Chapter II: Part 2

"Yes," said Madison, "but take yourself, for instance. Did this Patriarch ever do anything for you?"

"He did," said Mr. Higgins impressively. "An' 'twasn't but last week. I'm glad you asked me. For two nights I couldn't sleep. Had the earache powerful. Poured hot oil an' laud'num into it, an' kept a hot brick rolled up in flannel against it, but didn't do no good. Then Mrs. Higgins says, 'Hiram, why in the land's sake don't you go out an' see the Patriarch?' An' I hitched right up, an' every step that horse took I could feel it gettin' better, an' I wasn't five minutes with the Patriarch before I was cured, an' I ain't had a twinge since."

"It certainly looks as though there were something in that," admitted Madison cautiously.

Hiram Higgins smiled a world of tolerance.

"'Tain't worth mentionin' alongside some of the things he's done," he said deprecatingly. "You'll hear about 'em fast enough."

"What's the local doctor say about it?" asked Madison.

"There ain't enough pickin's to keep a doctor here, though some of 'em's tried," chuckled Mr. Higgins. "Have to have 'em for _some_ things, of course--an' then he drives over from Barton's Mills, seven miles from here."

"And do _all_ the people in Needley believe in the Patriarch?"--Madison's voice was full of grave interest.

"Well," said Mr. Higgins, "to be plumb downright honest with you, they don't. Folks as was born here an' are old inhabitants do, but the Holmes, bein' newcomers, is kinder set in their ways. They come down here eight years ago last August with new-fangled notions, which they ain't got rid of yet. You can see the consequences for yourself--got a little boy, twelve year old, walking around lame on a crutch--an' I reckon he always will. Doctor looks at him every time he comes over from Barton's Mills, but it don't do no good. Folks tried to get the Holmes to take him out to the Patriarch's till they got discouraged. 'Pears old man Holmes kinder got around to a common sense view of it, but the women folks say Mrs. Holmes is stubborner than all git-out, an' that old man Holmes' voice ain't loud enough to be heerd when she gets goin'. 'Tain't but fair to mention 'em, as I dunno of any one else that's an exception." Mr. Higgins pointed ahead with his whip. "See them woods over there beyond the town?"

"Yes," said Madison.

"That's where the Patriarch lives," said Mr. Higgins. "On the other side of 'em, down by the seashore. An' here we be most home. Folks'll be glad to see you, Mr. Madison, and now you're here I hope you'll make a real smart stay--we'll try to make you feel to home."

"Thank you," said Madison cordially. "I haven't any idea, of course, how long I'll be here--it all depends on circumstances."

"No," said Mr. Higgins; "I don't suppose you have. Anyway, I hope you'll take a notion to go out an' see what the Patriarch can do for you. An' now you ain't told me yet which hotel you're goin' to."

"Oh!" said Madison gravely. "Well, since you recommend it, I guess we'd better make it the Congress."

--IV--

THE PATRIARCH

"Bet you a cookie," shrilled Hiram Higgins, in what he meant to be a breathless whisper, "that there's where he's goin' now--only he don't want us to know he's give in."

"Shet your fool mouth, Hiram!" cautioned Walt Perkins, the proprietor of the Congress Hotel. "He kin hear you."

"Get out!" retorted Mr. Higgins. "No, he can't neither. He ain't feelin' no ways perky, any one can see that, an' I'm tickled most to pieces that he's come 'round--I've took up with him consid'rable, I have. Patriarch'll just make a new-born critter outer him--you watch through the window where he goes. Bet you a quarter that's what he's up to!"

John Garfield Madison, outside on the veranda of the Congress Hotel, smiled at the words, as he lighted his cigar and turned up his coat collar. He stepped off the veranda, crossed the little lawn to the village street, and began to saunter nonchalantly and indifferently oceanwards. He did not look around--he had no desire to bring consternation to the massed faces of the leading citizens flattened against the window panes--but he chuckled inwardly as he pictured them. There would be Hiram Higgins, postmaster and town constable, Walt Perkins, hotel man and town moderator, Lem Hodges, selectman, assessor and overseer of the poor, Nathan Elmes, likewise selectman, assessor and overseer of the poor, and Cale Rodgers, school committee-man and proprietor of the general store.

Madison sauntered slowly along.

"I have arrived," he said, "not at a cemetery, but at an El Dorado and a land flowing with milk and honey."

There was a humorous pucker around the corners of Madison's eyes, as he reviewed his two days' sojourn in Needley--spent mostly in the "office" of the Congress Hotel beside the stove with his feet up on the wood-box. He had never lacked company--the office stove and the spitbox filled with sawdust was the admitted rendezvous of the chosen spirits who were still gazing after him from the window. Morning, afternoon and evening they congregated there, and he had been promptly admitted to membership in the select circle. At each sitting they had discussed the spring planting and the weather, and then inevitably, led by Hiram Higgins, had resolved themselves into an "experience" meeting on the Patriarch--he, Madison, as a minority leader of one, grudgingly conceding an occasional point. The sessions had invariably ended the same way--Hiram Higgins, with the back of his hand underneath his chin, would stroke earnestly at his chin-whiskers, and remark:

"Well, now, Mr. Madison, 'twon't do you a mite of harm to go out there an' see for yourself. We've kinder got to look on you as one of us, an' there ain't no use in you sufferin' around with what ails you when there ain't no need of it."

Madison's replies had been equally void of versatility--he would shake his head doubtfully, while his cigar-case circulated around the group.

