A Daughter of the Rich

"Yes," responded Maria-Ann, promptly, but with less acerbity of manner.

"And is that red rag you hid away a cross, Maria-Ann Simmons?" No words can do justice to the old dame's tone and its implied impiety of her granddaughter's conduct.

Maria-Ann was silent.

"Be you a Christian girl, or an idolater, Maria-Ann?"

Her grandmother's voice shook pitiably. Maria-Ann's conscience gave a twinge, when she heard it; but she felt the time was ripe, and she must put in the sickle.

"I hope I 'm a Christian, grandmarm, but I 'm an idolater, too,–" Aunt Tryphosa drew in her breath, as if hurt. "But, anyway, I guess I was an American 'fore I was a Christian, an' I jest idolize my Country–" Maria-Ann's eyes filled with tears–"an' I can't do anything for her, nor make sacrifices same as other women do who can send their husbands–," a sob, "an' lovers–," another sob, "an' nuss 'em, an' help on their Country's cause livin' 'way up here in an old back paster with an old cow–an' an old wo–Oh, grandmarm!" Maria-Ann broke down utterly, laid her head upon her knees, and sobbed unrestrainedly.

It was an unusual sight, and Aunt Tryphosa was troubled. She felt it necessary to beat a retreat in the face of such genuine grief, but she was determined that it should be a dignified one.

"I ain't never seen you give way so, Maria-Ann, and you 're thirty-one year old come next January. I 've done my best to bring you up right, an' now you 're old enough to know your own mind, I hope; so, if you want to leave me, you can go jest as soon as you can get ready. I come up for Dorcas, an' now I 'm goin' home." In spite of her effort her old voice trembled, but her pride sustained her nobly, and Maria-Ann was all unaware that the tears were rolling down the wrinkled furrows in the old cheeks as her grandmother drove Dorcas before her down the fern-scented pasture slope.

Her granddaughter followed her half an hour later, and after a silent supper, except for Aunt Tryphosa's murmured "grace," and a faint "amen" from the other side of the table, Maria-Ann lighted a lamp and shut herself into her small bedroom.

She placed a chair against the door, lest she might be suddenly raided, and drew the other splint-bottomed one up to the head of the bed. Lifting the feather-bed she thrust her hand far under and drew out a square, white pasteboard box. It was tied with a narrow, white ribbon. She undid it carefully, and took out a layer of tissue paper. The lamp-light shone upon a large, gilt heart, some ten by eight inches, with a thickness of two inches.

Maria-Ann turned the box this way and that, watching the play of light on it, for the heart was skewered with a large, silver-gilt arrow, and the shaft, where it penetrated, held a small, white card with simulated blood-drops in carmine splashed on in one corner, and the sentiment, written in the same, straggling diagonally across the other corner:

"In thy sightIs my delight."

Maria-Ann shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "Don't seems as if he 'd sent me that if he had n't meant somethin'," she murmured, and dreamed for a little while. Then she opened her eyes, prepared for new delights. Raising the gilt top with tender care, she took out a faded rose:

"Don't seem as if he 'd come back that nex' mornin' after Chris'mus an' give me that, 'thout he 'd had some notion." She laid the rose carefully upon the tissue paper, and began to lift the leaves of the heart-shaped book, until she had lifted every one of the three hundred and sixty-five! She smiled to herself.

"'T ain't likely he 'd 'a' sent me jest such a cook-book, 'thout he 'd been tryin' to give me a hint." She began to read the recipes–it was absorbing: puddings, cakes, preserves. She was lost to time as she read; "An' he took that pair of socks I knit him last Chris'mus 'long with him, Rose said–" There was a fumbling at her door. Maria-Arm blew out the light.

"That you, grandmarm?" she called pleasantly.

There was no answer, and Maria-Ann laughed softly to herself as she undressed in the dark, and lay down to sweet dreams.

"I 'm goin' over to Mis' Blossom's, grandmarm," she announced the next afternoon, "to see if they 've had any news. I ain't heard for two days."

Her grandmother made no reply, but when her grand-daughter was well on her way to the Blossoms', Mrs. Tryphosa Little's conscience deemed it prudent to issue a private search-warrant and investigate Maria-Ann's premises–even to the under side of the feather-bed. The results perfectly justified the search, and upon Maria-Ann's return just before tea, she was amazed to have her grandmother offer her a wrinkled cheek to kiss.

"Why, grandmarm!" exclaimed Maria-Ann, in joyful surprise, "I 'm so glad you ain't laid it up against me–

"I can see through a barn-door when 't is wide open, even at my time of life, Maria-Ann Simmons," said the old dame, interrupting her.

