CHAPTER III
THE COTTAGE
"The young pine knows the secrets of the ground. The old pine knows the stars."—The Murmuring Pine.
Marshall cleared his throat and reaching out, took Lydia by the arm and pulled her toward him. He could feel her muscles stiffen under his touch. The bright red color left her cheeks.
"I wouldn't think much of your father, my child," he said, huskily, "if he let me whip you, even if I wanted to."
Lydia took a quick look up into his face. Then she gave a little gasping sigh, her lips quivered and she leaned against his knee.
"Look here, Lydia," said Dave Marshall, "this is to be your punishment. I want you and Kent to teach Margery how to swim and how to get dirty, see? Let her play with you 'common kids,' will you?"
"Will her mother let her?" asked Lydia.
"Yes," answered Dave, grimly.
"All right," said Lydia, with a little sigh.
"I know it'll be a hard job," Marshall interpreted the sigh quickly; "that's where the punishment comes in."
"Lydia'll do it. I'll see to it," said Amos.
"You keep out, Dudley. This is between Lydia and me. How about it,
Lydia?"
"If you'll boss her mother, I'll boss Margery and Kent," said Lydia, with a sudden laugh.
"It's a bargain." Marshall rose. "Good night, Dudley."
"Good night, Marshall."
Amos followed his caller to the door. As he did so Lydia heard Kent's whistle in the back yard. She joined him and the two withdrew to a bench behind the woodshed.
"I saw him through the window," said Kent, in a low voice. "What's he going to do to us? Dad's licked me, so that much is done."
Lydia told of their punishment. "Darn it," groaned Kent, "I'd rather had another licking. I certainly do hate that girl."
"So do I," agreed Lydia.
The two sat staring into the summer twilight. "Anyhow," said Lydia, "I hit her an awful smack in the face to-day. Of course, I had to, but that's why her nose bled so."
"I wish you'd busted her old snoot," grumbled Kent. "She's always turning it up at everybody. We saved somebody's life to-day, by golly, and you'd think we'd committed a crime."
Lydia sighed. "Nothing to look forward to but worry now. O gee, Kent, I've got two pennies! One's Patience's. But let's go spend the other at Spence's!"
"Gum or all day sucker?" asked Kent, who, in spite of the fact that he owned a second-hand bicycle, was not above sharing a penny.
"Gum lasts longer," suggested Lydia.
"What kinda gum, spruce or white or tutti-frutti?"
"You can choose."
"Spruce then. It makes the most juice. Come on, Lyd, before you're called in."
And thus ended the heroic day.
No one ever knew what Dave Marshall said to Elviry, his wife, but a day or so after, little Margery, in a fine white flannel bathing suit, appeared on the sand, about a quarter of a mile below the Willows. Here any bright day from the last of June to the first week in September, a dozen children might be found at play in and out of the water. There was usually a mother or an older sister somewhere about, but it was to be noted that Mrs. Marshall never appeared. Margery came and went with Lydia.
Kent was a quitter! After the rescue he decided to eschew the society of girls forever and he struck a bargain with Lydia that she could have the use of his bicycle one day a week till snow came if she would undertake the disciplining of the banker's daughter alone. For such a bribe Lydia would have undertaken to teach Elviry Marshall, herself, to swim—and so the bargain was struck.
Margery, it was quickly discovered, sousing in the water with the other children was quite "a common kid" herself and though there seemed to be an inherent snobbishness in the little girl that returned to her as soon as she was dried and clothed, in her bathing suit she mucked about and screamed and quarreled as did the rest.
Lydia's method of teaching was one employed by most of the children of Lake City when a new child moved into the town. She forced Margery to float face downward in the water, again and again, while she counted ten. After one afternoon of this, the banker's daughter had forever lost her fear of the water and the rest was easy.
In spite of the relationship Dave Marshall had established between the two children, Margery and Lydia did not like each other. One Saturday afternoon, after banking hours, Marshall was seated on his front porch, with Elviry and Margery, when Lydia appeared. She stood on the steps in her bathing suit, her bare feet in a pair of ragged "sneakers." Her face and hands and ankles were dirty but her eyes and the pink of her cheeks were clear.
"Come on, Marg," said Lydia, "and, Mr. Marshall, please, won't you come too and see how well she does it?"
"Run and get into your bathing suit, daughter," said Marshall.
"Elviry, want to come?"
"No," snapped Elviry. "Lydia, how do you manage to get so dirty, when to my positive knowledge, you're in the water an hour every day?"
Lydia blushed and tried to hide one ankle behind the other. "I think you're terrible impolite," she murmured.
Dave roared with laughter. "Right you are, Lydia! I guess I'll have to hitch up and drive us all over."
They drove to the Willows and Margery went through her paces, while her father watched and applauded from the shore. When they had finished and had run up and down to warm up and dry off and were driving home, Dave said,
"You'd better come in to supper with us, Lydia."
"No, thank you," answered the child. "Mr. Levine's coming to supper at our house and I have to cook it."
"Hum! What does John Levine do at your house, so much?"
"Oh, he's going into politics," answered Lydia, innocently, "and Dad advises him."
"Well, tell them you've done a fine job as a swimming teacher," Dave spoke carelessly. "I don't see why Levine wants to get into politics. He's doing well in real estate."
"Oh!" exclaimed Lydia, with a child's importance at having real news to impart, "he's going into politics so's to get some Indian land."
"Like hell he is!" exclaimed Marshall.
"Oh, Daddy!" Margery's voice was exactly like her mother's.
They were turning into the Marshall driveway and Marshall's face was a curious mixture of amusement and irritation. He kissed his little daughter when he lifted her from the buggy and bade her run to the house. Before he lifted Lydia down he paused and as he stood on the ground and she sat in the surrey, she looked levelly into his black eyes.
"I wish I had another little daughter like you, Lydia," he said. "I don't see why—but God, you can't get swans from barnyard fowl." He continued to study Lydia's face. "Some day, my child, you'll make some man's heart break, or lift him up to heaven."
Lydia squirmed.
"Well, Margery's taught now," she said hastily, "so I don't have to be punished any more, do I?"
Marshall scowled slightly. "What do you mean? Don't you want Margery to play with you?"
