*CHAPTER XIX*
*RALPH AND HONEY TAKE THE LONG TRAIL*
The last week in July saw the end of Ralph McRae's visit at Greenacres.He had been East nearly two months and Honey was to go back with him.It was impossible to measure or even to estimate the inward joy of Honeyover the decision. Through some odd twist of heredity there had beenborn in him the spirit of those who long for travel and adventure.Every winding road dipping over a hillcrest had always held aninvitation for him to follow it. He had listened often to the distantwhistle of the trains that slipped through the Quinnebaug valley, andlonged to be on them going anywhere at all. At home in the littleparlor there were some old seashells that a seafaring great-grandfatherhad brought back with him, and Honey loved to hold them against his ear,listening to the murmur within. He had never looked upon the sea. Todo so was a promise he had made to himself. Some day he would go and seeit, and now Ralph told him that they would go part way by sea, up fromBoston to Nova Scotia, and around to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, andup it to Lake Ontario, and on through the Great Lakes, and so up to theranch in the Northwest.
"I wish I were going too," said Piney. "I wish you were going, Mother,and both of us youngsters. I'd love to take up a claim out there andwork it."
"Oh, dear child, what strange notions you do have for a girl," Mrs.Hancock sighed. "I never thought of such things when I was your age. Iwanted to be a teacher, that was all."
"Why didn't you?"
"Well, your grandfather said I was needed at home, and so I stayed onuntil I met your father when I was eighteen. Then I married."
"And maybe if he'd let you be a teacher, you wouldn't have wanted to getmarried. I want to study all about trees and forestry and conservation,and I want to ride over miles and miles of forests that are all mine.I'm going to, too, some day."
"How old are you now, Piney?" asked Ralph.
"Going on sixteen."
"Maybe next year when I bring Honey home, we can coax Aunt Luella totake a trip out with you. How's that?"
Mrs. Hancock flushed delicately, and smiled up at her tall nephew.
"How you talk, Ralph. That would cost a sight of money."
"Well, I tell you, Aunt Luella," said Ralph, his hands deep in hispockets, as he leaned back against the high mantelpiece in thesitting-room, "I want to hand over Greenacres to you and the children.I haven't any feeling for it like you have, and it seems to me, aftertalking it over with Mr. Robbins, that it rightfully belongs to you. Hewould like to buy it, he says, inside of two or three years. They likeit over there, and propose to stay here in Gilead, but if you want totake it over, I'm willing to transfer it before I go west."
It was said quietly and cheerfully, quite as if he were offering her abasket of fruit that she was partial to, and Luella Trowbridge Hancocksat back in her rocking-chair, staring up at him as if she could hardlybelieve her ears.
"Ralph, you don't mean you'd give up the place yourself? Why, whateverwould I do with it? I love every inch of ground there and every bladeof grass, but you see how it is. Honey's set on going west and Pineywants to go to college and I don't know what all. I couldn't live onthere alone, and they haven't got the feeling for it that I have. Theyounger generation seems to have rooted itself up out of the soilsomehow. I wouldn't know what to do with it after I'd got it, and Iwouldn't take it away from Mrs. Robbins and the girls for anything.Why, they love it 'most as well as I do."
"I know, Aunt Luella, but I wanted you to have the refusal of it,"answered Ralph. "Now, then, here's the other way out. Supposing I makeit over to you, and you have the rental money, and then sell it to Mr.Robbins when he is able to take it over. You'd have the good of itthen."
"That's the best way, Mother," Piney spoke up. "They have all been sonice to us, and it's just as Ralph says. They do love it."
"You could come back east every now and then and visit if you did makeup your mind to live out at Saskatoon."
"Land alive, the boy speaks of journeying thousands of miles as if hewas driving up to Norwich. I went to Providence once after I wasmarried, and that's the only long trip I've ever taken from home."
"Then it will take you a whole year to get ready," laughed Ralph."Honey and I will be back for you next summer, and Piney shall have thebest pony I've got all for her own to make up for Princess."
The night before their departure Mrs. Robbins gave a dinner for them,with Cousin Roxana and Mr. and Mrs. Collins from the Center church.Piney was rather morose and indignant at the fate that had made thefirst Hancock child a girl and the second one a boy.
