THE first step in that training was, of course, to inspire the colt with trust and liking for her new master. When that trust and liking were established the next move must be to make her so satisfied and happy in her new surroundings that the last lingering regret at leaving the old should fade away. She must be driven with a light hand on the reins, a touch so gentle that she would not realize it was there. Confidence first, then contentment, next the gradual awakening of new aspirations and ambitions—after these the rein might tighten and she could be guided into and along the road he intended she should travel. That was the program. Foster Townsend proceeding to carry it out.
The trust and liking first. That little disagreement following the meeting with Millard was the last between the uncle and niece for many a day. Townsend had learned his lesson. The next day, when they rode behind the span, he stopped before the Clark cottage and suggested that they run in and say “Hello” to Reliance. The latter was busy in the millinery shop and was surprised to see them there. The call lasted nearly an hour. Esther enjoyed it greatly, so, too, apparently, did Miss Clark. Abbie Makepeace, the middle-aged partner in the business, was at first in a state of nervous embarrassment, but their distinguished visitor was so gracious, so chattily affable and easy, so interested in the bits of local gossip she offered as contributions to the conversation, that she ended in complete surrender.
“Well, I declare, Reliance!” she exclaimed, when the shop door had closed. “I don’t see where the time has gone, I swear I don’t! Seems as if he—I mean they—hadn’t been here five minutes. I don’t see how folks can say Cap’n Townsend is—well, high and mighty and—and all like that.”
“Seems to me I remember hearin’ you say what amounted to that, Abbie,” she observed, dryly.
Abbie was momentarily taken aback.
“Well—well, if I did I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she protested. “Anyhow, he was sociable and everyday enough this time. Why, I felt as if I’d known him all my life. Did you hear him ask me to drop in and see him and Esther any time I felt like it? I—I believe I’ll do it some Sunday afternoon. Of course I’ve been up to the mansion two or three times, when Arabella had a church committee tea or somethin’, but I’ve never been there to call.”
Reliance smiled. “He can be nice enough, if he wants to be,” she said; “but it has to be when he wants. Esther seemed to be happy, I thought, didn’t you?”
Abbie Makepeace gasped. “Happy!” she repeated. “I should think she might be! My soul to man! Wouldn’t you be happy if you’d been just the same as adopted by a man with a million o’ dollars? Of course she’s happy; she’s goin’ to have everything on earth she wants from now on.... You mustn’t be jealous, Reliance. Think of her.”
Reliance picked up the bonnet she had been at work upon when their visitors came. She shook her head.
“Who do you think I’ve been thinkin’ about, for goodness sakes?” she demanded. “There, there! get me that ribbon on the shelf behind you. What is that verse I hear the boys sayin’?
“‘The rich they ride in chaises.
The poor they—’”
Miss Makepeace interrupted. “My soul!” she exclaimed, aghast. “That’s a swearin’ piece! I never expected to hear you swear, Reliance Clark.”
“Well, you haven’t heard me yet, have you? I was goin’ to say that the poor had to make bonnets. Let’s make ’em. We’ve lost more than an hour already.”
“I don’t call it losin’.... Humph! I believe you are jealous. I don’t see why you need to be. You are goin’ up there to have dinner next Sunday. I heard him ask you. There’d be plenty of people in Harniss who’ll be jealous of you when they hear that. And it pleased Esther almost to death, his invitin’ you. I could see that it did.”
It had, of course, and the certainty that it would was the reason why Foster Townsend had extended the invitation. Esther had a happy day. That evening she sang and played and her uncle’s praise was even more whole-hearted than on the previous occasion. It was nice of him to say such things. He had been very nice to her all that day. And his calling on her aunt, of his own accord, and asking the latter and Uncle Millard to dinner on Sunday was the nicest of all. It seemed almost as if her mother must have been mistaken in thinking him such a dreadful man. Either that, or he was sorry he had been so proud and unreasonable and stubborn, and was determined to make amends to his brother’s daughter. If he kept on behaving as he had this day she knew she would like him—she could not help it.
Sunday morning he took her to church and, for the first time, she sat, not in the Clark pew away back under the organ gallery, but down in front in the Townsend pew, where the cushions were covered with green plush and the hymn books bore the Townsend name in gold letters on their cover. Asaph Boadley, the sexton, did not greet her with a perfunctory “Hello.” His whispered “Good mornin’” was almost as reverential as his salute of her uncle. The march up the aisle was very trying—they were a trifle late and every eye in the meeting-house was, she knew, fixed upon her. But Captain Benjamin Snow himself leaned over the pew-back to point out to her the hymn they were about to sing.
The dinner at the mansion was the best meal she had ever eaten and it was delightful—and wonderful—to have Miss Clark and Millard Fillmore there to eat it with her. Millard did not talk as much as usual, even he was a little awed by the occasion. He smoked a Townsend cigar after dinner and accepted another to smoke later on. And when he and his half-sister walked back to the cottage he strutted every step of the way.
