ARTHUR'S PLAN
'Why, the madam is going to drive, too, and I've come to harness;
there'll be a row somewhere,' John said.
'Can't help it,' Charles replied, 'Mr. Arthur wants the phaeton, and
will have it for all of Madam.'
'Yes, I s'p'o' so. Wall, I'll go and tell her,' was John's rejoinder, as
he started for the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long
driving gloves, and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass.
Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when the came to
the park, eleven years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had
learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might
now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped
Mrs. Atherton of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of
knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and
well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate
friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas,
and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, with _her_ million,
ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which
Doily's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the
election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the
Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of
people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane hail hired a
governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the
airs assumed by _come-up_ people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had
forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had
certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and
purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the
common herd, and taught her children to do the same.
She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of
disapprobation, which had not diminished as the day wore on and still
the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her.
'Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been,' she said to
herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose
antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited
her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply
resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to
go in and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an
equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this
drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that
she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry
home in it.
Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was
Frank's order; but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in
rebelling.
'Not have the phaeton! That's smart, I must say,' she exclaimed. 'Can't
that child walk home, I'd like to know? Tell Mr. Tracy Maude has had the
promise of a drive all day, and I am ready, with my things on. Ask him
to take the Victoria; he never drives.'
All this in substance was repeated to Arthur, who answered, quietly:
'Let Mrs. Tracy take the victoria. I prefer the phaeton myself.'
That settled it, and in few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side,
and skimming along through the park, and out upon the highway which
skirted the river for miles.
'This is not going home, and grandma will scold,' Jerry said.
'Never mind the grandma--I will make it right with her. I am going to
show you the country,' Arthur replied, as he chirruped to the fleet pony
who seemed to fly along the smooth road.
No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and
handled the reins so skilfully, would ever have suspected him of
insanity, and more than one stopped to gaze after him and the little
girl whose face, with the golden hair blowing about it, looked out from
the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression. On the homeward route
they met the victoria, with John upon the box, and Mrs. Tracy and Maude
inside.
'There's Maude! Hallo, Maude--see me! I'm riding!' Jerry called out,
cheerily, while Maude answered back:
'Hallo, Jerry!'
But Mrs. Tracy gave no sign of recognition, and only rebuked her
daughter for her vulgarity in saying 'Hallo,' which was second class and
low.
'Then Nina St. Claire is second class and low, for she says "Hallo,"'
was Maude's reply, to which her mother had no answer.
Meanwhile the phaeton was going swiftly on toward the cottage, which it
reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six, and
Harold, who had been working there, came up the lane. There were soiled
spots on his hands and on his face, and his clothes showed marks of
toil, all of which Arthur noted, while he was explaining to Mrs.
Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive, and kept her beyond the
prescribed hour. Then, turning to Harold, he said:
'And so you work in the furnace?'
'Yes, sir, during vacation, when I can get a job there,' Harold
answered, and Mr. Tracy continued:
'How much do you get a day?'
'Fifty cents in dull times,' was the reply, and Arthur went on:
'Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night, and board
yourself. A magnificent sum truly. Pray, how do you manage to spend so
much? You must be getting rich.'
The words were sarcastic, but the tone belied the words, and Harold was
about to speak, when his grandmother interrupted him, and said,
'What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save
enough to go to the High School, but it's slow work. I can do but little
myself, and it all falls upon Harold.'
'But I like it, grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry, and I have
almost twenty dollars saved,' Harold said, 'and in a year or two I can
go away to school, and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do
that.'
Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence, while a new idea was dawning
in his mind.
'Fifty cents a day,' he said to himself, 'and he has twenty dollars
saved, and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one
bottle of wine, and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education,
and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe
I _am_ crazy.'
He was in the cottage by this time--in the clean, cool kitchen where the
supper table was laid with its plain fair, most unlike the costly viands
which daily loaded his board.
'Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry,' he said, adding quickly: 'Or
stay, if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The
drive has given me an appetite, and your tea smells very inviting.'
It was a great honor to have Arthur Tracy at her table, and Mrs.
Crawford felt it as such, and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing
better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk, and a
dish of cold beans, and chopped beets, and a piece of apple pie saved
for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome, and Jerry, delighted
to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate
and cup and saucer, and asked if she might get the best sugar-bowl and
the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had
adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out and gathering a bunch of
June pinks, put them in a little glass by his plate.
When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs.
Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing
which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal
louder and more emphatic than usual, while she nodded her head to
Arthur, with an expression which he understood to mean, 'You know now
what you ought to say, instead of that long prayer,' and he nodded back
that he did so understand it.
Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely, or pretended that he did. He ate
three slices of bread and butter; he drank three cups of tea; he even
tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes, which, he
said, would give him the nightmare.
When supper was over and the table cleared away, he still showed no
signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he
plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and
which, since he had seen Harold in his working-dress and heard what he
was trying to do, had grown to be of a two-fold nature. He was very
lonely, he said, and all the elegance and luxuriousness of his handsome
house failed to give him pleasure or to make him forget the past. He
wanted some one to love who would love him in return, and the little
taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he
must have her with him a part at least of every day.
'In short,' he said, 'I should like to undertake her education myself
until she is older, when I shall see that she has the proper finishing.
She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his
warts--'
'Trying to kiss me,' Jerry interrupted, as open-eyed and open-mouthed,
she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him.
'Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that,'
Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued: 'She is ambitious enough
to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter,
but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the
rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin,
too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she come to me every day except
Saturdays and Sundays--come at ten in the morning, get her lessons and
her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you
like it, Cherry?'
'Oh-h-oh!' was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her
cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she
glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how
could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone?
'What is it, Cherry?' Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she
replied:
'I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning,
too,' and leaving Arthur, the crossed over to the boy, and putting her
arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he
would have given half his life to win.
She was a little girl now and did not care if he did know how much she
loved him, and that for him she would sacrifice everything. But in this
case the sacrifice was not required, for Arthur hastened to say:
'I shall not forget Harold. I have something better in store for him
than reciting his lessons to me. When the High School opens in
September, he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to
Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon
himself, and how he improves his opportunities. What! crying? Don't you
like it?' Arthur asked, as he saw the great tears gathering in Harold's
eyes and rolling down his cheeks.
'Yes, oh, yes; but it don't seem real, and--and--I guess it makes me
kind of sick,' Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry's
encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and
unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him.
With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work
had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible
loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been
obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an
education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it
was now solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing
overcame him, and he sat down upon a table in the yard, faint and
bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying
that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the
sake of the young girl who had been his early love.
'I always intended to take care of you,' he said; 'but things go from my
mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But
this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am
in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory.'
Fur a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise
and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at
last. And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against
receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur
Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said, when at last she spoke at all.
But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting
people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with
the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the
first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in
Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.