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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12224-0.txt b/12224-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88423f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6462 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12224 *** + +[Illustration: BINDING THE RINGS.] + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY + +By + +MRS. A.D.T. WHITNEY + + +AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD," "THE GAYWORTHYS," +"A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE," ETC. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. + + +BOSTON +1870, 1890 + + + + CONTENTS. + + CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS + CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS + CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN + CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS + CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING + CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS + CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN + CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ. + CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES. + + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE STORY BEGINS. + + +It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. + +The town is down below the hill. + +It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another +hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop +itself, just as it does on this side. + +It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large +country town,--in fact, it has some time since come under city +regulations,--thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that +which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. + +Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off +the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded +themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called +"places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the +old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when +the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; +down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers' +offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat +at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. + +We lived in the town--that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their +children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--for +nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. + +They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; when +there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, +and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, +in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to +the fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so came +the name. + +We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't +considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the +brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go +down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if +they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it? + +Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus,--I don't say whether he was my +grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this +story, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever so +many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the +boys grew up,--Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. + +Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,--who had himself +come up from being a workman to being owner,--and learned the +business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, and +lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was +yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no +little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three +daughters. + +There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and his +wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. +Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins +married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor +mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because +"Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of +course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on +the mere claim of the common cousinship. + +Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular +ways too. + +There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all +known by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have little +pet ways of calling, among ourselves,--sometimes one way and sometimes +another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird +doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our +bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little +fun,--though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or +behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the +first,--or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, +or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's +obstinate,--we always _introduce_ "my daughter Rosamond," or "my +sister Barbara," or,--but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because +nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"--and Stephen +is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a +man some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were +christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is +such a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "She +wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose." + +Our moving to Westover was a great time. + +That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody +does not do who moves into a house by any means. + +We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and +told us, one morning, of his having bought it,--the empty Beaman +house, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought +the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and +build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobody +but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was +large and solid-built, and could not be taken far. + +We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another +day, and proposed that we should go and live in it. + +We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very +strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what +they ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any. + +Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that +day,--him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it +was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or +even him without the cane; but both together were "_scare-mendous_; +they did put down so." + +Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to +notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the +old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a +board at the door,--"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had all +made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: +and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But +we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never +time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled +just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in +this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is +always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in +other ways. + +Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live a +gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for +the din and scramble of business. + +He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowing +his sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the loss +and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then +go down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all his +debts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed and +clothe his family meanwhile. + +Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, when +he bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In the +summer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at +Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these +obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these things +we made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all the +more afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. + +"When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his stern +precept. + +"When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say, +after he was gone. + +But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. That +day, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and as +cosey as we could be. + +Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had +been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. +Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old +black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with +smooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. + +"What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, +wondering. + +"They were dropped,--and I picked them up," Rosamond answered, +mysteriously. "The owner never missed them." + +"Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. + +"Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'em +most. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she +went on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiring +the effect. "They don't dress much outside." + +"O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?" + +"Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle about +contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman and +her accidents,--mine are usually catastrophes." + +Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the right +set-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. + +Barbara flung down a magazine,--some old number. + +"Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of the +climax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she went +on to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and +was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? +Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two little +cats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and the +cane coming in. + +There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, and +for Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through +the sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his cane +were slow; the more awful for that. + +Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors; +and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!" + +[Illustration] + +Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. + +"Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a few +square yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving +and going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteen +square feet that we live on most!" + +She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a very +little matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. + +"How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, +or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we +_don't_ tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we know +them or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and the +things we do. + +Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had a +way of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentence +after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant +was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do +think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's +very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes." + +It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. +When there was one, he always kept it to the last. + +"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the +around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live +in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. +Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. +I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over." + +He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a +word. We were too much surprised. + +Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. + +I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a +woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her +so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She +asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep +her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it +to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a +grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. + +"We could keep a cow!" said mother. + +"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. + +"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His +land begins this side." + +"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we +have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. + +"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in +continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished +hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would +never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our +limitations. + +"Does that look--" + +"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never +do." + +Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of +something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might +be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that. + +"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I +don't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean to +be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the +name left." + +"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what +_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready +money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else +for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?" + +That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she +did not speak at first. + +"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't +believe there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening and +shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes +together again and snips our noses!" + +"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A +mouse pinched in it, I should think." + +"Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are +fricassees,--heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the +philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down +everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't +all made,--or used,--yet!" + +Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--in +aid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries. + +"O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out +there, and the mornings will be so early!" + +"That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing +we're going 'west over.'" + +"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said +Ruth. That was the best she could do. + +"Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have +some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put +down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. +Especially for a country house." + +"It seems, then, we _are_ going?" + +Nobody had even raised a question of that. + +Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised +none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, +quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a +geometrical fact patent at first glance. + +"We can have a cow," mother repeated. + +"Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a +hearing. + +"You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the +parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen." + +"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely. + +"I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. +I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't many +in profane." + +"Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus +'saluted' at the end of an epistle." + +"Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn't +history; that's mere mention." + +"We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down,'" +suggested Rosamond, complacently. + +Barbara smiled. + +"And we can tell _the girl_ to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' when +she's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the +'handy' things." + +"Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was between +the two. + +"Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow." + +"We shall all have to remember that it will only be living there +instead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrella +under the rain of suggestion. + +The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There was +no doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and it +was found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtains +in our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in the +square Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, +and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. +The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few +pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara +said, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairs +there would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, and +making upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, because +in these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, and +fireplace, and closet doors. + +They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. +Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over to +see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to +communicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of a +kind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house any +precisely matched companionship. + +This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it led +to trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned to +their new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the whole +number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious +mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to +live in "sûch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is to +Irish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole can +no longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfast +that she "must jûst be lukkin out fer a plaashe." + +"But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two or +three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be glad +to have you stay and help us through." + +"Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taks +an intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I +niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but I +couldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo a +plaashe, ye see." + +It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk a +graat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, but +she mûst jûst be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she had +the kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonnet +on,--a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse--of ungarnished +head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,--and +took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where +people were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company nor +children nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, +and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," she +would probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would +_not_ allow of her continuing with us. + +A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,--sure to +happen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line we +have a gale down below. + +"_Now_ what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming back +into the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments +which spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling all +through the house. + +"Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravely +than she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thy +youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't +doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among the +rest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. +There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least." + +"I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird, +with meekness. + +It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very much +quenched. + +The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, and +nowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up over +the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between +that time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without a +girl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have not +come to the family-moving yet. + +The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, while +the building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up into +all the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what new +pictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how now +this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by +the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,--for the slope, +though gradual, was long,--and how the sunset came in more and more, +as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill of +excitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, the +onward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought all +rightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen called +these earthquakes. + +We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It was +such a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stop +anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; +because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it was +all pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting over +on the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. + +We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaks +between trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, +open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; and +the nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny and +pleasant and real countrified. + +It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great +house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand +generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs +and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest +point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in +excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we +might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose the +green bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we got +less of the great town within our view as we settled down upon our +side of the ridge. + +The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. + +There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were to +be; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way down +against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields +were beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire in +autumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructed +sky. + +The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where the +walls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen the +spot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for the +moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the +kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as +mere lumber. It was only the main building--L-shaped still, of three +very large rooms below and five by more subdivision above--which had +majestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, +westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. + +Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient with +one servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he +offered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent we +must take out cheerfully in extra steps. + +It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirds +came fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, +and stood staring around it with its many eyes,--wide open to the +daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,--to see where +it was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a very +knowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. + +The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed +in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he +got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round +southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the +noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the +sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through +the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along +the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and +peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was +what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,--as if he +stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about +it, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. He +quieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night he +found somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took it +serenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, and +put us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was to +leave so many cubic feet of light at daily. + +I think he _might_ like to look in at that best parlor. With the six +snowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and the +deep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all over +them, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were like +the moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the light +glinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw out +the lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few +fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It +was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring +home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many +nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be +paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we +sat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselves +already to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases well +filled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn cloth +hid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to the +hand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of the +home-spirit,--a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its +round of radiance every night. + +Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June +nights were at Westover. + +We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We +had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"--that is their word for +the north country at home, and the north country is where the best +material comes from,--who was willing to air her ignorance in our +kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for +the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not +come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls +was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't +do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do +with established rates of wages. + +But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the +singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, +and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a +new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things +were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy +rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how +grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old +things also,--a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. + +"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb +'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family +settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. +"It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before +it, except when it is in the nominative case." + +Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to the +sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the +ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza +was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, +from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low +railing ran around the whole. + +Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right +and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through +the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a +round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with +us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. + +We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what new +glory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for the +witnessing of a pageant. + +The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hung +close by; they dropped down through the gold together, till they +touched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slid +silently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. + +[Illustration] + +"But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush. + +No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to south +stretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints and +softliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; the +gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went +by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; we +watched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked out +into great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight was +the curtain. + +"We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara said +again, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against the +railing. + +"The front row, and season tickets!" + +"Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. + +"Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew human +nature, and had got used himself to most things. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AMPHIBIOUS. + + +"What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up from +her letter. + +Ruth told. + +"How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You are +as pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anything +particular has happened, to remember _any_ day by, since the first, +and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm never +sure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first; +and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme in +my head." + +"I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in her +room,--that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down at +the bottom; and she whops it every morning." + +Ruth laughed. + +"What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. + +"It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and you +only puckered." + +Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that," she said. + +"Well, what then?" + +"To think you knew." + +"Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough." + +"Yes,--but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest part +of the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve." + +Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth had +caught him out. + +"I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't help +reading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the man +that went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fine +day, and then I'll whop the whole over for you." + +Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the last +pair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephen +in her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lips +that she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up and +went away with them to her room. + +She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket in +her hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll of +Scripture texts printed in large clear letters,--a sheet for each day +of the month,--and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnut +rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at +the Bible Class,--Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very +much. + +Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, +and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and +maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went +and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. + +For she had something to think about this morning. + +Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the +beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and +just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room +at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the +other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from +the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was +a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up; +and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the +L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well +tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be +taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all +the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. + +Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it; +behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of +staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by +a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the +whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L +unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right +angles to each other. + +The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in +the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long +shine, from its south window at the end, right through,--except in +such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and +then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew +through pleasantly in a soft shade. + +When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large +front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if +there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and +bureaus,--the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy. +And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamond +and Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushions +sewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seat +and pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirt +of white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange for +this Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished their +two windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. + +Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all go +round by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked away +mysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened all +the doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most part +remained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings and +ways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently open +to the privilege and second sight of story-telling. + +The white dimity curtains--one pair of them--were up at the wide west +window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four +things,--drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light +among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings +around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed +cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased +with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and +tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in +uniform,--varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in +crimson arabesque,--made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture +scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the +window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which +she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to +foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, +over the deficient cane-work. + +Tin tacks and some considerable machining--for mother had lent her the +help of her little "common sense" awhile--had done it all; and Ruth's +room, with its oblong of carpet,--which Mrs. Holabird and she had made +out before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored one +and a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not been +enough to put upon the staircase,--looked, as Barbara said, "just as +if it had been done on purpose." + +"It _says_ it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. + +Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,--with its situation above all; +she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never minded +their coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her three +little brass bolts when she had a desire to. + +She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about Adelaide +Marchbanks's invitation. + +The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The married +daughter of one family--Mrs. Reyburne--was at home from New York, and +had brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. Roger +Marchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friends +visiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,--several +sisters in each family,--always. The Haddens were there a good deal, +and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at a +time. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and Leslie +Goldthwaite, a great pet of hers,--Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, +in the town,--was often up among them all. + +The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and +then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were +not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were +among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life +would not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind of +Elf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in the +impalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when it +wills to be by itself for a time. + +There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way for +them, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was not +spoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. +Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and I +suppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized how +thoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodily +presence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond and +Barbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted for +something; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wished +and meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers were +to carry out. + +But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was not +quite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each her +own sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by the +accepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard; +why shouldn't they--the Holabirds--settle anything? Ruth hated to have +theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So +this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had +happened. + +Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down +street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. +At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,-- + +"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like +you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. +There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now +among ourselves." + +Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular +inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but +she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and +that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the +end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should +play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at +eleven o'clock. + +She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,--perhaps; but +she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect +her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. + +She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to +hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would +very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly +acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. +She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; she +would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but +it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would +they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go? +And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--she +the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and +Barbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out,--they just +leaked out." + +That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, +with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power +of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she +would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to +her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she +could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a +born home. + +She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, as +at first she meant to do. + +But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls" +means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" in +her heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out of +themselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turns +into a plural. + +Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her +elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of +grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's +five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some +new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous laziness +upon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, through +her own room and saw her there. + +Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill of +pleasantness. Her home had _expressed_ itself here, as it had never +done anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshiny +roominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and her +daughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearness +in which her love and her wish for them held them always. + +It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but the +generous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you looked +through, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glass +house" so long. + +The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows at +either end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the long +mirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels in +the town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were here +put, quite elegantly tall,--the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above her +daintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great square +trunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, +dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes and +cushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room," +opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and at +night, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back and +forth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, +gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; so +that Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning in +their busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you were +all lit up." + +"We had one candle apiece," Barbara would answer, very concisely. + +"I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way," Rosamond +said once, after she had gone. + +"And that she _didn't_ have to come through our clothes-yard of a +Monday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in the +wash," added Barbara. + +But this is off the track. + +"What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon the +little figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through the +open rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?" + +"O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I've +done, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure I +wasn't provoked." + +"You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?" + +"Yes, I guess so," said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking right +on,--doesn't it?--when you speak suddenly out of a 'think.' I wonder +what _alone_ really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Something +thinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up." + +"Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth." + +"Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It _does_ answer back." + +"And what was the answer about this time?" + +That was how Ruth came to let it out. + +"About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, +though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And they +might have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as you +said, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I--needn't. I mean, I +knew right off that I _didn't_." + +Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of her +thinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand the +older idiom, just as they do baby-talk,--by the same heart-key. She +knew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to." + +"You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them begin +with me so." + +"You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird, +affectionately. "And a very generous one." + +"No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rather +nice to settle that I _can_ be contrary. I don't like to be +pat-a-caked." + +She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. + +The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, to +ask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. + +Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the +busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not +willing, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though she +always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric +morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little +fancy slippers,--(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she +had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and +beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to +any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, +in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the +last point of morning freshness,--chairs and tables and books in the +most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in +vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the +others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to +receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as +likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her +"points,"--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at +the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character +only by these embellishments upon the instep,--and to have dumped +herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the +green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some +irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. + +Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would +stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with +unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in +the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation." + +Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if +Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and +Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake, +and why should they be ashamed of it?" + +Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, but +they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." + +"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she +would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most +fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." + +Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; +for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and +a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there +in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to +call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the +kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the +big trees. + +Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suit +and bright buttons. + +"Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, +looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point the +Inglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!" + +It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were +walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not +been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. +Marchbanks's? + +[Illustration] + +Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, +behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. + +"I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think +I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and +I don't go out very much, except with my--cousins." + +"Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." + +"It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my +breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" + +"Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed +bent upon driving his questions home. + +"O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." + +"Wasn't it?" + +The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; +Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--just +a line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. + +Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West +Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little +wheels were turned sometimes. + +He had just come to Z---- (I must have a letter for my nameless town, +and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a +crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among +interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he +excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and +it was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. +Ingleside, had come to Z----, to take the vacant practice of an old +physician, disabled from continuing it. + +Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends; +almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. + +Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for one +older, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one just +like her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, from +the little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of their +pretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, +springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautiful +flowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as she +had grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central or +most brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helped +and touched and perfected all. + +There was something very real and individual about her; she was no +"girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She would +have grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the first +quarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly" +sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showed +itself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as to +simpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in her +twentieth year now, which sounds--didn't somebody say so over my +shoulder?--so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her that +she had "stayed fifteen." + +She _looked_ real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with some +graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been +freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly +around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on +like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and +everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; +and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could +trace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex and +bewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds and +festoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked more +as young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmaker +seven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the public +promenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiring +minds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all the +sewing, and where the hair all comes from. + +Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked to +be odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with the +prevailing fashion--the fundamental idea of it--always, when she had a +new thing; but she modified and curtailed,--something was sure to stop +her somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that they +never stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, +"something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and she +must choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satin +folds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to use +differently; the dress was never the first and the _must be_; so it +came by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode; +and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it, +were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. + +It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questions +that had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, +that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them half +unconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the +"outside," which is setting more and more between us and our real +living, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer put +ready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. + +Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how +"achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of +embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and +the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for +them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of +Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in +itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured +it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie +had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the mere +buying. + +Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the little +vines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creeping +Mitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniature +grace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty to +put in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helped +Rose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grew +higher up. + +Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the +fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full +of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as +if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great +sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings +"came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like +a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course +one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like +a bird or a bee right after breakfast,--that was living; that was the +Irishman's blessing,--'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'" + +"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most +magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there +would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the +piazza basement, and up to the front portico. + +They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. +Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. + +Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea +branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said +afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. + +The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a +hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got +the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of +parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors +which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. + +Barbara stood behind the blind. + +"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right +out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and +has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie +Thayne?" + +"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?" + +"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!" + +"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's +nice,--ever so nice." + +"It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the +hill. "They treat those girls--amphibiously!" + +"Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "_I'm_ amphibious. I live in the +town, and I _can_ come out--and not die--on the Hill. I like it. I +always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time." + +They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. + +"We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off. + +"I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really +wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She +isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That +is, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so." + +You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. +People who tell a story see round corners. + +The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to play +croquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaites +and the Haddens. + +"We're growing very gay and multitudinous," she said, graciously. + +"The midshipman's got home,--Harry Goldthwaite, you know." + +Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in her +own keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. +But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. + +When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, +inevitable question,-- + +"What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night,--that's ready?" + +And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not a +dud!" + +But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt on +purpose to lend to Barbara. If she had _given_ it, there would have +been the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, +and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirts +that were _over with_, before the new fashion came. + +Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big world +to-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. + +It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it _was_ one of our ways at +Westover. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. + + +Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. + +Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. + +And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were to +carry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. + +You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. + +How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In the +first place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,--"a making +for anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstanding +Shakespeare. + +It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming and +sweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with glee +and grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke to +her suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, +all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready to +catch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you in +return, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of life +and pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of her +face lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised upon +its stalk. She was _like_ a flower chatting with a breeze. + +She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; but +she had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it; +and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of her +head any painful, conscious question of how she _was_ seeming. That, +and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her manners +what Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,--"exquisite." + +That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep; +hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. + +She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they had +everybody round them. All the people in the room were saying how +lovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed a +great and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It was +pleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just as +lovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to be +lovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood on +that same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just as +pretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and it +meant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have her +stand right there, and look just so, to-night. + +In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to her +grander,--another girl, in another corner, looking on,--a girl with a +very homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. She +looked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in her +prettiness; _she_ looked as if she had put herself away, comfortably +satisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. +Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. + +"I do think," she said,--"don't you?--it's just the bravest and +strongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, and +to go right on and have a good time just the same;--_every day_, you +see, right through everything! I think such people must be splendid +inside!" + +"The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," said +Leslie. "And she was fifty years old too." + +"Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, +"it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I should +like--just once--to look beautiful at a party!" + +The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. + +Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaite +were on one side, and they led off their whole party, going +nonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not help +it; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling each +other along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and came +down into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and the +whole game in their hands on their own part. + +"It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "but +they might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on the +same side again." + +It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted away +for the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, that +Harry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil." + +[Illustration] + +Barbara shook her head. What was it? + +"It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it to +us. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plain +enough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are ten +rings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is to +string them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certain +distance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and you +play as many rounds as you may agree upon." + +Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. + +"Have you told anybody else of that?" + +"Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while." + +"Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebody +came down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let me +have it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the stray +ball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, +"come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, +you see, to get anything that's new." + +"I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,--isn't that what +they make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famous +out of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought to +be, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit Harry +Goldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, putting +the two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollicking +into the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle was +taking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody was +there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing +party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them +again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. +After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry +rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. + +It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance was +re-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an old +remembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school and +given her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,--"as he might have +done," we told her, "to any other boy." + +"Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in her +door, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pulling +down hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter at +bedtime. + +Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, as +if she could not get into that place without her considering-fit +coming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, and +her eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. + +"She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara. + +"Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out of +her cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all the +evening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music +_splashes_ so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering it +all over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!" + +"The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs. +Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. +"I've known good times do that." + +"It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in my +head, 'going on forever--ever! _go_-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth broke +into the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. + +"I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!" +Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to the +mother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; it +was only when she wanted a very dear word. + +"We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can find +in the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment, +in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for the +bowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes once +in a while. It's going to be just--splend-umphant!" + +"If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We _must_ keep +the new of it to ourselves." + +"As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up Harry +Goldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doing +anything but just give you that awful little pinch!" + +"That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross or +inelegantly excited about anything. "But I _do_ think the girls will +like it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza." + +"That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously. + +Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The dark +new boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had been +real oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny." + +Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-music +flittering in her brain. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden about +her playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, although +they said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that her +fingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the right +points. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to _see_ Ruth Holabird play, as +well as she did to hear her. + +But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almost +anything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what she +should do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gave +lessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularly +to Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his being +cross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy and +sensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to be +afraid. + +Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, +except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred a +teacher to come to the house. + +"A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style from +the very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away," +said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and said +something, and drew her off. + +Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetism +that guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes were +struck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. + +"If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really would +have me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. +Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could show +anybody what I know,--and if they like that!" + +It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up with +the "forever--ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely trembling +ripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the south +and slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmering +little ghost in the arm-chair. + +Ruth came down late to breakfast. + +Barbara was pushing back her chair. + +"Mother,--or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm going +out for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning." + +"And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to be +with Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?" + +"Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can't +you come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!" + +"That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. + +"I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, +when we played with him so." + +"I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely. + +"Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, about +those--patent rights. I dare say they'll come up." + +"I've no doubt," said Rosamond. + +"I wish you _would_ both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs. +Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, +and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast." + +"I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs. +Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls had +gone away. + +"I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something that +would just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my head +last night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right up +behind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised my +playing; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbanks +wants a--" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that was +coming--"_lady_-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. +There, mother. It's in _your_ head now! Please turn it over with a +nice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that you +believe perhaps I could!" + +By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her two +hands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down upon +one of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. + +"I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I _wouldn't_ just as lief! +I would liefer you should have all you need without." + +"I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!" + +"That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in upon +the last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being good +for them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both." + +"O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception of +difficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether she +could, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "_Don't_ you--or Rose--call +it names, Barbara, please, will you?" + +"Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna +are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by +your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." + +"I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's--" + +"Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfully +quiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retain +me on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, and +give me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand." + +Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. + +"I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks would let me teach the children." + +"Teach the children! What?" + +"O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And--make Rose +understand." + +"Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like +_it_." + +"Will you do just those two things?" + +"It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part? +I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It's +such a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if we +made it a regular family delegation--besides, it will take as much as +all me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Last +night's twilight isn't over. And it's funny _we_'ve plans too; _we_'re +going to give lessons,--differently; we're going to lead off, for +once,--we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chime +in. It _may_ make things--Holabirdy." + +Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What she +said, therefore, when she was told, was,-- + +"O dear! I suppose it is right! But--just now! Right things do come in +so terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broad +aisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?" + +"And then somebody else would get the chance." + +"There's nobody else to be had." + +"Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's _me_ to +be had yet." + +"O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!" + +"I don't know. I might. I shouldn't _teach_ it 'anyhow.'" + +Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half +of her point. + +Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. +Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. + +She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and +old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her +justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she +must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew +right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had +happened to think of it. + +"Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a +little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early +fashion, to ask for her. + +"I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because +I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my +playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, +perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, +and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons +myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night." + +Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through +whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to +what she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_; +because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false +consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according +to their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they would +think of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond could +not help _feeling her double_,--Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That was +what Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. + +The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it is +not, there is no use any way. + +Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. + +"Does Mrs. Holabird know?" + +"O yes; she always knows." + +There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. +Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been very +frank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhat +different. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made; +perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have been +sensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. + +"But you see, my dear, that _your_ having a pupil could not be quite +equal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one would +not quite provide for the other." + +"O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. +Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I could +teach two quarters, I could take one." + +"You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. +Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have really +a charming style. But whether you could _impart_ it,--that is a +different capacity." + +"I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could make +her understand all I do." + +"Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady +who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I +will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two +thirds of Viertelnote's price." + +"O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter I +could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another." + +"I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs. +Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might +have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom +she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two +persons,--one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to +be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite +intent upon her purpose. + +If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. + +"You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. + +Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, +springing to a soundless rhythm. + +She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, +winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and +tying them with knots of ribbon. + +Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up +himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging +upon his arms like bangles. + +They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the +first asking. + +It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the +plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her +arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate upon +another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a +good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. + +Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely +beautiful repose. + +Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come +next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a +little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the +brown room with tears in her eyes. + +"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have +just one wretched girl to do everything!" + +"Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always +_will_ do it at dinner-time." + +"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have +to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to +see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect +serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life' +(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and +then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought +to be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not +know, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!" + +Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these +things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was +beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it +_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, +more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were +quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than +when guests came and divided her attention. + +Ruth went over to where she sat. + +"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the +shading-off, you know. That helps both ways." + +"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though." + +"No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like +it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.' +You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And +people that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the +edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt +and between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor drop +all the spoons." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +NEXT THINGS. + + +Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself +into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of +it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be +delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high +propriety. + +Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the +cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was +time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all +sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table +(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and +replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner +between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. + +The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glass +and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and +the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a +fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and +white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden +brown. + +The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside; +Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and +Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and +forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. + +Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, +forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders +without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble +at ahl to have company." + +But before the tea was the new game. + +It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done +higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions +for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in +their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it +would fall out,--whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take +to it, or whether it would drop right there. + +"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the +remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. +Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic +trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. + +Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her very +self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,--through +Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. + +Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls who +should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if +we did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just such +things as these; and our day and our life are full of it. + +The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as +soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could +not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their +coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all +that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning +all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if +anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it +was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day +elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so +adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly +forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough? +Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. + +The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the +young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in +turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly +wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like +garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss +them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less +inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with +each succeeding trial. + +They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might +venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and +references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it +had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. + +By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide +end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits +began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if +it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as +genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. + +And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and +very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than +from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private +cooks. + +It all went off and ended in a glory,--the glory of the sun pouring +great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, +and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow +forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by +they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It +was the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace; +Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ to +build the wood-house under it. + +After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our +home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to +become before. + +They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips from +it,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but +they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They +_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and +practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came +to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other +girls wanted it, they had to come where it was. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the +Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did +not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the +position remained the same. + +It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family +again, one evening. + +"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting +something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask +Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit." + +The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days together +at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, +and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to +the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens +would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, +and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of +intimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning and +stayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan or +ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such +things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to +us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as +that we might. + +"I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here." + +"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What +for?" + +"Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth. + +"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in +a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. + +Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond +suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how +to dispose of the thought since she had got it. + +Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. +Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty +knitting,--making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him +at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent +thought. + +She made up her mind presently,--partly at least,--and spoke again. "I +don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura +Fish." + +Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or +two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he +asked. + +"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied +Ruth. + +"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie +Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it." + +"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time," said Ruth. "These +things are different." + +"'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up, +and next things down." + +"I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I +suppose people wouldn't naturally--it can't be meant they should--walk +right away from their own opportunities." + +Ruth laughed,--not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. + +Dakie Thayne leaned back. + +"What,--if you please,--Miss Ruth?" + +"I was thinking of the opportunities _down_," Ruth answered. + +It was several days after this that the young party drifted together +again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne +had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she +who suggested it. + +"Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a +meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for +a prize? They would do nicely together." + +Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the +project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. + +But Dakie Thayne broke in. + +"Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea." + +"Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is +the carrying out, you see." + +"Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize +what we are doing as it is." + +"But the minute you _do_ organize! You don't know how difficult it is +in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you +go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to +stop." + +"Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, +good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. + +"Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't +go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,--down +the hill and into the town." + +"We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts." +There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. + +"O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie +Goldthwaite, quick and pleased. + +"Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth +Holabird. + +It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave +her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. +She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"O, they _won't_ exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with +an air of high free-masonry. + +"Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. + +"Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without +any air at all. + +"Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though +what people _come_ for is the question, I think, when there isn't +anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it +has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them +to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she +hoped she would come often, and let _the girls_ run in and be +sociable! And Grace Hobart says '_she_ hasn't got tired of +croquet,--she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. +Thayne." + +"Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. + +"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. +When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully +stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,--out quite loud, +across everything,--'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never +did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'" + +"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite. + +"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think +they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They +didn't know _what_ to say." + +"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in +that way very often." + +"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are +kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out." + +"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the +neighborhood is getting to be,--full of people that you don't know +what to do with." + +"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set," said Olivia. + +"O dear! O dear!" + +It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all +turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements +made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had +been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now +she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face +to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow +clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. + +"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!" + +Then she knew by the hush that _she_ had astonished them, and she grew +frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink; +for she still felt just as she did when the words came. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. + +"We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't +quite set up to be angels. Come,--try one more round." + +And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to +pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do +it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar +grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, +the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more +dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden +over upon the rest. + +[Illustration] + +Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not +been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the +party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour +longer. + +Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to +Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba +will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask." + +But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the +grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but +they kept on up over the hill. + +"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could +not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute." + +"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the +front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched." + +"They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered. +"And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_." + +"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your +lip. I saw it." + +"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I +had spoken then." + +"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure +I don't know how myself so often." + +"That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up? +And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out +these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions: +picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind +of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the +lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?" + +"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said +Ruth. + +"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. +"Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems +to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." + +"Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? +There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just +for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" + +"Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than +with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about +it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the +niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the +fence that keeps out weeds." + +"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to +Leslie as she spoke. + +"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I +should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said +Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after +all." + +"If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me +it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody +in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." + +"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. + +It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise +continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the +Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. + +"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, +one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and +she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and +interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." + +"We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a +family of grasshoppers all summer." + +"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," +said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be +busy." + +"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. + +"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right +into the kitchen with the other servants." + +"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," +said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." + +"Barbara, you're a plague!" + +"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be +exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office." + +"In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more +convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and +besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life +to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as +not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with +'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, +and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of +measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why +shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and +gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too +nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her +'crowd.'" + +"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to +be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live +plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind +_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things." + +"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient +for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or +seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content +to be the step we are." + +"It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A +step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside +does it," Ruth added. + +"O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort of +position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social +can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful." + +"What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the +world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty +among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the +Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall +never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we +won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and I +wonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather right +things in a no-particular sort of a way." + +"Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. + +"No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me." + +"We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs. +Holabird. "We can always manage that." + +"I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond. + +"That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You +don't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear +and diamond bright!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + + +Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. + +We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of +Box-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends +to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with +her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families +for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not +so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not +expect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when +she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would +take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it +happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never +offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It +seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in +their objections to. + +We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all +simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an +under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly +ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make +some arrangement. + +Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it +would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather +come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work +and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; +she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle +work. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cut +out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had +grasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I +think we all really liked it just as well as the other. + +We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had never +even realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at; +green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is so +beautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in with +scent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to open +to it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide in +the cooling afternoon. + +"How glad I am we _have_ to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, +stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed a +long flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people who +never do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. +It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full of +different stories!" + +Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does Leslie +Goldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, +old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, and +that has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; and +Mrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothing +pretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, +the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was a +little child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school; +but it was vacation now, of course. + +Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then +the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. +Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service,--or, +rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little +"schooling,"--the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. +Ingleside,--until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages." + +Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of +Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen +Josselyn,--Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so +much,--or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes _just next_. +She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, in +something approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in the +class and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucilla +can only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlin +wool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, or +intricacies ready made up at the--upholsterer's, I was going to say. +So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to +little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself +look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like +Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when +she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. + +Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleep +with Lucilla in the great, square east room. + +Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful how +nobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anything +in it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but she +cannot keep it so _sacredly_ fair and pure as Delia did for her. Only +one thing showed. + +"I say," said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-rail +as they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that _piousosity_, +now, mornings?" + +"No," said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't." + +"It's always whopped," said Stephen, sententiously. + +Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her very +finest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the fox +and the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair to +give a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for very +best, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her +"griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; +the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And +another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed +golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten +almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a +few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, +and delicately with pepper,--the oven doing the rest, and turning it +into a snowy soufflé. + +Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only hers +was a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; and +would be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchens +should come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into the +universal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-soufflés to be +carried half a mile to the table? + +Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was so +nice," she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was +'evingly.'" + +Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no less +than any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being very +vulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by any +means, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. + +Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get some +new ideas to carry home to Arabel. + +Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child of +one marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites between +them had dropped away,--out of the world, or into homes here and there +of their own,--and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, +low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran +up small. + +Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She _could_ make two skirts to a +dress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upper +one by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings and +flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on +exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted +herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias +to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave +the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of +wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia +sewed with her, abroad and at home,--abroad without her, also, as she +was doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or a +panier,--or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, was +something to go home with rejoicing. + +Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house; +the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to the +squirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, and +stowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down between +the walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troop +of horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the +other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way +of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a +story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the +atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in +their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived +there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed +into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there had +been parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games in +nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed +in now,--bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,--and brought the +woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should +have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back +room, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself! + +The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick coming +over one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, +walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them or +not, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any of +you getting ready to be married?" + +"Yes'm," said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us." + +Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she was +quilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon a +little round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid away +five years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, and +the waist was gone. + +While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, +more or less, everything that lay about,--"to help her in her +inventory," she said after she went away. + +"Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs," repeated she, as she +turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. + +Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the +discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's old +treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these +elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked +with beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in her +pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract +report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather +Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an +impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with +sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French +embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one +handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, +until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar +dress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. + +"I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose," Ruth would say. "I +think there are two things that make her talk in that way. In the +first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news +she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and +then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, +that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after +all." + +Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly +straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two +quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. + +After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne +went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,--people +whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the _haute +volée_ was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our +own life once more. + +"It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any +widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to +come to a plain place." + +Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she +accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could +be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on +anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She +would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern +that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which +mother taught us all. + +"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would +say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out +of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, +and then you can take the chances as they arrive." + +"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara +once replied. + +"No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A +great deal that is good--a great deal of the best--comes in at the +back-doors." + +Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we +did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. + +Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate. + +Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did +her cousin and Dakie. [Footnote: Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, +and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever +thought to put this in before.] + +Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending +for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. + +Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five +years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the +twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and +severe, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbara +usually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth--Miss +Trixie says--"plays like a ninkum." + +We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we +were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something +particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily +down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice +about us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y," +"Swiss-family-Robinson-ish," that got us all together over it, in the +hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie could +appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old +furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve +upon--certainly to supplant--the original pattern. Yet she always had +a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had +ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our +improvements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as we +can be, already,--it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us how +cosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day," says Barbara. + +Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. +It was tan-color, bound with crimson,--covering three square yards; +and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after +breakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the dark +floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and +mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the +great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our +camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to +have a brand-new piece of furniture before night. + +Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie +was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she +was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a +handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. + +The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had +Miss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-door +to their house. + +I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. There +are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do +with our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all _their_ +stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet +them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although +we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of +fashion. + +We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of the +hammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came +back from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; his +furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. + +[Illustration] + +"Another two years' pull," he said. "Won't you all come to West Point +next summer?" + +"If we take the journey we think of," said Barbara, composedly,--"to +the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and +then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to +Saratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have a +day or two there." + +"Barbara," said mother, remonstratingly. + +"Why? _Don't_ we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it till +I'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, +Mr. Thayne." + +"We shall miss you very much," said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara's +nonsense. + +"Our summer has stopped right in the middle," said Barbara, determined +to talk. + +"I shall hear about you all," said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be a +Westover column in Leslie's news. I wish--" and there the cadet +stopped. + +Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. + +"I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, +to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that +would be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year +of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't know +how he hangs on to those eight weeks,--and how they hang on to him +afterwards." + +Mother looked so motherly at him then! + +"We shall not forget you--Dakie," she said, using his first name for +the first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then." + +Dakie said, "Thank you," in a tone that responded to her "Dakie." + +We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers are +beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. + +He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook hands +also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to +see before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,--as it was our +cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,--through the hall to +the door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to +take off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they were +leaving. + +Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as was +natural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, once +more, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go away +and leave us all. + +"That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man," said Miss +Trixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got in +behind them again. + +"The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes," said +Barbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie." When +anybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her love +for mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort of +chivalry it has with it. + + * * * * * + +It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importance +had come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curious +and wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. + +We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we had +quite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it was +with us; we had things we _must_ take up; we could not have spared +time to lead society for a long while together. + +Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; she +had a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "old +house" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdowne +in to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort of +attention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try to +afford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake and +preserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. + +It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, +had had private occupation. + +"There had been family company at grandfather's," she told Jeannie +Hadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. +We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or three +weeks." + +Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing his +geometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on a +sheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes a +little, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle of +mischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept on +silently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in her +funniest, repressed way,-- + +"I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to +understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are +wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. +Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?" + +She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over with +intersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves and +circumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, +Holabird. + +"It's a mere question of centre and radius," she said. "You may be big +enough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at the +sides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off into +space on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of a +great ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you +_must_ be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!" + +"It doesn't illustrate," said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up in +that fashion." + +"Geometry does," said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. +But I suppose there's a Q.E.D. at the end of it somewhere." + + * * * * * + +Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happened +freshly, rather,--which also had to do with our orbit and its +eccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. + +"I should think _any_ kind of an astronomer might be mad!" she +exclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come the +perturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we never +know exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formed +other views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What _is_ the +reason we can't keep a satellite,--planet, I mean?" + +"Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!" + +"Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again." And she sat +down resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. + +"I'll tell you what we'll do, mother," said Ruth, coming round. "I've +thought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!" + +"She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she put +the luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick--moon!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CO-OPERATING. + + +When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, +right off,-- + +"I'm sure I wish they would!" + +"Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. + +"Co-operate." + +"O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the +Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they +come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your +advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't +believe '_they_' will ever do much for '_us_'!" + +"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair +wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. + +Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory +knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. + +"Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara. + +"Oh! Yes. That is what they _used_ to have, in old times, when we +lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. +All the women in a house co-operated--to keep it; and all the +neighborhood co-operated--by living exactly in the same way. +Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?" + +One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple or +sharp. + +That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at the +time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a +while, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. + +"I could--almost--write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over her +work. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything +turns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in the +times when people _did_ the things!" + +"O Barbara! _Think_ of all that is being done in the world!" + +"I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everything +into a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from their +fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll do +will be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world is +running pretty much to roosters." + +"Is that the poem?" + +"I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. It +came into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginning +and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they +have to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show for +it, and the thing that really amounts, after all." + +"Well, tell us." + +"It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. +They could say all sorts of things,--one and another:-- + + "_I_ wrote some little books; + _I_ said some little says; + _I_ preached a little preach; + _I_ lit a little blaze; + _I_ made things pleasant in one little place." + +There was a shout at Barbara's "poem." + +"I thought I might as well relieve my mind," she said, meekly. "I knew +it was all there would ever be of it." + +But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. +She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" _may_ +sometimes do in the great world, + +We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate." + +We talked it over,--what we could do without a girl. We had talked it +over before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. +But in our little house in Z----, with the dark kitchen, and with +Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had to +hire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barb +called a "heave-offering of life." + +"They used to have houses built accordingly," Rosamond said, speaking +of the "old times." "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest and +pleasantest room in the house." + +"Couldn't we _make_ the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggested +Ruth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed in +mornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do that +in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls +have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the +dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and irons +wanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen of +our own! I can think how it might be lovely!" + +"I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsing +into her dislocations. + +"_You_ like kitchens," said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. + +"Yes, I do," said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, +and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can't +have patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the low +realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and +the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head +and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just see +what we _shall_ come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, who +have Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a great +deal in being Holabirdy,--or whatever-else-you-are-y!" + +"If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen," said Mrs. Holabird. + +"Mother," said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?" + +We were in the dining-room. + +"This nice room!" + +"It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know." + +Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stained +floor, showing clean, undefaced margins,--the new, pretty +drugget,--the freshly clad, broad old sofa,--the high wainscoted +walls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,--the +ceiling faintly tinted with buff,--the buff holland shades to the +windows,--the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with +its glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and a +gleam of silver and glass,--the two or three pretty engravings in the +few spaces for them,--O, it was a great deal too nice to take for a +kitchen. + +But Ruth began again. + +"You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was down +stairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, and +everything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never +was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. It +would be so different from a girl! It seems as if we _might_ bring the +kitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen." + +"But the stove," said mother. + +"I think," said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polished +up, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!" + +"It is clumsy, one must own," said Mrs. Holabird, "besides being +suggestive." + +"So is a piano," said the determined Barbara. + +"I can _imagine_ a cooking-stove," said Rosamond, slowly. + +"Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!" + +"A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made to +order,--like an urn, or something,--with a copper faucet, and nothing +else ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tins +and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut +dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as +they are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it _might_ be like +that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like +Marie Antoinette's Trianon." + +"That's what it _would_ come to, if it was part of our living, just as +we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give +each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have +as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the +whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste _hasn't_ got +into. Let's have an art-kitchen!" + +"We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if +we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs. +Holabird. + +The idea grew and developed. + +"But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring +afresh. + +"There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara, +"for the people you can't be intimate with, and _think_ how crowsy +this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!" + +"We shall just settle _down_," said Rose, gloomily. + +"Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it +does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life." + +"We shall always gather to us what _belongs_. Every little crystal +does that," said mother, taking up another simile. + +"What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. + +"I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage +with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to +get a place together." + +And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick +found out what it really meant. + +We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made +up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. +Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an' +she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl." + +"Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused +the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and +the irids. + +There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we +had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. + +Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl +said. + +"She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is +willing to come for a trial." + +"They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think--as +Protestants--we've hired enough of them." + +Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of +our indecisions. + +We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, +stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from +the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle +washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it +almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, +and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lesser +movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation +behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish +as we went along. + +Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation to +the art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-iron +man made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in the +dining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. +It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone +hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a +nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the +funnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in its +new position, its features softened to almost a sitting-room +congruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force its +homely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top looked +smooth and enticing. + +There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was set +a broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This +closet had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busy +use, or closed quite away and done with. + +There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins and +our saucepans,--the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothing +to do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoons +and our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quart +measures,--these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; +in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in +the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,--we bought two new ones, a +little and a big,--the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, +outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which we +never meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we could +have to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soon +found, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. + +[Illustration] + +Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room," opening +into the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passage +itself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of the +other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel +for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be +replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The +"girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty uses +for; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available; +very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. + +We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all these +arrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon +shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did +not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or +plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could +stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody +to the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. + +By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfect +starting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that +were to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, that +we had celebrated ours by clearing them out. + +The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintily +crumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had come +in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, +in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiled +for brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves and +crumbs when _she_ manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. + +"Clean beginnings are beautiful," said Rosamond, looking around. "It +is the middle that's horrid." + +"We won't have any middles," said Ruth. "We'll keep making clean +beginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work and +muss." + +"If you can," said Rose, doubtfully. + +I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird story +is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make +a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make +a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her +dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. + +I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Monday +morning--and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you can +take--just after we had begun. + +The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. +There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler +were filled,--father did that just before he locked up the house; we +had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in +the morning. + +Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin +in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a +beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs +Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done +nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast +on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would +bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We +should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all +below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours' +ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. + +Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed +three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow +behind, mother had let down the ashes,--it isn't a bad thing to do +with a well-contrived stove,--and set the pan, to which we had a +duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the +clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one +or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The +draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these +five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed +up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not +like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with +its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. + +Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little buttered +toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its +ration of fragrant, beaten paste,--the brown ground kernels mixed with +an egg,--and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two +frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, +into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh +butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--"one can give +one's self _carte-blancher_," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a +girl";--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white +porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat +daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, +broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this +went on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milk +boiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over it +stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole +was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one +of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the +coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been +beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the +breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and +butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the +cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery +things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held +them beside the stove, into its corner. + +Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for +the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in +which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the +white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and +the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the +three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and +reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before +which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had +recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and +her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as +any bit of pretty play or pageant. + +Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch +gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with +bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all +points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all +more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. + +After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it +put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was +something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant +knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,--we had, in fact, a +palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own +dishes,--and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the +pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit +making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft +clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have +plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the +Mondays. + +After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth the +coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little +scour,--a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an +iron utensil, in mother's hands; and _that_ was clean work, and the +iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It +was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come +off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that +makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle +of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she +comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does +wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in +that, and chemically disappears. + +It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had +sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that +morning. + +We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of the +kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara +set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded +the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a +row--flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent--on +the back platform. + +She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and +in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon +order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. + +We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does +remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new +housekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawn +them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these +last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They +were hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them; +mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt +bath before cooking. + +I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. +They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings +were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and +comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid +them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey +way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar +need. + +We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it +was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the +oven, and set the dinner-table. + +Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon +the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the +parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the +Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when +the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, +while the potatoes were boiling. + +Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that +jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, +there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of +Saturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before +the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot +water and ammonia in it. + +"Mother," said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!" + +"It is the girl that makes the kitchen," said Ruth. + +"And then the kitchen that has to have the girl," said Mrs. Holabird. + +Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the +crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on +father's cheese. + +Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending." + +"We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows," said mother in a +low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. + +"Nor have to scrinch all up," said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fear +she'd touch us!" + +I'll tell you--in confidence--another of our ways at Westover; what, +we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and +evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. +We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we +poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover +down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the +dish-washing for the day. + + * * * * * + +"Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But you +can't be told everything in one chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. + + +Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave them +heaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sized +basket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were folded +up. + +One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in,--for we +had been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens had +just gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. +Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruth +slipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found that +Rosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting the +tea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweet +loaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and the +little silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there was +nothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the small +Japanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. + +"Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going to +do these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms." + +That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. There +are a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. +Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling and +folding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grass +and the air and the sunshine is one. + +Mother went off,--chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept to +tea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely little +underhand way, with Barbara. + +Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out a +little ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end of +the long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed the +water-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and the +starched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothing +into little white rolls. + +Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed with +her fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collars +and cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from her +finger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with a +corn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up in +it, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon the +middle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process to +watch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all the +possible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if they +only once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: and +then they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenes +are just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones and +twos; perhaps not always any audience at all. + +Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. + +Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into the +nearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood Harry +Goldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. + +Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano,--only about her +work. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, and +put them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own,--her poem. + + "I wrote some little books; + I said some little says; + I preached a little pre-e-each; + I lit a little blaze; + I made--things--pleasant--in one--little--place." + +She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, +in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle of +shirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed it +down into the basket. + +"How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do you +believe they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our little +inspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?" + +"We won't do it," said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother's +nightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her private +knowledge. + +"I think they ought to let us vote just once," said Barbara; "to say +whether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being put +upon now, if we never were before." + +"It isn't fair," said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window at +Harry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could she +tell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when she +knew? + +"Of course it isn't," said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a white +cambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to read +all those Pub. Doc.s that father gets. You see women will make awful +hard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doing +every--little--thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, and +smoothed the hem between the buttons. + +"We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it," Barbara went +on, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters of +Polity.' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather be +a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life." + +"Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. + +"May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over the +rail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. + +She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. + +"'_May_ you'? When you have, already!" + +"O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, +and help?" + +"You don't know the way," Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, +and folding up the waist. + +"Don't I? Which,--to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himself +over the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipe +that ran down there, reached the other to something-above the +window,--the mere pediment, I believe,--and swung his feet lightly to +the sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close by +Barbara's elbow. + +"You'll get sprinkled," said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over a +table-cloth. + +"I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took the +risk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. I +couldn't help it, and I don't care!" + +Barbara was thinking of two things,--how long he had been there, and +what in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and--how +she should get off her rough-dried apron. + +"Which do you want,--napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round to +the basket, and began to pull out. + +"Napkins," says Barbara. + +The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped and +fumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave it +a shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, he +did get a drift of it in his face. + +"That won't do," said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whisk +aside. "There are too many of us." + +She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread up +a pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it when +I was a little boy," he said. + +Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. They +stretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand in +smoothing and showering. + +"Why, I wish it weren't all done," says Harry, turning over three +clothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned her +sleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" looking +round the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "I +think your house is full of nice places." + +"Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. + +"Yes, ma'am," Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. +"We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly to +Mrs. Holabird's astonishment. + +"You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to do +your duty," said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. +Holabird." + +"Miss Polly-put--" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with a +half-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at the +table with a very great dignity. + +People think that young folks can only have properly arranged and +elaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, and +bouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad and +sweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games and +bewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each other +naturally, as it were,--dip into each other's little interests and +doings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table of +opportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time any +minute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life +used to be "co-operative." + +Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. + +"Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a +case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on." + +"_One_ world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can +set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself +round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that +belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you +know it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, +and the Noachian--don't they call it?--new foundation. That's the way +they got up New England, anyhow." + +"Barbara, what flights you take!" + +"Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, you +know, besides the old broken-down and buried ones." + +It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of Aunt +Radford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went with +her, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind to +stay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. + +One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but if +ever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he took +the time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thought +everything of "Mrs. Stephen," too, and he quite relied upon her +judgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if they +had got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. +Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. + +At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, +out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, +and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just after +dinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that father +did not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird went +home at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone Leslie +Goldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only," they said; for the +south-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. That +was how we all happened to be just as we were that night of the +September gale; for it was the September gale of last year that was +coming. + +The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had been +soft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shut +them again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the pictures +swung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody had +left doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where a +window was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three were +all on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather's +papers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor upon +the gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all up +for him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father a +chase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put them +up in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes more +they went off together to the old house. + +[Illustration] + +It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutes +that Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they took +to consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, just +settled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort of +lull or holding up. + +Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing; +the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windows +seemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, before +they got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, and +lashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of all +strange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloft +and onward in a false, plebeian triumph. + +The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, +wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the +country,--not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it _would_ +fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it +rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran +about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and +carpets. + +"I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out +for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,--hair-brushes out on +voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a +hat-box!" + +Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space +beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in +one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to +pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the +window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although +its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray +was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. + +In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a +picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, +standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before +we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and +shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, +like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison +in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt +doors,--latches were nothing,--and bar shutters. And when we could +pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at! + +The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely +one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The +little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." +The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their +branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head +of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms +were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all +snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged +blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the +posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and +earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath +the sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field and +ours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over and +through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the +air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it +by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below +us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a +furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks +through the air. + +It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brown +room, to shine through the south window, and show father that we were +all right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird's +north porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we were +as far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. + +"Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. + +"I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and that +there would be no way of getting out again. People must be caught +everywhere, just as it happens, to-night." + +"It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in an +ecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up all +night!" + +Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a little +from its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. + +"It had all been blown to Canada, by this time," Harry Goldthwaite +said. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls and +windows." + +True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actually +dry. + +It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put his +hands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out that +there was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all went +and looked. + +It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hill +at right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down," +we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and came +steadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door that +opened upon the little passage to the dining-room. + +We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door to +let him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that he +should enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. + +"The old gentleman has been taken bad," he said. "Mr. Stephen wants to +know if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird's +better. I've got to go to the town for the doctor." + +"On foot, Robert?" + +"Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter's +firing of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain't +much knowing where you _can_ get along." + +"But what is it?" + +"We mustn't keep him," urged Barbara. + +"No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's a +kind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had a +kind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it's +appalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'." + +Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, +that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert +"thought a good deal," as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. + +Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in his +hand. How he ever found it we could not tell. + +"I'll go with him," he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, +Barbara? I'm _very_ sorry about Mr. Holabird." + +He shook hands with Barbara,--it chanced that she stood +nearest,--bade us all good night, and went away. We turned back +silently into the brown room. + +We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange things +were happening to-night! + +All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into our +minds. An event that,--never talked about, and thought of as little, I +suppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours,--had yet +always loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and would +bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. + +Grandfather might be going to die. + +And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the +brown room and sit down? + +There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about +the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, +and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or +"terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale, +even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree +were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not +get the real wonder of it--the thing that moved us to try to talk it +over--into any words. + +"He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond. + +"I don't think he _was_ quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so +when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow." + +"O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was +anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when +he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was +coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the +shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his +knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he +could manage; no wonder his hands trembled." + +"I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond. + +"I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him," said Ruth. + +"I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather should +die," said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his _first_ +thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. + +"O Stevie! _don't_ let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; and +nobody else answered at all. + +We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which we +had made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then we +all went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth brought +some pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, made +up a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white one +to Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light in +grandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in the +porch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert had +got back, and the doctor had come,--whether he was better or +worse,--whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. + +"O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. + +There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion of +the storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in the +possible awfulness and change that were so near,--over there in +Grandfather Holabird's lighted room. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HALLOWEEN. + + +Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock +when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better; +that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might +have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on +for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as +easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old +habits as his strength permitted. + +Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The +family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had +threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that +grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. +He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for +among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. +He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and +then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, +and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the +excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the +barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come +back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the +midst of the storm. + +The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of +gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in +trust to father for his wife and children. + +"I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing +money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever +since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of +my boys ever paid me any _board_. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives +things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening; +and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my +other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but +I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't +go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of _them_; what +little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I +never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest +comprehension,--and Roderick and John are both honest,--if I left it +as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, +and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it." + +That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it; +there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done +in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they +came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really +seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never +mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had +mentioned it at all. + +"He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said, +"unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he +must come across that." + +"He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect. +We can be sure of nothing." + +But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October +Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. + +Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded +it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. +She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up +stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping +with,-- + +"If I had gone to New York--" and there she stopped, as if she had +accidentally said what she did not intend. + +"If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you +mean?" + +"Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked +me, that is all. Of course I couldn't." + +"Of course you're just a glorious old _noblesse oblige_-d! Why didn't +you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have +helped. I'd have lent you--that garnet and white silk!" + +Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be +kissed. + +After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always +the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that +young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a +woman's way. + +The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses +of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, +and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and +hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes +morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how +pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here +at Westover. + +"How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great +open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!" + +"So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?" + +"To tea?" + +"No. Only to the fun,--and some supper. We can have that all ready in +the other room." + +"They'll see the cooking-stove." + +"They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara. + +"We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth. + +"The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That _would_ be a make-shift. Who +ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, +and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to +take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, +and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll +have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, +bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they +get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover +that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,--that piece +of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque +of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all +goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is +brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, +you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to +seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere." + +"It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara. + +"They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be +Marchbanksy." + +Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own +special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in +utilizing them. + +But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not? + +"Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion. +Just the neighbors,--right around here." + +"That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said +Ruth, quietly. + +"O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond. +"Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real' +nice!" + +"That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts _are_ +real." + +Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. +She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, +and like each other. + +"What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,--your +nose is crocheted,--and your mouth is--tatted! I shall have to come +and ravel you out." + +"I'm thinking; that is all." + +"How to build the fence?" + +"What fence?" + +"That fence round the pond,--the old puzzle. There was once a pond, +and four men came and built four little houses round it,--close to the +water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly +behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the +little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you +know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant +people are so apt to be nearest the good time!" + +"I like to satisfy everybody." + +"You won't,--with a squirm-fence!" + +If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently +as possible, and invited them--Marchbankses and all--to our Halloween +frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music +lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were +Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of +her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the +Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four +houses, Ruth heard everything. + +All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, +Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite +until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and +Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that +the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in +transports because they were to be allowed to go. + +"Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. + +"Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke +before I thought." + +"What did you tell her?" + +"I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And +Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we +might try to arrange something." + +But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and +Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted +that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a +compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another +word. + +In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, +homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. + +"They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have +stopped." + +"Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth. + +"Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her +clearest, quietest tones. + +Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite +the Hobarts," she said. + +"That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara. + +"Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out. + +The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly +come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday +Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. + +From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z----, and asked Leslie +Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if +she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have +his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. + +Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then +she met Lucilla Waters in the street. + +"I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to +you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her +gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic +in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. + +"We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You +will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie." + +Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for +Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to +her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. + +She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to +find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the +Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to +the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come +together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little +frolic, and we have begun, too, you see." + +Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria +Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would +divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was +different from other invites. One might take liberties." + +Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last +of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. + +It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, +at last, and proffered her invitation. + +"You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity +to divide. We want the same people, of course,--the Hendees, and the +Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we +ourselves were an afterthought. + +Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she +was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, +and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,--Helen +Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, +after all. + +Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that +moment. + +Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her +friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, +of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's +verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw +in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had +said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not +then asked. + +Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed +it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. + +"Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation +for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see +you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some +of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it +were possible to have both pleasures." + +That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "But +Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little +bumble-bee!" + +How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. +It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it +seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at +once, quietly and of course, asserted. + +Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was +beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the +salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. + +"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but +it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?" + +Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I +think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've +had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own." + +It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between." + +Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the +bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide +chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced +sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid +logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to +finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped +through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, +and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an +outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look +at: and they never tumbled down. + +She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak +to Miss Pennington. + +"Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.' +That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up." + +Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made +pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. + +"I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still +looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?" + +"Miss Pennington! Would you come?" + +"I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you +going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that." + +"We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the +name." + +"That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games +nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and +superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and +we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at +Christmas, when we were all at home." + +"O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!" + +"Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly +meddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me." + +How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out! + +And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when +things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will +take, now and then, even in this vexed world. + +There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have +servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are +entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after +all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last +touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. + +The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put +together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from +whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and +garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little +macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of +spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold +room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the +last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put +them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the +white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to +worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the +whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which +Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of +ours. Truly it is a charming thing,--all to itself, in a family! + +To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner +that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and +the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could +shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish +everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet +and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the +very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might +have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, +chatty cup of tea. + +The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and +pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for +the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the +wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up +three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open +piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some +of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that +Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we +played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost +mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss +Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and +there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great +damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with +Barbara into the dining-room. + +"This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing +from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white +bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until +after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the +brown room. + +We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought +over Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and +they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until +they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated +needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched +them turn and swim and draw together,--some point to point, some heads +and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the +margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or +an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it +into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars; +and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and +pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a little +palette with a hole in it. + +[Illustration] + +And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each +girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little +secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and +surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some +little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its +companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight +together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these +were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, +but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped +into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and +some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. + +Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the +larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off +a little way, right in toward the blaze. + +"Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then +crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, +with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and +they both dropped quietly down against the fender together. + +"What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. + +"O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen, +looking on. + +Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone +with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the +stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said +to her:-- + + "Round and round, O stars so fair! + Ye travel, and search out everywhere. + I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me, + This night, who my future husband shall be!" + +Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the +reason. + +"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl +who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" + +But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She +took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a +shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. + +"Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward +all the way." + +So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant +after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped +backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. + +Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a +friend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, +introducing him by his full name. + +We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army +surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a +stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in +front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. +And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and +shouted. + +It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. + +We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered +the oysters. + +Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her +with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the +full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier +in all her life. + +After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her +snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. + +Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. + +"Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. + +Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. + +"You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. + +"A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. + +"It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her +shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. + +Ruth got a sugared almond. + +"Only a _kernel_," said the merry doctor's wife, again. + +The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. + +"Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. + +"And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. + +Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica. + +Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. + +"That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of +getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." + +It was great fun, though. + +Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. + +If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant +something. And the year is not out yet, you see. + +But there was no doubt of one thing,--that our Halloween at Westover +was a famous little party. + + * * * * * + +"How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the +hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she +had picked up about the carpet into the coals. + +We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them +on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the +girl," said Barbara. It _is_ a comfort to put by things, with a clear +conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the +Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there +would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we +should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. + +"How do you feel about it?" + +"I feel as if we had had a real _own_ party, ourselves," said Ruth; +"not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't +anybody to _show us how_!" + +"Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come? +Nobody can say now--" + +"What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very +nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. +Otherwise, why shouldn't she?