JONES-DEXTER PRIDE
THE snow came down by four o'clock, soft, and as thick as if the dull
gray sky of the day had been a blanket full of feathers of which some
one had suddenly dropped the four corners. It was a snow-storm that
began in the middle, not working up to severity, and Miss Keren felt
forebodings of unbroken roads and difficult getting to the station on
the following day.
In the meantime it was delightful to sit by the gray stone hearth, with
the logs burning cheerfully and odorously, young voices chattering and
laughing around her, feeling the white silence that wrapped the earth
outside while within all was rosy and noisy.
Happie did not contribute greatly to the cheerful sounds. She sat,
rather quiet, watching the flames, close to Aunt Keren's side, not sad
but thoughtful.
Aunt Keren, glancing at her, thought that her girlish face looked older
as well as more serious, pensive too, as if it were a maturing and
sobering thing to know that one of the Scollards was actually betrothed.
Margery and Robert, on the other side of the hearth, were merry.
Margery's face had a deeper sweetness of expression, the look of
one who felt herself consecrated to something noble as well as
blissful--which was precisely how one would have expected Margery to
feel on the day of her betrothal. Margery was always serious, not the
girl to make lightly a solemn promise. Robert had no room for any other
feeling but light-hearted rapture. He talked gaily and steadily, till
the hymn hour came. Laura went to the piano, and with the others still
in their places around the hearth, played for them to sing hymn after
hymn while the evening wore away. New logs had twice replaced the first
ones, and supper hour struck.
The entire party helped Rosie bring in the steaming chocolate, the
foamy schmier-case, the white bread in its big slices, the delicious
homemade butter, and the cake, so golden and perfect that Happie's
layers of fudge between the yellow were almost intrusive.
"Isn't this great?" Robert demanded of no one in particular, stretching
out his legs to the snapping fire, and receiving a large spark on his
knee as a reward.
"Look out there! You have to watch that fire a little. I put in some
pine sticks to hurry it a while," cried Rosie. "A big spark flew over
acrosst to where Dundee was layin' by the door there a coupler weeks
ago and he'd have took fire on his tail if I hadn't happened to be in
here."
Dundee, whose pleasure in getting his family back had been beautiful
to behold, wagged the great plume of a tail in question and hitched
himself along nearer to Bob, thrusting his nose into the empty hand
on the boy's knee, as if to say: "I eat cake." Bob gave the collie a
generous mouthful. It had no effect except to bring Dundee up one short
hitch nearer, and Bob pulled his ear.
"We don't want you cremated, you braw, bonny Scotsman you! But neither
can I give you all my cake," he said. "I think this is great, brother
Robert. We sat around the fire like this before we went away, for we
stayed up till December, you know--or didn't Margery write you?"
"It's much nicer to eat supper this way than it is to have three proper
meals a day. Everything tastes so especially good," said Margery,
frowning at Bob.
"I always liked to eat a piece at night," said Rosie.
"'Eat a piece' means to take a light lunch, in Madison Countyese,"
Margery explained in a whisper to Robert.
"But Mahlon always wants to set up and eat--thinks he's gittin' more,"
Rosie continued. "The thinner a body is the more victuals he seems to
eat. My days, I often think to myself it's a lucky thing buckwheat
cakes is so indigestible. They give a body a chancet to git something
done in the forenoon without havin' Mahlon in and out every coupler
minutes askin' when a body's goin' to git dinner over."
"I've eaten a great many pieces--of bread, and cake, and jam,"
announced Snigs.
"We are going to bed early, dear children," said Aunt Keren. "It may
be that we shall be obliged to take a morning train. We can't stay here
until Tuesday, because of Bob's business, and the tea room, and I am
told by Rosie and Gretta that the road to the station may be impassable
by to-morrow afternoon if this snow keeps up. Will you all promise to
waken early? All waken together, at the same moment, and waken one
another?"
