 | III.
A COMFORTABLE INVESTMENT. Coupon bonds, and other stories |  |
3. III.
A COMFORTABLE INVESTMENT.
“Did you ever?” said Mrs. Ducklow, gaining courage
to speak after the visitor was out of hearing.
“She 's got a tongue!” said Mr. Ducklow.
“Strange she should speak of your investing money to-day!
D' ye s'pose she knows?”
“I don't see how she can know.” And Mr. Ducklow
paced the room in deep trouble. “I 've been careful not
would say: `If Ducklow has got so much money to dispose
of, he 'd better give Reuben a lift.' I know how folks
talk.”
“Coming here to browbeat us!” exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow.
“I wonder ye did n't be a little more plain with her,
father! I would n't have sot and been dictated to as
tamely as you did!”
“You would n't? Then why did ye? She dictated to
you as much as she did to me; and you scurce opened
your head; you did n't dars' to say yer soul was your
own!”
“Yes, I did, I —”
“You ventur'd to speak once, and she shet ye up
quicker 'n lightnin'. Now tell about you would n't have
sot and been dictated to like a tame noodle, as I did!”
“I did n't say a tame noodle.”
“Yes, ye did. I might have answered back sharp
enough, but I was expectin' you to speak. Men don't like
to dispute with women.”
“That 's your git-off,” said Mrs. Ducklow, trembling
with vexation. “You was jest as much afraid of her as I
was. I never see ye so cowed in all my life.”
“Cowed! I was n't cowed, neither. How unreasonable,
now, for you to cast all the blame on to me!”
And Mr. Ducklow, his features contracted into a black
scowl, took his boots from the corner.
“Ye ha'n't got to go out, have ye?” said Mrs. Ducklow.
“I should n't think you 'd put on yer boots jest to step to
the barn and see to the hoss.”
“I 'm goin' over to Reuben's.”
“To Reuben's! Not to-night, father!”
“Yes, I think I better. He and Sophrony 'll know we
heard of his gittin' home, and they 're enough inclined
ye can send?”
“I don't know,” — curtly. “I 've scurce ever been
over to Sophrony's but I 've carried her a pie or cake or
something; and mighty little thanks I got for it, as it
turns out.”
“Why did n't ye say that to Miss Beswick, when she
was runnin' us so hard about our never doin' anything for
'em?”
“'T would n't have done no good; I knew jest what
she 'd say. `What 's a pie or a cake now and then?' —
that 's jest the reply she 'd have made. Dear me! What
have I been doing?”
Mrs. Ducklow, rising, had but just discovered that she
had stitched the patch and the trousers to her apron.
“So much for Miss Beswick!” she exclaimed, untying
the apron-strings, and flinging the united garments spitefully
down upon a chair. “I do wish such folks would
mind their own business and stay to home!”
“You 've got the bonds safe?” said Mr. Ducklow,
putting on his overcoat.
“Yes; but I won't engage to keep 'em safe. They
make me as narvous as can be. I 'm afraid to be left
alone in the house with 'em. Here, you take 'em.”
“Don't be foolish. What harm can possibly happen to
them or you while I 'm away? You don't s'pose I want to
lug them around with me wherever I go, do ye?”
“I 'm sure it 's no great lug. I s'pose you 're afraid to
go acrost the fields alone with 'em in yer pocket. What
in the world we 're going to do with 'em I don't see. If
we go out we can't take 'em with us, for fear of losing 'em,
or of being robbed; and we sha' n't dare to leave 'em to
home, fear the house 'll burn up or git broke into.”
“We can hide 'em where no burglar can find 'em,” said
Mr. Ducklow.
“Yes, and where nobody else can find 'em, neither, provided
the house burns and neighbors come in to save
things. I don't know but it 'll be about as Miss Beswick
said: we sha' n't take no comfort with property we ought
to make over to Reuben.”
“Do you think it ought to be made over to Reuben?
If you do, it 's new to me.”
“No, I don't!” replied Mrs. Ducklow, decidedly. “I
guess we better put 'em in the clock-case for to-night,
had n't we?”
“Jest where they 'd be discovered, if the house is robbed!
No: I 've an idee. Slip 'em under the settin'-room carpet.
Let me take 'em: I can fix a place right here by the
side of the door.”
With great care and secrecy the bonds were deposited
between the carpet and the floor, and a chair set over
them.
“What noise was that?” said the farmer, starting.
“Thaddeus,” cried Mrs. Ducklow, “is that you?”
It was Thaddeus, indeed, who, awaking from a real
dream of the drum this time, and, hearing conversation in
the room below, had once more descended the stairs to listen.
What were the old people hiding there under the
carpet? It must be those curious things in the envelope.
And what were those things, about which so much mystery
seemed necessary? Taddy was peeping and considering,
when he heard his name called. He would have glided
back to bed again, but Mrs. Ducklow, who sprang to the
stairway door, was too quick for him.
“What do you want now?” she demanded.
“I — I want you to scratch my back,” said Taddy.
As he had often come to her with this innocent request,
after undressing for bed, he did not see why the excuse
would not pass as readily as the previous one of somnambulism.
with.
“I 'll scratch your back for ye!” And seizing her rattan,
she laid it smartly on the troublesome part, to the
terror and pain of poor Taddy, who concluded that too
much of a good thing was decidedly worse than nothing.
“There, you sir, that 's a scratching that 'll last ye for
one while!”
