Seven Miles to Arden Part 8

"What kind of fortunes?" asked the tinker.

"What but the best kind!" Patsy thought for a moment, and smiled whimsically while her eyes grew strangely starry in that early twilight. "Wouldn't I like to be choosing those fortunes, and wouldn't they be an odd lot, entirely! There'd be singing hearts that had learned to sing above trouble; there'd be true fellowship--the kind that finds brotherhood in beggars as well as--as prime ministers; there'd be peace of soul--not the kind that naps by the fire, content that the wind doesn't be blowing down his chimney, but the kind that fights above fighting and keeps neighbor from harrying neighbor. Troth, the world is in mortial need of fortunes like the last."

"And wouldn't you be choosin' gold for a fortune?" asked the tinker.

Patsy shook her head vehemently.

"Why not?"

"That's the why!" Suddenly Patsy clenched her hands and shook two menacing fists against the gathering dark. "I hate gold, along with the meanness and the lying and the thieving and the false judgment it brings into the world."

"But the world can't get along without it," reminded the tinker, shrewdly.

"Aye, but it can. It can get along without the h.o.a.rded gold, the inherited gold, the cheating, bribing, starving gold--that's the kind I mean, the kind that gets into a man's heart and veins until his fingers itch to gild everything he touches, like the rich man in the city yonder."

"What rich man? I thought the--I thought the city was full o' rich men."

"Maybe; but there's just one I'm thinking of now; and G.o.d pity him--and his son."

The tinker eyed her stupidly. "How d'you know he has a son?"

Patsy laughed. "I guessed--maybe." Then she looked down in her lap.

"And here's the news--with no light left to read it by; and I'm as hungry as an alley cat--and as tired as two. Ye'd never dream, to hear me talking, that I'd never had much more than a crooked sixpence to my name since I was born; and here I am, with that gone and not a slither to buy me bed or board for the night."

The tinker looked down at her with an altogether strange expression, very different from anything Patsy had seen on his face all day. Had she chanced to catch it before it flickered out, it might have puzzled even her O'Connell wits to fathom the meaning of it. For it was as if the two had unexpectedly changed places, and the tender pity and protectiveness that had belonged to her had suddenly become his.

"Never mind, la.s.s; there's board in the kit for to-night--what the farm wife put up; and there's this left, and I'll--I'll--" He did not finish; instead he dropped a few coins in her hand, the change from the half-dollar. Then he set about sweeping the dust from the step with his battered cap and spreading their meager meal before her.

They ate in silence, so deep in the business of dulling their appet.i.tes that they never noticed a small figure crossing the street with two goblets and a pitcher hugged tight in his arms. They never looked up until the things were set down beside them and a voice announced at their elbow, "Mother said I could bring it; it's better 'n eatin' dry."

It was Joseph; and the pitcher held milk, still foamy from a late milking. He looked at Patsy a moment longingly, as if there was more he wanted to ask; but, overcome with a sudden bashful confusion, he took to his heels and disappeared around the corner of the meeting-house before they had time even to give thanks.

The tinker poured the goblets full, handed Patsy's to her with another grave bow, and, touching his to hers, said, soberly, "Here's to a friendly la.s.s--the first I ever knew, I reckon."

For an instant she watched him, puzzled and amused; then she raised her gla.s.s slowly in reply. "And here's to tinkers--the world over!"

When everything but the crumbs were eaten she left him to scatter these and return Joseph's pitcher while she went to get "the loan of a light from the shopkeeper, and hunt up the news."

The store was store, post-office, and general news center combined.

The news was at that very moment in process of circulation among the "boys"--a shirt-sleeved quorum from the patriarchs of the town circling the mola.s.ses-keg--the storekeeper himself topped it. They looked up as Patsy entered and acknowledged her "Good evening" with that perfect indifference, the provincial cloak in habitual use for concealing the most absolute curiosity. The storekeeper graciously laid the hospitality of his stool and counter and kerosene-lamp at her feet; in other words, he "cal'ated she was welcome to make herself t' home." All of which Patsy accepted. She spread out the newspaper on the counter in front of her; she unwrapped a series of small bundles--ink, pen, stamped envelope, letter-pad, and pen-holder, and eyed them with approval.

