HEARTBREAK

It was a wild, stormy, October night. The rain fell fitfully, and the howling wind raced madly through forest and over farmland, shrieking down chimneys, rattling windows and doors, whistling through every conceivable crack and crevice, and rudely buffeting any traveler who chanced to be abroad. In the brown house three rosy-cheeked little maids lay fast asleep in their beds in the tiny back chamber, blissfully unconscious of wind and rain; but in the room below Faith and Hope kept anxious vigil, awaiting Gail’s return from the darkness and the storm.

“I should have gone, too,” croaked Faith, in a voice so hoarse she could scarcely speak above a whisper.

“No, indeed,” Hope declared. “You have a dreadful cold now; but I think she might have let me go. Towzer isn’t enough company on such a night, and like as not he will get tired of waiting and come home without her. What was that? Oh, only the clock. Eleven! I had no idea it was so late.”

She rose from her chair and paced restlessly back and forth across the room, pausing at every turn to look first out of one window and then out of the other, as if trying to penetrate the inky blackness of the stormy night. The unlatched gate creaked dismally on its hinges; somewhere a door banged shut; and then an old bucket blew off the back porch and down the steps with a rattlety-clatter which made the two watchers within start and shiver.

Peace heard it, too, and sat bolt upright in bed, not knowing what had awakened her, but trembling like a leaf with nervous fear. A terrific gust of wind roared around the corner, shaking the little brown house from rafter to foundation; the great elm trees tossed and groaned in sympathy, and the leafless vines over the porch beat a mournful tattoo against the walls.

“Have you ever heard the wind go ‘Yoooooo?’
’Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear,”

chattered Peace, hardly conscious of what she was saying. The gate shut with a clang. “What’s that? Sounded ’s if it was the gate banging and someone is coming up the steps! I wonder who it can be this time of night and in all this storm?”

She listened intently for the visitor to knock. None came, but the front door was opened unceremoniously, a blast of wind tore through the house, and she heard two excited, relieved voices exclaim, “Oh, Gail! We thought you would never come. Take off your coat this minute! You are drenched!”

“What on earth is Gail doing out of doors in this rain?” said Peace to herself. “She was sewing when I came up to bed. I’m going to find out.” Tumbling out of her warm nest, she crept softly down the stairs, and slipped behind the faded drapery which served as door to the tiny hall closet, from which position she could watch the girls in the living-room, and hear much of what they were saying.

The first words which greeted her ears as the curtain fell back in position with her behind it, were Faith’s: “Oh, Gail, not Mr. Skinner!”

“Yes,” answered the oldest sister in a strained, unnatural voice that struck terror to the little spy’s heart, “Mr. Skinner!”

“But I thought Mr. Hartman held the mortgage,” Hope began in bewildered tones.

“He did, dear,” Gail answered. “I supposed he still held it; we paid the last interest money to him.”

“Then how ”

“Two years ago Mr. Hartman signed a note for old Mr. Lowe on the Liberty Road. The Lowes have always been considered wealthy people, and the two families have been close friends for years, so he thought there would be no trouble about the note; but when it fell due in July Mr. Lowe couldn’t pay, and Mr. Hartman had to. He owns quite a little property, I guess, but all his ready money had gone into fixing up his buildings and putting up a new barn. Mr. Skinner wouldn’t give an extension of time on the note, and said he would take nothing but cash payment or the mortgage on our farm. He has always wanted this place, it seems, and had expected to get it when papa bought it you know the first owner was a great friend of our family and there was some bad feeling over it. He never liked us, and Peace’s prank with his bull settled everything. He was fairly insulting ”

“Did you go to see him?” chorused the sisters.

“Surely. I thought there might be a chance of his extending the time on the mortgage, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Then we must lose the farm?”

“We have a month more before the mortgage is due, but I don’t know where the money to pay is coming from. I am afraid the farm must go.” She gasped out the words in such misery and despair that Peace found herself crying with the older sister across the hall.

“What will become of us?” choked Hope after a long pause.

“I I don’t know,” murmured Gail, “unless you go to live with the neighbors until I can find something to do so I can get you all together again. It seems the village people have already talked this over among themselves.”

“Did Peace tell you after all?” demanded Faith.

“No, I didn’t! I never said a word!” cried Peace in great indignation, and the startled sisters beheld a frowzy head thrust from behind the closet drapery, and a pair of angry eyes glaring at them. “I won’t go to live with the Judge nor Mr. Hardman, either. Len and Cecile tease me dreadfully, Hector I predominate with all my heart and I can’t abide Mr. Hardman. He isn’t square. He shouldn’t have given old Skinflint the mordige. It b’longs to us. Oh, dear, I’ll never pick raspberries again! That bull has made more fuss than any other person I know.”

