BANISHING GHOSTS
There was a cheerful bustle in the kitchen when Dories opened the side
door. Her mother was preparing the noon meal with her customary wordless
song, although now and then a merry message to the frail boy, who so
often sat in a low chair near the stove, was sung to the melody. Just
then the newcomer heard the lilted announcement: “Footsteps I hear, and
now will appear my very dear little daughter.”
Dories was repentant. “Oh, Mother, if I haven’t stayed out too late
again, and you’ve had to stop your sewing to get lunch.”
Little Peter paused in his whittling long enough to remark, “Dori, you’ve
been crying. What for?”
But a tactful mother shook her head quickly at the small boy, saying
brightly, “O, I was glad to stop sewing and stretch a bit. That brocade
dress is hard to work on. I don’t know how many machine needles it has
broken. But since it belongs to a rich person she won’t mind paying for
them.”
After putting the golden aster in a vase, Dories snatched her apron from
its hook in the closet and put it on with darkening looks. “Mother
Moore,” she threatened, “if you don’t go and lie down on the lounge until
lunch is ready, I’m not going to let you sew a single bit more today.
It’s just terribly wicked, and all wrong somehow, that you have to make
dresses for other women to keep us alive when my very own father’s very
own Aunt Jane is simply rolling in wealth, and——”
“Tut! Tut! Little firefly!” Her mother laughingly shook a stirring spoon
in her direction. “If you had ever seen your stately old Aunt Jane, you
just couldn’t conceive of her rolling in anything. That would be much too
undignified.”
“But, Mother, you know I meant that figuratively, not literally. She is
rich and we are poor. Now I ask you what right has one member of a family
to have all that his heart desires and another to have to sew for a
living.”
Little Peter tittered: “It’s _her_ heart, if it’s Great-Aunt Jane you’re
talking about.” A sharp retort was on the girl’s lips when her mother
said cheerily, “Now, kiddies, let’s talk about something else. Mrs. Doran
sent us over a whole pint of cream. Shall we have it whipped on those
last blackberries that Peter found this morning out in Briary Meadow, or
shall I make a little biscuit shortcake?”
“Shortcake! Shortcake! I want shortcake!” Peter sang out.
“But, Mother, you’re too tired to make one,” Dories protested.
“Then you make it, Dori,” Peter pleaded.
“You know I couldn’t make a biscuit shortcake, Peter Moore, not if my
life depended on it.” The girl was in a self-accusing mood. “I never
learned how to do anything useful.” Dories was putting the pretty lunch
dishes on a small table in the kitchen corner breakfast-nook as she
talked.
The understanding mother, realizing the conflicting emotions that were
making her young daughter so unhappy, brought out the flour and other
ingredients as she said, “Never too late to learn, dear. Come and take
your first lesson in biscuit-making.”
Half an hour later, as they sat around the lunch table, Dories told as
much of her recent conversation with her best friend as she wished to
share. Then they had the blackberry shortcake and real cream, and even
Peter acknowledged that it was “most as good as Mother’s.”
When the kitchen had been tidied and Peter had gone to his little upper
room for the nap that was so necessary for the regaining of his health,
Dories went into the small sewing room which formerly had been her
father’s den and stood looking discontentedly out of the window. Her
mother had resumed sewing on the rich brocaded dress. When the hum of the
machine was stilled, she glanced at the pensive girl and said: “Dori
dear, this is the first afternoon that I can remember, almost, that you
have been at home with me. You and Nann always went somewhere or did
something. You are going to miss your best friend ever so much, I know,
but—” there was a break in the voice which caused the girl to turn and
look inquiringly at her mother, who was intently pressing a seam, and who
finished her sentence a bit pathetically, “it’s going to mean a good deal
to me, daughter, to have your companionship once in a while.”
With a little cry the girl sprang across the room and knelt at her
mother’s side, her arms about her. “O, Mumsie, was there ever a more
selfish girl? I don’t see how you have kept on loving me all these
years.” Then her pretty face flushed and she hesitated before confessing:
“I hate to say it, for it only shows how truly horrid I am, but I liked
to be over at Nann’s, where the furniture was so beautiful, not
threadbare like ours.” She was looking through the open door into the
living-room, where she could see the old couch with its worn covering. “I
ought to have stayed at home and helped you with your sewing, but I will
from now on.”
The mother, knowing that tears were near, put a finger beneath the girl’s
chin and looked deep into the repentant violet blue eyes. Kissing her
tenderly, she said merrily, “Very well, young lady, if you wish to punish
yourself for past neglects, sit over there in my low rocker and take the
bastings out of this skirt.”
