"Five years ago, he started to put me out of business by buying up the small mills and pooling them against me. To protect myself, I bought negotiable paper, covering mills in this locality wherever I could get it. Where I could get control of the mills, I did it. They were my compet.i.tors and would have taken my business or combined against me gladly," Obadiah's eyes rested anxiously upon the face of his daughter as he concluded, "I was fighting Dalton, a more powerful man than myself, not widows and orphans."

Virginia's face had softened but there was yet a question in her manner.

"I am an old man," Obadiah continued. "I find that my ideas are changing and my view of life shifting. I have believed that the acc.u.mulation of wealth was everything. I know now that the happy man must acc.u.mulate other things or he will find himself deserted and miserable with his gold. In my life I have been guilty of many wrongs.

I would right those wrongs if I could. Will you forgive me, Mrs.

Curtis, for unknowingly harming you and yours?"

"No," she cried. "You explain your reasons for loosening the forces which injured me; but there is no regret in your heart. You'd do the same thing tomorrow."

He turned to his daughter. "At least, you understand me, Virginia?"

"I know what you have done, Daddy; but Mrs. Curtis has suffered, and she alone can wipe the slate clean." The girl's face had saddened again, and as she spoke it was as if she had forgotten that there were others in the room. "Mother wouldn't have wanted you to make all of this unhappiness. You brought sorrow and tears where she would have wanted you to carry laughter and joy. I can't judge you fairly. How I have longed for you during the past weeks and how I have wanted to go home. Unless Mrs. Curtis can forgive you, Daddy, you haven't found mother's way to settle this matter." She gave a queer strained little cry. "I can never go home with you, Daddy, until you learn to follow her way," she sobbed, and dropped into a chair.

At the girl's words, Mrs. Curtis had raised her eyes, and as she listened her face softened. As Virginia sank into the chair, the woman was beside her, petting and soothing her.

It seemed as if his daughter's words had taken the very heart out of Obadiah. It was a haggard old man bowed low with trouble who watched her, the greatness of his longing written plain upon his lined countenance.

Suddenly Mrs. Curtis moved towards him. "Obadiah Dale"--she spoke so gently that it was hard to recognize her as the one who had so recently flung the accusations at him--"a moment ago I told you that I could not forgive you. I was wrong. Your daughter told you that it would have been her mother's way to have brought laughter and joy to me instead of sorrow and tears. That which your daughter has done for my son, Charles Augustus, fills my heart with joy and brings laughter to my lips. She has followed her mother's way. I can't believe that any man altogether bad could be the father of such a daughter." She held out her hand to him.

"I forgive you."

"When I was at the office of the Board of Health, yesterday, Virginia,"

Joe announced, as one discussing a topic of great personal interest, "I was told that your father had agreed to keep the mill waste out of the river."

There was a scream of delight, and a teary Virginia launched herself into her father's arms, giving happy cries of endearment. In a moment she faced Mrs. Curtis, and cried, "He's perfectly grand. He'll do anything to right your wrongs."

Mrs. Curtis smiled. "I think that we had better let your father forget my troubles for a moment," she urged.

"Land sakes," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt Kate in a loud whisper, "I'm glad to see that woman laugh. I was afraid that she loved her troubles so much she wouldn't give them up."

"Hush, mother, she'll hear you," expostulated Helen.

Thus repressed, Aunt Kate delivered a moral lesson to Charles Augustus in a voice heard all over the room. "It is easier to receive thanks for doing nice things, Charles, than to have to beg forgiveness for doing mean ones."

Fortunately Obadiah, diligently engaged at that moment in erasing the past, was deaf to his sister's remarks. He told Mrs. Curtis, "I'll re-open the Brenton mill as soon as I can have it overhauled. I can use it on some contracts I have. The profits shall be yours. When you can repay the amount of the notes from them, I'll transfer the mill back to you. If you wish, I'll buy it from you or rent it until your son is capable of a.s.suming charge of it."

He faced Joe and said, "I understand that you'll graduate from college this June. There'll be a position waiting for you in my mill."

"In South Ridgefield?" Virginia inquired anxiously.

Obadiah gave his daughter a keen glance and then stared at Joe appraisingly before he answered. "Yes, in South Ridgefield, until his mother wants him to take charge of her own business. By that time, if he has brains and follows my plans for him, he should be the finest young mill executive in this part of the country."

