ROSE AND ROSEBUD.
Thirty-six hours later the Albany train, running smoothly across the
green levels beyond the Mill Dam, brought the travellers to Boston.
Katy looked eagerly from the window for her first glimpse of the city of
which she had heard so much. "Dear little Boston! How nice it is to see
it again!" she heard a lady behind her say; but why it should be called
"little Boston" she could not imagine. Seen from the train, it looked
large, imposing, and very picturesque, after flat Burnet with its one
bank down to the edge of the lake. She studied the towers, steeples, and
red roofs crowding each other up the slopes of the Tri-Mountain, and the
big State House dome crowning all, and made up her mind that she liked
the looks of it better than any other city she had ever seen.
The train slackened its speed, ran for a few moments between rows of
tall, shabby brick walls, and with a long, final screech of its whistle
came to halt in the station-house. Every one made a simultaneous rush
for the door; and Katy and Mrs. Ashe, waiting to collect their books and
bags, found themselves wedged into their seats and unable to get out. It
was a confusing moment, and not comfortable; such moments never are.
But the discomfort brightened into a sense of relief as, looking out of
the window, Katy caught sight of a face exactly opposite, which had
evidently caught sight of her,--a fresh, pretty face, with light, waving
hair, pink cheeks all a-dimple, and eyes which shone with laughter and
welcome. It was Rose herself, not a bit changed during the years since
they parted. A tall young man stood beside her, who must, of course, be
her husband, Deniston Browne.
"There is Rose Red," cried Katy to Mrs. Ashe. "Oh, doesn't she look dear
and natural? Do wait and let me introduce you. I want you to know her."
But the train had come in a little behind time, and Mrs. Ashe was
afraid of missing the Hingham boat; so she only took a hasty peep
from the window at Rose, pronounced her to be charming-looking,
kissed Katy hurriedly, reminded her that they must be on the steamer
punctually at twelve o'clock the following Saturday, and was gone,
with Amy beside her; so that Katy, following last of all the
slow-moving line of passengers, stepped all alone down from the
platform into the arms of Rose Red.
"You darling!" was Rose's first greeting. "I began to think you meant
to spend the night in the car, you were so long in getting out. Well,
how perfectly lovely this is! Deniston, here is Katy; Katy, this is
my husband."
Rose looked about fifteen as she spoke, and so absurdly young to have a
"husband," that Katy could not help laughing as she shook hands with
"Deniston;" and his own eyes twinkled with fun and evident recognition
of the same joke. He was a tall young man, with a pleasant, "steady"
face, and seemed to be infinitely amused, in a quiet way, with
everything which his wife said and did.
"Let us make haste and get out of this hole," went on Rose. "I can
scarcely see for the smoke. Deniston, dear, please find the cab, and
have Katy's luggage put on it. I am wild to get her home, and exhibit
baby before she chews up her new sash or does something else that is
dreadful, to spoil her looks. I left her sitting in state, Katy, with
all her best clothes on, waiting to be made known to you."
"My large trunk is to go straight to the steamer," explained Katy, as
she gave her checks to Mr. Browne. "I only want the little one taken out
to Longwood, please."
"Now, this is cosey," remarked Rose, when they were seated in the cab
with Katy's bag at their feet. "Deniston, my love, I wish you were going
out with us. There's a nice little bench here all ready and vacant,
which is just suited to a man of your inches. You won't? Well, come in
the early train, then. Don't forget.--Now, isn't he just as nice as I
told you he was?" she demanded, the moment the cab began to move.
"He looks very nice indeed, as far as I can judge in three minutes and
a quarter."
"My dear, it ought not to take anybody of ordinary discernment a minute
and a quarter to perceive that he is simply the dearest fellow that ever
lived," said Rose. "I discovered it three seconds after I first beheld
him, and was desperately in love with him before he had fairly finished
his first bow after introduction."
"And was he equally prompt?" asked Katy.
"He says so," replied Rose, with a pretty blush. "But then, you know, he
could hardly say less after such a frank confession on my part. It is no
more than decent of him to make believe, even if it is not true. Now,
Katy, look at Boston, and see if you don't _love_ it!"
