Her Weight in Gold and others Part 6

"Of course not. She took the scales over to your house. Besides, I don't care a hang."

"Day before yesterday she weighed two hundred and ninety-eight pounds."

His voice rose to a shrill screech. "It's a blamed outrage!" He dropped his chin into his hands and went on muttering vaguely, his eyes glued to the top b.u.t.ton of the General's waistcoat.

"By Jove, she IS doing well."

"She can hardly walk. If she keeps on, she won't be able to see, either. Her eyes are almost lost. I screwed up the courage to take a long look at her to-day. She has lost her neck entirely and I haven't the remotest idea where her ears are."

"I--I DO feel sorry for you, Eddie," cried the General, moved by unexpected compunction.

Eddie rambled on. "Sometimes I sit down and actually watch her grow.

You can notice, it if you look steadily for a given time."

The two sat stiff and silent for many minutes. Eddie stole a sly glance at his companion's ruddy face.

"You are a remarkably well preserved man, General," he ventured speculatively. "Would you mind telling me your age?"

"I am seventy-one, Eddie, if it is any encouragement to you," said the General eagerly.

"You look good for another ten years," said Eddie hopelessly.

"I am a little worried about my heart," prevaricated the General. He meant to be magnanimous. Eddie did not look up, but his eyes began to blink rapidly. "There is heart disease in the family, you know."

"Then maybe Martha has--er--has--"

"Has what, my son!"

"I forgot. She is only your step-daughter. I was worried for a moment, that's all."

In the fall of the year, Eddie announced to his father-in-law that Martha was tipping the beam at three hundred and fourteen pounds, three ounces, and increasing daily. The General gave vent to an uneasy laugh, whereupon Eddie, mistaking his motive, launched into a tirade that ended with the frantic wish that the old man would hurry up and die.

"Now, Eddie, don't talk like that! I have about made up my mind to do something handsome for you and Martha. I have practically decided to make her an allowance for clothing and so forth--"

"Clothing!" groaned Eddie. "She doesn't want clothes. What could she do with 'em? I am the one who needs clothes. Look at me. Look at the frayed edges and see how I s.h.i.+ne in the back. There is a patch or two that you can't see. I put those patches on myself, too. Martha is so darned fat she can't hold a pair of trousers in her lap. Moreover, she can't sew with anything smaller than a crochet needle. Look at me! I am growing a beard so that people can't see my Adam's apple. That's how poor and thin I'm getting to be. Now just listen a minute; I'll give you a few figures that will paralyse you."

He jerked out his lead pencil and with the rapidity of a lightning calculator multiplied, added, and subtracted.

"She is worth $72,403.20 to-day. What do you think of that? Prove the figures for yourself. Here's the pencil."

"I don't care to--"

"The day of the wedding," went on Eddie wildly, "she weighed in at $16,972.80, I think. See what I mean? She's bulling the market and I can't realise a cent on her. She's gone up $55,430 in less than a year.

Suffering Isaac! Why couldn't she have weighed that much a year ago?"

He was so furious that he chopped off his words in such a way that they sounded like the barking of a dog.

The General pushed back his chair in alarm.

"Calm yourself, Eddie."

"Oh, I'm calm enough."

"Martha will be a very rich woman when I die, and you won't have to--"

"That sounds beautiful. But don't you see that she's getting so blamed fat that she's liable to tip over some day and die before I can find any one to help me set her up again? And if that should happen, will you kindly tell me WHERE _I_ WOULD COME IN?"

"You are a heartless, mercenary scoundrel," gasped the General.

"Well, you would be sore, too, if this thing had happened to you,"

whined Eddie. He sprang to his feet suddenly. "By thunder, I can't stand it a day longer. Good-bye, General. I'm going to skip out."

"Skip out! Leave her? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes. She can always find a happy home with her mother and you. I'm off to the--"

"For Heaven's sake," cried the General hoa.r.s.ely, "don't do that, Eddie.

Don't you dare do anything like that. I--I--I am sure we can arrange something between us. I'm not a stingy, hard-hearted man, and you know it. You deserve relief. You deserve compensation. I am your father-in-law and, damme, I'll not go back on you in your time of need.

I'll make up the amount you have already lost, 'pon my soul I will, Eddie. Stand by your guns, that's all I ask."

A seraphic expression came into Eddie's face. "When?" he demanded.

"Immediately. Can you come to my house this evening? Alone, of course."

"I should say I can!" shouted Eddie, growing two inches taller in an instant. He took the package of c.r.a.pe from his pocket and threw it into a cuspidor. Then he sighed profoundly. "Gad, have you ever felt like another man, General? It's great."

As the General was past the point where he could risk saying another word, he maintained a strenuous silence.

Eddie indulged in an expansive grin. "You asked if I could come alone.

That's the only way I can come. If you ever expect to see Martha, General, you will have to come to my house to do so. Do you remember that saying about Mahomet and the mountain?"

THE MAID AND THE BLADE

Over two centuries ago. Virginia, fair Virginia, in her most rugged, uncouth state, yet queen of all the colonies, rich in the dignity of an advanced settlement, glorious in prophecies and ambitions; the favoured ward of England's sovereigns, the paradise of her royal pillagers, the birthplace of American Freedom.

Jamestown was in the throes of a savage struggle, confined not to herself alone, but spreading to the farthermost ends of the apparently unbounded state. The capital fight was on, the contest waging between the town in which grew Bacon's rebellion and Williamsburg, in which William and Mary College had just been born, an infant venture that seemed but a mockery in the wilds. Boisterous, boasting Jamestown, since the rule of Berkeley and the unfortunate overthrow of Bacon, had resumed a state of composure which she had not known in the five preceding decades, and was beginning to look upon herself as the undisputed metropolis of the wilderness. The impudence of Williamsburg, with her feeble scholastic claims, was not even condemned--it was ignored.

The crude fort at Jamestown held a merry garrison, the Governor having impressed upon royalty across the sea the importance of troops in a land where unexpected rebellions against authority might succeed the partially triumphant uprising against Sir William in 1676. Bacon's death in the October of that year had lost the fight which had been fairly won, and it was wisdom which told the new Governor that troops were essential, even in time of peace.

The commander of the garrison was Colonel Fortune. The number and quality of his troops are not important factors in this tale.

Among the men were a dozen or more subalterns, fresh from England, undergoing their first rough work in the forests of Virginia. In this fledgling crowd were young Grafton, afterward a general; Mooney, Vedder, Hoicraft and others, whose names, with those of their Virginia companions went into colonial history.

Near the fort were the homes of the officers, the Governor's residence being but a short distance down the rough, winding lane, which was dignified by the name of street. Colonel Fortune's home was the handsomest, the merriest of them all, a typical frontier mansion. A mansion of those days could be little more than a cottage in these, yet the Colonel's was far brighter, gayer than the palace of today. In his house gathered chivalrous subalterns from English homes, stalwart Virginians of inherited gallantry, the men and women from whom sprung the first families of that blue blood which all Americans cherish lovingly and proudly.

His board was more hospitable than that of the Governor, his favours were coveted more eagerly even than were those of his superior. Stern, exacting, yet affable and courteous, he was the idol of a people whose hatred for those who ruled them had wrought ruin more than once. Mrs.

Fortune, a lady of gentle birth closely related, in fact, to a certain branch of n.o.bility, shared the power of her husband.