Chapter 8

"Most folks," continued Miss Hitty, with asperity, "is pleased enough to have their houses cleaned for 'em to say 'thank you,' but I'm some accustomed to ingratitude. What I do now in the way of cleanin' will be payin' for the nursin' of Araminta."

Still Miss Evelina did not answer, her thoughts being far away.

"Maybe I did speak cross to Minty," admitted Miss Hitty, grudgingly, "at a time when I had no business to. If I did, I'm willin' to tell her so, but not that blackmailing play-doctor with a hundred-dollar bill for a club. I was clean out of patience with Minty for falling off the ladder, but I guess, as he says, she didn't go for to do it. 'T ain't in reason for folks to step off ladders or out of windows unless they're walkin' in their sleep, and I've never let Minty sleep in the daytime."

Unceasingly, Miss Mehitable prattled on. Reminiscence, anecdote, and philosophical observations succeeded one another with startling rapidity, ending always in vituperation and epithet directed toward Araminta's physician. Dark allusions to the base ingratitude of everybody with whom Miss Hitty had ever been concerned alternately cumbered her speech. At length the persistent sound wore upon Miss Evelina, much as the vibration of sound may distress one totally deaf.

The kitchen door was open and Miss Evelina went outdoors. Miss Mehitable continued to converse, then shortly perceived that she was alone. "Well, I never!" she gasped. "Guess I'll go home!"

Her back was very stiff and straight when she marched downhill, firmly determined to abandon Evelina, scorn Doctor Ralph Dexter, and leave Araminta to her well-deserved fate. One thought and one only illuminated her gloom. "He ain't got his four dollars and a half, yet," she chuckled, craftily. "Mebbe he'll get it and mebbe he won't. We'll see."

While straying about the garden. Miss Evelina saw her unwelcome guest take her militant departure, and reproached herself for her lack of hospitality. Miss Mehitable had been very kind to her and deserved only kindness in return. She had acted upon impulse and was ashamed.

Miss Evelina meditated calling her back, but the long years of self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only for suffering. That very suffering to which she had become accustomed had of late assumed fresh phases. She was hurt continually in new ways, yet, after the first shock of returning to her old home, not so much as she had expected. It is a way of life, and one of its inmost compensations--this finding of a reality so much easier than our fears.

April had come over the hills, singing, with a tinkle of rain and a rush of warm winds, and yet the Piper had not returned. His tools were in the shed, and the mountain of rubbish was still in the road in front of the house. Half of the garden had not been touched. On one side of the house was the bare brown earth, with tiny green shoots springing up through it, and on the other was a twenty-five years' growth of weeds. Miss Evelina reflected that the place was not unlike her own life; half of it full of promise, a forbidding wreck in the midst of it, and, beyond it, desolation, ended only by a stone wall.

"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never coming back to finish my job?"

Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.

"'T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the pronoun, "to leave undone what we've set our hands and paws to do, eh, Laddie?"

He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.

"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels from the pockets of his short, shaggy coat. "The year's sorrow is at an end."

"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.

"Doesn't it," he asked. "How old is yours?"

"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking. The horror of it was pressing heavily upon her.

"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I'm thinking there is something wrong. No sorrow should last more than a year--'t is written all around us so."

"Written? I have never seen it written."

"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but 't is because you have not looked to see. Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old age? When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more than a year before it blooms again? Is it more than a year from bud to bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit? 'T is God's way of showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."

The Piper's voice was very tender; the little dog lay still at his feet. She leaned against the crumbling wall, and turned her veiled face away.

"'T is not for us to be happy without trying," continued the Piper, "any more than it is for a tree to bear fruit without effort. All the beauty and joy in the world are the result of work--work for each other and in ourselves. When you see a butterfly over a field of clover, 't is because he has worked to get out of his chrysalis. He was not content to abide within his veil."

"Suppose," said Miss Evelina, in a voice that was scarcely audible, "that he couldn't get out?"

"Ah, but he could," answered the Piper. "We can get out of anything, if we try. I'm not meaning by escape, but by growth. You put an acorn into a crevice in a rock. It has no wings, it cannot fly out, nobody will lift it out. But it grows, and the oak splits the rock; even takes from the rock nourishment for its root."

