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Old Rose And Silver

<h1 id="id01732" style="margin-top: 6em">XVII</h1> <h5 id="id01733">PENANCE</h5> The Crosby twins had gone home very quietly, after doing all they could to help Colonel Kent and Madame Bernard. "The Yellow Peril" chugged along at the lowest speed with all its gaudy banners torn down. Neither spoke until they passed the spot where the red touring car lay on its side in the ditch, and four or five dogs, still hungry and hopeful, wrangled over a few bare bones. Juliet was sniffing audibly, and, as soon as she saw the wreck, burst into tears. "Oh, Romie," she sobbed, "if he's dead, we've killed him!" Romeo swallowed a lump in his throat, winked hard, and roughly advised Juliet to "shut up." When the machine was safely in the barn, and all the scattered dogs collected and imprisoned, Romeo came in, ready to talk it over. "We've got to do something," he said, "but I don't know what it is." "Oh, Romie," cried Juliet with a fresh burst of tears, "do you think they'll hang us? We're murderers!" Romeo considered for a moment before he answered. "We aren't murderers, because we didn't go to do it. They won't hang us—but they ought to," he added, remorsefully. "What can we do?" mourned Juliet. "Oh, what can we do?" "Well, we can pay all the bills for one thing—that's a good start. To- morrow, I'll see about getting that car out of the ditch and taking care of it." "Somebody may steal it," she suggested. "Not if we guard it. One or both of us ought to sit by it until we can get it into the barn." Juliet wiped her eyes. "That's right. We'll guard it all night to-night and while we're guarding it, we'll talk it all over and decide what to do." The dinner of unwholesome delicacies which they had planned as the last feature of the day's celebration was hesitatingly renounced. "We don't deserve to have anything at all to eat," said Juliet. "What is it that they feed prisoners on?" "Bread and water—black bread?" "Where could we get black bread?" "I don't know. I never saw any." After discussing a penitential menu for some time, they finally decided to live upon mush and milk for the present, and, if Allison should die, forever. "We can warm it in the winter," said Romeo, "and it won't be so bad." When their frugal repast was finished, they instinctively changed their festal garments for the sober attire of every day. Romeo brought in two lanterns and Juliet pasted red tissue paper around them, so that they might serve as warning signals of the wreck. At sunset, they set forth, each with a blanket and a lantern to do sentry duty by the capsized car. "Oughtn't we to have a dog or two?" queried Romeo, as they trudged down the road. "Watchmen always have dogs." "We oughtn't to have anything that would make it any easier for us to watch, and besides, the dogs weren't to blame. They don't need to sit up with us—let 'em have their sleep." "All right," Romeo grunted. "Shall we divide the night into watches and one of us sit on the car while the other walks?" "No, we'll watch together, and we won't sit on the car—we'll sit on the cold, damp ground. If we take cold and die it will only serve us right." "We can't take cold in June," objected Romeo, "with two blankets." "Unless it rains." "It won't rain tonight," he said, gloomily; "look at the stars!" The sky was clear, and pale stars shone faintly in the afterglow. There was not even a light breeze—the world was as still and calm as though pain and death were unknown. When they reached the scene of the accident, Romeo set the two red lanterns at the point where the back of the car touched the road. They spread one blanket on the grass at the other side of the road and sat down to begin their long vigil. Romeo planned to go home to breakfast at sunrise and bring Juliet some of the mush and milk left from supper. Then, while she continued to watch the machine, he would go into town and make arrangements for its removal. "Is there room in our barn for both cars?" she asked. "No. Ours will have to come out." Juliet shuddered. "I never want to see it again." "Neither do I." "Can we sell it?" "We ought not to sell it unless we gave him the money. We shouldn't have it ourselves." "Then," suggested Juliet, "why don't we give it away and give him just as much as it cost, including our suits and the dogs' collars and everything?" "We have no right to give away a man-killer. 'The Yellow Peril' is cursed." "Let's sacrifice it," she cried. "Let's make a funeral pyre in the yard and burn it, and our suits and the dogs' collars and everything. Let's burn everything we've got that we care for!" "All right," agreed Romeo, uplifted by the zeal of the true martyr. "And," he added, regretfully, "I'll shoot all the dogs and bury 'em in one long trench. I don't want to see anything again that was in it." "I don't either," returned Juliet. She wondered whether she should permit the wholesale execution of the herd, since it was a thing she had secretly desired for a long time. "You mustn't shoot Minerva and the puppies," she continued, as her strict sense of justice asserted itself, "because she wasn't in it. She was at home taking care of her children and they'd die if she should be shot now." So it was settled that Minerva, who had taken no part in the fatal celebration, should be spared, with her