A man arrived one morning with a horse and a plough and several other
implements of farm life of which Harley didn't know the name, and
announced that Mr. Graham had sent him to plough the garden. Would
Mrs. Hollister please tell him where she wanted the ground broken, and
how much? He volunteered the information that he was her next
neighbor, and that if he was in her place he'd plough the south slope
of the meadow, and if she wanted flower-beds a strip along the front
near the road; the soil was best in those spots, and she wouldn't need
so much fertilizer.
Mrs. Hollister asked him how much he would charge to do it, and he said
a little job like that wasn't worth talking about; that he used to rent
the barn himself, and he always did a little turn for Mr. Graham
whenever he needed it. He did it for Mr. Graham, and it wouldn't cost
her "nothin'."
Mrs. Hollister asked him how much he would charge to see where it would
be best to have the ploughing done, and when she came in a few minutes
later and dropped down on the couch to rest from her unusual fatigue a
new thought was racing through her mind. They could have a garden, a
real garden, with lettuce and green peas and lima beans and corn! She
knew all about making them grow. She had been brought up in a little
village home, where a garden was a part of every one's necessary
equipment for living. She used to kelp her father every spring and all
summer. Her own little patch always took the prize of the family. But
for years she had been in the city without an inch of space. Now,
however, the old fever of delight in gardening took possession of her.
If she could get out and work in the ground, as the doctor had
suggested, she would get well right away. And why, with Harley to
help, and George and Carol to work a little every evening, couldn't
they raise enough on all that ground to sell some? George could take
things into town early in the morning, or they could find some private
families who would buy all they had to sell. It was worth thinking
about, anyway. She could raise flowers for sale, too. She had always
been a success with flowers. She had always wanted a hothouse and a
chance to experiment. She heard the children say there were some old
window-sashes down under the barn. She would get George to bring them
out, and see what she could do with a coldframe or two. Violets would
grow under a coldframe, and a lot of other things. Oh, if they could
only just live here always, and not have to go back to the city in the
fall! But of course there was no way to heat the barn in winter, and
that was out of the question. Nevertheless, the idea of making some
money with growing things had seized hold of her mind and would not be
entirely put by. She thought of it much, and talked of it now and then
to Shirley and the other children.
Shirley brought home some packages of seeds she got at the ten-cent
store, and there was great excitement planting them. Then Mr. Graham
sent over a lot of seeds, of both vegetables and flowers, and some
shrubs, cuttings and bulbs which he said were "left-overs" at their
country house that he thought perhaps the children could use; and so
before the Hollisters knew it they were possessed of a garden, which
almost in a breath lifted up its green head and began to grow.
Life was very full for the Hollisters in those days, and those who went
to the city for the day could hardly bear to tear themselves away from
the many delights of the country. The puppy was getting bigger and
wiser every day, tagging Doris and Harley wherever they went, or
sitting adoringly at Mrs. Hollister's feet; always bounding out to meet
the evening trolley on which George and Shirley came, and always
attending them to the trolley in the morning.
Out behind the barn a tiny coop held a white hen and her seven little
downy balls of chickens. Another hen was happily ensconced in a barrel
of hay with ten big blue duck-eggs under her happy wings, and a little
further down toward the creek a fine chicken-run ended in a trig little
roosting-place for the poultry, which George had manufactured out of a
packing-box and some boards. The feathered family had been increased
by two white Leghorns and three bantams. George and Harley spent their
evenings watching them and discussing the price of eggs and chickens
per pound. They were all very happy.
Elizabeth came out to spend Sunday as she had promised. She got up
early to see the sun rise and watch the birds. She helped get
breakfast and wash the dishes. Then she went with the others across
the fields to the little white church in the valley to Sunday-school
and church. She was as hungry and eager as any of them when she came
home, and joyfully helped to do the work, taking great pride in the
potatoes she was allowed to warm up under careful tutelage. In the
afternoon there was no more eager listener among them to the Bible
story Shirley told to Doris and the book she read aloud to them all
afterward; her voice was sweetest and clearest of them all in the hymns
they sang together; and she was most eager to go with Shirley to the
Christian Endeavor service.
"I shouldn't wonder if Sidney wishes he was here too," she remarked
dreamily that evening, as she sat before the fire on a little cushion,
her chin in her hands, her eyes on the fantastic shadows in the ashes.
