IN the Harniss post office Reliance Clark was sorting the evening mail. The post office was a small building on the Main Road. It sat back fifteen or twenty feet from that road and a white picket fence separated the Clark property from the strip of sidewalk before it. A boardwalk, some of its boards in the last stages of bearability, led from the gap in that fence to the door. Over the door a sign, black letters on a white ground, displayed the words “POST OFFICE.” On the inner side of that door was a room of perhaps fifteen by ten feet, lighted in the daytime by two windows and at night by three kerosene lamps in brackets. There was a settee at either end of the room, a stove in the middle, and a wooden box filled with beach sand beside the stove. The plastered walls were covered with handbills and printed placards. The advertisement of the most recent entertainment at the town hall, that furnished by “Professor Megenti, the World Famous Ventriloquist and Necromancer,” was prominently displayed, partially obscuring the broadside of “The Spalding Bell Ringers” who had visited Harniss two weeks earlier. Beneath these were other announcements still more passé, dating back even as far as the red, white and blue placards of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in ’76. The room was crowded with men and boys, dressed as befitted the weather, and the atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke and the smells of wet clothing, fishy oilskins and damp humanity.
Across the side of the room opposite the door was a wooden partition, divided by another door into two sections. On the left was a glass showcase displaying boxes of stick candy, spools of thread, papers of pins and needles, and various oddments of the sort known as “Notions.” Behind the showcase was standing room for the person who waited upon purchasers of these; behind this a blank wall.
At the right of the door, and extending from floor to ceiling, was a wooden frame of letter boxes with a sliding, ground-glass window in the center. This window was closed while the mail was in process of sorting and opened when it was ready for distribution. In the apartment on the inner side of the letter boxes and window, an apartment little bigger than a good-sized closet, Reliance Clark, postmistress of the village of Harniss, was busy, and Millard Fillmore Clark, her half-brother, was making his usual pretense of being so.
Reliance was plump, quick-moving, sharp-eyed. Her hair had scarcely a trace of gray, although she was nearly fifty. The emptied leather mail bag was on the floor by her feet, packages of first and second class mail matter lay upon the pine counter before her and her fingers flew as she shot each letter or postal into the box rented by the person whose name she read.
Millard Fillmore Clark was older by five years. He was short, thin and inclined to be round-shouldered. He was supposed to be sorting also, but his fingers did not fly. They lingered over each envelope or post card they touched. Certain of the envelopes he held, after a precautionary glance at his half-sister, between his eyes and the hanging lamp, and the postal cards he invariably read.
“Humph! Sho!” he muttered aloud, after one such reading. Reliance heard him and turned.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter now?”
Millard, who had spoken without being aware of it, looked guilty.
“Why, nothin’ special,” he answered, hurriedly. “I just— Humph! Seems that Peter Eldridge’s wife’s nephew has had another baby. That’s news, ain’t it!”
Reliance sniffed.
“Yes, I should say it was,” she observed, dryly, “if it was the way you put it. His wife’s niece, you mean, I suppose.”
“Well, it’s his wife’s nephew’s wife. That’s the same thing, ain’t it. He’s the one that married the girl from up to Middleboro. Simpson—or Simpkins—seems to me her name was, as I recollect. She—”
“Mil Clark, you put that postal in the box where it belongs. This mail is late enough already and I don’t want to stay out here in this office all night. If you would only mind your own business as well as you do everybody else’s you’d be the smartest man in this town, which—”
She did not finish the sentence. Mr. Clark regarded her suspiciously.
“Well, which what?” he demanded, after a momentary pause. “Which what? What was you goin’ to say?”
“Nothin’ in particular. Go to work and stop talkin’.”
“I know what you was goin’ to say. You’ve said it too many times afore. I’m gettin’ sick of havin’ it hove up to me, too. Just about sick of it, I am. A man can stand about so much and then he gets desperate. He don’t care what he does to himself. Some of these days you’ll be surprised, Reliance Clark—you and Esther and all the rest of ’em.”
His sister did not seem greatly alarmed.
“Um-hum,” she sniffed. “Well, just now you can surprise me by doin’ your share of this mail sortin’.... Oh, my soul and body!” she added, snatching the postal from his hand. “Either go to work or get out of my way, one or the other. Go out in the back room and sit down. You can sit down as well as anybody I ever saw.”
