her voice tenderly caressing, while Wythie wound her arm around their
beloved "Cousin Peace," as her other hand unfastened her coat.
"Robin insisted that I should not be in the way, and I did want so much
to come that I am afraid it didn't take strong arguments to convince
me that she was right," said the blind woman. "It is always good and
better to come here."
"Why there's little Polly Flinders and her mother!" exclaimed Rob. "Now
I wonder what has happened!"
She went to admit these last arrivals as she spoke, and Mrs. Flinders
came gauntly into the room, followed by Polly, clinging silently to her
adored Rob's hand, as if she were frightened.
Mrs. Flinders seated herself on the edge of a chair and began nervously
fingering the fold of the shawl in which she defied passing fashions
of coats and capes. "Did you hear?" she asked. And the Greys knew that
something serious had brought her to them.
"You didn't hear?" Mrs. Flinders substituted, as the Greys all shook
their heads. "It happened day before yesterday. He's had a stroke and
the doctor says he won't never be able to use his hands again. He can
talk's good's ever, and it ain't affected his mind, but he's done with
life till he dies."
"How dreadful!" murmured Mrs. Grey, struck by the dramatic form of
this closing statement, and greatly shocked at the hard fate which had
overtaken the farmer who for a long time had taken care of the Grey
place, sharing its product with the owners.
"What--You haven't made any plans yet, I suppose, Mrs. Flinders?"
"Yes, I have. I telegraphed his brother, and he telegraphed back I
could bring him on to his house in Boston and see if anything could
do any good, though I don't believe there's a doctor anywheres better
than Dr. Fairbairn," said the woman, disdaining to wipe away the tears
that had gathered in her eyes, and thus seeming to deny their presence.
"You ain't heard the worst. Here I am, been slaving and scrimping all
my days--you know just how near he's always been--and getting more
tired every year, and losing all my children except Maimie there, who
ain't any too rugged, and the only thing that kep' me up was thinking
that we was saving and putting by each year, so's if anything should
happen we'd have a tidy sum to pull through on. And as soon's he was
struck, and Dr. Fairbairn told him the truth about himself, according
to the doctor's principles of fair dealing with his patients, and had
left, he called me to him, and he up and told me what I hadn't so much
as an idea of. He's been drawing that money out of the bank and buying
stocks through some kind of a firm that advertised in the papers just
to catch country folks, and they kep' writing he was losing, with just
enough gain once in a while to egg him on, till he used up every penny
we had saved, and there ain't one red cent to show for all these years!
It was worrying about it that brought on the stroke, I guess--land
knows it's enough to give any one one! He never dared tell me, but when
he was took he didn't dare not to. Now, I ask you, Mis' Grey, if that
ain't just like a near man, to save and scrape and go without act'al
necessaries of life, and then be caught by a glittering humbug that
promises things even Maimie had ought to know it wouldn't fulfil?"
"I am afraid it is," assented Mrs. Grey, as the flood of Mrs. Flinders'
passionate eloquence paused for her reply. "It's not an unusual story,
but it is none the less a tragic one. I can't tell you how sorry I am
for you--and for Mr. Flinders, too; poor, deluded, stricken man!"
Mrs. Flinders swallowed what barely escaped being a great sob, and
Miss Charlotte asked: "But what does it all stand for, what degree of
misfortune, I mean? What are you going to do, Mrs. Flinders?"
"How am I going to live, do you mean?" asked the poor woman, turning
to the compassionate face that could not see her own. "The land knows;
I don't. There's no use trying to plan ahead. That's what I've been
doing, and now look at what's come of it! I know I'm going to his
brother's in Boston with him, and that's as far's I know."
"But Polly?" suggested Rob, clasping closer the little girl on her knee.
"Yes, that's what I was coming to, Roberta," said Mrs. Flinders,
turning to Rob with an embarrassment that was at the same time relief.
"I've been studying all the way here how I'd say it to you. First I
thought I'd tell you the story, and ask your advice about Polly. Then I
thought you'd see plain enough what I was hoping, and I ain't any hand
to beat around the bush, anyway; I like straight cuts best. Polly--'s
you call her--sets more by you than by any one on this earth, not
excepting me and her father. You took her here that time when she was
pindling away out of the world, and I guess there ain't much doubt you
saved her life. Would you see your way to taking her now for a spell? I
hate to ask a favour, but I don't know which way to turn."
