"All is well!" he said; he waved the little bat-cloak, and then drew it round him with a flap of mystery.

"Approach!" he whispered, beckoning the two friends toward him, "Conspiracy is the soul of Drama: approach, friends, and give--or rather receive--the counter-sign!"

It was a pleasant sight to see Mr. Pindar Hollopeter, his eyes gleaming with dramatic fire, yet with a twinkle in the black depths of them, waving his arms abroad (the gesture so like his brother's, yet so unlike), expounding, suggesting, ill.u.s.trating. It was pleasant, too, to see the responsive twinkle that danced and deepened in the blue and gray eyes as they met his.

"I said you would fix it, sir!" cried Tommy Candy, smiting his thigh.

"That will be capital, sir!" said Will. "Your coming seems really providential just at this time. Of course we could not have shown any incivility to a member of your family; but if you can arrange this--"

"Sir," said Mr. Pindar, dropping his head forward, and gazing up through his eyebrows. "I know not 'if.' Regard the thing as done!"

Punctually at eleven o'clock, Mrs. Pryor bustled and crackled up the garden path, and rang a defiant peal at the bell. She had brought no luggage with her; this was a preliminary skirmish, so to speak, merely to try her ground and a.s.sert her rights; but she was prepared to do fierce battle with Direxia Hawkes or any one else who might attempt to impede her progress in the Path of Duty. Accordingly, when she heard footsteps approaching along the hall, she stood with heaving breast and glittering eye, ready and determined to effect an entrance the instant a crack of the door should be opened.

But there was no question of a crack this time. The door swung open to its fullest extent, and, instead of the small and warlike figure of Direxia Hawkes, it was Tommy Candy who stood on the threshold, with subdued and sorrowful looks.

"How do you do, Mis' Pryor?" he said. "I'm rejoiced you have come. I took the liberty of reading your postal, and it seemed as though I couldn't hardly wait till eleven o'clock came. We need you here, the wust way, Mis' Pryor."

Mrs. Pryor's bristling panoply smoothed itself, and she even gave an approving look at the youth, who certainly was a good-looking youth, and had probably been subjected to evil influences in his childhood.

"I am glad that I have come at the right moment, Tommy," she said, benignly. "People sometimes say that when I come, it is apt to be the right moment, but we will not speak of that now. What is wrong? Have you had difficulty in getting rid of the old woman? I will attend to that with pleasure; it is my duty." And she stepped into the hall, Tommy making way for her with alacrity.

"Oh, no'm," said Tommy. "It wasn't that; I don't suppose you could hire Direxia to stay--now!"

"What do you mean?" asked the visitor. "What has happened? Mr. Homer is not ill? nothing contagious, I--" and she made a step backward.

"Oh, no'm!" said Tommy, mournfully. "No, I never heard of its bein'

contagious, any more than a person couldn't stand it long; but now you have come, you will see to everything, I expect, and how thankful shall we be. This way, mum!" and he opened the parlor door.

"There can't but one go in at a time," he whispered. "It excites him too much; but he's been pretty quiet this last hour or so; I guess there won't be no danger, not for a spell at least."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Pryor, in alarm. "Tell me at once what has happened, Thomas Candy!"

Tommy shook his head sadly, and turned away with something like a sob.

"You'll find out soon enough!" he murmured. "There's things you don't care to put into words. I'm real glad you've come, Mis' Pryor."

"I can't tell you all he said," said Tommy over the garden gate that evening, "for I wasn't in the room. I couldn't hear only a sc.r.a.p now and again, when he'd give a kind of screech; but you'd sworn, to look at him, it was Mr. Homer gone crazy. He looks like him, anyway, and he put on one of his co'ts and blue neckties, and sort of flopped his hair down over his forehead,--I tell ye, he was complete! and of course she never suspicioned anything about the other--Mr. Pindar--bein' in the land of the livin', or this part of it anyway. We had the room darkened, and he sot there hunched up in a big chair with his back to the light, sort o'

mutterin' to himself, when I shew her in.

