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@@ -0,0 +1,8487 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Where There's A Will, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +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: Where There's A Will + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #330] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE THERE'S A WILL *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + + + + + +WHERE THERE'S A WILL + +By Mary Roberts Rinehart + + + + CONTENTS + + I I HAVE A WARNING + II MISS PATTY ARRIVES + III A WILL + IV AND A WAY + V WANTED--AN OWNER + VI THE CONSPIRACY + VII MR. PIERCE ACQUIRES A WIFE + VII AND MR. MOODY INDIGESTION + IX DOLLY, HOW COULD YOU + X ANOTHER COMPLICATION + XI MISS PATTY'S PRINCE + XII WE GET A DOCTOR + XIII THE PRINCE--PRINCIPALLY + XIV PIERCE DISAPPROVES + XV THE PRINCE, WITH APOLOGIES + XVI STOP, THIEF! + XVII A BUNCH OF LETTERS + XVIII MISS COBB'S BURGLAR + XIX NO MARRIAGE IN HEAVEN + XX EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY + XXI THE MUTINY + XXII HOME TO ROOST + XXIII BACK TO NATURE + XIV LIKE DUCKS TO WATER + XXV THE FIRST FRUITS + XXVI OVER THE FENCE IS OUT + XXVII A CUPBOARD FULL OF RYE + XXVIII LOVE, LOVE, LOVE + XXIX A BIG NIGHT TO-NIGHT + XXX LET GOOD DIGESTION + + + + +WHERE THERE'S A WILL + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +I HAVE A WARNING + +When it was all over Mr. Sam came out to the spring-house to say good-by +to me before he and Mrs. Sam left. I hated to see him go, after all we +had been through together, and I suppose he saw it in my face, for he +came over close and stood looking down at me, and smiling. "You saved +us, Minnie," he said, "and I needn't tell you we're grateful; but do +you know what I think?" he asked, pointing his long forefinger at me. +"I think you've enjoyed it even when you were suffering most. Red-haired +women are born to intrigue, as the sparks fly upward." + +"Enjoyed it!" I snapped. "I'm an old woman before my time, Mr. Sam. What +with trailing back and forward through the snow to the shelter-house, +and not getting to bed at all some nights, and my heart going by fits +and starts, as you may say, and half the time my spinal marrow fairly +chilled--not to mention putting on my overshoes every morning from force +of habit and having to take them off again, I'm about all in." + +"It's been the making of you, Minnie," he said, eying me, with his hands +in his pockets. "Look at your cheeks! Look at your disposition! I don't +believe you'd stab anybody in the back now!" + +(Which was a joke, of course; I never stabbed anybody in the back.) + +He sauntered over and dropped a quarter into the slot-machine by the +door, but the thing was frozen up and refused to work. I've seen the +time when Mr. Sam would have kicked it, but he merely looked at it and +then at me. + +"Turned virtuous, like everything else around the place. Not that I +don't approve of virtue, Minnie, but I haven't got used to putting my +foot on the brass rail of the bar and ordering a nut sundae. Hook +the money out with a hairpin, Minnie, and buy some shredded wheat in +remembrance of me." + +He opened the door and a blast of February wind rattled the +window-frames. Mr. Sam threw out his chest under his sweater and waved +me another good-by. + +"Well, I'm off, Minnie," he said. "Take care of yourself and don't sit +too tight on the job; learn to rise a bit in the saddle." + +"Good-by, Mr. Sam!" I called, putting down Miss Patty's doily and +following him to the door; "good-by; better have something before you +start to keep you warm." + +He turned at the corner of the path and grinned back at me. + +"All right," he called. "I'll go down to the bar and get a lettuce +sandwich!" + +Then he was gone, and happy as I was, I knew I would miss him terribly. +I got a wire hairpin and went over to the slot-machine, but when I had +finally dug out the money I could hardly see it for tears. + +It began when the old doctor died. I suppose you have heard of Hope +Sanatorium and the mineral spring that made it famous. Perhaps you +have seen the blotter we got out, with a flash-light interior of the +spring-house on it, and me handing the old doctor a glass of mineral +water, and wearing the embroidered linen waist that Miss Patty Jennings +gave me that winter. The blotters were a great success. Below the +picture it said, "Yours for health," and in the body of the blotter, +in red lettering, "Your system absorbs the health-giving drugs in Hope +Springs water as this blotter soaks up ink." + +The "Yours for health" was my idea. + +I have been spring-house girl at Hope Springs Sanatorium for fourteen +years. My father had the position before me, but he took rheumatism, and +as the old doctor said, it was bad business policy to spend thousands +of dollars in advertising that Hope Springs water cured rheumatism, and +then have father creaking like a rusty hinge every time he bent over to +fill a glass with it. + +Father gave me one piece of advice the day he turned the spring-house +over to me. + +"It's a difficult situation, my girl," he said. "Lots of people think +it's simply a matter of filling a glass with water and handing it over +the railing. Why, I tell you a barkeeper's a high-priced man mostly, and +his job's a snap to this. I'd like to know how a barkeeper would make +out if his customers came back only once a year and he had to remember +whether they wanted their drinks cold or hot or 'chill off'. And another +thing: if a chap comes in with a tale of woe, does the barkeeper have +to ask him what he's doing for it, and listen while he tells how much +weight he lost in a blanket sweat? No, sir; he pushes him a bottle and +lets it go at that." + +Father passed away the following winter. He'd been a little bit +delirious, and his last words were: "Yes, sir; hot, with a pinch of +salt, sir?" Poor father! The spring had been his career, you may +say, and I like to think that perhaps even now he is sitting by some +everlasting spring measuring out water with a golden goblet instead of +the old tin dipper. I said that to Mr. Sam once, and he said he felt +quite sure that I was right, and that where father was the water would +be appreciated. He had heard of father. + +Well, for the first year or so I nearly went crazy. Then I found things +were coming my way. I've got the kind of mind that never forgets a name +or face and can combine them properly, which isn't common. And when +folks came back I could call them at once. It would do your heart good +to see some politician, coming up to rest his stomach from the free +bar in the state house at the capital, enter the spring-house where +everybody is playing cards and drinking water and not caring a rap +whether he's the man that cleans the windows or the secretary of the +navy. If he's been there before, in sixty seconds I have his name on my +tongue and a glass of water in his hand, and have asked him about +the rheumatism in his right knee and how the children are. And in ten +minutes he's sitting in a bridge game and trotting to the spring to have +his glass refilled during his dummy hand, as if he'd grown up in +the place. The old doctor used to say my memory was an asset to the +sanatorium. + +He depended on me a good bit--the old doctor did--and that winter he was +pretty feeble. (He was only seventy, but he'd got in the habit of making +it eighty to show that the mineral water kept him young. Finally he got +to BEING eighty, from thinking it, and he died of senility in the end.) + +He was in the habit of coming to the spring-house every day to get his +morning glass of water and read the papers. For a good many years it had +been his custom to sit there, in the winter by the wood fire and in the +summer just inside the open door, and to read off the headings aloud +while I cleaned around the spring and polished glasses. + +"I see the president is going fishing, Minnie," he'd say, or "Airbrake +is up to 133; I wish I'd bought it that time I dreamed about it. It was +you who persuaded me not to, Minnie." + +And all that winter, with the papers full of rumors that Miss +Patty Jennings was going to marry a prince, we'd followed it by the +spring-house fire, the old doctor and I, getting angry at the Austrian +emperor for opposing it when we knew how much too good Miss Patty was +for any foreigner, and then getting nervous and fussed when we read that +the prince's mother was in favor of the match and it might go through. +Miss Patty and her father came every winter to Hope Springs and I +couldn't have been more anxious about it if she had been my own sister. + +Well, as I say, it all began the very day the old doctor died. He +stamped out to the spring-house with the morning paper about nine +o'clock, and the wedding seemed to be all off. The paper said the +emperor had definitely refused his consent and had sent the prince, who +was his cousin, for a Japanese cruise, while the Jennings family was +going to Mexico in their private car. The old doctor was indignant, and +I remember how he tramped up and down the spring-house, muttering that +the girl had had a lucky escape, and what did the emperor expect if +beauty and youth and wealth weren't enough. But he calmed down, and soon +he was reading that the papers were predicting an early spring, and he +said we'd better begin to increase our sulphur percentage in the water. + +I hadn't noticed anything strange in his manner, although we'd all +noticed how feeble he was growing, but when he got up to go back to +the sanatorium and I reached him his cane, it seemed to me he avoided +looking at me. He went to the door and then turned and spoke to me over +his shoulder. + +"By the way," he remarked, "Mr. Richard will be along in a day or so, +Minnie. You'd better break it to Mrs. Wiggins." + +Since the summer before we'd had to break Mr. Dick's coming to Mrs. +Wiggins the housekeeper, owing to his finding her false front where it +had blown out of a window, having been hung up to dry, and his wearing +it to luncheon as whiskers. Mr. Dick was the old doctor's grandson. + +"Humph!" I said, and he turned around and looked square at me. + +"He's a good boy at heart, Minnie," he said. "We've had our troubles +with him, you and I, but everything has been quiet lately." + +When I didn't say anything he looked discouraged, but he had a fine way +of keeping on until he gained his point, had the old doctor. + +"It HAS been quiet, hasn't it?" he demanded. + +"I don't know," I said; "I have been deaf since the last explosion!" And +I went down the steps to the spring. I heard the tap of his cane as he +came across the floor, and I knew he was angry. + +"Confound you, Minnie," he exclaimed, "if I could get along without you +I'd discharge you this minute." + +"And if I paid any attention to your discharging me I'd have been gone +a dozen times in the last year," I retorted. "I'm not objecting to Mr. +Dick coming here, am I? Only don't expect me to burst into song about +it. Shut the door behind you when you go out." + +But he didn't go at once. He stood watching me polish glasses and get +the card-tables ready, and I knew he still had something on his mind. + +"Minnie," he said at last, "you're a shrewd young woman--maybe more head +than heart, but that's well enough. And with your temper under control, +you're a CAPABLE young woman." + +"What has Mr. Dick been up to now?" I asked, growing suspicious. + +"Nothing. But I'm an old man, Minnie, a very old man." + +"Stuff and nonsense," I exclaimed, alarmed. "You're only seventy. That's +what comes of saying in the advertising that you are eighty--to show +what the springs have done for you. It's enough to make a man die of +senility to have ten years tacked to his age." + +"And if," he went on, "if anything happens to me, Minnie, I'm counting +on you to do what you can for the old place. You've been here a good +many years, Minnie." + +"Fourteen years I have been ladling out water at this spring," I said, +trying to keep my lips from trembling. "I wouldn't be at home any place +else, unless it would be in an aquarium. But don't ask me to stay here +and help Mr. Dick sell the old place for a summer hotel. For that's what +he'll do." + +"He won't sell it," declared the old doctor grimly. "All I want is for +you to promise to stay." + +"Oh, I'll stay," I said. "I won't promise to be agreeable, but I'll +stay. Somebody'll have to look after the spring; I reckon Mr. Dick +thinks it comes out of the earth just as we sell it, with the whole +pharmacopoeia in it." + +Well, it made the old doctor happier, and I'm not sorry I promised, but +I've got a joint on my right foot that throbs when it is going to rain +or I am going to have bad luck, and it gave a jump then. I might have +known there was trouble ahead. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MISS PATTY ARRIVES + +It was pretty quiet in the spring-house that day after the old doctor +left. It had started to snow and only the regulars came out. What with +the old doctor talking about dying, and Miss Patty Jennings gone to +Mexico, when I'd been looking forward to her and her cantankerous old +father coming to Hope Springs for February, as they mostly did, I was +depressed all day. I got to the point where Mr. Moody feeding nickels +into the slot-machine with one hand and eating zwieback with the other +made me nervous. After a while he went to sleep over it, and when he +had slipped a nickel in his mouth and tried to put the zwieback in the +machine he muttered something and went up to the house. + +I was glad to be alone. I drew a chair in front of the fire and wondered +what I would do if the old doctor died, and what a fool I'd been not to +be a school-teacher, which is what I studied for. + +I was thinking to myself bitterly that all that my experience in the +spring fitted me for was to be a mermaid, when I heard something running +down the path, and it turned out to be Tillie, the diet cook. + +She slammed the door behind her and threw the Finleyville evening paper +at me. + +"There!" she said, "I've won a cake of toilet soap from Bath-house Mike. +The emperor's consented." + +"Nonsense!" I snapped, and snatched the paper. Tillie was right; the +emperor HAD! I sat down and read it through, and there was Miss Patty's +picture in an oval and the prince's in another, with a turned-up +mustache and his hand on the handle of his sword, and between them both +was the Austrian emperor. Tillie came and looked over my shoulder. + +"I'm not keen on the mustache," she said, "but the sword's +beautiful--and, oh, Minnie, isn't he aristocratic? Look at his nose!" + +But I'm not one to make up my mind in a hurry, and I'd heard enough talk +about foreign marriages in the years I'd been dipping out mineral water +to make me a skeptic, so to speak. + +"I'm not so sure," I said slowly. "You can't tell anything by that kind +of a picture. If he was even standing beside a chair I could get a line +on him. He may be only four feet high." + +"Then Miss Jennings wouldn't love him," declared Tillie. "How do you +reckon he makes his mustache point up like that?" + +"What's love got to do with it?" I demanded. "Don't be a fool, Tillie. +It takes more than two people's pictures in a newspaper with a red heart +around them and an overweight cupid above to make a love-match. Love's a +word that's used to cover a good many sins and to excuse them all." + +"She isn't that kind," said Tillie. "She's--she's as sweet as she's +beautiful, and you're as excited as I am, Minnie Waters, and if you're +not, what have you got the drinking glass she used last winter put on +the top shelf out of reach for?" She went to the door and slammed it +open. "Thank heaven I'm not a dried-up old maid," she called back over +her shoulder, "and when you're through hugging that paper you can send +it up to the house." + +Well, I sat there and thought it over, Miss Patty, or Miss Patricia, +being, so to speak, a friend of mine. They'd come to the Springs every +winter for years. Many a time she'd slipped away from her governess and +come down to the spring-house for a chat with me, and we'd make pop-corn +together by my open fire, and talk about love and clothes, and even the +tariff, Miss Patty being for protection, which was natural, seeing that +was the way her father made his money, and I for free trade, especially +in the winter when my tips fall off considerable. + +And when she was younger she would sit back from the fire, with the +corn-popper on her lap and her cheeks as red as cranberries, and say: "I +DON'T know why I tell you all these things, Minnie, but Aunt Honoria's +funny, and I can't talk to Dorothy; she's too young, you know. Well, HE +said--" only every winter it was a different "he." + +In my wash-stand drawer I'd kept all the clippings about her coming out +and the winter she spent in Washington and was supposed to be engaged to +the president's son, and the magazine article that told how Mr. Jennings +had got his money by robbing widows and orphans, and showed the little +frame house where Miss Patty was born--as if she's had anything to do +with it. And so now I was cutting out the picture of her and the prince +and the article underneath which told how many castles she'd have, and I +don't mind saying I was sniffling a little bit, for I couldn't get used +to the idea. And suddenly the door closed softly and there was a rustle +behind me. When I turned it was Miss Patty herself. She saw the clipping +immediately, and stopped just inside the door. + +"YOU, TOO," she said. "And we've come all this distance to get away from +just that." + +"Well, I shan't talk about it," I replied, not holding out my hand, for +with her, so to speak, next door to being a princess--but she leaned +right over and kissed me. I could hardly believe it. + +"Why won't you talk about it?" she insisted, catching me by the +shoulders and holding me off. "Minnie, your eyes are as red as your +hair!" + +"I don't approve of it," I said. "You might as well know it now as +later, Miss Patty. I don't believe in mixed marriages. I had a cousin +that married a Jew, and what with him making the children promise to be +good on the Talmud and her trying to raise them with the Bible, the poor +things is that mixed up that it's pitiful." + +She got a little red at that, but she sat down and took up the clipping. + +"He's much better looking than that, Minnie," she said soberly, "and +he's a good Catholic. But if that's the way you feel we'll not talk +about it. I've had enough trouble at home as it is." + +"I guess from that your father isn't crazy about it," I remarked, +getting her a glass of spring water. The papers had been full of how Mr. +Jennings had forbidden the prince the house when he had been in America +the summer before. + +"Certainly he's crazy about it--almost insane!" she said, and smiled at +me in her old way over the top of the glass. Then she put down the glass +and came over to me. "Minnie, Minnie," she said, "if you only knew how +I've wanted to get away from the newspapers and the gossips and come to +this smelly little spring-house and talk things over with a red-haired, +sharp-tongued, mean-dispositioned spring-house girl--!" + +And with that I began to blubber, and she came into my arms like a baby. + +"You're all I've got," I declared, over and over, "and you're going to +live in a country where they harness women with dogs, and you'll never +hear an English word from morning to night." + +"Stuff!" She gave me a little shake. "He speaks as good English as I +do. And now we're going to stop talking about him--you're worse than the +newspapers." She took off her things and going into my closet began to +rummage for the pop-corn. "Oh, how glad I am to get away," she sang +out to me. "We're supposed to have gone to Mexico; even Dorothy doesn't +know. Where's the pop-corner or the corn-popper or whatever you call +it?" + +She was as happy to have escaped the reporters and the people she knew +as a child, and she sat down on the floor in front of the fire and began +to shell the corn into the popper, as if she'd done it only the day +before. + +"I guess you're safe enough here," I said. "It's always slack in +January--only a few chronics and the Saturday-to-Monday husbands, except +a drummer now and then who drives up from Finleyville. It's too early +for drooping society buds, and the chronic livers don't get around until +late March, after the banquet season closes. It will be pretty quiet for +a while." + +And at that minute the door was flung open, and Bath-house Mike +staggered in. + +"The old doctor!" he gasped. "He's dead, Miss Minnie--died just now in +the hot room in the bathhouse! One minute he was givin' me the divil for +something or other, and the next--I thought he was asleep." + +Something that had been heavy in my breast all afternoon suddenly seemed +to burst and made me feel faint all over. But I didn't lose my head. + +"Does anybody know yet?" I asked quickly. He shook his head. + +"Then he didn't die in the bath-house, Mike," I said firmly. "He died +in his bed, and you know it. If it gets out that he died in the hot room +I'll have the coroner on you." + +Miss Patty was standing by the railing of the spring. I got my shawl and +started out after Mike, and she followed. + +"If the guests ever get hold of this they'll stampede. Start any +excitement in a sanatorium," I said, "and one and all they'll dip their +thermometers in hot water and swear they've got fever!" + +And we hurried to the house together. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WILL + +Well, we got the poor old doctor moved back to his room, and had one of +the chambermaids find him there, and I wired to Mrs. Van Alstyne, who +was Mr. Dicky Carter's sister, and who was on her honeymoon in South +Carolina. The Van Alstynes came back at once, in very bad tempers, and +we had the funeral from the preacher's house in Finleyville so as not to +harrow up the sanatorium people any more than necessary. Even as it was +a few left, but about twenty of the chronics stayed, and it looked as if +we might be able to keep going. + +Miss Patty sent to town for a black veil for me, and even went to the +funeral. It helped to take my mind off my troubles to think who it was +that was holding my hand and comforting me, and when, toward the end +of the service, she got out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes I was +almost overcome, she being, so to speak, in the very shadow of a throne. + +After it was all over the relatives gathered in the sun parlor of the +sanatorium to hear the will--Mr. Van Alstyne and his wife and about +twenty more who had come up from the city for the funeral and stayed +over--on the house. + +Well, the old doctor left me the buttons for his full dress waistcoat +and his favorite copy of Gray's Anatomy. I couldn't exactly set up +housekeeping with my share of the estate, but when the lawyer read that +part of the will aloud and a grin went around the room I flounced out of +my chair. + +"Maybe you think I'm disappointed," I said, looking hard at the family, +who weren't making any particular pretense at grief, and at the house +people standing around the door. "Maybe you think it's funny to see an +unmarried woman get a set of waistcoat buttons and a medical book. Well, +that set of buttons was the set he bought in London on his wedding trip, +and the book's the one he read himself to sleep with every night for +twenty years. I'm proud to get them." + +Mr. Van Alstyne touched me on the arm. + +"Everybody knows how loyal you've been, Minnie," he assured me. "Now sit +down like a good girl and listen to the rest of the will." + +"While I'm up I might as well get something else off my mind," I said. +"I know what's in that will, but I hadn't anything to do with it, Mr. +Van Alstyne. He took advantage of my being laid up with influenza last +spring." + +They thought that was funny, but a few minutes later they weren't so +cheerful. You see the sanatorium was a mighty fine piece of property, +with a deer park and golf links. We'd had plenty of offers to sell it +for a summer hotel, but we'd both been dead against it. That was one of +the reasons for the will. + +The whole estate was left to Dicky Carter, who hadn't been able to come, +owing to his being laid up with an attack of mumps. The family sat up +and nodded at one another, or held up its hands, but when they heard +there was a condition they breathed easier. + +Beginning with one week after the reading of the will--and not a day +later--Mr. Dick was to take charge of the sanatorium and to stay there +for two months without a day off. If at the end of that time the place +was being successfully conducted and could show that it hadn't lost +money, the entire property became his for keeps. If he failed it was to +be sold and the money given to charity. + +You would have to know Richard Carter to understand the excitement the +will caused. Most of us, I reckon, like the sort of person we've never +dared to be ourselves. The old doctor had gone to bed at ten o'clock all +his life and got up at seven, and so he had a sneaking fondness for the +one particular grandson who often didn't go to bed at all. Twice to +my knowledge when he was in his teens did Dicky Carter run away from +school, and twice his grandfather kept him for a week hidden in the +shelter-house on the golf links. Naturally when Mr. Van Alstyne and I +had to hide him again, which is further on in the story, he went to the +old shelter-house like a dog to its kennel, only this time--but that's +ahead, too. + +Well, the family went back to town in a buzz of indignation, and I +carried my waistcoat buttons and my Anatomy out to the spring-house +and had a good cry. There was a man named Thoburn who was crazy for the +property as a summer hotel, and every time I shut my eyes I could see +"Thoburn House" over the veranda and children sailing paper boats in the +mineral spring. + +Sure enough, the next afternoon Mr. Thoburn drove out from Finleyville +with a suit case, and before he'd taken off his overcoat he came out to +the spring-house. + +"Hello, Minnie," he exclaimed. "Does the old man's ghost come back to +dope the spring, or do you do it?" + +"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Thoburn," I retorted +sharply. "If you don't know that this spring has its origin in--" + +"In Schmidt's drug store down in Finleyville!" he finished for me. "Oh, +I know all about that spring, Minnie! Don't forget that my father's +cows used to drink that water and liked it. I leave it to you," he said, +sniffing, "if a self-respecting cow wouldn't die of thirst before she +drank that stuff as it is now." + +I'd been filling him a glass--it being a matter of habit with me--and he +took it to the window and held it to the light. + +"You're getting careless, Minnie," he said, squinting at it. "Some of +those drugs ought to be dissolved first in hot water. There's a lump of +lithia there that has Schmidt's pharmacy label on it." + +"Where?" I demanded, and started for it. He laughed at that, and putting +the glass down, he came over and stood smiling at me. + +"As ingenuous as a child," he said in his mocking way, "a nice, little +red-haired child! Minnie, how old is this young Carter?" + +"Twenty-three." + +"An--er--earnest youth? Willing to buckle down to work and make the old +place go? Ready to pat the old ladies on the shoulder and squeeze the +young ones' hands?" + +"He's young," I said, "but if you're counting on his being a fool--" + +"Not at all," he broke in hastily. "If he hasn't too much character +he'll probably succeed. I hope he isn't a fool. If he isn't, oh, friend +Minnie, he'll stand the atmosphere of this Garden of Souls for about a +week, and then he'll kill some of them and escape. Where is he now?" + +"He's been sick," I said. "Mumps!" + +"Mumps! Oh, my aunt!" he exclaimed, and fell to laughing. He was still +laughing when he got to the door. + +"Mumps!" he repeated, with his hand on the knob. "Minnie, the old place +will be under the hammer in three weeks, and if you know what's good for +you, you'll sign in under the new management while there's a vacancy. +You've been the whole show here for so long that it will be hard for you +to line up in the back row of the chorus." + +"If I were you," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "I wouldn't +pick out any new carpets yet, Mr. Thoburn. I promised the old doctor I'd +help Mr. Dick, and I will." + +"So you're actually going to fight it out," he said, grinning. "Well, +the odds are in your favor. You are two to my one." + +"I think it's pretty even," I retorted. "We will be hindered, so to +speak, by having certain principles of honor and honesty. You have no +handicap." + +He tried to think of a retort, and not finding one he slammed out of the +spring-house in a rage. + +Mr. Van Alstyne and his wife came in that same day, just before dinner, +and we played three-handed bridge for half an hour. As I've said, they'd +been on their honeymoon, and they were both sulky at having to stay at +the Springs. It was particularly hard on Mrs. Van Alstyne, because, with +seven trunks of trousseau with her, she had to put on black. But she +used to shut herself up in her room in the evenings and deck out for Mr. +Sam in her best things. We found it out one evening when Mrs. Biggs set +fire to her bureau cover with her alcohol curling-iron heater, and Mrs. +Sam, who had been going around in a black crepe dress all day, rushed +out in pink satin with crystal trimming, and slippers with cut-glass +heels. + +After the first rubber Mrs. Van Alstyne threw her cards on the floor and +said another day like this would finish her. + +"Surely Dick is able to come now," she said, like a peevish child. +"Didn't he say the swelling was all gone?" + +"Do you expect me to pick up those cards?" Mr. Sam asked angrily, +looking at her. + +Mrs. Sam yawned and looked up at him. + +"Of course I do," she answered. "If it wasn't for you I'd not have +stayed a moment after the funeral. Isn't it bad enough to have seven +trunks full of clothes I've never worn, and to have to put on poky old +black, without keeping me here in this old ladies' home?" + +Mr. Sam looked at the cards and then at her. + +"I'm not going to pick them up," he declared. "And as to our staying +here, don't you realize that if we don't your precious brother will +never show up here at all, or stay if he does come? And don't you also +realize that this is probably the only chance he'll ever have in the +world to become financially independent of us?" + +"You needn't be brutal," she said sharply. "And it isn't so bad for +you here as it is for me. You spend every waking minute admiring Miss +Jennings, while I--there isn't a man in the place who'll talk anything +but his joints or his stomach." + +She got up and went to the window, and Mr. Sam followed her. Nobody +pays any attention to me in the spring-house; I'm a part of it, like the +brass rail around the spring, or the clock. + +"I'm not admiring Miss Jennings," he corrected, "I'm sympathizing, dear. +She looks too nice a girl to have been stung by the title bee, that's +all." + +She turned her back to him, but he pretended to tuck the hair at the +back of her neck up under her comb, and she let him do it. As I stooped +to gather up the cards he kissed the tip of her ear. + +"Listen," he said, "there's a scream of a play down at Finleyville +to-night called Sweet Peas. Senator Biggs and the bishop went down last +night, and they say it's the worst in twenty years. Put on a black veil +and let's slip away and see it." + +I think she agreed to do it, but that night after dinner, Amanda King, +who has charge of the news stand, told me the sheriff had closed the +opera-house and that the leading woman was sick at the hotel. + +"They say she looked funny last night," Amanda finished, "and I guess +she's got the mumps." + +Mumps! + +My joint gave a throb at that minute. + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AND A WAY + +Mr. Sam wasn't taking any chances, for the next day he went to the city +himself to bring Mr. Dick up. Everything was quiet that day and the day +after, except that on the second day I had a difference of opinion with +the house doctor and he left. + +The story of the will had got out, of course, and the guests were +waiting to see Mr. Dick come and take charge. I got a good bit of gossip +from Miss Cobb, who had had her hair cut short after a fever and used to +come out early in the morning and curl it all over her head, heating the +curler on the fire log. I never smell burnt hair that I don't think +of Miss Cobb trying to do the back of her neck. She was one of our +regulars, and every winter for ten years she'd read me the letters she +had got from an insurance agent who'd run away with a married woman the +day before the wedding. She kept them in a bundle, tied with lavender +ribbon. + +It was on the third day, I think, that Miss Cobb told me that Miss Patty +and her father had had a quarrel the day before. She got it from one of +the chambermaids. Mr. Jennings was a liver case and not pleasant at any +time, but he had been worse than usual. Annie, the chambermaid, told +Miss Cobb that the trouble was about settlements, and that the more Miss +Patty tried to tell him it was the European custom the worse he got. +Miss Patty hadn't come down to breakfast that day, and Mr. Moody and +Senator Biggs made a wager in the Turkish bath--according to Miss +Cobb--Mr. Moody betting the wedding wouldn't come off at all. + +"Of course," Miss Cobb said, wetting her finger and trying the iron to +see if it was hot, "of course, Minnie, they're not married yet, and if +Father Jennings gets ugly and makes any sort of scandal it's all off. A +scandal just now would be fatal. These royalties are very touchy about +other people's reputations." + +Well, I heard that often enough in the next few days. + +Mr. Sam hadn't come back by the morning of the sixth day, but he wired +his wife the day before that Mr. Dick was on the way. But we met every +train with a sleigh, and he didn't come. I was uneasy, knowing Mr. Dick, +and Mrs. Sam was worried, too. + +By that time everybody was waiting and watching, and on the early train +on the sixth day came the lawyer, a Mr. Stitt. Mr. Thoburn was going +around with a sort of greasy smile, and if I could have poisoned him +safely I'd have done it. + +It had been snowing hard for a day or so, and at eleven o'clock that day +I saw Miss Cobb and Mrs. Biggs coming down the path to the spring-house, +Mrs. Biggs with her crocheting-bag hanging to the handle of her +umbrella. I opened the door, but they wouldn't come in. + +"We won't track up your clean floor, Minnie," Mrs. Biggs said--she was a +little woman, almost fifty, who'd gone through life convinced she'd only +lived so long by the care she took of herself--"but I thought I'd better +come and speak to you. Please don't irritate Mr. Biggs to-day. He's been +reading that article of Upton Sinclair's about fasting, and hasn't had a +bite to eat since noon yesterday." + +I noticed then that she looked pale. She was a nervous creature, +although she could drink more spring water than any human being I ever +saw, except one man, and he was a German. + +Well, I promised to be careful. I've seen them fast before, and when a +fat man starts to live on his own fat, like a bear, he gets about the +same disposition. + +Mrs. Biggs started back, but Miss Cobb waited a moment at the foot of +the steps. + +"Mr. Van Alstyne is back," she said, "but he came alone." + +"Alone!" I repeated, staring at her in a sort of daze. + +"Alone," she said solemnly, "and I heard him ask for Mr. Carter. It +seems he started for here yesterday." + +But I'd had time to get myself in hand, and if I had a chill up my +spine she never knew it. As she started after Mrs. Biggs I saw Mr. Sam +hurrying down the path toward the spring-house, and I knew my joint +hadn't throbbed for nothing. + +Mr. Sam came in and slammed the door behind him. + +"What's this about Mr. Dick not being here?" he shouted. + +"Well, he isn't. That's all there is to it, Mr. Van Alstyne," I said +calmly. I am always calm when other people get excited. For that reason +some people think my red hair is a false alarm, but they soon find out. + +"But he MUST be here," said Mr. Van Alstyne. "I put him on the train +myself yesterday, and waited until it started to be sure he was off." + +"The only way to get Mr. Richard anywhere you want him to go," I said +dryly, "is to have him nailed in a crate and labeled." + +"Damned young scamp!" said Mr. Van Alstyne, although I have a sign in +the spring-house, "Profanity not allowed." + +"EXACTLY what was he doing when you last laid eyes on him?" I asked. + +"He was on the train--" + +"Was he alone?" + +"Yes." + +"Sitting?" + +"No, standing. What the deuce, Minnie--" + +"Waving out the window to you?" + +"Of course not!" exclaimed Mr. Van Alstyne testily. "He was raising the +window for a girl in the next seat." + +"Precisely!" I said. "Would you know the girl well enough to trace her?" + +"That's ridiculous, you know," he said trying to be polite. "Out of a +thousand and one things that may have detained him--" + +"Only one thing ever detains Mr. Dick, and that always detains him," I +said solemnly. "That's a girl. You're a newcomer in the family, Mr. Van +Alstyne; you don't remember the time he went down here to the station to +see his Aunt Agnes off to the city, and we found him three weeks later +in Oklahoma trying to marry a widow with five children." + +Mr. Van Alstyne dropped into a chair, and through force of habit I gave +him a glass of spring water. + +"This was a pretty girl, too," he said dismally. + +I sat down on the other side of the fireplace, and it seemed to me that +father's crayon enlargement over the mantel shook its head at me. + +After a minute Mr. Van Alstyne drank the water and got up. + +"I'll have to tell my wife," he said. "Who's running the place, anyhow? +You?" + +"Not--exactly," I explained, "but, of course, when anything comes up +they consult me. The housekeeper is a fool, and now that the house +doctor's gone--" + +"Gone! Who's looking after the patients?" + +"Well, most of them have been here before," I explained, "and I know +their treatment--the kind of baths and all that." + +"Oh, YOU know the treatment!" he said, eying me. "And why did the house +doctor go?" + +"He ordered Mr. Moody to take his spring water hot. Mr. Moody's spring +water has been ordered cold for eleven years, and I refused to change. +It was between the doctor and me, Mr. Van Alstyne." + +"Oh, of course," he said, "if it was a matter of principle--" He +stopped, and then something seemed to strike him. "I say," he said; +"about the doctor--that's all right, you know; lots of doctors and all +that. But for heaven's sake, Minnie, don't discharge the cook." + +Now that was queer, for it had been running in my head all morning that +in the slack season it would be cheaper to get a good woman instead of +the chef and let Tillie, the diet cook, make the pastry. + +Mr. Sam picked up his hat and looked at his watch. + +"Eleven thirty," he said, "and no sign of that puppy yet. I guess it's +up to the police." + +"If there was only something to do," I said, with a lump in my throat, +"but to have to sit and do nothing while the old place dies it's--it's +awful, Mr. Van Alstyne." + +"We're not dead yet," he replied from the door, "and maybe we'll need +you before the day's over. If anybody can sail the old bark to shore, +you can do it, Minnie. You've been steering it for years. The old doctor +was no navigator, and you and I know it." + +It was blowing a blizzard by that time, and Miss Patty was the only one +who came out to the spring-house until after three o'clock. She shook +the snow off her furs and stood by the fire, looking at me and not +saying anything for fully a minute. + +"Well," she said finally, "aren't you ashamed of yourself?" + +"Why?" I asked, and swallowed hard. + +"To be in all this trouble and not let me know. I've just this minute +heard about it. Can't we get the police?" + +"Mr. Van Alstyne is trying," I said, "but I don't hope much. Like as not +Mr. Dick will turn up tomorrow and say his calendar was a day slow." + +I gave her a glass of water, and I noticed when she took it how pale she +was. But she held it up and smiled over it at me. + +"Here's to everything turning out better than we expect!" she said, and +made a face as she drank the water. I thought that she was thinking of +her own troubles as well as mine, for she put down the glass and stood +looking at her engagement ring, a square red ruby in an old-fashioned +setting. It was a very large ruby, but I've seen showier rings. + +"There isn't anything wrong, Miss Patty, is there?" I asked, and she +dropped her hand and looked at me. + +"Oh, no," she said. "That is, nothing much, Minnie. Father is--I think +he's rather ridiculous about some things, but I dare say he'll come +around. I don't mind his fussing with me, but--if it should get in the +papers, Minnie! A breath of unpleasant notoriety now would be fatal!" + +"I don't see why," I said sharply. "The royal families of Europe have a +good bit of unpleasant notoriety themselves occasionally. I should think +they'd fall over themselves to get some good red American blood. Blue +blood's bad blood; you can ask any doctor." + +But she only smiled. + +"You're like father, Minnie," she said. "You'll never understand." + +"I'm not sure I want to," I snapped, and fell to polishing glasses. + +The storm stopped a little at three and most of the guests waded down +through the snow for bridge and spring water. By that time the afternoon +train was in, and no Mr. Dick. Mr. Sam was keeping the lawyer, Mr. +Stitt, in the billiard room, and by four o'clock they'd had everything +that was in the bar and were inventing new combinations of their own. +And Mrs. Sam had gone to bed with a nervous headache. + +Senator Biggs brought the mail down to the spring-house at four, but +there was nothing for me except a note from Mr. Sam, rather shaky, which +said he'd no word yet and that Mr. Stitt had mixed all the cordials in +the bar in a beer glass and had had to go to bed. + +At half past four Mr. Thoburn came out for a minute. He said there was +only one other train from town that night and the chances were it would +be snowed up at the junction. + +"Better get on the band wagon before the parade's gone past," he said in +an undertone. But I went into my pantry and shut the door with a slam, +and when I came out he was gone. + +I nearly went crazy that afternoon. I put salt in Miss Cobb's glass when +she always drank the water plain. Once I put the broom in the fire and +started to sweep the porch with a fire log Luckily they were busy with +their letters and it went unnoticed, the smell of burning straw not +rising, so to speak, above the sulphur in the spring. + +Senator Biggs went from one table to another telling how well he felt +since he stopped eating, and trying to coax the other men to starve with +him. + +It's funny how a man with a theory about his stomach isn't happy until +he has made some other fellow swallow it. + +"Well," he said, standing in front of the fire with a glass of water in +his hand, "it's worth while to feel like this. My head's as clear as +a bell. I don't care to eat; I don't want to eat. The 'fast' is the +solution." + +"Two stages to that solution, Senator," said the bishop; "first, +resolution; last, dissolution." + +Then they all began at once. If you have ever heard twenty people airing +their theories on diet you know all about it. One shouts for Horace +Fletcher, and another one swears by the scraped-beef treatment, and +somebody else never touches a thing but raw eggs and milk, and pretty +soon there is a riot of calories and carbohydrates. It always ends the +same way: the man with the loudest voice wins, and the defeated ones +limp over to the spring and tell their theories to me. They know I'm +being paid to listen. + +On this particular afternoon the bishop stopped the riot by rising and +holding up his hand. