“Jane!”
“Yes, father.”
“Is the house locked up?”
“Yes.”
“Are ye sure, now?”
“Why, yes, dear; I just did it.”
“Well, won’t ye see?”
“But I have seen, father.” Jane did not often make so many words about this little matter, but she was particularly tired to-night.
The old man fell back wearily.
“Seems ter me, Jane, ye might jest see,” he fretted. “’T ain’t much I’m askin’ of ye, an’ ye know them spoons--”
“Yes, yes, dear, I’ll go,” interrupted the woman hurriedly.
“And, Jane!”
“Yes.” The woman turned and waited. She knew quite well what was coming, but it was the very exquisiteness of her patient care that allowed her to give no sign that she had waited in that same spot to hear those same words every night for long years past.
“An’ ye might count ’em--them spoons,” said the old man.
“Yes.”
“An’ the forks.”
“Yes.”
“An’ them photygraph pictures in the parlor.”
“All right, father.” The woman turned away. Her step was slow, but confident--the last word had been said.
To Jane Pendergast her father had gone with the going of his keen, clear mind, twenty years before. This fretful, childish, exacting old man that pottered about the house all day was but the shell that had held the kernel--the casket that had held the jewel. But because of what it had held, Jane guarded it tenderly, laying at its feet her life as a willing sacrifice.
There had been four children: Edgar, the eldest; Jane, Mary, and Fred. Edgar had left home early, and was a successful business man in Boston. Mary had married a wealthy lawyer of the same city; and Fred had opened a real estate office in a thriving Southern town.
Jane had stayed at home. There had been a time, it is true, when she had planned to go away to school; but the death of Mrs. Pendergast left no one at home to care for Mary and Fred, so Jane had abandoned the idea. Later, after Mary had married and Fred had gone away, there was still her father to be cared for, though at this time he was well and strong.
Jane had passed her thirty-fifth birthday, when she became palpitatingly aware of a pair of blue-gray eyes, and a determined, smooth-shaven chin belonging to the recently arrived principal of the village school. In spite of her stern admonition to herself to remember her years and not quite lose her head, she was fast drifting into a rosy dream of romance that was all the more enthralling because so belated, when the summons of a small boy brought her sharply back to the realities.
“It’s yer father, miss. They want ye ter come,” he panted. “Somethin’ has took him. He’s in Mackey’s drug store, talkin’ awful queer. He ain’t his self, ye know. They thought maybe you could--do somethin’.”
Jane went at once--but she could do nothing except to lead gently home the chattering, shifting-eyed thing that had once been her father. One after another the village physicians shook their heads--they could do nothing. Skilled alienists from the city--they, too, could do nothing. There was nothing that could be done, they said, except to care for him as one would for a child. He would live years, probably. His constitution was wonderfully good. He would not be violent--just foolish and childish, with perhaps a growing irritability as the years passed and his physical strength failed.
Mary and Edgar had come home at once. Mary had stayed two days and Edgar five hours. They were shocked and dismayed at their father’s condition. So overwhelmed with grief were they, indeed, that they fled from the room almost immediately upon seeing him, and Edgar took the first train out of town.
Mary, shiveringly, crept from room to room, trying to find a place where the cackling laugh and the fretful voice would not reach her. But the old man, like a child with a new toy, was pleased at his daughter’s arrival, and followed her about the house with unfailing persistence.
“But, Mary, he won’t hurt you. Why do you run?” remonstrated Jane.
Mary shuddered and covered her face with her hands.
“Jane, Jane, how can you take it so calmly!” she moaned. “How can you bear it?”
There was a moment’s pause. A curious expression had come to Jane’s face.
“Some one--has to,” she said at last, quietly.
Jane went down to the village the next afternoon, leaving her sister in charge at home. When she returned, an hour later, Mary met her at the gate, crying and wringing her hands.
“Jane, Jane, I thought you would never come! I can’t do a thing with him. He insists that he isn’t at home, and that he wants to go there. I told him, over and over again, that hewasat home already, but it didn’t do a bit of good. I’ve had a perfectly awful time.”
“Yes, I know. Where is he?”
“In the kitchen. I--I tied him. He just would go, and I couldn’t hold him.”
“Oh,Mary!” And Jane fairly flew up the walk to the kitchen door. A minute later she appeared, leading an old man, who was whimpering pitifully.
“Home, Jane. I want ter go home.”
