Part 2

“If you’ve finished your homework, why don’t you go to bed?” Jean told them. She finished her letter alone. It was not easy to write it. Peg wanted her to come down for the spring term. She could board with her if she liked. Expenses were very light.

Any expense would be heavy if piled on the monthly budget of Woodhow. Jean knew that. So she wrote back with a heartache behind the plucky refusal, and stepped out on the moonlit porch for a minute. It was clear and cold after the light snowfall. The stars were very faint. From the river came the sound of the waterfall.

“You stand steady, Jean Craig,” she said, between her teeth. “Don’t you dare be a quitter. You’ve got to see this winter straight through.”

3. Exhibit A

After her marriage to Judge Ellis, Becky had taken Ella Lou, her big collie dog, from Maple Grove over to the large white house behind its towering elms.

“I’ve had that dog for ten years and never saw another one like her for intelligence,” she would say, her head held a little bit high, her glasses halfway down her nose. “I told the Judge if he wanted me he’d have to take Ella Lou too.”

So it was Ella Lou’s familiar black nose that poked around the door the following morning when the New York cousins came over to get acquainted.

Jean never forgot her introduction to Beth Newell. She was about forty-seven then, with her son Elliott fully five inches taller than herself, but she looked about twenty-seven. Her feathery brown hair, her wide gray eyes, and quick, sweet laughter, endeared her to Jean right away.

Elliott was about fifteen, not one single bit like his mother, but broad-shouldered and blond and sturdy. It was so much fun, Kit said, to watch him take care of his mother.

“Where’s your high school out here?” he asked. “I’m at prep school specializing in math.”

“And how any son of mine can adore mathematics is beyond me,” Beth laughed. “I suppose it’s reaction. Do you like math, Jean?” She put her arm around the slender figure nearest her.

“I should say not,” Jean answered immediately, and then all at once, out popped her heart’s desire before she could check the words. Anybody’s heart’s desire would pop out with Beth’s eyes coaxing it. “I--I want to be an artist.”

“Keep on wishing and working then, dear, and as Becky says, if it is to be it will be.”

While the others talked of New England farms, these two sat together on the couch, Jean listening eagerly and wistfully while her cousin told of her own girlhood aims and how she carried them out.

“We didn’t have much money, so I knew I had to win out for myself. There were two boys to help bring up, and Mother was not well, but I used to sketch every spare moment I could, and I read everything on art I could find, even articles from old magazines in the attic. But most of all I sketched anything and everything, studying form and composition. When I was eighteen, I taught school for two terms in the country. Dad had said if I earned the money myself, I could go abroad, and how I worked to get that first nest egg.”

“How much did you get a week?”

“Twelve dollars, but my board was only three and a half in the country, and I saved all I could. Of course, at that time, it was cheaper to go abroad--and easier, too. I wouldn’t recommend your trying to go to Europe right now, but there are plenty of good schools and teachers in this country. If you really do want work and kind of hunt a groove you’re fitted for, you’ll always find something to do.”

Jean was leaning forward, her chin propped on her hands. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Do go on, please.”

“Ellen Brainerd, the teacher I studied under in Boston at one time, was one of New England’s marvelous spinsters with the far vision and cash enough to make a few of her dreams come true. Every year she used to take a group of art students to Europe, and with her encouragement I went the third year, helping her with a few of the younger ones, and paying part of my tuition that way. And oh,” Beth’s eyes were sparkling as she recalled her student days, “we set up our easels in the fountain square in Barcelona and hunted Dante types in Florence. We trailed through Flanders and Holland and lived for a time in Paris.”

“And you painted all those places?” exclaimed Jean. “I’ve wanted so much to go.”

“Well, I tried to,” Beth looked ruefully into the open fire. “Yes, I tried to paint like all the old masters and new masters, from Rembrandt to Degas. I did everything except try to develop a technique of my own.”

“But isn’t it important to study the techniques of the masters?”

“Yes, of course it is, but it was long after I came back home that I realized this. After David came over and stopped my career by marrying me I came back home. We lived out near New Rochelle and I began painting things of everyday life just as I saw them, the things I loved. It was our old apple tree out by the well, steeped in full May bloom, that brought me my first prize.”

