"I don't doubt it. And what did you and Miss Josephine do?"
"Stood about and tried to look pleased and happy. My gloves felt like furs and a soapstone, and I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say to anybody."
Ferry laughed. "I wonder if anybody ever does say anything intelligent at such entertainments. Did Mr. Neil Chase himself rise to the occasion and play the genial host as he should?"
"I think he mostly spent the evening sitting on the porch rail at the farthest corner away from the drawing-room."
"The memory of the fellows lounging comfortably on your porch undoubtedly made his role seem the harder by contrast. I saw a longing look in his eye as he drove away, and had an idea he might be back. But I suppose he couldn't get out of it."
"No—their 'country home' isn't much like our 'country home.' Oh, isn't this air delicious? Do you suppose Constance would be willing to sing in it? Wouldn't it sound like a part of the summer night out here?"
They were bowling along the quiet country road, only the chirp of many locusts, the rumble of the wheels, and the sound of their own voices to break the stillness. Ferry leaned forward. Constance was at the farther end of the wagon, between Jarvis and Max.
"Constance!" he called softly. Sally thought she would not hear, but she did. Ferry's voice, even in its subdued tones, possessed that carrying quality which is the peculiar acquirement of the trained public speaker.
"Yes, Don," she called back, and everybody stopped talking. People had a way of stopping other talk to listen when either of these two had anything to say.
"Here's a person, at this end of the chariot, who wonders if people with drawing-room voices ever venture to test them in the open air."
"What do you think about it?"
"That one of them will, if we ask her. Therefore, we ask."
Constance considered an instant. "Will you and Janet sing 'My Garden' with me—especially for Sally?"
For answer Ferry tried for the proper key, found it—under his breath—and began, very softly, and on a low note, to sing. Janet joined him with a subdued contralto, and the two voices, without words, made themselves into a harmonious undertone of an accompaniment. Upon this support, presently, rose Constance's pure notes. It was no "show singing," this time, and the song did not lift above a gentle volume which seemed to fit, as Sally had anticipated, into the night. But the listeners gave themselves to the listening as they had never done before, even in the many times they had heard this girl. Even Jake Kelly, on his driver's seat, turned about to hearken with held breath. The farm-hand drew his horses down to a walk, that not a note might be marred.
"A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!Rose plot,Fringed pool,Ferned grot—The veriest schoolOf Peace, and yet the foolContends that God is not—Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?Nay, but I have a sign:'Tis very sure God walks in mine."
The words[A] were familiar to some of them—the music new. Together words and music were something to remember.
[Footnote A: The words are those of Thomas Edward Brown.]
Certain of these phrases came in over and over, throughout the song—taking hold of one's heart most appealingly. "Not God—in gardens!—when the eve is cool?" came again and again, till one felt it indeed to be the word of the fool. Then, in exquisite harmony, fell the assurance—"Nay, but I have a sign—a sign—a sign—'Tis very sure God walks in mine!"
Everybody but Sally found words in which to tell, in some sort, how the song had seemed to them, even Alec observing boyishly, "I say, but that's great. I didn't know you folks could all sing."
After some minutes had gone by, Donald Ferry bent to speak in Sally's ear. She was looking off into the night, her hands clasped tight together in her lap. "I know," he said, very gently.
"You always know," she answered, under cover of the talk, which was now going on again. "Tell me,"—wistfully—"do you think—He—walks in mine?"
"I know it. He walks in every garden—when He is wanted there."
"If ever I felt weepy over seeing people off, it's this minute!"
"We feel just as weepy over going, Sally Lunn. But cheer up. We shall come out every other minute, Jarvis and I, and mother will be planning all winter, I know, how early she can get back in the spring."
Josephine gave Sally a tremendous hug as she spoke, and Mrs. Burnside, in her turn, took the girl into her motherly embrace.
"I shouldn't have believed," she said warmly, "how reluctant I should be to go back to town in the fall, after this charming summer—nor how willing I should be to promise to return in the spring. Sally, dear—do make use of our rooms all you care to—though they're not half as cheery as your own, for the winter."
"Ithasbeen a lovely summer, hasn't it?" cried Sally, as the Burnside carriage, fine bay horses and liveried coachman, appeared upon the driveway, looking suggestively like city life again. "A successful one too, don't you think, for the boys? They're confident they have improved the ground so much that their first real crops, next year-will begin to show what crops ought to be."
"Yes, it has all been a success," agreed Mrs. Burnside, "in spite of the mistakes they own to and laugh over. Jarvis himself has received a world of good from his out-door life. I'm hoping that all your brothers will make the most of next season—especially Max."
"Oh, Max will come round in time," declared Josephine confidently. "I caught him feeling enviously of Jarvis's arms the other day. When Jarvis said he felt like a giant, Max said he thought he'd have to begin giant culture, whether he succeeded in making any squashes grow or not."
This thought cheered Sally through the trying moment of watching her friends drive away. Their going took place at rather an unfortunate time for her. Uncle Timothy was off on a visit to his old New Hampshire home; Constance Carew had departed the week before—though under promise to return for a long visit the following summer; and Janet was away for a wedding in which she was to play the part of bridesmaid. Sally's one consolation was that Joanna was to take the place of Mary Ann Flinders in the kitchen.
This arrangement had been made by Mrs. Burnside. On just what terms it had been effected Sally was not permitted to inquire. She had protested against it, but the argument had ended by the elder woman's saying gently, "Sally dear, I shall spend a happier winter if I know you have my good Joanna here. She likes the place, it is a pleasant change for her from the responsibilities of my entertaining, and her sister is eager to take her place with me. So let me have my way—at least for this winter." It was a way of putting the matter which could not be set aside.
When the carriage had disappeared, Sally wandered out to the kitchen to console herself with the sight of Joanna. There was no doubt that the presence of that capable, comfortable person, possessed as she was of intelligence and common sense, would be a real support to the young mistress of the house. But at this moment even Joanna failed her, for she had gone to her room, the hour being that of mid-afternoon. Sally wandered back again into the living-room, feeling too disconsolate even to make the effort to cheer herself by going for a brisk walk in the keen late October air, a measure which usually had a prompt effect upon her spirits.
From the living-room window she saw a messenger boy approaching, and hurried to the porch door to meet him, hoping he brought no ill news. Two minutes later she was reading the message, alone in the living-room, while the boy waited in the hall. Its purport banished all thought of present circumstances, except to bring the wish that it had arrived a half-hour earlier. "Mr. Rudd seriously ill anxious to have you come at once" it read, and was signed by the name of one of Mr. Rudd's old New Hampshire friends.
After a minute's deliberation, Sally wrote her reply "Will come at once.Leave to-night if possible," and sent the boy off with it. As he departedJarvis came into the hall from the door at the rear. Sally turned with anexclamation of surprise and relief.
"Oh, I thought you had gone."
