CHAPTER XII

FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE

It was after supper that night when the younger ones were in bed that Jean had a chance to talk alone with her mother, one of those intimate heart to heart talks she dearly loved. Mr. Robbins was so much improved in health that it really seemed as if he were his old self once more. The girls had hung around him all the evening, delighted at the change for the better.

“It’s worth everything to see him looking so well,” Helen had said in her grave, grown-up way. “All the winter of trials and Mrs. Gorham, and the pump breaking.”

“Yes, and to think,” Jean said to her mother, as the girls made ready for the procession upstairs to bed, “to think that Uncle Hal got well too.”

“I think it was half an excuse to coax us west, his illness,” laughed Mrs. Robbins, “and I told him so. But, oh, my chicks, if you could only see the ranch and live out there for a while. It took me back so to my girlhood, the freedom and sweep of it all. There is something about the west and its mountains you never get out of your system once you have known and loved them. I want you all to go out there some day.”

“Isn’t it a pity that one of us isn’t a boy,” said Kit meditatively. “Just because we are all girls, we can’t go in for that sort of a life, and I’d love it. At least for a little while. I’d like my life to be a whole lot of experiences, one after the other.”

“Piney says she’s going to live in the wilds anyway, whether she’s a girl or not,” Helen put in, leaning her chin on her palms on the edge of the table, her feet up in the big old red rocker. “She’s going to study forestry and be a government expert, and maybe take up a big claim herself. She says she’s bound she’ll live on a mountain top.”

“Well, she can if she likes,” Jean said. “I like Mother Nature’s cosy corners, don’t you, Motherie? When you get up as high as you can on any old mountain top, what’s the use? You only realize how much you need wings.”

“Go on to bed, all of you,” ordered Kit, briskly. “Jean, don’t you dare talk Mother to death now.”

“Let me brush your hair,” coaxed Jean after it was all quiet. So they sat downstairs together in the quiet living-room, the fire burning low, Mrs. Robbins in the low willow rocker, her long brown hair unbound, falling in heavy ripples below her waist. She looked almost girlish sitting there in the half light, the folds of her pretty grey crepe kimono close about her like a twilight cloud, Jean thought, and the glow of the fire on her face. Jean remembered that hour often in the weeks that followed. After she had brushed out her hair and braided it in soft, wide plaits, she sat on the hassock at her feet and talked of the trip west and all the things that had happened at Greenacres during that time.

“One thing I really have learned, Mother dear,” she finished. “Nothing is nearly as bad as you expect it to be. It was very discouraging when the pump was frozen, and Mrs. Gorham got lonesome, but Cousin Roxy came down and I declare, she seemed to thaw out everything. We got a plumber up from Nantic, and Cousin Roxy took Mrs. Gorham over to a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid Society, and it was over in no time.”

“Remember the old king who offered half of his kingdom to whoever would give him a saying that would always banish fear and care? And the one that he chose was this, ‘This too shall pass away.’”

“It’s comforting, isn’t it,” agreed Jean. “But another thing, Mother, you know I’ve never been very patient. I mean with little things. You’ll never know how I longed to stay down in New York with Bab this winter and go to art school. I can tell you now, because it’s all over, and the winter has done me good. But I was honestly rebellious.”

Mrs. Robbins’ hand rested tenderly on the smooth dark head beside her knee. Kit always said that Jean’s head make her think of a nice, sleek brown partridge’s crest, it was so smooth and glossy.

“I know what you mean,” she said, this Motherbird who somehow never failed to understand the trials of her brood. “Responsibility is one of the best gifts that life brings to us. I’ve always evaded it myself, Jean, so I know the fight you have had. You know how easy everything was made for me before we came here to live in these blessed old hills. There was always plenty of money, plenty of servants. I never worried one particle over the realities of life until that day when Cousin Roxy taught me what it meant to be a helpmate as well as a wife. So you see, it was only this last year that I learned the lesson which has come to you girls early in life.”

“Oh, I know,” as Jean glanced up quickly to object, “you’re not a child, but you seem just a kiddie to me, Jean. It was fearfully hard for me to give up our home at the Cove, and all the little luxuries I had been accustomed to. Most of all I dreaded the change for you girls, but now, I know, it was the very best thing that could have happened to us. Do you remember what Cousin Roxy says she always puts into her prayers? ‘Give me an understanding heart, O Lord.’ I guess that is what we all lacked, and me especially, an understanding heart.”

