AN ACCIDENT AND AN APPARITION
The screams of Dorothy and Alfaretta brought Mrs. Chester hurrying back
to them and as she saw what had happened her alarm increased, for it
seemed impossible that a helpless person, like her husband, should go
through such an accident and come out safe.
For a moment her strength left her and she turned giddy with fear,
believing that she had brought her invalid here only to be killed. The
next instant she was helping the girls to free themselves from the
tangle of wheels, briars, and limbs; and then all three took hold of the
heavy chair to lift it from the prostrate man.
"John! John! Are you alive? Speak--do speak if you love me!" cried poor
mother Martha, frantic with anxiety.
But for a time, even after they had lifted him to the bank above, Mr.
Chester lay still with closed eyes and no sign of life about him. There
was a bruise upon his forehead where he had struck against a rock in
falling; and, seeing him so motionless, poor Dorothy buried her face in
her hands and sobbed aloud:
"Oh! I've killed him! I've killed my precious father!"
"There is a bridge across the ditch just yonder!--Why didn't you see it!
How could you--" began Mrs. Chester; yet got no further in her
up-braidings, for father John opened his eyes and looked confusedly
about him.
Either the sound of voices or the liberal dash of cold water, which
thoughtful Alfaretta had rushed away to bring and throw upon him, had
restored him to consciousness, and his beclouded senses rapidly became
normal. It had been a great shock but, more fortunately than his
frightened wife at first dared to believe, there were no broken bones,
and it was with intense thankfulness that she now picked up his crutches
and handed them to him at his demand.
"Well, I reckon wooden feet are safest, after all! I've never--I'll
never go without them. Good thing I brought them--No, thank you!
Walking's good!" he cried, with all his usual spirit though in a weak
voice.
They had managed to get the chair into position and found it as
uninjured as its owner. A few scratches here and there marred the polish
of the frame and one cushion had sustained an ugly rent. It had been a
very expensive purchase for the donors and an ill-advised one. A
lighter, cheaper chair would have been far more serviceable; and, as
father John tried to steady himself upon his crutches, he regarded it
with his familiar, whimsical smile that comforted them all more readily
than words:
"The boys might as well have given me an automobile! Wouldn't have been
much more clumsy--nor dangerous!" he declared, trying to swing himself
forward from the spot where he stood, striving to steady himself upon
his safer "wooden feet."
"O John! how can you joke? You might be--be dead!" wailed mother Martha,
weeping and unnerved for the first time, now that all danger was past.
"And that's the best 'joke' of all. I might be but I'm not. So let's all
heave--heave away! for that pleasant shore of a wide lounge and
a--towel! With the best intentions--I've been ducked pretty wet!"
"That was my fault! I'm awful sorry but--but--that time John Babcock he
fell off the barn roof ma she flung a whole pail of water right out the
rain-barrel onto him and that brung him to quicker'n scat. So I
remembered and I'm real sorry now," explained Alfaretta, more abashed
than ordinarily: and in her own heart feeling that the guilt of
carelessness which caused the accident had been more hers than
Dorothy's. "And nobody needn't scold Dolly C. 'Cause she didn't know
about the bridge over an' I did, and----"
"No, no! My fault, my very own!" interposed Dorothy hastily.
"Let nobody blame nobody! All's well that ends well! Alfaretta mustn't
regret her serviceable memory nor my drenching, for she's a wise little
maid and I owe my 'coming to,' to her 'remembering.' As for you, Dolly
darling, let me see another tear in your eye and I will 'scold' in
earnest. Now, Martha, wife, I'll give it up. I'm rather shaky on my pins
yet and the chair it must be, if I'm to put myself in connection with
that lounge. I shan't need the towel after all. I've just let myself
'dreen,' as my girl used to do with the dishes, sometimes!"
He talked so cheerily and so naturally that he almost deceived them into
believing that he was not a whit the worse for his tumble, and as they
helped him to be seated and began to push him up the slope toward the
cottage, he whistled as merrily as he had used to do upon his postal
route.
"And you ain't goin' to the gold mine after all?" asked Alfy, much
disappointed. It was a spot she had hitherto shunned on account of its
ghostly reputation, but was eager to visit now in company with these
owners of it, who scoffed at the "haunt." She wanted to show them she
was right and see what they would say then.
"Gold mine? Trash! If there had been such a thing on this farm, a man as
clever as my uncle Simon Waterman would have used some of the 'gold' to
keep things in better shape. I don't want to hear any more of that
nonsense, nor to have you, Dorothy, go searching for the place. Our
first trip to hunt for gold has been a lesson to us all," said mother
Martha, with such sharpness that Alfaretta stared and the others, who
knew her better, realized that this was a time to keep silence.
