To tell the truth, the question of money had been troubling Fox somewhat, for he did not have an "awful lot," to use Sally's words. There was enough for him and Henrietta to live upon in great comfort; but when the amount which will support two people in comfort has to take care of five, it needs to be spread pretty thin. To be sure, there was no particular reason why Fox should have felt obliged to look out for the Ladues. One wonders why he did it. That question had occurred to him, naturally, but only to be dismissed at once, unanswered. He could not leave that little family in their misfortunes without visible means of support, and that was the end of it.
These considerations will serve to explain Fox's state of mind: why he felt it to be necessary to provide for Sally's future; to see to it that she should have a future of any kind. They may also explain his inquiries about rich relatives. Not that he had, at the moment, any definite idea as to his course of action in the event that she had such desirable and convenient appendages. In fact, it remained to be seen whether they were either desirable or convenient. And he wished very much that it might be considered no impropriety for him and Henrietta to live at the Ladues'. It would simplify many matters.
Doctor Galen, to whom he spoke, with some hesitation, of this wish of his, reassured him.
"I should say that it would be a very wise move," said the doctor, smiling. "Where is the impropriety?"
Fox murmured something about Professor Ladue and about his seeming to take the management of his family out of the professor's hands. He felt a little delicate about making any further move in the same direction.
"Pouf!" the doctor exclaimed scornfully. "Ladue has relinquished all right to management, and it's a very fortunate thing that he has. Mrs. Ladue will be very much of an invalid for a number of years, unless all signs fail. There may be some prying people—but there are always. You had better tell Sally that you will come at once. I think it most necessary."
Fox was distinctly relieved. He went on to tell the doctor of his conversation with Sally. "And the other children—except Henrietta—have fought shy of coming to see her since that day of the party," he continued. "I suppose they were frightened. They have scarcely been near her. Not that Sally seems to care. I think she is glad when she thinks of them at all. But she has too much care. She takes life too seriously. Why, that party was on her eleventh birthday, and she wants to go out scrubbing or selling papers. Anything to earn money. We can't let her feel so, Doctor; we just can't."
"Bless her!" said the doctor; "of course we can't. She needn't worry about my bill, and you needn't. Between us, Sanderson, we must look out for these three babes in the wood."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"And, Sanderson," the doctor pursued confidentially, "if you find yourself short of money,—you might, you know,—just let me know. But don't tell anybody, or the Assyrians will be upon me, like the wolf on the fold; and their cohorts won't be gleaming with purple and gold. Not of mine, they won't."
Fox laughed. "Thank you again, Doctor. Thank you very much. But I think I shall be able to carry my end, on that basis."
Fox did carry his end. He and Henrietta moved to the Ladues' as soon as they could, Fox into the professor's old room, with the skeleton of the professor's little lizard on the floor, under the window, and with the professor's desk to work at. He seemed to have been pushed by chance intothe professor's shoes, and he did not like it, altogether. He made a faint-hearted protest at the room.
Sally's eyes filled. "Why, Fox," she said, "it's the best room we've got. Isn't it good enough?"
"It's much too good, Sally. I don't expect or want such a good room."
"Oh, is that all!" Sally was smiling now. "If it's good enough, I guess you'll have to be satisfied. It's ever so much convenienter to give you father's room."
So Fox had to be satisfied. Henrietta had the room next Sally's own. That arrangement was "convenienter," too.
One of the first things he did at the professor's desk was to write a letter to Miss Martha Havering Hazen. Sally had succeeded in finding her address.
"She lives in Whitby, Massachusetts," she announced. "I don't know the name of the street, and I don't know how rich she is."
With this, the affairs of Miss Martha Havering Hazen passed from Sally's mind. She had other things to attend to. Fox wrote Miss Hazen a letter in which he set forth, in a very business-like way, the plight in which the Ladue family found themselves, his desire, and Sally's, that Sally's future should be provided for, and the manner in which it was proposed to provide for the aforesaid future. He finished with the statement that the funds at his command were insufficient for all the purposes which it was desired to accomplish, and he inquired whether she were disposed to give any aid and comfort. Then, having posted this, he waited for the answer.
