The Debtor. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the west, and all sounds deepened before it, even the purring song of the cat seemed to increase, and possibly did, from the unconscious assertion of his own voice in the peaceful and somnolent chorus of nature. It was only spring as yet, but the effect was as of a long summer afternoon. Anderson, who was always keenly sensitive to all phases of nature and all atmospheric conditions, was affected by it. He realized himself sunken in drowsy, unspeculative contentment. Even the strange, emotional unrest and effervescence, which had been more or less over him since he had seen Charlotte Carroll, was in abeyance. After all, he was not a passionate man, and he was not very young. The young girl seemed to become merely a part of the gracious harmony which was lulling his soul and his senses to content and peace. He was conscious of wondering what a man could want more than he had, as if he had suspected himself of guilt in that direction.
Then, suddenly, pell-mell into the office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with the restrained impulse of flight.
“Well,” said Anderson, finally, “what's the trouble, sir?”
Then the boy found his tongue. He came close to the man.
“Say,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “jest let a feller stay in here a minute, will you?”
Anderson nodded readily. He understood, or thought he did. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the teasing boys were at work again. He felt a little astonished at this headlong flight to cover of the boy who had so manfully stood at bay a few hours before. However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents. He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection. He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face. “Very well, my son,” said he. “Stay as long as you like. Take a seat.” The boy sat down. His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them. He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office. Anderson continued mounting his butterflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence. Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cushion. The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing. The cat stretched himself luxuriously, pricked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly. Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat's somnolent note. The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room. The boy's small head appeared in it like a flower. He smiled tenderly at the cat. Anderson, glancing at him over his butterflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had. He looked a darling of a boy.
The boy, stroking the cat, met the man's kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery. Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure. It was a great butterfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man.
“I got it for you,” he whispered, with another glance at the office door. Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself. “Thank you,” he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid it carefully on the table.
“It got broke a little, somehow,” remarked the boy; “it's wings are awful brittle.”
“Yes, they are,” assented Anderson.
“I had to chase it quite a spell,” said the boy, with an evident desire not to have his efforts underestimated.
“Yes, I don't doubt it,” replied Anderson, with gratitude well simulated.
“It seemed rather a pity to kill such a pretty butterfly as that,” remarked the boy, unexpectedly, “but I thought you'd like it.”
“Yes, I like to have a nice collection of butterflies,” replied Anderson, with a faint inflection of apology. In reality, the butterflies' side of it had failed to occur to him before, and he felt that an appeal to science in such a case was rather feeble. Then the boy helped him out.
“Well,” said he, “I do suppose that a butterfly don't live very long, anyhow; he has to die pretty soon, and it's better for human beings to have him stuck on a pin and put where they can see how handsome he is, rather than have him stay out in the fields, where the rain would soak him into the ground, and that would be the end of him. I suppose it is better to save anything that's pretty, somehow, even if the thing don't like it himself.”
“Perhaps you are right,” replied Anderson, regarding the boy with some wonder.
“Maybe he didn't mind dying 'cause I caught him any more than just dying himself,” said Eddy.
“Maybe not.”
“Anyhow, he's dead,” said the boy.
He watched Anderson carefully as he manipulated the insect.
“I'm sorry his wing got broken,” he said. “I wonder why God makes butterflies' wings so awful brittle that they can't be caught without spoiling 'em. The other wing ain't hurt much, anyhow.”
A sudden thought struck Anderson. “Why, when did you get this butterfly?” he asked.
The boy flushed vividly. He gave a sorrowful, obstinate glance at the man, as much as to say, “I am sad that you should force me into such a course, but I must be firm.” Then he looked away, staring out of the window at the tree-tops tossing against the brilliant blue of the sky, and made no reply.
Anderson made a swift calculation. He glanced at a clock on the wall. “Where did you get this butterfly?” he inquired, harmlessly, and the boy fell into the net.
“In that field just beyond the oak grove on the road to New Sanderson,” he replied, with entire innocence.
Anderson surveyed him sharply.
“When is afternoon school out?” asked Anderson.
“At four o'clock,” replied the boy, with such unsuspicion that the man's conscience smote him. It was too easy.
“Well,” said Anderson, slowly. He did not look at the boy, but went on straightening the mangled wing of the butterfly which he had offered on his shrine. “Well,” he said, “how did you get time to go to that field and catch this butterfly? You say it took a long time, and that field is a good twenty minutes' run from here, and it is a quarter of five now.” The boy kicked his feet against the rounds of his chair and made no reply. His forehead was scowling, his mouth set. “How?” repeated Anderson.
Then the boy turned on the man. He slid out of his chair; he spoke loudly. He forgot to glance at the door. “Ain't you smart?” he cried, with scorn, and still with an air of slighted affection which appealed. “Ain't you smart to catch a feller that way? You're mean, if you are a man, after I've got you that big butterfly, too, to turn on a feller that way.”
Anderson actually felt ashamed of himself. “Now, see here, my boy,” he said, “I'm grateful to you so far as that goes.”
“I didn't run away from school,” declared Eddy Carroll, looking straight at Anderson, who fairly gasped.
He had seen people lie before, but somehow this was actually dazzling. He was conscious of fairly blinking before the direct gaze of innocence of this lying little boy. And then his elderly and reliable clerk appeared in the office door, glanced at Eddy, whom he did not know, and informed Anderson, in a slightly impressed tone,