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Show I 1 Zm Jtewn LAoaie Zrrince V:V" r-yyjx - NladsLg I-RVHE slow train was jerking: along over Us single 1 trade toward its resting-place for the night. Nearly all the passengers had disappeared, JL stepping to the station platforms in a melancholy, melan-choly, casual manner which is characteristic of z inhabitants, of Cape Cod. The rear car was entirely ipty, and in the forward car were an elderly woman rro'unded hy brown-paper parcels, and a brakeman ting an apple in a business-like way, only these two th the important exception of Reuben Reed. He sat the middle of the car looking out fixedly at the land-ipe land-ipe as it lazily crept into view; he had turned over i seat in front of him, and his feet rested on it, while ; arms were spread over the hack of his own scat s the train crossed a bridge over a small river, Rcu-i Rcu-i sat up straightcr. There was the pine grove where ry used to have the Sunday-school picnics; there s the field where the huckleberries grew the thickest; :re was old man Carver's barn looming high on a ping hillside. Reuben remembered well how he had ped build that barn, earning his first ten dollars by : job. ust opposite the station was the tavern; Reuben iught it had shrunk since he last saw it, and felt re-tant re-tant to trust himself to its hospitality; but needs st in certain combinations in life, so he walked up its forbidding door, found the landlady, and, hav-made hav-made arrangements for the night, set out on foot ng the sandy road that ran beside the track. It was ly in May, and the air was biting as sunset drew if. The rare apple-trccs in the scanty orchards were , yet in bloom, but there was a pink glow through the nehes telling of the sap that already swelled each 1. The steady Cape wind blew in his face, bending ily the long, thin grasses that pushed through the d on the sides of the road, teuben walked with a swing that soon took Jiim out the village, and in five minutes more he had gained schoolhousc, where it stood as far as possible from center of civilization so as to be within easier reach the outlying farms. It was a dismal, square wooden Iding with two doors, one for the girls, the other for boys. Reuben tried to open the right-hand door, Ef jut it was locked. He sat down on the steps and looked it the small playground, bare and grim, trodden hard jy many hobnailed boots. Some child had dropped a ittlc bunch of sassafras flowers on the step, and he toolc hem up, holding them thoughtfully in his hand. Hcre he was, on the threshold of a design planned by urn twenty years before, and, till within eighteen nonths, the moving spring of his existence. He sat in he very place where he had sworn to be revenged on hose who had wronged him, a lad of nineteen. All his jbyhood had been hard and unlovely, but never had he mown the pangs of injustice and disloyalty till that ast week at home. f.Eis expression was less lowering and more energetic a he started oft" in the direction of the old home with a yinging step. It was not long before he reached the wundafy line of the north acre lot the place where heir farm began ; and then a feeling, ignored till then, cant into consciousness the love of land. If Dave had Silildrcn, they would be the fifth generation of Reeds to iye there. It was more than a hundred years since his (Teat-grandfather had bought the place "and put up a ittle two-roomed cabin ; he had prospered, and his son iad built the large, square rooms where Reuben's father fad been born, as well as himself and Dave. Every fibre )f his heart responded to the eloquent cry sent forth by he trees aong the stone walls, by the grim rocks pushing pushi-ng up their old heads through the short grass, and by he red brick chimneys of the house itself, which now fame into sight. 