“Doesn’t Cousin Roxy seem awfully well acquainted with God, Motherie,” said Jean thoughtfully. “I don’t mean that irreverently, but it really is true. Why, I’ve been going to our church for years and hearing the service over and over until I know it all by heart, but when she gets up at prayer meeting at the little white church, it seems as if really and truly, He is there in the midst of them.”

“She’s an angel in a gingham apron,” laughed Mrs. Robbins. “Now, you must go to bed, dear. It’s getting chilly. Did you see how glad Joe was to have us back? Dear little fellow. I’m glad he had the courage to come back to us. I called up Roxy as soon as we arrived at the station, and she will be over in the morning early to plan about your trip to Weston.”

“Oh, but—you can’t spare me yet, can you?” exclaimed Jean. “It’s still so cold, and I wouldn’t be one bit happy thinking of you managing alone here.”

“I’ll keep Mrs. Gorham until you get back. It’s only twelve a month for her, and that can come out of my own little income, so we shall manage all right. I want you to go, Jean.” She held the slender figure close in her arms, her cheek pressed to Jean’s, and added softly, “The first to fly from the nest.”

Jean felt curiously uplifted and comforted after that talk. It was cold in her own room upstairs. She raised the curtain and looked out at Greenacres flooded with winter moonlight. They were surely Whiteacres tonight. It was the very end of February and no sign of spring yet. She knew over in Long Island the pussy willow buds would be out and the air growing mild from the salt sea breezes, but here in the hills it was still bleak and frost bound.

What would it be like at Weston? Elliott was away at a boys’ school. She felt as if Fate were lending her to a fairy godmother for a while, and she had liked Cousin Beth. There was something about her,—a curious, indefinable, intimate charm of personality that attracted one to her. Cousin Roxy was breezy and courageous, a very tower of strength, a Flying Victory standing on one of Connecticut’s bare old hills and defying fate or circumstance to ruffle her feathers, but Cousin Beth was full of little happy chuckles and confidences. Her merry eyes, with lids that drooped at the outer corners, fairly invited you to tell her anything you longed to, and in spite of her forty odd years, she still seemed like a girl.

Snuggled down under the big soft home-made comforters, Jean fell asleep, still “cogitating” as Cousin Roxy would have called it, on the immediate future, wondering how she could turn this visit into ultimate good for the whole family. There was one disadvantage in being born a Robbins. Your sympathies and destiny were linked so indissolubly to all the other Robbinses that you felt personally responsible for their happiness and welfare. So Jean dozed away thinking how with Cousin Beth’s help she would find a way of making money so as to lighten the load at home and give Kit a chance as the next one to fly.

The winter sunshine had barely clambered to the crests of the hills the following morning when Cousin Roxy drove up, with Ella Lou’s black coat sparkling with frost.

“Thought I’d get an early start so I could sit awhile with you,” she called breezily. “The Judge had to go to court at Putnam. Real sad case, too. Some of our home boys in trouble. I told him not to dare send them up to any State homes or reformatories, but to put them on probation and make their families pay the fines.”

Kit was just getting into her school rig, ready for her long drive down to catch the trolley car to High School.

“Oh, what is it, Cousin Roxy?” she called from the side entry. “Do tell us some exciting news.”

“Well, I guess it is pretty exciting for the poor mothers.” Mrs. Ellis got out of the carriage and hitched Ella Lou deftly, then came into the house. “There’s been considerable things stolen lately, just odds and ends of harness and bicycle supplies from the store, and three hams from Miss Bugbee’s cellar, and so on; a little here and a little there, hardly no more’n a real smart magpie could make away with. But the men folks set out to catch whoever it might be, and if they didn’t land three of our own home boys. It makes every mother in town shiver.”

“None that we know, are there?” asked Helen, with wide eyes.

“I guess not, unless it may be Abby Tucker’s brother Martin. There his poor mother scrimped and saved for weeks to buy him a wheel out of her butter and egg money, and it just landed him in mischief. Off he kited, first here and then there with the two Lonergan boys from North Center, and they had a camp up towards Cynthy Allan’s place, where they played they were cave robbers or something, just boy fashion. I had the Judge up and promise he’d let them off on probation. There isn’t one of them over fifteen, and Gilead can’t afford to let her boys go to prison. And I shall drive over this afternoon and give their mothers some good advice.”

“Why not the fathers too?” asked Jean. “Seems as if mothers get all the blame when boys go wrong.”

