CHAPTER IV
PLANTING OF SMALL SEEDS
But it was not all smooth sailing for Helen, although it had begun sofair. The very next week was trying to everybody. It was warm and closeand rainy, not a heartsome downpour that sweeps everything clean, andclears up with laughing skies, but drizzles and mists and generalsogginess, not a breath of clear air anywhere. No one could sit on theporch, for the vines and eaves dripped, the parlor had a rather dismalaspect, and everybody seemed dispirited.
Mrs. Van Dorn was not well. She lost her appetite. It seemed as if shehad a little fever. And she was dreadfully afraid of being ill. So manypeople had dropped down in the midst of apparent health, had paralysisor apoplexy, or developed an unsuspected heart-weakness. She would makea vigorous effort to keep from dying, she had no organic disease, butsomething _might_ happen. Young people died, but that did not comforther for she was not young. Helen fanned her on the sofa, in the chair.The cushions and pillows grew hot, she fanned them cool. She ran out tothe well, and brought in a pitcher of fresh cold water.
"It tastes queer. I do wonder if there is any drainage about that couldget into it."
Then it was, "Helen, don't read so loud. Your voice goes through myhead!" and when Helen lowered her tone, she said, "Don't mumble so! Ican't half hear what you are saying. How stupid the papers are! There'sreally nothing in them!"
If Helen had not been used to fault-finding, it would have gone hardwith her. As it was she was rather dazed at first at the change.
"She'll get over it," comforted Mrs. Dayton. "And if this weather everlets up we shall all feel better."
The Disbrowe baby was ill, too, and two or three times Helen went torelieve the poor mother. Miss Gage came and stayed one night with Mrs.Van Dorn.
Friday noon the sun shone gayly out, a fresh wind blew much cooler fromthe west, and everybody cheered up.
"Railly," said Uncle Jason, when he came in Saturday with butter andeggs, "you're a big stranger! Mother, she feels kinder hurt an' put out,an' wishes she hadn't let you come. You do ridin' round every day an'never come near us, as if you felt yourself too grand."
"Oh, Uncle Jason, it isn't that at all," cried Helen in protest. "Wewere out just a little while on Monday, and the mist came up. Mrs. VanDorn took a cold, and has been poorly, and the weather has been justhorrid until to-day. Then I have been helping Joanna with the jelly andcanning, and Mrs. Disbrowe with her baby. I couldn't walk over, couldI?" glancing up laughingly.
"Well, I s'pose you might--on a pinch----"
"Oh, no; it would have to be on my own two feet. And see what a mess theroads have been! Good going for ducks, but bad for your best shoes."
He laughed. Her tone was so merry it was good to hear. He had missed hercheerful presence. Aunt Jane would hardly have admitted how much shemissed her about the work. 'Reely had so many slaps that she just wishedHelen would come home again, it made mother so cross to have her away.
"I s'pose, now, you couldn't go back with me, and I'll bring you overSunday."
Helen was sorry, and yet she shrank from the proposal, and was glad shecould not go. Was that ungrateful?
"Oh, I really could not, Uncle Jason. You see, Mrs. Van Dorn is justgetting better, and she wants a dozen things all at once, but I'll trywhen we go out. Perhaps the first of the week."
"I'll have to hold on to my scalp when I get home," he said ratherruefully. "Mother told me to bring you back."
"But I'm hired to stay here, and I can't run away as I like," sheanswered pleasantly, but with dignity.
"That's so! That's so! Well, come soon as you can."
Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang and she had to say good-by. Mrs. Daytonentered at that moment.
"Helen," Mrs. Van Dorn said: "I've a mind to go down on the porch andsit on the west side in the sun. I'm tired to death of this room. Get methat white lambs-wool sacque, though I hate bundling up like an oldwoman! I think I did take a little cold. And people who are seldom illare always the worst invalids, I've heard. Then bring that big Persianwrap, I really do feel shaky, and that's ridiculous for me."
She managed to get down stairs very well. Helen fixed the wrap about thechair and then crossed it on her knees. The white sacque was tied withrose colored ribbons, and with her fluffy, curly hair she looked like anold baby.
