AIR CASTLES WITH FOUNDATIONS
Aunt Jane said Helen must stay home from church Sunday morning, and help
with the dinner. Joe Northrup and two cousins were coming to visit. In
the afternoon all the younger portion went to Sunday School, and the
little leisure Helen had afterward was devoted to reading aloud their
library books. And when she came down Monday morning, Aunt Jane said in
her brisk, authoritative fashion:
"Now, Helen, you fly 'round and get at the washing. See if you can't
learn something useful in vacation. A big girl like you ought to know
how to do 'most everything. I washed when I had to stand up on a stool
to reach the washboard."
Considering that for the last two months Helen had helped with the
washing before school time, and had often run every step of the way
because she was late, the request did not strike her as pertaining
strictly to vacation. She went about her work cheerily. Uncle Jason had
whispered in her ear, "Don't you worry. I guess it will all come out
right."
Then the clothes were folded down, and after clearing the dinner away,
Helen began to iron. Aunt Jane dropped on the old lounge and took her
forty winks, then changed her gown, put on a clean white apron, which
Helen knew was for company, and the thought added to her blitheness.
Between three and four Mrs. Dayton drove up in the coupe with Mrs. Van
Dorn, who continued her journeying around. The Mulfords' front-yard was
rather pretty, with two borders of various flowers in bloom, and, as the
younger children had gone over to the woods, it was quiet and serene all
about. Helen glanced out of the side window, and gave thanks for the
decent appearance of the place.
The conversation seemed to be not altogether dispassionate. She heard
Aunt Jane raise her voice, and talk in her dogmatic manner. Oh! what if
she couldn't go! She clasped her hot hands up to her face, and the iron
stood there on the cloth and scorched, a thing Aunt Jane made a fuss
about.
Truth to tell, Mrs. Mulford had two minds pulling her in opposite
directions. It would just spoil Helen to go. She would hate working in
the shop afterward. She would be planning all the time to get to the
High School. She knew enough for ordinary girls. She would have to work
for her living, and she couldn't spend three years getting ready. There
was a little feeling, also, that she didn't want Helen any nicer or
finer than her own girls. They had a father who could help them along.
Helen hadn't. And if education shouldn't do more for her than it had for
her father!
But there was the money, and any kind of work that made actual money was
a great thing in Mrs. Mulford's estimation. Nine or ten weeks.
Twenty-seven or thirty dollars!
"You see, I'd counted on giving Helen a good training in housework this
vacation. When girls go to school they aint good for much that way. And
'long in October she's going in the shop, and then she won't have much
chance to learn. An' I d' know as it'll be a good thing for her to spend
her time readin' novels an' settin' 'round dreamin' and moonin'."
"She'll read a good deal beside novels. Mrs. Van Dorn is a very
intelligent woman, and keeps up to the times. She has all the magazines,
and the fine weekly papers, and she knows more of what is going on in
the big world than most of the men. Then Helen would assist me in many
things. Oh! I would see that she'd learn something useful every day,"
Mrs. Dayton declared, with a bright smile.
"Then she aint fixed up. She's outgrown most of her clothes, an' I'd
'lotted on having her sew some. She can run the machine, and I don't
believe in girls who can't do any sewing. I'd be ashamed to bring up one
so helpless. Here's my Jenny making most of her weddin' things. We don't
count on having a dressmaker till the last, to put on the finishing
touches."
"About the clothes," began Mrs. Dayton in a persuasive tone, "I have two
or three lawn dresses that would make over nicely for Helen. And you
know I did quite a bit of dressmaking through Mr. Dayton's long illness.
And there's my machine. She would have some time to sew. Oh, you could
depend on me not to let her waste her time."
Mrs. Dayton had certainly been a thrifty woman, if it was on higher
lines than anything Mrs. Jason aspired to. She had money in the bank,
beside getting her house clear.
Aunt Jane's arguments seemed over-ruled in such a pleasant yet decisive
manner that she began to feel out-generaled. Uncle Jason had said
yesterday, "You'd better let her go. If they wanted her in the shop
right away you'd send her. So what's the difference!"
"There's a great deal of difference," she answered sharply, but she
couldn't quite explain it. For Helen the three dollars a week really won
the day. Aunt Jane tried to stand out for the rest of the week, but Mrs.
Dayton said she would come over on Wednesday, and she knew she could fix
Helen up, without a bit of trouble.
"Don't let her fool away her money," said Aunt Jane. "You'd better keep
it until the end of the month."
