An Old Chester Secret

CHAPTER II

DURING the first year that the "Smith" baby lived outside the brick wall of Mr. Smith's place, the iron gates of the driveway were not opened, because business obliged Mr. Smith to be in Europe. (Oh, said Old Chester, so that was why Mary's wedding had to be hurried up?) When he returned to his native land he never, as he drove past, looked at the youngster playing in Miss Lydia's dooryard. Then once Johnny (he was three years old) ran after his ball almost under the feet of the Smith horses, and as he was pulled from between the wheels his grandfather couldn't help seeing him.

"Don't do that tomfool thing again!" the old man shouted, and Johnny, clasping his recovered ball, grinned at him.

"He sinks Johnny 'f'aid," the little fellow told Miss Lydia.

A month or two afterward Johnny threw a stone at the victoria and involuntarily Mr. Smith glanced in the direction from which it came. But, of course, human nature being like story books, he did finally notice his grandson. At intervals he spoke to Miss Lydia, and when Johnny was six years old he even stopped one day long enough to give the child a quarter. Mr. Smith had aged very much after his daughter's marriage – and no wonder, Old Chester said, for he must be lonely in that big house, and Mary never coming to see him! Such behavior on the part of a daughter puzzled Old Chester. We couldn't understand it – unless it was that Mr. Smith didn't get along with his son-in-law? And Mary, of course, didn't visit her father because a dutiful wife always agrees with her husband! A sentiment which places Old Chester chronologically.

The day that Mr. Smith bestowed the quarter upon his grandson he spoke of his daughter's "dutifulness" to Miss Lydia. Driving toward his house, he overtook two trudging figures, passed them by a rod or two, then called to the coachman to stop. "I'll walk," he said, briefly, and waited, in the dust of his receding carriage until Miss Lydia and her boy reached him. Johnny was trudging along, pulling his express wagon, which was full of apples picked up on the path below an apple tree that leaned over the girdling wall of the Smith place.

As Miss Lydia approached her landlord her heart came up in her throat; it always did when she saw him, because she remembered the Olympian thunders he had loosed on that awful night six years ago.

"How do?" said Mr. Smith. His dark eyes under bristling, snow-white eyebrows blazed at her. He didn't notice the little boy.

"How do you do?" said Miss Lydia, in a small voice. She looked tousled and breathless and rather spotted, and so little that Mr. Smith must have felt he could blow her away if he wanted to. Apparently he didn't want to. He only said:

"You – ah, never hear from – ah, my daughter, I suppose, Miss Sampson?"

"No, sir," said Miss Lydia.

"She doesn't care to visit me without her husband, and I won't have him under my roof!" His lip lifted for an instant and showed his teeth. "I see her when I go to Philadelphia, and she writes me duty letters occasionally, but she never mentions – "

"Doesn't she?" said Miss Lydia.

"I don't, either. But I just want to say that if you ever need any – ah, extra – "

"I don't, thank you."

Then, reluctantly, the flashing black eyes looked down at Johnny. "Doesn't resemble – anybody? Well, young man!"

"Say, 'How do you do?' Johnny," Miss Lydia commanded, faintly.

"How do?" Johnny said, impatiently. He was looking over his apples and, discovering some bruised ones, frowned and threw them away.

"Where did you get your apples?" said Mr. Smith.

"On the road," said Johnny; "they ain't yours when they drop on the road."

"Say 'aren't,' Johnny," said Miss Lydia. "It isn't nice to say 'ain't.'"

"Why aren't they mine?" said the old man. He was towering up above the two little figures, his feet wide apart, his hands behind him, switching his cane back and forth like a tail.

"'Cause I've got 'em," Johnny explained, briefly.

"Ha! The nine-tenths! You'll be a lawyer, sir!" his grandfather said. "Suppose I say, 'Give me some'?"

"I won't," said Johnny.

"Oh, you won't, eh? You'll be a politician!" Mr. Smith said.

"It isn't right to say, 'I won't,'" Miss Lydia corrected Johnny, panting.

Mr. Smith did not notice her nervousness; the boy's attitude, legs wide apart, hands behind him, clutching the tongue of his express wagon, held his eye. "He's like me!" he thought, with a thrill.

"Isn't it right to say, 'I won't say I won't'?" Johnny countered.

"Jesuit!" Mr. Smith said, chuckling. "The church is the place for him, Miss Sampson."

"Anyway," Johnny said, crossly, "I will not give any of my apples back. They're mine."

"How do you make that out?" said Mr. Smith. (And in an undertone to Miss Lydia, "No fool, eh?")

"Because I picked 'em up," said Johnny.

"Well, here's a quarter," said his grandfather, putting his hand in his pocket.

Johnny took the coin with an air of satisfaction, but even as he slid it into his pocket he took it out again.

