Mrs. Moody was standing beside the bed, and I saw her double chin begin to work. If you have ever seen a fat woman, in a short red kimono holding a candle by, a bed, and crying, you know how helpless she looks.
"Don"t go, Minnie," she sniffled. "It would be too awful. If you are afraid you could take the poker."
"I"m not going!" I declared firmly. "It"s--it"s dratted idiocy, that"s all. Plain water would do well enough. There"s a lot of people think whisky is poison with water, anyhow. Where"s the pitcher?"
Oh, yes, I went. I put on some stockings of Mrs. Moody"s and a petticoat and a shawl and started. It was when I was in the pharmacy looking for the peppermint that I first noticed my joint again. A joint like that"s a blessing or a curse, the way you look at it.
I found the peppermint and some whisky and put them on the stairs. Then I took my pitcher and lantern and started for the spring-house. It was still snowing, and part of the time Mrs. Moody"s stockings were up to their knees. The wind was blowing hard, and when I rounded the corner of the house my lantern went out. I stood there in the storm, with the shawl flapping, thanking heaven I was a single woman, and about ready to go back and tell Mr. Moody what I thought of him when I looked toward the spring-house.
At first I thought it was afire, then I saw that the light was coming from the windows. Somebody was inside, with a big fire and all the lights going.
I"d had tramps sleep all night in the spring-house before, and once they left a card by the spring: "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink!" So I started out through the snow on a half run. By the bridge over Hope Springs Creek I slipped and fell, and I heard the pitcher smash to bits on the ice below. But as soon as I could move I went on again. That spring-house had been my home for a good many years, and the tramp didn"t live who could spend the night there if I knew it.
I realized then that I should have taken the poker. I went over cautiously to one of the windows, wading in deep snow to get there--and if you have ever done that in a pair of bedroom slippers you can realize the state of my mind--and looked in.
There were three chairs drawn up in a row in front of the fire, with my bearskin hearth-rug on them to make a couch, and my shepherd"s plaid shawl folded at one end for a pillow. And stretched on that with her long sealskin coat laid over her was Dorothy Jennings, Miss Patty"s younger sister! She was alone, as far as I could see, and she was leaning on her elbow with her cheek in her hand, staring at the fire.
Just then the door into the pantry opened and out came Mr. d.i.c.k himself.
"Were you calling, honey?" he said, coming over and looking down at her.
"You were such a long time!" says she, glancing up under her lashes at him. "I--I was lonely!"
"Bless you," says Mr. d.i.c.k, stooping over her. "What did I ever do without you?"
I could have told her a few things he did, but by that time it was coming over me pretty strong that here was the real d.i.c.ky Carter and that I had an extra one on my hands. The minute I looked at this one I knew that n.o.body but a blind man would mistake one for the other, and Mr. Thoburn wasn"t blind. I tell you I stood out in that snow-bank and perspired!
When I looked again Mr. d.i.c.k was on his knees by the row of chairs, and Miss Dorothy--Mrs. d.i.c.ky, of course--was running her fingers through his hair.
"Minnie used to keep apples and things in the pantry," he said, "but she must be growing stingy in her old age; there"s not a bite there."
"I"m not so very hungry when I have you!" cooed Mrs. d.i.c.ky.
"But you can"t eat me." He brought her hand down from his hair--I may be stingy in my old age, but I"ve learned a few things, and one is that a man feels like a fool with his hair rumpled, and I can tell the degree of a woman"s experience by the way she lets his top hair alone--and pretended to bite it, her hand, of course. "Although I could eat you,"
he said. "I"d like to take a bite out of your throat right there."
Well, it was no place for me unless they knew I was around. I waded around to the door and walked in, and there was a grand upsetting of the sealskin coat and my shepherd"s plaid shawl. Mr. d.i.c.k jumped to his feet and Mrs. d.i.c.k sat bolt upright and stared at me over the backs of the chairs.
"Minnie!" cried Mr. d.i.c.k. "As I"m a married man, it"s Minnie herself; Minnie, the guardian angel! The spirit of the place! Dorothy, don"t you remember Minnie?"
She came toward me with her hand out. She was a pretty little thing, not so beautiful as Miss Patty, but with a nice way about her.
"I"m awfully glad to see you again," she said. "Of course I remember--why you are hardly dressed at all! You must be frozen!"
I went over to the fire and emptied my bedroom slippers of snow. Then I sat down and looked at them both.
