“Do you remember?” Hazel at once began, without waiting to command sufficient breath, “that the last time—I was here—you asked—if there was anything—an old sergeant could do for me?”
“Yes, I remember, Miss Hazel.”
“And do you think the other men meant what they said when they asked if there was anything they could do for me?”
“Yes, I'll wager they did.”
“Well, now, there is something, Sergeant Bellows, a real important something, and this is it,” and straightway Hazel's voice subsided into such a confidential whisper, that even the Sergeant lost a word now and then, but he smiled and nodded assent all the while, to Hazel's great delight.
As for us, it is needless to bother our heads with all she told him, particularly as we shall see what came of it in the very next chapter.
HE warm and hazy September days were over. The first of October had come in by the calendar, but although its sun had not yet peeped over the horizon, there were unmistakable signs in the east which heralded its coming. As for Hazel, she was up “with the lark,” as the saying goes, and with good reason, too, for never did any mere little feathered songstress have as much in hand as had she for that first day of October, and it all depended upon the weather.
What wonder, then, with so much on her mind, that the first ray of daylight succeeded in shimmering in beneath the long lashes of her eyes, first setting their lid a-tremble and then prying them open, so that their little owner soon found herself wide awake, and that the eventful day had dawned. But what sort of a day was it going to be, that was the all-important question. Hazel threw open the shutters of her window. The vine that crept along its sill was dripping wet—could it be raining? She stretched out a little brown hand that was all of a tremble with excitement, to test if rain were really falling. No, not a drop. It was dew on the vines, of course; how foolish not to have thought of that! But what made the sky so gray? Was it cloudy? Then she tripped over to the clock. Why, so early as that! Then perhaps the sun was not up yet. No, come to look again, of course it wasn't, it was just daylight.
Having reached this conclusion, Hazel, wisely slipping into a flannel wrapper and a pair of bedroom slippers, sat down to wait the rising of that very lazy sun, and soon he came. She watched till he was full above the horizon, then assuring herself that there were no threatening clouds anywhere, crept back into bed, wrapper, slippers, and all, with a mind quite at ease, and in just the sort of a mood for the most refreshing of little morning naps.
One, two, one, two, Company F was marking time preparatory to marching on again, and Sergeant Bellows was in command.
It was two o'clock now, and the sun, for whose dawning Hazel had watched so eagerly, was well on his journey, and shining down on the burnished flint-locks and scarlet coats of Company F, coats which looked bravely in the morning sunlight, notwithstanding many a stain and mark of active service. But not for any skirmishing with their enemies were those English soldiers under marching orders, for never again were they to wage battle with the colonists on American soil. It was now nearly two years since the great battle of Yorktown, when the British soldiers had laid down their arms, and Lord Cornwallis's sword had been surrendered to General Washington, and it would not be long before the whole army, under command of Sir Guy Carleton, would go sailing homeward down the harbor, and not a British roll-call, nor a soldier answering to it, would be heard anywhere in the land. But, somehow or other, notwithstanding all this, Company F, of His Majesty's service, did not look very crestfallen, as they stood there marking time, until a great overhanging load of hay should leave the road clear ahead of them. They had had plenty of time to get used to the thought of not having beaten the Yankees; in fact, some of them went so far as to openly express their honest admiration for the plucky, desperate fashion in which those some poorly equipped Yankees had fought, and did not begrudge them their hard-earned victory. Then in seven weeks more they were to turn their faces toward home and England; toward England, which some of them had not seen for eight long years; toward home, where little children had outgrown their childhood, where dear wife faces had grown worn with waiting, and where white-haired mothers, wearied with watching, had perhaps been laid at rest in the little village churchyards. But, come weal or woe, they were soon going home; you could see their faces daily grow brighter with the thought, and happening this morning to have a most novel entertainment in prospect, what wonder that almost every one wore an amused smile, and that every eye twinkled merrily. The clumsy hay-load slowly moved out of the way, and then came the order, “For'ard, march!” from Sergeant Bellows, and off they went, with even swing up Broadway, turning off at the Albany coach road, and then on out into the country. “Halt!” called Sergeant Bellows at last, and Company F halted right in front of Captain Boniface's cottage. It could not have been that they were not expected, for Hazel, with beaming smile, stood holding the gate wide open, and the men filed in and took their seats in chairs which had evidently been placed in rows in the garden for them. The chairs fronted the porch, and were grouped in semicircular shape about the wide steps leading up to it, at the top of which a curtain (for which two blanket shawls had been made to do duty) hung suspended, the cord that held it being fastened to the fluted column at either end. That the shawls were of widely differing plaids, and at great variance in the matter of color, only added to the generally fantastic effect. Without doubt there was going to be some sort of a performance, and it was easy now to guess that Hazel's “'rangements” had been in the line of preparation for it, and easy now to understand why her little ladyship had been up with the lark, to ascertain, if possible, what sort of a day it was going to be. Somehow or other I should not in the least wonder if the “Old Man of the Weather” loves to have a little child place implicit trust in him now and then'; surely he does, if he is at all like some of the rest of us whom you little folks call old. At any rate the weather not only favored Hazel's project, but seemed just to give itself up to making everything comfortable for everybody. The sun saw to it that the old house cast a broad square shadow in front of it that was more than large enough to cover the space where the men were seated, and the wind saw to it that a sufficiently strong little breeze was blowing to temper the early afternoon sunshine, and everything conspired to make it a perfect October day, a sort of good example, as it were, for the thirty other October days that were to follow it.
