Barclay's daughter

Chapter I. Seeds

“ The little foxes that spoil the vines.’'

— Song of Solomon .

“ I tell you that I can’t let you have it, Barclay ! I’m sorry, but this isn’t my saloon and I have to obey orders.”

The man addressed made a half angry, half imbecile gesture of protestation. His weak, bloodshot eyes contracted as he stared into the bartender’s face.

“ Millard’s a crank ! ” he said thickly. “ If he isn’t here to oblige the public, why does he keep a saloon ? Just one glass, Jim ! I won’t peach on you, an’ the old man’ll never know ! ”

The bartender shook his head, shutting his lips firmly. He knew from experience that an order demanded prompt obedience in that saloon.

“ No,” he said quietly but impressively, “ not one drop, Barclay ! You had all that’s good for you, you know, before you came here, and I’ll not be the one to give you more against Mr. Millard’s orders.”

The man clenched his trembling right hand upon the bar, and his eyes flashed wickedly as he steadied himself and attempted to stand erect, disclaiming the previous use of liquor.

“ I ain’t had a drop to-night — not one drop ! ” he said with pathetic emphasis, swaying as he was from the effects of more than even one glass. “ But if I’d had a hundred it ain’t none of your business, Jim Dean, nor Millard’s neither, and if you won’t give me what I want, I guess there’s more than one saloon in this town where they’ll be glad to give me liquor for money ! I ain’t askin’ credit ! I’ve got the money right here. See ! ”

He drew his left hand from a pocket of his neatly patched coat, and eagerly held it forward, open, to show the bit of silver on the wrinkled palm.

“ I ain’t lyin’ to you, Jim Dean ! I pay for my drinks always. I never run in debt ! ”

Jim Dean frowned, though a slight flush dawned in his cheeks and he turned nervously aside to evade the old man’s convincing proof.

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For Jim Dean knew too well whose slim hands worked almost unceasingly, and whose pale, sweet face bent above the sewing that should keep her name and this old man’s name free from the charge of debt. He knew, and he shook his head.

“ I tell you, Mr. Barclay, I can’t let you have it ! I’ve been here long enough to know the penalty of disobeying orders, and not one drop will you have here to-night. Why don’t you go home now and wait till to-morrow for another drink?”

The blush deepened upon his cheeks as he spoke, for it was unusual for a bartender to advise temperance to a would-be customer, but the pale, sweet face came between him and that bit of silver in the old man’s trembling hand, and the words would not be silenced. They two were alone ; otherwise he would not have had the courage to utter this thought, and even so he glanced guiltily around to be certain of this.

The old man’s face darkened, but a drunken smile was on his lips. He replaced the silver in his pocket, keeping his fingers still upon it lest it be taken from him, and turned unsteadily from the bar.

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“ You’re a nice sort of feller — you are,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “Jim Dean! A-preachin’ temperance and sellin’ liquor at the same time ! If it’s all on account of my girl, you needn’t bother ! As I jest said, I don’t keep no account with any one, and it’s none of her business nor yours either if I want an extra drink ! What’s she good for if not to care for her father when he’s old and can’t take care of himself ! And if you won’t sell me the liquor I’ll go som’er’s else where I know they will ! ”

Jim Dean made no reply, but hastily began setting the glasses straight on the bar as a customer entered and the old man passed out. He was somewhat annoyed and nervous, for he knew that John Barclay was perfectly well aware' that his friendly words were uttered only because of the gentle girl whose face was so sadly pale bent above her sewing, and not because he held any good wish for the man whose honor was made secondary to his appetite.

He was a bartender, and the smell and taste and effect of liquor were every-day affairs to him, although, as in this instance, no one was allowed to sell in that saloon any liquor to any one who had been drinking before entering there. This was the one peculiar but undeviating command

Seeds.

of Millard, the proprietor, and it was this that Jim Dean dared not disobey.

“ For the temperate use of liquor is good,” Harry Millard said, arguing with himself when he decided upon this mode of making a swift fortune, “ and if I allow no one to become intoxicated on my premises, is it not better for me, having this rule, to sell liquor than for another man who would sell the last drop he could get down a man’s throat and make him beastly drunk? If I don’t sell it some one else will, and my mode is a good one as well as my motive. No one shall be lowered by intoxication in my saloon, but I may as well make money in that way as for another man to do it with a lighter sense of honor ! ”

As old Barclay turned from the saloon and the newcomer entered, an amused smile was upon his lips. He was thinking of this remarkable mode of silencing conscience and wondering of what avail it was to refuse a man that which he could easily obtain at the very next saloon !

