Part 1

Chapter 14,104 wordsPublic domain

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THOSE BREWSTER CHILDREN

FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY

Author of "The Singular Miss Smith," "And So They Were Married," etc.

With Illustrations by Emily Hall Chamberlain

New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1910

Published, March, 1910

ILLUSTRATIONS

The occasion was not wholly barren of material for a trained psychologist (page 56) _Frontispiece_

"Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice _Facing page_ 146

"She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings" " " 182

Elizabeth Brewster sat by the window of her sewing-room in the fading light of the winter afternoon. She had been straining her eyes a little over her work and the intent look did not leave them as she glanced out into the gathering dusk. She could see all three of the children at their play on the lawn. Carroll, tall and sturdy for his eight years; Doris slim and active, her reddish blond hair streaming out from under her hood and blowing about her eager little face, and three-year-old Baby Richard, toiling manfully to keep up with the others as they piled damp snow-balls into the rude semblance of a human figure.

"Darlings!" murmured the mother to herself, a happy light seemingly reflected from the red winter sunset shining on her face. She raised the sash a hand's breadth and called to them, "Come in now, children; it is growing too cold for Richard to stay out any longer."

She glanced regretfully at her unfinished sewing as she rose, gathering up thread, scissors and thimble with the absent-minded carefulness born of long habit. Something was scorching on the kitchen range, she feared, a well-founded distrust of the heavy-handed Norwegian maid hastening her steps down the precipitous back stairway.

The range was heated to redness, and several saucepans huddled together over the hottest place were bubbling furiously. Celia, the maid, was setting the table in the dining-room, with slow, meditative motions like those of an ox. She did not appear at all disturbed at sight of her mistress hurriedly dashing water into one of the utensils, from which arose an evil-smelling steam.

"Oh, Celia! how many times must I tell you to cook the vegetables in plenty of water?" demanded Mrs. Brewster, in despairing tones. "And look! your fire is almost up to the griddles. Have you shaken it down this afternoon?"

The girl shook her big head with its untidy braids of straw-coloured hair. "Naw!" she observed explosively, after a pause filled with the noise of descending ashes.

"You should say 'no, Mrs. Brewster,' or 'no, ma'am,'" her mistress said, with an obvious effort after self-control. "Try not to forget again, Celia. Now you may go up to your room and make yourself tidy before you finish dinner."

The girl obeyed with the heavy, lurching steps of one crossing a ploughed field. Elizabeth, hurriedly opening doors and windows to the frosty sunset caught sight of her three children still busy about their snow image.

"Carroll, dear!" she called, "didn't you hear mother when she told you to come in?"

The boy turned his handsome head. "Yes, mother; I did hear you," he said, earnestly, "an' I told Doris to go straight into the house an' bring Richard; but she wouldn't go. I had to finish this first, you see, 'cause I've planned----"

"Come in now," interrupted his mother, forestalling the detailed explanation sure to follow. "Come in at once!"

The boy dropped the snow-shovel with which he was carefully shaping the base of his image. "Don't you hear mother, Doris?" he demanded in a clear, authoritative voice. "You must go right in this minute an' take Buddy."

The little girl thrust out the tip of a saucy pink tongue at her brother.

"Mother said you too, Carroll Brewster; you don't have to tell me an' Buddy. Does he, mother?"

"Carroll! Doris!"

There was no mistaking the tone of the mother's voice. The baby, suddenly conscious of cold fingers and tingling toes, ran toward her with a whining cry, his short arms outstretched. The others followed slowly, exchanging mutinous glances.

"Carroll is always trying to make me an' Buddy mind him; but we won't," observed Doris, emphatically kicking her overshoes across the floor.

"All three of you should obey mother every time," chanted Elizabeth in the weary tone of an oft-repeated admonition. She sighed as she added, "It is very naughty to argue and dispute."

"But you see, mother, I'm the oldest," began Carroll argumentatively, "an' I generally know what the children ought to do just as well as anybody."

He hung up his hat and coat and set his overshoes primly side by side with a rebuking glance at his small sister, who tossed her mane of hair at him disdainfully.

