I. Fair Harvard
II. Uncle Adolph's Letter
III. A Morning Drive
IV. Clover's Announcement
V. Miss Berry's Visitors
VI. The Unexpected Guest
VII. On the Rail
VIII. The Telegram
IX. A Christmas Visitor
X. Aunt Love's Intercession
XI. The Dedication
XII. Gorham Page's Commission
XIII. May Day
XIV. Clover's Invitation
XV. The Court of Honor
XVI. A Massachusetts Celebration
XVII. The Bronze Baby
XVIII. Clover's Diplomacy
XIX. The Ferris Wheel
XX. The Midway Plaisance
XXI. Old Vienna
XXII. On the Lagoon
XXIII. The Hotel Dance
XXIV. Dress Parade
XXV. In the Peristyle
XXVI. The New Year
*SWEET CLOVER.*
*CHAPTER I.*
*FAIR HARVARD.*
"Well, Jack," said Mr. Van Tassel, entering his son's room at Cambridge,
"the deed is done. Behold you a full-fledged alumnus of glorious old
Harvard!" The speaker grasped the young fellow's hand, his face
expressing his pride and gratification.
"Yes, sir," answered the graduate, springing to his feet as he cordially
returned his father's greeting, "full-fledged, but rather reluctant to
try my wings, I must confess. It is hard to fly away from all this."
As he spoke, he glanced around the room, one of the most luxurious in
historic Holworthy. Each familiar object seemed newly invested with
pleasurable association. His eyes lingered upon a silver chafing-dish,
resting amid a lot of congenial litter on a mantelpiece. Jack was
accustomed to admit modestly that when it came to manoeuvring with a
chafing-dish, he could not deny his own genius.
"You know it has been home to me for four years," he added
half-apologetically, as he pushed forward the easiest chair for his
father, who dropped into it.
"I know, I know," returned the latter, nodding. "I am glad college life
has been such a satisfactory experience to you. I have felt the lack of
it myself often. Well, yesterday was a glorious day," he continued,
with a reminiscent smile. "Fine weather, fine people. As good a climax
as you could have desired. Those exercises around the tree are very
amusing," the smile broadening. "I give you my word I didn't know you
in that scramble. I didn't know my own boy. You were the worst-looking
tramp of them all to begin with, Jack, and at the end you were the most
demoralized bundle of rags of the lot."
The speaker's hearty laugh rang out. It was a matter of course that
Jack should have been superlative in any college undertaking; but now a
pensive smile was the young man's only response to his father's mirth.
To-day's reaction found him in a rather thoughtful and sentimental mood.
The Van Tassels had always been well-looking as a family. Richard Van
Tassel was a handsome man of a florid thick-set type, and he admired
this sole remaining child the more that his physique was so dissimilar
to his own. Tall, slender, athletic, Jack stood unconscious of his
father's scrutiny, which took in every detail of his appearance, from
the wavy black hair scrupulously parted in the middle, to the feet
planted apart on the thick rug. It was a delicate-featured, refined
face that the young fellow had, a transparent face that betrayed
feeling; that flushed with annoyance or radiated pleasure from brilliant
brown eyes and perfect teeth. But now the eyes were shadowed; and when
they caught the father's gaze after a half-minute's abstraction, Jack
smiled with the gentle, winning expression which was his birthright, and
had uncalculatingly won for him every favor he had ever asked.
"Pardon me. Did you speak? My wits are wool-gathering to-day."
Mr. Van Tassel ceased his silent satisfied survey, and picked up a book
from a neighboring table. "I was about to ask you, what next?" he said.
"What next?"
"Yes; or perhaps I should say where next? I have business in Washington,
regarding the World's Fair, which may detain me there some time. Are
you with me?"
"No--a"-- Jack appeared to rouse himself with an effort from his mental
pictures. "The fact is, I've a lot of invitations that I should like to
accept before I go back to Chicago."
"Very well. We will postpone talking plans, then, until that time
comes. You are to go abroad for a year if you like, you know."
"Yes, thank you. I've a fancy that I would rather put off that trip
awhile."
"Why so? A wedding journey in view later, perhaps?"
Jack did not appear to think this raillery required a specific answer.
He smiled again, in the thoughtful mood so foreign to him.
Mr. Van Tassel, however, had been glad of an opening for the question.
He listened with veiled eagerness for his son's reply, and was
disappointed that none came.
When he spoke again, it was with new seriousness and a shade of
embarrassment.
