“New York, July — 18—.
“New York, July — 18—.
“New York, July — 18—.
“New York, July — 18—.
“Dear Allie:—
“Dear Allie:—
“Dear Allie:—
“Dear Allie:—
“Here we are home again; landed five days ago, and I have such a love of a gown for you in some of my trunks. Cream colored, china silk, with puffings of lace and ribbons and everything. I had a gloriously good time abroad. Went everywhere,—saw everything,—was told a hundred times how handsome I was and how strange that I didn’t seem to know it! ‘The one beautiful woman I have met who is not conscious of her beauty,’ I heard an Englishman say to mamma. Oh! oh! oh! As if I didn’t look in the glass every time I pass it and say to the face I see there ‘You are lovely, but never give any sign that you know it, for this innocent baby way succeeds as well as your good looks. Not know it indeed!’ I have some new names in the blue book. One with a big interrogation point. ‘Walter Prescott, New York?’ That is the way it reads. His is the 20th bona fide offer, and mamma was furious when I refused him. Says I’ll go through the woods and take up with a crooked stick. Maybe I shall, but I tell you what; I am getting tired of seeing men turn white when I say no, and fencing to keep others from compelling me to say no. I am going to turn over a new leaf, and not wink, nor smile, nor try to get any one to look at me; and after a while marry Mr. Prescott and lead a perfectly domestic life. He neither dances, nor smokes, nor drinks, nor drives fast horses, nor likes society any way. Prefers a quiet home life, with his wife and his books. Is a great reader. I shall have to take up a course of study with you if I am to be Mrs. Prescott. I am a perfect dunce now and hardly know who discovered America, or shouldn’t if I hadn’t seen Columbus’ statue in Genoa.
“But to come to the object of this letter. Did youever hear of Ridgefield? No? Well, that shows a lack in your education. It’s a lovely town, famous principally because my grandfather, Gen. Allen, lived and died and is buried there, and Zacheus Taylor watched with him the night he died and keeps the Prospect House, a perfectly delicious house, with all the towels you want, and silver forks and two faucets and blooded horses, Paul and Virginia, all of which and more is set forth in the letter I enclose from the dear old man. I don’t care much for the country,—the real article I mean,—with its dusty roads and horn bugs and worms and stupid people, aping last year’s fashions, but something draws me to Ridgefield, and mamma and I are going there to spend the summer and rest and get back some of the good looks I lost being so gay abroad and so seasick coming home. Andyouare to go with us. Mamma says so, and I am writing to tell you to meet us in Springfield, July —, in the afternoon. No dress needed. I shall not take much, and if there should be a quilting, or sewing society, or church social you’ll have that love of a gown I bought for you in Paris and which I shall bring.
“Only think, what a gorgeous time we’ll have, just ourselves. You and I, and not a man to bother. There may be a bartender or something, I presume there is, but he don’t count. Nobody to dress for, or pose for, or keep myself always with the same angelic expression. No need of the blue book. Guess I shall leave it at home unless you want to see the new names in it. One, a poor insipid lad, who asked me point-blank how much mamma was worth. I told him 500,000, meaning pennies, but he understood it dollars, and at once offered me his title in exchange. I laughed in his face and he looked astonished.”
Here Helen was interrupted by her maid bringing hera letter the postman had just left. It was from a girl friend living in Boston, who had returned from abroad in the same vessel. After the usual chitchat of girls who have seen the same places and know the same people, she wrote, “Boston is like a graveyard. Everybody out of town and some in the most unheard-of places. By the way, you don’t know the Masons, so their whereabouts has no interest for you. I can’t endure them, they are so stuck up and prim, but they are the Masons for all that, and their doings of importance. Well, they have gone to a little inland town,—Ridgefield is the name,—to spend the summer, and I dare say are very happy there, as nocanaillecan brush against them, and Mrs. Mason will not be shocked by what she calls second-class in young people who are just lively, and she will not be afraid some girl will look at Craig. Pity you never had a chance at him.”
Helen did not read any further for joy. She had so longed for a chance at Craig and now she was to have it. Her friend did not say that he was at the Prospect House, but unquestionably he was. At all events he was in the town, which was not like Saratoga, and her good resolutions melted like wax.
Resuming her letter to Alice, she wrote:
“I broke off abruptly to read a letter from Belle Sherman, who was with us in Europe and lives in Boston. And what do you think? Craig Mason is in Ridgefield, presumably at the Prospect House, and I—well, I am going on the war path just once more before I reform, as I intended to do. You remember I wrote you about him last summer when I was in Saratoga. He was the only young man of any account who did not pay me some attention. He ignored me, and,entre nous, I mean topay him off for saying I was not his style. What is his style, I wonder? If I only knew I could soon adapt myself to it. You’ll have to find out and coach me. You have a way which makes people show themselves to you as they are, while with me there is always something held back, as if we were playing hide and seek.Entre nousagain. I don’t know about Mr. Prescott. It seems as if fate were leading me to Ridgefield and Craig Mason. He is a most desirableparti, and mother would be in a state of beatitude to be allied with the Masons of Boston. Ah, well,nous verrons. How Frenchy I am. Bad French, Celine, my maid, would say, with admirable frankness.