"What did you hear over to Ben's?"

"Hazel's just had a letter from her father, and he says they 've got Mr. Sherrill home to New York, an' if nothin' new sets in, he 'll get over it, but his lungs 'll be weak, mebbe, for two years. He was shot clean through the lungs."

"What do they hear from Chi?"

Maria-Ann's face grew suddenly radiant. "Oh, he 's been awful sick with the fever, an' ain't left Cuby yet, but he'll come North jest as soon as he can be transported. I 've been talking over my plans with Mis' Blossom an' Rose an' Hazel, an' they 're goin' to do everything they can for me."

"So you 're a-goin' to Cuby, Maria-Ann?"

"Yes, grandmarm, I 've got a call to go an' nuss our sick an' wounded; I 've been readin' a lot 'bout the Red Cross misses in the Hearthstone Journal, an' I 'm goin' to wear a cross, an' Hazel's goin' to pay my fare, an' I 'm goin' to stop to Mr. Clyde's when I get to New York, an' he 'll start me all right for Cuby–"

"Them beets are burnin' on, Maria-Ann; guess you 'd better stop for jest one more meal on the Mountin, had n't you?" said her grandmother, dryly.

Maria-Ann laughed merrily. "I know, grandmarm, it seems kinder queer and foolish to you, but I feel as if I could go now with nothin' on my mind, for you know Mandy's girl is comin' to stay all September an' October, an' she 's grand help. You won't begin to miss me 'fore I 'll be back–an' I 'll own up, grandmarm, ever since Rose Blossom went to New York last winter, I 've hankered after seein' more of the world 'sides Mount Hunger."

"When you goin' to start?"

"I calc'late 'bout the last of next week, that 'll be into September–here, let me pare them beets, grandmarm;" and forthwith she seized the pan, and began peeling the steaming, deep-red balls, singing heartily the while:

"'Must I be carried to the skiesOn flowery beds of ease,While others fought to win the prize,And sailed through bloody seas?'"

"Now be careful, and change at White River Junction," were Mr. Blossom's parting words at the station. "After that you go right through to New York."

"I 'll take good care, don't you any of you worry 'bout me!" She waved her handkerchief from the back platform of the car to the little group she was leaving,–Mr. and Mrs. Blossom, Rose, March and Hazel, Captain Spillkins and Susan Wood, with Elvira and Melissa. She was inflated with heroic resolve, and felt ennobled to be going forth to do battle, as she termed it to herself, for her Country's cause. Moreover she was seeing the world, and even at the start she found it most interesting, for she had been but ten miles at most by train, and here she was speeding towards White River Junction, distant forty miles from Barton's River.

She longed to communicate her enthusiasm to the occupants of the car, but found only one opportunity. She offered to hold a baby, one of a family of five, while the mother fed and watered the other four. She continued to dandle it recklessly till the woman protested:

"Guess you ain't had a fam'ly," she remarked sternly, rescuing her child; "a woman of your age ought to know better 'n to shake a baby up so when he 's teethin'–'t ain't good for their brains–like enough bring on chol'ry morbis." She pulled down the small clothes, turned the atom over on its stomach, and patted its back with a broad hand and a dove-like settling motion that bespoke the mater-familias.

Maria-Ann looked out of the window. True, she had n't any family–only Grandmarm Little and Aunt Mandy's one daughter who had just come to visit them. What was Aunt Tryphosa doing now? She was dreaming again, and before she could realize it, the brakeman called, "White River Junction! Change cars for all points south via Windsor, Springfield, New York."

Hearing that, Maria-Ann felt as if she had already travelled a thousand miles, so far away seemed Mount Hunger and its uneventful life.

She found herself on the platform. She had been so confident of taking care of herself–and now! She looked helplessly about. Trains to the right of her, trains to the left of her, trains in front of her and behind her switched, and shifted, and thundered. Engine-bells, dinner-bells, train-bells; stentorian voices of baggage-men, brakemen, call-men; frantic women, screaming babies, hurrying porters, indifferent travellers, fashionable women and city men; farmers, children, baskets, shawl-straps, dress-suit cases, golf bags, boys; dogs, yelping and crying, in arms or in leash; canaries in their wooden cages shrilling over all; and hither and thither and yon a bustling, and rustling, and rattling, and roaring, and clanking, and hissing, and shrieking, and hurrying, and scurrying, and pushing, and hauling, and prodding, and rushing! For a minute Maria-Ann was dazed and almost stunned. Then her courage rose to the occasion. This was the famous Junction of which she had heard so much. This was the great world. This was Life!