Millard Fillmore did not accept the suggestion. With the expression of a martyr he proceeded to cut the twine binding the bundles of papers and second class matter, muttering to himself and shaking his head as he did so. The contents of the bundles followed the letters and postals into the boxes. At last Reliance heaved a sigh of relief.
“There!” she exclaimed. “That’s done. Open the window.”
Mr. Clark slid back the ground-glass window. An eager crowd was standing at the other side of the partition. Millard faced his fellow-citizens with an air of importance. This was the part of the post-office routine which he liked.
“All right!” he announced, briskly. “Now then! Cap’n Snow’s first. Yes, sir! here you are. Quite a bunch of mail you’ve got this evenin’. All right, Hamilton, you’re next ... just a minute, Mr. Doane; I’ll attend to you in a jiffy.... Now, now, you boy! you hold on; you take your turn. No use shovin’, you won’t get it any sooner. This business has to be done systematic.”
The group before the window thinned as its members received their shares of the mail matter. Some departed immediately, others lingered to open envelopes or for a final chat. Suddenly there was a stir and a turning of heads toward the door. Some one had entered, some one of importance. There was a buzz of respectful greeting.
“Why, good evening, Cap’n Townsend!”... “How d’ye do, Cap’n?”... “Kind of bad night to be out in, ain’t it? Yes, ’tis.”
The salutations in general were of this kind. There were a few, and these from persons of consequence, which were more familiar. Judge Wixon said “Good evening, Foster,” and paused to shake hands, but even he was not in the least flippant. The Reverend Mr. Colton, minister of the old First Church, was most cordial, even anxiously so. “I stopped at your door, Captain Townsend,” he began, “but Mrs. Gifford told me—I gathered from what she said—”
The great man broke in. “Yes, all right, Colton,” he said. “I’ll see you pretty soon. I haven’t made up my mind yet. To-morrow or next day, maybe. Hello, Ben! Evening, Paine.”
He moved forward to the window, those before him making way for his passing. Millard Fillmore Clark’s bow was a picture, his urbanity a marvel. He brushed aside a lad who was clamoring for the copy of the Cape Cod Item in the family box and addressed the distinguished patron of the postal service.
“Good evenin’, Cap’n Townsend,” he gushed, “Yes, sir! I’ve got your mail all ready for you. It’s such a mean night I didn’t hardly expect you’d come for it yourself, but I had it all laid out cal’latin’ if Vaninas showed up, I’d—Eh? Oh, yes, here ’tis! There’s consider’ble of it, same as there generally is. Yes, indeed!”
Foster Townsend paid no attention to the flow of language. He took the packet of letters and papers and thrust it into the pocket of his ulster, and, pushing the speaker unceremoniously out of the way, leaned through the window and addressed the postmistress.
“Reliance,” he said.
Miss Clark, already tidying up the little room preparatory to closing for the night, looked over her shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”
“Come here a minute. I want to speak to you.”
Reliance finished brushing the counter before she complied. Then, pushing her half-brother a little farther from the window, she stepped to the place he had occupied. Millard accepted the push with as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances. It was no novelty; he was pushed out of some one’s way at least a dozen times a day.
“Well?” queried Reliance, briskly. Her tone in addressing Ostable County’s first citizen was precisely that which she used when addressing others less consequential. Of the two, it was Foster Townsend who seemed embarrassed, and embarrassment was not usual with him.
“Is—is that niece of yours in the house?” he asked.
For just an instant Reliance hesitated. She was regarding him intently.
“I suppose likely she is,” she said. “Why?”
“Hasn’t gone to bed, has she?”
“She usually sits up till I come in.”
“Um.... How much longer will you be out here in the office?”
“I expect to lock up at nine, same as I usually do.”
“I see. Going into the house then, aren’t you?”
“I certainly am. I don’t expect to go out walkin’ in a pourin’ down rainstorm like this one.”
Townsend’s embarrassment seemed to increase. He pulled at his beard.
“Well,” he said, “I—I want to have a talk with the girl and—er——”
Again he paused. Reliance, her gaze fixed upon his face, broke in.
“What’s that?” she asked, sharply. “Do you mean to say you want to talk with her—with Esther?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve got something to say to her, something rather important. I want you to be there when I say it. I’ll wait and go into the house with you when you’re ready. That is, if it’s all right.”