"Oh, sure, she can play, if she wants to, but I mean I don't have to go get her and bring her into our games."
"No," said Dave slowly, "but I think it would be nice of you to sort of keep an eye on her and get her dirty once in a while. There! Run home, child, you're shivering."
With puzzled eyes, Lydia obeyed.
The most important result, as far as Lydia was interested, of the talk between her father and Levine that night was that Amos decided definitely to move the following week. Lydia cried a little over it, reproached God in her prayers and then with a child's resignation to the inevitability of grown up decision, she began to say good-by to the neighborhood children and to help old Lizzie to pack.
Lydia did not see the new home until she rode out with the first dray-load of furniture. She sat in the high seat beside the driver, baby Patience in her lap, her thin, long little legs dangling, her cheeks scarlet with excitement and the warmth of a hot September morning. The cottage was a mile from the old home. They drove along the maple shaded street for the first half of the distance, then turned into a dirt road that led toward the lake shore. The dirt road emerged on the shore a half mile above the Willows and wound along a high embankment, crowned with oaks.
"Whoa!" shouted the driver.
"Oh, isn't it pretty!" exclaimed Lydia.
An old-fashioned white cottage, with green blinds and a tiny front porch, stood beside the road, its back to the lake. There were five acres or so of ground around the house, set off by a white picket fence. At the gate a pine tree stood. There were oaks and lilac bushes in the front yard. Through the leaves, Lydia saw the blue of the lake.
"Our yard runs right down to the water!" she cried, as the driver lifted the baby down and she followed after. "Gee! I'm glad we moved!"
"It is a nice little spot," said the driver, "but kinda lonely." He set the perambulator inside the fence, then balanced the dining-room table on his head and started up the path to the door.
Lydia looked along the road, where an occasional house was to be seen.
"I hope kids live in those houses," she said, "but if they don't, baby and the lake are company enough for me, and Kent can come out on his wheel."
She strapped Patience into the perambulator, then ran up to the house. The front door gave directly into a living-room of good proportions. Out of this folding doors led into a small dining-room and beyond this a kitchen of generous size with a wonderful view of the glimmering lake from its rear windows. A comfortable-sized bedroom opened off each of these rooms. Lydia ran through the little house eagerly. It was full of windows and being all on one floor, gave a fine effect of spaciousness. It was an old house but in excellent repair as was all John Levine's property.
"I'm going to have the bedroom off the kitchen, 'cause you can see the lake from it," she told the driver.
"It'll be colder'n charity in the winter. Better take the middle one," he remarked, setting the kitchen stove down with a bang.
"No, old Lizzie'll want to have that. Well, I'll begin to get things settled."
Lizzie arrived on the third and final load. She brought with her a lunch that they shared with the driver. He good-naturedly set up the kitchen stove and the three beds for them and departed with the hope that they would not be too lonesome.
Lydia and old Lizzie put in an afternoon of gigantic effort. By six o'clock, the beds were made, dishes unpacked and in the china closet, the table was set for supper and an Irish stew of Lydia's make was simmering on the stove.
When Amos came up the path at a half after six, his dinner pail in his hand, he found Lydia flat on her back on the little front porch. Her curly head was wet with perspiration; face, hands and blouse were black. The baby sat beside her, trying to get Florence Dombey to sleep.
"Well," said Amos, looking down on his family, "how do you like it,
Lydia?"
"It's great! My back's broken! Supper's ready."
"You shouldn't lift heavy things, child! How often have I told you?
Wait until I get home."
"I want to get things done," replied Lydia, "so's I can do a little playing before school opens. Come on in and see all we've done, Daddy."
She forget her aching back and led the way into the house. Amos was as excited and pleased as the children and Lizzie, so tired that her old hands shook, was as elated as the others.
"It's much more roomy than the old house and all on one floor. 'Twill save me the stairs. And the garden'll be fine," she said, failing to call attention to the fact that the water was far from the house and that there was no kitchen sink.
"We've got to try to keep this place cleaner than we did the other," said Amos. "Lydia, better wash up for supper."
"Oh, Daddy," said Lydia, "I'm too tired! Don't make me!"
"All right," answered Amos, "but your mother was always clean and so am
I. I don't see where you get it."
"Maybe one of my ancestors was a garbage man," suggested Lydia, sliding into her place at the table.
She allowed Lizzie to carry Patience into their bedroom after supper and Amos, smoking in the yard and planning the garden for next year, waited in vain to hear "Beulah Land" and "Wreathe me no gaudy chaplet" float to him from the open window.
"Where's Lydia, Lizzie?" he asked as the old lady came out to empty the dish water.
"She ain't come out yet. Maybe she's fell asleep too."
The two tip-toed to the window. On the bed under the covers was little Patience, fast asleep, and beside her, on top of the covers, fully dressed, lay Lydia, an arm across her little sister, in the sleep of utter exhaustion.
"I'll just take her shoes off and cover her and leave her till morning," said Lizzie.
But Amos, gazing at his two ill-kempt little daughters, at the chaotic room, did not answer except to murmur to himself, "Oh, Patience! Patience!"
The cottage was somewhat isolated. Amos was three quarters of a mile from his work. The schoolhouse was a mile away and the nearest trolley, which Lizzie must take to do the family shopping, was half a mile back along the dirt road.
Nevertheless, all the family felt that they had taken a distinct step upward in moving into lake shore property and nobody complained of distances. Amos began putting in his Sundays in cleaning up the bramble-grown acres he intended to turn into a garden in the spring. He could not afford to have it plowed so he spaded it all himself, during the wonderful bright fall Sabbaths. Nor was this a hardship for Amos. Only the farm bred can realize the reminiscent joy he took in wrestling with the sod, which gave up the smell that is more deeply familiar to man than any other in the range of human experience.
A dairy farmer named Norton, up the road, gave him manure in exchange for the promise of early vegetables for his table. After his spading was done in late September, Amos, with his wheelbarrow, followed by the two children, began his trips between the dairy farm and his garden patch and he kept these up until the garden was deep with fertilizer.
