"y-yes'm," he said at last, "or—well, some; and then—father has worries of his own. mortgages are kind of worrisome things, i guess; a man has to keep thinking about them."
"is there a mortgage?"
derrick caught his breath in dismay; his instant thought was:
"now you have put your foot in it, old blunderbuss; the idea of aunt elsie not knowing that there was a mortgage on the house!" it seemed to the boy that he had known it ever since he was born.
"oh, yes," he said, trying to speak carelessly, "there's a mortgage, of course; there always is i guess, on houses; they're there when you buy 'em, aren't they?"
but aunt elsie declined to be drawn into a discussion on real estate transfers; she quietly asked another question:
"do you know how large the mortgage is, derrick?"
oh, didn't he! why, he was sure he had known that ever since he began to read, and write, "units, tens, hundreds, thousands"; of course he must reply.
"i've heard it mentioned—it is eight thousand i believe—but—" no, he wouldn't say that. catch him telling that the great trouble was the old thing was due, and had passed into other hands, and the mean skinflint who held it now wanted every penny of it at once.
he sprang up with an excellent appearance of haste as he exclaimed: "why, dear me, is that clock striking three? i shall be late at the gym, and it will be ray's fault, won't it?"
she let him go without further questioning; she had learned almost all that she needed to know.
all of which will explain why, on the third evening after this talk, aunt elsie, instead of following mrs. forman and the girls to the family sitting-room after dinner, boldly halted in front of the little room at the end of the hall which, by courtesy, was called the library, but was in reality the place where the head of the house hid himself when he was too busy or too sad to join the family circle. mrs. forman noted with dismay the stopping of the crutch before that already closed door—mr. forman had excused himself before dinner was quite over.
"i'm sorry your aunt stopped there," she said, "your father will not feel equal to siting with her to-night."
"perhaps she will cheer him up," was jean's hopeful reply. "i'm sure she can, if any one can."
mrs. forman's only reply was a sigh; she understood so much better than jean how hard a thing that would be to do on this night of all others. it had been her plan to slip away from the family as soon as she could do so unnoticed, to sit beside the stricken man for a while, in silence, just to let him feel her sympathy. there were no words that she could speak until he had time to adjust himself to his burden. she was as yet the only one in the family who knew that mr. forman's last effort to raise money had failed, and that in a very few days they would be homeless. what words were there to speak to a man so stricken? his wife knew what a brave struggle he had made, even to appealing once more, because of her urging, to his brother evarts, a thing that he had said he would not do; and the result had been that as he read the reply with set lips and a face so white it frightened her, he looked up to say: "louise, remember, if the alternative is the poorhouse for us both, we will take that; we must never appeal to him again."
mrs. forman, as she sat waiting, wished that she had explained the present situation to aunt elsie, who must know very soon now, and she would have left the poor man to this one hour of needed solitude, if she had understood.
the caller did not wait to knock but opened the door and advanced quickly, not apparently noticing the haggard face turned to see who the intruder was; he arose at once with the instincts of a gentleman pushed forward an easy chair for her use.
"i thought it was louise," he said, because it seemed necessary to say something.
"no, louise and the others went to the living-room and i thumped on down here because i wanted to talk to you a minute. i won't hinder you long, but i can't help seeing that something is troubling you, and i wondered if i couldn't be of some help."
he smiled faintly. "yes," he said, "i am troubled, there is no use in denying it; i am in great trouble, but there is nothing you can do to help; yet it is a comfort to realize how quickly you would help, if you could."
"well, now, don't be so very sure that i can't help a little; you haven't tried me. i don't really know anything about it, but i would be willing to make a big guess that money is at the bottom of your present trouble; i think it is, about half the time, with men. now, i want to say that i have a little of my own saved up, and i would like nothing better than to spend it in helping you out. if you will just tell me i am right, and how much you need just now, i'll go at once and give you a chance to rest a while; you look as though you needed it."
he was very pale and almost mortally tired; he had slept but little for the past two nights, and it had seemed to him but a few moments before that he could never smile again; yet a smile hovered over his face at thought of this dear old woman coming with her bits of savings that she probably had tucked away in some locked upper drawer, to help him out of trouble! it was a tender smile and warmed his heart; he had not known that she had any money at all, and one of his bitter sorrows had been that he could no longer do for her the little that he had been able to do. his grateful acknowledgment came promptly.
"it does my very soul good, elsie, to feel how true is your sympathy, and how willingly you would help me; but i am only too glad if you have been able to save a little for yourself; hold every penny of it for your personal use; my money troubles are much too large to be helped by it."
"is it the mortgage, joseph, that is pressing just now?"
he looked his surprise; he thought they had all been careful not to talk "mortgage" before her; still, what could it matter now? "yes," he said, "that is the climax. the mortgage on this house is overdue; it has recently come into the possession of a man who will not wait, for even a few days. but i could not do anything if he would; i have tried all the possibilities and have failed. two years from now there will be a little money coming to me that, if i had it now, would save our home; but i can't get it. the fact is the man wants the house, he would rather have it on the terms he can arrange than the money; it has doubled in value since i bought it, and the street has improved very greatly; it is worth his while to get hold of the property, and he knows it."
