Mr. Langley, Mrs. Lorraine and Seth Miller had been severally perturbed
at about the same period over a matter which might or might not have
had a common occasion. But the excitement of the following week
centering about little Joe quite drove other affairs from the minds of
the first and last mentioned and caused even Mrs. Lorraine’s anxiety
over her daughter to be relieved because of the constant demand upon
her attention and sympathies. She enquired for the lost key early in
the week, and Alice quietly gave it into her hands. As she took it, it
seemed as if she remembered another, and that the two were on a ring or
tag; but she forebore to question. Neither did she bring up the matter
of giving up the cottage. After all, they had made no definite decision
and might as well keep the house until after Christmas. She wasn’t
sure, if Alice remained in this strange and difficult condition, that
they ought to remain longer with Miss Penny. But she said nothing of
this nor of anything to Alice, hoping that the girl would come to her.
But Alice, though she was less nervous and was not out so late, kept
her own counsel and her habit of solitary rambles.
But one night when they sat at tea, Miss Penny suddenly turned to
Alice and asked if she had found the key. Alice assented, changing the
subject so quickly that her mother was vexed.
“That reminds me, Alice, I thought there were two keys when they were
given to us,” she said.
“I believe there were. The other is down there. You don’t want both,
mother?”
“O, were they duplicates, Alice?” her mother asked, for she had thought
they might have opened different doors.
“One was for a shed or something,” returned Alice carelessly, and
turning to Miss Penny made a lame remark about the shape of the cream
jug which she had admired before.
“I’ll tell you--one must have been the key to the shop!” cried Miss
Penny. “You see there was a shop with the old house that was torn
down--nearly every house had them once. This one is a tidy little
place, or was. Reuben’s father used to work there a great deal--I don’t
know whether it was over his music--of course there was no instrument,
but when you think of Wagner--or whoever it was that couldn’t hear a
sound--though I am not sure that his wife--Reuben’s mother--didn’t have
an old melodeon besides the organ they had in the cottage--not the pipe
organ. They never got that. But he made things, too. He made tables and
chairs and--what-nots, I rather think--though he hadn’t a great deal of
time for he worked over to Wenham besides playing the church organ.
Such hands as that man had--and Reuben’s are just like them.”
“Dear me, I shouldn’t have said there was a separate building on the
place,” remarked Mrs. Lorraine, “should you, Alice?”
“No mother, I shouldn’t have,” said the girl.
“There’s such a tangle of brush and I believe the land drops just
there, which I suppose helps hide it,” Mrs. Lorraine went on. “I’d
rather like to see that shop. I believe I’ll go down some afternoon and
look it over. Perhaps I can go this week. O Miss Penny, how would you
feel about going with me?”
“I would--why, Alice!”
Mrs. Lorraine, seeing that her daughter was very pale and looked as if
she were about to faint, rose and went to her. “Are you ill, Alice?”
she cried anxiously, holding a goblet of water to her lips.
“No, no, mother. It’s nothing. Please sit down again. I had a--sort of
pain, that’s all,” the girl declared.
She wouldn’t lie down and even made a pretence of eating her supper.
Her colour came back and as she seemed all right next day her mother
was not troubled. Indeed, as the week passed, she felt less anxious
than she had for some time, for Alice seemed more like her old self
again. She hardly went out at all except to the Millers’ or with Anna.
And on Sunday, to her mother’s surprise and delight, she remained in
all afternoon.
A storm had been imminent all day and snow began to fall just as the
first bell rang for evening service. Ten minutes after the second bell
had ceased ringing, Alice stole down the back stairs in tam o’ shanter
and ulster and would have slipped out but that her mother saw her and
stopped her at the door.
“Alice, you’re not going out?” she said, though the girl’s purpose was
evident.
“I am going to Farleigh to drop this letter in the post office, mother.”
“But, my dear child, it isn’t open on Sunday.”