At last it was time for that mysterious many-colored curtain to be drawn aside, and certain vigorous jerkings of the shawls showed that an attempt was being made in that direction. What did it matter to Company F if it did not work with all the smoothness to be desired, since it finally disclosed to them as fair a little specimen of humanity as the eyes of most of them had ever rested upon. In the centre of the stage, or rather of that portion of the porch which had been divided off for it, sat Hazel's little sister in an old-fashioned high-back chair, her pretty slippered feet reaching but a little way over its edge, and her little dimpled hands folded in her lap in most complacent fashion. She wore a short-waisted, quaint little white dress, barely short enough to show the prettily slippered feet.
Not at all dismayed was little Kate at the sight of so many soldiers seated there in such formal array before her. What was every beautiful Red Coat but another embodiment of her own dear papa; and not in the least alarmed was she by the loud applause which the mere sight of her elicited from admiring Company F. She turned her pretty head on one side and then on the other, her little face wreathed in smiles, and seeming to say in silent baby-fashion, “Thank you, gentlemen.” Not that she could not talk. No, indeed, do not think that for a moment; her baby tongue could move with all the insistent chatter of a little English sparrow; but the right time had not come yet. As soon as the applause had somewhat abated, Hazel herself appeared on the scene, arrayed in a jaunty little riding-habit, and with cheeks aglow with excitement, looking prettier, perhaps, than ever before in her life. As was to be expected, her appearance was the cause for renewed applause; but finally all was quiet, and she stepped forward to deliver a little speech which had been carefully thought over. She had insisted upon wearing her riding-habit, because, as she had told her mother, she was to be a sort of showman. Of course she did not want to wear boys' clothes, but the riding-habit seemed sort of a go-between, “and more like the thing a lady who managed a private circus would wear.” So Mrs. Boniface consented, and Josephine, in helping Hazel to dress, had added an extra touch or two. Her habit was made of gray cloth, with a long, full skirt that came within a foot of the ground when Hazel was on her pony; but in order that she should be able to move about the platform as freely as was necessary, Josephine had caught the skirt up on one side, fastening it with two or three brilliant red chrysanthemums, and pinning a bunch of the same bright flowers against her waist. On her head she wore a black velvet jockey cap which had been sent her by her grandpa from England, and which completed the jauntiness of her costume.
“Members of Company F,” Hazel began, holding her riding-whip in both hands before her, “I wish to thank you for coming here this afternoon, and to tell you that I hope you will feel repaid for your long march out from the city.”
“No doubt about that, Miss Hazel,” Sergeant Bellows called out, heartily..
“Thank you, Sergeant;” but Hazel's manner was somewhat stiff, as though she preferred that more formality should be observed. “But before commencing our performance,” she continued, “I must ask you to bear in mind that it is not an easy thing to get up a regular circus in a private family, 'specially at such very short notice. There was no time to teach anything new, even to the baby, who learns very easily, and it was just by good luck that Prince and Kate and Delta knew some little tricks already. As for Flutters, it will not take you long to discover that his part of the performance needs no apology.”
