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THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE
* * * * * *
OTHER BOOKS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
[Illustration: decoration]
_Loyal Blue and Royal Scarlet_
_The Wyndham Girls_
_Miss Lochinvar_
* * * * * *
[Illustration: _So the mowing began, Prue preceding._]
THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE
by
MARION AMES TAGGART
[Illustration: logo]
Frontispiece by Ethel Franklin Betts
New York
McClure, Phillips & Co.
MCMIV
Copyright, 1904, by
McClure, Phillips & Co.
Published, October, 1904
TO
ANNA WENTWORTH HECKER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ITS CHILDREN 3
II. ITS NEIGHBORS 17
III. ITS MASTER 33
IV. ITS RELATIVES 48
V. ITS BLITHE DAYS 64
VI. ITS HARD DAYS 80
VII. ITS MENACE 98
VIII. ITS MAKESHIFTS 115
IX. ITS BURDEN 132
X. ITS POSSIBILITIES 149
XI. ITS HOPE 166
XII. ITS TRAGIC SIDE 181
XIII. ITS DANGER 196
XIV. ITS BRAVE DAUGHTER 208
XV. ITS RESCUE 224
XVI. ITS LIBERATION 240
XVII. ITS SUNSHINE 254
THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE
CHAPTER ONE
ITS CHILDREN
"I am going to cut that grass--try to cut it, I mean--before I'm an
hour older," said Roberta Grey, drawing on an old pair of her father's
dog-skin gloves with a do-or-die-in-the-attempt air that was at once
inspiring and convincing. "This whole place looks like an illustrated
edition of 'How Plants Grow'--Grey. We've got to cut the grass or
put up a sign: To Find the House Walk Northward Through the Prairie.
Signed, Sylvester Grey. Will you help, Wythie and Prue?"
Oswyth, the eldest daughter, a year the senior of sixteen-year-old
Roberta, looked up with her pleasant smile. "Help walk northward
through the prairie, help find the house, or help cut the grass, Rob?"
she asked.
"Help cut the grass, and the rest won't be necessary," laughed Rob.
"Come on! I've borrowed Aunt Azraella's lawn-mower, though I truly
believe I might as well have borrowed the cheese-scoop--that grass is
too old and tough to bow down to a mere lawn-mower."
Prue, being but fourteen, jumped up with alacrity to accept Rob's
invitation, but Oswyth laid down her sewing and arose with a reluctant
sigh--she was not fond of violent exercise, and the afternoon sun was
still warm.
The three girls stood a few moments on the low door-step, letting the
breeze pleasantly flutter their gingham dresses and lift their ribbons,
before setting to their difficult task. The same breeze blew the tall
grass which Roberta longed to lay low in undulating ripples like those
in the blue and pink fabrics, which drifted into the picture like
cornflowers and poppies. The feathery sprays of the millet and red-top,
the wands of the timothy were so pretty as they bowed and swayed that,
although they were so lawless and rank, it seemed almost a pity to cut
them. Oswyth thought so, but Roberta felt no misgivings--except of her
own strength.
The little grey house stood well back from the street under splendid
trees, set in the midst of a place so wholly disproportioned to its
size that it looked in the present unkempt condition of the grounds not
unlike a little island of grey rock, entirely surrounded by turbulent
and billowy green water.
Everybody called it "the little grey house," and the name was doubly
appropriate, since it did not matter whether one capitalized and
emphasized the adjective, and spoke of it as "the little _Grey_ house,"
or left to the adjective its natural function, and spoke of the tiny
home as "the little grey _house_." For, as to color, it could not
well have been greyer. It had once--not recently--been painted grey,
but wind and weather had stripped it of its artificial greyness while
tinting its clapboards into soft, indelible tints even more conformable
to its title.
And, for the rest, Sylvester Grey lived there, as had his forebears for
three generations preceding him--all Greys from the beginning. People
said that it was "a good thing that Sylvester Grey had had a home left
him, for he never could have earned one."
It was true that Mr. Grey had never been able to make much money, nor
to keep what little he did make. "He was as good a man as ever lived,"
people said again, "but he had no faculty." And to lack "faculty" was,
indeed, to lack much.
It puzzled and--of course--worried the community in which they lived
to know "how the Greys got on." Mrs. Grey could have enlightened it had
she chosen, but she did not choose. She hardly realized, however, how
much of the explanation lay in her own personality, her mere existence.
For she--great-hearted, large-souled woman--had "faculty" enough for
two; which was fortunate, as she had to contrive for five.
There was a little income--very slender--of her own, and for the rest
she "managed." She had been a Winslow, of Mayflower descent, and Aunt
Azraella Winslow, Mrs. Grey's brother's widow--herself a Brown--said,
with mingled approval and commiseration, that "when one of us, of the
old stock, sets a hand to the plough the corn grows."
Sylvester Grey was a dreamer, handsome, frail, sensitive, and clever.
Sometimes his teeming brain brought practical results to his family,
but these crystallizations of genius were rarer than was comfortable.
Mr. Grey was perfecting a machine for making bricquettes. There was not
a very clear notion in his town--Fayre--what this meant, but it was
understood vaguely to be a machine which transformed the coal-dust and
waste of the mines into solid little bricks for fuel. Aunt Azraella
said "it was exactly like Sylvester to moon over coal-dust while Mary
needed kindling-wood."
