Part 15

Sidney took off her sunbonnet and hung it on the fence, and let her hair loose and twisted it up again, while having her laugh out before going in the house. There was not a grain of malice in her frank shrewdness. Adversity's sweet milk had been her daily drink, ever since she could remember. Old lady Gordon herself would have been amused at the good-humored account of her own starting to "make a broad," could she have heard Sidney telling Tom and Anne Watson about it. For that handsome old pagan had a wholesome sense of humor. But Tom Watson apparently did not hear; his miserable, restless eyes never turned toward Sidney, never for a moment ceased their fruitless quest of the empty big road. Only a pale shadow of a smile flitted over Anne's white, tense face. And Sidney, seeing that her efforts were wholly wasted, soon arose to go on her way, and Anne went with her to the gate--as far as she ever went from her hopeless post, except for the breaking of bread on the Sundays when there was preaching at her own church; and for an hour now and then, on prayer-meeting nights, when she felt that her own supplications alone were not strong enough. She held Sidney's large, firm, rough, capable hand longer than usual, as if she instinctively sought strength and courage in clinging to it. Her clear eyes, too, were full of a silent, unconscious appeal, and Sidney said, in answer to the look, that she would come again the next day and every day, if her coming could help in the least. Anne simply bowed her head; she did not attempt to speak, and in truth there was nothing to be said. She made no mention of any inducement to Sidney to come; she did not think of it, nor indeed did Sidney. Yet, when Anne did think of it, later in the day, she was glad to send a large basket, and Sidney was more than glad to have it sent.

That night Sidney dreamt of Tom,--as a good many people did after seeing him,--and the thought of him so weighed upon her on awakening at dawn, that she hurried through with her housework in order that she might go to Anne. But she had only the earliest morning hours for domestic duties, the rest of her time being always fully occupied with her professional rounds; and she found much to do every morning before starting out. On this particular morning there were unusual affairs of rather a pressing nature. Uncle Watty had discovered a bumblebee's nest under the mossy roof close to his bed. It was never the way of Uncle Watty to submit to any discomfort which he could avoid by complaining, and he was not unnaturally anxious to have this removed without unnecessary delay. Sidney, ready and resourceful, quieted his fears. She knew--so she declared--just how to get the bumblebee's nest down without the least trouble or hurting any one. As soon, therefore, as the kitchen was in order, she bustled into the room where Doris sat sewing behind the white curtain. Sidney put the broom on end in its accustomed place, and began rolling down her sleeves, getting ready to move upon the citadel of the bumblebees. When a thing--large or small--must be done, Sidney was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. She had reached the door of the passage, meaning to climb to the loft and to awaken Uncle Watty as a mere matter of precaution before beginning operations, when Doris's voice caused her to pause.

"I haven't had a chance, mother, to tell you that Mr. Gordon was here yesterday in the cool of the evening, before you came home. He didn't come in. He only went into the garden," Doris said, simply.

Sidney stopped and stood still, silently gazing at her daughter.

"He came to see the pretty-by-nights. He said he had never seen them open with the falling of the dew," the girl went on, like a child.

"Anybody's welcome to look at the pretty-by-nights," responded Sidney, with cautious non-committal indifference.

"I told him I knew you wouldn't care," said Doris, more confidently. "And then he asked if he might come early this morning to look at the morning-glories. He thought they must be lovely--such big ones, red, white, and blue--all over that side of the house."

"They're well enough in their place," said Sidney, off-hand. And then, carelessly, after an instant's pause, "What did you say?"

"He said he was coming--before I could say anything." Doris thus placed the responsibility where it belonged, made timid again by her mother's manner, which she did not understand. "He may be here now, at any moment."

"Well, it won't hurt the morning-glories a mite to be looked at," said Sidney.

She stood still a moment longer, turning this unexpected announcement in her mind. Then, without another word, she went back to the kitchen and took up the plate containing Uncle Watty's breakfast, which she had left on the stove to keep warm. He could eat it cold for once, she resolved, as she passed through the room. Doris, humming over her sewing, and looking now and then down the big road, did not see what her mother was doing. Strong, active, Sidney swiftly gained the loft, making as little noise as possible. Uncle Watty's bedchamber was a corner of the loft cut off from the rest by a rough partition, and she approached the door of it with noiseless caution. Uncle Watty never thought of locking or even of shutting it, but Sidney, after setting the breakfast on the floor, inside the door, now closed it softly and turned the key. There was an old chest sitting near by, and this she managed to drag across the door without much noise. Then she listened for a space, with her ear against the door, to make sure that Uncle Watty was still fast asleep, and to consider the security of the barricade. Satisfied now that all was secure, that he could not get out, however hard he might try, she went downstairs, feeling that she had done her utmost for Uncle Watty as well as for Doris. She was faithful in her service to her husband's brother; she had accepted him as a sacred legacy when her burden was already heavy enough. She had never allowed the fact that he would not do anything for his own support to affect her regard for him, nor to lessen her efforts to provide for him; she had never minded his whittling, nor his mis-set leg, except to be sorry for him. And yet, notwithstanding all this, she, with her shrewd common sense, saw no good that it could do him, or Doris, or anybody, for him to come bumping and stumbling down the ladder just at the time when the young gentleman from Boston was likely to be calling upon Doris. Recalling the likeness to his game-making grandmother, which had struck her as so marked on the previous day--which had indeed impressed her as being of "the very same cut of the jib," as Sidney phrased it to herself--she made up her mind, then and there, that he should see no reason to laugh at Doris or Doris's kin, if she could help his seeing Uncle Watty.

