Mary thanked him cordially, and pa.s.sed on into the mill: the old man looked after her with a very friendly glance in his keen blue eyes.
"She"s good stuff, May is!" he murmured. "Good stuff, like her mother.
"Folks is like rags, however you look at "em. Take a good linen rag, no matter how black it is, and put it through the washers, and the bleachers, and the cutters, and all the time it"s gettin" whiter and whiter, and sweeter and sweeter, the more you bang it round; till at last you have bank-note paper, and write to the Queen of England on it, if you"re a mind to, and she won"t have none better. And take jute or shoddy, and the minute you touch to wash it, it c.o.c.kles up, or drops to pieces, and it ain"t no good to mortal man. Jest like folks, I tell ye! and May and her mother"s pure linen clippin"s, if ever I see "em."
Forewarned is forearmed, and Mary met quietly the buzz of inquiry that greeted her when she entered the rag-room. The girls crowded round her, the men were not far behind. To each and all Mary told the simple truth, trying not to say a word too much. "The tongue is a fire!" her mother"s favorite text, was constantly in her mind, and she was determined that no ill word should be spoken of Mr. Gordon, if she could help it. Almost every one in the mill liked and respected the "Old Man;" but the human mind loves a sensation, and Lena and Hitchc.o.c.k had told their story so vividly the day before that Mary"s account seemed tame and dull beside it; and some of the hands preferred to think that "Mame Denison was a sly one, and warn"t goin" to let on, fear some one"d git ahead of her."
Lena, who came shortly, in her usual dress, fostered this feeling, not from malice, but from sheer love of excitement and gossip. In spite of Mary"s efforts, the excitement increased, and when, late in the afternoon, word came that Mary Denison was wanted in the office, the rag-room was left fairly bubbling with wild surmise.
Mr. Gordon did not see Mary when she came in. He was standing at his desk, with an open letter in his hand, and his face was disturbed as he spoke to the senior clerk.
"Myers, it is as I feared about that bag of rags from Blankton. You have kept it carefully tied up, and close by the chlorides, as I told you?"
Myers, a clear-eyed, honest-browed man, looked troubled.
"I did, sir!" he said. "I have looked at the bag every time I pa.s.sed that way, and have cautioned every one in the mill not to go near it, besides keeping the shed-gate locked; but this morning I found that it had been tampered with, and evidently something taken out. I hope there is nothing wrong, sir!"
George Gordon struck his hand heavily on the desk. "Wrong!" he repeated. "There have been two fatal cases of smallpox in Blankton, and that bag has been traced to the house where they were."
There was a moment of deathly silence. He went on:
"I suspected something wrong, the moment you told me of things that looked new and good; but I did not want to raise a panic in the mill, when there might be some other explanation. I thought I had taken every precaution--what is that?"
He turned quickly, hearing a low cry behind him. Mary Denison was standing with clasped hands, her face white with terror.
"Mary!" said Mr. Gordon, in amazement. "You--surely you have had nothing to do with this?"
"No, sir!" cried Mary. "Oh, no, Mr. Gordon, indeed I have not. But I fear--I fear I know who has. Oh, poor thing! poor Lena!"
Then, with an impulse she could not explain, she turned suddenly upon Hitchc.o.c.k.
"Who let Lena Laxen into the yard last night?" she cried. "She could not have got in without help. You had a key--you were talking to her after I left her yesterday. Oh! look at him, Mr. Gordon! Mr. Myers, look at that man!"
But Hitchc.o.c.k did not seem to hear or heed her. He sat crouched over his desk, his face a greenish-gray color, his eyes staring, his hands clutching the woodwork convulsively; an awful figure of terror, that gasped and cowered before them. Then suddenly, with a cry that rattled in his throat, he dashed from his seat and ran bareheaded out of the door.
Myers started up to pursue him, but Mr. Gordon held up his hand.
"Let him go!" he said, sternly. "It may be that he carries his punishment with him. In any case we shall see him no more."
Quickly and quietly he gave Myers his orders; to take Lena Laxen to her home, notify the physician, and proclaim a strict quarantine; to burn the infected rags without loss of time; to have every part of the shed where the fatal bag had stood thoroughly disinfected. When the man had hastened away, Mr. Gordon turned to Mary, and his stern face lightened.
"Do not distress yourself, Mary," he said, kindly. "It may be that Lena will escape the infection; it seems that she only had the garment on a few minutes; and you did all you could, I am sure, to dissuade her from this piece of fatal and dishonest folly."
"Oh! I might have said more!" cried Mary, in an agony of self-reproach. "I meant to go into her house this morning, and try to make her hear reason; it might not have been too late then."
"Thank Heaven you did not!" said Mr. Gordon, gravely. "The air of the house was probably already infected. No one save the doctor must go near that house till all danger of the disease developing is over."
He then told Mary briefly why he had sent for her. Finding that he could not go to Boston himself at present, as he had planned, he had sent the brooch by express to a jeweller whom he knew, and would be able to tell her in a few days whether it was of real value or not.
