Elsie Singmaster

UNCLE DANIEL STEALS A MARCH

Stammering, frightened, shouting something to Aunt Mena which she did not understand, Jacob Kalb fled from the Wenner farmhouse across the fields toward the Swartzes'. He burst into the kitchen, where Aunt 'Liza was putting the supper on the table, like a wild man.

Aunt 'Liza was still explaining to her angry husband how Albert got away.

"He was here, and then he wasn't here," she said almost tearfully. "And nobody was here to go after him, and I didn't know what to do, and—and I believe perhaps she came after him."

Aunt 'Liza was willing to lay the blame of Albert's escape almost anywhere but where it belonged, on herself. Then she was frightened by the look of rage in Uncle Daniel's face.

"Did you see her here after Albert?"

"No, no, I didn't see her here after him. But I thought—"

"Thinking is now no good," answered Uncle Daniel. Then he got upon his feet. "There, they're coming. I can hear them."

Before he reached the door Jacob Kalb burst in.

"Sh—she will—she will sh-shoot me!" he cried wildly. "She was going for to fetch the shot-gun to shoot me!"

Aunt 'Liza threw herself against the door, shutting it almost in Aunt Mena's face.

"Where are you shot, Jacob?" she demanded.

"I am not yet shot," answered Jacob. "But I will be shot. I—" He felt suddenly his master's grip on his arm. "Ow! What is the matter?"

"Where is Albert?" asked Uncle Daniel. "She has no gun to shoot with. What are you talking about? Where is Albert, I say?"

"She wouldn't give him to me," gasped Jacob. "They yelled at me, the zwillings yelled at me. They wouldn't give him to me. She is after me with a gun. She—" There was suddenly a loud pounding at the door. "I tell you she is after me. She—"

Uncle Daniel strode to the door, and flung it wide. He, at least, was not afraid of being shot.

"What do you mean?" he shouted. Then he saw that it was Aunt Mena who stood without.

"I mean that if Ellie and Weezy don't come along home with me to-night, they are not to come at all," said Aunt Mena hotly. "I cannot be running the whole time over the country for them."

"Ellie and Weezy," repeated her brother. "Are they not by you?"

"No, they ran early this morning off already."

"And Albert ran off," said Aunt 'Liza. "I could not help it. I went a little while on the garret, and when I came back, he was gone. I cannot help it. I—Where are you then going, Daniel?"

Uncle Daniel cast a scornful glance at the two women who could not keep three children, one a mere baby, from running away, and at the fright-stricken Jacob; then, regardless of the hot supper, about which he was usually so particular, he stalked out.

"Put Albert's high chair to the table," he had ordered briefly.

In fifteen minutes he was back. Aunt 'Liza had not learned much tact in all her twenty years of wedded life, or she would not have begun to question him before he was inside the door.

"Where is then Albert?" she asked.

Swartz did not deign to answer. With a heavy frown, he sat down at the table and began to eat.

"Didn't she give him to you?" demanded Aunt Mena, aghast.

"Be still," said Uncle Daniel shortly.

"Did she get after you with the gun?" asked Jacob Kalb. He had just finished giving the women an account of his adventure. He said that he saw the gun-barrel when he looked in the keyhole.

"Then she didn't come out after you?" said Aunt Mena.

"No, but she was coming," insisted Jacob. "I am going to have the law on her, that is what I am going to do. I will have her put in jail. I will have her—"

"Be quiet," said Uncle Daniel to him, also.

Aunt Mena rose to go.

"I don't come again after Ellie and Weezy, remember," she said. "If you fetch them over, perhaps I will take them back. Just tame Sarah a little—" She forgot that her own efforts at taming had not been very successful. "And then put somebody in the house, so she cannot get back. That will settle it."

"Be quiet," said Uncle Daniel again.

"I will have the law on her," muttered Jacob Kalb. Every few minutes he rubbed his leg, as though he were feeling for a gunshot wound.

It was ten minutes before Uncle Daniel laid down his knife and fork and pushed back his plate. Either reflection or the good supper had soothed him. The angry flush was dying out of his face.

"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"I have it fixed," he answered complacently.

"Are you going to put her out of the house?" asked Aunt 'Liza.

"Are you going to have the law on her?" asked Jacob Kalb.

