In Pawn

Harvey considered that his peculiar position in life, now that he had given up the junk business, gave him exceptional opportunity to be a saint. For one thing he had no wife, and a wife is often a real impediment in the path of a man who wants to be a saint. He had no business cares to distract his thoughts from the higher things, and he had twenty-five dollars a month, less what he might find it necessary to pay Susan on account of the note. In many ways, as Harvey recognized, a small but regular income might be of great assistance to one who wished to be a first-class modern saint. Even Susan’s act of demanding that Lem be left in pawn with her had its compensations, for while Harvey had not thought of Lem as a drawback, he realized now that since he was relieved of the care of Lem he was practically free from everything in the way of worldly ties.

While we may speak lightly of Harvey’s announced intention, it must not be thought that he was taking up the life of a saint in any light spirit. He was most serious. Although the deeds of Cap. Collier and Dead-Eye Dick had thrilled him, he had never seriously imagined himself becoming a detective or a bad man of the plains. He knew he was not so constituted as to follow either career successfully. He admired Cap. Collier, but he did not imagine himself becoming a Cap. Collier; he liked to read about a Dead-Eye Dick, but never wanted to be one. He felt he did not have the necessary vigor. A saint was, however, something he felt himself peculiarly fitted to be.

In reading the book that had turned his thoughts toward sainthood, Harvey had admired the saints as fully and whole-heartedly as he had admired Cap. Collier and other heroes, but he had, in addition, continually imagined himself in the place of the saints of whom he was reading. He saw himself undergoing trials and tests and emerging triumphantly. He felt – as is true – that a saint is the greatest hero of all heroes, and the most deserving of praise, and the surest to receive worship and admiration.

Harvey did not admire all the saints in his book equally. He preferred the sweet-hearted, non-resisting type to that which went forth seeking trouble and martyrdom, and the first suggestion of saintship in connection with himself came with the thought that it would be extremely pleasant to have nothing to do but be kind and good and gentle and sweet-tempered, doing no evil and thinking no evil. With about twenty-five dollars a month, a comfortable rocking-chair, a good-enough shack, and a sunny ex-junkyard, being a saint would be a pleasant job. Later came the thought that it would be doubly pleasant to be known, to all Riverbank, and in time to the whole world, as “the good Saint Harvey of Riverbank.” He feared Riverbank did not consider him of much importance now, that it rather scorned him, but if, by combining the austerity of a Saint Anthony and the sweetness of a Saint Francis of Assisi, he became known for his saintly qualities, there would be real tears shed when Death came to claim him.

“Great land of goodness!” exclaimed Susan, when Harvey had spoken. “A saint? Are you going crazy, Harvey Redding? You look like a saint, don’t you? What do you mean by such talk?”

“Why, dod-baste it – ” Harvey said angrily, and then, realizing what he had said, calmed suddenly. “I take that back, Susan. That swear was a slip-up. It come out because I ain’t fully used to bein’ a saint yet. I ain’t rightly started at it yet, but I’m goin’ to be if I can manage the job, an’ I don’t know why I can’t. When I say saint I mean saint, an’ that’s the whole of it. I hope to live an’ die clean an’ sweet an’ proper, free from sin an’ evil, doin’ no wrong – ”

“And doing nothing else, I guess,” said Susan scornfully. “Well, it’s none of my business. If you don’t lazy at one thing you ‘ll lazy at another, and I guess it don’t matter what it is. Be all the saint you want to, but don’t you forget I’m expecting regular payments, once a month, on that note, saint or no saint. Has Lem got any other clothes?”

“No. Nothin’ but another shirt. His shoes ain’t worth fetchin’.”

“I did n’t expect he had. He looks like a ragamuffin, poor boy. Who do you expect to do your chores when you have n’t got him?”

“I will, myself. I would anyway. A saint ought to.”

“Well, I don’t know what a saint ought or oughtn’t, but a boarding-house-keeper has to get supper the same one day as another,” said Susan meaningly, “and now’s when I begin, so I won’t keep you any longer than need be. You get that money every first of the month, don’t you?”

“Every fifteenth,” said Harvey, taking up his hat.

“All right. If you ain’t here with a share of it every sixteenth you’ll hear from me and mighty dear hearing, too,” said Susan. “If you want to say good-bye to Lem you can go out the front way.”

Harvey went toward the kitchen door.

