"You haven't asked us what we came for," opened up Allison as soon as
everybody was served with chicken, mashed potato, succotash, stewed
tomatoes, biscuits, pickles, and apple-sauce.
"I thought you came for cookies," said Julia Cloud, with a mischievous
twinkle in her gray eyes.
"Hung one on me, didn't you?" said Allison, laughing. "But that wasn't
all. Guess again."
"Perhaps you came to see me," she suggested shyly.
"Right you are! But that's not all, either. That wouldn't last much
longer than the cookies. Guess again."
"Oh, I couldn't!" said Julia Cloud, growing suddenly stricken with the
thought of their going. "I give it up."
"Well, then I'll tell you. You see we've come East to college, both of
us. Of course I've had my freshman year, but the Kid's just entering.
We haven't decided which college it's to be yet, but it's to be co-ed,
we know that much, because we're tired of being separated. When one
hasn't but two in the family and has been apart for five years, one
appreciates a home, I tell you that. And so we've decided we want a
home. We're not just going to college to live there in the usual way;
we're going to take a house, live like real folks, and go to school
every day. We want a fireplace and a cooky-jar of our own; a place to
bring our friends and have good times. But most of all we want a
mother, and we've come all this way to coax you to come and live with
us, play house, you know, as you used to do down on the mossy rocks
with broken bits of china for dishes and acorns for cups and saucers.
Play house and you be mother. Will you do it, Cloudy Jewel? It means a
whole lot to us, and we'll try to play fair and make you have a good
time."
Julia Cloud put her hand on her heart, and lifted her bewildered eyes
to the boy's eager face.
"Me!" she said wonderingly. "You want _me_!"
"We sure do!" said Allison.
"Indeed we do, Cloudy, dear! That's just what we do want!" cried
Leslie, jumping up and running around to her aunt's chair to embrace
her excitedly. "And you promised, you know, that you would do what we
wanted if you possibly, _possibly_ could."
"You see, we put it up to our guardian about the house," went on
Allison, "and he said the difficulty would be to get the right kind of
a housekeeper that he could trust us with. Of course he's way off in
California, and he has to be fussy. He's built that way. But we told
him we didn't want any housekeeper at all, we wanted a mother. He said
you couldn't pick mothers off trees, but we told him we knew where
there was one if we could only get her. So he let us come and ask;
and, if you say you'll do it, he's coming down to see you and fix it
up about the money part. He said you'd have to have a regular salary
or he wouldn't consider it, because there were things he'd have to
insist upon that he had promised mother; and, if there wasn't a
business arrangement about it, he wouldn't know what to do. Besides,
he said it was worth a lot to run a couple of rough-necks like Les and
me, and he'd make the salary all right so you could afford to leave
whatever you were doing and just give your time to mothering us. Now
it's up to you, Cloudy Jewel, to help us out with our proposition or
spoil everything, because we simply won't have a housekeeper, and we
don't know another real mother in the whole world that hasn't a family
of her own."
They both left their delicious dinner, and got around her, coaxing and
wheedling exactly as if she had already declined, when the truth was
she was too dazed with joy to open her lips, even if they had given
her opportunity to speak.
It was some time before the excitement quieted down and they gave her
a chance to say she would go. Even then she spoke the words with fear
and trembling as one might step off a commonplace threshold into a
fairy palace, not sure but it might be stepping into space.
Outside the sky was still flooded with after-sunset glory, but there
was so much glory in the hearts of the three inside the dining-room
that they never noticed it at all. It might have been raining or
hailing, and they would not have known, they were so happy.
Both the guests donned long gingham aprons and wiped the dishes when
the meal was over, both talking with all their might, recalling the
days of their childhood when they had had towels pinned around them
and been allowed to dry the cups and pans; then suddenly jumping ahead
and planning what they would do in the dear new home of the future.
They were all three as excited about it as if they had been a bridal
couple planning for their honeymoon.
