WHAT LAY BEYOND THE MILESTONE.
The next week the children went off far more heavily laden than they had
been when they made their first venture. Bella had added a few bunches of
herbs to her large supply of flowers, and a bunch or two from Margery's
garden, and she had to carry both her baskets herself, for Tom's
vegetables proved load enough for him. He had wanted to take some
currants for Charlie, but his father would not allow that.
"They ain't good enough," he said; "it won't do for to begin offering poor
stuff to your customers, or you'll lose those you've got and never get any
more, and you'll have all your load to carry for nothing. You learn to
grow better ones, Charlie, my boy, and then another year you'll be able to
make something by them."
Charlie's face fell, but he had not given the time or care to his garden
that the others had, and he knew it, and that only made him more vexed.
Life was disappointing to Charlie just then. It seemed to him, and to
Margery too, hard that they also could not go to Norton every Saturday.
The ten-mile walk they forgot all about, they only thought of the pleasure
of being in the midst of all the people and the bustle, and the shops and
market-stalls, with their loads of fruit and sweets and buns. The great
aim of Margery's life then was to grow big enough to carry in a basketful
of flowers too, and sell them, and to possess a purse to put the money in,
and a Savings Bank book, just as Bella had.
As the summer wore on and the days grew hotter and hotter, the eagerness
of both died down a good deal. It was far more pleasant, they found, to
stay at home and play in the cool lane or orchard, than to get up at four
in the morning and tramp about all day long under the weight of heavy
baskets. Some days they even found it too hot to walk with their father
as far as the milestone.
Those were trying, tiring days for Tom and Bella, days that put their
courage to the test, and made their perseverance waver more than once.
The walk in the morning was lovely still, but the standing about in the
close, narrow streets, crowded with people and animals, without even a
rest at the end of their five-mile walk, was so wearying that Bella often
longed to sit down on the edge of the pavement to rest her aching feet.
Her cheeks would grow scarlet, and her head throb, and her eyes ache with
the glare, and the heat and the weight of the baskets, but she could not
do anything to get relief. She had to stand or walk about, trying to sell
her flowers as quickly as possible. There was nothing else to be done.
The poor flowers suffered too, and hard work it was to keep them looking
fresh.
Sometimes a farmer or carter would offer the two tired little
market-gardeners a 'lift' on their homeward way, but this did not happen
often, for, as a rule, they were all going in the opposite direction.
There were few besides Bella and Tom who left the town so early; and it
would have been cooler and pleasanter for them if they had waited until
the evening and the heat of the day was over, but they were always anxious
to get home, and they really did not know where to go or what to do with
themselves all the weary day until five or six o'clock.
That was a very long, hot summer. The flowers opened and faded quickly,
in spite of the hours the whole family spent every evening watering them;
and more than once, if it had not been for the fruit from the orchard and
the vegetables, Bella and Tom would have had but a scanty supply to take
to their customers. As it was, they could not carry enough to make very
much profit, for fruit and vegetables are heavy, and to carry a load of
them for miles is no joke.
Several times that summer, when she awoke after a hot, restless night to
another stifling, scorching day, Bella felt inclined to shirk her business
and remain at home. It would have been so jolly to have spent the day
lazily in the shady orchard, instead of tramping those long, dusty miles.
Tom felt the heat less, and his energy helped to keep her up.
"We'll have a donkey before so very long," he said cheerfully. "If we can
have a good sowing and planting this autumn, and good crops next spring,
father and all of us, we'll have enough to carry in to make it worth while
to hire Mrs. Wintle's donkey."
So with the thought of all they were going to do in the future to buoy
them up, off they would start again, hoping that before another Saturday
came the heat would have lessened, and some rain have fallen to refresh
the land and lay the dust.
Yet, with all its weariness and hard work, that summer ever after stood
out in Bella's memory as a very happy one; and the evenings after their
return, and the Sundays, remained in her memory all her life through.
Even if Charlie and Margery did not come to meet them, their father was
always there to carry their baskets home for them. And then there was the
change into cool, comfortable old garments, and the nice tea, and the long
rest in the orchard, or sitting about in the porch outside the door,
while they talked over all that had happened during the day.
They all went to bed by daylight on those light nights, and Bella, as she
stretched out her weary body restfully on her little white bed, could see
through the open window the stars come up one by one in the deep
blue-black sky.
