CHAPTER VII

“OH, COME YE IN PEACE HERE, OR COME YE IN WAR?”

After the party and Jan’s accident there were seven days of uneventful, shut-in life, which were both pleasant and unpleasant. Jan could not go to school, for her hands were very painful, and holding a book would be quite out of the question.

Gwen was well and out again in a day, but she devoted her afternoons to Jan, going over their lessons with her, that she might keep up with the class, and entertaining her the rest of the time. The girls in school showed a tendency to make a heroine of Jan, who refused to be lionized; Dorothy, Cena, and Helen Watterson came, separately or together, nearly every afternoon to see her, and the teachers sent messages of sympathy and pride in her courage to her, whom they called “their brave little Janet.”

Sydney hailed her on the day after her adventure with a cordial smile and a tone which she had never heard him use to any one. He liked pluck, and it struck him suddenly that the girl whom he had dubbed “Miss Lochinvar” had been showing it, in one form or another, ever since her arrival.

“I hear you have been making a burnt offering of yourself, Miss Jan,” he said. “Don’t do too much of that sort of thing, because it would be a pity to have you burned up altogether.”

Jan was so pleased at this advance from Sydney that she built upon it great hopes of real friendship between them, but though Sydney never relapsed into his perfect indifference of manner toward her, they did not get beyond this slight break in the ice. Gladys alone stood completely aloof. She was a very unhappy Gladys in these days, and heartily wished that she had not taken the attitude toward her cousin which she now felt called upon to maintain. Pride kept her from admitting that she was in the wrong, and stubbornness toward Gwen, and a deep-seated objection to seeming to admit her authority, made her ten times worse than she might have been without these inducements to bad behavior. Gwen found out from Jan how Gladys had treated her at the party. Jan did not mean to tell, but in saying how good Dorothy Schuyler had been to her, she found that she had blundered into betrayal of Gladys’s neglect.

Gwen was very angry. Not only was her sense of justice and liking for Jan in arms, but had not she, Gwendoline, Gladys’s elder and talented sister, warned Gladys that night before setting forth that she must not treat their cousin badly?

“I don’t want to be a tell-tale, Gladys, and I’m not the sort to run to papa with things, any more than he is one to bother with them, but you know what he said about sending you to boarding-school if you dared be rude to Janet when he had invited her here! Now, you just keep it up as you’ve been doing, and I’ll have to go to him, and tell him how perfectly horrid you are to her--and she so sweet and dear, and everybody that is anybody admiring her like everything!” said Gwen sternly.

“You can tell him anything you please,” said Gladys furiously, “but I won’t have anything to do with Janet, and nobody can make me! You can’t say I treat her badly if I let her entirely alone!”

So Gladys withdrew herself from her sister’s society, since it involved Jan’s, and was more than ever with her objectionable friends, by way of defying Gwen and proving her independence; though the only thing she succeeded in proving thoroughly was proved to herself, and that was that she was very miserable and ashamed of herself.

“I am driving Gladys away,” said Jan forlornly to Gwen one day. “You are never together, and it’s all my fault. I sometimes wish I had never come to New York.”

“Don’t worry, Jan. Gladys and I were never friends,” said Gwen lightly. Then seeing Jan’s shocked expression, she added: “Not that we were enemies, you know. What I mean is we never were chums. We always liked different things and people. It might as well be you we differ about as anything else. It isn’t you who have done it.”

“But she is with the Hammonds all the time--more than when I first came, and you never liked that,” objected Jan.

“Probably it is all for the best. I should think that would be the best way to cure her of liking them,” laughed Gwen. “Don’t worry, Jan. You can’t make everybody alike.”

With which bit of philosophy Jan had to try to satisfy herself.

The kitten she had rescued on her return from the party was showing gratifying results of her care. After he had had the mud sponged from his fur--a task performed by Gwen, since Jan was unable to do it--he had displayed a pretty coat of black stripes on a brownish ground, with snowy breast and paws, and a nice face, which Jan convulsed Gwen and Jack by pronouncing “grave and sweet in expression,” though there was no denying that this was true when she had pointed out the fact.

