Part 15

The sisters looked on, laughing and delighted. For just so those two had teased and scolded and played together, since they were big enough to play, and to see it all go on again in the old fashion was too good for anything. Of the subtile difference that had crept in, their young eyes took no note. And Cherry herself tried hard to ignore it, laughing with the rest, and very well holding her own, but dimly conscious all the while that things she would have ventured once, she did not venture now.

"Boy, why do you tie that string round your neck?" said Rose. "Have you forgotten how aprons are worn?"

"A lost art. But this is the improved style, which I mean to introduce at West Point. I cannot see how the Tactical Department has overlooked aprons so long. We're too young to know when to wear overcoats, so aprons to keep our trousers clean would be just the thing. I'll introduce them."

"When you go back, I suppose," said Rose sarcastically. "I'll lend you mine for a pattern."

"When I go back as Com.," Magnus answered with dignity. "When I am Com. and Cherry is Supe. _then_ you'll see."

"You could see now, if you would look," said Cherry, as a podful of peas rolled down the step.

"I am looking with all my eyes.--And they dare to call you a summer girl!" Magnus broke forth, watching the lovely pink cloud of colour that came and went with such swift changes.

"Will you _please_ tell us what a summer girl is like?" said Violet. "She has danced about a good deal in your letters, but we everyday people don't know what she is. Come, boy, describe her."

"Her!" Magnus repeated. "She is to the full as plural as she is singular."

"Many of them at West Point, are there?" said Rose.

"Car loads; stunning, too, as they can be, some of them. Take your breath away. Say, girls, where's the old banjo? In existence yet?"

"Oh, dear, yes," said Rose. "Only no one has played it since you went away."

"And it is here, too," said Violet. "Mother made us bring it this morning, because she was sure Mr. Erskine would like to hear you sing."

Magnus laughed.

"Thought he couldn't wait until to-morrow," he said. "Or knew _she_ couldn't. Mammy hasn't changed, that is plain. But I shall sing to Miss Erskine first. About her namesake--and some other things."

He jumped up and went for the banjo, placing himself then in the doorway where he could look down upon Cherry. She had put away the peas, and now had in her hand a bowl of yellow cream, which she was softly beating to a stiff froth. The other girls had finished their berries, and sat near her on the steps. Beyond, the honey bees hummed over clover and mignonette, the little brook tinkled along unseen. Behind him, Magnus could hear the pleasant murmur of the talk that went on within the house. Then a cow lifted up her voice and gave a long, plaintive moo, and a wren under the eaves poured out new tidings of the wealth that came to her every five minutes. Magnus leaned back his head against the doorpost and listened.

"That bird sings for all she is worth," he said. It took such hold of him; the sweet home air and sounds and sunshine, the two dear girls watching him with their loving admiration, and the yet dearer, whose bent-down face told more than she meant it should, the sights and scents from hayfields and hills--it came upon Magnus Kindred like a spell. And as with it all mingled in the echoes of music from the graduating parade, he struck a few notes on the old banjo, and then sang out from the depths of his heart:

"Home, home! Sweet, sweet home, O there's no place like home! There is no place like home."

Cadet Kindred had by nature a rather rarely fine voice. Art had indeed never tutored nor trained it, but it was one of those voices which can never by possibility sing out of tune or time, and in the two years he had been away, exercise and growth had both strengthened and sweetened it; a sort of revelation now to the listening girls.

The two sisters gazed at him as if nobody had ever sung before; Cherry's beater went slower and softer, then stopped, and the girl sat in breathless listening; until her lips began to tremble, and there came such a surge of sorrow and sympathy and delight in the music, and--and--everything else; that Cherry laid one hand upon her breast as if to quiet and keep it down, and at first dared not look at the singer, and then could not take her eyes away.

As for Magnus, he had thrown himself into the music, as was his wont, being for the time all rapt and unconscious of other things. From "Sweet Home" to "Lang Syne"--back and forth as the band had done--so went the voice, and it was not until the words woke up some special association that Magnus took note of the sweet, pitiful eyes that were fixed on him. The other girls had pulled out their handkerchiefs.

