Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 54

"I'm going instead of you," cried the child gayly, "to pay you for staying away all day."

"Did you miss me?" asked the girl as she shook hands with her escort.

"I tried not to. Anna Belle and I have something to show you in the ravine." As she spoke, Jewel slid down into the doctor's arms, and stood on the steps watching while he put Eloise up and mounted himself.

The child's eyes dwelt upon the pair admiringly as they waved their hands to her and rode away. Little she knew how their hearts were beating. Mrs. Evringham, watching from an upper window, suspected it.

She felt that this afternoon would end all suspense.

The child gave a wistful sigh as the horses disappeared, and jumping off the piazza, she wandered around the house toward the stable. There had been no rules laid down to her since the night of Ess.e.x Maid's attack, and Zeke was always a congenial companion.

As she neared the barn a young fellow left it, laughing. She knew who he was,--one of the young men Zeke had known in Boston. He had several times of late come to call on his old chum, for he was out of work.

As he left the barn he saw the child and slouched off to one side, avoiding her; but she scarcely noticed him, congratulating herself that Zeke would be alone and ready, as usual, to crack jokes and stories.

The coachman was not in sight as she entered, but she knew she would find him in the harness room. Its door stood ajar, and as the child approached she heard a strange sound, as of some one weeping suppressedly. St.u.r.dily resisting the sudden fear that swept to her heart, she pushed open the door.

There stood Mrs. Forbes, leaning against a wooden support, her forehead resting against her clasped hands in a hopeless posture, as she sobbed heavily. The air was filled with an odor which had for Jewel sickening a.s.sociations. The only terror, the only tragedy, of her short life was wrapped about with this pungent smell. She seemed again to hear her mother's sobs, to feel once more that sensation of all things coming to ruin which descended upon her at the unprecedented sight and sound of her strong mother's emotion.

All at once she perceived Zeke sitting on a low chair, his arms hanging across his knees and his head fallen.

The child turned very pale. Her doll slid unnoticed to the floor, as she pressed her little hands to her eyes.

"Father, Mother, G.o.d," she murmured in gasps. "Thou art all power. We are thy children. Error has no power over us. Help us to waken from this lie."

Running up to the housekeeper, she clasped her arms about her convulsed form. "Dear Mrs. Forbes," she said, her soft voice trembling at first but growing firm, "I know this claim, but it can be healed. It seems very terrible, but it's nothing. We know it, we must know it."

The woman lifted her head and looked down with swollen eyes upon the child. She saw her go unhesitatingly across to Zeke and kneel beside him.

"Don't be discouraged, Zeke," she said lovingly. "I know how it seems, but my father had it and he was healed. You will be healed."

The coachman lifted his rumpled head and stared at her with bloodshot eyes.

"Great fuss 'bout nothing," he said sullenly. "Mother always fussing."

Something in his look made the child shudder. Resisting the sudden repugnance to one who had always shown her kindness, she impulsively took his big hand in both her little ones. "Zeke, what is error saying to you?" she demanded. "You can't look at me without love. I love you because G.o.d does. He is lifting us out of this error belief."

The young fellow returned the clasp of the soft hands and winked his eyes like one who is waking. "Mother makes great fuss," he grumbled.

"Scott was here. We had two or three little friendly drinks. Ma had to come in and blubber."

"What friendly drinks? What do you mean?" demanded Jewel, looking all about her. Her eyes fell upon a large black bottle. She dropped the coachman's hand and picked it up. She smelled of it, her eyes dilated, and she began to tremble again; and throwing the whiskey from her, she buried her face for a moment against Zeke's shirt sleeve.

"Is it in a bottle!" she exclaimed at last, in a hushed voice, drawing back and regarding the coachman with such a white and horrified countenance that it frightened the clouds from his brain. "Is that terrible claim in a bottle, and do people drink it out?" she asked slowly, and in an awestruck tone.

"It's no harm," began Zeke.

