CHAPTER IV
THE WITCH WITH A WAND
Snow lay deep over Lone-Rock, muffling every sound. It was so still inthe cozy room where Jack sat reading by the lamp, that several times hefound himself listening to the intense silence, as if it had been anoise. No one moved in the house. He and Mary were alone together, andshe on the other side of the table was apparently as interested in apile of letters which she was re-reading as he was in his story. Butpresently, when he finished it and tossed the magazine aside, he sawthat his usually jolly little sister was sitting in a disconsolate bunchby the fire, her face buried in her hands.
She had pushed the letters from her lap, and the open pages layscattered around her on the floor. There were five of them, fromdifferent employment agencies. Jack had read them all before supper,just as he had been reading similar ones at intervals for the last twomonths and a half. The answers had always been disappointing, but untilto-day they had come singly and far apart. Undismayed, she had met themall in the spirit of their family motto, insisting that fortune would becompelled to change in her favor soon. She'd be so persistent itcouldn't help itself.
Five disappointments, however, all coming by the same post, were morethan she could meet calmly. Besides, these were the five positions whichseemed the most promising. The thought that they were the last on herlist, and that there was no clue now left for her to follow, was thethought that weighed her down with the heaviest discouragement she hadever felt in all her life. She had made a brave effort not to show itwhen Jack came home to supper earlier in the evening. The two ate alonefor the first time that she could remember, Mrs. Ware and Norman havingbeen invited to take supper with the Downs family. It was a jointbirthday anniversary, Billy Downs and his mother happening to claim thesame day of the month, though many years apart.
Mary talked cheerfully of the reports Billy had brought of the two cakesthat were to adorn the table, one with fifteen candles for him and theboys, and one with forty-eight icing roses for his mother and herfriends. She had put on a brave, even a jolly front, until this lastre-reading of her letters. Now she had given away to such a sense ofhelplessness and defeat that it showed in every line of the littlefigure huddled up in front of the fire.
Jack noticed it as he tossed aside his magazine and sat watching her amoment. Then he exclaimed sympathetically, "Cheer up, Mary. Never mindthe old letters. You'll have better luck next time."
There was no answer. A profound silence followed, so deep that he couldhear the ticking of a clock across the hall, coming faintly throughclosed doors.
"Cheer up, Sis!" he exclaimed again, knowing that if he could only starther to talking she would soon drag herself out of her slough of despond.
"Don't all the calendars and cards nowadays tell you to _smile_, nomatter what happens? Don't you know that
"'The man worth while is the man who can smile When everything goes dead wrong?'"
His question drew the retort he hoped for, and she exclaimed savagely,"I _hate_ those silly old cheerfulness calendars! And deliver me frompeople who follow their advice! It's just as foolish to go through lifesmiling at every kind of circumstances that fate hands out as it wouldbe to wear furs in all kinds of weather, even the dog-days. What's theuse of pretending that the sun is shining when everybody can see thatthe rain's simply drenching you and that you're as bedraggled as a wethen?"
"Well, the sun _is_ shining," persisted Jack. "Always, somewhere. Ourlittle rain clouds don't stop it. All they can do is to hide it from usawhile."
"You tell that to old Noah," grumbled Mary, her face still hidden in herhands. "Much good the sun behind his rain clouds did him! If he hadn'thad an ark he'd have been washed off the face of the earth like theother flood sufferers. Seems to me it's sort of foolish to smile whenyou've been swept clean down and out. Five turn-downs in one day--"
Her voice broke, and she gave the scattered letters an impatient pushwith her foot. Her tone of unusual bitterness stopped Jack's playfulattempt to console her. He sat looking into the fire a little space,considering what to say. When he spoke again it was in a firm, quiettone, almost fatherly in its kindness.
"There's no reason, Mary, for you to be so utterly miserable over yourdisappointments. There is no actual need for you to go out into theworld to make your own living and fight your own way. It was differentwhen I was a helpless cripple. Then I had to sit by and watch you andJoyce and mother struggle to keep us all afloat. But I'm able to furnisha very comfortable little ark for you now, and I'd be glad to have youstay in it always. I didn't interfere when you first announced yourintention of starting out to seek your fortune, because I knew you'dnever be satisfied to settle down in this quiet mining camp until you'dtried something different. But now the question of your staying hereseems to have been settled for you, there's no use letting thedisappointment down you so completely. What's your big brother for ifnot to take care of you?"
"Oh, Jack! You're an old darling!" she cried, with tears in her eyes."It's dear of you to put it that way, and I do appreciate it even if Idon't seem to. But--there's something inside of me that just won't letme settle down to be taken care of by my family. I have my own place tomake in the world. I have my own life to live!"