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "let us not be +rancorous. If each of us has a theory, and that theory works out to his +satisfaction, then--why are we all here?" + +"Merely to tell one another the good news!" Mr. Jennings said sourly +from his corner. + +Honest, it was funny. If some folks were healthy they'd be lonesome. + +But when things had got quiet--except Mr. Moody dropping nickels into +the slot-machine--I happened to look over at Miss Patty, and I saw there +was something wrong. She had a letter open in her lap not one of the +blue ones with the black and gold seal that every one in the house knew +came from the prince but a white one, and she was staring at it as if +she'd seen a ghost. + + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WANTED--AN OWNER + +I have never reproached Miss Patty, but if she had only given me the +letter to read or had told me the whole truth instead of a part of it, +I would have understood, and things would all have been different. It is +all very well for her to say that I looked worried enough already, and +that anyhow it was a family affair. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD. + +All she did was to come up to me as I stood in the spring, with her face +perfectly white, and ask me if my Dicky Carter was the Richard Carter +who stayed at the Grosvenor in town. + +"He doesn't stay anywhere," I said, with my feet getting cold, "but +that's where he has apartments. What has he been doing now?" + +"You're expecting him on the evening train, aren't you?" she asked. +"Don't stare like that: my father's watching." + +"He ought to be on the evening train," I said. I wasn't going to say I +expected him. I didn't. + +"Listen, Minnie," she said, "you'll have to send him away again the +moment he comes. He must not go into the house." + +I stood looking at her, with my mouth open. + +"Not go into the house," I repeated, "with everybody waiting for him for +the last six days, and Mr. Stitt here to turn things over to him!" + +She stood tapping her foot, with her pretty brows knitted. + +"The wretch!" she cried, "the hateful creature as if things weren't bad +enough! I suppose he'll have to come, Minnie, but I must see him before +he sees any one else." + +Just then the bishop brought his glass over to the spring. + +"Hot this time, Minnie," he said. "Do you know, I'm getting the +mineral-water habit, Patty! I'm afraid plain water will have no +attraction for me after this." + +He put his hand over hers on the rail. They were old friends, the bishop +and the Jenningses. + +"Well, how goes it to-day with the father?" he said in a low tone, and +smiling. + +Miss Patty shrugged her shoulders. "Worse, if possible." + +"I thought so," he said cheerfully. "If state of mind is any criterion +I should think he has had a relapse. A little salt, Minnie." Miss Patty +stood watching him while he tasted it. + +"Bishop," she said suddenly, "will you do something for me?" + +"I always have, Patty." He was very fond of Miss Patty, was the bishop. + +"Then--to-night, not later than eight o'clock, get father to play +cribbage, will you? And keep him in the card-room until nine." + +"Another escapade!" he said, pretending to be very serious. "Patty, +Patty, you'll be the death of me yet. Is thy servant a dog, that he +should do this thing?" + +"Certainly NOT," said Miss Patty. "Just a dear, slightly bald, but still +very distinguished slave!" + +The bishop picked up her left hand and looked at the ring and from that +to her face. + +"There will be plenty of slaves to kiss this little hand, where you are +going, my child," he said. "Sometimes I wish that some nice red-blooded +boy here at home--but I dare say it will turn out surprisingly well as +it is." + +"Bishop, Bishop!" Mrs. Moody called. "How naughty of you, and with your +bridge hand waiting to be held!" + +He carried his glass back to the table, stopping for a moment beside Mr. +Jennings. + +"If Patty becomes any more beautiful," he said, "I shall be in favor of +having her wear a mask. How are we young men to protect ourselves?" + +"Pretty is as pretty does!" declared Mr. Jennings from behind his +newspaper, and Miss Patty went out with her chin up. + +Well, I knew Mr. Dick had been up to some mischief; I had suspected it +all along. But Miss Patty went to bed, and old Mrs. Hutchins, who's a +sort of lady's-maid-companion of hers, said she mustn't be disturbed. I +was pretty nearly sick myself. And when Mr. Sam came out at five o'clock +and said he'd been in the long-distance telephone booth for an hour +and had called everybody who had ever known Mr. Dick, and that he had +dropped right off the earth, I just about gave up. He had got some +detectives, he said, and there was some sort of a story about his having +kept right on the train to Salem, Ohio, but if he had they'd lost the +trail there, and anyhow, with the railroad service tied up by the storm +there wasn't much chance of his getting to Finleyville in time. + +Luckily Mr. Stitt was in bed with a mustard leaf over his stomach and +ice on his head, and didn't know whether it was night or morning. But +Thoburn was going around with a watch in his hand, and Mr. Sam was for +killing him and burying the body in the snow. + +At half past five I just about gave up. I was sitting in front of the +fire wondering why I'd taken influenza the spring before from getting my +feet wet in a shower, when I had been standing in a mineral spring for +so many years that it's a wonder I'm not web-footed. It was when I had +influenza that the old doctor made the will, you remember. Maybe I was +crying, I don't recall. + +It was dark outside, and nothing inside but firelight. Suddenly I seemed +to feel somebody looking at the back of my neck and I turned around. +There was a man standing outside one of the windows, staring in. + +My first thought, of course, was that it was Mr. Dick, but just as the +face vanished I saw that it wasn't. It was older by three or four years +than Mr. Dick's and a bit fuller. + +I'm not nervous. I've had to hold my own against chronic grouches too +long to have nerves, so I went to the door and looked out. The man +came around the corner just then and I could see him plainly in the +firelight. He was covered with snow, and he wore a sweater and no +overcoat, but he looked like a gentleman. + +"I beg your pardon for spying," he said, "but the fire looked so snug! +I've been trying to get to the hotel over there, but in the dark I've +lost the path." + +"That's not a hotel," I snapped, for that touched me on the raw. "That's +Hope Springs Sanatorium, and this is one of the Springs." + +"Oh, Hope Springs, internal instead of eternal!" he said. "That's +awfully bad, isn't it? To tell you the truth, I think I'd better come in +and get some; I'm short on hope just now." + +I thought that was likely enough, for although his voice was cheerful +and his eyes smiled, there was a drawn look around his mouth, and he +hadn't shaved that day. I wish I had had as much experience in learning +what's right with folks as I have had in learning what's wrong with +them. + +"You'd better come in and get warm, anyhow," I told him, "only don't +spring any more gags. I've been 'Hebe' for fourteen years and I've +served all the fancy drinks you can name over the brass railing of that +spring. Nowadays, when a fellow gets smart and asks for a Mamie Taylor, +I charge him a Mamie Taylor price." + +He shut the door behind him and came over to the fire. + +"I'm pretty well frozen," he said. "Don't be astonished if I melt before +your eyes; I've been walking for hours." + +Now that I had a better chance to see him I'd sized up that drawn look +around his mouth. + +"Missed your luncheon, I suppose," I said, poking the fire log. He +grinned rather sheepishly. + +"Well, I haven't had any, and I've certainly missed it," he said. + +"Fasting's healthy, you know." + +I thought of Senator Biggs, who carried enough fat to nourish him for +months, and then I looked at my visitor, who hadn't an ounce of extra +flesh on him. + +"Nothing's healthy that isn't natural," I declared. "If you'd care for +a dish of buttered and salted pop-corn, there's some on the mantel. It's +pretty salty; the idea is to make folks thirsty so they'll enjoy the +mineral water." + +"Think of raising a real thirst only to drown it with spring water!" he +said. But he got the pop corn and he ate it all. If he hadn't had any +luncheon he hadn't had much breakfast. The queer part was--he was a +gentleman; his clothes were the right sort, but he had on patent leather +shoes in all that snow and an automobile cap. + +I put away the glasses while he ate. Pretty soon he looked up and the +drawn lines were gone. He wasn't like Mr. Dick, but he was the same +type, only taller and heavier built. + +"And so it isn't a hotel," he remarked. "Well, I'm sorry. The +caravansary in the village is not to my liking, and I had thought of +engaging a suite up here. My secretary usually attends to these things, +but--don't take away all the glasses, Heb--I beg your pardon--but the +thirst is coming." + +He filled the glass himself and then he came up and stood in front of +me, with the glass held up in the air. + +"To the best woman I have met in many days," he said, not mocking but +serious. "I was about to lie down and let the little birds cover me +with leaves." Then he glanced at the empty dish and smiled. "To buttered +pop-corn! Long may it wave!" he said, and emptied the glass. + +Well, I found a couple of apples in my pantry and brought them out, and +after he ate them he told me what had happened to him. He had been a +little of everything since he left college he was about twenty-five had +crossed the Atlantic in a catboat and gone with somebody or other into +some part of Africa--they got lost and had to eat each other or lizards, +or something like that--and then he went to the Philippines, and got +stuck there and had to sell books to get home. He had a little money, +"enough for a grub-stake," he said, and all his folks were dead. Then +a college friend of his wrote a rural play called Sweet Peas--"Great +title, don't you think?" he asked--and he put up all the money. It would +have been a hit, he said, but the kid in the play--the one that unites +its parents in the last act just before he dies of tuberculosis--the kid +took the mumps and looked as if, instead of fading away, he was going to +blow up. Everybody was so afraid of him that they let him die alone for +three nights in the middle of the stage. Then the leading woman took the +mumps, and the sheriff took everything else. + +"You city folks seem to know so much," I said, "and yet you bring a +country play to the country! Why don't you bring out a play with women +in low-necked gowns, and champagne suppers, and a scandal or two? They +packed Pike's Opera-House three years ago with a play called Why Women +Sin." + +Well, of course, the thing failed, and he lost every dollar he'd put +into it, which was all he had, including what he had in his pockets. + +"They seized my trunks," he explained, "and I sold my fur-lined overcoat +for eight dollars, which took one of the girls back home. It's hard for +the women. A fellow can always get some sort of a job--I was coming up +here to see if they needed an extra clerk or a waiter, or chauffeur, +or anything that meant a roof and something to eat--but I suppose they +don't need a jack-of-all-trades." + +"No," I answered, "but I'll tell you what I think they're going to need. +And that's an owner!" + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CONSPIRACY + +I'm not making any excuses. I did it for the best. In any sort of crisis +there are always folks who stand around and wring their hands and say, +"What shall we do?" And then if it's a fire and somebody has had enough +sense to send for the engines, they say: "Just look at what the water +did!" Although as far as I can see I'm the only one that suffered any +damage. + +If Mr. Thoburn had not been there, sitting by to see the old sanatorium +die so it could sprout wings and fly as a summer hotel, I'd never have +thought of it. But I was in despair. + +I got up and opened the door, but the Snow came in in a cloud, and the +path was half a foot deep again. It shows on what little threads big +things hang, for when I saw the storm I gave up the idea of bringing Mr. +Sam down to see the young man, and the breath of fresh air in my face +brought me to my senses. + +But the angel of providence appeared in the shape of Mike, the bath man, +coming down through the snow in a tearing rage. The instant I saw Mike I +knew it was settled. + +"Am I or am I not to give Mr. Moody a needle shower?" he shouted, almost +beside himself. And I saw he had his overcoat over his bath costume, +which is a Turkish towel. + +"A needle shower followed by a salt rub," said I. "He's been having them +for eleven years. What's the matter?" + +"That fool of a young doctor," shouted Mike, "he told him before he left +that if he'd been taking them for eleven years and wasn't any better +it was time to stop. Ain't business bad enough--only four people in the +house takin' baths regular--without his buttin' in!" + +"Where's Mr. Moody?" + +"In the bath. I've locked up his clothes." + +"You give him a needle shower and a salt rub," I ordered, "and if he +makes a fuss just send for me. And, Mike," I said, as he started out, +"ask Mr. Van Alstyne to come out here immediately." + +That's the way it was all the time. Everybody brought their troubles to +me, and I guess I thought I was a little tin god on wheels and the place +couldn't get along without me. But it did; it does. We all think we'll +leave a big hole behind us when we go, but it's just like taking your +thumb out of a bowl of soup. There isn't even a dent. + +Mr. Van Alstyne came out on the run, and when he saw Mr. Pierce by the +fire--that was his name, Alan Pierce--he stopped and stared. Then he +said: + +"You infernal young scamp!" And with that Mr. Pierce jumped up, +surprised and pretty mad, and Mr. Van Alstyne saw his mistake. + +"I'm sure I beg your pardon!" he said. "The fact is, I was expecting +somebody else, and in the firelight--" + +"You surprised me, that's all," said Mr. Pierce. "Under the +circumstances, I'm glad I'm not the other chap." + +"You may be," assured Mr. Sam grimly. "You're not unlike him, by the +way. A little taller and heavier, but--" + +Now it's all very well for Mr. Sam to say I originated the idea and all +that, but as truly as I am writing this, as I watched his face I saw the +same thought come into it. He looked Mr. Pierce up and down, and then he +stared into the fire and puckered his mouth to whistle, but he didn't. +And finally he glanced at me, but I was looking into the fire, too. + +"Just come, haven't you?" he asked. "How did you get up the hill?" + +"Walked," said Mr. Pierce, smiling. "It took some digging, too. But +I didn't come for my health, unless you think three meals a day are +necessary for health." + +Mr. Sam turned and stared at him. "By Jove! you don't mean it!" + +"I wish I didn't," Mr. Pierce replied. "One of the hardest things +I've had to remember for the last ten hours was that for two years I +voluntarily ate only two meals a day. A man's a fool to do a thing like +that! It's reckless." + +Mr. Sam got up and began to walk the floor, his hands in his pockets. He +tried to get my eye, but still I looked in the fire. + +"All traffic's held up, Minnie," he said. "The eight o'clock train is +stalled beyond the junction, in a drift. I've wired the conductor, and +Carter isn't on it." + +"Well?" said I. + +"If we could only get past to-day," Mr. Sam went on; "if Thoburn would +only choke to death, or--if there was somebody around who looked like +Dick. I dare say, by to-morrow--" He looked at Mr. Pierce, who smiled +and looked at him. + +"And I resemble Dick!" said Mr. Pierce. "Well, if he's a moral and +upright young man--" + +"He isn't!" Mr. Sam broke in savagely. And then and there he sat down +and told Mr. Pierce the trouble we were in, and what sort of cheerful +idiot Dicky Carter was, and how everybody liked him, but wished he would +grow up before the family good name was gone, and that now he had a +chance to make good and be self-supporting, and he wasn't around, and +if Mr. Sam ever got his hands on him he'd choke a little sense down his +throat. + +And then Mr. Pierce told about the play and the mumps, and how he was +stranded. When Mr. Sam asked him outright if he'd take Mr. Dick's place +overnight he agreed at once. + +"I haven't anything to lose," he said, "and anyhow I've been on a diet +of Sweet Peas so long that a sanatorium is about what I need." + +"It's like this," explained Mr. Sam, "Old Stitt is pretty thoroughly +jingled--excuse me, Minnie, but it's the fact. I'll take you to his +room, with the lights low, and all you'll need to do is to shake hands +with him. He's going on the early train to-morrow. Then you needn't mix +around much with the guests until to-morrow, and by that time I hope to +have Dick within thrashing distance." + +Just as they'd got it arranged that Mr. Pierce was to put on Mr. Sam's +overcoat and walk down to the village so that he could come up in a +sleigh, as if he had driven over from Yorkton--he was only to walk +across the hall in front of the office, with his collar up, just enough +to show himself and then go to his room with a chill--just as it was all +arranged, Mr. Sam thought of something. + +"The house people are waiting for Dick," he said to me, "and about forty +women are crocheting in the lobby, so they'll be sure to see him. Won't +some of them know it isn't Dick?" + +I thought pretty fast. + +"He hasn't been around much lately," I said. "Nobody would know except +Mrs. Wiggins. She'll never forget him; the last time he was here he put +on her false front like a beard and wore it down to dinner." + +"Then it's all off," he groaned. "She's got as many eyes as a potato." + +"And about as much sense," said I. "Fiddlesticks! She's not so good we +can't replace her, and what's the use of swallowing a camel and then +sticking at a housekeeper?" + +"You can't get her out of the house in an hour," he objected, but in a +weak voice. + +"I can!" I said firmly. + +(I did. Inside of an hour she went to the clerk, Mr. Slocum, and handed +in her resignation. She was a touchy person, but I did NOT say all that +was quoted. I did NOT say the kitchen was filthy; I only said it took +away my appetite to look in at the door. But she left, which is the +point.) + +Well, I stood in the doorway and watched them disappear in the darkness, +and I felt better than I had all day. It's great to be able to DO +something, even if that something is wrong. But as I put on my shawl +and turned out the lights, I suddenly remembered. Miss Patty would be +waiting in the lobby for Mr. Dick, and she would not be crocheting! + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. PIERCE ACQUIRES A WIFE + +Whoever has charge of the spring-house at Hope Springs takes the news +stand in the evening. That's an old rule. The news stand includes +tobacco and a circulating library, and is close to the office, and if I +missed any human nature at the spring I got it there. If you can't tell +all about a man by the way he asks for mineral water and drinks it, by +the time you've supplied his literature and his tobacco and heard him +grumbling over his bill at the office, you've got a line on him and a +hook in it. + +After I ate my supper I relieved Amanda King, who runs the news stand in +the daytime, when she isn't laid off with the toothache. + +Mr. Sam was right. All the women had on their puffs, and they were +sitting in a half-circle on each side of the door. Mrs. Sam was there, +looking frightened and anxious, and standing near the card-room door was +Miss Patty. She was all in white, with two red spots on her cheeks, and +I thought if her prince could have seen her then he would pretty nearly +have eaten her up. Mr. Thoburn was there, of course, pretending to read +the paper, but every now and then he looked at his watch, and once +he got up and paced off the lobby, putting down the length in his +note-book. I didn't need a mind-reader to tell me he was figuring the +cost of a new hardwood floor and four new rugs. + +Mr. Sam came to the news stand, and he was so nervous he could hardly +light a cigarette. + +"I've had a message from one of the detectives," he said. "They've +traced him to Salem, Ohio, but they lost him there. If we can only hold +on this evening--! Look at that first-night audience!" + +"Mr. Pierce is due in three minutes," I told him. "I hope you told him +to kiss his sister." + +"Nothing of the sort," he objected. "Why should he kiss her? Mrs. Van +Alstyne is afraid of the whole thing: she won't stand for that." + +"I guess she could endure it," I remarked dryly. + +"It's astonishing how much of that sort of thing a woman can bear." + +He looked at me and grinned. + +"By gad," he said, "I wouldn't be as sophisticated as you are for a good +deal. Isn't that the sleigh?" + +Everybody had heard it. The women sat up and craned forward to look at +the door: Mrs. Sam was sitting forward clutching the arms of her chair. +She was in white, having laid off her black for that evening, with a red +rose pinned on her so Mr. Pierce would know her. Miss Patty heard the +sleigh-bells also, and she turned and came toward the door. Her mouth +was set hard, and she was twisting the ruby ring as she always did when +she was nervous. And at the same moment Mr. Sam and I both saw it; she +was in white, too, and she had a red rose tucked in her belt! + +Mr. Sam muttered something and rushed at her, but he was too late. Just +as he got to her the door opened and in came Mr. Pierce, with Mr. Sam's +fur coat turned up around his ears and Mr. Sam's fur cap drawn well down +on his head. He stood for an instant blinking in the light, and Mrs. +Van Alstyne got up nervously. He never even saw her. His eyes lighted on +Miss Patty's face and stayed there. Mr. Sam was there, but what could +he do? Mr. Pierce walked over to Miss Patty, took her hand, said, "Hello +there!" and KISSED HER. It was awful. + +Most women will do anything to save a scene, and that helped us, for +she never turned a hair. But when Mr. Sam got him by the arm and led him +toward the stairs, she turned so that the old cats sitting around +could not see her and her face was scarlet. She went over to the wood +fire--our lobby is a sort of big room with chairs and tables and palms, +and an open fire in winter--and sat down. I don't think she knew herself +whether she was most astonished or angry. + +Mrs. Biggs gave a nasty little laugh. + +"Your brother didn't see you," she said to Mrs. Van Alstyne. "I dare say +a sister doesn't count much when a future princess is around!" + +Mrs. Van Alstyne was still staring up the staircase, but she came to +herself at that. She had some grit in her, if she did look like a French +doll. + +"My brother and Miss Jennings are very old friends," she remarked +quietly. I believe that was what she thought, too. I don't think she had +seen the other red rose, and what was she to think but that Mr. Pierce +had known Miss Jennings somewhere? She was dazed, Mrs. Sam was. But she +carried off the situation anyhow, and gave us time to breathe. We needed +it. + +"If I were his highness," said Miss Cobb, spreading the Irish lace +collar she was making over her knee and squinting at it, "I should wish +my fiancee to be more er--dignified. Those old Austrian families +are very haughty. They would not understand our American habit of +osculation." + +I was pretty mad at that, for anybody could have seen Miss Patty didn't +kiss him. + +"If by osculation you mean kissing, Miss Cobb," I said, going over +to her, "I guess you don't remember the Austrian count who was a head +waiter here. If there was anything in the way of osculation that that +member of an old Austrian family didn't know, I've got to find it out. +He could kiss all around any American I ever saw!" + +I went back to my news stand. I was shaking so my knees would hardly +hold me. All I could think of was that they had swallowed Mr. Pierce, +bait and hook, and that for a time we were saved, although in the +electric light Mr. Pierce was a good bit less like Dicky Carter than he +had seemed to be in the spring-house by the fire. + +Well, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." + +Everybody went to bed early. Mr. Thoburn came over and bought a cigar on +his way up-stairs, and he was as gloomy as he had been cheerful before. + +"Well," I said, "I guess you won't put a dancing floor in the +dining-room just yet, Mr. Thoburn." + +"I'm not in a hurry," he snapped. "It's only January, and I don't want +the place until May. I'll get it when I'm ready for it. I had a good +look at young Carter, and he's got too square a jaw to run a successful +neurasthenics' home." + +I went to the pantry myself at ten o'clock and fixed a tray of supper +for Mr. Pierce. He would need all his strength the next day, and a man +can't travel far on buttered pop-corn. I found some chicken and got a +bottle of the old doctor's wine--I had kept the key of his wine-cellar +since he died--and carried the tray up to Mr. Pierce's sitting-room. He +had the old doctor's suite. + +The door was open an inch or so, and as I was about to knock I heard a +girl's voice. It was Miss Patty! + +"How can you deny it?" she was saying angrily. "I dare say you will even +deny that you ever saw this letter before!" + +There was a minute's pause while I suppose he looked at the letter. + +"I never did!" he said solemnly. + +There had been a queer sound all along, but now I made it out. Some one +else was in the room, sniveling and crying. + +"My poor lamb!" it whimpered. And I knew it was Mrs. Hutchins, Miss +Patty's old nurse. + +"Perhaps," said Miss Patty, "you also deny that you were in Ohio the day +before yesterday." + +"I was in Ohio, but I positively assert--" + +"I'll send for the police, that's what I'll do!" Mrs. Hutchins said, +with a burst of rage, and her chair creaked. "How can I ever tell your +father?" + +"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Miss Patty. "Do you want the whole +story in the papers? Isn't it awful enough as it is? Mr. Carter, I have +asked my question twice now and I am waiting for an answer." + +"But I don't know the answer!" he said miserably. "I--I assure you, I'm +absolutely in the dark. I don't know what's in the letter. I--I haven't +always done what I should, I dare say, but my conduct in the state +of Ohio during the last few weeks has been without stain--unless I've +forgotten--but if it had been anything very heinous, I'd remember, don't +you think?" + +Somebody crossed the room, and a paper rustled. + +"Read that!" said Miss Patty's voice. And then silence for a minute. + +"Good lord!" exclaimed Mr. Pierce. + +"Do you deny that?" + +"Absolutely!" he said firmly. "I--I have never even heard of the +Reverend Dwight Johnstone--" + +There was a scream from Mrs. Hutchins, and a creak as she fell into her +chair again. + +"Your father!" she said, over and over. "What can we say to your +father?" + +"And that is all you will say?" demanded Miss Patty scornfully. "'You +don't know;' 'there's a mistake;' 'you never saw the letter before!' Oh, +if I were only a man!" + +"I'll tell you what we'll do," Mr. Pierce said, with something like +hope in his voice. "We'll send for Mr. Van Alstyne! That's the thing, of +course. I'll send for--er--Jim." + +Mr. Van Alstyne's name is Sam, but nobody noticed. + +"Mr. Van Alstyne!" repeated Miss Patty in a dazed way. + +I guessed it was about time to make a diversion, so I knocked and walked +in with the tray, and they all glared at me. Mrs. Hutchins was collapsed +in a chair, holding a wet handkerchief to her eyes, and one side of +her cap was loose and hanging down. Miss Patty was standing by a table, +white and angry, and Mr. Pierce was about a yard from her, with the +letter in his hands. But he was looking at her. + +"I've brought your supper, Mr. Carter," I began. Then I stopped and +stared at Miss Patty and Mrs. Hutchins. "Oh," I said. + +"Thank you," said Mr. Pierce, very uncomfortable. "Just put it down +anywhere." + +I stalked across the room and put it on the table. Then I turned and +looked at Mrs. Hutchins. + +"I'm sorry," I said, "but it's one of the rules of this house that +guests don't come to these rooms. They're strictly private. It isn't MY +rule, ladies, but if you will step down to the parlor--" + +Mrs. Hutchins' face turned purple. She got up in a hurry. + +"I'm here with Miss Jennings on a purely personal matter," she said +furiously. "How dare you turn us out?" + +"Nonsense, Minnie!" said Miss Patty. "I'll go when I'm ready." + +"Rule of the house," I remarked, and going over to the door I stood +holding it open. There wasn't any such rule, but I had to get them out; +they had Mr. Pierce driven into a corner and yelling for help. + +"There is no such rule and you know it, Minnie!" Miss Patty said +angrily. "Come, Nana! We're not learning anything, and there's nothing +to be done until morning, anyhow. My head's whirling." + +Mrs. Hutchins went out first. + +"The first thing I'D do if I owned this place, I'd get rid of that +red-haired girl," she snapped to Mr. Pierce. "If you want to know +why there are fewer guests here every year, I'll tell you. SHE'S the +reason!" Then she flounced out with her head up. + +(That was pure piffle. The real reason, as every thinking person knows, +is Christian Science. It's cheaper and more handy. And now that it isn't +heresy to say it, the spring being floored over, I reckon that most +mineral springs cure by suggestion. Also, of course, if a man's drinking +four gallons of lithia water a day, he's so saturated that if he does +throw in anything alcoholic or indigestible, it's too busy swimming for +its life to do any harm.) + +Mr. Pierce took a quick step toward Miss Patty and looked down at her. + +"About--what happened down-stairs to-night," he stammered, with the +unhappiest face I ever saw on a man, "I--I've been ready to knock my +fool head off ever since. It was a mistake--a--" + +"My letter, please," said Miss Patty coolly, looking back at him without +a blink. + +"Please don't look like that!" he begged. "I came in suddenly out of the +darkness, and you--" + +"My letter, please!" she said again, raising her eyebrows. + +He gave up trying then. He held out the letter and she took it and went +out with her head up and scorn in the very way she trailed her skirt +over the door-sill. But I'm no fool; it didn't need the way he touched +the door-knob where she had been holding it, when he closed the door +after her, to tell me what ailed him. + +He was crazy about her from the minute he saw her, and he hadn't a +change of linen or a cent to his name. And she, as you might say, on the +ragged edge of royalty, with queens and princes sending her stomachers +and tiaras until she'd hardly need clothes! Well, a cat may look at a +king. + +He went over to the fireplace, where I was putting his coffee to keep it +hot, and looked down at me. + +"I've a suspicion, Minnie," he said, "that, to use a vulgar expression, +I've bitten off more than I can chew in this little undertaking, and +that I'm in imminent danger of choking to death. Do you know anybody, a +friend of Miss er--Jennings, named Dorothy?" + +"She's got a younger sister of that name," I said, with a sort of chill +going over me. "She's in boarding-school now." + +"Oh, no, she's not!" he remarked, picking up the coffee-pot. "It seems +that I met her on the train somewhere or other the day before yesterday, +and ran off with her and married her!" + +I sat back on the rug speechless. + +"You should have warned me, Minnie," he went on, growing more cheerful +over his chicken and coffee. "I came up here to-night, the proud +possessor of a bunch of keys, a patent folding cork-screw and a pocket, +automobile road map. Inside two hours I have a sanatorium and a wife. +At this rate, Minnie, before morning I may reasonably hope to have a +family." + +I sat where I was on the floor and stared into the fire. Don't tell me +the way of the wicked is hard; the wicked get all the fun there is +out of life, and as far as I can see, it's the respectable "in at ten +o'clock and up at seven" part of the wicked's family that has all the +trouble and does the worrying. + +"If we could only keep it hidden for a few days!" I said. "But, of +course, the papers will get it, and just now, with columns every day +about Miss Patty's clothes--" + +"Her what?" + +"And all the princes of the blood sending presents, and the king not +favoring it very much--" + +"What are you talking about?" + +"About Miss Jennings' wedding. Don't you read the newspaper?" + +He hadn't really known who she was up to that minute. He put down the +tray and got up. + +"I--I hadn't connected her with the--the newspaper Miss Jennings," +he said, and lighted a cigarette over the lamp. Something in his face +startled me, I must say. + +"You're not going to give up now?" I asked. I got up and put my hand on +his arm, and I think he was shaking. "If you do, I'll--I'll go out and +drown myself, head down, in the spring." + +He had been going to run away--I saw it then--but he put a hand over +mine. Then he looked at the door where Miss Patty had gone out and gave +himself a shake. + +"I'll stay," he said. "We'll fight it out on this line if it takes all +summer, Minnie." He stood looking into the fire, and although I'm not +fond of men, knowing, as I have explained, a great deal about their +stomachs and livers and very little about their hearts, there was +something about Mr. Pierce that made me want to go up and pat him on the +head like a little boy. "After all," he said, "what's blue blood to good +red blood?" + +Which was almost what the bishop had said! + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AND MR. MOODY INDIGESTION + +Mr. Moody took indigestion that night--not but that he always had it, +but this was worse--and Mrs. Moody came to my room about two o'clock and +knocked at the door. + +"You'd better come," she said. "There's no doctor, and he's awful bad. +Blames you, too; he says you made him take a salt rub." + +"My land," I snapped, trying to find my bedroom slippers, "I didn't make +him take clam chowder for supper, and that's what's the matter with him. +He's going on a strained rice diet, that's what he's going to do. I've +got to have my sleep." + +She was waiting in the hall in her kimono, and holding a candle. Anybody +could see she'd been crying. As she often said to me, of course she was +grateful that Mr. Moody didn't drink--no one knew his virtues better +than she did. But her sister married a man who went on a terrible bat +twice a year, and all the rest of the time he was humble and affable +trying to make up for it. And sometimes she thought if Mr. Moody would +only take a little whisky when he had these attacks--! I'd rather be +the wife of a cheerful drunkard any time than have to live with a +cantankerous saint. Miss Cobb and I had had many a fight over it, but at +that time there wasn't much likelihood of either of us being called on +to choose. + +Well, we went down to Mr. Moody's room, and he was sitting up in bed +with his knees drawn up to his chin and a hot-water bottle held to him. + +"Look at your work, woman," he said to me when I opened the door. + +"I'm dying!" + +"You look sick," I said, going over to the bed. It never does to cross +them when they get to the water-bottle stage. "The pharmacy clerk's gone +to a dance over at Trimble's, but I guess I can find you some whisky." + +"Do have some whisky, George," begged Mrs. Moody, remembering her +brother-in-law. + +"I never touch the stuff and you both know it," he snarled. He had a +fresh pain just then and stopped, clutching up the bottle. "Besides," he +finished, when it was over, "I haven't got any whisky." + +Well, to make a long story short, we got him to agree to some whisky +from the pharmacy, with a drop of peppermint in it, if he could wash it +down with spring water so it wouldn't do him any harm. + +"There isn't any spring water in the house," I said, losing my temper a +little, "and I'm not going out there in my bedroom slippers, Mr. +Moody. I don't see why your eating what you shouldn't needs to give me +pneumonia." + +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. Dick 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. Dick, 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 Dicky Carter and +that I had an extra one on my hands. The minute I looked at this one I +knew that nobody 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. Dick was on his knees by the row of chairs, and +Miss Dorothy--Mrs. Dicky, 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. Dicky. + +"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. Dick jumped to his feet +and Mrs. Dick sat bolt upright and stared at me over the backs of the +chairs. + +"Minnie!" cried Mr. Dick. "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. Dick, 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. Dick. 