ELIZA SURRENDERS
Eliza had begun some work in the kitchen which she could not at once
leave when Mrs. Wright called her, so the latter brought Phil into the
house.
"No wonder Eliza didn't expect me twice a day," he said. "What an
interesting old place this is."
"Yes," answered Mrs. Wright; "and we are making the most of the few
days that it will still be all ours. Miss Jane Foster, who owns it,
comes almost immediately to take possession and receive her summer
boarders."
"But won't that be a rest for you?"
"Scarcely; for Eliza has taken such a laboring oar that I live in the
lap of luxury, so far as work is concerned."
Eliza came in, in time to hear this statement. "Don't you believe it,
Mr. Philip. She's the busy bee of the house; but we've both had just
enough to do."
"Eliza!" exclaimed Phil, approaching and taking both her hard hands.
"Why, I didn't half see you in that shade hat! You look like a new
being."
Eliza laughed and colored under the scrutiny. Her added pounds had
distributed themselves comfortably and becomingly. She did, indeed,
bear little resemblance to the haggard creature of the autumn.
"Why, let me look at you!" went on the artist gladly. "You've robbed
me of a whole lot of good material. If you posed for me now, it would
amount to nothing more than the portrait of a lady."
Mrs. Wright laughed, well pleased, and amused, too, at the embarrassed
manner in which Eliza pulled away her hands.
"But you stay on here, I suppose, just the same," said Phil, turning
back to his hostess.
"Oh, yes. I've taken a room for Violet, my niece, and Miss Foster has
made a business arrangement with Eliza to be her helper, so the only
great difference will be the arrival of new people."
Considerations immediately ran through Phil's head of this home as a
possibility for his prolonged stay. Second thought, however, pictured
the going and coming of summer boarders and the impossibility of
privacy. Besides, he could not afford it.
He picked up a small black book which his eye had caught lying beside
the Bible on Mrs. Wright's table.
"Oh!" he said, raising his eyebrows and looking at her with a smile.
"Do you know it?" she asked.
"My mother lives by it," he returned.
"Then her boy does, I'm sure," said Mrs. Wright.
"He tries to," answered Phil. "I was just thinking now of our
philosophy, and trying to know that, if it's right for me to stay on
this island, it will come to pass. I feel as if I could do a lot of
work here."
"Mrs. Fabian will have too much of a houseful?"
"Perhaps not; but there couldn't be any independence in that; and I
couldn't bring paint rags into her spick-and-span cottage."
"Take board here," suggested Mrs. Wright.
Phil shook his head. "I don't want to give the price for a long pull.
Miss Manning prophesied that I should live under a rock rather than
leave. I'll go rock-hunting some day."
"There must be some way, Mr. Philip!" exclaimed Eliza, who had
listened attentively. The intensity of her manner reminded Phil of
other days.
"You should have more stables on the island," he returned. "It's very
thoughtless of you."
"We can all help him, remember, Eliza," said Mrs. Wright--"you know
I've told you--by thinking right."
"Goodness knows, I'd think anything that'd keep him here," returned
Eliza bluntly. "He's as white as a candle, and it makes me sick to
think o' the perspiration runnin' into his eyes. What d'you want me to
think? I'll say the moon's made o' green cheese, if it'll do any good."
"No, it only does good to think the truth. It's law. You remember how
I've told you that we live under laws and they aren't material ones?
Our thoughts are our whole concern. Get thought right, and action takes
care of itself. You're stopping up one of the channels through which
good can come to you and yours. You consider Mr. Sidney one of yours,
I'm sure."
Eliza averted her eyes uncomfortably.
"Yes," went on Mrs. Wright, smiling, "I'm speaking right out in
meeting, because you've told me that Mr. Sidney knows of your
antagonism."
"She's talkin' about the barrel," remarked Eliza dryly.
"Oh, the barrel!" laughed Phil. "I'd forgotten about that. So has Aunt
Isabel, I fancy."
"I'll bet a cookie she went to your room and tried to get it," said
Eliza, eyeing him shrewdly.
Phil nodded. "Yes, she did."
Eliza struck her hands together with satisfaction. "I'd give more'n a
cookie to have seen her face when she got there," she said triumphantly.
"No, I wasn't talking about the barrel," continued Mrs. Wright. "That
is your own affair: whether you care to keep those family treasures
or to give them up. I was speaking in general about your forgiving
Mrs. Fabian as you would be forgiven, and banishing discord from the
atmosphere. How can you tell how much sunlight that cloud is holding
back from this dear boy of Mrs. Ballard's?"
Eliza stared into space and bit her lip. The three were standing in a
group near the table.
"Well, sit down, anyway," she said briefly, and they did so.
