Poppea of the Post-Office, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  THE NEXT DAY

  Mrs. Jason Pegrim needed no urging in the matter of making haste to goto her brother's assistance. During the nine years that she had lived inher farm-house on the hill, her one desire had been to get back to thevillage, and ever since her brother had been appointed postmaster shehad spent many sleepless nights in fruitless schemes for bringing it topass. For if the clock-maker's little shop had been a place of socialopportunities to the alert widow, how much wider a field could she findin the post-office?

  Now the opportunity had almost dropped out of a dream, as she told'Lisha Potts, when she hurried to admit him in the early dawn, hertoilet being so far from complete that hairpins bristled from her mouthand rendered still more incoherent her announcement. "There now, andfolks say there's nothing in dreams! To be sure, the man in my dreamlast night that came to price the heifer was dark and you're sandy, andwhile I went to lead her out, he stole my best spoons out of theclock-case, and slipped out of the back door, which, of course, no Pottswould do, even in a dream. But where it comes out true is that a mandid come, which is a matter for thankfulness, the first that's openedthat gate in a week."

  As 'Lisha explained his errand, his native shrewdness making him tell aslittle as possible, brief as the time was, Mrs. Pegrim finished thesecuring of the doorknob coil of hair at the back and freed her tonguefor better action.

  "Brother Oliver has his hands full and wants me to come down and helphim out for a week? You're sure he doesn't feel sick and doesn't want toallow it? Or mebbe he's minded to get the spring cleaning done early; ifso, he's too forehanded, for March cleaning won't hold over till fall,not but what I'm glad to go down and get three miles nearer to thenews."

  While her tongue flew, her hands and feet were not idle, for, shoving'Lisha before her into the kitchen, Mrs. Pegrim quickly assembled apick-up breakfast, of which she motioned him to eat in expressivepantomime, while continuing her questions.

  "Do you reckon he'll want me for more than a week? If I thought hewould, I'd put in my Sunday pelerine, but if not, I'd hate to muss it.Didn't specify any length of time, only said fetch her down? That's likea man. Anyhow, I'll tell neighbor Selleck to feed my fowls and the cowand heifer until he hears contrary, besides which, you'll have to gethim to milk for you this morning if you're going to drive me down.Oliver must be in some sort of strait if you can't even wait to milk anddo your chores first."

  Having packed a capacious carpet-bag, drawn down the gayly painted paperwindow-shades, emptied and dried the tea-kettle, and made sure that notan ash was at large on the hearth, for she still cooked in the openchimney over a bed of wood embers by the aid of pot hook, crane, andtrammel, Satira joined 'Lisha at the table and poured herself a cup ofcoffee. She had barely raised it to her lips when she set it down sosuddenly that the coffee splashed upon her cherry-colored bonnetstrings.

  "'Lisha Potts," she adjured solemnly, "I know what it is! Oliver isgoing to take a second and he wants me to put things in shape! And whyshouldn't he if he wishes? He's got a tidy sum laid by and a trade and aposition under government. Of course I'll go and help him, not but whata widow must feel, losing her only brother twice, so to speak, but if Isuspicioned who she is, I could ride down easier, and resign my spiritsbetter if I knew it wasn't widow Baker."

  "It isn't marrying anybody, so you're way off the track. It's justunexpected company that Oliver ain't got time to entertain suitable, andthe quicker we get down there, the sooner you'll know all about it,"said 'Lisha, indulging in what for him was a wild flight of fancy.

  After the Sellecks had received instructions as to her live stock,Satira Pegrim relapsed into a silence that lasted for almost a mile.

  "How much company is there?" asked Satira, launching the questionsuddenly in the hope of taking 'Lisha unawares.

  "Two!" he replied, a gleam of amusement flitting across his grim visage.

  "Males or females?"

  "One of each."

  "Married couple?"

  "Nope."

  "Brother and sister?"

  "I reckon not."

  "Just friends, then?"

  "I guess you've hit it now, pretty near, though I should call them twodown to Gilbert's more sort of travelling companions that was on the wayto growin' real friendly." More than this, Satira Pegrim could notextract, and she contented herself by weaving romance about the unknowncouple, paying no attention to the beauty of the morning, wherein everyice-covered twig glistened in the sun.

  'Lisha pulled up at the post-office-house door, and after steering Mrs.Pegrim carefully along the slippery path to the side porch, havingsuddenly made up his mind to stay down at the village for another day,he led the horse and bobbing two-wheeled chaise to Gilbert's barn thatstood at the end of the lot against the high bank that made John Angus'sboundary.

