BETTY REACHES THE "HOUSE BEAUTIFUL."
It was very early in the morning, while the dew was still on the
meadows, that Betty fared forth on her pilgrimage. The old farm wagon
that was to take her to the railroad station, two miles away, was drawn
up to the door before five o'clock. Davy proudly held the reins while
his father carried Betty's trunk down-stairs.
Poor, shabby, little, old leather trunk! It was not half full, for there
had been small preparation for this visit. Betty had carefully folded
the few gingham dresses she possessed, and the new blue and white lawn
bought for her to wear to church. There were several stitches to be
taken in her plain cotton under-wear, and a button to be sewed on her
only white ruffled apron.
That was all that she could do to make herself ready, except to put her
hair-ribbons and handkerchiefs smoothly into a little diamond-shaped box
that had once held toilet soap. Betty felt rich in ribbons "to tie up
her bonnie brown hair," for there were three bows the colour of her
curls, and two of red, and one of delicate robin's-egg blue. The last
was to wear with the new lawn, and, in order to keep it fresh and fine,
it lay wrapped in tissue-paper all week, between the times of its Sunday
wearings.
And the handkerchiefs--well, six of them were plain and white, and two
had pictures stamped in the corners. One told the story of Red
Ridinghood and the other had scenes from Cinderella outlined in blue.
They had been Davy's present to her the Christmas before, and he had
bought them at Squire Jaynes's store with his own precious pennies.
That was all that Betty had intended to put into her trunk, but when
they were in, there was still so much room that she decided to take her
books and several of her chief treasures. "They will be safer," she said
to herself, and she filled a box with cotton in which to pack some of
her breakable keepsakes. She had hesitated some time about taking her
scrap-book, an old ledger on whose blank pages she had written many
verses. She hardly dared call them poetry, and yet they were dear to
her, because they were the outpourings of her lonely little heart.
All the children knew that she "made up rhymes," but only Davy had any
knowledge of the old ledger. He could not understand all the verses she
read to him about the wild flowers, and life and death and time, but
they jingled pleasantly in his ears, and he made an attentive listener.
"I'll take it," she decided at last, slipping some loose pages in
between the covers. "I may want to write something at Locust."
She paused long at the foot of her bed, trying to make up her mind about
her godmother's picture, that hung there in a little frame of pine
cones.
"I don't know whether to take it or not," she said to Davy, looking up
lovingly at the Madonna of her dreams, whose sweet face had been her
last greeting at night, and first welcome on waking, for several years.
"I hate to leave it behind, but I'll have my real godmother to look at
while I'm gone, and it'll seem so nice to have this picture here to
smile at me when I get back, as if she was glad I'd come home. I believe
I'll leave it."
It was a solemn moment when Betty climbed into the wagon after her trunk
had been lifted in at the back, and perched herself on the high spring
seat, beside Davy and his father. The other children were drawn up in a
line along the porch, to watch her go. She wore one of her every-day
dresses of dark blue gingham, and her white sunbonnet, but the familiar
little figure had taken on a new interest to them. They regarded her as
some sort of a venturesome Columbus, about to launch on a wild voyage of
discovery. None of them had ever been beyond Jaynes's Post-office in
their journeyings, and the youngest had not seen even that much of the
outside world.
Betty herself could not remember having been on a longer trip than to
Livermore, a village ten miles away. There was an excited flutter in her
throat as the wagon started forward with a jolt, and she realised that
now she was looking her last on safe familiar scenes, and breaking loose
from all safe familiar landmarks.
"Good-bye!" she cried again, looking back at the little group on the
porch with tears in her eyes.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" they called, in a noisy chorus, repeating the call
like a brood of clacking guineas, until the wagon passed out of sight
down the lane. The road turned at the church. Betty leaned forward for
one more look at the window, on whose sill she had passed so many happy
afternoons reading to Davy. The board was still leaning against the
house, where she had propped it.
"Good-bye, dear old church," she said softly to herself.
