Part 5

“Somebody was needed to keep it in order,” Mrs. Moffat put in. They were all sitting around the table after dinner that evening.

“Eloise and Janet and I kept house,” Peg put in significantly. “And, really, talk about temperament! We had no regular meals at all, and Eloise says if you show her crackers and pimento cheese again for a year, she’ll simply die in her tracks. Mom has fed us up beautifully since she came back from Miami. Real substantial food.”

“Yes and they didn’t think they needed me at all, Jean. Somehow a mother doesn’t go with studio equipment, but this one does, and now everyone in the block comes down to visit us. They all need mothering now.”

Jean found the studio delightfully attractive. The ceiling was beamed in dark oak, and a wide fireplace with a crackling wood fire made Jean almost feel as if she were back home. There were wide shelves lined with books on painting all around the room. At the windows hung shrimp-colored draperies that could be pulled across on transverse rods to shut out the night. A small spinet piano took up one corner of the room and now Peg walked over to it and sat down to play. In the middle of a Mozart sonata, Jean sighed heavily.

Peg stopped playing, turned around, and asked, “What is it? Tired?”

Jean’s lashes were wet with unshed tears.

“I was wishing Mother were here too,” she answered. “She loves all this so--just as I do. It’s awfully lonesome up there sometimes without any of this. I love the hills and the freedom, but, oh, it is so lonely. Why, I even love to hear the horns of the cabs blowing impatiently and the sound of the busses releasing their air brakes.”

Jean slept late the next morning, late for her at least. It was nearly ten when Mrs. Moffat came into the large room to pull back the curtains and say that breakfast was nearly ready.

“Did you close the big house at the Cove?” Jean asked while they were dressing.

“Rented it furnished. With Brock away at college and me sharing this studio with Eloise and Janet, Mother thought she’d let it go, and stay with me when she came back from Florida. She’s over at Aunt Win’s while I’m at classes. They’ve got an apartment overlooking Central Park because Uncle Frank can’t bear commuting in the winter. We’ll go over there tomorrow afternoon. Aunt Win’s up to her eyebrows in hospital work.”

“Know something, Peg?” Jean said suddenly, “I do believe that’s what ails Elmhurst. Nobody up there is doing anything different this winter from what they have every winter for the last fifty years. Down here there’s always something new and interesting going on.”

“Sure, but is that good? After a while you expect something new all the time, and you can’t settle down to any one thing steadily. Coming, Mom, right away.”

“Good morning, lazy things,” said Mrs. Moffat as she poured the coffee. “I’ve had my breakfast. I’ve got two appointments this morning and must rush.”

“Mother always mortgages tomorrow. I’ll bet anything she’s got appointments lined up for a month ahead. What’s on for today?”

“Dentist and shopping with your Aunt Win. I’m going to have lunch with her, so you girls will be alone. There are seats for a recital at Carnegie Hall if you’d enjoy it. I think Jean would. It’s a Chamber Music group. Peg only likes orchestral concerts, but if you go to this, you might drop in later at Signa’s. It’s not far, you know, Peg, and not a bit out of your way. Aunt Win and I will join you there.”

“Isn’t she the dearest, bustling Mother?” Peg said placidly, when they were alone. “Sometimes I feel ages older than she is. She has as much fun dashing around to everything as if New York were a steady sideshow. Do you want to go?”

“I’d love to,” Jean answered frankly. “Who’s Signa?”

“A girl Aunt Win’s interested in. She plays the violin. Jean Craig, do you realize the world is just jammed full of people who can do things, I mean unusual things like painting and playing and singing, better than the average person, and yet there are only a few of them who are really great. It’s such a tragedy because they all keep on working and hoping and thinking they’re going to be great. Aunt Win has about a dozen tucked under her wing that she encourages, and I think it’s perfectly deadly.”

Peg planted both elbows on the table and held her cup of coffee in the air.

“Because they won’t be great geniuses, you mean?”

“Sure. They’re just half-way. All they’ve got is the longing, the urge forward.”

