"'Yes, ma'am,' says Kenelm. 'I was cal'latin' to go home and cook somethin' for dinner.'

"'Well, there, now!' says Abbie. 'I wonder why I didn't think of it afore! Why don't you come right in and have dinner with me? It's ALL ready and there's plenty for two. DO come, Mr. Parker, to please ME!'

"'Course Kenelm said he couldn't, and, likewise, of course, he did.

'Twas a smashin' dinner--chicken and mashed potatoes and mince pie, and the land knows what. He ate till he was full clear to the hatches, and it seemed to him that nothin' ever tasted quite so good. The widow smiled and purred and colored up and said it seemed SO good to have a man at the table; seemed like the old days when Dan'l--meanin' the late lamented--was on deck, and so forth.

"Then, when the eatin' was over, she says, 'I was expectin' my cousin Benjamin down for a week or so, but he can't come. He's a great smoker, and I bought these cigars for him. You might as well use them afore they dry up.'

"Afore Kenelm could stop her she rummaged a handful of cigars out of the table drawer in the settin'-room.

"'There!' she says. 'Light right up and be comfortable. It'll seem just like old times. Dan'l was such a 'smoker! Oh, my!' and she gave a little squeal; 'I forgot you've stopped smokin'.'

"Well, there was the cigars, lookin' as temptin' as a squid to a codfish; and there was Kenelm hankerin' for 'em so his fingers twitched; and there was Abbie lookin' dreadful disapp'inted, but tryin' to make believe she wasn't. You don't need a spygla.s.s to see what happened.

"'I'd like to,' says Kenelm, pickin' up one of the cigars. 'I'd like to mighty well, but'--here he bites off the end--''twouldn't hardly do, now would it? You see--'

"'I see,' says Abbie, scratchin' a match; 'but WE'LL never tell. We'll have it for our secret; won't we, Mr. Parker?'

"So that's how Kenelm took his first tumble from grace. He told me all about it one day a good while afterward. He smoked three of the cigars afore he went home, and promised to come to supper the next afternoon.

"'You DO look so comfortable, Mr. Parker,' purrs Abbie, as sweet and syrupy as a mola.s.ses stopper. 'It must be SUCH a comfort to a man to smoke. I don't care WHAT the minister says, you can smoke here just as much as you want to! It must be pretty hard to live in a house where you can't enjoy yourself. I shouldn't think it would seem like home. A man like you NEEDS a good home. Why, how I do run on!'

"Oh, there ain't really nothin' the matter with the Widow Larkin--so fur's smartness is concerned, there ain't.

"And for five days more Kenelm ate his meals at Abbie's and smoked and was happy, happier'n he'd been for months.

"Meantime, Hannah and Etta was visitin' the President--that is to say, they was lookin' over the White House fence and sayin' 'My stars!' and 'Ain't it elegant!' Nights, when the sightseein' was over, what they did mostly was to gloat over how mean and jealous they'd make the untraveled common tribe at sewin' circle feel when they got back home. They could just see themselves workin' on the log-cabin quilt for the next sale, and slingin' out little reminders like, 'Land sakes! What we're talkin' about reminds me of what Etta and me saw when we was in the Congressional Libr'ry. YOU remember that, Etta?' And that would be Etta's hint to look cute and giggle and say, 'Well! I should say I DID!'

And all the rest of the circlers would smile kind of unhealthy smiles and try to look as if trips to Washington wa'n't nothin'; THEY wouldn't go if you hired 'em to. You know the game if you've ever been to sewin'

circle.

"But all this plannin' was knocked in the head by a letter that Hannah got on an afternoon about a week after she left home. It was short but there was meat in it. It said: 'If you want to keep your brother from marryin' Abbie Larkin you had better come home quick!' 'Twas signed 'A Friend.'

