The Price of the Prairie Part 48

In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away everything but the determination to help her.

"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now."

"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know, but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em."

The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a frown. My father was quick to note the change.

"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood.

"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes.

"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her story. As she went on from point to point, she threw reserve to the winds, and gave word to many thoughts she had meant to keep from him.

When she had finished, John Baronet sat with his eyes on the floor a little while.

"Lettie, you want help, and you need it; and you deserve it on one condition only," he said slowly.

"What's that?" she asked eagerly.

"That you also be just to others. That's fair, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," she agreed. Her soul was possessed with a selfish longing for her own welfare, but she was before a just and honorable judge now, in an atmosphere of right thinking.

"You know my son Phil, have known him many years. Although he is my boy, I cannot s.h.i.+eld him if he does wrong. Sin carries its own penalty sooner or later. Tell me the truth now, as you must answer for yourself sometime before the almighty and ever-living G.o.d, has Philip Baronet ever wronged you?"

How deep and solemn his tones were. They drove the frivolous trifling spirit out of Lettie, and a sense of awe and fear of lying suddenly possessed her. She dropped her eyes. The old trickery and evil plotting were of no avail here. She durst do nothing but tell the truth.

"He never did mistreat me," she murmured, hardly above a whisper.

"He took you home from the Andersons' party the night Dave Mead was at Red Range?" queried my father.

Lettie nodded.

"Of his own choice?"

She shook her head. "Amos asked him to," she said.

"And you told him good-bye at your own door?"

Another nod.

"Did you see him again that night?"

"Yes." Lettie's cheeks were scarlet.

"Who took you home the second time?"

A confusion of face, and then Lettie put her head on the table before her.

"Tell me, Lettie. It will open the way for me to help you. Don't spare anybody except yourself. You need not be too hard on yourself. Those who should befriend you can lay all the blame you can bear on your shoulders." He smiled kindly on her.

"Judge Baronet, I was a bad girl. It was Amos promising me jewelry and ribbons if I'd do what he wanted, making me think he would marry me if he could. I hated a girl because--" She stopped, and her cheeks flamed deeply.

"Never mind about the girl. Tell me where you were, and with whom."

"I was out on the West Prairie, just a little way, not very far. I was coming home."

"With Phil?" My father did not comment on the imprudence of a girl out on the West Prairie at this improper hour.

"No, no. I--I came home with Bud Anderson." Then, seeing only the kind strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full of feeling.

"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing, coa.r.s.e and rude with some company and refined with others? A father cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know anything."

"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks now.

And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face gave her comfort.

"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be forgotten."

As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank G.o.d for a son free from her net."

CHAPTER XXV

JUDSON SUMMONED

Though the mills of the G.o.ds grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small.

--FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN.

Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking his immediate presence in the Judge's office.

The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse.

"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see."

My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down across the table from the sleek little man.

"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means something. After all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the G.o.ds destroy they first make silly, at least.

"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did.

You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and impudence were insufferable in themselves.

"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly.

In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence"

grated on Judson a little.