71
“I think it should not be a matter of money,” she demurred. “I would rather do it for love, you know.”
“Love’s all right!” said the old man, smiling; “but this thing has got to be on a business basis, or the terms of the will will not allow me to agree to it. You see what you are going to undertake means work, and it means sticking to it; and you deserve pay for it, and we’re not going to accept several of the best years out of your life for nothing. Besides, you’ve got to feel free to give up the job if it proves too burdensome for you.”
“And you to dismiss me if I do not prove capable for the position,” suggested Julia Cloud, lifting meek and honest eyes to meet his gaze.
“Well, well, well, I can see there won’t be any need of that!” sputtered the old gentleman pleasantly. “But, however that is, this is the contract I’ve made out. And I’m quite satisfied. So are the children. Are you willing to sign it? Of course there’s a clause in there about reasonable notice if there is dissatisfaction on either side; that lets you out at any time you get tired of it. Only give me a chance to look after these youngsters properly.”
Julia Cloud took the pen eagerly, tremblingly, a sense of wonder in her pounding heart, and signed her name just as Ellen’s heavy footsteps could be heard pounding down the back stairs. Leslie seized Julia, and gave her a great hug as the last letter was finished, and then threw open the parlor door in the nick of time to save her Aunt Ellen from seeming to be deserted.
Ellen Robinson appeared on the scene just in time72to witness the hearty hand-shake that Guardy Lud gave Julia Cloud as he picked up the papers and went up-stairs for his suitcase while Allison went after the car to take him to the train.
“Is that man married? Because, if he isn’t, I don’t think it’s respectable for you to go and live near him!” declared Ellen in a penetrating voice to the intense distress of Julia Cloud, who was happily hurrying the dishes from the breakfast table.
But Leslie came to the rescue.
“Oh, indeed, Aunt Ellen, he’s very much married! Altogether too much married for comfort. He would be a dear if it wasn’t for his silly little old bossy wife! But he doesn’t intend to live anywhere near us. His home is off in California, and he’s going back next week. He’s only waiting to see us settled somewhere before he goes back; so you needn’t worry about Aunt Jewel’s morals. We’ll take good care of her. But isn’t he a dear? He was my Grandfather Leslie’s best friend.”
Leslie chattered on gayly till the visitor’s footsteps could be heard coming down-stairs again, and Ellen Robinson could only shut her lips tight and go into the kitchen, from which her sister beat immediately a hasty retreat lest more unpleasant remarks should be forthcoming.
Julia Cloud bade Mr. Luddington good-by, standing on her own front steps, and then waited a moment, looking off toward the hills which had shut in her vision all her life. The two young people had rushed down to the car, and were pulling their guardian joyously73inside. They seemed to do everything joyously, like two young creatures let out of prison into the sunshine. Julia Cloud smiled at the thought of them, but her soul was not watching them just then. She was looking off to the hills that had been her strength all the years through so many trials, and gathering strength now to go in and meet her sister in final combat. She knew that there would be a scene; that was inevitable. That she might maintain her calmness and say nothing unkind or regrettable she was praying earnestly now as her eyes sought the hills.
Across the road behind her parlor curtains Mrs. Perkins was keeping lookout, and remarking to a neighbor who had run in:
“Yes, I thought as much. There’s always a man in the case when a woman acts queer! Now, doesn’t that beat all? Do you suppose he’s a long-lost lover or something, come back now he knows she’s free? Seems to me I did hear there was somebody died or something before we came here to live, but she must have been awful young.”
The car moved noisily away, and the old gentleman leaned out with a courteous lift of his hat toward Julia Cloud. She acknowledged it with a bow and a smile which Mrs. Perkins pounced on and analyzed audibly.
“Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, as the saying is! Just watch her smirk! I’m mighty glad Ellen Robinson’s there to relieve me of the responsibility. She’ll be over after a while, and then we’ll know who74he is. There goes Julia in. She watched him out o’ sight! Well, I wonder what her mother would think.”
Julia Cloud went slowly back to the dining-room, where Ellen was seated on the couch, waiting like a visitor. Julia’s smile was utterly lost on her glum countenance, which resembled an embattled tower under siege.
“Well!” she said as Julia began to gather up more dishes from the breakfast table. “I suppose you think you’ve done something smart now, don’t you, getting that old snob here and fixing things all up without consulting any of your relatives?”
“Really, Ellen, this has all been so sudden that I had no opportunity,” said Julia gently. “But it did not seem likely that you would object, for you suggested yourself that I rent the house, and you said you did not want me to stay here alone. This seemed quite providential.”
