ALEXIA COLLECTS THE NEWS.
Joel ran off for a little visit to Grandma Bascom, at which time he
unloaded himself of various packages, to find places for them on
her cupboard shelves alongside the cracked sugar-bowl that had been
supposed to contain Mirandy’s “wedding-cake receet.” Then he shut up
his disappointment to himself as best he might, and took the last train
for New York alone.
“It can’t be helped, Joe,” old Mr. King had said; “Phronsie has her
hands full with that girl. So you must wait for us.”
“Bother that girl!” Joel looked. Then he thought better of it. “All
right; come when you can,” he had replied, as his brow cleared. On the
way to the station he ran across Alexia, who had just arrived, as usual
in a terrible hurry to see Polly.
“Goodness me, Joel, you here!” she exclaimed with no show of ceremony.
“Don’t I wish I had a parish, and could run about the country as you
do; and here I am tied to a husband and a baby.”
“Poor husband and baby!” said Joel with a grin, who liked Alexia
immensely, but always kept her on short commons of flattery.
“The most dreadful thing, Joel, you can imagine,” gasped Alexia. “Oh,
dear me! I’ve hurried so--to tell Polly--there’s a girl who wormed
herself into her reception, and”--
“Whose reception--the girl’s, or Polly’s?” asked Joel.
“You know--Polly’s of course. She pretended to be”--
“Who--Polly, or the girl?”
“Joe Pepper, if you don’t stop and listen, I’ll never, never speak to
you again!” cried Alexia in a pet.
“That would be terrible,” said Joel with a laugh. “Good-by, Alexia,”
putting out his hand, “I shall lose my train if I stay to get to the
end of that recital.”
“Joe, Joe!” cried Alexia, running after him. But he strode off, calling
back, “I’ll trust Polly.” And his train approaching the depot, Alexia,
bemoaning her fate in not getting out to Badgertown earlier, skipped
off to “The Oaks” in no very pleasant frame of mind.
“Where’s Polly?” she cried to Phronsie in the conservatory as she ran
through the library.
“Polly’s gone to town,” said Phronsie, cutting off some blossoms to add
to the bunch in her hand.
“To town! Oh, dear me!” screamed Alexia. “And I’ve only just come out!
What _did_ she want to go to town to-day for, Phronsie?”
“She had to go, Alexia,” said Phronsie, pausing as she saw Alexia was
really distressed; “what is the matter?”
“Oh! then I must tell you,” said Alexia. “Oh, my! I’m so hot, as if I’d
run every speck of the way.”
“I’ll get you a fan,” said Phronsie, coming into the library. “There
are some, Alexia, on the table.”
“Whew!” Alexia possessed herself of one, and fanned vigorously, so
that she set all the feathers on her much-betrimmed hat into a violent
flutter. “Oh! it’s all over town, Phronsie,” she said.
[Illustration: “Polly’s gone to town,” said Phronsie, cutting off some
blossoms to add to the bundle in her hand.]
“What is all over town?” asked Phronsie quietly.
“Oh, about that dreadful Strange, or Tupper girl--how she wormed
herself in here at Polly’s reception. I heard of it this afternoon, and
I just stopped to run home and tell Baby I was coming out here to let
Polly know. Oh, dear me!”
“I’m sorry for Grace,” breathed Phronsie pityingly. “Oh! I hope she
won’t know anything about it.”
“Sorry for Grace,” repeated Alexia, throwing down the fan, “well, I
should say! I believe it was all a plan between Mrs. Atherton and that
Mrs. Drysdale, to get her here.”
“Oh, no, Alexia! it wasn’t,” said Phronsie decidedly, shaking her head;
“because Grace has told us all about it. It was nobody’s fault but her
own.”
“Well, I can’t abide that Mrs. Drysdale,” declared Alexia, who had
reasons of her own for not being in love with that lady; “and as for
Mrs. Atherton, why, she’s well enough, I suppose, only a trifle weak in
the upper story. Well, and oh, dear me! Miss Fitzwilliam said”--
“Did Miss Fitzwilliam tell you,” asked Phronsie quietly, “the story of
Grace’s coming here?”
“Yes,” said Alexia; “she told us all. And she said she saw through her
disguise, and that it was Mrs. Atherton’s niece.”
“Who are all?” asked Phronsie.
“Why, all of us in the Campbell’s drawing-room, child. What makes you
question a body up so close. It doesn’t make any difference, does it,
where or how I heard it, if everybody’s talking of it?”
“Everybody isn’t a few people in Mrs. Campbell’s drawing-room, Alexia,”
said Phronsie; yet she sighed, and the bunch of flowers in her hand
trembled a little.
