Well, the problem never was solved, never in this world, at least; and
those who were in the sitting-room chamber when Eva was shown her two
babies lying side by side on a pillow, never forgot the quick glance
of horrified incredulity, or the shriek of aversion with which she
greeted them.
Letty had a sense of humor, and it must be confessed that when the
scorned and discarded babies were returned to her, and she sat by the
kitchen stove trying to plan a second bottle, a second cradle, and see
how far the expected baby could divide its modest outfit with the
unexpected one, she burst into a fit of hysterical laughter mingled
with an outpour of tears.
The doctor came in from the sick-room puzzled and crestfallen from his
interview with an entirely new specimen of woman-kind. He had brought
Letty and David into the world and soothed the last days of all her
family, and now in this tragedy--for tragedy it was--he was her only
confidant and adviser.
Letty looked at him, the tears streaming from her eyes.
"Oh, Doctor Lee, Doctor Lee! If an overruling Providence could smile,
wouldn't He smile now? David and Eva never wanted to marry each other,
I'm sure of it, and the last thing they desired was a child. Now
there are two of them. Their father is away, their mother won't look
at them! What will become of me until Eva gets well and behaves like a
human being? I never promised to be an aunt to twins; I never did like
twins; I think they're downright vulgar!"
"Waly waly! bairns are bonny:
One's enough and twa's ower mony,"
quoted the doctor. "It's worse even than you think, my poor Letty, for
the girl can't get well, because she won't! She has gritted her teeth,
turned her face to the wall, and refused her food. It's the beginning
of the end. You are far likelier to be a foster mother than an aunt!"
Letty's face changed and softened and her color rose. She leaned over
the two pink, crumpled creatures, still twitching nervously with the
amazement and discomfort of being alive.
[Illustration: "COME TO YOUR AUNT LETTY THEN AND BE MOTHERED!" SHE
SOBBED]
"Come to your Aunt Letty then and be mothered!" she sobbed, lifting
the pillow and taking it, with its double burden, into her arms. "You
shan't suffer, poor innocent darlings, even if those who brought you
into the world turn away from you! Come to your Aunt Letty and be
mothered!"
"That's right, that's right," said the doctor over a lump in his
throat. "We mustn't let the babies pay the penalty of their parents'
sins; and there's one thing that may soften your anger a little,
Letty: Eva's not right; she's not quite responsible. There are cases
where motherhood, that should be a joy, brings nothing but mental
torture and perversion of instinct. Try and remember that, if it helps
you any. I'll drop in every two or three hours and I'll write David
to come at once. He must take his share of the burden."
Well, David came, but Eva was in her coffin. He was grave and silent,
and it could not be said that he showed a trace of fatherly pride. He
was very young, it is true, thoroughly ashamed of himself, very
unhappy, and anxious about his new cares; but Letty could not help
thinking that he regarded the twins as a sort of personal
insult,--perhaps not on their own part, nor on Eva's, but as an
accident that might have been prevented by a competent Providence. At
any rate, he carried himself as a man with a grievance, and when he
looked at his offspring, which was seldom, it seemed to Letty that he
regarded the second one as an unnecessary intruder and cherished a
secret resentment at its audacity in coming to this planet uninvited.
He went back to his work in Boston without its having crossed his mind
that anybody but his sister could take care of his children. He didn't
really regard them as children or human beings; it takes a woman's
vision to make that sort of leap into the future. Until a new-born
baby can show some personal beauty, evince some intellect, stop
squirming and squealing, and exhibit enough self-control to let people
sleep at night, it is not, as a rule, _persona grata_ to any one but
its mother.
David did say vaguely to Letty when he was leaving, that he hoped
"they would be good," the screams that rent the air at the precise
moment of farewell rather giving the lie to his hopes.
Letty was struggling to end the interview without breaking down, for
she was worn out nervously as well as physically, and thought if she
could only be alone with her problems and her cares she would rather
write to David than tell him her mind face to face.