“It might set him off cryin’,” he said. “That would n’t be no use. Well, so long, Susan.”

“Good-bye,” she said, turning her back on him to look at her cookies.

Harvey went out. Any twinge of conscience he might have had because he was leaving Lem was made less by the combined thought that Lem would be well cared for by Susan and that it would be a great relief not to have to worry about him. From now on he could give his time and his mind entirely to the job of being a saint, with nothing to annoy him.

As he walked down the hill he considered the saint business from all sides. He walked more rapidly than was his custom, for he was eager to get home and begin being a saint. He meant to be gentle and kind, saying no harsh word, avoiding anger and profanity, eating little and drinking only pure, sparkling water, dressing simply and doing good in a noble, unobtrusive way.

One matter that he had dwelt upon now and then, but had put aside as too difficult of solution while his mind was still occupied with a junkman’s cares, now demanded attention. A saint must specialize. One point had made itself clear to Harvey while he was reading his “Lives of the Saints” – that it was not enough for a saint to be good; a saint must do something. For a while, vaguely, Harvey had thought he might take up the specialty of being kind to all children. Now this seemed unsuitable. A saint who began his career by shifting the care and keep of his own son on to another could hardly expect to win praise by petting other children.

Somewhere between Susan’s house and his own place the great solution came to him – stray dogs! The tender phrase, “Little Brother to the Stray Dogs,” formed itself in his mind as the one by which he would be known, and he saw himself done in marble, after his regretted death, with a small, appealing dog in his arms and a group of large, eager dogs grouped at his feet, their eyes on his face. One of his hands would rest on the head of one of the dogs pro-tectingly. He would be thin, of course. His long fasts and his diet of bread and water would fix that.

Riverbank would be quite able to furnish the stray dogs. There were more stray dogs in Riverbank than could be counted. Since the City Council had withdrawn the bonus of twenty-five cents per dog that had formerly given the Dog Warden Schulig an active interest in dog-catching, Riverbank seemed to have become a haven for all the stray dogs in Iowa. There were plenty of stray dogs. The junkyard was a fine place in which to shelter stray dogs. It was quite possible that in time the rumor would get around that because of the purity of his heart, Harvey had come to understand dog language and could converse with dogs as one man converses with another. He might even be able to do it. Dod-baste it all, he would be a saint! He would do the job proper. Harvey was eager to reach the junkyard and make his final arrangements and begin.

“The minute I get inside my gate,” he said to himself; “the minute I get inside my gate!”

He turned the corner into Elm Street. He perspired with eagerness and haste. He reached the gate. He stopped there and looked up and down the street and made a gesture of renunciation with his fat hands, like one putting aside the world forever.

Harvey pushed open the gate with something like solemnity and stopped short. Moses Shuder was sitting on the step of the shanty, the skirts of his long, black coat dabbling in the dust while his hands toyed with the ears of a spotted dog. Shuder looked up, his eyes appealing, as Harvey entered. He clasped his hands at his chest in the fashion that was one of his characteristics and a meek smile wrinkled his face without relieving the anxiety that showed on his countenance.

“Misder Redink,” he said, arising.

Then Harvey saw that at his feet lay a large, roughly squared chunk of lead. It was of a weight of some thirty pounds. Harvey knew it well. It had been his last purchase as a junkman, Lon bringing it to the yard in company with two boys known to Harvey only as Swatty and Bony. The chunk of lead should not have been at Moses Shuder’s feet; it should have been at the far end of the yard, where Lem had carried it.

“What you doin’ with that hunk o’ lead?” Harvey demanded.

“Misder Redink, please!” begged Shuder. “I want no trouble.”

“Then you take that chunk o’ lead back where you got it,” said Harvey, his face flushing. “I don’t sell you nothin’. I don’t sell nobody nothin’. I’m out o’ this junk business – ”

“Misder Redink, please!” begged Moses Shuder, more meekly than before. “I do not ask you to sell. Only my rights I ask it of any man. It is my lead. Misder Redink, please, I do not say you are a thief – ”

“Well, dod-baste you!” cried Harvey, swelling. “Zhust a minute, please, Misder Redink,” begged Shuder. “Mit my own money I bought this lead, I assure you, and put it in my junkyard, Misder Redink, but that I should get you arrested I never so much as gave it a thought, Misder Redink, believe me! Why should I, Misder Redink? Do I blame you? No! If your boy stoled it from me – ”

“What?” Harvey shouted, taking a step toward Shuder.