“Providential!” sniffed Ellen. “Providential to take you away from your own home and your own people, and send you out into a world where nobody really cares for you, and where all they want of you is to make a drudge of you! You call that providential, do you? Well, Idon’t! And when I object, and try to save you from yourself, and offer you a good home where you will be cared for all the rest of your days, right among your own, where mother would have wanted to see you, you will probably get high-headed, and say I am interfering with your rights. But I can’t help it. I’ve got to speak. I can’t see you put the75halter around your neck to hang yourself without doing everything I can to stop it. My own sister!”
“Why, Ellen, dear!” said Julia Cloud eagerly, sitting down beside her sister. “You don’t understand. It isn’t in the least that way. I’m sorry I had to spring it on you so suddenly and give you such a wrong impression. You know I couldn’t think of coming to live on you and Herbert. It was kind of you to suggest it, and I am grateful and all that; but I know how it would be to have some one else, even a sister, come into the home, and I couldn’t think of it. I have always resolved that I would never be dependent on my relatives while I had my health.”
Ellen sat up bristling.
“And yet you are willing to go away to some strange place where nobody knows you, and slave for a couple of little snobs!”
“O Ellen!” said Julia pleadingly. “You don’t understand. I am not going to slave. I’m just going to be a sort of mother to them. And you oughtn’t to call them snobs. They are your own brother’s children.”
“Own brother’s children, nothing!” sneered Ellen. “He’s been away so many years he was just like a stranger when he came back the last time, and as for the children they are just like his stuck-up wife and her family. Yet you’ll leave the children that were born and raised close beside you, and go and slave for them. Mother! fiddlesticks! You’ll slave all right. I know you. In six weeks you’ll be a drudge for them the way you’ve been all your life! I know how it is,76and you may not believe it; but I have feelings for my sister, and I don’t like to see her put upon.”
Ellen fumbled for her handkerchief, and managed a comely tear or two that quite touched Julia’s heart. Affection between them even when Ellen was a child had been quite one-sided; for Ellen had always been a selfish, spoiled little thing, and Julia had looked in vain for any signs of tenderness. Now her heart warmed toward her younger sister in this long-delayed thoughtfulness, and her tone grew gentler.
“That’s dear of you, Ellen, and I appreciate it; but I haven’t been able to make you understand yet, I see. I’m not to be a worker, nor even a housekeeper. I’m to be just a sort of mother, or aunt, if you please, to see that the house runs all right, to be with the children and have a happy time with them and their young friends, and to see that they are cared for in every way necessary; just a housemother, you understand. I am to have servants to do the work, although I’m sure one servant will be all that I shall want in a little household like that. But Mr. Luddington quite insisted there should be servants, and that no work of any sort should fall upon me. He said that as their nearest relative I was to be in the position of mother and guardian to them, and to preside over their home.”
“That’s ridiculous!” put in Ellen. “Why don’t they go to college and board like any other reasonable young folks if they must go to college at all? I think it’s all nonsense for ’em to go. What do they do it for? They’ve got money, and don’t have to teach or anything. What do they need of learning? They’ve77got enough now to get along. That girl thinks she’s too smart to live. I call her impudent, for my part!”
“They want a home,” said Julia, waiving the subject of higher education; “and they have chosen me, and I mean to do my best.”
There was a quiet finality in her tone that impressed her sister. She looked at her angrily.
“Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Nobody can stop you. But I see just what will come of it. You’ll fool away a little while there, and find out how mistaken you were; and then you’ll come back to Herbert to be taken care of. And you don’t realize how offended Herbert is going to be by your actions, and how he’ll feel about letting you come back after you have gone away in such high feather. You haven’t anything to speak of to support yourself, of course, and how on earth do you expect to live anyway after these children get through their college and get married or something? They won’t want you then.”
Julia arose and went to the window to get calmed. She was more angry than she had been for years. The thought of Herbert’s having to take care of her ever was intolerable. But she was able to hold her tongue until she could get her eyes on those hills out of the window. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” That had been the verse which she had read from her little Bible before leaving her room in the early morning and she was grappling it close to her heart, for she had known it would be a hard day.
Ellen was watching her silently. Almost she78thought she had made an impression. Perhaps this was the time to repeat Herbert’s threat.
“Herbert feels,” she began, “that if you refuse his offer now he can’t promise to keep it open. He can’t be responsible for you if you take this step. He said he wanted you to understand thoroughly.”
Julia Cloud turned and walked with swift step to the little parlor where lay the paper she and Mr. Luddington had just signed, and a copy of which he had taken with him. She returned to her astonished sister with the paper in her hand.
“Perhaps it would be just as well for you to read this,” she said with dignity, and put the paper into Ellen’s hands, going back to her clearing of the table.
