From Second Westings that morning, after old Debby's alarm, Doctor John
and Doctor Jim had came posthaste on horseback to Westings Landing.
Now, however, it was found that Barbara was quite too worn out by the
fatigues of her long, strenuous day to sit a horse for a ten mile's
ride over rough roads in the dark. Priding herself not less on her
endurance than on her horsemanship, she vehemently repudiated the
charge that she was done up, and was determined to ride back on the
liveliest of the Blue Boar's horses. But Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
scanning critically her white face and the dark rims coming about her
eyes, for once agreed in a professional judgment. They ordered the
horses hitched to the roomy old chaise, which was one of the landlord's
most cherished possessions; and Barbara had to accept, rebelliously
enough, the supineness of a cushioned seat for the free lift and swing
of the saddle. Before the lighted doorway of the inn was out of sight,
however, she was glad of the decision. Her overwrought nerves began to
relax under the soothing of the wood scents and the tender summer dark.
In a little while she was asleep in the strong curve of Doctor Jim's
right arm,--so deep asleep that all the ruts and jolts and corduroy
bridges of an old Connecticut back-country road were powerless to
disturb her peace. When they woke her up, at her aunt's door, she was
so drenched with sleep that she forgot to dread the reckoning. With
drowsy, dark eyes, and red mouth softly trustful as a baby's, she
bewildered Mistress Ladd by a warm kiss and "I'm sorry, Aunt Hitty!"
and went stumbling off to bed with her basket of sleeping kittens,
oblivious and irresponsible as they.
Mistress Mehitable looked after her with small, stern mouth, but
troubled eyes. Then she turned half helplessly to her friends, as if
to say, "What can I--what ought I to do?"
Doctor John threw up both big, white hands in mock despair, and his
sympathetic laugh said, "What do you expect?" But Doctor Jim, more
direct and positive, said, "Best leave her alone till to-morrow,
Mehitable; and then talk to her with no talk of punishing. She's not
the breed that punishing's good for."
Mistress Mehitable looked sorrowful, but resolute.
"I fear that would not be right, Jim!" she said. But there was a note
of deep anxiety in her voice. "People who do wrong ought to be
punished. Barbara has done very, very wrong!"
Doctor Jim was as near feeling impatient as he could dare to imagine
himself with Mistress Mehitable.
"Nonsense--I mean, dear lady, punishment's not in itself one of our
numerous unpleasant duties. It's a means to an end, that's all. In
this case, it just defeats your end. It's the wrong means altogether.
Therefore--pardon me for saying it to you, Mehitable--it's wrong. It's
hard enough to manage Barbara, I know, but to punish her, or talk to
her of punishing, makes it harder still, eh, what?"
"Don't let your conscience trouble you, Mehitable," said Doctor John.
"I'm thinking the little maid will manage to get for herself, full
measure and running over, all the punishment that's coming to her.
She's not the kind that punishment overlooks."
Was there a suspicion of criticism in all this? Could it be that John
Pigeon and Jim Pigeon, her lifelong cavaliers, in whose sight all she
did was wont to seem perfection, whose unswerving homage had been her
stay through many an hour of faintness and misgiving, were now, at
last, beginning to admit doubts? Two large tears gathered slowly in
the corners of Mistress Mehitable's blue eyes, the resolution fled from
her mouth, and her fine lips quivered girlishly. She twisted her
shapely little hands in her apron, then regained her self-control with
an effort.
"Dear friends," said she, "I fear I have made a sad failure of the duty
which I so confidently undertook. I thought I could surely do so much
for her,--could so thoroughly understand Winthrop's child. But that
foreign woman--that strange blood! There is the trouble. That is what
baffles all my efforts. Oh, perhaps it is partly my fault, too.
Perhaps the child was right in the very singular letter she left for
me, saying--just as if she were a grown woman and had the same rights
as I had--that the trouble was that we could not understand each other!
Oh, I fear I am not the right woman to have the care of Barbara!"
"You are the rightest woman in the world, Mehitable!" thundered Doctor
Jim, in explosive protest against this self-accusation. "The rightest
woman in the world to have the care of any man, woman, or child that
ever lived."
"Jim Pigeon's right, Mehitable, as he usually is, outside of medicine
and politics," declared Doctor John. "The little maid will be ready
enough some day, I'll warrant, to acknowledge how lucky she was in
having her Aunt Hitty to care for her. But here in Second Westings we
are not just at the centre of things exactly, and it may be we get into
ruts, thinking our ways are the only ways. Shall we try new ways with
this very difficult little maid, Hitty?"
Mistress Mehitable brushed off the tears which had overflowed, and held
out a hand to each of the big brothers.
"You are the best friends a woman ever had," she averred with
conviction; "and if you both disagree with me, I must be wrong. It
shall be your way to the best of my power. After you've had the horses
put up, come back here and I'll have a hot bite ready for you.
But--oh, I do wish Winthrop had married among his own people!"
"It is late, dear lady, and you are tired after your anxieties," said
Doctor Jim. "But, nevertheless, since you are so gracious, we will
soon return,--eh, what, John?--for a bowl of that hot sangaree which
Mehitable's fair hands know how to brew so delicately."
"Don't misunderstand Jim, Mehitable," said Doctor John, as the two
withdrew. "The comfort of your punch is nothing to us as the comfort
of your presence. Had you ever consented to make one man happy, how
miserable would you have made others, Mehitable!"
There was deep meaning and an old reproach under Doctor John's tender
raillery; and Mistress Ladd's cheeks flushed as she stood a few moments
motionless, alone in her low-ceiled, wide parlour. She was convicted
of failure at every point. Well she knew how happy she might have made
either one of the big-limbed, big-hearted brothers, had she not shrunk
from making the other miserable. And she had never been able to decide
which was the dearer to her heart; for, though she was apt to turn
first to Jim in any need, or any joy, the thought of pain for John was
ever hard for her to endure. Her heart was very full as she set about
preparing the brew which they both loved: and before they came she
stole noiselessly up-stairs to the room over the porch, and softly
kissed the dark, unrepentant waves of the sleeping Barbara's hair.