“Now, remember, I rely on you to help me in every way with this Sphinx until I can say ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici.’ Latin, as well as French. I am rather learned after all. Write at once and say you will meet us in Springfield.
“Lovingly, but on mischief bent,“Your cousin, Helen.”
“Lovingly, but on mischief bent,“Your cousin, Helen.”
“Lovingly, but on mischief bent,“Your cousin, Helen.”
“Lovingly, but on mischief bent,
“Your cousin, Helen.”
“P. S. I shall takesomeof my best clothes, and you better put in your trunk a book or two of such literature and poetry as you think adapted to my capacity in case the Sphinx proves bookish like Mr. Prescott.
“Again adieu,“Helen.”
“Again adieu,“Helen.”
“Again adieu,“Helen.”
“Again adieu,
“Helen.”
CHAPTER VIII.ALICE.
The hot sun of a July afternoon was pouring in at the west windows of a little red schoolhouse among the mountains between Springfield and Albany. It was the last day of the term and as was the custom in district schools in New England the Committee men had been in to see what progress the scholars had made and to pronounce upon it at the close of the exercises. It was examination day and looked forward to with as much interest and anxiety by the teacher and pupils as are the commencements in larger institutions. To the red schoolhouse among the mountains had come this afternoon the minister, the doctor, the lawyer with several other visitors, parents and relatives of the children who had acquitted themselves so creditably that only words of commendation were spoken by the lawyer and doctor and minister when each in turn made remarks.
Rocky Point was to be congratulated upon having secured the services of so competent a teacher as Miss Tracy had proved herself to be, the lawyer said, and the doctor and clergyman acquiesced in his opinion, while the visitors bowed their approbation. Then a prayer was said, “Shall We Meet Beyond the River?” was sung, and school was dismissed. There was a scramble for books and dinner pails and sunbonnets and caps, and the children hurried away, glad that vacation had come, with no more study for many long weeks. The minister and doctor and lawyer and visitors went next after a few complimentary words to the young teacher, and the natural question as to where she intended to pass the summer.She might go to Cooperstown to visit a friend, she said, but more likely she should remain at home and help her Aunt Mary, as usual.
“I saw among the arrivals from abroad the names of your aunt, Mrs. Freeman Tracy, and her daughter, and thought you might possibly visit them,” one of the ladies said.
Alice replied, “I have no expectation of visiting them, and I hardly think they will stay in New York all summer.”
The ladies bowed and went out, and Alice was alone, tired and hot, and so glad her first term of teaching was over and that she had given satisfaction. Better than all was the fact that she would in a few days have thirty-six dollars of her own. It was the first money she had ever earned, and it seemed like a fortune to her. Sitting down upon one of the hard benches by an open window she began to plan what she should do with it. Give part of it to Aunt Mary to get her a new dress, and with another part buy herself some boots and gloves. Her old ones were so shabby, and she was very fastidious with regard to her hands and feet, if she were only a little country girl, living among the mountains of western Massachusetts, where city fashions did not prevail to a great extent, except as some ambitious factory girl aped them so far as she could. Alice’s father, George Tracy, had been half-brother to Helen’s father, Freeman Tracy, who had inherited his large fortune from his mother. George, who was ten years older than his brother, was a languid, easy-going, handsome man, with no more talent or inclination for work than a child. Twice Freeman, who was very fond of him, had set him up in business, with the result each time of a complete failure.
“No use, Free. It isn’t in me to see to anything. Bettergive me a small allowance, if you want to do anything for such a shiftless good-for-nothing as I am, and let me shirk for myself,” George said to his brother, who took him at his word and gave him not a small, but a liberal allowance, which kept him quite at his ease.
It had been Freeman’s intention to make his will and leave George the income of a certain sum, but death came suddenly, before the will was made, and there was no provision for George. The whole of Freeman’s large fortune went to his widow and infant daughter a few months old. Between George and his sister-in-law there did not exist the most amicable relations. She looked upon him as a dreaming neer-do-weel, through whom her husband had lost a great deal of money. Of the yearly allowance she knew nothing, and as George was too proud to enlighten her he found himself at his brother’s death without money and with no means of support, unless he went to work,—a new state of things for him, as he had never in his life been really fatigued from any physical exercise. But the strain had come, and he met it by hiring as a clerk in a cotton mill in Rocky Point, where he married a beautiful young girl, who died when her baby was four weeks old. Her home had always been with her aunt and uncle, Ephraim and Mary Wood, plain, old-fashioned people, with hearts larger than their means, and hands ready to give help to all who needed it. They were very fond of their niece and very proud of her alliance with George Tracy, whom they looked upon as a prince in disguise. A poor one, it is true, but still a prince, and they gave him a home as soon as he was married, and when his young wife died and left a little girl, whom they called for its mother, they still kept him with them and never lost their high opinion of him as one whom it was an honor to have in their family. Ofher father, Alice had some remembrance, as she was nearly five years old when he died suddenly, as his brother had done. Tall, well-dressed, with long, white hands, of which he took a great deal of care; always looking for a seat and always reading when he found one, was the picture she carried of him. Of her mother’s personality she knew nothing, except what she heard from others, and what she gathered from an old-time photograph of a young girl with a lovely face and large, beautiful blue eyes, with a laugh in them which the bungling photographer had not been able to spoil, as he had the pose of the head and hands.