He waited for the answer so long that he began to fear that his letter might not have reached Miss Hazen; then he waited until, at last, he was convinced that she never received it, and he had begun to think that she must be a myth. When he reached this conclusion, he was sitting on the piazza and Sally and Henrietta and Doctor Galen were coming up the path together. Sally had her hands behind her. She came and stood before Fox, her eyes twinkling.
"Well," she began.
But Fox would not wait. "Sally," he said, interrupting her, "what makes you think that Miss Martha Hazen is in existence at all. You've never seen her. I'll bet there's no such a person and never was. She's a myth."
"What'll you bet?" she asked promptly.
"Anything you like."
"No, I won't bet, for it wouldn't be fair." This settled it for Sally. In that respect she was different from her father. She was different from her father in some other important respects, too. "Which hand will you have, Fox?"
"I guess I'd better have both."
So Sally brought both hands around into view and cast a letter into his lap. Her eyes danced. "There!" she said. "Now, what'll you bet?"
Doctor Galen was leaning against the railing and Henrietta could not keep still.
"Oh, Fox," she cried, "open it and let's hear what she says. Sally showed it to us and we know about it."
"Open it, Sanderson," the doctor put in; "don't keep us all in the dark. It's suspense that kills."
So Sanderson opened it and read it. It was not a long letter.
The others grew impatient. "Come, come," said the doctor, "tell us. It doesn't matter what you wrote to her. What does she say?"
"She says," said Fox, smiling, "that, as of course she didn't know me, she has been obliged to have all my statements investigated. That accounts for the delay. She has found them all to be true. Gratifying, isn't it? But the important thing is that she offers to take Sally to live with her and agrees to educate her properly—if Sally will go."
They were all very sober and nobody spoke. Sally was solemn and the tears came slowly. None of them had contemplated this, Sally least of all. She felt as if there had been an earthquake or some such convulsion of nature.
"Well, Sally," Fox went on at last, in a low voice, "it seems to be up to you. Will you go?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sally's eyes were wide with anxiety and with doubt, and the tears dropped slowly, one by one. "How can I, all of a sudden? It's a tremendous surprise. I don't want to, but if it will help more than staying at home, I'll go." Suddenly an idea seemed to have struck her. It must have given her great relief, for the tears stopped and she looked happy once more. "But," she said eagerly, "how can I? Who will take care of mother? And what would we do with Charlie? Really, Fox, I don't see how I can go."
Strangely enough, Fox seemed to be relieved, too. At any rate, he smiled as though he were.
"Sure enough," he replied, "how can you? We might possibly manage about your mother," he added, with a glance at the doctor, "but Charlie is a problem."
Doctor Galen had nodded, in answer to that glance of Fox's. "You needn't worry about your mother, Sally," he said then. "We would take good care of her. Do you know that I have a sanitarium for just such patients? There are nurses and everything to make it convenient. And there are no bothering children—with their brothers—always underfoot." As he said that, the doctor smiled and rested his hand, for a moment, on Henrietta's shoulder. Henrietta turned and laughed up at him.
"A base libel," Fox remarked. "But all that doesn't take care of Charlie."
"Might farm him out," the doctor suggested. "What do you think of that idea, Sally?"
"I don't believe I know what you mean," she answered. "Charlie wouldn't be much good on a farm, although I suppose a farm would be a good place for him. Some farms would," she added.
"It depends on the farm, doesn't it?" said Fox. "It generally does. But don't you care what the doctor meant, Sally. He didn't mean anything, probably. We aren'tgoing to farm Charlie out anyway. What shall I say to Martha? That's the immediate point."
Sally chuckled. "I'll write to Martha," she said, as soon as she could speak; "that is, if you'll let me. I'll thank her ever so much for offering to take me, and I'll tell her why I can't come. May I, Fox?"
