That night, when she was going to bed, came Barbara's really deep
reaction from the exaltation and excitement which had possessed her
since the morning with Mistress Mehitable. The joy of her uncle's
coming, the whirl of childish delight over the presents he had brought
her, had swept her spirits to a pinnacle which could not be maintained.
She slipped, and fell down on the other side.
First she lighted the four candles that stood, two on each side of the
mirror, on her shining mahogany dressing-table. Then she undressed,
put on her long, white nightgown, and said her prayers with a troubled
alternation of fervour and forgetfulness. She was slipping. Then, one
by one, she looked her presents well over again, noted that each was
just as perfect as it had seemed to her every other one of the dozen
times she had examined it, and wondered with a pang what had become of
all their magic. Her scintillant delight in them had faded to a mere
dull drab perception of their merits. Her eyes filled, and a lump rose
in her throat. She was far over the crest of the pinnacle, on the
cold, enshadowed side of the steep.
The one kitten, whom she had named "Mr. Grim,"--a round-faced,
round-eyed gray and white furred baby, not yet accustomed to the loss
of his two saucer mates,--crept snuggling against her bare ankles and
mewed mildly, begging to be noticed. Barbara picked it up, fondled it
in her bosom, threw herself down on the bed with it, and burst into a
passion of tears. She felt as if she had been long, long away. She
was poignantly homesick for her old self, her old childishness. The
burden of being grown-up suddenly arose, thrust itself upon her, and
grew great and terrifying and not to be borne. She was oppressed, too,
with self-reproach. Absorbed in vivid and novel sensations, during the
past few eventful days she had not thought as much as usual about her
old comrades,--the kittens, Keep, Black Prince, and Mercy Chapman. And
now in her weakness she thought they had suffered from her neglect. As
a matter of fact, the difference had been purely in her own mind. The
kittens, who were quite dependent upon her, had been as tenderly cared
for as ever, but while caring for them she had thought of other things
more novel and significant. In giving away two of them she had done
just what she had planned and promised from the first. But now she
scourged herself for heartlessness and inconstancy, pretending she had
sent them away just because she was tired of taking care of them and
wanted to be free for new interests.
"Did its missis forget all about the poor little lonely baby, and send
away her other babies, and get cruel and hard-hearted, just because she
thought she was grown-up, and a new friend came along?" she murmured,
after the first tempest was over, to the gray and white kitten now
purring comfortably against her soft throat. She sat up in bed with it
to caress it more effectively.
"She is a bad missis, and perfectly horrid!" she went on, between sobs;
and the kitten, who did not mind damp, was highly pleased. "She has
been perfectly horrid. But to-morrow she's going to be just her old
self again, and take up the tuck in her petticoats, and fix her hair
like it was before we ran away. And we'll go to Doctor Jim and Mercy
Chapman and just _snatch_ back those other poor babies; and we'll all
go off together down into the back garden, by our apple-tree, and have
a lovely time. And--and--yes, we _will_ forgive old Debby, and go and
see her to-morrow. We'll take Uncle Bob, and then there won't be any
bother about explanations."
Then her tears flowed forth anew, till the kitten was quite
uncomfortably wet; and, with fresh resolves to be all child again on
the morrow, she sobbed herself to sleep, with the thick hair tangled
over her eyes and grieving lips.
But the long, sweet sleep brought complete renewal to Barbara's spent
forces, and waking found her composedly happy, with a blessed sense of
problems solved and desired things coming to pass. Her heart was
a-brim with sunshine, but the only sunshine in the room was that she
held in her heart, for the light that came through the diamond panes
was gray, and the sky behind the leafy branch was gray, and, as she
looked, the first of the rain came, blown in streaming gusts against
the glass, and shedding a narrow line of drops across the polished
floor. One leaf of the window was open, and Barbara sprang from bed to
shut it, laughing as the cold drops spattered her feet. She had no
quarrel with the rain that day, there being enough pleasures indoors to
keep any maid's mind busy.
After breakfast, however, when she found that Uncle Bob was going down
into the village to call on the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, to drink a
glass with Squire Gillig in his snug office behind the store, and to
pay his respects to Doctor John and Doctor Jim, then Barbara felt the
lure of the rain, and said she would go with him.
"I _love_ the rain," she explained,--"and it's so nice for the
complexion, too! I'll go and tell Mercy Chapman about my presents, and
take some jellies to her poor sick mother, while you are talking
politics in the squire's back office, Uncle Bob. Then I'll meet you at
Doctor John's office, and we'll step into Doctor Jim's, and bring both
of them up to dinner with us, so we'll all be together as much as
possible. Won't we, dear?" And she paused in the task of strapping on
her goloshes, to appeal to Mistress Mehitable.