There never had been a more beautiful autumn than this. There was enough rain to wet down the soil for the winter, yet the Sundays were almost always clear. Fields and woods stretched away before the cottage, crimson and green as the frosts came on. Back of the cottage, forever gleaming through the scarlet of the autumn oaks, lay the lake, where duck and teal were beginning to lodge o' nights, in the rice-fringed nooks along the shore.
Lydia was happier than she had been since her mother's death. She took the long tramps to and from school, lunch box and school bag slung at her back, in a sort of ecstasy. She was inherently a child of the woods and fields. Their beauty thrilled her while it tranquilized her. Some of the weight of worry and responsibility that she had carried since her baby sister of two weeks had been turned over to her care left her.
Kent was enchanted with the new home. Football was very engrossing, yet he managed to get out for at least one visit a week. He and Lydia discovered a tiny spring in the bank above the lake and they began at once to dam it in and planned a great series of ditches and canals.
The doll's furniture was finished by October and Lydia began work on the doll's house.
One Saturday afternoon early in October she was established on the front steps with her carpentry when a surrey stopped at the gate. Little Patience, in a red coat, rolled to her feet. She had been collecting pebbles from the gravel walk.
"Mardy!" she screamed. "Baby's Mardy!" and started down the walk to meet Margery and her father.
"Darn it," said Lydia to herself. "Hello, Marg! How de do, Mr.
Marshall."
"Well! Well!" Dave Marshall lifted the tails of his light overcoat and sat down on the steps. "Gone into house building, eh, Lydia? Did you do it all yourself? Gee! that's not such a bad job."
Lydia had the aptitude of a boy for tools. On one end of the cracker box was a V-shaped roof. There were two shelves within, making three floors, and Lydia was now hard at work with a chisel and jackknife hacking out two windows for each floor.
She stood, chisel in hand, her red coat sleeves rolled to her elbows, her curly hair wind-tossed, staring at Marshall half proudly, half defiantly.
Dave laughed delightedly. "Lydia, any time your father wants to sell you, I'm in the market." He looked at the nails hammered in without a crack or bruise in the wood, then laughed again.
"Get your and the baby's hats, Lydia. We stopped to take you for a ride."
Lydia's eyes danced, then she shook her head. "I can't! The bread's in baking and I'm watching it."
"Where's Lizzie?"
"She went in town to do the marketing! Darn it! Don't I have awful luck?"
Lydia sighed and looked from baby Patience and Margery, walking up and down the path, to Mrs. Marshall, holding the reins.
"Well, anyhow," she said, with sudden cheerfulness, "Mrs. Marshall'll be glad I'm not coming, and some day, maybe you'll take me when she isn't with you."
Dave started to protest, then the polite lie faded on his lips. Lydia turned her pellucid gaze to his with such a look of mature understanding, that he ended by nodding as if she had indeed been grown up, and rising, said, "Perhaps you're right. Good-by, my dear. Come, Margery."
Lydia stood with the baby clinging to her skirts. There were tears in her eyes. Sometimes she looked on the world that other children lived in, with the wonder and longing of a little beggar snub-nosed against the window of a French pastry shop.
John Levine came home with Amos that night to supper. Amos felt safe about an unexpected guest on Saturday nights for there was always a pot of baked beans, at the baking of which Lizzie was a master hand, and there were always biscuits. Lydia was expert at making these. She had taken of late to practising with her mother's old cook book and Amos felt as if he were getting a new lease of gastronomic life.
"Well," said Levine, after supper was finished, the baby was asleep and Lydia was established with a copy of "The Water Babies" he had brought her, "I had an interesting trip, this week."
Amos tossed the bag of tobacco to Levine. "Where?"
"I put in most of the week on horseback up on the reservation. Amos, the pine land up in there is something to dream of. Why, there's nothing like it left in the Mississippi Valley, nor hasn't been for twenty years. Have you ever been up there?"
Amos shook his head. "I've just never had time. It's a God-awful trip. No railroad, twenty-mile drive—"
Levine nodded. "The Indians are in awful bad shape up there. Agent's in it for what he can get, I guess. Don't know as I blame him. The sooner the Indians are gone the better it'll be for us and all concerned."
"What's the matter with 'em?" asked Lydia.
"Consumption—some kind of eye disease—starvation—"
The child shivered and her eyes widened.
"You'd better go on with the 'Water Babies,'" said John. "Has Tom fallen into the river yet?"
"No, he's just seen himself in the mirror," answered Lydia, burying her nose in the delectable tale again.
"It's a wonderful story," said Levine, his black eyes reminiscent.
"'Clear and cool, clear and cool,
By laughing shallow and dreaming pool;
* * * * * *
Undefiled, for the undefiled;
Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.'
It has some unforgettable verse in it. Well, as I was saying, Amos, that timber isn't going to stay up there and rot—because, I'm going to get it out of there!"
"How?" asked Amos.
"Act of Congress, maybe. Maybe a railroad will get a permit to go through, eh? There are several ways. We'll die rich, yet, Amos."
Amos pulled at his pipe and shook his head. "You will but I won't. It isn't in our blood."
"Shucks, Amos. Where's your nerve?"
Amos looked at Levine silently for a moment. Then he said huskily,
"My nerve is gone with Patience. And if she isn't in heaven, there isn't one, that's all."
Lydia looked up from her story with a quick flash of tragedy in her eyes.
"Well," said John, smiling at her gently, "if you don't want to be rich, Amos, Lydia does. I'll give her the cottage here, the first fifty thousand I make off of Indian pine lands."
"I swan," exclaimed Amos, "if you do that, I'll buy a cow and a pig and some chickens and I can pretty near make a living right here."
"You're foolish, Amos. This isn't New England. This is the West. All you've got to do is to keep your nerve, and any one with sense can make a killing. Opportunity screams at you."
"I guess she's always on my deaf side," said Amos.
"When I grow up," said Lydia, suddenly, "I'm going to buy a ship and sail to Africa and explore the jungles."
"I'll go with you, Lydia,", exclaimed Levine, "hanged if I don't sell my Indian lands for real money, and go right along with you."
"Mr. Marshall says 'like Hell you'll get some Indian lands,'" mused the child.
Both men exclaimed together, "What!"
Lydia was confused but repeated her conversation with Marshall.
"So that's the way the wind blows," said Levine.