'This was his as much as Dave's; he would turn out ie others and come here with Grace to make their slimier slim-ier home, where his ancestors had toiled and struggled fith the obstinate soil ; he would huy out Dave, after he ad received back his fifty dollars with twenty years' itercst at five per cent. tjhc brute was predominant in his face as he noisily ushed back the garden gate, scowling to notice that one f the hinges was broken, and crunched up the gravel iath to the front door. lie pulled the glass bell-handle, !Ut it came out in his hand, and he was forced to rap martly with his cane. He heard a person moving hastily rithin, but he did not sec a face pressed agafnst the widow of the room on the right of the door, as if some Be were trying to sec who knocked so imperatively. In foment a bolt was drawn, and a thin, elderly woman, J fuosc faded face was set in anxious lines, stood before Ruben. p'Vxc come to sec Mr. Reed. Mr. David Reed," said jxuben in his authoritative manner. Most people suc-ptnbcd suc-ptnbcd at once to this manner of his, and it was one of races charms that she only, laughed when he dotn-Setrcd. dotn-Setrcd. But the woman before him was more than rdmarily impressed; her eyes, of a dim blue, looked j those of a kitten who seeks shelter beneath a bed, pd her voice quavered as she replied: "He's not in jist now, sir; but if you'd be good enough to wait" m paused, the upward inflection of her rvoicc turning Certainly. I'll wait. I've not travelled from New for nothing," Reuben returned grimly. Would you mind, sir, stepping into the sitting-room? iH-eathcr's still cold, and there's no fire in the best Will Mr. Reed be long away?" asked Reuben after iad seated himself. I think he'll be back in less than an hour now; my rand 5 hard to move these days, and he's always for ig home as soou's he can." ier husband! Was this Lucy? Lucy, whose fresh ,..-,80 he had carried with him all these years? He pwd hard at her as she took up her work, a stocking J ft?"35 "lending, and tried to find a (race of one wlio fl 2nbcn so living to his mind Little by little he found 0." ffc? of the young school-mistress, but they were i ,td ?,3 thc sassafras flowers he had picked up on $0 choolhousc steps. J lc,r.c's a gentleman come to sec father. Lucy," said J a? iCr w,th 51 ,ni,d r!roof in her voice, glancing nJl SL i con,cr vllcrc Reuben had seated himself. J ,rl. sl?rtcil. "Oh. it seems real dark in here after M 8?S from thc su"sct," she said apologetically; "I !Vt! s?c 3,011 :,t lirst" ii ?Vll,nt:il!,.on said Reuben, looking keenly at iflW I?1: Ul? c1uld f l-cy and Dave. She was pretty, S L , 1 Rllc Ir:Uls that holds a world of pathos for f nVmt , yi101" rca(1 thc meaning of thc over-brilliant 1 4EC va rcqmsite wild-rose pink in thc checks, if vlt d,d ot understand these signs; he onW saw iiKn?iimas as Iovcly a3 an Pic-blossom and had a 0PK?F ,c manner. 2Brk ?: V,p yo',r W0,'K, mother," she went on; "it's too 3Bymi ;re.- ortyou 10 strain i'ow -,yc5- Th is JPftwrnnnf V1' when we have the right to test for 5K?r .V a"d J sucss ni ,,ialcc t"c most of it." SBtai1oii! rht 10 rcst any tin,c" sa'd Mm- Reed v&m, sinro V suPPsc I'd ought to try to do thc milk-Swicnonr3. milk-Swicnonr3. C;,'nL. h socs against mc to think of SSKav ho ws. ,mv,"B to wait till Rcub gets bade, for OmBwmi orcn a" ,10l,r i2Py, SilJ?lV?l1an,t' and1 W said thc younger awc sfn!,u sorry for 'cm, too, but I don't sec SWl used ' s-nfTcr any n,orc ll,an cows " Wwfan SH&TV,,k.4CV?ry ,lay whcn 1" was a boy," said SS VrhlS H y; .why won't you let me try my hand wmie i,n waiting for your father?" Lucy the younger laughed mcrriky, while Mrs. Reed looked distressed. " Oh, no ; it would never do ; why, I don't know what fathcr'd say," she began, but her daughter interrupted her. "Mother's putting on her old schoolmarm ways when she talks like that. I've a great mind to take Mr. the gentleman, out to thc barn, and sec if he knows a cow's head from her tail." "Oh, Lucy, I declare!" said thc distressed mother, but Reuben laughed. "It's a bargain," he said, standing up and taking off his coat, which he tossed onto a chair. " I can't for thc life of mc think what father and Rcub will say to mc for letting you do this," she remarked as a beginning. 0 "1 don't see how you could have helped yourself: I wanted to milk, and when I want a thing I generally get it." "That's thc way Rcub talks; but he's had to find out, poor fellow, that there's some things he can't ever gel, no matter how much he wants 'em." "Is Rcub your brother?" "Yes; and he just set his heart on going to college, and we all buckled down and saved and slaved and then, last fall, things went, worse than usual with father, and Reub's had to give up. He's real courageous, and he don't say much to any one, but I can sec how he feels it." w tw,iiiiiniiim.wajijL.unurtiujijiiiiiiniji w . t ,1 ,mi 1; , 3ITrTTmnmwwcrjj.j , Jwg , , , , , , , ' "His name's Reuben, is it? That's rather an odd name." "It's rather a family name with us," explained Lucy with a little touch ot family pride. "My grcal-grand-fathcr was named Reuben, and so was father's brother, and it's after him they called my brother." ''Is he dead, your father's brother?" asked Reuben, letting his hands rcst for a moment while he waited for her answer. "We don't know," said Lucy. "It's been an awful grief to father to have it all so uncertain about my nnclc; it's for that he sort of spoiled Rcub," she added, inconsequent!