In Pawn

CHAPTER XVII

Again and again Lem stole from his room at night by the window route and made his way to his father's hermitage, to beg to be taken out of pawn. These visits caused Saint Harvey of Riverbank the utmost irritation.

The good Saint Harvey, Little Brother to Stray Dogs, was doing his best to live up to the task he had set himself. He was trying faithfully to mortify the flesh and to live abstemiously (on bread and water), to do without his pipe, to think high thoughts, and to be gentle and kind to all living creatures, particularly to stray dogs.

He had a double reason for trying. The news that he was in business as a saint had gone around town—for he could not keep from bragging about it—and old friends and perfect strangers dropped into the junkyard to inquire how he was progressing and to learn from his own lips how a man went about being a saint and how he liked the job.

The worst, of course, was living on bread and water alone. Every atom of his huge body seemed to cry for ham and eggs every minute, and his stomach simply yelled for ham and eggs. And that made him irritable, of course, and made it more difficult to keep from dod-basting everybody, and everything. And it made him long for his pipe, which would have been the solace that every man knows tobacco is. And then the questioners would come:

“An' say, Harvey, they say you don't eat nothin' but bread an' water. Is that so?”

“That's all. Nothin' but. It's got to be that way. Mortify the flesh, that's the idee. High thinkin' an' plain livin'. Why, there would n't be no merit in bein'' a saint if I was to go on eatin' an' drinkin' an' smokin' an' cussin' around same as everybody does an' like I used to. Bread an' water; that's the idee of it.”

“Gosh! it must be hard on a man!”

“Well, yes! Yes, right at first it is. I don't say it ain't, right at first. It irked me some right at first, but I'm gettin' used to it.”

“An' don't it no more?”

“Not a mite. Mind conquers the flesh, as you may say. Want to come back an' see the stray dogs I'm takin' care of? That's my speciality—stray dogs. It's just that I love 'em an' they love me, like I was a brother to 'em. That does the business.”

He would lead the way to where three canines were chained in the junkyard.

But at night, when he was supposed to be sound asleep, and his blinds were closed, he would begin to think of food—rich, solid ham and eggs cooked in bacon fat—and he would fight with himself, and groan and roll to and fro in his bed.

“Dod-bas—no, not dod-baste; I'll take that back, it ain't saintly,” he would mutter; “but I'm hungry. I did n't know a man could git so hungry.”

Then he would get up and walk the floor.

It was wonderful that he stood it. A new spirit of resolution seemed to have entered into him. The interest that was shown in his new life by his friends and by strangers certainly was one cause of his tenacity, but even so he might have given up—as he had given up all his previous labors—had the Riverbank Eagle not written him up. The article was intended to be satirical, but satire is a serious matter for unpracticed hands to meddle with, and the article that appeared in the Eagle—headed “Riverbank Has a Hermit”—was so very delicately satirical that it did not appear to be satirical at all. Riverbank accepted it as sincere, and so did Saint Harvey, and so did papers all over the land. In a day Saint Harvey found himself not only a recognized hermit, but a famous one. The “Brother of Stray Dogs” was a national character, but he wished he was n't. He was a national celebrity, but a hungry one. Nobody knew how hungry he was. He was the hungriest man in the United States. He was just plumb, downright, miserably hungry for ham and eggs.

It was late at night, when this hunger was greatest, that Lem would come, pushing open the door, standing on the sill, and saying: “Pop, I want you to lemme come home.”

“Say! Are you here again? Did n't I tell you to keep away? You git out o' here an' go right back to your aunt.”

“Aw, pop! Lemme stay here, won't you, please?”

“No, I won't. I can't have you around here, Lem. The place where a man is tryin' to be a saint ain't no place for a hearty, growin' boy. I got to practically do without food. I got to fast, an' live on bread an' water—”

“Aw, lemme come. I don't want much to eat. Just maybe some ham an' eggs—”

“Now, hush up! You shut your noise! Don't you come talkin' about—about nothin' to eat. You come around here talkin' about ham an'—about things to eat, an' botherin' me, an' I won't have it. How can I get my mind quieted down to bread an' water when you're comin' here all the time? It's just food, food, food, an' tempt, tempt, tempt, all the time. I'm havin' a hard enough time as it is, dod—I mean—”

“Why don't you quit it, then? I don't see what you want to be a plaguey old saint for, anyway. I don't see where you 're goin' to make any money at it.”

“There now! Money! That just shows you oughtn't to be around here, Lem. You don't understand the first principles of a saint. A saint ain't in the saint business for the money it gets him.”

“What is he one for, then, I'd like to know? What's it good for, anyway?”

