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"Needley?"
It wasn't wholly an interrogation—it seemed to Madison that there was even sympathy in the parlor-car conductor's voice, as the other took his seat check.
"Health," said Madison meekly. "Perfect rest and quiet—been overdoing it, you know."
"Needley!"—the train conductor of the Bar Harbor Express, collecting the transportation, threw the word at Madison as though it were a personal affront.
The tone seemed to demand an apology from Madison—and Madison apologized.
"Health," he said apologetically. "Perfect rest and quiet—been overdoing it, you know."
"We're five minutes late now," grunted the conductor uncompromisingly and, to Madison, quite irrelevantly, as he passed on down the aisle.
Somehow, this inspired Madison to consult his timetable. He drew it from his pocket, ran his eye down the long list of stations—and stopped at "Needley." Needley had an asterisk after it. By consulting a block of small type at the bottom of the page, he found a corresponding asterisk with the words: "Flag station. Stops only on signal, or to discharge eastbound passengers from Portland."
John Garfield Madison went into the smoking compartment of the car for a cigar—several cigars—until Needley was reached some two hours later, when the dusky attendant, as he pocketed Madison's dollar, set down his little rubber-topped footstool with a flourish on a desolate and forbidding-looking platform.
Madison was neither surprised nor dismayed—the parlor-car conductor, the train conductor and the timetable had in no way attempted to deceive him—he was only cold. He turned up his coat collar—and blew on his kid-gloved fingers.
As far as he could see everything was white with a thin layer of snow—he kicked some of it off his toes onto the unshovelled platform. The landscape was disconsolately void of even a vestige of life, there was not a sign of habitation—just woods of bare trees, except the firs, whose green seemed out of place.
"I have arrived," said John Garfield Madison to himself, "at a cemetery."
There was a very small station, and through the window he caught sight of a harassed-faced, red-haired man. There was a thump, another one, a very vicious one—and Madison stirred uneasily—the train, with its five minutes' delinquency hanging over it, was already moving out, as his trunks, from the baggage car ahead, shot unceremoniously to the platform. Madison watched a man, the sole occupant of the platform apart from himself, save the trunks from rolling under the wheels of the train; then his eyes fastened on a rickety, two-seated wagon, drawn by a horse that at first glance appeared to earn all it got.
The train left the platform—and left quite as uninviting a perspective on the other side of the track as had previously greeted Madison's restricted view. But now the man who had salvaged his baggage came down the platform toward him. Madison inspected the approaching figure with interest. The man ambled along without haste, his jaws wagging industriously upon his tobacco, his iron-gray chin whiskers, from the wagging, flapping like a burgee in a breeze. He wore a round fur cap, quite bare of fur at the edges where the pelt showed shiny, and a red woollen tippet was tied round his neck and knotted at the back with the ends dangling down over his coat. The coat itself, a long one of some fuzzy material, with huge side pockets into which the man's hands were plunged, reached to the cavernous tops of jackboots where the nether ends of his trousers were stowed away.
The man halted before Madison, and, reaching a mittened hand under his chin, reflectively lifted his whiskers to an acute angle, while his blue eyes over the rims of steel-bowed spectacles wandered from Madison to Madison's dress-suit case and back to Madison again.
"Be you goin' to git off here?" he inquired.
Madison smiled at him engagingly.
"Well," he said, "I wouldn't care to have it known, but if you can keep a secret—"
"Hee-hee!" tittered the other. "Now that's right smart, that be. Waren't expectin' nobody to meet you, was you? I ain't heerd of none of the folks lookin' for visitors."
"No," said Madison. "But there's a hotel in the town, isn't there?"
"Two of 'em," said the other. "The Waalderf an' the Congress, but the Waalderf ain't done a sight of business since we got pro'bition in the State an' has kinder got run down. I reckon the Congress'll suit you best if you ain't against payin' a mite more, which I reckon you ain't for I see you come down in the parler car."
"And what," asked Madison, "does the Congress charge?"
