"Yes, perhaps I could," admitted the general, as he eyed his miserable little pile of worldly goods in the basket. "I suppose I could," he repeated meditatively.
"All right then, General," cut in Barclay. "I have no million, any more than you have; but I"m going to get one--or two, maybe a dozen if I can, and I want to do good with it just as much as you do. When I get it I"ll show you." Barclay rose to lend the general a hand with his basket. As they went awkwardly through the door with the load, the general stopping to get a hold on the basket that would not twist his hand, he put the load down in the hall and said: "But while you"re getting that million, you"re wasting G.o.d"s ten talents, boy. Can"t you see that if you would use your force, your keenness, and persistence helping mankind in some way--teaching, preaching, lending a hand to the poor, or helping to fight organized greed, you would get more of G.o.d"s work done than you will by squeezing the daylights out of your fellow-men, making them hate money because of your avarice, and end by doling it out to them in charity? That"s my point, boy. That"s why I don"t want your railroad job."
They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The general had not so much as a chair or a desk. He looked it over, and Barclay"s eyes followed his. "What are you going to do for furniture?" asked the younger man.
The general"s thin face wrinkled into a smile. "Well," he replied, "I suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, groceries, boots and shoes and drugs, paints and oils,--and certainly the ravens have been bringing those things to the Wards for eight years now, and they"re all paid for,--the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring some furniture, stoves, and hardware."
Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed the dust off the windows. In a minute John came stumbling in with a chair, and as he set it down he said, "Here comes the first raven, General, and now if you"ll kindly come and give the ravens a lift, they"ll bring you a table." And so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as they finished, Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the stairs, and when the new room had been put in order,--a simple operation, --General Ward hurried home to help Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia roots for the winter.
As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns and wrapping the magnolia tree they had lately acquired, and mulching the perennials, Mrs. Mary Barclay came toward them buffeting the wind. She wore the long cowlish waterproof cloak and hood of the period--which she had put on during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong figure did not bend in the wind, and the schoolbooks she carried in her hand broke the straight line of her figure only to heighten the priestess effect that her approaching presence produced.
"Well, children," she said, as she stood by the Wards at their work, "preparing your miracles?" She looked at the bulbs and roots, and smiled. "How wonderful that all the beauty of the flowers should be in those scrawny brown things; and," she added as she brushed away the brown hair of her forties from her broad brow, "G.o.d probably thinks the same thing when He considers men and their souls."
"And when the gardener puts us away for our winter"s sleep?" Ward asked.
She turned her big frank blue eyes upon him as she took the words from his mouth, ""And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."" Then she smiled sadly and said, "But it is the old Adam himself that I seem to be wrestling with just now."
"In the children--at school?" asked the Wards, one after the other.
She sighed and looked at the little troopers straggling along the highway, and replied, "Yes, partly that, too," and throwing her unnecessary hood back, turned her face into the wind and walked quickly away. The Wards watched her as she strode down the hill, and finally as he bent to his work the general asked:--
"Lucy, what does she think of John?"
Mrs. Ward, who was busy with a geranium, did not reply at once. But in a moment she rose and, putting the plant with some others that were to go to the cellar, replied: "Oh, Phil--you know a mother tries to hope against hope. She teaches her school every day, and keeps her mind busy. But sometimes, when she stops in here after school or for lunch, she can"t help dropping things that let me know. I think her heart is breaking, Phil."
"Does she know about the wheat deal--I mean about the way he has made the farmers sign that mortgage by cutting them off from borrowing money at the bank?"
"Not all of it--but I think she suspects," replied the wife.
"Did you know, dear," said the general, as he put the plants in the barrow to wheel them to the cellar, "that I ran across something to-day--it may be all suspicion, and I don"t want to wrong John--but Mart Culpepper, G.o.d bless his big innocent heart, let something slip--well, it was John, I think, who arranged for that loan of ten thousand from Brownwell to Mart. Though why he didn"t get it at the bank, I don"t know. But John had some reason. Things look mighty crooked there at the bank. I know this--Mart says that Brownwell lent him the money, and Mart lent it to the bank for a month there in August, while he was holding the Chicago fellow in the air."
