coveted the beautiful and venerable treasures of the little grey
house, and longed to transfer them to her more pretentious,
black-walnut-infested house on the hill. So Mrs. Grey did not feign
gratitude for her offer; indeed, it inspired her with a perfectly
natural desire to hold her splendid old mahogany at any cost. She said,
firmly: "I shall not part with these things while we can exist without
doing so, Azraella," and Mrs. Winslow had departed in highly disgusted
dudgeon.
But now, regarding their treasures in the clear morning light, and
without Aunt Azraella, the Greys wondered if their decision had been
wrong, and it was their duty to give up those precious belongings which
seemed more really kin to them than many of the animate connections
transmitted to them through dead-and-gone ancestors. Two alternatives
stared them in the face: to sell the furniture, or mortgage the little
grey house. Thus far the dear little old home had been as free from
burden as in its first building, when a Grey had hewn its walls from
the forest with his own hands, and dug its cellar, and piled its
stone foundations from the rocks of its own meadows, helped only by
the friendly hands of other pioneers. It was not possible to regard
a mortgage upon it calmly; for sentiment's sake in the first place,
and then because its interest would be a continual burden long after
the ready money it had given them would have been changed into the
necessities of life.
"Still, Mardy," Rob began, speaking out of the thoughts they were
silently exchanging, after the fashion of people who live in loving
sympathetic intimacy--"still, Mardy, the mortgage could be paid off
when the bricquette machine is sold, but if we gave up the furniture
it would be gone forever. The mortgage is dreadful, but it gives us
another chance, while the sale would not. We shall need money only a
little while longer, you know, if everything goes right."
"Oh, Rob, Rob, and if everything goes wrong?" cried Mrs. Grey, the
cry wrung from her by the sudden sharp realization that her lares and
penates, her home, her husband himself, threatened to slip from her
forever.
"Then I will take the bricquettes' place--I am sure I am combustible
enough!" cried Rob, but neither her mother nor Oswyth could smile.
Aunt Azraella came over again after dinner to renew her appeals to
common-sense and for the fulfilment of her own desires. There was
another conclave of elders, and Wythie and Rob, feeling the strain
too great upon their nerves, escaped into the October sunshine. They
came upon Frances Silsby under escort of Battalion B, coming to seek
them, and half-heartedly consented to a short row on the river in the
boys' long-boat, which they had christened "The Graces," because, they
pointed out, it was equally appropriate to "the trio of owners and the
most frequent and honored guests."
"You don't look cheerful to-day, you Grey sisters," said Basil,
shipping rowlocks and oars and pushing off.
"No; even Rob is downly," said Bruce, coining a new adverb. "Is it
anything we could help?"
"Not unless you are bankers," said Rob, disregarding Wythie's signals
for silence. "What's the use, Wythie? France has known us ever since
we were here to be known, and these new friends are just as true ones.
We're having grey days without gold--that's all."
"We could be bankers," said Basil, quietly. "We have more money than
we use--we big, strapping boys--and that's what makes us so sorry and
ashamed when we think of girls like you being bothered."
"We said the other day we wished you would let us be your bankers--it
would only be till the machine was done," added Bruce, flushing. He did
not say that they and Frances, whose father was the wealthiest man in
Fayre, had vainly tried to hit upon a way of making life easier to the
girls of whom they were so fond.
Rob shook her head with a dubious smile, and Bruce said, hastily: "Oh,
I know you won't! There's always just that difference between a girl's
friendship and a boy's. A boy not only will share with his chum--girls
do that--but he will take his share of his chum's possessions, and
know it does not matter which happened to have more."
"Don't you think there has to be that difference, Bruce?" asked Wythie,
in her womanly little way. "You wouldn't like to have a girl accept too
much from another." Wythie did not say, "From a boy friend." "Since Rob
has said so much I will tell you that you could not be our bankers,
for we need too much, and it is too serious. Aunt Azraella, Mrs.
Winslow----"
"Who has nothing whatever to do with soothing-sirup, nor sirup, nor
soothing of any sort," interrupted Rob.
"Wants us to sell our dear, beautiful old china and pewter and
mahogany. But we won't--we can't!" Wythie finished.
"Of course not; I should say not!" ejaculated silent Bartlemy, the
artist, with profound conviction.
"It would be like selling 'the ashes of your fathers and the temples of
your gods,'" added Basil.
