The Store Boy

CHAPTER IV UNPLEASANT BUSINESS

It was now nine o'clock, rather a late hour for callers in the coun­try, and Mrs. Bar­clay wait­ed not with­out cu­rios­ity to hear the na­ture of the busi­ness which had brought her two vis­itors at that time.

“Take seats, gen­tle­men,” she said, with the cour­tesy ha­bit­ual to her.

Squire Dav­en­port, who was dis­posed to con­sid­er that he had a right to the best of ev­ery­thing, seat­ed him­self in the rock­ing-​chair, and signed his com­pan­ion to a cane chair be­side him.

“Mr. Kirk,” he com­menced, “is think­ing of com­ing to Pen­tonville to live.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Bar­clay po­lite­ly. Per­haps she would not have said this if she had known what was com­ing next.

“He is a car­pen­ter,” con­tin­ued the squire, “and, as we have none in the vil­lage ex­cept old Mr. Wade, who is su­per­an­nu­at­ed, I think he will find enough to do to keep him busy.”

“I should think so,” as­sent­ed the wid­ow.

“If he does not, I can em­ploy him a part of the time on my land.”

“What has all this to do with me?” thought Mrs. Bar­clay.

She soon learned.

“Of course he will need a house,” pur­sued the squire, “and as his fam­ily is small, he thinks this house will just suit him.”

“But I don't wish to sell,” said the wid­ow hur­ried­ly. “I need this house for Ben and my­self.”

“You could doubt­less find oth­er ac­com­mo­da­tions. I dare say you could hire a cou­ple of rooms from El­nathan Perkins.”

“I wouldn't live in that old shell,” said Mrs. Bar­clay rather in­dig­nant­ly, “and I am sure Ben wouldn't.”

“I ap­pre­hend Ben­jamin will have no voice in the mat­ter,” said Squire Dav­en­port stiffly. “He is on­ly a boy.”

“He is my main sup­port, and my main ad­vis­er,” said Mrs. Bar­clay, with spir­it, “and I shall not take any step which is dis­agree­able to him.”

Mr. Kirk looked dis­ap­point­ed, but the squire gave him an as­sur­ing look, as the wid­ow could see.

“Per­haps you may change your mind,” said the squire sig­nif­icant­ly. “I am un­der the im­pres­sion that I hold a mort­gage on this prop­er­ty.”

“Yes, sir,” as­sent­ed Mrs. Bar­clay ap­pre­hen­sive­ly.

“For the sum of sev­en hun­dred dol­lars, if I am not mis­tak­en.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shall have need of this mon­ey for oth­er pur­pos­es, and will trou­ble you to take it up.”

“I was to have three months' no­tice,” said the wid­ow, with a trou­bled look.

“I will give you three months' no­tice to-​night,” said the squire.

“I don't know where to raise the mon­ey,” fal­tered Mrs. Bar­clay.

“Then you had bet­ter sell to my friend here. He will as­sume the mort­gage and pay you three hun­dred dol­lars.”

“But that will be on­ly a thou­sand dol­lars for the place.”

“A very fair price, in my opin­ion, Mrs. Bar­clay.”

“I have al­ways con­sid­ered it worth fif­teen hun­dred dol­lars,” said the wid­ow, very much dis­turbed.

“A fan­cy price, my dear madam; quite an ab­surd price, I as­sure you. What do you say, Kirk?”

“I quite agree with you, squire,” said Kirk, in a strong, nasal tone. “But then, wom­en don't know any­thing of busi­ness.”

“I know that you and your cousin are try­ing to take ad­van­tage of my pover­ty,” said Mrs. Bar­clay bit­ter­ly. “If you are a car­pen­ter, why don't you build a house for your­self, in­stead of try­ing to de­prive me of mine?”

“That's my busi­ness,” said Kirk rude­ly.

“Mr. Kirk can­not spare the time to build at present,” said the squire.

