The five McAlisters were gathered in the dining-room, one rainy night in
late August. In view of the respective dimensions of the family circle
and the family income, servants were few in the McAlister household, and
division of labor was the order of the day. Old Susan had cleared away
the table and brought in the lamp; then she retired to the kitchen,
leaving the young people to themselves.
Hope was darning stockings. She had one of Hubert's socks drawn on over
her hand, which showed, white and dainty, through the great, ragged
hole. Hubert sat near her with little Allyn on his knee, tiding over a
crisis in the young man's temper by showing him pictures in the
dilapidated Mother Goose which had done duty for successive McAlisters,
from seventeen-year-old Hope down.
"Stop kicking brother," he commanded, as Allyn lifted up his voice and
his heels in vigorous protest against things in general, and the
approach of the sandman in particular. "Listen, Allyn,--
'There was a little man,
And he had a little gun,
And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead.'"
Theodora appeared on the threshold of the great china closet, where she
was washing the cups and plates. She had a dish-cloth in one hand and
three or four spoons in the other.
"You don't put enough emphasis into it, Hu," she said mockingly. "This
is the way it should sound, like this,--
'There was a little cow,
And it had a little calf,
And it wouldn't ever go to bed, bed, bed.'
Never mind, Allyn, sister will come in a few minutes and put your
nightie on. Oh, Babe, I wish you'd hurry and put away these dishes."
But Babe, baptismally known as Phebe, was engaged in tickling Allyn's
toes, with the praiseworthy intention of making him kick the harder.
Accordingly, she was deaf to the voice of Theodora, who was forced to
put away the cups herself. She did it with a bumping impatience,
grumbling the while.
"I do wish that everlasting old Susan would wash these things. The idea
of my being tied to a dish-pan, all my days, and Babe never will help a
bit! It's not fair." She set down a cup with a protesting whack which
threatened to wreck its handle.
"Oh, Teddy?" Hubert called, from the next room.
"Well?" Her face cleared, as it always did at the voice of her twin
brother.
"Drop something?"
"No. Wish I had. I'd like to throw this dish-pan into the street."
"'Most through?"
"Never shall be. Do put Allyn down and come to help me."
He settled the child, book and all, in a corner of the old haircloth
sofa which ran across the end of the room, and, with his hands in his
pockets, he sauntered into the china closet and sat down on the little
step-ladder that stood there, ready to lead to an ascent to the upper
shelves.
"What's the matter, to-night, Teddy?" he asked, sympathetically
tweaking the end of her long brown pigtail.
"The weather, I think," she replied, as she threw a dish-towel at him.
"I don't like to wash dishes, and I don't like rainy days, and I don't
like--"
"Nothin' nor nobody. Never mind filling up the list. You've a crick in
your temper, that's all. It will be gone in the morning. Here, give me a
towel, and I'll help wipe."
It was a service he had often performed before. The twins were close
friends, and some of their most confidential talks had been held over
the steaming dish-water. They finished their task together; then Hubert
linked his arm in that of his sister and came out into the dining-room,
where Hope, with the stocking still drawn on over her hand, was vainly
trying to rescue Allyn from the torments imposed on him by Phebe.
"Don't, Babe," she urged. "Don't you see how it makes him cry? Why can't
you let him alone? He is always cross at bedtime."
"So are you," Phebe retorted defiantly. "When she comes, Hope McAlister,
I do hope she'll give it to you good."
Hope flushed, and her sensitive chin quivered a little.
"Let's hope not," she said gently. "Do be quiet, there's a dear Babe. It
is almost your bedtime."
"But I sha'n't go to bed," proclaimed Phebe rebelliously.
"Phebe!"
Experience had taught her that Sister Hope, gentle as she was, must be
obeyed when she spoke in that tone, and Phebe sullenly yielded to the
inevitable and became quiet.