The cab had now turned into Boylston Street; and on the right hand lay
the Common, green as summer after the autumn rains, with the elm arches
leafy still. Long, slant beams of afternoon sun were filtering through
the boughs and falling across the turf and the paths, where people were
walking and sitting, and children and babies playing together. It was a
delightful scene; and Katy received an impression of space and cheer and
air and freshness, which ever after was associated with her recollection
of Boston.
Rose was quite satisfied with her raptures as they drove through Charles
Street, between the Common and the Public Garden, all ablaze with autumn
flowers, and down the length of Beacon Street with the blue bay shining
between the handsome houses on the water side. Every vestibule and
bay-window was gay with potted plants and flower-boxes; and a concourse
of happy-looking people, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages, was
surging to and fro like an equal, prosperous tide, while the sunlight
glorified all.
"'Boston shows a soft Venetian side,'" quoted Katy, after a while. "I
know now what Mr. Lowell meant when he wrote that. I don't believe there
is a more beautiful place in the world."
"Why, of course there isn't," retorted Rose, who was a most devoted
little Bostonian, in spite of the fact that she had lived in Washington
nearly all her life. "I've not seen much beside, to be sure, but that is
no matter; I know it is true. It is the dream of my life to come into
the city to live. I don't care what part I live in,--West End, South
End, North End; it's all one to me, so long as it is Boston!"
"But don't you like Longwood?" asked Katy, looking out admiringly at the
pretty places set amid vines and shrubberies, which they were now
passing. "It looks so very pretty and pleasant."
"Yes, it's well enough for any one who has a taste for natural
beauties," replied Rose. "I haven't; I never had. There is nothing I
hate so much as Nature! I'm a born cockney. I'd rather live in one room
over Jordan and Marsh's, and see the world wag past, than be the owner
of the most romantic villa that ever was built, I don't care where it
may be situated."
The cab now turned in at a gate and followed a curving drive bordered
with trees to a pretty stone house with a porch embowered with Virginia
creepers, before which it stopped.
"Here we are!" cried Rose, springing out. "Now, Katy, you mustn't even
take time to sit down before I show you the dearest baby that ever was
sent to this sinful earth. Here, let me take your bag; come straight
upstairs, and I will exhibit her to you."
They ran up accordingly, and Rose took Katy into a large sunny nursery,
where, tied with pink ribbon into a little basket-chair and watched over
by a pretty young nurse, sat a dear, fat, fair baby, so exactly like
Rose in miniature that no one could possibly have mistaken the
relationship. The baby began to laugh and coo as soon as it caught sight
of its gay little mother, and exhibited just such another dimple as
hers, in the middle of a pink cheek. Katy was enchanted.
"Oh, you darling!" she said. "Would she come to me, do you think, Rose?"
"Why, of course she shall," replied Rose, picking up the baby as if she
had been a pillow, and stuffing her into Katy's arms head first. "Now,
just look at her, and tell me if ever you saw anything so enchanting in
the whole course of your life before? Isn't she big? Isn't she
beautiful? Isn't she good? Just see her little hands and her hair! She
never cries except when it is clearly her duty to cry. See her turn her
head to look at me! Oh, you angel!" And seizing the long-suffering baby,
she smothered it with kisses. "I never, never, never did see anything so
sweet. Smell her, Katy! Doesn't she smell like heaven?"
Little Rose was indeed a delicious baby, all dimples and good-humor and
violet-powder, with a skin as soft as a lily's leaf, and a happy
capacity for allowing herself to be petted and cuddled without
remonstrance. Katy wanted to hold her all the time; but this Rose would
by no means permit; in fact, I may as well say at once that the two
girls spent a great part of their time during the visit in fighting for
the possession of the baby, who looked on at the struggle, and smiled on
the victor, whichever it happened to be, with all the philosophic
composure of Helen of Troy. She was so soft and sunny and equable, that
it was no more trouble to care for and amuse her than if she had been a
bird or a kitten; and, as Rose remarked, it was "ten times better fun."
"I was never allowed as much doll as I wanted in my infancy," she said.
"I suppose I tore them to pieces too soon; and they couldn't give me tin
ones to play with, as they did wash-bowls when I broke the china ones."
"Were you such a very bad child?" asked Katy.
