Kathie's Soldiers Part 13

The ponies wore no bells to-night, so they drove off noiselessly, a peculiar smile illuminating Kathie's face. If the Maybins thought their good fortune rained down from heaven, so much the better. The child was always a little shy of her good deeds, a rare and exquisite humility being one of her virtues. And though any little act of ingrat.i.tude touched her to the quick, she never went about seeking praise.

A dozen homes made glad by unexpected gifts, and three times that number of hearts. In several instances they had difficult work to escape detection, but that added to the fun and interest of it, Kathie declared; and she came home in a bright, beautiful glow, her cheeks glowing with a winter-rose tint, and her pretty mouth smiling in a more regal scarlet than the holly berries nodding their wise little heads above picture-frames.

Aunt Ruth kissed her quietly. It seemed as if she understood the steps in the new life which the child was taking, and knew by experience that silent ways were sometimes the most pleasant.

Of all Kathie's Christmas remembrances--and even Dr. Markham sent her a beautiful gift--there was one so unexpected and so touching that it brought the tears to her eyes. She was running through the hall just before church-time, when the door-bell rang; the Alstons did not consider it necessary that Hannah should always be summoned from her duties to attend the call, so Kathie opened the door.

A stout, country-looking lad, just merging into awkward young-manhood, with a great shock of curly, chestnut-colored hair, and a very wide mouth, stood with a parcel in his hand.

"I want to see Miss Kathie Alston," he said, blus.h.i.+ng as red as a peony.

"I am the person," she answered, simply.

He stared in surprise, opening his mouth until there seemed nothing but two rows of white, strong teeth.

"Miss--Kathie--Alston?" in a kind of astonished deliberation.

"Yes."

"I was to give this to you. She," nodding to some imaginary person, "told me to be sure to put it into your hands for fear. She thought you'd like it."

"Who is _she_?" and Kathie could not forbear smiling.

"She writ a letter so's you'd know. That's all she said, only to ask if you were well; but you look jest like--a picter."

The compliment was so honest and so involuntary that Kathie bowed, her bright face flus.h.i.+ng.

He ran down the steps and sprang into a common country sleigh, driving off in a great hurry.

There was a letter attached to the parcel. She tore off the wrapping of the package first, however, and found that it had been done up with great care. Inside of all, the largest and most beautiful lichen she had ever seen,--a perfect bracket in itself. The rings of coloring were exquisite. The soft woody browns, the bright sienna, the silvery drab and pink, like the inside of a sea-sh.e.l.l. The vegetation was so rank that it resembled the pile of velvet.

Like a flash a consciousness came over her, and although she heard Aunt Ruth's voice, she could not resist the desire to look at her letter.

A coa.r.s.e, irregular hand, with several erasures and blotted words, but the name at the bottom--Sarah Ann Strong--made it all plain. The Sary Ann of the Soldiers' Fair. Kathie's heart gave a great bound.

"Come!" exclaimed Uncle Robert; "are you ready?"

There was no time for explanations. She laid the letter and parcel in her drawer in the great bookcase, thrust her ungloved hands into her m.u.f.f, and ran out to Aunt Ruth, who stood on the step, waiting to be a.s.sisted into the carriage.

"Was it some more Christmas?" asked Uncle Robert, "or is it a secret?"

"It is no secret, but a very odd circ.u.mstance, and has quite a story connected with it. I think I will wait until we get home," she continued, slowly, remembering how short the distance was to church, and that a break in the narrative would spoil it.

But she had very hard work to keep her mind from wandering during the service, she wondered so what Sarah had to say, and how she came to remember the simple talk about the brackets. And was Sarah having a bright Christmas?

Afterward she told her small audience, beginning with the unlucky remarks about the purple bonnet. Uncle Robert admired the lichen very much, and Aunt Ruth declared that she had never seen its equal.

Then came Sarah's letter. What pains and trouble and copying it had cost the poor girl Kathie would never know.