They drove around the corner of the little neglected graveyard, where
the headstones gleamed white in the morning sunshine, above the dark,
glossy green of the myrtle vines. How peaceful and quiet it seemed. The
dew still shone in tiny beads on the cobwebs, spun across the grass, a
spicy smell of cedar boughs floated across the road to them, and a dove
called somewhere in the distant woodlands. As they passed, a wild rose
hung over the gray pickets of the straggling old fence, and waved a
spray of pale pink blossoms to them.
"Good-bye," she whispered, turning for one more look at the familiar
headstones. They were like old friends; she had wandered among them so
often. One held her gaze an instant, with its well-known marble hand,
pointing the place in a marble book in which was carved one text. How
often she had spelled the words, pointing out the deeply carven letters
to Davy: "_Be ye also ready._"
She had a vague feeling that the headstones knew she was going away and
would miss her. "Good-bye," she said to them, too, nodding the white
sunbonnet gravely. It seemed a solemn thing to start on such a journey.
After leaving the church there was only one more place to bid good-bye,
and that was the schoolhouse sitting through its lonely vacation time
in a deserted playground, gone to weeds.
There was no time to spare at the station. Mr. Appleton tied the horses
and hurried to have Betty's trunk checked. The shriek of the locomotive
coming down the track made Betty turn cold. It was like a great demon
thundering toward her. Davy edged closer to her, moved by the strange
surroundings to ask a question.
"Say, Betty, ain't you afraid?"
"Yes," she confessed, squeezing the warm little hand in her own, which
had suddenly seemed to turn to ice. "My heart is going bump-bump-bump
like a scared wild rabbit's; but I keep saying over and over to myself
what the python said. Don't you remember in Kaa's hunting? 'A brave
heart and a courteous tongue, said he, they shall carry thee far through
the jungle, manling.' It can't be such a very big jungle that I'm going
into, and godmother will meet me in a few hours. Don't forget me, Davy,
while I'm gone."
She stooped to give the little fellow a hug and a kiss on each dimpled
cheek, for the train had stopped, and Mr. Appleton was waiting to shake
hands and lift her up the steps. Betty stumbled into the first vacant
seat she saw, and sat up primly, afraid to glance behind her. In her
lap, tightly clasped by both hands, she held a little old-fashioned
basket of brown willow. It had two handles and a lid with double flaps.
She carried it because she had no travelling-bag. Her lunch was in that,
her pass, five nickels, and the Red Ridinghood handkerchief.
"You can let that be a sort of warning to you," said Mrs. Appleton, at
parting, "not to get into conversation with strangers. Red Ridinghood
never would have got into trouble if she hadn't stopped to tell the Wolf
all she knew."
Remembering this warning, Betty sat up very straight at first, and held
the basket handles in such a tight grasp that her fingers ached. But
after the conductor had looked at her pass and smiled kindly into the
appealing little face under the white sunbonnet, she felt more at ease
and began to look shyly about her.
Somebody's grandmother was in the seat in front of her, such a fat,
comfortable-looking old lady, that Betty felt sure she could not be a
Wolf in disguise, and watched her with neighbourly interest. She fell to
wondering about her, where she lived and where she was going, and what
she had in her many bags, boxes, shawl-straps, and satchels.
Things were not half so strange as she had expected them to be. The
corn-fields and tobacco-fields and apple-orchards whizzing past the
windows were exactly like the ones she had left at home. More than once
a meadow full of daisies, gleaming on her sight like drifts of summer
snow, made her think of the lower pasture at home, where she had waded
through them the day before, waist-deep.
Even the people who came on the cars at the stations along the way
looked like the people she saw at church every week, and Betty soon
began to feel very much at home. After awhile the train stopped at a
junction where she had to wait several hours to make connection with the
Louisville train. But even that did not turn out to be a bad experience,
as she had feared, for the old lady waited too, and she was as anxious
to find a friend as Betty was. So it was not long until the two were
talking together as sociably as two old neighbours, and they ate their
lunch together with so many exchanges of confidences that they were both
surprised when Betty's train came puffing along. They had not imagined
the time could fly so fast.