"All right." Fox tossed her the letter. "And, Sally," he called softly, for she had started into the house, meaning to write her letter at once. "Sally, if Martha answers your letter, you tell me what she says."
So Sally wrote to Martha. It took her a long time and she used up several sheets of her mother's best note-paper before she got a letter written that she was satisfied to send. Miss Hazen was longer in replying, although she was not so long as she had been in replying to Fox. Sally did not care. Indeed, she did not give the matter a thought. She considered the question settled.
It was not. Miss Hazen must have liked Sally's letter, for she grudgingly consented to have Charlie come, too, if that was all that stood in the way of Sally's acceptance of her offer. This was a surprise to everybody; to none of them more than to Miss Hazen herself. She had no liking for young children. But she did it. There seemed to be no escape for Sally now, and she put the letter in Fox's hand without a word.
"What's the matter, Sally?" he asked, shocked at her tragic face. "Has the bottom dropped out?"
Sally smiled, but her chin quivered. "It seems to me that it has. You read it, Fox."
So Fox read it. He was very sober when he looked up and it was a long time before he spoke.
"Well," he said at last, whimsically, "Martha's put her foot in it this time, hasn't she? What do you think you're going to do?"
"I don't see how I can refuse any longer," Sally answered, her voice quivering as well as her chin. "Charlie was the only objection that I could think of; the only real objection. I s'pose I'll have to go now, and take Charlie."
Fox did not reply immediately.
Sally's chin quivered more and more, and her tears overflowed. "Oh, Fox," she wailed, "I don't want to. I don't want to leave mother and home and—and everybody."
Fox drew her toward him and patted her shoulder. "There, there, Sally," he said gently. "You shan't go if you don't want to. We'll manage somehow. Don't feel so badly, Sally. Don't."
Sally's fit of crying was already over. Her tears ceased and she felt for her handkerchief.
"I won't," she said, with a pitiful little attempt at a smile. "I'm not going to cry any more. Have—have you got a handkerchief, Fox?"
Fox wiped her eyes. "We'll call a council of war," he said; "you and Doctor Galen and I will talk it over and decide what shall be done. Not about Martha," he added hastily. "That's settled, Sally, if you don't want to go. I'll write to her and tell her that you can't come."
"No," Sally protested earnestly, "it's not settled; at least, not that way. I'll go if—if that's the best thing for us. I was only crying because—because I hate to think of leaving. I can't help that, you know, Fox."
"I know, Sally. I've been through it all."
"And so our council of war," Sally continued, "will decide about that, too."
The council of war held a long and earnest session and eventually decided that it was best for Sally to accept Miss Hazen's offer and to go to Whitby. Sally acquiesced in the decision, but it seemed to Fox necessary to do a little explaining.
"You know, Sally," he said, "your mother is likely to be a long time in getting back her health. She won't be herself for a number of years. It would only be painful to you—"
"I know all that, Fox," Sally interrupted, a little impatiently. She had had it pretty thoroughly drummed into her. "I know all that, and it doesn't make any difference whether I think so or not. I see that it's the best thing forus all that Charlie and I should go, and we will go. That's settled. But you will write to me often, and let me know how mother gets along—and tell me the news, won't you?"
"Why, of course I am going to," Fox cried with emphasis. "What did you think—that we were going to let you slip away from us suddenly, altogether? Not much. I'm going to write you every blessed week. And see that you answer my letters every week, too."
Sally felt comparatively cheerful once more. "I will," she answered, smiling.
"Bless your heart!" said Fox.
Doctor Galen looked aggrieved.
"And where do I come in?" he asked. "Aren't you going to promise to write me, too? Your mother will be at my sanitarium and I have a good mind to give orders that Fox Sanderson is to be told nothing about her. Then you would have to get your information from me."
"I didn't s'pose you'd care to have me, you're so busy." Sally was pleased. "But I'd love to, Doctor, I'd love to. Do you really want me to?"