Oswyth, the oldest girl, whom he had named out of his delight in old
Saxon sounds, loved her father tenderly, without understanding him;
Prue, petted, pretty little Prue, young for her years, loved him a
trifle impatiently, but Roberta, daring, ambitious, active Roberta,
loved the dreaming father passionately, and understood that he could
not feel the present pinch when visions of a greater good lured him
on, understood further that no personal pinch appealed to him very
strongly when science led him into her fairyland, and he felt himself
her servant. And Roberta alone, of all who loved him, understood the
invention to which he was giving his days and many nights, and she
believed enthusiastically that some time the bricquette machine would
make the family fortune and her father's glory. Yet sometimes her high
courage failed, and when the makeshifts and deprivations to which the
Greys were condemned bore most heavily upon her she could not help
acknowledging--though only to herself--that the happy time was sadly
long in coming.
But it was not one of these disheartening days when she set out to cut
the grass, and Rob's heart was as gay within her as a sixteen-year-old
heart should be, as she looked out on the field which she meant to make
a field of victory.
Her bright, dark eyes, which were always flashing with as many changing
expressions as there were minutes in the day, danced with mischief; her
rippling mouth and chin--Rob's face was all ripples--looked as though
the July breeze were playing with them as it played with the lush
grass. With both hands she pushed back her dark hair--full of gleams
of red and gold in the sunshine--as she ran down the steps and around
the corner to fetch the borrowed lawn-mower, for Rob's hair was forever
breaking its orderly braided bounds and turning into rakish odds and
ends of curls about her brow and ears. She came back triumphantly,
pushing the lawn-mower around the corner, and it rattled on the old
flagged walk as she tipped it up on its rear wheels and dodged the box
bordering the paths.
"Who's first?" she cried. "Age and muscle, or beauty and babyhood?"
"B. and B.," said Prue, unblushingly owning up to both facts as one
well acquainted with the value of her big dark eyes and contrasting
veil of golden hair, and one made thoroughly to realize that she was
the youngest. "Give it to me, Rob; I want the first cut."
"'Give me the dagger!' Here you are, then, Lady Macbeth. You'll find
the first cut anything but tender--you speak as if it were turkey." And
Rob gave the mower-handle into Prue's eager fingers.
Prue ran lightly down the flagged walk with her prize. "I shall begin
at the gate," she announced, "so if we don't quite finish it to-day
people who go by can see we are beginning to get our grass cut."
Oswyth laughed and groaned. "Finish it to-day! Cut the whole place!"
she exclaimed.
Oswyth, with her sweet, placid face, smooth, shining brown hair, calm
blue eyes and quiet lips, was unlike either of the others. Pretty she
was in her demure way, and no one minded if her soft cheeks were a bit
too plump, since their tint was really the "peaches and cream" of which
we read. Wythie was a most womanly and wholesome little woman, the sort
of girl one sees at first glance must comfort the mother who possesses
her.
Prue, undismayed by Wythie's dismay, turned the lawn-mower sharply to
the right for her first bold plunge into the grass--and stopped. The
dry, stout stalks resisted her onslaught, and the little girl pushed,
pulled back, pushed again, bending over the handle till her flying,
golden hair fell forward into the yellowing grass, but the machine
would not stir. Prue dropped the handle, straightened her slender form,
and, with one movement of both hands, disclosing a face already flushed
and speckled by her efforts, threw back her hair and threw up the game.
"I can't budge it, Rob!" she panted. "No one could."
"Want to try, Wythie, or shall I?" asked Rob.
"Want to? I don't quite see why anyone should want to," said Oswyth,
"but I suppose we each must, so here goes." And she heroically came
forward to take her turn, laying her dimpled and well-cushioned little
pink palms on the cross-bar of the handle somewhat gingerly.
She cut a glorious though short swath of four feet in length, happening
on more tender grass, and having more strength than Prue, but here
she, too, met her Waterloo, for the mower stood still, balking as
effectually as all the donkeys in Ireland.
"There's no use in your taking it, Rob," Wythie gasped, after turning
hither and thither with no result. "If you cut a few feet it would be
the most that you could do, and what difference would it make out of so
much?"
"You don't suppose I'll yield without striking a blow?" cried Roberta,
darting at the lawn-mower as if she were no further removed from Samson
than his great-granddaughter at most. "I have meant to cut this grass
for ages--it shows that," she added, laughing. "Besides, it always
matters a lot to me to be beaten. 'Men o' Harlech, in the hollow!'"
Rob began singing the splendid Welsh battle-song as she in turn laid
hold of the handle, as if she should not only succeed, but have breath
to spare for a war-cry.
Roberta was slender, taller that Oswyth, but her young muscles were
strong and well-poised, and to whatever task she essayed she brought
an excess of nerve-power that rarely failed to bear her to victory
on the very crest of the wave. She attacked the tough grass now with
such enthusiasm that the balking lawn-mower yielded to her as most
things did, and ran along quite meekly for a little while. But then
it stopped, and when it did stop not Cleopatra's galley, buried under
centuries of Nile mud, was more motionless than was Aunt Azraella's
lawn-mower.
Rob pushed and pulled as both her sisters had pushed and pulled,
losing her patience as she did so.
"No good, Bobs," said Prue, laconically and a trifle maliciously, for
the family only nicknamed Rob "Bobs," after Lord Roberts, Kipling's
"Bobs Bahadur," in allusion to her indomitable pluck and generalship,
and used the name in moments of triumph, of which this was scarcely one.
Roberta pushed away her rebellious locks with the back of a slightly
grimy hand.
"If I only had a scythe!" she murmured. "No machine can get through
this jungle--I feared as much. I'd mow it if I had a scythe, though!"
