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diff --git a/23699.txt b/23699.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c02c935 --- /dev/null +++ b/23699.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1145 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Abijah's Bubble, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Abijah's Bubble + 1909 + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23699] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABIJAH'S BUBBLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +ABIJAH'S BUBBLE + +By F. Hopkinson Smith + +1909 + + +Ezekiel Todd, her dry, tight-fisted, lean father, had named her, bawling +it out so loud that the more suitable, certainly the more euphonious, +"Evangeline," proffered in a timid whisper by her faded and somewhat +romantic mother, was completely smothered. + +"I baptize thee, Evang--" began the minister, when Ezekiel's voice rose +clear: + +"Abijah, I tell ye, Parson--A-b-i-j-a-h--Abijah!" And Abijah it was. + +The women were furious. + +"Jes' like Zeke Todd. He's too ornery to live. I come mighty near +speakin' right out, and hadn't been that Martha held on to me I would. +Call her Abbie, for short, Mrs. Todd," exclaimed Deacon Libby's wife, +"and shame him." + +Abbie never minded it. She was too little to remember, she always said, +and there were few people in the village of Taylorsville present at the +christening who did. + +Old Si Spavey, however, never forgot. "You kin call yourself Abbie if +you choose," he used to say, "and 'tain't none o' my business, but I +was in the meetin'-house and heard Zeke let drive, and b'gosh it sounded +just like a buzz-saw strikin' the butt-end of a log. 'Abijah! _Abijah!_ +he hollered. Shet Parson Simmons up same's a steel trap. Gosh, but it +was funny!" + +Only twice since the christening had she to face the consequences of +her father's ill temper. This was after his death, when the needs of +the poor mother made a small mortgage imperative and she must sign as a +witness. It came with a certain shock, but there was no help for it, and +she went through the ordeal bravely, dotting the "i" and giving a little +flourish to the tail of the "h". + +The second time was when she signed her application for the position of +postmistress of the village. The big mill-owner, Hiram Taylor, brought +her the paper. + +"Got to put it all in, Miss Abbie," he said with a laugh. "Shut your +eyes and sign it and then forget it. Awful, ain't it?--but that's the +law, and there ain't no way of getting round it, I guess." + +Hiram Taylor had left the village years before, rather suddenly, some +had thought, when he was a strapping young fellow of twenty-two or +three, and had moved West and stayed West until he came back the year +before with a wife and a houseful of children. Then the lawyers in the +village got busy, and pretty soon some builders came down from Boston, +only fifty miles away, and then a lot of bricklayers; and some cars were +switched off on the siding, loaded with lumber and lath and brick, and +next a train-load of machinery, and so the mills were running again +with Hiram sole owner and in full charge. One of the first things he did +after his arrival--the following morning, really--was to look up Abbie's +mother. He gave a littie start when he saw how shabby the cottage +looked; no paint for years--steps rotting--window-blinds broken, with a +hinge loose. He gave a big one when a thin, hollow-chested woman, gray +and spare, opened the door at his knock. + +"Hiram!" she gasped, and the two went inside, and the door was shut. + +All she said when Abbie came home from school--she was teaching that +year--was: "The new mill-owner came to see me. His name's Taylor." + +That same day a heavy-set man with gray hair and beard, and jet-black +eyebrows shading two kindly eyes, got out of his wagon, hitched his +horse to a post in front of the school-house and stepped to Abbie's +desk. + +"I'm Hiram Taylor, up to the mills. Going to send one of my girls to +you to-morrow and thought I'd drop in." Then he looked around and said: +"Want another coat of whitewash on these walls, don't you, and--and +a new stove? This don't seem to be drawin' like it ought to. If them +trustees won't get ugly about it, I got a new stove up to the mill I +don't want, and I'll send it down." And he did. The trustees shrugged +their shoulders, but made no objections. If Hiram Taylor wanted to throw +his money away it was none of their business. Abbie