Checkers: A Hard-luck Story

Checkers reached for his stick, but Pert restrained him. "Never mind, dearest," she said, "it may not be as bad as you think – things never are; and we 've got the house and the farm, and the bonds; and, whatever happens, we 've got each other."

"Yes; you 've got each other," said the old man cynically, "and that's all ye will have, if things goes this way. If yer goin' to Little Rock, boy," he said sharply, consulting his old silver watch, "ye must hurry; ye ain't more 'n time to make it now."

Checkers saw that this was so, and going to his room, made a hasty toilet. "Good-bye, Pert, darling," he said, as he emerged, catching her up and embracing her lovingly. "I 'll be back soon; don't mind what he says;" and with a warning glance at Mr. Barlow, he hurried off down the road toward the station.

As he stood upon the platform awaiting the train he felt a sudden presentiment of evil, and with a superstition born of his early experience in gambling, he half decided to turn back. "I 've got a feeling I ought n't to go," he muttered; "but I guess it's because I 'm afraid the old man will worry Pert. Still, she seemed to take it calm enough, and I ought to get there and look after my stuff." He boarded the train and went steaming off, but he could not get rid of his bugaboo.

The situation with Checkers at this time was about as follows: Of the legacy left him, $20,000 had gone for the farm, or fruit ranch, which he had given Pert. A thousand more had been spent in refitting and furnishing the house. Most of the wedding expenses, which Checkers had assumed, Part's presents, an elaborate wardrobe for himself, the household expenses, and the trip to Chicago, had consumed about another thousand. The balance, except ten government bonds and a few hundred dollars in the bank at Clarksville, was on deposit at interest in this bank which failed – $4,800, for which he held a certificate of deposit. It was very unfortunate, and the sense of his loss kept growing upon him as time went on.

Meanwhile Mr. Barlow had taken occasion to lecture Pert on her sinful extravagance. With pencil and paper he sat before her, and showed her how within six short months she and Checkers had spent one-tenth of their fortune, and how with this loss at the bank they were poorer by a third of all they had ever possessed.

"Figures won't lie, but liars will figure." He knew, but he did not tell her, that of what was actual expense there would be little cause for its repetition, and that most of the money expended was visible in assets of one sort or another. He only made her feel perfectly miserable, and wrought her up beyond the point of thinking or answering intelligently.

When he had gone she tried for a while to busy herself about the house, but she felt a growing lonesomeness – a desire for sympathy and companionship – and she decided to put on her hat and go down to her cousin Sadie's.

It was now high noon, and a stifling hot day; but she braved the heat of the blistering sun, and trudged along the dusty way to her destination. When she reached the Martins' house she was dizzy and faint from the heat and the blinding glare.

Judge Martin and Arthur came home to dinner, and both expressed the greatest sympathy for her and Checkers in their sudden misfortune. At the table Pert tried to eat for appearance's sake, but her efforts ended in mere pretense. Sadie noticed it, and insisted that after dinner she go to a room on the cool side of the house and "take a nap." To this Pert objected. "I can never sleep during the day," she said; "the longer I lie, the wider awake I get. I am really all right," she added, smiling bravely, "only my head aches – a very little."

"We'll soon fix that," exclaimed Arthur. "I 've been troubled with headache and sleeplessness lately, myself, and I 've struck a remedy that beats anything you ever saw; knocks a headache, and makes you sleep like an infant. It's perfectly harmless, too – guaranteed. Excuse me a minute; I'll get the box."

Pert felt too miserably weak and apathetic to further object to Sadie's suggestion or Arthur's remedy; so, under her cousin's ministering guidance, she retired to an upper room and prepared herself with what comfort she could to rest, while Sadie opened the windows and drew the shades.

"Now, Pert," said Sadie, "take one of these powders with a little water, and I think you 'll feel better right away. I 'll leave the box here on the table, near the bed, and if the first one does n 't cure your headache and put you to sleep, take another. Now is there anything more you want, dear? If there is, just call; I 'll leave the door the least bit open." A sudden impulse prompted her, as she was going out, to return and kiss Pert fondly, and though not an uncommon thing between them, still both wondered for a moment afterward at the unusual tenderness and feeling that each had unconsciously put into the embrace.

Left alone, Pert tried to compose her mind and go to sleep; but in spite of herself her brain dwelt anxiously upon Checkers in Little Rock, and upon what her father had said to her. Half an hour passed and still her fancy teemed, as she restlessly tossed from side to side. She felt herself growing nervous, and her ear upon the pillow told her that her heart was beating rapidly.

