The Turn of the Tide - Eleanor H. Porter

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declare and agree, to wit, not to Beat my aforesaid Wife. Not to Bang her round. Not to Falsely, Wickedly and Maliciously treat her. Not once. Moreover, I, the said Undersigned do solumly Swear all this to Margaret Kendall, the dorter and Lawfull Protectur of the said Wife, to wit, Mrs. Kendall. And whereas, if I, the aforesaid Undersigned do break and violate this my solum Oath concerning the said Wife, I do hereby Swear that she, to wit, Margaret Kendall, may bestow upon me such Punishmunt as seems eminuntly proper to her at such time as she sees fit. Whereas and whereunto I have this day set my Hand and Seal.”

      Here followed a space for the signature, and a somewhat thumbed, irregular daub of red sealing-wax.

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      It was a particularly warm July evening, but a faint breeze from the west stirred the leaves of the Crimson Rambler that climbed over the front veranda at Five Oaks, and brought the first relief from the scorching heat. The great stone lions loomed out of the shadows and caught the moonlight full on their shaggy heads. To the doctor, sitting alone on the veranda steps, they seemed almost alive, and he smiled at the thought that came to him.

      “So you think you, too, are guarding her,” he chuckled quietly. “Pray, and are you also her ‘Lawfull Protectur’?”

      A light step sounded on the floor behind him, and he sprang to his feet.

      “She’s asleep,” said Mrs. Kendall softly. “She dropped asleep almost as soon as she touched the pillow. Dear child!”

      “Yes, children are apt—— Amy, dearest!” broke off the doctor, sharply, “you are crying!”

      “No, no, it is nothing,” assured Mrs. Kendall, as the doctor led her to a chair. “It is always this way, only to-night it was a—a little more heart-breaking than usual.”

      “‘Always this way’! ‘Heart-breaking’! Why, Amy!”

      Mrs. Kendall smiled, then raised her hand to brush away a tear.

      “You don’t understand,” she murmured. “It’s the bedtime prayer—Margaret’s;” then, at the doctor’s amazed frown, she added: “The dear child goes over her whole day, bit by bit, and asks forgiveness for countless misdemeanors, and it nearly breaks my heart, for it shows how many times I have said ‘don’t’ to the poor little thing since morning. And as if that were not piteous enough, she must needs ask the dear Father to tell her how to handle her fork, and how to sit, walk, and talk so’s to please mother. Harry, what shall I do?”

      “But you are doing,” returned the doctor. “You are loving her, and you are surrounding her with everything good and beautiful.”

      “But I want to do right myself—just right.”

      “And you are doing just right, dear.”

      “But the results—they are so irregular and uneven,” sighed the mother, despairingly. “One minute she is the gentle, loving little girl I held in my arms five years ago; and the next she is—well, she isn’t Margaret at all.”

      “No,” smiled the doctor. “She isn’t Margaret at all. She is Mag of the Alley, dependent on her wits and her fists for life itself. Don’t worry, sweetheart. It will all come right in time; it can’t help it!—but it will take the time.”

      “She tries so hard—the little precious!—and she does love me.”

      A curious smile curved the doctor’s lips.

      “She does,” he said dryly.

      “Why, Harry, what——” Mrs. Kendall’s eyes were questioning.

      The doctor hesitated. Then very slowly he drew from his pocket a large, somewhat legal-looking document.

      “I hardly know whether to share this with you or not,” he began; “still, it is too good to keep to myself, and it concerns you intimately; moreover, you may be able to assist me with some advice in the matter, or at least with some possible explanation.” And he held out the paper.

      Mrs. Kendall turned in her chair so that the light from the open hall-door would fall upon the round, cramped handwriting.

      “‘To whom it may concern,’” she read aloud. “‘Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to commit Matremony.’ Why, Harry, what in the world is this?” she demanded.

      “Go on,—read,” returned the doctor, with a nonchalant wave of his hand; and Mrs. Kendall dropped her eyes again to the paper.

      “Harry, what in the world does this mean?” she gasped a minute later as she finished reading, half laughing, half crying, and wholly amazed.

      “But that is exactly what I was going to ask you,” parried the doctor.

      “You don’t mean that Margaret wrote—but she couldn’t; besides, it isn’t her writing.”

      “No, Margaret didn’t write it. For that part I think I detect the earmarks of young McGinnis. At all events, it came from him.”

      “Bobby?”

      “Yes.”

      “But who——” Mrs. Kendall stopped abruptly. A dawning comprehension came into her eyes. “You mean—Harry, she was at the bottom of it! I remember now. It was only a week or two ago that she used those same words to me. She insisted that you would beat me and—and bang me ’round. Oh, Margaret, Margaret, my poor little girl!”

      The doctor smiled; then he shook his head gravely.

      “Poor child! She hasn’t seen much of conjugal felicity; has she?” he murmured; then, softly: “It is left for us, sweetheart, to teach her—that.”

      The color deepened in Mrs. Kendall’s cheeks. Her eyes softened, then danced merrily.

      “But you haven’t signed—this, sir, yet!” she challenged laughingly, as she held out the paper.

      He caught both paper and hands in a warm clasp.

      “But I will,” he declared. “Wait and see!”

      Not twenty hours later Bobby McGinnis halted at the great gate of the driveway at Five Oaks and gave a peculiar whistle. Almost instantly Margaret flew across the lawn to meet him.

      “Oh, it’s jest a little matter of business,” greeted Bobby, with careless ease. “I’ve got that ’ere document here all signed. I reckoned the doctor wouldn’t lose no time makin’ sure ter do his part.”

      “Bobby, not the contract—so soon!” exulted Margaret.

      “Sure! Why not? I told him ter please sign to once an’ return. An’ he did, ‘course. I reckoned he meant business in this little matter, an’ he reckoned I did, too. There wa’n’t nothin’ for him ter do but sign, ’course.”

      Margaret drew her brows together in a thoughtful frown.

      “But he might have—refused,” she suggested.

      Bobby gave her a scornful glance.

      “Refused—an’ lost the chance of marryin’ at all? Not much!” he asserted with emphasis.

      “Well, anyhow, I’m glad he didn’t,” sighed Margaret, as she clutched the precious paper close to her heart. “I should ‘a’ hated to have refused outright to let him marry her when mother—Bobby, mother actually seems to want to have him!”

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