"I see you've forgotten what mother said about overshoes, Doris," he whispered with an air of superior merit which appeared to exasperate the little girl beyond endurance. She leaned forward suddenly and a piercing squeal from the boy announced the fact that virtue frequently reaps an unexpected reward.

"Doris pinched my ear hard, mother," he explained, winking fast to keep back the unmanly tears. "I didn't even touch her."

Elizabeth looked up from kissing and cuddling her baby. "Oh, Doris dear; how could you! Don't you love your little brother?"

The little girl flattened herself against the newel-post, her brown eyes full of warm, dancing lights. "Sometimes I do, mother," she said, with an air of engaging candour; "an' sometimes I feel jus'--like biting him!"

Elizabeth surveyed her daughter with large eyes of pained astonishment.

"You make mother very sorry when you say such naughty things, Doris," she said, severely. "Hang up your coat and hood; then you must go up-stairs to your room and stay till I call you."

In the half hour that followed Elizabeth gave her youngest his supper of bread and milk and hurried him off to bed, endeavouring in the meanwhile to keep a watchful eye upon the operations of the heavy-handed Celia, now irreproachable in a freshly starched cap and apron, and an attentive ear for Carroll practicing scales and exercises in the parlour. Later there was a salad to make, which involved the skilful compounding of a French dressing, and last of all a hurried freshening of her own toilet before the quick opening of the front door announced the advent of the head of the house.

Elizabeth was fastening her collar with fingers which trembled a little with the strain of her multiplied activities, when she heard her husband's voice upraised in joyous greetings to the children. "Hello there, Carroll, old man! And daddy's little girl, too!"

She had entirely forgotten Doris, and that young person had quite evidently escaped from durance vile into the safe shelter of her father's arms. After all, it was a small matter, Elizabeth assured herself; and Sam disliked tears and unpleasantness during the hours, few and short, he could spend with the children. Promising herself that she would talk seriously with the small offender at bed-time she ran down stairs to receive her own greeting, none the less prized and longed for after ten years of married life.

Her husband's eyes met her own with a smile. "Betty--dear!" he whispered, passing his arm about her shoulders. Doris from the other side peered around at her mother, her bright eyes full of laughing triumph.

"If I'm not very much mistaken," her father said mysteriously, "there's something in my coat pocket for good children."

Doris instantly joined her brother in a race for the highly desirable pocket, and the two were presently engaged in an amicable division of the spoils.

"You mustn't eat any candy till after dinner, children," warned Elizabeth.

Doris had already set her sharp white teeth in a bonbon, when her father's hand interposed. "Hold hard, there, youngsters," he said; "you heard the order of the court; no candy till after dinner."

"Just this one, daddy," pouted Doris. "I think I might." She swallowed it quickly and reached for another.

"Not till after dinner, young lady," and the pasteboard box was lifted high out of reach of small exploring fingers.

"Oh, Sam, why will you persist in bringing home candy?" Elizabeth asked, with a sort of tired indulgence in her voice. "You know they oughtn't to have it."

"I forgot, Betty. Please, ma'am, will you 'xcuse me, just this once--if I'll never do it again?"

His upraised hands and appealing eyes were irresistibly funny. Elizabeth laughed helplessly, and the children rolled on the floor in an ecstasy of mirth.

When presently all trooped out to dinner neither parent observed Doris as she nibbled a second bonbon.

"Oh-o-o! You naughty girl!" whispered Carroll enviously. "Where did you get that?"

"Out of the box," replied the small maiden, with a toss of her yellow head. "Um-m, it's good; don't you wish you had some?"

"Mother said----"

"Don't talk so loud; I'll give you half!"

"It's most all gone now. I'll tell mother, if you don't give me all the rest." And the boy reached masterfully for the coveted morsel.

"You're such a rude child you oughtn't to have any," observed Doris, nonchalantly bestowing the debatable dainty in her own mouth. "If you tell, I'll call you 'tattle-tale'!" she said thickly; "then the' won't either of us get any."

Carroll scowled fiercely at this undeniable statement. His father did not encourage unmanly reprisals.

"You're an awful selfish child, Doris," he said reproachfully, "an' that's worse 'an being rude; mother said so. It's worser 'an anything to be selfish. _I_ wouldn't do it; guess I wouldn't!"

