The Law-Breakers and Other Stories Part 8

"I've half a mind to write to him and discover if it's he," Miss Willis said to herself. "How surprised he would be to receive a postal card 'Are you my Jimmy?'" But somehow she refrained. She did not wish to run the risk of disappointment, though she was sure it was he. She preferred to wait and to watch him now that she had him under her eye again. This was an easy thing to do, for Jimmy the mayor became Jimmy the governor before two years had pa.s.sed, and one morning Miss Willis found facing her in the Daily Dispatch a newspaper cut of large dimensions which set her heart beating as it had not throbbed since the days of Sir Galahad. It was a portrait of her Jimmy; Jimmy magnified and grown into a hirsute man, but the same old Jimmy with the tangled hair, serious brow, and large, pathetic eyes. Miss Willis laughed and Miss Willis cried, and presently, after she had time to realize the full meaning of what had happened, she had a vision of Jimmy in the White House, and herself, a venerable yet hale old woman, standing beside him in a famous company, and Jimmy was saying before them all, "I wish to make you acquainted with my dear teacher--the woman to whom I owe my start in life." The idea tickled her imagination, and she said to herself that she would keep the secret until that happy day arrived. What a delightful secret it was, and how surprised he would be when she said to him, "I suppose you don't recognize me, Jimmy?" Then, perhaps, he would embrace her before everybody, and the newspapers would have her picture and give the particulars of her life.

Jimmy was not elected President until four years later, and in the meantime Miss Willis kept her secret. When he was nominated, and the details of his career were eagerly sought for, it was announced by the press that in early life he had attended the Glendale grammar-school, and the fact was regarded by the authorities as a feather in the school's cap, and was commemorated during the campaign by the display in the exhibition hall of a large picture of the candidate festooned with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was unknown to anybody, and Marion's New England conscience shrank from obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence--the first she had ever requested in all her years of service. She was setting forth on the spree of her life, and her spirit was jubilant at the thought of Jimmy's amazement when he found out who she was.

A day came at last, after the new chief magistrate had taken the oaths of office and was in possession of the White House, when the American public was at liberty to file past their President and shake his hand in their might as free men and free women. Miss Willis had not been able to obtain a location near enough to the inauguration proceedings to distinguish more than the portly figure of a man, or to hear anything except the roar of the mult.i.tude. But now she was to have the chance to meet Jimmy face to face and overwhelm him with her secret.

Little by little the file of visitors advanced on its pa.s.sage toward the nation's representative, and presently Miss Willis caught her first glimpse of Sir Galahad--her real Sir Galahad. Her heart throbbed tumultuously. It was he--her Jimmy; he, beyond the shadow of a doubt; a strong, grave, resolute man; the prototype of human power and American intelligence.

Her Jimmy! She let her eyes fall, for it would soon be her turn, and her nerves were all tingling with a happy mixture of pride and diffidence. Her vision, her dearest vision, was about to be realized.

There was no chance for delusion or disappointment now. So it seemed.

Yet, as she stood there waiting, with her New England conscience and her sense of humor still active, of a sudden her imagination was seized by a new prospect. Why should she tell her secret? What was the use? There he stood--her Jimmy--good, great, and successful, and she had helped to make him so. Nothing could ever deprive her of that. The truth was hers forever. She was only an elderly spinster. Perhaps he would have forgotten. He was but fifteen when he left her, and he had never written to her during all these years. Very likely he did not realize at all what she had done for him. Nothing which he could do for her now would add to the joy of her heart. Secret? To share it with him might spoil all. The chances were it was her secret only; that only she could understand it.

She was close to the President now, and some one at her ear was asking her name. Suddenly she heard her name called, and stepping forward she was face to face with her soul's knight, and he was holding her hand.

"I am very glad to see you, Miss Willis," she heard him say.

She had been stepping shyly, with her eyes lowered. At his words, spoken in a voice which for all its manliness was still the same, she looked up into his face and murmured, as she pressed his fingers:

"G.o.d bless you, sir!"

She did not even say "Jimmy." Then she pa.s.sed, and--and her secret was safe.

Six months later Miss Willis was found one morning dead in her bed.

She had died peacefully in her sleep. When her personal effects were administered there was noticed on the mantelpiece in her sitting-room a mounted tintype, on the paper back of which were two inscriptions.

Of these the upper, in faded ink, was dated forty years before and read "From Jimmy." The other, recent and written with the pen of an elderly person, ran as follows: "Portrait of the President of the United States as a school-boy."