“How are you, Jim?” he asked pleasantly, as he crossed to the bar, resting one hand lightly and steadily upon it. “ I’ll take whiskey this time, as I have been on a long drive and it is rather chilly to-night ! ”

i o Barclay s Daughter.

Then as he set the emptied glass upon the counter and carefully wiped his mustache, he added good-humoredly, —

“ Poor Barclay’s had a little too much again, Jim. How did you come to overstep the bounds this time with him ? ”

“ I didn’t,” Jim replied quickly. “ Whatever he had, he got before he came in here, Mr. Cartwright. I have been here too long to overstep the bounds in that way !”

The other lifted his brows and shrugged his shoulders knowingly.

“ Oh, I see ! It was because you wouldn’t let him have it that he looked so savage. I imagined it the other way when I came in, for I thought you looked rather rattled. But you needn’t have minded me. I can wink, you know ! Poor fellow, that Barclay. No will at all. Now, if he could take a glass and stop there as I do, he would never have come down to such poverty. I rather think that girl of his gives him what little he does spend, anyway.”

“ I know she does ! ” said Jim hastily. Then he bit his lip, turning away to ring the coin, just given in exchange for the whiskey, into the cash drawer as he added : “Any one with half an eye would know that, for he never works and has no

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hank account. Such fellows as he never do, you know.”

The other nodded carelessly, pausing to light a cigar.

“ More fools they, Dean ! I never go beyond what’s good for me, and no one else need to if they’d only cultivate a steady will. How’s Millard ? And his daughter? There’s a pretty girl for you ! They are well ? Always are. I never saw such a man as he, and Miss Minnie isn’t one of the wishy-washy people who dare not say one’s soul is one’s own nor allow a fellow to turn a hair’s breadth from the straight way ! Give Barclay my advice when next he comes in, Jim. Good-night.”

And nodding complacently Mr. Cartwright also passed out, a smile upon his lips.

“ It’s all in habit,” he said to himself. “ Look at Millard ; look at Dean — always in it ; look at me ! Barclay needn’t have been a poor old toper if he had done as we do. It’s all folly!”

“ But sometimes it is easier to give advice than to give the necessary strength of will to follow it,” murmured Jim Dean as he watched Cartwright down the street. “ A mighty sight easier, let me tell you, Tom, and I’d rather be

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Barclay s Daughter.

excused. If Barclay will drink to excess it’s his own lookout, I suppose ; but it’s a pity, too, on account of his daughter. He deserves all the hard knocks he gets, but she ”

More customers ; courteous attention necessary ; no time to moralize, and then it was rather incongruous for a man to preach temperance and practice exactly the opposite. Even Jim Dean thought this and in consequence set aside further thought upon the subject of either Barclay’s absurd intemperance or his daughter’s tender patience.

For what had intemperance or hardly used women to do with that model saloon ? And thinking this, Jim Dean laughed, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, not being able to see Anne Barclay as she sat at her sewing near the western window of her room, the last rays of sunset touching her face into a radiance beyond mere physical beauty. Her eyes were heavy with weariness, but the brave soul within struck light through them as she sang softly, trying to keep up her bravery. A low, sweet, rather thin voice murmuring a comforting hymn as the slender hands busily worked with the needle flashing in the western light as she ran it in and out through the snowy muslin garment.

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“ Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, oh, leave me not alone,

Still support and comfort me,”

Many times the pale face was lifted and the dark eyes turned toward the window in anxious waiting, while an indescribable sadness touched and deepened about the pallid lips. The glory of the sunset was softly fading, and the radiance upon her face also faded, though still leaving that inner light upon the windows of her soul.

“ All my trust on Thee is stayed,

All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing.”

The soft light without, slowly fading, left delicate shadows around the room, though lingering upon the tall clock against the opposite wall to make a white glory of its stolid face. The small round pine table was neatly set in the center of the room, and although the china was none too delicate or artistic, it was clear and polished by the free use of hot water and brisk towels until it reflected the lights and shadows near it. A tiny pat of butter pitifully small ; a loaf of bread ; upon the small stove at the other end of the room was a pot of steaming coffee strong and fragrant to the girl’s tired senses, with a square of steak in a pan drawn back, daintily brown, to keep hot.

“ Father will be hungry when he comes ! ’’ said Anne Barclay, pausing in her song and her work to look earnestly up the street, the eyes unfaltering but pathetically sad. “ I wish that he would come. He is late and tea will be spoiled for him. I should not have prepared it so early.”

