Phœbe was very busy. With the wet half of an old handkerchief, she wiped
off the top of her own desk most painstakingly; next, having dried it
with the bit of worn linen kept in reserve, she cleared out the shelf of
the desk, dusting each book as she did so, and then washed and dried the
shelf. Last of all, she took out her inkwell, cleaned the lid of it,
refilled it carefully from a nearby bottle, and replaced it without the
loss of a purple drop. All the while she hummed a little, and was so
intent upon her work that she seemed not to know that the other girls
were leaving one by one—until no one was left with her in the high room,
which once had been a music-room, save a teacher, seated quietly at her
desk.
But Phœbe, despite all her earnest washing-up, had only been killing
time. She had not glanced up from her work because she did not care to
meet the eyes, or note the whispers, of the other girls. She would not
pass out with them across the terrace which fronted the big house for
fear they might not walk with her, or call a pleasant good-bye. She was
waiting, busy meanwhile, until she could leave Miss Simpson’s alone.
The teacher, setting her own desk to rights, cast an inquiring look at
Phœbe every now and then. When the last fellow-pupil was gone, Phœbe
rose and came forward to the platform, a little timidly. In front of the
big desk, she halted. Her cheeks were pink—too pink. Her lips were
pressed together. But her eyes smiled bravely. Back went one brown shoe,
and the slender, stockinged legs bent in a curtsey.
“Good-night, Miss Fletcher,” said Phœbe, politely.
“Good-night, dear.” Miss Fletcher’s voice was curiously husky. And as
Phœbe turned to leave, the teacher rose abruptly, banged a ruler upon
the green slope of oil-clothed board in front of her, opened and shut a
drawer noisily, and dabbed at her eyes alternately with the back of a
hand.
But Phœbe was going cheerily enough. She said her usual good afternoon
to the black-clad, white-aproned maid at the front door, did a hop-skip
across the patterned bricks of the wide terrace, and went trippingly
down the winding steps that led to the gate and the street.
A limousine was waiting there—a long, gleaming, tawny vehicle with brown
trimmings. Phœbe recognized the motor. It was Genevieve Finnegan’s, and
it called for Genevieve every school afternoon. Phœbe had seen other
cars of the same color flashing hither and thither through the town. The
Finnegans, it was rumored, had five automobiles in their big garage. And
Genevieve had been heard to say, though it was scarcely believable, that
of the five cars one was kept solely for the use of the Finnegan
servants! Servants! And Uncle John still clinging to a surrey and a
horse with no check-rein and a long tail!
As Phœbe sped down the last half-dozen steps to the sidewalk, she did
not even raise her eyes to the proud countenance of the smartly liveried
Finnegan chauffeur. All day she had been troubled, knowing herself
covertly discussed, and slyly ignored. Now, of a sudden, at sight of
this huge testimony to many dollars and much power, she felt strangely
helpless, alone, poor, and ashamed.
Her unwonted attention to her desk had made her a quarter of an hour
late. She knew that Uncle John and Grandma were, even now, keeping an
eye on the clock, or peering out of a window to see whether or not she
was coming through the driveway gate. She hurried along, eyes straight
ahead.
As she walked, her lips moved. Over and over, she was repeating certain
things that she had heard the girls say that day—and certain things that
she had said in reply. For instance, Olive Hayward had spoken of the
graduation exercises, to be held early in June. And when Phœbe had
interposed, but very meekly, to inquire what part the younger pupils
would take, Olive, who was fully as round, Phœbe decided, as Uncle Bob
himself—Olive had said, with a queer glance at the girls grouped with
her, “Oh, do you think you’ll still be here?” “I think I will,” Phœbe
had answered, and the girls had laughed!
Why?
And then there were other things. Phœbe revolved around the end of the
home gate, closed it even as she started up the walk, bumped in surprise
against the new screen door put up that day against winged intruders,
sped along the hall, taking off the serge coat as she went, and entered
the living-room, breathless, casting aside her hat with one hand and her
coat with the other. She seized the squat stool upon which Uncle Bob,
when reading, liked to rest his feet, carried it to a high, old mirror
that had, in its time, reflected Grandma in her bridal gown, and stood
upon it.