"Yes, and leave us worse off by and by, when we had used the money,"
added Rob. "But if we don't do that we must mortgage the little grey
house."
"That's bad, too," said Bruce.
"It's worse than you see at first, because it means keeping up the
interest, besides lessening the value of the old place," said Rob. "My
brethren and sister Frances, I _must_ earn money."
Frances clasped the hand Rob held out to her, and patted it silently.
Her pretty, happy face had grown distressed; she had loved Rob as a
superior being since she had been taken by her nurse to see Rob's
collection of dolls, and she fully realized how bitter it was to all
the Greys to put a burden upon the home which always seemed more like a
member of the family than its shelter.
The Rutherfords rowed on in silence awhile, then Bruce squared his
shoulders and threw back his head with a cheerful smile for the girls.
"Well, if you must mortgage, don't worry about it. Everybody has a
mortgage--they are as common as family cats. And when the machine is
done you can pay it off again, and that will be in a short time. It
really isn't worth talking about," he said, cheerfully.
Rob gave him a grateful look. "That's what I say, Bruce!" she cried.
"And isn't it great that your father has no more heart attacks?" added
Basil, desiring to contribute his underscore mark to some item of
cheer on the page of life the Greys were at present conning.
"It's wonderful, too," said Wythie, "for he works as hard as though Dr.
Fairbairn had never warned him--but he doesn't look well."
"I think you can earn money, Rob; I think I know a way for you to do
it," said Frances. "I've been wondering if it were possible, and I'll
talk to mamma to-night--it needs her help--and then to-morrow I'll come
to talk to you about it."
"So cheer up, Grey sisters; this is your last pull," said Basil.
"I wonder if it is," said Wythie, watching the strong, steady strokes
as The Graces sped up the river under Basil and Bartlemy's rowing.
"Oh, no; there's Indian summer to come; we'll row lots of times this
year, and all next season. I did not mean this kind of pull," smiled
Basil.
"I know. Where are you taking us?" asked Wythie; she could not bear
just then to hear an allusion to another year.
"Up here to a tree which we discovered yesterday, and which other
little boys haven't discovered--it's full of chestnuts," said Bruce.
The boat glided toward the right bank, crowned by flaming maples, and
into a narrow creek, so narrow that the boys had to draw in their
oars and pull The Graces along by the shrubs on either hand. They
stopped directly under a great chestnut-tree, and Bruce cried, pointing
triumphantly to the branches crowded with opening burs: "There! Isn't
truth more chestnutty than fiction?"
"Why didn't you tell us?" asked Rob, reproachfully. "We could have gone
back for something to put them in."
Forgetting poverty for the moment in the riches provided by nature
and autumn, Wythie and Rob climbed cheerfully over the side of the
boat, and taking off their jackets began filling them with chestnuts
as eagerly as if they had been squirrels dependent upon them for their
winter existence. There was little time to get many of the satiny
nuts, for the Greys were impatient to learn the fate of the little
grey house, and to console their mother, who would need consolation
for whatever decision had been reached. Regretfully they turned their
backs on the wealth of nuts and the beautiful, peaceful spot, with its
gorgeous colors, and damp, delicious odors.
Bruce and Bartlemy rowed down. Frances was very silent, and held
Rob's hand fast; Rob did not feel like talking, and Wythie was never
a chatterbox, so the party came down the river very quietly, all
thoughts centered on the same point--the Greys' difficulties. As they
drew up at the little pier which the Rutherfords had built for their
landing-place, Basil said, breaking a long silence: "Wythie and Rob,
I want you to give us your solemn promise that if ever you think we
can be of any use or comfort, you will say so. I don't believe you
understand what it has been to us to have you girls take us right into
the little grey house and big Grey hearts, and treat us like one of
yourselves. It will be downright unkind if you shove us off now, for
the first time, and don't let us have the privileges you've accustomed
us to. Brothers are not meant only for bright days, you know."
"We would ask you to do anything, Basil; of course we would," said
Wythie. "There is nothing to be done now."
"But you will consider us comrades of the true sort; not the kind you
like only for what you can do for them and to frolic with," persisted
Basil.
