Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1901 — Hetty, or The Old Grudge. [ARTICLE]

Hetty, or The Old Grudge.

By J. H. CONNELLY.

Conrncht. m•• d MSB, by Bober* Banner** Sena. (All rlcbts reserved J

CHAPTER XX.—(Continued.) “I see. A charmingly systematic and improving course. You need more time for reading, a home of your own to do your reading in, and somebody to look after what you read. And I need somebody to brighten my home and be a new interest to me, superior to my books, of which I think I have had enough for a while. I want my bottle of bachelordom broken to let me out into the current where the rest of the fishes —who at least look happier—are swimming. Suppose we combine our requirements and in so doing find satisfaction for them all. Let ■us get married. What do you say?” Mary hesitated, hung her head, fe|t her -cheeks reddening with a blush unseen in the deepening obscurity of the evening and sighed a gentle: “Yes.” Perhaps she had not long cherished the hope that some day Uncle David would make such a proposal to her; possibly her pulses did not at that very moment thrill with the triumphant consciousness of achievement; certainly nothing of the sort was apparent in her timid, submissive, maidenly manner—but then, it is very hard to guess at what a woman really thinks and feels at such a moment. It is altogether probable—for Mary had a warm, affectionate heart, inclined to be ■sentimental and even she would have liked to hear “love” at least -referred to. But she was sensible enough r to understand that it is not always those who say “love” most glibly who feel it •most truly. A man like Uncle David does not marry without the incentive of love, and when he asks a woman to be .his wife, she will do well to be satisfied with his proposal in the form he chooses :to make it. A serious, reflective silence fell upon .both, which, after a few minutes, Uncle "David was the first to break, resuming, .in a business-like way: “So much being settled, we may as well go on with the arrangements for carrying the agreement into effect. When shall we be married?” The abruptness of that summons to decisive action startled her, and she answered, with a little nervous laugh: “Why, having waited so long, it would hardly be becoming for us to be in haste ■now." “The longer we have waited, the less time we have to waste. It behooves us to do promptly whatever we have in view,” .he replied, dogmatically.

CHAPTER XXI. The upshot of the matter was that she proposed deferring their wedding to that Indeterminate date, “the day John and Hetty marry,” to which Uncle David readily acceded, with a sly smile, having reasons of his own for believing that that event would not be far off. Hetty’s heart would have been lighter that Saturday night could she have shraed Uncle David’s confidence in the immediate future, but the outlook did not, as she viewed it, promise well. Her mother’s opposition, though less bitter than it had been, was no less determined, and was now settled upon a new ground, from which it seemed impossible to dislodge her. She no longer made much of the old feud between the Mulveils and the Camerons, over which she used to lash herself into a fury. Now, with a dramatic intensity of expression that would have been ludicrous had it not been so evidently in deep earnest, she declared that “the curse of blood” lay between Hetty and her lover and must forever keep them apart. “Whose blood?” demanded Hetty, when this astounding declaration was •first made to her. “Simeon Mulveil’s, to be sure. Didn’t John Cameron lure him to his death?” “Didn’t he go to his death like a fool, chasing a man he had no business to follow?” “Yes, he had business. I sent him.” “Oh! Then, if somepody else than himself must be held responsible for his fate, I don’t see but what you, mother, and not John Cameron, are to blame.” That was precisely what the widow’s accusing conscience said to her, notwithstanding all her endeavors to persuade herself that not she, but John Cameron, •had caused the constable’s death, and it -was naturally exasperating to find that view so readily taken by another. “Of course, you would try to clear him, and I don’t wonder at it, for by rights you are as much to blame as he is. If you hadn’t enticed him to run away with you, your cousin would never have had to follow you and been led to his death. But I’ll not argue with you, Hetty, for you have no right feeling for your mother; but I tell you, once for all, and you may as well make up your mind to it, you shall never become the wife of a man who has the blood of a Mulveil on his head, and that Mulveil your own cousin, not if die is the last man in the world!” They had gone over that dialogue, with more or less unimportant variations and modifications, so many times that it seemed as if they were rehearsing something they meant to play by and by, when they both were “line perfect.” But they ended it variously; sometimes one, sometimes the other, and generally both, became angry. On this particular’evening, Hetty vehemently declared that whatever her mother or anybody else might say to the contrary, she would .marry John whenever he wanted her tq, “How do you know he wants you?” sneered the widow. “He didn’t marry you when he had a chance to. Either he didn’t want you, or he hadn’t the proper spunk of a man. Either way. I wouldn’t think much of him if I were in your .plade.'* It was a cruel thrust, but the girl parried it as well as she could, tossing her head with an air of indifference and answering mysteriously: "That is as far as you know about it We had good reasons. We can afford to wait until we are ready.” "Ah! And a fine time he’s having in ths city while waiting, no doubt. He ■eaa afford to wait It’s an old girl you’ll