"Well," said the other, "ordinary, it's a dollar a day or five dollars a week, but this bein' off season an' nobody there, 'twouldn't surprise me if Walt'ud kind of shade the price for you—Waalderf's three an' a half a week. Them your duds up the platform? I'll drive you over for forty cents. What was it you said your name was?"
"Forty cents is a most disinterested offer, and I accept it heartily," said Madison affably. "And my name's Madison—John Garfield Madison, from New York."
"Mine's Higgins," volunteered the other. "Hiram Higgins, an' I'm postmaster an' town constable of Needley. An' now, Mr. Madison, I reckon we'll just get these effects of your'n onto the wagon an' move along—folks'll be gettin' kinder rambunctious for their mail."
Hiram Higgins backed the democrat around, roped the baggage onto the tail-board, picked up the hungry-looking mail-bag from where the mail clerk had slung it from the car to the platform, threw it down in front of the dashboard, and got in after it. Madison clambered into the back seat, and they bumped off along the road.
"Had a mite of snow night before last," observed Mr. Higgins, pointing it out with his whip, as he settled himself comfortably. "Kinder reckoned we'd got rid of it for good till next fall till this come along, but you can't never tell. What was it you said brought you down here, Mr. Madison?"
Madison smiled.
"Rest and quiet—complete change," he said. "Nervous breakdown, according to the doctors—that's what they always call it, you know, when they can't find any other name for it. I've been overdoing it, I suppose."
"Be that so!" returned Mr. Higgins sympathetically. "I want to know! Well, now, that's too bad! Lookin' for quiet, be you? Well, I reckon mabbe folks don't scurry around here quite so lively as they do in some of the bigger towns like Noo York, but there's a tolerable lot goin' on most every week, church festivals, an' spellin' bees, an' such. Folks here is right hospitable, but you ain't in no way obliged to join in if you don't feel up to it. I'll explain matters to 'em, an'—" Hiram Higgins stopped, excitedly gathered reins and whip into one hand, and with the other smote his knee a resounding whack. "Well, I swan!" he exclaimed. "An' I never thought of it until this minute! I reckon you've come to just the right place, and just as soon as you get settled you go right out an' see the Patriarch—you won't need no more doctor, an' folks up your way won't know when you go back."
"The Patriarch?" inquired Madison, with a puzzled air. "Who is he?"
"Why," said Mr. Higgins, "he's—he's the Patriarch. Been curin' us folks around here longer'n any one can remember—just does it by faith, too."
Madison shook his head slowly.
"I might just as well be frank with you, Mr. Higgins," he said. "I've never taken much stock in faith cure and that sort of thing."
"Mabbe," suggested Mr. Higgins deeply, "you ain't had much experience."
"No," confessed Madison reflectively; "I haven't—I haven't had any."
"Well then, you just wait an' see," said Mr. Higgins, waving his mittened hand as though the whole matter were conclusively settled. "You just wait an' see."
"But I'm afraid I don't quite understand," prodded Madison innocently. "What kind of cures does he perform?"
They turned a right-angled bend in the road, disclosing a straggling hamlet in a hollow below, and, farther away in the distance, a sweep of ocean.
"Most any kind," said Mr. Higgins. "There's Needley now. All you've got to do is ask the first person you see about him."
"Yes," said Madison, "but take yourself, for instance. Did this Patriarch ever do anything for you?"
"He did," said Mr. Higgins impressively. "An' 'twasn't but last week. I'm glad you asked me. For two nights I couldn't sleep. Had the earache powerful. Poured hot oil an' laud'num into it, an' kept a hot brick rolled up in flannel against it, but didn't do no good. Then Mrs. Higgins says, 'Hiram, why in the land's sake don't you go out an' see the Patriarch?' An' I hitched right up, an' every step that horse took I could feel it gettin' better, an' I wasn't five minutes with the Patriarch before I was cured, an' I ain't had a twinge since."
"It certainly looks as though there were something in that," admitted Madison cautiously.
Hiram Higgins smiled a world of tolerance.
"'Tain't worth mentionin' alongside some of the things he's done," he said deprecatingly. "You'll hear about 'em fast enough."
