Harper's Round Table, September 24, 1895 Part 1

Harper's Round Table, September 24, 1895.

by Various.

AN OWN RELATION.

BY SOPHIE SWETT.

The country-week girl came up the lane with her head in the air, so Gideon, who was watching her from the crotch in the old sweet-apple tree, afterwards remarked to little Adoniram.

After some hesitation Gideon dropped down at her feet. Aunt Esther had especially enjoined it upon him to be kind to the country-week girl.

Aunt Esther _would_ remember that he used to get under the bed when a girl came to see Phemie; but that was when he was small.

"Is this Sweet Apple Hill? Be you Trueworthys?" demanded the girl, looking critically at Gideon.

"Yes, 'm," said Gideon, and then reddened and scorned himself because he had been overpolite. But the girl was tall for fourteen--"Grazella Hickins, aged fourteen," the letter from the Country-week Committee had read--and she wore a wide sash and a scarlet feather in her hat and carried a pink parasol.

Phemie, who came around the corner of the house just then, saw at a glance that the finery was shabby, but Gideon thought that Grazella Hickins was very stylish.

Grazella dropped her bundle upon the gra.s.s opposite the front gate and seated herself upon it, meditatively. She did not arise from it as Phemie opened the gate, but she surveyed her with an air of friendly criticism; Phemie was fourteen too.

"I like your looks real well," she remarked at length, with a trifle of condescension. Her glance sought Gideon and little Adoniram, who peeped from behind the friendly shelter of the big black-currant bush. "I think boys are kind of--middling," she added. It was evident that a more severe adjective than this had been withheld only from motives of politeness. "I've got an own relation, though, that's an awful nice boy--awful smart too; you never know what he's going to do next."

Little Adoniram p.r.i.c.ked up his ears; Aunt Esther had been known to say that of him without meaning to be complimentary. City standards of behavior seemed to be cheerfully different from those of Bayberry Corner.

"I wouldn't have said a word if Jicksy could have come too," continued Grazella, and her snapping black eyes slowly filled with tears. "A cousin is a real comfort."

"Do you mean that you didn't want to come?" asked Phemie, in a disappointed tone.

"I'm in the newspaper business; 'twas kind of risky to leave it; there's so many pushin' in. But they don't want me to home; mother she's married again, and _he_ don't like me. Jicksy is all I've got that's really my own. If he could have come too--"

She swallowed a lump in her throat with determination, and raised her eyes to the old sweet apple-tree whose fruit was yellowing in the August sunshine.

"Are them apples?" she asked. "They ain't near so shiny and handsome as Judy Magrath keeps on her stand; Judy shines 'em with her ap.r.o.n. I never was in the country before, and I don't know as I'm going to like it. But I'm run down, they say, and I've got a holler cough, so I had to come."

Phemie had almost begun to wish that they had not taken a country-week girl; but now she noticed, suddenly, the meagreness of the tall form, and the deep hollows under the snapping black eyes, and repented. It was proverbial that people grew plump and strong on Sweet Apple Hill.

Aunt Esther came out, and the girl's manner softened under the influence of her tactful kindness. She seemed to like Grandpa Trueworthy too; she said she had a grandpa once, and 'twas the most she ever did have that was like other folks.

But, after all, it was she and Gideon who seemed most congenial. Gideon explained, with a gravely approving wag of the head, that she was "business." Gideon flattered himself that he had abilities in that line, and he was cultivating them diligently. He had not expected to get any hints from a girl; but the country-week girl was a.s.sistant at a newspaper stand, and she also "tended" for Judy Magrath when Judy, as she explained with sad and severe head-shakings, was obliged to go to a funeral; but it was Judy's only infirmity, she added, very charitably.

Of course girls did not generally have such business opportunities as these, and it was Gideon's opinion that she was "considerable of a girl, anyhow." It must be confessed that Aunt Esther was a little anxious, and the minister expressed a doubtful hope that she would not prove "a corrupting influence." Gideon told Grazella all his business plans, which Phemie never cared to listen to. It was after tea one evening, and he and Grazella were sitting on the orchard wall, while Phemie and little Adoniram shook the old damson-plum-tree. He told her of the contract he had made with the owners of the canning factory at Bayberry Port, to supply them with berries for the whole season, and, what he wouldn't tell any fellow, of the great find he had made--a blackberry thicket over on the other side of Doughnut Hill, almost an acre, and the berries just beginning to ripen! He was going to sell the plums off his trees, too, and, later on, his crab-apples, he'd got a business opening, she'd better believe.

