Mary-'Gusta Part 66

"Good many folks in South Harniss could have told her that if they'd had a mind to."

"Maybe so; but they couldn't have told her that Edwin Smith, of Carson City, Nevada, was ever Edgar Farmer. No, sir, they couldn't! n.o.body knew it--but Ed Farmer himself. How could our Mary-'Gusta know it?"

"I don't know, Shadrach, unless--she's awful smart, you know--somethin'

might have put her on the track and she puzzled it out. I know that ain't likely; but, Shadrach, if she does care for Crawford and he cares for her, I--I want 'em to have each other. I do. They must."

Shadrach stared at him.

"Zoeth Hamilton," he exclaimed, "do you know what you're sayin'? You want our girl to marry the son of the man that--that--"

"I know what he did, Shadrach; you don't need to tell me. But he's dead, and his boy is a good boy--you liked him and so did I. And Shadrach, I've been thinkin' an awful lot about this since I got the letter and have been well enough to think. And I've made up my mind to just this: There has been sorrow and trouble enough brought on already by that wickedness. There shan't be any more. What wrecked all our lives thirty-five years ago shan't wreck these two, if I can help it. If Mary-'Gusta cares for him and he for her they must have each other and be happy. And you and I will be happy watchin' their happiness."

He paused and then added:

"So I wish, Shadrach, there was some way of findin' out for sure that she sent him away because she didn't care for him and not for any other reason."

Shadrach rose from his chair and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.

He cleared his throat once or twice before speaking and there was still a shake in his voice as he said:

"Zoeth, you're a better man than I ever hope to be. I declare you make me ashamed of myself."

Neither of them ate much dinner, although Isaiah had prepared a cranberry pie, made from the first fruit of the fall season, and was correspondingly disappointed when both of his employers left it untouched.

"Ain't a mite of use my slavin' myself to death cookin' fancy vittles for this crew," he grumbled. "I stood over that cookstove this mornin'

until I got so everlastin' hot that every time the cold air blowed onto me I steamed. And yet I can't satisfy."

"Oh, yes, you can," observed Captain Shad, rising from the table. "You satisfied us too quick, that was the trouble. We was satisfied afore we got to the pie."

"Umph! I want to know! Well, Mary-'Gusta was satisfied afore that. She didn't eat hardly anything. Said she wan't hungry. I swan if it ain't discouragin'! What's the use of you folks havin' a cook? If you're goin'

to have canary-bird appet.i.tes, why don't you feed on bird seed and be done with it? And I do believe I never made a better pie than that!"

"Where's Mary-'Gusta?" asked Zoeth.

"I don't know. She went up to her room. She may be there yet, or she may have come down and gone out again--I don't know. If she did come down I didn't see her."

Shadrach looked out of the window. It had been a dark, gloomy morning and now it was beginning to rain. The wind was whining through the tops of the silver-leafs and the moan of the breakers on the bar sounded with a clearness which denoted the approach of a northeaster.

"Dirty weather," observed the Captain. "And it'll be dirtier yet before night. You better stay here in snug harbor this afternoon, Zoeth. Simmie and the boy and Mary-'Gusta and I can tend store all right. Yes, yes, you stay right here and keep dry. Hope Mary-'Gusta took an umbrella when she went."

"I don't know as she has gone," said Isaiah. "She may be upstairs in her room yet. That's where she was."

Shadrach, after calling "Mary-'Gusta" several times at the foot of the stairs, went up to make sure. The door of Mary's room was closed but, as he received no answer to his knock, he opened it and entered. Mary was not there, although it was evident that she had been there very recently.

Apparently she had been writing a letter, for her writing case was spread out upon the table. Also the drawer in which she kept it had been left open, an unusual act of carelessness on her part, for, generally speaking, as her Uncle Shad said, "Nothin's ever out of place in Mary-'Gusta's room except some of the places, and that's the carpenter's fault, not hers."

The Captain stepped over to close the drawer. As he did so his attention was attracted by a photograph lying upon a pile of photographs in a box inside the drawer. He picked up the photograph and looked at it. It was that of Edwin Smith, taken when he seemed to be recovering from his illness, the one which showed him without a beard.

Shadrach's eyes opened wide as he looked at the photograph. He uttered an exclamation, stepped to the door of the upper hall and called, "Zoeth!" Then he returned to the table and took from the drawer the next photograph upon the pile in the box. It was the old, faded picture of the partners of Hall and Company.

Isaiah came stumbling up the stairs.

"Anythin' I can do for you, Cap'n Shad?" he asked. "Zoeth, he's gone out to shut up the barn door. Rain was liable to beat in, he said. I told him I'd do it, but--G.o.dfreys mighty!"

The Captain had paid no attention to him and he had entered the room and approached his employer from behind. Now over the latter's shoulder he saw the two photographs.

"G.o.dfreys mighty!" cried the startled Isaiah.