“Yes, dear, I know. We’ll go.” And Mary watched with wondering eyes while the two walked down the path, through the gate and across the street to the next corner, then slowly crossed again and came back through the familiar doorway.
“Home!” chuckled the old man gleefully.
“We’ve come home!”
Mary went back to Boston the next day. She said it was fortunate, indeed, that Jane’s nerves were so strong. For her part, she could not have stood it another day.
The days slipped into weeks, and the weeks into months. Jane took the entire care of her father, except that she hired a woman to come in for an hour or two once or twice a week, when she herself was obliged to leave the house.
The owner of the blue-gray eyes did not belie the determination of his chin, but made a valiant effort to establish himself on the basis of the old intimacy; but Miss Pendergast held herself sternly aloof, and refused to listen to him. In a year he had left town--but it was not his fault that he was obliged to go away alone, as Jane Pendergast well knew.
One by one the years passed. Twenty had gone by now since the small boy came with his fateful summons that June day. Jane was fifty-five now, a thin-faced, stoop-shouldered, tired woman--but a woman to whom release from this constant care was soon to come, for she was not yet fifty-six when her father died.
All the children and some of the grandchildren came to the funeral. In the evening the family, with the exception of Jane, gathered in the sitting-room and discussed the future, while upstairs the woman whose fate was most concerned laid herself wearily in bed with almost a pang that she need not now first be doubly sure that doors were locked and spoons were counted.
In the sitting-room below, discussion waxed warm.
“But what shall we do with her?” demanded Mary. “I had meant to give her my share of the property,” she added with an air of great generosity, “but it seems there’s nothing to give.”
“No, there’s nothing to give,” returned Edgar. “The house had to be mortgaged long ago to pay their living expenses, and it will have to be sold.”
“But she’s got to live somewhere!” Mary’s voice was fretful, questioning.
For a moment there was silence; then Edgar stirrad in his chair.
“Well, why can’t she go to you, Mary?” he asked.
“Me!” Mary almost screamed the word.
“Why, Edgar!--when you know how much I have on my hands with my great house and all my social duties, to say nothing of Belle’s engagement!”
“Well, maybe Jane could help.”
“Help! How, pray?--to entertain my guests?” And even Edgar smiled as he thought of Jane, in her five-year-old bonnet and her ten-year-old black gown, standing in the receiving line at an exclusive Commonwealth Avenue reception.
“Well, but--” Edgar paused impotently.
“Why don’t you take her?” It was Mary who made the suggestion.
“I? Oh, but I--” Edgar stopped and glanced uneasily at his wife.
“Why, of course, if it’snecessary,” murmured Mrs. Edgar, with a resigned air. “I should certainly never wish it said that I refused a home to any of my husband’s poor relations.”
“Oh, good Heavens! Let her come to us,” cut in Fred sharply. “I reckon we can take care of our ‘poor relations’ for a spell yet; eh, Sally?”
“Why, sure we can,” retorted. Fred’s wife, in her soft Southern drawl. “We’ll be right glad to take her, I reckon.” And there the matter ended.
Jane Pendergast had been South two months, when one day Edgar received a letter from his brother Fred.
Jane’s going North [wrote Fred]. Sally says she can’t have her in the house another week. ’Course, we don’t want to tell Jane exactly that-- but we’ve fixed it so she’s going to leave.
I’m sorry if this move causes you folks any trouble, but there just wasn’t any other way out of it. You see, Sally is Southern and easy-going, and I suppose not over-particular in the eyes of you stiff Northerners. I don’t mind things, either, and I suppose I’m easy, too.
Well, great Scott!--Jane hadn’t been down here five minutes before she began to “slick up,” as she called it--and she’s been “slickin’ up” ever since. Sally always left things round handy, and so’ve the children; but since Jane came, we haven’t been able to find a thing when we wanted it. All our boots and shoes are put away, turned toes out, and all our hats and coats are snatched up and hung on pegs the minute we toss them off.
Maybe this don’t seem much to you, but it’s lots to us. Anyhow, Jane’s going North. She says she’s going to visit Edgar a little while, and I told her I’d write and tell you she’s coming. She’ll be there about the 20th. Will wire you what train.
Your affectionate brother
Fred
As gently as possible Edgar broke to his wife the news of the prospective guest. Julia Pendergast was a good woman. At least she often said that she was, adding, at the same time, that she never knowingly refused to do her duty. She said the same thing now to her husband, and she immediately made some very elaborate and very apparent changes in her home and in her plans, all with an eye to the expected guest. At four o’clock Wednesday afternoon Edgar met his sister at the station.