She saw his amused, indulgent smile and cried out indignantly, "Well,you'd scorn a _boy_ who'd be satisfied with that kind of life. Justbecause I'm a girl is no reason that I should be dependent on you therest of my days. You wouldn't want Norman to."
"No," admitted Jack, "but that is different. I should think you couldunderstand how a fellow feels about his little sister when he's the headof the family. He regards her as one of his first responsibilities, tolook out for her and take care of her."
Mary straightened up in her chair and looked at him with a perplexedexpression, saying in a slow, puzzled way, "Jack, it makes me almostcross-eyed trying to see your way and my way at the same time. Your wayis so dear and sweet and generous that I feel like a dog to say a wordagainst it, and yet--_please_ don't get mad--it _is_ an old-fashionedway. Nowadays girls don't want to be kept at home on a shelf like apiece of fragile china. When they're well and strong and capable oftaking care of themselves they want a chance to strike out and realizetheir ambitions just as a boy would. Joyce did it, and look what she'sdoing for herself and how happy she is."
"Yes," he admitted. "Her work is her very life, and her success in itmeans just as much to her as mine here at the mines does to me. But Ican't see what particular ambition you'd be realizing in filling any ofthe positions you've applied for. You couldn't do more than drudge alongand make a bare living at first. There'd be very little time and energyleft for ambitions."
"Well, I'd be satisfying one of them at any rate," she persisted. "I'dbe at least 'paddling my own canoe' and making a place for myself whereI'd be really needed. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say," sheadded hurriedly, as he tried to interrupt her. "Just what mamma said,that you do need me here to keep things stirred up and lively. Thatmight be all right if we were going to live along this way always. Ifyou'd settle down to be a nice comfortable old bachelor, I could try tobe an ideal old-fashioned spinster sister. But you'll be getting marriedsome day, and then I won't be needed at all, and it'll be too late forme to strike out then and be a modern, up-to-date bachelor maid likeMiss Henrietta Robbins. I know that Captain Doane says that old maidaunts are the salt of the earth," she added, a twinkle in her eyestaking the place of the tear which she hastily dashed away with the backof her hand, "but I don't want to be one in somebody else's home. If Ihave to be one at all I want to be the Miss Henrietta kind. But," sheadmitted honestly, "I'd rather marry some day, after I'd done all theother things I've planned to, and no Prince Charming will ever find hisway to Lone-Rock. You know that perfectly well."
Jack threw back his head to laugh at the dolorous tone of herconfession, and then grew suddenly sober, staring into the fire, as ifher remarks had started a very serious train of thoughts. Thesnow-muffled silence was so deep that agai
n the ticking of the distantclock sounded through closed doors.
"Sometimes," he began presently, "when I see the way you chafe at theloneliness here, and hate the monotony and long so desperately to getaway, I wonder if any girl would be happy here. If I would have a righteven to ask one to share such a life with me."
Mary gave him a keen, penetrating glance, her pulses throbbing at thisbeginning of a confidence. She hesitated to say anything, for fear herreply might stop him, but when he seemed waiting for her answer she saidwith a worldly-wise air, "That depends on the girl. If it were KittyWalton or Gay or Roberta, they'd be simply bored to death up here.They're so used to constant entertainment. But if it were somebody likeBetty, it would be different. Lone-Rock isn't any lonesomer than theCuckoo's Nest was, and she loved that place. And this would be a goodquiet spot where she could go on with her writing, so she wouldn't haveto give up her ambition."
Then, feeling that perhaps she was expatiating too much in the directionof Betty, she added hastily, "But there's one thing I hadn't thought of.Of course that would make it all right for any kind of a girl, even fora Gay or a Roberta. _You'd_ be her Prince Charming, so of course you'd'live happily ever after.'"
Again Jack laughed heartily, lying back in the big Morris chair. Thenreaching out for the paper cutter on the table, he began toying with itas he often did when he talked. But this time, instead of sayinganything, he sat looking into the fire, slowly drawing the ivory bladein and out through his closed fingers.
The fore-log burned through, suddenly broke apart between the andirons,and falling into a bed of glowing coals beneath, sent a puff of ashesout on to the hearth. Mary leaned forward to reach for the turkey-winghanging beside the tongs. There had always been a turkey-wing beside herGrandmother Ware's fireplace. That is why Mary insisted on using onenow instead of a modern hearth-broom. It suggested so pleasantly thehousewifely thrift and cleanliness of an earlier generation which sheloved to copy. She had prepared this wing herself, stretching and dryingit under a heavy weight, and binding the quill ends into a handle with apiece of brown ribbon.