Esther accompanied her uncle to the “rally” on Tuesday evening. The Town Hall was packed, and again there was the same stir and whispering when they passed up the aisle between the lines of crowded settees. Men were in the majority, of course, but there were many women there also, and some girls. The men looked at Foster Townsend, but the feminine element centered its interest upon his niece, and Esther wondered if they noticed the new brooch which she was wearing. It was a present from her Uncle Foster, who had bought it from the local jeweler and watchmaker that afternoon. That brooch had been on display in the shop window almost a year—since before the previous Christmas, in fact—and the price upon the card above it was twenty dollars. She had seen it often and her admiration of its beauty was coupled with a vague resentment at the extravagance of its cost. Now it was hers—her very own.
The Honorable Mooney’s speech was, it seemed to her, a noble effort. She had never before heard quite as many big words said so loudly or with such accompaniment of gesture. And she noticed that the orator appeared to be looking in their direction almost constantly as he said them. When it was over he hurried from the platform and pushed his way to their side.
“Well, Cap’n Townsend,” he panted, eagerly, “I guess you’ll have to own that I kept my word. Came out strong enough for the cranberry bill this time, didn’t I?... How did it sound to you?”
The crowd about them had stopped to listen. There was a hush. Mr. Mooney’s hand was extended, but Townsend did not remove his from his trousers’ pockets.
“Sounded a good deal as if you had decided to be a bad influence,” he observed. “Yes, you came out—to-night. How you come out on election day is—well, I guess that depends on how sure you can make us that you’ll stay out—after you get in again.”
There was a roar of delighted laughter from the group surrounding them. Mr. Mooney did not laugh. He looked troubled.
The horse trot at the Circle was to take place on Thursday afternoon. All masculine Harniss knew of it by this time. Backers of the Baker horse had visited Harniss during the past few days, had expressed unbounded confidence in the fast-traveling Rattler, and had been quite willing to support their confidence financially. There were perhaps a hundred men and boys gathered about the starting-point when Foster Townsend and Esther drove up in the dog-cart. Esther, looking out over the crowd, felt troubled and out of place. So far as she could see she was the only member of the gentler sex present. Horse racing, although patronized by Harniss’s leading citizen, was not approved by the majority of its best people, particularly the church-going element. At the Ostable County Fair and Cattle Show they hung over the fence and cheered or groaned, their wives and daughters with them, but that was different—all set standards relaxed on Cattle Show days. An affair of this kind was a trifle too much of a sporting proposition, it savored too closely of card playing and gambling; so, although some—including Captain Benjamin Snow—attended, they did not bring their families. If it was any one but Cap’n Foster, people said, he would not be allowed to do such things.
The racers, harnessed to the light sulkies—“gigs” they were called in that locality—were trotting easily about the track. Mr. Gifford was driving Claribel, of course, and Seth Emmons held the reins for the Baker horse. Varunas saw the Townsend span make its showy approach along the road and he alighted from the sulky and came to meet its owner and his companion. Varunas was dressed for the occasion, not in the yellow and black satin which he donned for the ceremonious Cattle Show races, but he was wearing the little satin cap pulled down to his ears and his trousers were fastened tightly about his bowed legs with leather straps. He was swollen with importance and grinning with prospective triumph.
“She’s fine, Cap’n Foster,” he whispered. “Never handled her when she was in better shape. If she don’t peel more’n one extry ten-dollar bill off’n Sam Baker’s roll to-day then I’ll eat her, and I won’t ask for no pepper sass and gravy, neither. Oh, say,” he added; “Cap’n Ben Snow’s goin’ to be judge—says you asked him to—and he wants to talk to you a minute. He’s right over yonder. Shall I go fetch him?”
Townsend climbed down from the seat of the dog-cart. “I’ll go to him,” he said. “Esther, suppose you stay where you are. You can see better up there than you can anywhere else. I’ll be back pretty soon. Here, Josiah,” turning to one of the youthful bystanders, “keep an eye on the team, will you?”
Josiah, evidently flattered by the opportunity to serve royalty, stepped to the heads of the span. Esther, left alone, tried her best to appear unaware that she was the center of interest for all in the vicinity. Varunas hastened back to the track and clambered aboard the sulky.
The interview between Townsend and Captain Snow was apparently a lengthy one. The former did not return “pretty soon” as he had promised. Esther, looking out over the crowd, saw a number of acquaintances, boys of her own age. Some of them nodded, one or two hailed her. There was Tom Doane, who clerked in Kent’s General Store and drove the delivery wagon. The wagon was standing not far away, its horse hitched to a post. Evidently Mr. Kent’s customers would be obliged to wait for their purchases until the race was over. Frank Cahoon was with young Doane. Frank, having finished school, was about to leave Harniss for Boston, where he had a position with a firm of shipping merchants. With them was a third young fellow whom she did not know. The trio were looking at her and apparently considering coming over to speak. Just then, however, her Uncle Millard came bustling up to the dog-cart and she turned her attention to him.