"Oh, utterly depraved, I believe. You wouldn't think so now, would you?
I recollect some dreadful occasions at school. Once I had my head pinned
up in my apron because I _would_ make faces at the other scholars, and
they laughed; but I promptly bit a bay-window through the apron, and ran
my tongue out of it till they laughed worse than ever. The teacher used
to send me home with notes fastened to my pinafore with things like this
written in them: 'Little Frisk has been more troublesome than usual
to-day. She has pinched all the younger children, and bent the bonnets
of all the older ones. We hope to see an amendment soon, or we do not
know what we shall do.'"
"Why did they call you Little Frisk?" inquired Katy, after she had
recovered from the laugh which Rose's reminiscences called forth.
"It was a term of endearment, I suppose; but somehow my family never
seemed to enjoy it as they ought. I cannot understand," she went on
reflectively, "why I had not sense enough to suppress those awful
little notes. It would have been so easy to lose them on the way home,
but somehow it never occurred to me. Little Rose will be wiser than
that; won't you, my angel? She will tear up the horrid notes--mammy
will show her how!"
All the time that Katy was washing her face and brushing the dust of the
railway from her dress, Rose sat by with the little Rose in her lap,
entertaining her thus. When she was ready, the droll little mamma tucked
her baby under her arm and led the way downstairs to a large square
parlor with a bay-window, through which the westering sun was shining.
It was a pretty room, and had a flavor about it "just like Rose," Katy
declared. No one else would have hung the pictures or looped back the
curtains in exactly that way, or have hit upon the happy device of
filling the grate with a great bunch of marigolds, pale brown, golden,
and orange, to simulate the fire, which would have been quite too warm
on so mild an evening. Morris papers and chintzes and "artistic" shades
of color were in their infancy at that date; but Rose's taste was in
advance of her time, and with a foreshadowing of the coming "reaction,"
she had chosen a "greenery, yallery" paper for her walls, against which
hung various articles which looked a great deal queerer then than they
would to-day. There was a mandolin, picked up at some Eastern sale, a
warming-pan in shining brass from her mother's attic, two old samplers
worked in faded silks, and a quantity of gayly tinted Japanese fans and
embroideries. She had also begged from an old aunt at Beverly Farms a
couple of droll little armchairs in white painted wood, with covers of
antique needle-work. One had "Chit" embroidered on the middle of its
cushion; the other, "Chat." These stood suggestively at the corners of
the hearth.
"Now, Katy," said Rose, seating herself in "Chit," "pull up 'Chat' and
let us begin."
So they did begin, and went on, interrupted only by Baby Rose's coos and
splutters, till the dusk fell, till appetizing smells floated through
from the rear of the house, and the click of a latch-key announced Mr.
Browne, come home just in time for dinner.
The two days' visit went only too quickly. There is nothing more
fascinating to a girl than the menage of a young couple of her own age.
It is a sort of playing at real life without the cares and the sense of
responsibility that real life is sure to bring. Rose was an adventurous
housekeeper. She was still new to the position, she found it very
entertaining, and she delighted in experiments of all sorts. If they
turned out well, it was good fun; if not, that was funnier still! Her
husband, for all his serious manner, had a real boy's love of a lark,
and he aided and abetted her in all sorts of whimsical devices. They
owned a dog who was only less dear than the baby, a cat only less dear
than the dog, a parrot whose education required constant supervision,
and a hutch of ring-doves whose melancholy little "whuddering" coos were
the delight of Rose the less. The house seemed astir with young life all
over. The only elderly thing in it was the cook, who had the reputation
of a dreadful temper; only, unfortunately, Rose made her laugh so much
that she never found time to be cross.
Katy felt quite an old, experienced person amid all this movement and
liveliness and cheer. It seemed to her that nobody in the world could
possibly be having such a good time as Rose; but Rose did not take the
same view of the situation.
"It's all very well now," she said, "while the warm weather lasts; but
in winter Longwood is simply grewsome. The wind never stops blowing day
nor night. It howls and it roars and it screams, till I feel as if every
nerve in my body were on the point of snapping in two. And the snow,
ugh! And the wind, ugh! And burglars! Every night of our lives they
come,--or I think they come,--and I lie awake and hear them sharpening
their tools and forcing the locks and murdering the cook and kidnapping
Baby, till I long to die, and have done with them forever! Oh, Nature is
the most unpleasant thing!"
