Thankful's Inheritance Part 44

"Yes, and they've talked about it ever since, some of 'em. That Abbie Larkin said--Oh, I can't tell you what she said. No, I shan't do it.

I shouldn't have the face. And everybody'd ask where we was bound, and I'd--I'd be so--so mortified and--and--why, I'd act like a reg'lar--er--er--domicile that had run away from the Idiots' Home. No, no, no! I couldn't."

Mr. Hammond thought it over. Then he said:

"See here, Hannah, I cal'late we can fix that. We'll start in the night, after all hands have gone to bed. I'll sneak out about quarter to twelve and borrow Thankful's horse and buggy out of her barn. I know where she keeps the key. I'll be ready here at twelve prompt--or not here, maybe, but down in the hollow back of your henhouse. You must be there and we'll drive over to Trumet--"

"Trumet! Why, Caleb Hammond, I know everybody in Trumet well's I do here. And gettin' to Trumet at three o'clock in the mornin' would be--"

"Then we won't go to Trumet. We'll go to Bayport. It's quite a trip, but that's all the better 'cause we won't make Bayport till daylight. Then we'll hunt up a parson to marry us and come back here and tell folks when we get good and ready. Thankful'll miss the horse and team, I cal'late, but I'll fix that; I'll leave a note sayin' I took the critter, bein' called away on business."

"Yes, but what will I tell Kenelm?"

"Don't tell him anything, the foolhead. Why, yes, you can leave a note sayin' you've gone up to the village, to the store or somethin', and that he must get his own breakfast 'cause you won't be back till after he's gone to work over to Thankful's. That'll fix it. By crimus! That'll fix it fine. Look here, Hannah Parker; I've set out to do this and, by crimus, I'm goin' to do it. Come on now; let's."

Caleb was, as has been said, "sot" in his ways. He was "sot" now, and although Hannah continued to protest and declare she could not do such a thing, she yielded at last. Mr. Hammond left the Parker cottage in a triumphant mood. He had won his point and that had pleased him for a time; then, as he began to ponder upon that point and its consequences his triumph changed to misgiving and doubt. He had had no idea, until that forenoon, of marrying again. His proposal had been made on impulse, on the spur of the moment. He was not sure that he wished to marry Hannah Parker. But he had pleaded and persuaded her into accepting him that very night. Even if he wished to back out, how could he--now? He was conscious of an uneasy feeling that, perhaps, he had made a fool of himself.

He went to his room early in the evening and stayed there, looking at his watch and waiting for the rest of the family to retire. He heard Georgie's voice in the room at the end of the hall, where Mrs. Barnes was tucking the youngster in for the night. Later he heard Imogene come up the backstairs and, after her, Thankful herself. But it was nearly eleven before Heman Daniels' important and dignified step sounded on the front stairs and by that time the Hammond nerves were as taut as banjo strings.

It was nearly twelve before he dared creep downstairs and out of the back door, the key of which he left in the lock. Luckily the barn was a good distance from the house and Mrs. Barnes and Imogene were sound sleepers. But even with those advantages he did not dare attempt getting the buggy out of the barn, and decided to use the old discarded carryall, relic of "Cap'n Abner," which now stood under the open shed at the rear.

George Was.h.i.+ngton looked at him in sleepy wonder as he tiptoed into the barn and lit the lantern. To be led out of his stall at "midnight's solemn hour" and harnessed was more than George's equine reasoning could fathom. The harnessing was a weird and wonderful operation. Caleb's trembling fingers were all thumbs. After a while, however, the harnessing was accomplished somehow and in some way, although whether the breeching was where the bridle should have been or vice versa was more than the harnesser would have dared swear. After several centuries, as the prospective bridegroom was reckoning time, the horse was between the shafts of the carriage and driven very carefully along the road to the Parker homestead.

He hitched the sleepy animal to a pine tree just off the road and tiptoed toward the hollow, the appointed rendezvous. To reach this hollow he was obliged to pa.s.s through the Parker yard and, although he went on tiptoe, each footstep sounded, in his ears, like the crack of doom. He tried to think of some explanation to be made to Kenelm in case the latter should hear and hail him, but he could think of nothing more plausible than that he was taking a walk, and this was far from satisfactory.

And then he was hailed. From a window above, at the extreme end of the kitchen, came a trembling whisper.

"Caleb! Caleb Hammond, is that you?"

Mr. Hammond's heart, which had been thumping anything but a wedding march beneath the summer under-flannels, leaped up and stuck in his throat; but he choked it down and gasped a faint affirmative.

"Oh, my soul and body! Where HAVE you been? I've been waitin' and waitin'."