"Has the _Saturday Gazette_ come? Let's hear the little gossip of thetown. Who is going out of it, who is coming in, who played euchre atMrs. So and So's, and who won first prize, and who has a new baby."
There were other things--a column about some wonderful exhumations inArizona that were indications of a pre-historic people.
"Queer," she commented when Helen had finished, "but everywhere it seemsas if cities were built on the ruins of old cities. And no one knows thethousands of years the world has stood. There is a theory that we comeback to life every so often, that some component part of us doesn't die.Still, I do not see the use if one can't remember."
"But there is--heaven----" Helen was a little awe-struck at theunorthodox views.
"Well--no one has come back from heaven. I believe there are severalcases of trances where people thought they were there, and had to comeback, and were very miserable over it. But it seems to me being here isthe best thing we know about. I feel as if I should like to livehundreds of years, if I could be well and have my faculties."
"There's Auntie Briggs, as they call her, over to Center, who isninety-seven, and grandmother White was ninety-five on Christmas day."
"Tell me about them. Are they well? Do they get about?"
"Grandmother White is spry as a cricket, as people say. She sews andknits and doesn't wear glasses."
"That's something like." The incident cheered her amazingly. "And theother old lady?"
"She is quite deaf and walks about with a cane, but I think she's prettywell." Helen did not say she was cross and crabbed and a trial to hergrand-daughter's family. It really was sad to live past the time whenpeople wanted you. But couldn't you be sweet and comforting? Must oldage be queer and disagreeable?
"I shall try to live to a hundred," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Let me see--Iwish you'd read something bright, about people having good times. Why dowriters put so much sorrow in stories? It is bad enough to have it inthe world."
Helen ran up and brought down a pile of novels that Mr. Disbrowe hadselected in the city. But one did not suit and another did not suit.
"We will look at the sun going down. What wonderful sunsets I haveseen!"
"Tell me about them," entreated Helen.
"There was one at the Golden Gate, California. No one ever could paintanything like it." Mrs. Van Dorn looked across the sky as if she saw itagain. She was an excellent hand at description. Then the men werecoming in, the dinner bell rang.
"I won't bother to dress, I'll play invalid."
Helen pushed the chair in a sheltered place, and laid the shawl over theback of a hall chair. Everybody congratulated Mrs. Van Dorn, and shesaid with a little laugh that she thought it was the weather, and shehad been playing off, that she hadn't been really ill.
"I think we all gave in to the weather," said Mrs. Lessing. "I had atouch of rheumatism. You can have a fire in wet cool weather, but whenit is wet hot weather, you can hardly get your breath and feelsmothered."
"It's been a dreadful week for trade," remarked Mr. Disbrowe. "I haven'tmade my salt. Perhaps it would have been better to have tried pepper."
They all laughed at that.
"Mrs. Dayton has tried both salt and pepper and been cheerful as alark," said Mrs. Pratt.
"And plenty of sugar," laughed Mrs. Dayton. "Though I confess I havebeen tried with jelly that wouldn't jell. The weather has been bad forthat."
"And Miss Helen has kept rosy. She has been good to look at," subjoinedMrs. Disbrowe.
Mrs. Van Dorn smiled at the girl who flushed with the praise.
She wanted to be read to sleep that night, just as she had been thenight before, and chose Tennyson.
"Well,
I do hope we will have a nice week to come," Mrs. Dayton saidwhen they were alone. "Old lady Van Dorn _has_ been trying. Helen, youhave kept your temper excellently. What are you smiling about?"
"I guess I have been trained to keep my temper."
"Because your aunt doesn't let anyone fly out but herself? That's in theCummings blood. And you haven't any of that. Sometimes your voice hasthe sound of your father's. You are more Grant than Mulford."
"You knew my father----" Helen paused and glanced up wondering whetherit was much or little.
"Well--yes," slowly. "And not so very much either. You see I was beyondmy school days," and Mrs. Dayton gave a retrospective smile. "Yourmother went to school to him the first year he taught. I never couldunderstand----" and she wrinkled her brow a little.
