The Miracle Man by Frank L. Packard

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They interviewed Thornton--and Thornton, too, talked to them, but the
very presence of Mrs. Thornton was weightier far than words.

They interviewed the Holmes, and they interviewed Needley individually
and collectively; and they interviewed Helena--but they did not
interview the Patriarch. Here Helena barred their way--they were free to
enter the cottage, to copy the names, the record of gifts inscribed in
the book, already a long list for Needley had required no other
incentive to give than the example that had been set--but that was all.
Quietly, with demure simplicity, Helena, prompted by Madison, like a
priestess who guards some holy, inner shrine, told them that sensational
notoriety had no place there--and the notoriety for that very cause
became the greater! Not that they were denied a sight of the Patriarch's
venerable and saintly form--they were permitted to catch glimpses of him
on the beach, on the lawn, walking with bowed head in meditation, a
figure whose simple majesty inspired words and columns of glowing
tribute--but from personal contact, Helena and the Flopper, always in
attendance, warded them off; retreating always to the privacy of the
cottage, to the inner rooms.

All this had taken four days; and now, on the fourth day, there came to
Needley the vanguard of those who sought this new healing power--just a
few of them, two or three, like far, outflung skirmishers evidencing the
presence of the army corps to follow. With the reporters, as far as
Madison was concerned, it was simple enough; he had but to let them go
their way, to let them revel in the stories that were on every tongue,
to let them view with their own eyes _facts_, while he, modestly and
diffidently, full of quiet earnestness, effaced himself, never thrusting
himself forward, talking to them only when they pressed him--but the
handling of the sufferers who would flock to Needley in response to a
newspaper publicity and endorsement that had been beyond his wildest
dreams, was quite another matter. Madison viewed the first
arrivals--brought in from the station on cot beds to the Waldorf
Hotel--and retired to his room in the Congress Hotel to wrestle with the
niceties and minutiae of the problem.

"You see," said Madison to the tip of his cigar, as he tilted back his
chair and extended his legs full length with his heels comfortably up on
the table edge, "you see, I believe in faith all right--and that's no
josh. But the trouble with faith is that it's about the scarcest article
on earth--and I haven't got any more Floppers to lead the way." Madison
adroitly sent the cigar ash through the window with a tap of his
forefinger on the body of the cigar--he frowned, and for a long time sat
musingly silent. Then he spoke again; this time addressing the toes of
his boots: "With the house sold out for the season, the box-office doing
itself proud and the audience crazy over the first two acts, how about
Act Three--h'm?--how about Act Three? Kind of a delicate proposition,
the staging of Act Three--and it's time for the curtain to go up. I can
hear 'em stamping out front now. I can't pull off any more orgies like
last Monday afternoon, even if I wanted to--but everybody's got to have
a run for their money. Say, how about Act Three?"

Madison burned up quite a little tobacco in the interval before supper,
and quite a little more afterward before the setting for his perplexing
"Third Act" appeared to unfold itself satisfactorily before his
mind--indeed, it was close onto half past ten when, by a roundabout
way, he very cautiously and silently approached the Patriarch's cottage.

In the front of the cottage, the Shrine-room, as he christened it, and
the Patriarch's sleeping room were both dark. Madison passed around to
the beach side--here, Helena's room was dark too, but in the Flopper's
window, the end room next to the kitchen and woodshed, there was a
light. The night was warm, and, though the shade was drawn, the window
was open. Madison whistled softly, and the Flopper stuck out his head.

"Hello, Flopper," said Madison; "come out here--I want to have a talk
with you. Helena in bed?"

"No; she's out," replied the Flopper.

"Well, hurry up!" said Madison. "Come around in front by the trellis
where we can see the other fellow first if anybody happens to be
strolling about."

Madison withdrew from the window and walked around to the front of the
cottage. Here, a few yards from the porch, by the trellis, already
beginning to be leafy green, was a rustic bench on which he seated
himself. The moon was not full, but there was light enough to enable him
to see across the lawn through the interposing row of maples, and,
hidden by the shadows himself, the seat strategetically met his
requirements.

Presently, the Flopper came out of the front door and joined him.

"Say, Doc," announced the Flopper abruptly, "de Patriarch's been askin'
fer youse yesterday an' to-day."

"Asking?" repeated Madison.

"Sure," said the Flopper. "He can scrawl if he is blind, can't he? He
scrawls yer name on de slate. We can't tell him nothin', an' he's kinder
got de fidgets like he t'inks youse had flown de coop."

"That's so," said Madison. "It is rather difficult to communicate with
him, isn't it? I guess we'll have to get him some raised letters."

