“You haven’t asked us what we came for,” opened up Allison as soon as everybody was served with chicken, mashed potato, succotash, stewed tomatoes, biscuits, pickles, and apple-sauce.
“I thought you came for cookies,” said Julia Cloud, with a mischievous twinkle in her gray eyes.
“Hung one on me, didn’t you?” said Allison, laughing. “But that wasn’t all. Guess again.”
“Perhaps you came to see me,” she suggested shyly.
“Right you are! But that’s not all, either. That wouldn’t last much longer than the cookies. Guess again.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” said Julia Cloud, growing suddenly stricken with the thought of their going. “I give it up.”
“Well, then I’ll tell you. You see we’ve come East to college, both of us. Of course I’ve had my freshman year, but the Kid’s just entering. We haven’t decided which college it’s to be yet, but it’s to be co-ed, we know that much, because we’re tired of being separated. When one hasn’t but two in the family and has been apart for five years, one appreciates a home, I tell you that. And so we’ve decided we want a home. We’re not just going to college to live there in the usual way; we’re going to take a house, live like real folks, and go to school every day. We want a fireplace and a cooky-jar of our own; a place to bring our friends and have good times. But most of all we want a mother, and we’ve come all this way to coax you to come and live with us, play house, you know, as you used to do down on the mossy rocks with broken bits of china for dishes and acorns for cups and saucers. Play house and you be mother. Will you do it, Cloudy Jewel? It means a whole lot to us, and we’ll try to play fair and make you have a good time.”
Julia Cloud put her hand on her heart, and lifted her bewildered eyes to the boy’s eager face.
“Me!” she said wonderingly. “You want me!”
“We sure do!” said Allison.
“Indeed we do, Cloudy, dear! That’s just what we do want!” cried Leslie, jumping up and running around to her aunt’s chair to embrace her excitedly. “And you promised, you know, that you would do what we wanted if you possibly, possibly could.”
“You see, we put it up to our guardian about the house,” went on Allison, “and he said the difficulty would be to get the right kind of a housekeeper that he could trust us with. Of course he’s way off in California, and he has to be fussy. He’s built that way. But we told him we didn’t want any housekeeper at all, we wanted a mother. He said you couldn’t pick mothers off trees, but we told him we knew where there was one if we could only get her. So he let us come and ask; and, if you say you’ll do it, he’s coming down to see you and fix it up about the money part. He said you’d have to have a regular salary or he wouldn’t consider it, because there were things he’d have to insist upon that he had promised mother; and, if there wasn’t a business arrangement about it, he wouldn’t know what to do. Besides, he said it was worth a lot to run a couple of rough-necks like Les and me, and he’d make the salary all right so you could afford to leave whatever you were doing and just give your time to mothering us. Now it’s up to you, Cloudy Jewel, to help us out with our proposition or spoil everything, because we simply won’t have a housekeeper, and we don’t know another real mother in the whole world that hasn’t a family of her own.”
They both left their delicious dinner, and got around her, coaxing and wheedling exactly as if she had already declined, when the truth was she was too dazed with joy to open her lips, even if they had given her opportunity to speak.
It was some time before the excitement quieted down and they gave her a chance to say she would go. Even then she spoke the words with fear and trembling as one might step off a commonplace threshold into a fairy palace, not sure but it might be stepping into space.
Outside the sky was still flooded with after-sunset glory, but there was so much glory in the hearts of the three inside the dining-room that they never noticed it at all. It might have been raining or hailing, and they would not have known, they were so happy.
Both the guests donned long gingham aprons and wiped the dishes when the meal was over, both talking with all their might, recalling the days of their childhood when they had had towels pinned around them and been allowed to dry the cups and pans; then suddenly jumping ahead and planning what they would do in the dear new home of the future. They were all three as excited about it as if they had been a bridal couple planning for their honeymoon.
“We shall want five bedrooms,” said Leslie decidedly. “I’ve thought that all out, one for each of us and two guest-rooms, so we can have a boy and a girl home for overnight with us as often as we want to. And there simply must be a fireplace, or we won’t take the house. If there isn’t the right kind of a house in town, we’ll choose some other college. There are plenty of colleges, but you can have only one home, and it must be the right kind. Then of course we want a big kitchen where we can make fudge as often as we choose in the evenings, and a dining-room with a bay-window, with seats and flowers and a canary. Cloudy Jewel, you don’t mind cats, do you? I want two at least. I’ve been crazy for a kitten all the time I was in school, and Al wants a big collie. You won’t mind, will you?”
Suddenly Julia Cloud discovered that latent in her heart all these years there had also lain a desire for a cat and a dog; and she lifted guilty eyes, and confessed it. She felt a pang of remembrance as she recalled how her mother used so often to tell her she was nothing but an “old child.”
“Perhaps your guardian will not think me a proper person to chaperon you,” she suggested in sudden alarm.
“Well, he’d just better not!” declared Allison, bristling up. “I’d like to know where he could find a better.”
“I’ve never been in society,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. “I don’t know social ways much, and I’ve never been considered to have any dignity or good judgment.”
