The Brass Bound Box

Her name hissed into her ear partially roused the bound-out girl from a nap she had been taking with the towel in one hand, an unwiped dish in the other. She had the faculty of going to sleep anywhere and any time opportunity offered. She now leaned comfortably against the wall beside the sink, her eyes closed and her mind oblivious to her surroundings, and dimly hearing through her dreams that sibilant call:

"A-A-A-Alfy!"

Then her ear was pinched and she brought back to reality.

"What you doin' to me, Montgomery Sturtevant? I'll tell your grandma!"

"Ain't meanin' to hurt you, A-A-Alfy. I – Don't you d-do that. I – Say, I'm goin' to h-h-hide in the s-s-secret chamb – er. Don't you t-t-tell anybody. You fetch my s-s-s-supper up after dark. An' some w-w-water. Fetch enough to l-l-last – forever! I don't know as I s-s-shall ever – ever – dare to c-c-come down."

The Mansion where the Sturtevants had lived during many generations was a house even older than The Maples. It was far more quaintly ancient in style, and had been one of the many "Headquarters" of our Revolutionary generals. The earliest built house in the county, the part first erected still stood strong and intact, though little used now. On this portion of the Mansion the roof ended sharp at the eaves on one side, and but a few feet above the ground; the opposite side being two full stories and attic in height. Within this "old part" were many curious rooms, one having the peculiarity of seven doors and but one window; a monster fireplace, wherein one could stand and look straight up to the sky through the great stone chimney, and where still hung a rusty gigantic crane, once used for the roasting of meats and boiling of pots; but, most curious of all, a perpendicular shaft leading to a "secret chamber" beneath the sloping roof. To ascend this shaft one climbed upon small triangular steps fitted alternately in the rear corners of it; and it was entered through a sliding, spring-secured panel of the "keeping-room." No stranger would have discovered that the panel was a doorway, and even to Alfaretta it suggested deeds of darkness and treachery. The utmost Montgomery had yet been able to persuade her to do was to peep fearfully up that uncanny stair-way, from the dimness below to the utter gloom at top. To ascend it, as he did, nimbly hand over hand – the mere thought of it set her shuddering.

Now he was gone, and – there! She knew it. She heard him softly crossing the bare floor of the "old part" in his stockinged feet, heard the rusty squeak of the ancient spring-fastening, fancied that she heard – though she could not – his swift ascent of the ladder stairs, and – heard no more.

But she was now far wider awake than the pinch on her ear had made her, and she was terribly disturbed. In that house everybody, meaning Madam and herself, did what its young "master" desired. Of course on the lady's part there were some exceptions to this rule, but none whatever on Alfaretta's. The lad was at once her delight and her torment; in his wilder moods teasing her relentlessly, but in his more thoughtful ones pitying her for her hard lot in life. Yet, in fact, since the girl had been taken from the "county farm" to serve Madam Sturtevant until she should be eighteen, she was scarcely poorer than the mistress who employed her, and who scrupulously shared her own comforts with her charge.

Big as the house was, there was very little money in it. None whatever would have been there save for the generosity of distant relatives who regularly sent a small cheque to the Madam, as well as a box of clothing for the grandson; nor did they even dream that upon that cheque and the neighborly kindness of Eunice Maitland the household at the mansion existed.

Fortunately, for the present, Alfaretta demanded nothing in the matter of wages. When she should be eighteen the, to her, almost fabulous sum of one hundred dollars would be her due as well as a decent "fitting out" of wearing apparel. Then she would be free to go or stay, work for "real wages" for this mistress, or engage herself to another. But eighteen was a long way off as yet, and though sometimes a wonder as to where she should get the pledged one hundred dollars did cross Madam Sturtevant's mind, she put the thought aside as soon as possible. Sufficient unto that day would be its own evil, and there had been days in the past far more evil than Alfy's coming of age could ever be.

Had relic-hunters known it the Mansion was a storehouse of genuine "antiques" which would have been eagerly purchased at fancy prices; but Marsden was far out of the line of such persons, and, save in extreme necessity, the old gentlewoman would have refused to part with her belongings.

Eunice, who was better informed on such matters because of her wider reading, had once delicately suggested to her friend that such or such an old "claw-foot" was worth a deal of money, and that it wasn't really necessary to have four tall clocks, each more than a century old, ticking the hours away in that empty house.

But her suggestion was wholly misunderstood. Madam had rather crisply replied that she was perfectly capable of winding the clocks on the one day in eight when they required it, and hoped to continue so till her life's end. Indeed, it had used to be a rather formal little household ceremony – that winding of the clocks on every Sunday morning. A ceremony that had always been performed by the two reigning heads of the "family" in each succeeding generation. It had been Madam's place to walk with her husband from room to room and stand beside him while with the queer old keys he wound the weights up from the bottom of the upright cases to the top, whence they would again begin their slow descent to the bottom, reaching it as another Lord's Day came around.