"'I WISH WE COULD SETTLE THINGS BY A FEATHER, AS THEYUSED TO IN THE OLD FAIRY TALES.'"]
Now as she flirted it briskly across the hearth, a tiny fluff of downdetached itself from one of the stiff quills, and floated to the rug.When she picked it up it clung to her fingers, and only after repeatedattempts did she succeed in dislodging it, and in blowing it into thefire.
"I wish we could settle things by a feather, as they used to in the oldfairy tales," she said wistfully, looking after the bit of down. "Justsay:
"'Feather, feather, when I blow Point the way that I should go.'
Then there would be no endless worry and waiting and indecision. Itwould be up to the feather to settle the matter."
"Why not wish for your 'witch with a wand,' as you used to do?" askedJack. "There used to be a time when scarcely a day passed that you didnot make that wish."
Mary's answer was a sudden exclamation and a clasping of her handstogether as she turned towards him, her face radiant.
"Jack, you've given me an idea! Don't you remember that's what we tookto calling Cousin Kate after she gave Joyce that trip abroad, and did somany lovely things for all of us--our witch with a wand! I've a notionto write to her and I ask her if she can't help me get a position ofsome kind. Didn't she endow a library in the little village where shewas born? Seems to me I remember hearing something about it a long timeago. Maybe I could get a position in it."
Jack shook his head decidedly. "No, Mary, I don't like your idea at all.She did endow a library, and she's interested in so many things of thekind that she could doubtless pull strings in all directions. But motherwouldn't like to have you ask any favors of her, I'm sure. I wouldn't doit myself, and I shouldn't think you'd want to, after all she's done forus."
"But I'd not be asking her for money or _things_," declared Mary. "I'donly ask her to use her influence, and I don't see why she wouldn't beas willing to do it for her own 'blood and kin' as she would for workinggirls and Rest Cottage people and fresh-air babies. I'm going to try itanyhow. I'll take all the blame myself. I'll tell her that mammadoesn't know I'm writing, and that you told me not to."
"But she's been out of touch with us for so long," persisted Jack,frowning. "She promised once, that if Joyce reached a certain point inher work she'd give her a term or two in Paris, and Joyce reached it ayear ago. Cousin Kate knows it, for she was at the studio and saw forherself what Joyce was doing, but she was so interested in two blindchildren that she had taken under her wing, that she couldn't talk ofanything else. She had gone down to New York to consult some specialistabout them, and she was considering adopting them. She told Joyce thatshe wouldn't hesitate, only she had made such inroads on her capital tokeep up her social settlement work, that there was danger of her endingher own days in some kind of an asylum or old ladies' home. She nearlylost her own sight several years ago. That is why she takes such anespecial interest in those two children."
Mary considered his news in silence a moment, then remarked stubbornly,"She might like to have me come on and help take care of the blindchildren. At any rate it will cost only a postage stamp to find out,and I can afford that much of an investment. I'll write now, beforemamma gets back."
Knowing that the composition of such a letter would be a long andpainstaking affair, Mary did not risk beginning it on her preciousmonogram stationery. She brought out some scraps of paper instead, andwith the arm of her chair for a desk, scribbled down with a pencil arough draft of all she wanted to say to this Cousin Kate, who had beenthe good fairy of her childhood. Many erasures and changes werenecessary, and it was nearly an hour later when she read it all over,highly pleased with her own production. She wondered how it would affectJack, and glanced over at him, so sure of its excellence that she wastempted to read it aloud. But Jack, having read himself drowsy, had goneto sleep in his chair, and she knew that even if she should waken him byclashing the tongs or upsetting the rocker, he would not be in a mood toappreciate her epistle as it deserved.
So she sat jabbing the paper with her pencil till it had a wide borderof dots and dashes, while she pictured to herself the probable effect ofthe letter on her Cousin Kate. Hope sprang up again as buoyant as if ithad not been crushed to earth a score of times in the last few months,and she thought exultingly, "Now _this_ will surely bring asatisfactory reply!"
A far-away jingle of sleigh-bells sounded presently, coming nearer andnearer down the snowy road, then stopped in front of the house. Mr.Downs was bringing the birthday banqueters home in his sleigh, accordingto promise.