"I kinder prepared her mind, just as he told me, and she felt a mite scary, I guess; well, Annie Lizzie, he did the rest; I had no part or lot in it. I tell you he's a circus, that man! I heard him ask her right off the first thing would she marry him, and be his young gazelle: that pleased her, and yet she was took aback a mite, and said: 'Oh, Homer, this is very sudden!'

"'We'll be married by candle-light,' he says, 'and go off in a balloon, by registered mail. The Emperor of China is expecting us to tea; we are to wear our skulls outside, and cross-bones in our cl.u.s.tering locks.

Hark to the wedding knell! tzing boom! tzing boom! cymbals and ba.s.s drum!'

"I heard that plain, but then he went on muttering for a spell, and I couldn't make out a word, till she said, kinder sharp and twittery: 'I must go now, Homer; I have an important engagement;' and she said something about coming back soon. But he hollers out:

"'Black sperits and white, Red sperits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, Ye that mingle may!'

And I heard them fussin' round, as if she was tryin' to get out the room and he was keepin' between her and the door. At last and finally, he must have got right up close't the door, for I heard him as plain as I do you. 'Rats and bears! rats and bears!' he says, 'all over the room!

all over the room! look at 'em! look at 'em!' She let one yell out--that was the one you heard--and come runnin' out, and he come as fur as the door after her, flappin' his arms and hoppin' up and down--great Jonas!

I expect she'd ben runnin' now if she hadn't have caught the down stage. I tell ye, I won't forget that one while."

"Oh, Tommy!" said Annie Lizzie, in her soft, reproachful voice. "I think 'twas awful mean to scare a lady that way, now I do. I don't think you'd oughter have done it; 'twasn't pretty actin', no way, shape, or manner, don't tell me it was."

"Annie Lizzie," said Tommy, "you don't know Mis' Pryor; you warn't nothin' but a child when she was here before. There's some folks you _have_ to scare; it's the only way to git red of 'em, and we _had_ to git red of her. Let alone what Mis' Tree said to me the last time ever I saw her,--though that was enough for me, and what she said goes, as long as I live,--but let that alone, do you think we was goin' to let that woman set right down on Mr. Homer, and smother him with sarce? I guess not. If Prov'dence hadn't sent his brother right in the nick of time, Will and me'd have had to do it ourselves, and like as not made a mess of it, and Mr. Homer found out, and ben worked up worse than what he is now; but, as it was, it was all done in the family, and there warn't a word said but what was polite, if 'twas crazy. He couldn't do no more than ask her to marry him, could he?"

"Oh, well, Tommy, you can always talk!" said Annie Lizzie.

"There's other things I can do besides talk," said Tommy Candy; and he did one of them.

"Tommy!" said Annie Lizzie. "How you act!"

CHAPTER X.

A PLEASANT HOUR

One of the spots I have always liked best in Quahaug (it is hard for me even now not to say "Elmerton," though I highly approve the change) is Salem Rock's back yard. The front yard is the special province of Mrs.