"What in time did you wait up there for? Why don't you come down?"

"I can't. Kenelm's locked the doors, and the keys are right next to his room door. I can't get down."

Here was an unexpected obstacle. Caleb was nonplused.

"Go home!" wailed the voice from above. "Don't stand there. Go HOME!

Can't you SEE it ain't any use? Go HOME!"

Five minutes before he received this order Mr. Hammond would have been only too glad to go home. Now he was startled and angry and, being angry, his habitual stubbornness developed.

"I shan't go home neither," he whispered, fiercely. "If you can't come down I'll--I'll come up and get you."

"Shh--shh! He'll hear you. Kenelm'll hear you."

"I don't care much if he does. See here, Hannah, can't you get down nohow? How about that window? Can't you climb out of that window? Say, didn't I see a ladder layin' alongside the woodshed this mornin'?"

"Yes, there's a ladder there, but--where are you goin'? Mr.

Hammond--Caleb--"

But Caleb was on his way to the woodshed. He found the ladder and laboriously dragged it beneath the window. Kenelm Parker had a local reputation for sleeping like the dead. Otherwise Mr. Hammond would never have dared risk the noise he was making.

Even after the ladder had been placed in position, Miss Parker hesitated. At first she flatly refused to descend, a.s.serting that no mortal power could get her down that thing alive. But Caleb begged and commanded in agonized whispers, and finally she was prevailed upon to try. Mr. Hammond grasped the lower end of the ladder with a grip that brought the perspiration out upon his forehead, and the lady, with suppressed screams and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of "Oh, good Lord!" and "Heavens and earth! What shall I do?" reached the ground safe and more or less sound.

They left the ladder where it was, and tiptoed fearfully out to the lane.

"Whew!" panted the exhausted swain, mopping his brow. "I'm clean tuckered out. I ain't done so much work for ten years."

"Don't say a word, Caleb Hammond. If I ain't got my death of--of ammonia or somethin', I miss my guess. I'm all wheezed up from settin' at that open winder waitin' for you to come; and I thought you never WOULD come."

As Caleb was helping the lady of his choice into the carryall he noticed that she carried a small hand-bag.

"What you got that thing for?" he demanded.

"It's my reticule; there's a clean handkerchief and a few other things in it. Mercy on us! You didn't suppose I'd go off to get married without even a decent handkerchief, did you? I feel enough like a sneakin'

ragam.u.f.fin and housebreaker as 'tis. Why I ever was crazy enough to--where have you put the horse?"

Mr. Hammond led her to where George Was.h.i.+ngton was tethered. The father of his country was tired of standing alone in the damp, and he trotted off briskly. The first mile of their journey was accomplished safely, although the night was pitch-dark, and when they turned into the Bayport Road, which for two-thirds of its length leads through thick soft pine and scrub-oak woods, it was hard to distinguish even the horse's ears.

Miss Parker insisted that every curtain of the carryall--at the back and both sides--should be closely b.u.t.toned down, as she was fearful of the effects of the night air.

"Fresh air never hurts n.o.body," said Caleb. "There ain't nothin' so good for a body as fresh air. I sleep with my window open wide winter and summer."

"You DO? Well, I tell you right now, I don't. I should say not! I shut every winder tight and I make Kenelm do the same thing. I don't run any risks from drafts."

Mr. Hammond grunted, and was silent for some little time, only brightening up when the lady, now in a measure recovered from her fright and the anxiety of waiting, began to talk of the blessings that were to come from their independent wedded life in a home of their own.

"We'll keep chickens," she said, "because I do like fresh eggs for breakfast. Let's see; this is the way 'twill be; you'll get up about five o'clock and kindle the fire, and--"

"Hey?"

"I say you'll get up at five o'clock and kindle the fire."

"ME get up and kindle it?"

"Sartin; you don't expect I'm goin' to, do you?"

"No-o, I suppose not. It come kind of sudden, that's all. You see, I've been used to turnin' out about seven. Seldom get up afore that."

"Seven! My soul! I always have my breakfast et by seven. Well, as I say, you get up at five and kindle the fire, and then you'll go out to the henyard and get what eggs there is. Then--"

"Then I'll come in and call you, and you'll come down and get breakfast.

What breakfasts we will have! Eggs for you, if you want 'em, and ham and fried potatoes for me, and pie--"

"Pie? For breakfast?"

"Sartin. Laviny Marthy, my first wife, always had a piece of pie warmed for me, and I've missed it since. I don't really care two cents for breakfast without pie."

"Well now, Caleb, if you think I'm goin' to get up and warm up pie every mornin', let alone fryin' potatoes, and--"