ARTHUR AND JERRY.
Arthur had passed a restless night. Thoughts of Gretchen had troubled
him and two or three times he had started up to listen, thinking that he
heard her calling to him from a distance. He had dreamed also of the
blue hood seen that day of the funeral, and of the child who had come
knocking at his door whom he had refused to admit. He had never seen her
since, and had never mentioned her of his own accord.
Even Mrs. Crawford seemed to have passed completely from his mind. He
never went to the cottage, or near it. He never went anywhere, in fact,
but lived the life of a recluse, growing thinner, and paler, and more
reticent every day, talking now but seldom of Gretchen, though he never
arose in the morning or retired at night without kissing her picture
and whispering to it some words of tenderness in German.
He had measured the length of his three rooms and dressing-room, and
found it to be nearly one hundred feet, so that by passing back and
forth twenty-five times he would walk almost a mile.
Regularly each morning, when it was not too cold or stormy, he would
throw open his windows and take his daily exercise, which was but a poor
substitute for what he might have had in the fresh air outside, but was
nevertheless much better than nothing.
On this particular morning, when Harold and Jerry were at the park, he
was taking his walk as usual, though very slowly, for he felt weak and
sick, and, so inexpressibly lonely and desolate that it seemed to him he
would gladly lie down and die.
"If I knew Gretchen was dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me as
the grave," he was saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside
attracted his attention, and going to the window, he saw the children,
Harold in the top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white
sun-bonnet shading her face.
Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange
feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said:
"Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of
her?"
Then, resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until
startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms:
"Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don't you want some cherries?"
It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign
accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the
previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling
again from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without his
knowledge.
Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superstitious, his limbs shook,
and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his
sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came louder and more
peremptory:
"Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries."
He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad
window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with
her white sun-bonnet just in view.
"Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?" he said, bounding across the
floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but
Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly
in this way.
"I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on
the toppest stick," Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell
back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and
her bright wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses of
round curls to her head and forehead.
"Great Heaven!" Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open
blue eyes confronting him so steadily. "Who are you, and where did you
come from?"
"I'm Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me
in, won't you?" Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window,
Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-stricken
with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left alone with a
madman who did not like children.
"He may kill her; I must tell the folks," he said; and, going round to
the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy.
But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry's danger,
and begged them to go to her rescue.
"Pshaw! he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send
him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless," the cook said to Harold,
who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees,
where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim
Jerry's danger.
But none came, and could he have looked into the room where Jerry stood,
he would have been amazed.
As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the
floor, he said to her:
"Take off that bonnet and let me look at you."
She obeyed, and stood before him with an eager, questioning expression
in her blue eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew
perfectly well who she was, but something about her so dazed and
bewildered him that for a moment he could not speak, but regarded her
with the hungry, wistful look of one longing for something just within
his reach, but still unattainable.
"Do you like me?" Jerry asked, at last.
"Like you?" he replied. "Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?"
And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed
a child before.
Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her
again:
"Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry,
which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs.
Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come
from?"
"Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once," Jerry
said. "Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry
tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt
me. You won't hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?"
"Hurt you? No," he answered, as he parted the rings of hair from her
brow. "I don't know whether I am crazy or not. They say so, and perhaps
I am, when my head is full of bumble-bees."
"Oh-h!" Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. "Can they get out? And will
they sting?"
Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came
back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very
soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and
something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He
did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn
toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering
greatly who she was.
"Harold told me there were pictures and marble folks up here with
nothing on, and everything, and that's why I comed--that and to bring
you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?" Jerry said.
"Yes, you shall see them," Arthur replied; and he led her into the room
where Gretchen's picture looked at them from the window.
"Oh, my!" Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath. "Ain't she lovely! Is she
God's sister?" and folding her hands together, she stood before the
picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna.
It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she
stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with
them the German word for _pretty_, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.
Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her
shoulder, he said:
"What was that! What did you say, and where did you learn it?"
His manner frightened her; perhaps the bumble-bees were coming out, and
she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said.
"It was a German word," he continued, "and the accent is German, too.
Can you speak it?"
Unconsciously, as he talked, he dropped into that language, while Jerry
listened, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to recall
something which came and went, but went more than it came, if that could
be.
"I talked that once," she said, "when I lived with mamma; but she is
dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave."
Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur
listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment,
as he took her through the rooms and showed her "the marble people with
nothing on them," and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls.
"How would you like to come and be my little girl?" he asked her at
last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must
go, and started toward the window, as if she would make her egress as
she had come in.