“Gee, after Paris and all the rest!”

“Yes. And the next year they accepted our red barn in a snowstorm. I painted it from our kitchen window. Another was a water color of our Jersey calves standing knee deep in the brook in June. That is the kind of picture I have succeeded with. I think because, as I say, they are part of the home life and scenes I love best and so I have put a part of myself into them.”

Dürer’s heart’s blood, Jean thought to herself. “You’ve helped me so much, Beth,” she said aloud. “I was just longing to go back to the art school right now, and throw up everything here that I ought to do.”

“Keep on sketching every spare moment you can. Learn form and color and composition. Things are only beautiful according to the measure of our own minds. I’d like you to come to New York and study there. You could stay with me and share my studio when you weren’t in classes.”

“I’d love to come when Mother can spare me.” Jean’s eyes sparkled at this prospect.

“Well, do so, my dear,” Becky’s hands were laid on her shoulders from behind. “It’s a poor family that can’t support one genius.” She laughed in her full-hearted, joyous way. “Now, listen, all of you. I’ve come to invite you to have Christmas dinner with us.”

“But, Becky,” began Mrs. Craig, “there are so many of us--”

“Not half enough to fill the big old house. Some day after all the children are married and there are plenty of grandchildren, then we can talk about there being too many, though I doubt it. There’s always as much house room as there is heart room, if you only think so. Bring along the little one too.” She smiled over her shoulder at Jack, sitting in his favorite corner in the kitchen working industriously on one of Tommy’s model airplanes, and he gave a funny little one-sided grin back in shy return. “Billie’s going away to school after New Year’s, did I tell you?”

“Oh, golly,” cried Doris, so abruptly that everyone laughed at her. “Doesn’t it seem as if boys get all of the adventures of life just naturally.” Billie was the Judge’s grandson and Doris’s pal. He was two years older than Doris but they liked the same things and had been great friends ever since Doris first found his secret hide-out.

“He’s had adventures enough, but he does need the friendship of boys his own age. I don’t want him to be tied down with a couple of old folks like the Judge and myself. You’re never young but once. Besides, I always did want to go to these college football games and have a boy of mine in the huddle.”

“Gol--lee!” Doris exclaimed after the front door had closed on the last glimpse of Ella Lou’s plumed tail going out to the car. “Doesn’t it seem as if Becky leaves behind her a big sort of glow? She can say more nice things in a few minutes than anybody I ever heard. Except about Billie’s going away. I wonder why he didn’t come down and tell me himself.”

“Well, you know, Doris,” Kit remarked, “you haven’t a mortgage on Billie.”

“Oh, I don’t care if he goes away. It isn’t that,” Doris answered easily. “I wouldn’t like a boy that couldn’t hold his own with the other guys. Jean, did you realize the full significance of Becky’s invitation? No baking or cooking. No working our fingers to the bone for dinner on Christmas Day. I think she’s simply wonderful.”

Jean laughed and slipped up the back stairs to her own room. She felt around in her desk until she found her folio of sketches. The dining room was deserted excepting for Doris watering the rows of geraniums in the bay window, so Jean sat down to look over her old art work. Doris went upstairs to see her father, and Kit appeared with a frown on her face, puzzling over a knitting book.

“I hate the last days before Christmas,” she said savagely. “What on earth can we concoct at this last minute for Beth? I think I’ll knit her a pair of white cable-stitch gloves. If I can’t finish them in time I’ll give her one with the promise of the other. What can I give to Judge Ellis?”

“Something useful,” Jean answered.

“I can’t bear useful things for Christmas presents. Abby Tucker says she never gets any winter clothes till Christmas and then all the family unload useful things on her. I’m going to send her a bottle of perfume in a green leather case. I’ve had it for months and never touched it and she’ll adore it. I wish I could think of something for Billie too, something he’s never had and always wanted.”

“He’s going away,” Jean mused. “Why don’t you fix up a book of snapshots taken all around here. We took some marvelous ones this summer.”