"What's them?" inquired the Flopper.

"I don't know exactly," Madison answered. "I never saw any, but I
believe they have such things. Been asking for me, has he? Well, I'll
fix it to see him to-morrow. Where did you say Helena had gone?"

"I said she was out," said the Flopper. "If you ask me where, I'd say de
same place as last night an' de night before--down to dat private car
wid his nibs. Say, dere's some class to dat guy all right, an' I guess
Helena ain't got her eyes shut."

"Hey!" ejaculated Madison. "What do you mean?"

"Well, he's got de rocks, ain't he?" declared the Flopper. "Why
shouldn't she be after him? Dat's wot we're here fer, ain't it, de whole
bunch of us?--an' she ain't t'rowin' us, is she, if she sees a chanst to
pick up somet'ing on her own?"

Madison turned quickly on the Flopper.

"You mean," he said sharply, "that there's something going on between
Helena and Thornton--already?"

"Aw, stop kiddin'!" said the Flopper. "Already! Wot's 'already' got to
do wid it? We ain't none of us church members, are we? Say, where'd you
pick up Helena yerself--and how long did it take youse? I don't know
whether dere's anyt'ing goin' on or not--mabbe she's only gettin'
lonely--youse ain't hung around her much lately, Doc."

Madison laughed suddenly.

"You're talking through your hat, Flopper," he said shortly. "You don't
know Helena."

"It's a wise guy dat knows skirts," said the Flopper profoundly; then,
with something approaching a sigh: "Say, Doc, dere's a lalapazoozoo, a
peach down here."

"Hullo!" exclaimed Madison, shooting a hurried and critical glance at
the Flopper in the moonlight. "What's this, Flopper--what's this? What
have you been up to? You're supposed to be attending strictly to
business."

"An' you needn't t'ink I ain't," asserted the Flopper. "But I can't stop
de town fallin' over itself to bring de whole farmyard, an' eggs, an'
butter, an' flour, an' everyt'ing else out here every mornin', can I?
She's blown in twice wid cream fer de Patriarch."

"What's her name?" inquired Madison quizzically.

"Mamie Rodgers," said the Flopper. "She says her old man keeps a store
in de village."

"I know her," nodded Madison. "Pretty girl and all right, Flopper. But
mind what you're doing, that's all. I don't want any complications to
queer things around here--understand? But let's get down to the business
that I came out about--the lay from now on. You can put Helena wise."

"Sure," said the Flopper earnestly.

"Well then, listen," said Madison. "The patients have begun to
arrive--there were three of them in to-day. There's no more circus
parades--everything's under the tent after this. I want you to wean the
Patriarch entirely from that front room--that's to be free for anybody
to enter so's they can drink in atmosphere--and see the contribution
box. But they don't see the Patriarch. Get his armchair into his own
room, make him comfortable there--get the idea? Now, there's no
consultation hours--the Patriarch can't be seen just by asking for
him--the only chance they get at the Patriarch is by an exercise of
patience that'll work their faith up to a pitch that'll do them some
good. The harder it is to get a thing, the more it's worth and the more
you want it--that's the principle. See?"

"Sure," said the Flopper, licking his lips.

"Sometimes," Madison went on, "you're to keep the Patriarch under cover
for two or three days, while they hang around working themselves into a
frenzy. And when they do see him they have to scramble for it. You don't
lead him out to them--ever. Make them waylay him when you take him for
a walk--make them crawl and hop and show they've got faith, make them
believe they've got faith themselves--we'll get some more cures, or
near-cures anyway, that way, and we won't get them any other way, and
we've got to have some sort of cures coming along fairly regularly. Do
you get me, Flopper? If there's a party on a cot a hundred yards away
and he begs you to bring the Patriarch to him, say him nay. Everybody
has got to get into the reserved paddock by themselves--tell them that
no man can be cured who has not got the faith to reach the Patriarch by
himself--tell them to get up and _walk_ to him--tell them what you did."

"Swipe me!" said the Flopper. "Say, Doc, youse are de one an' only. I
gotcher--put it up to _dem_ everytime."

"Exactly," said Madison. "It's their move every minute--make them feel
that if they don't get what they're after it's their own fault--that
it's their own lack of faith that's to blame. And the longer they have
to wait to see the Patriarch, the more they become impressed that faith
is necessary, and--oh, well, psychology is the greatest jollier of them
all."

"Eh?" inquired the Flopper. "I ain't on dere, Doc."