"Burglars are not Nature," objected Katy.
"What are they, then? Art? High Art? Well, whatever they are, I do not
like them. Oh, if ever the happy day comes when Deniston consents to
move into town, I never wish to set my eyes on the country again as long
as I live, unless--well, yes, I should like to come out just once more
in the horse-cars and _kick_ that elm-tree by the fence! The number of
times that I have lain awake at night listening to its creaking!"
"You might kick it without waiting to have a house in town."
"Oh, I shouldn't dare as long as we are living here! You never know what
Nature may do. She has ways of her own of getting even with people,"
remarked her friend, solemnly.
No time must be lost in showing Boston to Katy, Rose said. So the
morning after her arrival she was taken in bright and early to see the
sights. There were not quite so many sights to be seen then as there are
today. The Art Museum had not got much above its foundations; the new
Trinity Church was still in the future; but the big organ and the bronze
statue of Beethoven were in their glory, and every day at high noon a
small straggling audience wandered into Music Hall to hear the
instrument played. To this extempore concert Katy was taken, and to
Faneuil Hall and the Athenaeum, to Doll and Richards's, where was an
exhibition of pictures, to the Granary Graveyard, and the Old South.
Then the girls did a little shopping; and by that time they were quite
tired enough to make the idea of luncheon agreeable, so they took the
path across the Common to the Joy Street Mall.
Katy was charmed by all she had seen. The delightful nearness of so many
interesting things surprised her. She perceived what is one of Boston's
chief charms,--that the Common and its surrounding streets make a
natural centre and rallying-point for the whole city; as the heart is
the centre of the body and keeps up a quick correspondence and regulates
the life of all its extremities. The stately old houses on Beacon
Street, with their rounded fronts, deep window-casements, and here and
there a mauve or a lilac pane set in the sashes, took her fancy greatly;
and so did the State House, whose situation made it sufficiently
imposing, even before the gilding of the dome.
Up the steep steps of the Joy Street Mall they went, to the house on Mt.
Vernon Street which the Reddings had taken on their return from
Washington nearly three years before. Rose had previously shown Katy the
site of the old family house on Summer Street, where she was born, now
given over wholly to warehouses and shops. Their present residence was
one of those wide old-fashioned brick houses on the crest of the hill,
whose upper windows command the view across to the Boston Highlands; in
the rear was a spacious yard, almost large enough to be called a garden,
walled in with ivies and grapevines, under which were long beds full of
roses and chrysanthemums and marigolds and mignonette.
Rose carried a latch-key in her pocket, which she said had been one of
her wedding-gifts; with this she unlocked the front door and let Katy
into a roomy white-painted hall.
"We will go straight through to the back steps," she said. "Mamma is
sure to be sitting there; she always sits there till the first frost;
she says it makes her think of the country. How different people are! I
don't want to think of the country, but I'm never allowed to forget it
for a moment. Mamma is so fond of those steps and the garden."
There, to be sure, Mrs. Redding was found sitting in a wicker-work
chair under the shade of the grapevines, with a big basket of mending
at her side. It looked so homely and country-like to find a person
thus occupied in the middle of a busy city, that Katy's heart warmed
to her at once.
Mrs. Redding was a fair little woman, scarcely taller than Rose and very
much like her. She gave Katy a kind welcome.
"You do not seem like a stranger," she said, "Rose has told us so much
about you and your sister. Sylvia will be very disappointed not to see
you. She went off to make some visits when we broke up in the country,
and is not to be home for three weeks yet."
Katy was disappointed, too, for she had heard a great deal about Sylvia
and had wished very much to meet her. She was shown her picture, from
which she gathered that she did not look in the least like Rose; for
though equally fair, her fairness was of the tall aquiline type, quite
different from Rose's dimpled prettiness. In fact, Rose resembled her
mother, and Sylvia her father; they were only alike in little
peculiarities of voice and manner, of which a portrait did not enable
Katy to judge.
