A CABLEGRAM
In spite of Letty’s appearing to be overjoyed at the arrival of the
chocolate and cakes, she did not eat very much. For some reason which
Anna did not understand she did not seem able to keep quiet for an
instant. Every second she would jump up to fetch some trifle for Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones, for which that lady had not felt the slightest need; or
if she could think of nothing to do, would simply whirl about the room
in an ecstasy of motion. Anna watched her with astonished curiosity.
These little afternoon tea-parties occurred every day now, and Anna
Parsons was always included. Usually on the days when the twins and
their grandmother were not present, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did most of the
talking, entertaining her little guests with descriptions of her travels
across the seas or telling them bits of stories that she had read or
written herself. But to-day it was Letty who talked. Talked! She became
a perfect chatterbox. Indeed, she seemed like a different person
altogether, with her sparkling eyes, red cheeks and prattling tongue.
Presently Anna Parsons asked some question about the ponies, Punch and
Judy, and that set Letty off on her recollections of the circus. Soon
she had Anna and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones both laughing heartily over her
tales; little Anna nearly fell off her chair in her merriment over the
account of the trick elephant’s puzzled behavior when they softened the
clapper of his bell so that it would not sound when he rang it.
Then she told all the droll stories she could remember about Poll, Mrs.
Goldberg’s parrot; and about the wonderful day Emma Fames had spent with
her at Willow Grove and how she had saved Jane and Christopher from the
bear.
“This mention of the twins and Willow Grove set Mrs. Hartwell-Jones
thinking of the letter she had received from the children’s mother. Both
she and grandmother had written to Mrs. Baker, Jr., and the answer had
been most satisfactory, both earnest and enthusiastic. Mrs. Baker had
described her visit to Mrs. Grey and told what a sweet, cultured,
refined woman she had found her to be, and how carefully brought up and
guarded Letty had been.
“Unless these three years with a traveling circus since her mother’s
death have spoiled her, I am sure you could find no more ladylike child
than Letty,” she had written. “Certainly she has sufficient birth and
breeding to overcome any little bad habits she may have acquired, and in
the proper surroundings I am sure she will grow into a charming, refined
gentlewoman. Moreover, she may prove to have an inestimable gift. Her
mother told me that she herself sang quite well when she was a younger
woman, and that she had a strong conviction that Letty had inherited her
voice.”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones sat thinking over this letter and all the little
incidents of the child’s past life that Letty had told her from time to
time, and she breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving that a precious
soul had been entrusted to her care.
“But I thought you didn’t like the circus,” exclaimed Anna at last, when
she could laugh no more.
“I didn’t,” answered Letty positively, becoming grave all at once. “I
didn’t like it at all!” She was silent for a moment and then said
soberly: “Anna, did you ever get into a deep, dark wood with lots of
low, thorny bushes and vines among the trees that caught your feet and
tangled them and pricked you when you tried to walk through? And then,
all at once you came out into the bright, bright sunshine? Then, if you
looked back at the wood, while you were safe outside in the warm
sunshine, it did not look so dreadful, but you found that it had some
rather bright spots in it here and there. Well, that is how I feel about
the circus.”
“Oh!” said Anna wonderingly.
“Oh, oh, it is so nice to be out in the sunshine again!” sighed Letty
clasping her hands and looking across at Mrs. Hartwell-Jones with tears
in her eyes. “So nice!”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones opened her arms without a word, and Letty ran to
them with a glad little cry. Anna stared at the pair in amazement, quite
unable to account for this display of emotion. Then, with a sudden
instinct that she was not wanted for the moment she rose, gathered the
teacups softly together on the tray and tiptoed out of the room.
It was some time before Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty were again
interrupted. This time it was the sound of a horse’s hoofs in the road
below and then Grandfather Baker’s voice calling “Whoa!”
“Our supper guests are arriving,” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones smiling.
“Oh!” cried Letty, jumping to her feet. “May I tell them?”
“Of course you may, my dear, that is, the children. The grown-ups
already know. I could not keep my secret from Mrs. Baker.”
Letty flew out of the room, and met the Baker family mounting the
stairs. She looked so radiantly happy that Christopher felt sure that
there was going to be something particularly good for supper.
When they had all gathered in the sitting-room, after the greetings were
over, Letty announced her glorious news, and then, oh, what excitement
prevailed! The old Parsons house had never known anything like it. Every
one talked at once, no one knew what any one else was saying, and no one
answered questions. Indeed, nobody expected to be answered at first, nor
said anything of any importance. They just “oh’d” and “ah’d” and kissed
one another and laughed—and cried a little bit too, the feminine part.
At this point Christopher drew his grandfather aside and said in a
disgusted voice:
“There they go again! What makes women and girls cry so much,
grandfather? They’re as bad when they’re pleased as when they’re sorry.”