“That’s just why we like you,” chorused the children. “You’ve never grown up and got dull and stiff and poky like most grown folks.”
“We were so afraid,” began Leslie, putting a loving arm about her aunt’s waist, “that you would have changed since we were children. We talked it all over on the way here. We had a kind of eyebrow code by which we could let each other know what we thought about it without your seeing us. We were to lift one eyebrow, the right one, if we were favorably impressed, and draw down the left if we were disappointed. But in case we were sure both eyebrows were to go up. And of course we were sure you were just the same dear the minute we laid eyes on you, and all four of our eyebrows went high as they’d go the first instant. Didn’t you notice Allison? His eyebrows were almost up to his hair, and they pulled his eyes so wide open they were perfectly round like saucers. As for me I think mine went way up under my hair. I’m not sure if they’ve got back to their natural place even yet!” And Leslie laid a rosy finger over her brow, and felt anxiously along the delicate velvety line.
“I shall go out and telegraph Mr. Luddington that you are willing,” announced Allison as he hung up the dish-towel. “He’ll get it in the morning when he reaches Boston, and then he needn’t fuss and fume any longer about what he’s going to do with us. Besides, I like to have the bargain clinched somehow, and a telegram will do it.” Allison slammed out of the house noisily to the extreme confusion of Mrs. Ambrose Perkins, who hadn’t been able to eat her supper properly for watching the house to see what would happen next. Who could that young man be?
She simply couldn’t get a clew; for, when she went over for the soda, though she knocked several times, and heard voices up-stairs, and altogether unseemly laughter for a house where there had just been a funeral, not a soul came to the door! Could it be that Julia Cloud heard her and stayed up-stairs on purpose? She felt that as the nearest neighbor and a great friend, of Ellen’s it would be rather expected of her to find out what was going on. She resolutely refrained from lighting the parlor lamp, and took up her station at the dark window to watch; but, although she sat there until after ten o’clock, she was utterly unable to find out anything except that the household across the way stayed up very late and there were lights in both front rooms again. She felt that if nothing developed by morning she would just have to get Ambrose to hitch, up and drive out to Ellen’s. Ellen ought to know.
But Julia Cloud was serenely unconscious of this espionage. She had entered an Eden of bliss, and was too happy to care about anything else.
Seated on the big old couch in the parlor with a child on either side of her, a hand in each of hers, often a head on each shoulder nestling down, they talked. Planned and talked. Now the brother would break in with some tale of his school-days; now the sister would add a bit of reminiscence, just as if they had been storing it all up to tell her. The joyous happiness of them all seemed like heaven dropped down to earth. It was as she had sometimes dreamed mothers might talk with their own children. And God had granted this unspeakable gift to her! Was it real? Would it last? Or was she only dreaming? Once it vaguely passed through her mind that she would not be sure of the reality of the whole thing until she had seen Ellen. If she could talk with Ellen about it, tell her what she was going to do, show her the children, and then come back and find it all the same, it would last. But somehow she shrank unspeakably from seeing Ellen. She could not get away from the feeling that Ellen would dispel it all; that someway, somehow, she would succeed in breaking up all the bright plans and scattering them like soap-bubbles in the wind.
Nevertheless, it was a very beautiful illusion, if illusion it was; and one to be prolonged as late as possible.
She was horrified when at last she heard the rebuking strokes of the town clock, ten! eleven! twelve!
She started to her feet ashamed.
And even then they would not let her go to bed at once. She must turn out the lights, and sit in the hall between their rooms as she did long ago, and tell the story of “The Little Rid Hin” just as she had told it night after night when they were children.
It was characteristic of the unfailing youth of the woman that she entered into the play with zest. Attired in a long kimono, with her beautiful white hair in two long silver braids down over her shoulders, she sat in the dark and told the story with the same vivid language; and then she stole on tiptoe first to the sister’s bedside, to tuck her in and kiss her softly, and then to the brother’s; and at each bedside a young, strong arm reached out and drew her face down, whispering “Good-night” with a kiss and “I love you, Cloudy Jewel,” in tender, thrilling tones.
The two big children were asleep at last, and Julia Cloud stole to her own bed to lie in a tumult of wonder and joy, and finally sink into a light slumber, wherein she dreamed that she had fallen heir to a rose-garden, and all the roses were alive and could talk; until Ellen came driving up in her Ford and ran right over them, crushing them down and cutting their heads off with a long, sharp whip she carried that somehow turned out to be made of words strung together with biting sarcasm.
She awoke in the broad morning sunlight to find both children done up in bath-robes and slippers, sitting one each side of her on the bed, laughing at her and tickling her chin with a feather from the seam of the pillow.
“Now, Cloudy Jewel, you’ve just got to begin to make plans!” announced Leslie, curling up in a ball at her feet and looking very business-like with her fluffy curls around her face like a golden fleece. “There isn’t much time, and Guardy Lud will be down upon us by to-morrow or the next day at least.”
“Guardy Lud!” exclaimed Julia Cloud bewildered. “Who is that?”