"People are not like acorns and butterflies," she stammered. "We are not subject to the same laws."

"Why not?" asked the Piper. "God made us all, and I'm thinking we're all brothers, having, in a way, the same Father. 'T is not for me to hold myself above Laddie here, though he's a dog and I'm a man. 'T is not for me to say that men are better than dogs; that they're more honest, more true, more kind. The seed that I have in my hand, here, I'm thinking 't is my brother, too. If I plant it, water it, and keep the weeds away from it, 't will give me back a blossom. 'T is service binds us all into the brotherhood."

"Did you never," asked Evelina, thickly, "hear of chains?"

"Aye," said the Piper, "chains of our own making. 'T is like the ancient people in one of my ragged books. When one man killed another, they chained the dead man to the living one, so that he was forever dragging his own sin. When he struck the blow, he made his own chain."

"I am chained," cried Evelina, piteously, "but not to my own sin."

"'T is wrong," said the Piper; "I'm thinking there's a loose link somewhere that can be slipped off."

"I cannot find it," she sobbed; "I've hunted for it in the dark for twenty-five years."

"Poor soul," said the Piper, softly. "'T is because of the darkness, I'm thinking. From the distaff of Eternity, you take the thread of your life, but you're sitting in the night, and God meant you to be a spinner in the sun. When the day breaks for you, you'll be finding the loose link to set yourself free."

"When the day breaks," repeated Evelina, in a whisper. "There is no day."

"There is day. I've come to lead you to it. We'll find the light together and set the thread to going right again."

"Who are you?" cried Evelina, suddenly terror stricken.

The Piper laughed, a low, deep friendly laugh. Then he doffed his grey hat and bowed, sweeping the earth with the red feather, in cavalier fashion. "Tom Barnaby, at your service, but most folks call me Piper Tom. 'T is the flute, you know," he continued in explanation, "that I'm forever playing on in the woods, having no knowledge of the instrument, but sort of liking the sound."

Miss Evelina turned and went into the house, shaken to her inmost soul. More than ever, she felt the chains that bound her. Straining against her bonds, she felt them cutting deep into her flesh. Anthony Dexter had bound her; he alone could set her free. From this there seemed no possible appeal.

Meanwhile the Piper mowed down the weeds in the garden, whistling cheerily. He burned the rubbish in the road, and the smoke made a blue haze on the hill. He spaded and raked and found new stones for the broken wall, and kept up a constant conversation with the dog.

It was twilight long before he got ready to make the flower beds, so he carried the tools back into the shed and safely stored away the seeds. Miss Evelina watched him from the grimy front window as he started downhill, but he did not once look back.

There was something jaunty in the Piper's manner, aside from the drooping red feather which bobbed rakishly as he went home, whistling. When he was no longer to be seen, Miss Evelina sighed. Something seemed to have gone out of her life, like a sunbeam which has suddenly faded. In a safe shadow of the house, she raised her veil, and wiped away a tear.

When out of sight and hearing, the Piper stopped his whistling. "'T is no need to be cheerful, Laddie," he explained to the dog, "when there's none to be saddened if you're not. We don't know about the loose link, and perhaps we can never find it, but we're going to try. We'll take off the chain and put the poor soul in the sun again before we go away, if we can learn how to do it, but I'm thinking 't is a heavy chain and the sun has long since ceased to shine."

After supper, he lighted a candle and absorbed himself in going over his stock. He had made a few purchases in the city and it took some time to arrange them properly.

Last of all, he took out a box and opened it. He held up to the flickering light length after length of misty white chiffon--a fabric which the Piper had never bought before.

"'T is expensive, Laddie," he said; "so expensive that neither of us will taste meat again for more than a week, though we walked both ways, but I'm thinking she'll need more sometime and there was none to be had here. We'll not be in the way of charging for it since her gown is shabby and her shoes are worn."