“No, it isn’t that exactly.” Cousin Roxy put her feet up on the nickel fender of the big wood stove, and took off her wool lined Arctics, loosened the wide brown veil she always wore tied around her crocheted gray winter bonnet, and let Doris take off her heavy shawl and gray and red knit “hug-me-tight.” It was quite a task to get her out of her winter cocoon. “I knew the two fathers when they were youngsters too. Fred Lonergan was as nice and obliging a lad as ever you did see, but he always liked cider too well, and that made him lax. I used to tell him when he couldn’t get it any other way, he’d squeeze the dried winter apples hanging still on the wild trees. He’ll have to pay the money damage, but the real sorrow of the heart will fall on Emily, his wife. She used to be our minister’s daughter, and she knows what’s right. And the Tucker boy never did have any sense or his father before him, but his mother’s the best quilter we’ve got. If I’d been in her shoes I’d have put Philemon Tucker right straight out of my house just as soon as he began to squander and hang around the grocery store swapping horse stories with men folks just like him. It’s her house from her father, and I shall put her right up to making Philemon walk a chalk line after this, and do his duty as a father.”

“Oh, you glorious peacemaker,” exclaimed Mrs. Robbins, laughingly. “You ought to be the selectwoman out here, Roxy.”

“Well,” smiled Cousin Roxy comfortably, “The Judge is selectman, and that’s next best thing. He always takes my advice. If the boys don’t behave themselves now, I shall see that they are squitched good and proper.”

“What’s ‘squitched,’ Cousin Roxy?” asked Doris, anxiously.

“A good stiff birch laid on by a man’s hand. I stand for moral persuasion up to a certain point, but there does come a time when human nature fairly begs to be straightened out, and there’s nothing like a birch squitching to make a boy mind his p’s and q’s.”

“Hurry, girls, you’ll be late for school,” called the Motherbird, as she hurriedly put the last touches to three dainty lunches. Then she followed them out to the side door where Shad waited with the team, and watched them out of sight.

“Lovely morning,” said Cousin Roxy, fervently. “Ice just beginning to melt a bit in the road puddles, and little patches of brown showing in the hollows under the hills. We’ll have arbutus in six weeks.”

“And here I’ve been shivering ever since I got out of bed,” Jean cried, laughingly. “It seemed so bleak and cheerless. You find something beautiful in everything, Cousin Roxy.”

“Well, Happiness is a sort of habit, I guess, Jeanie. Come tell me, now, how are you fixed about going away? That’s why I came down.”

“You mean—”

“I mean in clothes. Don’t mind my speaking right out, because I know that Bethiah will want to trot you around, and you must look right. And don’t you say one word against it, Elizabeth,” as Mrs. Robbins started to speak. “Your trip out west has been an expense, and the child must have her chance. Makes me think, Jean, of my first silk dress. Nobody knew how much I wanted one, and I was about fourteen, skinny and overgrown, with pigtails down my back. Cousin Beth’s mother, our well-to-do aunt in Boston, sent a silk dress to my little sister Susan who died. I can see it now, just as plain as can be, a sort of dark bottle green with a little spray of violets here and there. Susan was sort of pining anyway, and green made her look too pale, so the dress was set aside for me. Mother said she’d let the hem down and face it when she had time but there was a picnic, and my heart hungered for that silk dress to wear. I managed somehow to squeeze into it, and slip away with the other girls before Mother noticed me.”

“But did it fit you?” asked Jean.

“Fit me?” Cousin Roxy laughed heartily. “Fit me like an acorn cap would a bullfrog. I let the hem down as far as I could, but didn’t stop to hem it or face it, and there it hung, six inches below my petticoats, with the sun shining through as nice as could be. My Sunday School teacher took me to one side and said severely, ‘Roxana Letitia Robbins, does your mother know that you’ve let that hem down six ways for Sunday?’ Well, it did take away my hankering for a silk dress. Now, run along upstairs and get out all your wardrobe so we can look it over.”

Jean obeyed. Somehow Cousin Roxy had a way of sweeping objections away before her airily. And the wardrobe was at a low ebb, when it came to recent styles. In Gilead Center, anything later than the time of the mutton leg sleeve was regarded as just a bit too previous, as Deacon Farley’s wife said when Cousin Roxy laid away her great aunt’s Paisley shawl after she married the Judge.

She dragged her rocking chair over beside the sofa now, and took inventory of the pile of clothing Jean laid there.

