"Why, to wait on people, uncle. She's the nicest little
fetch-and-carrier you ever saw!"
"Humph! who wants to be waited on, here? You girls, with feet and
hands of your own? Your mother doesn't, I know."
"Well, to wait _on_, then," says Hazel, boldly. "I'm making her a
baby-house, and teaching her to read; and Diana is knitting scarlet
stockings for her, to wear this winter. We like it."
"O, if you like it! That's always a reason. I only want to have
people give the real one."
And Uncle Titus walked off, so that nobody could tell whether _he_
liked it or not.
Nobody told him anything about the Scarups. But do you suppose he
didn't know? Uncle Titus Oldways was as sharp as he was blunt.
"I guess I know, mother," said Hazel, a little while after this, one
day, "how people write stories."
"Well?" asked her mother, looking up, ready to be amused with
Hazel's deep discovery.
"If they can just begin with one thing, you see, that makes the next
one. It can't help it, hardly. Just as it does with us. What made me
think of it was, that it seemed to me there was another little piece
of our beehive story all ready to put on; and if we went and did
it,--I wonder if you wouldn't, mother? It fits exactly."
"Let me see."
"That little lame Sulie at Miss Craydocke's Home, that we like so
much. Nobody adopts her away, because she is lame; her legs are no
use at all, you know, and she just sits all curled up in that great
round chair that Mrs. Geoffrey gave her, and sews patchwork, and
makes paper dolls. And when she drops her scissors, or her thread,
somebody has to come and pick it up. She wants waiting on; she just
wants a little lightning-bug, like Vash, to run round for her all
the time. And we don't, you see; and we've got Vash! And Vash--likes
paper dolls."
Hazel completed the circle of her argument with great triumph.
"An extra piece of bread to finish your too much butter," said
Diana.
"Yes. Doesn't it just make out?" said Hazel, abating not a jot of
her triumph, and taking things literally, as nobody could do better
than she, upon occasion, for all her fancy and intuition.
"I wonder what Uncle Oldways would say to that," said Diana.
"He'd say 'Faugh, faugh!' But he doesn't mean faugh, faugh, half the
time. If he does, he doesn't stick to it. Mother," she asked rather
suddenly, "do you think Uncle Oldways feels as if we oughtn't to
do--other things--with his money?"
"What other things?"
"Why, _these_ others. Vash, and Sulie, perhaps. Wouldn't he like it
if we turned his house into a Beehive?"
"It isn't his house," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, "He has given it to me."
"Well,--do you feel 'obligated,' as Luclarion says?'
"In a certain degree,--yes. I feel bound to consider his comfort
and wishes, as far as regards his enjoyment with us, and fulfilling
what he reasonably looked for when he brought us here."
"Would that interfere?"
"Suppose you ask him, Hazel?"
"Well, I could do that."
"Hazel wouldn't mind doing anything!" said Diana, who, to tell the
truth was a little afraid of Uncle Titus, and who dreaded of all
things, being snubbed.
"Only," said Hazel, to whom something else had just occurred,
"wouldn't he think--wouldn't it be--_your_ business?"
"It is all your plan, Hazel. I think he would see that."
"And you are willing, if he doesn't care?"
"I did not quite say that. It would be a good deal to think of."
"Then I'll wait till you've thought," said clear-headed little
Hazel.
"But it fits right on. I can see that. And Miss Craydocke said
things would, after we had begun."
Mrs. Ripwinkley took it into her thoughts, and carried it about with
her for days, and considered it; asking herself questions.
Was it going aside in search of an undertaking that did not belong
to her?
Was it bringing home a care, a responsibility, for which they were
not fitted,--which might interfere with the things they were meant,
and would be called, to do?
There was room and opportunity, doubtless, for them to do something;
Mrs. Ripwinkley had felt this; she had not waited for her child to
think of it for her; she had only waited, in her new, strange
sphere, for circumstances to guide the way, and for the Giver of
all circumstance to guide her thought. She chose, also, in the
things that would affect her children's life and settle duties for
them, to let them grow also to those duties, and the perception of
them, with her. To this she led them, by all her training and
influence; and now that in Hazel, her child of quick insight and
true instincts, this influence was bearing fruit and quickening to
action, she respected her first impulses; she believed in them; they
had weight with her, as argument in themselves. These impulses, in
young, true souls, freshly responding, are, she knew, as the
proof-impressions of God's Spirit.
