Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/939

Rh am glad that I lived to repay you. Henceforth we stand together. Nothing shall ever come between us again."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, Hiram. But what—"

"I am having my things sent around," calmly interrupted Mr. Doolittle. "They ought to be here soon, but you need not get a room ready for me until night. Your cottage is small, but it is large enough for our purpose, and I have no doubt we shall be very comfortable. I am going down-town now. I shall be back about noon to join you at dinner."

And thus, with no more ado than another man would make in changing coats, did Hiram Doolittle step from the crumbling wreck of one home into the security of another. For a few weeks Hannah clung to the pleasing delusion that Hiram would soon find something to do, and that when he did the burden of existence would be lightened. Meanwhile, to help things along, she undertook still another "family wash."

But Hiram found nothing to do, chiefly because he did not look for it, and by the time Hannah fully realized what he had meant by his declaration that he would "stand by her," he was thoroughly established in her home. That she could get him out of it did not occur to her at all until Miss Phœbe Needlefit made the suggestion in a sarcastic comment about "her new boarder." This remark Hannah had at once resented.

In the first place, she had always regarded Hiram as rather a superior personage. He had been his father's favorite. Even when she was a girl in her teens, and Hiram a mere toddler, she had been taught to sacrifice her comforts and pleasure on the altar of his well-being. It was for similar reasons that her brother Ethan, two years older than Hiram, had run away to sea at the immature age of seventeen. The village school had done for her and Ethan. Hiram, however, had been sent to college and kept there until he rebelled.

But, for all that, she was proud of him,—proud of his fine language and genteel manner, even proud of the very air of condescension which he used towards her. How many persons were there in Cedarton who could talk as could her brother Hiram? Why, it was just a treat to listen to him at, mealtime, telling of how the President had made mistakes, and what Congress ought to do. Of course, it was much more of a problem to feed two than one, but she was strong, and Hiram was very considerate. He was satisfied with the simplest food. All the money he required was a small weekly allowance for smoking-tobacco.

This untroubled and—to Hiram—thoroughly satisfactory state of affairs had continued for some three years, when the abrupt reappearance in Cedarton of the prodigal Ethan raised a storm which threatened to end it all. Ethan had tired of life before the mast. He had come back to his native town, bronzed of face, grizzled as to hair, profusely tattooed as to arms and chest, his mind stored chiefly with memories of riotous doings afloat and ashore. He was accompanied by little baggage, and in the pockets of his wide-bottomed trousers were the inconsequential fragments of eight months' wages. Ethan Doolittle heard of his father's passing without comment, but the bald recital of Hiram's peaceful inactivity stirred him to such wrath that only his command of deep-sea profanity enabled him to do justice to his feelings.

"Grubbin' on Hannah, is he? The snivelling little sea-lawyer! I'll fix that. I'll see whether he'll work or not. You wait. Think of it! Him loafin' ashore all these years while I've been workin' like a slave and livin' a dog's life. It was him that drove me to it, too. Oh, just you wait! Where'd you say they lived?" And the returned Ethan rolled ominously up Main Street, bent on bringing overdue retribution to his younger brother.

"And that puts an end to Hi Doolittle's gentleman act," commented Miss Phœbe Needlefit, with a gratified sparkle in her black eyes.

But the returned sailor Doolittle found his brother Hiram to be a very different personage from the one he had pictured. With a fine air of amused tolerance Hiram listened to his explosive remarks.

"Is that all? Have you quite finished?" he inquired, gently.

It was. Ethan had exhausted his vo-