traveller's repast was over, and Prue had volunteered to clear away
the reminders, as if, for the first time in her life, she welcomed the
chance to serve Rob, the little grey house was closed for the night,
and lights appeared in its low upper windows, for Mrs. Grey insisted
that tired Rob must be got to bed.
It took a long time getting there, however; Prue flitted in and out of
her sisters' room, not to be deprived of any part of the steady flow
of talk going on there, for the mere telling of facts is never all of
any story worth telling. Long after Prue had reluctantly subsided, the
"ss-ss-s" of whispering drifted out in the darkness from Wythie and
Rob's bed, but finally they whispered themselves to sleep, and silence
rested over the little grey house which its brave daughter had saved.
Breakfast was scarcely over, when Polly, wiping dishes, announced:
"Here's father!" and the Greys saw Mr. Flinders approaching, his right
hand bearing a yellow envelope, held with the handle of a large basket
tightly grasped, and his face bearing a most unwonted smile. "I come
to see Roberta--Mr. Abbit, down to the depot, said you'd got back--and
my wife she said she thought you'd like some 'f her jelly," said Mr.
Flinders. "She said she'd like to know if Polly wasn't about ready to
come home."
Polly looked doubtful. "I'd like to come, if Rob wasn't here," she
said.
"I'll go away, Pollykins, go away again, if you say so," smiled Rob.
"I think she's well now--don't you, Mardy? Perhaps you ought to go see
your mother, dear. She's lonely with no little Polly Flinders among her
cinders."
"Polly is quite welcome, Mr. Flinders," said Mrs. Grey, "but if you
need her I think she is well enough to be dismissed from our little
grey hospital."
Farmer Flinders shuffled his feet uneasily. "She said I'd ought to tell
you, but I d'know's I know how," he began, embarrassed. "We're a good
deal obliged to you for all you've done for Maimie, an' I can see my
way to carryin' on this place on equal shares next summer, countin'
from now. I guess half'll be 'bout what I'll take in the future,
'stead of two-thirds."
"That's very good of you, Mr. Flinders!" cried Mrs. Grey, appreciating
the sacrifice this offer cost. "Come next week, and we'll talk about
accepting your proposition. We hope the Greys may be much better off by
that time. Roberta has been to New York in reference to her father's
patent, and we believe it is going to prove very valuable; we are
waiting for news of its purchase now." Poor Mrs. Grey was not guileless
in thus taking Farmer Flinders into her confidence. She knew that he
would set afloat rumors of Sylvester Grey's posthumous success, and she
was impatient for tardy justice to be done her husband.
"I want to know!" exclaimed Mr. Flinders now, opening his eyes to their
widest. "And that's what Roberta went away for--we was wonderin'. Very
valuable, is it? I want to know! And Roberta went to attend to it!
She's young for such business, seems's if! Still, she's al'ays been
smart, Roberta has. Well, I'm sure I'm glad; you do deserve it. Sho!
I've got a telegraph for you in my hand this minute! Here 'tis; I
forgot it. I guess I'll be goin'. I'm comin' for Maimie on Saturday,
so you be ready, Maimie. I sh'd think you'd want to see your folks.
Hope the telegraph is good news; you do deserve it." And Mr. Flinders
tore himself away--to spread the tidings of the Greys' approaching
prosperity, Mrs. Grey felt contentedly sure.
Wythie had torn open the telegram. "Will be in Fayre on ten-ten from
New York on Thursday," she read. "It's signed William Armstrong; is
that any of the gentlemen you saw, Rob?"
"It's _one_ of them," cried Rob, eagerly seizing the telegram from
Wythie's hand. "It's the old gentleman, and he's coming to-morrow! Oh,
Mardy and other girls, don't you hope it will be all right?"
"What will be all right? Hallo, Rob! We heard you were back, and we
came to see the city polish you had acquired," cried Bruce. Battalion B
had come in the front way unheard.
"Oh, hallo, nice big boys," cried Rob, turning to meet them with
outstretched hands and her most April face. "I didn't get much polish
in two days, I fear me, but I think and hope I got what I went for."
"Of course you did! We knew what would happen!" cried Basil. "We're
going down to get your bag--our bag! We're anxious about it, so we're
going to bring it up. Abbott told us you left it with him. And we're
going to take you with us to identify us, so get your hat and come
along, and on the way you can tell us all that you and Gotham did to
each other."
