CHAPTER XII.
THE HOME OF A HERO.
WITH November came heavier frosts and the first light snowfall of theseason, a skim of ice on the meadow-ponds, shorter days, and longcheerful evenings around the library fire. More than that, it broughtthe end of the extra home-lessons, for by this time the Little Colonelhad not only caught up with her classes, but stood at the head of mostof them.
"I think she deserves a reward of merit," said Papa Jack when she camehome one day, proudly bearing a record of perfect recitations for aweek. And so it came about that the next Friday afternoon she had areward of her own choosing. Allison, Kitty, and Elise were invited outto stay until Monday. So for two happy days four little girls raced backand forth under the bare branches of the locusts, where usually onelonely child walked to and fro by herself. And because the daylight didnot last half long enough, and because bedtime seemed to come hours toosoon, they were invited to come out next week also.
"It is almost like having Betty back again to have Allison," Lloydconfided to her mother. "She is so sensible, and has the same sweetlittle ways that Betty had of thinking of other people's pleasure first.Sometimes I forget and call her Betty. I wish they could all come outagain next week."
"Have you looked at the calendar to see what comes next week, Lloyd?"
"No, mothah. What is it? Anybody's birthday?"
"What do we always have the last Thursday in November?"
"Oh, Thanksgiving!" exclaimed Lloyd, joyfully. "Anothah holiday! Howfast they come!"
Usually Thanksgiving was made a great occasion at Locust, and the housewas full of guests; but this year Mr. Sherman was obliged to be in NewYork all week, and the old Colonel was in Virginia. Lloyd and her motherwere planning to celebrate alone when Aunt Jane sent for them to spendthe Thanksgiving vacation with her in town.
Lloyd never enjoyed her visits to her great-aunt Jane. The house was toobig and solemn with its dark furniture and heavily curtained windows.The chairs were all so tall that they lifted her feet high above thefloor. The books in the library were all heavy volumes with dull, hardnames that she could not pronounce. The tedious hours when she sat inthe invalid's dimly lighted room and listened to the details of her manyailments, or to tales of people whom she had never seen, seemed endless.
This Thanksgiving Day it was unusually cheerless. "All so grown-up andgrumbly!" thought Lloyd. "Seems to me the lesson set for me to learn onevery holiday is patience. I'm tiahed of being patient."
Aunt Jane had her Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the day. Muchturkey and plum-pudding made Lloyd drowsy, and the hour that followedwas a stupid one. She sat motionless in a big velvet armchair listeningto more of Aunt Jane's long stories of unknown people. Now and then shestifled a yawn, wishing with all her heart that she could change placeswith the little newsboy, calling papers in the street below the window,or with the stumpy-tailed dog frisking by in the snow. She fairly achedwith sitting still so long, and wondered how her mother could be sointerested in all that Aunt Jane was telling. She could have clapped herhands for joy when the maid broke the tediousness of the hour by askingMrs. Sherman to step out into the hall. Mrs. Walton wanted to speak toher at the telephone.
Lloyd slipped from her chair and followed her mother out of the room,thankful for any excuse to make her escape. She wished she could hearwhat Mrs. Walton was saying, instead of only one side of theconversation. This is what she heard her mother say:
"Is that you, Mary?"
"Yes; we came in for the Thanksgiving holidays, and expect to stay untilSaturday afternoon."
"A Butterfly Carnival? How lovely!"
"No, I couldn't possibly leave for any length of time, thank you. AuntJane is counting on my staying with her; but I'll gladly accept forLloyd if she is willing to stay away all night without me. Wait amoment, please, I'll ask her."
"Lloyd," she said, turning from the instrument, "Mrs. Walton has justtelephoned me that you are included in the invitation that Anna Moorehas given the girls to the Butterfly Carnival at the Opera Houseto-morrow afternoon. It is for the benefit of the free kindergarten inwhich Mrs. Moore is interested, and she has taken a box at the matineefor Anna and her friends. Anna is going to give a butterfly luncheonjust before the performance. She heard that you were in town andthought that you were visiting Allison, so she called at Mrs. Walton'sto invite you. Mrs. Walton has asked you to stay all night with thegirls. Would you like to go?"