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 basement, 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 Saturdays!" + +"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 nobody ever thought of it before!" + +"Isn't it?" exclaimed Mrs. Dick. "And we've all sorts of ideas. +Dick--Mr. Carter has learned of a brand new cocktail 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 cocktail and hold the men's hands." + +"Oh, if you're going to be funny!" Mr. Dick 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. Dick. "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. Dick had made good at the +sanatorium. + +"The idea was this, Minnie," said Mr. Dick. "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. Dick. "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." + +"You'll do nothing of the sort. You're a married woman now, and where +I go you go. My country is your country, and my sanatorium is your +sanatorium." He was in a great rage. + +But she got up and began trying to pull on her fur coat, and her jaw was +set. She looked like her father for a minute. + +"Where are you going?" he asked, looking scared. + +"Anywhere. I'll go down to the station and take the first train, it +doesn't matter where to." She picked up her muff, but he went over and +stood against the door. + +"Not a step without me!" he declared. "I'll go with you, of course; you +know that. I'm not afraid of your father: I'd as soon as not go in and +wake him now and tell him the whole thing--that you've married a chap +who isn't worth the butter on his bread, who can't buy you kid gloves--" + +"But you will, as soon as the sanatorium succeeds!" she put in bravely. +She put down her muff. "Don't tell him to-night, anyhow. Maybe Pat will +think of some way to break it to him. She can do a lot with father." + +"I hope she can think of some way to break another Richard Carter to the +people in the house," I said tartly. + +"Another Richard Carter!" they said together, and then I told them about +how we had waited and got desperate, and how we'd brought in Mr. Pierce +at the last minute and that he was asleep now at the house. They roared. +To save my life I couldn't see that it was funny. But when I came to the +part about Thoburn being there, and his having had a good look at Mr. +Pierce, and that he was waiting around with his jaws open to snap up +the place when it fell under the hammer, Mr. Dick stopped laughing and +looked serious. + +"Lord deliver us from our friends!" he said. "Between you and Sam, +you've got things in a lovely mess, Minnie. What are you going to do +about it now?" + +"It's possible we can get by Thoburn," I said. "You can slip in +to-night, we can get Mr. Pierce out--Lord knows he'll be glad to go--and +Miss Dorothy can go back to school. Then, later, when you've got things +running and are making good--" + +"I'm not going back to school," she declared, "but I'll go away; I'll +not stand in your way, Dicky." She took two steps toward the door and +waited for him to stop her. + +"Nonsense, Minnie," he exclaimed angrily and put his arm around her, "I +won't be separated from my wife. You got me into this scrape, and--" + +"I didn't marry you!" I retorted. "And I'm not responsible for your +father-in-law's disposition." + +"You'll have to help us out," he finished. + +"What shall I do? Murder Mr. Jennings?" I asked bitterly. "If you expect +me to suggest that you both go to the house, and your wife can hide in +your rooms--" + +"Why not?" asked Mr. Dick. + +Well, I sat down again and explained patiently that it would get out +among the servants and cause a scandal, and that even if it didn't I +wasn't going to have any more deception: I had enough already. And after +a while they saw it as I did, and agreed to wait and see Miss Patty +before they decided. They wanted to have her wakened at once, but I +refused, although I agreed to bring her out first thing in the morning. + +"But you can't stay here," I said. "There'll be Miss Cobb at nine +o'clock, and the man comes to light the fire at eight." + +"We could go to the old shelter-house on the golf links," suggested Mr. +Dick, looking me square in the eye. (I took the hint, and Mrs. Dicky +never knew he had been hidden there before.) + +"Nobody ever goes near it in winter." So I put on my slippers again and +we started through the snow across the golf links, Mr. Dick carrying a +bundle of firewood, and I leading the way with my lantern. Twice I went +into a drift to my waist, and once a rabbit bunted into me head on, and +would have scared me into a chill if I hadn't been shaking already. The +two behind me were cheerful enough. Mr. Dick pointed out the general +direction of the deer park which hides the shelter-house from the +sanatorium, and if you'll believe it, with snow so thick I had to scrape +it off the lantern every minute or so, those children planned to give +something called A Midsummer Night's Dream in the deer park among the +trees in the spring, to entertain the patients. + +"I wish to heaven I'd wake up and find all THIS a dream," I called back +over my shoulder. But they were busy with costumes and getting some +folks they knew from town to take the different parts and they never +even heard me. The last few yards they snowballed each other and me. I +tell you I felt a hundred years old. + +We got into the shelter-house by my crawling through a window, and when +we had lighted the fire and hung up the lantern, it didn't seem so +bad. The place had been closed since summer, and it seemed colder than +outside, but those two did the barn dance then and there. There were two +rooms, and Mr. Dick had always used the back one to hide in. It's a good +thing Mrs. Dick was not a suspicious person. Many a woman would have +wondered when she saw him lift a board in the floor and take out a +rusty tin basin, a cake of soap, a moldy towel, a can of sardines, a +tooth-brush and a rubber carriage robe to lay over the rafters under the +hole in the roof. But it's been my experience that the first few days +of married life women are blind because they want to be and after that +because they have to be. + +It was about four when I left them, sitting on a soap box in front of +the fire toasting sardines on the end of Mr. Dick's walking-stick. Mrs. +Dick made me put on her sealskin coat, and I took the lantern, leaving +them in the firelight. They'd gone back to the captive balloon idea and +were wondering if they couldn't get it copyrighted! + +I took a short cut home, crawling through the barbed-wire fence and +going through the deer park. I was too tired and cold to think. I +stumbled down the hill to the house, and just before I got to the corner +I heard voices, and the shuffling of feet through the snow. The next +instant a lantern came around the corner of the house. Mr. Thoburn was +carrying it, and behind him were the bishop, Mike the bath man, and Mr. +Pierce. + +"It's like that man Moody," the bishop was saying angrily, "to send the +girl--" + +"Piffle!" snarled Mr. Thoburn. "If ever a woman was able to take care +of herself--" And then they saw me, and they all stopped and stared. + +"Good gracious, girl!" said the bishop, with his dressing-gown blowing +out straight behind him in the wind. "We thought you'd been buried in a +drift!" + +"I don't see why!" I retorted defiantly. "Can't I go out to my own +spring-house without having a posse after me to bring me back?" + +"Ordinarily," said Mr. Thoburn, with his snaky eyes on me, "I think +I may say that you might go almost anywhere without my turning out to +recover you. But Mrs. Moody is having hysterics." + +Mrs. Moody! I'd forgotten the Moodys! + +"She is convinced that you have drowned yourself, head down, in the +spring," Mr. Pierce said in his pleasant way. "You've been gone two +hours, you know." + +He took my arm and turned me toward the house. I was dazed. + +"In answer to your urgent inquiry," Mr. Thoburn called after me, +disagreeably, "Mr. Moody has not died. He is asleep. But, by the way, +where's the spring water?" + +I didn't answer him; I couldn't. We went into the house; Mrs. Moody and +Miss Cobb were sitting on the stairs. Mrs. Moody had been crying, and +Miss Cobb was feeding her the whisky I had left, with a teaspoon. She +had had a half tumblerful already and was quite maudlin. She ran to me +and put her arms around me. + +"I thought I was a murderess!" she cried. "Oh, the thought! Blood on my +soul! Why, Minnie Waters, wherever did you get that sealskin coat!" + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DOLLY, HOW COULD YOU? + +I lay down across my bed at six o'clock that morning, but I was too +tired and worried to sleep, so at seven I got up and dressed. + +I was frightened when I saw myself in the glass. My eyes looked like +burnt holes in a blanket. I put on two pairs of stockings and heavy +shoes, for I knew I was going to do the Eskimo act again that day and +goodness knows how many days more, and then I went down and knocked +at the door of Miss Patty's room. She hadn't been sleeping either. She +called to me in an undertone to come in, and she was lying propped up +with pillows, with something pink around her shoulders and the night +lamp burning beside the bed. She had a book in her hand, but all over +the covers and on the table at her elbow were letters in the blue +foreign envelopes with the red and black and gold seal. + +I walked over to the foot of the bed. + +"They're here," I said. + +She sat up, and some letters slid to the floor. + +"THEY'RE here!" she repeated. "Do you mean Dorothy?" + +"She and her husband. They came last night at five minutes to twelve. +Their train was held up by the blizzard and they won't come in until +they see you. They're hiding in the shelter-house on the golf links." + +I think she thought I was crazy: I looked it. She hopped out of bed and +closed the door into her sitting-room--Mrs. Hutchins' room opened off +it--and then she came over and put her hand on my arm. + +"Will you sit down and try to tell me just what you mean?" she said. +"How can my sister and her--her wretch of a husband have come last night +at midnight when I saw Mr. Carter myself not later than ten o'clock?" + +Well, I had to tell her then about who Mr. Pierce was and why I had +to get him, and she understood almost at once. She was the most +understanding girl I ever met. She saw at once what Mr. Sam wouldn't +have known in a thousand years--that I wanted to save the old place not +to keep my position--but because I'd been there so long, and my father +before me, and had helped to make it what it was and all that. And +she stood there in her nightgown--she who was almost a princess--and +listened to me, and patted me on the shoulder when I broke down, telling +her about Thoburn and the summer hotel. + +"But here I am," I finished, "telling you about my troubles and +forgetting what I came for. You'll have to go out to the shelter-house, +Miss Patty. And I guess you're expected to fix it up with your father." + +She stopped unfastening her long braids of hair. + +"Certainly I'll go to the shelter-house," she said, "and I'll shake a +little sense into Dorothy Jennings--the abominable little idiot! But +they needn't think I'm going to help them with father; I wouldn't if I +could, and I can't. He won't speak to me. I'm in disgrace, Minnie." She +gave her hair a shake, twisted it into a rope and then a knot, and +stuck a pin in it. It was lovely: I wish Miss Cobb could have seen her. +"You've known father for years, Minnie: have you ever known him to be +so--so--" + +"Devilish" was the word she meant, but I finished for her. + +"Unreasonable?" I said. "Well, once before when you were a little girl, +he put his cane through a window in the spring-house, because he thought +it needed air. The spring-house, of course, not the cane." + +"Exactly," she said, looking around the room, "and now he's putting a +cane through every plan I have made. Do you see my heavy boots?" + +"It's like this," I remarked, bringing the boots from outside the door, +"if he's swallowed the prince and is choking on the settlement question +he might as well get over it. All those foreigners expect pay for taking +a wife. Didn't the chef here want to marry Tillie, the diet cook, and +didn't he want her to turn over the three hundred dollars she had in the +bank, and her real estate, which was a sixth interest in a cemetery lot? +But Tillie stuck it out and he wouldn't take her without." + +"It isn't quite the same, Minnie," she said, sitting down on the floor +to put on her stockings. + +"The principle's the same," I retorted, "and if you ask me--" + +"I haven't," she said disagreeably, "and when you begin to argue, +Minnie, you make my head ache." + +"I have had a heartache for a week," I snapped, "let alone heartburn, +and I'll be glad when the Jennings family is safely married and I can +sleep at night." + +I was hurt. I went out and shut the door behind me, but I stopped in the +hall and went back. + +"I forgot to say," I began, and stopped. She was still sitting on the +floor, trying to put her heavy boots on, and crying all over them. + +"Stop that instantly," I said, and jerked her shoes from her. "Get into +a chair and let me put them on. And if you will wait a jiffy I'll bring +you a cup of coffee. I'm not even a Christian in the morning until I've +had my coffee." + +"You haven't had it yet, have you?" she asked, and we laughed together, +rather shaky. But as I buttoned her shoes I saw her eyes going toward +the blue letters on the bed. + +"Oh, Minnie," she said, "if you only knew how peculiar they are in +Europe! They'll never allow a sanatorium in the family!" + +"I guess a good many would be the better for having one close," I said. + +Well, I left her to get dressed and went to the kitchens. Tillie was +there getting the beef tea ready for the day, but none of the rest was +around. They knew the housekeeper was gone, but I guess they'd forgotten +that I was still on hand. I put a kettle against the electric bell that +rings in the chef's room so it would keep on ringing and went on into +the diet kitchen. + +"Tillie," I said, "can you trust me?" + +She looked up from her beef. + +"Whether I can or not, I always have," she answered. + +"Well, can I trust you? That's more to the point." + +She put down her knife and came over to me, with her hands on her hips. + +"I don't know what you're up to, Minnie," she said, "and I don't know +that I care. But if you've forgotten the time I went to the city and +brought you sulphur and the Lord only knows what for your old spring +when you'd run short and were laid up with influenza--" + +"Hush!" I exclaimed. "You needn't shout it. Tillie, I don't want you +to ask me any questions, but I want four raw eggs in a basket, a pot of +coffee and cream, some fruit if you can get it when the chef unlocks the +refrigerator room, and bread and butter. They can make their own toast." + +"They?" she said, with her mouth open. + +But I didn't explain any more. I had found Tillie about a year before, +frying sausages at the railroad station, and made her diet cook at +the sanatorium. Mrs. Wiggins hadn't wanted her, but, as I told the old +doctor at the time, we needed somebody in the kitchen to keep an eye on +things for us. It was through Tillie that we discovered that the help +were having egg-nog twice a day, with eggs as scarce as hens' teeth, and +the pharmacy clerk putting in a requisition for more whisky every week. + +Well, I scribbled a note to Mr. Van Alstyne, telling what had happened, +and put it under his door, and then I met Miss Patty in the hall by the +billiard room and I gave her some coffee from the basket, in the sun +parlor. It was still dark, although it was nearly eight o'clock, and +nobody saw us go out together. Just as we left I heard the chef in the +kitchen bawling out that he'd murder whoever put the kettle against the +bell, and Tillie saying it must have dropped off the hook and landed +there. + +We went to the spring-house first, to avoid suspicion, and then across +back of the deer park to the shelter-house. It was still snowing, but +not so much, and the tracks we had made early in the morning were still +there, mine off to one side alone, and the others close together and +side by side. There was a whole history in those snow tracks, mine alone +and kind of offish, and the others cuddling together. It made me lonely +to look at them. + +I remember wishing I'd taught school, as I was educated to; woman wasn't +made to live alone, and most school-teachers get married. + +Miss Patty did not say much. She was holding her chin high and looking +rather angry and determined. At the spring-house I gave her the basket +and took an armful of fire-wood myself. I knew Mr. Dick would never +think of it until the fire was out. + +They were both asleep in the shelter-house. He was propped up against +the wall on a box, with the rubber carriage robe around him, and she was +lying by the fire, with Mrs. Moody's shawl over her and her muff under +her head. Miss Patty stood in the doorway for an instant. Then she +walked over and, leaning down, shook her sister by the arm. + +"Dorothy!" she said. "Wake up, you wretched child!" And shook her again. + +Mrs. Dicky groaned and yawned, and opened her eyes one at a time. + +But when she saw it was Miss Patty she sat up at once, looking dazed and +frightened. + +"You needn't pinch me, Pat!" she said, and at that Mr. Dick wakened and +jumped up, with the carriage robe still around him. + +"Oh, Dolly, Dolly!" said Miss Patty suddenly, dropping on her knees +beside Mrs. Dicky, "what a bad little girl you are! What a thing for you +to do! Think of father and Aunt Honoria!" + +"I shan't," retorted Mrs. Dicky decidedly. "I'm not going to spoil my +honeymoon like that. For heaven's sake, Pat, don't cry. I'm not dead. +Dick, this is my sister, Patricia." + +Miss Pat looked at him, but she didn't bow. She gave him one look, from +his head to his heels. + +"Dolly, how COULD you!" she said, and got up. + +It wasn't very comfortable for Mr. Dick, but he took it much better than +I expected. He went over and gave his wife a hand to help her up, and +still holding hers, he turned to Miss Patty. + +"You are perfectly right," he said, "I don't see how she could myself. +The more you know of me the more you'll wonder. But she did; we're up +against that." + +He grinned at Miss Patty, and after a minute Miss Patty smiled back. But +it wasn't much of a smile. I was unpacking the breakfast, putting the +coffee-pot on the fire and getting ready to cook the eggs and make +toast. But I was watching, too. Suddenly Mrs. Dick made a dive for Miss +Patty and threw her arms around her. + +"You darling!" she cried. "I'm so glad to see you again--Pat, you'll +tell father, won't you? He'll take it from you. If I tell him he'll have +apoplexy or something." + +But Miss Patty set her pretty mouth--both those girls have their +father's mouth--and held her sister out at arm's length and looked at +her. + +"Listen," she said. "Do you know what you have done to me? Do you know +that when father knows this he's going to annul the marriage or have Mr. +Carter arrested for kidnaping or abduction?--whatever it is." Mrs. Dick +puckered her face to cry, and Mr. Dick took a step forward, but Miss +Patty waved him off. "You know father as well as I do, Dolly. You know +what he is, and lately he's been awful. He's not well--it's his liver +again--and he won't listen to anything. Why, the Austrian ambassador +came up here, all this distance, to talk about the etiquette of the--of +my wedding, something about precedence, and he wouldn't even see him." + +"He can't annul it," said Mr. Dick angrily. "I'm of age. And I can +support my wife, too, or will be able--soon." + +"Dolly's not of age," said Miss Patty wearily. "I've sat up all night +figuring it out. He's going to annul the marriage, or he'll make a +scandal anyhow, and that's just as bad. Dolly,"--she turned to her +sister imploringly--"Dolly, I can't have a scandal now. You know how +Oskar's people have taken this, anyhow; they've given in, because he +insisted, but they don't want me, and if there's a lot of notoriety now +the emperor will send him to Africa or some place, and--" + +"I wish they would!" Mrs. Carter burst out suddenly. "I hate the whole +thing. They only tolerate you--us--for our money. You needn't look at +me like that; Oskar may be all right, but his mother and sisters are +hateful--simply hateful!" + +"I'll not be with them." + +"No, but they'll be with you." Mrs. Dicky walked over to the window and +looked out, dabbing her eyes. "You've been everything to me, Pat, and +I'm so happy now--I'd rather be here on a soap box with Dick than on +a throne or a dais or whatever you'll have to sit on over there, with +Oskar. I want to be happy--and you won't. Look at Alice Thorne and her +duke!" + +"If you really want me to be happy," Miss Patty said, going over to her, +"you'll go back to school until the wedding is over." + +"I won't leave Dicky." She swung around and gave Mr. Dick an adoring +glance, and Miss Patty looked discouraged. + +"Take him with you," she said. "Isn't there some place near where he +could stay, and telephone you now and then?" + +"Telephone!" said Mrs. Dick scornfully. + +"Can't leave," Mr. Dick objected. "Got to be on the property." + +Miss Patty shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. "You're both +perfectly hopeless," she said. "I'll go and tell father, Dorothy, but +you know what will happen. You'll be back in school at Greenwich by +to-night, and your--husband will probably be under arrest." She opened +the door, but I dropped the toast I was making and ran after her. + +"If he is arrested," I said, "they'll have to keep him on the place. He +can't leave." + +She didn't say anything; she lifted her hand and looked at the ruby +ring, and then she glanced back into the room where Mr. Dick and his +wife were whispering together, and turned up her coat collar. + +"I'm going," she said, and stepped into the snow. But they called her +back in a hurry. + +"Look here, Miss--Miss Patricia," Mr. Dick said, "why can't we stay +here, where we are? It's very comfortable--that is, it's livable. +There's plenty of fresh air, anyhow, and everybody's shouting for fresh +air nowadays. They've got somebody to take my place in the house." + +"And father needn't know a thing--you can fix that," broke in Mrs. Dick. +"And after your wedding he will be in a better humor; he'll know it's +over and not up to him any more." + +Miss Patty came back to the shelter-house again and sat down on the soap +box. + +"We MIGHT carry it off," she said. "If I could only go back to town! +But father is in one of his tantrums, and he won't go, or let me go. +The idea!--with Aunt Honoria on the long-distance wire every day, having +hysterics, and my clothes waiting to be tried on and everything. I'm +desperate." + +"And all sorts of things being arranged for you!" put in Mrs. Dick +enviously. "And the family jewels being reset in Vienna for you and all +that! It would be great--if you only didn't have to take Oskar with the +jewels!" + +Miss Patty frowned. + +"You are not going to marry him," she said, with a glance at Mr. Dick, +who, with his coat off, was lying flat on the floor, one arm down in the +hole where the things had been hidden, trying to hook up a can of baked +beans. "If it doesn't turn out well, you and father have certainly done +your part in the way of warning. It's just as Aunt Honoria said; the +family will make a tremendous row beforehand, but afterward, when it all +turns out well, they'll take the credit." + +Mr. Dick was busy with the beans and I was turning the eggs. Mrs. Dick +went over to her sister and put her arm around her. + +"That's right, Patty," she said, "you're more like mother than I am. +I'm a Jennings all over--except that, heavens be praised, I've got the +Sherwood liver. I guess I'm common plebeian, like dad, too. I'm plebeian +enough, anyhow, to think there's been a lot too much about marriage +settlements and the consent of the emperor in all this, and not enough +about love." + +I could have patted Mrs. Dicky on the back for that, and I almost upset +the eggs into the fire. I'm an advocate of marrying for love every time, +although a title and a bunch of family jewels thrown in wouldn't worry +me. + +"Do you want me to protest that the man who has asked me to marry him +cares about me?" Miss Patty replied in an angry undertone. "Couldn't +he have married a thousand other girls! Hadn't a marriage been arranged +between him and the cousin--" + +"I know all that," Mrs. Dicky said, and her voice sounded older than +Miss Patty's, and motherly. "But--are you in love with him, Pat?" + +"Certainly," Miss Patty said indignantly. "Don't be silly, Dolly." + +At that instant Mr. Dick found the beans, and got up shouting that we'd +have a meal fit for a prince--if princes ate anything so every day as +baked beans. I put the eggs on a platter and poured the coffee, and we +all sat around the soap box and ate. I wished that Miss Cobb could have +seen me there--how they insisted on my having a second egg, and was my +coffee cold, and wasn't I too close to the fire? It was Minnie here and +Minnie there, and me next to Miss Patty on the floor, and she, as you +may say, right next to royalty. I wished it could have been in the +spring-house, with father's crayon enlargement looking down on us. + +Everybody felt better for the meal, and we were sitting there laughing +and talking and very cheerful when Mr. Van Alstyne opened the door and +looked in. His face was stern, but when he saw us, with Miss Patty on +her knees toasting a piece of bread and Mr. Dicky passing the tin basin +as a finger-bowl, he stopped scowling and looked amused. + +"They're here, Sallie," he called to his wife, and they both came in, +covered with snow, and we had coffee and eggs all over again. + +Well, they stayed for an hour, and Mr. Sam talked himself black in the +face and couldn't get anywhere. For the Dickys refused to be separated, +and Mrs. Dick wouldn't tell her father, and Miss Patty wouldn't do it +for her, and the minute Mr. Sam made a suggestion that sounded rational +Mrs. Dick would cry and say she didn't care to live, anyhow, and she +wished she had died of ptomaine poisoning the time she ate the bad +oysters at school. + +So finally Mr. Sam gave up and said he washed his hands of the whole +affair, and that he was going to make another start on his wedding +journey, and if they wanted to be a pair of fools it wasn't up to +him--only for heaven's sake not to cry about it. And then he wiped +Mrs. Dicky's eyes and kissed her, she being, as he explained, his +sister-in-law now and much too pretty for him to scold. + +And when the Dickys found they were not going to be separated we had +more coffee all around and everybody grew more cheerful. + +Oh, we were very cheerful! I look back now and think how cheerful we +were, and I shudder. It was strange that we hadn't been warned by Mr. +Pierce's square jaw, but we were not. We sat around the fire and ate and +laughed, and Mr. Dick arranged that Mr. Pierce should come out to him +every evening for orders about the place if he accepted, and everybody +felt he would--and I was to come at the same time and bring a basket of +provisions for the next day. Of course, the instant Mr. Jennings left +the young couple could go into the sanatorium as guests under another +name and be comfortable. And as soon as the time limit was up, and the +place was still running smoothly, they could declare the truth, claim +the sanatorium, having fulfilled the conditions of the will, and confess +to Mr. Jennings--over the long-distance wire. + +Well, it promised well, I must say. Mr. Stitt left on the ten train that +morning, looking lemon-colored and mottled. He insisted that he wasn't +able to go, but Mr. Sam gave him a headache powder and put him on the +train, anyhow. + +Yes, as I say, it promised well. But we made two mistakes: we didn't +count on Mr. Thoburn, and we didn't know Mr. Pierce. And who could have +imagined that Mike the bath man would do as he did? + + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ANOTHER COMPLICATION + +After luncheon, when everybody at Hope Springs takes a nap, we had +another meeting at the shelter-house, this time with Mr. Pierce. He had +spent the morning tramping over the hills with a gun and keeping out +of the way of people, and what with three square meals, a good night's +sleep and the exercise, he was looking a lot better. Seen in daylight, +he had very dark hair and blue-gray eyes and a very square chin, +although it had a sort of dimple in it. I used to wonder which won out, +the dimple or the chin, but I wasn't long in finding out. + +Well, he looked dazed when I took him to the shelter-house and he saw +Mr. Dick and Mrs. Dick and the Mr. Sams and Miss Patty. They gave him a +lawn-mower to sit on, and Mr. Sam explained the situation. + +"I know it's asking a good bit, Mr. Pierce," he said, "and personally +I can see only one way out of all this. Carter ought to go in and take +charge, and his--er--wife ought to go back to school. But they won't +have it, and--er--there are other reasons." He glanced at Miss Patty. + +Mr. Pierce also glanced at Miss Patty. He'd been glancing at her at +intervals of two seconds ever since she came in, and being a woman and +having a point to gain, Miss Patty seemed to have forgotten the night +before, and was very nice to him. Once she smiled directly at him, and +whatever he was saying died in his throat of the shock. When she turned +her head away he stared at the back of her neck, and when she looked at +the fire he gazed at her profile, and always with that puzzled look, +as if he hadn't yet come to believe that she was the newspaper Miss +Jennings. + +After everything had been explained to him, including Mr. Jennings' +liver and disposition, she turned to him and said: + +"We are in your hands, you see, Mr. Pierce. Are you going to help us?" +And when she asked him that, it was plain to me that he was only sorry +he couldn't die helping. + +"If everybody agrees to it," he said, looking at her, "and you all think +it's feasible and I can carry it off, I'm perfectly willing to try." + +"Oh, it's feasible," Mr. Dick said in a relieved voice, getting up and +beginning to strut up and down the room. "It isn't as though I'm beyond +call. You can come out here and consult me if you get stuck. And then +there's Minnie; she knows a good bit about the old place." + +Mr. Sam looked at me and winked. + +"Of course," said Mr. Dick, "I expect to retain control, you understand +that, I suppose, Pierce? You can come out every day for instructions. I +dare say sanatoriums are hardly your line." + +Mr. Pierce was looking at Miss Patty and she knew it. When a woman looks +as unconscious as she did it isn't natural. + +"Eh--oh, well no, hardly," he said, coming to himself; "I've tried +everything else, I believe. It can't be worse than carrying a bunch of +sweet peas from garden to garden." + +Mr. Dick stopped walking and turned suddenly to stare at Mr. Pierce. + +"Sweet--what?" he said. + +Everybody else was talking, and I was the only one who saw him change +color. + +"Sweet peas," said Mr. Pierce. "And that reminds me--I'd like to make +one condition, Mr. Carter. I feel in a measure responsible for the +company; most of them have gone back to New York, but the leading woman +is sick at the hotel in Finleyville. I'd like to bring her here for two +weeks to recuperate. I assure you, I have no interest in her, but I'm +sorry for her; she's had the mumps." + +"Mumps!" everybody said together, and Mr. Sam looked at his +brother-in-law. + +"Kid in the play got 'em, and they spread around," Mr. Pierce explained. +"Nasty disease." + +"Why, you've just had them, too, Dicky!" said his wife. They all turned +to look at him, and I must say his expression was curious. + +Luckily, I had the wit to knock over the breakfast basket, which was +still there, and when we'd gathered up the broken china, Mr. Dick had +got himself in hand. + +"I'm sorry, old man," he said to Mr. Pierce, "but I'm not in favor of +bringing Miss--the person you speak of--up to the sanatorium just now. +Mumps, you know--very contagious, and all that." + +"She's over that part," Mr. Pierce said; "she only needs to rest." + +"Certainly--let her come," said Mrs. Dicky. "If they're as contagious as +all that, you haven't been afraid of MY getting them." + +"I--I'm not in favor of it," Mr. Dick insisted, looking obstinate. +"The minute you bring an actress here you've got the whole place by the +ears." + +"Fiddlesticks!" said his sister. "Because any actress could set YOU by +the ears--" + +Mrs. Dick sat up suddenly. + +"Certainly, if she isn't well bring her up," said Miss Patty. +"Only--won't she know your name is not Carter?" + +"She's discretion itself," Mr. Pierce said. "Her salary hasn't been +paid for a month, and as I'm responsible, I'd be glad to see her looked +after." + +"I don't want her here. I'll--I'll pay her board at the hotel," Mr. Dick +began, "only for heaven's sake, don't--" + +He stopped, for every one was staring. + +"Why in the world would you do that?" Miss Patty asked. "Don't be +ridiculous. That's the only condition Mr. Pierce has made." + +Mr. Dick stalked to the window and looked out, his hands in his pockets. +I couldn't help being reminded of the time he had run away from school, +when his grandfather found him in the shelter-house and gave him his +choice of going back at once or reading medicine with him. + +"Oh, bring her up! Bring her up!" he said without looking around. "If +Pierce won't stay unless he can play the friend in need, all right. But +don't come after me if the whole blamed sanatorium swells up with mumps +and faints at the sight of a pickle." + +That was Wednesday. + +Things at the sanatorium were about the same on the surface. The women +crocheted and wondered what the next house doctor would be like, and the +men gambled at the slot-machines and played billiards and grumbled at +the food and the management, and when they weren't drinking spring water +they were in the bar washing away the taste of it. They took twenty +minutes on the verandas every day for exercise and kept the house +temperature at eighty. Senator Biggs was still fasting and Mrs. Biggs +took to spending all day in the spring-house and turning pale every time +she heard his voice. It was that day, I think, that I found the magazine +with Upton Sinclair's article on fasting stuck fast in a snow-drift, as +if it had been thrown violently. + +Wednesday afternoon Miss Julia Summers came with three lap robes, a +white lace veil and a French poodle in a sleigh and went to bed in one +of the best rooms, and that night we started to move out furniture to +the shelter-house. + +By working almost all night we got the shelter-house fairly furnished, +although we made a trail through the snow that looked like a fever +chart. Toward daylight Mr. Sam dropped a wash-bowl on my toe and I went +to bed with an arnica compress. + +I limped out in time to be on hand before Miss Cobb got there, but what +with a chilblain on my heel and hardly any sleep for two nights--not to +mention my toe--I wasn't any too pleasant. + +"It's my opinion you're overeating, Minnie," Miss Cobb said. "You're +skin's a sight!" + +"You needn't look at it," I retorted. + +She burned the back of her neck just then and it was three minutes +before she could speak. When she could she was considerably milder. + +"Just give it a twist or two, Minnie, won't you?" she said, holding out +the curler. "I haven't been able to sleep on the back of my head for +three weeks." + +Well, I curled her hair for her and she told me about Miss Summers being +still shut in her room, and how she'd offered Mike an extra dollar to +give the white poodle a Turkish bath--it being under the weather as to +health--and how Mike had soaked the little beast for an hour in a tub +of water, forgetting the sulphur, and it had come out a sort of mustard +color, and how Miss Summers had had hysterics when she saw it. + +"Mike dipped him in bluing to bleach him again, or rather 'her'--it's +name is Arabella--" Miss Cobb said, "but all it did was to make it +mottled like an Easter egg. Everybody is charmed. There were no dogs +allowed while the old doctor lived. Things were different." + +"Yes, things were different," I assented, limping over to heat the +curler. "How--how does Mr. Carter get along?" + +Miss Cobb put down her hand-mirror and sniffed. + +"Well," she said, "goodness knows I'm no trouble maker, but somebody +ought to tell that young man a few things. He's forever looking at +the thermometer and opening windows. I declare, if I hadn't brought my +woolen tights along I'd have frozen to death at breakfast. Everybody's +complaining." + +I put that away in my mind to speak about. It was only by nailing the +windows shut and putting strips of cotton batting around the cracks that +we'd ever been able to keep people there in the winter. I had my first +misgiving then. Heaven knows I didn't realize what it was going to be. + +Well, by the evening of that day things were going fairly well. Tillie +brought out a basket every morning to me at the spring-house, +fairly bursting with curiosity, and Mr. Sam got some canned stuff in +Finleyville and took it after dark to the shelter-house. But after the +second day Mrs. Dicky got tired holding a frying-pan over the fire and I +had to carry out at least one hot meal a day. + +They got their own breakfast in a chafing-dish, or rather he got it and +carried it to her. And she'd sit on the edge of her cot, with her feet +on the soap box--the floor was drafty--wrapped in a pink satin negligee +with bands of brown fur on it, looking sweet and perfectly happy, and +let him feed her boiled egg with a spoon. I took them some books--my +Gray's Anatomy, and Jane Eyre and Molly Bawn, by The Duchess, and the +newspapers, of course. They were full of talk about the wedding, and the +suite the prince was bringing over with him, and every now and then a +notice would say that Miss Dorothy Jennings, the bride's young sister, +who was still in school and was not coming out until next year, would be +her sister's maid of honor. And when they came to that, they would hug +each other--or me, if I happened to be close--and act like a pair of +children, which they were. Generally it would end up by his asking +her if she wasn't sorry she wasn't back at Greenwich studying French +conjugations and having a dance without any men on Friday nights, and +she would say "Wretch!" and kiss him, and I'd go out and slam the door. + +But there was something on Mr. Dick's mind. I hadn't known him for +fourteen years for nothing. And the night Mr. Sam and I carried out the +canned salmon and corn and tomatoes he walked back with me to the edge +of the deer park, Mr. Sam having gone ahead. + +"Now," I said, when we were out of ear-shot, "spit it out. I've been +expecting it." + +"Listen, Minnie," he answered, "is Ju--is Miss Summers still confined to +her room?" + +"No," I replied coldly. "Ju--Miss Summers was down to-night to dinner." + +"Then she's seen Pierce," he said, "and he's told her the whole story +and by to-morrow--" + +"What?" I demanded, clutching his arm. "You wretched boy, don't tell me +after all I've done." + +"Oh, confound it, Minnie," he exclaimed, "it's as much your fault as +mine. Couldn't you have found somebody else, instead of getting, of all +things on earth, somebody from the Sweet Peas Company?" + +"I see," I said slowly. "Then it WASN'T coincidence about the mumps!" + +"Confounded kid had them," he said with bitterness. "Minnie, +something's got to be done, and done soon. If you want the plain truth, +Miss--er--Summers and I used to be friends--and--well, she's suing +me for breach of promise. Now for heaven's sake, Minnie, don't make a +fuss--" + +But my knees wouldn't hold me. I dropped down in a snow-drift and +covered my face. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MISS PATTY'S PRINCE + +I dragged myself back to the spring-house and dropped in front of the +fire. What with worry and no sleep and now this new complication I was +dead as yesterday's newspaper. I sat there on the floor with my hands +around my knees, thinking what to do next, and as I sat there, the +crayon enlargement of father on the spring-house wall began to shake its +head from side to side, and then I saw it hold out its hand and point a +finger at me. + +"Cut and run, Minnie," it said. "Get out from under! Go and buy Timmon's +candy store before the smash--the smash--!" + +When I opened my eyes Mr. Pierce was sitting on the other side of the +chimney and staring at the fire. He had a pipe between his teeth, but +he wasn't smoking, and he had something of the same look about his mouth +he'd had the first day I saw him. + +"Well?" he said, when he saw I was awake. + +"I guess I was sleeping." I sat up and pushed in my hairpins and yawned. +I was tireder than ever. "I'm clean worn out." + +"Of course you're tired," he declared angrily. "You're not a horse, and +you haven't been to bed for two nights." + +"Care killed the cat," I said. "I don't mind losing sleep, but it's like +walking in a swamp, Mr. Pierce. First I put a toe in--that was when I +asked you to stay over night. Then I went a step farther, lured on, as +you may say, by Miss Patty waving a crown or whatever it is she wants, +just beyond my nose. And to-night I've got a--well, to-night I'm in to +the neck and yelling for a quick death." + +He leaned over to where I sat before the fire and twisted my head toward +him. + +"To-night--what?" he demanded. + +But that minute I made up my mind not to tell him. He might think the +situation was too much for him and leave, or he might decide he ought to +tell Miss Summers where Dick was. There was no love lost between him and +Mr. Carter. + +"To-night--I'm just tired and cranky," I said, "so--is Miss Summers +settled yet?" + +He nodded, as if he wasn't thinking of Miss Summers. + +"What did you tell her?" + +"Haven't seen her," he said. "Sent her a note that I was understudying a +man named Carter and to mind to pick up her cues." + +"It's a common enough name," I said, but he had lighted his pipe again +and had dropped forward, one elbow on his knee, his hand holding the +bowl of his pipe, and staring into the fire. He looked up when I closed +and locked the pantry door. + +"I've just been thinking," he remarked, "here we are--a group of +people--all struggling like mad for one thing, but with different +motives. Mine are plain enough and mercenary enough, although a certain +red-haired girl with a fine loyalty to an old doctor and a sanatorium +is carrying me along with her enthusiasm. And Van Alstyne's motives +are clear enough--and selfish. Carter is merely trying to save his own +skin--but a girl like Miss Pat--Miss Jennings!" + +"There's nothing uncertain about what she wants, or wrong either," I +retorted. "She's right enough. The family can't stand a scandal just now +with her wedding so close." + +He smiled and got up, emptying his pipe. + +"Nevertheless, oh, Minnie, of the glowing hair and heart," he said, +"Miss Jennings has disappointed me. You see, I believe in marrying for +love." + +"Love!" I was disgusted. "Don't talk to me about love! Love is the sort +of thing that makes two silly idiots run away and get married and live +in a shelter-house, upsetting everybody's plans, while their betters +have to worry themselves sick and carry them victuals." + +He got up and began to walk up and down the spring-house, scowling at +the floor. + +"Of course," he agreed, "he may be a decent sort, and she may really +want him." + +"Of course she does!" I said. He stopped short. "I've been wanting a +set of red puffs for three years, and I can hardly walk past Mrs. Yost's +window down in the village. They've got some that match my hair and I +fairly yearn for them. But if I got 'em I dare say I'd put them in a box +and go after wanting something else. It's the same way with Miss Patty. +She'll get her prince, and because it isn't real love, but only the same +as me with the puffs, she'll go after wanting something else. Only she +can't put him away in a box. She'll have to put him on and wear him for +better, for worse." + +"Lord help her!" he said solemnly, and went over to the window and stood +there looking out. + +I went over beside him. From the window we could see the three rows of +yellow lights that marked the house, and somebody with a lantern was +going down the path toward the stables. Mr. Pierce leaned forward, his +hands at the top of the window-sash, and put his forehead against the +glass. + +"Why is it that a lighted window in a snow-storm always makes a fellow +homesick?" he said in his half-mocking way. "If he hasn't got a home it +makes him want one." + +"Well, why don't you get one?" I asked. + +"On nothing a year?" he said. "Not even prospects! And set up +housekeeping in the shelter-house with my good friend Minnie carrying +us food and wearing herself to a shadow, not to mention bringing trashy +books to my bride." + +"She isn't that kind," I broke in, and got red. I'd been thinking of +Miss Patty. But he went over to the table and picked up his glass of +spring water, only to set it down untasted. + +"No, she's not that kind!" he agreed, and never noticed the slip. + +"You know, Minnie, women aren't all alike, but they're not all +different. An English writer has them classified to a T--there's the +mother woman--that's you. You're always mothering somebody with that +maternal spirit of yours. It's a pity it's vicarious." + +I didn't say anything, not knowing just what he meant. But I've looked +it up since and I guess he was about right. + +"And there's the mistress woman--Mrs. Dicky, for example, or--" he saw +Miss Cobb's curler on the mantel and picked it up--"or even Miss Cobb," +he said. "Coquetry and selfishness without maternal instinct. How +much of Miss Cobb's virtue is training and environment, Minnie, not to +mention lack of temptation, and how much was born in her?" + +"She's a preacher's daughter," I remarked. I could understand about Mrs. +Dicky, but I thought he was wrong about Miss Cobb. + +"Exactly," he said. "And the third kind of woman is the mistress-mother +kind, and they're the salt of the earth, Minnie." He began to walk up +and down by the spring with his hands in his pockets and a far-away look +in his eyes. "The man who marries that kind of woman is headed straight +for paradise." + +"That's the way!" I snapped. "You men have women divided into classes +and catalogued like horses on sale." + +"Aren't they on sale?" he demanded, stopping. "Isn't it money, or +liberty, or--or a title, usually?" I knew he was thinking of Miss Patty +again. + +"As for the men," I continued, "I guess you can class the married ones +in two classes, providers and non-providers. They're all selfish and +they haven't enough virtue to make a fuss about." + +"I'd be a shining light in the non-provider class," he said, and picking +up his old cap he opened the door. Miss Patty herself was coming up the +path. + +She was flushed from the cold air and from hurrying, and I don't know +that I ever saw her look prettier. When she came into the light we could +both see that she was dressed for dinner. Her fur coat was open at +the neck, and she had only a lace scarf over her head. (She was +a disbeliever in colds, anyhow, and all winter long she slept with the +windows open and the steam-heat off!) + +"I'm so glad you're still here, Minnie!" she exclaimed, breathing fast. +"You haven't taken the dinner out to the shelter-house yet, have you?" + +"Not yet," I replied. "Tillie hasn't brought the basket. The chef's been +fussing about the stuff we're using in the diet kitchen the last few +days, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's shut off all extras." + +But I guess her sister and Mr. Dick could have starved to death just +then without her noticing. She was all excitement, for all she's mostly +so cool. + +"I have a note here for my sister," she said, getting it out of her +pocket. "I know we all impose on you, Minnie, but--will you take it for +me? I'd go, but I'm in slippers, and, anyhow, I'd need a lantern, and +that would be reckless, wouldn't it?" + +"In slippers!" Mr. Pierce interrupted. "It's only five degrees above +zero! Of all the foolhardy--!" + +Miss Patty did not seem to hear him. She gave the letter to me and +followed me out on the step. + +"You're a saint, Minnie," she said, leaning over and squeezing my arm, +"and because you're going back and forth in the cold so much, I want you +to have this--to keep." + +She stooped and picked up from the snow beside the steps something soft +and furry and threw it around my neck, and the next instant I knew +she was giving me her chinchilla set, muff and all. I was so pleased I +cried, and all the way over to the shelter-house I sniveled and danced +with joy at the same time. There's nothing like chinchilla to tone down +red hair. + +Well, I took the note out to the shelter-house, and rapped. Mr. Dick let +me in, and it struck me he wasn't as cheerful as usual. He reached out +and took the muff. + +"Oh," he said, "I thought that was the supper." + +"It's coming," I said, looking past him for Mrs. Dicky. Usually when +I went there she was drawing Mr. Dick's profile on a bit of paper or +teaching him how to manicure his nails, but that night she