What's-His-Name Part 28

"Harvey!" shrieked Mrs. Davis, aghast.

"Yi-i-i!" rang out his ear-splitting yell. Pedestrians half a block away heard it and felt sorry for Mrs. Wiggs, the unhappy wife of the town sot, who, it went without saying, must be on another "toot."

"Harvey!" cried the poor lady once more.

"She's going to faint!" shouted the prescription clerk in consternation.

"Let her! Let her!" whooped Harvey. "It's all right, Joe! Let her faint if she wants to."

"I'm not going to faint!" exclaimed Mrs. Davis, struggling to her feet and pus.h.i.+ng Joe away. "Keep quiet, Harvey! Do you want customers to think you're crazy? Give me that telegram. I'll attend to that. I'll answer it mighty quick, let me tell you. Give it to me."

Harvey sobered almost instantly. His jaw fell. The look in her face took all the joy out of his.

"Isn't--isn't it great, Minerva?" he murmured, as he allowed her to s.n.a.t.c.h the message from his unresisting fingers.

She glared at him. "Great? Why, you don't think for a moment that I'll have the brat in my house, do you? Great? I don't see what you can be thinking of, Harvey. You must be clean out of your head. I should say it ain't great. It's perfectly outrageous. Where's the telegraph office, Joe? I'll show the dreadful little wretch that she can't shunt her child off on me for support. Not much. Where is it, Joe? Didn't you hear what I asked?"

"Yes, ma'am," acknowledged Joe, blankly.

"You can't be mean enough--I should say you don't mean to tell her we won't take Phoebe?" gasped Harvey, blinking rapidly. "Surely you can't be so hard-hearted as all----"

"That will do, Harvey," said she, sternly. "Don't let me hear another word out of you. The idea! Just as soon as she thinks you're safely married to some one who can give that child a home she up and tries to get rid of her. The shameless thing! No, sir-ree! She can't shuffle her brat off on me. Not if I know what I'm----"

She fell back in alarm. The telegram fluttered to the floor. Harvey was standing in front of her, shaking his fist under her nose, his face contorted by a spasm of fury.

"Don't you call my little girl a brat," he sputtered. "And don't you dare to call my wife a shameless thing!"

"Your wife!" she gasped.

He waved his arms like a windmill.

"My widow, if you are going to be so darned particular about it," he shouted, inanely. "Don't you dare send a telegram saying Phoebe can't come and live with her father. I won't have it. She's coming just as fast as I can get her here. Hurray!"

Mrs. Davis lost all of her sternness. She dissolved into tears.

"Oh, Harvey dear, do you really and truly want that child back again?"

she sniffled.

"Do I?" he barked. "My G.o.d, I should say I do! And say, I'd give my soul if I could get Nellie back, too. How do you like that?"

The poor woman was ready to fall on her knees to him.

"For Heaven's sake--for my sake--don't speak of such a thing. Don't try to get her back. Promise me! I'll let the child come, but--oh!

don't take Nellie back. It would break my heart. I just couldn't have her around, not if I tried my----"

Harvey stared, open-mouthed. "I didn't mean that I'd like to have you take her back, Minerva. You haven't anything to do with it."

She stiffened. "Well, if I haven't, I'd like to know who has. It's my house, isn't it?"

"Don't make a scene, Minerva," he begged, suddenly aware of the presence of a curious crowd in the front part of the store. "Go home and I'll send the telegram. And say, if I were you, I'd go out the back way."

"And just to think, it's only a week till the wedding day," she choked out.

"We can put it off," he made haste to say.

"I know I shall positively hate that child," said she, overlooking his generous offer. "I will be a real stepmother to her, you mark my words. You can let her come if you want to, Harvey, but you mustn't expect me to treat her as anything but a--a--an orphan." She was a bit mixed in her nouns.

A brilliant idea struck him.

"You'd better be nice to her, Mrs. Davis, if you know what's good for you. Now, don't flare up! You mustn't forget you've broken the law by opening a telegram not intended for you."

"What?"

"It isn't addressed to you," he said, examining the envelope. "Your name is still Mrs. Davis, isn't it?"

"Of course it is."

"Well, then, what in thunder did you open a telegram addressed to my wife for? That's my wife's name, not yours."

"But," she began, vastly perplexed, "but it was meant for me."

"How do you know?" he demanded.

Her eyes bulged. "You--you don't mean that there is another one, Harvey?"

He winked with grave deliberateness. "That's for you to find out."

He darted through the back door into the alley, just as she collapsed in the prescriptionist's arms. In the telegraph office he read and re-read the message, his eyes aglow. It was from Nellie and came from New York, dated Friday, the first.

"Am sending Phoebe to Blakeville next Monday to make her home with you and Harvey. Letter to-day explains all. Have Harvey meet her in Chicago Tuesday, four P.M., Lake Sh.o.r.e."

He scratched his chin reflectively.

"I guess it don't call for an answer, after all," he said as much to himself as to the operator.

Nellie's letter came the next afternoon, addressed to Harvey. In a state of great excitement he broke the seal and read the poignant missive with eyes that were glazed with wonder and--something even more potent.

She began by saying that she supposed he was happily married, and wished him all the luck in the world. Then she came abruptly to the point, as she always did:--"I am in such poor health that the doctors say I shall have to go to Arizona at once. I am good for about six months longer at the outside, they say. Not half that long if I stay in this climate. Maybe I'll get well if I go out there. I'm not very keen about dying. I hate dead things; don't you? Now about Phoebe.

She's been pining for you all these months. She doesn't like Mr.

Fairfax, and he's not very strong for her. To be perfectly honest, he doesn't want her about. She's not his, and he hasn't much use for anything or anybody that doesn't belong to him. I've got so that I can't stand it, Harvey. The poor little kiddie is so miserably unhappy, and I'm not strong enough to get out and work for her as I used to. I would if I could. I think Fairfax is sick of the whole thing. He didn't count on me going under as I have. He hasn't been near me for a month, but he says it's because he hates the sight of Phoebe. I wonder. It wasn't that way a couple of years ago. But I'm different now. You wouldn't know me, I'm that thin and skinny. I hate the word, but that's what I am. The doctors have ordered me to a little place out in Arizona. I've got to do what they say, and what Fairfax says. It's the jumping-off place. So I'm leaving in a day or two with Rachel. My husband says he can't leave his business, but I'm not such a fool as he thinks. I won't say anything more about him, except that he hasn't the courage to watch me go down by inches.

"I can't leave Phoebe with him and I don't think it best to have her with me. She ought to be spared all that. She's so young, Harvey.

She'd never forget. You love her, and she adores you. I'm giving her back to you. Don't--oh, please don't, ever let her leave Blakeville!

I wish I had never left it, much as I hate it. I remember your new wife as being a kind, simple-hearted woman. She will be good to my little girl, I know, because she is yours as well. If I could get my health back, I'd work my heart out trying to support her, but it's out of the question. I have nothing to give her, Harvey, and I simply will not let Fairfax provide for her. Do you understand? Or are you as stupid and simple as you always were? And as tender-hearted?"

There was more, but Harvey's eyes were so full of tears he could not read.