"You don't think for a minute there's a banker in town without one hand on the reservation," said Amos. "Lydia, you're old enough now not to repeat conversations you hear at home. Don't you ever tell anybody the things you hear me and Mr. Levine talk over. Understand?" sharply.
"Yes, Daddy," murmured Lydia, flushing painfully.
"You don't have to jaw the child that way, Amos." Levine's voice was impatient. "Just explain things to her. Why do you want to humiliate her?"
Amos gave a short laugh. "Takes a bachelor to bring up kids. Run along to bed, Lydia."
"Lydia's not a kid. She's a grown-up lady in disguise," said Levine, catching her hand as she passed and drawing her to him. "Good night, young Lydia! If you were ten years older and I were ten years younger—"
Lydia smiled through tear-dimmed eyes. "We'd travel!" she said.
Cold weather set in early this year. Before Thanksgiving the lake was ice-locked for the winter. The garden was flinty, and on Thanksgiving Day, three inches of snow fell. The family rose in the dark. Amos, with his dinner pail, left the house an hour before Lydia and the sun was just flushing the brown tree tops when she waved good-by to little Patience, whose lovely little face against the window was the last thing she saw in the morning, the first thing she saw watching for her return in the dusk of the early winter evening.
Amos, always a little moody and a little restless, since the children's mother had gone to her last sleep, grew more so as the end of the year approached. It was perhaps a week before Christmas on a Sunday afternoon that he called Lydia to him. Patience was having her nap and Lizzie had gone to call on Mrs. Norton.
Lydia, who was re-reading "The Water Babies," put it down reluctantly and came to her father's side. Her heart thumped heavily. Her father's depressed voice meant just one thing—money trouble.
He was very gentle. He put his hand on the dusty yellow of her hair. He was very careful of the children's hair. Like many New England farm lads he was a jack of all trades. He clipped Lydia's hair every month himself.
"Your hair will be thick enough in another year, so's I won't have to cut it any more, Lydia. It's coming along thick as felt. Wouldn't think it was once thin, now."
Lydia eyed her father's care-lined face uneasily. Amos still hesitated.
"Where'd you get that dress, my dear?" he asked.
"Lizzie and I made it of that one of mother's," answered the child. "It isn't made so awful good, but I like to wear it, because it was hers."
"Yes, yes," said Amos absently.
The dress was a green serge, clumsily put together as a sailor suit, and the color fought desperately with the transparent blue of the little girl's eyes.
"Lydia," said her father abruptly. "You're a big girl now. You asked for skates and a sled for Christmas. My child, I don't see how you children are going to have anything extra for Christmas, except perhaps a little candy and an orange. That note with Marshall comes due in January. By standing Levine off on the rent, I can rake and scrape the interest together. It's hopeless for me even to consider meeting the note. What Marshall will do, I don't know. If I could ever get on my feet—with the garden. But on a dollar and a half a day, I swan—"
"No Christmas at all?" quavered Lydia. "Won't we even hang up our stockings?"
"If you'll be contented just to put a little candy in them. Come,
Lydia, you're too big to hang up your stocking, anyhow."
Lydia left her father and walked over to the window. She pressed her face against the pane and looked back to the lake. The sun was sinking in a gray rift of clouds. The lake was a desolate plain of silvery gold touched with great shadows of purple where snow drifts were high. As she looked, the weight on her chest lifted. The trembling in her hands that always came with the mention of money lessened. The child, even as early as this, had the greatest gift that life bestows, the power of deriving solace from sky and hill and sweep of water.
"Anyhow," she said to her father, "I've still got something to look forward to. I've got the doll house to give baby, and Mr. Levine always gives me a book for Christmas."
"That's a good girl!" Amos gave a relieved sigh, then went on with his brooding over his unlighted pipe.
And after all, this Christmas proved to be one of the high spots of Lydia's life. She had a joyous 24th. All the morning she spent in the woods on the Norton farm with her sled, cutting pine boughs. As she trudged back through the farmyard, Billy Norton called to her.
"Oh, Lydia!"
Lydia stopped her sled against a drift and waited for Billy to cross the farmyard. He was a large, awkward boy several years older than Lydia. He seemed a very homely sort of person to her, yet she liked his face. He was as fair as Kent was dark. Kent's features were regular and clean-cut. Billy's were rough hewn and irregular, and his hair and lashes were straight and blond.
What Lydia could not at this time appreciate was the fact that Billy's gray eyes were remarkable in the clarity and steadiness of their gaze, that his square jaw and mobile mouth were full of fine promise for his manhood and that even at sixteen the framework of his great body was magnificent.
He never had paid any attention to Lydia before and she was bashful toward the older boys.
"Say, Lydia, want a brace of duck? A lot of them settled at Warm
Springs last night and I've got more than I can use."
He leaned his gun against the fence and began to separate two birds from the bunch hanging over his shoulder.
Lydia began to breathe quickly. The Dudleys could not afford a special
Christmas dinner.
"I—I don't know how I could pay you, Bill—"
"Who wants pay?" asked Bill, indignantly.
"I dasn't take anything without paying for it," returned Lydia, her eyes still on the ducks. "But I'd—I'd rather have those than a ship."
Billy's clear gaze wandered from Lydia's thin little face to her patched mittens and back again.
"Won't your father let you?" he asked.
"I won't let myself," replied the little girl.
"Oh!" said Billy, his gray eyes deepening. "Well, let me have the evergreens and you go back for some more. It'll save me getting Ma hers."
With one thrust of her foot Lydia shoved the fragrant pile of boughs into the snow. She tied the brace of duck to the sled and started back toward the wood, then paused and looked back at Billy.
"Thank you a hundred times," she called.
"It was a business deal. No thanks needed," he replied.
Lydia nodded and trudged off. The boy stood for a moment looking at the little figure, then he started after her.
"Lydia, I'll get that load of pines for you."
She tossed a vivid smile over her shoulder. "You will not. It's a business deal."
And Billy turned back reluctantly toward the barn.
In an hour Lydia was panting up the steps into the kitchen. Lizzie's joy was even more extreme than Lydia's. She thawed the ducks out and dressed them, after dinner, with the two children standing so close as at times seriously to impede progress.