"Did Hannah come home? Well, didn't she! She landed at Orham the next night. And she done some thinkin' on the way, too. She kept out of the way of everybody and went straight up to the house. 'Twas dark and shut up, but the back door key was under the mat, as usual, so she got in all right. The plants hadn't been watered for two days, at least; the clock had stopped; the cat's saucer was licked dry as a contribution box, and the critter itself was underfoot every second, whoopin' for somethin'

to eat. The whole thing pretty nigh broke Hannah's heart, but she wa'n't the kind to give up while there was a shot in the locker.

"She went to the closet and found that Kenelm's Sunday hat and coat was gone. Then she locked the back door again and cut acrost the lots down to Abbie's. She crept round the back way and peeked under the curtain at the settin'-room window. There set Abbie, lookin' sweet and sugary.

Likewise, there was Kenelm, lookin' mighty comfortable, with a big cigar in his mouth and more on the table side of him. Hannah gritted her teeth, but she kept quiet.

"About ten minutes after that Chris Badger was consider'ble surprised to hear a knock at the back door of his store and to find that 'twas Hannah that had knocked.

"'Mr. Badger,' says Hannah, polite and smilin', 'I want to buy a box of the best cigars you've got.'

"'Ma'am!' says Chris, thinkin' 'twas about time to send for the constable or the doctor--one or t'other.

"'Yes,' says Hannah; 'if you please. Oh! and, Mr. Badger, please don't tell anyone I bought 'em. PLEASE don't, to oblige me.'

"So Chris trotted out the cigars--ten cents straight, they was--and said nothin' to n.o.body, which is a faculty he has when it pays to have it.

"When Kenelm came home that night he was knocked pretty nigh off his pins to find his sister waitin' for him. He commenced a long rigmarole about where he'd been, but Hannah didn't ask no questions. She said that Washington was mighty fine, but home and Kenelm was good enough for her.

Said the thoughts of him alone had been with her every minute, and she just HAD to cut the trip short. Kenelm wa'n't any too enthusiastic to hear it.

"Breakfast next mornin' was a dream. Hannah had been up since five o'clock gettin' it ready. There was everything on that table that Kenelm liked 'special. And it all tasted fine, and he ate enough for four. When 'twas over Hannah went to the closet and brought out a bundle.

"'Kenelm,' she says, 'here's somethin' I brought you that'll surprise you. I've noticed since I've been away that about everybody smokes--senators and judges, and even Smithsonian Inst.i.tute folks. And when I see how much comfort they get out of it, my conscience hurt me to think that I'd deprived my brother of what he got such a sight of pleasure from. Kenelm, you can begin smokin' again right off. Here's a box of cigars I bought on purpose for you; they're the kind the President smokes.'

"Which wa'n't a bad yarn for a church member that hadn't had any more practice than Hannah had.

"Well, Kenelm was paralyzed, but he lit up one of the cigars and found 'twas better than Abbie's brand. He asked Hannah what she thought the church folks would say, but she said she didn't care what they said; her travels had broadened her mind and she couldn't cramp herself to the ideas of a little narrow place like East Wellmouth.

"Dinner that day was a bigger meal than breakfast, and two of the cigars went fine after it. Kenelm hemmed and hawed and fin'lly said that he wouldn't be home to supper; said he'd got to go downtown and would get a bite at the Trav'lers' Rest or somewheres. It surprised him to find that Hannah didn't raise objections, but she didn't, not a one. Just smiled and said, 'All right,' and told him to have a good time. And Abbie's supper didn't seem so good to him that night, and her cigars--bein' five centers--wa'n't in it with that Washington box.

"Hannah didn't have dinner the next day until two o'clock, but 'twas worth waitin' for. Turkey was twenty-three cents a pound, but she had one, and plum puddin', too. She kept pressin' Kenelm to have a little more, so 'twas after three when they got up from the table.

