RAINES is my name—Joseph Raines. I am a house-builder by profession, and as I do not often see my writings in print, except as prepaid advertisements, I consider this a good opportunity to say to the public in general that I can build as good a house for a given sum of money as any other builder, and that I am a square man to deal with. I am aware of the fact that both of these assertions have been made by many other persons about themselves; but to prove their trustworthiness when uttered by me, the public needs only to give me a trial. (In justice to other builders, I must admit they can use even this last statement of mine with perfect safety for the present, and with prospective profit if they get a contract to build a house.)
I suppose it will be considered very presumptuous in me to attempt to write a story, for, while some professions seem relatives of literature, I freely admit that there is no carpenter’s tool which prepares one to handle a pen. To be sure, I have read some stories which, it seemed to me, could have been improved by the judicious use of a handsaw, had that extremely radical tool been able to work æsthetically as it does practically; and while I have read certain other stories, and essays, and poems, I have been tormented by an intense desire to apply to them a smoothing-plane, a pair of compasses, or a square, or even to so far interfere with their arrangement as to cut a window-hole or two, and an occasional ventilator. Still, admitting that the carpenter should stick to his bench—or to his office or carriage, if he is a master builder, as I am—I must yet insist that there are occasions when a man is absolutely compelled to handle tools to which he is not accustomed. Doctor Buzzle, my own revered pastor, established this principle firmly in my mind one day by means of a mild rebuke, administered on the occasion of my volunteering to repair some old chairs which had come down to him through several generations. The doctor was at work upon them himself, and although he seemed to regard the very chips and sawdust—even such as found a way into his eyes—with a reverent affection, he was certainly ruining good material in a shocking manner. But when I proffered my assistance, he replied:
“Thank you, Joseph; but—they wouldn’t be the same chairs if any one else touched them.”
I feel similarly about the matter of my story—perhaps you will understand why as you read it.
When I had finished my apprenticeship, people seemed to like me, and some of our principal men advised me to stay at Bartley, my native village—it was so near the city, they said, and would soon fill up with city people, who would want villas and cottages built. So I staid, and between small jobs of repairing, and contracts to build fences, stables and carriage-houses, I managed to keep myself busy, and to save a little money after I had paid my bills.
One day it was understood that a gentleman from the city had bought a villa site overlooking the town, and intended to build very soon. I immediately wrote him a note, saying I would be glad to see his plans and make an estimate; and in the course of time the plans were sent me, and I am happy to say that I under-estimated every one, even my own old employer.
Then the gentleman—Markson his name was—drove out to see me, and he put me through a severe course of questions, until I wondered if he was not some distinguished architect. But he wasn’t—he was a shipping-merchant. It’s certainly astonishing how smart some of those city fellows are about everything.
The upshot was, he gave me the contract, and a very pretty one it was: ten thousand three hundred and forty dollars. To be sure, he made me alter the specifications so that the sills should be of stuff ten inches square, instead of the thin stuff we usually use for the sills of balloon-frame houses, such as his was to be; and though the alteration would add quite a few dollars to the cost of materials, I did not dare to add a cent to my estimate, for fear of losing the contract. Besides—though, of course, I did not intend to do so dishonorable a thing—I knew that I could easily make up the difference by using cheap paint instead of good English lead for priming, or in either one of a dozen other ways; builders have such tricks, just as ministers and manufacturers and railroadmen do.
I felt considerably stuck up at getting Markson’s house to build, and my friends said I had a perfect right to feel so, for no house so costly had been built at Bartley for several years.
So anxious were my friends that I should make a first-class job of it, that they all dropped in to discuss the plan with me, and to give me some advice, until—thanks to their thoughtful kindness—my head would have been in a muddle had the contemplated structure been a cheap barn instead of a costly villa.
But, by a careful review of the original plan every night after my friends departed, and a thoughtful study of it each morning before going to work, I succeeded in completing it according to the ideas of the only two persons really concerned—I refer to Mr. Markson and myself.