was lying on +the cot and she didn't look up. + +"Sleeping?" I asked in a whisper. + +"Grumping!" Mr. Dick answered. He went over and stood looking down at +her with his hands in his pockets and his hair ruffled as if he'd been +running his fingers through it. She never moved a shoulder. + +"Dorothy," he said. "Here's Minnie." + +She pretended not to hear. + +"Dorothy!" he repeated. "I wish you wouldn't be such a g--Confound it, +Dolly, be reasonable. Do you want to make me look like a fool?" + +She turned her face enough to uncover one eye. + +"It wouldn't be difficult," she answered, staring at him with the one +eye. It was red from crying. + +"Now listen, Dolly." He got down on one knee beside the cot and tried to +take her hand, but she jerked it away. "I've tried wearing my hair that +way, and it--it isn't becoming, to say the least. I don't mind having it +wet and brushed back in a pompadour, if you insist, but I certainly do +balk at the ribbon." + +"You've only got to wear the ribbon an hour or so, until it dries." She +brought her hand forward an inch or so and he took it and kissed it. It +should have been slapped. + +"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "You can fix it any way you +please, when it's too late for old Sam or Pierce to drop in, and I'll +wear the confounded ribbon all night. Won't that do?" + +But she had seen the note and sat up and held out her hand for it. She +was wearing one of Miss Patty's dresses and it hung on her--not that +Miss Patty was large, but she had a beautiful figure, and Mrs. Dicky, of +course, was still growing and not properly filled out. + +"Dick!" she said suddenly, "what do you think? Oskar is here! Pat's in +the wildest excitement. He's in town, and Aunt Honoria has telephoned +to know what to do! Listen: he is incog., of course, and registered as +Oskar von Inwald. He did an awfully clever thing--came in through Canada +while the papers thought he was in St. Moritz." + +"For heaven's sake," replied Mr. Dick, "tell her not to ask him here. I +shouldn't know how to talk to him." + +"He speaks lovely English," declared Mrs. Dick, still reading. + +"I know all that," he said, walking around nervously, "but if he's going +to be my brother-in-law, I suppose I don't get down on my knees and +knock my head on the floor. What do I say to him? Your Highness? Oh, +I've known a lord or two, but that's different. You call them anything +you like and lend them money." + +"I dare say you can with Oskar, too." Mrs. Dicky put the note down and +sighed. "Well, he's coming. Pat says dad won't go back to town until +he's had twenty-one baths, and he's only had eleven and she's got to +stay with him. And you needn't worry about what to call Oskar. He's not +to know we're here." + +I was worried on my way back to the spring-house--not that the prince +would make much difference, as far as I could see things being about as +bad as they could be. But some of the people were talking of leaving, +and since we had to have a prince it seemed a pity he wasn't coming +with all his retinue and titles. It would have been a good ten thousand +dollars' worth of advertising for the place, and goodness knows we +needed it. + +When I got back to the spring-house Miss Patty and Mr. Pierce were still +there. He was in front of the fire, with his back to it, and she was +near the door. + +"Of course it isn't my affair," he was saying. "You are perfectly--" +Then I opened the door and he stopped. I went on into the pantry to take +off my overshoes, and as I closed the door he continued. "I didn't mean +to say what I have. I meant to explain about the other night--I had a +right to do that. But you forced the issue." + +"I was compelled to tell you he was coming," she said angrily. "I felt +I should. You have been good enough to take Mr. Carter's place here and +save me from an embarrassing situation--" + +"I had no philanthropic motives," he insisted stubbornly. "I did it, +as you must know, for three meals a day and a roof over my head. If you +wish me to be entirely frank, I disapprove of the whole thing." + +I heard the swish of her dress as she left the door and went toward him. + +"What would you have had me do?" she asked. + +"Take those two children to your father. What if there was a row? +Why should there be such a lot made of it, anyhow? They're young, but +they'll get older. It isn't a crime for two people to--er--love each +other, is it? And if you think a scandal or two in your family--granting +your father would make a scandal--is going to put another patch on the +ragged reputations of the royal family of--" + +"How dare you!" she cried furiously. "How DARE you!" + +I heard her cross the room and fling the door open and a second later it +slammed. When I came out of the pantry Mr. Pierce was sitting in his old +position, elbow on knee, holding his pipe and staring at the bowl. + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +WE GET A DOCTOR + +I had my hands full the next day. We'd had another snow-storm during +the night and the trains were blocked again. About ten o'clock we got +a telegram from the new doctor we'd been expecting, that he'd fallen +on the ice on his way to the train and broken his arm, and at eleven a +delegation from the guests waited on Mr. Pierce and told him they'd have +to have a house physician at once. + +Senator Biggs was the spokesman. He said that, personally, he couldn't +remain another day without one; that he should be under a physician's +care every moment of his fast, and that if no doctor came that day +he'd be in favor of all the guests showing their displeasure by leaving +together. + +"Either that," Thoburn said from the edge of the crowd, "or call it a +hotel at once and be done with it. A sanatorium without a doctor is like +an omelet without eggs!" + +"Hamlet without ham," somebody said. + +"We're doing the best we can," Mr. Pierce explained. "We--we expect a +doctor to-day." + +"When?" from Mr. Jennings, who had come on a cane and was watching Mr. +Pierce like a hawk. + +"This afternoon, probably. As there is no one here very ill--" + +But at that they almost fell on him and tore him to pieces. I had to +step in front of him myself and say we'd have somebody there by two +o'clock if we had to rob a hospital to get him. And Mr. Sam cried, +"Three cheers for Minnie, the beautiful spring-house girl!" and led off. + +There's no doubt about it--a man ought to be born to the sanatorium +business. A real strong and healthy man has no business trying to run +a health resort, and I saw Mr. Pierce wasn't making the hit that I'd +expected him to. + +He was too healthy. You only needed to look at him to know that he took +a cold plunge every morning, and liked to walk ten miles a day, and +could digest anything and go to sleep the minute his head touched the +pillow. And he had no tact. When Mrs. Biggs went to him and explained +that the vacuum cleaner must not be used in her room--that it exhausted +the air or something, and she could hardly breathe after it--he only +looked bewildered and then drew a diagram to show her it was impossible +that it could exhaust the air. The old doctor knew how: he'd have +ordered an oxygen tank opened in the room after the cleaner was used and +she'd have gone away happy. + +Of course Mr. Pierce was most polite. He'd listen to their +complaints--and they were always complaining, that's part of the +regime--with a puzzled face, trying to understand, but he couldn't. +He hadn't a nerve in his body. Once, when one of the dining-room girls +dropped a tray of dishes and half the women went to bed with headache +from the nervous shock, he never even looked up, but went on with his +dinner, and the only comment he made afterward was to tell the head +waitress to see that Annie didn't have to pay breakage--that the +trays were too heavy for a woman, anyhow. As Miss Cobb said, he was +impossible. + +Well, as if I didn't have my hands full with getting meals to the +shelter-house, and trying to find a house doctor, and wondering how long +it would be before "Julia" came face to face with Dick Carter somewhere +or other, and trying to keep one eye on Thoburn while I kept Mr. Pierce +straight with the other--that day, during luncheon, Mike the bath man +came out to the spring-house and made a howl about his wages. He'd been +looking surly for two days. + +"What about your wages?" I snapped. "Aren't you getting what you've +always had?" + +"No tips!" he said sulkily. "Only a few taking baths--only one daily, +and that's that man Jennings. There's no use talking, Miss Minnie, I've +got to have a double percentage on that man or you'll have to muzzle +him. He--he's dangerous." + +"If I give you the double percentage, will you stay?" + +"I don't know but that I'd rather have the muzzle, Miss Minnie," he +answered slowly, "but--I'll stay. It won't be for long." + +Which left me thinking. I'd seen Thoburn talking to Mike more than once +lately, and he'd been going around with an air of assurance that didn't +make me any too cheerful. Evenings, when I'd relieved Amanda King at the +news stand, I'd seen Thoburn examining the woodwork of the windows, and +only the night before, happening on the veranda unexpectedly, I found +Mike and him measuring it with a tape line. As I say, Mike's visit left +me thinking. + +The usual crowd came out that afternoon and drank water and sat around +the fire and complained--all except Senator Biggs, who happened in just +as I was pouring melted butter over a dish of hot salted pop-corn. +He stood just inside the door, sniffling, with his eyes fixed on the +butter, and then groaned and went out. + +He looked terrible--his clothes hung on him like bags; as the bishop +said, it was ghastly to see a convexity change to such a concavity in +three days. + +Mr. Moody won three dollars that day from the slot-machine and was +almost civil to his wife, but old Jennings sat with his foot on a stool +and yelled if anybody slammed the door. Mrs. Hutchins brought him out +with her eyes red and asked me if she could leave him there. + +"I'm sorry if I was rude to you the other night, Minnie," she said, "but +I was upset. I'm so worn-out that I'll have to lie down for an hour, and +if he doesn't get better soon, I--I shall have to have help. My nerves +are gone." + +At four o'clock Mr. Sam came in, and he had Mr. Thoburn tight by the +arm. + +"My dear old chap," he was saying, "it would be as much as your life's +worth. That ground is full of holes and just now covered with snow--!" + +He caught my eye, and wiped his forehead. + +"Heaven help us!" he said, coming over to the spring, "I found him +making for the shelter-house, armed with a foot rule! Somebody's got to +take him in hand--I tell you, the man's a menace!" + +"What about the doctor?" I asked, reaching up his glass. + +"Be here to-night," he answered, "on the--" + +But at that minute a boy brought a telegram down and handed it to him. +The new doctor was laid up with influenza! + +We sat there after the others had gone, and Mr. Sam said he was for +giving up the fight, only to come out now with the truth would mean such +a lot of explaining and a good many people would likely find it funny. +Mr. Pierce came in later and we gave him the telegram to read. + +"I don't see why on earth they need a doctor, anyhow," he said, "they're +not sick. If they'd take a little exercise and get some air in their +lungs--" + +"My dear fellow," Mr. Sam cried in despair, "some people are born +in sanatoriums, some acquire them, and others have them thrust upon +them--I've had this place thrust upon me. I don't know why they want a +doctor, but they do. They balked at Rodgers from the village. They want +somebody here at night. Mr. Jennings has the gout and there's the deuce +to pay. Some of them talk of leaving." + +"Let 'em leave," said Mr. Pierce. "If they'd go home and drink three +gallons of any kind of pure water a day--" + +"Sh! That's heresy here! My dear fellow, we've got to keep them." + +Mr. Pierce glanced at the telegram and handed it back. + +"Lot's of starving M. D.'s would jump at the chance," he said, "but if +it's as urgent as all this we can't wait to hunt. I'll tell you, Van +Alstyne, there's a chap down in the village he was the character man +with the Sweet Peas Company--and he's stranded there. I saw him this +morning. He's washing dishes in the depot restaurant for his meals. +We used to call him Doc, and I've a hazy idea that he's a graduate M. +D.--name's Barnes." + +"Great!" cried Mr. Van Alstyne. "Let's have Barnes. You get him, will +you, Pierce?" + +Mr. Pierce promised and they started out together. At the door Mr. Sam +turned. + +"Oh, by the way, Minnie," he called, "better gild one of your chairs and +put a red cushion on it. The prince has arrived." + +Well, I thought it all out that afternoon as I washed the glasses, and +it was terrible. I had two people in the shelter-house to feed and look +after like babies, with Tillie getting more curious every day about +the basket she brought, and not to be held much longer; and I had a man +running the sanatorium and running it to the devil as fast as it could +go. Not that he wasn't a nice young man, big, strong-jawed and all that, +but you can't make a diplomat out of an ordinary man in three days, and +it takes more diplomacy to run a sanatorium a week than it does to be +secretary of state for four years. Then I had a prince incognito, and +Thoburn stirring up mischief, and the servants threatening to strike, +and no house doctor-- + +Just as I got to that somebody opened the door behind me and looked in. +I glanced around, and it was a man with the reddest hair I ever saw. +Mine was pale by comparison. He was rather short and heavy-set, and he +had a pleasant face, although not handsome, his nose being slightly bent +to the left. But at first all I could see was his hair. + +"Good evening," he said, edging himself in. "Are you Miss Waters?" + +"Yes," I said, rising and getting a glass ready, "although I'm not +called that often, except by people who want to pun on my name and my +business." I looked at him sharply, but he hadn't intended any pun. + +He took off his hat and came over to the spring where I was filling his +glass. + +"If that's for me, you needn't bother," he said. "If it tastes as it +smells, I'm not thirsty. My name's Barnes, and I was to wait here for +Mr. Van Alstyne." + +"Barnes!" I repeated. "Then you're the doctor." + +He grinned, and stood turning his hat around in his hands. + +"Not exactly," he said. "I graduated in medicine a good many years ago, +but after a year of it, wearing out more seats of trousers waiting +for patients than I earned enough to pay for, and having to have new +trousers, I took to other things." + +"Oh, yes," I said. "You're an actor now." + +He looked thoughtful. + +"Some people think I'm not," he answered, "but I'm on the stage. +Graduated there from prize-fighting. Prize-fighting, the stage, and then +writing for magazines--that's the usual progression. Sometimes, as a +sort of denouement before the final curtain, we have dinner at the White +House." + +I took a liking to the man at once. It was a relief to have somebody +who was willing to tell all about himself and wasn't incognito, or in +hiding, or under somebody else's name. I put a fresh log on the fire, +and as it blazed up I saw him looking at me. + +"Ye gods and little fishes!" he said. "Another redhead! Why, we're as +alike as two carrots off the same bunch!" + +In five minutes I knew how old he was, and where he was raised, and that +what he wanted more than anything on earth was a little farmhouse with +chickens and a cow. + +"Where you can have air, you know," he said, waving his hands, which +were covered with reddish hair. "Lord, in the city I starve for air! And +where, when you're getting soft you can go out and tackle the wood-pile. +That's living!" + +And then he wanted to know what he was to do at the sanatorium and +I told him as well as I could. I didn't tell him everything, but I +explained why Mr. Pierce was calling himself Carter, and about the two +in the shelter-house. I had to. He knew as well as I did that three days +before Mr. Pierce had had nothing to his name but a folding automobile +road map or whatever it was. + +"Good for old Pierce!" he said when I finished. "He's a prince, Miss +Waters. If you'd seen him sending those girls back to town--well, I'll +do all I can to help him. But I'm not much of a doctor. It's safe to +acknowledge it; you'll find it out soon enough." + +Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstyne came in just then, and Mr. Sam told him what +he was expected to do. It wasn't much: he was to tell them at what +temperatures to take their baths, "and Minnie will help you out with +that," he added, and what they were to eat and were not to eat. "Minnie +will tell you that, too," he finished, and Mr. Barnes, DOCTOR Barnes, +came over and shook my hand. + +"I'm perfectly willing to be first assistant," he declared. "We'll put +our heads together and the result will be--" + +"Combustion!" said Mr. Sam, and we all laughed. + +"Remember," Mr. Sam instructed him, as Doctor Barnes started out, "when +you don't know what to prescribe, order a Turkish bath. The baths are to +a sanatorium what the bar is to a club--they pay the bills." + +Well, we got it all fixed and Doctor Barnes started out, but at the door +he stopped. + +"I say," he asked in an undertone, "the stork doesn't light around here, +does he?" + +"Not if they see him first!" I replied grimly, and he went out. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PRINCE--PRINCIPALLY + +It was all well enough for me to say--as I had to to Tillie many a +time--that it was ridiculous to make a fuss over a person for what, +after all, was an accident of birth. It was well enough for me to say +that it was only by chance that I wasn't strutting about with a crown on +my head and a man blowing a trumpet to let folks know I was coming, and +by the same token and the same chance Prince Oskar might have been a +red-haired spring-house girl, breaking the steels in her figure stooping +over to ladle mineral water out of a hole in the earth. + +Nevertheless, at five o'clock, after every one had gone, when I saw Miss +Patty, muffled in furs, tripping out through the snow, with a tall thin +man beside her, walking very straight and taking one step to her four, I +felt as though somebody had hit me at the end of my breast-bone. + +They stopped a minute outside before they came in, and I had to take +myself in hand. + +"Now look here, Minnie, you idiot," I said to myself, "this is America; +you're as good as he is; not a bend of the knee or a stoop of the neck. +And if he calls you 'my good girl' hit him." + +They came in together, laughing and talking, and, to be honest, if I +hadn't caught the back of a chair, I'd have had one foot back of the +other and been making a courtesy in spite of myself. + +"We're late, Minnie!" Miss Patty said. "Oskar, this is one of my best +friends, and you are to be very nice to her." + +He had one of those single glass things in his eye and he gave me a good +stare through it. Seen close he was handsomer than Mr. Pierce, but he +looked older than his picture. + +"Ask her if she won't be nice to me," he said in as good English as +mine, and held out his hand. + +"Any of Miss Patty's friends--" I began, with a lump in my throat, and +gave his hand a good squeeze. I thought he looked startled, and suddenly +I had a sort of chill. + +"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, "should I have kissed it?" + +They roared at that, and Miss Patty had to sit down in a chair. + +"You see, she knows, Oskar," she said. "The rest are thinking and +perhaps guessing, but Minnie is the only one that knows, and she never +talks. Everybody who comes here tells Minnie his troubles." + +"But--am I a trouble?" he asked in a low tone. I was down in the spring, +but I heard it. + +"So far you have hardly been an unalloyed joy," she replied, and from +the spring I echoed "Amen." + +"Yes--I'm so hung with family skeletons that I clatter when I walk," I +explained, pretending I hadn't heard, and brought them both glasses of +water. "It's got to be a habit with some people to save their sciatica +and their husband's dispositions and their torpid livers and their +unpaid bills and bring 'em here to me." + +He sniffed at the glass and put it down. + +"Herr Gott!" he said, "what a water! It is--the whole thing is +extraordinary! I can understand the reason for Carlsbad or Wiesbaden--it +is gay. One sees one's friends; it is--social. But here--!" + +He got up and, lifting a window curtain, peered out into the snow. + +"Here," he repeated, "shut in by forests and hills, a thousand miles +from life--" He shrugged his shoulders and came back to the table. "It +is well enough for the father," he went on to Miss Patty, "but for you! +Why--it is depressing, gray. The only bit of color in it all is--here, +in what you call the spring-house." I thought he meant Miss Patty's +cheeks or her lovely violet eyes, but he was looking at my hair. I had +caught his eye on it before, but this time he made no secret about it, +and he sighed, for all the world as if it reminded him of something. +He went over to the slot-machine and stood in front of it, humming and +trying the different combinations. I must say he had a nice back. + +Miss Patty came over and slipped her hand in mine. + +"Well?" she whispered, looking at me with her pretty eyebrows raised. + +"He looks all right," I had to confess. "Perhaps you can coax him to +shave." + +She laughed. + +"Oskar!" she called, "you have passed, but you are conditioned. Minnie +objects to the mustache." + +He turned and looked at me gravely. + +"It is my--greatest attraction," he declared, "but it is also a great +care. If Miss Minnie demands it, I shall give it to her in a--in a +little box." He sauntered over and looked at me in his audacious way. +"But you must promise to care for it. Many women have loved it." + +"I believe that!" I answered, and stared back at him without blinking. +"I guess I wouldn't want the responsibility." + +But I had an idea that he meant what he said about the many women, and +that Miss Patty knew it as well as I did. She flushed a little, and +they went very soon after that. I stood and watched them until they +disappeared in the snow, and I felt lonelier than ever, and sad, +although certainly he was better than I had expected to find him. He was +a man, and not a little cub with a body hardly big enough to carry his +forefathers' weaknesses. But he had a cold eye and a warm mouth, +and that sort of man is generally a social success and a matrimonial +failure. + +It wasn't until toward night that I remembered I'd been talking to a +real prince and I hadn't once said "your Highness" or "your Excellency" +or whatever I should have said. I had said "You!" + +I had hardly closed the door after them when it opened again and Mr. +Pierce came in. He shut the door and, going over to one of the tables, +put a package down on it. + +"Here's the stuff you wanted for the spring, Minnie," he announced. "I +suppose I can't do anything more than register a protest against it?" + +"You needn't bother doing that," I answered, "unless it makes you feel +better. Your authority ends at that door. Inside the spring-house I'm in +control." + +(It's hard to believe, with things as they are, that I once really +believed that. But I did. It was three full days later that I learned +that I'd been mistaken!) + +Well, he sat there and looked at nothing while I heated water in my +brass kettle over the fire and dissolved the things against Thoburn's +quick eye the next day, and he didn't say anything. He had a gift for +keeping quiet, Mr. Pierce had. It got on my nerves after a while. + +"Things are doing better," I remarked, stirring up my mixture. + +"Yes," he said, without moving. + +"I suppose they're happier now they have a doctor?" + +"Yes--no--I don't know. He's not much of a doctor, you know--and there +don't seem to be any medical books around." + +"There's one on the care and feeding of infants in the circulating +library," I said, "and he can have my Anatomy." + +"You're generous!" he remarked, with one of his quick smiles. + +"It's a book," I snapped, and fell to stirring again. But he was moping +once more, with his feet out and his hands behind his head, staring at +the ceiling. + +"I say, Minnie--" + +"Yes?" + +"Miss--Miss Jennings and the von Inwald were here just now, weren't +they? I passed them on the bridge." + +"Yes." + +"What--how do you like him?" + +"Better than I expected and not so well as I might," I said. "If you are +going to the house soon you might take Miss Patty her handkerchief. It's +there under that table." + +I took my mixture into the pantry and left it to cool. But as I started +back I stopped. He had got the handkerchief and was standing in front of +the fire, holding it in the palm of his hand and looking at it. And all +in a minute he crushed it to his face with both hands and against the +firelight I could see him quivering. + +I stepped back into the pantry and came out again noisily. He +was standing very calm and quiet where he had been before, and no +handkerchief in sight. + +"Well," I said, "did you get it?" + +"Get what?" + +"Miss Patty's handkerchief?" + +"Oh--that! Yes. Here it is." He pulled it out of his pocket and held it +up by the corner. + +"Ridiculous size, isn't it, and--" he held it up to his nose--"I dare +say one could almost tell it was hers by the scent. It's--it's like +her." + +"Humph!" I said, suddenly suspicious, and looked at it. "Well," I said, +"it may remind you of Miss Patty, and the scent may be like Miss Patty, +but she doesn't use perfume on her handkerchief. This has an E. C. on +it, which means Eliza Cobb." + +He left soon after, rather crestfallen, but to save my life I couldn't +forget what I'd seen--him with that scrap of linen that he thought was +hers crushed to his face, and his shoulders heaving. I had an idea that +he hadn't cared much for women before, and that, this being a first +attack, he hadn't established what the old doctor used to call an +immunity. + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PIERCE DISAPPROVES + +Mrs. Hutchins came out to the spring-house the next morning. She was +dressed in a black silk with real lace collar and cuffs, and she was so +puffed up with pride that she forgot to be nasty to me. + +"I thought I'd better come to you, Minnie," she said. "There seems to be +nobody in authority here any more. Mr. Carter has put the--has put Mr. +von Inwald in the north wing. I can not imagine why he should have given +him the coldest and most disagreeable part of the house." + +I said I'd speak to Mr. Carter and try to have him moved, and she +rustled over to where I was brushing the hearth and stooped down. + +"Mr. von Inwald is incognito, of course," she said, "but he belongs to a +very old family in his own country--a noble family. He ought to have the +best there is in the house." + +I promised that, too, and she went away, but I made up my mind to talk +to Mr. Pierce. The sanatorium business isn't one where you can put your +own likes and dislikes against the comfort of the guests. + +Miss Cobb came out a few minutes after; she had on her new green silk +with the white lace trimming. She saw me staring as she threw off her +cape and put her curler on the log. + +"It's a little dressy for so early, of course, Minnie," she said, "but +I wish you'd see some of the other women! Breakfast looked like an +afternoon reception. What would you think of pinning this black velvet +ribbon around my head?" + +"It might have done twenty years ago, Miss Cobb," I answered, "but I +wouldn't advise it now." I was working at the slot-machine, and I heard +her sniff behind me as she hung up her mirror on the window-frame. + +She tried the curler on the curtain, which she knows I object to, but +she was too full of her subject to be sulky for long. + +"I wish you could see Blanche Moody!" she began again, standing holding +the curler, with a thin wreath of smoke making a halo over her head. +"Drawn in--my dear, I don't see how she can breathe! I guess there's no +doubt about Mr. von Inwald." + +"I'd like to know who put this beer check in the slot-machine +yesterday," I said as indifferently as I could. "What about Mr. von +Inwald?" + +She tiptoed over to me, the halo trailing after her. + +"About his being a messenger from the prince to Miss Jennings!" she +answered in a whisper. "He spent last night closeted with papa, and +the chambermaid on that floor told Lily Biggs that there was almost a +quarrel." + +"That doesn't mean anything," I objected. "If the Angel Gabriel was shut +in with Mr. Jennings for ten minutes he'd be blowing his trumpet for +help." + +Miss Cobb shrugged her shoulders and took hold of a fresh wisp of hair +with the curler. + +"I dare say," she assented, "but the Angel Gabriel wouldn't have +waited to breakfast with Miss Jennings, and have kissed her hand before +everybody at the foot of the stairs!" + +"Is he handsome?" I asked, curious to know how he would impress other +women. But Miss Cobb had never seen a man she would call ugly. + +"Handsome!" she said. "My dear, he's beautiful! He has a duel scar on +his left cheek--all the nobility have them over there. I've a cousin +living in Berlin--she's the wittiest person--and she says the German +child of the future will be born with a scarred left cheek!" + +Well, I was sick enough of hearing of Mr. von Inwald before the day was +over. All morning in the spring-house they talked Mr. von Inwald. They +pretended to play cards, but they were really playing European royalty. +Every time somebody laid down a queen, he'd say, "Is the queen still +living, or didn't she die a few years ago?" And when they played the +knave, they'd start off about the prince again. They'd all decided that +Mr. von Inwald was noble--somebody said that the "von" was a sort of +title. The women were planning to make the evenings more cheerful, too. +They couldn't have a dance with the men using canes or forbidden to +exercise, but Miss Cobb had a lot of what she called "parlor games" that +she wanted to try out. "Introducing the Jones family" was one of them. + +In the afternoon Mr. von Inwald came out to the spring-house and sat +around, very affable and friendly, drinking the water. He and the bishop +grew quite chummy. Miss Patty was not there, but about four o'clock Mr. +Pierce came out. He did not sit down, but wandered around the room, not +talking to anybody, but staring, whenever he could, at the prince. Once +I caught Mr. von Inwald's eyes fixed on him, as if he might have seen +him before. After a while Mr. Pierce sat down in a corner like a sulky +child and filled his pipe, and as nobody noticed him except to complain +about the pipe, which he didn't even hear, he sat there for a half-hour, +bent forward, with his pipe clenched in his teeth, and never took his +eyes off Mr. von Inwald's face. + +Senator Biggs was the one who really caused the trouble. He spent a good +deal of time in the spring-house trying to fool his stomach by keeping +it filled up all the time with water. He had got past the cranky stage, +being too weak for it; his face was folded up in wrinkles like an +accordion and his double chin was so flabby you could have tucked it +away inside his collar. + +"What do you think of American women, Mr. von Inwald?" he asked, and +everybody stopped playing cards and listened for the answer. As Mr. +von Inwald represented the prince, wouldn't he be likely to voice the +prince's opinion of American women? + +It's my belief Mr. von Inwald was going to say something nice. He +smiled as if he meant to, but just then he saw Mr. Pierce in his corner +sneering behind his pipe. They looked at each other steadily, and nobody +could mistake the hate in Mr. Pierce's face or his sneer. After a minute +the prince looked away and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn't make +his pretty speech. + +"American women!" he said, turning his glass of spring water around +on the table before him, "they are very lovely, of course." He looked +around and there were Mrs. Moody and Mrs. Biggs and Miss Cobb, and he +even glanced at me in the spring. Then he looked again at Mr. Pierce and +kept his eyes there. "But they are spoiled, fearfully spoiled. They rule +their parents and they expect to rule their husbands. In Europe we do +things better; we are not--what is the English?--hag-ridden?" + +There was a sort of murmur among the men, but the women all nodded as if +they thought Europe was entirely right. They'd have agreed with him if +he'd advocated sixteen wives sitting cross-legged on a mat, like the +Turks. Mr. Pierce was still staring at the prince. + +"What I don't quite understand, Mr. von Inwald," the bishop put in in +his nice way, "is your custom of expecting a girl to bring her husband +a certain definite sum of money and to place it under the husband's +control. Our wealthy American girls control their own money," He was +thinking of Miss Patty, and everybody knew it. + +The prince turned red and glared at the bishop. Then I think he +remembered that they didn't know who he was, and he smiled and started +to turning the glass again. + +"Pardon!" he said. "Is it not better? What do women know of money? They +throw it away on trifles, dress, jewels--American women are extravagant. +It is one result of their--of their spoiling." + +Mr. Pierce got up and emptied his pipe into the fire. Then he turned. + +"I'm afraid you have not known the best type of American women," he +said, looking hard at the prince. "Our representative women are our +middle-class women. They do not contract European alliances, not having +sufficient money to attract the attention of the nobility, or enough to +buy titles, as they do pearls, for the purpose of adornment." + +Mr. von Inwald got up, and his face was red. Mr. Pierce was white and +sneering. + +"Also," he went on, "when they marry they wish to control their own +money, and not see it spent in--ways with which you are doubtless +familiar." + +We were all paralyzed. Nobody moved. Mr. Pierce put his pipe in his +pocket and stalked out, slamming the door. Then Mr. von Inwald shrugged +his shoulders and laughed. + +"I see I shall have to talk to our young friend," he said and picked +up his glass. "I'm afraid I've given a wrong impression. I like the +American women very much; too well," he went on with a flash of his +teeth, looking around the room, and brought the glass to the spring for +me to fill. But as I've said before, I can tell a good bit about a man +from the way he gives me his glass, and he was in a perfect frenzy of +rage. When I reached it back to him he gripped it until his nails were +white. + +My joint ached all the rest of the afternoon. About five o'clock Mr. +Thoburn stopped in long enough to say: "What's this I hear about Carter +making an ass of himself to-day?" + +"I haven't heard it," I answered. "What is it?" + +But he only laughed and turned up his collar to go. + +"Jove, Minnie," he said, "why do women of your spirit always champion +the losing side? Be a good girl; give me a hand now and then with this +thing, and I'll see you don't lose by it." + +"We're not going to lose," I retorted angrily. "Nobody has left yet. We +are still ahead on the books." + +He came over and shook a finger in my face. + +"Nobody has left--and why? Because they're all taking a series of baths. +Wait until they've had their fifteen, or twenty-one, or whatever the +cure is, and then see them run!" + +It was true enough; I knew it. + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE PRINCE, WITH APOLOGIES + +Tillie brought the supper basket for the shelter-house about six o'clock +and sat down for a minute by the fire. She said Mr. Pierce (Carter to +her) had started out with a gun about five o'clock. It was foolish, but +it made me uneasy. + +"They've gone plumb crazy over that Mr. von Inwald," she declared. "It +makes me tired. How do they know he's anything but what he says he is? +He may be a messenger from the emperor of Austria, and he may be selling +flannel chest protectors. Miss Cobb's all set up; she's talking about +getting up an entertainment and asking that Miss Summers to recite." + +She got up, leaving the basket on the hearth. + +"And say," she said, "you ought to see that dog now. It's been soakin' +in peroxide all day!" + +She went out with the peroxide, but a moment later she opened the door +and stuck her head in, nodding toward the basket. + +"Say," she said, "the chef's getting fussy about the stuff I'm using in +the diet kitchen. You've got to cut it out soon, Minnie. If I was you +I'd let him starve." + +"What!" I screeched, and grasped the rail of the spring. + +"Let him starve!" she repeated. + +"Wha--what are you talking about?" I demanded when I got my voice. + +She winked at me from the doorway. + +"Oh, I'm on all right, Minnie!" she assured me, "although heaven only +knows where he puts it all! He's sagged in like a chair with broken +springs." + +I saw then that she thought I was feeding Senator Biggs on the sly, and +I breathed again. But my nerves were nearly gone, and when just then I +heard a shot from the direction of the deer park, even Tillie noticed +how pale I got. + +"I don't know what's come over you, Minnie," she said. "That's only Mr. +Carter shooting rabbits. I saw him go out as I started down the path." + +I was still nervous when I put on my shawl and picked up the basket. +But there was a puddle on the floor and the soup had spilled. There +was nothing for it but to go back for more soup, and I got it from the +kitchen without the chef seeing me. When I opened the spring-house door +again Mr. Pierce was by the fire, and in front of him, where I'd left +the basket, lay a dead rabbit. He was sitting there with his chin in his +hands looking at the poor thing, and there was no basket in sight. + +"Well," I asked, "did you change my basket into a dead rabbit?" + +"Basket!" he said, looking up. "What basket?" + +I looked everywhere, but the basket was gone, and after a while I +decided that Mr. Dick had had an attack of thoughtfulness (or hunger) +and had carried it out himself. + +And all the time I looked for the basket Mr. Pierce sat with the gun +across his knees and stared at the rabbit. + +"I'd thank you to take that messy thing out of here," I told him. + +"Poor little chap!" he exclaimed. "He was playing in the snow, and +I killed him--not because I wanted food or sport, Minnie, but--well, +because I had to kill something." + +"I hope you don't have those attacks often," I said. He looked at the +rabbit and sighed. + +"Never in my life!" he answered. "For food or sport, that's different, +but--blood-lust!" He got up and put the gun in the corner, and I saw he +looked white and miserable. + +"I don't like myself to-night, Minnie," he said, trying to smile, "and +nobody likes me. I'm going into the garden to eat worms!" + +I didn't like to scold him when he was feeling bad anyhow, but business +is business. So I asked him how long he thought people would stay if he +acted as he had that day. I said that a sanatorium was a place where +the man who runs it can't afford to have likes and dislikes; that for my +part I'd a good deal rather he'd get rid of his excitement by shooting +off a gun, provided he pointed it away from the house, than to sit +around and let his mind explode and kill all our prospects. I told him, +too, to remember that he wasn't responsible for the morals or actions of +his guests, only for their health. + +"Health!" he echoed, and kicked a chair. "Health! Why, if I wanted to +keep a good dog in condition, Minnie, I wouldn't bring him here." + +"No," I retorted, "you'd shut him in an old out oven, and give him a +shoe to chew, and he'd come out in three days frisking and happy. But +you can't do that with people." + +"Why not?" he asked. "Although, of course, the supply of out ovens and +old shoes is limited here." + +"As far as Mr. von Inwald goes," I went on, "that's not your affair or +mine. If Miss Patty's own father can't prevent it, why should you worry +about it?" + +"Precisely," he agreed. "Why should I? But I do, Minnie--that's the +devil of it." + +"There are plenty of nice girls," I suggested, feeling rather sorry for +him. + +"Are there? Oh, I dare say." He stooped and picked up his rabbit. +"Straight through the head; not so bad for twilight. Poor little chap!" + +He said good night and went out, taking the gun and the rabbit with him, +and I went into the pantry to finish straightening things for the night. +In a few minutes I heard voices in the other room, one Mr. Pierce's, and +one with a strong German accent. + +"When was that?" Mr. von Inwald's voice. + +"A year ago, in Vienna." + +"Where?" + +"At the Bal Tabarin. You were in a loge. The man I was with told me who +the woman was. It was she, I think, who suggested that you lean over the +rail--" + +"Ah, so!" said Mr. von Inwald as if he just remembered. "Ah, yes, I +recall--I was with--the lady was red-haired, is it not? And it was she +who desired me--" + +"You leaned over the rail and poured a glass of wine on my head. It was +very funny. The lady was charmed." + +"I recall it perfectly. I remember that I did it under protest--it was a +very fine wine, and expensive." + +"Then you also recall," said Mr. Pierce, very quietly, "that because +you were with a--well, because you were with a woman, I could not return +your compliment. But I demanded the privilege at some future date when +you were alone." + +"It is a pity," replied Mr. von Inwald, "that now, when I am alone, +there is no wine!" + +"No, there is no wine," Mr. Pierce agreed slowly, "but there is--" + +I opened the door at that, and both of them started. Mr. von Inwald was +standing with his arms folded, and Mr. Pierce had one arm raised holding +up a glass of spring water. In another second it would have been in the +other man's face. + +I walked over to Mr. Pierce and took the glass out of his hand, and his +expression was funny to see. + +"I've been looking everywhere for that glass," I said. "It's got to be +washed." + +Mr. von Inwald laughed and picked up his soft hat from the table. + +He turned around at the door and looked back at Mr. Pierce, still +laughing. + +"Accept my apologies!" he said. "It was such a fine wine, and so +expensive." + +Then he went out. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +STOP, THIEF! + +I was pretty nervous when I took charge of the news stand that evening. +Amanda King had an appointment with the dentist and had left everything +topsyturvey. I was still straightening up when people began to come down +to dinner. + +Miss Cobb walked over to the news stand, and she'd cut the white yoke +out of her purple silk. She looked very dressy, although somewhat thin. + +"Everybody has dressed for dinner to-night, Minnie," she informed me. +"We didn't want Mr. von Inwald to have a wrong idea of American society, +especially after Mr. Carter's ridiculous conduct this afternoon, and +I wonder if you'll be sweet enough to start the phonograph in the +orchestra gallery as we go in--something with dignity, you know--the +wedding march, or the overture from Aida." + +"Aida's cracked," I said shortly, "and as far as I'm concerned, Mr. +von Inwald can walk in to his meals without music, or starve to death +waiting for the band." + +But she got the phonograph, anyhow, and put the elevator boy in the +gallery with it. She picked out some things by Caruso and Tetrazzini +and piled them on a chair, but James had things to himself up there, and +played The Spring Chicken through three times during dinner, with Miss +Cobb glaring at the gallery until the back of her neck ached, and the +dining-room girls waltzing in with the dishes and polka-ing out. + +Mr. Moody came out when dinner was over in a fearful rage and made for +the news stand. + +"One of your ideas, I suppose," he asserted. "What sort of a night am +I going to have after chewing my food to rag-time, with my jaws doing a +skirt-dance? Why in heaven's name couldn't you have had something slow, +like Handel's Largo, if you've got to have music?" + +But dinner was over fifteen minutes sooner than usual. James cake-walked +everybody out to My Ann Elizer, and Miss Cobb was mortified to death. + +Two or three things happened that night. For one, I got a good look at +Miss Julia Summers. She was light-haired and well-fleshed, with an ugly +face but a pleasant smile. She wore a low-necked dress that made Miss +Cobb's with the yoke out look like a storm collar, and if she had a +broken heart she didn't show it. + +"Hello," she cried, looking at my hair, "are you selling tobacco here or +are you the cigar-lighter?" + +"Neither," I answered, looking over her head. "I am employed as the +extinguisher of gay guests." + +"Good," she said, smiling. "I'm something fine at that myself. Suppose +I stay here and help. If I watch that line of knitting women I'll be +crotcheting Arabella's wool in my sleep to-night." + +Well, she was too cheerful to be angry with. So she stayed around for a +while, and it was amazing how much tobacco I sold that evening. Men who +usually bought tobies bought the best cigars, and when Mr. Jennings came +up, scowling, and I handed him the brand he'd smoked for years, she took +one, clipped the end of it as neat as a finger nail and gave it to him, +holding up the lighter. + +"I'm not going to smoke yet, young woman," he said, glaring at her. But +she only smiled. + +"I'm sorry," she said. "I've been waiting hungrily until some +discriminating smoker would buy one of those and light it. I love the +aroma." + +And he stood there for thirty minutes, standing mostly on one foot on +account of the gouty one, puffing like a locomotive, with her sniffing +at the aroma and telling him how lonely she felt with no friends around +and just recovering from a severe illness. + +At eight o'clock he had Mrs. Hutchins bring him his fur-lined coat and +he and Miss Julia took Arabella, the dog, for a walk on the veranda! + +The rest of the evening was quiet, and I needed it. Miss Patty and Mr. +von Inwald talked by the fire and I think he told her something--not +all--of the scene in the spring-house. For she passed Mr. Pierce at the +foot of the stairs on her way up for the night and she pretended not to +see him. He stood there looking up after her with his mouth set, and at +the turn she glanced down and caught his eye. I thought she flushed, +but I wasn't sure, and at that minute Senator Biggs bought three +twenty-five-cent cigars and told me to keep the change from a dollar. +I was so surprised at the alteration in him that I forgot Miss Patty +entirely. + +About twelve o'clock, just after I went to my room, somebody knocked at +the door. When I opened, the new doctor was standing in the hall. + +"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, "but nobody seems to know where the +pharmacy clerk is and I'll have to get some medicine." + +"If I'd had my way, we'd have had a bell on that pharmacy clerk long +ago," I snapped, getting my keys. "Who's sick?" + +"The big man," he replied. "Biggs is his name, I think, a senator or +something." + +I was leading the way to the stairs, but I stopped. "I might have known +it," I said. "He hasn't been natural all evening. What's the matter with +him? Too much fast?" + +"Fast!" He laughed. "Too much feast! He's got as pretty a case of +indigestion as I've seen for some time. He's giving a demonstration +that's almost theatrical." + +Well, he insisted it was indigestion, although I argued that it wasn't +possible, and he wanted ipecac. + +"I haven't seen a pharmacopoeia for so long that I wouldn't know one if +I met it," he declared, "but I've got a system of mnemonics that never +fails. Ipecac and colic both end with 'c'--I'll never forget that +conjunction. It was pounded in and poured in in my early youth." + +Well, the pharmacy was locked, and we couldn't find a key to fit it. And +when I suggested mustard and warm water he jumped at the idea. + +"Fine!" he said. "Better let me dish out the spring-water and you take +my job! Lead on, MacDuff, to the kitchen." + +Although it was only midnight there was not a soul about. A hall leads +back of the office to the kitchen and pantries, and there was a low +light there, but the rest was dark. We bumped through the diet kitchen +and into the scullery, when we found we had no matches. I went back for +some, and when I got as far as the diet kitchen again Doctor Barnes was +there, just inside the door. + +"Sh!" he whispered. "Come into the scullery. The kitchen is dark, but +there is somebody in there, fumbling around, striking matches. I suppose +you don't have such things as burglars in this neck of the woods?" + +Well, somebody had broken into Timmons' candy store a week before and +stolen a box of chewing-gum and a hundred post-cards, and I told him so +in a whisper. + +"Anyhow, it isn't the chef," I said. "He's had a row with the bath man +and is in bed with a cut hand and a black eye, and nobody else has any +business here." + +We tiptoed into the scullery in the dark: just then somebody knocked +a kettle down in the kitchen and it hit the stove below with a crash. +Whoever was there swore, and it was not Francois, who expresses his +feelings mostly in French. This was English. + +There's a little window from the kitchen into the scullery as well as +a door. The window had a wooden slide and it was open an inch or so. We +couldn't see anything, but we could hear a man moving around. Once he +struck a match, but it went out and he said "Damn!" again, and began to +feel his way toward the scullery. + +Doctor Barnes happened to touch my hand and he patted it as if to tell +me not to be frightened. Then he crept toward the scullery door and +waited there. + +It swung open slowly, but he waited until it closed again and the man +was in the room. Then he yelled and jumped and there was the sound of +a fall. I could hardly strike the match--I was trembling so--but when I +did there was Mr. Dick lying flat on the floor and the doctor sitting on +him. + +"Mister Dick!" I gasped, and dropped the match. + +"Something hit me!" Mr. Dick said feebly, and when I had got a candle +lighted and had explained to Doctor Barnes that it was a mistake, he +got off him and let him up. He was as bewildered as Mr. Dick and pretty +nearly as mad. + +We put him--Mr. Dick--in a chair and gave him a glass of water, and +after he had got his breath--the doctor being a heavy man--he said he +was trying to find something to eat. + +"Confound it, Minnie," he exclaimed, "we're starving! It seems to me +there are enough of you here at least to see that we are fed. Not a bite +since lunch!" + +"But I thought you had the basket," I explained. "I left it at the +spring-house, and when I went back it was gone." + +"So that was it!" he answered. And then he explained that just about the +time they expected their supper they saw a man carry a basket stealthily +through the snow to the deer park. It was twilight, but they watched him +from the window, and he put the basket through the barbed-wire fence and +then crawled after it. Just inside he sat down on a log and, opening +the basket, began to eat. He was still there when it got too dark to see +him. + +"If that was our dinner," he finished savagely, "I hope he choked to +death over it." + +Doctor Barnes chuckled. "He didn't," he said, "but he's got the worst +case of indigestion in seven counties." + +Well, I got the mustard and water ready with Mr. Dick standing by hoping +Mr. Biggs would die before he got it, and then I filled a basket for the +shelter-house. I put out the light and he took the basket and started +out, but he came back in a hurry. + +"There's somebody outside talking," he said. I went to the door with him +and listened. + +"The sooner the better," Mike was saying. "I'm no good while I've got it +on my mind." + +And Mr. Thoburn: "To-morrow is too soon: they're not in the mood yet. +Perhaps the day after. I'll let you know." + +I didn't get to sleep until almost morning, and then it was to dream +that Mr. Pierce was shouting "Hypocrites" to all the people in the +sanatorium and threatening to throw glasses of mustard and warm water at +them. + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A BUNCH OF LETTERS + +When people went down to breakfast the next morning they found a card +hanging on the office door with a half dozen new rules on it, and when +I went out to the spring-house the guests were having an indignation +meeting in the sun parlor, with the bishop in the chair, and Senator +Biggs, so wobbly he could hardly stand, making a speech. + +I tried to see Mr. Pierce, but early as it was he had gone for a +walk, taking Arabella with him. So I called a conference at the +shelter-house--Miss Patty, Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstyne, Mr. and Mrs. Dick, +and myself. Mrs. Dick wasn't dressed, but she sat up on the edge of her +cot in her dressing-gown, with her feet on the soap box, and yawned. As +we didn't have enough chairs, Miss Patty jerked the soap box away and +made me sit down. Mr. Dick was getting breakfast. + +We were in a tight place and we knew it. + +"He is making it as hard for us as he can," Mrs. Sam declared. "The idea +of having the card-room lights put out at midnight, and the breakfast +room closed at ten! Nobody gets up at that hour." + +"He was to come here every evening for orders," said Mr. Dick, measuring +ground coffee with a tablespoon, as I had showed him. "He came just +once, and as for orders--well, he gave 'em to me!" + +But Miss Patty was always fair. + +"I loathe him," she asserted. "I want to quarrel with him the minute I +see him. He--he is presumptuous to the point of impertinence--but he's +honest: he thinks we're all hypocrites--those that are well and those +that are sick or think they are--and he hates hypocrisy." + +Everybody talked at once, then, and she listened. + +"Very well," she said. "I'll amend it. We're not all hypocrites. My +motives in all this are perfectly clear--and selfish." + +"You and old Pierce would make a fine team, Pat," Mrs. Dick remarked +with a yawn. "I like hypocrites myself. They're so comfy. But if you're +not above advice, Pat, you'll have Aunt Honoria break her neck or +something--anything to get father back to town. Something is going to +explode, and Oskar doesn't like to be agitated." + +She curled up on the cot with that and went sound asleep. The rest of us +had coffee and talked, but there wasn't anything to do. As Mr. Sam said, +Mr. Pierce didn't want to stay, anyhow, and as likely as not if we went +to him in a body and told him he must come to the shelter-house for +instructions, and be suave and gentle when he was called down by the +guests about the steam-pipes making a racket, he'd probably prefer to go +down to the village and take Doctor Barnes' place washing dishes at the +station. That wouldn't call for any particular mildness. + +But he settled it by appearing himself. He came across the snow from the +direction of Mount Hope, and he had a pair of skees over his shoulder. +(At that time I didn't even know the name of the things, but I learned +enough about them later.) I must say he looked very well beside Mr. +Dick, who wasn't very large, anyhow, and who hadn't had time to put on +his collar, and Mr. Sam, who's always thin and sallow and never takes a +step he doesn't have to. + +I let him in, and when he saw us all there he started and hesitated. + +"Come in, Pierce," Mr. Sam said. "We've just been talking about you." + +He came in, but he didn't look very comfortable. + +"What have you decided to do with me?" he asked. "Put me under +restraint?" + +He was unbuttoning his sweater, and now he took out two of the smallest +rabbits I ever saw and held them up by the ears. Miss Patty gave a +little cry and took them, cuddling them in her lap. + +"They're starving and almost frozen, poor little devils," he said. "I +found them near where I shot the mother last night, Minnie, and by way +of atonement I'm going to adopt them." + +Well, although the minute before they'd all been wishing they'd never +seen him, they pretty nearly ate him up. Miss Patty held the rabbits, so +we all had turns at feeding them warm milk with a teaspoon and patting +their pink noses. When it came Mr. Pierce's turn they were about full +up, so he curled his big body on the floor at Miss Patty's feet and +talked to the rabbits and looked at her. He had one of those faces +that's got every emotion marked on it as clear as a barometer--when he +was mad his face was mad all over, and when he was pleased he glowed to +the tips of his ears. And he was pleased that morning. + +But, of course, he had to be set right about the sanatorium, and Mr. Sam +began it. Mr. Pierce listened, sitting on the floor and looking puzzled +and more and more unhappy. Finally he got up and drew a long breath. + +"Exactly," he agreed. "I know you are all right and I'm wrong--according +to your way of thinking. But if these people want to be well, why should +I encourage them to do the wrong thing? They eat too much, they don't +exercise"--he turned to Mr. Van Alstyne. + +"Why, do you know, I asked a half dozen of the men--one after the +other--to go skeeing with me this morning and not one of them accepted!" + +"Really!" Mr. Sam exclaimed mockingly. + +"What can you do with people like that?" Mr. Pierce went on. "They don't +want to be well; they're all hypocrites. Look at that man Biggs! I'll +lay you ten to one that after fasting five days and then stealing a +whole chicken, a dozen oysters and Lord knows what else, now that he's +sick, he'll hold it against me." + +"He's not holding anything," I objected. + +"Because HE is a hypocrite--" Mr. Sam began. + +"That's not the point, Pierce," Mr. Dick broke in importantly. "You were +to come here for orders and you haven't done it. You're running this +place for me, not for yourself." + +Mr. Pierce looked at Mr. Dick and from there to Mr. Sam and smiled. + +"I did come," he explained. "I came twice, and each time we played +roulette. I lost all the money I'd had in advance. Honestly," he +confessed, "I felt I couldn't afford to come every day." + +Miss Patty got up and put the baby rabbits into her sister's big fur +muff. + +"We are all talking around the question," she said. "Mr. Pierce +undertook to manage the sanatorium, and to try to manage it +successfully. He can not do that without making some attempt at +conciliating the people. It's--it's absurd to antagonize them." + +"Exactly," he said coldly. "I was to manage it, and to try to do it +successfully. I'm sorry my methods don't meet with the approval of +this--er--executive committee. But it might as well be clear that I +intend to use my own methods--or none." + +Well, what could we do? Miss Patty went out with her head up, and the +rest of us stayed and ate humble pie, and after a while he agreed to +stay if he wasn't interfered with. He said he and Doctor Barnes had a +plan that he thought was a winner--that it would either make or break +the place, and he thought it would make it. And by that time we were so +meek that we didn't even ask what it was. + +Doctor Barnes and Miss Summers were the first to come to the mineral +spring that morning. She stopped just inside the door and sniffed. + +"Something's dead under the floor," she said. + +"If there's anything dead," Doctor Barnes replied, "it's in the center +of the earth. That's the sulphur water." + +She came in at that, but unwillingly, and sat down with her handkerchief +to her nose. Then she saw me. + +"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "What have you done that they put you +here?" + +"If you mean the bouquet from the spring, you get to like it after a +while," I said grimly. "Ordinary air hasn't got any snap for me now." + +"Humph!" She looked at me suspiciously, but I was busy wiping off the +tables. "Well," she said, holding up the glass Doctor Barnes had brought +her, "it doesn't cost me anything, so here goes. But think of paying +money for it!" + +She drank it down in a gulp and settled herself in her chair. + +"What'll it do to me?" she asked. "Mixed drinks always play the deuce +with me, Barnes, and you know it." + +"If you'll cut down your diet and take some exercise it will make you +thin," I began. "'The process is painless and certain: kindly nature in +her benevolent plan--'" + +"Give me another!" she interrupted, and Doctor Barnes filled her glass +again. "Some women spell fate f-a-t-e," she said, looking at the water, +"but I spell it without the e." + +She took half of it and then put down the glass. "Honestly," she +declared, "I'd rather be fat." + +Mr. Pierce met them there a few minutes later and they had a +three-cornered chat. But Miss Summers evidently didn't know just how +much I knew and was careful of what she said. Once, however, when I was +in the pantry she thought I was beyond ear-shot. + +"Good heavens, Pierce," she said, "if they could put THAT in a play!" + +"Cut it out, Julia," Doctor Barnes snapped, and it wasn't until they had +gone that I knew she'd meant me. I looked through the crack of the door +and she was leaning over taking a puff at Doctor Barnes' cigarette. + +"Curious old world, isn't it?" she said between puffs. "Here we are the +three of us--snug and nice, having seven kinds of hell-fire water and +not having to pay for it; three meals a day and afternoon tea ditto, +good beds and steam-heat ditto--and four days ago where were we? Pierce, +you were hocking your clothes! Doc, you--" + +"Washing dishes!" he said. "I never knew before how extravagant it is to +have a saucer under a cup!" + +"And I!" she went on, "I, Julia Summers, was staring at a ceiling in the +Finleyville hotel, with a face that looked like a toy balloon." + +"And now," said Doctor Barnes, "you are more beautiful than ever. I am a +successful physician--oh, lord, Julia, if you'd hear me faking lines in +my part! And my young friend here--Pierce--Julia, Pierce has now become +a young reprobate named Dicky Carter, and may the Lord have mercy on his +soul!" + +I tried to get out in time, but I was too late. I saw her rise, saw the +glass of water at her elbow roll over and smash on the floor, and saw +her clutch wildly at Mr. Pierce's shoulder. + +"Not--not DICKY Carter!" she cried. + +"Richard--they call him Dick," Mr. Pierce said uneasily, and loosened +her fingers from his coat. + +Oh, well, everybody knows it now--how she called Mr. Dick everything in +the calendar, and then began to cry and said nobody would ever know what +she'd been through with, and the very dress she had on was a part of +the trousseau she'd had made, and what with the dressmaker's bills-- + +Suddenly she stopped crying. + +"Where is he, anyhow?" she demanded. + +"All we are sure of," Mr. Pierce replied quietly, "is that he is not in +the sanatorium." + +She looked at us all closely, but she got nothing from my face. + +"Oh, very well," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "I'll wait until he +shows up. It doesn't cost anything." + +Then, with one of her easy changes, she laughed and picked up her muff +to go. + +"Minnie and I," she said, "will tend bar here, and in our leisure +moments we will pour sulphur water on a bunch of Dicky's letters that I +have, to cool 'em." She walked to the door and turned around, smiling. + +"Carry fire insurance on 'em all the time," she finished and went out, +leaving us staring at one another! + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MISS COBB'S BURGLAR + +I went to bed early that night. What with worrying and being alternately +chilled by tramping through the snow and roasted as if I was sitting on +a volcano with an eruption due, I was about all in. We'd been obliged to +tell Mrs. Sam about the Summers woman, and I had to put hot flannels on +her from nine to ten. She was quieter when I left her, but, as I told +Mr. Sam, it was the stillness of despair, not resignation. + +I guess it was about four o'clock in the morning when a hand slid over +my face, and I sat up and yelled. The hand covered my mouth at that, +and something long and white and very thin beside the bed said: "Sh! For +heaven's sake, Minnie!" + +It was Miss Cobb! It was lucky I came to my senses when I did, for +her knees gave way under her just then and she doubled up on the floor +beside the bed with her face in my comfort. + +I lighted a candle and set it on a chair beside the bed and took a good +look at her. She was shaking all over, which wasn't strange, for I sleep +with my window open, and she had a key in her hand. + +"Here," she gasped, holding out the key, "here, Minnie, wake the house +and get him, but, oh, Minnie, for heaven's sake, save my reputation!" + +"Get who?" I demanded, for I saw it was her room key. + +"I have been coming here for ten years," she groaned, out of the +comfort, "and now, to be bandied about by the cold breath of scandal!" + +I shook her by the shoulder + +"The cold breath you are raving about is four degrees below zero. If you +can't tell me what's the matter I'm going back to bed and cover my +feet." + +She got up at that and stood swaying, with her nightgown flapping around +her like a tent. + +"I have locked a man in my room!" she declared in a terrible voice, and +collapsed into the middle of the bed. + +Well, I leaned over and tried to tell her she'd made a mistake. The more +I looked at her, with her hair standing straight out over her head, and +her cambric nightgown with a high collar and long sleeves, and the hump +on her nose where her brother Willie had hit her in childhood with a +baseball bat, the surer I was that somebody had made a mistake--likely +the man. + +Now there's two ways to handle a situation like that: one of them is to +rouse the house--and many a good sanatorium has been hurt by a scandal +and killed by a divorce; the other way is to take one strong man who can +hold his tongue, find the guilty person, and send him a fake telegram +the next morning that his mother is sick. I've done that more than once. + +I sat down on the side of the bed and put on my slippers. + +"What did he look like?" I asked. "Could you see him?" + +She uncovered one eye. + +"Not--not distinctly," she said. "I--think he was large, and--and rather +handsome. That beast of a dog must have got in my room and was asleep +under the bed, for it wakened me by snarling." + +There was nothing in that to make me nervous, but it did. As I put on my +kimono I was thinking pretty hard. + +I could not waken Mr. Pierce by knocking, so I went in and shook him. +He was sound asleep, with his arms over his head, and when I caught his +shoulder he just took my hand and, turning over, tucked it under his +cheek and went asleep again. + +"Mr. Pierce! Mr. Pierce!" He wakened a little at that, but not enough +to open his eyes. He seemed to know that the hand wasn't his, however, +for he kissed it. And with that I slapped him and he wakened. He lay +there blinking at my candle and then he yawned. + +"Musht have been ashleep!" he said, and turned over on his other side +and shut his eyes. + +It was two or three minutes at least before I had him sitting on the +side of the bed, with a blanket spread over his knees, and was telling +him about Miss Cobb. + +"Miss Cobb!" he said. "Oh, heavens, Minnie, tell her to go back to bed!" +He yawned. "If there's anybody there it's a mistake. I'm sleepy. What +time is it?" + +"I'm not going out of this room until you get up!" I declared grimly. + +"Oh, very well!" he said, and put his feet back into bed. "If you think +I'm going to get up while you're here--" + +After he seemed pretty well wakened I went out. I waited in the +sitting-room and I heard him growling as he put on his clothes. When he +came out, however, he was more cheerful, and he stopped in the hall to +fish a case out of Mr. Sam's dressing-gown pocket and light a cigarette. + +"Now!" he said, taking my arm. "Forward, the light-ly clad brigade! +But--" he stopped--"Minnie, we are unarmed! Shall I get the patent +folding corkscrew?" + +He had to be quiet when we got to the bedroom floors, however, and when +we stopped outside Miss Cobb's door he was as sober as any one could +wish him. + +"You needn't come in," he whispered. "Ten to one she dreamed it, but if +she didn't you're better outside. And whatever you hear, don't yell." + +I gave him the key and he fitted it quietly in the lock. Arabella, just +inside, must have heard, for she snarled. But the snarl turned into a +yelp, as if she'd been suddenly kicked. + +Mr. Pierce, with his hand on the knob, turned and looked at me in the +candle-light. Then he opened the door. + +Arabella gave another yelp and rushed out; she went between my feet +like a shot and almost overthrew me, and when I'd got my balance again I +looked into the room. Mr. Pierce was at the window, staring out, and the +room was empty. + +"The idiot!" Mr. Pierce said. "If it hadn't been for that snowbank! +Here, give me that candle!" + +He stood there waving it in circles, but there was neither sight nor +sound from below. After a minute Mr. Pierce put the window down and we +stared at the room. All the bureau drawers were out on the floor, and +the lid of poor Miss Cobb's trunk was open and the tray upset. But her +silver-backed brush was still on the bureau and the ring the insurance +agent had given her lay beside it. + +We brought her back to her room, and she didn't know whether to be happy +that she was vindicated or mad at the state her things were in. I tucked +her up in bed after she'd gone over her belongings and Mr. Pierce had +double-locked the window and gone out. She drew my head down to her and +her eyes were fairly popping out of her head. + +"I feel as though I'm going crazy, Minnie!" she whispered, "but the only +things that are gone are my letters from Mr. Jones, and--my black woolen +tights!" + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +NO MARRIAGE IN HEAVEN + +I slept late the next morning, and when I'd had breakfast and waded to +the spring-house it was nearly nine. It was still snowing, and no papers +or mail had got through, although the wires were still in fair working +order. + +As I floundered out I thought I saw somebody slink around the corner of +the spring-house, but when I got there nobody was in sight. I was on my +knees in front of the fireplace, raking out the fire, when I heard the +door close behind me, and when I turned, there stood Mr. Dick, muffled +to the neck, with his hat almost over his face. + +"What the deuce kept you so late this morning?" he demanded, in a sulky +voice, and limping over to a table he drew a package out of his pocket +and slammed it on the table. + +"I was up half the night, as usual," I said, rising. "You oughtn't to be +here, Mr. Dick!" + +He caught hold of the rail around the spring, and hobbling about, +dropped into a chair with a groan. + +"For two cents," he declared, "I'd chop a hole in the ice pond and drown +myself. There's no marriage in Heaven." + +"That's no argument for the other place," I answered, and stopped, +staring. He was pulling something out of his overcoat pocket, an inch at +a time. + +"For God's sake, Minnie," he exclaimed, "return this--this garment +to--whomever it belongs to!" + +He handed it to me, and it was Miss Cobb's black tights! I stood and +stared. + +"And then," he went on, reaching for the package on the table, "when +you've done that, return to 'Binkie' these letters from her Jonesie." + +He took the newspaper off the bundle then, and I saw it was wrapped with +a lavender ribbon. I sat down and gazed at him, fascinated. He was the +saddest-eyed piece of remorse I'd seen for a long time. + +"And when you've got your breath back, Minnie," he said feebly, "and +your strength, would you mind taking the floor mop and hitting me a +few cracks? Only not on the right leg, Minnie--not on the right leg. I +landed on it last night; it's twisted like a pretzel." + +"Don't stand and stare," he continued irritably, when I didn't make +a move, "at least get that--that infernal black garment out of sight. +Cover it with the newspaper. And if you don't believe that a sweet-faced +young girl like my wife has a positive talent for wickedness and +suspicion, go out to the shelter-house this morning." + +"So it was you!" I gasped, putting the newspaper over the tights. + +"Why in the name of peace did you jump out the window, and what did you +want with--with these things?" + +He twisted around in his chair to stare at me, and then stooped and +clutched frantically at his leg, as if for inspiration. + +"Want with those things!" he snarled. "I suppose you can't understand +that a man might wake up in the middle of the night with a mad craving +for a pair of black woolen tights, and--" + +"You needn't be sarcastic with me," I broke in. "You can save that for +your wife. I suppose you also had a wild longing for the love-letters of +an insurance agent--" + +And then it dawned on me, and I sat down and laughed until I cried. + +"And you thought you were stealing your own letters!" I cried. "The ones +she carries fire insurance on! Oh, Mr. Dick, Mr. Dick!" + +"How was I to know it wasn't Ju--Miss Summers' room?" he demanded +angrily. "Didn't I follow the dratted dog? And wouldn't you have thought +the wretched beast would have known me instead of sitting on its tail +under the bed and yelling for mother? I gave her the dog myself. Oh, I +tell you, Minnie, if I ever get away from this place--" + +"You've got to get away this minute," I broke in, remembering. "They'll +be coming any instant now." + +He got up and looked around him helplessly. + +"Where'll I go?" he asked. "I can't go back to the shelter-house." + +I looked at him and he tried to grin. + +"Fact," he said, "hard to believe, but--fact, Minnie. She's got the door +locked. Didn't I tell you she is of a suspicious nature? She was asleep +when I left, and mostly she sleeps all night. And just because she wakes +when I'm out, and lets me come in thinking she's asleep, when she +has one eye open all the time, and she sees what I'd never even seen +myself--that the string of that damned garment, whatever it is, is +fastened to the hook of my shoe, me thinking all the time that the +weight was because I'd broken my leg jumping--doesn't she suddenly +sit up and ask me where I've been? And I--I'm unsuspicious, Minnie, by +nature, and I said I'd been asleep. Then she jumped up and showed me +that--that thing--those things, hanging to my shoe, and she hasn't +spoken to me since. I wish I was dead." + +And just then a dog barked outside and somebody on the step stamped the +snow off his feet. We were both paralyzed for a moment. + +"Julia!" Mr. Dick cried, and went white. + +I made a leap for the door, just as the handle turned, and put my back +against it. + +"Just a minute," I called. "The carpet is caught under it!" + +Mr. Dick had lost his head and was making for the spring, as if he +thought hiding his feet would conceal him. I made frantic gestures to +him to go into my pantry, and he went at last, leaving his hat on the +table, I left the door and flung it after him--the hat, of course, not +the door--and when Miss Summers sauntered in just after, I was on my +knees brushing the hearth, with my heart going three-four time and +skipping every sixth beat. + +"Hello!" she said. "Lovely weather--for polar bears. If the natives +wade through this all winter it's no wonder they walk as if they are +ham-strung. Don't bother getting me a glass. I'll get my own." + +She was making for the pantry when I caught her, and I guess I looked +pretty wild. + +"I'll get it," I said. "I--that's one of the rules." + +She put her hands in the pockets of her white sweater and smiled at me. + +"Do you know," she declared, "the old ladies' knitting society isn't +so far wrong about you! About your making rules--whatever you want, +WHENEVER you want 'em." + +She put her head on one side. + +"Now," she went on, "suppose I break that rule and get my own glass? +What happens to me? I don't think I'll be put out!" + +I threw up my hands in despair, for I was about at the end of my string. + +"Get it then!" I exclaimed, and sat down, waiting for the volcano to +erupt. But she only laughed and sat down on a table, swinging her feet. + +"When you know me better, Minnie," she said, "you'll know I don't spoil +sport. I happen to know you have somebody in the pantry--moreover, I +know it's a man. There are tracks on the little porch, my dear girl, +not made by your galoshes. Also, my dearest girl, there's a gentleman's +glove by your chair there!" I put my foot on it. "And just to show you +what a good fellow I am--" + +She got off the table, still smiling, and sauntered to the pantry door, +watching me over her shoulder. + +"Don't be alarmed!" she called through the door, "I'm not coming in! I +shall take my little drink of nature's benevolent remedy out of the tin +ladle, and then--I shall take my departure!" + +My heart was skipping every second beat by that time, and Miss Julia +stood by the pantry door, her head back and her eyes almost closed, +enjoying every minute of it. If Arabella hadn't made a diversion just +then I think I'd have fainted. + +She'd pulled the newspaper and the tights off the table and was running +around the room with them, one leg in her mouth. + +"Stop it, Arabella!" said Miss Julia, and took the tights from her. +"Yours?" she asked, with her eyebrows raised. + +"No--yes," I answered. + +"I'd never have suspected you of them!" she remarked. "Hardly sheer +enough to pull through a finger ring, are they?" She held them up and +gazed at them meditatively. "That's one thing I draw the line at. On +the boards, you know--never have worn 'em and never will. They're not +modest, to my mind,--and, anyhow, I'm too fat!" + +Mr. Sam and his wife came in at that moment, Mr. Sam carrying a bottle +of wine for the shelter-house, wrapped in a paper, and two cans of +something or other. He was too busy trying to make the bottle look like +something else--which a good many people have tried and failed at--to +notice what Miss Summers was doing, and she had Miss Cobb's protectors +stuffed in her muff and was standing very dignified in front of the fire +by the time they'd shaken off the snow. + +"Good morning!" she said. + +"Morning!" said Mr. Sam, hanging up his overcoat with one hand, and +trying to put the bottle in one of the pockets with the other. Mrs. Sam +didn't look at her. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Van Alstyne!" Miss Summers almost threw it at her. +"I spoke to you before; I guess you didn't hear me." + +"Oh, yes, I heard you," answered Mrs. Sam, and turned her back on her. +Give me a little light-haired woman for sheer devilishness! + +I'd expected to see Miss Summers fly to pieces with rage, but she stared +at Mrs. Sam's back, and after a minute she laughed. + +"I see!" she remarked slowly. "You're the sister, aren't you?" + +Mr. Sam had given up trying to hide the bottle and now he set it on the +floor with a thump and came over to the fire. + +"It's--you see, the situation is embarrassing," he began. "If we had had +any idea--" + +"I might have been still in the Finleyville hotel!" she finished for +him. "Awful thought, isn't it?" + +"Under the circumstances," went on Mr. Sam, nervously, "don't you think +it would be--er--better form if er--under the circumstances--" + +"I'm thinking of my circumstances," she put in, good-naturedly. "If you +imagine that six weeks of one-night stands has left me anything but a +rural wardrobe and a box of dog biscuit for Arabella, you're pretty well +mistaken. I haven't even a decent costume. All we had left after the +sheriff got through was some grass mats, a checked sunbonnet and a +pump." + +"Minnie," Mrs. Sam said coldly, "that little beast of a dog is trying to +drink out of the spring!" + +I caught her in time and gave her a good slapping. When I looked up Miss +Summers was glaring down at me over the rail. + +"Just what do you mean by hitting my dog?" she demanded. It was the +first time I'd seen her angry. + +"Just what I appeared to mean," I answered. "If you want to take it as a +love pat, you may." And I stalked to the door and threw the creature out +into the snow. It was the first false step that day; if I'd known what +putting that dog out meant--! "I don't allow dogs here," I said, and +shut the door. + +Miss Summers was furious; she turned and stared at Mrs. Sam, who was +smiling at the fire. + +"Let Arabella in," she said to me in an undertone, "or I'll open the +pantry door!" + +"Open the door!" I retorted. I was half hysterical, but it was no time +to weaken. She looked me straight in the eye for fully ten seconds; +then, to my surprise, she winked at me. But when she turned on Mr. Sam +she was cold rage again and nothing else. + +"I am not going to leave, if that is what you are about to suggest," she +said. "I've been trying to see Dicky Carter the last ten days, and I'll +stay here until I see him." + +"It's a delicate situation--" + +"Delicate!" she snapped. "It's indelicate it's indecent, that's what it +is. Didn't I get my clothes, and weren't we to have been married by +the Reverend Dwight Johnstone, out in Salem, Ohio? And didn't he go out +there and have old Johnstone marry him to somebody else? The wretch! If +I ever see him--" + +A glass dropped in the pantry and smashed, but nobody paid any +attention. + +"Oh, I'm not going until he comes!" she continued. "I'll stay right +here, and I'll have what's coming to me or I'll know the reason why. +Don't forget for a minute that I know why Mr. Pierce is here, and that I +can spoil the little game by calling the extra ace, if I want to." + +"You're forgetting one thing," Mrs. Sam said, facing her for the first +time, "if you call the game, my brother is worth exactly what clothes he +happens to be wearing at the moment and nothing else. He hasn't a penny +of his own." + +"I don't believe it," she sniffed. "Look at the things he gave me!" + +"Yes. I've already had the bills," said Mr. Sam. + +She whirled and looked at him, and then she threw back her head and +laughed. + +"You!" she said. "Why, bless my soul! All the expense of a double life +and none of its advantages!" + +She went out on that, still laughing, leaving Mrs. Sam scarlet with +rage, and when she was safely gone I brought Mr. Dick out to the fire. +He was so limp he could hardly walk, and it took three glasses of the +wine and all Mr. Sam could do to start him back to the shelter-house. +His sister would not speak to him. + +Mike went to Mr. Pierce that day and asked for a raise of salary. + +He did not get it. Perhaps, as things have turned out, it was for the +best, but it is strange to think how different things would have been if +he'd been given it. He was sent up later, of course, for six months for +malicious mischief, but by that time the damage was done. + + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY + +That was on a Saturday morning. During the golf season Saturday is +always a busy day with us, with the husbands coming up for over Sunday, +and trying to get in all the golf, baths and spring water they can in +forty-eight hours. But in the winter Saturday is the same as any, other +day. + +It had stopped snowing and the sun was shining, although it was so cold +that the snow blew like powder. By eleven o'clock every one who could +walk had come to the spring-house. Even Mr. Jennings came down in a +wheeled chair, and Senator Biggs, still looking a sort of grass-green +and keeping his eyes off me, came and sat in a corner, with a book +called Fast versus Feast held so that every one could see. + +There were bridge tables going, and five hundred, and a group around +the slot-machine, while the crocheters formed a crowd by themselves, +exchanging gossip and new stitches. + +About twelve o'clock Mr. Thoburn came in, and as he opened the door, +in leaped Arabella. The women made a fuss over the creature and cuddled +her, and when I tried to put her out everybody objected. So she stayed, +and Miss Summers put her through a lot of tricks, while the men crowded +around. As I said before, Miss Summers was a first favorite with the +men. + +Mr. von Inwald and Miss Patty came in just then and stood watching. + +"And now," said Mr. von Inwald, "I propose, as a reward to Miss +Arabella, a glass of this wonderful water. Minnie, a glass of water for +Arabella!" + +"She doesn't drink out of one of my glasses," I declared angrily. + +"It's one of my rules that dogs--" + +"Tut!" said Mr. Thoburn. "What's good for man is good for beast. +Besides, the little beggar's thirsty." + +Well, they made a great fuss about the creature's being thirsty, and so +finally I got a panful of spring water and it drank until I thought it +would burst. I'm not vicious, as I say, but I wish it had. + +Well, the dog finished and lay down by the fire, and everything seemed +to go on as before. Mr. Thoburn was in a good humor, and he came over to +the spring and brought a trayful of glasses. + +"To save you steps, Minnie!" he explained. "You have no idea how it +pains me to see you working. Gentlemen, name your poison!" + +"A frappe with blotting-paper on the side," Mr. Moody snarled from the +slot-machine. "If I drink much more, I'll have to be hooped up like a +barrel." + +"Just what is the record here?" the bishop asked. "I'm ordered eight +glasses, but I find it more than a sufficiency." + +"We had one man here once who could drink twenty-five at a time," I +said, "but he was a German." + +"He was a tank," Mr. Sam corrected grumpily. He was watching something +on the floor--I couldn't see what. "All I need is to swallow a few +goldfish and I'd be a first-class aquarium." + +"What I think we should do," Miss Cobb said, "is to try to find out just +what suits us, and stick to that. I'm always trying." + +"Damned trying!" Mr. Jennings snarled, and limped over for more water. +"I'd like to know where to go for rheumatism." + +"I got mine here," said Mr. Thoburn cheerfully. "It's my opinion this +place is rheumatic as well as malarious. And as for this water, with all +due respect to the spirit in the spring"--he bowed to me--"I think it's +an insult to ask people to drink it. It isn't half so strong as it +was two years ago. Taste it; smell it! I ask the old friends of the +sanatorium, is that water what it used to be?" + +"Don't tell me it was ever any worse than this!" Miss Summers exclaimed. +But Thoburn went on. The card-players stopped to listen, but Mr. Sam was +still staring at something on the floor. + +"I tell you, the spring is losing its virtue, and, like a woman, without +virtue, it is worthless." + +"But interesting!" Mr. Sam said, and stooped down. + +"Consider," went on Mr. Thoburn, standing and holding his glass to the +light, "how we are at the mercy of this little spring! A convulsion in +the bowels of the earth, and its health-giving properties may be changed +to the direst poison. How do we know, you and I, some such change has +not occurred overnight? Unlikely as it is, it's a possibility that, +sitting here calmly, we may be sipping our death potion." + +Some