Letty’s cheeks grew redder and redder, and her eyes danced and sparkled
until they were fit companions for the stars that were already beginning
to peep through the darkening sky outside. For it was growing later and
later. Christopher began to be afraid that nobody would remember about
supper. He could not be the one to remind Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, since he
was her guest, but the picnic in the woods seemed farther and farther in
the past until at length he decided that it had happened the day
before—or maybe years ago! A fellow’s stomach can’t stay empty forever,
you know, and he began to wonder what were the first symptoms of
starvation.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones came to herself and a realization of her duties as
hostess in time, however, to save him from the actual pangs of
starvation, and Mrs. Parsons, who had come up with Anna “to see what it
was all about” hustled down-stairs again with the promise that she would
have supper on the table “in a jiffy.”
At table the grown-ups, who all sat together at one end of the table,
seemed to have a good deal to say to each other that was serious, but
the children were brimful of fun and nonsense, and Letty kept the twins
in a gale of laughter, just as she had kept Anna Parsons and Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones in the afternoon.
After supper the children went out-of-doors and sat on the steps in the
sweet night air while Letty sang to them. They grew very quiet and sober
in the soft, solemn darkness. Presently Christopher said briskly, by way
of breaking what he thought was beginning to be an awkward silence:
“I guess you’re some happy to-night, Letty. How does it feel to be
somebody’s little girl after you haven’t belonged to anybody for so
long?”
Instead of answering Letty suddenly began to cry. She only now saw how
very lonely she had been these past three dreary years.
“There now, you rude boy, you’ve hurt her feelings. I hope you’re
satisfied,” exclaimed Jane indignantly. “How would you like to be told
you didn’t belong to any one?”
“But I do belong to some one, and I always have. But Letty didn’t, until
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones took her, and I don’t see why she has to cry just
because I spoke the truth,” argued Christopher.
“Kit is right,” said Letty, drying her tears. “I didn’t belong to any
one before and it makes me so happy now to think that I’m really going
to be somebody’s little girl again that—that I had to cry.”
“Huh! Had to cry! Why don’t you laugh if you’re glad? Why, I’d laugh for
a week if I was going to belong to somebody that had as many good things
to eat as Mrs. Hartwell-Jones always has.”
“Why, Kit, would you like to leave father and mother?” exclaimed Jane,
much shocked.
“I didn’t say that, but Mrs. Hartwell-Jones certainly does know how to
feed a fellow,” and Christopher smacked his lips.
Letty saw the word “greedy” trembling on Jane’s tongue and to check it
she began quickly to talk about her good fortune.
“I am not to go to boarding-school, after all, because Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones said she would be too lonely without me,” she said with a
happy laugh. “Oh, just think of having a home to go back to every day
after school! And the girls won’t snub me because of being a little
circus girl!” she exclaimed, and, to Christopher’s vexation, began to
cry again.
Jane grew very thoughtful all of a sudden. She thought of her own
home-coming each day after school. She remembered that sometimes—quite
often, indeed—she had not wanted to go home at all; had thought it very
stupid to sit in the house and study. She would much rather go to the
house of a schoolmate, or bring a friend home to play with her. But
mother did not approve of visiting on schooldays, and Jane’s good times
always had to be put off until Friday and Saturday during term-time.
Mother was always at home to welcome her, and to ask about her lessons,
quite as much interested in everything that had happened as if she, too,
were a little girl. Then Christopher would get home from his school and
the twins would have a jolly romp together before study time. Still Jane
had found it dull at home at times. She wondered why, when she thought
of how much she loved her mother and when she saw how happy it made
Letty to think of going home to a woman who was very dear and sweet but
who wasn’t her own mother after all—not really and truly her mother.
The children had not spoken for some time. Christopher was busying
himself with trying how many stars he could count without changing his
position. Suddenly a shadowy figure whirled toward them out of the
darkness. Letty caught her breath and half rose to her feet. Christopher
grasped the step with both hands and ejaculated:—“Oh, cricky!” He grew
very pale for a moment but controlled his feelings bravely. But Jane
screamed outright and threw both her arms around Letty’s neck.
But the shadowy figure turned out to be only Jo Perkins on his bicycle.
He carried a small envelope which he handed to Christopher.
“It’s a cablegram, Kit,” he said. “Run up to your grandfather with it,
quick. It came about supper time and Huldah said she didn’t know but it
might be something important and that I’d better ride in with it.”
Perk propped his bicycle against the steps and waited while the twins
rushed up-stairs.
“It’s from father and mother,” shouted Christopher, tumbling up the
stairs in the lead. “What does it say, grandfather, oh, what does it
say?”
Jane scrambled up behind her brother.
“They’re coming home, they’re coming home!” she sang blissfully. “When,
grandfather? When?”
Grandfather looked a bit startled at this abrupt entrance. He fumbled
for his spectacles, put them on and unfolded the cablegram carefully,
while grandmother leaned over his shoulder, almost as impatient as the
children.
“We sail ‘Metric’ Thursday. All well,” read grandfather.
“I knew they were coming, I knew it!” cried Jane happily. “When will
they get here, grandfather?”
Then grandfather, grandmother and Jane began talking all at once, while
Christopher whistled “The Campbells are Coming” as the most appropriate
tune he could think of and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty stood hand in
hand, smiling upon them all happily. A few weeks ago this little scene
of rejoicing would have made Letty very sorrowful, but now she had her
own unspeakable joy.
Outside in the soft summer night Jo Perkins sat on the fence and waited
in comfortable unconcern.