"What's the local doctor say about it?" asked Madison.
"There ain't enough pickin's to keep a doctor here, though some of 'em's tried," chuckled Mr. Higgins. "Have to have 'em for some things, of course—an' then he drives over from Barton's Mills, seven miles from here."
"And do all the people in Needley believe in the Patriarch?"—Madison's voice was full of grave interest.
"Well," said Mr. Higgins, "to be plumb downright honest with you, they don't. Folks as was born here an' are old inhabitants do, but the Holmes, bein' newcomers, is kinder set in their ways. They come down here eight years ago last August with new-fangled notions, which they ain't got rid of yet. You can see the consequences for yourself—got a little boy, twelve year old, walking around lame on a crutch—an' I reckon he always will. Doctor looks at him every time he comes over from Barton's Mills, but it don't do no good. Folks tried to get the Holmes to take him out to the Patriarch's till they got discouraged. 'Pears old man Holmes kinder got around to a common sense view of it, but the women folks say Mrs. Holmes is stubborner than all git-out, an' that old man Holmes' voice ain't loud enough to be heerd when she gets goin'. 'Tain't but fair to mention 'em, as I dunno of any one else that's an exception." Mr. Higgins pointed ahead with his whip. "See them woods over there beyond the town?"
"Yes," said Madison.
"That's where the Patriarch lives," said Mr. Higgins. "On the other side of 'em, down by the seashore. An' here we be most home. Folks'll be glad to see you, Mr. Madison, and now you're here I hope you'll make a real smart stay—we'll try to make you feel to home."
"Thank you," said Madison cordially. "I haven't any idea, of course, how long I'll be here—it all depends on circumstances."
"No," said Mr. Higgins; "I don't suppose you have. Anyway, I hope you'll take a notion to go out an' see what the Patriarch can do for you. An' now you ain't told me yet which hotel you're goin' to."
"Oh!" said Madison gravely. "Well, since you recommend it, I guess we'd better make it the Congress."
There was a group around the Flopper on the Portland platform beside the Bar Harbor express; some wore pitying expressions, others smiled a little tolerantly—Pale Face Harry, from the circle, sneered openly.
"Nutty!" he coughed, and touched his forehead. "Nothing doing in the upper story—some one ought to look after him."
The Flopper, a crippled thing on the ground, fixed Pale Face Harry with a pointed forefinger.
"Youse don't look like you had many weeps to spare for anybody but yerself—yer fallin' to pieces," said the Flopper. "I didn't ask you nor any of youse to butt in—I was talkin' to dis lady here"—he motioned toward a young woman in a wheeled, invalid chair, who, between a trained nurse on one side and a gentleman on the other, was regarding him with a startled expression in her eyes.
She turned now and spoke to the gentleman beside her.
"Robert," she said, in a low, anxious tone, "do you think that—that there can be anything in it?"
"Have you lost your head, Naida?" the man laughed. "The age of miracles has passed."
"But he is so sure," she whispered.
"Poppycock!" said her companion contemptuously.
The Flopper, in good, if unfashionable and ready-made clothes, fresh linen, and a clean shave, turned a bright, intelligent face on the man at this remark.
"I guess youse are de kind," he said, with a grim smile, "dat ain't had to kill yerself worryin' much about any kind of trouble, an' it ain't nothin' to you to cut de ground of hope out from another guy's feet an' let him slide. Mabbe you think I'm nutty too, because I know I'm goin' to be cured—but it don't hurt you none to have me think so, does it? Mabbe someday you might like to hope a little yerself, an' if—"
"'Board! All aboard!"—the conductor's voice boomed down the platform.
The young woman leaned forward in her chair toward the Flopper.
"I know what it is to hope," she said softly. "Will you come back into our car after awhile? I'd like to have you tell me more about this. Please do."
"Sure," said the Flopper amiably. "Sure, mum, I will, if youse wants me to."
The crowd broke up, hurrying for the train; and the Flopper, dragging a valise along beside him, jerked himself toward the steps.