"We shall want five bedrooms," said Leslie decidedly. "I've thought
that all out, one for each of us and two guest-rooms, so we can have a
boy and a girl home for overnight with us as often as we want to. And
there simply must be a fireplace, or we won't take the house. If there
isn't the right kind of a house in town, we'll choose some other
college. There are plenty of colleges, but you can have only one home,
and it must be the right kind. Then of course we want a big kitchen
where we can make fudge as often as we choose in the evenings, and a
dining-room with a bay-window, with seats and flowers and a canary.
Cloudy Jewel, you don't mind cats, do you? I want two at least. I've
been crazy for a kitten all the time I was in school, and Al wants a
big collie. You won't mind, will you?"
Suddenly Julia Cloud discovered that latent in her heart all these
years there had also lain a desire for a cat and a dog; and she lifted
guilty eyes, and confessed it. She felt a pang of remembrance as she
recalled how her mother used so often to tell her she was nothing but
an "old child."
"Perhaps your guardian will not think me a proper person to chaperon
you," she suggested in sudden alarm.
"Well, he'd just better not!" declared Allison, bristling up. "I'd
like to know where he could find a better."
"I've never been in society," said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. "I don't
know social ways much, and I've never been considered to have any
dignity or good judgment."
"That's just why we like you," chorused the children. "You've never
grown up and got dull and stiff and poky like most grown folks."
"We were so afraid," began Leslie, putting a loving arm about her
aunt's waist, "that you would have changed since we were children. We
talked it all over on the way here. We had a kind of eyebrow code by
which we could let each other know what we thought about it without
your seeing us. We were to lift one eyebrow, the right one, if we were
favorably impressed, and draw down the left if we were disappointed.
But in case we were sure both eyebrows were to go up. And of course we
were sure you were just the same dear the minute we laid eyes on you,
and all four of our eyebrows went high as they'd go the first instant.
Didn't you notice Allison? His eyebrows were almost up to his hair,
and they pulled his eyes so wide open they were perfectly round like
saucers. As for me I think mine went way up under my hair. I'm not
sure if they've got back to their natural place even yet!" And Leslie
laid a rosy finger over her brow, and felt anxiously along the
delicate velvety line.
"I shall go out and telegraph Mr. Luddington that you are willing,"
announced Allison as he hung up the dish-towel. "He'll get it in the
morning when he reaches Boston, and then he needn't fuss and fume any
longer about what he's going to do with us. Besides, I like to have
the bargain clinched somehow, and a telegram will do it." Allison
slammed out of the house noisily to the extreme confusion of Mrs.
Ambrose Perkins, who hadn't been able to eat her supper properly for
watching the house to see what would happen next. Who could that young
man be?
She simply couldn't get a clew; for, when she went over for the soda,
though she knocked several times, and heard voices up-stairs, and
altogether unseemly laughter for a house where there had just been a
funeral, not a soul came to the door! Could it be that Julia Cloud
heard her and stayed up-stairs on purpose? She felt that as the
nearest neighbor and a great friend, of Ellen's it would be rather
expected of her to find out what was going on. She resolutely
refrained from lighting the parlor lamp, and took up her station at
the dark window to watch; but, although she sat there until after ten
o'clock, she was utterly unable to find out anything except that the
household across the way stayed up very late and there were lights in
both front rooms again. She felt that if nothing developed by morning
she would just have to get Ambrose to hitch, up and drive out to
Ellen's. Ellen ought to know.
But Julia Cloud was serenely unconscious of this espionage. She had
entered an Eden of bliss, and was too happy to care about anything
else.
Seated on the big old couch in the parlor with a child on either side
of her, a hand in each of hers, often a head on each shoulder
nestling down, they talked. Planned and talked. Now the brother would
break in with some tale of his school-days; now the sister would add a
bit of reminiscence, just as if they had been storing it all up to
tell her. The joyous happiness of them all seemed like heaven dropped
down to earth. It was as she had sometimes dreamed mothers might talk
with their own children. And God had granted this unspeakable gift to
her! Was it real? Would it last? Or was she only dreaming? Once it
vaguely passed through her mind that she would not be sure of the
reality of the whole thing until she had seen Ellen. If she could talk
with Ellen about it, tell her what she was going to do, show her the
children, and then come back and find it all the same, it would last.