This made Alexia more vexed than ever. “Well, there was Captain
Sledges; he’s home on a furlough, you know; and, oh! the Romeynes from
New York, and two or three others, besides some of our Berton set,”
said Alexia. “Oh! there was quite a nice little lot, Phronsie, to hear
the news. And I just tore out, I was so vexed, and only stopped to tell
Baby, and”--
Phronsie turned her brown eyes full on Alexia. “I hope you stood up
for poor Grace. She’s only sixteen, and she didn’t stop to think, she
says.”
“I stand up for her--how could I?” cried Alexia. “I never saw the girl.
Oh, dear me! now you’re going to take her part, and comfort and pet
her. It’s just like you, Phronsie; I wouldn’t go near that Atherton
house, nor even send a word to her.”
“It isn’t necessary,” said Phronsie, in the quietest of tones; “for
Grace hasn’t been home, and she’s going to stay here, I hope, a good
while.”
“She’s in this house?” screamed Alexia, tumbling off the sofa to gain
her feet, “oh, my good gracious me, Phronsie Pepper!”
“Yes,” said Phronsie; “she’s in this house, Alexia. She fell yesterday,
and hurt her foot very badly; and Dr. Phillips said this morning when
he saw it, that she ought not to be moved for a week or two. And
Polly’s had her clothes sent out, and I hope she’s going to stay a good
while; for I like her, Alexia, very much indeed.”
It was a long speech for Phronsie to make; and she sat quite still
after it was over, and looked at Mrs. Dodge.
“Oh, dear me! and now you’ll give up all your time to taking care of
her, and coddling her up. How do you know but what she will go and do
something just as bad when she gets well again?” cried Alexia.
“Ah, but I know she won’t, Alexia,” said Phronsie, shaking her head
decidedly. “She’s awfully sorry and ashamed, and she’s been made almost
sick by it.”
“So she ought to be,” cried Alexia wrathfully. “Now I know what Polly’s
doing in town to-day, running about in the heat--she’s fixing up the
trouble this girl made.”
“Alexia,” said Phronsie in a tone indicative of the deepest distress,
and leaning forward to whisper the words, “I almost know that Grace’s
mother never told her about what was right and wrong--I really believe
she didn’t.”
“Well, supposing she didn’t; are you going to take other people’s
children, and bring them up?” exclaimed Alexia. “Phronsie Pepper, I
should think you’d enough on your hands with that Orphan Home down at
Bedford, without any more young ones to look after!”
“And Grace has been away at boarding-school ever since she was six
years old,” mourned Phronsie, without paying the slightest heed to
Alexia; “dear, dear, just think of it, Alexia.”
“Well, I suppose I might as well talk to the wind,” exclaimed Alexia,
“as to try to reason you and Polly against such a Quixotic scheme.
Dear, dear, I can’t do anything with either of you.”
“No,” said Phronsie, “you can’t, Alexia. And now I want you to come up
and see Grace--how nice she is. And you must tell her something lively
to amuse her. Do, dear Alexia.”
She got off from the sofa, and put her arm around the tall, slim figure.
“Ugh!--no, I can’t.” Alexia edged off. “It’s bad enough for you to pet
and coddle her; I’m going home.”
“Come, Alexia,” said Phronsie, holding out her hand; and Mrs. Dodge,
grumbling all the way, went up the stairs after her.
“And just to think,” she said, when they reached the top,--“wait a
minute, Phronsie,--how it’s all over town about her getting in here so;
and you’re giving up your time, and Polly’s too, to take care of her,
I”--
“Hush!” warned Phronsie, picking Alexia’s sleeve, and pointing to the
door of the little room.
“Ugh!--oh, goodness me! I thought she was in the west wing,” gasped
Alexia, in a stage whisper. “Well, I don’t believe she heard anything.”
“Please remember Alexia, to tell her amusing things, for Grace has been
so sad,” said Phronsie, softly drawing Alexia into the room. There was
no one in the little white bed.
Out in the dressing-room they found her, crying bitterly, and trying
to pull her clothes out of her trunk. “I’m going home,” she exclaimed
passionately between her sobs.
“O Grace!” cried Phronsie, hurrying forward to lay a restraining hand
upon her.
“Oh, me--oh, my!” exclaimed Alexia, backing up for support against the
door.
“Please call Mrs. Higby, Alexia,” said Phronsie. And Alexia, glad to do
something, fled with long steps, and presently brought Mrs. Higby, who,
without any more ado, just picked up Grace, with a “Poor lamb, there,
there, don’t cry!” and deposited her on the little white bed again,
where she shook with the passionate declarations that she was going
home, and no one should stop her.
Mrs. Higby examined critically the bandaged foot. “Lucky if she hain’t
hurt it,” and she drew a long breath, “I don’t b’lieve she did, Miss
Phronsie.”
“No, I didn’t,” sobbed Grace; “I hopped on the other foot. Oh, dear,
dear!”
