The Minister's Charge Part 13

"Are you afraid that an uncharitable construction will be placed upon what has happened to you by your neighbours?" Lemuel did not answer. "I a.s.sure you that all that can be arranged. I will write to your pastor, and explain it fully. But in any event," continued Sewell, "it is your duty to yourself and your friends to go home and live it down. It would be your duty to do so, even if you had been guilty of wrong, instead of the victim of misfortune."

"I don't know," said Lemuel, "as I want to go home and be the laughing-stock."

Against this point Sewell felt himself helpless. He could not pretend that the boy would not be ridiculous in the eyes of his friends, and all the more ridiculous because so wholly innocent. He could only say, "That is a thing you must bear," and then it occurred to him to ask, "Do you feel that it is right to let your family meet the ridicule alone?"

"I guess n.o.body will speak to mother about it, more than once," said Lemuel, with a just pride in his mother's powers of retort. A woman who, unaided and alone, had worn the Bloomer costume for twenty years in the heart of a commentative community like Willoughby Pastures, was not likely to be without a cutting tongue for her defence.

"But your sister," urged Sewell; "your brother-in-law," he feebly added.

"I guess they will have to stand it," replied Lemuel.

The minister heaved a sigh of hopeless perplexity. "What do you propose to do, then? You can't remain here without means. Do you expect to sell your poetry?" he asked, goaded to the question by a conscience peculiarly sore on that point.

It made Lemuel blush. "No, I don't expect to sell it, now. They took it out of my pocket on the Common."

"I am glad of that," said the minister as simply, "and I feel bound to warn you solemnly, that there is absolutely _no_ hope for you in that direction."

Lemuel said nothing.

The minister stood baffled again. After a bad moment he asked, "Have you anything particular in view?"

"I don't know as I have."

"How long can you remain here?"

"I don't know exactly."

Sewell turned and followed the manager into the refrigerator room, where he had remained patiently whistling throughout this interview.

When he came back, Lemuel had carried one trayful of bowls upstairs, and returned for another load, which he was piling carefully up for safe transportation.

"The manager tells me," said Sewell, "that practically you can stay here as long as you like, if you work, but he doesn't think it desirable you should remain, nor do I. But I wish to find you here again, when I come back. I have something in view for you."

This seemed to be a question, and Lemuel said, "All right," and went on piling up his bowls. He added, "I shouldn't want you to take a great deal of trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble," groaned the minister. "Then I may depend upon seeing you here any time during the day?"

"I don't know as I'm going away," Lemuel admitted.

"Well, then, good-bye, for the present," said Sewell, and after speaking again to the manager, and gratefully ordering some kindling which he did not presently need, he went out, and took his way homeward. But he stopped half a block short of his own door, and rang at Miss Vane's.

To his perturbed and eager spirit, it seemed nothing short of a divine mercy that she should be at home. If he had not been a man bent on repairing his wrong at any cost to others, he would hardly have taken the step he now contemplated without first advising with his wife, who, he felt sure, would have advised against it. His face did not brighten at all when Miss Vane came briskly in, with the "_How_ d'ye do?" which he commonly found so cheering. She pulled up the blind and saw his knotted brow.

"What is the matter? You look as if you had got Lemuel Barker back on your hands."

"I have," said the minister briefly.

Miss Vane gave a wild laugh of delight. "You _don't_ mean it!" she sputtered, sitting down before him, and peering into his face. "What _do_ you mean?"

Sewell was obliged to possess Miss Vane's entire ignorance of all the facts in detail. From point to point he paused; he began really to be afraid she would do herself an injury with her laughing.

She put her hand on his arm and bowed her head forward, with her face buried in her handkerchief. "What--what--do you suppose-pose--they did with the po-po-_po_em they stole from him?"

"Well, one thing I'm sure they _didn't_ do," said Sewell bitterly. "They didn't _read_ it."

Miss Vane hid her face in her handkerchief, and then plucked it away, and shrieked again. She stopped, with the sudden calm that succeeds such a paroxysm, and, "Does Mrs. Sewell know all about this?" she panted.

"She knows everything, except my finding him in the dish-was.h.i.+ng department of the Wayfarer's Lodge," said Sewell gloomily, "and my coming to you."

"Why do you come to me?" asked Miss Vane, her face twitching and her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"Because," answered Sewell, "I'd rather not go to her till I have done something."

Miss Vane gave way again, and Sewell sat regarding her ruefully.

"What do you expect me to do?" She looked at him over her handkerchief, which she kept pressed against her mouth.

"I haven't the least idea what I expected you to do. I expected you to tell me. You have an inventive mind."

Miss Vane shook her head. Her eyes grew serious, and after a moment she said, "I'm afraid I'm not equal to Lemuel Barker. Besides," she added, with a tinge of trouble, "I have _my_ problem, already."

"Yes," said the minister sympathetically. "How has the flower charity turned out?"

"She went yesterday with one of the ladies, and carried flowers to the city hospital. But she wasn't at all satisfied with the result. She said the patients were mostly disgusting old men that hadn't been shaved. I think that now she wants to try her flowers on criminals. She says she wishes to visit the prisons."

Sewell brightened forlornly. "Why not let her reform Barker?"

This sent Miss Vane off again. "Poor boy!" she sighed, when she had come to herself. "No, there's nothing that I can do for him, except to order some firewood from his benefactors."

"I did that," said Sewell. "But I don't see how it's to help Barker exactly."

"I would gladly join in a public subscription to send him home. But you say he won't _go_ home?"

"He won't go home," sighed the minister. "He's determined to stay. I suspect he would accept employment, if it were offered him in the right spirit."

Miss Vane shook her head. "There's nothing I can think of except shovelling snow. And as yet it's rather warm October weather."

"There's certainly no snow to shovel," admitted Sewell. He rose disconsolately. "Well, there's nothing for it, I suppose, but to put him down at the Christian Union, and explain his checkered career to everybody who proposes to employ him."

Miss Vane could not keep the laughter out of her eyes; she nervously tapped her lips with her handkerchief, to keep it from them. Suddenly she halted Sewell, in his dejected progress toward the door. "I might give him my furnace?"

"Furnace?" echoed Sewell.

"Yes. Jackson has 'struck' for twelve dollars a month, and at present there is a 'lock-out,'--I believe that's what it's called. And I had determined not to yield as long as the fine weather lasted. I knew I should give in at the first frost. I will take Barker now, if you think he can manage the furnace."

"I've no doubt he can. Has Jackson really struck?" Miss Vane nodded. "He hasn't said anything to me about it."

"He probably intends to make special terms to the clergy. But he told me he was putting up the rates on all his 'famblies' this winter."