Mrs. Ward sat down on the front steps of the porch, and exclaimed:--
"Well, Phil Ward--that"s why the Culpeppers are so nice to Brownwell.
Honestly, Phil, the last time I was over Mrs. Culpepper nearly talked her head off to me and at Molly about what a fine man he is, and told all about his family, and connections--he"s related to the angel Gabriel on his mother"s side," she laughed, "and he"s own cousin to St. Peter through the Brownwells."
"Oh, I guess they"re innocent enough about it--they aren"t mercenary," interrupted the general.
"Oh, no," replied Mrs Ward, "never in the world; but he"s been good to them and he"s of their stock--and it"s only natural."
"Yes, probably," replied the general, and asked, "Does she intend to marry him, do you think?" Mrs. Ward was sorting some dahlia roots on the wheelbarrow and did not reply at once. "Do you suppose they"re engaged?" repeated the general.
"I often wonder," she returned, still at her task. Then she rose, holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It"s a funny kind of relation.
Her father and mother egging her on--and you know that kind of a man; give him an inch and he"ll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got."
She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the nice big yellow ones I"m saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I"m sure of one thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: "Molly is still in love with Bob. She was over here last week and had a good cry and told me so."
"Well, why doesn"t she send this man about his business?" exclaimed the general.
Mrs. Ward sighed a little and replied, "Because--there is only one perfect person in all the world, and that"s you." She smiled at him and continued: "The rest of us, dear, are just flesh and blood. So we make mistakes. Molly knows she should; she told me so the other day.
And she hates herself for not doing it. But, dearie--don"t you see she thinks if she does, her father and mother will lose the big house, and Bob will be involved in some kind of trouble? They keep that before her all of the time. She says that John is always insisting that she be nice to Brownwell. And you know the Culpeppers think Brownwell is--well, you know what they think."
They worked along for a while, and the general stopped and put his foot on his spade and cried: "That boy--that boy--that boy! Isn"t he selling his soul to the devil by bits? A little chunk goes every day.
And oh, my dear, my dear--" he broke out, "what profiteth a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Poor, poor John." He fell to his work again, sighing, "Poor John, poor John!" So they talked on until the afternoon grew old.
And while they were talking, John and General Hendricks were in Barclay"s office going over matters, and seeing where they stood.
"So he says seventy thousand is too much for the company and me to owe?" said John, at the end of half an hour"s conference.
The general was drumming his fingers on the table nervously. "Yes--he says we"ve got to reduce that in thirty days, or he"ll close us up.
Haven"t you got any political influence, somewhere in the East, John,--some of those stockholders,--that will hold this matter up till you can harvest your crop next June?"
Barclay thought a moment, with his hand in his chin, and then slowly shook his head. A bank inspector from Washington was several degrees higher in the work of politics than Barclay had gone.
"Let me see--" droned Barclay; "let me see. We can at least try scattering it out a little; cut off, say, fifty thousand from me and the company and put it in the name of Lige--"
"He"s on to Lige, we"ve got a hat full of Lige"s notes in there,"
interrupted the general.
"All right, then, drop Lige and put in the colonel--he"ll do that for me, and I"ll see if I can"t get the colonel to get Brownwell to accommodate us. He"s burning a good bit of the colonel"s stove wood these nights." Barclay smiled, and added, "And I"ll just put Bob in for a few thousand."
"But what"ll we do about those taxes?" asked the general, anxiously.
"You know they"ve got to be paid before the first of the year, and that"s only six weeks off."
