At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern

It was Dick who, blindly enough, helped her over many a hard place, and quickened her sense of humour into something upon which she might securely lean. He was too young and too much occupied with the obvious to look further, but he felt that Dorothy was troubled, and that it was his duty, as a man and a gentleman, to cheer her up.

Privately, he considered Harlan an amiable kind of a fool, who shut himself up needlessly in a musty library when he might be outdoors, or talking with a charming woman, or both. When he discovered that Harlan had hitherto earned his living by writing and hoped to continue doing it, he looked upon his host with profound pity. Books, to Dick, were among the things which kept life from being wholly pleasant and agreeable. He had gone through college because otherwise he would have been separated from his friends, and because a small legacy from a distant relative, who had considerately died at an opportune moment, enabled him to pay for his tuition and his despised books.

“I was never a pig, though,” he explained to Dorothy, in a confidential moment. “There was one chump in our class who wanted to know all there was in the book, and made himself sick trying to cram it in. All of a sudden, he graduated. He left college feet first, three on a side, with the class walking slow behind him. I never was like that. I was sort of an epicure when it came to knowledge, tasting delicately here and there, and never greedy. Why, as far back as when I was studying algebra, I nobly refused to learn the binomial theorem. I just read it through once, hastily, like taking one sniff at a violet, and then let it alone. The other fellows fairly gorged themselves with it, but I didn’t – I had too much sense.”

When Mr. Chester had been there a week, he gave Dorothy two worn and crumpled two-dollar bills.

“What’s this?” she asked, curiously. “Where did you find it?”

“‘Find it’ is good,” laughed Dick. “I earned it, my dear lady, in hard and uncongenial toil. It’s my week’s board.”

“You’re not going to pay any board here. You’re a guest.”

“Not on your life. You don’t suppose I’m going to sponge my keep off anybody, do you? I paid Uncle Ebeneezer board right straight along and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t pay you. You can put that away in your sock, or wherever it is that women keep money, or else I take the next train. If you don’t want to lose me, you have to accept four plunks every Monday. I’ve got lots of four plunks,” he added, with a winning smile.

“Very well,” said Dorothy, quite certain that she could not spare Dick. “If it will make you feel any better about staying, I’ll take it.”

He had quickly made friends with Elaine, and the three made a more harmonious group than might have been expected under the circumstances. With returning strength and health, Miss St. Clair began to take more of an interest in her surroundings. She gathered the white clover blossoms in which Dorothy tied up her pats of sweet butter, picked berries in the garden, skimmed the milk, helped churn, and fed the chickens.

Dick took entire charge of the cow, thus relieving Mrs. Smithers of an uncongenial task and winning her heartfelt gratitude. She repaid him with unnumbered biscuits of his favourite kind and with many a savoury “snack” between meals. He also helped Dorothy in many other ways. It was Dick who collected the eggs every morning and took them to the sanitarium, along with such other produce as might be ready for the market. He secured astonishing prices for the things he sold, and set it down to man’s superior business ability when questioned by his hostess. Dorothy never guessed that most of the money came out of his own pocket, and was charged up, in the ragged memorandum book which he carried, to “Elaine’s board.”

Miss St. Clair had never thought of offering compensation, and no one suggested it to her, but Dick privately determined to make good the deficiency, sure that a woman married to “a writing chump” would soon be in need of ready money if not actually starving at the time. That people should pay for what Harlan wrote seemed well-nigh incredible. Besides, though Dick had never read that “love is an insane desire on the part of a man to pay a woman’s board bill for life,” he took a definite satisfaction out of this secret expenditure, which he did not stop to analyse.

He brought back full price for everything he took to the “repair-shop,” as he had irreverently christened the sanitarium, though he seldom sold much. On the other side of the hill he had a small but select graveyard where he buried such unsalable articles as he could not eat. His appetite was capricious, and Dorothy had frequently observed that when he came back from the long walk to the sanitarium, he ate nothing at all.

He established a furniture factory under a spreading apple tree at a respectable distance from the house, and began to remodel the black-walnut relics which were evidence of his kinsman’s poor taste. He took many a bed apart, scraped off the disfiguring varnish, sandpapered and oiled the wood, and put it together in new and beautiful forms. He made several tables, a cabinet, a bench, half a dozen chairs, a set of hanging shelves, and even aspired to a desk, which, owing to the limitations of the material, was not wholly successful.