He had been some one’s pet, for his manners were quite elegant, and he had been taught to jump through hands, and to eat like a Turveydrop of deportment. But Jan did not call him Turveydrop, as Gwen wanted her to. She named him Tommy Traddles, after the cheerful youth of whom she was very fond, and he became the greatest addition to the little exile’s comfort. Tommy Traddles required convincing that each other member of the family individually meant well by him, for he had been so frightened during his days of wandering and hardship that he distrusted every one, but Jan he loved from the first. He had a shocking cough and bad indigestion from exposure and lack of food, but Jan cured the one with cod-liver oil and the other by careful feeding, and Tommy Traddles came out as good as new. It seemed to Jan, when he sat purring in her sunny chamber window, with the broad middle stripe of his back getting more glossy before her eyes, that she had not had a moment of home feeling until her dear cat came.

One day when it had been raining heavily, and a cold had kept Jack at home from school, Jan sat in Gwen’s room listening to the first chapters--three were now written--of the novel which she, quite as implicitly as Gwen, believed that North & Co would jump at the chance to publish as soon as Cena North laid it before her father.

Jack was restless. His cold was just bad enough not to risk going out with it, but not bad enough to subdue his spirits. Gwen lost patience at last with his constant popping in and out of her room and snapped him up.

“Ivan Graham,” she cried, “if you don’t keep out of here, I’ll make you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of me, like a sneak, just because my lock is broken! Aren’t boys a nuisance, Jan?”

“No, but their noise is sometimes,” smiled Jan, with a warning shake of the head at Jack.

The warning came too late. Jan had never seen an exhibition of her little cousin’s temper, though she had been informed more than once that “Jack was a terror when he broke loose.” He “broke loose” now, and Jan saw the suitability of the expression, for he was like a young wildcat.

“I’m not a sneak! I’ll teach you to call me a sneak!” he shrieked, throwing himself on Gwen with such violence that she staggered halfway across the room. “I’ll show you! I’ll show you!” Apparently Jack meant that he would show his sister how he could use his fists, for he was pummeling her black and blue, and Jan’s bandaged hands prevented her going to Gwen’s rescue.

But Gwen had had sorry experience with ungoverned temper from her earliest days. She caught Jack deftly at last, pinioned his arms, and bore him--for she was a tall, strong girl--half dragging him, half carrying him, to Hummie for punishment, though he kicked and fought all the way.

“Isn’t he a cherub?” asked Gwen, returning triumphant, but short of breath.

“It’s awful!” cried Jan, who had been quite frightened during the tussle. “If some one doesn’t teach him to control that temper he may do something he’ll be sorry for all his life. And he really is a dear little fellow--so warm-hearted and generous!”

“Oh, those tornadoes are always warm-hearted and generous, if they feel pleasant,” said Gwen. “I think I like less generosity and fewer kicks. I shall be black and blue for a week. Don’t your brothers have tantrums?”

“Yes, but we always try not to stir up the quick ones, and when they get into a fit of temper we try to cool them down--we have what we call the Rescue League, you know--mamma founded it--and we pledge ourselves to rescue one another from our foes--inside ourselves, of course. It really is fun, and more like a play than anything goody-goody. Then if mamma is around when one of us gets mad, she takes that one by the hand and leads him off--sometimes it’s a her, you know--it has been me--been I--and soothes him all down and talks quietly, and we come back feeling as if we had had a bath--a bath for our minds.” Janet’s eyes had grown dim as she talked. The little plain home looked so lovely and peaceful as she recalled it!

Gwen was silent, and at this moment Susan offered Jan a letter.

“Oh, it’s from mamma!” she cried. “Please open it for me, Gwen. And lay it on my lap where I can read it.”

Gwen obeyed, but the attempt at reading was not successful. The pages slipped and Jan’s fingers were not free to hold them.

