She had brought it down for Olive once, and the child seemed to be almost pleased with it. But when she offered to let her put it in the car and take it home with her Mark had interposed. He said he didn’t think it was worth taking and called her attention to a rush that was breaking. He said Ollie had plenty of little chairs at home. And when the grandmother suggested that it used to belong to the child’s mother, Mark only laughed and said they didn’t want to raise their child to be sentimental.
Suddenly Hannah felt another tear stealing down her cheek and splashing on her glasses, and this wouldn’t do at all. She took off her glasses quickly and wiped them and then laid down here work while she went around briskly getting out milk and bread to make a little milk toast and have it hot and ready when Charles came in. It was almost time for him to arrive. Eleven o’clock! He was usually home before that even on Building Association nights. He liked a little bite to eat when he was tired. He loved milk toast with plenty of butter, piping hot, and maybe a glass of milk to drink along with it. He hadn’t eaten much supper. He had been worried about Rowan, she could see.
And then she heard Charles coming up the front walk. Dick Stebbins usually brought him home. She could hear the car starting on again toward the Stebbins’ farm.
She swept aside her darning, fixed a place at the table and had it all ready for Charles when he came in.
He smiled at her and sat down.
“That looks good,” he said, and then his eyes swept the room. “Rowan got back?”
“Yes, he got back,” she said, “but he had to go again.”
“Go again!” said Rowan’s father blankly. “Where did he go?”
“Why, I don’t know. He said he hadn’t a minute to talk. But he said he would be back as soon as he could.”
She spoke cheerfully, as if she were quite convinced there was nothing to worry about, but Charles paused in his eating and looked at her startled.
“But I don’t understand, Hannah. Didn’t you make him realize that I wanted to see him tonight, no matter how late it was?”
“Yes,” said Hannah, “I told him, but he said to tell you this was something you would do if you were in his place. I gathered that he felt it was something he was sure you would approve and want him to do.”
“But I don’t understand. Didn’t he tell you what it was? Didn’t he explain at all?”
“He said he couldn’t, Charles. But—he said I could trust him! He said we could trust him. And he said if he didn’t get back tonight he would see you in the morning.”
Charles sat back and stared across the room, slowly sifting over what she had said. Then he studied the sweet, tired face of his wife, and suddenly his stern face broke into a wan smile.
“Well then, Hannah, I guess that’s what we’ve got to do. I guess there isn’t anything to do but trust our boy. And I’m pretty sure he can be trusted. He’s been a good boy, a fairly good boy. Better than most! And we can’t hamper our children too much, you know.”
He finished with a sigh and went back to his toast, eating slowly, thoughtfully.
Just before they went up to bed he asked, “You didn’t see Jason around anywhere? He wasn’t with Rowan when he went away?”
“Oh, no!” said Hannah with relief in her tone. “No, I’m quite sure of that. I noticed when he drove out the drive and there was only one in the car.”
“He went in his car? The new one?”
“No, it was the old one, I think. It sounded just like it. But he was in such a hurry I didn’t think to ask him about the car.”
They went up to bed and said no more about it, and presently they knelt together to pray, hand in hand, and then lay down to sleep. And soon each thought the other was asleep, yet each was listening, hoping, alert for every car that passed on the road, alive to every sound in the quiet stillness of their home.
And once, a little while before the dawn, they heard a car go speeding by at a tremendous pace, coming on with a roar, and flashing past and dying away in the distance. Both pairs of eyes flew silently open, but there were no lights on that car! Strange! No lights on a dark night! Had they dreamed it?
And when the morning dawned at last it found them dozing off but rousing at a knock at the door. Charles got up and put his head out of the window, mortified to find it a half hour later than his usual rising time.
“I thought I’d stop by and tell ya the news,” said the neighbor. “The bank was broken into last night and the watchman was found bound and gagged, and badly bruised from beating. They don’t know if he will live. It was Sam Paisley, you know. The bugglers got away, but they’re after them. It might be that Rowley crowd you know. Is Rowan around? I thought he’d like to know.”
