The Last Rose of Summer

by Rupert Hughes

  CHAPTER VII

  The next morning the Bazar was open at the regular hour. Shoppers openat the regular hour. Shoppers came as numerously as before. Peoplewere as eager as ever to enhance their charms or disguise their flaws.In a few days Asaph Shillaber was again in his office. He wore blackalways, and a black tie, and he moved about with mourning in his manner.

  A month later his cravat was brown, not black, and the next week it wasred. He was taking more care of his costume. He talked more with thewomen customers, especially the young women, and he did not keep his eyeanxiously on the front door. He rubbed his hands once more,recommending his goods.

  In a few months younger girls were behind many of the counters. Deborahfelt that youth was invading and replacing. She wondered how soon herturn would come. It would be a sad day, for she loved the work.

  But she took some reassurance from the praises of Asaph. He paused nowand then to compliment her on a sale or her progress. He led up to hersome of his most particular customers and introduced her with aflourish. Sometimes he paused as he went down the aisle, and turned backto stare at her. She knew that she had blushed, because her face washot, and once Mrs. Crankshaw, who was trying to match a sample,whispered to her:

  "Say, Deborah, what kind of rouge do you use? It gives you the nicestcolor, and it looks like real."

  When Deborah denied that she painted, the undertaker's wife was angry.She thought Deborah was trying to copyright her complexion. Deborah'scheeks tactfully turned pale again, now that Asaph had taken his strangeeyes from her, and now the woman said:

  "You're right; it's your own. It comes and goes! Look, now it's comingback again."

  And so was Asaph. When Mrs. Crankshaw had moved off Asaph hung aboutawkwardly. Finally he put the backs of his knuckles on the counter andleaned across to murmur:

  "Say, Debby, I was telling Jim Crawford yesterday that you made moresales than any other clerk in the shop this last month."

  "Oh, really, did I?" Deborah gasped, her eyes snapping like electricsparks. They seemed to jolt Asaph; he fell back a little. Then heleaned closer.

  "Crawford said he'd like to have you in his store. I told him you werea fixture here. Don't you leave me, Debby. You won't, will you?"

  "Why, Asaph!" she cried.

  "Leastways, you'll let me know any offer you get before you take it.You can promise me that, can't you?"

  "Of course I will, but- Well, I never!"

  This last was true. She never had known till now that superlativerapture of a woman, to have one man trying to take her away fromanother. Debby had not known it even as a little girl, for if two boysclaimed the same dance-which had happened rarely enough-they did notwrangle and fight, but each yielded to the other with a courtesy thatwas odious.

  On her way home Deborah began to doubt the possibility of it all. Asaphhad been talking about somebody else, or he had been joking-he was sucha terrible fellow to cook up things and fool people! Or else JimCrawford was just making fun of Asaph. She would not tell her motherthis news.

  That night, as she was washing the dishes after her late supper, thedoor-bell burred.

  "You go, mother, will you? My hands are all suds."

  Mrs. Larrabee hobbled slowly to the hall door, but came back with aburst of unsuspected speed. She was pale with fright.

  "It's a man!" she whispered.

  "A man! Who could it be?" Debby gasped.

  "One of those daylight burglars, prob'ly. What 'll we do?"

  "We could run out the back door while he's at the front."

  "He might have a confederut waiting to grab us there."

  "That's so!"

  What possible motive a burglar could have for grabbing these two women,what possible value they would have for him, they did not inquire. ButDebby, in the new executive habit of her mind, grew bold enough to takeat least a peek at the stranger.

  The bell continued to ring while she tiptoed into the parlor and liftedthe shade slightly aside. She speedily recognized a familiar suit.

  "It's old Jim Crawford," she said.

  There was a panic of another sort now, getting Debby's hands dry, hersleeves down, her apron off, her hair puffed, the lamp in the parlorlighted. Old Jim Crawford was some minutes older before he wasadmitted.

  It was the first male caller Deborah had had since her mother couldremember. The old lady received him with a flourish that would havebefitted a king. That he was a widower and, for Carthage, wealthy mayhave had something to do with it. A fantastic hope that at lastsomebody had come to propose to Deborah excited her mother so that shetook herself out of the way as soon as the weather had been decentlydiscussed.

  Mr. Crawford made a long and ponderous effort at small talk and cameround to his errand with the subtlety of an ocean liner warping into itsslip. At length he mumbled that if Miss Debby ever got tired ofShillaber's there was a chance he might make a place for her in his ownstore. O' course, times was dull, and he had more help 'n he'd any callfor, but he was a man who believed in bein' neighborly to old friends,and, knowin' her father and all-

  It was such a luxury to Deborah to be sought after, even with thishippopotamine stealth, that she rather prolonged the suspense and teasedCrawford to an offer, and to an increase in that before she told himthat she would have to "think it over."

  He lingered on the porch steps to offer Deborah "anything withinreason," but she still told him she would think it over. When shethought it over she felt that it would be base ingratitude to desertAsaph Shillaber, who had saved her from starvation by taking her intohis beautiful shop. No bribe should decoy her thence so long as hewanted her.

  She did not even tell Asaph about it the next day. A week later heasked her if Crawford had spoken to her. She said that he had mentionedthe subject, but that, of course, she had refused to consider leavingthe man who had done everything in the world for her.

  This shy announcement seemed to exert an immense effect on Asaph. Hethanked her as if she had saved his life. And he stared at her more thanever.

  A few evenings later there was another ring at the Larrabee bell. Thistime Mrs. Larrabee showed no alarm except that she might be late to thedoor. It was Asaph! He was as sheepish as a boy. He said that it waskind of lonesome over to his house and, seeing their light, he kind ofthought he'd drop round and be a little neighborly. Everybody wasgrowing more neighborly nowadays.

  Once more Mrs. Larrabee vanished. As she sat in the dining-room,pretending to knit, she thought how good it was to have a man in thehouse. The rumble of a deep voice was so comfortable that she fellasleep long before Asaph could bring himself to going home.

  He had previously sought diversion in the society of some of the veryyoung and very pretty salesgirls in his store, but he found that, forall their graces, their prattle bored him. They talked all aboutthemselves or their friends. Debby talked to Asaph about Asaph. He andshe had been children together-they were of the same generation; she wasa sensible woman, and she had learned much at the counter-school. Hegot to dropping round right often.

  That long-silent door bell became a thing to listen for of evenings.Jim Crawford dropped round now and then; the elderly floor-walker atShillaber's dropped round one night and talked styles and fabrics andgossip in a cackling voice. When he had left, the matchmaker's instinctled Mrs. Larrabee to warn Debby not to waste her time on him. "Two oldmaids talkin' at once is more'n I can stand."

  Three times that year Newt Meldrum was in town and called on Deborah.She asked him to supper once, and he simply raved over the salt-risingbiscuits and the peach-pusserves. After supper he asked if he mightsmoke. That was the last word in masculine possession. If frankincenseand myrrh had been shaken about the room Debby and Mrs. Larrabee couldnot have cherished them as they did the odor of tobacco in the curtainsnext day. Mrs. Larrabee cried a little. Her husband had smoked.

  Deborah was only now passing through the stages the average womantravels i
n her teens and early twenties, Deborah was having callers.Sometimes two men came at once and tried to freeze each other out. Andfinally she had a proposal!-from Asaph!-from Josie's and Birdaline'sAsaph! They had left him alone with Debby once too often.