The Light in the Clearing Part 41

"d.a.m.n, little souled, narrer contracted--" Uncle Peabody, speaking in a low, sad tone, but with deep feeling, cut off this highly promising opinion before it was half expressed, and rose and went to the water pail and drank.

"As long as we're honest we don't care what they say," he remarked as he returned to his chair.

"If they won't believe us we ought to show 'em the papers--ayes," said Aunt Deel.

"Thunder an' Jehu! I wouldn't go 'round the town tryin' to prove that I ain't a thief," said Uncle Peabody. "It wouldn't make no differ'nce.

They've got to have somethin' to play with. If they want to use my name for a bean bag let 'em as long as they do it when I ain't lookin'. I wouldn't wonder if they got sore hands by an' by."

I never heard him speak of it again. Indeed, although I knew the topic was often in our thoughts it was never mentioned in our home but once after that, to my knowledge.

We sat for a long time thinking as the night came on. By and by Uncle Peabody began the hymn in which we joined:

"Oh, keep my heart from sadness, G.o.d; Let not its sorrows stay, Nor shadows of the night erase The glories of the day."

"Say--by thunder!--we don't have to set in the shadows. Le's fill the room with the glory of the day," said Uncle Peabody as he lighted the candles. "It ain't a good idee to go slidin' down hill in the summer-time an' in the dark, too. Le's have a game o' cards."

I remember that we had three merry games and went to bed. All outward signs of our trouble had vanished in the glow of the candles.

Next day I rode to the post-office and found there a book addressed to me in the handwriting of old Kate. It was David Hoffman's _Course of Legal Study_. She had written on its fly-leaf:

"To Barton Baynes, from a friend."

"That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle Peabody.

"Well, let her if she wants to--poor thing!" Aunt Deel answered. "A woman has got to have somebody to like--ayes!--or I dunno how she'd live--I declare I don't--ayes!"

"I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me."

"She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed.

We began reading the book that evening in the candle-light and soon finished it. I was thrilled by the ideal of human service with which the calling of the lawyer was therein lifted up and illuminated. After that I had no doubt of my way.

That week a letter came to me from the Senator, announcing the day of Mrs. Wright's arrival in Canton and asking me to meet and a.s.sist her in getting the house to rights. I did so. She was a pleasant-faced, amiable woman and a most enterprising house cleaner. I remember that my first task was mending the wheelbarrow.

"I don't know what Silas would do if he were to get home and find his wheelbarrow broken," said she. "It is almost an inseparable companion of his."

The schoolmaster and his family were fis.h.i.+ng and camping upon the river, and so I lived at the Senator's house with Mrs. Wright and her mother until he arrived. What a wonderful house it was, in my view! I was awed by its size and splendor, its soft carpets and s.h.i.+ny bra.s.s and mahogany.

Yet it was very simple.

I hoed the garden and cleaned its paths and mowed the dooryard and did some painting in the house. I remember that Mrs. Ebenezer Binks--wife of the deacon and the constable--came in while I was at the latter task early one morning to see if there were anything she could do.

She immediately sat down and talked constantly until noon of her family and especially of the heartlessness and general misconduct of her son and daughter-in-law because they had refused to let her apply the name of Divine Submission to the baby. It had been a hard blow to Mrs. Binks, because this was the one and only favor which she had ever asked of them. She reviewed the history of the Binkses from Ebenezer--the First--down to that present day. There had been three Divine Submissions in the family and they had made the name of Binks known wherever people knew anything. When Mrs. Wright left the room Mrs. Binks directed her conversation at me, and when Mrs. Wright returned I only got the spray of it. By dinner time we were drenched in a way of speaking and Mrs.

Binks left, a.s.suring us that she would return later and do anything in her power.

"My stars!" Mrs. Wright exclaimed. "If you see her coming lock the door and go and hide in a closet until she goes away. Mrs. Binks always brings her ancestors with her and they fill the house so that there's no room for anybody else."

When the day's work was ended Mrs. Wright exclaimed:

"Thank goodness! the Binkses have not returned."

We always referred to Mrs. Binks as the Binkses after that.

Mrs. Jenison, a friend of the Wrights, came in that afternoon and told us of the visit of young Latour to Canton and of the great relief of the decent people at his speedy departure.

"I wonder what brought him here," said Mrs. Wright.

"It seems that he had heard of the beauty of Sally Dunkelberg. But a bee had stung her nose just before he came and she was a sight to behold."

The ladies laughed.

"It's lucky," said Mrs. Wright. "Doesn't Horace Dunkelberg know about him?"

"I suppose he does, but the man is money crazy."

I couldn't help hearing it, for I was working in the room in which they talked. Well, really, it doesn't matter much now. They are all gone.

"Who is young Latour?" I asked when Mrs. Jenison had left us.

"A rake and dissolute young man whose father is very rich and lives in a great mansion over in Jefferson County," Mrs. Wright answered.

I wondered then if there had been a purpose in that drop of honey from the cup of the Silent Woman.

I remember that the Senator, who returned to Canton that evening on the Watertown stage, laughed heartily when, as we were sitting by the fireside, Mrs. Wright told of the call of the Binkses.

"The good lady enjoys a singular plurality," he remarked.

"She enjoys it better than we do," said Mrs. Wright.

The Senator had greeted me with a fatherly warmth. Again I felt that strong appeal to my eye in his broadcloth and fine linen and beaver hat and in the splendid dignity and courtesy of his manners.

"I've had good reports of you, Bart, and I'm very glad to see you," he said.

"I believe your own marks have been excellent in the last year," I ventured.

"Poorer than I could wish. The teacher has been very kind to me," he laughed. "What have you been studying?"

"Latin (I always mentioned the Latin first), Algebra, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography and History."

"Including the history of the Binkses," he laughed.

There was never a note of humor in his speeches, but he was playful in his talk at times, especially when trusted friends were with him.

"She is a very excellent woman, after all," he added.

He asked about my aunt and uncle and I told him of all that had befallen us, save the one thing of which I had spoken only with them and Sally.

"I shall go up to see them soon," he said.