A RAINY NIGHT
After that, the short days of winter passed as happily for the three
girls as days can be expected to pass in a world which some discouraged
person called “a vale of tears.” Alert as their minds were, each was
decidedly different from the other, and they had the effect of spurring
each other on. Carin was, of course, really more interested in her
drawing and painting than in anything else, although she was a good
student, too. Annie Laurie simply devoured books, and her happiest
diversion was music. A good teacher came weekly from Rutherford, a town
near by, to give her instruction. But Azalea took neither drawing nor
singing lessons. She had much housework to do before and after school,
and her long ride down the mountain each morning and back again at night,
with the fatigue it entailed, had to be taken into account. Then she
helped with the sewing and with the weaving, and so had neither time nor
strength for anything else. Once Mrs. Carson said to her husband:
“Perhaps we were wrong not to insist on having Azalea live with us. It
is true that few children have so much love and care given them as she
has there with the dear McBirneys. But she has to share their poverty
too, and their hard work. Do you think she will be worn out, Charles?
Children seem so precious to me. I can’t bear to see their strength
wasted.”
“My dear, she is being made into a very capable girl,” Mr. Carson
answered reassuringly. “She is having the sort of training our pioneer
ancestors had, and they grew stronger for their tasks and hardships. You
and I are not going to live forever, you know, and our Carin will never
want to take up the work we’re doing here among the mountain people.
She’ll be off to Paris or Rome, I suppose, picture seeing and making.
But here’s Azalea, in the most practical arts and crafts school possible.
She sees the mountain handicrafts made every day right before her eyes,
and when she’s grown she’ll be able to teach others. She’ll come in here
and take up the work where we leave off.”
“Charles Carson,” cried his wife indignantly, shocked for once out of her
sweet placidity, “what do you mean by speaking of us as if we were old?
Why, we’re hardly middle-aged.”
“Aren’t we?” said Mr. Carson rather wearily, yet smiling too. “I didn’t
know, Lucy. Sometimes it seems to me as if I had lived a long time.”
His wife was silent. She knew what he meant. Who could know better?
The day of blight that took from them their three fine sons had left them
disinclined to go on playing the game of life. They had tried many
things, and at length had come into this quiet valley, where there was so
much uncomplaining poverty, where the people had latent talents that only
needed encouragement to make them bread-winning forces, and they had
endeavored to make themselves necessary.
They had bought the beautiful old home that long years before had
belonged to Azalea’s grandfather, Colonel Atherton, and they had showered
their favors right and left and tried to make their influence felt in all
parts of the county. Their love of doing something, of building up, was
as a fresh wind blowing in a sultry plain. For a lassitude had hung over
the beautiful valley of Lee—a lassitude born of long years of loneliness,
lack of opportunity and monotony. Too little had happened; there had
been too few ways of earning money; too few strangers had come that way.
One day was so like another that a spell lay upon the people, and they
moved as in a long dream. But it was different now. There was some use
in making the strong, hand-woven cloth, the durable, quaint chairs and
the curious baskets, for Mr. Carson saw that they were profitably
marketed.
Mr. Carson had induced the mother of Hi Kitchell, a little worn woman
with three children to support, to come down from the mountains and
oversee his industries for him. He had given her a little home on the
level spot known as the Field of Arrows, an ancient Indian camping
ground, and here the young women came to learn the weaving of baskets and
of cloth. The front room was the shop, where the people came to buy
these interesting wares.
Here, too, the three girls came sometimes after school for a cup of tea
and some homemade cake—for Mrs. Kitchell served these comforts to all who
wished them—and sitting around her fire, they listened to her stories and
told tales of their own adventures. Sometimes there would be a dozen or
more in the tea room, whiling away the tedium of a winter afternoon. Hi
and the other children helped with the serving, and now and then “for the
fun of it” Jim McBirney or Sam Disbrow took a hand. There always was
plenty to do at the Mountain Industries, it seemed, however slack work
might be elsewhere.
One day of cold rain, Azalea and Annie Laurie had stopped in at Mrs.
Kitchell’s for a cup of tea before they made their way to their distant
homes. There was no one there that afternoon, save the sharp-eyed, busy
Mrs. Kitchell, and she, having served them, went back to the loom-room
and left them to themselves. The girls were excellent friends now. They
trusted and admired each other—counted on each other, as true friends
should.
“Azalea,” said Annie Laurie, “I never understood rightly about your
‘cousin Barbara.’ I’ve heard you speak of her, but I’m not quite clear
as to who she is.”
Azalea laughed lightly.