Mrs. Sherman could not help laughing at the expression of delight onLloyd's face as she began noiselessly clapping her hands.
"Oh, if it wouldn't be rude to Aunt Jane," she exclaimed, in a whisper,"I'd just _squeal_, I'm so glad to get out of this dismal place. It isall so grown-up and grumbly heah, and a Buttahfly Cahnival has such adelicious sound."
Mrs. Sherman turned to the receiver again, and Lloyd listened eagerly toone side of a short conversation about what to wear and when to go. ThenMrs. Sherman hung up the receiver, saying, "Allison and Kitty are comingfor you. They will start on the next car. I'll ask Aunt Jane to send theman over with your clothes in a little while, and I'll call in themorning."
Twenty minutes later two bright faces smiled up at the window, twolittle muffs waved an excited greeting, and Kitty and Allison ran up thefront steps to meet the Little Colonel.
"We're going to have the best time that ever was," cried Kitty. "Malcolmand Keith and Rob are invited, too. So is Ranald, but he went out tograndmother's directly after dinner to-day. He said he wouldn't miss thegood times he'd have in the country for forty old Butterfly Carnivals.But the lunch is going to be beautiful, and it will be so nice to go tothe Carnival afterward, and all sit in the same box."
Mrs. Sherman, watching from an upper window, breathed a sigh of reliefas she saw the three girls going gaily down the street together. Sheknew that Lloyd's vacation time could not fail to be a happy one ifspent in the home of her old friend, Mary Walton.
"I feel so queah," said the Little Colonel, as she followed Kitty andAllison into the house and up the stairs to their rooms. "It is just asif some one had waved a wand, and said, 'Presto! change!' Only half anhour ago I was in a big dark house that was as quiet as a deaf and dumbperson. But heah, it seems as if the very walls were talkin', and Ican't take a step without seeing something curious. I am sure that thereis a story about that Indian tomahawk and peace-pipe on the wall, andall those pretty things hanging ovah the doah."
"There is," answered Allison, pausing to point over the bannister to thecurios arranged in the hall below. "Papa brought them back from thatIndian campaign, when he was out so long, and captured that dreadful oldApache chief, Geronimo. The things in that other corner are relics ofthe Cuban War, and the other things are from the Philippines."
Lloyd lingered a moment on the stairs, leaning over the bannister topeep into the library, where a flag, a portrait, and a sword shrined thememory of one of the nation's best beloved. It was only a glimpse shecaught, but with it came the impressive thought that she was in the homeof a hero; and a queer feeling, that she could not understand, surgedover her, warm and tender. It was as if she were in a church and oughtto tread softly, and move reverently in such a presence.
"Come on," called Allison, throwing open the door into her room.
"How different this is from the Cuckoo's Nest," was Lloyd's nextthought, as she looked about the interesting room, filled with toys andsouvenirs from all parts of the world.
"I'd lots rathah look at these things than play," she said, when achoice of entertainment was offered her. "Oh, what a darling book!"
It was a quaint little volume of Japanese fairy tales she pounced upon,printed on queer, crinkly paper, with pictures of amazing dragons andbrilliant birds, such as only the Japanese artists can paint. But beforeshe could examine that, Kitty had brought her a tortoise-shelljinrikisha, and Allison a toy Filipino bed. Elise marshalled out a wholecolony of dolls, from Spanish soldiers to fur-clad Esquimaux babies.Each brought out her special treasures, and all talked at on
ce. Theypiled the floor around her with interesting things, they filled her lap,they covered the chairs and tables. And for every article there was aninteresting tale of the time or place where it had come into theirpossession.
Outside the snow began to fall again. The electric cars passed andrepassed with whirr and rush and clang. The short winter day ended insudden dusk, and the maid came in to light the gas.