innocent babes. "And in a few years more," said Romeo, hopefully, "we'll have lots more dogs, though probably not as many as we've got now." Juliet sighed heavily but was in honour bound to make no objections, for long ago, when they arbitrated the dog question, it was written in the covenant that no dogs should be imported or none killed, except by mutual consent. And Minerva had five puppies, and if each of the five should follow the maternal example, and if each of those should do likewise—Juliet fairly lost her head in a maze of mental arithmetic. "We ought to go into deep mourning," Romeo was saying. "I've been thinking of that. We should repent in sackcloth and ashes, only I don't know what sackcloth is." "I guess it's that rough brown stuff they make potato bags of." "Burlap?" "Yes. But we haven't many ashes at this time of year and we'll have still less if we live on mush and milk." "Maybe we could get ashes somewhere," she said, thoughtfully. "We'd have to, because it would take us over a year to get enough to repent in." "There'll be ashes left from the automobile and the suits, and if you can get enough potato bags, I'll fix 'em so we can wear 'em at the sacrifice and afterwards we can buy deep mourning." "All right, but you mustn't make pretty suits." "I couldn't, out of potato bags. They'll have to be plain—very plain." "The first thing is to get this car into our barn, and write and tell Colonel Kent where it is. Then we'll get our black clothes, and then we'll shoot the dogs and bury 'em, and then we'll have the sacrifice, and then—" "And then," repeated Juliet. "Then we'll have to go and tell 'em all what we've done, and offer to pay all the bills, and give 'em the price of the car besides for damages." "Oh, Romie," cried Juliet, with a shudder, "we don't have to go and tell 'em, do we? We don't have to take strangers into our consciences, do we?" "Certainly," replied Romeo, sternly. "Just because we don't want to do it is why we've got to. We've got to do hard things when we make a sacrifice. Lots of people think they're charitable if they give away their old clothes and things they don't want. It isn't charity to give away things you want to get rid of and it isn't a sacrifice to do things you don't mind doing. The harder it is and the more we don't want to do it, the better sacrifice." His logic was convincing, but Juliet drooped visibly. The bent little figure on the blanket was pathetic, but the twins were not given to self-pity. As time went on, the conversation lagged. They had both had a hard day, from more than one standpoint, and it was not surprising that by midnight, the self-appointed sentries were sound asleep upon one blanket, with Romeo's coat for a pillow and the other blanket tucked around them. The red lanterns burned faithfully until almost dawn, then smoked and went out, leaving an unpleasant odour that lasted until sunrise. The rumble of a distant cart woke them, and they sat up, shamefacedly rubbing their eyes. "Oh," cried Juliet, conscience-stricken, "we went to sleep! We went to sleep on duty! How could we?" "Dunno," returned Romeo, with a frank yawn. "Guess we were tired. Anyhow, the machine is all right." When the milkman came in sight, they hailed him and purchased a quart of milk. He was scarcely surprised to see them, for the Crosbys were widely known to be eccentric, and presently he drove on. His query about the wrecked car had passed unnoticed. "If you'll stay here, Jule," said Romeo, wiping his mouth, "I'll go and get a team and some rope and we'll get the car in." "Can't I go too?" "No, you stay here. It's bad enough to sleep at your post without deserting it." "You slept, too," retorted Juliet, quickly on the defensive, "and I'm a girl." "Huh!" he sneered. The claim of feminine privilege invariably disgusted him beyond words. "Suppose people come by—" Juliet faltered; "and—ask—questions." "Answer 'em," advised Romeo, briefly. "Tell 'em we've killed a man and are going to suffer for it. We deserve to have everybody know it." But, fortunately for Juliet's quicker sensibilities, no one passed by in the hour Romeo was gone. He came from the nearest farm with an adequate number of assistants and such primitive machinery as was at hand. The car was not badly damaged and was finally towed into the Crosbys' barn. Then they went into the house and composed a letter to Colonel Kent, but put off copying and sending it until they should be able to get black bordered stationery. Two weeks later, clad in deepest mourning, the twins trudged into town. At Colonel Kent's there was no one in authority to receive them and their errand was of too much importance to be communicated to either physician or nurse. Their own unopened letter lay on the library table, with many others. Subdued and chastened in demeanour, they went to Madame Bernard's and waited in funereal silence until Madame came down. "How do you—" she began, then stopped. "Why, what is the matter?" "We ran over him," explained Romeo, suggestively inclining his head in the general direction of Kent's. "Don't you remember?" "And if he dies, we've killed him," put in Juliet, sadly. "We'll be murderers if he dies," Romeo continued, "and we ought to be hung." In spite of her own depression and deep anxiety, Madame saw how keenly the tragedy had affected the twins. "Why, my dears!" she