“Please, Misder Redink! Should I say it if I did not see it with my own two eyes? Climbing over my fence.”

“You’re a liar.”

Shuder shrugged his shoulders.

“No, Misder Redink; Rebecca could tell you the same story. I ain’t sore, Misder Redink. Boys would be boys, always. It is right I should watch my yard. But my lead is my lead, Misder Redink. That your boy Lemuel should steal it from me is nothing. But I should have my lead back, Misder Redink. Sure!”

Shuder put his hands on the chunk of lead. At that moment a vast and uncontrollable rage filled Harvey and he raised his fat hand and brought it down on Shuder’s hat, crushing it over his eyes. He grasped Shuder by the shoulders and ran him out of the yard, giving him a final push that sent him sprawling in the street.

Then, still raging, he turned while Shuder got to his feet. The spotted dog caught Harvey’s eye. He drew back his foot and kicked the dog, and the surprised animal yelped and leaped out of the yard and down the street.

“There, dod-baste you!” Harvey panted, shaking his fist at Shuder, who stood safely in the middle of the street. “That’ll show you! An’ don’t you or your dog ever come into this yard again or I ‘ll handle you worse, a big sight!”

Moses Shuder looked at his damaged hat. “Two dollars,” he said, and shook his head sadly. “But I should complain! What you do to me and my hat the law will take care of, and my lead the law will take care of, if you want it that way, Misder Redink, but that a man should kick a dog – ”

“An’ I ‘ll kick your dog out o’ this yard every time it comes in,” shouted Harvey.

Moses Shuder raised his hands.

“It is not my dog,” he said. “It is a stray dog.”

The saintly career of Saint Harvey, the “Little Brother to the Stray Dogs,” seemed to have begun inauspiciously.

CHAPTER IV

While Lorna Percy was in Susan Redding’s kitchen acting as a witness to the compact that placed Lem Redding in pawn to his aunt for a period that seemed likely to be extended indefinitely, another lady had come down the front stairs, and after greeting the young woman on the front porch, had occupied one of the chairs. This was Miss Henrietta Bates.

“I thought Lorna was here,” she said, as she seated herself. “Did n’t I hear her voice?”

“Miss Susan called her into the kitchen,” said the other. “I think she will be out in a moment.” Miss Henrietta held up an envelope.

“See what I’ve got?” she said, smiling.

“Not another letter from Bill?”

“Just that,” said Henrietta. “And the dearest letter! There’s a part I want to read to you and Lorna. I don’t bore you with my Bill, do I, Gay?”

“Bore? What an idea!”

“Sometimes I’m afraid I do. If it wasn’t that his letters are so intelligent. They don’t seem to me like ordinary love-letters. They don’t seem to you like the common wishy-washy stuff men write, do they?”

“Well, you know I have no experience in love-letters – ”

“Poor Gay!” said Miss Bates, and laughed. “But I do think I’m fortunate in having a man like Bill choose me, don’t you? I do wish he could come East this summer. I wish you and Lorna could meet him. He’s so – so different from the men here.”

The three, who had become close friends, were school teachers, and that was how two of them happened to be boarding at Miss Redding’s, which was an exceptionally pleasant boardinghouse. This was the third year Lorna Percy had boarded with Miss Redding. Miss Bates had a year more to her credit. Gay Loring lived at home, across the street, with her parents.

In their quiet, small-town lives the love-letters of Henrietta’s William Vane had been important events. William was the first and only man to propose to any one of the three, and although Gay and Lorna had never seen him they had seen his portrait and they had heard a vast amount about him. Henrietta spoke of her William Vane most frankly. She was evidently deeply in love with him.

Gay and Lorna were unequivocally glad on Henrietta’s account. Of Gay and Lorna it is enough to say here that they were still young and fresh and attractive. Of Henrietta it may be said that she was no longer quite young, but that she was still fresh and attractive. In many ways she was livelier than her two friends, and had as youthful manners. Although she was at least forty, she had never taken to the type of garb that a woman dons when she is willing to advertise the fact that her youth has fled. Nor had Henrietta Bates any great reason to advertise that. She was still vigorous and bright-eyed, not a gray hair was to be seen on her head, and her face was full and her complexion clear and pleasing.

When Lorna came from the kitchen, bringing young Lem, she noticed immediately the square envelope held by Henrietta.

