At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern Part 23

Smithers in a spot where she had dreamed gold was hidden. He went off to the orchard with it, whistling, his progress being furtively watched with great interest by the sour-faced handmaiden in the kitchen.

Back in the orchard again, he worked feverishly, possessed by a pleasant thrill of excitement, somewhat similar to that conceivably enlivening the humdrum existence of Captain Kidd. d.i.c.k was far from surprised when his spade struck something hard, and, his hands trembling with eagerness, he lifted out a tin box of the kind commonly used for private papers.

It was locked, but a twist of his muscular hands sufficed to break it open. Then he saw that it was a spring lock, and that, with grim, characteristic humour, Uncle Ebeneezer had placed the key inside the box.

There were papers there--and money, the coins and bills being loosely scattered about, and the papers firmly sealed in an envelope addressed "To Whom it May Concern."

d.i.c.k counted the coins and smoothed out the bills, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life. He was tempted to open the envelope, but refrained, not at all sure that he was among those whom it concerned. For the s.p.a.ce of half an hour he stood there, frowning, then he laughed.

"I'll just put it back," he said to himself. "It's not for me to monkey with Uncle Ebeneezer's purposes."

He buried the box in its old place, and even cut a bit of sod from a distant part of the orchard to hide the traces of his work. When all was smooth again, he went back to the barn, swinging the spade carelessly but no longer whistling.

"The old devil," he muttered, with keen appreciation. "The wise old devil!"

XIV

Mrs. Dodd's Fifth Fate

_Morning lay fair upon the land, and yet the Lady Elaine was weary. Like a drooping lily she swayed in her saddle, sick at heart and cast down.

Earnestly her company of gallant knights strove to cheer her, but in vain.

Even the merry quips of the fool in motley, who still rode at her side, brought no smile to her beautiful face._

_Presently, he became silent, his heart deeply troubled because of her. An hour pa.s.sed so, and no word was spoken, then, timidly enough, he ventured another jest._

_The Lady Elaine turned. "Say no more, fool," she commanded, "but get out thy writing tablet and compose me a poem. I would fain hear something sad and tender in place of this endless folly."_

_Le Jongleur bowed. "And the subject, Princess?"_

_Elaine laughed bitterly. "Myself," she cried. "Why not? Myself, Elaine, and this foolish quest of mine!"_

_Then, for a s.p.a.ce, there was silence upon the road, since the fool, with his writing tablet, had dropped back to the rear of the company, and the gallant knights, perceiving the mood of their mistress, spoke not._

_At noon, when the white sun trembled at the zenith, Le Jongleur urged his donkey forward, and presented to Elaine a glorious rose which he had found blooming at the wayside._

_"The poem is finished, your highness," he breathed, doffing his cap, "but 'tis all unworthy, so I bring thee this rose also, that something in my offering may of a certainty be sweet."_

_He would have put the scroll into her hand, but she swerved her palfrey aside. "Read it," she said, impatiently; "I have no mind to try my wits with thy poor scrawls."_

_So, with his voice trembling, and overwhelmed with self-consciousness, the fool read as follows:_

The vineyards, purple with their bloom, Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

The maidens in thy lonely room, Thy tapestry on silent loom-- But hus.h.!.+ Where is Elaine?

Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

Thy castle in the valley lies, Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

Where swift the homing swallow flies And in the sunset daylight dies-- But hus.h.!.+ Where is Elaine?

Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

Night comes at last on dreamy wings, Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

'Mid gleaming clouds the pale moon swings, Thy taper light a faint star brings, But hus.h.!.+ Where is Elaine?

Elaine, hast thou forgotten?

Harlan had never written any poetry before, but it had always seemed easy.

Now, as he read the verses over again, he was tremendously satisfied with his achievement. Unconsciously, he had modelled it upon an exquisite little bit by some one else, which had once been reprinted beneath a "story" of his own when he was on the paper. He read it aloud, to see how it sounded, and was more pleased than ever with the swing of the verse and the music of the words. "It's pretty close to art," he said to himself, "if it isn't the real thing."

Just then the luncheon bell rang, and he went out to the midday "gab-fest," as he inwardly characterised it. The meal proceeded to dessert without any unusual disturbance, then the diminutive Ebeneezer threw the remnants of his cup of milk into his mother's face, and was carried off, howling, to be spanked. Like many other mothers, Mrs. Holmes resented her children's conduct when it incommoded her, but not otherwise, and though milk baths are said to be fine for the complexion, she was not altogether pleased with the manner of application.

Amid the vocal pyrotechnics from the Holmes apartments, Harlan escaped into the library, but his poem was gone. He searched for it vainly, then sat down to write it over before he should forget it. This done, he went on with Elaine and her adventures, and presently forgot all about the lost page.

"Don't that do your heart good?" inquired Mrs. Dodd, of Dorothy, inclining her head toward Mrs. Holmes's door.

"Be it ever so humble," sang d.i.c.k, strolling out of the room, "there's no place like Holmes's."

Mrs. Carr admitted that her ears were not yet so calloused but that the sound gave her distinct pleasure.

"If that there little limb of Satan had have throwed his milk in anybody else's face," went on Mrs. Dodd, "all she'd have said would have been: 'Ebbie, don't spill your nice milk. That's naughty.'"

Her imitation of the fond mother's tone and manner was so wickedly exact that Dorothy laughed heartily. The others had fled to a more quiet spot, except Willie and Rebecca, who were fighting for a place at the keyhole of their mother's door. Finally, Willie gained possession of the keyhole, and the ingenious Rebecca, lying flat on her small stomach, peered under the door, and obtained a pleasing view of what was going on inside.

