Miss Calista had shopping to do and friends to visit in town, so that the dull autumn day was well nigh spent when she finally got back to Cooperstown and paused at the corner store to get a bundle of matches.
The store was full of men, smoking and chatting around the fire, and Miss Calista, whose pet abomination was tobacco smoke, was not at all minded to wait any longer than she could help. But Abiram Fell was attending to a previous customer, and Miss Calista sat grimly down by the counter to wait her turn.
The door opened, letting in a swirl of raw November evening wind and Ches Maybin. He nodded sullenly to Mr. Fell and pa.s.sed down the store to mutter a message to a man at the further end.
Miss Calista lifted her head as he pa.s.sed and sniffed the air as a charger who scents battle. The smell of tobacco was strong, and so was that of the open boxes of dried herring on the counter, but plainly, above all the commingled odours of a country grocery, Miss Calista caught a whiff of peppermint, so strong as to leave no doubt of its origin. There had been no hint of it before Ches Maybin"s entrance.
The latter did not wait long. He was out and striding along the shadowy road when Miss Calista left the store and drove smartly after him. It never took Miss Calista long to make up her mind about anything, and she had weighed and pa.s.sed judgement on Ches Maybin"s case while Mr. Fell was doing up her matches.
The lad glanced up furtively as she checked her fat grey pony beside him.
"Good evening, Chester," she said with brisk kindness. "I can give you a lift, if you are going my way. Jump in, quick--Dapple is a little restless."
A wave of crimson, duskily perceptible under his sunburned skin, surged over Ches Maybin"s face. It almost seemed as if he were going to blurt out a blunt refusal. But Miss Calista"s face was so guileless and her tone so friendly, that he thought better of it and sprang in beside her, and Dapple broke into an impatient trot down the long hill lined with its bare, wind-writhen maples.
After a few minutes" silence Miss Calista turned to her moody companion.
"Chester," she said, as tranquilly as if about to ask him the most ordinary question in the world, "why did you climb into my house last night and try to steal my money?"
Ches Maybin started convulsively, as if he meant to spring from the buggy at once, but Miss Calista"s hand was on his arm in a grasp none the less firm because of its gentleness, and there was a warning gleam in her grey eyes.
"It won"t mend matters trying to get clear of me, Chester. I know it was you and I want an answer--a truthful one, mind you--to my question. I am your friend, and I am not going to harm you if you tell me the truth."
Her clear and incisive gaze met and held irresistibly the boy"s wavering one. The sullen obstinacy of his face relaxed.
"Well," he muttered finally, "I was just desperate, that"s why. I"ve never done anything real bad in my life before, but people have always been down on me. I"m blamed for everything, and n.o.body wants anything to do with me. I"m willing to work, but I can"t get a thing to do. I"m in rags and I haven"t a cent, and winter"s coming on. I heard you telling Mrs. Galloway yesterday about the money. I was behind the fir hedge and you didn"t see me. I went away and planned it all out. I"d get in some way--and I meant to use the money to get away out west as far from here as I could, and begin life there, where n.o.body knew me, and where I"d have some sort of a chance. I"ve never had any here.
You can put me in jail now, if you like--they"ll feed and clothe me there, anyhow, and I"ll be on a level with the rest."
The boy had blurted it all out sullenly and half-chokingly. A world of rebellion and protest against the fate that had always dragged him down was couched in his voice.
Miss Calista drew Dapple to a standstill before her gate.
"I"m not going to send you to jail, Chester. I believe you"ve told me the truth. Yesterday you wanted me to give you Caleb"s place and I refused. Well, I offer it to you now. If you"ll come, I"ll hire you, and give you as good wages as I gave him."
Ches Maybin looked incredulous.
"Miss Calista, you can"t mean it."
"I do mean it, every word. You say you have never had a chance. Well, I am going to give you one--a chance to get on the right road and make a man of yourself. n.o.body shall ever know about last night"s doings from me, and I"ll make it my business to forget them if you deserve it. What do you say?"
Ches lifted his head and looked her squarely in the face.
"I"ll come," he said huskily. "It ain"t no use to try and thank you, Miss Calista. But I"ll live my thanks."
And he did. The good people of Cooperstown held up their hands in horror when they heard that Miss Calista had hired Ches Maybin, and prophesied that the deluded woman would live to repent her rash step.
But not all prophecies come true. Miss Calista smiled serenely and kept on her own misguided way. And Ches Maybin proved so efficient and steady that the arrangement was continued, and in due time people outlived their old suspicions and came to regard him as a thoroughly smart and trustworthy young man.
"Miss Calista has made a man of Ches Maybin," said the oracles. "He ought to be very grateful to her."
And he was. But only he and Miss Calista and the peppermint bottle ever knew the precise extent of his grat.i.tude, and they never told.
The Jest That Failed
"I think it is simply a disgrace to have a person like that in our cla.s.s," said Edna Hayden in an injured tone.