"Can Harold come, too? I can't leave Harold," she said. Then, as she
caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up
at the window through which she had disappeared, she called out: "Yes,
Harold, I'm coming. I've seen him and everything, and he did not hurt
me. Good-by!" and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod.
Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went
down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries, and
leaving, too, in Arthur's breast a tumult of emotions which he could not
define.
That night, when Frank, who had heard of Jerry's visit to his brother,
went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural than he had
seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were of the little
girl who had come to him through the window and left him the cherries,
of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they might make him
sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he learned of her
history? Of course he had made inquiries everywhere?
It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur
did not see how his brother's face flushed at first, and then grew white
as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length
upon the inquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been
fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child's clothing, he said,
and the initials "N.B." on that of her mother, who was evidently French,
although she must have come from Germany.
"Yes," Arthur replied, "the child is a German, and interests me greatly.
Her face has haunted me all the afternoon. Was there nothing in that
trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a clew?"
"Nothing," Frank replied. "There were articles of clothing, all very
plain, and a picture book printed at Leipsic. I can get that for you if
you like, though it tells nothing, unless it be that the mother lived in
Leipsic."
Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that
Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his
brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall
all he knew of it.
"I was never there but once," he said "for although I spent a great deal
of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidelberg and Wiesbaden. Oh, that
is lovely--Wiesbaden--and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy that
I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the band,
and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I am
there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow path
turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view behind the
thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel her hand in
mine, and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen--"
There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself
rather than to his brother, who said to him,
"Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden then?"
"Yes; but for Heaven's sake pronounce it with a V, and not a W, and in
three syllables instead of four," Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear
offended as it always was with a discordant sound or mispronunciation.
"Veesbaden then," Frank repeated, understanding now why Jerry had
stumbled over the name when he once spoke it to her.
Clearly she had come from Wiesbaden, where Gretchen had lived, and where
he believed she had died, though he did not tell Arthur so; he merely
said:
"Gretchen was your sweetheart, I suppose?"
But Arthur did not reply; he never replied to direct questions as to who
Gretchen was; but after a moment's silence he said:
"You speak of her as something past. Do you believe she is dead?"
"Yes, I do," was Frank's decided answer. "You have never told me who she
was, though I have my own opinion on the subject, and I know you loved
her very much, and if she loved you as much--"
"She did--she did; she loved me more--far more than I deserved," was
Arthur's vehement interruption.
"Well then," Frank continued, "If she did, and were living, she would
have come to you, or answered your letters, or sent you some message."
Frank's voice trembled here, and he seemed to see again the cold, still
face of the dead woman, whose lips, could they have spoken, might have
unlocked the mystery and brought a message from Gretchen.
"True, true," Arthur replied. "She would have come or written. How long
is it since I came home?"
"Four years next October," Frank said.
"Four years;" Arthur went on, "is it so long as that? and it was then
years since I had seen her. Every thing was blotted out from my mind
from the time I entered that accursed _Maison de Sante_ until I found
myself in Paris. I am afraid she is dead."
Just then Charles came in with lights, and the chocolate his master
always took before retiring, and so Frank said good-night, and went out
upon the broad piazza, hoping the night air would cool his heated brow,
or that the laughter and prattle of Jack and Maude, who were frolicing
on the gravel walk, would drown the voice which said to him:
"Frank Tracy, you are the biggest rascal living, but you have gone too
far now to go back. People would never respect you again. And then there
is Maude. You cannot disgrace her."
No, he could not disgrace his darling Maude, who, as if guessing that he
was thinking of her, came up the steps to his side, and seating herself
upon his lap, pushed the hair from his forehead and kissed him lovingly.
"My beautiful Maude," he thought, for he knew she would be beautiful,
with her black hair, and starry eyes, and brilliant complexion, and he
loved her with all the strength of his nature. To see her grow into
womanhood, admired and sought after by every one, was the desire of his
heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect
fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the
grave.
"Are you sick, papa?" Maude asked, looking into his face, on which the
moon shone brightly.
"No, pet," he answered her; "only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry
Crawford. She was here this afternoon."
"Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and
such a nice boy! so different from Tom," Maude said, and then she went
on: "Jerry is pretty, too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine
doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high apron and calico gown.
What makes her so poor and me so rich?"
Mr. Tracy groaned, as he replied:
"You are not rich, my child."
"Oh, yes I am," Maude said. "I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She
said Uncle Arthur was worth millions and when he died we should have it
all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no
children of his own."
