The Brass Bound Box

This particular tramp had no scruples of that sort whatever. As Katharine picked up her heavy basket, he was upon his feet and relieved her of the burden at once. She tried to retain her hold of the handle, but was no match for him in strength, and had to watch him drop down upon the bank, tear apart the two halves of the cover, and explore the contents.

She made one effort to rescue Susanna's good things from this "thief," as she now knew him to be, but he flung her hands aside so rudely he hurt them; and when she cried to him: "You mustn't! You must not touch those things, they aren't mine!" he did not notice her.

Already one pumpkin pie was half-devoured. Uncooked food from the fields may, indeed, prevent starvation, but here was luxury. If "the proof of the pudding is in the eating," Susanna Sprigg should have been highly flattered. Katharine had never seen anybody eat as this man did. Before she could say, "Well, you sha'n't have the basket, even if you do steal the things from it!" the first pie had wholly gone. He tried a little variety: broke the brown loaf in two, and, unrolling the pat of butter, generously smeared it, using his dirty hands for knife.

This was wretchedly disgusting but – fascinating. It reminded the young Baltimorean of feeding-time at the Zoo. She also dropped upon the sward to watch, and to recover her basket when he should have done with its contents.

He left none of them. The honey followed the bread and butter, and the jell-roll followed the honey. Then he returned to his first delight and finished the second pie. By this time satiety. Full fed and rested he crawled back among the alders and lay down to sleep. Crawled so far and so deep among them that even the watching girl could scarcely see him.

But she had no desire left for further observation. He had proved himself a harmless bugaboo, and she would not be afraid of him, meet him where she might – so she felt then.

Yet there remained some ugly facts to be dealt with. One, the empty cupboard at the Mansion, always so faithfully replenished for the Sabbath by the untiring care of Aunt Eunice. One, the cherished rod that had snapped asunder as she forced it from the tramp's grasp. And one – the well-deserved anger of the Widow Susanna Sprigg.

She gathered what comfort she could, hoping against hope that for once Madam Sturtevant had made provision for her own Sabbath feasts; and that, though the rod might be broken, and because of its association not to be replaced, she could buy another even better. She had ten dollars of her own, her very own. It was as yet unbroken even if in her intention she had already expended it on many, many things. But there remained that other formidable fact – the Widow Sprigg.

How meet her inquiring glances? How convince her that she was still worthy of trust who had proved herself unworthy? How endure the torrent of indignation, certain to be let loose upon her when she reappeared at the kitchen door?

Well, she had the basket! That was yet another and comforting fact. She hugged it close as she entered the back yard where the housekeeper was washing the stone path with a vigor as great as if it were the beginning and not the end of the day. As the gate-latch clicked Susanna looked up, and Katharine saw that she was "just as cross as she always is on Saturday afternoon."

"My suz! You back a'ready?"

"Yes, Susanna."

"Well, what you so mealy-mouthed about? You ain't nigh so peart and hop-skippin' as you was when you started. Didn't you get a good welcome to the Mansion? Wasn't Madam to home? Don't squeeze that basket so tight. Eunice won't admire to have it smashed."

"I won't smash it, Susanna."

Katharine wondered why she should be so afraid of this sharp-tongued woman when she hadn't been really afraid of the disreputable tramp. She wondered why she couldn't burst forth with her story, which certainly was a strange one, as sure of sympathy here as she would have been with Aunt Eunice. Perhaps that dear, if dignified, old lady had returned, and if so she would go straight to her.

"Has aunty come, Widow Sprigg?"

"No. She hain't. Nor likely to. Word's come, though, that we needn't look for her till we see her. That sick woman is so glad to have her she's goin' to keep her over Sabbath, an' I warn you, what with Moses on my hands an' the hull house to look after, I want no monkey-shines from you. Well, what did Madam say? Didn't she think my butter was as good as hers? Hey? What?"

Hope died in Katharine's breast. At first she had loved Susanna best, better than Miss Maitland. Now, for just one look into Eunice's face!

But she wouldn't be a coward. Feeling that she had done something very wrong, yet not knowing how she could have helped it, she looked straight into Susanna's eyes, and answered:

"I haven't seen Madam Sturtevant. I didn't go there."