Admitting in advance that there is in the house-building business very little that teaches a man to be a literary critic, I must nevertheless say that many poets of ancient and modern times might have found the building of a house a far more inspiring theme than some upon which they have written, and even a more respectable one than certain others which some distinguished rhymers have unfortunately selected.
I have always wondered why, after Mr. Longfellow wrote “The Building of a Ship,” some one did not exercise his muse upon a house. I never attempted poetry myself, except upon my first baby, and even those verses I transcribed with my left hand, so they might not betray me to the editor of the Bartley Conservator, to whom I sent them, and by whom they were published.
I say I never attempted poetry-writing save once; but sometimes when I am working on a house, and think of all that must transpire within it—of the precious ones who will escape, no matter how strongly I build the walls; of the destroyer who will get in, in spite of the improved locks I put on all my houses; of the darkness which cannot at times be dispelled, no matter how large the windows, nor how perfect the glass may be (I am very particular about the glass I put in); of the occasional joys which seem meet for heavenly mansions not built by contract; of the unseen heroisms greater than any that men have ever cheered, and the conquests in comparison with which the achievements of mighty kings are only as splintery hemlock to Georgia pine—when I think of all this, I am so lifted above all that is prosaic and matter-of-fact, that I am likely even to forget that I am working by contract instead of by the day.
Besides, Markson’s house was my first job on a residence, and it was a large one, and I was young, and full of what I fancied were original ideas of taste and effect; and as I was unmarried, and without any special lady friend, I was completely absorbed in Markson’s house.
How it would look when it was finished; what views it would command; whether its architectural style was not rather subdued, considering the picturesque old hemlocks which stood near by; what particular shade of color would be effective alike to the distant observer and to those who stood close by when the light reached it only through the green of the hemlock; just what color and blending of slate to select, so the steep-pitched roof should not impart a sombre effect to the whole house; how much money I would make on it (for this is a matter of utter uncertainty until your work is done, and you know what you’ve paid out and what you get); whether Markson could influence his friends in my favor; what sort of a family he had, and whether they were worthy of the extra pains I was taking on their house—these and a thousand other wonderings and reveries kept possession of my mind; while the natural pride and hope and confidence of a young man turned to sweet music the sound of saw and hammer and trowel, and even translated the rustling of pine shavings with hopeful whispers.
The foundations had been laid, and the sills placed in position, and I was expecting to go on with the work as soon as Markson himself had inspected the sills—this, he said, he wished to do before anything further was done; and, so that he might not have any fault to find with them, I had them sawn to order, and made half an inch larger each way, so they couldn’t possibly shrink before he could measure them.
The night before he was to come up and examine them, I was struck at the supper-table by the idea that perhaps, from one of the western chamber-windows, there might be seen the river which lay, between the hills, a couple of miles beyond. As the moon was up and full, I could not rest until I had ascertained whether I was right or wrong; so I put a twenty-foot tapeline in my pocket, and hurried off to the hill where the house was to stand.
Foundation three feet, height of parlor ceilings twelve feet, allow for floors two feet more, made the chamber-floor seventeen feet above the level of the ground.
Climbing one of the hemlocks which I thought must be in line with the river and the window, I dropped my line until I had unrolled seventeen feet, and then ascended until the end of the line just touched the ground. I found I was right in my supposition; and in the clear, mellow light of the moon the river, the hills and valleys, woods, fields, orchards, houses and rocks (the latter ugly enough by daylight, and utterly useless for building purposes) made a picture which set me thinking of a great many exquisite things entirely out of the house-building line.
I might have stared till the moon went down, for when I’ve nothing else to do I dearly enjoy dreaming with my eyes open; but I heard a rustling in the leaves a little way off, and then I heard footsteps, and then, looking downward, I saw a man come up the path, and stop under the tree in which I was.
Of course I wondered what he wanted; I should have done so, even if I had had no business there myself; but under the circumstances, I became very much excited.