"If you don't, I'll never forgive you. I'm a very cruel man, and that is the only way to insure good treatment for your mother. You'd better, Sally." And the doctor wagged his head in a threatening manner.
Sally laughed. "It'll be your own fault if you get too many letters. But you needn't answer them, if you don't have time."
"We'll see. We'll see. I guess I shall manage to find a few minutes, now and then, to write to Miss Sally Ladue."
It was September before Sally was ready to go to Whitby. Indeed, it cannot be said that she was ready then, or that she ever would have been ready, if her wishes only had been involved. But by the middle of September she had done all the things that she had to do, her belongings and Charlie's were packed in two small trunks, and there did not seem to be any excuse for delaying her departure longer.
She had gone, with Doctor Galen, one memorable day, to see the sanitarium. He, I suppose, had thought that perhaps Sally would feel better about going if she saw for herself just the way in which her mother would be taken care of. So he took her all over the building, himself acting as her guide, and she saw it all. She did feel better. When she had seen the whole thing and had absorbed as much as the doctor thought was good for her, they went into town again and had lunch with Mrs. Galen. There weren't any children and there never had been. So much the worse for the doctor and for Mrs. Galen. They had missed the best thing in life, and they knew that they had and regretted it. After lunch, the doctor went home with Sally. She thought, with some wonder at it, that the doctor could not have had much to do that day, for he had given the whole of it to her. There were many of his patients who thought otherwise—a whole office full of them; and they waited in vain for the doctor.
A few days later Sally had bidden a last mournful farewell to all her favorite haunts. She had been devoting her spare time for a week to that melancholy but pleasant duty. The little lizard would never more sit high in the branches of the coal trees and look out over the prospect of treetopsand swamp. Never again would the gynesaurus feed on stove coal plucked, ripe, from the branches whereon it grew. Sally laughed, in spite of her melancholy, as this thought passed through her mind; and the gynesaurus stopped eating coal and incontinently slid and scrambled down the tree, landing on the ground with a thump which was more like that made by a little girl than that a lizard would make. And she ran into the house in rather a cheerful frame of mind. It was almost time for the man to come for their trunks.
Fox met her as she came in. "It's a good chance to say good-bye to your mother, Sally. She's wandering about in her room."
All of Sally's cheerfulness vanished at that. She knew just how she should find her mother: aimlessly wandering from one part of the room to another, intending, always, to do something, and always forgetting what it was she intended to do. But Sally found Charlie and, together, they went to their mother.
It was the same sweet, gentle voice that called to them to come in. It was the same sweet, gentle woman who greeted them. But in her dull eyes there was scarcely recognition. To Sally it was as though a thick veil hung always before her mother, through which she could neither see clearly nor be seen. Her processes of mind were as vague and as crude as those of a baby. If she was better than she had been, how very ill she must have been!
Mrs. Ladue did not realize what Sally's good-bye meant. She was utterly incapable of taking in the changes which were before Sally or before herself. She returned Sally's good-bye impassively, as though Sally were going no farther than downstairs; and when Charlie, impatient and a little frightened, fretted and pulled at Sally's hand, Mrs. Ladue did not seem to mind. It was as if Charlie were some strange child, in whom she had no interest. Poor lady!
"Why don't you take him away?" she asked. "He wants to go."
So Sally, choking with tenderness, took him away. She cried a little on Fox's shoulder.
"It seems to me that I can't bear it, Fox," she sobbed. "To see mother so—is she really better?"
"You know she is, Sally."
"Yes, I s'pose I do." Sally's sobs gradually ceased. "But it's terribly slow. She'll have forgotten us by the time she gets well."
"No fear, Sally," Fox replied, with a gentle smile. "No fear of that. Come, here's the man for our things."
Fox was going with them. Sally dried her eyes while he went to see about the trunks.
As they walked out at the gate, Fox glanced at Sally. Her lips were tightly shut and she did not look back once, but she kept her gaze firmly fixed ahead, as if she were afraid of being turned into a pillar of salt. Nobody knew how much determination it took for her to do so. She would have liked to cry again and kiss every tree in the place. But she wouldn't cry again. She just would not.