"Yes," answered Uncle Daniel. "I am going to put her out of the house, and I am going to have the law on her. I am going to do both of those things. I am going to be the guardian of her and of Ellie and Weezy and Albert."

"Guardian?" repeated Aunt Eliza.

"Yes, guardian. Those children must have a guardian, and I am the one to be it. But I must have papers. You cannot be a guardian unless you have the papers from the court. I will go to-morrow to town and get papers. Everything shall be fixed right."

Aunt Eliza was alarmed.

"But it will cost money!" she cried.

"Nothing of the kind," answered Uncle Daniel. "It is a kindness I do these children. Shall I pay for it, yet?"

"And then Sarah will have to come here?"

"Sarah will have to do what I say she shall do," answered Uncle Daniel. "And Albert and Ellie and Weezy. Everybody will have to do what I say they shall do."

Jacob Kalb gazed at him with admiration and delight. Daniel Swartz always found some way of accomplishing what he wished. It was true that he had not succeeded in adopting William Wenner. But he had succeeded in punishing William, only Jacob knew how well.

If it had not been for that knowledge, Jacob Kalb would not have been looking forward with such delight to living in the Wenner house, instead of walking back and forth each night and morning to the house of his wife's father, three miles away, where he lived now.

He rose to go home, not at all certain that Sarah was not waiting for him outside the door with her shot-gun.

"In the morning you are to go early into town with me," said Uncle Daniel. "At six o'clock we will start."

"You ought to bring a little hat for Albert," said Aunt 'Liza when the door was closed.

"No, sir," answered her husband. "I bring him perhaps a little candy or peanuts, but no more. Not till he is here to stay. I brought William sometimes presents, suits, I brought him, and a little cap, and shoes, and once such a little velocipede, and what did I get? No, sir. When Albert is here to stay, then I get him some things."

When supper was over, he sat down before the fire. He seemed to be brooding over William's ingratitude.

"Shoes, I bought him, and candy. And what did I get for it?"

Accompanied by Jacob Kalb, he reached the county seat long before the earliest lawyer was astir. It did not occur to him that there was a difference in lawyers or lawyers' prices. He had heard of Alexander Weaver, so he went to him.

"This is a fine way," he said to Jacob Kalb, when they had waited for half an hour. "I'd like to know how my work would get done if I fooled round this way in the early morning; that is what I would like to know. If he don't soon come, I go."

Then the door of Mr. Weaver's private office opened, and Mr. Weaver himself invited them in. He was a dear-eyed, middle-aged man, so busy that he often offended his clients by his curtness. He gave Daniel and Jacob chairs where he could watch their faces. He imagined from their appearance that they had come about some country quarrel. And country fees were hard to collect.

Uncle Daniel began slowly to state his cause.

"My brother-in-law, he is dead," he announced.

"Yes?" The lawyer crossed his knees nervously.

"And my sister, she is dead."

"Yes?"

"And it is nobody to look after their things."

"Any children?"

"Yes."

"Minors?" asked the lawyer.

"No, children."

"Well, I mean any under age, under twenty-one?"

"Yes, it is a couple. Sarah—" Uncle Daniel counted them off on his fingers. The lawyer's abrupt speech startled him, and he was afraid he might forget.

"How old?"

"She is fifteen, but she is little. She could not run a farm."

"But she thinks she can do everything," put in Jacob Kalb. "She got after me with a gun."

The lawyer smiled. He did not take kindly to Jacob Kalb, and it was amusing to think of a fifteen-year-old girl "getting after" him with a gun.

"Any others?"

"Yes, it is a couple of twins, Weezy and Ellie."

"How old?"

"About ten. But they are—"

"Any others?"

"Albert. He is four. He—"

"And you want to be appointed guardian of these minor children of your sister?"

"Yes, sir." Uncle Daniel blinked. He could not understand the phenomenal quickness of this man's mind. For the next few minutes he continued to blink rapidly.

"Your name? Your occupation? The value of the property of these minors?" Question followed question so fast that Uncle Daniel could hardly think.

"You will have to sign a bond for the amount of the property, you know. Your application will be sent to the Orphans' Court. Come back in a month. The retaining fee will be twenty-five dollars."

Then Uncle Daniel got his breath.

"Twenty-five dollars! Twenty-five dollars for what?"

