SOMETHING ABOUT OLD TIMES
By the time Tess and Dot Kenway arrived at the rambling old farmhouse at
Ipswitch Curve, where Mr. Buckham lived, they were as chatty and chummy
with the man who had shot the eagle as though he were a life-long
friend.
Without any doubt Mr. Bob Buckham loved children--little girls
especially. And Mrs. Bob Buckham loved them, too.
There was a big-armed, broad-shouldered country girl in the wide, clean
kitchen into which the children were first ushered. She was the
maid-of-all-work, and she welcomed Tess and Dot kindly, if she did scold
Mr. Buckham for tracking up her recently scrubbed floor with his muddy
boots.
"Now, you jest hesh, Posy," he told her, good-naturedly. "You know you
wouldn't have work enough to keep you interested, if 'twarn't for me.
Where's marm?"
"In the sittin' room, Mr. Buckham--and don't you darst to go in there
without scrapin' your feet. And _do_ put that nasty, great bird down
outside."
"Don't darst to," said Mr. Buckham. "The dogs'll tear it to pieces. I
wanter fix this Tom Jonah's ear. He's a brave dog, Posy. If it hadn't
been for him, I swow! Lycurgus Billet's Sue would have been kerried off
by this old eagle," and he told the wondering girl about the adventure.
"Now, you take these little gals in to marm, while I fix up Tom Jonah,"
Mr. Buckham urged.
So Tess and Dot were ushered into the sitting room by the big girl,
Posy. Mrs. Buckham was not likely to be found anywhere but in her chair,
poor woman, as the children very soon learned. She was a gentle,
gray-haired, becapped old lady who never left her chair, saving for her
bed at night. She was a paralytic and could not walk at all; but her
fingers were busy, and she was fairly surrounded by bright colored
worsteds and wools, finished pieces of knitting and crocheting, and
incompleted work of like character.
Out of this hedge of bright-hued fancy-work, Mrs. Buckham smiled upon
the smaller Corner House girls quite as warmly as did Mr. Buckham
himself.
"I do declare! this is a pleasure," she cried, drawing one little girl
after the other to her to be kissed. "Little flower faces! Aren't they,
Posy? Wish I had a garden full o' them--that I do!"
"My mercy, Mrs. Buckham! I'm glad you ain't," laughed the maid. "Not if
they all favored Mr. Buckham and brought as much mud in on their feet as
he does."
"Never mind, Posy," cried the very jolly invalid. "_I_ don't track up
your clean floors--and that's a blessing, isn't it?"
Dot looked rather askance at the bright-colored afghan that hid the
crippled legs of the good woman. The legs were so still, and the afghan
covered them so completely, that to the little girl's mind it seemed as
though she had no lower limbs at all!
She and Tess, however, were soon quite friendly with the invalid. Posy
bustled about between kitchen and sitting room, laying a round table in
the latter room for tea for the expected guests. Mr. Buckham, having
scraped his boots, came in.
"Well, how be ye, Marm?" he asked his wife, kissing her as though he had
just returned from a long journey.
"Just the same, Bob," she replied, laughing. "I ain't been fur from my
chair since you was gone."
Mr. Buckham chuckled hugely at this old pleasantry between them. They
both seemed to accept her affliction as though it were a joke, or a
matter of small importance. Yet Mrs. Buckham had been confined to her
chair and her bed for twenty years.
Before Ruth and Agnes, with Neale O'Neil, reached the farmhouse, driving
over from Lycurgus Billet's chestnut woods, Tess and Dot were having a
most delightful visit. Dot was amusing Mrs. Buckham with her chatter,
and likewise holding a hank of yarn for the invalid to wind off in a
ball; while Tess, of course, had got upon her favorite topic of
conversation, and was telling Mr. Buckham all about the need of the
Women's and Children's Hospital, and about Mrs. Eland.
"You see, she's such an awfully nice lady--and so pretty," said Tess,
warmly. "It would be an awful thing if she had to go away--and she
hasn't any place to go. But the hospital's _got_ to have money!"
"Eland--Eland?" repeated Mr. Bob Buckham, reflectively. "Isn't that name
sort o' familiar, Marm?" he asked his wife.