have got to be when he troubles himself about you again. You needn’t look for him in a hurry.” “Old McFarlane’s cornin’ up the lane, cornin’ a-courtin’ mam,” shouted Danny, in a sing-song tone, poking his grinning face in at the kitchen door. “Get out, you shameless young villain!” cried Mrs. Mulveil, making a feint of throwing at his head the heavy candle molds into which she had just drawn a set of wicks. The lad fled, chuckling and humming: “Cornin’ a-courtin’ mg,m,” up to his garret den, as the old lady sprang to her feet, exclaiming: “Drat the man! What does he want to come here for? The idea! Come, and do up my hair, Hetty. I declare, this sunbonnet pulls it every which way. He's a nuisance; but one must be civil to neighbors. Get me a clean collar out of the upper bureau drawer. There! That’s him rapping at the front door, now! Run and let him in!” Hetty admitted Mr. McFarlane, greeting him pleasantly, for she liked the plain, unaffected, simple-minded old fellow who almost worshiped John, and, having seated him in the parlor, returned to assist at her mother’s toilet. The widow’s tongue ran on as if she felt it incumbent upon her to discover some reason, other than the real one, for her visitor’s coming, but she lowered her tone. “I suppose he’s come to see about seeding down the old fallow-field in winter wheat on shares, this fall. He said something about it the last time he was over.” “He evidently does not believe in postponing things until the last moment.” “Oh, maybe he has made up his mind to give what I asked for the two-year-old steers.” A spirit of mischief, akin to that possessing her brother, suddenly inspired Hetty to whisper in her mother’s ear, with an affected intensity of utterance: “Danny and I are going to have some fun with him!” The widow’s blood ran cold. “Oh!” she gasped in horror; but before she could find breath to protest against and sternly forbid all fun with Mr. McFarlane, Hetty had fled, and would not be summoned back. Outside the kitchen door, Hetty was speedily joined by Danny, who glided down from his loft as soon as his mother had gone to receive Mr. McFarlane in the parlor. “Say, Hetty,” he demanded, with an air of mysterious excitement, “you’re going to church to-morrow, ain’t you?” “No; I’m replied curtly. Staying away from church on Communion Sabbath seemed to her a sort of protest against fate. And why should she go to church when John would not be there? “Oh! But—say, sis; you’ll miss lots of fun if you don’t go—only, if you do, you want to sit near the door.”

“What mischief are you up to now?” “Cross your heart you’ll never tell?” She laughingly made the gesture and repeated the formula, “Hope-I-may-nev-er-s’help-me!” which, in boyish estimation, was equivalent to an affidavit, and Danny, feeling that his secret was safe, went on: “Me and Sam Bingham ” “Yes—always when there’s any deviltry afloat it’s you and Sam Bingham. I wonder if you two will go to the penitentiary together.” “Never you mind about that! ’Tain’t your put-in! Jes’ listen! Me and Sam Bingham have got the biggest kind of a hornet’s nest out in the barn. We found it in the woods, more’n two Weeks ago, and have been savin’ it up. Last night we plugged up the mouth of it, cut off the limb it was on, and brung it home.” “A hornet’s nest! Mercy! Why don’t you burn the horrid thing at once?” “Burn it? I guess not! I haven’t had a mite of fun since I smoked out the singing school with red pepper on the stove, and you bet I’m not going to burn any hornet’s nest when I can stir up a whole community with it. Burn that nest, with more’n a thousand or a million lively hornets in it! Not if I know myself!” “Well, what are you going to do with it?” “We can crawl under the church, and we’ve found a loose board that we can shove up under the pulpit. To-morrow morning, long before anybody else gets there, we’re going to poke the hornet’s nest up under the pulpit, with a long string tied to the plug in its mouth and carried away outside and hid in the grass, so that we can pull out the plug when we think it’s a good time. The lower part of the pulpit, you know, between its floor and the floor of the church, is closed in with criss-crossed laths, with little square holes between them, so that when you're under there you can see out, and if meetin’ was in, you could see Deacon Hill’s bald head shining like a varnished pumpkin. Well, say, sis, I bet when there’s a hornet coming out of every one of those holes, a good many of them will see nothing but that bald head, and think of nothin’ but jabbin’ it. They’ll be fightin’ mad, every last one of ’em, and, great Scott, how they’ll make that congregation get up and dust! That’s why I said you’d better sit near the door.” “Oh, Danny, it would be a horribly wicked thing to do! Just think how many folks would, be stung! Why, it would break up the meeting!” “Knock the meetin’ sky high, sure enough; but just think what fun it'll be to see ’em scramblin’ and crawlin’ to get out of the doors and windows; and old Mr. McLeod will get his dose, I’ll bet! They’ll make him dance worse’n he made me the time he curled his black-snake whip around my legs!” “You bad no right to take his colt out of the pasture to run races.” “Great Scott, Hetty! A fellow might as well die if he isn’t to do anything but what he has a right to. It’s the things you haven’t a right to that you get most fun out of always.” "If you act up to that, Danny, you will