of the people actually put down their glasses and everybody began +to look uneasy except Mr. Sam, who was still watching something I could +not see. + +Mr. Thoburn looked around and saw he'd made an impression. "We may," +he continued, "although my personal opinion of this water is that it's +growing too weak to be wicked. I prove my faith in Mother Nature; if it +is poisoned, I am gone. I drink!" + +Mr. Sam suddenly straightened up and glanced at Miss Summers. "Perhaps +I'm mistaken," he said, "but I think there is something the matter with +Arabella." + +Everybody looked: Arabella was lying on her back, jerking and twitching +and foaming at the mouth. + +"She's been poisoned!" Miss Summers screeched, and fell on her knees +beside her. "It's that wretched water!" + +There was pretty nearly a riot in a minute. Everybody jumped up and +stared at the dog, and everybody remembered the water he or she had just +had, and coming on top of Mr. Thoburn's speech, it made them babbling +lunatics. As I look back, I have a sort of picture of Miss Summers on +the floor with Arabella in her lap, and the rest telling how much of the +water they had had and crowding around Mr. Thoburn. + +"It seems hardly likely it was the water," he said, "although from what +I recall of my chemistry it is distinctly possible. Springs have been +known to change their character, and the coincidence--the dog and the +water--is certainly startling. Still, as nobody feels ill--" + +But they weren't sure they didn't. The bishop said he felt perfectly +well, but he had a strange inclination to yawn all the time, and Mrs. +Biggs' left arm had gone to sleep. And then, with the excitement and +all, Miss Cobb took a violent pain in the back of her neck and didn't +know whether to cry or to laugh. + +Well, I did what I could. The worst of it was, I wasn't sure it wasn't +the water. I thought possibly Mr. Pierce had made a mistake in what he +had bought at the drug store, and although I don't as a rule drink it +myself, I began to feel queer in the pit of my stomach. + +Mr. Thoburn came over to the spring, and filling a glass, took it to +the light, with every one watching anxiously. When he brought it back he +stooped over the railing and whispered to me. + +"When did you fix it?" he asked sternly. + +"Last night," I answered. It was no time to beat about the bush. + +"It's yellower than usual," he said. "I'm inclined to think something +has gone wrong at the drug store, Minnie." + +I could hardly breathe. I had the most terrible vision of all the guests +lying around like Arabella, twitching and foaming, and me going to +prison as a wholesale murderess. Any hair but mine would have turned +gray in that minute. + +Mr. von Inwald was watching like the others, and now he came over and +caught Mr. Thoburn by the arm. + +"What do you think--" he asked nervously. "I--I have had three glasses +of it!" + +"Three!" shouted Senator Biggs, coming forward. "I've had eleven! I tell +you, I've been feeling queer for twenty-four hours! I'm poisoned! That's +what I am." + +He staggered out, with Mrs. Biggs just behind him, and from that moment +they were all demoralized. I stood by the spring and sipped at the +water to show I wasn't afraid of it, with my knees shaking under me and +Arabella lying stock-still, as if she had died, under my very nose. One +by one they left to look for Doctor Barnes, or to get the white of egg, +which somebody had suggested as an antidote. + +Miss Cobb was one of the last to go. She turned in the doorway and +looked back at me, with tears in her eyes. + +"It isn't your fault, Minnie," she said, "and forgive me if I have ever +said anything unkind to you." Then she went, and I was alone, looking +down at Arabella. + +Or rather, I thought I was alone, for there was a movement by one of the +windows and Miss Patty came forward and knelt by the dog. + +"Of all the absurdities!" she said. "Poor little thing! Minnie, I +believe she's breathing!" + +She put the dog's head in her lap, and the little beast opened its eyes +and tried to wag its blue tail. + +"Oh, Miss Patty, Miss Patty!" I exclaimed, and I got down beside her and +cried on her shoulder, with her stroking my hand and calling me dearest! +Me! + +I was wiping my eyes when the door was thrown open and Mr. Pierce ran +in. He had no hat on and his hair was powdered with snow. He stopped +just inside the door and looked at Miss Patty. + +"You--" he said "you are all right? You are not--" he came forward and +stood over her, with his heart in his eyes. She MUST have known from +that minute. + +"My God!" he exclaimed, "I thought you were poisoned!" + +She looked up, without smiling, and then I thought she half shut her +eyes, as if what she saw in his face hurt her. + +"I am all right," she assured him, "and little Arabella will be +all right, too. She's had a convulsion, that's all--probably from +overeating. As for the others--!" + +"Where is the--where is von Inwald?" + +"He has gone to take the white of an egg," she replied rather haughtily. +She was too honest to evade anything, but she flushed. Of course, I knew +what he didn't--that the prince had been among the first to scurry to +the house, and that he hadn't even waited for her. + +He walked to the window, as if he didn't want her to see what he thought +of that, and I saw him looking hard at something outside in the snow. +When he walked back to the fire he was smiling, and he stooped over and +poked Arabella with his finger. + +"So that was it!" he said. "Full to the scuppers, poor little wretch! +Minnie, I am hoist with my own petard, which in this case was a +boomerang." + +"Which is in English--" I asked. + +"With the instinct of her sex, Arabella has unearthed what was meant +to be buried forever. She had gorged herself into a convulsion on that +rabbit I shot last night!" + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE MUTINY + +They went to the house together, he carrying Arabella like a sick baby +and Miss Patty beside him. As far as I could see they didn't speak a +word to each other, but once or twice I saw her turn and look up at him +as if she was puzzled. + +I closed the door and stood just inside, looking at father's picture +over the mantel. As sure as I stood there, the eyes were fixed on the +spring, and I sensed, as you may say, what they meant. I went over and +looked down into the spring, and it seemed to me it was darker than +usual. It may have smelled stronger, but the edge had been taken off my +nose, so to speak, by being there so long. + +From the spring I looked again at father, and his eyes were on me +mournful and sad. I felt as though, if he'd been there, father would +have turned the whole affair to the advantage of the house, and it +was almost more than I could bear. I was only glad the old doctor's +enlargement had not come yet. I couldn't have endured having it see what +had occurred. + +The only thing I could think of was to empty the spring and let the +water come in plain. I could put a little sulphur in to give it color +and flavor, and if it turned out that Mr. Pierce was right and that +Arabella was only a glutton, I could put in the other things later. + +I was carrying out my first pailful when Doctor Barnes came down the +path and took the pail out of my hand. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. "Making a slide?" + +"No," I said bitterly, "I am watering the flowers." + +"Good!" He was not a bit put out. "Let me help you." He took the pail +across the path and poured a little into the snow at the base of a +half-dozen fence posts. "There!" he said, coming back triumphant. +"The roses are done. Now let's have a go at the pansies and the +lady's-slippers and the--the begonias. I say"--he stopped suddenly +on his way in--"sulphur water on a begonia--what would it make? Skunk +cabbage?" + +Inside, however, he put down the pail, and pulling me in, closed the +door. + +"Now forget it!" he commanded. "Just because a lot of damn fools see a +dog in a fit and have one, too, is that any reason for your being scared +wall-eyed and knock-kneed?" + +"I'm not!" I snapped. + +"Well, you're wall-eyed with fright," he insisted. "Of course, you're +the best judge of your own knees, but after last night--Had any lunch?" + +I shook my head. + +"Exactly," he said. "You make me think of the little boy who dug +post-holes in the daytime and took in washings at night to support the +family. Sit down." + +I sat. + +"Inhale and exhale slowly four times, and then swallow the lump in your +throat.... Gone?" + +"Yes." + +"Good." He was fumbling in his pocket and he brought out a napkin. When +he opened it there was a sandwich, a piece of cheese and a banana. + +"What do you think of that?" he asked, watching me anxiously. "Looks +pretty good?" + +"Fine," I said, hating to disappoint him, although I never eat sardines, +and bananas give me indigestion, "I'm hungry enough to eat a raw +Italian." + +"Then fall to," he directed, and with a flourish he drew a bottle of +ginger ale from his pocket. + +"How's this?" he demanded, holding it up. "Cheers but doesn't inebriate; +not a headache in a barrel; ginger ale to the gingery! 'A quart of ale +is a dish for a king,'" he said, holding up a glass. "That's +Shakespeare, Miss Minnie." + +I was a good bit more cheerful when I'd choked down the sandwich, +especially when he assured me the water was all right--"a little high, +as you might say, but not poisonous. Lord, I wish you could have seen +them staggering into my office!" + +"I saw enough," I said with a shiver. + +"That German, von Inwald," he went on, "he's the limit. He accused us of +poisoning him for reasons of state!" + +"Where are they now?" + +"My dear girl," he answered, putting down his glass, "what has been +pounded into me ever since I struck the place? The baths! I prescribe +'em all day and dream 'em all night. Where are the poisonees now? +They are steaming, stewing, exuding in the hot rooms of the bath +department--all of them, every one of them! In the hold and the hatches +down!" + +He picked up the pail and went down the steps to the spring. + +"After all," he said, "it won't hurt to take out a little of this and +pour it on the ground. It ought to be good fertilizer." He stooped. +"'Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come,'" he quoted, and dipped +in the pail. + +Just then somebody fell against the door and stumbled into the room. It +was Tillie, as white as milk, and breathing in gasps. + +"Quick!" she screeched, "Minnie, quick!" + +"What is it?" I asked, jumping up. She'd fallen back against the +door-frame and stood with her hand clutching her heart. + +"That dev--devil--Mike!" she panted. "He has turned on the steam in the +men's baths and gone--gone away!" + +"With people in the bath?" Doctor Barnes asked, slamming down the pail. + +Tillie nodded. + +"Then why in creation don't they get out of the baths until we can shut +off the steam?" I demanded, grabbing up my shawl. But Tillie shook her +head in despair. + +"They can't," she answered, "he's hid their clothes!" + +The next thing I recall is running like mad up the walk with Doctor +Barnes beside me, steadying me by the arm. I only spoke once that I +remember and that was just as we got to the house, + +"This settles it!" I panted, desperately. "It's all over." + +"Not a bit of it!" he said, shoving me up the steps and into the hall. +"The old teakettle is just getting 'het up' a bit. By the gods and +little fishes, just listen to it singing down there!" + + +The help was gathered in a crowd at the head of the bath-house +staircase, where a cloud of steam was coming up, and down below we could +hear furious talking, and somebody shouting, "Mike! Mike!" in a voice +that was choked with rage and steam. + +Doctor Barnes elbowed his way through the crowd to the top of the stairs +and I followed. + +"There's Minnie!" Amanda King yelled. "She knows all about the place. +Minnie, you can shut it off, can't you?" + +"I'll try," I said, and was starting down, when Doctor Barnes jerked me +back. + +"You stay here," he said. "Where's Mr. Pier--where's Carter?" + +"Down with the engineer," somebody replied out of the steam cloud. + +"Hello there!" he called down the staircase. "How's the air?" + +"Clothes! Send us some clothes!" + +It was Mr. Sam calling. The rest was swallowed up in a fresh roaring, +as if a steam-pipe had given away. That settled the people below. With +a burst of fury they swarmed up the stairs in their bath sheets, the +bishop leading, and just behind him, talking as no gentleman should talk +under any circumstances, Senator Biggs. The rest followed, their red +faces shining through the steam--all of them murderous, holding their +sheets around them with one hand, and waving the other in a frenzy. It +was awful. + +The help scattered and ran, but I stood my ground. The sight of a man in +a sheet didn't scare me and it was no time for weakness. + +The steam was thicker than ever, and the hall was misty. A moment later +the engineer came up and after him Mr. Pierce, with a towel over his +mouth and a screw-driver in his hand. He was white with rage. He brushed +past the sheets without paying the slightest attention to them, and tore +the towel off his mouth. + +"Who saw Mike last?" he shouted across to where the pharmacy clerk, the +elevator boy and some of the bell-boys had retreated to the office and +were peeping out through the door. + +Here Mr. Moody, who's small at any time, and who without the padding +on his shoulders and wrapped in a sheet with his red face above, looked +like a lighted cigarette, darted out of the crowd and caught him by the +sleeve. + +"Here!" he cried, "we've got a few things to say to you, you young--" + +"Take your hand off my arm!" thundered Mr. Pierce. + +The storm broke with that. They crowded around Mr. Pierce, yelling like +maniacs, and he stood there, white-faced, and let them wear themselves +out. The courage of a man in a den of lions was nothing to it. Doctor +Barnes forced his way through the crowd and stood there beside him. + +It wasn't only the steam and their clothes being hidden; it had started +with the scare at the spring in the morning, and when they had told him +what they thought about that, they went back still further and bellowed +about the mismanagement of the place ever since he had taken charge, and +the food, and the steam-heat, and the new rules--oh, they hated him all +right, and they told him so, purple-faced with rage and heat, dancing +around him and shaking one fist in his face, as I say, while they held +their sheets fast with the other. + +And I stood there and watched, my mind awhirl, expecting every minute +to hear that they were all leaving, or to have some one forget and shake +both fists at once. + +And that's how it ended finally--I mean, of course, that they said they +would all leave immediately, and that he ought to be glad to have +them go quietly, and not have him jailed for malicious mischief or +compounding a felony. The whole thing was an outrage, and the three +train would leave the house as empty as a squeezed lemon. + +I wanted to go forward and drop on my knees and implore them to remember +the old doctor, and the baths they'd had when nothing went wrong, and +the days when they'd sworn that the spring kept them young and well, but +there was something in Mr. Pierce's face that kept me back. + +"At three o'clock, then," he said. "Very well." + +"Don't be a fool!" I heard Mr. Sam from the crowd. + +"Is that all you have to say?" roared Mr. von Inwald. I hadn't noticed +him before. He had his sheet on in Grecian style and it looked quite +ornamental although a little short. "Haven't you any apology to make, +sir?" + +"Neither apology nor explanation to you," Mr. Pierce retorted. And to +the other: "It is an unfortunate accident--incident, if you prefer." He +looked at Thoburn, who was the only one in a bath robe, and who was the +only cheerful one in the lot. "I had refused a request of the bath +man's and he has taken this form of revenge. If this gives me the +responsibility I am willing to take it. If you expect me to ask you to +stay I'll not do it. I don't mind saying that I am as tired of all this +as you are." + +"As tired of what?" demanded Mr. Moody, pushing forward out of the +crowd. Mr. Sam was making frantic gestures to catch Mr. Pierce's eye, +but he would not look at him. + +"Of all this," he said. "Of charging people sanatorium prices under a +pretense of making them well. Does anybody here imagine he's going to +find health by sitting around in an overstuffed leather chair, with the +temperature at eighty, eating five meals a day, and walking as far as +the mineral spring for exercise?" + +There was a sort of angry snarl in the air, and Mr. Sam threw up his one +free hand in despair. + +"In fact," Mr. Pierce went on, "I'd about decided on a new order of +things for this place anyhow. It's going to be a real health resort, +run for people who want to get well or keep well. People who wish to be +overfed, overheated and coddled need not come--or stay." + +The bishop spoke over the heads of the others, who looked dazed. + +"Does that mean," he inquired mildly, "that--guests must either obey +this new order of things or go away?" + +Mr. Pierce looked at the bishop and smiled. + +"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but as every one is leaving, anyhow--" + +They fairly jumped at him then. They surrounded him in a howling mob and +demanded how he dared to turn them out, and what did he mean by saying +they were overfed, and they would leave when they were good and ready +and not before, and he could go to blazes. It was the most scandalous +thing I've ever known of at Hope Springs, and in the midst of it Mr. +Pierce stood cool and quiet, waiting for a chance to speak. And when +the time came he jumped in and told them the truth about themselves, and +most of it hurt. + +He was good and mad, and he stood there and picked out the flabby ones +and the fat ones, the whisky livers and the tobacco hearts and the +banquet stomachs, and called them out by name. + +When he got through they were standing in front of him, ashamed to look +at one another, and not knowing whether to fall on him and tear him to +pieces, or go and weep in a corner because they'd played such havoc with +the bodies the Lord gave them. If he'd weakened for a minute they'd have +jumped on him. But he didn't. He got through and stood looking at them +in their sheets, and then he said coolly: + +"The bus will be ready at two-thirty, gentlemen," and turning on his +heels, went into the office and closed the door. + +They scattered to their rooms in every stage of rage and excitement, +and at last only Mr. Sam and I were left staring at each other. "Damned +young idiot!" he said. "I wish to heavens you'd never suggested bringing +him here, Minnie!" + +And leaving me speechless with indignation, he trailed himself and his +sheet up the stairs. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOME TO ROOST + +I couldn't stand any more. It was all over! I rushed to my room and +threw myself on the bed. At two-thirty I heard the bus come to the +porte-cochere under my window and then drive away; that was the last +straw. I put a pillow over my head so nobody could hear me, and then and +there I had hysterics. I knew I was having them, and I wasn't ashamed. +I'd have exploded if I hadn't. And then somebody jerked the pillow away +and I looked up, with my eyes swollen almost shut, and it was Doctor +Barnes. He had a glass of water in his hand and he held it right above +me. + +"One more yell," he said, "and it goes over you!" + +I lay there staring up at him, and then I knew what a fright I looked, +and although I couldn't speak yet, I reached up and felt for my +hairpins. + +"That's better," he said, putting down the glass. "Another ten minutes +of that and you'd have burst a blood vessel. Don't worry. I know I have +no business here, but I anticipated something of this kind, and it may +interest you to know that I've been outside in the hall since the first +whoop. It's been a good safety-valve." + +I sat up and stared at him. I could hardly see out of my eyes. He had +his back to the light, but I could tell that he had a cross of adhesive +plaster on his cheek and that one eye was almost shut. He smiled when he +saw my expression. + +"It's the temperament," he said. "It goes with the hair. I've got it +too, only I'm apt to go out and pick a fight at such times, and a woman +hasn't got that outlet. As you see, I found Mike, and my disfigurement +is to Mike's as starlight to the noonday glare. Come and take a walk." + +I shook my head, but he took my arm and pulled me off the bed. + +"You come for a walk!" he said. "I'll wait in the hall until you powder +your nose. You look like a fire that's been put out by a rain-storm." + + +I didn't want to go, but anything was better than sitting in the room +moping. I put on my jacket and Miss Patty's chinchillas, which cheered +me a little, but as we went downstairs the quiet of the place sat on my +chest like a weight. + +The lower hall was empty. A new card headed "Rules" hung on the door +into the private office, but I did not read it. What was the use of +rules without people to disobey them? Mrs. Moody had forgotten her +crocheting bag and it hung on the back of a chair. I had to bite my lip +to keep it from trembling again. + +"The Jenningses are still here," said the doctor. "The old man is madder +than any hornet ever dared be, and they go in the morning. But the +situation was too much for our German friend. He left with the others." + +Well, we went out and I took the path I knew best, which was out toward +the spring-house. There wasn't a soul in sight. The place looked lonely, +with the trees hung with snow, and arching over the board walk. At the +little bridge over the creek Doctor Barnes stopped, and leaning over the +rail, took a good look at me. + +"When you self-contained women go to pieces," he said, "you pretty near +smash, don't you? You look as if you'd had a death in your family." + +"This WAS my family," I half sniveled. + +"But," he said, "you'll be getting married and having a home of your own +and forgetting all about this." + +He looked at me with his sharp eyes. "There's probably some nice chap in +the village, eh?" + +I shook my head. I had just caught sight of the broken pieces of the +Moody water-pitcher on the ice below. + +"No nice young man!" he remarked. "Not the telegraph operator, or the +fellow who runs the livery-stable--I've forgotten his name." + +"Look here," I turned on him, "if you're talking all this nonsense to +keep my mind off things, you needn't." + +"I'm not," he said. "I'm asking for the sake of my own mind, but we'll +not bother about that now. We'd better start back." + +It was still snowing, although not so hard. The air had done me some +good, but the lump in my throat seemed to have gone to my chest. The +doctor helped me along, for the snow was drifting, and when he saw I was +past the crying stage he went back to what we were both thinking about. + +"Old Pierce is right," he said. "Remember, Miss Minnie, I've nothing +against you or your mineral spring; in fact, I'm strong for you both. +But while I'm out of the ring now for good--I don't mind saying to you +what I said to Pierce, that the only thing that gets into training here, +as far as I can see, is a fellow's pocketbook." + +We went back to the house and I straightened the news stand, Amanda +King having taken a violent toothache as a result of the excitement. +The Jenningses were packing to go, and Miss Summers had got a bottle of +peroxide and shut herself in her room. At six o'clock Tillie beckoned +to me from the door of the officers' dining-room and said she'd put the +basket in the snow by the grape arbor. I got ready, with a heavy heart, +to take it out. I had forgotten all about their dinner, for one thing, +and I had to carry bad news. + +But Mr. Pierce had been there before me. I saw tracks in the fresh snow, +for, praise heaven! it had snowed all that week and our prints +were filled up almost as fast as we made them. When I got to the +shelter-house it was in a wild state of excitement. Mrs. Dick, with her +cheeks flushed, had gathered all her things on the cot and was rolling +them up in sheets and newspapers. But Mr. Dick was sitting on the box +in front of the fire with his curly hair standing every way. He had been +roasting potatoes, and as I opened the door, he picked one up and poked +at it to see if it was done. + +"Damn!" he said, and dropped it. + +Mrs. Dick sat on the cot rolling up a pink ribbon and looked at him. + +"If you want to know exactly my reason for insisting on moving to-night, +I'll tell you," she said, paying no attention to me. "It is your +disposition." + +He didn't say anything, but he put his foot on the potato and smashed +it. + +"If I had to be shut in here with you one more day," she went on, "I'd +hate you." + +"Why the one more day?" he asked, without looking up. + +But she didn't answer him. She was in the worst kind of a temper; she +threw the ribbon down, and coming over, lifted the lid of my basket and +looked in. + +"Ham again!" she exclaimed ungratefully. "Thanks so much for remembering +us, Minnie. I dare say our dinner to-day slipped your mind!" + +"I wonder if it strikes you, Minnie," Mr. Dick said, noticing me for +the first time, "that if you and Sam hadn't been so confounded meddling, +that fellow Pierce would be washing buggies in the village livery-stable +where he belongs, and I'd be in one piece of property that's as good as +gone this minute." + +"Egg salad and cheese!" said Mrs. Dick. "I'm sick of cheese. If that's +the kind of supper you've been serving--" + +But I was in a bad humor, anyhow, and I'd had enough. I stood just +inside the door and I told them I'd done the best I could, not for them, +but because I'd promised the old doctor, and if I'd made mistakes I'd +answer for them to him if I ever met him in the next world. And in the +meantime I washed my hands of the whole thing, and they might make out +as best they could. I was going. + +Mrs. Dick heard me through. Then she came over and put her hand on mine +where it lay on the table. + +"You're perfectly right," she said. "I know how you have tried, and that +the fault is all that wretched Pierce's. You mustn't mind Mr. Carter, +Minnie. He's been in that sort of humor all day." + +He looked at her with the most miserable face I ever saw, but he didn't +say anything. She sighed, the little wretch. + +"We've all made mistakes," she said, "and not the least was my thinking +that I--well, never mind. I dare say we will manage somehow." + +He got up then, his face twisted with misery. + +"Say it," he said. "You hate me; you shiver if I touch your hand--oh, +I'm not very keen, but I saw that." + +"The remedy for that is very, simple," she replied coolly. "You needn't +touch my hand." + +"Stop!" I snapped. "Just stop before you say something you'll be sorry +for. Of course, you hate each other. It beats me, anyhow, why two people +who get married always want to get away by themselves until they're so +sick of each other that they don't get over it the rest of their +lives. The only sensible honeymoon I ever heard of was when one of the +chambermaids here married a farmer in the neighborhood. It was harvest +and he couldn't leave, so she went ALONE to see her folks and she said +it beat having him along all hollow." + +She was setting out the supper, putting things down with a bang. He +didn't move, although he must have been starving. + +"Another thing I'd advise," I said. "Eat first and talk after. You'll +see things different after you've got something in your stomach." + +"I wish you wouldn't meddle, Minnie!" she snapped, and having put down +her own plate and knife and fork, not laying a place for him, she went +over and tried to get one of the potatoes from the fire. + +Well, she burnt her finger, or pretended to, and I guess her solution +was as good as mine, for she began to cry, and when I left he was tying +it up with a bit of his handkerchief; if she shivered when he kissed it +I didn't notice it. They were to come up to the house after her father +left in the morning, and I was to dismiss all the old help and get new +ones so he could take charge and let Mr. Pierce go. + +I plodded back with my empty basket. I had only one clear thought,--that +I wouldn't have any more tramping across the golf links in the snow. I +was too tired really to care that with the regular winter boarders gone +and eight weeks still until Lent, we'd hardly be able to keep going +another fortnight. I wanted to get back to my room and go to bed and +forget. + +But as I came near the house I saw Mr. Pierce come out on the front +piazza and switch on the lights. He stood there looking out into the +snow, and the next minute I saw why. Coming up the hill and across the +lawn was a shadowy line of people, black against the white. They were +not speaking, and they moved without noise over the snow. I thought for +a minute that my brain had gone wrong; then the first figure came into +the light, and it was the bishop. He stood at the front of the steps and +looked up at Mr. Pierce. + +"I dare say," he said, trying to look easy, "that this is sooner than +you expected us!" + +Mr. Pierce looked down at the crowd. Then he smiled, a growing smile +that ended in a grin. + +"On the contrary," he said, "I've been expecting you for an hour or +more." + +The procession began to move gloomily up the steps. All of them carried +hand luggage, and they looked tired and sheepish Miss Cobb stopped in +front of Mr. Pierce. + +"Do you mean to say," she demanded furiously, "that you knew the +railroad was blocked with snow, and yet you let us go!" + +"On the contrary, Miss Cobb," he said politely, "I remember distinctly +regretting that you insisted on going. Besides, there was the Sherman +House." + +Senator Briggs {sic} stopped in front of him. "Probably you also knew +that THAT was full, including the stables, with people from the stalled +trains," he asserted furiously. + +Two by two they went in and through the hall, stamping the snow off, and +up to their old rooms again, leaving Slocum, the clerk, staring at them +as if he couldn't believe his eyes. + +Mr. Pierce and I watched from the piazza, through the glass. + +We saw Doctor Barnes stop and look, and then go and hang over the news +stand and laugh himself almost purple, and we saw Mr. Thoburn bringing +up the tail of the procession and trying to look unconcerned. I am not a +revengeful woman, but that was one of the happiest moments of my life. + +Doctor Barnes turned suddenly, and catching me by the arm, whirled me +around and around, singing wildly something about Noah and "the animals +went in two by, two, the elephant and the kangaroo." + +He stopped as suddenly as he began and walked me to the door again. + +"We've got 'em in the ark," he said, "but I'm thinking this forty days +of snow is nearly over, Minnie. I don't think much of the dove and the +olive-branch, but WE'VE GOT TO KEEP THEM." + +"It's against the law," I quavered. + +"Nonsense!" he said. "We've got to make 'em WANT to stay!" + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +BACK TO NATURE + +We gave them a good supper and Mr. Pierce ordered claret served without +extra charge. By eight o'clock they were all in better humor, and when +they'd gathered in the lobby Miss Summers gave an imitation of Marie +Dressler doing the Salome dance. Every now and then somebody would look +out and say it was still snowing, and with the memory of the drifts and +the cold stove in the railroad station behind them, they'd gather closer +around the fire and insist that they would go as soon as the road was +cleared. + +But with the exception of Mr. von Inwald, not one of them really wanted +to go. As Doctor Barnes said over the news stand, each side was bluffing +and wouldn't call the other, and the fellow with the most nerve would +win. + +"And, oh, my aunt!" he said, "what a sweet disposition the von Inwald +has! Watch him going up and banging his head against the wall!" + +Everybody was charmed with the Salome dance, especially when Miss +Summers drew the cover off a meat platter she'd been dancing around, +and there was Arabella sitting on her hind legs, with a card tied to her +neck, and the card said that at eleven there would be a clambake in the +kitchen for all the guests. + +(The clambake was my idea, but the dog, of course, was Miss Julia's. I +never saw a woman so full of ideas, although it seems that what should +have been on the platter was the head of somebody or other.) + +Just after the dance I saw Mr. von Inwald talking to Miss Patty. He had +been ugly all evening, and now he looked like a devil. She stood facing +him with her head thrown back and her fingers twisting her ruby ring. +I guessed that she was about as much surprised as anything else, people +having a habit of being pleasant to her most of the time. He left her +in a rage, and as he went he collided with Arabella and kicked her. +Miss Patty went white but Miss Summers was not a bit put out. She simply +picked up the howling dog and confronted Mr. von Inwald. + +"Perhaps you didn't notice," she said sweetly, "but you kicked my dog." + +"Why don't you keep her out of the way?" he snarled, and they stood +glaring at each other. + +"Under the circumstances, Arabella," Miss Julia said--and everybody +was listening--"we can only withdraw Mr. von Inwald's invitation to the +kitchen." + +"Thank you, I had not intended to go," he said furiously, and went out +into the veranda, slamming the door behind him. Mr. Jennings looked up +from where he was playing chess by the fire and nodded at Miss Summers. + +"Serves him right for his temper!" he said. + +"Checkmate!" said the bishop. + +Mr. Jennings turned and glared at the board. Then with one sweep he +threw all the chessmen on the floor. As Tillie said later, it would be +a pity to spoil two houses with Mr. von Inwald and Mr. Jennings If they +were in the same family, they could work it off on each other. + +Miss Patty came down to the news stand and pretended to hunt for a +magazine. I reached over and stroked her hand. "Don't take it too hard, +dearie," I said. "He's put out to-night, and maybe he isn't well. Men +are like babies. If their stomachs are all right and have plenty in +them, they're pleasant enough. It's been my experience that your cranky +man's a sick man." + +"I don't think he is sick, Minnie," she said, with a catch in her voice. +"I--I think he is just dev--devilish!" + +Well, I thought that too, so I just stroked her hand, and after a minute +she got her color again. "It is hard for him," she said. "He thinks this +is all vulgar and American, and--oh, Minnie, I want to get away, and yet +what shall I do without you to keep me sensible." + +"You'll be a long ways off soon," I said, touching the ring under my +hand. + +"I wish you could come with me," she said, but I shook my head. + +"Here is one dog that isn't going to sit under any rich man's table and +howl for crumbs," I answered. "If he kicked ME, I'd bite him." + +At eleven o'clock we had the clambake with beer in the kitchen, and Mr. +von Inwald came, after all. They were really very cheerful, all of them. +Doctor Barnes insisted that Senator Biggs must not fast any longer, and +he ate by my count three dozen clams. At the end, when everybody was +happy and everything forgiven, Mr. Pierce got up and made a speech. + +He said he was sorry for what had happened that day, but that much he +had said he still maintained: that to pretend to make people well in +the way most sanatoriums did it was sheer folly, and he felt his +responsibility too keenly to countenance a system that was clearly wrong +and that the best modern thought considered obsolete. + +Miss Cobb sat up at that; she is always talking about the best modern +thought. + +He said that perfect health, clear skins, bright eyes--he looked at the +women, and except for Miss Patty, there wasn't an honest complexion or a +bright eye in the lot--keen appetites and joy of living all depended on +rational and simple living. + +"Hear, hear!" said the men. + +"The nearer we live to nature, the better," said Senator Biggs +oracularly. + +"Back to nature," shouted Mr. Moody through a clam. + +"Exactly," Mr. Pierce said, smiling. + +Mrs. Moody looked alarmed. "You don't mean doing without clothes--and +all that!" she protested. + +"Surely!" Miss Summers said, holding up her beer glass. "A toast, +everybody! Back to nature, sans rats, sans rouge, sans stays, sans +everything. I'll need to wear a tag with my name on it. Nobody will +recognize me!" + +Mr. Pierce got up again at the head of the long kitchen table and said +he merely meant rational living--more air, more exercise, simpler food +and better hours. It was being done now in a thousand fresh-air farms, +and succeeding. Men went back to their business clearer-headed and women +grew more beautiful. + +At that, what with the reaction from sitting in the cold station, and +the beer and everything, they all grew enthusiastic. Doctor Barnes made +a speech, telling that he used to be puny and weak, and how he went +into training and became a pugilist, and how he'd fought the Tennessee +something or other--the men nodded as if they knew--and licked him in +forty seconds or forty rounds, I'm not sure which. The men were standing +on their chairs cheering for him, and even Mr. Jennings, who'd been +sitting and not saying much, said he thought probably there was +something in it. + +They ended by agreeing to try it out for a week, beginning with the +morning, when everybody was to be down for breakfast by seven-thirty. +Mr. Thoburn got up and made a speech, protesting that they didn't know +what they were letting themselves in for, and ended up by demanding to +know if he was expected to breakfast at seven-thirty. + +"Yes, or earlier," Mr. Pierce said pleasantly. "I suppose you could have +something at seven." + +"And suppose I refuse?" he retorted disagreeably. + +But everybody turned on him, and said if they could do it, he could, and +he sat down again. Then somebody suggested that if they were to get up +they'd have to go to bed, and the party broke up. + +Doctor Barnes helped me gather up the clam shells and the plates. + +"It's a risky business," he said. "To-night doesn't mean anything; +they're carried away by the reaction and the desire for something new. +The next week will tell the tale." + +"If we could only get rid of Mr. Thoburn!" I exclaimed. Doctor Barnes +chuckled. + +"We may not get rid of him," he said, "but I can promise him the most +interesting week of his life. He'll be too busy for mischief. I'm going +to take six inches off his waist line." + +Well, in a half-hour or so I had cleared away, and I went out to the +lobby to lock up the news stand. Just as I opened the door from the back +hall, however, I heard two people talking. + +It was Miss Pat and Mr. Pierce. She was on the stairs and he in the hall +below, looking up. + +"I don't WANT to stay!" she was saying. + +"But don't you see?" he argued. "If you go, the others will. Can't you +try it for a week?" + +"I quite understand your motive," she said, looking down at him more +pleasantly than she'd ever done, "and it's very good of you and all +that. But if you'd only left things as they were, and let us all go, and +other people come--" + +"That's just it," he said. "I'm told it's the bad season and nobody else +would come until Lent. And, anyhow, it's not business to let a lot of +people go away mad. It gives the place a black eye." + +"Dear me," she said, "how businesslike you are growing!" + +He went over close to the stairs and dropped his voice. + +"If you want the bitter truth," he went on, trying to smile, "I've put +myself on trial and been convicted of being a fool and a failure. I've +failed regularly and with precision at everything I have tried. I've +been going around so long trying to find a place that I fit into, that +I'm scarred as with many battles. And now I'm on probation--for the last +time. If this doesn't go, I--I--" + +"What?" she asked, leaning down to him. "You'll not--" + +"Oh, no," he said, "nothing dramatic, of course. I could go around the +country in a buggy selling lightning-rods--" + +She drew herself back as if she resented his refusal of her sympathy. + +"Or open a saloon in the Philippines!" he finished mockingly. "There's a +living in that." + +"You are impossible," she said, and turned away. + +Oh, I haven't any excuse to make for him! I think he was just hungry for +her sympathy and her respect, knowing nothing else was coming to him. +But the minute they grew a bit friendly he seemed to remember the +prince, and that, according to his idea of it, she was selling herself, +and he would draw off and look at her in a mocking unhappy way that made +me want to slap him. + +He watched her up the stairs and then turned and walked to the fire, +with his hands in his pockets and his head down. + +I closed the news stand and he came over just as I was hanging up the +cigar-case key for Amanda King in the morning. He reached up and took +the key off its nail. + +"I'll keep that," he said. "It's no tobacco after this, Minnie." + +"You can't keep them here, then," I retorted. "They've got to smoke; +it's the only work they do." + +"We'll see," he said quietly. "And--oh, yes, Minnie, now that we shall +not be using the mineral spring--" + +"Not use the mineral spring!" I repeated, stupefied. + +"Certainly NOT!" he said. "This is a drugless sanatorium, Minnie, from +now on. That's part of the theory--no drugs." + +"Well, I'll tell you one thing," I snapped, "theory or no theory, you've +got to have drugs. No theory that I ever heard of is going to cure Mr. +Moody's indigestion and Miss Cobb's neuralgia." + +"They won't have indigestion and neuralgia." + +"Or Amanda King's toothache." + +"We won't have Amanda King." + +He put his elbow on the stand and smiled at me. + +"Listen, Minnie," he said. "If you hadn't been wasting your abilities in +the mineral spring, I'd be sorry to close it. But there will be plenty +for you to do. Don't you know that the day of the medicine-closet in the +bath-room and the department-store patent-remedy counter is over? We've +got sanatoriums now instead of family doctors. In other words, we put in +good sanitation systems and don't need the plumber and his repair kit." + +"The pharmacy?" I said between my teeth. + +"Closed also. No medicine, Minnie. That's our slogan. This is the day +of prophylaxis. The doctors have taken a step in the right direction +and are giving fewer drugs. Christian Science has abolished drugs and +established the healer. We simply abolish the healer." + +"If we're not going to use the spring-house, we might have saved the +expense of the new roof in the fall," I said bitterly. + +"Not at all. For two hours or so a day the spring-house will be +a rest-house--windows wide open and God's good air penetrating to +fastnesses it never knew before." + +"The spring will freeze!" + +"Exactly. My only regret is that it is too small to skate on. But +they'll have the ice pond." + +"When I see Mr. Moody skating on the ice pond," I said sarcastically, +"I'll see Mrs. Moody dead with the shock on the bank." + +"Not at all," he replied calmly. "You'll see her skating, too." And with +that he went to bed. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LIKE DUCKS TO WATER + +They took to it like ducks take to water. Not, of course, that they +didn't kick about making their own beds and having military discipline +generally. They complained a lot, but when after three days went by with +the railroad running as much on schedule as it ever does, they were all +still there, and Mr. Jennings had limped out and spent a half-hour at +the wood-pile with his gouty foot on a cushion, I saw it was a success. + +I ought to have been glad. I was, although when Mrs. Dicky found they +were all staying, and that she might have to live in the shelter-house +the rest of the winter, there was an awful scene. I was glad, too, every +time I could see Mr. Thoburn's gloomy face, or hear the things he said +when his name went up for the military walk. + +(Oh yes, we had a blackboard in the hall, and every morning each guest +looked to see if it was wood-pile day or military-walk day. At first, +instead of wood-pile, it was walk-clearing day, but they soon had the +snow off all the paths.) + +As I say, I was glad. It looked as if the new idea was a success, +although as Doctor Barnes said, nobody could really tell until new +people began to come. That was the real test. They had turned the baths +into a gymnasium and they had beginners' classes and advanced classes, +and a prize offered on the blackboard of a cigar for the man who made +the most muscular improvement in a week. The bishop won it the first +week, being the only one who could lie on his back and raise himself to +a sitting position without helping himself with his hands. As Mrs. Moody +said, it would be easy enough if somebody only sat on one's feet to hold +them down. + +But I must say I never got over the shock of seeing the spring-house +drifted with snow, all the windows wide open, the spring frozen hard, +and people sitting there during the rest hour, in furs and steamer rugs, +trying to play cards with mittens on--their hands, not the cards, of +course--and not wrangling. I was lonesome for it! + +I hadn't much to do, except from two to four to be at the spring-house, +and to count for the deep-breathing exercise. Oh, yes, we had that, too! +I rang a bell every half-hour and everybody got up, and I counted slowly +"one" and they breathed in through their noses, and "two" and they +exhaled quickly through their mouths. I guess most of them used more of +their lungs than they ever knew they had. + +Well, everybody looked better and felt better, although they wouldn't +all acknowledge it. Miss Cobb suffered most, not having the fire log +to curl her hair with. But as she said herself, between gymnasium and +military walks, and the silence hour, and eating, which took a long +time, everybody being hungry--and going to bed at nine, she didn't see +how she could have worried with it, anyhow. The fat ones, of course, +objected to an apple and a cup of hot water for breakfast, but except +Mr. Thoburn, they all realized it was for the best. He wasn't there for +his health, he said, having never had a sick day in his life, but when +he saw it was apple and hot water or leave, he did like Adam--he took +the apple. + +The strange thing of all was the way they began to look up to Mr. +Pierce. He was very strict; if he made a rule, it was obey or leave. +(As they knew after Mr. Moody refused to take the military walk, and was +presented with his bill and a railroad schedule within an hour. He had +to take the military walk with Doctor Barnes that afternoon alone.) They +had to respect a man who could do all the things in the gymnasium that +they couldn't, and come in from a ten or fifteen-mile tramp through the +snow and take a cold plunge and a swim to rest himself. + +It was on Monday that we really got things started, and on Monday +afternoon Miss Summers came out to the shelter-house in a towering rage. + +"Where's Mr. Pierce?" she demanded. + +"I guess you can see he isn't here," I said. + +"Just wait until I see him!" she announced. "Do you know that I am down +on the blackboard for the military walk to-day? + +"Why not?" + +She turned and glared at me. "Why not?" she repeated. "Why, the audacity +of the wretch! He brings me out into the country in winter to play in +his atrocious play, strands me, and then tells me to walk twenty miles a +day and smile over it!" She came over to me and shook my arm. "Not only +that," she said, "but he has cut out my cigarettes and put Arabella on +dog biscuit--Arabella, who can hardly eat a chicken wing." + +"Well, there's something to be thankful for," I said. "He didn't put you +on dog biscuit." + +She laughed then, with one of her quick changes of humor. + +"The worst of it is," she said, in a confidential whisper, "I'll do it. +I feel it. I guess if the truth were known I'm some older than he is, +but--I'm afraid of him, Minnie. Little Judy is ready to crawl around and +speak for a cracker or a kind word. Oh, I'm not in love with him, but +he's got the courage to say what he means and do what he says." + +She went to the door and looked back smiling. + +"I'm off for the wood-pile," she called back. "And I've promised to chop +two inches off my heels." + +As I say, they took to it like ducks to water--except two of them, von +Inwald and Thoburn. Mr. von Inwald stayed on, I hardly know why, but I +guess it was because Mr. Jennings still hadn't done anything final about +settlements, and with the newspapers marrying him every day it wasn't +very comfortable. Next to him, Mr. Thoburn was the unhappiest mortal I +have ever seen. He wouldn't leave, and with Doctor Barnes carrying +out his threat to take six inches off his waist, he stopped measuring +window-frames with a tape line and took to measuring himself. + +I came across him on Wednesday--the third day--straggling home from the +military walk. He and Mr. von Inwald limped across the tennis-court and +collapsed on the steps of the spring-house while the others went on to +the sanatorium. I had been brushing the porch, and I leaned on my broom +and looked at them. + +"You're both looking a lot better," I said. "Not so--well, not so +beer-y. How do you like it by this time?" + +"Fine!" answered Mr. Thoburn. "Wouldn't stay if I didn't like it." + +"Wouldn't you?" + +"But I'll tell you this, Minnie," he said, changing his position with +a groan to look up at me, "somebody ought to warn that young man. Human +nature can stand a lot but it can't stand everything. He's overdoing +it!" + +"They like it," I said. + +"They think they do," he retorted. "Mark my words, Minnie, if he adds +another mile to the walk to-morrow there will be a mutiny. Kingdoms may +be lost by an extra blister on a heel." + +Mr. von Inwald had been sitting with his feet straight out, scowling, +but now he turned and looked at me coolly. + +"All that keeps me here," he said, "is Minnie's lovely hair. It takes me +mentally back home, Minnie, to a lovely lady--may I have a bit of it to +keep by me?" + +"You may not," I retorted angrily. + +"Oh! The lovely lady--but never mind that. For the sake of my love for +you, Minnie, find me a cigarette, like a good girl! I am desolate." + +"There's no tobacco on the place," I said firmly, and went on with my +sweeping. + +"When I was a boy," Mr. Thoburn remarked, looking out thoughtfully +over the snow, "we made a sort of cigarette out of corn-silk. You don't +happen to have any corn-silk about, do you, Minnie?" + +"No," I said shortly. "If you take my advice, Mr. Thoburn, you'll go +back to town. You can get all the tobacco you want there--and you're +wasting your time here." I leaned on my broom and looked down at him, +but he was stretching out his foot and painfully working his ankle up +and down. + +"Am I?" he asked, looking at his foot. "Well, don't count on it too +much, Minnie. You always inspire me, and sitting here I've just thought +of something." + +He got up and hobbled off the porch, followed by Mr. von Inwald. I +saw him say something to Mr. von Inwald, who threw back his head and +laughed. Then I saw them stop and shake hands and go on again in deep +conversation. I felt uneasy. + + +Doctor Barnes came out that afternoon and watched me while I closed +the windows. He had a package in his hand. He sat on the railing of the +spring and looked at me. + +"You're not warmly enough dressed for this kind of thing," he remarked. +"Where's that gray rabbits' fur, or whatever it is?" + +"If you mean my chinchillas," I said, "they're in their box. Chinchillas +are as delicate as babies and not near so plentiful. I'm warm enough." + +"You look it." He reached over and caught one of my hands. "Look at +that! Blue nails! It's about four degrees above zero here, and while +the rest are wrapped in furs and steamer rugs, with hotwater bottles at +their feet, you've got on a shawl. I'll bet you two dollars you haven't +got on any--er--winter flannels." + +"I never bet," I retorted, and went on folding up the steamer rugs. + +"I'd like to help," he said, "but you're so darned capable, Miss +Minnie--" + +"You might see if you can get the slot-machine empty," I said. "It's +full of water. It wouldn't work and Mr. Moody thought it was frozen. +He's been carrying out boiling water all afternoon. If it stays in there +and freezes the thing will explode." + +He wasn't listening. He'd been fussing with his package and now he +opened it and handed it to me, in the paper. + +"It's a sweater," he said, not looking at me. "I bought it for myself +and it was too small-- Confound it, Minnie, I wish I could lie! I bought +them for you! There's the whole business--sweater, cap, leggings and +mittens. Go on! Throw them at me!" + +But I didn't. I looked at them, all white and soft, and it came over +me suddenly how kind people had been lately, and how much I'd been +getting--the old doctor's waistcoat buttons and Miss Pat's furs, and now +this! I just buried my face in them and cried. + +Doctor Barnes stood by and said nothing. Some men wouldn't have +understood, but he did. After a minute or so he came over and pulled the +sweater out from the bundle. + +"I'm glad you like 'em," he said, "but as I bought them at Hubbard's, in +Finleyville, and as the old liar guaranteed they wouldn't shrink, we'd +better not cry on 'em." + +Well, I put them on and I was warmer and happier than I had been for +some time. But that night when I went out to the shelter-house with +the supper basket I found both the honeymooners in a wild state of +excitement. They said that about five o'clock Thoburn had gone out to +the shelter-house and walked all around it. Finally he had stopped at +one of the windows of the other room, had worked at it with his penknife +and got it open, and crawled through. They sat paralyzed with fright, +and heard him moving around the other room, and he even tried their +door. But it had been locked. They hadn't the slightest idea what he was +doing, but after perhaps ten minutes he went away, going out the door +this time and taking the key with him. + +Mr. Dick had gone in when he was safely gone, but he could see nothing +unusual, except that the door of the cupboard in the corner was standing +open and there was a brand-new, folding, foot rule in it. + +That day the bar was closed for good, and there was a good bit of +fussing. To add to the trouble, that evening at dinner the pastries +were cut off, and at eight o'clock a delegation headed by Senator Biggs +visited Mr. Pierce in the office and demanded pastry put back on the +menu and the stewed fruit taken off. But Mr. Pierce was firm and they +came out pretty well subdued. It was that night, I think, that candles +were put in the bedrooms, and all the electric lights were turned off at +nine-thirty. + +At ten o'clock I took my candle and went to Mr. Pierce's sitting-room +door. I didn't think they'd stand much more and I wanted to tell him so. +Nobody answered and I opened the door. He was asleep, face down on the +hearth-rug in front of the fire. His candle was lighted on the floor +beside him and near it lay a newspaper cutting crumpled in a ball. +I picked it up. It was a list of the bridal party for Miss Patty's +wedding. + +I dropped it where I found it and went out and knocked again loudly. He +wakened after a minute and came to the door with the candle in his hand. + +"Oh, it's you, Minnie. Come in!" + +I went in and put my candle on the table. + +"I've got to talk to you," I said. "I don't mind admitting things have +been going pretty well, but--they won't stand for the candles. You mark +my words." + +"If they'll stand for the bar being closed, why not the candles?" he +demanded. + +"Well," I said, "they can't have electric light sent up in boxes and +labeled 'books,' but they can get liquor that way." + +He whistled, and then he laughed. + +"Then we'll not have any books," he said. "I guess they can manage. 'My +only books were woman's looks--'" and then he saw the ball of paper on +the floor and his expression changed. He walked over and picked it up, +smoothing it out on the palm of his hand. + +After a minute he looked up at me. + +"I haven't been to the shelter-house to-day. They are all right?" + +"They're nervous. With everybody walking these days they daren't venture +a nose out of doors." + +He was still holding the clipping. + +"And--Miss Jennings!" he said. "She--I think she looks better." + +"Her father's in a better humor for one thing--says Abraham Lincoln +split logs, and that it beats massage." + +I had been standing in the doorway, but he took me by the arm and drew +me into the room. + +"I wish you'd sit down for about ten minutes, Minnie," he said. "I guess +every fellow has a time when he's got to tell his troubles to some good +woman--not but that you know mine already. You're as shrewd as you are +kind." + +I sat down on the edge of a chair. For all I had had so much to do with +the sanatorium, I never forgot that I was only the spring-house girl. He +threw himself back in his easy chair, with the candle behind him on the +table and his arms above his head. + +"It's like this, Minnie," he said. "Mr. Jennings likes the new order of +things and--he's going to stay." + +I nodded. + +"And I like it here. I want to stay. It's the one thing I've found that +I think I can do. It isn't what I've dreamed of, but it's worth while. +To anchor the derelicts of humanity in a sort of repair dock here, and +scrape the barnacles off their dispositions, and send them out shipshape +again, surely that's something. And I can do it." + +I nodded again. + +"But if the Jenningses stay--" he looked at me. "Minnie, in heaven's +name, what am I going to do if SHE stays?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Pierce," I said. "I couldn't sleep last night for +thinking about it." + +He smoothed out the paper and looked at it again, but I think he +scarcely saw it. + +"The situation is humorous," he said, "only my sense of humor seems +to have died. She doesn't know I exist, except to invent new and +troublesome regulations for her annoyance. She is very sweet when she +meets me, but only because I am helping her to have her own way. And +I--my God, Minnie, I sit in the office and listen for her step outside!" + +He moved a little and held out the paper in the candle-light. + +"'It will please Americans to know,'" he read, "'that with the exception +of the Venetian lace robe sent by the bridegroom's mother, all of Miss +Patricia Jennings' elaborate trousseau is being made in America. + +"'Prince Oskar and his suite, according to present arrangements, will +sail from Naples early in March, and the wedding date, although not yet +definitely fixed, will probably be the first week in April. The wedding +party will include--'" + +He stopped there, and looked at me, trying to smile. + +"I knew it all before," he said, "but there's something inevitable about +print. I guess I hadn't realized it." + +He had the same look of wretchedness he'd had the first night I saw +him--a hungry look--and I couldn't help it; I went over to him and +patted him on the head like a little boy. I was only the spring-house +girl, but I was older than he was, and he needed somebody to comfort +him. + +"I can't think of anything to say that will help any," I said, "unless +it's what you wrote yourself on the blackboard down in the hall, 'Keep +busy and you'll keep happy.'" + +He reached up for my hand, and rough and red as it was--having been in +the spring for so many years--he kissed it. + +"Good for you, Minnie!" he said. "You're rational, and for a day or so +I haven't been. That's right, KEEP BUSY. I'll do it." He got up and put +his hands on my shoulders. "Good old pal, when you see me going around +as if all the devils of hell were tormenting me, just come up and say +that to me, will you?" + +I promised, and he opened the door, candle in hand, and smiling. + +"I'm a thousand per cent. better already," he said. "I just needed to +tell somebody, I think. I dare say I've made a lot more fuss than it +really deserves." + +At the far end of the hall, a girl came out of one room, and carrying +a candle, went across to another. It was Miss Patty, going to bid her +father good night. When I left, he was still staring down the hall after +her, his candle dripping wax on the floor, and his face white. I guess +he hadn't overstated his case. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE FIRST FRUITS + +By Friday of that week you would hardly have known any of them. The fat +ones were thinner and the thin ones fatter, and Miss Julia Summers could +put her whole hand inside her belt. + +And they were pleasant. They'd sit down to a supper of ham and eggs and +apple sauce, and yell for more apple sauce, and every evening in the +billiard room they got up two weighing pools, one for the ones who +wanted to reduce, and one for the people who wanted to gain. Everybody +put in a dollar, and at gymnasium hour the next morning the ones who'd +gained or lost the most won the pool. Mr. Thoburn won the losing pool on +Thursday and Friday--he didn't want to lose weight, but he was compelled +to under the circumstances. And I think worry helped him to it. + +They fussed some still about sleeping with the windows open, especially +the bald-headed men. However, the bishop, who had been bald for thirty +years, was getting a fine down all over the top of his head, and this +encouraged the rest. The bishop says it is nature's instinct to protect +itself from cold--all animals have fur, and heavier fur in winter--and +he believed that it was the ultimate cure for baldness. Men lose their +hair on top, he said, because they wear hats, and so don't need it. +But let the top of the head need protection, and lo, hair comes there. +Although, as Mr. Thoburn said, his nose was always cold in winter, and +nature never did anything for IT. + +Mr. von Inwald was still there, and not troubling himself to be +agreeable to any but the Jennings family. He and Mr. Pierce carefully +avoided each other, but I knew well enough that only policy kept them +apart. Both of them, you see, were working for something. + +Miss Cobb came to the spring-house early Friday morning, and from the +way she came in and shut the door I knew she had something on her mind. +She walked over to where I was polishing the brass railing around the +spring--it had been the habit of years, and not easy to break--and stood +looking at me and breathing hard. + +"Minnie," she exclaimed, "I have found the thief!" + +"Lord have mercy!" I said, and dropped the brass polish. + +"I have found the thief!" she repeated firmly. "Minnie, our sins always +find us out." + +"I guess they do," I said shakily, and sat down on the steps to the +spring. "Oh, Miss Cobb, if only he would use a little bit of sense!" + +"He?" she said. "HE nothing! It's that Summers woman I'm talking about, +Minnie. I knew that woman wasn't what she ought to be the minute I set +eyes on her." + +"The Summers woman!" I repeated. + +Miss Cobb leaned over the railing and shook a finger in my face. + +"The Summers woman," she said. "One of the chambermaids found my--my +PROTECTORS hanging in the creature's closet!" + +I couldn't speak. There had been so much happening that I'd clean +forgotten Miss Cobb and her woolen tights. And now to have them come +back like this and hang themselves around my neck, so to speak--it was +too much. + +"Per--perhaps they're hers," I said weakly after a minute. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" declared Miss Cobb. "Don't you think I know my +own, with L. C. in white cotton on the band, and my own darning in the +knee where I slipped on the ice? And more than that, Minnie, where those +tights are, my letters are!" + +I glanced at the pantry, where her letters were hidden on the upper +shelf. The door was closed. + +"But--but what would she want with the letters?" I asked, with my +teeth fairly hitting together. Miss Cobb pushed her forefinger into my +shoulder. + +"To blackmail me," she said, in a tragic voice, "or perhaps to publish. +I've often thought of that myself--they're so beautiful. Letters from +a life insurance agent to his lady-love--interesting, you know, and +alliterative. As for that woman--!" + +"What woman!" said Miss Summers' voice from behind us. We jumped and +turned. "I always save myself trouble, so if by any chance you are +discussing me--" + +"As it happens," Miss Cobb said, glaring at her, "I WAS discussing you." + +"Fine!" said Miss Julia. "I love to talk about myself." + +"I doubt if it's an edifying subject," Miss Cobb snapped. + +Miss Julia looked at her and smiled. + +"Perhaps not," she said, "but interesting. Don't put yourself out to be +friendly to me, Miss Cobb, if you don't feel like it." + +"Are you going to return my letters?" Miss Cobb demanded. + +"Your letters?" + +"My letters--that you took out of my room!" + +"Look here," Miss Julia said, still in a good humor, "don't you suppose +I've got letters of my own, without bothering with another woman's?" + +"Perhaps," Miss Cobb replied in triumph, "perhaps you will say that you +don't know anything of my--of my black woolen protectors?" + +"Never heard of them!" said Miss Summers. "What are they?" And then she +caught my eye, and I guess I looked stricken. "Oh!" she said. + +"Miss Cobb was robbed the other night," I explained, as quietly as I +could. "Somebody went into her room and took a bundle of letters." + +"Letters!" Miss Summers straightened and looked at me. + +"And my woolen tights," said Miss Cobb indignantly, "with all this cold +weather and military walks, and having to sit two hours a day by an open +window! And I'll tell you this, Miss Summers, your dog got in my room +that night, and while I have no suspicions, the chambermaid found +my--er--missing garment this morning in your closet!" + +"I don't believe," Miss Julia said, looking hard at me, "that Arabella +would steal anything so--er--grotesque! Do you mean to say," she added +slowly, "that nothing was taken from that room but the--lingerie and a +bundle of letters?" + +"Exactly," said Miss Cobb, "and I'd thank you for the letters." + +"The letters!" Miss Julia retorted. "I've never been in your room. I +haven't got the letters. I've never seen them." Then a light dawned in +her face. "I--oh, it's the funniest ever!" + +And with that she threw her head back and laughed until the tears rolled +down her cheeks and she held her side. + +"Screaming!" she gasped. "It's screaming! But, oh, Minnie, to have seen +your face!" + +Miss Cobb swept to the door and turned in a fury. + +"I do not think it is funny," she stormed, "and I shall report to Mr. +Carter at once what I have discovered." + +She banged out, and Miss Julia put her head on a card-table and writhed +with joy. "To have seen your face, Minnie!" she panted, wiping her eyes. +"To have thought you had Dick Carter's letters, that I keep rolled +in asbestos, and then to have opened them and found they were to Miss +Cobb!" + +"Be as happy as you like," I snapped, "but you are barking up the wrong +tree. I don't know anything about any letters and as far as that goes, +do you think I've lived here fourteen years to get into the wrong room +at night? If I'd wanted to get into your room, I'd have found your room, +not Miss Cobb's." + +She sat up and pulled her hat straight, looking me right in the eye. + +"If you'll recall," she said, "I came into the spring-house, and +Arabella pulled that--garment of Miss Cobb's off a table. It was +early--nobody was out yet. You were alone, Minnie, or no," she said +suddenly, "you were not alone. Minnie, WHO was in the pantry?" + +"What has that to do with it?" I managed, with my feet as cold as stone. + +She got up and buttoned her sweater. + +"Don't trouble to lie," she said. "I can see through a stone wall +as well as most people. Whoever got those letters thought they were +stealing mine, and there are only two people who would try to steal my +letters; one is Dick Carter, and the other is his brother-in-law. It +wasn't Sam in the pantry--he came in just after with his little snip of +a wife." + +"Well?" I managed. + +But she was smiling again, not so pleasantly. + +"I might have known it!" she said. "What a fool I've been, Minnie, and +how clever you are under that red thatch of yours! Dicky can not appear +as long as I am here, and Pierce takes his place, and I help to keep the +secret and to play the game! Well, I can appreciate a joke on myself as +well as most people, but--Minnie, Minnie, think of that guilty wretch of +a Dicky Carter shaking in the pantry!" + +"I don't know what you are talking about," I said, but she only winked +and went to the door. + +"Don't take it too much to heart," she advised. "Too much loyalty is +a vice, not a virtue. And another piece of advice, Minnie--when I find +Dicky Carter, stand from under; something will fall." + +They had charades during the rest hour that afternoon, the overweights +headed by the bishop, against the underweights headed by Mr. Moody. They +selected their words from one of Horace Fletcher's books, and as Mr. +Pierce wasn't either over or underweight, they asked him to be referee. + +Oh, they were crazy about him by that time. It was "Mr. Carter" here and +"dear Mr. Carter" there, with the women knitting him neckties and the +men coming up to be bullied and asking for more. + +And he kept the upper hand, too, once he got it. It was that day, I +think, that he sent Senator Biggs up to make his bed again, and nobody +in the place will ever forget how he made old Mr. Jennings hang his +gymnasium suit up three times before it was done properly. The old man +was mad enough at the time, but inside of twenty minutes he was offering +Mr. Pierce the cigar he'd won in the wood-chopping contest. + +But if Mr. Pierce was making a hit with the guests, he wasn't so popular +with the Van Alstynes or the Carters. The night the cigar stand was +closed Mr. Sam came to me and leaned over the counter. + +"Put the key in a drawer," he said. "I can slip down here after the +lights are out and get a smoke." + +"Can't do it, Mr. Van Alstyne," I said. "Got positive orders." + +"That doesn't include me." He was still perfectly good-humored. + +"Sorry," I said. "Have to have a written order from Mr. Pierce." + +He put a silver dollar on the desk between us and looked at me over it. + +"Will that open the case?" he asked. But I shook my head. + +"Well, I'll be hanged! What the devil sort of order did he give you?" + +"He said," I repeated, "that I'd be coaxed and probably bribed to open +the cigar case, and that you'd probably be the first one to do it, but +I was to stick firm; you've been smoking too much, and your nerves are +going." + +"Insolent young puppy!" he exclaimed angrily, and stamped away. + +So that I was not surprised when on that night, Friday, I was told to be +at the shelter-house at ten o'clock for a protest meeting. Mrs. Sam told +me. + +"Something has to be done," she said. "I don't intend to stand much +more. Nobody has the right to say when I shall eat or what. If I want to +eat fried shoe leather, that's my affair." + +We met at ten o'clock at the shelter-house, everybody having gone to +bed--Miss Patty, the Van Alstynes and myself. The Dickys were on good +terms again, for a wonder, and when we went in they were in front of the +fire, she on a box and he at her feet, with his head buried in her lap. +He didn't even look up when we entered. + +"They're here, Dicky," she said. + +"All right!" he answered in a smothered voice. "How many of 'em?" + +"Four," she said, and kissed the tip of his ear. + +"For goodness sake, Dick!" Mrs. Sam snapped in a disgusted tone, "stop +that spooning and get us something to sit on." + +"Help yourself," he replied, still from his wife's lap, "and don't be +jealous, sis. If the sight of married happiness upsets you, go away. Go +away, anyhow." + +Mr. Sam came over and jerked him into a sitting position. "Either you'll +sit up and take part in this discussion," he said angrily, "or you'll go +out in the snow until it's over." + +Mr. Dick leaned over and kissed his wife's hand. + +"A cruel fate is separating us," he explained, "but try to endure it +until I return. I'll be on the other side of the fireplace." + +Miss Patty came to the fire and stood warming her hands. I saw her +sister watching her. + +"What's wrong with you, Pat?" she asked. "Oskar not behaving?" + +"Don't be silly," Miss Patty said. "I'm all right." + +"She's worked to death," Mrs. Sam put in. "Look at all of us. I'll tell +you I'm so tired these nights that by nine o'clock I'm asleep on my +feet." + +"I'm tired to death, but I don't sleep," Miss Patty said. "I--I don't +know why." + +"I do," her sister said. "If you weren't so haughty, Pat, and would just +own up that you're sick of your bargain--" + +"Dolly!" Miss Patty got red and then white. + +"Oh, all right," Mrs. Dicky said, and shrugged her shoulders. "Only, I +hate to see you make an idiot of yourself, when I'm so happy." + +Mr. Dick made a move at that to go across the fireplace to her, but Mr. +Sam pushed him back where he was. + +"You stay right there," he said. "Here's Pierce now." + +He came in smiling, and as he stood inside the door, brushing the snow +off, it was queer to see how his eyes went around the circle until he'd +found Miss Patty and stopped at her. + +Nobody answered his smile, and he came over to the fire beside Miss +Patty. + +"Great night!" he said, looking down at her. "There's something +invigorating in just breathing that wind." + +"Do you think so?" Mrs. Sam said disagreeably. "Of course, we haven't +all got your shoulders." + +"That's so," he answered, turning to her. "I said you women should not +come so far. We could have met in my sitting-room." + +"You forget one thing," Mr. Dick put in disagreeably, "and that is +that this meeting concerns me, and I can not very well go to YOUR +sitting-room." + +"Fact," said Mr. Pierce, "I'd forgotten about you for the moment." + +"You generally do," Mr. Dick retorted. "If you want the truth, Pierce, +I'm about tired of your high-handed methods." + +Mr. Pierce set his jaw and looked down at him. + +"Why? I've saved the place, haven't I? Why, look here," he said, and +pulled out a couple of letters, "these are the first fruits of those +that weep--in other words, per aspera ad astra! Two new guests coming +the last of the week--want to be put in training!" + +Well, that was an argument nobody could find fault with, but their +grievance was about themselves and they couldn't forgive him. They +turned on him in the most heartless way--even Miss Patty--and demanded +that he give them special privileges--breakfast when they wanted it, and +Mr. Sam the key to the bar. And he stood firm, as he had that day in the +lobby, and let the storm beat around him, looking mostly at Miss Patty. +It was more than I could bear. + +"Shame on all of you!" I said. "He's done what he promised he'd do, and +more. If he did what he ought, he'd leave this minute, and let you find +out for yourself what it is to drive thirty-odd different stomachs and +the same number of bad dispositions in one direction." + +"You are perfectly right, Minnie," Miss Patty said. "We're beastly, +all of us, and I'm sorry." She went over and held out her hand to him. +"You've done the impossible," she told him. He beamed. + +"Your approval means more than anything," he said, holding her hand. +Mrs. Dick sat up and opened her eyes wide. + +"Speaking of Oskar," she began, and then stopped, staring past her +sister, toward the door. + +We all turned, and there, blinking in the light, was Miss Summers. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +OVER THE FENCE IS OUT + +"WELL!" she said, and stood staring. Then she smiled--I guess our faces +were funny. + +"May I come in?" she asked, and without waiting she came in and closed +the door. "You DO look cozy!" she said, and shook herself free of snow. + +Mr. Dick had turned white. He got up with his eyes on her, and twice he +opened his mouth and couldn't speak. He backed, still watching her, to +his wife, and stood in front of her, as if to protect her. + +Mr. Sam got his voice first. + +"B--bad night for a walk," he said. + +"Frightful!" she said. "I've been buried to my knees. May I sit down?" +To those of us who knew, her easy manner had something horrible in it. + +"Sorry there are no chairs, Julia," Mr. Pierce said. "Sit on the cot, +won't you?" + +"Who IS it?" Mrs. Dick asked from, as you may say, her eclipse. She and +Miss Summers were the only calm ones in the room. + +"I--I don't know," Mr. Dick stammered, but the next moment Miss Julia, +from the cot, looked across at him and grinned. + +"Well, Dicky!" she said. "Who'd have thought it!" + +"You said you didn't know her!" his wife said from behind him. + +"Who'd have thought wha--what?" he asked with bravado. + +"All this!" Miss Julia waved her hand around the room, with its bare +walls, and blankets over the windows to keep the light in and the cold +out, and the circle of us sitting around on sand boxes from the links +and lawn rollers. "To find you here, all snug in your own home, with +your household gods and a wife." Nobody could think of anything to say. +"That is," she went on, "I believe there is a wife. Good heavens, Dicky, +it isn't Minnie?" + +He stepped aside at that, disclosing Mrs. Dick on her box, with her +childish eyes wide open. + +"There--there IS a wife, Julia," he said. "This is her--she." + +Well, she'd come out to make mischief--it was written all over her when +she came in the door, but when Mr. Dick presented his wife, frightened +as he was and still proud of her, and Mrs. Dick smiled in her pretty +way, Miss Summers just walked across and looked down at her with a queer +look on her face. I shut my eyes and waited for the crash, but nothing +came, and when I opened them again there were the two women holding +hands and Miss Summers smiling a sort of crooked grin at Mr. Dick. + +"I ought to be very angry with your husband," she said. "I--well, I +never expected him to marry without my being among those present. But +since he has done it--! Dick, you wretched boy, you took advantage of my +being laid up with the mumps!" + +"Mumps!" Mrs. Dick said. "Why, he has just had them himself!" She looked +around the circle suspiciously, and every one of us looked as guilty as +if he had been caught with the mumps concealed around him somewhere. + +"I didn't have real mumps," Mr. Dick explained. "It was only--er--a +swelling." + +"You SAID it was mumps, and even now you hate pickles!" + +Mr. Pierce had edged over to Miss Summers and patted her shoulder. + +"Be a good sport, Julia," he whispered. + +She threw off his hand. + +"I'm being an idiot!" she said angrily. "Dick's an ass, and he's treated +me like a villain, but look at that baby! It will be twenty years before +she has to worry about her weight." + +"I never cared for pickles," Mr. Dick was saying with dignity. "The +doctor said--" + +"I think we'd better be going." Miss Patty got up and gathered up her +cloak. But if she meant to break up the party Miss Summers was not +ready. + +"If you don't mind," she said, "I'll stay. I'm frozen, and I've got to +go home and sleep with my window up. You're lucky," she went on to the +Dickys. "I dare say the air in here would scare us under a microscope, +but at least it is warm." + +The Van Alstynes made a move to go, but Mr. Dicky frantically gestured +to them not to leave him alone, and Mrs. Sam sat down again sulkily. Mr. +Pierce picked up his cap. + +"I'll take you back," he said to Miss Patty, and his face was fairly +glowing. But Miss Patty slipped her arm through mine. + +"Come, Minnie, Mr. Pierce is going to take us," she said. + +"I'd--I'd rather go alone," I said. + +"Nonsense." + +"I'm not ready. I've got to gather up these dishes," I objected. + +Out of the corner of my eye I could see the glow dying out of Mr. +Pierce's face. But Miss Patty took my arm and led me to the door. + +"Let them gather up their own dishes," she said. "Dolly, you ought to be +ashamed to let Minnie slave for you the way she does. Good night, +everybody." + +I did my best to leave them alone on the way back, but Miss Patty stuck +close to my heels. It was snowing, and the going was slow. + +For the first five minutes she only spoke once. + +"And so Miss Summers and Dicky Carter are old friends!" + +"It appears so," Mr. Pierce said. + +"She's rather magnanimous, under the circumstances," Miss Patty remarked +demurely. + +"Under what circumstances?" + +I heard her laugh a little, behind me. + +"Never mind," she said. "You needn't tell me anything you don't care to. +But what a stew you must all have been in!" + +There was a minute's silence behind me, and then Mr. Pierce laughed too. + +"Stew!" he said. "For the last few days I've been either paralyzed +with fright or electrified into wild bursts of mendacity. And I'm not +naturally a liar." + +"Really!" she retorted. "What an actor you are!" + +They laughed together at that, and I gained a little on them. At the +corner where the path skirted the deer park and turned toward the house +I lost them altogether and I floundered on alone. But I had not gone +twenty feet when I stopped suddenly. About fifty yards ahead a lantern +was coming toward me through the snow, and I could hear a man's voice, +breathless and gasping. + +"Set it down," it said. "The damned thing must be filled with lead." It +sounded like Thoburn. + +"It's the snow," another voice replied, Mr. von Inwald's. "I told you it +would take two trips." + +"Yes," Thoburn retorted, breathing in groans. "Stay up all night to get +the blamed stuff here, and then get up at dawn for a cold bath and +a twenty-mile walk and an apple for breakfast. Ugh, my shoulder is +dislocated." + +I turned and flew back to Miss Patty and Pierce. They had stopped in the +shelter of the fence corner and Mr. Pierce was on his knees in front of +her! I was so astounded that I forgot for the moment what had brought +me. + +"Just a second," he was saying. "It's ice on the heel." + +"Please get up off your knees, you'll take cold." + +"Never had a cold. I'll scrape it off with my knife. Why don't you wear +overshoes?" + +"I never have a cold!" she retorted. "Why, Minnie, is that you?" + +"Quick," I panted. "Thoburn and Mr. von Inwald +coming--basket--lantern--warn the shelter-house!" + +"Great Scott!" Mr. Pierce said. "Here, you girls crawl over the fence: +you'll be hidden there. I'll run back and warn them." + +The lantern was swinging again. Mr. Thoburn's grumbling came to us +through the snow, monotonous and steady. + +"I can't climb the fence!" Miss Patty said pitifully. But Mr. Pierce had +gone. + +I reached my basket through the bars and climbed the fence in a hurry. +Miss Patty had got almost to the top and was standing there on one +snow-covered rail, staring across at me through the darkness. + +"I can't, Minnie," she whispered hopelessly. "I never could climb a +fence, and in this skirt--!" + +"Quick!" I said in a low tone. The lantern was very close. "Put your leg +over." + +She did, and sat there looking down at me like a scared baby. + +"Now the other." + +"I--I can't!" she whispered. "If I put them both over I'll fall." + +"Hurry!" + +With a little grunt she put the other foot over, sat a minute with +agony in her face and her arms out, then she slid off with a squeal +and brought up in a sitting position inside the fence corner. I dropped +beside her. + +"What was that noise?" said Mr. Thoburn, almost upon us. "Something's +moving inside that fence corner." + +"It's them deers," Mike's voice this time. We could make out the three +figures. "Darned nuisance, them deers is. They'd have been shot long +ago if the spring-house girl hadn't objected. She thinks she's the whole +cheese around here." + +"Set it down again," Mr. von Inwald panted. We heard the rattle of +bottles as they put down the basket, and the next instant Thoburn's fat +hand was resting on the rail of the fence over our heads. I could feel +Miss Patty trembling beside me. + +But he didn't look over. He stood there resting, breathing hard, and +swearing at the weather, while Mike waited, in surly silence, and the +von Inwald cursed in German. + +After my heart had been beating in my ears for about three years the fat +hand moved, and I heard the rattle of glass again and Thoburn's groan as +he bent over his half of the load. + + "'Come on, my partners in distress, + My comrades through this wilderness,'" + +he said, and the others grunted and started on. + +When they had disappeared in the snow we got out of our cramped position +and prepared to scurry home. I climbed the fence and looked after them. +"Humph!" I said, "I guess that basket isn't for the hungry poor. I'd +give a good bit to know--" Then I turned and looked for Miss Patty. She +was flat on the snow, crawling between the two lower rails of the fence. + +"Have you no shame?" I demanded. + +She looked up at me with her head and half her long sealskin coat +through the fence. + +"None," she said pitifully. "Minnie, I'm stuck perfectly tight!" + +"You ought to be left as you are," I said, jerking at her, "for people +to come"--jerk--"to-morrow to look at"--jerk. She came through at that, +and we lay together in the snow and like to burst a rib laughing. + +"You'll never be a princess, Miss Patty," I declared. "You're too lowly +minded." + +She sat up suddenly and straightened her sealskin cap on her head. + +"I wish," she said unpleasantly, "I wish you wouldn't always drag in +disagreeable things, Minnie!" + +And she was sulky all the way to the house. + +Miss Summers came to my room that night as I was putting my hot-water +bottle to bed, in a baby-blue silk wrapper with a band of fur around the +low neck--Miss Summers, of course, not the hot-water bottle. + +"Well!" she said, sitting down on the foot of the bed and staring at me. +"Well, young woman, for a person who has never been farther away than +Finleyville you do pretty well!" + +"Do what?" I asked, with the covers up to my chin. + +"Do what, Miss Innocence!" she said mockingly. "You're the only +red-haired woman I ever saw who didn't look as sophisticated as the +devil. I'll tell you one thing, though." She reached down into the +pocket of her dressing-gown and brought up a cigarette and a match. "You +never had me fooled for a minute!" She looked at me over the match. + +I lay and stared back. + +"And another thing," she said. "I never had any real intention of +marrying Dicky Carter and raising a baby sanatorium. I wouldn't have the +face to ask Arabella to live here." + +"I'm glad you feel that way, Miss Summers," I said. "I've gone through a +lot; I'm an old woman in the last two weeks. My hair's falling from its +having to stand up on end half the time." + +She leaned over and put her cigarette on the back of my celluloid +mirror, and then suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. + +"Minnie!" she said, between fits, "Minnie! As long as I live I'll never +forget that wretched boy's face! And the sand boxes! And the blankets +over the windows! And the tarpaulin over the rafters! And Mr. Van +Alstyne sitting on the lawnmower! I'd rather have had my minute in that +doorway than fifty thousand dollars!" + +"If you had had to carry out all those things--" I began, but she +checked me. + +"Listen!" she said. "Somebody with brains has got to take you young +people in hand. You're not able to look after yourselves. I'm fond of +Alan Pierce, for one thing, and I don't care to see a sanatorium that +might have been the child of my solicitude kidnaped and reared as a +summer hotel by Papa Thoburn. A good fat man is very, very good, Minnie, +but when he is bad he is horrid." + +"It's too late," I objected feebly. "He can't get it now." + +"Can't he!" She got up and yawned, stretching. "Well, I'll lay you +ten to one that if we don't get busy he'll have the house empty in +thirty-six hours, and a bill of sale on it in as many days." + +The celluloid mirror blazed up at that minute, and she poured the +contents of my water-pitcher over the dresser. For the next hour, while +I was emptying water out of the bureau drawers and hanging up my clothes +to dry, she told me what she knew of Thoburn's scheme, and it turned me +cold. + +But I went to bed finally. Just as I was dozing off, somebody opened my +door, and I heard a curious scraping along the floor. I turned on the +light, and there was Arabella, half-dragging and half-carrying a solid +silver hand-mirror with a card on it: "To Minnie, to replace the one +that blew up. J. S." + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A CUPBOARD FULL OF RYE + +Doctor Barnes came to me at the news stand the next morning before +gymnasium. + +"Well," he said, "you look as busy as a dog with fleas. Have you heard +the glad tidings?" + +"What?" I asked without much spirit. "I've heard considerable tidings +lately, and not much of it has cheered me up any." + +He leaned over and ran his fingers up through his hair. + +"You know, Miss Minnie," he said, "somebody ought kindly to kill our +friend Thoburn, or he'll come to a bad end." + +"Shall I do it, or will you?" I said, filling up the chewing-gum jar. +(Mr. Pierce had taken away the candy case.) + +Doctor Barnes glanced around to see if there was any one near, and +leaned farther over. + +"The cupboard isn't empty now!" he said. "Not for nothing did I spend +part of the night in the Dicky-bird's nest! By the way, did you ever +hear that touching story about little Sally walking up and laying an +egg?