HETTY’S MISTAKE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11751, 1 December 1898, Page 2

HETTY’S MISTAKE.

(By MBS J. K. LAWSON.)

CHAPTER I. The harvest was past, the gram garnered; a, few late russets still huug in the orchard, and the woods that encompassed the farm were gorgeous in autumn sunset hues. The white wall's and green shutters of the quaint, .verandahed farm;house could nojw be seen quite clearly from the road across the stubble fields. In the deep Canadian blue overhead the'sun; was shining brilliantly, underfoot a light white rime sparkled like diamond dust. The farmer and his son left the house and nude their way through the fieldsrto the bush beyond. On their way they passed two magnificent trees—a maple and a beech, whose roots reached down to the edge of the little creek that ran through the farm. The farmer paused arid looked up admiringly. “•We’ll be pretty hard up afore we cut them down,” he said. “‘Well, rather. I’d rather see the whole bush hacked down than them two trees. Although, -when I think o’ what’s come an gone, I’ve wished they’d never grown there, or he had never seen them, an’ never struck our way.” "I don’t blame ye, Joe, lad, I’ve been young myself, an though I’m old now I; dunno as there ever was.anything that riled me more than Hctty runniit away with that fool photographer—an artist he willed mssel.”

A muttered anathema on the fool photographer was the son’s only response, butgris face darkened and his hand which held the axe clenched it hard.

“ She never was the same after that fellow came, an’ though ho paid his board square enough, ma never liked him. She began to see how it was with iiim an’ Hetty, an’ she spoke to Hetty about.lit too, an’ was glad when he went—he an’ his umbreller an’ his •camp stool an’ his flatterin’ tongue. 1 That picture"he got her to sit for,* feediri’ the calves," it was no more like her than, it was me, an’ as for the beasts. —sich beasts. Yes—ha called hisselan artist.”

‘ James Winter paused to utter a snort of contempt, and resumed: “If only ma would stop frettin’ about her I wouldn’t mind so much, but I declare she thought as much about that gal us though she had been our.own. But you see. M/Lry, Leo an’ she were old friends, an’ when Mary died an’ left the little ’un to ma to bring up, ma said, an’ I said, she should bo instead o’ our own little ones that died o’ the diptheery. An’ she turned out sich a capital worker, tco —there wasn’t the beat of her in the township'for making butter. An’ though the fellow did marry her I’ve heard he drank an’ ill-used. her. It’s two years since I heard they’d been sold up for rent.”

“What!” exclaimed the son, in a voice that startled his unsuspecting father.

- He locked at him with mild wonder and went on. “If I knew where she wuz I’d go and thrash the hide of him; but since they were sold up an’ left the city we’ve never heard a trace of ’em. I don’t see nothing, Joe, but for you to bring home some o’ them there gals you know—it would kind o’ chirk up ma to have a nice young gal in the house. That boy we have works well, but. he ain’t a gal—he ain’t a gal.” “ Ma ’ll have to hire a girl, then,” said

