GRETTA
"HAPPIE is beginning to be indeed happy, and without effort," said
Miss Bradbury in high satisfaction as she watched her pretty namesake
blossoming into increasing brightness every day. It was quite true that
Happie was beginning to be happy without effort. The first symptom
of her growing reconciliation with her new home was that the lively
correspondence with the friends whom she had left behind was abating;
she found the days too short for the delights that the farm had to
offer her, and she had less and less time for letter writing.
Happie had found a new interest in life besides the many interests of
her first country spring-time, and her growing intimacy with the wild
creatures,--an interest not unlike the latter, but far more absorbing.
And this is how it began.
One day she was walking alone down the roadside. The sun lay on her
head as warm as if it were June, and the dust rose under her feet. Out
of the tangled growth of the wayside came frequently the fluttering
of wings, or a squirrel in vociferous haste, whisking his tail and
scolding her.
She came up at last to the furthest boundary of the Ark farm, far
down on the margin of the brook, and to the house nearest to the Ark.
It interested her, because she had heard that in it lived a girl of
her own age, together with two women who had the reputation of being
decidedly cross, and of leading this young girl a hard life. They were
her cousins, without whose dubious shelter the girl would have been
homeless.
As Happie came up she caught a glimpse of a brownish sunbonnet, and
paused to peer at her unknown neighbor, herself hidden by a friendly
chestnut tree. She saw a pair of shoulders, unmistakably youthful,
covered by a faded but scrupulously clean gingham, and a plump brown
hand skilfully wielding a paint brush with which it was renewing the
storm-beaten red paint on the posts which upheld the wire fence forming
the farm boundary.
The girl stopped her work, and, with an upward movement of her arm,
threw off her sunbonnet with the back of her left hand, and drew her
arm across her warm brow. She had dark brown eyes, darker hair, and her
skin was as brown as a berry, but beautifully clear, and her cheeks
wore a flush as red as the tint of her red lips. She was so pretty
that Happie caught her breath with the pleasure almost all girls feel
in another girl's beauty, no matter what sarcasms are pronounced by
boys to the contrary. There was a warmth, a charm about this girl that
warm-hearted Happie was quick to feel, and with it a look of patience
that went to her heart.
"She needs a friend," thought Happie, and went forward without a
doubt in her mind that she could fill the want, not because she was
conceited, but because her motives were too pure, and her impulse too
kindly to allow a doubt of her reception.
"I think you must be Gretta Engel," she said, her sunny face wreathed
in smiles, as she came up to the painter.
The girl started violently, and blushed to the dark hair lying in damp
rings on her forehead. She quickly pulled her brown sunbonnet into
place, and stared at Happie without speaking, like a frightened rabbit
cowering beside the fence.
"I'm Happie Scollard, and I live--I'm living this summer--on the next
farm, the one that used to be Bittenbenders'," Happie continued. "I've
been anxious to know you; we're so near the same age, and such close
neighbors."
She paused for the reply which did not come, and then, for lack of it,
took up the conversation again.
"It's lovely here; those mountains are glorious. I was so lonely and
homesick at first I did not know how to bear it, but I'm getting
happier every day. It's a beautiful place, Crestville, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," returned Gretta.
"Have you always lived here?" asked Happie.
"Yes, I have," replied Gretta.
"And I used to live in a flat in New York; you can't imagine what a
change this is!" said Happie cheerfully.
"I guess," said Gretta, looking at the tip of her brush as if hoping it
might help her.
"Don't you get lonely here? I do, though there are so many of us,"
persisted Happie.
"Oh, I don't know; I don't get much time," said Gretta desperately,
looking about as if meditating flight from this determined girl with
whom she had not the slightest desire to make friends, and whose accent
and little air of being accustomed to another world than that of the
country girl embarrassed and annoyed her.
To her dismay, Happie seated herself on the grass at her side. "I don't
believe there's any risk in sitting on the grass, if it is only May,"
she said. "It's as warm as June, and it must be dry. I think you need a
friend, Gretta, and I want you to look at me hard and see if you don't
think I could be she. The girls in New York rather liked me."