“That’s our pet name for Mr. Luddington,” explained Leslie, wrinkling up her nose in a grin of merriment. “Isn’t it cute? Wait till you see him, and you’ll see how it fits. He’s round and bald with a shiny red nose, and spectacles; and he doesn’t mind our kidding at all. He’d have made a lovely father if he wasn’t married, but he has a horrid wife. We don’t like her at all. She’s like a frilly piece of French china with too much decoration; and she’s always sick and nervous; and she jumps, and says ‘Oh, mercy!’ every time we do the least little thing. She doesn’t like us any better than we like her. Her name is Alida, and Allison says we’re always trying to ‘elude’ her. The only good thing she ever did was to advise Guardy Lud to let us come East to college. She wanted to get us as far away from her as possible. And it certainly was mutual.”
“There, now, Leslie, you’re chattering again,” broke in Allison, looking very tall and efficient in his blue bath-robe. “You said you would talk business, and not bleat.”
“Well, so I am,” pouted Leslie. “I guess Cloudy has got to understand about our family.”
“Well, now let’s get down to business,” said her brother. “Cloudy, what have you got to do before you leave? You know it isn’t very long before the colleges open, and we’ve got to start out and hunt a home right away. Do you have to pack up here or anything?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” gasped Julia Cloud, looking around half frightened. “I suppose I ought to ask Ellen. She will be very much opposed to anything I do, but I suppose she ought to be told first.”
Allison frowned.
“Gee whiz! I don’t see why Aunt Ellen has to butt into our affairs. She’s got her own home and family, and she never did like us very much. I remember hearing her tell Grandma that we were a regular nuisance, and she would be glad when we were gone back to California.”
“That was because you hid behind the sofa when Uncle Herbert was courting her, and kidded them,” giggled Leslie.
A stray little twinkle of a dimple peeped out by the corner of Julia Cloud’s mouth. It hadn’t been out for a number of years, and she knew she ought not to laugh at such pranks now; but it was so funny to think of Herbert Robinson being kidded in the midst of his courting!
The dimple started the lights dancing in Leslie’s eyes.
“There! now you dear old Jewel, you know you don’t want to talk to Aunt Ellen about us. She’ll just mess things all up. Let’s just do things, and get ’em all fixed up, and then tell her when it’s too late for her to make a fuss,” gurgled Leslie down close to Julia’s ear, finishing up with a delicious bear-hug.
“I suppose she’ll be mortally offended,” murmured Julia Cloud in troubled hesitancy.
“Well, suppose she is; she’ll get over it, won’t she?” growled Allison. “And anyhow you’re old enough to manage your own affairs, Cloudy Jewel. I guess you’re older than she is, aren’t you? I guess you’ve got a right to do as you please, haven’t you? And you do want to go with us, don’t you?” His voice was anxious.
“I certainly do, dear boy,” said Julia Cloud eagerly; “but you know your guardian may not approve at all when he sees what a foolish ‘young’ aunt I am, allowing you to sit up late and talk fairy stories all the time.”
They smothered her in kisses, compliments, and assurances; and it was some time before the conversation swung around again to the important subject of the morning.
“You don’t have to do anything to the house but just shut it up, do you?” asked Allison, looking anxiously about in a helpless, mannish way. “Because, if you do, we ought to be getting to work.”
“There’s a man over at Harmony Village that wanted to rent a house here,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. “I might write a letter to him. I don’t know whether he’s found anything or not. He’s the new superintendent of the high school. But it’s time we got dressed and had breakfast.”
“Write to him nothing!” said Allison eagerly. “I’ll get the car, and we’ll drive over to Harmony in no time, and get the thing fixed up. Hustle there, Leslie, and get yourself togged up. We don’t need to wait for breakfast; we can eat cookies. Hurry everybody!” And he slammed over to his own room and began to stir about noisily.
Julia Cloud arose and made a hasty toilet, with a bright spot of excitement on each cheek; but she had no time to think what Ellen would say, for she meant that these children should have a real old-time breakfast before they began the day; and now that she was up her little round black clock on the bureau told her that it was high time the day had begun. She looked fearfully out of the window, half expecting to see Ellen’s Ford bobbing down the hill already, and then hurried down to the kitchen. Allison soon came down, calling out to her to be ready when he came back with the car; but the delicious odors that had already begun to float out from the old kitchen made him lenient toward the idea of breakfast; and, when he came back with the full cut-out roaring the announcement of his arrival to the Perkinses, he was quite ready to wait a few minutes and eat some of Julia Cloud’s flapjacks and sausages with maple-syrup and apple-sauce.
Julia Cloud herself ate little. She was in a tremor of delightful uncertainty and dread. Ought she to go ahead this way and manage her own affairs, leaving her own sister out of the question? But then, if she consulted with Ellen that meant consulting with Herbert; for Herbert ran his wife most thoroughly, and Herbert could make things very unpleasant when he took the trouble.
