This time, as before, there is a story to tell because of something
braved and dared for Miss Julia’s sake; something that needed less
nerve, perhaps, than the leap Courage took that night on the drawbridge,
but something that called not only for a world of a different sort of
courage, but for infinite patience as well, and that claimed the
whole summer for its doing. The reason for it all lay in four little
words--Miss Julia was dead. Beautiful, strong, radiant Miss Julia! why,
no one had thought of death for her, save as years and years away in the
serene twilight of a calm old age; and yet it had come, suddenly, after
a week’s brief illness, and Courage was simply broken-hearted. She felt
she had no right to her name now, and never should have again. Miss
Julia had been teacher, mother, friend to her, one or the other almost
since her babyhood, and to care for Miss Julia in return, now that she
herself was grown up, to let every thing else “come second,” had been
her only {014}thought. And now to find her hands suddenly empty, and
all the sunshine gone out of her life--was it strange that she felt
despairing and desolate and that nothing whatever was left?
“But we are left,” pleaded a chorus of little voices, and Courage seemed
to see four brighteyed little children; bright-eyed because God had made
them so, but with faces almost as sad as her own. “Yes, we are left,”
they continued pleading. “Miss Julia was going to do so much for us this
summer; could not you do it in her place for her sake?”
Courage shook her head gravely as in answer to her own thoughts.
“No, I cannot,” she said, firmly. “Everything that I leaned on is gone;
nothing is left to me--nothing.”
“But could you not try just for her sake?” chorused the little voices
over and over in her heart, day after day, in all the sad hours of
waking, and sometimes even in sleeping, until at last she bravely
brushed the tears away and made answer, “Yes, for her sake I will!”
She remembered the day of her six-year-old christening, when her
remarkable name had been given her and she had asked: “Is courage
something that people have, Papa? Have I got it?” and he had told her,
“Courage is {015}something that people have, dear, something fine, and I
hope you will have it.”
Yes, she would try, even in this dark hour, to live up to her father’s
hope for her, and so her resolve was taken.
But the four bright-eyed little children knew nothing of any resolve;
they would not have understood what it meant if they had, and as for
their singing a pathetic little chorus in any one’s heart, they were
altogether unconscious of that as well. But one thing they did know, and
that was they should never see Miss Julia again in this world, and they
thought they also knew that a beautiful plan she had made for them could
never be carried out. The wisest thing, therefore, for these four little
people was to put, so far as possible, all thought of the plan from
their minds, and Mary, the eldest of the four, said as much to the
others.
“Oh, don’t let us think about it any more,” she urged, earnestly. “If
we only could have Miss Julia back what would we care for anything else?
Besides, when you think what has happened, it seems selfish, and as
though we did not have any hearts, to grieve over our own little plans
for a moment.”
“But it wasn’t just over our own little plan,” insisted her younger
brother Teddy, “it was {016}Miss Julia’s plan for us, and I don’t think
it strange a bit that we should grieve over it.”
“Neither do I,” urged Allan, who came next to Teddy in age. “Of course
us boys, not going to the sewing-school, did not know Miss Julia as well
as you, but I just guess there wasn’t a boy who thought more of her than
I did. What’s more I loved her; not making a fuss over her, to be sure,
like you girls, still I did really love her,” (emphasising the word by a
shake of his head, and firm pursing of his lips). “All the same, I think
it’s natural we should feel awfully disappointed.” Gertrude who was
seven, and the youngest of the four, nodded in approval of the stand
Allan had taken, and continued nodding, as he added, “We haven’t
travelled so much, seems to me, or had so much change in our lives as to
settle back to the idea of a hot summer here in town, instead of going
to the country, without feeling it a bit; that is, I don’t think we
have.”
[Illustration: 0035]
Mary sighed and said nothing, as though ready to admit, after all,
that perhaps it was natural that they should take their disappointment
somewhat to heart, but the tears that had sprung suddenly into her eyes
were from real longing for Miss Julia and not from the disappointment.