"Listen at that!" cried Mrs. Dodd, her countenance fairly beaming with innocent pleasure. "I'm gettin' most as much good out of it as I would from goin' to the circus. Reckon it's a slipper, for it sounds just like little Jimmie Young's weepin' did the night I come home from my fifth honeymoon.

"That's the only time," she went on, reminiscently, "as I was ever a step-ma to children what wasn't growed up. You'd think a woman as had been married four times afore would have knowed better 'n to get her fool head into a noose like that, but there seems to be only one way for folks to learn things, an' that's by their own experience. If we could only use other folks' experience, this here world would be heaven in about three generations, but we're so const.i.tuted that we never believe fire 'll burn till we poke our own fingers into it to see. Other folks' scars don't go no ways at all toward convincin' us.

"You read lots of novels about the sorrers of step-children, but I ain't never come up with no epic as yet portrayin' the sufferin's of a step-ma.

If I had a talent like your husband's got, I'll be blest if I wouldn't do it. What I went through with them children aged me ten years in less 'n three.

"It was like this," she prattled on. "I'd never seen a one of 'em, they livin' far away from their pa, as was necessary if their pa was to get any peace an' happiness out 'n life, an' that lyin' creeter I married told me there was only three. My dear, there was eight, an' sixteen ordinary young ones couldn't have been no worse.

"Our courtin' was done mainly in the cemetery. I'd just laid my fourth away in his proper place an' had the letterin' all cut nice on his side of the monumint, an' I was doin' the plantin' on the grave when I met my fate--my fifth fate, I'm speakin' of now. I allers aimed to do right by my husbands when they was dead no less 'n when they was livin', an' I allers planted each one's favourite flower on his last restin'-place, an' planted it thick, so 's when the last trump sounded an' they all riz up, there wouldn't be no one of 'em that could accuse me of bein' partial.

"Some of the flowers was funny for a graveyard. One of 'em loved sunflowers, an' when blossomin'-time come, you could see a spot of light in my lot clear from the gate when you went in, an' on sunny days even from quite a piece outside.

"Geraniums was on the next grave, red an' pink together, as William loved to see 'em, an' most fittin' an' appropriate. He was a queer-lookin' man, William was, all bald except for a little fringe of red hair around his head, an' his bald spot gettin' as pink as anythin' when he got mad. I never could abide red an' pink together, so I did my best not to rile him; but la sakes, my dear, red-haired folks is that touchy that you never can tell what's goin' to rile 'em an' what ain't. Some innercent little remark is as likely to set 'em off as anythin' else. All the time it's like carryin' a light into a fireworks place. Drop it once an' the air 'll be full of sky-rockets, roman candles, pinwheels, an' set pieces till you're that dazed you don't know where you're livin'. Don't never take no red-haired one, my dear, if you're anyways set on peace. I never took but one, but that was enough to set me dead against the breed.

"Well, as I was a-sayin', James begun to woo me in the cemetery. Whenever you see a man in a cemetery, my dear, you can take it for granted that he's a new-made widower. After the first week or two, he ain't got no time to go to no grave, he's so busy lookin' out for the next one. When I see James a-waterin' an' a-weedin' on the next lot to mine, therefore, I knowed his sorrer was new, even though the band of c.r.a.pe on his hat was rusty an' old.

"Bein' fellow-mourners, in a way, we struck up kind of a melancholy friends.h.i.+p, an' finally got to borrerin' water from each other's sprinklin' cans an' exchangin' flower seeds an' slips, an' even hull plants. That old deceiver told me it was his first wife that was a-lyin'

there, an' showed me her name on the monumint. She was buried in her own folks' lot, an' I never knowed till it was too late that his own lot was plum full of wives, an' this here was a annex, so to speak. I dunno how I come to be so took in, but anyways, when James's grief had subsided somewhat, we decided to travel on the remainin' stretch through this vale of tears together.

"He told me he had a beautiful home in Taylorville, but was a-livin' where he was so 's to be near the cemetery an' where he could look after dear Annie's grave. The sentiment made me think all the more of him, so 's I didn't hesitate, an' was even willin' to be married with one of my old rings, to save the expense of a new one. James allers was thrifty, an' the way he put it, it sounded quite reasonable, so 's that's how it comes, my dear, that in spite of havin' had seven husbands, I've only got six weddin'-rings.

"I put each one on when its own proper anniversary comes around an' wear it till the next one, when I change again, though for one of the rings it makes only one day, because the fourth and seventh times I was married so near together. That sounds queer, my dear, but if you think it over, you'll see what I mean. It's fortunate, too, in a way, 'cause I found out by accident years afterward that my fourth weddin'-ring come out of a p.a.w.n-shop, an' I never took much joy out of wearin' it. Bein' just alike, I wore another one mostly, even when Samuel was alive, but he never noticed. Besides, I reckon 't wouldn't make no difference, for a man that'll go to a p.a.w.n-shop for a weddin'-ring ain't one to make a row about his wife's changin' it. When I spoke sharp to him about it, he snickered, an' said it was appropriate enough, though to this day I've never figured out precisely just what the old serpent meant by it.

"Well, as I was sayin', my dear, the minister married us in good an'

proper form, an' I must say that, though I've had all kinds of ceremonies, I take to the 'Piscopal one the most, in spite of havin' been brought up Methodis', an' hereafter I'll be married by it if the occasion should arise--an' we drove over to Taylorville.