"To Miss Kathie Alston," it began. "I take my pen in hand to let you know that"--here were two or three words crossed out--"I want to send you a cristmas present. I haint forgot about the fair, and how good you was to me, I made some straw frames and they're real hansum, and I put the picture you give me in one and it hangs up in the parlor, and I've got some brackets, but Jim found this splendid one, and I want to send it to you for cristmas, for I don't think you have forgotten all about me. I've been going to school a little this winter again, for Martha is big enough to help mother and i only stay home to wash. I always remember how beautiful you talked and my teacher says its grammar which I'm studying, but I cant make head nor tail of it, but he told me never to say this ere, and I don't any more, but I never could be such a lady as you are. I spose you've got beautiful long curls yet. I do love curls so and my hair's straight as a stick. Mother says i must tell you if you ever come to Middleville to stop and see us, we live on the back road, Jotham Strong, and we'll all be glad to see you. I hope you'll like the bracket, and I wish you merry cristmas a thousand times. Jim went to town one day and found out who you was--he seen you the night of the fair too. Excuse all mistakes. I aint had much chance for schooling, but I'm going to try now. I spose you are a lady and very rich, and don't have to do housework, but you're real sweet and not stuck up, and so you'll forgive the boldness of my writing this poor letter.

"Yours respectfully, "SARAH ANN STRONG."

Kathie had been leaning her arm on Uncle Robert's knee as she read aloud.

"Not such a bad letter," he said. "I have known some quite stylish ladies 'who didn't have to do housework' to make worse mistakes than this girl, who evidently has had very little chance. And then country people do not always understand the advantages of education."

"I wanted to ask her that evening not to say 'this 'ere,' or 'that 'ere'

so much, but I was afraid of wounding her feelings. I thought there was something nice about her, and her mother was very generous in buying.

But to think that she should have remembered me all this while--"

"'A cup of cold water,'" repeated Aunt Ruth, softly.

"It was such a very little thing."

"One of the steps."

Yes. It was the little things, the steps, that filled the long, long path. A warm glow suffused Kathie's face. She was thinking far back,--an age ago it appeared, yet it was only two years,--that her mother had said the fairies were not all dead. If Puck and Peas-blossom and Cobweb and t.i.tania no longer danced in cool, green hollows, to the music of lily bells, there were Faith and Love and Earnest Endeavor, and many another, to run to and fro with sweet messages and pleasant deeds.

"I am very glad and thankful that you were polite and entertaining,"

Uncle Robert remarked, presently. "We never know what a kind word or a little pains, rightly taken, may do. It is the grand secret of a useful life,--sowing the seed."

"I must answer her letter, and express my thanks. But O, isn't it funny that she thinks me such a great lady!"

"Suppose we should drive out to see her on some Sat.u.r.day? Where is Middleville?"

"North of here," returned Aunt Ruth, "in a little sort of hollow between the mountains, about seven or eight miles, I should think."

"How delightful it would be!" exclaimed Kathie.

"We will try it some day. I am very fond of plain, social country people, whose manners may be unpolished, but whose lives are earnest and honest nevertheless. We cannot all be moss-roses, with a fine enclosing grace," said Uncle Robert.

Kathie read her letter over again to herself, feeling quite sure that Sarah had made some improvement since the evening of the Fair.

"Do you want to put the lichen up in your room?" asked Uncle Robert.

"Not particularly,--why?"

"It is such a rare and beautiful specimen that I feel inclined to confiscate it for the library."

"I will give it up with pleasure," answered Kathie, readily, "since it remains mine all the same."

The Alstons had a quiet Christmas dinner by themselves. Uncle Robert gave the last touches to the tree, and just at dusk the small people who had been invited began to flock thither. Kathie had not asked any of her new friends or the older girls. She possessed by nature that simple tact, so essential to fine and true womanhood, of observing the distinctions of society without appearing to notice the different position of individuals.

Ethel Morrison came with the rest. She was beginning to feel quite at home in the great house, and yielded to Kathie's peculiar influence, which was becoming a kind of fascination, a power that might have proved a dangerous gift but for her exceeding truth and simplicity.

The tree was very brilliant and beautiful. If the gifts were not so expensive, they appeared to be just what every one wanted. Kathie was delighted with the compliment to her discernment.