Madison sniffed luxuriously at his thoroughbred Havana. He had passed out of sight of the hotel window now, and he swung into a brisk walk. It was a mile to the Patriarch's by a wagon track through the woods, that led off from the road to the left just across the bridge. He had not needed to ask directions. With magnificent inadvertence Hiram Higgins had mentioned the exact way to reach the Patriarch's a dozen times, if he had once. Also, by now, Madison had learned all that the town knew about the Patriarch--which after all, he reflected with some satisfaction, wasn't much. The Patriarch was over eighty years of age, and he had come, deaf and dumb, to Needley sixty years ago--nobody knew from where, nor his previous history, nor his name. They had called him the Hermit at first, for immediately on his arrival he had gone out to the shore of the ocean, away from the village, and built a crude hut there for himself--which, in the after years, he had made into a more pretentious dwelling. The cures had come "kinder gradual-like an' took the folks mabbe forty years to get around to believin' in him real serious," as Hiram Higgins put it; and then, as the Hermit grew old, and the local reverence for him had become more deep-seated, they had changed his name to the Patriarch. That was about all--but it seemed to suit Madison, for his smile broadened.

"I wonder," said he to himself, as he stepped onto the bridge to cross the little river, "if I'm not dreaming--this is like being let loose in the U.S. Treasury with nobody looking!"

"Hullo, mister!" piped a young voice suddenly out of the dusk.

"Hullo!" responded Madison mechanically--and turned to watch a small figure, going in the opposite direction, thump by him on a crutch. Madison stopped and stared after the cripple--and removed his cigar very slowly from his lips. "That's that Holmes boy," he muttered. "I don't know as he'd look well on the platform when the excursion trains get to running. Wonder if I can't get a job for his father somewhere about a thousand miles from here and have the family move!"

The cripple disappeared down the road, and Madison, with a sort of speculative flip to the ash of his cigar, resumed his way. Just across the bridge he found the wagon track, and turned into it. It ran through a thick wood of fir and spruce, and here, apart from now being able to see but little before him--he had elected to "steal" away in the darkness after supper--he found the going far from good.

Half curiously, half whimsically, he tried to visualize the Patriarch from the word pictures that had been painted around the stove in the hotel office. The man would be old--of course. And to have lived alone for sixty years, to have shunned human companionship he must have been either mildly or violently insane to begin with, which would account for his belief in himself as a healer--he would unquestionably, in some form or other, "have bats in his belfry," as Pale Face Harry had put it.

Madison's brows contracted as he went along. A man living by himself under such conditions, with no incentive for the care of his person, not even the pride engendered by the association of others, erudite as the standard might be in his vicinity, was apt to grow very shortly into a somewhat sorry spectacle. Give him sixty years of this and add an unbalanced mind, and--Madison did not like the picture that now rose up suddenly before him--a creature, bent, vapid of face, deaf and dumb, frowsy of dress, and a world removed from the thought of a morning bath. It might be picturesque in a way--but it wasn't a way Madison liked. Somehow, he'd have to jerk the old chap out of his rut and get him rigged up a little more becomingly, before the trusting public, simple as they were, were invited down to see the exhibit. Madison's dramatic instinct, which was developed to a keen sense of what the public craved for, rebelled against any _faux pas_ in the scenic effects. He fell to designing a costume that would more appropriately expound the role.

"Got to give 'em something for their money," murmured John Garfield Madison. "Some sort of long, flowing robe now, washed every day, sort of Grecian effect with a rope girdle, bare feet and sandals--um-m--dunno about the sandals--don't want to slop over, and besides"--Madison grinned a little to himself--"he might kick!"

Still reflecting, but arrived at no conclusion other than first to size up the Patriarch and see how best to handle him, Madison reached the end of the wagon track--and halted.

It was a little lighter here, now that he had left the woods, and what appeared to be a sweep of snow-covered lawn was before him. Around this, forming a perfect square, was a row of full-grown, magnificent maples--a regal hedge, as it were, bordering the four sides--planted sixty years ago! Madison's imagination fired exhilarantly at the inspiring thought of these in leaf--in another few weeks. He shook hands with himself cordially.

"Behold the amphitheater!" he said. "This is where we stage the greatest act of the century!"

Behind the row of trees, directly across the lawn in front of him, loomed the dark shadow of a long, low, cottage-like building, and from a window a light twinkled out between the tree trunks; while from beyond again came the roll of surf, low, rhythmic, like the soft accompaniment of orchestral music.

"Wonderful!" breathed Madison. "I feel," said he, "as though I had just had a drink!"

He walked across the lawn, passed between the trees, and reached the end of the cottage away from where the light showed in the window.

"The Patriarch being deaf," he remarked, "I might as well explore."

From the row of trees to the cottage was perhaps twenty feet. The door of the cottage, porticoed with trellis-work, was in the center of the cottage itself. Everywhere Madison turned were trellis-work frames for flowers--the walls of the cottage were covered, literally covered, with bare, slumbering shoots of Virginia creeper. In a little while now the place would be a veritable paradise. Madison raised his hat reverently.

"Fancy this on a New York stage!" said he esthetically, invoking the universe. "Could you beat it! I could play the Patriarch myself with this setting, and everybody would fall for it. There's nothing to it, nothing to it, but his make-up--and I'll guarantee to take care of that. And now we'll have a look at Aladdin's lamp and see just what kind of rubbing up will invoke the genii!"