Henrietta met them before they had gone far, and rattled on as though she had been talking on a wager. Sally couldn't talk. And Henrietta went to the station with them, still talking fast, and stayed with Sally and Charlie while Fox checked the trunks. Then the train came and Sally lingered at the door of the car.
"Good-bye, Sally," Henrietta called. "Perhaps I could come to visit you if you asked me."
"I will if I can," said Sally. "You know it won't be my house and I'm afraid that Cousin Martha may not find it convenient. If it was my house I'd ask you now."
The train started. "Good-bye, Sally," Henrietta called again as she ran along the platform; "I wish I were going with you."
"I wish you were," Sally answered. "Oh, I do wish you were, Henrietta. Good-bye."
For Henrietta had come to the end of the platform andhad stopped. The train was going almost too fast for her anyway.
"You'd better come inside, Sally." And Fox drew her inside and shut the door.
Doctor Galen met the little party upon its arrival in the city. There was nearly an hour before their train left for New York, and the doctor suggested that they all have lunch together in the station. Sally started to protest, for did they not have a package containing cold chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and bread-and-butter? But the doctor observed that he had never yet seen the time when a cold lunch did not come in handy, and they might find use for it later; and, besides, he had the lunch ordered and a table reserved. A feeling almost of cheerfulness stole over Sally's spirits; and when, lunch over, they were parting from the doctor at the steps of the car, Sally looked up at him somewhat wistfully. He interpreted her look rightly, and bent down.
"Would you, Sally?" he asked. "And one for Mrs. Galen, too. Remember, we haven't any children of our own."
At that, Sally threw her arms around his neck and gave him two for himself and two for Mrs. Galen. The doctor straightened again.
"Bless you, Sally!" he said softly. "I wish you belonged to us. Don't forget your promise."
It was very early, as the habits of the Ladue family went, when the train pulled into the station at Whitby. For Professor Ladue had not been an early riser. College professors of certain types are not noted for their earliness. One of these types had been well represented by Professor Ladue. He had not, to be sure, ever met his classes clad in his evening clothes; but, no doubt, he would have done so, in time, if his career had not been cut short.
The train did not go beyond Whitby. One reason why it did not was that there was nothing beyond but water and no stations of permanence. There was plenty of time to get out of the train without feeling hurried. Fox got out and helped Charlie down the steps; and Sally got out, feeling as if she had already been up half the night. Indeed, she had, almost, for she had been so afraid of oversleeping that she had been only dozing since midnight.
"I wonder, Fox," she said as she came down the steps, "whether there will be any one here to meet us."
"Cast your eye over the crowd," Fox whispered, "and if you see a thin, haughty lady standing somewhat aloof from the common herd, I'll bet my hat that's Martha."
Sally chuckled involuntarily, and she cast her eye over the crowd as Fox had told her to do. Therewasa lady, who seemed to be somewhat haughty, standing back by the wall of the station, aloof from the common herd, but she was not as thin as Sally had expected Cousin Martha to be. This lady was evidently expecting somebody—or somebodies—and was watching, with a shadow of anxiety on her face, as the crowd poured out of the doors and flowed down the steps. Then her gaze happened to alight upon Sally and her eyebrows lifted, quickly, and she smiled. Sally smiled asquickly in return and made up her mind, on the spot, that, if that was Cousin Martha, she should rather like Cousin Martha.
The lady had come forward at once, with a rapid, nervous walk, and met them as soon as the crowd would let her.
"Sarah Ladue?" she asked.
"Sally, Cousin Martha," Sally replied. "Everybody calls me Sally."
"Well, I am very glad to see you, Sally." Cousin Martha kissed her on the cheek; a quick, nervous peck. Sally tried to kiss Cousin Martha while she had the chance, but she succeeded in getting no more than a corner of a veil. "How did you know me?"
