Hezekiah continued with increased emphasis. "a.s.suming this to be true, it appears that you were entirely or in part responsible for the accident and the consequent damage to Mr. Dale's car and your own person."

"Not on your life," cried Joe with great excitement. "I have a witness who says the Dale car was to blame for the accident and that it was exceeding the speed limit."

"Surely." Mr. Wilkins chuckled. "There are always witnesses for both sides. My gracious, if this were not true how could we have law suits?

It's the reputation of a witness for truth and veracity which counts in court, my boy."

"I know it."

"Admitting your witness," Hezekiah resumed with great cheerfulness, "the speed of your own machine is certain to be the subject of controversy. My client has no desire to enter into this. He waives it." Hezekiah likewise waved his gla.s.ses and then went on speaking much more rapidly as one hurrying to be rid of a task in which he has no heart. "My client not only waives your personal responsibility and the material damage suffered by him, but authorizes me, in his behalf, to tender you this check in the sum of twenty-five dollars to a.s.sist in the defrayment of your hospital expenses."

Joe Curtis's eyes flashed with temper. "Obadiah Dale and his money can go straight to the devil," he roared, in a voice which startled the entire ward and made the lawyer jump.

"Calm yourself, Sir," urged Hezekiah. "Undue excitement is injudicious in your physical condition. Bless my soul, there may be grounds for differences over the sum tendered, but I can see no reason for intense anger."

Down the aisle came Miss Knight, stern of face. "Say," she demanded, "do you think that this is a livery stable, Joe? If you do, you had better wake up. That rough stuff doesn't go around here. Do you get me?"

He gave her a most sheepish glance. "Sister," he began.

The nurse's eyes flashed. "Must I speak to you again about that 'sister' habit. I won't stand for it." She explained to the lawyer, "I not only have to nurse these men but I have to teach them manners, too."

Before her righteous indignation, a great meekness descended upon Joe.

"I am sorry, Miss Knight. I didn't mean to start a rough house, only I--got mad." He smiled at her.

She surrendered to his humility and that smile. She adjusted his pillow and brushed the hair back from his eyes with her hand. "You are a bad boy, Joe. I am going to forgive you for this, but the next time you start anything, you will be punished." She shook a threatening finger at him. "Do you understand?"

"Yes'm," he answered in the tone and manner of a naughty small boy.

He rolled his head towards the lawyer. "I owe you an apology for losing my temper."

"Never mind, my boy," said Hezekiah, who had viewed the calming of the storm with relief. "A gale clears the atmosphere. Plain speaking begets clear understanding." Resuming his gla.s.ses, the lawyer regarded the youth with great friendliness, and, after a moment, deemed it safe to go on. "You expressed yourself so--ah--" (he sought for an inoffensive term) "with such certainty of feeling that I a.s.sume that you have determined upon some measure of adjustment yourself."

Again Joe Curtis's eyes flashed. "There can be no adjustment between Obadiah Dale and me," he answered coldly.

"No?" Hezekiah's regret had the ring of sincerity. "In a friendly spirit towards you, my boy," he urged, "I would advise against the development of an hostile feeling towards Mr. Dale. He had no more to do with that accident than the man in the moon."

"I know it," admitted Joe.

"The inst.i.tution of an action at law is an expensive proceeding. As a lawyer I warn you that the outcome would be extremely uncertain. Who can tell what a jury will do?" Hezekiah shook his head solemnly, thereby registering his grave doubts of the action of twelve men good and true.

"Inst.i.tute an action," repeated Joe, his eyes dancing with mischief.

"Say, Uncle, when I sue that old skate, it sure is going to be some case."

Hezekiah waxed indignant. This may have been due either to Joe's intimation of relationship to himself or to the opprobrious designation of his client as an old skate. "Don't mislead yourself," he exclaimed peevishly. "You will be thrown out of court."

Joe ruffled visibly. "Who is going to throw me out of court?" he demanded. "Obadiah Dale?" Another idea struck him. He gave the lawyer a most threatening and pugnacious glance. "Maybe you think _you_ can do it?"

Hezekiah's amazement at the suspicion that either he or his client contemplated physical violence upon this young giant, swathed in bandages, was extreme. "Gorry diamonds, you must be crazy," he gasped, and then the other's point of view came to him. He burst into a big booming peal of honest amus.e.m.e.nt, an infectious laugh which brought instant peace. "My friend," he chuckled, "you misunderstand me. I attempted to suggest that in view of the evidence which I can produce, a court would refuse to consider your claim."

"Not with the witness I have," Joe insisted.

"Well, what about this wonderful witness of yours?" chuckled Hezekiah, comfortable in the a.s.surance of holding the master hand.

"My witness" (the calmness of his voice did not quite conceal a note of exultation in it) "is Virginia Dale."

CHAPTER VIII

ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY

In the Dale home, dinner was served in the middle of the day on Sunday, and Serena caused the meal to partake of the nature of a banquet.