"Now, Rob, you mustn't so much as think of one!" said Wythie,
decidedly. "You know Mardy would be frantic if you were to swing one
just once--you're so reckless! Promise you won't get one."
"I solemnly pledge myself to abstain from all intoxicating and entirely
inaccessible scythes," said Rob, holding up both hands. "Where in the
world should I get one, Wythie?"
"You always get anything you set your heart on," said Wythie, somewhat
loosely, yet speaking from her knowledge of her sister.
"Do I? Then it must be that I set my heart on very little," interjected
Rob.
"Would Mr. Flinders cut it?" suggested Prue.
"Even an infant must realize how very sharey Mr. Flinders is in
carrying on the place on shares, Prudence, my child," said Rob,
gravely. "He may be honest in giving us our third of the vegetables
for the use of the land, but I always suspect him of opening the
lettuce-heads and rolling them up again to make sure ours haven't more
leaves than his."
"Oh, you know Mr. Flinders won't do one thing extra, Prue," said
Oswyth, hastily, fearing Prue might resent being called an infant.
"He could have the grass for his horse," said Prue.
"'A merciful man regardeth the life of his beast,' Prudy," said Rob.
"Our grass is half daisy-stalks, half chicory, half dandelions, half
some other things--pigweed, probably--and the other half _may_ be
grass."
Both her sisters laughed. "You always were strong in fractions, Rob,"
said Oswyth.
"Had to practise the most fractional fractions ever since I was
born--why shouldn't I be? There come those new Rutherford boys down
the street," said Rob, as three tall figures, arms locked, marching
abreast at a good pace, swung into sight at the head of the street.
"They seemed nice when we met them the other day; I wish they'd say
they'd cut our grass."
"I thought you scorned to admit boys' superiority in anything, Rob,"
said Wythie, slyly.
"I don't admit it; I only act on it--if I have to," said Rob.
"Why don't you wish we could afford to hire a man to keep the place
decent, like other people, while you're wishing?" asked Prue, rather
bitterly.
"Because I don't see the use of wishing for what you can never have,"
said Rob, quickly.
"We can't be rich--not till Patergrey gets the bricquette machine
done--and since it's impossible, why, it's impossible. But it would be
perfectly possible for those big creatures to swing scythes and get
this grass mown in short order--it would be rather a lark for them. And
if it ever does get cut, and I don't keep it short with Aunt Azraella's
mower, then it will be because I've forgotten the art of wheedling that
beloved lady into lending it."
"How did you get it this time?" asked Oswyth.
"Talked Mayflower and Pilgrim Rock--it never fails," said Rob. "She
thinks now there was a Brewster in her family, and that probably
through him she goes back to glory. And you know what Mardy let slip
one day about the parental Brown and his remarkably good cobbling!
Poor Aunt Azraella! It must be painful to miss the dead in the way she
does! Miss having had ancestors to die. Though I don't know why good
honest cobbling isn't as good as lots of things they did in colonial
days--better than the spelling, for instance. Mercy, those boys are
almost here! Is my hair too crazy, and have I grass stains on my nose,
Wythie?"
"I don't think it's right to run down our posterity," said Prue,
pulling her ribbons and spreading her hair rapidly. "I'm very proud
of my descent." And before Oswyth could suggest that she did not
mean posterity, three straw hats arose in the air, revealing three
flushed, handsome, boyish faces, and three cheery voices called:
"Good-afternoon, Miss Oswyth, Miss Rob, Miss Prue."
And the oldest Rutherford boy--he looked nearly eighteen--added: "Are
you farming?"
"We're harming--our tempers," cried Rob. "Also a borrowed lawn-mower."
"Won't you come in and rest?" added Oswyth. "You look warm."
"We've been up to the river swimming; it's pretty warm in the sun,
walking fast. What's wrong with your tempers? Maybe we'd better keep
out." But as he spoke the eldest boy opened the low gate, and they all
came in.
Oswyth led the way to the house, and Prue and the youngest Rutherford
were dispatched for chairs to set on the lawn, for the little grey
house had been built before the day of piazzas. Before the six young
people were fairly settled a figure in white appeared in the doorway,
smiling invitingly over a big tray laden with glasses, some plain
cookies, and the beautiful old glass pitcher, of which the Greys were
so proud, full of lemonade and tinkling with ice.
"Oh, that's Mardy all over--always thinking of something for us!" cried
Oswyth, as she and Rob sprang forward to relieve their mother of her
burden.
CHAPTER TWO
ITS NEIGHBORS
"Won't you come and see the new Rutherford boys, Mardy? We met them at
Frances Silsby's the other night," said Roberta, as she took the tray
from her mother, while Oswyth took the pitcher.
The three tall lads arose as Mrs. Grey came toward them. "Dear me!" she
smiled. "I never would dream you were _new_ Rutherford boys if I espied
you at a distance, but quite old ones. I am glad to see you."
"We are glad to be here," said the oldest boy, shaking heartily the
motherly hand held out to him, and smiling back into the kindly eyes
which always won young things, quadruped or biped, and were especially
attractive to a motherless lad. "I am Basil Rutherford, this is my
second mate, Bruce, and this my little baby brother Bartlemy. Stand up
straight, Tom Thumb, and ask Mrs. Grey if she doesn't think you ought
to be put in an incubator. We're so afraid we won't be able to raise
him," added Basil, with a tragic glance at the girls.
Fifteen-year-old Bartlemy stood erect to his full six feet one of
height, and grinned with the helpless good-nature of a frequent victim.
