The City of Fire Part 22

The first house on the side street that ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, just below Rafferty's, was Duncannon's. A picket fence at the side let into the vegetable gardens of the three, and the quiet little Mrs. Duncannon with the rippley brown hair and soft brown eyes often slipped through and made a morning call under cover of the kindly pole beans that hid her entrances and exits perfectly from any green holland shaded windows that might be open that way. Jane Duncannon formed a third in this little combination.

On the Monday morning following the session meeting Mary Rafferty and Christie McMertrie were at their respective pantry windows flinging together some toothsome delicacies for the evening meal, that all might move smoothly during the busy day.

A neat line of flopping clothes glimmered in each back yard over the trim "green" that stretched across in front of the back door, and the irons were on in both kitchens preparing for a finish as soon as a "piece" should show signs of dry.

"Hev ye haird whut the extra session meetin' was called for, Mary?"

asked the older woman looking up from her mixing bowl. "Tom went to the mill to tak the place of the noight watchman. His feyther's dyin' ye ken, and Tom's not come by yet. I thot ye might hev haird."

Mary lifted her eyes with troubled glance:

"Not yet," she said, "but I'm thinkin of running over to Duncannons as soon as I get these pies in the oven. The clothes won't be dry for a while, an' I'll take my pan of peas to sh.e.l.l. She'll know of course.

Maybe it's nothing much,--but Jim said they held up Mark Carter and made him come in. It was ten minutes of ten before he got away--! You don't suppose anybody's taken the gossip to the session do you?"

"There's one we know well would be full cawpable of the same," affirmed Christie patting her biscuits into place and tucking the bread cloth deftly over them, "But I'd be sorry to see a meenister an' a session as wud be held up by one poor whimperin' little elder of the like of him."

"Mr. Severn won't, I'm sure o' that!" said Mary trustingly, "but there comes Mrs. Duncannon now, I'll run over and see what's in the wind."

Mrs. Duncannon had grown a smile on her gentle face that was like as two peas to her husband's wide kindly grin, but there was no smile on her face this morning as she greeted her two friends, and dropped into a chair by the door of Christie's immaculate kitchen, and her soft brown eyes were snapping: She had an air of carrying kindly mysterious explosives:

"Did ye hear that the old ferret held up Mark Carter last night and as good as called him a murderer in the face of the whole session?" she asked breathlessly.

"And whut said our meenister to thot?" inquired Christie.

Jane Duncannon flashed her a twinkle of appreciation:

"He just clapped the senior elder in the chair as neat as a pin in a pincushion an' moved an expression of confidence, _utmost_ confidence was the word--!"

"Mmmmmmmm! I thot as much!" commented Christie, "The blessed mon!"

"Oh, I'm so glad!" sighed Mary Rafferty sinking into a chair, "Jim thinks the sun rises and sets in Mark Carter. They were kids together you know. He says people don't know Mark. And he said if they turned Mark down at the church now, if they didn't stand by him in his trouble, he had no more use for their religion!"

"Don't you believe it, Mary Rafferty! Jim Rafferty loves the very ground the meenister walks on!"

"What was that?" exclaimed Jane Duncannon running to the side window. "A strange car! Mary, come here! Is that the Chief of Police from Economy?"

Mary darted to the window followed by the elder woman:

"Yes, it is!" she exclaimed drawing back aghast, "You _don't_ suppose he's going to Carter's? He _wouldn't_ do that would he?"

"He huz to do his dooty, doesn't he?" mused Christie, "But thot's not sayin' he _loikes_ it, child!"

"Well, he might find a way not to frighten his mother--!"

Mrs. Duncannon stretched her neck to see if he was really stopping at the parsonage, and Christie murmured: "Perhaps he will."

The little group lingered a moment, till Mary bethought her of her pies in the oven and the three drifted thriftily back to their morning tasks, albeit with mind and heart down in the village.

Presently on the glad morning air sounded again the chug chug of the motor, bringing them sharply back to their windows. Yes, there was the Chief's car again. And Mark Carter with white haggard face sat in the back seat! Apprehension flew to the soul of each loyal woman.

But before the sound of the Chief's motor bearing Mark Carter Economyward had pa.s.sed out of hearing, Jane Duncannon in a neat brown dress with a little round brown ribboned hat set trimly on her rippley hair, and a little round basket on her arm covered daintily with a white napkin, was nipping out her tidy front gate between the sunflowers and asters and tripping down Maple street as if it had been on her mind to go ever since Sat.u.r.day night.