Coming now into the room where Doris still sat quietly sewing, in the dull brown dress, Sidney was tempted to tell her to put on the blue gingham which Mrs. Alexander had given her; but on second thought did not. Secretly she doubted whether any other color would reveal the soft, pure whiteness of Doris's skin so perfectly as the faded brown. She accordingly left the girl to her own devices, and contented herself with seeing, with even more than the usual care, that the rising sun of red and yellow calico was precisely in the middle of the bed, that the trundle-bed was quite out of sight under the big bed; that the snowy scarf over the chest of drawers fell perfectly straight at the fringed ends; and that the best side of the rag rug, the sole covering of the rough, well-scoured floor, was turned up. Finally, she hurried into the garden and gathered a great, tall bunch of blue larkspur, and put it in her best white pitcher, and set it on the chest of drawers. She gazed at it with her head critically on one side, after setting it down; and, indeed, the vivid coloring of the homely flowers against the whitewashed logs was a pleasing sight, which might have gratified a more exacting taste than hers.

An uneasy remembrance of Kate and Billy suddenly flashing into her quiet mind, disturbed it, and sent her seeking them in haste. It was unlucky that the day chanced to be Saturday, otherwise they might at once have been despatched to school, and so kept out of the way without Doris's knowing anything about it. Sidney was not clear as to why she did not wish Doris to know that she meant to keep them out of the way. Her daughter's sensibilities, refined by nature, and super-refined by Miss Judy's training, were a long way beyond Sidney's primitive comprehension. She had, however, a general idea that all very young girls were what she called skittish, and most of them, consequently, greatly lacking in sound common sense. So that it seemed to her, on the whole, best to do her own duty as she saw it, saying nothing one way or another, and leaving Doris alone. Sidney had no doubt concerning her own duty. In the circle in which she had been reared, the young man who failed to find a clear and open field the first time he came to see a girl was sure not to come again. He understood as a matter of course, and as he was intended to understand--when he found any of the family near by--that he was not expected or desired to come again. It was consequently a perfectly plain and simple case from Sidney's plain and simple point of view. She did not know what Doris thought of the young man; she did not care what the young man thought of Doris. She had no distinct ultimate object. No mother was ever farther from any arbitrary purpose, or even the remotest wish, to take the shaping of her daughter's future in her own hands. Sidney, honest, strenuous soul, meant simply and solely to give Doris a chance, without hindrance, to shape it for herself.

Thus, as single-minded as it is ever permitted any woman to be, Sidney took the broom from its resting-place behind the door, and fared forth to mount guard over Billy and Kate. The children were peacefully at play in the back yard under the cherry tree. They had been forbidden to touch the cherries, which were to be exchanged for shoes at the store, and they only glanced wistfully up at the reddening branches now and then, as they went on with their harmless game of mumble-peg. Sidney turned an empty tub upside down and seated herself upon it, between the children and the house, with the broom across her knees. It was a sight which they had never seen before, this amazing spectacle of their mother thus sitting silent and idle on a week-day. But children do not marvel over the unusual as grown people do, and after a glance or two of surprise, these two played on peacefully until they heard the click of the gate latch. Then they made a dash for the front yard to see who was coming, as they were accustomed to do, and as Sidney was fully prepared for their doing now. Keenly alert, she was instantly on her feet, and, rushing between them and the gate, she waved them back with the broom, flourishing it and using it as a baton of command. The children halted, staring open-mouthed, too much astounded at first to make a sound. And then, frightened by their mother's strange behavior, they huddled together against the cherry tree and broke into loud, terrified wails. Sidney, disconcerted and quickly changing her tactics, did what she could to silence them by gentle means. She tried to soothe them in whispers, and failing, finally offered to bribe them to be quiet. If they were perfectly quiet till the company went away, she would give them, so she whispered, one of Miss Pettus's cherry pies.