- as it seemed to her listener. "I don't scc your reasoning there; why should your lather spoil his son because he felt bad about" his brother?" "Well, I'll tclL you, though it docs seem kind of mixed when you try to put ii into words," said Lucv, .drawing closer, while Reuben turned sideways to listen, forgetting his task. "You see," she began, "when my grandfather died he told my father to be a father to Reuben, who was a good deal younger, and father promised, and set about keeping his word thc best he knew how. But his idea of a father was of some one real harsh, who would be obliged to be hard and disagreeable, else he'd never get any authority over the other; and he got into thc way of speaking quick and masterful, and he forgot his brother was nearly a grown man when the trouble came." "So there was trouble, was there?" "Oil, yes, awful trouble, and father has told mother over and over again that it was his fault; lie never speaks of this to any one but mother, and she told me, because I. fretted about Reub's being so spoiled, and she wanted to kind of excuse father to mc. It seems that my uncle had worked on the sly, and had made a big sum of money nearly a hundred dollars, I guess and he wanted to put all this into something that father knew was no good; it was something that I don't know about myself, but faUicr'had heard his father say that he had dropped a lot of money doing the same thing; but father, instead of explaining this gently to his brother, just grabbed hold of the bills and said thev shouldn't be used for nonsense. Mc was mad. too, tha't he, who worked so hard himself, had never been able to put. by ten cents ; all he made had to go into housekeeping, house-keeping, and clothes for his brother and their stcp-- stcp-- mother and manure and fodder; and his brother, who 1 had no calls on him, had made this extra ; so father was touchy about it, and he took the money away from my uncle and then he never saw or heard of him again." "I should think he'd a-bcen glad to get rid of him," said Reuben grimly, beginning to milk again. "Oh, no, he wasn't: and mother, she felt awful ; she loved my uncle just like he'd, been her own brother. Once they heard something; he sent by registered mail ten dollars old Mr. Carver had lent him to go to Boston with; but. there was only a New York mark on the envelope, en-velope, and that was all they ever heard." "Did your father ever try to find out about him?" " He did all he could ; he advertised in a Boston paper, and after this money came in a New York one; but father's had dread fui hard limes." "What's gone wrong with him?" "Well, mother lost her health soon after the' were married : Rcub and I arc thc only ones out of six they've raised if you can call mc raised," she added in a low voice of bitterness. Again that detested sense of pity crept into Reuben's mind; he banished it with, an abrupt question: "What has all this to do with your brother's being spoiled?" he demanded. "Why, don't yen sec?" she responded rather impatiently. impa-tiently. " It was because father'dbccn so harsh with his brother that he'd driven him to thc bad, so he can't bear to cross Rcub in a single thing for fear he'd run away too. Besides, losing all thc rest of us has made father - and mother fearful and anxious. Mother will burst out crying times when everything seems all right, thinking how she refused some little teenty thing to one of the babies, or something like that " Reuben rose and shifted his seat to the second cow, which had been impatiently turning her head for the last five minutes. The barn had grown dark, and when Lucy's voice ceased, the call of the tree-loads in thc marsh farther down the road could he plainly heard. Lucy turned and gazed into thc gathering gray of thc twilight as it folded itself like a clinging garment over rock and tree and field. Reuben milked mechanically, and thought. Lucy's words had shifted pasl events into different relations to each other, and as yet he was unable to see them clearly in this sudden rcadiustmcnl. He could not picture Dave as an indulgent father or a loving brother, although