"I wish you would," York declared.
His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I can"t get some things off my mind, and I"ve got to unload, that"s all."
"Go ahead. I"m your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile.
"That"s what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company.
Well, it"s that young lady at your house."
"I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested.
"Aw, shut up an" listen, now, will you? You know I"m a man of affairs here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel an" Gurrage, ba.s.s soloist in the Baptist choir, and--by the removal of the late deceased inc.u.mbent--also treasurer of the board of education of the New Eden schools--"
"All of which has what to do with the young lady from Philadelphia?"
York inquired, blandly.
"Well, listen. Here"s where tendin" to other folks"s business comes in.
A good-lookin" but inexperienced young lady comes out here from Philadelphia to find a claim left her by her deceased father. Out she goes to see said claim, payin" me good money for my best car--to ride in state over her grand province--of sand. And there wasn"t much change but a pearl-handle knife an" a b.u.t.ton-hook in her purse when she pays for the use of the car, even when I cut down half a buck on the regular hire. Her kind don"t know rightly how to save money till they "ain"t none to save. But the look in her eyes when she come steamin" in from that jaunt was more "n I could stand. York, she ain"t the first Easterner to be fooled by the promise of the West. Not the real West, you understand, but the sham face o" things put up back East. An" here she be in our midst. Every day she goes by after the mail gets in, looking like one of them blue pigeons with all the colors of a opal on their necks, and every day she goes back with her face white around the mouth. She"s walkin" on red-hot plowshares and never squealin"." Ponk paused, while York sat combing his fingers through his hair in silence.
"You know I"m some force on the school board, if I don"t know much. I ain"t there to teach anybody anything, but to see that such ignoramuses as me ain"t put up to teach children. Now we are shy one teacher in the high-school by the sudden resignation of the mathematics professor to take on underwritin" of life insurance in the city. Do you suppose she"d do it? Would it help any if we offered the place to Miss Swaim? It might help to keep her in this town."
"Ponk, your heart"s all right," York said, warmly. "It would help, I"m sure, if the lady is to stay here, for she is without means. She might or might not be willing to consider this opening. I can"t forecast women. But, Ponk, could she teach mathematics? You know she was probably fashionably finished--never educated--in some higher school. If it were embroidery, or something like that, it might be all right."
"Oh, you trust me to judge a few things, even if I"m not up on the gentle art of foreclosin" mortgages and such. I know that girl could teach mathematics. Anybody who can run a car like she can with as true a eye for curves an" distances, and a head for bossin" a machine that runs by engine power, couldn"t help but teach algebry and geometry just true as a right angle. But mebby," and Ponk"s countenance fell--"mebby she"d not want to, nor thank me noways, nor you, neither, for interfering in the matter. But I just thought I"d offer you the chance to mebby help her get on her feet. I don"t know, though. I"d hate to lose her good-will. I just couldn"t stand it."
"Ponk, I appreciate your motive," York said, feelingly. "I will take this up as soon as I can with Miss Swaim. You see, she"s our guest and I can"t very gracefully suggest that she seek employment. And, to be frank with you, my sister has become very fond of her--Laura misses a good many good things on account of her lameness--and we would like to keep her our guest indefinitely; but we can"t do that, of course."
"I don"t wonder your sister wants her. Of course, you don"t care nothin"
about it yourself. An" I"ll have the board hold the place awhile to see what "ll happen. I must soar back home now." And the little man left the office.
"Sound to the core, if he does strut when strangers come to town.
Especially ladies. That"s the only way some little men have of attracting attention to themselves. A kind-hearted man as ever came up the Sage Brush," York commented, as he watched his caller crossing the street to the hotel.
That evening Jerry Swaim sat alone on the porch of the Macpherson home, where shafts of silvery moonlight fell through the honeysuckle vines.
What York Macpherson would have called a fight between Jim Swaim"s chin and Lesa"s eyes was going on in Jerry"s soul this evening. Since her visit to her claim life had suddenly become a maze of perplexities. She had never before known a care that could not have been lifted from her by others, except the one problem of leaving Philadelphia, and the solution of that might have been the prank of a headstrong child, prompted by self-will and love of adventure, rather than by the grave decision of well-poised judgment. Heretofore in all her ventures a safe harbor had been near to shelter her. Now she was among the breakers and the storm was on.