Mr. Clark was ablaze with excitement and importance. He leaned an elbow upon the side of the dog-cart and chatted, quite conscious that people were watching him, and glorying in his place in the sun.
“Well, Esther,” he proclaimed, “this is a great day for us, ain’t it? We’re goin’ to come out all right, you wait and see. Cap’n Foster knows what he’s about and I tell folks so. Some of ’em try to let me think Claribel hasn’t got more than an outside chance, but I laugh at ’em. ‘You leave it to us,’ I tell ’em. ‘We know a thing or two.’ That’s so, too; isn’t it, eh?”
Esther regarded him rather coldly. All of the bystanders were listening, she knew, and some were nudging each other and grinning. She did wish that he would not speak so loudly.
“That’s so, ain’t it?” repeated Mr. Clark.
Esther’s reply was non-committal.
“Perhaps so,” she answered. “I don’t know what you know, Uncle Millard. Has Uncle Foster told you about it? He hasn’t told me anything.”
Some of the grins became laughs. Before Millard could frame a satisfactory reply a voice from the track saved him the trouble by furnishing an excuse for departure.
“They’re gettin’ ready to start,” he announced, hastily. “I must be goin’. I’ll see you and Cap’n Foster after we’ve won. So long.”
He hurried away. Esther heard her name spoken and turned to find that young Doane and Frank Cahoon and their unknown companion had approached from the rear and were standing by the carriage.
“Hello, Esther,” hailed Cahoon. “You’ve got a grandstand seat, haven’t you? How does it seem to be up in the world? Speak to common folks nowadays, do you?”
She colored. This was the sort of thing she had expected from her school friends, but she did not like it any better on that account.
“Don’t be silly, Frank,” she said. “What are you doing down here in Harniss? I thought you were in Boston.”
“Not yet. Start to-morrow. I wasn’t going to miss this horse trot for anybody’s old ships. Bangs and Company will have to wait for me, that’s all.”
She shook her head. “They must be dreadfully disappointed,” she said, solemnly.
Doane burst into a laugh. “I guess that will do you for to-day, Frank,” he crowed. “Oh, Esther, here is a fellow you ought to know—Bob Griffin, from Denboro.”
Bob and Esther shook hands. He was a pleasant-faced young chap, tall, dark-haired and with a pair of brown eyes with a twinkle in them.
“Bob’s come over to see what a real horse looks like,” explained Doane. “They don’t use much of anything but oxen in Denboro. That’s so, isn’t it, Bob?”
Griffin smiled.
“It is all we have had to use so far to beat any of your trotters, Tom,” he retorted. “Perhaps I shall see something different to-day, though. Is your horse going to win?” he asked, addressing the girl.
“It isn’t my horse,” she replied. “It is my uncle’s.”
“I know. I’ve heard a lot about your uncle. Perhaps you’ve heard as much about my grandfather,” he added, with a laugh.
She did not understand. “I don’t know who your grandfather is,” she said. “What do you mean?”
Cahoon’s laugh was loud. “I told you she wouldn’t know, Bob,” he declared. “You’ve heard about the Cook and Townsend lawsuit, haven’t you, Esther? I shouldn’t be surprised if you had. Well, Elisha Cook is Bob’s grandfather. There! Now aren’t you sorry you shook hands with him? Oh, ho! Now she’s scared. Look at her look around for her uncle, Frank.”
Esther had looked, involuntarily, but it ruffled her to know that the look had been noticed. She had heard many times of the great lawsuit, of course—every one had—but she knew almost no particulars concerning it. That Elisha Cook and Foster Townsend had once been partners in business, that they had quarreled, separated and that the suit was the result—so much she knew. And she remembered Millard’s description of a meeting he had witnessed between the litigants. “You ought to have seen the glower old Cook give him,” said Millard. “Looked as if he’d like to stick a knife into him, I declare if he didn’t. And Cap’n Foster never paid any more attention to it than he would to a stick of wood glowerin’. Just brushed past him as if he was wood. Foster was all dressed up and prosperous, same as he always is, but old ’Lisha looked pretty shabby. Don’t blame him much for glowerin’. He knows as well as anybody else that Foster’s got the courts in his pocket.”
Esther remembered this now although she had paid little attention to it at the time. And, at the mention of the Cook name her first thought had been of her uncle and what he might think if he saw her in company with the grandson of his deadly enemy. Before she could answer Bob Griffin spoke.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t shake hands, Esther,” he said. “We aren’t running any lawsuits of our own, and if you’re as sick of hearing about courts and decisions and lawyers as I am you never will run one. Grandfather doesn’t talk about anything else.... Come on, let’s forget it, I say. Tell me who is going to win this race.”
Just then the preliminary whistle sounded from the track below them. Frank Cahoon shouted in excitement.
