Part 2

"I know I am." As she spoke the Motherbird held her brood close to her, Doris and Helen kneeling beside her and Jean and Kit on each side. She leaned back her head and smiled at them. It was such a lovely face, they thought. Nobody in all the world had quite the same look or air as Mother. Back from her low broad forehead waved thick brown hair. Doris loved to perch on the broad arm of the willow chair and search diligently for any gray hairs that dared to show themselves. If any were found, they were promptly pulled out. Nine might come in the place of each, as Cousin Roxana said was highly probable according to tradition, but while they were few and far between, they were all eradicated, almost in indignation that Father Time should dare to assail, ever so gently, the splendid fortress of Mother's youth.

"Really, girls," Kit would say sometimes in her abrupt way, "I think Mother has the most interesting face I ever saw, and the most soulful eyes. They can be just as full of fun and mischief as Dorrie's, and then, again, just watch them when she feels sorry for anybody. It's worth while having a pain or something happen to you just to see her look that way."

She was looking "that way" at this moment as she smiled up at Cousin Roxana; just as though there was nothing too hard or too difficult in all the world for her to undertake.

"That's better," Cousin Roxy said comfortably. "Now you children take her up to her room and play you're maids of honor to the queen. I have to tend my broth and see how Jerry's coming along. Looks to me like rest and quiet and cheerful hearts will carry him through if anything will."

"Roxy!" There was a hidden note of tragedy in the Motherbird's voice. Nobody but the same unemotional Roxy knew how she longed to put her head right down on that ample bosom and have a good old-fashioned cry. "Roxy, the doctors say he'll never be any better."

"Fiddlesticks and pinwheels!" exclaimed Miss Robbins indignantly, with a toss of her head. "Lots they know about it. I declare, sometimes I think the more you pay a doctor the less he can do for you and the bigger-sounding names he thinks up to call what may ail you. I certainly do wonder at the way they try to make folks think they've got a special little private telephone wire right up to the Death Angel's door. I never take any stock in them at all, Betty." It came out quite easily. "Give me castor oil, some quinine and calomel, and maybe a little arnica salve for emergencies, and I'll undertake to help anybody hang on to their mortal coils a little bit longer."

"But things seem to be near a crisis now."

"Let them." Cousin Roxana stood with arms akimbo, as if she were hurling defiance at somebody, and the girls fairly hung on her words. "If the soul never had trials, what would be the use of life? Put ye on the armor of faith, Betty Robbins, and hope for the best. As for you, Jean and Kit, and you too, Helen and Dorrie, if I find any of you looking down your noses, I declare I'll stick clothes-pins on them and fasten a smile to your lips with court plaster."

*CHAPTER III*

*BREAKERS AHEAD*

St. Valentine's Day came and went without the party. Once, and sometimes twice, a day the doctor's runabout turned into the broad pebbled driveway and the children went around with subdued voices and anxious faces. Even Tekla, down in her kitchen domain, wore an ominous expression, and told Cousin Roxana that she had dreamed three times of three black birds perching on the chimneys, which was a sure sign of death, anyone could tell you, in her own country.

"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," Roxy laughed back comfortably. "If I were you, Tekla, I'd take something for my liver and go to bed a mite earlier at night."

All the same, her own face looked worried when she entered the sick-room and looked down at Mr. Robbins' face on the pillows.

"It seems ridiculous for me to be lying here, Roxy," he would say to her, with the whimsical boyish smile she loved. "Why, there isn't anything the matter with me only I'm tired out. Machinery's a bit rusty, I guess."

"No, nothing special only that you can't eat or walk or sit up without keeling over." Her keen hazel eyes regarded him amusedly. "You know, Jerry Robbins, if it wasn't for Betty and the girls, I'd trot you right back home with me."

He looked from her to the window. Jean had just brought in a bunch of daffodils in a slender Rookwood jar and had set them in the sunlight.

"You're not going soon, are you, Roxy?"