More than once that day was the good housewife tempted to send the three
visiting Babcocks home, but was too courteous to do so. She longed to
have her daughter to herself, and to discuss with her not only the
happenings of the past but plans for the future. Besides this desire,
she also saw, at last, how badly shaken by his fall her husband was and
that he needed perfect quiet--a thing impossible to procure with
Alfaretta Babcock in the cottage.
However, the day wore away at length. The girl showed herself as useful
in the dinner-getting and clearing away as she had done at breakfast
time; also, she and her sisters brought to it as keen an appetite, so
that, after all, the clearing away was not so great a matter as might
be.
Dorothy kept the smaller girls out of doors, helping them to make a
playhouse with bits of stones, to stock it with broken crockery and
holly-hock dolls, and to entrance them with her store of fairy tales to
such a degree that Baretta decided:
"I'm comin' again, Dorothy Chester. I'm comin' ever' single day they
is."
"Oh, no! You mustn't do that!" gasped the surprised young hostess. "I
will have to work a great deal to help my mother and I shan't have time
for visiting."
"Me come, too, Do'thy Chetter," lisped Claretta. "Me like playhouth
futh-rate. Me come to-mowwow day, maybe."
Dorothy said no more, but found a way to end their plans by getting a
book for herself, and becoming so absorbed in it that they ceased to
find her interesting and wandered off by themselves to rummage in the
old barn; and, finally, to grow so tired of the whole place that they
began to howl with homesickness.
Dorothy let them howl. She had recently been promoted to the reading of
Dickens, and enthralled by the adventures of Barnaby Rudge she had
wandered far in spirit from that mountain farm and the disgruntled
Babcocks. Curled up on the grass beneath a low-branched tree she forgot
everything, and for a long time knew nothing of what went on about her.
Meantime, to keep Alfaretta's tongue beyond reach of her husband's ears,
Mrs. Chester had gone down into the cellar of the cottage which, her
visitor informed her, had once been the "dairy." Until now, since her
coming to Skyrie, the housemistress had occupied herself only in getting
the upper rooms cleaned and furnished with such of her belongings as she
had brought with her, and in attendance upon father John. She had not
attempted any real farm work, though she had listened to his plans with
patient unbelief in his power to accomplish any of them.
"If Dorothy should be found," had been his own conclusion of all his
schemes, during the time of their uncertainty concerning her; and
afterward, when news of her safety and early coming had reached them, he
merely changed this form to: "Now that Dorothy is found."
Everything had its beginning and end in "Dorothy." For her the garden
was to be made, especially the flower beds in it; the farm rescued from
its neglected condition and made a well-paying one, that Dorothy might
be educated; and because of Dorothy's love of nature the whole property
must be rendered delightfully picturesque.
Now Dorothy had really come; and, unfortunately, as Mrs. Chester
expressed it:
"I can see to the bottom of our pocket-book, John dear, and it's not
very deep down. Plans and talk are nice but it takes money to carry them
out. As for your doing any real work yourself, you can't till you get
well. 'Twould only hinder your doing so if you tried. We'll have to hire
a man to work the ground for us and clear it of weeds. If we can get him
to do it 'on shares,' so much the better; if he won't do that--Oh! hum!
To think of folks having more dollars than they can spend and we just
enough to starve on!"
This talk had been on that very day before, while they sat impatiently
awaiting her arrival, and it had made John Chester wince. While his life
had been in danger, even during all their time of doubt concerning their
adopted child, Martha had been gentleness and hopefulness indeed. She
had seemed to assume his nature and he hers: but now that their more
serious fears were removed, each had returned to his own again; she
become once more a fretter over trifles and he a jester at them.
"Don't say that, dear wife. I don't believe we will starve; or that
we'll have to beg the superfluous dollars of other people," he had
answered, hiding his regret for his own lost health and comfortable
salary.
But the much-tried lady was on the highroad toward trouble-borrowing and
bound to reach her end.
"I might as well say it as think it, John. I never was one to keep
things to myself that concern us both, as you did all that time you knew
you was going lame and never told me. Besides the man, we must have a
horse, or two of them. Maybe mules would come cheaper, if they have 'em
around here. We'll have to get a cow, of course. Milk and butter save a
lot of butcher stuff. Then we must get a pig. The pig will eat up the
sour milk left after the butter's made----"
"My dear, don't let him eat up the buttermilk, too! Save that for
Dorothy and me, please. Remember how the little darling used to coax for
a nickel to run to the 'corner' and buy a quart of it, when we'd been
digging extra hard in our pretty yard. And don't forget, in your
financial reckonings, to leave us a few cents to buy roses with. I've
been thinking how well some climbing 'Clothilde Souperts' would look,
trained against that barn wall, with, maybe, a row of crimson 'Jacks,'
or 'Rohans' in front. Dorothy would like that, I guess. I must send for
a new lot of florists' catalogues, since you didn't bring my old ones."