“They’re going to start,” he cried. “We can’t see a thing from here. I say, Esther, let us climb up there with you, will you? Cap’n Townsend won’t mind and he isn’t here, anyway. Come on, boys!”
He started to mount to the seat, but Griffin was nearest and blocked the way.
“Wait till you are invited,” he protested. “How about it, Esther? May we?”
She hesitated. “Why—why, yes—I guess so,” she faltered. He did not wait for more, but scrambled to the seat beside her. Frank Cahoon and Tom Doane stood upon the hubs of the wheels and clung to the rail of the dog-cart.
The two trotters—or their drivers—were jockeying for position at the start. Varunas was crouched in the sulky seat, his short legs looking more like barrel hoops than ever as each half-circled one of Claribel’s glistening flanks. His face was puckered until it looked like, so Bob Griffin whispered in Esther’s ear, a last year’s seed potato. Seth Emmons, behind the Baker entry, looked far less anxious. His cap was jauntily askew and he was confidently smiling.
There was no judges’ stand at the Circle and, of course, no bell to signal starts and finishes. A whistle took its place and now it sounded once more. The racers shot by. They were off to a good start at the very first trial—almost a miracle in a trotting race. The crowd set up a shout. Every one pushed and jostled to see better. Esther leaned forward breathlessly. Prior to her arrival at the Circle she had not been greatly interested in the race. Foster Townsend’s penchant for fast horses had been one of the points in his disfavor which her mother had so often stressed. “He will spend a thousand dollars any time on a horse,” Eunice used to say, bitterly, “but he could let his own brother die a pauper.” Reliance, also, had never approved of what she called “horse jockeyin’.” Esther had accompanied her uncle that afternoon because he seemed to wish her to do so, but she had been secretly ashamed of the whole affair. It seemed so “cheap,” so undignified—so, yes, almost immoral. Since their arrival, stared at by every one, the only non-masculine in the whole assemblage, this feeling had deepened. She devoutly wished she had not come. As to who won the match, that was a matter of complete indifference to her—she did not care at all.
Now, all at once, she found herself caring a great deal. She wanted Claribel to win. Her eyes shone, her hands clasped and unclasped, she bent forward to watch the flying sulkies. She was as excited and partisan as the rest.
It was a mile trot, four times around the track. The first round was practically a dead heat. The second almost the same. She grew anxious. So, evidently, did Tom Doane.
“Thunder!” he exclaimed, disgustedly. “That Rattler is doing as well as our horse. Yes, a little better, if anything. What’s the matter with Gifford? Why don’t he whip her up? He’s going to lose the inside place in a minute. Go on, Claribel! Shake her up, Varunas! Give it to her!”
Frank Cahoon was yelling similar advice. Bob Griffin turned impatiently. “Keep your hair on, Tom,” he ordered. “Gifford knows what he’s doing. Watch him. He’s been holding her in every foot of the way so far. Don’t worry,” he whispered in Esther’s ear. “He’ll let her out when the time comes. We’ll beat ’em at the finish.”
Esther was close to tears. “Oh, we must! We must!” she gasped.
“We will.... Hi! there she goes! That’s the stuff! Good girl! Look at her leave him!”
She was leaving him. Varunas had suddenly loosened his grip on the reins. Bending forward until his nose was close to Claribel’s flying tail he was urging her on. His shrill yells could be heard even above the shouts of the crowd.
“Go it, you, Claribel!” he was shrieking. “Lay down to it now! Now they begin to know they’re licked! Hi! hi! hi! Lay down to it, girl!”
The Townsend mare was well to the fore as they shot by at the end of the third turn and swung into the last lap. Rattler’s nose was scarce abreast the wheel of his rival’s sulky. Varunas never stopped yelling for an instant, but as every one else was doing the same thing it was harder to understand what he said. Esther was, although she did not know it, standing up in the dog-cart. Bob Griffin was standing beside her. Josiah Smalley, the youth entrusted with the care of the Townsend span, had forgotten his trust and was jumping up and down in the rear of the crowd.
The trotters passed the other end of the Circle and were swinging into the stretch. The finish was a matter of seconds. And then something happened. What it was Esther did not then know, but that it was serious there was no doubt, for the whole aspect of affairs changed in a flash.
From Claribel’s flank a black strip seemed to burst loose, to shoot into the air, to flap up and down. Her even trot faltered, changed to a jerky gallop. The yells of triumph from the Harniss contingent changed also—to groans, howls of warning, profane exclamations. Rattler was no longer a length behind; he was almost on even terms with the mare.
And then Varunas Gifford proved the stuff of which he was made. By main strength he pulled the frightened animal back into stride again. His whoops of triumph became soothing commands of encouragement. Claribel steadied, crept ahead once more, passed the line a winner—by not much, but a winner, nevertheless.
