The Wrong Woman (9 page)

"That's right, Statia. Always tell the truth, even as an afterthought."

"My! but you 're coming out bright this evening," responded Mrs. Harmon.

"I hope we can depend upon the others," mused Kitty.

Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Norton came out of their respective homes empty-handed
except for books. So also Mrs. Plympton and her mother.

"Well, I just don't care," said Mrs. Norton. "How in the world could I get a
stone? I have been having the awfulest time with our windmill. The thingumajig
that is supposed to turn it off has got broken or something and it keeps pumping
water all over where I don't want it to. If I had an artificial pond like the
Harmons I would know what to do with so much water. I wonder when Jonas Hicks
will get back?"

"I wonder!" echoed Mrs. Dix. "I was depending upon him. Mr. Dix said he
expected him back in a day or two. If it had n't been for that he would n't have
taken Fred along; for you know I can't put a saddle on Major myself. Jonas will
probably be back to-day or to-morrow he said."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said little Grandma Plympton, in her sweet and feeble
tremolo,"I am su-u-u-ure that if we had all asked Mr. Hicks to get us a stone
he would most willingly have done so. Mr. Hicks would do anything for a lady."

Grandma Plymptonwhat there was left of her after seventy-four years of
time's attritionhad a way of speaking which made it easy enough to believe that
she had, in her day, been a beautiful singer. As her message to the world was
usually one of promise and reassurance, she had the gift of dwelling with
songlike sweetness on those words in which the music lay. She was altogether
lovable and quaint. On fine days she would still go forth alone, bearing her
mother-of-pearl card-case, and she would leave her card here or there as
naturally as a flower drops a petal; for despite her years she had by no means
turned traitor to Society. Nor had Society so much as thought of leaving her
out. In her, indeed, the fine flower of aristocracy was still in bloom, and
delicately fragrant.

The party, suiting their pace to hers, went more slowly after passing
Plymptons', whereupon Grandma, finding herself thus accommodated, gave over what
efforts she had been making and went more slowly still; and so, when they came
to the Brown place, which faced the middle of the common, they were moving at a
most deliberate rate. As they arrived opposite the small gate, they all, as if
by simultaneous thought, stopped at once.

The object of their sudden interest was a rockery in the front yard. This
work, a pile of smooth boulders about three feet in height, and as yet only
partially covered with young vines, was the only scenic rival to the artificial
pond in the Harmons' front yard. Steve Brown built it to please his mother,
picking up a boulder here and there in the course of his travels and getting it
home by balancing it on the horn of his saddle. During the last weeks of her
illness, when her wandering mind went back to the hills of her girlhood, her
imagination played continually around this mimic mountain of Steve's, and as it
seemed to be the one joy of her prairie-spent life, he would carry her out on
the porch in good weather and prop her up so that she could sit and look at it.
Jonas Hicks, becoming interested, took a hand in the work; he kept on making
contributions as long as the resources of the country held out. Here was one
reason that there was not a sole stone remaining to be discovered.

"If we only had a few of them!" suggested Mrs. Norton.

"Yesbut he might not like it," said the younger Mrs. Plympton.

"But we would just borrow them, you know," explained Mrs. Norton. "And
anyway, how are we going to get along without them? Here we have arranged for
the Professor to come and tell us about them; and we all promised to bring a
specimen. It will seem strange for not one of us to have a rock."

"Oh, I don't think it would do any harm for us to borrow a few stones," said
Kitty Wright. "I don't see anything so awful about it."

There came a pause of indecision. Mrs. Harmonshe was the dignified Daniel
Webster of the circle, and just the opposite of the small and sprightly Mrs.
Wrightwas yet to be heard from.

"Really," she said, "we ought not to agree to do things and then not do them.
We should have done it or else found somebody like Jonas Hicks to do it for us.
What's everybody's business is nobody's business."

"And what's nobody's business is everybody's business," added Mrs. Wright.

"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Norton. "Where did you hear that, Kitty?"

"I just heard myself say it. I did it with my little hatchet."

"Sort of a double-edged axiom," observed Mrs. Harmon.