So, when the children, unable at last to eat any more, pleaded with her to leave the dishes and go to see the man about the house at once, she gave one swift, apprehensive glance about, and assented. If Ellen should come to the house while they were away, and should look in at the window and see the breakfast dishes standing! It would be appalling! But, as the children said, why worry? Somehow she felt like a little schoolgirl playing hookey as she carefully drew down the dining-room and kitchen window-shades that looked on the back porch, and locked the front door behind her. Well, perhaps she had earned the right to take this bit of a holiday, and wash her dishes when she liked. Anyhow, hadn’t God sent these blessed children to her in answer to her earnest prayer that He would show her what to do and save her if possible from having to spend the remainder of her days under Herbert Robinson’s roof? Well, then she would just accept it that way and be grateful, at least until He showed her otherwise. So she drew a long breath of delight, and climbed into the luxurious back seat of the great blue car, utterly oblivious of the prying eyes behind the parlor shade across the way.
The air was fine; the sky was clear without a cloud; and the spice of autumn flavored everything. Along the roadside blackberry vines were turning scarlet, and here and there in the distance a flaming branch proclaimed the approach of a frosty wooing. One could not ask anything better on such a day than to be speeding along this white velvet road in the great blue car with two beloved children.
But all too soon Herbert Robinson’s ornate house loomed up, stark and green, with very white trimmings, and regular flower-beds each side of the gravel walk. It was the home of a prosperous man, and as such asserted itself. There had never been anything attractive about it to Julia Cloud. She preferred the ugly old house in which she had always lived, with its scaling gray paint and no pretensions to fineness. At least it was softened by age, and had a look of experience which saved its ugliness from being crude, and gave it the dignity of time.
And now Julia Cloud’s heart began to beat rapidly. All at once she felt that she had done a most foolish thing in allowing the children to overrule her and bring her here. Ellen would not be dressed up nor have the children ready for inspection, and she would be angry at her sister for not having given warning of their coming. She leaned forward breathlessly to suggest turning back; but Allison, perhaps anticipating her feeling, said:
“Now don’t you get cold feet, Cloudy Jewel. If Aunt Ellen is sore, just you talk up to her, and smile a lot, and we’ll back you up. Remember everything’s, going fine, and the whole thing’s settled. It’s too late to change it now. Is this the place? We’ll turn right in, shall we?” And with the words he swept up under the elaborate wooden porte-cochère, and, swinging down, flung the door open for Julia Cloud to alight.
Leslie gave a quick, disdainful glance about, fluttered out beside her aunt, and, catching the look of apprehension on her face, tripped up the steps and rang the bell, poising bird-like on the threshold and calling in a sweet, flute-like voice:
“Aunt Ellen! O Aunt Ellen! Where are you? Don’t you know you’ve got company all the way from California?”
It was just like taking the bull by the horns, and Julia Cloud paused on the upper step in wonder. How winning a child she was! and how she had known by intuition just how to mollify her unpleasant relative!
What would Ellen say? How would she take it?
Ellen Robinson bustled frowning into the hall, whetting her sharp tongue for an encounter. She had seen the big blue car turn in at the gate, and knew from Mrs. Perkins’s description who it must be. Julia Cloud had well judged her state of mind, for her four children could not have been caught in a worse plight so far as untidiness was concerned, and there had barely been time to marshal them all up the back stairs with orders to scrub and dress or not to come down till the visitors were gone. They were even now creeping shufflingly about overhead on their bare feet, hunting for their respective best shoes and stockings and other garments, and scrapping in loud whispers.
But Leslie, little diplomat that she was, wasted no time in taking stock of her aunt. She flung her arms joyously around that astonished woman, and fairly took her by storm, talking volubly and continuously until they were all in the house and seated in Ellen’s best satin brocatelle parlor chairs, surrounded by crayon portraits of Herbert Robinson’s ancestors and descendants. Allison too caught on to his sister’s game, and talked a good deal about how nice it was to get East again after all the years, and how glad they were to have some relatives of their own. Julia Cloud sat quietly and proudly listening; and Ellen forgot her anger, and ceased to frown. After all, it was something to have such good-looking relatives. For the first few minutes the well-prepared speech wherewith she had intended to dress down poor Julia lay idle on her lips, and a few sentences of grudging welcome even, managed to slip by. Then suddenly she turned to her sister, and the sight of the adoration for the visitors in Julia’s transparent face kindled her anger. Never had such a look as this glowed in Julia Cloud’s face for any little Robinson, save perhaps in the first few days of their tiny lives before the Robinson had begun to crop out in them.
“Where were you this morning, Jule? It certainly seems queer for you to be gadding around having a good time so soon after poor mother’s death. And the dishes not washed, either! Upon my word, you have lost your head! You weren’t brought up that way. I stood up-stairs and looked around on those unmade beds, and thought what poor mother would have said if she could see them. Such goings-on! I certainly was ashamed to have Mrs. Perkins see it.”
Two rosy spots bloomed out on Julia Cloud’s cheeks, and a tremble came in her lips, though one could see she was making a great effort to control herself; and the two long breaths that Leslie and Allison drew simultaneously were heavily threatening, much like the distant rumble of thunder.
“I’m sure I don’t see what occasion Mrs. Perkins had to see it,” she answered steadily.