There was silence in the dining-room while Ellen read, Julia moving on quiet feet about the table, putting things to rights. She had finished her part of the argument. She was resolutely putting out of her mind the things her sister had just said, and refusing altogether to think of Herbert. She knew in her heart just how Herbert had looked when he had said those things, even to the snarl at the corner of his nose. She knew, too, that Ellen had probably not reported the message even so disagreeably as the original, and she knew that it would be better to forget.
“Well,” said Ellen, rising after a long perusal, laying the paper on the table, “that sounds all very well in writing. The thing is to see how it comes out. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and you needn’t tell me that any man in his senses will pay all that salary merely for a ‘chaperon,’ as he calls it. If he79does, he’s a fool; that’s all I’ve got to say. But I suppose nothing short of getting caught in a trap will make you see it; so I better save my breath. I’m sure I hope you won’t go to the poorhouse through your stubbornness. I’ve done all I could to keep you from it, and it’s pretty hard to have my only sister leave me––so soo-oo-on after mother’s––death.”
“Well, Ellen,” said Julia Cloud, looking at her speculatively, “I’m sure I never dreamed you cared about having me away from here. You’ve never shown much interest in being with me. But I’m sorry if you feel it that way, and I’m sure I’ll write to you and try to do little things for the children often, now that I shall have something to do with.” But her kindly feeling was cut short by Ellen interrupting her.
“Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself! We can look after the children ourselves. You better save what you get to look after yourself when those two get over this whim!”
And then to her great relief Julia Cloud heard the car returning from the station, and the two young people rushing into the hall.
80CHAPTER VII
“I’m going up-stairs to put on that calico wrapper you loaned me, Aunt Jewel,” shouted Leslie, putting a rosy face into the dining-room for an instant and then vanishing.
“I bought a pair of overalls at the store, as you suggested, Cloudy,” put in Allison, waving a pair of blue jeans at her and vanishing also.
Ellen Robinson stood mopping her eyes and staring out from the dining-room window––not at the hills––and sniffing.
“I should think you’d stop them calling you that ridiculous name!” she snorted. “It isn’t respectful. It sounds like making fun of the family.”
Poor Ellen Robinson! She had her good points, but a sense of humor wasn’t one of them. Also it went against the grain to give up her own way, and she couldn’t remember when she hadn’t planned for the freedom she would have when Julia came to live with her. Having an entirely different temperament from Julia’s and no spiritual outlook whatever on life, she was unable to understand what thraldom she had been preparing and planning for her patient elder sister. A little of this perhaps penetrated to Julia Cloud’s disturbed consciousness as she watched her sister’s irate back; for, when she spoke again, it was in a gentle, soothing tone.
“There now, Ellen, let’s forget it all, and just put81it away. I shall be coming back to see you now and then, perhaps, and you can come and see me. That’ll be something new to look forward to. Suppose now we just get to work and see what’s to be done. Have you decided what you want to have taken over to the house?”
It is doubtful whether Ellen would have succumbed so easily, had not the two young people returned just then and demanded that they have something to do.
As quietly as if she were used to packing and moving every year of her life, Julia Cloud gave them each a pile of newspapers, and set them to wrapping and packing dishes in a big barrel; and Ellen was forced to join in and say what she wanted to have of her mother’s things.
Without a word Julia set aside anything Ellen asked for, even when it was something she would have liked to keep herself; and Ellen, her lips pursed and her eyes bright with defeat, went from room to room, picking and choosing as if she were at an auction.
Allison still in overalls rushed out in the car, and got a man with a moving-wagon; and before twelve o’clock Ellen Robinson saw a goodly load of household furniture start for her own home; and, being somewhat anxious as to how it would be disposed on its arrival, she took the car, and sped away to placate Herbert. She really felt quite triumphant at the ease with which she had secured several valuable pieces of mahogany which she knew had always been favorites with Julia.
“Gee!” said Allison as the car vanished out of82sight, “isn’t Aunt Ellen some depressor? Was she always so awfully grown up? I say, Cloudy, you won’t get that way, will you when we get you off in our house? If you do, take poison, or get married, or something. Say, Cloudy Jewel, you’re twenty years younger than she is, do you know it? Now what’ll I do next? That closet is all empty. Shall I begin on this one? You want this barrel up in the attic, you say? All right; here goes! No, I won’t hurt my back; I’m strong as a horse. I know how to lift things without hurting myself. Open that door, Leslie, and move that chair out of my way. Which corner shall I stow it, Cloudy? Southwest? All right!” and he vanished up the stairs with his barrel.
At half-past twelve a man and a woman arrived whom Julia Cloud had hired to help; and the house was like a busy hive, not a drone among them. It really was wonderful how short a time it took to dismantle a home that had been running for years. But the hands were wonderfully eager that took hold of the work, and they went at things with a will. Moreover, Julia Cloud’s domain was always in perfect order, which made a big difference.