"We should have offered to take the child if you hadn't asked, Mrs.
Flinders," said Mrs. Grey quickly. "Polly isn't any more trouble than
the little mouse in the wall that Kiku can never catch, because it
keeps in its hole there. Of course we will take little Polly, and keep
her safe as long as you want to leave her with us. We are only too glad
to get her back. Polly heard the last word my dear husband spoke, and
Polly sang him into his long sleep while she was singing to her dolly."
Mrs. Grey spoke very softly, and Rob's face dropped on Polly's smooth
head.
Polly's care-worn mother, worn into hardness and unloveliness, broke
down at this. "Oh, Lord," she said, not as an exclamation, but
prayerfully, "this life is queer. Sylvester Grey took just when he
was ready to live, and that poor, mean-souled, grasping man of mine
throwing away the work of his whole hard life, and then struck down
helpless on top of it! Well, I'm more obliged to you for your taking
Maimie, and for the way you do it than I can say. I won't let her stay
any longer'n I can help, but I've told you the whole story, and you can
see just what my prospects are. We've got to sell our farm--'tain't
valuble, but it'll bring something, if only some one wants it, and
after that I've got to support him and me and Maimie, till she's old
enough to do for herself."
Mrs. Flinders had risen as she spoke and the Greys arose too.
"I have told you truly that Polly is welcome for just as long a time
as you care to trust her to us--weeks, months, or years. She is a
dear, quiet, gentle child, and we have plenty of room to shelter her
and plenty of bread and butter to nourish her till life has something
better to offer her than we can give her. And you know, Mrs. Flinders,
that my girls and I will give the child the same care, in body, mind,
and soul that Wythie, Rob, and Prue received. You need not fear that
she will not be lovingly cared for, nor feel any anxiety about her. I
will do my best."
The two mothers looked into each others' eyes; one was seamed, thin,
work-hardened, work-worn, the other was beautiful, calm, clear-eyed,
wearing in the brave smile that illumined her face the look of one that
has conquered.
Mrs. Flinders put out her hard hand without a word. Then she shook
hands with Miss Charlotte, Wythie, and Rob, and took Polly's little
hand to lead her away.
"I'll send her up this afternoon," she said as she walked rigidly
out of the door, speaking without turning her head. "As to the rest,
whatever this blow is to us, Maimie's in luck."
"Isn't that tragic?" exclaimed Rob as soon as the outside door was
safely shut.
"Have you taken Polly Flinders, mama?" cried Prue, coming swiftly down
the stairs. "Good-morning, Cousin Peace. Oh, dear; don't you dread
having Polly?"
"Not any more than I dread the sparrows around the door, hopping about
for my crumbs, nor the dozen or so of cats who come daily for our
larger crumbs," replied her mother stoutly. "I love to feel that the
little grey house diffuses brighter colours on darkened lives. Polly
really is as quiet as the little mouse I compared her to, and it isn't
a great risk to take a child who lacks so much in her own home, is it
Charlotte? Polly can't lose in coming to us, having very little to
lose."
"That is not overstated, Mary," said Cousin Peace quietly, and even
Prue reluctantly laughed.
"Well," sighed Wythie, who had not spoken for a long time, rising as
she spoke. "Well, I feel dazed. That is such a sad story that we have
just heard, made sadder by the barrenness of its manner of telling! And
then we have acquired a child, indefinitely, and lost a farmer most
definitely. And I meant to have made a pudding for dinner, and it is
altogether too late. I feel dazed. I wonder if this is to be an era of
happenings? I have noticed events move in schools, like mackerel."
"I really hope, Wythie, that children aren't going to move upon us in
schools, like mackerel," cried Rob, recovering her brightness of face
and manner. "For our income is distinctly limited. I should have to
resume my story-telling."
This was a mild family joke; Rob's story-telling always loomed in the
near distance as a possibility when the warm Grey hearts led them to
generosities of which their purse was not capable.
The puddingless dinner was despatched with some haste, because Wythie
and Rob had cake to make to be ready for Battalion B's keen appetite,
made keener by abstinence from the little grey house's cake, and
Rob had to go to the rescue of Aunt Azraella's Tobias. There were
preparations to be made for the coming of Polly, which had to be
compromised for the immediate present by a bed in the corner of Prue's
room, for the afternoon was speeding away; it was almost time for the
arrival of the boys, while Polly must be quite due.