Another momentary pause. Then Miss Clark nodded.
“No reason why it shouldn’t be all right,” she said. “You better come into the shop and wait.... Be still, Millard! Here, you let Cap’n Townsend through into the shop and light the lamp there. Yes, and when you’ve done it you come straight back and help me sweep up. Bring the broom with you. Hurry now!”
Mr. Clark, whose eager ears had been strained to catch this conversation, hastened to unlock the door between the post-office waiting-room and the official quarters. He ushered the visitor into the large apartment at the rear of the building—or would have done so if the said visitor had not pushed him aside and gone in first. About this room were stands displaying finished hats and bonnets. Others, but partially finished, lay about upon tables and chairs. In the room also were two sewing-machines, workbaskets, scraps of ribbons and cloth, spools of thread, and the general disorder of the workroom of a millinery shop. Reliance Clark was the town milliner as well as its postmistress. “I and Esther and Mil have to live on somethin’,” Reliance had more than once told Abbie Makepeace, the middle-aged spinster who was her partner in the millinery business, “and what Uncle Sam pays me for sortin’ letters is nothin’, or next door to it.”
Millard Fillmore, agog with excitement, pulled forward a chair, carefully wiping its seat with a soiled handkerchief, and Foster Townsend sat down. Mr. Clark cleared his throat and offered apologies.
“We don’t usually look so—so sort of messed up out here, Cap’n Foster,” he explained; “but the mail’s been so extry heavy lately—election day comin’ and all—that we ain’t neither of us had hardly a minute to spare.... It ain’t any of my business, Cap’n,” he added, lowering his voice, “but did I understand you to say you’d come here to-night to see—to see—Esther? I wasn’t quite sure as I heard it straight, but—”
From the adjoining room his sister’s voice issued an order. “Bring that broom,” she commanded.
Mr. Clark hesitated.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Cap’n Foster,” he explained. “You see, there’s a little too much work for Reliance to handle, and she—yes, yes, I’m comin’, Reliance. Heavens and earth! can’t you wait a minute?”
He took the broom from the corner and joined his sister. Foster Townsend, left alone, crossed his knees and leaned back in the chair.
At eight fifty-nine Miss Clark extinguished the bracket lamps in the waiting-room and locked the front door. A half minute later she appeared in the workshop, threw a black cloth waterproof over her shoulders and turned to her caller.
“All ready,” she announced. “Millard, put out that light.”
The trio emerged from the side entrance of the building just as the clock presented to the First Church by the late Arabella Townsend struck the hour. It was still raining heavily. They followed a path across a small yard and stood beneath a latticed portico covered with honeysuckle, the dry tendrils of the latter rattling as the rain fell upon them. Reliance opened the door beneath the lattice and they stepped into a tiny sitting-room. By a table, with a paper-shaded lamp upon it, a girl of seventeen was sitting, reading a public library book. She turned as Miss Clark and her brother entered, but when the bulky figure of Foster Townsend came through the doorway she rose, an expression of astonishment upon her pretty face. She was Esther Townsend, daughter of Freeling Townsend, Foster Townsend’s much younger brother, and Eunice, his wife. Freeling Townsend died in eighteen sixty-nine. Eunice, Millard Clark’s own sister and half-sister to Reliance, died five years later. Esther had lived with the Clarks ever since. And during that time not once, until this evening, had her father’s brother come to that house. She stood and gazed, but she did not speak.
Characteristically it was Millard Fillmore who broke the silence and, just as characteristically, it was Reliance who interrupted him.
“Esther,” began Mr. Clark, with bustling importance, “don’t you see you’ve got a caller? Can’t you say good evenin’? Take off your things, Cap’n Foster. Here! let me help you with your coat. Esther, can’t you see he’s holdin’ his umbrella? Don’t stand there gawpin’. Get—”
And here Reliance broke in. “Millard,” she ordered, “be still! Yes, you’d better take off your coat, Foster; that is, if you’re goin’ to stay any time. It’s warm in here. Esther usually has this house hot enough to roast a Sunday dinner. Esther, get him a chair.”
The girl brought forward the rocker she had been sitting in. Townsend pulled off his ulster and handed it and his hat and umbrella to Mr. Clark who was obsequiously waiting to receive them. He lowered himself into the rocker. Then he turned to the others.