“Well, she was there!” said her sister dryly. She seemed to have forgotten the presence of the two young people, who, if they had been in the foreground, might have been noticed doing things with their eyebrows to their mutual understanding and agreement.
“Yes, so she told me,” said Julia Cloud significantly. “But that was not what I came over to talk about, Ellen; I wanted to let you know that I’ve rented the house, and the tenant wants possession next week. I thought you might like to pick out some of mother’s things to bring over here before I pack up. You spoke about wishing you had another couch for the sitting-room, and you might just as well have the dining-room one as not. Then I thought perhaps you could use mother’s bedroom suit.”
“You’ve rented the house!” screamed Ellen as soon as she got breath from her astonishment to interrupt. “You’ve rented the house without consulting me? Who to, I’d like to know? I had a tenant already for that house, I told you.”
“Why, I had no time to consult you, Ellen; and, besides, why should I? The house is mine, and I knew you didn’t want it. You have your own home.”
“Well, you certainly are blossoming out and getting independent! I should think mere decency would have made you consult us before you did anything. What do you know about business? Herbert will be mad as anything when I tell him; and like as not you’ll get into no end of trouble with a strange tenant, and we’ll have to help you out. Herbert always says women make all the trouble they can for him before they call on him for assistance.”
Julia smiled.
“I shall not be obliged to call on Herbert for assistance, Ellen. Everything is arranged. The contract was signed this morning, and I have promised to vacate as soon as possible. The tenant is the new school superintendent, and he wants to come at once. I just heard last evening that he had been disappointed in getting the Harvey house. It’s sold to the foreman of the mill. So I went over to Harmony to see him at once.”
The news was so overwhelming and so unquestionably satisfactory from a business point of view that Ellen was speechless with astonishment. Allison gave Leslie a grave wink, and turned to look out of the window to prevent an outburst of giggles from his sister.
“Well, I think you might have let me know,” Ellen resumed with almost her usual poise. “It’s rather mortifying not to know what’s going on in your own family when the neighbors ask. Here was I without any knowledge of the arrival of my own niece and nephew! Had to be told by Mrs. Perkins.”
Then Allison and Leslie did laugh, but they veiled their mirth by talking about the two white chickens out in the yard which were contending for a worm. Suddenly Leslie exclaimed:
“O Allison! I hear the children coming down-stairs, and I forgot their presents! Run out to the car, and bring me that box.”
Allison was off at once, and the entrance of the soapy and embarrassed children created a further diversion.
For a few minutes even Ellen Robinson was absorbed in the presents. There was a camera for Junior, a gold chain and locket for Elaine, a beautiful doll for Dorothy, and a small train of cars that would wind up and run on a miniature track for Bertie; so of course everything had to be looked at and tried. Elaine put on her chain, and preened herself before the glass; Junior had to understand at once just how to take a picture; everybody had to watch the doll open and shut its eyes, and to try to unbutton and button its coat and dress; and then the railroad track had to be set up and the train started off on its rounds. Ellen Robinson really looked almost motherly while she watched her happy children; and Julia Cloud relaxed, and let the smile come around her lips once more.
But all things come to an end, and Ellen Robinson was not one to forget her own affairs for long at a time. She sat back from starting the engine on its third round, and fixed her eyes on her sister with that air of commander-general that was so intolerable.
“Well, then, I suppose you won’t be over here till next week,” she frowned thoughtfully. “I needed you to help with the crabapple jelly. That makes it inconvenient. But perhaps I can hold off the fruit a little longer; I’ll see. You ought to be able to get all your packing done this week, I should think. When do they go?” She nodded toward the niece and nephew quite indifferently as though they were deaf.
Julia Cloud’s sensitive face flushed with annoyance, but the two pairs of bright eyes that lifted and fixed themselves upon their aunt held nothing but enjoyment of the situation.
“Why, we’re not going until Aunt Jewel is ready to go with us, Aunt Ellen,” announced Leslie, looking up from the doll she was reclothing. “You know we’re all going to college together, Auntie, too!”
Ellen Robinson lifted an indignant chin. She had no sense of humor, and did not enjoy jokes, especially those practised upon herself.
“Going to college! At her age!” she snorted. “Well, I always knew she was childish, but I never expected her to want to go back to kindergarten!”
Leslie rose up straight as a rush, her strong young arms down at her sides, her fingers in their soft suède gloves working restively as if she wanted to rush at her aunt and administer corporal punishment. Her pretty red lips were pursed angrily, and her blue eyes fairly blazed righteous wrath. Julia Cloud caught her breath, and wondered how she was to control this young fury; but before she could say a word Allison stepped in front of her, and spoke coolly.
“That’s the reason she’s such a good scout, Aunt Ellen. That’s why we want her to come and take care of us. Because she knows how to stay young.”
He suddenly seemed to have grown very tall and quite mature as he spoke, and there was something about his manly bearing that held Ellen Robinson’s tongue in check as he looked at his watch with a polite “Excuse me,” and then turned to Julia Cloud. “Aunt Jewel, if we are to meet my guardian on that train, I think we shall have to hurry. It’s quite a run into the city, you know.” Julia Cloud arose with a breath of relief.