AN EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES

I

In the opinion of many persons competent to judge, "The Beaches" was suffering from an invasion of wealth. Unquestionably it had been fashionable for a generation; but the people who had established summer homes there were inhabitants of the large neighboring city which they forsook during five months in the year to enjoy the ocean breezes and sylvan scenery, for The Beaches afforded both. Well-to-do New England families of refinement and taste, they enjoyed in comfort, without ostentation, their picturesque surroundings. Their cottages were simple; but each had its charming outlook to sea and a sufficient number of more or less wooded acres to command privacy and breathing s.p.a.ce. In the early days the land had sold for a song, but it had risen steadily with the times, as more and more people coveted a foothold. The last ten years had introduced many changes; the older houses had been pulled down and replaced by lordly structures with all the modern conveniences, including s.p.a.cious stables and farm buildings. Two clubs had been organized along the six miles of coast to provide golf and tennis, afternoon teas and bridge whist for the entertainment of the colony. The scale of living had become more elaborate, and there had been many newcomers--people of large means who offered for the finest sites sums which the owners could not afford to refuse. The prices paid in several instances represented ten times the original outlay. All the desirable locations were held by proprietors fully aware of their value, and those bent on purchase must pay what was asked or go without.

Then had occurred the invasion referred to--the coming to The Beaches of the foreign contingent, so called: people of fabulous means, multi-millionaires who were captains in one or another form of industry and who sought this resort as a Mecca for the social uplifting of their families and protection against summer heat. At their advent prices made another jump--one which took the breath away.

Several of the most conservative owners parted with their estates after naming a figure which they supposed beyond the danger point, and half a dozen second-rate situations, affording but a paltry glimpse of the ocean, were snapped up in eager compet.i.tion by wealthy capitalists from Chicago, Pittsburg, and St. Louis who had set their hearts on securing the best there was remaining.

Among the late comers was Daniel Anderson, known as the furniture king in the jargon of trade, many times a millionaire, and comparatively a person of leisure through the sale of his large plants to a trust. He hired for the season, by long-distance telephone, at an amazing rental, one of the more desirable places which was to let on account of the purpose of its owners to spend the summer abroad. It was one of the newer houses, large and commodious; yet its facilities were severely taxed by the Anderson establishment, which fairly bristled with complexity. Horses by the score, vehicles manifold, a steam yacht, and three automobiles were the more striking symbols of a manifest design to curry favor by force of outdoing the neighborhood.

The family consisted of Mrs. Anderson, who was nominally an invalid, and a son and daughter of marriageable age. If it be stated that they were chips of the old block, meaning their father, it must not be understood that he had reached the moribund stage. On the contrary, he was still in the prime of his energy, and, with the exception of the housekeeping details, set in motion and directed the machinery of the establishment.

It had been his idea to come to The Beaches; and having found a foothold there he was determined to make the most of the opportunity not only for his children but himself. With his private secretary and typewriter at his elbow he matured his scheme of carrying everything before him socially as he had done in business. The pa.s.sport to success in this new direction he a.s.sumed to be lavish expenditure. It was a favorite maxim of his--trite yet shrewdly entertained--that money will buy anything, and every man has his price. So he began by subscribing to everything, when asked, twice as much as any one else, and seeming to regard it as a privilege. Whoever along The Beaches was interested in charity had merely to present a subscription list to Mr.

Anderson to obtain a liberal donation. The equivalent was acquaintance. The man or woman who asked him for money could not very well neglect to bow the next time they met, and so by the end of the first summer he was on speaking terms with most of the men and many of the women. Owing to his generosity, the fund for the building of a new Episcopal church was completed, although he belonged to a different denomination. He gave a drinking fountain for horses and dogs, and when the selectmen begrudged to the summer residents the cost of rebuilding two miles of road, Daniel Anderson defrayed the expense from his own pocket. An ardent devotee of golf, and daily on the links, he presented toward the end of the season superb trophies for the compet.i.tion of both men and women, with the promise of others in succeeding years. In short, he gave the society whose favor he coveted to understand that it had merely "to press the b.u.t.ton" and he would do the rest.

Mr. Andersen's nearest neighbors were the Misses Ripley--Miss Rebecca and Miss Caroline, or Carry, as she was invariably called. They were among the oldest summer residents, for their father had been among the first to recognize the attractions of The Beaches, and their childhood had been pa.s.sed there. Now they were middle-aged women and their father was dead; but they continued to occupy season after season their cottage, the location of which was one of the most picturesque on the whole sh.o.r.e. The estate commanded a wide ocean view and included some charming woods on one side and a small, sandy, curving beach on the other. The only view of the water which the Andersons possessed was at an angle across this beach. The house they occupied, though twice the size of the Ripley cottage, was virtually in the rear of the Ripley domain, which lay tantalizingly between them and a free sweep of the landscape.

