PETER LENDS A HAND
It was quite natural that Nancy should take her problems to Peter Hyde.
More correctly, she did not take them--Peter Hyde discovered them when,
a few days later, he found Nancy alone in her Bird's-nest, completely
surrounded by sheets of paper, a frown wrinkling her entire face,
furiously chewing one end of her pencil.
There had, of course, to be some explanation of the manuscript. Nancy
told him of the play she was writing, how she had really come to North
Hero to finish it!
"I thought I'd have hours and hours to work. And I was so glad when I
found this hiding place. I've been here, now, weeks and weeks, and
have done scarcely a thing!"
"Is it because the Muse will not come?" asked Peter, eying the
scattered sheets with awe.
"Oh, it would _come_--if it had a chance! My head's just bursting with
things I want to write and I dream about them in my sleep. But--it
sounds silly--I'm so busy. Maybe the things I do don't seem important
but I just can't escape them."
She made room for Peter on the seat beside her. Then she told him of
Aunt Milly; of that first trip to the orchard, how it had been the
beginning of a new life for the little woman.
"I bring her downstairs every day now, right after breakfast, and she's
one of the family. I'm going to coax Webb to make another sort of a
chair; one she can wheel herself--I've seen them. She's learned to
knit beautifully; she's so proud because she's working on a sock for
the Belgian children--she says it's the first time she's _ever_ felt
useful! She helps B'lindy, too. It makes you want to cry to see how
happy she is. But with all her independence she wants me all the time.
When I start to leave her there's something in the way she looks at me
that is just as though she reached out and caught me by the hand!"
Nancy described, too, how B'lindy was constantly finding little tasks
for her that would keep her in the kitchen or on the back porch within
sound of her voice.
"You see talking's the joy of B'lindy's life and my ears are new--they
haven't heard all the things she has to say. Just when I think I can
escape she begins telling me of the cake her mother baked for Miss
Sabrina's mother the day the Governor of Vermont came to Happy
House--or something like that!"
Anxious that Peter should understand everything Nancy made a vivid
word-picture of Miss Sabrina and of the difficulties she had had in
winning her. "I believe she's fond of me now, but she just doesn't
know _how_ to show it! She's never displayed one bit of affection in
her whole life, I'm sure. She's stone. But sometime she's going to
break--I'm doing my best to make her! I know she enjoys having dear
little Aunt Milly around, but do you think she'd say so? Goodness no.
But there's a lot of good in Aunt Sabrina and I'm bound to know it all,
so I make it my duty to sit with her just so long each day while she
tells me about the Leavitts and the other families of this Island. And
there _is_ something heroic about them all!
"So here I am, just tingling to finish the last act of my play and not
a moment to myself! If it isn't precious Aunt Milly or Aunt Sabrina or
B'lindy or even dear old Jonathan, it's Nonie or Davy or----"
"Or me," finished Peter Hyde, glancing significantly at the neglected
work. "Your hands _are_ full!"
Nancy went on earnestly. "And it all seems so worth while! Look at
Nonie--she's a different creature already. I don't believe she
pretends as much, either--her little body is catching up with her
spirit. And Davy doesn't hang his head when he looks at you!"
Peter Hyde could understand her feeling toward the children. They had
planned together to bring something more into those two starved young
lives. Like Nancy, he was delighted at the results already apparent.
It _was_ work too worth while to be abandoned--for anything.
"Nonie fairly eats up the books I give her but she always wants to read
them with me--it's so that she can ask questions. And the questions
she asks! Every new thing she learns she immediately adapts to her own
life. We've begun 'Little Women' and of course she plays Amy! Poor
little flower, sometimes I think of old Dan'l and Liz and wonder from
where on earth the child got her gift. And what a precious blessing it
is to her!"
Recalling Davy's contempt for his sister's "actin' lies," they both
laughed.
"How could _anyone_ think bad things of Davy," cried Nancy,
indignantly. "He's the soul of truth and honor! But up here he won't
have a chance."
"Oh, yes, he will!" Peter contradicted. "If I'm any good reading
character in a ten-year-old he'll _make_ a chance. He's a leader, now.
Look at the way the other boys follow his slightest suggestion!"
Davy's "club" was flourishing. The attractions that Peter and Nancy
had added to its program had made it boom. Several new "fellars" had
come in. The meetings were even more frequent than Liz cleaned the
meeting-house, and now, because it had become known that Miss Sabrina's
niece was a member of the club, no lickings awaited the members upon
their return, rather impatient mothers eager to hear "what that girl at
Happy House was up to now." There was some talk about turning the club
into a Boy Scout troop; Mr. Peter had promised to organize them and
train them.