"Looky here," he said. "I thought I'd buy a pony with it, but I don't mind paying you for your apples – " And he held out the quarter.

Mr. Smith laughed as he had not laughed for a long time. "You're a judge of horseflesh!" he said, and walked off, switching his tail behind him.

The story-book plot should begin here – the rich grandfather meets the unacknowledged grandchild, loves him, and makes him his heir – and, of course, incidentally, showers his largess upon the poor and virtuous lady who has cared for the little foundling; so everybody lives happy and dies wealthy. This intelligent arrangement of fiction might have been carried out if only Miss Lydia had behaved differently! But about two years later her behavior —

"She's put a spoke in my wheel!" Mr. Smith told himself, blankly. It was when Johnny was eight that the spoke blocked the grandfather's progress… He had gradually grown to know the boy very well, and, after much backing and filling in his own mind, decided to adopt him. He did not reach this decision easily, for there were risks in such an arrangement; resemblances might develop, and people might put two and two together! However, each time he decided that the risk was too great, a glimpse of Johnny – stealing a ride by hanging on behind his grandfather's victoria, or going in swimming in deeper water than some of the older boys were willing to essay, or, once, blacking another fellow's eye – such a glimpse of his own flesh and blood gave him courage. Courage gained the day when his grandson had scarlet fever and William King, meeting him after a call at Miss Lydia's, happened to say that Johnny was a pretty sick child. The new Mr. Smith felt his heart under his spreading white beard contract sharply.

"Sick! Very sick? Good God! the wet hen won't know how to take care of him!" His alarm was so obvious that Doctor King looked at him in surprise.

"You are fond of the little fellow?"

"Oh, I see him playing around my gate," Mr. Smith said, and walked off quickly, lest he should find himself urging more advice, or a nurse, or what not. "King would wonder what earthly difference it could make to me!" he said to himself, in a panic of secrecy. It made enough difference to cause him to write to his daughter: "I hear the child is very sick and may die. Congratulations to Robertson."

Mary, reading the cruel words and never guessing the anxiety which had dictated them, grew white with anger. "I will never forgive father!" she said to herself, and went over to her husband and put her soft hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

"Carl," she said, "the – the little boy is sick"; his questioning look made her add, "Oh, he'll get well" – but she must have felt some unspoken recoil in her husband, for she cried out, in quick denial, "Of course I don't want anything to – to happen to him!"

They did not speak of Johnny's illness for two or three days; then Mary said, "If anything had happened, we should have heard by this time?"

And Carl said, "Oh, of course."

When Johnny was well again his grandfather's fear that Doctor King might "wonder," ebbed. "It's safe enough to take him," he said to himself; "he doesn't look like anybody. And if I adopt him I can see that he's properly educated – and it will scare Robertson to death!" he added, viciously, and showed his teeth. He even discussed adopting his grandchild with Doctor Lavendar:

"Mary hasn't done her duty," he said. "I've no grandchildren! I've a great mind to adopt some youngster. I'm fond of children."

"Good idea," said Doctor Lavendar.

"I've taken a fancy to that little rascal who lives just at my gate. Bright youngster. Not a cowardly streak in him! Quick-tempered, I'm afraid. But I never blame anybody for that! I've thought, once or twice, that I'd adopt him."

"And Miss Lydia, too?" Doctor Lavendar inquired, mildly.

"Oh, I should look after her, of course," said Mr. Smith. But it was still another six months before he really made up his mind. "I'll do it!" he said to himself. "But I suppose," he reflected, "I ought to tell Mary – and the skunk."

He went on to Philadelphia for the purpose of telling Mary, but he did it when Carl was not present.

Mary blenched. "Father, don't! People might – "

"Damn people! I like the boy. You're a coward, Mary, and so is – Robertson."

"No! He isn't! Carl isn't. I am."

"I won't compromise you," he ended, contemptuously. "Tell Robertson I mean to do it. If he has anything to say he can say it in a letter." Then he kissed her perfunctorily and said, "Goo'-by – goo'-by," and took the night train for Mercer.

He lost no time when he got back to Old Chester in putting his plan through. The very next afternoon, knowing that Johnny would be at Doctor Lavendar's Collect Class, he called on Miss Lydia. Miss Sampson's little house was more comfortable than it used to be; the quarterly check which came from "some one" patched up leaky roofs, and bought a new carpet, and did one or two other things; but it did not procure any luxuries, either for Johnny or for herself, and it never made Miss Lydia look like anything but a small, bedraggled bird; her black frizette still got crooked and dipped over one soft blue eye, and she was generally shabby – except on the rare occasions when she wore the blue silk – and her parlor always looked as if a wind had blown through it. "I wouldn't touch their money for myself!" she used to think, and saved every cent to give to Johnny when he grew up.