“Why, no,” said Rowan’s father, swallowing hard, “Rowan’s away!” A great fear gripped his heart. “On business!” he added. “I’m not sure what time he’ll be home. Thank you for stopping! That’s bad news. I’ll have to get dressed and go down to see if there is anything I can do to help. Did they get much from the bank?”
“Don’t know yet. They’ve gone after Mr. Goodright and the cashier. Well, I’ll be getting on. They wanted me to stop and see if Jason Whitney is home yet!”
The neighbor passed on his way, and Charles Parsons turned from the window and faced Hannah. Then each saw the stark question in one another’s eyes, and each instantly smiled and flouted it with the smile.
Charles dressed rapidly, and Hannah hurried down and got a cup of coffee ready.
Charles drank it hastily and then turned to look back as he went out.
“Of course you understand, Hannah, that I trust Rowan utterly!” he said with one of his rare smiles.
“Of course!” said Hannah radiantly. “Of course!”
Chapter 3
Si Aldrich, the neighbor bearing the news of the bank robbery, went on the Whitney farm.
Aunt Libby with a wet dishcloth in one hand opened the door, with Nathan Whitney standing just behind her in the shadows of the wide hall that ran from the front to the back of the house. Nathan’s hair was on end and his face was bristling with belligerence, his eyes ready to do battle at the slightest provocation.
“Jason around anywhere, Aunt Libby?” asked Si, his keen little eyes peering into the shadows behind her and unexpectedly sighting Nathan Whitney.
Not that it bothered him any. Si rather relished an encounter with Nathan, especially under the circumstances, being the bearer of news that Nathan Whitney couldn’t likely have heard yet.
Aunt Libby looked frightened and grasped the door knob so hard with her hand that held the wet dishcloth that a stream of gray water dripped down from it to the neat linoleum.
“Why-n–no—!” she started to say, but Nathan brushed her aside like a fragment.
“Get to your kitchen, Aunt Libby!” he commanded. “Your bacon’s burning! Can’t you smell it?”
Aunt Libby cast a frightened look at Nathan, and a furtive one at Si, and scuttled away, not too far inside the kitchen door, lest she couldn’t hear. Having nothing of her own she had set her starved little heart’s love upon Jason, and now she felt it in her bones that Jason was in some kind of peril. Jason would have been surprised if he could have known how Aunt Libby’s heart yearned over him with all the love that would have been showered upon her own son if she had had one. She was trembling from head to foot, and the bacon burned on irreparably while she listened at the crack of the kitchen door.
“Mornin’, Nate,” Si said, grinning affably, twinkling his inquisitive little eyes innocently. “Jase up yet, ur am I too early?”
Nathan Whitney came and stood in the doorway, eyeing the early visitor suspiciously.
“Jason is away!” he said with dignity. “He is out of town!” he added as if to make the matter stronger. There was challenge in the very set of his under jaw and the glint of his stern eye.
Si’s eyes came to a quick focus on the old man’s face.
“Oh, away, is he? Out of town! You don’t
say! Well, now that’s too bad! I just stepped up to tell him the news, if he hadn’t heard it a’ready. I thought he might like to join in the search.” He fixed his victim with a glance like a thin gimlet and had the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.
“Jason went away yesterday morning to look for another position. He’s decided not to stay any longer with the bank,” barked Jason’s father. “Even if he were home he wouldn’t have time to join in any search. What’s lost now? Widow Lamb’s spotted cow, or has Riley Morton’s pig run away again? I declare, if folks can’t look after their own property and provide suitable fences I don’t see why the whole neighborhood should be upset hunting for them.”
“Wal, I ain’t heard of any of those events happenin’ yet taday,” said Si genially, “I was speakin’ of the search fer the bank robbers!”
“Bank robbers!” Nathan Whitney’s voice was suddenly weak and his face paled.