“But it’s something to have the aims and the ambitions, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so,” Peg said briskly. “Maybe I can’t see them myself, and it’s just a waste of time keeping me at the Academy. I’m not a genius, and I’ll never paint great pictures, but I am going to be an illustrator, and while I’m learning I can imagine myself all the geniuses that ever lived. We were told, not long ago, to paint a typical city scene. Most of the class went in for the regulation things, Washington Arch and Grant’s Tomb, Madison Square and the opera crowd at the Met. Do you know what I did?” She pushed back her hair from her eager face, and smiled. “I went down on the East Side and you know how they’re always digging up the streets here after the gas mains or something that’s gone wrong? Well, I found some workmen resting, sitting on the edge of the trench eating lunch in the sunlight, and some kids playing in the dirt as if it were sand. Golly, it was wonderful, Jean, the color and composition and I managed to get it all in lovely splashes. I just called it _Noon_. Does it sound good?”

“Splendid,” said Jean.

Peg nodded happily. “Miss Weston said it was the best thing I had done, the best in the class. You can find beauty anywhere if you look for it.”

“Oh, gee, it’s good to be down talking to you again,” Jean exclaimed. “It spurs me along so to be where others are working and thinking.”

“Think so?” Peg turned her head with her funny quizzical smile. “You ought to hear Pop Higgins talk on that. He runs away to a little shack somewhere up on the Hudson when he wants to paint. He says Emerson and Thoreau were right when they wrote about the still places where you rest and invite your soul. Let’s get dressed. It’s after eleven already and if we want to do any shopping before that concert we ought to be going.”

11. The Sculptured Head

That evening a few of Peg’s artist friends came in to talk shop, and Jean found her old-time favorite teacher, Pop Higgins, among them. He was about seventy, but erect and quick of step as any of the boys, with iron-gray hair, close-cut and curly, and keen brown eyes. He was really splendid looking, Jean thought.

“You know, Jeannie,” he began, slipping comfortably down a trifle in his chair, “you’re looking fine. I think your studies here have done something to you. How is it going?”

“It’s going beautifully, but much too fast. I’ll have to be going home soon, I’m afraid. There are only a few weeks left in the course.”

“That’s all right. Anything that tempers character while you’re young is good for the whole system. I was born out west in Kansas, when the West was still pretty wild. I used to ride cattle for my father when I was only about ten. And, Lord above, those nights on the plains taught my heart the song of life. I wouldn’t take back one single hour of them.”

“Did you paint then?”

He laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that made Mrs. Moffat smile at them. “Never touched a brush until after I was thirty. I loved color and could see it. I knew that shadows were purple or blue, and I used to squint one eye to get the tint of the earth after we’d plowed, dull rusty-red like old wounds, it was. First sketch I ever drew was one of my sister Polly. She stood on the edge of a gully hunting some stray turkeys. I’ve got the painting I made later from that sketch. It was exhibited, too, called _Sundown_.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it,” Jean said. “The land is all in deep blues and hyacinth tones and the sky is amber and the queerest green, and her skirt is just a dash of red.”

“The red that shows under an oriole’s wing when he flies. She was seventeen then. About your age, isn’t it, Jeannie?”

He glanced at her sideways. Jean nodded.

“I thought so, although she looked younger.”

“I--I hope she didn’t die,” said Jean anxiously.

“Die? Bless your heart,” he laughed again. “She’s living up in Colebrook. Went back over the same route her mother had traveled, and married in the old home town. Pioneer people live to be pretty old.”

“It must have been wonderful,” Jean said. “Mother’s from the West too, only way out West, from California. Her brother has the big ranch there where she was born, but she never knew any hardships at all. Everything was comfortable and there was always plenty of money, she says, and it never seemed like the real West to us, when she’d tell of it.”

“Oh, but it is, the real West of the last sixty years, as it has grown up to success and prosperity. If I keep you here talking any longer to an old fellow like myself, the boys won’t be responsible for their actions. You’re a novelty, you know. Bruce is glaring at me.”

He rose leisurely and went over beside Mrs. Moffat’s chair, and Bruce Pearson hurried to take his place.

“I thought he’d keep you talking here all night. And you sat there drinking it all in as if you liked it.”

“I did,” said Jean flatly. “I loved it. I haven’t been here at all. I’ve been way out on a Kansas prairie.”