"We solemnly swear," said Ralph, in a sepulchral voice. "That's just
our kind of a pledge."
"It seems a pity to go to bed," said Happie. "We have had three such
pleasant days----"
"That you want to sit up all night?" Miss Keren finished for her, with
a hand on the second Keren-happuch's shoulder.
"It does seem a pity to shorten this blessed day," said Robert. "There
never comes again the first day in Eden, you know."
He smiled down at Margery, who said: "If we go to sleep we can waken
to the second day, and think how glad we shall be to find we had not
dreamed to-day!"
"When this little girl's grandmother helped her husband to die, he told
her that the last day was the happiest of their happy married life,"
said Miss Keren.
There was silence for a moment. Robert broke it by rising and saying
gravely: "Sing one more hymn, and then good-night! Let's sing the
splendid old long metre doxology, the Old Hundredth. I think there's
nothing quite like it when you feel no end grateful and not fit to have
half you've got."
"Let me play it, for I can't sing," said Miss Keren unexpectedly.
She took Laura's place and played the glorious old choral. The fresh
young voices' sang with heart in them, and the harmony rose up the
fireplace of the old Ark and floated out from the chimney upon the
snow-storm, blanketing the once desolate house with beauty and warmth,
symbolical of its interior change.
"Now, good-night, Miss Keren. You ought to have good nights and happy
days, for you've made us all happy," said Robert.
"Good-night, children. Remember your promise to waken early!" said Miss
Keren. "Happie, come to my room for a while. I want you."
The Archaics fulfilled their promise and aroused early. They wakened to
a world in which only the higher objects survived. The snow had fallen
steadily all night, fences were gone, shrubs stood huddled in shapeless
obtrusion above the fields, and roads were not--a uniformly undefined
surface made road and stonerow equal.
"Snowbound, by John G. Whittier!" exclaimed Bob coming into the dining
room. He used the Quaker poet's name as if it were an affirmatory oath.
[Illustration: "BOB, GRETTA AND DON DOLOR BROKE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE
SNOW"]
"Nothing of the sort, Bob!" cried Happie. "We can't be snowbound, not
by anybody--not even by snow. We must get to the station--don't you
think we can?" she added with an anxious change of tone.
"I think if we must--and you are right that we must--we ought to
start this morning," said Bob. "If this began to drift all the king's
horses and all the king's men couldn't get us through it. And knowing
Crestville, it is safe to 'look for wind about this time,' as the
almanacs say."
"Aunt Keren is ready to leave on the 11:26, if it is better," said
Happie. "You will have to drive down to Jake's to let him know. And,
oh, Bob, sit with me going down, for I've something to tell you,
and I can't wait--besides they would all hear if I told you in the
Patty-Pans."
"I shall consider myself engaged for the final act. If I'm going down
to Shale's, I must take a sort of lunch counter breakfast and start.
And I'm going to get Gretta to 'go along,' as they say here. I'll go
talk to Aunt Keren and find out if she wants me to go."
Bob went off whistling "The stormy winds do blow, blow, blow," and
Happie ran to meet Margery, whom she did treat, as Ralph said, "as if
she were damaged and liable to drop into nothing before her eyes."
Bob, Gretta and Don Dolor broke their way through the heavy snow, not
yet drifted, and fetched back Jake Shale's Aaron, with the blue sled
and the Kuntz horses, to take the Archaics to the station. Already the
wind was lightly stirring; by afternoon there would be impassable
drifts, very possibly, between the Ark and the station.
Rosie bade them all a gruff good-bye, but it was not a dismal one, for
in a little more than two months, in May, the Scollards would come
back, all of them as they supposed, not knowing what changes were
awaiting them.
Mahlon swung his arm and leg together in his usual feeble-minded
fashion, but the boys chose to construe it this time as a farewell.
