“OH, COME YE IN PEACE HERE, OR COME YE IN WAR?”
After the party and Jan’s accident there were seven days of uneventful,
shut-in life, which were both pleasant and unpleasant. Jan could not go
to school, for her hands were very painful, and holding a book would be
quite out of the question.
Gwen was well and out again in a day, but she devoted her afternoons to
Jan, going over their lessons with her, that she might keep up with the
class, and entertaining her the rest of the time. The girls in school
showed a tendency to make a heroine of Jan, who refused to be lionized;
Dorothy, Cena, and Helen Watterson came, separately or together, nearly
every afternoon to see her, and the teachers sent messages of sympathy
and pride in her courage to her, whom they called “their brave little
Janet.”
Sydney hailed her on the day after her adventure with a cordial smile
and a tone which she had never heard him use to any one. He liked
pluck, and it struck him suddenly that the girl whom he had dubbed
“Miss Lochinvar” had been showing it, in one form or another, ever
since her arrival.
“I hear you have been making a burnt offering of yourself, Miss Jan,”
he said. “Don’t do too much of that sort of thing, because it would be
a pity to have you burned up altogether.”
Jan was so pleased at this advance from Sydney that she built upon
it great hopes of real friendship between them, but though Sydney
never relapsed into his perfect indifference of manner toward her,
they did not get beyond this slight break in the ice. Gladys alone
stood completely aloof. She was a very unhappy Gladys in these days,
and heartily wished that she had not taken the attitude toward her
cousin which she now felt called upon to maintain. Pride kept her from
admitting that she was in the wrong, and stubbornness toward Gwen, and
a deep-seated objection to seeming to admit her authority, made her
ten times worse than she might have been without these inducements to
bad behavior. Gwen found out from Jan how Gladys had treated her at
the party. Jan did not mean to tell, but in saying how good Dorothy
Schuyler had been to her, she found that she had blundered into
betrayal of Gladys’s neglect.
Gwen was very angry. Not only was her sense of justice and liking for
Jan in arms, but had not she, Gwendoline, Gladys’s elder and talented
sister, warned Gladys that night before setting forth that she must not
treat their cousin badly?
“I don’t want to be a tell-tale, Gladys, and I’m not the sort to run
to papa with things, any more than he is one to bother with them, but
you know what he said about sending you to boarding-school if you
dared be rude to Janet when he had invited her here! Now, you just
keep it up as you’ve been doing, and I’ll have to go to him, and tell
him how perfectly horrid you are to her--and she so sweet and dear,
and everybody that is anybody admiring her like everything!” said Gwen
sternly.
“You can tell him anything you please,” said Gladys furiously, “but I
won’t have anything to do with Janet, and nobody can make me! You can’t
say I treat her badly if I let her entirely alone!”
So Gladys withdrew herself from her sister’s society, since it involved
Jan’s, and was more than ever with her objectionable friends, by way of
defying Gwen and proving her independence; though the only thing she
succeeded in proving thoroughly was proved to herself, and that was
that she was very miserable and ashamed of herself.
“I am driving Gladys away,” said Jan forlornly to Gwen one day. “You
are never together, and it’s all my fault. I sometimes wish I had never
come to New York.”
“Don’t worry, Jan. Gladys and I were never friends,” said Gwen lightly.
Then seeing Jan’s shocked expression, she added: “Not that we were
enemies, you know. What I mean is we never were chums. We always liked
different things and people. It might as well be you we differ about as
anything else. It isn’t you who have done it.”
“But she is with the Hammonds all the time--more than when I first
came, and you never liked that,” objected Jan.
“Probably it is all for the best. I should think that would be the best
way to cure her of liking them,” laughed Gwen. “Don’t worry, Jan. You
can’t make everybody alike.”
With which bit of philosophy Jan had to try to satisfy herself.
The kitten she had rescued on her return from the party was showing
gratifying results of her care. After he had had the mud sponged from
his fur--a task performed by Gwen, since Jan was unable to do it--he
had displayed a pretty coat of black stripes on a brownish ground, with
snowy breast and paws, and a nice face, which Jan convulsed Gwen and
Jack by pronouncing “grave and sweet in expression,” though there was
no denying that this was true when she had pointed out the fact.