"We twa hae paidlet in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But we've wandered mony a weary fit, Sen auld lang syne."

"That is just what we did, Cerise--do you remember? And just what I have done, since."

"But oh, Magnus!" she cried, "were you so homesick as that?"

"Homesick? Your blue apron is rose-colour to it."

"I am glad we did not know," Cherry said with a long breath, beginning slowly to beat her cream. "You were very good not to tell."

"And did nobody help you or speak to you?" questioned the two young sisters, coming up nearer to sit at his feet.

"I had help enough," said Magnus, softly twanging the strings of his banjo. "Everybody from the Com. to the third-class corporals bade me brace up. And if I wanted a lonely walk in the open air on Saturday, I had only to wear my hair long and dishevelled as a sign of grief, and they'd give to me without asking. And if I dead-beat and went to the Hospital to get a chance to mope a little, Dr. Pestle would give me some compound to _make_ me sick, lest I should lose my time and be down there for nothing. The Tacs were so afraid I should 'wet my couch with briny tears' that they made me keep the old thing tight rolled up till bed time. I was too tired to cry, then."

"Queer help," said Rose.

"The best that could be, Rosy. They made me mad, and then I was all right."

"I should call that poor comfort," said Violet.

"Nothing like it, however," said Magnus. "Dries up your feelings quicker than fourteen pocket-handkerchiefs. You owe the world one, and you mean to live till you pay it. So suicide can wait."

"Magnus, I wish you would not talk so," Cherry said appealingly.

"Now there is Cerise," Magnus went on. "If I could once make her thoroughly angry with me, she wouldn't mind anything else that happened. The thing is how. I haven't found out yet."

"And you never will," said Rose. "You cannot do it."

"I cannot, hey? That is good to know. Gives me great freedom of action. I'll store up the information for future use."

"What makes you call her Cerise?" said Rose.

"Practising my French. Of course I never thought of her in common English when I was away."

"Cherry, he cannot be with you five minutes without beginning to tease," said the girls, laughing. "He is the very same boy he always was."

"I think he has made good progress in the art of telling fibs," said Cherry in turn.

"Fibs!" Magnus repeated, with much unworded scorn. "You'll see about that. I mean to tell the truth while I am home now, if I never do again." And with the most funny, rollicking tone Mr. Kindred caught up his banjo and dashed off into "The Girl I Left Behind Me"; rattling it out, throwing in recitative here and there, and putting such spirit and vim into the performance that now the girls all laughed till they nearly cried again; but this time Cherry kept her eyes on her cream.

Then quick and easily as the band had done, Magnus dropped once more into the plaintive burden of:

"Home, home; sweet, sweet home; There is no place like home,-- There is no place like home."

But now, when he stopped playing, his two sisters came round him caressing him, hanging upon him, and even Mrs. Kindred looked in from the other room and said:

"Magnus, don't play that any more. You break my heart. I shall never be able to let you go back again."

Magnus laid the banjo aside.

"Don't fret now, mammy," he said. "It has been pretty tough, but the worst is over."

XXX

A MORNING TALK

Hope rules a land forever green: All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen Are confident and gay. Clouds at her bidding disappear; Points she to aught? The bliss draws near, And fancy rules the way.

--WORDSWORTH.

That was a wonderful day. But it may be remarked, that Mr. Kindred went home more than ever discontented with the length of the hill.

"Living up there," he said, "when we are all down here. It is too bad. How many times a month does Cherry walk down here in the sun?"

"She need not walk in the sun," said the girls, laughing at him. "There is shade all the way if she wants it. Why, she comes every day, you foolish boy."

"At what hour, generally, you foolish girl?"

"Oh, all sorts of times," said Violet; "after breakfast, and before dinner, and after tea. But they are both coming down to-day to dine with us."

"I think I will just go up and make sure they understand that," said Magnus. "Cherry does not always take up an idea as quick as she might."

And away he dashed out of the house and began to double-time it up the hill, the three women at home watching from the window in admiring joy.

"He is the best looking fellow that ever was," said Rose. And the mother answered as Cherry had done:

"Yes, but do not tell him so."

Then the girls laughed.