"I suppose he was very much in love with her?" Helen colored vividly asif she was peering into a secret. The love stories she had been readingwere taking effect in a certain fashion. She was beginning to weaveromances about people. Aunt Jane blamed her father for a good manythings, and especially the marriage. But she never had a good word forhim.
"Oh, what nonsense for children like you to think about love! Well,"rather reluctantly, "he must have been pleased with her, she was brightand pretty, but it wasn't wise for either of them, and it did surpriseeverybody. She was one of the butterfly kind with lots of beaus. DanErlick's father waited on her considerably, he was pretty gay, andpeople thought she liked him a good deal. Then he married a Waterburygirl, and not long after she married your father. There were others shecould have had--we all thought more suitable. He was a good deal older,and cared mostly for books and study. Then he began with some queernotions, at least the Center people thought so--that the world had stoodthousands of years we knew nothing about, and that the Mosaic accountwasn't--well then people hadn't heard so much about science and allthat, and were a little worried lest their children should turn outinfidels. And he found a place in some college at the West, but itseemed as if they made a good many changes until she came home to die.But she always appeared to think he had been kind and taken good care ofher. If he hadn't the Center would have heard about it."
That didn't altogether answer the question. Helen wanted some devotionon which to build a romance. Since she could not put her mother in aheroine's place, she wanted her father for a hero. But she had neverseen much of him, and she had always felt a little afraid of the grave,tall, thin man who never caressed her, or indeed seemed to care abouther. Had anyone really loved him? Somehow she felt his had been a rathersolitary life and pitied him.
"He had a curious sort of voice," continued Mrs. Dayton. "It wasn't loudor aggressive, but--well I think persuasive is the word I mean. He had away of making people think a good deal as he did, without reallybelieving in him or his theories. He was a man out of place, you'll findwhat that means as you go on through life, a sort of round peg thatcouldn't get fitted to the square hole in Hope Center."
"Oh, dear! I wonder if I shall be like him?" The tone was halfapprehensive, half amusing and the light in her eyes was full of curiouslonging.
"I _do_ suppose you get your desire for knowledge from him. I neverheard of a Mulford who was much of a student, nor a Cummings either.Though I am not sure education does all for people. You have to possesssome good sense to make right use of it. And some people with verylittle book learning have no end of common sense and get alongsuccessfully."
Then Mrs. Van Dorn's bell rang. Helen had been polishing the glasseswith a dry towel. Joanna always went over them twice, and this was quitea relief to her.
Mrs. Dayton was putting away dishes and thinking. Helen was differentfrom the Mulford children. She was ambitious to step up higher, to getout of the common-place round. It was not that she hated work, she didit cheerfully, looking beyond the work for something, not exactly thereward, but the thing that satisfied her. And Mrs. Dayton had found inher life that a little of what one really wanted was much more enjoyablethan a good deal of what one did not want, no matter how excellent itmight be.
The book to-night was talks about Rome. Mrs. Van Dorn lived over againin her reminiscences, making sundry interruptions. "It was here I metsuch a one," she would say. "This artist from England or America waspainting such a picture." And there were walks on the Pincio, lingeringin churches, viewing palaces. And then--it was all real. Hadn't St. Paulwritten letters from Rome ever and ever so long ago? Somewhere he had"Thanked God and taken courage?" Yes. Rome _was_ real. Had her fatherever seen it? She would like to see it some day. And if she could everget to where she could teach school--Mr. Warfield had earned enough togo abroad, and she remembered hearing him say he had worked all one yearwith a farmer for the sake of eight months' schooling.
There was a gentle sound of hard regular breathing, not to be called asnore, but a sign of sleep. Helen went on with a dream. Why couldn't shestay somewhere in North Hope and work for her board nights and morningsand go to the High School? She was learning so many things now abouthistory and literature, and the whole world it seemed. Occasionally shelooked over the list of examination studies and caught here and there afact she had not understood a few weeks ago. Why this was as good as aschool.