He had been some one’s pet, for his manners were quite elegant, and he
had been taught to jump through hands, and to eat like a Turveydrop of
deportment. But Jan did not call him Turveydrop, as Gwen wanted her
to. She named him Tommy Traddles, after the cheerful youth of whom
she was very fond, and he became the greatest addition to the little
exile’s comfort. Tommy Traddles required convincing that each other
member of the family individually meant well by him, for he had been so
frightened during his days of wandering and hardship that he distrusted
every one, but Jan he loved from the first. He had a shocking cough and
bad indigestion from exposure and lack of food, but Jan cured the one
with cod-liver oil and the other by careful feeding, and Tommy Traddles
came out as good as new. It seemed to Jan, when he sat purring in her
sunny chamber window, with the broad middle stripe of his back getting
more glossy before her eyes, that she had not had a moment of home
feeling until her dear cat came.
One day when it had been raining heavily, and a cold had kept Jack
at home from school, Jan sat in Gwen’s room listening to the first
chapters--three were now written--of the novel which she, quite as
implicitly as Gwen, believed that North & Co would jump at the chance
to publish as soon as Cena North laid it before her father.
Jack was restless. His cold was just bad enough not to risk going out
with it, but not bad enough to subdue his spirits. Gwen lost patience
at last with his constant popping in and out of her room and snapped
him up.
“Ivan Graham,” she cried, “if you don’t keep out of here, I’ll make
you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of me, like
a sneak, just because my lock is broken! Aren’t boys a nuisance, Jan?”
“No, but their noise is sometimes,” smiled Jan, with a warning shake of
the head at Jack.
The warning came too late. Jan had never seen an exhibition of her
little cousin’s temper, though she had been informed more than once
that “Jack was a terror when he broke loose.” He “broke loose” now,
and Jan saw the suitability of the expression, for he was like a young
wildcat.
“I’m not a sneak! I’ll teach you to call me a sneak!” he shrieked,
throwing himself on Gwen with such violence that she staggered halfway
across the room. “I’ll show you! I’ll show you!” Apparently Jack meant
that he would show his sister how he could use his fists, for he was
pummeling her black and blue, and Jan’s bandaged hands prevented her
going to Gwen’s rescue.
But Gwen had had sorry experience with ungoverned temper from her
earliest days. She caught Jack deftly at last, pinioned his arms, and
bore him--for she was a tall, strong girl--half dragging him, half
carrying him, to Hummie for punishment, though he kicked and fought all
the way.
“Isn’t he a cherub?” asked Gwen, returning triumphant, but short of
breath.
“It’s awful!” cried Jan, who had been quite frightened during the
tussle. “If some one doesn’t teach him to control that temper he may
do something he’ll be sorry for all his life. And he really is a dear
little fellow--so warm-hearted and generous!”
“Oh, those tornadoes are always warm-hearted and generous, if they
feel pleasant,” said Gwen. “I think I like less generosity and fewer
kicks. I shall be black and blue for a week. Don’t your brothers have
tantrums?”
“Yes, but we always try not to stir up the quick ones, and when they
get into a fit of temper we try to cool them down--we have what we call
the Rescue League, you know--mamma founded it--and we pledge ourselves
to rescue one another from our foes--inside ourselves, of course. It
really is fun, and more like a play than anything goody-goody. Then if
mamma is around when one of us gets mad, she takes that one by the hand
and leads him off--sometimes it’s a her, you know--it has been me--been
I--and soothes him all down and talks quietly, and we come back feeling
as if we had had a bath--a bath for our minds.” Janet’s eyes had grown
dim as she talked. The little plain home looked so lovely and peaceful
as she recalled it!
Gwen was silent, and at this moment Susan offered Jan a letter.
“Oh, it’s from mamma!” she cried. “Please open it for me, Gwen. And lay
it on my lap where I can read it.”
Gwen obeyed, but the attempt at reading was not successful. The pages
slipped and Jan’s fingers were not free to hold them.
