The Brass Bound Box Part 11

I've decided that he must be elected, and without any 'forcing,' and I've the splendidest plan you ever heard. First, I'll give you a lesson.

Then I'll tell you, else you'll believe I'm forgetting my promise. I'm not. I'm only considering the best way to begin. Well, Montgomery Sturtevant, that bad habit of yours comes from laziness and nervousness.

Pure laziness, pure nervousness," she added, with emphasis.

"D-d-don't neither!" denied the stammerer, indignantly. "Ain't got no nerves. G-gr-gramma says so, and she knows. She's older 'n you, an'

she's got 'em worst kind. Always gets 'em when I play the f-f-fiddle."

"Maybe there are two kinds of nerves. She doesn't stammer. Besides the Cyclopedia said so, and it tells the truth. Here. Put this pebble in your mouth. It's a nice smooth round one. I picked it up in the garden and washed it clean. You put it in and then say just--as--slow--as--slow: 'Betsy Bobbins baked a batch of biscuit.'

After you learn to say it slow, without once stammering, then you begin to say it faster. Either that or any other jingle that's difficult without tripping. 'She sells sea-sh.e.l.ls,' or, 'Peter Piper.' Why don't you put the pebble in?"

"I don't want t-to. You're mocking me!"

"There! I knew you needn't if you really wouldn't. When you are a little angry or in real earnest you can talk well. Listen to me and think if I'm not in earnest myself, since I took the trouble to copy all this for you."

Thereupon, from the little pocket of her blouse, which had held the pebble, the teacher took a folded paper, closely covered with her neatest script, and read therefrom paragraphs which alternately plunged her pupil into despair or exalted him to extravagant delight. And the fortunate result of this first lesson was that when it was ended Montgomery had repeated an entire sentence with reasonable smoothness.

But he had accomplished this without the pebble and with almost interminable pauses between words.

"Yet you did it, you did it!" cried Katharine, exultantly; "and now for a reward you shall hear the most glorious plan I ever thought out.

Listen to me, Mr. President-that-is-to-be!"

So Montgomery listened in astonishment, doubt, and delight, after his habit of mind; yet also, because of her zeal in his cure, with unquestioning allegiance. In any case, it was a scheme that would have appealed to him irresistibly and was one full worthy of the brain of "Kitty Quixote," so that he was fast outstripping even her ingenuity in the matter of detail, when the sudden call of Widow Sprigg fell like a dash of cold water upon their glowing spirits:

"Montgomery Sturtevant! You come right down out that mow this minute!

Here's Squire Pettijohn after you!"

CHAPTER IX.

SQUIRE PETTIJOHN

Katharine should have grown familiar, by this time, with Monty's spasmodic disappearances, but this last was the most amazing of all. It seemed that at the sound of "Pettijohn" the hay had opened and swallowed him. There had been no other summons and she had heard only a faint swish of something sliding, then found herself alone.

"But he'll come back, of course," she reflected, "after he's seen that gentleman. Must have been somebody he liked or he wouldn't have hurried so. Anyway, I don't mind being here a little while by myself to think things out all clear, and a hay-mow is the loveliest place in the world for dreaming."

It proved such in reality for Katharine, who, burrowing herself a fresh, chair-like "nest" in the sweet-scented hay, laid her head back and fixed her gaze upon the clouds floating above the slatted window. Soon her lids dropped and she fell fast asleep.

When she awoke the loft was dusky in twilight and she was very cold. The wind had risen, and little tufts of the hay about her blew here and there, clinging to her clothing and lodging among her short curls.

Montgomery had not returned, and after lying still a moment longer, till she was fully awake, she grew frightened, thinking:

"I never heard such a moaning and whistling as the wind does make up here. I wonder if it is always so in a barn, and how I am to get down.

It was hard enough coming up, but in the dark, like this, and I not remembering just where that ladder was; and if I don't find it--what shall I do? Yet how silly to be afraid of things, a big girl like me; and how impolite of that boy to go away and forget me. No matter how much he likes Squire Pettijohn, he shouldn't forget his manners; especially since it is I, not that gentleman, who is going to cure him of stuttering. And what a stupid I am not to call him! If he's forgotten I must remind him."

With that she crept as near the edge of the mow as she dared, and shouted: "Montgomery! Monty Sturtevant! Boy! Come back and help me down!"

While she listened for a reply she thought of the eggs she had collected for Susanna, and crawled back to find her hat and them. The hat she slipped over her head, its elastic band clasping her throat, and the eggs she stored within her blouse. They were heavy and made it sag inconveniently, but she could soon get rid of them if only that wretched little Sturtevant boy would come back. She must try again!

"Mon-ty! _Mont--gom--ery!_"

Nothing save the wind soughing dismally among the rafters responded to her call, uttered with her loudest voice, and a fresh shiver of fear crept over her. Then she rallied, growing angry, which, under the circ.u.mstances, was the best thing that could have happened. Her indignation made her half-forget her terror so that she could plan her descent with something like courage.

"Let me think. I noticed that the top of that straight little ladder came high above the hay, almost to the roof in one place. I'd better get on my stomach and just crawl along, ever so slowly and carefully, till I find it. But--hark! Oh, joy!"

From somewhere in the darkness below a familiar yelp and whine sounded faintly. The roaring of the wind almost drowned it, yet she recognized that Punch had traced and followed her. She had always loved him, but never had he been so adorable as at that moment. His unseen presence comforted her so that she called back to him quite cheerfully:

"Yes, you precious, beautiful dog! Mistress is up here. She's coming!

Wait for her, darling, darling fellow!"

