ANOTHER HOME-COMING
Mrs. Sturgis stepped eagerly off the twelve-five train on to the Bedford
Station platform, and stood looking expectantly about her. A few seconds
later Ken came charging through the crowd from the other end of the
platform. They held each other for a moment at arms' length, in the
silent, absorbing welcome when words seem insufficient; then Kenelm
picked up his mother's bag and tucked her hand through his arm.
"Now don't get a cab, or anything," Mrs. Sturgis begged. "I can
perfectly well walk to the street-car--or up to the house, for that
matter. Oh, I'm so much, much better."
"Well," Ken said, "I thought we'd have a little something to eat first,
and then--"
"But we'll have lunch as soon as we get home, dear. What--"
"Well, the fact is," Ken said hastily, "you see we're not at Westover
Street just now. We've been staying in the country for a while, at the
jolliest old place, and, er--they want you to come up there for a while,
too."
Ken had been planning different ways of telling his mother of the
passing of the Westover Street house, all the way down from Asquam. He
could not, now, remember a single word of all those carefully thought
out methods of approach.
"I don't think I quite understand," Mrs. Sturgis said. "Are you staying
with friends? I didn't know we knew any one in the country."
They were in the middle of the street, and Ken chose to focus his
attention on the traffic.
"Let's get to the lunch place," he said. "It's quieter there, to talk."
"Still wearing that old suit, dear?" Mrs. Sturgis said, touching Ken's
sleeve as he hung up his overcoat in the restaurant.
"Er--this is my good suit," Ken murmured. "That is, it's the only suit I
have--that is--"
"See here," said Mrs. Sturgis, whose perceptions were beginning to
quicken as she faced a member of her family again with the barrier of
cautious letters thrown aside; "there's been _enough_ money, hasn't
there?"
"Lots," Ken said hastily. "We've been living royally--wait till you see.
Oh, it's really a duck of a place--and Phil's a perfect wonder."
"_What's_ a duck of a place?"
"Applegate Farm. Oh law! Mother dear, I'll have to tell you. It's only
that we decided the old house was too expensive for us to run just for
ourselves, so we got a nice old place in the country and fixed it up."
"You decided--you got a place in the country? Do you mean to say that
you poor, innocent children have had to manage things like _that_?"
"We didn't want you to bother. _Please_ don't worry, now." Ken looked
anxiously across the table at his mother, as though he rather expected
her to go off in a collapse again.
"Nonsense, Ken, I'm perfectly all right! But--but--oh, please begin at
the beginning and unravel all this."
"Wait till we get on the train," Ken said. "I want to arrange my topics.
I didn't mean to spring it on you this way, at all, Mother. I wish Phil
had been doing this job."
But Ken's topics didn't stay arranged. As the train rumbled on toward
Bayside, the tale was drawn from him piecemeal; what he tried to
conceal, his mother soon enough discovered by a little questioning. Her
son dissimulated very poorly, she found to her amusement. And, after
all, she must know the whole, sooner or later. It was only his wish to
spare her any sudden shock which made him hold back now.
"And you mean to tell me that you poor dears have been scraping along on
next to nothing, while selfish Mother has been spending the remnant of
the fortune at Hilltop?"
"Oh, pshaw, Mother!" Ken muttered, "there was plenty. And look at you,
all nice and well for us. It would have been a pretty sight to see _us_
flourishing around with the money while you perished forlorn, wouldn't
it?"
"Think of all the wealth we'll have _now_," Mrs. Sturgis suggested, "all
the hundreds and hundreds that Hilltop has been gobbling."
"I'd forgotten that," whistled Ken. "Hi-ya! We'll be bloated
aristocrats, we will! We'll have a steak for dinner!"
"Oh, you poor chicks!" said his mother. She must hear about the Sturgis
Water Line, and hints of the Maestro, and how wonderful Phil had been,
teaching Kirk and all, and how perfectly magnificent Kirk was
altogether--a jumbled rigamarole of salvaged motor-boats, reclaimed
farm-house, music, somebody's son at sea, and dear knows what else, till
Mrs. Sturgis hardly knew whether or not any of this wild dream was
verity. Yet the train--and later, the trolley-car--continued to roll
through unfamiliar country, and Mrs. Sturgis resigned herself trustfully
to her son's keeping.
At the Asquam Station, Hop was drawn up with his antiquated surrey. He
wore a sprig of goldenrod in his buttonhole, and goldenrod bobbed over
the old horse's forelock.