Even before Mary Rafferty had turned from her Nottingham laced parlor window and gone with swift steps to her kitchen door Christie McMertrie stood on her back step with her sunbonnet on and a gla.s.s of jelly wrapped in tissue paper in her hand:

"She's glimpsed 'em," she whispered briefly, with a nod toward the holland shades, "an' she's up in her side bedroom puttin' on her Sunday bunnit. She'll be oot the door in another two meenits, the little black crow! If we bide in the fields we can mak Carters' back stoop afore she gets much past the tchurch!"

Mary Rafferty caught up her pan of peas, dashed them into a basket that hung on the wall by the door, and bareheaded as she was hastened out through the garden after her friend for all the world as if she were going to pick more peas. Down the green lane between the bean poles they hurried through the picket gate, pushing aside the big gray Duncannon cat who basked in the sun under a pink hollyhock with a Duncannon smile on its gray whiskers like the rest of the family.

"Jane! Jane Duncannon!" called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of steaming cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as words could have done that no one was at home.

"She's gone!"

The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie babies playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and then ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope, crossed a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the opposite bank.

Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some one was coming out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a black veil. They hurried on. There were two more fences separating the meadows.

Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest of the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's just as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a glimpse back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she had won.

By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her soft brown eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her errand, and together the three entered the Carter house by the side entrance, with a neighborly tap and a call: "Miz Carter, you home?"

Quick nervous steps overhead, a m.u.f.fled voice calling catchily, "Yes, I'm coming, just set down, won't you?" and they dropped into three dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with their handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.

Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came hurriedly down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on the qui vive, and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair was damp about her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from one to another of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond them as if looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway puzzled.

"This is a s'prise party, Miz Carter," began Jane Duncannon laughing, "We all brought our work along and can't stay but a minute, but we got an idea an' couldn't keep it till Ladies' Aid. You got a minute to spare? Go get your knitting and set down. _Now_! It's Miz'Severn's birthday next Sat'day an' we thought 'twould be nice to get her a present. What do you think about it?"

Mrs. Carter who had stood tensely in the doorway, her fingers whitely gripping the woodwork, her face growing whiter every minute, suddenly relaxed with relief in every line of her body, and bloomed into a smile:

"Oh, why, _is_ it? Of course! What'll it be? Why, couldn't we finish that sunburst bed quilt we started last year while she was away? If we all get at it I think we could finish. There's some real fast quilters in the Aid. Wait, till I get my apples to pare. I promised Mark I'd have apple sauce for lunch!"

A quick glance went from eye to eye and a look of relief settled down on the little company. She _expected Mark home for lunch_ then!

They were in full tide of talk about the quilting pattern when a knock came on the front door, and Mary Rafferty jumped up and ran to open it.

They heard the Harricutt voice, clear, sharp, incisive:

"I came to sympathize--!" and then as Mary swung her face into the sunlight the voice came suddenly up as against a stone wall with a gasp and "Oh, it's _you_! Where's Mrs. Carter? I wish to see Mrs. Carter."

"She's right back in the dining-room, Mrs. Harricutt. Come on back.

We're talking over how to celebrate Miz Severn's birthday. Do you like a straight quilting or diamond, Miz Harricutt: It's for the sunburst coverlet you know!"

"The sunburst coverlet!" exclaimed Mrs. Harricutt irately, as though somehow it were an indecent subject at such a time as this, but she followed Mary back to the dining-room with a sniff of curiosity. She fairly gasped when she saw Mrs. Carter with her small sensitive face bright with smiles:

"Just take that chair by the window, Mrs. Harricutt," she said affably, "and _excuse me_ fer not getting up. I've got to get these apples on the fire, for I promised Mark some apple sauce for lunch, and he likes it stone cold."

Mrs. Harricutt p.r.i.c.ked up her ears:

"Oh, Mark is coming home for _lunch_ then!" Her voice was cold, sharp, like a steel knife dipped in lemon juice. There was a bit of a curl on the tip of it that made one wince as it went through the soul. Little Mrs. Carter flushed painfully under her sensitive skin, up to the roots of her light hair. She had been pretty in her girlhood, and Mark had her coloring in a stronger way.

"Oh, yes, he's coming home for lunch," she answered brightly, glad of this much a.s.surance. "And he has to have it early because he has to drive that strange young woman from the parsonage back somewhere down in New Jersey. She came alone by herself yesterday, but the mountain pa.s.ses sort of scairt her, and she asked Mark to drive back with her."

"Oh!" There was a challenge in the tone that called the red to Mrs.