CHAPTER IV
AN ANGEL IN DISGUISE
"IT'S rather worse to be ill with nothing the matter than to besensibly ill of a disease," said poor Mrs. Scollard speaking feebly,but with an attempt at her own cheerfulness.
She had been ill for three weeks, and had not improved perceptiblyover her condition in the beginning. "Only a nervous collapse," thedoctor repeated. It had been so long coming on that the recovery mustbe proportionately long. And how could she get better with the thoughtthat when her strength had given out, the family income had ceasedsitting like a vulture at her bedside? Small as was the rent of the"Patty-Pans," still it must be paid. A month was as long as she couldbe idle, yet that month was nearly past, and she was no better.
Margery, Bob and Happie for the first time realized what a vitally realthing money is, and vainly strove to find a way to take their mother'splace as the bread-winners. They understood only too clearly that therewas no chance for that dear mother to get well while she lay in thesecond Patty-Pan room with anxiety tearing at her heart-strings.
Ralph and Snigs and their fine mother were comforts in those blackdays, but it was on Miss Bradbury that the Scollards found themselvesrelying with hourly increasing appreciation of her strength. Thatremarkable woman had not suggested returning to her home, but nightlyoccupied the parlor couch in the Patty-Pans, and daily took charge ofits sorrowful tenants. Delicacies such as Margery would not have daredto buy found their way to Mrs. Scollard, and Margery discovered whenshe went to market that there were no out-standing accounts such as shehad been dreading with the neighboring tradesmen; Miss Keren-happuchpaid as she went out of her own purse, which the Scollard girls hadalways believed to be not over-abounding.
"Over-doing in work is not likely to lead to under-doing a breakdown,"Miss Bradbury replied to Mrs. Scollard's remark. "Nature is anexcellent accountant, and knows how to collect her dues. I think Ishould be satisfied with what ails you, if I were you, Charlotte."
She altered the position of Mrs. Scollard's pillows and smoothedthem with a touch singularly gentle in such an energetic person, andbeckoned Margery to follow her into the dining-room. Laura sat herein an attitude of despair, her feet stuck straight out before herindifferently to the size of the room, her arms hanging over the backof her chair. Bob and Happie were trying to occupy themselves with thelessons which their mother would have required had she been well,and serene little Polly sat rocking her doll, she the more sleepyof the two, though the doll's eyes did droop with the motion of therocking-chair.
Miss Bradbury took the chair which Polly had occupied when the littlegirl yielded it up on her entrance, and gathered Polly into her lap,who in turn still held Phyllis Lovelocks tight.
"Now, my dears," began Miss Keren-happuch in her businesslike way thatcovered so much tenderness, "you all look dreadfully worried. You mustnot; your mother will get well after she gets to the country."
"Why, Aunt Keren!" exclaimed Happie reproachfully. "When you know shecan't even afford to stay in the city!"
"Which is the reason that she is going to my farm, that, and the factthat she must have fresh air and quiet," said Miss Keren-happuch.
"Your farm!" exclaimed all the children together.
"Yes; in Pennsylvania," said Miss Bradbury calmly. "I have never seenit, and I doubt strongly that I shall be particularly pleased with thesight. But a farm it is, of some seventy acres, up in the mountains,and there is where we are going in two weeks."
"We don't understand," cried Bob, after he had exchanged excited andbewildered glances with the others.
"There is nothing more to understand," declared Miss Bradbury. "Polly,your doll's arm will break off if you don't turn it around. Yourmother must rest, there is no money to provide that rest, I must go tothe country somewhere, so instead of boarding this summer, I am goingto open that house of mine, which I have never seen, and you childrenare going to keep house for your mother and me indefinitely. It's notin the least difficult nor mysterious."
"You trump!" cried Bob with an enthusiasm that prevented any suspicionof disrespect.
"I heard a boy say lately that he would not live in the country foranything," observed Miss Bradbury with her twinkle.
"But to save his mother, and when he didn't know how he could liveanywhere!" cried Bob.
