FAIRACRES.
"How dreadful! Is he killed?" cried Amy, pale with fear.
For the indignant Pepita had planted her active hoof squarely in the
mouth of the lad who was tormenting her, and had knocked him backward
from the stair. During a brief time he lay, dazed by the blow, with a
trickle of blood rapidly staining his features.
"Wait. Don't get frightened. There may not be much damage done. That boy
has as many lives as a cat. I'll see to him," returned Mr. Metcalf,
quietly.
With a strong, kindly touch, the gentleman helped the unfortunate "Bony"
to his feet; whereupon, the lad flew into a fearful rage and started up
the ladder, in pursuit of the burro.
His movement roused Amy also to action, and she followed him so swiftly
that she reached the top, and the broad road there, almost as soon as
he. Before then, however, he had caught up a barrel stave, which
happened to be lying in a too convenient spot, and was belaboring Pepita
with all his might.
The latter, after her ascent of the steps, had remained standing at
their head, gazing dreamily downward in her own demure manner and
evidently considering that she had quite properly adjusted matters.
Amy succeeded in reaching them just as the third blow was descending
upon Pepita's flank and by a deft movement arrested the stroke. The
stave flew out of the lad's grasp, and his astonishment at her strength
cooled his anger.
"Don't you strike her again! You shall not. Aren't you ashamed of
yourself to beat a helpless creature like that? If you are still able to
act so--so brutally--you can't be much hurt. I was terribly frightened
and sorry, but now I don't care. She served you just right."
Then the red Tam dropped on the burro's neck and a torrent of
affectionate words was poured into the creature's indifferent ears.
"Sho! Huckleberries! She's drove my teeth clean down my throat!" slowly
ejaculated the youth.
This was about half true. One tooth had been broken out by the blow upon
the lad's jaw and another had been loosened. The copious bleeding of
these wounds gave him a startling appearance, and when Amy looked up a
shudder of repellent pity ran through her. Then she seemed to see her
mother's gentle face and, conquering the aversion she felt, she pulled
out her handkerchief and began to wipe the discolored, ill-shapen lips
of the half-wit.
He submitted to the operation in amazed silence. Even Mr. Metcalf had
nothing to say, though he watched with keen interest the outcome of this
little transaction.
"There. If I had some water, I could do it nicely. I'm sorry you were
hurt. But don't you ever strike my Pepita again! Next time she might
kill you. It was her only way of defending herself, for she hasn't sense
like you--"
Regarding the imbecile face before her, Amy's sentence ended in
confusion. Nor did it add to her comfort that the unhappy fellow now
began to weep in a whimpering sort of way, that might have suited a
spoiled child of a few years.
"Why, what is it? Do you suffer so terribly! Oh! I am so sorry!"
"There, my dear Miss Amy, let it pass. This is only one of 'Bony's'
charming habits," said Mr. Metcalf, smiling derisively. "He has rather
outgrown his age. Haven't you, lad? Well, it's all right. I'm sorry for
you. You're sorry for yourself; and our young lady here is sorry for us
both. Come. Brace up. Be a man. What would the 'boys' think of you, in
this uniform, crying? Eh!"
"Huh--huh--huh--huh-h-h!" responded the natural.
"I'm going home, Bonaparte. Good night. Thank you for the leaves. Mr.
Metcalf, will you tell me the nearest way, please?"
Amy picked up the fallen bundle of boughs, which the superintendent had
brought with him from the yard below, and laid them upon Pepita's back.
"These have given us some trouble, but they are still too beautiful to
lose."
The gentleman directed her, courteously escorted her through the
gateway, which bore another of those prohibitory "No Admittance" signs,
and watched her walk briskly away, thinking what a bright feature of the
landscape she made.
"Not a beautiful girl, by any means, yet one of the most wholesome,
honest, and engaging ones who ever stepped foot within this old mill.
Odd, too! A Kaye. I wonder if she will ever come again to what, if all
had gone as was expected, might easily have been her own great property.
Well, that was pretty to see: the way in which she wiped the face of
poor 'Bony.' The lad grows sillier every day, it seems, and the 'boys'
are making him worse by their nonsense. Where is he now? I'll have a
talk with him and try to keep him out of the parades. They are not good
for him," reflected Mr. Metcalf.