Abstemious in week day luncheons, Obadiah succ.u.mbed to the flesh pots on the seventh day and thereafter relapsed into slumber during digestion even as a boa-constrictor.

He was sleeping off his Sunday engorgement in a porch chair. His head drooped awkwardly and he had slumped into his best clothes, while from time to time he choked and coughed and made weird noises. All about him lay the peace of a summer Sabbath broken only by the low hum of the bees gathering sweetness from the blooming honeysuckle vine near by. Only the energetic resisted the combined attacks of plenteousness and the somnolent afternoon.

Virginia had not surrendered to the soporific tendencies of the hour.

She had conversed with her father until made aware that, mentally speaking, he was no longer with her. Such knowledge is discouraging even to the most enthusiastic of female dialogists, and so, as the minutes pa.s.sed, her words lost force and her sentences fire. Compelled to seek other fields of interest, the girl strolled aimlessly about the lawn until she came to the gate. The street looked cool and inviting beneath its arching elms and she moved down it slowly. She had almost reached the corner when a woman's voice sounded from an awning shaded porch, "Virginia, come here. Don't you pa.s.s my house without stopping." It was Mrs. Henderson.

"Yes, Hennie, I'm coming. I was sure that you were taking a nap."

The girl turned up a walk, bordered with blooming rose bushes, towards an old-fashioned house. "You are as busy as usual, I suppose?" she continued, after she had been affectionately greeted by her hostess.

Mrs. Henderson nodded. No other woman in South Ridgefield gave as much of her time and, proportionately, of her wealth to help others as did this strangely const.i.tuted widow. Hers was a frank nature, given to the expression of its views without regard to time or place. She had the faculty of so phrasing her remarks that they cut their victim cruelly and convulsed her hearers. So, respected for her innate goodness, and feared for her sharp tongue, Mrs. Henderson had many acquaintances but few friends. She was judged in the light of a magazine of high explosives, dangerous to those near, but likely to blow up if left without attention. Many were her friends because they were afraid not to be, but there were those who appreciated her character. Strangely, these were they who had waged mighty battles with her, to emerge from strife her devoted adherents. Having felt her sting, they dubbed her harmless as a dove, delighting in her intimate companionship. Such a one had been Virginia's mother.

But Obadiah had no place in this category. Soon after the death of his wife, Mrs. Henderson had discovered that a girl who worked in his mill was sick and in dire want. She asked him to a.s.sist the sufferer, but, to her surprise, the mill owner refused. Thereupon, Mrs. Henderson, without mincing words, expressed her opinion of him. Also, she repeated her remarks to a friend.

Obadiah's legs were thin, and under stress of excitement he pitched his voice high. When it became known that Mrs. Henderson had likened the mill owner, to his face, to a mosquito sucking blood from his employees, the whole town laughed. The tale spread to his mill, during a time of labor unrest, and a cartoon portraying the manufacturer as a mosquito hovering about emaciated workers was circulated.

A strike followed in which the employees were successful and Obadiah never forgave Mrs. Henderson for giving a weapon to his opponents.

Yet, strangely enough, he had never attempted to interfere with her friendship for his daughter. Possibly, knowing the widow, he feared that she would openly defy him, and, abetted by Serena, carry the war into his own house, to the greater enjoyment of his fellow townsmen.

As Mrs. Henderson welcomed Virginia, she was thinking of other things than Obadiah. She was filled with amus.e.m.e.nt and gave vent to laughter.

"Dearie, how on earth did you get mixed up with that minstrel parade? I never dreamed that my little girl would startle this town." Again the widow gave way to merriment. She was thinking of a group of women she had caught discussing with great unkindness the outcome of the girl's efforts to make the pickaninnies happy. Hennie's championship of her favorite had been unusually vigorous, and the endeavors of the critics to reverse themselves had resembled a stampede.

"We had nothing to do with the parade," Virginia told her. "We followed it so that the orphans might enjoy the music. As we had nearly frightened them out of their wits, I took them for a ride to make up."

"I heard how you came to take the orphans for a ride. I could understand that, but the minstrel part puzzled me," Mrs. Henderson's amus.e.m.e.nt faded into seriousness. "That ride idea is a splendid one. It would add so much to the happiness of those children." She continued, "I have been on the Board of that Home for years. There are so many things to be done over there and so little to do with. No one is particularly interested in the place. We must find some way, though, to arrange rides for those orphans now that you have started things going."

Virginia was instantly fired with great enthusiasm. "I'll take them out each week, myself," she promised.

Mrs. Henderson smiled. "We can't allow you to continue to excite too much interest in this town."

The girl disregarded the objection. "But I started it, Hennie."

"That is very true, but you can't expect your father to let you use his fine car for those children. Anyway, it is not necessary to bother about that, because it is entirely too small. We need a truck. Something in which movable seats can be placed."

"Like those at the mill? Why not ask Daddy for one of them?" suggested Virginia.