Gail caught the shivering, sobbing child in her arms, wrapped a shawl around her, and sought to soothe her grief by saying gently, “There, there, honey, don’t cry like that! You are shaking with cold. How long have you been in the closet, and why were you hiding there?”

“I heard you come in and I had to see what was the matter. Oh, do say I won’t have to go to the Judge or Mr. Hardman! I hate them both ”

“Peace,” reproved Gail, “you mustn’t speak so. I am sorry you have overheard anything about the matter. Mr. Hartman had a perfect right to sell the mortgage to Mr. Skinner, and under the circumstances we can’t blame him. He wouldn’t have done it if he could have helped it.”

“What I can’t understand,” interposed Faith, with a deep frown disfiguring her forehead, “is why he waited this long before telling us.”

“I guess he didn’t relish breaking such news to us anyway, but he has been hoping right along that Mr. Lowe would be able to pay him for the note. Then he could buy back the mortgage, or loan us the money so we could meet it, which amounts to the same thing. Of course, it is barely possible that he will yet get the money in time, but we can’t count on it at all. He was so broken up over the matter that he actually cried while he was talking to me.”

“I sh’d think he would!” stormed Peace, who could not yet understand how their neighbor had any excuse for selling the mortgage; neither did she understand just what sort of a thing a mortgage is, but that it had something to do with money and their farm was perfectly clear.

“Isn’t there someone we know who could loan us the money?” asked Hope, the hopeful, unwilling to accept the dark situation as it was presented.

“I can’t think of a soul. Most of father’s close friends were ministers, and they wouldn’t be able to help us. We have no relatives living. We haven’t anybody ”

“We have each other,” whispered Hope; and Gail’s clasp on the little form in her lap tightened convulsively as she wondered vaguely how much longer they could say those words.

“We have Mr. Strong, too,” reminded Peace. “Maybe he knows how the money could be paid.”

“I had thought of asking his advice, but of course it was too stormy tonight. We must wait until day.”

“If he can’t help us, ask him if he won’t take me,” said Peace, in her most wheedlesome tones. “I would rather live with him than with anyone else in the world if we have to break up our house. I thought he would like to have me, too, but Mr. Jones said he wanted Allee.”

“Mr. Jones doesn’t know anything about it. Don’t fret, dearie! There may be lots of ways out of our trouble without our having to separate. I hope so. We have a month to think and plan; but if we must scatter for a time among our kind friends, I trust we will all go bravely and do our best to please.”

“But I can’t go to the Judge’s, Gail! He’s a perfect fury, gets mad at nothing, and chaws his mustache and glares so ugly I always listen to see whether he’s going to growl like Towzer.”

“He has the finest house in town,” said Faith consolingly, “and a piano and a horse and buggy. He is going to have an automobile next summer.”

“I’d rather live with nice folks than with pianos and nautomobiles,” Peace interrupted. “I don’t know what he wants of another girl, unless it is for Len and Hector to tease.”

“I thought you liked Len?”

“He used to be nice, but since he’s began going to scollege, he’s horrid. He saw me yesterday morning in Cherry’s dress, ’cause I tore my last clean one; and he bugged his two eyes out like he was awfully s’prised, and said, ’Mah deah child, yoah dress is too long! I don’t like the looks of it.’” She mimicked the college dude’s affected airs so perfectly that the three sisters shouted with laughter, forgetting for the moment their heavy burden of care.

“What did you say?” asked Faith curiously, although in her heart she knew that Len must have met his match.

“I looped my fingers up in circles like make-b’lieve eye-glasses, and said, ’Mah deah man, yoah hat is too tall and yoah pants ah too wide. I don’t like the looks of them, but I am too p’lite to say so.’”

Another shout of mirth made the rafters ring, and the trio laughed till they cried, much to Peace’s surprise, for the scene she had just depicted had caused her much indignation, and she could see nothing funny about it. “If you don’t be stiller you’ll wake the children,” she warned them in her most grandmotherly tones, and they sobered quickly, remembering the ghost of trouble hovering over the little house.

For a long time they sat there in silence, each one busy with her own disturbed thoughts, unaware that the fire in the stove had died out, or that the chimes had long since struck midnight.

Suddenly Gail lifted her eyes from the hole in the carpet, at which she had been staring unseeingly, glanced at the old clock on the wall, and exclaimed, “Girls, it’s a quarter to one! Fly into bed, every one of you! School keeps tomorrow just the same. Try to lay aside this trouble at least for tonight and get a little sleep. In the morning I will speak to Mr. Strong about it ”

“And remember to speak to God about it, too,” murmured drowsy Peace, stumbling upstairs in front of the weary mother-sister.