came slowly in. He leaned heavily on his cane and caught on to the
different pieces of furniture to help him make his way to papa's
bedside. They just clasped hands, and for a minute neither of them
said a word; then Felix began: "Oh, sir, I thank God that you are
spared,"--his voice shook so he had to stop.
Papa said gently: "More reference-making for you, my lad; I am evidently
to be allowed to finish my work." And then Fee began again.
He didn't say a great deal, and it was in a low tone,--a little slow,
too, at first, as if he were holding himself in,--but there was
something in his voice that made my heart swell up in me as it did
that day I thrashed Henderson. It's a queer feeling; it makes one feel
as if one could easily do things that would be quite impossible at any
other time.
"I hope I'll not tire or agitate you, sir," Fee said, "but I feel I must
tell you, for Phil, Betty, and myself, how _utterly_ ashamed we are of
that miserable, heartless joke we got off some months ago,--going to Mr.
Erveng about your book; no, father, _please_ let me go on,--this ought
to have been said long ago! We earnestly ask your forgiveness for that,
sir; the remembrance of it has lain very heavy on our hearts in these
last anxious weeks--"
He stopped; I guess there was a lump in his throat,--_I_ know what that
is! And presently papa said, very gently: "That did hurt me, Felix; but
I have forgiven it. It may be that the experience was needed. I am
afraid that I forgot I owed it to my children to finish and make use
of my work."
"No, _no_!" exclaimed Felix, vehemently. "_Don't_ feel that way, father;
oh, _please_ don't! We hope you won't ever work on it again as you have
been working,--to run yourself down, to make yourself ill. We beg, we
implore that you will take better care of yourself. Let the book go;
_never_ finish it; what do we care for it, compared to having you with
us strong and well once more! Oh, sir, if you really do forgive us, if
you really do believe in the love of your children, promise us that you
will not work as you've been doing lately!"
He waited a minute or two; then, as papa said nothing, he cried out
sharply: "We are--_her_--children, sir; for _her_ sake do as we ask!"
"Why do you want this--why do you want me to live?" papa asked slowly.
"_Why?_ Because we love you!" exclaimed Fee, in surprise.
And then I heard papa say, "My _son_!" in _such_ a tender voice; and
then,--after a while,--"I am under a contract to finish my book, and I
must do it; but I will endeavour to work less arduously, and to look
more after my health."
Here I think Fee must have kissed him,--it sounded so. "I shall have
good news for the others," he said. "You know, sir, Phil and Betty feel
as keenly about this as I do, but, for fear it would tire you, it was
thought best for only one of us to speak to you about the matter. You
don't feel any worse for our talk,--do you, father?" He said this
anxiously, but papa said no, it hadn't done him any harm; still, he
added, Felix had better go, and so he did in a few minutes. I felt so
sorry when I thought of all the steps he'd have to climb to the
schoolroom; I wondered how he'd ever get up them.
Well, after that I think papa had a nap; anyway, he was very quiet. It
was pretty stupid for me behind that curtain, and I was just wishing
for about the tenth time that Miss Appleton would put in an appearance,
when the door opened suddenly, and who should come walking in but Phil!
He went straight up to papa, and began rather loud, and in a quick,
excited sort of way,--I could tell he was awfully nervous,--"How d'you
feel to-day, sir?" Then, before papa had time to answer, he went on: "We
were talking things over last evening, and--and we--well, sir, we--that
is, Felix, Betty, and I--feel that we're at the bottom of this illness
of yours, through our getting up the scheme about the Fet--your book,
you know--in going to Mr. Erveng. It was the cheekiest thing on our
part! I deserve to be kicked for that, sir,--I know I do. And we're
afraid--we think--you're just killing yourself! I'm a blundering idiot
at talking, I know, so I might's well cut it short. What I want to say
is this: We'd rather have you living, sir, and the--history--_never_
finished, than have it finished, with no end of money, and you dead. Oh,
father, if you could know how we felt that night when your life hung in
the balance!" He broke right down with a great sob.
Then everything was so quiet again that I looked round the portière;
Phil knelt by the bedside with his face buried in the bed-clothes, and
papa's hand was resting on his head.
I let the curtain fall. I felt, perhaps, they'd rather I didn't look
at them.
