THE DOVE'S ALIGHTING
"IT'S all my fault," cried Margery repentantly, assuming the blame and
the duty of repairing the damage to the snowy pine table at one and
the same time. "I promised to look after the bread and put it into the
oven, and between Aunt Keren's going and our trip to the attic, I never
thought of it again. Bread is not such a simple thing; I wish we could
buy our bread, as we did in town."
"No work is simple I find, dear," said her mother. "It takes all kinds
of qualities to do anything well--which accounts for the prevalence
of poor labor. Never mind the bread; it is beyond sweetening by any
amount of soda. We will make more to-night, and subsist on biscuits and
buckwheat cakes for dinner and supper."
"Buckwheat cakes are far from simple," Happie remarked, suggestively
surveying a burn on her forefinger, the result of her recent failure
with the delicacy in question.
"The cakes are simple; it's the griddle where the stick comes," said
Margery.
"Literally, if you mean the sticking," smiled her mother.
Laura, standing with her face pressed against the steaming glass of
the window pane, sighed heavily. Mrs. Scollard turned and crossing
over to her side, looked for a moment out upon the reeking scene. The
rain poured down in torrents, swept sidewise across the fields by the
roaring wind. The ground looked black at a little distance, the trees
bent their bare boughs to the storm's fury; not a sound, not a human
being lightened the desolation of the outlook.
The lonely woman felt her heart tighten under the grip of a fresh tide
of homesickness. Miss Bradbury had been trying of late to encourage her
by hinting that if she were not perfectly restored to health in the
autumn, she could spend the winter in the Ark, so at the worst there
was no reason for anxiety. But what a life to lead, to condemn her
clever children to! How could she bear it? Then the courage that made
her all that she was, the courage that Happie had inherited, rose to
answer her own question. She could bear it because she must bear it;
she would fight for her health, and be able once more to work and to
live for her children.
"When this storm has spent itself," she said brightly, "we shall see
the spring fairly leaping forward in all its loveliness. This is a
sort of aftermath of all winter's fury. It can't last long with such
a wind as this raging, and when it passes you girls will find arbutus
and hepatica, anemones, and very soon violets. It is going to be a
wonderful country for flowers, for all sorts of beauty. I think we
shall hear song birds in Crestville that we never heard before, and
fancy what it will be to hunt for wild flowers at the foot of those
glorious mountains! I think there could hardly be a more splendid view
than ours."
Happie crept up and peeped slyly over her mother's shoulder. She saw
a moisture on the long lashes that belied the blithe tone and the
enthusiasm.
"It's just a trifle dim now, motherums," was all that Happie said, but
the tone in which she said it made the words what they were meant to
be--the salute of a good soldier to the courage of his superior officer.
"Oh, by and by will be a sweeter by and by, of course," Margery chimed
in. "I suppose we shall all feel better when it clears up."
The dinner that day did not promise to be precisely a success. Polly
and Penny had risen superior to the weather in such a game of romps
that the baby appeared upon the scene decidedly cross. Bob came in wet
through and exhausted from a tussle with the barn door which had to be
rehung upon its broken hinges to protect the books still lying in their
packing cases, stored in the rickety building. He found it impossible
to talk; his muscles ached, he had pounded his thumb black and blue in
his efforts at carpentering, and creeping chills, the result of his
wetting, chased one another down his spine.
All that Happie had said of the preponderance of eggs in their limited
bill of fare was strictly true. It was hard to consider a dinner
satisfactory when its main dish was scrambled eggs, after one had had
boiled eggs for breakfast, and was looking forward to fried eggs for
supper. Dishes too had to be washed as they went along, for the supply
of kitchen utensils was low until the mistress of the house should
return with reinforcements.
"When we were in New York we turned a faucet, and took it for granted
that hot water in the sink was a natural institution, like a hot
spring. Now that we have to heat every drop we begin to realize it was
a sort of phenomenon," sighed Margery, lifting the teakettle to the
forward hole of the stove, and signaling Bob to put in another stick of
wood before she set it down.
"We will hope that Aunt Keren may find the clean, rosy-cheeked young
girl, or even the brown-faced-elderly-woman variation of the theme
which Margery suggested," said Mrs. Scollard. "It is rather a struggle
alone, without conveniences."
"There's a woman coming down the road, mama," said Polly, whose face,
with Penny's, was pressed against the steaming window, looking out upon
the universal wetness.
Laura dropped the towel, held ready for wiping dishes, though the water
was not yet warm, and ran to look.
"She's very wet, mama, and she's fearfully long," Laura announced.
"And she's heading for here!" cried Bob, as if that were the acme of
wonders.
