An Alabaster Box Part 15

"They seemed to want me here in Brookville," he said, with some bitterness. "It was a last resort, for me. I might have taken a position in a school; but I couldn't bring myself to that. I'd dreamed of preaching--to big audiences."

She smiled at him, with a gentle sidewise motion of the head.

"G.o.d lets us do things, if we want to hard enough," she told him quite simply.

"Do you believe that?" he cried. "Perhaps you'll think it strange for me to ask; but do you?"

A great wave of emotion seemed to pa.s.s over her quiet face. He saw it alter strangely under his gaze. For an instant she stood transfigured; smiling, without word or movement. Then the inward light subsided. She was only an ordinary young woman, once more, upon whom one might bestow an indulgent smile--so simple, even childlike she was, in her unaffected modesty.

"I really must go in," she said apologetically, "and help them cut the cake."

Chapter VIII

Jim Dodge had been hoeing potatoes all day. It was hard, monotonous work, and he secretly detested it. But the hunting season was far away, and the growing potatoes were grievously beset by weeds; so he had cut and thrust with his sharp-bladed hoe from early morning till the sun burned the crest of the great high-shouldered hill which appeared to close in the valley like a rampart, off Gren.o.ble way. As a matter of fact, the brawling stream which gave Brookville its name successfully skirted the hill by a narrow margin which likewise afforded s.p.a.ce for the state road.

But the young man was not considering either the geographical contours of the country at large or the refreshed and renovated potato field, with its serried ranks of low-growing plants, as he tramped heavily crosslots toward the house. At noon, when he came in to dinner, in response to the wideflung summons of the tin horn which hung by the back door, he had found the two women of his household in a pleasurable state of excitement.

"We've got our share, Jim!" proclaimed Mrs. Dodge, a bright red spot glowing on either thin cheek. "See! here's the check; it came in the mail this morning."

And she spread a crackling bit of paper under her son's eyes.

"I was some surprised to get it so soon," she added. "Folks ain't generally in any great hurry to part with their money. But they do say Miss Orr paid right down for the place--never even asked 'em for any sort of terms; and th' land knows they'd have been glad to given them to her, or to anybody that had bought the place these dozen years back. Likely she didn't know that."

Jim scowled at the check.

"How much did she pay for the place?" he demanded. "It must have been a lot more than it was worth, judging from this."

"I don't know," Mrs. Dodge replied. "And I dunno as I care particularly, as long's we've got our share of it."

She was swaying back and forth in a squeaky old rocking-chair, the check clasped in both thin hands.

"Shall we bank it, children; or draw it all out in cash? f.a.n.n.y needs new clothes; so do you, Jim. And I've got to have a new carpet, or something, for the parlor. Those skins of wild animals you brought in are all right, Jim, if one can't get anything better. I suppose we'd ought to be prudent and saving; but I declare we haven't had any money to speak of, for so long--"

Mrs. Dodge's faded eyes were glowing with joy; she spread the check upon her lap and gazed at it smilingly.

"I declare it's the biggest surprise I've had in all my life!"

"Let's spend every cent of it," proposed f.a.n.n.y recklessly. "We didn't know we were going to have it. We can scrub along afterward the same as we always have. Let's divide it into four parts: one for the house--to fix it up--and one for each of us, to spend any way we like. What do you say, Jim?"

"I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Deacon Whittle would furnish up her best parlor something elegant," surmised Mrs. Dodge. "She's always said she was goin' to have gilt paper and marble tops and electric blue plush upholstered furniture. I guess that'll be the last fair we'll ever have in that house. She wouldn't have everybody trampin' over her flowered Body-Brussels. I suppose _we_ might buy some plush furniture; but I don't know as I'd care for electric blue. What do you think, son?"

Jim Dodge sat sprawled out in his chair before the half-set table. At this picture of magnificence, about to be realized in the abode of Deacon Amos Whittle, he gave vent to an inarticulate growl.

"What's the matter with you, Jim?" shrilled his mother, whose perpetually jangled nerves were capable of strange dissonances.

"Anybody'd suppose you wasn't pleased at having the old Bolton place sold at last, and a little bit of all that's been owing to us since before your poor father died, paid off. My! If we was to have all that was coming to us by rights, with the interest money--"

"I'm hungry and tired, mother, and I want my dinner," said Jim brusquely. "That check won't hoe the potatoes; so I guess I'll have to do it, same as usual."

"For pity sake, f.a.n.n.y!" cried his mother, "did you put the vegetables over to boil? I ain't thought of anything since this check came."

It appeared that f.a.n.n.y had been less forgetful.