The two girls had a cosey little luncheon with Mrs. Redding, after which
Rose carried Katy off to see the house and everything in it which was in
any way connected with her own personal history,--the room where she
used to sleep, the high-chair in which she sat as a baby and which was
presently to be made over to little Rose, the sofa where Deniston
offered himself, and the exact spot on the carpet on which she had stood
while they were being married! Last of all,--
"Now you shall see the best and dearest thing in the whole house,"
she said, opening the door of a room in the second story.--
"Grandmamma, here is my friend Katy Carr, whom you have so often
heard me tell about."
It was a large pleasant room, with a little wood-fire blazing in a
grate, by which, in an arm-chair full of cushions, with a
Solitaire-board on a little table beside her, sat a sweet old lady.
This was Rose's father's mother. She was nearly eighty; but she was
beautiful still, and her manner had a gracious old-fashioned courtesy
which was full of charm. She had been thrown from a carriage the year
before, and had never since been able to come downstairs or to mingle
in the family life.
"They come to me instead," she told Katy. "There is no lack of pleasant
company," she added; "every one is very good to me. I have a reader for
two hours a day, and I read to myself a little, and play Patience and
Solitaire, and never lack entertainment."
There was something restful in the sight of such a lovely specimen of
old age. Katy realized, as she looked at her, what a loss it had been
to her own life that she had never known either of her grandparents.
She sat and gazed at old Mrs. Redding with a mixture of regret and
fascination. She longed to hold her hand, and kiss her, and play with
her beautiful silvery hair, as Rose did. Rose was evidently the old
lady's peculiar darling. They were on the most intimate terms; and
Rose dimpled and twinkled, and made saucy speeches, and told all her
little adventures and the baby's achievements, and made jests, and
talked nonsense as freely as to a person of her own age. It was a
delightful relation.
"Grandmamma has taken a fancy to you, I can see," she told Katy, as they
drove back to Longwood. "She always wants to know my friends; and she
has her own opinions about them, I can tell you."
"Do you really think she liked me?" said Katy, warmly. "I am so glad
if she did, for I _loved_ her. I never saw a really beautiful old
person before."
"Oh, there's nobody like her," rejoined Rose. "I can't imagine what it
would be not to have her." Her merry little face was quite sad and
serious as she spoke. "I wish she were not so old," she added with a
sigh. "If we could only put her back twenty years! Then, perhaps, she
would live as long as I do."
But, alas! there is no putting back the hands on the dial of time, no
matter how much we may desire it.
The second day of Katy's visit was devoted to the luncheon-party of
which Rose had written in her letter, and which was meant to be a
reunion or "side chapter" of the S.S.U.C. Rose had asked every old
Hillsover girl who was within reach. There was Mary Silver, of course,
and Esther Dearborn, both of whom lived in Boston; and by good luck
Alice Gibbons happened to be making Esther a visit, and Ellen Gray came
in from Waltham, where her father had recently been settled over a
parish, so that all together they made six of the original nine of the
society; and Quaker Row itself never heard a merrier confusion of
tongues than resounded through Rose's pretty parlor for the first hour
after the arrival of the guests.
There was everybody to ask after, and everything to tell. The girls all
seemed wonderfully unchanged to Katy, but they professed to find her
very grown up and dignified.
"I wonder if I am," she said. "Clover never told me so. But perhaps she
has grown dignified too."
"Nonsense!" cried Rose; "Clover could no more be dignified than my baby
could. Mary Silver, give me that child this moment! I never saw such a
greedy thing as you are; you have kept her to yourself at least a
quarter of an hour, and it isn't fair."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with
her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way.
"We only need Mrs. Nipson to make our little party complete," went on
Rose, "or dear Miss Jane! What has become of Miss Jane, by the way? Do
any of you know?"
"Oh, she is still teaching at Hillsover and waiting for her missionary.
He has never come back. Berry Searles says that when he goes out to walk
he always walks away from the United States, for fear of diminishing the
distance between them."
"What a shame!" said Katy, though she could not help laughing. "Miss
Jane was really quite nice,--no, not nice exactly, but she had good
things about her."
"Had she!" remarked Rose, satirically. "I never observed them. It
required eyes like yours, real 'double million magnifying-glasses of
h'extra power,' to find them out. She was all teeth and talons as far
as I was concerned; but I think she really did have a softish spot in
her old heart for you, Katy, and it's the only good thing I ever knew
about her."
