CHAPTER THREE

ITS OLD FRIENDS

Friday was a gala-day in the little grey house. "Battalion B," the three tall Rutherford boys, were at Yale, pursuing their way towards their chosen vocations with commendable industry, and with no apparent detriment to their health. Every Friday the three B's came back to Fayre to spend "the week end," bringing with them the cheer which they had shed upon the Greys' pathway since their first meeting.

"It is like having six children," Mrs. Grey said happily, as she shook her duster out the dining-room window. "The boys' coming sheds joy upon the weekly task of sweeping and setting straight."

"It is a perpetual Thanksgiving Home-coming, isn't it, Mardy?" said Oswyth joyously. For though the Rutherfords were supposed to come to their own home, the Caldwell house, which they had occupied for nearly three years, with a competent housekeeper to preside over its destinies, their return was really to the little grey house, where they made their absence of five days a plea for spending the other two of each seven.

"Your sister-in-law's coming," called Lydia from her watch-tower, the window beside the kitchen sink.

Wythie hastily glanced around the room which her mother was dusting, while she herself was polishing silver, with newspapers carefully spread over the fine old mahogany dining-table. Aunt Azraella had been another Aunt Azraella since his family had been established in comfort by the success of the machine over which poor Sylvester Grey had spent the apparently fruitless hours which she had then so fiercely denounced. But she never could conquer her habit of criticism, and the girls still felt vague apprehension of what was coming at her heels when they saw their aunt crossing the grass. Rob was out; since the day when she alone had held her ground against Mrs. Winslow's opinion, and had thus been the means of winning for the family all that they now enjoyed, Wythie had been deposed from the first place in Aunt Azraella's respect, and Rob was now, as she had herself said, the favourite niece.

"Good-morning, Mary. Good-morning, Wythie. Is Rob about? She asked me to let her know if Tobias got sick again, so I came down. Elvira says she thinks he might as well be chloroformed, but Rob insisted on being told if the cat ailed; I think his leg is broken." Aunt Azraella delivered herself of her errand without giving any one time to reply to her opening salutation. She seated herself in the low rocking-chair, Mrs. Grey's favourite seat by the window, and began divesting herself of overshoes, and a cape which she wore over her coat. Seeing Wythie glance out at the grass she immediately said: "The grass isn't damp, I suppose you think, Wythie, and it doesn't seem to be, but in October, when the leaves are falling, you can't be certain. I think most people sow the seeds of their death in the fall of the year and the spring."

"Are you feeling better, Azraella?" asked Mrs. Grey. Wythie glanced up again and noticed that Mrs. Winslow looked pale, and less equal than usual to the demands of living.

"My cold's better, Mary, but I feel weak," said Aunt Azraella, settling back in her chair, having discarded her outer shell. "I think it must have been grippish, though I didn't know it at the time. If I should pass away, Mary, would the girls go back into all black?"

"Dear me!" ejaculated Wythie involuntarily.

"Oh, Azraella, I am sure I don't know! Why do you think of such discordant things on this bright morning?" expostulated Mrs. Grey. "I am sure that you are going to live a long, long time."

"It is impossible to be sure of anything of the sort," retorted Mrs. Winslow, as though such obdurate cheerfulness annoyed her. "Human life is most uncertain. I wish you would go out of black for Sylvester Mary,--I mean solid black--this fall. White with it would be pretty, and by another year you could wear sober greys."

"We are always trying to avoid anything like sober Greys, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey with her sunny smile, while in her heart she knew that all her life she should wear the widow's garb for a loss irreparable to her, though borne cheerfully, and courageously.

"You are too young--only a little past forty--to wear black long," said Aunt Azraella, as if grief and mourning were a matter of astronomical calculation, like eclipses of the sun. "What would you do if you had my wealth, Wythie? You know you are not nearly as well off as I am."

"Quite as well off as I want to be," said Wythie contentedly. "Four thousand a year is an ideal sum for four people. Enough to make life secure, too little to give us much bother, and not enough to allow us to be idle. Really, it is just the right sum. I never have thought what I should do if I were as rich as you are, Aunt Azraella."

"Your mind seems to be travelling rapidly from one thing to another, this morning, Azraella," smiled Mrs. Grey. "Tobias' leg, mourning, money--though these latter subjects are closely connected only too often."

