"but I've been distressed about her lately, night and day. I thought
perhaps I might see you going by. She's gettin' to be a great girl,
doctor, and I ain't fit to cope with her. I find my strength's
a-goin', and I'm old before my time; all my folks was rugged and sound
long past my age, but I've had my troubles--you don't need I should
tell you that! Poor Ad'line always give me a feelin' as if I was a hen
that has hatched ducks. I never knew exactly how to do for her, she
seemed to see everything so different, and Lord only knows how I worry
about her; and al'ays did, thinkin' if I'd seen clearer how to do my
duty her life might have come out sort of better. And it's the same
with little Anna; not that she's so prone to evil as some; she's a
lovin'-hearted child if ever one was born, but she's a piece o'
mischief; and it may come from her father's folks and their ways o'
livin', but she's made o' different stuff, and I ain't fit to make
answer for her, or for fetchin' of her up. I come to ask if you won't
kindly advise what's best for her. I do' know's anything's got to be
done for a good spell yet. I mind what you say about lettin' her run
and git strong, and I don't check her. Only it seemed to me that you
might want to speak about her sometimes and not do it for fear o'
wronging my judgment. I declare I haven't no judgment about what's
reasonable for her, and you're her guardeen, and there's the money her
father's sister has sent her; 't would burn my fingers to touch a cent
of it, but by and by if you think she ought to have schoolin' or
anything else you must just say so."
"I think nothing better could have been done for the child than you
have done," said Dr. Leslie warmly. "Don't worry yourself, my good
friend. As for books, she will take to them of her own accord quite
soon enough, and in such weather as this I think one day in the fields
is worth five in the school-house. I'll do the best I can for her."
Mrs. Thacher's errand had not yet been told, though she fumbled in her
pocket and walked to the open window to look for the neighbor's wagon
by which she was to find conveyance home, before she ventured to say
anything more. "I don't know's my time'll come for some years yet,"
she said at length, falteringly, "but I have had it borne in upon my
mind a good many ways this summer that I ain't going to stay here a
gre't while. I've been troubled considerable by the same complaints
that carried my mother off, and I'm built just like her. I don't feel
no concern for myself, but it's goin' to leave the child without
anybody of her own to look to. There's plenty will befriend her just
so long as she's got means, and the old farm will sell for something
besides what she's got already, but that ain't everything, and I can't
seem to make up my mind to havin' of her boarded about. If 't was so
your wife had lived I should know what I'd go down on my knees to her
to do, but I can't ask it of you to be burdened with a young child
a-growin' up."
The doctor listened patiently, though just before this he had risen
and begun to fill a small bottle at the closet shelves, which were
stocked close to their perilous edges with various drugs. Without
turning to look at his patient he said, "I wish you would take five or
six drops of this three times a day, and let me see you again within a
week or two." And while the troubled woman turned to look at him with
half-surprise, he added, "Don't give yourself another thought about
little Nan. If anything should happen to you, I shall be glad to bring
her here, and to take care of her as if she were my own. I always have
liked her, and it will be as good for me as for her. I would not
promise it for any other child, but if you had not spoken to-day, I
should have found a way to arrange with you the first chance that
came. But I'm getting to be an old fellow myself," he laughed. "I
suppose if I get through first you will be friendly to Marilla?" and
Mrs. Thacher let a faint sunbeam of a smile shine out from the depths
of the handkerchief with which she was trying to stop a great shower
of tears. Marilla was not without her little vanities, and being
thought youthful was one of the chief desires of her heart.
So Mrs. Thacher went away lighter hearted than she came. She asked the
price of the vial of medicine, and was answered that they would talk
about that another time; then there was a little sober joking about
certain patients who never paid their doctor's bills at all because of
a superstition that they would immediately require his aid again. Dr.