“Then why doesn't he hire rooms from El­nathan Perkins, as you just rec­om­mend­ed to me?”

“They wouldn't suit him,” said the squire curt­ly. “He has set his mind on this house.”

“Squire Dav­en­port,” said Mrs. Bar­clay, in a soft­ened voice, “I am sure you can­not un­der­stand what you ask of me when you seek to take my home and turn me adrift. Here I lived with my poor hus­band; here my boy was born. Dur­ing my mar­ried life I have had no oth­er home. It is a hum­ble dwelling, but it has as­so­ci­ations and charms for me which it can nev­er have for no one else. Let Mr. Kirk see some oth­er house and leave me undis­turbed in mine.”

“Humph!” said the squire, shrug­ging his shoul­ders; “you look up­on the mat­ter from a sen­ti­men­tal point of view. That is un­wise. It is sim­ply a mat­ter of busi­ness. You speak of the house as yours. In re­al­ity, it is more mine than yours, for I have a ma­jor in­ter­est in it. Think over my pro­pos­al cool­ly, and you will see that you are un­rea­son­able. Mr. Kirk may be in­duced to give you a lit­tle more--say three hun­dred and fifty dol­lars--over and above the mort­gage, which, as I said be­fore, he is will­ing as­sume.”

“How does it hap­pen that you are will­ing to let the mort­gage re­main, if he buys, when you want the mon­ey for oth­er pur­pos­es?” asked the wid­ow keen­ly.

“He is a near rel­ative of my wife, and that makes the dif­fer­ence, I ap­pre­hend.”

“Well, madam, what do you say?” asked Kirk briskly.

“I say this, that I will keep the house if I can.”

“You needn't ex­pect that I will re­lent,” said the squire hasti­ly.

“I do not, for I see there is no con­sid­er­ation in your heart for a poor wid­ow; but I can­not help think­ing that Prov­idence will raise up some kind friend who will buy the mort­gage, or in some oth­er way will en­able me to save my home.”

You are act­ing very fool­ish­ly, Mrs. Bar­clay, as you will re­al­ize in time. I give you a week in which to change your mind. Till then my friend Kirk's of­fer stands good. Af­ter that I can­not promise. If the prop­er­ty sold at auc­tion I shouldn't he sur­prised if it did not fetch more than the amount of my lien up­on it."

“I will trust in Prov­idence, Squire Dav­en­port.”

“Prov­idence won't pay off your mort­gage, ma'am,” said Kirk, with a coarse laugh.

Mrs. Bar­clay did not an­swer. She saw that he was a man of coarse fiber and did not care to no­tice him.

“Come along, Kirk,” said the squire. “I ap­pre­hend she will be all right af­ter a while. Mrs. Bar­clay will see her own in­ter­est when she comes to re­flect.”

“Good-​evening, ma'am,” said Kirk.

Mrs. Bar­clay in­clined her head slow­ly, but did not re­ply.

When the two had left the house she sank in­to a chair and gave her­self to painful thoughts. She had known that Squire Dav­en­port had the right to dis­pos­sess her, but had not sup­posed he would do so as long as she paid the in­ter­est reg­ular­ly. In or­der to do this, she and Ben had made earnest ef­forts, and de­nied them­selves all but the barest ne­ces­si­ties. Thus far she had suc­ceed­ed. The in­ter­est on sev­en hun­dred dol­lars at six per cent. had amount­ed to forty-​two dol­lars, and this was a large sum to pay, but thus far they had al­ways had it ready. That Squire Dav­en­port, with his own hand­some man­sion, would fix cov­etous eyes on her lit­tle home, she had not an­tic­ipat­ed, but it had come to pass.

As to rais­ing sev­en hun­dred dol­lars to pay off the mort­gage, or in­duce any cap­ital­ist to fur­nish it, she feared it would be quite im­pos­si­ble.

She anx­ious­ly wait­ed for Ben's re­turn from the Town Hall in or­der to con­sult with him.