Chapter 8

And Salemina Peabody was in the boat coming toward us, looking as serenely lovely in a grey tweed and broad white hat as any good sweet woman of forty could look, while he gazed at her “through a glass darkly” as if she were practically non-existent, or had nothing whatever to do with the case.

I concealed rebellious opinions of blind bats, deaf adders, meek lambs, and obstinate pigs, but said very gently and impersonally: “I hope you won’t always allow your pipe to be your only companion;—you, with your children, your name and position, your home and yourself to give—to somebody!”

But he only answered: “You exaggerate, my dear madam; there is not enough left in me or of me to offer to any woman!”

And I could do nothing but make his tea graciously and hand it to him, wondering that he was able to see the cup or the bread-and-butter sandwich that I put into his modest, ungrateful hand.

However, it is all a thing of the past, that dim, sweet, grey romance that had its rightful background in a country of subdued colourings, of pensive sweetness, of gentle greenery, where there is an eternal wistfulness in the face of the natural world, speaking of the springs of hidden tears.

Their union is a perfect success, and I echo the Boots of the inn at Devorgilla when he said: “An’ sure it’s the doctor that’s the satisfied man an’ the luck is on him as well as on e’er a man alive! As for her ladyship, she’s one o’ the blessings o’ the wurruld an’ ’t would be an o’jus pity to spile two houses wid ’em.”

_July_ 12, 19–.

We were all out in the orchard sunning ourselves on the little haycocks that the “hired man” had piled up here and there under the trees.

“It is not really so beautiful as Italy,” I said to Himself, gazing up at the newly set fruit on the apple boughs and then across the close-cut hay field to the level pasture, with its rocks and cow paths, its blueberry bushes and sweet fern, its clumps of young sumachs, till my eyes fell upon the deep green of the distant pines. “I can’t bear to say it, because it seems disloyal, but I almost believe I think so.”

“It is not as picturesque,” Himself agreed grudgingly, his eye following mine from point to point; “and why do we love it so?”

“There is nothing delicious and luxuriant about it,” I went on critically, “yet it has a delicate, ethereal, austere, straight-forward Puritanical loveliness of its own; but, no, it is not as beautiful as Italy or Ireland, and it isn’t as tidy as England. If you keep away from the big manufacturing towns and their outskirts you may go by motor or railway through shire after shire in England and never see anything unkempt, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows, or ill-cared-for; no broken-down fences or stone walls; no heaps of rubbish or felled trees by the wayside; no unpainted or tottering buildings—”

“You see plenty of ruins,” interrupted Himself in a tone that promised argument.

“Yes, but ruins are different; they are finished; they are not tottering, they _have_ tottered! Our country is too big, I suppose, to be ‘tidy,’ but how I should like to take just one of the United States and clear it up, back yards and all, from border line to border line!”

“You are talking like a housewife now, not like an artist,” said Himself reprovingly.

“Well, I am both, I hope, and I don’t intend that any one shall know where the one begins or the other leaves off, either! And if any foreigner should remark that America is unfinished or untidy I shall deny it!”

“Fie! Penelope! You who used to be a citizen of the world!”

“So I am still, so far as a roving foot and a knowledge of three languages can make me; but you remember that the soul ‘retains the characteristic of its race and the heart is true to its own country, even to its own parish.’”

“When shall we be going to the other countries, mother?” asked Billy. “When shall we see our aunt in Scotland and our aunt in Ireland?” (Poor lambs! Since the death of their Grandmother Beresford they do not possess a real relation in the world!)

“It will not be very long, Billy,” I said. “We don’t want to go until we can leave the perambulator behind. The Sally-baby toddles now, but she must be able to walk on the English downs and the Highland heather.”

“And the Irish bogs,” interpolated Billy, who has a fancy for detail.

“Well, the Irish bogs are not always easy travelling,” I answered, “but the Sally-baby will soon be old enough to feel the spring of the Irish turf under her feet.”

“What will the chickens and ducklings and pigeons do while we are gone?” asked Francie.

“An’ the lammies?” piped the Sally-baby, who has all the qualities of Mary in the immortal lyric.

“Oh! we won’t leave home until the spring has come and all the young things are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have their puff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kind man to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we will sail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Ireland and I shall show them my children—”

“And we shall play ‘hide-and-go-coop’ with their children,” interrupted Francie joyously.

“They will never have heard of that game, but you will all play together!” And here I leaned back on the warm haycock and blinked my eyes a bit in moist anticipation of happiness to come. “There will be eight-year-old Ronald MacDonald to climb and ride and sail with our Billy; and there will be little Penelope who is named for me, and will be Francie’s playmate; and the new little boy baby—”

“Proba’ly Aunt Francie’s new boy baby will grow up and marry our girl one,” suggested Billy.