"Swipe me, if I ain't got a bite already!" said the Flopper to himself. "An' outer a private car, too—wouldn't dat bump you! An' say, wait till you see de Doc t'row up his dukes when he listens to me handin' out me sterilized English!"
The brakeman and a kindly-hearted fellow passenger helped the Flopper into the train—and thereafter for an hour or more, in a first class coach, the Flopper held undisputed sway. The passengers, flocking from the other cars, filled the aisle and seriously interfered with the lordly movements of the train crew, challenging the conductor's authority with passive indifference until that functionary, exasperated beyond endurance, threatened to curtail the ride the Flopper had paid for and put him off at the next station—whereat the passive attitude of the passengers vanished. The American public is always interested in a novelty, and on occasions is not to be gainsaid—the American public, as represented by the patrons of the Bar Harbor express, was interested at the moment in the Flopper, and they passed the conductor from hand to hand—it was the only way he could have got through the car—and deposited him outside in the vestibule to tell his troubles to the buffer-plate.
The Flopper was in deadly, serious earnest; there was no doubt, no possible room for doubt on that score—one had but to look at the flush upon his cheeks and note the ring of conviction in his voice. Even Pale Face Harry's gibes and sneers melted before the unshakable assurance, and he became, with reservations, noticeably impressed.
A metropolitan newspaper man was struck with the idea of a humorous series of articles to pay for his vacation, entitled, "Characters I Have Met In Maine"—and forthwith, perched on the back of the seat behind the Flopper, proceeded to sketch out the first one, with the mental determination to get off at Needley for the local color necessary to its climax.
A soap drummer nudged a fellow drummer whose line was lingerie.
"Ever do Needley?" he grinned.
The lingerie exponent had a sense of humor—he grinned back.
"My house is everlastingly rubbing it into me to open up new territory," said the soap salesman.
"Me too," responded the white-goods man.
"Needley," said he of the soap persuasion, "would be virgin soil for any drummer."
"I'd like to see the finish," said the lingerie man—still grinning.
"Well?" inquired the soap man—still grinning. "What do you say?"
"You bet!" said the man with eight trunks full of daintiness in the baggage car ahead. "It's Needley for ours—you're on!"
The Flopper was an artist—and he was in his glory. Where his position was indubitably weak, he side-stepped with the frank admission that he knew no more than they. He knew only one thing, and that was the only thing he cared about, the rest made no odds to him, he was going down to Needley to be cured—and he let them see Mr. Higgins' letter.
A porter from the rear car squirmed and wriggled his way down to the seat occupied by the Flopper.
"Mistah Tho'nton, sah," he announced importantly, "would like to see you in his private car, if you could done make it convenient, sah."
"Sure!" said the Flopper.
The passengers crowded up, standing on the seats and arm-rests, to make room for the Flopper to crawl down the aisle, while the porter preceded him to open the doors.
Through the car in the rear of the one he had occupied, the regular parlor car, the Flopper, a piteous spectacle, made his way—chairs turned, the occupants craned their necks after the deformed and broken creature, while smothered exclamations and little cries of sympathy from the women followed him along. The Flopper's eyes never lifted from the strip of carpet before him, but his lips moved.
"Gee!" he muttered. "Dis has de gape-wagon skun a mile. Wish I could pass de hat—I'd make de killin' of me young life. Pipe de hydrogen hair on de gran'mother wid de sparkler on her thumb an' weeps in her eyes, an' look at de guy wid de yellow gloves rolled back on his wrists to heighten de intelligint look on his face, dat she's kiddin'—I could play dem to a fare-thee-well if I only had de chanst. Oh, gee!"—the Flopper sighed—"an' I got to let it go!"
With regret still poignantly affecting him, the Flopper passed on into the private car, and the porter ushered him into a sort of combination observation and sitting-room compartment. The Flopper's eyes lifted and made a quick, comprehensive tour of his surroundings. The young woman who had spoken to him on the platform was reclining on a couch; the nurse sat on the foot of the couch; and the man was tilted back in an armchair against the window.
The young woman raised herself to a sitting posture and held out her hand.