"Can she be a lost Bittenbender?" suggested Happie.
The tall woman came in, when bidden to do so, and set herself,
marvelously erect, on the edge of a chair.
"It's a very severe rain," remarked Mrs. Scollard, somewhat at loss how
to treat her unexpected visitor.
"I've seen worse rains than this already," retorted the angular one.
"Do you like it here?"
"We shall grow to be very fond of the place," said Mrs. Scollard
cautiously. "We are trying not to be homesick. You see we have always
lived in New York."
"And you are doing your own work yet!" exclaimed the visitor. "I heard
you wasn't use to doin' nothin'. It's bad enough to be strangers
without takin' all the hard jobs to once, yet! I wouldn't care if I was
to help you a while; I've got time."
"Do you mean that you would stay here?" cried Mrs. Scollard, eagerly.
"Yes; I don't care if I do," answered the woman. "You just say so once,
and I'll stay."
"Are you a losted Bippenbender? Happie said so," Penny cried shrilly
and unexpectedly.
"A Bittenbender? What do you know about the Bittenbenders? No, I hain't
a Bittenbender. I'm poor enough in money without bein' poor truck
yet. My name's Rosie Gruber," said the stranger with an air of forever
setting at rest any possible doubt as to her desirability.
Margery and Happie exchanged a sly glance of amusement; anything less
like a rose than their caller would have been hard to find. But the
important point was that she was willing to stay and do housework.
Mrs. Scollard, feeling that Miss Keren-happuch's quest was more than
uncertain, and that almost any risk was better than their certain
troubles, engaged her on the spot, and was as delighted as she was
amused to see their new-bloomed Rose take off her wet hat, remove her
long overshoes, produce from under the skirt of her own gown a blue
checked gingham apron, and go down on her knees, instanter, to rake the
ashes out from the stove.
"This fire's pretty near out," she remarked. "If you want to eat at
twelve--you do, don't you?--you've got to get your potatoes over pretty
soon, and this fire'll need an hour to get up. Your wood's almost all;
hadn't you ought to git some?"
"Almost all what?" asked Bob. "Isn't it right; anything wrong with it?"
"It's almost all," repeated Rose firmly. "All--don't you know what that
is? How many sticks do you see there? Isn't it almost all? Nothin'
wrong with the wood if they was more of it. Say, there hain't nothin'
wrong with the boy, is they? He looks so sorter dumb at a body yet!"
"He didn't quite understand," said Mrs. Scollard gently, as Bob turned
away to conceal the broad grin spreading over his face as he caught
their new acquisition's meaning, and Happie bolted from the room.
Peculiarities of dialect did not affect the relish of the dinner which
this hardy Rose served at thirteen minutes after twelve. Everything did
taste so good to the hungry, weary and lonely Scollards! Margery and
Happie renewed their duets of old Patty-Pan days as they dried Rosie's
dishes, and their mother sat down to write Miss Bradbury of her coming,
and to tell her that she might return at once to the bosom of a greatly
cheered family, for the maid they wanted had found them, and search for
her on their side was no longer necessary.
The storm cleared away in the night, and the glorious sunrise of the
morning ushered in the spring. With it came soft brooding days in which
the grass and leaves wakened to life, the birds dropped down from the
warm sky in daily increasing kinds and numbers, and the flowers of
early May lifted up their delicate little faces. Polly and Penny came
home daily with wilting hepatica and anemones and violets in their
warm little hands, while the older children sought and found on their
rambles the arbutus whose sweetness the winds bore into the chambers
of the Ark, past the dainty new curtains.
Rosie proved a comfort in spite of angularity of form and peculiarities
of speech. She was such a balm to perturbed minds and weary muscles
that the children privately referred to her as "the Dove," for her
coming had been the harbinger of peace to the Ark. She evidently
regarded the entire family as helpless infants, needing her unceasing
care and vigilance, and she gave them no less than she deemed they
needed, piloting them through the waters of inexperience.
Miss Bradbury wrote that she was coming back. Margery and Happie
speculated on the effect of Rosie and her employer on each other, but
Happie felt sure that they would get on together, for each was in
her way a character, and their sterling honesty was of much the same
pattern.
Aunt Keren was going to bring them something that they would enjoy, "a
species of toy," so she wrote, yet something that she hoped to make
useful. They must get Jake to bring his three-seated wagon to the
station if the young Scollards came to meet her, as she hoped they
would.
They did, or at least Margery, Happie and Bob did, consumed with
curiosity as to what they should find encumbering Miss Bradbury.