"Honey'll like the horses and the traveling, but what does he know aboutland and learning about everything? He's only fourteen."
But Honey did not appear to be worrying. He sat between Ralph and Helen,and really looked like another boy in his new suit of clothes with hishair cut properly. Helen was quite gracious to him, and Jean gave him asecond helping of walnut cream cake.
"We're going to miss you, Ralph," Mrs. Robbins said, smiling over athim. She had heard the new business arrangement whereby Greenacres wasto become really the nest. It had been her suggestion first that Ralphgive the place to Mrs. Hancock, but since she had decided she wouldrather have the sale price instead, a wave of relief had swept over theMotherbird. The roomy old mansion had been a haven of refuge to her andher brood during the storm stress, and now that fair weather was withthem, she found herself greatly attached to it.
Ralph colored boyishly. He could not bring himself even to try andexpress just what it had meant to him, this long summer sojourn withthem at Greenacres. He had come east a stranger, seeking the fieldsthat had known his mother's people, and had found the warmest kind ofwelcome from the newcomers in the old home. He looked around at themtonight, and thought how much he felt at home there, and how dear everysingle face had grown.
First there was Mr. Robbins's thin, scholarly one with the high foreheadand curly dark hair just touched with gray, his keen hazel eyes behindrimless glasses, and finely modeled chin. Then the Motherbird, surelyshe was the most gracious woman he had ever known excepting his ownmother. Her eyes were so full of sympathy and understanding that theysometimes made him feel about ten again, and as if he wanted to leanagainst her shoulder the way Doris did, and be comforted. Just the meresound of her soft, engaging laugh made trouble seem a very unimportantthing in life. And Jean, almost seventeen, already a replica of hermother in her quick tenderness and her looks. Ralph's eyes lingered onher. She was a mighty sweet little princess royal, he thought. ThenKit, imperious, argumentative Kit, so full of energy that she was like aRoman candle.
It had been Kit's voice that had spoken the first words of welcome tohim the night of his arrival. He thought he should always remember herbest as she had stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight and givenhim her hand in comradely fashion.
Helen beamed on him from her place next her mother. He came as nearbeing a knight errant as any that had come along the highway so far, andHelen would have had him in crimson hose and plumed cap if possible. Toher Saskatoon meant nuggets and gold dust, and it did no good at all forJean to tell her she would have to adventure along the trail farthernorth before she would find gold, and that the only gold where Ralphlived was the gold of ripening harvest fields, miles upon miles of them.
Doris snuggled against his shoulder after dinner and told him over andover again to send her a tame bear, one that she could bring up by handand train.
"Well, I guess you'll have your hands full, Ralph," Cousin Roxanaexclaimed, "if you fill all these commissions. I declare it seems as ifyou belonged to all of us."
The days that followed were very lonely ones without Honey and Ralph.Hedda's big brother came to work at Greenacres. He was a strong, big,silent boy named Eric. About the only information even Kit was able toglean from him was that he had gone barefooted in the snow in Icelandand often stood in the hay in the barn to get warm.
&n
bsp; The first week of August brought Gwen Phelps, and that auspicious eventshould have satisfied anyone's craving for novelty.
"I don't know why it is that Gwen always riles me, as Cousin Roxy says,"Kit told Jean after they were in bed the night of Gwen's arrival,"unless it is the way she acts. You know what I mean, Jeanie, as if shewere the queen, and the queen could do no wrong. Helen kowtows to heruntil I could shake her. Did you hear her telling that she was going toMiss Anabel's School out at Larchmont-on-the-Sound? It's fifteenhundred for the term, and extras, and it's nearly all extras. I know agirl who went there--"
"Kit, you're getting to be as bad a gossip as Mrs. Ricketts," Jeandeclared merrily.
"Well, I don't care. It isn't the way to bring a girl up. What if herfather were to lose everything like Dad, and she'd have to pitch in andwork, what on earth could she do?"
"Solicit customers for Miss Anabel," laughed Jean. "Go to sleep, goose,and don't covet your neighbor's automobile nor his daughter's extras."