“Well, I don’t see as you’ve changed much,” he said kindly.
“Haven’t I? Why, seems as if I must look changed a lot,” chirruped Jane. “I’m so rested, and Fred and Sally were so good to me! Why, they tried not to have me do a thing--and I didn’t do much, only a little puttering around just to help out with the work.”
“Hm-m,” murmured Edgar. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re--rested.”
Julia met them in the hall of the beautiful Brookline residence. Lined up with her were the four younger children, who lived at home. They made an imposing array, and Jane was visibly affected.
“Oh, it’s so good of you--to meet me--like this!” she faltered.
“Why, we wished to, I’m sure,” returned Mrs. Pendergast, with a half-stifled sigh. “I hope I understand my duty to my guest and my sister-in-law sufficiently to know what is her due. I did not allow anything--not even my committee meeting to-day--to interfere with this call for duty at home.”
Jane fell back. All the glow fled from her face.
“Oh, then you did stay at home--and for me! I’m so sorry,” she stammered.
But Mrs. Pendergast raised a deprecatory hand.
“Say no more. It was nothing. Now come, let me show you to your room. I’ve given you Ella’s room, and put Ella in Tom’s, and Tom in Bert’s, and moved Bert upstairs to the little room over--”
“Oh, don’t!” interrupted Jane, in quick distress. “I don’t want to put people out so! Let me go upstairs.” Mrs. Pendergast frowned and sighed. She had the air of one whose kindest efforts are misunderstood.
“My dear Jane, I am sorry, but I shall have to ask you to be as satisfied as you can be with the arrangements I am able to make for you. You see, even though this house is large, I am, in a way, cramped for room. I always have to keep three guest-rooms ready for immediate occupancy. I am a member of four clubs and six charitable and religious organizations, besides the church, and there are always ministers and delegates whom I feel it my duty to entertain.”
“But that is all the more reason why I should go upstairs, and not put all those children out of their rooms,” begged Jane.
Mrs. Pendergast shook her head.
“It does them good,” she said decidedly, “to learn to be self-sacrificing. That is a virtue we all must learn to practice.”
Jane flushed again; then she turned abruptly. “Julia, did you want me to--to come to see you?” she asked.
“Why, certainly; what a question!” returned Mrs. Pendergast, in a properly shocked tone of voice. “As if I could do otherwise than to want my husband’s sister to come to us.”
Jane smiled faintly, but her eyes were troubled.
“Thank you; I’m glad you feel--that way. You see, at Fred’s--I wouldn’t have them know it for the world, they weresogood to me--but I thought, lately, that maybe they didn’t want--But it wasn’t so, of course. It couldn’t have been. I--I ought not even to think it.”
“Hm-m; no,” returned Mrs. Pendergast, with noncommittal briefness.
Not six weeks later Mary, in her beautiful Commonwealth Avenue home, received a call from a little, thin-faced woman, who curtsied to the butler and asked him to please tell her sister that she wished to speak to her.
Mary looked worried and not over-cordial when she rustled into the room.
“Why, Jane, did you find your way here all alone?” she cried.
“Yes--no--well, I asked a man at the last; but, you know, I’ve been here twice before with the others.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mary.
There was a pause; then Jane cleared her throat timidly.
“Mary, I--I’ve been thinking. You see, just as soon as I’m strong enough, I--I’m going to take care of myself, and then I won’t be a burden to--to anybody.” Jane was talking very fast now. Her words came tremulously between short, broken breaths. “But until I get well enough to earn money, I can’t, you see. And I’ve been thinking;--would you be willing to take me until--until I can? I’m lots better, already, and getting stronger every day. It wouldn’t be for--long.”
“Why, of course, Jane!” Mary spoke cheerfully, and in a tone a little higher than her ordinary voice. “I should have asked you to come here before, only I feared you wouldn’t be happy here--such a different life for you, and so much noise and confusion with Belle’s wedding coming on, and all!”
Jane gave her a grateful glance.
“I know, of course,--you’d think that,--and it isn’t that I’m finding fault with Julia and Edgar. I couldn’t do that--they’re so good to me. But, you see, I put them out so. Now, there’s my room, for one thing. ’T was Ella’s, and Ella has to keep running in for things she’s left, and she says it’s the same with the others. You see, I’ve got Ella’s room, and Ella’s got Tom’s, and Tom’s got Bert’s. It’s a regular ’house that Jack built’--and I’m the ’Jack’!”