"Without saying good-by? You ought to know better. But I'd have been off when the others went if I hadn't had some unexpected magneto trouble. All right now, and I'm going at once. What's that?" as he caught sight of the yellow envelope in her hand. "No bad news, I hope?"
"Uncle Timmy's very sick—up in New Hampshire. I'm going to him as fast as I can get off."
"Uncle Timmy? Oh, I'm mighty sorry! You're going, you say?"
"Of course. He asked me to come. I was just going to telephone to find out about trains."
"I'll see to all that—if you must go. But, Sally—have you letMax know?"
"Not yet."
"Have you sent an answer saying you will come, on your own responsibility?"
Sally's slight figure drew itself up. "Why not? There's nothing else to do but go—and if there were, I wouldn't do it."
"It will take you at least twenty-four hours to get there."
"Yes. What has that to do with it?"
Jarvis's face looked as if he thought it had a good deal to do with it. He knew that, dress as quietly as she would—and Sally's dressing for the street meant always the plainest and simplest of attire—there was that about her which invariably attracted attention. He understood with just what a barrier of youthful reserve she would be likely to surround herself upon such a journey, but he understood also that barriers of reserve are not all the defences sometimes necessary for a girl who travels alone. For one moment he felt as if he must go along to take care of her, in the next that nothing could be more out of the question.
"I'm glad it's no farther, anyhow," he replied to Sally's quick question. "But hadn't you better let the boys know, before you go at your preparations? Max wouldn't be pleased at not being consulted, you know."
"Will you tell him, please? But first find out what train I must take, so you can be definite with him."
"But, Sally—really—shouldn't you ask old Maxy's consent?"
"Why?"
"Well—it's the diplomatic thing to do."
"I don't care one bit about diplomacy. Uncle Timmy's sick and wants me. I'm going up to get ready. You can telephone what you like." With something in her voice which sounded suspiciously like a sob, she ran away up the stairs.
Knitting his brows, Jarvis went into the west wing to the telephone, that instrument having been promptly installed upon the Burnside family's arrival for the summer. After considering a minute he called up a railway ticket-office and learned that the best through train Sally could take would leave at 5.30 that afternoon. His watch told him that it was then nearly half after three. There must be rapid work if Sally was to catch that train. Then he had Max on the wire. Statement, question, and answer now came back and forth in quick succession.
"What, start to-night?" Max's tone was incredulous.
"So she wants to do—with your permission. I suppose you'll give it. By the despatch we judge he's pretty ill."
"Well, but—look here. I must say that's asking a good deal for her to go off up there. Why not wire whoever sent the thing to keep us informed, and if he gets much worse—"
"Won't do, she's already answered she'll go."
"Well, of all the—see here—but we can't really afford—"
"I'll see to that—don't mention it." Jarvis's tone was curt. He was beginning to sympathize with Sally's reluctance to consult her elder brother. He wondered if Max would ever outgrow his habit of objecting to everything first and unwillingly taking it into consideration afterward.
"I'm awfully busy here—can't do a thing to get her off—can't get away from the bank before five."
"Don't try. Meet us at the train. I'll engage a berth for her—mustn't lose more time about it," and Jarvis hang-up his receiver without waiting to hear anything further. Then he had a wrestle with the Pullman ticket-office, in the attempt to secure a full sleeping-car section for Sally.
"Can't do it," came back the answer.
"Too full?"
"No, but we don't give a section to one passenger."
"Not if it's paid for?"
"Not on one ticket."
"On two tickets, then?"
"Why, of course, if you want to pay for two full-fare tickets."
Jarvis considered rapidly. If he secured the section on two tickets, Sally would be forced to show them both, so she couldn't be kept from knowing about it—unless he—yes, he could hunt up the Pullman conductor and give him one ticket. Wait—why not engage a state-room—if he could get it at this late hour?—though the train was a fast and popular one, and he knew this was doubtful. But a moment's reflection negatived this idea. Sally would certainly resent his taking the liberty of paying all the difference between one ordinary berth and a luxuriously private state-room. He realized, with a sense of irritation, that it was of no use. He could not send Sally up into New Hampshire packed in jewellers' cotton, marked "Fragile and Valuable," a registered package conveyed by special messenger. But he could make sure that nobody else shared the section either by night or day, and this he did, and double-tied his reservation until he could get to town to see about it personally.
Then he ran over to the Ferry cottage, thinking that Sally might be glad, in the absence of the girls, to have Mrs. Ferry come over and help her with her hurried preparations. But he found the place locked and silent, and understood that the mistress of it had probably gone into town for the day, as she frequently did. So he dashed back and upstairs to Joanna's room, where he routed her from her sewing with the request: "Go see if you can be mother, sister, and friend to Miss Sally, Joanna—there's an angel!" Which intimate form of address may be comprehended if it is added that Joanna had been in the Burnside family since Jarvis himself was a small lad in knickerbockers—and the good woman's especial pride—and that therefore a warm friendship existed between them.
Joanna made all haste to Sally's room, ready to do her best, but she found her charge already clad in travelling dress, pinning a veil about her hat, her gloves and purse laid out, and a bag packed with necessaries. The mind of the young mistress of the house was concerned less with her own preparations than with the comfort of those she was to leave behind.
"You'll take good care of them, won't you, Joanna?" begged Sally. "Give them the things they like best—all the time. And you'll see that the living-room looks the way I like to have it when they come home, won't you?—the fire blazing, and the couch pillows plumped up. And you know they like a nice lot of shiny red apples brought up to eat before they go to bed!"
"Yes, Miss Sally, I'll remember all the things. Don't you fret yourself. I can't take your place, but I'll see that the young gentlemen have their buttons sewed on, and plenty of good food. But I'm hoping you won't be gone long. Most likely you'll find your uncle better—I hope that, indeed I do, Miss Sally."
"Thank you, Joanna—indeed I do, too. And—Joanna—I'm so glad you're here. I don't think I could go away and leave my brothers with just little Mary Ann to look after them!"
Sally held the big hand tight a minute, looked into the plump, kind face with eyes which were suddenly like drenched violets—then dashed away the tears, smiled at Joanna, caught up her belongings, and ran downstairs, followed by the woman, who felt relieved when she saw Mr. Jarvis waiting in the hall below. It had suddenly seemed to Joanna as if she must go with the girl herself. It must not be supposed that Sally did not possess plenty of the air of capable independence. It was only that—well—the fair, curly hair, the dark-lashed blue eyes, the flower-like bloom of the young face, appealed to her, as they did to Jarvis, as needing protection from the eyes sure to follow her wherever she went. Looking up at her from below it also occurred to Jarvis that the plain and unrelieved dark blue of Sally's whole attire somehow served only to heighten the probable effect of her upon the observant public, and he longed fiercely himself to double the thickness of that veil and tie it tight about her head, requesting her not to untie it till she was safe in Uncle Timothy's presence!
But all he said was: "Ready? You're a quick one—wouldn't have thought any girl could make such time. This all your baggage? Come on—the car's at the door."