"And the only thing I came for was Tobias' leg," added Mrs. Winslow. "I'm getting too warm here; I'll be overheated and catch more cold. You tell Rob when she comes that my cat's limping again and won't eat, and if she wants to see him, she can. If she don't we'll chloroform him--and I guess that's best."

Mrs. Winslow arose as she spoke, but Wythie pushed her gently back into her chair and knelt to put on her aunt's overshoes. "Rob will be up, Aunt," she said. "She has a surgeon's tastes and talents."

"I wonder if that's why she and that second Rutherford boy are specially good friends?" suggested Aunt Azraella, stooping her shoulders to receive her cape. "He's going to be a doctor, isn't he?"

"Yes, Bruce is studying hard for that end; he will make a good doctor. Dr. Fairbairn says he has a marked vocation for his profession," said Mrs. Grey.

"He's a good boy," said Aunt Azraella unexpectedly, "though they are all three fine specimens. Well, send Rob, if she wants to come. Good-bye."

"No fear of her not wanting to try to relieve Tobias and give him a chance to live his exemplary life longer," said Wythie as she let her aunt out of the side door by which she had entered.

"Is this your morning at home, Mardy?" called Prue from up-stairs where she was setting the chambers straight. "Rob is coming up the hill with Cousin Peace, and Mrs. Flinders is coming in the opposite direction with Polly."

"And the boys to-night!" sighed Wythie. "I don't believe I shall get done half I meant to do."

"That sigh must have been for Mrs. Flinders; it couldn't have been for Charlotte," said her mother.

"I've brought a trophy," announced Rob, coming into the room like a western breeze, eyes dancing and cheeks reddened by the October wind.

"Dear Charlotte, you are always the most welcome!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey, her voice tenderly caressing, while Wythie wound her arm around their beloved "Cousin Peace," as her other hand unfastened her coat.

"Robin insisted that I should not be in the way, and I did want so much to come that I am afraid it didn't take strong arguments to convince me that she was right," said the blind woman. "It is always good and better to come here."

"Why there's little Polly Flinders and her mother!" exclaimed Rob. "Now I wonder what has happened!"

She went to admit these last arrivals as she spoke, and Mrs. Flinders came gauntly into the room, followed by Polly, clinging silently to her adored Rob's hand, as if she were frightened.

Mrs. Flinders seated herself on the edge of a chair and began nervously fingering the fold of the shawl in which she defied passing fashions of coats and capes. "Did you hear?" she asked. And the Greys knew that something serious had brought her to them.

"You didn't hear?" Mrs. Flinders substituted, as the Greys all shook their heads. "It happened day before yesterday. He's had a stroke and the doctor says he won't never be able to use his hands again. He can talk's good's ever, and it ain't affected his mind, but he's done with life till he dies."

"How dreadful!" murmured Mrs. Grey, struck by the dramatic form of this closing statement, and greatly shocked at the hard fate which had overtaken the farmer who for a long time had taken care of the Grey place, sharing its product with the owners.

"What--You haven't made any plans yet, I suppose, Mrs. Flinders?"

"Yes, I have. I telegraphed his brother, and he telegraphed back I could bring him on to his house in Boston and see if anything could do any good, though I don't believe there's a doctor anywheres better than Dr. Fairbairn," said the woman, disdaining to wipe away the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and thus seeming to deny their presence. "You ain't heard the worst. Here I am, been slaving and scrimping all my days--you know just how near he's always been--and getting more tired every year, and losing all my children except Maimie there, who ain't any too rugged, and the only thing that kep' me up was thinking that we was saving and putting by each year, so's if anything should happen we'd have a tidy sum to pull through on. And as soon's he was struck, and Dr. Fairbairn told him the truth about himself, according to the doctor's principles of fair dealing with his patients, and had left, he called me to him, and he up and told me what I hadn't so much as an idea of. He's been drawing that money out of the bank and buying stocks through some kind of a firm that advertised in the papers just to catch country folks, and they kep' writing he was losing, with just enough gain once in a while to egg him on, till he used up every penny we had saved, and there ain't one red cent to show for all these years! It was worrying about it that brought on the stroke, I guess--land knows it's enough to give any one one! He never dared tell me, but when he was took he didn't dare not to. Now, I ask you, Mis' Grey, if that ain't just like a near man, to save and scrape and go without act'al necessaries of life, and then be caught by a glittering humbug that promises things even Maimie had ought to know it wouldn't fulfil?"

