more than even your singing: just living at home in one place and having
your mother and the boys. I am always wishing and wishing, and telling
myself stories about living somewhere in the same house all the time,
with papa, and having a real home and taking care of him. You don't know
how good it would feel! Papa says the best we can do now is to make a
home wherever we are, for ourselves and others--but I think it is pretty
hard, sometimes."
"Well, I think the nicest thing would be to see the world, as you do,"
insisted Mary Beck. "I just _hate_ dusting and keeping things to rights,
and I never _shall_ learn to cook! I like to do fancy work pretty well.
You would think Tideshead was perfectly awful, in winter!"
"Why should it be?" asked Betty innocently. "Winter is house-time. I
save things to do in winter, and"--
"Oh, you are so preachy, you are so good-natured, you believe all the
prim things that grown people say!" exclaimed Becky. "What would you say
if you never went to Boston but once, and then had the toothache all the
time? You have been everywhere, and you think it's great fun to stay a
little while in poky old Tideshead, this one summer!"
"Why, it is because I have seen so many other places that I know just
how pleasant Tideshead is."
"Well, I want to see other places, too," maintained the dissatisfied
Becky.
"Papa says that we ourselves are the places we live in," said Betty, as
if it took a great deal of courage to tell Mary Beck so unwelcome a
truth. "I like to remember just what he says, for sometimes, when I
haven't understood at first, something will happen, may be a year after,
to make it flash right into my mind. Once I heard a girl say London was
stupid; just think! _London!_"
Mary Beck was rocking steadily, but Betty sat still, with her feet on
the window-seat and her hands clasped about her knees. She could look
down into the green yard below, and watch some birds that were
fluttering near by in the wet trees. The wind blew in very soft and
sweet after the rain.
"I used to think, when I was a little bit of a girl, that I would be a
missionary, but I should perfectly hate it now!" said Mary, with great
vehemence. "I just hate to go to Sunday-school and be asked the
questions; it makes me prickle all over. I always feel sorry when I wake
up and find it is Sunday morning. I suppose you think that's heathen and
horrid."
"I always have my Sunday lessons with papa; he reads to me, and gives me
something to learn by heart,--a hymn or some lovely verses of poetry. I
suppose that his telling me what things in the Bible really mean keeps
me from being 'prickly' when other people talk about it. What made you
wish to be a missionary?" Betty inquired, with interest.
"Oh, there used to be some who came here and talked in the vestry Sunday
evenings about riding on donkeys and camels. Sometimes they would dress
up in Syrian costumes, and I used to look grandpa's 'Missionary Herald'
all through, to find their names afterward. It was so nice to hear about
their travels and the natives; but that was a long while ago," and Becky
rocked angrily, so that the boards creaked underneath.
"Last summer I used to go to such a dear old church, in the Isle of
Wight," said Betty. "You could look out of the open door by our pew and
see the old churchyard, and look away over the green downs and the blue
sea. You could see the red poppies in the fields, and hear the larks,
too."
"What kind of a church was it?" asked Mary, with suspicion. "Episcopal?"
"Yes," answered Betty. "Church of England, people say there."
"I heard somebody say once that your father was very lax in religious
matters," said Becky seriously.
"I'd rather be very lax and love my Sundays," said Betty severely. "I
don't think it makes any difference, really, about what one does in
church. I want to be good, and it helps me to be in church and think and
hear about it. Oh, dear! my foot's getting asleep," said Betty,
beginning to pound it up and down. The two girls did not like to look at
each other; they were considering questions that were very hard to talk
about.
"I suppose it's being good that made you run after Nelly Foster. I
wished that I had gone to see her more, when you went; but she used to
act hatefully sometimes before you came. She used to cry in school,
though," confessed Becky.
"I didn't 'run after' her. You do call things such dreadful names, Mary
Beck! There, I'm getting cross, my foot is all stinging."
"Turn it just the other way," advised Mary eagerly. "Let me pound it for
you," and she briskly went to the rescue. Betty wondered afresh why she
liked this friend herself so much, and yet disliked so many things that
she said and did.
Serena always said that Betty had a won't-you-please-like-me sort of way
with her, and Mary Beck felt it more than ever as she returned to her
rocking-chair and jogged on again, but she could not bend from her high
sense of disapproval immediately. "What do you think the unjust steward
parable means, then?" she asked, not exactly returning to the fray, but
with an injured manner. "It is in the Sunday-school lesson to-morrow,
and I can't understand it a bit,--I never could."