“You would rather not have me read it to you?” asked Gwen. “Do you
think it’s secrets?”
“No, but I do love to read mamma’s letters myself,” sighed Jan. “Thank
you, Gwen. Please take it.”
Gwen did as she was bidden, and read:
“MY DEAREST LITTLE JANET-GIRL: It is really several days
since I wrote you, but papa and Fred have written, and there wasn’t
any news. Only that there are five more citizens of Crescendo
than there were last week--four are kittens--nice little Maltese
and white things, belonging to Madam Puff--and one a calf, the
long-legged daughter of Mrs. Cusha. I am so glad that my little
girl is not getting too fond of luxury to want to see her plain
home again! They are very good to you at Uncle Howard’s, and it was
beautiful in him to fit you out as prettily as his own daughters,
so that you should not be mortified nor mortify them when you
appear together. By and by you will see more of Aunt Tina, I am
sure. She must be fond of all those dear children, of course. [Here
Jan began to blush furiously, but Gwen only elevated her eyebrows
and went on reading with increasing interest as she caught sight of
her own name farther down the page.] And though it is delightful
for you to see so much of the tiny ones, and have them love you
so dearly, I am especially glad that you like Gwen, and that she
seems to like you, for I feel sure she is a noble girl, as well
as a clever one, and I always wanted Howard’s oldest daughter and
my oldest girl to be friends, as we were, he and I, years ago.
And no, dear, you certainly must not mind Gladys’s dislike too
much, nor even feel sure it is dislike, because one is likely to
get the kind of treatment one expects. I am as sorry as I can be
that she apparently despises poverty. Of course that is nonsense.
Rich people are not better than poor ones, nor are poor people
better than rich ones. It all depends how one meets and uses his
opportunities, and money or its lack is an accident. Rich people
are tempted to be hard and selfish, but, on the other hand, poor
people are tempted to be envious and jealous. ‘The betwixt and
between’ folk have the best of it, for they are not so strongly
tempted either way. Still, they often get dissatisfied with
enough. Agur was very wise when he prayed to be given ‘neither
poverty nor riches.’ I am sorry as I can be that my poor little
niece is so worldly, but I hope she will learn better when she is a
little older. If she doesn’t she will have some hard lessons, for
worldly people are taught very sharply how vain are the things upon
which they have set their hearts, and no one with false ambitions
is ever happy. But if little Jan doesn’t get worldly, I can not
care as much as I should about any one else. I was so afraid, so
dreadfully afraid, to put my single-hearted girl among things which
could never be hers--afraid I should spoil her content and her
unconsciousness of differences, which really are imaginary and do
not matter at all. Go your ways, my Jan, like an honest, simple
little girl, and do not be other than your true, good little self.
It grieves me to think that any one in my brother’s house--much
more one of his children--should not be quite kind to Jan, but I
feel sure you will win Gladys by and by, if you are patient. The
greatest English writer after Shakespeare--to my thinking, at
least--said that the world was a looking-glass, reflecting our own
expression toward it. And he was perfectly right. So smile away,
Janet, and by and by all your little world will smile at you. All
the children and your father send kisses enough to take your breath
away. And so does she who loves you a little more than any one else
can love you, and who prays ‘that God will keep you so pure, and
true, and fair.’ You remember our favorite song?
“Your loving and only mother,
“JENNIE GRAHAM HOWE.”
To Jan’s surprise and dismay, Gwen sprang up after reading this
letter, which Jan would not have allowed her to see for the world if
she had known that it was going to reflect her own comments on her
surroundings, and threw herself on the bed, sobbing as though her heart
would break. “Why, Gwen, why, dear Gwen, don’t!” cried Jan, clasping
her cousin in her wounded arms. “I didn’t mean anything about Gladys!
I’m so sorry you read it! But it really wasn’t anything bad I said!”
“Oh, it’s not that. I don’t care what you said--Gladys is a pig!”
sobbed Gwen. “It’s because Aunt Jennie is so awfully, beautifully
dear! And because--because--O Janet Howe, you don’t deserve credit.
You ought to be a nice girl!” And puzzled Jan agreed with her, as she
stroked her hair in wondering silence.