A HELPFUL GRANDFATHER
During that first winter, Jeanne was fairly contented. Her school work
was new and kept her fairly busy, and in her cousins' bookshelves she
discovered many delightful books for boys and girls. Heretofore, she had
read no stories. She had been too busy rearing Mollie's family.
Shy and sensitive, for several months she made no real friends among her
schoolmates. How _could_ she, with a horrible past to conceal? To be
sure, when she thought of the big, beautiful lake, the summer days on
the old dock, the lovely reflections in the Cinder Pond, the swallows
going to bed in the old furnace chimney, the red sun going down behind
the distant town, the kind Old Captain, the warm affection of Mollie's
children, not to mention the daily companionship of her nice little
father, it seemed as if her past had been anything _but_ horrible. But
no city child, she feared, would ever be able to understand that, when
even the grown-ups couldn't.
From the very first, her Uncle Charles had seemed not to like her. And
sometimes it seemed to Jeannette that her Aunt Agatha eyed her coldly
and resentfully. She couldn't understand it.
But James, the butler, and Maggie, the maid, sometimes gossiped about
it, as the best of servants will gossip.
"It's like this," said James, seating himself on the corner of the
pantry table. "Old Mr. Huntington is the real master of this house.
Young Mrs. Huntington comes next. Mr. Charles is just a puddin'-head."
"You mean figure-head," said Maggie.
"Same thing. Now, Mr. Huntington owns all this (James's comprehensive
gesture included a large portion of the earth's surface), and naturally
Mr. Charles expects to be the heir, when the old gentleman passes away.
Now, listen (James's voice dropped, confidentially). There's a young
nephew of mine in Ball and Brewster's law-office. One day, when he was
filing away a document with the name Huntington on it, he mentioned me
being here, to another clerk--Old Pitman, it was. Well, Old Pitman said
it was himself that had made a copy of old Mr. Huntington's will,
leaving all that he had to his son Charles. Now lookee here. Supposin'
old Mr. Huntington was to soften toward his dead daughter for runnin'
away with that Frenchman, and was to make a new will leavin' everything
to his grand-child--that new little girl. Between you and me, she's a
sight better child than them other three put together."
"He wouldn't," said Maggie. "Of course, he might leave her _something_."
"That's it. Mark my words, Mr. and Mrs. Charles can't warm to that child
because they're afraid of her; afraid of what she might get. She's a
frozen terror, Missus is."
"Well, they're as cold to her as a pair of milk cans, them two. Maybe
that's the reason."
Possibly it was. And it is quite possible, too, that neither Mr. nor
Mrs. Charles Huntington realized the reason for their lack of
cordiality. Only, they were _not_ cordial.
At first, Jeanne had seen but little of her grandfather. On pleasant
days he sat with his book in the fenced-in garden behind the house. On
chilly days, he sat alone in his own sitting-room, where there was a gas
log. But sometimes, at the table, he would ask Jeanne questions about
her school work.
"Well, Jeannette, how about school! Are you learning a lot?"
"Ever so much," Jeanne would reply. "There are so many things _to_
learn."
One day, when he asked the usual question, Jeannette's countenance grew
troubled.
"Next week," she confided, "we are to have written examinations in
_everything_ and there are a thousand spots where I haven't caught up
with the class. Mathematics, language, United States history, and
French. The books are different, you see, from the ones I had. I'll have
to _cram_. Mathematics are the worst. I _can't_ do the examples."
"Suppose you bring them to me, after lunch. I used to think I was a
mathematician."
That was the beginning of a curious friendship between the little girl
and the very quiet old man. After that, there was hardly a day in which
Jeanne, whose class was ahead of her in mathematics, did not appeal for
help.
She liked her grandfather. He seemed nearer her own age than anyone else
in the house. You see, when people get to be ninety or a hundred, they
are able to be friends with persons who are only seventy or eighty--a
matter of twenty years makes no difference at all. Mr. Huntington was
sixty-eight, which is old enough to enjoy a friendship of _any_ age.
But when people are young like Pearl and Clara, two years' difference in
their ages makes a tremendous barrier. Clara was almost three years
older than Jeanne, and Pearl was fourteen months older than Clara.
Harold was younger than his sisters but older than Jeanne, who often
seemed younger than her years.
