CHAPTER XI.
“Yes, that is what she needs; it is the only thing.” The doctor said this very firmly and gravely; but quiet as his words were they set the impetuous heart of Ruth Kinsolving in a fever of anxiety.
“I am sure thee is hiding something from me, Doctor Winslow; and I wish thee to tell me the worst. If my mother is—is going to follow Margaret Capers, I—I must know it.”
“She is not going to follow her, if you do as I say. Take Mrs. Kinsolving away at once to the sea-shore, or to some restful place, where she can have a complete change of air, and as little disturbance of her habits, otherwise, as possible.”
Aunt Ruth looked up searchingly; but seeing nothing in the familiar face of their old physician to warrant her dreadful fear, her thoughts turned at once to a lesser trouble. It was all very well for Doctor Winslow to say, “Go away to the sea-shore,” but how was this apparently simple matter to be accomplished?
The death of Mrs. Capers left the invalid Melville entirely dependent upon his aunt’s care. His grief had been profound and prostrating; for that sorrow is always keenest which has self-reproach as a factor; and though a fortnight had elapsed since the quiet funeral, its influence still hung, pall-like, over the house.
Octave was better; but she could not yet put her injured foot to the floor without great suffering; although the broken arm was mending fast, and gave the self-helpful girl little trouble. It was astonishing how much she could accomplish with that deft left hand of hers; and she laughingly declared she had been gifted with her power to use it as others use their right, expressly for this time of need.
Mr. Pickel had been obliged to leave them, or lose entirely the business opportunities which had brought him all the way from Germany, and which he was ambitious to improve “on his children’s account.” It was all for the children—his care, his life, his love; and Ruth Kinsolving could not live for so many days in the society of this unselfish man without catching something of his spirit.From an unwelcome burden, she had also come to regard her sister Lydia’s family as a sacred charge; and, as each girl of the group resolved herself into a distinct individuality, the aunt’s interest increased. She grew almost morbidly anxious lest she should fail in her “duty” to one or other of the orphans.
How, then, was she to leave them with only a servant to look after them?
Perplexed and troubled, she returned after the doctor’s visit to her mother’s room, and one keen glance into the tired eyes of the sweet old lady settled the matter for her. Her mother was more to her than all the orphans in the world. Her mother was drooping sadly, overcome, the doctor thought, by a burden of care she should not have assumed, and shocked and broken by the death of her old friend, Margaret Capers.
It seemed that turmoil and confusion had come to The Snuggery only with the coming of the Pickels. Well, she would leave them the house, and they might tear it roof from rafter, for all she cared at that moment; she would do her duty by her mother, let come what would come!
Her energetic movement aroused Grandmother Kinsolving’s curiosity.
“What is it, daughter?”
Ruth intended to be very prudent and announce her plan in the least startling manner, but she was far too impulsive and too much in earnest to do this successfully. She tried, beginning two or three sentences in a temporizing fashion, and ending with an outburst of tears:
“The doctor says that thee is ill, so ill that I must take thee to the sea-shore. Tell me, darling mother, that it is not so very, very bad!”
Amy Kinsolving smiled. To Ruth there was nothing so beautiful as her mother’s smile, and that it still was left to cheer her went far toward calming her anxiety.
“The doctor is right, Ruth. I am a little worn and tired by this upsetting of our quiet life; but a few weeks away from it will give me strength to face the winter without being an added burden to thy weary shoulders. Thee needs the rest as much as I do. Thee takes things too much in earnest, and frets thyself over imaginary shortcomings. We will go away and leave the ‘littlepickles’ to look after themselves, under Rosetta Perkins’s direction.”
Since her mother took the proposition so quietly, and answered so cheerfully, Ruth’s anxiety flew round to another side of the subject. “Rosetta Perkins! A pretty woman she is to have the care of such a houseful of young people!”
“She is an excellent cook.”
“Mother Amy! What has that to do with it?”
“More than thee thinks. Thee worries over the children’s minds and morals, and that is well enough in a way, but if their bodies are healthy and sound, they may be safely trusted to do pretty nearly right. They come of good stock.”
Ruth was speechless with amused surprise. Such words seemed like heresy on the lips of the saintly Amy; but they had the effect of checking her own anxiety and of assuring her that her mother was not so dangerously ill as she had feared.
“I suppose we can trust Content to keep things straight, under Rosetta,” said Ruth, so merrilythat her mother’s heart lightened. If Ruth had been worrying about her, she had also been worrying about Ruth; and, when matters reach this stage between two people, it is time that somebody else stepped in and set them at ease. Good Doctor Winslow had done so by his pleasant prescription; and, already, in less than five minutes after he had given it, its beneficent effects were evident. The sea-shore trip had become a matter-of-course; what was the house to worry about, more than a house? And as for the children, how could they go far astray in that peaceful abode?
“Content shall have her share of the task; but Paula is the elder. Paula must be prime minister,” said Grandmother Kinsolving.
“Paula, mother? Paula is no more fit to be set over the others than—than I am!”
“It will make a vast difference to the girl whether she is put in authority or whether she assumes it. Paula will do right; thee may depend upon it.”
“Mother Amy, thee is either a very foolish or a very wise woman.”
“Daughter Ruth, I have lived long. The years should teach me something.”
“And thee is not afraid to put that maid of airs and graces to rule in thy stead?”
“Not one whit afraid.”
“Humph! I wash my hands of the responsibility!” said Ruth, half-laughingly, half-seriously, and tossing those same shapely hands upward in a deprecating fashion.
“Do that really, my daughter; ‘cease carrying coals to Newcastle,’ and thee will find life a better thing. Thee is a good ‘Martha,’ but thee remembers about ‘Mary?’”
“Thee is the ‘Mary’ of this household, sweet mother. Thee has always had ‘the better part.’ I will try to learn of thee.” As she said this, the daughter stooped and kissed her mother’s cheek; then she went swiftly out of the room, intent upon setting things in readiness for her contemplated absence.
Ruth Kinsolving found always her best antidote for anxiety in activity; and so promptly did she settle all the details of the household management during Paula’s and Rosetta’s reign, that shewas ready on the next morning to start with her mother for that vacation of rest they both needed.
The group of young folks who watched their carriage out of sight felt for a few moments a sense of desolation which even Paula’s pride in authority, or Content’s serenity, could not banish.
“Oh, dear! I feel—I feel so lumpy, and kind of sick inside,” said little Fritz, dropping his head on Christina’s shoulder; “I don’t see what makes folks go away all the time.”
“Let’s all go into Melville’s room and be miserable together,” said Content, trying to smile, yet finding the tears interfering; “I think I heard Octave say that Melville had had a letter from your Uncle Fritz.”
To the little Pickels, that was a name “to conjure by”; and with a quick change of sentiment, they rushed pell-mell into “the lion’s den.”