“He has my consent to the alliance in advance,” said Himself, “but I dare say your mother has arranged it all in her own mind and my advice will not be needed.”

“I have not arranged anything,” I retorted; “or if I have it was nothing more than a thought of young Ronald or Jack La Touche in—another quarter,”—this with discreetly veiled emphasis.

“What is another quarter, mother?” inquired Francie, whose mental agility is somewhat embarrassing.

“Oh, why,—well,—it is any other place than the one you are talking about. Do you see?”

“Not so very well, but p’r’aps I will in a minute.”

“Hope springs eternal!” quoted Francie’s father.

“And then, as I was saying before being interrupted by the entire family, we will go and visit the Irish cousins, Jackeen and Broona, who belong to Aunt Salemina and Uncle Gerald, and the Sally-baby will be the centre of attraction because she is her Aunt Salemina’s godchild—”

“But we are all God’s children,” insisted Billy.

“Of course we are.”

“What’s the difference between a god-child and a God’s child?”

“The bottle of chloroform is in the medicine closet, my poor dear; shall I run and get it?” murmured Himself _sotto voce_.

“Every child is a child of God,” I began helplessly, “and when she is somebody’s godchild she—oh! lend me your handkerchief, Billy!”

“Is it the nose-bleed, mother?” he asked, bending over me solicitously.

“No, oh, no! it’s nothing at all, dear. Perhaps the hay was going to make me sneeze. What was I saying?”

“About the god—”

“Oh, yes! I remember! (_Ka-choo_!) We will take the Irish cousins and the Scotch cousins and go all together to see the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. We’ll go to Bushey Park and see the chestnuts in bloom, and will dine at Number 10, Dovermarle Street—”

“I shall not go there, Billy,” said Himself. “It was at Number 10, Dovermarle Street that your mother told me she wouldn’t marry me; or at least that she’d have to do a lot of thinking before she’d say Yes; so she left London and went to North Malvern.”

“Couldn’t she think in London?” (This was Billy.)

“Didn’t she always want to be married to you?” (This was Francie.)

“Not always.”

“Didn’t she like _us_?” (Still Francie.)

“You were never mentioned,—not one of you!”

“That seems rather queer!” remarked Billy, giving me a reproachful look.

“So we’ll leave the Irish and Scotch uncles and aunts behind and go to North Malvern just by ourselves. It was there that your mother concluded that she _would_ marry me, and I rather like the place.”

“Mother loves it, too; she talks to me about it when she puts me to bed.” (Francie again.)

“No doubt; but you’ll find your mother’s heart scattered all over the Continent of Europe. One bit will be clinging to a pink thorn in England; another will be in the Highlands somewhere,—wherever the heather’s in bloom; another will be hanging on the Irish gorse bushes where they are yellowest; and another will be hidden under the seat of a Venetian gondola.”

“Don’t listen to Daddy’s nonsense, children! He thinks mother throws her heart about recklessly while he loves only one thing at a time.”

“Four things!” expostulated Himself, gallantly viewing our little group at large.

“Strictly speaking, we are not four things, we are only four parts of one thing;—counting you in, and I really suppose you ought to be counted in, we are five parts of one thing.”

“Shall we come home again from the other countries?” asked Billy.

“Of course, sonny! The little Beresfords must come back and grow up with their own country.”

“Am I a little Beresford, mother?” asked Francie, looking wistfully at her brother as belonging to the superior sex and the eldest besides.

“Certainly.”

“And is the Sally-baby one too?”

Himself laughed unrestrainedly at this.

“She is,” he said, “but you are more than half mother, with your unexpectednesses.”

“I love to be more than half mother!” cried Francie, casting herself violently about my neck and imbedding me in the haycock.

“Thank you, dear, but pull me up now. It’s supper-time.”

Billy picked up the books and the rug and made preparations for the brief journey to the house. I put my hair in order and smoothed my skirts.

“Will there be supper like ours in the other countries, mother?” he asked. “And if we go in May time, when do we come back again?”

Himself rose from the ground with a luxurious stretch of his arms, looking with joy and pride at our home fields bathed in the afternoon midsummer sun. He took the Sally-baby’s outstretched hands and lifted her, crowing, to his shoulder.

“Help sister over the stubble, my son.—We’ll come away from the other countries whenever mother says: ‘Come, children, it’s time for supper.’”

“We’ll be back for Thanksgiving,” I assured Billy, holding him by one hand and Francie by the other, as we walked toward the farmhouse. “We won’t live in the other countries, because Daddy’s ‘sit-fast acres’ are here in New England.”

“But whenever and wherever we five are together, especially wherever mother is, it will always be home,” said Himself thankfully, under his breath.