THREE YEARS LATER.--THE RESULT.
Three years have passed since Isabelle ran gayly over the fields to
greet her mother and to receive the first money she had ever earned in
her life.
The little check made out in her mother’s name for “the unknown painter
of the Wistaria panel” had been used to supply its possessor with an
assortment of the best dusters, brushes, and chamois appliances for the
care of bric-à-brac and articles of virtu, and the balance had been
expended in colors and canvases.
Miss Joanna had been as good as her word. The dinner-party had been a
complete success, with Mrs. Beckwith and her elder daughter among the
guests, and with no end of admiring phrases concerning the graceful
decorations of the old house falling upon the decorator’s grateful
ears. Whereupon Miss Brook had started the ball rolling in a quiet
way, and within a few days Isabelle had already been called upon
three times to “help” some distracted hostess prepare for a social
entertainment.
Those who called upon her once, invariably did so the second time; and
before the end of her “first season,” as Bonny teasingly called her
sister’s early experiments, Miss Beckwith had become the fashion, but,
fortunately, a “fashion” so thoroughly useful and agreeable that she
was destined to outlive the common existence of “fads” and to be looked
upon as a necessity in New Windsor festivities.
Now three years had slipped away. “Almost imperceptibly, isn’t it,
Motherkin? We have been, we always are, so busy that it doesn’t seem
any time from one spring to another;” and there was to be a little
dinner-party at The Lindens itself.
“The list of guests is a short one, but big enough to cover our dearest
friends, after all; and that’s all a body, a work-a-day body, wants of
any company. If we hadn’t ‘waived formality for once’ and invited Mr.
Dolloway to dine with his ‘betters,’ we should have had an odd number
at table, and if there’s anything I dislike it is a lop-sided table.”
“Come, Beatrice! No trespassing on my preserves! I am the judge of what
a table should be, and if our third guest had proved as ‘contrary’
as I fully expected, I was going to crown my eighth chair with laurel
and set it up to the ‘Success of The Lindens and the Family Industry!’
However, I’d rather see a happy human face at the table’s foot than
any laurel wreath; and there they all come!” As she spoke, Isabelle
gave a satisfied glance about the “peace-room,” and the banquet therein
prepared.
“I don’t wonder you’re proud, Belle! Every dish of which we shall
partake has been prepared by your own fingers, as well as almost all
the lovely things in this room, except, of course, my masterpiece of
honey. The Bees, the Lieutenant, and your Humble Servant claim credit
for that golden pyramid! Ah, yes, and the Eggs, and the Chickens,
and the Boned Turkey,--these are the Motherkin’s! But all the rest--
They’re at the door, dear! Come and receive them.”
Arm in arm the sisters passed to the wide porch, and stood there
smiling welcome upon the three aged figures which came slowly up the
driveway.
“Ah, ha, my dears! That’s what I like! A welcome at the open door!
That’s hearty and old-fashioned, and as it should be. Between friends,
my dears, between friends. Of course, in a stately assemblage one must
do as custom dictates. And may I be allowed to pay you both a bit of a
compliment on this happy occasion!”
“Allowed or not, brother Chidly, you are certain to pay it; but they’ll
bear it. They’ll bear it without spoiling by it,” said Miss Joanna,
gayly. “Once in a way it does no harm to tell a girl she’s pretty,
when the beauty is offset, as in our dear ones here, by such good
common-sense. Three years, is it? Three days it almost seems to me!
Time goes so fast when one is old; though I’m not really old yet, am I?
Nor Chidly here, nor Dolloway, who consented, at last, to sit down to
our feast with us. Ah! here’s the Mother!”
At this moment Mrs. Beckwith--one had to look twice to be sure
that this round, plump matron was really the once fragile Mrs.
Beckwith--appeared to add her welcome to her daughters’. She leaned
proudly, as any mother might, upon the arm of a tall, broad-shouldered
youth of twenty, whose upper lip had just become interesting to himself
and an unfailing source of amusement to Mistress Beatrice! But the
air of real manliness, the honest courage and determination of the
bright eyes under the heavy brows, told of a character strong enough
to afford an occasional weakness, even to suspecting a mustache where
mustache there was none.
On the mother’s other side walked Robert, for once separated from
the rifle which had been his latest gift from the adoring Mr.