“Why, dod-baste—no, I take that back, Lem. I mean anybody ought to know what a saint is for. He's—well, he's just a saint. There don't have to be no reason for a saint. He just stays around where he is, an' is. Folks come an' look at him an' wonder how he does it. He's a credit to the town, dod—I mean, he's a credit to the town. He gets wrote up in the papers. They make monuments of him when he's dead, an' put his picture in a book.”

“Well, I don't think it's sense, I'd rather not be dead an' have monuments, if I had to go an' have nothin' but bread an' water. I'd rather be alive an' have ham an' eggs—”

“Now, you stop that! You're talkin' about ham an' eggs just to pester me, an' I won't have it! You get away from here!”

Always it ended in Lem coaxing again to be taken out of pawn. He would sit in the shanty snivelling, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand after he had run out of words, but always his father sent him away again, back to Miss Susan. He ordered him out of the shanty sternly enough, but after Lem had closed the door, going out into the night reluctantly, Saint Harvey could not forget him. He worked off his irritation by whanging his pillow around the room, kicking it when it fell to the floor, until he was nearly exhausted, and then he would settle himself in his bed and, grumbling at first, read—his dime novels!

The truth was that, much as he scolded about them, he welcomed the nocturnal visits of the boy, even if they did irritate him (or because they did), and during the long, saintly days when he sat in his hickory rocker reading his “Lives of the Saints,” he became hungrily homesick for Lem. He missed him.

Now and then, too, Saint Harvey had a qualm. Now and then the thought came to him that he was being a saint because there was no heavy work connected with the job, and he had occasionally a guilty feeling that he had put Lem in pawn to be rid of him. He was not very happy. When he thought such thoughts he had second thoughts—that he was thinking such anti-saint thoughts because he was finding the saint business harder than the junk business.

He did not relish a form of martyrdom that came with his saintship, either. It took the form of small boys, who love to annoy saints, hermits, and other odd characters. They began throwing clods at him from a safe distance, chanting in chorus:

Saint Harvey was learning that saints are not canonized for nothing. They thoroughly earn their places in the estimation of their admiration.

Lem, after an unusually hard day with Miss Susan, came one night to the hermitage of Saint Harvey with his usual plea to be taken back.

“No, Lem,” his father said patiently, “I ain't going to take you. I can't, Lem. I got to stick at this saint job now. And I can't, anyhow. I ain't got the money to pay your aunt, and you've got to stay until—”

From his pocket Lem drew something thick and square, wrapped in paper. He was sitting where he always sat, and he cast a glance out of the comers of his eyes at his father as he slowly unwrapped the paper.

“Aw! please let me come back!” he begged, and dropped the paper on the floor.

Saint Harvey of Riverbank licked his lips and drew a deep, covetous breath. In his hand Lem held a thick, moist ham sandwich. He lifted one lid and straightened the ham with his finger—thick, moist ham with a strip of luscious white fat that hung tremulously over the edge of the bread.

“Aw! please, pa! Let me come back,” Lem begged, and set his teeth into the sandwich.

Saint Harvey licked his puffy lips again and heaved a second deep sigh.

The great ham sandwich barrage against the encroaching sainthood of Saint Harvey of River-bank had begun.

CHAPTER XVIII

Saint Harvey of Riverbank was not having a care-free sainthood those days. Lem came every night, sitting in the same place, pleading with his father to stop being a saint, and eating a luscious ham sandwich before his eyes. The young rascal knew what he was doing. He found a way of turning the ham slowly on the bread—so his father saw it in all its beauty—that made Saint Harvey turn red in the face and swallow hard and lick his lips greedily. There was a way in which Lem licked a forefinger after getting it moist with ham grease that was agony to Saint Harvey. And all the while Lem talked.

“Don't your aunt treat you nice?” his father would ask.

“No, she don't,” Lem would say. “She's mean to me. She makes me wash the dishes, she does. An' she's got millions of dishes. She don't care how many dishes she has. She goes an' cooks an' cooks, an' has pie an' puddin' an' roast beef an' asparagus an'—”

“How does she have the asparagus, Lem?”

“Well, she has it in stalks—big, white stalks—with a kind of sauce on it. It's good. It's mighty good. An' she has ham an' eggs an' beefsteak an' sausage an' pancakes for breakfast. With maple syrup.”

“Ham an' eggs an'' beefsteak an' sausage?”

“Yes.”

Saint Harvey would emit a long, tremulous sigh and close his eyes. Sometimes when Lem told of a Sunday dinner Saint Harvey would turn quite pale, and groan. Then he would get up and walk back and forth, gasping and swallowing and working his jaws and licking his lips.

“I don't want all this sandwich. You can have it,” Lem would say sometimes. “You ought to be hungry; nothin' but bread an'—”

“You get out o' here! You scoot out o' here!” his father would cry, reaching for something to use as a club, and then Lem would go.

