She commented wittily on all the amusing episodes of the boarding-house life for the past month; she described a cat-fight she had witnessed from her window that morning and ill.u.s.trated it by a pen-and-ink sketch of the belligerent felines; she described a lovely new dress her mother had sent her from home and told all about the cla.s.s party to which she had worn it; she gave an account of her vacation camping trip to the mountains and pasted on one page a number of small snapshots taken during the outing; she copied a joke she had read in the paper that morning and discussed the serial story in the boarding-house magazine which all the boarders were reading; she wrote out the directions for a new crocheted tidy her sister had made--Miss Marshall had a mania for crocheting; and she finally wound up with "all the good will and good wishes that Nora Jane will consent to carry from your friend, Cyrilla Blair."
Before Miss Marshall had finished reading that letter she had cried three times and laughed times past counting. More tears came at the end--happy, tender tears such as Miss Marshall had not shed for years.
Something warm and sweet and gentle seemed to thrill to life within her heart. So those girls were not such selfish, heedless young creatures as she had supposed! How kind it had been in Cyrilla Blair to think of her and write so to her. She no longer felt lonely and neglected. Her whole sombre world had been brightened to sunshine by that merry friendly letter.
Mrs. Plunkett"s table was surrounded by a ring of smiling faces that night. Everybody seemed in good spirits in spite of the weather. The pale little dressmaker, who had hardly uttered a word since her arrival a week before, talked and laughed quite merrily and girlishly, thanking Cyrilla unreservedly for her "jolly letter." Old Mr. Grant did not grumble once about the rain or the food or his rheumatism and he told Carol that she might be a good letter writer in time if she looked after her grammar more carefully--which, from Mr. Grant, was high praise. All the others declared that they were delighted with their letters--all except Miss Marshall. She said nothing but later on, when Cyrilla was going upstairs, she met Miss Marshall in the shadows of the second landing.
"My dear," said Miss Marshall gently, "I want to thank you for your letter, I don"t think you can realize just what it has meant to me. I was so--so lonely and tired and discouraged. It heartened me right up.
I--I know you have thought me a cross and disagreeable person. I"m afraid I have been, too. But--but--I shall try to be less so in future. If I can"t succeed all at once don"t mind me because, under it all, I shall always be your friend. And I mean to keep your letter and read it over every time I feel myself getting bitter and hard again."
"Dear Miss Marshall, I"m so glad you liked it," said Cyrilla frankly.
"We"re all your friends and would be glad to be chummy with you. Only we thought perhaps we bothered you with our nonsense."
"Come and see me sometimes," said Miss Marshall with a smile. "I"ll try to be "chummy"--perhaps I"m not yet too old to learn the secret of friendliness. Your letter has made me think that I have missed much in shutting all young life out from mine as I have done. I want to reform in this respect if I can."
When Cyrilla reached the front room she found Mrs. Plunkett there.
"I"ve just dropped in, Miss Blair," said that worthy woman, "to say that I dunno as I mind your making candy once in a while if you want to. Only do be careful not to set the place on fire. Please be _particularly_ careful not to set it on fire."
"We"ll try," promised Cyrilla with dancing eyes. When the door closed behind Mrs. Plunkett the three girls looked at each other.
"Cyrilla, that idea of yours was a really truly inspiration," said Carol solemnly.
"I believe it was," said Cyrilla, thinking of Miss Marshall.
Dorinda"s Desperate Deed
Dorinda had been home for a whole wonderful week and the little Pages were beginning to feel acquainted with her. When a girl goes away when she is ten and doesn"t come back until she is fifteen, it is only to be expected that her family should regard her as somewhat of a stranger, especially when she is really a Page, and they are really all Carters except for the name. Dorinda had been only ten when her Aunt Mary--on the Carter side--had written to Mrs. Page, asking her to let Dorinda come to her for the winter.
