It was not York Macpherson, but the little, fuzzy, shabby figure of old Fishin" Teddy who shuffled inside and closed the door, demanding in a quavering squeak to be heard.
Ponk gave a start of surprise; Lenwell was annoyed; the third man was indifferent now, being safe, anyhow. Stellar Bahrr and the superintendent stared in amazement, but Jerry"s face was wonderful to see.
""Ain"t I got a right to say a word here, gentlemen?" old Teddy asked, looking at Ponk.
"If it"s on the subject of this meeting, yes. If it"s anything about fish, either in the Sage Brush or in Kingussie Creek, no. This really ain"t no place for fish stories. We"re overstocked with "em right now, till this hotel and gurrage will have a "ancient and a fishlike smell"
as the Good Book says, for a generation."
"I just got wind of what was on up here. A man from your town come down to see me on business, an" he bringed me up."
"York Macpherson"s the only man I ever knew had business with old Teddy.
Lord be praised!" Ponk thought.
"I got a little testimony myself to offer here, for the one that"s bein"
blackmailed. I"ll tell it fast as I can," Teddy declared.
"Take your time an" get it straight. None of us is in a hurry now," Ponk a.s.sured him.
Then the Teddy Bear, without looking at Jerry, gave testimony:
"Back in Pennsylvany, where I come from, in the Winnowoc country, I knowed Jim Swaim, this young lady"s father. I wasn"t no fisherman then.
I was a hard-workin", well-meanin", honest man. My name was Hans Theodore--and somethin" else I have no use for since I come to the Sage Brush in Kansas."
He hesitated and looked down at his scaly brown paws and shabby clothes.
"I ain"t telling this "cause I want to, but "cause I want to do justice to Jim Swaim"s girl. Jim was my friend an" helped me a lot of ways. He was a hard-fisted business man, but awfully human with human bein"s; an"
his daughter"s jes" like him, seems to me."
Jerry"s cheeks were swept with the bloom of "Eden" roses as she sat with her eyes fixed on the old man. To her in that moment came a vision of Uncle Cornie in the rose-arbor when the colorless old man had pleaded with her to become as her father had been.
"I got into trouble back there. This is a secret session, hain"t it?"
The old man hesitated again.
"Yes, dead secret," Ponk a.s.sured him. "Nothin" told outside of here before it"s first told inside, which is unusual in such secret proceedings, so you are among friends. Go on."
Stellar Bahrr sat with her eyes piercing the old man like daggers, while his own faded yellow-brown eyes drooped with a sorrowful expression.
"I won"t say how it happened, but I got mixed up in some stealin"
sc.r.a.pe--that"s why I changed my name or, ruther, left off the last of it. I"d gone to the Pen--though ever" sc.r.a.p I ever stole, or its money value, was actually returned to them that had lost it. Jim Swaim stood by me, helpin" me through, an" I paid him as I earnt it. Then he give me money to get started here, an" befriended me every way, just "cause it was in him. I"ve lived out here on the Sage Brush alone "cause I ain"t fit to live with folks. But when the old _mainy_, as you say of crazy folk, comes, why, things is missin" up in town. They land in my shack sometimes, an" sometimes I"m honest enough to bring "em back when I can do it. I"m the one that hangs around in the shadders, an" if you ketch sight of strange men at side doors, Mrs. Bahrr, it"s me. An" when this Jerry Swaim (I knowed her when she was a baby; I carried her in my arms "cross the Winnowoc once, time of a big flood up in Pennsylvany)--when her purseful of money was stole, three years ago, an" she comes down to my shack and finds it all there, why, she done by me then jus" like her own daddy "d "a" done, she never told on me at all. An" she hain"t told all these years, and wa"n"t goin" to tell on me now. I don"t know what you mean "bout these stories on her. She never done nothin" to be ashamed of in her life. "Tain"t in her family to be ashamed. They dunno how. If they"s blame for stealin" in New Eden, though, jus" lay it on old Fishin" Teddy. You "quit her now."
The old man"s voice quavered as he squeaked out his words, and he shuffled aside, to be less in evidence in the parlor, where he had for the one time in his life been briefly the central figure.
The silence that followed his words was broken by Jerry"s clear, low voice. Her face was beautiful in the soft light there. To Ponk she had never seemed so adorable before, not even on still Sabbath afternoons in the quiet corner of the cemetery where they talked as friends of mother-love and G.o.d, and Life after life.
"Friends, this old hermit fisherman is telling you a falsehood to try to shield me because of some favor my father showed him in the years gone by. If he is not willing to say more, to tell you the real truth, he will force me to say to you that I am the guilty one after all. I cannot let him make such a sacrifice for me."
She spoke as though she were explaining the necessity for changing cars in Chicago in order to reach Montreal. Old Fishin" Teddy lifted his clubby brown hands in protest.
""Tain"t so, an" "tain"t right," he managed to make the words come out--thin and trembling words, shaking like palsied things.