They ate their lunch from the pantry shelf, because Ellen had taken the dining-room table. But it was a good lunch, bread and butter, apple butter, cookies, half a custard pie, and glasses of rich, foamy milk. Then they went to work again. The children were smudged with dust and tumbled and happy. They were doing real things for the first time in their lives, and they liked it. Moreover, they were bringing to pass a83beloved plan that had seemed at first impossible; and they wanted to hustle it through before anything spoiled or delayed it. There was Aunt Ellen. There was no telling what she might not do to hinder, and Julia Cloud was easily troubled by her sister, they could see that, wise children that they were; so they worked with all their might and main.
Two more men were requisitioned, and the furniture began a steady march up to the attic, where it was to be stored.
Leslie developed a talent for finding the place where she was most needed and getting to work. She put the sideboard drawers in order, and then went to packing away garments from the closets in drawers and trunks and chests, until by four o’clock a great many little nooks and corners in the house were absolutely clear and empty, ready for the cleaning before the new tenants arrived, although, to tell the truth, there was scarcely a spot in Julia Cloud’s house that needed much cleaning, because it had always been kept immaculate.
When Ellen Robinson in her car arrived in sight of the house at half-past four she identified the parlor and dining-room carpets hanging on a line strung across the back yard, and two bedroom carpets being beaten in the side yard. Mrs. Perkins from her patient watch-tower had also identified them, and hurried out to greet her friend and get more accurate information; but Ellen was in too much of a hurry to get inside and secure several other articles, which she had thought of and desired to have, to spend much time84in gossip. Besides, if Julia was really going, it was just as well to make as much of it as possible; so she greeted Mrs. Perkins as one too busy with important affairs to tell details, and hurried into the house. Standing within the old hallway, she gazed about, startled. How on earth had Julia managed to tear up things in such a hurry? The pictures had all vanished from the walls. The books were gone from the old book-case; the furniture itself was being carried away, the marble-topped table being the last piece left. The woman was washing the parlor floor, slopping on the soapy water with that air of finality that made Ellen Robinson realize that the old home was broken up at last. Grimly she walked into the dining-room, and saw immaculate empty closets and cleanly shining window-panes. As far as the work had progressed it had been done thoroughly.
Up-stairs a cheery chatter came from the rooms, and Ellen Robinson experienced a pang of real jealousy of these two young things who had swept in and carried her neglected sister by storm. Somehow it seemed to her that they had taken something that belonged to her, and she began to feel bereft. Julia ought to love her better than these two young strangers; why didn’t she? Why didn’t those two children make such a fuss over her as they did over Julia? It certainly was strange! Perhaps some gleam of perception that it might all be her own fault began to filter to Ellen Robinson’s consciousness as she stood there on the stairs and listened to the pleasant chatter.
“O Cloudy, dear! Is this really Daddy’s picture85when he was a little boy? What a funny collar and necktie! But wasn’t he a darling? I love the way his hair curls around his face. I can remember Daddy quite well. Mother used to say he was a wonderful man. I think he must have been a good deal like you. Our old nurse used to say that families went in streaks. I guess you and Daddy were off the same streak, weren’t you? I hope Allison and I will be, too. Say, Cloudy, can’t I have this picture of Daddy to hang in my room in our new house? I love it.”
Ellen Robinson wondered whether they had classified her as another “streak,” and somehow the thought was unpleasant. It was like one of those little rare mirrors that flash us a look now and then in which we “see oursel’s as ithers see us,” and are warned to take account of stock. As she climbed the old stairs, Ellen Robinson took account of herself, as it were, and resolved to show a better side to these children than she had shown heretofore; and so, when she appeared among them, she put aside her grim aspect for a while, and spoke in quite an affable tone:
“Well, you certainly can work!”
The contrast was so great that both the young people blinked at her in wonder, and a smile broke out on Leslie’s lovely face. Somehow it warmed Aunt Ellen’s heart, and she went on:
“But you all must be tired. You better come up to our house for supper to-night. You won’t have any chance to get it here.”
“Oh, we don’t mind picnicking,” said Leslie hastily. Then she caught a glimpse of her aunt’s face, and her86natural kindliness came to the front. “But of course that would be lovely if it won’t be too much trouble for you,” she added pleasantly with one of her brilliant smiles, although she could see Allison making violent motions and shaking his head at her from the other room, where he was out of his Aunt Ellen’s sight. Leslie really had a lovely nature, and was always quick to discern it when she had hurt any one. Ellen Robinson looked at her suspiciously, alert for the insult always, but yielded suddenly and unexpectedly to the girl’s loveliness. Was it something in Leslie’s eyes that reminded Ellen of her big brother who used to come home now and then, and tease her, and bring her lovely gifts? She watched Leslie a moment wistfully, and then with a sigh turned away. She wished one of her little girls could look like that.
