The Wall Between Part 6

"You ain't so keen on dividin' up, eh?"

"Oh, it isn't that," returned Lucy quickly. "I was only thinking what a lot you had to do. No wonder you sent for me."

It was a random remark, but it struck Ellen's conscience with such aplomb that she flushed, dismayed.

"What do you mean?" she faltered.

As Lucy looked at her aunt, she observed the shifting glance, the crafty smile, the nervous interlacing of the fingers.

"Mean?" she returned innocently. "Why, nothing, Aunt Ellen. We must all work for a living one way or another, I suppose. If I prefer to stay here with you and earn my board there is no disgrace in it, is there?"

"No."

Nevertheless Ellen was obviously disconcerted. There was an uncanny quality in Lucy that left her with a sense that every hiding place in her heart was laid bare. Were the girl's ingenuous observations as ingenuous as they seemed? Or were they the result of an abnormal intuition, a superhuman power for fathoming the souls of others?

Eager to escape the youthful seer, the woman pushed back her chair and rose.

"I must go out an' see what that boy Tony's up to," she said. "While I'm gone you might tidy up round here a bit. There's the dishes an' the beds; an' in the pantry you'll find the eggs with the cases to pack 'em in. An'

if you get round to it you might sweep up the sittin' room."

"All right."

Drawing on a worn coat Ellen moved toward the door; when, however, her hand was on the k.n.o.b, she turned and called over her shoulder:

"The washin's soakin' in the tubs in the shed. You can hang it out if you like."

Lucy waited until she saw the angular figure wend its way to the barn.

Then she broke into a laugh.

"The old fox! She did get me here to work for her," she murmured aloud.

"Anyway, I don't have to stay unless I like; and I shan't, either. So, Aunt Ellen Webster, you'd better be careful how you treat me."

With a defiant shake of her miniature fist in the direction her aunt had taken, Lucy turned to attack the duties before her. She washed the dishes and put them away; tripped upstairs and kneaded the billowy feather beds into smoothness; and humming happily, she swept and polished the house until it shone. She did such things well and delighted in the miracles her small hands wrought.

"Now for the eggs!" she exclaimed, opening the pantry door.

Yes, there were the empty cases, and there on the shelf were the eggs that waited to be packed,--dozens of them. It seemed at first glance as if there must be thousands.

"And she wouldn't let me have one!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the girl. "Well, I don't want them. But I'm going to have an egg for breakfast whether she likes it or not. I'll buy some. Then I can eat them without thanks to her. I have a little money, and I may as well spend part of it that way as not. I suppose it will annoy her; but I can't help it. I'm not going to starve to death."

During this half-humorous, half-angry soliloquy, Lucy was packing the eggs for market, packing them with extreme care.

"I'd love to smash them all," she declared, dimpling. "Wouldn't it be fun!

But I won't. I'll not break one if I can help it."

The deft fingers successfully carried out this resolution. When Ellen returned from the garden at noontime, not only was the housework done, but the eggs were in the cases; the clothes swaying on the line; and the dinner steaming on the table. She was in high good humor.

"I forgot to ask you what you had planned for us to have this noon,"

explained Lucy. "So I had to rummage through the refrigerator and use my own judgment."

"Your judgment seems to have been pretty good."

"I'm glad you think so."

"The Websters always had good judgment," the woman observed, as she dropped wearily into a chair. "Yes, you've got together a very good meal.

It's most too good, though. Next time you needn't get so much."

Lucy regarded her aunt mischievously.

"Probably if I'd been all Webster I shouldn't have," she remarked demurely. "But half of me, you see, is Duquesne, and the Duquesnes were generous providers."

If Ellen sensed this jocose rebuke, she at least neither resented it nor paid the slightest heed to its innuendo.

"The Duquesnes?" she questioned.

"My mother was a Duquesne."

"Oh, she was?"

"Didn't you know that?"

"Yes, I reckon I did at the time your father married, but I'd forgot about it. Thomas an' I didn't write much to one another, an' latterly I didn't hear from him at all."

"It was a pity."

"I dunno as it made much difference," Ellen said. "Likely he didn't remember much about his home an' his relations."

"Yes, indeed he did," cried Lucy eagerly. "He used to speak often of my grandparents and the old house, and he hoped I'd come East sometime and see the place where he had lived as a boy. As he grew older and was sick, I think his early home came to mean more to him than any other spot on earth."

"Queer how it often takes folks to their dyin' day to get any sense,"

declared Ellen caustically. "Where'd your father pick up your mother, anyway?"

Lucy did not answer.

"I mean where did he get acquainted with her?" amended Ellen hastily.

"You never heard the story?"

"No."

"Oh, it was the sweetest thing," began Lucy enthusiastically. "You see, Grandfather Duquesne owned a coal mine up in the mountains, and Dad worked for him. One day one of the cages used in going down into the mine got out of order, and Grandfather gave orders that it was to be fixed right away lest some accident occur and the men be injured. But through a misunderstanding the work was not done, and the next day the cage dropped and killed nine of the miners. Of course the men blamed poor Grandfather for the tragedy, and they marched to his house, intending to drag him out and lynch him. Dad knew the truth, however, and he rushed to the place and held the mob back with his pistol until he could tell them the real facts.

At first they were so angry they refused to listen, but by and by they did, and instead of killing Grandfather they went and found the engineers who were to blame."

Ellen waited.

"What did they do to them?" she demanded at last.

"Oh, they hung them instead of Grandfather," answered Lucy simply.