“I see,” laughed Mary constrainedly. “And you want to come here? Well, you shall. You--you may come a week from Saturday,” she added, after a pause. “I have a reception and a dinner here the first of the week, and--you’d better stay away until after that.”
“Oh, thank you,” sighed Jane. “You are so good. I shall tell Julia that I’m invited here, so she won’t think I’m dissatisfied. They’re so good to me--I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings!”
“Of course not,” murmured Mary.
The big, fat tire of the touring-car popped like a pistol shot directly in front of the large white house with the green blinds.
“This is the time we’re in luck, Belle,” laughed the good-natured young fellow who had been driving the car. “Do you see that big piazza just aching for you to come and sit on it?”
“Are we really stalled, Will?” asked the girl.
“Looks like it--for a while. I’ll have to telephone Peters to bring down a tire. Of course, to-day is the day wedidn’ttake it!”
Some minutes later the girl found herself on the cool piazza, in charge of a wonderfully hospitable old lady, while down the road the good-looking young fellow was making long strides toward the next house and a telephone.
“We are staying at the Lindsays’, in North Belton,” explained the girl, when he was gone, “and we came out for a little spin before dinner. Isn’t this Belton? I have an aunt who used to live here somewhere--Aunt Jane Pendergast”
The old lady sat suddenly erect in her chair.
“My dear,” she cried, “you don’t mean to say that you’re Jane Pendergast’s niece! Now, that is queer! Why, this was her very house--we bought it when the old gentleman died last year. But, come, we’ll go inside. You’ll want to see everything, of course!”
It was some time before the young man came back from telephoning, and it was longer still before Peters came with the new tire, and helped get the touring-car ready for the road. The girl was very quiet when they finally left the house, and there was a troubled look deep in her eyes.
“Why, Belle, what’s the matter?” asked the young fellow concernedly, as he slackened speed in the cool twilight of the woods, some minutes later. “What’s troubling you, dear?”
“Will”--the girl’s voice shook--“Will, that was Aunt Jane’s house. That old lady--told me.”
“Aunt Jane?”
“Yes, yes--the little gray-haired woman that came to live with us two months ago. You know her.”
“Why, y-yes; I think I’ve--seen her.”
The girl winced, as from a blow.
“Will, don’t! I can’t bear it,” she choked. “It only shows how we’ve treated her--how little we’ve made of her, when we ought to have done everything--everything to make her happy. Instead of that, we were brutes--all of us!”
“Belle!”--the tone was an indignant protest.
“But we were--listen! She lived in that house all her life till last year. She never went anywhere or did anything. For twenty years she lived with an old man who had lost his mind, and she tended him like a baby--only a baby grows older all the time and more interesting, while he--oh, Will, it was awful! That old lady--told me.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the young fellow, under his breath.
“And there were other things,” hurried on the girl, tremulously. “Some way, I never thought of Aunt Jane only as old and timid; but she was young like us, once. She wanted to go away to school--but she couldn’t go; and there was some one who--loved her--once--later, and she sent him--away. That was after--after grandfather lost his mind. Mother and Uncle Edgar and Uncle Fred--they all went away and lived their own lives, but she stayed on. Then last year grandfather died.”
The girl paused and moistened her lips. The man did not speak. His eyes were on the road ahead of the slow-moving car.
“I heard to-day--how--how proud and happy Aunt Jane was that Uncle Fred had asked her to come and live with him,” resumed the girl, after a minute. “That old lady told me how Aunt Jane talked and talked about it before she went away, and how she said that all her life she had taken care of others, and it would be so good to feel that now some one was going to look out for her, though, of course, she should do everything she could to help, and she hoped she could still be of some use.”
“Well, she has been, hasn’t she?”
The girl shook her head.
“That’s the worst of it. We haven’t made her think she was. She stayed at Uncle Fred’s for a while, and then he sent her to Uncle Edgar’s. Something must have been wrong there, for she asked mother two months ago if she might come to us.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve been--good to her.”
“But we haven’t!” cried the girl. “Mother meant all right, I know, but she didn’t think. And I’ve been--horrid. Aunt Jane tried to show her interest in my wedding plans, but I only laughed at her and said she wouldn’t understand. We’ve pushed her aside, always,--we’ve never made her one of us; and--we’ve always made her feel her dependence.”
“But you’ll do differently now, dear,--now that you understand.”
Again the girl shook her head.