Dorothy and Elaine sat in rocking-chairs under the tree and encouraged him while he worked. One of them embroidered a simple design upon a burlap curtain while the other read aloud, and together they planned a shapely remodelling of the Jack-o’-Lantern. Fortunately, the woodwork was plain, and the ceilings not too high.

“I think,” said Elaine, “that the big living room with the casement windows will be perfectly beautiful. You couldn’t have anything lovelier than this dull walnut with the yellow walls.”

Whatever Mrs. Carr’s thoughts might be, this simple sentence was usually sufficient to turn the current into more pleasant channels. She had planned to have needless partitions taken out, and make the whole lower floor into one room, with only a dining-room, kitchen, and pantry back of it. She would take up the unsightly carpets, over which impossible plants wandered persistently, and have them woven into rag rugs, with green and brown and yellow borders. The floor was to be stained brown and the pine woodwork a soft, old green. Yellow walls and white net curtains, with the beautiful furniture Dick was making, completed a very charming picture in the eyes of a woman who loved her home.

Outspeeding it in her fancy was the finer, truer living which she believed lay beyond. Some day she and Harlan, alone once more, with the cobwebs of estrangement swept away, should begin a new and happier honeymoon in the transformed house. When the book was done – ah, when the book was done! But he was not reading any part of it to her now and would not let her begin copying it on the typewriter.

“I’ll do it myself, when I’m ready,” he said, coldly. “I can use a typewriter just as well as you can.”

Dorothy sighed, unconsciously, for the woman’s part is always to wait patiently while men achieve, and she who has learned to wait patiently, and be happy meanwhile, has learned the finest art of all – the art of life.

“Now,” said Dick, “that’s a peach of a table, if I do say it as shouldn’t.”

They readily agreed with him, for it was low and massive, built on simple, dignified lines, and beautifully finished. The headboards of three ponderous walnut beds and the supporting columns of a hideous sideboard had gone into its composition, thus illustrating, as Dorothy said, that ugliness may be changed to beauty by one who knows how and is willing to work for it.

The noon train whistled shrilly in the distance, and Dorothy started out of her chair. “She’s afraid,” laughed Dick, instantly comprehending. “She’s afraid somebody is coming on it.”

“More twins?” queried Elaine, from the depths of her rocker. “Surely there can’t be any more twins?”

“I don’t know,” answered Dorothy, vaguely troubled. “Someway, I feel as though something terrible were going to happen.”

Nothing happened, however, until after luncheon, just as she had begun to breathe peacefully again. Willie saw the procession first and ran back with gleeful shouts to make the announcement. So it was that the entire household, including Harlan, formed a reception committee on the front porch.

Up the hill, drawn by two straining horses, came what appeared at first to be a pyramid of furniture, but later resolved itself into the component parts of a more ponderous bed than the ingenuity of man had yet contrived. It was made of black walnut, and was at least three times as heavy as any of those in the Jack-o’-Lantern. On the top of the mass was perched a little old man in a skull cap, a slippered foot in a scarlet sock airily waving at one side. A bright green coil closely clutched in his withered hands was the bed cord appertaining to the bed – a sainted possession from which its owner sternly refused to part.

“By Jove!” shouted Dick; “it’s Uncle Israel and his crib!”

Paying no heed to the assembled group, Uncle Israel dismounted nimbly enough, and directed the men to take his bed upstairs, which they did, while Harlan and Dorothy stood by helplessly. Here, under his profane and involved direction, the structure was finally set in place, even to the patchwork quilt, fearfully and wonderfully made, which surmounted it all.

Financial settlement was waved aside by Uncle Israel as a matter in which he was not interested, and it was Dick who counted out two dimes and a nickel to secure peace. A supplementary procession appeared with a small, weather-beaten trunk, a folding bath-cabinet, and a huge case which, from Uncle Israel’s perturbation, evidently contained numerous fragile articles of great value.

“Tell Ebeneezer,” wheezed the newcomer, “that I have arrived.”

“Ebeneezer,” replied Dick, in wicked imitation of the old man’s asthmatic speech, “has been dead for some time.”

“Then,” creaked Uncle Israel, waving a tremulous, bony hand suggestively toward the door, “kindly leave me alone with my grief.”

X

Still More

Uncle Israel, whose other name was Skiles, adjusted himself to his grief in short order. The sounds which issued from his room were not those commonly associated with mourning. Dick, fully accustomed to various noises, explained them for the edification of the Carrs, who at present were sorely in need of edification.

