“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing happened. She worshipped little Kenneth — he was four years younger than her, and he WAS a dear little chap. And he was killed one day — fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of it. And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it. She was looking down from the loft. She gave one screech — the hired man said he never heard such a sound in all his life — he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s trump drove it out. But she never screeched or cried again about it. She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor, and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne — they had to tear it from her before she would let it go. They sent for me — I can’t talk of it.”
Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in bitter silence for a few minutes.
“Well,” she resumed, “it was all over — they buried little Kenneth in that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to her school and her studies. She never mentioned Kenneth’s name — I’ve never heard it cross her lips from that day to this. I reckon that old hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time is real kind to children, Anne, dearie. After a while she began to laugh again — she had the prettiest laugh. You don’t often hear it now.”
“I heard it once the other night,” said Anne. “It IS a beautiful laugh.”
“Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death. He wasn’t strong and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child, though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favorite. He got mopy and melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work. And one day, when Leslie was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself — and in the parlor, too, mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in the ceiling. Wasn’t that like a man? It was the anniversary of his wedding day, too. Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it? And, of course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him. She went into the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face as black as a coal. It was something awful, believe ME!”
“Oh, how horrible!” said Anne, shuddering. “The poor, poor child!”
“Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more then she had cried at Kenneth’s. Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother. I was disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out of patience. She loved her mother. Leslie is clannish — her own could never do wrong in her eyes. Well, they buried Frank West beside Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him. It was bigger than his character, believe ME! Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value. But not long after Leslie’s old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a little money — enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy. Leslie had made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn enough to put herself through Redmond College. That had been her father’s pet scheme — he wanted her to have what he had lost. Leslie was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains. She went to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First; and when she came home she got the Glen school. She was so happy and hopeful and full of life and eagerness. When I think of what she was then and what she is now, I say — drat the men!”
Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
“Dick Moore came into her life that summer. His father, Abner Moore, kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in winter. He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul. He was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped wanting it — just like a man. Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when everything went right. But he drank a good deal, and there were some nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village. He wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of it. And he was a Methodist! But he was clean mad about her — because of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have anything to say to him in the second. He vowed he’d have her — and he got her!”
“How did he bring it about?”
“Oh, it was an iniquitous thing! I’ll never forgive Rose West. You see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the mortgage. Rose carried on terrible — fainted and wept, and pleaded with Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home. She said it would break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride. I wouldn’t have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it — but you wouldn’t have thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood because of it, would you? Well, she was.
“And Leslie gave in — she loved her mother so much she would have done anything to save her pain. She married Dick Moore. None of us knew why at the time. It wasn’t till long afterward that I found out how her mother had worried her into it. I was sure there was something wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again, and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face — about like that. Besides, I knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways. Of course, there was no wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married. I went, but I was sorry I did. I’d seen Leslie’s face at her brother’s funeral and at her father’s funeral — and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her own funeral. But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
“Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place — Rose couldn’t bear to part with her dear daughter! — and lived there for the winter. In the spring Rose took pneumonia and died — a year too late! Leslie was heartbroken enough over it. Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think, never get much affection? As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet married life — just like a man. He was for up and off. He went over to Nova Scotia to visit his relations — his father had come from Nova Scotia — and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too. The name of the vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
“It must have been a relief to Leslie. But she never said anything. From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now — cold and proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance. I won’t BE kept at a distance, believe ME! I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how in spite of everything.”
“She told me you were the best friend she had,” said Anne.
“Did she?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly. “Well, I’m real thankful to hear it. Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me around at all — she never let me think so. You must have thawed her out more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you. Oh, that poor, heartbroken girl! I never see Dick Moore but I want to run a knife clean through him.”
Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by her bloodthirsty wish, took up her tale.
“Well, Leslie was left over there alone. Dick had put in the crop before he went, and old Abner looked after it. The summer went by and the Four Sisters didn’t come back. The Nova Scotia Moores investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found out about her. By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one that was dead. Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they’d been gone for years. Leslie never thought he was dead — and she was right. A thousand pities too! The next summer Captain Jim was in Havana — that was before he gave up the sea, of course.