“I’m just as sure as anything that there’ll be a letter to-day from that
Mr. Blake up in Maine, and I wish Hugo would hurry up and go to the
postoffice, before he goes for Harry and Grandma Dobson.” Kate Hallock
had said the above while standing in her own room in front of her
dressing bureau, in whose drawers she was vainly searching for a ribbon
with which to tie her hair.
“Kate, Kate, my child!” and a firm hand was laid upon Kate’s arm,
arresting her movements.
“I know, mamma!” said Kate, “but I put every single thing in apple-pie
order only Saturday, and this is Tuesday, and I was looking for my blue
hair ribbon; and I’m in an awful hurry, for fear they’ll get here before
I’m ready.”
“Do you think any little girl can be _ready_ to receive company whose
bureau drawers are in this state, Kate?”
“Yes, ma’am, if my hair is only nice.”
“And don’t you think while you were at play a vision of the confusion
here would come up before you? Just look!” and Mrs. Hallock opened
drawer after drawer, while Kate hung her head, pouted a little, and said
finally,
“Well, now, mamma, I _will_ fix everything nice the first thing in the
morning.”
“Now is the time, my child.”
“I can’t do it now,” pleaded Kate; “they’ll get here before I’m half
done.”
“Now is the right time. If I compel you to do it _now_, the next time
you want a ribbon or a handkerchief, you will not stir up everything
within reach to find it. You might put your drawers in order every
morning of your life, and it would be of little use if you threw things
right and left, and twisted them over and over like this.”
“But I get in such an awful hurry, and my eyes dance so I can’t stop,
and the first I know everything begins to hop, skip, and jump under my
fingers,” said poor Kate, bursting into tears.
“My dear child,” said her mother, “life must not be such a whirl to you;
let me think what to do with you.”
“Send me to the Reform School in Meriden!” sobbed Kate, with her head on
the marble of the bureau.
“Here you are at your own Reform School, Kate Hallock! It is left to you
to decide how soon you can go out free and happy. I’m going down now,
and when you have put everything here in order, you may call me to look
at your work. Here is a chance for victory over Mr. Disorder, Kate. See
that you put him down completely.” Mrs. Hallock kissed the back of
Kate’s neck, and left the room.
The white clock on the mantelshelf in the library struck ten. Kate heard
the sweet, silvery sounds as she listened to her mother’s footsteps on
the stairs.
“It’s a great deal too bad, anyhow!” she said, raising her head, and
fumbling blindly, through her tears, in the open drawer for a
handkerchief. “I think she might just have let me wait till morning, and
not spoiled all my fun to-day.”
Nevertheless Kate kneeled down, and drew out the lower drawer, and began
the labor of assorting, refolding, and laying in order the various
garments that she found there. She grew interested in her work. When she
closed the first drawer, she jumped up with glad alacrity, opened the
second one, made two or three very wry faces at the confusion of
ribbons, ruffles, aprons, stockings, and what not besides, therein; and
saying, “Get out of here, Mr. Disorder—I’m coming to oust you,” she fell
bravely to work, and was upon the last drawer when, with the smallest
possible hint of a knock, in rushed Frank, saying,
“Run down, Kate! They’re just coming, and I’ve got to give my hair a
brush.”
Frank was off again. The visitors, Mrs. Dobson and Harry, had arrived,
and Kate’s hair was flying wild about her tear-stained face. She flew to
the window, heard her mother on the veranda welcoming them, and her feet
ached to run down, and her tongue mourned because it could not say one
word to them.
“Kate, Kate! I say, why don’t you come?” came from Frank, once more at
the door, and then Kate was alone.
She hastened to complete the work she had to do. Out of the very last
corner of the last drawer came the wished-for ribbon; and as Kate stands
there before the looking-glass combing her hair, I will tell you how she
appears to me—for I have heretofore forgotten to describe Kate Hallock.
