Sunshine Jane

"Steals food. Awful thief. Slap him when you catch him at it; it's all you can do. Sometimes I throw water over him. He'll make off with what would be a meal for a hired man, and he's sly as any other thief."

"Can't I help you with your hand?"

"No, you can't. I get lots of them. They bother me a little because Mrs. Croft's cousin died of blood-poison from one. There, it's out. What was I saying? Oh, yes, the cat."

"Where is she now?"

"It's a he. Named Alfred for her husband. He's up in her room now. Always sleeps on her bed. She will have him, and I humor her. She's my only sister and she can't live long and she's left me all her money, and I humor her. It's my plain duty."

"Is it healthy for an invalid to sleep with a cat?"

"No, it ain't. But I promised to do whatever she said about the cat and the garden, and I do."

"I'm sure it's very good in you," Jane murmured, looking out of the window.

"It is. I'm a good woman. I do my whole duty, and there's not many in a town this size can say as much."

"Where is the garden?"

"I'll show you, if you don't mind getting your feet wet. I have my rubbers on already, to travel, so I can go right there now while the fire is kindling."

"Is it wet?"

"Most grass is wet, at five in the morning."

Jane wanted to laugh. "I mean, isn't there a path?"

"Part way, and then you have to climb two fences."

"Climb! Two!" the niece turned in surprise.

"Climb two fences. You never saw such a place. The strip between is rented for a cow-pasture. That's why there's two fences."

"But why not have gates?"

"Don't ask me. Find out if you can. I've lived here five years, and I ain't found out. You try and see if you'll do better. She's very secretive, and so was he before he died. I've just had to get along the best I could. She fails and fails steady, but it don't seem to affect her health none, and now at last it's affected mine instead and give me neophytes in my left arm."

Jane turned her head and looked some more out of the window.

"We'll go now. Might as well. The kettle will get to boiling while we're away, and then we'll have breakfast. It boils slow, because I've got the eggs in it for my lunch. Come on."

The question of the wet grass seemed to have faded. They went out the kitchen door. It was a clear, bright morning. "Weedy weather," commented Matilda, and led the way down the path.

"It's a pretty place," said Jane, her eyes roaming happily.

"Yes, I suppose so. But it takes an artist or some one who hasn't lived in it for five years to feel that way." She paused to climb the first fence. It was three rails high and very awkward. "I'll go over first," she said. "Think of it; I've done this six times a day for five years."

Jane didn't wonder that she was so agile at it. "But how funny to have a garden away off here!" she said.

Matilda was now over on the other side. "Yes, and think of keeping it up. Folks about here make no bones of telling me that they were both half-witted, only as she's my sister, they try to give me to understand as she caught it from him. He was a miser, you know."

Jane was just getting her second leg over. "I don't know a thing about him," she said.

"Well, you will, soon enough. The neighbors'll come flocking as soon as I'm gone, and you'll soon know all there is to know about us all. They'll pick me to pieces, too, and tell you I'm starving Susan to death, but I don't care. Climbing these fences has hardened me to calumny."

They crossed the strip of cow-pasture, and Matilda got over another fence, saying as she did so: "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," leaving Jane to make the application and follow her at the same time.

Then they found themselves in a trim little garden.

"How sweet," said the niece.

"You can see I've done my duty by it, too," said Matilda; "that's my way. I'm hard and I ain't pretty to look at, but I do my duty, which is more'n most handsome women do. Every last bean here is clawed around like it ought to be, and the whole thing neat as wax. Same with Susan; you'd think from her face I'd murdered her, and yet the Recording Angel knows she's had a cold sponge and every last snarl combed out of her hair every day since I came. I don't boast, but I do work."

"Dear me, it's a long way from the house," said Jane, forgetting her higher philosophy for the minute.

"It's a good ten minutes to get here. A picking of peas is a half-hour's job. And ten to one, when I get back, the cat's been at the cream."

Jane had had time to remember. "I can see you've been awfully good," she said warmly, "and my, but you've worked hard. Everything shows that."

Matilda's face flushed with pleasure, the sudden pathetic flushing of unexpected appreciation. "I just have," she declared. "I've worked hard all my life and done a lot of good, and nobody's ever bothered to thank me. She don't. She just lays there and lets me run up and down stairs and climb fences and dig weeds and scamper back and forth with a extra hike, when I hear the bell of the door, till it'll be a mercy if I don't get neophytes all over, and the New Asthma in both legs, I think."