“A boy wouldn’t like that.”

“He will when he’s homesick.” Jean opened her folio and began turning over her art school studies, mostly conventionalized designs from her beginnings in textile design. After her talk with Beth they only dissatisfied her. Suddenly she glanced up at the figure across the table, Kit with rumpled short curls, her bangs in disarray, and an utterly relaxed posture, elbows on the table, her feet sprawled in front of her. Jean’s pencil began to move over the back of her drawing pad. She was pleased to see how easy it was to catch Kit’s expression. It wasn’t so hard, the ruffled hair, the half-averted face. Kit’s face was such an odd mixture of whimsicality and determination. The rough sketch grew and all at once Kit glanced up and caught on to what was going on.

“Oh, it’s me, isn’t it, Jean? I wish you’d conventionalized me and embellished me. I’d like to look glamorous and sophisticated. That’s lovely, specially with the nose screwed up that way and my forehead wrinkled. I like that, it’s so subtle. Anyone getting one good look at the helpless frenzy in that downcast gaze--”

“Oh, Kit, be good,” laughed Jean. She held the sketch away from her critically. “Looks just like you.”

“OK, hang it up as ‘Exhibit A.’ I don’t mind. There’s a look of genius to it at that.”

“Naturally, I had to include that too,” replied Jean teasingly. Just then Mrs. Craig came into the room.

“Mom, look what my sister has done to me,” Kit cried tragically. Jean said nothing, only the color rose slowly in her cheeks as her mother stood looking at it.

“It’s the first since I left school,” she said, half-ashamed of the effort and all it implied.

“Finish it up, dear, and let me have it.”

“Oh, would you really like it, Mom?”

“Love it,” answered her mother promptly. “And don’t give up hope. Perhaps we may be able to squeeze in the spring term after all.”

4. Christmas at the Ellis Place

It took two trips in the car to transport the Christmas guests and gifts from Woodhow over to the Ellis place. It was one of the few pretentious houses in Elmhurst. For seven generations it had been in the Ellis family. The old house sat far back from the road with a double drive curving like a big U around it. Huge elms stood protectingly before it, and behind lay a succession of buildings from the old forge, no longer used, to the smokehouse. One barn stood across the road and another at the top of the lane.

Doris and Tommy were the first to run up the steps and into the center hall, almost bumping into Billie as he ran to meet them. Behind him came Mrs. Ellis in a soft gray suit. Her white blouse was fastened at the throat with a cameo pin. “Come right in, all of you,” she called happily. “Do stop jumping up and down, Tommy, you make me nervous. Merry Christmas.”

Up the long colonial staircase she led the way into the big guest room. Down in the library, Beth was playing softly on the big square piano, _Oh Little Town of Bethlehem_. The air was filled with the scent of pine and hemlock, and enticing odors of things cooking stole up the back stairs.

Doris and Billie retreated to a corner with the latter’s book supply, with Tommy and Jack peering over Billie’s shoulder to get a look too. It was hard to realize that this was really Billie, the Huckleberry Finn of the summer before. All of the old self-consciousness and shy abstraction had gone. Even the easy comradely manner in which he leaned over the Judge’s chair showed the good understanding and sure confidence between the two.

“Yes, he does show up real proud,” Becky agreed warmly with Mrs. Craig when they were all downstairs before the glowing fire. “Of course, we’re going to miss him when he goes away to school, but he’s getting along splendidly. I want him to go where he’ll associate with plenty of other boys. He’s lived alone with the ants and bees and rabbits long enough.”

As the others went in to dinner Jean lingered behind a minute to glance about the pleasant room. The fire crackled down in the deep old rock hearth. In each of the windows a white candle was burning brightly. Festoons of ground pine and evergreen draped the mantelpiece. Jean gazed out at the somber, frost-touched garden. There wasn’t one bit of peace in her heart, even while she fairly ached with the longing to be like the others.

“You’re a coward, Jean Craig, a deliberate coward,” she told herself. “You don’t like the country one bit. You love the city where everybody’s doing something, and it’s just a rat race for all. You’re longing for everything you can’t have, and you’re afraid to face the winter up here. You might just as well tell yourself the truth. You hate to be poor.”