“That’s the bath cabinet,” remarked Mr. Chester, with the air of a connoisseur. “He’s setting it up near enough to the door so that if anybody should come in unexpectedly while it’s working, the whole thing will be tipped over and the house set on fire. Uncle Israel won’t have any lock or bolt on his door for fear he should die in the night. He relies wholly on the bath cabinet and moral suasion. Nobody knocks on doors here, anyway – just goes in.

“That’s his trunk. He keeps it under the window. The bed is set up first, then the bath cabinet, then the trunk, and last, but not least, the medicine chest. He keeps his entire pharmacopœia on a table at the head of his bed, with a candle and matches, so that if he feels badly in the night, the proper remedy is instantly at hand. He prepares some of his medicines himself, but he isn’t bigoted about it. He buys the rest at wholesale, and I’ll eat my hat if he hasn’t got a full-sized bottle of every patent medicine that’s on sale anywhere in the United States.”

“How old,” asked Harlan, speaking for the first time, “is Uncle Israel?”

“Something over ninety, I believe,” returned Dick. “I’ve lost my book of vital statistics, so I don’t know, exactly.”

“How long,” inquired Dorothy, with a forced smile, “does Uncle Israel stay?”

“Lord bless you, my dear lady, Uncle Israel stays all Summer. Hello – there are some more!”

A private conveyance of uncertain age and purposes drew up before the door. From it dismounted a very slender young man of medium height, whose long auburn hair hung over his coat-collar and at times partially obscured his soulful grey eyes. It resembled the mane of a lion, except in colour. He carried a small black valise, and a roll of manuscript tied with a badly soiled ribbon.

An old lady followed, stepping cautiously, but still finding opportunity to scrutinise the group in the doorway, peering sharply over her gold-bowed spectacles. It was she who paid the driver, and even before the two reached the house, it was evident that they were not on speaking terms.

The young man offered Mr. Chester a thin, tremulous hand which lay on Dick’s broad palm in a nerveless, clammy fashion. “Pray,” he said, in a high, squeaky voice, “convey my greetings to dear Uncle Ebeneezer, and inform him that I have arrived.”

“I am at present holding no communication with Uncle Ebeneezer,” explained Dick. “The wires are down.”

“Where is Ebeneezer?” demanded the old lady.

“Dead,” answered Dorothy, wearily; “dead, dead. He’s been dead a long time. This is our house – he left it to my husband and me.”

“Don’t let that disturb you a mite,” said the old lady, cheerfully. “I like your looks a whole lot, an’ I’d just as soon stay with you as with Ebeneezer. I dunno but I’d ruther.”

She must have been well past sixty, but her scanty hair was as yet untouched with grey. She wore it parted in the middle, after an ancient fashion, and twisted at the back into a tight little knob, from which the ends of a wire hairpin protruded threateningly. Dorothy reflected, unhappily, that the whole thing was done up almost tight enough to play a tune on.

For the rest, her attire was neat, though careless. One had always the delusion that part or all of it was on the point of coming off.

The young man was wiping his weak eyes upon a voluminous silk handkerchief which had evidently seen long service since its last washing. “Dear Uncle Ebeneezer,” he breathed, running his long, bony fingers through his hair. “I cannot tell you how heavily this blow falls upon me. Dear Uncle Ebeneezer was a distinguished patron of the arts. Our country needs more men like him, men with fine appreciation, vowed to the service of the Ideal. If you will pardon me, I will now retire to my apartment and remain there a short time in seclusion.”

So saying, he ran lightly upstairs, as one who was thoroughly at home.

“Who in – ” began Harlan.

“Mr. Harold Vernon Perkins, poet,” said Dick. “He’s got his rhyming dictionary and all his odes with him.”

“Without knowing,” said Dorothy, “I should have thought his name was Harold or Arthur or Paul. He looks it.”

“It wa’n’t my fault,” interjected the old lady, “that he come. I didn’t even sense that he was on the same train as me till I hired the carriage at the junction an’ he clim’ in. He said he might as well come along as we was both goin’ to the same place, an’ it would save him walkin’, an’ not cost me no more than ’t would anyway.”

While she was speaking, she had taken off her outer layer of drapery and her bonnet. “I’ll just put these things in my room, my dear,” she said to Dorothy, “an’ then I’ll come back an’ talk to you. I like your looks first-rate.”

“Who in – ,” said Harlan, again, as the old lady vanished into one of the lower wings.

“Mrs. Belinda something,” answered Dick. “I don’t know who she’s married to now. She’s had bad luck with her husbands.”

