CHAPTER XXII.
“Lettersfor me? That is good,” said Ruth Kinsolving, as the pleasant-faced servant brought in the morning mail. “Home letters, too, Mother Amy.”
Grandmother Kinsolving smiled. She had learned to watch her daughter’s face with considerable amusement, whenever missives from the “pickle”-invaded Snuggery were received. There was always something in them to disquiet the order-loving little lady herself, but the real burden of anxiety was felt by Ruth.
Even when events appeared to the young folks in the old house to have been running with wonderful smoothness, these absent home-makers found cause for perplexity. Of late, however, there had been a dearth of “happenings”; and the soul of Ruth had something akin to that of Rosetta, in that she prophesied evil from this quietude.
“I dread to open them, mother. It is impossiblebut that something out of common has occurred by this time.”
“Read away, daughter. Thee had been growing wiser, I fancied; certainly, ever since thy visit home, thee has seemed less disturbed. But, read away! I am the one who is impatient now.”
Ruth prepared to comply, but an interruption occurred in the shape of a visit from an invited guest; and the fateful epistles of Content and Octave were laid aside for a more convenient hour.
“There can be nothing in them that will not keep,” said Ruth to herself, as she helped the guest to lay aside her wraps, and to make herself comfortable for the day.
The visitor was an old friend of Amy Kinsolving’s youth; and there was something so pretty in the meeting of the old ladies that Ruth utterly forgot all other interests for the next few hours. Then, before the “convenient” one arrived, another guest appeared; and that one no other than Uncle Fritz himself.
To say that his unexpected arrival set everythingin commotion is to say only what would have been surmised by those who knew him best. But the commotion was still a happy one, and, if he knew anything of what Octave and Content had vainly tried to communicate, he did not mention it. Indeed, to Grandmother Kinsolving’s inquiry as to when he had heard from the children he replied: “Oh, I have but just come from there, I made them a flying visit first, then hurried right away here. I did not know I could get off so soon, though it has indeed seemed long to me since I looked upon your face, dear madam”; and the genial gentleman bowed over Mother Amy’s hand with a grace which won upon her heart, opposed even as it had always been to ceremonies.
After awhile it became evident to Aunt Ruth that Mr. Pickel had something which he particularly wished to say to her; and so, leaving her mother to enjoy her friend, the pretty Quakeress tied on her stiff bonnet and led him away to her favorite spot by the sea-shore. But, from the expression of his countenance, anxious perhaps, though not at all distressed, it did not appearthat he had come to be the bearer of ill tidings; and as his confidence had nothing especial in connection with the events then enacting at The Snuggery, it need not be speculated upon here.
Suffice it to say that this confidence delayed the two—and so unlike—guardians of “a jar of pickles” for such an unheard of length of time, that Mother Amy finally grew anxious, and dispatched the pleasant-faced servant to hunt the delinquents up.
They came in, at last, looking so at peace with themselves and all the world that Mrs. Kinsolving’s own face brightened; though she opened her conversation with the gentle remonstrance: “I was sorry thee did not come in time to see friend Barbara off.”
“O Mother Amy! That is too bad! Thee must forgive my inattention.”
“It is nothing, of course; there was no especial reason why thee should have come, but I think she would have liked to speak with thee again.”
Ruth glanced at Uncle Fritz, and said nothing.What could she say, since till that moment she had quite forgotten the existence of friend Barbara Fletcher?
Uncle Fritz seemed, also, strangely unmindful of people’s prejudices, for he sauntered to the window, whistling the very gayest and most worldly of operatic airs. Amy Kinsolving looked anxiously toward her daughter, fearing she would reprimand the gentleman for his lack of taste; but she need not have feared, though Ruth’s fearless tongue had corrected more than one such offence, swift on its commission.
Since Ruth did not object, and seemed, indeed, to be lost in some happy thoughts of her own, Grandmother Amy softly sighed in her relief. Aloud she said:
“I need not ask thee if the children are doing as they should. I see by thy face that there is nothing amiss; but, if Fritz does not object, I should like to hear thee read the home letters now, daughter.”