Roxana seated herself in the chair beside his bed. As she would have put it, there was a time for all things, and this seemed a propitious moment, for her to get something off her mind that had been weighing there for some time.

"I'll have to pretty quick. It looks like an early spring, Jerry, and there's a sight to do up there. Of course Hiram knows how things go as well as I do, but I've been away a month now, and I like to have the oversight of things. Men are menfolks after all, and you can't expect too much from them. I want to get the hay barn shingled, and some new hen runs set out before the little chicks begin to hatch, and all my berry canes need clearing out. You know that mass of blackberries along the stone wall in the clover patch below the lane--what's the matter, Jerry?"

He had closed his eyes as if in pain, and his hand closed suddenly over her own as it lay on the counterpane.

"It makes me homesick to hear you talk, Roxy."

Their glances met presently in a long look of sympathetic remembrance of the dear old times at Maple Lawn.

"If it were not for the girls," he went on slowly. "They are all at an age now when they need the advantages of being near the city."

"Well, I'm not so sure of that," answered Roxy dubiously. "I suppose you feel that you can do more for them down here, Jerry, and it is a sightly place to live, but you did pretty well yourself up at the old Frost District, didn't you?"

He smiled and nodded his head.

"I wonder what Betty would say to the Frost District school-house?" he asked. A vision of it arose out of the memories of the past, the little white school-house that stood at the crossroads, with rocky pastures rising high behind it, and the long white dusty road curving before it. He had been just a country boy, born and bred within a few miles of Maple Lawn at the old Robbins' homestead. He knew every cow path through the woods about Gilead Center, every big chestnut and hickory tree for five miles around, every fork and bend in the course of the wild little river that cut through the valley meadows. Somehow, in these days of weakness and fear that he was losing his grip on life, there had grown up a great yearning to be home again, to find himself back in the shelter of the mothering arms of the hills. They had always been the hills of rest to him as a boy. Over their margins the skyline had promised adventure and bold emprise, but now they beckoned to him to come back to peace and health.

"She isn't country bred, is she, Jerry?"

The question recalled him to the sick-room.

"No," he answered gently, "no, Betty's from California. I believe her people went out originally from New York State, but she herself was born in San Francisco. Later, she lived on her father's ranch for a while in the Coronado Valley, but she was educated in the city. She doesn't know anything about farm life as we do."

Roxana's placid face looked nonplussed. California might just as well be Kamchatka, so far as her knowledge of it was concerned. It did seem rather too bad that Betty had come from such far-off stock, but still, she thought, a great deal could be excused in her on account of it, since it wasn't given to everybody to be born in New England.

"Would she mind it for just a summer, do you suppose?"

"It would have to be for a longer time than one summer, Roxy."

Something in his voice made her suspicious. The nurse had gone out for her daily airing down the shore road. Mrs. Robbins had walked out to meet the girls on their way from school, intending to accompany them to afternoon Lenten service at St. James's. A lone adventurous fly crept up the window curtain and Roxana promptly slapped him with a ready hand.

"Pesky thing," she said; then, "What did you say, Jerry?"

"I said that it would have to be for a longer time than just one summer. Things have not gone well with me for the past year. I haven't told Betty or the girls about it."

"You should have," said Roxy promptly. "It isn't fair to them not to share your sorrows with them as well as your joys. Partner, that's what it says, doesn't it? Partner of your joys and sorrows, you know, Jerry."

"Betty has never seemed to understand much about money matters so I did not want to worry her."

"Just like a man. So you broke your health down and landed here in bed trying to do it all yourself. Can I help you? How much money do you need to tide you over?"

He laughed unsteadily.

"Dear old Roxy. You'd give anyone your left ear if they needed it, wouldn't you? You don't understand how we live. It takes nearly every cent I earn to cover our current expenses. As long as I could keep well, it did not matter, but three months' illness shows breakers ahead. I am wondering what we are going to do, and I dread even speaking to Betty about it."

"Then let me do it," said Miss Robbins promptly. "I'd love to. Better yet, call a family council and talk things over if you are strong enough to do so. How long can you hold out here?"

