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CHAPTER XIII

“I’m to be your neighbor for the winter,” he said. “My experience as house-keeper is limited. I set up my Lares and Penates to-day and forgot that man must eat. Will you sell me bread and fresh eggs?”

“Lares and Penates,” both Eliza and Beth knew the meaning of those words. Roman mythology! A strange tramp, indeed, who could quote this.

“Will you come in?” asked Eliza. Tramp or not, his clear gray eyes were too fine and commanding to permit his being kept outside the door.

He entered and took the proffered seat before the grate in which a few chunks of wood were smoldering.

“These wood-fires are delightful,” he said. “I do not wonder that the age of poetry and romance have passed away. It was one with the open grate. What mind of man can conceive of poetry being written before a register or radiator?”

Eliza had nothing to say to this. The conversation was not just what she expected from a tramp. She went to the kitchen and counted out the eggs and took a loaf of fresh bread from the box. She was sorry for the man. He looked so fine and interesting. It was to be regretted that he allowed himself to be a wanderer. Miss Eliza felt a sense of duty. It grieved her to see one who appeared so bright and attractive waste his life wandering upon the earth. When she heard him sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she had thought him a young man. There was the joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was not a boy, but a man fully her own age. She prepared his basket for him, while her heart was heavy.

He arose when she re-entered the living-room and extended his hand for the basket, at the same time laying out a dollar upon the table.

Miss Eliza was surprised. “I – I – did not think of pay,” she stammered.

“Surely,” he said. “You do not think that I came up to beg. While we are on the subject, I’d like to settle about getting milk, eggs and bread regularly from you. I should like plenty of them. I find they are about the only reliable things one can find in tramping over the country. All cooks are not like our blessed Yankee ones.”

“You intend to stay about here?”

“Until spring is fairly settled. I’ve a little place down here in the woods. I’m sure that I shall be mighty comfortable there all winter. When the weather permits, I suppose I’ll wander forth again to find new experiences. When the wanderlust takes possession of one – ” He waved his hand as though the subject were not worth continuing.

“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza. “You look so well and strong, I should think you would settle down to some useful work. You don’t look a bit like a tramp.”

“Ah – a – h,” the word came from the stranger’s lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a smile. He controlled himself, however, and said, “But what a gay life it is! One can see so much – now as to the eggs and milk.”

Miss Eliza promised that he could get them daily.

“My name is Hillis,” he said. Again the amused expression came to him. “Even a tramp must have a name, you know.”

He was gone, leaving Miss Eliza wondering what strange circumstance made such a man a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Thereafter he came every morning for milk. During the week, he had fresh bread and eggs. He always paid for them as he received them.

In personal appearance he was the most exquisite tramp that Eliza had ever seen. She laid it down to the fact that her acquaintance in the line had been limited. He always sang or whistled as he came up the hill, and after a while, Eliza found herself expecting him at a regular time in the morning and listening for the song which never failed. Such songs as they were! She could not have believed that words and air could be so exquisitely sweet. The tears actually came to her eyes when she heard, for the first time, his voice ringing through the woods:

“I hear you calling me.

Through all the years, dear one,

I hear you calling me.”

One afternoon as he was passing, he paused to speak to Miss Eliza, who was plucking the last of her chrysanthemums.

“You should see them in Japan,” he said. “We cannot raise them here as the Japanese do. There’s something lacking, either in our skill or our soil. You should see the real Japanese flower.”

He continued in this strain for some time, during which Miss Eliza learned about soils, and chemical compounds and fertilization. She had lived among farmers all her life, but never realized that in the fields lay a study for a lifetime, and that the soil needed as scientific treatment as a child. It was to be fed, to be rested, to be worked, all with judgment and science. All this, she learned from the tramp. She attributed his knowledge to the fact that he had traveled widely, and being naturally of a keen mind, had picked up information from all parts of the globe.

During the winter, he fell into the habit of bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened a new world to her – a world of flowers and sunshine; the world where the artist soul expresses itself in making the world beautiful in color and form. He sometimes lingered to explain some plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes. Sometimes she took part in the conversation. Once she laughingly said in connection with some story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy story Adee told me when I was a little girl.”

“Tell it to me,” he said, seating himself by the fireside. “I fancy Miss Eliza would have a story worth telling.”

For some reason which she could not explain, Eliza’s face grew crimson at something in his voice, rather than his words, and hurriedly excused herself and went into the kitchen.

“Adee always told me stories when I was little. Because she had never read any children’s stories, she had to make them up.”