“Stuff,” said Bruce calmly. “Say, got any good dogs up at your place?”

“No. Kit wrote me she picked up a stray shepherd dog, but I haven’t seen him yet. Why?” Jean looked at him with sudden curiosity.

“Nothing, only you remember when you were moving from the Cove, Tommy sold me his Cocker pup?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“We’ve got some swell puppies. I was wondering whether you’d take one home to Tommy from me if I brought it in.”

“I’d love to. Tommy had his twelfth birthday the other day and I couldn’t think of anything to get him so I just sent a birthday telegram. The puppy will make a perfect belated gift,” said Jean, her face aglow. It was just like Bruce to think of that, and how Tommy would love it. “I think we’ll name him Bruce, if you don’t mind.”

Bruce didn’t mind in the least. In fact, he felt it would be a sign of remembrance, he said. And he would bring in the puppy as soon as Jean was ready to go home.

“But you needn’t hurry her,” Peg warned, coming to sit with them. “She hasn’t been here long, and I’m hoping if I can just stretch it along rather unconsciously, she’ll stay right through the term, the way she should.”

Jean felt almost guilty, as her own heart echoed the wish. How she would study, if only it could happen.

On the following Saturday afternoon, Jean left Beth to go browsing through the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She had little time left in New York, and wanted to revisit some of her favorites before she had to go back to Elmhurst.

Beth drove her up to the station and waved to her as she boarded the local. “Call me before you leave, and I’ll pick you up,” she called as the train started to move. Jean nodded, walked back into the car, and found a seat.

After settling herself comfortably, she opened her bag, and found a letter from Ralph that had been in the day’s mail. She had not had time to read it before she left. She opened it now and read.

Jeannie darling,

Your last letter sounded so enthusiastic about your work, that I know you must be having a marvelous time. It’s too bad you can’t stay there longer.

But who’s this Aldo guy that’s been squiring you thither and yon, all over New York? You needn’t be so nice to him just because he’s a friend of your cousin Beth’s. Too bad that I’m not there to look after things. You better not go falling for him with all his foreign airs and old-world charm. I know that type of smooth operator, for I saw a bunch of them when I served with the army overseas.

You’ll say I’m jealous. Well, what if I am? After all, I saw you first.

Write me, my darling, immediately and say these fears of mine are completely unfounded. I’ll be waiting anxiously for your sweet words of comfort and encouragement. If I don’t receive them, I’ll hop the next train and see for myself what the score is.

Buzzy and I are working hard as usual and life goes on in its unaltered and unalterable course. We will probably leave here in April, instead of waiting until June. I want to be in Elmhurst in the spring with you.

Dearest love, Ralph.

Jean was greatly amused by his letter and laughed to herself over the “villainous character” who was taking her away from Ralph. Of course Aldo had been very nice to her, taking her to lunch and all that. But he was only a good friend.

She spent a pleasant afternoon wandering through the art galleries of the museum. She revisited many of her old favorites--paintings she had stood before many times when the family had lived on Long Island. Then she found a special exhibition of paintings by modern American artists.

Jean spent a long time looking at these. Some of the artists’ names were familiar to her, others were new. In one corner of the gallery she came upon the sculptured head of a woman. Her face looked old and the lines in it were the lines of extreme hardship and pain. The forehead was high, the nose long and sharp, but the mouth was quite different. It was smiling, “in spite of everything,” Jean thought to herself. Although everything else about the head characterized utter disillusionment, the mouth looked gay and carefree.

A step behind her made Jean turn suddenly and there stood Aldo.

“Like it?” he asked briefly.

“Why, yes--no--I don’t know.” Jean hesitated, confused. “It’s so strange. I can’t reconcile the mouth to the rest of the head--”

“I’ll tell you about her, then maybe you’ll understand. She is an old Italian woman. Her husband and three sons were killed in the first World War, but undaunted, she raised her youngest son alone, although she was very poor and it was hard. Her son married and had two sons of his own. He became a successful lawyer. Then the second war came. Her home was demolished, her son’s entire family was killed, and yet, in spite of everything she has been through, she manages to smile that way, the smile of a young girl. I think it’s the best thing my father ever did.”

