HOMEWARD BOUND
As happy a party as ever gathered around a table sat down to dinner
that night. Mr. Pinckney had telegraphed to his daughter and had
received an answering telegram which brought the promise of her
speedy arrival with her husband. Although overshadowed utterly by the
señorita, whose importance to their beloved Mr. St. Nick was such an
evident fact, none of the children felt anything but pleasure in her
discovery of this new relative. To be sure once during the evening Jack
climbed wistfully to her old friend's knee, but though he put his arm
around her, he did not take his eyes from his granddaughter's face and
did not cease to make her the subject of his talk.
Carter received the news with as much surprise as the girls expected
and to him they now turned for entertainment since their older friend
was so engrossed in his own affairs.
With his inclination to give pleasure, Mr. Pinckney could not rest till
he had taken Miss Dolores forth on a shopping expedition, and was
ready to buy her such an array of things as would have quite burdened
her down, but Miss Helen came to her rescue.
"I think New York still has some good shops," she reminded him, "and
what will be the use of taking such a lot of extra luggage east?"
Mr. Pinckney looked a little abashed at first reminder. "I am an old
idiot," he said laughing; "I never thought of that. I'll open up the
old house in New York and set her at the head of it. We'll get a good
housekeeper so Dolores won't have too many cares," he patted his
granddaughter's hand. "We'll come this way every year to see your Aunt
Jennie," he went on, "and you'll make friends there at home who won't
mind going shopping with you. In fact I'd like to show you the shops,
myself," and Miss Helen knew that he was only putting off the pleasure
which she had nipped in the bud.
The news that Mr. Pinckney meant to take his granddaughter to his New
York home made Mary Lee very happy. She would not be so far from the
señorita after all, and could hope to see her sometimes.
"We'll all go back together," said Mr. Pinckney. "What do you say, good
people? Shall we? I'd like my little girl, here, to see something of
the country and you won't mind having a man along, will you?"
"We shall be only too glad," Miss Helen told him. "I have just been
telling Carter that we shall miss our masculine element very much."
Mr. Pinckney rubbed his hands and looked around with a pleased smile
upon the group. His face was beaming all the time now, for Jo Poker's
letter was considered conclusive proof and Miss Dolores was accepted
without a question. She insisted, however, upon writing to her uncle to
corroborate facts and was now waiting for a reply.
Mr. and Mrs. Roberts appeared shortly and gave a loving welcome to the
newly discovered niece. Every one thought it was adding better to good
to have these two friends with them, since they had all enjoyed such
happy days together during the winter.
"There's one thing I've set my heart on," said Mr. Pinckney one day; "I
want you all to spend Christmas with us next year. Will you?"
Mrs. Corner looked at Miss Helen. "I'm afraid I can't promise that,"
she said. "My sister and I will probably be too far away, but I shall
be happy to accept for my girls."
"Why, mother!" Mary Lee looked up surprised. "Where are you going to be
next winter?"
"In the south of France or in Italy, dear. Aunt Helen and I have made
our plans for that. I must be in some mild climate, you know."
"Then are we to stay at home with Aunt Sarah?"
"No."
"Where then? Where?" clamored the twins. "Oh, mother, are you going to
take us with you?"
She put an arm around each. "No, darlings, not this time, but some
day I hope to. My four girlies are going to school." She turned to
Mrs. Roberts. "I have had very satisfactory letters from Mrs. Morrison
and if, after we have visited the place, it seems as attractive as it
promises, we shall send the girls there."
"Oh, mother, where is it? I don't want to go to boarding-school," said
Jack rebelliously. "It will be horrid."
"This one will not be, I hope. It is near Boston and it is not a big
school; there are only twelve boarders admitted and there are pretty
grounds and I should think it must be a very homelike place from the
description. Charlotte Loring will be one of your schoolmates during
the week, though she goes home from Friday till Monday, and I am sure
you will meet other very nice little girls. If you are not happy there
after one year's trial, you shall not stay, and we will make some other
arrangement."
"How long shall you be away, mother?" asked Jean wistfully.
"Until May or June, I think."
"That's very long," sighed Jean.
Mary Lee cuddled her to her side. "But you will have your two big
sisters," she said, "and we are to spend Christmas in New York, think
of that, with Miss Dolores and Mr. St. Nick."
This was something to look forward to and Jean brightened up.
All this time Nan had not said a word. She had heard all these plans
before, but though she had approved them at the time her mother
confided in her, she had hoped against hope, and now that she faced the
actual fact she felt a lump in her throat and despair in her heart.
No mother, no Aunt Helen for all those long months. Even the exciting
present could not shut out this picture of a motherless winter. She sat
with hands tightly clasped and looked out the window with a set face.