"At least my head feels a great deal better," she murmured, raising herself upon her elbow; "now if I could only get to sleep I believe I should wake up quite myself again. Perhaps another powder will do it; I 'm afraid of them, though. Still, Arthur says they 're perfectly harmless – I 'll take just one more. Checkers would n 't like it; he told me never to take any medicine." She lifted her box from the table. "Dear old Checkers," she said to herself, with a sigh, preparing the powder; "how he loves me! His first thought was to keep the news from me for fear I would worry." She took the draught and sank back upon the pillow – "to be loved as he loves me – Oh, Checkers! mother!!"

The afternoon wore on towards dusk. Sadie went about her household duties, humming softly. Once she thought she heard Pert call, but as the sound was not repeated, she fancied herself mistaken, and sat down to read, happy in the thought that Pert must have fallen asleep. It seemed to be blowing up cooler; the wind had shifted, and a few dark clouds were rolling up from the west, with distant rumbling.

About five o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Barlow drove up in a buggy. Mrs. Barlow got out, and Mr. Barlow drove on toward the store. Sadie saw them and opened the door.

"Is Pert here, Sadie?" was the question which greeted her. "We 've been up to her house, and 'Mandy' said she had come down here."

"Yes; she 's here, Auntie Barlow."

"The poor little thing! My husband only told me the news this afternoon; he 's been down street all morning, and I wanted to see her and comfort her."

"She wasn't feeling well," explained Sadie, "and after dinner I sent her up stairs to sleep. You 'll find her in the bedroom over the parlor. She must be awake by this time."

"Very well; I 'll go up." Mrs. Barlow ascended the stairs.

Sadie went to the window and looked out upon the gathering storm, now vividly foretold by constant flashes of jagged lightning. Suddenly she started, and stood transfixed, as though turned to ice with a chilling horror. There had come to her ears from above an awful cry of bitter anguish, quickly followed by a jarring, muffled sound, as of a falling body.

"Auntie Barlow!" she gasped, regaining her faculties with a superhuman effort, and rushing blindly toward the stairs. Staggering up with the aid of the banister, she reached the landing and entered the room beyond. There, prostrate upon the floor, lay Mrs. Barlow in a deathlike swoon. Upon the bed lay the lifeless body of poor little Pert – her pure, white soul had flown.

There are some who faint at the thought of a thing, but are brave when they meet it face to face. Such a one was Sadie. She realized the situation at a glance; and though the awfulness of it benumbed her, she did, dry-eyed and mechanically, what she knew must be done. Mrs. Barlow she could not lift, but, she sprinkled her face with water, and put a pillow under her head. Then with the ghost of a hope that Pert was but in a stupor, she rushed down the stairs, and out into the street, toward the doctor's, a few doors away. She met him just coming out of his gate. "Come, quick," she said; and as they hurried back she told him in a few words what had happened.

Mrs. Barlow still lay in a state of semi-consciousness, moaning pitifully at intervals. With all her soul in her eyes, Sadie watched the doctor while he felt Pert's wrist and held a glass before her lips for an indication of breathing. But his face gave never a sign of hope, and his eyes, as he looked up, told her all. "She is dead," he said softly. Sadie burst into a fit of uncontrollable weeping. The doctor lifted Mrs. Barlow carefully and deposited her upon a bed in another room.

The sound of voices was heard outside – those of Arthur and Judge Martin talking to Mr. Barlow, who had just driven up and met them as they were coming in. Sadie went slowly down the stairs and opened the door. The sight of her tear-stained face startled them all. "What is it?" they exclaimed simultaneously.

"Oh, Pert – " she began; but burst again into weeping and was unable to continue.

The doctor appeared just behind her, and told the three men what had happened. Mr. Barlow, his face set hard, and a ghastly white under his yellow skin, tottered up the stairs, the doctor following. Judge Martin penned a telegram to Checkers, and dispatched Arthur with it at once.

"Pert is very sick. Come home," it read, and it was signed as though from Mr. Barlow.

Fortunately, Checkers, in Little Rock, had but a few moments to wait for the outgoing train after receiving the message; but every moment of the journey was torture; every delay at way-stations, agony. When, after what seemed to him like years, they at last pulled into Clarksville, he jumped from the moving train to the platform.

Judge Martin had set for himself the unwelcome task of meeting him and breaking the sad news. But his resolution all but failed him when Checkers, grasping both his hands, asked breathlessly, "How is she, sir?" his face upturned with a pleading look, as though upon the answer depended his very life and salvation.

"She is very low, my poor boy," answered the Judge, the tears coming into his eyes; "but you must be brave – "

"My God, my God!" breathed Checkers, raising his hand to his eyes in a dazed way, as though to ward off the blow of the Judge's words, the import of which was all too plain. The Judge laid his hand upon Checkers' shoulder and drew him toward him, protectingly. "Come," he said, gently; "she is at my house."

Checkers started as though from a dream. "At your house," he echoed, "and I have been standing here wasting precious time."

