In a Mysterious Way

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"Shall you be here this winter?"

"I don't know about that. I don't know just how long it will take for the survey."

"But you will be here while they build the dam, too, won't you? And that will take years. Won't you live here a long time?"

"The dam is not a fixed fact as yet, you know; far from it."

"Isn't it? Every one talks as if it were, – that is, every one except Alva."

"But I couldn't live in that house, anyway; I wouldn't live there for anything, would you?"

"No, it would be full of ghosts to me. I'd feel about it just as you – " the words died on her lips, as she suddenly realized how their unconscious phrasing sounded. It was the first sunburst of the idea to her, and it stormed her cheeks with pink.

"No," said Ingram, unobserving, "that house would not affect any one but you or I, in that way; but for us – " thereupon he stopped; the idea which had come over the girl like a sunburst came over the man like a cloudburst. He was almost scared as he tried to think what he had said.

"Alva is – is – so set against it – the dam, I mean," he stammered, hurriedly; "she – she has – told me all her views."

"But she's different," said Lassie, catching her breath. "I don't know very much, but I know that it doesn't look just that way to others."

"The ultra-altruistic vaccine is already beginning to work again," Ingram said, trying to laugh; "but you must not attack me, you know – "

"I'm not attacking you," Lassie interposed, hoping her face would cool soon.

"Because, you see, I am nothing in the world but a mere ordinary, humble, civil engineer, sent up here by a commission to see what the situation is in feet and inches, and sand and gravel. I wholly refuse to take sides as to the controversy;" he had regained composure now.

"I suppose that you haven't really anything to say about it, anyhow."

"Nothing except to make a report. That's all."

Both felt relieved to be back on firm, friendly ground, but both were saturated through and through by the wonderful new conception of life bred by the accidental speeches. They did not look at one another, but went down the steps and along the curving road with a sort of keyed up determination not to let a single break come in the flow of language.

"But you must be glad to work on a popular project," Lassie said.

"But it isn't altogether popular," Ingram rejoined; "it's only popular in spots, you see. If every one around here was as wild as I have seen some people become when the business threatened their trees or their river, we might be mobbed."

"Why, I thought that every one wanted it. Alva said that the difficulty was that all the people who would do anything to save the Falls were not born yet."

"She was partly right, but not altogether. The difficulty is that, with the exception of Mr. Ledge, the people who are interested in preserving the Falls do not live here, and the people who will make money by the destruction of the Falls are right on the spot and own the land."

"Why, you talk as if you didn't want the dam, either."

"It is no use discussing my views; the dam will be a great thing. Very possibly there will be no more Falls, but the high banks will remain – until commercial interests demand their quarrying – and all we can do is to go with the tide and remember that while man is destroying in one place, Nature is building in another. There will always be plenty of wild grandeur somewhere for those who have the money and leisure to seek it."

"But Alva says that Mr. Ledge is trying to save this for those who love beautiful spots, and haven't time or money to go far."

"America isn't made for such people," said Ingram, simply.

Lassie thought seriously for a moment, until a glance from her companion hurried her on to say: "I suppose that we are too progressive to let anything just go to waste, and that's what it would be if we let all this water-power flow unused."

"Of course," said Ingram; "here would be this great tract of woodland, which might be making eight or ten men millionaires, and instead of that one man tries to save it for thousands who never can by any chance become well-to-do. No wonder the one man has spent most of his life investigating insane asylums; he is evidently more than slightly sympathetic with the weak-minded."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"No, not at all. I like to look at the Falls, but then I like to look at a big dam, too; and sluice gates always did seem to me the most interesting wonder in nature."

They were deep in the quiet peace of Ledge Park by this time, and only the squirrels had eyes and ears there. (They didn't know about Joey Beall.)

"Oh, how still and lovely!" Lassie exclaimed; "how almost churchlike."

The broad, evenly graded road wound away before them, and the double rank of trees followed its course on either side.

"I used to camp out here summers, when I was a boy. You've read Cooper's novels?"

"'Deerslayer' and all those? Oh, yes."

"Their scene was not so far away from here, you know; only a few score miles."

"There must be all sorts of stories about here, too?"

"Did you ever hear tell of the Old White Woman?"

"No."