"I suppose I might go to market with these foolish but spotless
giraffes, Mardy," said Rob.
"Come with the giraffes, you little brown deer," remarked Bruce, in an
undertone.
"And order something special for luncheon to-morrow when Mr. Armstrong
is here," continued Rob, ignoring Bruce.
"Run along, Robin, and get ready while Wythie and I make out our list
for you," said Mrs. Grey, with a brighter smile than her face had worn
since the little grey house had lost its master.
* * * * *
Mr. Armstrong had come and gone. Roberta had taken him into the
wainscoted room, and while her mother and Wythie listened in wondering
admiration, showed their guest the working of the models, explaining
each part, and making clear, through her memory of her dear Patergrey's
words, that which none other of the family had understood.
A strange half-consciousness took possession of Rob as she talked--she
imagined that it was not she herself, not young Rob Grey speaking, but
that she was the mouth-piece for the wistful eyes so often raised to
hers in that old room, and that Sylvester Grey spoke through her. As in
the office in New York, her self-diffidence dropped from her, and she
performed her part, absorbed in doing well her father's commission. Mr.
Armstrong, as before, had listened silently, but now he was gone, and
the Greys sat around the old mahogany dining-table, gazing, awestruck
and motionless at the slip of paper lying on it. It was Mr. Armstrong's
check for fifty thousand dollars.
The bricquette machine was sold, the arrangements made for packing and
shipping the models to its owner, and the result of Sylvester Grey's
"dreaming"--securing peace and plenty to his family--lay, radiating
hope and joy to his wife and daughters, on the old table where once the
baby Sylvester had sat by his father's side.
"I never expected to see so much money in all my life," said Prue,
speaking first, and sighing like one awakening from a dream.
"Oh, if only your dear, hard-working, misunderstood father could have
known!" cried Mrs. Grey, dropping her head beside the check, her whole
frame shaken by sobs.
Wythie arose and laid her own head softly on the heaving shoulder.
"Mardy, Mardy darling, we will be quite sure that he does know; we will
believe he helped Rob stand firm against us all, and win us this great
good--we say we believe in the communion of saints, and we will be
quite, quite sure that dear papa has this joy, with all the rest," she
whispered, her sweet face kindled into rapture, though her tears fell
fast.
Rob leaned across and took her mother's hand. "This has done something
wonderful for me, Mardy," she said, slowly. "I don't know that I can
explain, but it seems to me that all his dear, pathetic, dreaming
life Patergrey was but partly alive, and that now he is living, truly
living, and his life is complete. I feel as though he had come back to
us."
The door opened, and Aunt Azraella entered, stopping short, as she saw
the group around the table. "For pity's sake, Mary," she cried, "has
something else bad happened to you? I've only just got back, and I have
been frantic to hear how Roberta came out. I suppose you've lost that
offer, and see now how right I was. Well, I warned you."
"Rob has saved us, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey, raising her head
quickly--Aunt Azraella had the gift of drying tears. "Look at this."
Aunt Azraella took the magic slip of paper her sister-in-law handed
her. She nearly dropped it, and fell into a chair herself as she
scanned it, catching her breath in the magnitude of her surprise.
"Fifty thousand dollars! A check for fifty thousand! Mary, tell me this
instant what this means," she gasped.
"It means that our brave, wise Roberta was right; that the first
offer was a dishonest one, and that through the old college mate of
Sylvester's, the lawyer, to whom he was to have written himself for
advice, Rob was brought to honest men, who have given us the real
value of the patent," said Mrs. Grey. "It means that we are rich,
Azraella, and that in the midst of our sorrow we have been freed from
the corroding anxiety of poverty. And we owe it to Sylvester's years of
visionary, impractical dreaming, which you so denounced, and to brave
Rob's good judgment and firm purpose."
For once Mrs. Winslow was silenced. At last she rallied. "It's more
than wonderful, Mary," she said, "but who in the world could have
foreseen it? Of course, I'm perfectly delighted. Roberta, I am truly
surprised at you; I didn't think you had it in you. But I congratulate
you, child, and I'm proud of you. There's nothing in all this world
much better to have than a keen business sense, and judgment to know
when you're right and to stick to it. I am proud of you. What are you
going to do with the money, Mary? It's most important to invest it
properly."
"It will go to Mr. Baldwin, and he will invest it for us--he wrote me,
offering to do this, yesterday," Mrs. Grey began, but Rob interrupted
her with a glad cry.