"You must have met many charming women, during the past four years, who
are strangers to me," he said.
"Yes, I've met a lot of women," returned Jack with a patient sigh at
this irrelevance. What were charming women to a man who was saying
good-by to his crew!
"But old friends are best still?" persisted his father.
"Yes, no doubt," responded the other, vaguely courteous.
"You haven't forgotten the girls at home?" said Mr. Van Tassel.
"No,--no indeed," replied his son, shaking himself together with the
realization that he was playing poorly the part of host to this kindest
of fathers, for whom it was impossible in the nature of things to enter
into the subjects which were uppermost in Jack's interest just now.
"How"--with spasmodic eagerness--"how are they all?"
"Who? Anybody in particular?"
The young man stirred restlessly. This was persecution. "Oh no, my
Hyde Park friends generally."
"There is no especial news, I believe. Mrs. Bryant fails very slowly, I
think; but of course I do not dare hint such a thing to her devoted
daughter."
"H'm. Aren't they all devoted?" asked Jack with waning vigor.
"Oh, Clover is the chief one. She is son and daughter both, in that
family. All responsibility falls on her. A fine girl," said Mr. Van
Tassel emphatically.
"A pretty one, too," returned his son, stifling a yawn. "Mildred is
coming along, though. I thought she was after Clover pretty sharp, the
last time I was at home. Growing to her hands and feet, you know, and
all that."
"You will be glad to see Clover again," said Mr. Van Tassel tentatively.
"Yes, very glad to see them all," was the reply, delivered with
conscientious heartiness.
"Not especially glad to see Clover?" continued Mr. Van Tassel; and now
it was impossible even for the preoccupied graduate not to see that his
father was, in his own words "driving at something."
He looked in surprise at the strong face thrown out against the dark
blue cushions of the chair, and straight into the steady gaze of the
gray eyes that had never looked unkindly on him. Before he could speak,
the older man continued:--
"I had an idea that there was a boy and girl attachment between yourself
and Clover Bryant,--a preference on your part, perhaps on hers"--
Mr. Van Tassel's face had never looked more attractive to his son than
now. Its expression was so loving, so earnest, that Jack forebore to
laugh, as he at first felt inclined to do.
His father did not appear to think this a laughing matter. Moreover his
attitude gave promise of consent and sanction in case such compliance
was called for.
"No, sir. You were mistaken," answered the young man respectfully.
"There was never any sentiment there."
It was further mystifying to him that a shade of relief certainly passed
over his father's face at this reply, and yet it might be explicable on
the ground that although Mr. Van Tassel would not refuse his son's
wishes, he was glad to find that there was no question of a union
between his own family and one so poor and obscure as the Bryants.
"There might well have been a preference," was the grave answer.
"Clover, young as she is, is a pearl among women. The Breckinridges
have just gone abroad for a year, and Mrs. Breckinridge, before she
left, told me that she had invited Clover to accompany them; but the
girl refused to leave her mother and the children. Think of the way the
Breckinridges will travel, and what it cost her to refuse!"
"Whew, that was rough! Clover is a brick," declared Jack, his eyes
bright enough now with their accustomed interest in life. "It ought not
to be allowed. Can't we do something? Get a trained nurse for Mrs.
Bryant, and invite her and the children to our house for the year?"
Mr. Van Tassel smiled at this outburst. "We not only can't do
anything," he returned, "but we mustn't say anything. Clover bound Mrs.
Breckinridge to secrecy, because it would be such a grief to Mrs. Bryant
to discover what her daughter had renounced for her."
"She's strong, Clover is," said Jack, with an admiring shake of the
head. "I shall be glad to see her again."
Then he asked his father a question regarding business, and the subject
of the Bryants was dropped.
*CHAPTER II.*
*UNCLE ADOLPH'S LETTER.*
Several weeks later, in the long, narrow back yard of one of a block of
wooden houses in Chicago, a girl was hanging out clothes on a line. An
occasional hot breeze blew the soft brown hair in stray locks across her
forehead, and the sun beat down from the glowing sky on her unprotected
head.
"Clover, Clover darling," called a weak voice from an open window,
"you've been out there so long! Aren't you almost through? You will
get a sunstroke. Do, at least, put on a hat."
The girl brushed her flying hair back with one hand. "I'm all right,
mother," she called, her cheery tones contrasting pleasantly with the
sad voice.