"I didn't. I only saw that you were looking for somebody, and I thought it might be me you were looking for."
"Oh, so that was it!" Miss Hazen smiled faintly and sighed. "I thought that perhaps you might have recognized me from the photograph I once gave your father. But I forgot that that was a great many years ago." She sighed again.
Sally tried in vain to remember any photograph of Miss Martha Hazen. She did remember something else.
"This is Fox Sanderson," she said, holding on to Fox's arm, "who has just come on to bring us. Fox isverykind. And here is Charlie."
She dragged Charlie forward by the collar. He had been behind her, absorbed in the movements of the engine.
"Oh, what a pretty boy!" exclaimed Cousin Martha. "How do you do, Charlie?"
"Not a pretty boy!" cried Charlie.
Sally shook him. "Say very well, I thank you," she whispered.
"Very-well-I-thank-you," Charlie repeated sulkily. "I'm hungry."
Miss Hazen laughed. "Mercy on us!" she said. "We must be getting home to give you something to eat." She extended the tips of her fingers to Fox. "I'm very glad tosee you, too, Mr. Sanderson. You will come home with us, too? The carriage is waiting."
"Thank you, Miss Hazen. I must see about the trunks, I suppose; Sally's and Charlie's. I didn't bring any, for I must go back to-night."
"Then, perhaps, you will spend the day with us?"
Fox thanked her again and Cousin Martha told him what to do about the trunks. There was one baggageman, in particular, whom the Hazens had employed for years when there had been trunks to go or to come. That that baggageman was now old and nearly as decrepit as his horse and wagon made no difference.
They were soon in Miss Hazen's stout carriage, behind a single stout horse. Sally had not noticed, before, that the water was so near. They went through some very dirty streets, past saloons and tenement-houses. Miss Hazen regarded them sadly.
"One gets a poor impression of Whitby from the entrance into it," she observed. "This part of the city has changed very much since my young days; changed much for the worse. It is a great pity that the railroad does not come in at some different place. On the hill, now, one would get a very different impression. But there are parts of the city which have not changed so very much. Although," she added thoughtfully, "all the change is for the worse, it seems to me."
There did not seem to be anything to be said that would be of any comfort. Fox murmured something, and then they drove up an extraordinarily steep hill. The horse had all he could do to drag them at a walk. But, looking up the hill, Sally saw a pleasant street with elms arching over it.
"Oh, how lovely!" she cried. "Do you live in this part of the city, Cousin Martha?"
"No," Cousin Martha replied, with rather more than a suspicion of pride in her voice. "Where we live, it is prettier than this."
"Oh," said Sally. Then she recollected.
"There was a very nice man on the boat," she remarked. "He was some sort of an officer, but I don't know exactly what. He said he lived in Whitby, and he had several children. The youngest girl is about my age. Do you know them, Cousin Martha? Their name is Wills."
"Wills? Wills? I don't think I know any Willses."
"He seemed to know who you were," Sally prompted. "He knew right away, as soon as ever I told him where I was going."
"It is likely enough," said Miss Hazen, trying to speak simply. The attempt was not a conspicuous success. "Many people, whom we don't know, know who we are. The Willses are very worthy people, I have no doubt, but you are not likely to know them."
"He said that, too," Sally observed.
Miss Hazen looked as if she would have liked to commend Mr. Wills's discrimination; but she did not and they continued their drive in silence. The streets seemed all to be arched over with elms; all that they drove through, at all events. Presently they reached the top of the hill and turned into a street that was as crooked as it could be. It turned this way and that and went, gently, uphill and down; but, always, it seemed to be trying to keep on the top of the ridge. Sally remarked upon it.
"You might call this the Ridge Road," she said; "like Ridge Road in Philadelphia. I have never been on the Ridge Road in Philadelphia," she added hastily, fearing that Cousin Martha might think she was pretending to be what she was not, "but I have always imagined that it was something like this."
Fox and Miss Hazen laughed. "Not much like it, Sally," said Fox.
