Graham did not seem to forget his friends entirely while he was gone. The boys received a number of post-cards from time to time, and a lot of fine views of California, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon, and other spots of interest. A wonderful picture-book came for Doris, with Chinese pictures, and rhymes printed on crêpe paper. The next morning a tiny sandalwood fan arrived for Carol with Graham's compliments, and a few days later a big box of oranges for Mrs. Hollister with no clew whatever as to their sender. Shirley began to wonder what her part would be and what she should do about it, and presently received—a letter! And then, after all, it was only a pleasant request that she would not pay the rent, about which she had always been so punctual, until his return, as no one else understood about his affairs. He added a few words about his pleasant trip and a wish that they were all prospering,—and that was all.
Shirley was disappointed, of course, and yet, if he had said more, or if he had ventured to send her even a mere trifle of a gift, it would have made her uncomfortable and set her questioning how she should treat him and it. It was the perfection of his behavior that he had not overstepped a single bound that the most particular might set for a landlord and his respected tenant. She drew a deep sigh and put the letter back into the envelope, and as she did so she spied a small card, smaller than the envelope, on which was an exquisite bit of scenery, a colored photograph, apparently, and underneath had been pencilled, "One of the many beautiful spots in California that I am sure you would appreciate."
Her heart gave an unforbidden leap, and was promptly taken to task for it. Yet when Shirley went back to her typewriter the bit of a picture was pinned to the wall back of her desk, and her eyes rested on it many times that day when she lifted them from her work. It is questionable whether Shirley remembered Miss Harriet Hale at all that day.
The garden was growing beautifully now. There would soon be lettuce and radishes ready to eat. George had secured a number of customers through people at the store, and was planning to take early trips to town, when his produce was ripe, to deliver it. They watched every night and looked again every morning for signs of the first pea blossoms, and the little green spires of onion tops, like sparse hairs, beginning to shoot up. Every day brought some new wonder. They almost forgot they had ever lived in the little old brick house, until George rode by there on his bicycle one noon and reported that it had been half pulled down, and you could now see the outline of where the stairs and closets had been, done in plaster, on the side of the next house. They were all very silent for a minute thinking after he told that, and Mrs. Hollister looked around the great airy place in which they were sitting, and then out the open door where the faint stain of sunset was still lingering against the horizon, and said:
"We ought all to be very thankful, children. George, get the Bible and read the thirty-fourth psalm." Wonderingly George obeyed, and they all sat listening as the words sank into their souls.
"Now," said the mother when the psalm was finished and those last words, "The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate"; "now let us kneel down and thank Him."
And they all knelt while she prayed a few earnest, simple words of thanksgiving and commended them to God's keeping.
By this time Mrs. Hollister was so well that she went every day for a little while into the garden and worked, and was able to do a great deal in the house. The children were overjoyed, and lived in a continual trance of delight over the wild, free life they were living. Carol's school had closed and Carol was at home all day. This made one more to help in the garden. George was talking about building a little pigeon-house and raising squabs for sale. The man who did the ploughing had given him a couple to start with and told him there was money in squabs if one only went about it right. George and Harley pored over a book that told all about it, and talked much on the subject.
The weather was growing warm, and Shirley was wishing her vacation came in July or August instead of the first two weeks in September. Somehow she felt so used up these hot days, and the hours dragged by so slowly. At night the trolleys were crowded until they were half-way out to Glenside. She often had to stand, and her head ached a great deal. Yet she was very happy and thankful—only there was so much to be done in this world, and she seemed to have so little strength to do it all. The burden of next fall came occasionally to mar the beauty of the summer, and rested heavily upon her young shoulders. If only there wouldn't be any winter for just one year, and they could stay in the barn and get rested and get a little money ahead somehow for moving. It was going to be so hard to leave that wide, beautiful abiding-place, barn though it was.
One morning nearly four weeks after Graham left for California Shirley was called from her desk to the outer office to take some dictation for Mr. Clegg. While she was there two men entered the outer office and asked for Mr. Barnard. One of them was a short, thick-set man with a pretentious wide gray mustache parted in the middle and combed elaborately out on his cheeks. He had a red face, little cunning eyes, and a cruel set to his jaw, which somehow seemed ridiculously at variance with his loud, checked suit, sporty necktie of soft bright blue satin, set with a scarf-pin of two magnificent stones, a diamond and a sapphire, and with the three showy jewelled rings which he wore on his fat, pudgy hand. The other man was sly, quiet, gray, unobtrusive, obviously the henchman of the first.
Mr. Clegg told the men they might go into the inner office and wait for Mr. Barnard, who would probably be in shortly, and Shirley watched them as they passed out of her view, wondering idly why those exquisite stones had to be wasted in such an out-of-place spot as in that coarse-looking man's necktie, and if a man like that really cared for beautiful things, else why should he wear them? It was only a passing thought, and then she took up her pencil and took down the closing sentences of the letter Mr. Clegg was dictating. It was but a moment more and she was free to go back to her own little alcove just behind Mr. Barnard's office and connecting with it. There was an entrance to it from the tiny cloak-room, which she always used when Mr. Barnard had visitors in his office, and through this way she now went, having a strange repugnance toward being seen by the two men. She had an innate sense that the man with the gaudy garments would not be one who would treat a young girl in her position with any respect, and she did not care to come under his coarse gaze, so she slipped in quietly through the cloak-room, and passed like a shadow the open door into Mr. Barnard's office, where they sat with their backs toward her, having evidently just settled down and begun to talk. She could hear a low-breathed comment on the furnishings of the office as indicating a good bank-account of the owner, and a coarse jest about a photograph of Mr. Barnard's wife which stood on his desk. It made her wish that the door between the rooms was closed; yet she did not care to rise and close it lest she should call attention to herself, and of course it might be but a minute or two before Mr. Barnard returned. A pile of envelopes to be addressed lay on her desk, and this work she could do without any noise, so she slipped softly into her seat and began to work.
