ON THE ROAD TO LONGMEADOW
Along the country road, through pastures and farms and meadows, where
the limousine had smoothly, swiftly glided, Aunt Martha's Ford bounced
sturdily. Soon the ice-cream cones were demolished, even to the last
gritty crumb of the cornucopias. Jacqueline wiped her hands and her face
on her handkerchief (Caroline's handkerchief!).
"Wipe off your mouth, Nellie," bade Aunt Martha. "Let Caroline do it for
you. I haven't a hand to spare."
Jacqueline scrubbed Nellie vigorously with Nellie's own pocket
handkerchief which had a rabbit worked in one corner.
"That's my best hanky," said Nellie, and with the ice thus broken
between them, began to ask Jacqueline questions.
Did she sleep in the train? Did she have a real bed? Was she scared all
alone like that?
"Of course not," said Jacqueline, rather showily.
She stuffed her mussy handkerchief back into her pocket, and there were
the chocolates, salvage of the satin box. She decided to share them with
this new acquaintance.
"Here, Nellie," she said. "Don't you like chocolates?"
Nellie seized upon the proffered sweet.
"Only one, Nellie," struck in Aunt Martha, who seemed to know without
looking what went on among the children round her.
"I've got a pocketful," Jacqueline urged generously.
"No need to be piggy on that account. Where did you get 'em, Caroline? I
hope you don't spend money foolishly."
"There was a little girl on the train had a whole box of chocolates."
Jacqueline spoke truthful words, but with untruthful intent. "These are
some of them."
Aunt Martha looked at her disapprovingly.
"It's just as well not to pick up acquaintances on trains," she said.
"But I don't need to lay down the law, for you won't be taking another
such journey for one while."
"Not unless you send me to an Institution," thought Jacqueline. What
would it be like to go to an Institution, she wondered? Perhaps she
would be really bad, and let Aunt Martha send her there. The
Gildersleeves could always come and get her out.
Nellie interrupted Jacqueline's train of thought. She had bitten into
the plump chocolate she had chosen and found it not at all to her taste.
"This is a bad candy," she protested. "It ought to be white sugar inside
and instead it's all gooey gum."
"It's nice jelly, you goop," said Jacqueline. "Throw it away, and have
another."
"No!" Aunt Martha struck in. "You can't waste good candy like that,
Nellie. If you don't like what Caroline gives you, leave it alone. But
you can't have another. Caroline may want to save a piece for each of
the boys."
It seemed to Jacqueline pathetic that mere candy should be so precious.
"Oh, let Nellie find one that she likes," she pleaded, and added,
without thinking: "I'll get a whole box of candy to-morrow for the
boys."
Aunt Martha smiled rather quizzically.
"Not a box of that sort of candy, Caroline. It must have cost at least a
dollar a pound. Does seem sort of wicked to throw money about that way,
when times are so hard."
Aunt Martha spoke seriously, and the gray eyes that she suddenly bent on
Jacqueline were very grave, and even stern. Jacqueline suddenly
reconsidered her plan to be naughty and get sent to an Institution.
There might, she concluded, be unpleasantnesses before she got there.
Not of course that she was afraid of Aunt Martha!
"I'll keep what's left of the chocolates for the boys," she said quite
meekly. "How many of 'em are there--the boys, I mean, not the
chocolates. I've kind of forgotten."
"No wonder, either," Aunt Martha answered heartily. "You can't have
heard much about your Longmeadow relations. Your mother and I were only
connected by marriage, and both of us busy women, so correspondence sort
of languished after your father died. Can't say you favor him in looks.
You must take after your mother's folks."
Jacqueline blushed with embarrassment. What fibs might she not yet be
forced to tell?
"There now," said Aunt Martha. "I shouldn't be personal, setting a bad
example to you and Nellie. Let's talk about the boys."
"Let's!" said Jacqueline, with heartfelt relief.
"Well, there's my big boy, Ralph. He's most sixteen, and he'll go to
High School over to Baring Center next winter, if we can get
conveyance." A worried look played for a moment on Aunt Martha's steady
face, and was gone as quickly as it came. "Ralph is my right hand on the
farm," she said with a little smile. "Like you must have been to your
mother, Caroline."
Jacqueline blushed again. She had played several parts in her life, but
she had never adopted the rôle of right hand to any one. Did grown folk
speak always of children who were right hands with the sort of smile
that was on Aunt Martha's firm lips, and that sort of shininess in the
eyes?
"Then there's Dick," went on Aunt Martha. "He's twelve now, and Neil is
ten next month. You come just between 'em. And here's Nellie. She's a
great help to us, too. She sets the table and puts away the clean
dishes, and plays with the babies."
Nellie smiled, and showed two engaging dimples.
"We've got nice babies," she said eagerly. "We haven't had 'em long, but
they're going to stay with us always, aren't they, Mother?"
Aunt Martha nodded.
"They're no blood-relation to you, Caroline," she explained. "It's on
the other side of the family. My husband's sister Grace married a poor
fellow named Pearsall that was dreadful sort of unlucky. She took sick
and died right after little Annie was born, and he couldn't rightly seem
to do for his children. So Mother and I--that's my husband's mother,
Caroline--we just sent for the babies. Freddie's three years old now,
and Annie is nineteen months."
"You'd ought to see her walk!" cried Nellie.
Aunt Martha smiled rather grimly.
"Next thing she'll be walking into everything just like Freddie does,"
she said. "Young ones and ducks are a good deal alike some ways."
Jacqueline looked at Aunt Martha for a moment, while she thought
rapidly. At Buena Vista she had heard her Aunt Edith and her friends
sing the praises of one of their number, who had adopted a little French
orphan. To give a child a home was a serious undertaking, even for a
lady who, like Aunt Edith's friend, had a great house and servants and
cars and lovely gowns and jewels. But here was Aunt Martha, who had no
car but a Ford, and wore tacky old clothes that Aunt Edith's chambermaid
would have scorned, who scrimped on the price of an ice-cream cone and
thought a dollar a pound for chocolates (Jacqueline's really had cost a
dollar-fifty!) sinful waste. Aunt Martha was really _poor_--yet _she_
was giving a home to two children--and now to a third.
"Aunt Martha," Jacqueline burst out, in the small-boy way that she had
when she was excited. "I think you're awful good to give Caroline Tait a
home."
Aunt Martha stared at her, then smiled.
"Don't talk about yourself as if you were in a legal document, you funny
young one!" she said. "And as to giving you a home, why, there's always
room for one more. Besides," she went on, and Jacqueline felt dimly the
tact and kindness that impelled her, "we haven't any _big_ girl to make
our family circle complete, and I know you'll be a great help and
comfort to us, Caroline."
I'm glad to say that at this moment Jacqueline felt horribly ashamed of
the trick she had played on Martha Conway.
"I--I guess so," she mumbled blushingly. "I hope so. I'll try, Aunt
Martha."