"She is doing too much. I know she is," murmured the feeble watcher
within, keeping her yearning gaze on the lithe young figure. "Bless her
brave heart!" The dim eyes filled.
The front door slamming broke in upon the mother's meditations, and
another girl entered the shabby room where she sat. She was a tall,
broad-shouldered young creature of seventeen, the face under her heavy,
half-falling brown hair flushed with heat, health, and happiness. She
seemed to fill the room as she skipped up to the white-haired figure and
pressed the infantile curve of her peachy cheek against the pale face.
"Oh, I wish for the thousandth time that we could live nearer the lake,"
she said in hearty young tones. "Every block one comes inland, one
feels the difference in heat. Where is Clover?"
"In the back yard, hanging out clothes," was the anxious response. "I'm
afraid for her, Mildred. I wish you would take her a shade hat."
"Hanging out clothes!" repeated Mildred, amazed. "What in the
world"--She did not wait to finish her sentence, but hastening into the
hall seized a broad-rimmed hat hanging there and hurried to the back of
the house. Running down the steps, the dancing light quite gone from
her clear eyes, she approached her sister.
"What does this mean, Clover?" she exclaimed accusingly.
The elder, already highly colored, now looked uneasy. "You know Mrs.
O'Rourke couldn't come to-day to do the washing," she answered.
"No, but she can come Wednesday," retorted the younger, placing the hat
upon the sunny roughened hair of the head which was decidedly below her
own in height.
"Don't stick the hat-pin into me," cried Clover, smiling up into the
displeased eyes.
"I don't know but I will. Just look at your fingers, all white and
parboiled!"
Clover clasped the offending hands behind her.
"What did you do it for?" asked the young girl severely. "Here I've
been having the most elegant jouncy sail,--it is deliciously
rough,--sitting at my ease on a cushion, while you've been working like
this. It isn't a bit fair."
"All right. Help me to hang up the rest of these clothes, and I'll tell
you why I did it."
Mildred snatched up a small blouse waist and a couple of clothespins.
What was the use of cooling off on Lake Michigan if one must return to
this? How the sun did broil down!
"Was Elsie with you?" asked Clover, as she pinioned the side of an apron
to the line.
"Yes, and Frank too. Harry Billings took us all out."
"I'm afraid that the children will become something of a nuisance down
at the boat-house. Of course with you it is different; but the others
hang around and look wishful, and of course the young men are too
good-natured not to ask them. As for Frankie, he is such an amphibious
little animal, we can't help his living down there."
"I only wish we all did live on the shore," grumbled Mildred. "I never
shall be resigned to being so far from the lake."
"Oh, it is something to live in the country," rejoined Clover
comfortingly, "and Hyde Park is pretty all through."
"Country! Hyde Park!" said Mildred scornfully. "You know it is all
Chicago now."
"To be sure; but the annexation is a novelty yet, so no wonder I had
forgotten. However, what's in a name?"
"Not much, perhaps," said Mildred, tired of reaching up in the hot sun,
and inclined to be pessimistic, "but since we have moved into the middle
of this dingy old block, we had better stop talking about living in the
country. You haven't told me yet why you took this last caprice. We
can't afford to go away and have a change in summer, I understand that;
but surely there is a difference between stark and staring mad. There
are more sensible forms of recreation than to do a family washing on an
August day."
"I haven't done the biggest, hardest pieces, you see," said Clover
gently. "There, this is the last. Now let us go over under our tree and
talk a bit while we cool off." She turned toward the house and sent a
reassuring kiss toward the figure seated in the window, and made a dumb
show of applauding her own performance, smiling gayly as she clapped her
hands.
"Sit down, Milly," she said, when they had reached the shade of the one
tree their yard boasted; but as soon as they were seated, the elder girl
fell silent, and clasping her hands behind her head looked up through
the foliage of the ragged oak, slowly dying as all its brothers and
sisters do in this region, pining for the old prairie isolation.
Mildred fanned herself with her hat, and regarded her sister half
crossly, half curiously.
"I hate to talk over bothers with you, Milly," said the latter at last;
"but I do have a lot of bothers lately."
Mildred wondered if it were imagination that she saw tears, gather in
the other's eyes. If they were tears, they were well trained to
obedience. Clover sank still farther back and lay upon the grass, and
any moisture that had crept forth retreated to its source.
"Is mother any worse?" Mildred asked in a hushed voice.