She was always quite rested by the time Sunday came, and was up and out
early for a look at her garden before getting ready for Sunday-School.
She loved the Sunday-School, and she loved her teacher, and the service
after in the dear old creeper-covered church, where the leaves peeped in
at the open windows, and the birds came in and flew about overhead, and
all the people knew and greeted one another in a friendly spirit.
On Sundays, too, it was an understood thing that Bella should go to tea
with Aunt Maggie, and this was to her, perhaps, one of the happiest hours
of the whole week, for Aunt Maggie had a little harmonium, to the music of
which they sang hymns. Sometimes, too, she told stories of the days when
she was young, and of people and places she had seen--told them so
interestingly, that to Bella the people and places seemed as real as
though she had known them herself. They had long talks, too, about all
that Bella was doing, and the things that puzzled her, and her plans for
the present and the future.
"You never seem to be years and years older than me, Aunt Maggie," Bella
said one day, "for you always seem to understand and to like what I like."
Aunt Maggie smiled. "Some people's hearts don't grow old as fast as their
bodies," she said thoughtfully. "I think it must be that which makes them
understand."
"I hope my heart won't ever get old," said Bella seriously. "It must be
dreadful not to take any interest in people or anything."
One Sunday, the last of this old life, so comparatively happy and free of
care, Mrs. Langley stopped Bella just as she was leaving.
"I want you to come in to see me to-morrow," she said, "and bring Tom with
you. I am making a print frock for you, and a holland coat for him to
wear to market on Saturdays. They'll be much more comfortable for you
both than your thick cloth ones." Then, in answer to Bella's cry of
delight, "You must thank your Aunt Emma, too; 'twas she thought of it
first, and I told her that if she'd get the stuff I'd make the things.
There now, run away home, it is time you were putting Margery to bed.
No, I shall not tell you the colour," laughing, as she loosened Bella's
arms which she had flung round her in her delight; "you will know
to-morrow."
"I hope it is pink," said Bella earnestly, eyeing her aunt closely, to see
if she could read anything from her face, but Mrs. Langley only smiled.
"Well, you will know by this time to-morrow. Now, run away, or they will
be wondering what has become of you."
"To-morrow is such a long way off," sighed Bella. "It'll never come!"
To-morrow came, as all to-morrows do, and, to Bella's great delight, the
frock turned out to be as pretty a pink as she could possibly desire.
It was very simply made, with just a plain skirt and belted bodice, but
when she saw it finished, and with little white collar and cuffs added,
Bella thought it the prettiest frock she had ever seen in her life.
Perhaps it was the prettiest she had ever possessed, for Aunt Emma did not
understand that clothes could be pretty as well as serviceable, and most
of poor Bella's frocks had been of heavy brown or black stuff, made
without any trimming, and with never a vestige of white at neck or
wrists,--a dainty finish which Bella loved the look of.
In spite of the heat and the long walk in it, Bella waited impatiently for
the following Saturday, and surely, she thought, never had a week been so
long in passing.
It was September now, but the weather was as hot and stifling as it had
been in July. The days were shorter, and the sun went down earlier, but,
apart from the sun, the oppressive heat lasted on throughout the nights,
which were almost as trying as the day. The earlier summer flowers were
over, and the drought had prevented the later ones from coming on well,
so that it was difficult to get a good supply week by week.
Bella and Tom no longer carried in the things from their own little
gardens only, or they would often have found they had not enough to make
it worth their while; but all contributed something that they had to sell,
and it was quite a serious business to make up the accounts and divide the
money when the little market-gardeners got home from market.
Each one now had a money-box or Savings Bank account. Aunt Emma was
delighted. "It is ever so much better for them than wasting their time
playing," she said to Mrs. Langley one day. "Much better."
"They ought to play, too," said Aunt Maggie quietly; "this is their
play-time. All the rest of their life will be taken up with trying to
earn a living. Let them play too, when they can."
As Bella and Tom started off that morning in their nice new cool garments,
they thought that work would be ever so much nicer than play, if one could
only go about it dressed like that always. Tom felt quite grown-up and
business-like in his linen coat, and Bella felt another being, her frock
was so much lighter and so pretty, too, and cool and clean.
"I think our new clothes have brought us good luck," she said, as long
before the morning was over they had sold out most of what they had
brought. The 'good luck' was that in their new garments, looking cool and
fresh, they attracted the notice of those who had overlooked them in their
heavier, uglier clothes.