The Rutherfords were very much alike, brown-skinned, brown-haired,
blue-eyed boys, with honesty and kindliness shining from their fine
faces. Mrs. Grey made up her mind about them on the spot--as she
usually did on meeting strangers. "Nice creatures!" she thought, and
laughed as she surveyed Bartlemy.
"I doubt that you could raise him--unaided," she said. And the boys, in
their turn, mentally labelled her: "Nice woman."
"But none of you is precisely stunted," added Mrs. Grey, looking up
from her own considerable altitude into Basil's, and then into Bruce's
face, both of which topped her by several inches.
"Bruce is five feet eleven, good measure, and I am five feet ten," said
Basil. "All the Rutherfords grow rank."
"Like our grass," added Roberta, who had been quiet as long as she
could be. "There's nothing but length--and poor quality--to the grass,
though," she added, with a wicked look, to which she served an
immediate antidote by pouring lemonade into the three rapidly emptying
glasses.
"You are new neighbors, I think," said Mrs. Grey, calmly removing
a caterpillar from her cuff, and thereby rising high in Bartlemy's
estimation, who was an embryo naturalist and scorned nerves.
"We're here for a time--we came three weeks ago. We've taken the
Caldwell place, and our guardian put us here with a tutor to get ready
for college," said Basil. "I'm in my eighteenth year, but I'd like to
wait for Bart if I could. And he's not as stupid as he looks--we think
we can enter together in a year; we'd like to keep on side by side as
long as we can--we've done it so far."
"How pleasant that is to hear!" cried Mrs. Grey, heartily. "I'm sure
you'll gain far more than you lose by waiting. You speak as though you
were alone; are you boys all there are in the family?"
"Our father is alive," said Basil, "but he is in the navy, and he's
usually about the farthest father I know--just now he's in Japan
for two years more. Our mother died when Bart was six. We wish she
hadn't--" Basil stopped short. He had no idea that he was going to say
this, but the look that sprang into Mrs. Grey's eyes when he alluded to
his mother's loss had slightly upset him.
Mrs. Grey understood. "I wish that she could have stayed to be proud
of her three tall sons," she said. "But perhaps Wythie and Rob and
Prue can coax you here to share in the mother feeling. We're fond of
motherliness in the little grey house, Basil, and we do have good
times in it. I must run away, or there will be a sad time in it when
the girls come in hungry. They will tell you about our little grey
house and its Grey denizens. Will you come often, and help us have
good times?" She included the three lads in her warm glance, and quick
affection leaped back at her from the three pairs of dark blue eyes.
Mrs. Grey mothered everything that came near her, being one of the sort
of women with a genuine talent for loving. She longed to bless and
protect all creation, and fell to planning as she spoke how to give
these motherless lads the womanly sympathy they must want in their
setting out on the battle of life.
"Indeed, we will come," said Bruce, speaking suddenly and for the first
time.
"You're very good, Mrs. Grey," said Basil, quietly, but he pressed
her hand till it ached, and she knew that he had read aright and would
accept her invitation.
"The Greys," began Roberta, in a perfectly dispassionate, narrative
tone, as her mother went toward the house, "are exceedingly nice
people--I can truly say I know none whom I like better. They are of
most ancient, trailing arbutus descent----"
"Rob!" ejaculated Oswyth, reproachfully, not knowing how their new
acquaintances would take this nonsense.
"Fact! Isn't the trailing arbutus the Mayflower?" said Rob, unabashed.
"It's a more appropriate name, too, because the descendants of the
Pilgrims have 'trailed clouds of glory as they came,' like the soul
in Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality--I trust you have heard of
Wordsworth, little boys? If you doubt that the Greys are of Mayflower
descent on the maternal side, just go ask their aunt-in-law, Azraella
Winslow."
"Oh, Rob; how can you?" cried Oswyth, distressed.
"Why, that's true, Wythie; they won't have to ask her, will they?" said
Rob, innocently.
"No, don't ask; just listen. Well, the Greys are poor, but
respectable. I hope that they are very respectable, for I can testify
from accurate knowledge that they are very poor. They have lots of
books, worn shabby, but as good as ever, and the two oldest girls study
hard at home--as well as they can--but the youngest they contrive to
keep at school. The second daughter is digging away at German alone,
and she wishes that everything wasn't divided off into masculine and
feminine genders, like a Quaker meeting. However, my brethren, this is
not history--only natural history, maybe. To return to the Grey Annals:
The dear father Grey is a genius, and he is inventing something so
clever and valuable that one day the Greys will be rich. The darling
mother Grey is perfect, and a heroine, and nobody on earth could
love her enough. The Grey girls help her do the housework, and they
economize--economize _terrific_! But they do have fun, and they're
happy, and when you came along they were economically trying to cut
their own grass, under the rash leadership of the second daughter, and
the grass would not succumb to a mower. And that brings my story right
up to date--it may be continued in our next issue."
The Rutherford boys evidently understood perfectly how to take Roberta;
there was no occasion for Oswyth's anxiously puckered brow, nor Prue's
flushed cheeks and mortified look. All three boys recognized pluck
and admired it in the brief outline sketch of the Greys which Rob had
given them. Bruce especially, Rob's senior by half a year, as Basil was
Wythie's, liked the spirit which she displayed, and which was largely
his own sort of courage.
"Our next issue is now ready for the press," he said. "The three
Rutherfords--all B's, and so naturally inclined to be busy--were coming
down the road as the Grey girls struggled with the stalled mower, and
resolved to rescue the brave damsels. High and low they sought till
they had found three scythes, or scythes and sickles. Armed with these
they marched down upon the grey house, cut the grass with wild hallos,
and returned triumphant to the Caldwell place. Come on, Bas; hurry up,
Bart; we'll shave the grey place clean."