After a brief tour of the tiny whole, devoted mainly to instructing the novice, Matilda led the way back to the house.

"Does it ever need watering?" Jane asked, lapsing again to a lower level.

"Sometimes," said Matilda briefly. Jane hadn't the heart to say another word until – several steps further on – it occurred to her that the garden also could be only a good factor in God's plan, if she wreathed it and shrined it and saw it in her world, as He saw all His world on the day when it was first manifest and set. "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

CHAPTER IV

JANE BEGINS SUNSHINING

THE stage came for Matilda at eight o'clock. For half an hour before it could possibly be due, the traveler sat ready on a chair in the hall, with her umbrella tightly gripped in both hands, delivering bits of useful information as they occurred to her.

"Be careful to lock up well every night."

"Remember if she dies sudden, I shall want to know at once."

"Don't look to enjoy yourself, but remember you're doin' a act of Christian charity."

Jane sat on a small, hard ottoman in the corner by the whatnot and said: "I'll try," or "Yes, indeed," every time.

"You're a good girl," the aunt said finally. "I'm glad to know you. Those Rainy-day Cooks or whatever you call yourself – "

"Sunshine Nurse."

"Yes, of course, – well, it's a good idea. I feel perfectly sure you'll do everything you know how."

"Yes, I will," said Jane, resolving all over fresh that everything was going to come out fine, even to the return of Matilda herself.

"There, I hear the stage on the bridge," said her aunt, jumping to her feet suddenly. "I must go and say good-by to Susan."

"Isn't she still asleep?"

"It doesn't matter. She's my only living sister, and it's my duty to wake her up."

She rushed up-stairs, and a feeble little yell from above soon announced her duty done. Then followed a brief hum and jabber, and then she came running down again.

"Feels bad to see me go," she said briefly. "That's natural, as she's turned over to you body and soul and ain't the least idea what you're like. I told her it was no more chances than every child run just being born, and a third of them lived, but she never could see reason, – kind of clung to my arm, – she's my only sister, and it makes me feel bad." With which hasty statement Matilda gave a brief dab to each eye, put up her pocket-handkerchief, and opened the front door. Jane had her bag in her hand, and they had carried the trunk to the gate before.

The stage was empty, and the driver was tying the trunk-strap with a rope.

"Well, good-by," said Matilda; "remember to lock up well every night."

"Yes, I will," said Jane. "I hope you'll have a good time and a splendid change."

"I'm sure of the change," said Matilda, swinging herself up with an agility bred of her liberal diet on stiles. "Five years, – will you only think of it?"

The driver picked up the reins, gave them a slap, and the expedition was off.

Matilda Drew was really "gone off on a visit."

"Think of it," said Katie Croft, who, despite her town-name of "Katie," was a gray-haired woman of fifty. "Think of it! A vacation! What luck some folks have. I shall never have a vacation in all – " her voice ceased, and she continued sweeping down the steps, the stage passing out of sight as she did so.

Meanwhile Jane had re-entered the house and carefully closed the door after her. She felt curiously freed in spirit, and that subtly supreme joy of seeing a helplessly bad situation delivered bound and gagged into one's hands to be mended was hers.

"I'll go straight and ask about auntie's breakfast first," she thought, mounting the staircase. To her light tap at the door, a feeble "come in" responded. She entered then and observed, with a slight start, that the invalid had just been up. The blind was drawn, and a pair of kicked-off slippers betrayed a hasty jump back into bed. Her eyes sought Susan's in explanation. "I didn't know that you could move about," she said, with a pleased look.

Susan's little, sharp nose had an apologetic appearance, as it showed over the sheet-fold. "I can get about a little, days when I'm strong," she explained, "and I wanted to see her off. I wanted to see if she really did go." She paused, gave a sharp choke and gasp, and then waited.

Jane leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I will try very hard to make you comfortable and happy," she said gently.

Susan rather shrunk together in the bed. "What kind of a girl are you, anyhow?" she asked suddenly and sharply. "Are you really religious, or do you only just go to church?"

"I try to do what's right," her niece answered simply.