But before the week was over, Gwen was running around in a middy blouse,short linen skirt, and tennis shoes like the rest of them. She andSally struck up a fast friendship. The sight of a girl hardly any olderthan herself handling most of the cooking and housework in a largefamily left a lasting impression on Gwen, and she respected Sallythoroughly.
"Why, she bakes the bread and cake and everything, and even does thewashing," she told Helen. "And she says it isn't hard once you get theswing of it. Hasn't she wonderful hair, Helen? It's coppery gold inthe sun. Think of her in dull green velvet with a golden chain aroundher waist like Melisande."
"Wouldn't it look cute over the wash machine?" Kit agreed beamingly."Gwennie, you'll have to learn the fitness of things if you live outhere."
"I think I'd like to live here," Gwen replied stoutly. "I like itbetter than the mountain resort where we went last summer down in NorthCarolina. But of course you couldn't stay up here in the winter time."
"We are going to, though," Kit said. "Right here, with five big firesgoing, and cord upon cord of wood going up in smoke. If you come upthen, Gwen, we'll promise you some of the finest skating along LittleRiver you ever had, and plenty of sleigh rides."
"You haven't a car now, have you?"
"Oh, but I could have shaken her for that," Kit said wrathfully, lateron. "When she knew we had to sell ours to her father."
"But she didn't mean anything, Kit," Helen argued. "I think you'reawfully quick tempered."
"I'm not. I'm sweet and bland in disposition. Don't mind me, Helenitadarling. I'm only madly jealous because I want everything that moneycan buy for Mumsie and Dad and all of us. I do get so tired of doingthe same thing day after day. I'll bet a cookie even Heaven would bemonotonous if it were just some golden clouds and singing all the time.I hope there'll be work to do there."
Jean drove them down to the station, and when she returned the houseseemed quite empty without Helen and Gwen. But she was soon too busy tomiss them.
Kit had been lent to Cousin Roxana for a few days to help her with hercanning and preserving. Doris had her hands full with a new calf, soonly Jean was left to help her mother study out the problem of new falldresses to be evolved from last year's left overs.
"When the royal family lose their throne and fortune they always have towear out their old royal raiment before they can have anything new,Mother dear. One peculiar charm of living up here is that you are aboutfive years ahead of Gilead styles. Kit will look perfectly stunning inthat smoke gray corduroy of mine and she may have my old blue fox settoo. I'm going to make my chinchilla coat do another winter, and fixover my hat till I defy anyone to recognize it. Hiram gave me a coupleof beautiful white wings. I don't know whether they came off a goose ora swan--no, a swan's would be too large, wouldn't they? Anyhow, theyare lovely and I shall wear them and feel like the Winged Victory."
Mrs. Robbins smiled happily at her eldest. They were in the sunnysitting-room, surrounded by patterns and pieces. The scent of camphorwas in the room, for Jean had been unpacking furs and hanging them outto air.
"Clothes seem of such secondary importance in the country, probably asthey were intended to be. Cousin Roxy said the other day the onlyfashion she ever bothered about was whether her crown of glory would bebecoming to her, because she hadn't the slightest idea how to put on ahalo and she'd probably get it on hind side before in the excitement ofthe moment. Isn't she comical, Jean? But her heart's as big as theworld."
Jean sat on the floor straightening out patterns that had becomecrumpled in packing.
"I wonder why she never married, Mother. She's so efficient and cheery."
"She was engaged," answered Mrs. Robbins. "Your father has told me aboutit. To Judge Ellis."
"Judge Ellis?" Jean dropped her hands into her lap and looked up inamazement. "Why, the very idea!"
"Have you ever met him, dear?"
"No, not him, but his grandson Billie Ellis. We met him when we went onthe hike over to Mount Ponchas. He must have married some one elsethen, didn't he?"