Esther screamed, clapped her hands and danced in the dog-cart. She was dimly conscious that Bob Griffin was dancing also and patting her on the back. Tom Doane and Frank Cahoon were performing one-legged jigs on the hubs of the wheels. The crowd was wild. And then the Townsend span, who, quite unnoticed had been dancing with the rest, started to run.
Doane and Cahoon fell to the ground, of course. Esther was thrown back to the seat; so was Bob Griffin. The crowd, those of its members standing nearest, scrambled headlong to avoid being hit or run over. The dog-cart bounced and rocked along the road.
It did not travel far. Young Griffin, beyond a startled grunt of surprise when the jerk threw him upon the seat, did not utter a word. He recovered his balance, leaned over the rocking dashboard, seized the trailing reins and, after a short struggle, pulled the horses to a walk and then to a standstill. Another moment and a dozen pair of hands were clutching at the bridles and voices were demanding to know if any one was hurt.
Doane and Cahoon were among the first to reach the carriage. When they learned that no harm had been done their elation at Claribel’s victory overcame all other feelings.
“We licked ’em, didn’t we, Esther,” crowed the exultant Thomas. “By thunder! I thought we were gone when that breeching broke. But we weren’t! Ho, ho! Pretty fair horses we have over here in Harniss; eh, Bob? And pretty good drivers, too!”
Griffin was out of breath, but laughing.
“Good enough!” he admitted. “Of course, I didn’t care who won. If it had been a Denboro horse now—”
Frank Cahoon’s derisive howl cut him short.
“Oh, no!” he shouted. “You didn’t care! Did you see him jumping up and down, Esther? Ho, ho! Say, Bob! What do you suppose your grandfather ’Lisha would have said if he’d seen you rooting for a Foster Townsend horse? Oh, ho! Why—”
He did not finish the sentence. The crowd behind him had parted. Foster Townsend himself was standing at his elbow. The great man was not as calmly dignified as usual. He was out of breath and his expression was one of alarm and anxiety. He pushed young Cahoon aside—as a matter of fact, Frank was only too eager to escape—and came to the side of the dog-cart.
“Are you all right, Esther?” he demanded, sharply. “Not hurt or anything?”
Esther was a little pale, but as much from the excitement of the race as from the short-lived runaway.
“Oh, not a bit, Uncle Foster,” she declared. “Not a bit, truly. I am all right.”
“Sure you are? That’s good. Where is that Smalley boy? I told him to look out for these horses. Where is he?”
Josiah was on his way home and not lingering by the way.
“Who stopped them after they started?” demanded Townsend. Hands and tongues indicated Griffin.
“Humph! I’m much obliged to you. You kept your head, I judge, and that is a lot.... Humph! You aren’t a Harniss boy, are you? What is your name?”
Bob hesitated. Esther supplied the information.
“He is Bob Griffin, Uncle Foster,” she said. “He lives in Denboro.”
There was a stir in the crowd, then a hush. Many of those present knew that Bob Griffin was Elisha Cook’s grandson. This meeting, under such circumstances, was momentous, it was epoch-making—something to be talked about at home, at the post office, everywhere. What would Foster Townsend say when he heard that name?
He said very little. “Griffin?” he repeated. “Oh!... Humph! Yes, yes. Well, my niece and I are much obliged to you.”
Bob, embarrassed, muttered that it was all right, he had not done anything.
“Well, you did it pretty well, from what I hear.... Now, Esther, we’ll go home. You needn’t worry. They won’t run away again, not when I’m at the wheel.... Young man, if you will get down from there, I’ll get up.”
Bob hastily climbed down from the dog-cart. Townsend took his place and the reins. Just then some one shouted his name and he turned. The shouter was Mr. Gifford. His gaudy cap was missing, the perspiration was dripping from his forehead and he was almost incoherent.
“Cap’n Foster!” he panted. “Cap’n Foster! I—I—I declare I don’t know how that britchin’ come to bust that way! It was a brand-new britchin’, too. I never expected nothin’ like that. I swear I was—I was—”
“Never mind. You can tell me about it later. You were lucky it didn’t lose the race.”
“I know it. I know it. But how can you foretell a thing like that? I never—well, when that bust—I—I—thinks I— Now I leave it to anybody—I leave it to you, Esther—you can’t foretell a brand-new britchin’ is goin’ to up and bust on ye, now can ye?”
The rest of his expostulations and excuses were unheard by the pair in the dog-cart. Foster Townsend had chirruped to the span and they were on their way to the mansion.
Esther was prepared for cross-examination by her uncle concerning her meeting with Bob Griffin. He would ask how the latter came to be sitting beside her in the dog-cart, how long she had known him, all sorts of things. He might even forbid her speaking to him when they met again. Her conscience was dear; the meeting had been quite unpremeditated, and, even if it were not—if she and Bob were friends—she saw no reason for behaving other than she had. She meant to say just that. Just because Bob’s grandfather and her uncle had quarreled was no reason why she should refuse to be decently polite to a person with whom she had no disagreement. She was neither a child nor a slave. She had consented to give her uncle a trial, to live with him, but he had not bought her, body and soul. If he did say—
But he did not. He asked questions, of course, but they were about the horses and the whereabouts of Josiah Smalley when they started to run. He seemed to blame himself more than any one else for the accident. His talk with Captain Ben Snow had delayed him, he said, then came the start of the race and he had forgotten everything else—including her.
