THE DEAN SEES THE STAR
They arrived at Nantic a little past noon, after leaving Washington on the
midnight express. There was no stop-over at New York in the morning, the
train going straight through to New England, and here they found the first
snowstorm.
"There are the old gray rock walls, bless them," exclaimed the Dean,
delightedly, "and the evergreens. The west may keep its towering white
pines, but give me the old hemlocks and junipers, with the birches and
oaks behind them."
Kit was so glad to see Mr. Briggs' smiling face on the platform at Nantic
that she almost threw her arms around him, as she jumped from the platform
of the train.
"Well, well," he ejaculated, "didn't expect to see you around so soon,
Miss Robbins. Come to stay a while? Brought company with you, too, didn't
you? Home folks or just visitors?"
"Home folks," said the Dean, directly behind them, as he extended his
hand, "who haven't been home in thirty years."
"You don't say so," Mr. Briggs smiled at him, curiously. "Well, you won't
find many things changed around here in only that time. Want me to 'phone
over for a rig to take you up? The Robbinses are settled in the Hall now.
Shouldn't wonder if it was kind of damp there yet. Had quite a spell
'round here of rainy weather before the frost set in. Looks as if 'twas
going to stay in for a spell of snow now, though. Some boxes came up from
New York yesterday for your folks, but I couldn't tell what was in 'em
off-hand. Felt sort of hefty, though."
"It seems so good," Kit said, fervently, as he moved away from them out of
hearing, "to be around where even the baggage man knows all about you, and
takes an interest in everything. People don't do that out west, do they,
Uncle Cassius? Not even in a little place like Delphi. I wonder if any
one will remember you."
Perhaps the Dean was wondering the same thing as they drove up through the
old hill road towards Gilead. One by one he recognized the old familiar
landmarks and farms as they passed them, but Miss Daphne was far too
engrossed in watching the Dean's own face to care for familiar spots on
the landscape.
It was not until they got up near the Peckham mill that they met any of
the old neighbors, but here Mr. Peckham himself came leisurely down from
the mill path to the bridge and hailed Kit.
"Howdy, Kit. Home for Christmas?" he called cheerily, then taking a good
look at the other occupants of the old station surrey, "Well, Cass
Peabody, who in creation ever thought of seeing you around these parts
again."
The Dean leaned forward, peering over the tops of his glasses with almost
the smile of a boy.
"It's Dan Peckham, isn't it?" he said. "Yours is the first voice to
welcome me home, Dan."
Mr. Peckham insisted on their waiting a moment while he hurried up to the
house to call Elvira. Kit sat back in the carriage enjoying the reunion.
Miss Daphne had gone to school years before at the Select Academy for
Young Ladies, over in Willimantic, with Elvira Evans long before she
became Mrs. Peckham. Kit felt, listening to the four of them go over dear
old reminiscences, that it was as though she stood at the curtain of the
past, on tiptoe at a peep-hole.
The early twilight had already begun to set in by the time they reached
the turn of the road below the Greenacre entrance gates. On the silent,
frosty air, Kit heard Shad's clear whistle, and over the fringe of pines
along the river there came the murmur of the waterfall. There was none of
the family in sight when they turned up the drive, but suddenly Kit's
eager eyes saw a familiar figure out by the chicken coops, and leaning
forward she gave a shrill co-oee!
Doris' head went up like a startled deer. She dropped the pan of feed to
the ground and fairly flew to meet them, and then before Kit could even
detach herself from these clinging arms, the big front door swung open,
and there in the lamplight was the Mother Bird and Helen.
Jean was up-stairs as usual at this hour when she was home, reading with
her father, but Kit never forgot the feeling of relief that came to her
when she finally found herself before the open fire in the big living-room
with all of the family around her, and the full satisfaction of having
brought home the Peabodys after all these years of estrangement.
That night, after dinner, while Shad and the Dean were closeted in the big
front room erecting the huge hemlock Christmas tree, the girls assembled
in Jean's room.
"Cousin Roxy invited us all over to their place," Helen said, as she dove
into a lower bureau drawer, filled with carefully wrapped parcels, "but
mother wanted to have a home Christmas, because the house does seem new to
us all, and we never expected to see you home at all."
"You didn't? Well, I wrote and told you to be sure and have the guest
chamber ready. I didn't know myself that Uncle Cassius and Aunt Daphne
were coming until the last minute." Kit sat perched on the bed in a pink
kimono, brushing her hair. And just at this moment she caught Jean's eye
in the mirror, such an amused, knowing eye that Kit caught the full
significance of that glance immediately, and laughed.
"I suppose you feel as though you had brought home the wealth of the
Indies, Kit Robbins. You can't tell me that it wasn't intentional, because
I know you. All I want to know is, who told you?"
"Told me what?" asked Kit innocently. Not for worlds would she have
betrayed Cousin Roxy's confidence. "Any one to hear you talk, Jean, would
think that you didn't want to see me at all."
Jean laughed. It was impossible to get past Kit's wall of evasion when she
chose to take refuge behind it.
"Well, never mind how it has happened," she said happily. "I'm sure that
you managed it in some way, and I can tell you right now, it has happened
in the nick of time. You have no idea, Kit, how I have dreaded going back
to the city and leaving things as they are. Dad seems to get so
discouraged now when matters go wrong, and that throws the load of keeping
up right on mother's shoulders."
"I know it," Kit rejoined, "but if it's anything to you all, I'd be
willing to bet anything that right this minute Uncle Cassius is springing
some glad tidings down-stairs that will turn the tide of fortune."
"Oh, Kit," begged Doris, "don't you and Jean talk like that, because I
can't understand what you're driving at; tell it all out at once."
But Kit only slipped from the bed, and started to dance around the room
provokingly, with many mysterious gestures.
"Supposing, curious damsel, that I were to speak unto you in the mystic
language of past ages, and say that this windfall has come to the robins'
nest out of the tomb of Amenotaph, out of the desert of Ra, supposing,"
she had to stop and chuckle at the look of utter astonishment on Doris'
round eager face, "supposing I was to tell you that Annui had smiled upon
the revelation, and that the sacred circle had given up its secret at the
punch of your sister's delicate thumb. You see, even when I tell you, you
don't understand, so you'll just have to wait until Uncle Cassius himself
tells the story."
"Kit, you poor child," Jean exclaimed, laughingly, "you're raving. They'll
have the tree up by now, and it's long after ten. Mother said that we were
to take turns going down in the dark and putting our presents wherever we
wanted to."
"I want to be last of all," Kit announced. "Doris, you come on in my room
and help me wrap and tie the bundles. Good-night, sweet sisters; happy
dreams."
But for the next hour after the lights went out, strange, flitting figures
slipped through the halls and down-stairs into the front room, where the
giant hemlock stood. And the very last one of all was clad in a bath robe
and wore a black skullcap.
Perhaps no one in all Gilead, or indeed wherever the message of the angels
might reach in the hearts of men that night, had grasped the inner meaning
of their song as the old Dean. He had just finished placing his gifts upon
the tree, and was turning to leave, when suddenly from the room above,
where Jean and Helen slept, there came a wonderful sound. The old clock
down the hall was striking midnight, and keeping to the custom of those
fortunate enough to have been born in the Robbins family, the girls had
opened their windows to the silent moonlit glory of the night, and sang in
chorus:
"Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Oh, come ye, oh, come ye to Bethlehem,
Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord."
The Dean knelt in prayer beside the Christmas tree.