"I believe so. They had a dispute a few days before they were to havebeen married, and Cousin Roxana broke the engagement. They never spoketo each other afterwards. She wanted to go up to Boston on her weddingtrip and on to Concord from there, and the Judge wanted to go to NewYork, as he had some business to settle there and he thought he couldattend to it on the honeymoon trip. Roxana said if he couldn't taketime away from his business long enough to be married, she wouldn'tbother him to marry her at all. Even now it's rather hard decidingwhich one was right. I'm inclined to think the very fact that theycould have a dispute about such a subject shows they were unfitted foreach other. If they had really loved, she would not have cared wherethe honeymoon was held, and he would have granted any desire of herheart."
"Well, if that isn't the oddest romance! Won't Kit love it."
"I hardly think I would talk much about it, dear. Roxy has never evenmentioned it to me and it might hurt her feelings. She's such a dearsoul I wouldn't worry her for anything."
So when Kit returned home from Maple Lawn, Jean told her nothing, butKit brought her own news with her.
"What do you suppose, Jeanie. We were rummaging in the garret aftercarpet rags and there are old chests up there, and Cousin Roxy told me Icould look in them at the old linen sheets and things, and in one Ifound"--Kit paused for a good effect--"wedding clothes!"
"I know," Jean said.
"You know? Why didn't you tell me, then?"
"Mother thought I had better not."
"Humph. I found it out just the same, didn't I? But she wouldn't tellme who he was, and I coaxed and coaxed. I think he must have been asoldier who died in the Civil War."
"Oh, Kit, when Cousin Roxy's only fifty-two! Do figure better than that.You'll have her like the Dauphins, betrothed when they were about threeyears old."
"And another thing I found out. Who do you suppose comes to see herregularly? The Billie person. She lets him run all over the house, andlikes him immensely. We got real well acquainted. He calls her AuntRoxy, and if you could ever see the amount of doughnuts and cookies andapple pie and whipped cream that boy consumes, you'd wonder how he evermanaged to get home! They must starve him over at the Judge's. CousinRoxy says he's so stingy that he'd pinch a penny till the Indiansquealed."
Jean was fairly aching to tell all she knew, but a promise was apromise, and she kept it. That night, though, she dreamt that the Judgeand Cousin Roxy were being married and that she was chasing them aroundwith large portions of apple pie and whipped cream. Kit heard her sayin her sleep, very plaintively,
"Please take it."
"Take what, Jeanie?" she asked sleepily, but Jean slumbered on withoutrevealing the secret.
*CHAPTER XX*
*ROXANA'S ROMANCE*
Two weeks before school opened Helen came home. She was not changed atbit, Doris said admiringly, just as if s
he had been gone a year.
"Oh, I like it here so much better than at the Cove," she told them. "Iwouldn't give our precious Greenacres for all the North Shore. Only I dokind of wonder about school, Mother dear."
"Doris will go to the District school at the village and Kit and Helencan drive over to the High School together. It is only five miles, andthey can arrange to put the horse up at one of the stables. In severeweather Eric will take them over."
Jean was silent for a few moments. Right ahead of them she could seethe winter. It would take many cords of wood to heat the big housethoroughly. There would be plenty of potatoes and winter vegetablesdown in the cellar, plenty of jellies and preserves and pickles, but therunning expenses were still to be considered, and Eric's wages, and feedfor the pony and Buttercup.
"Mother," she said suddenly when they were alone, "have we really anymoney at all to depend on? Please don't mind my asking. I think aboutit so much."
"I don't mind, daughter. Aren't we all part of the dear homecommonwealth? Nearly all that Father had saved has dwindled away duringhis illness. Stocks have depreciated badly the past year. Several thatwe depended on are not paying dividends at all, and may never recover.We have just about enough cash from the sale of the automobile and otherthings, Father's law books and some jewels that I had--"
"Mother!" Jean sprang to her side, and clasped her arms close aroundher. She knew how precious many of the old sets of jewelry had been,things that had come from her grandmother on her mother's side. "Notthe old ones?"
"No. I saved those," the Motherbird smiled back bravely. "They are foryou girlies. But I had my earrings and two rings which Father had givento me and I sold those. Oh, don't look so blue, childie." She framedJean's anxious face in her two hands. "Jewelry doesn't amount toanything at all unless it has some dear associations. Do you know theold Eastern legend, how the Devas, the bright spirits, drove the darkevil spirits underground and in revenge they prepared gold and silverand precious stones to ensnare the souls of men? I was very glad indeedto turn those diamonds into Buttercup and Princess and many other thingsthat have made our new home happier."