"I am not selfish!"

"You are, too!"

"_Chil--dren!_"

Their mother's vaguely admonitory voice caused the belligerents to slip meekly enough into their respective seats. They were hungry, and the soup smelled good. But their eyes and explorative toes continued the skirmish in a spirited manner.

"I had a letter from Evelyn Tripp to-day," Elizabeth was saying, as she fastened the children's long linen bibs. "----Sit up straight in your chair, Doris, and stop wriggling."

Sam Brewster cast an admonitory eye upon his son. "Evelyn Tripp!" he echoed, "I haven't heard you mention the lady in a long time."

"You know they left Boston last year and I hardly ever see her now-a-days. Poor Evelyn!"

"It is too bad," he said with mock solicitude. "Now, if you hardly ever saw me it would be 'poor Sam,' I suppose."

"The Tripps lost most of their money," she went on, ignoring his frivolous comment; "then they moved to Dorchester."

He helped himself to more soup with a reminiscent smile. "Worse luck for Dorchester," he murmured.

"Why, Sam," she said reprovingly. "Of course Evelyn was--Evelyn; but she was as kind as could be just after we were married, and before, too. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes; I remember perfectly. We were pawns on the chess-board in Miss Tripp's skilful hands for awhile," he agreed drily. "She's a Napoleon, a--er--Captain of Industry, a----"

"Please don't, Sam," interrupted Elizabeth. "Poor Evelyn has been very unfortunate, and I'm sorry for her. She--wants to come and make us a visit, and I----"

An appalling thump and a smothered squeal marked the spot where, at this crucial point in the conversation, Doris suddenly disappeared from view. Her father stooped to peer under the cloth.

"Will you kindly tell me what you were trying to do, Doris?" he demanded, as he fished his daughter out from under the table in a more or less dishevelled condition.

"It was Carroll's fault, daddy," replied the child. "He kicked me under the table, an' course I was 'bliged to kick him back; an' I did it!"

Her air of sparkling triumph provoked a smile from her father; but Elizabeth looked grave.

"I really think," she said, "that Doris ought to go upstairs without dessert. You know, Doris, you disobeyed mother when you came down without leave."

The little girl's eyes flashed angry fire. "Carroll kicked me first," she pouted, "an' I couldn't reach him; he wasn't fair 'cause he got 'way back in his chair on purpose; you know you did, Carroll Brewster!"

Elizabeth turned judicially to her son.

"No, mother," explained the boy, "I didn't really kick Doris; I just put out my toe and poked her,--just a small, soft poke; you know it didn't hurt, Doris; but I did squeeze back in my chair so you couldn't reach me." His candid blue eyes, so like his father's, looked full into hers.

"Well, in view of the evidence, I propose that you suspend sentence, Betty, and let them both off," put in the head of the house. "You'll be a good girl and keep your toes under your chair, won't you, Dorry?"

"Yes, daddy, I will," promised the little girl, gazing up at her father from under her curved lashes with the dimpled sweetness of a youthful seraph. "I do love you so, daddy," she cooed gently. "I feel just like kissing you!"

Her father caught the child in his arms and pressed half a dozen kisses on her rosy cheeks before depositing her in her chair. "Remember, girlie, you must be as quiet as a mouse or your mother will whisk you off to bed before you can say Jack Robinson." He cast a laughing glance across the table at his wife. "You see we all stand in proper awe of you, my dear!"

"Oh, Sam!" murmured Elizabeth reprovingly; but she laughed with the children.

When the militant young Brewsters were at last safely bestowed in bed, Elizabeth sank into her low chair with an involuntary sigh of relief--or fatigue, she hardly knew which.

"Tired, dear?" asked her husband, glancing up from his paper. "I suppose you've put in a pretty hard day breaking in the foreigner. But you're doing wonders. The dinner wasn't half bad, and the mechanic didn't break a single dish in the process; at least I didn't hear the usual crash from the rear."

She smiled back at him remotely. She did not think it worth while to report the scorched potatoes, or the broken platter belonging to her best set of dishes.

"I was thinking about Doris," she said.