Leslie stood in his study doorway and watched her drive down the
street with Martin Dyer. It seemed to him only a year or two since
both the man and woman had been strong and vigorous; now they both
looked shrunken, and there was a wornness and feebleness about the
bodies which had done such good service. "Come and go," said the
doctor to himself, "one generation after another. Getting old! all the
good old-fashioned people on the farms: I never shall care so much to
be at the beck and call of their grandchildren, but I must mend up
these old folks and do the best I can for them as long as they stay;
they're good friends to me. Dear me, how it used to fret me when I was
younger to hear them always talking about old Doctor Wayland and what
he used to do; and here I am the old doctor myself!" And then he went
down the gravel walk toward the stable with a quick, firm step, which
many a younger man might have envied, to ask for a horse. "You may
saddle him," he directed. "I am only going to old Mrs. Cunningham's,
and it is a cool afternoon."
Dr. Leslie had ridden less and less every year of his practice; but,
for some reason best known to himself, he went down the village street
at a mad pace. Indeed, almost everybody who saw him felt that it was
important to go to the next house to ask if it were known for what
accident or desperate emergency he had been called away.
VIII
A GREAT CHANGE
Until the autumn of this year, life had seemed to flow in one steady,
unchanging current. The thought had not entered little Nan Prince's
head that changes might be in store for her, for, ever since she could
remember, the events of life had followed each other quietly, and
except for the differences in every-day work and play, caused by the
succession of the seasons, she was not called upon to accommodate
herself to new conditions. It was a gentle change at first: as the
days grew shorter and the house and cellar were being made ready for
winter, her grandmother seemed to have much more to do than usual, and
Nan must stay at home to help. She was growing older at any rate; she
knew how to help better than she used; she was anxious to show her
grandmother how well she could work, and as the river side and the
windy pastures grew less hospitable, she did not notice that she was
no longer encouraged to go out to play for hours together to amuse
herself as best she might, and at any rate keep out of the way. It
seemed natural enough now that she should stay in the house, and be
entrusted with some regular part of the business of keeping it. For
some time Mrs. Thacher had kept but one cow, and early in November,
after a good offer for old Brindle had been accepted, it was announced
to Nan's surprise that the young cow which was to be Brindle's
successor need not be bought until spring; she would be a great care
in winter time, and Nan was to bring a quart of milk a day from Jake
and Martin's. This did not seem an unpleasant duty while the mild
weather lasted; if there came a rainy day, one of the kind neighbors
would leave the little pail on his way to the village before the young
messenger had started out.
Nan could not exactly understand at last why Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin
always asked about her grandmother every morning with so much interest
and curiosity, or why they came oftener and oftener to help with the
heavy work. Mrs. Thacher had never before minded her occasional
illnesses so much, and some time passed before Nan's inexperienced
eyes and fearless young heart understood that the whole atmosphere
which overhung the landscape of her life had somehow changed, that
another winter approached full of mystery and strangeness and
discomfort of mind, and at last a great storm was almost ready to
break into the shelter and comfort of her simple life. Poor Nan! She
could not think what it all meant. She was asked many a distressing
question, and openly pitied, and heard her future discussed, as if her
world might come to an end any day. The doctor had visited her
grandmother from time to time, but always while she was at school,
until vacation came, and poor Mrs. Thacher grew too feeble to enter
into even a part of the usual business of the farmhouse.
One morning, as Nan was coming back from the Dyer farm with the milk,
she met Mrs. Meeker in the highway. This neighbor and our heroine were
rarely on good terms with each other, since Nan had usually laid
herself under some serious charge of wrong-doing, and had come to
believe that she would be disapproved in any event, and so might enjoy
life as she chose, and revel in harmless malice.
The child could not have told why she shrank from meeting her enemy so
much more than usual, and tried to discover some refuge or chance for
escape; but, as it was an open bit of the road, and a straight way to
the lane, she could have no excuse for scrambling over the stone wall
and cutting short the distance. However, her second thought scorned
the idea of running away in such cowardly fashion, and not having any
recent misdemeanor on her conscience, she went forward unflinchingly.
Mrs. Meeker's tone was not one of complaint, but of pity, and
insinuating friendliness. "How's your grandma to-day?" she asked, and
Nan, with an unsympathetic answer of "About the same," stepped bravely
forward, resenting with all her young soul the discovery that Mrs.