Yet she would think; that was her duty; she would not do a thing
hastily, or unwisely.
Sulie Praile had been a good while, now, at the Home.
A terrible fall, years ago, had caused a long and painful illness,
and resulted in her present helplessness. But above those little
idle, powerless limbs, that lay curled under the long, soft skirt
she wore, like a baby's robe, were a beauty and a brightness, a
quickness of all possible motion, a dexterous use of hands, and a
face of gentle peace and sometimes glory, that were like a
benediction on the place that she was in; like the very Holy Ghost
in tender form like a dove, resting upon it, and abiding among them
who were there.
In one way, it would hardly be so much a giving as a taking, to
receive her in. Yet there was care to assume, the continuance of
care to promise or imply; the possibility of conflicting plans in
much that might be right and desirable that Mrs. Ripwinkley should
do for her own. Exactly what, if anything, it would be right to
undertake in this, was matter for careful and anxious reflection.
The resources of the Home were not very large; there were painful
cases pressing their claims continually, as fast as a little place
was vacated it could be filled; was wanted, ten times over; and
Sulie Praile had been there a good while. If somebody would only
take her, as people were very ready to take--away to happy, simple,
comfortable country homes, for mere childhood's sake--the round,
rosy, strong, and physically perfect ones! But Sulie must be lifted
and tended; she must keep somebody at home to look after her; no one
could be expected to adopt a child like that.
Yet Hazel Ripwinkley thought they could be; thought, in her
straightforward, uncounting simplicity, that it was just the
natural, obvious, beautiful thing to do, to take her home--into a
real home--into pleasant family life; where things would not crowd;
where she could be mothered and sistered, as girls ought to be, when
there are so many nice places in the world, and not so many people
in them as there might be. When there could be so much visiting, and
spare rooms kept always in everybody's house, why should not
somebody who needed to, just come in and stay? What were the spare
places made for?
"We might have Sulie for this winter," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, at
last. "They would let her come to us for that time; and it would be
a change for her, and leave a place for others. Then if anything
made it impossible for us to do more, we should not have raised an
expectation to be disappointed. And if we can and ought to do more,
it will be shown us by that time more certainly."
She asked Miss Craydocke about it, when she came home from Z----
that fall. She had been away a good deal lately; she had been up to
Z---- to two weddings,--Leslie Goldthwaite's and Barbara Holabird's.
Now she was back again, and settled down.
Miss Craydocke thought it a good thing wisely limited.
"Sulie needs to be with older girls; there is no one in the Home to
be companion to her; the children are almost all little. A winter
here would be a blessing to her!"
"But the change again, if she should have to make it?" suggested
Mrs. Ripwinkley.
"Good things don't turn to bad ones because you can't have them any
more. A thing you're not fit for, and never ought to have had, may;
but a real good stays by; it overflows all the rest. Sulie Praile's
life could never be so poor again, after a winter here with you, as
it might be if she had never had it. If you'd like her, let her
come, and don't be a bit afraid. We're only working by inches, any
of us; like the camel's-hair embroiderers in China. But it gets put
together; and it is beautiful, and large, and whole, somewhere."
"Miss Craydocke always knows," said Hazel.
Nobody said anything again, about Uncle Titus. A winter's plan need
not be referred to him. But Hazel, in her own mind, had resolved to
find out what was Uncle Titus's, generally and theoretically; how
free they were to be, beyond winter plans and visits of weeks; how
much scope they might have with this money and this house, that
seemed so ample to their simple wants, and what they might do with
it and turn it into, if it came into their heads or hearts or
consciences.
So one day she went in and sat down by him in the study, after she
had accomplished some household errand with Rachel Froke.
Other people approached him with more or less of strategy, afraid of
the tiger in him; Desire Ledwith faced him courageously; only Hazel
came and nestled up beside him, in his very cage, as if he were no
wild beast, after all.