“Well, I’d better go right home and get supper ready,” she said alertly; and there was a note of almost pleased eagerness in her voice that she was included in this function of packing and moving that seemed somehow to have turned into a delightful game in which weariness and care were forgotten.
“I’ll have supper ready to dish up by seven o’clock,” she admonished her astonished sister as she swept past the bedroom where she was at work putting away blankets and pillows in camphor. “You won’t be ready much before that; but don’t you be a minute later, or the supper will be spoiled.”
By which admonition Julia Cloud became aware that Ellen was going to favor them with some of her famous chicken potpie. She stood still for a whole87minute with a light in her eyes and a smile on her face, listening to Ellen’s retreating footsteps down the stairs; then, as the Ford set up its churning clatter, she turned back to her task, and murmured softly, “Poor Ellen!”
The supper passed off very well. Herbert was a trifle gruff and silent; but it was plain that Allison’s stories amused him, for now and then a half-smile crept into his stolid countenance. Julia Cloud was so glad that she could have cried. She hated scenes, and she dreaded being at outs with her relatives. So she ate her chicken potpie and fresh pumpkin-pie thankfully, and forgot how weary she was. After supper Leslie sat down at the piano, and rattled off rag-time; and she and Allison sang song after song, while the children stood about admiringly, and even Herbert sat by as at a social function and listened. The atmosphere was really quite clear when at last they prepared to leave, and Julia Cloud had an inkling that the big blue car had something to do with it.
“That’s some car you’ve got,” said Herbert patronizingly as he held a lantern for them to get down the steps. “Get it this year? What do you have to pay for that make now? I’m thinking of getting a new one myself pretty soon.”
Down upon their knees in the lantern-light went the two men of the party, examining this and that point of interest, their noses turned to the mysterious inner workings of the wonderful mechanism, while Julia Cloud sat and marveled that here at last was something which Herbert Robinson respected.
And Ellen stood upon the steps, really smiling and88saying how nice it had been to have them, for all the world as if they were company, all the hard lines of her rapidly maturing face softened by kindliness! It seemed like a miracle. Julia Cloud settled back into the deep cushions, and lifted her eyes to the dark line of the hills against the sky. “From whence cometh my help,” trailed the words through her tired brain; and her heart murmured, “God, I thank Thee!”
89CHAPTER VIII
They all slept very late the next morning, being utterly worn out from the unaccustomed work; and, when they finally got down-stairs, they took a sort of a lunch-breakfast off the pantry shelves again. It was strange how good even shredded-wheat biscuit and milk can taste when one has been working hard and has a young appetite, although Leslie and Allison had been known to scorn all cereals. Still, there were cookies and wonderful apples from the big tree in the back yard for dessert.
“When are those men coming back to finish up?” suddenly demanded Leslie, poising a glass of milk and a cooky in one hand and taking a great bite from her apple.
“Not till to-morrow,” said Julia Cloud, looking around the empty kitchen speculatively, and wondering how in the world she was going to cook with all the cooking-utensils packed in the attic.
“We ought to have left the kitchen till last,” she added with a troubled look. “You crazy children! Didn’t you know we had to eat? I told that man not to take any of those things on the kitchen-table, that they were to stay down until the very last thing, and now he has taken the table even! I went up-stairs to see if I could get at things, and I find he has put them away at the back, and piled all the chairs and some bed-springs in front of them. I’m afraid we shall have90to get some things out again. I don’t see how we can get along.”
“Not a bit of it, Cloudy!” said Leslie, giving a spring and perching herself on the drain-board of the sink, where she sat swinging her dainty little pumps as nonchalantly as if she were sitting on a velvet sofa. “See! Here’s my plan. I woke up early, and thought it all out. Let’s see,” consulting her wee wrist-watch, “it’s nine o’clock. That isn’t bad. Now we’ll work till twelve; that’s long enough for to-day, because you got too tired yesterday; and, besides, we’ve got some other things to attend to. Then we’ll hustle into the car, and get to town, and do some shopping ready for our trip. That will rest you. We’ll get lunch at a tea-room, and shop all the afternoon. We’ll go to a hotel for dinner, and stay all night. Then in the morning we can get up early, have our breakfast, and drive back here in time before the men come. Now isn’t that perfectly spick-and-span for a plan?”
“Leslie! But, dear, that would cost a lot! And, besides, it isn’t in the least necessary.”
