CHAPTER IX--SUNSHINE AT THE GATEHOUSE

The shower was over when Unc' Simmy stopped before the hotel veranda. The two girls were rather bedraggled in appearance; but what would Miss Miggs look like when _she_ arrived!

"I hope we won't see that mean thing any more," Helen declared. "She is our Nemesis, I do believe."

"Don't let her worry you. She surely punished herself this time," said Ruth, getting down. "Good-bye Unc' Simmy. Come for us again to-morrow--only I hope it won't rain."

"Ya-as'm! ya-as'm! T'ankee ma'am!" responded the darkey, and when Helen had likewise alighted, he rattled away.

"Goodness!" laughed Helen. "Are you so much in love with that old outfit that you want to ride in it again, Ruthie Fielding?"

"I want to see Miss Catalpa again--don't you?" returned her chum. "And I would not go to the gatehouse with anybody but Unc' Simmy. It would be impudent to do so."

"Oh--yes! that's so," admitted Helen. "Come on to luncheon. I have Heavy Stone's appetite, right now!"

"If so, what will poor Heavy do?" asked Ruth, smiling. "This must be about the time she wishes to exercise her own appetite at Lighthouse Point. Would you deprive her, my dear, of any gastronomic pleasure?"

"Woo-o-o!" blew Helen, making a noise like a whistle. "All ashore that's going ashore! What big words you do use, Ruth. At any rate, let us partake of the eatables supplied by this hostlery. Come on!"

But they went up to their rooms first to "prink and putter" as Tom always called it.

"Dear old Tom!" sighed his twin. "How I miss him. And what fun we'd have if he were along. Sorry Nettie's Aunt Rachel doesn't like boys enough to have made up a mixed party."

"You're the only 'mixed' party I see around here," laughed Ruth. "But I wish Tom _were_ here. He'd know just how to get at Curly Smith and do something for him."

"That's right! I wish he were here," sighed Helen.

"Never mind," laughed Ruth. "Don't let it take away that famous appetite you just claimed to have. Come on."

The girls went down and ventured into one of the dining rooms. A smiling colored waiter--"at so much per smile," as Ruth whispered--welcomed them at the door and seated them at rather a large table. This had been selected for them because their party would soon be augmented.

And this, in fact, happened before night. The girls were lolling in content and happiness upon the veranda when the train came in bringing among other passengers Mrs. Parsons and Nettie.

Mrs. Parsons was a dark-haired and olive-skinned lady, who had been a famous beauty in her youth, and a belle in her part of South Carolina. Rachel Merredith had been quite famous, indeed, in several social centers, and she was well known in Washington and Richmond, as well as in the more Southern cities.

She greeted Helen kindly, but warmly kissed Ruth, having become an admirer of the girl of the Red Mill some time before.

"Here's my clever little girl," she said, in her soft, drawling way. "I declare! Ev'ry time I put on my necklace I think of you, Ruthie Fielding, and how greatly beholden to you I am. I tell Nettie, here, that when _she_ receives our heirloom at her coming-out party, she will thank you, too."

"I don't have to wait till then, Aunt Rachel!" cried Nettie, squeezing the plump shoulders of the girl of the Red Mill. "Isn't it nice to see you both again? How jolly!"

"That's a new word Nettie got up No'th," said her Aunt Rachel. "Tell me, dears: Have they treated you right, here at the hotel?"

The girls assured her that the management had been very kind to them. Then the question was asked: What had they done to kill time?

Helen rattled off a dozen things she and Ruth had dabbled in that afternoon--or, "evening" as the Virginians say; but it was Ruth who mentioned their ride in the rain with old Unc' Simmy.

"To the gatehouse? Where is that?" asked Aunt Rachel, lazily.

Between bursts of laughter Helen tried to tell her about the queer old negro and his dilapidated turnout; but it was Ruth who softly explained to Mrs. Parsons about Miss Catalpa and the faithful old darkey's relations to her.

"Grogan?" repeated the lady. "Yes, yes, I remember the name. Who doesn't? Major Grogan, her father, was a famous leader in the Lost Cause. Oh, dear me, Ruthie! We are still so poor in the South that the family of many a hero has come down to want. Catalpa Grogan? And you say she is blind?"

"She said we might come again and see her before we left the Point," suggested Ruth, gently.