Mrs. Flinders, herself, did not bring the child. A neighbour drove her
up in the dilapidated buggy in which she had arrived to make her first
visit to the Greys. It did not look much more purplish and worn, nor
Polly much older for the time that had passed since then, though the
buggy had been in constant use, and the child had attained the great
age of nine.
Miss Charlotte lingered to welcome the boys, between whom and the sweet
blind woman there was the strongest affection. Polly had hardly been
established before three long shadows came wavering up the eastward
mounting hill of the main street, and Basil, Bruce, and Bartlemy strode
over the little front gate without stopping for the ceremony of opening
it, in quite their old way, and burst into the little grey house,
filling it from roof to cellar with their hearty voices shouting:
"Little Grey Mother, little Grey girls, where in the little grey house
are you?" this was their liturgical chant every week upon arriving.
"Here is the mother, and here are the girls. Welcome Battalion B!"
chanted the girls, and the ceremony of reception was ended.
Wythie, Rob, and Prue rushed to the door each trying to be the first to
open it. Three strong brown hands clasped the three held out to meet
them, and the girls, laughing and chattering, the boys chattering quite
as loudly, came into the quiet green and white room, filling it with
youth and joy.
Mrs. Grey sprang to meet her boys, holding out both hands, her face
radiating pleasure as brightly as the girls' faces did. Cousin
Charlotte pressed close behind her--it was not strange that the
Rutherford boys counted the hours from Monday to Friday that lay
between them and their glad home-coming.
"My but it's good to get here!" ejaculated Bruce, stretching his
long legs to the fire, but looking at Rob whose warm red-brown hair,
flashing eyes and crimson cheeks were every whit as heartening to look
upon as were the flames licking up through the great logs.
"There's no place like it--John Howard Paine was perfectly right," said
Basil with quiet conviction, watching Wythie's soft hands as they cut
generous slices from the afternoon's cake baking and added the cookies
the tall boys had "loved from their first meeting," as Bartlemy said.
"There is no news, except that we have Polly Flinders here for a visit
with no end in sight; her father is paralysed and has squandered all
his money in worthless stocks," Prue was saying, in reply to Bartlemy's
demand for news.
"Whew! As though that weren't news enough!" Bruce cried, sitting erect.
"Fancy Flinders squandering! And paralysed, is he? The poor old fellow!
He has been rather decent since your father died."
"Very decent," assented Rob. "And Hester was up, and brought her cousin
Lester Baldwin, fresh from Japan. He is just like her father. And
Hessie has some new longing, which I did not quite get at; something
to do with helping incurable cripple children in the tenements," she
continued.
"That sounds like the most interesting and sensible scheme she has had
yet," said Bruce heartily. "But this cousin--You like Mr. Baldwin;
did you say the Japaned cousin was like him?" And Bruce scowled
melodramatically.
"Precisely," said Rob. "Only nicer."
"Come up to our other house, Basil," said Bruce. "I won't linger here!"
"We'll be back after supper," he added, relenting as the battalion
filed out of the little grey house. "We must go up to look at the
Caldwell house, but we'll come home here as soon as our duty is done."
"It's good to get home, Wythie," said Basil turning back on the steps,
just as he spoke and just as he turned back each week at the same hour.
CHAPTER FOUR
ITS DREADFUL NIGHT
"I saved a life to-day, Bruce," said Rob. The Rutherford boys had got
back to the little grey house, the evening had shut in around it,
shutting out all the world except that small fragment of it which
centred around the old hearth.
Over in the corner, under her green-shaded sewing lamp, sat the mother
without whom the happiness of the six young people would have been
incomplete, and this was true although the six were drifting more and
more into the habit of being three pairs. Bartlemy was never tired
of vainly trying to satisfy himself in painting Prue's wonderful
colouring, and, if the truth were told, Prue never tired of having
him try. Bartlemy's talent was developing into something to be taken
seriously; already his brothers were making up their minds to the first
parting when they should be graduated together. Basil and Bruce had
delayed college till Bartlemy could enter with them, but evidently
their ways would lie together no further. Bartlemy must go away to
study in Italy and France, for his boyish nickname of Fra Bartolomeo
was proving prophetic--Bartlemy would be a painter.