At parting they kissed each other as if they had always been friends,
and Betty climbed into the car with a warm glow in her heart at having
found such unexpected pleasantness along the way.
"It was silly of me to have been so frightened," she thought. "The world
isn't a jungle, after all, and we are just as apt to meet the
grandmothers as the wolves when we go travelling."
She was mixing Kaa's experience with Red Riding-hood's in her thought,
but it made no difference. The conclusion she reached was a comfortable
one. So she leaned back in her seat to enjoy the rest of the journey
without any foolish fears.
Little by little the motion of the train had its effect. The white
sunbonnet nodded nearer and nearer toward the cushioned back of the
seat; the brown eyes drooped drowsily, and in a few minutes Betty was
sound asleep. That was the last she knew of the trip that she had
settled herself to enjoy, for when she awoke the brakeman was calling
"_Louisville_!" at the top of his voice, and people were beginning to
reach up to the racks overhead for their bundles.
There was a general uprising of the passengers. The crowd pushed toward
the door, carrying the startled child with them as they surged down the
aisle, and all at once--as she stepped off the train--she found herself
in the depths of her dreaded jungle. It was so confusing she did not
know which way to turn. The roar and clang of a great city smote on her
ears as she stood in the big Union depot, helpless, bewildered, and as
lost as a stray kitten in the midst of that noisy, pushing crowd. Sharp
elbows jostled her this way and that; strange faces streamed past her by
thousands, it seemed. How could anybody find anybody else in such a
whirlpool of people? Hunting for a needle in a haystack seemed nothing
in comparison to finding her godmother in such a crowd.
Betty stood looking around her helplessly in the middle of the
overpowering din of whistles and bells and the thunder of wheels on the
cobblestones outside. That moment she would have given anything she
owned to be safely back on the quiet farm. The big brown eyes in the
depths of the sunbonnet filled with tears, but she resolutely winked
them back, whispering the python's words: "A brave heart and a courteous
tongue, manling."
But she could not stop the frightened thumping in her breast, and of
what use was a courteous tongue, when nobody would stop to listen? She
wondered what had happened to make a whole city full of people in such a
desperate hurry.
Two tears splashed down on the brown willow basket-lid, and then--No
telling what would have happened next, had not the jungle opened,
without waiting for a brave heart and a courteous tongue on Betty's
part. Coming toward her all in dainty gray and white was a lady she
would have recognised anywhere. That face, that had been the Madonna of
her dreams, both waking and sleeping, since the first night it had kept
its smiling vigil above her little bed, could belong to no one but her
beautiful godmother.
With a glad little cry of recognition she sprang forward, catching one
slim gray-gloved hand in hers. The white sunbonnet fell back, the brown
eyes looked out from a tangle of dusky curls with a world of loving
admiration in their depths, and the next instant Betty was folded in
Mrs. Sherman's arms.
"Joyce Allen," she exclaimed, "all over again! Joyce's own little
daughter! I would have known you anywhere, dear, I think, even--" She
did not finish the sentence. Even in such an outlandish costume, was
what she had started to say. She had seen Betty as the child stepped off
the train, but had not given her a second glance, as it never occurred
to her that the little guest she had come to meet would travel in a
sunbonnet.
But Betty was blissfully unconscious of her appearance. As they crossed
the city to a suburban depot, she was so interested in the mysteries of
the trolley-car on which they rode, so absorbed by the great
show-windows they passed, and so amazed by the city sights and sounds on
every hand, that she was not conscious of the fact that she even had a
head. It might have been bald for all she was concerned about the
covering of it.
The Little Colonel was waiting in the carriage at the depot when Mrs.
Sherman and Betty stepped off the train at Lloydsboro Valley. Rob Moore
had come down, too, curious for a glimpse at the first arrival. He
grinned at the expression of surprise and dismay on the Little Colonel's
face as her glance fell on Betty. Was it that her little guest had no
hat, she wondered, or was it because no one in the cuckoo's nest had
ever taught her any better than to go travelling in such style? And
carrying a little old-fashioned willow basket, too! How odd and
countrified she looked!