Grace had told him that his business success was greatly due to his imagination. ou arc almost Oriental," she had said to him once, half in earnest, half teasing him. But now Reuben felt that his mind had not taken in all he had heard, but that the brown dusk of thc barn was muffling ir. 11c longed to feel a keen edge once more to his thinking faculties, and sec definitely where he was. Swish, swish, spurted the jets of milk into thc pail, and slowly, cogged and hindered, worked Reuben's thoughts. Suddenly Lucy spoke. "I hear wheels, and I guess it's them," she remarked. Then Reuben knew that ideas had. conic and gone, been rejected or accepted by' some subconscious but authoritative ego, for he was saying to himself very positively: "Thai's thc blessing of having gained a woman like Grace; she wouldn't, allow mc to shirk doing for them, even if we do have to give up some of the things we'd planned for ourselves." "That's aboul all the milk I can gel for von this evening," he said, rising and stretching himself. Would you mind running along and telling your father that your uncle Reuben's got back from the bad and ihat he's waiting here till somebody asks him into the house?" "I guessed it! T guesstfd it!" cried Lucv triumphantly. tri-umphantly. "The minute I saw you pick up thc milking-stool milking-stool I just felt sure it was you!" . p llc 'ncltcl lu0 tl'e gloom before Reuben could say, By George! women do jump at things like grasshoppers, grass-hoppers, forty limes their own length." "They never knew it, Dave and Lucv didn't, but thev really gave me. pll I've got. Would 1 change what I am ' ' COPYRIGHT, iro8 j . . . 1 . . 1 T 1 to-day with what I should have been if I'd stayed here and married Lucy, and had half a dozen children to bring up? No, sircc, I guess not'!" , He strode to the door and looked impatiently out into the dusk. He could hear thc sound of voices, two or three together, to-gether, as he stood waiting for a moment; then he picked up the milk-pails and went steadily out of thc barn, taking his deliberate way across the yard. The meeting with his brother was before him, and hc looked forward to it with no pleasure, though he was far from the idea of shirking it The voices ceased abruptly as his figure loomed through thc twilight; and then he saw a tall, bent form moving toward him; a hand was held out, and he slopped, pulling down the pails, and held out his in return. There was a grasp, fierce in its intensity, in-tensity, and then some one was it Dave? said brokenly: bro-kenly: "I'm real glad to sec yc back. Reuben. There's not much to share here nowadays, but you're welcome to your part of it, anyhow." Reuben felt a queer, painful lump in his throat: he choked, and said nol a word for a second ; then, with a forced laugh, he exclaimed, slapping his brother on his bent shoulder, "Well, if you'll give mc a share of your supper, it's all I'll ask for just now." The younger ones were standing motionless, watching this meeting, and they proved a welcome diversion to Reuben, who hated the emotion and agitation of the moment with a hearty, masculine hate.- "Hello, is this my namesake?" he called out in his most boisterous manner, going on without waiting for an answer: " Lucy and I are friends already; there's no need of an introduction intro-duction between us." "Docs she does your mother know?" asked Dave suddenly. "No; I haven't seen her since I guessed out in the barn ; she hasn't any notion at all." There was thc same absence of outward feeling when Dave broke thc news to his wife as there had been in his own case;. care and sorrow had made them both old before llicii; time-and, self-centred. "Nothing surprises mc now;'' she ;sail-querulously; "I've been afflicted so sorely thrt I "guess .I'm about prepared for anything that may come, except joy: and this is joy, but it" don't seem to have much power to stir me. Still, you arc welcome, wel-come, Reuben, as welcome as Lazarus was to his sisters, for you arc like one raised from thc dead." Reuben thc younger was the only one who saved the situation, with his uncle's help; for, after the first embarrassment em-barrassment had passed, their natural spirits rose with a natural reaction. It was Rcub who drew out from his uncle thc laic of his wanderings as they sat round the hastily supplemented supper-table, and "as thc returned traveller found that he was listened to with profound interest, he wanned U his task, giving a rapid and