Mary sprang up to open the door. At the first faint sound of the bellsshe had folded the sheet of paper into a tiny square, and tucked it intoher belt. She had a feeling that Jack was wrong about her writing toCousin Kate, and that her mother would not disapprove as strongly as heseemed to think she would, if the matter could be put properly beforeher. But she intended to take no risks. There would be time enough toconfess what she had done when the answer came, promising her thecoveted position.
Mrs. Ware and Norman came in glowing from their sleigh-ride.
"You certainly must have had a good time," exclaimed Mary, noticing theunusual animation of her mother's face. "You ought to go to a birthdaydinner every night if it can shake you up and make you look as young andbright-eyed as you do now."
"Oh, it isn't that," laughed Mrs. Ware, as Jack took her heavy coat fromher and Mary her furs. "We did have a beautiful time, but it is _this_which has gone to my head."
She took a letter from the muff which Mary had just laid on a chair, andas soon as she could slip off her gloves, began to unfold it withoutwaiting to lay aside her hat.
"It's a letter from Joyce which that naughty Norman has been carryingaround all day. He didn't remember to give it to me until he was puttingon his overcoat to start home, and discovered it in one of the pockets.I just _had_ to open it while the other guests were making t
heir adieus,and I've read enough to set me all in a whirl. Joyce's long dreamed ofhappiness has come at last! She's to go to Paris in a few weeks, butfirst--_she's coming home to spend Christmas with us!_"
Mrs. Ware paused to enjoy the effect of her announcement. She was insuch a quiver of delight herself that Mary's happy cry of astonishmentand Jack's excited exclamation did not do justice to the occasion. Onlylong-legged Norman's demonstration seemed adequate. Standing on his headhe turned one somersault after another across the room, till he landedperilously near Mary, who gave him a sharp tweak of the ear as he cameup in a sitting posture beside her.
"Oh, you wretch!" she exclaimed. "To keep such news in your pocket allday! I'm going to tell Captain Doane never to give you any lettersagain, if you can't deliver them more promptly than that!"
"Sh!" she added, as Norman began a string of excuses for hisforgetfulness. "Mamma is going to read it aloud."
"BELOVED FAMILY," the letter began. "Ere you have recovered from the shock of the announcement I am about to make, we shall be dismantling the studio, packing our trunks and making preparations to shift our little establishment from New York to Paris. At least, Miss Henrietta and I expect to go to Paris and carry on the same kind of studio-apartment housekeeping that we have done here. Mrs. Boyd and Lucy have gone to Florida, but they may join us next summer.
"But first, before I put the ocean between us, I'm going home for a glimpse of you all. It is a long journey for such a short visit, but I can't go so far without seeing you all once more, just at Christmas time too, when we've been separated so many Christmases. It is Cousin Kate who has made all this possible. She did not adopt those little blind children after all. She was taken with a spell of typhoid fever while she was trying to make up her mind, and has never been well enough since to consider burdening herself in such a way. She sailed yesterday with her maid for the south of France, by the doctor's orders. Later, if she is better, she is going back to Tours, where she and I had such a happy year. Old Madame Greville is no longer living in the villa near the Gate of the Giant Scissors, but Cousin Kate hopes to find lodgings near there. She has just spent a week with us while she was making preparations for her journey, and the visit revived all her old interest in my work. She was pleased to find that I am doing practical money-making things like designing book-covers, etc., but she wants me to widen my field, she says.
"She insists on giving me this year abroad, and says it is pure selfishness on her part, because she may want to attach herself to our Paris establishment later on. She is so alone in the world. I am sure that I can make it up to her some day, all that she is doing for me now, in the way that will make her very happy. So I am accepting as cordially as she is giving. When I told her how long I have been away from you all, and that I thought I'd take part of my savings for a flying visit home, she thought I ought to do so by all means, and said that she wanted to add to the happiness of the family, especially mamma's, by sending a handsome Christmas present back with me.
"For several days it seemed as if she would not be able to get exactly what she wanted, but it was finally arranged, just at the last moment, after much trouble on her part. It's perfectly grand, but I've sworn not to even hint at what it is. So expect me Christmas Eve with The Surprise. I'll not write again in the meantime, as I am so very, very busy. Till then good-bye.
"Yours lovingly and joyfully, "JOYCE."
As Mrs. Ware looked up from her reading, everybody spoke at once. "It'salmost too good to be true," was Jack's quick exclamation. "What do yousuppose the surprise will be?" Norman's eager question. While Mary,clasping her elbow with her hands, as if hugging herself in sheerecstasy, cried, "Oh, I just _love_ to be knocked flat and have my breathtaken away with unexpected news like that! It makes you tingle all overand at the same time have a queer die-away feeling too, like when youswoop down in a swing!"