"No; although she is no better, and any suffering she may endure is the
hardest trial we can have to bear. Other perplexities are trying in
proportion as they have relation to her, and all our perplexities must,
in the end, bear upon her. How to conceal them is the study."
"What have you to conceal? What?" asked Mildred quickly, her large,
childlike eyes full of wonder. "Mother knows, she has to, that we
barely make both ends meet, and she thinks you are a perfect wonder, the
way you manage. What is it, Clover? Is it Frank's education you are
worrying about again? Goodness! Don't tell me you did the washing to
save up money for that?" The speaker's eyes widened with surprise and
disapproval.
Clover shook her head and smiled faintly.
"I've noticed lately that you aren't half so jolly as you used to be."
Clover sat up with such suddenness as to make Mildred start. "Has
mother noticed it?" she demanded.
"No, not that I know of. You needn't look so tragical. I only mean you
are ever so much more thoughtful and old-womanish just lately than you
used to be. I'm sure I don't see why you should let yourself be
bothered if we're all willing to live right down at the bottom of
everything, and I don't make any fuss about wearing the same dress to
school until the girls must think I've grown into it."
"You have been good, Milly, just as good as you can be"--
"Pshaw, I'm nothing to what you are for goodness. We all have to feel
the pinch of poverty together," said Mildred with some grandiloquence;
"and in a place like Hyde Park it is easier to bear than it might be in
some other places. All the old settlers know what father was, and that
his honor wasn't lost when the money was. Everybody we really care for
has been friendly to us since he died. Just think, it is nine years
now, and we do manage to have some good times," finished the girl, quite
heroically she thought, since there were such a number of joys that she
yearned for and had to behold hopelessly in the possession of her more
fortunate companions. "Come now," she added insistently, "you are still
guilty of that washing and not a word said to excuse yourself."
"Milly,"--the older girl looked into her sister's eyes with an
expression full of loving trouble,--"I hate to tell you, but Uncle
Adolph's allowance hasn't come this month."
"It is a little late, that is all," said Mildred, but her face fell and
her heart began to beat unpleasantly.
"No," very sadly, "he has written mother that it will not come any more.
Fortunately I opened the letter as usual, and I have not shown it to
mother. She thinks it is only delayed."
"But he owed the money to father," said Mildred vehemently. "It was not
charity to us, it was a debt."
"Yes, but he simply says that on account of losses he will not be able
to let us have any more money, and we cannot force him."
"Mr. Van Tassel could. Have you told him? He is so very kind to us."
"Yes, he is very kind; but there is nothing he could do about this."
"What shall we do?" asked Mildred blankly.
"That is what I have been asking myself for days past."
"That is why you did the washing!" said the younger slowly and with awe,
as though this thought did indeed bring home a realizing sense of the
situation. "We are awfully--miserably poor," she added in a panic.
"Hush! Not so loud," warned her sister.
"I shall have to leave school and help you do the housework, and Frank
can never have any education at all," declared Mildred despairingly.
"He will have to get a position in some store as a cash boy. Mr. Van
Tassel will probably help him that much," she finished dismally.
"Hush! Don't keep bringing Mr. Van Tassel into it," said Clover
nervously. "I can't bear the thought of begging anybody for anything,
even influence."
"Then you have thought of something," exclaimed Mildred eagerly.
"No, I haven't, I haven't," rejoined the other hastily. "Oh, Milly,
forgive me." Her tone and gesture as she put one hand to her face and
quickly extended the other to her sister touched the latter with great
surprise. Mildred took the hand and squeezed it between her own.
"Forgive you, you old darling," she said, tears springing to her eyes.
"What for, I wonder? Because you have three children to bring up and
work for when you are only twenty? or because you, the prettiest girl in
Hyde Park, have wizzled up all your poor fingers washing for us? What
is it? Oh, Clover dear!"
For Clover was crying in a hasty, furtive fashion, stifling her sobs,
and drying her eyes with light touches, fearing to make the lids redder.
"Because I couldn't keep it from you, Milly. You see it doesn't do any
good for me to bother you except to relieve me a little."
"And isn't that something?" with anxious affection. "Why, you make me
as vain as a peacock. I didn't know I counted a bit. I thought you had
to have somebody old, like mother or Mr. Van Tassel, to get any comfort
out of them."
"Now of course you feel as I do, Mildred," said the older sister, her
quick self-control regained. "Nothing is any matter but to keep this
from mother."
"Well, I don't see how we're going to do it for any length of time."