For the first time in her memory her purse was light and there was no visible source from which to refill it. She was too well-bred to tax the hospitality of the Macpherson home, where she was made to feel herself so welcome. To return to Philadelphia meant to write and ask for the expenses of transportation. She had burned too many bridges behind her to meet the humility of such a request just yet; for that meant the subjection of her whole future to Jerusha Darby"s will, and against such subjection Jerry"s spirit rebelled mightily.
Every day for two weeks the girl had gone to the post-office with an eager, expectant face. Every evening she had asked York Macpherson if he had heard anything from Philadelphia since her coming, the pretended indifference in her tone hardly concealing the longing behind the query.
But not a line from the East had come to New Eden for her.
On the afternoon of this day the postmaster had hurried through the letters because he, too, had caught the meaning of the hunger in the earnest eyes watching him through the little window among the letter-boxes. The mail was heavy to-day, but the distributer paused with one letter, long enough to look at it carefully, and then, leaving his work half finished, he hurried to the window.
"Here"s something for you. Aren"t you Miss Swaim?" he inquired, courteously, as he pushed the letter toward Jerry"s waiting hand.
He had lived in Kansas since the pa.s.sage of the homestead law. He knew the mark of homesickness on the face of a late arrival. Something in the cultivation of a new land puts a gentler culture into the soul. Out of the common heartache, the common sacrifice, the common need, have grown the open-hearted, keen-sighted, fine-fibered folk of the big and generous Middle West, the very heart of which, to the Kansan, is Kansas.
The postmaster turned quickly back to his task. He did not see the girl"s face; he only felt that she walked away on air.
At York Macpherson"s office she hesitated a moment, then hurried inside.
York was in his private room, but the door to it stood open, and Jerry caught sight of a woman within.
"I beg your pardon." She blushed confusedly. "I don"t want to intrude; I only wanted to stop long enough to read a letter from home."
Jerry"s genuine embarra.s.sment was very pretty and appealing, but York was shrewd enough to know that it came from the letter in her hand, not from any connection with his office or its occupants. Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, however, who happened to be the woman in the inner room, did not see the incident with York"s eyes.
"Just come in here, Miss Swaim, and make yourself at home," York insisted. "Come, Mrs. Bahrr, we can finish our talk for to-day in one place as well as another. My sister and I are going across the river to spend the evening, so it will be late to-morrow before I can get those papers ready for you."
Mrs. Bahrr rose reluctantly, hooking her sharp eyes into the girl as she pa.s.sed out. What she noted was a very white face where the color of the cheeks seemed burned in, and big, shining eyes. Of course the broad-brimmed chiffon hat with beaded medallions, the beaded parasol to match, and the beaded hand-bag of the same hues did not escape her eyes, especially the pretty hand-bag.
York closed the door behind the two, leaving Jerry in quiet possession of the inner room, while he seated Mrs. Bahrr in the outer office and engaged in the business that had brought her to him. He knew that she would be torn between two desires: one to hurry through and leave the office, and so be able to start a story of leaving Jerry and himself in a questionable situation; the other to stay and see the fair caller as she came out, and to learn, if possible, why she had come, and to enjoy her confusion in finding a woman still engaging York"s time. Either thing would be worth while to Mrs. Bahrr, and while she hesitated York decided for her.
"I"ll keep her with me, the old Long Tongue. Yea, she shall roost here in my coop till the little girl gets clear to "Castle Cluny." She sha"n"t run off and overtake her prey and then cackle over it later.
Jerry has committed the unpardonable sin of being young and pretty and good; the Big Dipper will make her pay for the personal insult."
In the midst of their business conversation Jerry Swaim came from the inner room, and with a half-audible word of thanks left the office. Mrs.
Bahrr"s back was toward the door, and, although she turned with a catlike quickness, she failed to see anything worth while except to get another good look at the hand-bag. Something told York Macpherson that the message in her letter held a tragical meaning for the fair-faced girl who had waited so eagerly for its coming.
At dinner that evening York was at his best.
"I must make our girl keep an appet.i.te," he argued. "Nothing matters if a dinner still carries an appeal. By George! I"ve got to do my best, or I"ll lose my own taste for what Laura can set up if I don"t look out. We are all getting thin except Laura. Even Ponk is losing his strut a bit.