"The Aden girl married an Eland," said Mrs. Buckham, quickly. "He died
soon after and left her a widow. Is it the same? Marion Aden?"
"Mrs. Eland's name is Marion," said Tess, confidently. "She signed it to
a note to us. Didn't she, Dot?"
"In the apple," replied Dot, promptly.
"What does the child mean--'in the apple'?" queried the laughing Mrs.
Buckham.
"That's how she sent us our invitation to her party," said Dot.
"Only to an afternoon tea, child!" exclaimed Tess, quickly. "That isn't
a party." Then she explained to Mrs. Buckham about the apples and the
one that came back with the note inside. Meanwhile the farmer was very
quiet and thoughtful.
"So," finished Tess, breathlessly, "we're going to stop at the hospital
on our way home from school next Monday afternoon. Aren't we, Dot?"
"Ye-es," said the smaller girl, this time doubtfully. "If Mrs. MacCall
finishes my Alice-doll's new cloak. Otherwise she can't go, and of
course I can't go without her. She hasn't a thing fit to wear, now it's
come fall."
"You ask Mrs. Eland," broke in Mr. Buckham, "if she happens to be any
relation to Lemuel Aden."
"Now, Bob!" said his wife in an admonitory undertone, "never mind raking
up dead and gone happenings."
"But I'm just curious--just curious," said the farmer. "Nothing to be
done now about it----"
"Bob!"
"Well," subsided the farmer, "a man can't help thinkin' about money that
he's lost. And that five hundred dollars was stole from us as sure as
you're alive to-day, Marm."
"Never mind," his wife said lightly. "You've earned several five
hundreds since that happened--you know you have, Bob Buckham. What's the
good of worrying?"
"Ain't worrying," denied the farmer, quickly. "But I do despise a thief.
I was brought up on the motter:
"''Tis a sin
To steal a pin;
'Tis a greater
To steal a' 'tater!'
Ain't that so, children?" he concluded, chuckling.
Now, Ruth and Agnes were being ushered into the room by the broadly
smiling Posy just as Mr. Buckham recited this old jingle. Agnes flushed
to the roots of her hair, and then paled with alarm. She expected, then
and there, to be accused with the heinous offence of having picked
strawberries without permission in Mr. Bob Buckham's field!
"Oh! what a pretty girl!" cried the invalid. "Come here, my dear, and
let me pinch those cheeks. You need not blush so; I'm sure you've been
told you were pretty before--and I hope it hasn't spoiled you," and Mrs.
Buckham laughed heartily.
"I should know you were little Theresa's sister," continued the lady, as
Agnes tremblingly approached. "She will be just such another when she
gets to be as old as you, I am sure.
"And of course, this is Ruth," and she welcomed the oldest Corner House
girl, too. "Four such splendid girls must make their mother's heart
glad."
"I hope we did make her glad when she was with us," Ruth said quietly.
"But we have no mother now; and no father."
"Oh, my dear!" cried the invalid, in quite a shocked tone. "I had no
idea----"
"We miss our mother and our father. Even Dot can remember them both,"
said Ruth, still calmly. "But it happened so long ago that we do not cry
about it any more--do we, girls?"
As the oldest sister spoke, the other three seemed to be involuntarily
drawn to her. Dot took one hand and snuggled it against her soft, dark
cheek. Tess put both arms about Ruth's neck and warmly kissed her. Agnes
already had her arm around her elder sister's waist.
"I see," said Mrs. Buckham, with sudden appreciation. "The others do not
miss the lost and gone mother, for a very good reason. I am sure you
have done your duty, Ruth Kenway."
"I have tried to," Ruth said simply. "And they have all been good
children, and helped."
"I ain't a doubt of it--I ain't a doubt of it," repeated Mrs. Buckham,
briskly.
Agnes was watching the changing expression of the old lady's face,
wondering if--as Neale had said--Mr. Buckham could not write, the
invalid had sent in the list of girls' names to the principal of the
Milton High. The old farmer himself might be unlettered; but Mrs.
Buckham, Agnes was sure, must have had some book education.
Right at the invalid's hand, indeed, were two shelves fastened under the
window sill, filled with books--mostly of a religious character. And
their bindings showed frequent handling.
