HOME AGAIN
Betty dries her tears, and looks up.
She is in the train now, speeding towards the great, smoky city, where
she has lived nearly all her life.
She watches the fields and woods flying past, and her thoughts are sad.
Already Grannie seems far away. The little white cottage is hidden among
those great moors yonder. She can see them still, although they are
growing fainter every minute, fading into the blue of the sky.
"Dear Grannie! how good she has been to me--how happy I have been with
her!"
She pulls a little Bible out of her pocket. Grannie put it into her
hands as she gave her the first kiss this morning.
"I will read it every morning and evening," she thinks, "just as Grannie
does. When I see the words I shall remember the very sound of her voice
and the look in her dear eyes. That will help me so much."
The thought comforts her, and she looks about more cheerfully.
"Grannie has promised to write to me, and I'm to write to her. How I
shall love her letters! I know just how she'll write--she is so wise and
strong, and yet so loving and kind. But what sort of letters shall I
write to Grannie?
"Why, of course, I must tell her all my troubles, and how hard I am
fighting--_so_ hard! Then she must know everything about the wonderful
victories I mean to win. How pleased she will be! I shall have plenty of
battles to fight, for home is horrid sometimes--it really is.
"There's Bob; when Bob is in one of his teasing fits it's almost
impossible to keep one's temper. But _I_ mean to do it. Bob shall have
to own that he _can't_ make me cross.
"Then I do believe Clara is the most trying servant in the whole world.
Well, I'm going to teach her that a dirty face and torn apron are a real
disgrace, and I'll show her how to keep the kitchen just as Grannie
keeps hers.
"I do wish I could persuade mother to keep the sitting-room tidier, and
finish her house-work in the morning, and do her hair before dinner. If
she'd only let me manage everything, I believe I should get on much
better.
"Jennie and Pollie must learn to sew, and Harry to read, and Lucy really
must leave her perpetual poring over books and take an interest in her
home like other girls. And father--dear old father!--he shall have all
his meals at the proper time, instead of scrambling through them at the
last minute; and I'll keep his socks mended, and his handkerchiefs
ironed. Yes, Grannie's quite right--there are heaps of battles to fight
every day. I'll fight them, too; I'll manage everything; I'll be more
than conqueror! Oh, how surprised and glad she will be!"
And Betty sinks back in her seat with quite a self-satisfied smile.
And still the fields fly past; they are flatter now; the woods have
disappeared, and every now and then the engine rushes screaming through
the station of a large town.
Betty eats her lunch of Grannie's apples and home-made cake. She is sad
no longer. The battle-field is before her; she is eager for the fight.
"I'm _glad_ now that things are so tiresome at home; there is so much
more for me to put right. What a change I'll make in everything!"
All her doubts have vanished; she is sure of success. As for failure and
defeat, that is clearly impossible!
It is late in the afternoon before long lines of houses, stretching away
in every direction, begin to warn her that she is nearing home.
Be sure her head is out of the window long before the train draws up at
the well-known platform, and her eyes are eagerly straining to catch the
earliest possible glimpse of father's face. For Betty loves her father
dearly.
There he is! The platform is crowded, but she sees him directly. He sees
her, too, and, pushing his way through the crowd, he opens the carriage
door, and she springs into his arms.
"Aye, Betty, my girl, I'm glad to see you back again!" he says; that is
all. But John Langdale is a man of few words, and this is a great deal
from him.
[Illustration: "How did you leave your Grannie?"]
He shoulders her bag, and makes his way through the pile of luggage,
the bustling porters, and anxious passengers, Betty following as best
she can.
Her head feels giddy and bewildered after the long train journey, and
the noise, and hurry, and smoky air, all is so different from the quiet
country scenes she left eight hours ago.
Her father does not speak again until they are safely seated on the top
of a homeward-bound bus; and even then, before he speaks a word, he
turns to his daughter, and looks searchingly in her face.
There is a change in Betty's face that tells of more than the mere
return of health and strength.
"Aye, well, my girl!" he says softly.
Betty smiles confidingly into his eyes, and nestles closer to his side.
He half smiles in return, and then turns away with a sigh. For he
thinks, "It is the country air and her Grannie's care that have made
such a change in my Betty, and now she will have neither."
"Well, how did you leave your Grannie?" he says aloud.
"Oh, ever so well! And she sent lots of love and messages--and other
things--for the children, you know. The other things are in the bag. Be
careful you don't smash the jam-pots! I'll tell you the messages as I
remember them. And the love--Oh, father, Grannie showed me what real
love is; and, father, I----" Betty comes to a full stop.
"Well, well, my girl, what is it?" asks her father, turning his eyes
inquiringly to her face.
"Grannie has taught me so many things," she goes on, in a low voice,
"and somehow, without saying much, she made me understand how selfish I
have been; how through all these years I have been trying to do without
God. And--and she took me to The Army Meetings, and last night I--I
asked God to forgive me and make me as good as Grannie."
Betty's voice has sunk to the merest whisper, but father hears it above
all the roar of the traffic.