When George died Mr. Wood felt it incumbent upon him to notify Mrs. Freeman Tracy, who was at Richfield Springs, having an ideal time, she told Mrs. Wood, rather complainingly, when she came to the funeral with her daughter Helen, who was nearly three years older than Alice. It was Helen’s first experience in a country farmhouse like the Woods, and some of her remarks on what she saw were not very complimentary. But Alice was too young to resent them, or understand. She admired her cousin greatly, especially her bronze boots, with their high, French heels.
“I wish I had some like ’em. Do they cost more than a dollar?” she said, with a rueful glance at her own coarser shoes.
“A dollar! I guess they do. Forty or fifty dollars at least!” Helen replied, at random, and without the slightest idea of the real cost of them or anything else.
Stooping down, she unbuttoned her boots in a trice, and, removing Alice’s shoes, put her own upon a pair of feet much too short for them, for Alice was small for her years and Helen was large.
“Why, they are too big. Your feet wobble awfully inthem,” Helen said, “but I’ll tell you what to do. Put some cotton in ’em. Our maid Susan does, and mamma did once for me when my boots were too long. Find some, and I’ll show you.”
The cotton was found and the boots stuffed and pronounced a splendid fit, as Helen proceeded to button them. Suddenly it occurred to her that she had nothing to wear herself, as she couldn’t begin to get her foot into Alice’s shoe. With a jerk the boots came off, and, to Alice’s wondering looks, she said, “I must not give ’em to you, for I can’t go in my stocking feet to New York, but I’ll have mamma send you some, if you can’t buy ’em. You are real poor, ain’t you?”
Alice didn’t know whether she were poor or not. She only knew she wanted boots like these being taken from her feet and transferred to Helen’s, and two great tears rolled down her cheeks as she resumed her own despised shoes.
“Don’t cry,” Helen said, brusquely. “I’ll send you some boots and a lot of things.”
She kept her word, and from time to time boots and other articles of dress,—some new and some secondhand, but quite as good as new, when Mrs. Wood’s skillful fingers had made them over,—found their way to the farmhouse, and little Alice Tracy was for years the best-dressed child in Rocky Point. As the children grew older and saw each other on the very rare intervals when Mrs. Tracy stopped for a day at Rocky Point, they became very fond of each other, and Helen, who inherited her father’s generous nature, was often troubled because Alice was not wealthy like herself. All that she could make her mother do for her she did, and it was owing to her influence that when Alice was fifteen she was placed in a boarding school in Albany with her cousin, whodid not care for books and who managed to elude her teachers and give more spreads and have more larks and still retain her good standing than any pupil in school. At the end of the year she left, a fully fledged young lady, “with more beaux on her string,” her companions said, than they all had together.
Alice stayed two years longer, and, at eighteen, went back to Rocky Point, with somewhat different views of the world from what she had when she left it. In one point, however, she was unchanged, and that was her love for the old couple, Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Mary, who had been so kind to her. If the homely ways and duties of the farm grated upon her she kept it to herself, and was the same sweet, lovable, sunny-tempered girl she had always been, putting her young strength to the wheel when the strain of work was hardest, and making the labor easier by half by the way with which she planned and executed it.
“Where does that girl get her vim and go ahead?” the neighbors used to say, remembering her mother’s frail constitution and her indolent and easy-going father.
Alice knew all about him. She had overheard a farmhand telling another of his laziness, his selfishness and love of ease and pride, which sometimes rebelled against his plain surroundings and the people of the town, the mill-hands, the shoemakers and machinists who constituted a large proportion of the inhabitants of Rocky Point.
“I know now where I got that little mean thread in my nature. I am naturally lazy, and selfish, and proud, and sometimes grind my teeth hard at what seems common and vulgar. But I’ll kill it dead,” she said, with a stamp of her foot. “I’ll do what my hands find to dowithout shrinking, and not mind the rough men whom Uncle Ephraim has on his farm.”
On two or three occasions she had spent a month in New York in Mrs. Tracy’s elegant house, and although she did not go a great deal into society, she went enough to get a taste for something different from her life at home. But she resolutely set her face against any repinings which might show on the surface, and was as bright and cheerful and sunny as if the rambling old farmhouse, with its low ceilings, its square beams in the corners of the rooms, and its iron door latches were a palatial residence and she the queen; and, in a way, she was queen of the place, for the old couple loved her as if she had been their own child. Nothing was too good for her, and no sacrifice they could make too great if it made her happier. In return for this she lavished upon them all the love of her ardent nature, and gave to them a helpfulness and thoughtfulness beyond her years.