There came a burst of laughter from the dining room and Kit calling to her to hurry up. It appeared that Doris, the tender-hearted, had said pathetically when Mrs. Gorham, the housekeeper, brought in the great roast turkey, “Poor old General Putnam!”

“That isn’t the General,” Billie called from his place. “The General ran away yesterday. First off, he lit up in the apple trees. Then as soon as he saw Ben was high enough, off he flopped and made for the corncrib. Just as he caught up with him there, he chose the wagon sheds and perched on the rafters, and when he’d almost got hold of his tail feathers, if he didn’t try the barn and all his flock after him, mind you. So he thought he’d let him roost till dark, and when he stole in after supper, the old codger had gone, bag and baggage. He’ll come back as soon as he knows our minds aren’t set on wishbones.”

“Then who is this?” asked Kit, quite as if it were some personage who rested in state on the big willow platter.

“That is some unnamed patriot who died for his country’s good,” said the Judge solemnly. “Who says white meat and who says dark?”

“For pity’s sake, child, what are you crying about?” exclaimed Becky after dinner while they were all sitting around the table talking leisurely.

Jack sobbed sleepily, “I--I don’t know.”

“He’s lonely for his own family,” Doris spoke up.

“I ain’t neither,” groaned Jack, “it’s too much mince pie.”

So under Becky’s directions, Billie took him up to his room, and administered “good hot water and soda.”

“Too bad, ’cause he missed seeing all the things taken off the tree,” said Becky, laying aside Jack’s presents for him, a long warm knit muffler from herself, a fine knife from the Judge with a pocket chain on it, a package of Billie’s books that he had had as a child, and ice skates from the Craigs. After much figuring over the balance left from their Christmas money they had gone together on the skates for him, knowing he would have more fun and exercise out of them than anything, and he needed something to bring back the sparkle to his eyes and the color to his cheeks.

“Put them all up on the bed beside him, and he’ll find them in the morning,” Billie suggested. “If you’ll let him stay, Mrs. Craig, I’ll bring him over.”

Tommy was the most excited over his Christmas presents. Kit and Jean had given him a hockey stick and puck to use on the river when it was frozen over, his mother and father a ping pong set that he was bursting to set up in the basement, a model airplane kit from Doris, and a pair of argyle socks and Norwegian sweater from the Judge and Becky. But Billie had given him his most coveted present, his own tame crow, Moki. “Where’d you get the name from, Billie?” he asked.

Billie stroked the smooth glossy back of the crow fondly. “I found him one day over in the pine woods on the hill. He was just a little thing then. The nest was in a dead pine, and somebody’d shot it all to pieces. The rest of the family had gone, but I found him fluttering around on the ground, scared to death with a broken wing. Ben helped me fix it, and he told me to call him Moki. You know he’s read everything, and he can talk some Indian, Pequod mostly, he says. He isn’t sure but what there may be some Pequod in him way back, he can talk it so well, and Moki means ‘watch out’ in Pequod. I call him that because I used to put him on my shoulder and he’d go anywhere with me through the woods, and call out when he thought I was in danger.”

“How do you know what he thought?”

“After you get acquainted with him, you’ll know what he thinks too,” answered Billie.

Always living in a little world of make-believe all her own, Doris received mostly fairy tales and what Kit called “princess stories.” Saved from the old home at Sandy Cove, her mother and father gave her two glass lamps for her bureau and Jean had made the shades herself, out of starched white dotted swiss. Becky had knit each of the girls soft angora socks and mittens in matching pastels, and Beth gave them old silver spoons that had been part of their great great-grandmother Peabody’s wedding silver.

“When you come to New York,” she told Jean, “I’ll show you many of her things.”

Jean nodded, remembering her longing to go away earlier in the evening. But the look in her father’s face made her realize more than anything that had happened in the long months of trial in the country, how worthwhile was the sacrifice that had brought him back into his home country for healing and happiness.