Who could it be? Perhaps some rival builder, come to take revenge by setting my lumber afire! I would go down and reason with him. But, wait a moment; if he has come for that purpose, he may make things uncomfortable for me before I reach the ground. And if he sets the lumber afire, and it catches the tree I am in, as it will certainly do, I will be——
There is no knowing what sort of a quandary I might not have got into if the man had not stepped out into the moonlight, and up on the sills, and shown himself to be—Mr. Markson.
“Well,” I thought, “you are the most particular man I ever knew—and the most anxious! I don’t know, though—it’s natural enough; if I can’t keep away from this house, it’s not strange that he should want to see all of it he can. It’s natural enough, and it does him credit.”
But Mr. Markson’s next action was neither natural nor to his credit. He took off his traveling shawl, and disclosed a carpenter’s brace; this and the shawl he laid on the ground, and then he examined the sills at the corners, where they were joined.
They were only half joined, as we say in the trade—that is, the ends of each piece of timber were sawn half through and the partially detached portions cut out, so that the ends lapped over each other.
Well, Mr. Markson hastily stacked up bricks and boards to the height of the foundation, and then made a similar stack at the other end of the foundation-wall, and then he rolled one of the sills over on these two supports, so it was bottom side up. Then he fitted a bit—a good wide one, an inch and a quarter, at least, I should say—to the brace, and then commenced boring a hole in the sill.
I was astonished, but not too much so to be angry. That piece of timber was mine; Mr. Markson had not paid me a cent yet, and was not to do so until the next morning, after examining the foundations and sills.
I had heard of such tricks before; my old employer had had men secretly injure a building, so as to claim it was not built according to contract when the money came due, but none of them did it so early in the course of the business.
Within a few seconds my opinion of Mr. Markson’s smartness altered greatly, and so did my opinion of human nature in general. I would have sadly, but promptly sold out my contract with Mr. Markson for the price of a ticket for the West, and I should have taken the first train.
As he bored that hole I could see just how all the other builders in town would look when I had to take the law on Markson, and how all my friends would come and tell me I ought to have insisted on a payment in advance.
But, after several sorrowful moments had elapsed, I commenced to think, and I soon made up my mind what I would do. I would not descend from the tree while he was there—I have too much respect for my person to put it at the mercy of an ill-disposed individual. But as soon as he left the place, I would hasten to the ground, follow him, and demand an explanation. He might be armed, but I was, too—there were hard characters at Bartley, and they knew my pocketbook was sometimes full.
Hole after hole that man bored; he made one join another until he had a string of them ten inches long, or thereabouts; then he began another string, right beside the first, and then another.
HE KNELT ON THE GROUND BESIDES THE SILL, AND I COULD SEE THAT HE
WAS PRAYING.
I saw that his bit went but six or seven inches deep, so that it did not pierce the sill, and I could almost believe him in league with some rival builder to ruin my reputation by turning over, next morning, a log apparently sound, and showing it to be full of holes.
I didn’t feel any better-natured, either, when I noticed that he had carefully put a newspaper under where he was boring to catch all the chips, and destroy any idea of the mischief having been done wilfully and on the spot; but I determined I would follow him, and secure that paper of chips as evidence.
Suddenly he stopped boring, and took a chisel from somewhere about his clothes, and he soon chiseled that honeycombed spot into a single hole, about five inches by ten, and six or seven inches deep.
It slowly dawned over me that perhaps his purpose wasn’t malicious, after all; and by the time I had reasoned the matter he helped me to a conclusion by taking from his pocket a little flat package, which he put into the hole.
It looked as if it might be papers, or something the size of folded papers; but it was wrapped in something yellow and shiny—oil skin, probably, to keep it from the damp. Then he drove a few little nails inside the holes to keep the package from falling out when the sill was turned over; and then he did something which I never saw mixed with carpenter-work in my life—he stooped and kissed the package as it lay in the hole, and then he knelt on the ground beside the sill, and I could see by his face upturned in the moonlight, showing his closed eyes and moving lips, that he was praying.