No hint that he should not have kept her waiting ; no blame for him ; Anne Barclay never uttered one harsh word to her father, no matter how hard he might be with her.

There was much passing upon the street, and now and then some one would turn and glance up at the window where Anne sat, to give her a smile or bow or both, invariably answered by a smile that illumined her pale face and .shone from her eyes starrily. Some of these passers-by were young like herself ; some belonged to her Sunday-school class ; some were busy workers ; but there were those among them who were older, who had heard in that pretty town of this girl’s brave struggle for her drunken father and herself, and proved their sympathy by kindly words, and offered work, as she would accept nothing that could be termed charity !

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The brave old hymn had died away and there was no sound in the room save the sound of footsteps on the pavement, the dull creak of the rocker as Anne swayed slowly to and fro, bending forward to use the last ray of daylight, — and the deep, constant ticking of the great clock against the wall.

“ Quarter to eight ! ” said Anne, by and by, laying aside her sewing and rising to light the lamp upon the stand beside her. Then she paused ere drawing the shades to search the street, as far as she could see, for any sign of her father. There were many on the street, but search each face as she would, not one was he, and with a soft sigh, stifled ere formed, she drew down the shade, leaving a faint train of light beneath as a beacon for his coming, and reseated herself at her sewing. •

“ He will surely come presently,” she said) running her delicate, pink-tinted nail lightly over the seam which she had been sewing, to smooth it down.

Very neat, perfectly clean the small square room where she was sitting, lighted only by that one lamp on the sewing-stand. A bare floor, but white with much scrubbing ; a few unframed engravings upon the white walls, cut from magazines or bought for a few cents. Exceedingly empty of comfort, yet made wholesome and attractive by the care of womanly hands and the presence of the womanly girl with her pale face bene over her sewing. Three small rooms on the second story of a small frame house on a side street, but a home’s happiness striven for by those two slender hands with the shining needle and the long seams of the undergarments which she was making.

Eight o’clock ; half after eight ! The clock’s heavy hammer had scarcely swung from the gong, chiming the half hour, when a clumsy, stumbling foot sounded upon the stairs, and Anne rose hastily, laying aside her sewing to open the door and light him into the room. For, a wave of color across her cheeks, she knew that this was her father’s step, and that he brought with him the terrible effects of the cup whose dregs are serpents and whose touch is a soul’s possible death ! She was trembling and for an instant a gleam of tears touched her eyes ; then, standing in the open doorway, she smiled and her face was lighted like the face of an angel with tender sorrow and pity as she reached out her hand to steady his faltering steps.

“ Come in, father,” she said softly ; “ see ! I

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have a bright light for you after the darkness of the street.”

He muttered a curse upon her as he steadied himself along the wall, rather than touch her outstretched hand as he brushed past her into the clean white room.

Her trembling ceased ; the color was gone from her face. She watched him anxiously lest he fall, and as he sunk into a chair tossing his hat upon the floor, entering after him, she gently closed the door and crossed to the table to prepare him a cup of coffee, strong and fragrant. She knew that he would eat nothing in his present condition, but the coffee would do him good.

As she handed him the cup he sullenly pushed it from him, almost knocking it from her hand.

“ I’ve had something better than coffee,” he said, unsteadily, leering at her, though his eyes fell before her sweet, grieved face. “ Coffee’s best for women. Men need stronger stuff.”

She made no reply. She knew from experience that silence was best. She set the cup, with the contents untouched, back upon the table. He would take the coffee soon if she did not press it upon him. Then she made a pretence of eating, not touching the meat, for she knew that she must eat in order to work, and everything depended upon her strength.

He watched her for a few moments in sullen silence ; then he, too, arose and crossed to the table, seating himself with much unnecessary noise.

“ That Jim Dean of Millard’s is a mighty sight too stuck up and ordering ! ” he burst out presently, stirring his coffee with his unsteady hand as though it were Jim Dean whom he would punish. “ An arrogant fellow and only a bartender at that ! Don’t you never speak to him again, Anne Barclay, or you ain’t got your father’s pride. To tell me to my face that I’d had all that was good for me, and he wouldn’t give me just one glass ! It’s a shame that such a fellow is allowed to live.”

“ Mr. Dean has been kind to me, father,” said Anne quietly, a flicker of flush in her pale cheeks, her eyes steady and sweet ; “ why should I not speak to him ?”

He brought one hand down heavily upon the table, rattling the dishes startlingly. His bloodshot eyes for the moment met hers wrathfully.