You know that she is short, because the corn in June and the salt meadow
grass partly concealed her from view. Well, Kate is brushing her long,
fair, shining hair; and as we look at her profile, she is watching her
flushed face in the glass, and wondering whether or not Harry Cornwall
will know that she has been crying, and—and—would he laugh at her if he
knew what she had been crying about.
Ah! Kate Hallock is laughing at herself now, to think she could have
been so silly; and that laugh makes her look like herself once more, as
she turns about and quickly catches with her teeth the braid of her
hair, that, thus held, she may tie about it the blue ribbon.
Kate Hallock has blue, tender eyes; round, soft, brown cheeks—just such
cheeks as the sun and the wind might be supposed to like to shine upon
and breathe over at any time of the year; teeth small, sharp, and
white—the sun and the wind never tanned Kate’s teeth; her sweet lips
dance over them so constantly that you never can tell whether you are
looking at the teeth or the lips when she talks or laughs.
Kate’s nose is not quite perfect; if it only were a mite smaller and
straighter, Kate would be a beauty. However, Kate is the only one who
ever finds time or heart to mourn over that feature of a bright, bonny,
darling young face.
Now she is ready to go down (and I am sure you have not yet found out
how she looks)—ready, all but the tying of her sash. That she manages by
a rather awkward bow, tied in front, and finally jerked and pulled until
the bow is supposed by the child to be in the back.
“You look like a guy!” was the accost Frank gave her as he passed her in
the hall.
“What’s the matter, I should like to know, with Mr. Airy Castle now?”
ejaculated Kate. Hearing her voice, Mrs. Hallock left her guests and
went with Kate back to her own room, where, having examined the bureau
drawers, which were found in order, Mrs. Hallock tied Kate’s bows anew,
kissed her twice, and sent her down to entertain Mrs. Dobson and Harry.
“I should like to shake hands with you, if I could,” said Harry, whose
right arm was still fast in a sling.
“O, never mind,” said Kate. “Come, I’m in a hurry to show you
something—quick! before Frank comes!” and Kate hurried Harry off out of
doors the very minute she had told Mrs. Dobson how glad she was to see
her.
“Don’t you know,” said she to Harry (as they stepped from the veranda),
“the morning you first came here? Well, when you rode past on that ugly
little pony that threw you down and hurt you, I was just behind that
stone wall over there. You can see it, can’t you?”
Harry said yes; that he could see it.
“Well, you must know that my brother Frank has been taking care of that
cornfield ever since for you.”
Harry wondered what was coming next, but Kate gave him not the least
mite of a chance to ask a question, but made haste to say, “That day the
corn was Frank’s, but he ran away. Don’t you remember how he followed
you to the circus grounds and stayed with you till most dinner time?”
“If he hadn’t,” interposed the lad, “I don’t believe I should ever have
known you, or you me.”
“That’s just it!” responded Kate. “It makes everything we do so queer
and kind of jumbled up; and yet,” she said gravely, “everything will
come out right, I s’pose, if we wait long enough.”
“You don’t mean that ’twas right for Frank to run away, do you?” and
Harry looked at Kate out of his clear, honest, grey eyes, very earnestly
indeed.
“I don’t see why not, ’cause if he hadn’t, how could we have known you
wanted somebody and a home and all?” suggested Kate.
“O, pshaw!” exclaimed Harry.
“I should like to know if _that’s_ all you’ve got to say?” said Kate in
a decidedly irritated tone.
“I beg your pardon; I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to. But don’t
you suppose now that if Frank had stayed in the lot over yonder that
morning, and God—” Harry suddenly stooped, grew red in the face, stooped
and picked up a stone, which he kept tossing in his left hand as they
went along; and he waited for Kate to speak, which she did presently,
saying,
“Never mind the rest; you can tell me some other time. Here we are,
close to your cornfield.”