"I'm lucky," said Lydia. "There isn't anybody luckier than I am or has better things happen to 'em than I do. I'd rather be me than a water baby."
"Baby not a water baby. Baby a duck," commented Patience, her hands full of bright feathers.
"Baby is a duck," laughed Lydia. "Won't Daddy be glad!"
Amos was glad. Plodding sadly home, he was greeted by three glowing faces in the open door as soon as his foot sounded on the porch. The base burner in the living-room was clear and glowing. The dining-room was fragrant with pine. He was not allowed to take off his overcoat, but was towed to the kitchen where the two birds, trussed and stuffed for the baking, were set forth on the table.
"I got 'em!" shouted Lydia. "I got 'em off Billy Norton for a load of pine. Christmas present for you, Daddy, from yours truly, Lydia!" She seized the baby's hands and the two did a dance round Amos, shouting, "Christmas present! Christmas present!" at the top of their lungs.
"Well! Well!" exclaimed Amos. "Isn't that fine! If Levine comes out to-morrow we can ask him to dinner, after all. Can't we, Lizzie?"
"You bet we can!" said Lizzie. "And look at this. I was going to keep it for a surprise. I made it by your wife's recipe."
She held an open Mason jar under Amos' nose.
"Mince meat!" he exclaimed. "Why, Lizzie, where'd you get the makings?"
"Oh, a bit here and a bit there for the last two months. Ain't it grand?" offering a smell to each of the children, who sniffed ecstatically.
When the baby was safely asleep, Lydia appeared with two stockings which she hung on chair backs by the stove in the living-room.
"I'm putting them up to hold the candy," she explained to her father, suggestively.
He rose obediently and produced half a dozen oranges and a bag of candy.
"Oh, that's gorgeous," cried Lydia, whose spirits to-night were not to be quenched. She brought in the doll house.
"See, Daddy," she said, with the pride of the master builder. "I colored it with walnut juice. And I found the wall paper in the attic."
Amos got down on his knees and examined the tiny rooms and the cigar box furniture. He chuckled delightedly. "I swan," he said, "if Patience doesn't want it you can give it to me!"
"I'm going to let Lizzie put the candy in the stockings," mused Lydia, "then I'll have that to look forward to. I'm going to bed right now, so morning will come sooner."
Alone with the stockings, into which Lizzie put the candy and oranges, Amos sat long staring at the base burner. Without, the moon sailed high. Wood snapping in the intense cold was the only sound on the wonder of the night. Something of the urgent joy and beauty of the Eve touched Amos, for he finally rose and said,
"Well, I've got two fine children, anyhow." Then he filled up the stoves for the night and went to bed.
CHAPTER IV
THE RAVISHED NEST
"The young pine bends to the storm. The old pine breaks."—The
Murmuring Pine.
It would be difficult to say which enjoyed the doll house more, Lydia or Patience. It would be difficult to say which one was the more touched, Lizzie or Amos by the package each found on the breakfast table. Amos unwrapped his to find therein a pipe tray fashioned from cigar box wood and stained with Lydia's walnut dye. Lizzie's gift was a flat black pin-cushion, with "Lizzie, with love from Lydia," embroidered crazily on it in red. Florence Dombey showed no emotion over her gift, a string of red beads that had a curious resemblance to asparagus seed-pods, but she wore them gracefully and stared round-eyed at all the festivities. Lydia and Patience each wore pinned to her dress a cotton handkerchief, Lizzie's gift.
John Levine appeared at noon, laden like a pack horse. This was his great opportunity during the year to do things for the Dudley children and he took full advantage of the moment. Books for Lydia, little toys for the baby, a pipe for Amos, a woolen dress pattern for Lizzie, a blue sailor suit for Lydia, a fur hood for Patience.
John's thin, sallow face glowed, his black eyes gleamed as he watched the children unwrap the packages. In the midst of the excitement, Lydia shrieked.
"My ducks! My ducks!" and bolted for the kitchen.
"The pie!" cried Lizzie, panting after her.
"Don't tell me they're spoiled!" groaned Amos, as with John and the baby, he followed into the kitchen.
"Safe!" shouted Lydia, on her knees before the oven. "Just the pope's nose is scorched! The pie is perfect."
"Let's eat before anything else happens," said Amos, nervously.
"Lord!" said John Levine, "who'd miss spending Christmas where there are children? I'd a gotten out here to-day if I'd had to come barefooted."
The dinner was eaten and pronounced perfect. The gifts were re-examined and re-admired. John Levine, with Lydia and Florence Dombey on his lap, Amos with the drowsy little Patience in his arms, and Lizzie, her tired hands folded across her comfortable stomach, sat round the base burner while the wind rose outside and the boom of the ice-locked lake filled the room from time to time.
"Fearful cold when the ice cracks that way," said Amos.
"'The owl, for all his feathers was a-cold,'" murmured Lydia.
"Where'd you get that and what's the rest of it?" asked Levine.
"Selected Gems," replied Lydia. "It's a book at school.
"'St. Agnes Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl for all his feathers was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass
And silent was the flock in woolly fold.'
I forget the rest."
The grown-ups glanced at each other over the children's heads.
"Say your pretty Christmas poem you spoke at school, Lydia," suggested old Lizzie.
Lydia rested her head back comfortably on John's shoulder and rambled on in her childish contralto.
"Sing low, indeed: and softly bleat,
You lambing ewes about her feet,
Lest you should wake the child from sleep!
No other hour so still and sweet
Shall fall for Mary's heart to keep
Until her death hour on her creep,
Sing soft, the Eve of Mary."
There was silence for a moment.
"Why did you choose that one, young Lydia?" asked Levine.
"I don't know. I seemed to like it," answered Lydia. "It's a girl's poem. Gosh, I've been happy to-day! Daddy, you thought we'd have an awful poor Christmas, didn't you? Poor old Daddy! Why, I've just felt all day as if my heart was on tip-toes."
It had indeed been a high day for the child. Perhaps she remembered it for years after as one of her perfect days, because of the heart breaking days that followed.