Meanwhile, Theodora had pounced upon Allyn, caught him up in her strong
young arms, cuddled his fluffy yellow head against her cheek, and gone
away upstairs, whither Phebe followed them with a crushing dignity which
sought for no good-night kiss. Hubert cast himself down on the old sofa
and fell to rummaging his sister's basket. He smiled a little, as she
showed him the vast hole in the toe of his sock; but it was some minutes
before he spoke. Then he said slowly,--
"Never mind, Hope. It's in the air, and we all feel it."
He was silent again. Upstairs, they could hear the _tap_, _tap_ of
Teddy's energetic heels, as she moved to and fro, settling the two
children for the night. Then she was still, while Allyn's shrill,
childish treble rose in his evening petition,--
"Now I lay me down a shleep,
I tray a Lo' la tol a teep,
I ta die afo' I wake,
Tray a Lo' la tol a take.
It I at a Jedu' shlake. A-nen!"
Ten minutes later, she came back to the dining-room and threw herself
down on the sofa, with her head on Hubert's knee and her elbow in the
orderly work-basket.
"Do you know," she said abruptly; "I think our venerable father is a
goose."
"Teddy!" Hope's tone was remonstrant.
"I can't help it, if it isn't respectful; I do. He's lived long enough
to know better, and he ought to be put to bed without his supper, even
if it is his wedding day." She started up, to add emphasis to her words;
but Hubert seized her two long braids of hair and drew her head down on
his knee again.
"Calm yourself, Teddy," he said, bending forward to peer into her face.
"You are worse than the children. I told Hope that it was in the air,
to-night."
"Why shouldn't it be?" she demanded. "Here are we, three grown-up
children, sitting in a row at home and knowing that, this very evening,
our own father is being married to a stranger. It's horrid."
"It may not be so bad, Teddy," Hope said consolingly, as she rolled up
Hubert's socks in a ball and tossed them at her brother. "You know we
saw her once and we all liked her."
"That was before we knew what was going on. You may think a person is
pretty and nice and all that; but that doesn't mean you want her for a
mother."
"I don't believe she'll be so bad," Hubert observed judicially. "She's
been to college and she knows a good deal, and she's pretty and not
easily shocked. Don't you remember how she laughed at Babe's awful
speeches?"
"I remember just how she looked," Hope said. "She must have been amused
at our innocence. I don't see why the reason never struck us that we
were all dragged over to the hotel to see her."
"Because we had some respect for papa," Theodora said tartly. "I don't
see why he needs to go and get married again, and I won't say I'm glad
to see her, when she comes. There!"
"Ted is afraid that Madame will make her toe the mark," Hubert said
teasingly. "You've had your own way too long, Miss Teddy, and now you
will have to come to terms. Isn't that about the truth of it?"
The clock struck eight, and Hope raised her head.
"Listen," she said. "Isn't it a strange feeling that now, in the middle
of the lights and the music and the wedding march, papa, our own father,
is being married, while we sit here just as we always do?"
The three young faces grew grave at the thought, Hope's with the sweet
romance of her years, Hubert's with interest, and Theodora's with open
rebellion. For some time they sat there, silent. Then Hope spoke, with
the evident design of changing the subject.
"Does anybody know about the new people on the corner?"
"Only what papa said, that it's a woman and her son. She's a widow, her
husband was killed in the Massawan bridge accident, and the son terribly
hurt."
"Have they come?"
"Yes, I saw them yesterday," Hubert said.
"What are they like?" Hope and Theodora asked in a breath.
"They were driving past the post-office, when I went after the noon
mail. They went by so fast I couldn't see much, though."
"How did you know who it was?" Theodora inquired, rolling over till she
could look up into her brother's face.
"Mr. Saunders asked me if I knew they were our new neighbors. They came
Tuesday, but they stayed at the hotel till yesterday morning, while the
house was being put in order."
"What did they look like?" Teddy demanded.
"Like all the rest of the world, as far as I could see."
"Stop teasing, Hu, and tell us," Hope urged.
"Really, I don't know much about them," Hubert returned, with an air of
lazy indifference. "Look out, Ted, you're tipping over Hope's basket.
One would think we'd never had any new neighbors before, from the way
you act."
