Spring came on early, with heavy rains and freshets in many parts of
the country.
It was a busy time at Z----.
Two things had happened there that were to give Kenneth Kincaid more
work, and would keep him where he was all summer.
Just before he went to Z----, there had been a great fire at West
Hill. All Mr. Roger Marchbanks's beautiful place was desolate.
House, conservatories, stables, lovely little vine-covered rustic
buildings, exquisitely tended shrubbery,--all swept over in one
night by the red flames, and left lying in blackness and ashes.
For the winter, Mr. Marchbanks had taken his family to Boston; now
he was planning eagerly to rebuild. Kenneth had made sketches; Mr.
Marchbanks liked his ideas; they had talked together from time to
time. Now, the work was actually in hand, and Kenneth was busy with
drawings and specifications.
Down at the river, during the spring floods, a piece of the bridge
had been carried away, and the dam was broken through. There were
new mill buildings, too, going up, and a block of factory houses.
All this business, through Mr. Marchbanks directly or indirectly,
fell also into Kenneth's hands.
He wrote blithe letters to Dorris; and Dorris, running in and out
from her little spring cleanings that Hazel was helping her with,
told all the letters over to the Ripwinkleys.
"He says I must come up there in my summer vacation and board with
his dear old Miss Waite. Think of Kentie's being able to give me
such a treat as that! A lane, with ferns and birches, and the
woods,--_pine_ woods!--and a hill where raspberries grow, and the
river!"
Mrs. Ledwith was thinking of her summer plans at this time, also.
She remembered the large four-windowed room looking out over the
meadow, that Mrs. Megilp and Glossy had at Mrs. Prendible's, for
twelve dollars a week, in And. She could do no better than that, at
country boarding, anywhere; and Mr. Ledwith could sleep at the house
in Shubarton Place, getting his meals down town during the week, and
come up and spend his Sundays with them. A bedroom, in addition, for
six dollars more, would be all they would want.
The Ripwinkleys were going up to Homesworth by and by for a little
while, and would take Sulie Praile with them. Sulie was ecstatically
happy. She had never been out of the city in all her life. She felt,
she said, "as if she was going to heaven without dying." Vash was to
be left at Mrs. Scarup's with her sister.
Miss Craydocke would be away at the mountains; all the little life
that had gathered together in the Aspen Street neighborhood, seemed
about to be broken up.
Uncle Titus Oldways never went out of town, unless on business.
Rachel Froke stayed, and kept his house; she sat in the gray room,
and thought over the summers she had had.
"Thee never loses anything out of thy life that has been in," she
said. "Summer times are like grains of musk; they keep their smell
always, and flavor the shut-up places they are put away in."
For you and me, reader, we are to go to Z---- again. I hope you like
it.
But before that, I must tell you what Luclarion Grapp has done.
Partly from the principle of her life, and partly from the spirit of
things which she would have caught at any rate, from the Ripwinkley
home and the Craydocke "Beehive,"--for there is nothing truer than
that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven,--I suppose she had been
secretly thinking for a good while, that she was having too easy a
time here, in her first floor kitchen and her garden bedroom; that
this was not the life meant for her to live right on, without
scruple or question; and so began in her own mind to expect some
sort of "stump;" and even to look about for it.
"It isn't as it was when Mrs. Ripwinkley was a widow, and
poor,--that is, comparative; and it took all her and my contrivance
to look after the place and keep things going, and paying, up in
Homesworth; there was something to buckle to, then; but now,
everything is eased and flatted out, as it were; it makes me
res'less, like a child put to bed in the daytime."
Luclarion went down to the North End with Miss Craydocke, on errands
of mercy; she went in to the new Mission, and saw the heavenly
beauty of its intent, and kindled up in her soul at it; and she came
home, time after time, and had thoughts of her own about these
things, and the work in the world there was to do.
She had cleaned up and set things going at Mrs. Scarup's; she
learned something in doing that, beyond what she knew when she set
about it; her thoughts began to shape themselves to a theory; and
the theory took to itself a text and a confirmation and a command.
"Go down and be a neighbor to them that have fallen among thieves."
Luclarion came to a resolution in this time of May, when everybody
was making plans and the spring-cleaning was all done.
She came to Mrs. Ripwinkley one morning, when she was folding away
winter clothes, and pinning them up in newspapers, with camphor-gum;
and she said to her, without a bit of preface,--Luclarion hated
prefaces,--
"Mrs. Ripwinkley, I'm going to swarm!"
Mrs. Ripwinkley looked up in utter surprise; what else could she do?
"Of course 'm, when you set up a Beehive, you must have expected it;
it's the natural way of things; they ain't good for much unless they
do. I've thought it all over; I'll stay and see you all off, first,
if you want me to, and then--I'll swarm."
