The Cinder Pond Part 18

"You young cub," said he, "I've heard all about Jeanne's father from my grandmother. I don't know what he's doing now, but the Duvals were a splendid old French family even if they _were_ poor. 'Way back, they were Huguenots--perhaps you've had those in school. Anyway, they were fine people. And Jeannette's father was well educated and a gentleman.

It isn't a bit worse to sell fish than it is to sit all day in a bank.

I'd _rather_ sell fish, myself.... Particularly, if I could do the catching."

"You'd better not let mother hear you," said Clara, primly. "_We_ aren't allowed to say anything about Jeannette's people."

"I'm sure we don't _want_ to," said Pearl, virtuously.

"Well," returned Allen, "my grandmother says that the Duvals began being an old family long before the Huntingtons did--that's all I know about it; but my grandmother never tells fibs, and she knew the Duvals. The rest of us don't. Hurry up and read your letter, Jeannette. We're all going to the park to feed the animals--which one shall we feed _you_ to?"

Jeanne laughed. Allen had hoped that she would. It was a nice laugh, quite different from Harold's teasing one.

At the park, Jeanne had another embarra.s.sing moment when Clara maliciously pointed out the tree that Jeanne had climbed; but Allen had pretended not to hear. Harold, who had carried an umbrella because Pearl had insisted, slashed the shrubbery with it and used it to prod the animals. He annoyed the rabbits, tormented the parrots, the sea lion, and finally the monkeys.

"Quit it," said Allen.

"You're a sissy," retorted Harold, unpleasantly.

"No, I'm not. _Men_ don't torment animals."

"Harold _always_ does," said Pearl.

"It's hard enough to live in a cage," said Jeanne, "without being poked.

There! Mr. Monkey has torn your umbrella."

"Little brute!" snarled Harold, aiming a deadly thrust at the small offender. "I'll teach you--"

Allen wrenched the umbrella from his angry cousin. "Let _me_ carry it,"

said he. "There's a guard coming and you might get into trouble."

Allen's visit lasted for only five days. Jeanne was sorry that he couldn't stay for five years. _He_ respected her father. If that had been his _only_ admirable trait, Jeanne would have liked him.

"Remember," said Allen, at parting, "that I am to act as your guide three years and three months from now."

"I won't forget," promised Jeanne, who had gone to the station with her cousins to see the visitor off. "I have your address and I learned in school how to write a long, long telegram in _less_ than ten words.

You'll surely get it some nice warm day in June, three and a quarter years from now."

How Jeannette kept this promise, you will discover later.

CHAPTER XVI

AN OLD ALb.u.m

"There's a great big piece of news in my letter from daddy," confided Jeanne, who had been summoned to sit with her grandfather. He had been alone for longer than he liked. Since his illness, indeed, he seemed to like someone with him; and Jeanne was usually the only person available.

"What kind of news?" he asked.

"Good news, I guess. My stepgrandmother is gone forever. And I'm sort of glad."

"What! Is she dead?"

"Oh, no! I wouldn't be glad of _that_. You see, she had a bad son named John, who ran away from home ever so long ago. He was older than Mollie.

His mother and everybody thought he was dead--it was so long since they'd heard anything from him. But he wasn't. He was _working_. They never guessed he'd do that. He hadn't any children, but he had a real good wife--a very _saving_ one. After she died he didn't have anybody, so he thought of his poor old mother--"

"About time, I should think."

"Yes, _wasn't_ it? Well, he went to Bancroft to hunt for his mother, and he's taken her to St. Louis to live. He gave Mollie some money for clothes and quilts and things; but it won't do a mite of good."

"Why not?"

"Mollie would be too lazy to spend it; or to take care of the things if she had them. Her mother spent a great deal for medicine for her rheumatism; but Mollie just bought things to eat--if she bought _anything_. She loved to sit outside the door, all sort of soft and lazy, with the wind blowing her pale red hair about her soft, white face; and a baby in her lap. I can just see her, this very minute."

"I can't see," said Mr. Huntington, testily, "why your father ever married that woman."

"He _didn't_," said Jeanne. "She married _him_--Barney Turcott said so.

Daddy had nursed my mother through a terrible sickness--I _think_ it was typhoid, he said--and in spite of everything he could do, she died.

Afterwards he was almost crazy about it--about losing her. He couldn't think of anything else. And while he was like that, _he_ had a fever and was sick for a long, long time. Before he was really well, he was married to Mollie. Barney said the Shannons took ad--adventures--no, that isn't it--"

"Advantage."

"Yes, that's it. Advantage of him. They thought, because his clothes were good, that he had money. But they took very good care of me at first, Barney said. But Mollie kept getting lazier and lazier, and father kept getting stronger and healthier. But the better he got, the more discouraged he was about having Mollie and all those children and not enough money. You see, he wasn't _really_ well until after they were living on the dock--Barney said the fresh air was all that saved him, and that now he's a different man. Mollie's cooking is enough to discourage anybody; but Barney says: 'By gum! He stuck by her like a man.'"

"My child! You mustn't quote Barney quite so literally. Surely, he didn't say all that to _you_?"

"No. Barney never talks to anybody but men, he's so bashful. He was telling another man why he liked my father. They were reeling a net."

"Where were you?"

"Behind them, peeling potatoes. I didn't know _then_ that it wasn't polite to listen."

"You poor little savage."

"I don't mind," a.s.sured Jeanne, "when _you_ call me a savage; but when Harold does, I _feel_ like one."

Jeanne had been warned never to mention her mother in her grandfather's presence; and she had meant not to. But by this time, you have surely guessed that Jeanne, with no one else to whom she could talk freely, was apt to unbottle herself, as it were, whenever she found her grandfather in a listening mood. She was naturally a good deal of a chatterbox; but, like many another little chatterbox, preferred a sympathetic listener. Sometimes, as just now, she spoke of her mother without remembering that she was a forbidden subject. But now, some of the questions that she had been longing to ask, thronged to her lips.

Her grandfather was so very gentle with her--Oh, if she only dared!

"What _are_ you thinking about?" asked Mr. Huntington, after a long silence. "That is a very valuable picture and you are looking a hole right through it."

"I was wondering," said Jeanne, touching her grandfather's hand, timidly, "if you wouldn't be willing to tell me something about my mother. n.o.body ever has. What she was like when she was little, I mean.

When _she_ was just thirteen and a half. Did she ever look even a tiny little sc.r.a.p like _me_?"

"Yes," replied her grandfather, quite calmly, "you _are_ like her. Not so much in looks as in other ways. You are darker and your bones are smaller, I think; but you move and speak like her, sometimes; and you, too, are bright and quick. And some part of your face _is_ like hers; but I don't know whether it's your brow or your chin. Now you may clean my gla.s.ses for me and hunt up my book; I think James must have moved it.

It's time you were changing your dress for dinner."