"The one with the--cross-barred--top," sobbed Billy, intentionally raising his piercing voice several keys as he made this stipulation.

Sidney nodded. The boy's shrewdness in thus taking advantage of an unusual opportunity pleased her. Billy would never let chances pass him by as they had passed his poor father. Kate's behavior was always a reflection of Billy's, and there now came a lull. But Sidney did not relax her vigilance in the least, and still sat immovable on the tub with the broom resting on her shoulder like a sentinel's bayonet. The children, more than ever wondering, though silently, did not return to their game, but clung to the shelter of the cherry tree, excitedly peering round it in growing wonder at their mother's unaccountable conduct. The little group now made a singular spectacle, one so very singular indeed, that no neighbor could think of passing without inquiry. Fortunately, however, no one went along the big road for several minutes. Meantime Sidney, sitting bolt upright and rigid on the tub, with her back to the house, and with her eye on the children, and the broom over her shoulder, ready for action, followed with her keen ears everything going on in the room. She heard the deep tones of the young man's dominant voice, and the soft murmur of Doris's shy replies. She knew by the sounds when the two young people went out of the house to look at the morning-glories, although the vines were on the other side of the house and quite out of her sight. Thence she traced them with intent listening, though she could not hear what they said, to the trellis over the garden gate, now richly hung with the mauve beauty and sweetness of the virgin's-bower. And then into the garden among the sunflowers and hollyhocks and columbine and larkspur and heartsease and the riot of June roses, common enough, yet gay and sweet as the rarest. Sidney could tell just where they paused as they wandered about the little garden; now they were looking at the sweet-williams, now at the spice-pinks, and now they were bending over the bunch of bleeding-heart, with its delicate waxen sprays of pink and white hearts--strung in rows like a coquette's cruel trophies. To Sidney, thus keenly, alertly keeping track, everything seemed going well; Billy and Kate too now moved quietly as though to return to their game of mumble-peg, so that, almost reassured, she was about to lower the broom, when she was disturbed by hearing her name called.

She sprang up, motioning with the broom, signalling the children to be still, and turned to see the doctor's wife leaning over the fence, and beckoning to her.

"What on earth is the matter?" asked that lady. "I've been watching you from my porch--"

She broke off, falling silent, at an energetic, imperative gesture from Sidney, and she moved along down the line of the fence, farther away from the garden, in response to Sidney's mysterious signals.

"Hush. Speak low," said Sidney, bending over the fence and speaking herself in a hoarse whisper, "Doris has got a _beau_!"

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Alexander under her breath, but not as yet much enlightened as to the cause of the extraordinary manoeuvres which she had witnessed. "And who is it?"

"Old lady Gordon's grandson," said Sidney, trying vainly to keep the triumphant note out of her voice.

The doctor's wife involuntary pursed up her mouth; had she been a man, she certainly would have whistled. "Indeed!" was all she found to say.

"And why _not_?" Sidney flashed out, replying to the look rather than to the word. "_Why_ not--I ask you, Jane _Alexander_? I have never gone around bragging about Doris's pretty looks and ladylike ways, which goodness knows she owes to the Lord and to Miss Judy, not to me; but if there's another girl in this whole Pennyroyal Region that can hold a candle to her--"

"Mercy sakes alive," gasped the doctor's wife. "What's the use of your going on like that to me, Sidney? You know as well as I do what the doctor and I have always thought of Doris."

But Sidney, aroused as only a slight--whether real or supposed--to a favorite child can arouse the most calmly philosophical mother, might have said a good deal more in support of Doris's smartness and sweet disposition--these and other things were in truth on the very tip of her tongue, when, fortunately for the doctor's wife, a sudden noise drew their attention toward the roof of the house. Uncle Watty had at last succeeded, after much difficulty and several unheard shouts, in getting his head out of the garret window close to the chimney, and, now catching sight of Sidney, he indignantly demanded to know why he could not open his door, and peremptorily ordered her to come at once and let him out. She went flying over nearer to the window and in a low-toned diplomatic parley persuaded him to wait a few minutes, finally even inducing him to take in his head until she could come. It was only a momentary interruption, but it gave Mrs. Alexander time to think, and, when Sidney returned to the fence, still holding herself with cold, resentful dignity, the doctor's wife was ready with a softening proposition inviting Kate and Billy to go home with her to help gather cherries on the shares.

"Very well," said Sidney, shortly. She was not by any means entirely placated, but she never rejected a good bargain merely on account of some private feeling. "There's no need, though, for them to go out through the front gate. They can just as well get through this hole in the fence. It's big enough if they squeeze tight," she added, still on guard.

