Part 19 (1/2)

When I complimented father on his talent for stock farming, he said simply: ”It's all owing to you. You put new life into us again. We never could have done it alone. Besides, I reckon most of the sharp bargaining in horseflesh was done by you. You got more out of people than I ever did. You've kept up the collections, too. You never got cheated once.

You're certainly worth your salt as a business manager, child.”

Imagine it! Calling me his business manager! I wasn't an absolute good-for-nothing, then.

All these things went serenely through my mind as I sat there knitting in the suns.h.i.+ne, and laying my plans for summer pleasures. I would take the Wenonahs and go off camping somewhere in the woods for a week or two and give them a taste of real life in the open. The picture of that little camp rose vividly before me, and I planned out the details minutely. We would have to have a tent--somewhere or other I must acquire this necessary article. A humorous thought came to me of moving the schoolhouse out into the woods for a camper's dwelling, and in imagination I saw it b.u.mping along behind us on our journey, with Justice walking along beside it, carrying the chimney in his arms. I laughed aloud at my incongruous fancies, startling a hen that was clucking at my feet so that she fled with a scandalized squawk, stopping a few yards away to look around at me inquiringly, as if trying to figure out what was coming from me next. The hen broke up my fancies and I returned to my knitting with a start to find I had dropped several st.i.tches and had a place in the heel of my sock that looked like the stem end of an apple. I raveled back and painstakingly re-knitted the heel, then I laid my knitting in my lap and gazed dreamily up the road, resting my eyes on the tender greenness of the fields.

Sitting thus I saw an automobile coming into view along the road. I watched it idly, glittering in the sunlight. To my surprise it turned into our lane and approached the house. I went down to the drive to meet it; tourists frequently stopped at the houses for water or for directions, and I would save these people the trouble of getting out of the car. The big machine rolled up to the drive and came to a standstill with a soft sliding of brakes.

Then a loud, hearty voice called out, ”Why here she is now! Katherine Adams, don't you know me? Don't suppose you do, with these infernal gla.s.ses on.”

I looked hard at the man in the long linen dust coat and tourist cap who sat alone in the car; then my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

”Why, Judge Dalrymple!” I exclaimed, starting forward with a cry of joy and seizing the outstretched hand. ”Where did you come from? Are you touring? How did you ever happen to stop here?” I tumbled the questions out thick and fast.

”I didn't 'happen' to stop here,” said the Judge in his decisive way.

”I've been rolling over these endless roads for three days on purpose to get here. Lord, what a G.o.d-forsaken country! And now that I _am_ here at last,” he added, ”aren't you going to ask me in? Where's your father?”

”Excuse me,” said I, blus.h.i.+ng furiously. ”I was so taken by surprise at seeing you that I even forgot my own name, to say nothing of my manners.

Come right in.”

I settled him in the best chair in the house, brought him a gla.s.s of water and left him talking to mother in his hearty way while I went out in search of father. Father was painting a shed when I found him, and he came just the way he was, with streaks of paint on his jumper and overalls. If he had had any inkling of what he was being summoned to----!

Judge Dalrymple was just as pleased to meet father in his paint-streaked jumper as if he had been a senator in a silk hat, and after the first moment of embarra.s.sment father felt as if the Judge were an old-time friend.

Then the Judge began to explain why he had come, and the bomb dropped on the roof of the house of Adams. I couldn't comprehend it at first any more than father could. It sounded like a page out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. But it seemed that he knew all about the company my father had lost his money in last summer, and he and some other men bought it up and set it on its feet again. War orders had suddenly boomed it and it was now solid as a rock. The original stockholders still held their shares and would draw their dividends as soon as they were declared, which Judge Dalrymple prophesied would be soon. Our days of struggling were over. We were ”hard-uppers” no longer; we were ”well off” at last. I left the Judge and father talking over the details of the business and wandered aimlessly around the dooryard, trying to comprehend the meaning of what had happened to us, and capering as each new thing occurred to me. My narrow horizon had suddenly rolled back and the whole world lay before me. College--travel--study--return to my beloved friends in the east--best doctors for mother--all those things kaleidoscoped before me, leaving me giddy and faint. I seized a hoe and began to demolish an ant hill for sheer exuberance of spirits.

”What's the matter, have you had a sunstroke?” asked Justice Sherman, suddenly appearing beside me from somewhere.

”Worse than that, it's an earthquake,” I replied. ”Take a deep breath, Justice Sherman, because you're going to need it in a minute.”

Then I told him about father's investing his money in the western oil company last summer and apparently losing it, and how the company had unexpectedly come to life again.

”Whew!” said Justice, looking dazed for a minute; then he expressed the sincerest joy at our good fortune I have ever heard one mortal express at the prosperity of another. But after his congratulations were all made he stopped short as if he had just thought of something and then he said slowly, ”I suppose you'll be going away from here now; moving out west, possibly to San Francisco?” It seemed to me that he looked very sober at the thought.

”Not if I know it,” I replied decisively. ”It'll be the east for me, if I go anywhere, where the Winnebagos have their hunting grounds.”

”You _are_ going away then?” asked Justice composedly.

”I don't know,” I replied truthfully. ”Nothing is settled yet. Give us time to catch our breath. In the meantime, come in and meet our guest, the new president of the Pacific Refining Company, who came to tell us the good news.”

Justice a.s.sumed an exaggerated air of dignity and formality that upset my composure so I could hardly keep my face straight as I walked into the house.

”Oh, Judge,” I called blithely, ”here is the rest of the happy family.

Justice, this is Judge Dalrymple.”

Then the second bomb dropped.

For, at the sight of Justice, Judge Dalrymple sprang out of his chair with a hoa.r.s.e sound in his throat as if he were choking, and stood staring at him as if he had seen a ghost. Justice looked fit to drop.