A DISAPPOINTMENT.
Dora thought one of the pleasantest things about housekeeping was
being able to give a tea-party now and then. They were of necessity
very small affairs, if for no other reason than because Mrs. Warner
could not stand much excitement.
Mrs. Smith was delighted to do anything for Miss Dora, and finding out
in some way when her birthday came, herself proposed a celebration.
Mrs. Warner entered into the idea with unusual interest, so Dora
consented to invite Bess, Louise, Carl, Aleck, and Ikey.
If it had been an order for a grand reception, Mrs. Smith could not
have filled it with more pleasure. She sent up a delicious little
supper, and as the crowning glory, and a present from herself, an
immense birthday cake in pink icing, with fifteen candles on it.
It is needless to say they had a merry time. The hostess did the
honors with a great deal of grace, looking very pretty in a charming
gown brought to her from New York by Aunt Marcia. Mrs. Hazeltine was
in the habit of bringing home pretty things to her nieces, and as she
said she considered Dora one of them it was not possible to refuse
her gifts.
"Suppose we tell what we mean to be when we are grown up," suggested
Bess, when the feast was over and they had drawn their chairs together
in a cosey group.
"Dear me! I don't know," said Dora.
"Well, what you would like to be, then?"
"I think perhaps I shall be some kind of a teacher, but--I know you
will laugh--I believe I'd like to keep a store and live back of it, as
Mrs. Smith does."
"A confectionery, Dora?" asked Louise, as they all laughed at this
lofty ambition. "I'll promise you my custom."
"Ikey, you are next; what are you going to do?" inquired Bess.
"Well, after Carl and I go to college I am going to study medicine. By
that time Father will have left the navy, I hope, and we will all live
here together, and I'll practise."
"Perhaps there will be an office for you back of Dora's store," said
Carl.
"I'd like to write books," said Bess. "Beautiful stories that
everybody will want to read. Then I'll make lots of money and build
hospitals and do ever so much good."
"The hospitals will be for Ikey to practise in, I suppose, my great
and good cousin," remarked Aleck, with a profound bow.
"I mean to be a judge," announced Carl, who was next. "Now, Aleck."
"I am going to try for West Point next year. Father has given his
consent, and--well, I'll be a general."
"I don't see how you can unless there is a war," said Ikey.
"Perhaps there'll be one then, and if I am wounded I can go to Bess's
hospital and have you practise on me."
"Louise, you are the last; what noble ambition have you?"
"I think I'll illustrate Bess's books and help Dora keep store," she
said, laughing.
A knock at the door interrupted just then, and Uncle William's cheery
face appeared. "It is so late I must not stop," he said; "but I ran
away from a political meeting to wish my little girl many happy
returns."
* * * * *
"There is to be another wedding in the family," said Mrs. Howard,
entering the library one day with some hyacinths in her hand.
"Do you mean it really? I did not know there was anybody to get
married but Cousin Helen," Bess exclaimed.
Carl looked up from a weighty volume he was consulting. "That is easy
to guess; it is Joanna, of course."
"Is it Jo, Auntie?"
"Yes, she confided it to me a few minutes ago. It will be in June, and
Patrick Loughlin is the happy man."
"I should think she would rather live with us, but there is no
accounting for taste," said Bess, as she went to find Louise and tell
the news.
"I can't imagine what ails Ikey; he is as cross as a bear," remarked
Carl, closing his book with a bang.
"Perhaps he is worrying over examinations," Aunt Zelie suggested.
Her nephew laughed. "That would not be like Ikey; and then he has done
finely this term, so that there will not be a bit of trouble about his
passing."
"I sincerely hope that there is not another of my boys in trouble,"
she said anxiously.
"Oh! it can't be any thing really, only I never knew him to be
snappish. I thought I'd mention it, for you might get it out of him if
you happen to see him."
About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Howard closed the front door
behind her and came out into the pleasant spring air. As she reached
the gate she caught sight of a light-brown head in one of the
third-story windows across the street, and acting on a sudden impulse
she made a signal.
