Phil aroused herself as she heard him fumbling for his coat at the hall-rack. She found a match and lighted the gas.
"Going out, daddy?" she asked in something like her usual tone.
He looked at her vaguely as he drew on his coat, as though trying to understand what she had said.
"Well, you"ll be back for supper. There"ll be the usual holiday-cold-turkey supper, daddy."
"Yes, Phil; I"ll be back after while. I"m going for a tramp."
But she knew that he had gone to see Nan.
CHAPTER XVIII
AMZI IS FLABBERGASTED
Struby"s drug-store did a large business in hot drinks in the week following Christmas, as citizens and citizenesses met to discuss the return of Lois Montgomery. The annual choir-row in Center Church caused scarcely a ripple; the county poorhouse burned to the ground, and n.o.body cared particularly; an august professor in the college was laid low with whooping-cough, and even this calamity failed to tickle the community as it would have done in ordinary circ.u.mstances.
Wonder and mystery were in the air of Main Street. Persons who had no money in Montgomery"s Bank, and whom the liveliest imagination could not dramatize as borrowers from that inst.i.tution, dropped in casually on fict.i.tious errands, in the hope of seeing or hearing something.
Housewives who lived beyond the college, or over in the new bungalow addition across the Monon tracks, who had no business whatever in the neighborhood of the old Montgomery place, made flimsy excuses for visiting that region in the hope of catching a glimpse of a certain lady who, after a long absence, had reappeared in town with bewildering suddenness. What Amzi had said to his sisters Kate, Josie, and f.a.n.n.y and what they had said to him, and what Mrs. Lois Montgomery Holton had said to them all afforded an ample field for comment where facts were known; and where there were no facts, speculation and invention rioted outrageously. Had Tom Kirkwood seen his former wife? Would Phil break with her father and go to live at Amzi"s with her mother? Was it true that Lois had come back to Indiana in the hope of effecting a reconciliation with Jack Holton, of whom unpleasant reports were now reaching Montgomery from the state capital? An intelligent community possessed of a healthy curiosity must be pardoned for polishing its spectacles when a drama so exciting and presenting so many characters is being disclosed upon its stage.
It was said that Mrs. Holton emerged from Amzi"s house daily to take the air. She had been observed by credible witnesses at the stamp window of the post-office; again, she had bought violets at the florist"s; she had been seen walking across the Madison campus. The attendants in the new Carnegie library had been thrilled by a visit from a strange lady who could have been none other than Mrs. Holton.
At four o"clock on the afternoon of January 2, Mrs. Holton drank a cup of bouillon at Struby"s counter, informed the white-jacketed attendant that it was excellent, and crossed Main Street to Montgomery"s Bank under the admiring eyes of a dozen young collegians who happened to be loafing in the drug-store. Amzi escorted his sister at once to his private room at the rear, poked the fire, b.u.t.toned his coat and sat down.
"Well, Lois, how goes it?"
His question was the one he habitually asked his customers, and he had no idea that anything of importance had happened to his sister since he left her at one o"clock.
"The air in the counting-room is bad, Amzi; you ought to put in ventilators. A little fresh air would increase the efficiency of the clerks one hundred per cent," she remarked, tossing her m.u.f.f and a package on the table. It was a solid package that fell with a bang.
"Then they"d want more pay. You"ve got another guess coming."
"No. You"d cut down their wages because they worked less time."
He rubbed his head and chuckled. It was plainly written on his face that he was immensely fond of her, that her presence in the dim, dingy old room gave him pleasure. He clasped his hands behind his head to emphasize his comfort.
"I pa.s.sed Center Church on my way down just as my perfectly good sisters three were entering the side door. The Presbyterians haven"t set up a confessional, have they?"
"Lemme see. I guess this is the afternoon they sew for the heathen. No.
This is Tuesday. Pastor"s Aid Society. Caught "em in the act, did you?"
"I suppose I did. They bowed and I bowed. When I got to the corner I turned round to take a look at the steeple and they were inspecting my clothes. They"re rather funny human beings, those sisters of ours. How do you suppose they ever happened anyhow? How do you suppose they came to be so good and you and I so naughty? I mention your naughtiness, Amzi, just to keep from being so lonesome."