Then presently papa said quite cheerfully, "It will be all right, Phil:
I think I am going to get well, and I shall try to take better care of
myself; so you will, I hope, have no further occasion to be troubled
about my health. I appreciate your speaking frankly to me, as you have
done. Now, perhaps, you had better go; I am a little tired."
Phil shook hands with papa and started to go, but paused half-way to the
door. "This is for Felix and Betty, as well as for myself, father," he
said pleadingly. "They feel just as badly as I do about you, but we
thought 'twas best for one to speak for the three; and I being the
eldest,--you understand?"
"Yes," papa said gently, "I understand."
As the door closed behind Phil, papa called me. "Jack," he said, in a
weak voice, "it seems to me that Miss Appleton is gone a good while;
perhaps you had better give me something,--I think I am tired."
My! didn't I get nervous! There was nothing on the table but bottles and
a medicine glass; I didn't know any more than the man in the moon what
to give him, and I didn't like to ask him. I was pretty sure he didn't
know; and besides, he had shut his eyes. I caught up one of the bottles
and uncorked and smelled it without in the least knowing what I intended
doing next. How I did wish the nurse would come! Just then some one
came into the room, and when I turned quickly, expecting to see Miss
Appleton, who was it but _Betty_!
Well, I was so surprised, I nearly dropped the bottle. But she didn't
even look at me; she just marched up to papa and began talking.
She stood a little distance from the bed,--she said afterward she was
afraid to go nearer for fear she'd shake the bed, or fall on it,--with
her hands behind her back, and she just rattled off what she had to say
as if she'd been "primed," as Phil calls it. Without even a "how d'you
do?" she plunged into her subject. That's Betty all over; she always
goes right to the point. "Papa," she said earnestly, "I'm awfully--that
is, _very_, _very_ sorry we went to Mr. Erveng that time about your
book, without first speaking to you about it. We're all _very_
sorry,--Phil, Felix, and I,--and just as ashamed as we can be. We've
worried dreadfully over it, and about you, and it was simply _awful_
when we thought you were going to die! We didn't acknowledge it to one
another, but if you had died, I know we three'd have felt as if we had
as much as killed you" (here Betty's voice dropped to almost a whisper;
I thought perhaps she was going to cry, but she didn't, she just went on
louder); "for we are sure you never would have hurried so with--your
book--if we hadn't played that mean joke. You see, papa, we're _so_
afraid you'll--you'll--die, or be ill, or something else dreadful if you
don't stop working so hard,--like a galley slave, as Phil says. And I've
come to ask you, for Phil, Felix, and myself, to let the hateful old
book go, and just get well and strong again; will you?"
"But if the history is completed, it can be sold, and thus bring in the
money that is so much needed in the family."
Betty eyed papa; I think she wasn't sure whether he was in sarcasm or
earnest. "Oh," she said, "we did think it would be nice to have enough
money to send Fee to college, but we don't want it any more,--at least,
not if it's to come by your being ill--or--or--oh, papa, dear, we're all
so _very_ glad and thankful that you are going to get well." She took
his hand up carefully and kissed it.
"I think that now I am glad, too, Betty," said papa; "much more so than
I ever expected to be."
"And you won't work so hard again, will you?" asked Betty, anxiously.
"You see, papa, I'm to get you to promise that; that's what I've come
for. We talked the matter over last evening, and Phil would have come to
speak to you about it, but he said you looked so wretchedly--and so you
do--that just to look at you made him break down, and he was afraid
he'd get rattled and make an a--a mess of it. Then Felix, he couldn't
come, because, well, because--I guess he felt badly, too, about your
being ill. So I thought _I'd_ better come down and have a talk with you,
though I must say I was afraid I might do something awkward,--I'm so
_stupid_ in a sick-room; but so far all's right, isn't it? The boys
don't know I've come,--I thought I'd surprise them; and so I will, with
the good news: you'll promise, won't you, papa?"
"Yes," papa said, "I promise."
Then Betty flew at him and kissed him, and then papa told her she'd
better go. It was only just as she got to the door that she spied me.
"Hullo! you here?" she exclaimed in astonishment,--adding, in a lower
tone, "What're you laughing at?" Then, as I didn't answer, she walked
out.
"Jack," called papa, "are there anymore of them to come? Do you suppose
they are crazy?" Then he added to himself, "I wonder if any one else in
the world has such children as I have?" We looked at each other for a
minute or two (papa's eyes were bright, and his mouth was kind of
smiley, and I was, I know, on a broad grin), and then we both
laughed,--papa quietly, as he always does; but I cackled right
out, I _couldn't_ help it.