She thrust her head forward, inviting inspection as she applied for the
position, and Gretta looked into the laughing eyes, and into the sweet,
dimpling face bent towards her. Her own dark eyes lighted with pleasure
in what she saw, and in spite of her shyness, she laughed a little.
"You don't want me for a friend; I'm different," she said.
"You look nice," announced Happie emphatically, "and I'd like to have
you try me. If you mean that I've lived in the city, and so had more
chance than you to get at books, besides having a clever and learned
duck of a mother to teach me, while you have been all your life
motherless, and far from libraries and good schools, besides being as
busy as a bee, I think that's more to your credit than mine. If we
liked each other, I could give you what I got out of books, and you
could teach me how to be useful--wouldn't that be a good bargain for us
both?"
Gretchen Engel turned to Happie with full appreciation of the kindly
tact that so delicately, yet firmly grappled with her unspoken
sensitiveness, and put on a level with herself the sweet girl, whose
advantages had been many, while hers had been none at all. Her eyes
filled with tears; she had a nature that was profoundly loving, and
she was starving for kindness. Something had set her apart from the
other girls who gathered with her through the winter in the little
schoolhouse, and she was scolded all day long for doing her patient
best in her meagre and reluctant home. Happie had guessed right that
she was desperately lonely; she had not begun to conjecture how lonely,
nor how much despair was mingling in that loneliness, though Gretta was
but a girl of fourteen. No one could have needed nor wanted a friend
more than pretty Gretta.
Seeing the sincerity that shone upon her from Happie's face, feeling
her lovableness as she felt the warmth of the May sunshine, Gretta
succumbed to her charm, forgetting to be shy.
"You're good," she said decidedly. "I'd like to be friends with you,
if you could stand me, but I don't know when we'd ever get to see each
other."
Happie gave a little hitch to her chin that meant determination.
"You must be outdoors a good deal to get that beautiful brown tint of
yours; it will be queer if we can't get together. I never saw a pair of
girls yet that couldn't outwit a pair of old cousins if they set out
to do it," she said. "They are your cousins with whom you live, aren't
they? Rosie Gruber is living with us, and she told me about you."
"I guess it didn't lose much in telling," said Gretta flushing. "I
hate to have folks pitying me, and saying what hard times I have. Not
but what it's true, though!" she added in a burst of self-pity and of
confidence in the sympathy which she read in Happie's face. "I wouldn't
care if I did work all the time, though girls that have mothers get a
little time to themselves, even when they're poor. But no matter what I
do, it's the wrong thing, and I get so sick of it that I 'most give up.
Yes, they're my cousins that I live with, and they grudge me a living,
though I earn one hard. I don't feel to owe them one thing; I guess
they'd have put me on the township, only they'd have had that much
bigger taxes, so they kept me. When I'm a year older I'm going off to
work for strangers. I believe I'd have asked your mother to have took
me, only I heard them telling you had nice things, and had lived in New
York, and I thought I wouldn't do for you."
"You poor Gretta!" exclaimed Happie patting the brown hand nearer to
her. "I don't see how you live! Here am I loved to death, the loveliest
mother a girl ever had, the best brother in all the world--Bob's a
perfect trump!--and Margery's so pretty and sweet you couldn't help
loving her--she's seventeen, and just bursting into young ladyhood.
And Laura, well, Laura's all right, of course, and Polly's the most
dependable, good little creature, and Penny--Penelope, the baby--is the
dearest little four-year-old you ever saw. To think I have all these,
and you have no one! It doesn't seem fair!"
"Yes, and you can go to school yet!" cried Gretta with a bitterness
that she had not shown before in speaking of her cousins. "They won't
let me go much, and we don't have good schools here anyway. That's why
I hate to see folks; I don't know anything, and they'll laugh at my way
of talking."