"'Ere's our 'earts and 'ere's our 'ands," said Rob, melodramatically
laying her left hand on her heart and extending her right. "Seriously,
boys," she added, "we understand, and we'll do just what you want us
to. We're going to regard you as crutches--a trifle long, perhaps,
but by no means to be cut off. If you were all as Grey as we are, we
couldn't count you greater props than we do now. We're friends for
life, and for scrapes on either side--and we're more grateful than I
sound. This is rather a hard time for the Greys, but we've read lots of
storybooks, and we know when the lovely heroines are in mortal danger
there's certain rescue on the next page. So we're going to finish these
paragraphs as quickly as we possibly can, and turn over to the next
chapter."
She impulsively held out both hands as she ceased speaking, wrinkling
up the comers of her eyes in her merry fashion, though there were tears
on the lashes.
Bruce seized the firm little hands, with the honorable burn on one
forefinger, and the thumb-nail blackened by hammering, and shook them
warmly. Basil followed suit, and then all three shook hands with
Wythie--it was rather like a fresh treaty of allegiance before going
into battle. Then Bartlemy locked the oars and rowlocks into the
boat-house and the Rutherfords and Frances escorted the Greys to their
own gate, where they left them with a reassuring pat on each arm, and
Wythie and Rob ran into the house.
They heard voices in the parlor and paused in the hall to listen.
Their mother's and father's, Aunt Azraella's, and two strange men's
voices they had just decided them to be, when Prue's golden head, much
dishevelled, appeared over the banisters.
"Come up here, girls, come up here," she said, in a stage-whisper,
gesticulating wildly. "Where have you been? Come; I'm half dead."
Prue's cheeks were tear-stained and her voice husky; Oswyth and Rob
hastened to her.
"What has happened?" Rob demanded.
Prue threw her arms around Wythie--her favorite sister--and dropped
her golden head on her breast. "They're mortgaging the little grey
house--oh dear, oh dear!" she sobbed.
Wythie drew Prue into her room, Rob following, very pale, and shut the
door.
"Already?" Wythie said.
"This moment," said Prue, tragically. "When I came home Aunt Azraella
was here, and still talking about our selling the furniture. Then papa
seemed to lose all patience, and to want to have it over with. He
said: 'Mr. Barker told me he was ready to take the mortgage and give
me the money any moment I would call him over. Prue, go tell him now
that I am ready to mortgage the house--that I'm waiting for him. And
then go fetch lawyer Dinsmore. I must get it done, and stop discussing
it; it takes too much nervous strain, and too much time from my work.'
I looked at Mardy, and she looked miserable, but she only said: 'Go,
Prue; hurry, child.' So I went. And they've been mortgaging down there
for half an hour. They ought to be done soon, I should think: how long
does it take to put on a mortgage?"
"Oh, I don't know, I do not know," moaned Rob, throwing herself face
downward on the bed. "How long does it take to get one off, you'd
better ask."
Prue looked hurt. "You can't care more than I do, Rob Grey," she said.
"I've cried and cried, and I thought I'd die when I told Mr. Barker and
Mr. Dinsmore to come."
Oswyth had sunk into her rocking-chair, the tears raining down her
white cheeks. She held out her arms to Prue, who fled to them, very
ready to be petted.
"Poor little Prue!" said Wythie. "And you were all alone to bear it.
Poor, pretty little Prudy!"
Kiku, who was the most loving of little creatures, jumped up to rub
his face against Rob's, not minding its wetness, and making soft,
cooing sounds to her as if she were a kitten and he her cat-mother. The
gentle, dumb, little creature comforted Rob more than spoken love could
have done. She rolled over and kissed the cat between his pink-lined
ears, and, seeing Wythie looking so grief-stricken, characteristically
began to surmount her own trouble. "Now, doen't, doen't, my dear," she
said, in the words of Ham Pegotty. "It's a blow that knocked me down
for a minute, but I'm not going to lie prostrate long. We'll clear off
the mortgage--Patergrey, the machine, and I--in a twinkling, and the
little grey house shall be Greyer than ever."
Wythie shook her head, and at that moment they heard the front door
shut and footsteps go down the walk. And in the hall their mother was
saying: "There are those poor children upstairs alone; we must go
comfort them, Sylvester."
There was no time to feign indifference before the door of the girls'
room opened, and it was rather a dismal scene upon which Mr. and Mrs.
Grey looked as they entered.
Mrs. Grey took Wythie and Prue into a comprehensive embrace, just as
they sat. "Dearies, you must not grieve," she cried.