Wythie and Basil never seemed to have very much to talk about, but they
drifted beside each other invariably, and their many moments of silence
seemed to be quite as full of utterance as their moments of speech, as
the observant Grey mother noted with a satisfaction that could not be
wholly free from regret.
As to Rob and Bruce they chattered ceaselessly, never far apart, always
absorbed in identical interests, and with the same kind of a sense of
humour--which it is said is the strongest cement of friendship. It was
hard to tell much about Rob and Bruce. It was plain to be seen that
Bruce was of the same opinion that he had been from the first, which
was that Rob easily surpassed all other girls, including sweet Wythie
and handsome Prue, just as Rob considered Battalion B collectively
the best and cleverest boys in the world, and Bruce the head of
the battalion. But their comradeship was so entirely free from the
suggestion of sentiment that there was no predicting how it would end.
As to Prue, she was but sixteen, and Mrs. Grey was too sensible to
build up romances, or to encourage them for such a youthful heroine.
She knew that Prue had plenty of that ambition which the other girls
lacked, the ambition to shine, to see and to be seen in a larger world
than the little grey house and Fayre offered her. She had never been
the simple and contented little girl that both of her sisters had
been, and the modest fortune that had come to the Greys had rather
contributed to her restlessness than made her contented, for it had
given Prue a taste of small luxuries which whetted her appetite for
greater ones.
Mrs. Grey watched this tendency in her baby with uneasiness. This
home-loving and essentially womanly woman believed that ambitions of
Prue's sort never brought happiness to the woman whom they drew after
their _ignis fatuus_ attractions, but rather substituted heartburnings
and envy for peace, holding out an unattainable gaol of triumph, which
would prove empty and unsatisfying even should it be reached. Mrs. Grey
was an old-fashioned woman, believing that love, not applause, good
deeds, not brilliant ones rounded and filled a woman's life.
"Cricket on the hearth?" suggested Bruce, replying to Rob's statement
that she had saved a life that day.
"No; Tobias, I set his leg and bandaged it. Aunt Azraella thought that
he must die," said Rob. "You're not the only surgeon of this sextette."
"Tobias?" repeated Bruce in the dark. "Don't know the gentleman. Where
was Dr. Fairbairn, and why should he die from a broken leg?"
"Don't you remember Aunt Azraella's cat, Tobias?" cried Rob. Adding,
as Bruce uttered an enlightened: "Oh!" "Aunt Azraella says that she
doesn't want Tobias chloroformed because Elvira would grieve for him,
but I believe she has a sneaking liking for the old cat herself;
she drew a long breath of relief when I repaired him and uttered my
professional opinion that he would pull through. Aunt Azraella doesn't
seem quite strong, and it makes her gentler. Do you suppose that it
would be your duty as a physician to impair the health of positive and
vigorous ladies, like Aunt Azraella?"
"'Health chiefly keeps an atheist in the dark,'" quoted Bruce promptly.
"I don't remember seeing that question of medical ethics raised, but
it opens up a wide field for argument. I think a great many people
would be softer and sweeter for having less cast-iron nerves, and less
self-sufficiency of health."
"Well, I think there are not a great many, but very few in America
who suffer from cast-iron nerves," said Rob with a sigh. "I'm only
beginning to realize what a horrible lot of misery there is in the
world. I can understand your choice of a profession, Bruce."
"You always had medicinal qualities--" Bruce began.
"You mean medical," corrected Prue from her pose before Bartlemy near
by.
"Do I?" asked Bruce. "I can perfectly understand my choice in every
way, Rob. As to the misery, there is more than you will ever realize, I
hope. But on the other hand as human beings grow better it will lessen.
The higher the civilization the greater the capacity to suffer, but the
stronger the sense of the rights of the weak and of our kinship and
obligations even to 'our brother, the wolf,' as St. Francis used to
say. His sanctity was great enough to reveal to him how endless was the
chain of love--they hadn't found it out in his day."
"There doesn't seem to be much that girls, Grey girls in Fayre, for
instance--can do," said Rob looking wistful.