Mrs. Carr, deeply troubled, was leaning against the wall in the hall, and Dick patted her hand soothingly. “Don’t you fret,” he said, cheerily; “I’m here to see you through.”

“That being the case,” remarked Harlan, with a certain acidity in his tone, “I’ll go back to my work.”

The old lady appeared again as Harlan slammed the library door, and suggested that Dick should go away.

“Polite hint,” commented Mr. Chester, not at all disturbed. “See you later.” He went out, whistling, with his cap on the back of his head and his hands in his pockets.

“I reckon you’re a new relative, be n’t you?” asked the lady guest, eyeing Dorothy closely. “I disremember seein’ you before.”

“I am Mrs. Carr,” repeated Dorothy, mechanically. “My husband, Harlan Carr, is Uncle Ebeneezer’s nephew, and the house was left to him.”

“Do tell!” ejaculated the other. “I wouldn’t have thought it of Ebeneezer. I’m Belinda Dodd, relict of Benjamin Dodd, deceased. How many are there here, my dear?”

“Miss St. Clair, Mr. Chester, Mrs. Holmes and her three children, Uncle Israel Skiles, and you two, besides Mr. Carr, Mrs. Smithers, and myself.”

“Is that all?” asked the visitor, in evident surprise.

“All!” repeated Dorothy. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Lord love you, my dear, it’s plain to be seen that you ain’t never been here before. Only them few an’ so late in the season, too. Why, there’s Cousin Si Martin, an’ his wife, an’ their eight children, some of the children bein’ married an’ havin’ other children, an’ Sister-in-law Fanny Wood with her invalid husband, her second husband, that is, an’ Rebecca’s Uncle James’s third wife with her two daughters, an’ Rebecca’s sister’s second husband with his new wife an’ their little boy, an’ Uncle Jason an’ his stepson, the one that has fits, an’ Cousin Sally Simmons an’ her daughter, an’ the four little Riley children an’ their Aunt Lucretia, an’ Step-cousin Betsey Skiles with her two nieces, though I misdoubt their comin’ this year. The youngest niece had typhoid fever here last Summer for eight weeks, an’ Betsey thinks the location ain’t healthy, in spite of it’s bein’ so near the sanitarium. She was threatenin’ to get the health department or somethin’ after Ebeneezer an’ have the drinkin’ water looked into, so’s they didn’t part on the pleasantest terms, but in the main we’ve all got along well together.

“If Betsey knowed Ebeneezer was dead, she wouldn’t hesitate none about comin’, typhoid or no typhoid. Mebbe it was her fault some, for Ebeneezer wa’n’t to blame for his drinkin’ water no more ’n I’d be. Our minister used to say that there was no discipline for the soul like livin’ with folks, year in an’ year out hand-runnin’, an’ Betsey is naturally that kind. Ebeneezer always lived plain, but we’re all simple folks, not carin’ much for style, so we never minded it. The air’s good up here an’ I dunno any better place to spend the Summer. My gracious! You be n’t sick, be you?”

“I don’t know what to do,” murmured Dorothy, her white lips scarcely moving; “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, now,” responded Mrs. Dodd, “I can see that I’ve upset you some. Perhaps you’re one of them people that don’t like to have other folks around you. I’ve heard of such, comin’ from the city. Why, I knew a woman that lived in the city, an’ she said she didn’t know the name of the woman next door to her after livin’ there over eight months, – an’ their windows lookin’ right into each other, too.”

“I hate people!” cried Dorothy, in a passion of anger. “I don’t want anybody here but my husband and Mrs. Smithers!”

“Set quiet, my dear, an’ make your mind easy. I’m sure Ebeneezer never intended his death to make any difference in my spendin’ the Summer here, especially when I’m fresh from another bereavement, but if you’re in earnest about closin’ your doors on your poor dead aunt’s relations, why I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh, if you could!” Dorothy almost screamed the words. “If you can keep any more people from coming here, I’ll bless you for ever.”

“Poor child, I can see that you’re considerable upset. Just get me the pen an’ ink an’ some paper an’ envelopes an’ I’ll set down right now an’ write to the connection an’ tell ’em that Ebeneezer’s dead an’ bein’ of unsound mind at the last has willed the house to strangers who refuse to open their doors to the blood relations of poor dead Rebecca. That’s all I can do an’ I can’t promise that it’ll work. Ebeneezer writ several times to us all that he didn’t feel like havin’ no more company, but Rebecca’s relatives was all of a forgivin’ disposition an’ never laid it up against him. We all kep’ on a-comin’ just the same.”