Mrs. Dayton nodded and rose. The carriage was coming slowly up the road.
Aunt Jane did not go out in the kitchen, but upstairs, and looked over
Helen's wardrobe. A white frock, a cambric, blue, with white dots, and a
seersucker, trimmed with bands of blue. Then, there was the striped
white skirt of Jenny's she meant to make over. They could do that
to-morrow. She could conjure some of it out before supper-time, and put
in the shirts and collars, though at fourteen Helen ought to know how to
iron them. She would forget all she had learned. It really wasn't the
thing to let her go.
Helen went on ironing. 'Reely's white frock fell to her share; indeed,
it seemed as if 'most everything did to-day. She was hot and tired, and,
oh! if she could not go!
"I don't see why those young ones don't come back. 'Reely hasn't a bit
more sense than Fan. She needs a good trouncing, and she'll get it, too.
You leave off, Helen, and shell them beans; they ought to have been on
half an hour ago. And lay the two slices of ham in cold water to draw
out some of the salt; then the potatoes. I'll iron."
She did not ask, and Aunt Jane did not proffer her decision. Helen
feared it was adverse, then she recalled the fact that Aunt Jane always
told the unpleasant things at once. Ill tidings with her never lagged.
So she took heart of hope again. Then there were raspberries to pick.
And supper, and children scolded and threatened.
"Well?" said Uncle Jason inquiringly.
"She was here, but I haven't just made up my mind. She'll be here
Wednesday."
"Whew!" ejaculated Uncle Jason.
She went down the garden path to meet Jenny, who took the shortest way
across lots.
"I'm goin' to sleep on it," she said, after she had told Jenny.
"But you'll let her go! Why, it would be foolish!"
"I s'pose I shall. But I'll keep her on tenter hooks to-night. Right
down to the bottom I don't approve of it. She'll be planning all summer
to get to that High School. Three years is too much to throw away when
you're dependent on other folks."
So Helen had to go to bed unsatisfied, for Uncle Jason wouldn't be
waylaid.
"I've cut you a frock out of that striped muslin of Jenny's," Aunt Jane
announced, the next morning. "Sew up the seams, and put in the hem, and
then I'll fix the waist."
Aunt Jane was "handy," as many country women have to be.
"You were mighty close about that business of Sat'day afternoon," Aunt
Jane flung out when she could no longer contain herself. "I s'pose it
don't make much difference whether you go or not?"
"Oh, I should like to go." Helen's voice was unsteady. "But Mrs. Dayton
told Uncle Jason to talk it over with you, and then she would come and
see you, and he said--that it would be as--as--and it seemed as if I
hadn't much to do with it until----"
"Well, I've decided to let you go and try. They may not like you. Rich
old women are generally queer and finicky, and don't keep one mind
hardly a week at a time. So it's doubtful if you stay. Then it is a good
deal like being a servant, and none of the Mulfords ever lived out, as
far as I've heard."
Helen colored. She had not thought of that aspect. Neither had she
considered that her dream might come to an untimely end.
"And it seems a shame to waste the whole summer when there's so much to
do."
"But if they had wanted me in the shop you would have let me go,
wouldn't you?" Helen said in a tone that she tried hard to keep from
being pert.
"That would have been different. A steady job for years, and getting
higher wages all the time. I've told Jenny to engage the chance."
Years in a shop, doing one thing over and over! She recalled a sentence
she had heard Mr. Warfield quote several times from an English writer,
"But that one man should die ignorant who had a capacity for knowledge,
this I call tragedy!" She was not very clear in her own mind as to what
tragedy really was, but if one had a capacity for wider knowledge, would
it not be tragedy to spend years doing what one loathed? She hated the
smells of the shoe shop, the common air that seemed to envelop everyone,
the loud voices and boisterous laughs. And she wouldn't mind helping
someone for her board, and going to the High School. Why, she did a
great deal of work here, but it seemed nothing to Aunt Jane.
The frock was finished, and she washed it out, starched it, and would
iron it to-morrow morning. Then there were stockings to mend, although
the two younger boys went barefoot around the farm. And she worked up to
the very moment the carriage turned up the bend in the road, when she
ran and dressed herself while Aunt Jane packed the old valise. The
children stood around.
"Oh, Mis' Dayton, can't I come some day?" cried Fanny. "How long are
you going to keep Helen?"
"Till she gets tired and homesick," was the reply.