But the talk had to be postponed; for there was "Bony" already far along
the road toward Fairacres, following doggedly in Amy's footsteps, though
she repeatedly assured him that she could manage quite well without him
and preferred to be alone.
"No, I'm going," he asserted; and when she could not dissuade him, she
gave up trying to do so and led him to talk of himself--his most
interesting subject. So that, by the time they had come to the front of
the old mansion, she knew his simple history completely, and her pity
had almost outgrown her aversion.
"See, Cleena! Cleena Keegan! See what I have brought!"
The shout summoned a large woman to the door, who threw up her arms with
the answering cry:--
"Faith, an' I thought you was lost! Whatever has kept you such gait,
Miss Amy?"
"Oh! adventures. Truly, Cleena. Real, regular adventures. See my leaves?
See this lad! He got them for me. He is Bonaparte Jimpson."
"An' a curious spalpeen that same," casting a suspicious glance over the
youth's strange attire.
"I'm Bonaparte Lafayette Jimpson," he explained gravely and, to Amy's
surprise, timidly.
"The mischief, you be! An' what's Napoleon Bonyparty's gineral's
pleasure at Fairacres, the night?"
"Cleena, wait. I'll tell you. Yes, you will have time enough. The train
isn't due till after six, and they'll be a half-hour longer getting home
from the station. Sit you down, Goodsoul, just for one little bit of
minute. The scrubbing must surely be done by now. Isn't it?"
"Humph! The scrubbin's never done in this dirty world. Well, an' what is
it? Be quick with you!"
Amy coaxed the old servant down upon the doorstep of the freshly
cleaned kitchen, whither they had now gone, and speedily narrated her
afternoon's experiences.
"So you see, dear old Scrubbub, that he must have a fine feast of the
best there is in the house. Besides," and she pulled the other's ear
down to her lips, "I'd just like to have father see him. He isn't
pretty, of course, but he's _new_. I wonder, could he pose?"
"Pose, is it?" groaned Cleena, with a comical grimace. "Pose! Sure, it's
I minds the time when the master caught me diggin' petaties an' kept me
standin', with me foot on me spade, an' me spade in the ground, an' me
body this shape," bending forward, "till I got such a crick in me back I
couldn't walk upright, for better 'n a week. Posin', indeed! Well, he
might. He looks fit for naught else."
"Pooh, Cleena! you know it's an honor. But, come now, I want to put all
these leaves up in the dining room. Will you help me?"
"Will I what--such truck! No, me colleen, not a help helps Cleena the
day."
"Oh, yes, you will. I'll bring the step ladder and hand them to you,
while you put them over the doors and windows. We'll make the place a
perfect bower of cheerfulness, and if our dears, when they come--Oh,
Cleena! they may need the cheerfulness very much."
However, it was not Amy's habit to borrow trouble, and she ran lightly
away, calling to the boy on the porch:--
"I'm going to put Pepita in the stable. If you'd like to see her
brother, you can come with me."
"Sho! Ain't he black!" exclaimed "Bony," as they led Pepita into the
great stables and he discovered Balaam.
Amid ample accommodations for a dozen horses, the two burros seemed
almost lost; but they occupied adjoining box-stalls which, if rather
time-worn and broken, were still most roomy and comfortable.
"Why, huckleberries! It's bigger 'n the mill sheds. And only them two.
Will he swop?"
As he asked this question the lad pulled from his pocket a miscellaneous
collection of objects, and invitingly displayed them upon the palm of
his long hand.
"No, I think not. I fancy we are not a 'swopping' family. But I must
choose some name for you besides that dreadful 'Bony.' Bonaparte is too
long. So is Lafayette. Let me see. Suppose we make it just 'Fayette'?
That is short and pleasant to speak, and I like my friends to have nice
names. Would you like it?"
"Bully!"
"Why--why, Fayette! That doesn't sound well."
"Sho! Don't it? One all black an' t'other all white. Hum."
"Br-r-r-ray! Ah-umph--h-umph--umph--mph--ph--h-h-h!" observed Balaam to
his sister.