"I 'll stand stock-still an' wait till it clears up a little. I 've got an hour here, an' mebbe I 'll see somebody from Barton's," she said to herself, and had just put down her valise when a hoarse voice cried in her ear,–"Hi, there! get out of the way!"

She dodged a baggage truck piled high with toppling trunks, only to be caught in the surging, living stream, and carried with it up a step into the restaurant of the station.

To Maria-Ann it was a marvellous sight. She set down her valise by a window and, standing guard in front of it, gazed about her with intense satisfaction. In truth this was seeing the great world, of which she had read so much in the Journal and for which she had longed, at first hand. Around the counter–a long oval–were perched on the high, wooden, spring stools "all sorts and conditions of men," with a sprinkling of women and children. There was perpetual motion of knives, forks, teaspoons, arms, hands, mouths,–and a noisy conglomerate beyond description, accented by the shriek and toot of the switch-engines.

Suddenly the clangor of a gong-like bell and a stentorian voice rose above the chaos of sound;–there was a momentary lull in the confusion of masticating utensils, followed by a general slipping, sliding, and jumping off the round wooden perches,–and to Maria-Ann's amazement, the room was nearly vacant.

"Now 's my time," said Maria-Ann, with considerable complacency, and forthwith proceeded to hoist herself, by means of the foot-rail, upon one of the seats, at the same time placing her valise on another at her right. She looked at the varied assortment of delectables–an embarrassment of riches: jelly-roll cakes, pickles, squash pie, baked beans, frosted tea-cakes, sage cheese, ham sandwiches, lemon pie, cold, spice-speckled custards, doughnuts, great as to their circumference, startling as to their cubical contents.

"I 've heard tell of them," said Maria-Ann to herself, as her eye, ranging the oval marble slab, encountered a pyramidal pile of New England's doughty cruller. "I 'll have two of them, I guess," she said to the indifferent attendant, "an' a cup of coffee; that 'll last me for a spell, and I can keep my lunch for supper." She expected some response to her explanation, but there was none forthcoming, save that a cup of coffee, half-pint size, was shoved over the counter towards her, and the huge glass dome that protected the doughnuts was removed with a jerk, and the towering pile set down in front of her.

Maria-Ann helped herself. It seemed rather tame, after so much excitement, to be eating a doughnut the size of a small feather-bed, without company. She looked around. There were but three or four at the entire counter. Farther down to the left, his tall, gaunt figure silhouetted against the blank of the large window, a man was seated, bestriding the perch as if it were a horse. He wore the undress uniform of the volunteer cavalry. When Maria-Ann discovered this, she felt for a moment, to use her own expression, "flustered." The mere presence of the uniform brought to her a realizing sense of the importance of her mission; it seemed to bring her at once into touch with far-away Cuba, and the feminine knights of the Red Cross; with–her heart gave a joyful thump–with Chi! She felt in a way ennobled to be eating her doughnut within speaking distance of a hero (they were all that in Maria-Ann's idealizing imagination).

She had bitten only halfway into the periphery of the doughnut, when the man stepped from his seat. She watched him as he moved slowly towards the door; his back was turned to her. How feebly he moved! Almost seeming to drag one foot after the other.

A great flood of patriotic pity engulfed Maria-Ann's whole being. She forgot the doughnuts; she left the coffee; she forgot even her valise; her one thought was as she slid from the stool: "I ain't no call to wait till I get to Cuby; I 'm just as much a Red Cross nuss right here in White River Junction, Vermont, as if I was a thousand miles away." The girl at the counter looked after her in amazement–she hadn't even paid! But there was her valise.

She saw Maria-Ann whisk something out of her dress-waist and stop halfway down the room to pin it on her sleeve, and lo and behold!–it was a cross of bright red flannel. She saw her hurry after the man, who had dragged himself to the doorway, and stood there leaning heavily against the jamb.

"If you 're goin' to take a train, just you let me help you aboard," she said, speaking just at his elbow. The man's head half turned with a jerk. "You ain't fit to stan' more 'n an eight months baby, an' I 'm a Red Cross nuss on my way to Cuby–"

A gaunt, yellow face with haggard eyes was turned slowly full upon her, and a hand, shaking, as that of a man in drink, was laid on her arm:

"Don't you know me, Marier-Ann?"

Maria-Ann sat down suddenly on the doorstep at the man's feet. There was no strength left in her. Then she put her head into her hands, and began to cry softly; there were few to see her, and had the whole world been there, she would not have cared.

"Just help me into the waitin'-room, Marier-Ann, where we can talk."

