Jap Herron Part 21

"Come on, j.a.p," he whispered huskily, "they have come for them."

"Who?" asked j.a.p, tonelessly.

"The hea.r.s.es," said the Judge, his flabby cheeks trembling.

j.a.p walked outside and climbed into the carriage with Bill, and together they went to the church where Ellis had met his townsmen for the last time. It was the handsome new church whose claim on her brother's generosity had called forth from Flossy such righteous resentment. Mechanically the two young men followed the usher to the pew that had been set apart for them. Vaguely j.a.p smiled at Isabel as she pa.s.sed him, clinging to the arm of her father. As in a dream, he followed her slender form as she took her accustomed place at the organ. Clutching the arm of the seat, he sat there, deaf, dumb and blind, until the wailing notes of the organ appraised him that the service was beginning.

He turned his head as a heavy, rolling sound reached him, and looked upon the most heart-shaking sight in the history of the town: two coffins traveling up the aisles to meet at the altar. Sick and faint, he turned his head away. Bill's arm crept around him, while Bill sobbed aloud.

Frozen to silence, j.a.p stared at the boxes containing all that linked him to his past. Stony-eyed, he gazed at the ma.s.ses of flowers, casually admiring the gorgeous chrysanthemums and the pink glory of the carnations. He even read, with calm curiosity, the card of sympathy hanging from one of the floral offerings on Flossy's casket. Then he sank into blunt indifference until he was aroused by Bill's start.

He looked up dully. The minister was praying--and his prayer was for forgiveness for Flossy.

"She was a wanderer from grace," the ominous voice droned, "but Thou who didst forgive the thief on the cross wilt grant her mercy."

Bill clasped his hands fiercely over j.a.p's arm. His breath hissed through his set teeth. j.a.p sat upright, his gray eyes searching the face of the man of G.o.d, as he drawled through a flock of plat.i.tudes, promising in the end that on the last great day Flossy and her son would be called by the trump to arise, purified and forgiven.

Wiping his forehead complacently, he sat down.

j.a.p Herron arose to his feet and walked to the coffin of the only mother he had ever known. Facing the a.s.sembly, he said in low, clear tones:

"Friends of mine, friends of Flossy and her boy, and friends of Ellis Hinton, you have listened to this minister. Now you must listen to me.

I knew Flossy. Some of you knew her, but none as I did. She had no religion, he says. Flossy Hinton's life was a religion. What is religion? Love, faith and works. Dare any of you claim that she had not all of these? If such soul as hers needs help to carry it through the ramparts of heaven, then G.o.d help all of you.

"She will not sleep until a trumpet calls her! No! Alive and vital and everlasting, her soul is with us now. Did Ellis Hinton sleep? He has never been away. He has dwelt right here, in the hearts of all who loved him. Friends, dry your eyes if you grieve for the sins of Flossy."

Raising his hand above the casket, as if in benediction, and looking into the face beneath the gla.s.s, he said brokenly:

"A saint she lived among us. In heaven she could be no more."

The descending sun shot a ray of white light across the church, as it sank below the opaque designs in the gorgeous memorial window that flanked the choir. A moment later it would be crimson, then purple, then amber; but for an instant it filtered through pure, untinted gla.s.s. Creeping stealthily, the white ray reached the s.p.a.ce in front of the altar and rested a moment on the still face within the casket.

To j.a.p it seemed that the lips that had always smiled for him relaxed into a smile of transcendent beauty. Entranced he looked, forgetting all else. Then the strength of his young manhood crumbled. The hinges of his knees gave way, and he sank to the floor.

Bill sprang to his side and carried him to a seat. Isabel, half distracted, started from her place at the organ. As she pa.s.sed, the white face in the coffin met her eyes. She stopped. A tide of feeling swept her back, back from j.a.p, whose limp form called her. The song that Flossy had loved came singing to her lips. Inspired in that moment, she stood beside the coffin and sang, as never before, the words that had comforted Flossy in her years of loneliness:

"Somewhere the stars are shining, Somewhere the song birds dwell.

Cease then thy sad repining!

G.o.d lives, and all is well."

Her face was glorified. She sang to that silent one, and to the world that had been hers. In a dream she sang on, as the mother and her boy were taken from her sight, sang on while the people silently departed.

"Somewhere, somewhere," she sang,

"Beautiful isle of Somewhere, Isle of the true, where we live anew, Beautiful isle of Somewhere."

Her voice broke as uncontrollable sobs rent her slender body, and she sank against the shoulder of her father and followed Bill from the church. Half-a-dozen kindly hands were carrying j.a.p outside.

The long line of carriages had already started on its way to the little plot of ground where two fern-lined graves awaited the loved ones of Ellis Hinton. The horses of the remaining carriage pawed the ground restlessly in the sharp November air.

"Better take him to his room in a hurry," Dr. Hall commanded. "The boy has been through too much. I was afraid of this."

"You can't take him to that dreary office," Isabel pleaded. "Papa, tell Dr. Hall what to do."

And, as always, she had her way. In the sunny south room above the library, with the shadows of the stark elms doing grotesque dances on the window panes, with Isabel and her mother hovering in tender solicitude over him, j.a.p Herron tossed for weeks in the delirium of fever, calling always for Flossy.

CHAPTER XIX

"Mr. Bowers wants to talk to you," Isabel said, smoothing j.a.p's limp hair from his haggard face. "He has been here every day for a week, and Mamma wouldn't hear to his bothering you, especially as you had concluded that you must talk to Bill about the office."

"Let him come," said j.a.p wearily.

The Judge tramped heavily into the bedroom.

"I want to talk to you about Flossy's affairs," he declared, dropping into a chair and blowing his nose.

j.a.p's face flushed, then paled. He lifted one thin hand to his eyes and leaned back in the pillows.

"I sent for Bill to meet me here and have Brent Roberts read Flossy's will."

"Why?" j.a.p's voice rasped with pain.

"You have been sick nigh a month," said the Judge, "and there's a power o' things that oughter be seen to, and Brent refused to read Flossy's will till you could hear it. I want to settle the bills."

Isabel slipped her arm around j.a.p's shoulder and glared at the Judge.

"You ought to be ashamed," she cried. "j.a.p is not strong enough to be bothered with business."

j.a.p put her aside gently and sat up.

"The Judge is right, sweetheart," he said. "I will not be tired with doing anything for--for her."

He covered his face with his hands. Bill entered softly. His brows lowered at sight of his father.

"What did you want with me and Roberts?" he queried shortly.

"It is all right, Bill," j.a.p said brokenly. "It will hurt whenever it comes, so let's get it done."

After the will was read j.a.p lay silent, the tears slipping down his cheeks, for Flossy's will gave all that she possessed to her son, j.a.p Herron. It was made the day after she knew that her own child was doomed to an early death.

They filed slowly from the room, even the Judge awed by the face of the boy.

The New Year had turned the corner when j.a.p was moved to the office.

Little by little he grew back into harness. They did not talk of Flossy in those early days. It was not possible. One chill spring day, when the gra.s.s was greening, and the first blossoms were opening among the hyacinths on Ellis's grave, j.a.p walked with Bill to the cemetery. He bent above the dried wreaths with their faded ribbons, sodden and dinged by the winter's snows.