Maude had heard so much from her mother and others of their prospective
wealth, that she understood the situation far better than she ought, and
was already counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle
died. And yet Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to
ripen into a noble womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of
right and wrong were very keen, and young as she was, she had no respect
for anything like deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his
bitterest pang of remorse came from the thought, "What would Maude say
if she knew?" And it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his
own or that of any other. She was so pretty, or would be, when grown to
young ladyhood, and the adornments which money could bring would so well
become her.
"Maude," he said at last, "how would you like to change places with
Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be
poor; not quite as she is, but like many people."
"And not wear a sash, and beads, and buttoned boots every day?" Maude
interrupted him quickly. "I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry
dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big aprons all
the time. No, I don't want to be poor;" and as if something in her
father's mind had communicated itself to her, she raised her head from
his shoulder and looked beseechingly at him.
"Nor shall you be poor if I can help it," he said; "but you must be very
kind to Jerry, and never let her feel that you are richer than she. Do
you understand?"
"I think I do," Maude answered, adding as she kissed him fondly: "And
now I s'pose I must go, for there is Hetty come for me; so, good-night,
you dearest, best papa in the world."
He knew she believed in him fully; and he could not undeceive her. He
would bear the burden he said to himself. There should be no more
repining or looking back. Maude must never know; and so Jerry's chance
was lost.
The next morning Arthur awoke with a racking headache. He was accustomed
to it, it is true; but this one was particularly severe.
"It's the cherries; no wonder; a quart of those sour things would turn
upside down any stomach," Charles said, as he glanced at the empty tin
pail which was adorning an inlaid table, and then suggested a dose of
ipecac as a means of dislodging the offending cherries.
But Arthur declined the medicine. His stomach was well enough, he said.
It was his head which ached, and nothing would help that but the cool
little hands he had held in his the previous day. Charles must go for
Jerry, for he wanted her, and, as when Arthur wanted a thing he wanted
it immediately, Charles was soon on his way to the cottage in the lane,
where he found the little girl under a tall lilac bush, busy with the
mud pies she was making, and talking to herself, partly in English and
partly in broken German, which she had resumed since her visit to the
park.
"Seemed like something I had dreamed, when he talked like that, and I
could almost do it myself," she said to Harold when describing the
particulars of her interview with Mr. Tracy, and her tongue fell
naturally into the language of her babyhood.
On hearing Charles' errand, her delight was unbounded.
"'Ess. You'll let me go," she cried, as she stood before Mrs. Crawford,
with the mud-spots on her hands and face; "and you'll let me wear my
best gown now, and my white apron with the shoulder-straps, and my
morocco shoes, because this is visiting."
As Mrs. Crawford could see no objection to the plan, Jerry was soon
dressed, and on her way to the Park, tripping along airily, with an air
of dignity and importance very amusing.
Mrs. Tracy, who seldom troubled herself with her brother-in-law's
affairs, knew nothing of his having sent for Jerry, and was surprised
when she saw her coming up the walk with Charles, whose manner indicated
that he knew perfectly what he was about. She had heard of Jerry's
visit on the previous day, and had wondered what Arthur could find in
that child to interest him, when he would never allow Maude in his room.
She did not like Jerry, because of the three dollars a week, which she
felt was so much taken from herself, and why they should be burdened
with the support of the child, just because her mother happened to be
found dead upon their premises, she could not understand. Only that
morning she had spoken to her husband on the subject, and asked him how
long he proposed to support her.
"Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it," was his
reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him, and leaving
her to think him almost as crazy as his brother.
Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the
piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing there, began
to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her husband,
making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at times, as he
had been that morning. Was there insanity in his veins as well as in his
brother's, and would her children inherit it--her darling Maude, of whom
she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be the richest
heiress in the county and marry Dick St. Claire, if, indeed, she did not
look higher?
It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the
walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and
assurance.
Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose
expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child's remark, "I've
comed again," answered, icily:
"I see you have. Seems to me you come pretty often."
Turning to Charles, Mrs. Tracy continued:
"Why is she here again so soon? What does she want?"
Quick to interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and hearing
disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy's, Jerry's face was shadowed at once, and
she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said:
"Mr. Tracy sent me for her. She was with him yesterday, and he will have
her again to-day."
Then Jerry's face brightened, and she chimed in:
"I'm visiting. I'm invited, and I'm going to stay to eat."
Mrs. Tracy dared not interfere with Arthur, even if he took Jerry to
live there altogether, and, with a bend of her head, she signified to
Charles that the conference was ended.
