OLIVER AND MILDRED VISIT BEECHWOOD.
Mildred had adhered to her resolution of being _smart_, as she termed
it, and had succeeded so far in pleasing Mrs. Thompson that the old lady
reluctantly consented to giving her a half holiday, and letting her go
with Oliver to Beechwood one Saturday afternoon. At first Oliver
objected to accompanying her, for he could not overcome his dread of the
cross Judge, who, having conceived a dislike for Mildred, extended that
dislike even to the inoffensive Oliver, always frowning wrathfully at
him, and seldom speaking to him a civil word. The girl Mildred the Judge
had only seen at a distance, for he never went near the gable-roof, and
as he read his prayers at St. Luke’s, while Hepsy screamed hers at the
Methodist chapel, there was no chance of his meeting her at church.
Neither did he wish to see her, for so many stories had been fabricated
concerning himself and the little girl, that he professed to hate the
sound of her name. He knew her figure, though, and never did she pass
down the avenue, and out into the highway, on the road to school, but he
saw her from his window, watching her until out of sight, and wondering
to himself who she was, and why that Maine woman had let her alone so
long! It was just the same when she came back at night. Judge Howell
knew almost to a minute when the blue pasteboard bonnet and spotted
calico dress would enter the gate, and hence it was that just so sure as
she stopped to pick a flower or stem of box (a thing she seldom failed
to do), just so sure was he to scream at the top of his voice:
“Quit that, you trollop, and be off, I say.”
Once she had answered back:
“_Yow, yow, yow!_ who’s afraid of you, old cross-patch!” while through
the dusky twilight he had discerned the flourish of a tiny fist!
Nothing pleased the Judge more than _grit_, as he called it, and shaking
his portly sides, he returned to the house, leaving the audacious child
to gather as many flowers as she pleased. In spite of his professed
aversion, there was, for the Judge, a strange fascination about the
little Mildred, who, on one Saturday afternoon, was getting herself in
readiness to visit him in his fortress. Great pains she took with her
soft, brown hair, brushing it until her arm ached with the exercise, and
then smoothing it with her hands until it shone like glass. Aunt Hepsy
Thompson was very neat in her household arrangements, and the calico
dress which Mildred wore was free from the least taint of dirt, as were
the dimity pantalets, the child’s especial pride. A string of blue wax
beads was suspended from her neck, and when her little straw bonnet was
tied on, her toilet was complete.
Oliver, too, entering into Mildred’s spirit, had spent far more time
than usual before the cracked looking-glass which hung upon the wall;
but he was ready at last, and issued forth, equipped in his best, even
to the cane which Mildred had purloined from its hiding-place, and which
she kept concealed until Hepsy’s back was turned, when she adroitly
slipped it into his hand and hurried him away.
It was a hazy October day, and here and there a gay-colored leaf was
dropping silently from the trees, which grew around Beechwood. In the
garden through which the children passed, for the sake of coming first
to Rachel’s cabin, many bright autumnal flowers were in blossom; but for
once Mildred’s fingers left them untouched. She was too intent upon the
house, which, with its numerous chimneys, balconies, and windows, seemed
to frown gloomily down upon her.
“What shall you say to the Judge?” Oliver asked, and Mildred answered:
“I don’t know _what_ I shall say, but if he _sasses_ me, it’s pretty
likely I shall _sass_ him back.”
Just then Rachel appeared in the door, and, spying the two children as
they came through the garden-gate, she shaded her eyes with her tawny
hand, to be sure she saw aright.
“Yes, ’tis Mildred Hawkins,” she said; and she cast a furtive glance
backward through the wide hall, toward the sitting-room, where the Judge
sat, dozing in his willow chair.
“Was it this door, under these steps, that I was left?” asked Mildred in
a whisper, but before Oliver could reply Rachel had advanced to meet
them.
Mildred was not afraid of her, for the good-natured negress had been
kind to her in various ways, and going boldly forward, she said:
“I’ve come to see Judge Howell. Is he at home?”