But somehow she shrank unspeakably from seeing Ellen. She could not
get away from the feeling that Ellen would dispel it all; that
someway, somehow, she would succeed in breaking up all the bright
plans and scattering them like soap-bubbles in the wind.
Nevertheless, it was a very beautiful illusion, if illusion it was;
and one to be prolonged as late as possible.
She was horrified when at last she heard the rebuking strokes of the
town clock, ten! eleven! _twelve!_
She started to her feet ashamed.
And even then they would not let her go to bed at once. She must turn
out the lights, and sit in the hall between their rooms as she did
long ago, and tell the story of "The Little Rid Hin" just as she had
told it night after night when they were children.
It was characteristic of the unfailing youth of the woman that she
entered into the play with zest. Attired in a long kimono, with her
beautiful white hair in two long silver braids down over her
shoulders, she sat in the dark and told the story with the same vivid
language; and then she stole on tiptoe first to the sister's bedside,
to tuck her in and kiss her softly, and then to the brother's; and at
each bedside a young, strong arm reached out and drew her face down,
whispering "Good-night" with a kiss and "I love you, Cloudy Jewel," in
tender, thrilling tones.
The two big children were asleep at last, and Julia Cloud stole to her
own bed to lie in a tumult of wonder and joy, and finally sink into a
light slumber, wherein she dreamed that she had fallen heir to a
rose-garden, and all the roses were alive and could talk; until Ellen
came driving up in her Ford and ran right over them, crushing them
down and cutting their heads off with a long, sharp whip she carried
that somehow turned out to be made of words strung together with
biting sarcasm.
She awoke in the broad morning sunlight to find both children done up
in bath-robes and slippers, sitting one each side of her on the bed,
laughing at her and tickling her chin with a feather from the seam of
the pillow.
"Now, Cloudy Jewel, you've just got to begin to make plans!"
announced Leslie, curling up in a ball at her feet and looking very
business-like with her fluffy curls around her face like a golden
fleece. "There isn't much time, and Guardy Lud will be down upon us
by to-morrow or the next day at least."
"Guardy Lud!" exclaimed Julia Cloud bewildered. "Who is that?"
"That's our pet name for Mr. Luddington," explained Leslie, wrinkling
up her nose in a grin of merriment. "Isn't it cute? Wait till you see
him, and you'll see how it fits. He's round and bald with a shiny red
nose, and spectacles; and he doesn't mind our kidding at all. He'd
have made a lovely father if he wasn't married, but he has a horrid
wife. We don't like her at all. She's like a frilly piece of French
china with too much decoration; and she's always sick and nervous; and
she jumps, and says 'Oh, mercy!' every time we do the least little
thing. She doesn't like us any better than we like her. Her name is
Alida, and Allison says we're always trying to 'elude' her. The only
good thing she ever did was to advise Guardy Lud to let us come East
to college. She wanted to get us as far away from her as possible. And
it certainly was mutual."
"There, now, Leslie, you're chattering again," broke in Allison,
looking very tall and efficient in his blue bath-robe. "You said you
would talk business, and not bleat."
"Well, so I am," pouted Leslie. "I guess Cloudy has got to understand
about our family."
"Well, now let's get down to business," said her brother. "Cloudy,
what have you got to do before you leave? You know it isn't very long
before the colleges open, and we've got to start out and hunt a home
right away. Do you have to pack up here or anything?"
"Oh, I don't know!" gasped Julia Cloud, looking around half
frightened. "I suppose I ought to ask Ellen. She will be very much
opposed to anything I do, but I suppose she ought to be told first."
Allison frowned.
"Gee whiz! I don't see why Aunt Ellen has to butt into our affairs.
She's got her own home and family, and she never did like us very
much. I remember hearing her tell Grandma that we were a regular
nuisance, and she would be glad when we were gone back to California."
"That was because you hid behind the sofa when Uncle Herbert was
courting her, and kidded them," giggled Leslie.
