Only Alma had lived--Alma, the last born. The other five, one after another, had slipped from loving, clinging arms into the great Silence, leaving worse than a silence behind them; and neither Nathan Kelsey nor his wife Mary could have told you which hurt the more,--the saying of a last good-bye to a stalwart, grown lad of twenty, or the folding of tiny, waxen hands over a heart that had not counted a year of beating. Yet both had fallen to their lot.
As for Alma--Alma carried in her dainty self all the love, hopes, tenderness, ambitions, and prayers that otherwise would have been bestowed upon six. And Alma was coming home.
“Mary,” said Nathan one June evening, as he and his wife sat on the back porch, “I saw Jim Hopkins ter-day. Katy’s got home.”
“Hm-m,”--the low rocker swayed gently to and fro,--“Katy’s been ter college, same as Alma, ye know.”
“Yes; an’--an’ that’s what Jim was talkin’ ‘bout He was feelin’ bad-powerful bad.”
“Bad!”--the rocker stopped abruptly. “Why, Nathan!”
“Yes; he--” There was a pause, then the words came with the rush of desperation. “He said home wan’t like home no more. That Katy was as good as gold, an’ they was proud of her; but she was turrible upsettin’. Jim has ter rig up nights now ter eat supper--put on his coat an’ a b’iled collar; an’ he says he’s got so he don’t dast ter open his head. They’re all so, too--Mis’ Hopkins, an’ Sue, an’ Aunt Jane--don’t none of ’em dast ter speak.”
“Why, Nathan!--why not?”
“‘Cause of--Katy. Jim says there don’t nothin’ they say suit Katy--’bout its wordin’, I mean. She changes it an’ tells ’em what they’d orter said.”
“Why, the saucy little baggage!”--the rocker resumed its swaying, and Mary Kelsey’s foot came down on the porch floor with decided, rhythmic pats.
The man stirred restlessly.
“But she ain’t sassy, Mary,” he demurred. “Jim says Katy’s that sweet an’ pleasant about it that ye can’t do nothin’. She tells ’em she’s kerrectin’ ’em fur their own good, an’ that they need culturin’. An’ Jim says she spends all o’ meal-time tellin’ ’bout the things on the table,--salt, an’ where folks git it, an’ pepper, an’ tumblers, an’ how folks make ’em. He says at first ‘twas kind o’ nice an’ he liked ter hear it; but now, seems as if he hain’t got no appetite left ev’ry time he sets down ter the table. He don’t relish eatin’ such big words an’ queer names.
“An’ that ain’t all,” resumed Nathan, after a pause for breath. “Jim can’t go hoein’ nor diggin’ but she’ll foller him an’ tell ’bout the bugs an’ worms he turns up,--how many legs they’ve got, an’ all that. An’ the moon ain’t jest a moon no more, an’ the stars ain’t stars. They’re sp’eres an’ planets with heathenish names an’ rings an’ orbits. Jim feels bad--powerful bad--’bout it, an’ he says he can’t see no way out of it. He knows they hain’t had much schooling any of ’em, only Katy, an’ he says that sometimes he ’most wishes that--that she hadn’t, neither.”
Nathan Kelsey’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and with the last words his eyes sent a furtive glance toward the stoop-shouldered little figure in the low rocker. The chair was motionless now, and its occupant sat picking at a loose thread in the gingham apron.
“I--I wouldn’t ‘a’ spoke of it,” stammered the man, with painful hesitation, “only--well, ye see, I--you-” he stopped helplessly.
“I know,” faltered the little woman. “You was thinkin’ of--Alma.”
“She wouldn’t do it--Alma wouldn’t!” retorted the man sharply, almost before his wife had ceased speaking.
“No, no, of course not; but--Nathan, yedon’tthink Alma’d ever be--ashamedof us, do ye?”
“’Course not!” asserted Nathan, but his voice shook. “Don’t ye worry, Mary,” he comforted. “Alma ain’t a-goin’ ter do no kerrectin’ of us.”
“Nathan, I--I think that’s ‘co-rectin’,’” suggested the woman, a little breathlessly.
The man turned and gazed at his wife without speaking. Then his jaw fell.
“Well, by sugar, Mary!Youain’t a-goin’ ter begin it, be ye?” he demanded.
“Why, no, ‘course not!” she laughed confusedly. “An’--an’ Alma wouldn’t.”
“’Course Alma wouldn’t,” echoed her husband. “Come, it’s time ter shut up the house.”
The date of Alma’s expected arrival was yet a week ahead.
As the days passed, there came a curious restlessness to the movements of both Nathan and his wife. It was on the last night of that week of waiting that Mrs. Kelsey spoke.
“Nathan,” she began, with forced courage, “I’ve been over to Mis’ Hopkins’s--an’ asked her what special things ’twas that Katy set such store by. I thought mebbe if we knew ’em beforehand, an’ could do ’em, an’--”
“That’s jest what I asked Jim ter-day, Mary,” cut in Nathan excitedly.
“Nathan, you didn’t, now! Oh, I’m so glad! An’ we’ll do ’em, won’t we?-- jest ter please her?”
“’Course we will!”
“Ye see it’s four years since she was here, Nathan, what with her teachin’ summers.”
“Sugar, now! Is it? It hain’t seemed so long.”
“Nathan,” interposed Mrs. Kelsey, anxiously, “I think that ‘hain’t’ ain’t--I meanaren’tright. I think you’d orter say, ’It haven’t seemed so long.’”
The man frowned, and made an impatient gesture.
“Yes, yes, I know,” soothed his wife; “but,--well, we might jest as well begin now an’ git used to it. Mis’ Hopkins said that them two words, ‘hain’t an’ ’ain’t, was what Katy hated most of anythin’.”
“Yes; Jim mentioned ’em, too,” acknowledged Nathan gloomily. “But he said that even them wan’t half so bad as his riggin’ up nights. He said that Katy said that after the ‘toil of the day’ they must ’don fresh garments an’ come ter the evenin’ meal with minds an’ bodies refreshed.’”
