The Debtor Part 50

"I don't see why Charlotte don't get married, too, and have her husband to go with her," said Eddy, as he went out of the door.

"Tagging round after a girl all the time! It ain't fair."

"Eddy!" called Carroll, in a stern voice; but the boy had suddenly accelerated his pace with his last words, and was a flying streak at the end of the drive.

"Where 'm I goin' to find her?" he complained to himself. He hung about a little until he saw the carriage emerge from the grounds and turn in the other direction, then he went straight down to the main street. Just as he turned the corner he met a small woman, carefully dressed and frizzed, who stopped him.

"Is your mother at home, little boy?" she asked, in a nervous voice.

There were red spots on her thin cheeks; she was manifestly trembling.

The boy eyed her with a supercilious scorn and pity. He characterized her in his own mind of extreme youth and brutal truth as an ugly old woman, and yet he noted the trembling and felt like rea.s.suring her.

He took off his little cap. "No, ma'am," said he. "Amy has gone to drive."

"I wanted to see your mother," said the woman, wonderingly.

"Amy is my mother," replied the boy.

"Oh!" said the woman.

"They have all gone," said Eddy.

"Then I shall have to call another time," said the woman, with a mixture of ingratiation and despair.

The boy eyed her sharply. "Say," he said, "are you the dressmaker that made my sister Ina's clothes for her to be married?"

"Yes, I be," replied Madame Griggs.

"Then," said Eddy, "I can tell you one thing, there isn't any use for you to go to my house now to get any money. I suppose you haven't been paid."

"No, I haven't," said Madame Griggs. Then she loosened the flood-gates of her grievance upon the boy. "No, I haven't been paid,"

said she, "and I've worked like a dog, and I'm owing for the things I bought in New York, and I'm owing my girls, and if I don't get paid before long, I'm ruined, and that's all there is to it. I 'ain't been paid, and it's a month since your sister was married, and they'll send out to collect the bills from the stores, if I don't pay them.

It's a cruel thing, and I don't care if I do say it." The woman was flouncing along the street beside the boy, and she spoke in a loud, shrill voice. "It's a cruel thing," she repeated. "If I couldn't pay for my wedding fix I'd never get married, before I'd go and cheat a poor dress-maker. She'd ought to be ashamed of herself, and so had all your folks. I don't care if I do say it. They are nuthin' but a pack of swindlers, that's what they be."

Suddenly the boy danced in front of the furious little woman, and stood there, barring her progress. "They ain't!" said he.

"They be."

"They ain't! You can't pay folks if you 'ain't got any money."

"You needn't have the things, then," sniffed Madame Griggs.

"My sister had to have the things to get married, didn't she? A girl can't get married without the clothes."

"Let her pay for 'em, then."

"I'll tell you what to do!" cried Eddy, looking at her with a sudden inspiration. "You are in debt, ain't you?"

"Yes, I be," replied Madame Griggs, hopping nervously along by the boy's side, poor little dressmaker, aping French gentility, holding her skirts high, with a disclosure of a papery silk petticoat and a meagre ankle. Even in her distress she felt of her frizzes to see if they were in order after a breeze had struck her in the sharp, eager face. "Yes, I be."

"Well," said the boy, delightedly, "I can tell you just what to do, you know."

"What, I'd like to know?" Madame Griggs said, in a snapping tone.

"Move away from Banbridge," said the boy.

"What for, I'd like to know?"

"Why, then, don't you see," explained Eddy Carroll, "you would get away from the folks that you owe, and other folks that you didn't owe would trust you for things. You'd get along fine. That's the way we always do."

"Well, I never!" said Madame Griggs. Then she turned on him with sudden fury. "So that's what your folks are goin' to do, be they?"

said she. "Go off and leave me without payin' my bill! That's the dodge, is it?"

Eddy was immediately on the alert. He was young and innocent, but he had a certain sharpness. He was quite well aware that a knowledge on the part of the creditors of his family's flittings was not desirable. "I 'ain't heard them say a word about moving away from Banbridge," declared he. "What you getting so mad about, Missis?"

"I guess I've got some reason to be mad, if that's your folks' game.

The way I've worked, slavin' all them hot days and nights on your sister's wedding fix. I guess--"

"We ain't going to move away from Banbridge as long as we live, for all I know," said Eddy, looking at the bundle of feminine nerves beside him with a mixture of terror and scorn. "You don't need to holler so, Missis."

"I don't care how loud I holler, I can tell you that."

"We ain't going to move; and if we did, I don't see why you couldn't.

I was just telling you what you could do, if you owed folks and didn't have any money to pay 'em, and you turn on a feller that way.

I'm going to tell my sister and mother, and they won't have you make any more dresses for 'em." With that Eddy Carroll made a dart into Anderson's grocery store, which he had reached by that time. The dressmaker remained standing on the sidewalk, staring after him. She looked breathless; red spots were on her thin cheeks.

Eddy went straight through the store to the office. The door stood open, and the little place was empty except for the cat, which cast a lazy glance at him from under a half-closed lid, stretched, displaying his claws, and began to purr loudly. Eddy went over to the cat and took him up in his arms and carried him out into the main store, where William Price stood behind the counter. He was alone in the store.

"Say," said Eddy, "where's Mr. Anderson?"

"He's gone out," replied the clerk, with a kind look at the boy. He had lost one of his own years ago, and Eddy, in spite of his innocent superciliousness, appealed to him.

"Where?" asked Eddy. The cat wriggled in his arms and jumped down.

Then he rolled over ingratiatingly at his feet. Eddy stooped down and rubbed the s.h.i.+ning, furry stomach.

"He took the net he catches b.u.t.terflies with," replied the old clerk, "and I guess he's gone to walk in the fields somewhere."

"I should think it was pretty late for b.u.t.terflies," said Eddy. He straightened himself and looked very hard at the gla.s.s jar of mola.s.ses-b.a.l.l.s on the shelf behind the clerk.

"There might be a stray one," said William Price. "It's a warm day."

"Shucks!" said Eddy. "Say, how much are those a pound?"

The clerk glanced around at the jar of mola.s.ses-b.a.l.l.s. "Twenty-five cents," replied he.

"Guess I'll take a pound," said Eddy. "I 'ain't got any money with me, but I'll pay you the next time I come in."

The old clerk's common face turned suddenly grave, and acquired thereby a certain distinction. He turned about, took off the cover of the gla.s.s jar, and gathered up a handful of the mola.s.ses-b.a.l.l.s and put them in a little paper bag. Then he came forth from behind the counter and approached the boy. He thrust the paper bag into a little grasping hand, then he took hold of the small shoulders and looked down at him steadily. The blue eyes in the ordinary face of an ordinary man, unfitted for any work in life except that of an underling, were full of affection and reproof. Eddy looked into them, then he hitched uneasily.

"What you doing so for?" said he; then he looked into the eyes again and was still.