It is possible that the ugly-favored little animal appreciated this flattery, or he may have had troubles of his own which needed comforting. Since his arrival at Marsden, life had not been all chop-bones for him any more than it had been all catnip for Sir Philip, and the short, gay bark with which he now responded to his mistress' cry proved their mutual satisfaction.

At last, Katharine's cautious pa.s.sage came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, now become almost impenetrable, till she got one foot upon a round of the ladder.

"That's good. But I guess I'd see better if I closed my eyes, and I must go down it backwards. Now I've both feet on and--dear me! How far it is between steps. Why don't people put their rounds closer together, so they wouldn't be so hard to climb? I was never on a ladder before except a step one, and that not often, and--But I'll manage."

Manage she did and very well, until she had nearly reached the bottom.

Then, pushing her foot downward where one of the rounds had been broken out, it found nothing to rest upon though she stretched it to her utmost, and all at once everything seemed to give way and she fell backwards. Fortunately, the distance was so slight and the bay so carpeted with hay that no serious harm resulted; and when a cold wet nose was thrust into her face she sprang to her feet, catching Punch in her arms and in her great relief caressing him till he rebelled and wriggled himself free.

The wind did not roar so loudly down there, and, presently, she could hear things; the sound of somebody moving about on the barn floor, the opening and shutting of feed-boxes and stalls, the swish of fodder forked to the cows in the shed beyond, and could also see the gleam of lantern-light as it was carried to and fro.

"h.e.l.lo!" cried Katharine, hurrying to the square window through which she and Montgomery had leaped into the deep bay, but whose lower frame even was so far above her head that she could only touch it by stretching her arms to their utmost. She had thought it a big jump then and had not considered how she was to return, but now the full difficulty of the situation presented itself, and her heart sank.

"Oh, Punchy, dearest! I guess this is a good deal like Susanna's saying, 'out of the frying-pan into the fire.' Off the hay-mow into the bay. I don't see why folks build barns such ways. Why don't they have just regular straight floors and things? Wait, pet. Don't rub against my ankles so hard, you nearly knock me over. The man'll come back in a minute and help us up. I don't see how you ever got down here unless you fell down. h.e.l.lo! Man! _Man!_ Hel--lo! HELP!"

The lantern glimmer appeared once more, but at the extreme end of the building, and seemed rapidly receding. Then there came the sound of a heavy door slammed forcibly against the wind, the rasp of a bolt in its lock, and Katharine knew that she had not been heard, and that she had been shut up alone in the great, desolate place.

It was not liking for Squire Pettijohn which had caused Montgomery to vanish when called to meet him. Quite the reverse. The name of that man of mighty girth and stature struck terror into the soul of every young Marsdenite. He was a person of fierce temper and a propensity for managing his neighbors' affairs, especially the affairs of his youthful neighbors. Report said that his wealth equalled his temper, and that the two together made most of the villagers stand in awe of him is certain.

It was his boast that he represented the cause of law and order in his native town, and he often wondered how it had gotten along before he was born, or how it would manage when he was dead.

That day he had come home from attending court and found the community in a ferment. It would have been excited even by the news of Moses'

accident and pluck, but the tidings of treasure-finding, scattered broadcast by Montgomery during the morning's errands, had stirred its profoundest depths.

When the lawyer tied his horse at the post-office, he was greeted by statements as various as many. "Miss Maitland has discovered a gold mine on her property;" "Monty Sturtevant has dug up buried treasure in Eunice's woods;" "'Johnny' Maitland's girl has been sent home to fetch Eunice a box of diamonds;" and "There's been gold found right here in Marsden township."

These were but the beginnings of the garbled reports which a gossip-loving lad had originated; yet all pointed to one and the same thing,--Marsden would now become famous. So that more than ever Squire Pettijohn felt it good to be a great man in the right place. In all the newspaper notices which would follow, his name, also, would appear, and notoriety was what he coveted.

Having listened to one and all versions with fierce attention, he repaired to his dinner and consumed it in a silence which his observant wife knew betokened affairs of unusual weight. But it was not until he finished his dessert and pushed back from table that he informed her:

"I am going to Eunice's. Vast wealth has been found upon her premises, and she needs me. Deny me to all smaller clients until further notice."

Then, a.s.suming his Sunday attire and stiffest stock, he set pompously forth down the tree-bordered street, caning a stray dog here, there reprimanding a boy who might be playing "hookey,"--though was not,--and shaking his fist at old Whitey, taking her accustomed stroll in and out of inviting dooryards. Yet when he came to the wider yard before the stone house something of his complaisance left him. "He and Eunice Maitland had never hitched." She was always perfectly courteous, and never failed to attend the sewing-meetings of the church when they were held at his house, and she had even been heard to say that she had "a great respect for Mrs. Pettijohn." She might have put a peculiar emphasis upon the "Mrs.," but then, everybody has his or her tricks of speech which mean nothing.

There was no door-bell at The Maples, but a polished bra.s.s knocker announced the arrival of any visitor; and it seemed to the worried Widow Sprigg as if that "plaguey knocker had done nothin' but whack the hull endurin' time sence Moses got hurt. I wonder who 'tis this time!"

Consequently, the door was opened with more impatience than courtesy as it now heralded the arrival of the Squire, who was for pa.s.sing at once into the hall had not something in Susanna's manner caused him to hesitate.

"Miss Maitland. Is she at home? Will you present my card to her and say that I have called in person--in person--"

"Don't see how you could have called any other way," answered the greatly tried housekeeper, remembering him rather as "little Jimmy Pettijohn," whom her own mother had used to feed and befriend, than as the important personage he had since become.