And why? Oh, confound it! there is plenty of time to ask questions in July and August when the town has its dull season."
So York came to dinner in one of his rarest moods, a host to make one"s worries flee away.
Jerry had reread her letter in the seclusion of her room at "Castle Cluny." It did not need a third reading, for every word seemed graven on the reader"s brain. In carefully typewritten form, with only the signature in the writer"s own hand, it ran:
MY ALWAYS DEAR JERRY,--I should have written you days ago, but I did not get back to "Eden" until you had been gone a week. We are all so eager to hear how you are, and to know about the Swaim estate which you went to find. But we are a hundred times more eager to see your face here again. I wish you were here to-night, for I have been in the depths of doubt and indecision, from which your presence would have lifted me. I hope I have done the right thing, now it is done, and I"ll wait to hear from you more eagerly than I ever waited for a letter before. Yet I feel sure you will approve of my course after you get over your surprise and have taken time to think carefully.
I had a long heart-to-heart talk with Aunt Jerry to-day. Don"t smile and say a purse-to-purse talk. Full purses don"t talk to empty ones. They speak a different language. But this to-day was a real confidence game as you might say. I received the confidence if I didn"t die as game as you would wish me to.
To be plain, little cousin mine, I want you dreadfully to come back, so much so that I have decided to give up painting for the present and take a clerkship in the bank with Uncle Cornie"s partners. I can see your eyes open wide with surprise and disappointment when I tell you that Aunt Jerry has really converted me to her way of thinking. My hours are easy and the pay is good. Not so much as I had hoped to have some day from my brush and may have yet, if this work doesn"t make me fat and lazy, for there is really very little responsibility about it, just a decent accuracy. This makes so many things possible, you see, and then I have the satisfaction of knowing I am doing a service for Aunt Jerry--and, to be explicit--to put myself where I shall not have to worry over things when you come home.
So I"m happy now. And when you get here I shall begin to live again. I seem to be staying here now. Staying and waiting for something. n.o.body really lives at "Eden" without little Jerry to keep us all alive and keyed up. n.o.body to take the big car over the bluff road, beautiful as it is--for you know I"m too big a coward to drive it and to do a hundred things I"d do if you were here to brace me up.
Write me at once, little cousin, and say you will come home just as soon as you have seen all of that G.o.d-forsaken country you care to look at. And meantime I"ll write as often as you want me to. I think of you every day and remember you in my prayers every night. You remember I told you I couldn"t pray out in Kansas. May the Lord be good to you and make you love Him more than you think you do now, and bring you safe and soon to our beautiful "Eden."
Yours,
EUGENE.
The sands of the blowout on Jerry"s claim seared not more hotly her fresh young hopes of prosperity, through her own effort and control, than this sudden change from the artist, with his dreams of beauty and power, to the man of easy clerical duty with a good salary and small responsibility. Of course Aunt Jerry had been back of it all, but so would Aunt Jerry have been back of her--if she had given up.
Jerry sat for a long time staring at the missive where it had fallen on the floor, the typewritten neatness of the blue lettering only a blur to her eyes. For she was back at "Eden," on the steep but beautiful bluff road, with Eugene afraid to drive the big Darby car. She was in the rose-arbor looking up to see that faint line of indecision in the dear, handsome face. She was in the "Eden" parlor under the soft light of rose-tinted lamps, facing Aunt Jerry and sure of herself, but catching again that wavering line of uncertainty on Eugene Wellington"s countenance, and her own vague fear--unguessed then--that he might not resist in the supreme test.
But idols die hard. Eugene was her idol. He couldn"t die at once. He was so handsome, so true, so gracious, so filled with a love of beautiful things. How could she understand the temptation to the soul of an artist in such lovely settings as "Eden" offered? It was all Aunt Jerry"s fault, and he would overcome it. He must.
It was so easy to blame Aunt Jerry. It made everything clear. He had yielded to her cleverness and never known he was being ruled. With all her flippant, careless youth, inexperience, and selfishness, Jerry was a keener reader of human nature than her lack of training could account for. She knew just the lines Aunt Jerry had laid, the net spread for Eugene"s feet. But--Oh, things must come out all right. He would change.
This one thought rang up and down her scale of thinking, as if repeating would make true what Jerry knew was false.