Part 13

"But, Billie, he isn't strong enough," began Mrs. Robbins. She was sitting out on the broad veranda, a basket of mending on her lap, and in the big steamer chair beside her was Mr. Robbins. "Is the Judge worse?"

"Oh, no, he's better. Aunt Roxy fixed him right up. He'd just eaten too much, she said."

"I think I should like to go, dear," said Mr. Robbins. "You could go with me, or Jean, and I should like to meet him again. I knew him when I was a boy up here."

It was his first trip away from the house since they had moved there, but now that the time had come, it seemed an easy thing to do, as if the strength had been granted to him to meet just such a crisis. Mrs. Robbins accompanied him, and they drove over through the village and up two miles beyond until they came to the Judge's home, a large square colonial residence on a hill, surrounded by tall elms and rock maples. The green blinds were all carefully closed excepting in the south chamber where Roxy held supreme sway now. She sat by his bedside, wielding a large palm leaf fan, spick and span in her dress of white linen, and there was a bunch of dahlias on the table.

"Come in, come in, boy," the Judge said in his deep voice. He stretched out his hand to Mr. Robbins, and nodded his head. Such a fine old head it was, as it lay propped up on the big square feather pillows, a head like Victor Hugo's or Henri Rochefort's. The thick curly white hair grew in deep points about his temples, and his moustache and imperial were white and curly too. There was a look in his eyes that told of an indomitable will, but they softened when they rested on his visitor.

"Sit down, lad; no, the easy chair. Roxy, give him the easy one. So. Well, they try their best to get us, don't they? I thought last night would be my last."

"Oh, fiddlesticks," laughed Miss Robbins. "Just ate too much, and had a little attack of indigestion, Dick. You'll live to be eighty-nine and a half."

The Judge's eyes twinkled as he gazed at her.

"Still contrary as Adam's off ox, Roxy. Won't even let me have the satisfaction of thinking you saved my life, will you?"

"A good dose of peppermint and soda would have done just as well," answered Roxana serenely, turning to introduce Mrs. Robbins. "He says he wants to make his will, but I think it's only a notion, and he wants company. Still I guess we'll humor him. It seems that he was going to leave everything he had to me. And I just found him out in time. The very idea when he's got Billie, his own grandchild, flesh and blood, and such a darling boy too. He can leave me Billie if he likes, but he can't leave me anything else; so you make it that way, Jerry."

"Leave her Billie, Jerry," sighed the Judge, "leave her Billie, and me too, if she'll take us both."

"Wouldn't have you for a gift, Dick," she answered, cheerful and happy as a girl as she looked down at him. "You're a fussy, spoiled, selfish old man, just as you always was, and I couldn't be bothered with you. But I'll keep an eye on you so you don't kill yourself before your time with sweet corn and peach shortcake, though I suppose it's a pleasant sort of taking off at that. I'll take Billie and Betty with me around the garden while you and Jerry fix up that will, and mind you do it right. Billie's going to have all that belongs to him."

As the door closed behind her, the Judge winked solemnly at Mr. Robbins.

"Finest woman in seven counties. Ought to have been the mother of heroes and statesmen, but there she is, mothering Billie and bossing me to her heart's content. Do you think she'd marry me, Jerry?"

"I don't know, Judge," Mr. Robbins answered, smiling. "Roxy's odd."

"Well, maybe so. Go ahead and make the will as she says. Everything to Billie, and make her guardian. All except," he stopped and his eyes twinkled merrily, "the house in Boston. Jerry, lad, it's got all our wedding furniture still in it just as it was thirty years ago. I bought it and moved the stuff up there after she gave me the mitten, and it's waited for her to change her mind these many years. I married for spite, and my poor wife died after Billie's father was born. Served me right, I guess. Anyhow, the house is there and she can take it or leave it as she likes."