"I'm not certain." He looked weary and bothered. "We only rent the place, as you know. The lease is up the first of May. It is $1800 a year."

"You can buy a good farm up home for that, Jerry; house, barns, pasture, haylands, wood lots and all," said Roxana thoughtfully. "It's a nice place here, but it's fearfully extravagant."

"Do you think so, Roxy?" he smiled up at her with a glint of fun in his eyes like Kit's. "Betty and the girls want me to take over the estate below here along the ocean front at $2500 a year because they like the ocean view and the private beach. It really is quite moderate too, considering we're on the North Shore. Property on Long Island is expensive."

She looked out at the clean park-like territory around the large modern house. Winding drives swept in and out. Each residence stood in its own spacious grounds. High rock walls with ornamental entrance gates surrounded each one. There was an artificial pond where the children skated in whiter and the country club crowned the hill with golf links sloping away to the shore on the north.

Down in the ravine stood the artistic gray stone railroad station matching the real estate office over the way, and farther along were the village stores, the new High School of stucco and tile, and the two churches. Back and forth along the smooth highway slipped a never-ending line of motor cars coming and going like ants over an ant hill. Roxy turned her head towards the bed once more and asked:

"Would you rather do that than go up home with me?"

"It isn't what I'd rather do. It's what we may have to do unless I gain my old strength."

"You'll never get a mite better lying there worrying over unpaid bills and new ones stacking up. I'm going to talk to Betty."

He shook his head with a little smile of doubt.

"But it would never be fair to take them away from this sort of thing, Roxy. You don't understand. They have their church and their club work and their special studies. Jean has been taking up a course in Applied Design and Modeling, and Helen has her music. Kit's deep in school work and belongs to about five clubs outside of that. Dorrie's about the only one disengaged, and she has a dancing class and the Ministering Children's League over at church. Betty's on more committees and things than I can count, and she believes that we owe it to the children to give them the best social environment that we can. Perhaps we can get along in some way. There's a little left at the bank."

"How much?" demanded Roxana uncompromisingly. "I mean, after you've paid up everything. I'll bet there isn't five thousand left."

"Five thousand! I doubt much whether there is one thousand. Don't tell Betty that. I have never bothered her about such things, and there are a few securities I might sell and realize on."

"And you think that you've been a good husband to her. Land alive, what are men made of! Here she stands a chance of being left alone in the world with four children to bring up and you've never bothered her about your business. The sooner you get to it, the better, I think." Roxana stood up and adjusted her eyeglasses resolutely. She had seen what he could not, Betty coming leisurely up the box-bordered walk, a loose cluster of yellow jonquils in her arms, and the girls following, all except Kit. "There they come now. I won't say anything till you do, Jerry."

Suddenly Kit's voice sounded at the door. Her short curls were rumpled and towsled, and her eyes wide with excitement, as she hugged a hot water bottle to her face.

"I've heard almost every word you said," she burst out. "I had neuralgia and stayed home this afternoon, and I've been asleep in there on the couch. Please don't be sorry, Dad. I'll help you every blessed bit I can, and I think it would be glorious for us all to go up into the country."

She stopped as the door below, in the front entrance hall, banged and Doris came upstairs on a run, a herald of love and joy.

"Well, child, keep your mouth shut till we know where we're at," counseled Roxy quickly. "Go back and lie down. Here they come."

But Kit stood her ground, and Jean and Helen seemed to catch from her the fact that there was something unusual in the wind as they came in behind their Mother.

"It was a lovely walk," said Mrs. Robbins, drawing off her gloves as she sat down beside the bed and smiled at the patient. "We went down to look at the Dunderdale place, Jerry. It is simply lovely there even in winter. You can see the summer possibilities. I never saw so many shrubs and trees and such beautiful grouping. It made me think of our Californian places."

"Or an Italian garden, Mother dear," Jean added eagerly. "Why, Dad, it's exactly like some of Parrish's pictures, don't you know; tall poplars over here, and then a hedge effect and a low Roman seat tucked in every once in a while. Why, it's just as cheap as can be."