"She lived around here. She was stolen by the Indians and grew up and married one."

"How interesting! I wonder how it would seem to really love an Indian?" Then Lassie choked – blushing furiously at this approach of the painful subject.

"You speak as one who has had a wide experience with white men." (Ingram felt this to be fearfully daring.)

"I've never been in love in my life." (Lassie felt this to be fearfully pointed.)

"How funny," said the man, "neither have I! Not really in love, you know."

Such thin ice! But the lure of the forest was there, and the lure of the absence of interruption, too. Lassie felt very remarkable. This was so delightful! So novel! Better than Mrs. Ray and the Kinnecot paper even. Why, this was even better than all Alva's love affair. Ten thousand times better! How stupid she had been.

"How funny!" she said, looking up.

"Why do you say that?" Ingram asked, quickly.

He seemed quite anxious to know why she thought it funny that he had never been in love before, and that was so delightful, too. A big, handsome man anxious as to what she thought! She felt as wise as if she had already made her début.

"I don't know why I said it," she answered, laughing; "it just came to me to say it. Was it silly to say? If so, please forgive me, because I didn't mean it."

"There's nothing to forgive," said Ingram; "only I never expected you to say anything of that sort. You don't know anything about me and you haven't any right to judge me." He spoke in quite a vexed, serious way, and Lassie felt as wise now as if she had made two débuts.

"But you were in love with Alva years ago, you know," she said.

"I wasn't really in love; I only thought that I was."

"Oh!"

There followed a silence for a little while. Lassie was much impressed by the statement just made. Of course it wouldn't be polite to repeat to Alva, but it was very interesting to know, oneself. The road ran sweetly, greenly on before them, all strewn with piney needles. There was no sound except a little breeze rustling overhead, and the occasional fall of an acorn or pine-cone.

"How does Alva's story affect you, now?" the man asked, suddenly.

"Differently from at first. When she first told me what she meant to do, it just pounded in my ears that he was going to die in that very house over there; and that they would have to carry him into it just as they would later carry him out of it. Oh, it did seem so terrible to think of this winter, and of her, sitting there beside him, – so terrible – so terrible!"

"And doesn't it seem terrible at all to you now?"

"Not in the same way. She has talked to me so much; she has made me know so much more of her way of looking at it. You know – "she hesitated a little – "she feels about death so strangely, – it doesn't seem to count to her at all. She feels that in some way he will be always near her; she says that he promised her not to leave her again."

"Poor Alva!"

"I suppose that he is such a very great man that he can affect one like that. I am beginning to see what very different kinds of people there are in the world."

"Thank God for that!" Ingram exclaimed.

"Alva says that he is one of the greatest men that ever lived. She says that to share even a few days of life with a man who has been a world-force for the world-betterment, would overpay all the hardship and loneliness to come."

They emerged into the sunshine just here, and the roar of the Middle Falls burst upon their ears. The fence of Mr. Ledge's house-enclosure stretched before them, and to the right, along the bank, towered two groups of dark evergreens.

"We can go through here," Ingram said, unlatching the gate.

So they entered the private grounds and passed around the simple, pretty home and out upon the road beyond.

"Everything is as sweet and quiet here as in the forest," said Lassie.

"Yes, it's a beautiful place," Ingram assented.

They went on and entered the wood path that goes to the Lower Falls.

"I cannot understand one thing," the man said, suddenly; "if they loved one another so much, why didn't they marry long ago? If I loved a woman, I should want to marry her."

Here was the thin ice again – delight again.

"They never thought of it," Lassie said, revelling in the sense of danger; "they couldn't. They recognized other claims."

Ingram walked on for a little, and then he said: "I suppose that what you say is true, and that with people like them everything is different from what it is with you and me."

(You and me!)

"Yes," said Lassie, "Alva doesn't seem to have minded that his work meant more to him than she did, and I suppose that he thought it quite right that she should do her duty unselfishly."

"It makes our view of things seem rather small and petty – don't you think? Or shall we call her crazy, as the world generally does call all such people?"

"I know that she's not crazy," the girl said.

"Shall we have to admit then that she is right in what she is going to do, and that instead of its being horrible, it is sublime?" He looked at her, and she raised tear-filled eyes to his. But she was silent.