Outside he spoke hurriedly: "Sally, you haven't given me a chance to ask you about funds for this trip. One can't always lay one's hand on just the amount—and Max is busy, so—"
But Sally answered with assurance. "It's all right, thank you, Jarvis. I've a little fund of my own. There isn't any need to bother Max. I'm so glad of that. How lucky for me you hadn't gone with the car! I should have been so flurried, trying to catch the trolley with my bag and umbrella."
She took her place and in a minute they were off. And there had been nobody but Joanna on the big porch to wave good-by at Sally Lane!
Then came a fast drive to town, during which neither of them talked much.
"I wish there were time to take you up to the house to see mother and Jo," Jarvis said, as they came into the down-town streets. "But Jo may be at the station. I telephoned the house, but they'd evidently driven somewhere else before going home. I left word, so I'm hoping Jo will get it. She'll be heart-broken if you get off without her seeing you."
But Josephine was not at the station. Alec and Bob were there, however, and they told Sally that Max would come in time to see her off. Personally they were much upset at the outlook.
"I don't see why you have to be the one," protested Alec. "Uncle Timothy must have some ancient sister or cousin or aunt to see to him, without sending for a girl like you."
Jarvis had rushed away to the ticket-office, and Sally had her brothers to herself for the time. She made the most of it.
"But he hasn't, Alec," she explained. "I simply have to go. But I want you boys not to mind my being away. Joanna will take beautiful care of everything, and you must have your friends out, and crack nuts and pop corn and roast apples in the evenings, and be just as jolly as if—"
"Oh,wow!" cried Bob. "Sally, what do you take us for? What we'll do will be to moon around the fire and wonder what you're doing. We—"
"No, no! It will be winter soon, and you must go tobogganing—"
"Why, you aren't going to stay away all winter, are you?" Alec grew wrathful. "Look here—I won't stand for anything like that—neither will the rest. You've got to—"
"Listen, dear. I may be back in a—well—in a very short time, if Uncle Timothy gets on. But you know how it was a few years ago when he had pneumonia—he was a long time getting about. He's older now, and—"
"Yes, but we've first right to you. Besides, you'll use yourself all up trying to nurse—"
"No—I'm strong and well, Alec—I won't use myself up. But Uncle Timmy is all we have left—and—oh, please don't talk about it!—I'm so anxious lest I can't do anything for him when I get there." She conquered a constriction in her throat, while they waited, for that last phrase had silenced them. They were all fond of Uncle Timothy—they didn't want to lose him. In a minute Sally went on cheerfully: "If you'll only write to me I can stand anything. Tell me all about everything. Oh, here's Max!"
She turned to meet him. He was looking gravely disapproving, as was to have been expected, but something in the sight of his sister's face made him refrain from reproaching her for not having consulted him, as he had intended to do. Besides, the hands of the clock were pointing too nearly to the time of her departure for him to feel like thrusting upon her the weight of his displeasure.
Jarvis came back, tickets in hand, and gave them to Sally with the little purse she had handed him. Announcing that there was no time to lose he then convoyed the whole party through the door to the trains, using some influence which he possessed with the blue-capped official thereat to obtain the favour. So the passengers already in the crowded sleeper were treated to the somewhat unusual spectacle of a particularly charming girl being brought aboard her train by a party of four quietly solicitous young men, even the youngest of them, by virtue of his height and broad shoulders, counting as a male "grown-up."
Jarvis went off for a hasty interview with the Pullman conductor then hunted up the porter of Sally's car, the "Lucatia," and gave him certain instructions, accompanied by a transfer of something which brought a broad grin to that person's dusky face, with the assertion, "Suah, sah—I'll make the young lady comf'able—thank you, sah."
He got back to the "Lucatia" only in time to hear the call of "all aboard," from outside, to see the blue veil surrounded by three leave-taking brothers bestowing hurried but hearty testimonials of their affection and bidding her "Take care of yourself," "Write often," and "Don't kill yourself working," and to push past them as they made for the door, to say his own good-by. It was easy for the interested fellow-travellers to see that this young man evidently was not a brother, for his farewell consisted only of a somewhat prolonged grip of the hand, his hat off, his eyes searching the blue ones lifted to his with the expression of one who cannot quite trust her lips to speak. Then, without a word on either side, Jarvis had dropped Sally's hand and was rushing to the door, for the train was under way.
Remembering suddenly that this happened to be the last car on the train when she came in, Sally hurried through it to the rear. There they were, lined up in a solid row, and as she appeared, their hats came off and were waved in the air. Beneath the bright electric lights of the station she could see their cheerful smiles, and she smiled back, waving her handkerchief as long as she could see them. From their point of view the picture was quite as absorbing as from hers, for her slender figure holding to the brass rail of the platform against the background of the car looked both girlish and solitary, and as they watched it recede into the distance they were all of them hoping that it would not be long before they could welcome her back into that same great dingy station.
"If you have any pity on us, Jarve, come back to the house, and don't go home to stay in town till she comes. We shall be bluer than tombstones."
This was Max's double tribute to the homemaking qualities of his sister and to the partnership qualities of his friend, and Jarvis responded readily, for, truth told, it was the very thing he wanted to do most. It seemed to him that while he should not miss Sally less in the house whose every corner would be eloquent of her absence, there would be a certain consolation in being there. He had a queer feeling that she had not gone for a speedy return, and that more than one moon would change before they should see her again. Meanwhile, it occurred to him that she would like to have him there for her brothers' sake, since they wanted him.
Alec and Bob eagerly echoed Max's plea.
"Bachelors' hall? Well, I don't know that I mind, since my stuff hasn't gone back yet. Mother and Jo have company asked for next week, and will expect me to help entertain, but I can be out at Strawberry Acres more or less. Come up to the house in the car with me, while I explain; then we'll drive out. Al and Bob can ride on the running boards, if they like."
They jumped on, feeling that to stay together was to mind things less. It was odd how low of spirit they all were already. Surely, one would think that four strapping fellows might contemplate getting on for a space without one slim young person who was accustomed not only to humour them, but to make three of them toe certain well-defined marks in the matter of clean linen, fresh cravats, and carefully parted hair. Yet not one of them was really willing to go home till the others should be coming along too.
In front of the fireplace, later, when Joanna had given them so good a dinner that it would seem as if their content could hardly be preyed upon by any contemplation of the future, Bob suddenly voiced the general sentiment. He was lying on his side upon the hearth-rug, his round face fiery from his proximity to the blaze.
"Why does it feel so different when you know people are miles away and getting farther every minute than when you know they've just gone to town for a party?" he queried, thoughtfully. "They're away just the same—they aren't here, I mean. Why isn't being away the same thing asbeing away?"
At any other time this somewhat involved statement of conditions would have provoked jeers from the company. But no jeers were forthcoming. Max grunted, lying flat on his back on the couch—whose pillows Joanna had carefully plumped up—his heels on the arm at the end. Alec, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, staring out into the frosty night, turned about and remarked that on a train averaging sixty to seventy miles an hour Sally must already be out of the state.