Shadrach turned and looked at him.

"Well," he demanded, "what's the matter? What are you starin' like that for?"

"Them--them pictures," gasped Mr. Chase.

"Well, what about 'em? Where did Mary-'Gusta get 'em, do you know?

Did--Here! Where are you goin'?"

"I--I ain't goin' anywheres. I'm a-goin' downstairs. I got my dishwas.h.i.+n' to do. I--let go of me, Cap'n Shad! I got to go this minute, I tell you."

But the Captain did not let go of him. Instead, keeping a firm hold upon the collar of the frightened cook and steward, he twisted him around until he could look him straight in the eye. This was difficult, for Isaiah plainly did not wish to be looked at in that manner.

"Humph!" grunted Captain Shad, after a moment's inspection. "Humph! I cal'late I've got the right pig by the ear this time. Set down in that chair, Isaiah Chase; I want to talk to you."

CHAPTER XXIX

The northeaster was developing. It was now raining hard and the wind was rising. The gusts swept across the top of the little hill and the window sashes of the For'ard Lookout rattled and the hinges of the ancient blinds squeaked. The yard, which had been so attractive, was shorn of its decorations. The tables had been carried inside; the lanterns taken down; the wonderful sign, pride of the talented Mr. Bemis, had been tenderly conveyed to the attic. Cook, waitresses and salesgirl had departed. The tea-room and gift shop had gone into winter quarters to hibernate until the following spring.

The rooms inside had been thoroughly swept and cleaned and most of the furniture and the best of the old prints covered with dust cloths. Some of the smaller articles, however, were still upon the shelves of the gift shop, Mary having ordered her a.s.sistants to leave them there, as she wished to look them over herself before putting them away. Some of her selections for stock had sold remarkably well and she had been obliged to reorder many times; others of which she had been quite confident when purchasing had not sold at all. Both good sellers and bad she meant to list as a guide to future choosing.

She was listing them now. Alone in the room which had once been the sacred best parlor of the little house, she was seated at the table, pencil in hand and memorandum books and paper before her. There was no particular reason why the listing should have been done that day; it might have been done any day until the weather became too cold to work in an unheated house. That morning she had had no idea of doing it that afternoon. She was doing it now because she felt that she must do something to occupy her mind, and because she wished to be alone.

Up there at the For'ard Lookout she could combine the two--work and seclusion.

When Mr. Keith told, at the store that morning, the news of Edwin Smith's--or Edgar Farmer's--death she had been dreadfully shaken by it.

It was so sudden, so unexpected--when she last heard the man was, so the doctors said, almost well. She had thought of him often enough during the past year; or, rather, she had thought of Crawford as being with him and of the father's joy in his son's return to him and the knowledge that his own disgraceful secret would not be revealed. And she had pictured Crawford as finding solace for his disappointed love in his father's society. That Edgar Farmer had been what Isaiah called him--a blackguard--she realized perfectly, but she was equally sure that, as Edwin Smith, he had been the kindest and most loving of fathers. And Crawford, although he had been willing to leave him because of her, loved him dearly.

And now he was dead, and Crawford was left alone. Somehow she felt responsible for the death. That it had been hastened by the terrible alarm and stress of the previous year was, of course, certain. She thought of Crawford alone and with this new sorrow, and this thought, and that of her responsibility, was almost more than she could bear.

She felt that she must write him, that he must know she had heard and was thinking of him. So, after leaving the store, she had hastened down to the house and up the back stairs to her room. There she had written a few lines, not more than a note, but the composing of that note had been a difficult task. There was so much she longed to say and so little she could say. When it was written she remembered that Crawford was in Boston and she did not know his address. She determined to send the letter to the Nevada home and trust to its being forwarded.

She took from the back of the drawer the box of photographs and looked them over. As she was doing so Isaiah called her to dinner. Then she heard her uncles come in and, because she felt that she could talk with no one just then, she avoided them by hastily going down the front stairs. She made a pretense of eating and left the house. Isaiah did not see her go. After stopping at the store long enough to tell Mr. Crocker she would be at the tea-room that afternoon, she climbed the hill, unlocked the door of the For'ard Lookout, entered and began her work.

The wind howled and whined and the rain beat against the windows. The blinds creaked, the sashes rattled, the gusts moaned in the chimney above the fireplace, and all the hundred and one groanings and wailings, the complaints of an old house in a storm, developed. All these sounds Mary heard absently, her mind upon her work. Then, little by little as they drew nearer, she became conscious of other sounds, footfalls; someone was coming up the walk.

She did not rise from her chair nor look up from her work when the outside door opened. Even when the footsteps sounded in the little hall behind her she did not turn.

"Yes, Uncle Shad," she said. "I am here, and I'm safe and I'm perfectly dry. Also I'm very, very busy. Now, why did you come out in the rain to hunt me up? And I'm quite sure you haven't put on your rubbers."