Nowadays, Montgomery, as the last of his race, had been promoted to accompany his grandmother on this clock-winding tour, and had once innocently asked:

"Did my father use to go with y-you, as I-I-I do?"

Strangely enough, he had never before inquired much about his parents, but had somehow imbibed the knowledge that both were dead. His father had once "gone away" and never returned; but his mother had come home, bringing him an infant, had placed him in the Madam's arms, had taken to her bed, and had left it only to be carried to the burying-ground on the hill. Of her the old lady often talked, and once when they had carried roses to the unmarked grave he had heard her softly quote: "A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath, than my son's wife, Elizabeth."

But of that son, her own only child, she said nothing till he asked that unfortunate question. Then she had turned upon him with a face so unlike her own that he was frightened and needed no command to make him avoid that subject forever after.

"Your father is – gone; has died to us. Speak of him no more."

The tragedy of her expression haunted him for a time, and he wondered why she was so much more distressed by mention of her son than of her husband, since both were dead. However, he soon forgot the matter save to obey her wish, though afterward this clock-winding, which he had thought a "bother an' n-n-nuisance," seemed fully as sacred an act as the church-going which followed it.

This, then, was Montgomery's home and life, and why he who was so petted and indulged should put himself in hiding, and, of all places, in that dreadful "secret chamber," puzzled Alfaretta.

"He told me not to tell Madam, an' he told me to bring his supper. How can I? How dast I? I – I'd be more afraid to go up that stair 'an to walk through the graveyard alone at midnight. I would so, Ma'am Puss, an' you keep your nose out that suppawn, I tell you!"

The perturbed little maid felt that it was good to have even a cat to talk to, and vented some of her vexation by kicking the unlucky animal aside from the pot, whose hot contents she was merely sniffing. Suppawn and milk was the customary supper at the Mansion, and as its mistress liked to have the pudding cooked for a long time and also continually stirred during that operation, Alfaretta had become expert in the matter of managing. The pot was duly put on at the hour appointed, and the Indian meal carefully sifted into the salt, boiling water. When the mixture appeared fairly smooth and Alfy's arm was tired the pot was set upon the hearth and the young cook went to sleep. When the sleep was of sufficient length to cool the porridge Ma'am Puss extracted her own supper in advance of the family's, and nobody was the wiser. But to-day, Alfaretta had forgotten to remove the pot from the stove while she did her "noon dishes" and taken her intermediate nap, with the result that the suppawn was burned and even the cat wouldn't touch it. And although she had whisked it off the fire as soon as Monty had disappeared, her trained nose told her that this was a supper spoiled for everybody. She was very sorry for Madam, who would try to eat it, and always bore more patiently with her young handmaid than that person wholly deserved, but there was a silver lining to that cloud! Montgomery would never touch suppawn if it were scorched: therefore, she need carry him none of it.

"Couldn't have got any milk up there, anyway, without spillin' it, Ma'am Puss, an' you know it. Goody! Course he'll come down. He'll have to if he gets starvin' hungry. No harm done – much. I wonder what he's been up to now! Well, I can't help it. I didn't get him into no scrapes. An' I'll work real hard the rest the afternoon, hemmin' that petticoat Madam's give me to make over for myself. It'll be a real good petticoat if I ever get it done, though it's about forty rods around the bottom, I believe."

Full of good intentions, Alfaretta carefully set the burned pudding back on the stove, wherein the wood fire had nearly gone out, and sat down to her task of needlework. In reality, she was a very tired little girl. Madam was daintily neat and vigorous for a woman of her years. Never very robust, she still exercised what strength she had in a ceaseless round of sweeping and dusting. All the empty old rooms were as orderly as when there had been many servants to attend them, but this was accomplished at a cost of incessant labor and watchfulness, which the mistress really enjoyed since it filled her days with "things to do," but which was not so well liked by her bond-maid.

Ma'am Puss curled herself at Alfy's feet and purred herself to sleep so soundly that a tame mouse, the girl's own especial pet, came out from hiding and scampered merrily about the kitchen floor. The chorus of clock-ticks sounded drowsily through the silent house, Madam was taking her daily rest on her lounge in the sitting-room, and after a time the seamstress's good intentions passed into a maze of dreams. In them she seemed to be eternally climbing steep stairs into a chamber of horrors tenanted by one starving boy; or she was watching Madam choke to death over a lump of hot scorched porridge; or she was being tossed on the horns of Squire Pettijohn's black bull, – the terror of all young, and some old, Marsdenites, – and from this last dream she awoke to find the kitchen quite dark, and Whitey mooing outside the window.

It was Montgomery's place to "tend cow," the lonely remnant of a once large herd, but it was Alfaretta's duty to milk it.