“Well, young lady?” It was Uncle Bob, from the far corner where was the
telephone.
Phœbe was turning herself before the mirror—now this way, now that.
“Excuse me, please,” she begged; “just a minute—something—I must
see—right away—very important—before I change.”
“I should say!” agreed her uncle, watching her curiously. “What seems to
be the matter?”
She came about to face him. Her brows were knit. Her eyes were troubled.
“That’s just what—what I don’t know,” she admitted. “My dress is all
right.—_Is_ there anything wrong with my dress?”
He got up and crossed to her. His underlip was thrust out, as if he were
angry. But he answered lightly enough. “Wrong? Not unless mine eyes
deceive me.”
Phœbe was turning again more slowly. “I thought maybe my petticoat was
showing.”
“Not a sign of it.”
“But, Uncle Bob——!”
“Yes? What?”
“Get right behind me,—straight behind.”
“Here I am.”
“Oh, Uncle Bob, is there a hole in my stocking?”
He looked—now at one slim leg, now at the other. “There certainly is
not.”
She got down, her eyes solemn. “Uncle Bob,” she confided, “I don’t know
what to make of it. But all today, at school, the girls have stared, and
stared, and—and whispered. I was sure something was wrong—with my hair,
or my dress. And they were too—too polite to tell.”
“Polite, you call ’em!” And Phœbe noted how Uncle Bob’s chest rose, so
that the front edges of his coat drew apart. Just over the top of his
collar, too, his neck grew scarlet. “Staring and whispering! The
ill-bred chits!”
But Phœbe was not angry—only puzzled. “It’s—it’s another mystery,” she
said, almost under her breath.
“Say!”—her Uncle came to stand beside her, and he, too, lowered his
voice—“do you know, I don’t believe I like that Simpson School! Suppose
we just cut it out?”
The light in her eager eyes answered him. She had been wondering just
how she could go on at Miss Simpson’s, with the girls acting so queerly,
and not asking her to walk home with them, or sit with them under the
school arbor during the morning study-hour. “You mean, Uncle Bob,” she
breathed incredulously, “that I won’t have to go to Miss Simpson’s any
more?”
“Well, something on that order.” The Judge smiled a wide,
tooth-revealing smile.
But his news was too good to be true. “Has Daddy said so?” she wanted to
know.
“He hasn’t, but I’ve a strong idea that he will.”
“Oh, I’m glad!” She took a deep breath. “Because, Uncle Bob, I’ve
felt—well, so queer at school for several days. You know—uneasy.”
He nodded. “I know.” And more confidentially, leaning down to say it,
“I’ve heard of other girls—oh, extra fine girls—who felt exactly like
you do about Miss Simpson’s.”
But Phœbe was scarcely listening. A new plan—a wonderful, heart-stirring
plan—had come to her, following on the thought that now her days were
again free. “Oh, Uncle Bob,” she began, “if I don’t have to go to school
again, maybe Daddy will let me go West! To Mother!”
Her uncle backed a step; his look lifted to the wall behind her. He
slapped one plump hand with the other, pursing his lips thoughtfully.
“Mm—er—yes,” he observed; then turning away, “I’m afraid we haven’t made
things very lively for you here.”
“It isn’t that,” she protested. “I’ve had Daddy. And I love to be here
with all of you. You’re all so nice to each other—never cross. But—but,
Uncle Bob, I’m beginning to—to miss my Mother.” Her look beseeched him.
He sat down, holding out his hands to her, and she came to stand at his
knee. “If you have to stay a little longer with us,” he said gently,
“you can be out-doors every one of these sunny Spring days, and you can
plant a garden. And when it rains, well, this isn’t a little, tucked-up
New York apartment—this big house.”