When the time came for them to have their meal, they had sold out
everything, to the very last apple.
"We could start for home now," said Bella, who was suffering much less
from the heat than usual, "only that I've got some shopping to do for Aunt
Emma."
"And we've got to buy the seeds," said Tom. "It wouldn't do to start back
too early; father wouldn't have time to get to the milestone to meet us."
So they went and had their lunch in a leisurely, lazy way, talking all the
time they munched at their sandwiches and apples. "I've got four
shillings for father, and threepence for Margery," said Bella, counting up
her takings, "and two shillings for myself."
"And I've got two shillings too," chimed in Tom.
This was a large sum to children brought up in the country, where the
best-paid workmen earned only twelve and sixpence a week.
Their meal ended, they went back to the shops and people again, and made
their purchases, and at last were able to turn their steps homeward.
"Instead of being early, we're later than usual," said Tom. "Father will
have to wait a bit for us."
"Never mind; I dare say we shall be able to walk a little faster to-day,"
said Bella, "and make it up. Margery said she would come to meet us.
I wonder if she will. She's dying to wear her pink frock like mine, but I
don't s'pose Aunt Emma will let her. I shall be able to see as soon as we
turn the last bend of the road. The pink will show out fine against the
hedge. Oh dear, I wish we were there! I shall be glad to give these
baskets up to father, these groceries weigh heavy," and Bella sighed
wearily.
"Only one more hill and two more bends, and we shall see him," said Tom
cheerfully, for one of the chief pleasures of their day was to catch sight
of the milestone where their father had never yet failed to meet them,
to take their baskets from them, and listen to their account of the day's
doings.
"Only one more hill and two bends!" the thought sent them trudging on with
renewed spirit, and the hill was climbed before they realised it.
Then one bend in the road was rounded, then the other, and there in the
distance could be seen the milestone. But, except for the milestone, the
road was empty!
"Why, father isn't there!" cried Bella disappointedly; "he is late."
"P'raps somebody has met him, and kept him talking," suggested Tom;
"we shall see him hurrying along in a minute." So they finished the rest
of the distance with their eyes eagerly scanning the white road stretching
away before them.
"We will have a rest here, shall we?" said Bella, placing her baskets on
the ground by the old grey stone; "he won't be more than a few minutes,
I expect. Oh, I am so tired, aren't you?"
Tom, seated on the milestone, only nodded, his eyes never wandered from
the road along which their father was to come. It was very still and
quiet there, almost oppressively so. No one passed, and no sound, except
the voices of the birds and the distant mooing of a cow, broke the
silence.
"P'raps after all we'd better go on," said Bella at last, after restlessly
fidgeting about, and staring along the dirty road until her eyes ached.
"It doesn't seem to be much use waiting," said Tom quietly, and they
started on their way again, but far less cheerfully now. Indeed, for such
a trifling and easily explained incident, their spirits were strangely
cast down. A dozen simple things might have happened to prevent their
father's coming; he might have been detained at his work, or have met some
one, and be staying talking to them; or he might have been busy and have
forgotten the time.
Perhaps it was because they were over-tired and hungry, and in the state
to look on the gloomy side of things, that they could not take a cheerful
view of the matter, or shake off the feeling of depression which filled
them.
Whether this was so or not, they felt anxious and troubled, and all the
sunshine and pleasure seemed to have gone out of their day. It was almost
as though a foreboding of the truth had come to them--that when they left
the old milestone they were leaving their light-heartedness and childhood
behind them, never quite to find them again. Never, at any rate, the
same. When they left it they set their faces towards a long, dark road,
with many a weary hill and many a desolate space to cross, and with a
heavier burden to bear than any they had yet borne.
Had they known, their hearts might have failed them altogether, perhaps,
though the way was not to be all as dark and stony for their tired feet,
as at first it had seemed to promise. There would be sunshine on the road
for them too, and pleasant resting-places.
To them then, as they trudged along in silence, the road they had to tread
seemed hard and gloomy enough, even though it was the road towards home.
Every yard seemed as six, and never a glimpse did they catch of their
father, or Margery, or Charlie. Bella walked that mile often and often in
the years that followed, but never again without remembering that
afternoon.