"Oh, Aunt Azraella, what do you think we are going to do? Right away--a
check for it has already gone to the bank, for we received two thousand
more than this big check."
"Put up a fine stone to your father's memory," replied Mrs. Winslow,
with a characteristic guess.
"No, no--oh, no," cried Wythie, hastily, while Rob said: "Don't you see
what it is? It is already practically done. We have paid the mortgage
on the little grey house, and the dearest little old home in the world
is all our own, free and all our own, once more. We shall get the
papers in the morning."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ITS SUNSHINE
The long winter was past, and Fayre lay basking in the warmth of May.
The little river reflected the bright green of its newly clad willows,
through which gleams of sunshine, too warm for mortals, rejoiced the
minnows darting through the shallows. The air was sweet with blossoms
and tender verdure, and the song-birds filled it with rejoicing. It was
impossible to be sad on such a day, and Wythie, Rob, and Prue, standing
in the doorway of the little grey house, absorbing the beauty through
every sense, felt their pulses thrill with young joy in living, like
the May's.
The little grey house modestly announced to all the world that its
winter, too, was over and gone. Newly painted in its own soft grey, the
lawn with which its daughters had once vainly struggled, smooth shaven
by skilful hands, flowers, once beyond its reach in the strict economy
of its finances, now flaming gayly against its low walls, all spoke of
the prosperity with which its last son had endowed it.
No great changes had been made in the beloved little home--too well
beloved as it was to admit of them--but it had been made beautiful on
its own simple lines, and the girls could hardly help feeling it knew
and was glad of its physical well-being. And these girls, too, showed
the bettering of their lives in many subtle small ways. Wythie's fresh
prettiness was blooming in the brightness it was intended to wear,
Rob's variable face was losing its strained look, and Prue's beauty was
unspoiled by the discontented expression it had too often worn. Pretty,
fresh white gowns, with their black ribbons fluttered by the May wind,
were reminders of a loss which was fast growing to be rather a tender
memory than a poignant regret. For sorrow of the higher sort brings
with it heights of thought and consolations with which to bear it, but
the daily struggle to live, the petty cares and vain effort to make too
little suffice, eats out heart and brain, with no uplifting to render
it endurable.
From their cradle the Grey girls had fought this fight, and won in
it nobly, but now that it was over, and an income which to them was
abundant was assured them, they drew a long breath, casting off sordid
frets forever, and began to expand as nature had meant them to, into
light-hearted young creatures, full of their own May-time.
Seeing them happier, and relieved herself of her hard burden, Mrs.
Grey, too, was learning to bear her loss, and give herself up to her
hard-earned rest and to her girls' petting, with her anxious mental
strain relaxed. It was a day of peace, and, to complete it, "Cousin
Peace" was coming to spend it with them.
For the first time in years the little grey house was awaiting guests.
The Baldwins, all three, were coming from New York to see the house
and its inmates which they had been so fortunate in befriending, and
Rob burned to make the occasion some approximate expression of her
gratitude, and some return for their hospitality to her.
She and Oswyth and Prue were waiting for Battalion B and Frances to go
to the woods after dogwood with which to turn the little grey house
into a bower, and as they waited on the step Miss Charlotte came.
"Come in, dear Cousin Peace," cried Wythie, kissing her lovingly
as soon as Rob gave her a chance. "Mardy is upstairs resting and
writing letters. I wonder how long it will take us to get used to the
luxury--the unspeakable delight--of seeing Mardy rest, and knowing that
Lydia is in the kitchen doing the work!"
"Blackening the stove particularly," added Rob. "I find now that, on
the whole, I hated most of all to blacken the stove."
"Well, I find that what I hated most was what I happened to be doing,"
remarked Prue.
"You're not to think that we are living in idleness, Cousin Peace,"
Wythie said, as they led the gentle Cousin Charlotte into the house.
"There's only one of Lydia, and one person can't do it all, but it is
such a relief to have 'help'!"
"There's enough to be done in any house; I understand, lassies," said
Miss Charlotte. "But you were tired lassies, and I am more glad than
you know to see your burdens lifted--still more glad for your mother,
because I know how happy Sylvester would be--is--to see her resting."
"Oh, I know that, too, Cousin Peace!" cried Rob. "I know how Patergrey
felt about 'pretty Mary Winslow,' as he called her to me, having
had a hard life because she married him. I'm beginning almost to be
glad--though I miss him most of us all--that he won his fight just as
he did; I know he would have chosen it so."