One morning, early in October of the year of Mr. Anderson's advent to The Beaches, the Ripley sisters, who were sitting on the piazza enjoying the mellow haze of the autumn sunshine, saw, with some surprise, Mr. David Walker, the real-estate broker, approaching across the lawn--surprise because it was late in the year for holidays, and Mr. Walker invariably went to town by the half-past eight train. Yet a visit from one of their neighbors was always agreeable to them, and the one in question lived not more than a quarter of a mile away and sometimes did drop in at afternoon tea-time. Certain women might have attempted an apology for their appearance, but Miss Rebecca seemed rather to glory in the shears which dangled down from her ap.r.o.n-strings as she rose to greet her visitor; they told so unmistakably that she had been enjoying herself tr.i.m.m.i.n.g vines. Miss Carry--who was still kittenish in spite of her forty years--as she gave one of her hands to Mr. Walker held out with the other a basket of seckel pears she had been gathering, and said:

"Have one--do."

Mr. Walker complied, and, having completed the preliminary commonplaces, said, as he hurled the core with an energetic sweep of his arm into the ocean at the base of the little bluff on which the cottage stood:

"There is no place on the sh.o.r.e which quite compares with this."

"We agree with you," said Miss Rebecca with dogged urbanity. "Is any one of a different opinion?"

"On the contrary, I have come to make you an offer for it. It isn't usual for real-estate men to crack up the properties they wish to purchase, but I am not afraid of doing so in this case." He spoke buoyantly, as though he felt confident that he was in a position to carry his point.

"An offer?" said Miss Rebecca. "For our place? You know that we have no wish to sell. We have been invited several times to part with it, and declined. It was you yourself who brought the last invitation. We are still in the same frame of mind, aren't we, Carry?"

"Yes, indeed. Where should we get another which we like so well?"

"My princ.i.p.al invites you to name your own figure."

"That is very good of him, I'm sure. Who is he, by the way?"

"I don't mind telling you; it's your neighbor, Daniel Anderson." David Walker smiled significantly. "He is ready to pay whatever you choose to ask."

"Our horses are afraid of his automobiles, and his liveried grooms have turned the head of one of our maids. Our little place is not in the market, thank you, Mr. Walker."

The broker's beaming countenance showed no sign of discouragement. He rearranged the gay blue flower which had almost detached itself from the lapel of his coat, then said laconically:

"I am authorized by Mr. Anderson to offer you $500,000 for your property."

"What?" exclaimed Miss Rebecca.

"Half a million dollars for six acres," he added.

"The man must be crazy." Miss Rebecca stepped to the honeysuckle vine with a detached air and snipped off a straggling tendril with her shears. "That is a large sum of money," she added.

David Walker enjoyed the effect of his announcement; it was clear that he had produced an impression.

"Money is no object to him. I told him that you did not wish to sell, and he said that he would make it worth your while."

"Half a million dollars! We should be nearly rich," let fall Miss Carry, upon whom the full import of the offer was breaking.

"Yes; and think what good you two ladies could do with all that money--practical good," continued the broker, pressing his opportunity and availing himself of his knowledge of their aspirations. "You could buy elsewhere and have enough left over to endow a professorship at Bryn Mawr, Miss Rebecca; and you, Miss Carry, would be able to revel in charitable donations."

Those who knew the Ripley sisters well were aware that plain speaking never vexed them. Beating about the bush from artificiality or ignoring a plain issue was the sort of thing they resented.

Consequently, the directness of David Walker's sally did not appear to them a liberty, but merely a legitimate summing up of the situation.

Miss Rebecca was the spokesman as usual, though her choice was always governed by what she conceived to be the welfare of her sister, whom she still looked on as almost a very young person. Sitting upright and clasping her elbows, as she was apt to do in moments of stress, she replied:

"Money is money, Mr. Walker, and half a million dollars is not to be discarded lightly. We should be able, as you suggest, to do some good with so much wealth. But, on the other hand, we don't need it, and we have no one dependent on us for support. My brother is doing well and is likely to leave his only child all that is good for her. We love this place. Caroline may marry some day" (Miss Carry laughed protestingly at the suggestion and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Not very likely"), "but I never shall. I expect to come here as long as I live. We love every inch of the place--the woods, the beach, the sea. Our garden, which we made ourselves, is our delight. Why should we give up all this because some one offers us five times what we supposed it to be worth? My sister is here to speak for herself, but so far as I am concerned you may tell Mr. Anderson that if our place is worth so much as that we cannot afford to part with it."

"Oh, no, it wouldn't do at all! Our heartstrings are round the roots of these trees, Mr. Walker," added the younger sister in gentle echo of this determination.