She would not breathe her plans to a soul. If only Mrs. Dayton might, orcould keep her! But early in October Mrs. Dayton shut up her house andwent on a round of visits after her summer's work, and Joanna went toher sister's who had seven children, the eldest hardly fourteen. Butsome place might open. If boys could work their way up, why not a girl?
There was a succession of pleasant days with a bright reviving westerlywind. Driving was a delight. Sometimes they went out an hour or twoafter breakfast, and oh, how glorious the world looked.
For two days Helen felt she was a coward. She ought to go home, but shedreaded it somehow. Why wasn't Aunt Jane like--well, Mrs. Dayton forinstance, glad that other people should have some enjoyment? Yes, shedid enjoy Jenny's pleasure, but how often she threatened the others!
"Could we drive around by the Center this afternoon?" Helen asked alittle hesitatingly.
"Why--I thought we would go to Chestnut Hill. I like those long fadedyellow chestnut blooms that hang where there are to be no chestnuts. Itis like old age hanging on to some forlorn hope."
"But you do not like old age," Helen said, with a bright smile.
"Not for myself. Not for people in general. But it is pretty among theclusters of green chestnut leaves. Mrs. Dayton could make a littlesermon out of that--useless old age."
"We might come round that way on our return," ventured the girl.
"Are you homesick?"
"Oh, no." A bright flush overspread Helen's face, and the light in hereyes as she turned them on Mrs. Van Dorn was so beautiful it touched herheart. "Uncle wanted to take me back on Saturday to stay over Sunday.They think----"
"Did you want to go?" with quick jealousy.
"Not very much, oh, no, I'm not homesick at all. I like it so much overhere. But I ought to go now and then."
"Well--we will see."
Helen had put on her last summer's white frock. She would rather haveworn the blue lawn or the pretty embroidered white muslin, made out ofMrs. Dayton's long ago skirt, but some feeling withheld her.
How beautiful Chestnut Hill was to-day! It was not all chestnuts, thoughthey were there tall and stately, but with a mingling of maple and beechand dogwood, and here and there hemlocks and cedars. A sort of wildgarden of trees, but all about the edges common little shrubs and sumacstood up loyally as if the trees were not to have it all. And smallerthings in bloom tangled here and there with clematis and Virginiacreeper, and a riot of mid-summer bloom. They had brought along a volumeof Wordsworth's shorter poems, and Helen read here and there in thepauses.
Mrs. Van Dorn was ruminating over a thought that had crossed her mind.Wouldn't this girl be glad to go off somewhere and thrust her old lifebehind her? How much did she care for her people? Someone could make afine and attractive young woman out of her, yes, there was a certainno
ble beauty that might be cultivated and bloom satisfactorily fromtwenty to thirty. Ten or twelve years?
"Take the lower road round by the Center," she said to the driver.
Helen raised her eyes in acknowledgment. They passed the old farmhouses, and at the gate of one of them stood Grandmother White, a smallwrinkled old lady in a faded gown and checked apron. She nodded toHelen. Was that worth the living to old age? Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged hershoulders. Thank Heaven she should not be like that when she came nearthe hundred mark.
"Now I will drive around a little while you make your call. It must notbe very long, or we shall be late for dinner."
Helen sprang out with an airy lightness. The front windows were alldarkened as usual. She ran up the path, around the side of the house.Aurelia was weeding among the late planted beets where dwarf peas hadtaken the early part of the season.
"Oh, Helen!" She sprang up with the trowel in her hand, "I'm so gladyou've come. Are you going to stay all night? I miss you so much. I havesuch lots of work to do, and mother's cross a good deal of the time. Weall miss you so. I s'pose its real nice over at Mrs. Dayton's, but Ishall be so glad when you come back."
"No, I can't stay all night----"
"But the carriage went away----"
"'Reely, you come in and peel the potatoes. You ought to have had thatweeding done long ago. Oh, Helen," as the girl had turned around thecorner that led to the kitchen. "Well I declare! I began to think youhad grown so fine that the Center would never see you again!"
She looked Helen over from head to foot and gave a little sniff.
"Are you coming in?" rather tartly.
"Why--yes," forcing herself to smile.
