CHAPTER III
The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursdaysheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury'svillage and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday,more than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into thatweek's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the nextoutput. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find outwhether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him or not.It was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair couldhardly have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesomediversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was piling upfortunes right along, the man was spending them--spending all his wifewould give him a chance at, at any rate.
At last the Saturday came, and the _Weekly Sagamore_ arrived. Mrs.Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, andwas working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died a sudden death--onthe Foster side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hostswere not hearing a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering andindignant, and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleckeagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's sweptthe columns for the death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was notanywhere mentioned. Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty andthe force of habit required her to go through the motions. She pulledherself together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:
"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--"
"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--"
"Sally! For shame!"
"I don't care!" retorted the angry man. "It's the way _you _feel, and ifyou weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so."
Aleck said, with wounded dignity:
"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is nosuch thing as immoral piety."
Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt tosave his case by changing the form of it--as if changing the form whileretaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to placate.He said:
"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean immoralpiety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional piety, you know; er--shoppiety; the--the--why, _you _know what I mean. Aleck--the--well, whereyou put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know, withoutintending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancientpolicy, petrified custom, loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find theright words, but _you _know what I mean, Aleck, and that there isn't anyharm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person--"
"You have said quite enough," said Aleck, coldly; "let the subject bedropped."
"I'm willing," fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from hisforehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then,musingly, he apologized to himself. "I certainly held threes--_I know_it--but I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak inthe game. If I had stood pat--but I didn't. I never do. I don't knowenough."
Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued. Aleckforgave him with her eyes.
The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the frontagain; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on astretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury'sdeath-notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully,but they had to finish where they began, and concede that the onlyreally sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be--andwithout doubt was--that Tilbury was not dead. There was something sadabout it, something even a little unfair, maybe, but there it was, andhad to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemeda strangely inscrutable dispensation; more inscrutable than usual, hethought; one of the most unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind,in fact--and said so, with some feeling; but if he was hoping to drawAleck he failed; she reserved her opinion, if she had one; she had notthe habit of taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.
The pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had evidentlypostponed. That was their thought and their decision. So they put thesubject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart asthey could.
Now, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all thetime. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he haddied to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it;entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in thecemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's _Sagamore_, too,and only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happento a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor littlevillage rag like the _Sagamore_. On this occasion, just as the editorialpage was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water arrivedfrom Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful ofrather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded out to makeroom for the editor's frantic gratitude.
On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwiseit would have gone into some future edition, for _weekly Sagamores_ donot waste "live" matter, and in their galleys "live" matter is immortal,unless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, andfor such there is no resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone,forever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave inhis grave to his fill, no matter--no mention of his death would ever seethe light in the _Weekly Sagamore_.