This quiet talk in which the little Bennetts {017}were indulging, was
being carried on from the backs of two horses--the two girls mounted
upon one and the two boys astride the other--but they happened to be the
quietest horses in the world; horses that never budged in fact, tailless
and headless, and that belonged to the carpenter who lived on the first
floor. The Bennetts lived on the top floor; but whenever there was
anything to be talked over, down they trooped to the yard and climbed
and helped each other to the backs of these high seats, and when all
were able to declare themselves perfectly comfortable the conclave would
commence. The little Bennetts were great talkers. They simply loved to
discuss things, and this shows, when you stop to consider it, that they
must be, on the whole, an amiable little family, for some little people
that we hear of are quite too impatient and self-assertive to be willing
to discuss things at all. But whatever may have been the faults of the
little Bennetts they did have respect for each other’s opinions, and
were generally ready to admit that two heads were better than one, and
“Four heads,” to quote little Gertrude, “four times as better.” This
habit of discussion, for it really amounted to that, was partly no doubt
the outcome of a little strategy on the part of their mother. Mary and
Teddy and Allan and Gertrude were {018}just a “pair of steps,” as the
saying goes, and sometimes the little living-room on the fourth floor
seemed all too small for the noisy company, and then Mrs. Bennett would
exclaim, and as though the most novel sort of an idea had occurred to
her:
“Children, why don’t you run down to the yard and have a _good talk?_”
There was no resisting this appeal, such untold delights were implied
in Mrs. Bennett’s tone and manner, and the children seldom failed to
act upon the advice, and what was more, seldom failed to light upon some
interesting thing to talk about; and then, always as a last resort, some
one could tell a story. The some one was generally Teddy, for he had the
wildest imagination, and could upon any and every occasion invent most
thrilling romances, which were quite as much of a surprise to himself as
to his hearers. And so the children had come to love their perch in the
corner of the city yard, with the uncertain shade of an old alanthus
flickering over them in summer, and the bright sun streaming full upon
them in its leafless winter days. And this was how it chanced that the
Bennett children found themselves in their old haunt that breezy May
morning, and were easing their heavy little hearts by frankly admitting
to one {019}another how very great indeed was their disappointment.
Better so, I think. Wrinkles come earlier and plow deeper, and thoughts
are apt to grow bitter and morbid, when one broods and broods, and will
not take hearts near and dear into one’s confidence. The day never dawns
when truly brave hearts cry out for pity, but sympathy is a sweet and
blessed thing the world over, and God meant not only that we should have
it, but that, if need be, we should reach our hands and grasp it.
There was one little Bennett, however, who did not share in the general
depression. Too short a time in the world to know aught of its joys or
sorrows, Baby Bennett lay comfortably in his mother’s lap, having just
dropped off to sleep after a good half hour of rocking, Mrs. Bennett,
who had herself grown drowsy with her low crooning over the baby,
glanced first at the bustling little clock on the mantel shelf, and
then, leaning her head against the back of the chair, closed her eyes;
but instead of falling asleep she fell to thinking, and then her face
grew very sad and tears made their way from beneath her closed eyelids.
So, you see, the mother-heart was heavy as well as the-child-hearts in
the Bennett family, and for the same reason. It was not because they
were {020}not learning to face and accept the thought that Miss Julia,
whom they so dearly loved, could not return to them; they were trying to
be as brave as Miss Julia herself would have had them. But this was the
day, the very day that they were all to have started, and they could not
seem to forget it for a moment; neither could somebody else, and soon
there came a gentle knock at Mrs. Bennett’s door.
“Come in,” she answered, forgetting the tears in her eyes; and, laying
the baby in its little clothes-basket of a bed, she turned to greet the
newcomer. Courage had mounted the four flights of stairs very bravely,
but the sight of the tears in Mrs. Bennett’s eyes disarmed her, and,
sinking into the nearest chair, she found she would best not try to
speak for a moment.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Courage, that you should have seen me,” said
Mrs. Bennett, with a world of regret in her voice; “it is so much harder
for you than for anybody, but this was the day, you know, almost the
very hour.”
“Yes, I know,” Courage faltered; “that was why I came.”
“It’s like you, Miss Courage; you’ve Miss Julia’s own thoughtfulness,
but I’m thinking it will be easier for us all when this day’s over.
I got rid of the trunk last week; it seemed to {021}make us all so
disheartened to have it standing round.”
“You didn’t sell it, did you?”
“No, indeed I did not, for it may be the children will have a chance yet
some day, for a bit of an outing.”
“I have decided they are all to have it yet, Mrs. Bennett, this very
summer, and just as Miss Julia planned, too. That’s what I came to tell
you, if you will trust them to me.”
“Trust you! Oh, my dear! but it would be too much care for those young
shoulders; too much by far.”
“Mrs. Bennett,” said Courage, so earnestly as to carry conviction, “I
thought so at first, too, but the plan has grown to be just as dear to
me as it was to Miss Julia, and now, if you do not let me carry it out,
I do not see how I can ever live through this first summer.”
“Then indeed I will let you,” and then she added slowly, and with an
accent on every word, “and you are just Miss Julia’s own child!” and
Courage thought them the very sweetest words she had ever heard, or ever
could hear again.
“May I tell the children?” she asked, eagerly. “Where are they?”
Mrs. Bennett did not answer. I believe she could not, but she opened the
window and {022}Courage knew that meant the children were below in their
favourite corner.
“Oh, let me call them, please,” resting one hand on Mrs. Bennett’s arm
and leaning far out over the sill.
“Children! come up stairs for a moment, I have something to tell you.
Come up quickly.” Courage hardly knew her own voice, it rang out so
cheerily.
“Oh, Miss Courage!” chorused four little voices, only this time the
sound was in her ears as well as in her heart, and as she watched the
children tumble helter-skelter from the horses in the yard way down
below her, a smile that was almost merry drove the shadows from her
face.
[Illustration: 0042]
{023}