Posy brought in the steaming tea urn. "Come on now, folks," said Mrs.
Buckham. "I'm just a honin' for a cup of comfort. That's what I call it.
Tea is my favorite tipple--and I expect I'm just as eager for it as a
poor drunkard is after liquor. Dear me! I never could blame them that
has the habit for drink. I love my cup of comfort too well."
Posy was putting Tess and Dot into their chairs. The farmer awoke from
his brown study, got up, stretched himself, and, with a smile, wheeled
his wife's chair to the table.
"There ye be, Marm," he said. "All right?"
"All right, Bob," she assured him.
"Yes," the farmer said, turning to the children with a broader smile,
"you ask your friend, Mrs. Eland, if she's related to Lemuel Aden. Seems
to me she is his brother Abe's darter. Lem was a sharper; but Abe was a
right out an' out----"
"Now, Bob!" interposed his wife. "That's all gone and done for."
"Well, so 'tis, Marm. But I can't never forget it. I was a boy and my
marm was a widder woman. The five hundred dollars was all we had--every
cent we had in the world," he added, looking about at the interested
faces of his visitors.
"Abe Aden was a lawyer, or suthin' like that. He was a dabster at most
things, includin' horse-tradin'. My father had put all the money he had
in the world in Abe's hands, in some trade or other. We tried to git it
back when father was kill't so sudden in the sawmill.
"Just erbout then Abe got inter trouble in a horse-trade. He was a good
deal of a Gyp--so 'twas said. He left everything in Lem's hands and
skedaddled out West. But he didn't leave no five hundred dollars in
Lem's hands for _us_--no, sir!" and the old man shook his head
ruminatively.
"No, sir. He likely got away with that five hundred to pay his fare, and
so escaped jail."
"You don't know that, Bob," said his wife, gravely.
"No. I don't know it. But I know that my marm and I suffered all that
winter because of losin' the five hundred. I was only a boy. I hadn't
got my growth. She overworked because of that rascal's dishonesty, and
it broke her down and killed her. I loved my marm," he added simply.
"'Course you did--'course you did, Bob," said his wife, briskly. Then
she smiled about at the tableful of young folk, and confessed: "He begun
callin' _me_ 'marm,' like he did his mother, right away when we was
married. She'd been dead since he was a little boy, and I considered it
the sweetest compliment Bob could pay me. I've been 'marm' to him ever
since."
"You sure have," declared Mr. Buckham, stoutly. "But that ain't bringin'
my poor old marm back--nor the five hundred dollars. We never did hear
direct from Abe Aden; but by and by a leetle gal wandered back here to
the neighborhood. Said she was Abe's darter. He and her mother was lost
in a big fire in some Western city; and she'd lost her sister, too."
"Poor child!" sighed the old lady. "You couldn't hold a grudge against
the child, Bob."
"Who says I done so?" demanded the farmer. "No, sir! I never even seed
the child more'n once or twice. But I know her name was Marion. And I
heard her tell her story. The Chicago fire was a nine days' wonder, and
this fire the gal's parents were lost in, was much similar, I should
say. She'd seen her father and mother and the house they lived in, all
swept away together--in a moment, almost. She and her sister escaped,
but were separated in the refugees' camp and she couldn't never find the
other child again. This Marion was old enough to remember about her
Uncle Lem, and where he used to live; so the Relief Committee sent her
here--glad ter git rid of her on sech easy terms, I s'pose. But Lem Aden
had drapped out o' sight before then, and none of us folks knowed where
he'd gone to."
"And that little girl was Mrs. Eland?" Ruth ventured to ask, for the
farmer's remembrances of old times did not interest the little girls.
Posy was heaping their plates with good things to eat. The picnic dinner
in the woods had been forgotten.
"Yes. I reckon so," Mr. Buckham said, in answer to Ruth's inquiry. "She
was kep' to help by some good people around here--just as we took Posy,
marm and me. The child drifted away later. She got some schoolin'. I
guess she went to a hospital and l'arned to be a nurse. Then she married
a man named Eland, but he was sickly. I dunno as she ever did see her
Uncle Lem."