Barclay rose and paced the rug, and replied: "Yes, that"s so. I was going to make another note for them. But I suppose we oughtn"t to do it even under cover; for if he found out you had exceeded our loan right now--you know those fellows get ugly sometimes." The young man screwed up his face and stood looking out of the window in silence for a long minute. Then he limped over to his chair and sat down as one who has a plan. "Say now, General; you know Gabe Carnine"s coming in as county treasurer right after the first of the year, and we will make him help us. You make your personal check for the nine thousand, and give it to the old cuss who"s in the county treasurer"s office now, with the descriptions of the land, and get the tax receipts; he"ll bring the check back to the bank; you give him credit on his pa.s.s-book with the other checks, and just hold your own check out in the drawer as cash. If my check was in there, the inspector might drop in and see it, and cause a disturbance. When Gabe comes in, I"ll make him carry the matter over till next summer."
The transaction would cover only a few days, Barclay explained; and finally he had his way. So the Larger Good was accomplished.
And later Adrian Brownwell came into the office to say:--
"Mr. Barclay, our friend, Colonel Culpepper, confessed to me after some transparent attempts at subterfuge that my signing an accommodation note would help you, and do I understand this also will help our young friend, Robert Hendricks, whom I have never seen, and enable him to remain at his post during the winter?"
John Barclay took a square hard look at Brownwell, and got a smile and a faint little shrug in return, whereupon, for the Larger Good, he replied "Yes," and for the Larger Good also, perhaps, Adrian Brownwell answered:
"Well, I shall be delighted--just make my note for thirty days--only thirty days, you understand; and then--well, of course if circ.u.mstances justify it, I"ll renew it." Barclay laughed and asked, "Well, Mr. Brownwell, as between friends may I ask how "circ.u.mstances"
are getting on?"
Brownwell shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly as he answered: "Just so-so; I go twice a week. And--" he waved his gloves airily and continued, "What is it the immortal Burns says: "A man"s a man, for a"
that and a" that!" And I"m a man, John Barclay, and she"s a woman. And I go twice a week. You know women, sir, you know women--they"re mostly all alike. So I think--" he smirked complacently as he concluded--"I think what I need is time--only time."
"Luck to you," said Barclay. "I"ll just make the note thirty days, as you say, and we can renew it from time to time."
Then Brownwell put on his hat, twirled his cane effusively, and bade Barclay an elaborate adieu.
And ten days later, Molly Culpepper, loathing herself in her soul, and praying for the day of deliverance when it should be all over, walked slowly from the post-office up the hill to the house, the stately house, with its impressive pillars, reading this: "My darling Girl: John has sent me some more mortgages to sell, and they have to be sold now. He says that father has to have the money, and he and father have laid out work for me that will keep me here till the middle of January. John says that the government inspector has been threatening us with serious trouble in the bank lately, and we must have the money. He says the times have forced us to do certain things that were technically wrong--though I guess they were criminally wrong from what he says, and we must have this money to make things good. So I am compelled to stay here and work. Father commands me to stay in a way that makes me fear that my coming home now would mean our ruin. What a brick John is to stay there and shoulder it all. But, oh, darling, darling, darling, I love you."
There was more, of course, and it was from a man"s heart, and the strange and sad part of this story is that when Molly Culpepper read the rest of the letter, her heart burned in shame, and her shame was keener than her sorrow that her lover was not coming home.
So it happened naturally that Molly Culpepper went to the Christmas dance with Adrian Brownwell, and when Jane Barclay, seeing the proprietary way the Alabaman hovered over Molly, and his obvious jealousy of all the other men who were civil to her, asked John why he did not let Bob come home for the holidays, as he had promised, for the Larger Good John told her the facts--that there were some mortgages that had just come in, and they must be sold, so that the company could reduce its indebtedness to the bank. But the facts are not always the truth, and in her heart, which did not reason but only felt, Molly Culpepper, knowing that Brownwell and John Barclay were in some kind of an affair together, feared the truth. And from her heart she wrote to her lover questioning John"s motives and pleading with him to return, and he, having merely the facts, did not see the truth, and replied impatiently--so impatiently that it hurt, and there was temper in her answer, and then for over a week no letter came, and for over a week no reply went back to that. And so the Larger Good was doing its fine work in a wicked world.