Madison walked along the length of the cottage, past the door, and, as he reached the lighted window, drew well away from the wall--and stared inside. Surprise and incredulity swept across his features, and then his face beamed and his gray eyes lighted with the fire of an artist who sees the elusive imagery of the Great Picture at last transferred to canvas, vivid, actual, transcending his wildest hopes. He was gazing upon the sweetest and most venerable face he had ever seen.

Here and there within upon the floor were strewn old-fashioned, round rag mats that would enrapture a connoisseur, and the floor where it showed between the mats was scrubbed to a glistening white. The furnishings were few and homemade, but full of simple artistry--a chair or two, and a table, upon which burned a lamp. In a fireplace, made of stones cemented together, the natural effect unspoiled by any attempt to hew the stones into uniformity, a log fire glowed, sputtered, and now and then leaped cheerily into flame.

Between the table and the fire, half turned toward Madison, sat the Patriarch. He was reading, his head bent forward, his book held very close to his eyes. Hair, a wealth of it, soft, silky and snow-white, reached just below his coat collar--a silvery beard fell far below his book. But it was the face itself, no single distinguishing feature, neither the blue eyes, the sensitive lips, nor the broad, fine forehead, that held Madison's gaze--it seemed to combine something that he had never seen in a face before, and to look upon it was to be drawn instantly to the man--there was purity of thought and act stamped upon it with a seal ineffaceable, and there was gentleness there, and sympathy, and trust, and a simple, unassuming dignity and self-possession--and, too, there was a shadow there, a little of sadness, a little of weariness, a background, a relief, as it were, a touch such as a genius might conceive to lift the picture with his brush into wondrous, lingering, haunting consonance.

Madison's eyes, slowly, as though loath to leave the Patriarch's face, travelled over the gray homespun suit that clothed the man, the white wristbands of the home-washed shirt, unstarched, but spotlessly clean--and his fancy of flowing, Grecian robes with rope girdles seemed to hold him up to mockery as a crude and paltry bungler before the perfect, unostentatious harmony of reality.

"There's nothing to it!" whispered Madison softly to himself. "Nothing to it! There isn't a thing left to do--not even a chance of making a bluff at earning the money--it's just like _stealing_ it. Why, say, it would get _me_ if I weren't behind the scenes--honest now, it would!"

Madison drew back from the window and walked toward the door of the cottage.

"It should take me about fifteen minutes to establish myself on the basis of a long-lost son with the Patriarch clinging confidingly around my neck," he observed. "If it takes me any longer than that I'd feel depressed every time I met myself in the looking-glass."

He reached the cottage door, and, lifting the brass knocker that shone dimly in the darkness, knocked once, lifted it to knock again--and his hand fell away as he smiled a little foolishly.

"I forgot the Patriarch was deaf," he muttered. "Wonder what you're supposed to do? Walk right in, or--"

The door swung suddenly wide open, and upon Madison's face, usually so perfectly at its owner's control, came a look of stunned surprise. The Patriarch was standing on the threshold, and, with a gesture of welcome, was motioning him to enter.

--V--

A STRANGE CONVERSATION

Madison, quite in command of himself again in an instant, stepped, smiling, into the cottage. He took the Patriarch's extended hand in a cordial grip and nodded understandingly as the other, with quick, rapid motions, touched lips and ears to signify that he could neither hear nor speak. But, inwardly puzzled, Madison searched the Patriarch's face--was the other playing a part? Could he _hear_, after all--and perhaps speak as well, if he wanted to! There was certainly no guile in the venerable, gentle face--or was it guile of a very high order?

The Patriarch closed the door, and drawing his own armchair to the table offered it to Madison with a courteous smile.

Madison refused by gently forcing the old man into it himself, pulled another up to face the Patriarch, sat down--and his eyes fixed suddenly on the ceiling above his head. Swaying slowly back and forth was a sort of miniature punkah of waving white canvas. He studied this for a moment, then his eyes shifted to the Patriarch, who was regarding him humorously.

The Patriarch rose from his chair, walked to the door, opened it, moved the knocker up and down--and pointed to the ceiling. The canvas was waving violently now, and Madison traced the cord attachment, on little pulleys, across the ceiling to where it ran through the door and was affixed to the knocker without. It was very simple, even primitive--every time the knocker was lifted the cord was pulled and the canvas waved back and forth. Madison nodded his head and smiled approvingly, as the Patriarch once more closed the door and resumed his seat.

Madison leaned back in his chair and allowed his eyes to stray, not impertinently but with pleased endorsement, around the room, to permit an unhampered opportunity for the scrutiny of the blue eyes which he felt upon him.

"And to think," he mused reproachfully, "that I could have doubted him for a single instant--he certainly hung one on me that time."

The Patriarch reached into the drawer of the table beside him, took out a slate and pencil, scratched a few words on the slate and handed both pencil and slate to Madison.

"Your name is Madison, isn't it?" Madison read. "From New York? Hiram told me about you."

"Hiram," said Madison to himself, "is a man of many parts, and the most useful man I have ever known. Hiram, by reflected glory, will some day become famous." On the slate he replied: "Yes; that is my name--John Madison. It was good of Mr. Higgins to speak of me."

The Patriarch held the slate within a bare inch or two of his face, and moved it back and forth before his eyes to follow the lines. As he lowered it, Madison reached for it politely.

"I am afraid you do not see very well," he scribbled. "Shall I write larger?"

Again the Patriarch deciphered the words laboriously; then he wrote, and handed the slate to Madison.

"I am going blind," he had written. "Please write as large as possible."

"Blind!"--Madison's attitude and expression were eloquent enough not only to be a perfect interpretation of his exclamation, but to convey his shocked and pained surprise as well.