She went to school with Carol the next morning, came home with her in
the afternoon, and when her brother came for her in the evening she was
most reluctant to go home to the big, lonely, elegant house again, and
begged that Carol might soon come and see her.
Friday afternoon Elizabeth called up Mrs. Hollister.
"Please, Mrs. Hollister, let Carol come and stay with me till Monday.
I'm so lonesome, and mamma says she will be so glad if you will let her
come."
"Oh, my dear, that would be impossible. Carol isn't suitably dressed
to make a visit, you know," answered the mother quickly, glad that she
had so good an excuse for keeping her child from this venture into an
alien world about which she had many grave doubts.
But the young voice at the other end of the telephone was insistent.
"Dear Mrs. Hollister, please! She doesn't need any other clothes.
I've got lots of things that would fit her. She loaned me her gingham
dress to make garden in, and why shouldn't I loan her a dress to wear
on Sunday? I've got plenty of clean middy blouses and skirts and can
fix her all out fresh for school, too, Monday morning, and if you'll
just let her stay Sidney will take us both down to her school when he
goes to the office. You've got all those children there at home, and
I've only myself. Sidney doesn't count, you know, for he's grown up."
So, with a sigh, the mother gave her consent, and Carol found the
Graham car waiting for her when she came out of school. Thus she
started on her first venture into the world.
It was all like fairy-land that wonderful week-end to the little girl
whose memories were full of burdens and sacrifices: the palatial home
of many rooms and rich furnishings, the swarm of servants, the
anticipation of every want, the wide, beautiful grounds with all that
heart could wish in the way of beauty and amusement, the music-room
with grand piano, harp, and violin lying mute most of the time, the
great library with its walls lined with rare books, mostly unread.
Everything there to satisfy any whim, reasonable or unreasonable, and
nobody using any of it much.
"Not a room in the whole place as dear and cozy and homey as this!"
sighed Carol happily, sinking into the old denim-covered couch before
the fireplace in the barn-living-room that Monday night after she got
home. "I declare, mother, I don't see how Elizabeth stands it. Her
mother is nice, but she's hardly ever there, unless she has a swarm of
people dinnering or teaing or lunching. She hardly ever has time to
speak to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth doesn't seem to care much, either.
She almost seems to think more of that old nurse Susan that took care
of her when she was a baby than she does of her mother. I'm so glad I
was sent to you instead of to her!" And Carol suddenly slipped across
the room and buried her face in her mother's neck, hugging and kissing
her, leaving a few bright tears on her mother's happy face.
It was a wonderful relief to Mrs. Hollister to find her child unspoiled
by her first experience of the world and glad to get back to her home,
after all the anxiety her mother heart had felt. Carol presently sat
up and told them minutely all about her visit. The grand concert that
Sidney had taken them to Friday evening in the Academy of Music, where
a world-renowned pianist was the soloist with the great symphony
orchestra; the tennis and riding Saturday morning; the luncheon at a
neighboring estate, where there were three girls and a brother who were
"snobs" and hadn't at all good manners; the party in the evening that
lasted so late that they didn't get to bed till long after midnight;
the beautiful room they slept in, with every imaginable article for the
toilet done in sterling silver with monograms; the strange Sabbath,
with no service in the morning because they woke up too late, and no
suggestion of anything but a holiday,--except the vesper service in a
cold, formal chapel that Carol had begged to go to; just a lot of
worldly music and entertaining, with a multitude of visitors for the
end of it. Carol told of the beautiful dresses that Elizabeth had
loaned her, coral crêpe de chine accordion-plaited for the concert,
white with an orange sash for the luncheon, pale yellow with a black
velvet girdle for the party, a little blue silk affair and another
lovely white organdie for Sunday, and all with their accompanying silk
stockings and slippers and gloves, and necklaces and bands for her
hair. It was most wonderful to her, and as they listened they
marvelled that their Carol had come back to them so gladly, and
rejoiced to see her nestling in her brown linen skirt and middy blouse
close beside her mother's chair. She declared herself satisfied with
her flight into the world. She might like to go again for a glimpse
now and then, but she thought she would rather have Elizabeth out to
Glenside. She hated to lose any of the time out here, it was so
pretty. Besides, it was lonesome without them all.