Todd never said she +was cold--not as they had "heard on." + +When the new school building was finished--a brick structure with stone +trimmings, steam-heated, and varnished desks and seats--the craze for +the new and up-to-date so dominated the board that they paid Abbie a +month's salary in advance and then replaced her with a man graduate from +Concord. Abbie took her dismissal as a matter of course. Nothing good +ever lasted long. When she went up one step she always slid back two. It +had been that way all her life. + +Hiram heard of it and came rattling into the village, where he expressed +himself at a town meeting in language distinguished for its clearness +and force. The result was Abbie's application for the position of +postmistress. + +This time he didn't consult the trustees or anybody else. He wrote a +private note to the Postmaster-General, who was his friend, and the +appointment came by return mail. + +Mr. Taylor would often chat with her through the little window with +which she held converse with the public--he often came himself for his +mail--but she made no mention of her state of mind. She was earning her +living, and she was for the time content. He had helped her and she was +grateful--more than this it was not her habit to dwell upon. One thing +she was convinced of: she wouldn't keep the position long. + +Her mother knew her misgivings, and so did a small open wood fire in +the sitting-room. Many a night the two would croon together. The +mother shrivelled and faded; Abbie herself being over thirty--not +so fresh-looking as she had been--not so pretty--never had been very +pretty. Her mother knew, too, how hard she had always struggled to do +something better; how she had studied drawing at the normal school when +she was preparing to be a teacher; and how she had spent weeks in the +elaboration of wall-paper patterns, which she had sent to the Decorative +Art Society in Boston, only to have them returned to her in the same +wrapper in which they had been mailed, with the indorsement "not +suitable." That's why she didn't think she was going to be postmistress +long. Far into the night these talks would continue-long after the other +neighbors had gone to bed--nine o'clock maybe--sometimes as late as +ten--an unheard-of thing in Taylorsville, where everybody was up at +daylight. + +Then one day an extraordinary thing happened--extraordinary so far as +her modest post-office was concerned. A poster appeared on the wall of +her office--a huge card, big as the top of a school desk, bearing in +large type this legend: "Rock Creek Copper Company. Keep & Co., Agents," +and at the bottom, in small type, directions as to the best way of +securing the stock before the lists were closed. She had noticed the +name of the company emblazoned on many of the communications addressed +to people in the village--the richer ones--but here it was in cold +type--"hot type," for that matter, for it was in flaming red--on the +wall, in front of her window. + +Abbie lifted her head in surprise when she saw what had been done +without even "By your leave." She had found auction sales, sheriff's +notices and tax warnings opposite her window, but never copper mines. +The longer she looked at it the better she liked it. There was a cheery +bit of color in its blazing letters, and she was partial to bits of +color. That's why she kept plants all winter in the little sitting-room +at home, and nursed one cactus that gave out a scarlet bloom once in so +many months. + +It was Miss Maria Furgusson, of Boston--summer boarder at the next +cottage; second floor, six dollars a week, including washing--that +revived, kept alive, in fact, fanned to fever heat, Abbie's first +impression of the poster. Maria called for her mail, and the intimacy +had gone so far that before the week was out "Miss Todd" had been +replaced by "Abbie" and then "Ab," and Miss Furgusson by "Maria"--the +postmistress being too dignified for further abbreviation. + +"Oh, there's our lovely copper mine--where did you get it? Who put it +up?" + +Maria was a shirt-waisted young woman with a bang and a penetrating +voice. She had charge of the hosiery counter in a department store and +could call "Cash" in tones that brought instant service. This, with her +promptness, had endeared her to many impatient customers--especially +those from out of town who wanted to catch trains. It was through one +of these "hayseeds" that she secured board at so reasonable a price in +Taylorsville during her