CHAPTER II
TIBBY’S EYES
As for Tibby’s eyes, no one had been able to decide upon the exact color of them. On warm, sunshiny afternoons, when Tibby yawned in a swinging hammock on the back veranda and the pupils were small and contracted, they appeared of a cerulean hue, warm and languorous. On cloudy days, when the sky was dark and lowering, Tibby’s eyes were gray and forbidding. But when a tempest of rage shook her pliant figure her eyes sparkled black as coal from the mines. Her brothers called them cat’s eyes, not only because the name Tibby was a contraction of the more severe Tabitha of her christening, but from the ever-varying, changing light which shone in their restless depths, which now dilated until the least rim of color was visible, now contracted like those of a purring kitten.
Tibby had not to depend upon the beauty of her opalescent eyes for recognition, for nature had dealt most generously with her, giving her regular features, and so mixing and intermingling the types of brunette and blonde in her physique that no one could determine in which class to catalogue her. The delicious glint of the sun in her brown hair, the rich waves of carmine that tinged and receded from her cheeks, the arched black brows which defined themselves so conspicuously against the shining whiteness of her forehead were contradictions when compared, but formed a tout ensemble most charming.
It appeared, too, that Tibby’s nature was as contradictory. Wayward and wilful as she was at times, at others she appeared of angelic sweetness, and the soft, innocent depths of those slumberous blue eyes captivated the hearts of all who met her, and made them swear no evil could exist in her.
And now while Tibby, like her feline namesake, purrs most delusively in the midst of her aesthetic surroundings, and her pink-tinted fingers effectually conceal any hidden claws, her mind reviews a scene but three weeks behind the present.
She sees an old-fashioned, wood-colored farm-house with broad lawn, in which are bright beds of dear old-fashioned flowers, marigolds and petunias, bachelor buttons and scarlet poppies; and she sees herself in calico gown and big sunbonnet standing under the old elm, in listening attitude, while a shrill, chirruping note sounds in her ear.
“Hello, Tib, what’s up?” shouts a boyish voice, and a stout-limbed, bare-footed lad bounds down the path toward her.
“Hush!” she says. “Ah, you have frightened it away! It was singing in the old elm and I hoped to find it. It’s a tree-toad, isn’t it? Did you ever see one, Tom?”
“Hundreds of ’em,” replies the boy contemptuously.
“What do they look like, Tom? Are they green?”
“They’re mostly the color of the thing they’re on, I reckon,” says the oracle. “Sometimes they’re like the bark of the trees or fence, and then again they’re sort of green if they’re on the grass.”
“Humph! You don’t expect me to believe such a fish story as that, do you?” replies Tibby scornfully, drawing up her straight, slim figure with dignity. “As if any mortal thing could change its color! As well might the leopard change his spots,” she continues as her mind reverts to the Scripture lesson of the preceding Sabbath.
“That’s all you know about it! They’re thicker ’n spatter down in the lane, an’ I guess I know what I’m telling you! Why, Tibby, they’re like your eyes. A minute ago they were blue, now they’re yeller. Mother says your eyes make her fidgety, they’re so changeable.” And Tom laughed gleefully.
“Did she, Tom; when?”
“Yisterday. I heard her tell pop. And say, Tibby, if you don’t go down cellar and do that churnin’, she’ll make it hot for you. She says you allus slip off on churnin’ days.”
“It’s already done, Mr. Tom. I did it before I came out here. But mother’ll think I haven’t, and won’t she have a conniption fit?”
Again the twain laugh.
“Say, Tom, wouldn’t you like to go away somewheres, where folks are different—into the city, or somewhere? It’s deadly dull here, an’ then mother’s so cross—”
“I dunno, pop’s all right if she didn’t put him up to pitch into us.” Tom gives his trousers a jerk, and digs his bare toes into the grass. “An’ she tells him you’re wilful and headstrong as fury.”
Tibby tosses her red-brown curls and purses up her small mouth expressively, then she remembers her quest.
“Just find this toad for me, Tom, and I’ll thank you ever so much, that’s a good boy,” she purrs as she approaches the tree more closely. “I want to see one for myself. Here, I’ll boost you up into the tree. I think it’s out on that limb.”
And the good-natured Tom, declining her proffered aid, climbs the tree with an agility born of long practice, while the girl feels her eyes dilate with expectancy, and then he captures the singer and brings it to her for inspection. Good Tom! Tibby feels these same eyes filling as she looks upon this picture. The toad is a dull gray, and looks incapable of producing these strident sounds. What a queer, homely thing it is. Ugh!
“Put it back upon the limb, Tom. I’m afraid to touch it,” she says with a shiver, and Tom laughs contemptuously.
“You know about as much about toads as Bess does,” he says; “we saw some toad-stools, last night, growing in the moss down on the bank and she said, ‘O, ain’t they pretty, Tom? And to think the toads made ’em, too.’ Ha, ha, ha! she thought the toads made ’em.”
Tibby feels a little lump rise in her throat as she remembers this, and as she turns away her head she sees, as she saw then, a glittering carriage, drawn by a handsome span of bays, come swiftly down the big hill on the east, and watches it with fascinated glance as it spins across the level of the flats and up into the covered, wooden bridge. It comes forth from the nearer end of the structure, and then something happens, for almost before the house the horses come to a halt and the driver springs out. Something has broken. Tibby knows that it must have been caused by that steep pitch off the end of the bridge, which should have been repaired, or filled in, long ago.