“You better sit down, all of you,” he said. “What I’ve got to say may take a little time. Sit down, Reliance. Sit down, Esther.”
Mr. Clark’s name was not included in the invitation, but he was the first to sit. Esther took a chair at the other side of the table. Reliance was shaking out her waterproof.
“Sit down, Reliance,” repeated Townsend. Miss Clark’s reply was promptly given.
“I intend to, soon as I’m ready,” she declared, with some tartness.
The caller looked up at her. “Reliance,” he observed, with a grim smile, “you don’t change much. When you were a girl I remember you used to say ‘Black’ whenever anybody else said ‘White.’ Well, independence is a good thing, if you can afford it.”
Reliance, having arranged the waterproof to her satisfaction, hung it on a hook by the door. She drew forward a chair from the wall.
“I’ve managed to scratch along on it so far,” she announced, placing herself in the chair. “Well, what is it you’ve come to this house for, after all these years, Foster Townsend?”
Townsend was looking at his niece, not at her. And it was the niece whom he addressed.
“Esther,” he said, after a moment, “how long has it been since your father died?”
The girl met his keen gaze for an instant, then looked down at the book upon the table.
“Ten years,” she said. Her tone was not too cordial. This rich uncle of hers had been a sort of bugbear in her family. Her father never mentioned his name while he lived and, although her mother had mentioned it often enough, it was only to call its owner a selfish, proud, wicked, stubborn man. When their daughter and Foster Townsend met on the street he sometimes acknowledged the meeting with a nod and sometimes not. His wife had been quite different; she always sent the girl presents at Christmas and was kindly gracious. Esther would have liked her, or would have liked to like her. And she envied her, of course; every female in Harniss did that. She envied Foster Townsend, too, but she was far from liking him.
He repeated her words. “Ten years, eh?” he observed, meditatively. “Humph! is it possible! It doesn’t seem so long—yet, of course it is. And the last time I was in this house was at his funeral. No wonder you’re surprised to see me here now. I’m surprised, myself, to be here.... You’re surprised, too, aren’t you, Reliance?”
Millard hastened to declare that he was, but was awful glad, of course. His sister’s reply was a surprise in itself.
“I don’t know that I am, altogether,” she said. “I’ve been rather expectin’ you, if you want to know.”
Townsend swung about in the rocker. “You have!” he exclaimed, sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean what I say. I don’t know what you’ve come for, but I might guess, maybe. Most of us have got a conscience somewheres on the premises, even if some of us have kept it packed away up-attic so long we’ve pretty nigh forgot it.”
The captain regarded her with what appeared to be sincere, if somewhat grudging, admiration. “You’re a smart woman, Reliance Clark,” he declared. “Yes, you are! If Freeling had had sense enough to pick you out instead of— Well, well! there’s no use wasting breath about that.... You say you’ve guessed what I’ve come here for. If you have perhaps Esther hasn’t. I’m going to make her a proposition. I don’t expect her to answer it, one way or the other, to-night. I want to make it; then I want her and you, Reliance, to think it over and talk it over between you. When you’ve done that you can say yes or no. Esther,” turning to the girl once more, “how would you like to come up to my house and live with me?”
The question, thus bluntly put, had a varied effect upon his listeners. Millard Clark’s eyes and mouth opened and he gasped audibly. His half-sister nodded two or three times, as if with satisfaction at finding her suspicions confirmed. Esther gazed at the speaker in mute bewilderment. Townsend looked from one to the other and smiled.
“So you had guessed right, had you, Reliance,” he observed. “Well, whether you had or not, there it is. I am lonesome in that big house of mine, lonesome as the devil. I don’t suppose I’m what you’d call a sentimental man; I try to use my common sense and face what can’t be helped in a sensible way, but since Mother died I’m lonesome. For the last week I’ve been making up my mind what to do. I might travel, I suppose, but when I went to sea I cruised a whole lot and there wouldn’t be much that was new to look at and no satisfaction in looking at it alone. And I’d rather stay at home, anyhow. This is my town. I helped to make it grow and I’m more interested in it, and the folks in and around it, than I am in anything else. I might move out of my house to a smaller one, but I won’t. Mother and I built that house together. She thought the world of it and so do I. She lived in it till she died and that’s what I want to do. But I’d rather not live in it by myself. I want somebody to talk to and to talk to me, and I’d rather have a Townsend than anybody else. So I thought of Esther. If she wants to, she can move up there and call it home. I’ll look out for her and be as decent as I can to her. She can have all the things she wants—things she can’t have now—and all the money she wants—all I think it good for her to have, anyhow. What I’m trying to say is,” he added, with deliberate emphasis, “that, if you, Esther, come to live with me you’ll be the same as my daughter. And when I’m dead you’ll have what I have.... That’s the proposition—or part of it.”