"I am su-u-u-ure," chimed Grandma Plympton, "that if Mr. Brown were here, and
knew the circumstances, he would most wi-i-i-llingly offer to assist us. Of
course, we should never takewhat does not belong to us, without the owner's
permission, but I am qui-i-i-i-ite sure that if we were to take them and put
them back just where we got them, Mr. Brown would quite approve of it."

"Mother has a very high opinion of Stephen Brown," said Mrs. Plympton.

"Mr. Brown is quite a gentleman, indeed," said Grandma.

This advice, coming from so white a priestess, and in words that lent so
musical and sweet a sanction, removed the last mote of conjecture from the air.
Mrs. Wright, as usual, was the first to take action. Every set of women,
probably, has its recognized clown, she who is just too cute and killing. And
those who do not like her say she is tiresome and "silly." Mrs. Wright, in
keeping with the character, went through the gate with exaggerated show of
dissolute abandon.

"Come on, girls," she said, breaking into the rockery. "I do hope I 'll get
one with feldspar in it, or something nice and interesting."

Mrs. Norton, having been the one to make the suggestion, now followed her own
advice; Mrs. Dix, taking example from Mrs. Norton, came next; thus the motion
was carried. And pretty soon the caravan moved forward, heavily laden with food
for thought.

The next two houses in the line of march were those of Mrs. Jephson, and Mrs.
Osgood and her sister Hannahshe was quite usually spoken of as Mrs. Osgood's
sister; but the two latter had already gone.

"What do you think?" said Mrs. Jephson. "I just got word that Oliver would
n't be home to-night, and he is probably gone for several days. And Captain
Chase, too. The Captain had to go to San Antonio on business, and Oliver went
along."

"The Captain, too! Not a man left in the neighborhood!" said Mrs. Harmon.

"Except Uncle Israel," added Mrs. Wright.

Uncle Israel was the Captain's aged darky.

A shortage of men was nothing new to the ladies of this community. Rather,
being a cattle-raising country, it was a thing to be expected at any time in
spring or fall; and when Claxton Road did enumerate its full quota of husbands,
fathers, and brothers, many of them were liable to be absent from Chautauqua.
Always with good excuse, however. One would be getting ready for a trip to the
ranch; another would have to stay at home to instruct his foreman; another would
have to sit up with a costly bull that was going through the rigors of
acclimation; and on more than one occasion it was the very man who was being
depended upon to tell them all about civil war or civil government who would
have to be excused by his wife for some such reason, upon which there would be a
chatter of regret and the meeting would fall into a conference upon matters in
general. While the gentlemen would "expatiate and confer" with one another as to
what breeding would produce the most wrinkles on a sheep's back (thus giving the
greatest wool-bearing surface), the ladies would devise new wrinkles to make use
of it. And usually the ones who produced the raw material would be entirely
through with their plans while yet the consumers were settling fine points with
regard to the finished product. In this matter of higher culture, the true bent
of masculine nature was likely to betray itself in absence. But the present
scarcity of man may be said to have been somewhat above the average.

For some distance the ladies went forward without saying a word. A spell of
utter silence had fallen upon the party. Then Mrs. Wright spoke.

"Statia."

"Yes."

"Do you remember what we studied about gravity?"

"Why, certainly. Every certain number of feet a thing falls it goes twice as
fast."

"Well, I have made a discovery just as good as Sir Isaac Newton's. Every foot
you carry a rock it gets twice as heavy."

Some one among them dropped her burden; instantly they all let go. The
boulders struck the road with almost as simultaneous a thump as when the
drill-sergeant calls out "Ground arms."

"Oh! I 'm nearly dead," said Mrs. Norton.

"So 'm I," gasped Mrs. Dix, sinking down on the roadside grass.

"O-h-h-h!" gasped Mrs. Plympton.

The next minute or two was devoted to breathing.

"Why did n't you
say
you were nearly dead?" demanded Mrs. Harmon, when
she had somewhat recovered.

"Why did n't
you
say something?" replied Mrs. Dix.

"Why did n't we all say something?" inquired Mrs. Norton. "I did n't know the
rest of you were as tired as me."