“There’s a place on the outside where you can drop letters in,”
declared the girl.
“What a pity you didn’t send it by Mr. Miller! Don’t you know, Alice,
that he always goes down for evening service?”
“I didn’t want to send it by him.”
“Indeed, is it a very important letter, Alice?”
“It’s a letter to father!” cried the girl.
Mrs. Lorraine paled. “I am glad you wrote your father, dear, and--it’s
all right if you wish to post it yourself. Wait a minute and I will go
with you.”
“O mother, you mustn’t leave Miss Penny!” Alice declared; then, as
steps sounded at that moment on the porch: “O, someone’s coming. Let me
get away.” And she slipped quickly out.
Not long afterwards Seth Miller arrived with his lantern which he
turned down to a proper height and left in the porch. Miller was
earning a good income as janitor of the schools in the South Hollow,
including, of course, the academy, and as sexton of the church,
besides having all the carpentry he could do during the school
vacation. He had moved his family into a warm, comfortable house
and was the head or at least the source of supply of a comfortable,
well-dressed, happy household. Despite his anxiety, he could not but
feel himself to be a substantial citizen and freeholder as he went
forth over the new-fallen snow to consult with his neighbours.
Miss Penny asked anxiously for the baby. He replied that little Joe
was prime but that Anna had felt wretchedly all day and was really ill
to-night. While her mother was getting her to bed he had come over to
see if they had any suggestions.
“The worst of it is, we can’t consult Mr. Langley,” said Miss Penny
in her fluttered way. “He always knows just what to do, but--there’s
his wife, you see. What I mean is--of course, I am as pleased as
anyone--and that alone wouldn’t hurt Anna--nor perhaps the other
alone--I am not sure--but racing home to little Joe--and all her
school work--and standing all day when she was clerking in the city.
And as you say, Seth, it was unfortunate, his crying the first time.
But we mustn’t blame the little fellow. Anna says she looks like Red
Riding-Hood’s grandmother--no, I believe it was like the wolf dressed
up in the grandmother’s night gown, though I don’t suppose he’s heard
that story or would understand it if he had.”
“No’m, you’re right. Not yet, Miss Penny,” Miller assured her politely.
“What does Anna’s mother think?” asked Mrs. Lorraine.
“Jenny lays it all to the baby, mostly. She never took to him as the
rest of us do, Mrs. Lorraine, and she frets more ’n I ever knew her
to over Anna’s having the care of him. And all the time, you know, he
ain’t much trouble.”
“We might take him over here for a while, Mrs. Lorraine?” Miss Penny
suggested.
“You’d only shift the trouble, Miss Penny,” Miller declared. “Anna’d
come along, too, and you’d be all wore out with the excitement and
Jenny would be all the more worried. She thinks, too, Anna hadn’t ought
to go to Mrs. Langley’s so often.”
“After all, why should she go at all?” demanded Mrs. Lorraine with
sudden spirit. “Why don’t you put your foot down, Mr. Miller, that she
sha’n’t go there except in vacation?”
Seth Miller was flattered by the implication of her demand. But he knew
as well as any that he wasn’t one to set his foot down in any firm way
in his own family.
“I guess I couldn’t hardly do that, Mrs. Lorraine, for Anna might take
it to heart,” he said. “And you see we was without our daughter for
five years.”
“And consider what it means to Mr. Langley to have her go!” cried Miss
Penny. “O Mrs. Lorraine, if you could know what store we set by that
man--though I suppose you begin to guess by now. But you may not know
how we all long to do something for him--to show our appreciation--or
perhaps to satisfy our own hearts--and it’s so difficult--it’s next to
impossible. And she his wife, you know. If she should come out among
people, he would be the happiest man alive.”
“I fear she never will, Miss Penny,” Mrs. Lorraine returned doubtfully.
“She has been shut in too long. People like that grow selfish and
exacting. She will never be willing to make the effort it would require
to receive other people so long as she can have Anna, who just suits
her. She’ll cling to her and I fear will devour her youth.”