  The side door being open, Mrs. Pegrim went in without knocking, found noone in either kitchen, bedroom, or pantry, though the general confusiontold its own story; as she almost fell over the cradle, its beddingtumbled about as if to air, the last straw was added to the mystery.With a gasp, combined of suppressed speech and astonishment, she seizedher bag and going up to the room over the kitchen that she hadpreviously occupied, donned a gown of stout indigo print, and throwingover head and shoulders a wonderful shawl of her own knitting, amarvellous blend of gray and purple stripes, resolutely crossed thepassage between house and post-office, and entering by the workshopdoor, peered through into the office in an effort to see without beingseen.

  An unusual number of men for the time of the morning when chores aremost pressing stood about the stove, while two women, one being theobjectionable widow Baker, were actually holding an animatedconversation with Gilbert through the delivery window of the beehive,standing a-tiptoe in their endeavors to see some object within thesacred precinct. At the same time Mrs. Baker exclaimed--"The darling!"in a wheezy tone that was meant to be confidential.

  To the searching eye of his sister, Gilbert looked completely unnerved.His hair, usually so sleek and divided low over the left ear, stood onend; his beard was buttoned under his collarless blue flannel shirt,giving his face a curiously chopped-off appearance, while his handsshook as he fumbled with the letters, and he continually cast furtiveglances behind him.

  Finally, Satira Pegrim made a dive through the group of men, and,without appearing to see the women, slipped through the door at the backof the sorting bench, only to trip over a soft something on the floor,and suddenly find herself kneeling and very much jarred upon the edge ofa bright patchwork quilt, in the centre of which sat the lady baby,alternately feeding herself and the puppy with a thick slice of breadwhich she held butter side down. In the dull morning light, the childlooked more pathetic than pretty, for she had an unmistakable snufflycold, and a pair of tears that had been quivering on her long lashesrolled down her cheeks as she looked up at Mrs. Pegrim.

  The puppy gave a shrill bark and began to play tug-of-war with a cornerof the cherished shawl. At the sound Gilbert turned, a look of infiniterelief spreading over his face when he saw his sister.

  "Thank the Lord you've come," he jerked out over his shoulder as hehanded widow Baker ten three-cent stamps that she had bought merely toprolong the interview. "Take 'em right back to the house and I'll comeover soon as I can. She's got a cold and is wheezy; if you can't fix herup, I calculate 'Lisha'd better go for the doctor."

  "Yes, I will, Oliver; the minute I set eyes on her it flashed throughme, lard and nutmeg, on the chest, that's what she needs. But who _be_they, 'nd how'd they come here without parents is what I'd like to know;that is, the child, I mean, for lots of puppies don't have any."

  "That's what we don't know and have got to find out. Didn't 'Lishaexplain?"

  "Not a word, only rigmarolled about company."

  "'Lisha," called Gilbert to the backwoodsman, who had now come in, "willyou go over home with sister Pegrim? She wants to talk to you 'bout lastnight."

  "I reckon if it isn't against the
law, I'd ruther step in there and dishout the rest of them letters," said 'Lisha; so brother and sister, thelady baby muffled in the quilt, and wow-wow nipping at the heels ofGilbert's carpet slippers, went together.

  The door had no sooner closed behind them than the men began questioning'Lisha all together, propounding their theories of the event beforewhich the war news had temporarily paled; for never, even in the memoryof Selectman Morse, the oldest of them, had a baby been abandoned in thetownship,--much less a well-grown child of a year.

  Mr. Morse, in view of his position, appointed two of the men present totake up the clew; for in these good old days of New England, the FirstSelectman was virtually mayor of the township and was so chosen.

  'Lisha, by reason of his being the first to discover the child, wasdeputed to go to the stable at Westboro with the buffalo-robe, afterwhich the course of the search would depend upon what the stablemancould tell.

  "Gilbert, are you willing that the child should stay here while weinvestigate?" the Selectman asked when the postmaster returned and'Lisha had driven off to Westboro; "or would you rather she were handedover to proper authorities right now?"

  "Who might those be?" asked Gilbert, by way of reply.

  "Well, now, that raises a question of some moment," said the Selectman,fitting the tips of his fingers together precisely and making a flywheelof his thumbs, at the same time adjusting his upper teeth in place witha clicking sound. That it was the wandering disposition of these teeththat had prevented their owner from becoming an orator in the cause ofpatriotism, he firmly believed.