"Thunder!" he puffed, evidently rejoicing in the wickedness she conferred upon him.
"I came to talk business a little, Amzi. Didn"t want to do it at the house. In fact, I"m out of money; broke; busted. I bought a cup of soup at the drug-store over the way and left my last dime on the counter."
He rubbed his pink pate and cleared his throat. He was not surprised; he had expected her to be broke. Several times in the week that had pa.s.sed since her return, he had thought of broaching the subject of money, but had refrained. Lois could have anything he had; that was his feeling about it; and no doubt when she needed money she would ask for it. His other sisters had never hesitated.
"Just say how much, Lois."
His tone was rea.s.suring. The others had bled him for years; he had kept an account of his "advances," as they called them, in a pa.s.s-book, and within a few days he had credited Lois with an amount equal to the total of these sums. It was approximately this amount that he had tried to bestow upon Phil the previous fall when that unreasonable young person had scorned it.
Lois had not answered him. Her face wore a look of abstraction and she compressed her lips poutingly. He had found her increasingly interesting and amusing as the days pa.s.sed. The subjects she discussed in their long evenings together were as various as her costumes. She was always cheery, always a delight to his admiring eyes. Now that she needed money she would be sure to ask for it in her own charming fashion.
"Speak up; don"t be afraid. The sooner we fix it the quicker we can forget it," he added kindly.
"I was just wondering how to divide things around a little," she replied.
"Divide how? Among your creditors?"
"Creditors? Bless your silly head, Amzi, I haven"t any creditors!"
"I thought you said you were broke."
"Oh, I believe I did," she replied, still only half-attentive to what he said, and apparently not particularly interested in explaining herself.
She reached for a pad and made rapid calculations. He lighted a cigar and watched her gloved hand dancing over the paper. The package she had tossed on the table was much bewaxed and sealed. "When I said I was broke, I meant that I hadn"t any money in my pocket. I want to open an account here so I can cash a check. I suppose you haven"t any prejudices against accepting small deposits?"
"No prejudices exactly, Lois; but it"s so long since any member of the family came into this bank without wanting to make a touch that I"m likely to drop dead."
She laughed, drew out her purse, and extracted three closely folded slips of crisp paper, took up a pen and scratched her name across the back of each.
"There," she said, "consider these on deposit and give me a check-book."
He ran the drafts through his fingers, reading the amounts, and from force of habit compared the indors.e.m.e.nt with the name on the face. He smoothed them out on the table and laid a weight on them. He looked at the end of his cigar, then at her. Of the three bills of exchange on New York, one was for ten thousand dollars, issued by a Seattle bank; another was for fifteen thousand, issued by a San Francisco house, and the third was a certified check for seven thousand and some odd dollars and cents. Something over thirty-two thousand dollars!
He unconsciously adopted with her something of his way with Phil. He would not express surprise at the magnitude of the sum she had so indifferently fished out of her purse, but rather treat the matter as though he had been prepared for it. The joke of it--that Lois should have come back with money, when her sisters certainly, and the rest of the community probably, a.s.sumed that her return to Montgomery meant nothing more or less than the collapse of her fortunes--this was a joke so delicious, so stupendous, that his enjoyment of it dulled the edge of his curiosity as to the history the fact concealed. She hadn"t even taken off her gloves to write her name on the drafts! There were depositors who had shown more emotion over confiding one hundred dollars to his care than she had displayed in writing her name on the books as his largest individual depositor. He wanted to giggle; it was the funniest thing that had ever happened. He remarked casually,--
"Got a gold mine, Lois?"
He was so full of the joy of it that he gasped at her reply.
"How did you know?" she asked sharply.
"I didn"t."
"I thought not. n.o.body knows. And n.o.body need know. Just between ourselves--all this."
He nodded. She was an amazing creature, this sister! The joke grew. He hoped she would delay and prolong her revelations, that he might miss nothing of their humor.
"Nevada," she remarked sententiously.
"Ground floor?"