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + + +"That was a nice party," said Miss Pennington, walking home with +Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made it +so nice?" + +"You, very much," said Leslie, straightforwardly. + +"I didn't begin it," said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It was +a step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties long +ago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference was +that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, +and in another on the left,--now and then, perhaps, at the back; and +when you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might be +Mrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that it +was all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!" + +"This was a party of 'nexts,'" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame." + +"What a good time Miss Waters had--quietly! You could see it in her +face. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for +Lucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. +"She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more." + +"The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while the +firsts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss +Pennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't think +anything about it!" + +"So there are," said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. +They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think the +trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and +pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better than +fresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What a +beautiful old home-y house it is!" + +"And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. + +"_We_ have an old home-y house," said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "with +landscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And +we don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Will +you stay and come to it?" + +"Any time within my two months' leave," replied Doctor Hautayne, "and +with very great pleasure." + +"So she will have it before very long," said Leslie, telling us about +the talk the next day. + +It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she _did_ take it up! +That does not come in here, though,--any more of it. + +The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great deal +of money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everything +like the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the +trouble for that; but they are so _established_; it is a family like +an old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes little +spread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, and +grasp more ground than all the rest put together. + +They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not a +new-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, +painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and then +terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at +each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more +roses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus than +flowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box and +southernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. + +Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was a +captain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiff +elbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just after +he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,--the +younger brother,--out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When +her mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. The +Penningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; and +their glory is off the selfsame piece. + +They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, +retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to the +Inglesides. + +One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making an +apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabeth +drove round to the door. + +Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. +Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. + +"Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. +She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding." + +Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had had +to say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her clay +till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the +very farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, +the best that was _ready_ made, and put that forth. + +"And I know," said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must not +be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who has +lived in barracks come to her where she is?" + +Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see"; +she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," +and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and without +warning, upon the scene of operations. + +"O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walked +forward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and +smiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventh +beauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. + +"Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. + +Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laid +down the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flour +and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely +gloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! It +was very meek of her not to look at all set up. + +Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hanging +down against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work +when the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, +cushioned sofa. + +The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, and +at the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, the +pudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon a +plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its +sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing +with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The +sunshine--work and sunshine always go so blessedly together--poured +in, and filled the room up with life and glory. + +"Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss +Elizabeth. + +"That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a +kitchen," said Barbara. + +"You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!" + +"I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara, +laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room; +and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!" + +"You are wonderful people!" + +"You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said +Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching +you would have been always getting turned out." + +"Turned out?" + +"Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns +out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the +sole of your foot till you're a general." + +Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. +Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered +into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. +She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, +sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free +quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara +brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into +the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen +cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara +disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam +went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird +went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really +came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara +carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was +drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble +in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. + +"I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I +shall feel like company again now." + +"I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. +"It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" + +"I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. + +"She needs doing with" said Barbara. + +"Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. +Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question +is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep +but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to +you." + +"The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. + +"Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world +full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general +housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What +should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' +so?" + +"There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. +"What are homes coming to?" + +"Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselves +into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell +you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. +But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the +Lucys will grow again." + +"Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. + +"We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," +said mother,--"hotels." + +"And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. +Irishocracy is a despotism in the land." + +"Only," said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "by +learning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; that +it takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightest +grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this +little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after +all. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for human +souls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this room +full of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning in +the earth." + +Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. + +"'We girls,'" began mother again, smiling,--"for that is the way the +children count me in,--said to each other, when we first tried this +new plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would have +things nice and pretty for our common work; but there is something +behind that,--the something that 'makes the meanest task divine,'--the +spiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that I +think life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shall +not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other +on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls +and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go +into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best +that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are +willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to +them as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, +either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorify +them. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have got +the wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into the +wheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. +They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I _wish_ women would be +content with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and point +the time upon the dial!" + +Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful old +Mrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. +There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that she +scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their +cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it +was as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand of +them instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closets +get up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. + +Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her hand +at going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly,-- + +"I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up all +the time. I want to have some _nexts_. Your girls know what I mean; +and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'next +Thursdays,' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shall +give primary invitations only,--and my primaries are to find +secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, +or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from +somewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social life +cannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will come +to. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. If +anybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow--Gray.'" + +She went off, leaving us that to think of. + +Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, +every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member is +to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is +always to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, +with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands." + +Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty much +all we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should want +fourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. +Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten." They all came from that one +blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there +_is_ such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't +help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, +and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-four +Thousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, +from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitable +commandment, after the "Let there be!" + +It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, +in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. +People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in the +stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; +and when they were once there you really could not tell the +difference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was the +deadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the new +sap and the green rind. + +Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, as +charades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came to +the Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views,"--every +successive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone down +grotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of old +relics,--bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in their +close gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passing +through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were +odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones +with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, +balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with +ruffles _rayonnantes_; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and +barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, +and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the very +pocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from the +waiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of a +middle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could tell +everybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" down +or up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, +one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever could +have been a funnier evening! + +We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend" +Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady; +Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself was +Mrs. Wilfer; Mr. and Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and Doctor +Ingleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the +light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as +Pleasant Riderhood,--Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie +looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with her +for her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmaker +herself,--Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovely +book-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody's +parlors, and yet never gets into them herself. + +[Illustration] + +Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she really +has a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, +"O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, but +the wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows the +doll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her some +time, if ever she goes to England--or to heaven. Truly she was up to +the "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into it +with more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wren +that no one--at the moment--thought of her in any other character, or +remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the +distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to +her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the +festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or +abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a +genius. She stepped right _out_ of Dickens's story, not _into_ it, as +the rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously into +the grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "up +here," or "over there," and "be dead," as fresh, new-world delights +attracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; and +T'other Governor would insist on following after them, and being +comfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and the +Veneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provide +any Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. + +Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only our +fourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the +person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were +helped to. + +We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about +his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I +believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a +way like that. + +It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. +She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable +came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to +"come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every +week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs +out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of +ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or +to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is +taking German lessons with Pen Pennington. + +It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it +would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting +left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie +Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian." + +It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,--that last winter of the +nineteenth century's seventh decade. + +One day--everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it +does come, however many days lead up to it--Doctor Ingleside came in +and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird; +grandfather was not quite well. + +They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew +what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news +as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters? + +Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. + +Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And +yet--"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing +people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. +Take it in; shut your door upon it; and--think! It is something that +belongs to heart and soul. + +We counted up; it was only seven weeks. + +"As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the +Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this +meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has +never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the +sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come +right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of +them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, +each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as +foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go." + +Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,--Thursday. Doctor +Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's +that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,--we looked into +new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the +intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that +everybody could not see how quite another thing than any merely +written poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for John +Hautayne. + +That was in December; it was the first of March when Grandfather +Holabird died. + +At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not let +her get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter work +was growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides the +furnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came +and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all +pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to +begin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "If +mother doesn't get better," and "If this cold weather keeps on," and +"_Are_ we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" from +Barbara, at last. + +Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again." Nobody wanted to do +that; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her +prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were crippled and +reduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short days +and her music. + +"I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all +_summer_,'" said Barbara; "but _this_ is Valley Forge." The kitchen +fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Mother +was worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her come +down until it was warm and her coffee was ready. + +That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the +hour. + +"The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he. +"Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here." + +"Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. + +"Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said +Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and--since nobody else will ever +dare to give in--I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, +for us!" + +"It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird. + +It certainly was not going back. + +"We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then +harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated +earth, the first millennial specimen,--see if we don't!--of what was +supposed to be an extinct flora,--the _Domestica antediluviana_." + +Arctura Fish came to us. + +If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience +of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions +which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We +could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. +Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot +skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. + +And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal +attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the +time during the three weeks that he lived. + +When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of +any kind; neither was that deed of gift. + +Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about +it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she +cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and +that little pig," while she warmed our toes. + +"Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the +Roderick Holabirds. + +We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, +indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, +to force itself upon us. + +After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the +worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody +thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it +was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of +Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt +Roderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there was +nothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was not +for any one or two to settle." + +Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must all +come right, somehow." + +But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the +place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left +must do for us; the house must go into the estate. + +It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,--until +affairs were settled. + +"It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + + +The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,--well, +we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there +would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have +had just two of them out of our whole lives. + +Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what +could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, +after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old +place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and +though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could +choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old +homestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made up +our minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there." + +Why, we _had_ always lived there! That was just the way we had always +been trying to spell "home," though we had never got the right letters +to do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it is +a thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stones +to begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, and +when you come to it you know it is yours. The best things--the most +glorious and wonderful of all--will be what we shall see to have been +"laid up for us from the foundation." Aunt Roderick did not see one +bit of how that was with us. + +"There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your +_own_ house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did +grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt +that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John +were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." +And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that +Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had +not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he +_was_ well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. + +If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of what +father told them, they could not have behaved very differently. We +half thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likely +they half thought that we were making it appear that they had done +something that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that are +the hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable," Aunt Roderick used to +say. + +Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; and +when the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, +and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look round +and shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. And +it's a dumb shame. Don't tell _me_!" + +Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with his +share, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used to +nothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want +"encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and paying +rent to the heirs, ourselves included,--nobody wanted that; they would +rather have things settled up. There would always be questions of +estimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. +Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knew +they all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in such +matters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It would +take two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. + +So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have +any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would +be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we +like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child +hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on again +on Monday. + +With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house,--Arctura. +We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a +serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos +to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with +us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move the +kitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchen +any more. + +Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, +wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us; +and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. We +all worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down in +the afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. +She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico aprons +for her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending and +dress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linen +collars and cuffs. + +We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work as +delicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was as +fit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonished +herself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. + +"Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethers +anywheres." + +"GATHERS,--_anywhere_" Rosamond corrected. + +Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the +way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no +great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right +end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come +out of our year at Westover. + +"Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times +one." + +So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound +Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. +She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and +geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want +a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; +if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must _build_ one, +just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked +together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting +great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of +us,--and some of the best of us, perhaps,--have got to stay at home +awhile and do. + +"It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while +to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. +'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town +meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm _sure_ there's +need of them for reorganizing _parlor_ meetings. They are getting to +be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have +grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the +position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think +so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see +to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,--right up, +respectful,--Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!" + +Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West +Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. + +A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with +the family worries,--which Ruth always had a way of gathering to +herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the +nettles from other people's fingers,--and her hard work at her music, +she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a +vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at +once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake +George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked +Ruth to go too. + +"If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have +come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm +nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I +should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the +whistles." + +Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt +in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. + +"What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington +left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth +colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest +possible way to go, if she were to go at all." + +Barbara meant--or meant to be understood that she meant--that Miss +Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers; +Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by +an invitation like this from people out of her own family. + +"But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she +asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?" + +"Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked." + +"I wish--everybody--knew that," said Ruth. + +Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she +went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out +into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. + +This is one of her letters:-- + +DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:--It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could +sit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright +light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, +low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on +one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The +Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are +trying,--as they are trying almost all the time,--against the face of +the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells +keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. + +I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any +other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was +the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and +Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to +think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all +this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close +beside and about them. + +The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for +mischief,--the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very +amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have +parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old +Cro' Nest,--which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, +just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a +very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and +down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were +nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful +bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The +bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he +would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,--"Well, he +rather thinks,--if she would have stood still long enough,--he would +have let her be--astonished!" + +The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is +beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name! + +We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid +Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, +how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly +funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us +I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a +misery of politeness. + +We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the +dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge +of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it +sloped down safely again,--when, just at the very middle and highest +and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, +and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been +frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No; +nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again +in that dreadful place." She laughed in the midst of it; but she was +really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to +help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What would +come of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her; +_she_ couldn't do anything." "But, dear Miss Pennington," says Dakie, +"are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a +Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never could +get down." I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, +nearly half an hour, before she began to _hitch_ along; for walk she +wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice +silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist +after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks +and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could +stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,--"a noble wreck in ruinous +perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them +up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or +three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk +petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did +all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"What _has_ happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M----, as +we came up on the piazza. + +"Nothing," said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tired +and sat down; and it was dusty,--that was all." He bowed and went off, +without so much as a glance of secret understanding. + +"A joke has as many lives as a cat, here," he told Pen and me, +afterwards, "and that was _too_ good not to keep to ourselves." + +Dear little mother and girls,--I have told stories and described +describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner _such_ a +thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westover +and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn't +help telling him something about the worry. I know I had no business +to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buy +the place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it of +him if he did! Just think of it,--that boy! I believe he really means +to write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into my +head when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of +_his_ having such a quantity of money. He seems just like--as far as +that goes--any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will? + +P.S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting of +mine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe he +will write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfect +morning! + +Tell Stephen I've got a _splendid_ little idea, on purpose for him and +me. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. Dakie +Thayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, about +everything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don't +think Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says she +hates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Pen +and I think she is afraid of the steamers. + + * * * * * + +Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, +and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. + +Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysterious +idea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, for +anything. + +We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruth +got up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen went +straight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did not +know till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story,--just +because there is so precious little of it. + +Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the front +door. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to the +piazza cracks. + +"Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?" + +Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!" + +"Why, how your face shines! What _is_ up?" + +"It's the sunset. I mean--that shines. Don't say anything. Our +splendid--little--idea, you know. It's under here." + +"Be dar--never-minded, if mine is!" + +"You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was--exactly. Do +you remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer? +Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they never +knew their way out till she showed 'em?" + +"It _isn't_ about kittens!" + +"Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?" + +"Yes; four." + +"Couldn't you bring up one--or two--to-morrow morning _early_, and +make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the +sod, and fasten 'em up?" + +"What--_for_?" with wild amazement. + +"I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, +and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell +you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little +feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and +round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. + +Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early +plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his +mind to be on hand. + +Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, +between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she +went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little +wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she +whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. + +"Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. + +And Ruth "scatted." + +Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the +tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and +wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a +precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat +babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on +their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to +doing. + +"They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." + +"What--_for_?" cried Stephen, again. + +"To get them out, of course," says Ruth. + +"Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" + +"Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I _believe_--but I don't dare say a word +yet--there's something there!" + +"Of course there is. Two little yowling--" + +"Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But +I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" + +Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long +serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I _see_ something," +he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, +Ruth--? My cracky! if you do!" + +"We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." + +Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he +got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and +prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the +wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the +middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a +little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench +lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the +house-boarding. + +Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of +dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, +and weather had not badly injured it. + +"Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. +"Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, +that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?" + +[Illustration] + +It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely have +reached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and brought +out an opera-glass that was upon the table there. + +"That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. + +Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They read +the words, at the upturned corner,--"heirs after him." + +"Lay the board back in its place," said Ruth. "It isn't for us to +meddle with any more. Take the kittens away." Ruth had turned quite +pale. + +Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the two +kittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge,-- + +"Stephen," said she, "I'm going to do something on my own +responsibility." + +"I should think you had." + +"O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before I +said anything. But now,--I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick to +come over. They ought to be here, you know." + +"Why! don't you suppose they will believe, _now_?" + +"Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't _that_." +Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "old +place." + +Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her house +plants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always had +their milk, and her plants their water, before she had her own +breakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and it +was a good time to take her. + +"Aunt Roderick," said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to come +over right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please." + +It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs." + +"_You_ want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?" + +"Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going to +happen." Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. +She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick and +everybody. + +"On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off,--_to_ breakfast!" +How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. and Mrs. Roderick +had not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemed +to happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business." +The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the +"gale" had taken care of. + +Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. + +"We want you over at our house," repeated Ruth. "Right off, now; +there's something you ought to see about." + +"I don't like mysteries," said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering her +curiosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matter +about the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. +Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say." + +"Yes," said Ruth, laughing out; "it _is_ kittens, partly. Or was." + +So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down the +side-hill path together. + +We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arctura +had set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a little +first breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. + +Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been put +there, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. + +Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. + +"Good morning," said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" And +he met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stock +still, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blundered +about him. + +"Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. + +Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to be +struck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. + +"I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would all +care, and I wanted--Stephen and I have found something, mother!" She +turned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. + +Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there," +said he; and pointed in. + +They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, +just as it had lain for almost a year. + +"It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father," +he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here." + +"Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was +remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the +cracks and--" with a little, low, excited laugh--"the 'total depravity +of inanimate things,' till--just a little while ago." + +She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, +before them all. + +Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drew +forward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook off +the dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at the +signature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick is +an honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. + +"It is your deed of gift," said he; and then they two shook hands. + +"There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. That +was it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!" + +"No, you didn't," said Stephen. "You never told me anything--but +cats." + +"Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled," said Mrs. Roderick +Holabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up." + +They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come another +time. + +But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissed +Ruth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and very +strict about--well, other people's--expenditures; but she was glad +that the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. + + * * * * * + +"I knew," said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that it +must come right." + +"Don't tell _me!_" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't help +herself." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BARBARA'S BUZZ. + + +Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, +it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life and +possibility. + +"You must draw the line somewhere," people say. "You cannot be +acquainted with everybody." + +But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there is +a sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. +Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom a +pair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her wedding +was "odd." + +If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would have +been a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody would +have been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she would +be married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all the +wide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond,--of all its noble +heights, and hidden, tender hollows,--its gracious harvest fields, and +its deep, grand, forest glooms,--she would be content, elegantly and +exclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, +indeed, from a distance,--geographically; but they would come out of a +precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit +right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying +sameness. + +From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began to +come, days beforehand,--the people who could not let Leslie +Goldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamation +cards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of +"Their Daughter's Marriage," by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, after +the like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the need +of, the regular final invocation,--"God save the Commonwealth!" + +There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, +up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier in +consequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. Frank +Scherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby,--"she +isn't Original Sin, as I was," says her mother,--came up to Z---- +together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from New +York, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. + +Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to put +her in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. +Her father is a comparatively poor man,--a book-keeper with a salary. +There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always felt +bound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one to +take it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort who +are said to be "cut out for old maids," and she knows it. She could +not teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling--not her +education; God never lets that be cut short--was abridged by the need +of her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissors +and needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever were +put together. + +So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and getting +six dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-mother +put out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-story +room in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. She +will only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, for +her bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would be +rapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she has +made up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is any +breathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stop +breathing, and go where there is. + +She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of the +little unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, +and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegant +to have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a little +bonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that Martha +Josselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. +Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. + +General and Mrs. Ingleside--Leslie's cousin Delight--had come from +their away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought little +three-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was at +home from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medical +course,--and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so that +Mrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; they +all grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came a +wonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, for +Leslie's wedding present,--the first present that arrived from +anybody; sent the day he got the news;--and Leslie cried over them, +and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in the +fashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on the +cabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know what +other things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. + +Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. Marmaduke +Wharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. +"To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide," he says, and +"to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, among +the Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, and +took her away among the planets, out of the snarl." + +Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; and +she took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, on +the seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could +get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne +said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on +rollers, and marked,--"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific +preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say, +with a gentle prudence,--"If somebody should give you an observatory, +or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at _that_, dear." + +Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did +not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of +the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he +wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. +_He_ did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us +afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her +little home had been broken through and let in heaven. + +We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till +September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military +engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given +my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West +Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do. + +Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. +Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a +line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, +fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. + +It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone +from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and +beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white +among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in +blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with +perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from +the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the +grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid +vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. + +Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite +asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black +silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up +stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who +came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to +eat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist +in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And +even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open +doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so +divided that it was a festival day all through. + +Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in +her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, +muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her +head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,--since why shouldn't +she, too, have a bit of the fashion?--and tied round with a soft, +simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, +quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, +and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We +cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara +herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow +among-them. + +Every room in the house was attended. + +"There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne, +afterward. "Where _did_ they get such people?--And beautiful serving," +she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very +soul of living!" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true +always." + +Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into +the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the +staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and +landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her +hand in her father's arm. + +She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her +dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. +It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell +like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or +shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you +could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched +cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the +shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose +blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. +There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her +left hand. + +Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side +in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of +him in our minds,--dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his +shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a +man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely +_looks_ again. + +Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his +gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he +fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as +still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; +and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like +the tender glimmering of a sunbeam. + +When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon +his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. + +"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John +looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt +and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in +the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the +strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said +again,-- + +"Perhaps, then, John,--you'll do!" + +"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the +church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But +we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her +father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, +Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in +the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her +pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she +was smiling also and would not cover _that_ up,--gave; and nobody gave +with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning +Marmaduke Wharne. + +[Illustration] + + * * * * * + +Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those +autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every +bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice +to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child. + +"Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. +"I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a +bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a +new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she +had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought +up from Boston. + +We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; +we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were +to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have +plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden +autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; +and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as +glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she +can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. + +We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any +pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was +wearing out. We could replace things--_some_, at any rate--as well as +not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; +it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and +when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new +and happy time. + +It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in +any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the +dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It +came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements +were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table +in the brown-room. + +Barbara's _bee_-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at +this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not +altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming +content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the +most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied +to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara +"acted like a witch." + +She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came +down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little +apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself +beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as +befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. + +All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the +abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a +little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not +been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but +she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the +staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the +bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double +doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into +the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she +stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating +cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the +whole ceremony. + +Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, +or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from +being actually a commissioned officer,--Ensign Goldthwaite, now, +(Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and +effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last +year,)--we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at +once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and +whirls were simply to be wondered at. + +"I don't see why he should tell _me_ things," was what she said to +Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for +making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been +telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had +managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property +that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that +had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high +taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of +money. + +"I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At +which Barbara had disappeared. + +"Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. + +"Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, +and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly." + +"I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things," +said whimsical Barbara. + +"Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away. + +It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand +Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. +She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did +not come into the room until tea-time. + +"There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner. +"They make me nervous, looking and listening." + +We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked +them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z----. + +Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, +standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in +her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. + +"My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,--"I am an +old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?" + +"Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor +Miss Craydocke could only walk away again. + +When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick +came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified +approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. +As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back +upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the +September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. + +Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. +"It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your +opportunities," she said, plainly. + +Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was +brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could +not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. + +"I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I +never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the +middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What +have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?" + +"I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said +Aunt Roderick. + +"I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as +much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light +given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, +I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived +longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things +that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they +take right hold of. People might have _pocket_-perplexities for years +and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; +but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,--or they think it +is,--they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What _do_ you +suppose makes the difference?" + +After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that +there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious +of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real +mischief done, already. + +"It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that +day, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, +really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to +scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her +own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie +'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She +whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account +for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once +enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her +alone. + +But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and +then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone +a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then +we might not see him again for three years, perhaps. + +On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and +see Mrs. Goldthwaite. + +"I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had +not been down there once since the wedding-day. + +She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would +stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. + +About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. + +It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted +to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the +winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen +families, and meet by turn at the different houses. + +"I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties +again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want +something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among +ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so +is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. +I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,--doesn't she? Nobody can +complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist +for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the +odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you +think it would do?" + +"I think it would do nicely for _one_ thing," said Rose, thoughtfully. +"But don't let us allow it to be the _whole_ of our winter." + +Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn of +compliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting a +break in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped right +over it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. + +"Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week," said Olivia. +"I came to you almost the very first, out of the family," she added, +with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up." + +"Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined +together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think +last winter was so _really good_," she went on; "I should be sorry to +break up what _that_ did; that is all." + +"I'm willing enough to help in those ways," said Olivia, +condescendingly; "but I think we might have our _own_ things, too." + +"I don't know, Olivia," said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'own +things.' They are just what begin to puzzle me." + +It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. Olivia +Marchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. + +"Never mind," she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be some +time yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to go +beyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unless +everybody is really interested." + +Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. +At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, +came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. + +"Somebody has been snubbing somebody," replied Rose, holding her royal +color, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don't +quite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I." + +"A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have +_you_ been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?" + +"I? I've been walking, of course.--That boy has got home again," she +added, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. + +We knew _very_ well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He +would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let +him. But--"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight! +Or--stay to tea with _him_ there, and make him come, in the dark!--And +_if_ he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, +that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were +what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we +had no doubt it had been something awful. + +The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said +Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,--to the +"Katahdin." + +In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then +she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for +a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South +Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. + +"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those +vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in +these buzzes. + +"I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at +once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she +came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +EMERGENCIES. + + +Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it +for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed +without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of +double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a +flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with +a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the +front--not too near together--are more big, reliable, easy-going +buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles +belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes +to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in +her vessel. + +If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and +what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, +she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred +parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. +Hobart called. + +Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, +rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose +priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in +these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, +leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never +doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making +pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was +it always happened so with her. + +In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. + +Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, +and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always +breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by +nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a +fair half night of rest before the alarm came. + +It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who go +to bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. + +"My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?" + +The room was full of red light. + +Rosamond sat up beside her. + +"Moon! It's fire!" + +Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and out +of doors in five minutes. + +The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carrying +great red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildings +were a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation of +evergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death but +the crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead of +night, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthily +fearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting the +air, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, +busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and making +steadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. + +We all put on some warm things, and went right over. + +Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of the +house, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory building +with the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servants +were hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets of +water here and there, from the reservoir inside. + +Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this to +your house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away with +it. + +Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, +and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the back +piazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. +There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. +Marchbanks was "particularly engaged." + +Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. +Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, +in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and her +family till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry of +the moment would put it wholly out of their heads. + +She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go up +which had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet would +go over it, unbidden, to-night. + +She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story the +cook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. The +fine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, with +Olivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl was +trying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, +upside down. + +"Take these children right over to my house," said Mrs. Hobart. +"Barbara Holabird! Come up here!" + +"I don't know what to do first," said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. +Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver--and +the pictures--and everything! And the house will be full of men +directly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked up +her braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could +"receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at a +fire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had not +learned anything about the exceptions. + +"Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. +And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her +father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on +the smooth oak as if a horse were coming. + +Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'll +break everything!" she said, and took down a little Sèvres cup from a +bracket. + +"There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll see +to things. Let me have your keys." + +"They're all in my upper bureau-drawer," said Mrs. Marchbanks. +"Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matilda +would come." Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can go +there, of course." + +"It is too far," said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in my +great front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'll +want Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty of +things besides." + +While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet from +the bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walked +down stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sèvres cup in the +other. + +"People _do_ do curious things at fires," said Mrs. Hobart, cool, and +noticing everything. + +She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbara +followed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closets +and wardrobe. + +"Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, +up here." + +Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, +she passed on, in like manner,--Barbara, and by this time the rest of +us, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on the +floors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. + +"Clothes are the first thing," said she. "And this way, you are +pretty sure to pick up everything." Everything _was_ picked up, from +Mrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks's +shaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled off +last night. + +Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's great +clean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went and +came, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing _one_ thing," he answered. +"You keep to yourn." + +"They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The +bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill,--two ingines, +an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door +locked, an' a lettin' on me in." + +Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, +ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her +own lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitable +irruption of the Great Uninvited. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. +Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the other +gentlemen were still hard at work. + +"Now," said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been the +putting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for the +citron or the raisins,--"now--all that beautiful china!" + +She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered the +china, although her party-call, like all her others, had been a +failure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, +occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice any +fraction of her private hours. + +Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet,--the +china-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followed +than led. + +The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. +The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of the +closely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke against +the windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush of +water from the engines beat against the walls. + +"We must work awful quick now," said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. We +ain't afire yet." + +She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought down +stairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, which +Arthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. + +Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there before +the shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy single +pieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah," she ordered to her man. + +We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time,--Olivia, and +Adelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the other +Marchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijah +stopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led from +drawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys in +their polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in the +sheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, and +defended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute order +among ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitement +without that might else have rushed in and overborne us. + +"You jest keep back; it's all right here," Elijah would say, +deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensed +comers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outside +the shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. + +It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, down +the field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leaving +the china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. + +Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked out +upon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and had +collected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things that +could be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. +Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whom +to deliver it. + +Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up to +the roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, +untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. + +So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angle +of the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were only +laid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children s +photographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; little +treasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, or +gifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that people +have about a house, never thinking what would become of them in a +night like this. So Barbara stood by. + +Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heard +his name. + +"Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two men +at the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him over +the baluster, and ran up to the landing. + +"Take hold of it with me," said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. +We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. +Hobart's." + +"Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keep +those people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the big +basket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The first +we knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon our +line of march toward Elijah's door. + +Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longer +in the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick," +as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. +Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the last +napkin, and all was safe. + +Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to the +entrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things are +ordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets; +quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on the +lawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done all +they could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and there +was little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, +and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running along +the piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was giving +out. + +After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisterns +were dry, and the engines stood helpless. + +The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up as +from a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth and +seized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without their +touch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front of +the mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Fire +poured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and into +the rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a little +before that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. + +Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the home +that offered to her,--her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide were +going to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the things +that, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made _home_, as +well as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness of +elegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported and +discharged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And the +sleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Rome +could never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets and +Patricks, "out of a place." + +Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only the +story and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the +"Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbanks +would be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, +in a few days,--receiving her friends, who would hurry to make +"fire-calls," as they would to make party or engagement or other +special occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not one +of the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning rooms +that night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her pictures +and her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bell +now; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. + +It was about four in the morning--the fire still burning--when Mrs. +Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, +to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood in +a safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara? + +Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had been +thrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, and +the like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, +two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; but +somebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with a +bullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there beside +her; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here in +this unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composure +which of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. + +[Illustration] + +"What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?" +Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. + +"She'll give her a sort of brevet," replied Barbara. "For gallant and +meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near +neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, +you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full +commission." + +Harry laughed. + +"Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First, +there was the whirlwind, last year,--and now the fire." + +"After the whirlwind and the fire--" said Harry. + +"I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara. + +"Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, +I can't help it. You put it into my head." + +"I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the +voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming." + +"Then, Barbara--" + +Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. + +The next day--_that_ day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast--Harry +came back, and was at Westover all day long. + +Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She +brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek +upon her knee. + +"Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me +ready, and let me go." + +"My dear child! When? What do you mean?" + +"Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly +ever be so nice again. And--if we _are_ going through the world +together--mightn't we as well begin to go?" + +"Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What +is it?" + +"It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European +squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife +and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when +the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says; +and--that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while +first,--as much, perhaps, as we should ever have." + +"Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!" + +"No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with +me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added. +"Everybody does." + +The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as +mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as +she does everything else. + +Rose has some nice things--laid away, new; she always has; and mother +has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for +Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. + +"I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and we girls are all +of a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear the +dresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara's +trunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We can +get others any time." + +We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think that +it was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth's +was blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that no +two of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosen +because of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer for +grandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep" +mourning. "You shall never do that," said mother, "till the deep +mourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves." + +We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautiful +delay or other about machinery,--the Katahdin's, that is; and +Commander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back and +forth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him; +Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and on +board ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quite +made up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as he +is old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. + +We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determined +not to be; last days are too precious, + +"Don't let's be all taken up with 'things,'" says Barbara. "I can +_buy_ 'things' any time. But now,--I want you!" + +Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her; +it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired,--or +possessed,--but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. + +There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, +the loveliest "suit," all made and finished, of brown poplin. To think +of Aunt Roderick's getting anything _made_, at an "establishment"! But +Ruth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and just +took her porte-monnaie in her hand. + +Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the +"girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or little +things to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. +Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit and +look at it. + +She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, from +mother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, into +the bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it a +little stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. + +"_All_ new things are only dreary," she says. "I must have some of the +old." + +"I should just like to know one thing,--if I might," said Rosamond, +deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She was +sitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoe +in her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave so +beforehand, Barbara?" + +"I was in a buzz," said Barbara. "And it _was_ beforehand. I suppose I +knew it was coming,--like a thunderstorm." + +"You came pretty near securing that it _shouldn't_ come," said +Rosamond, "after all." + +"I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair." + +"You might have just kept quiet, as you were before," said Rose. + +"Wait and see," said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't come +bringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs to +get these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of those +white paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say all +sorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and run +off if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind the +door, I wonder?" + +"After all--" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. + +"After all--" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was +something else!" + +"Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. + +"Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake." + +We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have +each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never +wanted each other so, or _had_ each other so, before. + +Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but +the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there +are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little +while; and--we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present +instant. + + * * * * * + +Who finishes it? Who tells it? + +Well,--"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle--pretty much--finished +it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was +beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and +she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. +Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would +not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she +observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and +partly, here and there, we rushed in,--especially I, Barbara,--and did +little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and +at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie." + +Do you think it is--sarcastically--a "pretty dish to set before the +king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There +is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z----" is; and there are +friends and neighbors everywhere. + +I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part--the +Barbarous part--is a continual breach of confidence. I have a great +mind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, +made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautayne +has one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayne +considers _worth_ a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; older +than Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth with +her; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides-- + +Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as far +as we--or anybody--has gone. You must let the world go round the sun +again, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet--even with +"We Girls." + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12224 *** diff --git a/12224-h/12224-h.htm b/12224-h/12224-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1637651 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-h/12224-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7912 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" + content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<meta content="pg2html (binary version 0.15)" + name="generator"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of + We Girls: a Home Story, + by Mrs. A.d.t. Whitney, +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; font-size: 100%; } + p { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; } + hr { width: 50%; } + hr.short {width: 20%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; } + .toc { text-align: center; font-size: 90%; } + .note { text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; font-size: 90%; } + .i-note {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; background: #ffecdb; } + .fnote {text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 30%; font-size: 90%; } + .block {text-indent: 0em; margin-left: 25%} + CENTER { padding: 1em; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12224 ***</div> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/001-f.jpg" width="426" height="300" +alt="Binding the Rings."> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h1> + WE GIRLS: +</h1> +<h2> + A HOME STORY +</h2> +<p> </p> +<h3> + By +</h3> +<h2> + MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY, +</h2> +<p class="note"> + AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD," "THE GAYWORTHYS,"<br> + "A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE," ETC.</p> + <center> + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. +</center> +<p> </p> +<center> + BOSTON<br> + 1870, 1890 +</center> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0001"> +CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0002"> +CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0003"> +CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0004"> +CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0005"> +CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE."</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0006"> +CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0007"> +CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0008"> +CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0009"> +CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0010"> +CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0011"> +CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0012"> +CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES.</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="i-note"><i>Transcriber's note</i>: Illustrations<br> +<a href="#image-0001"><i>Frontispiece</i>: <small>BINDING THE RINGS.</small></a><br> +<a href="#image-0002">2</a> <a href="#image-0003">3</a> <a href="#image-0004">4</a> +<a href="#image-0005">5</a> <a href="#image-0006">6</a> <a href="#image-0007">7</a> +<a href="#image-0008">8</a> <a href="#image-0009">9</a> <a href="#image-0010">10</a> +<a href="#image-0011">11</a> <a href="#image-0012">12</a> <a href="#image-0013">13</a> +<a href="#image-0014">14</a> <a href="#image-0015">15</a> <a href="#image-0016">16</a> +<a href="#image-0017">17</a> <a href="#image-0018">18</a> <a href="#image-0019">19</a> +<a href="#image-0020">20</a> <a href="#image-0021">21</a> <a href="#image-0022">22</a> +<a href="#image-0023">23</a> <a href="#image-0024">24</a> <a href="#image-0025">25</a> + <a href="#image-0026">26</a></p> +<hr> +<div style="height: 3em;"></div> +<h2> + WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. +</h2> +<a name="2HCH0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> +<h2> + CHAPTER I. +</h2> +<h3> + THE STORY BEGINS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/006-1.jpg" width="150" height="312" align="left" +alt="I"> + It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. +</p> +<p> + The town is down below the hill. +</p> +<p> + It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another + hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop + itself, just as it does on this side. +</p> +<p> + It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large + country town,—in fact, it has some time since come under city + regulations,—thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that + which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. +</p> +<p> + Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off + the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded + themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called + "places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the + old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when + the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; + down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers' + offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat + at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. +</p> +<p> + We lived in the town—that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their + children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed—for + nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. +</p> +<p> + They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; when + there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, + and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, + in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to + the fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so came + the name. +</p> +<p> + We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't + considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the + brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go + down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if + they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it? +</p> +<p> + Grandfather Holabird—old Mr. Rufus,—I don't say whether he was my + grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this + story, or whether it is a Holabird at all—bought land here ever so + many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the + boys grew up,—Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. +</p> +<p> + Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,—who had himself + come up from being a workman to being owner,—and learned the + business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C——, and + lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was + yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no + little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three + daughters. +</p> +<p> + There are of us—Stephen Holabird's family—just six. Stephen and his + wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. + Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins + married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor + mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because + "Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of + course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on + the mere claim of the common cousinship. +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular + ways too. +</p> +<p> + There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all + known by our straight names. I say <i>known</i>; because we do have little + pet ways of calling, among ourselves,—sometimes one way and sometimes + another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird + doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our + bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little + fun,—though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or + behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the + first,—or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, + or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's + obstinate,—we always <i>introduce</i> "my daughter Rosamond," or "my + sister Barbara," or,—but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because + nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"—and Stephen + is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a + man some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were + christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is + such a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "She + wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose." +</p> +<p> + Our moving to Westover was a great time. +</p> +<p> + That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody + does not do who moves into a house by any means. +</p> +<p> + We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and + told us, one morning, of his having bought it,—the empty Beaman + house, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought + the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and + build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobody + but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was + large and solid-built, and could not be taken far. +</p> +<p> + We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another + day, and proposed that we should go and live in it. +</p> +<p> + We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very + strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what + they ought to do <i>without</i> it, when they didn't happen to have any. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that + day,—him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it + was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or + even him without the cane; but both together were "<i>scare-mendous</i>; + they did put down so." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to + notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the + old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a + board at the door,—"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had all + made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: + and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But + we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never + time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled + just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in + this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is + always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in + other ways. +</p> +<p> + Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live a + gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for + the din and scramble of business. +</p> +<p> + He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowing + his sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the loss + and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then + go down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all his + debts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed and + clothe his family meanwhile. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, when + he bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In the + summer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at + Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these + obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these things + we made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all the + more afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. +</p> +<p> + "When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his stern + precept. +</p> +<p> + "When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say, + after he was gone. +</p> +<p> + But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. That + day, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and as + cosey as we could be. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had + been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. + Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old + black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with + smooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. +</p> +<p> + "What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, + wondering. +</p> +<p> + "They were dropped,—and I picked them up," Rosamond answered, + mysteriously. "The owner never missed them." +</p> +<p> + "Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. +</p> +<p> + "Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'em + most. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she + went on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiring + the effect. "They don't dress much outside." +</p> +<p> + "O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?" +</p> +<p> + "Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle about + contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman and + her accidents,—mine are usually catastrophes." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the right + set-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. +</p> +<p> + Barbara flung down a magazine,—some old number. +</p> +<p> + "Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of the + climax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she went + on to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and + was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? + Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two little + cats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and the + cane coming in. +</p> +<p> + There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, and + for Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through + the sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his cane + were slow; the more awful for that. +</p> +<p> + Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors; + and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!" +</p> +<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/013.jpg" width="300" height="304" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. +</p> +<p> + "Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a few + square yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving + and going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteen + square feet that we live on most!" +</p> +<p> + She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a very + little matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. +</p> +<p> + "How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, + or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we + <i>don't</i> tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we know + them or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and the + things we do. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had a + way of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentence + after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant + was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do + think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's + very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes." +</p> +<p> + It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. + When there was one, he always kept it to the last. +</p> +<p> + "Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, sir." +</p> +<p> + "I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the + around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live + in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. + Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. + I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over." +</p> +<p> + He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a + word. We were too much surprised. +</p> +<p> + Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. +</p> +<p> + I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a + woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her + so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She + asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep + her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it + to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a + grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. +</p> +<p> + "We could keep a cow!" said mother. +</p> +<p> + "We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. +</p> +<p> + "What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His + land begins this side." +</p> +<p> + "Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we + have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. +</p> +<p> + "I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in + continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished + hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would + never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our + limitations. +</p> +<p> + "Does that look—" +</p> +<p> + "Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never + do." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of + something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might + be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that. +</p> +<p> + "I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I + don't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But <i>I do</i> mean to + be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the + name left." +</p> +<p> + "I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what + <i>shall</i> we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready + money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else + for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she + did not speak at first. +</p> +<p> + "'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't + believe there ever was a family that had so <i>much</i> opening and + shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes + together again and snips our noses!" +</p> +<p> + "What <i>is</i> a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A + mouse pinched in it, I should think." +</p> +<p> + "Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are + fricassees,—heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the + philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down + everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't + all made,—or used,—yet!" +</p> +<p> + Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance—in + aid, as she maintained—of the dictionaries. +</p> +<p> + "O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out + there, and the mornings will be so early!" +</p> +<p> + "That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing + we're going 'west over.'" +</p> +<p> + "Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said + Ruth. That was the best she could do. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have + some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put + down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. + Especially for a country house." +</p> +<p> + "It seems, then, we <i>are</i> going?" +</p> +<p> + Nobody had even raised a question of that. +</p> +<p> + Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised + none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, + quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a + geometrical fact patent at first glance. +</p> +<p> + "We can have a cow," mother repeated. +</p> +<p> + "Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a + hearing. +</p> +<p> + "You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the + parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen." +</p> +<p> + "I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely. +</p> +<p> + "I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. + I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't many + in profane." +</p> +<p> + "Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus + 'saluted' at the end of an epistle." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn't + history; that's mere mention." +</p> +<p> + "We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down,'" + suggested Rosamond, complacently. +</p> +<p> + Barbara smiled. +</p> +<p> + "And we can tell <i>the girl</i> to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' when + she's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the + 'handy' things." +</p> +<p> + "Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was between + the two. +</p> +<p> + "Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow." +</p> +<p> + "We shall all have to remember that it will only be living there + instead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrella + under the rain of suggestion. +</p> +<p> + The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There was + no doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and it + was found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtains + in our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in the + square Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, + and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. + The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few + pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara + said, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairs + there would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, and + making upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, because + in these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, and + fireplace, and closet doors. +</p> +<p> + They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. + Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over to + see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to + communicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of a + kind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house any + precisely matched companionship. +</p> +<p> + This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it led + to trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned to + their new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the whole + number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious + mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to + live in "sûch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is to + Irish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole can + no longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfast + that she "must jûst be lukkin out fer a plaashe." +</p> +<p> + "But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two or + three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be glad + to have you stay and help us through." +</p> +<p> + "Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taks + an intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I + niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but I + couldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo a + plaashe, ye see." +</p> +<p> + It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk a + graat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, but + she mûst jûst be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she had + the kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonnet + on,—a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse—of ungarnished + head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,—and + took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where + people were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company nor + children nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, + and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," she + would probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would + <i>not</i> allow of her continuing with us. +</p> +<p> + A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,—sure to + happen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line we + have a gale down below. +</p> +<p> + "<i>Now</i> what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming back + into the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments + which spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling all + through the house. +</p> +<p> + "Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravely + than she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thy + youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't + doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among the + rest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. + There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least." +</p> +<p> + "I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird, + with meekness. +</p> +<p> + It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very much + quenched. +</p> +<p> + The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, and + nowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up over + the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between + that time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without a + girl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have not + come to the family-moving yet. +</p> +<p> + The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, while + the building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up into + all the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what new + pictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how now + this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by + the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,—for the slope, + though gradual, was long,—and how the sunset came in more and more, + as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill of + excitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, the + onward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought all + rightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen called + these earthquakes. +</p> +<p> + We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It was + such a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stop + anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; + because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it was + all pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting over + on the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. +</p> +<p> + We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaks + between trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, + open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; and + the nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny and + pleasant and real countrified. +</p> +<p> + It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great + house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand + generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs + and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest + point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in + excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we + might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose the + green bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we got + less of the great town within our view as we settled down upon our + side of the ridge. +</p> +<p> + The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. +</p> +<p> + There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were to + be; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way down + against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields + were beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire in + autumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructed + sky. +</p> +<p> + The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where the + walls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen the + spot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for the + moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the + kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as + mere lumber. It was only the main building—L-shaped still, of three + very large rooms below and five by more subdivision above—which had + majestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, + westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. +</p> +<p> + Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient with + one servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he + offered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent we + must take out cheerfully in extra steps. +</p> +<p> + It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirds + came fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, + and stood staring around it with its many eyes,—wide open to the + daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,—to see where + it was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a very + knowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. +</p> +<p> + The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed + in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he + got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round + southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the + noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the + sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through + the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along + the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and + peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was + what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,—as if he + stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about + it, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. He + quieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night he + found somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took it + serenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, and + put us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was to + leave so many cubic feet of light at daily. +</p> +<p> + I think he <i>might</i> like to look in at that best parlor. With the six + snowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and the + deep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all over + them, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were like + the moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the light + glinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw out + the lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few + fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It + was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring + home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many + nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be + paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we + sat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselves + already to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases well + filled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn cloth + hid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to the + hand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of the + home-spirit,—a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its + round of radiance every night. +</p> +<p> + Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June + nights were at Westover. +</p> +<p> + We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We + had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"—that is their word for + the north country at home, and the north country is where the best + material comes from,—who was willing to air her ignorance in our + kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for + the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not + come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls + was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't + do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do + with established rates of wages. +</p> +<p> + But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the + singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, + and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a + new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things + were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy + rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how + grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old + things also,—a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. +</p> +<p> + "Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb + 'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family + settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. + "It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before + it, except when it is in the nominative case." +</p> +<p> + Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to the + sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the + ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza + was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, + from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low + railing ran around the whole. +</p> +<p> + Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right + and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through + the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a + round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with + us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. +</p> +<p> + We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what new + glory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for the + witnessing of a pageant. +</p> +<p> + The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hung + close by; they dropped down through the gold together, till they + touched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slid + silently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. +</p> +<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/026.jpg" width="300" height="292" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush. +</p> +<p> + No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to south + stretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints and + softliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; the + gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went + by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; we + watched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked out + into great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight was + the curtain. +</p> +<p> + "We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara said + again, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against the + railing. +</p> +<p> + "The front row, and season tickets!" +</p> +<p> + "Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew human + nature, and had got used himself to most things. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER II. +</h2> +<h3> + AMPHIBIOUS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a> + <!--IMAGE END--> +<p><img src="images/028-2.jpg" width="150" height="320" align="left" +alt="W"> + "What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up from + her letter. +</p> +<p> + Ruth told. +</p> +<p> + "How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You are + as pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anything + particular has happened, to remember <i>any</i> day by, since the first, + and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm never + sure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first; + and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme in + my head." +</p> +<p> + "I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in her + room,—that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down at + the bottom; and she whops it every morning." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed. +</p> +<p> + "What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and you + only puckered." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that," she said. +</p> +<p> + "Well, what then?" +</p> +<p> + "To think you knew." +</p> +<p> + "Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough." +</p> +<p> + "Yes,—but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest part + of the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve." +</p> +<p> + Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth had + caught him out. +</p> +<p> + "I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't help + reading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the man + that went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fine + day, and then I'll whop the whole over for you." +</p> +<p> + Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the last + pair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephen + in her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lips + that she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up and + went away with them to her room. +</p> +<p> + She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket in + her hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll of + Scripture texts printed in large clear letters,—a sheet for each day + of the month,—and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnut + rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at + the Bible Class,—Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very + much. +</p> +<p> + Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, + and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and + maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went + and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. +</p> +<p> + For she had something to think about this morning. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the + beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and + just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room + at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the + other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from + the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was + a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up; + and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the + L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well + tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be + taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all + the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it; + behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of + staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by + a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the + whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L + unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right + angles to each other. +</p> +<p> + The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in + the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long + shine, from its south window at the end, right through,—except in + such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and + then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew + through pleasantly in a soft shade. +</p> +<p> + When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large + front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if + there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and + bureaus,—the very things that make up-stairs look so <i>very</i> bedroomy. + And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamond + and Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushions + sewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seat + and pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirt + of white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange for + this Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished their + two windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. +</p> +<p> + Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all go + round by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked away + mysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened all + the doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most part + remained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings and + ways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently open + to the privilege and second sight of story-telling. +</p> +<p> + The white dimity curtains—one pair of them—were up at the wide west + window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four + things,—drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light + among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings + around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed + cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased + with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and + tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in + uniform,—varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in + crimson arabesque,—made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture + scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the + window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which + she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to + foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, + over the deficient cane-work. +</p> +<p> + Tin tacks and some considerable machining—for mother had lent her the + help of her little "common sense" awhile—had done it all; and Ruth's + room, with its oblong of carpet,—which Mrs. Holabird and she had made + out before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored one + and a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not been + enough to put upon the staircase,—looked, as Barbara said, "just as + if it had been done on purpose." +</p> +<p> + "It <i>says</i> it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,—with its situation above all; + she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never minded + their coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her three + little brass bolts when she had a desire to. +</p> +<p> + She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about Adelaide + Marchbanks's invitation. +</p> +<p> + The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The married + daughter of one family—Mrs. Reyburne—was at home from New York, and + had brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. Roger + Marchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friends + visiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,—several + sisters in each family,—always. The Haddens were there a good deal, + and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at a + time. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and Leslie + Goldthwaite, a great pet of hers,—Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, + in the town,—was often up among them all. +</p> +<p> + The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and + then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were + not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were + among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life + would not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind of + Elf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in the + impalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when it + wills to be by itself for a time. +</p> +<p> + There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way for + them, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was not + spoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. + Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and I + suppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized how + thoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodily + presence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond and + Barbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted for + something; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wished + and meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers were + to carry out. +</p> +<p> + But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was not + quite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each her + own sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by the + accepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard; + why shouldn't they—the Holabirds—settle anything? Ruth hated to have + theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So + this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had + happened. +</p> +<p> + Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down + street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. + At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,— +</p> +<p> + "Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like + you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. + There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now + among ourselves." +</p> +<p> + Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular + inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but + she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and + that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the + end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should + play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at + eleven o'clock. +</p> +<p> + She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,—perhaps; but + she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect + her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. +</p> +<p> + She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to + hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would + very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly + acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. + She would remember higher reason, also, than the <i>quid pro quo</i>; she + would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but + it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would + they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go? + And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?—she + the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and + Barbara; though Barbara said <i>they</i> "never 'came' out,—they just + leaked out." +</p> +<p> + That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, + with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power + of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she + would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to + her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she + could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a + born home. +</p> +<p> + She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, as + at first she meant to do. +</p> +<p> + But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls" + means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" in + her heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out of + themselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turns + into a plural. +</p> +<p> + Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her + elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of + grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's + five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some + new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous laziness + upon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, through + her own room and saw her there. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill of + pleasantness. Her home had <i>expressed</i> itself here, as it had never + done anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshiny + roominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and her + daughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearness + in which her love and her wish for them held them always. +</p> +<p> + It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but the + generous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you looked + through, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glass + house" so long. +</p> +<p> + The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows at + either end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the long + mirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels in + the town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were here + put, quite elegantly tall,—the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above her + daintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great square + trunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, + dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes and + cushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room," + opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and at + night, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back and + forth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, + gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; so + that Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning in + their busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you were + all lit up." +</p> +<p> + "We had one candle apiece," Barbara would answer, very concisely. +</p> +<p> + "I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way," Rosamond + said once, after she had gone. +</p> +<p> + "And that she <i>didn't</i> have to come through our clothes-yard of a + Monday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in the + wash," added Barbara. +</p> +<p> + But this is off the track. +</p> +<p> + "What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon the + little figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through the + open rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?" +</p> +<p> + "O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I've + done, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure I + wasn't provoked." +</p> +<p> + "You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, I guess so," said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking right + on,—doesn't it?—when you speak suddenly out of a 'think.' I wonder + what <i>alone</i> really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Something + thinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up." +</p> +<p> + "Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth." +</p> +<p> + "Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It <i>does</i> answer back." +</p> +<p> + "And what was the answer about this time?" +</p> +<p> + That was how Ruth came to let it out. +</p> +<p> + "About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, + though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And they + might have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as you + said, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I—needn't. I mean, I + knew right off that I <i>didn't</i>." +</p> +<p> + Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of her + thinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand the + older idiom, just as they do baby-talk,—by the same heart-key. She + knew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to." +</p> +<p> + "You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them begin + with me so." +</p> +<p> + "You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird, + affectionately. "And a very generous one." +</p> +<p> + "No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rather + nice to settle that I <i>can</i> be contrary. I don't like to be + pat-a-caked." +</p> +<p> + She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. +</p> +<p> + The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, to + ask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the + busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not + willing, but that when she <i>was</i> at leisure she looked as though she + always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric + morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little + fancy slippers,—(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she + had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and + beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to + any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, + in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the + last point of morning freshness,—chairs and tables and books in the + most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in + vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the + others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to + receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as + likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her + "points,"—as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at + the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character + only by these embellishments upon the instep,—and to have dumped + herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the + green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some + irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would + stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with + unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in + the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation." +</p> +<p> + Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if + Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and + Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they <i>did</i> have to make their own cake, + and why should they be ashamed of it?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond would reply that "they <i>did</i> have to make their own beds, but + they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." +</p> +<p> + "That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she + would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most + fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; + for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and + a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there + in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to + call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the + kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the + big trees. +</p> +<p> + Somebody overtook and joined them there,—somebody in a dark gray suit + and bright buttons. +</p> +<p> + "Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, + looking after them,—"that must be the brother from West Point the + Inglesides expected,—that young Dakie Thayne!" +</p> +<p> + It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were + walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not + been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. + Marchbanks's? +</p> +<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/041.jpg" width="300" height="291" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, + behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think + I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and + I don't go out very much, except with my—cousins." +</p> +<p> + "Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." +</p> +<p> + "It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my + breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed + bent upon driving his questions home. +</p> +<p> + "O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." +</p> +<p> + "Wasn't it?" +</p> +<p> + The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; + Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little—just + a line or two—as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. +</p> +<p> + Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West + Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little + wheels were turned sometimes. +</p> +<p> + He had just come to Z—— (I must have a letter for my nameless town, + and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a + crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among + interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he + excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and + it was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. + Ingleside, had come to Z——, to take the vacant practice of an old + physician, disabled from continuing it. +</p> +<p> + Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends; + almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for one + older, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one just + like her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, from + the little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of their + pretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, + springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautiful + flowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as she + had grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central or + most brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helped + and touched and perfected all. +</p> +<p> + There was something very real and individual about her; she was no + "girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She would + have grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the first + quarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly" + sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showed + itself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as to + simpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in her + twentieth year now, which sounds—didn't somebody say so over my + shoulder?—so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her that + she had "stayed fifteen." +</p> +<p> + She <i>looked</i> real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with some + graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been + freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly + around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on + like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and + everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; + and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could + trace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex and + bewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds and + festoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked more + as young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmaker + seven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the public + promenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiring + minds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all the + sewing, and where the hair all comes from. +</p> +<p> + Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked to + be odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with the + prevailing fashion—the fundamental idea of it—always, when she had a + new thing; but she modified and curtailed,—something was sure to stop + her somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that they + never stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, + "something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and she + must choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satin + folds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to use + differently; the dress was never the first and the <i>must be</i>; so it + came by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode; + and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it, + were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. +</p> +<p> + It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questions + that had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, + that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them half + unconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the + "outside," which is setting more and more between us and our real + living, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer put + ready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. +</p> +<p> + Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how + "achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of + embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and + the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for + them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of + Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in + itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured + it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie + had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the mere + buying. +</p> +<p> + Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the little + vines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creeping + Mitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniature + grace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty to + put in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helped + Rose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grew + higher up. +</p> +<p> + Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the + fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full + of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as + if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great + sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings + "came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like + a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course + one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like + a bird or a bee right after breakfast,—that was living; that was the + Irishman's blessing,—'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'" +</p> +<p> + "Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most + magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there + would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the + piazza basement, and up to the front portico. +</p> +<p> + They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. + Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. +</p> +<p> + Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea + branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said + afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. +</p> +<p> + The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a + hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got + the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of + parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors + which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. +</p> +<p> + Barbara stood behind the blind. +</p> +<p> + "The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right + out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and + has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie + Thayne?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?" +</p> +<p> + "O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!" +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's + nice,—ever so nice." +</p> +<p> + "It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the + hill. "They treat those girls—amphibiously!" +</p> +<p> + "Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "<i>I'm</i> amphibious. I live in the + town, and I <i>can</i> come out—and not die—on the Hill. I like it. I + always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time." +</p> +<p> + They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. +</p> +<p> + "We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off. +</p> +<p> + "I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really + wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She + isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That + is, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so." +</p> +<p> + You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. + People who tell a story see round corners. +</p> +<p> + The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to play + croquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaites + and the Haddens. +</p> +<p> + "We're growing very gay and multitudinous," she said, graciously. +</p> +<p> + "The midshipman's got home,—Harry Goldthwaite, you know." +</p> +<p> + Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in her + own keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. + But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. +</p> +<p> + When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, + inevitable question,— +</p> +<p> + "What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night,—that's ready?" +</p> +<p> + And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not a + dud!" +</p> +<p> + But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt on + purpose to lend to Barbara. If she had <i>given</i> it, there would have + been the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, + and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirts + that were <i>over with</i>, before the new fashion came. +</p> +<p> + Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big world + to-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. +</p> +<p> + It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it <i>was</i> one of our ways at + Westover. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER III. +</h2> +<h3> + BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/049-3.jpg" width="150" height="326" align="left" alt="T"> + Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. +</p> +<p> + And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were to + carry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. +</p> +<p> + You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. +</p> +<p> + How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In the + first place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,—"a making + for anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstanding + Shakespeare. +</p> +<p> + It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming and + sweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with glee + and grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke to + her suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, + all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready to + catch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you in + return, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of life + and pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of her + face lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised upon + its stalk. She was <i>like</i> a flower chatting with a breeze. +</p> +<p> + She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; but + she had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it; + and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of her + head any painful, conscious question of how she <i>was</i> seeming. That, + and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her manners + what Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,—"exquisite." +</p> +<p> + That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep; + hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. +</p> +<p> + She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they had + everybody round them. All the people in the room were saying how + lovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed a + great and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It was + pleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just as + lovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to be + lovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood on + that same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just as + pretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and it + meant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have her + stand right there, and look just so, to-night. +</p> +<p> + In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to her + grander,—another girl, in another corner, looking on,—a girl with a + very homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. She + looked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in her + prettiness; <i>she</i> looked as if she had put herself away, comfortably + satisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. + Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. +</p> +<p> + "I do think," she said,—"don't you?—it's just the bravest and + strongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, and + to go right on and have a good time just the same;—<i>every day</i>, you + see, right through everything! I think such people must be splendid + inside!" +</p> +<p> + "The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," said + Leslie. "And she was fifty years old too." +</p> +<p> + "Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, + "it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I should + like—just once—to look beautiful at a party!" +</p> +<p> + The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. +</p> +<p> + Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaite + were on one side, and they led off their whole party, going + nonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not help + it; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling each + other along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and came + down into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and the + whole game in their hands on their own part. +</p> +<p> + "It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "but + they might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on the + same side again." +</p> +<p> + It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted away + for the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, that + Harry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil." +</p> +<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/052.jpg" width="300" height="307" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Barbara shook her head. What was it? +</p> +<p> + "It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it to + us. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plain + enough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are ten + rings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is to + string them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certain + distance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and you + play as many rounds as you may agree upon." +</p> +<p> + Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. +</p> +<p> + "Have you told anybody else of that?" +</p> +<p> + "Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while." +</p> +<p> + "Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebody + came down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let me + have it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the stray + ball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, + "come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, + you see, to get anything that's new." +</p> +<p> + "I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,—isn't that what + they make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famous + out of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought to + be, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit Harry + Goldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, putting + the two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollicking + into the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle was + taking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody was + there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing + party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them + again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. + After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry + rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. +</p> +<p> + It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance was + re-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an old + remembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school and + given her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,—"as he might have + done," we told her, "to any other boy." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in her + door, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pulling + down hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter at + bedtime. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, as + if she could not get into that place without her considering-fit + coming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, and + her eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. +</p> +<p> + "She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out of + her cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all the + evening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music + <i>splashes</i> so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering it + all over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!" +</p> +<p> + "The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs. + Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. + "I've known good times do that." +</p> +<p> + "It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in my + head, 'going on forever—ever! <i>go</i>-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth broke + into the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. +</p> +<p> + "I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!" + Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to the + mother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; it + was only when she wanted a very dear word. +</p> +<p> + "We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can find + in the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment, + in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for the + bowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes once + in a while. It's going to be just—splend-umphant!" +</p> +<p> + "If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We <i>must</i> keep + the new of it to ourselves." +</p> +<p> + "As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up Harry + Goldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doing + anything but just give you that awful little pinch!" +</p> +<p> + "That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross or + inelegantly excited about anything. "But I <i>do</i> think the girls will + like it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza." +</p> +<p> + "That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously. +</p> +<p> + Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The dark + new boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had been + real oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny." +</p> +<p> + Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-music + flittering in her brain. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden about + her playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, although + they said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that her + fingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the right + points. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to <i>see</i> Ruth Holabird play, as + well as she did to hear her. +</p> +<p> + But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almost + anything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what she + should do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gave + lessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularly + to Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his being + cross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy and + sensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to be + afraid. +</p> +<p> + Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, + except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred a + teacher to come to the house. +</p> +<p> + "A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style from + the very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away," + said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and said + something, and drew her off. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetism + that guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes were + struck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. +</p> +<p> + "If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really would + have me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. + Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could show + anybody what I know,—and if they like that!" +</p> +<p> + It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up with + the "forever—ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely trembling + ripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the south + and slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmering + little ghost in the arm-chair. +</p> +<p> + Ruth came down late to breakfast. +</p> +<p> + Barbara was pushing back her chair. +</p> +<p> + "Mother,—or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm going + out for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning." +</p> +<p> + "And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to be + with Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?" +</p> +<p> + "Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can't + you come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!" +</p> +<p> + "That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. +</p> +<p> + "I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, + when we played with him so." +</p> +<p> + "I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, about + those—patent rights. I dare say they'll come up." +</p> +<p> + "I've no doubt," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I wish you <i>would</i> both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs. + Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, + and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast." +</p> +<p> + "I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs. + Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls had + gone away. +</p> +<p> + "I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something that + would just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my head + last night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right up + behind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised my + playing; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbanks + wants a—" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that was + coming—"<i>lady</i>-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. + There, mother. It's in <i>your</i> head now! Please turn it over with a + nice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that you + believe perhaps I could!" +</p> +<p> + By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her two + hands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down upon + one of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. +</p> +<p> + "I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I <i>wouldn't</i> just as lief! + I would liefer you should have all you need without." +</p> +<p> + "I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!" +</p> +<p> + "That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in upon + the last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being good + for them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both." +</p> +<p> + "O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception of + difficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether she + could, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "<i>Don't</i> you—or Rose—call + it names, Barbara, please, will you?" +</p> +<p> + "Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna + are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by + your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." +</p> +<p> + "I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's—" +</p> +<p> + "Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfully + quiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retain + me on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, and + give me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand." +</p> +<p> + Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. Lewis + Marchbanks would let me teach the children." +</p> +<p> + "Teach the children! What?" +</p> +<p> + "O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And—make Rose + understand." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like + <i>it</i>." +</p> +<p> + "Will you do just those two things?" +</p> +<p> + "It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part? + I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It's + such a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if we + made it a regular family delegation—besides, it will take as much as + all me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Last + night's twilight isn't over. And it's funny <i>we</i>'ve plans too; <i>we</i>'re + going to give lessons,—differently; we're going to lead off, for + once,—we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chime + in. It <i>may</i> make things—Holabirdy." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What she + said, therefore, when she was told, was,— +</p> +<p> + "O dear! I suppose it is right! But—just now! Right things do come in + so terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broad + aisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + "And then somebody else would get the chance." +</p> +<p> + "There's nobody else to be had." +</p> +<p> + "Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's <i>me</i> to + be had yet." +</p> +<p> + "O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know. I might. I shouldn't <i>teach</i> it 'anyhow.'" +</p> +<p> + Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half + of her point. +</p> +<p> + Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. + Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. +</p> +<p> + She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and + old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her + justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she + must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew + right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had + happened to think of it. +</p> +<p> + "Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a + little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early + fashion, to ask for her. +</p> +<p> + "I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because + I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my + playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, + perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, + and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons + myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night." +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through + whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to + what she had at the moment in herself. She had real <i>self-possession</i>; + because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false + consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according + to their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they would + think of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond could + not help <i>feeling her double</i>,—Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That was + what Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. +</p> +<p> + The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it is + not, there is no use any way. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. +</p> +<p> + "Does Mrs. Holabird know?" +</p> +<p> + "O yes; she always knows." +</p> +<p> + There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. + Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been very + frank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhat + different. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made; + perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have been + sensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. +</p> +<p> + "But you see, my dear, that <i>your</i> having a pupil could not be quite + equal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one would + not quite provide for the other." +</p> +<p> + "O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. + Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I could + teach two quarters, I could take one." +</p> +<p> + "You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. + Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have really + a charming style. But whether you could <i>impart</i> it,—that is a + different capacity." +</p> +<p> + "I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could make + her understand all I do." +</p> +<p> + "Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady + who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I + will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two + thirds of Viertelnote's price." +</p> +<p> + "O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter I + could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another." +</p> +<p> + "I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs. + Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might + have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom + she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two + persons,—one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to + be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite + intent upon her purpose. +</p> +<p> + If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. +</p> +<p> + "You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, + springing to a soundless rhythm. +</p> +<p> + She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, + winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and + tying them with knots of ribbon. +</p> +<p> + Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up + himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging + upon his arms like bangles. +</p> +<p> + They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the + first asking. +</p> +<p> + It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the + plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her + arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate upon + another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a + good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely + beautiful repose. +</p> +<p> + Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come + next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a + little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the + brown room with tears in her eyes. +</p> +<p> + "It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have + just one wretched girl to do everything!" +</p> +<p> + "Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always + <i>will</i> do it at dinner-time." +</p> +<p> + "It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have + to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to + see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect + serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life' + (that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and + then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought + to be as she does,—it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not + know, or pretend any better. I do wish we <i>belonged</i> somewhere!" +</p> +<p> + Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these + things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was + beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it + <i>every day</i>, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, + more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were + quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than + when guests came and divided her attention. +</p> +<p> + Ruth went over to where she sat. +</p> +<p> + "Rose, perhaps we <i>do</i> belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the + shading-off, you know. That helps both ways." +</p> +<p> + "It's a miserable indefiniteness, though." +</p> +<p> + "No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like + it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.' + You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And + people that are <i>right</i> in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the + edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt + and between. And one girl needn't <i>always</i> be black-leaded, nor drop + all the spoons." +</p> +<a name="2HCH0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IV. +</h2> +<h3> + NEXT THINGS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/066-4.jpg" width="150" height="333" align="left" +alt="R"> + Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself + into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of + it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be + delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high + propriety. +</p> +<p> + Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the + cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was + time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all + sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table + (the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and + replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner + between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. +</p> +<p> + The table was bright with pretty silver—not too much—and best glass + and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and + the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a + fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and + white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden + brown. +</p> +<p> + The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside; + Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and + Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and + forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. +</p> +<p> + Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, + forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders + without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble + at ahl to have company." +</p> +<p> + But before the tea was the new game. +</p> +<p> + It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done + higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions + for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in + their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it + would fall out,—whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take + to it, or whether it would drop right there. +</p> +<p> + "They <i>may</i> 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the + remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. + Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic + trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. +</p> +<p> + Rose was loftily silent; she would not have <i>said</i> that to her very + self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,—through + Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. +</p> +<p> + Does this seem <i>very</i> bare worldly scheming among young girls who + should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if + we did not know; it <i>begins</i> right there among them, in just such + things as these; and our day and our life are full of it. +</p> +<p> + The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as + soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could + not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their + coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all + that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning + all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if + anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it + was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day + elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so + adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly + forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough? + Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. +</p> +<p> + The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the + young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in + turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly + wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like + garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss + them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less + inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with + each succeeding trial. +</p> +<p> + They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might + venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and + references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it + had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. +</p> +<p> + By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide + end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits + began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if + it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as + genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. +</p> +<p> + And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and + very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than + from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private + cooks. +</p> +<p> + It all went off and ended in a glory,—the glory of the sun pouring + great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, + and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow + forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by + they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It + was the one magnificence of their house,—this high, spacious terrace; + Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird <i>had</i> to + build the wood-house under it. +</p> +<p> + After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our + home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to + become before. +</p> +<p> + They might have transplanted the game,—they did take slips from + it,—and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but + they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They + <i>would</i> come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and + practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came + to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other + girls wanted it, they had to come where it was. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the + Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did + not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the + position remained the same. +</p> +<p> + It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family + again, one evening. +</p> +<p> + "I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting + something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask + Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit." +</p> +<p> + The girls had a way, in Z——, of spending two or three days together + at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, + and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to + the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens + would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, + and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of + intimacy: that which took tea,—that which came in of a morning and + stayed to lunch,—and that which was kept over night without plan or + ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such + things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to + us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as + that we might. +</p> +<p> + "I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here." +</p> +<p> + "My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What + for?" +</p> +<p> + "Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in + a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. +</p> +<p> + Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond + suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how + to dispose of the thought since she had got it. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. + Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty + knitting,—making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him + at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent + thought. +</p> +<p> + She made up her mind presently,—partly at least,—and spoke again. "I + don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura + Fish." +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or + two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he + asked. +</p> +<p> + "It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied + Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie + Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it." +</p> +<p> + "That's where only one <i>can</i> have it at a time," said Ruth. "These + things are different." +</p> +<p> + "'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up, + and next things down." +</p> +<p> + "I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I + suppose people wouldn't naturally—it can't be meant they should—walk + right away from their own opportunities." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed,—not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne leaned back. +</p> +<p> + "What,—if you please,—Miss Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + "I was thinking of the opportunities <i>down</i>," Ruth answered. +</p> +<p> + It was several days after this that the young party drifted together + again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne + had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she + who suggested it. +</p> +<p> + "Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a + meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for + a prize? They would do nicely together." +</p> +<p> + Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the + project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. +</p> +<p> + But Dakie Thayne broke in. +</p> +<p> + "Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea." +</p> +<p> + "Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is + the carrying out, you see." +</p> +<p> + "Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize + what we are doing as it is." +</p> +<p> + "But the minute you <i>do</i> organize! You don't know how difficult it is + in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you + go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to + stop." +</p> +<p> + "Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, + good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. +</p> +<p> + "Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't + go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,—down + the hill and into the town." +</p> +<p> + "We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts." + There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. +</p> +<p> + "O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie + Goldthwaite, quick and pleased. +</p> +<p> + "Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave + her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. + She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "O, they <i>won't</i> exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with + an air of high free-masonry. +</p> +<p> + "Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. +</p> +<p> + "Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without + any air at all. +</p> +<p> + "Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though + what people <i>come</i> for is the question, I think, when there isn't + anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it + has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them + to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she + hoped she would come often, and let <i>the girls</i> run in and be + sociable! And Grace Hobart says '<i>she</i> hasn't got tired of + croquet,—she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. + Thayne." +</p> +<p> + "Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. +</p> +<p> + "The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. + When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully + stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,—out quite loud, + across everything,—'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never + did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'" +</p> +<p> + "Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think + they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They + didn't know <i>what</i> to say." +</p> +<p> + "Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in + that way very often." +</p> +<p> + "I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are + kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out." +</p> +<p> + "That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the + neighborhood is getting to be,—full of people that you don't know + what to do with." +</p> +<p> + "I don't see why we <i>need</i> to go out of our own set," said Olivia. +</p> +<p> + "O dear! O dear!" +</p> +<p> + It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all + turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements + made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had + been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now + she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face + to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow + clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. +</p> +<p> + "What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!" +</p> +<p> + Then she knew by the hush that <i>she</i> had astonished them, and she grew + frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink; + for she still felt just as she did when the words came. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. +</p> +<p> + "We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't + quite set up to be angels. Come,—try one more round." +</p> +<p> + And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to + pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do + it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar + grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, + the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more + dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden + over upon the rest. +</p> +<a name="image-0010"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/076.jpg" width="300" height="307" alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> + + +<p> + Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not + been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the + party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour + longer. +</p> +<p> + Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to + Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba + will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask." +</p> +<p> + But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the + grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but + they kept on up over the hill. +</p> +<p> + "Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could + not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute." +</p> +<p> + "About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the + front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched." +</p> +<p> + "They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered. + "And <i>that</i> was another thing from the <i>saying</i>." +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your + lip. I saw it." +</p> +<p> + "Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I + had spoken then." +</p> +<p> + "I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure + I don't know how myself so often." +</p> +<p> + "That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up? + And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out + these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions: + picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind + of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the + lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?" +</p> +<p> + "They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said + Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. + "Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems + to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." +</p> +<p> + "Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? + There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just + for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" +</p> +<p> + "Just <i>be</i> nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than + with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about + it,—if there weren't any keeping out,—they would tire of the + niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the + fence that keeps out weeds." +</p> +<p> + "You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to + Leslie as she spoke. +</p> +<p> + "And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and—I didn't suppose I + should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said + Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after + all." +</p> +<p> + "If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me + it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody + in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." +</p> +<p> + "Ah, but that <i>is</i> kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. +</p> +<p> + It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise + continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the + Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. +</p> +<p> + "We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, + one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and + she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and + interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." +</p> +<p> + "We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a + family of grasshoppers all summer." +</p> +<p> + "Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," + said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be + busy." +</p> +<p> + "If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right + into the kitchen with the other servants." +</p> +<p> + "I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," + said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, you're a plague!" +</p> +<p> + "Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be + exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office." +</p> +<p> + "In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more + convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and + besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life + to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as + not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with + 'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, + and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of + measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why + shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and + gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too + nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her + 'crowd.'" +</p> +<p> + "But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to + be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live + plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind + <i>without</i> the common. I think they ought to begin such things." +</p> +<p> + "But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient + for them; and not the same good either, because it <i>would</i> be, or + seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content + to be the step we are." +</p> +<p> + "It's the other thing with us,—con-<i>as</i>cension,—isn't it, mother? A + step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside + does it," Ruth added. +</p> +<p> + "O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has <i>that</i> sort of + position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social + can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful." +</p> +<p> + "What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the + world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty + among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the + Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall + never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we + won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless—and I + wonder if maybe that isn't it?—we just do two or three rather right + things in a no-particular sort of a way." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me." +</p> +<p> + "We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs. + Holabird. "We can always manage that." +</p> +<p> + "I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You + don't want to <i>play</i> anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear + and diamond bright!" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER V. +</h2> +<h3> + THE "BACK YETT AJEE." +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0011"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/081-5.jpg" width="150" height="316" align="left" +alt="T"> + Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. +</p> +<p> + We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of + Box-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends + to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with + her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families + for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not + so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not + expect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when + she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would + take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it + happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never + offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It + seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in + their objections to. +</p> +<p> + We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all + simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an + under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly + ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make + some arrangement. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it + would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather + come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work + and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; + she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle + work. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cut + out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had + grasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I + think we all really liked it just as well as the other. +</p> +<p> + We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had never + even realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at; + green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is so + beautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in with + scent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to open + to it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide in + the cooling afternoon. +</p> +<p> + "How glad I am we <i>have</i> to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, + stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed a + long flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people who + never do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. + It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full of + different stories!" +</p> +<p> + Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does Leslie + Goldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, + old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, and + that has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; and + Mrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothing + pretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, + the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was a + little child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school; + but it was vacation now, of course. +</p> +<p> + Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then + the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. + Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service,—or, + rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little + "schooling,"—the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. + Ingleside,—until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages." +</p> +<p> + Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of + Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen + Josselyn,—Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so + much,—or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes <i>just next</i>. + She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, in + something approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in the + class and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucilla + can only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlin + wool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, or + intricacies ready made up at the—upholsterer's, I was going to say. + So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to + little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself + look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like + Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when + she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. +</p> +<p> + Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleep + with Lucilla in the great, square east room. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful how + nobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anything + in it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but she + cannot keep it so <i>sacredly</i> fair and pure as Delia did for her. Only + one thing showed. +</p> +<p> + "I say," said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-rail + as they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that <i>piousosity</i>, + now, mornings?" +</p> +<p> + "No," said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't." +</p> +<p> + "It's always whopped," said Stephen, sententiously. +</p> +<p> + Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her very + finest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the fox + and the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair to + give a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for very + best, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her + "griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; + the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And + another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed + golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten + almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a + few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, + and delicately with pepper,—the oven doing the rest, and turning it + into a snowy soufflé. +</p> +<p> + Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only hers + was a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; and + would be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchens + should come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into the + universal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-soufflés to be + carried half a mile to the table? +</p> +<p> + Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was so + nice," she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was + 'evingly.'" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no less + than any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being very + vulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by any + means, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get some + new ideas to carry home to Arabel. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child of + one marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites between + them had dropped away,—out of the world, or into homes here and there + of their own,—and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, + low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran + up small. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She <i>could</i> make two skirts to a + dress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upper + one by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings and + flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on + exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted + herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias + to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave + the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of + wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia + sewed with her, abroad and at home,—abroad without her, also, as she + was doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or a + panier,—or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, was + something to go home with rejoicing. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house; + the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to the + squirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, and + stowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down between + the walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troop + of horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the + other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way + of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a + story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the + atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in + their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived + there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed + into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there had + been parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games in + nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed + in now,—bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,—and brought the + woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should + have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back + room, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself! +</p> +<p> + The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick coming + over one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, + walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them or + not, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. +</p> +<p> + "Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any of + you getting ready to be married?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes'm," said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us." +</p> +<p> + Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she was + quilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon a + little round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid away + five years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, and + the waist was gone. +</p> +<p> + While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, + more or less, everything that lay about,—"to help her in her + inventory," she said after she went away. +</p> +<p> + "Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs," repeated she, as she + turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. +</p> +<p> + Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the + discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's old + treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these + elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked + with beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in her + pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract + report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather + Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an + impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with + sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French + embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one + handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, + until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar + dress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose," Ruth would say. "I + think there are two things that make her talk in that way. In the + first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news + she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and + then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, + that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after + all." +</p> +<p> + Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly + straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two + quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. +</p> +<p> + After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne + went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,—people + whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the <i>haute + volée</i> was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our + own life once more. +</p> +<p> + "It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any + widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to + come to a plain place." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she + accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could + be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on + anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She + would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern + that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which + mother taught us all. +</p> +<p> + "Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would + say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out + of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, + and then you can take the chances as they arrive." +</p> +<p> + "Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara + once replied. +</p> +<p> + "No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A + great deal that is good—a great deal of the best—comes in at the + back-doors." +</p> +<p> + Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we + did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. +</p> +<p> + Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate. +</p> +<p> + Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did + her cousin and Dakie.<a name="1"></a> <a href="#note-1">*</a> +</p> +<p> + Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending + for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. +</p> +<p> + Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five + years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the + twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and + severe, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbara + usually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth—Miss + Trixie says—"plays like a ninkum." +</p> +<p> + We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we + were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something + particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily + down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice + about us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y," + "Swiss-family-Robinson-ish," that got us all together over it, in the + hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie could + appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old + furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve + upon—certainly to supplant—the original pattern. Yet she always had + a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had + ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our + improvements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as we + can be, already,—it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us how + cosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day," says Barbara. +</p> +<p> + Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. + It was tan-color, bound with crimson,—covering three square yards; + and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after + breakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the dark + floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and + mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the + great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our + camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to + have a brand-new piece of furniture before night. +</p> +<p> + Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie + was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she + was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a + handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. +</p> +<p> + The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had + Miss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-door + to their house. +</p> +<p> + I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. There + are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do + with our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all <i>their</i> + stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet + them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although + we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of + fashion. +</p> +<p> + We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of the + hammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came + back from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; his + furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. +</p> +<a name="image-0012"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/092.jpg" width="300" height="286" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "Another two years' pull," he said. "Won't you all come to West Point + next summer?" +</p> +<p> + "If we take the journey we think of," said Barbara, composedly,—"to + the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and + then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to + Saratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have a + day or two there." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara," said mother, remonstratingly. +</p> +<p> + "Why? <i>Don't</i> we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it till + I'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, + Mr. Thayne." +</p> +<p> + "We shall miss you very much," said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara's + nonsense. +</p> +<p> + "Our summer has stopped right in the middle," said Barbara, determined + to talk. +</p> +<p> + "I shall hear about you all," said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be a + Westover column in Leslie's news. I wish—" and there the cadet + stopped. +</p> +<p> + Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. +</p> +<p> + "I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, + to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that + would be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year + of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't know + how he hangs on to those eight weeks,—and how they hang on to him + afterwards." +</p> +<p> + Mother looked so motherly at him then! +</p> +<p> + "We shall not forget you—Dakie," she said, using his first name for + the first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then." +</p> +<p> + Dakie said, "Thank you," in a tone that responded to her "Dakie." +</p> +<p> + We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers are + beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. +</p> +<p> + He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook hands + also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to + see before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,—as it was our + cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,—through the hall to + the door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to + take off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they were + leaving. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as was + natural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, once + more, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go away + and leave us all. +</p> +<p> + "That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man," said Miss + Trixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got in + behind them again. +</p> +<p> + "The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes," said + Barbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie." When + anybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her love + for mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort of + chivalry it has with it. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importance + had come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curious + and wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. +</p> +<p> + We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we had + quite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it was + with us; we had things we <i>must</i> take up; we could not have spared + time to lead society for a long while together. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; she + had a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "old + house" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdowne + in to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort of + attention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try to + afford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake and + preserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. +</p> +<p> + It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, + had had private occupation. +</p> +<p> + "There had been family company at grandfather's," she told Jeannie + Hadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. + We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or three + weeks." +</p> +<p> + Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing his + geometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on a + sheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes a + little, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle of + mischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept on + silently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in her + funniest, repressed way,— +</p> +<p> + "I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to + understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are + wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. + Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?" +</p> +<p> + She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over with + intersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves and + circumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "It's a mere question of centre and radius," she said. "You may be big + enough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at the + sides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off into + space on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of a + great ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you + <i>must</i> be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!" +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't illustrate," said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up in + that fashion." +</p> +<p> + "Geometry does," said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. + But I suppose there's a Q.E.D. at the end of it somewhere." +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happened + freshly, rather,—which also had to do with our orbit and its + eccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. +</p> +<p> + "I should think <i>any</i> kind of an astronomer might be mad!" she + exclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come the + perturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we never + know exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formed + other views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What <i>is</i> the + reason we can't keep a satellite,—planet, I mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!" +</p> +<p> + "Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again." And she sat + down resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. +</p> +<p> + "I'll tell you what we'll do, mother," said Ruth, coming round. "I've + thought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!" +</p> +<p> + "She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she put + the luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick—moon!" +</p> + +<div style="height: 1em;"></div> + +<a name="note-1"><!--Note--></a> +<p class="fnote"><a href="#1"> +<b>*</b></a> Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, and Mr. Aaron + Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever thought to put this + in before. +</p> + +<a name="2HCH0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VI. +</h2> +<h3> + CO-OPERATING. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0013"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/097-6.jpg" width="150" height="320" align="left" +alt="W"> + When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, + right off,— +</p> +<p> + "I'm sure I wish they would!" +</p> +<p> + "Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Co-operate." +</p> +<p> + "O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the + Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they + come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your + advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't + believe '<i>they</i>' will ever do much for '<i>us</i>'!" +</p> +<p> + "What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair + wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory + knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. +</p> +<p> + "Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Oh! Yes. That is what they <i>used</i> to have, in old times, when we + lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. + All the women in a house co-operated—to keep it; and all the + neighborhood co-operated—by living exactly in the same way. + Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?" +</p> +<p> + One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple or + sharp. +</p> +<p> + That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at the + time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a + while, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. +</p> +<p> + "I could—almost—write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over her + work. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything + turns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in the + times when people <i>did</i> the things!" +</p> +<p> + "O Barbara! <i>Think</i> of all that is being done in the world!" +</p> +<p> + "I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everything + into a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from their + fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll do + will be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world is + running pretty much to roosters." +</p> +<p> + "Is that the poem?" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. It + came into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginning + and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they + have to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show for + it, and the thing that really amounts, after all." +</p> +<p> + "Well, tell us." +</p> +<p> + "It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. + They could say all sorts of things,—one and another:— +</p> +<p class="block"> + "<i>I</i> wrote some little books;<br> + <i>I</i> said some little says;<br> + <i>I</i> preached a little preach;<br> + <i>I</i> lit a little blaze;<br> + <i>I</i> made things pleasant in one little place." +</p> +<p> + There was a shout at Barbara's "poem." +</p> +<p> + "I thought I might as well relieve my mind," she said, meekly. "I knew + it was all there would ever be of it." +</p> +<p> + But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. + She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" <i>may</i> + sometimes do in the great world, +</p> +<p> + We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate." +</p> +<p> + We talked it over,—what we could do without a girl. We had talked it + over before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. + But in our little house in Z——, with the dark kitchen, and with + Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had to + hire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barb + called a "heave-offering of life." +</p> +<p> + "They used to have houses built accordingly," Rosamond said, speaking + of the "old times." "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest and + pleasantest room in the house." +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't we <i>make</i> the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggested + Ruth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed in + mornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do that + in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls + have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the + dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and irons + wanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen of + our own! I can think how it might be lovely!" +</p> +<p> + "I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsing + into her dislocations. +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> like kitchens," said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, I do," said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, + and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can't + have patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the low + realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and + the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head + and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just see + what we <i>shall</i> come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, who + have Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a great + deal in being Holabirdy,—or whatever-else-you-are-y!" +</p> +<p> + "If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?" +</p> +<p> + We were in the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + "This nice room!" +</p> +<p> + "It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know." +</p> +<p> + Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stained + floor, showing clean, undefaced margins,—the new, pretty + drugget,—the freshly clad, broad old sofa,—the high wainscoted + walls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,—the + ceiling faintly tinted with buff,—the buff holland shades to the + windows,—the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with + its glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and a + gleam of silver and glass,—the two or three pretty engravings in the + few spaces for them,—O, it was a great deal too nice to take for a + kitchen. +</p> +<p> + But Ruth began again. +</p> +<p> + "You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was down + stairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, and + everything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never + was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. It + would be so different from a girl! It seems as if we <i>might</i> bring the + kitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen." +</p> +<p> + "But the stove," said mother. +</p> +<p> + "I think," said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polished + up, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!" +</p> +<p> + "It is clumsy, one must own," said Mrs. Holabird, "besides being + suggestive." +</p> +<p> + "So is a piano," said the determined Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "I can <i>imagine</i> a cooking-stove," said Rosamond, slowly. +</p> +<p> + "Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!" +</p> +<p> + "A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made to + order,—like an urn, or something,—with a copper faucet, and nothing + else ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tins + and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut + dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as + they are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it <i>might</i> be like + that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like + Marie Antoinette's Trianon." +</p> +<p> + "That's what it <i>would</i> come to, if it was part of our living, just as + we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give + each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have + as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the + whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste <i>hasn't</i> got + into. Let's have an art-kitchen!" +</p> +<p> + "We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if + we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs. + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + The idea grew and developed. +</p> +<p> + "But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring + afresh. +</p> +<p> + "There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara, + "for the people you can't be intimate with, and <i>think</i> how crowsy + this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!" +</p> +<p> + "We shall just settle <i>down</i>," said Rose, gloomily. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it + does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life." +</p> +<p> + "We shall always gather to us what <i>belongs</i>. Every little crystal + does that," said mother, taking up another simile. +</p> +<p> + "What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage + with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to + get a place together." +</p> +<p> + And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick + found out what it really meant. +</p> +<p> + We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made + up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. + Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an' + she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl." +</p> +<p> + "Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused + the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and + the irids. +</p> +<p> + There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we + had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. +</p> +<p> + Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl + said. +</p> +<p> + "She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is + willing to come for a trial." +</p> +<p> + "They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think—as + Protestants—we've hired enough of them." +</p> +<p> + Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of + our indecisions. +</p> +<p> + We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, + stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from + the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle + washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it + almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, + and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lesser + movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation + behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish + as we went along. +</p> +<p> + Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation to + the art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-iron + man made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in the + dining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. + It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone + hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a + nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the + funnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in its + new position, its features softened to almost a sitting-room + congruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force its + homely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top looked + smooth and enticing. +</p> +<p> + There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was set + a broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This + closet had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busy + use, or closed quite away and done with. +</p> +<p> + There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins and + our saucepans,—the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothing + to do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoons + and our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quart + measures,—these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; + in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in + the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,—we bought two new ones, a + little and a big,—the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, + outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which we + never meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we could + have to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soon + found, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. +</p> +<a name="image-0014"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/105.jpg" width="300" height="310" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room," opening + into the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passage + itself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of the + other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel + for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be + replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The + "girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty uses + for; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available; + very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. +</p> +<p> + We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all these + arrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon + shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did + not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or + plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could + stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody + to the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. +</p> +<p> + By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfect + starting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that + were to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, that + we had celebrated ours by clearing them out. +</p> +<p> + The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintily + crumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had come + in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, + in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiled + for brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves and + crumbs when <i>she</i> manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. +</p> +<p> + "Clean beginnings are beautiful," said Rosamond, looking around. "It + is the middle that's horrid." +</p> +<p> + "We won't have any middles," said Ruth. "We'll keep making clean + beginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work and + muss." +</p> +<p> + "If you can," said Rose, doubtfully. +</p> +<p> + I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird story + is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make + a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make + a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her + dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. +</p> +<p> + I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Monday + morning—and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you can + take—just after we had begun. +</p> +<p> + The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. + There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler + were filled,—father did that just before he locked up the house; we + had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in + the morning. +</p> +<p> + Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin + in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a + beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs + Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done + nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast + on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would + bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We + should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all + below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours' + ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. +</p> +<p> + Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed + three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow + behind, mother had let down the ashes,—it isn't a bad thing to do + with a well-contrived stove,—and set the pan, to which we had a + duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the + clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one + or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The + draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these + five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed + up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not + like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with + its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. +</p> +<p> + Then—that Monday morning—we had brewis to make, a little buttered + toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its + ration of fragrant, beaten paste,—the brown ground kernels mixed with + an egg,—and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two + frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, + into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh + butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;—"one can give + one's self <i>carte-blancher</i>," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a + girl";—and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white + porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat + daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, + broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this + went on when the coffee-pot—which had got its drink when the milk + boiled, and been puffing ever since—was ready to come off; over it + stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole + was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one + of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the + coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been + beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the + breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and + butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the + cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery + things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held + them beside the stove, into its corner. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for + the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in + which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the + white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and + the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the + three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and + reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before + which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had + recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and + her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as + any bit of pretty play or pageant. +</p> +<p> + Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch + gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with + bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all + points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all + more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. +</p> +<p> + After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it + put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was + something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant + knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,—we had, in fact, a + palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own + dishes,—and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the + pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit + making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft + clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have + plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the + Mondays. +</p> +<p> + After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth the + coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little + scour,—a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an + iron utensil, in mother's hands; and <i>that</i> was clean work, and the + iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It + was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come + off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that + makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle + of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she + comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does + wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in + that, and chemically disappears. +</p> +<p> + It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had + sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that + morning. +</p> +<p> + We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of the + kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara + set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded + the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a + row—flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent—on + the back platform. +</p> +<p> + She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and + in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon + order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. +</p> +<p> + We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does + remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new + housekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawn + them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these + last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They + were hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them; + mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt + bath before cooking. +</p> +<p> + I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. + They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings + were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and + comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid + them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey + way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar + need. +</p> +<p> + We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it + was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the + oven, and set the dinner-table. +</p> +<p> + Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon + the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the + parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the + Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when + the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, + while the potatoes were boiling. +</p> +<p> + Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that + jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, + there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of + Saturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before + the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot + water and ammonia in it. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!" +</p> +<p> + "It is the girl that makes the kitchen," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "And then the kitchen that has to have the girl," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the + crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on + father's cheese. +</p> +<p> + Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending." +</p> +<p> + "We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows," said mother in a + low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. +</p> +<p> + "Nor have to scrinch all up," said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fear + she'd touch us!" +</p> +<p> + I'll tell you—in confidence—another of our ways at Westover; what, + we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and + evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. + We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we + poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover + down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the + dish-washing for the day. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But you + can't be told everything in one chapter. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VII. +</h2> +<h3> + SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0015"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/114-7.jpg" width="150" height="321" align="left" +alt="M"> + Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave them + heaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sized + basket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were folded + up. +</p> +<p> + One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in,—for we + had been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens had + just gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. + Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruth + slipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found that + Rosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting the + tea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweet + loaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and the + little silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there was + nothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the small + Japanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. +</p> +<p> + "Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going to + do these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms." +</p> +<p> + That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. There + are a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. + Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling and + folding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grass + and the air and the sunshine is one. +</p> +<p> + Mother went off,—chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept to + tea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely little + underhand way, with Barbara. +</p> +<p> + Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out a + little ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end of + the long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed the + water-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and the + starched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothing + into little white rolls. +</p> +<p> + Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed with + her fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collars + and cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from her + finger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with a + corn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up in + it, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon the + middle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process to + watch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all the + possible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if they + only once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: and + then they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenes + are just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones and + twos; perhaps not always any audience at all. +</p> +<p> + Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. +</p> +<p> + Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into the + nearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood Harry + Goldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. +</p> +<p> + Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano,—only about her + work. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, and + put them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own,—her poem. +</p> +<p class="block"> + "I wrote some little books;<br> + I said some little says;<br> + I preached a little pre-e-each;<br> + I lit a little blaze;<br> + I made—things—pleasant—in one—little—place." +</p> +<p> + She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, + in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle of + shirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed it + down into the basket. +</p> +<p> + "How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do you + believe they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our little + inspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?" +</p> +<p> + "We won't do it," said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother's + nightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her private + knowledge. +</p> +<p> + "I think they ought to let us vote just once," said Barbara; "to say + whether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being put + upon now, if we never were before." +</p> +<p> + "It isn't fair," said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window at + Harry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could she + tell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when she + knew? +</p> +<p> + "Of course it isn't," said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a white + cambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to read + all those Pub. Doc.s that father gets. You see women will make awful + hard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doing + every—little—thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, and + smoothed the hem between the buttons. +</p> +<p> + "We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it," Barbara went + on, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters of + Polity.' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather be + a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life." +</p> +<p> + "Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over the + rail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. +</p> +<p> + She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. +</p> +<p> + "'<i>May</i> you'? When you have, already!" +</p> +<p> + "O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, + and help?" +</p> +<p> + "You don't know the way," Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, + and folding up the waist. +</p> +<p> + "Don't I? Which,—to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himself + over the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipe + that ran down there, reached the other to something-above the + window,—the mere pediment, I believe,—and swung his feet lightly to + the sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close by + Barbara's elbow. +</p> +<p> + "You'll get sprinkled," said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over a + table-cloth. +</p> +<p> + "I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took the + risk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. I + couldn't help it, and I don't care!" +</p> +<p> + Barbara was thinking of two things,—how long he had been there, and + what in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and—how + she should get off her rough-dried apron. +</p> +<p> + "Which do you want,—napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round to + the basket, and began to pull out. +</p> +<p> + "Napkins," says Barbara. +</p> +<p> + The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped and + fumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave it + a shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, he + did get a drift of it in his face. +</p> +<p> + "That won't do," said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whisk + aside. "There are too many of us." +</p> +<p> + She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread up + a pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it when + I was a little boy," he said. +</p> +<p> + Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. They + stretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand in + smoothing and showering. +</p> +<p> + "Why, I wish it weren't all done," says Harry, turning over three + clothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned her + sleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" looking + round the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "I + think your house is full of nice places." +</p> +<p> + "Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, ma'am," Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. + "We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly to + Mrs. Holabird's astonishment. +</p> +<p> + "You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to do + your duty," said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. + Holabird." +</p> +<p> + "Miss Polly-put—" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with a + half-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at the + table with a very great dignity. +</p> +<p> + People think that young folks can only have properly arranged and + elaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, and + bouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad and + sweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games and + bewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each other + naturally, as it were,—dip into each other's little interests and + doings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table of + opportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time any + minute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life + used to be "co-operative." +</p> +<p> + Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. +</p> +<p> + "Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a + case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on." +</p> +<p> + "<i>One</i> world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can + set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself + round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that + belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you + know it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, + and the Noachian—don't they call it?—new foundation. That's the way + they got up New England, anyhow." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, what flights you take!" +</p> +<p> + "Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, you + know, besides the old broken-down and buried ones." +</p> +<p> + It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of Aunt + Radford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went with + her, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind to + stay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. +</p> +<p> + One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but if + ever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he took + the time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thought + everything of "Mrs. Stephen," too, and he quite relied upon her + judgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if they + had got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. + Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. +</p> +<p> + At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, + out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, + and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just after + dinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that father + did not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird went + home at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone Leslie + Goldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only," they said; for the + south-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. That + was how we all happened to be just as we were that night of the + September gale; for it was the September gale of last year that was + coming. +</p> +<p> + The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had been + soft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shut + them again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the pictures + swung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody had + left doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where a + window was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three were + all on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather's + papers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor upon + the gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all up + for him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father a + chase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put them + up in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes more + they went off together to the old house. +</p> +<a name="image-0016"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/122.jpg" width="300" height="318" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutes + that Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they took + to consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, just + settled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort of + lull or holding up. +</p> +<p> + Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing; + the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windows + seemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, before + they got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, and + lashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of all + strange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloft + and onward in a false, plebeian triumph. +</p> +<p> + The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, + wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the + country,—not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it <i>would</i> + fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it + rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran + about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and + carpets. +</p> +<p> + "I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out + for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,—hair-brushes out on + voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a + hat-box!" +</p> +<p> + Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space + beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in + one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to + pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the + window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although + its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray + was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. +</p> +<p> + In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a + picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, + standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before + we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and + shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, + like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison + in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt + doors,—latches were nothing,—and bar shutters. And when we could + pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at! +</p> +<p> + The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely + one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The + little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." + The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their + branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head + of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms + were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all + snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged + blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the + posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and + earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath + the sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field and + ours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over and + through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the + air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it + by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below + us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a + furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks + through the air. +</p> +<p> + It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brown + room, to shine through the south window, and show father that we were + all right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird's + north porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we were + as far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. +</p> +<p> + "Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. +</p> +<p> + "I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and that + there would be no way of getting out again. People must be caught + everywhere, just as it happens, to-night." +</p> +<p> + "It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in an + ecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up all + night!" +</p> +<p> + Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a little + from its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. +</p> +<p> + "It had all been blown to Canada, by this time," Harry Goldthwaite + said. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls and + windows." +</p> +<p> + True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actually + dry. +</p> +<p> + It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put his + hands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out that + there was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all went + and looked. +</p> +<p> + It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hill + at right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down," + we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and came + steadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door that + opened upon the little passage to the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door to + let him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that he + should enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. +</p> +<p> + "The old gentleman has been taken bad," he said. "Mr. Stephen wants to + know if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird's + better. I've got to go to the town for the doctor." +</p> +<p> + "On foot, Robert?" +</p> +<p> + "Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter's + firing of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain't + much knowing where you <i>can</i> get along." +</p> +<p> + "But what is it?" +</p> +<p> + "We mustn't keep him," urged Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's a + kind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had a + kind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it's + appalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'." +</p> +<p> + Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, + that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert + "thought a good deal," as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in his + hand. How he ever found it we could not tell. +</p> +<p> + "I'll go with him," he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, + Barbara? I'm <i>very</i> sorry about Mr. Holabird." +</p> +<p> + He shook hands with Barbara,—it chanced that she stood + nearest,—bade us all good night, and went away. We turned back + silently into the brown room. +</p> +<p> + We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange things + were happening to-night! +</p> +<p> + All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into our + minds. An event that,—never talked about, and thought of as little, I + suppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours,—had yet + always loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and would + bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather might be going to die. +</p> +<p> + And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the + brown room and sit down? +</p> +<p> + There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about + the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, + and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or + "terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale, + even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree + were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not + get the real wonder of it—the thing that moved us to try to talk it + over—into any words. +</p> +<p> + "He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think he <i>was</i> quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so + when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow." +</p> +<p> + "O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was + anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when + he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was + coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the + shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his + knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he + could manage; no wonder his hands trembled." +</p> +<p> + "I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather should + die," said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his <i>first</i> + thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. +</p> +<p> + "O Stevie! <i>don't</i> let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; and + nobody else answered at all. +</p> +<p> + We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which we + had made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then we + all went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth brought + some pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, made + up a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white one + to Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light in + grandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in the + porch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert had + got back, and the doctor had come,—whether he was better or + worse,—whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. +</p> +<p> + "O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. +</p> +<p> + There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion of + the storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in the + possible awfulness and change that were so near,—over there in + Grandfather Holabird's lighted room. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII. +</h2> +<h3> + HALLOWEEN. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0017"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/130-8.jpg" width="150" height="314" align="left" +alt="B"> + + Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock + when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better; + that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might + have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on + for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as + easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old + habits as his strength permitted. +</p> +<p> + Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The + family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had + threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that + grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. + He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for + among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. + He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and + then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, + and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the + excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the + barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come + back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the + midst of the storm. +</p> +<p> + The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of + gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in + trust to father for his wife and children. +</p> +<p> + "I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing + money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever + since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of + my boys ever paid me any <i>board</i>. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives + things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening; + and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my + other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but + I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't + go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of <i>them</i>; what + little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I + never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest + comprehension,—and Roderick and John are both honest,—if I left it + as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, + and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it." +</p> +<p> + That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it; + there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done + in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they + came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really + seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never + mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had + mentioned it at all. +</p> +<p> + "He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said, + "unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he + must come across that." +</p> +<p> + "He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect. + We can be sure of nothing." +</p> +<p> + But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October + Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded + it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. + She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up + stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping + with,— +</p> +<p> + "If I had gone to New York—" and there she stopped, as if she had + accidentally said what she did not intend. +</p> +<p> + "If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you + mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked + me, that is all. Of course I couldn't." +</p> +<p> + "Of course you're just a glorious old <i>noblesse oblige</i>-d! Why didn't + you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have + helped. I'd have lent you—that garnet and white silk!" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be + kissed. +</p> +<p> + After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always + the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that + young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a + woman's way. +</p> +<p> + The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses + of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, + and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and + hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes + morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how + pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here + at Westover. +</p> +<p> + "How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great + open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!" +</p> +<p> + "So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?" +</p> +<p> + "To tea?" +</p> +<p> + "No. Only to the fun,—and some supper. We can have that all ready in + the other room." +</p> +<p> + "They'll see the cooking-stove." +</p> +<p> + "They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That <i>would</i> be a make-shift. Who + ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, + and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to + take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, + and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll + have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, + bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they + get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover + that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,—that piece + of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque + of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all + goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is + brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, + you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to + seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere." +</p> +<p> + "It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be + Marchbanksy." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own + special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in + utilizing them. +</p> +<p> + But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not? +</p> +<p> + "Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion. + Just the neighbors,—right around here." +</p> +<p> + "That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said + Ruth, quietly. +</p> +<p> + "O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond. + "Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real' + nice!" +</p> +<p> + "That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts <i>are</i> + real." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. + She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, + and like each other. +</p> +<p> + "What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,—your + nose is crocheted,—and your mouth is—tatted! I shall have to come + and ravel you out." +</p> +<p> + "I'm thinking; that is all." +</p> +<p> + "How to build the fence?" +</p> +<p> + "What fence?" +</p> +<p> + "That fence round the pond,—the old puzzle. There was once a pond, + and four men came and built four little houses round it,—close to the + water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly + behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the + little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you + know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant + people are so apt to be nearest the good time!" +</p> +<p> + "I like to satisfy everybody." +</p> +<p> + "You won't,—with a squirm-fence!" +</p> +<p> + If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently + as possible, and invited them—Marchbankses and all—to our Halloween + frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music + lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were + Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of + her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the + Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four + houses, Ruth heard everything. +</p> +<p> + All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, + Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite + until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and + Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that + the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in + transports because they were to be allowed to go. +</p> +<p> + "Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke + before I thought." +</p> +<p> + "What did you tell her?" +</p> +<p> + "I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And + Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we + might try to arrange something." +</p> +<p> + But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and + Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted + that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a + compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another + word. +</p> +<p> + In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, + homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. +</p> +<p> + "They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have + stopped." +</p> +<p> + "Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her + clearest, quietest tones. +</p> +<p> + Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite + the Hobarts," she said. +</p> +<p> + "That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out. +</p> +<p> + The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly + come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday + Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. +</p> +<p> + From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z——, and asked Leslie + Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if + she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have + his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. +</p> +<p> + Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then + she met Lucilla Waters in the street. +</p> +<p> + "I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to + you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her + gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic + in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. +</p> +<p> + "We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You + will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for + Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to + her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. +</p> +<p> + She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to + find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the + Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to + the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come + together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little + frolic, and we have begun, too, you see." +</p> +<p> + Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria + Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would + divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was + different from other invites. One might take liberties." +</p> +<p> + Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last + of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, + at last, and proffered her invitation. +</p> +<p> + "You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity + to divide. We want the same people, of course,—the Hendees, and the + Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we + ourselves were an afterthought. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she + was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, + and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,—Helen + Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, + after all. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that + moment. +</p> +<p> + Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her + friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, + of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's + verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw + in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had + said of who were coming,—the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not + then asked. +</p> +<p> + Olivia did not like it very well,—that reply of Leslie's. She showed + it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. +</p> +<p> + "Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation + for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see + you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some + of the girls by that. I really <i>heard</i> hers first. I wish very much it + were possible to have both pleasures." +</p> +<p> + That was being terribly true and independent with West Z——. "But + Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little + bumble-bee!" +</p> +<p> + How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. + It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it + seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at + once, quietly and of course, asserted. +</p> +<p> + Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was + beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the + salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. +</p> +<p> + "You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but + it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I + think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've + had real, <i>through-and-through</i> ways of our own." +</p> +<p> + It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between." +</p> +<p> + Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the + bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide + chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced + sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid + logs behind,—a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to + finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped + through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, + and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an + outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look + at: and they never tumbled down. +</p> +<p> + She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak + to Miss Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.' + That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up." +</p> +<p> + Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made + pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. +</p> +<p> + "I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still + looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?" +</p> +<p> + "Miss Pennington! Would you come?" +</p> +<p> + "I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you + going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that." +</p> +<p> + "We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the + name." +</p> +<p> + "That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games + nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and + superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and + we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at + Christmas, when we were all at home." +</p> +<p> + "O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!" +</p> +<p> + "Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly + meddlesome. But the fancy—or the memory—seized me." +</p> +<p> + How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out! +</p> +<p> + And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when + things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will + take, now and then, even in this vexed world. +</p> +<p> + There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have + servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are + entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after + all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last + touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. +</p> +<p> + The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put + together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from + whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and + garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little + macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of + spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold + room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the + last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put + them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the + white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to + worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the + whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which + Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of + ours. Truly it is a charming thing,—all to itself, in a family! +</p> +<p> + To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner + that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and + the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could + shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish + everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet + and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the + very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might + have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, + chatty cup of tea. +</p> +<p> + The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and + pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for + the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the + wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up + three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open + piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some + of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that + Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we + played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost + mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss + Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and + there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great + damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with + Barbara into the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + "This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing + from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white + bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until + after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the + brown room. +</p> +<p> + We hung wedding-rings—we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought + over Madam Pennington's—by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and + they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until + they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated + needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched + them turn and swim and draw together,—some point to point, some heads + and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the + margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or + an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it + into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars; + and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and + pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and—really—a little + palette with a hole in it. +</p> +<a name="image-0018"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/144.jpg" width="300" height="274" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each + girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little + secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and + surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some + little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its + companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight + together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these + were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, + but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped + into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and + some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. +</p> +<p> + Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the + larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off + a little way, right in toward the blaze. +</p> +<p> + "Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then + crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, + with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and + they both dropped quietly down against the fender together. +</p> +<p> + "What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen, + looking on. +</p> +<p> + Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone + with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the + stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said + to her:— +</p> + <p class="block">"Round and round, O stars so fair!<br> + Ye travel, and search out everywhere.<br> + I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me,<br> + This night, who my future husband shall be!"</p> + <p> + Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the + reason. +</p> +<p> + "I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl + who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" +</p> +<p> + But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She + took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a + shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. +</p> +<p> + "Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward + all the way." +</p> +<p> + So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant + after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped + backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. +</p> +<p> + Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a + friend of his, just arrived in Z——. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, + introducing him by his full name. +</p> +<p> + We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army + surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a + stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in + front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. + And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and + shouted. +</p> +<p> + It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. +</p> +<p> + We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered + the oysters. +</p> +<p> + Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her + with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the + full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier + in all her life. +</p> +<p> + After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her + snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. +</p> +<p> + Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. +</p> +<p> + "Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. +</p> +<p> + Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. +</p> +<p> + "You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. +</p> +<p> + "A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. +</p> +<p> + "It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her + shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. +</p> +<p> + Ruth got a sugared almond. +</p> +<p> + "Only a <i>kernel</i>," said the merry doctor's wife, again. +</p> +<p> + The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. +</p> +<p> + "Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. +</p> +<p> + "And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. +</p> +<p> + Doctor Hautayne drew forth—angelica. +</p> +<p> + Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. +</p> +<p> + "That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of + getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." +</p> +<p> + It was great fun, though. +</p> +<p> + Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. +</p> +<p> + If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant + something. And the year is not out yet, you see. +</p> +<p> + But there was no doubt of one thing,—that our Halloween at Westover + was a famous little party. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the + hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she + had picked up about the carpet into the coals. +</p> +<p> + We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them + on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the + girl," said Barbara. It <i>is</i> a comfort to put by things, with a clear + conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the + Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there + would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we + should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. +</p> +<p> + "How do you feel about it?" +</p> +<p> + "I feel as if we had had a real <i>own</i> party, ourselves," said Ruth; + "not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't + anybody to <i>show us how</i>!" +</p> +<p> + "Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come? + Nobody can say now—" +</p> +<p> + "What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very + nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. + Otherwise, why shouldn't she?" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IX. +</h2> +<h3> + WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0019"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/149-9.jpg" width="150" height="317" align="left" +alt="T"> + "That was a nice party," said Miss Pennington, walking home with + Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made it + so nice?" +</p> +<p> + "You, very much," said Leslie, straightforwardly. +</p> +<p> + "I didn't begin it," said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It was + a step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties long + ago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference was + that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, + and in another on the left,—now and then, perhaps, at the back; and + when you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might be + Mrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that it + was all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!" +</p> +<p> + "This was a party of 'nexts,'" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame." +</p> +<p> + "What a good time Miss Waters had—quietly! You could see it in her + face. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for + Lucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. + "She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more." +</p> +<p> + "The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while the + firsts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss + Pennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't think + anything about it!" +</p> +<p> + "So there are," said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. + They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think the + trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and + pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better than + fresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What a + beautiful old home-y house it is!" +</p> +<p> + "And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + "<i>We</i> have an old home-y house," said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "with + landscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And + we don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Will + you stay and come to it?" +</p> +<p> + "Any time within my two months' leave," replied Doctor Hautayne, "and + with very great pleasure." +</p> +<p> + "So she will have it before very long," said Leslie, telling us about + the talk the next day. +</p> +<p> + It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she <i>did</i> take it up! + That does not come in here, though,—any more of it. +</p> +<p> + The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great deal + of money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everything + like the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the + trouble for that; but they are so <i>established</i>; it is a family like + an old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes little + spread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, and + grasp more ground than all the rest put together. +</p> +<p> + They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not a + new-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, + painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and then + terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at + each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more + roses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus than + flowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box and + southernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. +</p> +<p> + Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was a + captain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiff + elbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just after + he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,—the + younger brother,—out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When + her mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. The + Penningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; and + their glory is off the selfsame piece. +</p> +<p> + They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, + retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to the + Inglesides. +</p> +<p> + One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making an + apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabeth + drove round to the door. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. + Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. +</p> +<p> + "Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. + She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had had + to say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her clay + till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the + very farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, + the best that was <i>ready</i> made, and put that forth. +</p> +<p> + "And I know," said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must not + be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who has + lived in barracks come to her where she is?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see"; + she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," + and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and without + warning, upon the scene of operations. +</p> +<p> + "O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walked + forward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and + smiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventh + beauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. +</p> +<p> + "Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laid + down the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flour + and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely + gloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! It + was very meek of her not to look at all set up. +</p> +<p> + Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hanging + down against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work + when the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, + cushioned sofa. +</p> +<p> + The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, and + at the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, the + pudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon a + plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its + sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing + with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The + sunshine—work and sunshine always go so blessedly together—poured + in, and filled the room up with life and glory. +</p> +<p> + "Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss + Elizabeth. +</p> +<p> + "That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a + kitchen," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara, + laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room; + and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!" +</p> +<p> + "You are wonderful people!" +</p> +<p> + "You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said + Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching + you would have been always getting turned out." +</p> +<p> + "Turned out?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns + out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the + sole of your foot till you're a general." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. + Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered + into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. + She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, + sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free + quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara + brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into + the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen + cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara + disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam + went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird + went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really + came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara + carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was + drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble + in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. +</p> +<p> + "I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I + shall feel like company again now." +</p> +<p> + "I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. + "It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" +</p> +<p> + "I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. +</p> +<p> + "She needs doing with" said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. + Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question + is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep + but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to + you." +</p> +<p> + "The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world + full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general + housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What + should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' + so?" +</p> +<p> + "There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. + "What are homes coming to?" +</p> +<p> + "Back to <i>homes</i>, I hope, from <i>houses</i> divided against themselves + into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell + you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. + But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the + Lucys will grow again." +</p> +<p> + "Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," + said mother,—"hotels." +</p> +<p> + "And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. + Irishocracy is a despotism in the land." +</p> +<p> + "Only," said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "by + learning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; that + it takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightest + grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this + little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after + all. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for human + souls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this room + full of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning in + the earth." +</p> +<p> + Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. +</p> +<p> + "'We girls,'" began mother again, smiling,—"for that is the way the + children count me in,—said to each other, when we first tried this + new plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would have + things nice and pretty for our common work; but there is something + behind that,—the something that 'makes the meanest task divine,'—the + spiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that I + think life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shall + not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other + on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls + and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go + into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best + that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are + willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to + them as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, + either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorify + them. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have got + the wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into the + wheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. + They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I <i>wish</i> women would be + content with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and point + the time upon the dial!" +</p> +<p> + Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful old + Mrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. + There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that she + scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their + cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it + was as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand of + them instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closets + get up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. +</p> +<p> + Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her hand + at going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly,— +</p> +<p> + "I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up all + the time. I want to have some <i>nexts</i>. Your girls know what I mean; + and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'next + Thursdays,' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shall + give primary invitations only,—and my primaries are to find + secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, + or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from + somewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social life + cannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will come + to. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. If + anybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow—Gray.'" +</p> +<p> + She went off, leaving us that to think of. +</p> +<p> + Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, + every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member is + to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is + always to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, + with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands." +</p> +<p> + Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty much + all we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should want + fourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. + Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten." They all came from that one + blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there + <i>is</i> such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't + help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, + and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-four + Thousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, + from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitable + commandment, after the "Let there be!" +</p> +<p> + It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, + in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. + People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in the + stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; + and when they were once there you really could not tell the + difference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was the + deadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the new + sap and the green rind. +</p> +<p> + Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, as + charades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came to + the Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views,"—every + successive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone down + grotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of old + relics,—bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in their + close gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passing + through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were + odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones + with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, + balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with + ruffles <i>rayonnantes</i>; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and + barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, + and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the very + pocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from the + waiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of a + middle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could tell + everybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" down + or up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, + one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever could + have been a funnier evening! +</p> +<p> + We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend" + Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady; + Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself was + Mrs. Wilfer; Mr. and Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and Doctor + Ingleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the + light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as + Pleasant Riderhood,—Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie + looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with her + for her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmaker + herself,—Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovely + book-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody's + parlors, and yet never gets into them herself. +</p> +<a name="image-0020"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/160.jpg" width="300" height="288" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she really + has a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, + "O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, but + the wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows the + doll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her some + time, if ever she goes to England—or to heaven. Truly she was up to + the "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into it + with more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wren + that no one—at the moment—thought of her in any other character, or + remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the + distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to + her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the + festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or + abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a + genius. She stepped right <i>out</i> of Dickens's story, not <i>into</i> it, as + the rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously into + the grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "up + here," or "over there," and "be dead," as fresh, new-world delights + attracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; and + T'other Governor would insist on following after them, and being + comfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and the + Veneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provide + any Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. +</p> +<p> + Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only our + fourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the + person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were + helped to. +</p> +<p> + We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about + his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I + believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a + way like that. +</p> +<p> + It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. + She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable + came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to + "come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every + week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs + out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of + ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or + to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is + taking German lessons with Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it + would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting + left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie + Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian." +</p> +<p> + It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,—that last winter of the + nineteenth century's seventh decade. +</p> +<p> + One day—everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it + does come, however many days lead up to it—Doctor Ingleside came in + and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird; + grandfather was not quite well. +</p> +<p> + They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew + what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news + as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters? +</p> +<p> + Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And + yet—"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing + people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. + Take it in; shut your door upon it; and—think! It is something that + belongs to heart and soul. +</p> +<p> + We counted up; it was only seven weeks. +</p> +<p> + "As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the + Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this + meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has + never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the + sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come + right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of + them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, + each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as + foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go." +</p> +<p> + Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,—Thursday. Doctor + Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's + that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,—we looked into + new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the + intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that + everybody could not see how quite another thing than any merely + written poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for John + Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + That was in December; it was the first of March when Grandfather + Holabird died. +</p> +<p> + At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not let + her get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter work + was growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides the + furnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came + and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all + pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to + begin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "If + mother doesn't get better," and "If this cold weather keeps on," and + "<i>Are</i> we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" from + Barbara, at last. +</p> +<p> + Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again." Nobody wanted to do + that; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her + prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were crippled and + reduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short days + and her music. +</p> +<p> + "I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all + <i>summer</i>,'" said Barbara; "but <i>this</i> is Valley Forge." The kitchen + fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Mother + was worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her come + down until it was warm and her coffee was ready. +</p> +<p> + That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the + hour. +</p> +<p> + "The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he. + "Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here." +</p> +<p> + "Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. +</p> +<p> + "Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said + Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and—since nobody else will ever + dare to give in—I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, + for us!" +</p> +<p> + "It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + It certainly was not going back. +</p> +<p> + "We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then + harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated + earth, the first millennial specimen,—see if we don't!—of what was + supposed to be an extinct flora,—the <i>Domestica antediluviana</i>." +</p> +<p> + Arctura Fish came to us. +</p> +<p> + If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience + of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions + which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We + could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. + Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot + skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. +</p> +<p> + And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal + attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the + time during the three weeks that he lived. +</p> +<p> + When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of + any kind; neither was that deed of gift. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about + it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she + cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and + that little pig," while she warmed our toes. +</p> +<p> + "Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the + Roderick Holabirds. +</p> +<p> + We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, + indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, + to force itself upon us. +</p> +<p> + After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the + worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody + thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it + was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of + Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt + Roderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there was + nothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was not + for any one or two to settle." +</p> +<p> + Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must all + come right, somehow." +</p> +<p> + But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the + place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left + must do for us; the house must go into the estate. +</p> +<p> + It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,—until + affairs were settled. +</p> +<p> + "It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER X. +</h2> +<h3> + RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0021"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/167-10.jpg" width="150" height="317" align="left" +alt="T"> + The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,—well, + we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there + would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have + had just two of them out of our whole lives. +</p> +<p> + Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what + could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, + after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old + place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and + though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could + choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old + homestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made up + our minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there." +</p> +<p> + Why, we <i>had</i> always lived there! That was just the way we had always + been trying to spell "home," though we had never got the right letters + to do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it is + a thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stones + to begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, and + when you come to it you know it is yours. The best things—the most + glorious and wonderful of all—will be what we shall see to have been + "laid up for us from the foundation." Aunt Roderick did not see one + bit of how that was with us. +</p> +<p> + "There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your + <i>own</i> house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did + grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt + that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John + were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." + And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that + Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had + not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he + <i>was</i> well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. +</p> +<p> + If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of what + father told them, they could not have behaved very differently. We + half thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likely + they half thought that we were making it appear that they had done + something that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that are + the hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable," Aunt Roderick used to + say. +</p> +<p> + Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; and + when the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, + and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look round + and shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. And + it's a dumb shame. Don't tell <i>me</i>!" +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with his + share, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used to + nothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want + "encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and paying + rent to the heirs, ourselves included,—nobody wanted that; they would + rather have things settled up. There would always be questions of + estimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. + Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knew + they all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in such + matters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It would + take two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. +</p> +<p> + So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have + any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would + be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we + like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child + hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on again + on Monday. +</p> +<p> + With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house,—Arctura. + We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a + serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos + to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with + us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move the + kitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchen + any more. +</p> +<p> + Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, + wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us; + and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. We + all worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down in + the afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. + She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico aprons + for her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending and + dress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linen + collars and cuffs. +</p> +<p> + We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work as + delicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was as + fit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonished + herself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. +</p> +<p> + "Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethers + anywheres." +</p> +<p> + "GATHERS,—<i>anywhere</i>" Rosamond corrected. +</p> +<p> + Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the + way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no + great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right + end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come + out of our year at Westover. +</p> +<p> + "Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times + one." +</p> +<p> + So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound + Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. + She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and + geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want + a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; + if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must <i>build</i> one, + just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked + together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting + great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of + us,—and some of the best of us, perhaps,—have got to stay at home + awhile and do. +</p> +<p> + "It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while + to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. + 'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town + meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm <i>sure</i> there's + need of them for reorganizing <i>parlor</i> meetings. They are getting to + be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have + grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the + position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think + so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see + to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,—right up, + respectful,—Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!" +</p> +<p> + Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West + Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. +</p> +<p> + A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with + the family worries,—which Ruth always had a way of gathering to + herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the + nettles from other people's fingers,—and her hard work at her music, + she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a + vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at + once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake + George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked + Ruth to go too. +</p> +<p> + "If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have + come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm + nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I + should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the + whistles." +</p> +<p> + Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt + in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. +</p> +<p> + "What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington + left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth + colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest + possible way to go, if she were to go at all." +</p> +<p> + Barbara meant—or meant to be understood that she meant—that Miss + Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers; + Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by + an invitation like this from people out of her own family. +</p> +<p> + "But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she + asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?" +</p> +<p> + "Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked." +</p> +<p> + "I wish—everybody—knew that," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she + went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out + into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. +</p> +<p> + This is one of her letters:— +</p> +<p> + DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:—It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could + sit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright + light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, + low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on + one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The + Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are + trying,—as they are trying almost all the time,—against the face of + the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells + keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. +</p> +<p> + I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any + other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was + the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and + Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to + think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all + this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close + beside and about them. +</p> +<p> + The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for + mischief,—the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very + amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have + parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old + Cro' Nest,—which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, + just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a + very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and + down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were + nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful + bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The + bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he + would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,—"Well, he + rather thinks,—if she would have stood still long enough,—he would + have let her be—astonished!" +</p> +<p> + The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is + beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name! +</p> +<p> + We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid + Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, + how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly + funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us + I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a + misery of politeness. +</p> +<p> + We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the + dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge + of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it + sloped down safely again,—when, just at the very middle and highest + and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, + and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been + frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No; + nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again + in that dreadful place." She laughed in the midst of it; but she was + really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to + help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What would + come of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her; + <i>she</i> couldn't do anything." "But, dear Miss Pennington," says Dakie, + "are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a + Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never could + get down." I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, + nearly half an hour, before she began to <i>hitch</i> along; for walk she + wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice + silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist + after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks + and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could + stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,—"a noble wreck in ruinous + perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them + up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or + three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk + petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did + all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. +</p> +<p> + "What <i>has</i> happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M——, as + we came up on the piazza. +</p> +<p> + "Nothing," said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tired + and sat down; and it was dusty,—that was all." He bowed and went off, + without so much as a glance of secret understanding. +</p> +<p> + "A joke has as many lives as a cat, here," he told Pen and me, + afterwards, "and that was <i>too</i> good not to keep to ourselves." +</p> +<p> + Dear little mother and girls,—I have told stories and described + describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner <i>such</i> a + thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westover + and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn't + help telling him something about the worry. I know I had no business + to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buy + the place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it of + him if he did! Just think of it,—that boy! I believe he really means + to write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into my + head when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of + <i>his</i> having such a quantity of money. He seems just like—as far as + that goes—any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will? +</p> +<p> + P.S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting of + mine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe he + will write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfect + morning! +</p> +<p> + Tell Stephen I've got a <i>splendid</i> little idea, on purpose for him and + me. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. Dakie + Thayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, about + everything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don't + think Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says she + hates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Pen + and I think she is afraid of the steamers. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, + and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. +</p> +<p> + Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysterious + idea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, for + anything. +</p> +<p> + We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruth + got up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen went + straight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did not + know till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story,—just + because there is so precious little of it. +</p> +<p> + Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the front + door. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to the + piazza cracks. +</p> +<p> + "Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?" +</p> +<p> + Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!" +</p> +<p> + "Why, how your face shines! What <i>is</i> up?" +</p> +<p> + "It's the sunset. I mean—that shines. Don't say anything. Our + splendid—little—idea, you know. It's under here." +</p> +<p> + "Be dar—never-minded, if mine is!" +</p> +<p> + "You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was—exactly. Do + you remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer? + Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they never + knew their way out till she showed 'em?" +</p> +<p> + "It <i>isn't</i> about kittens!" +</p> +<p> + "Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes; four." +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't you bring up one—or two—to-morrow morning <i>early</i>, and + make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the + sod, and fasten 'em up?" +</p> +<p> + "What—<i>for</i>?" with wild amazement. +</p> +<p> + "I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, + and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell + you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little + feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and + round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. +</p> +<p> + Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early + plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his + mind to be on hand. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, + between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she + went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little + wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she + whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. +</p> +<p> + "Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. +</p> +<p> + And Ruth "scatted." +</p> +<p> + Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the + tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and + wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a + precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat + babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on + their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to + doing. +</p> +<p> + "They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." +</p> +<p> + "What—<i>for</i>?" cried Stephen, again. +</p> +<p> + "To get them out, of course," says Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" +</p> +<p> + "Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I <i>believe</i>—but I don't dare say a word + yet—there's something there!" +</p> +<p> + "Of course there is. Two little yowling—" +</p> +<p> + "Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But + I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" +</p> +<p> + Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long + serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I <i>see</i> something," + he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, + Ruth—? My cracky! if you do!" +</p> +<p> + "We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." +</p> +<p> + Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he + got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and + prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the + wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the + middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a + little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench + lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the + house-boarding. +</p> +<p> + Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of + dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, + and weather had not badly injured it. +</p> +<p> + "Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. + "Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, + that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?" +</p> +<a name="image-0022"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/180.jpg" width="300" height="315" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely have + reached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and brought + out an opera-glass that was upon the table there. +</p> +<p> + "That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They read + the words, at the upturned corner,—"heirs after him." +</p> +<p> + "Lay the board back in its place," said Ruth. "It isn't for us to + meddle with any more. Take the kittens away." Ruth had turned quite + pale. +</p> +<p> + Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the two + kittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge,— +</p> +<p> + "Stephen," said she, "I'm going to do something on my own + responsibility." +</p> +<p> + "I should think you had." +</p> +<p> + "O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before I + said anything. But now,—I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick to + come over. They ought to be here, you know." +</p> +<p> + "Why! don't you suppose they will believe, <i>now</i>?" +</p> +<p> + "Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't <i>that</i>." + Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "old + place." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her house + plants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always had + their milk, and her plants their water, before she had her own + breakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and it + was a good time to take her. +</p> +<p> + "Aunt Roderick," said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to come + over right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please." +</p> +<p> + It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs." +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?" +</p> +<p> + "Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going to + happen." Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. + She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick and + everybody. +</p> +<p> + "On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off,—<i>to</i> breakfast!" + How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. and Mrs. Roderick + had not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemed + to happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business." + The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the + "gale" had taken care of. +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. +</p> +<p> + "We want you over at our house," repeated Ruth. "Right off, now; + there's something you ought to see about." +</p> +<p> + "I don't like mysteries," said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering her + curiosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matter + about the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. + Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say." +</p> +<p> + "Yes," said Ruth, laughing out; "it <i>is</i> kittens, partly. Or was." +</p> +<p> + So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down the + side-hill path together. +</p> +<p> + We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arctura + had set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a little + first breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. +</p> +<p> + Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been put + there, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. +</p> +<p> + Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. +</p> +<p> + "Good morning," said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" And + he met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stock + still, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blundered + about him. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to be + struck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. +</p> +<p> + "I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would all + care, and I wanted—Stephen and I have found something, mother!" She + turned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. +</p> +<p> + Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there," + said he; and pointed in. +</p> +<p> + They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, + just as it had lain for almost a year. +</p> +<p> + "It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father," + he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here." +</p> +<p> + "Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was + remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the + cracks and—" with a little, low, excited laugh—"the 'total depravity + of inanimate things,' till—just a little while ago." +</p> +<p> + She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, + before them all. +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drew + forward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook off + the dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at the + signature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick is + an honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. +</p> +<p> + "It is your deed of gift," said he; and then they two shook hands. +</p> +<p> + "There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. That + was it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!" +</p> +<p> + "No, you didn't," said Stephen. "You never told me anything—but + cats." +</p> +<p> + "Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled," said Mrs. Roderick + Holabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up." +</p> +<p> + They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come another + time. +</p> +<p> + But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissed + Ruth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and very + strict about—well, other people's—expenditures; but she was glad + that the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "I knew," said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that it + must come right." +</p> +<p> + "Don't tell <i>me!</i>" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't help + herself." +</p> +<a name="2HCH0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XI. +</h2> +<h3> + BARBARA'S BUZZ. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0023"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/185-11.jpg" width="150" height="319" align="left" +alt="L"> + Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, + it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life and + possibility. +</p> +<p> + "You must draw the line somewhere," people say. "You cannot be + acquainted with everybody." +</p> +<p> + But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there is + a sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. + Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom a + pair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her wedding + was "odd." +</p> +<p> + If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would have + been a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody would + have been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she would + be married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all the + wide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond,—of all its noble + heights, and hidden, tender hollows,—its gracious harvest fields, and + its deep, grand, forest glooms,—she would be content, elegantly and + exclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, + indeed, from a distance,—geographically; but they would come out of a + precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit + right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying + sameness. +</p> +<p> + From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began to + come, days beforehand,—the people who could not let Leslie + Goldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamation + cards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of + "Their Daughter's Marriage," by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, after + the like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the need + of, the regular final invocation,—"God save the Commonwealth!" +</p> +<p> + There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, + up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier in + consequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. Frank + Scherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby,—"she + isn't Original Sin, as I was," says her mother,—came up to Z—— + together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from New + York, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. +</p> +<p> + Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to put + her in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. + Her father is a comparatively poor man,—a book-keeper with a salary. + There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always felt + bound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one to + take it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort who + are said to be "cut out for old maids," and she knows it. She could + not teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling—not her + education; God never lets that be cut short—was abridged by the need + of her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissors + and needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever were + put together. +</p> +<p> + So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and getting + six dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-mother + put out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-story + room in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. She + will only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, for + her bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would be + rapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she has + made up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is any + breathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stop + breathing, and go where there is. +</p> +<p> + She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of the + little unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, + and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegant + to have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a little + bonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that Martha + Josselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. + Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. +</p> +<p> + General and Mrs. Ingleside—Leslie's cousin Delight—had come from + their away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought little + three-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was at + home from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medical + course,—and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so that + Mrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; they + all grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came a + wonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, for + Leslie's wedding present,—the first present that arrived from + anybody; sent the day he got the news;—and Leslie cried over them, + and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in the + fashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on the + cabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know what + other things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. +</p> +<p> + Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. Marmaduke + Wharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. + "To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide," he says, and + "to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, among + the Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, and + took her away among the planets, out of the snarl." +</p> +<p> + Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; and + she took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, on + the seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could + get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne + said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on + rollers, and marked,—"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific + preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say, + with a gentle prudence,—"If somebody should give you an observatory, + or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at <i>that</i>, dear." +</p> +<p> + Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did + not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of + the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he + wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. + <i>He</i> did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us + afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her + little home had been broken through and let in heaven. +</p> +<p> + We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till + September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military + engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given + my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West + Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. + Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a + line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, + fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. +</p> +<p> + It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone + from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and + beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white + among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in + blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with + perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from + the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the + grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid + vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. +</p> +<p> + Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite + asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black + silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up + stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who + came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to + eat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist + in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And + even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open + doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so + divided that it was a festival day all through. +</p> +<p> + Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in + her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, + muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her + head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,—since why shouldn't + she, too, have a bit of the fashion?—and tied round with a soft, + simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, + quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, + and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We + cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara + herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow + among-them. +</p> +<p> + Every room in the house was attended. +</p> +<p> + "There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne, + afterward. "Where <i>did</i> they get such people?—And beautiful serving," + she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very + soul of living!" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true + always." +</p> +<p> + Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into + the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the + staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and + landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her + hand in her father's arm. +</p> +<p> + She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her + dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. + It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell + like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or + shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you + could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched + cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the + shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose + blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. + There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her + left hand. +</p> +<p> + Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side + in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of + him in our minds,—dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his + shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a + man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely + <i>looks</i> again. +</p> +<p> + Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his + gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he + fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as + still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; + and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like + the tender glimmering of a sunbeam. +</p> +<p> + When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon + his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. +</p> +<p> + "Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John + looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt + and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in + the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the + strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said + again,— +</p> +<p> + "Perhaps, then, John,—you'll do!" +</p> +<a name="image-0024"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/193.jpg" width="300" height="317" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> + +<p> + "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the + church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But + we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her + father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, + Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in + the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her + pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she + was smiling also and would not cover <i>that</i> up,—gave; and nobody gave + with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning + Marmaduke Wharne. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those + autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every + bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice + to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child. +</p> +<p> + "Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. + "I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a + bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a + new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she + had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought + up from Boston. +</p> +<p> + We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; + we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were + to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have + plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden + autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; + and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as + glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she + can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. +</p> +<p> + We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any + pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was + wearing out. We could replace things—<i>some</i>, at any rate—as well as + not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; + it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and + when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new + and happy time. +</p> +<p> + It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in + any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the + dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It + came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements + were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table + in the brown-room. +</p> +<p> + Barbara's <i>bee</i>-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at + this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not + altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming + content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the + most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied + to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara + "acted like a witch." +</p> +<p> + She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came + down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little + apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself + beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as + befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. +</p> +<p> + All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the + abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a + little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not + been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but + she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the + staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the + bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double + doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into + the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she + stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating + cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the + whole ceremony. +</p> +<p> + Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, + or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from + being actually a commissioned officer,—Ensign Goldthwaite, now, + (Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and + effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last + year,)—we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at + once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and + whirls were simply to be wondered at. +</p> +<p> + "I don't see why he should tell <i>me</i> things," was what she said to + Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for + making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been + telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had + managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property + that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that + had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high + taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of + money. +</p> +<p> + "I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At + which Barbara had disappeared. +</p> +<p> + "Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, + and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly." +</p> +<p> + "I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things," + said whimsical Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away. +</p> +<p> + It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand + Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. + She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did + not come into the room until tea-time. +</p> +<p> + "There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner. + "They make me nervous, looking and listening." +</p> +<p> + We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked + them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z——. +</p> +<p> + Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, + standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in + her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. +</p> +<p> + "My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,—"I am an + old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?" +</p> +<p> + "Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor + Miss Craydocke could only walk away again. +</p> +<p> + When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick + came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified + approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. + As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back + upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the + September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. + "It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your + opportunities," she said, plainly. +</p> +<p> + Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was + brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could + not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. +</p> +<p> + "I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I + never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the + middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What + have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?" +</p> +<p> + "I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said + Aunt Roderick. +</p> +<p> + "I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as + much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light + given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, + I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived + longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things + that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they + take right hold of. People might have <i>pocket</i>-perplexities for years + and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; + but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,—or they think it + is,—they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What <i>do</i> you + suppose makes the difference?" +</p> +<p> + After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that + there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious + of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real + mischief done, already. +</p> +<p> + "It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that + day, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, + really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to + scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her + own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie + 'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She + whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account + for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once + enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her + alone. +</p> +<p> + But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and + then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone + a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then + we might not see him again for three years, perhaps. +</p> +<p> + On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and + see Mrs. Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had + not been down there once since the wedding-day. +</p> +<p> + She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would + stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. +</p> +<p> + About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. +</p> +<p> + It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted + to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the + winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen + families, and meet by turn at the different houses. +</p> +<p> + "I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties + again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want + something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among + ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so + is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. + I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,—doesn't she? Nobody can + complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist + for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the + odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you + think it would do?" +</p> +<p> + "I think it would do nicely for <i>one</i> thing," said Rose, thoughtfully. + "But don't let us allow it to be the <i>whole</i> of our winter." +</p> +<p> + Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn of + compliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting a + break in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped right + over it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. +</p> +<p> + "Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week," said Olivia. + "I came to you almost the very first, out of the family," she added, + with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up." +</p> +<p> + "Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined + together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think + last winter was so <i>really good</i>," she went on; "I should be sorry to + break up what <i>that</i> did; that is all." +</p> +<p> + "I'm willing enough to help in those ways," said Olivia, + condescendingly; "but I think we might have our <i>own</i> things, too." +</p> +<p> + "I don't know, Olivia," said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'own + things.' They are just what begin to puzzle me." +</p> +<p> + It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. Olivia + Marchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. +</p> +<p> + "Never mind," she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be some + time yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to go + beyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unless + everybody is really interested." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. + At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, + came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. +</p> +<p> + "Somebody has been snubbing somebody," replied Rose, holding her royal + color, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don't + quite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I." +</p> +<p> + "A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have + <i>you</i> been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?" +</p> +<p> + "I? I've been walking, of course.—That boy has got home again," she + added, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. +</p> +<p> + We knew <i>very</i> well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He + would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let + him. But—"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight! + Or—stay to tea with <i>him</i> there, and make him come, in the dark!—And + <i>if</i> he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, + that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were + what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we + had no doubt it had been something awful. +</p> +<p> + The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said + Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,—to the + "Katahdin." +</p> +<p> + In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then + she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for + a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South + Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. +</p> +<p> + "You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those + vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in + these buzzes. +</p> +<p> + "I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at + once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she + came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XII. +</h2> +<h3> + EMERGENCIES. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0025"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/203-12.jpg" width="150" height="328" align="left" +alt="M"> + Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it + for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed + without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of + double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a + flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with + a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the + front—not too near together—are more big, reliable, easy-going + buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles + belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes + to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in + her vessel. +</p> +<p> + If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and + what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, + she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred + parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. + Hobart called. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, + rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose + priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in + these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, + leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never + doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making + pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was + it always happened so with her. +</p> +<p> + In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. +</p> +<p> + Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, + and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always + breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by + nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a + fair half night of rest before the alarm came. +</p> +<p> + It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who go + to bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. +</p> +<p> + "My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?" +</p> +<p> + The room was full of red light. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond sat up beside her. +</p> +<p> + "Moon! It's fire!" +</p> +<p> + Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and out + of doors in five minutes. +</p> +<p> + The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carrying + great red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildings + were a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation of + evergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death but + the crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead of + night, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthily + fearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting the + air, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, + busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and making + steadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. +</p> +<p> + We all put on some warm things, and went right over. +</p> +<p> + Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of the + house, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory building + with the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servants + were hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets of + water here and there, from the reservoir inside. +</p> +<p> + Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this to + your house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away with + it. +</p> +<p> + Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, + and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the back + piazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. + There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. + Marchbanks was "particularly engaged." +</p> +<p> + Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. + Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, + in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and her + family till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry of + the moment would put it wholly out of their heads. +</p> +<p> + She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go up + which had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet would + go over it, unbidden, to-night. +</p> +<p> + She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story the + cook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. The + fine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, with + Olivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl was + trying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, + upside down. +</p> +<p> + "Take these children right over to my house," said Mrs. Hobart. + "Barbara Holabird! Come up here!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know what to do first," said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. + Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver—and + the pictures—and everything! And the house will be full of men + directly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked up + her braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could + "receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at a + fire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had not + learned anything about the exceptions. +</p> +<p> + "Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. + And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her + father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on + the smooth oak as if a horse were coming. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'll + break everything!" she said, and took down a little Sèvres cup from a + bracket. +</p> +<p> + "There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll see + to things. Let me have your keys." +</p> +<p> + "They're all in my upper bureau-drawer," said Mrs. Marchbanks. + "Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matilda + would come." Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can go + there, of course." +</p> +<p> + "It is too far," said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in my + great front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'll + want Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty of + things besides." +</p> +<p> + While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet from + the bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walked + down stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sèvres cup in the + other. +</p> +<p> + "People <i>do</i> do curious things at fires," said Mrs. Hobart, cool, and + noticing everything. +</p> +<p> + She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbara + followed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closets + and wardrobe. +</p> +<p> + "Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, + up here." +</p> +<p> + Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, + she passed on, in like manner,—Barbara, and by this time the rest of + us, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on the + floors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. +</p> +<p> + "Clothes are the first thing," said she. "And this way, you are + pretty sure to pick up everything." Everything <i>was</i> picked up, from + Mrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks's + shaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled off + last night. +</p> +<p> + Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's great + clean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went and + came, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing <i>one</i> thing," he answered. + "You keep to yourn." +</p> +<p> + "They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The + bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill,—two ingines, + an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door + locked, an' a lettin' on me in." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, + ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her + own lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitable + irruption of the Great Uninvited. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. + Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the other + gentlemen were still hard at work. +</p> +<p> + "Now," said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been the + putting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for the + citron or the raisins,—"now—all that beautiful china!" +</p> +<p> + She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered the + china, although her party-call, like all her others, had been a + failure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, + occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice any + fraction of her private hours. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet,—the + china-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followed + than led. +</p> +<p> + The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. + The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of the + closely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke against + the windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush of + water from the engines beat against the walls. +</p> +<p> + "We must work awful quick now," said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. We + ain't afire yet." +</p> +<p> + She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought down + stairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, which + Arthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there before + the shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy single + pieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah," she ordered to her man. +</p> +<p> + We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time,—Olivia, and + Adelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the other + Marchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijah + stopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led from + drawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys in + their polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in the + sheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, and + defended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute order + among ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitement + without that might else have rushed in and overborne us. +</p> +<p> + "You jest keep back; it's all right here," Elijah would say, + deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensed + comers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outside + the shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. +</p> +<p> + It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, down + the field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leaving + the china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. +</p> +<p> + Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked out + upon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and had + collected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things that + could be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. + Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whom + to deliver it. +</p> +<p> + Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up to + the roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, + untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. +</p> +<p> + So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angle + of the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were only + laid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children s + photographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; little + treasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, or + gifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that people + have about a house, never thinking what would become of them in a + night like this. So Barbara stood by. +</p> +<p> + Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heard + his name. +</p> +<p> + "Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two men + at the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him over + the baluster, and ran up to the landing. +</p> +<p> + "Take hold of it with me," said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. + We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. + Hobart's." +</p> +<p> + "Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keep + those people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the big + basket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The first + we knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon our + line of march toward Elijah's door. +</p> +<p> + Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longer + in the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick," + as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. + Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the last + napkin, and all was safe. +</p> +<p> + Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to the + entrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things are + ordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. Lewis + Marchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets; + quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on the + lawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done all + they could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and there + was little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, + and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running along + the piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was giving + out. +</p> +<p> + After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisterns + were dry, and the engines stood helpless. +</p> +<p> + The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up as + from a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth and + seized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without their + touch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front of + the mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Fire + poured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and into + the rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a little + before that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the home + that offered to her,—her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide were + going to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the things + that, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made <i>home</i>, as + well as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness of + elegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported and + discharged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And the + sleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Rome + could never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets and + Patricks, "out of a place." +</p> +<p> + Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only the + story and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the + "Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbanks + would be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, + in a few days,—receiving her friends, who would hurry to make + "fire-calls," as they would to make party or engagement or other + special occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not one + of the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning rooms + that night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her pictures + and her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bell + now; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. +</p> +<p> + It was about four in the morning—the fire still burning—when Mrs. + Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, + to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood in + a safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara? +</p> +<p> + Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had been + thrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, and + the like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, + two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; but + somebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with a + bullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there beside + her; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here in + this unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composure + which of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. +</p> +<a name="image-0026"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/214.jpg" width="300" height="316" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?" + Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. +</p> +<p> + "She'll give her a sort of brevet," replied Barbara. "For gallant and + meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near + neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, + you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full + commission." +</p> +<p> + Harry laughed. +</p> +<p> + "Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First, + there was the whirlwind, last year,—and now the fire." +</p> +<p> + "After the whirlwind and the fire—" said Harry. +</p> +<p> + "I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, + I can't help it. You put it into my head." +</p> +<p> + "I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the + voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming." +</p> +<p> + "Then, Barbara—" +</p> +<p> + Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. +</p> +<p> + The next day—<i>that</i> day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast—Harry + came back, and was at Westover all day long. +</p> +<p> + Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She + brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek + upon her knee. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me + ready, and let me go." +</p> +<p> + "My dear child! When? What do you mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly + ever be so nice again. And—if we <i>are</i> going through the world + together—mightn't we as well begin to go?" +</p> +<p> + "Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What + is it?" +</p> +<p> + "It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European + squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife + and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when + the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says; + and—that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while + first,—as much, perhaps, as we should ever have." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!" +</p> +<p> + "No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with + me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added. + "Everybody does." +</p> +<p> + The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as + mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as + she does everything else. +</p> +<p> + Rose has some nice things—laid away, new; she always has; and mother + has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for + Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. +</p> +<p> + "I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and we girls are all + of a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear the + dresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara's + trunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We can + get others any time." +</p> +<p> + We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think that + it was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth's + was blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that no + two of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosen + because of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer for + grandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep" + mourning. "You shall never do that," said mother, "till the deep + mourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves." +</p> +<p> + We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautiful + delay or other about machinery,—the Katahdin's, that is; and + Commander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back and + forth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him; + Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and on + board ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quite + made up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as he + is old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. +</p> +<p> + We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determined + not to be; last days are too precious, +</p> +<p> + "Don't let's be all taken up with 'things,'" says Barbara. "I can + <i>buy</i> 'things' any time. But now,—I want you!" +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her; + it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired,—or + possessed,—but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. +</p> +<p> + There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, + the loveliest "suit," all made and finished, of brown poplin. To think + of Aunt Roderick's getting anything <i>made</i>, at an "establishment"! But + Ruth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and just + took her porte-monnaie in her hand. +</p> +<p> + Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the + "girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or little + things to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. + Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit and + look at it. +</p> +<p> + She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, from + mother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, into + the bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it a + little stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. +</p> +<p> + "<i>All</i> new things are only dreary," she says. "I must have some of the + old." +</p> +<p> + "I should just like to know one thing,—if I might," said Rosamond, + deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She was + sitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoe + in her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave so + beforehand, Barbara?" +</p> +<p> + "I was in a buzz," said Barbara. "And it <i>was</i> beforehand. I suppose I + knew it was coming,—like a thunderstorm." +</p> +<p> + "You came pretty near securing that it <i>shouldn't</i> come," said + Rosamond, "after all." +</p> +<p> + "I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair." +</p> +<p> + "You might have just kept quiet, as you were before," said Rose. +</p> +<p> + "Wait and see," said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't come + bringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs to + get these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of those + white paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say all + sorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and run + off if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind the + door, I wonder?" +</p> +<p> + "After all—" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. +</p> +<p> + "After all—" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was + something else!" +</p> +<p> + "Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. +</p> +<p> + "Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake." +</p> +<p> + We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have + each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never + wanted each other so, or <i>had</i> each other so, before. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but + the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there + are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little + while; and—we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present + instant. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Who finishes it? Who tells it? +</p> +<p> + Well,—"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle—pretty much—finished + it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was + beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and + she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. + Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would + not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she + observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and + partly, here and there, we rushed in,—especially I, Barbara,—and did + little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and + at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie." +</p> +<p> + Do you think it is—sarcastically—a "pretty dish to set before the + king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There + is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z——" is; and there are + friends and neighbors everywhere. +</p> +<p> + I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part—the + Barbarous part—is a continual breach of confidence. I have a great + mind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, + made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautayne + has one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayne + considers <i>worth</i> a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; older + than Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth with + her; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides— +</p> +<p> + Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as far + as we—or anybody—has gone. You must let the world go round the sun + again, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet—even with + "We Girls." +</p> +<p> </p> +<h4> + THE END. +</h4> + +<div style="height: 6em;"></div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12224 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/12224-h/images/001-f.jpg b/12224-h/images/001-f.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7076bb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-h/images/001-f.jpg diff --git a/12224-h/images/006-1.jpg b/12224-h/images/006-1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff0a010 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-h/images/006-1.jpg diff --git a/12224-h/images/013.jpg b/12224-h/images/013.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6328b16 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-h/images/013.jpg diff --git a/12224-h/images/026.jpg b/12224-h/images/026.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..25d70f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/12224-h/images/026.jpg diff --git a/12224-h/images/028-2.jpg 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confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e20dd4c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12224 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12224) diff --git a/old/12224-8.txt b/old/12224-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30c2854 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12224-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6882 @@ +Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: We Girls: A Home Story + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +Release Date: May 1, 2004 [EBook #12224] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +[Illustration: BINDING THE RINGS.] + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY + +By + +MRS. A.D.T. WHITNEY + + +AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD," "THE GAYWORTHYS," +"A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE," ETC. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. + + +BOSTON +1870, 1890 + + + + CONTENTS. + + CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS + CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS + CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN + CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS + CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING + CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS + CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN + CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ. + CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES. + + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE STORY BEGINS. + + +It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. + +The town is down below the hill. + +It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another +hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop +itself, just as it does on this side. + +It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large +country town,--in fact, it has some time since come under city +regulations,--thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that +which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. + +Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off +the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded +themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called +"places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the +old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when +the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; +down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers' +offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat +at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. + +We lived in the town--that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their +children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--for +nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. + +They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; when +there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, +and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, +in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to +the fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so came +the name. + +We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't +considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the +brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go +down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if +they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it? + +Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus,--I don't say whether he was my +grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this +story, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever so +many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the +boys grew up,--Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. + +Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,--who had himself +come up from being a workman to being owner,--and learned the +business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, and +lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was +yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no +little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three +daughters. + +There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and his +wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. +Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins +married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor +mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because +"Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of +course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on +the mere claim of the common cousinship. + +Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular +ways too. + +There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all +known by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have little +pet ways of calling, among ourselves,--sometimes one way and sometimes +another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird +doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our +bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little +fun,--though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or +behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the +first,--or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, +or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's +obstinate,--we always _introduce_ "my daughter Rosamond," or "my +sister Barbara," or,--but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because +nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"--and Stephen +is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a +man some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were +christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is +such a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "She +wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose." + +Our moving to Westover was a great time. + +That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody +does not do who moves into a house by any means. + +We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and +told us, one morning, of his having bought it,--the empty Beaman +house, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought +the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and +build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobody +but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was +large and solid-built, and could not be taken far. + +We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another +day, and proposed that we should go and live in it. + +We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very +strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what +they ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any. + +Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that +day,--him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it +was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or +even him without the cane; but both together were "_scare-mendous_; +they did put down so." + +Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to +notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the +old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a +board at the door,--"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had all +made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: +and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But +we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never +time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled +just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in +this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is +always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in +other ways. + +Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live a +gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for +the din and scramble of business. + +He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowing +his sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the loss +and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then +go down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all his +debts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed and +clothe his family meanwhile. + +Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, when +he bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In the +summer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at +Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these +obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these things +we made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all the +more afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. + +"When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his stern +precept. + +"When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say, +after he was gone. + +But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. That +day, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and as +cosey as we could be. + +Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had +been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. +Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old +black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with +smooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. + +"What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, +wondering. + +"They were dropped,--and I picked them up," Rosamond answered, +mysteriously. "The owner never missed them." + +"Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. + +"Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'em +most. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she +went on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiring +the effect. "They don't dress much outside." + +"O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?" + +"Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle about +contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman and +her accidents,--mine are usually catastrophes." + +Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the right +set-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. + +Barbara flung down a magazine,--some old number. + +"Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of the +climax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she went +on to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and +was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? +Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two little +cats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and the +cane coming in. + +There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, and +for Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through +the sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his cane +were slow; the more awful for that. + +Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors; +and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!" + +[Illustration] + +Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. + +"Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a few +square yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving +and going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteen +square feet that we live on most!" + +She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a very +little matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. + +"How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, +or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we +_don't_ tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we know +them or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and the +things we do. + +Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had a +way of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentence +after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant +was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do +think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's +very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes." + +It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. +When there was one, he always kept it to the last. + +"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the +around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live +in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. +Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. +I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over." + +He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a +word. We were too much surprised. + +Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. + +I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a +woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her +so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She +asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep +her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it +to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a +grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. + +"We could keep a cow!" said mother. + +"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. + +"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His +land begins this side." + +"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we +have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. + +"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in +continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished +hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would +never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our +limitations. + +"Does that look--" + +"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never +do." + +Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of +something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might +be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that. + +"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I +don't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean to +be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the +name left." + +"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what +_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready +money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else +for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?" + +That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she +did not speak at first. + +"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't +believe there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening and +shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes +together again and snips our noses!" + +"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A +mouse pinched in it, I should think." + +"Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are +fricassees,--heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the +philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down +everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't +all made,--or used,--yet!" + +Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--in +aid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries. + +"O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out +there, and the mornings will be so early!" + +"That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing +we're going 'west over.'" + +"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said +Ruth. That was the best she could do. + +"Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have +some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put +down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. +Especially for a country house." + +"It seems, then, we _are_ going?" + +Nobody had even raised a question of that. + +Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised +none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, +quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a +geometrical fact patent at first glance. + +"We can have a cow," mother repeated. + +"Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a +hearing. + +"You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the +parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen." + +"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely. + +"I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. +I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't many +in profane." + +"Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus +'saluted' at the end of an epistle." + +"Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn't +history; that's mere mention." + +"We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down,'" +suggested Rosamond, complacently. + +Barbara smiled. + +"And we can tell _the girl_ to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' when +she's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the +'handy' things." + +"Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was between +the two. + +"Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow." + +"We shall all have to remember that it will only be living there +instead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrella +under the rain of suggestion. + +The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There was +no doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and it +was found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtains +in our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in the +square Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, +and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. +The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few +pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara +said, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairs +there would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, and +making upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, because +in these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, and +fireplace, and closet doors. + +They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. +Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over to +see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to +communicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of a +kind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house any +precisely matched companionship. + +This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it led +to trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned to +their new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the whole +number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious +mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to +live in "sûch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is to +Irish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole can +no longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfast +that she "must jûst be lukkin out fer a plaashe." + +"But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two or +three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be glad +to have you stay and help us through." + +"Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taks +an intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I +niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but I +couldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo a +plaashe, ye see." + +It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk a +graat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, but +she mûst jûst be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she had +the kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonnet +on,--a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse--of ungarnished +head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,--and +took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where +people were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company nor +children nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, +and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," she +would probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would +_not_ allow of her continuing with us. + +A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,--sure to +happen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line we +have a gale down below. + +"_Now_ what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming back +into the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments +which spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling all +through the house. + +"Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravely +than she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thy +youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't +doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among the +rest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. +There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least." + +"I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird, +with meekness. + +It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very much +quenched. + +The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, and +nowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up over +the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between +that time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without a +girl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have not +come to the family-moving yet. + +The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, while +the building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up into +all the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what new +pictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how now +this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by +the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,--for the slope, +though gradual, was long,--and how the sunset came in more and more, +as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill of +excitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, the +onward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought all +rightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen called +these earthquakes. + +We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It was +such a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stop +anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; +because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it was +all pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting over +on the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. + +We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaks +between trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, +open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; and +the nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny and +pleasant and real countrified. + +It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great +house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand +generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs +and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest +point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in +excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we +might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose the +green bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we got +less of the great town within our view as we settled down upon our +side of the ridge. + +The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. + +There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were to +be; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way down +against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields +were beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire in +autumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructed +sky. + +The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where the +walls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen the +spot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for the +moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the +kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as +mere lumber. It was only the main building--L-shaped still, of three +very large rooms below and five by more subdivision above--which had +majestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, +westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. + +Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient with +one servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he +offered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent we +must take out cheerfully in extra steps. + +It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirds +came fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, +and stood staring around it with its many eyes,--wide open to the +daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,--to see where +it was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a very +knowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. + +The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed +in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he +got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round +southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the +noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the +sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through +the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along +the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and +peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was +what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,--as if he +stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about +it, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. He +quieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night he +found somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took it +serenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, and +put us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was to +leave so many cubic feet of light at daily. + +I think he _might_ like to look in at that best parlor. With the six +snowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and the +deep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all over +them, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were like +the moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the light +glinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw out +the lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few +fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It +was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring +home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many +nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be +paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we +sat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselves +already to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases well +filled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn cloth +hid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to the +hand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of the +home-spirit,--a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its +round of radiance every night. + +Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June +nights were at Westover. + +We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We +had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"--that is their word for +the north country at home, and the north country is where the best +material comes from,--who was willing to air her ignorance in our +kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for +the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not +come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls +was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't +do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do +with established rates of wages. + +But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the +singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, +and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a +new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things +were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy +rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how +grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old +things also,--a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. + +"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb +'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family +settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. +"It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before +it, except when it is in the nominative case." + +Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to the +sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the +ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza +was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, +from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low +railing ran around the whole. + +Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right +and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through +the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a +round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with +us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. + +We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what new +glory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for the +witnessing of a pageant. + +The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hung +close by; they dropped down through the gold together, till they +touched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slid +silently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. + +[Illustration] + +"But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush. + +No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to south +stretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints and +softliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; the +gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went +by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; we +watched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked out +into great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight was +the curtain. + +"We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara said +again, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against the +railing. + +"The front row, and season tickets!" + +"Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. + +"Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew human +nature, and had got used himself to most things. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AMPHIBIOUS. + + +"What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up from +her letter. + +Ruth told. + +"How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You are +as pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anything +particular has happened, to remember _any_ day by, since the first, +and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm never +sure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first; +and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme in +my head." + +"I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in her +room,--that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down at +the bottom; and she whops it every morning." + +Ruth laughed. + +"What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. + +"It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and you +only puckered." + +Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that," she said. + +"Well, what then?" + +"To think you knew." + +"Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough." + +"Yes,--but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest part +of the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve." + +Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth had +caught him out. + +"I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't help +reading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the man +that went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fine +day, and then I'll whop the whole over for you." + +Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the last +pair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephen +in her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lips +that she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up and +went away with them to her room. + +She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket in +her hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll of +Scripture texts printed in large clear letters,--a sheet for each day +of the month,--and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnut +rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at +the Bible Class,--Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very +much. + +Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, +and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and +maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went +and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. + +For she had something to think about this morning. + +Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the +beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and +just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room +at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the +other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from +the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was +a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up; +and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the +L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well +tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be +taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all +the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. + +Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it; +behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of +staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by +a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the +whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L +unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right +angles to each other. + +The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in +the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long +shine, from its south window at the end, right through,--except in +such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and +then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew +through pleasantly in a soft shade. + +When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large +front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if +there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and +bureaus,--the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy. +And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamond +and Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushions +sewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seat +and pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirt +of white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange for +this Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished their +two windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. + +Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all go +round by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked away +mysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened all +the doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most part +remained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings and +ways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently open +to the privilege and second sight of story-telling. + +The white dimity curtains--one pair of them--were up at the wide west +window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four +things,--drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light +among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings +around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed +cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased +with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and +tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in +uniform,--varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in +crimson arabesque,--made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture +scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the +window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which +she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to +foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, +over the deficient cane-work. + +Tin tacks and some considerable machining--for mother had lent her the +help of her little "common sense" awhile--had done it all; and Ruth's +room, with its oblong of carpet,--which Mrs. Holabird and she had made +out before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored one +and a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not been +enough to put upon the staircase,--looked, as Barbara said, "just as +if it had been done on purpose." + +"It _says_ it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. + +Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,--with its situation above all; +she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never minded +their coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her three +little brass bolts when she had a desire to. + +She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about Adelaide +Marchbanks's invitation. + +The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The married +daughter of one family--Mrs. Reyburne--was at home from New York, and +had brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. Roger +Marchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friends +visiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,--several +sisters in each family,--always. The Haddens were there a good deal, +and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at a +time. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and Leslie +Goldthwaite, a great pet of hers,--Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, +in the town,--was often up among them all. + +The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and +then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were +not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were +among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life +would not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind of +Elf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in the +impalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when it +wills to be by itself for a time. + +There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way for +them, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was not +spoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. +Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and I +suppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized how +thoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodily +presence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond and +Barbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted for +something; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wished +and meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers were +to carry out. + +But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was not +quite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each her +own sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by the +accepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard; +why shouldn't they--the Holabirds--settle anything? Ruth hated to have +theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So +this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had +happened. + +Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down +street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. +At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,-- + +"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like +you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. +There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now +among ourselves." + +Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular +inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but +she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and +that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the +end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should +play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at +eleven o'clock. + +She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,--perhaps; but +she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect +her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. + +She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to +hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would +very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly +acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. +She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; she +would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but +it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would +they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go? +And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--she +the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and +Barbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out,--they just +leaked out." + +That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, +with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power +of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she +would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to +her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she +could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a +born home. + +She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, as +at first she meant to do. + +But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls" +means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" in +her heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out of +themselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turns +into a plural. + +Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her +elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of +grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's +five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some +new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous laziness +upon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, through +her own room and saw her there. + +Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill of +pleasantness. Her home had _expressed_ itself here, as it had never +done anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshiny +roominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and her +daughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearness +in which her love and her wish for them held them always. + +It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but the +generous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you looked +through, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glass +house" so long. + +The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows at +either end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the long +mirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels in +the town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were here +put, quite elegantly tall,--the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above her +daintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great square +trunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, +dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes and +cushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room," +opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and at +night, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back and +forth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, +gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; so +that Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning in +their busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you were +all lit up." + +"We had one candle apiece," Barbara would answer, very concisely. + +"I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way," Rosamond +said once, after she had gone. + +"And that she _didn't_ have to come through our clothes-yard of a +Monday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in the +wash," added Barbara. + +But this is off the track. + +"What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon the +little figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through the +open rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?" + +"O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I've +done, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure I +wasn't provoked." + +"You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?" + +"Yes, I guess so," said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking right +on,--doesn't it?--when you speak suddenly out of a 'think.' I wonder +what _alone_ really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Something +thinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up." + +"Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth." + +"Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It _does_ answer back." + +"And what was the answer about this time?" + +That was how Ruth came to let it out. + +"About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, +though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And they +might have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as you +said, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I--needn't. I mean, I +knew right off that I _didn't_." + +Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of her +thinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand the +older idiom, just as they do baby-talk,--by the same heart-key. She +knew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to." + +"You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them begin +with me so." + +"You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird, +affectionately. "And a very generous one." + +"No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rather +nice to settle that I _can_ be contrary. I don't like to be +pat-a-caked." + +She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. + +The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, to +ask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. + +Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the +busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not +willing, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though she +always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric +morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little +fancy slippers,--(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she +had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and +beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to +any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, +in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the +last point of morning freshness,--chairs and tables and books in the +most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in +vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the +others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to +receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as +likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her +"points,"--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at +the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character +only by these embellishments upon the instep,--and to have dumped +herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the +green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some +irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. + +Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would +stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with +unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in +the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation." + +Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if +Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and +Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake, +and why should they be ashamed of it?" + +Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, but +they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." + +"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she +would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most +fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." + +Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; +for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and +a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there +in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to +call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the +kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the +big trees. + +Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suit +and bright buttons. + +"Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, +looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point the +Inglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!" + +It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were +walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not +been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. +Marchbanks's? + +[Illustration] + +Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, +behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. + +"I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think +I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and +I don't go out very much, except with my--cousins." + +"Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." + +"It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my +breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" + +"Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed +bent upon driving his questions home. + +"O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." + +"Wasn't it?" + +The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; +Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--just +a line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. + +Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West +Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little +wheels were turned sometimes. + +He had just come to Z---- (I must have a letter for my nameless town, +and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a +crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among +interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he +excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and +it was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. +Ingleside, had come to Z----, to take the vacant practice of an old +physician, disabled from continuing it. + +Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends; +almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. + +Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for one +older, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one just +like her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, from +the little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of their +pretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, +springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautiful +flowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as she +had grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central or +most brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helped +and touched and perfected all. + +There was something very real and individual about her; she was no +"girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She would +have grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the first +quarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly" +sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showed +itself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as to +simpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in her +twentieth year now, which sounds--didn't somebody say so over my +shoulder?--so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her that +she had "stayed fifteen." + +She _looked_ real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with some +graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been +freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly +around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on +like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and +everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; +and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could +trace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex and +bewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds and +festoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked more +as young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmaker +seven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the public +promenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiring +minds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all the +sewing, and where the hair all comes from. + +Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked to +be odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with the +prevailing fashion--the fundamental idea of it--always, when she had a +new thing; but she modified and curtailed,--something was sure to stop +her somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that they +never stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, +"something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and she +must choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satin +folds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to use +differently; the dress was never the first and the _must be_; so it +came by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode; +and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it, +were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. + +It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questions +that had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, +that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them half +unconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the +"outside," which is setting more and more between us and our real +living, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer put +ready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. + +Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how +"achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of +embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and +the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for +them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of +Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in +itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured +it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie +had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the mere +buying. + +Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the little +vines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creeping +Mitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniature +grace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty to +put in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helped +Rose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grew +higher up. + +Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the +fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full +of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as +if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great +sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings +"came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like +a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course +one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like +a bird or a bee right after breakfast,--that was living; that was the +Irishman's blessing,--'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'" + +"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most +magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there +would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the +piazza basement, and up to the front portico. + +They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. +Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. + +Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea +branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said +afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. + +The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a +hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got +the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of +parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors +which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. + +Barbara stood behind the blind. + +"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right +out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and +has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie +Thayne?" + +"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?" + +"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!" + +"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's +nice,--ever so nice." + +"It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the +hill. "They treat those girls--amphibiously!" + +"Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "_I'm_ amphibious. I live in the +town, and I _can_ come out--and not die--on the Hill. I like it. I +always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time." + +They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. + +"We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off. + +"I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really +wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She +isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That +is, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so." + +You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. +People who tell a story see round corners. + +The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to play +croquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaites +and the Haddens. + +"We're growing very gay and multitudinous," she said, graciously. + +"The midshipman's got home,--Harry Goldthwaite, you know." + +Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in her +own keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. +But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. + +When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, +inevitable question,-- + +"What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night,--that's ready?" + +And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not a +dud!" + +But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt on +purpose to lend to Barbara. If she had _given_ it, there would have +been the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, +and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirts +that were _over with_, before the new fashion came. + +Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big world +to-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. + +It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it _was_ one of our ways at +Westover. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. + + +Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. + +Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. + +And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were to +carry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. + +You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. + +How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In the +first place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,--"a making +for anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstanding +Shakespeare. + +It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming and +sweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with glee +and grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke to +her suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, +all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready to +catch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you in +return, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of life +and pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of her +face lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised upon +its stalk. She was _like_ a flower chatting with a breeze. + +She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; but +she had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it; +and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of her +head any painful, conscious question of how she _was_ seeming. That, +and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her manners +what Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,--"exquisite." + +That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep; +hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. + +She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they had +everybody round them. All the people in the room were saying how +lovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed a +great and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It was +pleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just as +lovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to be +lovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood on +that same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just as +pretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and it +meant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have her +stand right there, and look just so, to-night. + +In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to her +grander,--another girl, in another corner, looking on,--a girl with a +very homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. She +looked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in her +prettiness; _she_ looked as if she had put herself away, comfortably +satisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. +Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. + +"I do think," she said,--"don't you?--it's just the bravest and +strongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, and +to go right on and have a good time just the same;--_every day_, you +see, right through everything! I think such people must be splendid +inside!" + +"The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," said +Leslie. "And she was fifty years old too." + +"Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, +"it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I should +like--just once--to look beautiful at a party!" + +The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. + +Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaite +were on one side, and they led off their whole party, going +nonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not help +it; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling each +other along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and came +down into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and the +whole game in their hands on their own part. + +"It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "but +they might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on the +same side again." + +It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted away +for the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, that +Harry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil." + +[Illustration] + +Barbara shook her head. What was it? + +"It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it to +us. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plain +enough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are ten +rings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is to +string them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certain +distance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and you +play as many rounds as you may agree upon." + +Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. + +"Have you told anybody else of that?" + +"Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while." + +"Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebody +came down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let me +have it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the stray +ball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, +"come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, +you see, to get anything that's new." + +"I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,--isn't that what +they make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famous +out of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought to +be, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit Harry +Goldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, putting +the two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollicking +into the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle was +taking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody was +there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing +party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them +again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. +After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry +rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. + +It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance was +re-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an old +remembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school and +given her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,--"as he might have +done," we told her, "to any other boy." + +"Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in her +door, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pulling +down hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter at +bedtime. + +Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, as +if she could not get into that place without her considering-fit +coming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, and +her eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. + +"She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara. + +"Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out of +her cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all the +evening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music +_splashes_ so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering it +all over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!" + +"The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs. +Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. +"I've known good times do that." + +"It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in my +head, 'going on forever--ever! _go_-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth broke +into the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. + +"I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!" +Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to the +mother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; it +was only when she wanted a very dear word. + +"We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can find +in the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment, +in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for the +bowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes once +in a while. It's going to be just--splend-umphant!" + +"If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We _must_ keep +the new of it to ourselves." + +"As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up Harry +Goldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doing +anything but just give you that awful little pinch!" + +"That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross or +inelegantly excited about anything. "But I _do_ think the girls will +like it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza." + +"That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously. + +Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The dark +new boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had been +real oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny." + +Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-music +flittering in her brain. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden about +her playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, although +they said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that her +fingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the right +points. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to _see_ Ruth Holabird play, as +well as she did to hear her. + +But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almost +anything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what she +should do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gave +lessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularly +to Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his being +cross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy and +sensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to be +afraid. + +Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, +except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred a +teacher to come to the house. + +"A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style from +the very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away," +said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and said +something, and drew her off. + +Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetism +that guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes were +struck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. + +"If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really would +have me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. +Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could show +anybody what I know,--and if they like that!" + +It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up with +the "forever--ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely trembling +ripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the south +and slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmering +little ghost in the arm-chair. + +Ruth came down late to breakfast. + +Barbara was pushing back her chair. + +"Mother,--or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm going +out for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning." + +"And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to be +with Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?" + +"Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can't +you come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!" + +"That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. + +"I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, +when we played with him so." + +"I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely. + +"Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, about +those--patent rights. I dare say they'll come up." + +"I've no doubt," said Rosamond. + +"I wish you _would_ both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs. +Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, +and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast." + +"I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs. +Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls had +gone away. + +"I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something that +would just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my head +last night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right up +behind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised my +playing; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbanks +wants a--" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that was +coming--"_lady_-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. +There, mother. It's in _your_ head now! Please turn it over with a +nice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that you +believe perhaps I could!" + +By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her two +hands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down upon +one of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. + +"I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I _wouldn't_ just as lief! +I would liefer you should have all you need without." + +"I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!" + +"That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in upon +the last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being good +for them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both." + +"O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception of +difficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether she +could, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "_Don't_ you--or Rose--call +it names, Barbara, please, will you?" + +"Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna +are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by +your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." + +"I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's--" + +"Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfully +quiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retain +me on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, and +give me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand." + +Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. + +"I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks would let me teach the children." + +"Teach the children! What?" + +"O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And--make Rose +understand." + +"Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like +_it_." + +"Will you do just those two things?" + +"It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part? +I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It's +such a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if we +made it a regular family delegation--besides, it will take as much as +all me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Last +night's twilight isn't over. And it's funny _we_'ve plans too; _we_'re +going to give lessons,--differently; we're going to lead off, for +once,--we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chime +in. It _may_ make things--Holabirdy." + +Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What she +said, therefore, when she was told, was,-- + +"O dear! I suppose it is right! But--just now! Right things do come in +so terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broad +aisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?" + +"And then somebody else would get the chance." + +"There's nobody else to be had." + +"Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's _me_ to +be had yet." + +"O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!" + +"I don't know. I might. I shouldn't _teach_ it 'anyhow.'" + +Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half +of her point. + +Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. +Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. + +She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and +old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her +justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she +must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew +right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had +happened to think of it. + +"Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a +little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early +fashion, to ask for her. + +"I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because +I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my +playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, +perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, +and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons +myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night." + +Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through +whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to +what she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_; +because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false +consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according +to their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they would +think of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond could +not help _feeling her double_,--Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That was +what Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. + +The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it is +not, there is no use any way. + +Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. + +"Does Mrs. Holabird know?" + +"O yes; she always knows." + +There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. +Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been very +frank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhat +different. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made; +perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have been +sensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. + +"But you see, my dear, that _your_ having a pupil could not be quite +equal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one would +not quite provide for the other." + +"O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. +Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I could +teach two quarters, I could take one." + +"You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. +Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have really +a charming style. But whether you could _impart_ it,--that is a +different capacity." + +"I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could make +her understand all I do." + +"Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady +who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I +will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two +thirds of Viertelnote's price." + +"O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter I +could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another." + +"I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs. +Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might +have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom +she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two +persons,--one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to +be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite +intent upon her purpose. + +If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. + +"You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. + +Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, +springing to a soundless rhythm. + +She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, +winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and +tying them with knots of ribbon. + +Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up +himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging +upon his arms like bangles. + +They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the +first asking. + +It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the +plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her +arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate upon +another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a +good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. + +Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely +beautiful repose. + +Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come +next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a +little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the +brown room with tears in her eyes. + +"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have +just one wretched girl to do everything!" + +"Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always +_will_ do it at dinner-time." + +"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have +to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to +see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect +serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life' +(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and +then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought +to be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not +know, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!" + +Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these +things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was +beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it +_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, +more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were +quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than +when guests came and divided her attention. + +Ruth went over to where she sat. + +"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the +shading-off, you know. That helps both ways." + +"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though." + +"No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like +it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.' +You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And +people that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the +edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt +and between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor drop +all the spoons." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +NEXT THINGS. + + +Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself +into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of +it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be +delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high +propriety. + +Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the +cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was +time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all +sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table +(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and +replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner +between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. + +The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glass +and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and +the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a +fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and +white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden +brown. + +The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside; +Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and +Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and +forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. + +Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, +forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders +without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble +at ahl to have company." + +But before the tea was the new game. + +It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done +higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions +for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in +their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it +would fall out,--whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take +to it, or whether it would drop right there. + +"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the +remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. +Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic +trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. + +Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her very +self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,--through +Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. + +Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls who +should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if +we did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just such +things as these; and our day and our life are full of it. + +The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as +soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could +not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their +coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all +that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning +all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if +anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it +was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day +elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so +adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly +forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough? +Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. + +The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the +young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in +turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly +wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like +garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss +them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less +inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with +each succeeding trial. + +They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might +venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and +references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it +had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. + +By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide +end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits +began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if +it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as +genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. + +And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and +very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than +from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private +cooks. + +It all went off and ended in a glory,--the glory of the sun pouring +great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, +and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow +forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by +they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It +was the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace; +Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ to +build the wood-house under it. + +After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our +home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to +become before. + +They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips from +it,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but +they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They +_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and +practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came +to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other +girls wanted it, they had to come where it was. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the +Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did +not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the +position remained the same. + +It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family +again, one evening. + +"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting +something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask +Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit." + +The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days together +at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, +and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to +the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens +would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, +and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of +intimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning and +stayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan or +ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such +things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to +us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as +that we might. + +"I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here." + +"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What +for?" + +"Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth. + +"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in +a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. + +Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond +suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how +to dispose of the thought since she had got it. + +Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. +Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty +knitting,--making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him +at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent +thought. + +She made up her mind presently,--partly at least,--and spoke again. "I +don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura +Fish." + +Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or +two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he +asked. + +"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied +Ruth. + +"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie +Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it." + +"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time," said Ruth. "These +things are different." + +"'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up, +and next things down." + +"I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I +suppose people wouldn't naturally--it can't be meant they should--walk +right away from their own opportunities." + +Ruth laughed,--not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. + +Dakie Thayne leaned back. + +"What,--if you please,--Miss Ruth?" + +"I was thinking of the opportunities _down_," Ruth answered. + +It was several days after this that the young party drifted together +again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne +had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she +who suggested it. + +"Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a +meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for +a prize? They would do nicely together." + +Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the +project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. + +But Dakie Thayne broke in. + +"Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea." + +"Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is +the carrying out, you see." + +"Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize +what we are doing as it is." + +"But the minute you _do_ organize! You don't know how difficult it is +in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you +go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to +stop." + +"Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, +good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. + +"Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't +go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,--down +the hill and into the town." + +"We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts." +There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. + +"O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie +Goldthwaite, quick and pleased. + +"Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth +Holabird. + +It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave +her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. +She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"O, they _won't_ exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with +an air of high free-masonry. + +"Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. + +"Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without +any air at all. + +"Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though +what people _come_ for is the question, I think, when there isn't +anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it +has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them +to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she +hoped she would come often, and let _the girls_ run in and be +sociable! And Grace Hobart says '_she_ hasn't got tired of +croquet,--she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. +Thayne." + +"Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. + +"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. +When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully +stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,--out quite loud, +across everything,--'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never +did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'" + +"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite. + +"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think +they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They +didn't know _what_ to say." + +"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in +that way very often." + +"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are +kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out." + +"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the +neighborhood is getting to be,--full of people that you don't know +what to do with." + +"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set," said Olivia. + +"O dear! O dear!" + +It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all +turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements +made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had +been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now +she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face +to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow +clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. + +"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!" + +Then she knew by the hush that _she_ had astonished them, and she grew +frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink; +for she still felt just as she did when the words came. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. + +"We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't +quite set up to be angels. Come,--try one more round." + +And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to +pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do +it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar +grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, +the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more +dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden +over upon the rest. + +[Illustration] + +Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not +been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the +party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour +longer. + +Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to +Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba +will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask." + +But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the +grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but +they kept on up over the hill. + +"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could +not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute." + +"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the +front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched." + +"They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered. +"And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_." + +"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your +lip. I saw it." + +"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I +had spoken then." + +"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure +I don't know how myself so often." + +"That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up? +And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out +these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions: +picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind +of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the +lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?" + +"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said +Ruth. + +"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. +"Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems +to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." + +"Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? +There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just +for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" + +"Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than +with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about +it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the +niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the +fence that keeps out weeds." + +"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to +Leslie as she spoke. + +"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I +should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said +Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after +all." + +"If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me +it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody +in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." + +"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. + +It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise +continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the +Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. + +"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, +one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and +she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and +interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." + +"We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a +family of grasshoppers all summer." + +"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," +said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be +busy." + +"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. + +"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right +into the kitchen with the other servants." + +"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," +said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." + +"Barbara, you're a plague!" + +"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be +exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office." + +"In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more +convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and +besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life +to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as +not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with +'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, +and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of +measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why +shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and +gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too +nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her +'crowd.'" + +"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to +be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live +plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind +_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things." + +"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient +for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or +seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content +to be the step we are." + +"It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A +step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside +does it," Ruth added. + +"O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort of +position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social +can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful." + +"What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the +world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty +among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the +Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall +never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we +won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and I +wonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather right +things in a no-particular sort of a way." + +"Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. + +"No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me." + +"We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs. +Holabird. "We can always manage that." + +"I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond. + +"That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You +don't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear +and diamond bright!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + + +Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. + +We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of +Box-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends +to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with +her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families +for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not +so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not +expect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when +she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would +take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it +happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never +offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It +seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in +their objections to. + +We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all +simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an +under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly +ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make +some arrangement. + +Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it +would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather +come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work +and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; +she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle +work. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cut +out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had +grasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I +think we all really liked it just as well as the other. + +We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had never +even realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at; +green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is so +beautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in with +scent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to open +to it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide in +the cooling afternoon. + +"How glad I am we _have_ to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, +stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed a +long flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people who +never do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. +It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full of +different stories!" + +Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does Leslie +Goldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, +old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, and +that has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; and +Mrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothing +pretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, +the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was a +little child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school; +but it was vacation now, of course. + +Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then +the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. +Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service,--or, +rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little +"schooling,"--the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. +Ingleside,--until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages." + +Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of +Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen +Josselyn,--Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so +much,--or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes _just next_. +She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, in +something approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in the +class and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucilla +can only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlin +wool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, or +intricacies ready made up at the--upholsterer's, I was going to say. +So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to +little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself +look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like +Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when +she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. + +Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleep +with Lucilla in the great, square east room. + +Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful how +nobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anything +in it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but she +cannot keep it so _sacredly_ fair and pure as Delia did for her. Only +one thing showed. + +"I say," said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-rail +as they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that _piousosity_, +now, mornings?" + +"No," said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't." + +"It's always whopped," said Stephen, sententiously. + +Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her very +finest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the fox +and the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair to +give a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for very +best, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her +"griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; +the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And +another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed +golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten +almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a +few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, +and delicately with pepper,--the oven doing the rest, and turning it +into a snowy soufflé. + +Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only hers +was a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; and +would be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchens +should come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into the +universal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-soufflés to be +carried half a mile to the table? + +Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was so +nice," she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was +'evingly.'" + +Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no less +than any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being very +vulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by any +means, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. + +Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get some +new ideas to carry home to Arabel. + +Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child of +one marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites between +them had dropped away,--out of the world, or into homes here and there +of their own,--and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, +low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran +up small. + +Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She _could_ make two skirts to a +dress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upper +one by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings and +flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on +exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted +herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias +to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave +the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of +wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia +sewed with her, abroad and at home,--abroad without her, also, as she +was doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or a +panier,--or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, was +something to go home with rejoicing. + +Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house; +the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to the +squirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, and +stowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down between +the walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troop +of horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the +other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way +of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a +story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the +atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in +their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived +there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed +into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there had +been parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games in +nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed +in now,--bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,--and brought the +woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should +have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back +room, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself! + +The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick coming +over one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, +walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them or +not, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any of +you getting ready to be married?" + +"Yes'm," said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us." + +Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she was +quilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon a +little round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid away +five years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, and +the waist was gone. + +While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, +more or less, everything that lay about,--"to help her in her +inventory," she said after she went away. + +"Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs," repeated she, as she +turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. + +Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the +discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's old +treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these +elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked +with beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in her +pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract +report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather +Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an +impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with +sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French +embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one +handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, +until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar +dress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. + +"I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose," Ruth would say. "I +think there are two things that make her talk in that way. In the +first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news +she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and +then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, +that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after +all." + +Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly +straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two +quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. + +After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne +went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,--people +whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the _haute +volée_ was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our +own life once more. + +"It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any +widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to +come to a plain place." + +Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she +accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could +be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on +anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She +would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern +that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which +mother taught us all. + +"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would +say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out +of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, +and then you can take the chances as they arrive." + +"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara +once replied. + +"No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A +great deal that is good--a great deal of the best--comes in at the +back-doors." + +Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we +did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. + +Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate. + +Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did +her cousin and Dakie. [Footnote: Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, +and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever +thought to put this in before.] + +Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending +for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. + +Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five +years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the +twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and +severe, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbara +usually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth--Miss +Trixie says--"plays like a ninkum." + +We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we +were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something +particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily +down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice +about us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y," +"Swiss-family-Robinson-ish," that got us all together over it, in the +hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie could +appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old +furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve +upon--certainly to supplant--the original pattern. Yet she always had +a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had +ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our +improvements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as we +can be, already,--it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us how +cosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day," says Barbara. + +Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. +It was tan-color, bound with crimson,--covering three square yards; +and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after +breakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the dark +floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and +mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the +great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our +camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to +have a brand-new piece of furniture before night. + +Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie +was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she +was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a +handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. + +The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had +Miss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-door +to their house. + +I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. There +are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do +with our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all _their_ +stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet +them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although +we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of +fashion. + +We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of the +hammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came +back from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; his +furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. + +[Illustration] + +"Another two years' pull," he said. "Won't you all come to West Point +next summer?" + +"If we take the journey we think of," said Barbara, composedly,--"to +the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and +then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to +Saratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have a +day or two there." + +"Barbara," said mother, remonstratingly. + +"Why? _Don't_ we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it till +I'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, +Mr. Thayne." + +"We shall miss you very much," said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara's +nonsense. + +"Our summer has stopped right in the middle," said Barbara, determined +to talk. + +"I shall hear about you all," said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be a +Westover column in Leslie's news. I wish--" and there the cadet +stopped. + +Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. + +"I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, +to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that +would be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year +of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't know +how he hangs on to those eight weeks,--and how they hang on to him +afterwards." + +Mother looked so motherly at him then! + +"We shall not forget you--Dakie," she said, using his first name for +the first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then." + +Dakie said, "Thank you," in a tone that responded to her "Dakie." + +We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers are +beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. + +He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook hands +also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to +see before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,--as it was our +cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,--through the hall to +the door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to +take off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they were +leaving. + +Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as was +natural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, once +more, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go away +and leave us all. + +"That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man," said Miss +Trixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got in +behind them again. + +"The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes," said +Barbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie." When +anybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her love +for mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort of +chivalry it has with it. + + * * * * * + +It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importance +had come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curious +and wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. + +We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we had +quite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it was +with us; we had things we _must_ take up; we could not have spared +time to lead society for a long while together. + +Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; she +had a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "old +house" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdowne +in to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort of +attention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try to +afford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake and +preserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. + +It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, +had had private occupation. + +"There had been family company at grandfather's," she told Jeannie +Hadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. +We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or three +weeks." + +Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing his +geometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on a +sheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes a +little, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle of +mischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept on +silently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in her +funniest, repressed way,-- + +"I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to +understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are +wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. +Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?" + +She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over with +intersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves and +circumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, +Holabird. + +"It's a mere question of centre and radius," she said. "You may be big +enough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at the +sides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off into +space on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of a +great ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you +_must_ be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!" + +"It doesn't illustrate," said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up in +that fashion." + +"Geometry does," said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. +But I suppose there's a Q.E.D. at the end of it somewhere." + + * * * * * + +Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happened +freshly, rather,--which also had to do with our orbit and its +eccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. + +"I should think _any_ kind of an astronomer might be mad!" she +exclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come the +perturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we never +know exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formed +other views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What _is_ the +reason we can't keep a satellite,--planet, I mean?" + +"Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!" + +"Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again." And she sat +down resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. + +"I'll tell you what we'll do, mother," said Ruth, coming round. "I've +thought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!" + +"She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she put +the luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick--moon!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CO-OPERATING. + + +When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, +right off,-- + +"I'm sure I wish they would!" + +"Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. + +"Co-operate." + +"O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the +Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they +come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your +advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't +believe '_they_' will ever do much for '_us_'!" + +"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair +wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. + +Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory +knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. + +"Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara. + +"Oh! Yes. That is what they _used_ to have, in old times, when we +lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. +All the women in a house co-operated--to keep it; and all the +neighborhood co-operated--by living exactly in the same way. +Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?" + +One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple or +sharp. + +That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at the +time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a +while, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. + +"I could--almost--write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over her +work. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything +turns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in the +times when people _did_ the things!" + +"O Barbara! _Think_ of all that is being done in the world!" + +"I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everything +into a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from their +fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll do +will be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world is +running pretty much to roosters." + +"Is that the poem?" + +"I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. It +came into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginning +and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they +have to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show for +it, and the thing that really amounts, after all." + +"Well, tell us." + +"It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. +They could say all sorts of things,--one and another:-- + + "_I_ wrote some little books; + _I_ said some little says; + _I_ preached a little preach; + _I_ lit a little blaze; + _I_ made things pleasant in one little place." + +There was a shout at Barbara's "poem." + +"I thought I might as well relieve my mind," she said, meekly. "I knew +it was all there would ever be of it." + +But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. +She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" _may_ +sometimes do in the great world, + +We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate." + +We talked it over,--what we could do without a girl. We had talked it +over before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. +But in our little house in Z----, with the dark kitchen, and with +Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had to +hire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barb +called a "heave-offering of life." + +"They used to have houses built accordingly," Rosamond said, speaking +of the "old times." "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest and +pleasantest room in the house." + +"Couldn't we _make_ the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggested +Ruth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed in +mornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do that +in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls +have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the +dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and irons +wanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen of +our own! I can think how it might be lovely!" + +"I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsing +into her dislocations. + +"_You_ like kitchens," said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. + +"Yes, I do," said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, +and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can't +have patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the low +realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and +the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head +and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just see +what we _shall_ come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, who +have Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a great +deal in being Holabirdy,--or whatever-else-you-are-y!" + +"If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen," said Mrs. Holabird. + +"Mother," said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?" + +We were in the dining-room. + +"This nice room!" + +"It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know." + +Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stained +floor, showing clean, undefaced margins,--the new, pretty +drugget,--the freshly clad, broad old sofa,--the high wainscoted +walls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,--the +ceiling faintly tinted with buff,--the buff holland shades to the +windows,--the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with +its glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and a +gleam of silver and glass,--the two or three pretty engravings in the +few spaces for them,--O, it was a great deal too nice to take for a +kitchen. + +But Ruth began again. + +"You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was down +stairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, and +everything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never +was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. It +would be so different from a girl! It seems as if we _might_ bring the +kitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen." + +"But the stove," said mother. + +"I think," said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polished +up, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!" + +"It is clumsy, one must own," said Mrs. Holabird, "besides being +suggestive." + +"So is a piano," said the determined Barbara. + +"I can _imagine_ a cooking-stove," said Rosamond, slowly. + +"Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!" + +"A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made to +order,--like an urn, or something,--with a copper faucet, and nothing +else ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tins +and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut +dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as +they are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it _might_ be like +that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like +Marie Antoinette's Trianon." + +"That's what it _would_ come to, if it was part of our living, just as +we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give +each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have +as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the +whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste _hasn't_ got +into. Let's have an art-kitchen!" + +"We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if +we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs. +Holabird. + +The idea grew and developed. + +"But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring +afresh. + +"There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara, +"for the people you can't be intimate with, and _think_ how crowsy +this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!" + +"We shall just settle _down_," said Rose, gloomily. + +"Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it +does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life." + +"We shall always gather to us what _belongs_. Every little crystal +does that," said mother, taking up another simile. + +"What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. + +"I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage +with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to +get a place together." + +And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick +found out what it really meant. + +We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made +up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. +Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an' +she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl." + +"Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused +the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and +the irids. + +There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we +had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. + +Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl +said. + +"She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is +willing to come for a trial." + +"They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think--as +Protestants--we've hired enough of them." + +Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of +our indecisions. + +We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, +stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from +the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle +washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it +almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, +and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lesser +movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation +behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish +as we went along. + +Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation to +the art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-iron +man made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in the +dining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. +It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone +hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a +nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the +funnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in its +new position, its features softened to almost a sitting-room +congruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force its +homely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top looked +smooth and enticing. + +There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was set +a broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This +closet had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busy +use, or closed quite away and done with. + +There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins and +our saucepans,--the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothing +to do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoons +and our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quart +measures,--these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; +in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in +the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,--we bought two new ones, a +little and a big,--the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, +outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which we +never meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we could +have to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soon +found, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. + +[Illustration] + +Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room," opening +into the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passage +itself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of the +other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel +for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be +replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The +"girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty uses +for; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available; +very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. + +We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all these +arrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon +shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did +not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or +plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could +stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody +to the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. + +By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfect +starting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that +were to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, that +we had celebrated ours by clearing them out. + +The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintily +crumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had come +in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, +in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiled +for brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves and +crumbs when _she_ manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. + +"Clean beginnings are beautiful," said Rosamond, looking around. "It +is the middle that's horrid." + +"We won't have any middles," said Ruth. "We'll keep making clean +beginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work and +muss." + +"If you can," said Rose, doubtfully. + +I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird story +is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make +a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make +a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her +dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. + +I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Monday +morning--and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you can +take--just after we had begun. + +The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. +There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler +were filled,--father did that just before he locked up the house; we +had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in +the morning. + +Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin +in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a +beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs +Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done +nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast +on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would +bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We +should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all +below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours' +ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. + +Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed +three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow +behind, mother had let down the ashes,--it isn't a bad thing to do +with a well-contrived stove,--and set the pan, to which we had a +duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the +clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one +or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The +draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these +five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed +up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not +like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with +its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. + +Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little buttered +toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its +ration of fragrant, beaten paste,--the brown ground kernels mixed with +an egg,--and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two +frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, +into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh +butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--"one can give +one's self _carte-blancher_," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a +girl";--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white +porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat +daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, +broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this +went on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milk +boiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over it +stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole +was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one +of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the +coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been +beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the +breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and +butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the +cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery +things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held +them beside the stove, into its corner. + +Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for +the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in +which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the +white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and +the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the +three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and +reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before +which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had +recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and +her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as +any bit of pretty play or pageant. + +Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch +gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with +bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all +points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all +more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. + +After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it +put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was +something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant +knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,--we had, in fact, a +palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own +dishes,--and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the +pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit +making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft +clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have +plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the +Mondays. + +After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth the +coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little +scour,--a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an +iron utensil, in mother's hands; and _that_ was clean work, and the +iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It +was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come +off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that +makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle +of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she +comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does +wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in +that, and chemically disappears. + +It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had +sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that +morning. + +We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of the +kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara +set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded +the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a +row--flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent--on +the back platform. + +She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and +in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon +order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. + +We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does +remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new +housekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawn +them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these +last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They +were hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them; +mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt +bath before cooking. + +I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. +They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings +were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and +comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid +them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey +way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar +need. + +We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it +was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the +oven, and set the dinner-table. + +Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon +the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the +parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the +Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when +the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, +while the potatoes were boiling. + +Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that +jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, +there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of +Saturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before +the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot +water and ammonia in it. + +"Mother," said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!" + +"It is the girl that makes the kitchen," said Ruth. + +"And then the kitchen that has to have the girl," said Mrs. Holabird. + +Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the +crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on +father's cheese. + +Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending." + +"We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows," said mother in a +low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. + +"Nor have to scrinch all up," said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fear +she'd touch us!" + +I'll tell you--in confidence--another of our ways at Westover; what, +we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and +evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. +We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we +poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover +down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the +dish-washing for the day. + + * * * * * + +"Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But you +can't be told everything in one chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. + + +Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave them +heaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sized +basket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were folded +up. + +One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in,--for we +had been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens had +just gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. +Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruth +slipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found that +Rosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting the +tea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweet +loaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and the +little silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there was +nothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the small +Japanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. + +"Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going to +do these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms." + +That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. There +are a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. +Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling and +folding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grass +and the air and the sunshine is one. + +Mother went off,--chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept to +tea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely little +underhand way, with Barbara. + +Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out a +little ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end of +the long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed the +water-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and the +starched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothing +into little white rolls. + +Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed with +her fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collars +and cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from her +finger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with a +corn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up in +it, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon the +middle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process to +watch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all the +possible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if they +only once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: and +then they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenes +are just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones and +twos; perhaps not always any audience at all. + +Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. + +Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into the +nearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood Harry +Goldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. + +Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano,--only about her +work. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, and +put them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own,--her poem. + + "I wrote some little books; + I said some little says; + I preached a little pre-e-each; + I lit a little blaze; + I made--things--pleasant--in one--little--place." + +She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, +in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle of +shirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed it +down into the basket. + +"How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do you +believe they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our little +inspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?" + +"We won't do it," said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother's +nightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her private +knowledge. + +"I think they ought to let us vote just once," said Barbara; "to say +whether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being put +upon now, if we never were before." + +"It isn't fair," said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window at +Harry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could she +tell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when she +knew? + +"Of course it isn't," said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a white +cambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to read +all those Pub. Doc.s that father gets. You see women will make awful +hard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doing +every--little--thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, and +smoothed the hem between the buttons. + +"We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it," Barbara went +on, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters of +Polity.' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather be +a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life." + +"Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. + +"May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over the +rail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. + +She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. + +"'_May_ you'? When you have, already!" + +"O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, +and help?" + +"You don't know the way," Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, +and folding up the waist. + +"Don't I? Which,--to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himself +over the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipe +that ran down there, reached the other to something-above the +window,--the mere pediment, I believe,--and swung his feet lightly to +the sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close by +Barbara's elbow. + +"You'll get sprinkled," said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over a +table-cloth. + +"I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took the +risk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. I +couldn't help it, and I don't care!" + +Barbara was thinking of two things,--how long he had been there, and +what in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and--how +she should get off her rough-dried apron. + +"Which do you want,--napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round to +the basket, and began to pull out. + +"Napkins," says Barbara. + +The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped and +fumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave it +a shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, he +did get a drift of it in his face. + +"That won't do," said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whisk +aside. "There are too many of us." + +She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread up +a pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it when +I was a little boy," he said. + +Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. They +stretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand in +smoothing and showering. + +"Why, I wish it weren't all done," says Harry, turning over three +clothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned her +sleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" looking +round the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "I +think your house is full of nice places." + +"Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. + +"Yes, ma'am," Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. +"We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly to +Mrs. Holabird's astonishment. + +"You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to do +your duty," said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. +Holabird." + +"Miss Polly-put--" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with a +half-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at the +table with a very great dignity. + +People think that young folks can only have properly arranged and +elaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, and +bouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad and +sweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games and +bewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each other +naturally, as it were,--dip into each other's little interests and +doings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table of +opportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time any +minute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life +used to be "co-operative." + +Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. + +"Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a +case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on." + +"_One_ world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can +set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself +round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that +belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you +know it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, +and the Noachian--don't they call it?--new foundation. That's the way +they got up New England, anyhow." + +"Barbara, what flights you take!" + +"Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, you +know, besides the old broken-down and buried ones." + +It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of Aunt +Radford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went with +her, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind to +stay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. + +One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but if +ever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he took +the time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thought +everything of "Mrs. Stephen," too, and he quite relied upon her +judgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if they +had got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. +Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. + +At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, +out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, +and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just after +dinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that father +did not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird went +home at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone Leslie +Goldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only," they said; for the +south-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. That +was how we all happened to be just as we were that night of the +September gale; for it was the September gale of last year that was +coming. + +The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had been +soft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shut +them again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the pictures +swung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody had +left doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where a +window was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three were +all on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather's +papers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor upon +the gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all up +for him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father a +chase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put them +up in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes more +they went off together to the old house. + +[Illustration] + +It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutes +that Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they took +to consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, just +settled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort of +lull or holding up. + +Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing; +the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windows +seemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, before +they got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, and +lashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of all +strange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloft +and onward in a false, plebeian triumph. + +The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, +wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the +country,--not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it _would_ +fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it +rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran +about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and +carpets. + +"I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out +for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,--hair-brushes out on +voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a +hat-box!" + +Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space +beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in +one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to +pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the +window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although +its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray +was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. + +In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a +picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, +standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before +we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and +shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, +like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison +in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt +doors,--latches were nothing,--and bar shutters. And when we could +pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at! + +The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely +one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The +little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." +The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their +branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head +of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms +were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all +snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged +blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the +posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and +earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath +the sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field and +ours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over and +through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the +air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it +by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below +us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a +furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks +through the air. + +It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brown +room, to shine through the south window, and show father that we were +all right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird's +north porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we were +as far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. + +"Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. + +"I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and that +there would be no way of getting out again. People must be caught +everywhere, just as it happens, to-night." + +"It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in an +ecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up all +night!" + +Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a little +from its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. + +"It had all been blown to Canada, by this time," Harry Goldthwaite +said. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls and +windows." + +True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actually +dry. + +It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put his +hands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out that +there was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all went +and looked. + +It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hill +at right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down," +we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and came +steadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door that +opened upon the little passage to the dining-room. + +We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door to +let him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that he +should enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. + +"The old gentleman has been taken bad," he said. "Mr. Stephen wants to +know if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird's +better. I've got to go to the town for the doctor." + +"On foot, Robert?" + +"Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter's +firing of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain't +much knowing where you _can_ get along." + +"But what is it?" + +"We mustn't keep him," urged Barbara. + +"No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's a +kind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had a +kind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it's +appalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'." + +Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, +that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert +"thought a good deal," as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. + +Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in his +hand. How he ever found it we could not tell. + +"I'll go with him," he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, +Barbara? I'm _very_ sorry about Mr. Holabird." + +He shook hands with Barbara,--it chanced that she stood +nearest,--bade us all good night, and went away. We turned back +silently into the brown room. + +We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange things +were happening to-night! + +All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into our +minds. An event that,--never talked about, and thought of as little, I +suppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours,--had yet +always loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and would +bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. + +Grandfather might be going to die. + +And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the +brown room and sit down? + +There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about +the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, +and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or +"terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale, +even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree +were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not +get the real wonder of it--the thing that moved us to try to talk it +over--into any words. + +"He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond. + +"I don't think he _was_ quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so +when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow." + +"O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was +anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when +he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was +coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the +shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his +knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he +could manage; no wonder his hands trembled." + +"I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond. + +"I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him," said Ruth. + +"I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather should +die," said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his _first_ +thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. + +"O Stevie! _don't_ let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; and +nobody else answered at all. + +We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which we +had made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then we +all went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth brought +some pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, made +up a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white one +to Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light in +grandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in the +porch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert had +got back, and the doctor had come,--whether he was better or +worse,--whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. + +"O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. + +There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion of +the storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in the +possible awfulness and change that were so near,--over there in +Grandfather Holabird's lighted room. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HALLOWEEN. + + +Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock +when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better; +that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might +have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on +for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as +easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old +habits as his strength permitted. + +Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The +family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had +threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that +grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. +He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for +among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. +He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and +then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, +and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the +excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the +barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come +back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the +midst of the storm. + +The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of +gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in +trust to father for his wife and children. + +"I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing +money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever +since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of +my boys ever paid me any _board_. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives +things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening; +and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my +other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but +I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't +go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of _them_; what +little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I +never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest +comprehension,--and Roderick and John are both honest,--if I left it +as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, +and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it." + +That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it; +there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done +in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they +came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really +seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never +mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had +mentioned it at all. + +"He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said, +"unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he +must come across that." + +"He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect. +We can be sure of nothing." + +But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October +Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. + +Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded +it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. +She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up +stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping +with,-- + +"If I had gone to New York--" and there she stopped, as if she had +accidentally said what she did not intend. + +"If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you +mean?" + +"Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked +me, that is all. Of course I couldn't." + +"Of course you're just a glorious old _noblesse oblige_-d! Why didn't +you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have +helped. I'd have lent you--that garnet and white silk!" + +Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be +kissed. + +After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always +the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that +young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a +woman's way. + +The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses +of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, +and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and +hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes +morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how +pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here +at Westover. + +"How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great +open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!" + +"So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?" + +"To tea?" + +"No. Only to the fun,--and some supper. We can have that all ready in +the other room." + +"They'll see the cooking-stove." + +"They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara. + +"We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth. + +"The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That _would_ be a make-shift. Who +ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, +and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to +take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, +and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll +have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, +bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they +get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover +that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,--that piece +of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque +of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all +goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is +brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, +you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to +seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere." + +"It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara. + +"They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be +Marchbanksy." + +Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own +special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in +utilizing them. + +But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not? + +"Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion. +Just the neighbors,--right around here." + +"That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said +Ruth, quietly. + +"O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond. +"Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real' +nice!" + +"That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts _are_ +real." + +Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. +She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, +and like each other. + +"What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,--your +nose is crocheted,--and your mouth is--tatted! I shall have to come +and ravel you out." + +"I'm thinking; that is all." + +"How to build the fence?" + +"What fence?" + +"That fence round the pond,--the old puzzle. There was once a pond, +and four men came and built four little houses round it,--close to the +water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly +behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the +little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you +know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant +people are so apt to be nearest the good time!" + +"I like to satisfy everybody." + +"You won't,--with a squirm-fence!" + +If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently +as possible, and invited them--Marchbankses and all--to our Halloween +frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music +lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were +Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of +her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the +Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four +houses, Ruth heard everything. + +All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, +Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite +until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and +Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that +the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in +transports because they were to be allowed to go. + +"Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. + +"Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke +before I thought." + +"What did you tell her?" + +"I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And +Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we +might try to arrange something." + +But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and +Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted +that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a +compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another +word. + +In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, +homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. + +"They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have +stopped." + +"Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth. + +"Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her +clearest, quietest tones. + +Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite +the Hobarts," she said. + +"That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara. + +"Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out. + +The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly +come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday +Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. + +From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z----, and asked Leslie +Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if +she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have +his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. + +Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then +she met Lucilla Waters in the street. + +"I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to +you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her +gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic +in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. + +"We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You +will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie." + +Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for +Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to +her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. + +She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to +find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the +Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to +the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come +together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little +frolic, and we have begun, too, you see." + +Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria +Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would +divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was +different from other invites. One might take liberties." + +Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last +of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. + +It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, +at last, and proffered her invitation. + +"You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity +to divide. We want the same people, of course,--the Hendees, and the +Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we +ourselves were an afterthought. + +Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she +was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, +and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,--Helen +Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, +after all. + +Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that +moment. + +Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her +friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, +of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's +verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw +in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had +said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not +then asked. + +Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed +it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. + +"Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation +for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see +you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some +of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it +were possible to have both pleasures." + +That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "But +Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little +bumble-bee!" + +How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. +It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it +seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at +once, quietly and of course, asserted. + +Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was +beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the +salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. + +"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but +it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?" + +Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I +think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've +had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own." + +It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between." + +Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the +bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide +chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced +sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid +logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to +finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped +through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, +and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an +outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look +at: and they never tumbled down. + +She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak +to Miss Pennington. + +"Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.' +That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up." + +Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made +pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. + +"I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still +looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?" + +"Miss Pennington! Would you come?" + +"I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you +going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that." + +"We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the +name." + +"That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games +nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and +superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and +we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at +Christmas, when we were all at home." + +"O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!" + +"Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly +meddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me." + +How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out! + +And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when +things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will +take, now and then, even in this vexed world. + +There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have +servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are +entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after +all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last +touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. + +The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put +together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from +whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and +garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little +macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of +spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold +room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the +last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put +them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the +white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to +worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the +whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which +Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of +ours. Truly it is a charming thing,--all to itself, in a family! + +To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner +that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and +the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could +shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish +everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet +and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the +very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might +have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, +chatty cup of tea. + +The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and +pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for +the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the +wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up +three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open +piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some +of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that +Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we +played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost +mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss +Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and +there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great +damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with +Barbara into the dining-room. + +"This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing +from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white +bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until +after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the +brown room. + +We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought +over Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and +they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until +they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated +needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched +them turn and swim and draw together,--some point to point, some heads +and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the +margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or +an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it +into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars; +and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and +pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a little +palette with a hole in it. + +[Illustration] + +And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each +girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little +secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and +surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some +little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its +companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight +together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these +were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, +but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped +into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and +some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. + +Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the +larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off +a little way, right in toward the blaze. + +"Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then +crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, +with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and +they both dropped quietly down against the fender together. + +"What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. + +"O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen, +looking on. + +Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone +with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the +stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said +to her:-- + + "Round and round, O stars so fair! + Ye travel, and search out everywhere. + I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me, + This night, who my future husband shall be!" + +Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the +reason. + +"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl +who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" + +But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She +took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a +shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. + +"Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward +all the way." + +So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant +after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped +backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. + +Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a +friend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, +introducing him by his full name. + +We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army +surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a +stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in +front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. +And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and +shouted. + +It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. + +We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered +the oysters. + +Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her +with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the +full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier +in all her life. + +After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her +snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. + +Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. + +"Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. + +Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. + +"You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. + +"A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. + +"It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her +shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. + +Ruth got a sugared almond. + +"Only a _kernel_," said the merry doctor's wife, again. + +The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. + +"Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. + +"And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. + +Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica. + +Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. + +"That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of +getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." + +It was great fun, though. + +Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. + +If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant +something. And the year is not out yet, you see. + +But there was no doubt of one thing,--that our Halloween at Westover +was a famous little party. + + * * * * * + +"How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the +hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she +had picked up about the carpet into the coals. + +We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them +on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the +girl," said Barbara. It _is_ a comfort to put by things, with a clear +conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the +Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there +would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we +should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. + +"How do you feel about it?" + +"I feel as if we had had a real _own_ party, ourselves," said Ruth; +"not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't +anybody to _show us how_!" + +"Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come? +Nobody can say now--" + +"What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very +nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. +Otherwise, why shouldn't she?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + + +"That was a nice party," said Miss Pennington, walking home with +Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made it +so nice?" + +"You, very much," said Leslie, straightforwardly. + +"I didn't begin it," said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It was +a step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties long +ago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference was +that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, +and in another on the left,--now and then, perhaps, at the back; and +when you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might be +Mrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that it +was all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!" + +"This was a party of 'nexts,'" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame." + +"What a good time Miss Waters had--quietly! You could see it in her +face. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for +Lucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. +"She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more." + +"The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while the +firsts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss +Pennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't think +anything about it!" + +"So there are," said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. +They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think the +trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and +pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better than +fresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What a +beautiful old home-y house it is!" + +"And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. + +"_We_ have an old home-y house," said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "with +landscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And +we don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Will +you stay and come to it?" + +"Any time within my two months' leave," replied Doctor Hautayne, "and +with very great pleasure." + +"So she will have it before very long," said Leslie, telling us about +the talk the next day. + +It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she _did_ take it up! +That does not come in here, though,--any more of it. + +The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great deal +of money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everything +like the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the +trouble for that; but they are so _established_; it is a family like +an old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes little +spread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, and +grasp more ground than all the rest put together. + +They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not a +new-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, +painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and then +terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at +each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more +roses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus than +flowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box and +southernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. + +Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was a +captain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiff +elbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just after +he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,--the +younger brother,--out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When +her mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. The +Penningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; and +their glory is off the selfsame piece. + +They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, +retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to the +Inglesides. + +One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making an +apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabeth +drove round to the door. + +Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. +Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. + +"Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. +She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding." + +Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had had +to say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her clay +till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the +very farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, +the best that was _ready_ made, and put that forth. + +"And I know," said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must not +be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who has +lived in barracks come to her where she is?" + +Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see"; +she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," +and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and without +warning, upon the scene of operations. + +"O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walked +forward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and +smiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventh +beauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. + +"Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. + +Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laid +down the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flour +and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely +gloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! It +was very meek of her not to look at all set up. + +Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hanging +down against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work +when the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, +cushioned sofa. + +The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, and +at the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, the +pudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon a +plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its +sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing +with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The +sunshine--work and sunshine always go so blessedly together--poured +in, and filled the room up with life and glory. + +"Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss +Elizabeth. + +"That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a +kitchen," said Barbara. + +"You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!" + +"I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara, +laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room; +and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!" + +"You are wonderful people!" + +"You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said +Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching +you would have been always getting turned out." + +"Turned out?" + +"Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns +out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the +sole of your foot till you're a general." + +Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. +Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered +into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. +She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, +sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free +quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara +brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into +the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen +cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara +disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam +went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird +went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really +came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara +carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was +drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble +in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. + +"I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I +shall feel like company again now." + +"I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. +"It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" + +"I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. + +"She needs doing with" said Barbara. + +"Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. +Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question +is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep +but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to +you." + +"The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. + +"Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world +full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general +housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What +should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' +so?" + +"There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. +"What are homes coming to?" + +"Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselves +into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell +you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. +But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the +Lucys will grow again." + +"Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. + +"We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," +said mother,--"hotels." + +"And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. +Irishocracy is a despotism in the land." + +"Only," said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "by +learning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; that +it takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightest +grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this +little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after +all. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for human +souls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this room +full of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning in +the earth." + +Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. + +"'We girls,'" began mother again, smiling,--"for that is the way the +children count me in,--said to each other, when we first tried this +new plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would have +things nice and pretty for our common work; but there is something +behind that,--the something that 'makes the meanest task divine,'--the +spiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that I +think life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shall +not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other +on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls +and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go +into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best +that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are +willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to +them as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, +either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorify +them. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have got +the wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into the +wheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. +They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I _wish_ women would be +content with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and point +the time upon the dial!" + +Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful old +Mrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. +There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that she +scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their +cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it +was as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand of +them instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closets +get up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. + +Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her hand +at going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly,-- + +"I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up all +the time. I want to have some _nexts_. Your girls know what I mean; +and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'next +Thursdays,' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shall +give primary invitations only,--and my primaries are to find +secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, +or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from +somewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social life +cannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will come +to. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. If +anybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow--Gray.'" + +She went off, leaving us that to think of. + +Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, +every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member is +to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is +always to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, +with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands." + +Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty much +all we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should want +fourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. +Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten." They all came from that one +blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there +_is_ such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't +help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, +and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-four +Thousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, +from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitable +commandment, after the "Let there be!" + +It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, +in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. +People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in the +stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; +and when they were once there you really could not tell the +difference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was the +deadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the new +sap and the green rind. + +Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, as +charades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came to +the Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views,"--every +successive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone down +grotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of old +relics,--bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in their +close gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passing +through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were +odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones +with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, +balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with +ruffles _rayonnantes_; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and +barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, +and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the very +pocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from the +waiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of a +middle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could tell +everybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" down +or up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, +one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever could +have been a funnier evening! + +We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend" +Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady; +Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself was +Mrs. Wilfer; Mr. and Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and Doctor +Ingleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the +light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as +Pleasant Riderhood,--Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie +looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with her +for her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmaker +herself,--Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovely +book-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody's +parlors, and yet never gets into them herself. + +[Illustration] + +Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she really +has a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, +"O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, but +the wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows the +doll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her some +time, if ever she goes to England--or to heaven. Truly she was up to +the "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into it +with more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wren +that no one--at the moment--thought of her in any other character, or +remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the +distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to +her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the +festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or +abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a +genius. She stepped right _out_ of Dickens's story, not _into_ it, as +the rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously into +the grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "up +here," or "over there," and "be dead," as fresh, new-world delights +attracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; and +T'other Governor would insist on following after them, and being +comfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and the +Veneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provide +any Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. + +Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only our +fourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the +person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were +helped to. + +We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about +his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I +believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a +way like that. + +It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. +She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable +came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to +"come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every +week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs +out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of +ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or +to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is +taking German lessons with Pen Pennington. + +It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it +would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting +left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie +Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian." + +It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,--that last winter of the +nineteenth century's seventh decade. + +One day--everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it +does come, however many days lead up to it--Doctor Ingleside came in +and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird; +grandfather was not quite well. + +They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew +what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news +as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters? + +Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. + +Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And +yet--"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing +people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. +Take it in; shut your door upon it; and--think! It is something that +belongs to heart and soul. + +We counted up; it was only seven weeks. + +"As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the +Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this +meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has +never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the +sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come +right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of +them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, +each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as +foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go." + +Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,--Thursday. Doctor +Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's +that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,--we looked into +new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the +intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that +everybody could not see how quite another thing than any merely +written poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for John +Hautayne. + +That was in December; it was the first of March when Grandfather +Holabird died. + +At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not let +her get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter work +was growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides the +furnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came +and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all +pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to +begin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "If +mother doesn't get better," and "If this cold weather keeps on," and +"_Are_ we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" from +Barbara, at last. + +Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again." Nobody wanted to do +that; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her +prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were crippled and +reduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short days +and her music. + +"I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all +_summer_,'" said Barbara; "but _this_ is Valley Forge." The kitchen +fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Mother +was worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her come +down until it was warm and her coffee was ready. + +That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the +hour. + +"The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he. +"Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here." + +"Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. + +"Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said +Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and--since nobody else will ever +dare to give in--I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, +for us!" + +"It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird. + +It certainly was not going back. + +"We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then +harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated +earth, the first millennial specimen,--see if we don't!--of what was +supposed to be an extinct flora,--the _Domestica antediluviana_." + +Arctura Fish came to us. + +If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience +of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions +which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We +could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. +Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot +skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. + +And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal +attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the +time during the three weeks that he lived. + +When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of +any kind; neither was that deed of gift. + +Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about +it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she +cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and +that little pig," while she warmed our toes. + +"Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the +Roderick Holabirds. + +We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, +indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, +to force itself upon us. + +After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the +worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody +thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it +was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of +Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt +Roderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there was +nothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was not +for any one or two to settle." + +Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must all +come right, somehow." + +But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the +place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left +must do for us; the house must go into the estate. + +It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,--until +affairs were settled. + +"It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + + +The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,--well, +we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there +would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have +had just two of them out of our whole lives. + +Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what +could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, +after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old +place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and +though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could +choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old +homestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made up +our minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there." + +Why, we _had_ always lived there! That was just the way we had always +been trying to spell "home," though we had never got the right letters +to do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it is +a thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stones +to begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, and +when you come to it you know it is yours. The best things--the most +glorious and wonderful of all--will be what we shall see to have been +"laid up for us from the foundation." Aunt Roderick did not see one +bit of how that was with us. + +"There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your +_own_ house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did +grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt +that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John +were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." +And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that +Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had +not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he +_was_ well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. + +If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of what +father told them, they could not have behaved very differently. We +half thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likely +they half thought that we were making it appear that they had done +something that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that are +the hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable," Aunt Roderick used to +say. + +Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; and +when the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, +and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look round +and shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. And +it's a dumb shame. Don't tell _me_!" + +Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with his +share, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used to +nothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want +"encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and paying +rent to the heirs, ourselves included,--nobody wanted that; they would +rather have things settled up. There would always be questions of +estimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. +Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knew +they all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in such +matters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It would +take two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. + +So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have +any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would +be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we +like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child +hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on again +on Monday. + +With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house,--Arctura. +We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a +serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos +to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with +us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move the +kitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchen +any more. + +Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, +wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us; +and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. We +all worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down in +the afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. +She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico aprons +for her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending and +dress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linen +collars and cuffs. + +We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work as +delicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was as +fit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonished +herself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. + +"Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethers +anywheres." + +"GATHERS,--_anywhere_" Rosamond corrected. + +Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the +way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no +great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right +end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come +out of our year at Westover. + +"Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times +one." + +So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound +Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. +She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and +geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want +a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; +if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must _build_ one, +just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked +together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting +great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of +us,--and some of the best of us, perhaps,--have got to stay at home +awhile and do. + +"It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while +to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. +'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town +meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm _sure_ there's +need of them for reorganizing _parlor_ meetings. They are getting to +be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have +grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the +position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think +so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see +to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,--right up, +respectful,--Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!" + +Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West +Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. + +A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with +the family worries,--which Ruth always had a way of gathering to +herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the +nettles from other people's fingers,--and her hard work at her music, +she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a +vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at +once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake +George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked +Ruth to go too. + +"If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have +come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm +nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I +should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the +whistles." + +Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt +in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. + +"What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington +left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth +colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest +possible way to go, if she were to go at all." + +Barbara meant--or meant to be understood that she meant--that Miss +Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers; +Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by +an invitation like this from people out of her own family. + +"But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she +asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?" + +"Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked." + +"I wish--everybody--knew that," said Ruth. + +Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she +went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out +into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. + +This is one of her letters:-- + +DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:--It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could +sit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright +light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, +low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on +one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The +Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are +trying,--as they are trying almost all the time,--against the face of +the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells +keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. + +I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any +other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was +the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and +Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to +think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all +this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close +beside and about them. + +The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for +mischief,--the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very +amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have +parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old +Cro' Nest,--which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, +just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a +very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and +down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were +nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful +bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The +bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he +would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,--"Well, he +rather thinks,--if she would have stood still long enough,--he would +have let her be--astonished!" + +The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is +beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name! + +We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid +Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, +how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly +funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us +I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a +misery of politeness. + +We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the +dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge +of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it +sloped down safely again,--when, just at the very middle and highest +and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, +and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been +frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No; +nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again +in that dreadful place." She laughed in the midst of it; but she was +really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to +help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What would +come of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her; +_she_ couldn't do anything." "But, dear Miss Pennington," says Dakie, +"are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a +Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never could +get down." I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, +nearly half an hour, before she began to _hitch_ along; for walk she +wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice +silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist +after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks +and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could +stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,--"a noble wreck in ruinous +perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them +up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or +three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk +petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did +all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"What _has_ happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M----, as +we came up on the piazza. + +"Nothing," said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tired +and sat down; and it was dusty,--that was all." He bowed and went off, +without so much as a glance of secret understanding. + +"A joke has as many lives as a cat, here," he told Pen and me, +afterwards, "and that was _too_ good not to keep to ourselves." + +Dear little mother and girls,--I have told stories and described +describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner _such_ a +thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westover +and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn't +help telling him something about the worry. I know I had no business +to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buy +the place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it of +him if he did! Just think of it,--that boy! I believe he really means +to write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into my +head when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of +_his_ having such a quantity of money. He seems just like--as far as +that goes--any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will? + +P.S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting of +mine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe he +will write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfect +morning! + +Tell Stephen I've got a _splendid_ little idea, on purpose for him and +me. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. Dakie +Thayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, about +everything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don't +think Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says she +hates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Pen +and I think she is afraid of the steamers. + + * * * * * + +Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, +and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. + +Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysterious +idea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, for +anything. + +We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruth +got up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen went +straight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did not +know till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story,--just +because there is so precious little of it. + +Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the front +door. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to the +piazza cracks. + +"Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?" + +Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!" + +"Why, how your face shines! What _is_ up?" + +"It's the sunset. I mean--that shines. Don't say anything. Our +splendid--little--idea, you know. It's under here." + +"Be dar--never-minded, if mine is!" + +"You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was--exactly. Do +you remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer? +Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they never +knew their way out till she showed 'em?" + +"It _isn't_ about kittens!" + +"Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?" + +"Yes; four." + +"Couldn't you bring up one--or two--to-morrow morning _early_, and +make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the +sod, and fasten 'em up?" + +"What--_for_?" with wild amazement. + +"I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, +and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell +you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little +feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and +round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. + +Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early +plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his +mind to be on hand. + +Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, +between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she +went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little +wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she +whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. + +"Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. + +And Ruth "scatted." + +Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the +tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and +wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a +precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat +babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on +their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to +doing. + +"They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." + +"What--_for_?" cried Stephen, again. + +"To get them out, of course," says Ruth. + +"Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" + +"Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I _believe_--but I don't dare say a word +yet--there's something there!" + +"Of course there is. Two little yowling--" + +"Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But +I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" + +Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long +serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I _see_ something," +he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, +Ruth--? My cracky! if you do!" + +"We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." + +Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he +got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and +prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the +wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the +middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a +little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench +lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the +house-boarding. + +Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of +dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, +and weather had not badly injured it. + +"Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. +"Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, +that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?" + +[Illustration] + +It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely have +reached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and brought +out an opera-glass that was upon the table there. + +"That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. + +Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They read +the words, at the upturned corner,--"heirs after him." + +"Lay the board back in its place," said Ruth. "It isn't for us to +meddle with any more. Take the kittens away." Ruth had turned quite +pale. + +Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the two +kittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge,-- + +"Stephen," said she, "I'm going to do something on my own +responsibility." + +"I should think you had." + +"O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before I +said anything. But now,--I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick to +come over. They ought to be here, you know." + +"Why! don't you suppose they will believe, _now_?" + +"Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't _that_." +Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "old +place." + +Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her house +plants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always had +their milk, and her plants their water, before she had her own +breakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and it +was a good time to take her. + +"Aunt Roderick," said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to come +over right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please." + +It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs." + +"_You_ want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?" + +"Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going to +happen." Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. +She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick and +everybody. + +"On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off,--_to_ breakfast!" +How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. and Mrs. Roderick +had not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemed +to happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business." +The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the +"gale" had taken care of. + +Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. + +"We want you over at our house," repeated Ruth. "Right off, now; +there's something you ought to see about." + +"I don't like mysteries," said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering her +curiosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matter +about the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. +Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say." + +"Yes," said Ruth, laughing out; "it _is_ kittens, partly. Or was." + +So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down the +side-hill path together. + +We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arctura +had set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a little +first breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. + +Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been put +there, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. + +Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. + +"Good morning," said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" And +he met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stock +still, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blundered +about him. + +"Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. + +Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to be +struck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. + +"I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would all +care, and I wanted--Stephen and I have found something, mother!" She +turned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. + +Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there," +said he; and pointed in. + +They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, +just as it had lain for almost a year. + +"It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father," +he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here." + +"Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was +remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the +cracks and--" with a little, low, excited laugh--"the 'total depravity +of inanimate things,' till--just a little while ago." + +She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, +before them all. + +Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drew +forward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook off +the dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at the +signature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick is +an honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. + +"It is your deed of gift," said he; and then they two shook hands. + +"There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. That +was it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!" + +"No, you didn't," said Stephen. "You never told me anything--but +cats." + +"Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled," said Mrs. Roderick +Holabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up." + +They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come another +time. + +But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissed +Ruth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and very +strict about--well, other people's--expenditures; but she was glad +that the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. + + * * * * * + +"I knew," said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that it +must come right." + +"Don't tell _me!_" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't help +herself." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BARBARA'S BUZZ. + + +Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, +it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life and +possibility. + +"You must draw the line somewhere," people say. "You cannot be +acquainted with everybody." + +But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there is +a sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. +Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom a +pair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her wedding +was "odd." + +If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would have +been a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody would +have been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she would +be married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all the +wide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond,--of all its noble +heights, and hidden, tender hollows,--its gracious harvest fields, and +its deep, grand, forest glooms,--she would be content, elegantly and +exclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, +indeed, from a distance,--geographically; but they would come out of a +precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit +right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying +sameness. + +From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began to +come, days beforehand,--the people who could not let Leslie +Goldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamation +cards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of +"Their Daughter's Marriage," by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, after +the like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the need +of, the regular final invocation,--"God save the Commonwealth!" + +There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, +up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier in +consequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. Frank +Scherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby,--"she +isn't Original Sin, as I was," says her mother,--came up to Z---- +together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from New +York, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. + +Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to put +her in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. +Her father is a comparatively poor man,--a book-keeper with a salary. +There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always felt +bound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one to +take it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort who +are said to be "cut out for old maids," and she knows it. She could +not teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling--not her +education; God never lets that be cut short--was abridged by the need +of her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissors +and needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever were +put together. + +So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and getting +six dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-mother +put out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-story +room in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. She +will only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, for +her bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would be +rapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she has +made up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is any +breathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stop +breathing, and go where there is. + +She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of the +little unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, +and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegant +to have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a little +bonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that Martha +Josselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. +Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. + +General and Mrs. Ingleside--Leslie's cousin Delight--had come from +their away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought little +three-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was at +home from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medical +course,--and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so that +Mrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; they +all grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came a +wonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, for +Leslie's wedding present,--the first present that arrived from +anybody; sent the day he got the news;--and Leslie cried over them, +and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in the +fashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on the +cabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know what +other things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. + +Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. Marmaduke +Wharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. +"To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide," he says, and +"to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, among +the Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, and +took her away among the planets, out of the snarl." + +Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; and +she took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, on +the seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could +get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne +said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on +rollers, and marked,--"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific +preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say, +with a gentle prudence,--"If somebody should give you an observatory, +or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at _that_, dear." + +Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did +not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of +the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he +wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. +_He_ did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us +afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her +little home had been broken through and let in heaven. + +We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till +September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military +engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given +my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West +Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do. + +Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. +Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a +line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, +fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. + +It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone +from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and +beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white +among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in +blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with +perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from +the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the +grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid +vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. + +Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite +asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black +silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up +stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who +came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to +eat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist +in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And +even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open +doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so +divided that it was a festival day all through. + +Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in +her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, +muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her +head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,--since why shouldn't +she, too, have a bit of the fashion?--and tied round with a soft, +simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, +quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, +and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We +cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara +herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow +among-them. + +Every room in the house was attended. + +"There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne, +afterward. "Where _did_ they get such people?--And beautiful serving," +she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very +soul of living!" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true +always." + +Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into +the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the +staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and +landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her +hand in her father's arm. + +She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her +dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. +It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell +like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or +shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you +could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched +cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the +shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose +blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. +There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her +left hand. + +Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side +in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of +him in our minds,--dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his +shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a +man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely +_looks_ again. + +Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his +gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he +fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as +still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; +and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like +the tender glimmering of a sunbeam. + +When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon +his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. + +"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John +looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt +and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in +the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the +strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said +again,-- + +"Perhaps, then, John,--you'll do!" + +"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the +church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But +we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her +father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, +Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in +the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her +pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she +was smiling also and would not cover _that_ up,--gave; and nobody gave +with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning +Marmaduke Wharne. + +[Illustration] + + * * * * * + +Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those +autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every +bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice +to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child. + +"Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. +"I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a +bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a +new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she +had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought +up from Boston. + +We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; +we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were +to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have +plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden +autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; +and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as +glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she +can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. + +We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any +pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was +wearing out. We could replace things--_some_, at any rate--as well as +not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; +it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and +when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new +and happy time. + +It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in +any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the +dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It +came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements +were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table +in the brown-room. + +Barbara's _bee_-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at +this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not +altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming +content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the +most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied +to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara +"acted like a witch." + +She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came +down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little +apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself +beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as +befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. + +All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the +abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a +little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not +been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but +she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the +staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the +bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double +doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into +the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she +stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating +cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the +whole ceremony. + +Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, +or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from +being actually a commissioned officer,--Ensign Goldthwaite, now, +(Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and +effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last +year,)--we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at +once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and +whirls were simply to be wondered at. + +"I don't see why he should tell _me_ things," was what she said to +Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for +making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been +telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had +managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property +that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that +had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high +taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of +money. + +"I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At +which Barbara had disappeared. + +"Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. + +"Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, +and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly." + +"I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things," +said whimsical Barbara. + +"Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away. + +It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand +Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. +She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did +not come into the room until tea-time. + +"There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner. +"They make me nervous, looking and listening." + +We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked +them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z----. + +Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, +standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in +her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. + +"My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,--"I am an +old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?" + +"Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor +Miss Craydocke could only walk away again. + +When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick +came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified +approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. +As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back +upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the +September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. + +Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. +"It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your +opportunities," she said, plainly. + +Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was +brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could +not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. + +"I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I +never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the +middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What +have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?" + +"I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said +Aunt Roderick. + +"I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as +much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light +given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, +I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived +longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things +that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they +take right hold of. People might have _pocket_-perplexities for years +and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; +but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,--or they think it +is,--they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What _do_ you +suppose makes the difference?" + +After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that +there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious +of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real +mischief done, already. + +"It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that +day, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, +really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to +scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her +own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie +'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She +whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account +for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once +enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her +alone. + +But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and +then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone +a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then +we might not see him again for three years, perhaps. + +On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and +see Mrs. Goldthwaite. + +"I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had +not been down there once since the wedding-day. + +She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would +stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. + +About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. + +It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted +to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the +winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen +families, and meet by turn at the different houses. + +"I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties +again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want +something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among +ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so +is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. +I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,--doesn't she? Nobody can +complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist +for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the +odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you +think it would do?" + +"I think it would do nicely for _one_ thing," said Rose, thoughtfully. +"But don't let us allow it to be the _whole_ of our winter." + +Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn of +compliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting a +break in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped right +over it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. + +"Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week," said Olivia. +"I came to you almost the very first, out of the family," she added, +with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up." + +"Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined +together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think +last winter was so _really good_," she went on; "I should be sorry to +break up what _that_ did; that is all." + +"I'm willing enough to help in those ways," said Olivia, +condescendingly; "but I think we might have our _own_ things, too." + +"I don't know, Olivia," said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'own +things.' They are just what begin to puzzle me." + +It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. Olivia +Marchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. + +"Never mind," she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be some +time yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to go +beyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unless +everybody is really interested." + +Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. +At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, +came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. + +"Somebody has been snubbing somebody," replied Rose, holding her royal +color, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don't +quite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I." + +"A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have +_you_ been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?" + +"I? I've been walking, of course.--That boy has got home again," she +added, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. + +We knew _very_ well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He +would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let +him. But--"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight! +Or--stay to tea with _him_ there, and make him come, in the dark!--And +_if_ he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, +that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were +what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we +had no doubt it had been something awful. + +The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said +Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,--to the +"Katahdin." + +In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then +she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for +a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South +Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. + +"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those +vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in +these buzzes. + +"I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at +once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she +came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +EMERGENCIES. + + +Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it +for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed +without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of +double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a +flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with +a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the +front--not too near together--are more big, reliable, easy-going +buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles +belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes +to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in +her vessel. + +If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and +what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, +she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred +parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. +Hobart called. + +Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, +rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose +priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in +these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, +leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never +doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making +pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was +it always happened so with her. + +In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. + +Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, +and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always +breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by +nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a +fair half night of rest before the alarm came. + +It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who go +to bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. + +"My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?" + +The room was full of red light. + +Rosamond sat up beside her. + +"Moon! It's fire!" + +Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and out +of doors in five minutes. + +The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carrying +great red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildings +were a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation of +evergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death but +the crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead of +night, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthily +fearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting the +air, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, +busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and making +steadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. + +We all put on some warm things, and went right over. + +Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of the +house, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory building +with the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servants +were hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets of +water here and there, from the reservoir inside. + +Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this to +your house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away with +it. + +Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, +and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the back +piazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. +There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. +Marchbanks was "particularly engaged." + +Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. +Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, +in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and her +family till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry of +the moment would put it wholly out of their heads. + +She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go up +which had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet would +go over it, unbidden, to-night. + +She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story the +cook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. The +fine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, with +Olivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl was +trying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, +upside down. + +"Take these children right over to my house," said Mrs. Hobart. +"Barbara Holabird! Come up here!" + +"I don't know what to do first," said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. +Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver--and +the pictures--and everything! And the house will be full of men +directly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked up +her braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could +"receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at a +fire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had not +learned anything about the exceptions. + +"Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. +And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her +father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on +the smooth oak as if a horse were coming. + +Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'll +break everything!" she said, and took down a little Sèvres cup from a +bracket. + +"There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll see +to things. Let me have your keys." + +"They're all in my upper bureau-drawer," said Mrs. Marchbanks. +"Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matilda +would come." Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can go +there, of course." + +"It is too far," said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in my +great front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'll +want Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty of +things besides." + +While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet from +the bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walked +down stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sèvres cup in the +other. + +"People _do_ do curious things at fires," said Mrs. Hobart, cool, and +noticing everything. + +She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbara +followed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closets +and wardrobe. + +"Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, +up here." + +Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, +she passed on, in like manner,--Barbara, and by this time the rest of +us, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on the +floors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. + +"Clothes are the first thing," said she. "And this way, you are +pretty sure to pick up everything." Everything _was_ picked up, from +Mrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks's +shaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled off +last night. + +Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's great +clean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went and +came, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing _one_ thing," he answered. +"You keep to yourn." + +"They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The +bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill,--two ingines, +an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door +locked, an' a lettin' on me in." + +Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, +ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her +own lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitable +irruption of the Great Uninvited. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. +Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the other +gentlemen were still hard at work. + +"Now," said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been the +putting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for the +citron or the raisins,--"now--all that beautiful china!" + +She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered the +china, although her party-call, like all her others, had been a +failure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, +occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice any +fraction of her private hours. + +Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet,--the +china-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followed +than led. + +The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. +The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of the +closely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke against +the windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush of +water from the engines beat against the walls. + +"We must work awful quick now," said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. We +ain't afire yet." + +She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought down +stairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, which +Arthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. + +Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there before +the shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy single +pieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah," she ordered to her man. + +We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time,--Olivia, and +Adelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the other +Marchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijah +stopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led from +drawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys in +their polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in the +sheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, and +defended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute order +among ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitement +without that might else have rushed in and overborne us. + +"You jest keep back; it's all right here," Elijah would say, +deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensed +comers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outside +the shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. + +It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, down +the field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leaving +the china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. + +Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked out +upon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and had +collected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things that +could be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. +Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whom +to deliver it. + +Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up to +the roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, +untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. + +So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angle +of the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were only +laid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children s +photographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; little +treasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, or +gifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that people +have about a house, never thinking what would become of them in a +night like this. So Barbara stood by. + +Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heard +his name. + +"Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two men +at the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him over +the baluster, and ran up to the landing. + +"Take hold of it with me," said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. +We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. +Hobart's." + +"Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keep +those people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the big +basket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The first +we knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon our +line of march toward Elijah's door. + +Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longer +in the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick," +as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. +Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the last +napkin, and all was safe. + +Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to the +entrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things are +ordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets; +quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on the +lawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done all +they could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and there +was little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, +and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running along +the piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was giving +out. + +After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisterns +were dry, and the engines stood helpless. + +The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up as +from a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth and +seized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without their +touch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front of +the mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Fire +poured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and into +the rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a little +before that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. + +Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the home +that offered to her,--her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide were +going to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the things +that, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made _home_, as +well as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness of +elegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported and +discharged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And the +sleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Rome +could never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets and +Patricks, "out of a place." + +Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only the +story and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the +"Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbanks +would be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, +in a few days,--receiving her friends, who would hurry to make +"fire-calls," as they would to make party or engagement or other +special occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not one +of the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning rooms +that night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her pictures +and her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bell +now; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. + +It was about four in the morning--the fire still burning--when Mrs. +Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, +to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood in +a safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara? + +Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had been +thrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, and +the like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, +two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; but +somebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with a +bullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there beside +her; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here in +this unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composure +which of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. + +[Illustration] + +"What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?" +Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. + +"She'll give her a sort of brevet," replied Barbara. "For gallant and +meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near +neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, +you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full +commission." + +Harry laughed. + +"Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First, +there was the whirlwind, last year,--and now the fire." + +"After the whirlwind and the fire--" said Harry. + +"I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara. + +"Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, +I can't help it. You put it into my head." + +"I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the +voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming." + +"Then, Barbara--" + +Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. + +The next day--_that_ day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast--Harry +came back, and was at Westover all day long. + +Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She +brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek +upon her knee. + +"Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me +ready, and let me go." + +"My dear child! When? What do you mean?" + +"Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly +ever be so nice again. And--if we _are_ going through the world +together--mightn't we as well begin to go?" + +"Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What +is it?" + +"It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European +squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife +and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when +the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says; +and--that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while +first,--as much, perhaps, as we should ever have." + +"Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!" + +"No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with +me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added. +"Everybody does." + +The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as +mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as +she does everything else. + +Rose has some nice things--laid away, new; she always has; and mother +has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for +Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. + +"I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and we girls are all +of a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear the +dresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara's +trunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We can +get others any time." + +We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think that +it was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth's +was blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that no +two of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosen +because of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer for +grandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep" +mourning. "You shall never do that," said mother, "till the deep +mourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves." + +We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautiful +delay or other about machinery,--the Katahdin's, that is; and +Commander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back and +forth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him; +Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and on +board ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quite +made up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as he +is old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. + +We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determined +not to be; last days are too precious, + +"Don't let's be all taken up with 'things,'" says Barbara. "I can +_buy_ 'things' any time. But now,--I want you!" + +Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her; +it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired,--or +possessed,--but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. + +There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, +the loveliest "suit," all made and finished, of brown poplin. To think +of Aunt Roderick's getting anything _made_, at an "establishment"! But +Ruth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and just +took her porte-monnaie in her hand. + +Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the +"girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or little +things to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. +Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit and +look at it. + +She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, from +mother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, into +the bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it a +little stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. + +"_All_ new things are only dreary," she says. "I must have some of the +old." + +"I should just like to know one thing,--if I might," said Rosamond, +deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She was +sitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoe +in her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave so +beforehand, Barbara?" + +"I was in a buzz," said Barbara. "And it _was_ beforehand. I suppose I +knew it was coming,--like a thunderstorm." + +"You came pretty near securing that it _shouldn't_ come," said +Rosamond, "after all." + +"I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair." + +"You might have just kept quiet, as you were before," said Rose. + +"Wait and see," said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't come +bringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs to +get these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of those +white paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say all +sorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and run +off if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind the +door, I wonder?" + +"After all--" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. + +"After all--" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was +something else!" + +"Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. + +"Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake." + +We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have +each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never +wanted each other so, or _had_ each other so, before. + +Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but +the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there +are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little +while; and--we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present +instant. + + * * * * * + +Who finishes it? Who tells it? + +Well,--"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle--pretty much--finished +it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was +beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and +she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. +Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would +not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she +observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and +partly, here and there, we rushed in,--especially I, Barbara,--and did +little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and +at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie." + +Do you think it is--sarcastically--a "pretty dish to set before the +king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There +is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z----" is; and there are +friends and neighbors everywhere. + +I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part--the +Barbarous part--is a continual breach of confidence. I have a great +mind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, +made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautayne +has one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayne +considers _worth_ a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; older +than Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth with +her; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides-- + +Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as far +as we--or anybody--has gone. You must let the world go round the sun +again, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet--even with +"We Girls." + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. 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Whitney, +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; font-size: 100%; } + p { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; } + hr { width: 50%; } + hr.short {width: 20%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; } + .toc { text-align: center; font-size: 90%; } + .note { text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; font-size: 90%; } + .i-note {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; background: #ffecdb; } + .fnote {text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 30%; font-size: 90%; } + .block {text-indent: 0em; margin-left: 25%} + CENTER { padding: 1em; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: We Girls: A Home Story + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +Release Date: May 1, 2004 [EBook #12224] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/001-f.jpg" width="426" height="300" +alt="Binding the Rings."> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h1> + WE GIRLS: +</h1> +<h2> + A HOME STORY +</h2> +<p> </p> +<h3> + By +</h3> +<h2> + MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY, +</h2> +<p class="note"> + AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD," "THE GAYWORTHYS,"<br> + "A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE," ETC.</p> + <center> + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. +</center> +<p> </p> +<center> + BOSTON<br> + 1870, 1890 +</center> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0001"> +CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0002"> +CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0003"> +CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0004"> +CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0005"> +CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE."</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0006"> +CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0007"> +CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0008"> +CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0009"> +CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0010"> +CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0011"> +CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ.</a><p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0012"> +CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES.</a></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="i-note"><i>Transcriber's note</i>: Illustrations<br> +<a href="#image-0001"><i>Frontispiece</i>: <small>BINDING THE RINGS.</small></a><br> +<a href="#image-0002">2</a> <a href="#image-0003">3</a> <a href="#image-0004">4</a> +<a href="#image-0005">5</a> <a href="#image-0006">6</a> <a href="#image-0007">7</a> +<a href="#image-0008">8</a> <a href="#image-0009">9</a> <a href="#image-0010">10</a> +<a href="#image-0011">11</a> <a href="#image-0012">12</a> <a href="#image-0013">13</a> +<a href="#image-0014">14</a> <a href="#image-0015">15</a> <a href="#image-0016">16</a> +<a href="#image-0017">17</a> <a href="#image-0018">18</a> <a href="#image-0019">19</a> +<a href="#image-0020">20</a> <a href="#image-0021">21</a> <a href="#image-0022">22</a> +<a href="#image-0023">23</a> <a href="#image-0024">24</a> <a href="#image-0025">25</a> + <a href="#image-0026">26</a></p> +<hr> +<div style="height: 3em;"></div> +<h2> + WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. +</h2> +<a name="2HCH0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> +<h2> + CHAPTER I. +</h2> +<h3> + THE STORY BEGINS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/006-1.jpg" width="150" height="312" align="left" +alt="I"> + It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. +</p> +<p> + The town is down below the hill. +</p> +<p> + It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another + hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop + itself, just as it does on this side. +</p> +<p> + It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large + country town,—in fact, it has some time since come under city + regulations,—thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that + which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. +</p> +<p> + Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off + the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded + themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called + "places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the + old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when + the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; + down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers' + offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat + at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. +</p> +<p> + We lived in the town—that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their + children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed—for + nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. +</p> +<p> + They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; when + there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, + and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, + in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to + the fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so came + the name. +</p> +<p> + We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't + considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the + brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go + down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if + they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it? +</p> +<p> + Grandfather Holabird—old Mr. Rufus,—I don't say whether he was my + grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this + story, or whether it is a Holabird at all—bought land here ever so + many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the + boys grew up,—Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. +</p> +<p> + Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,—who had himself + come up from being a workman to being owner,—and learned the + business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C——, and + lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was + yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no + little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three + daughters. +</p> +<p> + There are of us—Stephen Holabird's family—just six. Stephen and his + wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. + Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins + married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor + mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because + "Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of + course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on + the mere claim of the common cousinship. +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular + ways too. +</p> +<p> + There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all + known by our straight names. I say <i>known</i>; because we do have little + pet ways of calling, among ourselves,—sometimes one way and sometimes + another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird + doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our + bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little + fun,—though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or + behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the + first,—or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, + or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's + obstinate,—we always <i>introduce</i> "my daughter Rosamond," or "my + sister Barbara," or,—but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because + nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"—and Stephen + is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a + man some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were + christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is + such a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "She + wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose." +</p> +<p> + Our moving to Westover was a great time. +</p> +<p> + That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody + does not do who moves into a house by any means. +</p> +<p> + We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and + told us, one morning, of his having bought it,—the empty Beaman + house, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought + the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and + build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobody + but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was + large and solid-built, and could not be taken far. +</p> +<p> + We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another + day, and proposed that we should go and live in it. +</p> +<p> + We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very + strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what + they ought to do <i>without</i> it, when they didn't happen to have any. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that + day,—him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it + was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or + even him without the cane; but both together were "<i>scare-mendous</i>; + they did put down so." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to + notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the + old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a + board at the door,—"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had all + made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: + and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But + we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never + time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled + just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in + this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is + always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in + other ways. +</p> +<p> + Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live a + gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for + the din and scramble of business. +</p> +<p> + He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowing + his sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the loss + and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then + go down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all his + debts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed and + clothe his family meanwhile. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, when + he bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In the + summer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at + Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these + obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these things + we made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all the + more afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. +</p> +<p> + "When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his stern + precept. +</p> +<p> + "When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say, + after he was gone. +</p> +<p> + But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. That + day, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and as + cosey as we could be. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had + been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. + Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old + black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with + smooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. +</p> +<p> + "What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, + wondering. +</p> +<p> + "They were dropped,—and I picked them up," Rosamond answered, + mysteriously. "The owner never missed them." +</p> +<p> + "Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. +</p> +<p> + "Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'em + most. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she + went on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiring + the effect. "They don't dress much outside." +</p> +<p> + "O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?" +</p> +<p> + "Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle about + contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman and + her accidents,—mine are usually catastrophes." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the right + set-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. +</p> +<p> + Barbara flung down a magazine,—some old number. +</p> +<p> + "Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of the + climax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she went + on to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and + was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? + Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two little + cats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and the + cane coming in. +</p> +<p> + There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, and + for Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through + the sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his cane + were slow; the more awful for that. +</p> +<p> + Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors; + and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!" +</p> +<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/013.jpg" width="300" height="304" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. +</p> +<p> + "Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a few + square yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving + and going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteen + square feet that we live on most!" +</p> +<p> + She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a very + little matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. +</p> +<p> + "How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, + or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we + <i>don't</i> tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we know + them or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and the + things we do. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had a + way of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentence + after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant + was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do + think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's + very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes." +</p> +<p> + It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. + When there was one, he always kept it to the last. +</p> +<p> + "Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, sir." +</p> +<p> + "I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the + around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live + in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. + Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. + I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over." +</p> +<p> + He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a + word. We were too much surprised. +</p> +<p> + Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. +</p> +<p> + I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a + woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her + so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She + asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep + her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it + to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a + grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. +</p> +<p> + "We could keep a cow!" said mother. +</p> +<p> + "We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. +</p> +<p> + "What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His + land begins this side." +</p> +<p> + "Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we + have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. +</p> +<p> + "I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in + continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished + hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would + never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our + limitations. +</p> +<p> + "Does that look—" +</p> +<p> + "Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never + do." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of + something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might + be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that. +</p> +<p> + "I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I + don't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But <i>I do</i> mean to + be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the + name left." +</p> +<p> + "I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what + <i>shall</i> we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready + money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else + for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she + did not speak at first. +</p> +<p> + "'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't + believe there ever was a family that had so <i>much</i> opening and + shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes + together again and snips our noses!" +</p> +<p> + "What <i>is</i> a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A + mouse pinched in it, I should think." +</p> +<p> + "Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are + fricassees,—heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the + philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down + everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't + all made,—or used,—yet!" +</p> +<p> + Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance—in + aid, as she maintained—of the dictionaries. +</p> +<p> + "O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out + there, and the mornings will be so early!" +</p> +<p> + "That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing + we're going 'west over.'" +</p> +<p> + "Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said + Ruth. That was the best she could do. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have + some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put + down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. + Especially for a country house." +</p> +<p> + "It seems, then, we <i>are</i> going?" +</p> +<p> + Nobody had even raised a question of that. +</p> +<p> + Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised + none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, + quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a + geometrical fact patent at first glance. +</p> +<p> + "We can have a cow," mother repeated. +</p> +<p> + "Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a + hearing. +</p> +<p> + "You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the + parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen." +</p> +<p> + "I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely. +</p> +<p> + "I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. + I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't many + in profane." +</p> +<p> + "Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus + 'saluted' at the end of an epistle." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn't + history; that's mere mention." +</p> +<p> + "We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down,'" + suggested Rosamond, complacently. +</p> +<p> + Barbara smiled. +</p> +<p> + "And we can tell <i>the girl</i> to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' when + she's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the + 'handy' things." +</p> +<p> + "Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was between + the two. +</p> +<p> + "Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow." +</p> +<p> + "We shall all have to remember that it will only be living there + instead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrella + under the rain of suggestion. +</p> +<p> + The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There was + no doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and it + was found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtains + in our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in the + square Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, + and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. + The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few + pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara + said, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairs + there would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, and + making upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, because + in these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, and + fireplace, and closet doors. +</p> +<p> + They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. + Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over to + see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to + communicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of a + kind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house any + precisely matched companionship. +</p> +<p> + This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it led + to trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned to + their new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the whole + number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious + mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to + live in "sûch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is to + Irish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole can + no longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfast + that she "must jûst be lukkin out fer a plaashe." +</p> +<p> + "But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two or + three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be glad + to have you stay and help us through." +</p> +<p> + "Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taks + an intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I + niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but I + couldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo a + plaashe, ye see." +</p> +<p> + It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk a + graat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, but + she mûst jûst be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she had + the kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonnet + on,—a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse—of ungarnished + head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,—and + took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where + people were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company nor + children nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, + and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," she + would probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would + <i>not</i> allow of her continuing with us. +</p> +<p> + A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,—sure to + happen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line we + have a gale down below. +</p> +<p> + "<i>Now</i> what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming back + into the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments + which spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling all + through the house. +</p> +<p> + "Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravely + than she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thy + youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't + doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among the + rest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. + There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least." +</p> +<p> + "I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird, + with meekness. +</p> +<p> + It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very much + quenched. +</p> +<p> + The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, and + nowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up over + the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between + that time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without a + girl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have not + come to the family-moving yet. +</p> +<p> + The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, while + the building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up into + all the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what new + pictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how now + this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by + the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,—for the slope, + though gradual, was long,—and how the sunset came in more and more, + as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill of + excitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, the + onward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought all + rightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen called + these earthquakes. +</p> +<p> + We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It was + such a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stop + anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; + because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it was + all pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting over + on the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. +</p> +<p> + We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaks + between trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, + open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; and + the nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny and + pleasant and real countrified. +</p> +<p> + It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great + house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand + generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs + and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest + point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in + excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we + might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose the + green bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we got + less of the great town within our view as we settled down upon our + side of the ridge. +</p> +<p> + The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. +</p> +<p> + There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were to + be; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way down + against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields + were beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire in + autumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructed + sky. +</p> +<p> + The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where the + walls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen the + spot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for the + moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the + kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as + mere lumber. It was only the main building—L-shaped still, of three + very large rooms below and five by more subdivision above—which had + majestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, + westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. +</p> +<p> + Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient with + one servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he + offered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent we + must take out cheerfully in extra steps. +</p> +<p> + It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirds + came fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, + and stood staring around it with its many eyes,—wide open to the + daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,—to see where + it was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a very + knowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. +</p> +<p> + The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed + in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he + got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round + southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the + noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the + sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through + the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along + the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and + peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was + what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,—as if he + stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about + it, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. He + quieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night he + found somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took it + serenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, and + put us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was to + leave so many cubic feet of light at daily. +</p> +<p> + I think he <i>might</i> like to look in at that best parlor. With the six + snowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and the + deep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all over + them, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were like + the moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the light + glinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw out + the lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few + fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It + was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring + home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many + nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be + paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we + sat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselves + already to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases well + filled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn cloth + hid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to the + hand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of the + home-spirit,—a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its + round of radiance every night. +</p> +<p> + Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June + nights were at Westover. +</p> +<p> + We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We + had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"—that is their word for + the north country at home, and the north country is where the best + material comes from,—who was willing to air her ignorance in our + kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for + the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not + come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls + was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't + do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do + with established rates of wages. +</p> +<p> + But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the + singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, + and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a + new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things + were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy + rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how + grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old + things also,—a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. +</p> +<p> + "Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb + 'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family + settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. + "It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before + it, except when it is in the nominative case." +</p> +<p> + Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to the + sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the + ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza + was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, + from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low + railing ran around the whole. +</p> +<p> + Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right + and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through + the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a + round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with + us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. +</p> +<p> + We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what new + glory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for the + witnessing of a pageant. +</p> +<p> + The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hung + close by; they dropped down through the gold together, till they + touched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slid + silently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. +</p> +<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/026.jpg" width="300" height="292" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush. +</p> +<p> + No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to south + stretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints and + softliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; the + gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went + by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; we + watched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked out + into great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight was + the curtain. +</p> +<p> + "We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara said + again, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against the + railing. +</p> +<p> + "The front row, and season tickets!" +</p> +<p> + "Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew human + nature, and had got used himself to most things. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER II. +</h2> +<h3> + AMPHIBIOUS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a> + <!--IMAGE END--> +<p><img src="images/028-2.jpg" width="150" height="320" align="left" +alt="W"> + "What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up from + her letter. +</p> +<p> + Ruth told. +</p> +<p> + "How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You are + as pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anything + particular has happened, to remember <i>any</i> day by, since the first, + and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm never + sure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first; + and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme in + my head." +</p> +<p> + "I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in her + room,—that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down at + the bottom; and she whops it every morning." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed. +</p> +<p> + "What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and you + only puckered." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that," she said. +</p> +<p> + "Well, what then?" +</p> +<p> + "To think you knew." +</p> +<p> + "Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough." +</p> +<p> + "Yes,—but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest part + of the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve." +</p> +<p> + Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth had + caught him out. +</p> +<p> + "I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't help + reading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the man + that went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fine + day, and then I'll whop the whole over for you." +</p> +<p> + Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the last + pair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephen + in her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lips + that she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up and + went away with them to her room. +</p> +<p> + She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket in + her hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll of + Scripture texts printed in large clear letters,—a sheet for each day + of the month,—and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnut + rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at + the Bible Class,—Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very + much. +</p> +<p> + Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, + and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and + maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went + and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. +</p> +<p> + For she had something to think about this morning. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the + beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and + just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room + at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the + other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from + the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was + a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up; + and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the + L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well + tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be + taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all + the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it; + behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of + staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by + a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the + whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L + unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right + angles to each other. +</p> +<p> + The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in + the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long + shine, from its south window at the end, right through,—except in + such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and + then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew + through pleasantly in a soft shade. +</p> +<p> + When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large + front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if + there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and + bureaus,—the very things that make up-stairs look so <i>very</i> bedroomy. + And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamond + and Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushions + sewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seat + and pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirt + of white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange for + this Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished their + two windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. +</p> +<p> + Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all go + round by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked away + mysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened all + the doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most part + remained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings and + ways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently open + to the privilege and second sight of story-telling. +</p> +<p> + The white dimity curtains—one pair of them—were up at the wide west + window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four + things,—drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light + among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings + around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed + cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased + with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and + tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in + uniform,—varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in + crimson arabesque,—made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture + scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the + window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which + she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to + foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, + over the deficient cane-work. +</p> +<p> + Tin tacks and some considerable machining—for mother had lent her the + help of her little "common sense" awhile—had done it all; and Ruth's + room, with its oblong of carpet,—which Mrs. Holabird and she had made + out before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored one + and a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not been + enough to put upon the staircase,—looked, as Barbara said, "just as + if it had been done on purpose." +</p> +<p> + "It <i>says</i> it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,—with its situation above all; + she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never minded + their coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her three + little brass bolts when she had a desire to. +</p> +<p> + She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about Adelaide + Marchbanks's invitation. +</p> +<p> + The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The married + daughter of one family—Mrs. Reyburne—was at home from New York, and + had brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. Roger + Marchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friends + visiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,—several + sisters in each family,—always. The Haddens were there a good deal, + and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at a + time. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and Leslie + Goldthwaite, a great pet of hers,—Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, + in the town,—was often up among them all. +</p> +<p> + The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and + then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were + not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were + among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life + would not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind of + Elf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in the + impalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when it + wills to be by itself for a time. +</p> +<p> + There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way for + them, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was not + spoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. + Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and I + suppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized how + thoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodily + presence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond and + Barbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted for + something; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wished + and meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers were + to carry out. +</p> +<p> + But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was not + quite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each her + own sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by the + accepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard; + why shouldn't they—the Holabirds—settle anything? Ruth hated to have + theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So + this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had + happened. +</p> +<p> + Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down + street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. + At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,— +</p> +<p> + "Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like + you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. + There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now + among ourselves." +</p> +<p> + Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular + inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but + she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and + that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the + end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should + play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at + eleven o'clock. +</p> +<p> + She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,—perhaps; but + she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect + her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. +</p> +<p> + She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to + hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would + very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly + acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. + She would remember higher reason, also, than the <i>quid pro quo</i>; she + would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but + it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would + they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go? + And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?