be not only a bad boy, bnt a very wicked man when you grow up.” “Oh, well, I don’t mean anything serions, you know, but just fun.” “Turning those hornets loose in church would be very serious and not at all fun ny for the folks who got stung, and you must not do it. I will not allow it.” “You won’t! I don’t guess you can stop me. Ain’t they my hornets? Suppose I had the idea of making pets of them and have changed my mind, and being a very kind-hearted boy, I choose to give the poor insects their liberty.” “But not in church.” “Why not? Isn’t that a good place? Isn’t Mr. McLeod just the right man to tackle them? The last time he saw me in church, he preached about Elijah and the bears and the boys, and he looked square at me, as if he wished he could feed me to a bear. But he’d better go to training on little things like hornets for awhile before he begins ordering bears around.” “If you don't give up the awfully wicked idea, Danny, I’ll tell on you and have it stopped. I really must. I wouldn’t have such a thing on my conscience.” “Oh! Indeed! After you’ve crossed your heart you wouldn't tell! A nice, soft, tender, mushy sort of conscience you must have! Just it on your own affairs and let mine alone. I never did anything as mean as you have.” “Why, Danny! What did I ever do?” “You coaxed John Cameron to run. off with you and then wouldn’t marry him, just to make a fool of him. And it’s on your account he stays away so long.” The cruel allegation that it was her own fault she was not long since John Cameron’s wife —all the more hard to bear for having a spice of truth in it—quite overcame her. Turning her back upon the boy, without reply, she walked out to the front gate-and stood leaning over it, lost in reverie tinged with regret. Danny ran up to the garret over the parlor, “to see how Scotch/ was getting along with mam.” The worthy Mr. McFarlane’s getting along was due to no endeavor of his own. He simply allowed himself to drift on the current of conversational circumstance. Luckily for him, the widow had no mind to see the bark of his evident good intentions wrecked for lack of piloting. Love-making maj’ be either the evolution of impulse or the product of art. The period of youth, when impulse inspires that efflorescence of the inexperienced soul, Roger had passed through safely, without a temptation in that direction disturbing his serene devotion to the acquisition of a competence. And the engrossing cares and settled habits of his maturer years had left no place in his life for cultivation of that alluring but dangerous branch of art. The methods of courtship were as unknown to him as those of the higher mathematics. By cautious experiment and rehearsal before his mirror, he had learned to assume an expression of countenance that seemed to him very affectionate, even languishing, and, having tried its effect upon the widow, he flattered himself that she had caught a correct understanding of it. With the exception of his occasional employment of that expression at stated intervals, his visits to Mrs. Mulveil were as devoid of sentimental demonstration as were the official calls of the assessor of taxes. Seated at a respectful distance from the buxom widow, Mr. McFarlane talked. It could not be said that he “kept the conversational ball rolling.” That phrase conveys altogether too forceful an idea. Rather his talk flowed mild, persistent and a little muddy. Weather, crops, his farm improvements, and the doctrine of regeneration by grace were his staple themes, interspersed with casually remembered fragments of such meager news of the day as might have come to his knowledge. Hetty’s reverie was suddenly broken by an eager clutch upon her arm and Danny’s voice excitedly whispering in her ear: “Say, sis; I ain’t going to touch off the congregation with them hornets.” “I’m glad you are not, Danny. I hoped you would see the wickedness of it, when you came to think?’ > . “Oh, wickedness nothin’! tt ain't that. But John Cameron will be at church tomorrow, and I don’t want him stung.” “John will be at church to-morrow! How do you know that?” “Just heard old McFarlane tell mam. Uncle Dave Henderson brought him home to-day. That was what made me change my mind.” “And I’ve changed my mind, too, Danny; you dear, good boy. I’ll go to church to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XXII. For the first time in almost half a century, Mrs. Mulveil looked with suspicion upon the honest face of the tall clock in the corner of the sitting room. Long ago N it had taken to running the lunar changes in a spasmodic, fantastic and untrammeled fashion peculiarly its own, and she could hardly remember when it might be depended upon for the day of the month, but its approximate reliability as a timekeeper had become a matter of faith with her. This Sunday morning, however, its hands pointed to half-past seven when her feelings, the length of the shadows and the dew on the grass all told her the hour was not yet more than half-past five. Happily, she did not suspect Danny of having suborned the aged witness to deceive her. fietty did, however, gratefully, and furthered his impatient desires, with which her own were in harmony, by pretending unimpaired confidence in the veracity of the clock and arguing that it would be better to trust to it, even if by so doing they were brought Somewhat early to meeting, rather than run the risk of arriving there after Everybody else. The result yyas that the chores were hurriedly performed, breakfast hastily dispatched, and the widow Mulveil’s old “dearborn” was the first vehicle drawn under the maple grove surrounding the church that communion Sabbath morn. But hardly had it taken the choicest location for hitching—near the spring and where the horses would be under shade all day—when there were more early comers, and by the time the sexton appeared to open the church doors a dozen families had arrived, amongthem the deacons, whose duty it was to set the communion tables. , “' (To be continued.)