When she stepped briskly off the car on the steps which the grade of
the track at Crestville compelled the porter to place for passengers,
the Scollards saw her encumbrance, and hailed it with a shout. There,
dismounting behind Miss Keren-happuch, so thoroughly laden that there
seemed no question that lady was already making him useful, his
cheerful face one mass of smiles, came Ralph Gordon!
Happie and Bob dashed at him regardless of a man with a fishing-pole,
come up for trout, and collided violently with the combination. The
brief mishap, though it left the traveler furious, did not dampen
Happie's ardor. She shook both Ralph's hands so hard, and exclaimed:
"Well, I never did!" so emphatically, and so many times, that there was
no doubt of her pleasure at seeing her former neighbor. Bob slapped him
on the back with such abandon that Ralph swallowed whole the durable
black licorice drop with which he had been beguiling the last moments
of the journey, and choked over it so violently that he had no breath
to reply to the questions his friends hurled at him in rapid succession.
"I thought that you might like a guest, a crumb from your Patty-Pans,
so to speak," said Miss Bradbury, surveying the effect of her surprise
with much satisfaction. "Ralph has had a cold, and has been working too
hard," she explained. "I need a boy to help Bob, so I took this one. I
shall expect you to keep him hard at work, allowing no time for talk or
play. How's your Charlotte-mother?"
"Better for your return, Aunt Keren," said Margery sweetly, but
truthfully.
"What about Snigs?" asked Happie.
"At home with his mother," returned Aunt Keren. "But he will come up in
the summer, by August, if not before."
"Is Ralph----" Happie began, but stopped herself before she had framed
a question that might have been awkward to answer.
Miss Keren-happuch finished it for her. "Going to stay?" she said.
"Yes, he is, or at least until something happens to call him home. Mrs.
Gordon yielded to my arguments, and consented to lending him to us. I
told her we needed him, especially Bob. So I captured him. Curious that
I went to get a girl, and brought home a boy, an altogether unforeseen
boy."
Jake Shale drove slowly up the hill. The young people talked
incessantly, and all together. Miss Bradbury listened in a pleased
silence that betrayed itself in her eyes, for her lips were unbending.
She saw that already the effect of her transplanting the Scollards
showed; they were blossoming out like the season under the warmth of
freedom from anxiety.
Miss Bradbury found to her surprise that she herself was glad to get
home, and thought of her coming in those terms. Down in the bottom
of her staunch old heart, the good woman had not looked forward to a
summer in the Ark with less than dread.
The children took Ralph out at once to display to him all the
interesting points of Miss Bradbury's estate, leaving its owner to
their mother, and to form the acquaintance of Rose Gruber, "the
Dove," whose olive branch was waxing greener in the eyes of all
the "Archeologists," as Bob called the inmates of the Ark. Though
Happie said that she thought they "were more like Architects, for the
dictionary said they made, built, planned, contrived, and that was a
full description of the Scollards."
"The creek is high," Rosie called after Bob and Happie, as they
followed Margery and Ralph out the side door.
"We are going over to it on our way back," Happie answered over her
shoulder. "It does seem to me a pity to call a beautiful trout brook
'a crick,' just as if it were a sort of rheumatism! Brooks sound like
lovely things, but cricks!" She ended her supplementary remarks to her
companions with a tiny shudder.
"Books are in running brooks; is that why you like them?" suggested
Ralph. "Or is it because they chatter, chatter as they flow--fellow
feeling, you know?" He glanced slyly at Happie. "Creeks ought to
chatter even more than brooks, being an American variety."
There was an old grist mill half a mile away from the Ark, turned,
when it did turn, by a beautiful stream, a trout brook made up of many
mountain springs, rising far up in the hills, and rushing through
Madison County to the river, which should bear them on to the sea.
Clear and brown were the waters of this brook, its bottom paved with
stones, its banks, rising steep on the one side, and gently sloping
on the other, grown with ferns, luxuriant with rhododendrons, and
surmounted with pines, spruce and giant maples. It was an enchanted
region to the Scollards, city bred, and "Patty-Pan" set hitherto. They
were delighted to take Ralph to the brook and show him that if the Ark
were shabby, the country was perfect--they discovered a strong sense of
proud proprietorship in their breasts as they introduced Ralph to their
haunts, and it dawned upon them that they must be beginning to feel at
home.
The brook was indeed high that day; the falls over the mill-dam were
yellow from the upstirring of recent rains, boiling and seething over
the logs creditably to their exhibitors, and the foam-flecked waters
ran swiftly down, under the bridge that crossed the road to their goal.
"Well, do you raise mermaids?" asked Ralph, pointing out into the
middle of the stream. Then before the others could speak, his face and
voice changed, and he cried out: "Good gracious, it's Penny!"