Rock, a person whose mind runs to double petunias, and coleus; but the back premises are Salem's own, and quaint and homely as himself. A neat path of oyster sh.e.l.ls pounded fine runs straight from the back porch to the little pier where the white dory lies sunning herself, and the sailboat dips and rises on the ripple. On either side of the path is a square s.p.a.ce of green, with a few ancient apple-trees here and there, a white lilac-bush, and a little round summer-house so overgrown with honeysuckle and clematis, and so cl.u.s.tered round by bees that it looks like a quaint flowering beehive itself. There are real beehives, too, six of them, set along the wall; and in a narrow border that runs all round the yard are the flowers that bees like best, sweet rocket and foxglove, mignonette and sweet alyssum, and a dozen others. All these pleasant things may be found in other back yards, but there are some things that belong to this alone. In the exact centre of one green s.p.a.ce is a ship's spar, set upright, with a tiny flag fluttering from its top; in the other stand two life-size figures, facing each other; the figures of a man and a woman. The man is in the dress of the thirties, high stock and collar, shirt-frill and frock-coat; the lady in flowing cla.s.sical draperies; the man is painted in lively colors, his coat and wig (it is certainly a wig!) a bright snuff-brown, his eyes and waistcoat sky-blue, his cheeks and stock a vivid crimson; but the lady is all white, cheeks, lips, robes and all; she might be marble, if she were less palpably wood. The most singular thing about this singular pair is that they seem to be coming up out of the earth; to have got out as far as their knees, and then to have given it up and stopped. It is evident that they are not coming any farther, for the gra.s.s grows close about them, and a wild convolvulus has crept up into the lady's lap and round her arm, making the prettiest of bracelets; while, actually, a yellow warbler has built his nest in the gentleman's shirt-frill, and sings there all summer long.

There the two stand, facing each other, with cheerful looks; and there they have stood for fifty years.

On a certain pleasant morning, about the time of which I am writing, Salem Rock and Seth Weaver were having what they called their annual spree. Seth had brought his brushes and a variety of paint-pots; Salem, according to custom, had provided tobacco, and a great stone pitcher containing ginger, mola.s.ses, and water, with plenty of ice tinkling in it. This pitcher was set down between the two images, within reach of either man: Seth was at work on the white lady, while Salem, with infinite and loving care, went over the gentleman's attire, picking out the waistcoat pattern, and doing wonderful things to the b.u.t.tons with a tiny brush dipped in gold leaf.

"Old Sir's goin' to look tasty this time, now I tell ye!" he said, drawing back, with his head on one side, to study the effect. "I've give him a yeller sprig to his vest, see? I expect Old Marm'll say 'yes'

this time, for as long as she's held out."

"Yes!" grumbled Seth, pipe in mouth. "You never let me have a chanst at him, nor yet you won't let me brisk the Old Lady up to match. Give her a pink dress now, and hair her up some, and she'd be a fine-lookin' woman as there is in this village. I'll do it, too, some night; you'll see."

"No, you don't!" said Salem, slowly, as he drew a scarlet line down the seams of "Old Sir's" coat. "White Old Marm begun, and white she'll stay.

Wal, you was beginnin' to tell me about this ruction up to Home's. What is it Pindar's after? I ain't seen him yet."

"He's after a strait-weskit, and he'll get it, don't you have no fears!"

replied Seth. "He calls it a Pro-cessional Festival Jubilee. He's hired the band from the Corners, and he's got the women-folks churned up till they don't know whether they're b.u.t.ter or cheese. They're routin' out all their old clo'es from up attic, and tryin' of 'em on, and cacklin'--there! I thought I'd heerd hens before; but this mornin' I was in to Penny's store, and there was a pa.s.sel of 'em in there talkin' it over, and I tell you there ain't a hen-yard in this State to ekal it. I come away without my bird seed. Gorry! there's times when it feels good to be a single man."

"That may be so, Seth," replied Mr. Rock, soberly; "but there's other times--meal-times, and rheumatiz, and such--when it ain't so handy. How does Homer feel about all this ran-tan?"

"Poor old Home!" said Seth, shaking his head. "He's pooty well broke up.

He was jest beginnin' to take notice, and get used to things the new way, and sense it that it warn't goin' to kill him to have money in the bank; and now comes Pindar, flappin' and squeakin' like a ravin'-distracted June-bug, and stands him on his head, and he don't know where he is again; Home don't, I mean. He never could stand up against Pindar, you know. You remember at school we used to call 'em Loony and Moony; Homer was Moony. We used to call after 'em--

"'Loony and Moony, Both got spoony, Dance for Mame when she plays 'em a toony.'

There! I ain't thought o' that for thirty years, I don't believe. There never was a single mite o' harm in Homer that I could see."