“Yes; an’, Nathan, ain’t my black silk--”
“Ahem! I’m a-thinkin’ it wa’n’t me that said ‘ain’t’ that time,” interposed Nathan.
“Dear, dear, Nathan!--did I? Oh, dear, whatwillAlma say?”
“It don’t make no diff’rence what Alma says, Mary. Don’t ye fret,” returned the man with sudden sharpness, as he rose to his feet. “I guess Alma’ll have ter take us ’bout as we be--’bout as we be.”
Yet it was Nathan who asked, just as his wife was dropping off to sleep that night:--
“Mary, is it three o’ them collars I’ve got, or four?--b’iled ones, I mean.”
At five o’clock the next afternoon Mrs. Kelsey put on the treasured black silk dress, sacred for a dozen years to church, weddings, and funerals. Nathan, warm and uncomfortable in his Sunday suit and stiff collar, had long since driven to the station for Alma. The house, brushed and scrubbed into a state of speckless order, was thrown wide open to welcome the returning daughter. At a quarter before six she came.
“Mother, you darling!” cried a voice, and Mrs. Kelsey found herself in the clasp of strong young arms, and gazing into a flushed, eager face. “Don’t you look good! And doesn’t everything look good!” finished the girl.
“Does it--I mean,doit?” quavered the little woman excitedly. “Oh, Alma, Iamglad ter see ye!”
Behind Alma’s back Nathan flicked a bit of dust from his coat. The next instant he raised a furtive hand and gave his collar and neckband a savage pull.
At the supper-table that night ten minutes of eager questioning on the part of Alma had gone by before Mrs. Kelsey realized that thus far their conversation had been of nothing more important than Nathan’s rheumatism, her own health, and the welfare of Rover, Tabby, and the mare Topsy. Commensurate with the happiness that had been hers during those ten minutes came now her remorse. She hastened to make amends.
“There, there, Alma, I beg yer pardon, I’m sure. I hain’t--er--Ihaven’tmeant ter keep ye talkin’ on such triflin’ things, dear. Now talk ter us yer self. Tell us about things--anythin’--anythin’ on the table or in the room,” she finished feverishly.
For a moment the merry-faced girl stared in frank amazement at her mother; then she laughed gleefully.
“On the table? In the room?” she retorted. “Well, it’s the dearest room ever, and looks so good to me! As for the table--the rolls are feathers, the coffee is nectar, and the strawberries--well, the strawberries are just strawberries--they couldn’t be nicer.”
“Oh, Alma, but I didn’t mean----”
“Tut, tut, tut!” interrupted Alma laughingly. “Just as if the cook didn’t like her handiwork praised! Why, when I draw a picture--oh, and I haven’t told you!” she broke off excitedly. The next instant she was on her feet. “Alma Mead Kelsey, Illustrator; at your service,” she announced with a low bow. Then she dropped into her seat again and went on speaking.
“You see, I’ve been doing this sort of thing for some time,” she explained, “and have had some success in selling. My teacher has always encouraged me, and, acting on his advice, I stayed over in New York a week with a friend, and took some of my work to the big publishing houses. That’s why I didn’t get here as soon as Kate Hopkins did. I hated to put off my coming; but now I’m so glad I did. Only think! I sold every single thing, and I have orders and orders ahead.”
“Well, by sugar!” ejaculated the man at the head of the table.
“Oh-h-h!” breathed the little woman opposite. “Oh, Alma, I’m so glad!”
In spite of Mrs. Kelsey’s protests that night after supper, Alma tripped about the kitchen and pantry wiping the dishes and putting them away. At dusk father, mother, and daughter seated themselves on the back porch.
“There!” sighed Alma. “Isn’t this restful? And isn’t that moon glorious?”
Mrs. Kelsey shot a quick look at her husband; then she cleared her throat nervously.
“Er--yes,” she assented. “I--I s’pose you know what it’s made of, an’ how big ‘tis, an’--an’ what there is on it, don’t ye, Alma?”
Alma raised her eyebrows.
“Hm-m; well, there are still a few points that I and the astronomers haven’t quite settled,” she returned, with a whimsical smile.
“An’ the stars, they’ve got names, I s’pose--every one of ’em,” proceeded Mrs. Kelsey, so intent on her own part that Alma’s reply passed unnoticed.
Alma laughed; then she assumed an attitude of mock rapture, and quoted:
“’Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,Fain would I fathom thy nature specific;Loftily poised in ether capacious,Strongly resembling the gem carbonaceous.’”
There was a long silence. Alma’s eyes were on the flying clouds.
“Would--would you mind saying that again, Alma?” asked Mrs. Kelsey at last timidly.
Alma turned with a start.
“Saying what, dearie?--oh, that nonsensical verse? Of course not! That’s only another way of saying ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ Means just the same, only uses up a few more letters to make the words. Listen.” And she repeated the two, line for line.
“Oh!” said her mother faintly. “Er--thank you.”
“I--I guess I’ll go to bed,” announced Nathan Kelsey suddenly.
The next morning Alma’s pleadings were in vain. Mrs. Kelsey insisted that Alma should go about her sketching, leaving the housework for her own hands to perform. With a laughing protest and a playful pout, Alma tucked her sketchbook under her arm and left the house to go down by the river. In the field she came upon her father.
“Hard at work, dad?” she called affectionately. “Old Mother Earth won’t yield her increase without just so much labor, will she?”
“That she won’t,” laughed the man. Then he flushed a quick red and set a light foot on a crawling thing of many legs which had emerged from beneath an overturned stone.
“Oh!” cried Alma. “Your foot, father--your’re crushing something!”
The flush grew deeper.
“Oh, I guess not,” rejoined the man, lifting his foot, and giving a curiously resigned sigh as he sent an apprehensive glance into the girl’s face.