Meeker had turned and was walking alongside.
"She's been a good, kind grandma to you, hain't she?" said this
unwelcome companion, and when Nan had returned a wondering but almost
inaudible assent, she continued, "She'll be a great loss to you, I can
tell you. You'll never find nobody to do for you like her. There, you
won't realize nothing about it till you've got older'n you be now;
but the time'll come when"--and her sharp voice faltered; for Nan had
turned to look full in her face, had stopped still in the frozen road,
dropped the pail unconsciously and given a little cry, and in another
moment was running as a chased wild creature does toward the refuge of
its nest. The doctor's horse was fastened at the head of the lane, and
Nan knew at last, what any one in the neighborhood could have told her
many days before, that her grandmother was going to die. Mrs. Meeker
stared after her with a grieved sense of the abrupt ending of the
coveted interview, then she recovered her self-possession, and,
picking up the forsaken pail, stepped lightly over the ruts and frozen
puddles, following Nan eagerly in the hope of witnessing more of such
extraordinary behavior, and with the design of offering her services
as watcher or nurse in these last hours. At any rate the pail and the
milk, which had not been spilt, could not be left in the road.
So the first chapter of the child's life was ended in the early winter
weather. There was a new unsheltered grave on the slope above the
river, the farm-house door was shut and locked, and the light was out
in the kitchen window. It had been a landmark to those who were used
to driving along the road by night, and there were sincere mourners
for the kindly woman who had kept a simple faith and uprightness all
through her long life of trouble and disappointment. Nan and the cat
had gone to live in the village, and both, being young, had taken the
change with serenity; though at first a piteous sorrow had been waked
in the child's heart, a keen and dreadful fear of the future. The past
seemed so secure and pleasant, as she looked back, and now she was in
the power of a fateful future which had begun with something like a
whirlwind that had swept over her, leaving nothing unchanged. It
seemed to her that this was to be incessant, and that being grown up
was to be at the mercy of sorrow and uncertainty. She was pale and
quiet during her last days in the old home, answering questions and
obeying directions mechanically; but usually sitting in the least
visited part of the kitchen, watching the neighbors as they examined
her grandmother's possessions, and properly disposed of the contents
of the house. Sometimes a spark flew from her sad and angry eyes, but
she made no trouble, and seemed dull and indifferent. Late in the
evening Dr. Leslie carried her home with him through the first heavy
snow-storm of the year, and between the excitement of being covered
from the fast-falling flakes, and so making a journey in the dark, and
of keeping hold of the basket which contained the enraged kitten, the
grief at leaving home was not dwelt upon.
When she had been unwound from one of the doctor's great cloaks, and
her eyes had grown used to the bright light in the dining-room, and
Marilla had said that supper had been waiting half an hour, and she
did not know how she should get along with a black cat, and then
bustled about talking much faster than usual, because the sight of the
lonely child had made her ready to cry, Nan began to feel comforted.
It seemed a great while ago that she had cried at her grandmother's
funeral. If this were the future it was certainly very welcome and
already very dear, and the time of distress was like a night of bad
dreams between two pleasant days.
It will easily be understood that no great change was made in Dr.