“Tell them,” cried Dorothy her eyes unusually bright and her cheeks burning, “that we’ve got smallpox here, or diphtheria, or a lunatic asylum, or anything you like. Tell them there’s a big dog in the yard that won’t let anybody open the gate. Tell them anything!”

“Just you leave it all to me, my dear,” said Mrs. Dodd, soothingly. “On account of the connection bein’ so differently constituted, I’ll have to tell ’em all different. Disease would keep away some an’ fetch others. Betsey Skiles, now, she feels to turn her hand to nursin’ an’ I’ve knowed her to go miles in the dead of Winter to set up with a stranger that had some disease she wa’n’t familiar with. Dogs would bring others an’ only scare a few. Just you leave it all to me. There ain’t never no use in borrerin’ trouble an’ givin’ up your peace of mind as security, ’cause you don’t never get the security back. I’ve been married enough to know that there’s plenty of trouble in life besides what’s looked for, an’ it’ll get in, without your holdin’ open the door an’ spreadin’ a mat out with ‘Welcome’ on it. Did Ebeneezer leave any property?”

“Only the house and furniture,” answered Dorothy, feeling that the whole burden of the world had been suddenly shifted to her young shoulders.

“Rebecca had a big diamond pin,” said Mrs. Dodd, after a brief silence, “that she allers said was to be mine when she got through with it. Ebeneezer give it to her for a weddin’ present. You ain’t seen it layin’ around, have you?”

“No, I haven’t seen it ‘laying around,’” retorted Dorothy, conscious that she was juggling with the truth.

“Well,” continued Mrs. Dodd, easily, nibbling her pen holder, “when it comes to light, just remember that it’s mine. I don’t doubt it’ll turn up sometime. An’ now, my dear, I’ll just begin on them letters. Cousin Si Martin’s folks are a-packin’ an’ expectin’ to get here next week. I suppose you’re willin’ to furnish the stamps?”

“Willing!” cried Dorothy, “I should say yes!”

Mrs. Dodd toiled long at her self-imposed task, and, having finished it, went out into the kitchen, where for an hour or more she exchanged mortuary gossip with Mrs. Smithers, every detail of the conversation being keenly relished by both ladies.

At dinner-time, eleven people sat down to partake of the excellent repast furnished by Mrs. Smithers under the stimulus of pleasant talk. Harlan was at the head, with Miss St. Clair on his right and Mrs. Dodd on his left. Next to Miss St. Clair was the poet, whose deep sorrow did not interfere with his appetite. The twins were next to him, then Mrs. Holmes, then Willie, then Dorothy, at the foot of the table. On her right was Dick, the space between Dick and Mrs. Dodd being occupied by Uncle Israel.

To a careless observer, it might have seemed that Uncle Israel had more than his share of the table, but such in reality was not the case. His plate was flanked by a goodly array of medicine bottles, and cups and bowls of predigested and patent food. Uncle Israel, as Dick concisely expressed it, was “pie for the cranks.”

“My third husband,” remarked Mrs. Dodd, pleasantly, well aware that she was touching her neighbour’s sorest spot, “was terribly afflicted with stomach trouble.”

“The only stomach trouble I’ve ever had,” commented Mr. Chester, airily spearing another biscuit with his fork, “was in getting enough to put into it.”

“Have a care, young man,” wheezed Uncle Israel, warningly. “There ain’t nothin’ so bad for the system as hot bread.”

“It would be bad for my system,” resumed Dick, “not to be able to get it.”

“My third husband,” continued Mrs. Dodd, disregarding the interruption, “wouldn’t have no bread in the house at all. He et these little straw mattresses, same as you’ve got, so constant that he finally died from the tic doleroo. Will you please pass me them biscuits, Mis’ Carr?”

Mrs. Dodd was obliged to rise and reach past Uncle Israel, who declined to be contaminated by passing the plate, before she attained her desired biscuit.

“Next time, Aunt Belinda,” said Dick, “I’ll throw you one. Suffering Moses, what new dope is that?”

A powerful and peculiarly penetrating odour filled the room. Presently it became evident that Uncle Israel had uncorked a fresh bottle of medicine. Miss St. Clair coughed and hastily excused herself.

“It’s time for me to take my pain-killer,” murmured Uncle Israel, pouring out a tablespoonful of a thick, brown mixture. “This here cured a Congressman in less ’n half a bottle of a gnawin’ pain in his vitals. I ain’t never took none of it yet, but I aim to now.”