—she + the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and + Barbara; though Barbara said <i>they</i> "never 'came' out,—they just + leaked out." +</p> +<p> + That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, + with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power + of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she + would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to + her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she + could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a + born home. +</p> +<p> + She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, as + at first she meant to do. +</p> +<p> + But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls" + means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" in + her heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out of + themselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turns + into a plural. +</p> +<p> + Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her + elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of + grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's + five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some + new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous laziness + upon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, through + her own room and saw her there. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill of + pleasantness. Her home had <i>expressed</i> itself here, as it had never + done anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshiny + roominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and her + daughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearness + in which her love and her wish for them held them always. +</p> +<p> + It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but the + generous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you looked + through, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glass + house" so long. +</p> +<p> + The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows at + either end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the long + mirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels in + the town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were here + put, quite elegantly tall,—the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above her + daintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great square + trunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, + dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes and + cushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room," + opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and at + night, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back and + forth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, + gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; so + that Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning in + their busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you were + all lit up." +</p> +<p> + "We had one candle apiece," Barbara would answer, very concisely. +</p> +<p> + "I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way," Rosamond + said once, after she had gone. +</p> +<p> + "And that she <i>didn't</i> have to come through our clothes-yard of a + Monday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in the + wash," added Barbara. +</p> +<p> + But this is off the track. +</p> +<p> + "What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon the + little figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through the + open rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?" +</p> +<p> + "O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I've + done, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure I + wasn't provoked." +</p> +<p> + "You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, I guess so," said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking right + on,—doesn't it?—when you speak suddenly out of a 'think.' I wonder + what <i>alone</i> really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Something + thinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up." +</p> +<p> + "Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth." +</p> +<p> + "Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It <i>does</i> answer back." +</p> +<p> + "And what was the answer about this time?" +</p> +<p> + That was how Ruth came to let it out. +</p> +<p> + "About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, + though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And they + might have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as you + said, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I—needn't. I mean, I + knew right off that I <i>didn't</i>." +</p> +<p> + Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of her + thinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand the + older idiom, just as they do baby-talk,—by the same heart-key. She + knew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to." +</p> +<p> + "You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them begin + with me so." +</p> +<p> + "You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird, + affectionately. "And a very generous one." +</p> +<p> + "No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rather + nice to settle that I <i>can</i> be contrary. I don't like to be + pat-a-caked." +</p> +<p> + She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. +</p> +<p> + The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, to + ask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the + busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not + willing, but that when she <i>was</i> at leisure she looked as though she + always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric + morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little + fancy slippers,—(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she + had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and + beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to + any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, + in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the + last point of morning freshness,—chairs and tables and books in the + most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in + vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the + others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to + receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as + likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her + "points,"—as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at + the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character + only by these embellishments upon the instep,—and to have dumped + herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the + green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some + irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would + stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with + unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in + the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation." +</p> +<p> + Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if + Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and + Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they <i>did</i> have to make their own cake, + and why should they be ashamed of it?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond would reply that "they <i>did</i> have to make their own beds, but + they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." +</p> +<p> + "That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she + would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most + fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; + for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and + a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there + in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to + call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the + kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the + big trees. +</p> +<p> + Somebody overtook and joined them there,—somebody in a dark gray suit + and bright buttons. +</p> +<p> + "Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, + looking after them,—"that must be the brother from West Point the + Inglesides expected,—that young Dakie Thayne!" +</p> +<p> + It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were + walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not + been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. + Marchbanks's? +</p> +<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/041.jpg" width="300" height="291" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, + behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think + I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and + I don't go out very much, except with my—cousins." +</p> +<p> + "Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." +</p> +<p> + "It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my + breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed + bent upon driving his questions home. +</p> +<p> + "O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." +</p> +<p> + "Wasn't it?" +</p> +<p> + The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; + Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little—just + a line or two—as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. +</p> +<p> + Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West + Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little + wheels were turned sometimes. +</p> +<p> + He had just come to Z—— (I must have a letter for my nameless town, + and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a + crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among + interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he + excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and + it was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. + Ingleside, had come to Z——, to take the vacant practice of an old + physician, disabled from continuing it. +</p> +<p> + Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends; + almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for one + older, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one just + like her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, from + the little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of their + pretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, + springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautiful + flowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as she + had grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central or + most brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helped + and touched and perfected all. +</p> +<p> + There was something very real and individual about her; she was no + "girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She would + have grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the first + quarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly" + sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showed + itself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as to + simpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in her + twentieth year now, which sounds—didn't somebody say so over my + shoulder?—so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her that + she had "stayed fifteen." +</p> +<p> + She <i>looked</i> real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with some + graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been + freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly + around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on + like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and + everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; + and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could + trace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex and + bewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds and + festoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked more + as young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmaker + seven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the public + promenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiring + minds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all the + sewing, and where the hair all comes from. +</p> +<p> + Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked to + be odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with the + prevailing fashion—the fundamental idea of it—always, when she had a + new thing; but she modified and curtailed,—something was sure to stop + her somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that they + never stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, + "something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and she + must choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satin + folds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to use + differently; the dress was never the first and the <i>must be</i>; so it + came by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode; + and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it, + were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. +</p> +<p> + It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questions + that had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, + that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them half + unconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the + "outside," which is setting more and more between us and our real + living, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer put + ready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. +</p> +<p> + Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how + "achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of + embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and + the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for + them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of + Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in + itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured + it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie + had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the mere + buying. +</p> +<p> + Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the little + vines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creeping + Mitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniature + grace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty to + put in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helped + Rose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grew + higher up. +</p> +<p> + Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the + fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full + of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as + if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great + sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings + "came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like + a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course + one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like + a bird or a bee right after breakfast,—that was living; that was the + Irishman's blessing,—'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'" +</p> +<p> + "Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most + magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there + would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the + piazza basement, and up to the front portico. +</p> +<p> + They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. + Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. +</p> +<p> + Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea + branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said + afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. +</p> +<p> + The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a + hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got + the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of + parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors + which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. +</p> +<p> + Barbara stood behind the blind. +</p> +<p> + "The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right + out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and + has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie + Thayne?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?" +</p> +<p> + "O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!" +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's + nice,—ever so nice." +</p> +<p> + "It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the + hill. "They treat those girls—amphibiously!" +</p> +<p> + "Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "<i>I'm</i> amphibious. I live in the + town, and I <i>can</i> come out—and not die—on the Hill. I like it. I + always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time." +</p> +<p> + They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. +</p> +<p> + "We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off. +</p> +<p> + "I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really + wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She + isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That + is, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so." +</p> +<p> + You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. + People who tell a story see round corners. +</p> +<p> + The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to play + croquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaites + and the Haddens. +</p> +<p> + "We're growing very gay and multitudinous," she said, graciously. +</p> +<p> + "The midshipman's got home,—Harry Goldthwaite, you know." +</p> +<p> + Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in her + own keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. + But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. +</p> +<p> + When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, + inevitable question,— +</p> +<p> + "What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night,—that's ready?" +</p> +<p> + And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not a + dud!" +</p> +<p> + But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt on + purpose to lend to Barbara. If she had <i>given</i> it, there would have + been the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, + and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirts + that were <i>over with</i>, before the new fashion came. +</p> +<p> + Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big world + to-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. +</p> +<p> + It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it <i>was</i> one of our ways at + Westover. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER III. +</h2> +<h3> + BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/049-3.jpg" width="150" height="326" align="left" alt="T"> + Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. +</p> +<p> + And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were to + carry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. +</p> +<p> + You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. +</p> +<p> + How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In the + first place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,—"a making + for anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstanding + Shakespeare. +</p> +<p> + It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming and + sweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with glee + and grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke to + her suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, + all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready to + catch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you in + return, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of life + and pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of her + face lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised upon + its stalk. She was <i>like</i> a flower chatting with a breeze. +</p> +<p> + She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; but + she had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it; + and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of her + head any painful, conscious question of how she <i>was</i> seeming. That, + and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her manners + what Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,—"exquisite." +</p> +<p> + That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep; + hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. +</p> +<p> + She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they had + everybody round them. All the people in the room were saying how + lovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed a + great and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It was + pleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just as + lovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to be + lovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood on + that same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just as + pretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and it + meant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have her + stand right there, and look just so, to-night. +</p> +<p> + In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to her + grander,—another girl, in another corner, looking on,—a girl with a + very homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. She + looked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in her + prettiness; <i>she</i> looked as if she had put herself away, comfortably + satisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. + Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. +</p> +<p> + "I do think," she said,—"don't you?—it's just the bravest and + strongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, and + to go right on and have a good time just the same;—<i>every day</i>, you + see, right through everything! I think such people must be splendid + inside!" +</p> +<p> + "The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," said + Leslie. "And she was fifty years old too." +</p> +<p> + "Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, + "it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I should + like—just once—to look beautiful at a party!" +</p> +<p> + The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. +</p> +<p> + Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaite + were on one side, and they led off their whole party, going + nonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not help + it; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling each + other along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and came + down into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and the + whole game in their hands on their own part. +</p> +<p> + "It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "but + they might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on the + same side again." +</p> +<p> + It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted away + for the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, that + Harry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil." +</p> +<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/052.jpg" width="300" height="307" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Barbara shook her head. What was it? +</p> +<p> + "It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it to + us. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plain + enough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are ten + rings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is to + string them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certain + distance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and you + play as many rounds as you may agree upon." +</p> +<p> + Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. +</p> +<p> + "Have you told anybody else of that?" +</p> +<p> + "Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while." +</p> +<p> + "Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebody + came down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let me + have it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the stray + ball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, + "come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, + you see, to get anything that's new." +</p> +<p> + "I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,—isn't that what + they make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famous + out of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought to + be, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit Harry + Goldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, putting + the two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollicking + into the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle was + taking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody was + there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing + party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them + again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. + After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry + rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. +</p> +<p> + It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance was + re-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an old + remembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school and + given her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,—"as he might have + done," we told her, "to any other boy." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in her + door, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pulling + down hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter at + bedtime. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, as + if she could not get into that place without her considering-fit + coming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, and + her eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. +</p> +<p> + "She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out of + her cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all the + evening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music + <i>splashes</i> so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering it + all over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!" +</p> +<p> + "The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs. + Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. + "I've known good times do that." +</p> +<p> + "It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in my + head, 'going on forever—ever! <i>go</i>-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth broke + into the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. +</p> +<p> + "I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!" + Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to the + mother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; it + was only when she wanted a very dear word. +</p> +<p> + "We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can find + in the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment, + in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for the + bowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes once + in a while. It's going to be just—splend-umphant!" +</p> +<p> + "If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We <i>must</i> keep + the new of it to ourselves." +</p> +<p> + "As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up Harry + Goldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doing + anything but just give you that awful little pinch!" +</p> +<p> + "That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross or + inelegantly excited about anything. "But I <i>do</i> think the girls will + like it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza." +</p> +<p> + "That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously. +</p> +<p> + Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The dark + new boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had been + real oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny." +</p> +<p> + Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-music + flittering in her brain. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden about + her playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, although + they said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that her + fingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the right + points. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to <i>see</i> Ruth Holabird play, as + well as she did to hear her. +</p> +<p> + But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almost + anything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what she + should do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gave + lessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularly + to Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his being + cross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy and + sensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to be + afraid. +</p> +<p> + Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, + except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred a + teacher to come to the house. +</p> +<p> + "A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style from + the very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away," + said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and said + something, and drew her off. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetism + that guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes were + struck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. +</p> +<p> + "If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really would + have me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. + Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could show + anybody what I know,—and if they like that!" +</p> +<p> + It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up with + the "forever—ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely trembling + ripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the south + and slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmering + little ghost in the arm-chair. +</p> +<p> + Ruth came down late to breakfast. +</p> +<p> + Barbara was pushing back her chair. +</p> +<p> + "Mother,—or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm going + out for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning." +</p> +<p> + "And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to be + with Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?" +</p> +<p> + "Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can't + you come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!" +</p> +<p> + "That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. +</p> +<p> + "I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, + when we played with him so." +</p> +<p> + "I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, about + those—patent rights. I dare say they'll come up." +</p> +<p> + "I've no doubt," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I wish you <i>would</i> both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs. + Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, + and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast." +</p> +<p> + "I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs. + Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls had + gone away. +</p> +<p> + "I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something that + would just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my head + last night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right up + behind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised my + playing; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbanks + wants a—" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that was + coming—"<i>lady</i>-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. + There, mother. It's in <i>your</i> head now! Please turn it over with a + nice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that you + believe perhaps I could!" +</p> +<p> + By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her two + hands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down upon + one of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. +</p> +<p> + "I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I <i>wouldn't</i> just as lief! + I would liefer you should have all you need without." +</p> +<p> + "I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!" +</p> +<p> + "That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in upon + the last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being good + for them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both." +</p> +<p> + "O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception of + difficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether she + could, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "<i>Don't</i> you—or Rose—call + it names, Barbara, please, will you?" +</p> +<p> + "Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna + are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by + your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." +</p> +<p> + "I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's—" +</p> +<p> + "Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfully + quiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retain + me on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, and + give me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand." +</p> +<p> + Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. Lewis + Marchbanks would let me teach the children." +</p> +<p> + "Teach the children! What?" +</p> +<p> + "O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And—make Rose + understand." +</p> +<p> + "Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like + <i>it</i>." +</p> +<p> + "Will you do just those two things?" +</p> +<p> + "It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part? + I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It's + such a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if we + made it a regular family delegation—besides, it will take as much as + all me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Last + night's twilight isn't over. And it's funny <i>we</i>'ve plans too; <i>we</i>'re + going to give lessons,—differently; we're going to lead off, for + once,—we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chime + in. It <i>may</i> make things—Holabirdy." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What she + said, therefore, when she was told, was,— +</p> +<p> + "O dear! I suppose it is right! But—just now! Right things do come in + so terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broad + aisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + "And then somebody else would get the chance." +</p> +<p> + "There's nobody else to be had." +</p> +<p> + "Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's <i>me</i> to + be had yet." +</p> +<p> + "O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know. I might. I shouldn't <i>teach</i> it 'anyhow.'" +</p> +<p> + Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half + of her point. +</p> +<p> + Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. + Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. +</p> +<p> + She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and + old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her + justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she + must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew + right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had + happened to think of it. +</p> +<p> + "Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a + little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early + fashion, to ask for her. +</p> +<p> + "I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because + I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my + playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, + perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, + and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons + myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night." +</p> +<p> + Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through + whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to + what she had at the moment in herself. She had real <i>self-possession</i>; + because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false + consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according + to their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they would + think of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond could + not help <i>feeling her double</i>,—Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That was + what Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. +</p> +<p> + The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it is + not, there is no use any way. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. +</p> +<p> + "Does Mrs. Holabird know?" +</p> +<p> + "O yes; she always knows." +</p> +<p> + There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. + Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been very + frank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhat + different. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made; + perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have been + sensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. +</p> +<p> + "But you see, my dear, that <i>your</i> having a pupil could not be quite + equal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one would + not quite provide for the other." +</p> +<p> + "O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. + Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I could + teach two quarters, I could take one." +</p> +<p> + "You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. + Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have really + a charming style. But whether you could <i>impart</i> it,—that is a + different capacity." +</p> +<p> + "I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could make + her understand all I do." +</p> +<p> + "Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady + who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I + will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two + thirds of Viertelnote's price." +</p> +<p> + "O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter I + could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another." +</p> +<p> + "I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs. + Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might + have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom + she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two + persons,—one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to + be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite + intent upon her purpose. +</p> +<p> + If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. +</p> +<p> + "You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. +</p> +<p> + Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, + springing to a soundless rhythm. +</p> +<p> + She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, + winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and + tying them with knots of ribbon. +</p> +<p> + Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up + himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging + upon his arms like bangles. +</p> +<p> + They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the + first asking. +</p> +<p> + It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the + plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her + arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate upon + another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a + good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely + beautiful repose. +</p> +<p> + Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come + next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a + little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the + brown room with tears in her eyes. +</p> +<p> + "It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have + just one wretched girl to do everything!" +</p> +<p> + "Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always + <i>will</i> do it at dinner-time." +</p> +<p> + "It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have + to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to + see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect + serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life' + (that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and + then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought + to be as she does,—it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not + know, or pretend any better. I do wish we <i>belonged</i> somewhere!" +</p> +<p> + Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these + things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was + beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it + <i>every day</i>, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, + more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were + quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than + when guests came and divided her attention. +</p> +<p> + Ruth went over to where she sat. +</p> +<p> + "Rose, perhaps we <i>do</i> belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the + shading-off, you know. That helps both ways." +</p> +<p> + "It's a miserable indefiniteness, though." +</p> +<p> + "No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like + it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.' + You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And + people that are <i>right</i> in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the + edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt + and between. And one girl needn't <i>always</i> be black-leaded, nor drop + all the spoons." +</p> +<a name="2HCH0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IV. +</h2> +<h3> + NEXT THINGS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/066-4.jpg" width="150" height="333" align="left" +alt="R"> + Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself + into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of + it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be + delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high + propriety. +</p> +<p> + Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the + cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was + time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all + sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table + (the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and + replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner + between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. +</p> +<p> + The table was bright with pretty silver—not too much—and best glass + and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and + the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a + fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and + white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden + brown. +</p> +<p> + The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside; + Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and + Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and + forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. +</p> +<p> + Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, + forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders + without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble + at ahl to have company." +</p> +<p> + But before the tea was the new game. +</p> +<p> + It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done + higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions + for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in + their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it + would fall out,—whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take + to it, or whether it would drop right there. +</p> +<p> + "They <i>may</i> 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the + remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. + Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic + trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. +</p> +<p> + Rose was loftily silent; she would not have <i>said</i> that to her very + self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,—through + Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. +</p> +<p> + Does this seem <i>very</i> bare worldly scheming among young girls who + should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if + we did not know; it <i>begins</i> right there among them, in just such + things as these; and our day and our life are full of it. +</p> +<p> + The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as + soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could + not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their + coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all + that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning + all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if + anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it + was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day + elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so + adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly + forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough? + Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. +</p> +<p> + The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the + young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in + turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly + wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like + garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss + them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less + inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with + each succeeding trial. +</p> +<p> + They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might + venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and + references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it + had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. +</p> +<p> + By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide + end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits + began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if + it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as + genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. +</p> +<p> + And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and + very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than + from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private + cooks. +</p> +<p> + It all went off and ended in a glory,—the glory of the sun pouring + great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, + and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow + forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by + they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It + was the one magnificence of their house,—this high, spacious terrace; + Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird <i>had</i> to + build the wood-house under it. +</p> +<p> + After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our + home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to + become before. +</p> +<p> + They might have transplanted the game,—they did take slips from + it,—and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but + they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They + <i>would</i> come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and + practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came + to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other + girls wanted it, they had to come where it was. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the + Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did + not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the + position remained the same. +</p> +<p> + It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family + again, one evening. +</p> +<p> + "I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting + something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask + Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit." +</p> +<p> + The girls had a way, in Z——, of spending two or three days together + at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, + and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to + the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens + would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, + and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of + intimacy: that which took tea,—that which came in of a morning and + stayed to lunch,—and that which was kept over night without plan or + ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such + things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to + us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as + that we might. +</p> +<p> + "I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here." +</p> +<p> + "My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What + for?" +</p> +<p> + "Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in + a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. +</p> +<p> + Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond + suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how + to dispose of the thought since she had got it. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. + Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty + knitting,—making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him + at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent + thought. +</p> +<p> + She made up her mind presently,—partly at least,—and spoke again. "I + don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura + Fish." +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or + two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he + asked. +</p> +<p> + "It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied + Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie + Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it." +</p> +<p> + "That's where only one <i>can</i> have it at a time," said Ruth. "These + things are different." +</p> +<p> + "'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up, + and next things down." +</p> +<p> + "I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I + suppose people wouldn't naturally—it can't be meant they should—walk + right away from their own opportunities." +</p> +<p> + Ruth laughed,—not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne leaned back. +</p> +<p> + "What,—if you please,—Miss Ruth?" +</p> +<p> + "I was thinking of the opportunities <i>down</i>," Ruth answered. +</p> +<p> + It was several days after this that the young party drifted together + again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne + had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she + who suggested it. +</p> +<p> + "Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a + meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for + a prize? They would do nicely together." +</p> +<p> + Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the + project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. +</p> +<p> + But Dakie Thayne broke in. +</p> +<p> + "Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea." +</p> +<p> + "Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is + the carrying out, you see." +</p> +<p> + "Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize + what we are doing as it is." +</p> +<p> + "But the minute you <i>do</i> organize! You don't know how difficult it is + in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you + go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to + stop." +</p> +<p> + "Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, + good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. +</p> +<p> + "Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't + go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,—down + the hill and into the town." +</p> +<p> + "We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts." + There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. +</p> +<p> + "O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie + Goldthwaite, quick and pleased. +</p> +<p> + "Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave + her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. + She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "O, they <i>won't</i> exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with + an air of high free-masonry. +</p> +<p> + "Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. +</p> +<p> + "Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without + any air at all. +</p> +<p> + "Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though + what people <i>come</i> for is the question, I think, when there isn't + anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it + has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them + to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she + hoped she would come often, and let <i>the girls</i> run in and be + sociable! And Grace Hobart says '<i>she</i> hasn't got tired of + croquet,—she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. + Thayne." +</p> +<p> + "Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. +</p> +<p> + "The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. + When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully + stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,—out quite loud, + across everything,—'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never + did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'" +</p> +<p> + "Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think + they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They + didn't know <i>what</i> to say." +</p> +<p> + "Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in + that way very often." +</p> +<p> + "I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are + kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out." +</p> +<p> + "That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the + neighborhood is getting to be,—full of people that you don't know + what to do with." +</p> +<p> + "I don't see why we <i>need</i> to go out of our own set," said Olivia. +</p> +<p> + "O dear! O dear!" +</p> +<p> + It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all + turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements + made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had + been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now + she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face + to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow + clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. +</p> +<p> + "What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!" +</p> +<p> + Then she knew by the hush that <i>she</i> had astonished them, and she grew + frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink; + for she still felt just as she did when the words came. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. +</p> +<p> + "We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't + quite set up to be angels. Come,—try one more round." +</p> +<p> + And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to + pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do + it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar + grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, + the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more + dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden + over upon the rest. +</p> +<a name="image-0010"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/076.jpg" width="300" height="307" alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> + + +<p> + Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not + been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the + party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour + longer. +</p> +<p> + Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to + Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba + will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask." +</p> +<p> + But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the + grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but + they kept on up over the hill. +</p> +<p> + "Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could + not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute." +</p> +<p> + "About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the + front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched." +</p> +<p> + "They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered. + "And <i>that</i> was another thing from the <i>saying</i>." +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your + lip. I saw it." +</p> +<p> + "Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I + had spoken then." +</p> +<p> + "I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure + I don't know how myself so often." +</p> +<p> + "That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up? + And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out + these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions: + picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind + of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the + lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?" +</p> +<p> + "They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said + Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. + "Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems + to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." +</p> +<p> + "Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? + There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just + for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" +</p> +<p> + "Just <i>be</i> nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than + with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about + it,—if there weren't any keeping out,—they would tire of the + niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the + fence that keeps out weeds." +</p> +<p> + "You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to + Leslie as she spoke. +</p> +<p> + "And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and—I didn't suppose I + should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said + Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after + all." +</p> +<p> + "If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me + it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody + in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." +</p> +<p> + "Ah, but that <i>is</i> kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. +</p> +<p> + It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise + continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the + Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. +</p> +<p> + "We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, + one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and + she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and + interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." +</p> +<p> + "We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a + family of grasshoppers all summer." +</p> +<p> + "Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," + said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be + busy." +</p> +<p> + "If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right + into the kitchen with the other servants." +</p> +<p> + "I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," + said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, you're a plague!" +</p> +<p> + "Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be + exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office." +</p> +<p> + "In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more + convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and + besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life + to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as + not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with + 'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, + and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of + measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why + shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and + gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too + nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her + 'crowd.'" +</p> +<p> + "But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to + be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live + plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind + <i>without</i> the common. I think they ought to begin such things." +</p> +<p> + "But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient + for them; and not the same good either, because it <i>would</i> be, or + seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content + to be the step we are." +</p> +<p> + "It's the other thing with us,—con-<i>as</i>cension,—isn't it, mother? A + step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside + does it," Ruth added. +</p> +<p> + "O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has <i>that</i> sort of + position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social + can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful." +</p> +<p> + "What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the + world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty + among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the + Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall + never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we + won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless—and I + wonder if maybe that isn't it?—we just do two or three rather right + things in a no-particular sort of a way." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me." +</p> +<p> + "We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs. + Holabird. "We can always manage that." +</p> +<p> + "I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You + don't want to <i>play</i> anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear + and diamond bright!" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER V. +</h2> +<h3> + THE "BACK YETT AJEE." +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0011"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/081-5.jpg" width="150" height="316" align="left" +alt="T"> + Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. +</p> +<p> + We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of + Box-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends + to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with + her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families + for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not + so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not + expect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when + she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would + take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it + happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never + offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It + seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in + their objections to. +</p> +<p> + We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all + simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an + under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly + ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make + some arrangement. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it + would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather + come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work + and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; + she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle + work. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cut + out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had + grasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I + think we all really liked it just as well as the other. +</p> +<p> + We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had never + even realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at; + green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is so + beautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in with + scent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to open + to it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide in + the cooling afternoon. +</p> +<p> + "How glad I am we <i>have</i> to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, + stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed a + long flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people who + never do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. + It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full of + different stories!" +</p> +<p> + Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does Leslie + Goldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, + old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, and + that has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; and + Mrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothing + pretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, + the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was a + little child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school; + but it was vacation now, of course. +</p> +<p> + Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then + the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. + Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service,—or, + rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little + "schooling,"—the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. + Ingleside,—until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages." +</p> +<p> + Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of + Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen + Josselyn,—Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so + much,—or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes <i>just next</i>. + She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, in + something approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in the + class and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucilla + can only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlin + wool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, or + intricacies ready made up at the—upholsterer's, I was going to say. + So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to + little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself + look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like + Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when + she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. +</p> +<p> + Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleep + with Lucilla in the great, square east room. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful how + nobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anything + in it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but she + cannot keep it so <i>sacredly</i> fair and pure as Delia did for her. Only + one thing showed. +</p> +<p> + "I say," said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-rail + as they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that <i>piousosity</i>, + now, mornings?" +</p> +<p> + "No," said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't." +</p> +<p> + "It's always whopped," said Stephen, sententiously. +</p> +<p> + Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her very + finest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the fox + and the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair to + give a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for very + best, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her + "griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; + the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And + another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed + golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten + almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a + few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, + and delicately with pepper,—the oven doing the rest, and turning it + into a snowy soufflé. +</p> +<p> + Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only hers + was a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; and + would be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchens + should come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into the + universal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-soufflés to be + carried half a mile to the table? +</p> +<p> + Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was so + nice," she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was + 'evingly.'" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no less + than any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being very + vulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by any + means, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get some + new ideas to carry home to Arabel. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child of + one marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites between + them had dropped away,—out of the world, or into homes here and there + of their own,—and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, + low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran + up small. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She <i>could</i> make two skirts to a + dress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upper + one by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings and + flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on + exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted + herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias + to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave + the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of + wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia + sewed with her, abroad and at home,—abroad without her, also, as she + was doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or a + panier,—or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, was + something to go home with rejoicing. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house; + the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to the + squirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, and + stowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down between + the walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troop + of horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the + other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way + of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a + story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the + atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in + their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived + there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed + into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there had + been parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games in + nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed + in now,—bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,—and brought the + woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should + have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back + room, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself! +</p> +<p> + The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick coming + over one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, + walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them or + not, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. +</p> +<p> + "Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any of + you getting ready to be married?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes'm," said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us." +</p> +<p> + Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she was + quilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon a + little round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid away + five years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, and + the waist was gone. +</p> +<p> + While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, + more or less, everything that lay about,—"to help her in her + inventory," she said after she went away. +</p> +<p> + "Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs," repeated she, as she + turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. +</p> +<p> + Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the + discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's old + treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these + elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked + with beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in her + pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract + report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather + Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an + impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with + sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French + embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one + handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, + until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar + dress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose," Ruth would say. "I + think there are two things that make her talk in that way. In the + first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news + she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and + then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, + that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after + all." +</p> +<p> + Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly + straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two + quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. +</p> +<p> + After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne + went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,—people + whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the <i>haute + volée</i> was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our + own life once more. +</p> +<p> + "It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any + widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to + come to a plain place." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she + accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could + be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on + anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She + would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern + that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which + mother taught us all. +</p> +<p> + "Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would + say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out + of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, + and then you can take the chances as they arrive." +</p> +<p> + "Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara + once replied. +</p> +<p> + "No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A + great deal that is good—a great deal of the best—comes in at the + back-doors." +</p> +<p> + Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we + did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. +</p> +<p> + Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate. +</p> +<p> + Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did + her cousin and Dakie.<a name="1"></a> <a href="#note-1">*</a> +</p> +<p> + Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending + for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. +</p> +<p> + Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five + years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the + twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and + severe, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbara + usually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth—Miss + Trixie says—"plays like a ninkum." +</p> +<p> + We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we + were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something + particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily + down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice + about us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y," + "Swiss-family-Robinson-ish," that got us all together over it, in the + hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie could + appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old + furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve + upon—certainly to supplant—the original pattern. Yet she always had + a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had + ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our + improvements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as we + can be, already,—it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us how + cosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day," says Barbara. +</p> +<p> + Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. + It was tan-color, bound with crimson,—covering three square yards; + and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after + breakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the dark + floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and + mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the + great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our + camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to + have a brand-new piece of furniture before night. +</p> +<p> + Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie + was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she + was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a + handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. +</p> +<p> + The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had + Miss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-door + to their house. +</p> +<p> + I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. There + are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do + with our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all <i>their</i> + stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet + them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although + we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of + fashion. +</p> +<p> + We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of the + hammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came + back from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; his + furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. +</p> +<a name="image-0012"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/092.jpg" width="300" height="286" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "Another two years' pull," he said. "Won't you all come to West Point + next summer?" +</p> +<p> + "If we take the journey we think of," said Barbara, composedly,—"to + the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and + then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to + Saratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have a + day or two there." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara," said mother, remonstratingly. +</p> +<p> + "Why? <i>Don't</i> we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it till + I'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, + Mr. Thayne." +</p> +<p> + "We shall miss you very much," said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara's + nonsense. +</p> +<p> + "Our summer has stopped right in the middle," said Barbara, determined + to talk. +</p> +<p> + "I shall hear about you all," said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be a + Westover column in Leslie's news. I wish—" and there the cadet + stopped. +</p> +<p> + Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. +</p> +<p> + "I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, + to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that + would be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year + of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't know + how he hangs on to those eight weeks,—and how they hang on to him + afterwards." +</p> +<p> + Mother looked so motherly at him then! +</p> +<p> + "We shall not forget you—Dakie," she said, using his first name for + the first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then." +</p> +<p> + Dakie said, "Thank you," in a tone that responded to her "Dakie." +</p> +<p> + We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers are + beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. +</p> +<p> + He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook hands + also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to + see before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,—as it was our + cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,—through the hall to + the door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to + take off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they were + leaving. +</p> +<p> + Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as was + natural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, once + more, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go away + and leave us all. +</p> +<p> + "That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man," said Miss + Trixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got in + behind them again. +</p> +<p> + "The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes," said + Barbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie." When + anybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her love + for mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort of + chivalry it has with it. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importance + had come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curious + and wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. +</p> +<p> + We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we had + quite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it was + with us; we had things we <i>must</i> take up; we could not have spared + time to lead society for a long while together. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; she + had a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "old + house" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdowne + in to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort of + attention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try to + afford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake and + preserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. +</p> +<p> + It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, + had had private occupation. +</p> +<p> + "There had been family company at grandfather's," she told Jeannie + Hadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. + We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or three + weeks." +</p> +<p> + Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing his + geometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on a + sheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes a + little, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle of + mischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept on + silently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in her + funniest, repressed way,— +</p> +<p> + "I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to + understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are + wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. + Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?" +</p> +<p> + She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over with + intersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves and + circumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "It's a mere question of centre and radius," she said. "You may be big + enough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at the + sides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off into + space on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of a + great ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you + <i>must</i> be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!" +</p> +<p> + "It doesn't illustrate," said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up in + that fashion." +</p> +<p> + "Geometry does," said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. + But I suppose there's a Q.E.D. at the end of it somewhere." +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happened + freshly, rather,—which also had to do with our orbit and its + eccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. +</p> +<p> + "I should think <i>any</i> kind of an astronomer might be mad!" she + exclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come the + perturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we never + know exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formed + other views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What <i>is</i> the + reason we can't keep a satellite,—planet, I mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!" +</p> +<p> + "Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again." And she sat + down resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. +</p> +<p> + "I'll tell you what we'll do, mother," said Ruth, coming round. "I've + thought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!" +</p> +<p> + "She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she put + the luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick—moon!" +</p> + +<div style="height: 1em;"></div> + +<a name="note-1"><!--Note--></a> +<p class="fnote"><a href="#1"> +<b>*</b></a> Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, and Mr. Aaron + Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever thought to put this + in before. +</p> + +<a name="2HCH0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VI. +</h2> +<h3> + CO-OPERATING. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0013"><!--IMG--></a> + +<p><img src="images/097-6.jpg" width="150" height="320" align="left" +alt="W"> + When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, + right off,— +</p> +<p> + "I'm sure I wish they would!" +</p> +<p> + "Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Co-operate." +</p> +<p> + "O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the + Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they + come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your + advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't + believe '<i>they</i>' will ever do much for '<i>us</i>'!" +</p> +<p> + "What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair + wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory + knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. +</p> +<p> + "Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Oh! Yes. That is what they <i>used</i> to have, in old times, when we + lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. + All the women in a house co-operated—to keep it; and all the + neighborhood co-operated—by living exactly in the same way. + Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?" +</p> +<p> + One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple or + sharp. +</p> +<p> + That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at the + time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a + while, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. +</p> +<p> + "I could—almost—write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over her + work. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything + turns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in the + times when people <i>did</i> the things!" +</p> +<p> + "O Barbara! <i>Think</i> of all that is being done in the world!" +</p> +<p> + "I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everything + into a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from their + fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll do + will be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world is + running pretty much to roosters." +</p> +<p> + "Is that the poem?" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. It + came into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginning + and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they + have to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show for + it, and the thing that really amounts, after all." +</p> +<p> + "Well, tell us." +</p> +<p> + "It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. + They could say all sorts of things,—one and another:— +</p> +<p class="block"> + "<i>I</i> wrote some little books;<br> + <i>I</i> said some little says;<br> + <i>I</i> preached a little preach;<br> + <i>I</i> lit a little blaze;<br> + <i>I</i> made things pleasant in one little place." +</p> +<p> + There was a shout at Barbara's "poem." +</p> +<p> + "I thought I might as well relieve my mind," she said, meekly. "I knew + it was all there would ever be of it." +</p> +<p> + But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. + She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" <i>may</i> + sometimes do in the great world, +</p> +<p> + We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate." +</p> +<p> + We talked it over,—what we could do without a girl. We had talked it + over before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. + But in our little house in Z——, with the dark kitchen, and with + Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had to + hire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barb + called a "heave-offering of life." +</p> +<p> + "They used to have houses built accordingly," Rosamond said, speaking + of the "old times." "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest and + pleasantest room in the house." +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't we <i>make</i> the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggested + Ruth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed in + mornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do that + in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls + have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the + dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and irons + wanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen of + our own! I can think how it might be lovely!" +</p> +<p> + "I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsing + into her dislocations. +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> like kitchens," said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, I do," said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, + and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can't + have patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the low + realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and + the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head + and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just see + what we <i>shall</i> come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, who + have Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a great + deal in being Holabirdy,—or whatever-else-you-are-y!" +</p> +<p> + "If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?" +</p> +<p> + We were in the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + "This nice room!" +</p> +<p> + "It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know." +</p> +<p> + Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stained + floor, showing clean, undefaced margins,—the new, pretty + drugget,—the freshly clad, broad old sofa,—the high wainscoted + walls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,—the + ceiling faintly tinted with buff,—the buff holland shades to the + windows,—the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with + its glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and a + gleam of silver and glass,—the two or three pretty engravings in the + few spaces for them,—O, it was a great deal too nice to take for a + kitchen. +</p> +<p> + But Ruth began again. +</p> +<p> + "You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was down + stairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, and + everything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never + was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. It + would be so different from a girl! It seems as if we <i>might</i> bring the + kitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen." +</p> +<p> + "But the stove," said mother. +</p> +<p> + "I think," said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polished + up, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!" +</p> +<p> + "It is clumsy, one must own," said Mrs. Holabird, "besides being + suggestive." +</p> +<p> + "So is a piano," said the determined Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "I can <i>imagine</i> a cooking-stove," said Rosamond, slowly. +</p> +<p> + "Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!" +</p> +<p> + "A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made to + order,—like an urn, or something,—with a copper faucet, and nothing + else ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tins + and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut + dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as + they are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it <i>might</i> be like + that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like + Marie Antoinette's Trianon." +</p> +<p> + "That's what it <i>would</i> come to, if it was part of our living, just as + we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give + each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have + as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the + whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste <i>hasn't</i> got + into. Let's have an art-kitchen!" +</p> +<p> + "We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if + we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs. + Holabird. +</p> +<p> + The idea grew and developed. +</p> +<p> + "But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring + afresh. +</p> +<p> + "There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara, + "for the people you can't be intimate with, and <i>think</i> how crowsy + this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!" +</p> +<p> + "We shall just settle <i>down</i>," said Rose, gloomily. +</p> +<p> + "Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it + does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life." +</p> +<p> + "We shall always gather to us what <i>belongs</i>. Every little crystal + does that," said mother, taking up another simile. +</p> +<p> + "What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage + with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to + get a place together." +</p> +<p> + And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick + found out what it really meant. +</p> +<p> + We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made + up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. + Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an' + she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl." +</p> +<p> + "Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused + the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and + the irids. +</p> +<p> + There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we + had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. +</p> +<p> + Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl + said. +</p> +<p> + "She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is + willing to come for a trial." +</p> +<p> + "They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think—as + Protestants—we've hired enough of them." +</p> +<p> + Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of + our indecisions. +</p> +<p> + We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, + stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from + the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle + washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it + almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, + and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lesser + movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation + behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish + as we went along. +</p> +<p> + Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation to + the art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-iron + man made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in the + dining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. + It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone + hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a + nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the + funnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in its + new position, its features softened to almost a sitting-room + congruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force its + homely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top looked + smooth and enticing. +</p> +<p> + There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was set + a broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This + closet had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busy + use, or closed quite away and done with. +</p> +<p> + There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins and + our saucepans,—the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothing + to do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoons + and our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quart + measures,—these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; + in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in + the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,—we bought two new ones, a + little and a big,—the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, + outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which we + never meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we could + have to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soon + found, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. +</p> +<a name="image-0014"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/105.jpg" width="300" height="310" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room," opening + into the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passage + itself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of the + other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel + for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be + replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The + "girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty uses + for; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available; + very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. +</p> +<p> + We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all these + arrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon + shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did + not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or + plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could + stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody + to the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. +</p> +<p> + By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfect + starting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that + were to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, that + we had celebrated ours by clearing them out. +</p> +<p> + The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintily + crumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had come + in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, + in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiled + for brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves and + crumbs when <i>she</i> manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. +</p> +<p> + "Clean beginnings are beautiful," said Rosamond, looking around. "It + is the middle that's horrid." +</p> +<p> + "We won't have any middles," said Ruth. "We'll keep making clean + beginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work and + muss." +</p> +<p> + "If you can," said Rose, doubtfully. +</p> +<p> + I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird story + is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make + a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make + a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her + dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. +</p> +<p> + I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Monday + morning—and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you can + take—just after we had begun. +</p> +<p> + The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. + There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler + were filled,—father did that just before he locked up the house; we + had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in + the morning. +</p> +<p> + Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin + in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a + beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs + Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done + nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast + on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would + bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We + should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all + below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours' + ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. +</p> +<p> + Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed + three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow + behind, mother had let down the ashes,—it isn't a bad thing to do + with a well-contrived stove,—and set the pan, to which we had a + duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the + clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one + or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The + draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these + five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed + up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not + like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with + its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. +</p> +<p> + Then—that Monday morning—we had brewis to make, a little buttered + toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its + ration of fragrant, beaten paste,—the brown ground kernels mixed with + an egg,—and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two + frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, + into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh + butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;—"one can give + one's self <i>carte-blancher</i>," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a + girl";—and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white + porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat + daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, + broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this + went on when the coffee-pot—which had got its drink when the milk + boiled, and been puffing ever since—was ready to come off; over it + stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole + was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one + of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the + coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been + beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the + breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and + butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the + cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery + things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held + them beside the stove, into its corner. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for + the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in + which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the + white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and + the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the + three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and + reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before + which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had + recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and + her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as + any bit of pretty play or pageant. +</p> +<p> + Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch + gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with + bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all + points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all + more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. +</p> +<p> + After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it + put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was + something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant + knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,—we had, in fact, a + palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own + dishes,—and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the + pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit + making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft + clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have + plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the + Mondays. +</p> +<p> + After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth the + coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little + scour,—a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an + iron utensil, in mother's hands; and <i>that</i> was clean work, and the + iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It + was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come + off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that + makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle + of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she + comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does + wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in + that, and chemically disappears. +</p> +<p> + It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had + sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that + morning. +</p> +<p> + We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of the + kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara + set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded + the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a + row—flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent—on + the back platform. +</p> +<p> + She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and + in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon + order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. +</p> +<p> + We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does + remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new + housekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawn + them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these + last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They + were hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them; + mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt + bath before cooking. +</p> +<p> + I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. + They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings + were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and + comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid + them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey + way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar + need. +</p> +<p> + We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it + was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the + oven, and set the dinner-table. +</p> +<p> + Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon + the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the + parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the + Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when + the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, + while the potatoes were boiling. +</p> +<p> + Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that + jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, + there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of + Saturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before + the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot + water and ammonia in it. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!" +</p> +<p> + "It is the girl that makes the kitchen," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "And then the kitchen that has to have the girl," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the + crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on + father's cheese. +</p> +<p> + Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending." +</p> +<p> + "We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows," said mother in a + low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. +</p> +<p> + "Nor have to scrinch all up," said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fear + she'd touch us!" +</p> +<p> + I'll tell you—in confidence—another of our ways at Westover; what, + we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and + evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. + We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we + poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover + down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the + dish-washing for the day. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But you + can't be told everything in one chapter. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VII. +</h2> +<h3> + SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0015"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/114-7.jpg" width="150" height="321" align="left" +alt="M"> + Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave them + heaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sized + basket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were folded + up. +</p> +<p> + One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in,—for we + had been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens had + just gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. + Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruth + slipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found that + Rosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting the + tea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweet + loaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and the + little silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there was + nothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the small + Japanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. +</p> +<p> + "Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going to + do these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms." +</p> +<p> + That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. There + are a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. + Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling and + folding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grass + and the air and the sunshine is one. +</p> +<p> + Mother went off,—chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept to + tea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely little + underhand way, with Barbara. +</p> +<p> + Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out a + little ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end of + the long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed the + water-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and the + starched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothing + into little white rolls. +</p> +<p> + Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed with + her fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collars + and cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from her + finger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with a + corn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up in + it, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon the + middle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process to + watch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all the + possible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if they + only once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: and + then they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenes + are just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones and + twos; perhaps not always any audience at all. +</p> +<p> + Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. +</p> +<p> + Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into the + nearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood Harry + Goldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. +</p> +<p> + Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano,—only about her + work. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, and + put them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own,—her poem. +</p> +<p class="block"> + "I wrote some little books;<br> + I said some little says;<br> + I preached a little pre-e-each;<br> + I lit a little blaze;<br> + I made—things—pleasant—in one—little—place." +</p> +<p> + She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, + in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle of + shirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed it + down into the basket. +</p> +<p> + "How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do you + believe they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our little + inspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?" +</p> +<p> + "We won't do it," said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother's + nightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her private + knowledge. +</p> +<p> + "I think they ought to let us vote just once," said Barbara; "to say + whether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being put + upon now, if we never were before." +</p> +<p> + "It isn't fair," said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window at + Harry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could she + tell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when she + knew? +</p> +<p> + "Of course it isn't," said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a white + cambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to read + all those Pub. Doc.s that father gets. You see women will make awful + hard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doing + every—little—thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, and + smoothed the hem between the buttons. +</p> +<p> + "We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it," Barbara went + on, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters of + Polity.' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather be + a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life." +</p> +<p> + "Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over the + rail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. +</p> +<p> + She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. +</p> +<p> + "'<i>May</i> you'? When you have, already!" +</p> +<p> + "O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, + and help?" +</p> +<p> + "You don't know the way," Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, + and folding up the waist. +</p> +<p> + "Don't I? Which,—to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himself + over the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipe + that ran down there, reached the other to something-above the + window,—the mere pediment, I believe,—and swung his feet lightly to + the sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close by + Barbara's elbow. +</p> +<p> + "You'll get sprinkled," said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over a + table-cloth. +</p> +<p> + "I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took the + risk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. I + couldn't help it, and I don't care!" +</p> +<p> + Barbara was thinking of two things,—how long he had been there, and + what in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and—how + she should get off her rough-dried apron. +</p> +<p> + "Which do you want,—napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round to + the basket, and began to pull out. +</p> +<p> + "Napkins," says Barbara. +</p> +<p> + The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped and + fumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave it + a shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, he + did get a drift of it in his face. +</p> +<p> + "That won't do," said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whisk + aside. "There are too many of us." +</p> +<p> + She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread up + a pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it when + I was a little boy," he said. +</p> +<p> + Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. They + stretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand in + smoothing and showering. +</p> +<p> + "Why, I wish it weren't all done," says Harry, turning over three + clothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned her + sleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" looking + round the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "I + think your house is full of nice places." +</p> +<p> + "Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, ma'am," Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. + "We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly to + Mrs. Holabird's astonishment. +</p> +<p> + "You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to do + your duty," said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. + Holabird." +</p> +<p> + "Miss Polly-put—" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with a + half-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at the + table with a very great dignity. +</p> +<p> + People think that young folks can only have properly arranged and + elaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, and + bouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad and + sweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games and + bewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each other + naturally, as it were,—dip into each other's little interests and + doings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table of + opportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time any + minute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life + used to be "co-operative." +</p> +<p> + Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. +</p> +<p> + "Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a + case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on." +</p> +<p> + "<i>One</i> world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can + set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself + round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that + belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you + know it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, + and the Noachian—don't they call it?—new foundation. That's the way + they got up New England, anyhow." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, what flights you take!" +</p> +<p> + "Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, you + know, besides the old broken-down and buried ones." +</p> +<p> + It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of Aunt + Radford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went with + her, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind to + stay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. +</p> +<p> + One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but if + ever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he took + the time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thought + everything of "Mrs. Stephen," too, and he quite relied upon her + judgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if they + had got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. + Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. +</p> +<p> + At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, + out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, + and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just after + dinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that father + did not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird went + home at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone Leslie + Goldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only," they said; for the + south-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. That + was how we all happened to be just as we were that night of the + September gale; for it was the September gale of last year that was + coming. +</p> +<p> + The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had been + soft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shut + them again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the pictures + swung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody had + left doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where a + window was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three were + all on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather's + papers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor upon + the gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all up + for him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father a + chase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put them + up in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes more + they went off together to the old house. +</p> +<a name="image-0016"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/122.jpg" width="300" height="318" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutes + that Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they took + to consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, just + settled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort of + lull or holding up. +</p> +<p> + Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing; + the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windows + seemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, before + they got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, and + lashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of all + strange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloft + and onward in a false, plebeian triumph. +</p> +<p> + The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, + wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the + country,—not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it <i>would</i> + fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it + rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran + about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and + carpets. +</p> +<p> + "I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out + for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,—hair-brushes out on + voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a + hat-box!" +</p> +<p> + Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space + beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in + one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to + pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the + window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although + its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray + was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. +</p> +<p> + In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a + picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, + standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before + we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and + shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, + like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison + in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt + doors,—latches were nothing,—and bar shutters. And when we could + pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at! +</p> +<p> + The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely + one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The + little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." + The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their + branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head + of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms + were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all + snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged + blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the + posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and + earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath + the sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field and + ours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over and + through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the + air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it + by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below + us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a + furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks + through the air. +</p> +<p> + It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brown + room, to shine through the south window, and show father that we were + all right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird's + north porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we were + as far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. +</p> +<p> + "Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. +</p> +<p> + "I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and that + there would be no way of getting out again. People must be caught + everywhere, just as it happens, to-night." +</p> +<p> + "It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in an + ecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up all + night!" +</p> +<p> + Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a little + from its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. +</p> +<p> + "It had all been blown to Canada, by this time," Harry Goldthwaite + said. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls and + windows." +</p> +<p> + True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actually + dry. +</p> +<p> + It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put his + hands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out that + there was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all went + and looked. +</p> +<p> + It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hill + at right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down," + we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and came + steadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door that + opened upon the little passage to the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door to + let him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that he + should enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. +</p> +<p> + "The old gentleman has been taken bad," he said. "Mr. Stephen wants to + know if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird's + better. I've got to go to the town for the doctor." +</p> +<p> + "On foot, Robert?" +</p> +<p> + "Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter's + firing of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain't + much knowing where you <i>can</i> get along." +</p> +<p> + "But what is it?" +</p> +<p> + "We mustn't keep him," urged Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's a + kind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had a + kind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it's + appalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'." +</p> +<p> + Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, + that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert + "thought a good deal," as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in his + hand. How he ever found it we could not tell. +</p> +<p> + "I'll go with him," he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, + Barbara? I'm <i>very</i> sorry about Mr. Holabird." +</p> +<p> + He shook hands with Barbara,—it chanced that she stood + nearest,—bade us all good night, and went away. We turned back + silently into the brown room. +</p> +<p> + We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange things + were happening to-night! +</p> +<p> + All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into our + minds. An event that,—never talked about, and thought of as little, I + suppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours,—had yet + always loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and would + bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. +</p> +<p> + Grandfather might be going to die. +</p> +<p> + And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the + brown room and sit down? +</p> +<p> + There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about + the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, + and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or + "terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale, + even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree + were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not + get the real wonder of it—the thing that moved us to try to talk it + over—into any words. +</p> +<p> + "He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I don't think he <i>was</i> quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so + when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow." +</p> +<p> + "O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was + anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when + he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was + coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the + shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his + knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he + could manage; no wonder his hands trembled." +</p> +<p> + "I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather should + die," said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his <i>first</i> + thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. +</p> +<p> + "O Stevie! <i>don't</i> let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; and + nobody else answered at all. +</p> +<p> + We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which we + had made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then we + all went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth brought + some pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, made + up a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white one + to Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light in + grandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in the + porch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert had + got back, and the doctor had come,—whether he was better or + worse,—whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. +</p> +<p> + "O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. +</p> +<p> + There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion of + the storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in the + possible awfulness and change that were so near,—over there in + Grandfather Holabird's lighted room. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII. +</h2> +<h3> + HALLOWEEN. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0017"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/130-8.jpg" width="150" height="314" align="left" +alt="B"> + + Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock + when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better; + that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might + have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on + for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as + easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old + habits as his strength permitted. +</p> +<p> + Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The + family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had + threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that + grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. + He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for + among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. + He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and + then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, + and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the + excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the + barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come + back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the + midst of the storm. +</p> +<p> + The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of + gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in + trust to father for his wife and children. +</p> +<p> + "I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing + money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever + since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of + my boys ever paid me any <i>board</i>. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives + things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening; + and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my + other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but + I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't + go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of <i>them</i>; what + little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I + never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest + comprehension,—and Roderick and John are both honest,—if I left it + as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, + and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it." +</p> +<p> + That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it; + there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done + in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they + came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really + seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never + mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had + mentioned it at all. +</p> +<p> + "He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said, + "unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he + must come across that." +</p> +<p> + "He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect. + We can be sure of nothing." +</p> +<p> + But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October + Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded + it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. + She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up + stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping + with,— +</p> +<p> + "If I had gone to New York—" and there she stopped, as if she had + accidentally said what she did not intend. +</p> +<p> + "If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you + mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked + me, that is all. Of course I couldn't." +</p> +<p> + "Of course you're just a glorious old <i>noblesse oblige</i>-d! Why didn't + you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have + helped. I'd have lent you—that garnet and white silk!" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be + kissed. +</p> +<p> + After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always + the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that + young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a + woman's way. +</p> +<p> + The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses + of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, + and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and + hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes + morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how + pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here + at Westover. +</p> +<p> + "How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great + open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!" +</p> +<p> + "So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?" +</p> +<p> + "To tea?" +</p> +<p> + "No. Only to the fun,—and some supper. We can have that all ready in + the other room." +</p> +<p> + "They'll see the cooking-stove." +</p> +<p> + "They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That <i>would</i> be a make-shift. Who + ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, + and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to + take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, + and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll + have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, + bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they + get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover + that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,—that piece + of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque + of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all + goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is + brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, + you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to + seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere." +</p> +<p> + "It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be + Marchbanksy." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own + special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in + utilizing them. +</p> +<p> + But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not? +</p> +<p> + "Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion. + Just the neighbors,—right around here." +</p> +<p> + "That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said + Ruth, quietly. +</p> +<p> + "O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond. + "Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real' + nice!" +</p> +<p> + "That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts <i>are</i> + real." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. + She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, + and like each other. +</p> +<p> + "What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,—your + nose is crocheted,—and your mouth is—tatted! I shall have to come + and ravel you out." +</p> +<p> + "I'm thinking; that is all." +</p> +<p> + "How to build the fence?" +</p> +<p> + "What fence?" +</p> +<p> + "That fence round the pond,—the old puzzle. There was once a pond, + and four men came and built four little houses round it,—close to the + water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly + behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the + little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you + know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant + people are so apt to be nearest the good time!" +</p> +<p> + "I like to satisfy everybody." +</p> +<p> + "You won't,—with a squirm-fence!" +</p> +<p> + If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently + as possible, and invited them—Marchbankses and all—to our Halloween + frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music + lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were + Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of + her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the + Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four + houses, Ruth heard everything. +</p> +<p> + All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, + Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite + until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and + Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that + the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in + transports because they were to be allowed to go. +</p> +<p> + "Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. +</p> +<p> + "Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke + before I thought." +</p> +<p> + "What did you tell her?" +</p> +<p> + "I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And + Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we + might try to arrange something." +</p> +<p> + But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and + Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted + that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a + compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another + word. +</p> +<p> + In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, + homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. +</p> +<p> + "They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have + stopped." +</p> +<p> + "Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her + clearest, quietest tones. +</p> +<p> + Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite + the Hobarts," she said. +</p> +<p> + "That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out. +</p> +<p> + The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly + come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday + Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. +</p> +<p> + From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z——, and asked Leslie + Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if + she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have + his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. +</p> +<p> + Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then + she met Lucilla Waters in the street. +</p> +<p> + "I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to + you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her + gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic + in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. +</p> +<p> + "We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You + will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for + Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to + her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. +</p> +<p> + She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to + find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the + Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to + the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come + together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little + frolic, and we have begun, too, you see." +</p> +<p> + Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria + Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would + divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was + different from other invites. One might take liberties." +</p> +<p> + Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last + of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, + at last, and proffered her invitation. +</p> +<p> + "You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity + to divide. We want the same people, of course,—the Hendees, and the + Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we + ourselves were an afterthought. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she + was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, + and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,—Helen + Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, + after all. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that + moment. +</p> +<p> + Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her + friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, + of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's + verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw + in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had + said of who were coming,—the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not + then asked. +</p> +<p> + Olivia did not like it very well,—that reply of Leslie's. She showed + it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. +</p> +<p> + "Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation + for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see + you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some + of the girls by that. I really <i>heard</i> hers first. I wish very much it + were possible to have both pleasures." +</p> +<p> + That was being terribly true and independent with West Z——. "But + Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little + bumble-bee!" +</p> +<p> + How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. + It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it + seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at + once, quietly and of course, asserted. +</p> +<p> + Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was + beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the + salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. +</p> +<p> + "You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but + it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I + think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've + had real, <i>through-and-through</i> ways of our own." +</p> +<p> + It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between." +</p> +<p> + Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the + bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide + chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced + sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid + logs behind,—a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to + finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped + through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, + and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an + outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look + at: and they never tumbled down. +</p> +<p> + She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak + to Miss Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.' + That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up." +</p> +<p> + Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made + pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. +</p> +<p> + "I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still + looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?" +</p> +<p> + "Miss Pennington! Would you come?" +</p> +<p> + "I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you + going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that." +</p> +<p> + "We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the + name." +</p> +<p> + "That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games + nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and + superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and + we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at + Christmas, when we were all at home." +</p> +<p> + "O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!" +</p> +<p> + "Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly + meddlesome. But the fancy—or the memory—seized me." +</p> +<p> + How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out! +</p> +<p> + And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when + things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will + take, now and then, even in this vexed world. +</p> +<p> + There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have + servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are + entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after + all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last + touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. +</p> +<p> + The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put + together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from + whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and + garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little + macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of + spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold + room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the + last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put + them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the + white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to + worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the + whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which + Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of + ours. Truly it is a charming thing,—all to itself, in a family! +</p> +<p> + To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner + that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and + the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could + shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish + everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet + and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the + very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might + have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, + chatty cup of tea. +</p> +<p> + The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and + pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for + the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the + wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up + three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open + piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some + of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that + Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we + played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost + mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss + Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and + there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great + damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with + Barbara into the dining-room. +</p> +<p> + "This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing + from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white + bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until + after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the + brown room. +</p> +<p> + We hung wedding-rings—we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought + over Madam Pennington's—by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and + they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until + they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated + needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched + them turn and swim and draw together,—some point to point, some heads + and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the + margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or + an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it + into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars; + and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and + pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and—really—a little + palette with a hole in it. +</p> +<a name="image-0018"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/144.jpg" width="300" height="274" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each + girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little + secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and + surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some + little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its + companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight + together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these + were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, + but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped + into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and + some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. +</p> +<p> + Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the + larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off + a little way, right in toward the blaze. +</p> +<p> + "Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then + crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, + with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and + they both dropped quietly down against the fender together. +</p> +<p> + "What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen, + looking on. +</p> +<p> + Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone + with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the + stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said + to her:— +</p> + <p class="block">"Round and round, O stars so fair!<br> + Ye travel, and search out everywhere.<br> + I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me,<br> + This night, who my future husband shall be!"</p> + <p> + Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the + reason. +</p> +<p> + "I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl + who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" +</p> +<p> + But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She + took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a + shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. +</p> +<p> + "Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward + all the way." +</p> +<p> + So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant + after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped + backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. +</p> +<p> + Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a + friend of his, just arrived in Z——. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, + introducing him by his full name. +</p> +<p> + We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army + surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a + stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in + front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. + And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and + shouted. +</p> +<p> + It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. +</p> +<p> + We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered + the oysters. +</p> +<p> + Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her + with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the + full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier + in all her life. +</p> +<p> + After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her + snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. +</p> +<p> + Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. +</p> +<p> + "Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. +</p> +<p> + Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. +</p> +<p> + "You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. +</p> +<p> + "A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. +</p> +<p> + "It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her + shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. +</p> +<p> + Ruth got a sugared almond. +</p> +<p> + "Only a <i>kernel</i>," said the merry doctor's wife, again. +</p> +<p> + The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. +</p> +<p> + "Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. +</p> +<p> + "And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. +</p> +<p> + Doctor Hautayne drew forth—angelica. +</p> +<p> + Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. +</p> +<p> + "That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of + getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." +</p> +<p> + It was great fun, though. +</p> +<p> + Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. +</p> +<p> + If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant + something. And the year is not out yet, you see. +</p> +<p> + But there was no doubt of one thing,—that our Halloween at Westover + was a famous little party. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the + hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she + had picked up about the carpet into the coals. +</p> +<p> + We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them + on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the + girl," said Barbara. It <i>is</i> a comfort to put by things, with a clear + conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the + Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there + would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we + should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. +</p> +<p> + "How do you feel about it?" +</p> +<p> + "I feel as if we had had a real <i>own</i> party, ourselves," said Ruth; + "not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't + anybody to <i>show us how</i>!" +</p> +<p> + "Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come? + Nobody can say now—" +</p> +<p> + "What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very + nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. + Otherwise, why shouldn't she?" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IX. +</h2> +<h3> + WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0019"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/149-9.jpg" width="150" height="317" align="left" +alt="T"> + "That was a nice party," said Miss Pennington, walking home with + Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made it + so nice?" +</p> +<p> + "You, very much," said Leslie, straightforwardly. +</p> +<p> + "I didn't begin it," said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It was + a step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties long + ago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference was + that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, + and in another on the left,—now and then, perhaps, at the back; and + when you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might be + Mrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that it + was all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!" +</p> +<p> + "This was a party of 'nexts,'" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame." +</p> +<p> + "What a good time Miss Waters had—quietly! You could see it in her + face. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for + Lucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. + "She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more." +</p> +<p> + "The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while the + firsts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss + Pennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't think + anything about it!" +</p> +<p> + "So there are," said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. + They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think the + trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and + pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better than + fresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What a + beautiful old home-y house it is!" +</p> +<p> + "And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + "<i>We</i> have an old home-y house," said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "with + landscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And + we don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Will + you stay and come to it?" +</p> +<p> + "Any time within my two months' leave," replied Doctor Hautayne, "and + with very great pleasure." +</p> +<p> + "So she will have it before very long," said Leslie, telling us about + the talk the next day. +</p> +<p> + It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she <i>did</i> take it up! + That does not come in here, though,—any more of it. +</p> +<p> + The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great deal + of money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everything + like the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the + trouble for that; but they are so <i>established</i>; it is a family like + an old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes little + spread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, and + grasp more ground than all the rest put together. +</p> +<p> + They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not a + new-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, + painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and then + terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at + each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more + roses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus than + flowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box and + southernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. +</p> +<p> + Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was a + captain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiff + elbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just after + he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,—the + younger brother,—out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When + her mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. The + Penningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; and + their glory is off the selfsame piece. +</p> +<p> + They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, + retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to the + Inglesides. +</p> +<p> + One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making an + apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabeth + drove round to the door. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. + Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. +</p> +<p> + "Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. + She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had had + to say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her clay + till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the + very farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, + the best that was <i>ready</i> made, and put that forth. +</p> +<p> + "And I know," said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must not + be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who has + lived in barracks come to her where she is?" +</p> +<p> + Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see"; + she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," + and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and without + warning, upon the scene of operations. +</p> +<p> + "O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walked + forward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and + smiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventh + beauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. +</p> +<p> + "Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laid + down the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flour + and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely + gloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! It + was very meek of her not to look at all set up. +</p> +<p> + Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hanging + down against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work + when the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, + cushioned sofa. +</p> +<p> + The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, and + at the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, the + pudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon a + plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its + sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing + with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The + sunshine—work and sunshine always go so blessedly together—poured + in, and filled the room up with life and glory. +</p> +<p> + "Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss + Elizabeth. +</p> +<p> + "That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a + kitchen," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara, + laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room; + and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!" +</p> +<p> + "You are wonderful people!" +</p> +<p> + "You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said + Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching + you would have been always getting turned out." +</p> +<p> + "Turned out?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns + out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the + sole of your foot till you're a general." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. + Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered + into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. + She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, + sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free + quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara + brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into + the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen + cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara + disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam + went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird + went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really + came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara + carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was + drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble + in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. +</p> +<p> + "I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I + shall feel like company again now." +</p> +<p> + "I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. + "It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" +</p> +<p> + "I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. +</p> +<p> + "She needs doing with" said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. + Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question + is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep + but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to + you." +</p> +<p> + "The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world + full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general + housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What + should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' + so?" +</p> +<p> + "There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. + "What are homes coming to?" +</p> +<p> + "Back to <i>homes</i>, I hope, from <i>houses</i> divided against themselves + into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell + you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. + But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the + Lucys will grow again." +</p> +<p> + "Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. +</p> +<p> + "We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," + said mother,—"hotels." +</p> +<p> + "And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. + Irishocracy is a despotism in the land." +</p> +<p> + "Only," said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "by + learning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; that + it takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightest + grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this + little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after + all. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for human + souls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this room + full of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning in + the earth." +</p> +<p> + Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. +</p> +<p> + "'We girls,'" began mother again, smiling,—"for that is the way the + children count me in,—said to each other, when we first tried this + new plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would have + things nice and pretty for our common work; but there is something + behind that,—the something that 'makes the meanest task divine,'—the + spiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that I + think life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shall + not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other + on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls + and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go + into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best + that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are + willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to + them as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, + either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorify + them. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have got + the wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into the + wheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. + They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I <i>wish</i> women would be + content with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and point + the time upon the dial!" +</p> +<p> + Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful old + Mrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. + There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that she + scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their + cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it + was as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand of + them instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closets + get up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. +</p> +<p> + Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her hand + at going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly,— +</p> +<p> + "I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up all + the time. I want to have some <i>nexts</i>. Your girls know what I mean; + and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'next + Thursdays,' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shall + give primary invitations only,—and my primaries are to find + secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, + or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from + somewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social life + cannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will come + to. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. If + anybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow—Gray.'" +</p> +<p> + She went off, leaving us that to think of. +</p> +<p> + Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, + every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member is + to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is + always to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, + with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands." +</p> +<p> + Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty much + all we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should want + fourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. + Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten." They all came from that one + blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there + <i>is</i> such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't + help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, + and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-four + Thousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, + from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitable + commandment, after the "Let there be!" +</p> +<p> + It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, + in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. + People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in the + stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; + and when they were once there you really could not tell the + difference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was the + deadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the new + sap and the green rind. +</p> +<p> + Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, as + charades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came to + the Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views,"—every + successive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone down + grotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of old + relics,—bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in their + close gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passing + through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were + odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones + with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, + balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with + ruffles <i>rayonnantes</i>; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and + barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, + and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the very + pocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from the + waiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of a + middle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could tell + everybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" down + or up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, + one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever could + have been a funnier evening! +</p> +<p> + We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend" + Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady; + Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself was + Mrs. Wilfer; Mr. and Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and Doctor + Ingleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the + light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as + Pleasant Riderhood,—Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie + looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with her + for her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmaker + herself,—Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovely + book-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody's + parlors, and yet never gets into them herself. +</p> +<a name="image-0020"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/160.jpg" width="300" height="288" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she really + has a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, + "O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, but + the wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows the + doll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her some + time, if ever she goes to England—or to heaven. Truly she was up to + the "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into it + with more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wren + that no one—at the moment—thought of her in any other character, or + remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the + distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to + her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the + festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or + abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a + genius. She stepped right <i>out</i> of Dickens's story, not <i>into</i> it, as + the rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously into + the grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "up + here," or "over there," and "be dead," as fresh, new-world delights + attracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; and + T'other Governor would insist on following after them, and being + comfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and the + Veneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provide + any Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. +</p> +<p> + Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only our + fourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the + person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were + helped to. +</p> +<p> + We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about + his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I + believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a + way like that. +</p> +<p> + It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. + She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable + came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to + "come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every + week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs + out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of + ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or + to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is + taking German lessons with Pen Pennington. +</p> +<p> + It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it + would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting + left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie + Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian." +</p> +<p> + It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,—that last winter of the + nineteenth century's seventh decade. +</p> +<p> + One day—everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it + does come, however many days lead up to it—Doctor Ingleside came in + and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird; + grandfather was not quite well. +</p> +<p> + They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew + what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news + as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters? +</p> +<p> + Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And + yet—"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing + people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. + Take it in; shut your door upon it; and—think! It is something that + belongs to heart and soul. +</p> +<p> + We counted up; it was only seven weeks. +</p> +<p> + "As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the + Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this + meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has + never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the + sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come + right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of + them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, + each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as + foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go." +</p> +<p> + Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,—Thursday. Doctor + Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's + that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,—we looked into + new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the + intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that + everybody could not see how quite another thing than any merely + written poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for John + Hautayne. +</p> +<p> + That was in December; it was the first of March when Grandfather + Holabird died. +</p> +<p> + At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not let + her get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter work + was growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides the + furnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came + and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all + pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to + begin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "If + mother doesn't get better," and "If this cold weather keeps on," and + "<i>Are</i> we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" from + Barbara, at last. +</p> +<p> + Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again." Nobody wanted to do + that; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her + prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were crippled and + reduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short days + and her music. +</p> +<p> + "I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all + <i>summer</i>,'" said Barbara; "but <i>this</i> is Valley Forge." The kitchen + fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Mother + was worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her come + down until it was warm and her coffee was ready. +</p> +<p> + That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the + hour. +</p> +<p> + "The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he. + "Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here." +</p> +<p> + "Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. +</p> +<p> + "Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said + Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and—since nobody else will ever + dare to give in—I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, + for us!" +</p> +<p> + "It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird. +</p> +<p> + It certainly was not going back. +</p> +<p> + "We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then + harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated + earth, the first millennial specimen,—see if we don't!—of what was + supposed to be an extinct flora,—the <i>Domestica antediluviana</i>." +</p> +<p> + Arctura Fish came to us. +</p> +<p> + If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience + of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions + which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We + could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. + Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot + skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. +</p> +<p> + And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal + attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the + time during the three weeks that he lived. +</p> +<p> + When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of + any kind; neither was that deed of gift. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about + it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she + cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and + that little pig," while she warmed our toes. +</p> +<p> + "Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the + Roderick Holabirds. +</p> +<p> + We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, + indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, + to force itself upon us. +</p> +<p> + After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the + worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody + thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it + was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of + Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt + Roderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there was + nothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was not + for any one or two to settle." +</p> +<p> + Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must all + come right, somehow." +</p> +<p> + But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the + place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left + must do for us; the house must go into the estate. +</p> +<p> + It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,—until + affairs were settled. +</p> +<p> + "It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER X. +</h2> +<h3> + RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0021"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/167-10.jpg" width="150" height="317" align="left" +alt="T"> + The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,—well, + we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there + would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have + had just two of them out of our whole lives. +</p> +<p> + Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what + could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, + after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old + place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and + though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could + choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old + homestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made up + our minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there." +</p> +<p> + Why, we <i>had</i> always lived there! That was just the way we had always + been trying to spell "home," though we had never got the right letters + to do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it is + a thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stones + to begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, and + when you come to it you know it is yours. The best things—the most + glorious and wonderful of all—will be what we shall see to have been + "laid up for us from the foundation." Aunt Roderick did not see one + bit of how that was with us. +</p> +<p> + "There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your + <i>own</i> house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did + grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt + that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John + were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." + And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that + Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had + not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he + <i>was</i> well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. +</p> +<p> + If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of what + father told them, they could not have behaved very differently. We + half thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likely + they half thought that we were making it appear that they had done + something that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that are + the hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable," Aunt Roderick used to + say. +</p> +<p> + Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; and + when the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, + and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look round + and shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. And + it's a dumb shame. Don't tell <i>me</i>!" +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with his + share, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used to + nothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want + "encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and paying + rent to the heirs, ourselves included,—nobody wanted that; they would + rather have things settled up. There would always be questions of + estimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. + Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knew + they all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in such + matters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It would + take two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. +</p> +<p> + So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have + any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would + be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we + like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child + hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on again + on Monday. +</p> +<p> + With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house,—Arctura. + We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a + serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos + to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with + us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move the + kitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchen + any more. +</p> +<p> + Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, + wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us; + and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. We + all worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down in + the afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. + She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico aprons + for her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending and + dress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linen + collars and cuffs. +</p> +<p> + We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work as + delicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was as + fit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonished + herself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. +</p> +<p> + "Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethers + anywheres." +</p> +<p> + "GATHERS,—<i>anywhere</i>" Rosamond corrected. +</p> +<p> + Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the + way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no + great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right + end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come + out of our year at Westover. +</p> +<p> + "Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times + one." +</p> +<p> + So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound + Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. + She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and + geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want + a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; + if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must <i>build</i> one, + just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked + together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting + great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of + us,—and some of the best of us, perhaps,—have got to stay at home + awhile and do. +</p> +<p> + "It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while + to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. + 'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town + meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm <i>sure</i> there's + need of them for reorganizing <i>parlor</i> meetings. They are getting to + be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have + grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the + position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think + so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see + to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,—right up, + respectful,—Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!" +</p> +<p> + Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West + Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. +</p> +<p> + A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with + the family worries,—which Ruth always had a way of gathering to + herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the + nettles from other people's fingers,—and her hard work at her music, + she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a + vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at + once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake + George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked + Ruth to go too. +</p> +<p> + "If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have + come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm + nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I + should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the + whistles." +</p> +<p> + Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt + in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. +</p> +<p> + "What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington + left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth + colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest + possible way to go, if she were to go at all." +</p> +<p> + Barbara meant—or meant to be understood that she meant—that Miss + Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers; + Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by + an invitation like this from people out of her own family. +</p> +<p> + "But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she + asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?" +</p> +<p> + "Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked." +</p> +<p> + "I wish—everybody—knew that," said Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she + went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out + into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. +</p> +<p> + This is one of her letters:— +</p> +<p> + DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:—It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could + sit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright + light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, + low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on + one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The + Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are + trying,—as they are trying almost all the time,—against the face of + the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells + keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. +</p> +<p> + I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any + other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was + the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and + Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to + think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all + this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close + beside and about them. +</p> +<p> + The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for + mischief,—the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very + amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have + parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old + Cro' Nest,—which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, + just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a + very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and + down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were + nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful + bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The + bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he + would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,—"Well, he + rather thinks,—if she would have stood still long enough,—he would + have let her be—astonished!" +</p> +<p> + The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is + beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name! +</p> +<p> + We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid + Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, + how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly + funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us + I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a + misery of politeness. +</p> +<p> + We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the + dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge + of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it + sloped down safely again,—when, just at the very middle and highest + and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, + and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been + frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No; + nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again + in that dreadful place." She laughed in the midst of it; but she was + really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to + help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What would + come of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her; + <i>she</i> couldn't do anything." "But, dear Miss Pennington," says Dakie, + "are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a + Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never could + get down." I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, + nearly half an hour, before she began to <i>hitch</i> along; for walk she + wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice + silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist + after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks + and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could + stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,—"a noble wreck in ruinous + perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them + up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or + three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk + petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did + all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. +</p> +<p> + "What <i>has</i> happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M——, as + we came up on the piazza. +</p> +<p> + "Nothing," said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tired + and sat down; and it was dusty,—that was all." He bowed and went off, + without so much as a glance of secret understanding. +</p> +<p> + "A joke has as many lives as a cat, here," he told Pen and me, + afterwards, "and that was <i>too</i> good not to keep to ourselves." +</p> +<p> + Dear little mother and girls,—I have told stories and described + describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner <i>such</i> a + thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westover + and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn't + help telling him something about the worry. I know I had no business + to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buy + the place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it of + him if he did! Just think of it,—that boy! I believe he really means + to write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into my + head when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of + <i>his</i> having such a quantity of money. He seems just like—as far as + that goes—any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will? +</p> +<p> + P.S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting of + mine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe he + will write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfect + morning! +</p> +<p> + Tell Stephen I've got a <i>splendid</i> little idea, on purpose for him and + me. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. Dakie + Thayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, about + everything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don't + think Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says she + hates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Pen + and I think she is afraid of the steamers. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, + and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. +</p> +<p> + Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysterious + idea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, for + anything. +</p> +<p> + We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruth + got up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen went + straight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did not + know till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story,—just + because there is so precious little of it. +</p> +<p> + Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the front + door. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to the + piazza cracks. +</p> +<p> + "Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?" +</p> +<p> + Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!" +</p> +<p> + "Why, how your face shines! What <i>is</i> up?" +</p> +<p> + "It's the sunset. I mean—that shines. Don't say anything. Our + splendid—little—idea, you know. It's under here." +</p> +<p> + "Be dar—never-minded, if mine is!" +</p> +<p> + "You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was—exactly. Do + you remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer? + Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they never + knew their way out till she showed 'em?" +</p> +<p> + "It <i>isn't</i> about kittens!" +</p> +<p> + "Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?" +</p> +<p> + "Yes; four." +</p> +<p> + "Couldn't you bring up one—or two—to-morrow morning <i>early</i>, and + make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the + sod, and fasten 'em up?" +</p> +<p> + "What—<i>for</i>?" with wild amazement. +</p> +<p> + "I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, + and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell + you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little + feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and + round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. +</p> +<p> + Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early + plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his + mind to be on hand. +</p> +<p> + Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, + between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she + went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little + wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she + whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. +</p> +<p> + "Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. +</p> +<p> + And Ruth "scatted." +</p> +<p> + Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the + tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and + wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a + precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat + babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on + their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to + doing. +</p> +<p> + "They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." +</p> +<p> + "What—<i>for</i>?" cried Stephen, again. +</p> +<p> + "To get them out, of course," says Ruth. +</p> +<p> + "Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" +</p> +<p> + "Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I <i>believe</i>—but I don't dare say a word + yet—there's something there!" +</p> +<p> + "Of course there is. Two little yowling—" +</p> +<p> + "Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But + I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" +</p> +<p> + Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long + serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I <i>see</i> something," + he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, + Ruth—? My cracky! if you do!" +</p> +<p> + "We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." +</p> +<p> + Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he + got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and + prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the + wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the + middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a + little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench + lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the + house-boarding. +</p> +<p> + Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of + dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, + and weather had not badly injured it. +</p> +<p> + "Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. + "Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, + that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?" +</p> +<a name="image-0022"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/180.jpg" width="300" height="315" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely have + reached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and brought + out an opera-glass that was upon the table there. +</p> +<p> + "That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. +</p> +<p> + Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They read + the words, at the upturned corner,—"heirs after him." +</p> +<p> + "Lay the board back in its place," said Ruth. "It isn't for us to + meddle with any more. Take the kittens away." Ruth had turned quite + pale. +</p> +<p> + Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the two + kittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge,— +</p> +<p> + "Stephen," said she, "I'm going to do something on my own + responsibility." +</p> +<p> + "I should think you had." +</p> +<p> + "O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before I + said anything. But now,—I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick to + come over. They ought to be here, you know." +</p> +<p> + "Why! don't you suppose they will believe, <i>now</i>?" +</p> +<p> + "Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't <i>that</i>." + Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "old + place." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her house + plants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always had + their milk, and her plants their water, before she had her own + breakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and it + was a good time to take her. +</p> +<p> + "Aunt Roderick," said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to come + over right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please." +</p> +<p> + It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs." +</p> +<p> + "<i>You</i> want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?" +</p> +<p> + "Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going to + happen." Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. + She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick and + everybody. +</p> +<p> + "On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off,—<i>to</i> breakfast!" + How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. and Mrs. Roderick + had not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemed + to happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business." + The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the + "gale" had taken care of. +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. +</p> +<p> + "We want you over at our house," repeated Ruth. "Right off, now; + there's something you ought to see about." +</p> +<p> + "I don't like mysteries," said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering her + curiosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matter + about the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. + Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say." +</p> +<p> + "Yes," said Ruth, laughing out; "it <i>is</i> kittens, partly. Or was." +</p> +<p> + So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down the + side-hill path together. +</p> +<p> + We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arctura + had set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a little + first breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. +</p> +<p> + Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been put + there, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. +</p> +<p> + Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. +</p> +<p> + "Good morning," said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" And + he met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stock + still, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blundered + about him. +</p> +<p> + "Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. +</p> +<p> + Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to be + struck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. +</p> +<p> + "I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would all + care, and I wanted—Stephen and I have found something, mother!" She + turned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. +</p> +<p> + Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there," + said he; and pointed in. +</p> +<p> + They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, + just as it had lain for almost a year. +</p> +<p> + "It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father," + he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here." +</p> +<p> + "Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was + remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the + cracks and—" with a little, low, excited laugh—"the 'total depravity + of inanimate things,' till—just a little while ago." +</p> +<p> + She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, + before them all. +</p> +<p> + Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drew + forward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook off + the dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at the + signature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick is + an honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. +</p> +<p> + "It is your deed of gift," said he; and then they two shook hands. +</p> +<p> + "There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. That + was it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!" +</p> +<p> + "No, you didn't," said Stephen. "You never told me anything—but + cats." +</p> +<p> + "Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled," said Mrs. Roderick + Holabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up." +</p> +<p> + They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come another + time. +</p> +<p> + But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissed + Ruth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and very + strict about—well, other people's—expenditures; but she was glad + that the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + "I knew," said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that it + must come right." +</p> +<p> + "Don't tell <i>me!</i>" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't help + herself." +</p> +<a name="2HCH0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XI. +</h2> +<h3> + BARBARA'S BUZZ. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0023"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/185-11.jpg" width="150" height="319" align="left" +alt="L"> + Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, + it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life and + possibility. +</p> +<p> + "You must draw the line somewhere," people say. "You cannot be + acquainted with everybody." +</p> +<p> + But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there is + a sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. + Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom a + pair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her wedding + was "odd." +</p> +<p> + If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would have + been a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody would + have been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she would + be married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all the + wide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond,—of all its noble + heights, and hidden, tender hollows,—its gracious harvest fields, and + its deep, grand, forest glooms,—she would be content, elegantly and + exclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, + indeed, from a distance,—geographically; but they would come out of a + precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit + right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying + sameness. +</p> +<p> + From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began to + come, days beforehand,—the people who could not let Leslie + Goldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamation + cards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of + "Their Daughter's Marriage," by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, after + the like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the need + of, the regular final invocation,—"God save the Commonwealth!" +</p> +<p> + There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, + up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier in + consequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. Frank + Scherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby,—"she + isn't Original Sin, as I was," says her mother,—came up to Z—— + together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from New + York, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. +</p> +<p> + Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to put + her in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. + Her father is a comparatively poor man,—a book-keeper with a salary. + There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always felt + bound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one to + take it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort who + are said to be "cut out for old maids," and she knows it. She could + not teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling—not her + education; God never lets that be cut short—was abridged by the need + of her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissors + and needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever were + put together. +</p> +<p> + So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and getting + six dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-mother + put out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-story + room in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. She + will only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, for + her bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would be + rapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she has + made up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is any + breathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stop + breathing, and go where there is. +</p> +<p> + She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of the + little unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, + and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegant + to have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a little + bonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that Martha + Josselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. + Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. +</p> +<p> + General and Mrs. Ingleside—Leslie's cousin Delight—had come from + their away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought little + three-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was at + home from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medical + course,—and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so that + Mrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; they + all grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came a + wonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, for + Leslie's wedding present,—the first present that arrived from + anybody; sent the day he got the news;—and Leslie cried over them, + and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in the + fashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on the + cabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know what + other things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. +</p> +<p> + Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. Marmaduke + Wharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. + "To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide," he says, and + "to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, among + the Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, and + took her away among the planets, out of the snarl." +</p> +<p> + Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; and + she took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, on + the seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could + get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne + said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on + rollers, and marked,—"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific + preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say, + with a gentle prudence,—"If somebody should give you an observatory, + or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at <i>that</i>, dear." +</p> +<p> + Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did + not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of + the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he + wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. + <i>He</i> did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us + afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her + little home had been broken through and let in heaven. +</p> +<p> + We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till + September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military + engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given + my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West + Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do. +</p> +<p> + Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. + Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a + line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, + fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. +</p> +<p> + It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone + from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and + beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white + among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in + blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with + perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from + the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the + grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid + vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. +</p> +<p> + Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite + asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black + silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up + stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who + came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to + eat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist + in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And + even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open + doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so + divided that it was a festival day all through. +</p> +<p> + Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in + her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, + muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her + head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,—since why shouldn't + she, too, have a bit of the fashion?—and tied round with a soft, + simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, + quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, + and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We + cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara + herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow + among-them. +</p> +<p> + Every room in the house was attended. +</p> +<p> + "There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne, + afterward. "Where <i>did</i> they get such people?—And beautiful serving," + she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very + soul of living!" +</p> +<p> + "Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true + always." +</p> +<p> + Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into + the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the + staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and + landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her + hand in her father's arm. +</p> +<p> + She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her + dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. + It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell + like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or + shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you + could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched + cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the + shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose + blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. + There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her + left hand. +</p> +<p> + Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side + in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of + him in our minds,—dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his + shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a + man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely + <i>looks</i> again. +</p> +<p> + Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his + gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he + fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as + still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; + and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like + the tender glimmering of a sunbeam. +</p> +<p> + When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon + his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. +</p> +<p> + "Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John + looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt + and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in + the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the + strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said + again,— +</p> +<p> + "Perhaps, then, John,—you'll do!" +</p> +<a name="image-0024"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/193.jpg" width="300" height="317" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> + +<p> + "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the + church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But + we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her + father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, + Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in + the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her + pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she + was smiling also and would not cover <i>that</i> up,—gave; and nobody gave + with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning + Marmaduke Wharne. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those + autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every + bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice + to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child. +</p> +<p> + "Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. + "I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a + bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a + new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she + had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought + up from Boston. +</p> +<p> + We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; + we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were + to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have + plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden + autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; + and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as + glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she + can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. +</p> +<p> + We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any + pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was + wearing out. We could replace things—<i>some</i>, at any rate—as well as + not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; + it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and + when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new + and happy time. +</p> +<p> + It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in + any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the + dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It + came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements + were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table + in the brown-room. +</p> +<p> + Barbara's <i>bee</i>-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at + this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not + altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming + content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the + most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied + to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara + "acted like a witch." +</p> +<p> + She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came + down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little + apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself + beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as + befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. +</p> +<p> + All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the + abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a + little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not + been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but + she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the + staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the + bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double + doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into + the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she + stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating + cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the + whole ceremony. +</p> +<p> + Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, + or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from + being actually a commissioned officer,—Ensign Goldthwaite, now, + (Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and + effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last + year,)—we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at + once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and + whirls were simply to be wondered at. +</p> +<p> + "I don't see why he should tell <i>me</i> things," was what she said to + Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for + making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been + telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had + managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property + that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that + had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high + taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of + money. +</p> +<p> + "I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At + which Barbara had disappeared. +</p> +<p> + "Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, + and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly." +</p> +<p> + "I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things," + said whimsical Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away. +</p> +<p> + It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand + Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. + She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did + not come into the room until tea-time. +</p> +<p> + "There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner. + "They make me nervous, looking and listening." +</p> +<p> + We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked + them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z——. +</p> +<p> + Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, + standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in + her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. +</p> +<p> + "My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,—"I am an + old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?" +</p> +<p> + "Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor + Miss Craydocke could only walk away again. +</p> +<p> + When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick + came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified + approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. + As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back + upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the + September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. + "It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your + opportunities," she said, plainly. +</p> +<p> + Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was + brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could + not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. +</p> +<p> + "I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I + never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the + middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What + have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?" +</p> +<p> + "I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said + Aunt Roderick. +</p> +<p> + "I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as + much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light + given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, + I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived + longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things + that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they + take right hold of. People might have <i>pocket</i>-perplexities for years + and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; + but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,—or they think it + is,—they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What <i>do</i> you + suppose makes the difference?" +</p> +<p> + After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that + there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious + of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real + mischief done, already. +</p> +<p> + "It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that + day, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, + really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to + scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her + own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie + 'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She + whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account + for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once + enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her + alone. +</p> +<p> + But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and + then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone + a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then + we might not see him again for three years, perhaps. +</p> +<p> + On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and + see Mrs. Goldthwaite. +</p> +<p> + "I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had + not been down there once since the wedding-day. +</p> +<p> + She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would + stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. +</p> +<p> + About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. +</p> +<p> + It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted + to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the + winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen + families, and meet by turn at the different houses. +</p> +<p> + "I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties + again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want + something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among + ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so + is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. + I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,—doesn't she? Nobody can + complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist + for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the + odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you + think it would do?" +</p> +<p> + "I think it would do nicely for <i>one</i> thing," said Rose, thoughtfully. + "But don't let us allow it to be the <i>whole</i> of our winter." +</p> +<p> + Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn of + compliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting a + break in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped right + over it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. +</p> +<p> + "Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week," said Olivia. + "I came to you almost the very first, out of the family," she added, + with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up." +</p> +<p> + "Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined + together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think + last winter was so <i>really good</i>," she went on; "I should be sorry to + break up what <i>that</i> did; that is all." +</p> +<p> + "I'm willing enough to help in those ways," said Olivia, + condescendingly; "but I think we might have our <i>own</i> things, too." +</p> +<p> + "I don't know, Olivia," said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'own + things.' They are just what begin to puzzle me." +</p> +<p> + It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. Olivia + Marchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. +</p> +<p> + "Never mind," she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be some + time yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to go + beyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unless + everybody is really interested." +</p> +<p> + Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. + At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, + came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. +</p> +<p> + "Somebody has been snubbing somebody," replied Rose, holding her royal + color, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don't + quite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I." +</p> +<p> + "A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have + <i>you</i> been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?" +</p> +<p> + "I? I've been walking, of course.—That boy has got home again," she + added, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. +</p> +<p> + We knew <i>very</i> well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He + would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let + him. But—"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight! + Or—stay to tea with <i>him</i> there, and make him come, in the dark!—And + <i>if</i> he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, + that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were + what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we + had no doubt it had been something awful. +</p> +<p> + The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said + Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,—to the + "Katahdin." +</p> +<p> + In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then + she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for + a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South + Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. +</p> +<p> + "You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those + vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in + these buzzes. +</p> +<p> + "I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at + once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she + came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XII. +</h2> +<h3> + EMERGENCIES. +</h3> +<p> </p> +<a name="image-0025"><!--IMG--></a> +<p><img src="images/203-12.jpg" width="150" height="328" align="left" +alt="M"> + Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it + for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed + without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of + double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a + flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with + a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the + front—not too near together—are more big, reliable, easy-going + buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles + belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes + to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in + her vessel. +</p> +<p> + If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and + what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, + she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred + parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. + Hobart called. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, + rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose + priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in + these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, + leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never + doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making + pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was + it always happened so with her. +</p> +<p> + In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. +</p> +<p> + Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, + and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always + breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by + nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a + fair half night of rest before the alarm came. +</p> +<p> + It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who go + to bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. +</p> +<p> + "My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?" +</p> +<p> + The room was full of red light. +</p> +<p> + Rosamond sat up beside her. +</p> +<p> + "Moon! It's fire!" +</p> +<p> + Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and out + of doors in five minutes. +</p> +<p> + The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carrying + great red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildings + were a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation of + evergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death but + the crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead of + night, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthily + fearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting the + air, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, + busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and making + steadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. +</p> +<p> + We all put on some warm things, and went right over. +</p> +<p> + Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of the + house, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory building + with the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servants + were hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets of + water here and there, from the reservoir inside. +</p> +<p> + Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this to + your house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away with + it. +</p> +<p> + Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, + and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the back + piazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. + There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. + Marchbanks was "particularly engaged." +</p> +<p> + Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. + Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, + in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and her + family till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry of + the moment would put it wholly out of their heads. +</p> +<p> + She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go up + which had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet would + go over it, unbidden, to-night. +</p> +<p> + She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story the + cook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. The + fine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, with + Olivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl was + trying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, + upside down. +</p> +<p> + "Take these children right over to my house," said Mrs. Hobart. + "Barbara Holabird! Come up here!" +</p> +<p> + "I don't know what to do first," said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. + Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver—and + the pictures—and everything! And the house will be full of men + directly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked up + her braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could + "receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at a + fire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had not + learned anything about the exceptions. +</p> +<p> + "Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. + And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her + father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on + the smooth oak as if a horse were coming. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'll + break everything!" she said, and took down a little Sèvres cup from a + bracket. +</p> +<p> + "There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll see + to things. Let me have your keys." +</p> +<p> + "They're all in my upper bureau-drawer," said Mrs. Marchbanks. + "Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matilda + would come." Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can go + there, of course." +</p> +<p> + "It is too far," said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in my + great front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'll + want Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty of + things besides." +</p> +<p> + While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet from + the bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walked + down stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sèvres cup in the + other. +</p> +<p> + "People <i>do</i> do curious things at fires," said Mrs. Hobart, cool, and + noticing everything. +</p> +<p> + She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbara + followed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closets + and wardrobe. +</p> +<p> + "Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, + up here." +</p> +<p> + Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, + she passed on, in like manner,—Barbara, and by this time the rest of + us, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on the + floors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. +</p> +<p> + "Clothes are the first thing," said she. "And this way, you are + pretty sure to pick up everything." Everything <i>was</i> picked up, from + Mrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks's + shaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled off + last night. +</p> +<p> + Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's great + clean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went and + came, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing <i>one</i> thing," he answered. + "You keep to yourn." +</p> +<p> + "They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The + bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill,—two ingines, + an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door + locked, an' a lettin' on me in." +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, + ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her + own lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitable + irruption of the Great Uninvited. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. + Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the other + gentlemen were still hard at work. +</p> +<p> + "Now," said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been the + putting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for the + citron or the raisins,—"now—all that beautiful china!" +</p> +<p> + She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered the + china, although her party-call, like all her others, had been a + failure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, + occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice any + fraction of her private hours. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet,—the + china-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followed + than led. +</p> +<p> + The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. + The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of the + closely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke against + the windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush of + water from the engines beat against the walls. +</p> +<p> + "We must work awful quick now," said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. We + ain't afire yet." +</p> +<p> + She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought down + stairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, which + Arthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there before + the shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy single + pieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah," she ordered to her man. +</p> +<p> + We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time,—Olivia, and + Adelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the other + Marchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijah + stopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led from + drawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys in + their polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in the + sheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, and + defended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute order + among ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitement + without that might else have rushed in and overborne us. +</p> +<p> + "You jest keep back; it's all right here," Elijah would say, + deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensed + comers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outside + the shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. +</p> +<p> + It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, down + the field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leaving + the china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. +</p> +<p> + Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked out + upon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and had + collected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things that + could be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. + Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whom + to deliver it. +</p> +<p> + Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up to + the roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, + untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. +</p> +<p> + So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angle + of the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were only + laid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children s + photographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; little + treasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, or + gifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that people + have about a house, never thinking what would become of them in a + night like this. So Barbara stood by. +</p> +<p> + Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heard + his name. +</p> +<p> + "Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two men + at the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him over + the baluster, and ran up to the landing. +</p> +<p> + "Take hold of it with me," said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. + We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. + Hobart's." +</p> +<p> + "Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keep + those people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the big + basket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The first + we knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon our + line of march toward Elijah's door. +</p> +<p> + Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longer + in the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick," + as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. + Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the last + napkin, and all was safe. +</p> +<p> + Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to the + entrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things are + ordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. Lewis + Marchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets; + quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on the + lawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done all + they could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and there + was little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, + and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running along + the piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was giving + out. +</p> +<p> + After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisterns + were dry, and the engines stood helpless. +</p> +<p> + The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up as + from a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth and + seized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without their + touch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front of + the mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Fire + poured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and into + the rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a little + before that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the home + that offered to her,—her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide were + going to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the things + that, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made <i>home</i>, as + well as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness of + elegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported and + discharged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And the + sleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Rome + could never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets and + Patricks, "out of a place." +</p> +<p> + Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only the + story and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the + "Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbanks + would be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, + in a few days,—receiving her friends, who would hurry to make + "fire-calls," as they would to make party or engagement or other + special occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not one + of the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning rooms + that night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her pictures + and her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bell + now; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. +</p> +<p> + It was about four in the morning—the fire still burning—when Mrs. + Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, + to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood in + a safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara? +</p> +<p> + Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had been + thrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, and + the like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, + two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; but + somebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with a + bullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there beside + her; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here in + this unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composure + which of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. +</p> +<a name="image-0026"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/214.jpg" width="300" height="316" +alt="uncaptioned illustration"> +</center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> + "What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?" + Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. +</p> +<p> + "She'll give her a sort of brevet," replied Barbara. "For gallant and + meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near + neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, + you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full + commission." +</p> +<p> + Harry laughed. +</p> +<p> + "Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First, + there was the whirlwind, last year,—and now the fire." +</p> +<p> + "After the whirlwind and the fire—" said Harry. +</p> +<p> + "I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara. +</p> +<p> + "Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, + I can't help it. You put it into my head." +</p> +<p> + "I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the + voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming." +</p> +<p> + "Then, Barbara—" +</p> +<p> + Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. +</p> +<p> + The next day—<i>that</i> day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast—Harry + came back, and was at Westover all day long. +</p> +<p> + Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She + brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek + upon her knee. +</p> +<p> + "Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me + ready, and let me go." +</p> +<p> + "My dear child! When? What do you mean?" +</p> +<p> + "Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly + ever be so nice again. And—if we <i>are</i> going through the world + together—mightn't we as well begin to go?" +</p> +<p> + "Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What + is it?" +</p> +<p> + "It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European + squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife + and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when + the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says; + and—that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while + first,—as much, perhaps, as we should ever have." +</p> +<p> + "Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!" +</p> +<p> + "No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with + me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added. + "Everybody does." +</p> +<p> + The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as + mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as + she does everything else. +</p> +<p> + Rose has some nice things—laid away, new; she always has; and mother + has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for + Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. +</p> +<p> + "I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and we girls are all + of a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear the + dresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara's + trunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We can + get others any time." +</p> +<p> + We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think that + it was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth's + was blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that no + two of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosen + because of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer for + grandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep" + mourning. "You shall never do that," said mother, "till the deep + mourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves." +</p> +<p> + We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautiful + delay or other about machinery,—the Katahdin's, that is; and + Commander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back and + forth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him; + Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and on + board ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quite + made up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as he + is old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. +</p> +<p> + We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determined + not to be; last days are too precious, +</p> +<p> + "Don't let's be all taken up with 'things,'" says Barbara. "I can + <i>buy</i> 'things' any time. But now,—I want you!" +</p> +<p> + Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her; + it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired,—or + possessed,—but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. +</p> +<p> + There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, + the loveliest "suit," all made and finished, of brown poplin. To think + of Aunt Roderick's getting anything <i>made</i>, at an "establishment"! But + Ruth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and just + took her porte-monnaie in her hand. +</p> +<p> + Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the + "girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or little + things to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. + Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit and + look at it. +</p> +<p> + She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, from + mother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, into + the bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it a + little stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. +</p> +<p> + "<i>All</i> new things are only dreary," she says. "I must have some of the + old." +</p> +<p> + "I should just like to know one thing,—if I might," said Rosamond, + deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She was + sitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoe + in her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave so + beforehand, Barbara?" +</p> +<p> + "I was in a buzz," said Barbara. "And it <i>was</i> beforehand. I suppose I + knew it was coming,—like a thunderstorm." +</p> +<p> + "You came pretty near securing that it <i>shouldn't</i> come," said + Rosamond, "after all." +</p> +<p> + "I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair." +</p> +<p> + "You might have just kept quiet, as you were before," said Rose. +</p> +<p> + "Wait and see," said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't come + bringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs to + get these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of those + white paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say all + sorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and run + off if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind the + door, I wonder?" +</p> +<p> + "After all—" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. +</p> +<p> + "After all—" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was + something else!" +</p> +<p> + "Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. +</p> +<p> + "Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake." +</p> +<p> + We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have + each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never + wanted each other so, or <i>had</i> each other so, before. +</p> +<p> + Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but + the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there + are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little + while; and—we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present + instant. +</p> +<hr class="short"> +<p> + Who finishes it? Who tells it? +</p> +<p> + Well,—"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle—pretty much—finished + it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was + beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and + she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. + Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would + not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she + observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and + partly, here and there, we rushed in,—especially I, Barbara,—and did + little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and + at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie." +</p> +<p> + Do you think it is—sarcastically—a "pretty dish to set before the + king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There + is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z——" is; and there are + friends and neighbors everywhere. +</p> +<p> + I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part—the + Barbarous part—is a continual breach of confidence. I have a great + mind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, + made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautayne + has one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayne + considers <i>worth</i> a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; older + than Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth with + her; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides— +</p> +<p> + Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as far + as we—or anybody—has gone. You must let the world go round the sun + again, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet—even with + "We Girls." +</p> +<p> </p> +<h4> + THE END. +</h4> + +<div style="height: 6em;"></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY *** + +***** This file should be named 12224-h.htm or 12224-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/2/12224/ + +Produced by Janet Kegg and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b74bb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12224-h/images/214.jpg diff --git a/old/12224.txt b/old/12224.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2f1a71 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12224.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6882 @@ +Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: We Girls: A Home Story + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +Release Date: May 1, 2004 [EBook #12224] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +[Illustration: BINDING THE RINGS.] + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY + +By + +MRS. A.D.T. WHITNEY + + +AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD," "THE GAYWORTHYS," +"A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE," ETC. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. + + +BOSTON +1870, 1890 + + + + CONTENTS. + + CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS + CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS + CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN + CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS + CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING + CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS + CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN + CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ. + CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES. + + + +WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE STORY BEGINS. + + +It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. + +The town is down below the hill. + +It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another +hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop +itself, just as it does on this side. + +It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large +country town,--in fact, it has some time since come under city +regulations,--thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for that +which it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. + +Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken off +the dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surrounded +themselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called +"places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and the +old Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, when +the great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train; +down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers' +offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eat +at one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. + +We lived in the town--that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and their +children, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--for +nineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. + +They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; when +there were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, +and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, +in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get to +the fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so came +the name. + +We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn't +considered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below the +brow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to go +down again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, if +they get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it? + +Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus,--I don't say whether he was my +grandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells this +story, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever so +many years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here the +boys grew up,--Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. + +Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,--who had himself +come up from being a workman to being owner,--and learned the +business, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, and +lived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he was +yet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were no +little children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and three +daughters. + +There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and his +wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. +Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins +married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor +mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because +"Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of +course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on +the mere claim of the common cousinship. + +Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particular +ways too. + +There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are all +known by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have little +pet ways of calling, among ourselves,--sometimes one way and sometimes +another; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabird +doesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or our +bed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a little +fun,--though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks or +behaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do the +first,--or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, +or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he's +obstinate,--we always _introduce_ "my daughter Rosamond," or "my +sister Barbara," or,--but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, because +nothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"--and Stephen +is plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be a +man some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we were +christened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird is +such a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "She +wouldn't want to be everybody's Rose." + +Our moving to Westover was a great time. + +That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybody +does not do who moves into a house by any means. + +We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in and +told us, one morning, of his having bought it,--the empty Beaman +house, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had bought +the land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out and +build, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobody +but old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it was +large and solid-built, and could not be taken far. + +We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, another +day, and proposed that we should go and live in it. + +We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had very +strict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of what +they ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any. + +Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming that +day,--him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which it +was she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, or +even him without the cane; but both together were "_scare-mendous_; +they did put down so." + +Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure to +notice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and the +old one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up a +board at the door,--"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had all +made over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it: +and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. But +we couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was never +time for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubled +just now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one in +this family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There is +always one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, in +other ways. + +Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live a +gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for +the din and scramble of business. + +He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowing +his sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the loss +and the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and then +go down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all his +debts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed and +clothe his family meanwhile. + +Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, when +he bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In the +summer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and at +Thanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But these +obliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these things +we made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all the +more afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. + +"When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his stern +precept. + +"When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say, +after he was gone. + +But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. That +day, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and as +cosey as we could be. + +Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that had +been cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. +Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an old +black-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones with +smooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. + +"What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, +wondering. + +"They were dropped,--and I picked them up," Rosamond answered, +mysteriously. "The owner never missed them." + +"Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. + +"Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'em +most. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" she +went on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiring +the effect. "They don't dress much outside." + +"O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?" + +"Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle about +contrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman and +her accidents,--mine are usually catastrophes." + +Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the right +set-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. + +Barbara flung down a magazine,--some old number. + +"Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of the +climax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she went +on to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, and +was stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat? +Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two little +cats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and the +cane coming in. + +There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, and +for Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, through +the sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his cane +were slow; the more awful for that. + +Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors; +and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!" + +[Illustration] + +Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. + +"Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a few +square yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contriving +and going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteen +square feet that we live on most!" + +She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a very +little matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. + +"How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, +or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we +_don't_ tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we know +them or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and the +things we do. + +Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had a +way of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentence +after sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meant +was, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I do +think of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It's +very good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes." + +It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. +When there was one, he always kept it to the last. + +"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as the +around settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and live +in it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. +Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. +I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over." + +He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said a +word. We were too much surprised. + +Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. + +I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were a +woman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call her +so himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. She +asked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keep +her name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given it +to either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to a +grandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. + +"We could keep a cow!" said mother. + +"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. + +"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "His +land begins this side." + +"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't we +have a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. + +"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, in +continuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finished +hat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She would +never discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or our +limitations. + +"Does that look--" + +"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do never +do." + +Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, of +something that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "might +be, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that. + +"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and I +don't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean to +be proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of the +name left." + +"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what +_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take ready +money to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere else +for a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?" + +That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that she +did not speak at first. + +"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don't +believe there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening and +shetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goes +together again and snips our noses!" + +"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "A +mouse pinched in it, I should think." + +"Exactly," replied Barbara. "The most expressive words are +fricassees,--heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see the +philology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek.' Worcester can't put down +everything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn't +all made,--or used,--yet!" + +Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--in +aid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries. + +"O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright out +there, and the mornings will be so early!" + +"That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeing +we're going 'west over.'" + +"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," said +Ruth. That was the best she could do. + +"Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to have +some of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, put +down with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. +Especially for a country house." + +"It seems, then, we _are_ going?" + +Nobody had even raised a question of that. + +Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raised +none. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, +quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of a +geometrical fact patent at first glance. + +"We can have a cow," mother repeated. + +"Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get a +hearing. + +"You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to the +parcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen." + +"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely. + +"I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. +I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't many +in profane." + +"Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus +'saluted' at the end of an epistle." + +"Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn't +history; that's mere mention." + +"We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down,'" +suggested Rosamond, complacently. + +Barbara smiled. + +"And we can tell _the girl_ to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' when +she's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the +'handy' things." + +"Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was between +the two. + +"Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow." + +"We shall all have to remember that it will only be living there +instead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrella +under the rain of suggestion. + +The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There was +no doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and it +was found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtains +in our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in the +square Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, +and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. +The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the few +pictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbara +said, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairs +there would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, and +making upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, because +in these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, and +fireplace, and closet doors. + +They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. +Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over to +see his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, to +communicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of a +kind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house any +precisely matched companionship. + +This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it led +to trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned to +their new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the whole +number of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregarious +mind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out to +live in "such a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is to +Irish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole can +no longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfast +that she "must just be lukkin out fer a plaashe." + +"But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two or +three months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be glad +to have you stay and help us through." + +"Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taks +an intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed I +niver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but I +couldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo a +plaashe, ye see." + +It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk a +graat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, but +she must just be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she had +the kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonnet +on,--a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse--of ungarnished +head between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,--and +took her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, where +people were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company nor +children nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, +and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," she +would probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would +_not_ allow of her continuing with us. + +A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,--sure to +happen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line we +have a gale down below. + +"_Now_ what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming back +into the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartments +which spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling all +through the house. + +"Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravely +than she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thy +youth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don't +doubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among the +rest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. +There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least." + +"I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird, +with meekness. + +It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very much +quenched. + +The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, and +nowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up over +the kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls between +that time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without a +girl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have not +come to the family-moving yet. + +The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, while +the building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up into +all the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what new +pictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how now +this tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see by +the end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,--for the slope, +though gradual, was long,--and how the sunset came in more and more, +as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill of +excitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, the +onward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought all +rightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen called +these earthquakes. + +We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It was +such a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stop +anywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't; +because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it was +all pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting over +on the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. + +We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaks +between trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, +open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; and +the nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny and +pleasant and real countrified. + +It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great +house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand +generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs +and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest +point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in +excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we +might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose the +green bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we got +less of the great town within our view as we settled down upon our +side of the ridge. + +The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. + +There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were to +be; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way down +against the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fields +were beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire in +autumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructed +sky. + +The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where the +walls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen the +spot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for the +moving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held the +kitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of as +mere lumber. It was only the main building--L-shaped still, of three +very large rooms below and five by more subdivision above--which had +majestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, +westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. + +Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient with +one servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before he +offered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent we +must take out cheerfully in extra steps. + +It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirds +came fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, +and stood staring around it with its many eyes,--wide open to the +daylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,--to see where +it was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a very +knowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. + +The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashed +in at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as he +got his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle round +southward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until the +noonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with the +sitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then through +the long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in along +the full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, and +peeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This was +what he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,--as if he +stretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn about +it, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. He +quieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night he +found somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took it +serenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, and +put us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was to +leave so many cubic feet of light at daily. + +I think he _might_ like to look in at that best parlor. With the six +snowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and the +deep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all over +them, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were like +the moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the light +glinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw out +the lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our few +fine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. It +was Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bring +home straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good many +nice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to be +paid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where we +sat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselves +already to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases well +filled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn cloth +hid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to the +hand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of the +home-spirit,--a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its +round of radiance every night. + +Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June +nights were at Westover. + +We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We +had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"--that is their word for +the north country at home, and the north country is where the best +material comes from,--who was willing to air her ignorance in our +kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for +the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not +come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls +was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't +do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do +with established rates of wages. + +But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the +singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, +and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a +new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things +were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy +rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how +grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old +things also,--a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. + +"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb +'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family +settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. +"It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before +it, except when it is in the nominative case." + +Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to the +sitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to the +ground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazza +was open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, +from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light low +railing ran around the whole. + +Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right +and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through +the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a +round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with +us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. + +We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what new +glory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for the +witnessing of a pageant. + +The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hung +close by; they dropped down through the gold together, till they +touched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slid +silently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. + +[Illustration] + +"But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush. + +No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to south +stretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints and +softliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; the +gentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, went +by; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; we +watched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked out +into great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight was +the curtain. + +"We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara said +again, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against the +railing. + +"The front row, and season tickets!" + +"Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. + +"Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew human +nature, and had got used himself to most things. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AMPHIBIOUS. + + +"What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up from +her letter. + +Ruth told. + +"How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You are +as pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anything +particular has happened, to remember _any_ day by, since the first, +and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm never +sure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first; +and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme in +my head." + +"I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in her +room,--that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down at +the bottom; and she whops it every morning." + +Ruth laughed. + +"What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. + +"It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and you +only puckered." + +Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that," she said. + +"Well, what then?" + +"To think you knew." + +"Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough." + +"Yes,--but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest part +of the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve." + +Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth had +caught him out. + +"I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't help +reading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the man +that went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fine +day, and then I'll whop the whole over for you." + +Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the last +pair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephen +in her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lips +that she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up and +went away with them to her room. + +She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket in +her hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll of +Scripture texts printed in large clear letters,--a sheet for each day +of the month,--and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnut +rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at +the Bible Class,--Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very +much. + +Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, +and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and +maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went +and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. + +For she had something to think about this morning. + +Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the +beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and +just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room +at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the +other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from +the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was +a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up; +and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the +L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well +tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be +taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all +the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. + +Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it; +behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of +staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by +a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the +whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L +unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right +angles to each other. + +The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in +the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long +shine, from its south window at the end, right through,--except in +such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and +then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew +through pleasantly in a soft shade. + +When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large +front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if +there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and +bureaus,--the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy. +And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamond +and Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushions +sewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seat +and pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirt +of white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange for +this Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished their +two windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. + +Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all go +round by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked away +mysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened all +the doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most part +remained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings and +ways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently open +to the privilege and second sight of story-telling. + +The white dimity curtains--one pair of them--were up at the wide west +window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four +things,--drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light +among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings +around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed +cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased +with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and +tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in +uniform,--varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in +crimson arabesque,--made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture +scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the +window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which +she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to +foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, +over the deficient cane-work. + +Tin tacks and some considerable machining--for mother had lent her the +help of her little "common sense" awhile--had done it all; and Ruth's +room, with its oblong of carpet,--which Mrs. Holabird and she had made +out before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored one +and a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not been +enough to put upon the staircase,--looked, as Barbara said, "just as +if it had been done on purpose." + +"It _says_ it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. + +Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,--with its situation above all; +she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never minded +their coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her three +little brass bolts when she had a desire to. + +She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about Adelaide +Marchbanks's invitation. + +The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The married +daughter of one family--Mrs. Reyburne--was at home from New York, and +had brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. Roger +Marchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friends +visiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,--several +sisters in each family,--always. The Haddens were there a good deal, +and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at a +time. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and Leslie +Goldthwaite, a great pet of hers,--Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, +in the town,--was often up among them all. + +The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and +then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were +not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were +among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their life +would not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind of +Elf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in the +impalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when it +wills to be by itself for a time. + +There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way for +them, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was not +spoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. +Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and I +suppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized how +thoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodily +presence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond and +Barbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted for +something; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wished +and meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers were +to carry out. + +But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was not +quite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each her +own sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by the +accepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard; +why shouldn't they--the Holabirds--settle anything? Ruth hated to have +theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So +this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had +happened. + +Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down +street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. +At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,-- + +"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like +you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. +There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now +among ourselves." + +Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular +inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but +she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and +that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the +end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should +play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at +eleven o'clock. + +She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,--perhaps; but +she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect +her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. + +She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to +hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would +very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly +acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. +She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; she +would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but +it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would +they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go? +And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--she +the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and +Barbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out,--they just +leaked out." + +That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, +with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power +of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she +would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to +her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she +could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a +born home. + +She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, as +at first she meant to do. + +But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls" +means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" in +her heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out of +themselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turns +into a plural. + +Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and her +elbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell of +grass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird's +five-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like some +new, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous laziness +upon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, through +her own room and saw her there. + +Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill of +pleasantness. Her home had _expressed_ itself here, as it had never +done anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshiny +roominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and her +daughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearness +in which her love and her wish for them held them always. + +It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but the +generous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you looked +through, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glass +house" so long. + +The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows at +either end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the long +mirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels in +the town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were here +put, quite elegantly tall,--the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above her +daintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great square +trunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, +dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes and +cushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room," +opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and at +night, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back and +forth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, +gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; so +that Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning in +their busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you were +all lit up." + +"We had one candle apiece," Barbara would answer, very concisely. + +"I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way," Rosamond +said once, after she had gone. + +"And that she _didn't_ have to come through our clothes-yard of a +Monday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in the +wash," added Barbara. + +But this is off the track. + +"What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon the +little figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through the +open rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?" + +"O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I've +done, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure I +wasn't provoked." + +"You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?" + +"Yes, I guess so," said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking right +on,--doesn't it?--when you speak suddenly out of a 'think.' I wonder +what _alone_ really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Something +thinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up." + +"Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth." + +"Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It _does_ answer back." + +"And what was the answer about this time?" + +That was how Ruth came to let it out. + +"About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, +though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And they +might have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as you +said, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I--needn't. I mean, I +knew right off that I _didn't_." + +Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of her +thinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand the +older idiom, just as they do baby-talk,--by the same heart-key. She +knew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to." + +"You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them begin +with me so." + +"You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird, +affectionately. "And a very generous one." + +"No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rather +nice to settle that I _can_ be contrary. I don't like to be +pat-a-caked." + +She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. + +The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, to +ask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. + +Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be the +busy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was not +willing, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though she +always had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambric +morning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of little +fancy slippers,--(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; she +had half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, and +beading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on to +any stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, +in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at the +last point of morning freshness,--chairs and tables and books in the +most charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower in +vase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among the +others, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and to +receive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be as +likely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her +"points,"--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak at +the heels and going at the sides, and kept their original character +only by these embellishments upon the instep,--and to have dumped +herself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind the +green blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in some +irresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. + +Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and would +stay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, with +unexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in +the other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation." + +Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if +Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and +Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake, +and why should they be ashamed of it?" + +Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, but +they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." + +"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she +would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most +fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." + +Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; +for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and +a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there +in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to +call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the +kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the +big trees. + +Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suit +and bright buttons. + +"Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, +looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point the +Inglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!" + +It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were +walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not +been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. +Marchbanks's? + +[Illustration] + +Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, +behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. + +"I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think +I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and +I don't go out very much, except with my--cousins." + +"Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." + +"It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my +breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" + +"Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed +bent upon driving his questions home. + +"O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." + +"Wasn't it?" + +The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; +Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--just +a line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. + +Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West +Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little +wheels were turned sometimes. + +He had just come to Z---- (I must have a letter for my nameless town, +and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a +crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among +interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he +excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and +it was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. +Ingleside, had come to Z----, to take the vacant practice of an old +physician, disabled from continuing it. + +Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends; +almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. + +Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for one +older, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one just +like her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, from +the little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of their +pretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, +springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautiful +flowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as she +had grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central or +most brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helped +and touched and perfected all. + +There was something very real and individual about her; she was no +"girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She would +have grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the first +quarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly" +sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showed +itself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as to +simpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in her +twentieth year now, which sounds--didn't somebody say so over my +shoulder?--so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her that +she had "stayed fifteen." + +She _looked_ real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with some +graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been +freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly +around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on +like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and +everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; +and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could +trace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex and +bewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds and +festoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked more +as young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmaker +seven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the public +promenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiring +minds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all the +sewing, and where the hair all comes from. + +Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked to +be odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with the +prevailing fashion--the fundamental idea of it--always, when she had a +new thing; but she modified and curtailed,--something was sure to stop +her somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that they +never stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, +"something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and she +must choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satin +folds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to use +differently; the dress was never the first and the _must be_; so it +came by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode; +and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it, +were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. + +It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questions +that had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, +that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them half +unconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the +"outside," which is setting more and more between us and our real +living, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer put +ready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. + +Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how +"achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of +embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and +the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for +them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of +Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in +itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured +it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie +had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the mere +buying. + +Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the little +vines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creeping +Mitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniature +grace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty to +put in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helped +Rose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grew +higher up. + +Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with the +fragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was full +of bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, as +if there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the great +sunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings +"came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, like +a flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of course +one had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off like +a bird or a bee right after breakfast,--that was living; that was the +Irishman's blessing,--'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'" + +"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the most +magnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what there +would be to give them all if they did, as they came round under the +piazza basement, and up to the front portico. + +They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. +Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. + +Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azalea +branches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne said +afterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. + +The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a +hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got +the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of +parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors +which she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. + +Barbara stood behind the blind. + +"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook right +out of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, and +has eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's Dakie +Thayne?" + +"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?" + +"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!" + +"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he's +nice,--ever so nice." + +"It's a case of Outledge, Leslie," Dakie Thayne said, going down the +hill. "They treat those girls--amphibiously!" + +"Well," returned Leslie, laughing, "_I'm_ amphibious. I live in the +town, and I _can_ come out--and not die--on the Hill. I like it. I +always thought that kind of animal had the nicest time." + +They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. + +"We've been to see the Holabirds," said Dakie Thayne, right off. + +"I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We really +wanted her," said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"For batrachian reasons, I believe," put in Dakie, full of fun. "She +isn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. That +is, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so." + +You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. +People who tell a story see round corners. + +The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to play +croquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaites +and the Haddens. + +"We're growing very gay and multitudinous," she said, graciously. + +"The midshipman's got home,--Harry Goldthwaite, you know." + +Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in her +own keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. +But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. + +When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, +inevitable question,-- + +"What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night,--that's ready?" + +And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not a +dud!" + +But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt on +purpose to lend to Barbara. If she had _given_ it, there would have +been the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, +and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirts +that were _over with_, before the new fashion came. + +Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big world +to-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. + +It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it _was_ one of our ways at +Westover. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. + + +Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. + +Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. + +And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were to +carry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. + +You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. + +How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In the +first place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,--"a making +for anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstanding +Shakespeare. + +It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming and +sweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with glee +and grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke to +her suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, +all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready to +catch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you in +return, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of life +and pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of her +face lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised upon +its stalk. She was _like_ a flower chatting with a breeze. + +She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; but +she had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it; +and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of her +head any painful, conscious question of how she _was_ seeming. That, +and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her manners +what Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,--"exquisite." + +That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep; +hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. + +She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they had +everybody round them. All the people in the room were saying how +lovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed a +great and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It was +pleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just as +lovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to be +lovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood on +that same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just as +pretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and it +meant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have her +stand right there, and look just so, to-night. + +In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to her +grander,--another girl, in another corner, looking on,--a girl with a +very homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. She +looked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in her +prettiness; _she_ looked as if she had put herself away, comfortably +satisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. +Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. + +"I do think," she said,--"don't you?--it's just the bravest and +strongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, and +to go right on and have a good time just the same;--_every day_, you +see, right through everything! I think such people must be splendid +inside!" + +"The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," said +Leslie. "And she was fifty years old too." + +"Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, +"it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I should +like--just once--to look beautiful at a party!" + +The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. + +Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaite +were on one side, and they led off their whole party, going +nonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not help +it; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling each +other along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and came +down into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and the +whole game in their hands on their own part. + +"It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "but +they might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on the +same side again." + +It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted away +for the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, that +Harry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil." + +[Illustration] + +Barbara shook her head. What was it? + +"It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it to +us. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plain +enough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are ten +rings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is to +string them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certain +distance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and you +play as many rounds as you may agree upon." + +Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. + +"Have you told anybody else of that?" + +"Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while." + +"Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebody +came down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let me +have it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the stray +ball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, +"come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, +you see, to get anything that's new." + +"I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,--isn't that what +they make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famous +out of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought to +be, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit Harry +Goldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, putting +the two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollicking +into the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle was +taking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody was +there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing +party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them +again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. +After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry +rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. + +It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance was +re-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an old +remembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school and +given her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,--"as he might have +done," we told her, "to any other boy." + +"Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in her +door, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pulling +down hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter at +bedtime. + +Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, as +if she could not get into that place without her considering-fit +coming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, and +her eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. + +"She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara. + +"Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out of +her cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all the +evening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music +_splashes_ so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering it +all over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!" + +"The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs. +Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. +"I've known good times do that." + +"It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in my +head, 'going on forever--ever! _go_-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth broke +into the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. + +"I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!" +Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to the +mother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; it +was only when she wanted a very dear word. + +"We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can find +in the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment, +in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for the +bowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes once +in a while. It's going to be just--splend-umphant!" + +"If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We _must_ keep +the new of it to ourselves." + +"As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up Harry +Goldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doing +anything but just give you that awful little pinch!" + +"That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross or +inelegantly excited about anything. "But I _do_ think the girls will +like it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza." + +"That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously. + +Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The dark +new boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had been +real oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny." + +Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-music +flittering in her brain. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden about +her playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, although +they said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that her +fingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the right +points. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to _see_ Ruth Holabird play, as +well as she did to hear her. + +But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almost +anything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what she +should do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gave +lessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularly +to Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his being +cross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy and +sensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to be +afraid. + +Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, +except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred a +teacher to come to the house. + +"A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style from +the very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away," +said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and said +something, and drew her off. + +Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetism +that guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes were +struck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. + +"If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really would +have me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. +Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could show +anybody what I know,--and if they like that!" + +It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up with +the "forever--ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely trembling +ripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the south +and slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmering +little ghost in the arm-chair. + +Ruth came down late to breakfast. + +Barbara was pushing back her chair. + +"Mother,--or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm going +out for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning." + +"And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to be +with Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?" + +"Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can't +you come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!" + +"That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. + +"I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, +when we played with him so." + +"I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely. + +"Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, about +those--patent rights. I dare say they'll come up." + +"I've no doubt," said Rosamond. + +"I wish you _would_ both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs. +Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, +and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast." + +"I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs. +Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls had +gone away. + +"I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something that +would just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my head +last night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right up +behind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised my +playing; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbanks +wants a--" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that was +coming--"_lady_-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. +There, mother. It's in _your_ head now! Please turn it over with a +nice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that you +believe perhaps I could!" + +By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her two +hands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down upon +one of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. + +"I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I _wouldn't_ just as lief! +I would liefer you should have all you need without." + +"I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!" + +"That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in upon +the last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being good +for them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both." + +"O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception of +difficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether she +could, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "_Don't_ you--or Rose--call +it names, Barbara, please, will you?" + +"Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna +are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by +your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." + +"I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's--" + +"Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfully +quiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retain +me on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, and +give me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand." + +Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. + +"I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks would let me teach the children." + +"Teach the children! What?" + +"O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And--make Rose +understand." + +"Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like +_it_." + +"Will you do just those two things?" + +"It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part? +I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It's +such a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if we +made it a regular family delegation--besides, it will take as much as +all me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Last +night's twilight isn't over. And it's funny _we_'ve plans too; _we_'re +going to give lessons,--differently; we're going to lead off, for +once,--we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chime +in. It _may_ make things--Holabirdy." + +Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What she +said, therefore, when she was told, was,-- + +"O dear! I suppose it is right! But--just now! Right things do come in +so terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broad +aisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?" + +"And then somebody else would get the chance." + +"There's nobody else to be had." + +"Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's _me_ to +be had yet." + +"O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!" + +"I don't know. I might. I shouldn't _teach_ it 'anyhow.'" + +Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half +of her point. + +Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. +Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. + +She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and +old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her +justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she +must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew +right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had +happened to think of it. + +"Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a +little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early +fashion, to ask for her. + +"I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because +I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my +playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, +perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, +and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons +myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night." + +Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through +whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to +what she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_; +because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false +consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according +to their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they would +think of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond could +not help _feeling her double_,--Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That was +what Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. + +The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it is +not, there is no use any way. + +Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. + +"Does Mrs. Holabird know?" + +"O yes; she always knows." + +There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. +Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been very +frank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhat +different. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made; +perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have been +sensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. + +"But you see, my dear, that _your_ having a pupil could not be quite +equal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one would +not quite provide for the other." + +"O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. +Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I could +teach two quarters, I could take one." + +"You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. +Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have really +a charming style. But whether you could _impart_ it,--that is a +different capacity." + +"I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could make +her understand all I do." + +"Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any lady +who would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, I +will pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have two +thirds of Viertelnote's price." + +"O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter I +could begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another." + +"I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs. +Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she might +have said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whom +she meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not two +persons,--one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected to +be treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quite +intent upon her purpose. + +If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. + +"You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. + +Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, +springing to a soundless rhythm. + +She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, +winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, and +tying them with knots of ribbon. + +Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it up +himself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hanging +upon his arms like bangles. + +They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at the +first asking. + +It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take the +plates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across her +arm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate upon +another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a +good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. + +Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely +beautiful repose. + +Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come +next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a +little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the +brown room with tears in her eyes. + +"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have +just one wretched girl to do everything!" + +"Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always +_will_ do it at dinner-time." + +"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have +to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to +see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect +serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life' +(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and +then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought +to be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not +know, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!" + +Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these +things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was +beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it +_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, +more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were +quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than +when guests came and divided her attention. + +Ruth went over to where she sat. + +"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the +shading-off, you know. That helps both ways." + +"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though." + +"No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like +it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.' +You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And +people that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the +edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt +and between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor drop +all the spoons." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +NEXT THINGS. + + +Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself +into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of +it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be +delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high +propriety. + +Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the +cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was +time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all +sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table +(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and +replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner +between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. + +The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glass +and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and +the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a +fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and +white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden +brown. + +The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside; +Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and +Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and +forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. + +Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, +forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders +without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble +at ahl to have company." + +But before the tea was the new game. + +It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done +higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions +for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in +their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it +would fall out,--whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take +to it, or whether it would drop right there. + +"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the +remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. +Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic +trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. + +Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her very +self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,--through +Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. + +Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls who +should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if +we did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just such +things as these; and our day and our life are full of it. + +The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as +soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could +not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their +coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all +that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning +all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if +anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it +was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day +elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so +adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly +forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough? +Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. + +The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the +young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in +turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly +wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like +garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss +them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less +inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with +each succeeding trial. + +They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might +venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and +references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it +had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. + +By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide +end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits +began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if +it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as +genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. + +And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and +very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than +from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private +cooks. + +It all went off and ended in a glory,--the glory of the sun pouring +great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, +and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow +forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by +they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It +was the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace; +Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ to +build the wood-house under it. + +After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our +home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to +become before. + +They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips from +it,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but +they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They +_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and +practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came +to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other +girls wanted it, they had to come where it was. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the +Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did +not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the +position remained the same. + +It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family +again, one evening. + +"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting +something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask +Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit." + +The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days together +at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, +and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to +the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens +would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, +and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of +intimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning and +stayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan or +ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such +things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to +us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as +that we might. + +"I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here." + +"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What +for?" + +"Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth. + +"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in +a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. + +Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond +suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how +to dispose of the thought since she had got it. + +Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. +Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty +knitting,--making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him +at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent +thought. + +She made up her mind presently,--partly at least,--and spoke again. "I +don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura +Fish." + +Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or +two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he +asked. + +"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied +Ruth. + +"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie +Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it." + +"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time," said Ruth. "These +things are different." + +"'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up, +and next things down." + +"I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I +suppose people wouldn't naturally--it can't be meant they should--walk +right away from their own opportunities." + +Ruth laughed,--not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. + +Dakie Thayne leaned back. + +"What,--if you please,--Miss Ruth?" + +"I was thinking of the opportunities _down_," Ruth answered. + +It was several days after this that the young party drifted together +again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne +had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she +who suggested it. + +"Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a +meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for +a prize? They would do nicely together." + +Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the +project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. + +But Dakie Thayne broke in. + +"Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea." + +"Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is +the carrying out, you see." + +"Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize +what we are doing as it is." + +"But the minute you _do_ organize! You don't know how difficult it is +in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you +go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to +stop." + +"Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, +good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. + +"Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't +go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,--down +the hill and into the town." + +"We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts." +There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. + +"O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie +Goldthwaite, quick and pleased. + +"Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth +Holabird. + +It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave +her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. +She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. + +"O, they _won't_ exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with +an air of high free-masonry. + +"Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. + +"Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without +any air at all. + +"Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though +what people _come_ for is the question, I think, when there isn't +anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it +has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them +to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she +hoped she would come often, and let _the girls_ run in and be +sociable! And Grace Hobart says '_she_ hasn't got tired of +croquet,--she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. +Thayne." + +"Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. + +"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. +When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully +stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,--out quite loud, +across everything,--'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never +did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'" + +"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite. + +"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think +they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They +didn't know _what_ to say." + +"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in +that way very often." + +"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are +kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out." + +"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the +neighborhood is getting to be,--full of people that you don't know +what to do with." + +"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set," said Olivia. + +"O dear! O dear!" + +It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all +turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements +made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had +been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now +she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face +to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow +clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. + +"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!" + +Then she knew by the hush that _she_ had astonished them, and she grew +frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink; +for she still felt just as she did when the words came. + +Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. + +"We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't +quite set up to be angels. Come,--try one more round." + +And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to +pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do +it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar +grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, +the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more +dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden +over upon the rest. + +[Illustration] + +Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not +been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the +party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour +longer. + +Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to +Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba +will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask." + +But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the +grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but +they kept on up over the hill. + +"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could +not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute." + +"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the +front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched." + +"They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered. +"And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_." + +"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your +lip. I saw it." + +"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I +had spoken then." + +"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure +I don't know how myself so often." + +"That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up? +And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out +these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions: +picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind +of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the +lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?" + +"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said +Ruth. + +"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. +"Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems +to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." + +"Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? +There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just +for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" + +"Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than +with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about +it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the +niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the +fence that keeps out weeds." + +"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to +Leslie as she spoke. + +"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I +should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said +Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after +all." + +"If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me +it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody +in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." + +"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. + +It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise +continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the +Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. + +"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, +one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and +she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and +interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." + +"We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a +family of grasshoppers all summer." + +"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," +said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be +busy." + +"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. + +"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right +into the kitchen with the other servants." + +"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," +said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." + +"Barbara, you're a plague!" + +"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be +exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office." + +"In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more +convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and +besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life +to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as +not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with +'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, +and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of +measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why +shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and +gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too +nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her +'crowd.'" + +"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to +be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live +plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind +_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things." + +"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient +for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or +seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content +to be the step we are." + +"It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A +step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside +does it," Ruth added. + +"O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort of +position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social +can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful." + +"What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the +world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty +among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the +Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall +never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we +won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and I +wonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather right +things in a no-particular sort of a way." + +"Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. + +"No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me." + +"We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs. +Holabird. "We can always manage that." + +"I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond. + +"That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You +don't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear +and diamond bright!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE "BACK YETT AJEE." + + +Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. + +We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort of +Box-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friends +to the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went with +her; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great families +for a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did not +so much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did not +expect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, when +she was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us would +take a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if it +happened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and never +offered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. It +seemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome in +their objections to. + +We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were all +simple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such an +under-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardly +ever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always make +some arrangement. + +Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said it +would be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rather +come when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our work +and patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make; +she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idle +work. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cut +out her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had had +grasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and I +think we all really liked it just as well as the other. + +We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had never +even realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at; +green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is so +beautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in with +scent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to open +to it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide in +the cooling afternoon. + +"How glad I am we _have_ to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, +stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed a +long flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people who +never do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. +It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full of +different stories!" + +Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does Leslie +Goldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, +old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, and +that has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; and +Mrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothing +pretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, +the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was a +little child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school; +but it was vacation now, of course. + +Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then +the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. +Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service,--or, +rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little +"schooling,"--the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. +Ingleside,--until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages." + +Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of +Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen +Josselyn,--Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so +much,--or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes _just next_. +She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, in +something approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in the +class and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucilla +can only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlin +wool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, or +intricacies ready made up at the--upholsterer's, I was going to say. +So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to +little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself +look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like +Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when +she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. + +Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleep +with Lucilla in the great, square east room. + +Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful how +nobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anything +in it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but she +cannot keep it so _sacredly_ fair and pure as Delia did for her. Only +one thing showed. + +"I say," said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-rail +as they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that _piousosity_, +now, mornings?" + +"No," said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't." + +"It's always whopped," said Stephen, sententiously. + +Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her very +finest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the fox +and the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair to +give a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for very +best, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her +"griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; +the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And +another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed +golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten +almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a +few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, +and delicately with pepper,--the oven doing the rest, and turning it +into a snowy souffle. + +Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only hers +was a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; and +would be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchens +should come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into the +universal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-souffles to be +carried half a mile to the table? + +Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was so +nice," she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was +'evingly.'" + +Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no less +than any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being very +vulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by any +means, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. + +Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get some +new ideas to carry home to Arabel. + +Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child of +one marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites between +them had dropped away,--out of the world, or into homes here and there +of their own,--and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, +low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran +up small. + +Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She _could_ make two skirts to a +dress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upper +one by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings and +flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on +exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted +herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias +to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave +the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of +wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia +sewed with her, abroad and at home,--abroad without her, also, as she +was doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or a +panier,--or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, was +something to go home with rejoicing. + +Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house; +the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to the +squirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, and +stowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down between +the walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troop +of horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the +other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way +of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a +story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the +atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in +their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived +there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed +into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there had +been parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games in +nurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayed +in now,--bees in summer, and squirrels in winter,--and brought the +woods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we should +have missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some back +room, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself! + +The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick coming +over one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, +walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them or +not, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any of +you getting ready to be married?" + +"Yes'm," said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us." + +Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she was +quilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon a +little round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid away +five years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, and +the waist was gone. + +While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, +more or less, everything that lay about,--"to help her in her +inventory," she said after she went away. + +"Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs," repeated she, as she +turned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. + +Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by the +discovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's old +treasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into these +elegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and marked +with beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in her +pride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract +report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather +Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an +impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with +sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French +embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one +handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, +until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar +dress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. + +"I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose," Ruth would say. "I +think there are two things that make her talk in that way. In the +first place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the news +she can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; and +then she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, +that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, after +all." + +Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectly +straightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, two +quite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. + +After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne +went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,--people +whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the _haute +volee_ was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our +own life once more. + +"It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any +widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to +come to a plain place." + +Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she +accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could +be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on +anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She +would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern +that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which +mother taught us all. + +"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would +say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out +of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, +and then you can take the chances as they arrive." + +"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara +once replied. + +"No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A +great deal that is good--a great deal of the best--comes in at the +back-doors." + +Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we +did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. + +Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate. + +Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did +her cousin and Dakie. [Footnote: Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, +and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever +thought to put this in before.] + +Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending +for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. + +Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five +years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the +twilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively and +severe, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbara +usually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth--Miss +Trixie says--"plays like a ninkum." + +We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when we +were especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had something +particularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerily +down for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-nice +about us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y," +"Swiss-family-Robinson-ish," that got us all together over it, in the +hilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie could +appreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of old +furniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improve +upon--certainly to supplant--the original pattern. Yet she always had +a fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable had +ever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of our +improvements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as we +can be, already,--it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us how +cosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day," says Barbara. + +Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. +It was tan-color, bound with crimson,--covering three square yards; +and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right after +breakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the dark +floor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, and +mother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and the +great bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up our +camp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and to +have a brand-new piece of furniture before night. + +Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixie +was the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and she +was not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in a +handkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. + +The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had +Miss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-door +to their house. + +I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. There +are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do +with our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all _their_ +stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet +them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although +we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of +fashion. + +We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of the +hammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came +back from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; his +furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. + +[Illustration] + +"Another two years' pull," he said. "Won't you all come to West Point +next summer?" + +"If we take the journey we think of," said Barbara, composedly,--"to +the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and +then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to +Saratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have a +day or two there." + +"Barbara," said mother, remonstratingly. + +"Why? _Don't_ we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it till +I'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, +Mr. Thayne." + +"We shall miss you very much," said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara's +nonsense. + +"Our summer has stopped right in the middle," said Barbara, determined +to talk. + +"I shall hear about you all," said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be a +Westover column in Leslie's news. I wish--" and there the cadet +stopped. + +Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. + +"I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, +to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that +would be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year +of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't know +how he hangs on to those eight weeks,--and how they hang on to him +afterwards." + +Mother looked so motherly at him then! + +"We shall not forget you--Dakie," she said, using his first name for +the first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then." + +Dakie said, "Thank you," in a tone that responded to her "Dakie." + +We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers are +beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. + +He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook hands +also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to +see before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,--as it was our +cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,--through the hall to +the door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to +take off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they were +leaving. + +Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as was +natural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, once +more, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go away +and leave us all. + +"That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man," said Miss +Trixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got in +behind them again. + +"The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes," said +Barbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie." When +anybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her love +for mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort of +chivalry it has with it. + + * * * * * + +It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importance +had come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curious +and wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. + +We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we had +quite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it was +with us; we had things we _must_ take up; we could not have spared +time to lead society for a long while together. + +Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; she +had a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "old +house" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdowne +in to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort of +attention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try to +afford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake and +preserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. + +It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, +had had private occupation. + +"There had been family company at grandfather's," she told Jeannie +Hadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. +We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or three +weeks." + +Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing his +geometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on a +sheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes a +little, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle of +mischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept on +silently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in her +funniest, repressed way,-- + +"I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to +understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are +wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. +Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?" + +She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over with +intersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves and +circumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, +Holabird. + +"It's a mere question of centre and radius," she said. "You may be big +enough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at the +sides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off into +space on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of a +great ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you +_must_ be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!" + +"It doesn't illustrate," said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up in +that fashion." + +"Geometry does," said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. +But I suppose there's a Q.E.D. at the end of it somewhere." + + * * * * * + +Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happened +freshly, rather,--which also had to do with our orbit and its +eccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. + +"I should think _any_ kind of an astronomer might be mad!" she +exclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come the +perturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we never +know exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formed +other views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What _is_ the +reason we can't keep a satellite,--planet, I mean?" + +"Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!" + +"Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again." And she sat +down resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. + +"I'll tell you what we'll do, mother," said Ruth, coming round. "I've +thought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!" + +"She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she put +the luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick--moon!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CO-OPERATING. + + +When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, +right off,-- + +"I'm sure I wish they would!" + +"Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. + +"Co-operate." + +"O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the +Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they +come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your +advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't +believe '_they_' will ever do much for '_us_'!" + +"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair +wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. + +Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory +knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. + +"Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara. + +"Oh! Yes. That is what they _used_ to have, in old times, when we +lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. +All the women in a house co-operated--to keep it; and all the +neighborhood co-operated--by living exactly in the same way. +Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?" + +One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple or +sharp. + +That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at the +time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a +while, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. + +"I could--almost--write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over her +work. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything +turns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in the +times when people _did_ the things!" + +"O Barbara! _Think_ of all that is being done in the world!" + +"I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everything +into a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from their +fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll do +will be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world is +running pretty much to roosters." + +"Is that the poem?" + +"I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. It +came into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginning +and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they +have to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show for +it, and the thing that really amounts, after all." + +"Well, tell us." + +"It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. +They could say all sorts of things,--one and another:-- + + "_I_ wrote some little books; + _I_ said some little says; + _I_ preached a little preach; + _I_ lit a little blaze; + _I_ made things pleasant in one little place." + +There was a shout at Barbara's "poem." + +"I thought I might as well relieve my mind," she said, meekly. "I knew +it was all there would ever be of it." + +But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. +She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" _may_ +sometimes do in the great world, + +We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate." + +We talked it over,--what we could do without a girl. We had talked it +over before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. +But in our little house in Z----, with the dark kitchen, and with +Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had to +hire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barb +called a "heave-offering of life." + +"They used to have houses built accordingly," Rosamond said, speaking +of the "old times." "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest and +pleasantest room in the house." + +"Couldn't we _make_ the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggested +Ruth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed in +mornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do that +in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls +have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the +dish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and irons +wanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen of +our own! I can think how it might be lovely!" + +"I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsing +into her dislocations. + +"_You_ like kitchens," said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. + +"Yes, I do," said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, +and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can't +have patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the low +realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and +the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head +and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just see +what we _shall_ come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, who +have Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a great +deal in being Holabirdy,--or whatever-else-you-are-y!" + +"If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen," said Mrs. Holabird. + +"Mother," said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?" + +We were in the dining-room. + +"This nice room!" + +"It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know." + +Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stained +floor, showing clean, undefaced margins,--the new, pretty +drugget,--the freshly clad, broad old sofa,--the high wainscoted +walls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,--the +ceiling faintly tinted with buff,--the buff holland shades to the +windows,--the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with +its glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and a +gleam of silver and glass,--the two or three pretty engravings in the +few spaces for them,--O, it was a great deal too nice to take for a +kitchen. + +But Ruth began again. + +"You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was down +stairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, and +everything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never +was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. It +would be so different from a girl! It seems as if we _might_ bring the +kitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen." + +"But the stove," said mother. + +"I think," said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polished +up, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!" + +"It is clumsy, one must own," said Mrs. Holabird, "besides being +suggestive." + +"So is a piano," said the determined Barbara. + +"I can _imagine_ a cooking-stove," said Rosamond, slowly. + +"Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!" + +"A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made to +order,--like an urn, or something,--with a copper faucet, and nothing +else ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tins +and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut +dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as +they are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it _might_ be like +that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like +Marie Antoinette's Trianon." + +"That's what it _would_ come to, if it was part of our living, just as +we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give +each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have +as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the +whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste _hasn't_ got +into. Let's have an art-kitchen!" + +"We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if +we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs. +Holabird. + +The idea grew and developed. + +"But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring +afresh. + +"There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara, +"for the people you can't be intimate with, and _think_ how crowsy +this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!" + +"We shall just settle _down_," said Rose, gloomily. + +"Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it +does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life." + +"We shall always gather to us what _belongs_. Every little crystal +does that," said mother, taking up another simile. + +"What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. + +"I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage +with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to +get a place together." + +And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick +found out what it really meant. + +We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made +up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. +Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an' +she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl." + +"Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused +the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and +the irids. + +There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we +had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. + +Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl +said. + +"She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is +willing to come for a trial." + +"They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think--as +Protestants--we've hired enough of them." + +Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of +our indecisions. + +We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, +stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from +the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle +washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it +almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, +and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lesser +movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation +behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish +as we went along. + +Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation to +the art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-iron +man made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in the +dining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. +It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone +hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a +nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the +funnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in its +new position, its features softened to almost a sitting-room +congruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force its +homely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top looked +smooth and enticing. + +There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was set +a broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This +closet had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busy +use, or closed quite away and done with. + +There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins and +our saucepans,--the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothing +to do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoons +and our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quart +measures,--these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; +in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in +the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,--we bought two new ones, a +little and a big,--the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, +outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which we +never meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we could +have to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soon +found, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. + +[Illustration] + +Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room," opening +into the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passage +itself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of the +other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel +for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be +replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The +"girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty uses +for; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available; +very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. + +We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all these +arrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place upon +shelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did +not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or +plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could +stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody +to the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. + +By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfect +starting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that +were to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, that +we had celebrated ours by clearing them out. + +The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintily +crumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had come +in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, +in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiled +for brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves and +crumbs when _she_ manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. + +"Clean beginnings are beautiful," said Rosamond, looking around. "It +is the middle that's horrid." + +"We won't have any middles," said Ruth. "We'll keep making clean +beginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work and +muss." + +"If you can," said Rose, doubtfully. + +I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird story +is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make +a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make +a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her +dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. + +I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Monday +morning--and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you can +take--just after we had begun. + +The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. +There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler +were filled,--father did that just before he locked up the house; we +had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in +the morning. + +Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin +in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a +beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs +Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done +nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast +on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would +bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We +should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all +below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours' +ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. + +Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed +three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow +behind, mother had let down the ashes,--it isn't a bad thing to do +with a well-contrived stove,--and set the pan, to which we had a +duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the +clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one +or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The +draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these +five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed +up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not +like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with +its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. + +Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little buttered +toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its +ration of fragrant, beaten paste,--the brown ground kernels mixed with +an egg,--and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two +frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, +into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh +butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--"one can give +one's self _carte-blancher_," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a +girl";--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white +porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat +daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, +broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this +went on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milk +boiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over it +stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole +was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one +of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the +coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been +beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the +breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and +butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the +cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery +things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held +them beside the stove, into its corner. + +Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for +the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in +which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the +white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and +the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the +three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and +reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before +which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had +recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and +her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as +any bit of pretty play or pageant. + +Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch +gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with +bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all +points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all +more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. + +After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it +put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was +something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant +knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,--we had, in fact, a +palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own +dishes,--and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the +pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit +making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft +clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have +plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the +Mondays. + +After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth the +coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little +scour,--a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an +iron utensil, in mother's hands; and _that_ was clean work, and the +iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It +was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come +off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that +makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle +of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she +comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does +wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in +that, and chemically disappears. + +It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had +sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that +morning. + +We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of the +kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara +set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded +the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a +row--flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent--on +the back platform. + +She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and +in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon +order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. + +We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does +remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new +housekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawn +them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these +last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They +were hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them; +mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt +bath before cooking. + +I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. +They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings +were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and +comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid +them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey +way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar +need. + +We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it +was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the +oven, and set the dinner-table. + +Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon +the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the +parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the +Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when +the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, +while the potatoes were boiling. + +Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that +jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, +there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of +Saturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before +the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot +water and ammonia in it. + +"Mother," said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!" + +"It is the girl that makes the kitchen," said Ruth. + +"And then the kitchen that has to have the girl," said Mrs. Holabird. + +Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the +crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on +father's cheese. + +Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending." + +"We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows," said mother in a +low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. + +"Nor have to scrinch all up," said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fear +she'd touch us!" + +I'll tell you--in confidence--another of our ways at Westover; what, +we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and +evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. +We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we +poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover +down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the +dish-washing for the day. + + * * * * * + +"Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But you +can't be told everything in one chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. + + +Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave them +heaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sized +basket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were folded +up. + +One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in,--for we +had been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens had +just gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. +Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruth +slipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found that +Rosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting the +tea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweet +loaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and the +little silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there was +nothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the small +Japanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. + +"Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going to +do these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms." + +That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. There +are a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. +Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling and +folding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grass +and the air and the sunshine is one. + +Mother went off,--chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept to +tea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely little +underhand way, with Barbara. + +Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out a +little ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end of +the long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed the +water-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and the +starched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothing +into little white rolls. + +Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed with +her fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collars +and cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from her +finger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with a +corn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up in +it, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon the +middle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process to +watch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all the +possible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if they +only once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: and +then they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenes +are just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones and +twos; perhaps not always any audience at all. + +Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. + +Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into the +nearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood Harry +Goldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. + +Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano,--only about her +work. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, and +put them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own,--her poem. + + "I wrote some little books; + I said some little says; + I preached a little pre-e-each; + I lit a little blaze; + I made--things--pleasant--in one--little--place." + +She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, +in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle of +shirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed it +down into the basket. + +"How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do you +believe they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our little +inspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?" + +"We won't do it," said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother's +nightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her private +knowledge. + +"I think they ought to let us vote just once," said Barbara; "to say +whether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being put +upon now, if we never were before." + +"It isn't fair," said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window at +Harry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could she +tell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when she +knew? + +"Of course it isn't," said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a white +cambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to read +all those Pub. Doc.s that father gets. You see women will make awful +hard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doing +every--little--thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, and +smoothed the hem between the buttons. + +"We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it," Barbara went +on, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters of +Polity.' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather be +a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life." + +"Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. + +"May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over the +rail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. + +She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. + +"'_May_ you'? When you have, already!" + +"O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, +and help?" + +"You don't know the way," Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, +and folding up the waist. + +"Don't I? Which,--to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himself +over the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipe +that ran down there, reached the other to something-above the +window,--the mere pediment, I believe,--and swung his feet lightly to +the sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close by +Barbara's elbow. + +"You'll get sprinkled," said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over a +table-cloth. + +"I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took the +risk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. I +couldn't help it, and I don't care!" + +Barbara was thinking of two things,--how long he had been there, and +what in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and--how +she should get off her rough-dried apron. + +"Which do you want,--napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round to +the basket, and began to pull out. + +"Napkins," says Barbara. + +The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped and +fumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave it +a shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, he +did get a drift of it in his face. + +"That won't do," said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whisk +aside. "There are too many of us." + +She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread up +a pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it when +I was a little boy," he said. + +Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. They +stretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand in +smoothing and showering. + +"Why, I wish it weren't all done," says Harry, turning over three +clothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned her +sleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" looking +round the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "I +think your house is full of nice places." + +"Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. + +"Yes, ma'am," Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. +"We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly to +Mrs. Holabird's astonishment. + +"You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to do +your duty," said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. +Holabird." + +"Miss Polly-put--" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with a +half-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at the +table with a very great dignity. + +People think that young folks can only have properly arranged and +elaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, and +bouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad and +sweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games and +bewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each other +naturally, as it were,--dip into each other's little interests and +doings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table of +opportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time any +minute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life +used to be "co-operative." + +Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. + +"Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a +case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on." + +"_One_ world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can +set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself +round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that +belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you +know it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, +and the Noachian--don't they call it?--new foundation. That's the way +they got up New England, anyhow." + +"Barbara, what flights you take!" + +"Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, you +know, besides the old broken-down and buried ones." + +It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of Aunt +Radford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went with +her, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind to +stay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. + +One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but if +ever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he took +the time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thought +everything of "Mrs. Stephen," too, and he quite relied upon her +judgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if they +had got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. +Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. + +At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, +out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, +and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just after +dinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that father +did not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird went +home at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone Leslie +Goldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only," they said; for the +south-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. That +was how we all happened to be just as we were that night of the +September gale; for it was the September gale of last year that was +coming. + +The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had been +soft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shut +them again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the pictures +swung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody had +left doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where a +window was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three were +all on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather's +papers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor upon +the gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all up +for him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father a +chase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put them +up in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes more +they went off together to the old house. + +[Illustration] + +It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutes +that Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they took +to consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, just +settled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort of +lull or holding up. + +Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing; +the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windows +seemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, before +they got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, and +lashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of all +strange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloft +and onward in a false, plebeian triumph. + +The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, +wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across the +country,--not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it _would_ +fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; it +rained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ran +about the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions and +carpets. + +"I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look out +for father's dressing-room! It's all afloat,--hair-brushes out on +voyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on a +hat-box!" + +Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner space +beside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves in +one end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had to +pull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up the +window with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, although +its force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spray +was dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. + +In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and a +picture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, +standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it before +we knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, and +shawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, +like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrison +in a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to bolt +doors,--latches were nothing,--and bar shutters. And when we could +pause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at! + +The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercely +one way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. The +little pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows." +The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had their +branches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a head +of blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elms +were in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were all +snapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a ragged +blight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying the +posts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots and +earth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneath +the sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field and +ours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over and +through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the +air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it +by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below +us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a +furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks +through the air. + +It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brown +room, to shine through the south window, and show father that we were +all right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird's +north porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we were +as far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. + +"Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. + +"I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and that +there would be no way of getting out again. People must be caught +everywhere, just as it happens, to-night." + +"It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in an +ecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up all +night!" + +Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a little +from its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. + +"It had all been blown to Canada, by this time," Harry Goldthwaite +said. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls and +windows." + +True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actually +dry. + +It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put his +hands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out that +there was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all went +and looked. + +It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hill +at right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down," +we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and came +steadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door that +opened upon the little passage to the dining-room. + +We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door to +let him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that he +should enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. + +"The old gentleman has been taken bad," he said. "Mr. Stephen wants to +know if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird's +better. I've got to go to the town for the doctor." + +"On foot, Robert?" + +"Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter's +firing of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain't +much knowing where you _can_ get along." + +"But what is it?" + +"We mustn't keep him," urged Barbara. + +"No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's a +kind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had a +kind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it's +appalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'." + +Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, +that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert +"thought a good deal," as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. + +Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in his +hand. How he ever found it we could not tell. + +"I'll go with him," he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, +Barbara? I'm _very_ sorry about Mr. Holabird." + +He shook hands with Barbara,--it chanced that she stood +nearest,--bade us all good night, and went away. We turned back +silently into the brown room. + +We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange things +were happening to-night! + +All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into our +minds. An event that,--never talked about, and thought of as little, I +suppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours,--had yet +always loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and would +bring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. + +Grandfather might be going to die. + +And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into the +brown room and sit down? + +There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say about +the greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, +and say, "It was tremendous," or "startling," or "magnificent," or +"terrible," or "sad." How little we could really say about the gale, +even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that tree +were blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could not +get the real wonder of it--the thing that moved us to try to talk it +over--into any words. + +"He seemed so well this afternoon," said Rosamond. + +"I don't think he _was_ quite well," said Ruth. "His hands trembled so +when he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow." + +"O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that was +anything," said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous when +he came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind was +coming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got the +shaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched his +knees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as he +could manage; no wonder his hands trembled." + +"I wonder what they were talking about," said Rosamond. + +"I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him," said Ruth. + +"I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather should +die," said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his _first_ +thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. + +"O Stevie! _don't_ let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; and +nobody else answered at all. + +We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which we +had made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then we +all went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth brought +some pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, made +up a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white one +to Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light in +grandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in the +porch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert had +got back, and the doctor had come,--whether he was better or +worse,--whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. + +"O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. + +There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion of +the storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in the +possible awfulness and change that were so near,--over there in +Grandfather Holabird's lighted room. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HALLOWEEN. + + +Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clock +when father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better; +that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he might +have another and more serious one any day, or that he might live on +for years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept as +easy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his old +habits as his strength permitted. + +Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. The +family fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change had +threatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance that +grandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. +He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked for +among his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. +He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; and +then, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, +and they had walked over home together. Then there had been the +excitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to the +barns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had come +back all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in the +midst of the storm. + +The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed of +gift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it in +trust to father for his wife and children. + +"I helped John into his New York business," he said, "by investing +money in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, ever +since; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None of +my boys ever paid me any _board_. I sha'n't make a will; the law gives +things where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening; +and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of my +other property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; but +I should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn't +go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of _them_; what +little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I +never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest +comprehension,--and Roderick and John are both honest,--if I left it +as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, +and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it." + +That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it; +there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was done +in open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only they +came round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not really +seen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he never +mentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he had +mentioned it at all. + +"He forgets a good many things, since his sickness," father said, +"unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; he +must come across that." + +"He may change his mind," said mother, "even when he does recollect. +We can be sure of nothing." + +But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In October +Harry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. + +Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She folded +it up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. +She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night up +stairs she began something she had to say about our winter shopping +with,-- + +"If I had gone to New York--" and there she stopped, as if she had +accidentally said what she did not intend. + +"If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do you +mean?" + +"Nothing," Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne asked +me, that is all. Of course I couldn't." + +"Of course you're just a glorious old _noblesse oblige_-d! Why didn't +you say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all have +helped. I'd have lent you--that garnet and white silk!" + +Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely be +kissed. + +After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was always +the daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought that +young man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more a +woman's way. + +The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round masses +of the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, +and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, and +hunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazes +morning and evening in the brown room, and began to think how +pleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out here +at Westover. + +"How nicely we could keep Halloween," said Ruth, "round this great +open chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!" + +"So we will," said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?" + +"To tea?" + +"No. Only to the fun,--and some supper. We can have that all ready in +the other room." + +"They'll see the cooking-stove." + +"They won't know it, when they do," said Barbara. + +"We might have the table in the front room," suggested Ruth. + +"The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That _would_ be a make-shift. Who +ever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, +and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them to +take off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, +and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'll +have the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, +bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If they +get frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new cover +that screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with,--that piece +of goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesque +of crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be all +goldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which is +brocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, +you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough to +seem as if it had always been standing round somewhere." + +"It will be just the kind of party for us to have," said Barbara. + +"They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to be +Marchbanksy." + +Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her own +special opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact in +utilizing them. + +But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not? + +"Not everybody, of course," said Rose, "That would be a confusion. +Just the neighbors,--right around here." + +"That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite," said +Ruth, quietly. + +"O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here," replied Rosamond. +"Grace Hobart is nice," she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real' +nice!" + +"That is just the word for her, though," said Ruth. "The Hobarts _are_ +real." + +Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. +She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, +and like each other. + +"What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit,--your +nose is crocheted,--and your mouth is--tatted! I shall have to come +and ravel you out." + +"I'm thinking; that is all." + +"How to build the fence?" + +"What fence?" + +"That fence round the pond,--the old puzzle. There was once a pond, +and four men came and built four little houses round it,--close to the +water. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactly +behind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but the +little people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, you +know? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificant +people are so apt to be nearest the good time!" + +"I like to satisfy everybody." + +"You won't,--with a squirm-fence!" + +If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocently +as possible, and invited them--Marchbankses and all--to our Halloween +frolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her music +lessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there were +Elsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl of +her own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over the +Pacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the four +houses, Ruth heard everything. + +All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, +Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en." We did not mean to invite +until Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia and +Adelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and that +the Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were in +transports because they were to be allowed to go. + +"Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. + +"Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spoke +before I thought." + +"What did you tell her?" + +"I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. And +Elinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, we +might try to arrange something." + +But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and +Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted +that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a +compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not another +word. + +In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, +homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. + +"They don't mean to," said Barbara. "If they did, they would have +stopped." + +"Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow," said Ruth. + +"Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in her +clearest, quietest tones. + +Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invite +the Hobarts," she said. + +"That will settle it, whatever happens," said Barbara. + +"Yes," said Rosamond; and she walked out. + +The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainly +come." Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "Holiday +Sports and Observances," with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. + +From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z----, and asked Leslie +Goldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, if +she would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should have +his supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. + +Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Then +she met Lucilla Waters in the street. + +"I was just thinking of you," she said. She did not say, "coming to +you," for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing her +gentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolic +in it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. + +"We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? You +will have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie." + +Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite for +Leslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed to +her in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. + +She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been to +find they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to the +Hendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked to +the Marchbankses yourselves," replied, "It is a pity they should come +together, but we had quite made up our minds to have this little +frolic, and we have begun, too, you see." + +Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and Maria +Hendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They would +divide," she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping was +different from other invites. One might take liberties." + +Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Last +of all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. + +It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, +at last, and proffered her invitation. + +"You had better all come to us," she said, graciously. "It is a pity +to divide. We want the same people, of course,--the Hendees, and the +Haddens, and Leslie." She hardly attempted to disguise that we +ourselves were an afterthought. + +Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that she +was afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, +and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know,--Helen +Josselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, +after all. + +Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from that +moment. + +Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with her +friend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, +of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond's +verbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She saw +in a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond had +said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not +then asked. + +Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed +it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. + +"Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation +for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see +you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some +of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it +were possible to have both pleasures." + +That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "But +Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little +bumble-bee!" + +How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. +It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it +seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at +once, quietly and of course, asserted. + +Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was +beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the +salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. + +"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but +it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?" + +Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I +think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've +had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own." + +It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between." + +Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the +bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide +chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced +sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid +logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to +finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped +through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, +and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an +outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look +at: and they never tumbled down. + +She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak +to Miss Pennington. + +"Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.' +That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up." + +Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made +pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. + +"I should like to be here to-night," said Miss Elizabeth, still +looking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?" + +"Miss Pennington! Would you come?" + +"I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are you +going to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that." + +"We don't know about it," said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except the +name." + +"That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old games +nowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and +superintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and +we have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out at +Christmas, when we were all at home." + +"O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!" + +"Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terribly +meddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me." + +How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out! + +And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when +things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will +take, now and then, even in this vexed world. + +There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who have +servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are +entertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, after +all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last +touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. + +The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put +together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from +whatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber and +garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little +macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of +spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold +room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the +last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put +them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the +white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to +worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the +whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which +Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of +ours. Truly it is a charming thing,--all to itself, in a family! + +To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinner +that day; and we took our tea "standed round," as Barbara said; and +the dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we could +shirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplish +everything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quiet +and comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with the +very manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody might +have come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, +chatty cup of tea. + +The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant and +pretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager for +the real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with the +wood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling up +three of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the open +piano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and some +of the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson that +Dakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and we +played one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lost +mysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then Miss +Pennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, and +there was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a great +damask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately with +Barbara into the dining-room. + +"This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing +from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white +bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until +after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the +brown room. + +We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought +over Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and +they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until +they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated +needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched +them turn and swim and draw together,--some point to point, some heads +and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the +margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or +an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it +into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars; +and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and +pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a little +palette with a hole in it. + +[Illustration] + +And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each +girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little +secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and +surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some +little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its +companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight +together, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; these +were to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, +but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snapped +into the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, and +some burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. + +Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once the +larger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled off +a little way, right in toward the blaze. + +"Gone to a warmer climate," whispered Leslie, like a tease. And then +crack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, +with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, and +they both dropped quietly down against the fender together. + +"What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. + +"O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away," said Stephen, +looking on. + +Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alone +with it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to the +stars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been said +to her:-- + + "Round and round, O stars so fair! + Ye travel, and search out everywhere. + I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me, + This night, who my future husband shall be!" + +Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that the +reason. + +"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl +who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" + +But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She +took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a +shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. + +"Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward +all the way." + +So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant +after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped +backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. + +Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a +friend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, +introducing him by his full name. + +We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army +surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a +stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in +front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. +And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and +shouted. + +It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. + +We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered +the oysters. + +Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her +with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the +full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier +in all her life. + +After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her +snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. + +Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. + +"Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. + +Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. + +"You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. + +"A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. + +"It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her +shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. + +Ruth got a sugared almond. + +"Only a _kernel_," said the merry doctor's wife, again. + +The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. + +"Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. + +"And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. + +Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica. + +Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. + +"That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of +getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." + +It was great fun, though. + +Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. + +If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant +something. And the year is not out yet, you see. + +But there was no doubt of one thing,--that our Halloween at Westover +was a famous little party. + + * * * * * + +"How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the +hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she +had picked up about the carpet into the coals. + +We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them +on a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as the +girl," said Barbara. It _is_ a comfort to put by things, with a clear +conscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over the +Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there +would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we +should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. + +"How do you feel about it?" + +"I feel as if we had had a real _own_ party, ourselves," said Ruth; +"not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn't +anybody to _show us how_!" + +"Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come? +Nobody can say now--" + +"What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was very +nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. +Otherwise, why shouldn't she?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. + + +"That was a nice party," said Miss Pennington, walking home with +Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made it +so nice?" + +"You, very much," said Leslie, straightforwardly. + +"I didn't begin it," said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It was +a step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties long +ago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference was +that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, +and in another on the left,--now and then, perhaps, at the back; and +when you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might be +Mrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that it +was all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!" + +"This was a party of 'nexts,'" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame." + +"What a good time Miss Waters had--quietly! You could see it in her +face. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for +Lucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. +"She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more." + +"The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while the +firsts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss +Pennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't think +anything about it!" + +"So there are," said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. +They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think the +trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and +pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better than +fresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What a +beautiful old home-y house it is!" + +"And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. + +"_We_ have an old home-y house," said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "with +landscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And +we don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Will +you stay and come to it?" + +"Any time within my two months' leave," replied Doctor Hautayne, "and +with very great pleasure." + +"So she will have it before very long," said Leslie, telling us about +the talk the next day. + +It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she _did_ take it up! +That does not come in here, though,--any more of it. + +The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great deal +of money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everything +like the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the +trouble for that; but they are so _established_; it is a family like +an old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes little +spread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, and +grasp more ground than all the rest put together. + +They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not a +new-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, +painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and then +terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at +each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more +roses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus than +flowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box and +southernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. + +Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was a +captain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiff +elbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just after +he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,--the +younger brother,--out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When +her mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. The +Penningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; and +their glory is off the selfsame piece. + +They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, +retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to the +Inglesides. + +One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making an +apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabeth +drove round to the door. + +Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. +Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. + +"Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. +She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding." + +Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had had +to say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her clay +till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the +very farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, +the best that was _ready_ made, and put that forth. + +"And I know," said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must not +be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who has +lived in barracks come to her where she is?" + +Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see"; +she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," +and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and without +warning, upon the scene of operations. + +"O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walked +forward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and +smiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventh +beauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. + +"Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. + +Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laid +down the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flour +and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely +gloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! It +was very meek of her not to look at all set up. + +Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hanging +down against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work +when the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, +cushioned sofa. + +The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, and +at the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, the +pudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon a +plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its +sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing +with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The +sunshine--work and sunshine always go so blessedly together--poured +in, and filled the room up with life and glory. + +"Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss +Elizabeth. + +"That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a +kitchen," said Barbara. + +"You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!" + +"I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara, +laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room; +and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!" + +"You are wonderful people!" + +"You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said +Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching +you would have been always getting turned out." + +"Turned out?" + +"Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns +out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the +sole of your foot till you're a general." + +Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. +Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered +into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. +She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, +sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free +quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara +brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into +the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen +cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara +disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam +went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird +went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really +came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara +carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was +drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble +in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. + +"I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I +shall feel like company again now." + +"I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. +"It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" + +"I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. + +"She needs doing with" said Barbara. + +"Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. +Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question +is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep +but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to +you." + +"The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. + +"Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world +full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general +housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What +should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' +so?" + +"There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. +"What are homes coming to?" + +"Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselves +into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell +you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. +But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the +Lucys will grow again." + +"Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. + +"We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," +said mother,--"hotels." + +"And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. +Irishocracy is a despotism in the land." + +"Only," said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "by +learning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; that +it takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightest +grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this +little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after +all. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for human +souls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this room +full of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning in +the earth." + +Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. + +"'We girls,'" began mother again, smiling,--"for that is the way the +children count me in,--said to each other, when we first tried this +new plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would have +things nice and pretty for our common work; but there is something +behind that,--the something that 'makes the meanest task divine,'--the +spiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that I +think life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shall +not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other +on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls +and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go +into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best +that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are +willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to +them as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, +either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorify +them. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have got +the wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into the +wheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. +They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I _wish_ women would be +content with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and point +the time upon the dial!" + +Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful old +Mrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. +There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that she +scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their +cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it +was as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand of +them instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closets +get up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. + +Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her hand +at going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly,-- + +"I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up all +the time. I want to have some _nexts_. Your girls know what I mean; +and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'next +Thursdays,' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shall +give primary invitations only,--and my primaries are to find +secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, +or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from +somewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social life +cannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will come +to. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. If +anybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow--Gray.'" + +She went off, leaving us that to think of. + +Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, +every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member is +to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is +always to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, +with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands." + +Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty much +all we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should want +fourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. +Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten." They all came from that one +blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there +_is_ such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't +help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, +and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-four +Thousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, +from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitable +commandment, after the "Let there be!" + +It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, +in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. +People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in the +stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; +and when they were once there you really could not tell the +difference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was the +deadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the new +sap and the green rind. + +Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, as +charades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came to +the Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views,"--every +successive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone down +grotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of old +relics,--bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in their +close gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passing +through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were +odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones +with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, +balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with +ruffles _rayonnantes_; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and +barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, +and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the very +pocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from the +waiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of a +middle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could tell +everybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" down +or up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, +one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever could +have been a funnier evening! + +We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend" +Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady; +Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself was +Mrs. Wilfer; Mr. and Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and Doctor +Ingleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the +light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as +Pleasant Riderhood,--Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie +looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with her +for her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmaker +herself,--Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovely +book-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody's +parlors, and yet never gets into them herself. + +[Illustration] + +Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she really +has a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, +"O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, but +the wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows the +doll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her some +time, if ever she goes to England--or to heaven. Truly she was up to +the "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into it +with more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wren +that no one--at the moment--thought of her in any other character, or +remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the +distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to +her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the +festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or +abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a +genius. She stepped right _out_ of Dickens's story, not _into_ it, as +the rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously into +the grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "up +here," or "over there," and "be dead," as fresh, new-world delights +attracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; and +T'other Governor would insist on following after them, and being +comfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and the +Veneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provide +any Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. + +Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only our +fourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the +person whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they were +helped to. + +We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder about +his "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I +believe it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in a +way like that. + +It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. +She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortable +came of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to +"come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every +week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs +out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings of +ancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon or +to tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she is +taking German lessons with Pen Pennington. + +It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last it +would only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of getting +left out. "Society is like a coral island after all," says Leslie +Goldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian." + +It was a memorable winter to us in many ways,--that last winter of the +nineteenth century's seventh decade. + +One day--everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when it +does come, however many days lead up to it--Doctor Ingleside came in +and told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird; +grandfather was not quite well. + +They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew +what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news +as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters? + +Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. + +Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And +yet--"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing +people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. +Take it in; shut your door upon it; and--think! It is something that +belongs to heart and soul. + +We counted up; it was only seven weeks. + +"As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the +Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this +meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has +never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the +sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come +right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of +them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, +each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as +foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go." + +Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,--Thursday. Doctor +Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's +that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,--we looked into +new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the +intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that +everybody could not see how quite another thing than any merely +written poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for John +Hautayne. + +That was in December; it was the first of March when Grandfather +Holabird died. + +At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not let +her get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter work +was growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides the +furnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came +and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all +pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to +begin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "If +mother doesn't get better," and "If this cold weather keeps on," and +"_Are_ we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" from +Barbara, at last. + +Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again." Nobody wanted to do +that; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her +prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were crippled and +reduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short days +and her music. + +"I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all +_summer_,'" said Barbara; "but _this_ is Valley Forge." The kitchen +fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3 deg. above. Mother +was worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her come +down until it was warm and her coffee was ready. + +That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the +hour. + +"The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he. +"Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here." + +"Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. + +"Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said +Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and--since nobody else will ever +dare to give in--I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, +for us!" + +"It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird. + +It certainly was not going back. + +"We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then +harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated +earth, the first millennial specimen,--see if we don't!--of what was +supposed to be an extinct flora,--the _Domestica antediluviana_." + +Arctura Fish came to us. + +If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience +of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions +which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We +could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. +Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot +skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. + +And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal +attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the +time during the three weeks that he lived. + +When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of +any kind; neither was that deed of gift. + +Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about +it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she +cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and +that little pig," while she warmed our toes. + +"Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the +Roderick Holabirds. + +We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, +indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, +to force itself upon us. + +After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the +worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody +thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it +was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of +Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt +Roderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there was +nothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was not +for any one or two to settle." + +Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must all +come right, somehow." + +But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the +place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left +must do for us; the house must go into the estate. + +It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,--until +affairs were settled. + +"It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. + + +The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,--well, +we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there +would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have +had just two of them out of our whole lives. + +Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what +could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, +after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old +place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and +though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could +choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old +homestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made up +our minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there." + +Why, we _had_ always lived there! That was just the way we had always +been trying to spell "home," though we had never got the right letters +to do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it is +a thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stones +to begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, and +when you come to it you know it is yours. The best things--the most +glorious and wonderful of all--will be what we shall see to have been +"laid up for us from the foundation." Aunt Roderick did not see one +bit of how that was with us. + +"There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your +_own_ house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did +grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt +that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John +were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." +And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that +Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had +not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he +_was_ well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. + +If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of what +father told them, they could not have behaved very differently. We +half thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likely +they half thought that we were making it appear that they had done +something that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that are +the hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable," Aunt Roderick used to +say. + +Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; and +when the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, +and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look round +and shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. And +it's a dumb shame. Don't tell _me_!" + +Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with his +share, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used to +nothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want +"encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and paying +rent to the heirs, ourselves included,--nobody wanted that; they would +rather have things settled up. There would always be questions of +estimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. +Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knew +they all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in such +matters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It would +take two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. + +So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not have +any more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it would +be a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but we +like to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A child +hates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on again +on Monday. + +With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house,--Arctura. +We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a +serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos +to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with +us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move the +kitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchen +any more. + +Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, +wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us; +and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. We +all worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down in +the afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. +She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico aprons +for her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending and +dress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linen +collars and cuffs. + +We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work as +delicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was as +fit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonished +herself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. + +"Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethers +anywheres." + +"GATHERS,--_anywhere_" Rosamond corrected. + +Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the +way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no +great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right +end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come +out of our year at Westover. + +"Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times +one." + +So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound +Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. +She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and +geometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you want +a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; +if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must _build_ one, +just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knocked +together." And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting +great work out of doors, this is just what "we girls," some of +us,--and some of the best of us, perhaps,--have got to stay at home +awhile and do. + +"It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while +to be done," says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. +'There may be,' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing town +meetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm _sure_ there's +need of them for reorganizing _parlor_ meetings. They are getting to +be left altogether to the little school-girl "sets." Women who have +grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the +position and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think +so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see +to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,--right up, +respectful,--Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!" + +Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West +Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. + +A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with +the family worries,--which Ruth always had a way of gathering to +herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the +nettles from other people's fingers,--and her hard work at her music, +she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a +vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at +once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake +George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked +Ruth to go too. + +"If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have +come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm +nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I +should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the +whistles." + +Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt +in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. + +"What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington +left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth +colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest +possible way to go, if she were to go at all." + +Barbara meant--or meant to be understood that she meant--that Miss +Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers; +Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by +an invitation like this from people out of her own family. + +"But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she +asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?" + +"Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked." + +"I wish--everybody--knew that," said Ruth. + +Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she +went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out +into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. + +This is one of her letters:-- + +DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:--It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could +sit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the bright +light, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, +low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water on +one side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. The +Parrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, are +trying,--as they are trying almost all the time,--against the face of +the high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shells +keeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. + +I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in any +other part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it was +the home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, and +Dollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange to +think that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while all +this parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on close +beside and about them. + +The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing for +mischief,--the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us very +amusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they have +parades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at old +Cro' Nest,--which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, +just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made a +very careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up and +down, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they were +nearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautiful +bead," round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. The +bad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe he +would have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says,--"Well, he +rather thinks,--if she would have stood still long enough,--he would +have let her be--astonished!" + +The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, is +beautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name! + +We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraid +Miss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, +how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizingly +funny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left us +I cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been a +misery of politeness. + +We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the +dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge +of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it +sloped down safely again,--when, just at the very middle and highest +and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, +and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been +frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No; +nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again +in that dreadful place." She laughed in the midst of it; but she was +really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to +help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What would +come of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her; +_she_ couldn't do anything." "But, dear Miss Pennington," says Dakie, +"are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a +Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never could +get down." I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, +nearly half an hour, before she began to _hitch_ along; for walk she +wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice +silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist +after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks +and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could +stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,--"a noble wreck in ruinous +perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them +up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or +three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk +petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did +all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. + +"What _has_ happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M----, as +we came up on the piazza. + +"Nothing," said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tired +and sat down; and it was dusty,--that was all." He bowed and went off, +without so much as a glance of secret understanding. + +"A joke has as many lives as a cat, here," he told Pen and me, +afterwards, "and that was _too_ good not to keep to ourselves." + +Dear little mother and girls,--I have told stories and described +describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner _such_ a +thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westover +and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn't +help telling him something about the worry. I know I had no business +to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buy +the place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it of +him if he did! Just think of it,--that boy! I believe he really means +to write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into my +head when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of +_his_ having such a quantity of money. He seems just like--as far as +that goes--any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will? + +P.S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting of +mine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe he +will write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfect +morning! + +Tell Stephen I've got a _splendid_ little idea, on purpose for him and +me. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. Dakie +Thayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, about +everything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don't +think Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says she +hates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Pen +and I think she is afraid of the steamers. + + * * * * * + +Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, +and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. + +Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysterious +idea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, for +anything. + +We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruth +got up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen went +straight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did not +know till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story,--just +because there is so precious little of it. + +Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the front +door. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to the +piazza cracks. + +"Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?" + +Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!" + +"Why, how your face shines! What _is_ up?" + +"It's the sunset. I mean--that shines. Don't say anything. Our +splendid--little--idea, you know. It's under here." + +"Be dar--never-minded, if mine is!" + +"You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was--exactly. Do +you remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer? +Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they never +knew their way out till she showed 'em?" + +"It _isn't_ about kittens!" + +"Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?" + +"Yes; four." + +"Couldn't you bring up one--or two--to-morrow morning _early_, and +make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the +sod, and fasten 'em up?" + +"What--_for_?" with wild amazement. + +"I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, +and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell +you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little +feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and +round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. + +Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early +plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his +mind to be on hand. + +Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, +between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she +went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little +wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she +whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. + +"Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. + +And Ruth "scatted." + +Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the +tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and +wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a +precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat +babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on +their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to +doing. + +"They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." + +"What--_for_?" cried Stephen, again. + +"To get them out, of course," says Ruth. + +"Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" + +"Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I _believe_--but I don't dare say a word +yet--there's something there!" + +"Of course there is. Two little yowling--" + +"Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But +I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" + +Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long +serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I _see_ something," +he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, +Ruth--? My cracky! if you do!" + +"We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." + +Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he +got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and +prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the +wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the +middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a +little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench +lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the +house-boarding. + +Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of +dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, +and weather had not badly injured it. + +"Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. +"Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, +that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?" + +[Illustration] + +It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely have +reached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and brought +out an opera-glass that was upon the table there. + +"That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. + +Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They read +the words, at the upturned corner,--"heirs after him." + +"Lay the board back in its place," said Ruth. "It isn't for us to +meddle with any more. Take the kittens away." Ruth had turned quite +pale. + +Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the two +kittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge,-- + +"Stephen," said she, "I'm going to do something on my own +responsibility." + +"I should think you had." + +"O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before I +said anything. But now,--I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick to +come over. They ought to be here, you know." + +"Why! don't you suppose they will believe, _now_?" + +"Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't _that_." +Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "old +place." + +Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her house +plants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always had +their milk, and her plants their water, before she had her own +breakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and it +was a good time to take her. + +"Aunt Roderick," said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to come +over right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please." + +It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs." + +"_You_ want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?" + +"Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going to +happen." Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. +She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick and +everybody. + +"On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off,--_to_ breakfast!" +How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. and Mrs. Roderick +had not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemed +to happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business." +The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the +"gale" had taken care of. + +Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. + +"We want you over at our house," repeated Ruth. "Right off, now; +there's something you ought to see about." + +"I don't like mysteries," said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering her +curiosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matter +about the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. +Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say." + +"Yes," said Ruth, laughing out; "it _is_ kittens, partly. Or was." + +So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down the +side-hill path together. + +We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arctura +had set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a little +first breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. + +Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been put +there, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. + +Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. + +"Good morning," said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" And +he met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stock +still, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blundered +about him. + +"Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. + +Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to be +struck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. + +"I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would all +care, and I wanted--Stephen and I have found something, mother!" She +turned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. + +Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there," +said he; and pointed in. + +They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, +just as it had lain for almost a year. + +"It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father," +he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here." + +"Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was +remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the +cracks and--" with a little, low, excited laugh--"the 'total depravity +of inanimate things,' till--just a little while ago." + +She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, +before them all. + +Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drew +forward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook off +the dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at the +signature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick is +an honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. + +"It is your deed of gift," said he; and then they two shook hands. + +"There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. That +was it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!" + +"No, you didn't," said Stephen. "You never told me anything--but +cats." + +"Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled," said Mrs. Roderick +Holabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up." + +They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come another +time. + +But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissed +Ruth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and very +strict about--well, other people's--expenditures; but she was glad +that the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. + + * * * * * + +"I knew," said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that it +must come right." + +"Don't tell _me!_" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't help +herself." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BARBARA'S BUZZ. + + +Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, +it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life and +possibility. + +"You must draw the line somewhere," people say. "You cannot be +acquainted with everybody." + +But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there is +a sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. +Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom a +pair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her wedding +was "odd." + +If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would have +been a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody would +have been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she would +be married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all the +wide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond,--of all its noble +heights, and hidden, tender hollows,--its gracious harvest fields, and +its deep, grand, forest glooms,--she would be content, elegantly and +exclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, +indeed, from a distance,--geographically; but they would come out of a +precisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fit +right into this one, for the time being, with the most edifying +sameness. + +From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began to +come, days beforehand,--the people who could not let Leslie +Goldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamation +cards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of +"Their Daughter's Marriage," by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, after +the like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the need +of, the regular final invocation,--"God save the Commonwealth!" + +There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, +up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier in +consequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. Frank +Scherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby,--"she +isn't Original Sin, as I was," says her mother,--came up to Z---- +together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from New +York, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. + +Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to put +her in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. +Her father is a comparatively poor man,--a book-keeper with a salary. +There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always felt +bound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one to +take it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort who +are said to be "cut out for old maids," and she knows it. She could +not teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling--not her +education; God never lets that be cut short--was abridged by the need +of her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissors +and needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever were +put together. + +So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and getting +six dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-mother +put out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-story +room in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. She +will only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, for +her bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would be +rapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she has +made up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is any +breathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stop +breathing, and go where there is. + +She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of the +little unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, +and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegant +to have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a little +bonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that Martha +Josselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. +Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. + +General and Mrs. Ingleside--Leslie's cousin Delight--had come from +their away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought little +three-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was at +home from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medical +course,--and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so that +Mrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; they +all grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came a +wonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, for +Leslie's wedding present,--the first present that arrived from +anybody; sent the day he got the news;--and Leslie cried over them, +and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in the +fashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on the +cabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know what +other things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. + +Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. Marmaduke +Wharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. +"To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide," he says, and +"to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, among +the Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, and +took her away among the planets, out of the snarl." + +Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; and +she took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, on +the seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they could +get it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautayne +said it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box on +rollers, and marked,--"Dr. J. Hautayne, U.S. Army. Valuable scientific +preparations; by no means to be turned or shaken." But he did say, +with a gentle prudence,--"If somebody should give you an observatory, +or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at _that_, dear." + +Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that did +not come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy of +the Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and he +wrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. +_He_ did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to us +afterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of her +little home had been broken through and let in heaven. + +We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited till +September for Harry; "but who," wrote Dakie, "could expect a military +engagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have given +my consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at West +Point on your way." And that was what they were going to do. + +Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. +Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to a +line in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, +fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. + +It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gone +from a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, and +beautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were white +among their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come in +blossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy with +perfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened from +the summer-room where they were married, showed these, among the +grass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendid +vista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. + +Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waite +asked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a black +silk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room up +stairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends who +came from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something to +eat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might," to assist +in the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. And +even our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent," to "open +doors, or anything." The regular maids of the house found labor so +divided that it was a festival day all through. + +Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in +her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, +muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her +head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front,--since why shouldn't +she, too, have a bit of the fashion?--and tied round with a soft, +simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, +quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, +and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. We +cared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbara +herself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bow +among-them. + +Every room in the house was attended. + +"There never was such pretty serving," said Mrs. Van Alstyne, +afterward. "Where _did_ they get such people?--And beautiful serving," +she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the very +soul of living!" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that true +always." + +Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones into +the hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of the +staircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps and +landings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with her +hand in her father's arm. + +She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; her +dress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. +It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and fell +like a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, or +shining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; you +could not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarched +cambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated the +shimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-rose +blooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. +There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in her +left hand. + +Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her side +in his military dress; but I think we all had another picture of +him in our minds,--dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in his +shirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When a +man has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely +_looks_ again. + +Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw his +gray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as he +fixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, as +still water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock; +and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was like +the tender glimmering of a sunbeam. + +When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand upon +his shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. + +"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And John +looked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere apt +and effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and in +the eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along the +strong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and said +again,-- + +"Perhaps, then, John,--you'll do!" + +"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what the +church asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. But +we all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Her +father and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, +Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered in +the door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining her +pocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because she +was smiling also and would not cover _that_ up,--gave; and nobody gave +with a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowning +Marmaduke Wharne. + +[Illustration] + + * * * * * + +Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in those +autumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling every +bright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so nice +to have it to love grandfather by," said Ruth, like a little child. + +"Everything is so pleasant," said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. +"I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like a +bee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin." Barbara had a +new dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; she +had also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had brought +up from Boston. + +We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now; +we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we were +to manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to have +plenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this golden +autumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant; +and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was as +glad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when she +can come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. + +We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without any +pressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what was +wearing out. We could replace things--_some_, at any rate--as well as +not; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by; +it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; and +when she said that once she said it for every day, all through the new +and happy time. + +It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want in +any hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet the +dining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. It +came down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvements +were concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family table +in the brown-room. + +Barbara's _bee_-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations at +this time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was not +altogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of humming +content with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and the +most unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's applied +to her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara +"acted like a witch." + +She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie came +down, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a little +apart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himself +beside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, as +befitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. + +All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in the +abruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into a +little side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had not +been before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; but +she doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up the +staircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with the +bridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the double +doors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding into +the far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where she +stood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floating +cap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during the +whole ceremony. + +Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, +or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes from +being actually a commissioned officer,--Ensign Goldthwaite, now, +(Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony and +effect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her last +year,)--we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all at +once a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks and +whirls were simply to be wondered at. + +"I don't see why he should tell _me_ things," was what she said to +Rosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, for +making off almost before he had done speaking, when he had been +telling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite had +managed for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of property +that he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots that +had been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and high +taxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum of +money. + +"I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay," said Harry. At +which Barbara had disappeared. + +"Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. + +"Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, +and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly." + +"I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things," +said whimsical Barbara. + +"Well, perhaps he will stop," said Rose, quietly, and walked away. + +It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understand +Barbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. +She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she did +not come into the room until tea-time. + +"There are so many people," she said, in her unreasonable manner. +"They make me nervous, looking and listening." + +We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had asked +them to come and spend a week with us before they left Z----. + +Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, +standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, in +her gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. + +"My dear," she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness,--"I am an +old woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?" + +"Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poor +Miss Craydocke could only walk away again. + +When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderick +came over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualified +approval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. +As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked back +upon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been the +September Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. + +Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. +"It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away your +opportunities," she said, plainly. + +Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She was +brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could +not touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. + +"I always am throwing them away," said Barbara. "It's my fashion. I +never could save corners. I always put my pattern right into the +middle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. What +have I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?" + +"I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by," said +Aunt Roderick. + +"I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Barbara, collectedly. "Just as +much as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some light +given. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, +I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've lived +longer than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some things +that everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that they +take right hold of. People might have _pocket_-perplexities for years +and years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question; +but the minute it is a case of heart or soul,--or they think it +is,--they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread.' What _do_ you +suppose makes the difference?" + +After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that +there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious +of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real +mischief done, already. + +"It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, that +day, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, +really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had to +scream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about her +own wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie +'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" She +whimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to account +for mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at once +enjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let her +alone. + +But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, and +then he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gone +a week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Then +we might not see him again for three years, perhaps. + +On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down and +see Mrs. Goldthwaite. + +"I think it quite time you should," said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara had +not been down there once since the wedding-day. + +She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she would +stay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. + +About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. + +It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wanted +to set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for the +winter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozen +families, and meet by turn at the different houses. + +"I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood parties +again," she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we want +something quiet, to come in between. Something a little more among +ourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and so +is Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. +I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara,--doesn't she? Nobody can +complain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whist +for the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for the +odds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't you +think it would do?" + +"I think it would do nicely for _one_ thing," said Rose, thoughtfully. +"But don't let us allow it to be the _whole_ of our winter." + +Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn of +compliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting a +break in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped right +over it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. + +"Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week," said Olivia. +"I came to you almost the very first, out of the family," she added, +with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up." + +"Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joined +together," replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I think +last winter was so _really good_," she went on; "I should be sorry to +break up what _that_ did; that is all." + +"I'm willing enough to help in those ways," said Olivia, +condescendingly; "but I think we might have our _own_ things, too." + +"I don't know, Olivia," said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'own +things.' They are just what begin to puzzle me." + +It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. Olivia +Marchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. + +"Never mind," she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be some +time yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to go +beyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unless +everybody is really interested." + +Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. +At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, +came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. + +"Somebody has been snubbing somebody," replied Rose, holding her royal +color, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don't +quite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I." + +"A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have +_you_ been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?" + +"I? I've been walking, of course.--That boy has got home again," she +added, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. + +We knew _very_ well that she must have been queer to Harry again. He +would have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have let +him. But--"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight! +Or--stay to tea with _him_ there, and make him come, in the dark!--And +_if_ he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, +that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these were +what she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; we +had no doubt it had been something awful. + +The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and said +Mr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders,--to the +"Katahdin." + +In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then +she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for +a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South +Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. + +"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those +vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in +these buzzes. + +"I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at +once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she +came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +EMERGENCIES. + + +Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it +for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed +without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of +double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a +flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with +a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the +front--not too near together--are more big, reliable, easy-going +buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles +belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes +to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in +her vessel. + +If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and +what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, +she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred +parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. +Hobart called. + +Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, +rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose +priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in +these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, +leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never +doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making +pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was +it always happened so with her. + +In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. + +Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, +and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always +breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by +nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a +fair half night of rest before the alarm came. + +It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who go +to bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. + +"My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?" + +The room was full of red light. + +Rosamond sat up beside her. + +"Moon! It's fire!" + +Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and out +of doors in five minutes. + +The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carrying +great red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildings +were a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation of +evergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death but +the crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead of +night, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthily +fearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting the +air, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, +busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and making +steadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. + +We all put on some warm things, and went right over. + +Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of the +house, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory building +with the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servants +were hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets of +water here and there, from the reservoir inside. + +Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this to +your house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away with +it. + +Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, +and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the back +piazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. +There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. +Marchbanks was "particularly engaged." + +Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. +Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, +in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and her +family till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry of +the moment would put it wholly out of their heads. + +She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go up +which had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet would +go over it, unbidden, to-night. + +She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story the +cook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. The +fine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, with +Olivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl was +trying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, +upside down. + +"Take these children right over to my house," said Mrs. Hobart. +"Barbara Holabird! Come up here!" + +"I don't know what to do first," said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. +Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver--and +the pictures--and everything! And the house will be full of men +directly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked up +her braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could +"receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at a +fire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had not +learned anything about the exceptions. + +"Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. +And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on her +father's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded on +the smooth oak as if a horse were coming. + +Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'll +break everything!" she said, and took down a little Sevres cup from a +bracket. + +"There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll see +to things. Let me have your keys." + +"They're all in my upper bureau-drawer," said Mrs. Marchbanks. +"Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matilda +would come." Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can go +there, of course." + +"It is too far," said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in my +great front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'll +want Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty of +things besides." + +While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet from +the bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walked +down stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sevres cup in the +other. + +"People _do_ do curious things at fires," said Mrs. Hobart, cool, and +noticing everything. + +She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbara +followed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closets +and wardrobe. + +"Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, +up here." + +Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, +she passed on, in like manner,--Barbara, and by this time the rest of +us, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on the +floors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. + +"Clothes are the first thing," said she. "And this way, you are +pretty sure to pick up everything." Everything _was_ picked up, from +Mrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks's +shaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled off +last night. + +Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's great +clean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went and +came, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing _one_ thing," he answered. +"You keep to yourn." + +"They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The +bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill,--two ingines, +an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door +locked, an' a lettin' on me in." + +Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, +ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her +own lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitable +irruption of the Great Uninvited. + +Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. +Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the other +gentlemen were still hard at work. + +"Now," said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been the +putting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for the +citron or the raisins,--"now--all that beautiful china!" + +She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered the +china, although her party-call, like all her others, had been a +failure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, +occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice any +fraction of her private hours. + +Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet,--the +china-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followed +than led. + +The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. +The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of the +closely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke against +the windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush of +water from the engines beat against the walls. + +"We must work awful quick now," said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. We +ain't afire yet." + +She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought down +stairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, which +Arthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. + +Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there before +the shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy single +pieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah," she ordered to her man. + +We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time,--Olivia, and +Adelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the other +Marchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijah +stopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led from +drawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys in +their polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in the +sheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, and +defended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute order +among ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitement +without that might else have rushed in and overborne us. + +"You jest keep back; it's all right here," Elijah would say, +deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensed +comers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outside +the shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. + +It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, down +the field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leaving +the china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. + +Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked out +upon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and had +collected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things that +could be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. +Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whom +to deliver it. + +Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up to +the roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, +untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. + +So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angle +of the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were only +laid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children s +photographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; little +treasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, or +gifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that people +have about a house, never thinking what would become of them in a +night like this. So Barbara stood by. + +Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heard +his name. + +"Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two men +at the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him over +the baluster, and ran up to the landing. + +"Take hold of it with me," said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. +We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. +Hobart's." + +"Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keep +those people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the big +basket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The first +we knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon our +line of march toward Elijah's door. + +Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longer +in the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick," +as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. +Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the last +napkin, and all was safe. + +Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to the +entrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things are +ordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. Lewis +Marchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets; +quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on the +lawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done all +they could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and there +was little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, +and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running along +the piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was giving +out. + +After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisterns +were dry, and the engines stood helpless. + +The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up as +from a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth and +seized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without their +touch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front of +the mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Fire +poured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and into +the rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a little +before that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. + +Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the home +that offered to her,--her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide were +going to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the things +that, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made _home_, as +well as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness of +elegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported and +discharged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And the +sleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Rome +could never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets and +Patricks, "out of a place." + +Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only the +story and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the +"Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbanks +would be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, +in a few days,--receiving her friends, who would hurry to make +"fire-calls," as they would to make party or engagement or other +special occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not one +of the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning rooms +that night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her pictures +and her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bell +now; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. + +It was about four in the morning--the fire still burning--when Mrs. +Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, +to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood in +a safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara? + +Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had been +thrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, and +the like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, +two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; but +somebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with a +bullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there beside +her; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here in +this unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composure +which of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. + +[Illustration] + +"What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?" +Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. + +"She'll give her a sort of brevet," replied Barbara. "For gallant and +meritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a near +neighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, +you know.' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a full +commission." + +Harry laughed. + +"Queer things happen when you are with us," said Barbara. "First, +there was the whirlwind, last year,--and now the fire." + +"After the whirlwind and the fire--" said Harry. + +"I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament," interrupted Barbara. + +"Came a still, small voice," persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, +I can't help it. You put it into my head." + +"I don't see any wickedness," answered Barbara, quickly. "That was the +voice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming." + +"Then, Barbara--" + +Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. + +The next day--_that_ day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast--Harry +came back, and was at Westover all day long. + +Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. She +brought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheek +upon her knee. + +"Mother," she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get me +ready, and let me go." + +"My dear child! When? What do you mean?" + +"Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardly +ever be so nice again. And--if we _are_ going through the world +together--mightn't we as well begin to go?" + +"Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! What +is it?" + +"It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the European +squadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wife +and daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, when +the frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says; +and--that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little while +first,--as much, perhaps, as we should ever have." + +"Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!" + +"No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency with +me; but I always emerge! I can get things in London," she added. +"Everybody does." + +The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, as +mothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just as +she does everything else. + +Rose has some nice things--laid away, new; she always has; and mother +has unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses for +Leslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. + +"I'm as tall as either of you, now," she said; "and we girls are all +of a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear the +dresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara's +trunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We can +get others any time." + +We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think that +it was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth's +was blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that no +two of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosen +because of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer for +grandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep" +mourning. "You shall never do that," said mother, "till the deep +mourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves." + +We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautiful +delay or other about machinery,--the Katahdin's, that is; and +Commander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back and +forth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him; +Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and on +board ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quite +made up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as he +is old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. + +We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determined +not to be; last days are too precious, + +"Don't let's be all taken up with 'things,'" says Barbara. "I can +_buy_ 'things' any time. But now,--I want you!" + +Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her; +it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired,--or +possessed,--but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. + +There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, +the loveliest "suit," all made and finished, of brown poplin. To think +of Aunt Roderick's getting anything _made_, at an "establishment"! But +Ruth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and just +took her porte-monnaie in her hand. + +Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the +"girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or little +things to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. +Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit and +look at it. + +She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, from +mother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, into +the bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it a +little stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. + +"_All_ new things are only dreary," she says. "I must have some of the +old." + +"I should just like to know one thing,--if I might," said Rosamond, +deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She was +sitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoe +in her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave so +beforehand, Barbara?" + +"I was in a buzz," said Barbara. "And it _was_ beforehand. I suppose I +knew it was coming,--like a thunderstorm." + +"You came pretty near securing that it _shouldn't_ come," said +Rosamond, "after all." + +"I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair." + +"You might have just kept quiet, as you were before," said Rose. + +"Wait and see," said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't come +bringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs to +get these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of those +white paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say all +sorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and run +off if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind the +door, I wonder?" + +"After all--" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. + +"After all--" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, was +something else!" + +"Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. + +"Wait and see," repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake." + +We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to have +each other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we never +wanted each other so, or _had_ each other so, before. + +Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; but +the minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; there +are minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a little +while; and--we have finished up our Home Story, to the very present +instant. + + * * * * * + +Who finishes it? Who tells it? + +Well,--"the kettle began it." Mrs. Peerybingle--pretty much--finished +it. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it was +beginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, and +she wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. +Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she would +not let it suffer a "solution of continuity." Then, partly, she +observed; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; and +partly, here and there, we rushed in,--especially I, Barbara,--and did +little bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence," and +at least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie." + +Do you think it is--sarcastically--a "pretty dish to set before the +king"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? There +is one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z----" is; and there are +friends and neighbors everywhere. + +I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part--the +Barbarous part--is a continual breach of confidence. I have a great +mind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, +made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautayne +has one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayne +considers _worth_ a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; older +than Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth with +her; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides-- + +Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as far +as we--or anybody--has gone. You must let the world go round the sun +again, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet--even with +"We Girls." + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's We Girls: A Home Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. 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