“Dear, dear! isn’t he funny?” murmured the girl, bending low and giving a gentle poke with the pencil in her hand. “Only fancy,” she added, straightening herself, “only fancy if we had so many feet. Just picture the size of our shoe bill!” And she laughed and turned away.
“Well, by gum!” ejaculated the man, looking after her. Then he fell to work, and his whistle, as he worked, carried something of the song of a bird set free from a cage.
A week passed.
The days were spent by Alma in roaming the woods and fields, pencil and paper in hand; they were spent by her mother in the hot kitchen over a hotter stove. To Alma’s protests and pleadings Mrs. Kelsey was deaf. Alma’s place was not there, her work was not housework, declared Alma’s mother.
On Mrs. Kelsey the strain was beginning to tell. It was not the work alone--though that was no light matter, owing to her anxiety that Alma’s pleasure and comfort should find nothing wanting--it was more than the work.
Every night at six the anxious little woman, flushed from biscuit-baking and chicken-broiling and almost sick with fatigue, got out the black silk gown and the white lace collar and put them on with trembling hands. Thus robed in state she descended to the supper-table, there to confront her husband still more miserable in the stiff collar and black coat.
Nor yet was this all. Neither the work nor the black silk dress contained for Mrs. Kelsey quite the possibilities of soul torture that were to be found in the words that fell from her lips. As the days passed, the task the little woman had set for herself became more and more hopeless, until she scarcely could bring herself to speak at all, so stumbling and halting were her sentences.
At the end of the eighth day came the culmination of it all. Alma, her nose sniffing the air, ran into the kitchen that night to find no one in the room, and the biscuits burning in the oven. She removed the biscuits, threw wide the doors and windows, then hurried upstairs to her mother’s room.
“Why, mother!”
Mrs. Kelsey stood before the glass, a deep flush on her cheeks and tears rolling down her face. Two trembling hands struggled with the lace at her throat until the sharp point of a pin found her thumb and left a tiny crimson stain on the spotlessness of the collar. It was then that Mrs. Kelsey covered her face with her hands and sank into the low chair by the bed.
“Why, mother!” cried Alma again, hurrying across the room and dropping on her knees at her mother’s side.
“I can’t, Alma, I can’t!” moaned the woman. “I’ve tried an’ tried; but I’ve got ter give up, I’ve got ter give up.”
“Can’t what, dearie?--give up what?” demanded Alma.
Mrs. Kelsey shook her head. Then she dropped her hands and looked fearfully into her daughter’s face.
“An’ yer father, too, Alma--he’s tried, an’ he can’t,” she choked.
“Tried what? Whatdoyou mean?”
With her eyes on Alma’s troubled, amazed face, Mrs. Kelsey made one last effort to gain her lost position. She raised her shaking hands to her throat and fumbled for the pin and the collar.
“There, there, dear, don’t fret,” she stammered. “I didn’t think what I was sayin’. It ain’t nothin’--I mean, itaren’tnothin’--itamnot--oh-h!” she sobbed; “there, ye see, Alma, I can’t, I can’t. It ain’t no more use ter try!” Down went the gray head on Alma’s strong young shoulder.
“There, there, dear, cry away,” comforted Alma, with loving pats. “It will do you good; then we’ll hear what this is all about, from the very beginning.”
And Mrs. Kelsey told her--and from the very beginning. When the telling was over, and the little woman, a bit breathless and frightened, sat awaiting what Alma would say, there came a long silence.
Alma’s lips were close shut. Alma was not quite sure, if she opened them, whether there would come a laugh or a sob. The laugh was uppermost and almost parted the firm-set lips, when a side glance at the quivering face of the little woman in the big chair turned the laugh into a half-stifled sob. Then Alma spoke.
“Mother, dear, listen. Do you think a silk dress and a stiff collar can make you and father any dearer to me? Do you think an ‘ain’t’ or a ‘hain’t’ can make me love either of you any less? Do you suppose I expect you, after fifty years’ service for others, to be as careful in your ways and words as if you’d spent those fifty years in training yourself instead of in training six children? Why, mother, dear, do you suppose that I don’t know that for twenty of those years you have had no thoughts, no prayers, save for me?--that I have been the very apple of your eye? Well, it’s my turn, now, and you are the apple of my eye--you and father. Why, dearie, you have no idea of the plans I have for you. There’s a good strong woman coming next week for the kitchen work. Oh, it’s all right,” assured Alma, quickly, in response to the look on her mother’s face. “Why, I’m rich! Only think of those orders! And then you shall dress in silk or velvet, or calico--anything you like, so long as it doesn’t scratch nor prick,” she added merrily, bending forward and fastening the lace collar. “And you shall----”
“Ma-ry?” It was Nathan at the foot of the back stairway.
“Yes, Nathan.”
“Ain’t it ’most supper-time?”
“Bless my soul!” cried Mrs. Kelsey, springing to her feet.
“An’, Mary----”
“Yes.”
“Hain’t I got a collar--a b’iled one, on the bureau up there?”
“No,” called Alma, snatching up the collar and throwing it on the bed. “There isn’t a sign of one there. Suppose you let it go to-night, dad?”
“Well, if you don’t mind!” And a very audible sigh of relief floated up the back stairway.
John was expected on the five o’clock stage. Mrs. John had been there three days now, and John’s father and mother were almost packed up--so Mrs. John said. The auction would be to-morrow at nine o’clock, and with John there to see that things “hustled”--which last was really unnecessary to mention, for John’s very presence meant “hustle”--with John there, then, the whole thing ought to be over by one o’clock, and they off in season to ’catch the afternoon express.
And what a time it had been--those three days!
Mrs. John, resting in the big chair on the front porch, thought of those days with complacency--that they were over. Grandpa and Grandma Burton, hovering over old treasures in the attic, thought of them with terrified dismay--that they had ever begun.