The invalid contemplated her intently. "It can be pretty hard living with any one that tries to do right," she said. "My experience is that good people is often more trying than bad ones. Maybe it's just that I've had more to do with them, though. I suppose Matilda told you about everything and the garden and all?"

"Yes, I think I know what to see to."

"And the cat? – and his stealing?"

"Yes, she told me about him."

"The garden must be weeded," Susan pronounced, sinking down deep into the bed. "Don't you ever forget that. And that cat has got to be fed – and well fed, too – even if he does steal."

Jane watched her disappear beneath the bedclothes.

"Auntie," she said, "I've got lots of funny ideas, and one of them is that it's wicked not to be just as happy as possible every minute. Now I'm to be here three weeks, and I think that I ought to be able to make them a real change for you as well as for Aunt Matilda. We'll begin with your breakfast. You tell me what you like best, and I'll fix it for you – "

Susan's head came up out of the bed-clothes with the suddenness of a boy rising from a dive. "If I can have anything I want," she cried, "I want some hot tea – some boiling hot tea, some tea made with water that's boiling as hard as it can boil. And I want the pot hot. Burning hot before the tea goes in."

Jane started. "I thought you liked your tea cold."

Susan's eyes fairly snapped. "Well, I don't. I don't like nothing cold. I like everything hot."

Jane moved towards the door. "I'll go and make some right away," she said.

Susan's small, bright eyes looked after her very hard indeed. "I wonder if you really mean what you say about my doing what I please."

"Of course I mean what I say."

"Then I want to go back into my own room."

The niece stopped. "Isn't this your room?" she asked in surprise.

"No, this is the nearest room to the top of the stairs. I'll show you which is my room." With a quick leap she was out of bed.

"Barefooted!" cried Jane.

"I'll get into slippers quick enough, and I always wear stockings in bed. It's one of my peculiar ways. I'm very peculiar." She was running out of the room. Jane followed, astonished at the strength and steadiness of the bedridden.

"But I thought that – that you were always in bed," she stammered.

Susan stopped short and turned about. "It was the pleasantest way to get along," she said briefly. "I guess that you've a really kind heart, so I'll trust you and tell you the truth. Matilda wasn't here very long before I see that if her patience wasn't to give out, I'd got to begin to fail. I went to bed, and I've failed ever since. I've failed steady. It's been the only thing to do. It wasn't easy, but it was that or have things a lot harder. So I failed."

Jane stared in amazement, and then suddenly the fun of it all overcame her, and she burst out laughing. Susan laughed, too. "It was all I could do," she repeated over and over.

"And so you failed," said her niece, still laughing.

"Yes, and so I failed."

"Mercy on us, it's the funniest thing I ever heard in all my life," exclaimed the Sunshine Nurse.

"It ain't always been funny for me," said Susan, "but come, now, I want to show you my room."

She opened a door as she spoke and led the way into a dark, musty-smelling place. It was the work of only a minute to draw the blind and throw up the window. "Right after we've had breakfast, we'll clean it," the aunt declared, "and then I'll move right back in. Husband and me had this room for twenty long years together. He was a saving man, and most of what he was intending to save when I wanted to buy things was told me in this room. Whatever I wanted he always said I could have, and then when it came night, he said I couldn't. The room is full of memories for me – sad memories – but after he was mercifully snatched to everlasting blessedness, I grew fond of it. It's a nice room."

"I think I'll get your tea," said Jane, "and then I'll clean this room and help you move into it. We'll have you all settled before noon."

She turned and ran down to the kitchen. The kettle was singing, and she stuffed more wood in under it and began to hunt for a tray and the other concomitants of an up-stairs breakfast. Things were not easily found.

"Well, I declare!" a voice at the window behind her exclaimed, as she was down on her knees getting a tray-cloth out of a lower drawer. The voice gave her a violent start, being a man's. She sprang to her feet and faced about.

"I'm sorry; I thought you'd know me." It was the artist of the day before, the young man who had come down in the stage.

"It's so early." She went to the window and shook hands. "But I'm glad to see you, anyhow."

"I always get up at six and walk five miles before breakfast when I'm in the country," he explained.

"Do you really? What enterprise!"

"And so this is where you've come. Why, it's the quaintest old place that I ever saw. A regular tangle of picturesque possibilities. Who are you visiting?"

"I'm taking care of my invalid aunt while my other aunt has a little rest."