vacation. + +"What do you know about it?" inquired Abbie. Such things were Greek to +her. + +"Know? I've got twenty shares, and I'm going to have money to burn +before long." + +Abbie bent her head, and took in as much of Miss Furgusson as she could +see through the square hole in her window. + +"Who gave it to you?" The idea of a girl like Maria ever having money +enough to buy anything of that kind never occurred to her. + +"Nobody; I bought it; paid two dollars a share for it and now it's up +to three, and Mr. Slathers, our floor-walker, says it's going to +twenty-five. I've got a profit of twenty dollars on mine now." + +Abbie made a mental calculation; twenty dollars was a considerable part +of her month's salary. + +"And everybody in our store has got some. Mr. Slathers has made eight +hundred dollars, and I know for sure that Miss Henders is going to leave +the cloak department and set up a typewriting place, because she told me +so; she's got a brother in the feed business who staked her." + +"Staked her? What's that?" + +"Loaned her the money," answered Maria, a certain pity in her voice for +one so green and countrified. + +"How do you get it?" Abbie's eyes were shining like the disks of a brass +letter scale and almost as large--they were still upon Maria. + +"The money?" + +"No, the stock." + +"Why, send Mr. Keep the money and he buys the stock and sends you back +the certificate. Want to see mine? I've got it pinned in--Here it is." + +Abbie opened the door of the glass partition and beckoned to the +shopgirl. She rarely allowed visitors inside, but this one seemed to +hold the key to a new world. + +The girl slipped her fingers inside her shirtwaist and drew out a square +piece of paper bearing the inscription of the poster in big letters. At +the bottom of the paper a section of cement drain-pipe poured forth a +steady stream of water, and the whole was underlined by a motto meaning +"Peace and Plenty"--of water, no doubt. + +Abbie looked at the beautifully engraved document and a warm glow +suffused her face. Was it as easy as this? Did this little scrap of +paper mean rest and the spreading of wings, and freedom for her +mother? Then she caught her breath. She hadn't any brother in the feed +business---nor anywhere else, for that matter. How would she get the +money? She had only her salary; her mother earned little or nothing--the +interest on the mortgage would be due in a day or so; thank God it was +nearly paid off. Then her heart rose in her throat. Mr. Taylor! Why he +was so kind she never knew--but he was. But if he insisted as he had +with the store and the position in the post-office! No--he had done too +much already. Besides, she could never repay him if anything went wrong. +No--this was not her chance for freedom. + +Abbie handed the certificate back. "Queer way of making money," was all +she said as she reached for her hat and shawl, and went home to dinner. + +That evening after supper, the two crooning over the fire, Abbie talked +it over with her mother--not the stock--not a word of that--but of how +Maria had made a lot of money, and how she wished she had a little of +her own so she could make some, too. This the mother retailed, the next +morning, to her neighbor, who met the expressman, who thereupon sent it +rolling through the village. In both its diluted and enriched form the +neighbor had helped. The story was as follows: + +"That Boston girl who was boardin' up to Skitson's had a thousand +dollars in the bank-made it all in a month--so Abbie Todd, who knew her, +said. It was a dead secret how she made it, but Abbie said if she had +a few hundred dollars she could get rich, too. Beats all how smart some +girls is gettin' to be nowadays." + +The next morning Mr. Taylor called for his mail. He generally sent a boy +down from the mill, but this time he came himself. + +"If you see anything lying around loose, Miss Abbie, where you can pick +up a few dollars--and you must now and then--so many people going in and +out from Boston and other places--and want a couple of hundred to help +out, let me know. I'll stake you, and glad to." + +In answer, Abbie passed his mail through the square window. "Thank you, +Mr. Taylor," was all she said. "I won't forget." + +Hiram fingered his mail and hung around for a minute. Then with the +remark: "Guess that expressman was lying--I'll find out, anyway," he got +into his buggy and drove away. + +"He'll _stake_ me, will he?" said Abbie thoughtfully. "That's what +the feed man did for Maria's friend." With the stake she could get the +stock, and with the stock the clouds would lift! Perhaps her turn was +coming, after all. + +Then she resumed her work pigeon-holing the morning's mail. One was from +Keep & Co., judging from the address in the corner, and was directed to +Maria Furgusson, care Miss Skitson--a thick, heavy letter. This she laid +aside. + +"Yes, a big one," she called from the window as she passed it out to +that young woman five minutes later. "About the stock, isn't it!" + +The girl tore open the envelope and gave a little scream. + +"Oh! Gone up to ten dollars a share! Oh, cracky!