Holiday Stories for Young People Part 25

Eva said: "They're Dutch and English, Grace. The Vanderhovens are from Holland, but Archie's mother was a Standish, or something of that sort, and her kinsfolk, of course, belonged to the _Mayflower_ crowd. I believe Archie meant to sell that pitcher, and if so, no wonder he broke his leg. By-the-way, what became of the pieces?"

"I picked them up," said Grace.

CHAPTER V.

CEMENTS AND RIVETS.

"How did we ever consent to let our middle daughter stay away all these years, mother?" said Dr. Wainwright, addressing his wife.

"I cannot tell how it happened, father," she said, musingly. "I think we drifted into the arrangement, and you know each year brother was expected to bring her back Harriet would plan a jaunt or a journey which kept her away, and then, Jack, we've generally been rather out at the elbows, and I have been so helpless, that, with our large family, it was for Grace's good to let her remain where she was so well provided for."

"She's clear grit, isn't she?" said the doctor, admiringly, stalking to and fro in his wife's chamber. "I didn't half like the notion of her giving readings; but Charley Raeburn says the world moves and we must move with it, and now that her object is not purely a selfish one, I withdraw my opposition. I confess, though, darling, I don't enjoy the thought that my girls must earn money. I feel differently about the boys."

"Jack, dear," said his wife, tenderly, always careful not to wound the feelings of this unsuccessful man who was still so loving and so full of chivalry, "you needn't mind that in the very least. The girl who doesn't want to earn money for herself in these days is in the minority. Girls feel it in the air. They all fret and worry, or most of them do, until they are allowed to measure their strength and test the commercial worth of what they have acquired. You are a dear old fossil, Jack. Just look at it in this way: Suppose Mrs. Vanderhoven, brought up in the purple, taught to play a little, to embroider a little, to speak a little French--to do a little of many things and nothing well--had been given the sort of education that in her day was the right of every gentleman's son, though denied the gentleman's daughter, would her life be so hard and narrow and distressful now? Would she be reduced to taking in fine was.h.i.+ng and hemst.i.tching, and canning fruit?"

"Canning fruit, mother dear," said Miriam, who had just come in to procure fresh towels for the bedrooms, "is a fine occupation. Several women in the United States are making their fortunes at that. Eva and I, who haven't Grace's talents, are thinking of taking it up in earnest. I can make preserves, I rejoice to say."

"When you are ready to begin, you shall have my blessing," said her father. "I yield to the new order of things." Then as the pretty elder daughter disappeared, a sheaf of white lavender-perfumed towels over her arm, he said: "Now, dear, I perceive your point. Archie Vanderhoven's accident has, however, occurred in the very best possible time for Grace. The King's Daughters--you know what a breezy Ten they are, with our Eva and the Raeburns' Amy among them--are going to give a lift to Archie, not to his mother, who might take offence. All the local talent of our young people is already enlisted. Our big dining-room is to be the hall of ceremonies, and I believe they are to have tableaux, music, readings and refreshments. This will come off on the first moonlight night, and the proceeds will all go to Archie, to be kept, probably, as a nest-egg for his college expenses. That mother of his means him to go through college, you know, if she has to pay the fees by hard work, was.h.i.+ng, ironing, scrubbing, what not."

"I hope the boy's worth it," said Mrs. Wainwright, doubtfully. "Few boys are."

"The right boy is," said the doctor, firmly. "In our medical a.s.sociation there's one fellow who is on the way to be a famous surgeon. He's fine, Jane, the most plucky, persistent man, with the eye, and the nerve, and the hand, and the delicacy and steadiness of the surgeon born in him, and confirmed by training. Some of his operations are perfectly beautiful, beautiful! He'll be famous over the whole world yet. His mother was an Irish charwoman, and she and he had a terrible tug to carry him through his studies."

"Is he good to her? Is he grateful?" asked Mrs. Wainwright, much impressed.

"Good! grateful! I should say so," said the doctor. "She lives like Queen Victoria, rides in her carriage, dresses in black silk, has four maids to wait on her. She lives like the first lady in the land, in her son's house, and he treats her like a lover. He's a man. He was worth all she did. They say," added the doctor, presently, "that sometimes the old lady tires of her splendor, sends the maids away to visit their cousins, and turns in and works for a day or two like all possessed.

She's been seen hanging out blankets on a windy day in the back yard, with a face as happy as that of a child playing truant."

"Poor, dear old thing," said Mrs. Wainwright. "Well, to go back to our girlie, she's to be allowed to take her own way, isn't she, and to be as energetic and work as steadily as she likes?"

"Yes, dearest, she shall, for all I'll do or say to the contrary. And when my s.h.i.+p comes in I'll pay her back with interest for the loans she's made me lately."

The doctor went off to visit his patients. His step had grown light, his face had lost its look of alert yet furtive dread. He looked twenty years younger. And no wonder. He no longer had to dodge Potter at every turn, and a big package of receipted bills, endorsed and dated, lay snugly in his desk, the fear of duns exorcised thereby. A man whose path has been impeded by the thick underbrush of debts he cannot settle, and who finds his obligations cancelled, may well walk gaily along the cleared and brightened roadway, hearing birds sing and seeing blue sky beaming above his head.