"Wonder if she's asleep," speculated Bob. "She used to like sleeping on sleepers, when father and mother used to take us around so much. Say, she had a whole section to herself—at least till we left, and nobody was coming aboard then. Hope she has the luck to keep it. Funny! The car was crowded, and so was the next one. I looked in."
"Plenty of people may get on before midnight." reflected Alec.
Jarvis picked up a magazine. "Suppose I read aloud this article on railroading," he proposed. The company consented and he began. He had not read two pages before he ran, so to speak, into a series of frightful railway wrecks. But, wishing he had chosen something else, he kept on till suddenly Bob interrupted with a fierce: "Cut it! I've got her knocked into five thousand pieces now—I'll dream of those confounded smash-ups and Sally in the midst of 'em, if you don't drop that magazine."
The others murmured a somewhat sheepish assent, and Jarvis turned willingly enough to a tale of adventure at sea. A snore from the couch interrupted him in the middle of a most thrilling crisis, and only the appearance of Joanna with a big dish of shiny apples prevented Bob from following suit.
"Jove, Joanna, you're a good one. How did you come to think of it?" asked Alec, selecting a beauty and setting his teeth into it with a sense of refreshment.
"Miss Sally said I was not to forget anything she usually did, Mr. Alec," replied Joanna.
"If you remember everything she usually does you'll be a brick, Joanna," cried Bob, rousing to his opportunity and getting up on his knees to accept his apple.
"There's one thing she does, that nobody can possibly do for her," thought Jarvis as, consuming the crisp, cool specimen Joanna had bestowed upon him with a motherly smile for the boy she had known so long, he paced up and down the room, passing the piano at the end with a vivid recollection of how Sally was accustomed to play what she called "little tunes" upon it in the firelight.
"And that's to fill one small corner of her place in the home she has made here."
Sally's first letter home was a short one, stating merely that Uncle Timothy was very ill, very glad to see her, and that she was extremely thankful she had come. The second letter, two days later, showed strong anxiety. The illness was pneumonia, although not in its severest form; but Mr. Rudd's age was an important factor in the case. For a week bulletins were brief, then came a long letter, telling of improvement.
"The minute he is well out of danger she ought to come home," wasMax's opinion.
"She won't, though," Alec predicted. "She'll stay till she can bring him with her."
"Not if she listens to me," and Max set about writing a reply which would indicate to his sister in no uncertain terms the course he thought she should pursue.
Her answer was prompt. "I want to come home just as much as you want to have me, Max dear, but it is so much to Uncle Timmy to have me with him I can't think of leaving."
Max frowned over this. "She seems to consult me precious little about anything lately," he observed to Jarvis.
"You must admit she's grown up and can think for herself. Besides, much as I'd like to see her back, I think she's right," was Jarvis's opinion.
"Of course you'd side with her against me every time. But I think her brothers are a trifle nearer to her than her uncle."
"She'd undoubtedly think so too, if you were in bed with pneumonia. Since you're all in vigorous health she imagines you can get on without her. But she's not having a very jolly time of it, I should judge. Cheer her up with a lively letter, not a peevish one," was Jarvis's advice.
"You can do that."
"I'm not writing."
"Not?" Max was surprised. "You and Sally haven't quarrelled, have you?"
"Not at all. But I've no reason to think she would care to hear from me.You fellows are undoubtedly telling her all the news."
Jarvis flung a fresh log on the fire as he spoke, then took his place on the hearth-rug with his back to the blaze and his face in the shadow. Max stared at him interestedly, and was about to begin a discussion of the subject when his companion abruptly opened up a new line of conversation, in relation to plans for the farm, and the moment for asking certain questions did not occur again.
The days went by, brief letters from Sally arriving at frequent intervals. They reported very slow improvement in the invalid, with a return of strength so tardy that she still felt she should not leave him. The home in which they were was not that of relatives, and she was unwilling to leave the responsibility of Mr. Rudd's care to those who had expected to have him with them only for a brief visit. A month passed, and then, just as her brothers were making up their minds that the limit had certainly been reached and her duty done, came a letter which gave a blow to their hopes. It read:
"Doctor Wood has ordered Uncle Timmy South. The doctor says he positively must get out of this wretched climate, and he must not think of coming back before spring—and spring well advanced. If you could see what a shadow of himself the poor dear is you would understand that I simply must do what I have agreed to do—go with him. He will pay all my expenses. I think he must have quite a bit more property than we have known of, the matter of finances seems to trouble him so little. Of course I know how you will feel about this—and I want you to believe that I feel a thousand times sorrier than you possibly can. But I know there is nothing else to do. He can't possibly go alone, and I can't see mother's only brother have to hire some stranger to be with him when he has a niece who loves him dearly and owes him for a deal of love he has always lavished on her. It isn't as if you needed me in ways that Joanna couldn't supply—for actual food and drink, I mean. Of course I hope—I know—you all miss your little sister. I'm afraid I should feel very badly if I thought you didn't!
"We plan to start Thursday evening, December third. We can't make quite as good connections as I did in coming, so, according to Doctor Wood's figuring with the time-tables, we shall go through the home city at one o'clock on Saturday morning. We shall be in the station twenty minutes, being switched around, and—well, I don't like to ask anybody to stay up till that hour, but—I shall be up, and looking out—and—and—I'm almost afraid that if I didn't see anybody, I should shed just a tear or two! You see I haven't really cried once yet—and I don't want to break my record.
"Your Sally."
It really is not necessary to report what was said in Sally's home upon the receipt of this announcement. There was a good deal of excited talking done, and a number of statements were made to the effect that it was out of the question for Sally to be spared all winter, that she should have waited for the consent of her family before deciding on such an absence, and that it absolutely must not be allowed. Yet, after all, when it came to forbidding it, nobody seemed to have quite the authority to do that. Even Max, protesting that the thing was out of all reason, and going so far as to take his pen in hand to write his refusal to permit it, found himself brought to a halt by the remembrance that Sally was showing more and more evidences of possessing a will of her own, and of being perfectly competent to carry out its dictates when they seemed to her right. Clearly she did not want to go South with Uncle Timothy—or with anybody else. There was a homesick touch in more than one line of the stoutly written letter—unquestionably Sally would not be doing this thing if she were not persuaded of her duty.
At one o'clock in the morning of Saturday a party of people stood in the great electric-lighted station. Again the offices of Mr. Jarvis Burnside had taken the group past the usual hindrances and established them on a certain platform, nearly in the centre of the rows of tracks, where the Southbound Limited would come in. This time their numbers were considerably augmented by the presence of Mrs. Burnside and Josephine, Donald and Janet Ferry. Various packages encumbered the arms of each member of the party, and appearances certainly boded well for the reception of the young traveller who at the moment was watching eagerly, as the train rolled through the familiar streets, for the first sign of approach to the station.
