At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern Part 3

"Do you reckon," asked the blacksmith, after a long silence, "that they're goin' to live in the Jack-o'-Lantern?"

"I ain't a-sayin'," answered Mr. Blake, cautiously. "They're educated, an'

there's no tellin' what educated folks is goin' to do. This young lady, now, that come up with him last night, she said it was 'a dear old place an' she loved it a'ready.' Them's her very words!"

"Do tell!"

"That's c'rrect, an' as I said before, when you're dealin' with educated folks, you're swimmin' in deep water with the sh.o.r.e clean out o' sight.

Education was what ailed him." By a careless nod Mr. Blake indicated the Jack-o'-Lantern, which could be seen from the main thoroughfare of Judson Centre.

"I've hearn," he went on, taking a fresh bite from his morning purchase of "plug," "that he had one hull room mighty nigh plum full o' nothin' but books, an' there was always more comin' by freight an' express an' through the post-office. It's all on account o' them books that he's made the front o' his house into what it is. My wife had a paper book wunst, a-tellin' 'How to Transfer a Hopeless Exterior,' with pictures of houses in it like they be here an' more arter they'd been transferred. You bet I burnt it while she was gone to sewin' circle, an' there ain't no book come into my house since."

Mr. Blake spoke with the virtuous air of one who has protected his home from contamination. Indeed, as he had often said before, "you can't never tell what folks'll do when books gets a holt of 'em."

"Do you reckon," asked the blacksmith, "that there'll be company?"

"Company," snickered Mr. Blake, "oh, my Lord, yes! A little thing like death ain't never going to keep company away. Ain't you never hearn as how misery loves company? The more miserable you are the more company you'll have, an' vice versey, etcetery an' the same."

"Hush!" warned the blacksmith, in a harsh whisper. "He's a-comin'!"

"City feller," grumbled Mr. Blake, affecting not to see.

"Good-morning," said Harlan, pleasantly, though not without an air of condescension. "Can you tell me where I can find the stage-driver?"

"That's me," grunted Mr. Blake. "Be you wantin' anythin'?"

"Only to pay you for taking us up to the house last night, and to arrange about our trunks. Can you deliver them this afternoon?"

"I ain't a-runnin' of no livery, but I can take 'em up, if that's what you're wantin'."

"Exactly," said Harlan, "and the box, too, if you will. And the things I've just ordered at the grocery--can you bring them, too?"

Mr. Blake nodded helplessly, and the blacksmith gazed at Harlan, open-mouthed, as he started uphill. "Must sure have a ailment," he commented, "but I hear tell, Hank, that in the city they never carry nothin' round with 'em but perhaps an umbrell. Everythin' else they have 'sent.'"

"Reckon it's true enough. I took a ham wunst up to the sanitarium for a young sprig of a doctor that was too proud to carry it himself. He was goin' that way, too--walkin' up to save money--so I charged him for carryin' up the ham just what I'd have took both for. 'Pigs is high,' I told him, 'same price for one as for 'nother,' but he didn't pay no attention to it an' never raised no kick about the price. Thinkin' 'bout sunthin' else, most likely--most of 'em are."

Harlan, most a.s.suredly, was "thinkin' 'bout sunthin' else." In fact, he was possessed by portentous uneasiness. There was well-defined doubt in his mind regarding his reception at the Jack-o'-Lantern. Dorothy's parting words had been plain--almost to the point of rudeness, he reflected, unhappily, and he was not sure that "a brute" would be allowed in her presence again.

The bare, uncurtained windows gave no sign of human occupancy. Perhaps she had left him! Then his reason came to the rescue--there was no way for her to go but downhill, and he would certainly have seen her had she taken that path.

When he entered the yard, he smelled smoke, and ran wildly into the house.

A hasty search through all the rooms revealed nothing--even Dorothy had disappeared. From the kitchen window, he saw her in the back yard, poking idly through a heap of smouldering rubbish with an old broomstick.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, breathlessly, before she knew he was near her.

Dorothy turned, disguising her sudden start by a toss of her head. "Oh,"

she said, coolly, "it's you, is it?"

Harlan bit his lips and his eyes laughed. "I say, Dorothy," he began, awkwardly; "I was rather a beast, wasn't I?"

"Of course," she returned, in a small, unnatural voice, still poking through the ruins. "I told you so, didn't I?"

"I didn't believe you at the time," Harlan went on, eager to make amends, "but I do now."

"That's good." Mrs. Carr's tone was not at all rea.s.suring.

There was an awkward pause, then Harlan, putting aside his obstinate pride, said the simple sentence which men of all ages have found it hardest to say--perhaps because it is the sign of utter masculine abas.e.m.e.nt. "I'm sorry, dear, will you forgive me?"

In a moment, she was in his arms. "It was partly my fault," she admitted, generously, from the depths of his coat collar. "I think there must be something in the atmosphere of the house. We never quarrelled before."

"And we never will again," answered Harlan, confidently. "What have you been burning?"

"It was a mattress," whispered Dorothy, much ashamed. "I tried to get a bed out, but it was too heavy."

"You funny, funny girl! How did you ever get a mattress out, all alone?"

"Dragged it to an upper window and dumped it," she explained, blushing, "then came down and dragged it some more. Claudius Tiberius didn't like to have me do it."

"I don't wonder," laughed Harlan. "That is," he added hastily, "he couldn't have been pleased to see you doing it all by yourself. Anybody would love to see a mattress burn."

"Shall we get some more? There are plenty."

"Let's not take all our pleasure at once," he suggested, with rare tact.

"One mattress a day--how'll that do?"

"We'll have it at night," cried Dorothy, clapping her hands, "and when the mattresses are all gone, we'll do the beds and bureaus and the haircloth furniture in the parlour. Oh, I do so love a bonfire!"

Harlan's heart grew strangely tender, for it had been this underlying childishness in her that he had loved the most. She was stirring the ashes now, with as much real pleasure as though she were five instead of twenty-five.

As it happened, Harlan would have been saved a great deal of trouble if he had followed out her suggestion and burned all of the beds in the house except two or three, but the balance between foresight and retrospection has seldom been exact.

"Beast of a smudge you're making," he commented, choking.

"Get around to the other side, then. Why, Harlan, what's that?"

"What's what?"

She pointed to a small metal box in the midst of the ashes.

"Poem on Spring, probably, put into the corner-stone by the builder of the mattress."

"Don't be foolish," she said, with a.s.sumed severity. "Get me a pail of water."

With two sticks they lifted it into the water and waited, impatiently enough, until they were sure it was cool. Then Dorothy, a.s.serting her right of discovery, opened it with trembling fingers.

"Why-ee!" she gasped.

Upon a bed of wet cotton lay a large brooch, made wholly of cl.u.s.tered diamonds, and a coral necklace, somewhat injured by the fire.