Jo?. • , “If .1 were you, Joe, I’d go one better nor, that; I’d bring home a wife. Time you were thinkin’ o’ matin’ now, ain’t it?” Joe’s rather handsome sunburned face flushed red as a beet; he shouldered his axe, but remained mute. “Eh, Joe, what d’ye think?” his father repeated, without looking at him. “ Naw —I guess not/’ Joe answered briefly.. After/that not another.word on the sub-: ject of the lost Hetty, or ma, or anything personal was mooted. All day their axes rung, and the strokes echoed through the aisles of the woods, and many a stout tree fell before them. It was nearing Christmas when Joe hitched up his team and drove the laden sledges' of cordwood • into a city woodyard, where'he had a contract to deliver a hundred cords of good beech and maple, green and dried. There was good sleighing, the day was fine, the sky divinely blue,' the frozen' snow clean, crisp and sparkling, the air invigorating and charged with ozone, Joe whistled unconsciously as his team trotted along the' clean white roads; he was well-fed, well-clad, and altogether looked a handsome, wholesome fellow as he leaped down off his load arid steered the team thtough between the walls of piled-up cordwood. ■ He had thrown off the wood and was backing out of the gate again when a little fellow of. some eight or nine years came fearlessly in between the wheel and the door of the little office at the gate. Joe stopped his horses and seized him by the shoulder. “Ain’t you afraid to get in between the wheel and the wall, youngster? You might get killed. , What are you doing here anyway ?” “ I come for wood,” said the boy, bravely. The salesman in the little office came to the door. “Well, youngster, what do you want?” “What’s Number One wood a cord?” demanded the urchin. “ Seven dollars,” the man replied promptly. " Gimme a five cent stick o’ beech an' maple,” the youngster said, dauntlessly holding out the nickel in the palm of his small hand. The salesman threw up his chin in a loud laugh of derision, and Joe himself grinned. “ Bright youngster, that, eh?”, he remarked. “ Well, I' hain’t got no more money,” explained the boy, who felt keenly he was being laughed at. “ All right, my boy. Give him another two.. Til stand the racket,” said Joe to the salesman., “A couple of good beech and maple. Stay—l’ll pick out a couple.’ 1 He,strode through the piles of dried cordwood, 1 and presently returned with two massive- sticks upon hjs broad, shoulders. • The boy looked at him in blank dismay. “Holy Moses!” he said. “'Think I can cany them?” For a,moment the benevolence of Joe was checked, but only for a moment. “Where do you live, young coon?” “ Pnmer’s Alley,” said the boy. “That’s off King Street,” interposed the salesman. _ “Well,” said Joe, tossing the sticks on to the sledge, “ I’ll jest go round by King Street—tain’t, much out ox my way—you pitch in your sticks ’long o’ these an’ climb in yourself an’* I’ll drive ye as fur as I go it at way'.” 1 The boy nbeded no second bidding; he realised vividly that ha was in luck, and his countenance, ‘which was an eloquent one, showed it. “ Must be mighty hard up when you go to buy a five cent stick o wood, remarked Joe, "looking at the child’s clean, wellpatched jacket, the knees of his knickerbpekers worn through the last patcli again, his boots whpse side cracks were filled with snow, the little old fur can with its ear-laps tied under,his,chin ; and the red cravat much the.worse for wear. . .. “ Hain’t vou got no parents.' Joe went cn, his voice', softening . unconsciously. Hain’t vou no father?” . " “Oh! Pop gin in his checks when I was a little,’un. Good job, too ! ’ ■ ■ “ Eh? How’s that? You must be a bad boy to speak that way about your father,” said Joe, infinitely amused. “ No, I ain’t. It was Pop was bad. He drank whisky an' licked ma an’ raised Cain all the time.” li So vour mother’s a widow then; “ Yes', bat she’s sick. Got cold when she j was out washin’.” j “Oh.! that’s too bad. Any more mothers | and sisters?” I "Nop!” i “ You’re the only one, eh?” I “ Y r cp!” “ An’ who cams the money when your mother’s sick?” “ Me.” ‘ “Yon?”

•• Y-'p. I carry two routes o’ papere r.icrnin' an’, evenin’. That’s two dollars an a half a week” . . ■ "You do, eh?” exclaimed Joe, m open admiration. “ Well, I say, you are a bnck. What’s vour name?”