"And I'm beginning to feel as though he had not gone away at all," said
Wythie, softly; "as though all this comfort and greater ease were he
himself, his love and presence around us, and that in having it we had
him. I can't explain, but it is such a comfort!"
"I can understand that, dear Wythie," said Cousin Peace.
"Aunt Azraella is coming over to luncheon, and to teach Lydia her
famous short-cake," said Rob, after a little pause, as they halted
before their mother's door. "She does make wonderful strawberry
short-cake, and we are going to stun the Baldwins with it. And she's
quite a different Aunt Azraella. She has such a respect for bonds and
stocks and coupons, and such little appurtenances, that she regards
us through the rose-colored glasses of an invested fifty thousand
dollars. She never criticises us--you see we can afford to do what we
please--and her respectful manner to me beggars description. Oswyth is
nowhere now; flighty Roberta is her favorite niece, all because of my
obstinacy and defiance of her opinion! But I stand for the source of
gold, and she regards me no longer as fighting 'Bobs,' but as a sort of
Kimberley."
"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Wythie, "don't hunt for motives! It's so much
pleasanter to take people at their face value, when it doesn't matter.
And Aunt Azraella is really quite nice now, Cousin Peace."
She opened her mother's chamber-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Grey sprang
from her big chair to fold in a close embrace her husband's nearest of
kin and most of kind.
"Try to bear up under the infliction, Mardy," said incorrigible Rob.
"We know you are afflicted when Cousin Peace comes, but don't let her
see it so plainly."
For Mrs. Grey was radiating the pleasure she felt in the coming of
sweet Miss Charlotte.
"There are the boys and Frances coming down the street, saucy Robin,"
said her mother. "Take yourselves off, girls, and let me have Cousin
Peace all to myself for a while. Wait one moment, Charlotte; Kiku-san
is in that chair--he claims it--but I'll lay him on my bed."
She raised the white cat like a round mat, just as he lay, and Miss
Charlotte seated herself in the vacated rocking-chair where the breeze
blew in on her. Kiku-san rose from his coiled position, sat up sleepily
for a moment on the foot of the bed, then, stretching and yawning,
walked over into Cousin Peace's lap, where he contentedly curled up to
continue his nap.
They all laughed. "Trust a cat to carry his point!" cried Rob. "That
chair is Kiku's, and Kiku will have it, whether Cousin Peace or a down
pillow is in it."
"We're off for dogwood, Kiku-san," said Prue, laying her cheek on the
cat for a farewell. "And we'll bring it home with plenty of bark for
bad kittens."
Mrs. Grey watched the seven young people out of the gate, and her eyes
and lips were smiling. Miss Charlotte said, as if she, too, saw the
pretty picture: "They are fine boys, Mary, and there are no girls so
sweet and pretty as our Grey ones. Do you ever wonder if a lifelong
affection, of a stronger sort, may grow out of this beautiful triple
friendship?"
"I suppose it would be impossible not to dream of it, Charlotte, but
Wythie and Rob are simple girls, and too unconscious to dream of it
themselves," said their mother. "I should be glad if it were to be.
Yes, I do think of it, and I realize my girls are hovering on the verge
of womanhood. They have been too busy, too home-keeping, to cross the
line early. Sometimes I think Basil and Bruce, with their half a year
advance of Wythie and Rob, are already building a little romance, and
I see that Basil finds Wythie just about perfect in all ways, as Bruce
evidently considers all other girls mere sawdust beside bright Robin,
but it all lies folded in the future, and no one can foresee. It would
be a lovely little idyl, and I dare to hope for it; almost to feel sure
it will come some day."
"I think it will," said Miss Charlotte, quietly, and the two women
smiled at each other, full of loving pride in the girls who were to
them both dearest of all girls, prettiest, bravest, sweetest.
It was high noon, and very warm, when the faint sound of distant
singing announced to Mrs. Grey and Miss Charlotte and to Mrs. Winslow,
who had by that time arrived, that the seven were returning. The
singing grew louder, clearer, and at last developed into nothing more
classic than the darky song, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?" chosen
as appropriate, and rendered with immense expression.
Almost at once the procession came in sight. Prue and Bartlemy ahead,
Prue more than ever beautiful under the great boughs of dogwood,
which, like the rest, she bore. Oswyth and Basil followed, Wythie's
face looking out flushed and glowing with summer warmth and happiness
under the great white, blotched, so-called blossoms of the shrub.
