Chapter 51

THE GRAND-GIRLS

The click of Jane's hammer began to be heard in November, and hardly a day passed without some music from this "Forge in the Forest." Sir Tom made a permanent station of the workshop, where he spent hours in a comfortable chair, drawing nourishment from the head of his cane and pleasure from watching the girl at the anvil. I suspect that he planted himself in the corner of the forge to safeguard Jane; for he had an abiding fear that she would take fire, and he wished to be near at hand to put her out. He procured a small Babcock extinguisher and a half-dozen hand-grenades, and with these instruments he constituted himself a very efficient volunteer fire department. He made her promise, also, that she would have definite hours for heavy work, that he might be on watch; and so fond was she of his company, or rather of his presence, for he talked but little, that she kept close to the schedule.

Laura had a favorite corner in the forge, where she often turned a hem or a couplet. She was equally dexterous at either; and Sir Tom watched her, too, with an admiring eye. I once heard him say:--

"Milady Laura, it is the regret of me life that I came into the world a generation too soon."

Laura sometimes went away--she called it "going home," but we scoffed the term--and the doldrums blew until she returned. Sir Tom dined with us nearly every evening through the fall and early winter; and when he, and Kate and Tom and the grand-girls, and the Kyrles, and Laura were at Four Oaks, there was little to be desired. The grand-girls were nearly five and seven now, and they were a great help to the Headman. My terrier was no closer to my heels from morning to night than were these youngsters. They took to country life like the young animals they were, and made friends with all, from Thompson down. They must needs watch the sheep as they walked their endless way on the treadmill night and morning; they thrust their hands into hundreds of nests and placed the spoils in Sam's big baskets; they watched the calves at their patent feeders, which deceived the calves, but not the girls; they climbed into the grain bins and tobogganed on the corn; they haunted the cow-barn at milking time and wondered much; but the chiefest of their delights was the beautiful white pig which Anderson gave them. A little movable pen was provided for this favorite, and the youngsters fed it several times a day with warm milk from a nursing-bottle, like any other motherless child. The pig loved its foster-mothers, and squealed for them most of the time when it was not eating or sleeping; fortunately, a pig can do much of both. It grew playful and intelligent, and took on strange little human ways which made one wonder if Darwin were right in his conclusion that we are all ascended from the ape. I have seen features and traits of character so distinctly piggish as to rouse my suspicions that the genealogical line is not free from a cross of _sus scrofa_. The pig grew in stature and in wisdom, but not in grace, from day to day, until it threatened to dominate the place. However, it was lost during the absence of its friends,--to be replaced by a younger one at the next visit.

"Do _your_ pigs get lost when you are away?" asked No. 1.

"Not often, dear."

"It's only pet pigs that runds away," said No. 2, "and I don't care, for it rooted me."

The pet pig is still a favorite with the grand-girls, but it always runs away in the fall.

Kate loved to come to Four Oaks, and she spent so much time there that she often said:--

"We have no right to that $1200; we spend four times as much time here as you all do in town."

"That's all right daughter, but I wish you would spend twice as much time here as you do, and I also wish that the $1200 were twice as much as it is."

Time was running so smoothly with us that we "knocked on wood" each morning for fear our luck would break.

The cottage which had once served as a temporary granary, and which had been moved to the building line two years before, was now turned into an overflow house against the time when Jack should come home for the winter vacation. Polly had decided to have "just as many as we can hold, and some more," and as the heaviest duties fell upon her, the rest of us could hardly find fault. The partitions were torn out of the cottage, and it was opened up into one room, except for the kitchen, which was turned into a bath-room. Six single iron beds were put up, and the place was made comfortable by an old-fashioned, air-tight, sheet-iron stove with a great hole in the top through which big chunks and knots of wood were fed. This stove would keep fire all night, and, while not up to latter-day demands, it was quite satisfactory to the warm-blooded boys who used it. The expense of overhauling the cottage was $214. Tom, Kate, and the grand-girls were to be with us, of course, and so were the Kyrles, Sir Tom, Jessie Gordon, Florence, Madeline, and Alice Chase. Jack was to bring Jarvis and two other men besides Frank and Phil of last year's party.

The six boys were bestowed in the cottage, where they made merry without seriously interrupting sleep in the main house. The others found comfortable quarters under our roof, except Sir Tom, who would go home some time in the night, to return before lunch the next day.

With such a houseful of people, the cook was worked to the bone; but she gloried in it, and cackled harder than ever. I believe she gave warning twice during those ten days; but Polly has a way with her which Mary cannot resist. I do not think we could have driven that cook out of the house with a club when there was such an opportunity for her to distinguish herself. Her warnings were simply matters of habit.

The holidays were filled with such things as a congenial country house-party can furnish--the wholesomest, jolliest things in the world; and the end, when it came, was regretted by all. I grew to feel a little bit jealous of Jarvis's attentions to Jane, for they looked serious, and she was not made unhappy by them. Jarvis was all that was honest and manly, but I could not think of giving up Jane, even to the best of fellows. I wanted her for my old age. I suspect that a loving father can dig deeper into the mud of selfishness than any other man, and yet feel all the time that he is doing God service. It is in accord with nature that a daughter should take the bit in her teeth and bolt away from this restraining selfishness, but the man who is left by the roadside cannot always see it in that light.