Phil saw that there was method in Mrs. Wright's choosing of this
particular opportunity to make a point. Hers was the face of a
peacemaker and it was easy to see what pain she would find in discord.
Now she turned to Phil and asked him about his father and mother, and
he told her of the mountains, and his periodical longing for them. This
place, he added, gave him a similar sense of exhilaration. It seemed as
if he were breathing again for the first time since November.
"You've got to stay," said Eliza nervously; "that's all there is about
it."
He smiled. "The bark on a tree isn't as tight as I am," he replied.
"I've planned to make my money do just so much."
"'With God all things are possible,'" remarked Mrs. Wright.
"Yes," he laughed; "I'm going to look for a cave with a skylight."
Eliza's thoughts were painfully busy. The constant dropping of the
winter had made an impression on their adamant. Supposing there should
be anything in what Mrs. Wright just said. Supposing God were to punish
her for continuing to hate an enemy; punish her by holding back some
benefit from her dear one's _protégé_.
She stirred around in her chair during a pause. "I've been thinkin'
to-day," she said carelessly, "that I didn't exactly know what I was
goin' to do with that barrel. I've got to bring it down from upstairs
before Jennie gets here."
"Let me do that for you," said Phil quickly. "I've been honing to lift
something heavy all the afternoon. I've felt as if I could lick my
weight in wild cats ever since dinner."
He started up with such eagerness that Eliza mechanically arose and
went to the stairs, Phil following; and Mrs. Wright, a hopeful light in
her eyes, looked on.
"We've got to get these rooms ready for boarders," explained Eliza as
they went up to the second story. "It's real clever of you to lug the
barrel down for me."
Phil smiled covertly as he recognized the old bone of contention with
the flourishing address he had executed, and he steered it down the
narrow stairs successfully.
Eliza had preceded him nimbly.
As soon as she reached the living-room, Mrs. Wright approached her.
"Where are you going to put it?" she asked, looking wistfully at Eliza.
"Oh, anywhere," replied the latter with bravado.
"Jane wouldn't like it in here, of course," remarked Mrs. Wright.
"Well, I suppose I have a right to my own room, haven't I?" Eliza
retorted sharply.
"Wouldn't it be very much in the way, dear? You have it fixed so pretty
in there."
"Well, what's the reason it can't stand in the shed?" asked Eliza, with
defiance.
Mrs. Wright shook her head. "'Where moth and rust doth corrupt,'" she
said slowly.
Phil now had the barrel down, and was standing beside it, waiting.
"Whither away, now?" he asked.
"Eliza," said Mrs. Wright, "there's a wheelbarrow out in the shed."
Eliza colored and bit her lip. "Do you know," she said, turning to
Phil, "Mrs. Wright wants me to give those things to Mrs. Fabian?"
"Well, it would tickle Aunt Isabel almost to pieces," he admitted.
"Do you see any reason or justice in it?"
Phil smiled. "It's a luxury to do an unreasonable thing once in a
while," he answered.
"If I thought it would do you the least bit o' good," said Eliza, "I'd
do anything. I'd find a white hair in a black dog's tail and burn it
by the light o' the moon, at midnight," she added scornfully; "but
unluckily I ain't superstitious."
Phil glanced at Mrs. Wright's sweet, earnest face, and understood that
she had thought deeply of the prospect of discord between the two
cottages.
"Come on, Eliza," he said, with boyish enthusiasm, "it would be great
fun to see Aunt Isabel's face. Even if you were after revenge, coals of
fire are a mighty punishment, and if you're only being magnanimous and
letting bygones be bygones why, who knows but it will be the means of
my finding the cave with the skylight?"
Eliza turned away suddenly from his laughing eyes. "All right," she
said, "take it! I'll show you where the wheelbarrow is; and when you've
got it across that hubbly field you won't be looking for wild cats to
fight."
"Oh, but you'll steady the barrel."
"Will I! Well, you can guess again, young man." Eliza's eyes flashed.
"Oh, pshaw," he said. "Don't make two bites of a cherry. If the barrel
goes, you go."
Eliza met his gay, determined look with exasperation.
"This is persecution," she declared angrily; then added beseechingly,
"Don't make me, Mr. Philip."
"I couldn't let you miss it," he returned. "We have the white hair of
the black dog, but, you see, we have to burn it."
Eliza looked appealingly toward Mrs. Wright, whose face was expectant.
"Dear Eliza," she said.
"Don't you 'dear' me," snapped Eliza. "Come this way, Mr. Philip."
She marched out of the room, and Mrs. Wright seized and squeezed Phil's
hand as he passed. He gave her a laughing look.