Over the rest of that interview it is well to draw a veil.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COTTAGE IN THE WOOD

After having cried herself to sleep in the sitting-room chamber, feeling very lonely and forlorn because Aunt Eunice was not in her own adjoining room, Katharine awoke to find another beautiful day gladdening the world and herself as well. Who could be unhappy with such sunlight shining through such golden maples, underneath a sky so blue?

"Every day is a fresh beginning,Every morn is the world made new,"

sang the girl, springing from bed and running to her bath; a daily habit which surprised and pleased both Miss Maitland and the housekeeper, accustomed as they were to the rebellion of young Marsdenites to even a weekly tubbing. A habit which had done much to win Eunice's favor toward the "second Mrs. John," and between whom and herself now existed a friendly and frequent correspondence. "She is a good woman, intensely practical; and Katharine is a good child, intensely romantic; and not all good people may live comfortably together. But there is no 'cruel stepmother' in her, and I mean to invite her and the little Snowballs out to visit us next summer. It shall not be my fault if there does not yet grow the closest affection between Johnny's chosen wife and Johnny's daughter," had remarked the mistress of The Maples, some time before.

To which Susanna had pertinently replied:

"Well, next summer ain't tetched yet, an' we may all be in our graves before that time."

"Very true, my friend, though I don't expect to be in mine," answered Eunice, cheerfully, and wisely changed the subject, though not her intention.

Not only had Katharine forgotten her unhappiness of the night before, but Susanna had also rested and recovered her good nature. She felt that it would never do for an old lady like herself to apologize to a child for the hard words spoken "in the way of discipline," but now that she had had time to think it over she did not see how Katy had been so greatly to blame. Besides, she was just wild to ask questions concerning the tramp, and privately looked upon the little girl as a very heroine for bravery, in that she had neither fainted nor been greatly afraid during her interview with the wanderer.

Katy had been given a bread and milk supper and sent to her room, feeling herself in disgrace. She had not even been allowed to visit Moses and offer her apologies for her rudeness to him; so that if it had not been a wholly "black" Saturday, it had been a very dark Saturday evening.

But Saturday was past, a beautiful Lord's Day was blessing His earth, and it was not for His children to keep offence with one another.

As her own overture to a Sabbath peace, Susanna went to the foot of the stairs and called, in her cheerfullest voice:

"Time to get up, 'Kitty Keehoty'!"

"Oh, yes! Good morning, Susanna! I've been up ever so long – much as ten minutes, I guess."

"Flannel cakes an' maple syrup for breakfast," returned the housekeeper, as a parting salute, and really very happy to have all clouds blown free of the domestic sky.

Moses had already breakfasted, and had by this time become so far accustomed to his hard position on the cot that he had ceased to grumble at it. That is, he had not grumbled on that morning, and had forgotten his growls of yesterday. He was ready with a smile for his little nurse when she came in with the new copy of the Chronicle, to read him a few paragraphs while Susanna fried the cakes. Later, she brought a big bunch of chrysanthemums and put them on his bureau; then tidied the room even beyond its usual order, since on Sundays, when his neighbors had leisure, the invalid was sure to have many visitors.

Indeed, as Susanna informed Katharine at breakfast, Deacon Meakin himself was coming to sit the whole afternoon with his afflicted predecessor. Kate, herself, was to go alone to church in the morning, and remember that she was to behave exactly as if Eunice were beside her. In the afternoon, during the deacon's temporary charge of the house, Susanna would take Katharine on that long promised walk to "my cottage."

"I've been terr'ble anxious 'bout it ever sence that tramp come to town, an' now sence you've seen an' talked with him, an' I know that he's runnin' 'round loose still, I must go take a look. That's the worst o' prope'ty, it's a dreadful care."

"But it must be just delightful to own such a cute little cottage as yours, all vines and trees – "

"The chimbley smoked," interjected the widow, feeling free to disparage her own "prope'ty," though she would have resented such a remark from another.

"That could be fixed, I reckon. When I saw it from the stage, coming, I thought it was just like a doll-house, or a child's playhouse."