"It's very simple," smiled Madison, "They'll want to convince themselves
that they _have_ got faith, that it's all bottled up and ready to have
the cork drawn when called for, and they'll prove it to themselves by
laying an offering upon the shrine as evidence of faith _before_ the
goods are delivered."

"I gotcher!" said the Flopper enthusiastically. "Why say, Doc, dat's de
way I'd do meself--swipe me, if I wouldn't!"

"That's the way nearly everybody would do," said Madison, laughing.
"There's at least a few similar kinks common to our noble race--we're
busy most of the time trying to fool ourselves one way or another. Well,
that's about all. I can't lay out a programme for every minute of the
day--you and Helena have got to use your heads and work along that
general idea. You play up your gratitude strong. And, oh yes--keep the
altar box well baited. Let Helena put some of her near-diamond rings and
joujabs in until we collect some genuine ones--and then keep the genuine
ones going--change every day for variety, you know. And take the silver
money out every time you see any in--not that we scorn it in the great
aggregate, far from it--it's just psychology again, Flopper. I went to
church once and sat beside a duck with a white waistcoat and chop
whiskers, who wore the dollar sign sticking out so thick all over him
that you couldn't see anything else; and when it came time for
collection he peeled a bill off a roll the size of a house, and waited
for the collection plate to come along. But he got his eye on the plate
a couple of pews ahead and it was full of coppers and chicken feed, and
he did the palming act with the bill slicker than a faro dealer--and
whispered to me to change a quarter for him."

"And did you?" asked the Flopper anxiously.

"Oh, wake up, Flopper!" grinned Madison; then, suddenly: "Hullo! Who's
that?"

Across the lawn, coming through the row of maples from the direction of
the wagon track, appeared two figures.

"Dat's who," said the Flopper, after gazing an instant. "It's Helena an'
Thornton."

"So it is," agreed Madison. "Get behind the trellis here then--it
wouldn't do for him to see me out here at this time of night."

They rose noiselessly from the bench, and slipped quickly behind the
trellis. Toward them, walking slowly came the two figures, Helena
leaning on Thornton's arm. Thornton was talking, but in too low a tone
to be overheard. Then a silence appeared to fall between the two, and it
was not until they reached the porch, close to Madison and the Flopper,
that either spoke again.

Then Thornton held out his hand.

"Good-night, Miss Vail--and good-by temporarily," he said. "I suppose I
shall be gone four or five days; I'm going up on the morning train, you
know. I wish you'd go as often as you can to see Naida in the car while
I'm away--will you? Her condition worries me, though she insists that
she is completely cured, and she will not listen to any advice. I have
an idea that she has overtaxed herself--apart from her hip disease, her
heart was in a very critical state. You'll go to her, won't you?"

"Yes," said Helena, "of course, I will."

Their voices dropped lower, and for a moment only a murmur reached
Madison; and then, with another "Good-night, Miss Vail," Thornton
started back across the lawn.

Madison could hear Helena fumbling with the door latch, and by the time
she had succeeded in opening the door the retreating figure of Thornton
was a safe distance away. Madison called in a whisper:

"Here, Helena! Wait a minute!"

There was a quick, startled little exclamation from the doorway, and
Helena came out hurriedly from the porch.

"Who's there?" she cried in a low voice. "Oh"--as they stepped into
view--"you, Doc, and the Flopper! What were you doing behind that
trellis?"

"Keeping out of Thornton's road," said Madison. "So he's going away, eh?
What for?"

"Business," replied Helena. "Has to go to some meeting in Chicago--he's
leaving his wife and the private car here. What did you come at this
hour for?"

"Lines for the next act," said Madison; "but the Flopper's got it all,
and he'll put you on." He stepped toward Helena and slipped his arm
around her waist. "Come on, it's early yet, let's go for a little walk.
The Flopper'll excuse us, and I--"

"I thought you said," Helena interrupted, disengaging herself quietly,
"that we had to play the game to the limit and take no chances."

"Well, so I did," admitted Madison, and his arm crept around her again;
"but I guess we've earned a little holiday and--"

"'Nix on that,' I think was what you said," said Helena with a queer
little laugh, drawing away again. "And I really think you were right,
Doc--we ought to play the game without breaking the rules, and
so--good-night"--and she turned and ran from him into the cottage.

Madison stared after her in a sort of helpless state of chagrin.

"Mabbe," said the Flopper, "mabbe she's lonely."

--XV--

A MIRACLE OVERDONE

Helena sat in the Patriarch's room, and her piquant little face was
pursed up into a scowl so daintily grim as to be almost ludicrous. The
Patriarch, in his armchair, had been scrawling words upon the slate all
evening--and she had been wiping them off! He scrawled another now--and
mechanically, without looking at it, by way of answer she pressed his
arm to appease him.

