“Indeed he did,” I returned; “a pot of pansies, a lily, a purple
hyacinth, and a beautiful crimson rambler. It is one mass of bloom. It
came just before church, and there was no card, so we have been guessing
ever since.”
Meta nodded her head in a satisfied way. “He and Geof ought to have
something pretty,” she said. “They have been sick so long, and it must
be horrid to lie in bed with nothing but the wallpaper to look at. I
think it’s rather nice to send Easter cards with Easter flowers, instead
of your name, don’t you?”
Then we separated, and I thought no more of Meta’s remark; but this
afternoon when Ernie stole on tiptoe into Geof’s room, the first thing
she noticed, after the patient, of course, was a second crimson rambler
rose, the exact duplicate of Robin’s.
“Where did it come from, Geof?” asked Ernie, hoping to clear up the
mystery of Bobsie’s plant. “Was there any card?”
“Why, no,” answered Geof. His poor hands were those of a skeleton; his
voice was a whisper; his eyes seemed the only living thing left. When
Ernie looked at him, she wanted to kiss him and cry;—but that would not
have been cheering, so she asked about the crimson rambler, instead.
“It came this morning, just before church. Meta brought it up. There
wasn’t any visiting card, but there was this Easter affair with the
moulting angel. I told Meta he’d make a big mistake if he tried to fly
with _those_ wings; and she didn’t seem to like it much, though she
said, ‘I was undoubtedly an authority on the subject!’ It’s the first
_natural_ remark she’s made to me since I’ve been sick,” added Geof,
with a weak little chuckle. “I,—I rather think I liked it.”
“Well,” says Ernie, in a burst of really unusual perspicacity, “I don’t
wonder Meta didn’t enjoy your criticism! I’m willing to bet my hat (it’s
the old one with the frozen pompon, you know) that she alone is
responsible for the angel and the rose, too. Robin received duplicates
this morning, just about the same time; only his angel has a drum
instead of a trumpet, and from something Meta said to Elizabeth I am
almost sure that she chose them!”
Geof’s pale cheeks flushed and he lay quiet for a moment. “I never
suspected it,” he said, at last; “but I guess perhaps you’re right.
Certainly Meta has been treating me pretty white, lately, and the mater,
too. I,—I wouldn’t wonder a bit, Bunnie, if things were going to be
different.”
Meantime mother, Aunt Adelaide, and Uncle George were holding an equally
interesting conversation in the library downstairs.
It seems that Dr. Porter wants Geof to go away for a couple of weeks;
and he also remarked, in an apparently casual aside (though we are
tempted to suspect it was premeditated), that a change would be an
excellent thing for Robin; but that he did not feel at liberty to
prescribe it when he thought of the heavy expenses we had been under for
the operation. The two remarks worked together in Aunt Adelaide’s
mind,—as perhaps they were intended to do,—and the result is that she
has asked mother to take Geof and Robin, too, to Atlantic City for a
fortnight, with Maria to help care for them, and Uncle George to foot
the bills. And mother did not hesitate to accept, since Aunt Adelaide
stated quite frankly that the obligation will be mutual. She does not
want to leave the city just at present, and she quite shrinks from the
responsibility of overseeing Geoffrey’s convalescence. Could anything be
more splendid!
Just think of our dear little Bobsie enjoying a holiday by the
sea!—growing fat and rosy playing about on the beach, picking up
clam-shells, and——
But that reminds me. I must interrupt my jubilations to tell of the sad
end of Abraham Lincoln! Ernie and I have suspected for a couple of days
past that all was not well in the little glass globe. Since Thursday,
A. L. has refused to snatch at a straw, no matter how persistently he
has been “tickled.” Yesterday “he opened his mouth,” as Bobsie
explained, and he has not closed it since;—till, this afternoon, when I
was talking to Robin about his little red prayer-book,—which I had just
rescued from forming a tent for one of the white mice,—my olfactory
organ began to misgive me.
“It isn’t like your other books, Bobsie dear,” I was explaining. “You
must never use it to play with, or be careless of it. You may keep it
under your pillow with your handkerchief, if you want; and when you are
older and can understand better, you will find it full of the most
comfortable words. Whatever your sorrow, you will always find something
to help. But, bless me! What a smell! Where _does_ it come from?”
“Abraham Lincoln,” answered Robin, in solemn accents.
“So it does!” I returned, sniffing suspiciously into the little globe.
“This will never do, Bobs. He’s stark dead, child! I must take it down
and throw it into the back-yard.”
“You _shan’t_!” howled Bobsie, in a sudden outburst of uncontrollable
woe. “I ’spected maybe he was sick; so I gave him some of my medicine
and a teaspoonful of beef tea! You mustn’t throw him into the back-yard,
Elizabeth! He’s been too _good_, I tell you!”