"Oh, mother," they cried, "you do it, every time you look at him."

Magnus meanwhile sped lightly up the hill. He had his reasons for liking to go at this particular time; the picture yesterday was too lovely for him not to long to see it again, and it might be that Cherry read to her father every morning. Then what was the book? Cherry had closed it so suddenly upon his coming, that he caught no glimpse of the inside; but the outside stirred his curiosity. It was an old book, bound in the dainty old-time vellum, once marked and embossed with gold; but that was much faded and worn away. It did not look like a Bible, and yet that, Magnus felt, was the correct thing for Cherry--such a girl as she was--to be reading to her father at breakfast time. Other people's duties are marked out in such very distinct lines that even colour blindness is rarely doubtful over them.

But no murmur of voices met him, as he paused at the front door; and something warned him to go quietly round the house to the steps that ran down into the garden. And sure enough, he had his picture, but a different one this time.

A little white-covered tray on the upper step held bread and milk and berries, and on the step below sat Cherry, with a book in her lap. She jumped up at the sound of his footfall, and put the book away, coming back instantly to her place.

"Mr. Erskine out?" Magnus asked, as he took position at her feet.

"Oh, no, not out. It is one of the days when that old bullet wound gives so much trouble that the best thing is to keep quite still."

"You don't read to him, such days?"

"He has had the reading--and he had his breakfast," said Cherry; "but he made me come down and take mine in the fresh air."

"And instead of doing it, you fall to reading again," said Magnus, reaching up his hand to the milk pitcher and filling her glass. "Please to begin at once."

"Please to have some too, then. There are more strawberries on the table inside."

"Two breakfasts to-day, against some other morning when I shall have none," said Magnus. "What are you waiting for? Something else I should get?" For Cherry sat lingering, and had not touched her spoon.

"Well?" Magnus repeated, watching her. He had a spoonful of berries on the way to his mouth, and still her hands had not stirred.

"But Magnus--you haven't--will you ask the blessing?" Cherry said.

The berries came down with a rush.

"Go on," he said, with an odd change in his voice. And Cherry bent her head and spoke the few sweet words as simply and gladly as if they were but a breath of native air. Magnus was stirred more than he cared to own.

"Heaven and earth come pretty close together where you are," he broke out, eating his berries and forgetting the sugar.

"Where anybody is," said Cherry. "Heaven must be near when the Lord is close by, 'with you,' and 'at your right hand.'"

She was all changed this morning; so quiet, so self-possessed.

"Well, you see," Magnus went on impulsively, "one gets out of practice. I've not heard a blessing asked for two years, till I came home. Except when mother and I had our picnic."

"Not in your Mess Hall?"

"Well, I should say not!"

"But, Magnus----"

"What?"

"You can always ask one silently for yourself."

Magnus gave a long groan.

"I believe your flag is sixty feet long," he said. "What do you suppose the other three hundred men would say to me?"

"I do not know."

"Not care, I dare say. Well, to begin, they'd give me a silence, just as like as not."

"A _what_?"

"A silence. That's what we give a Tac who oversteps bounds, or a party of women who are brought in to see the animals feed. There's a universal din up to that moment, and then every man drops his knife and fork, stops his tongue, and looks. You don't know what silence means till you've heard that."

"What a very queer custom! And that is what they might do to you? But it could not last long, I suppose, because they would have to eat their breakfast."

"No, it would not last long!" said Magnus ironically. "First Rig begins: 'Hello, Kin! Most through? Lose your breakfast?' And Crane: 'Say, Kin! Come and bless what's left on our table.' And Crinkem would yell: 'Shut up, and let him alone! He's praying for strength to eat the steak.'"

The girl's colour flitted back and forth as he spoke; then her eyes lighted up.

"It does not sound pleasant," she said; "but Magnus, if I were you, I think I would try it."

"I don't doubt you would," said Magnus, thinking his own thoughts. "Sixty feet long in all weathers. But Cerise, besides all that, there isn't time. We have but just so many minutes for breakfast, anyhow; and while I had my eyes shut, somebody else might get my roll. No great gain, but still a loss."

