Strawberry Acres Part 34

"Oh, Bob's cheeks are so round and red they look like a very large infant's. Dear Bobby--think he misses us most. He ran in and peeped into your berth while the train stood there. I think he rather hoped to wake you."

"Bless the lad--I wish he had." Mr. Rudd took another spoonful of egg under the stimulus of the wish, forgetting that he had not meant to take up that spoon again.

"Mrs. Burnside and Jo looked their own dear selves--every line of them.

It struck me afresh, as it always does when I see them after an interval, how beautifully yet quietly dressed they are, and how their photographs might be taken at any minute with delightful results. 'Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter' it would be." And Sally sighed a little sigh of a quite feminine sort, looking down at her own blue travelling attire and wondering how the same material would have looked if made up by Mrs.

Burnside's tailor.

"And Jarvis--how is he? I am very fond of Jarvis. I suppose he has lost some of the summer's tan?"

"If he has it's been put back again by the frosty winds, for he's the image of health. Mr. Ferry and Janet are very much themselves, too. And they all sent you something." Sally reached under the berth and drew out a big florists' box, signalled the waiter to remove the remains of the breakfast, and then spread forth the cards which accompanied the great bunch of crimson roses, enjoying Mr. Rudd's almost boyish pleasure in the remembrance of his friends.

"These must be for you too, Sally," said he, burying his nose in one fine half-open bud.

"Not a bit of it."

"No flowers for you, child?"

"Fruit and chocolates and writing-tablets and other delightful things.

You must have some of the grapes, Uncle Timmy--I ought to have thought of them for your breakfast."

"These roses are as good as a square meal--but they should have been for you, not for an old fossil like me."

"Don't you dare call yourself an old fossil, Uncle Timmy. Now look at all these pretty gifts," and Sally brought them forth, exhibiting them well concealed from the other pa.s.sengers. Uncle Timothy looked and exclaimed and admired, and did not note that one person seemed to be unrepresented by any remembrance. Neither did he guess that tucked far away under Sally's berth was a box containing a ma.s.s of sweet peas which had that morning been carefully sprinkled, but which were destined never to be seen again by mortal eye except her own.

CHAPTER XVIII

FROM APRIL NORTH

During a winter which seemed, in spite of all the beauties of the far South, the longest she had ever known, Sally was kept well in touch with affairs at home by the letters. If it had not been for these she thought she could hardly have waited for the spring to come. Mr. Rudd had gained slowly but positively throughout the winter, yet it was not thought best for him to come home until the spring should be well advanced. The first of May was the date set, and proved a judicious choice, for April was a cold and rainy month. There was just one odd fact about this month of April--during its course Sally received at least one letter from every member of her own family and from each one of those other two families most closely connected with her history. In an idle hour one day, just before she went home, she carefully selected one letter from each of these correspondents, in the order received, and tied them in a bunch, labelling them "April North to April South." Whatever may have happened to other letters, this packet remained in her possession for many years.

The first of them arrived on April fourth, and was in the round, school-boy hand of young Robert Lane.

"DEAR SALLY:

"This is April Fool's Day, and I've had a great old time fooling everybody. Sewed down the knives and forks to the breakfast-table, tied the chairs to the legs, salted the coffee, and did quite a few little every-day stunts like that. Max got maddest when he ran onto a big lump of cayenne in his oatmeal, but Joanna gave him another dish right away and another cup of coffee. She's awfully soft over old Max. The best lining I did was the way I fooled Jarve on a letter from you. I knew he had had one from you sometime in March, so I looked in his coat-pocket while he was up in the timber lot with a sweater on. I found it--pretty much used up with being carried around--suppose he forgot to take it out.

Got a fresh thin envelope, put the old one inside, traced the address through, pasted on a postmark from your last one to me, and put three heavy sheets inside to make it fat--a lot fatter than the one I got out of his pocket. Stuck on old stamps--two of 'em--overweight, you know.

"When he came in to luncheon he found the letter with his other mail. I had my eye on him--I was pretending to read the morning paper. He read all his other letters, but he put that one in his pocket. He got terribly jolly after that--cracking jokes and everything. The minute luncheon was over he went off to his room, and I cut for out-of-doors. Didn't let him get a sight of me for hours. When I did come in I thought maybe he'd have got over being fussed, but--pitchforks and hammer handles!--if the minute I hove in sight he didn't get after me! He must have put on a lot of muscle chopping wood and hoeing, for I thought a cyclone had struck me. I'm resting up now, but I feel pretty sore yet--in spots. That's why I'm writing to you. I think you'd better write him once in a while, so that getting what he thinks is a letter won't go to his head like that.