Soon the march across the field began. Mrs. Wright watched them
from the window. Eliza, her shade hat tied primly down beneath her
chin, steadied the barrel when Phil's route encountered too great an
irregularity.
"Dear martyr," thought Mrs. Wright, who had caught a glimpse of
her companion's expression as they moved away. "She does love that
beautiful boy. I hope her reward will come soon."
Captain James had just driven back down the hill after bringing up the
trunks when Phil and Eliza reached the shaven sward about the Fabian
cottage.
Phil dropped the wheelbarrow at the steps.
"Wait here a minute, Eliza, till I reconnoitre," he said. "This was a
sleeping castle when I left."
"Now, if they're asleep--" said Eliza, hastily and hopefully; but Phil
had disappeared quietly around the corner which led to the windbreak.
As he approached, the sound of voices mingled with the tide, so he
advanced with confidence.
Kathleen was sitting on the edge of the hammock facing her mother, who
looked around as Phil came in view.
"Here we are, awake at last," she said. "Where have you been? How well
you look! You have quite a flush."
He came close to her. "I've been helping Eliza Brewster bring you a
present," he said.
Mrs. Fabian was all attention, but a look of resentment spread over her
countenance.
"She is here with me," went on Phil, low and rapidly. "It means a good
deal, you know. I hope you will be very nice to her."
Kathleen, alertly comprehending, rose from the hammock and moved past
her mother and around to where Eliza stood by the steps, schooling
herself.
"You can't get out of a barrel what ain't in it," she reflected.
"'Tain't any use tappin' a barrel o' vinegar and bein' mad 'cause maple
syrup don't come out."
"You scarcely spoke to me this morning," said Kathleen pleasantly, "you
were so glad to see Mr. Sidney."
Eliza shook hands awkwardly. Kathleen Fabian seemed even to her
prejudice to ring true. "She don't inherit vinegar," thought Eliza. "I
don't know why I shouldn't give her the benefit o' the doubt. Maybe she
is maple clear through."
Mrs. Fabian now came in stately fashion around the corner into view.
Her eyes caught sight of the barrel and glistened. It was almost
impossible to believe that--
"How do you do, Eliza?" she said, in mellifluous tones. "Mr. Sidney
tells me you wish to see me--"
"Yes, about this barrel," interrupted Eliza, with nervous haste. "It's
some o' the things Mrs. Ballard left me that I thought you'd enjoy
havin'. It's her silver and china, just as I packed 'em in New York. I
haven't taken out anything."
"Why, really, Eliza, do you know, I appreciate that very much," said
Mrs. Fabian graciously, "and I shall enjoy them far more here than I
could in New York. I--"
"Yes,'m," said Eliza, "I've got to hurry back to get supper. We have a
real early tea."
"No, not until you've come in and seen where Aunt Mary's things are to
be. I really couldn't allow you to go without sitting down a minute to
rest."
"No, no, thank you," said Eliza, more hurriedly.
"Perhaps you did come in and see the cottage while it was being
prepared for us."
"No, ma'am," returned Eliza, arrested in flight. "I've never been as
near to it as this."
"I wish you would come in, then," said Kathleen. "We think it's very
pretty."
So Eliza yielded, and Phil followed her into the house, showing her the
views from the windows, and before she came out again she had exchanged
remarks with Mrs. Fabian on the increased price of lobsters and other
practical subjects.
"Really quite human," commented Mrs. Fabian when the guest had departed.
"And how well she looks," said Kathleen.
"Now," remarked her mother complacently, "you see my own has come to
me. I knew Eliza was half-crazy last autumn. I just anticipate pulling
over those funny old things."
Meanwhile Phil and Eliza were retracing their steps across the field.
"There! that didn't hurt much, did it?" he asked.
"I haven't got much use for her," replied Eliza, "but I do believe
Kathleen Fabian's a sensible girl."
"Our friend Edgar is coming to-morrow," remarked Phil.
Eliza looked up at him shrewdly from beneath the shade hat. "Is that
the reason you want to be a cave man?"
Phil laughed. "Perhaps it's one," he admitted. "He's a
rather--well--pervasive person, we'll say. I need elbow room to
work. Isn't this a great place, Eliza?" The speaker's eyes swept the
surroundings. "You're farther from the sea than the Fabians. You have a
grand orchard, I see," added Phil, laughing; "or does it belong to that
little cottage over there?"
"Where? Oh, you mean the chicken-house?"
"Chicken-house! Are the hens here so high-toned they have to have
windows besides their roosts? There are places out West where the
reason for the cows giving little milk is said to be because they
become so enchanted with the scenery that they forget to eat. I suppose
those hens go up to the second floor to watch the sunset."