"I am Mrs. Thornton," she said, with a smile. "This is my husband, and this is Miss Harvey, my nurse. It was very good of you to come, Mr.—?" she paused invitingly.
"Coogan," supplied the Flopper. "Michael Coogan."
"Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Coogan," said Thornton, a little ironically, pushing one toward the Flopper. "Or would you be more comfortable on the floor?"
The Flopper's eyelids fell—covering a quick, ugly glint.
"T'anks!" he said—and swung himself, by his arms, into the chair.
"I want you to tell me all about this strange man in Needley, and how you came to hear of him and believe in him," said Mrs. Thornton. "I was only able to get just the barest outline of it out there on the platform with the crowd around."
"Dat's easy," said the Flopper earnestly. "Sure, I'll tell you. I saw a piece about dis Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so I writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if he was on de level—see?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. "And what did the postmaster say?"
The Flopper took Hiram Higgins' letter from his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton.
"Youse can read it fer yerself, mum," he said, with an air of one delivering a final and irrefutable argument.
Mrs. Thornton read the letter carefully, almost anxiously.
"If only a part of this is true," she said wistfully, passing it to her husband, "it is perfectly wonderful."
Mr. Thornton read it—with a grin.
"I don't know, I am sure," he observed caustically, handing the letter to Miss Harvey, "how the medical profession would stand on this—would your school endorse it, nurse?"
Miss Harvey read it with her back to the others—then she glanced at Mrs. Thornton—and checked herself as she was about to speak. She folded the letter slowly and returned it to the Flopper without comment.
Robert Thornton, master of millions, hard-headed and practical for all his youth, leaned forward in his chair toward the Flopper.
"Look here," he said bluntly, "you don't mean to say that you believe this seriously, do you?"
"Oh, no!" said the Flopper softly. "Nothin' like dat! Of course I don't believe it! I'm only guyin' myself—see? I'm just goin' dere fer fun—an' spendin' me last red to get dere. Say"—his voice snapped—"wot do youse t'ink I am, anyway?"
"Surely, Robert," said Mrs. Thornton gently, "it is evident enough that he believes it."
Thornton did not look at her—he was still gazing at the Flopper, his brows knitted.
"How long have you been like this?" he demanded sharply.
"All me life," said the Flopper. "I was born dat way."
"And you expect to go down here and by some means, which I must confess is quite beyond my ability to grasp, be cured in a miraculous manner!"—Thornton smiled tolerantly.
"Sure, I do!" asserted the Flopper doggedly. "If he's done it fer de crowd dere, why can't he do it fer me? Didn't de postmaster say all yer gotter have is faith? Well, I got de faith—an' I got it hard enough to stake all I got on it. Dis time to-morrow—say, dis time to-morrow I wouldn't change places wid any man in de United States."
Thornton's tolerant smile deepened.
"I guess you're sincere enough," he said; "and I'm not trying to cut the ground of hope out from under your feet, as you put it out on the platform—but it seems to me that it is only the kindly thing to do to warn you that the more faith you put in a thing like this the worse you are making it for yourself—you are laying up a bitter disappointment in store that can only make your present misfortune the more unbearable."
The Flopper shook his head.
"If he's done it fer others, he can do it fer me," he repeated, with unshaken conviction. "An' dat goes—I can't lose."
Thornton tilted his chair back again, and stared at the Flopper with pitying incredulity.
There was silence for a moment; then Mrs. Thornton spoke.
"Robert," she said slowly, "I want to stop at Needley."
The front legs of Thornton's chair came down on the heavy carpet with a dull thud, and he whirled around in his seat to stare at his wife.
"You don't mean to say, Naida," he gasped, "that you've got faith in this thing, too!"
"No; not faith," she answered pathetically. "I hardly dare to hope. I have hoped so much in the last year, and—"
"But this is sheer nonsense!" Thornton broke in with irritable impatience. "I can understand this man here, in a way—he has the superstition, if you like to call it that, due to lack of education, if he'll pardon my saying so in his presence; but you, Naida, surely you can't take any stock in it!"
She smiled at him a little wanly.