"Or," Sally resumed, "you might call it the Cow Path. It is crooked enough to be one."
"That is just what it used to be called," said Miss Hazen. "It was not a very poetical name, but we liked it. They changed the name, some years ago."
"What?" Sally asked. "What did they change it to?"
"Washington Street," answered Cousin Martha plaintively. "It seemed to us that it was not necessary to call it Washington Street. There is no individuality in the name."
Fox laughed again. "Not a great deal," he agreed.
Miss Hazen smiled and sighed.
"We cling to the old names," she continued. "We still call this street, among ourselves, the Cow Path, and Parker Street is still West India Lane, and Smith Street is Witch Lane. The old names are more picturesque and romantic. There seemed to be no sufficient reason for changing them. For us, they are not changed."
Washington Street—the Cow Path, as Miss Hazen preferred to call it—had upon it a great many handsome places. They were big houses, of stone, for the most part, or covered with stucco, although a few of them were of wood; and they were set well back from the street, behind well-kept lawns with clumps of shrubbery or of trees scattered at careful random. Sally did not see one of these old places with the rather formal garden, with its box hedges, in front of the house, but she saw a good many with gorgeous gardens at the side, and many with the gardens, apparently, at the back.
They were very different, these great places, from her own home. Her own home might have occupied a whole square, as many of these did, if it had been in a city. It was not in a city, but in what was scarcely more than a village and the trees were where nature had set them. The whole place—Sally's own place—had an atmosphere of wildness quite in keeping with coal trees and sauri. These places, if they had had no more care than the professor had been accustomed to give to his, would have a pathetic air of abandon and desolation. What would a poor little gynesaurus do here?
They turned off of the Cow Path and Miss Hazen brightened perceptibly.
"We are getting near home," she remarked. "Our house is on the next corner."
"Oh, is it?" Sally asked. "What street is this?"
"This is Box Elder and our house is on the corner of Apple Tree."
Sally laughed. "How funny!" she said. "And what pretty names!"
"We think they are pretty names. Now, here we are."
They were just turning in between granite gateposts that were green with dampness, and Sally looked up with a lively interest. She caught a glimpse of a wooden front fence of three octagonal rails; but it was only a glimpse, for the view was cut off, almost immediately, by the row of great evergreens which stood just back of the fence. There were two other evergreens in the middle of the plot of lawn, and the elms on the streets stretched their branches far over, nearly to the house. Altogether, it gave a depressing effect of gloom and decay, which the aspect of the house itself did not tend to relieve.
It was a wooden house, large and square, although not so large as those on the Cow Path. It had a deeply recessed doorway with four wooden columns extending up two stories to support the gable. The house was not clap-boarded, but was smooth and sanded and its surface was grooved to look like stone. It might once have been a fair imitation of granite, but the time was in the distant past when the old house would have fooled even the most casual observer. And it gave them no welcome; nobody opened the door at their approach, or, at least, nobody on the inside. The door did not open until Cousin Martha opened it herself, disclosing a dark and gloomy interior.
"Come in, Sally," she said; "and you, too, Mr. Sanderson, if you please. If you will wait in the parlor for a moment, I will see about some breakfast for you. I have no doubt you are both hungry as well as Charlie. We have had our breakfast."
Sally wondered who the "we" might be. It had not occurred to her until that moment that there might be somebody else in that great gloomy house besides Cousin Martha.
"Sally," cried Charlie fretfully as they entered the dark parlor. "I want to go home. I want to go to my own home, Sally."
"Hush, Charlie," said Sally. "This is our home now. Hush. Cousin Martha may hear you."
Charlie would not hush. He was tired and hungry, although they had had an apology for a breakfast, the remains of their cold lunch, before six o'clock.
"Isn't my home. This old house isn't—"
The words died on his lips; for there was a sound behind the half-opened folding-doors at the end of the long room, and an old man appeared there. He seemed to Sally to be a very old man. He had a long white beard and stooped slightly as he made his way slowly toward them.
