"Alida, please come with me in the parlor a moment. You stay here, Jane." When they were alone, he resumed, "Somehow, I feel strangely unwilling to have that child live with us. We were enjoying our quiet life so much. Then you don"t realize how uncomfortable she will make you, Alida."
"Yes, I do."
"I don"t think you can yet. Your sympathies are touched now, but she"ll watch you and irritate you in a hundred ways. Don"t her very presence make you uncomfortable?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, she can"t stay," he began decidedly. "This is your home, and no one shall make you uncomfortable--"
"But I should be a great deal more uncomfortable if she didn"t stay,"
Alida interrupted. "I should feel that I did not deserve my home. Not long ago my heart was breaking because I was friendless and in trouble.
What could I think of myself if I did not entreat you in behalf of this poor child?"
"Thunder!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Holcroft. "I guess I was rather friendless and troubled myself, and I didn"t know the world had in it such a good friend as you"ve become, Alida. Well, well! You"ve put it in such a light that I"d be almost tempted to take the mother, also."
"No," she replied, laughing; "we"ll draw the line at the mother."
"Well, I"ll take Jane to town this afternoon, and if her mother will sign an agreement to leave us all in peace, we"ll give up our old cozy comfort of being alone. I suppose it must be a good deed, since it"s so mighty hard to do it," he concluded with a wry face, leading the way to the kitchen again. She smiled as if his words were already rewarding her self denial.
"Well, Jane," he resumed, "Mrs. Holcroft has spoken in your behalf, and if we can arrange matters so that you can stay, you will have her to thank chiefly. I"ll take you back to the poorhouse after dinner, so it may be known what"s become of you. Then, if your mother"ll sign an agreement to make no trouble and not come here, we"ll give you a home until we can find a better place for you."
There was no outburst of grat.i.tude. The repressed, dwarfed nature of the child was incapable of this, yet there was an unwonted little thrill of hope in her heart. Possibly it was like the beginning of life in a seed under the first spring rays of the sun. She merely nodded to Holcroft as if the matter had been settled as far as it could be, and ignored Alida.
"Why don"t you thank Mrs. Holcroft?" he asked.
Then Jane turned and nodded at Alida. Her vocabulary of thanks was undeveloped.
"She"s glad," said Alida. "You"ll see. Now that it"s settled, we hope you"re hungry, Jane, aren"t you?"
"Yes, I be. Can"t I help you put things on the table?"
"Yes."
Holcroft looked at the two for a moment, and then shook his head as he went up to his room. "I thought my wife was nice and pleasant looking before," he thought, "but she"s like a picture beside that child.
Well, she has behaved handsomely. Tom Watterly didn"t tell half the truth when he said she was not of the common run. She"s a Christian in deeds, not talk. What"s that in Scripture about "I was hungry"? Well, well! She makes religion kind of natural and plain like, whether it"s easy or not. Thunder! What a joke it is to see her so grateful because I"ve given her a chance to help me out of the worst sc.r.a.pe a man could be in! As if she hadn"t changed everything for the better!
Here I am sure of my home and getting ahead in the world again, and it"s all her doing."
In admiration of his wife Holcroft quite forgot that there had been any self-sacrifice on his part, and he concluded that he could endure Jane and almost anything else as long as Alida continued to look after his comfort and interests.
Now that the worst stress of Jane"s anxiety was over, she proved that she was half starved. Indeed she had few misgivings now, for her confidence that Holcroft would accomplish what he attempted was almost unbounded. It was a rather silent meal at first, for the farmer and his wife had much to think about and Jane much to do in making up for many limited meals. At last Holcroft smiled so broadly that Alida said, "Something seems to please you."
"Yes, more than one thing. It might be a great deal worse, and was, not long ago. I was thinking of old times."
"How pleasant they must have been to make you look so happy!"
"They had their uses, and make me think of a picture I saw in a store window in town. It was a picture of a woman, and she took my fancy amazingly. But the point uppermost in my mind was a trick of the fellow who painted her. He had made the background as dark as night and so she stood out as if alive; and she looked so sweet and good that I felt like shaking hands with her. I now see why the painter made the background so dark."