Beth began the story of the poppy, and the “tramp” listened with interest. When she had finished, he said simply, “Tell me more that Miss Eliza told you.”

Beth was only too glad to do so. She began at once. Eliza was back in the room before she had finished.

“Where did you get such fairy-tales?” asked the tramp. “I’ve read all that ever came in book form, but I missed these.”

Eliza tapped her forehead. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you think it was a pleasure to get them out?”

“Have you written them?” It was surprising how concise, how direct the tramp could be when he chose.

“Write them? I never thought of such a thing. I made up the stories simply to please Beth. I am not an author.”

“You don’t know what you are,” he said. “You have never found yourself, Miss Eliza. No one knows how great a thing he may be. In each soul lies an unexplored country. Be a Columbus to your own soul.”

He took up his hat and moved to the door. “I want you to write down these stories Beth told me. Don’t bother trying to make them fine. Scribble them. This is not a request, Miss Eliza. This is a command.”

Eliza had no time to remonstrate. The tramp was gone before she could reply.

“I would do it, Adee.” Beth smiled whimsically to herself and added, as she did when she was a baby, “Please, pretty lady.”

It was impossible to withstand both of these. Eliza began the very next day when Beth was away at school. She took tablet and pencil and, sitting down by the open grate, wrote just as she had told the stories to Beth. There was no attempt at fine writing. Her language was simple as a child’s. There were even quite serious mistakes in grammar and punctuation. The hours passed quickly. Beth was home from school before Eliza realized it. She had been happy all afternoon – happy in a different way from what she had been all these years.

“I am expressing myself. I am finding my own soul,” she told herself. She smiled at her own egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus, I should find a great undiscovered country?”

She laid the stories away. What simple little things they were! The story of an ambitious little seed which was unhappy because it had been tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in the ground. It wanted to do something great. It did not wish to hide from life and light. But as the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a life of whose beauty it had no conception. It cast shade and perfume on all about it. It burst in a hundred glorious flowers. Then it learned that its own way would have made it a failure, that there is something in one which must suffer and die before one can be a power.

The following afternoon she wrote again. There was little chance of interruption, for neighbors were at a distance, and the people of Shintown did not give themselves to bodily exertion.

One evening she handed them to the tramp when he came for his evening supply of milk and eggs.

“Quite a package,” he said. “Is this all you can think of, or have you more in that head of yours?”

“More! My head has turned into a veritable widow’s cruse. The instant I take out one story, another one slips in to take its place. I do not know where they come from. I am sure I do not try to think of them. They just pop in.”

“Let them pop, and keep on writing,” replied the man. “I came across several books I think you’d like, and a magazine article on the possibilities of the so-called worked out farm.”

He laid them on the table, took up his milk-pail and went his way down the slope. His voice rang out clear and strong:

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I’ll not ask for wine.”

“I wonder where he found all his songs. Hundreds of them I think I’ve heard him sing this winter.”

“He must have picked them up tramping about,” said Beth.

Moving to the table, Eliza took up the books and magazines which he had left her. The book was one on the wild flowers and weeds of the Alleghanies. It was handsomely illustrated and most comprehensive, dealing with their medicinal as well as floral values.

“It’s written by Joseph Barnes Hillis,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that it should be the same name as the tramp’s? The article in the magazine is by the same writer. How strange! I’ll – ”

She did not finish the sentence, for Sam Houston and old Squire Stout entered without knocking – one of the irregularities of social convention in the locality.

“Good evening, folks,” said Sam. “Eliza, I’ve come over on strange business. It’s queer how things do happen.”

The squire took the most comfortable seat in the room and leaned back in his chair. “It’s certainly a most curious circumstance,” he said. He opened his coat and took from his pocket a weather-beaten, worn old leather purse.

CHAPTER XIV

The squire laid the purse on the table with an air which spoke volumes. “It certainly is mysterious how things do work out,” he said. He was always deliberate in speech, but fortunately, he said little. His particularly impressive method of procedure was to look wise.

Miss Eliza glanced at the purse. It was not attractive. Touched with mildew, soiled and almost filthy, it was rather repulsive. She had learned that Sam was not one to be questioned when he had a story to tell. The only way was to let him go slowly and interpolate with indifferent matters of all sorts.

“There ain’t much to tell about the finding of the purse,” he began. Then Eliza understood. But she did not reach forward to seize what might contain something which would reveal Beth’s identity. It came to her that that meant losing Beth. For an instant she felt that she could not give her up.