"For making application to the Orphans' Court. Wasn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"Y-yes, b-but twenty-five dollars for writing out a couple of papers! Twenty—"

The lawyer swung round to his desk. Daniel realized suddenly that the lawyer did not care whether he got the case or not. He became all the more anxious to have this remarkable man continue it. Sarah might in some way make trouble.

"All right," he stammered. "We will come in a month back again. We—"

The lawyer flung him a crumb of comfort.

"You will be reimbursed, of course, from the estate," he said; and Uncle Daniel's face brightened.

He did not realize that in thus putting himself into the hands of the law, he would place over his own actions a guardian to whom he should some day have to give an account of his stewardship. In Uncle Daniel's mind, he was to be, after the month was up, supreme arbiter of the fates of the Wenners,—Sarah and Albert and the twins alike, and of their property. He meant to be honest. Even though he did take the farm, he would support them, Sarah and Albert at his own home, and the twins at Aunt Mena's. Only, if Sarah did not behave, she would have to go out to work.

There was triumph in every motion of Uncle Daniel's broad, heavy shoulders, as he went down the steps. He had began to think that education was a good thing for lawyers, also. It must be pleasant to get twenty-five dollars for writing a few words.

At a store at the corner, he bought five cents' worth of peanuts and a small bag of candy. Then they started home, drawing rein first at the Ebert farm. Ebert appeared in response to a loud hulloa. He wondered why Swartz was stopping at his gate.

"When will you begin to plough for the little one?" Uncle Daniel asked pleasantly.

"To-morrow morning."

"Well, you needn't plough at all," said Uncle Daniel. "I am to be guardian, and I will plough."

When they reached the lane which led to the Wenner house, they saw Albert and the twins playing in the yard. Swartz pulled in the horse with a jerk, then he jumped down with the little bags in his hand.

"Tell 'Lizie that Albert will be home for supper," he said.

This time he did not stride up to the door and demand Albert. Instead he stole down the lane to the back of the house. He did not mean to take any actively offensive measures till the end of the month.

Sarah was not able to tell afterwards how Albert got away. She had kept the children close beside her all the morning, and it was not until afternoon that she yielded to their pleadings to be allowed to go out of doors to play. Then she sat down at the window with some sewing in her hands, in order that she might watch them.

She had not moved until the sudden hissing of steam warned her that the water in the kettle was boiling over. It had not taken her a minute to move it to the back part of the stove, but in that instant Albert was gone. She could see them crossing the fields, Albert in his uncle's arms. The twins ran frantically behind them, and Sarah hurried to the door.

"He coaxed him away with candy," wailed Louisa Ellen when they ran back. "But Albert said he was coming home for supper."

That night there were no games. The doors were barred early, the supper eaten silently. Then Sarah got pen and paper and sat down beside the lamp. She would make a last appeal to William. Perhaps, though all the other letters had failed, this might reach him, and reaching him, might touch his heart.

It would have taken Sarah all night and all the next day to say all that was in her mind. But the task of composition was difficult and the letter was short. It read:—

Dear Brother,—My Uncle Daniel is after us. He fetched Albert again. Jacob Kalb wants to live here. The twins will not stay by Aunt Mena. I am doing the best I can. I wish you would come home. Uncle Daniel will not have it that the twins and Albert live in their right home. We are well and hope you are the same.

Resp. yours,
Sarah Wenner.

P.S. I chased Jacob Kalb off with the gun, but I fear me that perhaps he will come again.

It was not a neat production, Sarah realized that. She tried to wipe off a teardrop which fell upon it, and made a tremendous blot. And William had always been so particular about the way she wrote. It did not occur to her that, to the heart of an affectionate brother, the pathetic blot would be more eloquent than pages of pleading.

She addressed the letter to Seattle, then, waking the twins, who had gone to sleep on the settle, she sent them to bed.

Ah, that old settle, how many times it had held them! What would Uncle Daniel have done with that? He and Aunt Mena had settles of their own. Would he have left it there for Jacob Calf? And the dear, battered furniture, the high chair which had held them all, from William down to Albert,—would he have sold them? It would be like killing a live creature to break up that home. Sarah gave up her own dreams cheerfully. She thought no more of the "Normal." If they could only stay together, she would ask no more of fate.