“The letters?” asked Ruth. She had forgotten them along with Barbara Fletcher! Again she shot that funny glance of hers “FritzyNunky’s” way, and this time a very pretty pinkish color crept up into her cheeks. “Mother! thee will think I am a heartless girl; but I had forgotten the letters, too. I have not read them.”
“No, I do not think thee heartless—but please to read them now,” answered Mother Amy, with a peculiar smile.
And with her cheeks brighter than ever, Ruth opened the two letters. “I’ll glance through them first, mother; thee knows I like to do so.” For this aunt of many tribulations had learned that there were some happenings which even her honest tongue would best withhold from the gentle old mistress of The Snuggery. If she had told Mother Amy quite all that went on in her beloved home, perhaps her recovery would not have been as rapid or as thorough as it had been.
Mrs. Kinsolving and Uncle Fritz fell into conversation, while Ruth extracted the sting, as it were, from the home letters before she shared them with the others. But, after awhile, it seemed even to these two patient souls as if this proceeding was one of infinite labor and thought,judging from the time it consumed; and they turned from the window through which they had been watching the play of some little ones upon the lawn, to inquire the reason.
Then, with a cry of alarm, they each sprang forward, as Ruth, for almost the first time in her life, nearly succumbed to the weakness of fainting.
Nearly, but not quite. The terrified look in her mother’s eyes, and Uncle Fritz’s sustaining clasp recalled her fleeing senses. “I—I’d like a drink of—water!”
She had it on the instant, and, after she had drunken part of it, her color came back and she was able to speak quite firmly. “It is about as bad as it can be, but lest thee should think it worse than it is, I will try to read them. Fritz, thee should have told me.”
Then she resolutely took hold of the closely written sheets, and, disdaining all Mr. Pickel’s offers of assistance, read them through to the end. Those who were familiar with the varying tones of Ruth Kinsolving’s voice would have judged from it then that she was very deeplymoved. Even Uncle Fritz, who should have been so much a stranger, understood it; and had Melville heard her he would certainly have said, “Aunt Ruth means business!”
Poor Mother Amy was almost as much disturbed by the tidings which were so ambiguously conveyed through Octave’s and Content’s stories as her daughter had been; but she was the first to recover her scattered wits. “Then, since no telegram has come, it must have all turned out for the best.”
“It has, dear madam; it has, indeed!” cried Uncle Fritz.
“The best, Mother Amy! Can thee see any ‘best’ even in this?”
“Why, yes, my child. It is best for Melville to have had this chance, this Providential blessing; and it is as well that it should all have been gone through with without thy knowledge. Thee would have worried thyself ill.”
“Humph!” said Ruth; replying to her mother as she had rarely before replied.
Then she turned to Uncle Fritz. “And so thee has known this all along, and did not tell me?”
Poor Fritzy Nunky almost shivered in his shoes; but, being of the same valiant stuff as his small nephew, he rallied to the occasion. “Yes, sweetheart, I knew. But I would not have had thee know it for a fortune, till it was done and safely done.” At which remarkable speech Mother Amy opened her eyes most widely, though Ruth dropped hers.
“Well,” said that young person at last, and after a rather uncomfortable silence; “since every inconceivable thing has happened which could happen, I suppose there is no objection to my going home.”
“Not the least in the world,” answered Uncle Fritz, generously.
“No; it is high time we went. Thee had best go and pack up, my daughter, while I have a word or two with Fritz, here. We will go home, or start for home to-night, by the evening boat.” Grandmother Kinsolving’s tone had that ring of authority she so rarely exercised, but which there was no mistaking.
Ruth gave her mother one glance, then stooped and kissed the fair old cheek before shehurried from the room. But again the stalwart Fritz had fallen to trembling; and that before the gentlest of little women, in the meek garb of a Friend, whose question might mean much or little, according to the hearer’s mood: “Well, Fritz?”