“But what is to be done about it then, dear?” I asked; for such violence
of anguish was unusual on the part of Robin. “We can’t keep him here any
longer. You can see that for yourself.”
“Then let’s have a nice little funeral,” sniffed Robin, pathetically.
“We’ll b-bury him beneath the crimson bramble rose, and you can read
some of the com-comfortable words out of my little red prayer-book.”
“But, Bobsie,” I remonstrated; “prayer-books weren’t written about
_clams_! I don’t think there is anything here.”
“You said I would always f-find something to c-comfort me,” sobbed
Bobsie. “And now, when I need it most,—you won’t even look!”
What was to be done? Robin’s faith was really touching. I could not bear
to disappoint him, if it could be helped.
“Well, honey,” I said, at last, “don’t cry any more. We will bury
Abraham Lincoln under the crimson bramble rose. Come,—you shall dig the
grave with this silver teaspoon, and then if there is anything about
clams in the prayer-book, I’ll read it to you.”
So Abraham Lincoln was neatly interred; and as Robin patted down the
earth with the bowl of his silver spoon, I began in a grave voice from
the Benedicite:
“O ye Whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: praise
Him, and magnify Him for ever.”
It was the best I could do, after a vain flutter of pages, and though a
clam isn’t exactly the same as a whale, Robin was more than satisfied.
“What did I tell you?” he asked. “I knew there’d be something if only
you would look! And I s’pose Abraham Lincoln _moved_, Elizabeth, when he
came from the fishman’s at Christmas to this little globe.”
Later, when I told Ernie of the tragedy, she took it almost as seriously
as Robin. “Of course we had to expect that he would die sometime,” she
admitted, with a little sigh. “And I’m glad he waited till we had the
crimson rambler under which to bury him. It must have been a great
comfort to Bobsie! Abraham Lincoln was always such a _tactful clam_!”
Saturday, April 18.
The most wonderful thing has happened. I shall be able to fill the last
two pages of my diary with such news,—and all because Ernie and I
determined to clean house!
“It’s absurd to miss them so,” said Ernie, as she set Bobsie’s books
straight in the nursery book-shelf yesterday afternoon. “But, somehow, I
can’t get used to seeing this room so tidy!”
“And how queer it is not having any trays to carry,” I answered. “Mother
and Bobs have never been away from us before. I wonder if there will be
another letter this evening.”
“Mother writes such lovely letters, and Geof’s postscripts are so
funny,” chuckled Ernie, with a slap at the front of her sailor blouse,
where the last family epistle reposed. “Fancy Robin refusing
clam-fritters, and telling the head waiter all about Abraham Lincoln in
the hotel dining-room!”
“Well, I shall be glad when they are home again,” I admitted. “Perhaps
that sounds selfish, since the change is doing them so much good; but I
can’t help feeling lonely when you are at school, dear.”
“Elizabeth, don’t you think it would be nice to have a little surprise
for mother?” asked Ernestine. “Something useful that would save her work
or trouble, after she comes back? I’ll tell you what,—suppose we clean
house! You, and Rose, and I could do it perfectly well; and this place
hasn’t had a good raking out in ages!”
“That’s rather a sensible idea,” I agreed; “especially now, when the
family is so small. We could manage the attic, the basement, and the
parlour floor, perhaps; but we mustn’t disturb the boarders. Have you
noticed, Ernie, that the Lysles have been receiving summer resort
pamphlets in almost every mail this week? I am afraid it means they are
planning to leave the city early,—and Miss Brown told me Monday that she
had an invitation to spend July and August with her nieces in the
Adirondacks. I try not to worry; but we have drawn our last money from
the bank, and, oh, I do dread the summer!”
“Don’t think about it, then,” returned Ernie, stoutly. “We’ve weathered
a good many storms, honey, and it would be pretty ungrateful for us to
fret _now_. Perhaps something will turn up at the last moment. I wish we
were going to the country, too!” she added, with an inconsistent little
sigh.
“Robin has never seen a clover field,” I answered, “nor a live cow. And
I haven’t tasted buttermilk since I was seven years old. Just think, the
woods are full of violets this very minute,—and thrushes, and
bluebirds!”
“I know it,” returned Ernie, glancing pensively out the window at the
battered row of ash-cans that lined our dusty street. “I wish we could
rent this old house,” she added, vindictively, “and go away, and start a
chicken farm! I’m tired of boarders, Elizabeth;—even when they are as
kind and considerate as Miss Brown and the Hippo family!”
“You can’t be as tired of them as I am,” I answered,—“because you don’t
have to order their meals! But we would need the front stoop browned
over, and the cellar concreted, before we could dream of letting; and
such things cost money. It just seems as if our hands were tied.”
