THE WORKING OF ARTHUR'S PLAN.
As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as
Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the
same, the Tracys knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September
morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in
the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out. Very few could have
resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the
clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily:
'Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school.'
But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any
thing, and she answered, haughtily;
'Come to school! What do you mean? This is not a school-house, and if
you have any errand here, go round to the other door. Only company come
in here.'
'But I'm company. I'm going to get learning; he told me to come,' Jerry
answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be
there.
Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and
to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside:
'Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at
once. I am waiting for her.'
Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be
disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room
in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent
until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if
he knew what it meant.
But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until
that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he
was intending to do.
'God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me,'
Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from
his mind.
Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all
that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known.
He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his
brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of
the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered
his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not
have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or
how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he
was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she
was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to
earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable. No
particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself,
and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went
whistling to his wife's apartment, and told her what he had heard.
For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last
she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner
of which she was beginning to be afraid.
It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own
house, provided they were not molested, and if he chose to turn
schoolmaster, he had a right to do so. For his part, he was glad of it,
as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education, for if Arthur had not
taken it in hand, he should; and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the
child come and go in peace.
After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving
his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not
a little crazy, like his brother. But, she said no mare about Jerry's
coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the
side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was
liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how
she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen
after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when
her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a
track.
It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry's
school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four
years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all
that time he had never once seemed to grow weary of the task he had
imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had daily
deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that
he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marvelling more and more who
she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power
to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a
child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have
mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack. His intellect had not grown
with his body, and when at thirteen he was asked the question, 'If there
are five peaches on the table, and Tom eats three of them, how many will
there be left?' he answered, promptly:
'None, 'cause Tom would eat them all.'
In this reply there was a shrewdness which poor Jack never intended, and
the laugh which followed his answer confused and bewildered him. There
was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack, but Maude had been transferred
to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry, who alone could have
induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for
Maude. She was dull, he said, and would never learn her lessons. But
Jerry coaxed so hard that Arthur consented at last, and when Jerry had
been with him about three years, Maude became his pupil, and that of
Jerry as well, for nearly every day when the lessons were over the two
little girls might have been seen sitting together under the trees in
the park, or in some corner of the house, Maude puzzled, and perplexed,
and worried, and Jerry anxious, decided, and peremptory, as she went
over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her
friend.
'Oh, dear me, suz, what does ail you?' she said, one day, with a stamp
of her foot, after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a
simple sum in long division. 'Can't you remember first to divide, second
multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down?'
'No, I can't. I can't remember anything, and if I could, how do I know
what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid, and shall never know
anything,' was Maude's sobbing reply, as she covered her face with her
slate.
Maude's tears always moved Jerry, who tried to reassure the weeping girl
with the assurance that perhaps, if she tried very hard, she might some
time know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of
Jerry's ambition, to teach a district school and board around; but
Maude's aspirations were different. She was rich. She was to be a belle
and wear diamonds and satins like her mother; and so it did not matter
so much whether she understood long division or not, though it did hurt
her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry, who was younger than
herself.
To Arthur, Jerry was a constant delight and surprise, and nothing
astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up
German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten
years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as Arthur
himself.
'It takes me back somewhere, I can't tell where,' she said to him; 'and
I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford, and I hear music and see
people, and a pale face is close to me, and I get all confused trying to
remember things which come and go.'
Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime
of the sick woman and the nurse, and then she had done it at Arthur's
request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first; the _him_ for
whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted, and the whole was mixed
with the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold, who was now a
youth of seventeen, and a student at the high school in Shannondale,
where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the
park.
But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not
pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity
student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to
the high-spirited boy, and he was constantly revolving all manner of
schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All
through the summer vacations, which were long ones, he worked at
whatever he could find to do, sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes
on their lawns, but oftener in the hay-fields, where he earned the
most. Here Jerry was not infrequently his companion. She liked to rake
hay, she said; it came natural to her, and she had no doubt she
inherited the taste from her mother, who had probably worked in the
fields in Germany.
One afternoon, when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr.
