Part 10 (1/2)

”Kindness has nothin' to do with it.”

”Yes, it has,” persisted Lucy softly. ”Unless we become more kind, how is the world ever to become better?”

”Pis.h.!.+” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ellen. ”Now see here. You ain't comin' into my house to preach to me. I'm older'n you, an' I know without bein' told what I want to do. So long's you stay under this roof you'll behave like a Webster--that's all I've got to say. If you ain't a-goin' to be a Webster an' prefer to disgrace your kin, the sooner you get out the better.”

”Very well. I can go.”

There was no bravado in the a.s.sertion. Had there been, Ellen would not have felt so much alarmed. It was the fearless sincerity of the remark that frightened her. She had not intended to force a crisis. She had calculated that her bullying tone would cow rather than antagonize her niece. The last result on which she had reckoned was defiance. Instantly her crafty mind recognized that she must conciliate unless she would lose this valuable helper whose toil could be secured without expense.

”Of course I don't mean--I wouldn't want you should go away,” she hastened to declare. ”I'm just anxious for you to do--well--what's right,” she concluded lamely.

Lucy saw her advantage.

”Now, Aunt Ellen, we may as well settle this right now,” she a.s.serted. ”I am quite willing to go back to Arizona any time you say the word. I have no desire to remain where I am not wanted. But so long as I do stay here, I must be the one to decide what it is right for me to do. Remember, I am not a child. I have a conscience as well as you, and I am old enough to use it.”

Ellen did not speak. She realized that Greek had met Greek and in the combat of wills she was vanquished. Nevertheless, she was not generous enough to own defeat.

”S'pose we don't talk about it any more,” she replied diplomatically.

She was retreating toward the door, still smarting under the knowledge of having been vanquished, when her eye fell upon the box of eggs, which, in her excitement, she had forgotten was in her hand. A malicious gleam lighted her face. A second afterward there was a violent crash in the kitchen.

”The eggs!” Lucy heard her cry. ”I've dropped 'em.”

The eggs had indeed been dropped,--dropped with such a force that even the cooperation of all the king's horses and all the king's men would have been useless.

When Lucy reached her side Ellen was bending over the wreck on the floor, a sly smile on her lips.

”They're gone, every one of 'em,” she announced with feigned regret. ”But it ain't any matter. You can have all, the eggs you want anytime you want 'em. I ain't so poverty-stricken that we can't have eggs--even if they are sixty-six cents a dozen.”

She got a cloth and began to wipe up the unsightly ma.s.s at her feet.

”I paid sixty-seven cents for those,” Lucy said.

”Sixty-seven cents! How long have the Howes been gettin' sixty-seven cents for their eggs, I'd like to know?” Ellen demanded, springing into an upright position.

”I couldn't say. Jane told me that was the regular market price.”

”Why didn't I know it?” her aunt burst out. ”They must 'a' gone up a cent, an' I sellin' mine at the store for sixty-six! Ain't it just like that meachin' Elias Barnes to do me out of a penny a dozen, the skinflint.”

In the face of the present issue, the battle between Howe and Webster was forgotten.

To be cheated out of a cent by Elias Barnes and at the same time to have her business ability surpa.s.sed by that of Martin Howe! No indignity could have equaled it.

”Well, I'll get even with Elias,” she bl.u.s.tered. ”I'm fattening some hogs for him, an' I'll tuck what I've lost on the eggs right on to 'em. He shall pay that cent one way or 'nother 'fore he gets through. He needs to think to beat me. Sixty-seven cents, and I never knowin' it!”

Then the words brought still another bitter possibility to the woman's mind.

”You didn't mention to the Howes I was gettin' only sixty-six cents a dozen for eggs, did you?” she asked, wheeling on Lucy.