"Oh, you three long angels!" cried Rob, starting up rapturously as the
three Rutherfords arose to carry out Bruce's suggestion with prompt
enthusiasm. "I said when I saw you coming that I wished you'd cut this
tough grass for us, but I never thought of it again. Wait a minute; I
want to speak to Mardy."
She darted to the house and came flying back again from around the rear
corner before the others had time to wonder why she had gone.
"It's all right; I knew she'd say yes," Rob panted. "Come to-morrow
afternoon, if you really want to do it, and we'll ask Frances down,
and have some sort of supper on the newly shaved lawn, among the
sweet-smelling grass--even this weedy grass will be fragrant, newly
mown. Will you do that?"
"It will be great!" said the boys, heartily. "Of course we'll come."
And they bade the Grey girls good-by, with much satisfaction in their
first call.
"Nice girls," said Basil, as they swung up the road, the tallest,
Bartlemy, in the middle, an arm resting on each tall brother's
shoulder. "Which is the nicest?"
"Hard to say," began Bartlemy, but Bruce cut him short with decision,
saying:
"Prue's as pretty as a picture; Oswyth's pretty, too, though not as
pretty, and she's a lady, but Rob's a dandy! She's got go and pluck,
and did you ever see such a face for crinkling up? I had to watch it;
you couldn't tell what it would do next--pretty, she is too--splendid
eyes and hair."
The girls echoed the boys' favorable opinion of them, and it was
re-echoed that night at bedtime between the large room which Oswyth
and Roberta shared and the small one Prue occupied in solitary dignity.
The Greys were early astir on the following morning, for "the
mowing-bee of the B's," as Rob called it, entailed extra labor, well
worth it though it was.
Supper, when one does not consider expense, is a simple enough problem,
but supper when there is little to spend means expenditure of strength
instead of money.
Mrs. Grey cut the thinnest slices of her own famous bread, buttered
it perfectly, and set it away in the ice-chest while she made egg
sandwiches and chopped crispy lettuce out of the garden--lettuce which
did not look--in spite of Rob's suspicion--as though the farmer who
carried on the Grey garden on shares had "unrolled it to count its
leaves."
"Jenny Lind cake," quite good enough for anyone--provided it is eaten
very fresh--may be made with one egg. Oswyth beat up two of these
cakes, and into one stirred juicy blueberries, while the other she
baked in jelly-tins, and iced and filled with caramel filling.
Rob and Prue carried out the table and set it on the lawn. The little
grey house was well filled with old blue and white china, odds and
ends of pink and white also, queer, dainty sprigged cups and saucers,
and rare old pewter which it was Oswyth's joy to keep bright. So the
table when decked looked really beautiful, and the girls surveyed it
with pride, knowing that more sumptuous suppers than theirs there might
be, but few more attractive, and they trusted to their own gayety to
secure it one of the jolliest. Frances Silsby came down early. She was
Oswyth's and Rob's--more particularly Rob's--one intimate friend; the
Grey girls were too sufficient to themselves to need outsiders. She
found them hurrying over their dressing, having scrambled the dinner
dishes away, for the laborers were sure to arrive early.
The gowns the girls wore were not only simple in themselves, but had
done good service and showed in many places their mother's artistic
darning. But they were becoming lawns, and when the laughing young
faces came up through their fresh ruffles, and the soft, gathered
waists settled around the young figures, Oswyth was as sweet in her
pale blue, Roberta as brilliant in her rose pink, and Prue as pretty in
her snowy white as new gowns could have made them--and, fortunately,
were quite as happy.
The strains of the anvil-chorus floated down the street before Rob and
Prue were ready--Oswyth managed always to be ready--and the clash of
anvils was marked by the click of scythes. Looking out, the girls saw
the Rutherfords, three abreast, as usual, implements over shoulders and
flashing in the sunshine, bearing down on the little grey house.
"Oh, hurry, Rob; give me my stick-pin, Wythie--they're coming!" cried
Prue.
"Don't wear your stick-pin, Prue; you're sure to lose it out of that
thin stuff. Take my bow-knot-pin," said Wythie, proffering it.
"Oh, that old-fashioned thing! Well, I suppose boys won't know--I'll
take it, Wythie. Ready, Rob?" cried Prue.
"Would be if my shoe-lacing hadn't come untied, and I stepped on it and
broke it. I wouldn't dare tell anyone what I thought of shoe-lacings!"
cried Rob, trying to tie the broken string with fingers that quivered
with impatience.
"Let me, Rob; you're too crazy," said Frances, kneeling before her
friend.
Rob resigned herself with a sigh. "Blessings on thee, little Fan," she
said. "Please go down, Wythie and Prue. Tell the boys we'll be there
just as soon as we finish singing 'Blest be the tie that binds.'"
Wythie and Prue departed laughing, and Rob and Frances followed very
soon.
"Where shall we begin?" asked Bruce, after greetings were over.
"At the beginning," said Rob, but Wythie, with a glance at her
irrepressible sister, said:
"Wherever you like; it really doesn't matter. And we girls are going to
rake after you."
"_You are little Boazes,
Following your noazes;
We are gleaners, like to Ruth,
Raking hay while in our youth,
Which we think a better line
Than making hay in the sunshine,_"
sang Rob, with one of her sudden inspirations.
"Is this going to be a comic-opera, and are we taking part as stage
peasants, or really working?" demanded Basil, sternly, though he looked
surprised, and his eyes danced.
Bruce threw up his hat in applause, and Bart stared open-mouthed.