"Why, how could it get dark so soon!" exclaimed Lloyd, looking up insurprise as she suddenly realised that it was night. "It doesn't seem tome that I have been heah any time at all. I have enjoyed it so much."
After the big Thanksgiving dinner nobody was very hungry, but they allfollowed Mrs. Walton down to the dining-room for a light lunch. HereLloyd found herself in another treasure-house of interesting things. Shecould not turn her head without a glimpse of something to arouse hercuriosity, the quaint Chinese ladle on the sideboard, the gay processionof elephants and peacocks around the border of the table-cover, the oldarmy chest, the silver candlesticks that had lighted the devotions ofmany a Spanish friar in the gray monasteries of Cuba, and the exquisiteneedlework of the nuns of far-away Luzon.
Mrs. Walton was the tale-teller now, and Lloyd listened with an intenseeagerness that made her dark eyes grow more starlike than ever, andbrought the delicate wild-rose pink flushing up into her cheeks.
Seeing what pleasure it was giving her little guest, Mrs. Walton tookher into the library afterward and opened the cabinets, pointing out oneobject of interest after another. But the things that pleased Lloyd mostwere the bells in the hall. Near the foot of the stairs, in an oakenframe placed there for the purpose, swung three Spanish bells, that hadbeen presented to Mrs. Walton as trophies of war. They had been takenfrom different church towers on the island of Luzon, by the Filipinoinsurgents, when they were sacking the villages and taking everythingbefore them. These bells had been captured from the insurgents by thesoldiers of the general's division. A thrill went through the LittleColonel as Mrs. Walton told her their history, and swung one of thegreat iron tongues back and forth till the hall echoed with the clearringing.
Several times during the evening Lloyd slipped out into the hall againto stand before these mute witnesses of the ravages of war, and tap therims with light finger tips. She tapped so lightly that only thefaintest echo sounded in the hall, but from her rapt face Mrs. Waltonknew that the note awakened other voices in the Little Colonel'simagination. She had known Lloyd ever since she had gone to live atLocust, and she remembered the child's quaint habit of singing toherself.
All the words that pleased her fancy she strung together on the threadof a soft minor tune, in a crooning little melody of her own. "Oh, thebuttercups an' daisies," she had heard her sing one time, standingwaist-high in a field of nodding bloom. "Oh, the buttercups an' daisies,all white an' gold an' yellow. They're all a-smilin' at me! All a-sayin'howdy! howdy!"
And another time when the August lilies, standing white and waxen in themoonlight, had moved the old Colonel to speak tenderly of the wife ofhis youth, Mrs. Walton had seen a smile cross his face, when the babyvoice, unconscious of an audience, crooned softly from the doorstep,"Oh, the locus'-trees a-blowin', an' the stars a-shinin' through them,an' the moonlight an' the lilies, an' Amanthis! An' Amanthis!"
Now, curious to know what thoughts the bells were awakening, Mrs. Waltonbent her head to listen as the Little Colonel chanted to herself in ahalf-whisper, "Oh, the bells, the bells a-tolling, and the tales theyring for evah, of the battle-flags an' victory, an' their hero! An'their hero!"
The tears sprang to Mrs. Walton's eyes as she listened to the child'sinterpretation of the voices of the bells, and presently, when shelooked up and saw Lloyd standing in front of the general's portrait,gazing reverently into the brave, calm face, she crossed the room andput an arm around her.
"Do you know," said the Little Colonel, in a confiding undertone, "whenI look up at that, I know just how Betty feels when she writes poetry.She heahs voices inside, and thinks things too beautiful to find wordsfor. There's something in his face, and about that sword that he usedfor his country, and the flag that he followed, and the bells that ringfor his memory, that make me want to cry; and yet there's a glad, proudfeelin' in my heart because he was so brave, as if he sort of belongedto me, too. It makes me wish I could be a man, and go out and dosomething brave and grand. What do you suppose makes me feel both waysat the same time?"
"It is a part of patriotism," said Mrs. Walton, with a caressing hand onher hair.