Just before going to Europe Helen spent a week at the farmhouse, declaring herself ennuied to death with the dulness.
“I like being with you, of course,” she said to Alice. “You rest me and bring out the best there is in me, and when I see you washing those dreadful dinner dishes and skimming the milk and pouring tea and coffee for those sweaty men who come to the table in their shirt sleeves, I hate myself for the useless piece of pottery I am, and feel tempted to try the dairy maid business like you. If I had a littlechaletand apetit Trianonlike Marie Antoinette I’d do it. Truly, Alice, I don’t see how you endure it as you do, with nothing livelier to go to than a church social, where they play kissing games, but won’t let you dance, because it is wicked, and not a single manto flirt with. I am positively getting rusty for some male to wink at!”
Alice laughed and replied, “I believe you’d flirt with the undertaker if you could get your eyes on him. Why, you have winked at every sweaty man on the farm, and there isn’t one of them who doesn’t brighten up the minute you appear in your stunning gowns, with your cheery good morning. There are men enough to flirt with, but not exactly your kind.”
“Nor yours, either,” Helen rejoined. “Honestly, how are you ever to be married, unless I send you some of my cast-offs?”
“Which one?” Alice asked, and Helen replied, “I really don’t know, there’s ——,” so and so, repeating their names; “but, I dare say, whichever one I made over to you I should want back again. I wrote you from Saratoga about Craig Mason, who didn’t care to call upon me. Do you know, I’m dying to see him. Something tells meyouwould suit him to a dot, but it can’t be till I’ve met him in fair conflict and been defeated.”
This conversation took place the day before Helen left Rocky Point, and a week later she sailed for Europe, leaving Alice very lonely with the ocean between her and the cousin to whom she was greatly attached. The next April she was offered the spring term in the district school at three dollars a week and board herself. It was something to do,—something to earn,—and she took the school, and made believe she liked it, although Helen herself could scarcely have rebelled more against it than she did, mentally, or have been more relieved than she was when the last day came and she was released from the daily routine which had been so irksome to her. She was to take it up again in the autumn, it was true, but for ten weeks she was free to do what she liked.Skimming the milk and washing the dreadful dinner dishes and pouring coffee for sweaty men she preferred to school teaching, if it were not that the latter brought her money of her own. “Thirty-six dollars,” she repeated, as she fanned herself with the cover of a spelling book. “What shall I do with it all? Ten shall go to Aunt Mary; five to Uncle Ephraim, and I really think I need ten more for gloves and boots and things. Twenty-five dollars in all—oh my!” and she stopped, appalled at the thought that there were only eleven dollars left for the trip to Cooperstown, she was so anxious to take. It couldn’t be done. She must stay at home, as she had the previous summer, and she wanted so much to get in touch with the world as she had known it in Albany, and the glimpses she had had of it in New York, if it were only for a week. It seemed hard, and for a moment her bright spirits were clouded, and there were tears in her eyes, which she wiped away quickly as she heard a step and a whistle by the door. It was a young lad, one of her scholars, who came in without at first seeing her. Then, with a start, he said, “Oh, Miss Tracy, you here? I left my jography and come in to get it. I was goin’ out to your house. I’ve been to the office and they gin me a letter for you, ’cause it says on it ‘In Haste.’ Here ’tis.”
Alice knew before she took the letter that it must be from Helen, who was very apt to put “In Haste,” or, “Please forward,” on her letters, with a belief that it expedited their delivery, as it had in this instance. The boy found his geography and departed, leaving Alice again alone. Tearing open the letter she read it rapidly, and felt that the aspect of everything had changed. Even the weather was not so oppressive as it had been. She was going somewhere. It was the country, to be sure, but she liked the country and Ridgefield was differentfrom Rocky Point. Then she would be with Helen, of whom she was very fond. She understood her, and knew all about her flirtations and the blue book, and what names were in it. She had written some of them herself at Helen’s request, because her handwriting was better than her cousin’s. She had heard of Craig Mason, and the fact that he did not care for her cousin’s acquaintance had awakened her own interest in him and she was nearly as pleased as Helen herself for a chance to meet him. That she could be preferred to Helen never entered her mind. She was simply glad to be with her and ready to do her any service in her power.
When Mr. and Mrs. Wood heard of Helen’s wish for Alice to accompany her to Ridgefield they at once urged her going, and refused to take the money offered them by the generous girl.
“Keep it for yourself,” Mrs. Wood said. “Ridgefield may not be a fashionable place, but you will see new people and want new things.”
“No one will know what I wear when Helen is with me,” Alice said, but she bought herself one or two inexpensive dresses, freshened up others with ribbons and ruches, retrimmed her hat, paid five dollars for a pair of boots, and two for a pair of gloves,—the greatest extravagance she had ever committed, and one which kept her awake for hours as she reflected that cheaper ones would have answered every purpose and left something for Aunt Mary.
The good woman, however, insisted that she did not need it, and, unknown to Alice, slipped a dollar of her egg money into the young girl’s purse on the morning when she started for Springfield where she was to meet her aunt and cousin. The New York train was late andwhen it came in Helen was on the platform motioning frantically to Alice to hurry and come on board.