Brother and sister held each other tightly for a moment, kissed each
other good-bye, and then Letty watched Osh Popham's sleigh slipping
off with David into the snowy distance, the merry tinkle of the bells
adding to the sadness in her dreary heart. Dick gone yesterday, Dave
to-day; Beulah without Dick and Dave! The two joys of her life were
missing and in their places two unknown babies whose digestive systems
were going to need constant watching, according to Dr. Lee. Then she
went about with set lips, doing the last sordid things that death
brings in its wake; doing them as she had seen her mother do before
her. She threw away the husks in Eva's under mattress and put fresh
ones in; she emptied the feathers from the feather bed and pillows and
aired them in the sun while she washed the ticking; she scrubbed the
paint in the sick-room, and in between her tasks learned from Clarissa
Perry the whole process of bringing up babies by hand.
That was three years ago. At first David had sent ten dollars a month
from his slender earnings, never omitting it save for urgent reasons.
He evidently thought of the twins as "company" for his sister and
their care a pleasant occupation, since she had "almost" a living
income; taking in a few coats to make, just to add an occasional
luxury to the bare necessities of life provided by her mother's will.
His letters were brief, dispirited, and infrequent, but they had not
ceased altogether till within the last few months, during which
Letty's to him had been returned from Boston with "Not found"
scribbled on the envelopes.
The firm in whose care Letty had latterly addressed him simply wrote,
in answer to her inquiries, that Mr. Gilman had not been in their
employ for some time and they had no idea of his whereabouts.
The rest was silence.
[Illustration]
V
A good deal of water had run under Beulah Bridge since Letty Boynton
had sat at her window on a December evening unconsciously furnishing
copy and illustration for a Christmas card; yet there had been very
few outward changes in the village. Winter had melted into spring,
burst into summer, faded into autumn, lapsed into winter again,--the
same old, ever-recurring pageant in the world of Nature, and the same
procession of incidents in the neighborhood life.
The harvest moon and the hunter's moon had come and gone; the first
frost, the family dinners and reunions at Thanksgiving, the first
snowfall; and now, as Christmas approached, the same holiday spirit
was abroad in the air, slightly modified as it passed by Mrs. Popham's
mournful visage.
One or two babies had swelled the census, giving the minister hope of
a larger Sunday-School; one or two of the very aged neighbors had
passed into the beyond; and a few romantic and enterprising young
farmers had espoused wives, among them Osh Popham's son.
The manner of their choice was not entirely to the liking of the
village. Digby Popham had married into the rival church and as his
betrothed was a masterful young lady it was feared that Digby would
leave Mr. Larrabee's flock to worship with his wife. Another had
married without visible means of support, a proceeding always to be
regretted by thoroughly prudent persons over fifty; and the third,
Deacon Todd's eldest son, had somehow or other met a siren from
Vermont and insisted on wedding her when there were plenty of
marriageable girls in Beulah.
"I've no patience with such actions!" grumbled Mrs. Popham. "Young
folks are so full of notions nowadays that they look for change and
excitement everywheres. I s'pose James Todd thinks it's a decent,
respectable way of actin', to turn his back on the girls he's been
brought up an' gone to school with, and court somebody he never laid
eyes on till a year ago. It's a free country, but I must say I don't
think it's very refined for a man to go clear off somewheres and marry
a perfect stranger!"
Births, marriages, and deaths, however, paled into insignificance
compared with the spectacular début of the minister's wife as a writer
and embellisher of Christmas cards, two at least having been seen at
the local milliner's store. How many she had composed, and how many of
them (said Mrs. Popham) might have been rejected, nobody knew, though
there was much speculation; and more than one citizen remarked on the
size of the daily package of mail matter handed out by the rural
delivery man at the parsonage gate.
No one but Mrs. Larrabee and Letty Boynton were in possession of all
the thrilling details attending the public appearance of these works
of art; the words and letters of appreciation, the commendation, and
the occasional blows to pride that attended their acceptance and
publication.
Mrs. Larrabee's first attempt, with the sketch of Letty at the window
on Christmas Eve, her hearth-fire aglow, her heart and her door open
that Love might enter in if the Christ Child came down the snowy
street,--this went to the Excelsior Card Company in a large Western
city, and the following correspondence ensued:
MRS. LUTHER LARRABEE,
_Beulah, N.H._