CHAPTER VIII
AND MR. MOODY INDIGESTION
Mr. Moody took indigestion that night--not but that he always had it,but this was worse--and Mrs. Moody came to my room about two o'clock andknocked at the door.
"You'd better come," she said. "There's no doctor, and he's awful bad.Blames you, too; he says you made him take a salt rub."
"My land," I snapped, trying to find my bedroom slippers, "I didn't makehim take clam chowder for supper, and that's what's the matter with him.He's going on a strained rice diet, that's what he's going to do. I'vegot to have my sleep."
She was waiting in the hall in her kimono, and holding a candle. Anybodycould see she'd been crying. As she often said to me, of course she wasgrateful that Mr. Moody didn't drink--no one knew his virtues betterthan she did. But her sister married a man who went on a terrible battwice a year, and all the rest of the time he was humble and affabletrying to make up for it. And sometimes she thought if Mr. Moody wouldonly take a little whisky when he had these attacks--! I'd rather bethe wife of a cheerful drunkard any time than have to live with acantankerous saint. Miss Cobb and I had had many a fight over it, but atthat time there wasn't much likelihood of either of us being called onto choose.
Well, we went down to Mr. Moody's room, and he was sitting up in bedwith his knees drawn up to his chin and a hot-water bottle held to him.
"Look at your work, woman," he said to me when I opened the door.
"I'm dying!"
"You look sick," I said, going over to the bed. It never does to crossthem when they get to the water-bottle stage. "The pharmacy clerk's goneto a dance over at Trimble's, but I guess I can find you some whisky."
"Do have some whisky, George," begged Mrs. Moody, remembering herbrother-in-law.
"I never touch the stuff and you both know it," he snarled. He had afresh pain just then and stopped, clutching up the bottle. "Besides," hefinished, when it was over, "I haven't got any whisky."
Well, to make a long story short, we got him to agree to some whiskyfrom the pharmacy, with a drop of peppermint in it, if he could wash itdown with spring water so it wouldn't do him any harm.
"There isn't any spring water in the house," I said, losing my temper alittle, "and I'm not going out there in my bedroom slippers, Mr.Moody. I don't see why your eating what you shouldn't needs to give mepneumonia."
Mrs. Moody was standing beside the bed, and I saw her double chinbegin to work. If you have ever seen a fat woman, in a short red kimonoholding a candle by, a bed, and crying, you know how helpless she looks.
"Don't go, Minnie," she sniffled. "It would be too awful. If you areafraid you could take the poker."
"I'm not going!" I declared firmly. "It's--it's dratted idiocy, that'sall. Plain water would do well enough. There's a lot of people thinkwhisky is poison with water, anyhow. Where's the pitcher?"
Oh, yes, I went. I put on some stockings of Mrs. Moody's and a petticoatand a shawl and started. It was when I was in the pharmacy looking forthe peppermint that I first noticed my joint again. A joint like that'sa blessing or a curse, the way you look at it.
I found the peppermint and some whisky and put them on the stairs. ThenI took my pitcher and lantern and started for the spring-house. It wasstill snowing, and part of the time Mrs. Moody's stockings were up totheir knees. The wind was blowing hard, and when I rounded the cornerof the house my lantern went out. I stood there in the storm, with theshawl flapping, thanking heaven I was a single woman, and about readyto go back and tell Mr. Moody what I thought of him when I looked towardthe spring-house.
At first I thought it was afire, then I saw that the light was comingfrom the windows. Somebody was inside, with a big fire and all thelights going.
I'd had tramps sleep all night in the spring-house before, and once theyleft a card by the spring: "Water, water everywhere and not a drop todrink!" So I started out through the snow on a half run. By the bridgeover Hope Springs Creek I slipped and fell, and I heard the pitchersmash to bits on the ice below. But as soon as I could move I went onagain. That spring-house had been my home for a good many years, and thetramp didn't live who could spend the night there if I knew it.
I realized then that I should have taken the poker. I went overcautiously to one of the windows, wading in deep snow to get there--andif you have ever done that in a pair of bedroom slippers you can realizethe state of my mind--and looked in.
There were three chairs drawn up in a row in front of the fire, withmy bearskin hearth-rug on them to make a couch, and my shepherd's plaidshawl folded at one end for a pillow. And stretched on that with herlong sealskin coat laid over her was Dorothy Jennings, Miss Patty'syounger sister! She was alone, as far as I could see, and she wasleaning on her elbow with her cheek in her hand, staring at the fire.Just then the door into the pantry opened and out came Mr. Dick himself.