The last sentence of his long speech was delivered with the snap of finality. The speaker leaned back in the rocker, extended his legs in order to more easily get at his trousers pockets, thrust his hands into those pockets, and looked at his niece, then at Reliance and then back at Esther. He did not look at Mr. Clark; the latter might have been one of the pair of crockery lambs on the mantel as far as receiving attention was concerned.
Yet it was Millard who broke the silence.
“Well—I vow!” he exclaimed, fervently.
His sister put him back in place just as she might have replaced one of the lambs. “Hush, Millard!” she ordered. “Wait, Esther!... So that’s only part of your proposition, is it?” she asked, addressing Townsend. “And what’s the other part?”
The great man jingled the change in his pocket. “It’s just this,” he replied. “I realize, of course, that Esther has been here with you, Reliance, so long that you’re about the same as a mother to her. She would miss you—at first, anyhow—and, for the matter of that, I suppose she ought to have a woman to talk to. I never had a girl of my own to bring up, or a boy either, so far as that goes—I wish to God I had—and there are some things a woman can advise her about better than a man. If I didn’t know you had sense, Reliance—as well as the stubbornness of a balky horse—I shouldn’t think of saying what I am going to say. I want you to shut up this house here. It is mine and I can sell it, I guess; or rent it, anyhow. And if I can’t do either I can afford to let it stand empty. Shut it up and come along with Esther to my place. There’s room enough there, too much room. I’ll make a home for you and pay your bills. Yes, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be more comfortable there, and have less care, than you ever had in your life. That’s the other half of my offer. Think it over.”
During this blunt statement of an astonishing proposal the face of Millard Fillmore Clark might have been worth looking at, had any one dreamed of doing such a thing. At first it had expressed eagerness and overwhelming curiosity. Then, when Foster Townsend extended the invitation—or delivered the command, for it was quite as much an order as a request—to his half-sister, the curiosity was superseded by joyful excitement. And now, when the speech from the rocking-chair throne had ended without mention of his own name, or even acknowledgment of his connection with the household, all symptoms of the aforementioned emotions were superseded by those of anxiety and alarmed indignation.
“Here! hold on!” he protested, springing to his feet. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Cap’n Foster? You’re cal’latin’ to take Reliance and—and Esther to—to live along with you and—and—” Reliance lifted a hand. “Ssh!” she said.
“No, I won’t ssh neither! He—he says he wants to—to take you and her away and shut up this house and—and— What about me?” his voice rising to a falsetto. “Where am I goin’? Eh! Who’s goin’ to—”
Townsend, even then, did not take the trouble to turn and look at him, but he did speak over his shoulder. “All right, all right,” he broke in, with careless contempt. “You can come, too. There’ll be a room for you and Varunas can find something for you to do around the stables, I guess. You’ll be looked after, don’t worry. Have to take the tail with the hide, I realize that,” he added, philosophically. “... Well, Esther,” turning to his niece, “how does it sound to you, now you’ve heard the whole of it?”
The girl, thus addressed, looked at him in faltering hesitancy. She turned to her aunt as if seeking the latter’s help in a situation too hopelessly impossible to be met without it.
“Well?” repeated her uncle.
Esther looked at Reliance, but the latter was looking at the captain, not at her. The girl turned back, to meet the searching scrutiny of the eyes beneath the heavy brows. The look in those eyes was not unkindly, in fact, it was the opposite, but she was frightened. This was the man who had quarreled with her father, whose prideful arrogant self-will was responsible, so Eunice Townsend had always declared, for the poverty and privation of their lives since his death. This was the man she had been taught to hate. And now he was bidding her come to live with him! She couldn’t do such a thing—of course she couldn’t—and yet, if her aunt came also, she—even then she was beginning to realize a little of the marvelous possibilities of that invitation.
