An Alabaster Box Part 16

"I had a chance to annex a little more of Miss Orr's money today," he observed grimly. "But I haven't made up my mind yet whether to do it, or not."

f.a.n.n.y laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"If you don't, somebody else will," she replied. "It was Deacon Whittle, wasn't it? He stopped at the house this afternoon and wanted to know where to find you."

"They're going right to work on the old place, and there's plenty to do for everybody, including yours truly, at four dollars a day."

"What sort of work?" inquired f.a.n.n.y.

"All sorts: pulling down and building up; clearing away and replanting. The place is a jungle, you know. But four dollars a day!

It's like taking candy from a baby."

"It sounds like a great deal," said the girl. "But why shouldn't you do it?"

Jim laughed.

"Why, indeed? I might earn enough to put a s.h.i.+ngle or two on our own roof. It looks like honest money; but--"

f.a.n.n.y was busy putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the supper table.

"Mother's going to stop for tea at Mrs. Daggett's, and go to prayer meeting afterward," she said. "We may as well eat."

The two sat down, facing each other.

"What did you mean, Jim?" asked f.a.n.n.y, as she pa.s.sed the bread plate to her brother. "You said, 'It looks like honest money; but--'"

"I guess I'm a fool," he grumbled; "but there's something about the whole business I don't like.... Have some of this apple sauce, Fan?"

The girl pa.s.sed her plate for a spoonful of the thick compound, and in return shoved the home-dried beef toward her brother.

"I don't see anything queer about it," she replied dully. "I suppose a person with money might come to Brookville and want to buy a house.

The old Bolton place used to be beautiful, mother says. I suppose it can be again. And if she chooses to spend her money that way--"

"That's just the point I can't see: why on earth should she want to saddle herself with a proposition like that?"

f.a.n.n.y's mute lips trembled. She was thinking she knew very well why Lydia Orr had chosen to come to Brookville: in some way unknown to f.a.n.n.y, Miss Orr had chanced to meet the incomparable Wesley Elliot, and had straightway set her affections upon him. f.a.n.n.y had been thinking it over, ever since the night of the social at Mrs. Solomon Black's. Up to the moment when Wesley--she couldn't help calling him Wesley still--had left her, on pretense of fetching a chair, she had instantly divined that it was a pretense, and of course he had not returned. Her cheeks tingled hotly as she recalled the way in which Joyce Fulsom had remarked the plate of melting ice cream on the top shelf of Mrs. Black's what-not:

"I guess Mr. Elliot forgot his cream," the girl had said, with a spark of malice. "I saw him out in the yard awhile ago talking to that Miss Orr."

f.a.n.n.y had humiliated herself still further by pretending she didn't know it was the minister who had left his ice cream to dissolve in a pink and brown puddle of sweetness. Whereat Joyce Fulsom had giggled disagreeably.

"Better keep your eye on him, Fan," she had advised.

Of course she couldn't speak of this to Jim; but it was all plain enough to her.

"I'm going down to the village for awhile, Fan," her brother said, as he arose from the table. But he did not, as was his custom, invite her to accompany him.

After Jim had gone, f.a.n.n.y washed the dishes with mechanical swiftness. Her mother had asked her if she would come to prayer meeting, and walk home with her afterwards. Not that Mrs. Dodge was timid; the neighborhood of Brookville had never been haunted after nightfall by anything more dangerous than whippoorwills and frogs. A plaintive chorus of night sounds greeted the girl, as she stepped out into the darkness. How sweet the honeysuckle and late roses smelled under the dew! f.a.n.n.y walked slowly across the yard to the old summer-house, where the minister had asked her to call him Wesley, and sat down. It was very dark under the thick-growing vines, and after awhile tranquillity of a sort stole over the girl's spirit. She gazed out into the dim s.p.a.ces beyond the summer-house and thought, with a curious detachment, of all that had happened. It was as if she had grown old and was looking back calmly to a girlhood long since past. She could almost smile at the recollection of herself stifling her sobs in her pillow, lest Jim should hear.

"Why should I care for him?" she asked herself wonderingly; and could not tell.

Then all at once she found herself weeping softly, her head on the rickety table.

Jim Dodge, too intently absorbed in his own confused thoughts to pay much attention to f.a.n.n.y, had walked resolutely in the direction of Mrs. Solomon Black's house; from which, he reflected, the minister would be obliged to absent himself for at least an hour. He hoped Mrs. Black had not induced Lydia to go to the prayer meeting with her. Why any one should voluntarily go to a prayer meeting pa.s.sed his comprehension. Jim had once attended what was known as a "protracted meeting," for the sole purpose of pleasing his mother, who all at once had appeared tearfully anxious about his "soul." He had not enjoyed the experience.

"Are you saved, my dear young brother?" Deacon Whittle had inquired of him, in his snuffling, whining, peculiarly objectionable tone.

"From what, Deacon?" Jim had blandly inquired. "You in for it, too?"

Whereat the Deacon had piously shaken his head and referred him to the "mourner's pew," with the hope that he might even yet be plucked as a brand from the burning.

Lydia had not gone to the prayer meeting. She was sitting on the piazza, quite alone. She arose when her determined visitor boldly walked up the steps.

"Oh, it is you!" said she.

An unreasonable feeling of elation arose in the young man's breast.

"Did you think I wasn't coming?" he inquired, with all the egotism of which he had been justly accused.

He did not wait for her reply; but proceeded with considerable humor to describe his previous unsuccessful attempts to see her.

"I suppose," he added, "Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you against me?"

She could not deny it; so smiled instead.

"Well," said the young man, "I give you my word I'm not a villain: I neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I'm not a saint, after the prescribed Brookville pattern."

He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said, with pardonable curiosity:

"What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live here."

At this he dropped his bantering tone.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said gravely.

"You mean--?"

"About your buying the old Bolton place and paying such a preposterous price for it, and all the rest, including the minister's back-pay."

She remained silent, playing with the ribbon of her sash.

"I have a sort of inward conviction that you're not doing it because you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks, revealed by the light of Mrs. Solomon Black's parlor lamp which stood on a stand just inside the carefully screened window. "It looks," he finished, "as if you--well; it may be a queer thing for me to say; but I'll tell you frankly that when mother showed me the check she got today I felt that it was--charity."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "You are quite, quite in the wrong."

"But you can't make me believe that with all your money--pardon me for mentioning what everybody in the village is talking about-- You'll have to convince me that the old Bolton place has oil under it, or coal or diamonds, before I--"