"It'll be the first of May in one month more, and you'll be home!

Jolly!--that seems good to think of.

"Heaps of love from BOB."

On the following day came a letter from Janet Ferry. It was a letter of several sheets, and the last two pages ran thus:

"The boys think you ought not to know about it, and intend it for a surprise, but I am so sure that it will do you even more good to hear while you are waiting to come home, I'm going to tell you. Alec and Bob have been rolling the lawn with a roller they were at great pains to get from the Burnside place in the city! You should have seen them at it, encouraging each other to do the thing thoroughly. Afterward they scattered wood ashes in all the thin places; Bob said they had been saving them all winter from the fireplace. I didn't know Alec could be so interested in out-door labour, but this winter seems to have given him an impetus toward following Mr. Burnside's example--and Don's--for I think Don has had a hand in waking him up.

"Speaking of Don--I found him out in your garden yesterday, pruning your old rose-bushes--the ones that you inherited with the garden. He says you are particularly fond of the many-leaved pink ones that smell so much sweeter than any hot-house rose that ever grew.

"Mr. Burnside has been busy all through March, and already has garden peas in. It seems absurdly early, but he prophesies that there'll be no more frosts that they can't stand, and promises us peas on the table three weeks earlier than our neighbours. He is nothing if not daring. He reads and reads in those books and magazines and papers of his, and then starts out, armed for action. He and Jake spend much time arguing over details, but I believe he usually carries his point.

"Don says that while he was finis.h.i.+ng his work in your garden your brother Max came home and strolled out to see what he was doing. Don mentioned the fact that it would soon be time for the whole garden to be dug and raked and put in spring order, and Mr. Lane answered that he would see that it was done--in fact he thought he should do it himself. I don't exactly understand why this should seem to give Don so much satisfaction, but it does. He told me to be sure to tell you."

Clearly it gave Sally satisfaction also, for she read this particular paragraph a second time, smiling to herself, before she put the letter aside.

On the seventh of April came a screed from Alec of quite surprising length--for Alec, and it interested his sister more than any letter she had had from him during the winter.

"DEAR SALLY LUNN:

"Haven't time to write much. Have hired out J.B. as a farm hand, and he keeps a fellow some busy. For two weeks, now, we've been clearing up the old wood in the timber lot and getting out new stuff for fence posts, etc. Evenings he gets me at books. Am reading up on soil now, surprised to find it quite interesting. J.B. and I talk plans a lot more than Max does, though I think the old boy is going to get into it in time all right. Maybe you'd like to know what our plans are. Well, here goes:

"Cut off the suckers in the orchard, plough, and later spray--before the leaves come. That means hustle--but we're nearly through with the pruning. Bob and Mr. Ferry are at that.

"Then we'll plough five acres of what we let go to hay last year, and plant it to corn, with half an acre of potatoes. The other five acres we'll let grow to hay. Next year we'll have alfalfa where we have corn this year. J.B. is daft on alfalfa, and I'm beginning to see why. The five acres of hay, with the corn, will be enough for the two cows, and we'll keep the pasture over beyond the orchard for them. Miss Janet says as long as she lives there she wants to see those cows--or other ones--come down the lane by the orchard at milking time--only she wishes there were more of them and a collie to drive them. Think I'll have to get a collie, to satisfy her, though Cowslip and Whitenose are at the bars regular as a clock, all by themselves.

"The seven acres where we had the buckwheat and afterward the potatoes last year are to be set with strawberries this May. I tell you, here's where the real serious business comes in. J.B. hasn't done a thing this winter but study the soil in that seven acres and figure out what kind of berries to plant. He's given a lot of thought to what sort of fertilizers to use, and I tell you if there's any such thing as improving soil, the soil in that strawberry land is going to be improved. Tons of stuff are going into it and it's going to be well mixed in, too. Then if cultivating and irrigating and all the rest of it can bring us big fruit, we'll get it. J.B.'s idea is the more we put in the more we'll get out, and the better quality. Of course it's lucky for us we have him to pay out the money for getting things going, but I believe Strawberry Acres will support itself some day and bring us in good returns.