"Come, Jerry," Charles said; but Jerry held back a moment, and asked:
"Where's Maude?"
If Mrs. Tracy heard, she did not reply, and Jerry followed on after
Charles through the hall and up the broad staircase to the darkened room
where Arthur lay, suffering intense pain in his head, and moaning
occasionally. But he heard the patter of the little feet, for he was
listening for it, and when Jerry entered his room he raised himself upon
his elbow, and reaching the other hand toward her, said:
"So you have come again, little Jerry; or, perhaps I should call you
little _Cherry_, considering how you first came to me. Would you like
that name?"
"'Ess," was Jerry's reply, in the quick, half-lisping way which made the
monosyllable so attractive.
"Well, then, Cherry," Arthur continued, "take off that bonnet, and open
the blind behind me. Then bring that stool and sit where I can look at
you while you rub my head with your hands. It aches enough to split, and
I believe the bumble-bees are swarming; but they can't get out, and if
they could, they are the white-faced kind, which never sting."
Jerry knew all about white-faced bumble-bees, for Harold had caught them
for her, and with this fear removed, she did as Arthur bade her, and was
soon seated at his side, rubbing his forehead, where the blue veins were
standing out full and round, and smoothing his hair caressingly with her
fingers, which seemed to have in them a healing power, for the pain and
heat grew less under their touch, and, after awhile, Arthur fell into a
quiet sleep.
When he awoke, after half an hour or so, it was with a delicious sense
of rest and freedom from pain. Jerry had dropped the shades to shut out
the sunlight, and was walking on tiptoe round the room, arranging the
furniture and talking to herself in whispers, as she usually did when
playing alone.
"Jerry," Arthur said to her, and she was at his side in a moment, "you
are an enchantress. The ache is all gone from my head, charmed away by
your hands. Now, come and sit by me again, and tell me all you know of
yourself before Harold found you. Where did you live? What was your
mother's name? Try and recall all you can."
Jerry, however, could tell him very little besides the Tramp House, and
the carpet-bag, and Harold letting her fall in the snow. Of the cold and
the suffering she could recall nothing, or of the journey from New York
in the cars. She did remember something about the ship, and her mother's
seasickness, but where she lived before she went to the ship, she could
not tell. It was a big town, she thought, and there was music there, and
a garden, and somebody sick. That was all. Everything else was gone
entirely, except now and then when vague glimpses of something in the
past bewildered and perplexed her. Her pantomime of the dying woman and
the child had not been repeated for more than a year, for now her acting
always took the form of the tragedy in the Tramp House, with herself in
the carpet-bag, and a lay figure dead beside her. But gradually, as
Arthur questioned her, the old memories began to come back and shape
themselves in her mind, and she said at last:
"It was like this--play you was a sick lady and I was your nurse. I
can't think of her name. I guess I'll call her Manny. And there must be
a baby; that's me, only I can't think of my name."
"Call it Jerry, then," Arthur suggested, both interested and amused,
though he did not quite understand what she meant.
But he was passive in her hands, and submitted to have a big
handkerchief put over his head for a cap, and to hold on his arm the
baby she improvised from a sofa-cushion of costly plush, around which
she arranged as a dress an expensive table-spread, tied with the rich
cord and tassel of his dressing-gown.
"You must cry a great deal," she said, "and pray a great deal, and kiss
the baby a great deal, and I must scold you some for crying so much, and
shake the baby some in the kitchen for making a noise, because, you
know, the baby can walk and talk, and is me, only I can't be both at a
time."
She was not very clear in her explanations, but Arthur began to have a
dim perception of her meaning, and did what she bade him do, and rather
enjoyed having his face and hands washed with a wet rag, and his hair
brushed and _turled_, as she called it, even though the fingers which
_turled_ it sometimes made suspicious journeys to her mouth. He cried
when she told him to cry; he coughed when she told him to cough; he
kissed the baby when she told him to kiss it; he took medicine from the
tin pail in the form of the cherry juice left there, and did not have to
make believe that it sickened him, as she said he must, for that was a
reality. But when she told him he must _die_, but pray first, he
demurred, and asked what he should say. Jerry hesitated a little. She
knew that her prayers were, "Our Father," and "Now I lay me," but it
seemed to her that a person dying should say something else, and at last
she replied:
"I can't think what she did say, only a lot about _him_. There was a
_him_ somewhere, and I guess he was naughty, so pray for _him_, and the
baby--that's me--and tell Manny she must take me to Mecky."