"You are proposing to make a lot of trouble for your aunt!" protested
Glenowen.
"Indeed she is not," began Mistress Mehitable, warm to second Barbara's
proposal. But before she could say more, there was a wilder gust among
the trees outside, a fiercer burst of rain against the windows, and,
with a huge stamping in the vestibule, came Doctor Jim, as if blown in
by storm. All hurried to meet him, where he stood dripping in the hall
door, and the expedition to the village was postponed. An hour later
came Doctor John, even wetter and more dishevelled than his brother,
from the bedside of a patient at the opposite end of the village. The
two had planned that theirs should be the hospitality of that day, but
the storm and Mistress Mehitable together triumphed. The old house was
merry all day long with gay voices, its maiden fragrances of lavender
and rose touched genially with breaths of the mild Virginia weed. And
Barbara forgot, completely and for ever, how near she had been to
drowning the furry "Mr. Grim" in the tears of her regret for her lost
childishness.
Toward sunset the rain stopped, and a copper flame was reflected up
from the windows of a cottage visible to the eastward through the
trees; and the western sky, opening along the horizon under great
smoky-purple battlements of cloud, revealed unspeakable glories of
clear gold. Throughout the rare hour, till dusk fell, the thrushes
sang ecstatically, so unusual an outburst that Barbara dragged every
one out upon the wet porch to listen to the thrilling, cloistral-pure
cadences, the infinite tranquillities of tone. So inspiring was that
hour in the front of twilight that even the catbird down in the back
garden forgot that he had been for days too busy to sing, and mounted
the topmost bough of a tall cherry, and eased his soul in a chaos of
golden phrases.
Very early the next morning,--the kind of morning when the sunlight
itself seems as if it were just sparkling from a bath in cold
fountains,--Barbara and Glenowen started out for a paddle across the
lake to visit old Debby. They went through the barn-yard, through the
bars, through the pasture, and through the wood; and in response to his
bounding and wagging appeals, they took Keep, the mastiff, with them.
They went early, in order to be back in time for the dinner with Doctor
John and Doctor Jim. And Barbara insisted on letting Keep go in the
canoe, that she might erase from his generous heart the memory of her
harshness on the morning of her great adventure. At her command, the
dog stepped in so circumspectly, and lay down with so nice a balance,
that Uncle Bob was impressed.
"The dog's a born canoeist, Barb," he declared, as he headed up the
shore instead of straight out across the lake. "I wonder you ever had
the heart to leave him behind,--and to take those kittens, who couldn't
tell a canoe from a horse-trough."
Barbara would have answered that the kittens needed her more than Keep
did, who had all the world for his friend; but her thoughts were
diverted by the direction in which her uncle was steering.
"Why do you go this way, Uncle Bob?" she demanded, looking at him over
her shoulder while her dripping paddle-blade rested on the gunwale.
"I want to examine a certain big rock, where a certain small girl did
certain strange things!" replied Glenowen, gravely.
Barbara flushed, and drooped her head.
"I didn't know you knew about that, Uncle Bob!" she said, in a low
voice. "Don't let's go there!"
"All right!" assented Glenowen, cheerfully. He had recalled the old
tragedy of deliberate purpose, because, being of Welsh blood, and
superstitious, he was afraid Barbara's unparalleled high spirits might
bring her some keen disappointment. He had purposed to discipline her
with a dash of bitter memories, that he might avert the envy of the
gods; and when her head drooped he had accomplished his purpose. But
Barbara had changed her mind.
"No!" she said. "Let's go close to the rock, and look right down into
the water, just where I was lying when old Debby pulled me out!"
And they did so. The sand was clear gold down there, but as they
looked a huge eel wriggled over it. Barbara shuddered, and seized her
paddle once more to get away.
"It's good for me to be reminded, Uncle Bob," she said. "I forget,
when I am happy, how wicked and foolish I can be when things go wrong!
But oh, you can never know how unhappy I used to be! You'd have come
to me if you had known, Uncle Bob!"
"Poor little girlie!" murmured Glenowen, his kind brown eyes moistening
at the corners.
"But I was crazy, both naughty and crazy, and it was all my fault!"
went on Barbara, resting her paddle again as the canoe skimmed fleetly
out across the water, away from the sorrowful spot. "It's all so
different now! And it's always going to be different!"
