Part 54 (1/2)

”Well, Grant, I'm in trouble--Oh, it's not that,” he laughed as Grant looked quickly into the clean, alert old face. ”That's not bothered me for--Oh, for two years now. But it's Violet--she wants me to marry her.”

He blurted it out as if it had been pent in, and was hard to hold.

”Why--well--what makes you--well, has she proposed, Henry?” asked the younger man.

”Naw--of course not,” answered Fenn. ”Boy, you don't know anything about women.”

Fenn shook his head knowingly, and winked one eye slowly.

”Children--she's set the children on me. You know, Grant--” he turned his smile on with what candlepower he could muster, ”that's my other weakness--children. And they're the nicest children in the world. But I can't--I tell you, man, I can't,” protested Mr. Fenn, as if he believed Grant in league with the woman to kidnap him.

”Well, then, don't,” said Grant, rising and gathering up his mail.

”But how can I help it?” Fenn cried helplessly. ”What can a man do?

Those kids need a father. I need a family--I've always needed a family--but I don't want Violet--nor any one else.” Grant towed him along to the restaurant, and they sat alone. After Grant had ordered his supper he asked, ”Henry--why can't you marry Violet? She's a sensible, honest woman--she's got over her foolishness; what's wrong with her?”

”Why, of course, she is a good woman. If you'd see her chasing out nights--picking up girls, mothering 'em, loving 'em, working with 'em--she knows their language; she can talk to 'em so they get it. And I've known her time and again to get scent of a new girl over there at Bessie Wilson's and go after her and pull her out and start her right again. I tell you, Grant, Violet has her weaknesses--as to hair ribbons and s.h.i.+rtwaists and frills for the kids--but she's got a heart, Grant--a mighty big heart.”

”Then why not marry her?” persisted Grant.

”That's just it,” answered Fenn.

He looked hopelessly at Grant and finally said as he reached his hands across the table and grasped Grant's big flinty paw, ”Grant--let me tell you something--it's Margaret. I'm a fool--a motley fool i' the forest, Grant, but I can't help it; I can't help it,” he cried. ”So long as she lives--she may need me. I don't trust that d.a.m.n scoundrel, Grant. She may need me, and I stand ready to go to h.e.l.l itself with her if I live a thousand years. It's not that I want her any more; but, Grant--maybe you know her; maybe you understand. She used to hate you for some reason, and maybe that will help you to know how I feel. But--I know I'm weak--G.o.d knows I'm putty in my soul. And I'm ashamed. But I mustn't get married. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be square to Violet, nor the kids, nor to any one. So long as Margaret is on this earth--it's my job to stand guard and wait till she needs me.”

He turned a troubled, heartbroken face up to the younger man and concluded, ”I know she despises me--that she loathes me. But I can't help it, Grant--and I came to you to kind of help me with Violet. It wouldn't be right to--well, to let this thing go on.” He heaved a deep sigh, then he added as he fumbled with the red tablecloth, ”What a fool a man is--Lord, what a fool!”

In the end, Grant had to agree to let Violet know, by some round about procedure devised by Mr. Fenn's legal mind, that he was not a marriageable person. At the same time, Grant had to agree not to frighten away the Hogan children.

The next morning as Grant and his father rode from their home into town, Grant told his father of the invitation to the Captain's party.

”If your mother could have lived just to see the Captain on his grand plutocratic spree, Grant--” said his father. He did not finish the sentence, but cracked the lines on the old mare's back and looked at the sky. He turned his white beard and gentle eyes upon his son and said, ”There was a time last night, before you came in, when I thought I had her. Some one was greatly interested in you and some new project you have in mind. Emerson thinks well of it,” said Amos, ”though,” he added, ”Emerson thinks it won't amount to much--in practical immediate results.

But I think, Grant, now of course, I can't be sure,” the father rubbed his jaw and shook a meditative head, ”it certainly did seem to me mother was there for a time. Something kept bothering Emerson--calling Grantie--the way she used to--all the time he was talking!”

The father let Grant out of the buggy at the Vanderbilt House in South Harvey, and the old mare and her driver jogged up town to the _Tribune_ office. There he creaked out of the buggy and went to his work. It was nine o'clock before the Captain came capering in, and the two old codgers in their seventies went into the plot of the surprise party with the enthusiasm of boys.

After the Captain had explained the purpose of the surprise, Amos Adams sat with his hands on his knees and smiled. ”Well--well, Ezry--I didn't realize it. Time certainly does fly. And it's all right,” he added, ”I'm glad you're going to do it. She certainly will approve it. And the girls--” the old man chuckled, ”you surely will settle them for good and all.”

He laughed a little treble laugh, cracked and yet gleeful. ”Nice girls--all of 'em. But Grant says j.a.p's a kind of s.h.i.+ning around your Ruth--that's the singing one, isn't it? Well, I suppose, Ezry, either of 'em might do worse. Of course, this singing one doesn't remember her mother much, so I suppose she won't be much affected by your surprise?”

He asked a question, but after his manner went on, ”Well, maybe it was j.a.p and Ruth that was bothering Mary last night. I kind of thought someway, for the first time maybe I'd get her. But nothing much came of it,” he said sadly. ”It's funny about the way I've never been able to get her direct, when every one else comes--isn't it?”

The Captain was in no humor for occult things, so he cut in with: ”Now listen here, Amos--what do you think of me asking Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker to sit at one end of the table, eh? Of course I know what the girls will think--but then,” he winked with immense slyness, ”that's all right. I was talking to her about it, and she's going to have a brand new dress--somepin swell--eh? By the jumping John Rogers, Amos--there's a woman--eh?”

And tightening up his necktie--a scarlet creation of much pride--he pulled his hat over his eyes, as one who has great affairs under it, and marched double-quick out of the office.

You may be sure that some kind friend told the Morton girls of what was in store for them, the kind friend being Mr. George Brotherton, who being thoroughly married, regarded any secret from his wife in the light of a real infidelity. So he told her all that he and Market Street knew.

Now the news of the party--a party in whose preparations they were to have no share, roused in the Misses Morton, and their married sister, jointly and severally, that devil of suspicion which always tormented their dreams.

”And, Emma,” gasped Martha, when Emma came over for her daily visit, ”just listen! Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker is having the grandest dress made for the party! She told the girls in the store she had twenty-seven dollars'

worth of jet on it--just jet alone.” Here the handsome Miss Morton turned pale with the gravity of the news. ”She told the girls to-day, this very afternoon, that she was going to take the three o'clock morning train right after the party for New York to do her fall buying.

Fall buying, indeed! Fall buying,” the handsome Miss Morton's voice thickened and she cried, ”just because papa's got a little money, she thinks--”