“She isn’t really my cousin at all,” she said. “I have no kin, Annie
Laurie. But I have told you, have I not, how my poor mamma and I were
traveling with a dreadful show when she died; and how we had got as far
as the McBirney’s cottage, and Ma McBirney—as Jim calls her—had my dear
mamma buried right there near the house, where her own little Molly’s
grave is? Then she asked the show people to let her take me, and they
wouldn’t. And so the dear, brave thing took me anyway, and ran away up
into the mountains with me and hid with me in a cave. And Pa McBirney
and some of his friends stayed down at the house, with shotguns, and
scared the show folk away. Well, Sisson, Hi Kitchell’s uncle, who was at
the head of the show, was terribly angry, and he made up his mind he
would have me back again. So one time, when we all went off to a
‘Singing,’ he managed to get me, and to carry me away, and for weeks I
was taken from one place to another in the mountains, away off the beaten
tracks, always hiding. Oh, it was such a time, Annie!”
“I know,” said the other sympathetically. “Of course I heard about that.
We were all so excited, wondering if you’d be found, and I just cried
when I heard that you were, and that good old Haystack Thompson was
bringing you home. I didn’t know you—and I couldn’t even remember having
seen you—but I felt interested in you from that moment.”
“Well, perhaps you heard that I managed to run away from the people who
were hiding me, and I went down the mountain in the night, and came to
the little town at the foot of it, and crept into a house there, and into
a sleeping-porch with a bed in it. Oh, I was so tired—so tired it was
almost like dying. I don’t really remember getting in that bed; but I
was found there in the morning by Mr. Summers, who is a Methodist
minister, you know. His wife is Barbara Summers. And they have the
dearest baby you ever saw or heard of—Jonathan Summers, he is, bless him.
Well, Mrs. Summers is just a little dear thing with brown eyes—she’s no
bigger than I am. And from the minute we saw each other, we loved each
other and felt at home. So we decided that we’d be kin. I write to her
one week, and she writes to me the next. She sends me pictures of
Jonathan that she takes with her little camera, and I send her presents
when I can—little woven table-covers or baskets. You’ve no idea how
sweet she is, Annie Laurie.”
“You seem to make friends whenever you please, Azalea. It’s so easy for
you! The Paces aren’t like that. It’s hard for them to let themselves
go and say the thing that comes into their minds. We’re stiff, someway.
But when we do make friends, we keep them.”
“Be sure to keep me, Annie Laurie. I nearly lost you through my own
carelessness, and I mean to hang on to you now. Well, come, let’s start
for home.”
But as it turned out, it was raining most dismally. A dark cloud had
tumbled off the mountain and settled down over the valley, and though it
was not late, it seemed almost like night.
“Goodness me,” said Annie Laurie, “I don’t like to think of you riding
away up on the mountain a night like this. Why, you’d be drenched.”
“I ought to have accepted Carin’s invitation and stayed all night with
her,” said Azalea. “Mother doesn’t expect me on bad nights. She’s not
to worry about me if I don’t come when it rains or snows.”
“Oh, stay with me, Azalea! It’s just the chance I’ve been wanting.
You’ve never been in my home except on that funny day when we all had
conniption fits—especially Aunt Adnah. But, honestly, Aunt Adnah is a
brick if you know her.”
Azalea giggled. “Yes, she did seem to have some of the properties of a
brick—hardness, for example. She hit me between the eyes.”
“Well, she’ll make it up to you now, if you’ll give her a chance. Of
course she wouldn’t say that she wants to make up, but she does.”
“I’d just love to stay all night with you,” Azalea said. “I’ll take the
pony back to the Carsons’ stable, and then we’ll walk over to your
house.”
“Very well. I’ll go with you to the stable.” They put the pony in the
stall, and then, wrapped in their raincoats, tramped along over the red
pine needles to Annie Laurie’s home.
“Don’t feel at all backward, will you, Azalea?” the other girl said as
they stood on the doorstep. “You just have a little pluck and everything
will come out all right.”
Azalea laughed.
“You don’t half understand me yet, Annie Laurie,” she said. “You’re so
much more serious than I am. I can’t help enjoying things even when they
are serious. I know I oughtn’t to feel that way, but I think it will be
awfully funny to see your Aunt Adnah’s face when she finds I’ve had the
impudence to come again.”
