HOME-MAKING.
For one whole week the artist and his wife remained at the Clove. During
that time "Spite House" had undergone the most thorough cleaning and
overhauling of its existence. The walls had been scraped of the ancient
and discolored whitewash that covered them, and a fresh coat of
sweet-smelling lime applied.
"It's like a new-mown field, I think," said Amy, on the day that this
whitewashing had taken place, to Fayette who was artisan in
chief--always under Cleena's orders.
"An' I must be the daisy that grows in it," he returned, catching a
glimpse of his lime-splashed face in the tiny pocket mirror he always
carried.
"A whole bunch of daisies, indeed. But isn't it jolly? I never did so
much hard work in my life; my hands are all blistered and sore, my feet
ache--whew! And I never, never was so happy."
Fayette paused midway to the shed, which he had repaired with bits of
boards, begged or offered in various sources. The whitewash brush over
his shoulder dripped a milky fluid upon his bared head, and
occasionally a drop trickled as far as the corner of his capacious
mouth.
But he minded nothing so trivial as this, and he stared at Amy in the
same wonderment with which he had regarded her from the beginning of
their acquaintance. She also paused and returned his gaze with an amused
scrutiny.
"Fayette, that stare of yours is getting chronic. I wish you'd give it
up. Everything I do or say seems to astonish you. What's the matter with
me? Am I not like other girls? You must know many down at the mill."
"No, you ain't."
"How different? I'd really like to know."
"Ain't seen you cry once,--or not more 'n once," he corrected
truthfully. "An' you left all them things up there, an' the trees, an'
the posies, an' everything like that way."
For one moment Amy's breast heaved and her voice choked. Then she jerked
her head in a fashion she had when she wished to throw aside unpleasant
things and replied:--
"What would be the use of crying? If it would bring them all back, I'd
cry a bath-tub full. But it won't. Thinking about it only makes it
worse. _It had to be_, and in some ways I'm thankful it did. It was all
unreal and dreamlike up there. I knew nothing about the sorrows and
hardships in the real world. But how I am talking! I wonder, do you
understand at all what I have said?"
"I couldn't help cryin' when the bluebird's nest fell an' smashed all
the eggs," remarked Fayette, whimpering at the recollection. His words
were "like a bit of blue sky, showing through a cloud," as the girl
often expressed it, when the untaught lad revealed something of his
intense love of nature, so strongly in contrast to his otherwise limited
intelligence.
"Well, we must forget what's past and go to work. I'll tether the burros
out of the roadside while you clean up their shed; and when they come
back to find it all sweet and white, like Pepita herself, they'll be as
pleased as Punch. Wonder we never thought of having the old stable at
Fairacres whitewashed."
"Didn't have me, then," answered the lad.
"Fayette, you're as vain as a peacock. You always say 'ME' as if it were
spelled with the biggest kind of capital letters."
"Do I? Hmm," responded Fayette, with a vacant smile.
Then Amy went into the house where Hallam and Cleena were arguing about
what rooms should be arranged for the personal use of master and
mistress, because Hallam thought his father's likes and habits should
take precedence of all others.
During this time of separation from him, the son had grown to think of
his parent as a whimsical invalid, only. Oddly enough, with his own
physical infirmity, he had come to look upon any bodily weakness of
other lads or men as something almost degrading. He had always felt
himself disgraced by his own lameness. It was this which had given him
so bitter and distorted an outlook upon life, and involuntarily there
had crept into his love for his father a feeling of contempt as well.
Something of this showed in his talk with his sister, over this
selection of rooms, and shocked her. Then, with loyal indignation she
proceeded to enlighten him as to her own view of the subject.
"Now, see here, Hallam Kaye. I don't believe, I can't believe, and I
never will believe that from being a brilliant scholar and a wonderfully
talented artist my darling father has suddenly become a--a--the sickly,
selfish man you seem to imagine."
"Amy! I never said that. I never thought it. I only remember that he has
always had the best of everything, and I supposed he always should."
The tears of excited protest rushed into her eyes, but she dashed them
away. "Queer, I never cry, hardly ever, unless I'm mad. I am mad at you,
Hal Kaye, right straight clear through. You wait and see how father is,
after this trouble. All his life he has been petted by mother, who
adores him; and that not too agreeable cousin Archibald said the truth
about his having had so easy a path all his life. I tell you it isn't
for his children to sit here in judgment upon him, nor criticise
anything he does; but one thing I believe, he's had a good hard waking
up. He hasn't realized the truth. How should he? Mother has always
smiled and smiled and seen to everything. He was a genius. He was never
to be disturbed. He never has been. Not till now. Now he has been
tumbled off his cushions whack! and presently he'll get up--all right."
"Whe-e-ew! You don't mince matters in speaking of your relatives, do
you, sweet sister?"
"Not a bit. Just you wait. All the histories we've ever read, all the
tales we've ever heard, of gentlemen and gentlewomen, 'aristocrats,' who
have had to suffer anything dreadful, show that they have borne the
troubles as no meaner person could. The good there is in being of
'family,' it seems to me, is the self-respect that holds us upright, no
matter what blows are dealt."