So the will was drawn up and Mrs. Gorham and Mrs. Robbins witnessed it. Billie, standing down in the garden, showing Miss Robbins the flowers, did not realize what was happening. He only knew that somehow the barriers of ice were lifted between himself and his grandfather, and that a new era had dawned for all of them.

He watched them drive away, and went back upstairs to the long corridor. Roxana heard his step and opened the door of the sickroom.

"Come in here, Billie dear," she said. It was the first time that Billie had ever been in his grandfather's room. He stood inside the door, a sturdy, manly figure, barefooted and tanned, with eyes oddly like those old ones that surveyed him from the pillow. He hesitated a moment, but the Judge put out his hand, a strong bony one, yellowed like old ivory, and Billie gripped it in his broad boyish one.

"I'm awfully glad you're better, Grandfather," he said, a bit shyly.

"So am I, Billie. Last night I thought my hour had come, but I guess it was only a warning. A meeting with the Button Moulder perhaps. Do you know about him? No? You must read 'Peer Gynt.' A boy of your age should be well up on such things."

"And when has he had any chance to get well up on anything, I'd like to know?" demanded Roxana, in swift defense of her favorite. "The boy finished the district school a year ago. Been learning everything he knows since then from Ben, your hired help. If the Lord has spared you for any purpose, Dick, it is to bring up Billie right and teach him all you know."

"Well, well, quit scolding me, Roxy. Do as you like with him. I'll supply the money." The Judge pressed Billie's hand almost with affection. "What do you want to be, lad?"

"A lawyer or a naturalist," said Billie promptly.

"Be both. They're good antidotes for each other. Talk it over with him, Roxy, and do as you think best."

He closed his eyes, and Billie took it as a signal to leave the room, but the Judge spoke again.

"Where you do sleep, Bill?"

Billie colored at this. It was the first time anyone had ever called him Bill. He felt two feet taller all at once.

"In the little bed-room over the east 'ell,' sir."

"Change your belongings to the room next this. It faces the south and has two bookcases in it filled with my books that I had at college. You will enjoy them."

Billie went out softly, down the circular staircase to the lower hall and, once outdoors, on a dead run for the barn. Ben was husking corn on the barn floor, sitting on a milking stool with the corn rising around him in billows, whistling and singing alternately.

Billie poured out his news breathlessly, and Ben took it all calmly.

"Well, I'm glad for ye. I always believed the Judge would come out of his trance some day and do the proper thing. That Miss Roxy's a sightly woman. Knows just how to take hold. Guess she could marry the Judge tomorrow if she wanted to. Mrs. Robbins is a fine woman too. I never see her before."

Somehow this didn't seem to fit in with Billie's mood, and he left the barn. All the world looked different to him. He was wanted, really wanted, now. He wasn't just somebody the Judge had taken in because they were related and he had to out of pride. He was to have the big south chamber right next the Judge's own room and study all he wanted to. Best of all, since he had grasped that yellow old hand in his, he knew that he could go to him with anything and that he really was going to be a grandfather to him.

It was nearly two miles over to Greenacres if he went cross lots, but he started. The goldenrod was high and in full bloom on every hand and purple asters crowded it for room. The apple trees held ripening fruit, and the fragrance of Shepherd Sweetings and Peck's Pleasants was in the air. It was the last week in August when all the summerland seemed to rest after a good work done, and the hush of harvest time was on the earth.

In the woods he startled a doe and two fawns and they leaped ahead of him through the brush. Farther along in the pines a partridge whirred up under his nose almost, and coaxed him away from her young. Some young stock, Jersey heifers and a few Holsteins, grazed in the woods, and lifted grave eyes to watch him pass. Usually he would notice them, but today all he thought of was the Judge's words, and the longing to talk them over with somebody.

"Why, there's Billie," Kit exclaimed, looking up from some apples she was paring for pies. Helen was reading on the circular seat that was built around one of the old elms back of the house. "Come over here and help."

Billie climbed the stone wall and came, flushed and triumphant. Throwing himself down on the grass beside Kit, he told what had happened, and she made up for all that Ben had lacked in enthusiasm and imagination.

