A borrowed sister

It seemed to Lois and Jessie as if spring would never come, for there was an April snowstorm a few days after Jessie arrived, and the snow lingered on the north side of the house and in the woods; gradually, however, it disappeared, and the green began to creep over the hills and meadows.

At last there came such a warm April morning that Jessie said, “Spring has really come! I am sure the mayflowers are out on the hill back of Brierfield. Oh! dear Aunt Elizabeth, mayn’t we have the carriage this afternoon and all drive over to Brierfield and pick them?”

Jessie’s coming had made a great change already. Formerly Mrs. Page used to have to urge Lois to go out, unless some child came to play with her, but now she found it hard to get the children to come in even at mealtimes. One of the changes that Jessie’s coming brought, was the use of the horses that had been left at Brierfield. Whenever Mrs. Page wanted a drive she had only to go to the telephone and order a horse to appear at a certain hour. The telephone had been a parting gift from Mrs. Matthews to Lois’s mother.

“Please, Aunt Elizabeth, can’t we go?” Jessie persisted.

Mrs. Page was busy finishing a spring frock for Lois.

“I am afraid I oughtn’t to go this afternoon,” she said. “I have the rest of my seeds to plant, and I want to finish this dress so that Lois can wear it to church to-morrow. We might go next Saturday.”

“It may rain next Saturday,” Jessie objected, “and I am afraid the mayflowers will be through blossoming.”

“I don’t mind wearing my winter dress all the spring,” said Lois.

Mrs. Page hesitated. Perhaps, after all, it was better to give the children this pleasure, for spring only comes once a year.

“We will go this afternoon,” she decided, “and you children may come into the garden with me this morning while I plant the seeds.”

A little later they went out into the sunny garden, and the children helped Mrs. Page make a trench for her nasturtium seeds.

“Please, dear Aunt Elizabeth, mayn’t Lois and I have a garden, just a small one?” begged Jessie. “I always had one at home, to plant anything I liked in, and one year I mixed flower seeds and vegetable seeds together, and squashes and nasturtiums and melons and poppies came up side by side.”

Mrs. Page laughed. “If I give you and Lois each a bed I shall want you to make them as pretty as possible, so as to be an ornament to my garden,” she said.

Mrs. Page’s slender figure was enveloped in a brown linen apron with pockets, in which were packages of seeds. Even in the brown apron she looked more dainty than most people did in their best clothes, Lois thought. Lois’s mind had been reveling in wild combinations of vegetables and flowers, and it was a disappointment to find that their gardens must conform to the rule of their well-ordered lives.

“Don’t you think it would be nice, mother, to have flowers in the middle, and a border of melons and squashes?” she ventured.

“No, I think you will find a flower garden is enough to keep you busy. You know you will have to weed it.”

Lois made a little grimace.

Mrs. Page always spent a great deal of time in her garden, and she had often tried to induce Lois to help her weed, but Lois was always sure to remember some very important thing that had to be done at once. In Jessie, however, Mrs. Page found a garden companion after her own heart.

She gave the children a variety of seeds. Jessie had a decided plan, but Lois did not know how she wanted to arrange her bed, and finally copied Jessie. They planted mignonette and pansy seed in a border around the beds, and inside they put a glorious mixture of seeds,—nasturtiums, verbenas, portulacas, poppies, and cosmos. They could hardly wait, they were in such a hurry for everything to come up and blossom. They had almost finished planting the seeds when Ellen Morgan joined them. She was on her way home from the village, where she had been doing some errands for her mother, and her hands were full of small bundles.

“Mother’s in an awful hurry for these things,” she said, “so I can’t stop, but I just wanted to know if you and Jessie can come to play with me this afternoon.”

“We can’t, because we are going to drive over to Brierfield,” said Lois.

Ellen looked very much disappointed.

She sat down on the end of a bench and asked what they were planting.

“Anne and I have a vegetable garden,” Ellen told them. “It isn’t as pretty as a flower garden, but we expect to have lovely things to eat,—melons and cucumbers and squashes. We are going to have a party when all the vegetables are ripe” (Ellen had thought of this on the spur of the moment), “and we’ll invite you.”

“How nice!” Lois was already tasting the melons in imagination. “We wanted some melons and squashes in our garden,” she said regretfully, “but mother thought they would spoil the looks of the flower beds.”

“Ellen, I am afraid you ought to be going home, if your mother is in a hurry for those things,” said Mrs. Page, “but why can’t you come back and dine here, and go to Brierfield with us this afternoon?”

“Oh, Mrs. Page, how perfectly lovely!” said Ellen ecstatically.

She rose, but lingered to play with Minnie, who came along at the moment.

When Ellen finally reached home she ran up to the room where her mother was at work with a seamstress, dumped the parcels in a heap on the table, and said breathlessly, “Mother, I’m going to dine with the Pages and we are going to drive to Brierfield and pick mayflowers this afternoon.”

“How delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, looking up from her sewing. “That is why it took Ellen three quarters of an hour to go to the village,” she thought. “You can take the sugar down to Almira,” she said. “She is waiting for it.”

In the kitchen Ellen’s mind was distracted by some very fat raisins that Almira was stoning, and when she found what the dessert was to be, she was almost sorry she had promised to dine at the Pages’. She consoled herself, however, by eating a handful of the raisins.