Into her helter-skelter house came, on this Saturday afternoon, her landlord. He had knocked on her front door with the gold head of his cane, and when she opened it he had said, "How do? How do?" and walked ahead of her into her little parlor. It was so little and he was so big that he seemed to fill the room.

Miss Lydia said, in a fluttered voice, "How do you do?"

"Miss Sampson," he said – he had seated himself in a chair that creaked under his ruddy bulk and he put both hands on the top of his cane; his black eyes were friendly and amused – "I've had it in mind for some time to have a little talk with you."

"Yes, sir," said Miss Lydia.

"I need not go back to – to a painful experience that we both remember."

Miss Lydia put her head on one side in a puzzled way, as if her memory had failed her.

"You will know that I appreciated your attitude at that time. I appreciated it deeply."

Miss Lydia rolled her handkerchief into a wabbly lamplighter; she seemed to have nothing to say.

"I have come here now, not merely to tell you this, but to add that I intend to relieve you of the care of – ah, the little boy."

Miss Lydia was silent.

"There are things I should like to give him. He says he wants a pony. And I mean to educate him. It would seem strange to do this as an outsider; it might cause – ah, comment. So I am going to take him."

"Any grandfather would want to," said Lydia Sampson.

Mr. Smith raised his bushy eyebrows. "Well, we won't put it on that ground. But I like the boy, though I hear he gets into fights; I'm afraid he has the devil of a temper," said Mr. Smith, chuckling proudly. "But I've watched him, and he's no coward and no fool, either. In fact, I hear that he is a wonder mathematically. God knows where he got his brains! Well, I am going to adopt him. But that will make no difference in your income. That is assured to you as long as you live. I am indebted to you, Miss Sampson. Profoundly indebted."

"Not at all," said Miss Lydia.

"I shall have a governess for him," said Mr. Smith; "but I hope you will not be too much occupied" – his voice was very genial, and as he spoke he bore down hard on his cane and began to struggle to his feet – "not too much occupied to keep a friendly eye upon him." He was standing now, a rather Jove-like figure, before whom Miss Lydia looked really like a little brown grasshopper. "Yes, I trust you will not lose your interest in him," he ended.

"I won't," she said, faintly.

"I have made all the arrangements," said Johnny's grandfather. "I simply told – ah, the people who know about him, that I was going to take him." He was standing, switching his cane behind him; it hit an encroaching table leg and he apologized profusely. "Mary was badly scared. As if I could not manage a thing like that! I like to scare – him" – the new Mr. Smith lifted his upper lip, and his teeth gleamed – "but, of course, I told her not to worry. Well, I hope you will see him frequently."

"I shall," said Miss Lydia.

"Of course you and I must tell the same story as to his antecedents. So if you will let me know how you have accounted for him, I'll be a very good parrot!"

"I haven't told any stories. I just let people call him Smith, and I just said – to Johnny, and everybody – that I was a friend of his mother's. That's true, you know."

"It is true, madam; it is, indeed!" said Mary's father. He bowed with grave courtliness. "There was never a better friend than you, Miss Sampson."

"I've been very careful not to tell anything that wasn't true," said Miss Lydia. "I told Johnny his father and mother had lived out West; they did, you know, for four months. Johnny began to ask questions when he was only five; he said he wished he had a mother like other little boys. I had to tell him something, so I told him her name had been Norton. That is true, you know. Mary's middle name is Norton. And I said I didn't know of any cousins or uncles; and that's true. And I said 'I had been told' that his father and mother had been killed in a carriage accident. I was told so; people made it up," said Miss Lydia, simply, "so I just let 'em. I never said his parents had died that way. Well, it made Johnny cry. He used to say: 'Poor mamma! Poor mamma!' I haven't told what you'd call lies; I have only reserved the truth."

"Pathetic, his 'wanting' a mother," said Mr. Smith. "Damn my son-in-law! Excuse me, madam."

"It would be nice if you would forgive him," Miss Lydia suggested, timidly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I never forgive… Well, I will keep up the geographical fiction and the runaway horses. And now I must not detain you further. I will take the boy to-morrow."

He put out his big hand, and Miss Lydia, putting her little one into it, said:

"Who is going to adopt him?"

"Who?" said Mr. Smith. "Why, I! Who did you suppose was going to – Robertson? My dear Miss Sampson, reassure yourself on that point! That hound shall never get hold of him!"

"Of course," Miss Lydia agreed, nodding, "Johnny's parents, or his grandfather, have a right to him."

Mr. Smith was just leaving the room, but he paused on the threshold and flung a careless word back to her: "His parents could never take him. The thing would come out."

"If his grandfather takes him it will come out," said Miss Lydia, following him into the hall.

"Yes, but his 'grandfather' won't take him," the old man said, with a grunt of amusement; "it is 'Mr. Smith' who is going to do that."