Dolloway, who declared again and again--and nobody had the heart
to contradict him--that if it had not been for that now historic
“spanking,” administered upon the occasion of his first meeting with
“Humpty-Dumpty,” a valuable citizen would have been lost to the world.
Did “Bob” resent this? Not a bit. He had long since learned to look
upon his old comrade as the most delightful, generous, indulgent person
in existence; and he now forsook his mother to clap Mr. Dolloway upon
the shoulder, exclaiming: “Say, Partner! Why didn’t you take that honey
out of that hive last night? If we’re going to let you share in the
business, you mustn’t expect to shirk, you know.”
“Robert! that is impertinent.”
“Well, I don’t mean it that way. Partner knows. But he told me to go
off and practise shooting at that sardine box on the lane gate-post and
he’d tend to the honey things for Bon. But he didn’t, and _I_ got the
lecture ’stead of _him_.”
“Well,” retorts “the partner,” “I had to watch the way you scored,
didn’t I? If I hadn’t you’d ’a’ claimed more’n I had myself! I wasn’t
going to allow that, you may believe!”
The others exchanged smiles. If there was any among the group who
showed signs of that second childhood which is given to great age,
it was gruff, kindly, honest old John. He did not feel, he rarely
appeared, any older than his young and constant companion. He still
“served” Mr. Brook, but would have been dumfounded had that generous
old “master” actually requested any service; and it was a saying in the
neighborhood that “Dolloway owned the whole Brook household.” Which was
not quite true; though this is true, that Mr. Chidly and Miss Joanna,
feeling profoundly grateful for the wonderful vitality and soundness
of intellect with which a good God and right living had blessed their
own old age, felt also a parental interest and care over the more
restricted powers of this venerable, faithful friend.
“The bees! I haven’t seen the apiary for a week!” exclaimed Mr. Brook.
“If it will not delay our hostess, let us visit that before the busy
workers have retired for the night. I am never tired, never, of
watching these tiny creatures, nor of learning from them. By the way,
Beatrice, that little article of yours on ‘The Mechanism of the Bee’s
Sting’ has just been published in the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ for
this month. Did you know it?”
Bonny made a little grimace, and pointed proudly toward the orderly
city of hives, which now really deserved the name of apiary, and
which had acquired a reputation throughout many States, so that the
“Beckwith” supplies of all sorts of bee-stock were in good demand
among the markets; which was only the beginning of what this ambitious
girl of seventeen hoped to accomplish. “For I will not stop, if I can
possibly help it, till I have earned and saved enough to give my little
brother a college education. The rest of us have had to do without, but
there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have one scholar in the family!”
To which Robert listened with perfect complacency and the reflection
that if he did “go to college he’d be the champion of the football
team, anyhow!”
He bade fair to excel in anything athletic, certainly, and, for Bonny’s
sake, let us hope he will in things scholastic. He did, indeed, stand
at the head of his class at the public school he attended, and his
mathematical powers were excellent. But, at his age, there is no
calculating with exactness what he may prove to be in the years to
come.
As they turned houseward again, after a close inspection of the
well-kept apiary, Mrs. Beckwith slipped an arm about her younger
daughter’s waist. “What is this I hear, dearie? Have you taken to
writing for the press?”
“If I had, Motherkin, I should have had to tell you at once. But it
was this way: Mr. Brook is kind enough to say I can put things quite
clearly on paper, with my little typewriter; and I happened to please
him with some notes I made. So nothing would answer but I must write
them out more fully and let him send them to the magazine he mentioned.
Of course, they wouldn’t refuse to publish anything _he_ sent!
So--that’s all there is to that story! Therefore, little Madam, don’t
lay the flattering unction to your soul that you are the parent of a
literary creature. You are not; only of a common-sense, happy, healthy,
hard-working little girl!”
There was a close pressure of the hand, and Mrs. Beckwith rejoined her
guests. Talk about queens! That little woman, with the soft gray hair
and the loving smile upon her lips, thought that there was never a
human being so rich and so blessed as she.
In five minutes more they were all seated at the well-arranged table,
the sight of which, Miss Joanna declared, “would give even a dyspeptic
an appetite!”