"I have told you that I didn't even dare to hope," she said. "But I want to see—I want to see. I have tried sanatoriums and consulted specialists until it has all become a nightmare to me and I am no better—I sometimes think I never shall be any better."
"But," exploded Thornton, rising from his chair, "that's nothing to do with this—this is rank foolishness! Nurse, you—"
Miss Harvey, too, had risen, and was regarding Mrs. Thornton anxiously.
"It is better to humor her than to excite her," she said in a low voice.
Mrs. Thornton had dropped back on the couch and her face was turned away from the others, but she stretched out her hand to her husband.
"I am not asking very much, Robert, dear—am I?" she said. "Not very much. Won't you do this for me?"
Thornton bit his lips and scowled at the Flopper.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered—and moving to the side of the car pushed a bell-button viciously. "Sam," he snapped, as his colored man appeared, "go and tell the conductor that I want my car put off on the siding at Needley."
"Yes, sah," said Sam.
Thornton sat down again heavily.
"Mabbe," announced the Flopper tactfully, "mabbe I'd better be gettin' back to me valise—we're most dere, ain't we?"
Mrs. Thornton turned toward him.
"No; please don't go, Mr. Coogan—it's too hard for you to get through the train. Sam will get your things as soon as he comes back. Do stay right where you are until we get to Needley."
"No; don't think of going, Mr. Coogan," said Thornton savagely.
The Flopper looked at Mrs. Thornton gratefully, and at Mr. Thornton thoughtfully.
"T'anks!" said the Flopper pleasantly—and wriggled himself into a more comfortable position in his chair.
Half an hour later, the train, that stopped only on signal to discharge eastbound passengers from Portland, drew up at Needley—and Hiram Higgins, on the platform, stared at a scene never before witnessed in the history of the town.
It was not one passenger, or two, or three, that alighted—they streamed in a bewildering fashion from every vestibule of every car. It is true that the majority got back into the train later, but that did not lessen the effect any on Mr. Higgins. Mr. Higgins' jaw dropped, and he grabbed at his chin whiskers for support.
"Merciful daylights!" he breathed heavily. "Now what in the land's sakes be it all about?" His eyes, following the hurrying passengers, fixed on the twisted shape of the Flopper, being helped to the platform from the private car.
"Three cheers for Coogan!" yelled some excitable passenger.
The cheers were given with a will.
"Good luck to you, Coogan!" shouted another—and the crowd took it up in chorus: "Good luck to you, Coogan!"
"Coogan!"—Mr. Higgins' face paled, and he took a firmer grip on his whiskers. "Now if you ain't gone an' put your fool foot in it, Hiram Higgins," he said miserably. "If that there's the fellow that you writ to, you've just laid out to make a plumb fool of the Patriarch, 'cause I reckon the Almighty knew His own mind when He made a critter like that, an' didn't calc'late to have His work upsot much this side of the grave—not even by the Patriarch."
By the wheel-chair, Mrs. Thornton, her husband and Doc Madison were in earnest conversation—and around them was a mass of people. The crowd had divided into two, or, rather, was constantly coming and going between two points—young Holmes and Mrs. Thornton—and still the hysteria was upon men and women, still that wavering, moanlike sound floated over the lawn.
"I am stunned and stupified," Madison was saying, and his hand trembled visibly in its outflung gesture. "I am not, I am afraid, a man of deep sensibilities, but I cannot help feeling that I have been permitted, been chosen even, to witness this sight, a sight that will stay with me till I die, for some great, ulterior purpose. It's as though this place were hallowed, set apart; that here, if only one has faith, that man's miraculous power is boundless—that I should help someway. I—I'm afraid I don't explain myself well."
"I know what you mean," Mrs. Thornton returned eagerly. "It is what I was saying to my husband—to make this place known, to help to bring suffering people here."
Madison nodded silently.
"And if you, who have no personal cause for gratitude, feel like that, how much more should we who—who—oh, there are no words to tell it—my heart is too full"—Mrs. Thornton smiled through tears. "Robert, you said you would do anything."
"Yes, dear," Thornton answered gravely. "But what? We cannot do things in a moment. If money—"
Madison shook his head.