“The city!” gasped Ellen. “You’re not going into the city this late in the afternoon, I hope! Do you know how long it takes?”
Allison glanced out to his high-powered machine confidently.
“We made it in an hour and a half coming over. I guess we shall have plenty of time to meet the five-o’clock train if we go at once. I’ve got a peach of a car, Aunt Ellen. I’ll have to come round and take you and the kids a ride to-morrow or the next day if Aunt Jewel can spare me.”
“Thank you! I have a car of my own!” snapped his aunt disagreeably.
“Oh! I beg your pardon! Well, Aunt Jewel, we really must go if we are to meet Mr. Luddington. Good-by, Aunt Ellen! Good-by, cousins! We’ll see you again before we leave town, of course. Come on, Aunt Jewel!” And he took Julia Cloud lightly, protectingly by the elbow, and steered her out of the room, down the steps, and into the car, while Leslie danced gayly after, chattering away about how nice it was to get back East and meet real relatives.
But Ellen Robinson was not listening to Leslie. She hurried after her departing guests regardless of a noisy struggle that was going on between her two youngest over the railway train, and stood on her front steps, fairly snorting with indignation.
“Julia Cloud, what does all this mean? You shan’t go away until you explain. Have you taken leave of your senses? What is this nonsense about going to college?”
Allison with his hand on the starter gave his aunt a swift, reassuring smile; and Julia Cloud from the safe vantage of the back seat leaned forward, smiling.
“Why, it’s the children that are going to college, Ellen, not I. I’m only going along to keep house and play mother for them. Isn’t it lovely? I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow when you come down to pick out your things. Be sure to come early, because I want to get started packing the first thing in the morning. Mr. Luddington, the children’s guardian, is coming to-night to complete the arrangements, and we expect to get away just as soon as I can get packed up. So come early.”
The engine purred softly for a rhythmical second, and the car slid quickly away from the door.
“But––the very idea!” snorted Aunt Ellen. “Julia Cloud!” she fairly shouted. “Stop! You had no right in the world to go ahead and make plans without consulting me!”
But the car was beyond ear-shot now, and Leslie was waving a pretty, tantalizing hand from the back seat.
“The very idea!” Ellen Robinson gasped to the autumn landscape as she stood alone and watched the car, a mere speck down the road, on its way to town. “The idea!” And then as if for self-justification: “Poor mother! What would she think if she could know? Well, I wash my hands of her.”
But Ellen Robinson did not wash her hands of her sister. Instead, she found that it was going to be very hard indeed to wash her hands of her own affairs without her sister’s help. She had, in fact, been counting on that help for the last several years, after her mother became an invalid and she knew that it was only a matter of time before Julia’s hands would be set free for other labor. It was quite too disconcerting now, after having got along all these years on the strength of the help that was to come, to find her capable sister snatched away from her by two young things in this ridiculous way.
They talked it over at supper, and Herbert was almost savage about it, as if in some way his wife had misrepresented the possibilities, and led him to expect the assistance that would come from her sister and save him from paying wages to a servant.
“Well, she’ll be good and sick of it inside of three months, mark my words; and then she’ll come whining back and want us to take her in;––be glad enough to get a home. So don’t you worry. But what I want understood is this: She’s not going to find it so easy to get back. See? You make her thoroughly understand that. You better go down to-morrow and pick out everything you want. Take plenty. You can’t tell but something may happen to the house, and the furniture burn up. We might as well have it as anybody. And you make it good and sure that she understands right here and now that if she goes she doesn’t come back. Of course, I’m not saying she can’t come back if she comes to her senses, and is real humble; but you needn’t let her know that. Just give her to understand it is her last chance, that I can’t be monkeyed with this way. I’ve offered her a very generous thing, and she knows it, and she’s a fool, that’s what she is, a fool I say!” He brought his big fist down heavily on the table, and jarred the dishes; and the children looked up in premature comprehension, storing up the epithet for future use. “She’s no end of a fool, going off with those crazy kids. Some one ought to warn their guardian about her. Why, she has no more idea of how to take care of two high and mighty good-for-nothings like that than an infant in arms!”
Meantime the subject of their discussion was seated serenely at a table in one of the best hotels of the great city, having the time of her life. In the years that were to come there might be many more delightful suppers, even more elegantly served, perhaps; but none would ever rival this first time in her existence when she had sat among the wealthy and great of the land and been treated like one of them.
Mr. Luddington was a typical business man, elderly and kind, with wise eyes and a great smile. He turned his eyes keenly on Julia Cloud for an instant at their first meeting, then let his full smile envelop her, and she was somehow made aware of the fact that he had set his seal of approval to the contract already made by his two enthusiastic wards. All the forebodings she had entertained in the little intervals when Leslie and Allison allowed her to think at all were swept aside by his kind look and big, serious tone when he first took her hand and scanned her true face. “I’m glad they’ve picked such a woman!” he said. “You’ll have your hands full, for they’re a pair! But it’s worth it!”