Yet Mr. Brook’s eyes wandered about the apartment curiously. “I never
enter this room but I find something new in it to admire. Joanna, look
behind you, please!”
Miss Brook wheeled swiftly about. What Chidly discovered admirable was
always doubly so to his sister.
“The chrysanthemum tapestry! The dream embodied at last!”
Just as her children wished, there hung upon the wall beside the wide
hearthplace, “where somebody could appreciate it,” the vision Mrs.
Beckwith had seen in Mr. Brook’s basket of chrysanthemums so long ago.
“Until to-day, a secret even from us, for whom she wrought it all!”
cried Isabelle, eagerly. “Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it perfect?”
Mr. Dolloway’s opinion had not yet been called for; but he was “the
privileged member” everywhere, and he coolly left the table, putting
on his horn-bowed spectacles as he did so. “Well, Master, I thought I
was right, even without my glasses! But I will say them is the best
picters you an’ Miss Brook has ever had took! Who done ’em?”
“Who could do them, who could use a needle so exquisitely, who in
this world, but our own blessed little mother?” answered Bonny,
enthusiastically.
“The needle! you don’t tell me them faces is _sewed_?”
“Certainly. Every particle of the work is done with a needle,--the
needle of a genius! her children think.”
“An’ I should think they might!” returned the old man, fixing his eyes
solemnly upon Mrs. Beckwith, who had always had his highest veneration,
but who now seemed to have been suddenly lifted off from the common
earth and placed upon a pedestal; and so overwhelmed in thought was he
that he began to eat his dinner without a word, even one “reminiscence”
of his beloved “California.”
“Well, my dears, are you all satisfied, quite satisfied, with our
experiment?” asked Mr. Brook, as they finally grouped about the
fireplace, preparatory to saying good-night. “Three years must have
proved the wisdom of it, seems to me.”
“Indeed, it has, dear friend. We are all well, happy, and I believe
useful. Isabelle has, through her domestic talents,--the very last
she dreamed that she possessed three years ago,--found entrance into
the households of the rich, and has there learned that no amount of
money can give happiness. She has by a despised faculty been enabled to
cultivate her highest; and it is one of the good things we have to tell
you to-night, that her last picture will be hung, ‘on its own merits’
_and on the line!_ at the forthcoming exhibition in the National
Gallery. This coming year she proposes to go into town regularly for
the instruction which she desires, and which her ‘servant wages’ will
pay for. But, Roland, speak for yourself. Mother does not wish to
monopolize the talk.”
“I have nothing to tell, Motherkin, except that I have had a few bits
of verse accepted at the _Criterion_, and am therefore satisfied that
it was a golden opportunity you offered me of coming into the country
and learning to be--a man! And I am grateful for the hard work which
kept me from writing trash till I could write some simple thing the
people would care to hear.”
“An’ I--I have got a hundred dollars in the bank!” cried Robert “the
mercenary,” at which all laughed.
“How about you, my Bonny? Do you regret that the only chance you have
to sing is in the house of God and in your own home?”
“Surely,” exclaimed Miss Joanna, “she cannot regret that! For, if she
did but know it, more people come to church of a Sunday to hear her
rich young voice in her solos than to hear the pastor’s sermon. The one
last Sabbath was heart-moving.”
“The more shame to them, then! And to me that I cannot do better. No, I
regret nothing, save my own limitations. But, like my sister, I think I
will also treat myself to a few lessons this coming year, and try to do
ever so much finer work. Though I shall never sing any more really--out
of my heart and because I can’t help it, you know--than I do now. Nor,
if the chance were offered me, which it won’t be, would I exchange my
life here for that of any _prima-donna_ living!”
“Preemer donners are awful rich, Bonny!” admonished Robert.
“Well, so are you, small sir, if you had sense enough to believe it! So
are we all, I think.”
“Amen!” said Miss Joanna, earnestly.
But Mrs. Beckwith quietly rose and struck a few chords on the well-used
instrument beside her. There was a moment’s hush; then out upon the
gathering twilight floated the first strains of the familiar Doxology.
Bonny led them, but the other voices followed swiftly. Even the
cracked, quavering tenor--that once had been--of old John Dolloway
feared not to yield its tribute of sweet “Praise God!” to Him who had
been, who ever would be, to each and all of them so close a Friend.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.