“We can’t,” she moaned. “It’s too late. I had a letter from mother last night. Aunt Jane’s sick--awfully sick. Mother said I might expect to--to hear of the end any day.”
“But there’s some time left--a little!”--his voice broke and choked into silence. Suddenly he made a quick movement, and the car beneath them leaped forward like a charger that feels the prick of the spur.
The girl gave a frightened cry, then a tremulous little sob of joy. The man had cried in her ear, in response to her questioning eyes:
“We’re--going--to--Aunt Jane!”
And to them both, at the moment, there seemed to be waiting at the end of the road a little bent old woman, into whose wistful eyes they were to bring the light of joy and peace.
On the top of the hill stood the big brick house--a mansion, compared to the other houses of the New England village. At the foot of the hill nestled the tiny brown farmhouse, half buried in lilacs, climbing roses, and hollyhocks.
Years ago, when Reuben had first brought Emily to that little brown cottage, he had said to her, ruefully: “Sweetheart, ’tain’t much of a place, I know, but we’ll save and save, every cent we can get, an’ by an’ by we’ll go up to live in the big house on the hill!” And he kissed so tenderly the pretty little woman he had married only that morning that she smiled brightly and declared that the small brown house was the very nicest place in the world.
But, as time passed, the “big house” came to be the Mecca of all their hopes, and penny by penny the savings grew. It was slow work, though, and to hearts less courageous the thing would have seemed an impossibility. No luxuries--and scarcely the bare necessities of life-- came to the little house under the hill, but every month a tiny sum found its way into the savings bank. Fortunately, air and sunshine were cheap, and, if inside the house there was lack of beauty and cheer, outside there was a riotous wealth of color and bloom--the flowers under Emily’s loving care flourished and multiplied.
The few gowns in the modest trousseau had been turned inside out and upside down, only to be dyed and turned and twisted all over again. But what was a dyed gown, when one had all that money in the bank and the big house on the hill in prospect! Reuben’s best suit grew rusty and seedy, but the man patiently, even gleefully, wore it as long as it would hang together; and when the time came that new garments must be bought for both husband and wife, only the cheapest and flimsiest of material was purchased--but the money in the bank grew.
Reuben never smoked. While other men used the fragrant weed to calm their weary brains and bodies, Reuben--ate peanuts. It had been a curious passion of his, from the time when as a boy he was first presented with a penny for his very own, to spend all his spare cash on this peculiar luxury; and the slow munching of this plebeian delicacy had the same soothing effect on him that a good cigar or an old clay pipe had upon his brother-man. But from the day of his marriage all this was changed; the dimes and the nickels bought no more peanuts, but went to swell the common fund.
It is doubtful if even this heroic economy would have accomplished the desired end had not a certain railroad company cast envious eyes upon the level valley and forthwith sent long arms of steel bearing a puffing engine up through the quiet village. A large tract of waste land belonging to Reuben Gray suddenly became surprisingly valuable, and a sum that trebled twice over the scanty savings of years grew all in a night.
One crisp October day, Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Gray awoke to the fact that they were a little under sixty years of age, and in possession of more than the big sum of money necessary to enable them to carry out the dreams of their youth. They began joyous preparations at once.
The big brick house at the top of the hill had changed hands twice during the last forty years, and the present owner expressed himself as nothing loath to part, not only with the house itself, but with many of its furnishings; and before the winter snow fell the little brown cottage was sold to a thrifty young couple from the neighboring village, and the Grays took up their abode in their new home.
“Well, Em’ly, this is livin’, now, ain’t it?” said Reuben, as he carefully let himself down into the depths of a velvet-covered chair in the great parlor. “My! ain’t this nice!”
“Just perfectly lovely,” quavered the thin voice of his wife, as she threw a surreptitious glance at Reuben’s shoes to see if they were quite clean enough for such sacred precincts.
It was their first evening in their new abode, and they were a little weary, for they had spent the entire day in exploring every room, peering into every closet, and trying every chair that the establishment contained. It was still quite early when they trudged anxiously about the house, intent on fastening the numerous doors and windows.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the little woman nervously, “I’m ’most afraid to go to bed, Reuben, for fear some one will break in an’ steal all these nice things.”
“Well, you can sit up if you want to,” replied her husband dryly, “but I shall go to bed. Most of these things have been here nigh on to twenty years, an’ I guess they’ll last the night through.” And he marched solemnly upstairs to the big east chamber, meekly followed by his wife.
It was the next morning when Mrs. Gray was washing the breakfast dishes that her husband came in at the kitchen door and stood looking thoughtfully at her.