The phrase impressed Seth Miller deeply. He repeated it more than
once as he walked across with his lantern, sighing deeply with each
repetition, though he had really been cheered by the promise the ladies
had given him to consider the problem carefully.
He was amazed to find Anna, wrapped in a woollen dressing-gown, sitting
by the kitchen stove with her mother and the boys. She had regained her
colour and seemed herself again. As she shook back her short yellow
locks, her father thought she looked like a posy swayed by the wind.
“O pa, what do you think! Here’s a note from Mrs. Langley!” she cried.
“I thought she’d be so mad after yesterday that she’d never want to
see me again, but here she is begging to see me soon because she has
something special to speak about. Mr. Langley will come for me and
bring me back, she says, if I’ll come some night after school. Here it
is--sort of funny writing, isn’t it?”
As it never occurred to the other Miller girl to wait until she was
stronger, she hurried over to the parsonage Monday afternoon. And her
heart leaped with generous emotion when Mrs. Langley’s first question
was for the baby.
“Joe’s right as rain, bless his heart, Mrs. Langley,” she returned
cheerfully. “Pa says it did him good to expand his lungs. You
understand how it was, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Langley evaded the question by asking another: “Who’s with him
now?”
“Ma’s right there and the boys are minding him. You see,--I--I wanted
to bring him with me so badly that I’m afraid I didn’t try as I might
have to get him taken care of. And anyhow the boys are getting better.
What do you suppose? They took the pennies they have been saving
for Christmas and sent over to Wenham by Walter Phelps and got him
a perfectly scrumptious linen picture book with an animal for every
blooming letter of the alphabet. They’re perfectly dotty over teaching
him to talk. Freddy thinks it will be easier now that he knows how to
cry!”
“O, the baby isn’t afraid of them?”
“O no, the baby isn’t afraid of anybody,” returned Anna before she had
time to reflect. Then she flushed. “I mean he isn’t afraid of anyone
he’s used to. Of course he’s used to them.”
“Then he’d get used to me?” Mrs. Langley half-asserted, half-questioned.
Anna’s heart sank.
“I guess Joe, Junior’d better not go so far from home again until he’s
older,” she said gently. “I ought to have known better. But I can come
just the same. The boys have already offered to mind him Saturday.”
“But I want to see _him_ again,” Mrs. Langley insisted. And Anna felt
as if she were standing on her head, to have Mrs. Langley begging to
see the baby and to be trying to hold her off.
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Langley, when he’s a wee bit older,” she temporized,
but the other broke in impatiently. “Anna Miller! it’s just because
he’s a baby that I want to see him. When he’s older, I sha’n’t care.”
Anna sighed.
“He’ll get used to me,” Mrs. Langley urged. “I understand that he lets
Mr. Langley hold him?”
“O, any child would go to Mr. Langley, he’s so good and so----”
“So _what_?” demanded the minister’s wife, so fiercely that Anna
faltered the word she had meant to swallow: _handsome_.
“Anna Miller! Do you mean to tell me that I--that I frightened that
baby by my looks?” cried the invalid yet more fiercely.
“You don’t happen to look like anyone he’s happened to see so far,
nor--dress like ’em,” Anna murmured deprecatingly.
“You’d hardly expect him ever to see anyone who had suffered as I have
all these years and lost everyone they ever cared for!”
“There’s Mr. Langley,” Anna reminded her.
“Of course. But he isn’t like one’s own child. Anna, will you go out
and send Bell in to me. Then please wait until she comes for you.”
Too sore and shocked to protest, Anna complied silently. She guessed
that Mrs. Langley was about to consult a mirror. If she hadn’t seen
herself since--since the little lamb had been placed in the cemetery,
she would--but Anna’s imagination refused to compass the situation. She
waited with mingled dread and terror for--she knew not what.