“We were fixing the old stone wall at Paddy’s Run,” continued Sam. “The Morris Brothers have the contract, and Ab Morris came and asked me if I’d hand – .”

“No use of telling all the details,” said the squire sharply. “Keep to the point. There’s no use telling what Ab said to you or you to Ab.”

“Well, no need to cut me short. There’s plenty of time to tell details, as you call them, and everything else that pertains to this here subject which we have in hand. We’ve been a wantin’ to know these things for ten years and couldn’t. Then what’s the use of gettin’ in a rush and tell everything in a minute.”

“There’s no danger of you ever doing those two things – getting in a rush and telling everything in a minute. You couldn’t do it, Sam.” The squire was habitually sarcastic.

“We’ll drive slow. It may be a rough road, and we’re driving in the dark, so to speak. We were fixing the wall, anyway. Bill Yothers, he was knocking out the loose stone, when he stops and says to me, ‘Sam, that looks mighty like a purse, that I’ve knocked down there. You’d better get it.’ Well, I did. I dropped the reins and went over and picked it up. I examined it carefully before I opened it, and – .”

Eliza had taken up the purse. No doubt it had dropped from the carriage when Old Prince took his mad leap, and had lodged among the stones in the wall to be hidden away for over ten years. It had been partially protected from the weather.

Miss Eliza opened it gingerly. It almost fell to pieces as she did so. The leather flap at the top fell from it. Within the double compartment were pieces of paper thick with mildew. These were intact enough to show that they once were bills. There was a little silver, and a trunk check of brass. This was green with corrosion, so that the number had been effaced.

Without a word, Eliza took it and went to the kitchen. Beth was close at her side. Neither could speak, but the atmosphere was fairly vibrating with suppressed emotion. Eliza took down her scouring soap from the shelf and began rubbing the check.

“This will do little good,” she said after a moment. “I’ll dip it in lye and scour it with ashes.”

“Yes,” said Beth, hurrying into the wash-house and returning with the can of lye. Eliza put the check on a saucer and covered it for an instant with the lye. Then she rubbed it with wood ashes.

The men had grown impatient and had followed her into the kitchen. They came to the door just as Eliza had finished her inspection. “It has Baltimore on it,” she said. “The number is 4536. It’s very plain.”

“Little good it will do you,” said Sam. “That just shows you that it was checked from there. It doesn’t show who sent it.”

“It may tell us a great deal,” said Eliza. Keeping the check in her hand, she led the way back into the living room. The men followed and seated themselves. She had been wishing that they would go. She wanted to be alone and think of the matter. She could see that Beth was very much excited, although she sat very quiet.

But the fire was too comfortable for Sam to leave. He had taken the most comfortable chair in the room. He put his legs far apart, bent over so that his elbows could rest on his knees, and his chin in turn upon the upturned palm. He began a recital of all the incidents of the day when Old Prince went wild, and he had first found Eliza and the child, and he continued telling how strange it seemed that he should be the one to find the purse.

“But there’ll nothing come of it now,” he concluded. “And to my way of thinking, it’s just as well. The little girl has been well took care of. Her mother’s dead, we know that. We buried her out there in the old Wells’ lot, alongside of your own parents, Eliza. If she had a father, no doubt he’s gone and married again and has other children. It’s just as well not to try to hunt ’em up.”

Eliza thought so, too, for other reasons. She could not give her up. She would be too lonely without her. She simply could not live without her. While these thoughts were in her mind, another slipped in there too. She was not conscious that it was there. “The tramp would leave in the spring.” He had said that weeks before. She never called him that any more, nor had she permitted Beth to do so.

In her own thoughts she had no name for him. He was just “he,” nothing more. She told herself that she would miss his magazines and his help about her flowers. She had kept up with Beth in all her studies. She had read Latin, and worked out Algebra. Now this would be gone. There would be nothing at all left to her, except her stories, which she had still continued, and her club in town. But what would they mean, with Beth and him gone?

While she thought over these matters, Sam Houston kept up his monologue. Now and then Squire Stout flung in a sharp word, but Eliza heard nothing which was being said.

At length the men rose to go. Sam was yet busy narrating the events that led up to the find. The squire led him away. Eliza came to the door with them and held a lamp high in her hand to light the way. She heard Sam talking, as the two men walked on down the slope.

Turning back into the room, she went to where Beth sat huddled up and took a seat close to her.

“This has disturbed us,” she said. “But it should not. I think the check will mean nothing at all. It will make no difference to you or me. You and I have been happy so far and we can continue to be. You will always be my little girl.”