The window went up promptly, and going over she called: "Can't you
come with me out to Neffler's? I'd like some company. Never mind, of
course, if you are busy."
"Thank you, I am not busy; I'll come," and in two minutes Ikey was
beside her.
It was easy to see he was not quite himself. Usually he would have
been bubbling over with gayety at the honor of being chosen a
companion for a long walk to the florist's, but now the conversation
was all on one side.
Mrs. Howard did her best to be entertaining, and took no notice of his
evident preoccupation until she had given her orders and they turned
toward home; then she said: "I have been waiting in the hope that you
would tell me what is troubling you, but now I shall have to ask; Carl
and I are both wondering what has happened."
Ikey looked very much surprised, being under the delusion that he was
concealing his feelings perfectly.
"I am not in any trouble," he began, "though I am bothered about
something, and I oughtn't to be; that is what makes it so bad."
His companion looked sympathetic and waited for further revelations.
"You see," Ikey went on, "I wrote to Papa about going to school with
Carl next winter and to Yale the year after, and he was willing and so
was Grandfather; it seemed all settled. I knew they would be back in
June, certainly Mamma and Alice, so we could spend the summer
together. Then I thought, of course, they would be settled somewhere
where I could go for my holidays, but now all my plans are spoiled:
Papa has to go to the Pacific coast."
If his father had been sent to Siberia, Ikey's tone could not have
been more tragic. Mrs. Howard could hardly help smiling.
"I don't quite understand yet," she said. "Does that mean that you
will still be separated from your father and mother? or--"
"That is what makes me feel so mean," he burst out. "Of course I want
to be with them, and yet I can't bear to go to California, and that is
what I must do. Give up going with Carl, and go to some horrid old
university out there. They seem to think I shall like it. Mamma is
pleased because she used to live in San Francisco, and Grandfather
thinks he will go out too. There is no help for it."
"Then you will have to make the best of it, will you not? It is
perfectly natural to feel as you do, after setting your heart on the
other plan, and I am sure it does not mean any lack of affection for
your father and mother."
"I am glad you think it doesn't," he said, in a relieved tone, for he
had been torturing himself with the thought that he was a most
unnatural son.
"I hate to think of going so far away and never seeing any of you
again, when you have been so good to me." His voice faltered.
"I should feel very badly if you could leave us without caring, after
all our good times together. Carl will be dreadfully disappointed,
but as for not meeting again, California is not so far away as that,
and it is not likely your father will be there for the rest of his
life." She spoke with great cheerfulness, not daring to be too
sympathetic.
"I'll try not to hate it so," Ikey said, bracing up a little.
Mrs. Howard insisted on taking him home to dinner, and when Carl came
in he found him holding a skein of wool for Bess while Louise read
aloud, and if not quite his usual gay self he was at least more
cheerful than he had been for days.
The storm which arose when his friends heard of the change in his
plans was most comforting. Carl declared he didn't half care about
going to college himself if Ikey couldn't go, and Bess remarked
sorrowfully that everything would be different next winter, with
Cousin Helen married and the boys all away.
"Why, Ikey and Cousin Helen are going to the same place!" exclaimed
Louise, "and we are going to see her, so we'll see him too." Here was
a gleam of brightness, and Carl added, "And of course when you get to
be a doctor you will come back to practise in Bess's hospital."
When letters came from his mother and father, telling more fully their
plans, and overflowing with the pleasure of being all together again,
Ikey would not have been his warm-hearted self if he had not been
glad. Dear as were the friendships which he had made in the three
years spent at his grandfather's, family ties were stronger.
Old Mr. Ford said he did not know what he should do without his
grandson, and talked seriously of accepting his son's invitation to
try a winter in California.
It was finally arranged that Ikey should meet his parents in New York
sometime about the middle of July, and as that was more than two
months distant, and the present full of interesting events, as Louise
expressed it, he put aside his disappointment and was as merry as
ever.