“Please go out,” begged Phronsie. When the door was closed she put her
hand on the hot brow. “Grace,” she said, “I am disappointed in you.”
“I heard what she said,” cried Grace in a gust, and throwing both arms
suddenly around Phronsie. “O Miss Pepper, just get me to Aunt’s--do!
I’ll make her let me go home. And I never’ll trouble any one any more.”
“You can’t be moved yet,” said Phronsie; “and it remains with you to
say whether or no you will be a good girl, Grace, and be a comfort
to us.” Grace could take but one look at her face, it was such a
disapproving one, and she disappeared as far as she could beneath the
bedclothes. “I heard what she said,” she reiterated faintly.
“Ah, Grace,” said Phronsie sadly, “when we have done wrongly, we must
just make up our minds to bear what people say.”
Alexia knocked timidly at the door. “Come in,” called Phronsie.
“I’m awfully sorry you heard what I said,” she mumbled, going up to the
foot of the bed, “everybody don’t know it--only a few people, I guess.
And anyway, I suppose Polly, Mrs. King, will fix it up, and I’m real
sorry for you, and I’ll help you--oh, dear me!”
Phronsie looked at her gratefully. “Alexia, will you tell her about
your baby,” she asked suddenly.
“Oh, that blessed child!” began Alexia in delight; “yes, indeed, that
is, if you’ll take your head out of those bedclothes. I never could
talk to any one unless I could see at least their nose. Well, now,
that’s something like. You know, Miss--Miss”--
“My name is Grace Tupper,” said Grace, who had pulled up a very red
face to lay it against the pillow.
“Oh, yes; well, you must know, Miss Tupper,” ran on Alexia, “that I
really have the best baby in the whole world. He’s a perfect beauty to
begin with, and he’s ever so many teeth, and he talks, and what do you
suppose he was doing when I got home?--I only ran out to pay a few
visits, you know.”
“I don’t know,” said Grace faintly, as Alexia waited for her to speak.
“Why, he was trying to brush his own hair,” said Mrs. Dodge. “Now, that
blessed child must have known his hair didn’t look good. Bonny, that’s
his nurse, lets him muss it up dreadfully, and so the poor dear was
just doing it for himself.”
“I suppose she gave him the brush to play with,” said Grace, interested
at once.
“Never mind how he got it,” cried Alexia, “he was brushing his hair.
Now, I call that very smart indeed; I’m almost afraid to think what
he will become, Miss Tupper, when he grows up. There isn’t anything
that’ll be quite the thing for him.”
“I suppose he can be President of the United States,” said Grace.
“Oh, dear me, no!” cried Alexia hastily. “There have been twenty-four
of them already. I want my boy to be something new, and ahead of other
people. And just think, it won’t be but a little while before he’ll be
in college, and then he’ll be through, and then I’m sure he’ll want to
be something quite unusual; I’m sure he will.”
“What’s his name?” asked Grace, wishing she could see this wonderful
baby.
“Algernon Rhys Dodge,” said Alexia; “isn’t it just a beautiful name? I
wanted to call him after his father, ‘Pickering;’ but I knew it would
be ‘Pick’ all the time to distinguish him, so I gave it up. Well,
you’ll see him often, because we’re going to move out to Badgertown
next week.”
“Are you?” cried Grace, “how nice!”
“Yes,” said Alexia, pleased at the effect of her efforts to entertain,
“we are; into the dearest little yellow cottage, with barberry-bushes
in front. I’ve named it, ‘The Pumpkin’ and”--
“O Alexia! you are only in fun now,” said Phronsie with a little laugh.
“Indeed, and I’m not,” said Alexia; “I’m having my cards engraved
so. Why shouldn’t I have that name, when it’s just the color of a
pumpkin, and not much bigger? and lots and lots of places have the
most ridiculous names, and no rhyme nor reason for them either. You
must come and visit me at ‘The Pumpkin,’ Miss Tupper, when we get in
nicely. Then you’ll see for yourself, if you ever knew such a baby as
that blessed child of mine. Oh, here’s Polly!”
Polly came in swiftly. She had a little white look around her mouth, as
if she were very tired, but she smiled brightly. “It’s all right,” she
said to Grace. “Oh, how nice and cheery you are here! Alexia,” and she
beamed on her, “you’re as good as gold, to come out and be a comfort.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Alexia, “don’t praise me, Polly.”
“Go and take your things off, do, Polly,” begged Phronsie.
Alexia sprang after Polly as she went out.
“Oh! I’ve been a horrid mean thing, Polly,” she cried, when safe in
Polly’s room, “and I messed things up generally. But I’ll help you
now, and she’s a dear, that Grace Tupper is, and you must go for that
dreadful Fitzwilliam to-morrow;” and then she told Polly the story of
her afternoon.