"You dear, dear, blessed Aunt Keren!" cried Happie, throwing herselfupon her adopted relative with an abandon which, under ordinarycircumstances that lady would have disapproved.
"There, there! I suppose it is a relief," she said patting Happie'sback. "But I warn you that it will not be at all attractive, probably.I took it for a debt, and my debtor said afterwards, so I am told, thatit was cheaper to give it to me than to keep it. I suspect that hepretended not to be able to pay me in money in order to get rid of thisfarm. So you may be prepared for going into the wilderness. However, itwill be a wilderness of pure air and great altitude, and we can existsomehow. It will undoubtedly build up poor Charlotte."
"I am going to like it," Happie declared. "I learned to like tomatoes,and I thought that in all this world I could never taste them a secondtime. And I love olives now, but when I first tried one, I really hadto rush away from the table. So I am going to love that farm no matterwhat it is. How could we help loving a place that cured motherkins?"
"Aunt Keren, you are an angel in disguise," announced Laura solemnly.
"I must admit the disguise," retorted Miss Bradbury. "Now, children, Iwant you to get ready to go out of town in two weeks from now. Can youdo it?"
"Yes, but we have a lease of the Patty-Pans; we shall have to sub-letit," said Margery, with the tiny anxious line appearing in her forehead.
"Furnished," supplemented Miss Bradbury. "I shall send up all thefurniture necessary. There is some furniture there; I don't know howmuch, nor how good."
"Nobody has told you what we think of your giving up your comfortablesummer in the White Mountains and down in Maine, without a care, andgoing up to this farm in order to cure dear mother, and to help us,"said Margery, with a quiver in her voice.
"Nonsense!" cried Miss Keren-happuch briskly. "Every landed proprietorshould look after his estate. It is high time that I saw mine. I shallenjoy the novelty of the situation. For the rest, Margaret, I have avery real affection for your mother, and a profound respect for the waythat she has fought her good fight for you orphaned children. Thereis more than you know in my feeling for Charlotte; your grandmotherand I were not ordinary friends. I should not do less than my best forher daughter, even if I were not as fond of her as I am. So there isnothing more to be said on that head."
"We will call the farm 'the Ark,'" said Happie. "It will be our refugein this flood of affliction."
"It's not a particularly original name, Hapsie," remarked Bob. "I thinklots of houses have been called the Ark, but it fits this case to a T.I don't suppose there's any doubt that we should not have had a placein which to lay our heads if it had not been for Aunt Keren and herfarm."
A knocking at the dumb waiter door warned the Scollards that Ralphand Snigs wanted to be admitted; they had adopted this substitute forthe bell not to disturb Mrs. Scollard. Polly slipped down from MissBradbury's lap and ran to open the door to them.
"Boys, what do you think?" cried Happie the moment they entered. "Weare going away!"
The Gordons had known all the troubles, the anxieties that threatenedto engulf their neighbors, and had shared their despondency over aprospect that held no hope. They stopped short, looking hardly lessexcited than the family group.
"What do you mean?" Ralph cried.
"Going away with blessed Aunt Keren to a farm she owns inPennsylvania," Happie said. "It will save mother's life--and youknow what else it will do, Ralph. We are going to try to sub-let thePatty-Pans furnished, so it won't be good-bye forever to you."
"And my mother wants to find another flat!" cried Snigs, getting veryred in the effort to speak fast enough. "There are some co
llege boysfrom the South want to stay in New York all summer. She wants to rentanother flat and take them with her. She was saying to-night she mightmove if she could not get one in this house. Mayn't we have yours?"
"Now, did you ever in all your life?" demanded Happie of the world atlarge. And the world at large, in the person of Margery, Bob and Laura,replied that it never did! Even Miss Bradbury seemed elated over thisremarkable coincidence of need and supply on both sides.