Mrs. Page, albeit she was poor--n.o.body but herself knew how poor--and a widow with five children besides Dorinda, hesitated at first. She was afraid, with good reason, that the winter might stretch into other seasons; but Mary had lost her own only little girl in the summer, and Mrs. Page shuddered at the thought of what her loneliness must be. So, to comfort her, Mrs. Page had let Dorinda go, stipulating that she must come home in the spring. In the spring, when Dorinda"s bed of violets was growing purple under the lilac bush, Aunt Mary wrote again. Dorinda was contented and happy, she said. Would not Emily let her stay for the summer? Mrs. Page cried bitterly over that letter and took sad counsel with herself. To let Dorinda stay with her aunt for the summer really meant, she knew, to let her stay altogether. Mrs.
Page was finding it harder and harder to get along; there was so little and the children needed so much; Dorinda would have a good home with her Aunt Mary if she could only prevail on her rebellious mother heart to give her up. In the end she agreed to let Dorinda stay for the summer--and Dorinda had never been home since.
But now Dorinda had come back to the little white house on the hill at Willowdale, set back from the road in a smother of apple trees and vines. Aunt Mary had died very suddenly and her only son, Dorinda"s cousin, had gone to j.a.pan. There was nothing for Dorinda to do save to come home, to enter again into her old unfilled place in her mother"s heart, and win a new place in the hearts of the brothers and sisters who barely remembered her at all. Leicester had been nine and Jean seven when Dorinda went away; now they were respectively fourteen and twelve.
At first they were a little shy with this big, practically brand-new sister, but this soon wore off. n.o.body could be shy long with Dorinda; n.o.body could help liking her. She was so brisk and jolly and sympathetic--a real Page, so everybody said--while the brothers and sisters were Carter to their marrow; Carters with fair hair and blue eyes, and small, fine, wistful features; but Dorinda had merry black eyes, plump, dusky-red cheeks, and a long braid of glossy dark hair, which was perpetually being twitched from one shoulder to another as Dorinda whisked about the house on domestic duties intent.
In a week Dorinda felt herself one of the family again, with all the cares and responsibilities thereof resting on her strong young shoulders. Dorinda and her mother talked matters out fully one afternoon over their sewing, in the sunny south room where the winds got lost among the vines halfway through the open window. Mrs. Page sighed and said she really did not know what to do. Dorinda did not sigh; she did not know just what to do either, but there must be something that could be done--there is always something that can be done, if one can only find it. Dorinda sewed hard and pursed up her red lips determinedly.
"Don"t you worry, Mother Page," she said briskly. "We"ll be like that glorious old Roman who found a way or made it. I like overcoming difficulties. I"ve lots of old Admiral Page"s fighting blood in me, you know. The first step is to tabulate just exactly what difficulties among our many difficulties must be ravelled out first--the capital difficulties, as it were. Most important of all comes--"
"Leicester," said Mrs. Page.
Dorinda winked her eyes as she always did when she was doubtful.
"Well, I knew he was one of them, but I wasn"t going to put him the very first. However, we will. Leicester"s case stands thus. He is a pretty smart boy--if he wasn"t my brother, I"d say he was a very smart boy. He has gone as far in his studies as Willowdale School can take him, has qualified for entrance into the Blue Hill Academy, wants to go there this fall and begin the beginnings of a college course. Well, of course, Mother Page, we can"t send Leicester to Blue Hill any more than we can send him to the moon."
"No," mourned Mrs. Page, "and the poor boy feels so badly over it. His heart is set on going to college and being a doctor like his father.
He believes he could work his way through, if he could only get a start. But there isn"t any chance. And I can"t afford to keep him at school any longer. He is going into Mr. Churchill"s store at Willow Centre in the fall. Mr. Churchill has very kindly offered him a place.
Leicester hates the thought of it--I know he does, although he never says so."
"Next to Leicester"s college course we want--"
"Music lessons for Jean."
Dorinda winked again.
"Are music lessons for Jean really a difficulty?" she said. "That is, one spelled with a capital?"
"Oh, yes, Dorinda dear. At least, I"m worried over it. Jean loves music so, and she has never had anything, poor child, not even as much school as she ought to have had. I"ve had to keep her home so much to help me with the work. She has been such a good, patient little girl too, and her heart is set on music lessons."