“You would rather not have me read it to you?” asked Gwen. “Do you think it’s secrets?”

“No, but I do love to read mamma’s letters myself,” sighed Jan. “Thank you, Gwen. Please take it.”

Gwen did as she was bidden, and read:

“MY DEAREST LITTLE JANET-GIRL: It is really several days since I wrote you, but papa and Fred have written, and there wasn’t any news. Only that there are five more citizens of Crescendo than there were last week--four are kittens--nice little Maltese and white things, belonging to Madam Puff--and one a calf, the long-legged daughter of Mrs. Cusha. I am so glad that my little girl is not getting too fond of luxury to want to see her plain home again! They are very good to you at Uncle Howard’s, and it was beautiful in him to fit you out as prettily as his own daughters, so that you should not be mortified nor mortify them when you appear together. By and by you will see more of Aunt Tina, I am sure. She must be fond of all those dear children, of course. [Here Jan began to blush furiously, but Gwen only elevated her eyebrows and went on reading with increasing interest as she caught sight of her own name farther down the page.] And though it is delightful for you to see so much of the tiny ones, and have them love you so dearly, I am especially glad that you like Gwen, and that she seems to like you, for I feel sure she is a noble girl, as well as a clever one, and I always wanted Howard’s oldest daughter and my oldest girl to be friends, as we were, he and I, years ago. And no, dear, you certainly must not mind Gladys’s dislike too much, nor even feel sure it is dislike, because one is likely to get the kind of treatment one expects. I am as sorry as I can be that she apparently despises poverty. Of course that is nonsense. Rich people are not better than poor ones, nor are poor people better than rich ones. It all depends how one meets and uses his opportunities, and money or its lack is an accident. Rich people are tempted to be hard and selfish, but, on the other hand, poor people are tempted to be envious and jealous. ‘The betwixt and between’ folk have the best of it, for they are not so strongly tempted either way. Still, they often get dissatisfied with enough. Agur was very wise when he prayed to be given ‘neither poverty nor riches.’ I am sorry as I can be that my poor little niece is so worldly, but I hope she will learn better when she is a little older. If she doesn’t she will have some hard lessons, for worldly people are taught very sharply how vain are the things upon which they have set their hearts, and no one with false ambitions is ever happy. But if little Jan doesn’t get worldly, I can not care as much as I should about any one else. I was so afraid, so dreadfully afraid, to put my single-hearted girl among things which could never be hers--afraid I should spoil her content and her unconsciousness of differences, which really are imaginary and do not matter at all. Go your ways, my Jan, like an honest, simple little girl, and do not be other than your true, good little self. It grieves me to think that any one in my brother’s house--much more one of his children--should not be quite kind to Jan, but I feel sure you will win Gladys by and by, if you are patient. The greatest English writer after Shakespeare--to my thinking, at least--said that the world was a looking-glass, reflecting our own expression toward it. And he was perfectly right. So smile away, Janet, and by and by all your little world will smile at you. All the children and your father send kisses enough to take your breath away. And so does she who loves you a little more than any one else can love you, and who prays ‘that God will keep you so pure, and true, and fair.’ You remember our favorite song?

“Your loving and only mother, “JENNIE GRAHAM HOWE.”

To Jan’s surprise and dismay, Gwen sprang up after reading this letter, which Jan would not have allowed her to see for the world if she had known that it was going to reflect her own comments on her surroundings, and threw herself on the bed, sobbing as though her heart would break. “Why, Gwen, why, dear Gwen, don’t!” cried Jan, clasping her cousin in her wounded arms. “I didn’t mean anything about Gladys! I’m so sorry you read it! But it really wasn’t anything bad I said!”

“Oh, it’s not that. I don’t care what you said--Gladys is a pig!” sobbed Gwen. “It’s because Aunt Jennie is so awfully, beautifully dear! And because--because--O Janet Howe, you don’t deserve credit. You ought to be a nice girl!” And puzzled Jan agreed with her, as she stroked her hair in wondering silence.