President Wilson turned to John Randolph. "The child has described it, exactly! What an ideal! Do you think we"ll ever reach it?" Then, to Keineth, "And that is the mission that took your father abroad--to lay before the peoples of those other lands this plan of democracy; to show them the picture of how we all--as nations--might live as you have described it, like thrifty families on a clean-kept street, some in finer houses than others, perhaps, but each one with its door-step clean and its corners well cleared out. Well--well, in your lifetime you may come to it, child. And when you do--remember that the way was opened by the message your father carried!"
They talked a little longer of things Keineth could not understand, though she listened with rapt attention while her father spoke of the Emperor of j.a.pan and the Czar of Russia as though they were just ordinary men!
President Wilson walked with them to the door; he shook hands and begged them to come again! "I should like some day to show you around Washington myself, Miss Keineth," he said, patting her shoulder. Then as they walked out toward the street gates Keineth turned back and saw him watching from the open door. She waved her hand impulsively and he lifted his in a farewell salute.
Keineth drew in a very deep breath: as Peggy would say, "Who _could_ believe that she was little Keineth Randolph?"
CHAPTER XXV
THE CASTLE OF DREAMS
When her father suggested that they let the sightseeing wait and take a walk, Keineth was delighted. She wanted more than anything else right then to talk and talk and talk to her daddy! There was so much to tell him!
"We"ll have plenty of time to see all the interesting things," Mr.
Randolph said. "We"ll stay here a week or two longer." "Peggy, too?"
asked Keineth.
"Peggy, too, of course!"
"Oh, what _fun_!" cried Keineth, squeezing her father"s hand with both of hers. She fairly danced along by his side, so that he had to walk very fast to keep up with her light feet "Way across the Park through the trees they could see the waters of the Potomac gleaming blue, and beyond the hills of Arlington. Two weeks--her eyes shone--two weeks with Daddy and Peggy!
"You know, Daddy, that Peggy is my very best friend!" Keineth said very solemnly. She commenced to tell him of Overlook and the happy summer days--of Stella, whom she had seen several times during the winter and had learned to love--of Grandma Sparks and her quaint old home--of Mr.
Cadowitz and the hours in his queer studio--of the Jenkins cousins and the little Penny girls. He listened with a smile, perhaps not always able to follow her excited chatter, but certain from it that Keineth had found what he had hoped she would find when he had sent her to the Lees.
Then Keineth thought of a confession she must make.
"Is it dreadful, Daddy, but I have forgotten to be lonesome for Tante?
I am ashamed because I do not think of her oftener. Where do you suppose she is?"
"I saw her, my dear! Think what a coincidence it was! When I was in Paris one of the secretaries from the American Emba.s.sy took me around to visit the soup kitchens they have opened up there to feed the needy children of the soldiers at the front. At the very first one we went into, a woman in charge came up to greet us--and it was good Madame Henri! I might have known she"d be doing something like that! She knew me, of course--the tears ran down her cheeks as she clasped my hand.
She couldn"t say a word at first. She herself took us through the place and as it was at noontime, we stayed to see her hungry family. It was a sight I"ll never forget--women, shivering in ragged clothing, with babes in their arms and gaunt, unhappy faces and eyes that looked at you as if they were eternally asking something and afraid to ask! Most of them had some sc.r.a.p of dingy crepe somewhere about them--had lost their men at the battle-front! And little children gulping down the hot soup as though they were starved! Tante said it was the only meal most of them had during the day. After her work was over she and I went into a little room to talk. I knew she wanted to ask me about you--"her baby," she called you. When I told her you were well and happy she broke down and sobbed "thank G.o.d!"
"She told me that her mother was dead and that her brother"s wife and her little family were on a farm in northern France. When they did not need her longer she had gone to Paris to help.
""Give her my love," she said to me--I knew she meant you. "Keep her safe! It is my one comfort in these terrible days that she is not suffering! I love America--but I can never go back--my work is here!" I knew then that until the end Madame Henri would stick to her post and help wherever she could do the most good. She is a n.o.ble woman!"
Keineth sighed. "It doesn"t seem right to be so happy when others are not," she said, troubled.
"But remember what she said--because you are happy is the one bright spot in Madame Henri"s life! So it may be with others; you can always help someone."
"You couldn"t do anything else at the Lees"," broke in Keineth, "because Aunt Nellie is so kind and unselfish that we children are terribly ashamed to be anything else! Daddy--" Keineth stopped short; for the first time it crossed her mind that now that her daddy had come back her visit at the Lees" would end. "Where will we live now, Daddy?"
He waited a moment before he answered.