"Don't look so dismal, girls," said Mr. Grey, cheerfully. "The little
grey house has merely lent the thin Grey man a thousand dollars, which
he knows--doesn't think, mind you, but _knows_--he will soon repay. We
are fortunate to get money when we need it so sorely, and we shall pay
off that mortgage in a short time; isn't that true, Rob, my son?"
"That is true, Patergrey," responded Rob, loyally and promptly.
"We're not afraid, are we, Rob, my son? We know our machine is bound to
succeed."
"Bound to succeed, Patergrey," said Rob, going over to him and laying
a hand on her father's shoulder as though she were really the "son" he
called her.
But that night, when Wythie, tired out, lay sleeping beside her, Rob's
dark eyes were staring into the blackness, slumber completely driven
from them by the events of the day, as she thought anxious thoughts for
her sixteen years, and feverishly laid fruitless plans for being useful.
And that night, because of the over-excitement and the pang the
decision he had reached had cost him, Mr. Grey had the second attack of
the heart affection which threatened the Greys with a greater sorrow
than the burden which had just been laid upon the little grey house.
CHAPTER TEN
ITS POSSIBILITIES
Frances appeared early on the following morning, and found sad faces to
greet her where she usually found cheer.
"Well, what have you to propose to me, Francie, a secretaryship to the
President, or to write the best-selling book of the year?" asked Rob,
trying to speak brightly.
"The book is the nearer guess," said Frances. "I tried to think
of what you could do best, and it was a puzzle. You are such a
Jack-of-all-trades----"
"And we know what he amounts to," interrupted Rob. "You might as well
finish the proverb."
"No such thing," declared Frances. "But you didn't seem to have any
marked vocation, till suddenly it flashed upon me that you had done one
thing wonderfully ever since you could talk, and I knew I'd hit it. Do
you know what it is?"
Rob shook her head. "I had a talent for getting into scrapes, and you
used to pull me out, but I never supposed the talent had market value.
If you've discovered it has, you've pulled me out of another scrape
with flying colors," she said.
"You could tell stories," said Frances.
"France, I was always truthful," said Rob, reproachfully.
"Now, don't be silly; you know what I mean," retorted Frances. "Don't
you remember how you used to amuse all the rest of us children telling
stories by the yard? And do you realize how children love to be with
you? You have a regular fringe of small fry at your heels whenever you
appear abroad."
"Well, I admit the Pied Piper qualities, and I remember telling
stories, but I fail to see what you're getting at, ma'am," said Rob,
dubiously.
"You're to tell your stories for money!" cried Frances, triumphantly.
"You're to have a class of all the nice girls and boys in Fayre--and
some will come from Thruston--and you are to entertain them by telling
them stories for an hour and a half twice a week. You won't charge
much--maybe only five dollars for twenty recitals, but that, if you
had twenty children, would be a hundred dollars in ten weeks, and it
would be just fun--no trouble at all to you to do it."
"You have thought out details, Frances," said Mrs. Grey. "You make me
feel as though it were not only possible, but an accomplished fact."
"It is possible, Mrs. Grey," said Frances. "Mamma knows a lady in town
who did it there, and it was a great success. She thinks Rob is sure of
being even more successful, because she is so young the children will
enjoy more being with her."
"And what kind of stories am I to tell, Frances? Any kind that keeps
them quiet? Fayre is not like New York, where there are lots of people
with wealth, but no place nor time to amuse their children. People here
won't care about having their children entertained," said Rob, sensibly.
"Oh, I forgot that part," said Frances, eagerly. "No, of course, it
couldn't be any kind of story. You are to tell them a set of Grecian
Mythology stories, for instance; then a Round Table set, then a
Crusading set, then, maybe a Shakespeare set, and stories of Rome,
Greece, Egypt--goodness! There's no end to the series you can get up!
Now wait!" she added, as Rob started to speak. "You know when we were
little you read all these things, and loved them; we thought them dry,
and nothing would have induced us to read them for ourselves. But when
you told us about them we were like so many young robins, when the big
bird chops up food too solid for them--we were all agape for more,
and you had the faculty of making us see the beauty, and not missing
a point. It was enthusiasm and magnetism, mamma says. Well, you have
those gifts just as much now."
"I'll try to believe in my talents," said Rob, meekly.
"You'd better. Mamma told me to lay the plan before you all, and, if
you approve, to say she will guarantee Rob a class of not less than
twenty to begin with, and she will find the children for her. Will you
try it, Rob?" asked Frances, eagerly.