"Wouldn't it make a lovely fairy story," Jean exclaimed, smiling throughher tears. "The beautiful queen with a magic wand touching her diamondsand turning them into a cow and a pony and household helps."
"Then," continued her mother, "you know I have a half interest in theranch in California. That brings in a little, not much, because it isn'ta rich ranch by any means, just a big happy-go-lucky one that Harry, mybrother, runs. I hope that you girls will go there some time and meethim, for he is a splendid uncle for you all. I receive about a thousanda year from that. It isn't a cattle ranch. Harry raises horses. He isunmarried, and lives there alone with Ah Fun, a Chinese cook, and hismen. I used to go out to the ranch summers when I was a girl. We livednear San Francisco."
"And now you're clear away over here on a Connecticut hilltop."
"Dear, I would not mind if it were a hilltop in Labrador, if there areany there, or Kamchatka either, so long as I was with your father. Whenyou love completely, Jean, time and space and all those littlelimitations that we humans feel, seem to fall away from your soul."
It seemed to Jean as though her mother's face was almost illumined withlove as she spoke, so radiant and tender it looked. She laid her cheekagainst the hand nearest to her.
"You make me think of something that John Burroughs wrote, preciousMother mine, something I always loved. It is called 'Waiting.' May Isay it to you?"
She repeated softly and slowly:
"Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind or tide or sea; I rave no more 'gainst time or tide, For lo! my own shall come to me.
"I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails this eager pace? I stand amid the eternal ways, And what is mine shall know my face.
"Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me. No wind can drive my bark astray, Or change the tide of destiny.
"What matter if I stand alone, I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it has sown, And garner up its fruit of tears.
"The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder height; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delight.
"The stars come nightly to the sky, The tidal wave unto the sea; Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high Can keep my own away from me."
"Whoa, Ella Lou!" came Cousin Roxy's voice out at the hitching post."Anybody home?"
Kit sprang out of the Bartlett pear tree and Helen emerged from thevegetable garden as if by magic. The Billie person sat beside CousinRoxy as big as life, as she would have said, and looked at the girls infriendly fashion.
"The Judge is very sick," Miss Robbins began without preamble. "I'mgoing down there with Billie, and I may have to stay over night. He'spretty low, I understand, and wants me, so I suppose I'll have to go.Good-bye. If you've got any tansy in the garden, Betty, I'd like totake it down."
Jean hurried to get a bunch of the desired herb, and Mrs. Robbinsstepped out beside the carriage.
"Is he very sick, really, Roxy?" she asked.
"Can't tell a thing about it till I see him, and then maybe not. Aman's a worrisome creetur at best and when he's sick he's worse than asick turkey. I suppose it's acute indigestion. Dick Ellis always didthink he could eat anything he wanted to and do anything he wanted to,and the Lord would grant him a special dispensation to get away with itbecause he was Dick Ellis. I guess from all accounts he hasn't changedmuch. I'll get a good hot mustard plaster outside, and calomel andcastor oil inside, and tansy tea to quiet him, and I guess he'll liveawhile yet. Go 'long, Ella Lou."
"Well, of all things, Mother," Jean exclaimed, laughing as she droppedinto the nearest porch chair. "And they haven't spoken to each other inover thirty years. I think that's the funniest thing that's happenedsince we came here. I want to go and tell Dad. He'll love that."
"What is it?" Kit teased. "I think you might tell us too. I didn'tknow that Cousin Roxy knew the Judge."
"They were engaged years ago, dear," Mrs. Robbins explained, "andquarrelled. That is all. Now he thinks he is dying and has sent forher. And I suppose underneath all her odd ways, that she loves him afterall."
It was the first romance that had blossomed at Gilead Center and thegirls felt as eager over it as though the participants had been twentyinstead of fifty years of age. They waited eagerly for Ella Lou's whitenose to show around the turn of the drive, but night came on and passed,and it was well into the next afternoon before Billie drove in alone.