"We know now, Robin, that everything is a system of units. We are all
merely molecules, by comparison, but working together for a result,"
said Bruce. "You can make life sweet and wholesome all around you. You
can help three big fellows, for instance, to march straight in a world
full of pitfalls; you can cheer everybody and set the best of examples,
which preaches wordlessly, to all who come near you. I think, as a
unit, Rob, you might be considered a success. If all units did their
cheerful best, as it is done in this little grey house, the collective
result would be the millennium."
"Goodness, no!" cried Rob. Then she shook off her gravity and her
face rippled into its usual merriment. "Did we ever talk so seriously
before, Bruce, in all the days of our partnership? It must be the
effect of Hester's visit and Mr. Flinders' sad state! Or is it the
influence of Lydia? I have long wondered how we kept up our habit of
laughter with Lydia about. She is like a perpetual Ash Wednesday--seems
to be going about putting a pinch of ashes on every Grey forehead all
the time, and saying: 'Remember, man, that dust thou art, and unto
dust thou shalt return!' And she conveys the impression of having such
a very poor opinion of the quality of our dust! I wonder if Lyddie
really can be but twenty-four years old! I can't believe it! Isn't
it odd how many things one knows to be true, yet can't believe? Like
India, for instance, and that the world is round, and all those things."
"All what things?" laughed Bruce. "Don't you believe in India--after
Kipling?"
"Kim is so vivid that I can't believe it--don't pretend you don't
understand, Bruce, because you always do," said Rob.
"I know," assented Bruce. "The wonderful detail that is vivid and
unreal at once, as dreams are vivid and unreal. Rob, you are in a queer
mood to-night; you have somewhat the effect on me this moment which you
are trying to describe--you are most vivid, yet you seem unreal, at
least unlike yourself."
"I feel so," agreed Rob promptly. "I feel excited, stirred, restless,
happy, unhappy--all ways, but my normal way. What is making Basil so
much more talkative than usual to-night?"
"His plans, I fancy; he is probably telling Wythie what he is
considering," Bruce answered regarding his elder with a twinkle.
What Basil was saying was nothing, apparently to call forth the
twinkle.
"Then you approve the idea?" Rob heard him say.
"Yes," said Wythie quietly. "I like the Caldwell place very much; it
is dignified and beautiful. If you really mean to make literature your
career, and to study, Basil, and became a specialist in bird study,
besides writing a novel or so--you said a novel or so? Well, then,"
Wythie continued as Basil nodded a smiling assent, "I do not see how
you could have a better place in which to live and work than in Fayre,
so quiet, yet so near town, and in the old Caldwell place, among its
elms and Norwegian pines."
"And you like it, Wythie? You think it could be made a home to be happy
in?" persisted Basil.
Wythie looked up without embarrassment, her face shining with
confidence.
"Anywhere may be that, Basil," she said. "And the Caldwell place
more than most. If I were you I would buy it. And it is certainly an
irresistible bargain at that price."
"Basil is talking of buying the Caldwell place, you see," said Bruce.
"He has fully made up his mind, since father's latest letter came, to
give up all thought of a business career after we are graduated and
'commence author,' as our English cousins say. I honestly think he is
warranted in the choice; I suppose he will do something the sort of
thing John Burroughs does, as well as write novels--everybody writes
novels."
"Except you and me," smiled Rob. "Must you go? How short these
intercollegiate evenings are!"
"Intercollegiate, Rob?" echoed her mother, putting down her work and
coming forward as the three tall guests rose to take their leave.
"Aren't they between college?" asked Rob unabashed. "Just two little
full days sandwiched in between the five of hard labour at Yale."
The little grey house settled down to slumber soon after it was left
to itself. The brisk autumnal winds are conducive to deep sleep, and
Wythie and Rob in their room, and Prue in hers, opening from it, in
which little Polly Flinders was tucked away in the corner, slept
dreamlessly far into the night.
Then the sound of voices penetrated their sleep, far-off calls,
men shouting, and, at last, a hand was shaking Wythie and Rob into
wakefulness.
They sat erect, trembling and startled, to see their mother bending
over them, a hand on the shoulder of each, as she cried: "Wythie, Rob,
wake up, wake up!"
"What has happened?" cried the frightened girls on their feet in an
instant.
"Charlotte's house is burning; they have called us. We must go," gasped
Mrs. Grey. "Put on warm clothing; make haste! Prue, stay here with
Lydia and that child," she added as Prue, wide eyed and pale, joined
the group.