The Patriarch bowed his head affirmatively, smiling a little wistfully.

Madison impetuously drew his chair closer to the other, laid his hand sympathetically upon the Patriarch's sleeve, and, with the slate upon his knee, wrote with the other hand impulsively:

"I am sorry--very, very sorry. Would you care to tell me about it?"

The Patriarch's face lighted up while reading the slate, but he shook his head slowly as he smiled again.

"By _and_ by, if you wish," he wrote. "But first about yourself. You are sick--and you have come to me for help?"

The slate now passed from hand to hand quite rapidly.

"Yes," wrote Madison. "Can you cure me?"

"No," replied the Patriarch; "not in your present mental condition."

"What do you mean?" asked Madison.

"Your question itself implies that you are skeptical. While that state of mind exists, I can do nothing--it depends entirely on yourself."

"And if I put skepticism aside?" Madison's pencil demanded. "Can you cure me then?"

"Unquestionably," wrote the Patriarch, "if you really put it aside. Faith is the simplest thing in the world and the most complex--but it is fundamental. Without faith nothing is possible; with faith nothing is impossible."

Madison's gray eyes rested, magnificently thoughtful and troubled, upon the Patriarch.

"I have never thought much about it," he replied upon the slate, after a tactful moment's pause. "But I believe that. There is something here, about the place, about you that inspires confidence--I was prepared to cling to my skepticism when I came in, but I do not feel that way now. If only I knew you a little better, were with you a little more, I believe I could have the faith you speak of."

"How long do you remain in Needley?" the Patriarch wrote.

Madison got up from his chair, went slowly to the fireplace, and, with his back to the Patriarch, stood watching the crackling logs.

"The old chap's no fool," he informed himself, "even if he is gone a little in one particular. He certainly does believe in himself for fair! Wonder where he got his education--notice the English he writes? And, say--_going blind_! Fancy that! Santa Claus, you overwhelm me, you are too bountiful, you are too generous--you'll have nothing left for the next chimney! Deaf and dumb--and blind. Really, I do not deserve this--I really don't--let me at least tip the hat-boy, or I'll feel mean."

He turned gravely to the Patriarch; resuming his chair with an expression on his face as one arrived at a weighty decision after a mental battle with one's self.

"I will stay here until I am cured. I put myself in your hands. What am I to do?" he wrote quickly--and held out his hand almost anxiously for the other's assent.

The Patriarch smiled seriously as, after peering at the slate, he took the outstretched hand and laid his other one unaffectedly upon Madison's shoulder.

"Be sure then that I can help you," wrote the Patriarch cheerfully. "There is no course of treatment such as you may, perhaps, imagine. My power lies in a perfect faith to help you once you, in turn, have faith yourself--that is all. It is but the practical application of the old dogma that mind is superior to matter. You must come and see me every day, and we will talk together."

"I will come--gladly," Madison replied; and, taking the slate, carefully wiped off the writing--as he had previously wiped it off every time it came into his hands--with a damp rag that the Patriarch had taken from the table drawer when he had produced the slate and pencil.

"This slate racket is the limit," said Madison to himself, as his pencil began to move and screech again; "but I've got to get a little deeper under his vest yet."

He handed the slate to the Patriarch, and on it were the words:

"Won't you tell me something of yourself, how you came to live here alone, and your name, perhaps? I do not mean to presume, but I am deeply interested."

"There is never presumption in kindliness and sympathy," answered the Patriarch. "But my name and story is buried in the past--perhaps when I am gone those who care to know may know. I have not hurt you by refusing to answer?"

"No, indeed!" said Madison politely to himself. "The element of mystery is one of the best drawing cards I know--it's got Needley going strong. Far, far be it from me to tear the veil asunder. I mentioned it only as a feeler."

But upon the slate he wrote:

"Far from being hurt, I respect your silence. But your eyes--you were to tell me about them."

The Patriarch's face saddened suddenly as he read the words.

"I have made no secret of it," he wrote. "I have been going blind for nearly a year now. The end, I am afraid, is very near--within a few days, perhaps even to-morrow. I think I should not mind it much myself, for I am very old and have not a great while longer to live in any case, but for the time that is left it will mar my usefulness. I have been able to help the people here and they have come to depend upon me--that is my life. I trust I am not boastful if I say my greatest joy has been in helping others."

He had come to the bottom of the slate and held it out for Madison to read; then wiped it off, and went on:

"I have dreamed often of a wider field, of reaching out to help the thousands beyond this little town--but I have realized that it could be no more than a dream. I have been successful here because the people believe in me and have unquestioning faith in me--to go outside amongst strangers would only have been to be received as a charlatan and faker, or as a poor deaf and dumb fool at best."

Madison took the slate.

"But if these thousands of others came to you--what then?"

The Patriarch's face glowed.

"It would be a wondrous joy," he wrote. "Too wondrous to dwell upon--because it could never be. If they came I could help them, for their very coming would be an evidence of faith--and faith alone is necessary. Think of the joy of helping so many others--it is the fulness of life. But let us not dream any more, friend Madison."

"Of course," communed Madison, studying the illumined face, "he's slightly touched in his upper story on the faith stunt; but he's in dead earnest, and he's got the brotherhood-of-man bug bad. Come to think of it, Hiram did say something about his 'sight failing,' but I didn't think it was anything like this. If he's going to go finally blind in, say, a week, perhaps it would be just as well to postpone the opening night until he does."

Madison took the slate.