She bounced to her feet, with streaming, tear-blinded eyes, and Chi, linking his arm in hers, led her into the "Ladies' Room."

A porter followed them in; he addressed Chi. "She ain't paid for what she ordered, and she ain't eat it neither, and she 's left her valise."

Chi pulled out a ten-cent piece and put it into his hand. "Bring 'em all in," he said, "grub 'n' all, 'n' I 'll pay for 'em. We 'll sit here a spell till train time." Maria-Ann sobbed afresh.

The porter brought in the plate with the doughnuts, the cup of coffee, and the valise, and set them down on the wooden settee. He pointed to the ten-cent piece that lay within the inner ring of a doughnut:

"I don't take nothin' of that kind from you fellers." He touched the bit of braid on the cuff of Chi's coat; Chi smiled, and pocketed the money.

"Guess you was n't expectin' to meet an old friend so soon, was you?" said Chi, gently, setting the plate in her lap.

Maria-Ann shook her head vigorously, but she could not control the sobs. Chi crossed one leg over the other, and waited.

The flies buzzed on the smoke-thickened panes, and an empty truck rattled down the platform. There were no other sounds.

"When does your train go, Marier-Ann?"

There was another sob, but no answer.

"Did n't I hear you say you was on your way to Cuby?"

Maria-Ann nodded.

"Bad place for women–'n' men, too. What you goin' for?"

Maria-Ann's answer was only half audible: "To nuss."

"To nuss? Ain't there enough nussin' you can do nearer home?"

Maria-Ann looked up with tear-reddened eyes. "I did n't think so–" a sob–"till I saw you, Chi. I did n't know you–I thought I 'd begin right now, before I got there–" her hands covered her eyes again.

Chi's trembling ones, weak from the fever, drew her cold ones down from her face.

"You did just right, Marier-Ann, to want to begin right now.–The Barton's River train is due to start from here in fifteen minutes;–s'posin' you give up Cuby, 'n' come along home, 'n' try nussin' me. I need it bad enough."

"Oh, Chi, do you mean it?" Maria-Ann caught her breath.

"You bet I do," said Chi, emphatically, "only"–he paused and took up the plate from her lap, spilling the coffee, for the trembling of his hand had increased–"if you 're goin' to undertake it with me, it's got to be a life job, Marier-Ann."

The flies continued to buzz on the smoke-thickened panes. The train for Barton's River steamed in from the siding. The couple in the waiting-room boarded it. The porter watched them with a queer smile. Then he took up the plate of uneaten doughnuts and the cup of cooled coffee, and handed them to the girl behind the counter.

"She ain't eat 'em, after all," she said. "She acted kinder queer for a Red Cross nurse."

"He's the chap I give the telegram to when he got here on the up-train last night."

"What was it?"

"Twenty-five cent one from Barton's River–'M.A. starts for Cuba Thursday stop her at Junction.'"

The girl laughed, and the restaurant filled again.

XXVII

"–The stars above

Shine ever on Love–"

"I 'm goin' up into the clearin', Mis' Blossom, to see if there ain't some late blackberries," said Chi, a few days after his triumphal return with Maria-Ann. "Seems as if the smell of the sun on that spruce-bush up yonder would put new life into me–I feel so kind of shif'less."

"I would, Chi," said Mrs. Blossom; "you have n't begun to get your strength back yet, and the more you 're out in this air, without overworking, the better it will be for you."

"I 'll go with you, Chi," said Rose, looking up from her work, as she sat sewing on the lower step of the porch.

"That's right, Rose-pose; it 'll seem like old times." Chi followed her with wistful eyes as she turned to go up stairs.

"I 'll be down in a few minutes, Chi; we 'd better take the two-quart pails, had n't we?"

"Maybe we 'll find enough for one or two messes."

He turned to Mrs. Blossom when Rose had left the room. "Can't there nothin' be done 'bout it, Mis' Blossom?" He spoke almost wistfully.

Mrs. Blossom's eyes filled with tears. She hesitated a moment before she spoke: "I know Rose so well, Chi, that I dare not interfere. I doubt if she would accept anything, even from me, her mother."

"It beats me," Chi sighed heavily. "He 's just a-pinin' for a word or sign, 'n' there ain't no use talkin'–she 's got to give it; I 'd back him up every time, he 's done enough–"

"Sh–!" Mrs. Blossom held up her finger; she heard Rose on the stairs. Chi looked up–his old Rose-pose stood before him: old, faded, green and white calico dress, old sunbonnet, patched shoes! Chi turned away abruptly to get his pails; and her mother wondered, but said nothing.