Up to that moment I had been curious to know what was in that package; but after what I saw then, I never thought of it without wanting to utter a small prayer myself, though I never could decide what would be the appropriate thing to say, seeing I knew none of the circumstances. I am very particular not to give recommendations except where I am very sure the person I recommend is all right.
Well, Markson disappeared a moment or two after, first carefully replacing the sill, and carrying away the chips, and I got out of my tree, forgetting all about the view I had discovered; and the unexpected scene I had looked at ran in my mind so constantly that, during the night, I dreamed that Markson stood in the hemlock-tree, with a gigantic brace and bit, and bored holes in the hills beside the river, while I kneeled in the second story window-frame, and kissed my contract with Markson, and prayed that I might make a hundred thousand dollars out of it. It is perfectly astonishing what things a sensible man will sometimes dream.
Next morning I arrived at the building a few minutes before seven, and found Markson there before me. He expressed himself satisfied with everything, and paid me then and there a thousand dollars, which was due on acceptance of the work as far as then completed.
He hung around all day while we put up the post and studding—probably to see that the sill was not turned over and his secret disclosed; and it was with this idea that I set the studding first on his particular sill. By night we had the frame so near up, that there was no possibility of the sill being moved; and then Markson went away.
He came up often, after that, to see how his house was getting along. Each time he came he would saunter around to that particular sill, and when I noticed that he did this, I made some excuse to call the men away from that side of the house.
Sometimes he brought his family with him, and I scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry; for, while his daughter, a handsome, strong, bright, honest, golden-haired girl of fifteen or sixteen, always affected me as if she was a streak of sunshine, and made me hope I should some day have a daughter like her, his wife always affected me unpleasantly.
I am not a good physiognomist, but I notice most people resemble animals of some sort, and when I decide on what animal it is, in any particular case, I judge the person accordingly.
Now, Mrs. Markson—who was evidently her husband’s second wife, for she was too young to be Helen’s mother—was rather handsome and extremely elegant, but neither manners nor dress could hide a certain tigerish expression which was always in her face. It was generally inactive, but it was never absent, and the rapidity with which it awoke once or twice when she disapproved something which was done or said, made me understand why Mr. Markson, who always seemed pleasant and genial with any one else, was quite silent and guarded when his wife was with him.
Pretty soon the people of Bartley knew all about the Marksons. How people learn all about other people is more than I can explain. I never have a chance to know all about my neighbors, for I am kept busy in looking to myself; but if all the energy that is devoted to other people’s business in Bartley were expended on house-building, trade would soon be so dull that I should be longing for a mansion in the skies.
Everybody in Bartley knew that Helen Markson’s mother, who was very beautiful and lovable, had died years before, and that her stepmother had been Mrs. Markson only two or three years; that the second Mrs. Markson had married for money, and that her husband was afraid of her, and would run away from her if it wasn’t for Helen; that Mrs. Markson sometimes got angry, and then she raved like mad, and that it was wearing Mr. Markson’s life away; for he was a tender-hearted man, in spite of his smartness. Some even declared that Markson had willed her all his property, and insured his life heavily for her besides, and that if he died before Helen was married, Helen would be a beggar.
But none of these things had anything to do with my contract. I worked away and had good weather, so I lost no time, and at the end of five months I had finished the house, been paid for it, had paid my bills, and made a clear two thousand dollars on the job. I could have made a thousand more, without any one being the wiser for it, but I don’t build houses in that way—the public will greatly oblige me by cutting this out. This money gave me a handsome business start, and having had no serious losses, nor any houses thrown back upon my hands—(for I always make it a point to do a little better than I promise, so folks can’t find fault)—I am now quite well off, and building houses on my own account, to sell; while some of my competitors, who started before I did, have been through bankruptcy, while some have been too poor to do even that.