“Mamma is in the parlor car. We were both there, but as there is no vacant chair, I’m coming with you where we can sit together and talk. I’ve so much to tell you,” she said, as she followed Alice into the common car, and as soon as the train started she was under full headway, telling where she had been, what and whom she had seen, and what she proposed to do and expected Alice to do. “You are looking lovely in that grey gown which I know is made over, but is quite up to date, and I would not be surprised if you eclipsed me,” she said; “but if Craig Mason is there, hands off till I have had my try with his royal highness. Oh, mercy!” and she gave a cry of alarm as a flash of sharp lightning lit up the darkening sky, followed by a terrific peal of thunder.
The storm had burst upon them in its fury, and between the roar of the thunder and the dashing of the rain against the windows, Alice could hear but little more that Helen said. She caught Craig Mason’s name two or three times and knew he was the theme of conversation as the train sped on, and finally drew up at Ridgefield station, where it only stopped when it had New York passengers.
“Oh, what shall we do?” Helen cried, drawing back in dismay from the rain which came driving in at the door.
“Open your umbrella and go on,” Alice said.
Helen obeyed, but her flimsy parasol was turned inside out as she sprang from the car, not to the ground, but into somebody’s arms, she did not know whose. They were very strong and held her fast while they held her, which was only an instant, for there was her motheruttering cries of dismay at the wetting she was getting. Dropping Helen, Mark took her mother and set her down upon the platform, while Alice helped herself. Her alpaca umbrella did not turn inside out, but protected her and her cousin, while Mark held another over her aunt as they ran to the carriage, into which Mrs. Tracy sank exhausted, blaming somebody, she did not know whom, for the storm and her discomfort generally.
“You are not going to leave us? The horses might start,” she cried as she saw Mark turn again toward the station.
“The horses are safe, madam, and there is still another of your party. Had you forgotten her?” he said, as he went after Celine, the maid, who was drenched to the skin and struggling with two or three satchels and wraps.
“Oh, must she come in here? Is there no other carriage?” Mrs. Tracy said, as Mark put the half-drowned girl in beside her and shut the door, saying, “There is no conveyance but this, except the van for the baggage. She surely cannot go in there.”
“I feel as if I were taking a bath,” the unhappy lady moaned, as they started up the hill, while Helen, true to her nature, said, “That man speaks like a gentleman. I wonder who he is.”
The morning following the arrival of the Tracys was bright and beautiful as summer mornings are apt to be after a heavy rain. There was no sign of the storm which had swept so fiercely over the hills the previous nightexcept in the delicious coolness of the air, the muddy street and the few pools of water still standing upon the walk. Craig, who was never a very good sleeper, had heard every sound in the usually quiet house. It had been nine o’clock before the Tracys had divested themselves of their wet garments and were ready for their supper, which, in spite of Mrs. Taylor’s protestations that every thing was spoiled, they enjoyed immensely.
Helen was in high spirits and knew she was going to enjoy herself, everything was so funny and clean. She had made friends with Mrs. Taylor by praising her supper, and won Uncle Zacheus’ heart by looking into his face with her beautiful eyes as she squeezed his hand and said, “My dear good man, you don’t know how glad I am to be here.”
“He don’t know whether he’s on foot or on horseback, that girl has so upset him,” Mrs. Taylor said, as she hurried from the salon to the kitchen, and the kitchen to the salon, occasionally administering a sharp reproof to Jeff, who was dodging round corners, and again whispering to Sarah, the waitress, to keep her wits about her and be sure and pass things to the left instead of the right.
Craig’s room was in the north hall, which communicated with the west at right angles, but he could hear the clatter of feet on the stairs, the sound of talking and laughter in the hall, the running of water in the bathroom, until he began to wonder if they would empty the reservoir and leave nothing for his morning bath. There were calls for Celine to open a trunk, or bring a bag, or a wrap left below, and then at last the final good-nights were said, the doors shut and quiet reigned in the house.
“I can’t imagine why I am so restless when I have been in so many noisy hotels and never minded them,” Craig thought as he stepped out of bed to see what time it was.
“Only eleven, I thought it must be midnight,” he said, going to the window and looking out into the night.
The rain was over, the stars were coming out, and the moon was scudding between the few misty clouds still hovering in the sky. From below he caught the odor of a cigar and heard a man’s tread on the piazza. It was Mark walking up and down as if he, too, were restless and could not sleep. The sight of him brought back the story heard from Uncle Zacheus that morning, and while recalling its details Craig, who had gone back to bed, fell asleep and dreamed that ’Tina came to him in her white dress and blue ribbons, with the gold beads around her neck, which Mr. Taylor had said she wore on the morning when she left home for the prison. She had a sweet, innocent face for which many a man would peril his life, Craig thought, as he awoke with a start to hear a robin singing outside his window and to see a sunbeam on the wall above his head. It was nearly six o’clock,—later than he usually slept,—for he was an early riser. Dressing himself, he went to the dining-room and breakfasted alone. Everything was quiet in the west wing and he saw no signs of the Tracys, except a big Saratoga trunk in the hall waiting to be taken upstairs, and a smart-looking maid, in white cap and apron, carrying a tray from the kitchen with dishes upon it. “One of the ladies breakfasts in her room,—Mrs. Tracy, probably,” he thought, as he sauntered into the office and turned the leaves of the register, finding the names: “Mrs. Freeman A. Tracy, New York city; Miss Helen A. Tracy, New York city; Miss Alice Tracy, Rocky Point, Mass.”