"Were you calling, honey?" he said, coming over and looking down at her.
"You were such a long time!" says she, glancing up under her lashes athim. "I--I was lonely!"
"Bless you," says Mr. Dick, stooping over her. "What did I ever dowithout you?"
I could have told her a few things he did, but by that time it wascoming over me pretty strong that here was the real Dicky Carter andthat I had an extra one on my hands. The minute I looked at this one Iknew that nobody but a blind man would mistake one for the other, andMr. Thoburn wasn't blind. I tell you I stood out in that snow-bank andperspired!
When I looked again Mr. Dick was on his knees by the row of chairs, andMiss Dorothy--Mrs. Dicky, of course--was running her fingers through hishair.
"Minnie used to keep apples and things in the pantry," he said, "but shemust be growing stingy in her old age; there's not a bite there."
"I'm not so very hungry when I have you!" cooed Mrs. Dicky.
"But you can't eat me." He brought her hand down from his hair--I may bestingy in my old age, but I've learned a few things, and one is that aman feels like a fool with his hair rumpled, and I can tell the degreeof a woman's experience by the way she lets his top hair alone--andpretended to bite it, her hand, of course. "Although I could eat you,"he said. "I'd like to take a bite out of your throat right there."
Well, it was no place for me unless they knew I was around. I wadedaround to the door and walked in, and there was a grand upsetting of thesealskin coat and my shepherd's plaid shawl. Mr. Dick jumped to his feetand Mrs. Dick sat bolt upright and stared at me over the backs of thechairs.
"Minnie!" cried Mr. Dick. "As I'm a married man, it's Minnie herself;Minnie, the guardian angel! The spirit of the place! Dorothy, don't youremember Minnie?"
She came toward me with her hand out. She was a pretty little thing, notso beautiful as Miss Patty, but with a nice way about her.
"I'm awfully glad to see you again," she said. "Of course Iremember--why you are hardly dressed at all! You must be frozen!"
I went over to the fire and emptied my bedroom slippers of snow. Then Isat down and looked at them both.
"Frozen!" repeated I; "I'm in a hot sweat. If you two children meant tocome, why in creation didn't you come in time?"
"We did," replied Mr. Dick, promptly. "We crawled under the wire fenceinto the deer park at five minutes to twelve. The will said 'Be on theground,' and I was--flat on the ground!"
"We've had the police," I said, drearily enough. "I wouldn't livethrough another day like yesterday for a hundred dollars."
"We were held up by the snow," he explained. "We got a sleigh to comeover in, but we walked up the hill and came here. I don't mind sayingthat my wife's people don't know about this yet, and we're going to laylow until we've cooked up some sort of a scheme to tell them." Then hecame over and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Poor old Minnie!" he said; "honest, I'm sorry. I've been a hard childto raise, haven't I? But that's all over, Minnie. I've got an incentivenow, and it's 'steady, old boy,' for me from now. You and I will run theplace and run it right."
"I don't want to!" I retor
ted, holding my bedroom slippers to steambefore the fire. "I'm going to buy out Timmon's candy store and live aquiet life, Mr. Dick. This place is making me old."
"Nonsense! We're going to work together, and we'll make this the busiestspot in seven counties. Dorothy and I have got it all planned out andwe've got some corking good ideas." He put his hands in his pockets andstrutted up and down. "It's the day of advertising, you know, Minnie,"he said. "You've got to have the goods, and then you've got tolet people know you've got the goods. What would you say to ashooting-gallery in the basement, under the reading-room?"
"Fine!" I said, with sarcasm, turning my slippers. "If things gottoo quiet that would wake them up a bit, and we could have a balloonascension on Saturdays!"
"Not an ascension," said he, with my bitterness going right over hishead. "Nothing sensational, Minnie. That's the way with women; they'realways theatrical. But what's the matter with a captive balloon, andletting fresh-air cranks sleep in a big basket bed--say, at five hundredfeet? Or a thousand--a thousand would be better. The air's purer."
"With a net below," says I, "in case they should turn over and fall outof bed! It's funny nobody ever thought of it before!"
"Isn't it?" exclaimed Mrs. Dick. "And we've all sorts of ideas.Dick--Mr. Carter has learned of a brand new cocktail for the men--"
"A lulu!" he broke in.