At this moment in came Miss Appleton with papa's nourishment, and right
behind her Nannie.
"Oh, how bright you look!" Nannie exclaimed with delight, as she came up
to him; "that last medicine has certainly done you good."
"Yes, I think it has," papa said, with a quizzical glance at me. "It was
a new and unexpected kind; Nannie, my dear,--I have had a visitation."
XV.
SOME MINORS.
TOLD BY JACK.
Instead of going in the country early, as usual, this year we just hung
on and hung on until the weather was quite warm, waiting for papa to get
strong enough to stand the journey. It seemed to us as if he were an
awful while getting well: long after he was able to be dressed, he had
to lie on the lounge for the greater part of every day,--the least
exertion used him up; and as for his work, Dr. Archard said he wasn't to
even _think_ of touching it. But at last--after changing the date
several times--a day was set for us to start. We were all delighted; we
_love_ to be at the Cottage. You see we have no lessons then, 'cause
Miss Marston goes away for her holidays, and we can be out of doors all
day long if we choose; papa doesn't mind as long as we're in time for
meals and looking clean and decent. There's a lovely cove near our
house,--it isn't deep or dangerous,--and there we go boating and
swimming; then there's fishing and crabbing, and drives about the
country in the big, rattly depot-wagon behind Pegasus,--that's our
horse, but he's an awful old slow-poke,--and rides on our donkey,
G. W. L. Spry. Oh, I tell you now, it's all just _splendid_! We
always hate to go back to the city.
Perhaps you think our donkey has a queer name. Most people do until we
explain. Well, his real name is George Washington Lafayette Spry,--so
the man said from whom papa bought him,--but that was such a mouthful
to say that Fee shortened it to G. W. L. Spry, and I do believe the
"baste," as cook calls him, knows it just as well as the other
name,--any way, he answers to it just as readily. He _is_ pretty
spry when he gets started, but the thing is to start him.
[Illustration: "G. W. L. SPRY."]
Well, to go back, we were delighted at the prospect of getting away,
and we all worked like beavers helping to get ready. Miss Marston
and the girls and Phil packed,--his college closed ever so long
ago,--Fee directed things generally, and addressed and put on tags,
and we children ran errands. Almost everything was ready; in fact,
some of the furniture had gone,--there're such a lot of us that we
have to take a pile of stuff,--when two unexpected things happened
that just knocked the whole plan to pieces.
For a good while Max had been urging and urging papa to go to his place
in the Adirondacks; he said his mother was there, and she was first-rate
at taking care of sick people, and that she'd be awfully glad to see
Nannie, too, who, Max declared, needed the change as much as ever papa
did. But papa refused, and it was settled that we were all to go to the
Cottage, when suddenly Dr. Archard turns round and says that mountain,
not sea air was what papa should have, and insisted so on it that at
last papa gave in and accepted Max's invitation for Nannie and himself.
So then it was arranged that papa, Nannie, and Max were to go to the
mountains, and we to the Cottage with Miss Marston,--they going one day,
and we the next.
[Illustration: "WE ALL WORKED LIKE BEAVERS."]
That was the first set-back, and the next one was ten times worse. Just
as papa was being helped down the steps to the carriage, what should
come but a telegram for Miss Marston from her aunt in Canada, asking her
to come right on. Well, that just upset _our_ going in the country! Phil
and Felix told papa they could manage things, and get us safely to the
Cottage,--and I'm sure they'd have done it as well as ever Miss Marston
could, for she's awfully fussy and afraid of things happening; but
no, papa wouldn't hear of it, though Max declared he thought 'twould be
all right. Felix took it quietly, but Phil got kind of huffy, and said
papa must think he was about two years old, from the way he treated him.
I tell you, for a little while there Nannie had her hands full,--what
with trying to smooth him down, and to keep papa from getting nervous
and worked up over the matter.
Well, after a lot of talking, and papa losing one train, it was arranged
that we should remain in the city with nurse until we heard from Miss
Marston, and knew how long she'd be likely to stay in Canada. If only a
short time,--say ten days,--we were to wait for her return and go under
her care to the Cottage; but if she'd be gone several weeks, then Phil,
Felix, and nurse would take us to the country. As soon as this was
settled, papa, Nannie, and Max went off, and a little later Miss Marston
started for her train.