For little Patience for the first time in her tiny life was taken ill. For three or four days after Christmas she was feverish and cross with a hoarse cold. When Amos came home the fourth night, he thought she had the croup and sent Lydia pelting through the darkness for the dairy farmer's wife. Mrs. Norton, the mother of Billy, was not long in coming to a decision.
"'Tain't regular croup. You go after the doctor, Mr. Dudley."
Patience, frightened by her difficult breathing, would let no one but Lydia touch her. Under Mrs. Norton's supervision, she packed the baby in hot water bottles while Lizzie heated water and stoked the fires till the stove doors glowed red.
Amos came back with the doctor about nine o'clock. Patience was in a stupor. The doctor sent Lydia away while he made his examination. The child clenched her fists and walked up and down the livingroom, cheeks scarlet, eyes blazing. Suddenly she dropped on her knees by the window and lifted her clasped hands to the stars.
"God! God, up there!" she called. "If you let her die, I'll never pray to you again! Never! I warned You when You let mother die!"
She remained a moment on her knees, staring at the stars while fragments of Sunday School lore flashed through her mind. "Our Father who art in heaven," she said. "No, that won't do. Suffer little children to come unto me. Oh, no, no."
The door opened and Lizzie came out, tears-running down her cheeks.
Lydia flew to her.
"They say I got to tell you. Diphtheritic croup—her lungs is full—no hope."
Lydia struck the kind old hand from her shoulder and dashed out of the house. She ran through the snow to a giant pine by the gate and beat her fists against it for how long she did not know. Pain in her bruised hands and the intense cold finally brought her to her senses. A self-control that was partly inherent and partly the result of too early knowledge of grief and of responsibility came to her rescue. With a long sigh, she walked steadily into the house and into the room where the baby sister lay in a stupor, breathing stertorously.
The doctor and Amos were there. Mrs. Norton was now soothing Lizzie in the kitchen, now obeying the doctor's orders. Amos did not stir from his chair by the bed, nor speak a word, all that night. The doctor was in his shirt sleeves, prepared to fight as best he could.
"Go out, Lydia," said Dr. Fulton, quietly.
"She'll want me," replied the child.
The doctor looked at Lydia keenly. He knew her well. He had ushered her as well as Patience into the world. He pulled her to him, with one hand, not relinquishing his hold on the baby's pulse with the other.
"She's in a stupor and won't miss you, Lydia. She is not suffering at all. Now, I want you to go to bed like a good girl."
"I won't," said Lydia, quietly.
"Lydia," the doctor went on, as if he were talking to a grown person, "all your life you will be grateful to me, if I make you obey me now. I know those wild nerves of yours, too much and too early controlled. Lydia, go to bed!"
Not because she feared him but because some knowledge beyond her years told her of his wisdom, Lydia turned, found Florence Dombey in the living-room and with her and a blanket, crept under her father's bed, into the farthest corner where she lay wide-eyed until dawn. Some one closed the door into the room then, and shortly, she fell asleep.
In three days, the like of which are the longest, the shortest days of life, the house had returned to the remnant of its old routine. The place had been fumigated. Lydia had placed in her bedroom everything that had belonged to the baby, had locked the door and had moved herself into Lizzie's room. Amos departed before dawn as usual with his dinner pail, stumbling like an old man, over the road.
The quarantine sign was on the house and no one but the undertaker, the doctor, Mrs. Norton and John Levine had been allowed to come to see the stricken little family, excepting the minister. He, poor man, had babies of his own, and had been nervous during the few short minutes of the service.
Lydia and Lizzie put in the morning cleaning the cottage. Never since they had lived in it had the little house been so spic and span. At noon, they sat down to lunch in a splendor of cleanliness that made the place seem stranger than ever to them both. Neither talked much. At intervals, tears ran down old Lizzie's wrinkled cheeks and Lydia looked at her wonderingly. Lydia had not shed a tear. But all the time her cheeks were scarlet, her hands were cold and trembled and her stomach ached.
"You must eat, childie. You haven't eat enough to keep a bird alive since—since—"
There was a bang on the door, and Lizzie trundled over to open it.
"For the Lord's sake, Kent!"
Kent it was, big and rosy with his skates over his shoulders. He walked into the living-room deliberately.
"Hello, Lydia," he said, "I came out to see your Christmas presents."
Lydia clasped her hands. "Oh, Kent, I'm so glad! But you can't stay!
We're quarantined."
"What the seventeen thunder-bugs do I care," returned Kent, gruffly, looking away from Lydia's appealing eyes.
Lydia laughed, as she always did at Kent's astonishing oaths. At the sound of the laughter, old Lizzie gave a sigh as though some of her own tense nerves had relaxed.
"Now see here," growled Kent, "they've got no business to shut you up this way. You come out and skate for a while. The wind's blown the snow till there's lots of clear places. I got up here without much trouble. We won't meet anybody at this end of the lake."
"Just the thing, quarantine or not!" exclaimed, Lizzie, briskly. "And
I'll cook a surprise for the two of you. Keep her out an hour, Kent."
Lydia silently got into overcoat and leggings and pulled on her Tam o' Shanter. She brought her skates from the kitchen and the two children made their way to the lake shore.
It was a brilliant afternoon. The vast white expanse of the lake was dotted with the flash of opals wherever the wind had exposed the ice to the winter sun. Far down the lake toward the college shore, the flitting sails of ice-boats gleamed, and faint and far up the wind came the clear "cling-pling" of their steel runners. The mercury was hovering around ten or twelve above zero as the fierce booming of the expanding ice attested.
With unwonted consideration, Kent helped Lydia strap on her skates. Then the two started, hand in hand, up the lake. They skated well, as did most of the children of the community. The wind in their faces was bitter cold, making conversation difficult. Whether or not Kent was grateful for this, one could not say. He watched Lydia out of the tail of his eye and as the wind whipped the old red into her cheeks, he began to whistle. They had been going perhaps fifteen minutes when the little girl stumbled several times.
"What's the matter, Lyd?" asked Kent.
"I don't know," she panted. "I—I guess I'm tired."
"Tired already! Gosh! And you've always worn me out. Come on up to the shore, and I'll make a fire, so's you can rest."