Her husband's eyes lighted with a reminiscent smile. "Little monkey!" he exclaimed. "She slid down the banisters like a streak of lightning and flew into my arms before I had time to take off my overcoat. She said she was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me to come. Not many children think enough about seeing their old daddy to sit on the stairs in the dark!"

"I'm really sorry to undeceive you, Sam; but I had sent that child up to her room, and told her to stay there till I called her!" Elizabeth informed him crisply.

"Wherefore the incarceration, O lady mother?"

"She was very naughty, Sam; she pinched Carroll, and when I reproved her for doing it, she said she felt like biting him. Think of that! Of course I had to do something."

"What had Carroll done to provoke the cannibalistic desire on the part of the young woman?" he wanted to know, with judicial calm.

"Nothing at all, except to remind Doris to hang up her coat and put her overshoes away, as I've told them both to do repeatedly."

His mouth twitched with an amused smile. "And Dorry punished him promptly for his display of superior virtue--eh? Well, it may be very much out of order for a mere father to say so, but I'll venture to express the opinion that it won't hurt Master Carroll to get an occasional snubbing from somebody. He's a good deal of a prig, Betty, and it's got to come out of him some way or other between now and his Sophomore year in college. Better not interfere too often, my dear. Let 'em work it out; it won't hurt either of 'em."

His wife surveyed him with wide, sad eyes. "Oh, Sam!" she murmured, "how can you talk like that? Carroll tries to be a good boy and help me all he can. But Doris----"

"Don't you worry about the little girl," advised her husband, laying a soothing hand on hers. "She's all right."

"She ought not to quarrel with the other children; or disobey me. You know that, Sam."

"Of course not. You'll have to make her toe the mark, Betty."

"But how, Sam? I've tried. I'm positively worn out trying."

The man pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. "Upon my word, Betty," he broke out at length, "I don't know as I can tell you. We don't stand for whipping, you know. Beating small children always struck me as being a relic of the dark ages; and I know I could never stand it to see a child of mine cower before me out of physical fear. But we mustn't spoil 'em!"

"Marian Stanford whips Robbie every time he disobeys," Elizabeth said after a lengthening pause. "She uses a butter-paddle--the kind I make those little round balls with; you know it has a corrugated surface. She says it is just the thing; it hurts so nicely. But I'm sure Robbie Stanford is far naughtier than Carroll ever thinks of being."

Her husband broke into a helpless laugh which he promptly repressed at sight of her indignant face.

"You oughtn't to laugh, Sam," she told him, in a tone of dignified reproof. "You may not think it very important--all this about the children; but it is. It is the most important thing in the world. Even Marian Stanford says----"

"Why do you discuss the subject with her?" interrupted Sam. "You'll never agree; and whatever we do with our own children, we mustn't force our views on other people."

She surveyed him with a mutinous expression about her pretty lips. "Marian doesn't hesitate to criticise my methods," she said. "The last time I saw her she informed me that she had whipped her baby--only think, Sam, her _baby_!"

"Did she use the butter-paddle on the unfortunate infant?" he wanted to know, with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows; "or was it a spanking _au naturel_?"

Elizabeth repressed his levity with a frown. "I wonder at you, Sam, for thinking there's anything funny about it," she said rebukingly. "I didn't feel at all like laughing when she said--with such a superior air--'Livingstone's been getting altogether too much for me lately, and this morning I took the paddle to him and whipped him soundly. He was the most surprised child you ever saw!' Of course I didn't _say_ anything. What could I have said? But I must have looked what I felt, for she burst out laughing. 'Dear, dear!' she said, 'how indignant you do look; but I intend to have _my_ children mind me.' Then she glanced at Richard peacefully pulling the spools out of my basket as if she pitied him for having such a fond, weak mother as to allow it."

Sam Brewster rumpled his hair with a smothered yawn. "Marian is certainly a strenuous lady," he murmured. "But let me advise you, Betty, not to discuss family discipline with her, if you wish to preserve peaceful relations between the families. The illegitimate use of the Stanford butter-paddle is nothing to us, you know.--Er--you were telling me about the letter you had from the fair Evelyn," he went on pacifically, "and did my ears deceive me? or did you intimate that our dear friend Miss Tripp was coming to spend the day with us soon?"