And, when they all rode home through the moonlight, Julia Cloud nestled under the soft, thick robes of the car, and listened to the pleasant talk between the young people and their guardian with a sense of peace. If this strong, wise business man thought the arrangement was all right, why, then she need not fear any longer. It was real, and not a dream, and she might rely upon the wisdom of her decision. And with that sense of being upheld by something wiser than her own wish she fell asleep that night, haunted by no dreams of her domineering sister.
They all slept very late the next morning, being utterly worn out from the unaccustomed work; and, when they finally got down-stairs, they took a sort of a lunch-breakfast off the pantry shelves again. It was strange how good even shredded-wheat biscuit and milk can taste when one has been working hard and has a young appetite, although Leslie and Allison had been known to scorn all cereals. Still, there were cookies and wonderful apples from the big tree in the back yard for dessert.
“When are those men coming back to finish up?” suddenly demanded Leslie, poising a glass of milk and a cooky in one hand and taking a great bite from her apple.
“Not till to-morrow,” said Julia Cloud, looking around the empty kitchen speculatively, and wondering how in the world she was going to cook with all the cooking-utensils packed in the attic.
“We ought to have left the kitchen till last,” she added with a troubled look. “You crazy children! Didn’t you know we had to eat? I told that man not to take any of those things on the kitchen-table, that they were to stay down until the very last thing, and now he has taken the table even! I went up-stairs to see if I could get at things, and I find he has put them away at the back, and piled all the chairs and some bed-springs in front of them. I’m afraid we shall have to get some things out again. I don’t see how we can get along.”
“Not a bit of it, Cloudy!” said Leslie, giving a spring and perching herself on the drain-board of the sink, where she sat swinging her dainty little pumps as nonchalantly as if she were sitting on a velvet sofa. “See! Here’s my plan. I woke up early, and thought it all out. Let’s see,” consulting her wee wrist-watch, “it’s nine o’clock. That isn’t bad. Now we’ll work till twelve; that’s long enough for to-day, because you got too tired yesterday; and, besides, we’ve got some other things to attend to. Then we’ll hustle into the car, and get to town, and do some shopping ready for our trip. That will rest you. We’ll get lunch at a tea-room, and shop all the afternoon. We’ll go to a hotel for dinner, and stay all night. Then in the morning we can get up early, have our breakfast, and drive back here in time before the men come. Now isn’t that perfectly spick-and-span for a plan?”
“Leslie! But, dear, that would cost a lot! And, besides, it isn’t in the least necessary.”
“Cost has nothing to do with it. Look!” and Leslie flourished a handful of bills. “See what Guardy Lud gave me! And Allison has another just like it. He said particularly that we were not to let you get all worked out and get sick so you couldn’t go with us, and he particularly told us about a lot of things he wanted us to buy to make things easy on the way. After he leaves us and goes back to California we’re in your charge, I know; but just now you’re in ours, you dear, unselfish darling; and we’re going to run you. Oh, we’re going to run you to beat the band!” laughed Leslie, and jumped down from her perch to hug and squeeze the breath out of Julia Cloud.
“But child! Dear!” said that good woman when she could get her breath to speak. “You mustn’t begin in that extravagant way!”
But they put their hands over her lips, and laughed away her protests until she had to give up for laughing with them.
“Well, then,” she said at last, when they had subsided from a regular rough-house frolic for all the world as if they were children, “we’ll have to get to work in good earnest; only it doesn’t seem right to let you work so hard when you are visiting me.”
“Visiting, nothing!” declared Allison; “we’re having the time of our lives. I haven’t been in a place where I could do as I pleased since I was eight years old. This is real work, and I like it. Come now, don’t let’s waste any time. What can I do first? Wouldn’t you like to have me take down all the pictures on the second floor, stack them in the attic, and sweep down the walls the way we did down here yesterday?”
“Yes,” said their aunt with an affectionate homage in her eyes for this dear, capable boy who was so eager over everything as if it were his own.
“And those big bookcases. What are you going to do with the books? Do you want any of them to go with you, or are they to be packed away?”
“No, I won’t take any of those books. They’ll need to be dusted and put in boxes. There are a lot of boxes in the cellar, and there’s a pile of papers to use for lining the boxes. But you’ll have your hands full with the pictures, I think. Let the books go till to-morrow.”
Allison went whistling up-stairs, and began taking down the pictures; but anybody could see by the set of his shoulders that he meant to get the books out of the way too before noon.
“Now, what can I do?” said Leslie, whirling around from wiping the last cup and plate they had used. “There’s one more bureau besides yours. Does it need emptying out?”
“No, dear. That has your grandmother’s things in it, and is in perfect order. She had me fix up the things several months ago. Everything is tied up and labelled. I don’t think we need to disturb it. The men can move it up as it is. But we need to get the rest of the bed-clothes out on the line for an airing before I pack them away in the chest up-stairs. You might do that.”
So Leslie went back and forth, carrying blankets and quilts, and hanging them on the line, till Mrs. Perkins had to come over to see what was going on. She came with a cup in her hand to ask for some baking-powder, and Julia Cloud gave her the whole box.
