This to Bud was the most beautiful spot in the world. He looked up into the sapphire blue of the sky flecked with soft patches of white, then down upon the waving gra.s.s latticed by sun and shade; he listened to the soothing rustle of the poplar leaves, the soft flapping of linen in the breeze, the birds in the tree tops, and felt his heart and throat bursting with all the harmony and melody about him. Not always was Bud"s refrain one of joy. There were songs of sorrow on the damp days when the washings must be dried within the house, and he could not venture forth because he still was regarded as the delicate one of the family. There were days, too, when the number of garments was not adequate to complete the boundary to the park, and that meant less to eat and worry about the rent and a hara.s.sed look in his mother"s anxious eyes.
But there was no sob in Bud"s song this afternoon. The clothes had been hung out unusually early, and were nearly dry, so his mother had brought out her little lean-back rocker and sat beside him for a few moments to listen to his carol and to hark back to the days when his l.u.s.ty-voiced father had sung to her in the shadows of a vine clad porch.
It was not upon Amarilly, the sharer of her burdens, nor upon the baby that Mrs. Jenkins lavished her tenderness. Bud crept closest because he had been the one most dependent upon her care.
When the little singer ceased, the mother arose and unpinned the garments, carrying them in armfuls to the huge basket in the middle of the park. Bud watched her thin, fatigued hands as they performed their accustomed task, and a sudden inspiration came to him. His future field of labor had troubled him. Now his way seemed clear. He stepped nimbly to the gra.s.s plot and gathered up the pieces spread thereon.
"Ma," he said, as they met at the basket, "I"ve jest thought what I kin do, when I grow up, to support you."
"What is it, Bud?" she asked interestedly.
"The teacher said we must plan to do what we knew the most about. I know more about washin" than anything else."
"You"d orter," she replied with a sigh.
"I kin run a laundry," he declared.
"That would be a fine business."
Happy in the hope of this new horoscope, Bud resumed his seat in the amphitheatre, and in a voice of clarion clearness ecstatically rendered one of the hymns he had learned at St. Mark"s. Ever since he had become a member of the choir, Clothes-line Park had rung with echoes of the Jubilate and Venite instead of the popular old-time school airs. The wringer was turned to the tune of a Te Deum, the clothes were rubbed to the rhythm of a Benedictus, and the floor mopped to the melody of a Magnificat.
On the happy, by-gone Thursdays, cloistered by snow-white surplices, with the little chorister enthroned in the midst, Clothes-line Park had seemed a veritable White Chapel.
Bud was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his carols by the arrival of Amarilly, who was far too practical to hearken to hymns when there was work to be performed.
"I got the money Miss Ormsby"s owed us so long," she announced in a tone of satisfaction, "and that jest makes up the money to git back the surplus. I"ll give you carfare one way, Bud, and you must go to the bishop"s and git it. I"m too beat to go. I"ve walked most five miles sence dinner."
Bud was scoured and brushed, the pocket of his blouse tagged with a five-dollar bill carefully secured by a safety pin, and he started on his way for the address Amarilly had given him. He stopped at the corner drug store to spend his car-fare for an ice-cream soda.
When the lad"s quest was repeated to the bishop by his housekeeper, he instructed her to send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop"s house, pealed forth, and a man"s voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud had learned at St. Mark"s. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying to carry the sustained note an octave above the man"s voice; once it sharped.
"Oh!" shuddered Bud in dismay. "He can"t keep the tune."
"He isn"t our regular soloist," explained the bishop apologetically. "He is ill, and this boy is trying to learn the part for an organ recital to be given next week."
Again the choirmaster"s voice, patient and wearied, began the refrain.
Instinctively Bud"s little chest swelled, and involuntarily his clear, high treble took the note and sustained it without break through the measures, and then triumphantly broke into the solo. The bishop"s eyes shone.
"Come," he said, rising and going towards the door, "come with me."
Wonderingly and obediently, Bud followed him into the church and up to the organ where the choirmaster sat.
"This is one of the boys from St. Mark"s. Try him on the solo. He just sang it for me."