Hazel concluded her little speech with a graceful bow, and, turning toward Kate, who still sat smiling, announced: “I have now the pleasure, gentlemen, of introducing to you Miss Kate Boniface, as fine a little three-year-old as ever was reared in Westchester County. Miss Kate is quite a favorite with the management, being, what we consider, a most gifted little lady. She has an original little dance of her own, one little song, and one little piece, which she speaks with dramatic effect.”
“Which s'all I do first, Hazel?” asked Kate, in a most audible whisper, when she saw that it was time for her to commence.
“Why, the dance of course, child,” Hazel answered, forgetting their relations of manager and artiste.
“But where's de music?”
Sure enough, where was the music? “Job,” called Hazel, blushing up to the roots of her hair with embarrassment, “we are waiting for you.”
“Coming, Mrs. Manager,” came the answer, and a moment later Starlight bounded through the green boughs, which had been arranged at the back of the scene, violin in hand, and in a costume befitting the clown of the performance. His resemblance to the real article was truly quite remarkable, for Cousin Harry had taken a great deal of interest in his “make-up,” and the result was a face as white, with cheeks as red and eyebrows as high, black, and arching, as were ever attained by Mr. John Dreyfus, the English clown of world-renowned reputation. Starlight was able to play half-a-dozen tunes on an old violin which had belonged to his grandfather, and this formed a most attractive and most important feature of the Boniface circus. Otherwise Company F would have been obliged to forego little Kate's dancing, than which nothing was ever daintier or prettier. But not an inch would her little ladyship move from her chair till Starlight had gone through a series of scrapings called “tuning up,” and a merry little dancing tune was well under way. Then she jumped down, and running to the front of the platform made the most bewitching of conventional little bows, pressing the fingers of both hands to her lips, as if generously to throw the sweetest of kisses broadcast. It was very evident, then, to the Red Coats—Miss Hazel to the contrary that there had been time enough to teach little Kate one new trick at any rate; but the glancing itself was a matter of Kate's own creation, and of a sort that baffles description.
She had never seen any one dance, no one had taught her, but as naturally as a little duck takes to the water, had her little feet taken to dancing on that evening when, for the first time, Starlight had brought his violin to the Bonifaces'. For fully ten minutes, to the great delight of Company F, little Kate kept time in a variety of intricate and pretty little motions to the rhythm of the old violin a sort of dancing in which slow and graceful gestures of dimpled arms and hands played almost as important part as the little feet themselves. Indeed, the whole proceeding was a deliberate one, owing to an inability on Starlight's part to play any faster; but to my thinking “The dancing was a matter of Kate's own creation;” all the prettier for that, and far more becoming to such a dignified little maiden.
As for Company F, it would have liked nothing better than a whole half-hour of dancing; but “Mrs. Manager” wisely protested, and after the little song had been rendered with “violin accompaniment,” and the little piece spoken “with dramatic effect,” Miss Kate Boniface tripped from the stage 'midst hearty peals of applause, and Mrs. Manager, as Starlight had called Hazel, came once more to the front.
“I shall now have the pleasure of acquainting you, gentlemen,” she said, with all the superiority of a veritable showman, “with my own little thoroughbred, one of the most knowing and accomplished of Shetland ponies. Mr. Lightfoot, will you have the kindness to bring Miss Gladys into the ring?” whereupon Starlight, otherwise Mr. Lightfoot, led the pony on to the stage, or, I should say, “into the ring,” as Hazel preferred to regard it from a strictly professional point of view. Gladys had been groomed by Starlight and Flutters to within an inch of her life, in preparation for the occasion, and, indeed, she sorely needed it. The fact was that she had been turned out for the last two months owing to an unfortunate gall on her back which had refused to heal under the saddle; so, while her mistress had been dependent upon Albany coaches for such excursions as she wished to take into the city, Miss Gladys had been kicking up her heels and running races with herself in the most inviting of clover fields. Only yesterday had she been enjoying all this freedom, with burrs in her tail and burrs in her mane, and with never so much as a halter, and here she was to-day tricked out in blue ribbons, with her coat smoothed down to look as silky as possible, and with her four pretty little hoofs oiled up to a state of shiny blackness, but without the sign of shoe on any one of them. There had been no time, indeed, to have Miss Gladys shod, nor was there any need of it, as, after today's performance, back she was to go again, for at least another month more, to all the wild dissipation of pony life in a clover field. Of course she was astonished at the sight of the soldiers, but she had been rehearsing with Starlight and Hazel for a whole hour that morning in that sort of “box stall” which formed the scene of the circus, and so, being somewhat familiar with the place, contented herself with an occasional pricking-up of her black-pointed ears, which only gave her a more spirited look, and, on the whole, was extremely becoming.
