Because of Stephen
Read Because of Stephen Online
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
Because of Stephen
By
Grace Livingston Hill
The room
was f
ull of blue smoke from bacon sizz
ling on the stove when Philip Earle came in.
Philip was hungry, but there was a weirdly monotonous reminder of preceding meals in the odor of the bacon that took the edge from his appetite.
The lamp was doing its best to help both the smoke and the odor that filled the room; any other function it might have had
being held
in abeyance by the smoke.
The lamp was on a little shelf on the wall, and under it, half hidden by the smoke, stood another young man bending over the stove.
There was nothing attractive about the room. It was made of rough boards: walls, floor, and ceiling. The furniture was an old
extension table, several chairs, a cheap cot covered with a gray army blanket, and a
desk which
showed hard usage, piled high with papers and a few books. A wooden bench over by the s
tove held a tin washbasin and cook
ing-utensils in harmonious proximity.
Several coats and hats and a horse-blanket hung on nails driven into the walls. A line of boots and shoes stood against the
baseboard
. There was nothing else but a barrel and several boxes.
The table was set for supper: that is, it held a loaf of bread, two cups and knives and spoons, a bag of crackers, a paper of cheese, a pitcher of water, and a can of baked beans newly opened.
Philip added to the confusion already on the table by throwing his bundles down at one end. Then he stood his whip in one corner, and tossed his felt hat across the room to the cot, where it lay as if accustomed to staying where it landed.
"A letter for you, Steve!" he said as he sat down at the table and ran his hands wearily through his thick black hair.
Stephen Halstead emerged from the cloud of smoke by the stove, and examined the postmark on the letter.
"Well, I guess it can wait till we've had supper," he said carelessly. "It's not likely to be important. I'm hungry!" and he landed a large plate of smok
ing bacon and shriveled, black
ened, fried eggs
on the table beside the coffee
pot, and sat down.
They began to eat, silent for the most part, with keen appetites, for both had been in the open air all day. Stephen knew that his partner would presently report about the sale of cattle he had
made, and tell of his weary search for several stray animals that had wandered off.
But
that could wait.
Philip, however, was thinking of something else.
Perhaps it was the texture of the envelope he had just laid down,
or the whiff of violet scent that had breathed from it as he took it from his pocket, that reminded him of old days; or perhaps it was just that he was hungry and dissatisfied.
"Say, Steve," said he, setting down his empty cup, "do you remember the banquet in '95?"
A cloud came over Stephen's face. He had reasons to remember it of which his friend knew not.
"What of it?" he growled.
"Nothing; only I was thinking I would like to have the squabs and a few other little things
I didn't eat that night. They wouldn't taste bad after a day such as we've had."
He helped himself to another piece of cheese, and took another supply of
baked beans.
Stephen laughed harshly. He did not like to
be reminded
of that banquet night. To create a diversion, he reached out for the letter.
"This is from that precious sister of mine, I suppose," he said, "who isn't my sister at all, and yet persists every once in a while in keeping up the appearance. I
don't
know what she ever expects to make out of it. I
haven't
anything to leave her in my will. Besides, I don't answer her letters once in an age."
"You're a most ungrateful dog," said Philip. "Yo
u ought to be glad to have some
one in the world to write to you.
I've
often thought of advertising for somebody who'd be a sister to me, at least enough of one to write to me. It would give a little zest to life. I
don't
see why you have such a prejudice against her. She never did anything. She
couldn't
help it that her mother was your father's second wife. It
wasn't
her affair, at all, nor yours either, as I see. When did you see her last?"
"Never saw her but once in my life, and then she was a little, bawling, red thing with long clothes, and everybody waiting on her."
"How old were you?"
"About ten," said Stephen doggedly, not joining in the hilarious
laughter
that Philip raised at his expense. "I was old enough to resent her being there at all, in my home, where I ought to have been, and her mother managing things and having me sent off to boarding-school to get rid of me. I could remember my own mother, Phil. She hadn't been dead a year when father married again."
"Well, it wasn't her fault anyway, that I can see," said Philip amusedly; "and, after all, she's your sister. She's as much your father's child as you are."
"She's nothi
ng but a half-sister," said Ste
phen decidedly, "and of no interest in the world to me.
What on earth
she's taken to writing me long letters for
,
I can't make out.
It's
only since father died she's done it. I suppose her mother thought it would be well to appease me, lest I make trouble about the will; but I knew well enough there
wouldn't
be much of anything father had for me. His precious second wife did me out completely from the first minute she set eyes on me.
And
she's dead now, too. If it hadn't been for what my mother left, I wouldn't have had a cent."
"Who's the girl living with?" asked Philip.
"O, with an aunt,—her mother's sister,—an old maid up in New England."
Then Stephen tore open the letter, and shoved his chair back nearer to the lamp. There was silence in the room while Stephen read his letter; and Philip, emptying the
coffee-pot
, mused over the life of an orphan girl in the home of a New England maiden aunt.
Suddenly Stephen's chair jerked about with a sharp thud on the bare floor, and Stephen stood up and uttered some strong language.
He had a lot of light hair, originally a golden brown, but burnt by exposure to sun and rain to a tawny shade. He was a slender fellow, well knit, with a complexion tanned to nature's own pleasant brown, out of which looked deep, unhappy eyes of blue. He would have been handsome but for a restless weakness about the almost girlish mouth.