The handwriting was very plain and Craig studied it for a moment, while Uncle Zacheus, who was present and still under the spell of Helen’s eyes and smiles, said to him, “Writes a good fist; plain as copper-plate, andshe’s a daisy, too, but not up to t’other one. Wait till you see her.”
“What do you mean?” Craig asked. “Which is ‘t’other one,’ and which is the daisy?”
“Why, t’other one is—t’other one, and the daisy’s gone down to the river with Jeff after pond lilies,” Uncle Zach replied.
“Gone to the river with Jeff?” Craig repeated, and Uncle Zach answered, “Yes, sir. She was up with the sun. Wrote the names; hers is the last one; and then went off with Jeff, holdin’ up her white skirts and showin’ her trim boots and ankles just like what Dot’s was once when she was slimmer.”
Craig did not ask any more about the daisy. He felt sure it was Alice, the cousin, from Rocky Point, of which place he had never heard. He was not as much interested in her as he was in the ‘t’other one,’ who occupied more of his thoughts than he would like to confess. He remembered his prejudice against her as a heartless coquette, and his declining to call upon her when asked to do so in Saratoga. But she was here in the same house with him and it was incumbent upon him as a gentleman to treat her with some attention. She might not be as bad as she was painted; at all events, he would like to see her, and he had found himself taking more pains than usual with his toilet. He was always faultlessly neat in his person and attire, especially in the matter of collars and cuffs, and this morning he had tried and discarded two or three pairs, and as many neckties, before he was satisfied that histout-ensemblewas all that could be expected in a country tavern. He had looked for Jeff to give an extra polish to his shoes, but not finding him, had put on a pair of tans, and felt himself quiteau faitand ready to cope with the younglady who, rumor said, had lured so many men to her feet only to be refused. He had no intention of following their example. He expected to amuse himself and be relieved from the ennui which was beginning to affect him in the quiet place.
As he was leaving the office the maid came in to drop a postal in the box. She was a trim little black-eyed French girl, who, in her bright plaid dress, high-heeled slippers and red stockings, looked very pretty and picturesque.
“Good mornin’, Miss—er—What is your name,” was Uncle Zacheus’ salutation.
“Celine, monsieur,” was the girl’s reply.
“Oh, yes; to be sure. Mooseer, I think you said. I didn’t quite catch it. Uncommon name. Miss Mooseer, this is Mr. Craig Mason from Boston. Mr. Mason, Miss Mooseer, I hope you’ll be good friends,” and Uncle Zacheus waved his hand in a friendly way from one to the other.
Craig was too much of a gentleman to laugh, but there was a gleam of merriment in his eyes as he bowed to the girl, and an answering gleam in hers as she curtsied and said, “Bon Jour, monsieur,” and hurried away.
“What did she say?” Uncle Zacheus asked, and Craig replied, “She wished me good morning, in French.”
“Oh, yes; wall, I don’t understand French very well. Pretty little filly, but you or’to see t’other one,” was Uncle Zach’s response, as Craig left the office, thinking, “I’ve been introduced to the maid, and now I’d like to see her mistress.”
As he passed the door of the salon he heard the rattling of dishes and murmur of voices, one very sweet and musical and full of laughter, the other so low he could scarcely distinguish it. Going to the north piazza he satdown in his accustomed chair to wait developments. “They will certainly make the tour of the piazzas and come this way after breakfast,” he thought, and bytheyhe had no reference to the one Uncle Zacheus had called a daisy. She was scarcely in his mind at all. He was waiting for t’other one.
Like Craig Mason, Alice was an early riser. The dewy morning in summer was to her the best part of the day. She had slept well, and before the village clock struck five she was up and dressed. Helen, whose room adjoined hers, heard her moving about and called softly to her.
“What is it?” Alice asked, going to her, and Helen answered, sleepily, “Are you up so soon? It seems to me I’ve only just got into bed. Open the blind, please, and let in some air and light. How pretty and fresh you look,” she continued, as Alice opened the blind and came to the bedside. “That gown is so becoming, and I don’t suppose it cost more than fifty cents a yard.”
“Twenty-five,” Alice interposed, and Helen went on, “Well, it is a heap prettier than my Paris gowns, all fuss and feathers. You are going out?”
“Yes; to see what the place is like, and report.”
“That’s right. Find out if Craig Mason is here. I am awfully tired and don’t believe I shall get up for ever so long. If he is here you will see him and tell me what manner of man he is; what he likes and dislikes, so I canlike and dislike the same. I don’t know why, but I fancy he may be bookish. Did you bring Tennyson?”