"Yes, ta-ta, Mahlon. Good-bye! Shake a day-day back again to Mahlon,
Penny!" said Ralph with his solemn face unsmiling as he waved his hand
to Mahlon, a salute that Rosie took to herself and returned with a
waving apron.
In the train the party no longer divided evenly, augmented as it was by
Miss Bradbury. Gretta joined her, after glancing around and seeing that
Bob had dropped into a seat with Happie, at a little distance from any
of the others. Happie wondered if she imagined Gretta's face fell ever
so slightly as she saw that her companion of the journey up had failed
her. Sometimes Happie fancied that Gretta liked to be with Bob as well
as she liked to be with Happie herself. She wondered if at some future
day when handsome Gretta had grown into a splendid and well-educated
woman, Bob might--she shook herself mentally. "Just now she is fifteen!
This is what comes of Margery's getting herself engaged so young. I
am beginning to be silly about all of us--the others." Happie quickly
corrected this slip in the thoughts she was thinking. Perhaps Ralph's
slender gold bangle of Christmas came down over her hand at that moment
to remind her to except herself from her dreams of the future.
"Now then, Hapsie, let her go! What is this that you want to tell me?"
asked Bob, bringing her to the immediate present.
"Aunt Keren called me into her room last night," began Happie. "Bob,
she said a good deal that I don't know how to repeat. She told me in
the Patty-Pans, some three or four weeks ago, why she cares for us as
she does. We are her children, because--it is a dear story, and I'd
like to tell it to you nicely, but you can't in a car! She met our
grandfather before grandma did, and she thought he was going to care
for her, but grandma came, and it was she he loved. And the two girls
each cared most for the other to be happy. But it was grandma who
married, and dear auntie who didn't. They were devoted friends always,
you know. Aunt Keren feels as though mother were her very own, because
she was not only her two dear friends' child, but if grandpa had cared
most for auntie she would have been auntie's daughter, not grandma's.
So, she says, we are her nearest of kin. She wants to adopt me legally,
so that there will be no chance of some very horrid nieces breaking her
will when she leaves me nearly all her money, by and by. I never told
you about those nieces calling and being perfectly outrageous up at the
Patty-Pans. I didn't tell even mother. Aunt Keren wants me to have most
of her money when she dies. And she wants us to give up the Patty-Pans,
and let her take a house somewhere, and come to live with her. We are
to come up to Crestville for the summer, and in the autumn she wants us
to begin this new plan. Of course I was not to decide it, we shall all
have to talk it over together, and it will be as mother says, but that
is Aunt Keren's desire. It took my breath away."
"I should rather say so!" exclaimed Bob with a low whistle. "Why, Hap,
I never heard such a story, so full of several surprises! you to be
legally adopted? And to be an heiress? Has Aunt Keren much money? We
all thought her poor."
"Yes, she has a good deal, she says. I don't know how much. I never
thought to ask--to wonder, I mean; of course I wouldn't ask about it,"
said Happie. "I wanted to talk about this to you alone first, because
you always were my Rock of Gibraltar, Bobby. Besides, I never know
what I think about anything until I talk about it, then I find I have
unexpected opinions, for I begin to express them."
The brother and sister talked over Aunt Keren's amazing announcement
all the way down to Hoboken, which they reached sooner than any of the
others, in a sense, owing to the absorbing interest of their topic.
The train was late, impeded by the snow. It was five o'clock before the
party reached the Patty-Pans.
They found Mrs. Gordon watching for them with the door of her flat open
and Jeunesse Dorée, whom she looked after during the day while he was
deserted, in her arms.
"Oh, Ralph, I'm so glad you are here at last!" cried his mother. "I was
so relieved when I got Miss Bradbury's telegram this morning saying you
would take the earlier train! Dear people, the most wonderful thing has
happened! Mrs. Jones-Dexter, my unfortunate Aunt Lucinda, has been here
this morning."
"Cæsar's ghost! What for?" cried Ralph. But Margery instantly guessed.
"Serena's ill!" cried Margery.