The look in her uncle’s eyes was still kindly, but insistent. He had asked a question and he was expecting an answer. She must say something. She caught her breath, almost with a sob.
“Oh, oh, I don’t know!” she cried, desperately. “I don’t know! It doesn’t seem as if—but—oh, please don’t ask me—not now! I don’t know what to say.”
Townsend nodded. “Of course you don’t,” he agreed. “I didn’t expect you to say yes or no now, to-night. I was wondering how the idea sounded to you, that’s all. You and Reliance think it over and talk it over together and when you’ve made up your mind let me know. To-morrow—yes, or the next day—will be time enough. There’s no particular hurry.”
He rose from the rocker and took his hat and coat from the side table where Millard had reverently laid them. Mr. Clark sprang to help with the ulster, but he and his proffered assistance were ignored, as usual.
“There’s just one thing more that maybe I ought to say,” the captain added, turning to Reliance, who had risen when he did. “And that is this: She,” with a jerk of the head in Esther’s direction, “doesn’t understand yet all this proposition is liable to mean. If she comes to be with me, and we get along all right and I like her, she’ll be what I said before, just the same as my daughter. If she wants to go away to boarding school she can go, I guess; I’ll decide that later on. She’s got a good voice, they tell me. Everybody says she sings pretty well and that she could sing better if she was learned how by somebody that knew. Well, I’ll see that she is learned. I’ve got a good piano up at the house. At least I suppose it’s good; it was the best I could buy and I paid enough for it. Mother used to pick at it a little, but she always said it was a pity it wasn’t used more. Esther can use it all she wants to. I don’t know anything about music. I never had much use for a man who fooled with pianos and fiddles; fact is, I never considered that kind of fellow a man at all. But I haven’t any objections to a woman’s fooling with ’em. There’s the piano and there’s the music teacher, or there can be one as well as not. Think of that, too, while you are thinking.... I guess that’s all. Good-night.”
He picked up his umbrella and strode to the door. Reliance spoke once more.
“Just a minute,” she said. “Maybe it isn’t quite all. I can see what you mean to do for Esther and perhaps I can see a little of what Millard will have to do. But where do I come in? What will I do up in that twenty-odd room house of yours, Foster Townsend? You don’t expect me to play your piano, do you?”
He laughed, laughed aloud, something which he seldom did.
“No,” he said, “I don’t expect that, Reliance. I don’t care what you do. You can do nothing, if you want to. Or you can be my housekeeper, if that suits you better. Mother kept house the way it ought to be kept and she has told me more than once that you were about the only other woman she ever ran across who was as particular as she was. You can boss Nabby and whatever hired help we have, and run things to please yourself—provided they please me, too. That is fair, isn’t it?”
Miss Clark nodded grimly. “Maybe so,” she observed. “We won’t argue about it to-night. There’s one other thing, though, that I guess you’ve forgot. I’m postmistress here in Harniss. I run a milliner shop, too, but that is my own, or two-thirds of it is, and I can do what I like with it. But the post office is different. Do you expect me to walk out of that office and leave a note for Uncle Sam sayin’ ‘You and the mail can go to Jericho. I’ve gone to Foster Townsend’s!’ Do you expect me to do that?”
Townsend laughed again. He seemed in far better spirits than when he entered that sitting-room.
“Not exactly—no,” he replied. “As for the post office,—well, who had you made postmistress in the first place?”
Miss Clark stared at him. “Who had me made postmistress?” she repeated. “Why, the U.S. government appointed me, if that’s what you mean. And that was nine years ago. What do you ask such a question as that for?”
“I’ll ask you another one. When Sylvanus Oaks died you sent in a petition asking for his job, didn’t you?... Oh, never mind! I know you did, and so did Frank Parker and Reuben Hatch and a couple more. Why do you suppose the government people picked you out instead of one of the others? Their petitions were as long as yours. Well, I’ll tell you. It was because I told them to.”
She was surprised now, there was no doubt of that. “You told ’em!” she repeated, sharply. “You did! Why, you didn’t even sign my petition. Not that I asked you to sign it. I didn’t.”
“No. I wondered if you were going to, but you were your own pig-headed self and didn’t bring it near me. But I didn’t sign any one else’s either; you know that.”