Rachel looked aghast, and Mildred, thinking she would not state her
principal reason for wishing to see him, continued, “I want to see the
basket I was brought here in and everything.”
“Do you know then? Who told you?” and Rachel looked inquiringly at
Oliver, who answered: “Yes, she knows. They told her at school.”
The fact that she knew gave her, in Rachel’s estimation, some right to
come, and motioning her to be very cautious, she said: “The basket is up
in the garret. Come still, so as not to wake up the Judge,” and taking
off her own shoes by way of example, she led the way through the hall,
followed by Oliver and Mildred, the latter of whom could not forbear
pausing to look in at the room where the Judge sat unconsciously nodding
at her.
“Come away,” whispered Oliver, but Mildred would not move, and she stood
gazing at the Judge as if he had been a caged lion.
Just then _Finis_, who being really the last and youngest, was a spoiled
child, yelled lustily for his mother. It was hazardous not to go at his
bidding, and telling the children to stand still till she returned,
Rachel hurried away.
“Now then,” said Mildred, spying the drawing-room door ajar, “we’ll have
a good time by ourselves,” and taking Oliver’s hand, she walked boldly
into the parlor, where the family portraits were hanging.
At first her eye was perfectly dazzled with the elegance of which she
had never dreamed, but as she became somewhat accustomed to it, she
began to look about and make her observations.
“Isn’t this glorious, though! Wouldn’t I like to live here!” and she set
her little foot hard down upon the velvet carpet.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” said Oliver in his meekest tone, and Mildred
turned just in time to see him bow to what he fancied to be a beautiful
young lady smiling down upon them from a gilded frame.
“The portraits! the portraits!” she cried, clapping her hands together,
and, in an instant, she stood face to face with Mildred Howell, of the
“starry eyes and nut-brown hair.”
But why should that picture affect little Mildred so strangely, causing
her to hold her breath and gaze up at it with childish awe. It was very,
very beautiful, and hundreds had admired its girlish loveliness; but to
Mildred it brought another feeling than that of admiration,—a feeling as
if that face had looked at her many a time from the old, cracked glass
at home.
“Oliver,” she said, “what is it about the lady? Who is she like, or
where have I seen her before?”
Oliver was quite as perplexed as herself; for the features of Mildred
Howell seemed familiar even to him. He had somewhere seen their
semblance, but he did not think of looking for it in the little girl,
whose face grew each moment more and more like the one upon the canvas.
And not like that alone, but also like the portrait beyond,—the portrait
of Richard Howell. Mildred had not noticed this yet, though the mild,
dark eyes seemed watching her every moment, just as another pair of
living eyes were watching her from the door.
Mildred’s scream of joy had penetrated to the ears of the sleeping
Judge, rousing him from his after-dinner nap, and causing him to listen
again for the voice which sounded like an echo from the past. The cry
was not repeated, but through the open door he heard distinctly the
childish voice, and shaking off his drowsiness he started to see who the
intruders could be.
Judge Howell did not believe in the supernatural. Indeed, he scarcely
believed in anything, but when he first caught sight of Mildred’s deep,
brown eyes, and sparkling face, a strange feeling of awe crept over him,
for it seemed as if his only daughter had stepped suddenly from the
canvas, and going backward, for a few years, had come up before him the
same little child, whose merry laugh and winsome ways had once made the
sunlight of his home. The next instant, however, his eye fell upon
_Oliver_, and then he knew who it was. His first impulse was to scream
lustily at the intruder, bidding her begone, but there was something in
the expression of her face which kept him silent, and he stood watching
her curiously, as, with eyes upturned, lips apart, and hands clasped
nervously together, she stood gazing at his daughter, and asking her
companion who the lady was like.
Oliver could not tell, but to the Judge’s lips the answer sprang, “She’s
like you.” Then, as he remembered that others had thought the same, his
wrath began to rise; for nothing had ever so offended him as hearing
people say that Mildred Hawkins resembled him or his.