“You’ll want a good knockabout sport coat like the other girls are wearing, and a pretty mid-season hat to match. Then a real girlish sort of a silk sweater for the warm spring days that are coming, and a good skirt for mornings. Bethiah likes to play tennis, and she’ll have you out at daybreak. Better get a pleated blue serge. Now, what about party gowns?”

Here Jean felt quite proud as she laid out her assortment. The girls had always gone out a good deal at the Cove, and she had a number of well chosen, expensive dresses.

“They look all right to me, but I guess Bethiah’ll know what to do to them, with a touch here and there. Real lace on them, oh, Elizabeth!” She shook her head reprovingly at Mrs. Robbins, just sitting down with a pan of apples to pare.

“I’d rather go without than not have the real,” Jean said quickly, trying to spare the Motherbird’s feelings, but Gilead had indeed been a balm to pride. She laughed happily.

“I know, Roxy, it was foolish. But see how handy it comes in now. We’ve hardly had to buy any new clothes since we moved out here, and the girls have done wonderfully well making over their old dresses.”

“Especially Helen,” Jean put in. “Helen would garb us all in faded velvets and silks, princesses wearing out their old court robes in exile.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d just bundle all I wanted to take along in the way of pretty things into the trunk and let Bethiah tell you what to do with them. She knows just what’s what in the latest styles, and you’ll be like a lily of the field. I’ll get you the coat and sweater and serge skirt, and all the shoes and stockings you’ll need to match. Go long, child, you’ll squeeze the breath out of me,” as Jean gave her a royal hug. “I must be trotting along.” She rose, and started to bundle up, but gave an exclamation as she glanced out of the window. “For pity’s sake, what’s Cynthy Allan doing way off up here?”

Sure enough, hobbling along from the garden gate was Cynthy herself, one hand holding fast to an old cane, the other drawing around her frail figure an old-fashioned black silk dolman, its knotted fringe fluttering in the breeze.

Straight up the walk she came, determined and self possessed, with a certain air of dignity which neither poverty nor years of isolation could take from her.

Cousin Roxy watched her with reminiscent eyes, quoting softly:

“You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”

“Cynthy used to be the best dancer of all the girls when I was young, and I’ll never forget how the rest of us envied her beautiful hands. She was an old maid even then, in the thirties, but slim and pretty as could be.”

Jean hurried to the side door, opening it wide to greet her.

“I didn’t think you’d mind my coming so early,” she said apologetically, “but I’ve had that rose on my mind ever since you were all over to see me.”

“Oh, do come right in, Miss Allan,” Jean exclaimed warmly. “What a long, long walk you’ve had.”

“’Tain’t but two miles and a half by the road,” Cynthy answered as sprightly as could be. “I don’t mind it much when I’ve got something ahead of me. You see, I’ve been wanting to ride up to Moosup this long while to get some rags woven into carpets and I need that rose for my hat something fearful.”

Jean led her through the long side entry way and into the cheery warm sitting room before she hardly realized where she was going, until she found herself facing Cousin Roxy and Mrs. Robbins.

“Land alive, Cynthy,” exclaimed the former, happily. “I haven’t seen you in mercy knows when. Where are you keeping yourself?”

“Take the low willow rocker, Miss Allan,” urged Mrs. Robbins after the introduction was over, and she had helped lift the ancient dolman from Cynthy’s worn shoulders. Jean was hovering over the rocker delightedly. As she told the girls afterwards, Mother was just as dear and charming as if Cynthy had been the president of the Social Study Club back home.

“Thank ye kindly,” said Cynthy with a little sigh of relief. She stretched out her hands to the fire, looking from one to the other of them with a mingling of pride and appeal. Those scrawny hands with their knotted knuckles and large veins. Jean thought of what Cousin Roxy had said, that Cynthy’s hands had been so beautiful. She ran upstairs to find the rose. It was in a big cretonne covered “catch-all” box, tucked away with odds and ends of silks and laces, a large hand-made French rose of silk and velvet, its petals shaded delicately from palest pink at the heart to deep crimson at the outer rim. There was a black lace veil in the box too that seemed to go with it, so Jean took them both back downstairs, and Cynthy’s face was a study as she looked at them. She rocked to and fro gently, a smile of perfect content on her face, her head a bit on one side.

“Ain’t it sightly, Roxy?” she said. “And those shades always did become me so. I suppose it’s foolish of me, but I just needed that rose to hearten me up for the trip to Moosup. I had a letter from the town clerk.” She fumbled in the folds of her skirt for it. “He says I haven’t paid my taxes in over two years, and the town can’t let them go on any longer, and anyhow, he thinks it would be better for me to let the house and six acres be sold for the taxes, and for me to go down to the town farm. My heart’s nigh broken over it.”