--how much does that +make? Here, Ab--do you figure--twenty shares at--Ten! Why, that's two +hundred dollars! What?--it can't be! Yes, it is. Oh, that's splendid! +I'm going right back to answer his letter"--and she was gone. + +When the supper things were washed up that night, and the towels hung +before the stove to dry, and the faded old mother was resting in her +chair by the fire, Abbie told her the facts as they existed. She had +seen the certificate with her own eyes--had had it in her hand and she +had read the letter from the broker, Mr. Keep. It was all true--every +word of it. Maria had borrowed forty dollars and now she could pay it +back and have one hundred and sixty dollars left--more than she herself +could earn in three months. + +"If I could get somebody to lend me a little money, Mother," she +continued, "I might--" + +The girl stopped and stole a look at her mother sitting hunched up in +her chair, her elbows on her knees, the chin resting on the palms of +her hands, the angle of her thin shoulders outlined through the coarse, +worsted shawl--always a pathetic attitude to the daughter:--this +old mother broken with hard work and dulled by a life of continued +disappointment. + +"I was saying, Mother, perhaps I might get somebody to lend me a little +money, and then--" + +The figure straightened up. "Don't do it, child!" There was a note +almost of terror in her voice. "Don't you ever do it! That was what +ruined my father. Abbie--promise me--promise me, I say! You won't--you +can't." + +The girl laid her hand tenderly on her mother's shoulder.' + +"Why, Mother, dear--why, what's the matter? You look as if you had seen +a ghost." + +Mrs. Todd drew her shawl closer about her shoulders and leaned nearer to +the girl, her voice trembling: + +"It's worse than a ghost, child--it's a _debt!_ Debt along of money you +never worked for; money somebody gives you sort o' friendly-like, and +when you can't pay it back, they bite you, like dogs. No--let's sit here +and starve first, child. We can shut the door and nobody 'll know we're +hungry." She straightened up and threw the shawl from her shoulders. +Terror had taken the place of an undefined dread. + +"You ain't gettin' discouraged, Abbie, be you?" she continued in a +calmer tone. "Don't get discouraged, child. I got discouraged when I +was younger than you, and I ain't never been happy since. You never knew +why, and I ain't goin' to tell you now, but it's been black night all +these years--all 'cept you. You've been the only thing made me live. If +you get discouraged, child, I can't stand it. Say you ain't, Abbie--let +me hear you say it--please Abbie!" + +The girl rose from her chair and stood looking down at her mother. The +sudden outburst, so unusual in one so self-restrained, the unmistakable +suffering in the tones of her voice, thrilled and alarmed her. Her first +impulse was to throw her arms about her mother's neck and weep with her. +This had been her usual custom when the load seemed too heavy for her +mother to bear. Then the more practical side of her nature asserted +itself. It was strength, not sympathy, she wanted. Slipping her hand +under her mother's arm, she raised her to her feet, and in a firm, +decided voice, quite as a hospital nurse would speak to a restless +patient, she said: + +"You'd better not sit up any longer, Mother dear. Come, I'll help put +you to bed." + +There was no resistance. Whatever suddenly aroused memory had stirred +the outburst, the paroxysm was over now. + +"Well, maybe I am tired, child," was all she said, and the two left the +room. + +"Poor, dear old Mother! Poor, tired old Mother!" the girl remarked to +herself when she had resumed her place by the dying fire. "Wonder if +I'll get that way when I'm as old as she is!" + +Then the hopelessness of the struggle she was making rose before her. +How much longer would this go on? Up at six