“Yes.”
“And English Literature?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Taine’s.”
“All right. I guess I can master enough of him to talk about. Won’t you bring me Tennyson before you go? I may look him over a little. It is well to have a favorite poet, and he’ll do as well as any body. I know about that poem, ‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, John,’ and should do just as Priscilla did. Wasn’t that her name? and was it Whittier who wrote it, or Longfellow?”
“Longfellow,” Alice answered, as she went for Tennyson’s poems.
“Find the ‘May Queen,’ and put the book on the bed,” Helen said.
Alice did so, and started to leave the room, when her cousin called her back and whispered very low, as if afraid the walls might hear, “I want to know who that tall man is who carried me in his arms through the rain, and spoke so like a gentleman. I can’t get him out of my mind. He held me so delicately, as if it were a pleasure, but one for which he ought to apologize.”
Alice did not wait for any more directions, but passed downstairs to the office, where she registered their names, and then stepped out upon the piazza just as Jeff appeared with a large basket on his arm.
“Hallo, Jeff; where you goin’?” Uncle Zach asked, and Jeff replied, “To the river after pond lilies.”
“Oh,” Alice said, “pond lilies and the river. Is it far? Can I go?”
She spoke to Jeff, who replied, “Not very far if we go acrost the lots through the wet grass, but you’ll have to hold up your gown.”
At this point Uncle Zacheus, who was famous for introducing people, came up and said, “Miss Tracy, this is Jefferson Wilkes, our chore boy. We let him get the lilies and sell ’em for a penny apiece. ’Tain’t far to the river, but pretty wet for them boots; bran’ new, ain’t they?” and he glanced admiringly at Alice’s five-dollar boots, worn that morning for the first time.
“Yes; quite new, and I can’t afford to spoil them,” Alice said. “Wait, Jefferson, till I change them.”
She ran up to her room, put on her second best boots and rubbers and was soon off with Jeff, holding her skirts above her ankles, while Uncle Zacheus looked admiringly after her. Jeff was very proud and attentive, and led her through the driest places and helped her over the stone wall and into the boat, asking if she were at all afraid.
“Not in the least,” she said. “I know how to row, and if I didn’t I feel sure of you,” and she beamed upon him a smile so bright that if he had been on the land he would at once have stood upon his head, his favorite way of showing his delight.
He knew that one of the young ladies was very wealthy, but did not know which one it was sitting with him and helping him with the boat when it got entangled among the lily pads. At last, as his admiration increased, he asked abruptly, “Be you the rich Miss Tracy, with such piles of money?”
Alice laughed and answered him, “Oh, no. I am the poor Miss Tracy and teach school among the mountains.”
“Golly! I thought you’s the rich one, you’re so—kinder—I don’t know what,” Jeff said.
School-teachers, as a rule, were not great favorites with him, but this one must be different from those he had known. Steering the boat to a shaded place where a birch tree drooped over the water he began to pull in the lilies which were very thick just there, and finally said, “Did you have boys in your school; boys like me, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. Quite a number your size, and some older.”
“Did you have to lick ’em?”
“Never,” Alice answered, greatly amused with the boy, who continued, “What did you do when they cut up?”
“They didn’t cut up much, and when they did I talked to them till they were sorry,” Alice replied, while Jeff rejoined, “I wish you was my schoolma’am. I get whaled two or three times a week. Don’t hurt me, though.”
“What do you do to get punished so often?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied, “Oh, nothin’ much. I hide the scholars’ books and pails and dinners,—for fun, you know,—but I’m whaled the most for gettin’ things out of their pockets when they don’t know it.”
“A pickpocket!” Alice exclaimed, and Jeff rejoined, “No, I don’t do it for keeps, but to see if I can,—and I can, too,” he added, with the air of one well pleased with himself. “I’ll bet you a cent I can take everything out of your pocket there is in it, and you not know it, as we go back to the hotel. Take the bet?”
Alice looked in a kind of terror at this boy, whose frank, handsome face belied his words, and who, having filled his basket with lilies, was rowing out into the river, preparatory to landing on the other side.
“Oh, Jefferson,” she said, “never pick a pocket again, even for fun. It is dangerous business, and will get you into trouble,—prison, maybe.”
She spoke with great earnestness, and put one of herhands on Jeff’s arm to emphasize her words. Her face was very close to his and her blue eyes looked at him just as no other eyes had ever rested upon him. Mrs. Taylor had always been angry when reproving the young scamp, and usually rounded her reproof with a box on the ear. His teacherwhaledhim as he said, while Mark, the only one who claimed jurisdiction over him, smiled at his dexterity while scolding him for it. Alice took a different course, appealing to his better nature, and, after listening for a few moments to her, he said, “I never meant no harm. I called it sleight of hand, but I b’lieve I’ll quit it. Nobody ever talked to me this way before, makin’ me feel ashamed. Miss Taylor cuffs me when she jaws; the teachers thrash me, and Mr. Hilton scolds with one corner of his mouth and laughs with the other. Yes, I’ll quit it, if you say so; but what’ll you bet I can’t stand on my head in the boat and not tip it a bit?”