"I didn't know I had any," said Lloyd, seriously, looking up withwondering eyes. "I always took grandfathah's side, you know, because theYankees shot his arm off. I hated 'em for it, and I nevah would hurrahfor the Union. I've despised Republicans and the Nawth from the time Icould talk."
"Don't say that, Lloyd," said Mrs. Walton, still caressing her softhair. "What have we to do with that old quarrel? Its time has long goneby. I, too, am a daughter of the South, Lloyd, but surely such lives ashis have not been sacrificed in vain." She pointed impressively to theportrait. "That, if nothing else, would make me want to forget thatNorth and South had ever been arrayed against each other. Surely suchlives as his by their high loyalty should inspire a love of country deepenough to make America the guiding star of the nations."
Bedtime came long before Lloyd was ready for it. "Do you want to tellyour mother good night?" asked Mrs. Walton, stopping at the telephone asthey passed through the upper hall.
"Oh, yes," cried Lloyd. "How different it is from the Cuckoo's Nest. Youcan't get homesick when you know you're at one end of a wiah, and yo'mothah is at the othah."
Mrs. Walton called up Aunt Jane's number, and, putting the receiver intoLloyd's hand, passed on into her room.
"Oh, mothah," Allison heard her say, "it's like livin' in that fairytale, where everything in the picture was made alive. Don't youremembah? The birds sang, and the fishes swam, and the rivah ran.Everything in the picture acted as if it were alive and out of itsframe. Everything in the house talks, for it has a story of its own. Allthe family have been tellin' me stories, and I've had a lovelyThanksgiving Day."
There was a long pause while Mrs. Sherman answered, then Allison heardLloyd's voice again.
"The lesson is a beautiful one this time. It isn't patience any moah. Itis _Patriotism_. Good night. Can you catch a kiss? Heah it is." Allisonheard the noise of her lips, and then a laughing good night as she hungup the receiver.
They often had what they called night-gown parties at the Waltons, andthey had one that night, when they were all ready for bed. The littlegroup of white-robed figures gathered on the hearth rug at Mrs. Walton'sfeet, counting their causes for thankfulness, and chattering sociably ofmany things. Presently, across the merry conversation, fell arecollection that rested on Lloyd's mind like a shadow. She rememberedMolly in her bare little bedroom over the kitchen, at the Cuckoo's Nest.Poor little Molly, who could never know a happy Thanksgiving so long asDot was away from her!
Here was shelter and home-light and mother-love, but Molly had none ofthe latter to be thankful for. Lloyd could not drive away the thought,and when there came a pause in the conversation she began tellingMolly's story to her interested listeners. It had the same effect onthem that it had on Joyce and Eugenia, and presently Allison slippeddown to the library to bring up a volume of bound magazines that thegirls might see the picture that reminded Molly of Dot.
The grief of the poor little waif seemed very real to Elise, who hungover the picture, calling attention to every detail of the shabby room."Look at the old broken stool," she said, "and her thin little arms.And her shoes are all worn out, too. I wish she had a pair of mine."
Long after she was tucked away in her little white bed she called outthrough the darkness, "Mamma, do you s'pose Dot knows how to say herprayers?"
"I don't know, darling," came the answer. "It has been a long time sinceshe had any one to teach her." There was a pause, then another whisperedcall.
"Mamma, do you s'pose it
would do any good if I'd say them for her?"
"Yes, love, I am sure it would."
There was a rustling of bedclothes. Two bare feet struck the floor, andElise knelt down in the dark, saying, softly:
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, her soul to keep. If she should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
Please, God, help poor little lost Dot to get back to her sister. Amen.There, I guess he'll know, even if it did sound sort of mixed up," shesaid, climbing back to bed with a sigh of mingled relief andsatisfaction.
"That's the kind he loves best, little one," said her mother, cominginto the room to tuck her in once more. "It doesn't make any differenceabout the pronouns. The more we mix our neighbours with ourselves in ourprayers, the better he is pleased."