" And out came her pocket handkerchief again.

The old Squire took her gently by the hand. "It's the best we could do,"

he said. "We hope you will accept her with our best wishes."

Truth to say, Mrs. Kennard's tears were soon dried; and before long the new colt became almost as great a pet as the lost Sylph.

"Don't you ever forget, and don't you ever let me forget, how the old Squire has helped us out of this sc.r.a.pe," Ad said to me that night after we had gone upstairs. "He's an old Christian. If he ever needs a friend in his old age and I fail him, let my name be Ichabod!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

During the first week in May the old Squire and grandmother Ruth made a trip to Portland, and when they came back, they brought, among other presents to us young folks at home, a gla.s.s jar of goldfish for Ellen.

In Ellen's early home, before the Civil War and before she came to the old Squire's to live, there had always been a jar of goldfish in the window, and afterwards at the old farm the girl had often remarked that she missed it. Well I remember the cry of joy she gave that day when grandmother stepped down from the wagon at the farmhouse door and, turning, took a gla.s.s jar of goldfish from under the seat.

"O grandmother!" she cried and fairly flew to take it from the old lady's hands.

Ellen had eyes for nothing else that evening, and as it grew dark she went time and again with a lamp to look at the fish and to drop in crumbs of cracker.

During the four days the old folks were away we had run free; games and jokes had been in full swing. There was still mischief in us, for the next morning when we came down to do the ch.o.r.es before any one else was up, Addison said:

"Let's have some fun with Nell; she'll be down here pretty quick. Get some fish poles and strings and bend up some pins for hooks and we'll pretend to be fishing in the jar!"

In a few minutes we each had rigged up a semblance of fishing tackle and were ready. When Ellen opened the sitting-room door a little later the sight that met her astonished eyes took her breath away. Addison was calmly fishing in the jar!

"What are you doing?" she cried. "My goldfish!"

Addison fled out of the room with Ellen in hot pursuit; she finally caught him, seized the rod and broke it. But when she turned back to see what damages her adored fish had suffered, she beheld Halstead, perched over the jar, also fishing in it.

"My senses! You here, too!" she cried. "Can't a boy see a fish without wanting to catch it?"

When she hurried back in a flurry of anxiety after chasing him to the carriage house, she found me there, too, pretending to yank one out. But by this time she saw that it was a joke, and the box on the ear that she gave me was not a very hard one.

"Seems to me, young folks, I heard quite too much noise down here for Sunday morning," grandmother said severely when she appeared a little later. "Such racing and running! You really must have better regard for the day."

Preparations for breakfast went on in a subdued manner, and we were sitting at table rather quietly when a caller appeared at the door--Mrs.

Rufus Sylvester, who lived about a mile from us. Her face wore a look of anxiety.

"Squire," she exclaimed, "I implore you to come over and say something to Rufus! He's terrible downcast this morning. He went out to the barn, but he hasn't milked, nor done his ch.o.r.es. He's settin' out there with his face in his hands, groanin'. I'm afraid, Squire, he may try to take his own life!"

The old Squire rose from the table and led Mrs. Sylvester into the sitting-room; grandmother followed them and carefully shut the door behind her. We heard them speaking in low tones for some moments; then they came out, and both the old Squire and grandmother Ruth set off with Mrs. Sylvester.

"Is he ill?" Theodora whispered to grandmother as the old lady pa.s.sed her.

"No, child; he is melancholy this spring," the old lady replied. "He is afraid he has committed the unpardonable sin."

The old folks and our caller left us finishing our breakfast, and I recollect that for some time none of us spoke. Our recent unseemly hilarity had vanished.

"What do you suppose Sylvester's done?" Halstead asked at last, with a glance at Theodora; then, as she did not seem inclined to hazard conjectures on that subject, he addressed himself to Addison, who was trying to extract a second cup of coffee from the big coffeepot.

"You know everything, Addison, or think you do. What is this unpardonable sin?"

"Cousin Halstead," Addison replied, not relishing the manner in which he had put the question, "you are likely enough to find that out for yourself if you don't mend some of your bad ways here."

Halstead flamed up and muttered something about the self-righteousness of a certain member of the family; but Theodora then remarked tactfully that, as nearly as she could understand it, the unpardonable sin is something we do that can never be forgiven.

Some months before Elder Witham had preached a sermon in which he had set forth the doctrine of predestination and the unpardonable sin, but I have to confess that none of us could remember what he had said.

"I think it's in the Bible," Theodora added, and, going into the sitting-room, she fetched forth grandmother Ruth's concordance Bible and asked Addison to help her find the references. Turning first to one text, then to another, for some minutes they read the pa.s.sages aloud, but did not find anything conclusive. The discussion had put me in a rather disturbed state of mind in regard to several things I had done at one time and another, and I suppose I looked sober, for I saw Addison regarding me curiously. He continued to glance at me, clearly with intention, and shook his head gloomily several times until Ellen noticed it and exclaimed in my behalf, "Well, I guess he stands as good a chance as you do!"

Two hours or so later the old Squire and grandmother returned, thoughtfully silent; they did not tell us what had occurred, and it was not until a good many years later, when Theodora, Halstead and Addison had left the old farm, that I learned what had happened that morning at the Sylvester place. The old Squire and I were driving home from the village when something brought the incident to his mind, and, since I was now old enough to understand, he related what had occurred.