"Grandfather'd like to have Mr. Robbins come down and draw up his will.Cousin Roxy says he's been a lawyer, and there isn't another oneanywhere around."
"But, Billie, he isn't strong enough," began Mrs. Robbins. She wassitting out on the broad veranda, a basket of mending on her lap, and inthe big steamer chair beside her was Mr. Robbins. "Is the Judge worse?"
"Oh, no, he's better. Aunt Roxy fixed him right up. He'd just eatentoo much, she said."
"I think I should like to go, dear," said Mr. Robbins. "You could gowith me, or Jean, and I should like to meet him again. I knew him whenI was a boy up here."
It was his first trip away from the house since they had moved there,but now that the time had come, it seemed an easy thing to do, as if thestrength had been granted to him to meet just such a crisis. Mrs.Robbins accompanied him, and they drove over through the village and uptwo miles beyond until they came to the Judge's home, a large squarecolonial residence on a hill, surrounded by tall elms and rock maples.The green blinds were all carefully closed excepting in the southchamber where Roxy held supreme sway now. She sat by his bedside,wielding a large palm leaf fan, spick and span in her dress of whitelinen, and there was a bunch of dahlias on the table.
"Come in, come in, boy," the Judge said in his deep voice.
He stretchedout his hand to Mr. Robbins, and nodded his head. Such a fine old headit was, as it lay propped up on the big square feather pillows, a headlike Victor Hugo's or Henri Rochefort's. The thick curly white hairgrew in deep points about his temples, and his moustache and imperialwere white and curly too. There was a look in his eyes that told of anindomitable will, but they softened when they rested on his visitor.
"Sit down, lad; no, the easy chair. Roxy, give him the easy one. So.Well, they try their best to get us, don't they? I thought last nightwould be my last."
"Oh, fiddlesticks," laughed Miss Robbins. "Just ate too much, and had alittle attack of indigestion, Dick. You'll live to be eighty-nine and ahalf."
The Judge's eyes twinkled as he gazed at her.
"Still contrary as Adam's off ox, Roxy. Won't even let me have thesatisfaction of thinking you saved my life, will you?"
"A good dose of peppermint and soda would have done just as well,"answered Roxana serenely, turning to introduce Mrs. Robbins. "He sayshe wants to make his will, but I think it's only a notion, and he wantscompany. Still I guess we'll humor him. It seems that he was going toleave everything he had to me. And I just found him out in time. Thevery idea when he's got Billie, his own grandchild, flesh and blood, andsuch a darling boy too. He can leave me Billie if he likes, but hecan't leave me anything else; so you make it that way, Jerry."
"Leave her Billie, Jerry," sighed the Judge, "leave her Billie, and metoo, if she'll take us both."
"Wouldn't have you for a gift, Dick," she answered, cheerful and happyas a girl as she looked down at him. "You're a fussy, spoiled, selfishold man, just as you always was, and I couldn't be bothered with you.But I'll keep an eye on you so you don't kill yourself before your timewith sweet corn and peach shortcake, though I suppose it's a pleasantsort of taking off at that. I'll take Billie and Betty with me aroundthe garden while you and Jerry fix up that will, and mind you do itright. Billie's going to have all that belongs to him."
As the door closed behind her, the Judge winked solemnly at Mr. Robbins.
"Finest woman in seven counties. Ought to have been the mother ofheroes and statesmen, but there she is, mothering Billie and bossing meto her heart's content. Do you think she'd marry me, Jerry?"
"I don't know, Judge," Mr. Robbins answered, smiling. "Roxy's odd."
"Well, maybe so. Go ahead and make the will as she says. Everything toBillie, and make her guardian. All except," he stopped and his eyestwinkled merrily, "the house in Boston. Jerry, lad, it's got all ourwedding furniture still in it just as it was thirty years ago. I boughtit and moved the stuff up there after she gave me the mitten, and it'swaited for her to change her mind these many years. I married forspite, and my poor wife died after Billie's father was born. Served meright, I guess. Anyhow, the house is there and she can take it or leaveit as she likes."