"And she doesn"t seem a bit ashamed of it, either," said Agnes Walters.
"Rather proud of it, I should say," returned her roommate, spitefully.
"It seems to me that if I were so poor that I had to "room" myself and dress as dowdily as she does that I really couldn"t look anybody in the face. What must the boys think of her? And if it wasn"t for her being in it, our cla.s.s would be the smartest and dressiest in the college--even those top-lofty senior girls admit that."
"It"s a shame," said Agnes, conclusively. "But she needn"t expect to a.s.sociate with our set. I, for one, won"t have anything to do with her."
"Nor I. I think it is time she should be taught her place. If we could only manage to inflict some decided snub on her, she might take the hint and give up trying to poke herself in where she doesn"t belong.
The idea of her consenting to be elected on the freshmen executive!
But she seems impervious to snubs."
"Edna, let"s play a joke on her. It will serve her right. Let us send an invitation in somebody"s name to the senior "prom.""
"The very thing! And sign Sidney Hill"s name to it. He"s the handsomest and richest fellows at Payzant, and belongs to one of the best families in town, and he"s awfully fastidious besides. No doubt she will feel immensely flattered and, of course, she"ll accept. Just think how silly she"ll feel when she finds out he never sent it. Let"s write it now, and send it at once. There is no time to lose, for the "prom" is on Thursday night."
The freshmen co-eds at Payzant College did not like Grace Seeley--that is to say, the majority of them. They were a decidedly sn.o.bbish cla.s.s that year. No one could deny that Grace was clever, but she was poor, dressed very plainly--"dowdily," the girls said--and "roomed" herself, that phrase meaning that she rented a little unfurnished room and cooked her own meals over an oil stove.
The "senior prom," as it was called, was the annual reception which the senior cla.s.s gave in the middle of every autumn term. It was the smartest and gayest of all the college functions, and a Payzant co-ed who received an invitation to it counted herself fortunate. The senior girls were included as a matter of course, but a junior, soph, or freshie could not go unless one of the senior boys invited her.
Grace Seeley was studying Greek in her tiny room that afternoon when the invitation was brought to her. It was scrupulously orthodox in appearance and form, and Grace never doubted that it was genuine, although she felt much surprised that Sidney Hill, the leader of his cla.s.s and the foremost figure in all college sports and societies, should have asked her to go with him to the senior prom.
But she was girlishly pleased at the prospect. She was as fond of a good time as any other girl, and she had secretly wished very much that she could go to the brilliant and much talked about senior prom.
Grace was quite unaware of her own unpopularity among her cla.s.s co-eds, although she thought it was very hard to get acquainted with them. Without any false pride herself, and of a frank, independent nature, it never occurred to her that the other Payzant freshies could look down on her because she was poor, or resent her presence among them because she dressed plainly.
She straightway wrote a note of acceptance to Sidney Hill, and that young man naturally felt much mystified when he opened and read it in the college library next morning.
"Grace Seeley," he pondered. "That"s the jolly girl with the brown eyes that I met at the philomathic the other night. She thanks me for my invitation to the senior prom, and accepts with pleasure. Why, I certainly never invited her or anyone else to go with me to the senior prom. There must be some mistake."
Grace pa.s.sed him at this moment on her way to the Latin cla.s.sroom. She bowed and smiled in a friendly fashion and Sidney Hill felt decidedly uncomfortable. What was he to do? He did not like to think of putting Miss Seeley in a false position because somebody had sent her an invitation in his name.
"I suppose it is some cad who has a spite at me that has done it," he reflected, "but if so I"ll spoil his game. I"ll take Miss Seeley to the prom as if I had never intended doing anything else. She shan"t be humiliated just because there is someone at Payzant who would stoop to that sort of thing."
So he walked up the hall with Grace and expressed his pleasure at her acceptance, and on the evening of the prom he sent her a bouquet of white carnations, whose spicy fragrance reminded her of her own little garden at home. Grace thought it extremely nice of him, and dressed in a flutter of pleasant antic.i.p.ation.
Her gown was a very simple one of sheer white organdie, and was the only evening dress she had. She knew there would be many smarter dresses at the reception, but the knowledge did not disturb her sensible head in the least.
She fingered the dainty white frills lovingly as she remembered the sunny summer days at home in the little sewing-room, where cherry boughs poked their blossoms in at the window, when her mother and sisters had helped her to make it, with laughing prophesies and speculations as to its first appearance. Into seam and puff and frill many girlish hopes and dreams had been sewn, and they all came back to Grace as she put it on, and helped to surround her with an atmosphere of happiness.
When she was ready she picked up her bouquet and looked herself over in the mirror, from the top of her curly head to the tips of her white shoes, with a little nod of satisfaction. Grace was not exactly pretty, but she had such a bright, happy face and such merry brown eyes and such a friendly smile that she was very pleasant to look upon, and a great many people thought so that night.