"I am afraid it is," assented Mrs. Grey, as the flood of Mrs. Flinders' passionate eloquence paused for her reply. "It's not an unusual story, but it is none the less a tragic one. I can't tell you how sorry I am for you--and for Mr. Flinders, too; poor, deluded, stricken man!"

Mrs. Flinders swallowed what barely escaped being a great sob, and Miss Charlotte asked: "But what does it all stand for, what degree of misfortune, I mean? What are you going to do, Mrs. Flinders?"

"How am I going to live, do you mean?" asked the poor woman, turning to the compassionate face that could not see her own. "The land knows; I don't. There's no use trying to plan ahead. That's what I've been doing, and now look at what's come of it! I know I'm going to his brother's in Boston with him, and that's as far's I know."

"But Polly?" suggested Rob, clasping closer the little girl on her knee.

"Yes, that's what I was coming to, Roberta," said Mrs. Flinders, turning to Rob with an embarrassment that was at the same time relief. "I've been studying all the way here how I'd say it to you. First I thought I'd tell you the story, and ask your advice about Polly. Then I thought you'd see plain enough what I was hoping, and I ain't any hand to beat around the bush, anyway; I like straight cuts best. Polly--'s you call her--sets more by you than by any one on this earth, not excepting me and her father. You took her here that time when she was pindling away out of the world, and I guess there ain't much doubt you saved her life. Would you see your way to taking her now for a spell? I hate to ask a favour, but I don't know which way to turn."

"We should have offered to take the child if you hadn't asked, Mrs. Flinders," said Mrs. Grey quickly. "Polly isn't any more trouble than the little mouse in the wall that Kiku can never catch, because it keeps in its hole there. Of course we will take little Polly, and keep her safe as long as you want to leave her with us. We are only too glad to get her back. Polly heard the last word my dear husband spoke, and Polly sang him into his long sleep while she was singing to her dolly."

Mrs. Grey spoke very softly, and Rob's face dropped on Polly's smooth head.

Polly's care-worn mother, worn into hardness and unloveliness, broke down at this. "Oh, Lord," she said, not as an exclamation, but prayerfully, "this life is queer. Sylvester Grey took just when he was ready to live, and that poor, mean-souled, grasping man of mine throwing away the work of his whole hard life, and then struck down helpless on top of it! Well, I'm more obliged to you for your taking Maimie, and for the way you do it than I can say. I won't let her stay any longer'n I can help, but I've told you the whole story, and you can see just what my prospects are. We've got to sell our farm--'tain't valuble, but it'll bring something, if only some one wants it, and after that I've got to support him and me and Maimie, till she's old enough to do for herself."

Mrs. Flinders had risen as she spoke and the Greys arose too.

"I have told you truly that Polly is welcome for just as long a time as you care to trust her to us--weeks, months, or years. She is a dear, quiet, gentle child, and we have plenty of room to shelter her and plenty of bread and butter to nourish her till life has something better to offer her than we can give her. And you know, Mrs. Flinders, that my girls and I will give the child the same care, in body, mind, and soul that Wythie, Rob, and Prue received. You need not fear that she will not be lovingly cared for, nor feel any anxiety about her. I will do my best."

The two mothers looked into each others' eyes; one was seamed, thin, work-hardened, work-worn, the other was beautiful, calm, clear-eyed, wearing in the brave smile that illumined her face the look of one that has conquered.

Mrs. Flinders put out her hard hand without a word. Then she shook hands with Miss Charlotte, Wythie, and Rob, and took Polly's little hand to lead her away.

"I'll send her up this afternoon," she said as she walked rigidly out of the door, speaking without turning her head. "As to the rest, whatever this blow is to us, Maimie's in luck."

"Isn't that tragic?" exclaimed Rob as soon as the outside door was safely shut.

"Have you taken Polly Flinders, mama?" cried Prue, coming swiftly down the stairs. "Good-morning, Cousin Peace. Oh, dear; don't you dread having Polly?"

"Not any more than I dread the sparrows around the door, hopping about for my crumbs, nor the dozen or so of cats who come daily for our larger crumbs," replied her mother stoutly. "I love to feel that the little grey house diffuses brighter colours on darkened lives. Polly really is as quiet as the little mouse I compared her to, and it isn't a great risk to take a child who lacks so much in her own home, is it Charlotte? Polly can't lose in coming to us, having very little to lose."