"Nor I," said Betty, in a most cheerful tone. "See here, Becky, it
doesn't rain, and we can go and ask Mr. Grant to tell us about it."
"Go ask the minister!" exclaimed Mary Beck, much shocked. "Why, would
you dare to?"
"That's what ministers are for," answered Betty simply. "We can stay a
little while and see the girls, if he is busy. Come now, Becky," and
Becky reluctantly came. She was to think a great many times afterward of
that talk in the garret. She was beginning to doubt whether she had
really succeeded in settling all the questions of life, at the age of
fifteen.
The two friends went along arm-in-arm under the still-dripping trees.
The parsonage was some distance up the long Tideshead street, and the
sun was coming out as they stood on the doorsteps. The minister was
amazed when he found that these parishioners had come to have a talk
with him in the study, and to ask something directly at his willing
hands. He preached the better for it, next day, and the two girls
listened the better. As for Mary Beck, the revelation to her honest
heart of having a right in the minister, and the welcome convenience of
his fund of knowledge and his desire to be of use to her personally, was
an immense surprise. Kind Mr. Grant had been a part of the dreaded
Sundays, a fixture of the day and the church and the pulpit, before
that; he was, indirectly, a reproach, and, until this day, had never
seemed like other people exactly, or an every-day friend. Perhaps the
good man wondered if it were not his own fault, a little. He tried to be
very gay and friendly with his own girls at supper-time, and said
afterward that they must have Mary Beck and Betty Leicester to take tea
with them some time during the next week.
"But there are others in the parish who will feel hurt," urged Mrs.
Grant anxiously; and Mr. Grant only answered that there must be a dozen
tea-parties, then, as if there were no such things as sponge-cake and
ceremony in the world!
XII.
BETTY AT HOME.
EVERYBODY was as kind as possible when Betty Leicester first came to
Tideshead, and best company manners prevailed toward her; but as the
girls got used to having a new friend and playmate, some of them proved
disappointing. Nothing could shake her deep affection for honest-hearted
Mary Beck, but in some directions Mary had made up her inexperienced and
narrow mind, and would listen to none of Betty's kindly persuasions. The
Fosters' father had done some very dishonest deeds, and had run away
from justice after defrauding some of the most trustful of his
neighbors. Mary Beck's mother had lost some money in this way, and old
Captain Beck even more, so that the girl had heard sharp comments and
indignant blame at home; and she shocked Miss Barbara Leicester and
Betty one morning by wondering how Henry and Nelly Foster could have
had the face to go to church the very Sunday after their father was sent
to jail. She did not believe that they cared a bit what people thought.
"Poor children," said Miss Leicester, with quiet compassion, "the sight
of their pitiful young faces was enough for me. When should one go to
church if not in bitter trouble? That boy and girl look years older than
the rest of you young folks."
"It never seemed to me that they thought any less of themselves," said
Mary Beck, in a disagreeable tone; "and I wouldn't ask them to my party,
if I had one."
"But they have worked so hard," said Betty. "Jonathan said yesterday
that Harry Foster told him this spring, when he was working here, that
he was going to pay every cent that his father owed, if he lived long
enough. He is studying hard, too; you know that he hoped to go to
college before this happened. They always look as if they were grateful
for just being spoken to."
"Plenty of people have made everything of them and turned their heads,"
said Mary Beck, as if she were repeating something that had been said
at home. "I think I should pity some people whose father had behaved so,
but I don't like the Fosters a bit."
"They are carrying a heavy load on their young shoulders," said Miss
Barbara Leicester. "You will feel differently by and by, about them.
Help them all you can, Mary!"
Mary Beck went home that morning much displeased. She didn't mean to be
hard-hearted, but it had seemed to her like proper condemnation of
wrong-doing to treat the Fosters loftily. Now that Betty's eyes had
filled with tears as she listened, and Miss Leicester evidently thought
less of her for what had been said, Mary began to feel doubtful about
the matter. Yes, what if her father had been like theirs,--could she be
shut up like a prisoner, and behave as she expected the Fosters to
behave? By the time she reached her own house she was ashamed of what
she had said. Miss Leicester was at that moment telling Betty that she
was astonished at such bitter feeling in their young neighbor. "She has
never really thought about it. I dare say she only needs a sensible word
or two to change her mind. You children have such tremendous opinions,"
and Aunt Barbara smiled.
