PAGE 8
Asaph
by
A thin chill like a needleful of frozen thread ran down Asaph’s back. “Mr. Himes’s clothes!” he exclaimed. “What in the world are you talkin’ about, Thomas Rooper? ‘Tain’t likely he had many, ‘cept what he was buried in; and what’s left, if there is any, Marietta would no more think of givin’ away than she would of hangin’ up his funeral wreath for the canary-bird to perch on. There’s a room up in the garret where she keeps his special things–for she’s awful particular–and if there is any of his clothes up there I expect she’s got ’em framed.”
“If she thinks as much of him as that,” muttered Mr. Rooper.
“Now don’t git any sech ideas as them into your head, Thomas,” said Asaph, quickly. “Marietta ain’t a woman to rake up the past, and you never need be afraid of her rakin’ up Mr. Himes. All of the premises will be hern and yourn except that room in the garret, and it ain’t likely she’ll ever ask you to go in there.”
“The Lord knows I don’t want to!” ejaculated Mr. Rooper.
The two men walked slowly to the end of a line of well-used, or, rather, badly used, wooden arm-chairs which stood upon the tavern piazza, and seated themselves. Mr. Rooper’s mind was in a highly perturbed condition. If he accepted Asaph’s present proposition he would have to make a considerable outlay with a very shadowy prospect of return.
“If you haven’t got the ready money for the clothes,” said Asaph, after having given his companion some minutes for silent consideration, “there ain’t a man in this village what they would trust sooner at the store for clothes,” and then after a pause he added, “or books, which, of course, they can order from town.”
At this Mr. Rooper simply shrugged his shoulders. The question of ready money or credit did not trouble him.
At this moment a man in a low phaeton, drawn by a stout gray horse, passed the tavern.
“Who’s that?” asked Asaph, who knew everybody in the village.
“That’s Doctor Wicker,” said Thomas. “He lives over at Timberley. He ‘tended John Himes in his last sickness.”
“He don’t practise here, does he?” said Asaph. “I never see him.”
“No; but he was called in to consult.” And then the speaker dropped again into cogitation.
After a few minutes Asaph rose. He knew that Thomas Rooper had a slow-working mind, and thought it would be well to leave him to himself for a while. “I’ll go home,” said he, “and ‘tend to my chores, and by the time you feel like comin’ up and takin’ a smoke with me under the chestnut-tree, I reckon you will have made up your mind, and we’ll settle this thing. Fer if I have got to go back to Drummondville, I s’pose I’ll have to pack up this afternoon.”
“If you’d say pack off instead of pack up,” remarked the other, “you’d come nearer the facts, considerin’ the amount of your personal property. But I’ll be up there in an hour or two.”
When Asaph came within sight of his sister’s house he was amazed to see a phaeton and a gray horse standing in front of the gate. From this it was easy to infer that the doctor was in the house. What on earth could have happened? Was anything the matter with Marietta? And if so, why did she send for a physician who lived at a distance, instead of Doctor McIlvaine, the village doctor? In a very anxious state of mind Asaph reached the gate, and irresolutely went into the yard. His impulse was to go to the house and see what had happened; but he hesitated. He felt that Marietta might object to having a comparative stranger know that such an exceedingly shabby fellow was her brother. And, besides, his sister could not have been overtaken by any sudden illness. She had always appeared perfectly well, and there would have been no time during his brief absence from the house to send over to Timberley for a doctor.