"Yes, Whitey! It's all right, an' for once you've come home by yourself. A good job, too. Let me see. How fur have I sewed? To there – to there!" sleepily murmured the maid, and realizing that she had on that afternoon of best intentions accomplished the magnificent distance of two inches! "Two inches, if it's a stitch. Two inches a day for – How many days will it take to hem – to hem – Huh! I can't bother! But if I'm to go to school next quarter as Madam says I may, I'll have to do faster 'n that. Might get it ready for my outfit, like Monty says," remarked the sewer to herself, laughing carelessly.

Folding the garment neatly, she put it back in the work-basket her mistress had given her, and taking her pail, went out to milk old Whitey. But first she attended to what was properly Montgomery's part of the evening's chores, stalling the cow and throwing into her manger the scanty supply of night fodder that could be afforded. Then she sat down to milk, and accomplished that operation so slowly that Whitey turned her head as far as the stanchions would permit to see what this slowness meant.

With the coming of the dusk Alfaretta's perplexities had returned and brought others with them. It was not only a question of the boy's going supperless – nor her courage, nor of burned porridge and Madam's lifted eyebrows when it was tasted, which to the bond-girl was "Worse 'an a lickin';" it was that further one of the grandmother's inquiries. How should she answer them?

She loitered as long as she could, but the evil hour could not be indefinitely postponed. Madam's habits were as exact as those of her ancient clocks, and precisely as the four of them were striking six the little silver bell tinkled in the dining-room.

With an air of every-day indifference, Alfaretta dished the burned porridge upon a delicate china platter and filled a cut-glass pitcher with milk. These she placed upon a silver tray and carried to the shining mahogany table where the mistress was already seated. Then she took her own place behind the lady's chair, as she had been trained, ready to serve the simple meal; yet hardly had she stationed herself there than the dreaded question came:

"Where is Montgomery, Alfaretta?"

"Oh, dear! How not to tell the truth an' how not to lie!" reflected the perplexed girl, but not till the question was repeated did she reply: "I s'pose he's – he's somewheres."

Madam's eyebrows were lifted then. "Why, Alfaretta!"

"Yes, Madam. I'm sorry the suppawn scorched. I – I was terr'ble sleepy an' I stopped stirrin' a little minute an' first I knew – "

"I asked for Montgomery. Did you tell him that supper was served?"

"No, Madam."

"Please do so."

Glad of any reprieve from giving the answer she hated to make, the girl left the room in haste, as if intent upon summoning the lad. But she was gone longer than seemed necessary, nor did the waiting grandmother hear the boyish voice she loved, despite its stammering; and she was herself just rising to look for the lad herself when the maid reëntered, pale and breathless, and evidently frightened in extreme.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FACE IN THE DARKNESS

Miss Maitland had promptly engaged Deacon Meakin to take Moses' place during the latter's enforced idleness, and the arrangement promised to be satisfactory to all concerned.

Susanna had observed:

"You couldn't do better, Eunice. The deacon's forehanded himself, but he likes money – all them Meakins do – an' he's been as oneasy as a fish out o' water sence he sold his farm an' moved into the village. A man 'at's been used to workin' seventeen hours a day, ever sence he was born till he's turned sixty, ain't goin' to be content to lie abed till six seven o'clock in the mornin' an' spend the rest the day splittin' kindlin'-wood to keep a parlor stove a-goin'. He'll be glad o' the job, an' he'll be glad o' the wages, an' he'll break his neck tryin' to do more an' better'n Moses ever did. You couldn't do better. It's a ill wind that blows nobody good, an' Moseses misfortune is the deacon's blessin'."

There was something else which made the good deacon accept Miss Maitland's offer with so much alacrity. According to his own wife:

"The deacon he feels terr'ble sot-up bein' selected to become one the family, so to speak, right now on the top of that treasure findin'. I ain't seen him walk so straight or step 'round so lively, not sence we moved in. An' whatever the truth is in this queer business, he'll fathom it, trust him! or bust."

This, to a next-door neighbor, as the gentleman in question set off down the street to enter upon his new duties.

So it was the deacon whom Katharine had heard busy about the barn and the glimmer of whose lantern had disappeared in the distance. With a precaution his predecessor in office had never practised, he had secured every shutter and window and locked every door before he crossed the driveway between barn and house and entered the kitchen, where Susanna was toasting bread for supper. As he blew out the candle in the lantern and deposited that ancient luminary on the lean-to shelf, he rubbed his hands complacently, and observed:

"Well, Widow Sprigg, I cal'late I've done things up brown. Winds may blow an' waves may roar, as the poet says, but nobody nor nothing can't break into Eunice's buildin's whilst I have the care on 'em. How's he doin'?"

As Moses was the only "he" on the premises the question naturally referred to him.