"Billie Ellis," she cried, setting down the pan of apples, and hugging her knees ecstatically. "Isn't that wonderful? Why, you can be anything at all now that you want to be. Oh, I'm so glad for you!"

Billie looked at her peacefully.

"I knew you'd take it like that," he said. "I just wanted to tell somebody who would almost bump the stars over it, the way it made me feel. Kit, you're a good old pal, know it?"

"Thank you, kind sir, thank you." Kit spread out her blue chambray skirt and dropped a low curtsey. "When you come into your kingdom, forget not your humble handmaid, Prince Otto."

"Who was he?" demanded Billie hungrily. "Gee, I'm tired hearing of people all the time that I don't know about. I'm going to read my head off now."

"So do, child, so do," laughed Kit. "He was a king who left his throne to wander among his people and see how they lived."

"It must have been awfully hard to go back and stay on the throne. I want to study hard and be somebody that Grandfather will be proud of, but I like everyday folks mighty well."

Helen dropped her book and shook back her curls from her face. She had hardly ever noticed him before, but now he seemed more interesting. Still Kit was forever spending the largesse of her sympathy on anyone who needed it just as Doris did on animals and birds and chickens. So after a moment she went on with her book, "Handbook of Classical History," preparing for her entry into High School with Kit the following week. The joys and sorrows of the Billie person had small place in her mind.

But Kit took him into the kitchen and gave him a big square of gingerbread with whipped cream on it, and listened to him plan out the future without a single word of depreciation or discouragement. The world was golden, and Fortune had handed him a lighted flambeau and told him to take his place with the other Greek lads and race for the prize.

"I just know you'll win out, Billie," she told him confidently, when she said good-bye on the back steps. "Come down any time and we'll help you out on your studies."

Jean and Doris had gone to the village for some groceries. Cousin Roxy was coming to take supper with them. Kit set the table, with sprays of early asters in the center, singing softly to herself Cousin Roxy's favorite hymn.

"I've reached the land of corn and wine, And all its riches freely mine, Here shines undimmed one blissful day, For all my night has passed away. Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land--"

"Does it seem like that to you, child?" asked her mother, coming lightly down the long staircase and into the dining-room, mellow with late afternoon sunlight.

"It's everything all rolled up in one," Kit answered happily. "It's Beulah Land and the Land of Heart's Desire and the Promised Land, it's the whole thing in one, Mother dear. Don't you feel that way too?"

And with her arm around the second daughter, the Motherbird led her out on the wide veranda. They could see for miles, up and down the valley and over the distant hills. Helen dropped her book when she saw them, and came up the steps to hug up close too, on the other shoulder. And down the river road they heard Jean and Doris driving and singing as they came.

"Remember what we called them when we first came up, girls?" asked Mrs. Robbins. "The hills of rest. Somehow when I look at them, the winter doesn't frighten me at all. They look as if they could shelter us.

"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help,'"

she quoted softly. "They have given us security and happiness."

"And Dad's health," added Kit. "We've all worked hard, but I do think we've got some results anyway, don't you, Helen?"

"Lots of preserves," said Helen dreamily.

Cousin Roxana joined them, chin up and smiling.

"He's sound asleep," she said. "Now that everything's kind of quieted down, I don't mind telling you something. After Billie had gone, the Judge and I talked over things before I had Ben hitch up Ella Lou, and I don't know but what I'll have to move over there and take care of the two of them. Land knows they need it."

"Oh, Cousin Roxy, marry the Judge?" gasped Kit.

"Well, I might as well," laughed Roxana. "We've wasted thirty years now, and he'll fret and fuss for thirty more if I don't marry him. I'll sell Maple Lawn, or you folks can have it if you like, rent free."

There was a moment's hesitation. No words were needed though. With two pairs of arms pressing her until they hurt, the Motherbird said gently that she thought the Robbins would winter at Greenacres.