"Stranger things than that have happened," he wrote. "I never heard of you before, yet I am one of the thousands beyond this little town and I am here--why not the others?"

The Patriarch shook his head sadly.

"It is but a dream," he wrote.

Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a long time before he wrote again; his attitude one of sympathetic hesitancy as his eyes played over the form and face before him, while the Patriarch smiled at him with gentle, patient resignation. Back in Madison's fertile brain the germ of an inspiration was developing into fuller life.

"What will you do here alone when you are blind?" he asked--and his face was disturbed and solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate.

"I need very little," the Patriarch wrote back. "You must not worry about me. My garden supplies nearly all my wants, and there are many in the village, I am sure, who will help me with that when the snow is gone."

"I am quite certain of that," Madison's pencil agreed. "But here in the house you cannot be alone--there are so many things to do, little things that I am sure you have not thought of--some one must cook for you, for instance. You will need a woman's hand here--have you no one, no relative that you can call upon?"

The Patriarch lowered the slate from his eyes, shook his head a little pathetically, and began to write.

"I do not think they would have cared to come, even if they were still alive; but they are all gone many years ago--except perhaps a grand-niece, and I do not know what has become of her."

"Why, that's just the thing," wrote Madison. "Suppose we try to find her?"

Again the Patriarch shook his head.

"I am afraid that would be impossible. I do not even know that she is alive. I know only of her birth, and that is twenty years ago."

"Even that is not hopeless," wrote Madison optimistically, and his face as he looked at the Patriarch was seriously thoughtful. "Where was she born?"

"New York," the Patriarch answered.

"And I never half appreciated the old town nor the fulness thereof until I came to Needley!" said Madison plaintively to the toe of his boot, while his hand scrawled the inquiry: "What is her name?"

"Vail," wrote the Patriarch. "That was her father's name. She is my grand-niece on her mother's side. I do not know what they christened her."

Madison once more, apparently deep in thought, sought refuge at the fireplace, his hands plunged in his pockets, his shoulders drawn a little forward, his back to the Patriarch.

"Fiction," he assured a crack in the cement between two stones, "was never, never like this. It seems to me that I remember the occurrence. It had grown a little dim with the lapse of time, it is true; but now that I recall it, it comes back with remarkable clearness. I am quite sure they christened her--Helena. Helena Vail! Now isn't that a perfectly lovely name for a novel! And she'll be so good to the dear old chap too--washing and ironing and cooking for him--and stealing out into the woodshed for a drag on her cigarette--_not_. No, my dear, not even that--this is serious business."

He turned, came back to his chair, picked up the slate, and wrote:

"I have the fortune, or misfortune perhaps, to be what is commonly called a rich man. Money, they say, will do anything, and if it will I'll find this niece for you."

The Patriarch's eyes grew moist as he read the words, and his hand trembled a little with emotion as he held the pencil.

"I cannot let you do that," he protested. "You are very kind, and it seems almost as though you had been brought to me providentially at the end of long years of loneliness for a purpose, when my hour of helplessness was near; but, indeed, I have no right to allow you to do this."

"They tell me in the village," wrote Madison in reply, "that you have always refused to accept a penny for anything you have ever done for them. I have no doubt you would equally refuse to accept anything from me for what you may do, and I should hesitate to offer it however much I felt indebted, but this is something that you must let me do. It will make me feel more--how shall I say it?--more as though I had a right to the privilege of coming here."

The Patriarch wiped his still moist eyes before he answered.

"What can I say to you? It does not seem right that I should let a stranger do so much, and yet it seems that I should not say no because--"

Madison was bending over the slate, reading as the other wrote, and he took the pencil gently from the Patriarch's hand.

"You must not look on me any longer as a stranger," he wrote. "Let us just consider that it is all arranged--only I would strongly advise making no mention of it until we make sure that she is alive."

"I think nothing should be said," agreed the Patriarch. "For even if you found her she might not care to come--I have little here to offer a young girl--few comforts--the care of a blind man who is deaf and dumb."

"We'll see about that when we find her"--Madison smiled brightly at the Patriarch, as he wrote. "Now that's settled for the time being, isn't it?"

The dumb lips moved and both hands reached out to Madison.

Madison took them in a firm, strong, reassuring clasp, then shook his finger in a sort of playfully emotional embarrassment, excellently well done, at the Patriarch--and picked up the slate again.

"It is getting late," he wrote, "and I must not tire you out. I am afraid you will think I am far more inquisitive than I have any right to be, but there is one more question that I would like to ask--may I?"

The Patriarch nodded his head, and laid his hand on Madison's sleeve in a quaint, almost affectionate way.

"It is about your education. You came here sixty years ago, and you have lived alone. You could have had but few advantages, with your handicap, previous to that, and yet you write and use such perfect English."

"The answer is very simple," replied the Patriarch on the slate. "Until within the last year, I have read largely. Would you care to look at my books? They are there in the nook on the other side of the fireplace."

Madison, promptly and full of interest, rose from his chair, passed around the fireplace, and halted before a row of shelves set in against the wall.

"I pass," Madison admitted to himself after a moment, during which his eyes roved over the well chosen classics. "I've heard of one or two of these before--casually. I've an idea that if the Patriarch's got all this inside his gray matter, it's just as well for the Flopper, for Pale Face Harry, for Helena and yours truly that he's deaf and dumb--and will be blind."

Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming face, and picked up the slate.

"I read a great deal myself," he wrote. "It is a pleasure to find _real_ books here. May I, during my stay in Needley, look upon them in a little way as my own library?"