“Now, Miss Gladys,” said Hazel, when she had-succeeded in getting her posed to her liking, “I would like you to answer a few questions, and for each correct answer you shall have a beautiful lump of white sugar. Mr. Lightfoot, have you the sugar ready?”
“Yes, Mrs. Manager,” answered Starlight, who, in his capacity of clown, was endeavoring all the while to keep up a funny sort of byplay, and sometimes succeeding; “yes, Mrs. Manager, the sugar is all ready. I have placed, as you perceive, five lumps upon either extended palm, and would like to make this arrangement, that when the pony makes a mistake I may be allowed to eat the sugar.”
“Very well, Mr. Lightfoot, I am quite agreeable to the arrangement; but, if I am not mistaken, the pony thinks you are likely to fare rather poorly; how about that, Miss Gladys? Do you intend that Mr. Lightfoot shall enjoy more than one of those lumps of sugar?” Hazel stood leaning against the pony's side, lightly swinging her riding-whip in apparently aimless fashion in her left hand, but in answer to her question, Miss Gladys shook her pretty head from side to side with as decided an assertion in the negative as though she had been able to voice an audible “No.”
“There! what did I tell you, Mr. Lightfoot?”
“Why! did Miss Gladys answer? I didn't hear her.”
“Of course you did not hear her. She answered by shaking her head. Ponies can't talk.”
“What! can't Miss Gladys say a word?”
“No, certainly not.”
“Not even neigh?”
“That's a very bad pun, Mr. Lightfoot. Don't you think so, Miss Gladys?” Up and down went the pony's head in ready assent.
“Two questions answered with remarkable judgment. Now, two lumps of sugar, if you please, Mr. Lightfoot.”
Gladys eagerly ate the sugar from Hazel's gloved hand (for sugar was one of the few creature delights a clover field failed to offer, that is, in any form more concrete than the sweetness of a withered clover head), and looked as though perfectly willing to continue the process for an almost indefinite period. Indeed, for a long time Hazel continued to ply her with questions of great moment to Company F, such as, “Is Sergeant Bellows the best sergeant in his regiment?”
“Is 'Company F' the finest company?” and so on, to all of which Miss Gladys gave only the most complimentary of answers. Just when this part of the performance was coming to a close, Mr. Lightfoot stepped up to the pony, and said, in beseeching fashion, “Look here, Miss Gladys, on the whole, you think I'm a pretty good sort of a fellow, now, don't you?” The pony looked at Starlight a moment, and then shook her head, “Yes,” in a most decided manner. “That's a darling,” Starlight exclaimed, swinging himself on to Gladys's back, in compliance with an order received from Hazel, and with his head resting on her mane and his arms clasped round her prettily-arched neck, rode off the stage. The soldiers, of course, were at first considerably astonished at the pony's intelligent answers, but it did not take most of them long to discover that the shakings of Miss Gladys's head were in every case controlled by a touch of Hazel's whip. A gentle application of the lash on the right foreleg for yes and the same motion on the left one for no. Hazel had tried to conceal this little motion as best she could, but it was naturally not an easy matter, and when Miss Gladys had been kind enough to answer “Yes” to Mr. Lightfoot's question, it was only because Hazel's whip was in Starlight's hand, and the pony, felt the same familiar sensation upon her left foreleg.
Perhaps you wonder how it was that a little country pony was so unusually accomplished. Well, to tell the truth, Captain Boniface deserved all the credit of it, and Hazel none at all. When Hazel herself was but a week old that pony had been bought for her, and, as soon as she was able to take notice of anything, Gladys used to be trotted out daily for her inspection. And so it happened that while Captain Boniface was waiting for his little daughter to grow large enough to ride her, he used to amuse himself, and Hazel as well, by endeavoring to teach the pony a few knowing tricks. They had required a world of patience, and with none of them had he been so successful as with what he called the “pony shake,” and which just had been exhibited to so much advantage.