“Which needn’t prevent them from wielding a broom!” exclaimed Ernie,
springing up with an energetic shake of her short skirts. “Come on,
child,—I’m ashamed of us! A little hard work is the medicine we need.
The idea of sitting here in opposite rocking-chairs, croakin’ at one
another like a pair of discontented grannies, when Robin and Geof are
growing fat in Atlantic City, and mother is having a really truly
holiday for the first time in years! _I’m_ going up to begin on the
attic this instant; and if we have to feel blue in June,—why, that’s
nearly two months off, yet.”
“But it’s four o’clock, Ernie,” I protested. “Don’t you think we had
better put off the house-cleaning till to-morrow?”
“No, I don’t,” returned Ernie, impetuously. “There is a pile of
magazines in the workshop that hasn’t been looked over since the year 1,
Tecpatl! Mother told me weeks ago that she wanted them sent to the
Philippines. She asked me to go through them then. So, come on.”
“Very well,” I answered, meekly. And a few moments later Ernie and I
were seated on the workshop floor, each with our separate bunch of dusty
literature.
“Here’s that nice story about the rogue elephant,” began Ernie,
comfortably. “I don’t think we can let that go. And, oh! here’s the copy
of _Scribbler’s_ with _The Magic Ring_. Do you remember, we read it
aloud one Christmas? It is about the two little boys who went to the
Circus.”
“I thought,” returned I, severely, “that we came up here to get these
magazines ready to send to the Philippines?”
“So we did,” mumbled Ernie, “but if we don’t go through them, how are we
to know which ones we ought to send?”
At that moment I came upon an odd instalment of _The Refugees_, a
thrilling historical romance that had haunted my memory for years. “Of
course,” I agreed, with suspicious alacrity; and after that we sat
together on the workshop floor, and read and read; till the shadows
began to steal out from the corners, the room grew dusk and gloomy, and
I looked up with straining eyes to remark,—
“Ernestine, it is simply provoking! Why will editors always break off at
the most exciting spot? The Indians are attacking the blockhouse, I
can’t find the next instalment, and——”
“_Whoop-ee!_” rang the shrill war-cry. “_Whoop! Whoop! hurrah!
hur-roo-o_!”
For a moment I glared about me in terror. Was I in the workshop or the
Canadian backwoods? Was the wildly whirling figure that pranced and
capered about me, now advancing, now retreating, my own little sister
Ernie, or a bloodthirsty Iroquois savage?
“I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” shrilled the jubilant song. “After all
my hunts, Elizabeth! In the cuckoo-clock, under Hazard’s bed!—And to
think we _nearly_ sent it to Manila!”
“What are you talking about, Ernestine?” I demanded, severely. “No
matter what you have found, you ought to be ashamed to shout so! You
know that Miss Brown has a headache, and besides I quite mistook you for
an Indian!”
Ernie dropped down beside me, and flung her arms about my neck. “Honey,”
she breathed,—“it’s the _contract_,—the Dump-Cart Contract, at last!
Stuck between the pages of an old copy of _Cayler’s Engineering
Magazine_! And to think, we almost sent it _to Manila_!”
So! I understood. The room began to swim about me. My head sank limply
to Ernie’s supporting shoulder.
[Illustration: I stood in the kitchen doorway and listened]
“Don’t you dare go and faint on me!” threatened that unsympathetic young
person. “If you do, I’ll spill water over your new rosebud stock. I mean
it, Elizabeth!”
“You shan’t!” I retorted; and sat up, clutching my precious embroidered
collar with one hand, while I extended the other for the contract.
Ernie picked up the yellow-backed magazine, which she had dropped in the
window when she began her wild war-dance, and extracted a legal-looking
document.
“Here it is,” she said; “and it was by the merest chance I found it. I
knew there would be nothing in _Cayler’s_ to interest us, though some
stray engineer in Manila might like it. And I was just about to put it
with these other magazines we don’t want,—when I noticed the date, and
that made me think of dear father. So I opened it, just to see what he
had been reading, and the first thing I came on was the contract! Oh,
Elizabeth, he must have slipped it in here on his way home from Mr.
Perry’s office that very afternoon! How natural it seems! And Rose
cleared it away later, and we never suspected! _Well!_”
By this time Ernie and I were reading the document through, our heads
close together in the window, our hearts thumping. Despite the legal
verbiage which we did not altogether understand, despite the fast-fading
light, there could be no doubt. The Dump-Cart Contract was found! It was
also dated, witnessed, and signed, with a pathetic little blot of ink
under the dear familiar G stem in father’s name.
At first we could hardly believe our good fortune!