A few years after building Markson’s house, I went with a Southern friend into a black-walnut speculation. We bought land in the Southwest, cut the timber, got it to market, and made a handsome profit, I am glad to say. This business took me away from home, and kept me for months, but, as I was still without family ties, I did not suffer much during my absence. Still the old village seemed to take on a kind of motherly air as the stage, with me in it, rattled into town, and I was just dropping into a pleasant little reverie, when a carriage, which I recognized as Markson’s, dashed down the road, met us, and stopped, while the coachman shouted:
“Raines’s foreman says the old man’s coming home to-day.”
He meant me.
“Reckon his head was purty level,” replied the stage-driver, tossing his head backward toward me.
“Mr. Raines,” said the coachman, recognizing me, “Mr. Markson is awful sick—like to die any minute—an’ he wants to see you right away—wishes you wouldn’t wait for anything.”
What to make of it I didn’t know, and said so, upon which the stage-driver rather pettishly suggested that ’twouldn’t take long to find out if I got behind Markson’s team; and, as I agreed with him, I changed conveyances, and was soon at Markson’s house.
Helen met me at the door, and led me immediately to Markson’s chamber. The distance from the door of his room to the side of his bed couldn’t have been more than twenty feet, yet, in passing over it, it seemed to me that I imagined at least fifty reasons why the sick man had sent for me, but not one of the fifty was either sensible or satisfactory.
I was even foolish enough to imagine Markson’s conscience was troubled, and that he was going to pay me some money which he justly owed me, whereas he had paid me every cent, according to contract.
We reached his bedside before I had determined what it could be. Helen took his hand, and said:
“Father, here is Mr. Raines.”
Markson, who was lying motionless, with his face to the wall, turned quickly over and grasped my hand and beckoned me closer. I put my head down, and he whispered:
“I’m glad you’ve come; I want to ask you a favor—a dying man’s last request. You’re an honest man (N. B.—People intending to build will please make a note of this.—J. R.), I am sure, and I want you to help me do justice. You have seen my wife; she can be a tiger when she wants to. She married me for money; she thinks the will I made some time ago, leaving everything to her, is my last. But it is not. I’ve deceived her, for the sake of peace. I made one since, leaving the bulk of my property to Helen; it came to me through her dear mother. I know nobody to trust it with. Mrs. Markson can wrap almost any one around her finger when she tries, and——”
His breath began to fail, and the entrance of his wife did not seem to strengthen him any; but he finally regained it, and continued:
“She will try it with you; but you are cool as well as honest, I believe. I meant to tell Helen where the will was the day after I put it there; but she was so young—it seemed dreadful to let her know how cowardly her father was—how he feared her. Get it—get a good lawyer—see she has her rights. I put it—no one could suspect where—I put it— in—the——”
His breath failed him entirely, and he fixed his eyes on mine with an agonized expression which makes me shiver whenever I think of it. Suddenly his strange operation with that sill, of which I had not thought for a long time, came into my mind, and I whispered, quickly:
“In the sill of the house?”
His expression instantly changed to a very happy one, and yet he looked wonderstruck, which was natural enough.
“I saw you put it there,” said I. “But,” I continued, fearing the dying man might suspect me of spying, and so fear he had mistaken my character—“but I did not mean to——I was on the ground when you came there that evening; and when I saw what you were doing, I could not move for fear of disturbing you. I know where to find it, and I can swear you put it there.”
Markson closed his eyes, and never opened them again; and his last act, before going out of the world, was to give my hand a squeeze, which, under the circumstances, I could not help believing was an honest one.
As his hand relaxed, I felt that I had better give place to those who had a right to it, so I quietly retired. Helen fell on her knees by his bedside, but Mrs. Markson followed me out of the room.
“Mr. Raines,” said she, with a very pleasant smile for a woman widowed but a moment before, “what did my dear husband want?”
