"Yes, fry myself on the durned old thing." Additional complications struck the youth. "What am I goin' to wear when I git ash.o.r.e. The cops will git me sure, if I run around town naked."

At last, a compromise was reached. Sim, simply attired in trousers, disappeared towards the sh.o.r.e. Then followed a long period of silence in which the babies slept in comfort and only the sobbing mothers were unhappy.

Voices sounded on the sh.o.r.e. Sim had carried the news of shipwreck to waiting husbands and succor drew near. They built a fire and shouted words of encouragement. A search was made for boats; but they were few in South Ridgefield and well protected from marauders. Even the only seaworthy skiff of Mr. Quince's fleet was securely locked, and the key in his pocket, as Sim reminded him from the sh.o.r.e.

The night wore on. Great activity with little result took place about the fire. Policemen, firemen and newspapermen viewed the scene with interest. Such prominent men as Obadiah Dale and Hezekiah Wilkins exchanged ideas over the fire with factory employees and laborers.

It was Pat Murphy, a teamster, who solved the problem of rescue. As the eastern sky was lighted by the first streaks of the coming day, a mule team and a wagon in a few trips landed the pa.s.sengers of the _Nancy Jane_.

In accordance with the traditions of the sea, Mr. Quince stayed by his ship. The last load departed leaving him drying himself before the furnace. The reflection of the fire lighted up the deep lines of his face, its pensive look and the rhythmic movement of the powerful jaws, as the faithful mariner kept vigil upon the waters.

But, as the rays of the rising sun turned the eastern horizon into gold, an early observer might have perceived Mr. Quince arise, stretch himself, and solace his palate with chewing tobacco. The same beholder might then have witnessed the riverman step overboard and wade slowly towards the sh.o.r.e, bearing his shoes, wrapped in his trousers, before him, while the morning breeze flapped the tails of his old flannel shirt about his thin legs.

CHAPTER XV

A MAN IN DISGRACE

"Virginia, come here!" roared Obadiah on the morning after the trip up the river.

There was a rough commanding note in his voice which made the girl spring to her feet, and, shaken by dread of impending calamity, with throbbing heart and startled eyes, hurry down stairs to where he awaited her in the living room.

He stood before the great mantel. The morning paper was stretched between his hands, his nervous fingers crushing its edges. His face was flushed with pa.s.sion and his eyes, as they met those of his daughter, were cruel in their anger. "Look here! See what you have done," he cried, in a voice which shook with the intenseness of his emotion. In his haste he tore a corner from the paper as he thrust it towards the trembling girl.

She accepted the sheet as if she were in a dream. Never had he spoken so to her. Never had she seen him in such a rage. Fear of him--of the primitive masculinity of the man--clutched at her heart. Everything seemed unreal. It was as if she were in the midst of a horrible nightmare from which she might, if she would, release herself. She sank into a chair, the paper across her knees. As her eyes dropped, the print danced queerly for a moment before her vision cleared. There, she read in staring headlines, "The Wreck of the _Nancy Jane_."

The comical side of the vicissitudes of the _Nancy Jane_, with its pa.s.senger list of mothers and babies had so impressed the reporter that he had prepared his story in a humorous vein. Unfortunately, he had elected to weave his story about Obadiah Dale, the manufacturer, and his daughter, instead of about Mrs. Henderson or any humble individual.

The story was funny. The way the scribbler linked the generosity of Obadiah towards the babies, the navigation of the Lame Moose by the _Nancy Jane_, and Elgin's Grove, was a scream to those who knew the selfishness of the mill owner, the shallow depth and harmlessness of the Lame Moose and the lurid history of the grove. The editor-owner of the paper had little use for Obadiah and in running this article--good natured and harmless on its face--he had hit the manufacturer in a vulnerable spot. Obadiah could not stand ridicule.

While Virginia read, the wide toed shoes of her father resounded, as he tramped excitedly up and down the room. She finished the article and looked up at him. Little chills of fright thrilled up and down her spine, and yet she found no reason for it in the column she had been reading.

That struck her as rather silly.

As she dropped the paper, Obadiah glowered down at her. "Now," he yelled, in his high voice, "I hope that you are satisfied. You have made me the laughing stock of this town--made a perfect a.s.s out of me." He shook a long forefinger at her. "I've stood enough of your foolishness and it's got to stop." The old man was nearly frantic with anger as he scowled at her, a pale, crushed little thing in the big arm chair. "I'm tired of it," he raged. "You make me ridiculous by your failure to appreciate that there is such a thing as personal dignity. You've mixed me in the most nonsensical affairs. Think of it!

Parading down the main street of this town behind a minstrel band with a load of negroes!" He almost gnashed his teeth at the thought.

"You got up that fool band concert at the Old Ladies' Home. It was a farce with the fire department dashing up in the middle of it. Now,"

he bellowed, "you had to go and get mixed in this mess on the river."

Obadiah had to pause in the catalogue of his grievances to catch his breath. His temper was choking him. "I've always tried to protect my reputation," he went on. "I've minded my business and let other people attend to theirs. But you have to drag me into this. My name is a hiss and a byword in this town today. I'll never hear the last of it. You are to blame for it all." Self-pity brought Obadiah to the verge of tears.