"You are very welcome indeed," the Patriarch answered.

"Thank you," wrote Madison. "And now, surely, I must go"--he smiled at the Patriarch.

"Come to-morrow," invited the Patriarch. "I would like to show you all around my little place here."

"Indeed, I will," Madison scratched upon the slate, "and do you know that somehow, since I came here to-night, I feel a sense of relief, a sort of guarantee that everything is going to be all right with me in the future."

The Patriarch smiled quietly, almost tolerantly.

"I know that," he wrote. "Keep your mind free of doubt, be optimistic and cheerful as regards yourself, nourish the faith that has already taken root and that I feel responds to mine; keep in the open air and take plenty of exercise."

Slowly, with an apparently abstracted air, Madison read the slate, wiped it carefully, laid it down, and then held out his hand.

"Good-night!" he nodded warmly.

The Patriarch, still with the quiet smile upon his lips, rose from his armchair, and, keeping his clasp on Madison's hand, led Madison to the door, opened it, and with a gesture at once courtly and affectionate bade his guest good-night.

Madison crossed the lawn at a thoughtful pace, turned into the wagon track, and, in the shelter of the woods now, whimsically felt his pulse; then, lighting a cigar, tramped on with a buoyant stride.

"There's only one answer, of course," he mused. "The Patriarch's got a brain kink on faith--it's the natural outcome of living alone for sixty years. Outside of that and his books, he's as simple and innocent and trusting as a babe. I suppose the thing's kind of grown on him--Hiram said it had taken forty years--which isn't sudden unless you say it quick. Hanged if I don't like the old sport though, and if Helena isn't the best ever to him I'll stop her chewing gum allowance." Madison looked up through the arched, leafless branches overhead. "Beautiful night, isn't it?" said he pleasantly.

A little later he reached the main road and paused a moment on the bridge, as though to sum up the thoughts and imaginings that had occupied him on the way along.

"It's a queer world," said John Garfield Madison profoundly to the turbid little stream that flowed beneath his feet. "I wonder why some of us are born with brains--and some are born just plain damned fools!"

He went on again, arrived at the Congress Hotel, and, discovering through the window that the leading citizens of Needley were still in session, negotiated the back entrance. On the way upstairs he stumbled--quite inadvertently--and stopped to listen.

"There he be now," announced Hiram Higgins' voice excitedly. "Goin' up to his room to meditate. Knew he'd come back feelin' like that. I be goin' out there to-morrow to see the Patriarch myself."

Madison smiled, mounted the remaining stairs, entered his room, and lighted his lamp.

"Having got my hand in at writing," he remarked, "I guess I'd better keep it up and write Helena--Vail."

He extracted a pad of writing paper and an envelope from the tray of his trunk, his fountain pen from his pocket, and, drawing his chair to the table and laying down his cigar reluctantly at his elbow, began to write. At the end of fifteen minutes, he tilted back his chair, relighted the stub of his cigar, and critically read over his epistle.

"Dear Kid," it ran. "Do not be anxious about me--I am feeling better already. Have had my first treatment, and am now eating fried eggs and ham regularly three times a day. A Sunday-school picnic taking to washboilers full of thin coffee and the left-over cakes kindly contributed by Deacon Jones' household, is nothing to the way the boobs will take to the Patriarch--who has kindly consented to go blind to make our thorny paths as smooth as possible for us.

"Do you get that, Helena--he's going blind! In just a few days, my dear, you will be with me, have patience. The meteorological bureau is a little hazy yet on the exact date of the total eclipse, but it's due to happen any minute. Now listen. Your name is Helena Vail. You're the Patriarch's grand-niece, and you're coming to live alone with him and soothe his declining years; but you can't come yet because I've got to find you first, and besides, until he's blind, he'll stick to a nasty habit he's got of asking questions on his little slate. You needn't have any hesitation about coming on the score of propriety, I assure you it is perfectly proper--he is running Methuselah pretty near a dead heat. And, as far as the town is concerned, apart from the fact that you are a grand-niece, orphaned, you don't have to know anything about yourself, either--that's part of the Patriarch's dark, mysterious past, where the lights go out and the fiddles get rickets.

"That's about all. I'll let you know when to come. Remember me to Mr. Coogan and Harry, and keep my picture under your pillow. Ever thine, J.G.M."

Madison picked up his pen again and added another line:

"P.S. Better buy a cook-book."

He folded the pages, inserted them in the envelope, sealed the envelope and addressed it to Miss Helena Smith--street and number not far from the tenderloin district of New York.

Then Madison yawned pleasantly, tucked the letter in his pocket--and prepared for bed.

--VI--

OFFICIALLY ENDORSED

Ten days had passed, bringing with them many changes. The snow was gone, and the warm, balmy airs of springtime had brought the buds upon the trees almost to leaf. It seemed indeed a new land, and one now full of charm and delight--the desolate, straggling hamlet, once so barren, frozen and hopeless looking, was now a quaint, alluring little village nestling picturesquely in its hollow, framed in green fields and majestic woods. Quiet, restful, peaceful it was--like a dream place, untroubled. Upon the farms about men plowed their furrows, calling to each other and to their horses; in the homes the doors and windows were thrown hospitably wide to the sweet, fresh, vernal airs, and the thrifty housewives were busy at their cleaning.

And there had been other changes, too. The ten days had found Madison more and more a constant visitor, and finally a most intimate one, at the Patriarch's cottage--while to the circle in the hotel office his voice no longer rose in even feeble protest, he was one of them. And, perhaps most vital change of all, the Patriarch was nearly blind--so nearly blind that conversation now was limited to but little more than a single word at a time upon the slate.