"What has become of Lilly Page?" asked Ellen.
"She's in Europe with her mother. I dare say you'll meet, Katy, and what
a pleasure that will be! And have you heard about Bella? she's teaching
school in the Indian Territory. Just fancy that scrap teaching school!"
"Isn't it dangerous?" asked Mary Silver.
"Dangerous? How? To her scholars, do you mean? Oh, the Indians! Well,
her scalp will be easy to identify if she has adhered to her favorite
pomatum; that's one comfort," put in naughty Rose.
It was a merry luncheon indeed, as little Rose seemed to think, for she
laughed and cooed incessantly. The girls were enchanted with her, and
voted her by acclamation an honorary member of the S.S.U.C. Her health
was drunk in Apollinaris water with all the honors, and Rose returned
thanks in a droll speech. The friends told each other their histories
for the past three years; but it was curious how little, on the whole,
most of them had to tell. Though, perhaps, that was because they did not
tell all; for Alice Gibbons confided to Katy in a whisper that she
strongly suspected Esther of being engaged, and at the same moment Ellen
Gray was convulsing Rose by the intelligence that a theological student
from Andover was "very attentive" to Mary Silver.
"My dear, I don't believe it," Rose said, "not even a theological
student would dare! and if he did, I am quite sure Mary would consider
it most improper. You must be mistaken, Ellen."
"No, I'm not mistaken; for the theological student is my second cousin,
and his sister told me all about it. They are not engaged exactly, but
she hasn't said no; so he hopes she will say yes."
"Oh, she'll never say no; but then she will never say yes, either. He
would better take silence as consent! Well, I never did think I should
live to see Silvery Mary married. I should as soon have expected to find
the Thirty-nine Articles engaged in a flirtation. She's a dear old
thing, though, and as good as gold; and I shall consider your second
cousin a lucky man if he persuades her."
"I wonder where we shall all be when you come back, Katy," said Esther
Dearborn as they parted at the gate. "A year is a long time; all sorts
of things may happen in a year."
These words rang in Katy's ears as she fell asleep that night. "All
sorts of things may happen in a year," she thought, "and they may not be
all happy things, either." Almost she wished that the journey to Europe
had never been thought of!
But when she waked the next morning to the brightest of October suns
shining out of a clear blue sky, her misgivings fled. There could not
have been a more beautiful day for their start.
She and Rose went early into town, for old Mrs. Bedding had made Katy
promise to come for a few minutes to say good-by. They found her sitting
by the fire as usual, though her windows were open to admit the
sun-warmed air. A little basket of grapes stood on the table beside her,
with a nosegay of tea-roses on top. These were from Rose's mother, for
Katy to take on board the steamer; and there was something else, a small
parcel twisted up in thin white paper.
"It is my good-by gift," said the dear old lady. "Don't open it now.
Keep it till you are well out at sea, and get some little thing with it
as a keepsake from me."
Grateful and wondering, Katy put the little parcel in her pocket. With
kisses and good wishes she parted from these new made friends, and she
and Rose drove to the steamer, stopping for Mr. Browne by the way. They
were a little late, so there was not much time for farewells after they
arrived; but Rose snatched a moment for a private interview with the
stewardess, unnoticed by Katy, who was busy with Mrs. Ashe and Amy.
The bell rang, and the great steam-vessel slowly backed into the stream.
Then her head was turned to sea, and down the bay she went, leaving Rose
and her husband still waving their handkerchiefs on the pier. Katy
watched them to the last, and when she could no longer distinguish them,
felt that her final link with home was broken.
It was not till she had settled her things in the little cabin which
was to be her home for the next ten days, had put her bonnet and dress
for safe keeping in the upper berth, nailed up her red and yellow bag,
and donned the woollen gown, ulster, and soft felt hat which were to do
service during the voyage, that she found time to examine the
mysterious parcel.
Behold, it was a large, beautiful gold-piece, twenty dollars!
"What a darling old lady!" said Katy; and she gave the gold-piece a
kiss. "How did she come to think of such a thing? I wonder if there is
anything in Europe good enough to buy with it?"