“That Miss Hazel's a cute un,” said one of the soldiers, in the little intermission that followed the exit of the pony.
“Cute's no name for it,” answered Sergeant Bellows.
“She reminds me of my own little girl at home, whom I haven't seen in a five-year,” said the other, while a little mistiness betrayed itself in his soldier eyes.
“She may mind ye of her,” answered the Sergeant, not unkindly, “but there isn't a child anywhere, I'm thinking, that can hold a candle to Miss Hazel.” You see Sergeant Bellows was an old bachelor, and without a relative in the world whom he cared for, and perhaps that accounted in a measure for his adoration of Hazel, though, no doubt, the little daughter of the red-haired soldier, who-was probably red-haired too, was just as charming in the eyes of her father as Hazel in the eyes of the lonely old Sergeant. But further discussion as to comparative merits was brought to an end by the reappearance of Starlight on the stage, accompanied by his dog, Lord Nelson, who, much against his will, had been dragged aboard of the “Gretchen” that morning, and imported from his kennel at Paulus Hook especially for the occasion. Lord Nelson possessed quite a varied set of accomplishments, none of them very remarkable, however, and after Lord Nelson came Flutters! Flutters in velvet and spangles, Flutters of The Great English Circus, and who straightway proceeded to make the eyes of Company F open wide with astonishment at his truly wonderful tumbling and somersaults. There was no slipping of the little knee-cap to-day. It seemed to Flutters quite impossible in the happy life he was leading, that knee-caps or anything else that concerned him should ever get much out of order again.
As may be easily imagined, the audience would not be satisfied till Flutters had favored them with repeated encores, but when the performance was at last concluded, there was a call for the entire troupe, and, in response, out they came, hand-in-hand, Hazel and Kate, Starlight and Flutters; Starlight leading Lord Nelson with the hand that was free, and Flutters Miss Gladys. A low, smiling bow from them all—for even Gladys and Lord Nelson were made to give a compulsory nod—then the line retreated a foot or two, the shawl-curtain dropped into place, and the entertainment was over. At least so thought Company F, but it was mistaken, for no sooner had Hazel and Starlight disappeared behind the curtain, than out they came in front of it, and then down among the soldiers, Starlight carrying a tray full of glasses filled with the most inviting lemonade, and Hazel following with an old-fashioned silver cake-basket heaped high with delicious sponge cake of Josephine's best manufacture. Then for half-an-hour they had quite a social time of it. Captain and Mrs. Boniface, who had watched the performance from two comfortable chairs at the rear of Company F, were talking with some of the men; Flutters, who, for very good reasons, was still in costume, was the centre of another little group; while Kate, from the safe vantage point of Josephine's lap, chatted away, to the great entertainment of old Sergeant Bellows. Suddenly the Sergeant seemed to recall something important, for he jumped up, seized his hat, and began passing it from one to another of the men, all of whom had, apparently, come prepared for this feature of the entertainment.
Hazel was greatly relieved when she saw the hat in active circulation. She had felt afraid that the Sergeant had forgotten this part of the programme, and did not fancy the idea of having to remind him of it. Indeed he had come pretty near forgetting it, so absorbed had he been in the charms of little Kate, but as a result of the collection taken up by the Sergeant, Hazel found herself in possession of a contribution sufficiently generous to purchase a fine little outfit for Flutters. And so it came about that Flutters had a “benefit” and Company F an afternoon of what they termed “rare good fun.”
ERHAPS you think that is a queer title for a chapter. You would not think it queer at all if you had known her, for that is exactly what she was, and now and then it is just as well to call people by their right names. She was not old, however, in the sense of being wrinkled and white-haired and thin. Sometime, when somebody has been very kind to you, and has done you a “good turn” in real reliable fashion, haven't you just rushed up to them and exclaimed, “You dear old thing,” as if any mere young thing would be quite incapable of such a deed of loving-kindness? Well, in just the sense of being very kind and very reliable, Aunt Frances was old, and in no other. To be sure, she was nearing her fiftieth birthday, and there was a generous sprinkling of gray hair on her temples, but the gray hair only made her face softer and sweeter, and her heart was no older than bonny Kate's.
