Reels and Spindles: A Story of Mill Life

"It wasn't for naught Miss Amy fetched a simpleton home in her pocket. Sure, I scared the life clean out of him, so I did, an' he'll stay where he's settled till he's wanted, so long as I keep fillin' his stummick with victuals like these. Will I carry a bit o' the fowl to the lib'ry – will I no? Hmm. Will I – nill I?"

Having decided, Cleena passed swiftly from the house into the darkness and in the direction of the distant library.

Meanwhile, up in the little chamber which had once been their nursery and was still their own sitting room, Amy had drawn a lounge before the grate, and, after his accustomed fashion, Hallam lay upon it, while his sister curled upon the rug beside him.

But she did not look at him. She rested her chin in her palms and gazed at the dancing flames, as she observed: —

"Even a king might envy us this fire of pine cones, mightn't he? Isn't it sweet and woodsy? and so bright. I've gathered bushels and bushels of them, while you were away, and we can have all the fun we want up here. So now – can't you just begin and tell, Hal dear? Part of it I guess, but start as you always do: 'I went from here – ' and keep right on till you get back again to me and – this."

She purposely made her tone light, but she was not surprised when her answer was a smothered sob. Indeed, there was such a lump in her own throat that she had to swallow twice before she could say: —

"No, darling, you needn't tell one word. I know it all – all – all; and I can't bear it. I won't – I will not have it so!"

Then she turned and buried her face in the pillow beside her brother's, crying so passionately that he had to become comforter himself; and his thin fingers stroked her hair until she grew ashamed of her weakness and looked up again, trying to smile.

"Forgive me, brotherkin. I'm such a baby, and I meant to be so brave! If I could only take your lameness on myself, and give you my own strong, active legs!"

"Don't, Amy! Besides, how often have you said that very same thing? Yet it isn't any use. Nothing is of any use. Life isn't, I fancy."

Even the vehement Amy was shocked by this, and her tears stopped, instantly.

"Why, Hal!"

"Sounds wicked, doesn't it? Well, I feel wicked. I feel like, was it Job or one of his friends? that it would be good to 'curse God and die.' Dying would be so much easier than living."

The girl sprang up, clinching her brown hands, and staring at her brother defiantly.

"Hallam Kaye, don't you talk like that! Don't you dare! Suppose God heard you? Suppose He took you at your word and made you die just now, this instant? What then?"

Hallam smiled, wanly, "I won't scare you by saying what then, girlie. If He did, I suppose it would all be right. Everything is right – to the folks who don't have to suffer the thing. Even the doctor – and I liked him as much as I envied him – even he preached to me and bade me not to mind, to 'forget.' Hmm, I wish he could feel, just for one little minute, the helplessness that I must feel always, eternally."

Hallam was dearer to his sister than any other human being, and the despair in her idol's tone promptly banished her anger against his irreverence. She went down on her knees and caught away the arm with which he had hidden his face, kissing him again and again.

"Oh! there will be some way out of this misery, laddie. There must be. It wouldn't be right, that anybody as clever and splendid as you should be left a cripple for life. I won't believe it. I won't!"

"How like father you are!"

Amy's head tossed slightly, and a faint protest came into her eyes, but was banished as soon because of its disloyalty.

"Am I? In what way? and why shouldn't I be?"

"You never know when you're down nor why you shouldn't have all that you want."

"Isn't it a good thing? Would it help to go moping and unbelieving?"

"I suppose not. Anyway, it makes things easier for you and him, and so, maybe, for the rest of us."

The sister dropped back into her favorite attitude upon the rug and regarded her brother curiously.

"Hal, you're as queer as can be, to-night. Seems as if there was something the matter with you, beyond what that know-nothing doctor said. Isn't there?"

"Don't call the poor man hard names, girlie. He was fine, and I was impertinent enough for the whole family. Only, I reckon he was too high up to feel anything we could say. But there is something. Something I must tell you, and I don't know how to begin. Promise that you won't get into a tantrum, or run and disturb the little mother about it."

"Hallam Kaye! Do I ever?"

"Hmm! Sometimes. Don't you? Never mind. Sit closer, dear, and let me get hold of your hand. Then you'll understand why I am so bitter; why this disappointment about my lameness is so much worse than any that has gone before. And I've been disappointed often enough, conscience knows."

Amy crept up and snuggled her dark head against Hallam's fair one, remarking, with emphasis: —

"Now I'm all ready. I'll be as still as a mouse, and not interrupt you once. What other dreadful trouble has come? Is it a grocery bill, or Clafflin's for artists' stuff?"

"Something far worse than that."

"What?"

"Did you ever think we might have – might have – oh, Amy! I can't tell you 'gently,' as mother bade – all it is – well, we've got to go away from Fairacres. Its not ours any longer."

"Wh-a-at?" cried the girl, springing up, or striving to do so, though Hallam's hold upon her fingers drew her down again.

"I don't wonder you're amazed. I was, too, at first. Now I simply wonder how we have kept the place so long."

"Why isn't it ours? Whose is it?"

"It belongs to a cousin of mother's, Archibald Wingate. Did you ever hear of him?"

"Never. How can it?"

"I hardly understand myself, though mother's lawyer tried to explain. It's something about indorsing notes and mortgages and things. Big boy as I am, I know no more about business than – you do."

"Thanks, truly. But I do know. I attended to the marketing yesterday when the wagon came. Cleena said that I did very well."

"Glad of it. You'll have a chance to exercise your talents in that line."

"But, Hal, mother will never let anybody take away our home. How could she? What would father do without his studio that he had built expressly after his own plan? or we without all this?" sweeping her arm about to indicate the cosiness of their own room.

"Mother can't help herself, dear. She was rich once, but she's desperately poor now."

"I knew there was trouble about money, of course. There never seems to be quite enough, but that's been so since I can remember. Why shouldn't we go on just as we have? What does this cousin of our mother's want of the place, anyway?"

"I don't know. I don't know him. I hate him unseen."

"So do I. Still, if he's a cousin, he should be fond of mother, and not bother."

"Amy, we're all a set of simpletons, I guess, as a family, and in relation to practical matters."

"'Speak for yourself, John.'"

"That isn't all. There's something – something wrong with father."