  "If the child's an orphan foundling, she goes to the county asylum; ifmerely abandoned by worthless parents, she goes to the poor-house free;while if she can be attributed to a living male parent, he must pay herboard either to the town or her mother."

  "It appears to me," said Gilbert, moistening his lips nervously, anddangerous gleams shooting from his keen gray eyes, "that as you don'tknow where to send her, and you've no authority to take her, she willstay right where she was left! And now, boys, while I'm obliged to yeall for your interest, this matter isn't federal business, nor connectedwith this post-office, so if there's anything to say, come 'round to thehouse later on and have it out. Under anything that may come out, thechild is innocent, and it might come pretty hard a score of years fromnow if she knew she was made light of by you fellows." Gilbert's voicebroke at this juncture, and the boys were looking at each othersheepishly when a team rattled up to the door and 'Lisha and Beers, theWestboro liveryman, came in together, having met at the lower end oftown.

  "They hired a sleigh from Beers's all right and hushed the bells," cried'Lisha, triumphantly.

  "Who?" chorused the boys.

  "The man and woman who brought the child here, of course."

  "I didn't say it was a man _and_ a woman," put in Beers, cutting off agenerous quid of tobacco and passing the remainder around, as thoughpreparing for a social occasion that would be a strain on the juices ofspeech.

  "This here was the way of it," he said, settling himself within easyrange of the box of sawdust by the stove, while Gilbert came from thehive to lean over the case where a collection of stationery,knickknacks, cigars, and packages of lozenges was kept.

  "You know how late the mail-train was last night, and how it stormed?Well, the last train was late by that much too; after waiting 'round aspell I came home and I made up my mind I wouldn't send a team over tothe depot again but trust to any folks that wanted one coming over, forit was near midnight. I suppose I must have dozed off by the stove inthe office, because the first thing I knew, a man stood there by thefire stamping his feet to warm them, the spring bell on the door havingwaked me. 'I've got off at the wrong station, intending to go on toHarley's Mills,' says he in a voice like he'd an awful cold; 'can I geta team to drive my wife over? She's at the depot.'

  "'A team you can have,' says I, 'but I've not a driver I could send outto-night. What part are you going to?'

  "'To the post-office,' says he. 'Maybe you'd let me put up the teamthere and bring it back in the morning. I'll pay you ten dollars downfor security,' says he, coughing and acting tired like.

  "Thinks I, this isn't any night for horse thieves and if I give himSpunky Pete, it'll be a safe risk, for he won't go but just such a waysfrom the stable when he balks and bolts back.

  "'All right,' says I, 'what kind of a team do you want, chaise orsleigh?' He thought a minute and says, 'A sleigh'll jar less a nightlike this, and if you've got any old rag of a robe, just pile her in.'Well, he started off all right toward the depot, the bells jinglingnice, and pretty soon I see the sleigh come back with somebody elsewithin and go up the turnpike this way, and so I went upstairs andturned into bed. It was after I'd got into a good first sleep whensomething seemed to be pounding me in a dream and I started up with wifepulling my sleeve and calling, 'There's somebody pounding away on thefront stoop and yelling like mad. Do you suppose one of the mules couldhave broke loose?'

  "'One of the mules? That's Spunky Pete and no other,' says I, tumblinginto my clothes and grabbing a lantern. He always pounds and screechesthat way if I don't give him his feed first of the bunch. Yes, sureenough, there was Pete pounding away on the porch. At first I thoughthe'd served them some trick and upset them, but when my eyes fell on thelines, I knew different; they were tied to the dash rail with a bit ofstring!

  "That made me suspicious and I looked Pete over as I led him to thestable. For a cold night he had surely sweat more than the short runwarranted. Then I noticed the bells didn't jingle--the string on thegirth was gone (I found it after under the seat) and the two big ones onthe shafts were hushed by being wrapped in paper. 'I wonder what's up,'says I, 'the horse has come back safe, but there's something amisssomewhere. A man doesn't give up ten dollars to ride three miles on anystraight errand.' So this morning I started up to find if any companyhad come up to Mr. Gilbert's, and I met 'Lisha here with the buffalo,which, I declare, I hadn't missed, and he told me the rest."

  "Did you keep the bits of newspaper?" asked Gilbert.

  "Yes, they're down home; they're torn from _The Boston Traveller_ oflast Friday."

  "I wonder if any one took the milk freight down last night; it carries apassenger car," ventured the Justice of the Peace. "Nobody, so far asMr. Binks the agent saw; he loaded on some milk, but the ticket-officeisn't open for that train," said 'Lisha.