5. New York Dreams Come True

Christmas week had already passed when the surprise came. As Kit said the charm of the unexpected was always catching you unaware when you lived on the edge of nowhere.

Beth and Elliott had departed two days after Christmas for New York. Somehow even Tommy could not get really acquainted with this new boy cousin. Billie, once won, was a friend forever, but Elliott was a smiling, confident boy, quiet and resourceful, with little to say.

By this time, Jean had settled down contentedly to the winter regime. She was giving Doris piano lessons, and taking over more of the household duties with Kit back at school. School had been one of the problems to be solved that first year. Doris and Tommy went to the District schoolhouse at the crossroads, a one-story, red frame building. Doris had despised it thoroughly until she heard that her father had gone there in his boyhood, and she had found his old desk with his initials carved on it.

Kit was in high school, and the nearest one was over the hills six miles away. Every morning, she caught the school bus at the end of the drive. Mrs. Craig would often stand out on the wide porch in the early morning and watch the three go off.

“I think they’re wonderfully plucky,” she said one morning to Jean. “If they had been country girls, born and bred, it would be different, but stepping right out of Long Island shore life into these hills, you have all managed splendidly.”

“We’d have been a fine lot of quitters if we hadn’t,” Jean answered. “I think it’s been much harder for you than for us, Mom.”

And then the oddest, most unexpected thing had happened, something that strengthened the bond between them and made Jean’s way easier. Her mother had turned and had met Jean’s glance with a telltale flush on her cheeks and a certain whimsical glint in her eyes.

“Jean, do you never suspect me?” she had asked, half laughingly. “I know just exactly what a struggle you have gone through, and how you miss all that lies back in New York. I do too. If we could just divide up the time, and live part of the year here and the other part back at the Cove. I wouldn’t dare tell Becky that I had ever regretted, but there are days when the silence and the loneliness up here seem to crush so strongly in on one.”

“Oh, Mom! I never knew you felt like that.” Jean leaned her head against her shoulder. “I’ve been horribly selfish, just thinking of myself. But now that Dad’s getting strong again, you can go away, can’t you, for a little visit anyway?”

“Not without him,” Mrs. Craig said decidedly. “Perhaps by next summer we can, I don’t know. I don’t want to suggest it until he feels the need of a change too. But I’ve been thinking about you, Jean, and I want you to go to school in New York for a little while anyway. Beth and I had a talk together before she left, and I felt proud of you, when I heard her speak of your work. She says the greatest worry on her mind is that Elliott has no definite ambition, no aim. He has always had everything that they could give him, and she begins now to realize it was all wrong.”

“But, Mother, how can I go and leave you?”

“I want you to, Jean. You have been a great help to me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed everything you have done to save me worry, because I have.”

“Well, you had Dad to care for--”

“I know, and he’s so much better now that I haven’t any dread left.”

Peg Moffat wrote after receiving her Christmas box from Jean. Jean had gathered pine cones, ground pine, sprays of red berries, and little winter ferns. It was one of several she had sent to friends in the city for whom she felt she could not afford expensive presents.

Peg had caught the real spirit of it, and had written back urgently. “You must run down if only for a few days, Jean. I put the pines and other greens around the studio for decorations at Christmas and they just talk at me about you all the time. Never mind about new clothes. Come along.”

It was these same new clothes that secretly worried Jean all the same, but with some new ribbon for two of her formals, her brown wool suit cleaned, and a new feather for her hat, she felt she could make the trip if it were only possible.

It was the letter that arrived the following day that really caused a stir in the family. Beth wrote to Jean that there was a special course beginning the following week at the Academy in textile designing. It was only a two-months’ course so it wouldn’t be very expensive and Jean could stay with her, eliminating the problem of board. “I really think if you can possibly be spared from home at this time, it would be a wise thing for you to enroll in the course. It is in the field you’re interested in and you will learn both valuable and practical things from it. Please write me immediately and say you’ll come.”

When Jean showed the letter to her mother, her answer was swift and decisive. “An opportunity such as this cannot be ignored. Of course you will go.”

The winter sunshine had barely clambered to the crests of the hills the following morning when Becky drove up with Ella Lou.