CHAPTER XIV. A PLEASANT PLAN
"The summer following our mother's death was hot and dry," the frail girlcontinued, "and the grass around Mr. Eastland's shack, though tall fromearly rains, was parched in August.
"One morning before he rode in town, our foster-father jokingly told mybrother Dean that he would leave the place in his care. 'Don't ye letanything happen to it, sonny,' he said.
"Dean, who is always serious, looked up at the old man on the mule as hereplied: 'I'll take care of it, Daddy Eastland, even with my life.'
"We thought nothing of this. My brother was a dreamer, living, itsometimes seemed, in a world of his own creating. I now realize that myfoster-father and I did not quite understand him.
"It was an intensely hot day. How the grass got on fire I do not know,but about noon I heard a cry from Dean, who had been lying for hours onthe ground in the shade of the shack reading a book of poetry that atraveling missionary had brought to him. He had visited us six monthsbefore and had promised the next time he came that he would bring a bookfor my brother.
"When I heard Dean's cry of alarm and saw him leap to his feet and runtoward a swiftly approaching column of smoke, I also ran, but not beingas fleet of foot, I was soon far behind him. He had caught up a burlapbag as he passed a shed; then, on he raced toward the fire. I, too,paused to get a bag, but when I started on I saw my brother suddenlyplunge forward and disappear.
"He had caught his foot in a briar and had fallen into a thicket which, amoment later, with a crackle and roar leaped into flame.
"His cap had slipped over his face, thank heaven, and so his trulybeautiful eyes and features were spared, but his body was badly burnedwhen the fire had swept over him.
"The wind had veered very suddenly and turned the flame back upon thecharred land and so, there being nothing left to burn, it wasextinguished.
"It was at that moment that Daddy Eastland returned. He lifted myunconscious brother out of the black, burnt thicket and carried him tothe shack.
"'Boy! Boy!' he said, and I never will forget the sob there was in hisvoice. 'Why did you say ye'd take care of the old place with your life?'Twasn't worth one hair on yer head.'
"But Dean was not dead. Slowly, so slowly he came back to life, but hisleft arm was burned to the bone and his side beneath it. Then, because ofthe pain, his muscles tightened and he could not move his arm.
"We were so far from town that perhaps he did not have just the rightcare. Once a month a quack physician made the rounds of those remotefarms.
"However, he did the best that he could, and a year later Dean was ableto walk about. How like our mother he was, so brave and cheerful!
"'I am glad that it is my left arm that will not move, Sister,' he oftensaid. 'I have a use for my right arm.'
"Our foster-father, noting how it pleased the lad, invented tasks aroundthe farm that a one-armed boy could do to help, but when he was fourteenyears of age I discovered what he had meant when he said that he had ause for his right arm. He had a little den of his own in the loft of theold barn with a big opening that overlooked meadow lands, a windingsilver ribbon of a river and distant hills, and there he spent hoursevery day writing.
"At last he confessed that he was trying to make verse like that in hisone greatly treasured book. It was his joy, and he had so little that Iencouraged him, though I could not understand his poetry. I am more likeour father, who was a faithful plodding farmer, and Dean is like ourmother, who could tell such wonderful stories out of her own head.
"At last, when I was eighteen years old, I told Daddy Eastland that Iwanted to go to the city to earn my own way and send some money back forDean. How the lad grieved when I left, for he said that he was the onewho should go out in the world and work for both of us, but I told him tokeep on with his writing and that maybe, some day, he would be able toearn money with his poetry.
"So I came to town and began as an errand girl in a big department store.
"Now I earn eighteen dollars a week and I send half of it back to thelittle rocky farm in New England. Too, I send magazines and books, butnow a new problem has presented itself. Mr. Eastland has died, and Deanis alone, and so I have sent for him to come and live with me.
"How glad I shall be to see him, but I dread having him know where Ilive. He will guess at once that I chose a basement room that I mighthave money to send to him."
It was Miss Selenski who interrupted: "Miss Wiggin," she said, "while youhave been talking, I have chosen you to be my successor. Tomorrow I am tobe married, and I promised the ladies who built the model tenements thatI would find someone fitted to take my place before I left. The pay isbetter than you are getting. It is twenty-five dollars a week, with asunny little apartment to live in. I want all of you girls to come to mywedding and then, when I am gone, Miss Wiggin, you can move right in, andyou will be there to welcome that wonderful brother of yours."
It would be hard to imagine a happier girl than Nell when she learnedthat a brighter future awaited her than she had dared to dream. She triedto thank her benefactor, but her sensitive lips quivered and the girlsknew that she was so overcome with emotion that she might cry, and soMiss Selenski began at once to tell them about her wedding plans, andthen, soon after she had finished, the girls who had been invited for teaarrived. Miss Selenski knew many of them, and so the conversation becamegeneral and little Nell Wiggin was permitted to quietly become accustomedto her wonderful good fortune before she was again asked to join in theconversation. Bobs walked with her to the elevated, and merry plans shelaid for the pleasant times the Vandergrifts were to have with their newneighbors.