"Is she very ill?"

"Oh, no. But this is her tea that I'm making, and I must take it up to her now."

"I'll go, then. But may I come again – and sketch?"

"I can't have company. I'll be too busy."

"Can't I help with the work?"

He was so pleasant and jolly that she couldn't help laughing. "I'm afraid not," she said, shaking her head.

He stood with his hand on the window-sash. "Do you know my name?" he asked.

"No."

"It's Lorenzo, Lorenzo Rath. I've to grow famous with that name. Think of it."

She laughed again.

"I can draw the outside of the house, anyhow – can't I?"

"Dear me, I suppose so," – she picked up the tray, – "you must go now, though. Good-by."

"Good-by," he cried after her.

"Oh, see the steam," was Susan's exultant exclamation, as she entered her room. "I ain't seen steam coming out of a teapot's nose for upwards of three years. Matilda just couldn't seem to stand my taking my tea hot, and she's my only sister, and I humor her. Who was you talking to?"

"A man who came down on the stage yesterday. He was out walking and didn't know that I lived here."

"Oh, a love affair!" cried Susan, in high-keyed ecstasy. "He's fallen in love with you, and like enough was prowling around all night. Oh! How interesting! I ain't seen a love affair close to for years." She was so genuinely joyful that Jane felt sorry to dampen the enthusiasm.

"I don't believe you'll see one now," she said, smiling good-humoredly. "You see, I don't mean to marry, Auntie. I'm a Sunshine Nurse, and they have their hands too full for that kind of thing."

"A nurse! I didn't know you were a nurse."

"A Sunshine Nurse is a person who does what doctors can't always do, – who makes folk well."

"Are you going to make me well?"

"Yes," said Jane, resolutely.

Susan stopped eating and looked at her with an expression full of contradictory feelings. "I shall like it," she said slowly. "But, oh my! Matilda won't. Why, she – " she paused. "Oh, I do wonder if I can trust you?"

"Anybody can trust me," said Jane. "It's part of my training to be honest."

"Dear me, but that's a good idea," said Susan, with sincerest approval. "Well, if I can trust you, I don't mind telling you that it's taken considerable care for me to live along with Matilda. I don't mean anything against her – not rat-poison nor anything like that, you know? – but she hasn't just approved of my living; she's looked upon it as a waste of her time. And I've had to manage pretty careful in consequence. You see, she's my only sister, and she'd have my property anyhow, but if I had to have a nurse or a woman to look out for me long, there'd be no property to leave. She's real sensible, and we both know just how it is, but it's been pleasantest for me to stay more and more in bed and kind of catch at things as I walk, and once in a while I don't eat all day, and so it keeps up her hope and keeps things pleasant."

Jane looked paralyzed. "How can you go without food all day?"

Susan considered a little. Then she took a big drink of hot tea and confessed. "I don't really. I watch till she goes to the garden, and then I skip down-stairs and make a good meal and lay it all on the cat."

Jane sank down on the foot of the bed and burst out laughing again. Again she just couldn't help it. Susan laughed, too; first softly and gingerly, then in a way almost as hearty as her niece's.

"Oh me, oh my," the latter declared, after a minute, wiping her eyes. "Well, we'll have a very lively three weeks, I see."

"Oh, yes," Susan exclaimed, "and we'll have liver and bacon, and I'll see the neighbors when they come in. I give up seeing them because it made so much trouble, and the way I'm made is – 'Anything for peace.' That's what I always used to say to husband, whatever he said. First along I used to say real things, but all the last years I just said whatever he said; anything for peace."

"You've finished your tea now," said Jane, rising. "I'll take the tray down while you dress a bit, and then we'll move you into the other room."

"Oh, and how I will enjoy it," cried Susan, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "Oh, you Sunshine Jane, you – how glad I am you've come."

"I'm glad, too," said Jane. "We'll have an awfully nice time."

She ran down-stairs with the tray and found Madeleine sitting in the kitchen, waiting. "Why, how long have you been here?" she asked.

Madeleine lifted a rather mournful countenance and tried to smile. "Oh, Miss Grey. I'm so blue. I can't stand this place at all, I don't believe. My situation is going to be unbearable."

"What's the matter with it?"

