Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

“ Please—please!" she said, in a terrified whisper. "Somebody might hear."
"They're welcome. Mary . . . he handed me back my own quarter for my own apples. No fool." He gave a grunt of laughter. "He said, 'Twelve times twelve' like lightning—when he was only ten! . . . Last year he took his own licking, though the Mack boy was in for it. . . . I'm going to give him a pony."
After that he seemed to forget her and slept for a while. A day or two later he forgot everything, even Johnny. The last person he remembered, curiously enough, was Miss Lydia Sampson. ”

“ Carl Robertson gaped, open-mouthed. And when he turned his back on this particular gossip his face was darkly red. "Somebody in this town needs a horse-whipping!" he told himself; "God forbid that Miss Sampson knows there are such fools in the world!" He was so angry and ashamed that his half-formed wish to do something for the child crystallized into purpose. But before he made any effort to carry his purpose out he discounted public opinion. "Nothing like truth to throw people off the track," he reflected. ”

“ Doctor Lavendar stopped jingling his gold pieces and frowned; then he said: "Miss Lydia, the truth about ourselves is the only safe way to live. If other folks want to be safe let them tell their own truths. It doesn't often help them for us to do it for 'em. My own principle has been not to tell a lie about other folks' affairs, but to reserve the truth. ”

“ The Secret had taken possession of her one hazy September evening, as she was sitting on her front doorstep, slapping her ankles when a mosquito discovered them, and watching the dusk falling like a warm veil across the hills. The air was full of the scent of evening primroses, and Miss Lydia, looking at a clump of them close to the step, could see the pointed buds begin to unfurl, then hesitate, then tremble, then opening with a silken burst of sound, spill their perfume into the twilight. ”

“ As she knocked, a breath of their subtle perfume brought back that other dusk, and for an instant she was engulfed in a surge of memory. She felt faint and leaned against the door, waiting for Miss Lydia's little running step in the hall. She could hardly speak when the door opened. "Good—good evening," she said, in a whisper.
Miss Lydia, her frightened eyes peering at her caller from under that black frizette, could hardly speak herself. ”

“ And Carl said, "Oh, of course."
When Johnny was well again his grandfather's fear that Doctor King might "wonder," ebbed. "It's safe enough to take him," he said to himself; "he doesn't look like anybody. And if I adopt him I can see that he's properly educated—and it will scare Robertson to death!" he added, viciously, and showed his teeth. He even discussed adopting his grandchild with Doctor Lavendar:
"Mary hasn't done her duty," he said. "I've no grandchildren! I've a great mind to adopt some youngster. I'm fond of children." ”

“ Smith's "madness" was one winter afternoon when, meeting Johnny in the road, he took him into his carriage, then sent word to Miss Lydia that he was keeping the child to supper. He put him in a big chair at the other end of the table and baited him with questions, and roared with laughter and pride at his replies. Also, he gave him good advice, as a grandfather should:
"I hear you are a bad boy and get into fights. Never fight, sir, never fight! But if you do fight, lick your man."
"Yes, sir," said Johnny.
"And don't be afraid to tackle a bigger [49] man than yourself. ”

“ So then I rushed to Carl's office. . . . He was frightened—for me. And then we thought of you. And all day to-day I've just walked the floor—waiting to get down here to see you. I couldn't come until it was dark. Father thinks I'm in bed with a headache. [12] I told the servants to tell him I had a headache. . . . We've got to manage somehow to make him let us get married right off. But—but even that won't save me. It will be known. It will be known—in January."
Miss Lydia was speechless.
"So you've got to help me. There's nobody else on earth who can. Oh, you must—you must!" ”

“ Smith's victoria rumbled past, paused until the iron gates of his driveway swung open, then rumbled on to his big, handsome house. He was one of the new Smiths, having lived in Old Chester hardly twenty years; when he came he brought his bride with him—a Norton, she was, from New England. A nice enough woman, I suppose, but not a Pennsylvanian. ”

“ It festered so deeply that she could not speak of it to Johnny's father. But once she said: "He's ungrateful! See all we've done for him!"—and Carl realized that bitterness toward Miss Lydia, who had "robbed" her, was extending to the boy himself. And again—it was in August, and Johnny was to be at home in a fortnight—she said, "He ought to be made to come to us!"
Her husband looked at her in surprise. "You can't 'make' anybody love you, Mary. We are just outsiders to him." ”

“ A month or two afterward Johnny threw a stone at the victoria and involuntarily Mr. Smith glanced in the direction from which [28] it came. But, of course, human nature being like story books, he did finally notice his grandson. At intervals he spoke to Miss Lydia, and when Johnny was six years old he even stopped one day long enough to give the child a quarter. Mr. Smith had aged very much after his daughter's marriage—and no wonder, Old Chester said, for he must be lonely in that big house, and Mary never coming to see him! Such behavior on the part of a daughter puzzled Old Chester. ”

“ Smith died when their only child, Mary, was a little girl, and Mr. Smith grew gradually into our esteem. The fact was, he was so good-looking and good-humored and high-tempered (he showed his teeth when he was in a rage, just as a dog does) Old Chester had to like him—even though it wished he was a better landlord to Miss Lydia, to whom he rented a crumbling little house just outside his gates. In matters of business Mr. Smith exacted his pound of flesh—and he got it! In Lydia's case it sometimes really did represent "flesh," for she must have squeezed her rent out of her food. ”