Nor was Lem the only trial the good saint had. The Russian Jew, Moses Shuder, would not leave him alone, and no one could anger good Saint Harvey as Shuder could. His very meekness angered Saint Harvey.

Moses Shuder would come to the junkyard, meek and apologetic, dry-washing his hands against his chest, with his crushed hat on his head—the hat itself a reminder of Saint Harvey's anger—and plead with Harvey to sell him or lease him the junkyard.

“Please, Misder Redink, I vant only to talk to you. Please, you should not get a mad at me—

“Why, dod—why, blame take—” Saint Harvey would begin furiously, only to remember himself in time, and force himself to calmness. “You go 'way from here! I don't want to talk to you! I don't want to sell! I don't want to lease—”

“But, please, Misder Redink—”

The meekly appealing eyes of his late rival made Harvey furious, inwardly. He longed to be able to cast aside all restraint and to dod-baste Moses Shuder with all his heart and all his soul. Moses Shuder was worse than a hair shirt or peas in his shoes.

It was the meekness of Shuder, coming back so cringingly, day after day, that drove Saint Harvey to the edge of terrible outbursts of unsaintly temper. And Moses Shuder's eyes, which were like the meekly appealing eyes of Saint Harvey's stray dogs, reminded him of them.

For the stray dogs were another thorn in the good saint's flesh. He was having a sad time being a Little Brother to Stray Dogs. Stray dogs did not like him. They hated him. Whenever they saw him, they looked up at him with meekly appealing eyes like Moses Shuder's and then bit him on the leg.

Perhaps this was because before Saint Harvey became a saint he had hated stray dogs and thrown things at them, and the dogs recognized him as an ancient dog-hater. However that may be, they now greeted him, when he approached them, with a look that pleaded not to be given a beating, and then, as he approached, showed their fangs, growled and raised the hair along their spines, and jumped at his legs. He wished he had been advertised as a Little Brother to Stray Rabbits instead of to dogs.

Saint Harvey missed his smoking tobacco, too. He missed it tremendously, and temptation was always being forced upon him. You know how Americans are. We are not well used to saints and hermits, and when we have one we are proud of him and grateful to him, and we try to show that we are. We go to him and offer him a good cigar. People who would never have thought of offering Harvey Redding even a two-for-five cigar went out of their way to buy ten-cent cigars to offer to Saint Harvey of Riverbank. Sometimes they offered him two two-for-twenty-five cigars at one offering! And when he refused they seated themselves beside him and lighted one of the cigars and let the delicious aroma of the burning leaf float across his nostrils. Great Scott! Have you ever stopped smoking and had one of these fellows come around and let the delicious aroma of a really good cigar float across your nostrils?

I have seen pictures of Saint Anthony being tempted, and I will admit he was subjected to some considerable temptations, and withstood them, but he had never been a tobacco smoker. If he had been, and had given it up, and had then been tempted as Saint Harvey was tempted, he would have stood firm, I have no doubt, but he would have been quite considerably irritated. Giving up tobacco after long using it has that effect on the nerves. It had that effect on Saint Harvey's nerves.

Along about that time Saint Harvey of Riverbank was the most easily irritated saint that ever lived, bar none.

CHAPTER XIX

The term of school drew to an end and July began, hot and with no sign of a refreshing rain for weeks to come. In his junkyard Saint Harvey sat and panted and fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan and felt miserable. He felt especially miserable in the region of his belt and just above and below it, for he had a huge pitcher of water always at his elbow and drank copiously, and he had a sensation of being merely a large globe full of water that swished to and fro as he moved.

He was seriously alarmed by this imagined condition. His continued existence seemed exceedingly precarious. It was not as if he had been eating good, solid food—ham and eggs, for example. When he drank another glass of water, it did not seem to go anywhere in particular; it seemed to flow down into an already vast ocean of water. When he thumped himself he was sure he heard waves splashing around inside of him, and he thought he knew what would happen if he was wounded deeply in any way: there would be a sort of Niagara for a minute or two, and then there would be left only a deflated, extinct Saint Harvey.

It was to this worried Saint Harvey that Moses Shuder came on the third of July, appealingly offering him fifty dollars for his remaining junk and one hundred dollars for a year's lease of the junkyard and shanty.

For several nights Lem's sandwich barrage had been especially trying to Saint Harvey.

“Cash money?” he asked Moses Shuder.

“Sure, cash money! I got it in my pocket the cash money. I could show it to you.”

He did. Saint Harvey looked at the crisp, new bills and at the pitcher of water at his elbow and at the lump of bread beside the pitcher. It was the hour for his frugal midday meal. From somewhere came the odor of ham frying.

“Please, Misder Redink!” urged Moses Shuder meekly, and from his pocket he took—with exquisite care—a large, costly-looking cigar.