After his belated dinner, Jim had gone back to his potatoes, leaving his mother and sister deep in discussion over the comparative virtues of Nottingham lace and plain muslin, made up with ruffles, for parlor curtains.

"I really believe I'd rather spend more on the house than on clo'es at my age," he heard his mother saying, happily, as he strode away.

All during the afternoon, to the clink of myriad small stones against the busy blade of his hoe, Jim thought about Lydia Orr. He could not help seeing that it was to Lydia he owed the prospect of a much needed suit of clothes. It would be Lydia who hung curtains, of whatever sort, in their shabby best room. And no other than Lydia was to furnish Mrs. Whittle's empty parlor. She had already given the minister a new long-tailed coat, as Jim chose to characterize the ministerial black. His cheeks burned under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun with something deeper than an added coat of tan. Why should Lydia Orr--that slip of a girl, with the eyes of a baby, or a saint--do all this? Jim found himself unable to believe that she really wanted the Bolton place. Why, the house was an uninhabitable ruin! It would cost thousands of dollars to rebuild it.

He set his jaw savagely as he recalled his late conversation with Deacon Whittle. "The cheating old skinflint," as he mentally termed that worthy pillar of the church, had, he was sure, bamboozled the girl into buying a well-nigh worthless property, at a scandalous price. It was a shame! He, Jim Dodge, even now burned with the shame of it. He pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his mother the check, which represented the _pro rata_ share of the Dodge estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr. Reluctantly he abandoned this quixotic scheme. The swindle--for as such he chose to view it--had already been accomplished. Other people would not return their checks. On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set on foot to part the unworldly stranger and her money.

He flung down his hoe in disgust and straightened his aching shoulders. The whole sordid transaction put him in mind of the greedy onslaught of a horde of hungry ants on a beautiful, defenseless flower, its torn corolla exuding sweetness.... And there must be some sort of reason behind it. Why had Lydia Orr come to Brookville?

And here, unwittingly, Jim's blind conjectures followed those of Wesley Elliot. He had told Lydia Orr he meant to call upon her. That he had not yet accomplished his purpose had been due to the watchfulness of Mrs. Solomon Black. On the two occasions when he had rung Mrs. Black's front door-bell, that lady herself had appeared in response to its summons. On both occasions she had informed Mr. Dodge tartly that Miss Orr wasn't at home.

On the occasion of his second disappointment he had offered to await the young lady's home-coming.

"There ain't no use of that, Jim," Mrs. Black had a.s.sured him. "Miss Orr's gone t' Boston to stay two days."

Then she had unlatched her close-shut lips to add: "She goes there frequent, on business."

Her eyes appeared to inform him further that Miss Orr's business, of whatever nature, was none of _his_ business and never would be.

"That old girl is down on me for some reason or other," he told himself ruefully, as he walked away for the second time. But he was none the less resolved to pursue his hopefully nascent friendship with Lydia Orr.

He was thinking of her vaguely as he walked toward the house which had been his father's, and where he and f.a.n.n.y had been born. It was little and low and old, as he viewed it indifferently in the fading light of the sunset sky. Its walls had needed painting so long, that for years n.o.body had even mentioned the subject. Its picturesquely mossy roof leaked. But a leaky roof was a commonplace in Brookville.

It was customary to set rusty tin pans, their holes stopped with rags, under such spots as actually let in water; the emptying of the pans being a regular household "ch.o.r.e." Somehow, he found himself disliking to enter; his mother and f.a.n.n.y would still be talking about the disposition of Lydia Orr's money. To his relief he found his sister alone in the kitchen, which served as a general living room.

The small square table neatly spread for two stood against the wall; f.a.n.n.y was standing by the window, her face close to the pane, and apparently intent upon the prospect without, which comprised a gra.s.sy stretch of yard flanked by a dull rampart of over-grown lilac bushes.

"Where's mother?" inquired Jim, as he hung his hat on the accustomed nail.

"She went down to the village," said f.a.n.n.y, turning her back on the window with suspicious haste. "There was a meeting of the sewing society at Mrs. Daggett's."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jim. "What an opportunity!"

"Opportunity?" echoed f.a.n.n.y vaguely.

"Yes; for talking it over. Can't you imagine the clack of tongues; the 'I says to _her_,' and 'she told _me_,' and 'what _do_ you think!'"

"Don't be sarcastic and disagreeable, Jim," advised f.a.n.n.y, with some heat. "When you think of it, it _is_ a wonder--that girl coming here the way she did; buying out the fair, just as everybody was discouraged over it. And now--"

"How do you explain it, Fan?" asked her brother.

"Explain it? I can't explain it. n.o.body seems to know anything about her, except that she's from Boston and seems to have heaps of money."

Jim was wiping his hands on the roller-towel behind the door.