I am coming up on Tuesday [Mrs. John had written]. We have been thinking for some time that you and father ought not to be left alone up there on the farm any longer. Now don’t worry about the packing. I shall bring Marie, and you won’t have to lift your finger. John will come Thursday night, and be there for the auction on Friday. By that time we shall have picked out what is worth saving, and everything will be ready for him to take matters in hand. I think he has already written to the auctioneer, so tell father to give himself no uneasiness on that score.
John says he thinks we can have you back here with us by Friday night, or Saturday at the latest. You know John’s way, so you may be sure there will be no tiresome delay. Your rooms here will be all ready before I leave, so that part will be all right.
This may seem a bit sudden to you, but you know we have always told you that the time was surely coming when you couldn’t live alone any longer. John thinks it has come now; and, as I said before, you know John, so, after all, you won’t be surprised at his going right ahead with things. We shall do everything possible to make you comfortable, and I am sure you will be very happy here.
Good-bye, then, until Tuesday. With love to both of you.
Edith.
That had been the beginning. To Grandpa and Grandma Burton it had come like a thunderclap on a clear day. They had known, to be sure, that son John frowned a little at their lonely life; but that there should come this sudden transplanting, this ruthless twisting and tearing up of roots that for sixty years had been burrowing deeper and deeper--it was almost beyond one’s comprehension.
And there was the auction!
“We shan’t need that, anyway,” Grandma Burton had said at once. “What few things we don’t want to keep I shall give away. An auction, indeed! Pray, what have we to sell?”
“Hm-m! To be sure, to be sure,” her husband had murmured; but his face was troubled, and later he had said, apologetically: “You see, Hannah, there’s the farm things. We don’t need them.”
On Tuesday night Mrs. John and the somewhat awesome Maria--to whom Grandpa and Grandma Burton never could learn not to curtsy--arrived; and almost at once Grandma Burton discovered that not only “farm things,” but such precious treasures as the hair wreath and the parlor--set were auctionable. In fact, everything the house contained, except their clothing and a few crayon portraits, seemed to be in the same category.
“But, mother, dear,” Mrs. John had returned, with a laugh, in response to Grandma Burton’s horrified remonstrances, “just wait until you see your rooms, and how full they are of beautiful things, and then you’ll understand.”
“But they won’t be--these,” the old voice had quavered.
And Mrs. John had laughed again, and had patted her mother-in-law’s cheek, and had echoed-but with a different shade of meaning--“No, they certainly won’t be these!”
In the attic now, on a worn black trunk, sat the little old man, and down on the floor before an antiquated cradle knelt his wife.
“They was all rocked in it, Seth,” she was saying,--“John and the twins and my two little girls; and now there ain’t any one left only John--and the cradle.”
“I know, Hannah, but you ain’tusin’that nowadays, so you don’t really need it,” comforted the old man. “But there’s my big chair now-- seems as though we jest oughter take that. Why, there ain’t a day goes by that I don’t set in it!”
“But John’s wife says there’s better ones there, Seth,” soothed the old woman in her turn, “as much as four or five of ’em right in our rooms.”
“So she did, so she did!” murmured the man. “I’m an ongrateful thing; so I be.” There was a long pause. The old man drummed with his fingers on the trunk and watched a cloud sail across the skylight. The woman gently swung the cradle to and fro. “If only they wan’t goin’ ter be--sold!” she choked, after a time. “I like ter know that they’re where I can look at ’em, an’ feel of ’em, an’--an’ remember things. Now there’s them quilts with all my dress pieces in ’em--a piece of most every dress I’ve had since I was a girl; an’ there’s that hair wreath--seems as if I jest couldn’t let that go, Seth. Why, there’s your hair, an’ John’s, an’ some of the twins’, an’--”
“There, there, dear; now I jest wouldn’t fret,” cut in the old man quickly. “Like enough when you get used ter them other things on the wall you’ll like ’em even better than the hair wreath. John’s wife says she’s taken lots of pains an’ fixed ’em up with pictures an’ curtains an’ everythin’ nice,” went on Seth, talking very fast. “Why, Hannah, it’s you that’s bein’ ongrateful now, dear!”
“So ’tis, so ‘tis, Seth, an’ it ain’t right an’ I know it. I ain’t a-goin’ ter do so no more; now see!” And she bravely turned her back on the cradle and walked, head erect, toward the attic stairs.
John came at five o’clock. He engulfed the little old man and the little old woman in a bearlike hug, and breezily demanded what they had been doing to themselves to make them look so forlorn. In the very next breath, however, he answered his own question, and declared it was because they had been living all cooped up alone so long--so it was; and that it was high time it was stopped, and that he had come to do it! Whereupon the old man and the old woman smiled bravely and told each other what a good, good son they had, to be sure!
Friday dawned clear, and not too warm--an ideal auction-day. Long before nine o’clock the yard was full of teams and the house of people. Among them all, however, there was no sign of the bent old man and the erect little old woman, the owners of the property to be sold. John and Mrs. John were not a little disturbed--they had lost their father and mother.
Nine o’clock came, and with it began the strident call of the auctioneer. Men laughed and joked over their bids, and women looked on and gossiped, adding a bid of their own now and then. Everywhere was the son of the house, and things went through with a rush. Upstairs, in the darkest corner of the attic--which had been cleared of goods--sat, hand in hand on an old packing-box, a little old man and a little old woman who winced and shrank together every time the “Going, going, gone!” floated up to them from the yard below.
At half-past one the last wagon rumbled out of the yard, and five minutes later Mrs. John gave a relieved cry.
“Oh, there you are! Why, mother, father, wherehaveyou been?”
There was no reply. The old man choked back a cough and bent to flick a bit of dust from his coat. The old woman turned and crept away, her erect little figure looking suddenly bent and old.
“Why, what--” began John, as his father, too, turned away. “Why, Edith, you don’t suppose--” He stopped with a helpless frown.
