The next three days were anxious ones. All plans for the party had been
cancelled, and after school the girls and Tommy hung around Rebecca
feeling that she alone could help them bear the suspense. Jean
occasionally stole away to her mother’s room and looked around to be
sure that everything was as she liked it best, and when she came out
into the wide upper hall she usually met Kit and Doris stealing from
their father’s room, their eyes red from crying.
Tommy hid himself in dark corners, rather like a small puppy trying to
run away from his fears. Kit declared there wasn’t a dry pillow in the
house.
“How about your own self?” Doris asked.
“I cry too, but not all the time. I said before that I don’t intend to
mope around. We’ve got to keep a stiff upper lip if we don’t want to go
to pieces. We must represent the beyondness in feminine efficiency.”
“What does that mean, Kit?” asked Tommy.
Kit gave Tommy a good-natured shove. “Means that we’ve got to keep calm
no matter what happens.”
Jean said little. Ever since she could remember, her mother had said to
her, “You know I rely on you most, dear. You give me reassurance when I
need it most.”
It was a thought that always gave her fresh strength, to know how much
her mother needed her. She was smaller than Kit, slender and with dark
eyes, with a soft look about them.
“Jeannie, you’ve got such sympathetic, interested, mellow eyes.”
“Eyes can’t be mellow, Dorrie, try something else.”
“Well, they are mellow just the same—tender and nice, aren’t they,
Tommy?”
And Tommy would always agree that they were. But they were full of
trouble now, as Jean hurried around the house, following Rebecca’s
direction. Rebecca really did herself proud as chief of operations. Mr.
Craig’s rooms were immaculate and as clear of nonessentials as the deck
of a battleship. Under her orders the girls worked hard, Tommy ran all
the errands she demanded, while Lydia, the Hungarian maid who came in by
the day, regarded her with silent, wide-eyed admiration.
“We’d never have managed without you, Rebecca,” Jean declared when the
final day arrived, and they all gathered in the long living room,
listening for the hum of the car up the drive. Doris and Tommy were
curled up on the wide window seat. Kit paced back and forth restlessly,
and Jean sat with her legs dangling over the arm of her father’s lounge
chair before the open fireplace. She was watching the curling flames.
“Land, child, I don’t see what you want to burn open fires for when you
run a good furnace,” Rebecca had demurred.
“I know it isn’t necessary,” Jean answered, getting up from the chair to
poke at the fire already blazing steadily, “but it’s consoling to watch
an open fire. Don’t you think so, Becky?”
Rebecca sat in the old-fashioned pine rocker, placidly knitting on a
sweater she was making for Tommy.
“We must all hope for the best,” she said, beaming at the anxious faces.
“Doris, for pity’s sake stop that silent drizzling. If your father were
to walk in now, he’d certainly be discouraged to look at you. I feel
just as badly as any of you.” She took off her glasses, that were always
balanced halfway down her nose, and reminisced, “Land, didn’t I live
with him for years after his mother died? That was your own grandmother,
Doris Craig. I’ve still got her spinning wheel up home in the attic. But
I always did say we made too much woe of the passing over of our dear
ones. And for heaven’s sake, your father not gone yet. Smile, even if
your hearts do ache, and cheer him up. Don’t meet him with tears and
fears. Jean, run and tell Lydia to keep an eye on that beef tea while
I’m here. It has to keep simmering. Kit, can’t you keep still for a
minute, or does it ease your mind to keep pacing?”
So she encouraged and cheered them, and when the car came up the
driveway to the porch steps with Mr. and Mrs. Craig, the four children
did their best to look happy. Mr. Craig, wrapped well in the automobile
robe, waved to them, his lean, handsome face showing an eagerness to be
with them once more.
“Hello, my dears,” he called to them. “Becky, God bless you, give me a
hand. I’m still rather shaky.”
They were all trying to kiss him at once, and Tommy held one of his thin
white hands in his strong ones. It did not require the look in their
mother’s eyes to warn them about being careful. Slender and tall, she
stood behind him smiling at them all.
“Why, he doesn’t look nearly so bad as I expected,” Rebecca told her,
kissing her in a motherly way. Somehow it seemed quite natural for all
to pet and comfort Mom. It had been the same when their father had been
in the service; now, more than ever, when the past three months had
shown them the possibilities of trouble and sorrow.
“You mustn’t tire him, girls,” she told them. “Tommy, help your father
upstairs.” He and Becky between them helped Mr. Craig go up, one step at
a time, then a rest before the next. “He must have a chance to recover
from the trip.”
“Land,” Rebecca called back, “I’m so relieved that you didn’t have to
bring him back on a stretcher I can hardly catch my breath.”
“I’m hopeful since he stood the trip so well,” answered Mrs. Craig. She
leaned her head against the back of the big, cushioned chair. Jean
slipped off her coat and Doris took her gloves. Tommy came downstairs
and put a fresh log on the fire and Kit hurried out to the kitchen after
a cup of tea. They all hovered over her, each eager to make her
comfortable. Then suddenly, unable to hold back any longer, she burst
into tears. Jean rushed to her side and pulled her close into her arms.
“Mother darling,” she begged. “Don’t, don’t cry so. Why, you’re home,
and we’re all going to look after him, and help you as much as we can.”
Doris raced out of the room and up the stairs after Rebecca, and
presently she came bustling downstairs, flushed and efficient.
“Why, Margaret Ann,” she cried, smoothing back her hair just as if she
had been one of the children. “Don’t give way just when your strength is
needed most.”
“Please call me Margie,” protested Mrs. Craig, smiling a little. “It
sounds so formal for you to call me Margaret Ann. It always makes me
feel like squaring my shoulders, Becky.”
“So you should, child,” Rebecca declared cheerily. “Margie’s so sort of
gay to my way of thinking and there’s stability to Margaret Ann. Lord
knows, you’re going to need a lot of stability before you find the way
out of this.”
“I know I am.” As she spoke she held her family close to her, Doris and
Tommy kneeling beside her and Jean and Kit on each side. She leaned back
and smiled at them.
“That’s better,” Becky said. “Now you children let her go up to her
room. I have to tend my broth and see how Tom’s coming along. Looks to
me like rest and quiet will carry him through if anything will.”
“Becky!” There was a note of panic in their Mother’s voice. Nobody but
the same unemotional Becky knew how she longed to put her head right
down on that ample bosom and have a good old-fashioned cry. “Becky, the
doctors at the hospital say he’ll never be any better.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed Becky indignantly, with a toss of her
head. “Lots they know about it. I never take any stock in those doctors
at all, Margie. Give me castor oil, some quinine and calomel, and maybe
a little arnica salve for emergencies, and I’ll undertake to help
anybody hang on to themselves a little bit longer. They can keep their
penicillin and sulfa powder and other fancy drugs.”
“But things seem so near a crisis now.”
“Let them.” Rebecca stood with her hands on her hips, as if she were
hurling defiance at somebody, and the family fairly hung on her words.
“Buck up, Margie Craig. As for you, Jean and Kit and Doris and Tommy, if
I find any of you looking doleful, I declare I’ll stick clothespins on
your noses and fasten a smile to your lips with adhesive tape.”
Even without this advice the children were determined to look cheerful
and to keep their father carefree and happy.