NEWS
NEWS
CHAPTER IXNEWS
Altogether that was a wonderful summer which the Laws spent at the old Dallas place. To be free to wander in that enchanting garden; to hear a cool breeze whispering in the leafy tops of the trees; and when it was stifling hot in the streets to be able to sit on a porch overlooking a green lawn; to help John to weed and to water the flowers; to learn from him all sorts of useful things concerning plants; to watch the morning-glories open and shut in the morning, and the moon-flowers at night; all this was like a beautiful dream, and Cassy wished the summer would never come to an end. She dreaded the probable removal back to Orchard Street, next door to the parrot and old Mrs. Finnegan and Billy Miles; she dreaded the girls who at school looked askance at her and called her Miss Oddity.
“We don’t want to go back, do we?” shesaid to Flora. “We’d like to live here in this garden forever’n ever.”
But one day Mr. Dallas came. He had been with them several times before, had stayed over night, and had given a pleasant word to each one, but this time he called Mrs. Law from the back porch and they both went up-stairs to the sitting-room. Then Cassy heard the voice of another man and after a while Mr. Dallas and this other person came down-stairs and went out together. Cassy listened a few minutes, and then she ran to find her mother. She found her standing by a table; she was gazing half-dazed at a piece of paper in her hand.
“What is it, mother?” Cassy asked, touching her gently.
She looked down at the child with a little wistful smile. “It is a check from the railroad people,” she said.
“Oh! Oh! Are we rich now? Shall we have nice clothes and a pretty new home? Are we as rich as Mr. Dallas?”
“Far from it, dear. They are not willing to pay what we demanded and the lawyer at last thought it best that we should compromise, so itis much less than I had hoped for at first, but it is so much better than nothing that I am very thankful.”
“Shall we have to go back to Orchard Street?”
“No, I think not,” her mother answered, slowly.
“And shall you have to sew hard all the time?”
“I cannot tell yet what I shall do. I must have time to think it all over. I am very glad to have this dear quiet place as a refuge until I decide how best to take my place in the world. But I am forgetting my duties already; I must go and see about dinner.”
“Jerry lighted the gas stove, and I put the water to boil. Jerry got the potatoes ready, too, and I set the table, so that much is done.”
“Good children.”
“May I run and tell Jerry and John?”
“Yes, I don’t object, but you must not stay. I need my little maid about dinner-time.”
“I know. I won’t stay.” She started to leave the room, but paused with her hand on the knob.“Mother, what does entail mean? To put a tail on something?”
“Yes, in a certain sense. But what do you know about entails?”
“John was telling me something; it’s his secret; he’ll have some money, too, some day, because it’s entailed. I can’t quite understand about it, but he is quite sure.”
“Well, run along, and I will explain to you some other time.”
“What Do You Think? News! News!”
“What Do You Think? News! News!”
“What Do You Think? News! News!”
Between John McClure and Cassy there existed the greatest possible friendship. Here was some one who understood the little girl; who could tell her stories of trees and flowers, of the insects that helped and those that hurt, of the birds and the beasts, and who could be a most fascinating companion when he wanted to be. The Scotchman was not a great talker except when he and Cassy were together; he was usually rather reticent with other persons and especially regarding his former life, giving only a hint of what it had been, but he told Cassy stories of his boyhood and the two spent much time together. Jerry was often with them and helped in various ways, but he was not alwayscontented to remain within the walls of the garden and very often would seek out his schoolmates for a good game of some sort.
It being noon time Jerry was now at home, and Cassy found him with John in the garden. The summer was passing and John was getting ready for the fall; transplanting, cutting down, thinning out, to make room for chrysanthemums, asters, dahlias and cosmos. Behind the hedge which ran along one side the lawn Cassy could see John’s broad back and she ran down the graveled path towards him.
“What do you think?” she cried. “What do you think? News! News!”
Jerry dropped the trowel he was holding and John straightened himself up.
“What is it?” asked the latter. “Has your family of spiders come forth from that fuzzy ball you have been watching so long, or has your pet mouse learned to dance?”
Cassy laughed.
“No, better than that. The railroad people have paid mother; but——” she looked at Jerry, “we’re not rich at all. Mother says it isn’t so very much, yet it is very nice to have a little, isn’t it?”
“Humph!” responded John. “It never rains but it pours; I’ve had news myself.” He drew a letter from his pocket and looked at the address on the envelope.
Cassy went up to him and stood on tiptoe to whisper: “Is it about the entail?”
John put his arm around her and gave her a hug.
“You sly little lass, do you remember that? Yes, it is about that and some other things. I’ve got to pack up and travel as soon as I can.”
“Oh!” Cassy looked very sorrowful. “Must you go soon? Before we leave here?”
“I think I shall have to go as soon as I can get off. I have yet to see Mr. Dallas and get a man settled in my place, and then I shall take the first steamer.”
“Shall you stay forever?” Cassy’s little hand crept into his big one.
“No, indeed; I shall come back as soon as I can get my affairs settled. I have become a good American.”
“Like my father,” said Cassy proudly. “Shall you come back here to Mr. Dallas?”
“No, I hope to have a place of my own. Iwish—but there’s time enough to think of that.”
“I must go in now,” Cassy said. “I promised mother I wouldn’t stay, for she wants me. So much is happening that it made me forget.”
“It never rains but it pours,” said John, “but it is queer that all this should come at once. What do you think about it, Master Jerry?”
“I think it is too bad that you have to go away, and I think it is too bad that those railroad people didn’t give mother all that she ought to have. Aren’t we going to have the cottage and the garden and all that, Cassy?”
She shook her head.