She had been restless all day, and she was restless now. What had
induced her to treat Madison the way she had the night before? Pique,
probably. No; it wasn't pique. It was just getting back at him--and he
deserved it. He hadn't seemed to mind it much, though--he had only
laughed and teased her about it that morning when he had joined the
Patriarch and herself in their walk along the beach.

With her chin in her hands, she began to study the Patriarch through
half closed eyes--deaf and dumb and blind--and somehow it all seemed
excruciatingly funny and she wanted to laugh hysterically. He seemed to
sense the fact that she was looking at him, and, with quick, instant
intuition, he smiled and reached out his hand toward her.

Unconsciously, involuntarily, she drew back--then, recovering herself
the next instant, she took his hand. Now, why had she done that? What
was the matter with her? Again she felt that sudden impulse to scream,
or laugh, or shout, or make some noise--it seemed as though she were
penned in, smothered somehow, imprisoned. What _was_ the matter? Nerves?
She had never known what nerves were in all her life! Couldn't she play
the game and act her part without making a fool of herself? She had
played a part all her life, hadn't she? Maybe it was quite a shock to
her system to take a place amongst really good and simple folk!

She laughed a little shortly--then rose abruptly from her chair, and
began to walk up and down the room. The trouble was that the soft pedal
was getting unbearable. That air of awed hush and solemnity, morning,
noon and night, without anything to relieve it, was just a trifle too
drastic and sudden a change in life for her to accept calmly and swallow
in one dose without feeling any effects from it! If she could be
transported now for an hour, say, to the Roost, or Heligman's and the
turkey trot, or the Rivoli, or any old place--except Needley, Maine!

"Gee!" said Helena to herself. "If I don't break loose and kick the
traces over for a minute or two, I'll be clawing the bars of a dippy
asylum before I'm through--and just listen to the sweet, girlish
language I'm using--I'd like to bite something!"

She turned impulsively to the door, stepped out into the hall, and
called the Flopper from his room.

"Flopper, you go in there and stay with the Patriarch for awhile," she
ordered curtly. "I'm going down on the beach to yell."

"Yell?" inquired the Flopper, blinking helplessly.

"I'm going outside to yell--_yell._ You know what 'yell' means, don't
you?" she snapped.

"Swipe me!" observed the Flopper, gazing at her anxiously. "Skirts is
all de same--youse never know wot dey'll do next. Wot you wanter yell
fer?"

"You mind your own business and do as you're told!" said Helena tartly.
"Go in there and stay with the Patriarch."

"Sure," said the Flopper, grinning a little now. "Sure t'ing--but youse
needn't get on yer ear about it. Cheer up, mabbe de Doc'll be out
to-night, an' if he don't hear youse yellin' himself will I tell him
youse are out on de beach t'rowin' a fit?"

"No," Helena answered sharply; "tell him nothing--I'm out." Then, quite
as quickly, changing her mind: "Yes; tell him I'm down there--or come
and get me yourself"--and she walked abruptly into her own room.

"Now wot do youse t'ink of dat?" demanded the Flopper of the universe.
He blinked at the door she had closed in his face. "Say," he asserted,
with sublime inconsistency, "if Mamie Rodgers was like all de rest of
dem, I'd t'row up me dukes before de gong rang." The Flopper went into
the Patriarch's room, and took the chair beside the other that Helena
had vacated. "Swipe me, if I wouldn't!" he added fervently, by way of
confirmation.

Helena, in her own room, opened one of her trunks, lifted out the tray,
worked somewhat impatiently down through several layers of yellow,
paper-covered literature, that would have made the classics on the
Patriarch's bookshelves shrivel up and draw their skirts hurriedly
around them in righteous horror could they but have known or been
capable of such intensely human characteristics, and finally produced a
daintily jewelled little cigarette case and match box. She slammed the
tray back, slammed the cover of the trunk down, snatched up a wrap,
flung it over her head and shoulders--and left the cottage.

She ran down to the beach at top speed, as if she couldn't get there
fast enough.

"And now I'm just going to yell and go crazy as much as ever I like!"
panted Helena to the rollers.

Instead, she sat down with her back to a rock, and opened her cigarette
case. She took out a cigarette, extracted a match from the match box,
lighted the match--and flung both cigarette and match from her.

"I don't want to be crazy--I don't know what I want," said Helena
petulantly. Her chin went into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed at
the breaking surf. "I wonder what it all means?" she murmured, with a
mirthless little laugh.