  "Can you describe the man?" asked the Justice of the Peace, poising hispencil.

  "That's just what I've been trying to do for myself," said theliveryman. "Not suspecting anything, I wasn't particular, and he had adark cloth cap with a chin piece that pretty well covered his mouth. Hewas short and thick-set, 'n' I think his eyebrows were light, but that'sabout all, except that he had a long scar between the two first fingersof his right hand. I noticed that when he slapped the ten-dollar notedown on the table."

  "He asked you how far it was to Harley's Mills Post-office?" saidGilbert. "Then wherever they came from and whoever they are, they_meant_ to leave the child here, it wasn't mere chance. Do you hearthat, all?"

  "Yes," answered the Justice of the Peace; "but as you've said that youhave no kin that she could come from, mightn't she be of some distantkin Down East of old Curtis's, who didn't know he was dead? He'd had theoffice about ever since there was one and was reputed rich, you know."

  Gilbert winced as though some one had rudely touched a vital spot, andthen, turning to the First Selectman, said quietly: "I don't knowwhether it's law or not, but I think a notice should be put in the bestcounty paper. I reckon those from whom the child was stolen should haveas much chance to know of it as if one of us had found a good horse tiedat his gate. Then in a month's time, if there is no clew, other planscan be made. Meantime, as it seems she was left here with intention,sister Pegrim and I will look after her."

  "That's well said--liberal too, for a man of your years--with priceswhat they are--" were some of the comments.

  "That'll do for the present," said t
he First Selectman, gathering hisgray long-shawl about him and steadying himself with his cane; "but wehave a mystery among us for the first time, boys, and we must not treatit lightly. If Mr. Allan Pinkerton was not at this time needed by Mr.Lincoln, I should vote that we put the case before him."

  Then, led by 'Lisha Potts, who announced that he was going to finish theday by asking a few questions at the Bridgeton station, the group,having already shortened their working day by a couple of hours, driftedaway.

  Oliver Gilbert watched them go, and mechanically took his seat beforethe sorting table. He was dizzy from lack of sleep and the rush of manyemotions that he had almost forgotten he had ever felt before, blendedwith others wholly new. His life had been slow in blossoming, thecrippled hip from his very childhood had kept him aloof and apart. Thenhe had lived in the full for three years and twilight again fell aroundhim; for a while he had struggled against it, and then, as the neighborssaid, "become resigned." Now, everything was upheaved; work, hisconsoler, lay on the bench untouched; the sun melted the ice from thehalyards, and yet he did not go to raise the flag of victory where itmust be seen from John Angus's windows. The hour struck and then thenext before noon; he did not even remember that he had not eatenbreakfast. Presently the outer door opened and a pair of small, heavilyshod feet clumped across to the delivery-window, through which theirowner could not look, even on tiptoes, and after waiting for a fewmoments, the piping voice of a boy of six or so called, "It's me, Mr.Gilbert. I've come over to see your little girl, please."

  Gilbert started from his revery and came toward the voice. "Oh, it'syou, is it, Hughey, and who told you about her, pray?"

  "Nobody told me 'xactly, but I heard Mr. Morse telling father andmother, and I asked her if I might come right down, and she said yes.You see, there wasn't any school this morning because it was tooslippery, but now it's all wet. Broken for spring, father says. See mynew rubber-boots, Mr. Gilbert; all red inside," and he held up onesturdy leg.

  "As it's so close on to noon I guess I'll shut up, and we'll go intogether and see little missy. Isn't this about the time of day for abarley stick, sonny?" said the postmaster, taking one from the glasscase as he passed.

  The kitchen was in its usual order; a boiled dinner was under way on thestove, beneath which the puppy slept, while Mrs. Pegrim sat mending somesocks with the rocker drawn up close to the lounge upon which the ladybaby was enthroned and playing gayly with a string of spools. When shesaw Gilbert, she dropped them and tried to roll off the sofa to herfeet.

  "No, no!" said Mrs. Pegrim, pleasantly but decidedly, "it's too colddown there for little girls." Her face flushed, puckered up to cry;then, for some reason, she changed her mind and held out her arms.

  "So she knows daddy already, does she?" crooned Gilbert, "and here's alittle boy come to see her, the very first caller. Satira, this is HughOldys from the Mills--Richard Oldys's boy, you know."