"Huh! You did, did you? Well, let me tell you, Katharine Maitland, that house is a good one. Spriggs, he had it built first-class, with a room finished off in the roof – attic, he called it – three good rooms on the ground floor, white-painted clapboards an' reg'lar blinds, green blinds with slats turnin' easy as nothin'. Not like the old-fashioned wooden shutters, so clumsy 't you can't see out to tell who's comin' along the road without openin' the hull concern. And it has as good a system of water as Squire Pettijohn's, only not so big. Sprigg, he bricked it all up, hauled the bricks himself clean in from the county town, an' it's got a manhole 'twill let ary man down it that wants to go. My house may not be as big as the moon, but it's got as good a system of water as Eunice's even."

Katharine's eyes twinkled. Until she came to Marsden she had never heard of a cistern; all the water used in her city home had been piped into it from a reservoir, which supplied all the other houses also; but she had learned what Susanna meant by "system," because the Turners had had theirs cleaned out only the week before.

"What's the 'manhole,' Susanna?"

"My suz! You do ask the ridicylousest questions. It's a hole left in the top for folks to go down into it, if they want to."

"Well, I shouldn't think they'd ever want to. And the Turners' manhole must be very small, smaller than yours, maybe; because they sent Bob down to clean it, and he got stuck coming out. His mother was scared almost into a fit, and the girls cried and Mr. Turner – said things. He told Bob if he ever got him out alive he'd teach him to live on light rations for awhile. Bob's so fat, you know. It was so funny, and yet I was frightened, too. I suppose if he had stuck too tight they'd have had to break the bricks away, but he squeezed through all right. He hasn't spoken to me since, though. Just because I laughed."

"My suz, Kitty! if you ain't the greatest one for bein' everywhere 't anything's goin' on. You hain't been here but a month, yet you know more folks, been into more houses, seems if, than I have, who've lived here all my life. An' the idee! Tearin' away good bricks just to get a wuthless boy out, like that Bob. I cal'late his pa would ha' thought twice 'fore it come to that. He'd have made the young one scrouge himself up dreadful narrow an' wriggle himself free, somehow. But there. No use worryin' about my system, 'cause I had the leader-pipe turned t'other way so no rain could run into it. It's as dry as a floor now. My suz! What a long walk it is, an' how warm it does keep. I never knowed such a fall, no weather fit for killin' nor nothin', but just like midsummer," bewailed Susanna, lagging on the long woodland path.

"I never knew such a fall, either. I never dreamed that the world could be so lovely. I have only been in the country a fortnight at a time in August, until I came to Marsden, but I love it, I love it! And I think you're dressed too warm. What made you put on that heavy wool gown and shawl? And a veil, too. I should think you'd roast, and your face is the color of boiled lobster," said Katharine, with hapless frankness.

Their talk had been along the way, and their goal was already in sight through the trees. Poor Susanna had scarcely breath to retort, but managed to say:

"Ain't it the time o' year to put on thick clothes? an' am I to blame if the weather don't know its own business?"

Then, for a peace-offering, Katharine handed her companion a beautiful fern, which the widow tossed aside contemptuously, with:

"Huh! What do I want with a brake? Eunice, she litters the house with 'em bad enough. I ain't a-goin' to add to the muss. Well, here we be, an' there's the key. I've come here alone time an' time again an' never felt the creeps a-doin' it afore to-day. But – my suz! I wouldn't ha' come now without you to keep me comp'ny, not for anything."

"That's flattering! Am I so brave, then?" asked the girl, giving the housekeeper a sudden little hug.

"Yes, you be. But, my suz! You needn't knock my bunnit off with your foolishness. Seems if this key's gettin' rusty, or else – can't be the door's unlocked, can it?"

"I'm sure I don't know. I was never here before." Then, as the door opened, sniffing a little at the musty odor incident to a tightly closed apartment: "Whew! It needs airing, anyway. Let's throw up all the sashes and set the blinds wide, then it will be the sweetest little cottage in the world."

"Well, you may. And when you've done these down here, you might – you might go up attic and open that winder, too. It's there I've got my things stored that I've been layin' out to show you, soon's I could. Me an' Moses an' Eunice is all a-gettin' old. It's time somebody younger an' likelier to live longer should know. This walk to-day tells me 'at I ain't so spry as I used to be. No tellin', no tellin'. We're here now, an' there some other time, an' life's a shadder, a shadder," ruminated the widow, sitting down on the door-step, and not anxious, apparently, to enter the cottage first.