“Perfectly natural, my dear, perfectly natural,” returned Mrs. John lightly. “We’ll get them away immediately. It’ll be all right when once they are started.”
Some hours later a very tired old man and a still more tired old woman crept into a pair of sumptuous, canopy-topped twin beds. There was only one remark.
“Why, Seth, mine ain’t feathers a mite! Is yours?”
There was no reply. Tired nature had triumphed--Seth was asleep.
They made a brave fight, those two. They told themselves that the chairs were easier, the carpets softer, and the pictures prettier than those that had gone under the hammer that day as they sat hand in hand in the attic. They assured each other that the unaccustomed richness of window and bed hangings and the profusion of strange vases and statuettes did not make them afraid to stir lest they soil or break something. They insisted to each other that they were not homesick, and that they were perfectly satisfied as they were. And yet--
When no one was looking Grandpa Burton tried chair after chair, and wondered why there was only one particular chair in the whole world that just exactly “fitted;” and when the twilight hour came Grandma Burton wondered what she would give to be able just to sit by the old cradle and talk with the past.
The newspapers said it was a most marvelous escape for the whole family. They gave a detailed account of how the beautiful residence of the Honorable John Burton, with all its costly furnishings, had burned to the ground, and of how the entire family was saved, making special mention of the honorable gentleman’s aged father and mother. No one was injured, fortunately, and the family had taken up a temporary residence in the nearest hotel. It was understood that Mr. Burton would begin rebuilding at once.
The newspapers were right--Mr. Burton did begin rebuilding at once; in fact, the ashes of the Burton mansion were not cold before John Burton began to interview architects and contractors.
“It’ll be ’way ahead of the old one,” he confided to his wife enthusiastically.
Mrs. John sighed.
“I know, dear,” she began plaintively; “but, don’t you see? it won’t be the same--it can’t be. Why, some of those things we’ve had ever since we were married. They seemed a part of me, John. I was used to them. I had grown up with some of them--those candlesticks of mamma’s, for instance, that she had when I was a bit of a baby. Do you think money can buy another pair that--that werehers?” And Mrs. John burst into tears.
“Come, come, dear,” protested her husband, with a hasty caress and a nervous glance at the clock--he was due at the bank in ten minutes. “Don’t fret about what can’t be helped; besides"-and he laughed whimsically--“you must look out or you’ll be getting as bad as mother over her hair wreath!” And with another hasty pat on her shoulder he was gone.
Mrs. John suddenly stopped her crying. She lowered her handkerchief and stared fixedly at an old print on the wall opposite. The hotel--though strictly modern in cuisine and management--was an old one, and prided itself on the quaintness of its old-time furnishings. Just what the print represented Mrs. John could not have told, though her eyes did not swerve from its face for five long minutes. What she did see was a silent, dismantled farmhouse, and a little old man and a little old woman with drawn faces and dumb lips.
Was it possible? Had she, indeed, been so blind?
Mrs. John rose to her feet, bathed her eyes, straightened her neck-bow, and crossed the hall to Grandma Burton’s room.
“Well, mother, and how are you getting along?” she asked cheerily.
“Jest as nice as can be, daughter,--and ain’t this room pretty?” returned the little old woman eagerly. “Do you know, it seems kind of natural like; mebbe it’s because of that chair there. Seth says it’s almost like his at home.”
It was a good beginning, and Mrs. John made the most of it. Under her skillful guidance Grandma Burton, in less than five minutes, had gone from the chair to the old clock which her father used to wind, and from the clock to the bureau where she kept the dead twins’ little white shoes and bonnets. She told, too, of the cherished parlor chairs and marble-topped table, and of how she and father had saved and saved for years to buy them; and even now, as she talked, her voice rang with pride of possession--though only for a moment; it shook then with the remembrance of loss.
There was no complaint, it is true, no audible longing for lost treasures. There was only the unwonted joy of pouring into sympathetic ears the story of things loved and lost--things the very mention of which brought sweet faint echoes of voices long since silent.
“There, there,” broke off the little old woman at last, “how I am runnin’ on! But, somehow, somethin’ set me to talkin’ ter-day. Mebbe’t was that chair that’s like yer father’s,” she hazarded.
“Maybe it was,” agreed Mrs. John quietly, as she rose to her feet.
The new house came on apace. In a wonderfully short time John Burton began to urge his wife to see about rugs and hangings. It was then that Mrs. John called him to one side and said a few hurried but very earnest words--words that made the Honorable John open wide his eyes.
“But, Edith,” he remonstrated, “are you crazy? It simply couldn’t be done! The things are scattered over half a dozen townships; besides, I haven’t the least idea where the auctioneer’s list is--if I saved it at all.”
“Never mind, dear; I may try, surely,” begged Mrs. John. And her husband laughed and reached for his check-book.
“Try? Of course you may try! And here’s this by way of wishing you good luck,” he finished, as he handed her an oblong bit of paper that would go far toward smoothing the most difficult of ways.
“You dear!” cried Mrs. John. “And now I’m going to work.”
It was at about this time that Mrs. John went away. The children were at college and boarding-school; John was absorbed in business and house-building, and Grandpa and Grandma Burton were contented and well cared for. There really seemed to be no reason why Mrs. John should not go away, if she wished--and she apparently did wish. It was at about this time, too, that certain Vermont villages--one of which was the Honorable John Burton’s birthplace--were stirred to sudden interest and action. A persistent, smiling-faced woman had dropped into their midst--a woman who drove from house to house, and who, in every case, left behind her a sworn ally and friend, pledged to serve her cause.
Little by little, in an unused room in the village hotel there began to accumulate a motley collection--a clock, a marble-topped table, a cradle, a patchwork quilt, a bureau, a hair wreath, a chair worn with age and use. And as this collection grew in size and fame, only that family which could not add to it counted itself abused and unfortunate, so great was the spell that the persistent, smiling-faced woman had cast about her.