"How good your mother is; how kind you both are!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey.
"Oh, France always was clear, unadulterated splendidness," said Rob,
getting up to hug the one girl friend she had ever really loved. "How
can I help but try it, when it is all done for me? Of course, I'll be
only too glad to try it, Francie, and I'll do my best."
"I couldn't possibly fail to approve, approve gladly and gratefully,"
said Mrs. Grey.
"I think it's a beautiful plan--an inspiration, Frances," said Wythie.
"And I know Rob can do it like no one else; she does such things with
her face and voice that she always makes one see what she sees." And
Oswyth smiled proudly on Rob.
"I should hate to fail, after your mother had done so much to launch
me," said Rob.
"'Screw your courage to the sticking-point and we'll not fail,'" said
Frances, who could hardly have been less like Lady Macbeth.
"Then, if I succeed, I might enlarge my field, have classes in
neighboring towns, and by and by in Hartford and New Haven, and--why
not?--New York," cried Rob, airily. "Then if the bricquette machine did
turn out badly I could support the family."
"Rob, Rob, I thought you had no doubt of the invention!" cried her
mother, such a sharp note of pain in her voice that it betrayed her
own doubt, and her unconscious dependence on the young girl's opinion,
ignorant though it was.
"Neither have I, Mardy, it's sure--don't be afraid," said Rob,
hastily. "But when you want a thing so dreadfully, _dreadfully_ much
you can't help thinking what it would be not to get it. And I feel as
the Red Queen must have felt when she was a little girl, and had to
believe three impossible things before breakfast. I do believe, but
I have to try--try with both hands, as Her Red Majesty told Alice to
do--to keep my faith, though I know it's all right all the while. And
the invention is so nearly completed, Francie, that Patergrey thinks
that next week he can write to the people in New York whom he wants
to have buy it. Isn't that a comfort, after so long? It sounds so
definite."
"Indeed it does!" cried Frances, heartily. Mrs. Grey hastily left the
room, and Wythie ran after her, guessing that she had gone to hide
sudden tears.
Rob looked after them soberly. "Oh, France," she said, "you could not
have come with your plan at a better time--we need cheering. They put
the mortgage on the little grey house yesterday--they were doing it
when we came home. And Patergrey got so wrought up that he had another
of those dreadful heart attacks last night."
"Oh, Rob; poor, dear, brave Rob! I am so sorry for you!" cried
Frances, with ready tears of sympathy and a convulsive hug.
Rob shook herself free. "Now, don't pity me!" she cried. "I have all I
can do to keep steady if I am as hard as nails, and you see I _must_
keep gay for the others. I know, France; we know each other, but don't
love me now! No one could have done me the good you have in giving me
the hope of being useful. I'll never forget how you came in this black
morning and tried to 'push dem clouds away'--you have made a big rift.
If ever I get rich and famous I'll give you your heart's desire, and
if ever I can help you while I'm poor--which may be a while yet, you
know--I'll walk over the ocean to do it. But don't you love me nor pity
me to-day."
"All right. I don't love you any day; I despise you, and always did,"
said Frances, with a last squeeze as she withdrew her arms. "Now I must
run home to tell mamma you are unanimous. She said if you liked the
plan she would see all the parents she could this afternoon, and bid
them send their little lambs for you to pipe to them."
"Well, Francie, Patergrey does want me, so I suppose I ought to let you
go," said Rob. "Tell your blessed mother I can never thank her, but
tell her how troubled you found us, and she will understand the good
she has done."
Rob hardly knew how it happened that at the end of two weeks she
found herself established as a Scheherazade, telling stories, not to
an Eastern tyrant, but to five-and-twenty lesser tyrants--not less
tyrannical--with the east in their bright eyes.
Mrs. Silsby had bestirred herself so energetically that Rob's childish
audience was not only secured for her at once, but exceeded by five the
twenty she had hoped to get. Mr. Grey said children were showered upon
her as if she were a foundling asylum.
Their ages ranged between eleven and six, the average being eight, and
Roberta wondered how she was ever going to interest them, restless
as so many butterflies, and inclined to approach suspiciously an
entertainment which they suspected of being improving, and very
possibly additional lessons under a hypocritical disguise. But they
were worth winning, for all of the audience was paid for in advance,
and bewildered Rob found a hundred and twenty-five dollars in her
hands, which was all her own.