Thankful's Inheritance Part 30

Kenelm, who had been sitting by the kitchen table before a well-filled plate, had heard his sister's approach and had risen. When Mrs. Barnes and the others reached the kitchen he had backed into a corner.

"Kenelm Parker," demanded Hannah, "what are you doin' here, this time of night?"

"I--I been eatin' supper," stammered Kenelm, "but I--I'm through now."

"Through! Didn't you know your supper was waitin' for you at home?

Didn't I tell you to come home early and have MY supper ready? Didn't--"

Imogene interrupted. "I guess you did, ma'am," she said, "but you see I asked him to stay here, so he stayed."

"YOU asked him! And he stayed! Well, I must say! Kenelm, have you been eatin' supper alone with that--with that--"

She was too greatly agitated to finish, but as Kenelm did not answer, Imogene did, without waiting.

"Yes'm," she said, soothingly. "It's all right. Kenelm and me can eat together, if we want to, I guess. We're engaged."

"ENGAGED!" Almost everyone said it--everyone except Hannah; she could not say anything.

"Yes," replied Imogene. "We're engaged to be married. We are, aren't we, Kenelm?"

Kenelm tried to back away still further, but the wall was behind him and he could only back against it. He was pale and he swallowed several times.

"Kenelm, dear," said Imogene, "didn't you hear me? Tell your sister about our bein' engaged."

Kenelm's mouth opened and shut. "Eh--eh--" he stammered. "I--I--"

"Don't be bashful," urged Imogene. "We're engaged to be married, ain't we?"

Mr. Parker gulped, choked and then nodded. "Yes," he admitted, faintly.

"I--I cal'late we be."

His sister took a step forward, her arm raised. Captain Obed stepped in front of her.

"Just a minute, Hannah! Heave to! Come up into the wind a jiffy. Let's get this thing straight. Kenelm, do you mean--"

The gentleman addressed seemed to mean very little, just then. But Imogene's coolness was quite unruffled and again she answered for him.

"He means just what he said," she declared, "and what he said was plain enough, I should think. I don't know why there should be so much row about it. Mr. Parker and I have been good friends ever since I come here to work. He's asked me to marry him some time or other and I said maybe I would. That makes us engaged, same's I've been tryin' to tell you. And what all this row is about I can't see. It's our business, ain't it? I can't see as it's anybody else's."

But Hannah was by this time beyond holding back. She pushed aside the captain's arm and faced the engaged couple. Her eyes flashed and her fingers twitched.

"You--you designin' critter you!" she shouted, addressing Imogene. "You plannin', schemin', underhanded--"

"Shh! shh!" put in Captain Obed. "Easy, Hannah! easy, there!"

"I shan't be easy! You mind your own affairs, Obed Bangs! Kenelm Parker, how dare you say--how dare you tell me you're goin' to marry this--this INMATE? What do you mean by it?"

Poor Kenelm only gurgled. His lady love once more came to his rescue.

"He's told you times enough what he means," she a.s.serted, firmly. "And I'll thank you not to call me names, either. In the first place I won't stand it; and, in the second, if you and me are goin' to be sisters-in-law, we'd better learn how to get along peaceable together.

I--"

"Don't you talk to me! Don't you DARE talk to me! I might have expected it! I did expect it. So this is why you two didn't go to the Fair? You had this all planned between you. I was to be got out of the way, and--"

"That's enough of that, too. There wasn't any plannin' about it--not until today, anyhow. I didn't know he wasn't goin' to the Fair and he didn't know I wasn't. He would have gone only--only you deserted him to go off with your own--your own gentleman friend. Humph! I should think you would look ashamed!"

Miss Parker's "shame"--or her feelings, whatever they might be--seemed to render her speechless. Her brother saw his chance.

"You know that's just what you done, Hannah," he put in, pleadingly.

"You know you did. I was so lonesome--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Hush, Kenelm!" ordered Imogene. "You left him alone to go with another man, Miss Parker. For all he knew you might be--be runnin' off to be married, or somethin'. So he come to where he had a friend, that's all. And what if he did? He can get married, if he wants to, can't he?

I'd like to know who'd stop him. He's over twenty-one, I guess."

This speech was too much for Emily; she laughed aloud. That laugh was the final straw. Hannah made a dive for her brother.

"You come home with me," she commanded. "You come right straight home with me this minute. As for you," she added, turning to Imogene, "I shan't waste any more words on a--on a thing like you. After my brother's money, be you? Thought you'd get him and it, too, did you?

Well, you shan't! He'll come right along home with me and there he'll stay. He's worked in this place as long as he's goin' to, Miss Inmate.

I'll take him out of YOUR clutches."

"Oh no, you won't! Him and me are goin' to the Fair tomorrow and on Monday he's comin' back to work here same as ever. You are, ain't you, Kenelm?"

Kenelm gulped and fidgeted. "I--I--I--" he stuttered.

"You see, Hannah," continued Imogene--"I suppose I might as well begin to call you 'Hannah,' seein' as we're goin' to be relations pretty soon--you see, he's engaged to me now and he'll do what I ask him to, of course."

"Engaged! He ain't engaged! I'll fix the 'engagement.' That'll be broke off this very minute."

And now Imogene played her best trump. She took from her waist a slip of paper and handed it to Captain Obed.

"Just read that out loud, won't you, please, Cap'n Bangs?" she asked.

The captain stared at the slip of paper. Then, in a choked voice, he read aloud the following:

I, Kenelm Issachar Parker, being in sound mind and knowing what I am doing, ask Imogene to be my wife and I agree to marry her any time she wants me to.

(Signed) KENELM ISSACHAR PARKER.

"There!" exclaimed Imogene. "I guess that settles it, don't it? I've got witnesses, anyhow, and right here, to our engagement. You all heard us both say we was engaged. But that paper settles it. Kenelm and I knew mighty well that you'd try to break off the engagement and say there wasn't any; but you can't break THAT."

"I can't? I like to know why I can't! What do you suppose I care for such a--a--"

"Well, if you don't, then the law does. If you make your brother break his engagement to me, Hannah Parker, I'll take that piece of paper right to a lawyer and make him sue Kenelm for--for breach of promises. You know what that means, I guess, if you've read the papers same as I have.

I rather guess that paper would give me a good many dollars damage. If you don't believe it you try and see. And there's two lawyers livin'

right in this house," she added triumphantly.

If she expected a sensation her expectations were realized. Hannah was again stricken dumb. Captain Bangs and Emily and John Kendrick looked at each other, then the captain doubled up with laughter. Mrs. Barnes and Kenelm, however, did not laugh. The latter seemed tremendously surprised.