“And why? You can sit there and ask such a question after what I have said, Anne Barclay ? I’ve always said that there was never one drop

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of my blood in your veins and now this proves it! To let a man like that Jim Dean say such an insulting thing to me and yet ask why you should not speak to him. It’s all of a piece with your impertinence. More than likely you asked him to refuse me. And I offered him good solid silver money for it, too. But because a man is old these young fellows think they can say anything to them without reproof. I’d like to’ve heard myself say such a thing when I was young ! ”

“ You would not have said it,” Anne said gently, a sigh in her heart, knowing, alas, that his words were only too literally true, — “you could not have said it, father. But I am sure that Mr Dean meant no harm. He has been very kind.”

He turned upon her fiercely.

“ Always preaching up his kindness ! ” he exclaimed thickly, his voice beyond his control. “ I’ll hear no more of that Jim Dean, Anne Barclay, and if you mention him again in my presence you’re no daughter of mine. Now, mind ! ”

“ I am sorry you are angry, father,” she said very softly, taking up her sewing as she sat with him at the table, neither to neglect him or her work. “ I -shall try not to grieve you again.”

“I should advise you to!” he grumbled,

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pushing away his cup and leaning his elbow heavily upon the table, his head in his hand, utterly regardless of how often he had grieved her.

And so silence fell over the neat white room and between the maudlin man and the woman who, his daughter, yet possessed not one drop of his blood in her pitiful heart, whose slim, tireless hands guided the needle along the garment she was sewing.

Chapter II. Pretty Miss Millard

“ It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time."

— E7nerson.

‘ I have so much plain sewing to be done that I shall send for Anne Barclay to-morrow,” said Mrs. Millard as she was looking over the linen brought her from the laundry. She was sitting with her daughter in her large, sunny, handsome room fronting upon a stretch of shaded street adorned with elegant residences. For Harry Millard was a wealthy man and could well afford an aristocratic neighborhood. “Anne Barclay takes unusual pains with her work for one so young, but it is a charity to help her in this way when ready-made underclothing can be bought so cheaply at the shops.”

“Yes,” said pretty Miss Millard, turning her languid eyes upon her mother from the pages of her novel, half hidden by the huge cushions of her chair ; “ but Anne Barclay would scorn charity, mamma. She is as proud as we are, every whit — and as worthy ! ”

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There was fine sarcasm in the pretty voice and deep meaning in the lifted eyes bent upon the elder woman, and Mrs. Millard knew this quite well, although she gave no sign. For Mrs. Millard also knew that her daughter’s sensitive nature was constantly wounded by the knowledge that it was through the ruin of souls that money came to them.

“ I presume that it will take her at the very least two weeks to do up all the sewing that I have to be done, and we will keep her with us during that time. They are so very poor that it will save them much expense for Anne to stay.”

Miss Millard shrugged her shoulders and slightly raised her brows.

“You know that she will not leave her father,” she said coldly. “ What would he do without her, mamma?"

“ He would get along well enough,” replied Mrs. Millard easily ; “like other men, my dear. Do not waste your pity upon him.”

For a moment the blue eyes flashed into the opposite blue eyes in ineffable scorn. Then the girl said steadily :

“ I was wasting no pity upon him, mamma ; I was thinking of Anne.”

Pretty Miss Millard.

And then she turned to her book again, refusing to continue the conversation, her thoughts too busy with this other girl’s brave struggle against poverty and wrong, for comprehending one word of the printed page before her. And after a keen side-glance at her saddened, preoccupied face, Mrs. Millard, with a faint sigh, continued her work. And her thoughts also were very busy with the past and its scattered seed, and the harvest that should come. For she knew — she was not so hardened in conscience as not to confess to herself — that the seed sown oftentimes in good faith brought forth fruit too bitter for the harvest !

Her husband was a wealthy man and conscientious. Some of his friends went so far as to say that he was a fool for his conscience, but their good-natured raillery did not affect or move him from his determination to prove whether or no there could be harm done through the moderate use of liquor when this bound was never overstepped, and when a generous hand and purse were ready in time of need to stranger or friend.

Still his conscience would waken at times and warn him that only evil could come from evil and never figs from thistles. Still he argued

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this down and kept on his way ; were many hurt ? The harvest must prove.

Mrs. Millard was perfectly aware of this weak side to her husband’s conscience, for they had discussed the matter many times together, and she firmly believed, as she always at such times assured him, that no harm could come directly from them. If no liquor were sold in his saloon to an intoxicating extent no harm arose from his sale of it. If harm came, it must rest with the person who, unable to get it there, would go elsewhere for more than was good. Liquor was good in its way.