"Rob is demented, but not dangerous," said Frances, who had known the
boys some time.
"You know I warned you."
"Well, now at it," said Bruce.
"Be sure you don't kill any young ground sparrows," said Wythie,
anxiously.
"Oh, let me go ahead and scare up the mothers if there are any nests,
then we'll see where they fly up," cried Prue.
"Go ahead, Paula Revere; rouse the inhabitants," said Bartlemy.
So the mowing began, Prue preceding, her cloud of yellow hair floating
over her white gown as she scuffed her feet through the long grass, the
boys in their white-flannel shirts, turned away at the necks, swinging
their long scythes in their strong, long arms, and Oswyth, Frances,
and Rob fluttering after them in their floating summer gowns, raking
industriously. It was as pretty a picture as any figure in the cotillon
and quite as much fun.
Presently they all began to sing, Prue and Frances in their high
sopranos, Oswyth in her sweet, low soprano, Rob in her soft alto,
Basil a high tenor, Bruce, a barytone, and Bart something he sincerely
believed was a heavy bass. People driving by stopped to look and
listen, and Mr. Grey sat over his models in a happy dream, as the sound
wafted in to him, while Mrs. Grey could hardly keep her mind on the
cold meat she was slicing and the biscuits she was making for tea.
"Bless their dear, happy hearts!" she thought. "How little it takes to
rejoice them. They won't know if I go without some little things to
make up the trifling cost of their bee."
The work was only too short, it seemed to the girls, though perhaps the
boys were glad to stop when Mrs. Grey came out on the steps at five and
struck the brass-bowl, which was the Greys' Japanese way of summoning
the family.
They had not attempted to mow the orchard, nor the land running down
toward the back road, out of sight, but all that showed from the street
was gloriously shaven, and Rob had run the lawn-mower over it, enjoying
its speed.
The supper was not merely pretty. "It was distinguished," Frances told
her friends later; she had a feminine instinct for old china.
"But it was not merely distinguished--it was extinguished--they ate
every crumb," Rob retorted. "And so it must have been good."
It _was_ good; even in a community of skilful housewives, Mrs. Grey's
cooking was famous. The dishes were tucked away in a big wash-tub till
morning--an indulgence the Greys sometimes allowed themselves--and
"the little busy B's bee," as the name was now abbreviated, ended with
the girls nestled together on the steps, while the boys disposed of
their length of limb lower down, and they sang again while the little
July moon dipped down before them, and disappeared in the west, and the
stars came out.
Then Frances arose to go, and the Rutherford boys arose, too, to take
her safely home, and then go their own ways.
"We're no end grateful to you for giving us the very nicest party we
ever went to," said Basil to Mrs. Grey as he bade her good-night.
"Oh, as to that," Rob remarked, "one good cut deserves another."
"Come as often as you like, my dears; we shall love to have you,"
said Mrs. Grey, who, on this second, longer seeing, had taken the
Rutherfords quite into her motherly heart.
"Did you have a good time, children?" she asked as the girls kissed her
good-night, Oswyth last of all, as she always contrived to be.
"Beautiful, Mardy," said Wythie. "I really think, as Basil said, it was
as nice a party as I ever went to."
"And I think they are glorious boys," said Prue. "I'm so glad we've
found such nice new friends."
"So am I; it's as fortunate for the three lassies as it is for the
three lads," said Mrs. Grey.
"And I am glad the grass is cut, you unpractical little girls, Mardy,
Wythie, and Prudy, all three of you," said Rob, looking out with much
satisfaction on the smooth lawn as she pulled down the shade and
lighted her bedtime candle.
CHAPTER THREE
ITS MASTER
The morning after the bee Oswyth was washing dishes and Prue was wiping
them, while Roberta polished the stove, whistling in cheerful oblivion
of the large polka-dot of blacking adorning her cheek.
Mrs. Grey came in from the dining-room, which she had been brushing up,
her dust-pan in one hand, her whisk-broom in the other, held straight
out like parentheses, and said, without preliminary, out of her busy
thoughts: "I don't see, dear girls, what we shall do this fall unless
we have an extra hundred dollars. And still less do I see where we
are to get even an extra five dollars. I have been lying awake nights
contriving, but no suggestion comes. The coal money went to repair the
roof, and bought the flour and other things--all necessities--but it
must be made up, and I cannot see how. Besides, you need, each of you,
warm coats this winter. I suppose Prue can wear Wythie's old one, but
Wythie and Rob must have something."
Prue made a wry face, but Rob cried: "Sufficient to the season is the
coating thereof, Mardy. Winter coats don't appeal to me strongly this
sultry morning."
"Don't worry, Mardy; I am sure we can manage," said Wythie, lovingly.
"But coal--well, I don't see how that can be dodged."
"No, nor paid for," sighed her mother. "Ah, well! We have lived for a
good many years, and through several crises which in prospective looked
impenetrable, so I suppose we shall find a way."
"Like Sentimental Tommy," added Rob. "I'm sure of it."
"Perhaps papa will get into business by that time," suggested Prue.
"And throw up the invention?" cried Rob, quickly. "That _would_ be
foolish!"
"I wish I could do something to help," said Oswyth, sadly. "I wonder if
I ought not to go in town this fall, even if I could only get a place
in a store."
"And earn but six dollars a week, out of which you would have to pay
your board? We have gone over that many times, dearie, and decided you
are more useful here, even if I could allow a young girl like you to
go alone into a city boarding-house," said her mother. "You are such a
help to me, daughter, that I could not spare you, and you must frame
your wish another way."