Cousin Roxy was sitting very straight in her chair, her shoulders squared in fighting trim, her eyes bright as a squirrel’s behind her spectacles.

“What do you calculate to do about it, Cynthy?”

“Well, I had a lot of good rag rugs saved up, and I thought mebbe I could sell them for something, and some more rags ready for weaving, and there’s some real fine old china that belonged to old Aunt Deborah Bristow, willow pattern and Rose Windsor, and the two creamer sets in copper glaze and silver gilt. I’ll have to sell the whole lot, most likely. It’s twenty-four dollars.”

Jean was busily sewing the rose in place on the old black bonnet and draping the lace veil over it. Mrs. Robbins’ eyes flashed a signal to Cousin Roxy and the latter caught it.

“Cynthy,” she said briskly, “you get all warmed up and rested here, and I’ll drive down and see Fred Bennet. He’s the other selectman with the Judge, and I guess between them, we can stop any such goings on. It isn’t going to cost the town any for your board and keep, anybody that’s been as good a neighbor as you have in your day, helping folks right and left. I shan’t have it. Which would you rather do, stay on at your own place, or come over to me for a spell? I’ll keep you busy sewing on my carpet rags, and we’ll talk over old times. I was just telling Mrs. Robbins and Jean what a lovely dancer you used to be, and what pretty hands you had.”

Cynthy’s faded hazel eyes blinked wistfully behind her steel rimmed “specs.” Her hand went up to hide the trembling of her lips, but before she could answer, the tears came freely, and she rocked herself to and fro, with Jean kneeling beside her petting her, and Mrs. Robbins hurrying for a hot cup of tea.

“I’d rather stay at my own place, Roxy,” she said finally, when she could speak. “It’s home, and there’s all the cats to keep me company. If I could stay on down there, and see some of you now and then, I’d rather, only,” she looked up pleadingly, “could I just drive over with you today, so as to have a chance to wear the red rose?”

Could she? The very desire appealed instantly to Cousin Roxy’s sense of the fitness of things, and she drove away finally with Cynthy. It was hard to say which looked the proudest.

“Mother darling,” Jean said solemnly, watching them from the window. “Isn’t that a wonderful thing?”

“What, dear? Roxy’s everlasting helping of Providence? I’ve grown so accustomed to it now that nothing she undertakes surprises me.”

“No, I don’t mean that.” Jean’s eyes sparkled as if she had discovered the jewel of philosophy. “I mean that poor old woman over seventy being able to take happiness and pride out of that red rose, when life looked all hopeless to her. That’s eternal youth, Mother mine, isn’t it? To think that old rose could bring such a look to her eyes.”

“It wasn’t so much the rose that drew her here,” said the Motherbird, gazing out of the window at the winding hill road Ella Lou had just travelled. “It was the lure of human companionship and neighborliness. We’ll let Doris and Helen take her some preserves tomorrow, and try and cheer her up with little visits down there. How Cousin Roxy will enjoy facing the town clerk and showing him the right way to settle things without breaking people’s hearts. There comes the mail, dear. Have you any to send out?”

Jean caught up a box of lichens and ferns she had gathered for Bab, and hurried out to the box. It stood down at the entrance gates, quite a good walk on a cold day, and her cheeks were glowing when she met Mr. Ricketts.

“Two letters for you, Miss Robbins,” he called out cheerfully. “One from New York, and one,” he turned it over to be sure, “from Boston. Didn’t know you had any folks up Boston way. Got another one here for your father looks interesting and unusual. From Canady. I suppose, come to think of it, that might be from Ralph McRae or maybe Honey Hancock, eh?”

Jean took the letters, and tried to divert him from an examination of the mail, his daily pastime.

“It looks as if we might have a thaw, doesn’t it?”

“Does so,” he replied, reassuringly, “but we’ll get a hard spell of weather along in March, as usual. Tell your Pa if he don’t want to save them New York Sunday papers, I’d like to have a good look at them. Couldn’t see anything but some of the headlines, they was done up so tight. Go ’long there, Alexander.”

Alexander, the old white horse, picked up his hoofs and trotted leisurely down the hill to the little bridge, with his usual air of resigned nonchalance, while Jean ran back with the unusual and interesting mail, laughing as she went. Still, as Cousin Roxy said, it was something to feel you were adding to local history by being a part and parcel of Mr. Ricketts’ mail route.