"No, it isn"t so, and it isn"t right, and he must not bear a disgrace he doesn"t deserve. I"ll do it for him," Jerry said, smiling upon the shabby old man--a common grub of the Sage Brush Valley.
There is nothing grander in human history, nothing which can more deeply touch the common human heart of us all, than the lesson of self-sacrifice taught on Mount Calvary. From the thief on the cross, down through all the centuries, has the blessed power of that Spirit softened the hearts of evil-doers, great or small. Jerry had not once turned toward Stellar Bahrr since the entrance of Fishin" Teddy. When she had ceased speaking, the silence of the room was broken by the town busybody"s whining tone:
"They ain"t neither one of "em a thief, Mr. Ponk. It"s me. They sha"n"t do no such sacrificing thing."
The silence of the moment before was a shout compared to the dead silence now.
"Yes, it"s me. I was born that way, an" it just seems I can"t help it.
I"ve done all the liftin", I guess, that"s been done in this town a"most--"tain"t so much, of course; but I ain"t mean clear through, an"
I jus" wouldn"t ever rest in my grave if I don"t speak now. I thought I"d always hide it, but I know I never will."
Old Teddy shrank back in a heap on his chair, while all of the rest except Jerry Swaim sat as if thunderstruck.
"I"m goin" clear through with it, now I"ve begun. Maybe I"ll be a better woman if I am disgraced forever by it." Mrs. Bahrr"s voice grew steadier and her eyes were fixed on the ground.
"Hans Theodore--the last part of his name is Bahrr--he"s my husband. It was for my sins that he left Pennsylvany. Jim Swaim saved us from a lot of disgrace, and persuaded us to come West an" start over, an" helped us a lot. I couldn"t break myself of wrong-doing just by changing climate, though. We tried Indiany first an" failed, then we come to S"liny, Kansas, next an" then we come on here. An" at last Theodore give me up an" went off alone an" changed his name. Mr. Lenwell"s folks here is distant relatives, but they never would "a" knowed Theodore. Didn"t know he"d never got a divorce, and never stop supportin" me; like he"d said when we was married, he"d "keep me unto death," you know; and he"d come to see me once in a while, to be sure I wasn"t needin" nothin". I jus"
worked along at one thing or another, an" Teddy earnt money an" paid it in to York Macpherson, like a pension, an" he paid me, York did. But Teddy wouldn"t never live with me, though he never told York why. An"
when I took things--"
Mrs. Bahrr paused and looked at Jerry deprecatingly.
"Like that silver cup I saw down at the deep hole?" Jerry asked, encouragingly.
"Yes, like that. I seen you down there that day. I was the woman that pa.s.sed your car--"
"I know it," Jerry said, "I remember your sunbonnet and gray-green dress. I"ve often seen both since."
"Yes, an" you remember, too, the time I come out on the porch sudden when you first come here, an" made you promise not to tell." Mrs. Bahrr"s voice quavered now.
"An" "cause I knowed Teddy"d bring that right back to Macpherson"s and you"d remember it, an" "cause you were Jim Swaim"s child that knowed my fault an" made me do what I didn"t want to do, even if I was in the wrong, I hated you an" vowed to myself I"d fix you. It was me slipped into your room an" stuck Laury"s purse into your beaded hand-bag, an" it was me took your roll of money from your own purse. Teddy took it away, though, that very night. Teddy he"d take whatever I picked up an"
pretend he"d sell it, but he"d git it back to "em some way if he could; an" he"s saved an" sold fish an" lived a hermit life an" never told on me. He"s slipped up to town to git me to put back or let him put back what I was tempted to pilfer, "cause it seemed I just couldn"t help it.
York"s been awful patient with me, too. But I can"t set here an" be a woman and see Teddy shieldin" me, a hypocrite, an" her shieldin" him, an" not tellin" on me, like wimmen does on wimmen generally, an" not make a clean breast of it. An" if you"ll not tell on me, an" all help me, I"ll jus" try once more--"
"Won"t anything go out of this room except what you tell yourself, Stellar Bahrr," Ponk said, gravely. "Now you go home an" begin to act better and think better, an" this"ll be a heap cleaner town forever after. An" if you live right the rest of your days you "ll keep on livin" after you"re dead, like mother does. The charges of this case is all settled. I congratulate you, Miss Fair Defendant. You are a Joan of Arc, an" a Hannah Dustin, an Boaz"s Ruth, an" Barbara Fritchie, all in one."
While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin" Teddy slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where Ponk"s best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the deep hole in the Sage Brush.
As Jerry pa.s.sed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her--the three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town"s best, who had gathered to congratulate Jerry and to a.s.sure her of their pride in her ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden.
With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split disappeared at one breath and pa.s.sed into history.
When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the pa.s.sing of Jerusha Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long.
And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, saying, softly:
"Oh, I"m so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he"ll find me ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than this weary desert."