Just before the Burton house was finished Mrs. John came back to town. She had to hurry a little about the last of the decorations and furnishings to make up for lost time; but there came a day when the place was pronounced ready for occupancy.
It was then that Mrs. John hurried into Grandpa and Grandma Burton’s rooms at the hotel.
“Come, dears,” she said gayly. “The house is all ready, and we’re going home.”
“Done? So soon?” faltered Grandma Burton, who had not been told very much concerning the new home’s progress. “Why, how quick they have built it!”
There was a note of regret in the tremulous old voice, but Mrs. John did not seem to notice. The old man, too, rose from his chair with a long sigh--and again Mrs. John did not seem to notice.
“Yes, dearie, yes, it’s all very nice and fine,” said Grandma Burton wearily, half an hour later as she trudged through the sumptuous parlors and halls of the new house; “but, if you don’t mind, I guess I’ll go to my room, daughter. I’m tired--turrible tired.”
Up the stairs and along the hall trailed the little procession--Mrs. John, John, the bent old man, and the little old woman. At the end of the hall Mrs. John paused a moment, then flung the door wide open.
There was a gasp and a quick step forward; then came the sudden illumination of two wrinkled old faces.
“John! Edith!”--it was a cry of mingled joy and wonder.
There was no reply. Mrs. John had closed the door and left them there with their treasures.
Uncle Zeke’s pipe had gone out--sure sign that Uncle Zeke’s mind was not at rest. For five minutes the old man had occupied in frowning silence the other of my veranda rocking-chairs. As I expected, however, I had not long to wait.
“I met old Sam Hadley an’ his wife in the cemetery just now,” he observed.
“Yes?” I was careful to express just enough, and not too much, interest: one had to be circumspect with Uncle Zeke.
“Hm-m; I was thinkin’--” Uncle Zeke paused, shifted his position, and began again. This time I had the whole story.
“I was thinkin’--I don’t say that Jimmy did right, an’ I don’t say that Jimmy did wrong. Maybe you can tell. ’Twas like this:
“In a way we all claimed Jimmy Hadley. As a little fellow, he was one of them big-eyed, curly-haired chaps that gets inside your heart no matter how tough’t is. An’ we was really fond of him, too,--so fond of him that we didn’t do nothin’ but jine in when his pa an’ ma talked as if he was the only boy that ever was born, or ever would be--an’ you know we must have been purty daft ter stood that, us bein’ fathers ourselves!
“Well, as was natural, perhaps, the Hadleys jest lived fer Jimmy. They’d lost three, an’ he was all there was left. They wasn’t very well-to-do, but nothin’ was too grand fer Jimmy, and when the boy begun ter draw them little pictures of his all over the shed an’ the barn door, they was plumb crazy. There wan’t no doubt of it--Jimmy was goin’ ter be famous, they said. He was goin’ ter be one o’ them painter fellows, an’ make big money.
“An’ Jimmy did work, even then. He stood well in his studies, an’ worked outside, earnin’ money so’s he could take drawin’ lessons when he got bigger. An’ by and by he did get bigger, an’ he did take lessons down ter the Junction twice a week.
“There wan’t no livin’ with Mis’ Hadley then, she was that proud; an’ when he brought home his first picture, they say she never went ter bed at all that night, but jest set gloatin’ over it till the sun came in an’ made her kerosene lamp look as silly as she did when she saw ’twas mornin’. There was one thing that plagued her, though: ’twan’t painted-- that picture. Jimmy called it a ‘black an’ white,’ an’ said ’twan’t paintin’ that he wanted ter do, but ’lustratin’--fer books and magazines, you know. She felt hurt, an’ all put out at first: but Jimmy told her ‘twas all right, an’ that there was big money in it; so she got ’round contented again. She couldn’t help it, anyhow, with Jimmy, he was that lovin’ an’ nice with her. He was the kind that’s always bringin’ footstools and shawls, an’ makin’ folks comfortable. Everybody loved Jimmy. Even the cats an’ dogs rubbed up against him an’ wagged their tails at sight of him, an’ the kids--goodness, Jimmy couldn’t cross the street without a dozen kids makin’ a grand rush fer him.
“Well, time went on, an’ Jimmy grew tall an’ good lookin’. Then came the girl--an’ shewasa girl, too. ‘Course, Jimmy, bein’ as how he’d had all the frostin’ there was goin’ on everythin’ so fur, carried out the same idea in girls, an’ picked out the purtiest one he could find-- rich old Townsend’s daughter, Bessie.
“To the Hadleys this seemed all right--Jimmy was merely gettin’ the best, as usual; but the rest of us, includin’ old man Townsend, begun ter sit up an’ take notice. The old man was mad clean through. He had other plans fer Bessie, an’ he said so purty plain.”
“But it seems there didn’t any of us--only Jimmy, maybe--take the girl herself into consideration. For a time she was a little skittish, an’ led Jimmy a purty chase with her dancin’ nearer an’ nearer, an’ then flyin’ off out of reach. But at last she came out fair an’ square fur Jimmy, an’ they was as lively a pair of lovers as ye’d wish ter see. It looked, too, as if she’d even wheedle the old man ’round ter her side of thinkin’.”
“The next thing we knew Jimmy had gone ter New York. He was ter study, an’ at the same time pick up what work he could, ter turn an honest penny, the Hadleys said. We liked that in him. He was goin’ ter make somethin’ of himself, so’s he’d be worthy of Bessie Townsend or any other girl.”
“But’t was hard on the Hadleys. Jimmy’s lessons cost a lot, an’ so did just livin’ there in New York, an’ ’course Jimmy couldn’t pay fer it all, though I guess he worked nights an’ Sundays ter piece out. Back home here the Hadleys scrimped an’ scrimped till they didn’t have half enough ter eat, an’ hardly enough ter cover their nakedness. But they didn’t mind--’t was fer Jimmy. He wrote often, an’ told how he was workin’, an’ the girl got letters, too; at least, Mis’ Hadley said she did. An’ once in a while he’d tell of some picture he’d finished, or what the teacher said.