Pearl and Clara looked down, with scorn, upon _any_ child of twelve.
Indeed, they had been born old. Some children are, you know. Also, it
seemed to their grandfather, they had been born _impolite_. For all that
they called her "The Cinder Pond Savage," Jeanne's manners were really
very good. She seemed to know, instinctively, how to do the right thing;
that is, after she became a little accustomed to her new way of living.
And she was always very considerate of other people's feelings. So was
her grandfather, most of the time. But Mrs. Huntington wasn't; and her
children were very like her; cold, self-centered, and decidedly
snobbish.
Jeanne was quite certain that her girl cousins had never _played_.
Harold, to be sure, occasionally played jokes on the younger members of
the family or on the servants; but they were usually rather cruel,
unpleasant jokes, like putting a rat in Maggie's bed, or water in
Pearl's shoes, or spiders down Clara's back. For Jeanne, he reserved the
pleasant torture of teasing her about her father.
"Ugh!" he would say, holding Jeanne's precious mail as far as possible
from him, while, with the other hand, he held his nose, "this must be
for you--it smells of fish. Your father must have sold a couple while he
was writing this."
Sometimes he would point to shoe advertisements in the papers, with:
"Here's your chance, Miss Savage. No need to go barefoot when your five
years are up. Just lay in a whopping supply of shoes, all sizes, at
one-sixty-nine."
His grandfather liked his youngest grandchild's manners. He told
himself, once he even told his son, that he couldn't possibly give any
affection to the daughter of "that wretched Frenchman" who had stolen
_his_ daughter. Perhaps he couldn't, just at first. No doubt, he
_thought_ he couldn't. But he _did_. 'Way down in his lonesome old
heart he was glad that mathematics were hard for her, because he was
glad that she needed his help.
"Just what are you thinking?" asked her grandfather, one day.
"I was making an example," explained Jeanne. "I've been here seven
months. That leaves four years and five months; but the last two months
went faster than the first two. If five years seemed like a thousand
years to begin with, and the last two months--"
"I refuse," said her grandfather, with a sudden twinkle in his eye, "to
tackle any such example as that."
"Well," laughed Jeanne, "here's another. Miss Wardell asked us in school
today to decide what we'd like to do when we're grown up. We're to tell
her tomorrow."
"Rather short notice, isn't it?"
"Ye--es," said Jeanne. "You see, ever since I visited Miss Warden's
sister's kindergarten, I've thought I'd like to teach _that_. But I
thought I'd like to get married, too."
"What!" gasped her grandfather.
"Get married. I should like to bring up a family _right_--with the
proper tools. Old Captain says you have to have the proper tools to sew
with. _I_ think you have to have the proper tools to bring up a family.
Tooth-brushes and stocking-straps, smelly soap and cold cream and
underclothes."
"Have you picked out a husband?" asked her grandfather.
"That's the worst of it. You have to have one to earn money to buy the
proper tools. But it's a great nuisance to have a husband around,
Bridget says. She's had three; and she'd rather cook for Satan himself,
she says, than a husband!"
"Jeannette! You mustn't repeat Bridget's conversations. Does Mrs.
Huntington like you to talk to the servants?"
"No," returned Jeanne, blushing a little. "But--but sometimes I just
have to talk. You see--well, you see--"
"Yes?"
"Well, Bridget likes to be talked to. I'm not sure, always, that anybody
else--well, it's easy to talk to Bridget."
"How about me?"
"You come next," assured Jeanne.
The next day Jeanne returned from school with her big black eyes fairly
sparkling. She went at once to her grandfather's room.
"I've decided what I'm going to do," said Jeanne. "I'm going to be
married."
"Why?" asked her grandfather.
"Well, you see, if I had a kindergarten, I couldn't tuck the children in
at night. That's the very nicest part of children--tucking them in. But
the husband wouldn't need to be _much_ trouble. He could stay away all
day like Uncle Charles does. What does Uncle Charles _do_? When he isn't
at the Club, I mean?"
"He is in a bank from nine until three every day."
"Only that little bit? I guess I'd rather have an iceman. He gets up
very early and works all day, doesn't he? Anyway, Miss Wardell said I
didn't need to worry about picking _him_ out until I was twenty.
Sometimes I wish Aunt Agatha liked kittens and puppies, don't you?
They're so useful while you're waiting for your children."