"To whom?" Arthur asked, and she replied:
"To Mecky, where he was, don't you know?"
Arthur did not know, but he prayed for _him_, saying what she bade him
say--a mixture half English, half German.
"There, now, you are dead," she said, at last, as she closed his eyes
and folded his hands upon his chest. "You are dead, and musn't stir nor
breathe, no matter how awful we cry, Manny and I."
Kneeling down beside him, she began a cry so like that of two persons
that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there
were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of one shrill, and
clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and
stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner.
"With a little practice she would make a wonderful ventriloquist,"
Arthur thought, as he watched her flitting about the room, talking to
unseen people and giving orders with regard to himself.
Once Frank had witnessed a pantomime very similar to this, only then the
play had ended with the death, while now there was the burial, and when
Arthur moved a little and asked if he might get up, she laid her hand
quickly on his mouth, with a peremptory, "Hush! you are dead, and we
must bury you."
But here Jerry's memory failed her, and the funeral which followed was
an imitation of the one which had left the Park House three years
before, and which Arthur had watched from his window. Frank was there,
and his wife, and Peterkin, and Jerry imitated the voices of them all,
and when some one bade her kiss her mother she stooped and kissed
Arthur's forehead, and said:
"Good-by, mamma;" then, throwing a thin tidy over his face, she
continued, "Now I am going to shut the coffin;" and as she worked at the
corners, as if driving down the screws, Arthur felt as if he were
actually being shut out from life, and light, and the world.
To one of his superstitious tendencies the whole was terribly real, and
when at last she told him he was buried, and the folks had come back,
and he could get up, the sweat was standing upon his face and hands in
great drops, and he felt that he had in very truth been present at the
obsequies of some one whose death had made an impression so strong upon
Jerry's mind that time had not erased it. There was in his heart no
thought of Gretchen, as there had been in Frank's when he was a
spectator at the play. He had no cause for suspicion, and thought only
of the child whose restlessness and activity were something appalling to
him.
"Now, what shall we play next?" she asked, as he sat white and trembling
in his chair.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," he groaned. "I cannot stand any more now."
"Well, then, you sit still and I'll clean house; it needs it badly. Such
mud as that boy brings in I never see, and I'm so lame, too!" Jerry
responded, and Arthur now recognized Mrs. Crawford, whose tidiness and
cleanliness were proverbial, and for the next half-hour he watched the
little actress as she limped around the room exactly as Mrs. Crawford
limped with her rheumatism, sweeping, dusting, and scolding, both to
Harold and Jerry, the latter of whom once retorted:
"I wouldn't be so cross as that if I had forty rheumatisses in my laigs,
would you, Harold?"
But Harold only answered, softly:
"Hush, Jerry! You should not speak so to grandma, and she so good to us
both, when we haven't any mother."
Arthur would have laughed, so perfect was the imitation of voice and
gesture, but at the mention of Harold's mother there came into his mind
a vision of sweet Amy Crawford, who had been his first love, and for
whose son he had really done so little.
"Jerry," he said, "I guess you have cleaned house long enough. Wash your
hands and come to me."
She obeyed him, and, looking into his face, said:
"Now, what? Can you play cat's cradle, or casino?"
"No; I want to talk to you of Harold. You love him very much?"
"Oh, a hundred bushels--him and grandma, too."
"And he is very kind to you?"
"Yes, I guess he is. He never talks back, and I am awful sometimes, and
once I spit at him, and struck him; but I was so sorry, and cried all
night, and offered to give him my best doll 'cause it was the plaything
I loved most, and I went without my piece of pie so he could have two
pieces if he wanted," Jerry said, her voice trembling as she made this
confession, which gave Arthur a better insight into her real character
than he had had before.
Hasty, impulsive, repentant, generous, and very affectionate, he felt
sure she was, and he continued:
"Does Harold go to school?"
"Yes; and I, too--to the district; but I hate it!" Jerry replied.
"Why hate it?" Arthur asked. "What is the matter with the district
school?"
"Oh, it smells awful there sometimes when it is hot," Jerry replied,
with an upward turn to her nose. "And the boys are so mean, some of
them. Bill Peterkin goes there, and I can't bear him, he plagues me so.
Wants to kiss me. A-a-h, and says I am to be his wife, and he's got
warts on his thumb!"
Jerry's face was sufficiently indicative of the disgust she felt for
Bill Peterkin with his warts, and, leaning back in his chair, Arthur
laughed heartily, as he said:
"And so you don't like Bill Peterkin? Well, what boys do you like?"
