Otherwise Phyllis Part 59

"Really! Woeful extravagance. Did you see Aunt Josephine holding my hand?"

"I did," replied Amzi. "What's eating Josie?"

"She seemed to want to kiss and make up. I excused myself owing to the heat of the day."

"Humph! I'll tell you something, Phil, if you'll sit in a chair and be nice."

She sat in a chair and was nice.

"I was brought up," said Amzi, "to believe in heaven. Ever hear of the place?"

"I have," said Phil; "and no thanks to you."

He ignored the fling as unworthy of his attention, and continued soberly,--

"I never expected, in all the years I've been attending Center Church, that I'd ever see anybody on earth that had a pa.s.s right through the pearly gates; but I guess I know one woman that's got a ticket, with stop-over privileges, and a seat in the observation car--all stamped and good for any date. That woman, Phil, is your mother. That idea's been in my mind a good deal lately and I thought I'd mention it."

Phil's face a.s.sumed an unwonted gravity. Her mother's departure, in all the circ.u.mstances of her going, had still its poignancy. Phil had been brave, but it had cut deep. She did not reply to her uncle's remark, but waited for him to go on. He drew out a cigar, satisfied himself that it was in good condition, and returned it to his pocket.

"The day she left, your mother wrote out three checks for five thousand bucks--one for each of your aunts. She told me not to turn them over until she had landed on the other side. Thunder! After everything they had done to her and tried to do to her, she did _that_!"

He waited characteristically for her to deny the facts he had stated. A look of great tenderness came into Phil's face.

"Said she didn't want any unkind feelings. Said it was all right the way they acted. _Right!_" he repeated contemptuously. "I've known men--and women--some; but I can't beat that! And the day the cable came saying she'd got to Cherbourg, I called 'em down in a bunch and gave 'em the checks. You've noticed that your Uncle Lawrence has turned his theater into a moving-picture shop with a yellow-haired girl selling tickets at the gate; and your Uncle Paul has given notice that he's going to start the brickyard again. He's got contracts to keep him going for six months. And your Uncle Waterman's started in to pay a few of his debts on the installment plan. That's all your mother's money."

A wan smile flitted across Phil's face.

"What you laughing at?" Amzi demanded.

"Nothing," said Phil; "only I seem to remember that I once said something to Lawr_i_nce about cutting out the drammer and putting on the reel. And Paul and I had some talk once about bricks--" she ended meditatively.

"Your ideas, both of 'em, I bet!" declared Amzi furiously. "I thought those fellows never had that much sense all by themselves."

"Oh, nothing like that!" replied Phil.

"I just thought I ought to tell you what your mother did. Lois didn't say for me not to tell you. I guess she thought I most likely would."

"I'm glad you did, Amy. Everything I know about mamma makes me love her that much more."

Amzi turned to push the regulator on the fan, and when it had ceased humming he rested his arms on the table and said:--

"Seems Nan's not going to marry your father, after all?"

"No, that's all over," she answered indifferently.

"It was fine of your mother to want them to marry."

"Yes, it was like her. She is wonderful about everything,--thinks of everything and wants everybody to be happy."

Phil clasped her crossed knees in her hands, and did not meet her uncle's eyes. The ache in her heart that was not to be stilled wholly through many years cried aloud.

"Nan is a splendid woman and a mighty good friend to all of us. And your father's got a new shove up the ladder, and is doing splendidly. Nan did a lot for him!"

Phil loosened her hands and they fell helplessly to her sides.

"Oh," she cried, "I don't understand all these things, Amy! If mamma hadn't come back, Nan and daddy would have married; but I don't see how they could! It's clear beyond me how people see things one way one day and another way the next. What's the matter with all of us anyhow, that right isn't always right? In old times people mostly got married and stayed married, and knew their minds, but nowadays marriage seems so purely incidental. It's got to be almost ree-diculous, Amy."

"Well, Phil, I guess we all do the best we can. I guess we can't see very far ahead in this world." And then he smiled grimly. "I guess we never know when we're going to get a puncture. There's got to be patches on the tire before we get home."

She gave a little shrug that she had learned from her mother and walked over to him. She clasped his chin in her fingers and tilted his head so that she looked straight through his spectacles into his eyes.

"Let's stay on the bank; the swimming's dangerous!"

"What are you talking about?" he blurted, fearing that a mussing was imminent.

"Getting married! But you--"

She turned his head the better to search his face for telltale signs.

"You beautifulest of old sinners, how about Rose?"

He jerked himself free and pushed away from her with a screeching of the new chair's casters.

"Thunder!" he gasped. "Don't you ever think that!"

"Sure you're not fooling!" she demanded, amused at the look of horror in his face.

He drew out his handkerchief and mopped his face. His manner was that of a man who, having heard bad news, has just been a.s.sured of its falsity.

"I guess," he said, "if I was fool enough--at my age--Rose wouldn't be.

I've got along so far, and I guess I can pull through."

"Then," said Phil cheerfully, "we'll pull through together! This marriage business doesn't look good to me!"

"Thunder!" He looked at her narrowly. "I wish to the Lord I could keep _you_."

"Watch me! You know we're going abroad next summer to see mamma; that's a date. I guess you'll keep me all right enough until you get tired of me, or I break the bank! But why chat we here? Let's set the gasoline alight and ho for the well-hoed fields of corn!"

Phil carried a bundle of mail to her father to which he addressed himself after the supper they cooked for themselves in the camp in their old fashion. Amzi scorned their invitation to join them, as he frankly confessed his inability to find joy in sitting on a boulder and drinking coffee out of a tin cup. He preferred the comforts of his own farmhouse and Fred's society.

Phil had promised to visit him later, and finding that her father became engrossed immediately in an engineer's report on the Illinois traction property, she stole away.

She took the familiar ascent slowly, pausing now and then to listen to the murmur and rush of the waters beneath. From the top of the cliff she called down to a.s.sure her father of her safety. The dry stubble of the newly cut wheat was rough underfoot as she set off for Amzi's. There was much sowing and reaping in the world, she philosophized, and far too much chaff in the garnered grain! Life, that might be so simple if every one would only be a little bit reasonable, unfolded itself before her in dim, bewildering vistas.

Fred had started to meet her, and she saw his stalwart figure against the fading west.