“I should like to know why you call it mine,” said Harry; and then
followed the story of Frank’s desire to earn money for himself, and the
opportunity given to him by his father, and ingloriously lost by his
runaway propensity, gratified once too often. Kate told the story with
shining eyes, and was particularly careful to impress upon Harry’s mind
the beautiful manner in which her brother had acted ever since.
Harry and Kate were standing on the very edge of the field, and Harry
was just saying, “But, Kate, I cannot take it; you know that I can’t. I
should not enjoy a thing about it,” when a thundering slap struck upon
Harry’s shoulder, and a big, gleesome boy’s voice shouted close to his
ear,
“Well, I say, old fellow, how do you like the looks? Ain’t much like
Western corn now, is it?”
Frank had been advancing cautiously from the rear, intending to take
Kate and Harry by surprise. Harry was too much hurt by the blow (for
Frank had forgotten his condition) to answer for a minute or two. In
fact he grew so pale that Kate was frightened, and called Frank “a great
rough, cruel fellow, to slap poor Harry so.”
“I declare, I forgot your arm and everything. I didn’t mean to hurt
you,” explained Frank, and after a few more sharp twinges in the broken
bones, Harry said,
“It is all over and no harm done.”
“Glad to hear you say so,” said Frank. “Now this don’t look much of a
cornfield, I suppose, to you who’ve seen ever so many acres all in one
lot; but there’s one thing, you may call it ten acres to one—for that’s
about the difference in the price of the corn out West and here—and when
harvest comes, you’ll have a big pile of heavy ears. Don’t believe I am
much of a born farmer,” added the boy, “or I should have hung to the
main chance a bit longer.”
“I sha’n’t take one single ear of your corn, Frank Hallock,” spoke up
Harry. “Pray don’t think I’m mean enough to touch it.”
“But you must,” cried the twins in chorus. “You’ve got to have it; and,”
added Kate, “if you only knew how hard Frank has worked in the lot since
he knew ’twas yours, and you couldn’t help yourself lying over there at
Mrs. Dobson’s, I know you would. And you are coming here to live next
week, until your uncle up in Maine, or down in Maine, sends for you, or
comes after you—and, oh, you don’t know how pretty your room is. Mamma
made it so on purpose, and I helped her, too. Its—” but before Kate had
time to finish the sentence, Harry interrupted her by saying,
“Please don’t tell me about it, for, Kate and Frank, I can’t live at
Hallock Point.”
Harry’s statement was so utterly surprising that a momentary silence
followed it, and then the “I should like to know whys” and the “why
nots” overwhelmed the boy; but when finally Kate burst out with “I’m
sure I don’t see what we have done that you will neither take Frank’s
corn when he gives it to you, nor come to live with us, when we want to
have you ever so much,” Harry felt compelled to say something, and what
he said was simply this—
“I’m going to live in Pumpkin Delight Lane, with Mrs. Dobson.”
“Well, now, that is a good joke—going to live with Grandma Dobson!”
laughed Frank; “just as though you meant what you say.”
“Indeed, I do,” Harry replied quite seriously.
Practical Kate said: “Why, Harry, don’t you know that Grandma Dobson is
poor—I mean she hasn’t much money, nothing but the house and the land, I
heard papa say one day; and before her father died and left the house to
her, she used to make dresses.”
“Yes, I know she’s poor,” and Harry sighed.
“Well, then, you don’t want to make her poorer, do you?” Kate asked with
an arch look at Harry, for she evidently thought her final question
decided the point.
The children had turned and were walking back to the house. They were
come to the spot where Kate had met the man who was faint and ill, and
to whom she had given Frank’s dinner.
“Come,” cried Kate, “this is a nice place to sit, under the shade of
these big trees, and we’ll talk about it.”
Down she went with her fresh white dress on the green grass; and Harry
was, in truth, very glad of the opportunity of resting, for it was his
first walk in over a month.
“Now, tell us what it all means,” ejaculated Kate, with her pretty chin
resting in the palm of one hand, and her blue eyes somewhere between the
blue of the sky and Harry’s sober face.
