Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 Part 32

One day Miss Salome had a conference with Clemantiny. At the end of it the latter said, "Do as you please," in the tone she might have used to a spoiled child. "But if you'd take my advice--which you won't and never do--you'd write to somebody in Upton and make inquiries about him first. What he says is all very well and he sticks to it marvellous, and there's no tripping him up. But there's something behind, Salome Whitney--mark my words, there's something behind."

"He looks so like Johnny," said Miss Salome wistfully.

"And I suppose you think that covers a mult.i.tude of sins," said Clemantiny contemptuously.

On the day when the last load of rustling golden sheaves was carried into the big barn and stowed away in the dusty loft, Miss Salome called Chester into the kitchen. Chester's heart sank as he obeyed the summons.

His time was up, and now he was to be paid his wages and sent away. To be sure, Martin had told him that morning that a man in East Hopedale wanted a boy for a spell, and that he, Martin, would see that he got the place if he wanted it. But that did not reconcile him to leaving Mount Hope Farm.

Miss Salome was sitting in her favourite sunny corner of the kitchen and Clemantiny was flying around with double briskness. The latter's thin lips were tightly set and disapproval was writ large in every flutter of her calico skirts.

"Chester," said Miss Salome kindly, "your time is up today."

Chester nodded. For a moment he felt as he had felt when he left the provision store in Montrose. But he would not let Clemantiny see him cry. Somehow, he would not have minded Miss Salome.

"What are you thinking of doing now?" Miss Salome went on.

"There's a man at East Hopedale wants a boy," said Chester, "and Martin says he thinks I'll suit."

"That is Jonas Smallman," said Miss Salome thoughtfully. "He has the name of being a hard master. It isn't right of me to say so, perhaps.

I really don't know much about him. But wouldn't you rather stay here with me for the winter, Chester?"

"Ma'am? Miss Salome?" stammered Chester. He heard Clemantiny give a snort behind him and mutter, "Clean infatuated--clean infatuated,"

without in the least knowing what she meant.

"We really need a ch.o.r.e boy all the year round," said Miss Salome.

"Martin has all he can do with the heavy work. And there are the apples to be picked. If you care to stay, you shall have your board and clothes for doing the odd jobs, and you can go to school all winter. In the spring we will see what need be done then."

If he would care to stay! Chester could have laughed aloud. His eyes were shining with joy as he replied, "Oh, Miss Salome, I'll be so glad to stay! I--I--didn't want to go away. I'll try to do everything you want me to do. I'll work ever so hard."

"Humph!"

This, of course, was from Clemantiny, as she set a pan of apples on the stove with an emphatic thud. "n.o.body ever doubted your willingness to work. Pity everything else about you isn't as satisfactory."

"Clemantiny!" said Miss Salome rebukingly. She put her arms about Chester and drew him to her. "Then it is all settled, Chester. You are my boy now, and of course I shall expect you to be a good boy."

If ever a boy was determined to be good, that boy was Chester. That day was the beginning of a new life for him. He began to go to the Hopedale school the next week. Miss Salome gave him all Johnny's old school books and took an eager interest in his studies.

Chester ought to have been very happy, and at first he was; but as the bright, mellow days of autumn pa.s.sed by, a shadow came over his happiness. He could not help thinking that he had really deceived Miss Salome, and was deceiving her still--Miss Salome, who had such confidence in him. He was not what he pretended to be. And as for his running away, he felt sure that Miss Salome would view that with horror. As the time pa.s.sed by and he learned more and more what a high standard of honour and truth she had, he felt more and more ashamed of himself. When she looked at him with her clear, trustful, blue eyes, Chester felt as guilty as if he had systematically deceived her with intent to do harm. He began to wish that he had the courage to tell her the whole truth about himself.

Moreover, he began to think that perhaps he had not done right, after all, in running away from Aunt Harriet. In Miss Salome's code nothing could be right that was underhanded, and Chester was very swiftly coming to look at things through Miss Salome's eyes. He felt sure that Johnny would never have acted as he had, and if Chester now had one dear ambition on earth, it was to be as good and manly a fellow as Johnny must have been. But he could never be that as long as he kept the truth about himself from Miss Salome.

"That boy has got something on his mind," said the terrible Clemantiny, who, Chester felt convinced, could see through a stone wall.

"Nonsense! What could he have on his mind?" said Miss Salome. But she said it a little anxiously. She, too, had noticed Chester's absent ways and abstracted face.

"Goodness me, I don't know! I don't suppose he has robbed a bank or murdered anybody. But he is worrying over something, as plain as plain."

"He is getting on very well at school," said Miss Salome. "His teacher says so, and he is very eager to learn. I don't know what can be troubling him."

She was fated not to know for a fortnight longer. During that time Chester fought out his struggle with himself, and conquered. He must tell Miss Salome, he decided, with a long sigh. He knew that it would mean going back to Upton and Aunt Harriet and the old, hard life, but he would not sail under false colours any longer.

Chester went into the kitchen one afternoon when he came home from school, with his lips set and his jaws even squarer than usual. Miss Salome was making some of her famous taffy, and Clemantiny was spinning yarn on the big wheel.

"Miss Salome," said Chester desperately, "if you're not too busy, there is something I'd like to tell you."

"What is it?" asked Miss Salome good-humouredly, turning to him with her spoon poised in midair over her granite saucepan.

"It's about myself. I--I--oh, Miss Salome, I didn't tell you the truth about myself. I've got to tell it now. My name isn't Benson--exactly--and I ran away from home."

"Dear me!" said Miss Salome mildly. She dropped her spoon, handle and all, into the taffy and never noticed it. "Dear me, Chester!"

"I knew it," said Clemantiny triumphantly. "I knew it--and I always said it. Run away, did you?"

"Yes'm. My name is Chester Benson Stephens, and I lived at Upton with Aunt Harriet Elwell. But she ain't any relation to me, really. She's only father's stepsister. She--she--wasn't kind to me and she wouldn't let me go to school--so I ran away."

"But, dear me, Chester, didn't you know that was very wrong?" said Miss Salome in bewilderment.

"No'm--I didn't know it then. I've been thinking lately that maybe it was. I'm--I'm real sorry."

"What did you say your real name was?" demanded Clemantiny.

"Stephens, ma'am."

"And your mother's name before she was married?"

"Mary Morrow," said Chester, wondering what upon earth Clemantiny meant.

Clemantiny turned to Miss Salome with an air of surrendering a dearly cherished opinion.

"Well, ma'am, I guess you must be right about his looking like Johnny.

I must say I never could see the resemblance, but it may well be there, for he--that very fellow there--and Johnny are first cousins.

Their mothers were sisters!"

"Clemantiny!" exclaimed Miss Salome.

"You may well say 'Clemantiny.' Such a coincidence! It doesn't make you and him any relation, of course--the cousinship is on the mother's side. But it's there. Mary Morrow was born and brought up in Hopedale.

She went to Upton when I did, and married Oliver Stephens there. Why, I knew his father as well as I know you."

"This is wonderful," said Miss Salome. Then she added sorrowfully, "But it doesn't make your running away right, Chester."

"Tell us all about it," demanded Clemantiny, sitting down on the wood-box. "Sit down, boy, sit down--don't stand there looking as if you were on trial for your life. Tell us all about it."

Thus adjured, Chester sat down and told them all about it--his moonlight flitting and his adventures in Montrose. Miss Salome exclaimed with horror over the fact of his sleeping in a pile of lumber for seven nights, but Clemantiny listened in silence, never taking her eyes from the boy's pale face. When Chester finished, she nodded.