“I don’t know it. I never cared enough to find out.”
“No?” with a chuckle. “Well, you know it now. What you haven’t known all this time is that I wrote to a friend of mine who was in Congress from this district and told him you were the fittest candidate for the place and to see that you got it. He saw just that. I put you into that post office, Reliance, just as I’ve rented you this house of mine, and if I take you out of both I can’t see that anybody has any ground for complaint. I’ll hear from you in a day or two, of course. Good-night. Good-night, Esther.”
He did not include Mr. Clark in his good-night, but the latter ran out after him in the rain and caught his arm.
“It’ll be all right, Cap’n Foster,” whispered Millard, eagerly. “Don’t you fret a mite. It’ll come out all right. Reliance she always has to argue and fetch up objections to ’most anything, but she’ll come round. We’ll be up there along with you inside of a week, all hands of us. You leave it to me. I’ll ’tend to it.”
Foster Townsend made no reply. He shook off the clutch upon his coat sleeve and walked away into the rain-striped blackness beyond the light from the open door. Millard Fillmore hurried back to the sitting-room.
“Gosh!” he whooped ecstatically, “Oh, my gosh! Say, ain’t it wonderful! Ain’t it—”
He stopped, for his half-sister was speaking to their niece and he caught a word or two—unbelievable, horrifying words which caused his pæan of triumphant rejoicing to break off in the middle of the first strophe.
“I should say not!” declared Reliance. “Well, I should say not! Humph! the idea! I could have slapped his face for him for darin’ to think such a thing, let alone sayin’ it out loud—to me. When I get so worn out and good for nothin’ that I can’t earn my own livin’ I’ll find the cheapest way to die and do it, and I’ll take care to have enough put by to pay for my buryin’. I won’t go up to his palace and live on the leavin’s from his table. I’m no Lazarus. Saucy patronizin’ thing! The idea!”
Esther might have spoken, but Mr. Clark cut in ahead of her.
“What!” he shouted, in a frenzy. “What’s that you’re tellin’ her, Reliance Clark? Do you mean to say you ain’t goin’ to take up with a chance like that? My gosh, woman, you’re crazy!”
She whirled on him. “You keep still!” she commanded. “This isn’t any of your business at all. Don’t you say another word.”
“But it is my business. Why ain’t it my business? Didn’t he ask me same as he did the rest of you? Didn’t—”
She did not let him finish. “No, he did not,” she declared, with fierce contempt. “He said he supposed he would have to take the tail with the hide, that’s what he said, and if you like bein’ called a tail, I don’t.”
“Aw, come now, Reliance! He never meant—he asked me—”
“He didn’t ask you; he took you same as he might take a—the scales on a codfish, because he knew he couldn’t catch the critter without ’em. It is Esther he’s after and he was shrewd enough to think that maybe she might not go unless I did. Yes, and that I couldn’t leave a helpless thing like you to float around creation with nobody to steer you. Oh, don’t make me any madder than I am, Mil Clark!”
“Aw, Reliance, have some sense! Why—”
“Be still, Mil Clark!... Oh, when he had the impudence to tell me that he got me that post-office appointment, I—I— Oh, that was the last straw!”
She was sputtering sparks like a pinwheel. Esther tried to soothe her.
“There, there, Auntie,” she protested, “you mustn’t get into such a state. I don’t care at all, really. I’m glad. I don’t want to live with him. Of course I don’t. I want to stay with you, right here in this house, just as I always have. Don’t worry about it any more—please.”
The thunder cloud upon her aunt’s brow was thinning. Her comely face was still crimson, but the fire in her eyes was beginning to die. She walked over to the window, stood there for a moment, and, when she turned, there was a suspicion of a smile at the corners of her lips.
“My!” she exclaimed, with a sigh. “I don’t wonder Millard called me crazy. I haven’t been so upset for I don’t know when. It was findin’ out that he was responsible for my bein’ made postmistress that got me so. The rest of it I kind of expected—that is, I rather guessed he had come to ask for Esther. Yes, I did. Nabby Gifford told me how lonesome he was nowadays and before Arabella Townsend died—a fortni’t or two before she was taken sick—she came to see me about a hat I was makin’ for her, and somethin’ she said then set me thinkin’. She was pretty confidential—she was like that sometimes with me—and she told me that the greatest trial of hers and Foster’s lives was that the only child they had died when it was a baby and that they didn’t have any more. She asked a lot about you, Esther, about what sort of a girl you were and about your singin’ and all, and—well, it made me wonder. And I knew perfectly well that whatever she wanted her husband would let her have. She was the only person on earth who could get past that stubborn streak of his.... Humph! And he called me pig-headed! He did!”