Besides being worried about her aunt, Miss Marston felt real sorry at
leaving us so hurriedly, and she gave no end of directions to Nora and
Betty, to say nothing of nurse. Nora didn't seem to mind this, but nurse
sniffed--she always does that when she doesn't like what people are
telling her--and Betty got impatient; you see Nannie'd been drilling
Betty, too,--telling her to be nice to Nora, and to help with the
little ones, and all that,--and I guess she'd got tired of being
told things.
"I know just how Phil feels about papa's snubbing," she said to me.
"Some people never seem to realise that we're growing up. Why, if
papa and Miss Marston should live until we were eighty and ninety
years old, I do believe, Jack, that they'd still treat us as if we
were infants,--like the story Max told us of the man a hundred and
ten years old, who whipped his eighty-year-old son and set him in a
corner because he'd been 'naughty'! It's too provoking! And as to
being '_nice_' to Nora, I feel it in my bones that she and I will
have a falling out the very first thing; she'll put on such airs
that I'll not be able to stand her!"
But as it turned out, there was something else in store for Betty; that
same evening over came Mr. Erveng and Hilliard with an invitation from
Mrs. Erveng for Betty to go to their country home, near Boston, and
spend a month with them. Mr. Erveng had met papa in the railroad station
that day, and got his consent for Betty to accept the invitation. So all
she had to do was to pack a trunk and be ready to leave with them the
next morning,--they would call for her.
I felt awfully sorry Betty was going: though there are so many of us,
you've no idea what a gap it makes in the family when even one is away;
and, with all her roughness and tormenting ways, Betty is real nice,
too. I didn't actually know what I'd do with both Nannie and her away. I
couldn't help wishing that the Ervengs had asked Nora instead of Betty,
and I know Betty wished so, too, for you never saw a madder person than
she was when she came upstairs to help nurse pack her trunk: you see she
didn't dare make any objections, as long as papa had given his consent,
but she didn't want to go one step, and she just let us know it. "I'll
have to be on my company manners the whole livelong time, and I simply
_loathe_ that," she fumed. "Mrs. Erveng won't let me play with Hilliard,
I'm sure she won't, 'that's so unladylike!'"--mimicking Mrs. Erveng's
slow, gentle voice,--"and I never know what to talk to _her_ about. I
suppose I'll have to sit up and twirl my thumbs, like a regular Miss
Prim, from morning to night. Why didn't they ask _you_?" wheeling round
on Nora. "You and Mrs. Erveng seem to be such fine friends, and you suit
her better than I do. I always feel as if she looked upon me as a
clumsy, overgrown hoiden, an uncouth sort of animal."
"I couldn't very well be spared from home just now," answered Nora,
calmly, with her little superior air; "and any way, I presume Mrs.
Erveng asked the one she wanted,--people generally claim that
privilege." So far was all right; but she must needs go on, and, as
Phil says, "put her foot in it." "I really hope you'll behave yourself
nicely, Betty," she continued, "for only the other day I heard Mrs.
Erveng say that she thought you had improved wonderfully lately; _do_
keep up to that reputation."
Betty was furious! "No, _really_? How _very_ kind of her!" she burst out
scornfully. "The idea of her criticising me,--and to you! You ought to
be ashamed not to stand up for your own sister to strangers! Indeed,
I'll do just as I please; _I'm_ not afraid of Mrs. Erveng! I'll slide
down every banister, if I feel like it, and swing on the doors, too, and
make the most horrible faces; you see if I don't come home before the
month is out!"
"Leave their house standing, Elizabeth,--just for decency's sake, you
know," advised Phil.
We were all laughing, and what does Nora do but pitch into me for it.
"Can't you find anything better to do, Jack, than encouraging Betty to
be rude and unladylike?" she commenced sharply; but just then Hannah
came, asking for something, and, with a great air of importance, Nora
went off with her.
But if Nora didn't understand how Betty felt, I did. Of course the
Ervengs meant it kindly asking her; but _I_ wouldn't have wanted to go
off alone visiting people that were almost strangers,--for that's what
Mr. and Mrs. Erveng are to us, though we do know Hilliard so well,--and
I just said so to her, and gave her my best feather-top. As I told her,
she might play it times when she was alone in her own room, to keep up
her spirits. I'd have given her something nicer, but all my things were
packed up, except my locomotive, and I knew she wouldn't care for
_that_,--she's always making fun of it.