Jack stole up and put an arm around her neck. "Oh, Nan," she whispered,
"you feel just as I do. Don't let's go to that horrid school; let's run
away."
Nan smiled. "What a goosey thing to do that would be. Where could we
run to?"
"To Mrs. Roberts; she would take us in and make us have an awfully good
time."
The idea of running all the way from Boston to California was too much
for Nan, and she laughed outright. Then suddenly she faced the future
bravely; it was her part to bolster up these younger sisters of hers,
and she would do it if possible. "Oh, we'll make the best of it," she
said. "No doubt we shall have awfully good times even if they do feed
us on baked-beans and cod-fish. We shall have lots of snow so we can go
coasting, and skating and perhaps we shall have some sleigh-rides. Then
there'll be Saturdays, you know, when we can go to see Charlotte. Who
can tell what good times are ahead, anyway? Sometimes the very meanest
prospects turn out finely. Look at your being stuck in the elevator,
for instance; see what it has brought about."
"What are you talking about over there?" said Mr. Pinckney from the
other side of the room.
"I was just telling Jack that nobody knows what good a day may bring
forth," said Nan in unconscious imitation of her Aunt Sarah Dent.
"Just think of it, a year ago we didn't even know you all. We all were
snoozing away in Virginia and you never dreamed of there being four
Corners in the world. Then because Jack stuck in the elevator we
stayed over in New Orleans, and because we stayed over we went to the
candy shop and there we got acquainted with you, Mr. St. Nick. Then,
because Aunt Helen dropped her handkerchief she found the señorita--I
beg your pardon, I mustn't say that any more; she's always to be Miss
Dolores to us. So things just happen all the time without our planning
and who knows what lovely things are ahead of us."
"That's my little philosopher," said Mr. Pinckney approvingly. "It was
a happy accident that threw you all in my way, indeed; but for that I
should probably never have known my granddaughter."
"Mail for Miss Dolores Garcia," said Carter coming in with a letter in
his hand.
"Pinckney, sir, not Garcia," corrected Mr. Pinckney.
"Of course. I beg pardon, Miss G-Pinckney. Oh, bother, I'll say Miss
Dolores and then I'll make no mistake."
"It is from my uncle," remarked Miss Dolores. "I will read it if you
all will excuse."
She took the letter to the window and ran over its contents. "It is
just as you already know," she said at last. "I am truly Dolores
Pinckney. My uncle acknowledges that it is my right name and he is
very glad that I have found out without his having broken his oath.
He is pleased that I have found so kind and good a relative as this
dear grandfather. He sends greetings to, you, sir." She bowed slightly
to Mr. Pinckney, "and to all the friends who have been so kind to
me," again that little foreign manner of bowing. "He is a good man,
that poor uncle," she went on, "and he is happy for me. Now, my dear
grandfather, I belong to you and to my dear aunt. _Beso a ustedes la
mono, señor y señora_," she said with a little laugh and dropping a
pretty curtsey.
"I never doubted for one moment that you belonged to us," returned Mr.
Pinckney, "but I am glad, for your sake, that you have this further
testimony. Now, then, good people, all, when do we start? Ho, for the
Yellowstone! Will you go with us, Jennie?" he asked his daughter.
"No, thank you, father," she replied. "I've seen the Yellowstone, you
remember, and I think I'll stay at home with my old man." She turned
with a smile to her husband.
"But you'll come to us at Christmas."
"Perhaps. I will not promise, but I will try to come."
"You'd better," remarked Mr. Pinckney. "We must have a family party,
and it wouldn't be complete without my daughter. And you, Mr. Carter
Barnwell, how about you?"
"I'm not in it, sir. You know I'm an exile and shouldn't dare to risk a
New York blizzard." He spoke lightly, but he looked grave. "I can tell
you," he added, "it breaks a fellow up to have all this cutting out of
the best part of the crowd. Can't you adopt me as a sort of nephew,
Mrs. Roberts? I don't know what I shall do when all the others leave.
Couldn't you give me a horse stall in your stable or somehow let me
hang on to you?"
"Oh, Mrs. Bobs," cried Jack, possessing herself of Carter's hand, "you
don't know how nice and jolly and kind Carter is. Won't you let him
come live with you when we are gone? He'll be so awfully lonely away
from his mother and all of us." Jack was really concerned for the
welfare of this comrade of hers.
Mrs. Roberts's kind eyes rested compassionately upon the lad. "Would
you really like to come to us?" she said.
"Would you take in a 'no-count' boarder like myself?" he asked,
eagerly. "I'll take you out in my car, if you like, and when Mr.