A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face
wonderfully.
They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen
questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of
the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.
"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She
hasn't a bit of gratitude."
"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned
Jenny with a laugh.
In the few years of her life, Helen had never been visiting, to stay
away over night. This was like some of the stories she had read and
envied the heroine. There was a small alcove off Mrs. Dayton's room,
with a curtain stretched across. For now the house was really full,
except one guest chamber. There was a closet for her clothes just off
the end of the short hall, that led to the back stairs, which ran down
to the kitchen, a spacious orderly kitchen, good enough to live in
altogether, Helen thought.
She helped to take the dishes out to Joanna, and begged to wipe them for
her.
"If you're not heavy handed," said Joanna, a little doubtful.
"Or butter-fingered," laughed Helen. "That's what we say at home. But
these dishes are so lovely that it is like--well it's like reading
verses after some heavy prose."
"I'm not much on verses," replied Joanna, watching her new help warily.
She did work with a dainty kind of touch.
Mrs. Dayton came, and stood looking at them with a humorous sort of
smile.
"She knows how to wipe dishes," said Joanna, nodding approvingly.
"It is a good deal to suit Joanna. No doubt she will excuse you this
time from wiping pots and pans, and you may come out of doors with me."
The lawn--they called it that here at North Hope--presented a
picturesque aspect. A party were playing croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe was
walking her twenty-months'-old little girl up and down the path. Mrs.
Van Dorn sat in a wicker rocking chair that had a hood over the top to
shield her from the air. Her silk gown flowed around gracefully, and her
hands were a sparkle of rings.
"Oh, how sweet the air is," said Helen. "There's sweet-clover somewhere,
and when the dew falls it is so delightful."
"They have it in the next-door lawn and the mower was run over it awhile
ago."
Helen drew long delicious breaths. No noisy children, and the soft
laughs, the gay talk was like music to her. She walked across the porch.
"Mrs. Dayton said you were fond of reading aloud," began Mrs. Van Dorn.
"Your voice is nice and smooth."
"Your voice is like your father's, Helen! I had not remarked it before.
Only it is a girl's voice," Mrs. Dayton commented.
"I am glad it suggests his," exclaimed Helen with a pleasurable thrill.
"Where is your father?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn.
"He is dead," said Mrs. Dayton. "Both father and mother are dead."
"I was an orphan, too," continued Mrs. Van Dorn. "And I had no near
relatives. It is a sorrowful lot."
"Helen has had good friends, relatives."
"That's a comfort. I heard, we all did, that you were one of the best
speakers at the closing of school. It was in the paper."
"Oh, was it?" Helen's eyes glowed with gratification.
"Yes. So Mrs. Dayton suggested you might be as good as some grown-up
body. That was Robert Browning's poem you recited."
"It is a splendid poem," cried Helen enthusiastically. "You can see it
all; the squadron--what was left of it after the battle--and the 'brief
and bitter debate,' and the order to blow up the vessels on the beach.
And then Herve Riel, just a sailor, stepping out and making his daring
proposal, and going 'safe through shoal and rock!' Oh, how the captain
must have stood breathless! And the English coming too late! I'm glad
someone put it in stirring verse."
Helen paused with a scarlet face. She never talked this way to anyone
except Mr. Warfield.
"Yes," said Mrs. Van Dorn, "I have seen the man who wrote it, talked
with him and his lovely wife, who wrote verses quite as beautiful. I
think you like stirring poems," in a half inquiry.
"Yes, I do," she replied tremulously, and in her girlish enthusiasm she
thought she could have fallen down at the feet of the man who wrote
Herve Riel. She never had thought of his being an actual living man.
"And do you know Macaulay's 'Horatius'?"
"Oh, I don't know very much--only the poems in the reading books, and a
few that Mr. Warfield had. I know most of Longfellow."
"The Center is rather behind the towns around, although it is the oldest
part; settled more than a hundred years ago. But it is largely farms.
The railroad passed it by some fifteen years ago, and the stations have
improved rapidly. Why, we have quite a library here, and the High School
for more than a half the county," explained Mrs. Dayton.
"It's not as pretty as this Hope. And the range of hills to the
northeast--I suppose you call them mountains--and the river, add so much
to it."
[Illustration: Helen put her head down suddenly, and pressed her lips on
the jewelled hand.--_Page 55._]
"And we have only a little creek that empties into Piqua River, and a
pond in a low place, that we skate on in the winter," said Helen
rather mirthfully. "I can't help wondering what the ocean is like, and
the great lakes, and Niagara Falls, and the Mississippi River with all
its mouths emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. And the Amazon, and the
Andes."