Phil looked curiously at the little story and a half building guarded
by the balm-of-Gilead trees.
"Law, there ain't any hens there," replied Eliza. "A pig wouldn't live
there now. I'm itchin' to burn it down, it's so dirty."
"Nobody lives there?" asked Phil.
"No, not since Granny Foster that it was built for. She scared us
children out of our wits in her time, and I s'pose we pestered her,
'cause of course we was imps and couldn't keep away. We'd rather play
tricks on her than eat, but only a few got their courage up to do more
than knock on the door and run away. That door! My! to think I can walk
up to it and open it. It seems wonderful even now."
"Let's go and open it," said Phil, eagerly, beginning to stride in that
direction.
"Oh, no, Mr. Philip, keep away. It's too dirty and musty in there for
words. Jennie quit keepin' hens a long time ago, and I guess she just
let it rot away there, 'cause 'twa'n't worth cleanin'!"
"Oh, but I want to see where little Eliza was scared," persisted Phil,
hurrying so fast that Eliza was obliged to run after him. She stood
away a little, though, with her long nose lifted while he opened the
door and his eager eyes swept the interior.
"Don't you go in there, oh, don't, Mr. Philip," she said. "I can tell
you just what there is, a parlor and a kitchen, and a rough kind o'
steps that go upstairs where there's only half a floor. It would make a
grand bonfire. I wish Jennie'd let us."
"She owns it, does she? The woman that's going to keep your
boarding-house?"
"Oh, yes; all this land's hers and the orchard."
Phil closed the dingy door and walked around back of the cottage.
Apparently, Granny Foster had liked the view of the open ocean,
contrary to the taste of most of the women on the island, who had good
reason to dread its mighty power. At any rate, while the front of the
little house grew straight out of the grass, the back had once boasted
a piazza, which had fallen away and capsized in the field which ran
down to the water's edge.
"What a view your old lady had!" said Phil, standing still and
listening to the rustling leaves that whispered in the orchard.
"'Tis a sightly place," said Eliza.
The artist looked with starry eyes over the little cottage again and
then at his companion.
"It's wonderful," he said.
"'M-h'm," agreed Eliza; "and it'll do you all the good in the world if
you can only stay here."
Phil's radiant smile beamed upon her.
"Why, I'm going to stay. Can't you see what I'm thinking?"
"No," replied Eliza, staring at him curiously.
"I've found my cave." He waved his hand toward the chicken-house. "Do
you think Jennie'll let me have it?"
"Mr. Philip!" exclaimed Eliza distractedly, clasping her hard hands as
his meaning broke upon her. "There ain't any use to talk about it even!
How could I ever clean that place for you!"
"I shan't let you touch it! Hurrah!" exclaimed the artist, turning a
somersault in the grass and coming right-side up so suddenly that Eliza
blinked.
"Oh, my sorrows and cares!" she mourned; "it's the craziest idea"--
"When, when did you say she's coming?"
"To-morrow. Dear, dear!" Eliza was half laughing and half crying.
"Then I've only to wait one night. Oh, it's too good to be true, like
everything else that happens to me." Another flight of long arms and
legs accompanied by a whoop of joy, and once more Phil was right-side
up and catching Eliza by the arm.
"Let's go and tell Mrs. Wright," he exclaimed, and hurried his
companion toward the farmhouse, where Mrs. Wright was sitting on the
rustic bench.
"He's crazy," declared Eliza. "Tell him so. There must be lots o'
better places. That wouldn't smell good in a thousand years."
But when Phil had divulged his great plan, Mrs. Wright nodded.
"The very thing," she said. "I'm sure Jane will let you use it free,
and be glad to have it put in shape. Then you can take as many or as
few meals here as you like."
Her calm, happy approval closed Eliza's lips in a desperate silence.
"I must rush back to my hostesses," said Phil. "Hurrah for us, Eliza.
I'll go to every boat to meet Jennie."
He started across the field on a long, swinging run.
"Splendid boy," mused Mrs. Wright, aloud, looking after him.
Eliza had sunk on the bench, dumb.
"Now, then," her friend turned to her; "see how you've helped him."
Eliza's eyes snapped. "Do you mean to say," she retorted, speaking fast
and defiantly, "that if I hadn't gone over to Mrs. Fabian's and given
her the dishes, he wouldn't 'a' found that chicken-house?"
Mrs. Wright smiled and shook her head.
"There's only one thing I know, Eliza," she said with deliberation,
"and that is that Love is Omnipotence, and that in every problem we
mortals have the choice of looking down into error and discord, or up
into Truth and Harmony."
Eliza's breath caught in her throat, and she felt so strangely stirred
that she rose abruptly and went into the house.