But immediately a returning wave of anger engulfed his sorrow. "You are extravagant--wickedly so. You force me to pay out large sums of money. You've made me buy ice cream for the old ladies, the veterans, the firemen and all the mothers and babies, too.--Pretty nearly the whole town has been entertained at my expense," he groaned. "Worst of all," he continued with renewed temper, "were your fool admissions and asinine agreement which forced me to endow that room at the hospital.

"It's time to call a halt," he raved. "I'll stand it no longer. It must stop." He paused before the shrinking girl and shook his fist in the air. "Hereafter you will mind your own business and not interfere in the troubles of others. You'll stay at home where you belong and quit gadding about."

Stunned by his vehemence and crushed by his words, the forlorn little figure raised pleading eyes to him as he strode out of the room.

"Daddy," she cried after him, but he took no notice of it.

In her own room, tears brought relief to Virginia, and in time she was able to review her father's behavior with a degree of calmness. She trembled anew as she remembered his anger. Then, with a start, she awakened to the fact that he had forbidden her to continue to do those things which she had done in the spirit of her mother's message. Her mind traveled over his actions in the past and reconsidered remarks that he had made. Suddenly she realized that he had never been in sympathy with her, that he had frankly told her so, and that she had refused to believe him. With sickening alarm, she awakened to the conflict between the ideals of her father and her mother. She sat upon the bed, a dejected heap of sorrow, and gazed at the wall with dry eyes, frightened and unseeing. What must she do? That was the question. It smothered her acute grief at his angry words. Worshiping the mother whom she had never known with all the hunger of a lonely heart, it was a solemn and tragic decision which she forced upon herself. The gravity of it urged her to physical action. She could not bear to lie there, she must move about.

It was a sad eyed girl who went downstairs. From Serena she learned that her father had telephoned that he would not be home for lunch.

The old negress used all of her arts to persuade her mistress to eat something. "Ain' yo'all gwine pick at dis yere salad an' tast'tes some o' de custard ah fix special fo' ma honey chil'?" she begged.

To comfort Virginia she belittled the episode of the morning. "You'

Daddy done git mad fo' er minute caze dat ole boat stick in de mud.

He gwine fo'git it quick. He ain' tek no 'count o' de babies wot 'joy deyse'fs er eatin' an' er sleepin'."

The girl ate sparingly as Serena forced food upon her.

Suddenly the old servant reached out and patted her mistress gently upon the shoulder, her black face filled with a great tenderness as she said, "You' Mammy done say, ef er pusson try to do right, dey ain' nothin'

else wot mek no diffe'nce. Dat's jes wot Miss Elinor she say.

"Yas'm, she done say dat right befo' ma eyes," explained Serena, and then she hastened away to answer the door bell, leaving Virginia gazing dreamily out of a window, wonderfully comforted.

The shrill voice of a woman uplifted in excitement sounded in the hall.

"We must see some one. We have come a long distance and Mr. Dale is not at his office."

"Dey ain' n.o.body heah fo' yo'all to talk no business to. You might jes as well go 'long," Serena answered with firmness.

"Mr. Dale has a daughter," the voice suggested.

"She ain' gwine be 'sturbed. She jes er chil' an' ain' know nothin' a tall 'bout her pappy's business. Bettah gwan away f'om heah."

"What is it, Serena?" asked Virginia, hurrying into the hall.

"Jes some pussons dat ain' know whar dey 'long," snarled the old negress, beginning to vibrate under the stress of anger as she glared at three highly indignant women waiting without.

Virginia felt that it was necessary to interfere in the tense situation.

"I am Miss Dale. I shall be glad to talk to you if you wish to come in," she told the strangers, to Serena's disgust.

The hostility of these visitors melted in a degree at this display of hospitality; but their manner was cool as they followed the girl into the living room.

"We are a committee from the Women's Civic Club of Amity, a town situated ten miles below here on the river," explained Mrs. Duncan, a stern faced female, after they had introduced themselves. "We ask that you inform your father of our call."

"I shall be glad to do that," Virginia promised. "Am I to explain the purpose of your visit to him?"

Mrs. Duncan gazed questioningly at the girl. "We ask you to do that, and if you have a heart we hope that you will use your influence in our behalf. You may tell him--" her eyes blazed--"that we come on the part of the women of Amity to protest against his killing us by putting poison in our drinking water."

"What?" gasped an astonished Virginia.

"We don't propose to sit quiet and allow Obadiah Dale to murder our children."

"I don't understand."

The very evident amazement and horror of the mill owner's daughter at her words caused Mrs. Duncan to expand upon them in the cause of clearness. "Amity gets its water supply from the Lame Moose River,"

she explained. "The waste from your father's mill has made the water unfit for human consumption. It has been getting worse for years and now we have much sickness, especially among children, which the doctors trace to this cause."

"Why, that is terrible. I am sure that my father knows nothing about it," cried Virginia with great earnestness.

Mrs. Duncan gave an audible sniff of disbelief. "Oh, I think that he does. We tried to get him to do something before we took the matter up with the State Board of Health, but he wouldn't. They have taken samples of the water and have decided that the waste makes it unfit for the use of human beings. So that is settled."