"And Europe, and the Alps, and the lovely lakes, and the Balkans, and
the Gulf of Arabia, and India, and the Himalayas, and Japan----"
"Oh, dear, what a grand world!" exclaimed Helen, when Mrs. Van Dorn
paused. "I don't suppose anyone has ever seen it all," and her tone was
freighted with regret.
"I have seen a good deal of it. I have been round the world, and lived
in many foreign cities."
"Oh! oh!" Helen put her head down suddenly and pressed her lips on the
jeweled hand. The unconscious and impulsive homage touched the old
heart.
"And people who have done wonderful things, who have painted pictures,
and made beautiful statues, and built bridges and churches and palaces,"
the girl assumed.
"Most of them were built before my time, hundreds of years ago. But I
have been in a great many of them."
"And seen the Queen!"
"If you mean Queen Victoria, yes. And other queens as well. And the
Empress of the French when she had her beauty and her throne."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Helen with a long breath. And Aunt Jane had called
her a queer old woman; Aunt Jane, who had never even been to New York.
It was getting too dark to play croquet. Mrs. Disbrowe had gone in some
time ago with her baby in her arms, and somehow it had suggested the
Madonna picture to Helen. The gentlemen smoked and talked. Then Mrs. Van
Dorn rose and bade them good-night, and pressed Helen's hand.
"I think I shall like your little girl very much," she said to Mrs.
Dayton, in the hall. "She's modest and not at all dull."
Mrs. Van Dorn stepped off, as if she was still at middle life. She was
wonderfully well preserved, but then, for almost forty years she had
taken the best of care of herself. She wouldn't have admitted to anyone
that she was past eighty. Sometimes in her travels she had a maid, often
when she was abroad she had both a maid and a man. For two years she
had been traveling about her own country, and seeing the changes.
Yet her life had not been set in rose leaves in her youth. She had
worked hard, had a lover who jilted her for a girl not half as pretty
but rich. And when she was thirty-five, a rich old man married her, and
gave her a lovely home; then, ten years afterward, left her a rich
widow, and told her to have the best time she could. If she could only
have had one little girl! She thought she would adopt one, but the child
with the lovely face had some mean traits, and she provided for her
elsewhere. She traveled, she met entertaining people; she liked refined
society; she acquired a good deal of knowledge with her pleasure.
But to grow old! And one had to some time. At ninety perhaps. What did
Ninon de l'Enclos do, and Madame Recamier? Plenty of fresh air, as much
exercise as she could stand, bathing and massage, cheerfulness, keeping
in touch with the world of to-day, and once-in-a-while a long, quiet
rest, and early to bed as she was doing here. Ah! if one could be set
back twenty years even, twenty real years, and have all that much longer
to live!
The child's admiration had touched her. It was not for her diamonds and
emeralds, for her Chantilly lace, nor for the fact that she had money
enough to buy costly things. Helen Grant was ignorant of the value of
these adornments. It was for the understanding of something finer and
larger, experiences garnered up, real knowledge. How odd in a little
country maiden! And this was sweeter than any of the ordinary flatteries
offered her.
Helen thought her little bed delightful, and she was not sure but it was
all a dream. She was still more bewildered when she opened her eyes.
Someone was gently stirring about. She sprang out on the floor.
"You needn't get up just yet," said Mrs. Dayton.
"Oh, I am used to it," with a bright smile. "And maybe I can help."
She did find many little things to do. It was so pleasant to be allowed
to see them herself, and do them without ordering. Mrs. Dayton said
"Will you do this or that," as if she _could_ decline, but she was very
glad to be of service.
Then the boarders sauntered in to breakfast, and that was done with.
Helen dusted the parlor, she had swept the porch and the paved walk
down to the street before the boarders were up. Then she helped with the
dishes.
"That girl knows how to work," and Joanna nodded approvingly.
"Perhaps you would like to go to market with me," suggested Mrs. Dayton.
"It would be well for you to learn your way about in case I wanted to
send you out of an errand."
"Oh! it would be splendid! But Mrs. Van Dorn----"
Mrs. Dayton laughed. "There comes Miss Gray, and the fussing will take a
good hour. Though I think it pays, even at a dollar an hour."
Helen was silent from amazement.