Again Hallam blew a long note. But he looked at his excited little
sister with a new admiration.
"Upon my word, Amy, my dear, you are positively eloquent. Who knows but
you may one day take to the 'stump,' become a public orator, and
lecture, to fill the coffers of that 'family' of which you are so
proud."
"No, thank you. I don't need to go abroad to lecture. I find enough
subjects right in my own household. Between you and 'Bony' and Miss
Scrubbub my life's a burden to me. Now hear me, both of you; for in the
language of 'Bonaparty Gineral Lafayette,' 'there ain't none o' ye got
no sense 'cept me,' and 'me' says: Fix up the north chamber for a
studio. Put all father's things in there. Fix the middle room, which
faces east and the sunrise, for a bedroom; and this warm southwestern
one for a private sitting room, for mother darling, where she can
retreat to think upon her husband's greatness and her children's folly;
and where the sweet blessed thing will never be alone one single minute,
unless every other member of the family is sound asleep. So that's for
the 'retreating' of Friend Salome Kaye. Oh, that she were here this
minute! that I could hug the heart right out of her! Fly around, Amy,
'an' set the house to one side,' _a la_ Friend Adam's old housekeeper."
It was wonderful what four pairs of arms could accomplish when love
actuated them. "Spite House" had seemed hopelessly bare and dirty when
the little household first entered it, but it was far from that by the
end of a week's stay. Bare and bleak and unadorned it was still, and the
surroundings seemed to forbid that it would ever be any better. But
there was not an inch of its surface, outside or in, that had not been
cleaned and polished, by scrubbing or whitewash brush. Even the
moss-grown roof had been swept by Fayette, standing barefooted and
unsupported on the sloping shingles, while he vigorously attacked them.
To Hallam this seemed a desecration. The moss had been the one redeeming
feature of the roof's ugliness.
"Saints save us! If we leave go that muck up yon, it'll be like me
dressin' for mass an' no rackin' down me hair, so it would. No, Master
Hal, if riches we can't have, cleanness we can. An' that's aye more
pleasin' to God."
The plain, strong furniture which had been in the house had been placed
to best advantage; and in the parents' rooms above, as well as the one
family living room below, were gathered all that had been brought from
dear Fairacres.
A load of wood and another of coal, which Cleena supposed had been sent
by Friend Adam and paid for with her money, gave a comfortable look to
the woodshed, and in the storeroom was a bag of flour, a side of bacon,
a fair supply of vegetables, and a barrel of apples. These the village
grocer's lad had brought in his delivery wagon, and it was useless to
ask him by whose order. Since they were needed, however, it was well to
take them in and to consider them as belonging with the wood and coal.
Finally, the Saturday afternoon arrived on which Hallam and Amy were to
go to the Clove, to pass First Day with Adam Burn and their parents,
returning before nightfall with the latter, to begin their reunited
family life.
Dressed in their freshest clothes, upon Balaam and Pepita, groomed by
the willing hands of Fayette, they journeyed gayly down the slope over
the familiar road, eager for their visit and the warm welcome awaiting
them.
"Do you know, Amy, it's queer that we've never been about alone much,
even on these country roads, till now? Losing our home seems to have
broken down ever so many restrictions."
"Well, don't you like it? Doesn't it make you feel freer and healthier?"
"Maybe. I'm not enthusiastic over our poverty. I'd be glad enough to go
back to Fairacres."
"So would I, if we could live there honestly. I wouldn't go, not for one
day, if I could help it, to live in debt as we did."
"Aren't we living in debt just the same now, and much more
uncomfortably?"
"I suppose so; though it's different. This time it isn't going to last,
and we haven't shut our eyes to it."
"Why isn't it going to last? How can we stop it? I see nothing ahead
except starvation."
"Hallam Kaye, the very first thing you ought to learn is to be cheerful.
You don't want to be a dead weight on anybody, do you? Well, you will be
if you can't look ahead at all to anything bright. You and I are going
to work and mend the family fortunes. Then we're going back to Fairacres
and do all the good we can with the money we've earned."
"If I were sound--"
"And sensible, you'd race me again to the gate of the Clove."
Burnside-in-the-Clove was a bonny place. The "burn," from which the farm
took its name almost as much as from the family which had dwelt there
for generations, ran through the velvet lawn and was spanned by a rustic
bridge where the well kept driveway curved toward the roomy house.
"Oh! it's so lovely here. The many, many windows, each more cheery and
inviting than its neighbor; the old-fashioned door, opened almost all
the time; the hammocks, the benches, the flowers, the cool, sweet
dairy--this is a _home_. I guess I'll make ours here instead of at
Fairacres, after all," laughed Amy, as they paced sedately over the
gravel, the better to enjoy the scene, and now that they had arrived, in
no such haste for the meeting with their people.