Grazella's eyes snapped, and her thin, sallow cheeks reddened suddenly.

"You'd ought to have a partner!" she cried.

Gideon shook his head doubtfully. "It's awful risky takin' partners," he said. "If they ain't smart, you have to do all the work; if they are, they are apt to cheat you."

"Jicksy!" suggested Grazella, wistfully, breathlessly. "I--I've got a job for him up here--a little one; I didn't tell, because I was afraid your aunt wouldn't ask me to stay another week if she knew; she's scairt of me, and I expect she'd be scairter of Jicksy." (The country-week girl's eyes were sharp.) "Mr. Snell, across the field, said he'd give him his board to help him take care of his cattle, and I heard they were wanting a boy to blow the organ in church. It wouldn't suit Jicksy to throw away his talents workin' for his board; but he's crazy for the country, and the doctor said 'twould be the makin' of him, account of his heart beatin' too fast, and whatever he has to eat he always thinks it enough to go 'round amongst a dozen that's poorer than him. He could blow the organ, for when he belonged to the show he blew up the fat man--all the ingy-rubber fixin's that made him fat, you know, every day: and once he worked for a balloon-man. But if you'd take him for a partner in your business--"

Grazella's eyes were so anxious that Gideon found it hard to shake his head with the proper decision, although he felt strongly doubtful whether Jicksy were "the man for his money."

"He's coming up to Mr. Snell's, anyway," said Grazella, made hopeful by Gideon's evident weakness. "And when you see how smart he is, you'll say you wouldn't have n.o.body else for a partner! He ain't jest common folks, like you and me, anyhow, Jicksy ain't; his adopted father was a lion-tamer in a circus, awful famous and talented, and Jicksy himself has rode elephants and camels, and travelled 'round in the boa-constructor's cage, and his own uncle is the wild man of the South Seas!"

Gideon's prudent mind still hesitated; he doubted whether these wonderful opportunities especially fitted a boy for the berry business.

Nevertheless, when Jicksy arrived, he succeeded in convincing Gideon of his desirability as a partner, and this in spite of the fact that his appearance was not pleasing. His face was so thin and wizened that it made him look like a little old man, and his black hair standing upright above the snapping black eyes, that were remarkably like Grazella's, gave him a fierce and combative aspect. Farmer Snell professed himself satisfied; he said he was up an' comin' if he wa'n't very likely-lookin'. And he secured the position of organ-blower at the village church, an easy matter, because it was not coveted by the Bayberry boys, owing to the fact that the wind in the ancient instrument would occasionally give out with an appalling screech, and the luckless and innocent blower was always soundly cuffed therefor by the s.e.xton, who held that this summary measure was necessary to preserve the public respect for the organ--which the parish hoped to sell to a struggling young church at the Port as soon as it could afford a new one.

And Aunt Esther did invite Grazella to stay another week. The neighbors thought the reason that she gave a very queer one--because she was kept awake nights by the hard little cough in the room next hers.

Gideon had been influenced by Jicksy's ready tongue. He confided to Phemie that there ought to be one good talker in a business firm, and also by the fact that he didn't expect an equal share of the profits, but realized the value of Gideon's capital and experience. (Gideon had seven dollars and fifty-nine cents, which he kept tucked away under the ticking of his bed and counted over every night.)

Jicksy wasn't extravagant either, as Gideon had feared that he would be.

He discovered at once that they were paying Steve Pennyphair, the stage-driver, too much for carrying the berries to the Port. Freedom Towle, the milkman, would carry them among his cans for half as much.

Gideon had thought of asking Towle, but the fact was Bobby Towle often went on the route instead of his father, and Bobby was known to be greedy. Jicksy managed that difficulty by fastening some canvas (old hay-caps) securely over the tops of the baskets. Gideon had thought of the plan; he had lain awake half of two nights reckoning how large a hole the price of canvas enough would make in that seven dollars and fifty-nine cents; he hadn't thought of these old hay-caps that Jicksy had found in the barn chamber.