He seemed resolved upon showing his accomplishments in some way, but Alice declined taking the last bet, as she had the first, and was rather glad to find herself onterra firma. The mention of Mr. Hilton reminded her that possibly there was a chance for her to learn something of the inmates of the hotel. A boy like Jeff would be likely to tell the truth. First she asked him of himself,—how old he was, and where he was born. He told her his age as nearly as he could, but did not know where he was born; nowhere, he guessed. His father and mother died in Boston and he lived anywhere, in alleys and streets, turning summersaults in the day time and sleeping at night in a big old hogshead that had drifted ashore on the wharf. He concluded his story by saying, “Mr. Hilton found me and brought me to the hotel.”
“Who is Mr. Hilton?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied,“Why, he’s Mark, the clerk, who sees to things and insults with Mrs. Taylor about everything. He put that rose on your table last night. Did you smell it?”
Alice had noticed it, and said so, while Jeff continued, “He got it off of a grave down in the cemetery, where some of his kin is buried. I seen him, for I was in the brook close by, trying to catch some polywogs.”
Alice wanted to ask what polywogs were, but would not interrupt the boy, who went on: “He met you last night, don’t you know, and carried you into the house.”
“Not me; that was my cousin.Youhelped me,” Alice said, and asked next, “Are there any other gentlemen in the hotel beside Mr. Hilton?”
“My, yes; I guess there is,” and Jeff warmed up at once. “There’s Mr. Mason from Boston. Awful swell; takes a bath and has his shoes blacked every morning, and wears a clean shirt and collar and cuffs every day. I only wear one shirt a week. Mr. Hilton wears three.”
Alice thought it possible that neither Mr. Hilton nor Craig Mason would care for her to have a more intimate knowledge of their habits, and began to speak of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Here, too, Jeff was very communicative. “Mr. Taylor was fust rate, and let a feller alone,” he said. Some called him shiffless, but he liked that kind of shiffless that wasn’a allus pitchin’ in to a chap. Miss Taylor was boss, and smart as chain lightnin’, only she couldn’t git round quite so quick, she was so big,—tipped the scale at two hundred. He liked her some and should like her more if she didn’t make him go to Sunday-school and learn twenty verses in the Bible beside. He was through with the Sermon on the Mount, and was tackling Nicodemus, which was easier.
They had reached the hotel by this time, and with every step Alice’s interest had increased in Jeff, whoseadmiration for her had kept pace with her interest in him. He offered to go with her to the woods and show her a big hornet’s nest and a mud turtle’s bed in the pond, of which no one knew but himself, and he made her take half of the lilies, refusing any remuneration at first. Then, suddenly, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he said, “If you want to pay me so bad give me a dime and we’ll call it square.”
Alice put her hand in her pocket for her purse, which was gone, with her handkerchief and her gloves, which she had taken off when she helped pull in the lilies. Before she could utter an exclamation of surprise, Jeff, who was watching her, had turned a summersault and was on his feet with her missing articles in his hand.
“Here they be,” he said, but the laugh died away when he saw the expression of Alice’s face and the tears in her eyes as she said, “Oh, Jefferson, how could you! You promised you wouldn’t, and I believed you.”
If she had struck him she would not have hurt him as much as did the sight of her tears and the sound of her voice.
“I didn’t mean to when I promised, but I wanted to try it just once more,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry, and I’ll never do it again, never. I don’t want to be a bad boy.”
“I am sure you don’t, and as a beginning, never try that trick again,” Alice said, putting her hand on his hair and smoothing it as she talked.
“I won’t; I won’t,” Jeff said, “and you’ll go with me to see the hornet’s nest and the mud turkles just the same?”
Alice promised, and feeling that he was restored to favor, Jeff ran off with his basket of lilies, while Alicechanged her boots and went down to breakfast with her aunt, who asked where she had been and with whom.
Alice told her of Jeff, who had offered to stand on his head in the boat and not rock it, and had picked her pocket as they came up the hill.
“The wretch!” Mrs. Tracy exclaimed. “A pickpocket! A thief! You ought to report him. We are not safe here, and Helen so careless with her money and jewelry.”
As well as she could Alice explained, saying it was done for fun,—that there was no harm in the boy,—that she liked him immensely, and would trust him anywhere. While she talked Jeff was crouching under an open window, cutting the long grass with a sickle and hearing all that was said. At first he resented Alice’s telling of his prank, but his anger died away as he listened to her defense of him. Mrs. Tracy had called him a thief, and it had a bad sound.
“I ain’t a thief,” he thought, wiping his eyes where the tears were beginning to gather. “I never kep’ a cent’s wuth from anybody. I do it because I can’t help it, my fingers tingle so to try it. I was mean to lie to her when she spoke so nice to me, and put her hand on my head as if she liked me. I feel it there now,” and he put his soiled hand where Alice’s white one had lain and where in imagination he would feel it again in after years when temptation and sin had marred the beauty and blighted the innocence of a face which was so frank and open now in its young boyhood.