Otherwise Phyllis Part 25

Barker shrugged his shoulders and walked to his desk. He read Phil's introduction and the accompanying statement with Kirkwood's name attached.

"All right, Tom. But remember that this is personal to you; I wouldn't do it for any other man on earth."

"You're doing it for the town, Barker. We're all friends and neighbors here; and I give you my word that you won't regret it. I've got to run, Phil. Sorry; but I'll be back in a day or two. How are Nan and Rose?"

"Fine."

"Nan staying with you?"

"No; I've moved over there for a few days."

"That's all right. Give them my compliments."

The door closed on him as Barker came back from the composing-room, where he had carried the Sycamore article and ordered it double-leaded.

Phil, gathering up her belongings, lingered for a word. Barker ripped the wrapper from an exchange absently.

"Phil, you've never suspected your father of being a little touched in his upper story, have you?"

"That short-circuited; say it some other way," observed Phil, b.u.t.toning her glove.

"That dad of yours, Phil, if he ain't plumb crazy, is the whitest white man that ever trod the footstool. I always suspected him of being tolerably highminded, but I guess if ever a man climbed on top of his soul and knew that he was the boss of it with the help of Almighty G.o.d, that man is Tom Kirkwood. It's got me fuddled, Phil. It's addled me like the report of a tariff commission or an argument for government owners.h.i.+p of laying hens; but I respect it, and I admire it. Be good to your daddy. So far as I know he hasn't any compet.i.tion in his cla.s.s."

Phil pondered this as she walked toward Buckeye Lane. It was not necessary for her to understand the intricacies of the traction company's troubles to realize that her father had interceded for the Holtons. Barker's praise of him warmed her heart. She knew that her father was by no means tame and bloodless. In many long talks, tramping and camping, they had discussed nearly every subject under the sun; and she knew that his wrath blazed sometimes at the evils and wrongs of the world. Once she had gone unbidden to the court-house to hear him speak in a criminal case, where he had volunteered to defend an Italian railroad laborer who had been attacked by a gang of local toughs and in the ensuing fight had stabbed one of his a.s.sailants. Kirkwood was not an orator by the accepted local standard,--a standard established by "Dan"

Voorhees and General "Tom" Nelson of an earlier generation,--but that afternoon, after pitilessly a.n.a.lyzing the state's case, he had yielded himself to a pa.s.sionate appeal for the ignorant alien that had thrilled through her as great music did. She had never forgotten that; it had given her a new idea of her father. There had been something awful and terrifying in his arraignment of the witnesses who sought to swear away the cowed prisoner's liberty. Her father's gentleness, his habitual restraint, had seemed finer and n.o.bler after that.

In the nature of her upbringing Phil had developed the habit of thinking her way out of perplexities. Her intimate knowledge of the history and traditions of Montgomery furnished the basis for a healthy philosophy, and the wide range of her well-directed reading had opened doors that let in upon her intelligence much of the light and shadow of human experience. Happiness was not, she knew, an inalienable right, but something to be sought and worked for. Her thoughts played about her father and his life--that broken column of a life, with its pathetic edges! What would become of him and Nan, now that she knew Nan loved him, and imaginably, he loved her? For the first time in her life she found her face pressed against a dark pane, unable to see light.

She was conscious that some one was walking rapidly behind her, and she whirled round as her name was spoken. It was Fred Holton, who had evidently been following her.

"Why so formal! Why didn't you whistle?" she asked, shaking hands with him. "Those birds you sent me were meat for G.o.ds.

'Then mighty Jove, Grabbing the last brown quail from off the plate, Shouted, "For G.o.ds alone such food"; and bade Dian to skip, with bow well bent, and bring A billion birds to grace another feast.'"

"If Dian filled that order," said Fred, "it would get her into trouble with the game warden."

"That was one good thing about the G.o.ds," remarked Phil as he caught step with her; "they didn't have to be afraid of policemen. How did you come to tear yourself loose from Stop 7 to-day?"

"Trouble, if you want the real truth."

