HAPPY DAYS
The arrival of Letty at Sunnycrest was the herald of many happy days. Of
course Mrs. Hartwell-Jones gave grandmother all the particulars of her
interview with Mrs. Drake, but the mere fact that Letty was there
satisfied the twins; they carried her off to the orchard, completely
contented at the new turn events had taken.
“Here’s where we play fairies,” said Jane, leading the way to the
orchard. “This is Titania’s throne—this mound with the grapevine twisted
into a seat. Kit made it for me. Isn’t he clever? He plays with me, too;
sometimes he’s Oberon and sometimes he’s Puck. He’s funniest when he’s
Puck.”
“I said something to Bill Carpenter about Puck to-day, and he thought I
meant a funny paper,” exclaimed Christopher scornfully. “Just fancy not
knowing about Puck!”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Letty shyly, her face getting very red
at the thought of these children knowing so much more than she did. “Was
he a fairy?”
“Oh, yes, and there’s a play about him in the house. Will you read us
the story?”
“Some time,” replied Letty hesitatingly, doubtful if she could read well
enough. She had not progressed very much in her lessons during these
past three years.
“Do you know any stories?” asked Jane, settling herself comfortably upon
Titania’a throne.
“I—I make up stories sometimes to myself and—and songs.”
“Oh, do you sing?” put in Christopher. “What sort of songs? Sing us one,
that’s a good girl.”
“I only know two or three songs with tunes to them. I’ll sing them for
you some time, but not now. I must go see if Mrs. Hartwell-Jones needs
me.”
“Everything Mrs. Drake could tell me was satisfactory,” Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones was saying to grandmother. “Letty’s mother, it seems,
must have been a very unusual woman, a ‘real lady’ Mrs. Drake called
her.”
“I remember my daughter-in-law said the same thing,” put in grandmother.
“The son was fond of his little sister but careless of her and too fond
of his own good times. The Drakes have kept her on with them since her
brother’s death out of pure kindness of heart. Mrs. Drake said she
thought of trying to get Letty a place as nursemaid when they went back
to the city; she is so fond of children and so patient and good to Mrs.
Drake’s baby. You should have seen how Letty cried and hugged that baby
when we came away.”
“How sad it would have been,” said grandmother, “to have cast that poor
child upon the world at her age.”
“What a mercy it is that your dear little Janey gave me my idea. In the
past I have done what I could for charity, as every one does; that is, I
have given sums of money to different hospitals and all that. But I have
always wanted to have some personal work to do, and now I have it, in
bringing up this poor orphaned child.”
“And you will grow fond of her, too,” added grandmother. “She has such a
sweet face and such nice, thoughtful ways.”
“I think I am fond of her already; fond and interested.”
“Have you any plans?”
“I suppose I shall send her to boarding-school in the autumn. But the
poor child is woefully behind her years in knowledge. I shall write to
the city for books and set her a daily task at once.
“And now about my visit to you, dear Mrs. Baker. It is very kind of you
to take Letty in as well as me, and those great ponies too. But I must
not impose upon your hospitality too long. As soon as arrangements can
be made, Letty and I must return to the village. Now that I have a
willing pair of little feet to wait upon me and run my errands I shall
get on nicely. We stopped on the way home this afternoon at Mr. Parsons’
and bespoke a room for Letty. Mr. Parsons thinks he can make room for
the ponies in his stable.”
“We shall be very sorry to see you go,” replied Mrs. Baker regretfully,
“but I dare say you will feel freer and more undisturbed in your own
rooms. The children will miss you.”
“I hope they will come in to see me often—every day, if they wish. We
shall have little tea-parties in my sitting-room or down under the
trees. And I trust you will come too, to drink tea with me.”
So matters were arranged; much to the children’s disappointment at
first, but when they understood the extent of Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s
invitations to them, they were frankly delighted. They did not like the
idea of losing Letty and the ponies, but the prospect of almost daily
tea-parties made them look forward almost with eagerness to the time of
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s return to her own rooms in the village.
Jane was filled with rapture at the idea of more fairy plays, for Letty
had entered into the game of dolls as eagerly and interestedly as Jane
herself, her vivid imagination making the dainty waxen creatures seem
all but alive. Christopher, for his part, rejoiced secretly over the
chances these visits promised of going to the village and continuing his
intimacy with Billy Carpenter.
Billy and half a dozen other village boys were trying to get up a
baseball nine, and Christopher and Jo Perkins had both been invited to
join. Billy Carpenter came out to Sunnycrest nearly every afternoon on
his bicycle, and he and Jo Perkins and Christopher had great times
practicing pitching and batting down in the long meadow.
Grandmother looked on at this new friendship of Christopher’s with some
surprise and a little uneasiness. Until the present time, the twins had
been inseparable, sharing their pleasures and enjoying the same games.
Jane was hurt sometimes by Christopher’s desertion, but she was too busy
and happy to feel badly for long, and after Letty came she was quite
reconciled to Christopher’s new friends.
Letty was a delightful playfellow, always ready for whatever game Jane
was pleased to suggest, and as Mrs. Hartwell-Jones demanded very little
of her new companion’s time, she was able to devote herself to Jane.
Every morning Letty drove Mrs. Hartwell-Jones out in the pony carriage,
Jane and Christopher taking turns in the little seat behind; then there
was an hour’s work over arithmetic and reading. After that the two
little girls might amuse themselves as they pleased.
Huldah enjoyed having them in the kitchen. Letty soon proved to be more
of a helper than Jane herself, and was so genuinely interested in the
art of cooking that Huldah good-naturedly offered to give her a few
practical lessons.
