Oh, Money! Money! Part 12

The old man frowned and cast disapproving eyes on his daughter and the table.

"There isn't room. I don't want them there," he observed coldly. "I shall put them in here." With the words he turned back into the house.

Once again Mr. Smith's bewildered eyes searched Miss Maggie's face and once again they found nothing but serene unconcern. She was already at the door.

"This way, please," she directed cheerily. And, still marveling, he followed her into the house.

Mr. Smith thought he had never seen so charming a living-room. A comfortable chair invited him, and he sat down. He felt suddenly rested and at home, and at peace with the world. Realizing that, in some way, the room had produced this effect, he looked curiously about him, trying to solve the secret of it.

Reluctantly to himself he confessed that it was a very ordinary room.

The carpet was poor, and was badly worn. The chairs, while comfortable looking, were manifestly not expensive, and had seen long service.

Simple curtains were at the windows, and a few fair prints were on the walls. Two or three vases, of good lines but cheap materials, held flowers, and there was a plain but roomy set of shelves filled with books--not immaculate, leather-backed, gilt-lettered "sets" but rows of dingy, worn volumes, whose very shabbiness was at once an invitation and a promise. Nowhere, however, could Mr. Smith see protecting cover mat, or tidy. He decided then that this must be why he felt suddenly so rested and at peace with all mankind. Even as the conviction came to him, however he was suddenly aware that everything was not, after all, peaceful or harmonious.

At the table Mr. Duff and his daughter were arranging the Bible and the papers. Miss Maggie suggested piles in a certain order: her father promptly objected, and arranged them otherwise. Miss Maggie placed the papers first for perusal: her father said "Absurd!" and subst.i.tuted the Bible. Miss Maggie started to draw up a chair to the table: her father derisively asked her if she expected a man to sit in that--and drew up a different one. Yet Mr. Smith, when he was finally invited to take a seat at the table, found everything quite the most convenient and comfortable possible.

Once more into Miss Maggie's face he sent a sharply inquiring glance, and once more he encountered nothing but unruffled cheerfulness.

With a really genuine interest in the records before him, Mr. Smith fell to work then. The Bible had been in the Blaisdell family for generations, and it was full of valuable names and dates. He began at once to copy them.

Mr. Duff, on the other side of the table, was arranging into piles the papers before him. He complained Of the draft, and Miss Maggie shut the window. He said then that he didn't mean he wanted to suffocate, and she opened the one on the other side. The clock had hardly struck three when he accused her of having forgotten his medicine. Yet when she brought it he refused to take it. She had not brought the right kind of spoon, he said, and she knew perfectly well he never took it out of that narrow-bowl kind. He complained of the light, and she lowered the curtain; but he told her that he didn't mean he didn't want to see at all, so she put it up halfway. He said his coat was too warm, and she brought another one. He put it on grudgingly, but he declared that it was as much too thin as the other was too thick.

Mr. Smith, in spite of his efforts to be politely deaf and blind, found himself unable to confine his attention to birth, death, and marriage notices. Once he almost uttered an explosive "Good Heavens, how do you stand it?" to his hostess. But he stopped himself just in time, and fiercely wrote with a very black mark that Submit Blaisdell was born in eighteen hundred and one. A little later he became aware that Mr.

Duff's attention was frowningly turned across the table toward himself.

"If you will spend your time over such silly stuff, why don't you use a bigger book?" demanded the old man at last.

"Because it wouldn't fit my pocket," smiled Mr. Smith.

"Just what business of yours is it, anyhow, when these people lived and died?"

"None, perhaps," still smiled Mr. Smith good humoredly.

"Why don't you let them alone, then? What do you expect to find?"'

"Why, I--I--" Mr. Smith was plainly non-plused.

"Well, I can tell you it's a silly business, whatever you find. If you find your grandfather's a bigger man than you are, you'll be proud of it, but you ought to be ashamed of it--'cause you aren't bigger yourself! On the other hand, if you find he ISN'T as big as you are, you'll be ashamed of that, when you ought to be proud of it--'cause you've gone him one better. But you won't. I know your kind. I've seen you before. But can't you do any work, real work?"

"He is doing work, real work, now, father," interposed Miss Maggie quickly. "He's having a woeful time, too. If you'd only help him, now, and show him those papers."

A real terror came into Mr. Smith's eyes, but Mr. Duff was already on his feet.

"Well, I shan't," he observed tartly. "I'M not a fool, if he is. I'm going out to the porch where I can get some air."

"There, work as long as you like, Mr. Smith. I knew you'd rather work by yourself," nodded Miss Maggie, moving the piles of papers nearer him.

"But, good Heavens, how do you stand--" exploded Mr. Smith before he realized that this time he had really said the words aloud. He blushed a painful red.

Miss Maggie, too, colored. Then, abruptly, she laughed. "After all, it doesn't matter. Why shouldn't I be frank with you? You couldn't help seeing--how things were, of course, and I forgot, for a moment, that you were a stranger. Everybody in Hillerton understands. You see, father is nervous, and not at all well. We have to humor him."

"But do you mean that you always have to tell him to do what you don't want, in order to--well--that is--" Mr. Smith, finding himself in very deep water, blushed again painfully.

Miss Maggie met his dismayed gaze with cheerful candor.

"Tell him to do what I DON'T want in order to get him to do what I do want him to? Yes, oh, yes. But I don't mind; really I don't. I'm used to it now. And when you know how, what does it matter? After all, where is the difference? To most of the world we say, 'Please do,' when we want a thing, while to him we have to say, 'Please don't.' That's all.

You see, it's really very simple--when you know how."

"Simple! Great Scott!" muttered Mr. Smith. He wanted to say more; but Miss Maggie, with a smiling nod, turned away, so he went back to his work.

Benny, wandering in from the kitchen, with both hands full of cookies, plumped himself down on the cus.h.i.+oned window-seat, and drew a sigh of content.

"Say, Aunt Maggie."

"Yes, dear."

"Can I come ter live with you?"

"Certainly not!" The blithe voice and pleasant smile took all the sting from the prompt refusal.

"What would father and mother do?"

"Oh, they wouldn't mind."

"Benny!"

"They wouldn't. Maybe pa would--a little; but Bess and ma wouldn't. And I'D like it."

"Nonsense, Benny!" Miss Maggie crossed to a little stand and picked up a small box. "Here's a new picture puzzle. See if you can do it."

Benny s.h.i.+fted his now depleted stock of cookies to one hand, dropped to his knees on the floor, and dumped the contents of the box upon the seat before him.

"They won't let me eat cookies any more at home--in the house, I mean.

Too many crumbs."

"But you know you have to pick up your crumbs here, dear."

"Yep. But I don't mind--after I've had the fun of eatin' first. But they won't let me drop 'em ter begin with, there, nor take any of the boys inter the house. Honest, Aunt Maggie, there ain't anything a feller can do, 'seems so, if ye live on the West Side," he persisted soberly.

Mr. Smith, copying dates at the table, was conscious of a slightly apprehensive glance in his direction from Miss Maggie's eyes, as she murmured:--

"But you're forgetting your puzzle, Benny. You've put only five pieces together."

"I can't do puzzles there, either." Benny's voice was still mournful.

"All the more reason, then, why you should like to do them here. See, where does this dog's head go?"

Listlessly Benny took the bit of pictured wood in his fingers and began to fit it into the pattern before him.