Captain Shad did ask more questions, of course. He asked no more that evening--he judged it wisest not to do so; but the next day, seizing an opportunity when he and his niece were alone, he endeavored to learn a little more concerning her reasons for dismissing Crawford. The Captain liked young Smith, he had believed Mary liked him very much, and, although he could not help feeling a guilty sense of relief because the danger that he and Zoeth might have to share her affections with someone else was, for the time at least, out of the way, he was puzzled and troubled by the abruptness of the dismissal. There was something, he felt sure, which he did not understand.
"Of course, Mary-'Gusta," he said, "I ain't askin' anything--that is, I don't mean to put my oar in about what you told me last night, but--well, you see, Zoeth and me was beginnin' to feel that 'twas pretty nigh a settled thing between you and that young man."
Mary was sitting at the desk--she and her uncle were at the store together--and she looked up from the ledger over which she had been bending and shook her head reproachfully. She looked tired and worn, so it seemed to Captain Shadrach, as if she had not slept well the night before, or perhaps for several nights.
"Uncle Shad," she said, "what did I tell you?"
"Eh? Why, you told me-- You know what you told me, Mary-'Gusta.
What do you ask that for?"
"Because I think you have forgotten the most important part of it.
I told you we were going to forget it all. And we are. We are not going to speak of it again."
"But, Mary-'Gusta, why--"
"No, Uncle Shad."
"But do just tell me this much; if you don't I shan't rest in peace: you didn't send him away on account of Zoeth and me? It wan't just because you thought we needed you?"
"No, Uncle Shad."
"Then--"
"That's all. It's over with; it's done with forever. If you really care about me, Uncle Shad--and sometimes, you know, I almost suspect that you really do--you will never, NEVER say another word about it.
Now come here and tell me about this account of Heman Rodger's.
Isn't it time we tried to get a payment from him?"
The Captain, although still uneasy and far from satisfied, asked no more questions of his niece. It was evident that nothing was to be gained in that way. He did, however, question Isaiah to learn if the latter had noticed anything unusual in Crawford's manner or if Crawford had said anything concerning his reason for coming on at that time, but Isaiah had noticed nothing.
"Umph!" grunted Shadrach, rather impatiently, for the mystery in the affair irritated him. "Of course, you didn't notice. YOU wouldn't notice if your head came off."
Mr. Chase drew himself up. "If I hove out such a statement as that," he observed, scornfully, "you'd call me a fool. 'If my head come off!' How could I notice anything if my head was off? You tell me that!"
His employer grinned. "I cal'late you could do it about as well as you can with it on, Isaiah," he said, and walked away, leaving the cook and steward incoherently anxious to retort but lacking ammunition.
So Shadrach was obliged to give up the riddle. Lovers' quarrels were by no means unusual, he knew that, and many young love affairs came to nothing. Mary had never told him that she cared for Crawford. But she had never said she did not care for him. And now she would say nothing except that it was "done with forever." The Captain shook his head and longed for Zoeth's counsel and advice.
But Zoeth would not be able to counsel or advise for months.
And now Mary seemed bent upon proving the truth of her statement that she was henceforth to be solely a business woman. The summer being over--and it had been, everything considered, a successful one for Hamilton and Company--it became time to buy fall and winter goods, also goods for the holidays. Mary went to Boston on a buying expedition. When she returned and informed her uncle what and how much she had bought, he looked almost as if he had been listening to the reading of his death warrant.
"Jumpin' Judas!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me you bought all them things and--and got TRUSTED for 'em?"
"Of course I did, Uncle Shad. It is the only way I could buy them; and, so far as that goes, everyone was glad to sell me. You see, our paying our bills up there in a shorter time than I asked for has made a very good impression. I could have bought ever and ever so much more if I had thought it best."
"Jumpin' fire! Well, I'm glad you didn't think it best. What in the nation we're goin' to do with all we have got I don't see."
"Do with it? Why, sell it, of course."
"Urn--yes, I cal'lated that was the idea, probably; but who's goin' to buy it?"
"Oh, lots of people. You'll see. I am going to advertise this fall, advertise in the papers. Oh, we'll make Baker's Bazaar and the rest worry a little before we're through."
The Captain was inclined to fear that the most of the worrying would be done by Hamilton and Company, but he expressed no more misgivings. Besides, if anyone could sell all those goods, that one was his Mary-'Gusta, he was perfectly sure of that. He believed her quite capable of performing almost any miracle. Had she not pulled the firm off the rocks where he and his partner had almost wrecked it? Wasn't she the most wonderful young woman on earth? Old as he was, Captain Shad would probably have attempted to thrash any person who expressed a doubt of that.
