Despite her brave front and ever-abundant faculty to console others, she had known trouble of a kind that would have crushed others of weaker nature. From early girlhood she had been alone, her parents having died within a year of each other before she had pa.s.sed her fifteenth birthday. She had no sisters, and her only brother had widened the gap between them by a life of recklessness.

Tom Piper was the exact ant.i.thesis of his sister. A good fellow with everybody, and liked accordingly; none too particular in his choice of comrades; a spendthrift, and unable to apply himself for long at any one occupation, 'twas a fortunate circ.u.mstance that Cousin James took in his orphan sister, otherwise she would have had the additional burden of poverty to hara.s.s her endeavors to sustain the respectability of the family. Tom might also have made his home with his cousin, but he showed no inclination to accept such charity. He was older than his sister, and quite able to take care of himself, so he thought. He secured work with a firm of timber contractors, and almost immediately disappeared into the wide expanse of pine in northern Ontario.

Occasionally he wrote to his sister, and in his letters his big heart stood out so clearly that even her strict code of propriety could not stay the tears of sympathy which blotted his already bedaubed scribbling. When spring came, and the logs had been rafted down the river, leaving the timber men a few months of well-earned idleness, Tom's first action was to hasten out to the Monk Road to visit Sophia, and a very unconventional caller he proved to be. The rough life had taken off much of his exterior polish, but otherwise he was the same good-natured Tom, generous to a fault, and, therefore, blessed with but little to give. These were grand opportunities for Sophia, and she lectured him roundly for his loose habits. She told him that he could have a good position in the neighboring town, and society more in keeping with the ancestors of the Pipers, should he so desire. But he always answered her with a laugh that echoed strangely through the quiet decorum of Cousin Jim's big house, then he kissed her for her advice.

"Never fear, little girl, I will never do any great harm either to you or the family. It is my way of enjoying life, and I guess I am a free agent. But keep on in your good work, and it will do for the both of us. I have brought something with me to brighten your eyes, sister.

This will buy new clothes for you."

While he spoke, he counted out and handed over to her a large share of his winter's wages. This always made Sophia cry, and she would forget her scoldings for the balance of his stay.

As Tom grew older, tales travelled ahead of him, of his reckless spending and his drinking while in town. Cousin Jim heard them first, and he took Tom to task sharply whenever he met him. Then Sophia learned the truth, and her heart was almost broken. She prayed for her brother, and wept over him when he came to see her, and was rewarded with promises which were broken as soon as her influence had worn off.

Gradually a coldness grew between them. Tom, obstinately set in his way, and angry at the continued interference of his sister and cousin; Sophia hurt by his neglect and bitter from the sting of his disgraceful conduct; and Cousin Jim, hard, matter-of-fact business man that he was, refused to extend even the courtesy of a speaking acquaintance. So affairs ran along very unhappily, until, at last, Sophia determined to forget that Tom was her brother, and henceforth she put her whole soul into a crusade against sin, and Nancy McVeigh's tavern soon came under the ban of her displeasure.

Nancy's place was four miles from town on the Monk Road, and Tom Piper had found it a convenient spot for rest and refreshment, both going and returning from his visit to Cousin Jim's. Sophia had often warned him against the house, saying that it was an evil den, peopled with the thriftless scourings of the countryside, and presided over by a sort of human she-devil, who waited by the window to coax wayfarers in to buy her vile drinks. Tom answered by repeating some of the good acts traceable to Nancy McVeigh's door. He explained to her that the hostess was just a poor, hard-worked woman, who reaped small reward for her labors, and divided what she got with any who might be in need of it. He also told of waifs whom Nancy had mothered and fed from her own cupboard until they were old enough to shift for themselves. But Sophia was firm in her convictions, and only permitted herself to know one side of the story.

"No good can come out of that tavern," she had said, with a stamp of her foot and a fire in her eye that forbade contradiction.

Through the vale of years Sophia never forgot the grudge, and when she made herself an influence in the highest circles of reform, she turned with grim persistence to the agitation for the cancelling of the tavern license.

Nancy McVeigh, the woman against whom this thunderbolt was to be launched, kept patiently at her work. She had heard of the efforts being put forth, and often wondered why the great people bothered about one of so little consequence as herself. She did not fight back, as she had nothing to defend, but waited calmly, telling her neighbors, when they came to gossip, that they need not worry her with news of it at all.

