Laddie Part 56

I yanked the letter from the bundle, and held it over. I THOUGHT I could read, but I was too scared to be sure. I thought it said in big, strong, upstanding letters, Miss Sh.e.l.ley Stanton, Groveville, Indiana.

And in the upper corner, Blackburn, Yeats and PAGET, Counsellors of Law, 37 to 39 State St., Chicago. I put my finger on the Paget, and looked into father's face. I was no fool after all. He was not a bit surer that HE could read than I was, from the dazed way he stared.

"You see!" I said.

"It says Paget!" he said, like he would come nearer believing; it if he heard himself p.r.o.nounce the word.

"I THOUGHT it said 'Paget,'" I gasped, "but I wanted to know if you thought so too."

"Yes, it's Paget plain enough," said father, but he acted like there was every possibility that it might change to Jones any minute. "It says 'Paget,' plain as print."

"Father!" I cried, clutching his arm, "father, see how fat it is!

There must be pages and pages! Father, it wouldn't take all that to tell her he didn't like her, and he never wanted to see her again.

Would it, father?"

"It doesn't seem probable," said father.

"Father don't you think it means there's been some big mistake, and it takes so much to tell how it can be fixed?"

"It seems reasonable."

I gripped him tighter, and maybe shook him a little.

"Father!" I cried. "Father, doesn't it just look HURRY, all over?

Can't you speed up a little? They have all day to cool off. Oh father, won't you speed a little?"

"That I will!" said father. "Get a tight hold, and pray G.o.d it is good word we carry."

"But I prayed the one big prayer to get this," I said. "It wouldn't be sent if it wasn't good. The thing to do now is to thank the Lord for 'all his loving kindnesses,' like mother said."

"Drive father! Make them go!"

At first he only touched them up; I couldn't see that we were getting home so fast; but in a minute a cornfield pa.s.sed like a streak, a piece of woods flew by a dark blur, a bridge never had time to rattle, and we began to rock from side to side a little. Then I gripped the top supports with one hand, the mail with the other, and hung on for dear life. I took one good look at father.

His feet were on the brace, his face was clear, even white, his eyes steely, and he never moved a muscle. When Jo thought it was funny, that he was loose in the pasture, and kicked up a little behind, father gave him a sharp cut with the whip and said: "Steady boy! Get along there!"

Sometimes he said, "Aye, aye! Easy!" but he never stopped a mite. We whizzed past the church and cemetery, and scarcely touched the Big Hill. People ran to their doors, even to the yards, and I was sure they thought we were having a runaway, but we were not. Father began to stop at the lane gate, he pulled all the way past the garden, and it was as much as he could do to get them slowed down so that I could jump out by the time we reached the hitching rack. He tied them, and followed me into the house instead of going to the barn. I ran ahead calling: "Sh.e.l.ley! Where is Sh.e.l.ley?"

"What in this world has happened, child?" asked mother, catching my arm.

"Her letter has come! Her Paget letter! The one you looked for until you gave up. It's come at last! Oh, where is she?"

"Be calmer, child, you'll frighten her," said mother.

May s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from my fingers and began to read all that was on it aloud. I burst out crying.

"Make her give that back!" I sobbed to father. "It's mine! I found it. Father, make her let me take it!"

"Give it to her!" said father. "I rather feel that it is her right to deliver it."

May pa.s.sed it back, but she looked so disappointed, that by how she felt I knew how much I wanted to take it myself; so I reached my hand to her and said: "You can come along! We'll both take it! Oh where is she?"

"She went down in the orchard," said mother. "I think probably she's gone back where she was the other day."

Gee, but we ran! And there she was! As we came up, she heard us and turned.

"Sh.e.l.ley!" I cried. "Here's your letter! Everything is all right!

He's coming, Sh.e.l.ley! Look quick, and see when! Mother will want to begin baking right away!"

Sh.e.l.ley looked at me, and said coolly: "Paddy Ryan! What's the matter?"

"Your letter!" I cried, shoving it right against her hands. "Your letter from Robert! From the Paget man, you know! I told you he was coming! Hurry, and see when!"

She took it, and sat there staring at it, so much like father, that it made me think of him, so I saw that she was going to have to come around to it as we did, and that one couldn't hurry her. She just had to take her time to sense it.

"Shall I open it for you?" I asked, merely to make her see that it was time she was doing it herself.

Blest if she didn't reach it toward me!--sort of woodenlike. I stuck my finger under the flap, gave it a rip across and emptied what was inside into her lap. Bet there were six or seven letters in queer yellow envelopes I never before had seen any like, and on them was the name, Robert Paget, while in one corner it said, "Returned Dead Letter"; also there was a loose folded white sheet. She sat staring at the heap, touching one, another, and repeating "Robert Paget?" as she picked each up in turn.

"What do you suppose it means?" she asked May. May examined them.

"You must read the loose sheet," she advised. "No doubt that will explain."

But Sh.e.l.ley never touched it. She handled those letters and stared at them. Father and mother came through the orchard and stood together behind us, so father knelt down at last, reached across Sh.e.l.ley's shoulder, picked one up and looked at it.

"Have you good word, dear?" asked mother of Sh.e.l.ley.

"Why, I don't understand at all," said Sh.e.l.ley. "Just look at all these queer letters, addressed to Mr. Paget. Why should they be sent to me? I mustn't open them. They're not mine. There must be some mistake."

"These are DEAD LETTERS," said father. "They've been written to you, couldn't be delivered, and so were sent to the Dead Letter Office at Was.h.i.+ngton, which returned them to the writer, and unopened he has forwarded them once more to you. You've heard of dead letters, haven't you?"

"I suppose so," said Sh.e.l.ley. "I don't remember just now; but there couldn't be a better name. They've come mighty near killing me."

"If you'd only read that note!" urged May, putting it right into her fingers.

Sh.e.l.ley still sat there.

"I'm afraid of it," she said exactly like I'd have spoken if there had been a big rattlesnake coming right at me, when I'd nothing at hand to bruise it.

Laddie and Leon came from the barn. They had heard me calling, seen May and me run, and then father and mother coming down, so they walked over.

"What's up?" asked Leon. "Has Uncle Levi's will been discovered, and does mother get his Mexican mines?"

"What have you got, Sh.e.l.ley?" asked Laddie, kneeling beside her, and picking up one of the yellow letters.

"I hardly know," said Sh.e.l.ley.

"I brought her a big letter with all those little ones and a note in it, and they are from the Paget man," I explained to him. "But she won't even read the note, and see what he writes. She says she's afraid."