"Here she comes!" Bob was the first to cry, pointing to a brilliant headlight just rounding into view on the distant track. "Jolly, I'll bet Sally's wide awake, if she ever was in her life!"
"I expect we're going to find out now how dreadfully short twenty minutes can be," said Janet Ferry to Jarvis, beside whom she stood, an attractively put-up basket of hot-house grapes in her hand.
He nodded, watching the great headlight grow all too slowly bigger and bigger. "Even the twenty minutes will probably be cut short. The train's considerably overdue now."
The long line of sleepers came to a stand-still beside them, and they scanned the cars anxiously for the first sign of Sally. Far down the track could be seen a coloured porter waving in their direction, and the next instant a girl in dark blue jumped off the step of the Pullman and ran toward them. They ran to meet her, Bob and Alec outstripping the rest, and when the others arrived all that could be seen of Sally Lane was the top of a bright head on Bob's shoulder, both blue arms about his neck, his affectionate hand patting her back.
Then they had her in their midst, and everybody was trying to greet her at once. Josephine's arm was about her, and Sally was regarding the group with a radiant smile, crying girlishly; "Oh, how good you people do look! How dear of you all to come down! If I only could stay just a little longer! We don't stop but ten minutes, instead of twenty, the train is so late. Uncle Tim doesn't know you are here—I was afraid he would be too excited to sleep the rest of the night, and he's only just dropped off. Oh, how are you all? You look perfectly fine—I don't believe you've pined away a bit, missing me! Let me look at you."
She studied each in turn, missing nobody. Her clear gaze, the blue eyes black beneath the shadowing thick lashes, met each answering pair of eyes with a steady scrutiny which did not once waver.
"That was a review one would be sorry not to be able to stand," said Ferry to Josephine, as Sally ended by thrusting her arm through Max's and leading him off by himself. "Miss Sally put us all to the test in that minute, didn't she? She gives the impression of demanding the best one has—rather an unusual characteristic in a girl of her age."
"She does demand the best—and gets it," answered Josephine warmly.
Ten feet away Sally was speaking hurriedly: "The thing I wanted most to see you for, Maxy, was to make sure you weren't really angry with me for taking my own way about this."
Her hand pressed his arm. She was looking up into his face. He returned the gaze. "I was angry, Sis," he admitted. "But, somehow, now that I see you, I can't seem to get up steam to tell you so. I suppose you're right—but the place is mighty lonesome without you. If it wasn't for the Ferrys—"
"Are they over much?"
"We get them over as often as we can. I say, I've been noticing thatJarve and Janet seem to hit it off pretty well."
"Do they? That's very nice. You like Janet yourself, don't you?"
"She's the belle of the ball, now you're away, and a mighty jolly girl to have around. If you don't look out your old friend J.B. will slip away from you."
Sally's head went up, her cheeks bloomed a deeper colour. "If I weren't going to leave you in a minute I should punish you for that piece of brotherly impertinence," said she, with spirit. "Have I ever laid hands on anybody to keep him, for you to talk of 'slipping away'?"
"No—you're not that sort," conceded Max, with a laugh which certainly carried a hint of brotherly admiration.
Sally walked straight over to Janet, at whose other side stood Jarvis. "Janet," said she, "Max says you are the life of them all. I'm so glad—and it's so kind of your mother and brother to bring you over to make the evenings pleasant. You'll keep on being good to them all winter, won't you?"
"Sally"—Janet caught hold of both her hands—"let me give you an illustration of how nobly and completely I fill your place. The last time we were over I played for them—played my best, too. I ended with my most brilliant performance of Liszt. Two minutes afterward, when I had gone back to the fire, I heard somebody very softly doing a one-finger melody, picking it out note by note. I listened, and presently made out one of your favourite 'little tunes'—'A Red, Red Rose.' I looked around the group to see who was missing. It was not Bob. It was not Max. It was not Alec. It was not Don. It was not—"
"Anybody. It was—a ghost," supplied Jarvis. He was looking intently at Sally, but she was smiling back at Janet, and the colour in her face was not less than it had been a moment before.
"My ghost, probably," she said lightly. "I'm sure if it were with you all by that fire as often as I think about you, it would be playing little tunes for itself, most of the time. Now I must spend my next minute with Alec," and she was away again.
The minutes certainly were flying.
Janet looked after her. "There's something perfectly irresistible about her, isn't there?" she suggested to her companion. He did not answer and she glanced at him. He had pulled out a card-case from his pocket and was writing something on one of the cards. He slipped the card into the big, green paper-box he held.
"Suppose I take all our packages to the porter and have him put them in her berth while she is off with Alec. Then she'll not have to bother with them, getting on," he proposed. Janet assented, and in a minute Jarvis, laden with packages, approached the porter. Retaining half his burden he followed the porter into the car. He did not immediately return therefrom, and when, three minutes afterward, the signal came for the departure of the train, he was not in the group of whom she took leave.
"Has Jarvis gone? Say good-by for me to him, please, Jo," she whispered as she embraced her friend. Waving the others back Max escorted her into her car. In the passage they met Jarvis. Over her head the two young men looked at each other.
"Good-by, sister," said Max, and kissed her, "I see Jarve wants me to cut it short." With which tactful brotherly explanation he abruptly retraced his steps to the vestibule, where he waited.
In the half-lit narrow passage Jarvis made the most of his minute of grace, although Sally's hand was already extended, and a friendly good-by, with a frank smile, was on her lips.
"Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me?" said he, taking the hand. "You make me feel somehow as if you didn't care even for the old friendship. Is that so, Sally?"
"Not at all. I care very much. It seems so good to see you all."
"To see 'us all' doesn't flatter me much." He smiled a little. "Sally, may I write to you?"
"Do. Tell me all about everybody."
"Will you answer?"
"Now and then."
"You are—" He stopped, with a half impatient movement of his broad shoulders.
"I'm Sally Lane." She said this very distinctly, even though both were speaking under their breath. Then she laughed, with a delicate touch of defiance.
"You certainly are," he agreed. "No doubt in the world of that. But I want you to know I'm Jarvis Burnside, and that stands for something too—something positive—and permanent. My letters will be signed by that name."
"Mine—if I write any—now and then—will be signed by mine—The train is moving. Good-by—old friend!"
She was a slim maid to oppose so colossal a resistance as she did to anything in the least suggestive to sentiment in the leave-taking. Oppose it, however, did the small hand which drew itself away with decision, the pretty lips which smiled again that coolly friendly smile, the blue-black eyes which were steady as ever in their straight look. Max, peering in upon the two to tell Jarvis to come along, saw his sister break down in her self-command, but only at sight of himself. As Jarvis turned away she ran after him to reach beyond him and clutch her brother's arm for one quick pressure, with the low cry, "Oh, Max—please—please—write to me often!"