Yet he pretended to growl, even at her, sometimes; it was so funny
to see her look up and chirp on after it, like some little bird to
whom the language of beasts was no language at all, and passed by on
the air as a very big sound, but one that in no wise concerned it.
"We've got Sulie Praile to spend the winter, Uncle Titus," she said.
"Who's Sulie Praile?"
"The lame girl, from the Home. We wanted somebody for Vash to wait
on, you know. She sits in a round chair, that twists, like yours;
and she's--just like a lily in a vase!" Hazel finished her sentence
with a simile quite unexpected to herself.
There was something in Sulie's fair, pale, delicate face, and her
upper figure, rising with its own peculiar lithe, easily swayed
grace from among the gathered folds of the dress of her favorite
dark green color, that reminded--if one thought of it, and Hazel
turned the feeling of it into a thought at just this moment--of a
beautiful white flower, tenderly and commodiously planted.
"Well, I suppose it's worth while to have a lame girl to sit up in a
round chair, and look like a lily in a vase, is it?"
"Uncle Titus, I want to know what you think about some things."
"That is just what I want to know myself, sometimes. To find out
what one thinks about things, is pretty much the whole finding,
isn't it?"
"Don't be very metaphysical, please, Uncle Titus. Don't turn your
eyes round into the back of your head. That isn't what I mean."
"What do you mean?"
"Just plain looking."
"O!"
"Don't you think, when there are places, all nice and ready,--and
people that would like the places and haven't got 'em,--that the
people ought to be put into the places?"
"'The shirtless backs put into the shirts?'"
"Why, yes, of course. What are shirts made for?"
"For some people to have thirty-six, and some not to have any," said
Mr. Oldways.
"No," said Hazel. "Nobody wants thirty-six, all at once. But what I
mean is, rooms, and corners, and pleasant windows, and seats at the
table; places where people come in visiting, and that are kept saved
up. I can't bear an empty box; that is, only for just one pleasant
minute, while I'm thinking what I can put into it."
"Where's your empty box, now?"
"Our house _was_ rather empty-boxy. Uncle Titus, do you mind how we
fill it up,--because you gave it to us, you know?"
"No. So long as you don't crowd yourselves out."
"Or you, Uncle Titus. We don't want to crowd you out. Does it crowd
you any to have Sulie and Vash there, and to have us 'took up' with
them, as Luclarion says?"
How straight Witch Hazel went to her point!
"Your catechism crowds me just a little, child," said Uncle Titus.
"I want to see you go your own way. That is what I gave you the
house for. Your mother knows that. Did she send you here to ask me?"
"No. I wanted to know. It was I that wanted to begin a kind of a
Beehive--like Miss Craydocke's. Would you care if it was turned
quite into a Beehive, finally?"
Hazel evidently meant to settle the furthest peradventure, now she
had begun.
"Ask your mother to show you the deed. 'To Frances Ripwinkley, her
heirs and assigns,'--that's you and Diana,--'for their use and
behoof, forever.' I've no more to do with it."
"'Use, and behoof,'" said Hazel, slowly. And then she turned the
leaves of the great Worcester that lay upon the study table, and
found "Behoof."
"'Profit,--gain,--benefit;' then that's what you meant; that we
should make as much more of it as we could. That's what I think,
Uncle Titus. I'm glad you put 'behoof in."
"They always put it in, child!"
"Do they? Well, then, they don't always work it out!" and Hazel
laughed.
At that, Mr. Oldways pulled off his spectacles, looked sharp at
Hazel with two sharp, brown eyes,--set near together, Hazel noticed
for the first time, like Desire's,--let the keenness turn gradually
into a twinkle, suffered the muscles that had held his lips so grim
to relax, and laughed too; his peculiar, up-and-down shake of a
laugh, in which head and shoulders made the motions, as if he were a
bottle, and there were a joke inside of him which was to be well
mixed up to be thoroughly enjoyed.
"Go home to your mother, jade-hopper!" he said, when he had done;
"and tell her I'm coming round to-night, to tea, amongst your
bumble-bees and your lilies!"