Fayette laughed, so noisily and uproariously that the burros brayed
again; and they kept up this amusing concert until Amy had brought each
an armful of hay, and had directed her companion where to find a pail
and water for their drink.
Then they returned to the house and beheld Cleena in the dining room,
already mounted upon the step-ladder, trying to arrange the branches
with more regard to the saving of time than to grace. But she made to
the picture-seeing girl a very attractive "bit."
Indeed, Cleena Keegan was a person of sufficient importance to warrant a
paragraph quite to herself. She was a woman of middle age, with a wealth
of curling, iron-gray hair, which she tucked away under a plain white
cap. Her figure was large and grandly developed. She wore a blue print
gown, carefully pinned back about her hips, thus disclosing her scarlet
flannel petticoat; both garments faded by time and frequent washings to
a most "artistic" hue. Upon her shoulders was folded a kerchief of
coarse white muslin, spotlessly clean; and as she stood, poised among
the glowing branches, with the dying sunset light touching her honest
face to unusual brightness, she was well worth Amy's eager wish:--
"Oh, Cleena! That father were only here to see and paint you just as you
are this minute!"
"Humph! It's meself's glad he isn't."
"Why! That's not nice of you, Goodsoul. Yet it's a great pity that a
body who is such a 'study' in herself can't fix those branches a bit
more gracefully. You're jamming the leaves all into a little mess and
showing the stems! Oh, Cleena, I wonder if I can't reach them."
"Truth, it's meself's willin' you should try. Belike I'd be handier at
the pullin' them down nor the puttin' them up."
With head erect she descended from the ladder, and stood, arms akimbo,
regarding the results of her labor. Even to her it suggested something
not "artistic," and at Fairacres anything inartistic was duly frowned
upon.
"Faith, it's not the way the master would do it, I see that, but--"
Before either she could finish her sentence or Amy mount the ladder,
Fayette had run to its top and stood there rapidly pulling from the wall
the branches Cleena had arranged. Thrusting all but one between his
knees, he fastened that over the window-frame so deftly and charmingly
that Amy clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, that's lovely! Try another--and another!"
He obeyed. His vacant face flushed with a glow of enthusiasm equalling,
if not exceeding her own, and even Cleena spent some moments of her
rarely wasted time in watching him.
Her own face had again become a "study," yet of a sort to provoke a
smile, as her gaze roved from his handiwork, over the length of his
ungainly person, to rest upon his bare and not too cleanly feet; then
travelled slowly upward again, trying to settle once for all his
rightful position in the social scale. Her thought might have been thus
expressed:--
"His foot's heathen. His head's the same. His clothes--they're the
heathenest of all. I'd disdain 'em. But, arrah musha! The hand of him!
The master himself couldn't better them fixin's."
Then she hastened to her kitchen, and soon the appetizing odor of a
well-cooked meal was in their nostrils, and the two young decorators
realized that they were very hungry.
"There, that will do. It is perfect. Thank you ever and ever so much,
Fayette."
"Shucks!"
"Now I'll light the candles. I always do when the people are coming home
from town. They go there quite often; at least father does, though
mother hasn't been before in months. The candles are terrible
extravagance, Cleena says, but they're so pretty."
Fayette carried away the step-ladder, then returned to watch Amy as she
set the old-fashioned candelabra upon the already daintily spread table.
She had bordered the white cloth with some of the most dazzling-hued
leaves, and when the wax tapers threw their soft radiance over the whole
charming interior, poor Fayette felt his weak head grow dizzy and
confused by the beauty of it all.
He dimly realized that he was in a new world, which soothed and
appealed to his clouded nature as did the birds and the flowers. That
impulse, which he could neither express nor understand, which sent him
so constantly into the woods and solitudes, was gratified now. This was
as delightful as his favorite pastime of lying upon the grass and gazing
upward into the sunlit sky.
"Sho! It's pretty. I like it. I'm glad I come. I'll stay."
Amy had almost forgotten him.