"And I'm going around to read to the old ladies and hold their hands--"
"You'll have to chloroform them first," I put in. "Perhaps it would bebetter to give the women the cocktail and hold the men's hands."
"Oh, if you're going to be funny!" Mr. Dick said savagely, "we'll nottell you any more. I've been counting on you, Minnie. You've been hereso long. You know," he said to his wife, "when I was a little shaver Ithought Minnie had webbed-feet--she was always on the bank, like a duck.You ARE a duck, Minnie," he says to me; "a nice red-headed duck! Nowdon't be quirky and spoil everything."
I couldn't be light-hearted to save my life.
"Your sister's been wild all day," I told Mrs. Dick. "She got yourletter to-day--yesterday--but I don't think she's told your father yet."
"What!" she screeched, and caught at the mantelpiece to hold herself."Not Pat!" she said, horrified, "and father! Here!"
Well, I listened while they told me. They hadn't had the faintest ideathat Mr. Jennings and Miss Patty were there at the sanatorium. The girlhad been making a round of visits in the Christmas holidays, and insteadof going back to school she'd sent a forged excuse and got a monthoff--she hadn't had any letters, of course. The plan had been notto tell anybody but her sister until Mr. Dick had made good at thesanatorium.
"The idea was this, Minnie," said Mr. Dick. "Old--I mean Mr. Jenningsis--is not well; he has a chronic indisposition--"
"Disposition, I call it," put in Mr. Jennings' daughter.
"And he's apt to regard my running away with Dorothy when I haven't apenny as more of an embezzlement than an elopement."
"Fiddle!" exclaimed Mrs. Dick. "I asked you to marry me, and now they'rehere and have to spoil it all."
The thought of her father and his disposition suddenly overpowered herand she put her yellow head on the back of a chair and began to cry.
"I--I can't tell him!" she sobbed. "I wrote to Pat,--why doesn't Pattell him? I'm going back to school."
"You'll do nothing of the sort. You're a married woman now, and whereI go you go. My country is your country, and my sanatorium is yoursanatorium." He was in a great rage.
But she got up and began trying to pull on her fur coat, and her jaw wasset. She looked like her father for a minute.
"Where are you going?" he asked, looking scared.
"Anywhere. I'll go down to the station and take the first train, itdoesn't matter where to." She picked up her muff, but he went over andstood against the door.
"Not a step without me!" he declared. "I'll go with you, of course; youknow that. I'm not afraid of your father: I'd as soon as not go in andwake him now and tell him the whole thing--that you've married a chapwho isn't worth the butter on his bread, who can't buy you kid gloves--"
"But you will, as soon as the sanatorium succeeds!" she put in bravely.She put down her muff. "Don't tell him to-night, anyhow. Maybe Pat willthink of some way to break it to him. She can do a lot with father."
"I hope she can think of some way to break another Richard Carter to thepeople in the house," I said tartly.
"Another Richard Carter!" they said together, and then I told them abouthow we had waited and got desperate, and how we'd brought in Mr. Pierceat the last minute and that he was asleep now at the house. They roared.To save my life I couldn't see that it was funny. But when I came to thepart about Thoburn being there, and his having had a good look at Mr.Pierce, and that he was waiting around with his jaws open to snap upthe place when it fell under the hammer, Mr. Dick stopped laughing andlooked serious.
"Lord deliver us from our friends!" he said. "Between you and Sam,you've got things in a lovely mess, Minnie. What are you going to doabout it now?"
"It's possible we can get by Thoburn," I said. "You can slip into-night, we can get Mr. Pierce out--Lord knows he'll be glad to go--andMiss Dorothy can go back to school. Then, later, when you've got thingsrunning and are making good--"
"I'm not going back to school," she declared, "but I'll go away; I'llnot stand in your way, Dicky." She took two steps toward the door andwaited for him to stop her.
"Nonsense, Minnie," he exclaimed angrily and put his arm around her, "Iwon't be separated from my wife. You got me into this scrape, and--"
"I didn't marry you!" I retorted. "And I'm not responsible for yourfather-in-law's disposition."
"You'll have to help us out," he finished.
"What shall I do? Murder Mr. Jennings?" I asked bitterly. "If you expectme to suggest that you both go to the house, and your wife can hide inyour rooms--"
"Why not?" asked Mr. Dick.