"Frozen!" repeated I; "I"m in a hot sweat. If you two children meant to come, why in creation didn"t you come in time?"
"We did," replied Mr. d.i.c.k, promptly. "We crawled under the wire fence into the deer park at five minutes to twelve. The will said "Be on the ground," and I was--flat on the ground!"
"We"ve had the police," I said, drearily enough. "I wouldn"t live through another day like yesterday for a hundred dollars."
"We were held up by the snow," he explained. "We got a sleigh to come over in, but we walked up the hill and came here. I don"t mind saying that my wife"s people don"t know about this yet, and we"re going to lay low until we"ve cooked up some sort of a scheme to tell them." Then he came over and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Poor old Minnie!" he said; "honest, I"m sorry. I"ve been a hard child to raise, haven"t I? But that"s all over, Minnie. I"ve got an incentive now, and it"s "steady, old boy," for me from now. You and I will run the place and run it right."
"I don"t want to!" I retorted, holding my bedroom slippers to steam before the fire. "I"m going to buy out Timmon"s candy store and live a quiet life, Mr. d.i.c.k. This place is making me old."
"Nonsense! We"re going to work together, and we"ll make this the busiest spot in seven counties. Dorothy and I have got it all planned out and we"ve got some corking good ideas." He put his hands in his pockets and strutted up and down. "It"s the day of advertising, you know, Minnie,"
he said. "You"ve got to have the goods, and then you"ve got to let people know you"ve got the goods. What would you say to a shooting-gallery in the bas.e.m.e.nt, under the reading-room?"
"Fine!" I said, with sarcasm, turning my slippers. "If things got too quiet that would wake them up a bit, and we could have a balloon ascension on Sat.u.r.days!"
"Not an ascension," said he, with my bitterness going right over his head. "Nothing sensational, Minnie. That"s the way with women; they"re always theatrical. But what"s the matter with a captive balloon, and letting fresh-air cranks sleep in a big basket bed--say, at five hundred feet? Or a thousand--a thousand would be better. The air"s purer."
"With a net below," says I, "in case they should turn over and fall out of bed! It"s funny n.o.body ever thought of it before!"
"Isn"t it?" exclaimed Mrs. d.i.c.k. "And we"ve all sorts of ideas.
d.i.c.k--Mr. Carter has learned of a brand new c.o.c.ktail for the men--"
"A lulu!" he broke in.
"And I"m going around to read to the old ladies and hold their hands--"
"You"ll have to chloroform them first," I put in. "Perhaps it would be better to give the women the c.o.c.ktail and hold the men"s hands."
"Oh, if you"re going to be funny!" Mr. d.i.c.k said savagely, "we"ll not tell you any more. I"ve been counting on you, Minnie. You"ve been here so long. You know," he said to his wife, "when I was a little shaver I thought Minnie had webbed-feet--she was always on the bank, like a duck.
You ARE a duck, Minnie," he says to me; "a nice red-headed duck! Now don"t be quirky and spoil everything."
I couldn"t be light-hearted to save my life.
"Your sister"s been wild all day," I told Mrs. d.i.c.k. "She got your letter to-day--yesterday--but I don"t think she"s told your father yet."
"What!" she screeched, and caught at the mantelpiece to hold herself.
"Not Pat!" she said, horrified, "and father! Here!"
Well, I listened while they told me. They hadn"t had the faintest idea that Mr. Jennings and Miss Patty were there at the sanatorium. The girl had been making a round of visits in the Christmas holidays, and instead of going back to school she"d sent a forged excuse and got a month off--she hadn"t had any letters, of course. The plan had been not to tell anybody but her sister until Mr. d.i.c.k had made good at the sanatorium.
"The idea was this, Minnie," said Mr. d.i.c.k. "Old--I mean Mr. Jennings is--is not well; he has a chronic indisposition--"
"Disposition, I call it," put in Mr. Jennings" daughter.
"And he"s apt to regard my running away with Dorothy when I haven"t a penny as more of an embezzlement than an elopement."
"Fiddle!" exclaimed Mrs. d.i.c.k. "I asked you to marry me, and now they"re here and have to spoil it all."
The thought of her father and his disposition suddenly overpowered her and she put her yellow head on the back of a chair and began to cry.
"I--I can"t tell him!" she sobbed. "I wrote to Pat,--why doesn"t Pat tell him? I"m going back to school."