"'Twas a rainy, drizzly afternoon and the stove felt mighty homey and cozy. So did the big rocker that Hannah transplanted from the parlor to the settin'-room. That chair had been a kind of sacred throne afore, and to set in it had been sort of sacrilegious, but there 'twas, and Kenelm didn't object. And those President cigars certainly filled the bill.

"About half-past five Kenelm got up and looked out of the window. The rain come spattin' against the pane and the wind whined and sounded mean. Kenelm went back to the chair again. Then he got up and took another observation. At last he goes back to the chair, stretches himself out, puts his feet against the stove, pulls at the cigar, and says he:

"'I was cal'latin' to go downtown on a bus'ness trip, same's I did last night. But I guess,' he says--'I guess I won't. It's too comfort'ble here,' says he.

"And I cal'late," said Captain Obed, in conclusion, "that afore Hannah turned in that night she gave herself three cheers. She'd gained a tack on Abbie Larkin that had put Abbie out of the race, for that time, anyhow."

"But who sent the 'friend' letter?" asked Thankful, whose thoughts had been diverted from her own troubles by hearing those of Miss Parker.

The captain laughed.

"That's a mystery, even yet," he said. "I'm pretty sure Hannah thinks 'twas Elvira Paine. Elvira lives acrost the road from Abbie Larkin and, bein' a single woman with mighty little hopes of recovery, naturally might be expected to enjoy upsettin' anybody else's chance. But, at any rate, Mrs. Barnes, the whole thing bears out what I said at the beginnin': takin' other folks' advice about your own affairs is mighty risky. I hope, if you do go ahead with your boardin'-house plan, it won't be because I called it a good one."

Thankful smiled and then sighed. "No," she said, "if I go ahead with it it'll be because I've made up my mind to, not on account of anybody else's advice. I've steered my own course for quite a long spell and I sha'n't signal for a pilot now. Well, here we are home again--or at East Wellmouth anyhow."

"So we be. Better come right to Hannah's along with me, hadn't you? You must have had enough of the Holt Waldorf-Astory by this time."

But Thankful insisted upon going to the hotel and there her new friend--for she had begun to think of him as that--left her. She informed him of her intention to remain in East Wellmouth for another day and a half and he announced his intention of seeing her again before she left.

"Just want to keep an eye on you," he said. "With all of Mrs. Holt's temptin' meals set afore you you may get gout or somethin' from overeatin'. Either that or Winnie S.'ll talk you deef. I feel a kind of responsibility, bein' as I'm liable to be your next-door neighbor if that boardin'-house does start up, and I want you to set sail with a clean bill of health. If you sight a suspicious-lookin' craft, kind of antique in build, broad in the beam and makin' heavy weather up the hills--if you sight that kind of craft beatin' down in this direction tomorrow you'll know it's me. Good day."

Thankful lay awake for hours that night, thinking, planning and replanning. More than once she decided that she had been too hasty, that her scheme involved too great a risk and that, after all, she had better abandon it. But each time she changed her mind and at last fell asleep determining not to think any more about it, but to wait until Mr. Cobb came to accept or decline the mortgage. Then she would make a final decision.

The next day pa.s.sed somehow, though it seemed to her as if it never would, and early the following forenoon came Solomon himself. The man of business was driving an elderly horse which bore a faint resemblance to its owner, being small and thin and badly in need of a hairdresser's services. If the animal had possessed whiskers and could have tugged at them Thankful was sure it would have done it.

Solomon tugged at his own whiskers almost constantly during that forenoon. He and Mrs. Barnes visited the "Captain Abner place" and Solomon inspected every inch of its exterior. For some reason or other he absolutely refused to go inside. His conversation during the inspection was, for the most part, sniffs and grunts, and it was not until it was ended and they stood together at the gate, that he spoke to the point, and then only because his companion insisted.

"Well!" said Thankful.

Mr. Cobb "weeded."

"Eh?" he said.

"That's what I say--eh? What are you goin' to do about that mortgage, Mr. Cobb?"