But Lloyd was too ladylike to show her disappointment. She climbed out
of the carriage and greeted Betty as graciously as her mother had done.
Then straightway she forgot her annoyance, for the sweet friendliness of
the little face smiling up into hers was irresistible.
"Does the Valley look as you thought it would, Elizabeth?" asked Mrs.
Sherman, as the carriage rolled homeward, past handsome suburban homes
with closely cut lawns and trimly kept paths.
"No," said Betty, hesitatingly. "You see I thought you lived in the
country, and I suppose it is a sort of country, but not the kind that I
live in. Here everything is pruned and raked until it looks as if it had
just had its hair parted smoothly in the middle, and its shoe-strings
tied. At home there is so much underbrush, and such a tangle of weeds
and high grass and briers, that the yards look as if they'd forgotten to
comb their hair when they got up, and had gone around all day with it
hanging down their backs in snarls."
The Little Colonel laughed. The newcomer had amusing fancies, at any
rate.
"And there's the same difference in everything else," continued Betty.
"The same difference that there was between Cinderella's pumpkin and her
gilded coach. It was a pumpkin all the time, only it looked different
after it was bewitched. And do you know," she said, with a charming
little burst of confidence that made Lloyd's heart warm toward her, "I
began to feel bewitched myself, from the first moment that godmother
spoke to me? She called me Elizabeth, and at home I am just plain Betty.
Oh, I think it is perfectly beautiful to have a godmother."
She looked shyly up at the face above her with such a winning smile that
Mrs. Sherman drew her toward her with a quick hug and kiss. Lloyd gave a
little wriggle of satisfaction. "I'm _so_ glad you've come!" she cried,
so completely won by Betty's artlessness that she forgot her first
impression.
"Heah we are at Locust," she said, as they drove into the long avenue.
"I wish you could have seen the trees when they were all in bloom. It
was like a picture."
"It is like a picture now, I think," said Betty, gazing up at the giant
branches overheard that seemed to be waving a welcome. There was a
listening expression on her face, as if she understood their leafy
whisperings. Lloyd and her mother exchanged glances, and after that she
was disturbed by no word until the carriage stopped. They understood her
silent pleasure in the great trees that they themselves had learned to
look upon as old friends.
At the house Betty leaned forward for an admiring glance at the tall
white pillars, all wreathed and festooned in their green lacework of
vines. "Oh, I know this place," she cried. "It is in my Pilgrim's
Progress, where Christian stopped awhile on his way to the City of the
Shining Ones. It is the House Beautiful!"
"What odd fancies you have!" exclaimed Lloyd, stepping out of the
carriage as she spoke. "But it is dear of you to give the place such a
sweet name. Come on up and see your room. After you have rested awhile
I'll take you all over the house."
As they went down the wide, airy hall, Betty had a glimpse of the
drawing-room through the open doors. In a confused way she noticed
mirrors and statuary and portraits, handsome old furniture and rare
pieces of bric-a-brac; but one thing caught her attention so that she
stood a moment in round-eyed admiration. It was a large harp, whose
gracefully curving frame gleamed through the shadowy room like burnished
gold. Fair and tall it stood, as if its strings had just been swept by
some of the Shining Ones beyond, who were a part of the Pilgrim's dream.
"What did you say?" asked Lloyd, hearing her cry of admiration, and
looking back to see Betty standing in the open door with clasped hands.
"Oh, that is grandmothah's harp. I am learning to play on it to please
grandfathah. I'll teach you some chords while you are heah, if you want
me to. Come on."
At the landing where the stairs turned, Betty stopped again, for there
was a great casement window looking out into a beech-grove, and under it
a cosy cushioned window-seat, where some one had evidently been reading.
There were books and magazines scattered all among the pillows.
"Heah is yo' room!" cried Lloyd, throwing open a door at the head of the
stairs, and leading the way in. Betty followed, her sunbonnet in her
hand, and looked around her like one in a dream. She had never imagined
a room could be so beautiful. If Lloyd could have known what a contrast
it was to the bare little west gable at the cuckoo's nest, she could
have better understood the wonder in Betty's face.