“Jim, Jim Smith.’’ “ Well; here’s your street —Fumer s Alley. I don't care to "baqk my team down there, but if I tlu'ow off them" sticks maybe you’ll get some o’ the boys there to give you a lift with them. Which is vour house?” The boy alighted and pointed to a littie grey clapboard cottage—the fifth door up. “All right. You go .home now an’ tell year mother I’m going to bring her in a let o’ small brush, good beech an’ maybe, but snail—makes splendid burning. I kin pile it on top o’ my load an’ throw it off ait the door, cornin’ in at tother end o’ the alley.” Mrs Smith laid risen from her oed, and was languidly tidying about the little scan-tily-furnished house, when the door' burst open with a bang, and four yoimgstere, headed by Jim, bundled a great heavy stick of cordwood into the apartment, and instantly decamped, “ What a splendid stick ! He couldn’t get that for five cents, she murmured, stooping, and vainly attempting to raise it. “Be ech —fine dry beech—l haven’t seen a sound stick like that for years.” She had scarce done admiring it when the sound of feet, and boys’ shrill chatter, again neared the door, and another stick was dope sited on the floor with a dump that shook the house. “Jim! Jim! Where did you get Ihe money?” she cried in vague alarm. But Jim, with the rest, was off again, leaving bet to close the door. The third time he returned alone 4 witii a very right pine stick on his small shoulder. "Where on earth have you got all that beautiful wood?” she queried, not without anxiety, for it whs the sorrow of her life that trie boy had to be so much on the strteit. “ You’ll never guess, ma,” said Jim, thriving, his small figure into a rocking chair; and dei ositing his feet on the warm oven. “ No, I couldn’t, Jim, my boy., But so as you got it honest, I’m thankful.'’ “Honest? Yon bet! Say, ma, wliat would you say if you saw' a load o’ beech an’ maple pitched down at the Jour tomorrci, enSay—wouldn’t that be hunkey-dorv?” “It would, Jim. But we won’t ’ook for any such luck. .We get nothing oat what we can earn, you an’ me, an’ if I could only gar, my strength back we’d soon work things nnnd again. But where did you get that wood?” Jim locssned the strings of his cap, and whirled it over his head to alignt where it might, before beginning hi-, graphic narration of his meeting with Joe. “ 1 told him you were sick—l had to—he kep pumping ms nil the way down, an’ I wasn’t going to lie for no man. So he said he’d bring you in a lot o’ small brush to-morrer. Ain’t he a bully boy?” “ He is certainly more than kind, Jimmy ; an’ though it goes sore against the grain to take charity from anyone, still I guess well bo glad of the wood anyway. An’ then it’s for your sake he’s sent it"—and he’s a stranger,” CHAPTER 11. Joe’s recital of his adventure with little Jim Smith gave a rare relish to supper at the farmhouse that night. • “ You ought to seen the little coon—just so high,” continued Joe, gleefully ; “an’ when I asked him anything it was ‘ yep ’ and ‘ nop ’; nothing so common as ‘ yes ’ and ‘ no.’ An’ there ho was, the family provider, with his five cents for a cordwood stick, an’ as cool as a pig on ice. Oh, he’s a rare little Tm is Jim. I wish I could bring him out here for a day just to let him see what like the country is.” ... “Why don’t you,” said Mrs Winter, .“it would do the child/good. Poor boy! I guess lie goes with a hungry stomach many a day. And his mother sick, you say?” “ So he said.” “Well, Joe Winter, when you go in with that brushwood on top o’ your pile, you’ll take in a dozen fresh eggs an’ a chicken to that poor woman. She’ll never get round nor strong again ’thout good food, an’ good food a boy’s arm can’t buy.” Jim had gone to carry his afternoon route, and Mrs Smith, still .weak and pale, sat in ; the t rocking-chair before the, fire repairing her son’s knickerbockers once more, when a knock sounded on the door.

“ Conic ’in,” she called, and-the tall form of Joe Whiter stood on the threshold. There he stood, powerless to move further, while his wholesome, sun-bronzed visage paled, and into his eyes came an expression of astonishment and pain.

“Joel” cried.the woman, rising and coming forward. “Hetty! Good laud! is it you?” . “Yes, Joe. it is I; God help me!” She staggered to a seat, and sinking into it, hid her face in her hands arid sobbed. ■

Joe came in and closed the door behind him, and 1 sat down also. For a few minutes there was silence, save . for the woman’s heavy sobbing, but at last she controlled herself.

“’Course, Hetty, we’d no idea it was you was the bov’s mother; but bein’ you were sick, ma sent in this here chicken an’ them fresh eggs. They’ll do ye a power o’ good. They’re nourishin’.” 5

He reached over and laid the tidy chip basket on the table. “ Ma! She’ll never forgive me, never. Nor pa, nor you, Joe! I don’t deserve it; I did wrong, but if ever any woman was punished for her follv. I’ve been.” “Well, I nose you loved him, Hetty, so there’s no more to be said about it, Joe responded, in kindly apologetic tones. “As to forgiven; 1 vuess you did more harm to yourself than to us by a long way. Only ma keeps fretting about you so. Ye see we didn’t know your husband was dead. Pa heard you had been sold up and gone away, we never knew where.”

“ An’ do you mean to say ma really frets about me?” she queried wistfully. “ Oh, what a fool I was! But he spoke to me so fair, and I did want to get away so badly. How’s Nellie? Any. children?” Joe’s face flushed—he stared at her in wonder. . .