"I think that we must admit it – for Alva," he added; "but not for ourselves."

The girl was silent and her lips trembled. Finally she said: "I believe that what she said is coming true, and that I am changing and that you are changing, too."

"Oh, I'm changed all the way through," he admitted.

It was a long walk to the Lower Falls, and yet it was short to them. Very short! But too long to follow them step by step. It was a beautiful walk, and one which they were to remember all their lives to come. It was such a walk as should form a powerful argument in favor of the preservation of the Falls.

CHAPTER XVII

RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE

Leaving Mary Cody to watch over the house, Mrs. O'Neil, the instant dinner was over, threw something over her head and hurried to the post-office.

Mrs. Ray met her at the door. "What is it?" was her greeting; "I know it's come out about the case-knives! Hasn't it?"

"You'll never guess what they are," said Mrs. O'Neil, entering the house and closing the door behind her. "Mrs. Ray, they're swindlers!"

"I knew it; I knew it all the time. How did you find it out?"

Mrs. O'Neil told her.

"Give me the paper."

The paper was unfolded, but as she unfolded it Mrs. Dunstall and Pinkie came running in one way, and Mrs. Wiley rushed panting up the other steps.

"Have you heard?" Mrs. Dunstall cried.

"Heard! I've heard it a dozen ways." Mrs. Ray was devouring the article as she spoke. "Sit down," she said briefly, without looking around.

"They can't be arrested till Saturday," Mrs. O'Neil said. "There isn't a mite of doubt but what it's them, but Mr. Pollock told Jack that the law is that he must give them notice, and then he must let them go before he can arrest them."

"Why, I never heard the equal," exclaimed Mrs. Wiley. "I didn't know that you must let anybody who'd done anything go, ever! What will Uncle Purchase say to that!"

"Well, if that isn't the greatest I ever heard, either," said Mrs. Ray, never ceasing to read; "that's a funny law. If the United States Government run its business that way, every one would be skipping out with the stamps."

"And Mr. Pollock said," broke in Mrs. O'Neil, "that no matter how big swindlers they were, we couldn't arrest them until some one whom they'd swindled swore to the fact."

"Well, why don't you swear, then?" interrupted Mrs. Ray still reading.

"Because Mr. Pollock says they haven't actually swindled us, till they really leave without paying, you see," explained Mrs. O'Neil.

"Lands!" commented Pinkie.

"Which means," said Mrs. Ray, always reading, "that the law is that you mustn't try to catch 'em until after you let 'em go."

"Seems so," said Mrs. O'Neil.

"I never hear the beat!" exclaimed Mrs. Ray. "Why, this paper says they'd been jumping their board all summer!"

"All summer?" said Pinkie.

"Well, I always knew they were no good," said Mrs. Ray, still reading; "they never got any letters. They come to the post-office sometimes to try to give themselves a reputation, but they didn't fool me, for they never got any letters. I don't misjudge folks if they don't get many, and if they cancel up good it says just as much for their characters as if they got a lot – maybe more, for a lot of letters may be just duns – but when there's no income and no outgo, better look out, I say. Yes, indeed. Do they owe you much, Nellie?"

"About thirty-five dollars," said Mrs. O'Neil; "but oh, dear! Why, they've made fudge and worn my shawls and roasted chestnuts – "

"Nellie, Nellie," it was a strange voice at the kitchen door. Everybody looked up to see Mrs. Kendal, almost purple from rapid walking. "I've just heard! Lucia Cosby ran down to tell me. We've got a Foxtown Signal that's got some more about them in. I run right over to bring it to you. I was sure I'd find you here. That's why the old lady always wore her rubbers – her shoes were clean wore through with walking, skipping out, all the time."

Mrs. Kendal sank on a seat, and the Foxtown Signal was spread out upon the table with the other paper.

"I thought that was a funny story about the trunks," said Mrs. Wiley.

"They've worn the same clothes for three weeks, to my certain knowledge," said Mrs. O'Neil, "and not so much as an extra hairpin!"

"And they haven't any toilet things except a hair-brush that isn't good enough to throw at a cat, and a mirror that's broken," interposed Mrs. Ray; "you said so, Nellie, and I saw it, too."