Oswyth looked pensively at her dimpled hands as she held them up over
the dish-pan and let the water drip off of each of her ten fingers.
"I am going to do something perfectly original right here in Fayre; it
is going to bring us money, and be a triumph of several sorts. I have
no idea what it will be, but that's my plan," announced Rob. And as her
family laughed at a "plan" so very loosely constructed, she waved her
brush dramatically for further elucidation, and upset the saucer of
blacking, spattering its contents broadcast over the spotless, though
worn, oil-cloth covering the floor.
"Now, that's just like you, Rob," said Prue, severely. "You're more
likely to do mischief with your schemes than to help much."
"That is hardly kind or true, Prudy," said her mother. "Rob's schemes
usually come to something practically helpful. She's a daring girl, but
not a rash one. Never mind, Rob dear; the blacking will easily wipe
up. I shouldn't be at all surprised if you hit on a way to get us into
a land flowing with milk and honey some day. But you are only sixteen
now, and we must find a way to keep us alive in the desert while you
finish growing up."
A long shadow fell across the door, and the four feminine members of
the family looked up to greet its head with a smile. Clad in dark blue
serge that hung loosely on his thin frame, Mr. Grey stood surveying the
group, smiling back, but not entering. He was tall, handsome, his eyes
dark and dreamy, yet with an eager expression in them, as if they had
vainly sought that on which they could never rest. He was startlingly
pale, except for a bright red spot high on each hollow cheek. Roberta
more closely resembled him than either of the other girls, but in
expression her rippling, alert brilliancy was wholly unlike the
far-off, vague look of the father she worshipped.
"Oh, Patergrey," cried Roberta, springing to meet him, forgetful of
her recent disaster and blackened hands, and giving him the caressing
title--pronounced as one word--which she had long ago conferred upon
him. "Where have you been 'one morning, oh, so early, my beloved, my
beloved?'" Rob ended in the refrain of a song she loved.
"I went to the post-office, and I stopped at Mrs. Bonell's--she waylaid
me," said Mr. Grey.
"You're keeping back something!" cried Rob, holding up her forefinger
in a reproach that would have been more impressive if the forefinger
had been whiter.
"He has a basket behind him," cried Prue, darting upon him. "What's in
the basket, papa?"
"'Ware, Prue! Marked: Fragile. Don't handle," teased her father,
holding Prue off with one hand. "Mrs. Bonell is going away."
"Where? For long?" asked Mrs. Grey, as Wythie exclaimed: "Oh, I am
sorry."
"To Europe, for many months," said Mr. Grey. "And I've told her we
would take a boarder."
"A boarder! Why, Sylvester!" cried his wife.
"I really thought you would like this one," said Mr. Grey. "It seemed
very hard to say no. You see Mrs. Bonell said there was no one else
in whom she would feel sufficient confidence to intrust this boarder
to them, and when such a pretty young creature as she is flatters a
weak man so, how can he resist? She says she knows we would never
fail to the very end of his life to take care of him. She feels sure
we are not the cruel sort of folk who would go away and leave him to
shift for himself, nor put him out in the cold on winter nights when
he had been in the warm house all day, and if he were sick that we
would nurse him lovingly, and if he were suffering and past recovery
we would chloroform him still more lovingly--in short, that we were
ideal guardians of a cat. So I felt obliged to accept a rôle nature had
evidently designed us to fill."
"A cat! Oh, bless you!" cried three rapturous girl voices, and Wythie
added: "It isn't her lovely, white little Billee?"
"We have only seven cats taking their meals here now," suggested Mrs.
Grey.
"My dear, those are humble dependents; of those I hope we shall always
have a store, for I want the little grey house to be the asylum for
homeless creatures it was in my mother's day," said Mr. Grey, busying
himself with the basket-strap. "But a cat, all our own, and one of
the family, we have lacked since the day when poor old Nellie Grey
went to the reward of cats of blameless character. Yes, Oswyth; this
is, indeed, snow-white Billy, and I consider it a great honor that
his mistress will intrust us with her pet." Mr. Grey had unfastened
the strap by this time, and, lifting the basket-cover, displayed a
half-grown kitten, snowy white and odorous of violet sachet, cowering,
trembling, with dilated eyes, on the pale blue knitted shawl with which
his loving mistress had tried to soften his departure.
"Now, don't jump at him," said Mr. Grey, who understood and loved all
animals. "Remember, a cat is the most nervous creature on earth, and
this one is dreadfully frightened."
"I've often petted him at Mrs. Bonell's; he may remember me," said
Oswyth. "Let me take him." Very gently she raised the downy creature,
who immediately put his forepaws around her neck and clung to her, his
poor little heart thumping wildly against Wythie's throat. "Dear Billy,
you gentle, sweet, little kitten," Wythie murmured, sitting down to
rock him, while Rob and Prue looked on longingly.
"You don't object, Lady Grey?" said Mr. Grey. "He's so much of a pet
already, and so very white, he can't bother you."
"Why, you know, Sylvester, I'm quite as much of a goose about pets
as the children--or as you are," laughed Mrs. Grey, and so Billy was
adopted.
"I'd like to call him Kiku--that's Japanese for chrysanthemum. I wonder
if Mrs. Bonell would mind? It would be so lovely to say: 'O Kiku-san,'
when we called him," said Rob.
"She would never mind," said Prue, while Wythie began to sing to
the old lullaby tune of Greenville: "O Billy-san, O Kiku-Billy-san;
O Kiku-san, O Kiku-Billy-san." As she rocked to and fro in perfect
content, frightened, puzzled little Billy shut his eyes and clung to
her, his heart beating less tumultuously as he began to realize that
here, too, were gentle hearts and hands.