“There,” she says to Tom, “if Path-master Morton had attended to that place, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“That comes from putting in politicians that don’t know beans from broomsticks,” says Tom oracularly. “A man that don’t keep his own place in repair can’t be expected to look after the public ones.”
The driver examines the carriage closely, and then comes into the yard and asks for hammer, nails, and other repairing material. Tom runs for the supplies, while Tibby watches a small lady, accompanied by a yellow-haired boy with long curls and kilts, step daintily from the broken carriage and enter the yard. The lady smiles upon Tibby and asks if she may sit down to wait under the shade of the patriarchal old tree; and Tibby replies to her questioning, while she sits before her and tells her of her brothers and sisters, and her heart swells with pride at the lady’s praise of her home and surroundings. Her eyes follow those of the lady to the old-fashioned, weather-brown farm-house, with its low-browed gables and spreading lean-tos, built apparently without regard to economy of ground space; then to the left, where upon a little lower ground the great red-roofed barns and spacious corn-cribs stand, and again to the nodding, smiling flowers dotting the lawn.
Yes, it was beautiful, the old home, with all its homely comforts, but Tibby had longed to try her wings in flight to seek other fields of enchantment.
By and by the little boy becomes restless and begs his mother to go and ride, fidgets and whimpers. Tibby wishes to amuse him, and looks at him longingly, until he comes and puts his small hands in her brown ones, and she tells him of the little singing toad in the tree-top, and of the twittering squirrels who make the elm their home, until his brown eyes grow heavy and he falls asleep in her arms. Then Tibby sits and feasts her eyes on the strange lady’s costume, a poem of harmony in color and fit,—though Tibby does not name it thus,—and feels the contrast between this lady’s attire and her own, marvels at the glittering jewels on her white fingers, and alas, in the girl’s heart, a dormant wild desire springs into active growth. She longs to go with this city-bred woman and have dainty boots and beautiful gowns.
Does the cry which she feels within herself reach the heart of the lady? Surely, surely her lips have not spoken, but the stranger lady, as if understanding her thought, says:
“What a nice way you have with children, my dear. I should like to have a girl like you to live with me and help me to look after Robert. You have done wonders with him. He is usually averse to strangers. How would you like to go home with me?”
“I should like it very much indeed,” she replies, with conviction.
“You have no mother, I believe you said,” the lady continues.
“Yes, a stepmother. The children are my half-brothers, except Tom and Bess. Our mother died when I was a little girl.”
“And what are you now?” asks the lady, smiling.
“Quite as large as you, I think,” Tibby says, with no intentional disrespect.
“That is true, but I suspect you are not quite so old.” And then the child tells her she is fourteen and does not have to go to school any more; and then—ah, Tibby heaves a sigh as she remembers the fluttering of her heart while Mrs. Wylie was talking with her husband, standing by the broken vehicle, and how she kept saying to herself, “I want to go! Take me! Take me!”
She smiles as she remembers Mr. Wylie’s good-natured banter and his questions as to her trustworthiness and honesty.
“As if my word would be of any worth if I were not honest,” she thinks. And then Mr. Wylie talks to her father, and—here she is, surrounded by all the luxury she coveted, with the tumult and noise of the great city beneath her window.
Tibby rises from her chair and stretches her arms high above her head with a cat-like yawn, then walks with padding footsteps up and down the thick-carpeted room, and back and forth before the long mirror, smiling at the trim, well-dressed figure reflected therein. And the face in the mirror smiles back at her, till the dimples deepen in the blooming cheeks and the red-curved lips open to reveal the gleaming rows of teeth behind them.
“Tibby, Tibby,” the girl whispers to the reflection, “your feet have been shod in French slippers and set in pleasant places. You have pretty gowns and dainty ribbons. If you are only a nurse-girl, you have much to be thankful for. You can learn to be a lady, and you must be very, very good, so these advantages shall not be taken away from you. It will be your own fault, your own fault, Tibby Waring, if you ever go back to—to—” She hesitates, and stopping before the mirror she looks long and searchingly into its crystal depths.
The little Swiss clock on the mantel chimes musically. It is nine o’clock. But Tibby’s eyes are half-closed, and she sees beyond her own reflection the plain family room at the farm-house, with its bright rag-carpet on the floor and its chintz-covered chairs. She sees her gray-haired father dozing in his chair tilted back against the wall, with his hands clasped before him. She sees Tom sleeping, stretched out upon the old, green-covered lounge. She sees little Bess and Ted in their night-gowns scampering up the closed-in stairway to their beds. Ah, she is not there to give them their good-night kiss when they have repeated their “Now I lay me down to sleep.” She sees her father rise, yawning, and step heavily across the room to the old wooden clock in its niche in the wall, and she can even hear the creaking of the iron weights as he winds the clock for the night. She sees her own little bed with its high posts and white valances. She closes her eyes tightly to shut out the vision and the tears that stand ready to fall. Then she hears her father call, “Come, Tom, you sleepy lubber! Get you up and off to bed!” She knows how Tom will stagger to his feet and rub his leaden eyelids, and start in the wrong direction. Dear lad! It is harder to think of him than all the rest. But she has had her wish. She is in the great city, and they—Tom, Bess, father—are there at home where the old life will go on day by day, and she in this new life must be brave and—grateful.