Mary thanked him, but his words fell almost unheeded on her ears.
What were jewels or money, in the face of a danger so awful as that which now threatened her friend, and, through her, the whole village?
Days of suspense followed. From the moment when the weeping, agonized Lena was taken home and put, tenderly, pityingly, in her mother"s hands (it was Mr. Gordon himself who had done this, refusing to let any other perform the duty), an invisible line was drawn about the Laxen cottage, which few dared pa.s.s. The doctor came and went, reporting all well to the eager questioners. Mr. Gordon called daily to inquire, and every evening Mary Denison stole to the door with a paper or magazine for Lena and her mother, or some home-made delicacy that might please the imprisoned girl. Lena was usually at the window, sometimes defiant and bl.u.s.tering, sometimes wild with fright, sometimes again crying for sheer loneliness and vexation; but always behind her was her mother"s pale face of dread, and her thin voice saying that Lena was "as well as common, thank ye," and she and Mary would exchange glances, and Mary would go away drawing breath, and thanking the Lord that another day was gone.
So on, for nine anxious days; but on the tenth, when Mary looked up at the window, the mother stood there alone, crying; and the doctor, coming out of the house at the moment, told Mary harshly to keep away from him, and not to come so near the house.
In the dreadful days that followed, his people learned to know George Gordon as they had never known him before. The grave, silent man, who never spoke save when speech was necessary, was now among them every day, going from room to room with cheerful greetings, encouraging, heartening, raising the drooping spirits, and rebuking sharply the croakers, who foretold with dismal unction a general epidemic. While taking every possible precaution, he made light of the actual danger, and by his presence and influence warded off the panic which might have brought about the dreaded result.
As a matter of fact, there were no more cases in the mill; and Lena herself had the terrible disease more lightly than any one had dared to hope. The doctor, hurrying through back ways and alleys to change his clothes and take his bath of disinfectants, was hailed from back gates and windows at every step; and he never failed to return a cheery "Doing well! out of it soon now! No, not much marked, only a few spots here and there."
This was when he left the quarantined house; but when he sought it, he might be seen to stop at one gate and another, picking up here a jar, there a bowl, here again a paper bag; till by the time he reached the Laxen gate he stood out all over with packages like a summer Santa Claus.
"There ain"t anybody goin" to starve round here, if they _have_ got the smallpox!" was the general verdict, voiced by James Gregory, and when he added, for the benefit of the mill-yard, that he had heard Mr. Gordon order ice-cream, oranges, and oysters, all at once, for Lena, a growl of pleasure went round, which deepened into a hearty "What"s the matter with the Old Man? _he"s_ all right!"
At length, one happy day, Mary Denison met Mr. Gordon at the Laxens"
gate, and heard the good news that Lena was sitting up; that in a day or two now the quarantine would be taken off, the house disinfected, and Lena back in her place at the mill. The manager looked with satisfaction at Mary"s beaming face of happiness; then, as she was turning away to spread the good tidings, he said:
"Wait a moment, Mary! I have some other news for you. Have you forgotten the brooch that you found in the Blue Egyptians?"
The color rushed to Mary"s face, and Mr. Gordon had his answer.
"Because," he added, "I have not forgotten, though you might well think I had done so. All this sad business has delayed matters, but now I have it all arranged. I am ready to-day, Mary, to give you either the brooch itself, or--what I think will be better--five hundred dollars, the sum I find it to be worth. Yes, my child, I am speaking the truth! The stones are fine ones, and the Boston jeweller offers you that sum for them. Well, Mary, have you nothing to say? What, crying? this will never do!"
But Mary had nothing to say, and she was crying, because she could not help it. Presently she managed to murmur something about "Too much! too great kindness--not fair for her to have it all!" but Mr. Gordon cut her short.
"Certainly you are to have it all, every penny of it! Finding"s having! that is paper-mill law; ask James Gregory if it is not!
There comes James this moment; go and tell him of your good fortune, and let him bring you up to my house this evening to get the money.
"But, Mary,"--he glanced at a letter in his hand, and his face, which had been bright with kindness and pleasure, grew very grave,--"there is something else for you to tell James, and all the hands. James. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k died yesterday, of malignant smallpox!"
[Footnote 1: The main incidents in this story are founded on fact.]
LITTLE BENJAMIN
"Then is little Benjamin their ruler."
"I THINK the kitty wants to come in," said Mother Golden. "I hear him crying somewhere. Won"t you go and let him in, Adam?"
Adam laid down his book and went out; the whole family looked up cheerfully, expecting to see Aladdin, the great Maltese cat, enter with his stately port. There was a pause; then Adam came back with a white, scared face, and looked at his father without speaking.
"What is the matter, my son?" asked Father Golden.
"Is Kitty hurt?" asked Mother Golden, anxiously.
"Was it that dog of Jackson"s?" cried Lemuel, Mary, Ruth, and Joseph.