' " You mean Nellie Black, I s’pose’.'.Yes, she’s three children.” Mrs Smith sighed heavily and her face saddened.

“ Your--mother’ll be fond o’ the children, Joe?” '

“Ma? I dmmio as she ever saw them. An’ I don’t see as she has any particular call to be fond o’ Jack Somers’s young ones. They don’t rive in our township, anyhow.”

It was Mrs Smith’s turn to look surprised. “ Jack Somers ! Nellie Black your wife? She told me you were engaged and were going to be married that fajd, only you were keeping it quiet,” she said, faintly.

“ Then she told you a confounded lie,” was Joe’s prompt and indignant retort. “ There was never no more between Nell Black and me than any other woman. I never took up with any woman in that way. And Hetty,” he continued, drawing his chair with startling suddenness close to here, “ I’m going to tell you now what I wanted to tell you many’s the time afore I saw how it was witji you and that fellow. There is only one 1 gal ever, I hankered after for my wife, and she ran away with another man—a stranger she’d only known a month. I worshipped the ground that gal walked on; I’d a : laid my life down 1 at her feet; I’d a kept the wind from blowin’ on her if 1 could. An’ yet she ran away with—with —;),o . sir ! —I. can’t , call him a man. If he'd been-a man he’d-never illused you as I’m told he did, Hetty. iWhat on earth made you think I wanted Nellie Black?”

“ She told me sc—and you were always fooling with her when she was up at the house, or at a party,” said Hetty tremulously. " An’ don’t you know, Hetty, that a man never fools and makes fun with the girl ne loves? He can’t. He is too much in earnest, and has too much respect for her to cany on fool-fashion. Great guns! And vou thought I was sweet on Nellie Black?” “ I did. And that was why I flirted with Dawson. He took the name of Smith after

we had been sold up, so he could get credit under another name. And I was so miserable when she told me you had kissed her and that you were engaged, and showed the ring you cave her ■”

What Joe interjected ’nere must lie left out. Charity will remember his cruel provocation. , “ I never kissed her in my life ; never was engaged to her; and never gave her a ring. I've a good mind to go and punch her head for her, and I would too, if she werent a woman. I loved you, Hetty, always did. I loved you so much I couldn’t speak about it. It was enough to have you. always at home there; but when I saw you take up with him, I think I could have killed you both. And now; to see you like this, poor and broken down, and —ob, heavens and earth!” he cried, standing up and stamping his foot on the floor, “ I can t stand this. You’ve got to come home with me right away. It's been all my fault. I ought to ’a’ spoken and told you my mcanin , and then Nellie Black nor nobody else could have done any mischief. Hettic, come home. Ma wants vou —Pa wants me to take a wife come and bring the youngster along.” It was quite late when Joe got home to the farm that evening; so late indeed that the old folks began to feel uneasy about hi a. He was usually so steady that any irregularity in his returns • from the city caused grave apprehension. At sundown, however, the team came trotting cheerily up between the fences, and Joe was whistling blithely. “Whatever kept you, Joe?” said "Mrs Winter, as he sat down to supper in evident good spirits. “ Well, ma, some time ago, when pa and I went out chopping, he tackled me about bringin’ home a wife, i didn’t see my way just then ; but I’ve been a-sparking since, and I guess we’re going to have a wedding soon.”

“ Joe, you don’t say so! Who is she?” “ A widow,” Joe answered, inrs Winter’s face assumed a half-fright-cued expression.

“A widow, Joe?” • a widow, ma. And a youngster, too.” Mrs W inter turned and looked out of the window. It was a big blow, this. She had for years back been prepared to hand over the reins of government to a capable young girl whom, she could advise and instruct, but a widow!

A sob escaped her, she could not restrain it. Joe rose and wound lus aims about her necic, and kissed her cheek. “ Don’t fret, ma. ’Taint no stranger, it’s only Hetty, your own gal, Hetty. She ran away for love o’ me, an’ I’ve kept single for love o’ her, an’ now we’ve squared up.” Next morning folks wondered why on earth Mrs Winter was driving into town, all dressed up, with Joe and his father, so early in the morning.