"Is this Sarah Ladue?" he asked as he came forward. He came near Sally and held out his hand.
"Yes, sir," answered Sally doubtfully, laying her hand in his. "It's Sally."
The old man must have detected the doubt. "Well, Sally," he said kindly, "I am your father's uncle, your Cousin Patty's father." So Cousin Martha and Cousin Patty were one.
"Oh!" returned Sally quickly. "I thought—that is, I'm very glad to see you."
The old gentleman smiled quietly. "And I'm very glad to see you. Don't you want to come into the back parlor? There's a fire in there. You, too, sir," turning to Fox.
"I forgot," interrupted Sally. "I am always forgetting to do it. This is Mr. Sanderson. He is averykind friend of ours. He came all the way with us just to see that we got here safely. And this is Charlie, sir."
"I am happy to meet a very kind friend of Sally's," the old gentleman said, shaking hands with Fox. "From what I hear, she is in need of kind friends." He held his hand out to Charlie. "Will this little boy shake hands with his Uncle John?"
That appeared to be the last thing that Charlie wished to do, but he did it, sulkily, without a word. Then the old gentleman led the way slowly into the back parlor.
Sally remembered, now, that she had heard her father speak of John Hazen—John Hazen, Junior—with that sneering laugh of his; that cold, mirthless laugh with which he managed to cast ridicule upon anything or anybody. This nice old gentleman must be John Hazen, Junior. But why should a stooping old man with a long white beard be called Junior? Why, on earth, Sally wondered. Surely, such an old man—she would speak to Cousin Martha about it. Perhaps Cousin Martha had a brother who was John, Junior. As for Cousin Martha's father, she had always taken it for granted that he was a disembodied spirit.
There was a coal fire bubbling in the grate in the back parlor. A great easy-chair was drawn up to the fire, and beside it, on the floor, lay the morning paper, where Uncle John had dropped it. There were other easy-chairs in the room, and books and magazines were scattered over the centre table. The centre table had a much-stained green cloth top, Sally noticed. Altogether, this room was cheerful, in its own way, as any room which is lived in must be; as the great front parlor was not. Its way was not the way Sally had been used to. It was too dark, to begin with, and the heavy curtains only half drawn back from the windows kept out most of the light which managed to straggle past the trees.
The old gentleman began to place other chairs, but Fox did it for him.
"Thank you," he said. "And now, as soon as Patty comes back, I shall have to leave you, if you will excuse me. I usually go downtown earlier than this, but I wished to see Sally before I went. I hope you will make yourselves quite at home."
Consideration of just this kind was a new thing for Sally.
"Oh, thank you," she cried, flushing with pleasure. "It was very nice of you to want to wait for me."
The old gentleman again smiled his quiet smile; but before he could say anything, Cousin Martha came in.
"I have some breakfast for you," she announced. "Will you go to your rooms first, or have something to eat first?"
There was no room for doubt as to Charlie's preference in the matter. Miss Hazen smiled.
"Very well, then," she said. "I think that will be better. Have your breakfast while it is hot. Then I can take you up and get you settled. The trunks will have got here by that time."
"I will go now, Patty," said her father, "if you will be good enough to help me with my overcoat."
So she stopped in the hall and held his coat and he bade good-bye to every one by name, and went out slowly.
"Does Uncle John go downtown every day?" Sally asked, soon after. She was busy with her breakfast.
"Oh, mercy, yes," Miss Hazen replied. "He is as well able to attend to his business as ever. And he always walks, unless it is very bad walking: icy or very muddy. I am afraid that he might slip and fall, and old bones, you know, do not mend easily."
"Is he—is he," Sally went on, hesitating, "John Hazen, Junior?"
"Yes," answered Cousin Martha. "He has kept the Junior."
Sally did not know just what she meant by that. "I've heard my father speak of John Hazen, Junior," she remarked, "and I didn't know but, perhaps, I might have a Cousin John."