o'clock; a cup of coffee and +a piece of bread; then the monotonous sorting of letters and papers--the +ceaseless answering of stupid questions; then half an hour for dinner; +then the routine again till train time, and home to the mother and the +two chairs by the fire, only to begin the dreary tread-mil! again the +next morning. And with this the daily growing older--older; her face +thinner and more pinched, the shoulders sharp; her hair gray, head bent, +just as her poor mother's was, and, with all that, hardly money enough +to buy herself a pair of shoes--never enough to give her dear mother the +slightest luxury. + +Discouraged! Hadn't she reason to be? + +The next morning Hiram walked into the post-office and called to Abbie, +through the square window, to open the door. Once inside he loosened his +fur driving-coat, took out a long, black wallet, picked out a thin slip +of paper and laid it on Abbie's desk. + +"I have been thinking over what I told you yesterday. There's a check +drawn to your order for two hundred dollars. All you got to do is to put +your name on the back of it and it's money. It's good--never knew one +that warn't." + +The girl started back. + +"I didn't ask you for it. I don't--" + +"I know you didn't, and when you did it would be too late maybe--got to +catch things sometimes when they're flying past. I don't know whether +it's those town lots they're booming over to Haddam's Corners, and I +don't care, but if that ain't enough there's more where that came from. +Good-day!" and he slammed the glass door behind him. Abbie picked up +the thin slip of paper and studied every line on its face, from the red +number in the upper corner to "Hiram Taylor" in a bold, round hand. Then +her eyes lighted on "Abijah Todd or order." + +Yes, it was hers--all of it. Not to spend, but to _make money out of_. +Then her mother's words of warning rang clear: "Worse than a ghost, my +child!" Should she--could she take it? She turned to lay it in a drawer +until she could hand it back to him and her eyes fell upon the poster +framed in by the square of her window. She stopped and shut the drawer. +Was she never to have her chance? Would the treadmill never end? Would +the dear mother's head never be lifted? Folding the check carefully, +she loosened the top button of her dress and pushed it inside. There it +burned like a hot coal. + +***** + +That night, after putting her mother to bed, she pinned a shawl over her +head, threw her mother's cloak about her shoulders, sneaked into Maria's +house, and crept up into her friend's room like a burglar. What was to +be done must be done quickly, but intelligently. + +"I've got some money," she exclaimed to the astonished girl who, half +undressed, sat writing at her table. (It was after nine o'clock--an +unheard-of hour for visiting.) "How much stock can I buy for two hundred +dollars?" and she shook out the check, keeping her finger over the +signature. + +"Twenty shares," answered Maria. + +"How do I get it?" + +"Send the money to Keep & Co. Oh, you got a check! Well, put 'Keep & +Co.' on--here, I'll do it, and you sign your name underneath. And I'll +write 'em a letter and tell 'em I helped sell it to you. Oh, ain't I +glad, Ab. You must be getting awful big pay to have saved all that. Wish +I--" + +"How long before I know?" She had not much time to talk--her mother +might wake and call her. + +"They'll telephone you. You got a long-distance, ain't you, in the +office? Yes, I seen it." + +Abbie took the name of the senior partner, replaced the check, and was +by her own fire again. The mother hadn't stirred. + +All the next day she waited for the rattle of the bell. At three o'clock +she sprang to the 'phone. + +"This Miss Todd--postmistress?" + +"Yes." + +"Got your check--bought you twenty Rock Creek at ten---mail you +certificate to-morrow." + +The following morning the certificate took the place of the +check--pinned tight. She could feel it crinkle when she walked. All +that day she moved about her office like one dazed. There was no +exaltation--no thrill of triumph. A dull, undefined terror took +possession of her. What if the stock went down in price and she couldn't +pay back the money? Of whom, then, could she borrow? Repay Hiram she +must and would. Again her mother's warning words rang in her ears. Then +came the resolve never to tell her. If it went right she would add to +the dear woman's comforts in silence. If it went wrong--but it couldn't +go wrong: Maria had said so: the papers had said so: the posters said +so--everybody and everything said so. + +As the day wore on she became so nervous that she mixed the letters in +their pigeon-holes. + +"That ain't for me, Miss Todd," was called out half a dozen times when B +or F or S letters had gone into the wrong box. "Guess you must a-got it +in the B's by mistake. Woolgathering, ain't ye?" + +Maria was her only confidante and her only comfort. The Boston girl +laughed when she listened to her fears, and braced her up with fairy +stories of the winnings of Miss Henders and Slathers and the money they +were making; but the relief was only temporary. + +Soon the strain began to show itself in her face. "You ain't sick, +Abbie, be you?" asked the mother. "No? Well, you look kind o' peaked. +Don't work too hard, child. Maybe something's worryin' you--something +you ain't told me. No man I don't know about, is there?" and the +mother's sad eyes searched the daughter's. + +To all these inquiries the girl only shook her head, adding that the +down mail was late and a big one and she had hurried to sort it. + +When the Boston mail arrived the next morning and was dumped from its +bag upon her sorting-table, her own name flamed out on one of Keep & +Co.'s envelopes. + +Abbie broke the seal and devoured its contents with bated breath, her +fingers trembling: + +We are happy to inform you that the last sales of Rock Creek ranged from +13 to 14 3/4--15 bid at close. We confidently expect the stock will sell +at 20 before the week is out. We shall be glad to receive your further +orders as well as those of any of your friends. + +Abbie's heart gave a bound; the blood mounted to the roots of her hair. + +"Fifteen--twenty--why--why! that's two hundred dollars for me after +paying Mr. Taylor." The chill of doubt was over now. The fever of hope +had set in. "Two hundred! Two hundred!" she kept repeating, as her +fingers caressed the certificate snuggling close to her heart. + +When she swung wide the porch door and threw her arms around her +astonished mother's neck, the refrain was still on her lips. It had +been years since the hard-working girl had given way to any such joyous +outburst. + +"Oh, I'm so happy! Don't ask me why--but I am!" + +The mother kissed her in reply and patted the girl's shoulder. "There +_is_ somebody," she sighed to herself. "And they've made up again"--and +a prayer trembled on her lips. + +Her joy now became contagious. The expressman noticed it; so did Mrs. +Skitson and the storekeeper. So did Mr. Taylor, who stopped his wagon +and leaned half out to shake her hand. + +"You do look wholesome this morning, and no mistake, Miss Abbie" (he +always called her so). "Don't forget what I told you--lots more where +that come from"--and he drove on muttering to himself: "Ain't no finer +woman in Taylorsville than Abbie Todd." + +Keep & Co. letters arrived now by almost every mail. With these came +a daily stock-list printed on tissue-paper, giving the sales on the +exchange. Rock Creek was still holding its own between 13 and 15. "From +my brokers," she would say with a smile to Maria, falling into the ways +of the rich. + +One of these letters, marked "Private and confidential," she took to +Maria. It was in the writer's own hand and signed by the senior member +of the firm. Literally translated into uncommercial language by that +female financier, it meant that Miss Todd, "_on notice from Keep & Co_." +should write her name at the bottom of the transfer blank on the back +of the certificate and mail it to them. This done they would buy her +another ten shares of stock, using her certificate as additional margin. +There was no question that Rock Creek would sell at forty before the +month ended, and they did not want her to be "left" when the "melon was +cut." + +Another and a newer and a more vibrant song now rose to her lips. Forty +for Rock Creek meant four--six--yes, eight hundred dollars--with two +hundred to Mr. Taylor! Yes! Six hundred clear! The scrap of paper in +her bosom was no longer a receipt for money paid, but an Aladdin's lamp +producing untold wealth. + +That night the music burst from her lips before she had taken off her +cloak and hat. + +"You made six hundred dollars, Abbie! _You!