Jicksy was truly honest, and before the end of the second week of the partnership he began to wonder whether an ability to think of things ought not to offset experience; and he had brought home from the Port library a very large book on the relations of capital and labor. But before he had settled these knotty problems of the partnership in his mind something happened that caused a great excitement at Bayberry Corner, and made many people say they were glad they had known better than to take country-week children, for if the girl had not been sent to Sweet Apple Hill the boy would not have come. Jicksy had gone to the canning factory at the Port to collect a bill, and he had not returned.

The amount of the bill was twenty-four dollars and sixty-four cents; Gideon had "done" the addition seven times over, and then had Phemie do it; strangely enough, thought Gideon, Phemie had "a head for figures."

He had run a pitchfork into his foot, so he could not go and collect the money himself, and although he had a prudent mind, he had not thought of distrusting his partner. But he had heard from the factory that Jicksy had collected the money--and he had disappeared.

As soon as the fact became known there was another development; the minister's watch was also missing. Jicksy had blown the organ for three services with fidelity and success; only once had that fatal scream interrupted the devotions of the congregation, and then it was in a mild and mitigated form. But after the evening service the minister had thrust his watch, which he kept on the desk while he preached, into the absurd little pocket with a tight little elastic and a blue ribbon bow which his wife had made in the embroidered cover of his sermon-case. He explained that he put it there because he knew that his wife liked to have him (he was young and newly married), and therefore he was sure that his memory was not at fault. He had carelessly left the sermon-case on the desk, where the s.e.xton had found it--without the watch. The boy who blew the organ was the only one who had an opportunity to take it.

It was the day after this loss that Jicksy took "French leave"; he had "killed two birds with one stone," Bayberry people said.

Grazella's eyes snapped continually; grandpa said she was as hoppin' as a parched pea. She said folks had ought to be ashamed of themselves that could b'lieve such things of Jicksy. The probabilities of the case made no impression whatever on Grazella's mind.

The minister's wife, who had taken a fancy to the girl, offered her consolation at the sewing circle, which met at the Trueworthys' two days after Jicksy's departure.

"You mustn't think we hold you responsible for what he has done," she said, gently. "He is only your cousin."

Grazella stood up, her little bony cheeks aflame. "He ain't neither only my cousin. I just let on, because he'd got up in the world, and I didn't want folks heavin' it at him that he had a sister that tended for Judy Magrath. He's my own brother as ever was in the world, and when folks are thinkin' he's a _thief_, I just want 'em to know that he's my brother. Jicksy is smarter'n other folks, and you never know what he'll do next; but I told Gideon that he'd find him an awful square partner, and I stick to it--now."

There were melancholy head-shakings in the sewing circle; in fact, the whole circle shook its head as one woman; but it was whispered that the girl was probably honest; that the little scamp had deceived her, as he deceived others.

But at that very time an exciting rumor was circulating about Bayberry Corner. Iky Snell shouted it at the open window of the room where the sewing circle sat at supper.

A boy had been seen on the turnpike-road coming towards Sweet Apple Hill, leading a giraffe.

"Looks as if he had a circus procession all to himself," declared Iky, enviously; and if several persons who had seen him were not very greatly mistaken, the boy was Jicksy.

"If some boys should come home leadin' a giraffe, why, I might be kind of surprised," remarked grandpa; "but it does seem jest like Jicksy."

Grazella, who had been trying to swallow blackberry tart mingled with tears, tried very hard to be calm, though her thin little face paled and flushed. "You never know what Jicksy will do next," she said, proudly.

Sweet Apple Hill turned out; so did half Bayberry Corner; every one ran towards the turnpike-road; even the sewing-circle supper-table was deserted in undignified haste.

It _was_ Jicksy, footsore and begrimed, and accommodating his gait to the tread of a creature whose body seemed to be set upon stilts, and whose neck might, as Phemie declared, be tied into a double bow-knot.

The animal was lame, and its head wagged in a curious fashion.