How different from Joanna's tidy kitchen! It was clean but in confusionwith the odds and ends of everything. The green paper shade was allaskew, there were two chairs with the backs broken off, the kitchentable was littered, the closet door was open and betrayed a huddle ofarticles.
"You don't seem to be very sociable, I must say. Why didn't you comeover Saturday? Your uncle felt quite hurt about it. Seems to me you'remighty taken up with those people," nodding her head northward.
"I couldn't on so short a notice. Mrs. Van Dorn had not been well. Iread her to sleep nearly every night. And there are so many littlethings to do."
"Well, if she'd employ herself about something useful she wouldn't needto be read to sleep, nor want so much waiting on."
"That is what I am hired to do," Helen returned with a good-naturedintonation that she kept from being flippant.
"Well, if I had ever so much money I couldn't find it in my conscienceto dawdle away time and have someone wait upon me. And how's Mrs.Dayton? All the boarders staying?"
"Yes, the house is full."
"Mrs. Dayton does have the luck of things! But she hasn't a chick nor achild, nor a husband and a lot of boys to mend for. I was foolish to letyou go over there, Helen, when I needed you so much myself. It isn'teven as if you were learning anything, just fiddling round waiting on awoman who hasn't an earthly thing to do. And I'm so put about, I don'tknow what to take up first. 'Reely, you hurry with the potatoes oryou'll get a good slap."
There was a diversion with Fan and Tommy who shook sand over the kitchenfloor. Fan's face was stained with berries but she flung her arms aboutHelen and kissed her rapturously, while Tom dug his elbows into herlap.
"Did you come in a horse and carriage?" asked Fan, wide-eyed.
"I came in the carriage."
"You know well enough what she meant, Helen. You'll get so fine there'llbe hardly any living with you when you come back."
"When she came back." A tremor ran through Helen's nerves. Oh, must shecome back!
"How is Jenny?" she inquired.
"Oh, Jenny's first rate, working like a beaver. There's a girl worthsomething, if she is mine! And the house is getting done up justsplendid. Joe's crazy to be married right off, but Jenny's like me, whenher mind's made up it's made up. There's a good deal of Cummings in her.Why don't you take off your hat? You're going to stay to supper?"
"No, I can't," Helen returned gently. "Mrs. Van Dorn was going to driveround a little----"
"She could have come in," snapped Aunt Jane. "We could have had thehorse put out and you could both have stayed to supper. I dare say wehave as good things to eat as Mrs. Dayton. She doesn't refuse ourbutter and eggs nor chickens when we have 'em to spare."
"They all think the butter splendid, Aunt Jane. And Mrs. Disbrowe wishesthey could get such eggs in the city. She is sure what they get must bea month old," said Helen, with an attempt at gayety.
"I _do_ make good butter. Mrs. Dayton's folks are not the first to findit out," bridling her head. "And I'll say for Mrs. Dayton she's willingto pay a fair price. But I s'pose that old woman pays well?"
Helen wondered how the woman in the carriage would look if she heardthat!
"I'd like to know the prices myself. Haven't you heard Mrs. Dayton say?I might want to keep boarders, some day."
"No," answered Helen. "But there are a good many boarders at North Hope,and some of them look as if they didn't mind about money."
"Carriage has come," announced Nathan, running in. Aurelia had finishedthe potatoes and put them on to cook and now stood with one arm aroundHelen's neck.
"Stay! stay! Can't you stay?" cried a chorus of voices in various keys.
"I am not my own mistress," answered Helen, cheerfully. "And when youare paid to do a certain thing, paid for your time, it belongs tosomeone else."
She loosened the children's arms and rose.
"Well it is a mean little call," said her aunt, "and your uncle will beawful disappointed. But when you live with grand people I s'pose youmust be grand. Do come when you can stay longer," with a sort of sarcasmin her tone.
"I'll try." Helen kept her temper bravely, left her love for Jenny andUncle Jason. Aunt Jane had gone at making shortcake. The childrenfollowed their cousin out to the gate and showered her with good-bys,staring hard at the old lady in the carriage.