When he called up, Rose hadn’t any idea where he was calling from, and her heart gave a little flutter. He hadn’t forgotten all about her then. He was probably going to make some excuse, but anyway, he had remembered.
“Is that you, Rose?” His voice sounded manly and respectful. “Say, kid, I can’t keep my promise to you after all. I meant to. Honest I did! But a little something happened at the bank today and I’m leaving, see?”
“Oh! Jason! I’m sorry!” Her voice full of genuine dismay. “You—haven’t—done anything—to make them—?” Her voice trailed off fearsomely.
“No, not that, Rose! That’s the truth! I haven’t done a thing! But the poor fishes think I have, and that’s just as bad. And the worst of it is I can’t tell what I know, and so they’ve pinned it on me. Now you’ll probably hear to the contrary, but that’s the truth. You can believe it or not. I can’t blame you if you don’t”
“I believe you, Jason!” said the grave sweet voice of the girl. “I’ll always believe you!” She said it as if it were a vow.
“Thanks a lot!” said Jason struggling with a lump in his throat. “And I’ll always tell you the truth!” he answered back. “That is—” he added, “if I ever see you again! I’m beating it, kid! I’m not sure I’ll ever come back!”
“Ohh—Jason!” There were almost tears in the voice. “Please don’t do that! Please stay at home and clear things up!”
“I can’t, kid, they won’t clear up for me, ever, I guess. Not here anyway! I can’t get a square deal! And nobody cares, except my sister. Not anybody!”
“I care!” said Rose suddenly, almost unexpectedly to herself. There was a sweet dignity in her words. “I care, and I believe you!”
Jason’s voice husked with sudden tears:
“Thanks awfully, a lot, Rose!” His own voice was serious and earnest. “I’ll not forget you said that. I’ll never forget you cared and you believed me! Sometime maybe I’ll turn out to be something after all, just for that! And I’m mighty sorry I can’t keep my promise to you tonight! I meant to, I really did. You didn’t think I did, but I did! But I’ll be thinking of you tonight! I’ll be all alone and I’ll be thinking of you. And if the time ever comes when I’m fit to come back, I’ll let you know. Maybe sometime I’ll let you know anyway. I’ll think a lot about you, kid. Good-bye—Rose—!”
Rose turned away from the telephone with her eyes full of tears and went up to her room, and another girl went down on her knees beside her bed to pray for Jason.
At six o’clock the minister came home to supper. There were baked potatoes, creamed codfish, baked sweet apples, and gingerbread. As he passed the butter to Rose he looked at her speculatively.
“By the way, Rosie, didn’t you go to school with Jason Whitney?”
Rose’s face flamed suddenly and then grew white. She rose precipitately and took the bread plate to refill it, saying as she went into the kitchen, “Yes, Father.”
When Rose came back with the bread plate her hand was trembling but she managed to set the plate down without being noticed, and slipped into her seat again. Her mother was busy with the younger children and did not notice how white her face was.
“Well, he seems to be in trouble again,” said her father, as he scooped out his baked potato and put butter on it.
“Trouble?” asked Rose, trying not to seem too interested.
“Yes, they tell me he’s been dismissed from the bank. It does seem too bad for his sister’s sake at least. She is so fond of him, and so worried about him! But I’m afraid he is worthless. Or, perhaps I had better say, weak. He will go in bad company. And he’s innately an idler. How was he in school? Do you remember?”
Rose looked down at her plate thoughtfully, trying to think back, remembering painfully instances in which Jason had been disciplined.
“Why, I always thought he was a great deal misunderstood,” she said at last. “If anything wrong was done the teachers just naturally blamed it on him, and several times I happened to know Corey Watkins was really the one who did it.”
“Corey Watkins? Why, I thought he was the most exemplary boy! I always heard him spoken of in that way.”
“You would. He was slick! He’d put the other fellows up to things and then he’d look so smug! I used to wish sometimes the teacher had a chance to sit down where I did!”
“Well, that’s interesting! So you thought Jason Whitney was misunderstood. You thought he was a pretty good boy, did you?” The minister was studying his young daughter’s face interestedly.
Rose looked down at her plate thoughtfully, and then she lifted her eyes boldly.
“No, Father, he wasn’t always good. He did a lot of things, things that were against rules, you know, and all that. But he never did mean things like some of the other boys; like putting a hornet in the teacher’s desk so she would get stung on her nose; or like putting a little garter snake in her lunch basket. He did fix a hat in the window over her head once where it would fall on her head during class and make everybody laugh, and he drew a funny picture of her on the blackboard the time she fell down in a mud puddle. He got blamed for the snake, and the hornet, and for breaking up Tommy Beldon’s bicycle that Rich Howland threw over the bridge, and even for stealing the money for the teacher’s Christmas present, but they never did find out who threw the hat down on her head, nor even who drew the picture on the blackboard.”
The minister grinned appreciatively.
“Well, but didn’t they find out eventually that Jason hadn’t stolen the money, or broken the bicycle? Surely he defended himself.”