"Come on over and tell mother about it!" said Snigs, seizing Bob's arm,and gesticulating wildly to Margery and Happie, while plunging towardsthe door as if he feared the escape of the Patty-Pans or of his mother,unless they were at once permanently secured to each other.
"Go, if you like," Miss Bradbury supplemented. "I think I will unfoldmy plan to your mother this moment. The rule is not to talk to anervous invalid at night, but I suspect that she is more sleepless nowfrom worry than she will be from excitement over a prospect which,though not brilliant, at least holds a solution of her troubles."
The oldest Scollards having departed with and to their neighbors, MissKeren-happuch went into their mother's room, and seated herself on theedge of the bed with an air of such resolution that the sick womanhumorously wondered whether she had come to amputate or to execute.
"You are to be deported, Charlotte," she announced decidedly.
"Deported? Why and whence?" asked Mrs. Scollard.
"For precisely the same reason that the authorities alwaysdeport--because you are not fit to stay," replied Miss Bradbury. "Weare going to spend the summer on my Pennsylvania farm, your family andmyself."
"I didn't know you had a farm," gasped Mrs. Scollard, catching at thefirst thing that occurred to her to say, overwhelmed with the magnitudeof the announcement.
"Neither did I, fully, until to-day," said Miss Bradbury. "I have neverseen it, but I believe it will shelter us. As soon as you are able tomove we are going, and our return is most indefinite. You are going tosub-let the Patty-Pans, furnished, and the girls are to keep house forus while we enjoy ourselves without a care upon our minds."
"Dear, dear Miss Keren!" sobbed Mrs. Scollard with the ready tears ofnervous prostration. "How good you are! But do you think I could letyou take my place, and support all my family for several months?"
"Nonsense, Charlotte! I shall save money. My summers cost me not lessthan three hundred dollars always, junketing around from hotel tohotel, from the seashore to the mountains. We won't spend three hundreddollars up there, not all of us put together, if I know anything aboutan isolated farm. And I really ought to look after my property. Whatdo I get out of the sort of summers I usually spend? Weariness andvexation of spirit! Dress three times a day, not a solitary spot thatisn't humming with summer voices! When I want to sit down and hearthe waves, or to read, I have to hear a lot of empty-headed womentelling one another about their servants' misdeeds, or how the tailorspoiled a coat, or--worst of all--how seriously they doubt the wisdomof speaking to some of the other women, one of whom is too quiet tobe a desirable acquaintance, and the other too gay to know! And allthe long golden summer days they sit on the piazza and make hideous,useless things out of pretty materials! It is nothing to regret that Imay spend one summer on my own probably worthless estate, in dignifiedseclusion. Whether or not, we are going. I did not come to consult you,but to announce it. So go to sleep. For half a year you are to have avacation where, at the worst, you will be two thousand feet above tidewater, and must get strong, knowing the children are safe, and you aresecure, breathing good air, even if there is little else to live on.Go to sleep, Charlotte, and stop worrying, because I want you to getstrong enough to go at once. Since I have remembered my farm, I am allyouthful impatience to see it."
Good Miss Keren-happuch arose with a jerk, intending to stalk out ofthe room, but Mrs. Scollard sprang up and caught her around the neck."You dear, you dear! I can't thank you!" she sobbed.
"I don't remember suggesting that you should," said Miss Keren gruffly.But the kiss with which she laid her old friend's daughter back uponthe pillow was very tender.
* * * * *
Mrs. Gordon was delighted with the opportunity to take the Patty-Pansand its furniture; it fitted her plans to obtain it quite as well as itworked for the Scollards to have her assume it. Before any one had timeto realize what had happened, energetic Miss Bradbury had set Margeryand Happie at their preparations for departure, and going away hadbecome a definite fact.
It seemed a little formidable to the three eldest children, now thatthe plan had taken on definiteness. Mrs. Scollard was about again,proving that if one can find the way to minister to a mind diseased,strength attends on such ministration, but she was still so weak andpale that Margery could hardly look at her without tears. She triedhard to be brave, but she dreaded leaving behind her the only life thatshe had known, to go away into an untried life among new surroundings.