“Well, it means, if I must tell you, that Mrs. Dobson talks out loud
pretty often. She’s lived alone a good while, with only Josh in the
house; and sometimes when I used to lie on my bed still, and maybe she
thought I was fast asleep—I don’t know, though; and I wonder if folks
who live alone don’t always talk to themselves—”
“I guess so,” said Kate. “I’m sure I should have to talk to somebody—I
couldn’t help it; but do hurry and tell us what she said.”
“Never mind about the particulars,” put in Frank, as Harry still
hesitated.
“Why, what I thought,” began Harry at length, “was that there was
somebody in the room that she was talking to: for she said that she had
lived alone, waiting and waiting, ever since her mother and father died,
and she meant to wait a good while longer, too, only it would be so much
easier and pleasanter not to wait all alone; and then she told how
lonely ’twas in the winter when the snows came, and there wasn’t for a
good many days a single track through the snow, and the ice was so thick
on the shore and so strong in the bay that not one ship could come into
the harbor. And I began to cry when she told about the long dark nights
she had to stay all alone, without one single human heart—that was just
what she said—beating near her own; and then all at once I knew she was
praying, for she burst out with ‘O, dear Lord, if this boy you’ve sent
to my house could only love me well enough to live with me just one
winter!’”
Kate sobbed and Frank whistled, and Harry said, “What do you s’pose I
did then?”
“Tell!” sighed Kate.
“Out with it!” demanded Frank.
“Why, I got up and opened the door softly, and said I do love you, and I
will stay’; and then I shut the door, but not before I saw that Mrs.
Dobson was getting up from her knees. She hurried into the room pretty
lively, I tell you, and kissed me, and made such a fuss over me that I
came mighty near being sorry I’d said I would stay.”
“Of course you’ll stay,” said Kate. “Why I wouldn’t have you at Hallock
Point, not if I could just as well as not. But what will you do there?”
“O, I’ll find enough to do, so that Grandma (she says I may call her so)
won’t think I’m eating her out of house and home; and then there’s the
farm. Next year who knows what may happen? and as for this, why there’s
a good chance to dig clams between now and cold weather.”
“Good for you!” cried Frank. “You’re a cracky chap, after all. Didn’t I
see some hens and an old turkey or two in the back yard the other day,
over in the lane?”
“Why, Frank, you stupid, you know Grandma Dobson keeps hens,” said Kate.
“They eat corn, like other hens, don’t they?”
“Of course,” laughed Kate.
“What then?” questioned Harry.
“Why, that cornfield yonder,” and with the words Frank walked off,
before Kate and Harry had time to get up from the grass and join him.
“That’s just like him,” said Kate, bubbling with enthusiasm. She was
always glad if Frank did or said the least thing to build up her
sisterly pride in him. “It’s so kind of him to remember Grandma Dobson’s
hungry hens. You’ll let _her_ have the corn of course, Harry!”
“I don’t see how I can help it. If Frank chooses to give it to her, I’ll
promise to gather it, harvest it in whatever place she chooses to have
it, shell it, feed it out, and save enough for seed next year.”
And all this time that the children were talking, the bright July sun
was beaming down on the broad green leaves of the corn; and that same
sun saw another sight. If the sun had told Frank, Kate, and Harry what
it saw, I do not know what would have happened—something interesting, I
am quite sure; but as the sun told no tales that day, I will not—until
the next chapter.
The letter that Mrs. Hallock sent to “Mr. Horace Blake, Solon, Maine,”
should have been addressed to Mr. Horace Ludlow, since Uncle Horace was
Aunt Louisa Blake’s husband, and of course had a name of his own. At the
end of three months, Mrs. Hallock received her letter from the Dead
Letter Office.
Dear me! if that letter had had the right name on it, poor Mrs. Dobson
would have had to live all alone all winter, maybe—who knows?
“Crooked things _do_ turn out just as straight as anything, sometimes,”
Kate Hallock said, when the letter was returned to her mother.