Which fact Katharine was quick to observe and comment upon, with a laugh: "Oh, you blessed old coward! You're afraid that tramp has shut himself up in your 'prope'ty,' and you'll come upon him unawares. You'd 'risk' me, just as Monty 'risked' Ned Clackett to climb the schoolhouse roof after a ball, not daring to go himself. Well, here goes! You keep watch without while I search within."

Susanna laughed. She was afraid, and owned it frankly; but after Katharine had ransacked the few rooms thoroughly, peeped under the bed in the kitchen-bedroom, opened the few closet doors, and even examined the wall cupboard, she gathered courage to enter, and promptly led the way up-stairs.

The little home was plainly furnished, but represented the romance of her life to old Susanna. Memories of her youth came back and softened the asperity of age, her wrinkled face taking on gentler lines and her harsh voice a tenderer tone. But to-day she was in haste. She felt herself needed at The Maples, even with the capable Deacon Meakin left to "hold the fort," as he expressed it. Going to a chest of drawers she opened the top one and displayed a store of blankets, different from those Katharine had seen. They looked like very coarse and heavy flannel, and were yellow with age. "Them was part of my fittin' out. I spun an' wove 'em myself, whilst Sprigg an' me was walkin' out together," she explained, carefully peering into the folds of the cloth, in search of any vagrant moth.

"Why, how in the world could you do that? I thought when one spun and wove they had to have wheels and looms and things. How could you carry such about with you, even with Sprigg, I mean Mr. Sprigg, to help?"

Susanna looked over her spectacles more hurt than angry. But she saw only honest surprise on the girl's face, and, after a pause, explained:

"'Walkin' out together' means keepin' comp'ny; as men an' women do who've promised to marry each other."

"Oh, an engagement! I remember quite well, too well, when papa and Mrs. Snowball 'walked out together.' It quite did away with the delightful 'walkin' out' I had always had with him before that time."

"Well, Katy, be sure if Johnny picked her out she was the right one, an' me an' Eunice hopes to see the pair of ye good friends yet. We're layin' out to have all them little Snowballs down here, or up here, next summer, if we live to see another summer, an' make up our own minds as to how things is. We've settled that."

Which shows that even strong-minded women like Susanna may sometimes change their minds; also lay claim to ideas not originally their own. But the effect upon Katharine was to sober her completely, and, oddly enough, make her a bit homesick for the old life and the noisy little brothers. She fell to thinking about them so earnestly that she scarcely heard what else the widow was saying, until she was touched upon the arm, and bidden:

"Now, look sharp an' remember. Here 'tis, my shroud an' all goes with it."

"Your – w-h-a-t?" gasped Katharine.

Susanna again looked her surprise, but she was perfectly calm, even cheerfully interested; and, to enlighten the other's ignorance, patiently explained.

"I said my shroud, that I am to be wropped in when I'm buried. I made it years ago, an' styles has changed some, I hear. But this is good, an' 'll be easy for 'em that does it to put on me. It's keepin' real well, nice an' white. Here's the suit of underclothes goes with it, all new, white stockin's – loose an' roomy, an' pins an' needles an' thread – not a thing wantin', so fur as I know. Why, child, what ails you? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

Poor Katharine was so shocked by this revelation which the other made so calmly, that she had turned quite white, and found some difficulty to control her voice, as she returned:

"It's so – so horrible, so ghastly! Right here in all this glory of life to be anticipating the grave! Give the dreadful things to me. I hate to touch them, but I'll make myself. I'll carry them right down into the kitchen and make a fire in the stove and burn them up, up, up! Oh, Susanna! how could you?"

The old housekeeper was in her own turn as genuinely surprised. In many a household she knew just such provision for a sad day had been made. She had even once assisted at a "bee," where several women had assembled to prepare a burial garment for an old, bedridden neighbor, who, less "forehanded" than Marsdenites in general, had neglected to provide one for herself. The careless creature was living yet, and likely to outlive many a stronger woman, but that didn't matter. However, such ignorance as Katharine's did not surprise her so much as it would have done had the child's "raising" been in the more favored environment she had herself enjoyed. Of course, she did not yield her treasures to the destruction suggested. She merely closed that drawer and opened another; and here, indeed, her whole bearing changed. Uncovering a big paste-board box, she showed a quantity of little garments, oddly fashioned, but beautifully preserved, the very folds in which they had been laid away still crisp and fresh.

