The Seventh Noon Part 18

The name from her lips took on its boyhood meaning. He s.h.i.+fted the youngster to his arms and crossing the room held out his hand to her.

"We did n't know each other very well in those days, but from now on--from now on we 're old friends, are n't we?"

The steel blue eyes grew moist.

"It's a long time," she said, "since I 've seen any one from there."

"Or I. You left--"

"When I was married. Jim came here because his cousin got him a job as motorman. He done well,--but he was killed by his car just after the baby was born."

"Killed? That's tough. And it left you all alone with the children?"

"Yes. The road paid us a little, but I was sick and the children were sick, so it did n't last long."

She was not complaining. It was a bare recital of facts. But it raised a series of keen incisive thoughts in Donaldson's brain.

Wentworth had been killed. Chance had deprived this woman of her man; Chance had grabbed at her boy; Chance had sent Donaldson to save the latter; Chance--Donaldson caught his breath at the possibility the sequence suggested--Chance may have sent him to offset as far as possible the husband's death. It was too late, although he felt the obligation in a new light, for him to give his life for the life of that other, but there was one other thing he could do. He could play the father with what he had left of himself. So that when he came to face Wentworth--he smiled gently at the approaching possibility--he could hold his head high as he went to meet him.

He had argued to Barstow that he was s.h.i.+rking no responsibilities,--but what of such unseen responsibilities as this? What of the thousand others that he should die too soon to realize? It was possible that countless other such opportunities as this must be wasted because he should not be there to play his part. But there was still time to do something; he need not see, as with the girl and with love, the fine possibilities go utterly to waste.

The mother had noticed a warm light steal over his face, not realizing how closely his thoughts concerned her own future; she had seen the sabre cut of pain which had followed his thought of the girl and what she might have meant, knowing nothing of that grim tragedy. Now she saw his eyes clear as with their inspired light they were lifted to her. Yet the talk went on uninterruptedly on the same commonplace level.

"How old was Jim?"

"He was within a week of thirty."

That was within a few days of his own age. At thirty, Jim Wentworth, clinging to life, had been wrenched from it; at thirty, he himself had thrown it away. Wentworth had shouldered his duties manfully; he had been blind to them. But it was not too late to do something. He was being led as by Marley's ghost to one new vision of life after another.

He saw love--with death grinning over love's shoulder; he was to be given a taste of fatherhood,--the grave at his feet.

"Do you ever hear from the people back home?" he asked abruptly.

"Not very often," she answered. "After the old folks went I sorter got out of tech with the others."

"What became of the homestead?"

"It was sold little by little when father was sick. When he died there was n't much left. That went to pay the debts."

"Who lives there now?"

"Let me see--I don't think any one is there now. Last I heard, it was fer sale."

"Who holds it?"

"Deacon Staples. Leastways it was him who held the notes."

"That old pirate? No wonder there was n't anything left."

"He _was_ a leetle hard," she admitted. "I wanted Jim to go back an'

take it after father died, but he couldn't seem to make a deal with the deacon."

"I s'pose not. No one this side of the devil himself will ever make a square deal with him. He 's still as strong in the church as ever?"

She smiled.

"I see by the Berringdon paper that he begun some revival meetin's in town."

"Which means he 's just put through some particularly thievish deal and wants to ease his conscience. Have you the paper? Perhaps the sale is advertised there."

She found the paper and ran a finger down the columns until she came to the item.

"Makes you feel sort of queer," she said, "to see the old place for sale. Almost like slaves must ha' felt to see their own in the market."

She read slowly,

"'Nice farm for sale cheap; story and a half frame house, good barn, ten acres of land, and a twenty-acre pasture lot. $1800. Apply to A.

F. Staples, Berringdon, Vermont.'

"I 'm glad the old pasture is going with the house. Somehow the two seem to belong together. It was right in front across the road, an'

all us children used to play there. There 's a clump of oak trees at th' end of it. Hope they have n't cut them down."

"Eighteen hundred dollars, was it?" asked Donaldson.

"Eighteen hundred dollars," she repeated slowly. "My, thet 's a lot of money!"

"That depends," he said, "on many things. Should you like to go back there?"

The answer came before her lips could utter the words, in the awakening of every dormant hope in her nature--in every suppressed dream. Some younger creature was freed in the hardening eyes. The strain of the lips was loosened. Even the pa.s.sive worn hands became alert.

"I 'd sell my soul a'most to get back there--to get the children back there," she answered.

"It 's the place for them."

"Thet's the way _I 've_ felt," she ran on. "Mine don't belong here.

It's not 'cause they 're any better, but because they've got the country in their blood. They was meant to grow up in thet very pasture just like I did. I 've ben oneasy ever since the boys was born, and so was Jim. Both of us hankered after the old sights and sounds--the garden with its mixed up colors an' the smell of lilac an' the tinkle of the cow bells. Funny how you miss sech little things as those."

"Little things?" Donaldson returned. "Little things? They are the really big things; they are the things you remember, the things that hang by you and sweeten your life to the end!"

"Then it ain't just my own notions? But I have wanted the children to grow up in the garden instead of the gutters. If Jim had lived it would have be'n. We 'd planned to save a little every year until we had enough ahead to take a mortgage. But you can't do it with nothin'.

There ain't no way, is there?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps," he said.

She leaned toward him, in her face the strength of a man.

"I 'd work," she said, "I 'd work my fingers to the bone if I had a chance to get back there. I 'm strong 'nuff to take care of a place.

If I only had just a tiny strip of land--just 'nuff fer a garden. I could get some chickens an' pay off little by little. I 'm good for ten years yet an' by thet time Bobby would be old 'nough to take hold.

If I only had a chance I could do it!"