Now, I am an honest man and a Church-member—and I was one then, and believed in truth and straightforwardness just as much as I do now—but, somehow, when such a person speaks to me, I feel as if I were all of a sudden a velvet-pawed cat myself. So I answered, with the straightest of faces:
“Only to see to one of the sills of the house, ma’am, and he made me solemnly swear to do it right away. He was an extraordinary man, ma’am, to think of the good of his family up to the last moment.”
“Ah, yes, dear man!” said she, with a sigh which her face plainly showed came from nowhere deeper than her lips. “I hope it won’t take long, though,” she continued, “for I can’t endure noise in the house.”
“Not more than an hour,” I replied.
“Oh, I’m glad to hear it!” said she. “Perhaps, then, you might do it while we are at the funeral, day after to-morrow? We will be gone at least two hours.”
“Easily, ma’am,” said I, with my heart in my mouth at the idea of managing the matter so soon, and having the papers for Helen as soon as, in any sort of decency, Mrs. Markson would be likely to have the old will read.
For the rest of the day I was so absent-minded to everything except this business of Markson’s that my acquaintances remarked that, considering how long I had been gone, I didn’t seem very glad to see any one.
Finally I went to old Judge Bardlow, who was as true as steel, and told him the whole story, and he advised me to get the papers, and give them to him to examine. So, on the day of the funeral, I entered the house with a mallet and a mortizing chisel, and within fifteen minutes I had in my pocket the package Markson had put in the sill years before, and was hurrying to the judge’s office.
He informed me that Mrs. Markson’s lawyer, from the city, had called on him that very morning, and invited him to be present at the reading of the will in the afternoon, so he would be able to put things in proper shape at once.
I was more nervous all that day than I ever was in waiting to hear from an estimate. It was none of my business, to be sure; but I longed to see Mrs. Markson punished for the mischief which I and every one else believed she had done her husband; and I longed to see Helen, whom every one liked, triumph over her stepmother, who, still young and gay, was awfully jealous of Helen’s beauty and general attractiveness.
Finally the long day wore away, and an hour or two after the carriages returned from the funeral, the city lawyer called for the judge, and, at the judge’s suggestion, they both called for me.
We found Mrs. Markson and Helen, with some of Mrs. Markson’s relatives—Helen had not one in the world—in the parlor, Mrs. Markson looking extremely pretty in her neat-fitting suit of black, and Helen looking extremely disconsolate.
The judge, in a courtly, old-fashioned way, but with a good deal of heart for all that, expressed his sympathy for Helen, and I tried to say a kind word to her myself. To be sure, it was all praise of her father, whom I really respected very highly (aside from my having had my first contract from him), but she was large-hearted enough to like it all the better for that. I was still speaking to her when Mrs. Markson’s lawyer announced that he would read the last will and testament of the deceased; so, when she sat down on a sofa, I took a seat beside her.
The document was very brief. He left Helen the interest of twenty thousand dollars a year, the same to cease if she married; all the rest of the property he left to his wife. As the lawyer concluded, Helen’s face put on an expression of wonder and grief, succeeded by one of utter loneliness; while from Mrs. Markson’s eyes there flashed an exultant look that had so much of malignity in it that it made me understand the nature of Satan a great deal more clearly than any sermon ever made me do. Poor Helen tried to meet it with fearlessness and dignity, but she seemed to feel as if even her father had abandoned her, and she dropped her head and burst into tears.
I know it wasn’t the thing to do before company, but I took her hand and called her a poor girl, and begged her to keep a good heart, and trust that her father loved her truly, and that her wrongs would be righted at the proper time.
Being kind to my fellow-creatures is the biggest part of my religion, for it’s the part of religion I understand best; but even if I had been a heathen, I couldn’t have helped wishing well to a noble, handsome woman like Helen Markson. I tried to speak in a very low tone, but Mrs. Markson seemed to understand what I said, for she favored me with a look more malevolent than any I had ever received from my most impecunious debtor; the natural effect was to wake up all the old Adam there was in me, and to make me long for what was coming.