"well," aunt elsie said briskly, "i should tell him he couldn't have it; my advice is that you take the money to him to-morrow morning when you go to the store; if he is afraid of checks you might stop at the metropolitan exchange and get it for him in gold."
mr. forman gazed at his sister with a dazed, half-frightened look. had she suddenly become insane, or was this a miserable attempt at pleasantry?
"just what do you mean?" he managed to get out, and she answered briskly:
"just what i say; if you want this house, pay him the money you owe on it to-morrow morning; whether you want to keep it or not, i should think you would take up the mortgage and get rid of him."
he rose up and came over to her, his pale face growing even paler yet with a new anxiety.
"elsie," he said, speaking low and soothingly as he might to an excited child, "i wish you would not bother about this; you do not understand mortgages, and you do not need to think of it any more; i shall manage, somehow."
"but the best way to manage it is to pay off the mortgage, joseph; surely that is simple enough, a child could understand it."
then in desperation he proclaimed the awful fact:
"elsie, the mortgage is for eight thousand dollars."
"very well, get rid of it." then, suddenly, her manner changed. she began to realize that he was actually frightened. instead of the crisp business-like tone hers became gentle.
"sit down, joseph, and don't get to worrying about me; i'm neither crazy nor 'gone daft,' as our scotch grandmother used to say. it is all very simple. i happen to have this money lying by, waiting to be used, and here is a chance to use it. i wish i had known about the mortgage a good while ago, it might have saved you some anxious hours; and the sooner we fix it up now the better. if you will tell me just how to make out the check i'll hobble away and give you a chance to rest a bit; i can see that you are all tuckered out."
he was not to be disposed of so easily.
"elsie," he said in strong excitement, "i cannot take your money—i can't! why should you think for a moment that i could do such a thing? i did not dream that you had any money; but if i had, i would not have borrowed it for the world! i don't know when i could pay you; the hope that i have for two years ahead may fail; all my hopes and plans have, for years; i cannot depend on anything financial, and to risk all that you have in that way would be folly in you, and infamous in me."
he had walked back towards his desk as he began to speak; now he dropped into his chair and laid his head, face downward, on the desk. his sister reached for her crutch and came over and laid her hand on his head in a way his father used to have.
"joseph," she said gently, "you don't understand; let me tell you. this money that i offer is really yours; i did not earn it nor save it; it is trust money, joseph, for me to use as i think the one who made it would like to have it used; and that was our brother derrick; you have read the letters he wrote to me about you; can you think of any one in the world he would rather give it to than you? i have some money of my own, as i said, but this i am offering has nothing to do with mine; but suppose that it had, and that it took my last penny, don't you think i would be glad to have you take it for such a purpose? think of the home that you have made for me! think of what you and louise and the children have done for me all these months. do you remember that i have been here about nine months, cared for and watched over with thoughtful loving kindness, never for a single moment allowed to fancy myself in the way—made to feel as though i were your very own? joseph, for the first time since father went away i have had a real home. what is money compared with that?"
they talked longer, they went over all the ground again and again, down to minute details. they lingered so long that mrs. forman's anxiety reached the point where she had resolved to break in upon them at once and compel her husband to rest, when they suddenly appeared.
it had been for years the custom of the forman family to gather in the living-room immediately after early dinner for family worship, unless circumstances prevented. but many were the circumstances that prevented. especially had this been the case of late years, as the social duties and engagements of the young people increased, and the daily cares of life began to press more and more heavily upon the heads of the house, until for nearly a year the passing over of this service had been more common than its observance. but they still had a habit of loitering about for a while, to see, as derrick once expressed it, "whether this is the night that we have prayers." they had done so on this evening, waiting much longer than usual, because each felt an unspoken anxiety for the absent father, and, to the young people, there was an indescribable tenseness in the air as though something, they did not imagine what, was about to happen. something had happened! one look at their father's face revealed it. the moment he had established aunt elsie in the armchair that derrick sprang to offer her, he turned toward them, his face shining, his voice gladly solemn:
"louise, and children, a wonderful deliverance has come to us this night; to me it seems nothing less than a miracle. our home that i believed only an hour ago was gone from us forever is saved. the father in heaven has looked down in pity upon this blundering earthly father of yours and has sent us deliverance at the hand of this dear sister; god bless her! let us pray." he knelt beside aunt elsie's chair with her hand clasped in his, and there was not a member of his family who ever forgot that prayer.
it was a wonderful evening they had together after that. there were many things to be talked over, and many plans to make for the immediate future. matters that by tacit consent had been held in abeyance because if they were to move, somewhere, all would be different, now came to the front and insisted on being considered. most of them aunt elsie heard for the first time, and enjoyed to the full this being taken into the real and intimate family circle, never to be, kindly and graciously, even tenderly, shut out from it any more.
yet it was, of course, the "deliverance" that was uppermost in their thoughts.
"it is wonderful, isn't it," jean said, lingering at the door of derrick's room for their last words together. "it does seem like a miracle, as father said; and to think that it should have come through aunt elsie! professor norton announced to-day that the age of miracles was long past; i guess if he had been through what we have, and then been here to-night, he would know better."
"especially if he had seen father's face," added derrick. "do you know what i thought of when i looked at him: 'and all that sat looking steadfastly on him saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.'"