“No, he didn’t!” said Rose. “I asked him once why he didn’t tell the teacher he didn’t do it, and he just looked glum and said if they wanted to think such rotten things about him they could. He wasn’t going to tell them differently. So—I—well I went and told the teacher! But she wouldn’t believe me. She told me girls had no way of finding out those things. She said a nice girl didn’t know what boys like Jason would do, and that I mustn’t try to defend him when the whole school board had investigated and said he did it. She said people would think I had a crush on him.”
Rose’s cheeks were very red now, and her father looked at her in astonishment.
“You don’t say! I didn’t suppose you ever looked twice at the boy. You never told us anything about it.”
“I didn’t think it was anything you’d especially care about,” said Rose, suddenly realizing that she had been speaking out of the depths of her heart.
The minister studied her a moment in silence and then he said:
“Well, I’m sure I’m very glad to hear it; Jason had a very nice mother, and his sister is a rare girl. Perhaps he has been misunderstood in some directions. I know his father is a rather hard man. But it’s a pity Jason doesn’t go in better company.”
Rose gave attention to her dinner and said no more, but her father watched her thoughtfully for some minutes and decided that he would try to get to know Jason Whitney and see if his child was right in her judgements.
“Doesn’t Corey Watkins work in the bank, too?” he suddenly asked. Rose looked up startled, remembering what Jason had said over the telephone. “Why, yes!” she said with troubled wonder. Then she started to say more but thought better of it. That talk on the telephone had been something confidential. She couldn’t bring herself to mention it even to her beloved father. Not now, anyway. But she sat by the window for a long time in the darkness that night, thinking about Jason and wondering if Corey Watkins had anything to do with his dismissal from the bank.
When Jason didn’t come home to supper that night Joyce excused herself from eating, saying she had a headache, and Mrs. Whitney gave her husband, newly returned from a business trip to New York, a lecture on training his son. Joyce could hear their loud voices arguing on what should have been done in the past and what ought to be done in the future, each blaming the other for the son’s failings, the father bitterly, the wife triumphantly. It wasn’t her
fault. It was his and Joyce’s fault.
And she told him just what course he ought to pursue when Jason came home at midnight or later, probably drunk! Not that Jason had ever come home yet in that condition, though he had often brought a smell of liquor on his breath. But she was assuming that anything goes now that Jason had allowed himself to lose his job at the bank. Such a nice job! So respectable, and so in keeping with the family traditions! That was the final note of the tempest—a wail!
Then Joyce, even in her far bedroom, could hear her father at the telephone, storming at the president of the bank, denouncing him and all the Board of Trustees. Then bitterly denouncing his son, coming even to the threat of disowning him as a good-for-nothing. It was all very terrible to Joyce who had wept most of the afternoon, watching constantly out the window down the road for the brother who did not come. The little brother who had been put in her childish care! Her head was aching and she was both chilled and feverish. The rasping voice of her irritated father, the father whose nature and temper Jason had inherited, finally drove her from the house. She wandered down the old pasture out of sight of the house entirely, hovering near the edge of the wood in the shadow of the trees, sitting on a fallen log and watching the dying colors of the sunset in the west, and wishing sorrowfully that she and Jason might go home to God where Mother was and be out of it all.
She sat there until the crimson faded into purple, and the gold died out from the folds of purple and changed into thunder color, then soft pearly gray of luminous evening with a star set out to watch the shadows creep into night. And all around her the little creatures set up a symphony, crickets, and tree toads, and little stirring things, slipping away to their homes, and a far nightingale sang a sharp clear note above it all. Then an owl hooted tentatively over her head and took a preliminary curve or two above her, and it seemed that all things sad were in the sights and sounds. Night seemed to have claimed her life. Oh, God, will You not hear my prayer for Jason?
Over at the Parsons’ farm the house was dark later than usual. Joyce watched until she saw a light pierce through the darkness where their kitchen window must be, and then another in the dining room. It was not so far across the two pastures. But there was no light in the old barn that was now a garage. She had seen no car lights enter the Parsons’ driveway. Where was Rowan? Did he know what had come to Jason?
And over in the Parsons’ dining room Charles Parsons was sitting down to the table again and looking at the empty place where his son should be.
“Hasn’t Rowan got back from Bainbridge yet?” he asked with open worry in his voice.
“Not yet,” said Hannah, trying to keep her voice calm.
He was silent during the first part of the meal, trouble in his eyes.
“Jason hasn’t come home either,” he said significantly at last. “His stepmother telephoned down to the drugstore, just now while I was getting my evening paper, to know if he was there. She doesn’t hesitate to broadcast his absence.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” said Hannah quietly.
Nothing more was said until Charles finished his supper and shoved his chair back.
“I wish you’d tell Rowan I want him to wait up for me if I’m not here when he comes. This is Building Association night, you know, and I may be late.”
“You’ll be careful what you say to Rowan, Charles?”
“Yes, I’ll be careful!” And he stooped and kissed his gray-haired wife and patted her shoulder, a grave smile in his eyes as he went out.
Chapter 2
In the back room of Rowley’s place five men were eating an uninviting supper, waited upon by an ill-kempt woman with straggling gray hair and a sodden face. She was wearing men’s shoes and she shuffled noisily around the wooden floor as if driven by an unseen overseer.