Mrs. Ware took down the almanac hanging in the chimney corner, and beganto turn the pages, looking for the one marked December.
"Oh, you needn't count the days till Christmas," said Mary. "I've beenmarking them off my calendar every morning and can tell you to a dot.Not that I had expected to take much interest in celebrating this year,but just from force of habit, I suppose. But now we'll have to 'put thebig pot in the little one,' as they say back in Kentucky, in honor ofour being all together once more."
"All but Holland," corrected Mrs. Ware sadly, with the wistful lookwhich always came into her eyes whenever his name was mentioned. "That'sthe worst of giving up a boy to the Navy. One has to give him up socompletely."
There was such a note of longing in her voice that Jack hastened to say,"But the worst of it is nearly over now, little mother. He'll be home onhis first furlough next summer."
"Yes, but the years will have made a man of him," answered Mrs. Ware."He'll not be the same boy that left us, and he'll be here such a shorttime that we'll hardly have time to make his acquaintance."
"Oh, but think of when he gets to be a high and mighty Admiral,"exclaimed Mary, comfortingly. "You'll be so proud of him you'll forgetall about the separation. Between him and the Governor I don't know whatwill happen to your pride. It will be so inflated."
Mary had laughingly called Jack the Governor ever since Mrs. Ware'scomplacent remark that day on the train, that it would not surprise herto have such an honor come to her oldest son some day.
"And Joyce, don't forget _her_," put in Norman, feeling in his pocketfor a handful of nuts which he had carried away from the birthday feast."The way she's started out she'll have a place in your hall of fame,too. And me--don't forget _this_ Abou Ben Adhem. Probably my name'lllead all the rest. Where do _you_ expect to come in, Mary? What will_you_ do?"
As he spoke he placed a row of pecans under the rocker of his chair, andbore down on them until the shells cracked. When he had picked out ahandful of kernels, he popped them into his mouth all at once.
"We'll write your name as the Great American Cormorant," laughed Mary,ignoring his question about herself. "You remember that verse, don'tyou?
"'C, my dear, is the Cormorant. When he don't eat more it's because he can't.'
"Mamma, didn't he eat anything at all at the Downs'? He's been stuffingever since he came back--cake and candy, and now those nuts. It'spositively disgraceful to carry food away in your pockets the way youdo, Norman Ware."
"I always do when I go to Billy's house," answered Norman, undisturbedby her criticism, and crashing his rocker down on a row of almonds. "AndBilly always does the same here. We're not company. We're home folks atboth places."
The shells which he threw toward the fire missed their aim and fell onthe hearth. Mary pointed significantly toward the turkey-wing, and he assignificantly shrugged his shoulders, in token that he would not sweepup the mess he had made. They kept up a playful pantomime some time,while Jack and his mother went on discussing Joyce's home-coming, beforehe finally obeyed her peremptory gesture. He thought she was in one ofher jolliest moods, induced by the glorious news of the letter. But allthe time she was silently repeating his question, "Where do _you_ expectto come in, Mary? What will _you_ do?"
Here she was, baffled again. The time she had spent in writing thatletter, now tucked away under her belt, was wasted. It was out of thequestion to appeal to Cousin Kate now, just when she had done so muchfor another member of the family, and especially when she had sailedaway to so vague a place as the south of France, by the doctor's orders.Even if Mary had her address, she felt it would be wrong to bother herwith a request which would require any "pulling of strin
gs." For thatcould not be done without letter writing, and in her state of healtheven that might be some tax on her strength, which she had no right toask. Hope, that had soared so buoyantly an hour before, once more sankdespairingly to earth. What was she to do? Which way could she turnnext?
When bedtime came a little later, Mrs. Ware went in to Norman's room totake some extra cover. Mary lingered to pin some newspapers around herpotted plants and move them away from the windows. Jack, standing infront of the fireplace, winding the clock on the mantel, saw her slip afolded paper from under her belt, and toss it into the fire with such atragic gesture, that he knew without telling that it was the letter onwhich she had worked so industriously. She saw that he understood andshe was grateful that he said nothing.
While they were undressing, Mrs. Ware talked so happily of Joyce'sreturn, that Mary's own glow of anticipation came back. She was notjealous of her sister's good fortune. She had never been that. She waswholly, generously glad for every good thing that had ever come intoJoyce's life, and she was so thrilled with the thought of her cominghome that she was sure she should lie awake all night thinking about it.But when she snuggled down under the warm covers, it was Norman'squestion which kept her awake. "Where do _you_ expect to come in, Mary?What are _you_ going to do?"