The Ten took hold of the first reading with enthusiasm. Flags were borrowed, and blazing boughs of maple and oak, with festoons of crimson blackberry vine and armfuls of golden rod transformed the long room into a bower. Seats were begged and borrowed, and all the cooks in town made cake with fury and pride for the great affair. The tickets were sold without much trouble, and the girls had no end of fun in rehearsing the tableaux which were decided on as preferable in an entertainment given by the King's Daughters, because in tableaux everybody has something to do. Grace was to read from "Young Lucretia" and a poem by Hetta Lord Hayes Ward, a lovely poem about a certain St. Bridget who trudges up to heaven's gate, after her toiling years, and finds St. Peter waiting to set it wide open. The poor, modest thing was an example of Keble's lovely stanza:

"Meek souls there are who little dream Their daily life an angel's theme, Nor that the rod they bear so calm In heaven may prove a martyr's palm."

Very much astonished at her reception, she is escorted up to the serene heights by tall seraphs, who treat her with the greatest reverence. By and by along comes a grand lady, one of Bridget's former employers. She just squeezes through the gate, and then,

"Down heaven's hill a radiant saint Comes flying with a palm, 'Are you here, Bridget O'Flaherty?'

St. Bridget cries, 'Yes ma'am.'

"'Oh, teach me, Bridget, the manners, please, Of the royal court above.'

'Sure, honey dear, you'll aisy learn Humility and love.'"

I haven't time to tell you all about the entertainment, and there is no need. You, of course, belong to Tens or to needlework guilds or to orders of some kind, and if you are a member of the Order of the Round Table why, of course, you are doing good in some way or other, and good which enables one to combine social enjoyment and a grand frolic; and the making of a purseful of gold and silver for a crippled boy, or an aged widow, or a Sunday-school in Dakota, or a Good Will Farm in Maine, is a splendid kind of good.

This chapter is about cements and rivets. It is also about the two little schoolmarms.

"Let us take Mrs. Vanderhoven's pitcher to town when we go to call on the judge with father," said Amy. "Perhaps it can be mended."

"It may be mended, but I do not think it will hold water again."

"There is a place," said Amy, "where a patient old German frau, with the tiniest little bits of rivets that you can hardly see, and the stickiest cement you ever did see, repairs broken china. Archie was going to sell the pitcher. His mother had said he might. A lady at the hotel had promised him five dollars for it as a specimen of some old pottery or other. Then he leaped that hedge, caught his foot, fell, and that was the end of that five dollars, which was to have gone for a new lexicon and I don't know what else."

"It was a fortunate break for Archie. His leg will be as strong as ever, and we'll make fifty dollars by our show. I call such a disaster an angel in disguise."

"Mrs. Vanderhoven cried over the pitcher, though. She said it had almost broken her heart to let Archie take it out of the house, and she felt it was a judgment on her for being willing to part with it."

"Every one has some superst.i.tion, I think," said Amy.

Judge Hastings, a tall, soldierly gentleman, with the bearing of a courtier, was delighted with the girls, and brought his three little women in their black frocks to see their new teachers.

"I warn you, young ladies," he said, "these are spoiled babies. But they will do anything for those they love, and they will surely love you. I wish them to be thoroughly taught, especially music and calisthenics.

Can you teach them the latter?"

He fixed his keen, blue eyes on Grace, who colored under the glance, but answered bravely:

"Yes, Judge, I can teach them physical culture and music, too, but I won't undertake teaching them to count or to spell."

"I'll take charge of that part," said Amy, fearlessly.

Grace's salary was fixed at one thousand dollars, Amy's at five hundred, a year, and Grace was to come to her pupils three hours a day for five days every week, Amy one hour a day for five days.

"We'll travel together," said Amy, "for I'll be at the League while you are pegging away at the teaching of these tots after my hour is over."

If any girl fancies that Grace and Amy had made an easy bargain I recommend her to try the same tasks day in and day out for the weeks of a winter. She will discover that she earns her salary. Lucy, Helen and Madge taxed their young teachers' utmost powers, but they did them credit, and each month, as Grace was able to add comforts to her home, to lighten her father's burdens, to remove anxiety from her mother, she felt that she would willingly have worked harder.

The little pitcher was repaired so that you never would have known it had been broken. Mrs. Vanderhoven set it in the place of honor on top of her mantel shelf, and Archie, now able to hobble about, declared that he would treasure it for his children's children.

One morning a letter came for Grace. It was from the princ.i.p.al of a girls' school in a lovely village up the Hudson, a school attended by the daughters of statesmen and millionaires, but one, too, which had scholars.h.i.+ps for bright girls who desired culture, but whose parents had very little money. To attend Miss L----'s school some girls would have given more than they could put into words; it was a certificate of good standing in society to have been graduated there, while mothers prized and girls envied those who were students at Miss L----'s for the splendid times they were sure to have.

"Your dear mother," Miss L---- wrote, "will easily recall her old schoolmate and friend. I have heard of you, Grace, through my friend, Madame Necker, who was your instructress in Paris, and I have two objects in writing. One is to secure you as a teacher in reading for an advanced cla.s.s of mine. The cla.s.s would meet but once a week; your office would be to read to them, interpreting the best authors, and to influence them in the choice of books adapted for young girls."

Grace held her breath. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "is Miss L---- in her right mind?"

"A very level-headed person, Grace. Read on."

"I have also a vacant scholars.h.i.+p, and I will let you name a friend of yours to fill it. I would like a minister's daughter. Is there any dear little twelve-year-old girl who would like to come to my school, and whose parents would like to send her, but cannot afford so much expense?

Because, if there is such a child among your friends, I will give her a warm welcome. Jane Wainwright your honored mother, knows that I will be too happy thus to add a happiness to her lot in life."

Mother and daughter looked into each other's eyes. One thought was in both.

"Laura Raeburn!" they exclaimed together.