“Five per cent. of whatever profits the invention is making,” gasped
Ernie,—“and perhaps some back money, too! Oh, Elizabeth, the boarders
can leave whenever they like, now! The quicker the better—We can shut up
this house, and go away to the country. Robin shall play in the clover
fields, you shall drink buttermilk, and _I_ will start a chicken farm!
What a lovely surprise for mother!”
And she threw her arms about my neck, and for a while we wept and
laughed together.
“And to think how ungrateful we were this very afternoon! It makes one
rather ashamed doesn’t it, dear?” I concluded, with a penitent sniff.
“Haze and I will go and see Uncle George this evening. He will advise
us.”
“About what?” asked Hazard’s voice, with a worried little accent, from
the attic stairs. “Has anything happened? Is there bad news from
mother?”
“No, indeed,” we answered. “Come in. Light the gas. We’ve something to
show you.”
So Hazard came. Ernie struck a match, and again in the dear, familiar
workshop, where so many important councils have been held, so many
family problems settled, we read the contract through together.
“Well,” says Haze, with a little sigh. “So it is really found! What a
scamp that Perry is! Yes, Elizabeth, you and I will see Uncle George
this evening.”
“I’m coming, too,” piped Ernie. “I found it! I want to see what he will
say!”
So after dinner,—where it was rather trying, I can tell you, to talk and
eat as if nothing had happened because we did not think it wise for the
boarders to suspect till things should be a little more definitely
settled,—we slipped into our hats and jackets and hurried around to
Uncle George’s.
He sat at his desk in the library with a number of papers before him,
and he looked up, rather surprised and displeased, as William ushered us
into the room.
“Anything wrong at home?” he began. “You are not in trouble again, I
hope, Hazard?”
“No, sir,” says Haze, importantly. “Not this time, thanks.” And he
handed Uncle George the contract.
Well, you just ought to have seen Uncle George’s face change as he read
it.
“Where did this come from?” he asked, abruptly. “Who found it? when?”
“I did,” piped Ernie; “this afternoon in an old copy of _Cayler’s
Engineering Magazine_. And, oh, Uncle George, it was the narrowest
escape! We nearly sent it to Manila, to the sick soldiers!”
“H-m-m!” says Uncle George, surveying the signatures again. “You are to
be congratulated, young lady.” And then he added in a lower tone, as if
to himself:—“I’ve done poor Dudley a great injustice. Apparently he
wasn’t altogether a fool.” And, turning to Haze, he continued, “I’ll
keep this paper, my boy, and look out for your interests. Undoubtedly
you have all been very badly treated. With the contract here to prove
it, we could prosecute Perry, and perhaps even land him behind the bars,
but that would be a rather poor satisfaction, after all, and if you
follow my advice you will use your power to settle things as
expeditiously and as much to your advantage as possible.”
“Oh, yes!” answered Ernie, Haze, and I, together. “We don’t want to put
anybody in jail. All we want is a little money.”
“Well,” returned Uncle George, “I’ll do my best to get it for you.” And
then he took us into the drawing-room, and we related the story again to
Meta and Aunt Adelaide, who listened with all their ears.
“How perfectly dandy!” cried Meta, clapping her hands when the last
explanation had been made, and the last question answered. “Oh, I am so
_glad_, and I guess you are, too, Elizabeth,—even if you didn’t mind
being poor!”
“Indeed I am,” I agreed. “And I never said I didn’t _mind_, Meta;—only
that there were certain advantages which one had to experience to find
out.”
And then Aunt Adelaide rang the bell, and ordered seltzer lemonade and
strawberry shortcake, and we feasted and planned. And later we came home
and planned some more, after writing the good news to mother; till now
it is nearly twelve o’clock, and I am sitting at my desk pouring out the
wonderful story afresh, while Ernie lolls on the side of the bed, and
maunders drowsily:—
“I think I’ll try Cochin Chinas, unless they’re the kind that wear
ruffly pantalets. Did you ever hear of the lady that started with one
egg, and ended with fifty thousand dollars? Oh, do come to bed,
Elizabeth, or it will never be to-morrow morning. Our luck has
changed!—and we want to wake up and find that we haven’t dreamed it.”
What Ernie says is true. Our luck has changed, indeed! And yet,—what is
luck? I like to remember something the kind “Hippopotamus” said to
mother one evening this winter when Robin was very sick, when Rose
seemed extra-incompetent, when we were all feeling blue.
“Mrs. Graham,” he remarked, “you’re a lucky woman. I don’t care how
vexatious things may seem, I don’t care how unfortunate:—with four such
children as you have, there’s bound to be luck in a house!”
Wasn’t it pretty of him? And now that the Dump-Cart Contract is found,
now that we are poor no longer, it will be good to remember that, for
better or worse, we, ourselves, must always be the _real_ luck of the
Dudley Grahams.