As Max jumped off, Jarvis turned again. Sally was upon the platform. "That almost makes me wish I were a brother," said he rapidly, from the bottom step, looking straight up at her. He prepared to drop off. "But not quite" he added—and swung himself off and out of sight.
Back in her berth, the little electric side-light on, Sally opened her bundles. Their contents made her feel like laughing and crying both together, all by herself, there on the fast train flying southward through the night. Janet's superb grapes, Mrs. Ferry's preserved Canton ginger, Donald Ferry's little book of verse, with the ribbon mark opening it at "My Garden," all pleased her greatly, each in its way. Then there was a fascinating little traveller's work-box from Josephine, a letter writing-case from Mrs. Burnside, an ink-pencil from Max, a package of current magazines from Alec, a box of chocolates from Bob. The cards and merry messages accompanying these remembrances made pleasant reading, and Sally put them all together in her handbag, that she might look them over many times.
Jarvis's box she did not open till the last. Why, might be a subject for speculation. Does one leave the most interesting letter or package till the last—or does one eagerly open it first? When everything else had been disposed of Sally's fingers untied the cord slowly, she lifted the cover with apparent reluctance, she drew aside the sheltering sheets of green tissue as if she feared to disclose that which they protected. But then, when the bright light at her side shone in upon fresh tints of pink and white and lilac, she drew one deep breath and buried her face in the mass.
"Sweet peas!" she murmured, and shut her eyes and thought of her garden, lying forsaken and desolate in the December frost.
Then she picked up the card. On its back she read, in vigorous pencilling:
"A ghost from the garden, sent by the ghost who tried to pick out the 'little tune.' There seem no other tunes in the world worth listening to."
The next morning Mr. Timothy Rudd had many questions to ask his niece. He sat comfortably among pillows and rugs, his breakfast brought in from the dining-car and served in his section by a waiter who was ready to show him every attention, to oblige the young lady whose smile he liked to win.
"You say they were all down, Sally? This breakfast looks very nice, my dear—I wish I could eat more of it." He laid down a half slice of toast and brushed his thin fingers.
"Uncle Timmy, are you sure you can't manage just a little more? Two spoonfuls of boiled egg, half a slice of toast, and a cup of coffee—that's no breakfast at all. If I tell you all about it, won't you eat just half the egg?"
"I'll try, child, but—really—the old fellow who is wearing my clothes—and not half big enough for them—doesn't seem to be able to summon much of an appetite."
"If you don't eat a good breakfast I shall feel more than ever guilty for not telling you they were coming—though of course I didn't dream of theirallcoming. But if you had seen them you wouldn't have slept a bit."
"No, like enough I shouldn't. I'll be satisfied if you tell me how they all looked. The boys—Max?"
"Very well, indeed—he's a trifle heavier than when I went away. Joanna's cooking is beginning to tell. I think she pampers them, don't you?—I'm so grateful to her for that."
"Alec?"
"Just as usual. He was wearing a new overcoat, and looked a glass of fashion! He says as long as Mr. Ferry lives in the country in the winter he's willing to stand it there. Isn't it lucky they're staying at least one more year? By another winter the demands on Mr. Ferry in town may be so heavy he can't take time to go back and forth."
"Yes, I should say it was a very good thing for Alec to be as much under the influence of such a man as could be brought about, until he is where he can do his own thinking along the right lines. How is my nephew Robert?"
"Oh, Bob's cheeks are so round and red they look like a very large infant's. Dear Bobby—think he misses us most. He ran in and peeped into your berth while the train stood there. I think he rather hoped to wake you."
"Bless the lad—I wish he had." Mr. Rudd took another spoonful of egg under the stimulus of the wish, forgetting that he had not meant to take up that spoon again.
"Mrs. Burnside and Jo looked their own dear selves—every line of them. It struck me afresh, as it always does when I see them after an interval, how beautifully yet quietly dressed they are, and how their photographs might be taken at any minute with delightful results. 'Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter' it would be." And Sally sighed a little sigh of a quite feminine sort, looking down at her own blue travelling attire and wondering how the same material would have looked if made up by Mrs. Burnside's tailor.
"And Jarvis—how is he? I am very fond of Jarvis. I suppose he has lost some of the summer's tan?"
"If he has it's been put back again by the frosty winds, for he's the image of health. Mr. Ferry and Janet are very much themselves, too. And they all sent you something." Sally reached under the berth and drew out a big florists' box, signalled the waiter to remove the remains of the breakfast, and then spread forth the cards which accompanied the great bunch of crimson roses, enjoying Mr. Rudd's almost boyish pleasure in the remembrance of his friends.
"These must be for you too, Sally," said he, burying his nose in one fine half-open bud.
"Not a bit of it."
"No flowers for you, child?"
"Fruit and chocolates and writing-tablets and other delightful things. You must have some of the grapes, Uncle Timmy—I ought to have thought of them for your breakfast."
"These roses are as good as a square meal—but they should have been for you, not for an old fossil like me."
"Don't you dare call yourself an old fossil, Uncle Timmy. Now look at all these pretty gifts," and Sally brought them forth, exhibiting them well concealed from the other passengers. Uncle Timothy looked and exclaimed and admired, and did not note that one person seemed to be unrepresented by any remembrance. Neither did he guess that tucked far away under Sally's berth was a box containing a mass of sweet peas which had that morning been carefully sprinkled, but which were destined never to be seen again by mortal eye except her own.
During a winter which seemed, in spite of all the beauties of the far South, the longest she had ever known, Sally was kept well in touch with affairs at home by the letters. If it had not been for these she thought she could hardly have waited for the spring to come. Mr. Rudd had gained slowly but positively throughout the winter, yet it was not thought best for him to come home until the spring should be well advanced. The first of May was the date set, and proved a judicious choice, for April was a cold and rainy month. There was just one odd fact about this month of April—during its course Sally received at least one letter from every member of her own family and from each one of those other two families most closely connected with her history. In an idle hour one day, just before she went home, she carefully selected one letter from each of these correspondents, in the order received, and tied them in a bunch, labelling them "April North to April South." Whatever may have happened to other letters, this packet remained in her possession for many years.
The first of them arrived on April fourth, and was in the round, school-boy hand of young Robert Lane.
"This is April Fool's Day, and I've had a great old time fooling everybody. Sewed down the knives and forks to the breakfast-table, tied the chairs to the legs, salted the coffee, and did quite a few little every-day stunts like that. Max got maddest when he ran onto a big lump of cayenne in his oatmeal, but Joanna gave him another dish right away and another cup of coffee. She's awfully soft over old Max. The best lining I did was the way I fooled Jarve on a letter from you. I knew he had had one from you sometime in March, so I looked in his coat-pocket while he was up in the timber lot with a sweater on. I found it—pretty much used up with being carried around—suppose he forgot to take it out. Got a fresh thin envelope, put the old one inside, traced the address through, pasted on a postmark from your last one to me, and put three heavy sheets inside to make it fat—a lot fatter than the one I got out of his pocket. Stuck on old stamps—two of 'em—overweight, you know.