The youthful Charles Augustus came under the mill owner's eye. "I'll see that every expense connected with the operation upon this young man is paid. We don't want outsiders in on that."

He perceived Helen. "Well, well, how you have grown," he declared in surprise. "You want to be a teacher. I'll send you to college."

"Goodness knows, Obadiah," protested Aunt Kate, "a body would think it was Christmas." She viewed him doubtfully. "I am afraid that you were always inclined to be a little extravagant."

From the moment that his daughter embraced him, happiness had filled the soul of the mill owner. The difficulties of the past few days were forgotten. He beamed at his sister, generosity oozing from every pore.

"Your house needs painting, Kate. I'll have it done. I'll sell that plug of a horse you have and buy you one that is broken or get you an automobile."

"Stop right there, Obadiah," she commanded. "I have managed my affairs for years without your help. When you talk about selling a horse like Archimedes, I doubt your judgment. Look there!" She pointed proudly through the window. "Who'd care to own a finer horse than that?"

Even as the a.s.sembled ones followed Aunt Kate's finger, Archimedes, wearied by the prolonged call, gathered his feet beneath him and with a care for the shafts evidencing practice, sank to the ground. From this position of comfort, usually reserved by most well bred horses for the privacy of the box stall, Archimedes viewed his surroundings apparently with great complacency.

CHAPTER XXII

n.o.bODY HOME, MR. DEVIL

The October night was clear, with a bite in the air which foretold sharp frosts and winter's snows. There was no wind, only a great silence, as if all nature had tucked itself away for a long night's rest.

On the eastern horizon, there was a dull glow as if it were the reflections of a great conflagration. The light of it brightened, and slowly over the edge of things arose a golden streak, the curved top of the moon. In stately dignity, it ascended towards the zenith, its gold changing to silver and its beams bathing the world in a flood of gentle light. Over field and forest and plain the soft veil advanced, spreading its magic silvery sheen until all it touched became a mysterious fairyland.

In this delicate mantle were enfolded the huts of the poor and the palaces of the rich, the lonely dwelling and the ma.s.sed houses of great cities. The thriving munic.i.p.ality of South Ridgefield was lighted by this mild illumination which painted with a gleaming brush the residence of Mrs. Henderson, and even tinged the bald head of that learned lawyer, Hezekiah Wilkins, who, seated upon the porch railing, gazed heavenward and told the widow, "It's a beautiful moon, Mary. I have always admired the moon. It's the friend of youth. Since the beginning of time it has been the one welcome third party at sentimental trysts. If the moon were a gossip what stories it could tell. What vows have been uttered in its presence and signed and sealed--"

"And broken, Hezekiah?" suggested Hennie.

"What if the moon should turn tattletale, Mary?"

"Don't worry. It's blind or it would blush red with shame for the fickleness of men," Mrs. Henderson told him and then went on, "Forget the moon and tell me what you did for Virginia that worked this miracle?"

He chuckled. "It was so easy. I told Obadiah that he made me think of a fat hog. As usual he displayed--ahem--confidence in my judgment."

She leaned towards him, her face filled with delight. "Hezekiah Wilkins," she whispered excitedly, "I could hug you for those words."

"I've been waiting a good many years for you to do that, Mary."

She dropped her head. "It's the moon, Hezekiah," she warned him. "I forgot how to embrace any one years ago."

In the mysterious light, it seemed to him that a smile played about her mouth. His arm slipped about her waist. He tipped her chin gently and looked down into the face which for so long had meant to him the one woman. "Is it true, Mary? You'll marry me?"

A stray cloud pa.s.sed in front of the moon, and when it pa.s.sed, the beams lighted the porch of Aunt Kate's house at Old Rock.

The door opened and Obadiah came out, while his sister drew a shawl closer to her shoulders and waited in the doorway. "It's a beautiful night," she said, "a perfect Fall night."

"It's chilly--it's really cold," he objected, shrugging his shoulders. He walked to the end of the porch and looked towards the apple tree where the hammock swung in lonesomeness. "Where is Virginia?"

he asked.

"She went walking with Joe."

"She'll freeze," he worried.

Humor glinted in Aunt Kate's eyes. "Girls take moonlight walks on the coldest winter nights and I never heard of one freezing, Obadiah. Your blood is thin. Come in and I'll build a fire of chips for you."

"No," protested Obadiah, "I'll build one for you."