"I thought I heard it sung just now, but I feared it was only an echo of my dreams. Let me hear you again, my lad."
Easily and confidently Bud attacked the high C in alt. At the end of the solo, the long-suffering choirmaster looked as if he were an Orpheus, who had found his Eurydice.
"Who taught you to sing that solo?" he demanded.
"My school teacher. She is studying fer an opery singer, and she helps me with my Sunday singing."
"I thought the style was a little florid for the organist of St.
Mark"s," said the choirmaster whimsically. "My boy, if you will sing it for us at the recital as well as you did just now, you shall have ten dollars."
The laundry now loomed as a fixed star in Bud"s firmament. When he went home and told his mother the good news she moved joyfully among her mops and tubs. The turn of the wringer never seemed so easy, and she frequently paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment to wring the suds from her swollen hands and listen anew to the recital of Bud"s call upon the bishop and the choirmaster of Grace Church.
CHAPTER XIV
The next day the flood-tide of the Jenkins"s fortunes bid fair to flow to fullness. Word came to the little home that Mr. Meredith had returned to the city and desired the laundry work to be resumed. Bud was summoned to choir practice the following Friday, and Miss King sent her chauffeur with a fair-sized washing.
"Everything comes so to onct, it takes your breath away," said Amarilly, quite overcome by this renewal of commercial activity, "and next thing I know,"--there her heart gave a deer-like leap--"Mr. Derry"ll be hum, and sendin" fer me. Then we"ll all be earnin" excep" Gus."
At the end of the week Amarilly eagerly went to deliver the washings at the rectory and Miss King"s, but in both instances she was doomed to disappointment, as her friends were not in.
"I"ll go to church and see "em," she resolved.
This time her raiment was very simple, but more effective than upon the occasion of her previous attendance.
Before Amarilly"s artistic temperament was awakened by the atmosphere of the studio, she had been wont to array herself in things convenient without regard to color or style, believing herself to be hopelessly homely and beyond the aid of personal adornment; but since Derry had praised her hair, she had scrupulously cared for it and allowed no conflicting color in proximity thereto. On this occasion she fastened it with the black velvet bows, and arrayed herself in the white dress Mrs.
Jimmels had given her.
"I declar, Amarilly," exclaimed her mother, "I believe you"re agrowin"
purty!"
Amarilly"s eyes danced, and she gave her mother a spontaneous and rewarding hug.
She didn"t do her own ushering this time, and was consequently seated most inconspicuously near the entrance. Her heart beat rapturously at the sight of John Meredith in the pulpit.
"His vacation didn"t freshen him up much," she thought, after a shrewd glance. "He"s paler and don"t look real peart. Sorter like Bud arter he got up from the fever."
Her attention was diverted from the rector by the vision of Colette coming down the aisle. The change in her appearance was even more startling to the little anxious-eyed girl than in John"s case. There were violet shadows under the bright eyes, a subtle, subdued air about her fresh young beauty that had banished the little touch of wilfulness.
As soon as she was seated, which was after the service had begun, she became entirely absorbed in her prayer-book.
"Vacation ain"t agreed with her, nuther," pondered Amarilly perplexedly.
She turned her gaze again to John, who was sitting back of the choir, while his "understudy" conducted the service. His face was shaded by his hand, but Amarilly"s gimlet glance noted that he frequently sent a fleeting, troubled look toward the King pew.
"Thar"s something up atwixt "em," deduced Amarilly, "and they air both too proud to say nuthin" about it to the other."
John"s sermon was on the strength that renunciation brings, and the duty of learning resignation. There was a pervasive note of sadness in his deliverance of the theme, and Amarilly felt her joyousness in the return of her friends slipping from her.
She went out of church somewhat depressed, but was cheered by the handclasp of the rector and his earnest a.s.surance that he would see her very soon. While he was saying this, Colette slipped past without vouchsafing so much as a glance in their direction. Hurt through and through, the little girl walked sadly to the pavement with head and eyes downcast.
"Amarilly," dulcetly spoke a well-loved voice.