"A broken mirror's bad luck," said Mrs. Wiley; "I hope you'll see that it's bad luck for you too, Nellie. Your husband's too soft-hearted to keep a hotel as we always tell every one who goes there to board."

"Well, he isn't soft-hearted this time," said his wife; "he's mad enough to-day, and he says he'll pay for his own ticket to Geneseo to bear witness against them."

Just here Mrs. Wellston, who lived in the first house over the hill from the schoolhouse, came rushing in.

"Oh, I just heard!" she panted, "they left a lot of bills at King's and at Race's Corners, where my sister Molly lives, they left a board-bill of eighteen dollars! They're known all over!"

"What do you think of that?" Mrs. Ray said, turning to Mrs. O'Neil.

Mrs. O'Neil gasped.

"The man who told Jack told Nathan and Lizzie that the old woman's husband died in the penitentiary," she said. "That's a nice kind of people to have around your house."

Mrs. Wiley gasped this time. Mrs. O'Neil gasped again.

"Jack said we must tell you all the first thing for fear she'd try to borrow money of some one. I told him he was foolish, because if they borrowed money of any one then they could pay us."

"He was only joking," said Mrs. Ray; "if they paid you, you wouldn't really take the money, for you'd know that they must have gotten it from some of us."

"On the contrary, you ought to have taken it, I think," said Mrs. Dunstall solemnly, "and then returned it to whoever give it to them."

Lottie Ann and Uncle Purchase now arrived to add to the festivity of the occasion.

"I guess nobody need worry over that pair's paying anybody any money they get their hands on," observed Mrs. Ray, fetching a chair for Uncle Purchase. "What are you going to do about it, when they come down and want to go out to walk next time, Nellie? Give 'em your shawls the same as usual, I suppose."

"Why, we've got to let 'em go or they can't skip and make themselves liable to arrest, of course, but the old lady said she could surely get money by to-morrow, and Jack has hired a boy to hang around the house and if they go out, track them."

"My sakes, ain't it interesting?" said Mrs. Dunstall. "And to think that they're up there this minute and have no idea of it all."

"I dare say they have been laughing at you all the time they were off chestnutting our chestnuts," said Mrs. Wiley. "My husband says if they'd sold all they've picked up, they could have paid their board honestly."

"But they weren't honest, you see," said Mrs. Ray; "honest people all get letters, or anyhow they buy postal cards of the Falls. And you ought to have taken my word for it when I suspected them, Nellie; those case-knives ought to have set you on to them."

"Well, well, and us seeing them walking all around for a fortnight," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and we so innocent, and they swindlers, and you boarding them for nothing, – dear, dear!"

"Well," said Mrs. Ray, "here's your paper, Nellie; what will happen next, I wonder?"

"Yes, I do, too," said Pinkie.

"You'd better all come down about five, and see if they did go out," said Mrs. O'Neil, with the air of extending an invitation to a party. "Why, that old lady told me that she'd been to the Boston Academy of Music."

"Boston!" said Mrs. Dunstall with a sniff; "they never saw Boston. Not those two. Not much."

"Oh, but they have," said Mrs. O'Neil; "I know that they have, for I've been there myself, and we talked about it."

"Well, I guess Boston has its crooks as well as other places," said Mrs. Ray, pacifically; "I guess if we can harbor swindlers and not know it, Boston can, too."

"I wouldn't believe it," Mrs. O'Neil said again. "But these papers make me have to; you see, there's the names, and Hannah Adele, and no paper would dare to print that if it wasn't true."

"True! Of course it's true," said Mrs. Ray; "I never would be surprised over anything anybody 'd do that would wear brown laces in black shoes and go in out of the rain at a strange house at midnight."

"Did she have brown laces in black shoes?" asked Lottie Ann, in a tone penetrated with horror.

"She did, and what's more, she pinned herself together. I see the pins sticking out of her, time and again, when she come in to stand around and wait for mail like a honest person would. No man is ever going to marry a girl who bristles with pins like that, – it'll be a job I wouldn't like myself to be the sheriff and have to arrest her. He'd better look sharp where he lays his hand on that girl, I tell you."

"Will she really be arrested?" Lottie Ann cried.

"Why, I should hope so," said her mother.