More than any of the other children, Happie had a cat-like love ofplace, and to her it was very hard to go away from New York withuncertainty in her mind as to how or when she could return to it.
"I suppose I shall go around wailing and gnashing my teeth, Bob," sheconfided to her brother. But Bob knew her, and her ability to make thebest of something that was not merely a bad bargain, but no bargain atall.
"Not you, Hapsie!" he said. "You will find a dozen good reasons forpreferring that farm to any other spot on earth, no matter if it turnsout as bad as Martin Chuzzlewit's Eden."
"That's not a bad testimony to the fitness of your nickname, Happie,"smiled Margery.
Laura openly gave way to grief, which she carefully fostered inherself, for Laura loved the role of martyr as well as Happie loved tobe sunny.
It troubled Mrs. Scollard sorely to see Laura's sorrow until shetook to singing Schubert's "Adieu," as a suitable expression of herwoe, then her mother smiled at the sentimental little girl, justlyconcluding that sentimental grief was not dangerously deep.
Jeunesse Doree was to accompany his family as a matter of course,though the old colored woman who came to clean for them held up herhands in horror at the suggestion.
"You sholy won't have luck if you takes him," she groaned. "'Twan'tnever reckoned right where I come fum to move a cat, and I just begsan' prays you let him run. It's bad nuff ter see you goin', let 'lonewif a cat."
"We think it would be very bad luck to be deprived of Doree," smiledMrs. Scollard. "And surely, Amanda, some sort of punishment ought tofall on those who would turn a petted creature into the street tostarvation and ill-treatment! I think I'd rather risk the effect oftaking him."
"Bob has bought a beautiful strong basket for him," said Happieapplauding her mother's sentiments with a bright smile as she wentthrough the Patty-Pans parlor.
She found Laura with Polly in the chamber which they shared, Pollywatching her elder with a face expressive of puzzled awe, tempered byamusement. Penny was lost in the labor of packing the animals into alarge Noah's ark, and losing her patience with the bulk of elephantsand flies--which really did not differ materially--and with unruly legsand horns which got continually entangled.
"Bob says," the mite was remarking, "we's all going to live in a nark,an' for me to get you nanimals all back 'gain 'fore ve flood. If youdon't swallow you' horns, you foolsish mooly cow, you, I'll make yousail on ve roof, and vhen you'll see!"
"Leave the ducks and geese out to swim, Penny mine, and you'll havemore room," suggested Happie. "Let Happie coax the cow to draw in herhorns. There, you see what good it does to pat her and to speak to hergently? She's in. What are you doing, Laura?"
Laura looked up, raised her eyebrows, and sighed with her grown-up air,but she did not answer.
"She says she's going to put all her pretty things in a box and mark itfor me when I'm twelve, going on thirteen," said Polly answering forher. "She says she's sure she'll never live to use 'em. Now, isn't thatsilly? Because farms are healthy, I thought!"
Happie laughed. "Oh, Lau
ra," she cried, "how can you be such a goose? Iwouldn't count on getting those treasures if I were you, Polly. I thinkLaura may live to use them."
Laura regarded Happie with serene superiority. "Grief often kills," shesaid with the brevity of a tragic poet. "I'm sure I shall pine away. Doyou know what nostalgia means?"
Again Happie laughed out merrily. "No; do you?" she said.
"It means homesickness," replied Laura with crushing dignity. "I foundthe word in a book of poetry and I looked it up, because I knew it mustmean something lovely and sad. I made a song without words about it;it goes this way." And Laura hummed a line of music that was more minorthan any known key seemed able to represent.
"Isn't that perfectly be-au-ti-ful?" she demanded. "Doesn't that soundjust like nostalgia? That may be my last composition; it will be ifthis move kills me, as I 'most know it will. Wouldn't you feel surethat meant some one dying of homesickness if you heard it, and no onetold you?"
