Queechy Volume I Part 78

"Never mind ? in that case I will walk out too, into the kitchen."

"Into the thick of it! No ? I will try some other way of relief. This is unendurable!"

Fleda looked, but made no other remonstrance, and not heeding the look, Mr. Charlton walked out into the kitchen, shutting the door behind him.

"Barby," said he, "you have got something cooking here that is very disagreeable in the other room."

"Is it?" said Barby. "I reckoned it would all fly up chimney.

I guess the draught ain't so strong as I thought it was."

"But I tell you it fills the house!"

"Well, it'll have to a spell yet," said Barby, "cause if it didn't, you see, Captain Rossitur, there'd be nothing to fill Fleda's chickens with."

"Chickens! ? where's all the corn in the land?"

"It's some place besides in our barn," said Barby. "All last year's is out, and Mr. Didenhover aint fetched any of this year's home; so I made a bargain with 'em, they shouldn't starve as long as they'd eat boiled pursley."

"What do you give them?"

"Most everything ? they aint particular now-a-days ? chunks o'

cabbages, and scarcity, and pun'kin, and that ? all the sa.s.s that aint wanted."

"And do they eat that?"

"Eat it!" said Barby; "they don't know how to thank me for't."

"But it ought to be done out of doors," said Charlton, coming black from a kind of maze in which he had been listening to her. "It is unendurable."

"Then I guess you'll have to go some place where you wont know it," said Barby ? "that's the most likely plan I can hit upon; for it'll have to stay on till it's ready."

Charlton went back into the other room really down-hearted, and stood watching the play of Fleda's fingers.

"Is it come to this!" he said at length. "Is it possible that you are obliged to go without such a trifle as the miserable supply of food your fowls want?"

"That's a small matter!" said Fleda, speaking lightly though she smothered a sigh. "We have been obliged to do without more than that."

"What is the reason?"

"Why, this man Didenhover is a rogue, I suspect, and he manages to spirit away all the profits that should come to uncle Rolf's hands ? I don't know how. We have lived almost entirely upon the mill for some time."

"And has my father been doing nothing all this while?"

"Nothing on the farm."

"And what of anything else?"

"I don't know," said Fleda, speaking with evident unwillingness. "But surely, Charlton, he knows his own business best. It is not our affair."

"He is mad!" said Charlton, violently striding up and down the floor.

"No," said Fleda, with equal gentleness and sadness, "he is only unhappy; I understand it all ? he has had no spirit to take hold of anything ever since we came here."

"Spirit!" said Charlton; "he ought to have worked off his fingers to their joints before he let you do as you have been doing!"

"Don't say so!" said Fleda, looking even pale in her eagerness ? "don't think so, Charlton! it isn't right. We cannot tell what he may have had to trouble him; I know he has suffered, and does suffer a great deal. Do not speak again about anything as you did last night! Oh," said Fleda, now shedding bitter tears, "this is the worst of growing poor ? the difficulty of keeping up the old kindness, and sympathy, and care, for each other!"

"I am sure it does not work so upon you," said Charlton, in an altered voice.

"Promise me, dear Charlton," said Fleda, looking up after a moment, and drying her eyes again, "promise me you will not say any more about these things! I am sure it pains uncle Rolf more than you think. Say you will not ? for your mother's sake!"

"I will not Fleda for your sake. I would not give you any more trouble to bear. Promise me that you will be more careful of yourself in future."

"Oh there is no danger about me," said Fleda, with a faint smile, and taking up her work again!

"Who are you making s.h.i.+rts for?" said Charlton, after a pause."

"Hugh."

"You do everything for Hugh, don't you?"

"Little enough. Not half so much as he does for me."

"Is he up at the mill to-day?"

"He is always there," said Fleda, sighing.

There was another silence.

"Charlton," said Fleda, looking up with a face of the loveliest insinuation ? "isn't there something _you_ might do to help us a little?"

"I will help you garden, Fleda, with pleasure."

"I would rather you should help somebody else," said she, still looking at him.

"What, Hugh? You would have me go and work at the mill for him, I suppose?"

"Don't be angry with me, Charlton, for suggesting it," said Fleda, looking down again.

"Angry!" said he. "But is that what you would have me do."

"Not unless you like; I didn't know but you might take his place once in a while for a little, to give him a rest ?"

"And suppose some of the people from Montepoole, that know me, should come by? ? What are you thinking of?" said he, in a tone that certainly justified Fleda's deprecation.

"Well!" said Fleda, in a kind of choked voice ? "there is a strange rule of honour in vogue in the world."

"Why should I help Hugh rather than anybody else?"