Saint Harvey reached for the cigar.

“I 'll go you, dod-baste the dod-basted luck!” he exclaimed, and with the other hand he reached for the money.

From the shed at the rear of the yard came the sharp, angry yelps of two of Saint Harvey's stray dogs beginning hostilities. Saint Harvey eased himself carefully out of his chair.

“You wait,” he said to Shuder.

Three minutes later three stray dogs, their tails trailing their legs, their eyes looking backward, dashed through the gate of the junkyard and down the street. Three pieces of old iron hurtled through the air after them.

“There!” puffed the Little Brother to Stray Dogs; “that's what I think of you, you worthless curs!”—and then he added, “Dod-baste you!”

The next morning, which was the morning of the anniversary of the day of our glorious independence, Lem, finishing the task of the breakfast dishes, had the final and crowning indignity thrust upon him. He was sore, anyway, because Miss Sue had forbidden firecrackers and other noise-makers, and now she told him to go upstairs and make his own bed.

“You're old enough, and you know enough, to make it,” she said, “and if you ain't it's time you was.”

“I won't! I won't do that! Boys don't make beds. That's girls' work.”

“Lem!”

“Well—well, I don't see why—well, I'm goin' to, ain't I? You don't have to be in such a hurry about it, do you?”

“Lem!”

“All right, I'm goin'. But all right for you!” On his way up the stairs he passed Henrietta coming down, and she touched him lightly on the shoulder in sign of her good-will. She was going down to meet Carter Bruce, who had insisted that she see him that morning. She found him awaiting her on the porch, in a mood not exactly pleasant.

“I've got to have something definite,” he said, when he had told her why he had come. “This can't go on a day longer.”

“I'm glad,” said Henrietta.

“Glad about what? Glad Gay is so thoroughly infatuated with that sneak—with Freeman?”

“No, glad you know now that you do love Gay,” said Henrietta. “That was what I hoped for, Carter: that you would discover it. For you do love her. And, if you do, I need not worry. Gay will not prefer Freeman to you; not if you are bold, as a lover should be.”

“She does, though,” said Carter. “I don't care what he is, he has a way with women.”

“Why don't you have a way with them, then, if that is what is needed?”

“Because I have n't it, that's all! I'm slow. Henrietta, she likes him best. She likes me, but I have no chance with him around. He has to go. You've got to give me facts. Where is this wife of his? How can I prove he has a wife? You owe it to me, and to Gay, and to the wife, to tell me.”

“It is enough that I say so. You can tell him I told you.”

Carter Bruce hesitated.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “but that is n't enough. I—”

Henrietta looked at him steadily for a moment and then let her eyes fall.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “You mean you can't trust my words. You mean I am a liar.”

“I have to be frank,” Carter said. “Gay has told me about William Vane. She does not believe there is a William Vane. When I told her—”

“You told her I had said Freeman has a wife?” asked Henrietta. “And you promised not to tell, Carter!”

“I told her.”

“Well?”

“She said, 'Perhaps Henrietta is romancing again.'”

Across the street Gay came out upon her porch. She waved a hand, and Henrietta returned the salutation, but the next moment she guessed it had not been meant for her, for Freeman came around the house, waving to Gay as he came. Henrietta put her hand on Carter's arm.

“No, I can't tell you more,” she said breathlessly. “I'm sorry—only it is true he has a wife. It is true, Carter.”

Carter's eyes hardened. He walked down the steps of the porch and toward Freeman, until he faced him.

“You are a sneak and a cur and a cad,” he said, “and I am going to give you this every time I see you.”

He shot out his fist and it struck Freeman on his cheek, throwing him to the ground. An instant he lay there and then he was on his feet and, mad with rage, had leaped for Carter. Henrietta screamed. From across the street Gay came, her palms pressed to her cheeks. The fight was all over before she reached the two men. Bruce stood arranging his tie, but Freeman lay where the last blow had sent him, prone on the grass.

Carter laughed, pantingly.

“Every time I meet you, remember,” he said, and turned to Gay.

“I thrashed him,” he said, but Gay dropped to her knees beside the prostrate man.

“Freeman! Freeman!” she cried; and then to Carter, “You brute! You cruel brute!”

“Oh, just as you wish!” said Carter Bruce, and laughed again, and went across the yard to the steps and out of the gate.

“Get up!” Henrietta said, coldly, to Freeman.

“Oh! how can you be so cruel!” Gay cried, but Henrietta did not change her tone.

“Get up!” she repeated. “Get up and go into the house.”

“How can you speak to him like that!” cried Gay, and she helped Freeman to arise.

He was rather badly battered, and tried to hide the side of his face where the worst blows had fallen. He laughed thinly.