“Your father? I didn’t know--I mean--I never looked at the nameplate.”

“Yes. You see, I brought it with me when I came. Then, when I heard they were having this exhibition here, I entered it in his name. I think he’ll be pleased when he hears. He never exhibited anything in this country.”

The two stood and gazed at the head awhile in silence. It was Aldo who spoke first. “Look, are you doing anything now, could we go somewhere and have supper?”

“I think I could. If you’ll wait until I call Beth, so she won’t worry.”

They went back to the small Italian restaurant where Aldo had taken Jean before. It was almost empty when they walked in for it was still quite early. After they had eaten, Aldo said suddenly, “I’m going back to Italy next week.”

“Oh, I’m sorry you’re going so soon,” replied Jean. “But we wouldn’t have seen much more of each other anyway, I’m going home too.”

“Perhaps we will meet again someday, in Italy. Then I will show you all the beautiful places I love that I have told you about.”

“Perhaps,” said Jean doubtfully. It seemed so far away, like having a star for a goal and she was bound to hit the fence post.

12. From Out of the West

All too soon, the course was over for Jean and now she was going home. It was hard for her to say goodbye to her friends at school, especially Peg Moffat. She would always be indebted to Beth for giving her this opportunity. They had many long talks about art and Beth offered to criticize Jean’s work if she would send it to her.

Jean had had a letter from Ralph just before she left New York and he said he was leaving then for Elmhurst. He and Buzzy had decided to return earlier than they had previously planned so they could be at Woodhow in time to celebrate Jean’s eighteenth birthday. He would arrive about the same time she did. That was almost the only reason she could think of for returning home and leaving the glamor and breathlessness of New York behind her, although she had to admit to herself she missed her family. It was the day before her birthday when she arrived.

Jean looked around eagerly as she jumped to the platform, wondering which of the family would drive down to meet her, but instead of Kit or her mother, Ralph stepped up to her with outstretched arms. All the way from Saskatoon, she thought, and just the same as he was a year before. Kit said later, in describing him, “He doesn’t look as if he could be the hero, but he’d always be the hero’s best friend, like Mercutio was to Romeo.” But Jean felt differently. This was the one she had waited for all those months to come back to her. Her exciting stay in New York, the course at the art school, all faded into insignificance by comparison with her feeling about Ralph.

Mr. Briggs waved a welcome as he trundled the express truck past them down the platform. “Looks a bit like rain. Good for the planters,” he called.

Ralph took Jean by the hand and led her over to the car. They drove up the long curved hill from the station and Jean lifted her head to it all, the long overlapping hill range that unfolded as they came to the first stretch of level road, the rich green of the pines gracing their slopes, and most of all the beautiful haze of young green that lay like a veil over the land from the first bursting leaf buds.

“Oh, it’s swell to be home,” she exclaimed. “Over at Beth’s the land seems so level, and I guess I really like the hills.”

“What on earth have you got in the basket, Jean?”

Jean had forgotten all about the puppy. Bruce had kept his word and met her at the train with a sleepy, diminutive cocker pup all curled up comfortably in a basket. He had started to show signs of personal interest, scratching and whining as soon as Jean had set the basket down at her feet in the car.

“It’s for Tommy. Bruce Pearson sent it up to him to remember Jiggers by.”

“Jiggers?”

“It’s the dog Tommy had back at the Cove. He sold him to Bruce, a neighbor of ours, before we moved away. Now, Bruce is sending one of the pups back for Tommy.”

“How nice. I hear he and his friend Jack have been pleading for a puppy. This will be a pleasant surprise. The girls were sorry they couldn’t drive down,” Ralph said. “They were having some sort of Easter doings at school. Buzzy and I arrived two days ago and I asked for the privilege of coming down. Your mother’s up at the Judge’s today. Billie’s pretty sick, I think.”

“Billie?” cried Jean. “Not Billie?”

Even to think of Billie’s being ill was absurd. It was like saying a raindrop had the measles. He had never been sick all the years he had lived up there, bare-headed in the winter, free as the birds and animals he loved. All the way home she felt subdued.