"Oh, she has patients at three dollars an hour, real invalids. And she
could get more in the city. Joanna knows about the breakfast. Mrs. Van
Dorn is wise enough not to gorge her stomach with useless and injurious
food. I never saw a person take better care of herself."
It was a very pleasant walk under maples and elms, with here and there
an old-fashioned Lombardy poplar; lindens with their fringy tassels, and
horse-chestnuts with their dense, spreading leaves. There was but one
real market in Hope, but numerous smaller attempts. Mrs. Dayton gave
her orders for the day's provision.
"Now, we will go around the longest way," smilingly. "There's the High
School. It calls in quite a number of winter boarders, and sometimes the
large boys prove very troublesome. And here is the Free Library, though
there is quite a tax to support it, and numerous contributions. There is
a fine reference-room for the scholars. Education seems to be made easy
now-a-days. Let us go in."
The lower floor was devoted to the library. A large room was shelved
around in alcoves, reserved for some particular kind of books. History,
biography, science, music, discoveries and travels, as well as novels.
The reading-room was at one end, the reference department at the other.
Just now it was very quiet, being rather dull times.
Up on the next floor was a fine auditorium for amusements and lectures.
In the wings were small rooms used for lodge meetings and such purposes.
Helen was very much interested. Oh, what a happy time! And yet she felt
a little conscience-smitten, as if she wasn't doing her whole duty.
The papers had come, and presently Mrs. Van Dorn took her accustomed
seat. Mrs. Pratt was at the corner of the piazza doing needlework. Miss
Lessing was sketching from nature. The younger girl was out hunting wild
flowers.
Helen read the home news, then the foreign news. It seemed queer to know
what they were doing in London, and Paris, and Rome, that hitherto had
been merely places on the map to her. And then what financiers in New
York were talking of, which really was an unknown language to her, but
not to Mrs. Van Dorn, who for years had held the key.
Perhaps the charm in Helen was her interest in what she was doing.
Sometimes she made quite a fanciful thing of her work at home, though
she was not what you would call a romantic girl. And now most of the
time she was reading, she put life into her tones. Mrs. Van Dorn had
been here and there, and she wanted the descriptions of things to seem
real to her.
"You're a very good reader," she said approvingly. "You must not let
anyone cultivate you on different lines with their elocutionary ideas,
or you will be spoiled. Who taught you?"
"Mr. Warfield. He was principal of the school. I was in his class last
year."
"He has some common sense. When you go to an opera you expect to hear
ranting and sighing, and sobbing, but sensible people do not talk that
way about the every-day things of life."
"I don't know what an opera is like," said Helen with a kind of bright
mirthfulness at her own ignorance.
"I suppose not. Men and women singing the love, and sorrow, and woe, and
trials of other men and women, long ago dead, or perhaps never alive
anywhere but in the composer's brain. It is the exquisite singing that
thrills you. But you wouldn't want it for steady diet."
Miss Lessing spoke of two famous singers who had been in New York during
the winter. And she had heard the Wagner Trilogy, which she thought
magnificent.
"Yes. I've heard it at Beyreuth." Mrs. Van Dorn nodded, as if it might
be an ordinary entertainment.
"Oh, it has been my dream to go abroad some time," and Miss Lessing
sighed.
And there was a girl in the world who loved her own folks quite as well
as a journey abroad. There was pure affection for you! Miss Lessing
would jump at the offer she had made Clara Gage.
They were summoned in to luncheon. Mr. Conway was the only man of the
party, not much of a talker, but the ladies loved to sit and talk over
their morning's adventures, or their afternoon's intentions. Mrs. Dayton
never hurried them. They all considered it the most home-y place at
which they had ever boarded.
Mrs. Van Dorn went off for her nap. So did several of the others. Mrs.
Dayton took Helen up-stairs. She had exhumed two of her old lawns, and
thought they could modernize them into summer frocks. They were very
fine and pretty, and Helen was delighted.
It was four o'clock when the coupe came, and Mrs. Van Dorn rang for
Helen to come up to her room, and carry her shawl, and her dainty case
with the opera glass in it for far sights, and a bottle of lavender
salts. And then the driver helped them in, and away they started.
"One could almost envy that girl!" said Daisy Lessing. "I don't see why
some of us couldn't be as good company."
They paused at the Public Library.
"Will you go in, Helen, and ask for 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' Macaulay's,"
said Mrs. Van Dorn. "I hope it won't be out."
Helen came back with the book, and sparkling eyes.