Part 35 (1/2)

”I don't know but you've got to go back to G.o.d, then,” said Andrew, soberly, pa.s.sing the biscuits. Miss Higgins took one.

”No, you haven't,” said Ellen--”you haven't, because men are free.

You've got to stop before you get to G.o.d. When a man goes wrong, you have got to look and see if he is to blame, if he started himself, or other men have been pus.h.i.+ng him into it. It seems to me that other men have been pus.h.i.+ng Uncle Jim into it. I don't think factory-owners have any right to discharge a man without a good reason, any more than he has a right to run the shop.”

”I don't think so, either,” said f.a.n.n.y. ”I think Ellen is right.”

”I don't know. It is all a puzzle,” said Andrew. ”Something's wrong somewhere. I don't know whether it's because we are pushed or because we pull. There's no use in your worrying about it, Ellen.

You've got to study your books.” Andrew said this with a look of pride at Ellen and sidelong triumph at the dressmaker to see if she rightly understood the magnitude of it all, of the whole situation of making dresses for this wonderful young creature who was going to Va.s.sar College.

”I don't know but this is more important than books,” said Ellen.

”Oh, maybe you'll find out something in your books that will settle the whole matter,” said Andrew. Ellen was not eating much supper, and that troubled him. Andrew always knew just how much Ellen ate.

”I don't know what Aunt Eva and poor little Amabel will do,” said she. Ellen's lip quivered.

”Pa.s.s the cake to Miss Higgins,” said f.a.n.n.y, sharply, to Andrew. She gave him a significant wink as she did so, not to talk more about it.

”Try some of that chocolate cake, Miss Higgins.”

”Thank you,” said Miss Higgins, unexcitedly.

Andrew had his own cause of worry, and finally reverted to it, eating his food with no more conception of the savor than if it were in another man's mouth. He was sorry enough for his wife's sister, and recognized it as an added weight to his own burden, but just at present all he could think of was the question if Miss Higgins would ask for her pay again that night. He had not a dollar in his pocket.

He had been dunned that afternoon by the man who had lent the money to buy Ellen's watch, there were two new dunning letters in his pocket, and now if that keen little dressmaker, who fairly looked to him like a venomous insect, as she sat eating rather voraciously of the chocolate cake, should ask him again for the three dollars due her that night! He would not have cared so much, if it were not for the fact that she would ask him before his wife and Ellen, and the question about the money in the savings-bank, which was a species of nightmare to him, would be sure to come to the front.

Suddenly it struck Andrew that he might run away, that he might slip out after supper, and either go into his mother's house or down the street. He finally decided on the former, since he reasoned, with a pitiful cunning, that if he went down the street he would have to take off his slippers and put on his shoes, and that would at once betray him and lead to the possible arrest of his flight.

So after supper, while Miss Higgins was trying a waist on Ellen, and f.a.n.n.y was clearing the table, Andrew, bareheaded and in his slippers, prepared to carry his plan into execution. He got out without being seen, and hurried around the rear of the house, out of view from the sitting-room windows, resolving on the way that in order to avert the danger of a possible following him to the sanctuary of his mother's house, he had perhaps better slip down into the orchard behind it and see if the porter apples were ripe.

But when, stooping as if beneath some invisible s.h.i.+eld, and moving with a low glide of secrecy, he had gained the yard between the two houses, the yard where the three cherry-trees stood, he heard f.a.n.n.y's high, insistent voice calling him, and knew that it was all over. f.a.n.n.y had her head thrust out of her bedroom window. ”Andrew!

Andrew!” she called.

Andrew stopped. ”What is it?” he asked, in a gruff voice. He felt at that moment savage with her and with fate. He felt like some badgered animal beneath the claws and teeth of petty enemies which were yet sufficient to do him to death. He felt that retreat and defence were alike impossible and inglorious. He was aware of a monstrous impatience with it all, which was fairly blasphemy. ”What is it?” he said, and f.a.n.n.y realized that something was wrong.

”Come here, Andrew Brewster,” she said, from the bedroom window, and Andrew pressed close to the window through a growth of sweetbrier which rasped his hands and sent up a sweet fragrance in his face.

Andrew tore away the clinging vines angrily.

”Well, what is it?” he said again.

”Don't spoil that bush, Ellen sets a lot by it,” said f.a.n.n.y. ”What makes you act so, Andrew Brewster?” Then she lowered her voice.

”She wants to know if she can have her pay to-night,” she whispered.

”I 'ain't got a cent,” replied Andrew, in a dogged, breathless voice.

”You 'ain't been to the bank to-day, then?”

”No, I 'ain't.”

f.a.n.n.y still suspected nothing. She was, in fact, angry with the dressmaker for insisting upon her pay in such a fas.h.i.+on. ”I never heard of such a thing as her wantin' to be paid every night,” she whispered, angrily, ”and I'd tell her so, if I wasn't afraid she'd think we couldn't pay her. I'd never have had her; I'd had Miss Patch, if I'd know she'd do such a mean thing, but, as it is, I don't know what to do. I 'ain't got but a dollar and seventy-three cents by me. You 'ain't got enough to make it up?”