vivid sketch of hi.s life din ing the past twenty years. All his-struggles, his-struggles, from the day when old Mr. Carver had lent him the leu dollars, and introduced him to the boss of a shoe factory at Brockton, who happened to be going by thc same train, and who engaged thc quick-wittcrl boy before half their journey was accomplished, to thc crowning triumph of hi life when he had made money enough to give him thc right to ask "thc sweetest woman in the world" to be his wife, were related to his attentive .audience. .... "There, that's what-1-call life!" exclaimed Rcub. his eyes sparkling with excitement. "By jingo, that's what I'd like to do." " Well, that's what you sha'nt do, if I can help it." said his uncle with sudden vehemence. "You arc nol going to have the fight I did: it's a toss-up whether a fellow comes out made or marred from (hat sort of thing. You arc going to slart into thc fight with your gun all loaded, and the right kind of a gun for a chap like you is found in college training. There, was a pause round the table; Rcub leaned forward for-ward breathing hard, looking his uncle straight in, the eye; Dave shook his head mournfully; Lucy ihc younger turned her quick, bird-like glances from her brother to i Reuben, while her mother sat as if more wrapped in thoughts of anothcrworld than in those of this. The children felt instinctively the generosity in thc atmos-phcrc atmos-phcrc of their uncle's personality; their parents had fought too long and too unsuccessfully to have any spring left. At last Dave spoke, and his voice was plaintive: "It ain't but what I'd do anything in God's H world to give ihc boy what he's hankering after, but, Reuben, I haven't got thc necessary money for it; so where's thc use of stirring him no just to disappoint him?" No one answered him; the moment had not come quite yet to tell all that Reuben had in his heart to tell; H he wanted to show his brother in figures how much he possessed, and how he had thc right as well as thc H capacity to help in family matters. . Mrs. Reed pushed back her chair, saying: " Wc might just as well go into thc sitting-room ; there's a fire H there, and I want Lucy should keep warm. Her cough's troublesome," she added, her eyes full of dread as she H spoke, "but it's only thc leave over after an attack of. grip; it's nothing serious." Her voice almost seemed H to defy an answer. " I know what's going to cure lhat cough," said Rcu- ben. He laid his hand on his niece's shoulder as he H spoke. They had let the others leave the room before them, and no one could overhear Lucy's low reply: " There's nothing but a complete change of air can cure it, Uncle Reuben," she said bravely, "and I might just H as well cry for thc moon as that. I've seen the, doctor about it. but I mean to keep them from knowing till it . H can't be helped any longer." "It's going to be helped, and that before you and I H arc a week older, and don't you forget it," said Reuben H emphatically. Then he-pushed her across tho entry before she could do more than turn wide, grateful eyes upon him. - Dave was standing in thc sitting-room at the book- H case between the windows; he had unlocked it? doors, H and taken out the old family Bible that Reuben rcmcm- H bcrcd well ; the one bright spot on Sunday evenings had H been to look at the engravings, and one of his rare. agreeable associations came to him. Before he could H speak. Dave beckoned to him to draw near, and laid his H gnarled, veined hand on thc yellow leather cover. H ''Reuben, I hate to go back to unpleasantnesses in H this hour of reunion and happy feelings, but I must H make one allusion to the past ; then I promise you never H to mention it again ; it's too full of shame and bitterness H for my own blindness for me to want to." "Let's not say anything to-night," urged Reuben un- H comfortably; "I'll come up the first thing in the morn- H ing, and .it'll be easier to talk it out in the sunlight." H "No. Reuben; what I have to do now has waited H twenty years to be. done, and that's a good deal loo long H for me to put off an hour more. Ever since vou left I've kept that fifty-dollar bill between thc leaves' of this H Bible, ready for you when you should come back. Mv H wife can tell you of more than one night I've laid awake H tossing and turning, thinking that maybe you was in H cruel want, and thai money idle here. Now, I want H you should take it, thc same I unjustly wrenched from H you twenty years