With a sudden bound he jumped to the ground and flew up the street through the darkness, toward the Judge's house, not many yards away. Arthur heard the sound of his footsteps, and silently opened the door. "Upstairs, Checkers," he whispered. Checkers hurried frantically up the stairs, but paused at the threshold, ere he entered the room. There before him, by the light of one dim, flickering candle, sat Sadie, silently weeping. There upon the bed, cold and silent in death, lay the mortal remains of his sweet girl-wife.

With an agonized cry he fell to his knees at the bedside, and taking her cold little hand, he rubbed it and kissed it caressingly. "Pert, my darling," he moaned, "come back to me! Don't leave me, Pert, my precious one – tell me you won't dear – tell me you hear me! – " But only the sound of Sadie's convulsive sobbing answered him as she stumbled from the room.

The long threatened storm now suddenly broke in all its fury. The rain blew fiercely in at a window near him, and drenched him through and through with the flying spray; but he heeded it not. Kneeling at the bedside, his face above the little hand clasped in both of his, he uttered mingled incoherent prayers to Pert to come back, and to God to take him too.

Judge Martin noiselessly entered the room and closed the window. Gently he put a hand under each of Checkers' arms, and raised him up. "Come, my boy," he said kindly, but firmly, "you must not stay here in this condition. Try to bear up. It's an awful blow that has come upon us; but God, in his inscrutable wisdom, has thought it best to take her – "

Again, with a sudden burst of anguish, as though his very heart had broken within him, Checkers threw himself to his knees by the bedside, and burying his face between his outstretched arms, poured out in bitter, choking sobs, his utter hopeless, despairing misery. So terrible a strain, however, brought about, in the end, its own results. Beneficent nature intervened, and toward the morning hours Judge Martin and Arthur gently lifted the grief-stricken boy from the kneeling position in which he had fallen asleep, and put him comfortably upon a bed in another room, without his awakening.

Details of this sort are harrowing at best, but nothing imaginable could have been sadder than was the funeral two days later. The rain, which had never intermitted, fell with dismal hopelessness. Mrs. Barlow had not been able to leave her bed since the shock, and, never strong, her life was now almost despaired of.

Checkers stood uncovered in the down-pouring rain, beside the open grave, his clear-cut face as hard and white as marble. In spite of the draggling wet and clinging mud, the country people were out in force; but their gapes, their nudges and whispers, were as little to him as the falling rain. He was dead to everything but the sense of his utter, hopeless desolation.

What made it all even sadder, if possible, was that a dreadful breach had come between him and Sadie and Arthur.

On the morning following that first awful night, he had suddenly confronted them with the box of powders crushed in his hand, and in his eyes a tragic, questioning look which spoke, while he stood sternly silent.

"Oh, Checkers," cried Sadie, falling to her knees and holding out her hands entreatingly, "forgive us – we did n't know – we didn't know! Forgive us; please forgive us!"

But his face only grew the harder. "Forgive you," he said, as he raised his clenched hand to heaven, invokingly; "may God eternally – " but he faltered, and his voice grew suddenly soft, "forgive you," he added, dropping his arm and lowering his voice contritely. "But I," he began again, in measured passionless words – "I can never forgive you. I never want to see you – either of you – again." And from that hour he never spoke to them, nor looked at them, any more than as though they were not.

The funeral was over. He had come home. The rain had ceased. He sat alone on his doorstep. The minister and some well-meaning but mistaken friends, who had tried to comfort him, were gone. Over the western hills the lowering sun broke through the heavy, moving clouds, painting some a lurid tinge, and lining the heavier ones with silver. Checkers noted it absently. "Another lie nailed," he muttered, as the trite old proverb occurred to him. "My cloud is blacker and heavier than any of those – and silver lining? Humph! Well, silver 's demonetized!" Over his face there flitted the ghost of a smile. A smile, not at the sorry jest, but at the thought that at this hour there should have come to him so whimsical a fancy.

A number of days went by. He simply drifted, doing a few needful duties mechanically; sometimes eating the food which Mandy prepared for him, but oftener going without altogether; sitting, brooding, hours at a time, gazing vacantly into space.

Mrs. Barlow – he learned one day from the doctor, who stopped a moment in passing – had taken a slight turn for the better. Mr. Barlow, the following morning appeared, as Checkers stood meditatively surveying a fine old apple tree, from which a large limb, hanging heavy with fruit, had been blown during the night.

"Thar," snorted the old man as he came up; "thar ye go, with yer dog-durned laziness. If you 'd o' propped that limb weeks ago, as you 'd ought t' done, you 'd o' saved me a couple o' barrels o' apples – Shannons, too. It's high time I was takin' a holt here myself. Git the saw and the grafting-wax." Checkers obeyed, and stood apathetically watching Mr. Barlow minister to the tree's necessity.