Glenowen smiled to himself, as he was apt to do when confronted with
any of the pathetic ironies of life. Barbara would not have liked him
to smile, for to her a smile meant amusement or mirth, and she could
never learn to appreciate the depth of tenderness that might lurk
beneath a ripple of laughter. But she was looking straight ahead. In
his heart and behind his smile, Glenowen said, "Child, dear child, is
it all so securely different now, and just eight days gone since you
climbed out of your window before daybreak?" But aloud he said, after
a silence:
"It is indeed most different, Barb, old girl? Some of your troubles
are really done now, thrown into the dark corner with the discarded
dollies. The others will keep bobbing up now and then, claiming old
acquaintance. But just you cut them dead. They are in sober truth not
the same, now that you are older and more responsible. Well I know,
what so many forget, that childish sorrows, while they last, are the
most bitter and hopeless of sorrows. The wall that a man steps over
blots out a child's view of heaven."
"How wonderfully you understand, Uncle Bob!" cried Barbara, with ardent
appreciation.
As they neared the other side of the lake, a kingfisher dropped like an
azure wedge into the ripples, missed his prey, and flew off down to the
outlet clattering harshly in his throat. From the deep reeds of the
point above the outlet a wide-winged bird got up heavily as the canoe
drew near.
"There goes my old blue heron!" shouted Barbara, gleefully. "You
should have seen the way he fixed me with his glassy eyes as I passed,
the morning I ran away!"
"He is very old, and very wise, and thinks of lots of things besides
frogs!" said Glenowen.
They entered the outlet, and met old Debby's geese. The big gray and
white gander, in the pride of many goslings, hissed fiercely at them as
they paddled past, so that Keep raised his head and gave him a look of
admonition over the gunwale. The next turn brought them out in full
view of Debby's cabin, and straightway rose a clamorous outcry from
watchful drakes and challenging chanticleers. The yellow pup ran
barking down from the steps, and Keep cocked a sympathetic ear.
"Lie down, sir!" commanded Barbara, and Keep meekly suppressed his
budding interest.
Mrs. Debby Blue was spinning flax, on the hard-beaten clean earth some
paces in front of her threshold, when she saw and recognised her
approaching visitors. In the presence of Mr. Glenowen she read peace,
for her shrewd perception of Barbara's character told her that the girl
would never have permitted her a glimpse of the cherished uncle except
as a sign of favour. Nevertheless the grim old woman was conscious of
a sinking qualm at thought of the first straight look of Barbara's
eyes. She knew she had betrayed her; and that knowledge was not wholly
mended by the fact that she knew she had done right to betray. Her
lonely old heart so yearned to the child that she feared her reproach
as she feared no other thing in life. She stopped her wheel, dropped
her roll of flax, picked up her stick, and limped sturdily down toward
the landing.
Before she had got half-way the canoe came to land, and Barbara
unceremoniously skipped ashore.
"Lie down, Keep!" she ordered again, and then, leaving Glenowen to land
and follow at leisure, she ran up the path to greet old Debby.
"This does my old eyes good, Miss Barby!" exclaimed the old woman, her
voice a trifle unsteady.
Barbara seized her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.
"You were very bad to me, Debby," she cried, cheerfully, "but you'd
have been worse to me if you hadn't been bad to me! So I forgive you,
and love you just the same, you old dear. The most _dreadful_ things
might have happened to me if it hadn't been for you!"
Mrs. Blue heaved a huge sigh of relief; but the subject was too
difficult and delicate a one for her to expand upon. She gave Barbara
a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed:
"Land sakes alive, Miss Barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up
over night. What've they been doin' to you over there?"
"It was _you_ did it, Debby, much as anybody!" And Barbara flicked her
petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their
added length. "Such lovely things have happened; and Aunt Hitty and I
have made up; and I've so much to tell you, that I must come over some
day and spend the whole day with you, after Uncle Bob goes away. And
here's Uncle Bob himself, who only came day before yesterday, and has
come to see you, Debby dear, before any one else in Second Westings."
As Barbara stopped breathless, Glenowen came up and grasped the old
dame warmly by the hand.
"You're looking ten years younger than when I saw you two years ago,
Debby!" he declared, sweetly and transparently mendacious.
"'Tain't so much my youth, as my beauty, that I set store by, Mr.
Glenowen, thankin' you jest the same!" retorted the old woman, as she
led them into her cabin for refreshment. She was a cunning cook, if
somewhat unconventional in her recipes, and she remembered with
satisfaction that Barbara's uncle had seemed to share Barbara's
weakness for her concoctions. Eight days ago she would have offered
Barbara milk to drink; but now she brought out only a strong root wine
for which she was famous, a beverage which was extolled throughout the
township as a most efficacious preventative of all disorders.
"It's a wonder how letting down one's petticoats seems to destroy one's
fondness for milk!" said Barbara.
Instead of sitting on the edge of the high bed and swinging her legs,
as she would have done eight days ago, she sat on a bench and kept her
feet on the floor. And from this old Debby realised, with a pang, that
the child had truly grown to womanhood.