Sophia championed her pet theme at the County Convention, and carried it to an issue where she and a committee were empowered to wait on the License Board with a strong plea in favor of the abolition of the tavern. The three stout gentlemen who listened to their pet.i.tion were all good men who had families of their own and wanted as little evil as possible abroad to tempt their boys from the better path. They gave a long night's deliberation to the question, and then brought in a verdict that they would extend Nancy's rights for another year. Sophia was completely overcome by the decision, and straightway sought out one of the Commissioners, a friend of Cousin Jim's, whom she knew quite intimately.

"Why did you do it?" she asked wrathfully.

"My dear Miss Piper," he replied, "perhaps you have not realized that Nancy McVeigh has a heart as big as a bushel basket, and we can find no instance where she has abused the power which she holds. If we take it away from her, some other will step into her place, and he might be ten times worse."

Sophia brought the interview to a close very abruptly, and went home angry and unshaken in her resolve; but an unexpected event changed the course of her meditation. Cousin Jim was planning a winter's stay in California for her and his children. She needed the rest and change, and so did the youngsters. Their preparations were completed in a few days, and the big house was closed. Thus the questions which had raised such an excitement were shelved for a more convenient season.

It was in the spring of the next year that Jennie, Nancy McVeigh's adopted daughter, brought her the news from town of Tom Piper's illness.

"The poor fellow's goin' fast, wi' consumption, and he's at the 'ospital. It was Dan Conors who told me, an' he said, 'Tom hasn't a dollar fer the luxuries he requires,'" Jennie explained. Nancy's face relaxed somewhat from its habitually austere expression when Jennie had finished.

"The idee o' that lad dyin', forsaken like that, an' his own sister gallivantin' about California. It's past me understandin' entirely,"

she remarked, as she fastened on her widow's bonnet and threw her heavy shawl over her shoulders.

"Tell Will Devitt to harness the mare, and I'll go and see what can be done fer him."

Nancy arrived at the hospital late in the afternoon, and was admitted to the sick man's bedside. She found him delirious and unable to recognize her, but instead he called her "Sophia."

"It's so good of you to come, Sophia. I knew you would," he kept repeating as he clasped her hand in his. All that night Nancy stayed by him, attending to his wants with the skill of a mother, and soothing him by her words.

In the morning he died.

"I guess it will be the potter's field," the hospital doctor told her, when she inquired about the burial. "He came here almost penniless, and has been in the ward six weeks."

Nancy gazed into s.p.a.ce while she made some hasty mental computations.

"What balance is due ye?" she asked, suddenly.

The doctor produced a modest bill, at half the current rate, amounting to twenty-five dollars. It meant a good week's business out of Nancy's pocket, but she paid it without objection. "I want the body sent to my tavern out on the Monk Road, sir, and ye can complete all arrangements fer a decent Christian funeral, an' I'll pay all the expenses," she said, before leaving. She went to the telegraph office and left instructions to wire to all the known addresses of Miss Sophia Piper; then, satisfied with her day's work, she hurried home.

The tavern bar was closed during the two days while the body lay in the little parlor, and callers came and went on tiptoe, and spoke only in whispers. A steady stream of roughly dressed people, river-men and their friends, struggled over the four miles of snowy road to pay their last respects to the dead, and some brought flowers bundled awkwardly in their arms.

The night preceding the funeral, two great, long-limbed fellows, wearing top-boots, came stumbling into the tavern, more noisily because of their clumsy efforts at gentleness. Nancy knew them as former friends of Tom Piper, so she led them in at once. The men took the limit of the time usually spent there, and yet they were loath to go, and Nancy guessed that they had something further to say but scarcely knew how to commence. She encouraged them a little, and finally one spoke up.

"Ye see, Mistress McVeigh, Tommy wus one o' the boys, an' a pal o'

ours, an' we hate to see ye stuck for the full expenses o' this funeral. G.o.d knows we owe him plenty fer the generous way he stayed by his mates, an' we don't want him receivin' charity from no one. We had a meetin' o' the lot o' us down town las' night, and every man put in his share to make Tom right with the world. We've got fifty-five dollars here, and we want ye to take it."

The men counted out the money on the table, silver and bills of small amounts, until it made quite an imposing pile, then they placed a piece of paper upon it, with the words, written very badly, "For Tommy, from his pals."