"Proud day, ma'am," said Hop, as Ken helped his mother into the wagon,
"Proud day, I'm sure."
"As if I were a wedding or something," whispered Mrs. Sturgis. "Ken, I'm
excited!"
She looked all about at the unwinding view up Winterbottom Road--so
familiar to Ken, who was trying to see it all with fresh eyes. They
climbed out at the gate of the farm, and Hop turned his beast and
departed. Half-way up the sere dooryard, Ken touched his wondering
mother's arm and drew her to a standstill. There lay Applegate Farm,
tucked like a big gray boulder between its two orchards. Asters, blue
and white, clustered thick to its threshold, honeysuckle swung buff
trumpets from the vine about the windows. The smoke from the white
chimney rose and drifted lazily away across the russet meadow, which
ended at the once mysterious hedge. The place was silent with the
silence of a happy dream, basking content in the hazy sunlight of the
late September afternoon.
Mrs. Sturgis, with a little sound of surprised delight, was about to
move forward again, when her son checked her once more. For as she
looked, Kirk came to the door. He was carrying a pan and a basket. He
felt for the sill with a sandaled toe, descended to the wide door-stone,
and sat down upon it with the pan on his knees. He then proceeded to
shell Lima beans, his face lifted to the sun, and the wind stirring the
folds of his faded green blouse. As he worked he sang a perfectly
original song about various things.
Mrs. Sturgis could be detained no longer. She ran across the brown
grass and caught Kirk into her arms--tin pan, bean-pods, and all. She
kissed his mouth, and his hair, and his eyes, and murmured ecstatically
to him.
"Mother! _Mother_!" Kirk cried, his hands everywhere at once; and then,
"Phil! _Quick_!"
But Phil was there. When the Sturgis family, breathless, at last sorted
themselves out, every one began talking at once.
"_Don't_ you really think it's a nice place?"
"You came sooner than we expected; we meant to be at the gate."
"Oh, my dear dears!"
"_Mother_, come in now and see everything!" (This from Kirk, anxious to
exhibit what he himself had never seen.)
"Come and take your things off--oh, you _do_ look so well, dear."
"Look at the nice view!"
"Don't you think it looks like a real house, even if we did get it?"
"Oh, children _dear_! let me gather my poor scattered wits."
So Mrs. Sturgis was lovingly pulled and pushed and steered into the
dusky little living-room, where a few pieces of Westover Street
furniture greeted her strangely, and where a most jolly fire burned on
the hearth. Felicia removed her mother's hat; Ken put her into the big
chair and spirited away her bag. Mrs. Sturgis sat gazing about her--at
the white cheese-cloth curtains, the festive bunches of flowers in every
available jug, the kitchen chairs painted a decorative blue, and at the
three radiant faces of her children.
Kirk, who was plainly bursting with some plan, pulled his sister's
sleeve.
"Phil," he whispered loudly, "do you think now would be a good time to
do it!"
"What? _Oh_--yes! Yes, go ahead, to be sure," said Felicia.
Kirk galloped forthwith to the melodeon, which Mrs. Sturgis had so far
failed to identify as a musical instrument, seated himself before it,
and opened it with a bang. He drew forth all the loudest stops--the
trumpet, the diapason--for his paean of welcome.
"It's a triumphal march, in your honor," Felicia whispered hastily to
her mother. "He spent half of yesterday working at it."
Mrs. Sturgis, who had looked sufficiently bewildered became frankly
incredulous. But the room was now filled with the strains of Kirk's
music. The Maestro would not, perhaps, have altogether approved of its
bombastic nature--but triumphant it certainly was, and sincere. And what
the music lacked was amply made up in Kirk's face as he played--an
ineffable expression of mingled joy, devotion, and the solid
satisfaction of a creator in his own handiwork. He finished his
performance with one long-drawn and really superb chord, and then came
to his mother on flying feet.
"I meant it to be much, much nicer," he explained, "like a real one that
the Maestro played. But I made it all for you, Mother, anyway--and the
other was for Napoleon or somebody."
"Oh, you unbelievable old darling!" said Mrs. Sturgis. "As if I wouldn't
rather have that than all the real ones! But, Ken--you didn't tell me
even that he could play do-re-mi-fa!"
"Well, _Mother_!" Ken protested, "I couldn't tell you _everything_."
And Mrs. Sturgis, striving to straighten her tangled wits, admitted the
truth of this remark.