_" cried the mother, with a +note of wonder in her voice. + +Then the whole story came out; her mother's arms about her, the pale +cheek touching her own, tears of joy streaming from both their eyes. +First Maria's luck, then that of her fellow-clerks; then the letters, +one after another, spread out upon her lap, the lamp held close, so the +dim eyes could read the easier--down to the stake-money of two hundred +dollars. + +"And who gave you that, child? Miss Furgusson?" The mother's heart was +still fluttering. After all, the sun was shining. + +"No; Mr. Taylor." + +The mother put her hands to her head. + +"_Hiram!_ You ain't never borrowed any money of Hiram, have you?" she +cried in an agonized voice. + +"But, Mother dear, he forced it upon me. He came--" + +"Yes, that's what he did to me. Give it back to him, child, now, +'fore you sleep. Don't wait a minute. Borrowed two hundred dollars of +Hiram--and my child, too! Oh, it can't be! It can't be!" + +The mother dropped into a chair and rocked herself to and fro. The girl +started to explain, to protest, to comfort her with promises; then she +crossed to where her mother was sitting, and stood patient until the +paroxysm should pass. A sudden fright now possessed her; these attacks +were coming on oftener; was her mother's mind failing? Was there +anything serious? Perhaps it would have been better not to tell her at +all. + +The mother motioned Abbie to a chair. + +"Sit down, child, and listen to me. I ain't crazy; I ain't out of my +head--I'm only skeered." + +"But, Mother dear, I can get the money any day I want it. All I've got +to do is to telephone them and a check comes the next day." + +"Yes, I know--I know." She was still trembling, her voice hardly +audible. "But that ain't what skeers me; it's Hiram. He done the same +thing to me last December. Come in here and laid the bills on that table +behind you and begged me to take 'em; he'd heard about the mortgage; he +wanted to fix the house up, too. I put my hands behind my back and got +close to the wall there. I couldn't touch it, and he begged and begged, +and then he went away. Next he went to the school-house, and you know +what he did. That's why you got the post-office." + +A light broke in upon the girl. "And you've known him before?" + +"Yes, forty years ago. He loved me and I loved him. We had bad luck, and +my father got into trouble. He and Hiram's father were friend's; been +boys together, and Hiram's father loaned him money. I don't know how +much--I never knew, but considerable money. My father couldn't pay, and +then come bad blood. The week before Hiram and I were to be called in +church they struck each other, and when Hiram took my father's part his +father drove him out of his house, and Hiram hadn't nothing, and went +West; and I never heard from him nor saw him till the day he come in +here last fall. Don't you see, child, you got to take him back his +money?" + +Abbie squared her shoulders. The blood of the Puritan was in her eyes. +This was a fight for home and freedom. Her flintlock was between the +cracks of her log cabin. The old mother, with the other women and +children, lay huddled together in the far corners. This was no time for +surrender! + +"No!" she cried in a firm voice. "I won't give it back, not till I get +good and ready. Mr. Taylor loaned me that two hundred dollars to make +money with, and he won't get it again till I do." She wondered at her +courage, but it seemed the only way to save her mother from herself. +"What happened forty years ago has nothing to do with what's happening +to-day." + +The look in the girl's eyes; her courage; the ring of independence in +her voice, the sureness and confidence of her words, began to have their +effect. The Genie of the Lamp was at work: the life-giving power of Gold +was being pumped from her own into the poor old woman's poverty-shrunken +veins. + +"And you don't think, child, that it will bring you trouble?" + +"Bring trouble!" No! + +The cabin was saved; the enemy was in retreat. She could sing once +more! "It will bring nothing but joy and freedom, you precious old +Mother! Do you know what I'm going to do?" + +"What, child?" + +"I'm going to pay off the mortgage, every cent of it." + +She said "I" now; it had been "we" all the years before: Keep rubbing, +dear old Genie. "Then I'll fix up the house and paint it, and get you +some nice clothes, and a new cook stove that isn't all rusted out----" + +"You won't resign, will you, Abbie--and leave me?" the mother exclaimed. +The chill of possible desertion suddenly crept over her, (The Genie is +often unmindful of others, especially the poor.) + +"Leave you! What, now? You darling Mother. As to resigning, I may later. +But I'm going to Boston when I get my vacation and stay a week with +Maria, and go to the