"Well," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, assenting in full faith, beforehand;
for Mrs. Ripwinkley, if I need now to tell you of it, was not an
ordinary woman, and did not take things in an ordinary selfish way,
but grasped right hold of the inward right and truth of them, and
believed in it; sometimes before she could quite see it; and she
never had any doubt of Luclarion Grapp. "Well! And now tell me all
about it."
"You see," said Luclarion, sitting down in a chair by the window, as
Mrs. Ripwinkley suspended her occupation and took one by the
bedside, "there's places in this town that folks leave and give up.
As the Lord might have left and give up the world, because there was
dirt and wickedness in it; only He didn't. There's places where it
ain't genteel, nor yet respectable, to live; and so those places
grow more disrespectable and miserable every day. They're left to
themselves. What I think is, they hadn't ought to be. There's one
clean spot down there now, in the very middle of the worst dirt.
And it ain't bad to live in. _That's_ started. Now, what I think is,
that somebody ought to start another, even if its only a little one.
Somebody ought to just go there and _live_, and show 'em how, just
as I took and showed Mrs. Scarup, and she's been living ever since,
instead of scratching along. If some of them folks had a clean,
decent neighbor to go to see,--to drink tea with, say,--and was to
catch an idea of her fixings and doings, why, I believe there'd be
more of 'em,--cleaned up, you know. They'd get some kind of an
ambition and a hope. Tain't enough for ladies--though I bless 'em in
my soul for what I've seen 'em do--to come down there of a Fridays,
and teach and talk awhile, and then go home to Summit Street and
Republic Avenue, and take up _their_ life again where they left it
off, that is just as different as heaven is from 'tother place;
somebody's got to come right down _out_ of heaven, and bring the
life in, and live it amongst them miserable folks, as the Lord Jesus
Christ came and did! And it's borne in upon me, strong and clear,
that that's what's got to be before all's righted. And so--for a
little piece of it, and a little individual stump--I'm going to
swarm, and settle, and see what'll come."
Mrs. Ripwinkley was looking very intently at Luclarion. Her breath
went and came hurriedly, and her face turned pale with the grand
surprise of such a thought, such a plan and purpose, so simply and
suddenly declared. Her eyes were large and moist with feeling.
"Do you _know_, Luclarion," she exclaimed at last, "do you realize
what this is that you are thinking of; what a step it would be to
take,--what a work it would be to even hope to begin to do? Do you
know how strange it is,--how almost impracticable,--that it is not
even safe?"
"'Twasn't _safe_ for Him--when He came into the world," Luclarion
answered.
"Not to say I think there's any comparison," she began again,
presently, "or that I believe there's anything to be really scared
of,--except dirt; and you _can_ clean a place round you, as them
Mission people have done. Why, there ain't a house in Boston nicer,
or sweeter, or airier even, than that one down in Arctic Street,
with beautiful parlors and bedrooms, and great clean galleries
leading round, and skylighted,--_sky_ lighted! for you see the blue
heaven is above all, and you _can_ let the skylight in, without any
corruption coming in with it; and if twenty people can do that much,
or a hundred,--one can do something. 'Taint much, either, to
undertake; only to be willing to go there, and make a clean place
for yourself, and a home; and live there, instead of somewheres else
that's ready made; and let it spread. And you know I've always
looked forrud to some kind of a house-keep of my own, finally."
"But, Luclarion, I don't understand! All alone? And you couldn't use
a whole house, you know. Your neighbors would be _inmates_. Why, it
seems to me perfectly crazy!"
"Now, ma'am, did you ever know me to go off on a tangent, without
some sort of a string to hold on to? I ain't goin' to swarm all
alone! I never heard of such a thing. Though if I couldn't _swarm_,
and the thing was to be done, I say I'd try it. But Savira Golding
is going to be married to Sam Gallilee, next month; and he's a
stevedore, and his work is down round the wharves; he's class-leader
in our church, and a first-rate, right-minded man, or else Savira
wouldn't have him; for if Savira ain't a clear Christian, and a
doing woman, there ain't one this side of Paradise. Now, you see,
Sam Gallilee makes money; he runs a gang of three hundred men. He
can afford a good house, and a whole one, if he wants; but he's
going in for a big one, and neighbors. They mean to live nice,--he
and Savira; and she has pretty, tasty ways; there'll be white
curtains, and plants blooming in her windows, you may make sure;
she's always had 'em in that little up-stairs dress-making room of
hers; and boxes of mignonette and petunias on the ledges; and birds
singing in a great summer cage swung out against the wall. She's one
of the kind that reaches out, and can't be kept in; and she knows
her gifts, and is willing to go and let her light shine where it
will help others, and so glorify; and Sam, he's willing too, and
sees the beauty of it. And so,--well, that's the swarm."
"And the 'little round Godamighty in the middle of it,'" said Mrs.
Ripwinkley, her face all bright and her eyes full of tears.
"_Ma'am_!"
