The doctor looked at his patient gravely.
"Can"t you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, for three months, at least."
"You don"t know what you"re talking about, doctor!"
"Perhaps not, on one side of the subject. I feel pretty certain on the other, however."
Mr. Gartney did not send for Braybrook that afternoon. The next morning, however, he came, and the tabooed books and papers were got out.
In another day or two, Miss Sampson _did_ pack her carpetbag, and go back to her air-tight stove and solitary cups of tea. Her occupation in Hickory Street was gone.
CHAPTER XI.
CROSS CORNERS.
"O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the G.o.ds for a kingdom, wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, "here or nowhere," couldst thou only see!"--CARLYLE.
"It is of no use to talk about it," said Mr. Gartney, wearily. "If I live--as long as I live--I must do business. How else are you to get along?"
"How shall we get along if you do _not_ live?" asked his wife, in a low, anxious tone.
"My life"s insured," was all Mr. Gartney"s answer.
"Father!" cried Faith, distressfully.
Faith had been taken more and more into counsel and confidence with her parents since the time of the illness that had brought them all so close together. And more and more helpful she had grown, both in word and doing, since she had learned to look daily for the daily work set before her, and to perform it conscientiously, even although it consisted only of little things. She still remembered with enthusiasm Nurse Sampson and the "drumsticks," and managed to pick up now and then one for herself.
Meantime she began to see, indistinctly, before her, the vision of a work that must be done by some one, and the duty of it pressed hourly closer home to herself. Her father"s health had never been fully reestablished. He had begun to use his strength before and faster than it came. There was danger--it needed no Dr. Gracie, even, to tell them so--of grave disease, if this went on. And still, whenever urged, his answer was the same. "What would become of his family without his business?"
Faith turned these things over and over in her mind.
"Father," said she, after a while--the conversation having been dropped at the old conclusion, and n.o.body appearing to have anything more to say--"I don"t know anything about business; but I wish you"d tell me how much money you"ve got!"
Her father laughed; a sad sort of laugh though, that was not so much amus.e.m.e.nt as tenderness and pity. Then, as if the whole thing were a mere joke, yet with a shade upon his face that betrayed there was far too much truth under the jest, after all, he took out his portemonnaie and told her to look and see.
"You know I don"t mean that, father! How much in the bank, and everywhere?"
"Precious little in the bank, now, Faithie. Enough to keep house with for a year, nearly, perhaps. But if I were to take it and go off and spend it in traveling, you can understand that the housekeeping would fall short, can"t you?"
Faith looked horrified. She was bringing down her vague ideas of money that came from somewhere, through her father"s pocket, as water comes from Lake Kinsittewink by the turning of a faucet, to the narrow point of actuality.
"But that isn"t all, I know! I"ve heard you talk about railroad dividends, and such things."
"Oh! what does the Western Road pay this time?" asked his wife.
"I"ve had to sell out my stock there."
"And where"s the money, father?" asked Faith.
"Gone to pay debts, child," was the answer.
Mrs. Gartney said nothing, but she looked very grave. Her husband surmised, perhaps, that she would go on to imagine worse than had really happened, and so added, presently:
"I haven"t been obliged to sell _all_ my railroad stocks, wifey. I held on to some. There"s the New York Central all safe; and the Michigan Central, too. That wouldn"t have sold so well, to be sure, just when I was wanting the money; but things are looking better, now."
"Father," said Faithie, with her most coaxing little smile, "please just take this bit of paper and pencil, and set down these stocks and things, will you?"
The little smile worked its way; and half in idleness, half in acquiescence, Mr. Gartney took the pencil and noted down a short list of items.
"It"s very little, Faith, you see." They ran thus:
New York Central Railroad 20 shares.
Michigan Central " 15 "
Kinnicutt Branch " 10 "
Mishaumok Insurance Co. 15 "
Merchants Bank 30 "
"And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends."
"Not always the same, little busybody."
Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between six and seven hundred dollars.
"But that isn"t all. You"ve got other things. Why, there"s the house at Cross Corners."
"Yes, but I can"t let it, you know."
"What used you to get for it?"
"Two hundred and fifty. For house and land."
"And you own this house, too, father?"
"Yes. This is your mother"s."
"How much rent would this bring?"
Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there.
"Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?"
Faith laughed.
"Just answer this, please, and I won"t ask a single question more to-night."