“What, another?” she exclaimed eagerly. “Henrietta, you are the luckiest girl! What does Billy say this time?”

“I’m going to read part of the letter to you,” said Henrietta. “Sit down and be a good girl and listen. Who is the young man? Isn’t it Lemuel?”

“Yes, mam,” said Lem shyly. “I’m Lem.”

“He is going to live here now, too,” said Lorna gayly, “are n’t you, Lem?”

“Yes, mam.”

“So you see!” said Lorna, seating herself on the steps and drawing Lem down beside her. “You may not be the only one with a sweetheart, Henrietta. Lem is going to be mine, are n’t you, Lem?”

“I don’t know,” said Lem, with a boy’s diffidence.

“Oh, you must not say that. You must say, ‘I’d love to, Miss Percy.’ Only you must say, ‘I’d love to, Lorna.’ My name is Lorna. I’ll call you Lem and you ‘ll call me Lorna. Will you?”

“I don’t care.”

Gay erupted from her chair in a protesting billow of white and seated herself at Lem’s other side.

“Now, I’ll not stand for this at all, Lorna Percy!” she complained. “You shan’t kidnap him all for yourself. I have as much right to him as you have. You’ll be my sweetheart, too, won’t you, Lem?”

“Yes’m, I guess so.”

“There, you mean thing!” Gay laughed at Lorna. “You see! He’s as much mine as he is yours.”

It was pretty play and Lem did not mind it much. He had a boy’s deep-grounded belief that all girls were silly, and these were only older girls.

“In this letter Bill says – ” said Henrietta Bates.

Gay and Lorna turned their heads.

“Oh, excuse me, Henrietta!” Gay cried. “We are truly just crazy to hear what your Bill says, but having a really, truly sweetheart of our own is such a new experience – ”

“Come down on the steps and be comfy,” added Lorna.

“No, I’ll read it here,” said Henrietta, and she opened the letter. “Well – there’s part I can’t read to you – ”

“Of course.”

“And then he says, ‘I thought of you a hundred times while on my fishing trip. Some day you must learn to cast a fly so we can make some of these trips together. You would be the best of companions. And now, dearest girl, I want to ask you the most important question of all. Do you think you can make your preparations so that we can be married in August?’”

“In August!” cried Gay. “I thought it was going to be impossible before next year, Etta?”

“It is a change in his plans,” said Henrietta. “Shall I read the rest?”

“Do, please,” said Gay, and “Yes, indeed,” said Lorna.

“‘I’m asking this, dear,’ he goes on,” said Henrietta, “‘because I have just had most wonderful news. I’m to be sent to Africa. A big job’ – the biggest I ever had. It is wonderful country and I want you to enjoy it with me. It is too far to go without you. So it must be an August wedding because we have to sail in September!’”

“Henrietta! How grand!” Gay cried.

“Isn’t it?” Henrietta agreed. “Africa, girls! Just think of it! Am I not the luckiest thing?”

“Think of it, young Lemuel,” Lorna said.

“Her sweetheart is going to marry her and carry her off to Africa, where the lions are. You see what I shall expect of you, young man. The very least you can do is to get ready to carry me off to Europe.”

“And me to Asia,” said Gay.

Lem said nothing. He knew they were teasing. “And listen to this, girls,” Henrietta continued. “‘You’ll forgive me, Etta dear, for asking you to agree to such an early wedding. I know it is apt to find you unprepared and you must let your crude lover do the unconventional this once. I want you to tell me I can send you a few of my miserable dollars – ten hundred, let us say, so they may be made happy dollars by aiding your preparations.’”

Henrietta folded the letter.

“What do you think of that, Gay?” she asked. “Should I let him? Would it be right?”

“Of course! Why not, under the circumstances?” Gay answered.

“When he asked you to go so far and so soon,” said Lorna.

“I hoped you would say so,” said Henrietta. “I only wanted your approval. You know what it means to me. It will let me use what I have saved – the money I would never touch – and I can pay you both all I owe you, and what I owe Miss Susan. It makes everything so much easier and happier for me. And of course you’ll help me get ready; I’ll have so much to do!”

“As if we were n’t mad to,” said Gay. “You must write him at once, Henrietta; tell him it is all right.”

“I ‘m going right upstairs to do it this minute,” Henrietta answered, and she went into the house, humming happily.

Gay looked at Lorna quizzically. Lorna laughed.