“He's bigger than I am,” he said. “He hit me before I expected it.”

“He's a brute!” said Gay again.

“Go in the house!” Henrietta ordered; and without more ado Freeman picked up his hat and went into the house. Henrietta followed him.

For a minute more Gay stood where she was, and then she went homeward.

“The brute! The big bully! I'll never speak to Carter Bruce again as long as I live. Never!”

CHAPTER XX

Now, don't you go an' let on to your Aunt Sue, Lem,” Harvey told the boy that night when Lem came begging to be taken back. “You just keep your mouth shut, an' in a week or so you come to Burlin'ton an' hunt me up. You won't have no trouble findin' where the post-office in Burlin'ton is, an' when you git there you go to the window, an' ask if there's a letter for Lemuel Redding. It'll tell you where to find me, an' then you come to where it says.”

“I'd ruther go with you,” Lem said wistfully. “I ain't ever been on a train. I don't know how to do on a train.”

“You don't need to do nohow. You buy a ticket an' you git on the train an' sit down in a seat. That's all you do. When the conductor comes around, you hand him your ticket an' let him punch a hole in it, an' when you git to Burlin'ton you ask where the post-office is. That's all there is to it.”

“Why can't I go with you, pop? I'm sort o' scared of it.”

“I can't take no chances, Lem. If we was to go together, man an' boy, your aunt would sure think I took you an' she would n't rest until she fetched us back. She's got to think you've runned away. On your own hook. I got to keep clear of you awhile. If she got a notion I'd stole you out o' pawn she'd raise the dod-basted dickens against me. She'd make me hand over every red cent I've got, an' I need it to start the new business I aim to go into once I get away from here.”

He took a fat roll of bills from his pocket. “I'm goin' to give you twenty-five dollars, Lem,” he said solemnly. “That's more'n enough to see you through easy. Don't you lose it. An' don't you ever let on I give it to you.”

“I won't,” Lem promised.

Harvey had planned carefully. He meant to depart the next night, and the next day he trudged up the hill and paid Miss Sue twenty-five dollars on account of his debt. That might quiet her for a while in case she learned of his departure too soon.

Miss Sue took the money, and the severe expression she had worn when Harvey appeared softened.

“Well, I will say, Harvey, you've done better at keeping your word than I ever thought you would. Bein' a saint has n't hurt you any—I 'll say that. I'll mark this down on the back of your note, and keep good track of it, and I only hope you keep on the same way.”

“So do I,” said Harvey. “How's Lem carryin' on?”

“He's a trial,” Miss Susan said, “but I'll bear him.”

“You don't want I should take him away?”

“Harvey Redding, that boy stays until you get me paid the last cent you owe me. A bargain is a bargain.”

Harvey sighed.

“Well—” he said, and went away.

That night he departed from Riverbank and Miss Sue put the saint's five crisp bills in her purse.

A week later, Miss Susan, going to her room to retire after a hard day, picked up her purse. It was lying on her bureau. Lorna had just paid a week's board and Miss Sue took the money from her pocket and opened the purse. Her eyes saw at once that the purse was empty, the five crisp five-dollar bills Lem's father had given her were gone.

For a moment or two she stood, her hand laid along her cheek, thinking. No, she had not taken the money from the purse. She could remember putting it there, but not taking it out again. She opened her door and walked toward Lem's room.

At Lem's door she paused, for she heard the boy moving about. She opened the door suddenly.

Lem stood, as he had stood on that other night, fully dressed and his ragged straw hat on his head. In his hand was a handkerchief, tied together by the four corners and bulging with the food he had purloined to sustain him on his journey. As the door opened he leaped for the window, but Miss Susan overtook him and dragged him back into the room. He kicked and struck at her, but she held fast. Lorna and Henrietta came to the door, and a minute later Johnnie Alberson also came, all fully clad, for these pleasant nights all sat late. Freeman did not appear; he was with Gay, across the street, on her porch.

“You hold the little rat!” Susan cried, and Johnnie grasped the boy from behind. Miss Susan's hands felt the boy's pockets. Unlike that other time Lem did not struggle now.

“You leave me alone!” he kept repeating. “You better leave me alone!”

Not until Miss Susan took the five crisp bills from his pocket did he begin to cry.

“Don't you take that; that's my money, you old thief, you!” he sobbed helplessly. “You stole my dollar, and you want to steal everything, you old thief!”

“Quiet, Lem!” Henrietta said, but this time the boy paid no heed. If she meant to suggest that he “go stiff” again, the hint was lost. All the fight, all hope, all belief that anything would ever be right again in his unhappy life seemed to have deserted the boy. It was Johnnie Alberson who tried to comfort him.

“Oh, here! Come now!” he said, still holding fast to Lem, however. “Don't cry. That's not how big boys do. What's the trouble all about, anyway?”