"Once when I was staying in the Isle of Wight," said Betty, "I belonged
to such a nice out-of-door club, Aunt Barbara."
"Did you? What was it like?"
"Oh, not really like anything that I can think of, only we had great fun
together. We used to walk miles and miles, and carry some buns or buy
them, and get milk or ginger-beer at the farms. There are so many ruins
to go to see, and old churches, and homes of eminent persons of the time
of Elizabeth, and we would read from their works; and it was so pleasant
coming home by the foot-paths afterward," announced Betty with
satisfaction. "The governesses used to go, too, but we could outrun all
but one of them, the Barry's, and my Miss Winter, who was as dear as
could be. I had my lessons with the Duncans, you know. Oh, it was such
fun!--the others would let us go on as fast as we liked, and come poking
along together, and have their own quiet pleasures." Betty was much
diverted with her recollections. "I mean to begin an out-of-door club
here, Aunt Barbara."
"In my time," said Aunt Barbara, "girls were expected to know how to
sew, and to learn to be good housekeepers."
"You would join the club, wouldn't you?" asked Betty anxiously.
"And be run away from, like the stout governesses, I dare say."
There was an attempt at a serious expression, but Miss Leicester could
not help laughing a little. Down came Miss Mary at this moment, with
Letty behind her, carrying cushions, and Betty sprang up to help make
the couch ready.
"I wish that you would belong, too, and come with us on wheels," said
she, returning to the subject that had been interrupted. "You could
drive to the meetings and be head-member, Aunt Mary." But Aunt Mary was
tired that day, and wished to have no demands made upon her. There were
days when Betty had a plan for every half-hour, remarked Aunt Barbara
indulgently.
"Suppose you come out to the garden with me to pick some raspberries?"
and Betty was quietly removed from the weak nerves of Aunt Mary, who
plaintively said that Betty had almost too much life.
"Too much life! Not a bit of it," said Serena, who was the grandniece's
chief upholder and champion. "We did need waking up, 't was a fact, Miss
Leicester; now, wa'n't it? It seemed just like old times, that night of
the tea-party. Trouble is, we've all got to bein' too master
comfortable, and thought we couldn't step one foot out o' the beaten
rut. 'T is the misfortune o' livin' in a little place."
And Serena marched back to the kitchen, carrying the empty glass from
which Miss Mary Leicester had taken some milk, as if it were the banner
of liberty.
She put it down on the clean kitchen-table. "Too much life!" the good
woman repeated scornfully. "I'd like to see a gal that had too much life
for me. I was that kind myself, and right up an' doin'. All these
Tideshead gals behave as slow as the everlastin' month o' March. Fussin'
about their clothes, and fussin' about '_you_ do this' and '_I_ can't do
that,' an' lettin' folks that know something ride right by 'em. See this
little Betty, now, sweet as white laylocks, I do declare. There she goes
'long o' Miss Barbary, out into the ros'berry bushes."
"Aunt Barbara," Betty was saying a few minutes later, as one knelt each
side of the row of white raspberries,--"Aunt Barbara, do you like best
being grown up or being about as old as I am?"
"Being grown up, I'm sure, dear," replied the aunt, after serious
reflection.
"I'm so glad. I don't believe people ever have such hard times with
themselves afterward as they do growing up."
"What is the matter now, Betty?"
"Mary Beck, Aunt Barbara. I thought that I liked her ever and ever so
much, but I have days when I want to shake her. It's my fault, because I
wake up and think about her and feel cross before I even look at her,
and then I can't get on all day. Then some days I can hardly wait to get
over to see her, and we have such a good time. But you can't change her
mind about anything."
"I thought that you wouldn't be so unreasonable all summer," said Aunt
Barbara, picking very fast. "You see that you expect Mary Beck to be
perfect, and the poor child isn't. You made up a Mary Beck in your own
mind, who was perfect at all points and just the kind of a girl you
would like best to spend all your time with. Be thankful for all you do
like in her; that's the best way."