It was while these cooking lessons were going on that Jane generally
wrote her letters to her mother. It was a positive rule that the twins
were to write either to their father or mother at least once a week. It
may sound hard to say that this had to be made a rule but if you, my
dears, are like most children, you will understand how difficult it is
to find time to write letters even to those you love best in the world.
But Jane rather liked it when she got started—if there was some one at
hand to help with the spelling and the letters need not be long. Before
sailing on the big steamer, Mrs. Baker, Jr., had given each of her
children a little writing-case containing paper, envelopes, a box for
pens and pencils, a tiny compartment for stamps and an ink-bottle, all
complete. It was the first time Jane had ever been allowed to write with
ink, and that added to the importance of her weekly letter-writing.
So while Huldah and Letty talked busily over recipes—“three cups of
sifted flour; the whites of four eggs beaten stiff; two even
teaspoonfuls of baking-powder” and other mysteries, Jane toiled away
over her foreign correspondence. Jane loved her mother dearly and missed
her—at times—more than any one guessed. As it was her joy when they were
all at home to pour out into mother’s sympathetic ears all the little
details of each day’s happiness, so now she told, in shorter form but
with as faithful accuracy, the events of Sunnycrest. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s
accident, the finding of her by the twins and her coming to Sunnycrest,
had all been told in a previous letter. Now there was the account of
the circus and the finding of Letty to relate, and when the crooked,
blotty little letter reached Mrs. Christopher Baker, Jr., in Berlin, I
am sure she was touched by the story of the orphaned circus girl who
had been given a home by a kind, generous woman. And, mother-like, her
heart must have glowed with pride at the thought that her little
girl’s sympathy and love for a fellow creature had spoken the word
which brought Letty a reward for her act of heroism long ago.
Letty was supremely happy. She was hardly old enough to realize all that
she had been saved from, but the joy of being well fed and cared for
filled her cup of happiness to overflowing. This change in her
circumstances did not make the child selfish and lazy, as it might have
affected some natures, easily spoiled by comfort; but more eager and
willing to serve those who had been so kind to her. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones
and grandmother agreed that there was no fear of being disappointed in
Letty’s disposition, and the “lady who wrote books” found Mrs. Baker’s
prophecy already coming true. She was growing fond of Letty.
[Illustration: UNDER A LARGE TREE IN THE GARDEN]
“I find myself looking forward quite eagerly to my return to the city in
the autumn,” she said to grandmother. “Letty will need some clothes
before she goes to school, of course, and it will be such a pleasure to
buy them. It has been so long since I have had any one to buy clothes
for,” she added, the tears coming to her eyes. “I dare confess now, Mrs.
Baker, how much I have envied you Janey and Kit this summer.”
“They are dear children,” agreed grandmother with a sigh, “but they are
growing up so fast! Until this year they were always ‘the children.’ Now
Jane is a girl and Kit a boy.” Grandmother paused a moment as if she
wished to say something more, but she was afraid of boring her visitor
by discussing the children too much and changed the subject.
It happened that the afternoon of the day before that set for the return
of Letty and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones to the village was very hot, and all
the grown-ups had retired to their own rooms to lie down. The children
were told to stay quietly in the shade until the sun was lower, and
Letty agreed to tell them stories. So they settled themselves under a
large tree in the garden close to the house and, as it happened, just
underneath Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s window.
Letty began with “Jack the Giant Killer,” which she had read in one of
Jane’s old books, but found that she was listened to with only polite
interest.
“I think Jack ought to have saved the giant’s wife before he cut down
the beanstalk,” said Christopher disgustedly, when the story was ended,
“after she had treated him so kindly and all. It was a shame to leave
her up there without any way of getting down.”
“She was the fairy, you goose,” exclaimed Jane, “who first told Jack
that all the giant’s treasure belonged to his mother, and so she could
easily get down, because fairies can go anywhere.”
“Don’t you know any other stories, Letty?” asked Christopher. “New
ones?”
“Make up one!” urged Jane. “You know you said you did sometimes.”
“But they aren’t really stories; I mean not long ones. They’re just
little thoughts about the birds and flowers and things talking. But I
will try to tell you a story I read once, that I love dearly. It was a
story in a magazine that a girl lent me at school, and I loved it so
that I read it over and over again. I think I know it by heart and I’ll
tell it to you if you think it will interest you. It’s not exactly a
boy’s story,” she added apologetically, looking at Christopher.
“Oh, never mind, fire away,” answered Christopher grandly.
Christopher was very comfortable, sprawled on his back in the shade, and
was ready to be amused by anything except a nursery tale.
“Well, then, here is the story. It is called ‘Thistledown.’”
“‘Thistledown,’” repeated Christopher, “that’s a funny name.”
“Thistledown was the fairy’s name, and you’ll see what he got for being
naughty and mischievous. Well——”
“Before you begin, Letty,” broke in Jane, “please make Kit promise one
thing—that he won’t interrupt.”
“Huh, I’d like to know who was the first to interrupt,” mocked
Christopher.
“I didn’t interrupt. The story hadn’t begun yet. Make him promise,
Letty, do.”
“I don’t see why I have to promise.”
“Because it spoils a story so, Kit. Please promise. Letty’s going to
recite the story, just as we do our poetry at school, and she might
forget something if she had to stop in the middle. Besides, explanations
cut up a story so. Come on, say you won’t interrupt, like a good boy. I
know you won’t if you only promise.”
“Well, I’ll not interrupt if you don’t,” conceded Christopher. “Go on,
Letty, let’s hear what happened to Thistledown.”