"Oh, dear," Nancy sighed, perplexed and torn, "it's like having a dream
you've dreamed crumble all to pieces! I wanted to have my play done
before my--I mean, I wanted to finish it up here and then send it
straight to Theodore Hoffman himself. Of course you don't know him.
He's one of the greatest dramatists and play producers in the world. I
know it's daring in me and maybe he won't even give a minute to my
little insignificant effort, but--whatever he may say, I'll know it is
the best criticism I can get!"
To Nancy's surprise Peter displayed a considerable knowledge of plays
and actors, critics and producers. He could see her problem, too--how
she was torn between the claims of Happy House and her beloved work.
Nancy was grateful for his sympathy and because he did not laugh at
her. But of course, why should anyone who could find music in waving
corn not understand her own dreams!
Peter's face looked very much as though he was tackling some problem of
drainage--or a new incubator.
"When you get right down to plain facts, it's a question of conserving
time. You're wasting it--somewhere. I believe you can double up a
bit. Let Aunt Milly listen to Belinda, and teach Aunt Milly to help
Nonie. I'll take care of Davy. You say Aunt Milly likes to feel she's
useful--if you start her she can help Nonie a lot and Nonie'll give her
something to think about, too."
Nancy considered this with brightening eyes. "I believe you're right!
I've just been selfish, trying to do everything myself just because I
loved to, and stupid--to think no one else could do it! Of course Aunt
Milly can read with Nonie--and play with her, too. I'll begin this
very day. I'll have a school here in the orchard and Nonie and B'lindy
and Aunt Milly shall come. It'll be the funniest school you ever heard
of," Nancy laughed. "I'll teach B'lindy the joy of seeing Hopworth
'young 'uns' eat her best molasses cookies!"
Nancy's face showed that she was mentally leaping far ahead in her
plans. Peter felt that he had been left out.
"Let me be the head taskmaster or whatever you call it. You'll
doubtless need a strong hand now and then. Anyway, you don't know how
much it helps _my_ work mixing a little fun with it!"
Now that her problems were straightening Nancy felt very kindly and
gracious and happy.
"Of course, you may come to the orchard--whenever you want! Oh, you
_have_ helped me so much," she cried, with a smile that brought a
sudden gleam in Peter Hyde's eyes. "Now, if you'll give me a hand
putting these pages together, I'll run in and prepare Aunt Milly and
B'lindy."
Following along the lines of Peter's suggestion, Nancy's "school"
developed rapidly. She covered sheet after sheet of paper with
"schedules" and finally to her satisfaction, blocked off every waking
moment of her pupils' day. Aunt Milly fell heartily in with her plans;
she was proud to know that she could help. The books for Nonie that
Nancy had spirited to Happy House were as fascinating to her as to
Nonie.
After the first day Aunt Milly thought of a great many new "lessons"
they could begin for Nonie. With the promise that after awhile she
could make for herself a "pinky" dress, like Nancy's, Aunt Milly taught
her to hem and seam and tuck. At the same time Nonie learned that it
was quite as bad to wear a torn, soiled dress as to say "him and me" or
"I ain't."
"You're _wonderful_, Aunt Milly," Nancy had declared, after this
innovation in the school. "I never would have thought of it, myself."
She laughed, ruefully. "I'd better study with Nonie, I guess, and
learn to mend, myself."
Nancy had told Aunt Milly, too, of Nonie's pretend-mother. Perhaps
that was why Aunt Milly's voice was very sweet and tender as she and
Nonie talked and played and read together. Nonie liked to wheel the
chair; she began to look forward to bolder excursions beyond the gate
to the village.
B'lindy, in her heart still a little distrustful that "no good could
come from encouragin' them Hopworths," nevertheless found countless
excuses to join the little group under the apple trees, sometimes
bringing some hideous lace crocheting that had been years in the making
but would some day--if B'lindy lived long enough to complete it--cover
a bed. Sometimes she brought a basket of goodies and other times came
empty-handed and just sat idle with a softened look in her old eyes as
they rested on the purple rim of mountains across the water.
"I guess it makes a body work better for restin' a spell," she said,
after one of these intervals.
But with the success of Nancy's new plans were two little clouds--small
at first but growing with each day. One was the realization that very
soon her work for these dear people could go on without her. And
though in one breath she told herself that this was fortunate, because
her stay at Happy House must end with her father's return, in the next
she was swept with a sharp jealousy that, after she had gone, Aunt
Milly and B'lindy and Nonie and Davy would still gather under the apple
tree.
Since the afternoon Peter Hyde had found her with the manuscript she
had not laid eyes upon him!
A sense of hurt at his neglect did not grow less when she learned from
old Jonathan, after one or two questions, that he had gone over to
Plattsburg; rather it gave way to a resentment that Peter, considering
what good chums they had grown to be and the "school" and everything,
should have gone off on any such trip without one word of parting!