“He stole from me,” said Miss Susan, holding up the money.

“I didn't! She's an old liar!” sobbed Lem, “and I don't care if I do say it! She wants to steal all my money all the time—”

“Look at him,” said Miss Susan. “All packed up and ready to run away! And my money in his pocket! This time there'll be no nonsense, I tell you. He'll go packing off to reform school, where he belongs.”

“That's all right,” said Johnnie soothingly. “We'll see about that in the morning. The reform schools won't all close to-night. I'll go bail for Lem to-night; I 'll take him into my room. If he gets away, Miss Susan, you can send me to reform school in his place.”

There seemed nothing better to do and Johnnie led the boy away.

“Good-night, Miss Bates,” Johnnie called to Henrietta, for the affair had interrupted their tête-à-tête on the porch. “I've got to keep this young man company.”

Henrietta went down. She sat in her dark corner of the porch, staring across the street at the porch where Gay and Freeman, she knew, were sitting, and waited for Freeman.

Henrietta and Freeman had had one heated interview that night. About ten o'clock, when Henrietta was still in her room, Freeman had thrown his cigarette end from the porch and had entered the house. Miss Susan was at work in the kitchen, where he heard her, and he went up the stairs softly. While smoking his cigarette on the porch, he had come to a decision.

It was clear to him that he could not long remain in Riverbank with Carter Bruce on his trail and ready to beat him up whenever they met. Just what Carter Bruce knew he could not guess with any certainty, but he had enough respect for the young lawyer's fists and enough dread of his own past to believe that if Bruce kept on, his whole situation at Riverbank would be as unpleasant as possible, and, being so hard put to it to raise any money whatever, he saw no satisfactory reason why he should remain in the town. He went up the stairs with a coldly formed and complete intention to see whether Miss Susan had left any money in her room. If she had left any there, he meant to take it and get away from Riverbank as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, and he meant to take Gay with him if she would go.

Freeman Todder was in Miss Susan's room and had already taken the money from her purse when Henrietta opened the door. Freeman turned to look at her.

“What are you doing here, Freeman?” Henrietta asked.

Her husband waved his hand carelessly.

“Tapping the till, dearest,” he said. “Breaking the bank. Getting the cash.”

Henrietta advanced into the room. She spoke calmly enough.

“Now, this I will not have!” she said. “You may be a thief and a rascal, but you must not play your tricks in this house. If you have taken anything, put it back. Freeman, did you take any money?”

“This,” he said defiantly, and he held up the fold of crisp bills, slipping it into his pocket again, but as he moved he looked past Henrietta and saw Lem, surprised and wide-eyed, standing in the doorway. Lem had come to the room to get his “other” shirt, preparatory to his departure.

“I found it,” said Freeman slowly. “Finders is keepers, you know, dear.” He let his eyes glare into Lem's. “And you know what I am when I am angry, Henrietta. Any one who tells on me I'll kill. I'm desperate, you see. I'll murder any one who tells on me.”

Lem slid back into the darkness of the hall and fled to his room. Nothing in this house brought him anything but trouble, and he only wanted to get away as soon as he could.

“That is nonsense,” Henrietta told Freeman. “You will never kill any one. You are too great a coward. Now, put that money back and get out of here before some one comes.”

For answer Freeman pushed past her.

“I 'll put nothing back,” he said. “I need this. You don't get any for me; I've got to get for myself.”

“Freeman!”

He had gone into the hall. She followed him, and he could not throw her hand from his arm without causing a struggle and a noise that he did not at all desire. His wife drew him into her room.

“All right, go on with the lecture,” he said, with a laugh, “but make it short. It won't do any good. I'm going to keep this money, and I 'm going to get away from here to-night. I 'm going so far you'll never see me again.”

Henrietta sat on the bedside and, with her eyes on his face, let her mind touch upon the possibilities. If Freeman went, and went forever, her lot in life would be far simpler, far easier! But, if he fled, and the money was gone, Miss Susan would know he had taken it, and she already knew he was Henrietta's husband. That would besmirch Henrietta even worse than she was now. It would be the last straw. And even if Freeman went, it would not mean perfect freedom for her, for he would always remain a menace, always liable to appear again to work his husbandly blackmail and make trouble for her. She felt unutterably depressed.

“You must put the money back now—at once,” she said wearily, “before any one knows it is gone.”

“Too late now, Et,” he said. “Somebody knows. The only thing for your little Freeman-boy to do is to skip out while the skipping is good. That Lem saw me.”

“Lem?”

“Yes. He was at the door while your back was turned. He saw, and heard, too. So there you are! Nothing left but to clear out.”

Henrietta pleaded with him.