“But by an’ by the letters didn’t come so often. Sam told me about it at first, an’ he said it plagued his wife a lot. He said she thought maybe Jimmy was gettin’ discouraged, specially as he didn’t seem ter say much of anything about his work now. Sam owned up that the letters wan’t so free talkin’; an’ that worried him. He was afraid the boy was keepin’ back somethin’. He asked me, kind of sheepish-like, if I s’posed such a thing could be as that Jimmy had gone wrong, somehow. He knew cities was awful wicked an’ temptin’, he said.
“I laughed him out of that notion quick, an’ I was honest in it, too. I’d have as soon suspected myself of goin’ ter the bad as Jimmy, an’ I told him so. Things didn’t look right, though. The letters got skurser an’ skurser, an’ I began ter think myself maybe somethin’ was up. Then come the newspaper.
“It was me that took it over to the Hadleys. It was a little notice in my weekly, an’ I spied it ’way down in the corner just as I thought I had the paper all read. ’Twan’t so much, but to us ’twas a powerful lot; jest a little notice that they was glad ter see that the first prize had gone ter the talented young illustrator, James Hadley, an’ that he deserved it, an’ they wished him luck.
“The Hadleys were purty pleased, you’d better believe. They hadn’t seen it, ‘course, as they wan’t wastin’ no money on weeklies them days. Sam set right down an’ wrote, an’ so did Mis’ Hadley, right out of the fullness of their hearts. Mis’ Hadley give me her letter ter read, she was that proud an’ excited; an’ ‘t was a good letter, all brimmin’ over with love an’ pride an’ joy in his success. I could see just how Jimmy’d color up an’ choke when he read it, specially where she owned up how she’d been gettin’ purty near discouraged ’cause they didn’t hear much from him, an’ how she’d rather die than have her Jimmy fail.
“Well, they sent off the letters, an’ by an’ by come the answer. It was kind of shy and stiff-like, an’ I think it sort of disappointed ’em; but they tried ter throw it off an’ say that Jimmy was so modest he didn’t like ter take praise.
“‘Course the whole town was interested, an’ proud, too, ter think he belonged ter us; an’ we couldn’t hear half enough about him. But as time went on we got worried. Things didn’t look right. The Hadleys was still scrimpin’, still sendin’ money when they could, an’ they owned up that Jimmy’s letters wan’t real satisfyin’ an’ that they didn’t come often, though they always told how hard he was workin’.
“What was queerer still, every now an’ then I’d see his name in my weekly. I looked fer it, I’ll own. I run across it once in the ‘Personals,’ an’ after that I hunted the paper all through every week. He went ter parties an’ theaters, an’ seemed ter be one of a gay crowd that was always havin’ good times. I didn’t say nothin’ ter the Hadleys about all this, ’course, but it bothered me lots. What with all these fine doin’s, an’ his not sendin’ any money home, it looked as if the old folks didn’t count much now, an’ that his head had got turned sure.
“As time passed, things got worse an’ worse. Sam lost two cows, an’ Mis’ Hadley grew thinner an’ whiter, an’ finally got down sick in her bed. Then I wrote. I told Jimmy purty plain how things was an’ what I thought of him. I told him that there wouldn’t be any more money comin’ from this direction (an’ I meant ter see that there wan’t, too!), an’ I hinted that if that ‘ere prize brought anythin’ but honor, I should think ’t would be a mighty good plan ter share it with the folks that helped him ter win it.
“It was a sharp letter, an’ when it was gone I felt ’most sorry I’d sent it; an’ when the answer come, Iwassorry. Jimmy was all broke up, an’ he showed it. He begged me ter tell him jest how his ma was; an’ if they needed anythin’, ter get it and call on him. He said he wished the prize had brought him lots of money, but it hadn’t. He enclosed twenty-five dollars, however, and said he should write the folks not ter send him any more money, as he was goin’ ter send it ter them now instead.
“Of course I took the letter an’ the money right over ter Sam, an’ after they’d got over frettin’ ’cause I’d written at all, they took the money, an’ I could see it made ’em look ten years younger. After that you couldn’t come near either of ’em that you didn’t hear how good Jimmy was an’ how he was sendin’ home money every week.
“Well, it wan’t four months before I had ter write Jimmy again. Sam asked me too, this time. Mis’ Hadley was sick again, an’ Sam was worried. He thought Jimmy ought ter come home, but he didn’t like ter say so himself. He wondered if I wouldn’t drop him a hint. So I wrote, an’ Jimmy wrote right away that he’d come.
“We was all of a twitter, ’course, then--the whole town. He’d got another prize--so the paper said--an’ there was a paragraph praisin’ up some pictures of his in the magazine. He was our Jimmy, an’ we was proud of him, yet we couldn’t help wonderin’ how he’d act. We wan’t used ter celebrities--not near to!
“Well, he came. He was taller an’ thinner than when he went away, an’ there was a tired look in his eyes that went straight ter my heart. ‘Most the whole town was out ter meet him, an’ that seemed ter bother him. He was cordial enough, in a way, but he seemed ter try ter avoid folks, an’ he asked me right off ter get him ‘out of it.’ I could see he wan’t hankerin’ ter be made a lion of, so we got away soon’s we could an’ went ter his home.
“You should have seen Mis’ Hadley’s eyes when she saw him, tall an’ straight in the doorway. And Sam--Sam cried like a baby, he was so proud of that boy. As fer Jimmy, his eyes jest shone, an’ the tired look was all gone from them when he strode across the room an’ dropped on his knees at his mother’s bedside with a kind of choking cry. I come away then, and left them.