Over and over the time-yellowed muslin her work-knotted fingers passed and repassed. Her touch was the touch of a mother upon her first-born, and the years that had been between the day of his coming and this were forgotten.

Katharine watching, understood. Her sympathy brought a moisture to her own eyes, which now regarded the childless old woman in a new and reverent light. Never again would Susanna be just the same to her young housemate that she had been. The girl was learning life. Yesterday her lesson – that not all of God's vagrants are vile; to-day – that all sharp-tongued women are not viragoes.

After a time, said the widow, simply: "Them was my baby's," and softly closed the drawer.

They were well on the way home when Susanna suddenly exclaimed:

"My suz! Ever see such a simpleton? I clean forgot to lock the door; an' that kitchen-bedroom winder, I doubt that you went near it."

"No, I didn't. I forgot, too. Never mind, you sit here and rest. I'll run back and fasten the whole house, and won't be long. Or you go on toward home and I'll overtake you."

"Sure you just as lief? Well, I don't s'pose you would be afraid now, after I've been there with ye to show you there wasn't nothin' nor nobody there, an' I 'low I'd ought to be back soon's I can," responded the housekeeper.

"Afraid? Why, it was you yourself was afraid, you dear old make-believe! But go on, just the same. I'll make haste," cried Kate, laughing at the other's altered mind, and immediately darting backward through the forest toward the cottage.

The Widow Sprigg walked forward, slowly; pausing here to pick up a nut, or there to examine a tree which she would tell Eunice might better be felled. As she walked she became uneasy, feeling that she had really imposed an unpleasant, possibly perilous, task upon the girl she scolded so freely yet already loved so dearly. Gathering a sprig of wintergreen she chewed it thoughtfully, and scarcely knew when she turned back to retrace her own steps to the cottage and learn what had befallen Katharine, who surely should have been in sight long before.

She came, at last, breathless and excited, catching the widow's arm and dragging her farther into the wood, but saying nothing save that imperative: "Come! Oh, come quick! Quick! We may be too late!"

Perforce the other "came," and there, on her kitchen-bedroom bed, lay Marsden's "tramp," seemingly sick unto death.

CHAPTER XVII.

A SELF-ELECTED CONSTABLE

If Susanna could ever have been "knocked down with a feather," as she often averred, she might have been then.

Indignation, consternation, amazement, all the emotions which have to be expressed in polysyllables, pictured themselves on her countenance as she paused on the bedroom threshold and looked at the intruder over her spectacles, through them, and below them. He lay face down upon the pillows, his dirty boots reposing on her choicest log-cabin quilt, and his groans fairly chilling the blood even in her veins, used though she was to the habits of men in illness. Moses, in his groaniest days, had rarely equalled this.

After the moment's pause her mind worked quickly, and she expressed it in words, spoken more to herself than to Kate, close beside her.

"He mustn't lie there, that way, with them filthy old shoes on. He acts as if he was at the p'int o' death, though folks a-dyin' don't gen'ally caterwaul like that. I bet I know what ails him! It's them pies an' things he stole! If 'tis, I'm glad of it, serves him right!" she finished, triumphantly, and in her satisfaction went so far as to approach the bed and shake the man's shoulder.

At first he paid no attention to her, and his groans did not cease, though they became rather intermittent, as if the paroxysms of pain were less frequent. Finally, her voice, now pitched to its shrillest, penetrated his consciousness, and at her question: "What's the matter with ye? Got the colic?" he turned upon his side and his face was revealed.

Then, indeed, did Susanna's countenance undergo a more wonderful change. All the emotions which had earlier crossed it concentrated in one prolonged stare, while she felt her strength oozing from her till she knew she should fall. Her hand left the stranger's shoulder and dropped limply to her side, her jaw fell, and she would have sunk down upon the floor had not Katharine slipped a chair forward to receive her. Upon this she settled, still staring and speechless; and as if he, too, were profoundly moved, the tramp ceased groaning altogether and fixed his burning gaze on her. So they remained, and for so long, that Kate grew frantic, and begged:

"Oh, Susanna! what is wrong? Why do you look at him like that? Why does he look at you? Is he dying? Do you know him? Does he know you? Can't we do something for him? It's so dreadful to see anybody suffer. Even he, poor fellow, who – "