"You'd enjoy the garden so this summer, and there are enclosed sleeping porches, and an inner court like a patio garden. The garage is small, but it will do if we don't get a new car this year."

Right here Cousin Roxana sniffed, a real, unmistakable sniff. She was a believer in quick action. If you had anything to do, the quicker you did it and got over it the better, she always said. So now she raised her head as they all looked at her, and sprang her bolt right out of a clear sky.

"You won't get a new car this year, Betty, my dear, and you're not going to move into any two-thousand-five-hundred-dollars-a-year bungalow, either. I'm going to take the whole lot of you to Gilead Center, and see if Jerry can't get his health back up in those blessed hills of rest."

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE QUEEN'S PRIVY COUNCIL*

There was a queer silence, fraught with suspense for each person in the room. Mrs. Robbins looked down at the wearied face lying back on the white pillows with a startled expression in her usually calm eyes. Instinctively both her hands reached for his and held them fast, while Jean laid her own two down on her mother's shoulders as if she would have given her strength for this new ordeal.

"You mean for a little visit, don't you, Cousin Roxy?" she asked eagerly.

"No, I don't, Jeanie. I mean for good and all, or at least until your father has time to get well, and that can't be done in a few days."

"But Doctor Roswell says he's gaining every day," Mrs. Robbins said. She waited for some reassuring answer, her eyes almost begging for one, but Cousin Roxana was not to be dismayed.

"Jerry, tell what the doctor said to us this morning. Not that I take much stock in him, but he may be on the right track."

"Nothing special, Motherbird and robins all," smiled back Mr. Robbins; "only it appears that I am to be laid up in the dry dock for repairs for a long while, and the sinews of war won't stand the vacation expenses if we stay where we are now."

"I wouldn't try to talk about it, dear, before the children," began Mrs. Robbins, quick to avoid anything that savored of trouble or anxiety. "We must not worry. There will be some way out of it."

"There is," Cousin Roxy went on serenely. "If ever the finger of Providence pointed the way, it's doing it now. I say you'd better move right out of this kind of a place where expenses are high and you can't afford anything at all. This is a real crisis, Elizabeth Ann." She spoke with more decision as she saw Jean pat her mother comfortingly. "It has got to be met with common sense. When the bread winner can't work and there's a nestful of youngsters to bring up and feed and clothe, it's time to sit up and take notice, and count all of your resources."

"How would it do for you to take Father up home with you for a rest, Cousin Roxy?" Jean suggested, stepping into the awkward breach as she always did. "Then we could let Annie and Rozika go, and just keep Tekla to do the cooking and washing. And when he came back we'd have all the moving over, and it would be the prettiest time of the year along in late August."

Mrs. Robbins' face brightened at the suggestion.

"Or we might even renew the lease here, Jerry. The house is very pleasant after all, and we could get along with it if it were all done over this spring."

Mr. Robbins looked up at Cousin Roxana's countenance with whimsical helplessness, and she answered the appeal.

"Now, look here," she said with decision and finality. "You'd better put the idea of staying here right out of your mind, Betty. The winds of circumstance have blown your nest all to smithereens, and if you're the right sort of a motherbird, you'll start right in building a fresh one where it's safer. I think your way lies over the hills to Gilead Center. You can pay all your bills here, sell off a lot of heavy furniture, and move up there this spring. For you can't stay here. There's hardly enough money to see you through as it is. I'm going to help you along a bit until you get your new start."

"Not money enough," said Mrs. Robbins as though she could not comprehend such an idea. "But we couldn't think of going up there and all living with you, Cousin Roxy."

"You're not going to," answered Roxana. "Thank the Lord, I live in a land where houses and food are cheap and there's room for everybody. We don't tack a brass door-plate on a rock pile like I saw there in New York, Betty, and call it a residence at about ten dollars a minute to breathe. I've been telling Jerry you'd better rent a farm near me, and settle down on it."