"Well, we got them Grahams good and fast now!" a coarse voice, that she knew for that of the man with the loud clothing, spoke. "The young feller bit all right! I thought he would. He's that kind." He stopped for a laugh of contempt, and Shirley's heart stood still with apprehension. What could it mean? Was it something about her Grahams? Some danger threatening them? Some game being played on them? He looked like the kind of man who lived on the blindnesses of others. What was it they called such? A parasite? Instinctively she was on the alert at once, and automatically she reached for the pad on which she took dictation and began to write down in shorthand what she had just heard. The voice in the other room went on and her fountain pen kept eager pace, her breath coming quick and short now, and her face white with excitement.
"He went out to see the place, you know, examine the mines and all that. Oh, he's awful cautious! Thought he took a government expert with him to test the ore. We fixed that up all right—had the very man on tap at the right minute, government papers all O.K.—you couldn't have told 'em from the real thing. It was Casey; you know him; he's a crackerjack on a job like that,—could fool the devil himself. Well, he swore it was the finest kind of ore and all that kind of dope, and led that Graham kid around as sweetly as a blue-eyed baby. We had a gang out there all bribed, you know, to swear to things, and took particular pains so Graham would go around and ask the right ones questions,—Casey tended to that,—and now he's come home with the biggest kind of a tale and ready to boost the thing to the skies. I've got his word for it, and his daddy is to sign the papers this morning. When he wakes up one of these fine days he'll find himself minus a hundred thousand or so, and nobody to blame for it, because how could anybody be expected to know that those are only pockets? He'll recommend it right and left too, and we'll clean out a lot of other fellers before we get done. Teddy, my boy, pat yourself on the back! We'll have a tidy little sum between us when we pull out of this deal, and take a foreign trip for our health till the fracas blows over. Now mind you, not a word of this to Barnard when he comes in. We're only going to pave the way this morning. The real tip comes from Graham himself. See?"
Shirley was faint and dizzy with excitement as she finished writing, and her brain was in a whirl. She felt as if she would scream in a minute if this strain kept up. The papers were to be signed that morning! Even now the deed might be done and it would be too late, perhaps, to stop it. And yet she must make no sign, must not have the men know that she was there and that they had been heard. She must sit here breathless until they were gone, so they would not know she had overheard them, or they might manage to prevent her getting word to Graham. How long would they stay? Would they talk on and reveal more? The other man had only grunted something unintelligible in reply, and then before more could be said an office boy opened the outer door and told them that Mr. Barnard had just phoned that he would not be back before two o'clock.
The men swore and went out grumbling. Suddenly Shirley knew her time had come to do something. Stepping quickly to the door she scanned the room carefully to make sure they were gone, then closing her own door she took up the telephone on her desk and called up the Graham number. She did not know just what she meant to say, nor what she would do if Sidney Graham were not in the office,—and it was hardly probable he would be there yet if he had only arrived home the day before. He would be likely to take a day off before getting back to work. Her throbbing heart beat out these questions to her brain while she waited for the number. Would she dare to ask for Mr. Walter Graham? And if she did, what would she say to him? How explain? He did not know her, and probably never heard of her. He might think her crazy. Then there was always the possibility that there was some mistake—and yet it seemed a coincidence that two men of the same name should both be going West at that time. It must be these Grahams that the plot was against. But how explain enough over the phone to do any good? Of course she must give them a copy of what she had taken down in shorthand, but first she must stop the signing of those papers, whatever they were, at all costs.
Then all at once, into the midst of her whirling confusion of thoughts, came a voice at the other end of the phone, "Hello!" and her frantic senses realized that it was a familiar one.
"Oh, is this,—this is Mr. Sidney Graham, isn't it? This is Shirley Hollister."
There was a catch in her voice that sounded almost like a sob as she drew in her breath with relief to know that he was there, and his answer came in swift alarm:
"Yes? Is there anything the matter, Miss Shirley? You are not ill, are you?"
There was a sharp note of anxiety in the young man's voice, and even in her excitement it made Shirley's heart leap to hear it.
"No, there is nothing the matter with me," she said, trying to steady her voice, "but something has happened that I think you ought to know at once. I don't know whether I ought to tell it over the phone. I'm not sure but I may be overheard."
"I will come to you immediately. Where can I find you?"
Her heart leaped again at his willingness to trust her and to obey her call.
"In Mr. Barnard's private office. If you ask for me they will let you come right in. There is one thing more. If there is anything important your father was to decide this morning, could you get him to wait till you return, or till you phone him?"
There was a second's hesitation, and the reply was politely puzzled but courteous:
"He is not in the office at present and will not be for an hour."
"Oh, I'm so glad! Then please hurry!"
"I will get there as soon as I can," and the phone clicked into place.
Shirley sat back in her chair and pressed her hands over her eyes to concentrate all her powers. Then she turned to her typewriter and began to copy off the shorthand, her fingers flying over the keys with more than their usual swiftness. As she wrote she prayed, prayed that nothing might have been signed, and that her warning might not come too late; prayed, too, that Mr. Barnard might not return until Mr. Graham had been and gone, and that Mr. Graham might not think her an utter fool in case this proved to have nothing whatever to do with his affairs.