He was an
gry now, and perplexed. His yel
low brows
were knit
together in a frown, his head up, and his eyes darker than usual. Philip watched him in languid amusement, and waited for an explanation.
"Well, is she too sisterly this time?" he asked.
"Altogether!" said Stephen. "She's coming to see us."
The amusement passed rapidly from Philip's
face. He sprang to his feet, while the color rolled up under his dark skin.
"Coming to see us?" he ejaculated, looking round and su
ddenly seeing all the
short-com
ings
of the room.
"Coming to see us?" he repeated as if not quite sure of the sound of his own words. "Here?"
"Here!" asseverated Stephen tragically with outspread hands, and the two looked about in sudden knowl
edge of the desolation of the pla
ce they had called "home" for three years.
"When?"
Philip managed to murmur weakly, looking about in his mind for a way of escape for him
self without deserting his part
ner.
Stephen stooped to pick up the letter he had thrown on the floor in his excitement.
"I don't know," he said dejectedly. "Here, read the thing, and see if you can find out." He handed the letter to Philip, who received it with alacrity, and settled into the chair under the light, suddenly realizing that he was tired.
"She'll have to be stopped," said Stephen meditatively, sitting down on the cot to study it out, "or sent back if it's too late for stopping. She can't come here, of course."
"Of course!" agreed Philip decidedly. Then he read:
"My dear Brother Stephen:—"
Philip suddenly felt strong jealousy of his friend. It would be nice to get a letter like that.
"It is a long time since I have been able to write to you, but you have never been out of my thoughts for long at a time. Aunt Priscilla
was taken
ill the day after I wrote you the last time
. She was con
fined to her room all winter, and some of the time a little flighty. She took queer notions. One of them was that I was going to run away and marry a Spaniard. She could not bear me out of her sight. This tied me down very much, even though we had a nurse who relieved me of the entire care of her. I could not even write when I was in her sight, because she imagined I was getting up some secret plot to send her away to an old
ladies'
home of which she had a great horror.
"I don't like to think of those long, dreary months; but they are all over now,
and I will not weary you with talking of them. Aunt Priscilla died a month ago, and now I am all alone in the world
save
for you. Stephen, I wonder if you have any idea how dear you have grown to me. Sometimes it has seemed as if I just could not wait any longer to see you. It has kept me up wonderfully to know that I have a lovely, big, grown-up brother to turn to."
Philip's eyes grew moist, and he stopped to clear his throat as he turned the page and glanced surreptitiously toward the unloving brother, who sat in a brown and angry study, his elbows on his knees,
his
chin in his hands.
"So now, Stephen, I am going to do just what I have wanted to do ever since mother died and I left college and came home to Aunt Priscilla. I am coming to you! There is nothing to hinder. I have sold the old house. There was a good opportunity, and I cannot bear the place. It has been desolate, desolate here." Philip wondered what she would think of her brother's home. "I cannot bear the
thought of staying here alone, and I know I could not coax you away from your beloved West.
So
I am all packed up now, except the things that have been sold, and I am starting at once. Perhaps you may not like it, may not want me; and in that case of course I can come back.
But anyway
I shall see you first. I could not stand it without seeing you. I keep thinking of what father said to me just before he died. I never told you. I have always thought I would rather wait
till
I could say it to you, but now I will send it
on to you as my plea for a wel
come. It was the last afternoon we had together. Mother was lying down, and I was alone with him. He had been asleep, and he suddenly opened his eyes and called me to him. 'Don't forget you have a brother, when I am gone,' he said, and then after a minute he looked up and
said:
'Tell him I'm afraid I wasn't wise in my treatment of him always. Tell him I loved him, and I love you, and I want you two to love each other.'
"I began to love you then, Stephen, and the longing to know you and see you
has
grown with the years, five years
since father died. I never told mother about it. She was not well enough to talk much, you know; and she did not live long after that. Of course
,
I never told Aunt Priscilla. She was not the kind of woman to whom one told things.
But
I have never had opportunity to claim that love, or to seek it except in just writing you letters occasionally; and sometimes I've been afraid you didn't care to get them.
But now
I'm coming to see for myself; and, if I'm not welcome, why, I can go back again. I shall not be a burden to you, brother; for I have enough, you know, to take care of myself.
And
, if you don't want me, all you have to do is to tell me so, and I can go away again. But I hope you'll be able to love me a little for father's sake."
"Have you read the whole of this, Steve?" asked Philip, suddenly looking up as he reached the end of one sheet of paper and was starting on another.
"No," said Stephen gruffly; "I read enough." "Read th
e rest," commanded Philip, hand
ing over the first sheet while he went on with the second.
"Now I have burned my bridges behind me, Stephen; and I have not let you know until just the last thing. This letter will reach you only a few days before I do; so it will not be of any use to telegraph me not to come if you
don't
want me, for I shall be well on my way, and it will be too late. Please forgive me; I did this purposely because I felt I must at least see you before I gave up my plan, or I should never be able to give it up.
And
I am hoping that you will be glad to see me, and that perhaps I can be of some use to you, and put a little comfort into your life. You have never told me whether you are
boarding or housekeeping
or what. It is strange not to know more about one's brother than I do about mine, but I shall soon know now. I am bringing all the little things I care about with me; so, if you let me stay, I shall have nothing to send for; and, if I have to go back, they can go back, too, of course.