Her thoughts began to run riot. What _did_ it all mean? What was this
faith? There was, there _must_ be something in it. There was the Holmes
boy--suppose it _was_ only some nervous disorder--well, something had
risen superior to whatever it was and had _cured_ him. There was Naida
Thornton--true, she was ill again--her heart, Mr. Thornton had said--but
she could still walk, a thing she had not been able to do for a long
time until she came to Needley.

Helena laughed again--oh, it was a good game! The Doc had made no
mistake about that--but then, when it came to planting anything the Doc
rarely did make a mistake. Fancy fifty thousand dollars in one haul!
_Fifty thousand in one haul!_ The bank had sent her a passbook with that
amount to her credit. And that was only the beginning--hardly anybody
had come yet, and already there was several hundred dollars more in real
money that she had handed over to Madison from the offering box.

Money! They'd have more money than they'd know what to do with before
they got through--there was nothing the matter with the game--all there
was to do was to play it to a finish. And there wasn't the slightest
risk about it--everything was given voluntarily. Oh, the game was all
right--but somehow she wasn't happy--not nearly so happy as she had
been in New York, even in lean periods when she and the Doc had been
pressed for money. But, anyway, then they had been together, and fought,
and laughed, and loved, and quarrelled through flush times and bad.

Maybe that was it! The Doc! Of course, she loved him--she had loved him
ever since she had known him. There was no secret about that--she loved
him fiercely, passionately, more than she loved anything else in the
world, with all the love she was capable of--more than he loved her--he
seemed to accept her, too often, so casually, so indifferently, so much
as a matter of course. He was so confidently and complacently sure of
her--and she was not at all sure of him. She was only sure that he was
quite right in being sure--she couldn't help loving him if she tried.

She had hardly seen anything of him since that night in the Roost before
he had left for Needley--and he hadn't seemed to care much whether she
did or not. That talk about playing the game and taking no chances was
all bosh--there had been plenty of chances where it wouldn't have hurt
the game any. Perhaps the little jolt she had given him last night,
turning the tables a little, would wake him up a bit. Perhaps, as the
Flopper had said, he would come out to-night, and--

"Helena! Helena!"

Helena sat suddenly upright--the noise of the surf muffled the sound of
the voice, but that was probably Doc now--she could hear footsteps
running from the direction of the cottage. Deliberately, Helena leaned
back again against the rock, took out a cigarette and with no attempt to
shade the flame of the match, rather to use it as a challenging beacon,
held it to the cigarette--but for the second time she flung both match
and cigarette hurriedly away. It wasn't Madison at all--it was only the
Flopper.

"Say!" gasped the Flopper, blowing hard. "Why can't youse answer when
yer called? Wot you tryin' ter do--light a bonfire ter save yer voice?
Say, youse wanter get a wiggle on--beat it--quick! Dey're after you."

"What?" cried Helena sharply, jumping to her feet. "After me? Who? What
do you mean?"

"I dunno," said the Flopper with sudden imperturbability--and evidently
quite pleased with the agitation he had caused. "He talks like his mouth
was full, an' he's got a scare t'rown inter him so's his teeth have got
de jiggles."

Helena caught the Flopper's arm and shook him angrily.

"What are you talking about--what is it?" she demanded fiercely.

"It's de porter from de private car," said the Flopper, wriggling away
from her. "He drove out here. De lady's on de toboggan--sick. She's
askin' fer youse an'--"

Helena waited for no more. She raced to the cottage and around to the
front. A wagon was standing before the porch; the negro porter on the
seat.

"What is it, Sam?" she called anxiously, as she came up. "Is Mrs.
Thornton seriously ill?"

"Yas--yas'um, miss," Sam answered excitedly. "I done feel in mah bones
she's gwine to die. Miss Harvey she done tole me to get a team an' drive
foh you-all like de debbil."

Without waste of words, Helena clambered in beside him.

"Then drive," she said shortly. "Drive as fast as you can."

At first, as they drove along, Helena plied Sam with questions--and then
lapsed into silence. The man did not know very much--only that Mrs.
Thornton had been taken suddenly ill, and that the nurse had sent him on
the errand that had brought him to the cottage. A turmoil of conflicting
emotions filled Helena's mind, obtruding upon her anxiety, for she had
grown to care a great deal for Naida Thornton--this was a complication
that Doc Madison must know about--Thornton had left that morning and was
already far away--the newspaper men, or some of them at least, were
still in the town--and there were so many things else--they all came
crowding upon her, as she clung to her seat in the jolting wagon. But
Doc must know--that rose a paramount consideration. It seemed an age, an
eternity before they stopped finally at the station.

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