"It's beyond money," he said. "Money is only a secondary consideration. It's the needs of the place that are paramount. It's not so much the bringing of people here—they will hear of what has taken place and will come of their own accord, they will flock here in numbers as time goes on. But then—what? What can be done with them in this little village? For a time perhaps they could be accommodated—but after that they must be turned away."
"Turned away!" exclaimed Mrs. Thornton, in a hurt cry. "Turned away from hope—to bitterness and misery again! No, no, they must not I Why"—she grasped her husband's arm agitatedly—"why couldn't we buy land and put little houses upon it where they could stay?"
Madison leaned suddenly toward her.
"I believe you've hit on the idea, Mrs. Thornton," he said excitedly. "Why not? It would be the finest thing that was ever done in the world. But why not go further—this should not be a private enterprise with the burden on the few." He turned abruptly to Mr. Thornton. "What a monument from grateful hearts, what a tribute to that saintly soul a huge sanatorium, built and properly endowed, would be! And it is feasible—purely from the voluntary contributions of those who come here and have money—free as the air to the poor who are sick—free to all, for that matter—no one asked to give—but the poorest would gladly lay down their mites."
"Yes—oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Thornton raptly.
"Yes," admitted Mr. Thornton thoughtfully; "that might be done."
"There is no doubt of it," asserted Madison enthusiastically. "It needs but the initiative on the part of some one, on our part, and the rest will take care of itself. But we must, of course, have the endorsement of the Patriarch—why not go to the cottage now, at once, and talk it over?"
"Can we see him?" asked Mrs. Thornton wistfully. "Oh, I would like to kneel at his feet and pour out my gratitude. But see how all these people go no nearer than that row of trees, as though love or fear or reverence kept them from going further, as though it were almost forbidden, holy ground, as though they were held back by an invisible barrier in spite of themselves."
"True," said Madison; "and I sense that very thing myself—all men must sense it after what has taken place, all must feel the presence of a power too majestic, too full of awe for the mind to grasp. This faith"—he threw out his hands in an impotent gesture—"we can only accept it unquestioningly, as a mighty thing, an actual, living, existent thing, even if we cannot fully understand. But I feel that with what we have in mind we have a right to go there now—and we should take that little lad who was cured as well—and his parents, they should come too."
"And shall we see him?" Mrs. Thornton asked again tensely.
"Why, I do not know," Madison replied; "but at least we shall see his niece, Miss Vail, and it is with her in any case that we would have to discuss the plan, for the Patriarch, you know, is deaf and dumb and blind."
"You know them, don't you?" Thornton inquired.
Madison smiled, a little strangely, a little deprecatingly.
"If one can speak of 'knowing' such as they—yes," he answered. "When I came two weeks ago, the Patriarch was not wholly blind, and he was very kind to me. I learned to love the gentle soul of the man, and in a way, skeptical though I was, I felt his power—but I never realized until this afternoon how stupendous, how immeasurable it was."
"Let us go to the cottage, then," said Thornton. "Naida, dear, let me help you; it is quite a little distance and—"
She put out her hands in a happy, intimate way to hold him off.
"You can't realize it, Robert, can you? That dear, practical business head of yours makes it even harder for you than it is for me—and I can hardly realize it myself. But I am cured, dear, and I'm well and strong, and I don't need any help—why, Robert, I am going to help you now, instead of always being a source of worry and anxiety to you. Come, let us go."
"If you will walk slowly," suggested Madison, "I'll speak to the little Holmes boy and his parents, and bring them with us."
He moved away as he spoke—in the direction of a racking cough, that rose above the confused, murmuring, whispering, shaken voices on every hand; and in a little knot of people he was, for a moment, pressed close against Pale Face Harry.
"All right," whispered Pale Face Harry, "it's in your pocket now—but, say, no more runs like that for me, I'm all in. I thought sure I was cured myself—I hadn't coughed for—"
"Never mind about that now," said Madison rapidly. "I want the crowd kept away from the doors of the bank vault if they show any tendency to get too close, though I don't think that'll happen—they're too numbed and scared yet. But you know the game. Keep the awe going and the 'holy ground' signs up. Anybody that steps across that stretch between the trees and the cottage on and after the present date of writing does it with bowed head and his shoes off—get the idea?"