After supper, which was a real feast, including bona fide mutton-chops
and a layer cake, the Sturgis family gathered about the fireside.
"This is _home_ to you," Mrs. Sturgis said. "How strange it seems! But
you've made it home--I can see that. How did you, you surprising people?
And such cookery and all; I don't know you!"
Phil and Ken looked at one another in some amusement.
"The cookery," said Felicia, "I'll admit came by degrees. Do you
remember that very first bread?"
"If I recall rightly, I replaced that loose stone in the well-coping
with it, didn't I?" said Ken, "or did I use it for the _Dutchman's_ bow
anchor?"
"Nothing was wrong with those biscuits, tonight," Mrs. Sturgis said.
"Come and sit here with me, my Kirk."
Felicia blew out the candles that had graced the supper-table, drew the
curtains across the windows where night looked in, and came back to sit
on the hearth at her mother's feet. The contented silence about the fire
was presently broken by a tapping at the outer door, and Ken rose to
admit the Maestro and Martin. The Maestro, after a peep within,
expressed himself loth to disturb such a happy time, but Ken haled him
in without more ado.
"Nonsense, sir," he said. "Why--why you're part of us. Mother wouldn't
have seen half our life here till she'd met you."
So the Maestro seated himself in the circle of firelight, and Martin
retired behind a veil of tobacco-smoke--with permission--in the corner.
"We came," said the Maestro, after a time of other talk, "because we're
going away so soon, and--"
"Going away!" Three blank voices interrupted him. Kirk left even his
mother's arm, to find his way to the Maestro's.
"But I do go away," said the old gentleman, lifting a hand to still all
this protest, "every autumn--to town. And I came partly to ask--to beg
you--that when cold weather seems to grip Applegate Farm too bitterly,
you will come, all of you, to pay an old man a long visit. May I ask it
of you, too, Mrs. Sturgis? My house is so big--Martin and I will find
ourselves lost in one corner of it. And--" he frowned tremendously and
shook Kirk's arm, "I absolutely forbid Kirk to stop his music. How can
he study music without his master? How can he study without coming to
stay with his master, as it was in the good old days of apprenticeship?"
Felicia looked about the little shadow-flecked room.
"I know what you're thinking," said the Maestro, smoothing Kirk's dark
hair. "You're hating the thought of leaving Applegate Farm. But perhaps
the winter wind will sing you a different tune. Do you not think so,
Mrs. Sturgis?"
Mrs. Sturgis nodded. "Their experience doesn't yet embrace all the
phases of this," she said.
"Yes," said the Maestro, "some day before the snows come, you will come
to me. And we'll fill that big house with music, and songs, and
laughing--yes, and work, too. Ah, please!" said the Maestro, quite
pathetically.
Felicia put her hand out to his.
"We _will_ come, dear Maestro," she said, "when this little fire will
not keep us warm any longer."
"Thank you," said the Maestro.
From behind them came murmurous talk of ships--Ken and Martin
discussing the _Celestine_ and her kind, and the magic ports below the
Line. Kirk whispered suddenly to the Maestro, who protested.
"Oh, please!" begged Kirk, his plea becoming audible. "_Really_ it's a
nice thing. I know Ken makes fun of it, but I _have_ learned a lot from
it, haven't I? Please, Maestro!"
"Very well, naughty one," said the musician; "if your mother will
forgive us."
He bowed to her, and then moved with Kirk into the unlit part of the
room where the little organ stood. With a smile of tender amusement, he
sat down at the odd little thing and ran his fingers up and down the
short, yellowed keyboard. Then, with Kirk lost in a dream of rapt
worship and listening ecstasy beside him, he began to play. And his
touch made of the little worn melodeon a singing instrument, glorified
beyond its own powers by the music he played.
The dimly firelit room swam with the exquisite echo of the melody. Ken
and Martin sat quiet in their corner. Felicia gazed at the dear people
in the home she had made: at Ken, who had made it with her--dear old
Ken, the defender of his kindred; at Kirk, for whom they had kept the
joy of living alight; at the Maestro, the beautiful spirit of the place;
at her mother, given back to them at last. Mrs. Sturgis looked
wonderingly at her children in the firelight, but most of all at Kirk,
whose face was lighted, as he leaned beside the Maestro, with a radiance
she had never before seen there.
And without, the silver shape of a waning moon climbed between the
black, sighing boughs of the laden orchard, and stood above the broad,
gray roof of Applegate Farm.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Happy Venture, by Edith Ballinger Price