cried. "Do you think for a minute that anybody in the world blames you?" "We ought to be blamed," Romeo returned, "because we did it." "But not on purpose—you couldn't help it." "We could have helped it," said Juliet, "by not celebrating. We had no business to buy an automobile, or, even if we had, we shouldn't have gone out in it until we learned to run it." "That's like staying away from the water until you have learned to swim," answered Madame, comfortingly, "and Allison isn't going to die." "Really? Do you mean it? Are you sure? How do you know?" The words came all at once, in a jumble of eager questions. "Because he isn't. The worst that could possibly happen to him would be the loss of his left hand, and his father is looking all over the country for some surgeon who can save it." "I'd rather die than to have my hand cut off," said Juliet, in a small, thin voice. "So would I," added Romeo. "We're all hoping for the best," Madame went on, "and you must hope, too. Nobody has thought of blaming you, so you mustn't feel so badly about it. Even Allison himself wouldn't want you to feel badly." "But we do," Romeo answered, "in spite of all the sacrifices and everything." "Sacrifices," repeated Madame, wonderingly, "why, what do you mean?" "We did sentry duty all night by his car," Romeo explained, "and we're taking care of it in our barn." "And we've lived on mush and milk ever since," Juliet added. "I shot all the dogs but the one with the puppies," said Romeo. "She wasn't in it, you know," Juliet continued. "I helped dig the trench and we buried the whole nineteen end to end by the fence, with their new collars on." "Then we burned the automobile," resumed Romeo. "We soaked it in kerosene, and put our suits into the back seat—our caps and goggles and everything. We took out all the pieces of iron and steel and gave 'em to the junk man, and then we repented in sackcloth and ashes." "How so?" queried Madame, with a faint glimmer of amusement in her sad eyes. "Juliet made suits out of potato sacks—very plain suits—and we put 'em on to repent in." "We went and stood in the ashes," put in Juliet, "while they were so hot that they hurt our feet, and Romie raised his right hand and said 'I repent' and then I did the same." "And after the ashes got cold, we sat down in 'em and rubbed 'em into the sackcloth and our hair and all over our faces and hands." "All the time saying 'I repent! I repent!'" continued Juliet, soberly. "And then we went into mourning," concluded Romeo. Madame's heart throbbed with tender pity for the stricken twins, but she wisely said nothing. "Can you think of anything more we could do, or any more sacrifices we could make?" inquired Juliet, ready to atone in full measure. "Indeed I can't," Madame replied, truthfully. "I think you've done everything that could be expected of you." "We wrote to the Colonel," said Romeo, "but he hasn't got it yet. We saw it on the library table. We want to pay all the bills." "And give Allison as much money as we spent on the automobile and for the suits and everything, and pay for fixing up his car," interrupted Juliet. "We want to do everything," Romeo said, with marked emphasis. "Everything," echoed Juliet. "That's very nice of you," answered Madame, kindly, "and we all appreciate it." The stem young faces of the twins relaxed ever so little. It was a great relief to discover that they were not objects of scorn and loathing, for they had brooded over the accident until they had become morbid. "Did you say that you had been living upon mush and milk ever since?" asked Madame. "Ever since," they answered, together. "I'm sure that's long enough," she said. "I wouldn't do it any longer. Won't you stay to dinner with us?" With one accord the twins rose, impelled by a single impulse toward departure. "We couldn't," said Romeo. "We mustn't," explained Juliet. Then, with belated courtesy, she added: "Thank you, just the same." They made their adieux awkwardly and went home, greatly eased in mind. As they trudged along the dusty road, they occasionally sighed in relief, but said little until they reached their ancestral abode, dogless now save for the pups gambolling about the doorstep and Minerva watching them with maternal pride. "She said we'd lived on mush and milk long enough," said Romeo, pensively. "We might fry the mush," Juliet suggested. "And have butter and maple syrup on it?" "Maybe." "And drink the milk, and have bread, too?" "I guess so." "And jam?" "Not while we're in mourning," said Juliet, firmly. "We can have syrup on our bread." "That's just as good." "If you think so, you ought not to have it." "We've got to feed ourselves, or we'll die," he objected vigorously, "and if we're dead, we won't be any good to him or to anybody else, and we can't ever repent any more." "I'm not so sure about that." said Juliet, with sinister emphasis. "Nothing will happen to us that we don't deserve," Romeo assured her, "so come on and let's have jam. If it makes us sick, it's wrong, and if it doesn't, it's all right." The following day, they voluntarily returned to their mush and milk, for they had eaten too much jam, and, having been very ill in the night, considered it sufficient evidence that their penance was not yet over. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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