It was morning, in the Patriarch's sitting-room, and Madison was seated in his usual place beside the table facing the other. For upwards of an hour, it had taken him that long, he had been engaged, having decided that the time was ripe, in telling the Patriarch that his grand-niece had been found and that now it was only necessary to write and ask her to come to Needley.

The Patriarch's fine old face was aglow with pleasure as he finally understood. Letter writing was beyond him now, a thing of the past, so upon the slate he scrawled:

"You write."

Madison shook his head; and again with gentle patience explained that perhaps it would be better if the letter came from some one holding an official position in the village, rather than from one who, even in an abstract way, would be unknown to her--the postmaster, for instance.

And the Patriarch, patting Madison's sleeve gratefully, agreed.

Out in the garden behind the cottage, where for the first time in sixty seasons the work must be done by other hands, Hiram Higgins, the volunteer for the moment, was busy at his "spell."

Madison stepped to the door and called him in.

"Mr. Higgins," he said, "the Patriarch has just told me that he has a grand-niece living in New York, and he wants you to write to her and ask her to come to him."

"Be that so!" exclaimed Mr. Higgins, gazing earnestly at the Patriarch. "Well, 'tain't no surprise to me--always calc'lated he must have folks somewheres. An' I'm right glad now he needs 'em he's made up his mind to have 'em come. Wants me to write, does he?"

"He can't write any more himself," said Madison. "He seems to think that you, as the postmaster, as well as the town police official, are the proper person to do it--and I quite agree with him."

"So I be," declared Mr. Higgins importantly. "I'll write it on the town paper, an' comin' from the postmaster there won't be no doubt in her mind that it's any of them bunco games or the lurin' of young women away such as I've read about, for I reckon perhaps she ain't never heerd of him before--never knew _him_ to write a letter, an' I calc'late to see most everything that goes out."

Mr. Higgins picked up the slate and wrote the word "grand-niece?" upon it in enormous characters; then, amplifying his interrogation by many gestures of his hands, deft from long practice, he held the slate up to the Patriarch.

The Patriarch nodded, and Hiram Higgins nodded back encouragingly.

"Where be her address?" Mr. Higgins inquired of Madison.

Madison stepped to the bookshelves out of view of the Patriarch around the fireplace, but in full view of Mr. Higgins, and, reaching down the Bible from the topmost shelf, extracted from inside its cover the aged, yellow slip of paper that he had deposited there when he had entered the cottage that morning, and on which was inscribed Helena's name and address in a stiff, old-fashioned, angular hand resembling the Patriarch's--an effect that Madison had stayed up half the night to produce.

"I guess this must be it," he said. "He said it was here--we'll make sure though"--and he handed it to the Patriarch.

Long and painfully the Patriarch studied it, anxiously deciphering the words that he had never seen before, anxious to know all and whatever this might tell him about his niece--then again he nodded his head and expressed his gratitude by, patting Madison's sleeve.

Madison's smile modestly disavowed any thanks, as he passed the slip to Mr. Higgins.

"Reckon that be it," Mr. Higgins agreed. "An' now, I guess I'll go right back to town an' write it--I allow that the sooner we get her down here the better. Folks'll be glad to hear this--the women folks was figurin' on takin' spells an' helpin' out in the house same as the men in the garden--'pears now there won't be no need of it."

Madison accompanied Mr. Higgins outside and helped him to harness up.

"Look here, Mr. Madison," said Hiram Higgins, as he made ready to go and climbed into the democrat, "would you allow that the Patriarch's goin' blind was goin' to interfere any with his power of curin' folks? It'll be a powerful blow to the town if it does."

"Why, of course not!" said Madison decisively. "Certainly not! Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if it enhanced his power--it's purely mental, you know. They say that the loss of any one or more of the senses generally tends to make the others only the more acute--it's the--er--law of compensation."

"Glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Higgins, with a sigh of relief, "'cause I got another letter to write 'sides this one for the Patriarch. It come last night, an' I was figurin' on speakin' to you about it." Mr. Higgins dropped the reins on the dashboard, and dove into first one pocket and then another. "Shucks!" said he disgustedly. "Now if I ain't gone an' left it to home after all. But I dunno as it makes much difference. It was from a fellow up your way by the name of Michael Coogan, an' was addressed to the postmaster. 'Pears he read a piece in the papers about the Patriarch which he sent along with the letter. Allows he's been ailin' quite a spell, though he don't say what's the matter with him, an' wants to know if what's in that piece is all gospel truth, 'cause if 'tis he's comin' down. That's why I'm right glad to have heerd you say what you just said. Bein' postmaster an' writin' 'fficially, I got to be conscientious and pretty partic'lar."

"Yes, of course--naturally," said Madison. "And what are you going to say to him?" "Why," returned Mr. Higgins, "there ain't no trouble about it now. Goin' to tell him that if the Patriarch can't help him there ain't nobody on earth can--thought of mentionin' your name, too."

"By all means," assented Madison cordially. "I feel like a new man since I've come here. I only wish more people knew about the Patriarch--it makes your heart ache to think of the suffering and sickness that people endure so hopelessly when there isn't any need of it."

"Yes, so it do," said Mr. Higgins. He picked up the reins. "So it do," he said heartily.

