THE WILLIS WILL
"It's the first real warm night we've had isn't it?" said Mrs.
Hollister conversationally. "I got to thinking about you to-night,
Winnie, and I said to Mamie that I believed I'd come up and see you
for a minute or two; I thought you might be glad to have a little
help with the dishes or something."
Winnie, a tall gaunt woman, the gray hair on her temples hardly
perceptible because of the ash-blondness of her tightly pulled hair,
stood beside the kitchen table apparently figuring some problem on a
slip of paper.
"My dishes are done," she said capably, "but sit down, do Mrs.
Hollister; I'm not denying that I'm glad to see a friend after the
day I've had."
Mrs. Hollister sank heavily into the cushioned rocker drawn up near
the table and removed her cotton gloves.
"I said to Mamie I knew you'd be tuckered out," she observed. "Am I
keeping you, Winnie--is that important?" she indicated the slip of
paper in the other's hand.
"I can do it any time before to-morrow morning," Winnie explained.
"It's the laundry list and I have about everything counted up. The
man comes Wednesdays."
"Where are the girls?" asked the visitor, her quick eyes roving
approvingly around the immaculate kitchen. "Did the poor lady get
off safely?"
"The girls are in bed," said Winnie, taking the questions in order.
"They were worn out and I told 'em bed was the best place for them
to be. They've lost all their good sensible habits these last two
weeks and it's glad I am the young doctor is going to be here to
look after 'em. They need to be settled down if ever anybody did."
"And Mrs. Willis? She will really get well?" urged Mrs. Hollister.
Winnie's face changed. Her eyes softened.
"They all say she will be better than she's been for years, bless
her! All of 'em, Dr. Hurlbut, that big specialist that came from
New York, and Dr. Jordan and Doctor Hugh, who's as good as any of
them if he is young, all of 'em say if she only rests a year in
this sanatorium and doesn't have to worry we'll never know she
was sick."
"She was taken sudden, wasn't she?" asked the visitor. "Mamie said
you found her, Winnie."
Winnie snapped on the light for the summer dusk was deepening
into dark.
"That I did," she answered. "I'll never forget it, never. I was
going up to her room to ask her whether I should wait for the butter
and egg woman or send down to the store and in the upstairs hall I
walked right into her, lying so still and white on the floor. I got
her on the bed myself and sent Rosemary flying down to Dr. Jordan's
office for Dr. Hugh. Dr. Jordan came up with the young doctor and
they got the trained nurse and for over a week we didn't know
whether the dear lady would stay with us or not. Then she got a
little better and Dr. Hugh wanted her to go off to this sanatorium
place, but she wouldn't hear of it till the specialist put in his
word and all three doctors promised her she'd be cured."
"They say Dr. Hugh is going to take Dr. Jordan's practice," said
Mrs. Hollister irrelevantly.
"I don't know who 'they' are, but for once they've told the truth,"
said Winnie a bit tartly. "Dr. Jordan is going away for two months,
or three, and Dr. Hugh is to look after his office and patients. He
may settle down in Eastshore, if he likes it well enough."
Winnie did not add what she, as a confidante of the family, had
heard discussed, namely that Dr. Hugh would likely buy the practice
of Dr. Jordan who was an old man and anxious to retire from active
service.
"Dr. Hurlbut came down in a great big car this afternoon and took
Mrs. Willis," Winnie went on, "Dr. Hugh went with her and he's
coming back in the morning. The girls behaved beautifully and not
one of 'em cried till their mother was well out of sight."
"Well I should say you'll have your hands full with the
housekeeping," was Mrs. Hollister's next comment. "I don't
suppose you can depend on much help from the girls, though
Rosemary is old enough to do considerable if she's a mind
to. How old is she now?"
"Twelve," replied Winnie. "But you musn't think I'm to do
everything, Mrs. Hollister. Miss Trudy Wright is coming
to-morrow, to stay till Mrs. Willis gets home."
"Who's she?" asked Mrs. Hollister bluntly. "Anybody you
can rely on?"
"I'm not saying I don't like her, for I do," said Winnie with
admirable conservatism, "Miss Wright means well, if ever a woman
did. She's the half sister of Mrs. Willis's husband and she sets
great store, she's always saying, by her dead brother's family."
"You don't sound as if you were so terribly pleased," said Mrs.
Hollister shrewdly. "Does she put her nose into things that are no
concern of hers?"
"No, I wouldn't say that for her," answered Winnie. "I don't know as
there is any one thing I can put my finger on. Of course she has
never been in charge of the house before--it will be queer to be
taking orders from her. She's been here off and on, making visits
and she never bothered me. Mrs. Willis, poor dear, went away feeling
sure that the girls would be well looked after and I'd be the last
one to think of disturbing her thoughts. But, between you and me,
Mrs. Hollister, Miss Wright can't manage a family like this. She
just hasn't got it in her."
"You mean the girls are a handful?" suggested Mrs. Hollister. "I
thought as soon as you said she was coming, that a woman without any
children of her own would find it hard trying to look after three
lively girls."
"Children of your own has got nothing to do with it," asserted
Winnie, tossing her head. "I can make any one of the children stand
round, if I give my mind to it, and they're as fond of me as can be.
But remember I say if I give my mind to it--Miss Wright hasn't got
the patience to keep repeating the same thing fifty times and if she
gives an order and they don't pay attention she drops it right
there. I'm not blaming her--she's fat and has plenty of money and
likes to be comfortable; she must be fifty years old, too, and at
her time of life it's only fair to expect to have a little peace.