“But not this way, Freeman! Wait. Take the money back and to-morrow I'll borrow some. I 'll coax it out of Lorna, or Gay. Or even Johnnie Alberson; I believe I could get some out of him. Please, Freeman!”

“Et, you make me tired,” Freeman said. “I've got the cash and I'm going to skip out before this night is over. That's flat, and if you don't like it, you can lump it, and if you don't like it lumped, you can roll it out and fry it. I'm sick of this and I'm going to vamoose. I'm going over to say good-bye to Gay and then I'm going.”

“Freeman!” she cried, “I knew you were a despicable creature, but I never, never, never thought you were quite as low as this!”

“Oh, cut the melodrama, Et!” he said, and while she sat looking at him helplessly he went out of the room.

It was after this scene that she had to sit listening to Johnnie Alberson, making conversation with him while her thoughts were on Freeman.

From where she sat she could see Gay's white dress as a spot against the dark brick of the house across the way, and that spot she watched, all her plans in chaos, knowing only that if the spot disappeared she must rush across and keep Gay safe, no matter what else happened. When she returned from Lem's room, she looked across with fear, and breathed her thanks, for Gay was still there.

Almost immediately Freeman came across the street. He was not in a pleasant mood.

“Freeman,” Henrietta said.

“My God! Again? What is it now?” he asked.

“What is it now? Throwing the blame for your thievery on that poor boy! Hasn't he enough to bear without that? You are low—that is the only name for it—low!”

“Fine! Fine and oratorical and everything, Et!” Freeman said carelessly. “Only—I did not throw any blame on him. Not that I care, you know,” he added.

“Freeman, don't lie to me. You put that money in his pocket.”

“Oh, no, I did n't!” Freeman laughed, and he held up Miss Susan's bank-notes. “I need this money. And I have this money, and I am going to keep this money.”

“I don't understand,” said Henrietta. “How did you get it again? Did you take it from her a second time?”

“Oh, quit it!” Freeman said disgustedly. “Don't be stupid. This is not the money Lem had. I've had this all the while. I don't know where the little devil got his. What does it matter? Maybe she had two wads. What do I care?”

“I care,” Henrietta said.

“I'm going to clear out,” Freeman said. “Last you'll ever see of me.”

He turned toward the door leading into the house.

“Freeman, what about Gay?”

“None of your dear business, Et,” he said. Henrietta heard him tiptoe softly up the stairs. She sat a minute longer, thinking, and then went into the house herself, and up the stairs.

There are times when heroic actions seem the only solution of great difficulties, but, however much a heroic act might add to the glory of this narrative, it was not Henrietta's fortune to rise to great heights now. She paused at Freeman's door and listened, then opened his door.

Freeman sat on a chair at the end of his bed, in shirt and underwear, changing his socks. On a chair close to Henrietta's hand lay his two pairs of trousers—the one pair crumpled on the seat of the chair; the other, newly pressed, laid carefully across the chair back. With a sweep of her arm Henrietta gathered up both pairs of trousers, backed from the room, and closed the door.

For a few moments, perhaps, Freeman did not realize the full extent of the catastrophe, but in another moment he did. What locked doors, tears, and pleadings cannot do, the loss of a man's trousers can do. In the dark hall, before Freeman could reach his door, Henrietta disposed of her gleanings.

“Et!” Freeman whispered: “Et! Bring those back!”

“Bring what?” she answered.

“My pants. Bring them back, and mighty quick.”

“I don't know what you are talking about,” she said. “You must be drunk. I know nothing about your pants. Go to bed.”

From down the hall she heard the loud breathing of Johnnie Alberson—call it a light snore if you choose. Henrietta hesitated. Ill-fitting as Johnnie's short, wide trousers might be on slender-waisted Freeman, she knew a man will wear any garments in a crisis, and that Freeman would not be beneath stealing what he needed from the sleeper. Too, through her mind flashed the thought, “If John is awake, Freeman will not dare to make a loud fuss,” and she walked to Johnnie's door and rapped sharply upon it.

“We—well? Well?” came Johnnie's voice, slumber heavy. “What? What is it?”

“It's Henrietta,” she answered. “I want Lem. I want Lem to come to me.”

She heard Lem whine, “You leave me alone, you!” and then the reassuring voice of Johnnie, and the door opened a wide crack, and Lem, rubbing his eyes, stepped out. Freeman's door closed.

“Come with me, Lem,” she said, and led the half-awakened boy to her room. He staggered to her bed and threw himself upon it, asleep the moment he touched it.

“Lem!” she called sharply, standing over him.

The boy opened his eyes slowly, looking up into her face.

“Hello!” he said. “I—I been asleep, I guess—”

“Yes. That does n't matter. You will be all right presently. I want you to tell me the truth—the honest-to-God, cross-your-heart truth, Lem—about that money. Where did you get it, Lem?”