  Richard Oldys was one of the representative men of this section of NewEngland. He had rebuilt the original Harley's Mills near the mouth ofthe Moosatuck, for which the town had been named, and made them a greatdistributing centre of flour and all grains. The land had come down tohis wife, whose mother had been a Harley and was, therefore, kin of theMisses Felton, who also had Harley blood in the female line. While a manof less wealth than John Angus, Oldys was so much more liberal with it,so much broader in his sympathies and culture, that nothing ofimportance was undertaken in the community without his advice andsanction. As for his wife,--in that clannish and conservative littletown, almost old-world-like in its simplicity and loyalty totradition,--it was a belief that a real Harley could do no wrong.Coupled with this, Pamela Oldys was a rare woman, almost too highlykeyed to the needs and wishes of others for her own peace, and wrappedup in this boy Hugh, the only child that her frail health had allowedher.

  Hugh surveyed the lady baby in silence for a moment, and then gravelyshook her hand, saying, "How do you do?" A crow came from the prettilycurved lips by way of answer, and she began a sort of game ofpeek-a-boo, covering her face with her hands and then peeping out.Evidently she had lived among responsive people.

  "I suppose God sent her the same as usual," remarked Hugh, in the mostmatter-of-fact way. "She's nice and big though, being so new; they'remostly blinky and queer at first, like kittens. We've never had a babyat our house; they often have them next door, but not as nice as thisone."

  At this moment the puppy spied Hugh's rubber-boots that had been left atthe door, and made a dash for them, for if there is anything a young dogloves, it is either shoe leather or shoe rubber.

  "Hi! there's a puppy. Is it yours, Mr. Gilbert? I had a puppy once andit died, and father's going to buy me one of a better kind nextChristmas. I'll be seven then. There's so many cats around the millthat I hope they won't scratch its eyes out."

  "That pup belongs to the lady baby," answered Gilbert, who was nowbrushing his tousled hair in front of the mirror over the sink.

  "Did it come with her?" asked Hugh, eagerly.

  "It surely did; she had it right in her little arms," answered Gilbert,busy with a collar button and not thinking ahead.

  "Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Hugh, clapping his hands, "for now I know thatif dogs come from heaven, they must go back there too, and I was afraidthat my puppy would be dreadful lonely if he couldn't go where therewere little boys and girls, for he just loved them."

  Satira Pegrim looked at her brother with a horrified expression. Herlips opened to speak, but something that she saw in his face made herclose them again. Whatever her feelings as a hard-shell Baptist upon thefuture state of dogs might be, she did not propose to shorten her visitto her brother by expressing them.

  "Have they got names yet?" asked Hugh, his attention now embarrassinglydivided between the lady baby and the pup.

  "No, sonny; that is, I'm not plumb sure, so I'm going to take time, sayuntil along about the first of the month, to think out a name for thelady baby. As for the pup, suppose you help me out with that. Think upall the names that's short and slick, and then we'll have a choosingbee."

  "Dinner is ready," called Mrs. Pegrim from the pantry, where she wasslicing bread. "Won't you set up to the table, Hugh, and eat with us?"

  "I think I'd better go home now, mother didn't say anything aboutdinner. Next time I come, I'm going to bring you something, lady baby,"Hugh said, gently kissing the dimpled hand she thrust into his face,"and byme by, when you can walk, I'll bring you up to my house to see mymother and lend you part of her, 'cause you've only got a daddy."

  "That's just it, at best there'll only be a daddy," murmured Gilbert,drawing his chair to the table and eating as in a dream, in which thewording of the notice for the papers was the chief theme, until he wasroused by a spoon pounding his hand vigorously, and found that the childwas seated close beside him in Marygold's high-chair, her eyes fastenedon his face.

  "Look a-here now, Oliver," said Satira Pegrim, resting her arms on herelbows, with knife and fork raised in midair; "I've been thinking,suppose'n the Oldys took a fancy to adopt her. Wouldn't that square upeverything for everybody just right? For it's plain to see that Hugh'sjust achin' for a sister."

  Again the forbidding expression settled on Gilbert's face, but Satiradid not see it until too late.

  "Mrs. Pegrim, I don't know just how long you may be called to visithere, but longer or shorter, recollect one thing, you'll have no call to_think_ about my business nor to _talk_ about it to me, but just to keepquiet."

  "Don't you want me to visit or have speech with the neighbors?" pleadedSatira, her cheery voice dropping to a ludicrous whimper, as the visionof social cups of tea flavored by neighborhood gossip began to fade.

  "I don't ask anybody to do what they manifestly according to naturecan't; I said _me_!" retorted Gilbert, about whose long forefinger thelady baby had gripped her hand as a bird clings to its perch.