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Page 56
"The mortgage?" suggested Echo.
"I paid that off last week," explained Jack.
Echo felt deeply hurt that this news should have been kept from
her by her husband.
"You did, and never told me?" she chided. "Where did you get the
money?" she inquired.
"Why, I--" Jack halted. He could not frame an excuse at once,
nor invent a new lie to cover his old sin. Deeper and deeper he
was getting into the mire of deception.
Echo had arisen from the seat. "It was over three thousand
dollars, wasn't it?" she insisted.
"Something like that," answered Jack noncommittally.
"Well, where did you get it?" demanded his wife.
"An old debt--a friend of mine--I loaned him the money a long
time ago and he paid it back--that's all."
Jack took a drink of water from the olla to hide his confusion.
"Who was it?" persisted Echo.
"You wouldn't know if I told you. Now just stop talking
business."
"It isn't fair," declared Echo. "You share all the good things
of life with me, and I want to share some of your business
worries. I want to stand my share of the bad."
Jack saw he must humor her. "When the bad comes I'll tell you,"
he assured her, patting her hand.
"You stand between me and the world. You're like a great big
mountain, standing guard over a little tree in the valley,
keeping the cold north wind from treating it too roughly." She
sighed contentedly. "But the mountain does it all."
Jack looked down tenderly at his little wife. Her love for him
moved him deeply.
"Not at all," he said to her. "The little tree grows green and
beautiful. It casts a welcome shade about it, and the heart of
the mountain is made glad to its rocky core to know that the
safety of that little tree is in its keeping."
Taking her in his arms, he kissed her again and again.
"Kissing again," shouted Polly from the doorway. "Say, will you
two never settle down to business? There's Bud Lane and a bunch
of others just into the corral--maybe they want you, Jack."
Jack excused himself. As he stepped out on the piazza he asked
Polly: "Shall I send Bud in?"
"Let him come in if he wants to. I'm not sending for him." Polly
spitefully turned up her nose at him. Jack laughed as he closed
the door.
Echo reseated herself at the piano, fingering the keys.
"How are you getting on with Bud?" she asked the younger girl.
"We don't get on a little bit," she snapped. "Bud never seems to
collect much revenue an' we just keep trottin' slow like--wish I
was married and had a home of my own."
"Aren't you happy with father and mother?"
Polly glanced at Echo with a smile. "Lord, yes," she replied,
"in a way, but I'm only a poor relation--your ma was my ma's
cousin or something like that."
Echo laughed. "Nonsense," she retorted. "Nonsense--you're my
dear sister, and the only daughter that's at the old home now."
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