Lydia, who always had scorned the thought of rest, while at play, followed meekly and stood in silence while Kent without removing his skates hobbled up the bank and pulled some dead branches to the shore. Shortly he had a bright blaze at her feet. He kicked the snow off a small log.
"Sit down—here where you get the warmth," he ordered, his voice as gruff as he could make it.
Lydia sat down obediently, her mittened hands clasping her knees. Kent stood staring at his little chum. He took in the faded blue Tam, the outgrown coat, the red mittens, so badly mended, the leggings with patches on the knees. Then he eyed the heavy circles around her eyes and the droop to the mouth that was meant to be merry.
"I'm sorriest for Lydia," his mother had said that morning. "No mother could feel much worse than she does, and she's got no one to turn to for comfort. I know Amos. He'll shut up like a clam. Just as soon as they're out of quarantine, I'll go out there."
Kent was only a boy, but he was mature in spite of his heedless ways. Staring at the tragedy in Lydia's ravished little face, a sympathy for her pain as real as it was unwonted swept over him. Suddenly he dropped down beside her on the log and threw his boyish arms about her.
"I'm so doggone sorry for you, Lydia!" he whispered.
Lydia lifted startled eyes to his. Never before had Kent shown her the slightest affection. When she saw the sweetness and sympathy in his brown gaze,
"Oh, Kent," she whispered, "why did God let it happen! Why did He?" and she buried her face on his shoulder and began to sob. Softly at first, then with a racking agony of tears.
Even a child is wise in the matter of grief. Kent's lips trembled, but he made no attempt to comfort Lydia. He only held her tightly and watched the fire with bright, unseeing eyes. And after what seemed a long, long time, the sobs grew less. Finally, he slipped a pocket handkerchief into Lydia's hand. It was gray with use but of a comforting size.
"Wipe your eyes, old lady," he said in a cheerful, matter of fact tone.
"I've got to put the fire out, so's we can start home."
Lydia mopped her face and by the time Kent had the fire smothered with snow, she was standing, sad-eyed but calm except for dry sobs. Kent picked up one of the sticks he had brought for the fire.
"Catch hold," he said, "I'll pull you home."
Old Lizzie was watching for them and when they came stamping into the dining-room, they found a pitcher of steaming cocoa and a plate of bread and butter with hot gingerbread awaiting them.
"See if you can get her to eat, Kent," said Lizzie.
"Sure, she'll eat," Kent answered her. "Gimme back my hanky, Lyd!"
Lizzie gave a keen look at Lydia's tear-stained face and turned abruptly into the kitchen. She came back in a moment to find Lydia silently eating what Kent had set before her.
Kent ate hugely and talked without cessation. About what, Lydia did not know, for the sleep that had been long denied her was claiming her. She did not know that she almost buried her head in her second cup of cocoa, nor that Kent helped carry her to the couch behind the living-room base burner.
"Is she sick? Shall I get the doctor?" he whispered as old Lizzie tucked a shawl over her.
"Sick! No! No! She's just dead for sleep. She's neither cried nor eat nor had a decent hour of sleep since it happened. And now, thanks to you, she's done all three. You are a good boy, Kent Moulton."
Kent looked suddenly foolish and embarrassed. "Aw—that's nothing," he muttered. "Where's my coat? Maybe I'll come out again to-morrow, if I ain't got anything better to do."
All the rest of the winter afternoon, Lydia slept. The sun dipped low beyond the white hills, filling the living-room with scarlet for one breathless moment, before a blanket of twilight hid all save the red eyes of the base burner. Amos came home at seven and he and Lizzie ate supper in silence except for the old lady's story of Kent's visit.
"Poor young one," muttered Amos, looking slowly toward the quiet blond head on the faded brown cushion. "I'm glad she's a child and 'll forget it soon."
Lizzie gave Amos a curious glance. "You don't know Lydia, Amos," she said.
He did not seem to hear her. He moved his chair toward the stove, put his feet on the fender, lighted his pipe and then sat without moving until a stamping of feet and a hearty rap on the door roused him. Lizzie let John Levine in.
"Where's Lydia?" was Levine's first Question.
Lizzie pointed to the couch, where, undisturbed, Lydia slept on.
"Good!" said John. He drew his chair up beside Amos' and the two fell into low-voiced conversation.
It must have been nine o'clock when Lydia opened her eyes to hear Amos say fretfully,
"I tell you, I went to him to-day as I'll go to no man again. I begged him to renew the note, but he insisted his duty to the bank wouldn't let him. I told him it would put you in a terrible fix, that you'd gone on the note when you couldn't afford it. He grinned a devil's grin then and said, 'Amos, I know you've got nothing to lose in this. If you had, for the sake of your children—I mean Lydia, I'd hold off. But Levine can fix it up!'"
"So I could, ordinarily," said Levine in a troubled voice. "But it just happens that everything I've got on earth is shoe-stringed out to hang onto that pine section of mine up in Bear county. I'm mortgaged up to my eyebrows. Marshall knows it and sees a chance to get hold of the pines, damn him!"
Lydia sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"Well! Well! young Lydia," cried Levine. "Had a fine sleep, didn't you!"
"I'm awful hungry," said the child.
"Bless your soul," exclaimed Lizzie. "I'll warm your supper up for you in a minute."
Lydia stood with hands outstretched to the base burner, her hair tumbled, her glance traveling from Amos to Levine.
"What makes Mr. Marshall act so?" she asked.
"Sho," said Levine, "little girls your age don't know anything about such things, do they, Amos? Come here. You shall eat your supper on my lap."
"I'm getting too old for laps," said Lydia, coming very willingly nevertheless within the compass of John's long arms. "But I love you next to Daddy now, in all the world."
John swept her to his knees and put his cheek against hers for a moment, while tears gleamed in his black eyes.
"Eat your supper and go to bed, Lydia," said Amos.
"Don't be so cross, Amos," protested Levine.
"God knows I'm not cross—to Lydia of all people in the world," sighed Amos, "but she worries over money matters just the way her mother did and I want to finish talking this over with you."
"There's nothing more to talk about," Levine's voice was short. "Let him call in the loan, the fat hog!"