Si lost nothing of his expression.
“It’s liable to be a murder case as well, too, if Sam Paisley don’t come to before long. When I left he was in a pretty bad way. Two doctors an’ the ’pothecary workin’ over him, ta say nothin’ of the gym teacher down ta the school. They was the first on the scene. D’ya mean ta say ya didn’t hear the alarm? They rung it good an’ loud!”
“I heard the fire alarm if that’s what you mean,” said Nathan, trying to look dignified and injured, “but I don’t belong to the fire company. I looked out of the window but couldn’t see a fire, so why should I bother?”
“It wa’n’t the fire alarm,” said Si gustily, “that was the buggler alarm. Six blows! Don’t ya remember? Wa’n’t you at the last town meetin’ when they agreed on the signals? Three on the south side an’ two up here fer fire, four fer the east side includin’ the fact’ry, five fer a drownin’, and six fer bugglery, and seven fer a lost child! And it was six clear blows. But mebbe the wind was agin ya so ya couldn’t hear.”
“What time was it?”
Nathan Whitney was out on the porch now looking anxiously down the road toward the village, paling at the thought of what this might mean to his son.
“Long ’bout three ta four o’clock, I reckon, near’s they cun tell. It was the Forbes brothers with their milk truch discovered it fust. They was drivin’ inta town with a load of milk an’ see Sam Paisley layin’ there outside the bank right on his bead afront of the bank, with a dirty rag in his beak, a hole bashed in the back of his head, an’ all trussed up like a Christmus turkey. They think he mebbe hed some knockout drops, too, he’s sa long comin’ to. Course he might be dead by this time. I didn’t stay ta see. They wanted me ta get recruits fer the search. One thing they know, they cummed up this road. I heard ’em, but course I didn’t know yet what had happened, ur I’d a stopped ’em. I always keep my old gun loaded, an’ anythin’ suspicious I shoots! I don’t care what ’tis, pig ur cow ur human, ef they’s suspicious I shoots. Course I don’t shoot ta kill. I shoots at their feet so they can’t git away. Wal—you say Jason ain’t around?”
He punctuated his question with a last keen look. He wanted to see Nathan Whitney squirm again. But Nathan Whitney didn’t squirm twice, not for the same inquisitor.
“No,” he said loftily, “Jason has gone seeking a position.”
This was the statement he had agreed with himself in the wakeful watches of the night to give out in case Jason did not arrive at home in the morning. He had not known then how necessary it was going to become before morning was even well started on its way to a day.
The boring eyes still pierced his visage but got no farther than the glint in Nathan’s eyes.
“H’m! When d’ya ’xpec’ him back?”
“Well, I’m not sure. It might be several days, or it might be even weeks. He has been wanting to take a little trip for some time, and of course as I said he is hunting the right kind of a job. He won’t come back till he finds it, that’s sure.”
“H’m! Where’s ’e gone?”
“A number of places,” said Jason’s father, growing more haughty. “He’ll probably stop over in New York before he gets back.”
“H’m! N’York! Wal, that’s a pity. Jason allus was good on a hunt. Ya might like ta wire him. Mebbe he’d come home sooner.”
Si laughed, but there was a narrow, sinister look in his small eyes, and Nathan Whitney was both angry and frightened.
“Yes? Well,” said Jason’s father, “I guess you’ll have to get along without my son this morning. Meantime, I guess I’d better get down and see just what has been happening anyway. Thanks for coming by, Si! See you again!” And Nathan Whitney backed into his hall and shut the door with a slam!
Si stood for several seconds staring thoughtfully at the closed door, a speculative twinkle growing in his little eyes. Then he said to himself slowly, in an undertone that could well have been heard inside the pantry window if one had been listening: “Wal, I wunner what he would say ef he knew Jason’s notebook was found on the floor in front of the busted safe? I wunner!” Then he turned and with leisurely gait marched down the road to the next farm to give the news and gather more facts.