"He'll see how well we can get along without him," she had declared to
herself after the third day. After all he probably _was_ hiding
something; this sudden disappearance must have some connection with it.
His comradeship had grown very pleasant, she admitted, but, she told
herself, it belonged to the real Anne Leavitt, like Aunt Milly and
Nonie and the others, he must drop out of her life when she left Happy
House.
So that he might not even be missed by Davy and his cronies, Nancy
devoted one entire afternoon to teaching the boys of the club how to
build a fire without matches. When, after repeated and discouraging
failures, the last one had joyfully succeeded, Nancy had promised to
teach them to wig-wag at the very next meeting.
When Nancy returned to the house, flushed and tired from the hours on
the beach, old Jonathan, at the door, presented her with a half-blown
rose, its stem thrust through a folded sheet of paper.
"Mr. Peter, over to Judson's, asked me to give it t'you."
With a certain set of the college men and girls Nancy had been very
popular; more than once pretty tributes of flowers had come to her.
She had accepted them rather indifferently, had kept them with dutiful
care in water and had pasted the cards that had come with them in her
remembrance book. But this gift was different; it was quaint--and _so_
pretty!
"If you will meet me at seven in the orchard I will tell you a surprise
that will tickle you to pieces," Peter Hyde had scrawled across the
paper.
"How--_funny_!" laughed Nancy, reading and re-reading the lines. "What
can it be?"
If Nancy had asked herself why she sang as she dressed for supper she
would have thought, truthfully, that it _was_ because she was
ravenously hungry and B'lindy's supper smelled very good; and she chose
to wear, from her slender wardrobe, a pink organdy, because it would be
cool--_not_ that she even dreamed, for a moment, of doing such a silly
thing as going to the orchard at seven o'clock, to meet Peter Hyde!
A dozen times, during the evening meal, she resolved that Peter Hyde's
surprise could wait. He presumed, indeed, to think that, after he had
absented himself for so long without one little word of explanation,
she would go running at the crook of his little finger!
However, she put the pink rose in her belt and occasionally slipped it
out to smell of it. It was the most beautiful rose she had ever
seen--she must ask Jonathan its variety.
At five minutes of seven she picked up her knitting and sat resolutely
down between her aunts on the hollyhock porch. Just as Aunt Sabrina
was telling her how, back in 1776, Robert Leavitt had dined with
Benedict Arnold on the flagship of his little Champlain fleet, two days
before its engagement with the British, the old clock within the house
struck seven. With her breath caught in her throat Nancy counted
sixty, twice--then suddenly sprang to her feet and rushed off the
veranda.
"Why, Nancy--dear," cried Aunt Milly, startled.
"Humph," grunted Aunt Sabrina, clicking her needles faster than ever.
Peter was in the orchard. He had been there since quarter of seven.
He was disappointed at the coolness of Nancy's greeting; it seemed to
him that he had been gone for ages, and he had, during his absence,
quite foolishly, been looking forward to this meeting.
He had hoped, too, that she might wear the rose.
"One guess where I've been," he commanded lightly, as he held out his
hand to assist her into the tree.
"Dear me, how can I tell? Buying plows or pigs or----"
Nancy tried to make her tone seem airily indifferent, when all the time
she was really consumed with curiosity and a desire, too, to tell him
how splendidly her work was going.
"I have seen Theodore Hoffman!"
"_What?_"
"Don't look as though you thought I'd gone mad. He's human. I
happened to hear that he was staying at Bluff Point, so I went over to
see the gentleman."
Nancy's eyes _did_ say that she thought he had gone quite out of his
mind!
"How did you _dare_?"
"I know a fellow that knows him. He was very nice--as I said, he's
human, terribly human. You should see him playing tennis!"
"What--_what_ did you say to him?"
"I told him I had a little friend who was soon to become one of the
greatest playwrights in the world and----"
"_Peter!_" Nancy lifted an imploring finger. "Honest, what _did_ you
say? And why----" she was suddenly abashed. He had done this for her.
Peter kept his tone light.
"You see I did have some pig business over that way, so it was easy
enough to do a favor for a little pal at the same time. Hoffman was
very nice--he's going to be around up here for some weeks and promised
me he would drive over here. Now it's up to you to have the manuscript
ready."
"Oh, Peter, I'm _frightened_! You're a darling! I shall _always_
bless pigs! Of _course_ I'll have it done--I'll work night and day.
I'll go straight back to the house now." She jumped to the ground. In
her haste she forgot the poor rose she had hidden behind her.
Peter, crestfallen at her sudden flight, found it, however. He smiled,
whimsically, as he held it in the palm of his hand.
"Nice little kid," he said, as he had said once before, then he put the
rose carefully into his pocket.