Lydia slept the long night through. She awoke refreshed and renewed. After first adjusting herself to the awful sense of loss, which is the worst of waking in grief, the recollection of the conversation she had heard the night before returned with sickening vividness. After she had wiped the breakfast dishes for Lizzie she stood for a long time at the living-room window with Florence Dombey in her arms staring at the lake. Finally, she tucked the doll up comfortably on the couch and announced to Lizzie that she was going skating.
An hour later, Dave Marshall heard his clerk protesting outside his door and a childish voice saying, "But please, just for a minute. He likes me. He truly does."
Then the door opened and Lydia, breathless and rosy and threadbare, came into his little private office. She closed the door and stood with her back against it, unsmiling.
"I'm in quarantine," she said, "so I won't come near you."
"Why, Lydia!" exclaimed Marshall, "where did you come from!"
"Home. Mr. Marshall, won't you fix Daddy's note if he gives you me?"
"Huh!" ejaculated Marshall.
"You said last fall," the child went on, her voice quavering but her eyes resolute, "that if Daddy ever wanted to sell me, you'd buy me. I think I ought to be worth a thousand dollars. I can do so much work around the house and help you train Margery! I can work hard. You ask John Levine."
Marshall's fat face was purple and then pale.
"Does your father know you're here, Lydia?" he asked.
She clasped her mittened hands in sudden agitation.
"Nobody knows but you," she exclaimed. "Oh! you mustn't tell the man out there my name. I'm in quarantine and I'd be arrested, if the health office knew!"
"I won't tell," said Dave, gently. "Come over here by me, Lydia.
Margery is away on a visit so I'm not afraid for her."
Lydia crossed the room. Marshall took the skates from her shoulders and unfastened her coat.
"Sit down on that chair and let's talk this over. You know what a note is, do you, Lydia?"
"It's money you owe," she said, her blue eyes anxiously fixed on
Marshall's face.
He nodded. "Yes. When your mother was sick, your father asked my bank here to lend him a thousand dollars for two years. Now, your father is very poor. He doesn't own anything that's worth a thousand dollars and I knew he could never pay it back. So I told him he must get some one to promise to pay that money for him if he couldn't, at the end of the two years. Understand?"
Lydia nodded.
"Well, he got John Levine. Now the two years are up and unless that thousand dollars is paid, the people whose money I take care of in the bank, will each lose some of that thousand. See?"
Lydia stared at him, struggling to take in the explanation. "I see," she said. "But if you'd pay a thousand dollars for me, that would fix it all up."
"Why Lydia, do you mean you would leave your father?"
"I wouldn't want to," she answered earnestly, "but Lizzie could take care of Daddy. He doesn't really need me. There isn't anybody really needs me—needs me—now—"
She swallowed a sob, then went on. "Mr. Levine just mustn't pay it.
He's awful worried. His land's fixed so's he'd never get over it. And
he's the best friend we have in all the world. He just mustn't pay it.
It would kill mother, if she knew. Oh, she hated borrowing so."
Marshall chewed his cigar. "Levine," he growled, "is a long legged crook."
Lydia flew out of her chair and shook her fist in the banker's face. "Don't you dare say that!" she cried. "He's a dear lamb, that's what he is."
Dave's fat jaw dropped. "A dear lamb, eh? Ask him some time what a land shark is—a dear lamb?"
He went on chewing his cigar and Lydia returned to her chair. Whether it was the anxious round eyes, above the scarlet cheeks, whether it was the wistful droop of the childish lips, whether it was the look that belongs to ravished motherhood and seemed grossly wrong on a child's face, whether it was some thought of his own pampered little daughter, whether it was that curious appeal Lydia always made to men, or a combination of all, that moved Marshall, he could not have told. But suddenly he burst forth.
"Good God, I've done hard things in my life, but I can't do this! Lydia, you go home and tell your father I'll renew that note, but he's got to pay the interest and ten per cent. of the principal, every year till he's paid it up. Here, I'll write it down. And tell him that I'm not doing it for him or for that skunk of a Levine, but I'm doing it for you. Here, I'll write that down, too."
He folded the bit of paper and put it in an envelope. "Come here," he said. He pinned the note into the pocket of her blouse. "Understand, Lydia," he said in a low voice, tilting her head up so that he looked down into her eyes, "I'm buying your friendship with this. You go on living with your father and taking care of him, but I'm buying your friendship for me and Margery—for good and all." He looked out of the window with a curious air of abstraction. Then, "Button your coat and run along."
"I haven't thanked you," exclaimed Lydia, "I can't thank you. Oh, but thank you, Mr. Marshall—I—I—" she began to tremble violently.
"Stop!" roared Marshall. "And you tell your father to look out for your nerves. Now skip." And Lydia's trembling stopped and she skipped.
She did not tell Lizzie of her errand and that faithful soul was too glad to see her eat her dinner to think to ask her why she had skated so long. Kent came out in the afternoon and the two fished through the ice until sunset, when they came in with a string of fish sufficiently long to divide and make a meal for the Dudleys and the Moultons. At dusk, Kent departed with his fish and "Men of Iron," loaned by Lydia as a special favor, under his arm.
Old Lizzie cleaned the fish and Lydia fried them, with the daintiness and skill that seemed to have been born in her. She laid an envelope at her father's plate and when he sat down, silent and abstracted, without heeding the fish, she shook her head at Lizzie who was about to protest.
"Where'd this come from?" he asked, absentmindedly opening the envelope. Then, "For God's sake! Lydia—where? how?"
"It was like this," said Lydia. "Set the fish back to warm, while I explain, Lizzie. It was like this—" and she gave a full history of her morning's visit, to her two speechless listeners. "And I ran all the way to the lake and I skated like the wind, and I never told Lizzie a word, though I nearly busted!"
Amos looked from Lydia to Lizzie, from Lizzie to Lydia.
"Lydia—my little daughter—" he faltered.
The tears flew to Lydia's eyes and she spoke hastily, "Lizzie, show him the fish we caught!"
Amos smiled while he shook his head. "I won't forget it, Lydia. In spite of little Patience's going, you've taken ten years off me this night. What do you suppose John Levine will say?"
"He'll say," replied Lydia, taking her serving of fish, "'If you were ten years older, Lydia, and I were ten years younger,' and I'll say—'then we'd travel.'"