Well, I sat down again and explained patiently that it would get outamong the servants and cause a scandal, and that even if it didn't Iwasn't going to have any more deception: I had enough already. And aftera while they saw it as I did, and agreed to wait and see Miss Pattybefore they decided. They wanted to have her wakened at once, but Irefused, although I agreed to bring her out first thing in the morning.
"But you can't stay here," I said. "There'll be Miss Cobb at nineo'clock, and the man comes to light the fire at eight."
"We could go to the old shelter-house on the golf links," suggested Mr.Dick, looking me square in the eye. (I took the hint, and Mrs. Dickynever knew he had been hidden there before.)
"Nobody ever goes near it in winter." So I put on my slippers again andwe started through the snow across the golf links, Mr. Dick carrying abundle of firewood, and I leading the way with my lantern. Twice I wentinto a drift to my waist, and once a rabbit bunted into me head on, andwould have scared me into a chill if I hadn't been shaking already. Thetwo behind me were cheerful enough. Mr. Dick pointed out the generaldirection of the deer park which hides the shelter-house from thesanatorium, and if you'll believe it, with snow so thick I had to scrapeit off the lantern every minute or so, those children planned to givesomething called A Midsummer Night's Dream in the deer park among thetrees in the spring, to entertain the patients.
"I wish to heaven I'd wake up and find all THIS a dream," I called backover my shoulder. But they were busy with costumes and getting somefolks they knew from town to take the different parts and they nevereven heard me. The last few yards they snowballed each other and me. Itell you I felt a hundred years old.
We got into the shelter-house by my crawling through a window, and whenwe had lighted the fire and hung up the lantern, it didn't seem sobad. The place had been closed since summer, and it seemed colder thanoutside, but those two did the barn dance then and there. There were tworooms, and Mr. Dick had always used the back one to hide in. It's a goodthing Mrs. Dick was not a suspicious person. Many a woman would havewondered when she s
aw him lift a board in the floor and take out arusty tin basin, a cake of soap, a moldy towel, a can of sardines, atooth-brush and a rubber carriage robe to lay over the rafters under thehole in the roof. But it's been my experience that the first few daysof married life women are blind because they want to be and after thatbecause they have to be.
It was about four when I left them, sitting on a soap box in front ofthe fire toasting sardines on the end of Mr. Dick's walking-stick. Mrs.Dick made me put on her sealskin coat, and I took the lantern, leavingthem in the firelight. They'd gone back to the captive balloon idea andwere wondering if they couldn't get it copyrighted!
I took a short cut home, crawling through the barbed-wire fence andgoing through the deer park. I was too tired and cold to think. Istumbled down the hill to the house, and just before I got to the cornerI heard voices, and the shuffling of feet through the snow. The nextinstant a lantern came around the corner of the house. Mr. Thoburn wascarrying it, and behind him were the bishop, Mike the bath man, and Mr.Pierce.
"It's like that man Moody," the bishop was saying angrily, "to send thegirl--"
"Piffle!" snarled Mr. Thoburn. "If ever a woman was able to take careof herself--" And then they saw me, and they all stopped and stared.
"Good gracious, girl!" said the bishop, with his dressing-gown blowingout straight behind him in the wind. "We thought you'd been buried in adrift!"
"I don't see why!" I retorted defiantly. "Can't I go out to my ownspring-house without having a posse after me to bring me back?"
"Ordinarily," said Mr. Thoburn, with his snaky eyes on me, "I thinkI may say that you might go almost anywhere without my turning out torecover you. But Mrs. Moody is having hysterics."
Mrs. Moody! I'd forgotten the Moodys!
"She is convinced that you have drowned yourself, head down, in thespring," Mr. Pierce said in his pleasant way. "You've been gone twohours, you know."
He took my arm and turned me toward the house. I was dazed.
"In answer to your urgent inquiry," Mr. Thoburn called after me,disagreeably, "Mr. Moody has not died. He is asleep. But, by the way,where's the spring water?"
I didn't answer him; I couldn't. We went into the house; Mrs. Moody andMiss Cobb were sitting on the stairs. Mrs. Moody had been crying, andMiss Cobb was feeding her the whisky I had left, with a teaspoon. Shehad had a half tumblerful already and was quite maudlin. She ran to meand put her arms around me.
"I thought I was a murderess!" she cried. "Oh, the thought! Blood on mysoul! Why, Minnie Waters, wherever did you get that sealskin coat!"