“I’m glad some one with a cool head was on hand to pick up those reins,” he declared. “It might have been a nasty mess if the team had really got under way. I’m thankful it was no worse. And we, both of us, ought to be grateful to that boy.”
That was his sole reference to the Cook grandson. Esther’s apprehensions were not realized and her ruffled feathers relaxed. The remainder of the conversation was a mutual glorification over the result of the trotting match.
“After all,” he chuckled, as they drove up at the side door, “Varunas had it right when he said they can’t beat us Townsends. Eh, Esther?”
Esther nodded gleefully. “Indeed they can’t, Uncle Foster!” she agreed. She was proud of the name. It was splendid to be a Townsend.
That evening, after she had gone up to bed, the chieftain of the Townsend clan spent several hours in the leather easy-chair thinking and planning. Here was a new and unforeseen complication, one which, he now realized, was certain to be followed by more of the same variety. He should have foreseen it, of course. It was as natural as life, it was what made life. Esther was a pretty, attractive girl. She was bound to attract masculine admiration. As she grew older there would be more of them and the consequent complications were serious. He could not prevent that, therefore he must see to it that her associates were of the right kind. She must have friends—yes; but if he undertook to select some and forbid others there would be trouble. In Harniss the social circle was limited and its boundaries not very clearly defined. If she could be taken away from there, put under careful supervision somewhere else, kept interested in other things, until she was old enough and sufficiently accustomed to the privileges of wealth and station, to judge more clearly—then—humph! But where—and how?
The clock struck twelve and he had reached no satisfactory solution. Whatever was done must be done with diplomacy. The light hand on the rein must continue light for a long time to come. The colt was still a colt—and skittish.
It was the singing teacher who, quite unconsciously, gave him a clue. Mr. Gott came next day, at Townsend’s command, to talk over the matter of Esther’s musical education. He was surprisingly self-abnegating and honestly outspoken.
“I can teach her about so much, Cap’n Townsend,” he said, “but she can go a whole lot farther than that if she has the chance. I’m about as good in my line as anybody in Harniss—yes, or Ostable County—if I do say so, but I don’t claim to be as good as the folks up to Boston. They are paid bigger rates than I am and they can afford to spend more time keeping abreast of their job. If I didn’t have to quit music teaching every little while to help run somebody’s funeral I might get ahead faster. If nobody died—but there! if they didn’t die I would. I’d starve to death if I had to live on what I make learning folks to play piano and sing in this town.”
This frank statement gave Foster Townsend the idea he had been seeking. He wrote to an acquaintance who lived in Boston. This acquaintance was the widow of a former clerk in the office of Cook and Townsend, occupied a small house in the Roxbury district and occasionally “let rooms” or even took a boarder, provided the latter’s credentials were of the best. And this widow was under heavy obligations for financial favors extended by her late husband’s employer. The reply he received was satisfactory. Yes, indeed, the lady would be only too delighted to provide food and shelter for her benefactor’s niece. “If she comes to me I shall look out for her as if she was my own daughter. You may be sure of that.” Townsend’s answer was brief. “I shall expect you to be sure of it,” he wrote.
Then he wrote to the head of the New England Conservatory of Music. When all these preliminaries were settled he took the matter up, not with Esther herself, but with her aunt.
Reliance listened to the plan with evident interest but in silence.
“So there it is,” concluded Townsend. “The girl has got a good voice, so everybody says. So good that it would be a shame not to give it every chance to be better. You can’t do that down here. She can study at the Conservatory and stay with this Carter woman from Monday till Friday. Jane Carter is a good woman, strict and church-going and all that; she comes of a first-class Boston family who stick by her even if she is a poor relation. Humph!” he added, with an amazed grunt, “you’d think Cap’n John Hancock and Commodore Winthrop and the rest of ’em were her brothers and sisters to hear her talk sometimes. She puts up with my fo’castle manners because she has to, but I always feel as if I was King Solomon’s bos’n calling on the Queen of Sheba when I go into that house. Funny, isn’t it?... Well, Esther will be kept in the straight and narrow path while she is there—and there will be nobody but bluebloods allowed in the path with her. And Saturdays and Sundays, of course—and vacations—she will be down here with me—with us. What do you think of the scheme, Reliance?”
Reliance said she thought well of it. “It will be a wonderful thing for Esther,” she declared. “But it will be a little hard for you, I should think. You got her up to your house because you were lonesome. Now you are goin’ to send her somewhere else. What is the matter? Isn’t your first notion workin’ out as well as you expected?”