Roberts must be away I'll play protector, and I'll even go down town
and match worsteds for you. Now that you have a niece, don't you want a
nephew?"
"What do you say, Ben?" said Mrs. Roberts, turning to her husband.
"It's just as you say, my dear. For my own part I should like nothing
better than young life about the house."
"Then, Carter, your Aunt Jennie will take you in and mother you to the
best of her ability," Mrs. Roberts told the boy.
For answer Carter bent and kissed her hand with an old-fashioned
gallantry. There were actual tears in his eyes when he lifted his head
and it seemed that he could not speak his thanks except to say: "You
don't know what that means to me." Then he walked away to the window
and no one followed.
Miss Helen drew her chair closer to Mrs. Roberts. "My dear," she said,
"you've done a real deed of charity for which his mother will bless
you. That is a real mother boy, and no one knows better than I how he
misses his home. I don't believe you will ever regret befriending him."
And Mrs. Roberts never did.
In another day the trunks were all packed, the boxes to be sent home
direct had been started on their way, and California would soon be
a place only of remembrance to the Corners. Falling in with Mr.
Pinckney's plans they had decided to return east by Yellowstone Park
and the Great Lakes rather than to take a route carrying them further
north. "Let the young folks see the Yellowstone and Niagara," said Mr.
Pinckney; "they will be worth more to them than any other places we
could strike on our way back, for then they will have seen two of the
greatest wonders of their own country and will be ready for Europe when
you want to take them. Now that we have in the family such a linguist
as my granddaughter, I shall feel like crossing the ocean again myself.
I've never been to Spain and some day she shall go there with me."
It was good to see the dear man's happiness. It was my granddaughter
this and my granddaughter that, all the time. As for Miss Dolores
herself, the worried lines were leaving her face and a sunny expression
was coming in place of the sad, pained look she often wore. The future
held home, love, protection, and freedom from galling poverty, a doting
grandfather to lavish gifts upon her and to turn to in difficulties.
What more could she ask? On her part she was all woman, and had begun
already to exercise a pretty solicitude for him which pleased him
mightily and which promised well for the days when he should need a
ministering hand.
Nan looking at her one day as she was hovering over her grandfather
said: "And so the princess came into her own and lived in great state
ever after at the castle."
Miss Helen nodded understandingly. "Until----" she suggested a
continuation.
Nan took up the tale: "Until a prince came that way and asked her hand
in marriage. This would not the old king bestow until the prince had
promised three things; one was that he should become as his own son and
live in the castle; the second was that he should prove his manhood by
some knightly deed; the third one--what was the third, Aunt Helen?"
"The third was that he should show himself able to support a wife
without aid of the treasure in the king's coffers and that he must be a
knight par excellence, of good name, stainless reputation, and educated
in those things which do make a gentle knight ready to hold his own in
kings' courts."
"Lovely," said Nan; then after a pause, "I hope the prince will not
come too soon for the sake of our dear old St. Nick. Aunt Helen, I
wonder if the next year will be as full as this. If it is and exciting
things pile up this way year after year, I shall not be able to stand
it at all by the time I am thirty or forty."
"Don't give yourself any uneasiness," replied Miss Helen; "the quiet
days will come and you will be glad that memory holds so much in store
for you to live on in days of famine."
Nan nodded. She and her Aunt Helen often had this sort of talk and it
was dear to Nan's heart. "What shall I do without you next winter?" she
sighed. "That will be a time of famine, for I shall be starving for you
and mother."
"You will have new influences, my dear, that will fill your life and
give you new inspiration. The bees do not feed on one kind of flower
alone, and so must you, my honey, and my honey-seeker, stick your
proboscis into every flower you find. You must seek your sweets all
along the way of life."
"You're my sweet," said Nan, kissing her; "you and mother are my very
sweetest sweets. Now I must go, for I hear the clock striking that
tells me to get ready for dinner, our last dinner here, Aunt Helen."
And the last breakfast was the next morning when all appeared in
traveling dress, for before the morning was over they had turned their
backs upon the Sunset Land and were facing the east where the hopes of
youth were still rising for them.
Mr. and Mrs. Roberts and Carter stood on the platform to see the last
of them. Jack and Jean waved handkerchiefs from the window. "Good-bye,
Mrs. Bobs! Good-bye, Mr. Bobs! Good-bye, Carter!" they shouted; "we're
coming back some day." Miss Dolores, very pale, bent forward, her eyes
fixed on the vanishing city. Mary Lee leaned over the back of the seat
and reached down a sympathizing hand to clasp the señorita's. From her
place in front, Nan smiled over her shoulder. "The sun rises where we
are going," she said.