“Cost has nothing to do with it. Look!” and Leslie flourished a handful of bills. “See what Guardy Lud gave me! And Allison has another just like it. He said particularly that we were not to let you get all worked out and get sick so you couldn’t go with us, and he particularly told us about a lot of things he wanted us to buy to make things easy on the way. After he leaves us and goes back to California we’re in your charge, I know; but just now you’re in ours, you dear, unselfish darling; and we’re going to run you. Oh,91we’re going to run you to beat the band!” laughed Leslie, and jumped down from her perch to hug and squeeze the breath out of Julia Cloud.
“But child! Dear!” said that good woman when she could get her breath to speak. “You mustn’t begin in that extravagant way!”
But they put their hands over her lips, and laughed away her protests until she had to give up for laughing with them.
“Well, then,” she said at last, when they had subsided from a regular rough-house frolic for all the world as if they were children, “we’ll have to get to work in good earnest; only it doesn’t seem right to let you work so hard when you are visiting me.”
“Visiting, nothing!” declared Allison; “we’re having the time of our lives. I haven’t been in a place where I could do as I pleased since I was eight years old. This is real work, and I like it. Come now, don’t let’s waste any time. What can I do first? Wouldn’t you like to have me take down all the pictures on the second floor, stack them in the attic, and sweep down the walls the way we did down here yesterday?”
“Yes,” said their aunt with an affectionate homage in her eyes for this dear, capable boy who was so eager over everything as if it were his own.
“And those big bookcases. What are you going to do with the books? Do you want any of them to go with you, or are they to be packed away?”
“No, I won’t take any of those books. They’ll need to be dusted and put in boxes. There are a lot92of boxes in the cellar, and there’s a pile of papers to use for lining the boxes. But you’ll have your hands full with the pictures, I think. Let the books go till to-morrow.”
Allison went whistling up-stairs, and began taking down the pictures; but anybody could see by the set of his shoulders that he meant to get the books out of the way too before noon.
“Now, what can I do?” said Leslie, whirling around from wiping the last cup and plate they had used. “There’s one more bureau besides yours. Does it need emptying out?”
“No, dear. That has your grandmother’s things in it, and is in perfect order. She had me fix up the things several months ago. Everything is tied up and labelled. I don’t think we need to disturb it. The men can move it up as it is. But we need to get the rest of the bed-clothes out on the line for an airing before I pack them away in the chest up-stairs. You might do that.”
So Leslie went back and forth, carrying blankets and quilts, and hanging them on the line, till Mrs. Perkins had to come over to see what was going on. She came with a cup in her hand to ask for some baking-powder, and Julia Cloud gave her the whole box.
“No, you needn’t return it,” she said, smiling. “I shall not need it. I’ve rented the house, and am going away for a while.” Mrs. Perkins was so astonished that she actually went home without finding out where Julia Cloud was going, and had to come back to see whether there was anything she could do to help, in order to get a chance to ask.
93
It was really quite astonishing what a lot could be done in three hours. When twelve o’clock came, the two children descended upon their aunt with insistence that she wash her hands and put on her hat. The rooms had assumed that cleared-up, ready look that rests the tired worker just to look around and see what has been accomplished. With a conviction that she was being quite a child to run away this way when there was still a lot to be done, but with an overwhelming desire to yield to the pressure, Julia Cloud surrendered.
When she came down-stairs five minutes later in her neat black suit and small black hat with the mourning veil about it that Ellen had insisted upon for the funeral, the car was already at the door, and she felt almost guilty as she locked the door and went down the path. But the beauty of the day intoxicated her at once, and she forgot immediately everything but the joy of riding out into the world.
Leslie was a bit quiet as they glided down the road out of town, and kept eyeing her aunt silently. At last, as Julia Cloud was calling attention to a wonderful red woodbine that had twined itself about an old dead tree and was setting the roadside ablaze with splendor, Leslie caught her eye.
“What is it, dear? Does something trouble you? Is anything wrong with me?” asked Julia Cloud, putting up a prospecting hand to her hair and hat.
Leslie’s cheeks went rosy red.
“O Cloudy, dear,” said Leslie, “I was just wondering.94But I’m afraid to say it. Maybe it will make you feel bad.”
“Not a bit, deary; what is it?”
“Well, then, Cloudy, do you think Grandmother would care very much if you didn’t wear black? Do you like it yourself, or feel it wouldn’t be right not to wear it? I don’t mean any disrespect to Grandmother; but oh, you would look so sweet in gray, gray and lavender and soft pink, or just gray now for a while. Are you very mad at me for saying it?”
Julia Cloud reached over and patted the young hand that lay near her on the seat.