Well, Aunt Frances sat knitting in a high-backed rocker on the wide step in front of the Van Vleet's door, a step that was made from one great unhewn stone, but whose roughnesses had been rounded down by the rains and storms of a hundred summers and winters. On the edge of the step, with his back against one of the large tubs of hydrangea which flanked the wide door-step on either side, sat Harry Avery. He had been silent for a long while. He was trying to get his courage up to say something to Aunt Frances, something that he knew it would grieve her to hear, and she had had so much to bear lately, he could not easily bring himself to it. “Aunt Frances,” he said, at last, “I know you'll be sorry about it, but I think I shall have to go away to-morrow.”
“Why, Harry, what do you mean?” while the tears gathered as quickly in her kind eyes as the clouds of an April shower darken an April sky, “and besides, where will you go?”
“Home, I suppose,” and then it would have been an easy thing for Harry, grown fellow that he was, to have mustered a few honest tears on his own account.
“You see I am not willing to stay here any longer since you have to pay my board. And then you have so little money coming in now.”
“But the Van Vleets only allow me to pay a very small sum, and, Harry, you are such a comfort to me. Starlight's a dear, good boy, but he is not old enough for me to burden him with all my troubles as I do you. Tell me this, do you want to go home?”
“No, I do not want to go home in the least. You know what I mean. I'd give a great deal to see father and mother and the youngsters; but there's nothing for me to do in New London—that is, not the sort of work that I think I am equal to, and, after leaving it the way I did, I hate to go back empty-handed. Then, I'm sure, father would much rather I'd find something to do in New York. He believes there is a good deal more of a chance for a fellow here.”
“And you have heard of nothing, Harry; nothing whatever?” Aunt Frances let her knitting fall in her lap, and looked straight at Harry as she spoke. There was something strange about this direct look from Aunt Frances. It seemed to compel the exact truth from everybody, even from Pat, the Van Vleets' hired man, who did not ordinarily hesitate in telling an untruth if it would make things more comfortable. And so Harry did not even succeed in making an evasive reply, as he should like to have done, but just answered, very simply and honestly: “Yes, Aunt Frances, I did hear of something—a clerkship in a lawyer's office—but I decided not to take it.”
“Decided not to take it? Why, that is the very position you said you would like above all others!”
“Did I say that? well, fellows are queer sometimes, aren't they?”
“Harry Avery, there is something mysterious about all this. What was the name of the lawyer?”
“Oh, no matter, Auntie! The whole matter's decided. I made up my mind not to take it, and that ends it.”
Aunt Frances was not to be silenced in this fashion. She had a right to search this matter out, and search it she would. “Harry,” as if she were speaking to some little child, “Harry, look me right in the eyes, and tell me, was it Colonel Hamilton?”
Yes but Harry looked off at the river. He had not the sort of courage to look Aunt Frances “right in the eyes,” as she bade him, for if there was a man anywhere whom she had a right thoroughly to despise, surely it was Colonel Hamilton—Colonel Hamilton, whose skilful reasoning had deprived her of the home that was almost as dear to her as life itself.
“Is the position still open to you?” Aunt Frances was now gazing off to the river, and with the mark of deep thinking on her face. “If it is, you must take it. Colonel Hamilton is a great lawyer. It is as fine an opening as you could possibly desire. I, for one, have no notion of standing in your light, Harry, and you must not do yourself the injustice of standing in your own.”
“But, Aunt Frances—”
“No, don't interrupt me, Harry; only listen, like a good boy, and do just as I tell you. Take the 'Gretchen' first thing in the morning, go straight to Colonel Hamilton's office, and apply for the place. Tell him all about yourself, and answer every question he may ask in the most straightforward manner, but do not volunteer the information that you are a relative of mine. It would not do you any good and it might do harm—that is, it might incline the Colonel less kindly toward you. Unless some one has gotten ahead of you, you will secure the place, I am sure of it, and no one will be more glad for you than just my very self.”
“Aunt Frances,” said Harry, watching the needles that were again flashing in the afternoon sunlight, “you are the dearest old trump that ever knitted stockings for a fool of a fellow like me.”
“If I thought this stocking was really to grace a fool's leg”—and Aunt Frances feigned great seriousness—“not another stitch would I take; but, begging your pardon, you would have been a fool indeed if you had not told me about all this, although I perfectly understand that your motives for not telling me were anything but foolish. No, Harry; somehow I am sure it is only providential that you should have heard of this place. Promise to try for it.”