Annie Laurie frowned a trifle. She was not quite sure she liked to have
her aunt regarded as amusing. However, they went in together. The door
of the grim little parlor was closed, but the living-room door stood open
and Annie Laurie led the way in. There was an ugly brussels carpet on
the floor, and a center table covered with a chenille cloth; on it was
the reading lamp, and ranged about it were comfortable chairs. A black
marble clock ticked noisily on the mantel shelf, and a low fire
smouldered among the ashes. The scrim curtains had many colored figures
in them, and helped to keep out the light of the declining day. Azalea
could not help contrasting it with the exquisite rooms at The Shoals, and
with the quaint, charming rooms in the McBirney cabin. She could
understand some of the bitter things that Annie Laurie had said to
her—could see that, somehow, life had been commonplace for this girl from
the first, and that, though she did not altogether realize it, it was
this common-placeness which made her dissatisfied.
“Wherever can the aunts be?” said Annie Laurie. “The fire is out in the
kitchen, and there are no signs of supper. Usually at this hour, things
are humming like a bee hive. Take off your things, Azalea. I’ll hang
them up where they’ll dry. You sit right down before the fire, and I’ll
bring in some wood.”
“But let me help, Annie Laurie.”
“No, no. You’re company. I don’t often have company.” She went away
with Azalea’s things and then came back and stood looking at her guest
with her glowing eyes. “Azalea,” she said intensely, “I never have
company!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know why not. I’m not supposed to want it. I’m to study and
work, and mend and practice my music, and be doing something from early
till late. It isn’t that they’re not kind to me—my aunts and my
father—but they’re so dreadfully serious and conscientious.”
“It _does_ throw a damper over everything, being conscientious like
that,” mused Azalea.
Annie Laurie looked startled to hear her own secret idea put in words.
“For goodness sake,” she cried, “don’t let the aunts hear you say that!”
Azalea laughed teasingly.
“I’d really like to try that on Aunt Adnah,” she said.
Annie Laurie was getting used to her friend, and she made no reply. She
ran upstairs for a moment, and came down clothed in a warm brown wrapper,
and carrying another one of equally uninviting color on her arm.
“Slip into this, Azalea,” she commanded, “and let me hang your dress out
in the hall near the heater. There now, lie down on the sofa—so. I’ll
lie down too with my head the other way, and we’ll wrap ourselves in my
grandfather’s old army blankets. I’m dead tired, aren’t you? I don’t
see _where_ the aunts are.”
She yawned wearily, and Azalea caught the contagion and stretched her
pretty mouth in imitation.
“Oh, it’s cosy, isn’t it?” Azalea murmured. Neither spoke again. Their
eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, which seemed to hypnotize them,
and presently they both slept.
Just how long they lay there, comfortably resting, Azalea could not tell,
but when she opened her eyes the twilight had deepened. Annie Laurie was
still deep in sleep. The fire had quickened, and by its glow Azalea
could see that some one had entered the room. For a moment she was
startled, but then she saw that it was Annie Laurie’s father, Simeon
Pace; so she lay still, not liking to speak, since she was not sure he
would know her. He did not see the two girls on the sofa, and it was
quite evident that he thought himself alone. Azalea watched him
sleepily, and saw him take off his coat and throw it on the chair. Then
he began twisting his arm in a most inhuman manner, and Azalea’s blood
was frozen as she saw him loosen it at the elbow and lay it beside the
coat, until she chanced to remember about its being merely a tin
substitute for an arm. His next act was to take a long pocketbook or
wallet from the mantel, draw something from it, stuff it into his hollow
arm and deftly strap the arm into place again.
“How funny,” thought Azalea. “How Jim will laugh when I tell him about
it!”
Then she remembered that she had been unintentionally spying, and that it
would not be at all fair to tell what she had seen. She knew Ma McBirney
would not like her to mention anything she had seen under such
circumstances. So she lay as still as a lizard, hardly breathing, and
finally Mr. Pace left the room. A moment later she heard the two aunts
bustling about in the kitchen. There was a poking at the stove, a
lighting of lamps, a rattling of dishes, and it was evident that the
household was being set in motion again.
“Where are you, Annie Laurie, child?” called the voice of Miss Zillah.
“We’ve been out to the sewing circle, and it was so late before the
refreshments were served that we couldn’t hold our business meeting till
after five. Then on the way home we heard Mrs. Disbrow was worse and
Hannah laid up with a cold and we dropped in to see them, though I must
say they’re a shiftless lot. We thought you and your father wouldn’t
mind if supper was a little late. What you lying there for, child? And
mercy me, how big you look! Why, no wonder, there’s two of you. It’s
you, Azalea? How do you do?”
“I’m very well, ma’am,” said Azalea rather shyly. “I hope you didn’t
mind my coming. It was so rainy and horrid, Annie Laurie asked me to
spend the night.”
