Mary Minds Her Business | Page 3

members of the firm who had gone before. I often like to imagine the
whole seven of them, ghostly but inquisitive, following the subsequent
strange proceedings with noiseless steps and eyes that missed nothing;
and in particular keeping watch upon the last living Josiah Spencer--a
heavy, powerfully built man with a look of melancholy in his eyes and
a way of sighing to himself as though asking a question, and then
answering it with a muffled "Yes... Yes..." This may have been partly
due to the past and partly due to the future, for the son whom he had
brought home with him began to worry him--a handsome young rascal
who simply didn't have the truth in him at times, and who was buying
presents for girls almost before he was out of short trousers.
His name was Paul--"Paul Vionel Olgavitch Spencer," he sometimes
proudly recited it, and whenever we heard of that we thought of his

mother.
The older Paul grew, the handsomer he grew. And the handsomer he
grew, the wilder he became and the less the truth was in him. At times
he would go all right for a while, although he was always too fond of
the river for his aunts' peace of mind.
At a bend below the dam he had found a sheltered basin, covered with
grass and edged with trees. And there he liked to lie, staring up into the
sky and dreaming those dreams of youth and adventure which are the
heritage of us all.
Or else he would sit and watch the river, although he couldn't do it long,
for its swift movement seemed to fascinate him and excite him, and to
arouse in him the desire to follow it--to follow it wherever it went.
These were his quieter moods.
Ordinarily there was something gipsy-like, something Neck-or-Nothing
about him. A craving for excitement seemed to burn under him like a
fire. The full progression of correction marched upon him and failed to
make impression: arguments, orders, warnings, threats, threshings and
the stoppage of funds: none of these seemed to improve him in the
least.
Josiah's two sisters did their best, but they could do nothing, either.
"I wouldn't whip him again, Josiah," said Miss Cordelia one night,
timidly laying her hand upon her brother's arm. "He'll be all right when
he's a little older.... You know, dear ... you were rather wild, yourself ...
when you were young.... Patty and I were only saying this morning that
if he takes after you, there's really nothing to worry about--"
"He's God's own punishment," said Josiah, looking up wildly. "I
know--things I can't tell you. You remember what I say: that boy will
disgrace us all...."
He did.
One morning he suddenly and simply vanished with the factory
pay-roll and one of the office stenographers.
In the next twelve months Josiah seemed to age at least twelve
years--his cousin Stanley watching him closely the while--and then one
day came the news that Paul Spencer had shot and killed a man, while
attempting to hold him up, somewhere in British Columbia.
If you could have seen Josiah Spencer that day you might have thought
that the bullet had grazed his own poor heart.

"It's God's punishment," he said over and over. "For seven generations
there has been a Spencer & Son--a trust that was left to me by my
father that I should pass it on to my son. And what have I done...!"
Whereupon he made a gesture that wasn't far from despair--and in that
gesture, such as only those can make who know in their hearts that they
have shot the albatross, this preface brings itself to a close and at last
my story begins.

CHAPTER I
"Patty," said Miss Cordelia one morning, "have you noticed Josiah
lately?"
"Yes," nodded Miss Patricia, her eyes a little brighter than they should
have been.
"Do you know," continued the other, her voice dropping to a whisper,
"I'm afraid--if he keeps on--the way he is--"
"Oh, no, Cordelia! You know as well as I do--there has never been
anything like that in our family."
Nevertheless the two sisters looked at each other with awe-stricken
eyes, and then their arms went around each other and they eased their
hearts in the immemorial manner.
"You know, he worries because we are the last of the Spencers," said
Cordelia, "and the family dies with us. Even if you or I had children, I
don't think he would take it so hard--"
A wistful look passed over their faces, such as you might expect to see
on those who had repented too late and stood looking through St.
Peter's gate at scenes in which they knew they could never take a part.
"But I am forty-eight," sighed Cordelia.
"And I--I