"Mercy, Gretta, that's nothing!" cried Happie energetically. "My mother
says if a person has brains, nothing can crush them; they'll prove
themselves in spite of obstacles, and if they haven't, no amount of
schooling can give them. Now that we're friends--for we are friends and
that's settled--I can help you lots, so easily that neither you nor I
will know it's done. You can speak just as well as any other girl, if
you won't mind a hint now and then, and I have loads of books to lend
you. And you must teach me practical things, milking--Aunt Keren's
going to get two cows--and churning and everything I don't know. Isn't
that a large order to fill? Why, I begin to see why I came here, over
and above mother's health!" Happie had grown brighter-eyed and more
enthusiastic as she talked. "Mother says each soul has certain tasks
set for it that no other soul can do, and that we are led along to
places where our work is ready for us, and that we must be careful not
to miss it when it comes to us. Maybe it was for your sake as well as
mama's that dear Aunt Keren brought us all up here to her farm, which
she had never seen, to spend this summer! Maybe it was because you were
so lonely and needed friends so much. You've such a strong, beautiful
face that I'm sure you are too fine not to get some slight chance to be
happy and clever."
Gretta looked keenly and quickly at Happie, suspecting mockery in these
compliments, for she mistrusted praise, having been carefully trained
to consider herself far below meriting it. She saw nothing but perfect
truth in the brown eyes gazing into her darker ones, eyes alight with
overflowing love and the joy of the thought that their owner might do
good to another who lacked so much.
[Illustration: "'CAN'T YOU EVER COME TO SEE ME?'"]
All the repressed riches of the country girl's nature leaped up to
meet the good offered her, caring less for the material good than for
the treasure of affection, inestimable to one to whom it had thus far
been denied, and who had more than most the capacity for receiving and
returning it.
Gretta struggled for adequate expression, and missed it; she could not
have voiced or understood what she felt at that moment.
"You're good," was what she said.
Happie understood. "So are you," she retorted. "And very lovable. That
makes us both good, so we will have good times. Now go on painting, or
you may get scolded. If I had a brush I think I could help you."
Gretta shook her head. "I'm used to scolding," she said. "And you'd get
red paint all over your dress."
She dipped her brush in the pot, carefully scraped it on the edge, and
made a vigorous stroke down the side of the post next in order.
"Can't you ever come to see me?" Happie asked as she watched her. "You
know our place, the Bittenbender farm?"
Gretta nodded. "Mrs. Bittenbender was my grandmother," she said.
"Not really!" cried Happie. "Why, I've been wondering about that
family, and you must know all about them! It seemed so queer for them
to go off and leave their furniture in the house. Of course there
isn't----" Happie stopped herself on the point of saying that there
was not much furniture, fearing that Gretta might mind it, and said
instead: "There isn't any reason why they shouldn't leave their
furniture, only most people take it with them, or sell it when they
move. And you are a Bittenbender!"
"No, indeed, I'm not!" cried Gretta. "My grandmother married Mr.
Bittenbender for her second husband. She was my father's mother, and so
her name was Engel before that. I guess her second husband mortgaged
the place, furniture and all, so he had to leave the furniture. But he
didn't have to give up the place if he hadn't wanted to. He had plenty
money; he was an old miser. That's why he liked better to keep his
money than to pay your aunt, so he gave up the place. My grandmother
died when I was a baby. I guess that old Isaac Bittenbender wasn't too
honest. My grandmother was a good woman, and they say she had a hard
life after she married him. He got too old to farm towards the last, so
he left your aunt take the place."
"He _let_ my aunt take the place," suggested Happie, fulfilling her
promise of hint-giving for Gretta's improvement. "They left an old,
worn-off horsehair trunk in the attic. Some day when you can, you must
come and open it. You are the nearest to being a representative of
the family whom we have found here, and I'm dying to investigate that
trunk."
"If there'd been anything in it worth seeing he wouldn't have
let--have left it," said Gretta. "They say he was the closest man
in Madison County. I heard he made my grandmother----" She stopped
suddenly to listen. "I hear Eunice calling; she's the crossest of my
cousins, if there's a difference. I've got to go."
She arose, and Happie was surprised to discover that her height
overtopped her own by a full head, for she had thought of her as she
sat as being rather short.
Gretta moved with a grace and dignity that also surprised her; there
was a freedom in every motion, and a splendor of poise won from her
intimacy with the mountains, which made Happie wish that she could see
her clad in beautiful garments. But the faded reddish gingham gown,
and the brown sunbonnet were far from unbecoming to the girl. Happie
said to herself: "Why, I thought she was pretty, but I believe she is a
beauty!"