Mrs. Rachel Parsons looked at her understandingly. "Quite right, my dear. We _will_ go. I will find out about this lawyer, Colonel Wilder, and he can probably tell me all we need to know. She and the old negro shall be helped--that is the least we can do."

So, the next morning, all in the glorious sunshine that is usually the weather condition at Old Point Comfort, the party climbed into Unc' Simmy's old barouche and set out on the drive. Mrs. Parsons accepted the dilapidated turnout as quite a matter of course.

"Don't fret about _me_, girls," she said, when Helen said that they should have taken a different equipage.

Ruth had already begun to get the "slant" of the Southern mind. The Southerners respected themselves, and were inordinately proud of their name and blood; but they could cheerfully go without many of the conveniences of life which Northerners would consider a distinct privation. Poverty among them was no disgrace; rather, it was to be expected. They cheerfully made the best of it, and enjoyed what good things they had without allowing caviling care to corrode their pleasure.

The sunshine drenched them as they rolled over the now dusty road, as the rain had drenched the chums the day before. Yonder was the hole beside the roadway into which Miss Miggs had been half submerged, and from which she was rescued by the unfortunate Curly Smith.

Helen hilariously related this incident to Nettie and her aunt. But, warned by Ruth, she said nothing about the identity of the boy.

"I hope we shall not meet that woman again," Ruth said, with a sigh. "She surely would make a scene, Mrs. Parsons. You don't know how mean she can be."

"And a school teacher?" was the reply. "Fancy!"

They arrived at the gatehouse and Ruth begged Unc' Simmy to stop and ask if Miss Catalpa would receive them.

"Give her my card, too, boy," said Mrs. Parsons, as the smiling old man climbed down from his seat.

"Ya-as'm! ya-as'm!" said Unc' Simmy, rolling his eyes, for he saw that Mrs. Parsons was "one of de quality," as he expressed it. "Sho' will."

They were not kept waiting long. Miss Grogan was too much the lady to strive for effect. She received them, as she had the girls, on her porch; but this time in the sunshine.

It was a beautiful old front yard, hidden by an untrimmed hedge from the highway; and the end of the porch where the blind woman sat was now dressed with several old chairs that her guests might sit down. It was likely that Unc' Simmy had brought these out himself, foretelling that there would be visitors.

"I am glad to see you," Miss Catalpa said. She remembered Ruth and Helen when she clasped their hands, distinguishing between them, although she had "seen" them but once.

To Mrs. Parsons she confessed: "These young girls came in the rain and cheered me up. I love the young. Don't you, ma'am?"

"I do," sighed Aunt Rachel. "I'd give anything for my own youth."

"No, no," returned Miss Catalpa, shaking her head. "Life gets better as we grow mellow. That's what I tell them all. I do not regret my youth, although 'twas spent comparatively free from care. And now----"

She waved the knitting in her hand, and laughed--her low, bird-like call. "The good Lord will provide. He always has."

Mrs. Parsons, being a Southerner herself, could talk confidentially to Miss Catalpa. It seemed that several names were known to them in common; and the visitor from South Carolina learned how and where to find the particular "Kunnel Wildah" who had the disposal of Miss Catalpa's affairs in his hands.

The party had a very pleasant visit with the blind woman. Unc' Simmy appeared suddenly before them, his coachman's coat and gloves discarded, and a rusty black coat in place of the livery. He bore a tray with high, beautifully thin, tinkling glasses of lemonade, with a sprig of mint in each.

"Nobody makes lemonade quite like Uncle Simmy," Miss Catalpa said kindly, and the old negro's face shone like a polished kitchen range at the praise. It was evident that he fairly worshiped his mistress.

The visitors left at last. Helen understood now why they had come. That afternoon the girls were left to their own devices while Mrs. Parsons sought out Colonel Wilder and made some provision for helping in the support of Miss Catalpa and her old servant.

"No, my dear," she said to Ruth. "You may help a little; but not much. Wait until you become a self-supporting woman--as you will be, I know. Then you can have the full pleasure of helping other people as you desire. I can only enjoy it because my cotton fields have made me rich. When we use money that has been left to us, or given to us in some way, for charitable purposes, we lose the sweeter taste of giving away that which we have actually earned.

"And I thank you, my dear," she added, "for giving me the opportunity of helping Miss Grogan and Uncle Simmy."