“I know, Adee, I know.” The tears would have fallen, had not Beth by pure force of will kept them back. Her lips trembled so that she could not speak. She was silent a moment, until she was able to control herself. Then she said again, “I know, I know, Adee, that you will always want me for your little girl; but it is dreadful to have no people of your own.”

Eliza could not debate that. It was true, and could not be disputed. She put her arm about Beth and drew her close. Thus they sat without saying a word for a long, long time. The log in the grate burned out. Then Eliza broke the silence.

“Go to bed now, Beth. I must attend to some work before I come up.”

Beth obediently arose, kissed Adee good-night and left the room. She went to bed, but could not sleep. She could hear Adee moving about in the room below. When it grew quiet, Beth closed her eyes. She was yet wide awake, but she could see plainly a picture that had come to her again and again for as long as she could remember. It was a little white bed in which she herself lay, and a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair and a long, soft, shimmering gown stood over her. “That is something that I saw often before I came to Adee’s,” she told herself. “It is so clear. Always the woman’s face slips away. I cannot see it.”

Meanwhile Eliza in the room below strengthened herself to do her duty. She wanted to keep Beth – oh, how much she wanted her; but if she could find out from where she came, it was only right, for the child’s sake, to do so. If Beth had kin living, it was Eliza’s duty to do everything to find them, even if her own heart-strings were torn to shreds in doing so.

After reaching this decision, she went to her writing desk and wrote to the baggage agent of that particular road, at Baltimore. She told him the circumstances of the check and asked him to spare no pains to find out where it came from or where the trunk was now.

“There may be letters or clothing in the trunk which will lead us to her people,” she told herself as she sealed the letter.

Neither she nor Beth could sleep much that night. They were two sorry-looking individuals the following morning. They were heavy-eyed, tired and listless. They had little to say at the breakfast table. They had worn themselves out with lying awake and letting their minds dwell on the matters which lay nearest their hearts.

There is an old adage that “troubles never come singly.” Better change it to suit the new philosophy of the day, “Joys never come singly.” Sometimes lives may move serenely on for months and months, or even years. They are like a broad stretch of level plain. They would grow monotonous after a time. The finest are lands interspersed with valleys and mountains. So it is with life – here the valley of humiliation, there the mountain of joyful exultation.

Eliza mailed her letter. She lost no time, but sent Beth off to the post-office immediately after breakfast, lest she regret and prove weak enough to keep it back.

That evening the “tramp” came up the slope earlier than usual. The ground was white with snow. The drifts were deep in the ravine, but he had kept the path broken. He stepped more briskly than usual. He whistled and sang exultingly. He carried a milk-bucket and had under his arm several letters and magazines. In one hand was a great bouquet of crimson roses, wrapped in oiled paper to keep them from the biting cold. His feet were eager to reach the Wells home. He sang and then laughed aloud to himself. He was a most peculiar sort of tramp. One could tell that from the great coat he wore. Rough cloth on the outside and black, shaggy fur within. Wind and weather never kept him back. There was something unusual in the air this night. He was fairly bubbling over with excitement.

He knocked at Miss Eliza’s door and entered before she could respond. He came directly to where she stood, removed the oiled paper and let a score of crimson roses nod and smile at her.

“I want to be the first to lay my homage at the feet of the famous one,” he said. “Permit me, madam, to present the roses to her who is making her name a household word.”

He thrust the flowers between her hands. Eliza was confused. His manner was strange. Then, too, no one had ever offered her homage, or had bought her roses. Roses with the mercury ten degrees below zero. Eliza had never seen roses except in June.

Her face grew crimson. She tried to speak, but could find no words.

“You’re all at sea. This will explain.” Opening one of the magazines, he laid it on the table, holding it with finger and thumb that it might not close.

“Why – why – it’s our house,” cried Beth.

“And it’s our Adee,” said the man, turning the page where was a picture of Eliza herself standing under the trees with the leaves about her.

“I had my camera set for a week before I could get that,” he cried triumphantly. “I was bound to get it by fair means or foul.”

Eliza was mechanically turning the leaves with one hand. The other held the roses close in her arm. She could not understand. She tried to read the titles. A few lines, and the understanding came.

“You have printed my foolish little stories,” she said.

“The editors did not think they were foolish,” he said. “You’ll find a number there. Here are the checks for them. My, my, you’ll become a bloated capitalist. Poor Beth and I will take a back seat. It will be awful hard on the nerves, Beth, to live with a celebrity.”