"I hadn't room; and I hope you won't. We've not one cent to waste on
plants, let alone dollars. Besides, once you and Dorothy get your heads
together over one those books you want all that's in it, from cover to
cover. There's things I want, too, but I put temptation behind me. The
whole farm's run to weeds and posies, anyhow. No need to buy more."
Father John had thought it wise to change the subject. Martha was the
best of wives, but there were some things in which she failed to
sympathize. He therefore remarked, what he honestly believed:
"I think it's wonderful, little woman, how you can remember so much
about farming, when you haven't lived on one since you were a child."
"Children remember better than grown folks. I don't forget how I used to
have to churn in a dash-churn, till my arms ached fit to drop off. And I
learned to milk till I could finish one cow in a few minutes; but it
nearly broke my fingers in two, at first. I wonder if I can milk now!
I'll have to try, anyway, soon as we get the cow. I guess you'd better
write an advertisement for the _Local News_, and I'll go to Mrs.
Calvert's place and ask her coachman to post it when he goes down the
mountains to meet the folks. Just to think we shall have our blessed
child this very night before we sleep!" ended the housemistress, with a
return of her good spirits.
Father John laughed with almost boyish gayety. Dorothy was coming!
Everything would be right. So he hobbled across to his own old desk
which Martha had placed in the cheeriest corner of the room assigned to
him, looking back over his shoulder to inquire:
"Shall it be for a cow, a horse, or that milk-saving pig? Or all three
at one fell swoop? Must I say second-hand or first-class? I never lived
on a farm, you know, and enjoyed your advantages of knowledge: and, by
the way, what will we do with the creatures when we get them? I haven't
been into that barn yet, but it looks shaky."
"John Chester! Folks don't keep pigs in their barns! They keep them in
pens. Even an ex-postman ought to know enough for that. And make the
thing short. The printers charge so much a word, remember."
"All right. 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' I'll condense."
Whistling over his task, Mr. Chester soon evolved the following "Want
Ad.":
"Immediate. Pig. Cow. Horse. Skyrie."
This effusion, over which he chuckled considerably, he neatly folded and
addressed to the publisher of the local newspaper and left on his desk
for his wife to read, then hobbled back to his bed to sleep away the
time till Dorothy came, if he could thus calm his happy excitement. But
it never entered his mind that his careful wife would not read and
reconstruct the advertisement before she dispatched it to its
destination.
However, this she did not do. She simply sealed and delivered it to old
Ephraim, just as he was on the point of starting for his mistress at the
Landing: and the result of its prompt appearance in the weekly sheet,
issued the next morning, was not just what either of the Chesters would
have desired.
After all, Alfaretta was good company down in that old cellar-dairy,
poking into things, explaining the probable usage of much that Martha
did not understand. For instance:
"That there great big wooden thing in the corner's a dog-churn. Ma says
'twas one more o' old Si Waterman's crazy kinks. He had the biggest kind
of a dog an' used to make him do his churnin'. Used to try, anyhow. See?
This great barrel-like thing is the churn. That's the treadmill
'Hendrick Hudson'--that was the dog's name--had to walk on. Step, step,
step! an' never get through! Ma says 'twas no wonder the creatur' 'd
run away an' hide in the woods soon's churnin' days come round. He knew
when Tuesday an' Friday was just as well as folks. Then old Si he'd
spend the whole mornin' chasing 'Hudson'--he was named after the river
or something--from Pontius to Pilate; an' when he'd catch him, Si'd be a
good deal more tuckered out an' if he'd done his churnin' himself."
Martha laughed, and rolling the big, barrel-churn upon its side was more
than delighted to see it fall apart, useless.
"How could he ever get cream enough to fill such a thing? Or enough
water to keep it clean? And look, Alfy! what a perfect rat-hole of dirt
and rubbish is under it. That old dog-churn must come down first thing.
I've a notion to take that rusty ax yonder and knock it to pieces
myself," she remarked and turned her back for a moment, to examine the
other portions of her future dairy.
Now good-natured Alfaretta was nothing if not helpful, and quite human
enough to enjoy smashing something. Before Mrs. Chester could turn
around, the girl had caught up the ax and with one vigorous blow from
her strong arm sent the dog-churn, already tumbling to pieces with age,
with a deafening rattle down upon the stone floor.
The sound startled John Chester from his restful nap, silenced the
outcries of the little Babcocks, and sent Dorothy to her feet, in
frightened bewilderment. For there before her, in the flesh, stood the
hero of the very book she dropped as she sprang up--Barnaby Rudge
himself!