“I promise,” and Harry's lightened heart unconsciously betrayed itself in voice and look. He had wanted the situation, oh! so much, more than he would admit even to himself, but he had decided he must forego any attempt to secure it. It would be, he thought, at too great a cost to Aunt Frances's feelings, and he simply must not ask it.
“Look, Harry,” she said, shading her eyes with one hand, “isn't that the Boniface boat about a mile to the left of the point?”
“Yes, it is,” Harry answered, merely glancing in that direction; “but tell me one thing before I go down to the wharf: tell me, Aunt Frances, do you think Colonel Hamilton an unprincipled man?”
“Unprincipled! Why, Harry, do you suppose for a single moment that I would urge you to seek a situation under him if I thought that? No, I believe that he honestly felt that the English ought to be allowed to keep possession of the houses that we had abandoned, and so perhaps it was only natural that when Captain Wadsworth took his case to him, he should bring all his eloquence, which is very great, to bear on that side of the question. Nevertheless I confess, as that eloquence cost me my home, I cannot but feel pretty sore about it, and would go a long way out of my way to avoid meeting him, brave officer and brilliant lawyer as he is.”
Harry felt considerably relieved by this assertion, and strolled down to the boat-landing with even more admiration for “darling old Aunt Frances” than he had ever felt before. It was so unusual, he thought, to find a woman who could reason fairly, independent of her heart.
But Aunt Frances was not quite so 'independent of her heart,' as Harry put it, as Harry and the rest of the world thought, and for the very good reason that her heart was as big as herself. And so when Harry had left her, what did she do but lay aside her knitting, go straight up to her own little room in one of the gable ends of the house, shut the door of it, and then, sitting down in a low little rocking-chair, bury her face in her hands and cry. It had not been by any means an easy thing for her to urge Harry to seek a position under a man who had wrought her so much harm, but it had been her plain duty, at whatever cost to herself, and she had done it. Now when Aunt Frances cried, it was because that great heart of hers had had one little ache crowded upon another little ache till it could bear no more, and then the hot tears must (there was no choice at all in the matter) be allowed to flow for a while and ease it. But for all this, do not think for a moment that Aunt Frances was an unhappy sort of person. Each little experience of her life and of the lives of others had a very deep significance for her, because she believed with all her heart that God watches over every life and guides it, and no one who believes that can ever be unhappy long at a time; life is to them too beautiful and earnest. But this was the way of it with Aunt Frances: she had a great capacity for loving, if you understand what that means, but she did not have as much of a chance to spend that love as many another, who had not half as much to spend. She would always be Miss Frances Avery, she felt sure of that; yet what a tender, loving wife she could have made for somebody! She should never have any one nearer to her than Harry and Starlight (bless their hearts!) but oh, what a mother she might have been with her great passionate love for little children! And so it was that Aunt Frances trod the round of the life God had sent her, because He had sent it, contentedly and happily, and yet it would happen now and then that some thoughtless word or deed would almost unaccountably set one little spot to aching, and something else would set another, till her heart was all one great ache, and the pent-up tears must come. Aunt Frances could always tell perfectly well when there was need to retreat to the little room in the gable, the little room that had been hers now, for the two years since she had fled from her own home across the river; and while she sat there on the step with Harry she knew well enough what she should do the moment he was gone. It was not that she did not mean every word she said to him; it was only that somehow that little talk had overcharged the brave heart.
Afterward, when the Boniface's boat had touched at the dock and all the Van Vleets were flocking out of doors to welcome them, Aunt Frances was in their midst, with the sunshine of her presence all the brighter for the storm of troubled feelings that had just swept over it, but Josephine Boniface thought she saw just the faintest trace of recent tears in Aunt Frances's eyes as she stooped to kiss her. “Dear old Aunt Frances,” she whispered, as she put her arm about her neck, “I would give all the world ever to be such a blessed ministering angel as you are to everybody.
“Why, Josephine, darling, what foolishness,” whispered Aunt Frances; but it needed only those few sweet words to banish even the trace of tears, and to make her thoroughly light-hearted once again.