About that time Shirley picked up the morning paper in her office one
day to look up a matter for Mr. Barnard. Her eye happened to fall on
the society column and catch the name of Sidney Graham. She glanced
down the column. It was an account of a wedding in high circles in
which Graham had taken the part of best man, with Miss Harriet Hale--in
blue tulle and white orchids as maid of honor--for his partner down the
aisle. She read the column hurriedly, hungrily, getting every detail,
white spats, gardenia, and all, until in those few printed sentences a
picture was printed indelibly upon her vision, of Graham walking down
the lily-garlanded aisle with the maid in blue tulle and white orchids
on his arm. To make it more vivid the lady's picture was in the paper
along with Graham's, just under those of the bride and groom, and her
face was both handsome and haughty. One could tell that by the tilt of
chin, the short upper lip, the cynical curve of mouth and sweep of long
eyelash, the extreme effect of her dress and the arrangement of her
hair. Only a beauty could have stood that hair and not been positively
ugly.
Shirley suddenly realized what she was doing and turned over the page
of the paper with a jerk that tore the sheet from top to bottom, going
on with her search for the real-estate column and the item she was
after. All that morning her typewriter keys clicked with mad rapidity,
yet her work was strangely correct and perfect. She was working under
a tense strain.
By noon she had herself in hand, realized what she had been doing with
her vagrant thoughts, and was able to laugh at Miss Harriet
Hale--whoever or whatever she was. What mattered it, Miss Harriet Hale
or somebody else? What was that to Shirley Hollister? Mr. Graham was
her landlord and a kindly gentleman. He would probably continue to be
that to her to the end of her tenancy, without regard to Miss Hale or
any other intruding Miss, and what did anything else matter? She
wanted nothing else of Mr. Graham but to be a kindly gentleman whenever
it was her necessity to come in his way.
But although her philosophy was on hand and her pride was aroused, she
realized just where her heart might have been tending if it had not
been for this little jolt it got; and she resolved to keep out of the
gentleman's way whenever it was possible, and also, as far as she was
able, to think no more about him.
Keeping out of Sidney Graham's way was one thing, but making him keep
out of her way was quite another matter, and Shirley realized it every
time he came out to Glenside, which he did quite frequently. She could
not say to him that she wished he would not come. She could not be
rude to him when he came. There was no way of showing him pointedly
that she was not thinking of him in any way but as her landlord,
because he never showed in any way that he was expecting her to. He
just happened in evening after evening, in his frank, jolly way, on one
pretext or other, never staying very long, never showing her any more
attention than he did her mother or Carol or the boys, not so much as
he did to Doris. How was she to do anything but sit quietly and take
the whole thing as a matter of course? It really was a matter to deal
with in her own heart alone. And there the battle must be fought if
ever battle there was to be. Meantime, she could not but own that this
frank, smiling, merry young man did bring a lot of life and pleasure
into their lives, dropping in that way, and why should she not enjoy it
when it came, seeing it in no wise interfered with Miss Harriet Hale's
rights and prerogatives? Nevertheless, Shirley withdrew more and more
into quietness whenever he came, and often slipped into the kitchen on
some household pretext, until one day he boldly came out into the
kitchen after her with a book he wanted her to read, and was so frank
and companionable that she led the way back to the living-room, and
concluded it would be better in future to stay with the rest of the
family.
Shirley had no intention whatever of letting her heart stray out after
any impossible society man. She had her work in the world, and to it
she meant to stick. If there were dreams she kept them well under lock
and key, and only took them out now and then at night when she was very
tired and discouraged and life looked hard and long and lonely on
ahead. Shirley had no intention that Sidney Graham should ever have
reason to think, when he married Miss Harriet Hale or some one
equivalent to her, that any poor little stenographer living in a barn
had at one time fancied him fond of her. No, indeed! Shirley tilted
her firm little chin at the thought, and declined to ride with Graham
and Elizabeth the next time they called at the office for her, on the
plea that she had promised to go home in the trolley with one of the
office girls. And yet the next time she saw him he was just as
pleasant, and showed no sign that she had declined his invitation. In
fact, the whole basis of their acquaintance was such that she felt free
to go her own way and yet know he would be just as pleasant a friend
whenever she needed one.
Matters stood in this way when Graham was suddenly obliged to go West
on a trip for the office, to be gone three or four weeks. Mrs. Graham
and Elizabeth went to the Adirondacks for a short trip, and the people
at Glenside settled down to quiet country life, broken only by a few
visits from their farm neighbors, and a call from the cheery, shabby
pastor of the little white church in the valley.