They found more than one "patch," where the berries hung in luscious clusters of shining jet. Chi pummelled his chest, and drew deep, deep breaths of the balsamic mountain air. "This sets a man up, Rose-pose; there ain't nothin' like the air on this Mountain for an all-round tonic. Let's sit here a spell, right by this sweet fern."

She pushed back the sunbonnet as she sat down beside him. "Tired, Chi?"

"No–rests me clear through just to sit 'n' look off onto those slopes, just about as green as in June."

They sat awhile in silence; then Chi turned and picked up the sunbonnet that had fallen from her head. He touched it gently.

"Remember the first time you sold berries in that rig, Rose-pose?"

The blood surged into Rose's face, and receded, leaving it strangely white. Chi felt his heart contract at the change, but he went on:

"First time Jack ever saw you was in that rig.–You ain't changed so much but he 'd know you again if he saw you in Chiny."

Still there was silence. Chi moistened his lips.

"Can't say as much for him; never saw such a change; he 's all fallen away to nothin' but skin and bones. Doctor Heath told me just before I left–'n' he put me aboard the train–that nothin' could set him up again but this Mountain air, 'n' good food, 'n'–" Chi paused; his mouth was uncomfortably dry. Rose's face was turned from him, but he saw a contraction of her delicate throat, as if a dry sob were suddenly suppressed. Then she spoke in a monotone:

"Why does n't he come, then?"

"Why!--" Chi fairly startled himself with his thundering "why," and Rose half started from the ground. The blood leaped to her very temples; seeing which, Chi took heart–"Coz he 's every inch a man, Rose Blossom; 'n' he's got too much grit of the right sort to ask a girl twice, he 's about given his heart's blood for.

"He ain't a-goin' to come crawlin' up here to ask no favors of you after he knows that you know--'n' I glory in his spunk. But I can tell you, if you don't look out, you 'll come nearer to bein' a real Molly Stark than you ever thought you could be when you joined the N.B.B.O.O., 'n' by George Washin'ton! it goes against me to see you breakin' the by-laws you pledged yourself to stand by, every minute of your life that you keep so dumb towards Jack Sherrill;–for you 're provin' yourself a coward in your love, 'n' you 'll have a widowed heart to pay for it mighty soon, if you keep on, that'll be worse than Molly Stark's any day–" A whisper stopped him:

"Chi, Chi, tell him to come–I want him so; oh, Chi!"

Chi's hand was laid on the bowed head with its crown of shining, golden-brown braids: "Rose Blossom, may God Almighty bless you for proving yourself a true woman, 'n' worthy of the mother that bore you. I can't say any more."

An hour later March Blossom, with a telegram in his hand, was speeding on Fleet to Barton's River; and two days afterwards Mr. Blossom and Alan Ford in the double wagon, and Chi alone in the buggy, drove down to Barton's to meet the up-train. Mrs. Blossom and Rose stood on the porch straining their eyes in the quickly-falling September twilight to see any movement on the lower road. The children had been sent over to Hunger-ford till after tea, for Jack was not strong enough to bear a too joyful home-coming.

"They 're coming, Rose," said Mrs. Blossom, in a low tone; then she turned abruptly, and went into the house, leaving Rose alone on the step.

"Here we are, safe 'n' sound," said Chi, in an affectedly cheery voice, as he drove out of the woods'-road. "Just wait a minute, Jack, 'n' I 'll give you an arm gettin' out." He laid the reins on the dasher. Then he assisted the tall, gaunt figure of the man beside him to alight. Jack half stumbled, for his eyes were seeking Rose–and Rose?

All her womanhood, all the sacred privileges of wifehood, came to her aid at that moment. She sprang to the carriage, and, with one hand, put Chi aside; with the other, she lifted Jack's half-nerveless arm and laid it over her shoulders; then, encircling him with her own slender one, she said gently, guiding him to the porch step:

"Lean on me, dearest."

On the first of November, one of the short-lived Indian Summer days, the farmhouse on Mount Hunger literally blossomed like a rose.

A week beforehand there had been an animated discussion as to what should be the wedding decorations of the "long-room." Hazel, who had been with them a week already, settled it.

"As if there could be any choice!" she exclaimed. "It's been great fun to hear you all suggesting this, that, and the other, from ground hemlock and bitter-sweet, to everlasting! But Jack and I settled it three weeks ago–how could there be anything for Rose, but roses? Anyway, that's what Jack wrote, and our florist looked fairly dazed when I gave him the order–just bushels of them, Rose-pose, lovely La France ones, like those you threw into the–No, I won't tease you, Cousin mine," she said, with a merry laugh, as Rose looked at her appealingly.