"I want you when you can come, Rob, my son," said Mr. Grey, going
toward the room which had been set apart for his special uses. It was a
well-worn, but well-wearing, joke between Roberta and her father that
she was his son Rob, his mainstay and dependence. "And I'd like to be
able to see you when you come," he added, as a parting shot. "Just now
you are in partial eclipse from blacking."
Rob laughed and ran upstairs. Presently she returned, and went to her
father's room, carefully closing the door behind her.
It was a curious place, a mixture of study, library, workshop, and
laboratory. It had been built for the kitchen of the little grey house
when it was new, a hundred years ago. Its walls were wainscoted to half
their height in panels of grained and varnished wood. The fireplace was
made of narrow panels, with little cupboards above the high, narrow,
wooden mantelpiece, and the handles of these cupboard-doors were tiny
brass knobs. The old rush-bottomed chairs sitting around the walls, and
the tables as well, were littered with papers. Between the windows,
where the light was strongest, sat a common kitchen table, and on it
stood a model of the bricquette machine, and models of its component
parts. Two tall bookcases, one filled with scientific and mechanical
books, the other with novels, essays, and poetry, stood opposite these
models, and across the room on another table standing close to the sink
and small portable stove, were scattered chemical apparatus.
Rob was perfectly at home in these queer surroundings; among them she
had spent a great deal of her childhood, creeping, "mousy-quiet," to
sit on a stool by her oblivious father, her chattering tongue silenced
and her busy brain full of loving awe.
Her father looked up now as she entered. "Ah, Rob, come in," he said.
"I want to go over this with you. You read to me what I have written
here, while I move the model according to those directions, and see if
I have made it clear and correct."
"Yes, Patergrey," said Rob, taking the closely written manuscript which
he handed her, well used to this sort of service. And then she began to
read.
Sometimes, not fully understanding what she read, Rob paused and
watched her father manipulate the model, and refer to its sections,
until she comprehended perfectly what the words were intended to
convey. So far from this interest on her part annoying the inventor, it
delighted him, and largely explained what was unquestionably true--that
Rob was his favorite daughter.
"You will be as well able to exhibit this as I shall when it is done,
Rob, my son," Mr. Grey laughed, well pleased, as, her point cleared
up, Roberta read on, pausing only at a word from her father. "Wait a
moment, Rob; this isn't quite right." "Mark that with the blue pencil,
Rob; I'll say that more briefly." "Slowly, Rob; my fingers won't move
as fast as your tongue."
At last they were through, and Mr. Grey threw himself into his big
chair with the shabby cushions, sighing contentedly.
"That's all right, Rob," he said. "Next autumn will see the machine
completed--December at the latest, I hope. What a help you are, Rob, my
son!"
"It's a comfort to hear you say that, like a sort of grace, every time
we get through, Patergrey," said Rob. "But if I am a help to you, I
wonder if I can get you to do something for me?"
"Yes, you know you can," said Mr. Grey, anticipating a request to
be taken fishing, or to go for a long stroll in the twilight. But
Rob, who would never allow anyone to insinuate that her father could
accomplish more than he did, had other plans in her teeming brain. With
a sensitive flush, fearing to wound her father, she said:
"Didn't you tell me, Patergrey, that a magazine had asked you to write
a special article for it on something or other scientific, and offered
you quite a sum of money if you'd do it?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Grey, startled into animation by the unexpected
question. "On fuels and means of heating and lighting in the future,
and the world's storage of such fuel; they thought I should be prepared
for such an article--as I am. Yes, they asked me--why?"
"Because dear Mardy is worried over present prospects; she lies awake
planning, and can't see her way out--she told us so this morning," said
Rob, bravely. "She says we must have an extra hundred dollars--and she
has no idea where it can come from. We've used up the coal money--you
know she divides her poor little pennies into piles for different
things--and if we get coal late it will cost more, besides, how can we
get it later any better than now? So I never said a word to the rest,
but I thought of the article, and I made up my mind I'd get the dear
daddy to put a wee bit of his cleverness on paper, and surprise the
blessed Lady Grey by giving her her hundred--do you suppose it could be
as much as that, Patergrey?"
"They offered me a hundred dollars for three thousand words," said her
father, adding quickly, as Rob clapped her hands rapturously: "But it
will take my mind off the invention, Rob, and I don't want to delay
that a day. Something seems to impel me--compel me is better--to finish
it as soon as I can, and anything that retards it is a mistake, my
dear."
"But you are all prepared--you said so, Patergrey--and you are so
clever you can do it in a week," coaxed Rob, getting up to kneel
beside her father, and crinkling her flexible face into a maze of
irresistible puckers, as if he were a little child.
Her father laughed. "A week, you silly puss! Three days, at the
outside," he said.
Rob cried out triumphantly: "Then you can't say no! Only three days! It
can't make much difference with the machine, and isn't it worth three
days' delay to relieve Mardy darling's mind? Poor Mardy! She's so brave
and cheerful, but, oh, she does have to squeeze hard to keep us all fed
and housed."
To Rob's distress her father dropped his head on his arms, laid over
the back of the chair, and groaned.
"You're right, Roberta. It makes me sick at heart to think of what it
has cost her to be so faithfully, patiently loving with me all these
years. Poor, bright, pretty Mary Winslow, who might have shone in any
setting! Yes, child, I'll do the article--set about it to-day. I know I
make life hard for her, but I do my best. Some day you'll all see, Rob,
I did my best."