"To spend the day!" echoed Elizabeth. "She's coming to stay two weeks. I had to ask her, Sam," she added, quickly forestalling his dismayed protest; "she is obliged to be in town interviewing lawyers and people, and I did want to do something to help her. Sam, she thinks she may be obliged to teach, or do something; but she isn't up on anything, and I don't believe she could possibly get any sort of a position."

"Betty, you're a good little woman," he said, beaming humorously upon her; "and I never felt more convinced of the fact than I do this minute. I'm game, though; I'll do everything I can to help in my small, weak way."

Elizabeth gazed at her husband with wide, meditative eyes. "I do wish," she said devoutly, "that Evelyn could meet some nice, suitable man. She's really very attractive--you know she is, Sam--and it would solve all her problems so beautifully."

"How would Hickey do?" he inquired lazily. "George is forty, if not fat and fair; and he's a thoroughly good fellow."

III

Elizabeth Brewster had been awake in the night, as was her custom, making her noiseless rounds of the children's beds by the dim light of a candle. A cold wind had sprung up, with driving snow and sleet, and she feared its incursion into her nursery. Daylight found her in the kitchen superintending the slow movements of Celia, who upset the coffee-pot, dropped a soft-boiled egg on the hearth and stumbled over her untied shoe-strings in her untutored efforts to assist.

Close upon the hurried departure of her husband to his office in a distant part of the city, came the sound of small feet and voices from above. With Sam's kiss still warm on her lips she ran lightly upstairs. Carroll, partly dressed, stood before the mirror brushing his hair, in funny imitation of his father's careful manner of accomplishing that necessary process; while Doris scampered wildly about in her night-gown, her small bare feet pink with cold.

"I wanted to see my daddy," she pouted, as her mother remonstrated. "I wanted to tell him somesing."

"You can tell him to-night, girlie.--Yes, baby; in just a minute!" Elizabeth's fingers were flying as she pulled on the little girl's warm stockings and buttoned her shoes. "Now then, kittykins, slip into your warm dressing-gown and see how nicely you can brush your teeth, while mother--What is it, Carroll? Oh, a button off? Well, I'll sew it on. Give Buddy his picture-book.--Yes, pet; mother knows you're hungry; you shall have breakfast in just a minute. See the pretty pictures.--That's right, Carroll, my work-basket. Now stand still while I--Oh, Doris dear! Did you drop the glass?"

"It was all slippy, mother, an' I couldn't hold it. It's on the floor, mother, all in teeny, weeny pieces!"

"Don't step on them! Wait, I'll sweep up the pieces.--Yes, baby, mother hears you! See the pretty picture of the little pigs! Those nice little pigs aren't crying!--Wait, Carroll, till mother fastens the thread. There, that's done! Now put the basket--What is it, Doris? Oh, poor little girl; you've cut your finger. Don't cry! But you see you should have minded mother and not touched the broken glass. Now we'll tie it up in this nice soft cloth, and----

"Yes, Celia; what is it? Oh, the butcher? Well, let me think--We had beefsteak last night. Tell him to bring chops--nice ones; not like the last.--Oh, I must run down and speak to that boy; he's so careless with the orders! Tell him to wait a minute, Celia.--Carroll, won't you show baby his pictures and keep him quiet till I--No, Doris; you mustn't touch that bottle; that is father's bay-rum. Put it down, quick!"

The meddlesome little fingers let go the bottle with a jerk. It fell to the floor, its fragrant contents pouring over the carpet. "Oh, you naughty child! What will mother do with you? All of daddy's nice--Yes, Celia; I hear you. I am coming directly. I must wipe up this--He says he can't wait? Well, tell him to bring two pounds of nice lamb chops--rib chops. If they are like the last ones he brought tell him I shall send them right back.

"Now, Doris, I want you to look at mother. Why did you climb up in that chair and pull the cork out of the bottle, when I've told you never to meddle with the things on the chiffonière?"

"I should think that child would know better after a while," put in Carroll, with the solemn air of an octogenarian grandfather. "You ought to have remembered the salad oil last week, Doris, and the ink the week before!"