And giving him two or three parting cuts, not confined
to the region of the back, but falling upon the lower latitudes,
which they marked like so many geographical parallels,
she dismissed him with a sharp injunction not to let
himself be seen or heard again that night.
Taddy obeyed, and, crying himself to sleep, dreamed
that he was himself a drum, and that Mrs. Ducklow beat
him.
“Father!” called Mrs. Ducklow to her husband, who
was at the barn, “do you know what time it is? It 's
nine o'clock! I would n't think of going over there to-night;
they 'll be all locked up, and abed and asleep, like
as not.”
“Wal, I s'pose I must do as you say,” replied Mr. Ducklow,
glad of an excuse not to go, — Miss Beswick's visit
having left him in extremely low spirits.
Accordingly, after bedding down the horse and fastening
the barn, he returned to the kitchen; and soon the prosperous
couple retired to rest.
“Why, how res'less you be!” exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow,
in the middle of the night. “What 's the reason ye can't
sleep?”
“I don't know,” groaned Mr. Ducklow. “I can't help
thinkin' o' Miss Beswick. I never was so worked at any
little thing.”
“Well, well! forget it, father; and do go to sleep!”
“I feel I ought to have gone over to Reuben's! And I
should have gone, if 't had n't been for you.”
“Now how unreasonable to blame me!” said Mrs.
Ducklow. “Ye might have gone; I only reminded ye
how late it was.”
Mr. Ducklow groaned, and turned over. He tried to
forget Miss Beswick, Reuben, and the bonds, and at last he
fell asleep.
“Father!” whispered Mrs. Ducklow, awaking him.
“What 's the matter?”
“I think — I 'm pretty sure — hark! I heard something
sounded like somebody gitting into the kitchen
winder!”
“It 's your narvousness.” Yet Mr. Ducklow listened
for further indications of burglary. “Why can't ye be
quiet and go to sleep, as you said to me?”
“I 'm sure I heard something! Anybody might have
looked through the blinds and seen us putting — you
know — under the carpet.”
“Nonsense! 't a'n't at all likely.”
But Mr. Ducklow was more alarmed than he was willing
to confess. He succeeded in quieting his wife's apprehensions;
but at the same time the burden of solicitude and
wakefulness seemed to pass from her mind only to rest
upon his own. She soon after fell asleep; but he lay
awake, hearing burglars in all parts of the house for an
hour longer.
“What now?” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, starting
up in bed.
“I thought I might as well git up and satisfy myself,”
replied her husband, in a low, agitated voice.
He had risen, and was groping his way to the kitchen.
“Is there anything?” she inquired, after listening long
knocked down or throttled.
He made no reply, but presently came gliding softly
back again.
“I can't find nothin'. But I never in all my life heard
the floors creak so! I could have sworn there was somebody
walkin' over 'em!”
“I guess you 're a little excited, a'n't ye?”
“No, — I got over that; but I did hear noises!”
Mr. Ducklow, returning to his pillow, dismissed his
fears, and once more composed his mind for slumber.
But the burden of which he had temporarily relieved his
wife now returned with redoubled force to the bosom of
that virtuous lady. It seemed as if there was only a certain
amount of available sleep in the house, and that,
when one had it, the other must go without; while at the
same time a swarm of fears perpetually buzzed in and out
of the mind, whose windows wakefulness left open.
“Father!” said Mrs. Ducklow, giving him a violent
shake.
“Hey? what?” — arousing from his first sound sleep.
“Don't you smell something burning?”
Ducklow snuffed; Mrs. Ducklow snuffed; they sat up
in bed, and snuffed vivaciously in concert.
“No, I can't say I do. Did you?”
“Jest as plain as ever I smelt anything in my life! But
I don't so” — snuff, snuff — “not quite so distinct now.”
“Seems to me I do smell somethin',” said Mr. Ducklow,
imagination coming to his aid. “It can't be the matches,
can it?”
“I thought of the matches, but I certainly covered 'em
up tight.”
They snuffed again, — first one, then the other, — now a
series of quick, short snuffs, then one long, deep snuff, then
like two persons pulling at a rope, they might accomplish
what neither was equal to singly.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Ducklow.
“Why, what, father?”
“It 's Thaddeus! He 's been walkin' in his sleep.
That 's what we heard. And now he 's got the matches
and set the house afire!”
He bounded out of bed; he went stumbling over the
chairs in the kitchen, and clattering among the tins in the
pantry, and rushing blindly and wildly up the kitchen
stairs, only to find the matches all right, Taddy fast asleep,
and no indications anywhere, either to eye or nostril, of
anything burning.
“'T was all your imagination, mother.”
“My imagination! You was jest as frightened as I was.
I 'm sure I can't tell what it was I smelt; I can't smell it
now. Did you feel for the — you know what?”
Mrs. Ducklow seemed to think there were evil ones listening,
and it was dangerous to mention by name what was
uppermost in the minds of both.
“I wish you would jest put your hand and see if they 're
all right; for I 've thought several times I heard somebody
taking on 'em out.”
Mr. Ducklow had been troubled by similar fancies; so,
getting down on his knees, he felt in the dark for the bonds.
“Good gracious!” he ejaculated.
“What now?” cried Mrs. Ducklow. “They a'n't gone,
be they? You don't say they 're gone!”
“Sure 's the world! — No, here they be! I did n't feel
in the right place.”
“How you did frighten me! My heart almost hopped
out of my mouth!” Indeed, the shock was sufficient to
keep the good woman awake the rest of the night.
| III.
A COMFORTABLE INVESTMENT. Coupon bonds, and other stories | |