And her husband perhaps only too willingly accepted this decision and silenced his conscience more and more effectually every time of argument.

Mrs. Millard was thinking of this, sitting in the sunny room with her daughter, and it was strange and most exasperating that clearly before her eyes the pale, sweet face of Anne Barclay rose to prove her argument false and to show the withering harvest coming to many because of evil seed sown by another. And presently, unable longer to endure this accusing face of memory, she rose, laying aside her work.

“ It is time that we dressed for calling,” she said.

Pretty Miss Millard.

“ Come, lay aside your novel, Minnie. I understand that the Wiltons have unexceptionable people visiting them from the city and I wish you to be at your best. The carriage will be around in an hour. Do not keep me waiting.”

Minnie rose obediently, closing her book. For to Minnie Millard obedience was taught as one of the cardinal virtues. Her clear perception might show her the wrong, but it was not her duty to revolutionize the world or the people. She must follow her path of duty and allow others to pass upon their own. She was sad many times, seeing wrong blindly done, but she did not think that it was her sin to let it pass upon the other side with gaping wounds.

“ I shall be ready, mamma,” she said quietly as she closed the door between them in passing to her room.

“ I must not again allow her to talk upon such saddening subjects,” Mrs. Millard decided as she thought of the change upon the pretty young face at mention of Barclay’s daughter. “ It is her duty to be happy and fill her niche in life. I must impress this fact upon her. I have been careless.”

And an hour later Mrs. Millard with her pretty daughter, both elegantly dressed and with com-

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placent faces, drove from the entrance to their handsome home upon a round of calls, utterly forgetful of the pale sweet face of another girl, also young and pretty, in the small clean room at the other end of the town. And as the dinner hour approached they drove back home, well satisfied with themselves, discussing such friends and acquaintances as they met or had spoken of during the afternoon.

“ Go to your room and lie down for a half hour, Minnie,” said Mrs. Millard as they paused in the upper hall. “ I shall do the same. And I shall send a little wine to you at once. It will brighten you a bit, and you know that papa likes to have us bright when he is at home.”

“ Yes,” said Minnie dutifully, though a shadow touched her face. “As you wish, mamma, of course.”

“ Of course ! ” repeated Mrs. Millard emphatically as she entered her room, and crossed directly to a closet where she kept such home remedies as were liable to be needed. “ Wine gives a tone to one’s looks and voice that nothing else can. No harm for you to have it, little Minnie, as we shall prove to all those who doubt.”

And pouring a glassful for herself she drank it ere she poured another for her daughter.

“A judicious use of liquor is wise,” she said calmly, noting as she passed her mirror the renewed sparkle in her own bright eyes. “ Temperance in all things is well, but not fanaticism.”

And carrying the wine with her own hands to her daughter’s room, she assured herself that she was comfortably lounging upon the bed, in a loose dressing-gown and dainty wool slippers, before she gave her the wine that should rest and refresh her.

“ I really don’t need the wine, mamma,” Minnie said half wistfully, knowing even as she spoke that her protest would not move her mother. “ I am so tired from talking to all those people that I can sleep soundly for the allowed half hour without it !”

“That is absurd,” replied Mrs. Millard with cool decision. “ T am not giving you this to make you sleep, but to refresh you, to restore your nerves and to brighten you. It is merely medicine, Minnie, and I insist upon your drinking it at once.”

“ Yes, mamma,” said Minnie with a soft little sigh, stifled in a smile up into her mother’s handsome, displeased face. “ Of course you know best.”

Her path of duty was so plain, how could she question it ?

“ Most assuredly I know best,” said Mrs. Millard in a more gentle voice, touching for an instant with one cool hand the fluffy fair hair upon her daughter’s brow. “You are not to think silly things, Minnie. We can judge what is good for you and you need only obey.”

But as Minnie closed her eyes dutifully, her soft cheek against the downy pillow, clear, in place of her mother’s face, rose the thin, sweet, pallid face of Barclay’s daughter bent steadfastly over her tireless sewing, following her hard path of duty as unquestioningly as she, yet what a different path !

“Poor little thing!” murmured Minnie, for Minnie’s heart was tender. “ Poor little brave Anne ! Can she overcome temptation when so many cannot ? Shall I tempt her and discover if there is a flaw in her conscience as in ours ? Would it not be too bad to spoil the pretty picture of patience she makes as she is ? ”