"We haven't, for ages. Tell us, Hu, there's a dear, what are they like?"
"I honestly didn't have a chance to see them, Ted. She's tall and
pretty, and has a lot of fuzzy light red hair."
"Of course she was in mourning," Hope said.
"Yes, I suppose so. At least, she had a pile of black stuff hanging down
her back. I don't see why women should pin a black shawl over their
heads, when somebody dies; but then--"
"How old is the son?" Theodora interrupted.
"About our ages, I should say."
"Did he look ill?" Hope asked pitifully.
"No; only pale."
"What's the matter with him, anyway?" Theodora inquired, as she reached
out for her brother's hand and fell to playing with his slender brown
fingers.
"Papa told me he was jammed into a corner, with a lot of stuff on top of
him, and his back is hurt so he can't walk."
"Ugh!" Theodora wriggled. "How horrid! Won't he get over it?"
"Sometime; but it will take a good while."
"How did they happen to come here?" Hope said.
"They wanted to move into the country. Dr. Parker is their regular
doctor, and he advised them to try papa, so they came here to be near
him. Papa told me, on the way to the station, the day he went. He had a
great, thick letter from Dr. Parker all about it."
"And so they are really in the house. It has been empty so long that I
can't realize it," Hope observed thoughtfully. "Of course, if he were a
girl, it would make more difference to us."
"I don't see why," Theodora said, as she pulled off the ribbon from one
of her braids, and untied the bow.
"Why, because--Don't you see? He can't come to us, and we can't go
there; that is, none of us but Hu."
"I don't see why," Theodora said again.
"It wouldn't be proper," Hope said primly. "You can't go to call on a
boy, Teddy. Hu will go over, in a day or two, though."
"Not if he knows himself," Hubert returned. "I don't like freaks. They
make me squirmy, and I never know what to say to them."
"Then you're a pig," Theodora answered, with Saxon frankness. "It won't
be decent, if we don't try to make it pleasant for him. He's a stranger
to everybody, and shut up so he can't have any fun."
"I really think you ought to go, Hu," Hope said gently.
"I don't hanker to," he returned laughingly. "Let Ted go, if she wants
to."
"But she is a girl--" Hope began.
"Not more than half," Hubert interrupted, with a laughing grimace at his
twin sister, who stood by the sofa, looking scornfully down at them.
"You can do as you like, you two," she said. "It isn't a question of
whether it's proper or not; it is simple human kindness, and as soon as
I can, Hope McAlister, I intend to get acquainted with him. You've got
to go over there, Hu, and take me with you, just as soon as papa comes
home." She tied her ribbon with a defiant jerk.
Rather to her surprise, Hubert came to her support.
"You're all right, Teddy; go ahead. If papa is willing, Hope, I don't
see why she can't go to see him whenever she feels like it. It isn't in
my line. I always feel as if people smashed up in that way ought to sing
hymns all the time, and talk about Heaven. That's the way they do in
Sunday-school books, you know, and they never have tempers and things.
I shouldn't know what to say to that kind of a fellow, and I should only
make a mess of it; but if Ted wants to play the good Samaritan to him,
let her. For my part, I like whole people, or none at all." He squared
his shoulders and took a deep, full breath, as he spoke, in all the
pride of his boyish strength.
"We're bound to see a good deal of him anyway," Theodora urged, a shade
less hotly. "Right next door and a patient of papa's, it would be queer
not to pay any attention to him. He's all alone, too, and there are such
a lot of us. I don't want to do anything out-of-the-way, Hope, but I do
wish we could get acquainted with him."
"Wait till papa comes home, dear," Hope said, with the gentleness which
had gained her so many victories over her tempestuous young sisters.
"That will only be two or three weeks, and he will know what is the best
thing to do."
"Maybe, unless the new Madame is a prig," Theodora said restively. "She
may be worse than you are, Hope; but I doubt it. Never mind," she added
sagely to herself, as she left the room; "it is two weeks till then, and
there's plenty of chance for things to happen, before they get home."