“Why, no, dear! I’m not mad, and I don’t care for black myself. I don’t believe in wearing black for the people who have left us and gone to heaven. It seems to me white would be a great deal better. But I put on these things to please Ellen. She thought it would be showing great disrespect to mother if I didn’t, and rather than argue about it I did as she wanted me to. But I don’t intend to darken the place around me by dressing in mourning, child; and I’m glad you don’t want me to. I like bright, happy things. And, besides, Leslie, dear, your grandmother was a bright, happy woman herself once when she was young, before she was sick and had trouble; and I like to remember her that way, because I’m sure that is the way she looks now in heaven.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” sighed Leslie. “That makes the day just perfect.”
“I think I’ll wait until I get away to change, however,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. “It would just95annoy Ellen to do it now, and might make such people as Mrs. Perkins say disagreeable things that would make it unpleasant for your aunt.”
“Of course!” said Leslie, nestling closer, her eyes dancing with some secret plans of her own. “That’s all right, Cloudy. How dear and sort of ‘understanding’ you are, just like a real mother.”
And somehow Julia Cloud felt as if she was entering into a new world.
Allison seemed to know by intuition just where to find the right kind of tea-room. He ushered them into the place, and found a table in a secluded nook, with a fountain playing nearby over ferns, and ivy climbing over a mimic pergola. There were not many people eating, for it was past one o’clock. There were little round tables with high-backed chairs that seemed to shut them off in a corner by themselves.
“This is nice!” he sighed. “We’re a real family now, aren’t we?” and he looked over at Julia Cloud with that fine homage that now and then a boy just entering manhood renders to an older woman.
“Creamed chicken on toast, fruit-salad, toasted muffins, and ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce,” ordered Allison after studying the menu-card for a moment. “You like all those, don’t you, Cloudy?”
“Oh, but my dear! You mustn’t order all that. A sandwich is all I need. Just a tongue sandwich. You must not begin by being extravagant.”
“This is my party, Cloudy. This goes under the head of expenses. If you can’t find enough you like among what I order, why, I’ll get you a tongue sandwich,96too; but you’ve been feeding us out of the cooky-jar, and I guess I’ll get the finest I can find to pay you back. I told you this was my time. When we get settled, you can order things; but now I’m going to see that you get enough to eat while you’re working so hard.”
Leslie’s eyes danced with her dimples as Julia Cloud appealed to her to stop this extravagance.
“That’s all right, Cloudy. I heard Guardy Lud tell Al not to spare any expense to make things comfortable for you while you were moving.”
So Julia Cloud settled down to the pleasure of a new and delicious combination of foods, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.
“Now,” said Leslie as the meal drew to a close, “we must get to work. It’s half-past two, and the stores close at half-past five. I’ve a lot of shopping to do. How about you, Cloudy?”
“I must buy a trunk,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully, “and a hand-bag and some gloves. I ought to get a new warm coat, but that will do later.”
Leslie eyed her thoughtfully, and raised one brow intensively at her brother as she rose from the table.
Allison landed them at a big department store, and guided his aunt to the trunk department with instructions to stay there until he and Leslie came back. Then they went off with great glee and many whisperings.
It is a curious thing how easily and quickly young people can shop provided they have plenty of money and no older person by to hamper them. Allison and Leslie were back within the time they had set, looking97very meek and satisfied. Leslie carried a small package, which she laid in Julia Cloud’s lap.
“You said you needed a hand-bag,” she said; “and I came on a place where they were having a sale. I thought this was a peach; so I bought it. If you don’t like it, we can give it to Aunt Ellen or some one.”
Julia Cloud’s cheeks grew pink with pleasure, and she felt like a very young, happy child as she opened the parcel to find a lovely gray suède hand-bag with silver clasp and fittings, containing quite a little outfit of toilet articles and brushes in neat, compact form. She caught her breath with delight as she touched the soft white leather lining, and noticed the perfection and finish of the whole. It seemed fit for a queen, yet was plain and quiet enough on the outside for a dove to carry. She looked up to see the two pairs of eager eyes upon her, and could hardly refrain from throwing her arms about the children right there in the store; but she stopped in time and let her eyes do the caressing, as she said with a tremble in her low, sweet voice:
“O you dear children! How you are going to spoil me! I see I must get settled quickly so that I shall have the power to restrain you.”
They rollicked forth then, and bought several things, a big steamer rug for the car, a pair of long gray mocha gloves to match the hand-bag, a silk umbrella, and for Aunt Ellen a shiny black hand-bag with a number of conveniences in it, and a pair of new black gloves with long, warm wrists tucked inside of it. Then Allison thoughtfully suggested a handsome98leather wallet for Uncle Herbert, and Julia Cloud lingered by the handkerchief-counter, and selected half a dozen new fine handkerchiefs. It all seemed just like a play to her, it was so very long since she had been shopping herself. Ellen had bought everything for her for years, because she was always too busy or too burdened to get away.
When they were out in the street again, it was still too early to think of going to the hotel for dinner.