Tracy's meadows, she started to join him, for he had complained of a
headache at home, and had expressed a fear that he might not be able to
finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was
by the Tramp House, which looked so cool and quiet, with its thick
covering of woodbine and ivy over it, that Jerry turned aside for a
moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her,
and where she spent so much time. Indeed, she seldom passed near it
without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had
once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she
said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who
haunted her so often.
As she entered the damp, dark place now, she started, with an
exclamation of surprise, which was echoed by another, as Frank Tracy
sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he entered the Tramp
House, and he would not have confessed to any one his superstitious
dread of it, or that, when he did visit it, he always had a feeling that
the dead woman found there years ago would start up to accuse him of his
deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the
building down, but it was not his, and when he suggested it to Arthur,
as he sometimes did, the latter opposed it, saying latterly, since Jerry
had been so much to him:
'No, no, Frank; let it stand. I like it, because but for it Jerry might
have perished with her mother, and I should not have had her with me.'
So the Tramp House stood, and grew damper and mustier each year, as the
moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside, and the dust and cobwebs
gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush
away, for she had a play house in one corner, and a little work-bench
and chair, and she often sat there alone and talked to herself, and the
woman dead so long ago, and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy,
but whom she had felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went
through the process of cleaning up, as she called it, and her object in
stopping there now was, in part, to see if it did not need her care
again.
'Oh, Mr. Tracy! are you here! How you scared me? I thought it was a
tramp!' she said, as he came toward her.
'Do you come here often?' he asked, as he offered her his hand.
'Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here, and sometimes I
feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her
and ask her to tell me, but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she
would?'
Frank shuddered involuntarily, for to have Jerry told who she really
was, was the last thing he could desire, but as a criminal is said
always to talk about the crime he has committed and is hiding, so Frank,
when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she
could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his
side, he said:
'And you really believe the woman found here was your mother?'
'Why, yes. Don't you? Who was my mother, if she wasn't?' and Jerry's
eyes opened wide as he looked at him.
'I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now?' was the
abrupt reply.
'Yes, at times,' Jerry answered: 'and yesterday, after I sang him a
little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad--the bees
in his head, I mean: that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and
he says he is going to write to her, or her friends.'
'Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he--Did he say,
"Write to her friends?"' Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and
sick with this threatened danger.
Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little
of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black
shadow of fear did not trouble him quite so much as formerly. But now it
was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child.
'Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?' he asked at last.
'No,' she replied, 'but I guess she is his wife.'
'Yes,' Frank said, falteringly, 'his wife; and where do you think she
lived?'
'Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I
had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and
see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like
mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as a nigger, Tom told me
once, when he was mad. Was she black?'
Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly:
'Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a favor, a great favor?'
'Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I
do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?' was Jerry's answer.
After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began:
'There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to
Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A
letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write
to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, he asked to post the letter,
as he never goes to town?'
He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly:
'I think he would give it to me.'
'Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I
am saying to you?' was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded:
'I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.'
'No, no, no, Jerry, never!' and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon
the little girl's shoulder. 'I have been kind to you, have paid your
board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there--'
He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry's
quick reply:
'Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough.'
'Perhaps not,' he continued, 'but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it
matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, you _must_ do this for
me,' he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing. 'You must never tell
anyone of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon,
or at any time, you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm
would come if it were sent--harm to me, and harm to Maude, and--'
'To Maude!' Jerry replied. 'I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will
bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right
for me to do so?'
Frank had touched the right cord when he mentioned his daughter's name,
for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had
learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the
stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a
queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased;
and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by
some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was
always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious
little lady.
'Yes, I will do it for Maude,' she said again; but there was a troubled
look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was
false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes.
But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself
knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at
times, took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem
perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he
would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so
necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only
the day before, as Jerry had told Frank, Arthur had been unusually
excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught to her, and
which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left
them alone.
'I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and
across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats
are feeding,' he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.'
Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her, and pushing her soft, wavy
hair from her forehead, looking long and earnestly into her face.