“I’m afraid not. Mother doesn’t know yet. She’s got to think about it.” She spoke in a little old-fashioned way that made John smile.
Jerry looked disappointed.
“Oh, pshaw! I’m disgusted,” he said. “I thought we’d have all we wanted. I say it’s pretty hard not to get it after all this time we have had to do without.”
“It’s pretty hard not to get a lot of things,” John remarked; “but maybe they’ll come after a while. You’re young yet, my lad.” He turnedback to his work and Cassy returned to the house to find dinner ready.
“John’s had some news, too,” Cassy announced as they all sat down to the table.
“I hope it is good news,” said Mrs. Law, smiling at John across the table.
“It’s good and bad,” returned John slowly. “I’ve had word that my grandfather has died, but I come in for the property he left.”
Mrs. Law looked up a little surprised.
“How strange!” she exclaimed. “I have had such news, too; the letter was sent to my former address, and came just a minute ago.”
“That is a coincidence,” returned John.
“Is it Grandfather Kennedy who is dead?” Jerry asked. “Why, mother——”
John dropped his knife and covered his face with one hand.
Mrs. Law sat gazing at him.
“It can’t be; it can’t be!” she whispered, half rising from her chair.
“Will you tell me your maiden name?” said John, in a queer, strained voice.
“Kennedy was my maiden name,” Mrs. Law answered.
“Where were you born?” John asked, in the same queer way.
“In Glasgow, but my parents both died when I was little more than a baby, and my mother’s sister, who lived in England, adopted me, and I generally was known by her name of Matthews. She came to America when I was about ten years old, and I married here.”
John leaned across the table and held out a shaking hand.
“Little Mysie! Little Mysie! Can it be my little sister, and that all this time I never knew it?”
“Yes, yes, but your name is McClure, not Kennedy.”
“It is Kennedy. I quarreled with my grandfather, who wanted me to marry a wealthy woman, and because I chose the dearest girl in the world who could win no favor from him because she was poor, he refused to see me again. I went to Australia, and there my wife died a year later. I could not go back to my old home. Grandfather had been too hard, too unyielding, and there were some reasons that he should not know where I was, and so I changed my namewhen I came to America, for I did not know to what desperate straits I might come, though I meant to be an honest man, no matter how poor.”
“John, dear John!” Mrs. Law was by his side. “My own brother! and we have been strangers all these years, and yet have been seeing each other every day for three months. What a strange discovery!”
Cassy left her seat and went around to John’s side.
“Are you my really, truly uncle?”
“I am, my lass, as near as I can make out. It seems straight enough. Your mother there was Mysie Kennedy, and that was the name of my little sister that I’d not seen since she left for the States. She was brought up by my mother’s sister, my aunt Agnes Matthews, and I was left with my grandfather, Alexander Kennedy. If those facts fit, you are my own little niece. I wrote to my aunt when I first came to the States, but the letter came back to me from the dead-letter office. I was not specially proud of my position in the world and so I did not do anything more to discover my relatives. I did not know my sister had married,so how could I tell that Mrs. Jerrold Law was my sister?” He smiled at Cassy’s mother.
Cassy looked at Jerry very steadily.
“I think if Jerry were to go away for years and years, I wouldn’t forget how he looked and I would know him anywhere.”
Mrs. Law shook her head.
“I don’t believe you would. Do you think your uncle looks much like the picture of your mother’s little brother Jock, which you have so often seen?”
“Oh, no.” Cassy scanned her uncle’s face wonderingly, and shook her head.
“And the little fat roly-poly girl whom I remember as my sister was very unlike the lady who is your mother,” said John.
“I see,” said Cassy. “I suppose you couldn’t know each other, but I can’t believe yet that I would ever forget Jerry or that I wouldn’t know him a hundred years from now.”
“I think you’d all better eat your dinners,” said Jerry, nothing if not practical, his plate being the only one that was empty.
The others laughed, but there was not much dinner eaten that day by any one, for even Jerrywas so excited as to have less appetite than usual.
“To think, Jerry,” Cassy remarked later, “that we have a relation, a real relation, and I’d rather have him than any one else in the whole world. May we call you Uncle John?”
“Mayyou? You’d better not call me anything else.”
“And are you going to be named Kennedy now?”
“Just for the present, I’ll keep the McClure, but when I come back to you it will be with my own name. Wouldn’t you like to go with me, Mysie?” he asked his sister.
“And leave my children?”
“Why not take them?”
Mrs. Law shook her head.
“No, I think that would not be wise at present. I think we’d better stay here and make a home for you to come back to.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried both the children. “And will you always live with us?”
“Indeed I will if you’ll not get tired of me.” He turned to his sister. “The entail ends with me, and I shall dispose of the property at once.I am told there is a customer for it, the man who has been managing the place for grandfather all these years. I have no wish to live in a place where there are only unhappy memories.”
“I am afraid you had rather a miserable time of it in your boyhood, you poor John,” said Mrs. Law.
“It wasn’t a particularly lively one. However, that is all past now. Grandfather no doubt thought he was doing right. In his severe way of looking at life and his strict ideas of what a young man should do; what he called my disobedience was a very terrible thing to him. He could not understand that I was a man grown and that I had a right to marry the girl I loved.”
He gave a long sigh and rose from his chair. Jerry followed him out into the garden. There was much to learn, and Cassy, divided between her desire to go with her uncle and her wish to do her duty, by staying to help her mother, stared after the two as they went off.
She chattered like a magpie while they were washing the dishes, and she heard many things which had never been told her before. What a strange day it had been! She felt as if she wereliving in a story-book, but she stayed by her mother till the last dish was put away, and then she was left alone while her mother went up-stairs to write some important letters.