Leslie's house. The doctor himself and Marilla were both well settled
in their habits, and while they cordially made room for the little
girl who was to be the third member of the household, her coming made
little difference to either of her elders. There was a great deal of
illness that winter, and the doctor was more than commonly busy; Nan
was sent to school, and discovered the delight of reading one stormy
day when her guardian had given her leave to stay at home, and she had
found his own old copy of Robinson Crusoe looking most friendly and
inviting in a corner of one of the study shelves. As for school, she
had never liked it, and the village school gave her far greater misery
than the weather-beaten building at the cross-roads ever had done. She
had known many of the village children by sight, from seeing them in
church, but she did not number many friends among them, even after the
winter was nearly gone and the days began to grow brighter and less
cold, and the out-of-door games were a source of great merriment in
the playground. Nan's ideas of life were quite unlike those held by
these new acquaintances, and she could not gain the least interest in
most of the other children, though she grew fond of one boy who was a
famous rover and fisherman, and after one of the elder girls had read
a composition which fired our heroine's imagination, she worshiped
this superior being from a suitable distance, and was her willing
adorer and slave. The composition was upon The Moon, and when the
author proclaimed the fact that this was the same moon which had
looked down upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, little Nan's eyes had
opened wide with reverence and awe, and she opened the doors of her
heart and soul to lofty thought and high imagination. The big girl,
who sat in the back seat and glibly recited amazing lessons in
history, and did sums which entirely covered the one small blackboard,
was not unmindful of Nan's admiration, and stolidly accepted and
munched the offerings of cracked nuts, or of the treasured English
apples which had been brought from the farm and kept like a squirrel's
hoard in an archway of the cellar by themselves. Nan cherished an idea
of going back to the farm to live by herself as soon as she grew a
little older, and she indulged in pleasing day-dreams of a most
charming life there, with frequent entertainments for her friends, at
which the author of the information about the moon would be the
favored guest, and Nan herself, in a most childish and provincial
fashion, the reigning queen. What did these new town-acquaintances
know of the strawberries which grew in the bit of meadow, or the great
high-bush blackberries by one of the pasture walls, and what would
their pleasure be when they were taken down the river some moonlight
night and caught sight of a fire blazing on a distant bank, and went
nearer to find a sumptuous feast which Nan herself had arranged? She
had been told that her aunt--that mysterious and beneficent aunt--had
already sent her money which was lying idle in the bank until she
should need to spend it, and her imaginary riches increased week by
week, while her horizon of future happiness constantly grew wider.
The other children were not unwilling at first to enter upon an
inquisitive friendship with the new-comer; but Marilla was so
uncongenial to the noisy visitors, and so fastidious in the matter of
snowy and muddy shoes, that she was soon avoided. Nan herself was a
teachable child and gave little trouble, and Marilla sometimes
congratulated herself because she had reserved the violent objections
which had occurred to her mind when the doctor had announced, just
before Mrs. Thacher's death, that his ward would henceforth find a
home in his house.
Marilla usually sat in the dining-room in the evening, though she was
apt to visit the study occasionally, knitting in hand, to give her
opinions, or to acquaint herself with various events of which she
thought the doctor would be likely to have knowledge. Sometimes in the
colder winter nights, she drew a convenient light-stand close beside
the kitchen stove and refused to wander far from such comfortable
warmth. Now that she had Nan's busy feet to cover, there was less
danger than ever that she should be left without knitting-work, and
she deeply enjoyed the child's company, since Nan could give innocent
answers to many questions which could never be put to elder members of
the Dyer and Thacher neighborhood. Mrs. Meeker was apt to be discussed
with great freedom, and Nan told long stories about her own childish
experiences, which were listened to and encouraged, and matched with
others even longer and more circumstantial by Marilla. The doctor, who
was always reading when he could find a quiet hour for himself, often
smiled as he heard the steady sound of voices from the wide kitchen,
and he more than once took a few careful steps into the dining-room,
and stood there shaking with laughter at the character of the
conversation. Nan, though eager to learn, and curious about many
things in life and nature, at first found her school lessons
difficult, and sometimes came appealingly to him for assistance, when
circumstances had made a temporary ending of her total indifference to
getting the lessons at all. For this and other reasons she sometimes
sought the study, and drew a small chair beside the doctor's large one
before the blazing fire of the black birch logs; and then Marilla in
her turn would venture upon the neutral ground between study and
kitchen, and smile with satisfaction at the cheerful companionship of