He jingled the change in his pocket.
“No trouble so far as I’m concerned,” he said. “She’s a good girl and a clever girl and I want her to have every chance that belongs to her. I am thinking of her, not of myself.... Now what are you shaking your head about? Don’t you believe me?”
Reliance smiled.
“It is a little bit hard for me to believe you aren’t thinkin’ of yourself some, Foster,” she said.
“What do you mean by that?” indignantly. “Where do I come in on the deal? Do you suppose I want to get rid of her? She’s mine now and I want her to stay mine. Don’t talk like a fool, woman.”
Miss Clark was still smiling. “The surest way to get anything out of you, Foster,” she observed, “is to stir you up. I learned that long ago.”
“Is that so? Well, what do you think you’ve got out of me now? I’ve told you the truth and nothing else.”
“There, there! I don’t doubt a word you’ve told me. Of course you want Esther to be yours and stay yours. I don’t blame you for that. And the surest and quickest way to bring that around is to put her where there won’t be so many reminders of the times when she was somebody else’s. I should probably do the same thing, if I were you.”
“Look here, Reliance!... Oh, well! what’s the use? I thought you had more sense. You’re jealous, that’s what ails you.”
“Am I? Well, I guess I am, a little.”
“I guess you are, too. If you feel that way why did you tell her to come with me in the first place?”
“I told her to come because I knew she ought to, for her own sake.”
“Yes, and I’m sending her to Boston to study music for the same reason. If you think I’m sending her off, making myself a darned sight lonesomer than I was before, because I want to get her out of your way you’re flattering yourself.”
“Then whose way are you getting her out of?... Well, well, never mind! I think it’s a fine opportunity for Esther. She ought to go, and I shall tell her she must. That is what you came here to ask me to do, of course.”
He was having his own way once more and his good humor returned.
“That is settled then,” he said. “I’m much obliged to you, Reliance. You can generally be counted on to see a light—after you’ve had the fun of arguing that there isn’t any to see. You and I will have to keep each other company while the girl’s away. When I get too lonesome I shall be dropping in here to pick a fight with you. There will always be one waiting to be picked, I can see that. You and Millard better come up to dinner again next Sunday. Esther likes to have you.”
That evening he told his niece of the great plan. He was prepared for objections but there were none worth mentioning. Esther was too dazzled by the brilliant picture and its possibilities to remember that it meant leaving her new home and Harniss and her Aunt Reliance. Her uncle dwelt upon the future and its marvelous promise of a career.
“If what all hands say about your voice is true,” he declared, “you can climb high, Esther. We’ll start you there at the Conservatory and, when you’ve learned all they can teach you, we’ll go somewhere else where you can learn more. I understand that Paris is the place where they teach the top-notchers. All right; I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve been to Havre and Marseilles and those ports, of course, but Paris was a little too expensive a side trip for a second mate. We’ll go there together, two or three years from now—oh, yes, we will! And maybe some other places before then—on your summer vacations, you know. I haven’t been to San Francisco since I was twenty-two. We’ll go out there—maybe next summer—just to get me used to cruising again. What do you say to that?”
She was too overcome to say much. And during the remainder of the week he took pains to keep new pictures constantly before her eyes. On Sunday, when, after dinner, she bade farewell to her aunt, there was a temporary let down in her high spirits, but Reliance refused to consider the parting in the least a serious matter.
“Why, you’ll be here every Saturday and Sunday, dearie,” she said. “And all summer. You and I will see each other almost as often as we do now. Don’t let your Uncle Foster see you cryin’. Goodness knows there is nothin’ to cry about!”
Monday morning she and Townsend took the early train for Boston. He went with her to the Carter house and Esther liked its white-haired, soft-voiced proprietor at first sight. The next “port of call”—as her uncle termed it—was the Conservatory. She was thrilled by that. Then followed a marvelous shopping tour, piloted by Mrs. Carter, with purchases of gowns and hats and shoes—all sorts of necessities and luxuries. Townsend returned to Harniss on the evening train. His good-by was brief and gruffly spoken, but Esther had a feeling that he was as loath to leave her as she was, just then, to be left. He cleared his throat, started to speak, cleared his throat again and then laid his big hand on her shoulder.
“Be a good girl,” he said. “Work hard and make us proud of you. I’ll be at the depot Saturday noon to meet you.... Humph! Well, I guess that’s all. Good-by.”
He strode off down the street. She turned back into the house, feeling like a marooned sailor upon a desert island, with the ship which had left her there disappearing below the horizon. All her resolution was needed to prevent her running after him and begging to be taken home again. If she had it is by no means certain that he would not have done it. The library, which had begun to seem almost a pleasant place again, would now be lonelier than ever. Saturday looked a long way off.
