The school term ended on a Saturday morning in mid-December. Mary's trunk was packed and ready, and she and it reached the South Station long before train time. She was going home, home for the holidays, and if she had been going on a trip around the world she could not have been more delighted at the prospect. And her delight and anticipations were shared in South Harniss. Her uncles' letters for the past fortnight had contained little except joyful announcements of preparations for her coming.
We are counting the minutes [wrote Zoeth]. The first thing Shadrach does every morning is to scratch another day off the calendar. I never saw him so worked up and excited and I calculate I ain't much different myself. I try not to set my heart on things of this world more than I ought to, but it does seem as if I couldn't think of much else but our girl's coming back to us. I am not going to worry the way Shadrach does about your getting here safe and sound. The Lord's been mighty good to us and I am sure He will fetch you to our door all right. I am contented to trust you in His hands.
P.S. One or both of us will meet you at the depot.
Captain Shad's epistle was more worldly but not more coherent.
Be sure and take the train that comes right on through [he wrote].
Don't take the one that goes to Woods Hole. Zoeth is so fidgety and nervous for fear you will make a mistake that he keeps me on pins and needles. Isaiah ain't much better. He swept out the setting-room twice last week and if he don't roast the cat instead of the chicken he is calculating to kill, it will be a mercy. I am the only one aboard the ship that keeps his head and I tell them not to worry. Be sure you take that through train. And look out for them electric cars, if you come to the depot in one. Better settle on the one you are going to take and then take the one ahead of it so as to be sure and not be late. Your train leaves the dock at quarter-past four. The Woods Hole one is two minutes earlier. Look out and not take that. Zoeth is afraid you will make a mistake, but I laugh at him. Don't take the wrong train.
Mary laughed when she read these letters, but there was a choke in the laugh. In spite of the perils of travel by the electrics and the New Haven railroad, she reached South Harniss safe, sound, and reasonably on time. The first person she saw on the platform of the station was Captain Shadrach. He had been pacing that platform for at least forty minutes.
He spied her at the same time and came rushing to greet her, both hands outstretched.
"And here you be!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm.
Mary laughed happily.
"Yes, Uncle Shad, here I am," she said. "Are you glad to see me?"
Shadrach looked at her.
"JUMPIN'!" was the only answer he made, but it was fervent and sufficient.
They rode home together in the old buggy. As they reached the corner by the store Mary expected the vehicle to be brought to a halt at the curb, but it was not. The Captain chirruped to the horse and drove straight on.
"Why, Uncle Shad!" exclaimed the girl. "Aren't you going to stop?"
"Eh? Stop? What for?"
"Why, to see Uncle Zoeth, of course. He's at the store, isn't he?"
Shadrach shook his head.
"No, he ain't," he said. "He's to home."
Mary was amazed and a trifle alarmed. One partner of Hamilton and Company was there in the buggy with her. By all the rules of precedent and South Harniss business the other should have been at the store. She knew that her uncles had employed no clerk or assistant since she left.
"But--but is Uncle Zoeth sick?" she asked.
"Sick? No, no, course he ain't sick. If he didn't have no better sense than to get sick the day you come home I'd--I'd--I don't know's I wouldn't drown him. HE ain't sick--unless," he added, as an afterthought, "he's got Saint Vitus dance from hoppin' up and down to look out of the window, watchin' for us."
"But if he isn't sick, why isn't he at the store? Who is there?"
The Captain chuckled.
"Not a solitary soul," he declared. "That store's shut up tight and it's goin' to stay that way this whole blessed evenin'. Zoeth and me we talked it over. I didn't know but we'd better get Abel Snow's boy or that pesky Annabel or somebody to stay while we was havin' supper. You see, we was both sot on eatin' supper with you tonight, no matter store or not, and Isaiah, he was just as sot as we was.
But all to once Zoeth had an idea. 'Shadrach,' he says, 'in Scriptur' times when people was real happy, same as we are now, they used to make a sacrifice to the Almighty to show how glad and grateful they was. Let's you and me make a sacrifice; let's sacrifice this evenin's trade--let's shut up the store on account of our girl's comin' home.' 'Good idea!' says I, so we did it."
Mary looked at him reproachfully.
"Oh, Uncle Shad," she said, "you shouldn't have done that. It was dear and sweet of you to think of it, but you shouldn't have done it. It didn't need any sacrifice to prove that you were glad to see me."
Shadrach winked over his shoulder.
"Don't let that sacrifice worry you any," he observed. "The sacrifice is mainly in Zoeth's eye. Fur's I'm concerned--well, Jabez Hedges told me yesterday that Rastus Young told him he cal'lated he'd have to be droppin' in at the store some of these nights to buy some rubber boots and new ileskins. We sold him the ones he's got four years ago and he ain't paid for 'em yet. No, no, Mary-'Gusta, don't you worry about that sacrifice. I can sacrifice Rastus Young's trade eight days in the week and make money by it.
Course I didn't tell Zoeth that; have to humor these pious folks much as we can, you know."
Mary smiled, but she shook her head. "It's no use your talking to me in that way, Uncle Shad," she said. "I know you too well. And right in the Christmas season, too!"
Zoeth's welcome was as hearty, if not as exuberant, as Captain Shad's. He met her at the door and after the first hug and kiss held her off at arm's length and looked her over.
"My! my! my!" he exclaimed. "And this is our little Mary-'Gusta come back again! It don't seem as if it could be, somehow."