She looked around, nodding. “It’s terribly big,” she declared. “So many
rooms, and so far up to the ceiling. At first I almost got lost—you
remember? To go anywhere, you have to travel so much.”
Uncle Bob laughed, and drew her to him. “You blessed!” he said. “Of
course it’s big. Why, there’s room enough here to swing a cat.”
“Yes,” agreed Phœbe, “but I don’t want to swing a cat.”
“I mean”—Uncle Bob was shaking precisely like the more substantial
portion of a floating-island pudding!—“that you can stretch yourself.”
“No.” Phœbe shook her head with decision. “No, Uncle John doesn’t like
me to stretch. He says, ‘Ladies don’t do it’.”
“Oh, you funny little tyke!” cried Uncle Bob. “Can’t you run, and romp,
and play?”
“In here?” she asked, swinging an arm.
“Yes, dumpling!”
“No,” answered Phœbe, as certain as before. “I’d bother Uncle John when
he’s writing a sermon. So Saturdays, when I’m here, I just stand at a
window if I can’t play out in the yard. I just stand and look out. But I
can’t see much—even upstairs. Because this house is so awfully low down,
next the ground.”
“Low down!” ejaculated her uncle, amazed.
“Yes. In New York, our apartment was ’way high up in the building, and
we could look over the tops of houses to the River. And the other
direction, oh, there was a wonderful moving-picture theatre, and——” She
stopped, suddenly remembering.
But her Uncle Bob smiled at her kindly. “And what about that theatre?”
“I went lots of evenings, before Mother was so sick—just Mother and I
went, or Sally took me. My! but I love the movies!” Then, fearing he
might misjudge her, “I loved the nights we stayed at home, too. They
were so cosy. Daddy would be gone, or busy, or just downtown. So Mother
would sit at the window in her room, in a big chair, and I’d sit on her
knees. Of course, my legs are long, and they hung over. So we just put a
stool close by to hold up my feet, and then—then Mother would sing to
me.” Her lips trembled.
“Darling!” said Uncle Bob, tenderly. There were tears in her eyes, but
she was smiling through them bravely at this uncle who seemed always to
understand her. Whereupon he smiled, too, and kissed her. “Maybe Grandma
can hold you like that, in a big chair, sometimes.”
“I’m afraid she isn’t strong enough,” answered Phœbe. “And then, maybe
she wouldn’t know just how to sing.”
“I see.” He pondered the problem a moment. “Well, of course, I can hold
you. But about the singing—just what was it that Mother sang?”
“Oh, she just made it up as she went along—to suit the occasion.”
He put his arms about her then, and held her close. And there was a long
pause.
Her eyes were brimming. And presently, with a long sigh, she spoke
again: “Oh, how I like my mother to hold me!”—it was scarcely more than
a whisper. “I like her arms, and the place just here on her shoulder.”
The coat under her cheek was checked. She touched a black square with a
finger. “And she uses perfumery on her hair. Oh, Uncle Bob, I love her
hair! I—I love my mother!”
She wept then, without restraint. And the Judge, awkwardly, and puffing
not a little with the effort, gathered her up in his arms and held her,
whispering to her, straining the little figure to his breast.
“I can’t say anything to Daddy,” she sobbed. “Oh, Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob!”
He patted her shoulder. He laid a big cheek against her wet, baby-soft
face. He rocked her gently, yearning over her with all the fatherliness
of his big heart. How many times, as Grandma told her, had tearful
little ones cried out to him where he sat in his lofty chambers at the
Court House! How often had his tender sympathy wrapped them about like a
robe—the mistreated, the lonely, the children that lacked love! But
here, calling upon him for help in her suffering, was one dearer than
all others, of his own blood. And what would he do to help her?
“When can I see Mother?” she asked. “When?”
“Give us all time,” he pleaded. “I know how it is, but try to bear
it—try to wait. It’ll all come out right somehow—it’s got to, Phœbe. Oh,
it’s got to!”
She felt that he understood, that he grieved with her, that her
heartache was his own.