“Yes,” said Ben, quietly, “you always could do great things.”
D. Webster’s egotism, inflated to the utmost, burst at this prick, and he suddenly collapsed. Dropping limply into the chair by the table, he held his hand over his mouth to hide his agitation.
“There’s—there’s one thing,” he began, swallowing violently, and winking after each word, “that I—I can’t [p35] do—and that’s to leave a—sister—to die—among strangers.”
And then, to his mortification, his head went unexpectedly down upon his arms, and a flood of tears bedimmed the radiance of his twenty-five-cent four-in-hand.
From far down the river came the whistle of the boat, and, in the room below, Jimmy Fallows removed a reluctant ear from the stove-pipe hole.
“Melindy,” he said confidentially, entirely forgetting the late frost, “I never see anybody in the world that stood as good a show of gittin’ the fool prize as that there D. Opp.”
[p36]
IV
To make matters worse, an old hound howled dismally on the door-step, only stopping occasionally to paw at the iron latch and to whimper for the master whose unsteady footsteps he had followed for thirteen years.
In the front room a shaded lamp, [p37] turned low, threw a circle of light on the table and floor, leaving the corners full of vague, uncertain shadows. From the wide, black fireplace a pair of rusty and battered andirons held out empty arms, and on the high stone shelf above the opening, flanked on each side by a stuffed owl, was a tall, square-faced clock, with the hour-hand missing. The minute-hand still went on its useless round, and behind it, on the face of the clock, a tiny schooner with all sail set rocked with the swinging of the pendulum.
The loud ticking of the clock, and the lamentations of the hound without, were not the only sounds that disturbed the night. Before the empty fireplace, in a high-backed, cane-bottomed chair, slept an old negress, with head bowed, moaning and muttering as she slept. She was bent and ashen with age, and her brown skin sagged in long wrinkles from her face and hands. On her forehead, reaching from brow to faded turban, was a hideous testimony to some ancient conflict. A large, irregular hole, over which [p38] the flesh had grown, pulsed as sentiently and imperatively as a naked, living heart.
A shutter slammed sharply somewhere in the house above, and something stirred fearfully in the shadow of the room. It was a small figure that crouched against the wall, listening and watching with the furtive terror of a newly captured coyote—the slight figure of a woman dressed as a child, with short gingham dress, and heelless slippers, and a bright ribbon holding back the limp, flaxen hair from her strange, pinched face.
Again and again her wide, frightened eyes sought the steps leading to the room above, and sometimes she would lean forward and whisper in agonized expectancy, “Daddy?” Then when no answer came, she would shudder back against the wall, cold and shaking and full of dumb terrors.
Suddenly the hound’s howling changed to a sharp bark, and the old negress stirred and stretched herself.
“What ails dat air dog?” she [p39] mumbled, going to the window, and shading her eyes with her hand. “You’d ’low to hear him tell it he done heared old master coming up de road.”
That somebody was coming was evident from the continued excitement of the hound, and when the gate slammed and a man’s voice sounded in the darkness, Aunt Tish opened the door, throwing a long, dim patch of light out across the narrow porch and over the big, round stepping-stones beyond.
Into the light came Mr. Opp, staggering under the load of his baggage, his coat over his arm, his collar off, thoroughly spent with the events of the day.
“Lord ’a’ mercy!” said Aunt Tish, “if hit ain’t Mr. D.! I done give you up long ago. I certainly is glad you come. Miss Kippy’s jes carrying on like ever’thing. She ain’t been to baid for two nights, an’ I can’t do nothin’ ’t all wif her.”
Mr. Opp deposited his things in a corner, and, tired as he was, assumed an air of authority. It was evident that a man [p40] was needed, a person of firmness, of decision.
“I’ll see that she goes to bed at once,” he said resolutely. “Where is she at?”
“She’s behind de door,” said Aunt Tish; “she’s be’n so skeered ever sence her paw died I can’t do nothin’ wif her.”
“Kippy,” said Mr. Opp, sternly, “come out here this minute.”
But there was no response. Going to the corner where his coat lay, he took from the pocket a brown-paper parcel.
“Say, Kippy,” he said in a greatly mollified tone, “I wish you would come on out here and see me. You remember brother D., don’t you? You ought to see what I brought you all the way from the city. It’s got blue eyes.”
At this the small, grotesque figure, distrustful, suspicious, ready to take flight at a word, ventured slowly forth. So slight she was, and so frail, and so softly she moved, it was almost as if the wind blew her toward him. Every thought that came into her brain was instantly reflected in her hypersensitive face, and [p41] as she stood before him nervously plucking her fingers, fear and joy struggled for supremacy. Suddenly with a low cry she snatched the doll from him and clasped it to her heart.
Meanwhile Aunt Tish had spread a cloth on the table and set forth some cold corn dodger, a pitcher of foaming butter-milk, and a plate of cold corned beef. The milk was in a battered pewter pitcher, but the dish that held the corn bread was of heavy silver, with intricate chasings about the rim.
Mr. Opp, with his head propped on his hand, ate wearily. He had been up since four o’clock that morning, and to-morrow he must be up at daybreak if he was to keep his engagements to supply the dealers with the greatest line of shoes ever put upon the market. Between now and then he must decide many things: Kippy must be planned for, the house gone over, and arrangements made for the future. Being behind the scenes, as it were, and having no spectator to impress, he allowed himself to sink into an [p42] attitude of extreme dejection. And Mr. Opp, shorn of the dignity of his heavily padded coat, and his imposing collar and tie, and with even his pompadour limp upon his forehead, failed entirely to give a good imitation of himself.
As he sat thus, with one hand hanging limply over the back of the chair, he felt something touch it softly, dumbly, as a dog might. Looking down, he discovered Miss Kippy sitting on the floor, close behind him, watching him with furtive eyes. In one arm she cradled the new doll, and in the other she held his coat.
Mr. Opp patted her cheek: “Whatever are you doing with my coat?” he asked.
Miss Kippy held it behind her, and nodded her head wisely: “Keeping it so you can’t go away,” she whispered. “I’ll hold it tight all night. To-morrow I’ll hide it.”
“But I’m a business man,” said Mr. Opp, unconsciously straightening his shoulders. “A great deal of responsibility depends on me. I’ve got to be off [p43] early in the morning; but I’m coming back to see you real often—every now and then.”
Miss