All that winter she studied hard, making progress, earning praise from her teachers and learning to use her really pleasing voice to better advantage. She soon grew accustomed to the new life and to enjoy it. She made new friends, young friends, and Jane Carter was careful that they should be, as Foster Townsend had especially directed, “of the right kind.” Each week-end she spent at home in the big house at Harniss. Usually, although not always, Miss Clark and Millard took Sunday dinner there. When, in June, the term ended she came back to be greeted with the news that she and her uncle were really going to California. The tickets had been purchased and they were to start in a few days.
That was a glorious summer, spent amid scenes which turned to realities the pictures in the geographies and books of travel. Foster Townsend was a very satisfactory traveling companion. She had but to mention a wish to visit some new locality and her wish was granted. She had learned to like him long before, now she loved him. As for him, he was happier than he had been for years. He never would have admitted it, but this charming, talented niece of his was now his sincerest, his chief interest. Even the great lawsuit, dragging its eternal length along between one set of lawyers who prodded it on to the Supreme Court and another set who held it back, was secondary. When in his native town he was, of course, still active in politics and local affairs, but Varunas complained that the beloved trotters were neglected more than they ought to be.
“About all the old man lives for nowadays,” vowed Mr. Gifford, “is Saturdays and Sundays. He’s either talkin’ about what happened last Sunday or what’s goin’ to happen next Sunday. I told him—last Tuesday, ’twas—that Claribel acted to me as if she’d strained her off foreleg. What do you cal’late he said? ‘Hum!’ says he, ‘did I tell you what the head of the Conservatory said last time I was up there? Said she had as promisin’ a suppranner as he’d heard since he commenced teachin’.’ What do you think of that for Foster Townsend to say when he had a lame mare on his hands? A year ago and he’d have cussed me from keel to main truck for lettin’ the mare get that way. Now if she’d broke her neck he wouldn’t have cared so long as Esther’s suppranner wan’t cracked. Well, she is a smart girl, but she can’t do 2.18 around a mile track. Bah!”
The second winter in Boston was more wonderful than the first. Esther was becoming accustomed to being a rich young woman and the perquisites of such a position. The city friends were agreeable, occasional evenings at concerts, the theater and even the opera less of a marvelous novelty than at first, although not less enjoyable. She enjoyed the week-ends at Harniss also, but she no longer looked forward to them as oases in a desert of homesickness. She saw her Aunt Reliance and Millard less frequently, not from design, but because her Uncle Foster had always so many plans for those week-ends that she had scarce time to run down to the cottage or the millinery shop. She was less eager to hear the village gossip, less interested in the doings of the townspeople. She heard scraps of it occasionally, of course. Frank Cahoon was at home again, the Boston firm of shipping merchants having decided to risk continuing in business without his valuable aid. Once Millard happened to mention the incident of the runaway and it reminded him of young Griffin.
“He’s gone to New York to study paintin’, I understand,” said Mr. Clark. “Not house paintin’—no, no, he could learn that just as well or better in Denboro. He’s set on paintin’ pictures, so a Denboro feller told me. Old ’Lisha Cook, his grand-dad, was down on the notion, says he never saw a picture yet that was worth the nail to hang it on, nor a picture painter that was fit for much but hangin’. He wanted Bob to stick to college—he was up to Yale, or some such place. However, the boy had some money of his own—left him by his father’s folks, they say—so ’Lisha didn’t feel he could stand in the way of his spendin’ it even on craziness. ‘Let him daub till he daubs away his last dollar,’ says the old man. ‘Then maybe he’ll be willin’ to go to work at somethin’ sensible.’”
The mention of her rescuer’s name caused Esther a momentary thrill of interest. For a month or two after the eventful afternoon of the horse trot she had thought of Bob Griffin a good deal. He was a good-looking youth and he had—well, perhaps not saved her life, exactly, like the hero of a story—but his handling of the runaway span had been almost, if not quite, heroic. At any rate it was the nearest thing to heroism she had known. There was a romantic tinge to the whole affair which was pleasing to remember and she had remembered it for a time. Of late, however, there had been other near romances. There was a young fellow at the Conservatory who was nice—very nice; and still another who would have called if Mrs. Carter had permitted masculine callers. Bob’s romance was a thing of the distant past. It happened when she was a girl in the country. Now she was a city young lady with, or so every one prophesied, a career before her. It interested her to know that Bob Griffin was also seeking a career, but the interest was vague and casual.
Foster Townsend was, by this time, entirely satisfied with his handling of the skittish colt. She was well on the way to becoming the stylish and properly paced animal he had set out to make her. It gratified him to notice that she now turned to him for advice and guidance more than to Reliance Clark. He had announced his intention of making her his entirely. He had done it. Life was worth while, after all. If Arabella did know what was going on in this mortal world he was sure she must approve. The inevitable male was always in the offing, of course. Some day the right man would appear. The certainty no longer worried him. Now, he felt sure, Esther would not presume to choose that man without his help. She was high-spirited still and required careful handling, but she was “trotting in harness” and he held the reins.