Alida smiled mischievously as she replied, "That was his art. He knew that almost anyone would appear well against such a background."
But Holcroft was much too direct to be diverted from his thought or its expression. "The man knew the mighty nice-looking woman he had painted would look well," he said, "and I know of another woman who appears better against a darker background. That"s enough to make a man smile who has been through what I have."
She could not help a flush of pleasure or disguise the happy light in her eyes, but she looked significantly at Jane, who, mystified and curious, was glancing from one to the other.
"Confound it!" thought the farmer. "That"ll be the way of it now.
Here"s a little pitcher that"s nearly all ears. Well, we"re in for it and must do our duty."
Going to town that day involved no slight inconvenience, but Holcroft dropped everything and rapidly made his preparations.
When Alida was left alone with Jane, the latter began clearing the table with alacrity, and after a few furtive glances at Mrs. Holcroft, yielded to the feeling that she should make some acknowledgment of the intercession in her behalf. "Say," she began, "I thought you wasn"t goin; to stand up for me, after all. Women folks are liars, mostly."
"You are mistaken, Jane. If you wish to stay with us, you must tell the truth and drop all sly ways."
"That"s what he said when I first come."
"I say it too. You see a good deal, Jane. Try to see what will please people instead of what you can find out about them. It"s a much better plan. Now, as a friend, I tell you of one thing you had better not do.
You shouldn"t watch and listen to Mr. Holcroft unless he speaks to you.
He doesn"t like to be watched--no one does. It isn"t nice; and if you come to us, I think you will try to do what is nice. Am I not right?"
"I dunno how," said Jane.
"It will be part of my business to teach you. You ought to understand all about your coming. Mr. Holcroft doesn"t take you because he needs your work, but because he"s sorry for you, and wishes to give you a chance to do better and learn something. You must make up your mind to lessons, and learning to talk and act nicely, as well as to do such work as is given you. Are you willing to do what I say and mind me pleasantly and promptly?"
Jane looked askance at the speaker and was vaguely suspicious of some trick. In her previous sojourn at the farmhouse she had concluded that it was her best policy to keep in Holcroft"s good graces, even though she had to defy her mother and Mrs. Wiggins, and she was now by no means ready to commit herself to this new domestic power. She had received the impression that the authority and continued residence of females in this household was involved in much uncertainty, and although Alida was in favor now and the farmer"s wife, she didn"t know what "vicissitudes" (as her mother would denominate them) might occur.
Holcroft was the only fixed and certain quant.i.ty in her troubled thoughts, and after a little hesitation she replied, "I"ll do what he says; I"m goin" to mind him."
"Suppose he tells you to mind me?"
"Then I will. That ud be mindin" him. I"m goin" to stick to him, for I made out by it better before than by mindin" mother and Mrs. Wiggins."
Alida now understood the child and laughed aloud. "You are right," she said. "I won"t ask you to do anything contrary to his wishes. Now tell me, Jane, what other clothes have you besides those you are wearing?"
It did not take the girl long to inventory her scanty wardrobe, and then Alida rapidly made out a list of what was needed immediately.
"Wait here," she said, and putting on a pretty straw hat, one of her recent purchases, she started for the barn.
Holcroft had his wagon and team almost ready when Alida joined him, and led the way to the floor between the sweet-smelling hay-mows.
"One thing leads to another," she began, looking at him a little deprecatingly. "You must have noticed the condition of Jane"s clothes."
"She does look like a little scarecrow, now I come to think of it," he admitted.
"Yes, she"s not much better off than I was," Alida returned, with downcast eyes and rising color.
Her flushing face was so pretty under the straw hat, and the dark mow as a background brought out her figure so finely that he thought of the picture again and laughed aloud for pleasure. She looked up in questioning surprise, thus adding a new grace.
"I wish that artist fellow was here now," he exclaimed. "He could make another picture that would suit me better than the one I saw in town."
"What nonsense!" she cried, quickly averting her face from his admiring scrutiny. "Come, I"m here to talk business and you"ve no time to waste.
I"ve made out a list of what the child actually must have to be respectable."