It was Penny, seated on a log which for the moment had lodged
midstream, held by a rock which could not hold it long. In her arms the
child held something yellow; Jeunesse Dorée, Happie saw at once. She
looked wet, her soft hair hung heavy around her pale little face, but
she held up her head valiantly, and clasped the kitten safe and dry to
her breast.
"Happie, oh, Happie!" she cried, as she saw the group on the bank, and
held out a hand appealingly. It nearly cost her balance; she shook on
her perilous seat, and Margery hid her face, while Happie caught her
breath.
Then she raised her voice and called: "Hold on, hold on tight, darling.
Bob's coming!" As she spoke the log swung loose, and floated a few
feet farther down the stream. Bob dashed out into the water, and Ralph
followed him. The brook was so high, the motion of the water so swift
that there was danger for one alone, should he lose his footing, and
Bob could not swim.
Steadying each other, the two boys waded out, keeping upright with
difficulty, and watching the rigid little figure towards which they
were struggling, fearing every moment that it would be jarred from its
perch.
The rocks were slippery under their feet, the water rose well above
their knees, logs and debris came against them, the log drifted ahead
of them, always a little further out of reach. Suddenly it struck
against the support of the bridge, and Penny's head disappeared under
the water.
It was Ralph, who, letting go of Bob's shoulder, threw himself downward
towards the spot where the child had disappeared. As he did so, he
heard the cry of anguish from the girls on the bank. He remembered,
with a prayer in his heart, that the little creature would drift far
more swiftly than the heavy log had done.
But in an instant she rose further down the stream, and Ralph struggled
to his feet and threw himself towards her, instinctively realizing that
he could reach her quicker by falling in her direction than by striving
to walk or to swim in that seething water. Little Penny's devotion to
her kitten was meeting its reward; clasping it tight to her breast, she
could not throw up her arms, and her light body floated long enough for
Ralph to seize it.
He pulled her towards him by her pink skirt, and Bob, seeing the
rescue, darted to his aid, lost his footing, fell headlong into the
water, but reached his friend nevertheless, and the two boys, with
Penny and Dorée, clambered up under the bridge none the worse for their
experience.
The terror-stricken girls ran, slipping and stumbling over rocks and
roots, to join them, and nearly dismembered Penny in the effort to hug
her simultaneously.
"We mustn't let mother see her like this; it would shock her too much
even to think of the danger now it's over," said Margery. "We will
take her to the barn and get Rosie to come there with water for a hot
bath, and we'll put dry clothes on the darling, and mother shall not
know of this till we are sure Penny's no worse for the scare. What were
you doing, Pennypet? How did you get on that dreadful log, out in the
middle of the brook?"
"I sat on it up by the dam," said Penny cheerfully--she was the least
frightened of the excited group. "The log was up there when I began
to sit on it, and Dorée was playing with me. He was playing he was a
goldfish and I was a pink water lily--'cause I've got on my pinkie
chamray, don't you see?" Penny indicated her best beloved pink chambray
frock as she spoke, looking ruefully at its wet folds. "Then the log
wented off--oh, Dorée and I played the goldfish had crawled up into the
pink water lily, and we were having the most fun! That's 'cause I was
holding him, don't you see? He had crawled up into the pink water lily,
truly. But the log wented down the brook, and we didn't know it was
going, but I wasn't much scared; I could hold Dorée, don't you see? And
you came--I didn't know Ralphie had come to the Nark!" She reached over
to pat Ralph's face. "I guess I could have sat on it ever so long--days
'n days!--only it bumped. I don't think Dorée's hurt." She peered
anxiously at shivering Dorée, who was wrapped in her wet garments,
making desperate efforts to get away and lick himself dry.
"I don't think he's at all hurt, you precious baby!" cried Happie.
"Give me Dorée; I can keep him warmer than you can, because you're so
wet. There! Now boys, hurry as fast as you can! You're both soaking,
and I'm afraid Penny'll be sick, and I'm shaking with cold; I'm so
nervous. Run!"
They ran, and by the time they had reached the barn, both the boys were
warmed up. Rosie came out and rubbed Penny into a glow, put her into
dry garments, and sent her forth, apparently as good as new.
Margery and Happie told the story of their adventure to Aunt Keren, but
not to their mother, who was not yet strong enough to be startled.
Miss Bradbury listened to it without a comment, but when it was
finished, she laid a hand caressingly on Ralph's arm. "I said I needed
a boy! But I didn't know I needed a coast guard," she remarked. "You
have begun your career in the Ark appropriately, Ralph; pulling in
people from the flood!"