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Old Mrs. HarrisX
Mrs. Harris had decided to speak to Mr. Templeton, but opportunities for seeing him alone were not frequent. She watched out of the kitchen window, and when she next saw him go into the barn to fork down hay for his horse, she threw an apron over her head and followed him. She waylaid him as he came down from the hayloft.
"Hillary, I want to see you about Vickie. I was wondering if you could lay hand on any of the money you got for the sale of my house back home."
Mr. Templeton was nervous. He began brushing his trousers with a little whisk-broom he kept there, hanging on a nail.
"Why, no`m, Mrs. Harris. I couldn`t just conveniently call in any of it right now. You know we had to use part of it to get moved up here from the mines."
"I know. But I thought if there was any left you could get at, we could let Vickie have it. A body`d like to help the child."
"I`d like to, powerful well, Mrs. Harris. I would, indeedy. But I`m afraid I can`t manage it right now. The fellers I`ve loaned to can`t pay up this year. Maybe next year--" He was like a little boy trying to escape a scolding, though he had never had a nagging word from Mrs. Harris.
She looked downcast, but said nothing.
"It`s all right, Mrs. Harris," he took on his brisk business tone and hung up the brush. "The money`s perfectly safe. It`s well invested."
Invested; that was a word men always held over women, Mrs. Harris thought, and it always meant they could have none of their own money. She sighed deeply.
"Well, if that`s the way it is--" She turned away and went back to the house on her flat heelless slippers, just in time; Victoria was at that moment coming out to the kitchen with Hughie.
"Ma," she said, "can the little boy play out here, while I go down town?"
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