The Wall Between Part 10

"Kindness has nothin' to do with it."

"Yes, it has," persisted Lucy softly. "Unless we become more kind, how is the world ever to become better?"

"Pish!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ellen. "Now see here. You ain't comin' into my house to preach to me. I'm older'n you, an' I know without bein' told what I want to do. So long's you stay under this roof you'll behave like a Webster--that's all I've got to say. If you ain't a-goin' to be a Webster an' prefer to disgrace your kin, the sooner you get out the better."

"Very well. I can go."

There was no bravado in the a.s.sertion. Had there been, Ellen would not have felt so much alarmed. It was the fearless sincerity of the remark that frightened her. She had not intended to force a crisis. She had calculated that her bullying tone would cow rather than antagonize her niece. The last result on which she had reckoned was defiance. Instantly her crafty mind recognized that she must conciliate unless she would lose this valuable helper whose toil could be secured without expense.

"Of course I don't mean--I wouldn't want you should go away," she hastened to declare. "I'm just anxious for you to do--well--what's right," she concluded lamely.

Lucy saw her advantage.

"Now, Aunt Ellen, we may as well settle this right now," she a.s.serted. "I am quite willing to go back to Arizona any time you say the word. I have no desire to remain where I am not wanted. But so long as I do stay here, I must be the one to decide what it is right for me to do. Remember, I am not a child. I have a conscience as well as you, and I am old enough to use it."

Ellen did not speak. She realized that Greek had met Greek and in the combat of wills she was vanquished. Nevertheless, she was not generous enough to own defeat.

"S'pose we don't talk about it any more," she replied diplomatically.

She was retreating toward the door, still smarting under the knowledge of having been vanquished, when her eye fell upon the box of eggs, which, in her excitement, she had forgotten was in her hand. A malicious gleam lighted her face. A second afterward there was a violent crash in the kitchen.

"The eggs!" Lucy heard her cry. "I've dropped 'em."

The eggs had indeed been dropped,--dropped with such a force that even the cooperation of all the king's horses and all the king's men would have been useless.

When Lucy reached her side Ellen was bending over the wreck on the floor, a sly smile on her lips.

"They're gone, every one of 'em," she announced with feigned regret. "But it ain't any matter. You can have all, the eggs you want anytime you want 'em. I ain't so poverty-stricken that we can't have eggs--even if they are sixty-six cents a dozen."

She got a cloth and began to wipe up the unsightly ma.s.s at her feet.

"I paid sixty-seven cents for those," Lucy said.

"Sixty-seven cents! How long have the Howes been gettin' sixty-seven cents for their eggs, I'd like to know?" Ellen demanded, springing into an upright position.

"I couldn't say. Jane told me that was the regular market price."

"Why didn't I know it?" her aunt burst out. "They must 'a' gone up a cent, an' I sellin' mine at the store for sixty-six! Ain't it just like that meachin' Elias Barnes to do me out of a penny a dozen, the skinflint."

In the face of the present issue, the battle between Howe and Webster was forgotten.

To be cheated out of a cent by Elias Barnes and at the same time to have her business ability surpa.s.sed by that of Martin Howe! No indignity could have equaled it.

"Well, I'll get even with Elias," she bl.u.s.tered. "I'm fattening some hogs for him, an' I'll tuck what I've lost on the eggs right on to 'em. He shall pay that cent one way or 'nother 'fore he gets through. He needs to think to beat me. Sixty-seven cents, and I never knowin' it!"

Then the words brought still another bitter possibility to the woman's mind.

"You didn't mention to the Howes I was gettin' only sixty-six cents a dozen for eggs, did you?" she asked, wheeling on Lucy.

"No, I didn't speak of price."

"That's good," said her aunt, slightly mollified. "At least Martin Howe can't go crowin' over me--that is, unless Elias Barnes tells him. 'Twould be exactly like Elias to do it. He is just that mean."

Although Ellen did not own it, Lucy knew that had the case been reversed, she would have been the first to crow unhesitatingly not only over Elias but over Martin. Pityingly she looked at the old woman.

"If you ever get the chance to speak to those Howe women again," her aunt concluded, with affected nonchalance, "you might tell 'em we never used their eggs. You could say I smashed 'em. I'd like Martin Howe to know it."

CHAPTER VI

ELLEN ENCOUNTERS AN ENIGMA

Nevertheless, in spite of this bellicose admonition, Lucy had no opportunity during the next few weeks to deliver to the Howes her aunt's message, for Ellen, feeling that she was now blessed with an able a.s.sistant whose time must not be wasted, seized upon the mild May weather to deluge her home from top to bottom with soapsuds, sapolio, and fresh paint. From morning until night Lucy worked, scrubbing and scouring, brushing and beating.

As she toiled up the stairs, carrying pails of steaming water, she caught through the windows glimpses of the valley, its verdant depths threaded by the river's silvery windings. The heavens had never been bluer. Everywhere gladness was in the air, and the thrill of it filled the girl with longing to be in the heart of its magic.

Ellen, however, was entirely oblivious to the miracle taking place in the universe about her. The glory of the awakening season, with its hosts of unfurling leaves and opening buds, was nothing to her. Had she not been dependent on the sun to make her garden grow, she would probably never have lifted her face to its golden rays. Only as nature furthered her projects did she acknowledge its presence.

The Howes seemed, to some extent at least, to share this disregard for the out-of-door world, for like Ellen they, too, surrendered themselves to a household upheaval quite as merciless as that of the Websters. No sooner would Martin disappear with horse and plow in the direction of the garden than the three sisters could be seen feverishly dragging mattresses on to the piazza roof for a sunning; shaking blankets; and beating rugs.

Now and then, when the sound of their measured blows reached Ellen's ears, she would leap to close the windows on the side of the house where there was danger of the Howe germs drifting in and polluting the Webster Lares and Penates.

It was one day after being thus impelled that Lucy was surprised to see her linger and stare intently.

"What are them women a-doin'?" she exclaimed at last. "Do come here, Lucy."

Discarding her mop, the girl crossed the room.

Through the gaps in the trees Mary, Eliza, and Jane Howe were plainly visible. They had shovels in their hands and were struggling with the turf at the foot of the big linden tree beside the house.

"They seem to be digging a hole," Lucy said, after watching a moment.

"What for, do you suppose?"

Ellen fidgeted at the cas.e.m.e.nt for a short time and then disappeared, only to return with an old pair of field gla.s.ses. Adjusting them to her eyes, she stared at her neighbors with unconcealed curiosity.

"They _are_ diggin' a hole," she declared presently. "A good deep one; whatever can they be settin' out to do?"

For an interval she looked on with interest. Then suddenly she exclaimed in an excited voice:

"They're goin' to bury somethin'! My land! What do you s'pose it is?

Somethin' all done up in a bag!" She forced the binoculars into Lucy's hand. "You look and see if you can't make out."

Lucy scanned the scene with mild inquisitiveness.

"They have a canvas sack," she said, "and evidently they are trying to bury it."