"'Mr. Smith' can't."

Her caller turned and stared at her blankly.

"His 'grandfather' can have him," said Miss Lydia.

"What!"

"His relations can have Johnny."

"But I – "

"If you are a relation," Miss Lydia said – her voice was only a little whisper – "you can have him."

They stood there in the hall, the big man, and the small, battling gambler of a woman, who was staking her most precious possession – a disowned child – on the chance that the pride of the man would outweigh his desire for ownership. Their eyes – misty, frightened blue, and flashing black – seemed to meet and clash. "He won't dare," she was saying to herself, her heart pounding in her throat. And Johnny's grandfather was saying to himself, very softly, "The devil!" He bent a little, as an elephant might stoop to scrutinize a grasshopper which was trying to block his way, and looked at her. Then he roared with laughter.

"Well, upon my word!" he said. He put his cane under his arm, fumbled for his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. "Miss Sampson," he said, "you are a bully. And you would be a highly successful blackmailer. But you are no coward; I'll say that for you. You are a damned game little party! I'll see to you, ma'am, I'll see to you! —and I'll get the child. But I like you. Damned if I don't!"

CHAPTER III

THE gambler went on her trembling legs back to her cluttered parlor and sat down, panting and pallid. The throw of the dice had been in her favor!

It was curious that she had no misgiving as to what she was doing in thus closing the door of opportunity to Johnny – for of course, the new Mr. Smith's protection would mean every sort of material opportunity for him! If it had been his "grandfather's" protection which had been offered, perhaps she might have hesitated, for that would have meant material opportunity plus a love great enough to tell the truth; and Miss Lydia's own love – which was but a spiritual opportunity – could not compete with that! As it was, she tested opportunities by saying, "His grandfather can have him."

Of course it was just her old method of choosing the better part… All her life this gallant, timid woman had weighed values. She had weighed the reputation of being a jilt as against marriage to a man she did not respect – and she found the temporary notoriety of the first lighter than the lifelong burden of the second. She weighed values again, when she put her hundred dollars' worth of generosity on one side of the scales, and William's meanness on the other – and when generosity kicked the beam she was glad to be jilted. She had even weighed the painful unrealities of concealed poverty as against open shabbiness, and she saw that a dress she couldn't afford was a greater load to carry than the consciousness of the spot on her old skirt – especially as the spot was glorified by the memory of a friend's hospitality!

So now, when the new Mr. Smith considered adopting her boy, this simple soul weighed values for Johnny: Mr. Smith – or Johnny's grandfather? Pride – or love? And pride outweighed love. Miss Lydia put her hands over her face and prayed aloud: "God, keep him proud, so I can keep Johnny!"

Apparently God did, for it was only "Mr. Smith" who made further efforts to get her child. They were very determined efforts. Miss Lydia's landlord saw her again, and urged. She met what he had to say with a speechless obstinacy which made him extremely angry. When he saw her a third time he offered her an extraordinary increase in the honorarium – for which he had the grace five minutes later to apologize. He saw her once more, and threatened he would "take" Johnny, anyhow!

"How?" said poor, shaking Miss Lydia. Then, as a last resort, he sent his lawyer to her, which scared her almost to death. But the interview produced, for Mr. Smith, nothing except legal assurance that he could doubtless secure the person of his grandson by appealing to the courts in the character of a grandfather– for Miss Lydia had never taken out papers for adoption.

"The lady has nine-tenths of the law," said Mr. Smith's legal adviser, who had been consulted, first, as to a hypothetical case, and then told the facts. "The other one-tenth won't secure a child whom you don't claim as a relative. And the law means publicity."

"The hussy!" said Mr. Smith. "She's put a spoke in my wheel."

"She has," said the lawyer, and grinned behind his hand.

Mr. Smith glared at him. "That little wet hen!"

Well! after one or two more efforts, he swallowed his defeat, and, though for nearly a year he would not recognize Miss Lydia when he met her in the street, he made fast friends with the freckled, very pugnacious boy at his gates. He used to stop and speak to him and tell him to say his multiplication table, and then give him a quarter and walk off, greatly diverted. Sometimes when he saw his daughter in Philadelphia, he would tell her, sardonically, that "that child" had more brains than his father and mother put together!

"Not than his father," poor, cowering Mary would protest. And her father, looking at her with unforgiving eyes, would say, "I wish I owned him." ("I like to scare 'em!" he added to himself.) He certainly scared Mary. Scared her, and made her feel a strange anger, because he had something which did not belong to him; "after all, the boy is ours," she told her husband. She always went to bed with a headache after one of Mr. Smith's visits. As for Carl, his face would grow crimson with helpless mortification under the gibes of his father-in-law as Mary repeated them to him.