“What do you think of it now?” Gay asked in a low tone. “Did you notice? She would not come down to the step to read the letter.”

“I did notice. And did you see the ink spot on the back of the envelope? The same spot that was on it when she read the last letter from her ‘William’ and the one before that?”

“Yes, I did notice. I’m positive it is the same envelope. I believe you are right; I believe she does write the letters to herself. Is n’t it funny? Is n’t it amazing?”

“Or sad or something?” Lorna said. “Gay, what do you think of it, really? What does it mean?”

“Did she try to borrow some money from you this morning?” Gay asked.

“Yes, twenty-five dollars, but I did not have it.”

“I did have twenty. She got that,” Gay said and giggled.

“Then you’ll see! She’ll get another present from her dear William to-morrow,” Lorna said. “Is n’t it just as I said; every time she borrows from us she gets a present from dear William? You’ll see. It will be something worth about twenty dollars. Say, Gay – ”

“Yes?”

“You know I said I did not believe her William was really engaged to her at all?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I don’t believe there is any William. I don’t believe he exists. I think Henrietta made him up entirely. I believe she invented him.”

“Oh, lovely!” Gay cooed. “Is n’t she wonderful? But why, Lorna? Why should she?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering. Not just to get money from us, because she uses it to buy the presents she says her William sends. She has no need to buy presents for her William to send. We would believe in her William quite as easily without the presents.”

“Is n’t it exciting?” Gay cooed again.

“Well, I never knew anything like it, I’ll say that,” agreed Lorna. “When you think of the trouble she has gone to, and how she has kept it up. Gay, do you think she has any idea we don’t believe her?”

“Of course not! But isn’t it the strangest thing for anybody to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Lorna thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I first had a suspicion, and it is n’t really so strange. You know what Henrietta is like. She loves to shine. She hates to play second fiddle. Do you remember when we first heard of her dear Billy?”

“When she was at Spirit Lake, where she said she met him. She wrote about the engagement from there.”

“Yes,” said Lorna; “and do you remember what was going on here in Riverbank just before she went on vacation?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember how Carter Bruce was rushing you then!” scoffed Lorna. “I remember perfectly well that Henrietta and I agreed you and Carter would be engaged before the summer ended.”

“Oh, Carter Bruce!” admitted Gay. “Of course, he was fussing around. He is always fussing around. Or was.”

“Yes, and we thought he was going to steal you, Gay. Well – that’s the answer!”

“You mean – ”

“Of course! Henrietta just couldn’t stand having you engaged when she was not. So she invented Billy Vane while she was at Spirit Lake, and told us he had gone out to Colorado, where he would be out of the way.”

“But who writes her the letters from Colorado?”

“How do I know? She may have a brother out there. That is easy. She would have dear Bill go wherever there was some one who could write her a letter now and then. And Henrietta does the rest. It is n’t so impossible when you think of it that way, is it? After she had invented dear Bill it was natural enough that she should keep him alive and interested, when we were so interested.”

“Lorna, it is the greatest thing I ever heard of!” exclaimed Gay. “And I think you are a wizard to discover the truth.”

“No, I’m not,” said Lorna. “Just think back, Gay. The strange thing is that we did not hit on it sooner. Think! Can’t you remember a hundred things that should have made us suspicious?”

“Yes,” Gay admitted. “Especially the presents, and the way she borrows just before the presents come.”

“And never letting us see a single letter, and always moving away when we come near her when she is reading them to us, and never getting another photograph from Billy ‘ – and a thousand things.”

“Yes,” said Gay again; and then, “Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Do? No, why should I? If she enjoys it I’m sure we do. Only – we must not lend her any more, if we can help it. There’s no reason why we should lend her our hard-earned money to buy presents for herself with.”

Gay giggled.

“How much does she owe you now?” she asked.

“Almost two hundred.”

“And me over one hundred and fifty! Is n’t it rich?”

“It’s peachy!”

In her own room Henrietta Bates was looking at her comely face reflected in her mirror. She was pleased with it, and she glanced down at the three framed photographs on her dresser. One was the picture of the imaginary William Vane, the others were of her dearest friends – Gay and Lorna. To William’s portrait she gave only a careless glance. She lingered over Gay’s and Lorna’s.

“Stupid dears!” she thought. “So you have found me out? It has taken you long enough, I’m sure. I wonder what next.”