"Well, she must have them then--after we get Leicester"s year at the academy for him. That"s two. The third is a new--"
"The roof _must_ be shingled this fall," said Mrs. Page anxiously.
"It really must, Dorinda. It is no better than a sieve. We are nearly drowned every time it rains. But I don"t know where the money to do it is going to come from."
"Shingles for the roof, three," said Dorinda, as if she were carefully jotting down something in a mental memorandum. "And fourth--now, Mother Page, I _will_ have my say this time--fourthly, biggest capital of all, a Nice, New Dress and a Warm Fur Coat for Mother Page this winter. Yes, yes, you must have them, dearest. It"s absolutely necessary. We can wait a year or so for college courses and music lessons to grow; we can set basins under the leaks and borrow some more if we haven"t enough. But a new dress and coat for you we must, shall, and will have, however it is to be brought about."
"I wouldn"t mind if I never got another new st.i.tch, if I could only manage the other things," said Mrs. Page stoutly. "If your Uncle Eugene would only help us a little, until Leicester got through! He really ought to. But of course he never will."
"Have you ever asked him?" said Dorinda.
"Oh, my dear, no; of course not," said Mrs. Page in a horrified tone, as if Dorinda had asked if she had ever stolen a neighbour"s spoons.
"I don"t see why you shouldn"t," said Dorinda seriously.
"Oh, Dorinda, Uncle Eugene hates us all. He is terribly bitter against us. He would never, never listen to any request for help, even if I could bring myself to make it."
"Mother, what was the trouble between us and Uncle Eugene? I have never known the rights of it. I was too small to understand when I was home before. All I remember is that Uncle Eugene never came to see us or spoke to us when he met us anywhere, and we were all afraid of him somehow. I used to think of him as an ogre who would come creeping up the back stairs after dark and carry me off bodily if I wasn"t good.
What made him our enemy? And how did he come to get all of Grandfather Page"s property when Father got nothing?"
"Well, you know, Dorinda, that your Grandfather Page was married twice. Eugene was his first wife"s son, and your father the second wife"s. Eugene was a great deal older than your father--he was twenty-five when your father was born. He was always an odd man, even in his youth, and he had been much displeased at his father"s second marriage. But he was very fond of your father--whose mother, as you know, died at his birth--and they were good friends and comrades until just before your father went to college. They then quarrelled; the cause of the quarrel was insignificant; with anyone else than Eugene a reconciliation would soon have been effected. But Eugene never was friendly with your father from that time. I think he was jealous of old Grandfather"s affection; thought the old man loved your father best. And then, as I have said, he was very eccentric and stubborn.
Well, your father went away to college and graduated, and then--we were married. Grandfather Page was very angry with him for marrying me. He wanted him to marry somebody else. He told him he would disinherit him if he married me. I did not know this until we were married. But Grandfather Page kept his word. He sent for a lawyer and had a new will made, leaving everything to Eugene. I think, nay, I am sure, that he would have relented in time, but he died the very next week; they found him dead in his bed one morning, so Eugene got everything; and that is all there is of the story, Dorinda."
"And Uncle Eugene has been our enemy ever since?"
"Yes, ever since. So you see, Dorinda dear, that I cannot ask any favours of Uncle Eugene."
"Yes, I see," said Dorinda understandingly. To herself she added, "But I don"t see why _I_ shouldn"t."
Dorinda thought hard and long for the next few days about the capital difficulties. She could think of only one thing to do and, despite old Admiral Page"s fighting blood, she shrank from doing it. But one night she found Leicester with his head down on his books and--no, it couldn"t be tears in his eyes, because Leicester laughed scornfully at the insinuation.
"I wouldn"t cry over it, Dorinda; I hope I"m more of a man than _that_. But I do really feel rather cut up because I"ve no chance of getting to college. And I hate the thought of going into a store. But I know I must for Mother"s sake, and I mean to pitch in and like it in spite of myself when the time comes. Only--only--"
And then Leicester got up and whistled and went to the window and stood with his back to Dorinda.
"That settles it," said Dorinda out loud, as she brushed her hair before the gla.s.s that night. "I"ll do it."