Suddenly Bart said, “Oh, Great Scott!” and slapped his hands together. Worry lines wrinkled his forehead. What now, thought Cleo in exasperation, wondering if he’d been doing some figuring and was going to air the disappointments of his private life in public.
Bart was disturbed by quite another matter. “I’m sorry now you rented that place. It’ll be too much care. I wouldn’t be easy here all day with you in a big house breaking your back. I got a good mind to call that man and tell him we’ve changed our minds.”
Cleo thought of the pickings in her purse, and of her sisters, who were waiting, unknowingly, to be sent for.
“No,” she said violently. “You can’t bear to let money go, can you, Mr. Judson? You’d use any excuse to get forty-five miserable dollars back.”
Chris flagged Bart an urgent eyebrow that asked, Oughtn’t you to humor them when they’re expecting? Miss Muldoon was appalled and intrigued at the prospect of a scene, and made little sounds of disaster in her throat.
“Take it easy, Cleo,” Bart said soothingly. “No need to fly off the handle. You got your heart set on that house. It suits me you’re satisfied. I just don’t want you overworking. Tell you what.” He paused. Slowly he scratched his bald spot. A great upheaval was going on inside him. “Tell you what,” he repeated as if it were wrung out of him, “you could hire a girl to help you. It’d kill two birds with one stone. She could take full charge of the roomers’ rooms, and help in our part of the house. If you get a young girl, you could pay her next to nothing. Or maybe a lonesome widow lady would work for room and board.”
“I know the very woman,” Cleo said quickly. Bart had played into her hand, and she was ready with her trump card. “She might as well be a lonesome widow. Her husband’s never home. Leaves her alone night after night. She’d do the work of a dozen to be free of him for good. She’s got a little girl, and I hate to think of that poor child with a father who’ll never be worth any more than he is right now. She’s around Judy’s age. And poor little Judy told me not an hour ago how she wished she had someone to play with. That mother would go down on her knees if you gave her child shelter. You’d be snatching them both from the jaws of despair.”
“Such a shame, such a shame,” Miss Muldoon murmured sympathetically. She felt very sorry for colored women, and it annoyed her that she could never feel sorry for Mrs. Judson.
“Does the brute beat her?” Chris wanted to know. In the American movies that he had seen, Negro men were brutish creatures. He was glad that Mrs. Judson gave every evidence of good treatment, because he did not want to think of Bart as one of the animal Negroes.
All that was sentimental in Bart’s nature responded to the unhappy woman’s plight. That a man could abuse the tender beings that God had given him to cherish struck him as monstrous, and such a man deserved no better than having them torn from his bosom.
“Who is this poor woman?” he asked belligerently.
“My sister Lily,” said Cleo.
Bart was astounded, and both Miss Muldoon and Chris were dismayed and embarrassed that Bart’s brother-in-law was a worthless scoundrel.
“Your sister Lily!” Bart repeated in disbelief. “First I ever heard tell that her husband was mean to her.”
“There are some things,” said Cleo stoutly, “that I try to keep from you, so you won’t worry about my family’s troubles.”
“Well, this’ll never do,” said Bart distractedly, remembering the bridal picture of Lily, looking young and small and scared beside a big man with what he now thought of as a mean expression. “I’ll give you some money before you leave here, and you write that poor girl our home is hers as long as she has need of it.”
“And since she’s my sister, will you pay her a little something for helping me?” Cleo asked gently. “It would keep her from feeling like a poor relation. You wouldn’t have to give it to her yourself. She might be bashful about taking it. It could come from me.”
“Well, it won’t be much, but I won’t see her ragged. Just don’t you worry about your sister. I don’t want you worrying about anything.”
“You’ve taken a load off my mind,” Cleo said thankfully. She added, almost ashamedly, “You’re a good man, Mr. Judson.”
“Well, I feel good,” Bart said expansively. “God’s walking by my side. I was telling Miss Muldoon and Chris when you came in. My luck’s running high. And that isn’t a guess. I got that straight from heaven. And that isn’t all I got. I got two cars of bananas coming here bright and early tomorrow from New York and Philadelphia. I had Pennywell wiring and telephoning all morning. I want you all to witness what I say. The Lucy Evelyn has foundered. Tomorrow won’t be a soul in the Market but me got a single stem of bananas.”
“I believe you, Bart,” Chris said quietly. “You have a way of knowing. God knows where you get it.” He smiled. “Unless you do get it from God.” He crossed to Bart quickly and put his arm around his shoulder. “I wish I had your faith instead of my unbelief. You expect the best. I expect the worst.”
“I try to live right,” Bart said simply. “I had my faith tried once by God. When He destroyed my Springfield stores. No need for Him to test me again. He knows my faith is rock-ribbed. He’s been showering blessings on me ever since. What you think you see ahead?”
Chris leaned against the wall. He made a futile gesture with his hands. He looked Old World and weary. “There is a war in Europe. It is a little war. But I am a European. I know how war spreads. We have many entangling alliances. Germany will be involved and may be at this minute. Then England will get into it. And if America should aid her English cousin, the seas will be unsafe for merchant shipping.”
Bart thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “This is July in the year of our Lord nineteen-fourteen. I’m willing to lay you a bet that England will never go to war. Wasn’t nothing happened in those two little queer-named countries to put her back up. And should it happen — though I say it won’t — that England does decide to fight, it’d take a long time before America could get worked up enough to follow suit. We’re for peace in this country. We got a peace-minded President. And no war between two little old dots on a map would last long enough in a civilized world to bring America into it.”
“I won’t take your bet because I want to believe you,” Chris said wryly.
“And you can believe me, doubting Thomas,” Bart said, with a smile. “Because I’m not claiming I got this from God. I’m just talking plain common sense.”
Judy tugged at Cleo and whispered in her ear. Bart saw her and grinned. “Come on, girls. I want to show you the stock.”
Cleo, returning from her hurried trip with Judy, found Bart waiting at the rear of the store. His face lighted up at sight of them. She could see that he was bursting with pride to show them the world he had made for them out of his talent for buying the best and bringing it to perfection. She had seen the store too often to be moved in any way. He had seen sixteen years in these rooms, but when he turned his key in the lock at dawn of every morning, he felt a great joy that all of this was his.
“Let’s go,” he said eagerly, clapping and rubbing his hands as he did when excited. In a way he was going to show his store to his son.
Cleo looked bored and bit her lip. “Judy hasn’t had lunch.”
He said quickly, apologetically: “I won’t keep you long. And I’ll give you the money to take Judy to lunch in the best restaurant in Boston.” He heard the expensive echo of that in his ears. “Though there’s some nice clean places right here in the Market, and she won’t have to go far before