Then Mrs. Ripwinkley told her Miss Craydocke's story.
"Well," said Luclarion, "there's something dear and
right-to-the-spot about it; but it does sound singular; and it
certainly ain't a thing to say careless."
* * * * *
Desire Ledwith grew bright and excited as the summer came on, and
the time drew near for going to Z----. She could not help being
glad; she did not stop to ask why; summer-time was reason enough,
and after the weariness of the winter, the thought of Z---- and the
woods and the river, and sweet evenings and mornings, and gardens
and orchards, and road-side grass, was lovely to her.
"It is so pleasant up there!" she would keep saying to Dorris; and
somehow she said it to Dorris oftener than to anybody else.
There was something fitful and impetuous in her little outbursts of
satisfaction; they noticed it in her; the elder ones among them
noticed it with a touch of anxiety for her.
Miss Craydocke, especially, read the signs, matching them with
something that she remembered far back in the life that had closed
so peacefully, with white hairs and years of a serene content and
patience, over all unrest and disappointment, for herself. She was
sorry for this young girl, for whom she thought she saw an
unfulfilled dream of living that should go by her like some bright
cloud, just near enough to turn into a baptism of tears.
She asked Desire, one day, if she would not like to go with her,
this summer, to the mountains.
Desire put by the suggestion hastily.
"O, no, thank you, Miss Craydocke, I must stay with mamma and
Helena. And besides," she added, with the strict, full truth she
always demanded of herself, "I _want_ to go to Z----."
"Yes," said Miss Craydocke.
There was something tender, like a shade of pity, in her tone.
"But you would enjoy the mountains. They are full of strength and
rest. One hardly understands the good the hills do one. David did,
looking out into them from Jerusalem. 'I will look to the hills,
from whence cometh my strength.'"
"Some time," said Desire. "Some time I shall need the hills, and--be
ready for them. But this summer--I want a good, gay, young time. I
don't know why, except that I shall be just eighteen this year, and
it seems as if, after that, I was going to be old. And I want to be
with people I know. I _can_ be gay in the country; there is
something to be gay about. But I can't dress and dance in the city.
That is all gas-light and get-up."
"I suppose," said Miss Craydocke, slowly, "that our faces are all
set in the way we are to go. Even if it is--" She stopped. She was
thinking of one whose face had been set to go to Jerusalem. Her own
words had led her to something she had not foreseen when she began.
Nothing of such suggestion came to Desire. She was in one of her
rare moods of good cheer.
"I suppose so," she said, heedlessly. And then, taking up a thought
of her own suddenly,--"Miss Craydocke! Don't you think people almost
always live out their names? There's Sin Scherman; there'll always
be a little bit of mischief and original naughtiness in her,--with
the harm taken out of it; and there's Rosamond Holabird,--they
couldn't have called her anything better, if they'd waited for her
to grow up; and Barb _was_ sharp; and our little Hazel is witchy and
sweet and wild-woodsy; and Luclarion,--isn't that shiny and
trumpety, and doesn't she do it? And then--there's me. I shall
always be stiff and hard and unsatisfied, except in little bits of
summer times that won't come often. They might as well have
christened me Anxiety. I wonder why they didn't."
"That would have been very different. There is a nobleness in
Desire. You will overlive the restless part," said Miss Craydocke.
"Was there ever anything restless in your life, Miss Craydocke? And
how long did it take to overlive it? It doesn't seem as if you had
ever stubbed your foot against anything; and I'm _always_ stubbing."
"My dear, I have stubbed along through fifty-six years; and the
years had all three hundred and sixty-five days in them. There were
chances,--don't you think so?"
"It looks easy to be old after it is done," said Desire. "Easy and
comfortable. But to be eighteen, and to think of having to go on to
be fifty-six; I beg your pardon,--but I wish it was over!"
And she drew a deep breath, heavy with the days that were to be.
"You are not to take it all at once, you know," said Miss Craydocke.
"But I do, every now and then. I can't help it. I am sure it is the
name. If they had called me 'Hapsie,' like you, I should have gone
along jolly, as you do, and not minded. You see you have to _hear_
it all the time; and it tunes you up to its own key. You can't feel
like a Dolly, or a Daisy, when everybody says--De-sire!"
"I don't know how I came to be called 'Hapsie,'" said Miss
Craydocke. "Somebody who liked me took it up, and it seemed to get
fitted on. But that wasn't when I was young."
"What was it, then?" asked Desire, with a movement of interest.
"Keren-happuch," said Miss Craydocke, meekly. "My father named me,
and he always called me so,--the whole of it. He was a severe,
Old-Testament man, and _his_ name was Job."
Desire was more than half right, after all. There was a good deal of
Miss Craydocke's story hinted in those few words and those two
ancient names.
"But I turned into 'Miss Craydocke' pretty soon, and settled down. I
suppose it was very natural that I should," said the sweet old maid,
serenely.