"Harold and Dick St. Claire," was the prompt response, and Arthur
continued:
"What would you have in place of the district school?"
"A governess," was Jerry's answer. "Nina St. Claire has one, and Ann
Eliza Peterkin has one, and Maude Tracy has one."
Here Jerry stopped suddenly, as if struck with a new idea.
"Why Maude is your little girl isn't she? You are her rich uncle, and
she is to have all your money when you die. I wish I was your little
girl."
She spoke the last very sadly, and something in the expression of her
face brought Gretchen to Arthur's mind, and his voice was choked as he
said to her:
"I'd give half my fortune if you were my little girl."
Then, laying his hand on her bright hair, he questioned her adroitly of
her life at the cottage, finding that it was a very happy one, and that
she had never known want, although Mrs. Crawford was unable to work as
she once had done, and was largely dependent upon the price for Jerry's
board, which Frank paid regularly. Of this, however, Jerry did not
speak. She only said:
"Harold works in the furnace, and in folks' gardens, and does lots of
things for everybody, and once Bill Peterkin twitted him because he goes
to Mrs. Baker's sometimes after stuff for the pig, and Harold cried, and
I got up early the next morning and went after it myself, and drew the
cart home. After that grandma wouldn't let Harold go for any more, and
so I s'pose the pig will not weigh as much. I'm sorry, for I like
sausage, don't you?"
Arthur hated it, but he did not tell her so, and she went on:
"Harold studies awful hard, and wants to go to college. He is trying to
learn latin, and recites to Dick St. Claire; but grandma says its
up-hill business. Oh, if I's only rich I'd give it all to Harold, and
he should get learning like Dick. Maybe I can work some time and earn
some money. I wish I could."
Arthur did not speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose
face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a
plan which, with his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into
effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was
diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon,
which, on the little girl's account, was served with more care than
usual.
Jerry who had a great liking for everything luxurious, had taken tea
once or twice at Grassy Spring with Nina St. Claire, and had been
greatly impressed with the appointments of the table, prizing them more
even than the dainties for her to eat. But what she had seen there
seemed as nothing compared to this round Swiss table, with its colored
glass and rare china, no two pieces of which were alike.
"Oh, it is just like a dream!" she cried, as she watched Charles'
movement and saw that there were two places laid. "Am I to sit down with
you?" she said, in an awestruck voice, "and in that lovely chair? I am
glad I wore my best gown. It won't dirty the chair a bit."
But she took her pocket-handkerchief and covered it over the satin
cushion before she dared seat herself in the chair, which had once been
brought out for Gretchen, and in which she now sat down, dropping her
head and shutting her eyes a moment. Then, as she heard no sound, she
looked up wonderingly, and asked:
"Ain't you going to say 'for Christ's sake,' grandma does?"
Arthur's face was a study with its mixed expression of surprise,
amusement and self-reproach. He never prayed, except it were in some
ejaculatory sentences wrung from him in his sore need, and the thought
of asking a blessing on his food had never occurred to him. But Jerry
was persistent.
"You must say 'for Christ's sake,'" she continued, and with his weak
brain all in a muddle, Arthur began what he meant to be a brief
thanksgiving, but which stretched itself into a lengthy prayer, full of
the past and of Gretchen, whom he seemed to be addressing rather than
his Maker.
For a while Jerry listened reverently; then she looked up and moved
uneasily in the chair, and at last when the prayer had continued for at
least five minutes she burst out impulsively:
"Oh, dear, do say 'amen.' I am so hungry!"
That broke the spell, and with a start Arthur came to himself, and said:
"Thank you, Jerry. Praying is a new business for me, and I do believe I
should have gone on forever if you had not stopped me. Now what will you
have?"
He helped her to whatever she liked best, but could eat scarcely
anything himself. It was sufficient for him to watch Jerry sitting there
in Gretchen's chair and using Gretchen's plate which every day for so
many years had been laid for her. Gretchen had not come. She would never
come, he feared, but with Jerry he did not feel half as desolate as when
alone, with only his morbid fancies for company. And he must have her
there, at least a portion of the time. His mind was made up on that
point, and when about four o'clock, Jerry said to him:
"I want to go now. Grandma said I was to be home by five," he replied:
"Yes, I am going with you. I wish to see your grandmother. I am going to
drive you in the phaeton. How would you like that?"
Her dancing eyes told him how she would like it, and Charles was sent to
the stable with an order to have the little pony phaeton brought round
as soon as possible as he was going for a drive.