"What a queer thing you are, Laura!" exclaimed Happie, halfimpressed, though she could never keep a respectfully straight faceover Laura's performances. "I can't tell whether it sounds likenos--what-you-call-it or not, because I never heard the word before, soI haven't had time to know it set to music, but I don't think I shouldknow that tune meant homesickness. It sounds to me like the wail of thewasherwoman who got too much blueing in the clothes--it's the bluestthing I ever heard."
"You haven't one bit of--of anything in you, Happie," said Lauraturning away pettishly.
Bob came in, his arms full of half-discarded boyish treasures. "Say,what do you think, Hap; will there be room for this stuff?" hedemanded. "I could give it up, but I'd just as lief keep it. You see itwon't be our house."
"Still there must be room for everything, since it's a farm, and wehave a freight car to ourselves. I'd keep it," said Happie with theunderstanding she could not give Laura.
"I guess I asked you instead of Margery because I wanted that advice,and I knew you'd give it--she thinks I clutter," said Bob. "Are yougoing to take all your own Lares and Penates?"
"What it is to have a classical education!" exclaimed Happie in mockadmiration. "No; we are only going to take our Laura and Penelope."And she swooped down to snatch a refreshing kiss from the pink andwhite baby, and to rescue a particularly spotted dog from having hisexceedingly curled-up tail shut in the cover of the Noah's ark.
* * * * *
At last all the preparations were completed, the Patty-Pans flat wasshining and fleckless, everything in apple-pie order to be relinquishedto Mrs. Gordon's care. Ralph and Snigs were inconsolable over theapproaching parting until Miss Bradbury hinted her intention of askingthem to follow the exiles sometime during the summer, when they pluckedup heart and began to plan for meeting on the farm.
It was a cold, raw day in April, a day left over from March gettingused up in April, a most dreary and uncomfortable day on which to setforth upon a journey with an invalid to migrate from the city to thecountry, and to a house the comfort of which there was good reason todoubt.
The Gordon boys went to the station and pressed upon their friends, inparting, bulky packages of almost any possibilities. They shook handswith emotion, and the Scollard party sank into its seats silently witha suspicious redness about other lashes than Laura's, though everybodymade heroic efforts to appear cheerful, and not ungrateful for MissBradbury's kindness. The only way to succeed in this effort was to keepconstantly in view the good that was to be done the dear mother.
The warmth of the train was welcome. Poor Mrs. Scollard sank into thecorner of her chair hardly able to endure the neuralgia which had addeditself to her weakness, glad of the friendly steam pipes.
The train pulled slowly out of the station, and steamed, withincreasing speed across the plains of Jersey towards the distant hills.
No one spoke for some time. Then Happie aroused herself. "I wonder ifthe farm has good cherry-trees," she said.
Bob laughed. "Already, Happie?" he said. "I thought it would takelonger than this for even your barometer to indicate clearing."
Happie smiled a feeble smile. "I'm afraid I don't much care whether ithas or not," she said. "I just happened to think of it."
"Don't apologize," returned Bob. "It's a comfort to have you beginningto sit up and take notice."
Jeunesse Doree purred when one of the children peeped into his basket,according to his cheerful habit of responding with a song to any notice.
After a time the landscape arose from the dull level of its beginningsand began to put on beauty. The hills were showing their heads in thedistance, with blue vaporous lights playing over them in the palesunshine of the chill afternoon.
On they steamed, the grade perceptibly higher, until all the youngfolk were looking out of the windows, enjoying the barren beauty ofthe mountains in the early spring. Mrs. Scollard felt the benedictionof space and quiet, her throbbing nerves grew more still as her eyessought the horizon with the delight this beauty-loving woman alwaysfound in nature.
Miss Bradbury sat preternaturally stiff and straight looking at thescene, which was as new to her as to any of the others, with theapproval of a proprietor.
"It's pretty here!" cried Polly, as the train rounded a curve. As shespoke the travelers felt its motion retard. It stopped, and the guardcalled out: "Crestville!" They had arrived.