"My room is pink, and Eugenia's green, and Joyce's blue," explained
Lloyd. "Mothah thought you would like this white and gold one best,
'cause it's like a daisy field."
Before Betty could express her admiration, Mrs. Sherman came in with an
old coloured woman whom she called Mom Beck, and who, she told Betty,
had been her own nurse as well as Lloyd's. "And she is anxious to see
you," added Mrs. Sherman, "for she remembers your mamma so well. Many a
time she helped dress her when she was a little girl no larger than you,
and came home with me for a visit. She'll bring you some milk or iced
tea, and fix your bath when you are ready for it. We are going to leave
you now for a little while and see if you can't have a nice little nap.
It has been a long, tiresome journey, and you need the rest more than
you realise."
Left to herself, Betty undressed and lay down as she had been bidden.
Her eyes were tired and she closed them sleepily, but they would not
stay shut. She was obliged to open them for another peep at the dear
little white dressing-table with its crystal candlesticks, that looked
like twisted icicles. And she must see that darling little heart-shaped
pin-cushion again, and all the dainty toilet articles of gold and ivory.
Then she could not resist another glance at the white Angora rugs lying
on the dark, polished floor, and the white screen before her wash-stand
with sprays of goldenrod painted across it, looking as natural as if
they had grown there.
Once she got up and pattered across the room in her nightgown to sit a
moment before the little writing-desk in the corner, and handle all its
dainty furnishings of gold and mother-of-pearl. There were thin white
curtains at the windows, held back by broad bands of yellow ribbon. They
stirred softly with every passing breeze, and fluttered and fluttered,
until by and by, watching them, Betty's eyelids fluttered, too, and she
closed them drowsily.
While she slept she dreamed that she was back in the cuckoo's nest
again, in her bare little room in the gable, and that a great white and
yellow daisy stood over her, shaking her by the shoulder and telling her
that it was time to go down and wash the breakfast dishes. Then the
broad white petals began to fall off one by one, and it was Davy's face
in the centre. No, whose was it? She rubbed her eyes and looked again,
to find her godmother standing in the door.
"It is time to dress for dinner, little girl," she called, gaily. "Do
you need any help?"
"No, thank you," answered Betty, sitting up and catching a glimpse of
Lloyd going past the door in a fresh white muslin and pink ribbons.
"Shall I wear my best dress, godmother?" asked Betty, "or would it be
better to save it for Sunday?"
"Let me see it," said Mrs. Sherman, helping her to take it out of the
little half-filled trunk. "Oh, you'd better wear it, I think. We may
have company." What she saw in that trunk set her to thinking her most
godmotherly thoughts.
The wax tapers were all lighted in each silver candelabra when Betty
went down the stairs, looking fresh and sweet as a wildflower in her
dress and ribbons of robin's-egg blue. When she slipped into the long
drawing-room, Lloyd was playing on the harp. Over her hung the portrait
of a beautiful young girl, also standing beside a harp. She was dressed
in white, and she wore a June rose in her hair and another at her
throat. Betty walked over and looked up at the picture long and
earnestly.
"That's my grandmothah, Amanthis," said Lloyd, pausing in her song, "and
that's the way she looked the first time grandfathah evah saw her. And
heah's Uncle Tom in his soldier clothes, and this is mothah's
great-great-aunt that was such a belle in the days of Clay and Webstah."
She led the way around the room, introducing Betty to all the old family
portraits, with interesting tales about each one. Then she went back to
her harp, and Betty sat down in front of the first picture again. "You
belong to me, too, in a way," thought Betty, looking up at it. "If you
are my godmother's mother, then you are my great-godmother, Amanthis,
and I love you because you are so beautiful."
The harp thrilled on, the fair face of the portrait seemed to smile back
at her, and in some vague, sweet way Betty felt that she had come back
to her own and had been welcomed home to the House Beautiful.