"Serena is ill," assented Mrs. Gordon. "Poor little Serena is
desperately ill, so ill that you must not take off your coat, Ralph,
but must go down to the Jones-Dexter house as fast as you can. I only
hope you may be in time. The poor little blossom has been begging for
you, for her 'kind big boy,' for 'Ralph,' but she did not know any
other name for you, and Aunt Lucinda was frantic because she did not
know where to find you, while the Scollards were gone. She would do
anything to gratify little Serena at any time, but how when she is so
ill, it might make a great deal of difference, affect her recovery,
if her wishes could be granted. Mrs. Jones-Dexter remembered that the
Charlefords might know who Happie's friends were, so she went to them.
Mrs. Charleford did know who you were, and told her, Ralph. Then,
putting under foot her bitterness of so many years' standing, and her
Jones-Dexter pride, the unhappy old lady came here this morning to beg
us to take pity on little Serena and send you to her. And she found you
gone! Needless to say I promised that you should go to her house the
moment you arrived. So go at once, Ralph dear, and stay as long as you
are helpful and do all that you can for the child. Strange, that she
has taken this violent fancy to her distant and unknown cousin! Hurry,
dear Ralph. If you comfort Serena stay, but send me a message if you
find you can't come home to-night."
Ralph went away at once. Robert said good-night, and accompanied him.
The Scollards closed their door and went into the Patty-Pans feeling
that their holiday was indeed over, and that events were rolling up
around them faster than an incoming tide. For Margery had come home
betrothed, Happie in demand for a legal adoption, and now here was
Ralph summoned to the sick bed of his little third cousin, with a
family reconciliation and all sorts of possible good results looming
up ahead through the mediation of the child. It was saddening to think
of little Serena lying dangerously ill, her flower-like little body
a prey to fever and to pain. The girls would not think of the other
possibility at which Mrs. Gordon had hinted--that Ralph might come too
late.
But Laura reveled in grief and fully realized that here was an
opportunity. She immediately took possession of the piano, and while
Margery and Gretta busied themselves with the household duties
involved in a return after a three days' absence, and Happie, with
a sober face, went out to the delicatessen shop to supplement the
deficiencies of their larder, Laura played dismal music, at the same
time composing words for it. Tears of distress rained down her face
while she artistically steeped herself in misery of the keenest painful
enjoyment, because she was "making little Serena's funeral hymn," she
said.
The announcement was too much for Polly. That good little girl, who
rarely was cross and never in a passion, flew into one now under the
stress of feeling far too strong for her.
"It's not her funeral hymn! Stop that horrid playing Laura Scollard!"
she screamed, throwing down Phyllis Lovelocks, her beloved doll, with
such violence that the petted creature must have been amazed. "Serena
isn't going to have a funeral! She shan't die. I love her, I love her!
She's the dearest of all the dancing school children. Stop, Laura!
Laura, stop! It's just like a--just like a--just like a _cannibal_, to
do what you're doing, that awful music and those horrid, horrid words!"
Polly's voice had risen to an hysterical shriek, and Margery flew in to
calm her.
"Really, Laura, I agree with Polly," she said, gathering the excited
child in her arms. "Please don't regard everything as an opportunity
for your talents. It may be artistic, but it seems somewhat inhuman."
It was after ten that night when Ralph came home. His mother and Snigs
were waiting for him in the Scollard flat. A message had told them that
there was no hope of Serena's living till midnight, and that he would
return before many hours.
He came at last, a very tired, solemn-looking Ralph, to whom Margery,
Happie and Gretta brought hot chocolate and sandwiches, and to whom
Mrs. Scollard gave the most comfortable chair.
"I'm not hungry, thanks, Happie," said Ralph. "Yes, I'm glad of the
chocolate, Gretta; it's cold out. My little new-found cousin is dead.