“We was kind of divided about Jimmy, after that. We liked him, ’most all of us, but we didn’t like his ways. He was too stand-offish, an’ queer, an’ we was all mad at the way he treated the girl.
“’Twas given out that the engagement was broken, but we didn’t believe ’t was her done it, ‘cause up ter the last minute she’d been runnin’ down ter the house with posies and goodies. Thenhecame, an’ she stopped. He didn’t go there, neither, an’, so far as we knew, they hadn’t seen each other once. The whole town was put out. We didn’t relish seein’ her thrown off like an old glove, jest ’cause he was somebody out in the world now, an’ could have his pick of girls with city airs and furbelows. But we couldn’t do nothin’, ’cause he hewasgood ter his folks, an’ no mistake, an’ we did like that.
“Mis’ Hadley got better in a couple of weeks, an’ he begun ter talk of goin’ back. We wanted ter give him a banquet an’ speeches and a serenade, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it. He wouldn’t let us tell him how pleased we was at his success, either. The one thing he wouldn’t talk about was his work, an’ some got most mad, he was so modest.
“He hardly ever left the house except fer long walks, and it was on one of them that the accident happened. It was in the road right in front of the field where I was ploughing, so I saw it all. Bessie Townsend, on her little gray mare, came tearin’ down the Townsend Hill like mad.
“Jimmy had stopped ter speak ter me, at the fence, but the next minute he was off like a shot up the road. He ran an’ made a flyin’ leap, an’ I saw the mare rear and plunge. Then beast and man came down together, and I saw Bessie slide to the ground, landin’ on her feet.
“When I got there Bessie Townsend was sittin’ on the ground, with Jimmy’s head in her arms, which I thought uncommon good of her, seein’ the mortification he’d caused her. But when I saw the look in her eyes, an’ in his as he opened them an’ gazed up at her, I reckoned there might be more ter that love-story than most folks knew. What he said ter her then I don’t know, but ter me he said jest four words, ’Don’t--tell--the--folks,’ an’ I didn’t rightly understand jest then what he meant, for surely an accident like that couldn’t be kept unbeknownst. The next minute he fell back unconscious.
“It was a bad business all around, an’ from the very first there wan’t no hope. In a week ‘twas over, an’ we laid poor Jimmy away. Two days after the funeral Sam come ter me with a letter. It was addressed ter Jimmy, an’ the old man couldn’t bring himself ter open it. He wanted, too, that I should go on ter New York an’ get Jimmy’s things; an’ after I had opened the letter I said right off that I’d go. I was mad over that letter. It was a bill fer a suit of clothes, an’ it asked him purty sharplike ter pay it.
“I had some trouble in New York findin’ Jimmy’s boardin’-place. There had been a fire the night before, an’ his landlady had had ter move; but at last I found her an’ asked anxiously fer Jimmy’s things, an’ if his pictures had been hurt.
“Jimmy’s landlady was fat an’ greasy an’ foreign-lookin’, an’ she didn’t seem ter understand what I was talkin’ about till I repeated a bit sharply:--
“’Yes, his pictures. I’ve come fer ’em.’
“Then she shook her head.
“‘Meester Hadley did not have any pictures.’
“’But he must have had ’em,’ says I, ‘fer them papers an’ magazines he worked for. He made ’em!’
“She shook her head again; then she gave a queer hitch to her shoulders, and a little flourish with her hands.
“‘Oh--ze pictures! He did do them--once--a leetle: months ago.’
“‘But the prize,’ says I. ‘The prize ter James Hadley!’
“Then she laughed as if she suddenly understood.
“Oh, but it is ze grand mistake you are makin’,’ she cried, in her silly, outlandish way of talkin’. ‘There is a Meester James Hadley, an’ he does make pictures--beautiful pictures--but it is not this one. This Meester Hadley did try, long ago, but he failed to succeed, so my son said; an’ he had to--to cease. For long time he has worked for me, for the grocer, for any one who would pay--till a leetle while ago. Then he left. In ze new clothes he had bought, he went away. Ze old ones-- burned. He had nothing else.’
“She said more, but I didn’t even listen. I was back with Jimmy by the roadside, and his ‘Don’t--tell--the--folks’ was ringin’ in my ears. I understood it then, the whole thing from the beginnin’; an’ I felt dazed an’ shocked, as if some one had struck me a blow in the face. I wan’t brought up ter think lyin’ an’ deceivin’ was right.
“I got up by an’ by an’ left the house. I paid poor Jimmy’s bill fer clothes--the clothes that I knew he wore when he stood tall an’ straight in the doorway ter meet his mother’s adorin’ eyes. Then I went home.
“I told Sam that Jimmy’s things got burned up in the fire--which was the truth. I stopped there. Then I went to see the girl--an’ right there I got the surprise of my life. She knew. He had told her the whole thing long before he come home, an’ insisted on givin’ her up. Jest what he meant ter do in the end, an’ how he meant ter do it, she didn’t know; an’ she said with a great sob in her voice, that she didn’t believe he knew either. All he did know, apparently, was that he didn’t mean his ma should find out an’ grieve over it--how he had failed. But whatever he was goin’ ter do, it was taken quite out of his hands at the last.
“As fer Bessie, now,--it seems as if she can’t do enough fer Sam an’ Mis’ Hadley, she’s that good ter ’em; an’ they set the world by her. She’s got a sad, proud look to her eyes, but Jimmy’s secret is safe.
“As I said, I saw old Sam an’ his wife in the cemetery to-night. They stopped me as usual, an’ told me all over again what a good boy Jimmy was, an’ how smart he was, an’ what a lot he’d made of himself in the little time he’d lived. The Hadleys are old an’ feeble an’ broken, an’ it’s their one comfort--Jimmy’s success.”
Uncle Zeke paused, and drew a long breath. Then he eyed me almost defiantly.
“I ain’t sayin’ that Jimmy did right, of course; but I ain’t sayin’-- that Jimmy did wrong,” he finished.