"The tinker's a wonder entirely," she said to herself; "but I would like to be knowing, did he or did the shopkeeper do the choosing?"

Then she remembered the thing above all others that she needed to know, and swung about on the stool to address the quorum. "I say--can you tell me where I'd be likely to find a--person by the name of Bil--William Burgeman?"

"That rich feller's boy?"

Patsy nodded. "Have you seen him?"

The quorum thumbed the armholes of their vests and shook an emphatic negative. "Nope," volunteered the storekeeper; "too early for him or his sort to be diggin' out o' winter quarters."

"Are you sure? Do you know him?"

"Wall, can't say exactly ef I know him; but I'd know ef he'd been hangin' round, sartin. Hain't been nothin' like him loose in these parts. Has there, boys?"

The quorum confirmed the statement.

Patsy wrinkled up a perplexed forehead. "That's odd. You see, he should have been here last night, to-day at the latest. I had it from somebody who knew, that he was coming to Arden."

"Mebby he was," drawled the storekeeper, while the quorum cackled in appreciation; "but this here is a good seven miles from Arden."

Patsy's arms fell limp across the counter, her head followed, and she sat there a crumpled-up, dejected little heap.

"By Jack-a-diamonds!" swore the storekeeper. "She 'ain't swoomed, has she, boys?"

The quorum were on the verge of investigating when she denied the fact--in person. "Where am I? In the name of Saint Peter, what place is this?"

"This? Why, this is Lebanon."

She smiled weakly. "Lebanon! Sounds more like it, anyhow. Thank you."

She turned about and settled down to the paper while the "boys"

reverted to their original topic of discussion. There were two items of news that interested her: Burgeman, senior, was critically ill; he had been ill for some time, but there had been no cause for apprehension until the last twenty-four hours; and Marjorie Schuyler had left for San Francisco--on the way to China. She was to be gone indefinitely.

"The heathen idols and the laundrymen are welcome to her," growled Patsy, maliciously. "If they'd only fix her with the evil eye, or wish such a homesickness and lovesickness on her that 'twould last for a year and a day, I'd forgive her for what she's made me wish on myself."

Having relieved her mind somewhat, she was able to attend to the business of the letter with less inward discomfort. The letter was written to George Travis, already known as the manager of Miss St.

Regis. He was the head of a well-known theatrical managerial firm in New York, and an old friend and well-wisher of Patsy's. In it she explained, partly, her continued sojourn in America, and frankly confessed to her financial needs. If he had anything anywhere that she could do until the fall bookings with her own company, she would be most humbly grateful. He might address her at Arden; she had great hopes of reaching there--some day. There was a postscript added in good, pure Donegal:

And don't ye be afeared of hurting my pride by offering anything too small. Just at present I'm like old Granny Donoghue's lean pig--hungry for sc.r.a.pings.

As she sealed the envelope a shadow fell athwart the counter. Patsy looked up to find the tinker peering at her sharply.

"You look clean tuckered out," he announced, baldly; then he laid a coaxing hand on her arm. "I want you to come along with me. Will you, la.s.s? I've found a place for you--a nice place. I've been talkin' to Joseph's mother, an' she's goin' to look after you for the night."

Patsy's face crinkled up all over; the tinker could not have told--even if he had been in possession of all his senses--whether she was going to laugh or cry. As it turned out, she did neither; she just sighed, a tired, contented little sigh, slipping off the stool and dropping the letter into the post-box.

When she faced the tinker again her eyes were misty, and for all her courage she could not keep the quivering from her lips. She reached up impulsive, trusting hands to his shoulders: "Lad--lad--how were ye ever guessing that I'd reached the end o' my wits and was needing some one to think for me? Holy Saint Michael! but won't I be mortial glad to be feeling a respectable, Lebanon feather-bed under me!"

As the tinker led her out of the store the quorum eyed her silently for a moment. For a brief s.p.a.ce there was a sc.r.a.ping of chairs and clearing of throats, indicative of some important comment.

"What sort of a lookin' gal did that Green County sheriff say he was after?" inquired the storekeeper at last.

"Small, warn't it?" suggested one of the quorum.

"Yep, guess it was. And what sort o' clothes did he say she wore?"