“May I ask the date of that will?” asked Judge Bardlow.
“Certainly, sir,” replied Mrs. Markson’s lawyer, handing the document to the judge. The judge looked at the date, handed the will back to the lawyer, and drew from his pocket an envelope.
“Here is a will made by Mr. Markson,” said the judge, “and dated three months later.”
Mrs. Markson started; her eyes flashed with a sort of fire which I hope I may never see again, and she caught her lower lip up between her teeth. The judge read the document as calmly as if it had been a mere supervisor’s notice, whereas it was different to the first will in every respect, for it gave to Helen all of his property, of every description, on condition that she paid to Mrs. Markson yearly the interest of twenty thousand dollars until death or marriage, “this being the amount,” as the will said, “that she assured me would be amply sufficient for my daughter under like circumstances.”
As the judge ceased reading, and folded the document, Mrs. Markson sprang at him as if she were a wild beast.
“Give it to me!” she screamed—hissed, rather; “’tis a vile, hateful forgery!”
“Madame,” said the judge, hastily putting the will in his pocket, and taking off his glasses, “that is a matter which the law wisely provides shall not be decided by interested parties. When I present it for probate——”
“I’ll break it!” interrupted Mrs. Markson, glaring, as my family cat does when a mouse is too quick for her.
Mrs. Markson’s lawyer asked permission to look at the newer will, which the judge granted. He looked carefully at the signature of Markson and the witnesses, and returned the document with a sigh.
“Don’t attempt it, madame—no use,” said he. “I know all the signatures; seen them a hundred times. I’m sorry, very—affects my pocket some, for it cuts some of my prospective fees, but—that will can’t be broken.”
Mrs. Markson turned, looked at Helen a second, and then dashed at her, as if “to scatter, tear and slay,” as the old funeral hymn says. Helen stumbled and cowered a little toward me, seeing which I—how on earth I came to do it I don’t know—put my arm around her, and looked indignantly at Mrs. Markson.
“You treacherous hussy!” said Mrs. Markson, stamping her foot—“you scheming little minx! I could kill you! I could tear you to pieces! I could drink your very heart’s blood—I could——”
What else she could do she was prevented from telling, for she fell into a fit, and was carried out rigid and foaming at the mouth.
I am generally sorry to see even wicked people suffer, but I wasn’t a bit sorry to see Mrs. Markson; for, while she was talking, poor Helen trembled so violently that it seemed to me she would be scared to death if her cruel stepmother talked much longer.
Two hours later Mrs. Markson, with all her relatives and personal effects, left the house, and six months afterward Mrs. Markson entrapped some other rich man into marrying her. She never tried to break Markson’s will.
As Helen was utterly ignorant of the existence of this new will until she heard it read, the judge explained to her where it came from; and as she was naturally anxious for all the particulars of its discovery, the judge sent me to her to tell her the whole story. So I dressed myself and drove down—for, though still under thirty, I was well off, and drove my own span—and told her of my interview with her father, on his deathbed, as well as of the scene on the night he hid the will.
As I told the latter part of the story a reverent, loving, self-forgetful look came into her face, and made her seem to me like an angel. As for myself, the recalling of the incident, now that I knew its sequel, prevented my keeping my eyes dry. I felt a little ashamed of myself and hurried away, but her look while I spoke of her father, and her trembling form in my arms while Mrs. Markson raved at her, were constantly in my mind, and muddled a great many important estimates. They finally troubled me so that I drove down again and had a long and serious talk with Helen.
What we said, though perfectly proper and sensible, might not be interesting in print, so I omit it. I will say, however, that my longing—when I first saw Helen as a little girl—for a daughter just like her, has been fulfilled so exactly, that I have named her Helen Markson Raines, after her mother; and if she is not as much comfort to me as I supposed she would be, it is no fault of hers, but rather because the love of her mother makes me, twenty years after the incidents of this story occurred, so constantly happy, that I need the affection of no one else.