"When he came in to luncheon he found the letter with his other mail. I had my eye on him—I was pretending to read the morning paper. He read all his other letters, but he put that one in his pocket. He got terribly jolly after that—cracking jokes and everything. The minute luncheon was over he went off to his room, and I cut for out-of-doors. Didn't let him get a sight of me for hours. When I did come in I thought maybe he'd have got over being fussed, but—pitchforks and hammer handles!—if the minute I hove in sight he didn't get after me! He must have put on a lot of muscle chopping wood and hoeing, for I thought a cyclone had struck me. I'm resting up now, but I feel pretty sore yet—in spots. That's why I'm writing to you. I think you'd better write him once in a while, so that getting what he thinks is a letter won't go to his head like that.
"It'll be the first of May in one month more, and you'll be home!Jolly!—that seems good to think of.
"Heaps of love from BOB."
On the following day came a letter from Janet Ferry. It was a letter of several sheets, and the last two pages ran thus:
"The boys think you ought not to know about it, and intend it for a surprise, but I am so sure that it will do you even more good to hear while you are waiting to come home, I'm going to tell you. Alec and Bob have been rolling the lawn with a roller they were at great pains to get from the Burnside place in the city! You should have seen them at it, encouraging each other to do the thing thoroughly. Afterward they scattered wood ashes in all the thin places; Bob said they had been saving them all winter from the fireplace. I didn't know Alec could be so interested in out-door labour, but this winter seems to have given him an impetus toward following Mr. Burnside's example—and Don's—for I think Don has had a hand in waking him up.
"Speaking of Don—I found him out in your garden yesterday, pruning your old rose-bushes—the ones that you inherited with the garden. He says you are particularly fond of the many-leaved pink ones that smell so much sweeter than any hot-house rose that ever grew.
"Mr. Burnside has been busy all through March, and already has garden peas in. It seems absurdly early, but he prophesies that there'll be no more frosts that they can't stand, and promises us peas on the table three weeks earlier than our neighbours. He is nothing if not daring. He reads and reads in those books and magazines and papers of his, and then starts out, armed for action. He and Jake spend much time arguing over details, but I believe he usually carries his point.
"Don says that while he was finishing his work in your garden your brother Max came home and strolled out to see what he was doing. Don mentioned the fact that it would soon be time for the whole garden to be dug and raked and put in spring order, and Mr. Lane answered that he would see that it was done—in fact he thought he should do it himself. I don't exactly understand why this should seem to give Don so much satisfaction, but it does. He told me to be sure to tell you."
Clearly it gave Sally satisfaction also, for she read this particular paragraph a second time, smiling to herself, before she put the letter aside.
On the seventh of April came a screed from Alec of quite surprising length—for Alec, and it interested his sister more than any letter she had had from him during the winter.
"Haven't time to write much. Have hired out J.B. as a farm hand, and he keeps a fellow some busy. For two weeks, now, we've been clearing up the old wood in the timber lot and getting out new stuff for fence posts, etc. Evenings he gets me at books. Am reading up on soil now, surprised to find it quite interesting. J.B. and I talk plans a lot more than Max does, though I think the old boy is going to get into it in time all right. Maybe you'd like to know what our plans are. Well, here goes:
"Cut off the suckers in the orchard, plough, and later spray—before the leaves come. That means hustle—but we're nearly through with the pruning. Bob and Mr. Ferry are at that.
"Then we'll plough five acres of what we let go to hay last year, and plant it to corn, with half an acre of potatoes. The other five acres we'll let grow to hay. Next year we'll have alfalfa where we have corn this year. J.B. is daft on alfalfa, and I'm beginning to see why. The five acres of hay, with the corn, will be enough for the two cows, and we'll keep the pasture over beyond the orchard for them. Miss Janet says as long as she lives there she wants to see those cows—or other ones—come down the lane by the orchard at milking time—only she wishes there were more of them and a collie to drive them. Think I'll have to get a collie, to satisfy her, though Cowslip and Whitenose are at the bars regular as a clock, all by themselves.
"The seven acres where we had the buckwheat and afterward the potatoes last year are to be set with strawberries this May. I tell you, here's where the real serious business comes in. J.B. hasn't done a thing this winter but study the soil in that seven acres and figure out what kind of berries to plant. He's given a lot of thought to what sort of fertilizers to use, and I tell you if there's any such thing as improving soil, the soil in that strawberry land is going to be improved. Tons of stuff are going into it and it's going to be well mixed in, too. Then if cultivating and irrigating and all the rest of it can bring us big fruit, we'll get it. J.B.'s idea is the more we put in the more we'll get out, and the better quality. Of course it's lucky for us we have him to pay out the money for getting things going, but I believe Strawberry Acres will support itself some day and bring us in good returns.
"Anyhow, I must say I'm beginning to like the whole thing, though it's hard work and plenty of it. Never was so hungry in my life. Joanna sets it up to us in good shape, but we'll be glad to see you back. House seems sort of empty, in spite of four fellows tumbling over each other in it.
"With love, your brother, ALEC.
"P. S. The old asparagus bed is trying so hard to show signs of life we've given it a good salting. The Ferrys' crocuses are up, grass all full of them—look mighty pretty."
This was certainly very satisfactory, when one considered that Alec had been in the beginning only second to Max in scoffing at the idea of living on a farm, not to mention working on one. More than any of the boys Alec had preferred life in the city, had been the one who cared most about his personal appearance, and had prided himself upon doing things in the urban way. For him to be willing to put on old clothes and rough boots, and soil his hands with manual labour, indicated a change of thought and ideals hardly to have been expected so soon. Sally put away the letter, rejoicing at these indications of growth, for growth it surely was, in his case. His work in the office where he had been employed had been work likely to lead no further, nor to promise any promotion to a position of greater honour. But on Strawberry Acres it seemed to Sally that, with Jarvis Burnside for a leader, Alec might develop qualities as yet only to be guessed at.
The most interesting part of Josephine's long letter, which reached Sally on the ninth, was, as is usually the case in feminine letters, toward its close. After every other subject had been touched upon, Sally's correspondent remarked:
"You may care to know that I have been much surprised of late to receive two calls, here at home, from Mr. Ferry. One was in March, but I didn't mention it, for I thought probably it was the first, last, and only one he would ever make, and I wouldn't crow about it. It was on one of mother's Thursdays, and of course a lot of other people were here. I was busy with the tea things, so couldn't give him much attention. He was very nice, and everybody seemed much interested to see him here. When he went away he came over and said to me that he should like to come again when we were not "At Home," only at home! Of course I said he might, and mother asked him specially, too. So just yesterday evening—it was Tuesday—he came again. Mother was out until just before he went. We had a delightful time in the library over a box of new books Jarvis had just had sent up—not farm books, this time. Mr. Ferry found something which specially pleased him, and read several pages to me—sitting on the edge of the library table—I mean that he was sitting on the edge of it—not I! I was most properly disposed in a chair—and congratulating myself that I had on a little new home frock of dull green with bands of blue and gold embroidery that had just come home—the most becoming thing Celeste has ever made me. I think he had a good time—anyhow, he stayed much longer than he need have done if he didn't—I meant that if he wasn't having a good time!—I don't seem to be able to write lucidly. We talked much of you, and of how good it would seem to have you back, and of the garden, and the coming summer. He wanted to know if mother and I were coming out to spend the season again, and I said yes. He asked if I didn't think we ought to be there by the latter part of April, so as to welcome you when you come the first of May. It seemed rather a good idea to me—what do you think of it? Mother has set the fifteenth, but I really do want to see the first spring things coming up. Jarvis brought home a great bunch of daffodils yesterday. I wanted to send them on to you, but he thought they wouldn't last out the journey."