Twilight deepened into night and still the Piper sat there, handling the chiffon curiously and yet with reverence. It was silky to his touch, filmy, cloud-like. He folded it into small compass, and crushed it in his hands, much surprised to find that it did not crumple. All the meaning of chiffon communicated itself to him--the lightness and the laughter, the beauty and the love. Roses and moonlight seemed to belong with it, youth and a singing heart.

"'T is a rare stuff, I'm thinking, Laddie," he said, at length, not noting that the dog was asleep. "'T is a rare, fine stuff, and well suited to her wearing, because she is so beautiful that she hides her face."

XII

A Grey Kitten

With her mouth firmly set, and assuming the air of a martyr trying to make himself a little more comfortable against the stake, Miss Mehitable climbed the hill. In her capable hands were the implements of warfare--pails, yellow soap, and rags. She carried a mop on her shoulder as a regular carries a gun.

"Havin' said I would clean house, I will clean house," she mused, "in spite of all the ingratitude and not listenin'. 'T won't take long, and it'll do my heart good to see the place clean again. Evelina's got no gumption about a house--never did have. I s'pose she thinks it's clean just because she's swept it and brushed down the cobwebs, but it needs more 'n a broom to take out twenty-five years' dirt."

Her militant demeanour was somewhat chastened when she presented herself at the house. When the door was opened, she brushed past Miss Evelina with a muttered explanation, and made straight for the kitchen stove. She heated a huge kettle of water, filled her pail, and then, for the first time, spoke.

"I've come to finish cleanin' as I promised I would, and I hope it'll offset your nursin' of Minty. And if that blackmailing play-doctor comes while I'm at work, you can tell him that I ain't speakin' to Minty from the hall, nor settin' foot in her room, and that he needn't be in any hurry to make out his bill, 'cause I'm goin' to take my time about payin' it."

She went upstairs briskly, and presently the clatter of moving furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina's head. It sounded as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house, and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise. The quick, regular strokes of the scrubbing brush swished through the hall. Resentment inspired the ministering influence to speed.

But it was not in Miss Hitty's nature to cherish her wrath long, while the incense of yellow soap was in her nostrils and the pleasing foam of suds was everywhere in sight.

Presently she began to sing, in a high, cracked voice which wavered continually off the key. She went through her repertory of hymns with conscientious thoroughness. Then a bright idea came to her.

"There wa'n't nothin' said about singin'," she said to herself. "I wa'n't to speak to Minty from the hall, nor set foot into her room. But I ain't pledged not to sing in the back room, and I can sing any tune I please, and any words. Reckon Minty can hear."

The moving of the ladder drowned the sound made by the opening of the lower door. Secure upon her height, with her head near the open transom of the back room. Miss Mehitable began to sing.

"Araminta Lee is a bad, un-grate-ful girl," she warbled, to a tune the like of which no mortal had ever heard before. "She fell off of a step-lad-der, and sprained her an-kle, and the play-doc-tor said it was broke in or-der to get more mon-ey, breaks being more val-u-able than sprains. Araminta Lee is lay-ing in bed like a la-dy, while her poor old aunt works her fingers to the bone, to pay for doc-tor's bills and nursin'. Four dollars and a half," she chanted, mournfully, "and no-body to pay it but a poor old aunt who has to work her fin-gers to the bone. Four dollars and a half, four dollars and a half--almost five dollars. Araminta thinks she will get out of work by pretending to be sick, but it is not so, not so. Araminta will find out she is much mis-taken. She will do the Fall clean-ing all alone, alone, and we do not think there will be any sprained an-kles, nor any four dollars--"

Doctor Ralph Dexter appeared in the doorway, his face flaming with wrath. Miss Mehitable continued to sing, apparently unconcerned, though her heart pounded violently against her ribs. By a swift change of words and music, she was singing "Rock of Ages," as any woman is privileged to do, when cleaning house, or at any other time.

But the young man still stood there, his angry eyes fixed upon her. The scrutiny made Miss Mehitable uncomfortable, and at length she descended from the ladder, still singing, ostensibly to refill her pail.

"Let me hide--" warbled Miss Hitty, tremulously, attempting to leave the room.