"That would be very sad," said Cherry, with a comical smile. "But then, you would enjoy the rest so much better. Magnus," she went on seriously, "did you ever think how many faint-hearted Christians there may be in the crowd who would take courage from you to do right?"

"And so help me face the silence?"

"It is grand to face wrong things for right reasons!" said Cherry, her eyes like two opals, showing their hidden fire. "'And they departed from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.'"

Magnus looked at her.

"Yes, talk to me," he said. "I want all the talking to I can get. But I can tell you, Cerise--do you mind my calling you so?"--he broke off abruptly.

"Why, no," the girl answered. "It does not sound quite natural."

"Not like old times--no, of course not. Well, would you like Chérie better? I think I should," said Mr. Kindred, watching the pink tinges with a delightful sense of having the reins in his own hands again. "It is more closely descriptive, and just as good for my French."

"You are without question the most absurd boy this side of West Point!" said Cherry. "Have you emptied your strawberry basket? I must put these things away."

"We must, indeed," said Magnus, handling dishes and bearing them off into the house. "You know I have come to take you back with me?"

"Have you! It might have been wise--not to say civil--to state that before."

"But I don't want to go," said Magnus. "I'd rather have you all to myself here."

"Well, will you please stop practising your favourite wave motion, and keep out of my way?" said Cherry, much hindered in her progress by finding Magnus before her at every turn.

"Haven't studied it yet,--so there. Now, Cherry, you surely did not mind what I said about wave motion?"

"Why should I mind?"

"I mean what I said about women's not needing to learn it."

"If all the men understand it through and through, that might leave the women free for other work," said Cherry critically, as if she were weighing the case.

"Ah!" said Magnus; "now you are beginning to talk like yourself. I haven't half known you since I came home. Tease away, ma Chérie."

"Magnus, don't you want to run upstairs and get papa's tray? He must be done with it by this time."

"Why, of course," said Cadet Kindred. "Only--this is the second time you have sent me to him,--and as I remarked the other night----"

"I declare!" Cherry exclaimed, giving him a good sight of the fire sparks. But then she turned and darted away up some back staircase so fleetly and softly that he could not even tell by which way she had gone. And when the pursuer by ordinary routes had reached the room, Cherry was in calm conversation with her father.

Mr. Erskine was sitting by the window, and certainly looked rather surprised at the headlong style in which Magnus rushed in; but smiled and shook hands very cordially.

"Cherry sent me to get your tray, sir," the young man explained; "and she was so high-strung over my seeming hesitation that, after that, I stumbled upstairs as fast as I could."

"I see--chaffing each other as usual," said Mr. Erskine.

"Papa," Cherry put in, safely ensconced now behind her father and her work basket, "you must not believe one word these cadets say."

"These cadets!" Magnus retorted. "Please to be more personal in your remarks. I stand up for the veracity of the Corps."

"And represent it, no doubt."

"I wonder who is wandering into fib-land now," said Magnus. "Mr. Erskine, if you take her at her word, and never believe anything I say, I shall live to see the day when, with tears in her eyes, she will assure you of my perfect truth and reliability."

"Indeed you will not," said Cherry. "Unless you live to be a hundred and ten."

Mr. Erskine laughed heartily. Just so had those two been sparring ever since they were in leading strings; perfect inseparables, but never together ten minutes without getting up a skirmish of some kind.

"I am sorry this is one of your bad days, sir," Magnus went on; "but the sun is very bright, as you can see, sir, and the air is soft--you can _feel_ that. I like to back up my words when I can. And perhaps you will kindly take hold of my arm, sir, and judge if it is likely to give way under the weight of your hand down the hill."

"All which means," said Mr. Erskine, "that I am expected by the dear people down there?"

"Yes, sir. And I think mother will be disappointed if you don't come--but I'll scoot down and get a note from her to say so. And Rose will cry out, 'Oh, dear!' and Violet will exclaim, 'Dear me!' At least," said Magnus, correcting himself, "it will be something like that. Even warped surfaces cannot always help a man to know just what a woman will say."

And Cadet Kindred stood back with the air of one who, having just sent a shell from the siege battery, and seen it hit the mark, feels that he deserves well of his country.

