Alice Adams Booth Tarkington (ebook reader txt) 📖

Lamb nodded, sighed aloud, and crossed the room to a chair. “I guess not,” he said, as he sat down. “Bustin’ his health up over his glue-works, I expect.”

“Yes.”

“I guess so; I guess so.” Then he looked up at her with a glimmer of anxiety in his eyes. “Has he came to yet?”

“Yes. He’s talked a little. His mind’s clear; he spoke to mama and me and to Miss Perry.” Alice laughed sadly. “We were lucky enough to get her back, but papa didn’t seem to think it was lucky. When he recognized her he said, ‘Oh, my goodness, ’tisn’t you, is it!’ ”

“Well, that’s a good sign, if he’s getting a little cross. Did he⁠—did he happen to say anything⁠—for instance, about me?”

This question, awkwardly delivered, had the effect of removing the girl’s pallor; rosy tints came quickly upon her cheeks. “He⁠—yes, he did,” she said. “Naturally, he’s troubled about⁠—about⁠—” She stopped.

“About your brother, maybe?”

“Yes, about making up the⁠—”

“Here, now,” Lamb said, uncomfortably, as she stopped again. “Listen, young lady; let’s don’t talk about that just yet. I want to ask you: you understand all about this glue business, I expect, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure. I only know⁠—”

“Let me tell you,” he interrupted, impatiently. “I’ll tell you all about it in two words. The process belonged to me, and your father up and walked off with it; there’s no getting around that much, anyhow.”

“Isn’t there?” Alice stared at him. “I think you’re mistaken, Mr. Lamb. Didn’t papa improve it so that it virtually belonged to him?”

There was a spark in the old blue eyes at this. “What?” he cried. “Is that the way he got around it? Why, in all my life I never heard of such a⁠—” But he left the sentence unfinished; the testiness went out of his husky voice and the anger out of his eyes. “Well, I expect maybe that was the way of it,” he said. “Anyhow, it’s right for you to stand up for your father; and if you think he had a right to it⁠—”

“But he did!” she cried.

“I expect so,” the old man returned, pacifically. “I expect so, probably. Anyhow, it’s a question that’s neither here nor there, right now. What I was thinking of saying⁠—well, did your father happen to let out that he and I had words this morning?”

“No.”

“Well, we did.” He sighed and shook his head. “Your father⁠—well, he used some pretty hard expressions toward me, young lady. They weren’t so, I’m glad to say, but he used ’em to me, and the worst of it was he believed ’em. Well, I been thinking it over, and I thought I’d just have a kind of little talk with you to set matters straight, so to speak.”

“Yes, Mr. Lamb.”

“For instance,” he said, “it’s like this. Now, I hope you won’t think I mean any indelicacy, but you take your brother’s case, since we got to mention it, why, your father had the whole thing worked out in his mind about as wrong as anybody ever got anything. If I’d acted the way your father thought I did about that, why, somebody just ought to take me out and shoot me! Do you know what that man thought?”

“I’m not sure.”

He frowned at her, and asked, “Well, what do you think about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t believe I think anything at all about anything today.”

“Well, well,” he returned; “I expect not; I expect not. You kind of look to me as if you ought to be in bed yourself, young lady.”

“Oh, no.”

“I guess you mean ‘Oh, yes’; and I won’t keep you long, but there’s something we got to get fixed up, and I’d rather talk to you than I would to your mother, because you’re a smart girl and always friendly; and I want to be sure I’m understood. Now, listen.”

“I will,” Alice promised, smiling faintly.

“I never even hardly noticed your brother was still working for me,” he explained, earnestly. “I never thought anything about it. My sons sort of tried to tease me about the way your father⁠—about his taking up this glue business, so to speak⁠—and one day Albert, Junior, asked me if I felt all right about your brother’s staying there after that, and I told him⁠—well, I just asked him to shut up. If the boy wanted to stay there, I didn’t consider it my business to send him away on account of any feeling I had toward his father; not as long as he did his work right⁠—and the report showed he did. Well, as it happens, it looks now as if he stayed because he had to; he couldn’t quit because he’d ’a’ been found out if he did. Well, he’d been covering up his shortage for a considerable time⁠—and do you know what your father practically charged me with about that?”

“No, Mr. Lamb.”

In his resentment, the old gentleman’s ruddy face became ruddier and his husky voice huskier. “Thinks I kept the boy there because I suspected him! Thinks I did it to get even with him! Do I look to you like a man that’d do such a thing?”

“No,” she said, gently. “I don’t think you would.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “Nor he wouldn’t think so if he was himself; he’s known me too long. But he must been sort of brooding over this whole business⁠—I mean before Walter’s trouble he must been taking it to heart pretty hard for some time back. He thought I didn’t think much of him any more⁠—and I expect he maybe wondered some what I was going to do⁠—and there’s nothing worse’n that state of mind to make a man suspicious of all kinds of meanness. Well, he practically stood up there and accused me to my face of fixing things so’t he couldn’t ever raise the money to settle for Walter and ask us not to prosecute. That’s the state of mind your father’s brooding got him into, young lady⁠—charging me with a trick like that!”

“I’m sorry,”