Mrs. Wright, despite she was the smallest of the number, was evidently the
hardiest; she had calmly turned her stone over and sat down upon it.

"It's a wonder you don't all blame it on me," she said philosophically.

"Well, whatever I learn about this stone I 'll never forget," remarked Mrs.
Dix. "Never as long as I live. Let's take them back."

"Yes; but it's farther to go back than it is to keep on," said Mrs. Harmon.
"And we certainly can't leave them here. We are responsible for them."

A very evident state of affairs. Being begun it had to be done.

"Come on, stone, we're going," said Mrs. Wright, taking hers up again.

The others followed. Again the rock-laden ladies went manfully onward.

When next they reached the limit of endurance, Chase's big red gate was so
near that they hung on with final determination, and when they were almost to it
they rushed forward to get inside the goal before the rocks fell. They all
succeeded except Mrs. Plympton, who lost hers in the middle of the road and then
finished its journey by rolling it.

"I was never so glad in my life before that I am not a horse," she said.

Virginia Chase had come down the path to shut the gate, which some one among
the earlier arrivals had not properly fastened, and she was the bearer of bad
news. The Professor, after all, would not be able to be present. He had one of
his sick headaches again.

"And who else do you think is sick?" added Virginia. "Aberdeen Boy. I wish
Jonas Hicks was back, because Uncle Israel does not know very much, really,
about stock. I am so worried. He held his head out so funny, I thought maybe it
was something the matter with the ring in his nose. But it wasn't. He is just
sick."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said Grandma Plympton, "that if Jonas Hicks were back he
could give him something that would relieve him."

When the specimen-hunters had recovered from their labors they accompanied
Virginia up the driveway, explaining, as they went, the whole case of the
abducted rockery. In the Chase's big sitting-room the earlier contingent was
drawn together in conversation as close as chairs would permit, and as the
belated ones entered they were greeted with exclamations in which there was an
extra touch of the joy of life, it being in the very nature of gossip to seek
new openings and exploit itself in mystery and surprise.

"Hurry up, Statia; get your things off and come here Wait, Mrs. Osgood;
don't tell anymore till Kitty is here Sh-h-h-h; be careful what you say before
Grandma Plympton."

The newcomers, returning from the bedroom divested of their wraps, began at
once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had no more than
stated the bare facts when they became aware that there was a more absorbing
topic in the air. Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's hired man, who had told his
wife, who told Mrs. Osgoodbut for that matter there was no great secret about
it.

"Have n't you heard a thing about it, Mrs. Plymptonre-e-eally?"

This was asked by one who had herself heard of it only a few minutes before.

"Why, no; what is it?"

"You tell it, Mrs. Osgood. You can tell it best."

Then followed the story. In the course of its travels it had not suffered any
loss of detail; it had rather prospered. Each person to whom it had been
intrusted had sent it on its way richer and better; it became longer and truer.
And so Mrs. Osgood told it, ably assisted by those who had just heard it and
kept seeing new phases of it. Finally the case was rested.

"What do you think of it, Mrs. Plympton? You live nearest to him."

"I must say that I am surprised. But then, I don't know whether a person
ought to be surprised at anything like that."

"And to think of it!" said Mrs. Dix. "Away out there where nobody is likely
to come along once in two weeks. What an idea!"

"Well," remarked Mrs. Harmon, who had been taking time, and might therefore
be supposed to have given the matter her weightier consideration, "it is, in
fact, just what one might expect. He has always been so steady and sober-minded.
It is n't as if he had had a greater variety of interests and more social
inclination andwilder, you know. He was entirely devoted to his mother; and he
has n't the resources and flexibility to make so complete a change easily, and
naturally."

"He has been acting quite strangely since his mother died," interpolated Mrs.
Dix. "He cooks and eats and sleeps out on that kitchen porch, and does n't seem
to take any pleasure in being invited out, or spending an evening at other
people's houses."

"That's it," said Mrs. Harmon. "In his position, and especially his
dis
position, a man is just ripe for the first adventuress that comes
along. In considering such things we ought to make allowances."