opera if I never do another thing. Oh! just you +wait, Mother, you and I will lead a different life after this." + +"And you think, Abbie, you'll make more than six hundred dollars?" +Already the mother's veins were expanding--wonderful elixir, this +Extract of Gold. + +"Six hundred! Why, if the stock goes to what they call par--and that's +where they all go, so Maria says--I'll have--have--two thousand, less +Mr. Taylor's two hundred--I'll have eighteen hundred dollars!" The little +fellow in her bosom was rubbing away now with all his might. She could +hear his heart beat against her own. + +***** + +It was nearly midnight when the two went to bed. Stick after stick had +been thrown on the fire; the logs had flamed and crackled in sympathy +with their own joyous feelings, and had then fallen into piled-up coals, +each heap a castle of delight, rosy in the glow of freshly enkindled +hopes. + +And the song in her heart never ceased. Day by day a fresh note was +added; everything she touched; everything she saw was transformed. +The old tumble-down house with its propped-up furniture and makeshift +carpets seemed to have become already the place she planned it to be. +There would be vines over the door and a new summer kitchen at the +back'; and there would be a porch where her mother could sit, flowers +all about her--her dear mother, bent no longer, but fresh and rosy in +her new clothes, smiling at her as she came up the garden path. + +And what delight it was just to breathe the air! Never had her step been +so light, or her daily walk to the dingy office--dingy no longer--so +bracing. And the out-of-doors--the sky and drifting clouds; the low +hills, bleak in the winter's gloom--what changes had come over them? Was +it the first blush of the coming spring that had softened their lines, +or had her eyes been blind to all their beauty? Oh! Marvellous elixir +that makes hopes certainty and gilds each cloud! + +***** + +One morning a man waiting for a letter from an absent son heard +the telephone ring, and saw Abbie drop her letters and catch up the +receiver: + +"Yes, I'm Miss Todd.--Oh! Mr. Keep? Yes.--Yes--I've got it here." Her +face grew deathly white. "What! Selling at twelve!" The man feared she +was about to fall. "I thought you told me... A big slump! Well, I don't +want to lose if... Yes, I'll mail it right away... Reach you by the 9.10 +to-morrow." + +"I hope you ain't got any bad news, have you?" the man asked in a +sympathetic voice. + +"No," she answered in a choking voice, as she handed him his letter; +then she turned her back and took the certificate from her bosom. + +"Selling at twelve," she kept saying to herself; "perhaps at ten; +perhaps at five. Would it go lower? Suppose it went down to nothing. +What could she say to her mother? How would she pay Mr. Taylor?" +Her breath came short; a dull sense of some impending calamity took +possession of her. Everything seemed slipping from her grasp. + +An hour passed--two. In the interim she had indorsed the certificate +and had dropped it into the open mouth of the night-bag. Again the bell +sounded. + +"Yes," she answered in a faint voice; her shoulder was against the wall +now for support. + +She was ready for the blow; all her life they had come this way. + +"Sold your twenty at ten. Mail you check for $190 on receipt of +certificate." + +Abbie clutched her bosom as if for relief, but there came no answering +throb. The little devil was gone, and the lamp with him. + +"And is it all over, Abbie?" asked her mother, as she drew her shawl +closer about her head. One stick of wood must last them till bedtime +now. + +"Yes--all." The girl lay crouched at her feet sobbing, her head in her +mother's lap. + +"Can you pay Hiram?" + +"I have paid him in full. I gave him Mr. Keep's check and ten dollars of +my pay--paid him this morning. He wouldn't take any interest." + +"Oh, that's good--that's good, child!" she crooned. + +There came a long pause, during which the two women sat motionless, the +mother looking into the smouldering coals. She had but few tears left +none for disappointments like these. + +"And we have got to keep on as we have?" + +"Yes." The reply was barely audible. + +The mother lifted her thin, worn hand, and laid it on Abbie's head. + +"Well, child," she said slowly, "you can thank God for one thing. _You +had your dream_; ain't many even had that." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abijah's Bubble, by F. 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