Two of the men were young with hard daredevil faces. The others looked old in crime and had cruel mouths and eyes that flinched at nothing.
“Anything happened today, Nance?”
“Naw!”
“Nobody come in?”
“Cuppla parties fer gas. Nobody else, only ceptin’ Jase.”
“Jase ben here? Whad’d’ee want? He knowed we was away.”
“Didn’t want nuthin’. Jes’ come in ta make a phone call!”
Rowley dropped his knife harshly.
“Jase made a phone call here, an’ you didn’t tell me!”
“Well, I’m tellin’ ya now, ain’t I?”
Rowley frowned.
“Who’d’ee call?”
“Jes’ some gal. He was callin’ off a date.”
“Fer when?”
“Fer tanight!”
“Oh, well, then that’s okay! More cabbage, Nance, an’ be quick about it! We got a lot ta do yet. What time was Jase here?”
“I couldn’t say,” said the old woman, drawing a bored sigh. “I was takin’ a nap an’ I didn’t look at the clock.”
“Well, next time you looks at the clock, see, Nance!” threatened Rowley with a grim glance. “An’ Nance, ef anybody asks where we was tanight, y’ur ta say we come in early an’ et supper an’ went straight ta bed. An’ don’t ya say anuther thing, no matter how hard they press ya. See?”
“Jes’s’you say!” answered Nance sullenly and shuffled away to wash her dishes.
The night was dark, for the little thread of a moon that had appeared timidly not far from the single star had slipped away early, too young to stay up late, and the star too had pulled a cloud over its face.
But Joyce still sat there on her log watching up the road.
She did not see the side door of her home open, nor hear her stepmother calling:
“Joyce! Joyce! Come here! I want you!”
She was watching up the road.
Where was Jason?
At last she rose and slowly made her way across the pasture lot and through the Parsons’ meadow, not sure even yet that she was going to dare to go to the door and speak to Hannah Parsons. She longed so for some human beings to speak to who would understand her. And Hannah was gentle and kind. But then what would Hannah understand? She couldn’t tell her fears for her brother.
Nevertheless she made her way across the dewy grass, finally arriving at the pasture bars, and stood leaning against the post watching Hannah’s light in the kitchen window, when Rowan’s car drove in.
Joyce waited in the shadow until Rowan came out and started to close the garage doors. Then she called softly through the darkness:
“Rowan! Rowan!”
He dropped his hold on the door instantly and came over to her.
“Joyce? You here? What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. He knew it would be no trifle that would bring shy Joyce Whitney in search of him.
“Rowan, have you seen Jason?” she asked in a whisper. “I was hoping he had been with you. He hasn’t been home all day.” Joyce’s heart was beating so fast it almost seemed to stifle her. All her pent-up anxiety of the whole day was in her voice, and her hand stole to rest at the base of her throbbing throat. She looked up eagerly into the young man’s eyes. Her own were luminous with unshed tears even in the darkness, and suddenly Rowan let down the bars and came and stood beside her, one hand resting comfortingly on her shoulder.
“No, I have not seen him,” said Rowan gravely, and his voice was gentle as one talks to a little child. Its sympathy broke down the girl’s self-control and her lips trembled.
“They say he has lost his position in the bank,” she hurried on with her explanation, “and you know what that would mean to him! He knows Father wouldn’t stand for his losing another job, and—he—maybe wouldn’t dare—come home!”
And now the tears rained down.
She put her hands up to brush them excitedly away. “I thought perhaps—you might know where I could look for him! Nobody at home will do anything. They are angry! Very angry! And Jason would do anything when he gets frantic! I’m so worried. If I could only get word to him I’d go away with him myself. I have a lit
tle money of my own that would keep us till we could find something to do. Oh, isn’t there any place you could suggest where I could look for him?”
A look almost of fear passed over Rowan’s face. “You say he’s lost his job at the bank. Are you sure?”
“I guess it’s true all right. My stepmother telephoned to Mr. Goodright. I don’t know why. She didn’t tell me what he said. She was very angry. But I know Jason. He wouldn’t stay to face a thing like that.”
“No,” said Rowan thoughtfully, “I don’t suppose he would. But I didn’t think Goodright would turn him away. I thought—”
“Oh, Jason was probably to blame,” said Jason’s sister, breaking down utterly and hiding her face in her hands for an instant. When she lifted her face, the one star had done away with the clouds and twinkled over Joyce’s tears as she looked at the young man bravely, trying to conquer the tremble in her voice. “But—he’s my brother! And I have to stand by him! Oh, don’t you know any place where I could look for him?”
“Yes!” said Rowan crisply, his lips set, his whole body tense. “I think I know one place where he would go. He told me once—never mind! I’ll find him. I’ll bring him back to you! Oh, don’t cry, dear!”
And suddenly his arms went around her, he drew her close to himself, and laid his face tenderly down on hers, kissing her wet lashes. Then his warm eager lips were on her own sweet trembling mouth, and he whispered softly with his lips against her hair:
“You are precious!”
One long moment more he held her close as she yielded her weary weakness to his strong arms, and then he let her go.
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