Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of reflection during this
monologue, and Jacky had not used the time unwisely, offering several
unconscious arguments and suggestions to the matter under discussion;
lurching over on the greensward and righting himself with a chuckle,
kicking his bare feet about in delight at the sunshine and groping for
his toes with arms too short to reach them, the movement involving an
entire upsetting of equilibrium followed by more chuckles.
Coming down the last of the stone steps, Sarah Ellen's mother regarded
the baby with interest and sympathy.
“Poor little mite!” she said; “that doesn't know what he's lost and
what's going to happen to him. Seems to me we might keep him a spell
till we're sure his father's deserted him for good. Want to come to Aunt
Sarah, baby?”
Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded the kind
face gravely; then he held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb, stooping,
gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into her arms, he at once tore
her spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud. Taking them from him
gently, she put them on again, and set him in the cushioned rocking
chair under the lilac bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of his
soft hands in hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birds
before his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all the
arts she had lavished upon “Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months,” years
and years ago.
Motherless baby and babyless mother,
Bring them together to love one another.
Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet, but she saw clearly enough that
her case was won.
“The boy must be hungry; when was he fed last?” asked Mrs. Cobb. “Just
stay a second longer while I get him some morning's milk; then you
run home to your dinners and I'll speak to Mr. Cobb this afternoon. Of
course, we can keep the baby for a week or two till we see what happens.
Land! He ain't goin' to be any more trouble than a wax doll! I guess he
ain't been used to much attention, and that kind's always the easiest to
take care of.”
At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the hill and
down the lane again, waving their hands to the dear old couple who were
waiting for them in the usual place, the back piazza where they had sat
so many summers in a blessed companionship never marred by an unloving
word.
“Where's Jacky?” called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice always
outrunning her feet.
“Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want to see,” smiled Mrs.
Cobb, “only don't wake him up.”
The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah's room. There, in
the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept Jack-o'-lantern,
in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so lately escaped. His
nightgown and pillow case were clean and fragrant with lavender, but
they were both as yellow as saffron, for they had belonged to Sarah
Ellen.
“I wish his mother could see him!” whispered Emma Jane.
“You can't tell; it's all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she does,”
said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the fascinating scene and
stole down to the piazza.
It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it was
filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On the
Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded the
Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, Alice
Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three promised
to labor for and amuse the visiting baby for two days a week, Minnie
Smellie, who lived at some distance from the Cobbs, making herself
responsible for Saturday afternoons.
Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls, and
it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted
her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging herself secretly at
the thought, that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day a
week, she could not be called a “full” Aunt. There had been long and
bitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca's first summer in
Riverboro, but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more
quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be
hinted at vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece
of hers who couldn't get along peaceable with the neighbors had better
go back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't any, hostilities
had been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replaced
the former one, which had been wholly primitive, direct, and barbaric.
Still, whenever Minnie Smellie, flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, and
ferret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, remembering the
old fairy story, could always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It was
really very unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; and
what was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, being
almost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually from
Rebecca's lips; but Emma Jane's strong point was not her imagination.
A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic; shoes
and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer knitted
a blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though too young for an aunt,
coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was presented
with a green paper certificate allowing her to wheel Jacky up and down
the road for an hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt. Each
girl, under the constitution of the association, could call Jacky “hers”
for two days in the week, and great, though friendly, was the rivalry
between them, as they washed, ironed, and sewed for their adored nephew.
If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable woman in the world she might
have had difficulty in managing the aunts, but she always had Jacky to
herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk at night.
Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier as the
weeks slipped away. Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipers
and slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their hearts; not, as a
sensible and practical person might imagine, the fear that the recreant
father might never return to claim his child, but, on the contrary, that
he _might_ do so!
October came at length with its cheery days and frosty nights, its glory
of crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn.
Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of the river and had come
up across the pastures for a good-night play with Jacky. Her literary
labors had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and responsibilities of
vice-motherhood, and the thought book was less frequently drawn from its
hiding place under the old haymow in the barn chamber.
Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door with her face pressed against the
wire netting, and Rebecca could see that she was wiping her eyes.
All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic throb and then stood
still. She was like a harp that vibrated with every wind of emotion,
whether from another's grief or her own.
She looked down the lane, around the curve of the stone wall, red with
woodbine, the lane that would meet the stage road to the station. There,
just mounting the crown of the hill and about to disappear on the other
side, strode a stranger man, big and tall, with a crop of reddish curly
hair showing from under his straw hat. A woman walked by his side, and
perched on his shoulder, wearing his most radiant and triumphant mien,
as joyous in leaving Edgewood as he had been during every hour of his
sojourn there--rode Jack-o'-lantern!
Rebecca gave a cry in which maternal longing and helpless, hopeless
jealousy strove for supremacy. Then, with an impetuous movement she
started to run after the disappearing trio.
Mrs. Cobb opened the door hastily, calling after her, “Rebecca, Rebecca,
come back here! You mustn't follow where you haven't any right to go. If
there'd been anything to say or do, I'd 'a' done it.”
“He's mine! He's mine!” stormed Rebecca. “At least he's yours and mine!”
“He's his father's first of all,” faltered Mrs. Cobb; “don't let's
forget that; and we'd ought to be glad and grateful that John Winslow's
come to his senses an' remembers he's brought a child into the world and
ought to take care of it. Our loss is his gain and it may make a man of
him. Come in, and we'll put things away all neat before your Uncle Jerry
gets home.”
Rebecca sank in a pitiful little heap on Mrs. Cobb's bedroom floor
and sobbed her heart out. “Oh, Aunt Sarah, where shall we get another
Jack-o'-lantern, and how shall I break it to Emma Jane? What if his
father doesn't love him, and what if he forgets to strain the milk or
lets him go without his nap? That's the worst of babies that aren't
private--you have to part with them sooner or later!”
“Sometimes you have to part with your own, too,” said Mrs. Cobb sadly;
and though there were lines of sadness in her face there was neither
rebellion nor repining, as she folded up the sides of the turn-up
bedstead preparatory to banishing it a second time to the attic. “I
shall miss Sarah Ellen now more'n ever. Still, Rebecca, we mustn't feel
to complain. It's the Lord that giveth and the Lord that taketh away:
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”