Doctor Ralph effectually barred the way. "I should think you'd want to hide," he said, scornfully. "If I hear of anything; like this again, I'll send in that bill I told you of. I know a lawyer who can collect it."

"If you do," commented Miss Mehitable, ironically, "you know more 'n I do." She tried to speak with assurance, but her soul was quaking within her. Was it possible that any one knew she had over three hundred dollars safely concealed in the attic?

"I mean exactly what I say," continued Ralph. "If you so much as climb these stairs again, you and I will have trouble,"

Sniffing disdainfully, Miss Mehitable went down into the kitchen, no longer singing. "You'll have to finish your own cleanin'," she said to Miss Evelina. "That blackmailing play-doctor thinks it ain't good for my health to climb ladders. He's afraid I'll fall off same as Minty did and he hesitates to take more of my money."

"I'd much rather you wouldn't do any more," replied Miss Evelina, kindly. "You have been very good to me, ever since I came here, and I appreciate it more than I can tell you. I'm going to clean my own house, for, indeed, I'm ashamed of it."

Miss Hitty grunted unintelligibly, gathered up her paraphernalia, and prepared to depart. "When Minty's well," she said, "I'll come back and be neighbourly."

"I hope you'll come before that," responded Miss Evelina. "I shall miss you if you don't."

Miss Hitty affected not to hear, but she was mollified, none the less.

From his patient's window, Doctor Ralph observed the enemy in full retreat, and laughed gleefully. "What is funny?" queried Araminta, She had been greatly distressed by the recitative in the back bedroom and her cheeks were flushed with fever.

"I was just laughing," said Doctor Ralph, "because your aunt has gone home and is never coming back here any more."

"Oh, Doctor Ralph! Isn't she?" There was alarm in Araminta's voice, but her grey eyes were shining.

"Never any more," he assured her, in a satisfied tone. "How long have you lived with Aunt Hitty?"

"Ever since I was a baby."

"H--m! And how old are you now?"

"Almost nineteen."

"Where did you go to school?"

"I didn't go to school. Aunt Hitty taught me, at home."

"Didn't you ever have anybody to play with?"

"Only Aunt Hitty. We used to play a quilt game. I sewed the little blocks together, and she made the big ones."

"Must have been highly exciting. Didn't you ever have a doll?"

"Oh, no!" Araminta's eyes were wide and reproachful now. "The Bible says 'thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.'"

Doctor Ralph sighed deeply, put his hands in his pockets, and paced restlessly across Araminta's bare, nun-like chamber. As though in a magic mirror, he saw her nineteen years of deprivation, her cramped and narrow childhood, her dense ignorance of life. No playmates, no dolls--nothing but Aunt Hitty. She had kept Araminta wrapped in cotton wool, mentally; shut her out from the world, and persistently shaped her toward a monastic ideal.

A child brought up in a convent could have been no more of a nun in mind and spirit than Araminta. Ralph well knew that the stern guardianship had not been relaxed a moment, either by night or by day. Miss Mehitable had a well-deserved reputation for thoroughness in whatever she undertook.

And Araminta was made for love. Ralph turned to look at her as she lay on her pillow, her brown, wavy hair rioting about her flushed face. Araminta's great grey eyes were very grave and sweet; her mouth was that of a lovable child. Her little hands were dimpled at the knuckles, in fact, as Ralph now noted; there were many dimples appertaining to Araminta.

One of them hovered for an instant about the corner of her mouth. "Why must you walk?" she asked. "Is it because you're glad your ankle isn't broken?"

Doctor Ralph came back and sat down on the bed beside her. He had that rare sympathy which is the inestimable gift of the physician, and long years of practice had not yet calloused him so that a suffering fellow-mortal was merely a "case". His heart, was dangerously tender toward her.

"Lots of things are worse than broken ankles," he assured her. "Has it been so bad to be shut up here, away from Aunt Hitty?"

"No," said the truthful Araminta. "I have always been with Aunt Hitty, and it seems queer, but very nice. Someway, I feel as if I had grown up."

"Has Miss Evelina been good to you?"

"Oh, so good," returned Araminta, gratefully. "Why?"