"No harm when your mother is crying, when your face is full of error, and your eyes were hating? No harm when my mother cried, and all our gladness was gone? Would you go and drink a claim like that out of a bottle--of your own accord?"

Zeke wriggled under the blue eyes and the unnatural rigidity of the child's face.

"No, Jewel, he wouldn't," groaned Mrs. Forbes suddenly. "Zeke's a good boy, but he's inherited that. His father died of it. It's a disease, child. I thought my boy would escape, but he hasn't! It's the end!"

cried the wretched woman. "What will Mr. Evringham say! To think how I blamed Fanshaw! Zeke'll lose his place and go downhill, and I shall die of shame and despair." Her sobs again shook her from head to foot.

Jewel continued to look at Zeke. A new, eager expression stole over her face. "_Is_ it the end?" she asked. "Don't you believe in G.o.d?"

"I suppose so," answered the coachman sullenly. "I know I'm a man, too.

I can control myself."

"No. n.o.body can. Even Jesus said, 'Of myself I can do nothing.' Only G.o.d can help you. If you can drink that nasty smelling stuff, and get all red and rumply and sorry, then you need G.o.d the worst of anybody in Bel-Air. You look better now. It's just like a dream, the way you lifted up your face to me when I came in, and it _was_ a dream. I'll help you, Zeke. I'll show you how to find help." The child suddenly leaned toward the young fellow, and then retreated. "I can't stand your breath!" she exclaimed, "and I like to get close to the people I love."

This seemed to touch Zeke. He blushed hotly. "It's a darned shame, kid,"

he returned sheepishly.

"Mrs. Forbes, come here, please," said Jewel. The housekeeper had ceased crying, and was watching the pair. She saw that her boy's senses were clearer. She approached obediently, and when the child took her hand her own closed tightly upon the little fingers.

"Zeke, you're a big strong man and everybody likes you," said Jewel earnestly. "Isn't it better to stay that way than to drink out of a bottle, no matter _how_ much you like it?"

"I don't like it so awfully," returned Zeke protestingly. "I like to be sociable with the boys, that's all."

"What a way to be sociable!" gasped the child. "Well, wouldn't you rather be nice, so people will like to get close to you?"

"Depends on the folks," returned the boy with a touch of his usual manner. "You're all right, little kid." He put out his hand, but quickly withdrew it.

Jewel seized it. "Now give your other one to your mother. There now, we're all together. If your mother thinks you have a disease, Zeke, then she must know you haven't. If you want me to, I'll come out here every day at a quiet time and give you a treatment, and we'll talk all about Christian Science, and we'll know that there's nothing that can make us sick or unhappy--or unkind! Think of your unkindness to your mother--and to me if you go on, for I love you, Zeke. Now _may_ I help you?"

The soft frank voice, the earnest little face, moved Zeke to cast a glance at his mother's swollen eyes. They were bent upon Jewel.

"Do you say your father was cured that way, child?" asked Mrs. Forbes.

"Yes. Oh yes! and he's so happy!"

"Zeke, let's all be thankful if there's _anything_," said the woman tremulously, turning to him appealingly.

"I'd just as soon have a visit from you every day, little kid," said the young fellow. "You're a corker."

"But you must want more than me," returned the child. "G.o.d and healing and purity and goodness! If you're in earnest, what are you going to do with that?" She touched the black bottle with the toe of her shoe.

Zeke looked at the whiskey, then back into her eyes. They were full of love and faith for him.

He stooped and picked up the bottle, then striding to a window, he flung it out toward the forest trees with all the force of his strong arm.

"d.a.m.n the stuff!" he said.

Mrs. Forbes felt herself tremble from head to foot. She bit her lip.

Her son turned back. "Getting near train time," he added, not looking at his companions. "Guess I'll go upstairs."

When he had disappeared his mother stooped slowly and kissed Jewel.

"Forgive me," she said tremulously.