HE Van Vleet family was composed of seven individuals. There were Father and Mother Van Vleet, who had been married while both were in their teens, and their five children, Gretchen, Heide, Francesca, Pauline, and Hans Van Vleet, who had been born in the order named in the seven years immediately succeeding their parents' marriage. So, in point of fact, now that they were grown, there was scarcely any perceptible difference between this comfortable Dutch couple and their children, save that the children were taller, which made it seem more of a joke that they should actually belong to a father and mother who looked almost as young themselves. All this combined to make them a united and congenial family, and they lived in a comfortable old Dutch homestead and were very well-to-do, owing to the well-tilled acres that stretched down to the river in front of them and back to the ridge of the Jersey Flats behind. But there was one minor chord in the otherwise cheery harmony of the Van Vleet household. Pauline, the youngest sister, now about twenty-two, was not “quite bright,” but she was serene and, as a rule, perfectly happy, which is a deal more than can be said of many people, be they ever so bright. There were two reasons for this serenity of Pauline's: her own naturally placid temperament and the tender care with which all the others watched over her. But one thing must be confessed, they were not a patriotic family, and the blood in their veins coursed somewhat sluggishly. They had rather hoped that the colonists would win in the war of the Revolution, thinking, no doubt, it would be more to their interest, yet it had never once occurred to Hans or his father to shoulder a flintlock in place of a hoe and go and help them. They were a good, narrow, stay-at-home family, with their thoughts moving in one and the same channel, and with interests bounded by their own acres, their own experiences, and those of their nearest neighbors.
But there was one delightful feature about their neutrality: they could be the best of friends alike with Whigs and Royalists, and were able to invite the Bonifaces to a tea party just as cordially as they could offer the shelter of their home to poor fugitive Aunt Frances. And a few days before they had invited them. Kind old Mrs. Van Vleet, knowing that these were very lonely days at best for Captain Boniface's family, determined to do all that lay in her power to brighten them, and so a formal invitation, written by Heide in the stiffest of little cramped hands, was sent them. Mrs. Boniface had accepted most gladly. It meant so much to have this evidence of true friendship at a time when many old friends were looking askance and turning a cold shoulder.
And now Saturday afternoon had come, the first Saturday in October, and the Boniface boat was tacking across the river in the teeth of a bracing west wind. They were all there, the entire household, from Captain Boniface, at the helm, to Flutters, in his well-fitting corduroys, seated astride of the bow. Flutters loved to be in the “front of things” generally, but in the present instance it frequently became necessary for him to draw his knees quickly up to his chin, being quite too newly shod to run the risk of contact with the salt water white caps that now and then thumped plumply against the bow. Harry Avery was at the wharf long before the little boat touched it, and stood whittling a brier-wood stick as he waited, and dreaming the while the happiest dreams about the future that might open up before him if he should secure that position with Colonel Hamilton. Somehow or other Harry felt almost certain he could get ahead in the world if it would only give him any sort of a chance.
“Halloo there, Harry! a penny for your thoughts,” called Captain Boniface, bringing his boat about and alongside of the wharf in true sailor fashion.
Harry jumped to his feet and blushed like a school-girl, as if he half feared the thought of his heart could be read by them all. “It is fortunate that I am not bound to tell them,” he answered, catching the rope which the Captain had thrown him, and securing it to a staple.
“No, not bound, of course, but thoughts ought to be of a pretty high order that make you unmindful of the coming of the 'Grayling' and the Bonifaces.”
Harry was glad to find the Captain in this lighter vein, for life had been too serious and complicated a matter lately for him often to forget its seriousness. As for Mrs. Boniface, she had been both surprised and delighted when she found her husband willing to accept the Van Vleets' invitation, for lately it had been quite impossible to get him to take any interest in anything of the sort, and she feared a kind but absolute refusal. But no sooner had the “Grayling” cleared her dock than the Captain seemed to regain his wonted good spirits, and to leave all his heavy-heartedness behind, and glad indeed was his little family to see him in a cheery mood once more.
As soon as the Bonifaces commenced to ascend the beautiful grass-grown meadow, which swept down to the water's edge, out came all the Van Vleets to meet them and escort them up to the house; and it was a remarkable old dwelling, unlike anything one would see nowadays, if it were not that two or three such homesteads have chanced to survive the ravages of a century, by grace of having once been dignified as “Washington's Headquarters.”