“How about a movie, Cloudy?” asked Allison shyly. “There’s a pippin down the street a ways. I saw it as we came by. Or don’t you like movies? Perhaps you’d rather go to the hotel and lie down. I suppose you are maybe worn out. I ought to have thought of that.”
“Not a bit of it!” said the game little woman. “I should love to go. Maybe you won’t believe it, but I never went to a movie in my life, and I’ve been wanting to know what they were like for a long time.”
“Never went to a movie in your life! Why, Cloudy, you poor dear!” said Allison, who had been fairly fed on movies. “Why, how did it happen? Don’t they have moving pictures in your town?”
“Yes, they have them now, though only a year or so ago. But you know I’ve never been able to get away, even if they had been all about me. Besides, I suppose I should have been considered crazy if I had gone, me, an oldish woman! If there had been children to take, it would have been different. I suppose it is a childish desire, but I always loved pictures.”
“Well, we’re going,” said Allison. “Get in quick,99and I’ll have you there before you say Jack Robinson!”
And so in the restful cool of a flower-laden atmosphere in one of the finest moving-picture places in the city Julia Cloud sat with her two children and saw her first moving picture, holding her breath in wonder and delight as the people on the screen lived and moved before her.
“I’m afraid I’m having too good a time,” she said quietly as she settled back in the car again, and was whirled away to the hotel. “I feel as if I were a child again. If this keeps on, I won’t have dignity enough left to chaperon you properly.”
“Oh, but Cloudy, dear, that’s just why we want you, because you know how to be young and play with us,” clamored both of them together.
Then after a good dinner they went up to their rooms, and there was Julia Cloud’s shining new trunk that had to be looked over; and there on the floor beside it stood two packages, big boxes, both of them.
“This must be a mistake,” said Julia Cloud, looking at them curiously. “Allison, you better call the boy and have him take them away to the right room.”
Allison picked up the top package, a big, square box.
“Why, this is your name, Cloudy Jewel!” he exclaimed. “It must be yours. Open it!”
“But how could it be?” said Julia Cloud perplexedly.
“Open it, Cloudy. I want to see what’s in it.”
Julia Cloud was bending over the long pasteboard box on the floor and finding her name on that, too.
“It’s very strange,” she said, her cheeks beginning100to grow pink like those of a child on her first Christmas morning. “I suppose it’s some more of your extravagant capers. I don’t know what I shall do with you!”
But her eager fingers untied the string, while Leslie and Allison executed little silent dances around the room and tried to stifle their mirth.
The cover fell off at last, and the tissue-paper blew up in a great fluff; and out of it rolled a beautiful long, soft, thick gray cloak of finest texture and silken lining, with a great puffy collar and cuffs of deep, soft silver-gray fox.
“Oh-h!” was all Julia Cloud could say as the wonderful garment slipped out and spread about over the box and floor. And then the two children caught it up, and enveloped her in it, buttoning it down the front and turning the collar around her ears.
“It’s yours, Cloudy, to keep you warm on the journey!” cried Leslie, dancing around and clapping her hands. “Doesn’t she look lovely in it, Allison? Oh, isn’t she dear?” and Leslie caught her and whirled her around the room.
Then Allison brought the big square box, and demanded that it be opened; and out of it came a small gray hat in soft silky beaver, with a close gray feather curled quietly about it, that settled down on Julia Cloud’s lovely white hair as if it had been made for her.
“You don’t mind, do you, Cloudy, dear? You don’t think I’m officious or impertinent?” begged Leslie anxiously. “It was Allison’s idea to get the hat to match the coat, and it was such a dear we couldn’t help taking it; but, if there is anything about them you don’t101like, we got special permission for you to exchange them to-morrow morning.”
“Like them!”
Julia Cloud settled down in a chair, and looked at herself in helpless joy and admiration. Like them!
“But O children! You oughtn’t to have got such wonderful, expensive things for me. I’m just a plain, simple woman, you know, and it’s not fitting.”
Then there arose a great clamor about her. Why was it not fitting? She who had given her life for others, why should she not have some of the beautiful, comfortable things of earth? It wasn’t sensible for her to talk that way. That was being too humble. And, besides, weren’t these things quite sensible and practical? Weren’t they warm, and wouldn’t they be convenient and comfortable and neat? Well, then, “Good-night,” finished Allison.
And so at last they said “Good-night,” and went to their beds; but long after the children were asleep Julia Cloud lay awake and thought it out. God had been good to her, and was leading her into green pastures beside quiet waters; but there were things He was expecting of her, and was she going to be able to fulfil them? These two young souls were hers to guide. Would she have the grace to guide them into the knowledge of God in Christ? And then she lay praying for strength for this great work until the peace of God’s sleep dropped down upon her.