“Say, Emily,” said he, “you’d oughter have a hired girl. ’T ain’t your place to be doin’ work like this now.”
Mrs. Gray gasped--half terrified, half pleased--and shook her head; but her husband was not to be silenced.
“Well, you had--an’ you’ve got to, too. An’ you must buy some new clothes--lots of ’em! Why, Em’ly, we’ve got heaps of money now, an’ we hadn’t oughter wear such lookin’ things.”
Emily nodded; she had thought of this before. And the hired-girl hint must have found a warm spot in her heart in which to grow, for that very afternoon she sallied forth, intent on a visit to her counselor on all occasions--the doctor’s wife.
“Well, Mis’ Steele, I don’t know what to do. Reuben says I ought to have a hired girl; but I hain’t no more idea where to get one than anything, an’ I don’t know’s I want one, if I did.”
And Mrs. Gray sat back in her chair and rocked violently to and fro, eying her hostess with the evident consciousness of having presented a poser. That resourceful woman, however, was far from being nonplussed; she beamed upon her visitor with a joyful smile.
“Just the thing, my dear Mrs. Gray! You know I am to go South with May for the winter. The house will be closed and the doctor at the hotel. I had just been wondering what to do with Nancy, for I want her again in the spring. Now, you can have her until then, and by that time you will know how you like the idea of keeping a girl. She is a perfect treasure, capable of carrying along the entire work of the household, only”--and Mrs. Steele paused long enough to look doubtfully at her friend--“she is a little independent, and won’t stand much interference.”
Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Gray departed, well pleased though withal a little frightened. She spent the rest of the afternoon in trying to decide between a black alpaca and a green cashmere dress.
That night Reuben brought home a large bag of peanuts and put them down in triumph on the kitchen table.
“There!” he announced in high glee, “I’m goin’ to have a bang-up good time!”
“Why, Reuben,” remonstrated his wife gently, “you can’t eat them things-- you hain’t got no teeth to chew ’em with!”
The man’s lower jaw dropped.
“Well, I’m a-goin’ to try it, anyhow,” he insisted. And try he did; but the way his poor old stomach rebelled against the half-masticated things effectually prevented a repetition of the feast.
Early on Monday morning Nancy appeared. Mrs. Gray assumed a brave aspect, but she quaked in her shoes as she showed the big strapping girl to her room. Five minutes later Nancy came into the kitchen to find Mrs. Gray bending over an obstinate coal fire in the range--with neither coal nor range was the little woman in the least familiar.
“There, now,” said Nancy briskly, “I’ll fix that. You just tell me what you want for dinner, and I can find the things myself.” And she attacked the stove with such a clatter and din that Mrs. Gray retreated in terror, murmuring “ham and eggs, if you please,” as she fled through the door. Once in the parlor, she seated herself in the middle of the room and thought how nice it was not to get dinner; but she jumped nervously at every sound from the kitchen.
On Tuesday she had mastered her fear sufficiently to go into the kitchen and make a cottage cheese. She did not notice the unfavorable glances of her maid-of-all-work. Wednesday morning she spent happily puttering over “doing up” some handkerchiefs, and she wondered why Nancy kept banging the oven door so often. Thursday she made a special kind of pie that Reuben liked, and remarked pointedly to Nancy that she herself never washed dishes without wearing an extra apron; furthermore, she always placed the pans the other way in the sink. Friday she rearranged the tins on the pantry shelves, that Nancy had so unaccountably mussed up. On Saturday the inevitable explosion came:
“If you please, mum, I’m willin’ to do your work, but seems to me it don’t make no difference to you whether I wear one apron or six, or whether I hang my dish-towels on a string or on the bars, or whether I wash goblets or kittles first; and I ain’t in the habit of havin’ folks spyin’ round on me. If you want me to go, I’ll go; but if I stay, I want to be let alone!”
Poor little Mrs. Gray fled to her seat in the parlor, and for the rest of that winter she did not dare to call her soul her own; but her table was beautifully set and served, and her house was as neat as wax.
The weeks passed and Reuben began to be restless. One day he came in from the post office fairly bubbling over with excitement.
“Say, Em’ly, when folks have money they travel. Let’s go somewhere!”
“Why, Reuben--where?” quavered his wife, dropping into the nearest chair.
“Oh, I dunno,” with cheerful vagueness; then, suddenly animated, “Let’s go to Boston and see the sights!”
“But, Reuben, we don’t know no one there,” ventured his wife doubtfully.