Pale Face Harry grinned.
"That's easy," he said. "Anything'd steer 'em now—they're like sheep. Leave it to me to keep the soft pedal on."
With a nod, Madison turned away, the tense expression on his face assumed again—and presently he was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and patting the boy's head in a clumsy, overwrought way.
"I—I don't dar'st to go," said Mrs. Holmes, clutching wildly at the boy, still sobbing, still beyond control of herself.
"But Mrs. Thornton is going," said Madison gently, "and I know your gratitude is no less than hers—it couldn't be less with this little lad restored to you. I am sure you want to show it—don't you?"
"I think we'd orter go, ma," said Mr. Holmes uneasily.
The boy put his hand in Madison's.
"I want to go, mister," he choked. "Take me, mister, won't you?"
"Yes, I think we'd orter go," repeated Mr. Holmes. "Come along, ma," he said, taking his wife's arm.
It was a strange group—the Thorntons, rich, refined, to whom luxury was necessity; the Holmes, poor, uncultured, coarsely dressed; and Madison, who walked with set face, head lowered a little, his pace slowing perceptibly, humbly it seemed, the nearer he came to the cottage door. Neither Thornton, nor Holmes, nor Holmes' wife spoke. Mrs. Thornton's arm was flung around the boy's shoulder, and he kept looking up into her tearful face—there was a bond between them that, young as he was, held him in its thrall. Out across the lawn, dotted here and there, in knots and groups and little crowds, men and women stopped where they stood and watched, making no effort to follow—and some, at the renewed evidence of the miraculous, once more so vividly before their eyes, dropped again to their knees.
They reached the door, and Madison drew back a little and with the others waited silently after he had knocked. Then the door opened slowly, and Helena, slim and girlish in her simple white dress, appeared upon the threshold. Her great dark eyes travelled slowly from one to another, and then her face lighted with a gentle smile.
"Miss Vail," said Madison diffidently, "this is Mrs. Thornton and her husband, and the little lad, with his parents, who owes so much to the Patriarch, and they have come to—"
"To try and say a little of what is in their hearts"—Mrs. Thornton stepped impulsively forward and held out her hands to Helena—and then, breaking down suddenly, she began to sob, and the two were in each other's arms, Mrs. Thornton's head buried on Helena's shoulder, Helena's face lowered, her brown hair mingling with the gold of the other's, her arms about the frail form that shook convulsively.
Doc Madison shot a covert glance at the three behind him—Thornton, and Holmes, and Mrs. Holmes. Holmes, with downcast eyes, was shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot; Mrs. Holmes, her woman's instinct touched, was watching the scene with face aglow, her eyes moist anew; Thornton was staring fascinated at Helena, a sort of breathless, wondering admiration in his eyes.
Madison involuntarily followed Thornton's look; then stole a glance back at Thornton again—Thornton was still gazing intently at Helena.
"Say," observed Madison to himself, "the longer you live the more you learn, don't you? That's the kind of stuff Helena wears from now on, the clinging white with the bare throat effect and all that. Why, say, like that she's what the poets call radiantly divine—eh, what?"
Mrs. Thornton raised her head, and her hands creeping to Helena's face brushed the brown hair tenderly back from the white forehead.
"Oh, how good and sweet and pure you are!" she murmured brokenly.
A quick, sudden flush, passing to all but Madison as one of demure and startled modesty, swept in a crimson tide to Helena's face.
"You—you must not say that," she faltered, shaking her head. "I—you must not say that."
Mrs. Thornton smiled at her—and slipped her arm affectionately around Helena's waist.
"I could not help it, dear," she whispered. "It came spontaneously. And it makes me so happy to find you like this, and it makes it so much more a joy in doing what we have come to talk to you about."
"What you have come to talk to me about?"—Helena, steadying herself, repeated the words almost composedly.