'Cherry,' he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, 'you
_are_ some like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if
you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet--and yet--'
He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment, and then going to a
drawer in his writing desk, which Jerry had never seen open before, he
took out a worn, yellow letter, and ran his eye rapidly over it until he
found a certain paragraph, which he bade Jerry read.
The paragraph was as follows:
'I have something to tell you when you come, which I am sure will make
you as glad as I am.'
Jerry read it aloud slowly, for the handwriting was cramped and
irregular, and then looked up questioningly to Arthur, who said to her:
'What do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad
as she was?'
'I don't know,' Jerry answered him. 'Who wrote it? Gretchen?'
'Yes, Gretchen; it is her last letter to me, and I never went back to
see what she meant, for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot
everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen! What was the
idea which came to me like a flash of lightning, in regard to this
letter, when I heard you sing? It is gone, and I cannot recall it.'
There was a worried, anxious look on his face as he put the letter away,
and went on talking to himself of Gretchen, saying he was going to write
her again, or her friends, and find out what she meant.
The next day Jerry met Frank in the Tramp House, as we have described,
and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany
which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon
her as she walked slowly on towards the field where Harold was at work,
and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a
wide-spreading butternut. He looked tired and pale, and there were great
drops of sweat upon his white forehead, and an expression on his face
which Jerry did not understand.
Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and
hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or
repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his
own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in the
town.
Dick St. Claire, his most intimate friend, always treated him as if he
were fully his equal, and often stood between him and the remarks which
boys made thoughtlessly, and which, while they mean so little, wound to
the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even Dick St.
Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew
more and more supercilious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his
position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and this wealth he was to inherit
from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where
he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the
vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red
Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. Between the
two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for
young Raymond represented all that was noble and true, and though proud
of his State and proud of his name, never assumed the slightest
superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was
Tom's room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted
in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been
wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of
the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut
except Dick St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had
never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as
a look, but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he
might chance to meet. All through the summer days, while Harold was
working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were
enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving, or rowing, or lounging
under the trees in the shady lawns.
That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the
Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting-suits with their
dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom
affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if
intent upon some object in the distance.
Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking
sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with
him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what
leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow's bread.
'I am Tom's superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like
a dog,' he said, as he seated himself upon the grass, where he sat
fanning himself with his straw hat.
When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world
there was not anything half so sweet and lovely to him as the little
blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to
him, laid her curly head upon his arm.
'I've come to help you rake the hay,' she said, 'for grandma told me you
had a headache at noon, and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am
awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead
of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it
will make me sick.'
But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that
she would eat it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park
house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or
had she driven them out.
'No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday and to-day,' Jerry
replied. 'He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was.
Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or
something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have
loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think
so?'
Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied:
'I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as a man could ever
love another.'
'Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you
are old enough to have a beau!' and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang
up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly,
bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place.
Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he
sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who,
it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with
a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon
her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have
placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls.
This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at
Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should
grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much.
'What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy
does?' he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster,
and quite as well as he could have done himself. 'I believe I should
want to die.'
It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's
thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and
going up to him, wiped his forehead with her apron, and, kissing him
fondly, said to him:
'Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to
vomit? Do you?'
'No, Jerry,' Harold answered, laughingly. 'I am not as bad as that. I
was only thinking and wishing that I were rich and could sometime give
you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like
it?'
'First-rate, if you were there,' Jerry replied; 'but if you were not I
shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you;
because, you know, I am your little girl, the one you found in the
carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and
stand by you forever and ever, amen!'
She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold
burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his
work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a
great deal better.
'Forever and ever, amen!' The words kept repeating themselves over and
over in Harold's mind as he walked homeward in the gathering twilight
with Jerry hip-pi-ty-hopping at his side, her hand in his, and her
tongue running rapidly, as it usually did when with him.
She would 'love and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' It was a
singular remark for a child, and in after years, when his sky was the
blackest, the words would come back to the man Harold like so many stabs
as he whispered in his anguish:
'She has forgotten her promise to "stand by me forever and ever, amen!"'