“I ain't goin' to tell you,” the boy said.

Henrietta took his hand. She spoke kindly. “Yes; you must tell me, Lem,” she urged. “Did you steal it?”

“No, I did n't steal it.”

“That's honest-to-God, cross-your-heart, Lem?”

“Yes. I did n't steal it an' anybody that says I did is an old liar, that's what she is, an' I don't care who knows it. She's a mean, old liar—”

“Wait, Lem. Maybe nobody is a liar. Can I believe that you did n't steal it? Can I bet my bottom dollar on that, Lem?”

“Yes; you bet you can bet your bottom dollar on it. You can bet your boots on it. I don't steal—only old junk. I don't steal money—”

“No, I know you don't, Lem. But Miss Susan found the money in your pocket, did n't she?”

“I don't care where she found it. I don't care what that old devil finds. I 'll get even with her!”

“Did she find it in your pocket, Lem?”

“Yes. Only that old Alberson had to hold me. I bet if he had n't held me—”

“Of course. And who put the money in your pocket, Lem?”

“None of your—I mean, I won't say.”

“Did you?” Henrietta urged. “Did you put it in?”

“I won't say.”

“But, listen to me, Lem. Somebody stole some of Miss Susan's money—”

“I know. He did it,” Lem said. “Freeman Todder did it.”

“But never mind that now. Miss Susan does n't know that. Did Freeman, here, put the money in your pocket?”

“I won't say. I tell you I won't say. Nobody can get me to say.”

“Lem,” said Henrietta seriously, “you don't understand what all this means. I'm trying to help you. If Miss Susan keeps on thinking you stole her money she will send you away. She'll send you to jail and to reform school and you'll be sad and unhappy all your life. I want you to be happy—”

“I 'll bust out of jail if she sends me, drat her old hide!” Lem declared.

“No; you can't. You'll be watched every minute. Boys never do break out of jail, Lem. They just stay there and are so miserable. So what I want to do is to help you now. So you need n't be sent away at all.”

“If she won't send me I'm goin'away, anyway,” Lem declared. “I won't stay in any old house with such an old hyena pickin' on me all the time.”

“Miss Susan doesn't understand you, Lem, and you don't understand her. But that does n't matter now. If you go away you must not go with the name of a thief fastened on you—” The door opened and Freeman Todder came into the room.

“Look here,” he said angrily, “I want my pants. I won't stand any nonsense. You give them to me.”

“You're insane!” said Henrietta. “I know nothing about them.”

“Oh! that's it, is it?” he said. “All right!”

He began searching the room.

“Well, I ain't a thief, an' I don't care who says I am,” Lem was saying. “I did n't take her old money. She took mine, an' she's an old thief, an' I'll tell her so to her face. An' I'll make her give it back to me. I 'll set the police on her.”

“Listen, Lem, won't you please try to help me? Won't you tell me where you got that money?”

“No, I won't!” the boy declared stubbornly. “But I 'll tell her who stole her money. I 'll tell her he stole it, an' when she searches him she'll find it.”

“I 'll be hanged if she will, unless she finds my pants,” Freeman growled.

“If you won't help me, I can't help you, Lem,” said Henrietta. “Just to tell on Mr. Todder will not help at all. Won't you just whisper to me where you got the money?”

“No, I won't! I'd rather be killed first!”

Freeman was throwing articles of clothing from Henrietta's closet upon the bedroom floor. She hardly glanced at him.

“Of course! I know where you got the money, Lem,” she said. “Your father gave it to you. Is n't that so?”

She saw the startled look in the boy's eyes.

“I won't say, I tell you!” he declared.

“Then your father did give it to you?”

“I won't tell you!”

“And I can tell Miss Susan your father gave it to you?”

“No. He said—no; I won't tell you who gave it to me! I won't tell you what he said!”

“What did your father say?”

“I won't tell you what he said! None of your old business what he said!”

“I see!” said Henrietta. “Your father is going away and he gave you the money to follow him. Is that it?”

“I won't tell you!”

“You need n't tell me, Lem,” Henrietta said. “No more, at any rate. You have told me all about it.” She turned to Freeman. “What you are hunting is not here,” she said, “and you are only making yourself ridiculous. Go back to your room. When I am ready I will give you what you are hunting, but first, Freeman, you will have to tell Miss Susan who took her money.”

Freeman looked at his wife with hatred in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it and went out and into his own room. The moment her door was dosed, Henrietta took Miss Susan's money from her waist and hid it carefully, where she felt sure it would be safe.

Poor Lem was already sound asleep and Henrietta removed her shoes and a few of her outer garments, wrapped herself in her bathrobe, and in a minute she too was asleep.