Aunt Libby stood at the pantry window trembling so that she couldn’t cut the bread. Instead she cut her finger and had to hurry into the kitchen and tie it up. Her lips were quite white as she tore a bit of linen rag from the edge of an old napkin in the cupboard drawer. Anybody who loved her would have been startled and maybe a bit frightened at her appearance. But there was no one who loved her, so her faintness passed, and she brushed the tears away from her eyes ashamedly, washed her hands at the sink, and went back to cut the bread. But she could not forget those awful words that she had heard. They had found Jason’s notebook in front of the safe that had been blown open!
As the morning went on and Aunt Libby stumbled about through her duties, the fear grew. Various rumors drifted back to the farm. Some said it was only a record of game scores from Rowley’s, that notebook, and others—the grocery boy told Aunt Libby this in a hoarse whisper before he darted off with his empty basket—others hinted that it contained the serial numbers of valued papers and bonds that had been stolen from the safe!
Aunt Libby knew very little about financial matters, but her heart sensed there was something serious here, and she went about with a ghastly face and a mind far from her work, wiping a furtive tear now and then. Other things besides bacon burned; these she took hastily as fast as it happened and buried them behind the old barn where not even the most industrious hen could ever scratch them up.
It was the lord of the manor himself who carried the news to his women folk. Breakfast was by no means a pleasant feast that morning when the lady of the house at last came down. Joyce, white and languid with dark circles under her eyes followed, reluctantly, and only on demand of her roaring father who would not be gainsaid.
While Nathan demanded bacon and roared at poor Aunt Libby, he told them the news. And while he was telling, and his wife was stridently saying it was no more than she expected, and that of course now everybody would say that Jason had broken into the bank for revenge, and his father was to blame for letting him go into a bank when he knew his capacity for getting into trouble, Joyce was weeping silently lifting a white stricken face in horror at her father’s news. Then old Libby came trembling in with fresh bacon that was hardly cooked enough, and Nathan Whitney thundered his fist down on the table in his anger with such energy that the dishes rattled. Aunt Libby dropped the platter, bacon and all, and fled weeping to the kitchen for a brush and pan to clean it up. The platter happened to be one of the second Mrs. Whitney’s few wedding presents, which did not add to the pleasure of the scene, and Nathan Whitney rose thunderously and left his breakfast untasted, saying it was all everybody’s fault but his, that this was anything but a happy home, and stamped into the hall to get his hat.
He came back before his wife had turned toward his daughter to continue the strife and gave stern orders as to how to answer any people who might come snooping
around to question. They were to say that Jason had gone away indefinitely to hunt another job, probably in New York, and they were not to say anything else! Then he marched grimly away and Mrs. Whitney turned to deal with Joyce, reproaching her for carrying a long face and being the cause of her father’s outbreak.
“Such children!” she said in a contemptuous tone. “No wonder your poor father is prematurely gray! Only two years my senior, and look at my hair!” She preened herself.
But then she discovered that Joyce had fled.
Meanwhile over across the meadows Hannah Parsons was down upon her knees beside her bed praying for her boy and taking confidence about him from her heavenly Father as she looked into His face and trusted everything to His care. She just handed it over deliberately, as something that she could do nothing about; knowing her Lord would work it out in the right way.
Then she rose with a quiet peace upon her face and went to Rowan’s room to take account of stock and put everything in place for the day. Guessing there would be questionings later, perhaps investigations, she yet went about her work, putting her house in its best order and doing her routine work as usual. She dared not think much about Rowan, only to trust him with God, keeping her eyes constantly above.
By and by when, or if, they came to ask about Rowan, what was she to say? She sensed that there was more behind his going than he had said. She knew he trusted her not to talk. But if Rowan had guessed that a crime was to be perpetrated that night, what would he have wanted her to say about his departure? Ah! rather she must ask herself, what would God want her to say? And she could trust God to teach her what to say. She must speak nothing but the truth of course, yet what was there to say?
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