The thought of the daffodils made Sally long intensely for her garden. There was a long row of them at the farther end, and another clump at the edge of the lawn, with stray ones here and there through the grass which she had not been willing to have removed. She thought about them many times until the arrival of the next letter, on the eleventh, which was from Joanna, and which turned her thoughts into housewifely channels.
"Dear Miss," it began, in a cramped hand upon a large sheet of ruled paper. "I suppose you would like to know what has been done about the house cleaning. You wrote me to wate till you come, but I never like to wate later than March, and so I did what was nesessary myself, peice by peice, as I could find time. Mr. Max and Mr. Alec and Mr. Bob seemed to think the house didn't need cleaning, but Mr. Jarvis being used to my ways and his mothers said you would want it right. He spared me Jake Kelly to clean the rugs and peices of carpet, and I did the rest. I think there is no dirt in the house now. Fireplaces makes lots of dust but I should say the way they are enjoyed makes up for it. I have tryed to do as you wanted about the pillows and apples and good food and I don't think the young gentlemen are any liter in wate than when you went away.
"Hoping you will come home soon,
"Respectfully yours,
Nobody but a housekeeper, and a young one at that, could appreciate what a load of anxiety this letter lifted from Sally's mind. She wanted to have the house immaculately clean, but—the garden was waiting for her. Now she could give her undivided thought to plans for the box-bordered beds, blessing Joanna for a maid-servant of priceless value.
Mrs. Ferry's letter, arriving on the thirteenth, made Sally smile with the lilt of its lines:
"Come, Sally dear, the spring is here, the air is mild and warm; showers happen by, but cause no sigh, they're needed on the farm. The garden waits, and stirs, and shakes the sleep from out its eyes, and gently sets the violets to blooming in surprise. The grass grows green, a lark is seen, a robin calls "It's Spring!" And everywhere, in earth and air, rejoices everything. We want you near, we need you here to share each day's delights; so hasten home, come soon, dear, come,we miss you so o' nights!"
"Sweet little lady," the girl, thought affectionately, "to take the trouble to think it out in rhyme for me."
On the sixteenth of the month a rather interesting coincidence occurred; letters from Donald Ferry and from Jarvis Burnside arrived on that day. Sally studied the superscriptions with interest, wondering what the handwriting might have indicated to her of the character of the writers, had she known nothing of either. Opening the envelopes, she laid the sheets side by side.
Jarvis wrote a rather small but very black and regular hand, the result being serried rows marching like a regiment down the page, the hand of the man who is accustomed to do everything in an orderly and masterful way, and who can no more allow his words to straggle over a sheet of paper than he can permit his books to stand upside down upon the shelf, or the affairs of his every-day life to fall into confusion. Ferry wrote a more dashing hand, the penmanship of the man whose ideas flow faster than his pen can put the words upon paper, and who cares less about the appearance of his page than for what can be fixed there before it shall escape him. This letter, therefore, appeared less easy to read than the other, and this may have been why Sally attacked it first:
"Dear Lady Of The Garden (it began whimsically):
"I am sure that no one has told you—and that no one will tell you unless I do—that the chickweed is looking exceedingly fresh and spring-like between the box-borders. Further—a patch of small white violets is to be discovered in the sunny spots beyond the sweet pea trellis. I have a bunch of them pinned on my coat at this moment, purloined by my own hand, and smelling like spring itself. The daffodils are gorgeous, and a small blue flower which gives forth a modest and unobtrusive odour all its own is to be found in clumps in several places.
"Alec tells me he has written you all about the progress of the early spring work, but you may possibly be still more interested in the human culture going on upon Strawberry Acres, in which he is bearing an important part. To-day he and Burnside, protected by blue jeans and looking highly disreputable, have been spraying the apple orchard. A disagreeable job it looks to be, from the standpoint of cleanliness, although a necessary one. But whenever I appeared, as an interested spectator on the scene, Alec was toiling away with the greatest good humour, which did not fail him when the apparatus suddenly stopped working properly, and had to be nursed and tended through at least the final third of the operation.
"I believe your brother Max is beginning to long to leave the bank and to begin his life upon the farm. In spite of his somewhat satirical comments upon the probable folly of Alec's having taken this step, I am confident he himself would like to try it. Another spring will see him burning his bridges, or I am no prophet.
"No one, Miss Sally, could be thrown, as your brothers are with such a fellow as Jarvis Burnside, without being stimulated to action. He is the most thoroughly alive recent college graduate I know of in any line of work. It's a refreshing sight to me, to see a man with all the instincts for a literary life, but handicapped by the necessity for taking care of his eyesight, throw himself with such ardour into labour which would have seemed the very last he would have been likely to care for. On my word, I don't know when I admire him most—when, in his careful dress he sits down to his books and journals in the evening, getting Alec to read aloud to him when he has reached the limit of safety for his own eyes, talking to the lad in a way to wake the boy up—as he is most certainly doing—or when I see him at such a job as he tackled to-day, putting into it the care and precision of your true scientist and experimenter with intent to get the full result of the best directed effort possible. Wherever you put him, he's a man worth knowing—and I'm glad I know him and have him for a friend."
"I like to hear one man praise another like that," commented Sally to herself, as having finished the letter, which recounted briefly what Mrs. Ferry and Janet were doing and conveyed messages from both, she turned back to re-read the whole. Then she took up Jarvis's letter, wondering if he might chance to refer to Donald Ferry in as high terms as those in which he had himself been mentioned.
Jarvis had a crisp, clear style of composition all his own. The letter was not a long one, but it brought the writer vividly before his reader:
"One of the apple-wood fires you like so well is blazing on the hearth. Across the table, in the lamplight, sits Alec absorbed in a column of experiences in strawberry culture contributed by experts from all parts of the country. You may not readily believe me, but in a quite upright position on the end of the couch, where the firelight illumines the page, Max is deep in a concise and practical treatise on the same subject. Bob stands on the hearth rug, drying out, after a run home from the Ferry cottage through a brisk shower. So you have us. Is it a satisfactory picture?