Idle Hour Stories Part 8

"I am unable to go to him--I bring the case to you. Go, I beg of you, to Washington and plead with the congressman from this, your native district, and the Arkansas representative, who is your kinsman. Urge them to see the President and prevail upon him to sift the evidence.

I realize most bitterly that I have no claim upon you, but oh, for G.o.d's sake, Madam, do what you can for a distracted father. Hanging!

Oh, save him from that--and act quickly, for he has only five days to live. I am crazed with anxiety and sleeplessness.

"Your obedient servant,

"Robert Garrett."

Jessie Forrester's hour had come. The revenge so ardently longed-for since the hour her mother had invoked the curse of heaven upon this man, was here. What though his boy did perish, by an ignominous death. A more worthless c.u.mberer of the earth did not exist. Ah! that cold, sneering voice on the winter's eve so long ago; her mother's tears! As he had sown so should he reap, and her hands would help to gather in the harvest. Through him they had been exiled all these years from the home that was their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not she;--his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could _she_ lift a voice to save him! "His boy?" Ah, through her tender mother's heart there darted a pain all unwonted. Her own n.o.ble, gifted boy--her all--what if untoward fate should have in store for him some doom of shame--him, her idol and her pride.

She sat buried in thought till suddenly starting up she consulted a time table, then rang hurriedly for her maid. She was ready in thirty minutes, and summoning her young son, was soon enroute for the capital.

Arriving at ten o'clock she called a carriage and sped away to new northwest quarter of the city. By midnight she had seen both representatives and thoroughly enlisted their services. She gave no reason for her intercession, nor was it necessary. It was enough that she deemed it a case for intervention. Next morning the two statesmen had an interview with the President, and by the hardest, for the ma.s.s of evidence against young Garrett was overwhelming, got a stay of proceedings till the case could be further investigated.

Well-nigh exhausted from the mental and bodily strain, Jessie arrived at her home unfit for anything but rest. Then she answered her enemy's letter. Did she reproach him with his life-long injustice? Did she demand the old home in exchange for the service she had rendered? Or at least the privilege of buying it? She merely wrote;--

"I have been to Washington and secured a reprieve pending further sifting of evidence."

Ben Garrett was saved and the close view of the gallows sobered him at last. He married the daughter of a Texas ranchman and Jessie heard of him no more.

Five years pa.s.sed away when on a gloomy afternoon in the autumn, Jessie Forrester, now a woman of thirty, and wearing her years and honors well, was sitting at her desk in an elegant sanctum, absorbed in the fate of two lovers whose history she was creating.

Her door opened and a grave, handsome man with a bearded face stood before her.

"Madam," he said briefly "you once did my brother a great favor. I am here to thank you for it."

His brother? A favor? Ah, she had been doing favors for many in all these years. She did not remember any particular one; it was an every day matter. Every mail brought pet.i.tions and she never turned a deaf ear. The doing of favors brought its own reward.

She looked steadily at the stranger, and he felt again in his inmost soul the gaze of those large brown eyes seen once before dilated with childish terror.

"My name is Garrett," he explained, as briefly as before.

Garrett--that hated name. Involuntarily her eyes fell upon the work before her, while a warm flush mantled her cheeks.

"May I sit down for five minutes?"

She again raised her eyes without speaking, and he seated himself, not looking at but beyond her as if her steady gaze unmanned him.

"Madam, my parents are dead. I have come to offer you Deering Castle at your own price. I should not presume to suggest it as a gift. It is yours if you wish it. I have heard so often," and here his voice fell for very shame, "that you wanted it. It was not then mine to dispose of; now there is no barrier; it is yours. I will send my attorney to you."

Rising he lingered a moment with a certain wistfulness suffusing his features, then made his way out ere Jessie could recover sufficiently to bid him stay.

Her faculties were in a tumult. Deering Castle hers--the estate of her fathers--the venerated old home hers at last. It almost took her breath away. A Garrett was offering it. That name hated all her life. But did she hate it now?

There was no more work that day for the author. Nor ever again did her genius shine out in rapturing periods till she drew inspiration from the grand environment of the old homestead. Here Robert Garrett is not an unwelcome guest. Young Herbert is in fact quite devoted to the grave, sedate man with the tender heart. Will his benign influence one day still further cement the new friendship?

The Singer's Christmas

A HOLIDAY STORY

The air of the December day was soft and mild. All the world was in the streets, glad of a respite from the late cold "snap," which had brought out furs and heavy wraps.

Signora Cavada was taking her accustomed drive, chaperoned by a comfortable looking American woman; for this was an American city, and the famous prima donna was winning nightly laurels at the Louisville Opera House.

To-day, the carriage with its high-stepping bays sought a new neighborhood, that the great singer might not be bored with repeated views of the same places. As it bowled along an old man in tattered garments approached, hat in hand, and held it toward the open window for alms. The driver cracked his whip peremptorily above the straggling gray locks of the suppliant, and drove on toward the suburbs.

"Who was that poor old man?" asked the singer in excellent English.

"Oh, only a beggar; the streets are full of them just before Christmas,"

replied her companion.

"Is he very poor?" persisted the signora. "In my own country we have beggars--they make a business of begging. But that was a grand face.

I shall go back again to look for him; tell the driver."

Accustomed to obey the caprices of her mistress, the duenna gave the order and the carriage turned back. There stood the old man as before, but this time he did not approach the equipage.

"Come here," said the signora, holding out a neatly gloved hand.

Fixing his faded eyes, now kindling with something like hope, upon her lovely face, he came nearer, and at her bidding told his story. It was a common one: Ill-health, a vagabond son, his earnings all gone, no work, and finally beggary.

"And have you no one to take care of you? Where do you live?"

"In that old shed, madam," he answered, pointing to a tumbled down cabin once used as a cobbler's shop. "And I have with me my little girl, my grandchild."

"A little girl in that place? Where is she? How do you keep her?"

"Ah, madam, she makes flowers--her mother taught her--and earns a few pennies now and then. She sings, too, madam," he added with pride.

"Sings?" eagerly echoed the signora. "Fetch her here; I want to see her."

"She has gone away to the woods to gather evergreens. To-morrow is Christmas Day."

"Yes, yes, I remember! And how do you celebrate the day?" added the lady.

"In feasting and rejoicing," said the duenna, before the old man could answer.

"And the poor? I have read some very pretty stories about the poor in your cities on Christmas Day."

"Oh, the poor get along well enough," she said, with an accent of indifference or contempt. "They have more than they deserve."

But the singer was again leaning toward the waiting figure outside, seeing which the old man said as if in apology:

"That is why I was asking for help, madam; people are generous at Christmas. But I have known better times; I do not like to beg."