They looked towards Nancy, and her averted face was wet. She did not sob, yet tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Sophia Piper was home in ten days, having received a message after considerable delay. The resident minister met her at the station and comforted her as well as his kindly soul knew how. He told her all the circ.u.mstances connected with the death and burial of her brother, and took particular pains to place Nancy McVeigh's part in it in its true light, as he had a warm spot in his heart for the old tavern-keeper.

They drove together out to the home of Cousin Jim, where the servants had opened the house in preparation for their coming. The weather-stained gable of Nancy McVeigh's tavern, like some old familiar face, came into view by the way, and Sophia asked to be set down at the door.

Nancy, tall, angular and sympathetic, walked into her parlor to meet her guest.

The minister did not stay, but left them together, the younger woman sobbing on the breast of the older, who bent over and stroked the troubled head softly.

CHAPTER III.

_JOHN KEENE'S EDUCATION._

"If the world had no mean people, there'd be little use fer kindness,"

remarked Nancy McVeigh to Moore, the operator at the railway junction, who always enjoyed a smoke and a half-hour chat with his hostess after his midday meal. They were discussing the escapades of young John Keene in the little parlor upstairs, whither Mistress McVeigh had gone to complete a batch of home-knit socks for her son, Cornelius, who lived in Chicago.

"I can't understand such a difference in the natures of father and son," Moore continued, after Nancy's interruption. "The father starts life penniless, without education, friends or business training. He settles in a locality where the majority of his neighbors find it a heart-breaking struggle to make ends meet, and ama.s.ses a fortune. Such a performance in a country where business is brisk and natural facilities favorable to the manipulations of a clever man would not be so surprising, but we all know the Monk Road has no gold mines or streams of commerce to disturb its dreamlike serenity."

A tone of irony pervaded Moore's words, for he was past forty, and had but a paltry bank account and a living salary to show for his ten years' sojourn in the place.

"Compare the father's record with that of his son. The boy is given all the advantages that money can obtain, and plenty of time for growth, and he has also the example of his parent. Why, the lad was the terror of the school, never out of mischief, and costing his father a pretty sum to keep him from serious consequences. Before he was fifteen he spent his Sat.u.r.days carousing with the wildest set in the town, and incidentally built up a very unenviable reputation. Then he was sent to a city college. Did you hear the rumors that came back of what he did there?"

"There was some talk," Nancy agreed.

"Talk! Mistress McVeigh; downright scandal, I should call it! I know he was expelled for attending a party at the Princ.i.p.al's own home in an intoxicated condition, and afterwards fighting with a teacher who undertook to reprimand him."

Nancy looked up from her knitting, and an amused twinkle was in her eyes.

"The lad sowed wild oats sure enough, Mr. Moore, and good, tall ones, with full heads at that, but he's only an image o' his father, in that old John's recklessness runs to makin' money, and young John's to spendin'. It's not that I like bringin' up bygones, but the father was a bit loose in his day, too. I can remember, before old John married, he would come from town takin' the width o' the road fer his path, and singin' at the top o' his voice something he learnt out o' a Burns'

book o' poetry. It was the wife that he brought from the city, bless her good soul, that turned his work into a gold-mine. She guided him out o' his evil way and kept him hard at his dealin's from morning till night. It'll be the same with young John. He's spendin' his money now, and makin' the whole countryside ring with his pranks, but a foine miss'll spy him out some day, and then his mind'll forget his throat and dwell on his pocket. He'll never fail, fer he takes after his mother in the face, and she was the envy of the people the length o'

the Monk Road, and farther. It's an old woman I'm gettin' now, an'

I've watched many young men developin' character, an' I'm just a bit o'

a judge. Ye'll admit I've had a grand opportunity to study their evil side, and what I don't see is told me by the neighbors; then their good side turns up after awhile, like a rainbow after a shower. I find it takes wise men to be really bad ones, but, after they've learnt their lesson, they see what a dried-up skeleton an evil life is, and then it's a race to make up fer their wasted years. Course, if a fool is led into idle habits, he must be led out again, and it's doubtful whether the process is very purifyin'. But it's different when a man like John Keene's son sees the error o' his ways. I tell ye, Mr.

Moore, it's only a question o' time, an' young John'll be as set as his father, but he'll no be as tight, I'm thinkin'. He's got his mother's heart, ye know."

"You have rare a.s.surance in the strength of human nature, Mistress McVeigh. Perhaps it is because you're fairly strong in that quarter yourself," commented Mr. Moore, after he had digested Nancy's crude philosophy.