“No, you needn’t return it,” she said, smiling. “I shall not need it. I’ve rented the house, and am going away for a while.” Mrs. Perkins was so astonished that she actually went home without finding out where Julia Cloud was going, and had to come back to see whether there was anything she could do to help, in order to get a chance to ask.
It was really quite astonishing what a lot could be done in three hours. When twelve o’clock came, the two children descended upon their aunt with insistence that she wash her hands and put on her hat. The rooms had assumed that cleared-up, ready look that rests the tired worker just to look around and see what has been accomplished. With a conviction that she was being quite a child to run away this way when there was still a lot to be done, but with an overwhelming desire to yield to the pressure, Julia Cloud surrendered.
When she came down-stairs five minutes later in her neat black suit and small black hat with the mourning veil about it that Ellen had insisted upon for the funeral, the car was already at the door, and she felt almost guilty as she locked the door and went down the path. But the beauty of the day intoxicated her at once, and she forgot immediately everything but the joy of riding out into the world.
Leslie was a bit quiet as they glided down the road out of town, and kept eyeing her aunt silently. At last, as Julia Cloud was calling attention to a wonderful red woodbine that had twined itself about an old dead tree and was setting the roadside ablaze with splendor, Leslie caught her eye.
“What is it, dear? Does something trouble you? Is anything wrong with me?” asked Julia Cloud, putting up a prospecting hand to her hair and hat.
Leslie’s cheeks went rosy red.
“O Cloudy, dear,” said Leslie, “I was just wondering. But I’m afraid to say it. Maybe it will make you feel bad.”
“Not a bit, deary; what is it?”
“Well, then, Cloudy, do you think Grandmother would care very much if you didn’t wear black? Do you like it yourself, or feel it wouldn’t be right not to wear it? I don’t mean any disrespect to Grandmother; but oh, you would look so sweet in gray, gray and lavender and soft pink, or just gray now for a while. Are you very mad at me for saying it?”
Julia Cloud reached over and patted the young hand that lay near her on the seat.
“Why, no, dear! I’m not mad, and I don’t care for black myself. I don’t believe in wearing black for the people who have left us and gone to heaven. It seems to me white would be a great deal better. But I put on these things to please Ellen. She thought it would be showing great disrespect to mother if I didn’t, and rather than argue about it I did as she wanted me to. But I don’t intend to darken the place around me by dressing in mourning, child; and I’m glad you don’t want me to. I like bright, happy things. And, besides, Leslie, dear, your grandmother was a bright, happy woman herself once when she was young, before she was sick and had trouble; and I like to remember her that way, because I’m sure that is the way she looks now in heaven.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” sighed Leslie. “That makes the day just perfect.”
“I think I’ll wait until I get away to change, however,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. “It would just annoy Ellen to do it now, and might make such people as Mrs. Perkins say disagreeable things that would make it unpleasant for your aunt.”
“Of course!” said Leslie, nestling closer, her eyes dancing with some secret plans of her own. “That’s all right, Cloudy. How dear and sort of ‘understanding’ you are, just like a real mother.”
And somehow Julia Cloud felt as if she was entering into a new world.
Allison seemed to know by intuition just where to find the right kind of tea-room. He ushered them into the place, and found a table in a secluded nook, with a fountain playing nearby over ferns, and ivy climbing over a mimic pergola. There were not many people eating, for it was past one o’clock. There were little round tables with high-backed chairs that seemed to shut them off in a corner by themselves.
“This is nice!” he sighed. “We’re a real family now, aren’t we?” and he looked over at Julia Cloud with that fine homage that now and then a boy just entering manhood renders to an older woman.
“Creamed chicken on toast, fruit-salad, toasted muffins, and ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce,” ordered Allison after studying the menu-card for a moment. “You like all those, don’t you, Cloudy?”
“Oh, but my dear! You mustn’t order all that. A sandwich is all I need. Just a tongue sandwich. You must not begin by being extravagant.”
“This is my party, Cloudy. This goes under the head of expenses. If you can’t find enough you like among what I order, why, I’ll get you a tongue sandwich, too; but you’ve been feeding us out of the cooky-jar, and I guess I’ll get the finest I can find to pay you back. I told you this was my time. When we get settled, you can order things; but now I’m going to see that you get enough to eat while you’re working so hard.”
Leslie’s eyes danced with her dimples as Julia Cloud appealed to her to stop this extravagance.
“That’s all right, Cloudy. I heard Guardy Lud tell Al not to spare any expense to make things comfortable for you while you were moving.”
So Julia Cloud settled down to the pleasure of a new and delicious combination of foods, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.
“Now,” said Leslie as the meal drew to a close, “we must get to work. It’s half-past two, and the stores close at half-past five. I’ve a lot of shopping to do. How about you, Cloudy?”
“I must buy a trunk,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully, “and a hand-bag and some gloves. I ought to get a new warm coat, but that will do later.”
Leslie eyed her thoughtfully, and raised one brow intensively at her brother as she rose from the table.
Allison landed them at a big department store, and guided his aunt to the trunk department with instructions to stay there until he and Leslie came back. Then they went off with great glee and many whisperings.