"Because," said Ralph, concisely, "if she hadn't been, I'd break her neck."

"You couldn't," whispered Araminta, softly, "you're too kind. You wouldn't hurt anybody."

"Not unless I had to. Sometimes there has to be a little hurt to keep away a greater one."

"You hurt me, I think, but I didn't know just when. It was the smelly, sweet stuff, wasn't it?"

Ralph did not heed the question. He was wondering what would become of Araminta when she went back to Miss Mehitable's, as she soon must. Her ankle was healing nicely and in a very short time she would be able to walk again. He could not keep her there much longer. By a whimsical twist of his thought, he perceived that he was endeavouring to wrap Araminta in cotton wool of a different sort, to prevent Aunt Hitty from wrapping her in her own particular brand.

"The little cat," said Araminta, fondly. "I thought perhaps it would come to-day. Is it coming when I am well?"

"Holy Moses!" ejaculated Ralph. He had never thought of the kitten again, and the poor child had been waiting patiently, with never a word. The clear grey eyes were upon him, eloquent with belief.

"The little cat," replied Ralph, shamelessly perjuring himself, "was not old enough to leave its mother. We'll have to wait until to-morrow or next day. I was keeping it for a surprise; that's why I didn't say anything about it. I thought you'd forgotten."

"Oh, no! When I go back home, you know, I can't have it. Aunt Hitty would never let me."

"Won't she?" queried Ralph. "We'll see!"

He spoke with confidence he was far from feeling, and was dimly aware that Araminta had the faith he lacked. "She thinks I'm a wonder-worker," he said to himself, grimly, "and I've got to live up to it."

It was not necessary to count Araminta's pulse again, but Doctor Ralph took her hand--a childish, dimpled hand that nestled confidingly in his.

"Listen, child," he said; "I want to talk to you. Your Aunt Hitty hasn't done right by you. She's kept you in cotton when you ought to be outdoors. You should have gone to school and had other children to play with."

"And cats?"

"Cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, snakes, mice, pigeons, guinea-pigs--everything."

"I was never in cotton," corrected Araminta, "except once, when I had a bad cold."

"That isn't just what I mean, but I'm afraid I can't make you understand. There's a whole world full of big, beautiful things that you don't know anything about; great sorrows, great joys, and great loves. Look here, did you ever feel badly about anything?"

"Only--only--" stammered Araminta; "my mother, you know. She was--was married."

"Poor child," said Ralph, beginning to comprehend. "Have you been taught that it's wrong to be married?"

"Why, yes," answered Araminta, confidently. "It's dreadful. Aunt Hitty isn't married, neither is the minister. It's very, very wrong. Aunt Hitty told my mother so, but she would do it."

There was a long pause. The little warm hand still rested trustingly in Ralph's. "Listen, dear," he began, clearing his throat; "it isn't wrong to be married. I never before in all my life heard of anybody who thought it was. Something is twisted in Aunt Hitty's mind, or else she's taught you that because she's so brutally selfish that she doesn't want you ever to be married. Some people, who are unhappy themselves, are so constituted that they can't bear to see anybody else happy. She's afraid of life, and she's taught you to be.

"It's better to be unhappy, Araminta, than never to take any risks. It all lies in yourself at last. If you're a true, loving woman, and never let yourself be afraid, nothing very bad can ever happen to you. Aunt Hitty has been unjust to deny you life. You have the right to love and learn and suffer, to make great sacrifices, see great sacrifices made for you; to believe, to trust--even to be betrayed. It's your right, and it's been kept away from you."

Araminta was very still and her hand was cold. She moved it uneasily.

"Don't, dear," said Ralph, his voice breaking. "Don't you like to have me hold your hand? I won't, if you don't want me to."

Araminta drew her hand away. She was frightened.

"I don't wonder you're afraid," continued Ralph, huskily. "You little wild bird, you've been in a cage all your life. I'm going to open the door and set you free."

Miss Evelina tapped gently on the door, then entered, with a bowl of broth for the invalid. She set it down on the table at the head of the bed, and went out, as quietly as she had come.