Poor baby! She looked so frail and sweet. She was a dear little
creature. She seemed touchingly glad to see me. She was restless, and I
carried her up and down the room, and through the other rooms on that
floor until just before--the end. Her grandmother had told her that I
was coming, and that I was her cousin. She was very loving. She seemed
to be delighted that I was hers, that she had a claim on me. She kissed
me and patted my cheek when she could no longer see. Well--we'd better
not talk about Serena. I am awfully sorry for Mrs. Jones-Dexter. The
child was the one soft spot, the one devotion of her wilful life. Every
one else she intended to compel to live for her, but she lived for
Serena, and lived IN her. She is an old, broken-down woman
to-night. She talked to me in a way that was pretty hard for a boy
like me to hear from a woman of her age, but I knew she was crushed
under this blow, and that it made her feel better to talk, so I sat
still. She wants us to forgive her, mother. And she wants something
else. Serena asked her to take care of 'Ralphy' once to-night while
I was walking with her, and she said, 'I will do anything for Ralph
that he will let me do.' While she was talking to me she told me that
she felt as if little Serena had given me to her, in a sense. And she
reminded me that she was your own aunt, mother. She begs me to allow
her to settle an income on me during her life. It would have been more
if it had been given to Serena, she said, but this will be Serena's
gift to me. She said--with just a glimpse of her old manner--that she
knew we needed money, she had seen our Harlem flat this morning! I
hesitated, because I didn't want to take it, mother, and I thought that
you wouldn't want it either, and when she saw that I was trying to say
no gently, she almost went on her knees to me. It really was awful.
She begged me not to be hard on her, to punish her for all her cruel,
wilful life--that was what she called it. She said the Jones-Dexter
pride had cost her all that made life worth living, and how God had
stricken her in her old age. She said I had no right to refuse her
a slender comfort, I in whose arms little Serena had died. Little
Serena, all that she had! It would go hard with me one day, as it was
going hard with her now, if I, with my life all before me, was cruel to
an old woman. Mercy on us, you don't know what it was to hear her, and
I couldn't speak to tell her that she had misunderstood. As though I
wanted to keep up a row that was never mine, nor mother's either, for
that matter! Finally she broke down from sheer exhaustion, and then I
made her understand that I was not quite the proud, headstrong fellow
she thought, and that I would take the gift if mother would allow me
to, and that I hoped I might be some comfort to her because my little
cousin had loved me. And at last I got away. Talk about pride! If any
one could have seen that poor, broken, stiff-necked old lady to-night,
desolate, all alone through her own fault, her son dead whom she had
quarreled with and driven away, and now this flower-like little idol of
her last years dead up-stairs, I think if he were tempted to pride the
sight of the Jones-Dexter pride in the dust would humble him! I don't
want to go through another such scene. When Serena lay in my arms,
gasping, dying, so gentle, so affectionate, I cried like a baby--I
don't mind owning it. But it was a sweet sort of grief; the dear little
creature seemed so safe and peaceful when we laid her on the pillows
at last. But desolate old age, and a proud old woman crushed, that's
another sort of pathos."
The circle around him had listened to Ralph without once interrupting
him. No one there had ever seen him so stirred and carried beyond his
American-boyish self-consciousness and false shame under emotion.
"Dear Ralph, this child's death seems like a providence to soften her
hard grandmother. By and by she will be more at peace, if not happier,
that Serena left her," said Mrs. Gordon. "Ralph, does this gift help
you to college, dear?"
"It would more than solve our problem, mother. If we take the allowance
our troubles are over," said Ralph.
"You must take it, of course," said Miss Keren quickly. "No one but a
brute would refuse that poor soul a chance to make some amends before
she dies, and to feel that she still is doing something for Serena."
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Gordon quietly. "It would be cruel to Aunt
Lucinda, and not fair to Ralph to refuse it. Little Serena's love will
work him immense good. Margery, dear, this was your bringing about."
"I hoped for something, but I did not foresee this," said Margery
through her tears.