--I see you have. What do you think is in the cupboard?" + +"I know about it," I said shortly. "Liquor--in a case labeled +'Books--breakable.'" + +"'Sing a song of sixpence, a cupboard full of rye!'" he said. "Almost +a goal! But not ONLY liquors, my little friend. Champagne--cases of +it--caviar, canned grouse with truffles, lobster, cheeses, fine cigars, +everything you could think of, erotic, exotic and narcotic. An orgy in +cans and bottles, a bacchanalian revel: a cupboard full of indigestion, +joy, forgetfulness and katzenjammer. Oh, my suffering palate, to have to +leave it all without one sniff, one sip, one nibble!" + +"He's wasting his money," I said. "They're all crazy about the simple +life." + +He looked around and, seeing no one in the lobby, reached over and took +one of my hands. + +"Strange," he said, looking at it. "No webs, and yet it's been an +amphibious little creature most of its life. My dear girl, our +friend Thoburn is a rascal, but he is also a student of mankind and a +philosopher. Gee," he said, "think of a woman fighting her way alone +through the world with a bit of a fist like that!" + +I jerked my hand away. + +"It's like this, my dear," he said. "Human nature's a curious thing. +It's human nature, for instance, for me to be crazy about you, when +you're as hands-offish as a curly porcupine. And it is human nature, by +the same token, to like to be bullied, especially about health, and to +respect and admire the fellow who does the bullying. That's why we were +crazy about Roosevelt, and that's why Pierce is trailing his kingly +robes over them while they lie on their faces and eat dirt--and stewed +fruit." + +He reached for my hand again, but I put it behind me. + +"But alas," he said, "there is another side to human nature, and +our friend Thoburn has not kept a summer hotel for nothing. It is +notoriously weak, especially as to stomach. You may feed 'em prunes and +whole-wheat bread and apple sauce, and after a while they'll forget +the fat days, and remember only the lean and hungry ones. But let some +student of human nature at the proper moment introduce just one fat day, +one feast, one revel--" + +"Talk English," I said sharply. + +"Don't break in on my flights of fancy," he objected. "If you want the +truth, Thoburn is going to have a party--a forbidden feast. He's going +to rouse again the sleeping dogs of appetite, and send them ravening +back to the Plaza, to Sherry's and Del's and the little Italian +restaurants on Sixth Avenue. He's going to take them up on a high +mountain and show them the wines and delicatessen of the earth, and +then ask them if they're going to be bullied into eating boiled beef and +cabbage." + +"Then I don't care how soon he does it," I said despondently. "I'd +rather die quickly than by inches." + +"Die!" he said. "Not a bit of it. Remember, our friend Pierce is also +a student of human nature. He's thinking it out now in the cold plunge, +and I miss my guess if Thoburn's sky-rocket hasn't got a stick that'll +come back and hit him on the head." + +He had been playing with one of the chewing-gum jars, and when he had +gone I shoved it back into its place. It was by the merest chance that I +glanced at it, and I saw that he had slipped a small white box inside. I +knew I was being a silly old fool, but my heart beat fast when I took +it out and looked at it. On the lid was written "For a good girl," and +inside lay the red puffs from Mrs. Yost's window down in Finleyville. +Just under them was an envelope. I could scarcely see to open it. + + +"Dearest Minnie," the note inside said, "I had them matched to my own +thatch, and I think they'll match yours. And since, in the words of +the great Herbert Spencer, things that match the same thing match each +other--! What do you say?--Barnes." + +"P. S.--I love you. I feel like a damn fool saying it, but heaven knows +it's true." + +"P. P. S.--Still love you. It's easier the second time." + +"N. B.--I love you--got the habit now and can't stop writing it.--B." + + +Well, I had to keep calm and attend to business, but I was seething +inside like a Seidlitz powder. Every few minutes I'd reread the letter +under the edge of the stand, and the more I read it the more excited +I got. When a woman's gone past thirty before she gets her first +love-letter, she isn't sure whether to thank providence or the man, but +she's pretty sure to make a fool of herself. + +Thoburn came to the news stand on his way out with the ice-cutting gang +to the pond. + +"Last call to the dining-car, Minnie," he said. "'Will you--won't +you--will you--won't you--will you join the dance?'" + +"I haven't any reason for changing my plans," I retorted. "I promised +the old doctor to stick by the place, and I'm sticking." + +"As the man said when he sat down on the flypaper. You're going by your +heart, Minnie, and not by your head, and in this toss, heads win." + +But with my new puffs on the back of my head, and my letter in my +pocket, I wasn't easy to discourage. Thoburn shouldered his pick and, +headed by Doctor Barnes, the ice-cutters started out in single file. +As they passed the news stand Doctor Barnes glanced at me, and my heart +almost stopped. + +"Do they--is it a match?" he asked, with his eyes on mine. + +I couldn't speak, but I nodded "yes," and all that afternoon I could +see the wonderful smile that lit up his face as he went out. It made him +almost good-looking. Oh, there's nothing like love, especially if you've +waited long enough to be hungry for it, and not spoiled your taste for +it by a bite here and a piece of a heart there, beforehand, so to speak. + +Miss Cobb stopped at the news stand on her way to the gymnasium. She +was a homely woman at any time, and in her bloomers she looked like a +soup-bone. Under ordinary circumstances she'd have seen the puffs from +the staircase and have asked what they cost and told me they didn't +match, in one breath. But she had something else on her mind. She padded +over to the counter in her gym shoes, and for once she'd forgotten her +legs. + +"May I speak to you, Minnie?" she asked. + +"You mostly do," I said. "There isn't a new rule about speaking, is +there?" + +"This is important, Minnie," she said, rolling her eyes around as she +always did when she was excited. "I'm in such a state of ex--I see you +bought the puffs! Perhaps you will lend them to me if we arrange for a +country dance." + +"They don't match," I objected. "They--they wouldn't look natural, Miss +Cobb." + +"They don't look natural on you, either. Do you suppose anybody believes +that the Lord sent you hair in seventeen rows of pipes, so that, red as +it is, it looks like an instantaneous water-heater?" + +"I'm not lending them," I said firmly. It would have been like lending +an engagement ring, to my mind. Miss Cobb was not offended. She went at +once to what had brought her, and bent over the counter. + +"Where's the Summers woman?" she asked. + +"In the gym. She's made herself a new gym suit out of her polka dotted +silk, and she looks lovely." + +"Humph!" retorted Miss Cobb. "Minnie, you love Miss Jennings almost like +a daughter, don't you?" + +"Like a sister, Miss Cobb," I said. "I'm not feeble yet." + +"Well, you wouldn't want to see her deceived." + +"I wouldn't have it," I answered. + +"Then what do you call this?" She put a small package on the counter, +and stared at me over it. "There's treachery here, black treachery." She +pointed one long thin forefinger at the bundle. + +"What is it? A bomb?" I asked, stepping back. More than once it had +occurred to me that having royalty around sometimes meant dynamite. Miss +Cobb showed her teeth. + +"Yes, a bomb," she said. "Minnie, since that creature took my letters +and my er--protectors, I have suspected her. Now listen. Yesterday I +went over the letters and I missed one that beautiful one in verse, +beginning, 'Oh, creature of the slender form and face!' Minnie, it had +disappeared--melted away." + +"I'm not surprised," I said. + +"And so, last night, when the Summers woman was out, goodness knows +where, Blanche Moody and I went through her room. We did not find my +precious missive from Mr. Jones, but we did find these, Minnie, tied +around with a pink silk stocking." + +"Heavens!" I said, mockingly. "Not a pink silk!" + +"Pink," she repeated solemnly. "Minnie, I have felt it all along. Mr. +Oskar von Inwald is the prince himself." + +"No!" + +"Yes. And more than that, he is making desperate love to Miss Summers. +Three of those letters were written in one day! Why, even Mr. Jones--" + +"The wretch!" I cried. I was suddenly savage. I wanted to take Mr. von +Inwald by the throat and choke him until his lying tongue was black, to +put the letters where Miss Patty could never see them. I wanted--I had +to stop to sell Senator Biggs some chewing-gum, and when he had gone, +Miss Cobb was reaching out for the bundle. I snatched it from her. + +"Give me those letters instantly," she cried shrilly. But I marched from +behind the counter and over to the fireplace. + +"Never," I said, and put the package on the log. When they were safely +blazing, I turned and looked at Miss Cobb. + +"I'd put my hand right beside those letters to save Miss Patty a +heartache," I said, "and you know it." + +"You're a fool." She was raging. "You'll let her marry him and have the +heartaches afterward." + +"She won't marry him," I snapped, and walked away with my chin up, +leaving her staring. + +But I wasn't so sure as I pretended to be. Mr. von Inwald and Mr. +Jennings had been closeted together most of the morning, and Mr. von +Inwald was whistling as he started out for the military walk. It seemed +as if the very thing that had given Mr. Pierce his chance to make good +had improved Mr. Jennings' disposition enough to remove the last barrier +to Miss Jennings' wedding with somebody else. + +Well, what's one man's meat is another man's poison. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +LOVE, LOVE, LOVE + +Even if we hadn't known, we'd have guessed there was something in the +air. There was an air of subdued excitement during the rest hour in the +spring-house, and a good bit of whispering and laughing, in groups which +would break up with faces as long as the moral law the moment they saw +my eye on them. + +They were planning a mutiny, as you may say, and I guess no sailors on a +pirate ship were more afraid of the captain's fist than they were of Mr. +Pierce's disapproval. He'd been smart enough to see that most of them, +having bullied other people all their lives, liked the novelty of being +bullied themselves. And now they were getting a new thrill by having a +revolt. They were terribly worked up. + +Miss Patty stayed after the others had gone, sitting in front of the +empty fireplace in the same chair Mr. Pierce usually took, and keeping +her back to me. When I'd finished folding the steamer rugs and putting +them away, I went around and stood in front of her. + +"Your eyes are red," I remarked. + +"I've got a cold." She was very haughty. + +"Your nose isn't red," I insisted. "And, anyhow, you say you never have +a cold." + +"I wish you would let me alone, Minnie." She turned her back to me. "I +dare say I may have a cold if I wish." + +"Do you know what they are saying here?" I demanded. "Do you know that +Miss Cobb has found out in some way or other who Mr. von Inwald is? +And that the four o'clock gossip edition says your father has given his +consent and that you can go and buy a diadem or whatever you are going +to wear, right off?" + +"Well," she said, in a choked voice, with her back to me, "what of it? +Didn't you and Mr. Pierce both do your best to bring it about?" + +"Our what?" I couldn't believe my ears. + +"You made father well. He's so p--pleasant he'll do anything except +leave this awful place!" + +"Well, of all the ungrateful people--" I began, and then Mr. Pierce came +in. He had a curious way of stopping when he saw her, as if she just +took the wind out of his sails, so to speak, and then of whipping off +his hat, if anything with sails can wear a hat, and going up to her +with his heart in his eyes. He always went straight to her and stopped +suddenly about two feet away, trying to think of something ordinary to +say. Because the extraordinary thing he wanted to say was always on the +end of his tongue. + +But this day he didn't light up when he saw her. He went through all +the other motions, but his mouth was set in a straight line, and when he +came close to her and looked down his eyes were hard. + +It's been my experience of men that the younger they are the harder they +take things and the more uncompromising they are. It takes a good many +years and some pretty hard knocks to make people tolerant. + +"I was looking for you," he said to her. "The bishop has just told me. +There are no obstacles now." + +"None," she said, looking up at him with wretchedness in her eyes, if he +had only seen. "I am very happy." + +"She was just saying," I said bitterly, "how grateful she was to both of +us." + +"I don't understand." + +"It is not hard to understand," she said, smiling. I wanted to slap her. +"Father was unreasonable because he was ill. You have made him well. I +can never thank you enough." + +But she rather overdid the joy part of it, and he leaned over and looked +in her face. + +"I think I'm stupid," he said. "I know I'm unhappy. But isn't that what +I was to do--to make them well if I could?" + +"How could anybody know--" she began angrily, and then stopped. "You +have done even more," she said sweetly. "You've turned them into +cherubims and seraphims. Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. Ugh! How +I hate amiability raised to the NTH power!" + +He smiled. I think it was getting through his thick man's skull that she +wasn't so happy as she should have been, and he was thrilled through and +through. + +"My amiability must be the reason you dislike me!" he suggested. They +had both forgotten me. + +"Do I dislike you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I never really +thought about it, but I'm sure I don't." She didn't look at him, she +looked at me. She knew I knew she lied. + +His smile faded. + +"Well," he said, "speaking of disliking amiability, you don't hate +yourself, I'm sure." + +"You are wrong," she retorted, "I loathe myself." And she walked to the +window. He took a step or two after her. + +"Why do it at all?" he asked in a low tone. "You don't love him--you +can't. And if it isn't love--" He remembered me suddenly and stopped. + +"Please go on," she said sweetly from the window. "Do not mind Minnie. +She is my conscience, anyhow. She is always scolding me; you might both +scold in chorus." + +"I wouldn't presume to scold." + +"Then give me a little advice and look superior and righteous. I'm +accustomed to that also." + +"As long as you are in this mood, I can't give you anything but a very +good day," he said angrily, and went toward the door. But when he had +almost reached it he turned. + +"I will say this," he said, "you have known for three days that Mr. +Thoburn was going to have a supper to-night, and you didn't let us know. +You must have known his purpose." + +I guess I was as surprised as she was. I'd never suspected she knew. + +She looked at him over her shoulder. + +"Why shouldn't he have a supper?" she demanded angrily. "I'm +starving--we're all starving for decent food. I'm kept here against my +will. Why shouldn't I have one respectable meal? You with your wretched +stewed fruits and whole-wheat breads! Ugh!" + +"I'm sorry. Thoburn's idea, of course, is to make the guests +discontented, so they will leave." + +"Oh!" she said. She hadn't thought of that, and she flushed. "At least," +she said, "you must give me credit for not trying to spoil Dick and +Dolly's chance here." + +"We are going to allow the party to go on," he said, still stiff and +uncompromising. It would have been better if he'd accepted her bit of +apology. + +"How kind of you! I dare say he would have it, anyhow." She was +sarcastic again. + +"Probably. And you--will go?" + +"Certainly." + +"Even when the result--" + +"Oh, don't preach!" she said, putting her hands to her ears. "If you and +Minnie want to preach, why don't you preach at each other? Minnie talks +'love, love, love.' And you preach health and morality. You drive me +crazy between you." + +"Suppose," he said with a gleam in his eyes, "suppose I preach 'love, +love, love!'" + +She put her fingers in her ears again. "Say it to Minnie," she cried, +and turned her back to him. + +"Very well," he said. "Minnie, Miss Jennings refuses to listen, and +there are some things I must say. Once again I am going to register a +protest against her throwing herself away in a loveless marriage. I--I +feel strongly on the subject, Minnie." + +She half turned, as if to interrupt. Then she thought better of it and +kept her fingers in her ears, her face flushed. But he had learned what +he hoped--that she could hear him. + +"You ask me why I feel so strongly, Minnie, and you are right to ask. +Under ordinary circumstances, Minnie, any remark of mine on the subject +would be ridiculous impertinence." + +He stopped and eyed her back, but she did not move. + +"It is impertinence under any circumstances, but consider the +provocation. I see a young, beautiful and sensitive girl, marrying, +frankly without love, a man whom I know to be unworthy, and you ask me +to stand aside and allow it to happen!" + +"Are you still preaching?" she asked coldly over her shoulder. "It must +be a long sermon." + +And then, knowing he had only a moment more, his voice changed and +became deep and earnest. His hands, that were clutching a chair-back, +took a stronger hold, so that the ends of the nails were white. + +"You see, Minnie," he said, turning a little pale, "I--I love Miss +Jennings myself. You have known it a long time, for you love her, too. +It has come to the point that I measure the day by the hours when I can +see her. She doesn't care for me; sometimes I think she hates me." He +paused here, but Miss Patty didn't move. "I haven't anything to offer +a woman except a clean life and the kind of love that a woman could be +proud of. I have no title--" + +Miss Patty suddenly took her fingers out of her ears and turned around. +She was flushed and shaken, but she looked past him without blinking an +eyelash to me. + +"Dear me," she said, "the sermon must have been exciting, Minnie! You +are quite trembly!" + +And with that she picked up her muff and went out, with not a glance at +him. + +He looked at me. + +"Well," he said, "THAT'S over. She's angry, Minnie, and she'll never +forgive me." + +"Stuff!" I snapped, "I notice she waited to hear it all, and no real +woman ever hated a man for saying he loved her." + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +A BIG NIGHT TO-NIGHT + +I carried out the supper to the shelter-house as usual that night, but +I might have saved myself the trouble. Mrs. Dicky was sitting on a box, +with her hair in puffs and the folding card-table before her, and Mr. +Dick was uncorking a bottle of champagne with a nail. There were two or +three queer-smelling cans open on the table. + +Mrs. Dick looked at my basket and turned up her nose. + +"Put it anywhere, Minnie," she said loftily, "I dare say it doesn't +contain anything reckless." + +"Cold ham and egg salad," I said, setting it down with a slam. "Stewed +prunes and boiled rice for dessert. If those cans taste as they smell, +you'd better keep the basket to fall back on. Where'd you get THAT?" +Mr. Dick looked at me over the bottle and winked. "In the next room," +he said, "iced to the proper temperature, paid for by somebody else, and +coming after a two-weeks' drought! Minnie, there isn't a shadow on my +joy!" + +"He'll miss it," I said. But Mr. Dick was pouring out three large +tumblersful of the stuff, and he held one out to me. + +"Miss it!" he exclaimed. "Hasn't he been out three times to-day, tapping +his little CACHE? And didn't he bring out Moody and the senator and von +Inwald this afternoon, and didn't they sit in the next room there from +two to four, roaring songs and cracking bottles and jokes." + +"Beasts!" Mrs. Dicky said savagely. "Two hours, and we daren't move!" + +"Drink, pretty creature!" Mr. Dick said, motioning to my glass. "Don't +be afraid of it, Minnie; it's food and drink." + +"I don't like it," I said, sipping at it. "I'd rather have the spring +water." + +"You'll have to cultivate a taste for it," he explained. "You'll like +the second half better." + +I got it down somehow and started for the door. Mr. Dick came after me +with something that smelled fishy on the end of a fork. + +"Better eat something," he suggested. "That was considerable champagne, +Minnie." + +"Stuff and nonsense," I said. "I was tired and it has rested me. That's +all, Mr. Dick." + +"Sure?" + +"Certainly," I said with dignity, "I'm really rested, Mr. Dick. And +happy--I'm very happy, Mr. Dick." + +"Perhaps I'd better close the door," he said. "The light may be seen--" + +"You needn't close it until I've finished talking," I said. "I've done +my best for you and yours, Mr. Dick. I hope you appreciate it. Night +after night I've tramped out here through the snow, and lost sleep, and +lied myself black in the face--you've no idea how I've had to lie, Mr. +Dick." + +"Come in and shut the door, Dick," Mrs. Dick called, "I'm freezing." + +That made me mad. + +"Exactly," I said, glaring at her through the doorway. "Exactly--I can +wade through the snow, bringing you meals that you scorn--oh, yes, you +scorn them. What did you do to the basket tonight? Look at it, lying +there, neglected in a corner, with p--perfectly good ham and stewed +fruit in it." + +All of a sudden I felt terrible about the way they had treated the +basket, and I sat down on the steps and began to cry. I remember that, +and Mr. Dick sitting down beside me and putting his arm around me and +calling me "good old Minnie," and for heaven's sake not to cry so loud. +But I was past caring. I had a sort of recollection of his getting me to +stand up, and our walking through about twenty-one miles of snow to the +spring-house. When we got there he stood off in the twilight and looked +at me. + +"I'm sorry, Minnie," he said, "I never dreamed it would do that." + +"Do what?" + +"Nothing. You're sure you won't forget?" + +"I never forget," I said. I had got up the steps by this time and was +trying to figure why the spring-house door had two knobs. + +I hadn't any idea what he meant. + +"Remember," he said, very slowly, "Thoburn is going to have his +party to-night instead of to-morrow. Tell Pierce that. To-night, not +to-morrow." I was pretty well ashamed when I got in the spring-house and +sat down in the dark. I kept saying over and over to myself, so I'd not +forget, "tonight, not to-morrow," but I couldn't remember WHAT was to be +to-night. I was sleepy, too, and my legs were cold and numb. I remember +going into the pantry for a steamer rug, and sitting down there for a +minute, with the rug around my knees before I started to the house. And +that is all I DO remember. + + +I was wakened by a terrible hammering in the top of my head. I reached +out for the glass of water that I always put beside my bed at night and +I touched a door-knob instead. Then I realized that the knocking wasn't +all in my head. There was a sort of steady movement of feet on the other +side of the door, with people talking and laughing. And above it all +rose the steady knock--knock of somebody beating on tin. + +"Can't do it." It was the bishop's voice. "I am convinced that nothing +but dynamite will open this tin of lobster." + +"Just a moment, Bishop," Mr. Thoburn's voice and the clink of bottles, +"I have a can opener somewhere. You'll find the sauce a la Newburg--" + +"Here, somebody, a glass, quick! A bottle's broken!" + +"Did anybody remember to bring salt and pepper?" + +"DEAR Mr. Thoburn!" It sounded like Miss Cobb. "Think of thinking of all +this!" + +"The credit is not mine, dear lady," Mr. Thoburn said. "Where the deuce +is that corkscrew? No, dear lady, man makes his own destiny, but his +birth date remains beyond his control." + +"Ladies and gentlemen," somebody said, "to Mr. Thoburn's birthday being +beyond his control!" + +There was the clink of glasses, but I had remembered what it had been +that I was to remember. And now it was too late. I was trapped in the +pantry of my spring-house and Mr. Pierce was probably asleep. I clutched +my aching head and tried to think. I was roused by hearing somebody say +that Miss Jennings had no glass, and by steps nearing the pantry. I had +just time to slip the bolt. + +"Pantry's locked!" said a voice. + +"Drat that Minnie!" somebody else said. "The girl's a nuisance." + +"Hush!" Miss Summers said. "She's probably in there now--taking down +what we say and what we eat. Convicting us out of our own mouths." + +I held my breath and the knob rattled. Then they found a glass for Miss +Patty and forgot the pantry. + +Under cover of the next burst of noises I tried the pantry window, but +it was frozen shut. Nothing but a hammer would have loosened it. I began +to dig at it with a wire hairpin, but I hadn't much hope. + +The fun in the spring-house was getting fast and furious. Miss Summers +was leaning against the pantry door and I judged that most of the men +in the room were around her, as usual. I put my ear to the panel of +the door, and I could pretty nearly see what was going on. They were +toasting Mr. Thoburn, and getting hungrier every minute as the supper +was put out on the card-tables. + +"To the bottle!" somebody said. "In infancy, the milk bottle; in our +prime, the wine bottle; in our dotage, the pill bottle." + +Mr. von Inwald came over and stood beside Miss Summers, and I could hear +every whisper. + +"I have good news for you," she said in an undertone. + +"Oh! And what?" + +"Sh! You may recall," she said, "the series of notes, letters, epistles, +with which you have been honoring me lately?" + +"How could I forget? They were written in my heart's blood!" + +"Indeed!" Her voice lifted its eyebrows, so to speak. "Well, somebody +got in my room last night and stole I dare say a pint of your heart's +blood. They're gone." + +He was pretty well upset, as he might be, and she stood by and listened +to the things he said, which, if they were as bad in English as they +sounded in German, I wouldn't like to write down. + +And when he cooled down and condensed, as you may say, into English, +he said Miss Jennings must have seen the letters, for she would hardly +speak to him. And Miss Summers said she hoped Miss Jennings had--she was +too nice a girl to treat shamefully. + +And after he had left her there alone, I heard a sort of scratching +on the door behind Miss Summers' back, and then something being shoved +under the door. I stooped down and picked it up. It was a key! + +I struck a match, and I saw by the tag that it was the one to the old +doctor's rooms. I knew right off what it meant. Mr. Pierce had gone to +bed, or pretended to throw them off the track and Thoburn had locked him +in! Thoburn hadn't taken any chances. He knew the influence Mr. Pierce +had over them all, and he and his champagne and tin cans had to get in +their work before Mr. Pierce had another chance at them. + +I had no time to wonder how Miss Summers knew I was in the pantry. +I tried the window again, but it wouldn't work. Somebody in the +spring-house was shouting, "'Hot butter blue beans, please come to +supper!'" and I could hear them crowding around the tables. I worked +frantically with the hairpin, and just then two shadowy figures outside +slipped around the corner of the building. It was Mr. Pierce and Doctor +Barnes! + +I darted back and put my ear to the door, but they did not come in at +once. Mr. Thoburn made a speech, saying how happy he was that they were +all well and able to go back to civilization again, where the broiled +lobster flourished like a green bay tree and the prune and the cabbage +were unknown. + +There was loud applause, and then Senator Biggs cleared his throat. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished fellow guests," he began, "I +suggest a toast to the autocrat of Hope Springs. It is the only blot on +the evening, that, owing to the exigencies of the occasion, he can not +be with us. Securely fastened in his room, he is now sleeping the sleep +that follows a stomach attuned to prunes, a mind attuned to rule." + +"Eat, drink and be merry!" somebody said, "for to-morrow you diet!" + +There was a swish and rustle, as if a woman got up in a hurry. + +"Do you mean," said Miss Patty's clear voice, "that you have dared to +lock Mr. Pier--Mr. Carter in his room?" + +"My dear young lady," several of them began, but she didn't give them +time. + +"It is outrageous, infamous!" she stormed. I didn't need to see her to +know how she looked. + +"How DARE you! Suppose the building should catch fire!" + +"Fire!" somebody said in a bewildered voice. "My dear young lady--" + +"Don't 'my dear young lady' me," she said angrily. "Father, Bishop, will +you stand for this? Why, he may jump out the window and hurt himself! +Give me the key!" + +Miss Julia's fingers were beating a tatoo behind her, as if she was +afraid I might miss it. + +"If he jumps out he probably will hurt himself. It is impossible to +release him now, Miss Jennings, but if you insist we can have a mattress +placed under the window." + +"Thanks, Thoburn. It won't be necessary." The voice came from the door, +and a hush fell on the party. I slipped my bolt and peeped out. Framed +in the doorway was Mr. Pierce, with Doctor Barnes looking over his +shoulder. + +The people in the spring-house were abject. That's the only word for it. +Craven, somebody suggested later, and they were that, too. They smiled +sickly grins and tried to be defiant, and most of them tried to put down +whatever they held in their hands and to look innocent. If you ever saw +a boy when his school-teacher asks him what he has in his mouth, and +multiply the boy thirty times in number and four times in size, you'll +know how they looked. + +Mr. Pierce never smiled. He wouldn't let them speak a word in defense +or explanation. He simply lined them up as he did at gym, and sent them, +one by one, to the corner with whatever they had in their hands. He +made Mr. Jennings give up a bottle of anchovies that he'd stuffed in his +pocket, and the bishop had to come over with a cheese. + +And when it was all over, he held the door open and they went back +to the house. They fairly ducked past him in the doorway, although he +hadn't said a dozen words. It was a rout. The backbone of the rebellion +was broken. I knew that never again would the military discipline of +Hope Springs be threatened. Thoburn might as well pack and go. It was +Mr. Pierce's day. + +Mr. von Inwald was almost the last. He stood by, sneering, with an open +bottle of olives in his hand, watching the others go out. + +Mr. Pierce held the door open and eyed him. + +"I'll trouble you to put that bottle with the others, in the corner," +Mr. Pierce said sternly. + +They stood glaring at each other angrily. + +"And if I refuse?" + +"You know the rules here. If you refuse, there is a hotel at +Finleyville." + +Mr. von Inwald glanced past Mr. Pierce to where Doctor Barnes stood +behind him, with his cauliflower ear and his pugilist's shoulders. Then +he looked at the bottle in his hand, and from it to Miss Patty, standing +haughtily by. + +"I have borne much for you, Patricia," he said, "but I refuse to be +bullied any longer. I shall go to the hotel at Finleyville, and I shall +take the little olives with me." He smiled unpleasantly at Mr. Pierce, +whose face did not relax. + +He walked jauntily to the door and turned, flourishing the bottle. "The +land of the free and the home of the brave!" he sneered, raising the +bottle in the air. Standing jeering in the doorway, he bowed to Miss +Patty and Mr. Pierce, and put an olive into his mouth. + +But instantly he made a terrible face, and clapped a hand just in front +of his left ear. He stood there a moment, his face distorted--then he +darted into the night, and I never saw him again. + +"Mumps!" Doctor Barnes ejaculated, and stood staring after him from the +steps. + + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +LET GOOD DIGESTION + +There was no one left but Miss Patty. As she started out past him with +a crimson spot in each cheek Mr. Pierce put his hand on her arm. She +hesitated, and he closed the door on Doctor Barnes and put his back +against it. I had just time to slip back into the pantry and shut myself +in. + +For a minute there wasn't a sound. Then-- + +"I told you I should come," Miss Patty said, in her haughtiest manner. +"You need not trouble to be disagreeable." + +"Disagreeable!" he repeated. "I am abject!" + +"I don't understand," she said. "But you needn't explain. It really does +not matter." + +"It matters to me. I had to do this to-night. I promised you I would +make good, and if I had let this pass--Don't you see, I couldn't let it +go." + +"You can let me go, now." + +"Not until I have justified myself to you." + +"I am not interested." + +I heard him take a step or two toward her. + +"I don't quite believe that," he said in a low tone. "You were +interested in what I said here this afternoon." + +"I didn't hear it." + +"None of it?" + +"Not--not all." + +"I spoke, you remember, about your sister, and about Dick--" he paused. +I could imagine her staring at him in her wide-eyed way. + +"You never mentioned them!" she said scornfully and stopped. He laughed, +a low laugh, boyish and full of triumph. + +"Ah!" he said. "So you DID hear! I'm going to say it again, anyhow. I +love you, Patty. I'm--I'm mad for you. I've loved you hopelessly for so +long that to-night, when there's a ray of hope, I'm--I'm hardly sane. +I--" + +"Please!" she said. + +"I love you so much that I waken at night just to say your name, over +and over, and when dawn comes through the windows--" + +"You don't know what you are saying!" she said wildly. "I am--still--" + +"I welcome the daylight," he went on, talking very fast, "because it +means another day when I can see you. If it sounds foolish, it's--it's +really lots worse than it sounds, Patty." + +The door opened just then, and Doctor Barnes' voice spoke from the step. + +"I say," he complained, "you needn't--" + +"Get out!" Mr. Pierce said angrily, and the door slammed. The second's +interruption gave him time, I think, to see how far he'd gone, and his +voice, when he spoke again, was not so hopeful. + +"I'm not pleading my cause," he said humbly, "I know I haven't any +cause. I have nothing to offer you." + +"You said this afternoon," Miss Patty said softly, "that you could offer +me the--the kind of love that a woman could be proud of." + +She finished off with a sort of gasp, as if she was shocked at herself. +I was so excited that my heart beat a tatoo against my ribs, and without +my being conscious of it, as you may say, the pantry door opened about +an inch and I found myself with an eye to the crack. + +They were standing facing each other, he all flushed and eager and my +dear Miss Patty pale and trembly. But she wasn't shy. She was looking +straight into his eyes and her blessed lips were quivering. + +"How can you care?" she asked, when he only stood and looked at her. +"I've been such a--such a selfish beast!" + +"Hush!" He leaned toward her, and I held my breath. "You are everything +that is best in the world, and I--what can I offer you? I have nothing, +not even this sanatorium! No money, no title--" + +"Oh, THAT!" she interrupted, and stood waiting. "Well, you--you could at +least offer yourself!" + +"Patty!" + +She went right over to him and put her hands on his shoulders. + +"And if you won't," she said, "I'll offer myself instead!" + +His arms went around her like a flash at that, and he kissed her. I've +seen a good many kisses in my day, the spring-house walk being a sort +of lover's lane, but they were generally of the quick-get-away variety. +This was different. He just gathered her up to him and held her close, +and if she was one-tenth as much thrilled as I was in the pantry she'd +be ready to die kissing. + +Then, without releasing her, he raised his head, with such a look of +victory in his face that I still see it sometimes in my sleep, and his +eye caught mine through the crack. + +But if I'd looked to see him drop her I was mistaken. He drew her up and +kissed her again, but this time on the forehead. And when he'd let her +go and she had dropped into a chair and hid her shining face against the +back, as if she was ashamed, which she might well be, he stood laughing +over her bent head at me. + +"Come out, Minnie!" he called. "Come out and hear the good news!" + +"Hear!" I said, "I've seen all the news I want." + +"Gracious!" Miss Patty said, and buried her head again. But he had +reached the shameless stage; a man who is really in love always seems to +get to that point sooner or later. He stooped and kissed the back of her +neck, and if his hand shook when he pushed in one of her shell hairpins +it was excitement and not fright. + +"I hardly realize it, Minnie," he said. "I don't deserve her for a +minute." + +"Certainly not," I said. + +"He does." Miss Patty's voice smothered. Then she got up and came over +to me. + +"There is going to be an awful fuss, Minnie," she said. "Think of Aunt +Honoria--and Oskar!" + +"Let them fuss!" I said grandly. "If the worst comes, you can spend your +honeymoon in the shelter-house. I'm so used to carrying meals there now +that it's second nature." + +And at that they both made for me, and as Mr. Pierce kissed me Doctor +Barnes opened the door. He stood for a moment, looking queer and wild, +and then he slammed the door and we heard him stamping down the steps. + +Mr. Pierce had to bring him back. + +Well, that's all there is to it. The place filled up and stayed filled, +but not under Mr. Pierce. Mr. Jennings said ability of his kind was +wasted there, once the place was running, and set him to building a +railroad somewhere or other, with him and Miss Patty living in a private +car, and he carrying a portable telephone with him so he can talk to her +every hour or so. Mr. Dick and his wife are running the sanatorium, or +think they are. Doctor Barnes is the whole place, really. Mr. Jennings +was so glad to have Miss Patty give up the prince and send him back +home, after he'd been a week in the hotel at Finleyville looking as if +his face would collapse if you stuck a pin in it--Mr. Jennings was so +happy, not to mention having worked off his gout at the wood-pile, that +he forgave the Dickys without any trouble, and even went out and had a +meal with them in the shelter-house before they moved in, with Mr. Dick +making the coffee. + +I miss the spring, as I said at the beginning. It is hard to teach an +old dog new tricks, but with Miss Patty happy, and with Doctor Barnes +around-- + +Thoburn came out the afternoon before he left, just after the rest hour, +and showed me how much too loose his waistcoat had become. + +"I've lost, Minnie," he confessed. "Lost fifteen pounds and the dream of +my life. But I've found something, too." + +"What?" + +"My waist line!" he said, and threw his chest out. + +"You look fifteen years younger," I said, and at that he came over to me +and took my hand. + +"Minnie," he said, "maybe you and I haven't always agreed, but I've +always liked you, Minnie--always." + +"Thanks," I said, taking my hand away. + +"You've got all kinds of spirit," he said. "You've saved the place, all +right. And if you--if you tire of this, and want another home, I've got +one, twelve rooms, center hall, tiled baths, cabinet mantels--I'd be +good to you, Minnie. The right woman could do anything with me." + +When I grasped what he meant, I was staggered. + +"I'm sorry," I explained, as gently as I could. "I'm--I'm going to marry +Doctor Barnes one of these days." + +He stared at me. Then he laughed a little and went toward the door. + +"Barnes!" he said, turning. "Another redhead, by gad! Well, I'll tell +you this, young woman, you're red, but he's redder. Your days for +running things to suit yourself are over." + +"I'm glad of it," I retorted. "I want to be managed myself for a change. +Somebody," I said, "who won't be always thinking how he feels, unless +it's how he feels toward me." + +"Bah! He'll bully you." + +"'It's human nature to like to be bullied,'" I quoted. "And I guess I'm +not afraid. He's healthy and a healthy man's never a crank." + +"A case of yours for health, eh?" he said, and held out his hand. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Where There's A Will, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE THERE'S A WILL *** + +***** This file should be named 330.txt or 330.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/330/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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