From the kitchen window Ellen had a view of the vegetable garden that was to be such a source of joy to them later, and she suddenly had a bright idea. When she returned to the Pages’ she had some choice seeds in her pocket, and before they started on the drive she went out into the garden all by herself, on the pretense of finding Minnie. Hastily glancing around to make sure that no one was looking, she put half the seeds in the centre of Lois’s bed, and the other half in the middle of Jessie’s. Her face broke into a mischievous smile.

“I guess they’ll have a nice surprise,” she thought.

As they were starting on the drive, she suddenly gave a chuckle.

“What are you laughing at, Ellen?” asked Lois.

“I am laughing because I am so very happy,” Ellen answered.

“It didn’t sound like that kind of a laugh,” said Lois.

“Isn’t it fortunate Ellen happened to come along to-day,” she added; “we’ve had a lot of luck since the witch kitten came.”

“Let’s take the witch kitten with us,” said Ellen, “then we shall be sure to find lots of mayflowers.”

“My dear Ellen!” gasped Mrs. Page.

“I am afraid the kitten and Jessie’s dog wouldn’t agree very well,” said Lois.

“Joy is very gentle. I wish, Aunt Elizabeth, that you would let me take Joy back with us just for a day or two,” Jessie pleaded.

“That wouldn’t be safe. Joy may be gentle, but Minnie is not; she is very fierce when she is taking care of her kittens.”

“Why do you call her Aunt Elizabeth?” asked Ellen. “She isn’t any relation to you, is she?”

“She and my mother were friends when they were little girls.”

“Oh,” said Ellen. She felt very much “out of it.”

They were already reaching the outskirts of the town, and very soon they came to a stretch of wood road. It made Lois feel so happy to see the tiny leaf-buds and to watch some birds flying overhead, that it almost seemed as if she must cry out, “Spring is here! spring is here! and afterwards will come summer, and there won’t be any icy winter for a very long time!”

But Lois’s delight was even greater when they were climbing the wooded hill behind Brierfield farm. Ellen shouted with joy, and Jessie felt like some wild thing that had escaped from a cage. The children thought there never had been such a spring day. The sky was blue, with just a few fleecy clouds floating in it, and the tall pines and fir-trees made such a thick green shelter that it seemed as if summer had come. There was the resinous smell of the pines and of the fir balsams and hemlocks, the soft green of the moss, and, most delicious of all, the delicate fragrance of the mayflowers. Jessie was the first to find them; she held up a long spray of pink blossoms and gave it to Mrs. Page.

Ellen immediately pulled some up by the roots.

“You mustn’t do that,” said Jessie. “Father never lets us pull any roots, for if we do, the mayflowers will soon die out.”

Suddenly there was an addition to their company. A yellow and white dog came running up the path, and presently there was the mingling of furry paws and childish arms.

“Joy, you darling, did you know my voice?” said Jessie. The collie had leaped upon her, and was licking her face with passionate devotion. She put her arms around his neck, and her tears rained upon his head.

“She loves Joy just as much as I love Minnie,” thought Lois.

They stayed in the pine woods until Mrs. Page and Jessie had their baskets full of mayflowers, and Ellen and Lois had half filled theirs, for they had taken several excursions, and there had been a great deal to look at and to talk about.

“I suppose if we are to stop at Brierfield for a cup of tea, we ought to be going,” said Mrs. Page, looking at her watch.

The parlor at Brierfield was a long room, with a low ceiling with brown rafters. Even in its half-dismantled state, it looked more attractive to Jessie than any room she had ever seen. There were no curtains at the windows now, but one could see the woods and the hills all the better, and although the sofas and chairs had on linen covers, nothing could disguise their quaint, old-fashioned shape. The rugs had been put away, but the books were left in the low bookcases, and a bright fire was burning on the hearth, and near it was a little tea-table. There was a gap in the room where the grand piano had once been, that was now blocking up Mrs. Page’s small parlor, where it had gone in order that Jessie might keep on with her music lessons.

Presently Emmeline, the farmer’s wife and the care-taker, brought in a waiter with tea and lemon and little cakes.

“Emmeline!” cried Jessie, and she threw her arms about the old servant.

“How d’ye do, Miss Jessie? You look real well. I guess it agrees with you to live with Miss Lois.”

After she had had a talk with Emmeline, Mrs. Page gave the children hot lemonade, with plenty of sugar and just a dash of tea.

Joy planted himself at Jessie’s feet and she fed him with portions of her cake. When she had no more he went around to Lois. She was afraid of all dogs, and felt very uncomfortable as he fixed his beseeching eyes on her. Presently he touched her with his paw. She hastily dropped the rest of her cake and moved back.

“I guess you’d have been frightened away by the big spider all right, if you had been little Miss Muffet,” said Ellen. “Come here, Joy. I am not a bit afraid of you.”

Joy came. He jumped up on Ellen and began to lick her face.

“I didn’t say I wanted you to kiss me,” said Ellen. “Get down! Jessie, make him get down.”

Jessie only laughed. “You shouldn’t have invited him to come, if you hadn’t wanted him,” she said.

“I wish we could come to these woods every Saturday, mother,” said Lois, as they drove away.

Mrs. Page felt, as the children did, as if she had not had such a happy afternoon for a very long time.

“There is always so much that ought to be done,” she sighed.