“You minx!” he suddenly exclaimed, advancing into the room, “what are
you doing here and who are you, hey?”
Oliver colored painfully, and looked about for some safe hiding-place,
while Mildred, poising her head a little on one side, unflinchingly
replied:
“I am Mildred. Who be you?”
“Did I ever hear such impudence?” muttered the Judge, and striding up to
the child, he continued, in his loudest tones, “Who in thunder do you
think I am?”
Very calmly Mildred looked him in the face and deliberately replied:
“I think you are _my father_; anyway, I’ve come up to ask if you ain’t.”
“Great Heavens!” and the Judge involuntarily raised his hand to smite
the audacious Mildred, but before the blow descended his eyes met those
of Richard, and though it was a picture he looked at, there was
something in that picture which stayed the act, and his hand came down
very gently upon the soft brown hair of the child who was so like both
son and daughter.
“Say,” persisted Mildred, emboldened by this very perceptible change in
his demeanor, “be you my father, and if you ain’t, who is? Is _he_?” And
she pointed toward Richard, whose mild, dark eyes seemed to Oliver to
smile approvingly upon her.
Never before in his life had the Judge been so uncertain as to whether
it were proper to scold or to laugh. The idea of that little girl’s
coming up to Beechwood, and claiming him for her father was perfectly
preposterous, and yet in spite of himself there was about her something
he could not resist,—she seemed near to him,—so near that for one brief
instant the thought flitted across his brain that he would keep her
there with him, and not let her go back to the gable-roof where rumor
said she was far from being happy. Then as he remembered all that had
been said, and how his adopting her would give rise to greater scandal,
he steeled his heart against her and replied, in answer to her
questions, “You haven’t any father, and never had. Your mother was a
good-for-nothing jade from Maine, who left you here because she knew I
had money, and she thought maybe I’d keep you and make you my heir. But
she was grandly mistaken. I sent you off then and I’ll send you off
again, so begone you baggage, and don’t you let me catch you stealing
any more flowers, or calling me names, either, such as ‘old
cross-patch.’ I ain’t deaf; I heard you.”
“You called me names first, and you are a heap older than I am,” Mildred
answered, moving reluctantly toward the door, and coming to a firm stand
as she reached the threshold.
“What are you waiting for?” asked the Judge, and Mildred replied, “I
ain’t in any hurry, and I shan’t go until I see that basket I was
brought here in.”
“The plague you won’t,” returned the Judge, now growing really angry.
“We’ll see who’s master; and taking her by the shoulder, he led her
through the hall, down the steps, and out into the open air, followed by
Oliver, who having expected some such denouement, was not greatly
disappointed.
“Let’s go back,” he said, as he saw indications of what he called, “one
of Milly’s tantrums.” But Milly would not stir until she had given vent
to her wrath, looking and acting exactly like the Judge, who, from an
upper window, was watching her with mingled feelings of amusement and
admiration.
“She’s spunky, and no mistake,” he thought, “but I’ll be hanged if I
don’t like the spitfire. Where the plague did she get those eyes, and
that mouth so much like Mildred and Richard? She bears herself proudly,
too, I will confess,” he continued, as he saw her at last cross the yard
and join Rachel, who, having found him in the parlor when she came back
from quieting Finn, had stolen away unobserved.
Twice the Judge turned from the window, and as often went back again,
watching Mildred, as she passed slowly through the garden, and half
wishing she would gather some of his choicest flowers, so that he could
call after her and see again the angry flash of her dark eyes. But
Mildred did not meddle with the flowers, and when her little straw
bonnet disappeared from view, the Judge began to pace the floor,
wondering at the feeling of loneliness which oppressed him, and the
voice which whispered that he had turned from his door a second time the
child who had a right to a place by his hearthstone and a place in his
heart, even though he were not her father.