So the will was drawn up and Mrs. Gorham and Mrs. Robbins witnessed it.Billie, standing down in the garden, showing Miss Robbins the flowers,did not realize what was happening. He only knew that somehow thebarriers of ice were lifted between himself and his grandfather, andthat a new era had dawned for all of them.
He watched them drive away, and went back upstairs to the long corridor.Roxana heard his step and opened the door of the sickroom.
"Come in here, Billie dear," she said. It was the first time thatBillie had ever been in his grandfather's room. He stood inside thedoor, a sturdy, manly figure, barefooted and tanned, with eyes oddlylike those old ones that surveyed him from the pillow. He hesitated amoment, but the Judge put out his hand, a strong bony one, yellowed likeold ivory, and Billie gripped it in his broad boyish one.
"I'm awfully glad you're better, Grandfather," he said, a bit shyly.
"So am I, Billie. Last night I thought my hour had come, but I guess itwas only a warning. A meeting with the Button Moulder perhaps. Do youknow about him? No? You must read 'Peer Gynt.' A boy of your ageshould be well up on such things."
"And when has he had any chance to get well up on anything, I'd like toknow?" demanded Roxana, in swift defense of her favorite. "The boyfinished the district school a year ago. Been learning everything heknows since then from Ben, your hired help. If the Lord has spared youfor any purpose, Dick, it is to bring up Billie right and teach him allyou know."
"Well, well, quit scolding me, Roxy. Do as you like with him. I'llsupply the money." The Judge pressed Billie's hand almost withaffection. "What do you want to be, lad?"
"A lawyer or a naturalist," said Billie promptly.
"Be both. They're good antidotes for each other. Talk it over withhim, Roxy, and do as you think best."
He closed his eyes, and Billie took it as a signal to leave the room,but the Judge spoke again.
"Where you do sleep, Bill?"
Billie colored at this. It was the first time anyone had ever calledhim Bill. He felt two feet taller all at once.
"In the little bed-room over the east 'ell,' sir."
"Change your belongings to the room next this. It faces the south andhas two bookcases in it filled with my books that I had at college. Youwill enjoy them."
Billie went out softly, down the circular staircase to the lower halland, once outdoors, on a dead run for the barn. Ben was husking corn onthe barn floor, sitting on a milking stool with the corn rising aroundhim in billows, whistling and singing alternately.
Billie poured out his news breathlessly, and Ben took it all calmly.
"Well, I'm glad for ye. I always believed the Judge would come out ofhis trance some day and do the proper thing. That Miss Roxy's a sightlywoman. Knows just how to take hold. Guess she could marry the Judgetomorrow if she wanted to. Mrs. Robbins is a fine woman too. I neversee her before."
Somehow this didn't seem to fit in with Billie's mood, and he left thebarn. All the world looked different to him. He was wanted, reallywanted, now. He wasn't just somebody the Judge had taken in becausethey were related and he had to out of pride. He was to have the bigsouth chamber right next the Judge's own room and study all he wantedto. Best of all, since he had grasped that yellow old hand in his, heknew that he could go to him with anything and that he really was goingto be a grandfather to him.
It was nearly two miles over to Greenacres if he went cross lots, but hestarted. The goldenrod was high and in full bloom on every hand andpurple asters crowded it for room. The apple trees held ripening fruit,and the fragrance of Shepherd Sweetings and Peck's Pleasants was in theair. It was the last week in August when all the summerland seemed torest after a good work done, and the hush of harvest time was on theearth.
In the woods he startled a doe and two fawns and they leaped ahead ofhim through the brush. Farther along in the pines a partridge whirred upunder his nose almost, and coaxed him away from her young. Some youngstock, Jersey heifers and a few Holsteins, grazed in the woods, andlifted grave eyes to watch him pass. Usually he would notice them, buttoday all he thought of was the Judge's words, and the longing to talkthem over with somebody.
"Why, there's Billie," Kit exclaimed, looking up from some apples shewas paring for pies. Helen was reading on the circular seat that wasbuilt around one of the old elms back of the house. "Come over here andhelp."