“Pooh! What if we don’t? Hain’t we got money? Can’t we stay at a hotel? Well, I guess we can!”
And his overwhelming courage put some semblance of confidence into the more timid heart of his wife, until by the end of the week she was as eager as he.
Nancy was tremblingly requested to take a two weeks’ vacation, and great was the rejoicing when she graciously acquiesced.
On a bright February morning the journey began. It was not a long one-- four hours only--and the time flew by as on wings of the wind. Reuben assumed an air of worldly wisdom, quite awe-inspiring to his wife. He had visited Boston as a boy, and so had a dim idea of what to expect; moreover, he had sold stock and produce in the large towns near his home, and on the whole felt quite self-sufficient.
As the long train drew into the station, and they alighted and followed the crowd, Mrs. Gray looked with round eyes of wonder at the people--she had not realized that there were so many in the world, and she clung closer and closer to Reuben, who was marching along with a fine show of indifference.
“There,” said he, as he deposited his wife and his bags in a seat in the huge waiting-room; “now you stay right here, an’ don’t you move. I’m goin’ to find out about hotels and things.”
He was gone so long that she was nearly fainting from fright before she spied his dear form coming toward her. His thin, plain face looked wonderfully beautiful to her, and she almost hugged him right before all those people.
“Well, I’ve got a hotel all right; but I hain’t been here for so long I’ve kinder forgot about the streets, so the man said we’d better have a team to take us there.” And he picked up the bags and trudged off, closely followed by Emily.
His shrewd Yankee wit carried him safely through a bargain with the driver, and they were soon jolting and rumbling along to their destination. He had asked the man behind the news-stand about a hotel, casually mentioning that he had money--plenty of it--and wanted a “bang-up good place.” The spirit of mischief had entered the heart of the news-man, and he had given Reuben the name of one of the very highest-priced, most luxurious hotels in the city.
As the carriage stopped, Reuben marched boldly up the broad steps and entered the palatial office, with Emily close at his heels. Two bell-boys sprang forward--the one to take the bags, the other to offer to show Mrs. Gray to the reception-room.
“No, thank you, I ain’t particular,” said she sweetly; “I’ll wait for Reuben here.” And she dropped into the nearest chair, while her husband advanced toward the desk. She noticed that men were looking curiously at her, and she felt relieved when Reuben and the pretty boy came back and said they would go up to their room.
She stood the elevator pretty well, though she gave a little gasp (which she tried to choke into a cough) as it started. Reuben turned to the boy.
“Where can I get somethin’ to eat?”
“Luncheon is being served in the main dining-room on the first floor, sir.”
Visions of a lunch as he knew it in Emily’s pantry came to him, and he looked a little dubious.
“Well, I’m pretty hungry; but if that’s all I can get I suppose it will have to do.”
Ten minutes later an officious head waiter, whom Emily looked upon with timid awe, was seating them in a superbly appointed dining-room. Reuben looked at the menu doubtfully, while an attentive, soft-voiced man at his elbow bent low to catch his order. Few of the strange-looking words conveyed any sort of meaning to the poor hungry man. At length spying “chicken” halfway down the card, he pointed to it in relief.
“I guess I’ll take some of that,” he said, briefly; then he added, “I don’t know how much it costs--you hain’t got no price after it.”
The waiter comprehended at once.
“The luncheon is served in courses, sir; you pay for the whole--whether you eat it or not,” he added shrewdly. “If you will let me serve you according to my judgment, sir, I think I can please you.”
And there the forlorn little couple sat, amazed and hungry, through six courses, each one of which seemed to their uneducated palate one degree worse than the last.
Two hours later they started for a long walk down the wonderful, fascinating street. Each marvelous window display came in for its full share of attention, but they stood longest before bakeries and restaurants. Finally, upon coming to one of the latter, where an enticing sign announced “Boiled Dinner To-day, Served Hot at All Hours,” Reuben could endure it no longer.
“By Jinks, Em’ly, I’ve just got to have some of that. That stodged-up mess I ate at the hotel didn’t go to the spot at all. Come on, let’s have a good square meal.”
The hotel knew them just one night. The next morning before breakfast Reuben manfully paid his--to him astounding--bill and departed for more congenial quarters, which they soon found on a neighboring side street.
The rest of the visit was, of course, delightful, only the streets were pretty crowded and noisy, and they couldn’t sleep very well at night; moreover, Reuben lost his pocketbook with a small sum of money in it; so, on the whole, they concluded to go home a little before the two weeks ended.