"Why 'warped surfaces'?" said Mr. Erskine, laughing up at the handsome young fellow, whom he loved next to his own daughter.

"Uncertain, sir. And incomprehensible. Greatest puzzle I know," said Magnus.

"Well," said his friend slowly, "you are a good persuader, Magnus. Cherry, you are going, of course."

"If you do, papa."

"Not else? Then I must try. I know you want to see all you can of your old playmate. It is better than letters, isn't it, love? I can tell you, Magnus, there was no keeping her at home letter day, no matter what the weather was."

If Cherry sighed inwardly, "Oh, papa!" she gave no sign.

"I am very happy to hear it, sir," said Magnus, in his stateliest tones. "It was beautiful filial devotion in Cherry. Of course she knew how anxious you were to know that, as yet, I was out of light prison. I hope she never took cold, or injured her health in any way, going out in all weathers to relieve your anxiety."

"Truly, it was not all for me," said Mr. Erskine. "Do you remember, love, the week when the track was snowed up? and the overdue letter that never came at all? Magnus, those were dark days. I believe Cherry went down to the other house six times between sunrise and sunset; and then when at last the mail-bag came, our letter did not."

"It was very beautiful of her to take so much trouble to quiet your mind, sir," said Magnus, watching the swift, pulsating colour in Cherry's fair cheek.

"Nay, I took very little of it to myself," said Mr. Erskine, going calmly on, as men will, through they know not what. "My heart ached for her that day when she came back with her pale face, and said so patiently, 'We must wait till to-morrow, papa.' Then at night they all came up here; and I had to say over everything I had ever known or heard about trains, letters, and--boys. You ought to be a good fellow, Magnus, with four such women-hearts watching over you."

"Yes, sir. Don't you think it might further the cause if they told me a little more about it?" said Magnus, with an innocent face.

"Papa--he knows quite enough for his good," Cherry remonstrated.

"Yes, and he might not like to hear it all," Mr. Erskine went on, in the same unconscious fashion. "Poor little girl! How her voice shook when she began to read to me that morning!"

"What did she read, sir?" Magnus questioned, with an odd change in his own.

"I think we were in the Revelation just then. Were we not, love?"

"Yes, papa,"--very low.

"Yes, I remember. 'The sea of glass,' and 'them that had gotten the victory.' Cherry read it as if she was ready to have the time come."

"Papa!"--it was almost a cry. "Why will you go back and bring that all up again? Cannot you find pleasanter things to tell him?"

"No, he cannot, and you know it very well," said Magnus decidedly. "Leave fib-land to me. I wish you would show me the very chapter, please, Mr. Erskine."

"Hand me the book--there it is, love, on my table."

"I'll bring you another, papa,--" and Cherry went swiftly to the next room.

Magnus, however, had his own private reasons for thwarting her whenever he could, if it was only in the choice of a book; and before she could get back he had brought the other volume to Mr. Erskine.

"Papa, this is better," Cherry said, coming in; but Magnus shook his head at her, and she silently came down to her seat again. Then came a surprise.

Magnus had been so busy watching her that neither book had had much notice. Now, as Mr. Erskine turned the leaves, saying: "Here, this is the place," Magnus bent down over his friend's shoulder to look, and behold! he could not read one word. It might be the Revelation--but it was also Greek. At least, so he supposed.

"Well, which was the book she was reading from that day?" he said, looking at Cherry, who now sat perfectly still, with the other Testament in her lap and her hands folded upon it. And if it had not been impossible, he would have thought she was biting her lips hard to keep back a laugh.

"This is the very one," said Mr. Erskine, all unconscious. "She always reads in this--we both like it better. It is worn on the outside," he went on, turning the book over and giving the vellum affectionate touches, "but I like these old bindings, don't you? The time-stained cover for the things which time can neither stain nor wear out. This was the book and the place where she read that morning."

"I should like to hear her read it now," said Cadet Kindred, feeling considerably dazed.

"Read it to him, love," said Mr. Erskine, giving the old book to her; and without raising her eyes Cherry obeyed, but in tones so low, that but for their clearness, the eager listener could hardly have caught one word. Understand one word he did not.