"Anyhow, I must say I'm beginning to like the whole thing, though it's hard work and plenty of it. Never was so hungry in my life. Joanna sets it up to us in good shape, but we'll be glad to see you back. House seems sort of empty, in spite of four fellows tumbling over each other in it.

"With love, your brother, ALEC.

"P. S. The old asparagus bed is trying so hard to show signs of life we've given it a good salting. The Ferrys' crocuses are up, gra.s.s all full of them--look mighty pretty."

This was certainly very satisfactory, when one considered that Alec had been in the beginning only second to Max in scoffing at the idea of living on a farm, not to mention working on one. More than any of the boys Alec had preferred life in the city, had been the one who cared most about his personal appearance, and had prided himself upon doing things in the urban way. For him to be willing to put on old clothes and rough boots, and soil his hands with manual labour, indicated a change of thought and ideals hardly to have been expected so soon. Sally put away the letter, rejoicing at these indications of growth, for growth it surely was, in his case. His work in the office where he had been employed had been work likely to lead no further, nor to promise any promotion to a position of greater honour. But on Strawberry Acres it seemed to Sally that, with Jarvis Burnside for a leader, Alec might develop qualities as yet only to be guessed at.

The most interesting part of Josephine's long letter, which reached Sally on the ninth, was, as is usually the case in feminine letters, toward its close. After every other subject had been touched upon, Sally's correspondent remarked:

"You may care to know that I have been much surprised of late to receive two calls, here at home, from Mr. Ferry. One was in March, but I didn't mention it, for I thought probably it was the first, last, and only one he would ever make, and I wouldn't crow about it. It was on one of mother's Thursdays, and of course a lot of other people were here. I was busy with the tea things, so couldn't give him much attention. He was very nice, and everybody seemed much interested to see him here. When he went away he came over and said to me that he should like to come again when we were not "At Home," only at home! Of course I said he might, and mother asked him specially, too. So just yesterday evening--it was Tuesday--he came again. Mother was out until just before he went. We had a delightful time in the library over a box of new books Jarvis had just had sent up--not farm books, this time. Mr. Ferry found something which specially pleased him, and read several pages to me--sitting on the edge of the library table--I mean that he was sitting on the edge of it--not I! I was most properly disposed in a chair--and congratulating myself that I had on a little new home frock of dull green with bands of blue and gold embroidery that had just come home--the most becoming thing Celeste has ever made me. I think he had a good time--anyhow, he stayed much longer than he need have done if he didn't--I meant that if he wasn't having a good time!--I don't seem to be able to write lucidly. We talked much of you, and of how good it would seem to have you back, and of the garden, and the coming summer. He wanted to know if mother and I were coming out to spend the season again, and I said yes. He asked if I didn't think we ought to be there by the latter part of April, so as to welcome you when you come the first of May. It seemed rather a good idea to me--what do you think of it? Mother has set the fifteenth, but I really do want to see the first spring things coming up. Jarvis brought home a great bunch of daffodils yesterday. I wanted to send them on to you, but he thought they wouldn't last out the journey."

The thought of the daffodils made Sally long intensely for her garden.

There was a long row of them at the farther end, and another clump at the edge of the lawn, with stray ones here and there through the gra.s.s which she had not been willing to have removed. She thought about them many times until the arrival of the next letter, on the eleventh, which was from Joanna, and which turned her thoughts into housewifely channels.

"Dear Miss," it began, in a cramped hand upon a large sheet of ruled paper. "I suppose you would like to know what has been done about the house cleaning. You wrote me to wate till you come, but I never like to wate later than March, and so I did what was nesessary myself, peice by peice, as I could find time. Mr. Max and Mr. Alec and Mr. Bob seemed to think the house didn't need cleaning, but Mr. Jarvis being used to my ways and his mothers said you would want it right. He spared me Jake Kelly to clean the rugs and peices of carpet, and I did the rest. I think there is no dirt in the house now. Fireplaces makes lots of dust but I should say the way they are enjoyed makes up for it. I have tryed to do as you wanted about the pillows and apples and good food and I don't think the young gentlemen are any liter in wate than when you went away.

"Hoping you will come home soon,

"Respectfully yours,

"JOANNA MARSHFIELD."

n.o.body but a housekeeper, and a young one at that, could appreciate what a load of anxiety this letter lifted from Sally's mind. She wanted to have the house immaculately clean, but--the garden was waiting for her.

Now she could give her undivided thought to plans for the box-bordered beds, blessing Joanna for a maid-servant of priceless value.