"That's right, my girl. God bless you, Betty!" he says, heartily, and
now at last a bright smile lights up his careworn face.
"Here we are!" says father, presently, and he signals to the driver. The
bus pulls up at the entrance to a small street, father shoulders the
bag, and Betty, scrambling down after him, soon finds herself standing
on the shabby little front doorstep of her home.
A narrow, dull street it is; closely packed with dull houses, all built
in one pattern, all alike grey with smoke, all looking as though no
breath of spring air, or gleam of spring sunshine, could ever find their
way through the close-shut windows.
All too swiftly Betty's thoughts travel back to the white cottage in the
hills, to the sunny garden, the fresh moorland breezes.
The contrast is too much for her; a big lump seems to rise in her
throat. Her eyes fill with tears; her good resolutions fade away.
She doesn't want to be at home--Oh, that she were with Grannie now!
Father has found his key at last, and fits it into the lock. At the same
moment there is a rush of noisy feet within, the loud clamour of excited
voices. Directly the door is flung open Betty is surrounded by a
boisterous crowd of younger brothers and sisters--they seize her, they
dance round her, shouting out their rough welcome.
"We knew it was you! Mother, here's our Betty! Come along, Betty." And
they almost drag her down the passage into the family sitting-room.
Tea is set on the round table. Betty's quick eye notices that the tray
is slopped with milk, and the stained cloth askew. "How different from
Grannie's tea-table," she thinks bitterly.
"Where's mother?" she asks, after kissing her brothers and sisters all
round.
"She was rather late to-day, and so she's only just gone upstairs to
tidy herself," explains Lucy. Lucy is next in age to Betty. "You mustn't
go up, she'll be down in a minute."
"This bag feels pretty heavy," exclaims Bob, the eldest boy, "anything
good in it, Betty?" and he begins fumbling at the fastening.
"My flowers--Oh, Bob, do be careful!" cries Betty, rushing to the rescue
of her daffodils and wallflowers. How sweet and fresh they looked this
morning, how crushed and faded now!
"You careless boy; you've broken the stalks off ever so many! Put the
bag down. Oh, dear, why isn't mother here! Father's washing his hands, I
suppose. Lucy, do ask mother to make haste; here's the kettle boiling
away, and the tea not in the pot or anything." Betty is growing more
irritable every minute; but now mother appears.
"Well, Betty, here you are at last, then."
Mrs. Langdale is a large, fair-haired woman. Her gown is only
half-fastened, and stray wisps of hair are hanging round her face. This
is nothing unusual, for Betty's mother is scarcely ever neatly dressed.
Betty knows this well enough. It would be well if she understood the
look of love in her mother's eyes as clearly as she sees the untidiness
of her mother's dress.
"Well, Betty, I'm glad to have you back again, that I am; there's so
much to be done in this house, and time slips away so. Now, to-day, I
really made up my mind to have everything ready by the time you came in,
but what with one thing and another--Pollie, take your fingers out of
the sugar-bowl, you naughty child--Jennie, fetch the knives, they're in
the scullery, I forgot them; make haste now! Can't you see your sister
wants her tea?"
She pushes a few loose tags of hair out of her eyes, and begins making
the tea, talking all the time.
"Well, my dear, did your Grannie send any message to me? What sort of
journey did you have? How did those boots wear? Now did you----?"
"Betty's too tired to talk just yet, I think," interposes her father,
coming in that moment. "She'll tell us everything after tea."
Indeed, Betty does feel dreadfully tired. The noise and confusion
bewilder her. Every one seems to be talking at once. It is all so
different from the quiet orderliness of Grannie's home.
The knives are brought at last, the tea made, and for awhile the younger
children are too busy with their bread and butter even for talk.
Tea over, however, the tumult begins afresh. The tea-things are just
pushed to one side of the table, and then mother begins to unpack the
bag.
Shrieks of delight greet the various packages, the table is soon strewn
with Grannie's good things. The paper is torn from the cake; Bob seizes
on a great pot of blackberry jam, bumps against a chair and drops the
pot with a crash to the floor. The sticky mess, mixed with broken glass,
spreads slowly over the carpet.
"There you go, you tiresome boy!" cries mother fretfully. "Always
smashing something, always spoiling things. If you eat a bit of it
you'll swallow broken glass, and serve you right. Lucy, ask Clara for a
duster and pail of water to mop up the mess. Who told you to touch that
cake, Pollie? Jennie, how dare you meddle with the honey--you'll overset
that next! I don't believe there ever were such rude, tiresome,
disobedient children! I'm sure I don't know what to do with you all.
Harry, Jennie, Pollie, I _won't_ have that cake eaten to-night! You
shall all just pack off to bed."
The younger children sober down a little at this threat, and presently,
between coaxings, and slappings, and the promise of unlimited cake
to-morrow, they go off noisily to bed.
How thankful Betty is when she manages at last to escape to her own
little room, and lays her weary head on her pillow!
She is utterly tired out. Too tired to remember any of her good
resolutions; too tired even to think.