VINNIE MAKES A BEGINNING.
Vinnie learned only too soon why Jack had dreaded so much to have her
enter the Betterson household; and, in a momentary depression of
spirits, she asked herself whether, if she had known all she was
undertaking, she would not have shrunk from it.
The sight of the sick ones, the mother enfeebled in mind as well as in
body, Lord Betterson pompous and complacent in the midst of so much
misery, little Lill alone making headway against a deluge of
disorder,--all this filled her with distress and dismay.
She could think of no relief but in action.
"I shall stifle," thought she, "unless I go to work at once, setting
things to rights."
And the thought of helping others cheered herself.
She needed something from her trunk. That was at the door, just where
Jack had left it. She went out, and found that Chokie had changed his
mind with regard to digging a well, and was building a pyramid, using
the door-yard sand for his material, a shingle for a shovel, and the
trunk for a foundation.
"Why, Chokie!" she said; "what are you doing?"
"I makin' a Fourth-of-Duly," replied Chokie, flourishing his shingle.
"After I dit it about twice as bid as the house, I doin' to put some
powder in it, and tout'th it off."
"O dear!" said Vinnie; "I'm afraid you'll blow my trunk to pieces; and I
must have my trunk now!"
"I doin' to blow it to pieces, and you tan't have it," cried Chokie,
stoutly.
"But I've something for you in it," said Vinnie, "and we never can get
it for you, if you touch off your Fourth-of-July on it."
"O, wal, you may dit it." And he began to shovel the sand off, throwing
it into his clothing, into the house, and some into Vinnie's eyes.
Lord Betterson, who was walking leisurely about his castle, now came
forward, and, seeing Vinnie in some distress, inquired, in his lofty
way, if he could do anything for her.
"If you please," she replied, laughing, as she brushed the sand away
from her eyes, "I should like to have this trunk carried in."
Betterson drew himself up with dignified surprise; for he had not meant
to proffer any such menial service. Vinnie perceived the little mistake
she had made; but she was not so overpoweringly impressed by his
nobility as to think that an apology was due. She even permitted herself
to be amused; and, retiring behind the sand in her eyes, which she made
a great show of winking and laughing away, she waited to see what he
would do.
He looked around, and coughed uncomfortably.
"Where are the boys?" he asked. "This--hem--is very awkward. I don't
know why the trunk was left here; I directed that it should be taken to
Cecie's room."--
Vinnie mischievously resolved that the noble Betterson back should bend
beneath that burden.
"It is quite light," she said. "If you want help, I can lift one end of
it."
The implication that it was not greatness of character, but weakness of
body, which kept him above such service, touched my lord. As she, at the
same time, actually laid hold of one handle, he waived her off, with
ostentatious gallantry.
"Permit me!" And, with a smile of condescension, which seemed to say,
"The Bettersons are not used to this sort of thing; but they can always
be polite to the ladies," he took up the trunk by both handles, and went
politely _backward_ with it into the house, a performance at which Jack
would have smiled. I say _performance_ advisedly, for Betterson showed
by his bearing, lofty and magnificent even under the burden, that this
was not an ordinary act of an ordinary man.
Having set down the trunk in its place, he brushed his fingers with a
soiled handkerchief, and retired, exceedingly flushed and puffy in his
tight stock.
Vinnie thanked him with charming simplicity; while Cecie, on her lounge,
laughed slyly, and Mrs. Betterson looked amazed.
"Why, Lavinia! how did you ever dare?"
"Dare what?"
"To ask Mr. Betterson to carry your trunk?"
[Illustration: VINNIE'S STRATAGEM.]
"Why not?" said Vinnie, with round eyes.
"A gentleman like him! and a Betterson!" replied Caroline, in a whisper
of astonishment and awe.
"Who should have done it?" said Vinnie, trying hard to see the enormity
of her offence. "I couldn't very well do it alone; I am sure you
couldn't have helped me; and my friend who brought me over, he has done
so much for me already that I should have been ashamed to ask him.
Besides, he is not here, and I wanted the trunk. Mr. Betterson seems
very strong. Has he the rheumatism?"
"O Lavinia! Lavinia!"--and Caroline wrapped her red shawl despairingly
about her. "But you will understand Mr. Betterson better by and by. You
are quite excusable now. Arthur, dear! what do you want?"
"In her trunt, what she's doin' to dive me, I want it," said the boy,
invading the house for that purpose.
"Yes, you shall have it," cried Vinnie, skilfully giving his nose a wipe
behind the mother's back (it needed it sadly). "But is your name Arthur?
I thought they called you Chokie."
"Chokie is the nickname for Arthur," Lill explained.
Vinnie did not understand how that could be.
"It is the boys' invention; they are full of their nonsense," said
Caroline, with a sorrowful head-shake. "It was first Arthur, then Artie,
then Artichoke, then Chokie,--you see?"
Vinnie laughed, while her sister went on, in complaining accents,--
"I tell them such things are beneath the dignity of our family; but they
will have their fun."
Vinnie took from her trunk a barking dog and a candy meeting-house,
which made Chokie forget all about his threatened Fourth-of-July. She
also had a pretty worsted scarf of many colors for Lill, and a copy of
Mrs. Hemans's Poems--popular in those days--for Cecie.
"For you, sister Caroline," she added, laughing, "I have
brought--myself."
"This book is beautiful, and I love poetry so much!" said Cecie, with
eyes full of love and gratitude. "But you have brought mother the best
present."
"O, you don't know about that!" replied Vinnie.
"Yes, I do," said Cecie, with a smile which seemed to tremble on the
verge of tears. And she whispered, as Vinnie bent down and kissed her,
"I love you already; we shall all love you so much!"
"Dear Cecie!" murmured Vinnie in the little invalid's ear, "that pays me
for coming. I am glad I am here, if only for your sake."
"I dot the bestest pwesents," cried Chokie, sitting on the floor with
his treasures. "Don't tome here, Lill; my dod will bite!" He made the
little toy squeak violently. "He barks at folks doin' to meetin'. Dim me
some pins."
"What do you want of pins?" Vinnie asked, taking some from her dress.
"To make mans and womans doin' to meetin'. One dood bid black pin for
the minister," said Chokie.
Vinnie helped him stick up the pins in the floor, and even found the
required big black one to head the procession. Then she pointed out the
extraordinary fact of the dog being so much larger than the entire
congregation; at which even the sad Caroline smiled, over her sick babe.
Chokie, however, gloried in the superior size and prowess of the
formidable monster.
Lill was delighted with her scarf,--all the more so when she learned
that it had been wrought by Vinnie's own hand.
"O Aunt Vinnie!" said Cecie; "will you teach me to do such work? I
should enjoy it so much--lying here!"
"With the greatest pleasure, my dear!" exclaimed Vinnie, her heart
brimming with hope and joy at sight of the simple happiness her coming
had brought.
She then hastened to put on a household dress; while Cecie looked at her
book, and Lill sported her scarf, and Chokie earned himself a new
nickname,--that of Big-Bellied Ben,--by making a feast of his
meeting-house, beginning with the steeple.