Billie climbed the stone wall and came, flushed and triumphant.Throwing himself down on the grass beside Kit, he told what hadhappened, and she made up for all that Ben had lacked in enthusiasm andimagination.
"Billie Ellis," she cried, setting down the pan of apples, and huggingher knees ecstatically. "Isn't that wonderful? Why, you can be anythingat all now that you want to be. Oh, I'm so glad for you!"
Billie looked at her peacefully.
"I knew you'd take it like that," he said. "I just wanted to tellsomebody who would almost bump the stars over it, the way it made mefeel. Kit, you're a good old pal, know it?"
"Thank you, kind sir, thank you." Kit spread out her blue chambrayskirt and dropped a low curtsey. "When you come into your k
ingdom,forget not your humble handmaid, Prince Otto."
"Who was he?" demanded Billie hungrily. "Gee, I'm tired hearing ofpeople all the time that I don't know about. I'm going to read my headoff now."
"So do, child, so do," laughed Kit. "He was a king who left his throneto wander among his people and see how they lived."
"It must have been awfully hard to go back and stay on the throne. Iwant to study hard and be somebody that Grandfather will be proud of,but I like everyday folks mighty well."
Helen dropped her book and shook back her curls from her face. She hadhardly ever noticed him before, but now he seemed more interesting.Still Kit was forever spending the largesse of her sympathy on anyonewho needed it just as Doris did on animals and birds and chickens. Soafter a moment she went on with her book, "Handbook of ClassicalHistory," preparing for her entry into High School with Kit thefollowing week. The joys and sorrows of the Billie person had smallplace in her mind.
But Kit took him into the kitchen and gave him a big square ofgingerbread with whipped cream on it, and listened to him plan out thefuture without a single word of depreciation or discouragement. Theworld was golden, and Fortune had handed him a lighted flambeau and toldhim to take his place with the other Greek lads and race for the prize.
"I just know you'll win out, Billie," she told him confidently, when shesaid good-bye on the back steps. "Come down any time and we'll help youout on your studies."
Jean and Doris had gone to the village for some groceries. Cousin Roxywas coming to take supper with them. Kit set the table, with sprays ofearly asters in the center, singing softly to herself Cousin Roxy'sfavorite hymn.
"I've reached the land of corn and wine, And all its riches freely mine, Here shines undimmed one blissful day, For all my night has passed away. Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land--"
"Does it seem like that to you, child?" asked her mother, coming lightlydown the long staircase and into the dining-room, mellow with lateafternoon sunlight.
"It's everything all rolled up in one," Kit answered happily. "It'sBeulah Land and the Land of Heart's Desire and the Promised Land, it'sthe whole thing in one, Mother dear. Don't you feel that way too?"
And with her arm around the second daughter, the Motherbird led her outon the wide veranda. They could see for miles, up and down the valleyand over the distant hills. Helen dropped her book when she saw them,and came up the steps to hug up close too, on the other shoulder. Anddown the river road they heard Jean and Doris driving and singing asthey came.
"Remember what we called them when we first came up, girls?" asked Mrs.Robbins. "The hills of rest. Somehow when I look at them, the winterdoesn't frighten me at all. They look as if they could shelter us.
"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help,'"
she quoted softly. "They have given us security and happiness."
"And Dad's health," added Kit. "We've all worked hard, but I do thinkwe've got some results anyway, don't you, Helen?"
"Lots of preserves," said Helen dreamily.
Cousin Roxana joined them, chin up and smiling.
"He's sound asleep," she said. "Now that everything's kind of quieteddown, I don't mind telling you something. After Billie had gone, theJudge and I talked over things before I had Ben hitch up Ella Lou, and Idon't know but what I'll have to move over there and take care of thetwo of them. Land knows they need it."
"Oh, Cousin Roxy, marry the Judge?" gasped Kit.
"Well, I might as well," laughed Roxana. "We've wasted thirty years now,and he'll fret and fuss for thirty more if I don't marry him. I'll sellMaple Lawn, or you folks can have it if you like, rent free."
There was a moment's hesitation. No words were needed though. With twopairs of arms pressing her until they hurt, the Motherbird said gentlythat she thought the Robbins would winter at Greenacres.
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