Dories obeyed and was soon busy at the simple task. To change the
subject, her mother spoke of the planned trip. “It will be your very
first journey away from Elmwood, dear. At your age I would have been ever
so excited.”
The girl looked up from her work, a cloud of doubt in her eyes. “Oh,
Mother, do you really think that you would have been, if you were going
to a summer resort where the cottages were all shut up tight as clams,
boarded up, too, probably, and with such a queer, grumphy person as
Great-Aunt Jane for company?” The girl shuddered. “Every time I think of
it I feel the chills run down my back. I just know the place will be full
of ghosts. I won’t sleep a wink all the time I’m there. I’m convinced of
that.”
Her mother’s merry laugh was reassuring. “Ghosts, dearie?” she queried,
glancing up. “Surely you aren’t in earnest. You don’t believe in ghosts,
do you?”
“Well, maybe not, exactly, but there are the queerest stories told about
those lonely out-of-the-way places. You know that there are, Mother. I
don’t mean made-up stories in books. I mean real newspaper accounts.”
“But it doesn’t matter what kind of paper they’re printed on, Dori,” her
mother put in, more seriously, “nothing could make a ghost story true.
The only ghosts that haunt us, really, are the memories of loving words
left unsaid and loving deeds that were not done, and sometimes,” she
concluded sadly, “it is too late to ever banish those ghosts.” Then, not
wishing to depress her already heart-broken daughter, she said in a
lighter tone, “After all, why worry about your visit to Siquaw Point,
when, as yet, you haven’t heard that your Great-Aunt Jane has really
decided to go. I expected a letter every day last week, but none came, so
she may have given up the plan for this year.” Then, after glancing up at
the clock, she added, “Three, and almost time for the postman. I believe
I hear his whistle now.”
At that moment Peter bounded in, his face rosy from his nap. “Postman’s
coming,” he sang out. “Come on, Dori, I’ll beat you to the gate.”
The girl rose, saying gloomily, “This is probably the fatal day. I’m just
sure there’ll be a letter from Great-Aunt Jane. I don’t see why she chose
me when she’s never even seen me.”
When Dories reached the front door, she saw that Peter was already out in
the road, frantically beckoning to her. “Hurry along, Dori. The postman’s
just leaving Mrs. Doran’s,” he called; then as the mail wagon, drawn by a
lean white horse, approached, the small boy ran out in the road and waved
his arms.
Mr. Higgins, who had stopped at their door ever since Peter had been a
baby, beamed at him over his glasses. “Law sakes!” he exclaimed, “Do I
see a bandit? Guess you’ve been reading stories about ‘Dick Dead-shot’
holding up mail coaches in the Rockies. Sorry, but there ain’t nothin’
for you.” Then, smilingly, he addressed the girl. “Likely in a day or two
I’ll be fetchin’ you a letter, Dori, from your old friend Nann Sibbett.
It’ll be powerfully lonesome around here for you, I reckon, now she’s
gone.”
The girl nodded. “Just awfully lonesome, Mr. Higgins, and please do bring
me a letter soon.” Just then Johnnie Doran called for Peter to come over
and play, and the girl went slowly back to the house.
Her mother looked up inquiringly. “No letter at all,” Dories announced in
so disappointed a tone that she laughingly confessed, “Mother, I do
believe that I’m made up of the contrariest emotions. I do hate the
thought of spending that dismal month of October with Great-Aunt Jane at
Siquaw Point, but I hate even worse going back to High without Nann.”
“Dear girl,” the mother’s voice held a tenderly given rebuke, “you aren’t
thinking in the least of the pleasure your companionship might give your
Great-Aunt Jane. She was very fond of your father when he was a boy, and
he spent many a summer with her at Siquaw. That may be her reason for
inviting you. Your father seemed to be the only person for whom she
really cared.” Then, before the rather surprised girl could reply, the
mother continued, “I wish, dear, that you would hunt up your Aunt’s last
letter and answer it more fully. I was so busy when it came that I merely
sent a few lines, thanking her for the invitation.”
Dories sighed as she rose to obey, but turned back to listen when her
mother continued: “I know how hard it is going to be, dear girl, but I
have a reason, which I cannot explain just now, for very much wishing you
to go. Now write the letter and make it as interesting and newsy as you
can.”
Dories, from the door, dropped a curtsy. “Very well, Mrs. Moore,” she
said, “to please you I’ll write to the crabbedy old lady, but——” Her
mother merrily shook her finger at her. “I want you to withhold judgment,
daughter, until you have seen your Great-Aunt Jane.”