Gretta stood for a moment dipping her brush uncertainly in and out
of her paint pot, not knowing how to take her leave, once more
self-conscious and embarrassed.
Happie solved the difficulty. "You won't mind if this Eunice does scold
now, will you, Gretta? And you won't feel lonely? Because we are going
to be friends forever and forever, amen." And she put her arm around
the faded gingham-clad waist.
Gretta drew off and looked at her. "Oh, I guess you don't want me!" she
said, But there was a ring of happiness in her voice, as if she were
sure of contradiction.
"You'll see!" laughed Happie, and kissed her new friend. "At any rate I
_think_ I want you. Good-bye till next time. Can you come to see me?"
"I don't know; I shall be painting this fence for the next few days,"
said Gretta suggestively, as she returned the kiss.
"All right," cried Happie triumphantly, and ran away waving her hand to
Gretta, who walked backwards looking after her, leaving a slight trail
of paint in her wake which threatened trouble for her when it should be
discovered.
"I have made friends with Gretta Engel," she announced, coming into
the dining-room where her family were busied with helping or waiting
for the dinner which Rosie Gruber was "dishing up."
"She's so handsome I couldn't tell you how handsome she is, and there
is something about her that draws you to her like a magnet! I'm going
to lend her books and give her pleasure, and she's going to do lots for
me. I shouldn't wonder if we came here for her sake--partly, at least."
Rosie surveyed Happie with high approval; of all the young Scollards,
Happie was her favorite.
"Gretta's the prettiest and brightest girl in Crestville," she
declared. "But she's awful shy. If you've got her to talk to you,
you've done wonders. And if you make her friends with you, you'll be
doin' the best thing you've ever done in your short life. If you was
to know the whole of Gretta's story, you'd think she'd had pretty hard
luck. I'm glad you hain't one of the sort of folks that can't see
through a faded dress, nor yet under a sunbonnet, Happie."
"If she's got Happie to take her up, she's had one piece of good luck,"
said Bob, who never hesitated to show publicly his appreciation of his
sister. "Happie makes every one else happy--that's a well-wearing,
well-worn family joke, Ralph--and she's not the sort to let them slip
back again into unhappiness because she gets tired of her bargain, are
you, Hapsie? Are you going to adopt your beauty?"
Margery, Laura and their mother laughed. The family had never exhausted
the fun of the story of Happie's adoption of a colored girl of twelve
when the young woman herself was at the suitable age of four. She had
insisted on bringing big Cora Jackson home with her, and on opening
her bank to take out her pennies to buy ice cream for her sustenance.
She had been much grieved when her protégée had been found to have
decamped, taking with her her little protector's gold shoulder pins, as
well as Margery's new parasol.
Happie now joined in the laugh, but gave her decided little hitch of
the chin.
"And if I did," she said, "it wouldn't be a bad plan. At least I
wouldn't scold her all day and every day, as her cross old cousins
do. And there's a great difference between the Cora Jackson of my
childhood, and this pretty Gretta of my old age! You wait till you see
her, Bob! She's far prettier than Allie Herford." Which was a home
thrust, for Bob considered Allie Herford the prettiest girl of his
acquaintance.
Ralph looked up quizzically. "Don't you mind 'em, Happie," he said. "I
believe in your four-leaf-clover-of-the-fields, and that you will find
her good luck. Besides, you must not let your young mind get embittered
by these cynics. 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all.' So it's better to invest your trust, even though
your bubbles--bust. Pardon the inelegance, Laura; I did not realize
that 'burst' only rhymed with 'trust' when it was 'bust,' until I was
too far embarked on my poem to tack--to carry on my metaphor with an
unmixedness that I hope you appreciate. Never mind if your Gretta
deceives you!"
"I never knew any other boy so imbued with the poets!" said Margery in
mock admiration of Ralph's outburst.
But Rosie, flying in and out with steaming dishes, was impressed only
by the matter, not the manner of his remarks.
"Don't you talk silly, Ralph Gordon," she said spiritedly. "Gretta
Engel never will deceive nobody. She will do Happie good too, and she's
made a good bargain yet. Your meat's fried most too much. Set up and
eat awhile before it gits cold."