When spring came Nancy returned to her former mistress, and her vacant throne remained unoccupied. Little by little the dust gathered on the big velvet chairs in the parlor, and the room was opened less and less. When the first green things commenced to send tender shoots up through the wet, brown earth, Reuben’s restlessness was very noticeable. By and by he began to go off very early in the morning, returning at noon for a hasty dinner, then away again till night. To his wife’s repeated questioning he would reply, sheepishly, “Oh, just loafin’, that’s all.”
And Emily was nervous, too. Of late she had taken a great fancy to a daily walk, and it always led in one direction--down past the little brown house. Of course, she glanced over the fence at the roses and lilacs, and she couldn’t help seeing that they all looked sadly neglected. By and by the weeds came, grew, and multiplied; and every time she passed the gate her throat fairly choked in sympathy with her old pets.
Evenings, she and Reuben spent very happily on the back stoop, talking of their great good fortune in being able to live in such a fine large house. Somehow they said more than usual about it this spring, and Reuben often mentioned how glad he was that his wife didn’t have to dig in the garden any more; and Emily would reply that she, too, was glad that he was having so easy a time. Then they would look down at the little brown farmhouse and wonder how they ever managed to get along in so tiny a place.
One day, in passing this same little house, Emily stopped a moment and leaned over the gate, that she might gain a better view of her favorite rosebush.
She evinced the same interest the next two mornings, and on the third she timidly opened the gate and walked up the old path to the door. A buxom woman with a big baby in her arms, and a bigger one hanging to her skirts, answered her knock.
“How do you do, Mis’ Gray. Won’t you come in?” said she civilly, looking mildly surprised.
“No, thank you--yes--I mean--I came to see you,” stammered Emily confusedly.
“You’re very good,” murmured the woman, still standing in the doorway.
“Your flowers are so pretty,” ventured Mrs. Gray, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice.
“Do you think so?” carelessly; “I s’pose they need weedin’. What with my babies an’ all, I don’t get much time for posies.”
“Oh, please,--would it be too much trouble to let me come an’ putter around in the beds?” queried the little woman eagerly. “Oh, I would like it so much!”
The other laughed heartily.
“Well, I really don’t see how it’s goin’ to trouble me to have you weedin’ my flowers; in fact, I should think the shoe would be on the other foot.” Then the red showed in her face a little. “You’re welcome to do whatever you want, Mis’ Gray.”
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed Emily, as she quickly pulled up an enormous weed at her feet.
It took but a few hours’ work to bring about a wonderfully happy change in that forlorn garden, and then Mrs. Gray found that she had a big pile of weeds to dispose of. Filling her apron with a portion of them, she started to go behind the house in search of a garbage heap. Around the corner she came face to face with her husband, hoe in hand.
“Why, Reuben Gray! Whatever in the world areyoudoing?”
For a moment the man was crushed with the enormity of his crime; then he caught sight of his wife’s dirt-stained fingers.
“Well, I guess I ain’t doin’ no worse than you be!” And he turned his back and began to hoe vigorously.
Emily dropped the weeds where she stood, turned about, and walked through the garden and up the hill, pondering many things.
Supper was strangely quiet that night. Mrs. Gray had asked a single question: “Reuben, do you want the little house back?”
A glad light leaped into the old man’s eyes.
“Em’ly--would you be willin’ to?”
After the supper dishes were put away, Mrs. Gray, with a light shawl over her head, came to her husband on the back stoop.
“Come, dear; I think we’d better go down to-night.”
A few minutes later they sat stiffly in the best room of the farmhouse, while the buxom woman and her husband looked wonderingly at them.
“You wan’t thinkin’ of sellin’, was ye?” began Reuben insinuatingly.
The younger man’s eyelid quivered a little. “Well, no,--I can’t hardly say that I was. I hain’t but just bought.”
Reuben hitched his chair a bit and glanced at Emily.
“Well, me and my wife have concluded that we’re too old to transplant-- we don’t seem to take root very easy--and we’ve been thinkin’--would you swap even, now?”
It must have been a month later that Reuben Gray and his wife were contentedly sitting in the old familiar kitchen of the little brown house.
“I’ve been wondering, Reuben,” said his wife--“I’ve been wondering if ’twouldn’t have been just as well if we’d taken some of the good things while they was goin’--before we got too old to enjoy ’em.”
“Yes--peanuts, for instance,” acquiesced her husband ruefully.