"I am going to ask you to decide that for yourself, Keineth." Keineth remembered then the night her father had made her decide between Aunt Josephine and the Lees! How hard it had been!
John Randolph led her to a bench. "Let"s sit down here and talk. I"ll show you two pictures, Keineth, and you shall choose. You heard what the President said; he has asked me to be in his Cabinet! That is a great honor--perhaps the highest honor that may ever come to me!"
"You"ll be more than a soldier that doesn"t wear a uniform?"
Her father smiled at her quaint phrasing. "Yes, much more! But, besides the honor and the work of the position it will mean this to us--we will have to take a house here in Washington and live in such a way that we can entertain many, many guests. My time will never be my own, for there will be countless social demands besides the duties of the office--I will be able to spend very little time with my little girl!
But she will not mind that because she will have ever so many new friends and new things to do, too. And we"re too simple to know how to live such a life, so there"s only one thing that"d happen--" Keineth was making tiny circles in the soft gra.s.s with the toe of her shoe. She had listened intently, now she interrupted quickly: "Aunt Josephine!"
"Yes--Aunt Josephine would have to come down to show us how!"
For some reason Keineth did not like the picture--and yet Daddy had said it was a great honor! But Aunt Josephine--
Near the Monument the Marine Band had begun its program for the first afternoon concert of the season. A great many people had begun to gather in groups on the green. The music had seemed to reach Keineth and her father as though it was all a part of the soft spring air and beauty around them--they had scarcely heeded it as they talked! But suddenly a familiar note struck Keineth"s ear. She lifted her head quickly.
"Oh, listen!" she cried, clutching his arm. "Listen!"
"What is it, child?" He was startled by the look on her face. She had sprung to her feet.
"That--that--" she whispered as though her voice might drown out the soft strains of the music, "that is my Castle of Dreams!" She lifted her hand to beg him not to speak until it had ended. They listened together until the last note died away.
"Beautiful, my dear, but--"
She turned shining eyes toward him. "I wrote it," she added simply.
"You--you--" He stared at her in such a funny way that Keineth burst out laughing. "Why, my dear--"
"Aunt Nellie taught me to write music! And I sold this! I didn"t want to tell you until I had a chance to play it for you."
"You--wrote--that?" He seemed not able to really believe. "My little girl?" A world of pride warmed the tone of his voice.
"Yes, and it"s such fun putting down what comes to my fingers! Only Mr.
Cadowitz says that I must learn a great deal more and practice what the masters can teach me. And Aunt Nellie says, too, that I ought to wait until I have finished school."
"Yes, they are right," Mr. Lee put in. Then he caressed the small fingers that lay in his clasp. "But, my dear little girl, what a joy for you some day! It is a wonderful gift to tell your thoughts in music! When you have built up a strong body and a good mind you can work with all your heart and soul!"
Keineth told him then the story of Pilot and Mr. Grandison. Her father was deeply interested. He recalled that he had heard his father speak of him once or twice. "He must have had a very lonely life," he added."
We must see something of him now and then, my dear!"
"Oh, he will be glad!" Keineth described the big house on the outskirts of the city where she had gone with her check; its lonely rooms that all his money could not make cheerful. That led her to tell of the beautiful books and how Mr. Grandison had one day taken her and Peggy to see "Pollyanna"; of riding there in the big limousine and wearing the precious pink dresses!
The afternoon sun was dropping. The concert had ended and the crowds were slowly moving away. John Randolph"s face wore its far-away look as though he was dreaming things. His eyes, as he turned them upon Keineth, were very serious.
"You know--child, we"re given things in this world--good health and fortune and gifts like your music--and my writing--but I don"t believe we"re given them just to enjoy them ourselves! We"re meant to share them! I haven"t told you the other picture, my dear!"
"Oh, no!" cried Keineth. How could she have forgotten Aunt Josephine!
"I"ve had a dream, Keineth, these months that I"ve been gone! It"s been a dream of the little home we"d make in some quiet corner where I could write and you could grow and play. It"d be a simple home, but we"d have a great many friends around us. There"s a lot in my head I want to write, too--I long for time to do it! I couldn"t help but think as I travelled over almost all the lands of the globe that people are alike after all--only some of us have learned things faster than others and some have a lot to learn. If those who see the vision could teach the others--well, to live, as we said, like respectable, happy families in a peaceful street--then this world would know a brotherhood we haven"t got now. It could come after this war--we could all be comrades, always going forward shoulder to shoulder! I feel as if I want to write and write and write about it until that picture goes all over the world!
Couldn"t I do more for all my fellowmen that way than giving up my time to the immense duties of a Cabinet official?" He turned a frowning face toward Keineth, as though from this twelve-year-old girl he expected help in his perplexity.