She gave the children an assistant shove which carried them through the narrow space of the broken board, hushing them to continued silence by making a hissing sound through her teeth.

"There!" she exclaimed, under her breath, when the two trembling, bewildered culprits stood beside the doctor's wife in the big road, casting curious glances from their mother to the house. "Now, Jane, see that they whistle every minute of the time they are in the cherry tree; or I won't have a cherry and you won't have many, and these children will be drawn into double bow-knots. Mind now--don't let 'em stop whistling for a single minute."

Mrs. Alexander nodded understandingly as she took the children by the hand to lead them away; nevertheless, Sidney thought it best to make sure by giving the broom a last threatening flourish. Then she returned to her post on the tub, facing the house, however, during the rest of the hour through which she faithfully fulfilled sentinel duty.

XVI

THE SHOCK AND THE FRIGHT

The children thus flown like birds out of a cage, Sidney managed to get Uncle Watty down the stairs and off to his seat before the store door, all unobserved by the young couple, who were so absorbed in the bleeding-heart, so enchanted under the virgin's-bower, so enthralled by the heartsease. When at last Lynn Gordon himself was gone, Doris found her mother quietly at work in the kitchen, and saw no trace of the heroic measures which she had resorted to. Doris asked timidly why she had not come in while the visitor was there, feeling instinctively that this was what Miss Judy would have done. But Sidney answered quite promptly and conclusively that she was too busy to waste her time thinking of strange young men, so that Doris was more than ever abashed, and turned silently back to her sewing and to her thoughts.

Sidney now directed her own attention to the bumblebees. She went to the front gate and called Tom Watson's black boy, her strong, clear, fearless voice ringing out suddenly on the morning stillness. She had already hired him to come by promising to mend his Sunday jacket; if he would help her get rid of the bumblebees' nest. He accordingly appeared at once in answer to her call, which reached him in his master's stable, and he carried his fishing-rod in his hand, this also being a part of the bargain. He handed Sidney the rod, and taking from her a piece of rope, which she held in readiness, he went up the rough logs at the corner of the house, and ran over the roof as swiftly and as surely as any simian ancestors could have scampered through the green heights of the tropical forests. He let the rope down within Sidney's reach. She, meantime, had fetched a jug of boiling water from the kitchen, and when she had tied this uncorked vessel to the end of the rope, he drew it up again till the jug came close under the eaves and immediately below the dangerous bunch of gray gauze; whereupon he made the rope fast to one of the curling boards of the mossy roof, all according to Sidney's direction. This done, he sped over the roof again on his hands and knees and hastened down the wall for safety, knowing what was to come. Sidney barely gave him time to drop from the corner logs to the ground, and then, grasping the fishing-pole firmly in her strong hands, she gave the edge of the roof a sharp, quick blow. The bumblebees flew out in an angry cloud, but Sidney, the dauntless, stood at her post. She struck the roof another sharp, quick blow--and another, tap-tap-tap, like some gigantic and most industrious flicker. And forthwith the bumblebees began to go zip-zip-zip--straight into the steaming mouth of the crater. It was a short shrift, and, after it, a simple matter to punch down the nest itself with the fishing pole when the last bumblebee was drowned. That ended Sidney's interest in the programme, but the negro boy was still curious, so that he took the jug into the middle of the big road to pour out its contents, and he was much gratified, with the cruelty of his age and sex, to find something like a quart of boiled bumblebees.

Sidney, free now from pressing domestic affairs, bustled into the room where Doris sat undisturbed, singing softly over her sewing.

"I must go by Tom Watson's the first thing," Sidney said, putting on her bonnet, settling her ball of yarn under her left arm, and beginning to knit. "Anne seems to be at the end of her row, poor soul. I don't believe that Tom notices anybody's coming or going. I'm sure he doesn't mine. He just sits there with his awful eyes wandering up and down the big road. But if it comforts Anne the least bit to have me go, I'm perfectly willing to keep on trying. Anyway, I'll look in there a moment before starting out on my regular round."

"I hope you can get home early," said Doris, shyly. "Mr. Gordon spoke of coming again to-day, in the cool of the evening, to look at the moonflowers."

Sidney stopped suddenly in the middle of the floor, just as she had done earlier in the morning, and looked at Doris without making an immediate reply. She took off her bonnet and shook her hair down, twisting it up again with extreme tightness.

"Well! I reckon he, or anybody else, can look at the moonflowers just the same whether I'm here or not," she said, dryly, settling the huge horn comb with emphasis. Putting on her bonnet, she began to make her knitting-needles fly, as she moved toward the door.

"Please, ma'am," pleaded Doris, bashfully. She was smiling, yet quite in earnest, in her request.

"I'll be here in plenty of time," replied Sidney, diplomatically.