Free The Heart Remembers by Peggy Gaddis Page B

Kimbrough.”
    â€œWell, now, I’m plumb glad you’ve a right to the name you are using.”
    â€œIt’s the way Mother wanted it.”
    â€œO’ course—I can see that. Poor Callie. And poor Hastings! I liked ’em both a whole lot.”
    â€œThanks, Aunt Hettie.”
    â€œShelley honey, ‘course I know how you feel about wantin’ to clear your paw’s name and all that, but it looks to me like you’re makin’ yourself miserable and maybe runnin’ a dangerous risk stirring up things that had better be let lay,” said Aunt Hettie gravely. “Most folks ’cept right around here in Harbour Pines has most likely forgot the whole story. And most o’ them that remembers feels like Hastings got a mighty raw deal. After all, what good can it do now, after fifteen years, to open it all up again?”
    â€œI promised Mother,” said Shelley stubbornly.
    Aunt Hettie sighed and yielded.
    â€œWell, I reckon it’s no use me sayin’ any more, Shelley. Except, o’ course, I’ll do anything I can to help you any way I can.”
    â€œThanks, Aunt Hettie—you’re sweet.”
    â€œAw, shucks,” said Aunt Hettie, greatly embarrassed.

Chapter Seven
    The first issue of the
Harbour Pines Journal
was received with polite interest by the people in the little town and those on farms in the surrounding section.
    People dropped in to bring “an item” of local gossip; to place a classified ad; to pay for a year’s subscription, often with a couple of dozen fresh eggs, a piece of home-cured meat, a sack of potatoes, or even with home-canned fruits and vegetables. Very rarely the subscriptions were paid for in cash, carefully counted out from painfully flat purses. But Shelley accepted the subscriptions gravely and courteously, whether they were paid for in cash or in produce.
    â€œMaybe we should go in the wholesale grocery business,” said Philip mildly one day, thoughtfully observing the shelves back of Shelley’s battered desk, that held cans and neatly labeled glass jars.
    â€œOh, well, we can’t expect to put the paper on a cash paying basis right away,” Shelley answeredlightly. “And after all, we
do
have to eat.”
    â€œOh, sure, sure,” Philip agreed, and looked at her with an odd intentness. “See here, Boss Lady, I don’t really need as much salary as you are paying me. After all. I sleep and eat here at the shop, and the Tavern’s prices aren’t unreasonable. Suppose, until business picks up—in cash—we shave the salary a little.”
    â€œThanks, Phil, that’s sweet of you. But don’t worry. I have enough cash to tide us over for at least a year,” Shelley told him impulsively.
    Philip’s eyes narrowed.
    â€œOh, then the
Harbour Pines Journal
is just a rich gal’s plaything.”
    â€œIt’s nothing of the sort. It’s just that I have a little money in reserve, because even I wasn’t stupid enough to expect to make a living off the paper right away.”
    â€œSure, sure,” Phil agreed, but there was obviously something else on his mind. Shelley waited expectantly, a little tense.
    But after a moment he made a little gesture as though he had changed his mind about saying any more and turned back to the printing job he was doing. “Throw-aways” for the New York Department Store that had, in a rash moment of reckless extravagance, appropriated twenty-five dollars in cash to advertise its Spring Clearance Sale.
    Shelley watched Philip’s bent head for a long moment, wondering about him. He was always good-humored, agreeable, but completely uncommunicative. Who he was; where he came from; what lay in his past were very obviously things he had no intention of revealing to anybody.
    She sighed and admitted honestly that Philip had quite as much right to his secrets as she had to hers. Though since she had