"That is not overstated, Mary," said Cousin Peace quietly, and even Prue reluctantly laughed.

"Well," sighed Wythie, who had not spoken for a long time, rising as she spoke. "Well, I feel dazed. That is such a sad story that we have just heard, made sadder by the barrenness of its manner of telling! And then we have acquired a child, indefinitely, and lost a farmer most definitely. And I meant to have made a pudding for dinner, and it is altogether too late. I feel dazed. I wonder if this is to be an era of happenings? I have noticed events move in schools, like mackerel."

"I really hope, Wythie, that children aren't going to move upon us in schools, like mackerel," cried Rob, recovering her brightness of face and manner. "For our income is distinctly limited. I should have to resume my story-telling."

This was a mild family joke; Rob's story-telling always loomed in the near distance as a possibility when the warm Grey hearts led them to generosities of which their purse was not capable.

The puddingless dinner was despatched with some haste, because Wythie and Rob had cake to make to be ready for Battalion B's keen appetite, made keener by abstinence from the little grey house's cake, and Rob had to go to the rescue of Aunt Azraella's Tobias. There were preparations to be made for the coming of Polly, which had to be compromised for the immediate present by a bed in the corner of Prue's room, for the afternoon was speeding away; it was almost time for the arrival of the boys, while Polly must be quite due.

Mrs. Flinders, herself, did not bring the child. A neighbour drove her up in the dilapidated buggy in which she had arrived to make her first visit to the Greys. It did not look much more purplish and worn, nor Polly much older for the time that had passed since then, though the buggy had been in constant use, and the child had attained the great age of nine.

Miss Charlotte lingered to welcome the boys, between whom and the sweet blind woman there was the strongest affection. Polly had hardly been established before three long shadows came wavering up the eastward mounting hill of the main street, and Basil, Bruce, and Bartlemy strode over the little front gate without stopping for the ceremony of opening it, in quite their old way, and burst into the little grey house, filling it from roof to cellar with their hearty voices shouting:

"Little Grey Mother, little Grey girls, where in the little grey house are you?" this was their liturgical chant every week upon arriving.

"Here is the mother, and here are the girls. Welcome Battalion B!" chanted the girls, and the ceremony of reception was ended.

Wythie, Rob, and Prue rushed to the door each trying to be the first to open it. Three strong brown hands clasped the three held out to meet them, and the girls, laughing and chattering, the boys chattering quite as loudly, came into the quiet green and white room, filling it with youth and joy.

Mrs. Grey sprang to meet her boys, holding out both hands, her face radiating pleasure as brightly as the girls' faces did. Cousin Charlotte pressed close behind her--it was not strange that the Rutherford boys counted the hours from Monday to Friday that lay between them and their glad home-coming.

"My but it's good to get here!" ejaculated Bruce, stretching his long legs to the fire, but looking at Rob whose warm red-brown hair, flashing eyes and crimson cheeks were every whit as heartening to look upon as were the flames licking up through the great logs.

"There's no place like it--John Howard Paine was perfectly right," said Basil with quiet conviction, watching Wythie's soft hands as they cut generous slices from the afternoon's cake baking and added the cookies the tall boys had "loved from their first meeting," as Bartlemy said.

"There is no news, except that we have Polly Flinders here for a visit with no end in sight; her father is paralysed and has squandered all his money in worthless stocks," Prue was saying, in reply to Bartlemy's demand for news.

"Whew! As though that weren't news enough!" Bruce cried, sitting erect. "Fancy Flinders squandering! And paralysed, is he? The poor old fellow! He has been rather decent since your father died."

"Very decent," assented Rob. "And Hester was up, and brought her cousin Lester Baldwin, fresh from Japan. He is just like her father. And Hessie has some new longing, which I did not quite get at; something to do with helping incurable cripple children in the tenements," she continued.

"That sounds like the most interesting and sensible scheme she has had yet," said Bruce heartily. "But this cousin--You like Mr. Baldwin; did you say the Japaned cousin was like him?" And Bruce scowled melodramatically.

"Precisely," said Rob. "Only nicer."

"Come up to our other house, Basil," said Bruce. "I won't linger here!"

"We'll be back after supper," he added, relenting as the battalion filed out of the little grey house. "We must go up to look at the Caldwell house, but we'll come home here as soon as our duty is done."

"It's good to get home, Wythie," said Basil turning back on the steps, just as he spoke and just as he turned back each week at the same hour.