"But Roxy--" Mrs. Robbins hesitated.

"Oh, Mother, do it, do it," came in a quick outburst from Kit, standing back against the wall. "It would be perfectly dandy for all of us and would do Dad a world of good!"

"We wouldn't mind a bit. We'd love it, wouldn't we, Dorrie?" Helen squeezed Doris's hand to be sure she would answer in the affirmative. "We'd all help you."

Doris was silent, still too bewildered at the outlook to express an opinion.

"I shouldn't mind for myself, but we must think of the girls--their schooling and what environment means at their age. I suppose Jean could be left at school."

"Thought she was all through school," came from Cousin Roxana.

"I am, only I've been taking lessons in town this winter in a special course, arts and crafts, you know, and next fall I was going into the regular classes at the National Academy of Design."

"What for, child?" Roxy's gray eyes twinkled behind her glasses. "Going to be an artist?"

"Not exactly pictures," Jean answered with dignity. "Conventionalized designs."

"Well, whatever it is, I guess it will hold over for a year while you go up to the country and learn to keep house. Kit here can go to High School. It's seven miles away, but our young folks drive down and put up their horses at Tommy Burke's stable in East Pomfret, and take the trolley over from there. It's real handy."

Kit's eyes signaled to Jean, and Jean's to Helen and Doris. A fleeting vision of that "handy" trip to High School in the dead of winter appeared before them. Kit had a ridiculous way of expressing utter despair and astonishment. She would open her eyes widely, inflate her cheeks, and look precisely like Tweedledee in "Through the Looking-Glass." Doris emitted a low but irrepressible giggle under the strain.

"I think," Mrs. Robbins said hurriedly, "that we might manage if we had a little roadster."

"Rooster?" repeated Cousin Roxy in surprise.

Kit and Doris departed suddenly into the outer hall.

"No, roadster; a runabout that either Jean or I could learn to run. Don't they have them, Jerry, with adjustable tops, one for passengers, one for delivering goods, and so on?"

"Doubtless one for ploughing and harrowing likewise, Betty," Cousin Roxana said merrily. "I guess you'll jog along behind a good, sensible horse for a while. Remember Ella Lou, Jerry? She's fifteen years old and just as perky as ever. I always have to hold her down at the railroad crossing."

"What do you think of it, dear?" asked Mr. Robbins, looking longingly up at the face of the Motherbird. "It would be a great comfort and relief to me to get back to those old hills of rest, but it doesn't seem fair to you or the children. The sacrifice is too great. They do need the right kind of environment, as you say. Suppose we left Jean at least, where she could keep up her studies, and perhaps put Kit into a good private school. Then I might go up home with Roxy, and you and the two younger girls could go out to California to Benita Ranch--"

But Mrs. Robbins laid her fingers on his lips.

"You're not going to banish us to Benita Ranch. If you think it is the best thing to do, Jerry, we'll all go with you. Remember, 'Whither thou goest, I will go. Where thou lodgest, I will lodge--'"

Helen laid her hand over Jean's, and they stepped out softly. Their mother had slipped down on her knees beside the bed, and even Cousin Roxana had gone over to the window to pretend she was looking out at the Sound. The girls fled downstairs to the big music-room back of the library. It had been their special shelter and gathering place ever since they had lived there. Kit and Doris were already there, deep into an argument about the entire situation.

"I don't think it's right to move up there," Helen said, judicially. "We may not like it at all, and there we'd be just the same, planted, and maybe we never could get out of it, and we'd grow old and look just like Cousin Roxy and talk like her and everything."

"Prithee, maiden, have a care what thou sayest," Kit expostulated. "Our fair cousin hath a way, 'tis true, but she is a power in the land, and her voice is heard in the councils of the mighty. I wish I had half her common sense."

"I hate common sense," Jean cried passionately. "I know it's right and we must do the best thing, but, girls, did you see Mother's face? It was simply tragic. Dad's been a country boy, and he's going back home where he knows all about everything and loves it, but Mother's so different. She's like a queen."