“Why, you’re as welcome as sunrise, of course. Sister Adnah, here is
Azalea McBirney. She’s come to spend the night with us.”
Azalea wondered what was going to happen then. Miss Adnah had been quite
vicious on the occasion of her former visit; but the mischievous spirit
in the girl made her rather enjoy the uncertainty. Miss Adnah, she
decided, could do no more than eat her up. But Miss Adnah was over her
bad temper. She came in holding out her hand gravely.
“It was a wise thing for you to stay in the valley to-night,” she said
primly. “I’m sure Mrs. McBirney wouldn’t want you to climb the mountain
in such a drizzle.”
She avoided committing herself to a mere piece of flattery. She didn’t
say she was glad Azalea was there, but for some reason, the girl did not
feel chilled. She knew Annie Laurie wanted her, and it seemed to her
that as the daughter of the house, Annie Laurie ought to enjoy some
privileges. However, a few minutes later, when she was in Annie Laurie’s
sober, tidy room, putting on her dress and freshening her hair, she
overheard Miss Zillah saying softly to Annie Laurie in the next room:
“Sister Adnah thinks you should not invite anyone to the house without
first asking permission, my dear. As for myself, I’m glad to see you
have friends and feel free to ask them, but it would be well to make
certain preparations.”
“Not at all, Aunt Zillah,” answered Annie Laurie hotly. “I’ve never had
a girl to stay all night—never. I asked Azalea because it was raining.
I couldn’t tell it was going to rain, or that I was going to ask her.
I’m old enough now to use some sense, I hope, and I want it so that I can
act without first having a period of fasting and prayer. You and Aunt
Adnah were late to-night—”
“My dear, it is the first time we have been late to our duties, so far as
I can remember, since we assumed them.”
“Oh, you don’t understand at all. I’m glad you were late. Why shouldn’t
you be, if you wished? And your duties—why do you speak of what you do
in the house like that? It’s not a duty to live and work and eat and
sleep and all. It’s a pleasure. At least, that’s the way Carin and
Azalea look at it. What I wanted to say was that for once you acted on
impulse. You stayed till meeting was out, and you stopped in to see some
sick neighbors. Well, I think that’s fine. Now, I asked my friend to
stay all night. No preparation is needed. The cellar is bursting with
food, the pantry is plumb full of it; there’s milk and cream to float a
town and butter enough to grease all the engines in the world—”
“Annie Laurie!”
“Well, Aunt Adnah wears my patience out. I’m going to ask my friends
here when it seems best.”
“My dear, you know we only ask you to use judgment.”
“Judgment? I don’t know what that means. I’ll use hospitality, if you
like, and courtesy—”
“To your aunts, among others, I hope.”
“Bless your heart!” Azalea heard Annie Laurie cry softly. “You’re a
dear, Aunt Zillah. Was I ever rude to you?”
“Not directly, my dear child. But you sometimes speak of my sister in a
manner which I cannot regard as really respectful.”
“Forgive me, Aunt Zillah. I’ve too much mustard and pepper in my
disposition. But there’s the supper bell. Azalea! Azalea, are you
ready?”
They sat down at a bountiful table, and Simeon Pace folded his hand of
flesh and his hand of tin together and prayed long and loud—something
about the “sundering of joints and marrow.” Azalea, who was very hungry,
hardly seemed to get the drift of these words. But she was startled from
her dazed reverie by a sharp inquiry from Mr. Pace.
“So you two girls were asleep there before the fire, were you? Did you
see me when I came in?” He turned his large eyes—so like and yet so
unlike Annie Laurie’s—upon first one girl and then the other.
“I didn’t,” said his daughter.
“And you, Miss Azalea?”
“I awoke while you were in the room,” she said, feeling somewhat like
Jack when he talked with the Giant Eater.
“So?” he looked at her sharply. “Why didn’t you speak?”
“I—I wasn’t sure you’d know me, sir.” She paused a moment and sat steady
under the look he kept upon her. “Anyway, I was just as good as
asleep—half dreaming.”
“And you never tell your dreams, I hope? It’s a bad habit.”
Azalea smiled at him.
“I never, never tell them, sir,” she said.
“Good,” cried Simeon Pace. “A sensible girl wouldn’t, of course. Let me
serve you some meat, Miss Azalea.”
And she understood clearly that she had given a tacit promise that she
would not tell what she had seen; and Simeon Pace felt the reliable
character of her, beneath her soft, girlish aspect, and trusted her.