Betty's one of the kind that just hate to cry where people can see them,
so she went away without the least fuss--though I know her heart was
full--when the Ervengs called for her the next morning. Hilliard was as
merry as a lark. "It's so good of you to come," he said, beaming on
Betty when he met her on the steps. "We are going to take the very best
care of you, and help you to enjoy yourself immensely; I only wish all
the others were coming with us, too,"--with a glance at us (the whole
family had crowded out on the stoop to see Betty off).
"We don't want to; we'd rather go to the Cottage," sung out Alan. Nora
had to hush him up.
Hilliard was just as nice as he could be, putting Betty into the
carriage, and looking after her things,--I hadn't thought he could be so
polite; but Betty was very cool and snippy, and the last sight I got of
her, as the carriage turned the corner, she was sitting bolt upright,
looking as stiff as a poker. I felt sorry for Betty, and I felt sorry
for the Ervengs, too,--at least for Hilliard. I can't think why Betty
doesn't like him better.
We were awfully lonely and unsettled for a few days,--it seemed so
queer to have Nora in Nannie's place, and Phil at the head of the
table; to hear Nora giving orders, and for Phil to have to see to
shutting up the house nights. Somehow it made us feel grown-up,--it was
such a responsibility, you know; and at first we were all very quiet,
and so polite to one another that nurse declared she "wouldn't 'a'
known we was the same fam'ly." Felix and Phil were as dignified as
could be, and the little ones went to bed without a murmur, and obeyed
Nora like so many lambs. But it didn't last,--it couldn't, you know,
for we weren't really happy, acting that way; and pretty soon we began
to be just as we usually were,--only a little more so, as we boys say.
You see nobody was really head, though Nora and Phil both pretended they
were,--we didn't count nurse,--and each person just wanted to do as he
or she pleased, and of course that made lots of fusses. Phil did a lot
of talking, and ordered people around a good deal, but nobody minded him
very much. Nora had her hands full with the children; they were awfully
hard to manage, particularly Kathie,--her feelings get hurt so easily.
Nora said that nurse spoiled them, and in a sort of way took their part
against her, while nurse said Nora was too fond of "ordering," and that
she nagged them; so there were rumpuses there sometimes. I read over all
my favourite books that weren't packed up, and worked on my steam
engine, and went about to see what the others were doing; but I tried
not to be mixed up in any of the rows. Fee got a fit of painting,--he
wanted Nora to pose for him for Antigone, but she wouldn't; and he
played his violin any time during the day that he liked,--you see there
wasn't anybody there to mind the noise.
That was in the day; in the evenings we--Nora and we three boys--sat on
the stoop, it was _so_ warm indoors. The Unsworths and Vassahs and 'most
all the people we knew were out of town, and Chad Whitcombe was the only
person that came round to see us. When he found we hadn't gone to the
country, he'd make his appearance every evening, and sit with us on the
stoop. At first he stayed the whole evening, and was so pleasant and
chatty I could hardly believe 'twas Chad; of course he was affected,--he
always is,--but still he was real interesting, telling about places he'd
been to, and some of the queer people he'd met in his travels. After a
while, though, he began to stay for about half the evening, then he'd
ask Phil to take a walk with him, and away they would go; and sometimes
Phil wouldn't get back very early either.
Well, Felix stood it for a few times without saying anything,--he always
has precious little to do with Chad; but one evening when Chad stood up
and asked, "Take a stroll--aw--will you, Phil?" and Phil rose to go, Fee
got quickly on his feet. "Just let me get my cane, and I'll come, too,"
he said.
I was looking at Chad just then, and I could see he didn't like it; but
Phil answered at once, "All right, old fellow; come on!" And Fee went.
I was alone on the stoop when the boys got back,--Chad wasn't with them.
Nora was playing the piano in the drawing-room, and Phil went in to
speak to her; but Felix sat down on the step beside me with his back
against the railing. As the light from the hall lamp fell on him, I
could see how white and tired he looked. I couldn't help saying
something about it. "You do look awfully used up, Fee," I said; "I guess
you've been walking too far. Whatever made you do it? You know you can't
stand that sort of thing."