the tired man and the idle little girl who had already found her way
to his lonely heart. Nan had come to another home; there was no
question about what should be done with her and for her, but she was
made free of the silent old house, and went on growing taller, and
growing dearer, and growing happier day by day. Whatever the future
might bring, she would be sure to look back with love and longing to
the first summer of her village life, when, seeing that she looked
pale and drooping, the doctor, to her intense gratification, took her
away from school. Presently, instead of having a ride out into the
country as an occasional favor, she might be seen every day by the
doctor's side, as if he could not make his morning rounds without her;
and in and out of the farm-houses she went, following him like a
little dog, or, as Marilla scornfully expressed it, a briar at his
heels; sitting soberly by when he dealt his medicines and gave advice,
listening to his wise and merry talk with some, and his helpful advice
and consolation to others of the country people. Many of these
acquaintances treated Nan with great kindness; she half belonged to
them, and was deeply interesting for the sake of her other ties of
blood and bonds of fortune, while she took their courtesy with
thankfulness, and their lack of notice with composure. If there were a
shiny apple offered she was glad, but if not, she did not miss it,
since her chief delight was in being the doctor's assistant and
attendant, and her eyes were always watching for chances when she
might be of use. And one day, coming out from a bedroom, the doctor
discovered, to his amusement, that her quick and careful fingers had
folded the papers of some powders which he had left unfolded on the
table. As they drove home together in the bright noon sunshine, he
said, as if the question were asked for the sake of joking a little,
"What are you going to do when you grow up, Nan?" to which she
answered gravely, as if it were the one great question of her life, "I
should like best to be a doctor." Strangely enough there flitted
through the doctor's mind a remembrance of the day when he had talked
with Mrs. Meeker, and had looked up the lane to see the unlucky turkey
whose leg had been put into splints. He had wished more than once that
he had taken pains to see how the child had managed it; but old Mrs.
Thacher had reported the case to have been at least partially
successful.
Nan had stolen a look at her companion after the answer had been
given, but had been pleased and comforted to find that he was not
laughing at her, and at once began a lively picture of becoming famous
in her chosen profession, and the valued partner of Dr. Leslie, whose
skill everybody praised so heartily. He should not go out at night,
and she would help him so much that he would wonder how he ever had
been able to manage his wide-spread practice alone. It was a matter of
no concern to her that Marilla had laughed when she had been told of
Nan's intentions, and had spoken disrespectfully of women doctors; and
the child's heart was full of pride and hope. The doctor stopped his
horse suddenly to show Nan some flowers which grew at the roadside,
some brilliant cardinals, and she climbed quickly down to gather them.
There was an unwritten law that they should keep watch, one to the
right hand, and the other to the left, and such treasures of blossoms
or wild fruit seldom escaped Nan's vision. Now she felt as if she had
been wrong to let her thoughts go wandering, and her cheeks were
almost as bright as the scarlet flowers themselves, as she clambered
back to the wagon seat. But the doctor was in deep thought, and had
nothing more to say for the next mile or two. It had become like a
bad-case day suddenly and without apparent reason; but Nan had no
suspicion that she was the patient in charge whose welfare seemed to
the doctor to be dependent upon his own decisions.
IX
AT DR. LESLIE'S
That evening Dr. Leslie made signs that he was not to be interrupted,
and even shut the study doors, to which precaution he seldom resorted.
He was evidently disturbed when an hour later a vigorous knocking was
heard at the seldom-used front entrance, and Marilla ushered in with
anything but triumph an elderly gentleman who had been his college
classmate. Marilla's countenance wore a forbidding expression, and as
she withdrew she took pains to shut the door between the hall and
dining-room with considerable violence. It was almost never closed
under ordinary circumstances, but the faithful housekeeper was
impelled to express her wrath in some way, and this was the first
that offered itself. Nan was sitting peacefully in the kitchen playing
with her black cat and telling herself stories no doubt, and was quite
unprepared for Marilla's change of temper. The bell for the Friday
evening prayer-meeting was tolling its last strokes and it was
Marilla's habit to attend that service. She was apt to be kept closely
at home, it must be acknowledged, and this was one of her few social
indulgences. Since Nan had joined the family and proved that she could
be trusted with a message, she had been left in charge of the house
during this coveted hour on Friday evenings.
Marilla had descended from her room arrayed for church going, but now
her bonnet was pulled off as if that were the prime offender, and when
the child looked wonderingly around the kitchen, she saw the bread-box
brought out from the closet and put down very hard on a table, while
Marilla began directly afterward to rattle at the stove.