Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason Corner Folks Part 26

"DEAR AUNT ELLA AND SISTER ALICE:--I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. We had a fine trip--no storms--and none of us missed a meal, which was bad for the company. But they made up their loss on others who ate a supper on leaving England and a breakfast on reaching America.

"Mother was delighted to see us and father was so nice to us all that I came near fainting. He is a changed man. I wonder what drug he has been taking."

"Didn't you tell Maude about your letter to her mother?" asked Alice.

"No, I told Florence, but thought Maude would appreciate the change now, _if_ it took place, if she was ignorant of what influence had been brought to bear on her father."

Aunt Ella continued the reading.

"Harry and I have been to Fernborough. Alice's brother sent us word that Uncle Isaac Pettingill was dead and we went to the funeral. He had no complaint. He was tired out, so Mrs. Maxwell told us, and went to sleep.

He left each of Mrs. Maxwell's boys five thousand dollars, and the same amount to Quincy Adams Pettingill. The remainder of his fortune, I don't know how much, is bequeathed to build a free hospital in Fernborough.

"There's another good man dead--Deacon Mason,--and his wife has gone to live with her daughter, Mrs. Pettingill. That funny little man, Mr.

Stiles, has gone there too.

"I saw Mrs. Hawkins, and she said: 'I mos' cried my eyes out when I heerd 'bout that collision at sea, an' what it did. I can't see no sense in them captains bein' so careless and reckless. Tell Miss Alice I wish she'd come home and bring that boy. I want ter see ef he looks like his father.'

"I came near forgetting what to me is the most important part of my letter. Harry has been appointed as Quincy's executor in place of Dr.

Culver, and, this is the wonderful thing, father has induced Harry to leave Mr. Carter's office and go into his office. He told Harry that they were all getting old and they needed young blood in the firm--but Harry's not in the firm yet. No more this time from your loving,

"MAUDE MERRY."

"My letter to Sarah did do some good," said Aunt Ella triumphantly.

"Poor Uncle Ike, I wish I could have been with him. I wonder if I shall ever see Fernborough again?"

Aunt Ella did not answer the question as she would have liked to, and Alice went to her room to recall those former happy days which would never come again.

Nearly nine years had pa.s.sed since young Quincy's birth, and Alice was still at Fernborough Hall. She could not leave it now, for Aunt Ella was again a widow. Her mind was troubled about her boy. He had recurrent attacks of throat trouble, and was not strong as she wished him to be.

"It's the damp, foggy weather," said Aunt Ella. "We're too near the water, and this country, beautiful as it is, is not like our bright America."

Dr. Parshefield suggested a trip to the South of France, but Alice declared that was impossible.

"Something must be done--now what shall it be?" was Aunt Ella's declaration and inquiry. Then Alice remembered what Maude had said in one of her letters--that young Quincy should be brought up as an American. She spoke to Aunt Ella about the matter, repeating what Maude had written.

"Where could we send him?"

"The _where_ is not so important" Aunt Ella remarked, "as the _to whom_.

Florence and Maude are both out of the question for they have young children of their own who might, or might not, take to an outsider.

Quincy's mother would be delighted to have him for he is her son's son, but Boston, with its east winds would be no better than here. Besides, his grandfather would say that he'd raised one family of disobedient children and he wanted a quiet life."

The question remained unsettled that day, but the next morning Aunt Ella burst into Alice's room with a loud cry--

"Eureka! I have it! Why didn't we think of it before?"

"You say you have it," said Alice, "but what is it? That pattern that you were looking for?"

"No, a happy home for this youngster," as she patted his curly head lovingly.

"Now, can't you guess?"

Alice shook her head.

"Well, I must say, you are not a very thoughtful _sister_," and the last word was strongly emphasized.

"What, do you mean--'Zekiel?" cried Alice.

"The very man, and Fernborough is the place. You must write to your brother at once."

As Alice was writing the thought came to her, "Perhaps if my boy goes to Fernborough, some day I may go to see him, and the old town, and the people there, once more."

In due time a reply came from 'Zekiel. It was short, but to the point.

"Huldy will be delighted to have him. Our boy Quincy is nearly fourteen years old now and he'll take good care of his little cousin. I'll try and be a father to him until you come for him."

The important question, "How was the boy to reach America?" was answered by one of those happy coincidences which happen often in books and occasionally in real life, such as is being depicted. The Rev. Mr. Gay, who had been a constant visitor to Uncle Ike during his last days, paid a visit to Fernborough Hall on his return from a trip to the Holy Land.

"Heaven must have sent you," said Alice, and she told him of her desire to have her boy go to Fernborough.

Mr. Gay consented to take charge of young Quincy. In a few days the parting came. The mother's heart was sorely tried. But mother-love is unselfish, and Alice's only consolation came from the conviction that her temporary loss was for her son's permanent good.

Her nights were sleepless, filled with thoughts of accidents, and storms and collisions at sea, until a welcome letter dispelled her imaginings, for it brought the intelligence that young Quincy was safe with his father's friends.

CHAPTER XVII

HIS FATHER'S FRIENDS

It is the good fortune of some fatherless or motherless children to be adopted into good families where the natural love and care that have been denied them are supplied, as it were, by proxy. With young Quincy it was so, only much more so. It fell to his lot to be adopted by an entire town. Its residents had been, with few exceptions, his father's friends. The sad story of his father's loss at sea was known to all, and the town's heart warmed towards him; the town's arms were open to embrace him, and care for him.

To his Aunt Huldah Pettingill he seemed as though sent from another world. He was her husband's nephew, and hers--but there was a closer tie acknowledged within her own heart, and kept there as a precious secret.

He was Quincy Adams Sawyer's son--the son of the man who had taught her what love was. It had been a bitter lesson, for when her heart was awakened, it was but to find that the one who had played upon its sensitive strings did not love her, and that her duty was to another who did love her. She had been a true and loving wife with no unsatisfied heart-longings, but--

"You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

So Huldah Mason still kept within a secret corner of her heart a fond remembrance of happy days gone by. And now Quincy's son was one of her family; she could be a mother to him and no one would have a right to question her manifestations of affection. It is often that the human heart thus finds solace for past sad experiences or suffering.

It was only natural that Huldah, after her father's death, should take her mother to her own home. The old Deacon had acquired enough of this world's goods to avoid the necessity of hard labour during the last years of his life. Good books had been his constant companions, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned cane-bottomed rocking chair his favourite seat upon the piazza or by the kitchen fire. Abner Stiles had done the necessary farm work and the household ch.o.r.es. When the Deacon pa.s.sed away, the town lost one of its broadest-minded, most honest, most helpful citizens.

Mrs. Mason, still hale and hearty, a.s.sisted her daughter in her household duties, but allowed Abner to put up the clothes line and take it in.