nothing of business, any of them. Mr. Reed had protected them from care and worry. But when they had concluded their interview with the wily lawyer in charge of the building and loan affairs, they were wiser, and sadder, too. Thurlow Reed stood by the window, staring out at a world that had suddenly gone blank and implacable, appalled at what lay before him, seeing no way around it.
It was very still in the big, old-fashioned parlor after the lawyer had gone. Rilla sat staring at her brother’s back and trying to visualize the future, aghast at the cloud of trouble that seemed to have settled over them.
The mother sat there quietly with her hands in her lap and slow tears stealing down her soft cheeks. Then suddenly she spoke, as if she were thinking aloud. “Your father was always almost too softhearted,” she said, as if admitting a truth grudgingly. “He was always too easy, I suppose, but”she hesitated and then brought out her final words with a kind of exultant note in her voice“but I’m glad he was that way! I’d rather have him that way than the otherhard and stingy and close, like some men.”
“Oh! So would I!” exclaimed Rilla with a sound of relief in her voice. “I’m glad Father was that way. I don’t mind being poor when it’s for a reason like that. I’m glad Father helped that man. Even if he did lose his house after all, I’m glad I had a father like that.”
“Here, too!” said Thurlow, whirling away from the window and giving his sister a radiant smile. “We’ll make out somehow. Don’t worry! The only thing that troubles me is that Mother will have to give up her home that Father planned for her.”
“Don’t worry about me!” said the mother with a deep breath and a brave smile shining through her tears. “I’m glad, too! Only Father would have been so troubled to have had this happen to us. But of course there didn’t seem to be a bit of risk at the time, he was doing so well, and the money was in the bank. So he wasn’t even to blame in his judgment. And we’ll just hold up our heads and smile. It isn’t going to be forever, of course, that we have to stay here on this earth, and while this lasts, we’ll take it smiling. We’re going home forever sometime and be in the Father’s house. What’s a little deprivation by the way? And think how I’m blessed in my children. Thank the Lord that He’s given me such children!”
They bent over her and kissed her tears away then lifted her to her feet.
“Come, Mother, let’s go and get supper, all of us together, and forget our troubles. There’ll be a way somehow, and you’re the best little sport of a mother a fellow ever had!” said Thurlow.
The days that followed were full of discoveries. Someone wanted to buy the Reed place and make an apartment house of it. They wanted to get it cheap. Thurlow found that the purchaser was in league with the lawyer who was settling up the estate. The pressure was very strong to insist on the full amount of the personal bond, as the date had gone by without the interest being paid, and technically they could call it a default.
The wily one from the defunct building association made several calls to the home of the bewildered, defenseless family, tightening the meshes of his net each visit. He quoted law at them, and in their inexperience they did not know that some of the laws he quoted did not apply to their case. He pointed out to them that he could hold them to that personal bond for double the amount of the mortgage, and that he could make it impossible for them ever to hold any property, even an automobile or a piano or any valuable furniture, until the full amount was paid. But he intimated that there were ways of compromise. If they were willing to deed over their property to the association, there would be a way of setting them free from this bond.
Thurlow watched the sly eyes of the man as he talked. He felt the man was dishonest. Yet they could not afford to go to another lawyer. There was only one friend in the town who would have helped, and he was out of the question for pride’s sake. And anyway, he was just about to take his family for a trip around the world, and this was no time to apply for help or advice. He was sailing in three days.
Guerdon Sherwood had been their father’s friend since school days. He had always kept his friendship for his boyhood comrade even though he himself had grown rich and influential. He would have done something, the Reeds knew, if the matter had come to his attention. It would be nothing to him to hand over the money that would clear the whole trouble up, and he would probably offer it if he knew.
Yet because they knew this, knew him to be loyal and true to his friend of childhood days, the Reeds would not go to him, would not breathe their trouble to him. They had all agreed on this at once, even that first moment after the fish-eyed lawyer had left them.
“We will not say anything of this to Mr. Sherwood,” said the widow firmly, looking toward her son as if she half feared he would have some intention of doing just that thing.
But Thurlow had instantly seconded her.
“Of course not, Mother! That couldn’t even be a last resort!” said Thurlow decidedly.
“Certainly not!” said Rilla with a proud little lift of her chin.
The mother looked at her two children with misery in her eyes. That would be another thing that was going to make it hard. Thurl had been very friendly with Barbara Sherwood. As children they had been in the same school together, and they had shared some of the same classes in high school. During their senior year they had been inseparable. Rilla had grown fairly close with Betty Sherwood and Chandler, her brother. College had, of course, separated Barbara and Thurlow to a degree, though they had corresponded often, and during vacation the friendliness had been renewed, Thurlow often going down to the shore for the weekend while the Sherwoods occupied their summer cottage. Of course there had been nothing like an engagement or understanding between them, for they were both still in college and many miles were between them, but Thurlow’s mother had watched the growing look of responsibility and gravity in the eyes of her boy, and she wondered now how things were going to be. Would all these radical changes in their lives bring about a sorrow for her son to carry? She looked at him anxiously.
Rilla’s eyes were on her brother, too, and presently in her direct way she asked the question that they all had in their hearts.
“Are you going to New York to see them sail, Thurl?”
She watched the desolation spread suddenly over his grave face and was sorry she had asked him. She had only meant to remind him that he had that question to face, but she might have known he would have thought of it even before she did.
He was still a moment before he answered. Then he said gravely, “Probably not.” It was as if he had considered every phase of the matter before he spoke.
“There wouldn’t be any reason why you couldn’t,” said his mother quickly in her comforting voice. “You know they wouldn’t know anything about the change in our circumstances. Your father never told anybody what his banking place was. They wouldn’t have heard. And it hasn’t got out yet that we are losing our house. I don’t see why you shouldn’t go and have a pleasant good-bye, just as you would have done if all this hadn’t happened.”
“It will cost something, Mother,” he said quietly.
“No it won’t, Thurl,” said Rilla eagerly. “Betty said some of the young folk were going to ride down in a second car, and they’ll ask you, of course.”
“Perhaps.”
“And anyway, I think you should go. She won’t understand it. You’ve been one of her best friends. And anyway, we won’t actually starve any sooner on the little it would take to get you down there and buy flowers and candy or anything you want go give her. I think
