第45章

"May I set down just a minute?" she asked."I can generally talk better settin'."He pulled forward the ancient rocker with the rush seat.The cross-stitch "tidy" on the back was his mother's handiwork, she had made it when she was fifteen.Rachel sat down in the rocker.

"Al" she began, still in the same mysterious whisper, "I know all about it."He looked at her."All about what?" he asked.

"About the trouble you and Cap'n Lote had this afternoon.I know you're plannin' to leave us all and go away somewheres and that he told you to go, and all that.I know what you've been doin' up here to-night.Fur's that goes," she added, with a little catch in her breath and a wave of her hand toward the open trunk and suitcase upon the floor, "I wouldn't need to know, I could SEE."Albert was surprised and confused.He had supposed the whole affair to be, so far, a secret between himself and his grandfather.

"You know?" he stammered."You-- How did you know?""Laban told me.Labe came hurryin' over here just after supper and told me the whole thing.He's awful upset about it, Laban is.He thinks almost as much of you as he does of Cap'n Lote or--or me,"with an apologetic little smile.

Albert was astonished and troubled."How did Labe know about it?"he demanded.

"He heard it all.He couldn't help hearin'.""But he couldn't have heard.The door to the private office was shut.""Yes, but the window at the top--the transom one, you know--was wide open.You and your grandpa never thought of that, I guess, and Laban couldn't hop up off his stool and shut it without givin'

it away that he'd been hearin'.So he had to just set and listen and I know how he hated doin' that.Laban Keeler ain't the listenin' kind.One thing about it all is a mercy," she added, fervently."It's the Lord's own mercy that that Issy Price wasn't where HE could hear it, too.If Issy heard it you might as well paint it up on the town-hall fence; all creation and his wife wouldn't larn it any sooner."Albert drew a long breath."Well," he said, after a moment, "I'm sorry Labe heard, but I don't suppose it makes much difference.

Everyone will know all about it in a day or two...I'm going."Rachel leaned forward.

"No, you ain't, Al," she said.

"I'm not? Indeed I am! Why, what do you mean?""I mean just what I say.You ain't goin'.You're goin' to stay right here.At least I hope you are, and I THINK you are....

Oh, I know," she added, quickly, "what you are goin' to say.

You're goin' to tell me that your grandpa is down on you on account of your father, and that you don't like bookkeepin', and that you want to write poetry and--and such.You'll say all that, and maybe it's all true, but whether 'tis or not ain't the point at all just now.The real point is that you're Janie Snow's son and your grandpa's Cap'n Lote Snow and your grandma's Olive Snow and there ain't goin' to be another smash-up in this family if I can help it.

I've been through one and one's enough.Albert, didn't you promise me that Sunday forenoon three years ago when I came into the settin'-room and we got talkin' about books and Robert Penfold and everything--didn't you promise me then that when things between you and your grandpa got kind of--of snarled up and full of knots you'd come to me with 'em and we'd see if we couldn't straighten 'em out together? Didn't you promise me that, Albert?"Albert remembered the conversation to which she referred.As he remembered it, however, he had not made any definite promise.

"You asked me to talk them over with you, Rachel," he admitted."Ithink that's about as far as it went."

"Well, maybe so, but now I ask you again.Will you talk this over with me, Albert? Will you tell me every bit all about it, for my sake? And for your grandma's sake....Yes, more'n that, for your mother's sake, Albert; she was pretty nigh like my own sister, Jane Snow was.Different as night from day of course, she was pretty and educated and all that and I was just the same then as Iam now, but we did think a lot of each other, Albert.Tell me the whole story, won't you, please.Just what Cap'n Lote said and what you said and what you plan to do--and all? Please, Albert."There were tears in her eyes.He had always liked her, but it was a liking with a trace of condescension in it.She was peculiar, her "sympathetic attacks" were funny, and she and Laban together were an odd pair.Now he saw her in a new light and he felt a sudden rush of real affection for her.And with this feeling, and inspired also by his loneliness, came the impulse to comply with her request, to tell her all his troubles.

He began slowly at first, but as he went on the words came quicker.

She listened eagerly, nodding occasionally, but saying nothing.

When he had finished she nodded again.

"I see," she said."'Twas almost what Laban said and about what he and I expected.Well, Albert, I ain't goin' to be the one to blame you, not very much anyhow.I don't see as you are to blame; you can't help the way you're made.But your grandfather can't help bein' made his way, either.He can't see with your spectacles and you can't see with his."He stirred rebelliously."Then we had better go our own ways, Ishould say," he muttered.

"No, you hadn't.That's just what you mustn't do, not now, anyhow.