"Yes, of course you'll stay till after supper. I'll--"
But a shadow fell across the threshold of the still open door, and
looking up she saw a stranger,--an old man of rather forbidding aspect,
whose glance passed swiftly from herself to the youth near the big
fireplace.
There followed an instant of mutual and frowning recognition between
these two; then Fayette disappeared through an inner doorway, while the
newcomer remained at the entrance, his hat in his hand, and an assumed
suavity in his manner.
Yet there was still a note of anger in the tone with which he
observed:--
"I have called upon business with Cuthbert Kaye. Your father, I presume.
Is he at home?"
"Not yet. He went to the city, yesterday, with my mother and brother. I
expect them back on the next train. Will you come in?"
"Yes, thank you. I'll wait."
He accepted the great chair Amy rolled toward him, and let his gaze
slowly sweep the cheerful apartment. Yet he knew it by heart, already,
and his face brightened as he saw how little it had been changed since
these many years. Apparently not one of its quaint and rich old
furnishings was missing, and the passage of time had but added to the
remembered charm of the place. Even the chair into which he sank had a
familiar feel, as if his back had long ago fitted to those simple,
comfortable lines. The antique candelabra--how often had he watched his
grandmother's fingers polishing them to brilliancy.
But the girl was new. The only modern thing, save the freshly gathered
leaves,--which also seemed but a memory of his childhood,--to remind him
of the present and the errand upon which he had come.
"She's Kaye, though, to the bone. Dark, crisp hair. Those short curls
are like a boy's. Her eyes are the Kaye eyes; and that toss of her head,
like her great-grandmother come to life again. All our women had it. Ah,
well. If things--hmm."
The visitor became absorbed in his thoughts, and his wandering gaze came
home to rest, seemingly, upon the tips of his own boots, for he did not
notice when Amy disappeared and Cleena entered.
"Alanna! But this is a smart decent piece of work, now, isn't it?"
At this sudden and derisive remark the gentleman looked up.
"Oh, ho! You, is it?"
"Faith an' it is. An' likin' to know what brings you this gait."
"Keep a civil tongue in your head, woman. I'm not to be put off this
time by any false stories. Here I am, and here I shall stay until I see
your master."
Steadily and silently confronting one another for some seconds, they
measured each other's wills. The unwelcome guest was not sure but that
the woman would lift him bodily and fling him out of doors. She looked
ably strong and quite minded so to do; but, after a further reflection,
she appeared to change her mind as well as her tone.
"Hmm--yes. There's no irreverence meant. Come in by, to the library yon.
There's pictures to see, an' books a plenty. Leave the master be, like a
gentleman now, as you was born, till he eats his meal in peace. A body
can bear trouble better on a full stummick nor an empty. Come by."
To his own amazement, the caller rose and followed her. He told himself
he was a simpleton to have left the cheery supper room and the certain
presence of the man he wished to see for an hour of solitary waiting in
an unknown place.
"Library." There had been none in his grandmother's time. But he knew it
well--from the outside. A detached, strong little building, of hewn
stone like the mansion; one of Cuthbert Kaye's many "follies." Planned
with a studio on the second floor above the spacious book room on the
first. Well, it made the property so much the more valuable. Yes, after
all, he would better visit it while the coast was clear.
"Sure, sir, an' it's here the master do be spending all his time. Here
an' above. You was never in the paintin' study, now was you?" she asked
suggestively.
"No."
"Alanna! An' you two of the same blood!"
"Hmm--yes, of course I'll go, since I'm here."
So he followed her up the graceful staircase, with its softly covered
steps, and into a room which rumor said was worth travelling far to see;
and though thus prepared, its half-revealed beauty astonished him.
"Well, it is a fine apartment. It must have cost a power of money.
And--it explains many things."
"Money, says you? It did that," echoed Cleena, with a pious sigh.
"Yes, yes. I suppose so. It's rather dark, however, for me to see as I
would like. Isn't there a lamp here?"
"Lamp, is it? Askin' pardon for forgettin' me manners, but it's never a
lamp will the master have left in this place. If one comes, indeed, 'tis
himself brings it. Forby, on occasion like this, I'll fetch it an' take
all the blame for that same. It's below. I'll step down;" and she
departed hastily, leaving him alone.