"I like to go slowly now, don't you, Hal? Because that makes the
pleasure 'long-drawn out' and all the sweeter. In a minute mother's face
will be in the doorway, with father looking over her shoulder. Friend
Adam, blessed man, will hobble after, if he is not too lame; and then we
shall jump off and the 'man' will take the burros, and we will go in and
hug everybody all round, and eat the biggest kind of a supper--living on
dry bread and milk two meals a day can give an appetite! And then one of
dear old Adam's 'Spirit' talks; and bed and sleep, and breakfast and
meeting, and--"
"'Spite House'!"
"No, Hallam, truly not. Our mother couldn't live in such a place.
To-morrow a new life will begin on the barren knoll. 'Charity House' she
will have it, and wherever our mother goes, softness and kindness and
loveliness are sure to follow."
"Yes, that is so," answered the cripple, thoughtfully. "Well, hear me,
Amy. I guess I have been about as much of a wet blanket as I could be,
but I'm going to try my very hardest to make things easy for father and
mother. Just now, as we rode down the valley into all this peace and
quiet, I seemed to see myself exactly as I am. Heigho! but look how
green the grass is still, late in the year as it is, and how beautiful
the vines on the stone walls. The maples are like a golden glory. My
father must have been wonderfully soothed by so much loveliness about
him, though he's going to feel it all the--"
"Take care, Sir Optimist, that is to be. You're taking the wrong turn,
comrade. Come away from the down to 'has been,' and climb to 'will be,'
short metre."
It was all as they said. The mother's gentle face in the doorway,
looking rested and less faded for the week passed in the society of a
simple, noble man; the father's gay and debonair, as Amy remembered
it--how long ago, was it? And last of all Friend Adam, in gray attire,
his broadbrim crowning his snowy hair, his expression one of childlike
happiness and freedom from care.
He welcomed them both with all heartiness, but Amy was dearest. She had
always been, perhaps because she bore the name of his long dead wife,
and had always seemed to stand as a child to his childless life.
So after the fine supper was over, while before a blazing fire in
another room Mr. and Mrs. Kaye discussed with Hallam all the events of
the past week, Amy and the old man who had lived for more than eighty
years a blameless, helpful life sat by a window in another place and
looked out into the moonlight saying little, but enjoying all.
"Dear father Adam, shall I tell thee"--for with him she always drifted
into the sweet speech which was hers by birthright and his for all his
life--"shall I tell thee how it seems to me, as if thee had learned
every single lesson life and God has had to teach. Thee has had poverty
and sorrow, and endured the wrong that others have done thee. Thee has
seen thy kindred go away and leave thee alone. It is just like a good
soldier who has been in a thick fight and a sailor who has swam in deep
waters, but has come out safe on the other side. Thee is so calm and
happy, like Mrs. Jones's little Belinda, who sits in the sun and sings
and croons to herself, with never a plaything or anything good about her
except her own serene happiness. Isn't it?"
"Maybe, child. It may be. It should be, certainly. There should be no
care in either extreme of life. _Both ends are so close to the Father's
house._
"Thee is right though, about the middle of life, little Amy. It is a
time of struggle and rebuff."
"But to-night it seems as if it could never have been so with thee. Tell
me, father Adam, how thee has kept thyself so simple and good."
"Nay, little one, not that. Simple, indeed, but not good. There is none
good but One. Yet there are certain things that help. I'll tell thee
what has helped me most, that is, in my daily life in the world, from
which we can never escape while the heart beats."
The dear old man rose, limped toward an ancient secretary, and took from
it a small book. Just an ordinary account book, ruled for the keeping of
small affairs, but arranged with every page inscribed by the trembling
fingers of this all-thoughtful friend.
"I have been thinking what a muddle it would be to thee, Amy, and I
fixed this for thee. On one side is the debt and the other side the
credit. Thee will have to keep the reckonings for thy family, I foresee;
for thee is practical. Look. Is the light sufficient?"
Amy held the little volume so that the rays of the harvest moon fell
clearly over them, and the old, quaint script was as legible as
copperplate. She questioned, and he explained just how the book should
be kept, and she found his "system" exceeding plain and direct, as was
everything about him. But there were two legends inscribed upon the
covers which had little in common with the figuring to be done between
them,--or so Amy thought; and when she asked him what they meant, he
quietly explained:--
"They have been my rules of life, Amy, and I think it would be well for
thee if thee also adopted them. They are short and easy to remember, but
they cover all. 'Simplicity, Sincerity, Sympathy,' on the front page;
and on the last, when the first rule seems sometimes to fail and the
heart needs cheer, there is this other: 'Love is all powerful.'"
"Thank thee, dear Adam, so much. Not only for the book and the help it
will be, but for the 'Rules' and--for thyself. I will make them mine,
and thee shall tell me if I am succeeding. Now, I know thee is sitting
up beyond thy time. I'll help thee to the living room and then to thy
own."
Nor was Amy ever to forget that peaceful hour with this ripe old
Christian; and she never again sat in the rays of the harvest moon
without recalling the lessons she learned that night.