“He came back from school Monday for Easter vacation and they are afraid of pneumonia. I don’t understand how he could have gotten it, but I’m sure if anybody could pull him through it would be Mrs. Ellis,” said Ralph.

But even with the best nursing and care, things looked bad for Billie. It was supper time before Mrs. Craig returned. The reunion between mother and daughter was indeed a happy one. “I can’t tell you how I feel to have you back again, darling.”

“And it’s wonderful to be back. I missed you all so.”

Doris was indignant and stunned at the blow that had fallen on her friend, Billie. She sputtered, “The idea that Billie should have to be sick during vacation. How long will he be in bed, Mother?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Craig said. “He’s strong and husky, but it will be some time, I’m afraid, before he’ll be well again. Dr. Gallup came right over.”

“That’s good,” Kit put in. “He’ll get him well in no time. I don’t think there ever was a doctor so set on making people well. I’d rather see him come in the door, no matter what was wrong with me, sit down and tell me I had just a little distemper, open his black case, and mix me up that everlasting mess that tastes like cinnamon and sugar, than have a whole line of city specialists tapping me.”

Doris and Tommy clung closely to Jean, taking her and Ralph around the place to show her all the new chicks, orphans and otherwise. Woodhow really was showing signs of full return this year for the care and love spent on its rehabilitation. The fruit trees, after Buzzy’s pruning and fertilizing, and general treatment that made them look like swaddled babies, were blossoming profusely, and on the south slope of the field along the river, rows and rows of young peach trees had been set out. The garden too, had come in for its share of attention. Doris loved flowers, and had worked there more diligently than she usually could be coaxed to on any sort of real labor. She had cleared away the old dead plants first, and with Tommy’s help had plowed up the central plot, taking care to save all the perennials.

“You know what I wish, Mom,” said Doris, standing with earth-stained fingers in the midst of the tangle of old vines and bushes. “I wish we could lay out paths and put stones down on them, flat stones, I mean, like flags. And have flower beds with borders. Could we, do you think?”

Her earnestness made Mrs. Craig smile, but she agreed to the plan, and Becky helped out with slips from her flower store, so that the prospect for a garden was very good. And later Buzzy Hancock came up with Sally to advise and help too. The year out West had turned the country boy into a stalwart, independent individual whom even Sally regarded with some respect. He was taller than before, broad-shouldered, and sure of himself.

“I think Ralph has done wonders for him,” Sally said. “Mother thinks so too. He talks so enthusiastically about the West that she doesn’t seem to mind going out there any more, after seeing what it’s made of Buzzy. And Ralph says we’ll always keep the home here so that when we want to come back, we can. I think he likes Elmhurst. He says it never seems like home way out West. You need to walk on the earth where your fathers and grandfathers have trod, and even to breathe the same air. Mom says the only place she hates to leave behind is our little family burial plot over in the woods.”

Although the Craig family had planned a birthday party and Kit had baked a beautiful cake, it was at Jean’s own request that they decided not to have the party since Billie was sick. Instead they had a family picnic dinner in the back yard. Of course, Ralph and Buzzy were there.

Jean was thrilled with all her lovely gifts, especially with the rough turquoise that Ralph had brought from Saskatoon. When he gave it to her, he said, “I knew you would like to design your own setting for this stone.” Jean was very pleased with his thoughtfulness.

Even Jack had a present for her, a picture that he had made by collecting leaves and flowers from the woods and glueing them to a piece of plywood. Tommy had helped him to make the birchwood frame, and Jean was touched by their efforts to make her birthday such a happy one.

13. Spring Picnic

In the days following Easter, while Mrs. Craig was over at the Ellis place helping care for Billie who was still very sick, the girls and Tommy managed the house alone. When Tommy came in from the barn one morning, he found Jean getting breakfast in the kitchen. “Seen anything of Jack?” he asked. “I haven’t seen him this morning, and he was going to help me and Ralph plow. I’ll bet a cookie he’s taken to his heels. He’s been acting funny for several days ever since that peddler went along here.”

“Oh, not really, Tommy,” said Jean anxiously. She had overlooked Jack completely in the excitement of Billie’s illness. “What could happen to him?”