They had reached the college and were walking along the Buckeye Lane side of the campus. Fred was wrapped in his ulster and wore an old fur cap with its ear-flaps gathered up and tied on top. Now that the first pleasure of the meeting had pa.s.sed, an anxious look had come into his face. He stared straight ahead, walking doggedly.

"I came into town to see your father, but I just missed him. I wanted to talk to him."

"He hasn't been in town much lately and he was only here for an hour this morning. But he'll be back in a few days."

"I'm sorry," said Fred, "not to see him to-day."

Just what business he had with her father she could not imagine; but she was sorry for his trouble, whatever it might be. In her recent reflections touching the Holtons she had not thought of Fred at all; nor did it occur to her now that he was in any way concerned with the Sycamore difficulties.

"Miss Kirkwood--"

"Well, Mr. Holton, if you will be real nice, I'll let you call me Phil.

I met you before I grew up--that night I danced in the cornfield. The moon introduced and chaperoned us, after a fas.h.i.+on, so we'll consider that you belong to the earlier period of what might be called my life.

That was my last fling. When I came home that night I was a grown-up.

How do you like that, Fred?"

"More than I care to say!" And his face lighted.

He realized perfectly that knowing his diffidence she was trying to make things easier for him, just as she had at her party. Phil was wondering whether she dared ask him to go to the Bartletts' with her for luncheon.

"It's lonesome, Phil, not having anybody to talk to about your troubles.

There are times when we've got to lean up against advice."

"They say I never do much leaning," Phil replied. "My aunts say it.

There ought to be a place like a post-office where you could poke in a question and get the answer right back; but there isn't."

"Our folks are in a lot of trouble, according to the papers," said Fred.

"That's what I wanted to see your father about."

"Oh!"

"I felt that I ought to see him as soon as possible."

"I wouldn't trouble about what's in the papers. That's what my father came back for to-day--to head off the home papers about the traction company."

"Just how do you mean?" he asked, clearly puzzled. "I thought he was on the other side of the case."

"Well, the 'Star' this evening will say that everything will be all right, and for people not to get excited. I don't see why you should bother. You're a farmer and not mixed up in the traction business."

He seemed not to notice when they reached and pa.s.sed the Bartletts', though she had told him she was going there for luncheon.

"They say Charlie didn't play straight in settling father's estate; that it's going to be opened up and that we've got to give back what we got from it. The 'Advertiser' had all that this morning. Perry brought me his paper and we talked it over before I came in. He said it wasn't any of my business; but I think it is. We owe it to father--all of us--if there's anything wrong, to show our willingness to open up the estate. I thought I'd like to tell your father that."

"We've got to turn back here. I understand how you feel, but I can't advise you about that. That article said you weren't responsible--it said in very unpleasant words that you had been robbed, and that giving you the farm and making you think that was your fair share was a part of the fraud. If they should go into that, you might get a lot more. Isn't that so?"

"I don't believe Charlie did it; I don't believe it any more than I believe that my father made money unfairly out of the building of the trolley line. But it's up to us to reply to this attack in a way to stop all criticism. We can't have people thinking such things about us," he went on more earnestly. "It's ghastly! And I'm going to surrender the farm; I won't keep it if these things are true or half true. I won't hold an acre of it until these questions are settled!"

"That sounds square enough. But I don't know anything about it. Just on general principles, as long as you're not mixed up in the fuss, I'd hang on to my farm, particularly if you were ent.i.tled to more than you got.

But you need a lawyer, not a girl to talk to."

"I suppose that's so; and I oughtn't to have talked to you about it at all. But somehow--"

They had reached the Bartletts' again and Phil paused with her hand on the gate. She had decided not to ask him in to luncheon; his mood was not one that promised well for a luncheon party; and Nan, at least, had clearly manifested her unfriendliness toward all the Holtons.

"Somehow, I felt that I'd like to tell you how I felt about it. I shouldn't want you to think we were as bad as that story in the 'Advertiser' makes us out."

"That's all right, Fred. This will all come out right"; and Phil swung open the gate and stepped into the little yard.