“ But Johnny laughed: "I guess you just called me Smith. Well, that's all right, though I'd rather you'd made it Sampson. But Smith will do. I said so to Mrs. Robertson. [93] I said that my name was the same as her father's, and I thought he was the finest old man I'd ever known, and, though I was no relation, I hoped my Smith name would be as dignified as his."
"What did she say?" said Miss Lydia.
"Oh, she got weepy," said Johnny, good-naturedly; "she's always either crying or kissing. But she's kind. Look at those!" ”

“ The story-book plot should begin here—the rich grandfather meets the unacknowledged grandchild, loves him, and makes him his heir—and, of course, incidentally, showers his largess upon the poor and virtuous lady who has cared for the little foundling; so everybody lives happy and dies wealthy. This intelligent arrangement of fiction might have been carried out if only Miss Lydia had behaved differently! But about two years later her behavior—
"She's put a spoke in my wheel!" Mr. Smith told himself, blankly. It was when Johnny was eight that the spoke blocked the grandfather's progress. ”

“ Perhaps it was the intolerable pain of knowing that she was helpless that drove her one day, without Carl's knowledge, to the rectory. "I'll put it to Doctor Lavendar as—as somebody else's story—the trouble of a 'friend,' and maybe he can tell me how I [98] can make Johnny feel that we are not outsiders! Oh, he owes it to us to do what we want! I'll tell Doctor Lavendar that the father and mother lived out West and are friends of mine. . . . He'll never put two and two together." ”

“ I'll—I'll marry the woman." . . . But he hesitated for still another month or two, for, though he wanted his grandson, he did not hanker to make a fool of himself; and a rich man in the late seventies who marries an impecunious spinster in the fifties looks rather like a fool.
But when he finally reached the point of swallowing Miss Lydia he lost no time in walking out from his iron gates one fine afternoon and banging on her front door with his stick. ”

“ Mrs. Barkley said in an anxious bass. Indeed, all Old [71] Chester was anxious about Miss Sampson's looks that summer. "What is the matter?" said Old Chester.
But Miss Lydia, although she really did grow thin, never said what was the matter.
"I do dislike secretiveness!" said Mrs. Drayton; "I call it vulgar."
"I wonder what she calls curiosity?" Doctor Lavendar said when this remark was repeated to him.
Miss Lydia may have been vulgar, but her vulgarity did not save her from terror. When Mary drove past the little house, the Grasshopper's heart was in her mouth! ”

“ Mary explained, in a frightened voice, "that a hardware store isn't much of a chance for a man like you."
"It means staying in Old Chester with Aunty," he explained; "she's not very well now, Mrs. Robertson," he said, and sighed; "it would be too much for her, to move. She's not equal to it." His strong, rather harsh face softened and sobered. "And as for a hardware store not being a chance for me—I mean to make Rome howl with a Mercer branch! ”

“ If he saw us tagging after him he'd hate us both. He's a man!" Carl said, proudly. "No, I've no fancy for losing the regard of"—he paused—"my son," he said, very quietly.
His wife put her hand over her mouth and stared at him; the word was too great for her; it was her baby she thought of, not her son.
In Johnny's first vacation, when she had rushed to Old Chester in June to open the house, she was met by the information that he was going off for the summer on a geological expedition.
Mary's disappointment made her feel a little sick. "What shall I do without you!" ”

“ However, each time he decided that the risk was too great, a glimpse of Johnny—stealing a ride by hanging on behind his grandfather's victoria, or going in [33] swimming in deeper water than some of the older boys were willing to essay, or, once, blacking another fellow's eye—such a glimpse of his own flesh and blood gave him courage. Courage gained the day when his grandson had scarlet fever and William King, meeting him after a call at Miss Lydia's, happened to say that Johnny was a pretty sick child. The new Mr. Smith felt his heart under his spreading white beard contract sharply. ”

“ Robertson always seems sort of critical of Aunty. Think of that! Course she never says anything; she'd better not! If she did I'd raise Cain. But I feel it," Johnny said, frowning. "Well, what I want to know is, what do you owe people who do you favors? Mind you, I don't want their favors!"
"Well," William ruminated, "I should say [107] that we owe people who do us favors, the truth of how we feel about them. If the truth wouldn't be agreeable to them, don't accept the favors!"
"Well, the 'truth' is that I get mad when Mrs. Robertson looks down on Aunty! ”

“ He nodded. "It would be impossible; people must never suspect—" He stopped through sheer shame at the thought of all the years he had hidden behind this small, scared-looking woman, who had had no place to hide from a ridiculous but pursuing suspicion.
When he got back to Philadelphia and told his wife about the boy, he said, "Some of those old cats in Old Chester actually thought he was—her own child."
"What!"
"Fools. But, Mary, she never betrayed us—that little old woman! She never told the truth." ”

“ He bent a little, as an elephant might stoop to scrutinize a grasshopper which was trying to block his way, and looked at her. Then he roared with laughter.
"Well, upon my word!" he said. He put his cane under his arm, fumbled for his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. "Miss Sampson," he said, "you are a bully. ”

“ She would buy him a pair of skates! "But you must send them to him, Carl."
"Why don't you do it yourself?"
"It would look queer. People might—think."
"Well, they 'thought' about that poor little woman."
"Idiots! She's a hundred years old!" Mary said, jealously.
"She wasn't when he was born," her husband said, wearily. He probably loved his wife, but since that day when she had flung away the lure of mystery, her mind had ceased to interest him. This was cruel and unjust, but it was male human nature.
"Why don't you get acquainted with the youngster?" Carl said, yawning.
"Carl! ”