"It's so small and petty and spiteful. All last evening I had to sit and listen to gossip. I hate personalities. Why, whatever I do is going to be seen and talked about the minute I do it."

Jane looked grave. "That nice woman who came out to meet you didn't look like a gossip."

"She isn't, but she sits and listens, and every once in a while she throws oil on the fire by saying, 'I never believed the story.'"

"Who did the talking?"

"The neighbors – a woman named Mrs. Mead, who came in with her daughter. The mother was old-fashioned in her ideas, and the daughter was new. That old man in the stage stopped there, you know."

"My aunt spoke of them last evening," said Jane; "she said that Emily Mead was picked out to marry that young man who came down with us."

Madeleine laughed and then blushed. "I'm afraid not," she said. "I know him. He won't marry anybody here."

Jane turned and began to put away the breakfast things.

"Don't be bored," she said gently. "Put on this extra apron, and help me wash these dishes; and then I'll set the kitchen to rights and get ready to move my aunt into another bedroom. She's an invalid, you know."

"What kind of a person is your aunt?"

"Awfully nice," began Jane, but was stopped by the sudden opening of the hall door.

There stood Susan, all dressed.

"It seems good to have clothes on again," she remarked calmly; "I ain't been dressed for upwards of three years."

Then she saw Madeleine. "How do you do," she said, holding out her hand. "I suppose you're the Miss Mar from Deborah's?"

"Yes, I am," Madeleine admitted, smiling.

"My, but you look good to me," said Susan; "it's so nice to see a strange face. You see, I've been in bed for a long time, and I give up seeing strangers long before that." She sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and beamed on them both, turn and turn about. "Husband always thought that strangers was pickpockets," she said, "but I like to look at 'em. My, but I will enjoy these next weeks. You see, I live with my sister," she explained to Madeleine, "and I've had a pretty hard time. My sister's got a good heart, but maybe you know how awful hard it is to live with that kind of people. It's been pleasanter to stay in bed."

"But you won't do that any more, Auntie," said Jane, moving busily about.

"No, indeed I won't. You see," again to Madeleine, "she was my only sister, so I humored her. It's the only way to get on with some people. But you can even humor folks too much, and she got a disease they call the Euphrates all up and down her ear and her elbow, just from being humored too much. So she's gone off for a change."

"What are you doing?" Madeleine asked Jane.

"Making waffles. I thought it would be fun to eat them hot right now."

Susan fairly shrieked with joy. "I ain't so much as smelt one since husband died. Waffles in the morning, and I'm so awful hungry, too. Oh, Jane, the Lord will surely set a crown of glory on your head the minute He sees it. Your feet won't be into heaven when the crown goes on. How did you ever think of it?"

Jane brought out the iron, laughing as she did so. "Why, Auntie, it's part of my training."

"Cooking waffles in the morning?"

"No. Giving joy. If I think of any way to give pleasure and don't do it, I count it a sin. To make more happiness is all the work of a Sunshine Nurse."

"Isn't that splendid?" Susan appealed to Madeleine.

Madeleine's great, beautiful eyes were lifted towards the other girl's face with an expression mysterious in its longing. "Teach me the gift," she said; "I want to make more happiness, too."

"We'll be her class," exclaimed Susan, "just you and me."

"The first lesson is eating waffles," Jane announced solemnly.

"And me, too," cried a voice in the kitchen window, and there was Lorenzo Rath back for his second call that day, and it not yet ten o'clock. "I've been to Mrs. Cowmull's and eaten breakfast, and I'm as hungry as a wolf." He came in through the window as he spoke.

"Oh, a young man!" cried Susan. "I ain't seen a young man since the last time the pump broke. Oh, my! Ain't this jolly? Ain't this fun?"

"You show Madeleine where to find plates and forks and knives, Auntie," said Jane. "Here, Mr. Rath, I'll break two more eggs and you can beat them. I haven't made enough batter, if there's a man to eat, too."

"I feel as if I'd leave Mrs. Cowmull's to-morrow and come here to board," said Lorenzo. "Could I?" His tone was very earnest.

"No, you couldn't," said Jane firmly.

"Oh, let him," exclaimed Susan, from the pantry, where she was getting out plates. "It'll make Mrs. Cowmull so mad, and I ain't made any one mad for years and years. I'd so revel to be human again. And it would be so nice having a man about, too."