Rob and Frances divided Bruce between them, making an arbor over his
head, holding above it, by an effort, their spoils of the glossy green
and dazzling white. All seven were singing at the tops of their fresh
voices, and even Aunt Azraella could not resist the charm of this
return, but smiled benignantly at them from the window.
"You never saw anyone so changed as Mr. Flinders," remarked Mrs. Grey
at luncheon, as she busily served her guests to fresh peas. "Not
only does he carry on the place on halves, instead of two-thirds
profit--which is really much fairer--but, now that he has started in
well-doing, he is going uphill in virtue, Rob says, as if he were on
an inverted chute. He is truly grateful to us--to Rob especially--for
taking Polly last winter; he and his wife insist that we saved her
life, and I am surprised and delighted with the feeling he shows."
"Being disagreeable is like other habits," said Miss Charlotte. "When
people once break off and get over the embarrassment of having their
pleasant ways noted, it is quite easy to keep on, even to increase them
daily. I believe half the cranky people are so just because they fell
into the way of it, and feel awkwardly self-conscious when they behave
like other people."
"You ought to know, Cousin Peace," said Rob, suggestively, and, before
the laugh with which her hint had been received had died away, she
pushed her chair back from the table. "Come on, you three big boys
and little girls," she cried. "Do you realize that it is now half
past one, and that the Baldwins arrive at four? That isn't long in
which to decorate the little grey house, make the toilets of its
inmates--Kiku-san's ribbon alone needs five minutes to tie--and get
a triumphal procession of welcome down to the station to meet them.
You can't have another piece of cake, really you cannot have it,
Bartlemy--unless you put it in your pocket. Jump up, all of you!"
Rob's younger guests meekly obeyed her, and presently she had them all
at work, filling every available vase and jar with water, and bringing
them to her--"like Isaac's slaves returning from the well," Bruce
said--in the cool pantry where the girls were arranging the dogwood.
It was not long before the little grey house was massed with the
woodland beauty--old fireplaces, narrow mantels, every table and
corner, all was full of the starry white, brown-blotched radiance of
the dogwood.
Rob fell back to admire, leaning an elbow on Wythie and Frances's
shoulders, and shutting one eye in exaggeration of Bartlemy's artistic
manner of scrutinizing a sketch. "I think it will do, my brethren and
sisters," she said, solemnly.
_"O little house that gave me birth,_
_We've laid the dogwood on thy hearth_
_Because the guests now drawing near_
_Kept you from going to the dogs, my dear--_
oh, mercy, I thought that would turn out better. It
would, if I had time to develop that noble thought--but you've got to
mispronounce hearth or it won't!" cried Rob, bringing her disastrous
attempt to a hasty conclusion.
"I could do something better than that this minute, but I won't,
because you do so hate to be beaten," said Basil.
"I never know I am," said Rob, and they all shouted, because the
statement was quite true.
"Poetry reminds me of the story-telling; are you going to keep it up
another winter, Rob? You must, for you've become an institution of
Fayre. The children will be heart-broken if you don't," said Frances.
"I don't know; I'm not over-scrupulous, but it never seemed right to
me for anyone to earn money unless they have to, and now--only think
of it--I have enough! I should hate horribly to keep money from a girl
having as hard a time as I have had," said Rob.
"But there is no one else to do this, and so you don't wrong anyone. It
would be a shame to stop, really," protested Frances.
"Well, we'll see; this is only May, and there's plenty of time to
decide--plenty of time for everything in this new, blessed life of
ours!" cried Rob. "Maybe I'll carry it on in Kiku-san's name, and send
the proceeds to found a Rescue League for animals in New York like the
one in Boston--you'd like that, wouldn't you, my affectionate little
white-chrysanthemum-in-Japanese?" she added, catching up their pet and
swinging him to her shoulder.
"Time to dress to go to the station, children!" called Mrs. Grey from
the dining-room.
"Come in here and see the little grey house in its parlor," Wythie
called back. "Aunt Azraella and Cousin Peace, too."
They came at once, and stood on the worn door-sill surveying the
low-ceiled room, fresh and cool in its green paper, high, white
wainscoting, and white paint, its few fine engravings and soft grey
prints on the walls, and the starry dogwood lighting it all.
It was really beautiful, and Mrs. Grey caught her breath, with a sob
of gratitude that, in spite of her greater loss, the dear little old
homestead was left her.