"I just fell in love with a girl in the Isle of Wight, last summer,"
said Betty sorrowfully. "We wished to be together all the time, and we
wrote notes and always went about together. She was older than I. But
one day she said things that made me forget I ever liked her a bit. She
wanted to make up afterward, but I _couldn't_; and she writes and writes
me letters, but I never wish to see her again. I am sorry I ever liked
her." Betty's eyes flashed, and her cheeks were very red.
"I suppose it has been hard for her too," said Aunt Barbara; "but we
must like different friends for different reasons. Just try to remember
that you cannot find perfection. I used to know a great many girls when
I was growing up, and some of them are my friends still, the few who are
left. To find one true-hearted friend is worth living through a great
many disappointments."
* * * * *
Two or three weeks went over before Betty ceased to have the feeling
that she was a stranger and foreigner in Tideshead. At first she said
"you" and "I" when she was talking with the girls, but soon it became
easier to say "we." She took great pleasure in doing whatever the rest
did, from joining a class in Sunday-school to carrying round one of the
subscription-papers to pay for some Fourth of July fireworks, which went
up in a blaze of splendor on the evening of that glorious day.
After the garden tea-party, nothing happened, of a social nature, for
some time, although several of the boys and girls gave fine hints that
something might be expected to happen at their own houses. There was a
cheerful running to and fro about the Leicester house, and the high
white gate next the street was heard to creak and clack at least once in
every half-hour. Nelly Foster came seldom, but she was the brightest and
merriest of all the girls when she grew a little excited, and lost the
frightened look that had made lines on her forehead much too soon. Harry
was not seen very often, but Betty wondered a great deal about him, and
fancied him hunting and fishing in all sorts of dangerous places. The
Picknell girls came into the village on Sundays always, and often once
or twice in the week; but it was haying time now, and they were very
busy at the farm. Betty liked them dearly, and so did Mary Beck, who did
not get on with the minister's daughters at all, and had a prejudice, as
we know, against Nelly Foster. These made the little company which
seemed most closely allied, especially after the Sin Book Club became a
thing of the past as an active society. Betty had proposed the
out-of-door club, and had started a tennis-court, and devoted much time
to it; but nobody knew how to play very well yet, except Harry Foster
and Julia Picknell, and they were the most difficult ones to catch for
an idle afternoon. George Max could play, and one or two others could
stumble through a game and like it pretty well; but as for Mary Beck,
her shoes were too small for much agility, and she liked to wear her
clothes so tight that she was very clumsy with a racket. Betty's light
little gowns looked prim and plain to the Tideshead girls, who thought
their colors very strange, to begin with, and had not the sense to be
envious when their wearer went by, as light-footed and graceful as they
were awkward. They could not understand the simplicity that was natural
to Betty, but everybody liked her, and felt as much interested as if she
were an altogether new variety of human being. Perhaps we shall
understand the situation better if we read a letter which our heroine
wrote just then:--
MY DEAR PAPA,--This is from your Betty, who
intended to take a long walk with Mary Beck this
afternoon, but is now prevented by a
thunder-shower. It makes me wonder what you do
when you get wet, and who sees that you take off
your wet clothes and tries not to let you have a
cold. Isn't it almost time for you to come home
now, papa? I do miss taking care of you so very
much. You will be tired hearing about Mary Beck,
and you can't stop it, can you? as if you laughed
and then talked about something else when we were
walking together. You must remember that you said
we must be always fighting an enemy in ourselves,
and my enemy just now is making little funs of
Mary, and seeing that she doesn't know so much as
she thinks she does. I like too well to show her
that she is mistaken when she tells about things;
but it makes me sorry afterward, because, in spite
of myself, I like her better than I do anybody. I
truly love her, papa; indeed, I do, but I like to
tease her better than to help her, when she puts
on airs about the very places where I have been
and things I have done. Aunt Barbara speaks of her
manners, and wishes I would "play with" Nelly
Foster and the minister's girls: but Nelly is like
anybody grown up,--I suppose it is because she has
seen trouble, as people say here; and the
minister's girls are _little 'fraid cats_. That is
what Serena says, and is sure to make you laugh.
"Try and make 'em hop 'round," Serena told me at
the party, and I did try; but they aren't good
hoppers, and that's all there is to say. I sent
down to Riverport and bought Seth a book of violin
airs, and he practiced until two o'clock one
morning, so that Serena and Jonathan were saying
dreadful things. Aunt Mary is about the same, and
so is Aunt Barbara, and they send their love.