Madison watched the democrat as it started off behind the ambling horse--watched with a sort of fascination at the inebriate, sideways stagger of the wheels, a sort of wonder that the rear ones didn't shut up like a jack-knife under the body of the vehicle and the democrat promptly sit down on its tail-board; then, smiling, he walked back into the cottage. The Patriarch was still sitting in the armchair beside the table. Madison halted before the other.

"Well," said he confidentially to the Patriarch, "that's settled and I don't mind admitting that it's a load off my mind. I hate to think of what we'd have done without Hiram Higgins--in fact, it distresses me to think of it. Let us think of something else. Day after to-morrow Helena'll be along. Helena is the one and only--but you'll find that out for yourself. I don't mind telling you though that she wears a number two shoe, and you can guess the rest without any help from me. Then a day or so later the Flopper and Pale Face Harry'll be along--you'll enjoy them--things aren't going to be a bit slow from now on. I expect the Flopper will bring some friends with him, too, so's to make a nice little house-party--I wrote him about it, and--" Madison stopped abruptly.

The Patriarch, evidently catching a movement of Madison's lips, was gesticulating violently toward his ears, while he smiled half tolerantly, half protestingly.

Madison nodded quickly and smiled deprecatingly in return.

"By Jove!" he said apologetically. "I always keep forgetting that you can't hear. I was suggesting that perhaps you might like to go for a walk--Mr. Higgins says it's a fine day." Madison picked up the slate and in huge letters that sprawled from one end of the slate to the other wrote the word: "WALK?"

The Patriarch rose from his chair with a pleased expression, and Madison helped him solicitously to the door.

They passed out into the sunshine and headed for the beach--the Patriarch, erect and strong, guiding himself with his hand on Madison's arm.

Reaching the beach, the Patriarch paused and turned his face toward the ocean, while he drew in great breaths of the invigorating air--and Madison involuntarily stepped a little aside to look at the other critically, as one might seek a vantage ground from which to view a picture in all its variant lights and shades. Against the crested, breaking surf, the fume-sprayed ledges of rock, the Patriarch stood out a majestic, almost saintly figure--tall, stately, grand with the true grandeur of simplicity, simple in dress, simple in attitude and mien, patience, sweetness and trust illumining his face, his silver-crowned head thrown back.

"I can shut my eyes," said Madison softly, "and see the Flopper being cured right now--and the Flopper couldn't help it if he wanted to!"

--VII--

THE PATRIARCH'S GRAND-NIECE

It was Hiram Higgins who introduced Helena Vail to Madison, two days later. Madison had led the Patriarch outside the door of the cottage as the sound of wheels announced the expected arrival, and was waiting for her as Mr. Higgins drove up in the democrat. Helena, marvelously garbed, in the extreme of fashion, was demurely surveying her surroundings; while Mr. Higgins was very evidently excited and not a little flustered. A huge trunk and two smaller ones occupied the rear of the democrat, with the dismantled back seat lashed on top of them.

Madison, leaving the Patriarch, hastened forward politely.

"Mr. Madison," said Hiram Higgins importantly, "this be the Patriarch's grand-niece come to stay with him."

From under a picture hat, Helena's eyes smiled down at Madison.

"Oh, I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Madison," she said cordially. "Mr. Higgins has been telling me about you, and how good you have been to my--my grand-uncle."

"You are very kind to say so, Miss Vail," responded Madison modestly. "May I help you down?"

She gave him a daintily gloved hand, exposed a daintily stockinged ankle as she placed her foot a little hesitantly on the wheel, and jumped lightly to the ground.

"That," she said quickly and a little anxiously for Mr. Higgins' ears, indicating the Patriarch, "that is my grand-uncle there, I am sure."

"Yes," said Madison, leading her toward the Patriarch. "And he has been looking forward very anxiously all day to your arrival--it seemed as though the afternoon would never come for him."

"Gee!" said Helena under her breath. "I had the rubes in the village on the run--you ought to have seen them stare as the chariot drove along."

"I don't wonder," said Madison softly. "The sun's rather strong down here, Helena, and if you're not careful you'll scorch your neck with those burning-glasses you've got in your ears."

"Don't I look nice?" demanded Helena, with a pout.

"You bet you do!" said Madison earnestly. "You've got the swellest thing on Broadway beaten from Forty-Second Street to the Battery. Now, here you are"--they had halted before the Patriarch.

The venerable face was turned toward them, as though by instinct the Patriarch knew that they were there--and his hands were held out in greeting.

Helena clasped them firmly, and submitted sweetly as the Patriarch drew her into his arms.

The Patriarch released her after an instant, and his hands, in lieu of eyes, reaching out to search her face, came bewilderingly in contact with the picture hat.

Helena, a little uncertainly, looked at Madison.

"Is he _all_ blind?" she whispered.

"Quite blind," said Madison sadly.

Helena's face clouded a little, and into the brown eyes crept a strange, sudden, sympathetic look.

"Doc," she said, "it--it isn't fair. It's a shame--he can't fight back."

"One error to you, Miss Vail," said Madison pleasantly. "Eliminate the 'Doc.' Don't shed tears, you're down here to be sweet to him, aren't you--well, get into the game."

Helena turned from Madison, and, impulsively taking the Patriarch's groping hands, guided them to her cheeks and held them there.

"Lucky dog!" observed Madison; then, raising his voice: "I am sure you would like to be alone together, Miss Vail--perhaps you will take him into the cottage. If you will excuse me, I'll help Mr. Higgins with the trunks."

Madison turned and walked over to where Mr. Higgins, beside the democrat with a handful of chin whiskers, was observing the scene.