At last, as they drew near the top of 'their own lane,' as they called it,
they saw a woman standing; she had no hat on her head, and appeared to be
waiting and looking eagerly for some one. When she caught sight of the
children, she hurried forward to meet them. Bella soon recognised her, it
was Mrs. Carter, Billy Carter's mother, and she wondered why she was there
in her working-dress, and why her face was so white.
"Where's father?" asked Bella sharply. She never could tell afterwards
why that question sprung to her lips, or why with a sharp thrill of fear
she knew what the answer would be, before it was spoken.
"I've come to tell you, my dears,--your--your father's bad; there's been
an accident, and--and you've got to be very quiet."
"What is it? What's happened? What accident, oh, do tell!" cried Bella
in an agony of alarm at once. It seemed to her then that she had known of
this all along, or expected it.
"Is--he--dead?" gasped Tom, white and shaking.
Mrs. Carter seized on the question with some relief. It was one she could
answer with some comfort for them. "No, he isn't dead. He is hurt very
bad, but the doctor thinks he'll get over it--in time--with care.
He's got to go to the hospital, though. Here, let me help you, dear."
She took Bella's baskets from her, and putting her strong arm about the
child's trembling body, helped her along.
"What happened?" gasped Bella through her poor white, quivering lips.
"A wall fell and crushed him."
"Will he get well again?"
"Yes, dear, oh yes, for certain. We must all hope for the best, you know,
and we must be as brave and cheerful as we can. He's hurt a good bit, and
some bones are broken, but they can't tell exactly what's wrong until they
get him to hospital. Oh yes, dear, he'll get well again, and come home as
right as ever he was,--only it'll be a long time first, perhaps."
She was a capital person to have been sent to break the bad news to them,
for she herself was cheerful, and hopeful, and sympathetic, in spite of
the real dread at her heart. "We were hoping you would have got home
sooner," she added. "It seemed such a long time I had to wait for you.
He wants to see you before he starts."
The fact of his being taken from them came home to Bella then with a rush.
"Oh, they mustn't take him away!" she cried, almost hysterically.
"Why can't they let him stay at home? We can nurse him. I know he'd
rather----"
"Hush! hush!" said Mrs. Carter, "he'll hear you!" for they were nearly at
their own gate by that time. "Bella, dear, you want to do what's best for
your father, don't you, and you don't want to think about yourself?
Well, he has to be where he can have good nursing, and doctors night and
day, and lots of things he couldn't have at home; and if you want him to
get well at all, you must bear with his being taken away from you for a
bit. You mustn't mind it's being harder for you now, if it's going to be
better for him later."
"But I want to help."
"Help! My dear, there'll be plenty of ways for you to help! More than
you can reckon. I don't know, I'm sure, how,"--but Mrs. Carter broke off
abruptly. She did not want to add to their trouble now.
Tom, who had been walking along silently all this time, guessed what she
meant. "We shall have plenty to do," he said gravely, "there'll be all of
us to keep while father is away, and you and me'll have to try to do it,
Bella."
By this time they were inside the gate, and at the sight of the ambulance
standing in the garden Bella nearly broke down again. Her father had
already been brought out and laid in it, so they were spared that ordeal,
but at the sight of his grey-white face, and closed eyes, and bandaged
form, Bella almost fainted, and Tom had to clench his hands tight, to try
and stop their trembling.
"He wants to speak to you," said the nurse, beckoning to them to come
forward; "he would not go until he had seen you."
Almost timidly they drew close to his side and leaned over him. For a
moment he did not look or speak; then, very feebly, his eyelids fluttered
and opened, and the pallid lips moved, but the words that came through
them were so faint they could barely catch them.
"You'll look after them--till--I come back?"
"Oh yes, yes," sobbed Bella passionately.
"We'll take care of them, father," said Tom, speaking very slowly and
distinctly, trying hard all the time to keep his lips steady and his eyes
from growing misty. "Don't you worry, we can manage. They shan't want
for anything, if we can help it. Shall they, Bella?"
"No, no! only make haste and come back, father!" wept Bella.
"God bless you both!" gasped the poor injured father. "Now kiss me,
Bella; you'll look after the little one? Tom, boy, take care of them
all."
They both promised again, as they bent down and kissed him.
"And you'll come and see me--in the hospital--Saturdays?"
"Where is it you are going?" asked Bella hurriedly; she had forgotten that
in her excitement.
"To Norton," he gasped, his strength fast failing.
Then some one led them away, and the ambulance started on its slow
journey.