ago." Reuben took thc bill held out by his brother, and H smoothed it on thc palm of his hand; this was the bit H of paper that had changed all his life: if he had been J H allowed to use it, what would he have been to-dav? A moderately successful farmer, perhaps, and he would H never have known that Grace was m thc world, waiting for him, for him alone, the one woman made for him. He almost caressed thc bank-note; gratitude was in his heart as he pondered on his lot. "I guess I'll keep it and show it to Grace some dav; H I shall tell her it marks ihc turning-point in mv life, H Dave. If you'd let me hold on to this, I'd never a-bcen H the successful man I am." "I didn't know lhat, Reuben," said his brother sol- H cmnly: " God is my witness. I never took that fifty dol- H lars for my own profit; but I was full of pride, and H thought I knew better than you; and I was too stiff- necked to try and explain matters like an older brother H should have done. So I turned to my fists, and your H going has taken the sweet out of every joy I've ever had. and added bitterness to all my sorrows." "Now, Dave, look here; and you, too, Lucv you, I mean." he said, giving his sister-in-law a gentle little shake that made a quick, rare smile brighten tip her faded face, and called back an echo of thc pretty school-mistress. school-mistress. "As for those two kids there, I don't care a cent whether they attend to their old uncle or not; Rcub probably thinks hc knows it all a big sight better than I do. and Lucy's already planning how manv gowns I mean to give her to lake out to Colorado "with her" " Reuben ! Reuben !" gasped thc mother, shaken out of her anathv. "Now, don't interrupt. I've made a good bit of money, and my wife's not poor, so there's plenty to do what I Want to with. And there are four things I want to do bad. and, what's more, I mean to do them. First, I want little Lucy lo get away from here as quick as she can. and you can settle between you who's going with her. There'll be plenty of cash to take the whole lot if you all care to go. Second, Rcub is to enter col-lege col-lege in thc fall; I'll talk about details with him to-mor- row. Third, assume thc mortgage on thc farm " Dave winced. "How did you find out there yas one?" he asked in his old. harsh voice " I let it out, Dave; it was my fault. I was so fright-ened fright-ened seeing a stranger," faltered his wife. Dave growled a little, but Reuben went on without noticing him. "And fourth, I'm darned if 1 don't try my hand with thc cranberry bog!" he ended. "You can't, do a thing with it," said Dave, leaning forward; "I've heard my father tell more than fifty limes how he set in to work it, and how it was just a dead loss." "Well, I'm nol going to be balked by other folks' failures," returned Reuben with increasing warmth. " I've got the plans for getting all thc cranberries wc could sell out of that bit of land, and I'm going to try it." Dave twisted his lips sullenly; for a moment thc brothers glared at each other as they used to do in the bygone days. Then Reuben's face lighted up. " I've not done talking yet," he said; "I love to hear my own voice, and I've got a confession on mv side to make. No joking, I came here with about as bad feci-ings feci-ings in my heart as a man can have. T meant to wring that fifty dollars out of you. Dave, with twenty years' interest. I wanted my revenge; f had wanted it "every second all this time I've toiled and moiled to make a fortune. 1 never thought of any pleasure to be got out of my money till 1 met my Grace: she first gave me a glimmer that possession wasn't everything, but that jH the power lo enjoy was more. Still, 1 held 011 to my idea of revenge lic a dog floes to a bone, till I acta-ally acta-ally came right here and talked with little Lucy out in thc barn. Then the thought struck mc that, pernios, there had been a design underlying our past; that you, Dave, were carrying out some project wc" couldn't un-dcrstand un-dcrstand when you took this bill from me I'd worked and slaved to gel. I didn't forgive you. even then' I only excused you. But siic you've shown mc h&v you'd kept this fifty dollars and T thought of, all thc times it would have helped you like thunder to use i; and 1 began to sec from hearing young Rcub here talk, how one age always thinks thc next pretty near fools 'H why, somehow, my idea of revenge has melted away, and all I want is to help along thc way I should have done five years ago." |