"As a law-abiding citizen yourself, who may take boarders some day, you wouldn't wish her not to be, would you?" said Mrs. Ray.

"I don't know," said Lottie Ann; "it seems to me very – very terrible to think that two women should go to jail."

"But they haven't any money, and they're swindlers," said Mrs. Dunstall; "they belong in jail. That's why we have jails."

"If they'd had money, they'd have received at least two or three letters," said Mrs. Ray. "If people have any money at all, there's always some one who wants to keep posted as to their health. Yes, indeed. No, they haven't any money. People that have money and never get up till noon is generally buying tea and matches, at any rate, but they didn't even do that. No, they ain't got any money."

"I couldn't believe it myself at first," repeated Nellie O'Neil; "and they certainly ate like people that aren't holding anything back. Two helps of everything, and didn't she go and take half a loaf of gingerbread up-stairs yesterday afternoon? As cool as a cucumber."

"They were both cool as cucumbers," said Mrs. Ray; "that's why they borrowed your shawls all the time, I guess. Cooler than cucumbers they would have been without them, I reckon."

"Jack went up and gave the old lady warning right after dinner," said Mrs. O'Neil. "He only stopped to just get a bite first."

"Well, I hope he didn't get a bite last, too," said Mrs. Ray, tucking in the ends of her shawl. "That pair was too comfortable with you to want to be warned to leave. Making fudge, indeed! I'm surprised at you, Nellie; I'd no more think of letting my boarders make fudge than I would of keeping them for nothing. You and Jack don't belong in the hotel business. You can't possibly make boarding people pay, unless you make them pay for their board."

"No, you can't," said Pinkie.

"Josiah was driving down to North Ledge yesterday, and he saw them getting over a fence in that direction," said Mrs. Wiley, rising. "He said they seemed to be learning the country by all means, fair or foul."

"Well, I don't want to seem unfriendly," said Mrs. Ray; "but I guess you'll all have to go. I found some ants in my grocery business this morning for the first time, and while I'm give to understand it's the regular thing in most grocery businesses, no ant need flatter himself that it is in mine. I'm going to clean out the whole of the three shelves this afternoon and sprinkle borax everywhere where it can't taste. So I must have this room. I'll be down to-night after mail, Nellie; good-by."

Thereupon they all departed.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

In the meantime Alva, left alone in her room, felt troubled, vastly troubled, by the sorrow and shame gathering so close to her. The emotions of those near by affect one keenly attuned, in a degree that the less sensitive would hardly believe possible.

She went and locked the door after Lassie left, and going to a chair that happened to stand close to the bureau, sat down there, leaned her face on her hand and thought earnestly of the whole matter.

"Why must I trouble so?" she said to herself, presently; "no one else does," and then she smiled sadly. "It is because I have set my face in that direction," she said; "I have vowed myself to service, just as he has vowed himself, for the love of God and God in humanity."

A light tap on her own door sounded, and she started, crying "Come in," quite forgetting that the door was locked.

Some one tried the door and then Alva sprang up and unfastened it. It opened, and Miss Lathbun stood there in the crack.

"May I come in for a few minutes?" she asked, pale and with frightened eyes.

"Yes, come in," Alva said quickly; "come in and sit down." She drew a chair near to the one that she had been occupying.

"I have come to you on a – " began the girl, "on a – on a – " she stammered and stopped.

"You are in trouble," Alva said gently; "tell me all about it."

"I am going to tell you; I have come on purpose to tell you. You were so kind and friendly the other day, and I – I – wasn't truthful; I didn't tell you everything."

Alva rested her face on her hand again and looked straight at her. "Then tell me everything now," she said.

Miss Lathbun returned her look. "Mr. O'Neil has just been up to tell Mother that we must pay our bill here, or leave," she said. "Mother is desperate. She doesn't know what to do, and I don't know what to do. I told you so little of the whole story. The truth is that he is actually driving Mother and me into poverty. The truth is that I don't know whether he ever really has thought of marrying me. Mother never has believed that he has. She doesn't think that he would put us to such straits if he was honest. Of course she doesn't know about his watching nights. I can't tell her. She'd go mad."

Alva contemplated her quietly. "But you love him?" she said.