Her half-brother had kept quiet as long as he could.
“Well, well, well!” he cried. “What if he did! He didn’t mean nothin’. You and Esther don’t seem to realize what else he said. He’s offerin’ us a home in the finest house in Ostable County. Horses and teams to ride around in, no bills to pay, nothin’ to worry about, no work—that is, nothin’ except—”
“Oh, do stop! I declare I believe you’d just as soon be a ‘tail’ as anything else. All a tail has to do is brush off flies and that would just suit you.”
“Look here! I don’t care to have you talk to me that way.”
“All right, I’m not talkin’ to you. I’m talkin’ to somebody else. So I wasn’t so surprised when he offered to adopt you, Esther, for adoption is what it amounts to. When he took me aboard too—yes, yes, and you, Millard—I was surprised, but of course I could see why he did it, anybody could. If he hadn’t crowed over me about that post-office appointment! I never once supposed he got it for me.... Oh, I don’t doubt he did! He runs everything in this part of the state. But it hurts my pride—and it makes me just as mad now when I think of it.”
Again Esther tried to calm her.
“Never mind whether he did or not, Auntie dear,” she urged. “You have kept it ever since and everybody says you are the best postmistress the town ever had. And, after all,” she added, “if he did get the appointment, he did it to help you, didn’t he? It seems to me that was—well, kind of him.”
Her aunt turned quickly. “Kind!” she repeated. “Of course it was kind, or he meant it to be. But I like to know about kindnesses when they’re done, not have ’em sprung on me as a good joke nine years afterwards. He has been chucklin’ to himself over that joke ever since. In a lot of ways,” she went on earnestly, “Foster Townsend is a kind man and a good man. The trouble is that he has got so used to bein’ told that he is the greatest man in the world that he has come to believe it.”
Esther was amazed. “Why, how can you call him good!” she exclaimed. “Mother always said he—”
Reliance interrupted. “I know,” she put in hastily. “Well, your mother may have been a little prejudiced, perhaps. She had reason to be.”
The girl’s lips tightened.
“At any rate,” she declared, “his adopting me is ridiculous. I don’t want to be adopted and I shan’t be. That is settled.”
Miss Clark shook her head. “No,” she said, firmly. “That part isn’t settled—yet. He isn’t goin’ to adopt me, or Millard either. Millard, do hush!... But for you, Esther, it isn’t settled at all. There is a whole lot to be said and thought over before that is settled. I’m goin’ to bed. Millard, put out the lamp.”
Mr. Clarke made one more desperate appeal.
“If I didn’t know,” he declared, with angry sarcasm, “I’d swear all hands in this house had been drinkin’—all hands but me, I mean. You give out that it’s settled and Esther gives out that it’s settled, but I haven’t settled nothin’ yet as I know of. Cap’n Foster Townsend asked me to come and live with him. Right here in this room he asked it and you two heard him. All right. Then I guess I’m the one to say yes or no—to my part of it, anyhow.”
Reliance looked at him. “Then if I was you I’d say it,” she agreed, sweetly. “You go right up to his house to-morrow and tell him that no matter what Esther and I do, you’ll move in before sunset. You tell him that and see what he says about it.... Come, Esther. Don’t you leave that lamp burnin’ all night, Millard.”
She and Esther left the room, and a few moments later, their footsteps were heard upon the stairs. Millard Fillmore Clark, left alone, threw himself into the rocker and relapsed into the pessimistic meditations of a hurt and insulted spirit. For an hour he sat there, scowling and biting his nails. Then he rose and went out into the dining room, where he opened the door of a dark closet and reached down into a corner behind a tall crockery cooky jar. Hidden in that corner was a black bottle. It contained home-made wild-cherry rum and his half-sister had cached it there, fondly believing that he could never find it. He removed the cork, took a long drink, and then another. Soon afterward he, too, went upstairs and to bed.