But I know the Willis family, and giving in to the girls is the
worst thing you can do. I get wore out lots of times and knuckle
down, but Dr. Hugh won't. I've been watching him, the little time
he's been here, and I'll bet he can hold out against even Rosemary."
"I suppose it's her red hair," said Mrs. Hollister vaguely.
"Rosemary is an angel from heaven," declared Winnie, loyally rising
to the defense of the absent. "She's always been the sweetest child
the Lord ever made and when she was a baby I could never bear to
scold her because she'd look at me so sad-like from those big blue
eyes of hers. But Rosemary has the Willis will and the Willis
temper and when she is on her high horse the house won't hold her.
Sooner or later she's going to try to have her way against the young
doctor's orders and then there will be war. All the girls are
getting out of hand now, anyway, what with their mother sick and the
house upset and no regular plan to follow. I caught Sarah yesterday
making her breakfast off of lemonade, raisin pie and fancy cakes."
"She's a queer one, that Sarah," said Mrs. Hollister, chuckling.
"She nearly frightened the little Percey girl into fits showing her
a live snake one afternoon."
"Sarah's got a good heart, if you can find it," declared Winnie,
"but unless you handle her just right, you're in for a peck of
trouble. Rosemary's temper blazes up and burns fierce enough dear
knows, but it burns itself out good and clean and leaves a good
clean ash. Now you take Sarah--she goes into a fit of the sulks and
likely as not she won't speak to anyone in the house for a week."
"She would if she was my child," announced Mrs. Hollister grimly.
"I'd soon shake that out of her."
"It's my private belief that you can't shake anything out of Sarah,
once she makes up her mind to it," said Winnie solemnly. "She's got
the Willis will and that is a caution. Even Shirley, six years old
and looking like a cherub straight from above, even Shirley has got
a temper of her own and as for will--well you try to make that baby
do a thing she says she won't do. The Willis will is something to
reckon with, Mrs. Hollister."
"Why do you keep talking about the Willis will?" asked Mrs.
Hollister with curiosity.
"Because I've lived with it for twenty-eight years and I know all
about it," said Winnie. "Twenty-eight years ago, this spring, have I
lived with this family and in that time I've seen Doctor Hugh grow
from the baby that was laid in my arms into a fine young man with
the Willis will made a help to him instead of a hindrance. Mr.
Willis--you never knew him, he died six months after Shirley was
born and Mrs. Willis has never been the same woman since--had it,
too, and the temper along with it, but he made them both his
servants and himself the master, as the Bible says. Many's the time
I've heard the story of Governor Willis, (his picture hangs in the
hall) and of how he held out against the whole legislature and the
public and proved himself right in the end. Old Judge Willis, the
father of Doctor Hugh's father, once came near being lynched for a
decision he made, but no howling mob could make him retract. As I
tell Mrs. Willis, when she gets to worrying about the strong wills
the girls have, it's worse not to have a mind of your own than to
have too much; I'm not one to preach breaking anyone's will--bend it
the right way, I always say."
"Yes, that sounds all right," admitted Mrs. Hollister who had
listened eagerly, "but I don't know as I'd want to have the bending
of three wills all at once. It strikes me that the young doctor is
going to be pretty busy if he tries to 'tend to 'em all at the same
time. And you say he's going to take Dr. Jordan's practice, too."
"He'll be busy, but he can handle anything," declared Winnie
confidently. "Dr. Hugh was my baby--I took care of him till he was
five years old--and I know he'll manage all right. The girls are
delighted to have a big brother, and they'll try to please him, I
know they will."
"It's funny to say, but he's almost a stranger to them, isn't he?"
said Mrs. Hollister reflectively. "How many years has he been away
from Eastshore?"
"Counting from the time he went away to school, about twelve years,"
answered Winnie. "He came home vacations, of course, but the last
two years he wasn't home at all. He's been studying abroad and Mrs.
Willis was so happy to think he'd be home with her this summer. She
was pleased as could be that he wanted to settle in Eastshore. She's
talked a lot to me, since Mr. Willis died, about what she hoped the
children would do and when Dr. Hugh wrote her that he didn't want to
be a fashionable city doctor and hoped he could do as much good in a
quiet, industrious, uncomplaining way as Doctor Jordan had done
during the forty-five years he's lived in Eastshore, why Mrs. Willis
just about cried she was so happy."
"Well, we never know what's going to happen, do we?" sighed Mrs.
Hollister, beginning to pull on her gloves as she noted that the
plain-faced kitchen clock said quarter of nine. "I'm sure I hope
she'll get the rest she deserves and come home to find nothing bad
has happened."
"Of course she will," Winnie's voice held a faint trace of
indignation. "What do you think is going to happen while she is
gone? With Doctor Hugh and Miss Trudy Wright, to say nothing of me,
around to see to everything, what else do you expect but smooth
sailing?"
"Winnie!"
The kitchen door opened a crack and a dark head poked itself in.
"Winnie, do you care if I take a piece of the chocolate cake from
the buffet closet?" asked Sarah politely. "I'm hungry."
"Your brother says you eat too much cake--go to bed and you'll fall
asleep again and forget that you're hungry," commanded Winnie.
"Can't I have just one piece?" insisted Sarah.
"You can not," said Winnie firmly.
"Well, I thought you'd say that," announced Sarah calmly, "so I
took it first, before I asked you."
"Give it to me this instant," cried Winnie, swooping upon the
small girl.
"Oh, I've eaten it," declared Sarah pleasantly. "I thought you'd
make a fuss."
Winnie looked at Mrs. Hollister, who was moving toward the door.
"All I have to say," said the visitor majestically, "is Heaven help
the young doctor."