Part 42 (1/2)

”I looked them in the eye,” said Malcolm, wiping his moustache before he gave her an imitation of his own scorn, ”and I said, 'Gentlemen, before the home that was my father's, and will be my son's, pa.s.ses from my hands, those hands will be dust!'”

”But why do they want it?” asked Martie after duly applauding this sentiment.

She was rapidly thinking. The old house was mortgaged, and doubly mortgaged. It was useless to the average buyer, for besides the fact that the neighbourhood was no longer Monroe's best, it was four feet below street level. It was surrounded by useless shabby barns and outhouses, it was five times too large for the diminished family, and, in case of Pa's death--and Pa was nearly seventy--it must fetch what it might, for between Len's constant need of money for the Estates, and Lydia's mild helplessness, there could be no holding it for a fair price.

”For the new High School--for the new High School!” her father said impatiently. For perhaps twenty years he had had occasional offers for the property, and had always scornfully refused them.

”Yet I think that's rather touching, Pa,” Martie said.

”What's touching?” he asked suspiciously, after a moment in which he obviously tried to see any touching aspect in the affair.

”Why, to have the Monroe High School on the old Monroe site!” Martie said innocently. ”Of course Mr. Tate and Cliff Frost know what it means to you, and yet I suppose they realize that the neighbourhood is changing, and that those shops have come in, this side of the bridge, and that, even if we lived here ten years more, we couldn't twenty. I agree with your decision, Pa, of course; but at the same time, I see that no other plot in Monroe would be so fitting!”

Malcolm stirred his tea, raised the cup, and drank off the hot fluid with great gusto. A faint frown darkened his brow.

”And, pray, where would the family live?” he asked presently.

”Where we ought to be now,” Martie answered promptly. ”In the Estates.

I have been thinking lately, Pa, that nothing would give that development such prestige as to have you there! Put up as pretty a house as you choose, build a drive, and put in a handsome fence, but be Malcolm Monroe of the Monroe Estates!”

Always captured by phrases, she saw him tug at his moustache to hide a smile.

”Well!” he said presently. ”Well! You astonish me. But yes, I see your point. I must candidly admit you have a point there. With another attractive home there--yes, there is something in that. But I had supposed that you girls had a sentiment for this old place,” he added almost reproachfully.

”And so we have!” Martie answered quickly. ”But it is one thing to sell this place in small lots, Pa, and have it chopped into shops and shanties, and another to have a three-hundred-thousand-dollar building go in here. The new High School on the old Monroe place; you'll admit there's a great difference?”

Had her bombastic father always been so easily influenced? Martie wondered, remembering the old storms and the old stubbornness. It was true, some persons couldn't do things; other persons could. Lydia and Ma would have goaded him into an obstinacy that no later judgment could dispel, and after his death Monroe would have lamented that he had left next to nothing, for the place had to go for taxes and interest overdue, and Lydia and Ma would have settled themselves comfortably on Len for life.

”All the difference in the world,” Malcolm said, now deep in thought.

”You could send a letter to the Zeus,” Martie added presently, ”saying that you had never even considered such a step before, but that to sell for educational purposes was--you know!--was in accord with the spirit of your father--that sort of thing!”

”And so it was!” he answered warmly.

”A few ready thousands would be the making of the Estates, now,” said Martie, ”but naturally the town need know nothing of that!”

Malcolm shrugged a careless a.s.sent, and silently finished his pie.

”Your sister Lydia--” he began suddenly, shaking his head.

”Yes, Lyd will object,” Martie a.s.sented, as his voice stopped. ”Lyd is a conservative, Pa. She has very little of the spirit that brought Grandfather Monroe here; she doesn't, in the Estates, see property that will be just as beautiful and just as valuable as anything in Monroe in a few years. Why, Pa, you must remember the days when our trees in the yard here were only saplings?”

”Remember?” he echoed impressively. ”Why, I remember Monroe as the field between two sheep-ranches. There was not a blade of wheat, not a fruit tree--”

He was well started. Martie listened to an hour's complacent reminiscence. At eight o'clock he went to his study, but came back a moment later, with his gla.s.ses pushed up on his lead-coloured forehead, to say that the sum old Tait mentioned would clear the mortgage, build a handsome house, and perhaps leave a bit over for Martie and her boy.

At nine he appeared again, to say that he would deed the new house to Lydia, who would undoubtedly take the change a little hard--a little hard!

”Yes,” said old Malcolm thoughtfully, from the doorway, glancing, with his spectacles still on his forehead, at the pencilled list he had in his hand. ”Yes, I believe I have hit upon the solution!

I--believe--I--have--hit--it!”