A stray little twinkle of a dimple peeped out by the corner of Julia
Cloud's mouth. It hadn't been out for a number of years, and she knew
she ought not to laugh at such pranks now; but it was so funny to
think of Herbert Robinson being kidded in the midst of his courting!
The dimple started the lights dancing in Leslie's eyes.
"There! now you dear old Jewel, you know you don't want to talk to
Aunt Ellen about us. She'll just mess things all up. Let's just _do_
things, and get 'em all fixed up, and then tell her when it's too late
for her to make a fuss," gurgled Leslie down close to Julia's ear,
finishing up with a delicious bear-hug.
"I suppose she'll be mortally offended," murmured Julia Cloud in
troubled hesitancy.
"Well, suppose she is; she'll get over it, won't she?" growled
Allison. "And anyhow you're old enough to manage your own affairs,
Cloudy Jewel. I guess you're older than she is, aren't you? I guess
you've got a right to do as you please, haven't you? And you _do_ want
to go with us, don't you?" His voice was anxious.
"I certainly do, dear boy," said Julia Cloud eagerly; "but you know
your guardian may not approve at all when he sees what a foolish
'young' aunt I am, allowing you to sit up late and talk fairy stories
all the time."
They smothered her in kisses, compliments, and assurances; and it was
some time before the conversation swung around again to the important
subject of the morning.
"You don't have to do anything to the house but just shut it up, do
you?" asked Allison, looking anxiously about in a helpless, mannish
way. "Because, if you do, we ought to be getting to work."
"There's a man over at Harmony Village that wanted to rent a house
here," said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. "I might write a letter to him.
I don't know whether he's found anything or not. He's the new
superintendent of the high school. But it's time we got dressed and
had breakfast."
"Write to him nothing!" said Allison eagerly. "I'll get the car, and
we'll drive over to Harmony in no time, and get the thing fixed up.
Hustle there, Leslie, and get yourself togged up. We don't need to
wait for breakfast; we can eat cookies. Hurry everybody!" And he
slammed over to his own room and began to stir about noisily.
Julia Cloud arose and made a hasty toilet, with a bright spot of
excitement on each cheek; but she had no time to think what Ellen
would say, for she meant that these children should have a real
old-time breakfast before they began the day; and now that she was
up her little round black clock on the bureau told her that it was
high time the day had begun. She looked fearfully out of the window,
half expecting to see Ellen's Ford bobbing down the hill already,
and then hurried down to the kitchen. Allison soon came down,
calling out to her to be ready when he came back with the car; but
the delicious odors that had already begun to float out from the old
kitchen made him lenient toward the idea of breakfast; and, when he
came back with the full cut-out roaring the announcement of his
arrival to the Perkinses, he was quite ready to wait a few minutes and
eat some of Julia Cloud's flapjacks and sausages with maple-syrup and
apple-sauce.
Julia Cloud herself ate little. She was in a tremor of delightful
uncertainty and dread. Ought she to go ahead this way and manage her
own affairs, leaving her own sister out of the question? But then, if
she consulted with Ellen that meant consulting with Herbert; for
Herbert ran his wife most thoroughly, and Herbert could make things
very unpleasant when he took the trouble.
So, when the children, unable at last to eat any more, pleaded with
her to leave the dishes and go to see the man about the house at
once, she gave one swift, apprehensive glance about, and assented. If
Ellen should come to the house while they were away, and should look
in at the window and see the breakfast dishes standing! It would be
appalling! But, as the children said, why worry? Somehow she felt like
a little schoolgirl playing hookey as she carefully drew down the
dining-room and kitchen window-shades that looked on the back porch,
and locked the front door behind her. Well, perhaps she had earned the
right to take this bit of a holiday, and wash her dishes when she
liked. Anyhow, hadn't God sent these blessed children to her in answer
to her earnest prayer that He would show her what to do and save her
if possible from having to spend the remainder of her days under
Herbert Robinson's roof? Well, then she would just accept it that way
and be grateful, at least until He showed her otherwise. So she drew a
long breath of delight, and climbed into the luxurious back seat of
the great blue car, utterly oblivious of the prying eyes behind the
parlor shade across the way.