My Neighbors Part 19

"They do," Martha avowed. "Sometimes, iss; sometimes, no. Poison they are when they breed."

"Not talking properly you are," said Eylwin. "Why for you palaver about breeding to the preacher? Cross I will be."

"Be you quiet now, Martha," said Tim. "Lock your tongue."

"Send a letter to Winnie for a rabbit; two rabbits if she is small,"

ordered Eylwin. "And not see your faults will I."

Tim and Martha were perplexed and communed with each other; and Tim walked to Wimbledon where he was not known and so have his errand guessed. He bought a rabbit and carried it to the door of the minister's house. "A rabbit from Winnie fach in Wales," he said.

"Eat her I will before I judge her," replied Eylwin; and after he had eaten it he said: "Quite fair was the animal. Serious dirty is the capel. As I flap my hand on the cushion Bible in my eloquence, like chimney smoke is the dust. Clean you at once. For are not the anniversary meetings on the sixth Sabbath? All the rich Welsh will be there, and Enoch Harries and the wife of him."

He came often to view Tim and Martha at their labor.

"Fortunate is your wench to have holiday," he said one day. "Hard have preachers to do in the vineyard."

"Hear we did this morning," Tim began to speak.

"In a hurry am I," Eylwin interrupted. "Fancy I do b.u.t.ter from Wales with one pinch of salt in him. Tell Winnie to send b.u.t.ter that is salted."

Martha bought two pounds of b.u.t.ter.

"Mean is his size," Tim grieved.

"Much is his cost," Martha whined.

"Get you one pound of marsherin and make him one and put him on a wetted cabbage leaf."

The fifth Sunday dawned.

"Next to-morrow," said Martha, "the daughter will be home. Go you to the jail and fetch her, and take you for her a big hat for old jailers cut the hair very short."

"No-no," Tim replied. "Better she returns and speak nothing. With no questions shall we question her."

Monday opened and closed.

"Mistake is in your count," Martha hinted.

"Slow scolar am I," said Tim. "Count will I once more."

"Don't you, boy bach," Martha hastened to say. "Come she will."

At the dusk of Friday Eylwin Jones, his goitered chin shivering, ran furiously and angrily into the Tabernacle. "Ho-ho," he cried. "In jail is Winnie. A scampess is she and a wh.o.r.e. Here's scandal. Mother and father of a thief in the house of the capel bach of Jesus Christ. Robbed Mistress Harries she did. Broke is the health of the woman nice as a consequent. She will not be at the anniversary meetings because the place is contaminated by you pair. And her husband won't. Five shillings each they give to the collection. The capel wants the half soferen. Out you go. Now at once."

Tim and Martha were sorely troubled that Winnie would come to the Chapel House and not finding them, would go away.

"Loiter will I near by," said Tim.

"Say we rent a room and peer for her," said Martha.

Thereon from dusk to day either Tim or Martha sat at the window of their room and watched. The year died and spring and summer declined into autumn, when on a moon-lit night men flew in machines over London and loosened bombs upon the people thereof.

"Feared am I," said Martha, "that our daughter is not in the shelter."

She screamed: "Don't stand there like a mule. Pray, Tim man."

Remembering how that he had prayed, Tim answered: "Try a prayer will I near the capel."

So Martha watched at her window and Tim prayed at the door of the Tabernacle.

XII

LOST TREASURE

Here is the tale that is told about Hugh Evans, who was a commercial traveler in drapery wares, going forth on his journeys on Mondays and coming home on Fridays. The tale tells how on a Friday night Hugh sat at the table in the kitchen of his house, which is in Parson's Green. He had before him coins of gold, silver, and copper, and also bills of his debts; and upon each bill he placed certain monies in accordance with the sum marked thereon. Having fixed the residue of his coins and having seen that he held ten pounds, his mind was filled with such bliss that he said within himself: "A nice little amount indeed. Brisk are affairs."

"Millie," he addressed his wife, "look over them and add them together."

"Wait till I'm done," was the answer. "The irons are all hotted up."

Hugh chided her. "You are not interested in my saving. You don't care.

It's nothing to you. Forward, as I call."

"If I sit down," Millie offered, "I feel I shall never get up again and the irons are hotted and what I think is a shame to waste gas like this the price it is."

"Why didn't you say so at the first opportunity? Be quick then. I shan't allow the cash to lay here."

Duly Millie observed her husband's order, and what time she proved that which Hugh had done, she was admonished that she had spent too much on this and that.

"I'm doing all I can not to be extravagant," she whimpered. "I don't buy a thing for my back." Her short upper lip curled above her broken teeth and trembled; she wept.

"But whatever," said Hugh softening his spirit, "I got ten soferens in hand. Next quarter less you need and more you have. Less ga.s.s and electric. You don't gobble food so ravishingly in warm weather. The more I save."

Having exchanged the ten pounds for a ten-pound note, remorse seized Hugh. "A son of a mule am I," he said. "Dangerous is paper as he blows.

If he blows! Bulky are soferens and shillings. If you lose two, you got the remnants. But they are showy and tempting." He laid the note under his pillow and slept, and he took it with him, secreted on his person, to Kingsend Chapel, where every Sunday morning and evening he sang hymns, bowed under prayer, and entertained his soul with sermons.

Just before departing on Monday he gave the note to Millie. "Keep him securely," he counseled her. "Tell n.o.body we stock so much cash."

Millie put the note between the folds of a Paisley shawl, which was precious to her inasmuch as it had been her mother's, and she wrapped a blanket over the shawl and placed it in a cupboard. But on Friday she could not remember where she had hidden the note; "never mind," she consoled herself, "it will occur to me all of a sudden."

As that night Hugh cast off his silk hat and his frock coat, he shouted: "Got the money all tightly?"

"Yes," replied Millie quickly. "As safe as in the Bank of England."

"Can't be safer than that. Keep him close to you and tell no one. Paper money has funny ways." Hugh then prophesied that in a year his wealth in a ma.s.s would be fifty pounds.