Papa, you must never tell, but I hate the one and
love the other. Mary Beck isn't half so bad as I
am to say that, but now it is a black mark and
must stay. There is one awful piece of news. The
Fosters' father has broken out of jail and
escaped, and they are offering a great reward, and
it is in all the papers. I ought to go to see
Nelly, but I dread it. I am writing this last page
another day, for yesterday the sun came out after
the shower and I went out with Aunt Barbara. She
is letting Mrs. Foster do some sewing for me. She
says that my clothes were in ruins; she did
indeed, and that they had been badly washed. I
hope that yours are not the same. Mrs. Foster
looked terribly frightened and pale, and asked
Aunt B. to come into the other room, and told her
about Mr. Foster. Then it was in the paper last
night. Papa, dear, I do remember what you said in
one of your letters about being a Tideshead girl
myself for this summer, and not standing off and
finding fault. I feel more like a Tideshead girl
lately, but I wish they wouldn't keep saying how
slow it is and nothing going on. We might do so
many nice things, but they make such great fusses
first, instead of just going and doing them, the
way you and I do. _They think of every reason why
you can't do things that you can do._ The currants
are all gone. You can't have a currant pie this
year. I thought those by the fence, under the
cherry-tree, might last until you came, because it
is shady, but they all spoiled in the rain. Now I
am going to read in "Walton's Lives" to Aunt Mary.
She says it is a book everybody ought to know, and
that I run wild more than I ought at my age. I
like to read aloud, as you know, so good-by, but
my age is _such_ a trouble. If you were here, we
would have the best good time.
Your own child, BETTY.
XIII.
A GREAT EXCITEMENT.
THAT afternoon Betty's lively young voice grew droning and dull after a
while, as she read the life of Dr. Donne, and at last she stopped
altogether.
"Aunt Mary, I can't help thinking about the Fosters' father. Do you
suppose he will come home and frighten them some night?"
"No, he would hardly dare to come where they are sure to be looking for
him," said Aunt Mary. "Dear me, the thought makes me so nervous."
"When I have read to the end of this page I will just run down to see
Nelly a few minutes, if you can spare me. I keep dreading to see her
until I am almost afraid to go."
Miss Mary sighed and said yes. Somehow she didn't get hold of Betty's
love,--only her duty.
Betty lingered in the garden and picked some mignonette before she
started, and a bright carnation or two from Aunt Barbara's special
plants. The Fosters' house was farther down the street on the same side,
and Nelly's blinds were shut, but if Betty had only known it, poor Nelly
was looking out wistfully through them, and wishing with all her heart
that her young neighbor would come in. She dreaded the meeting, too, but
there was such a simple, frank friendliness about Betty Leicester that
it did not hurt as if one of the other girls had come.
There came the sound of the gate-latch, and Nelly went eagerly down.
"Come up to my room; I was sitting there sewing," she said, blushing
very red, and Betty felt her own cheeks burn. How dreadful it must be
not to have such a comforting dear father as hers! She put her arms
round Nelly's neck and kissed her, and Nelly could hardly keep from
crying; but up-stairs they went to the bedroom, where Betty had never
happened to go before. She felt suddenly, as she never had before, how
pinched and poor the Fosters must be. Nelly was determined to be brave
and cheerful, and took up her sewing again. It happened to be a little
waist of Betty's own. Betty tried to talk gayly about being very tired
of reading "Walton's Lives." She had come to a dull place in Dr. Donne's
memoirs, though she thought them delightful at first. She was just
reading "The Village on the Cliff," on her own account, with perfect
delight.
"Harry reads 'Walton's Angler,'" said Nelly. "That's the same man, isn't
he? It is a stupid-looking old brown book that belonged to my
grandfather."
"Papa reads it, too," said Betty, nodding her head wisely. "I am in such
a hurry to have him come, when I think of Harry. I am sure that he will
help him to be a naturalist or something like that. Mr. Buckland would
have just loved Harry. I knew him when I was a little bit of a thing.
Papa used to take me to see him in London, and all his dreadful beasts
and snakes used to frighten me, but I do so like to remember him now.
Harry makes me think of Robinson Crusoe and Mayne Reid's books, and
those story-book boys who used to do such wild things fishing and
hunting."