"I fear I am too much of a student to be called a good family man."
"So I gathered." (Stab three. She wanted to provoke curiosity.)
Mr. Lord looked annoyed. He knew his unpopularity, and did not wish any village gossip to reach the ears of strangers. "You, my dear madam, are capable of appreciating my devotion to my life work, which the neighbors naturally wholly misunderstand," he said.
"I gathered nothing from the neighbors," responded Mrs. Carey, "but a woman has only to know children well to see at a glance what they need.
You are so absorbed in authorship just now, that naturally it is a little hard for the young people; but I suppose there are breathing places, "between books"?"
"There are no breathing places between mine; there will be six volumes, and I am scarcely half through the third, although I have given seven years to the work. Still, I have an excellent housekeeper who attends to all our simple needs. My children are not fitted for society."
"No, not quite." (Stab four). "That is the reason they ought to see a good deal of it, but they are very fine children and very clever."
"I am glad you think so, but they certainly write bad English and have no general knowledge whatsoever."
"Oh, well, that will come, doubtless, when you have more time with them." (Stab five.) "I often think such mysterious things as good speech and culture can never be learned in school. I shouldn"t wonder if that were our department, Dr. Lord!" (Stab six.) "However, you will agree, modest parent as you are, that your Olive is a genius?"
"I have never observed it," replied her father. "I cannot, of course, allow her to practice on any musical instrument, because my studies demand quiet, but I don"t think she cares for music."
"She draws and paints, however, in the most astonishing way, and she has a pa.s.sionate energy, and concentration, and devotion to her work that I have never seen coupled with anything but an extraordinary talent. She is destined to go very far, in my opinion."
"Not too far, I hope," remarked Mr. Lord, with an icy smile. "Olive can paint on plush and china as much as she likes, but I am not partial to "careers" for young women."
"Nor am I; save when the gift is so commanding, so obvious, that it has to be reckoned with;--but I must not delay my business any longer, nor keep you from your work. We are having a housewarming this evening at seven. Olive and Cyril are there now, helping in the preparations, and I want to know if they may stay to supper, and if you can send for them at half past nine or ten."
"Certainly they may stay, though I should think your supper table could hardly stand the strain."
"Where there are five already, two more make no difference, save in better appet.i.te for all," said Mother Carey, smiling and rising.
"If you will allow me to get my hat and coat I will accompany you to the main road," said Mr. Lord, going to the front hall, and then opening the door for Mrs. Carey. "Let me take your parcel, please."
He did not know in the least why he said it and why he did it. The lady had interfered with his family affairs to a considerable extent, and had made several remarks that would have appeared impertinent, had they not issued from a very winsome, beautiful mouth. Mrs. Ossian Popham or Mrs.
Bill Harmon would have been shown the door for saying less, yet here was Henry Lord, Ph.D., ambling down the lane by Mother Carey"s side, thinking to himself what a burden she lifted from his shoulders by her unaccountable interest in his unattractive children. He was also thinking how "springy" was the lady"s step in her short black dress, how brilliant the chestnut hair looked under the black felt hat, and how white the skin gleamed above the glossy lynx boa. A kind of mucilaginous fluid ran in his veins instead of blood, but Henry Lord, Ph.D., had his a.s.sailable side nevertheless, and he felt extraordinarily good natured, almost as if the third volume were finished, with public and publishers clamoring for its appearance.
"I don"t know where Olive could have got any such talent as you describe," he said, as they were walking along the lane. "She had some lessons long ago, I remember, and her mother used to talk of her amusing herself with pencil and paint, but I have heard nothing of it for years."
"Ask to see her sketches when you are talking with her about her work some day," suggested Mother Carey. (Stab seven.) "As a matter of fact she probably gets her talent from you."
"From me!" Printed letters fail to register the amazement in Professor Lord"s tone.
"Why not, when you consider her specialty?"
"_What_ specialty?"
Really, a slender sword was of no use with this man; a bludgeon was the only instrument, yet it might wound, and she only wanted to p.r.i.c.k. Had the creature never seen Olive sketching, nor noted her choice of subjects?
"She paints animals; paints nothing else, if she can help it; though she does fairly well with other things. Is it impossible that your study of zoology--your thought, your absorption for years and years, in the cla.s.sification, the structure, the habits of animals--may have been stamped on your child"s mind? She has an ardor equal to your own, only showing itself in a different manner. You may have pa.s.sed on, in some mysterious way, your knowledge to Olive. She may have unconsciously blended it with some instinct for expression of her own, and it comes out in pictures. Look at this, Professor Lord. Olive gave it to me to-day."
They stood together at the gate leading out into the road, and Mrs.
Carey unwrapped the painting and poised it against the top of the gate.
Olive"s father looked at it for a moment and then said, "I am no judge of these things, technically or otherwise, but it certainly seems very creditable work for a girl of Olive"s age."
"Oh, it is surely more than that! My girl Nancy stands there in the flesh, though her face is hidden. Look at the wind blowing, look at the delightful, the enchanting calf; above all look at the t.i.tle! Who in the world but a little genius could have composed that sketch, breathing youth in every inch of it,--and called it "Young April"! Oh! Professor Lord, I am very bold, because your wife is not living, and it is women who oftenest see these budding tendencies in children; forgive me, but do cherish and develop this talent of Olive"s."
The eyes the color of the blue velvet bonnet were turned full upon Henry Lord, Ph.D. They swam in tears and the color came and went in her cheek; she was forty, but it was a lovely cheek still.
"I will think it over," he replied with some embarra.s.sment as he wrapped the picture again and handed it to her. "Meantime I am certainly very much obliged to you. You seem to have an uncommon knowledge of young people. May I ask if you are, or have been, a teacher?" "Oh, no!" Mrs.
Carey remarked with a smile, "I am just a mother,--that"s all!
Good night."
XXVII
THE CAREY HOUSEWARMING
The housewarming was at its height, and everybody agreed once in every ten minutes that it was probably the most beautiful party that had ever happened in the history of the world.
Water flowed freely through Cousin Ann"s expensive pipes, that had been buried so deep in their trenches that the winter frosts could not affect them. Natty Harmon tried the kitchen pump secretly several times during the evening, for the water had to run up hill all the way from the well to the kitchen sink, and he believed this to be a continual miracle that might "give out" at any moment. The stove in the cellar, always alluded to by Gilbert as the "young furnace," had not yet been used, save by way of experiment, but it was believed to be a perfect success. To-night there was no need of extra heat, and there were great ceremonies to be observed in lighting the fires on the hearthstones. They began with the one in the family sitting room; Colonel Wheeler, Ralph Thurston, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Harmon with Natty and Rufus, Mr. and Mrs. Popham with Digby and Lallie Joy, all standing in admiring groups and thrilling with delight at the order of events. Mother Carey sat by the fireplace; little Peter, fairly radiant with excitement, leaning against her knee and waiting for his own great moment, now close at hand.
"_When ye come into a house, salute it; and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it_.
"_To all those who may dwell therein from generation to generation may it be a house of G.o.d, a gate of heaven_.
"_For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is G.o.d, seeing that he giveth to every one of us life and breath and all good things_."
Mother Carey spoke these words so simply and naturally, as she looked towards her neighbors one after another, with her hand resting on Peter"s curly head, that they hardly knew whether to keep quiet or say Amen.
"Was that the Bible, Osh?" whispered Bill Harmon.
"Don"t know; "most everything she says sounds like the Bible or Shakespeare to me."
In the hush that followed Mother Carey"s salutation Gilbert approached with a basket over his arm, and quickly and neatly laid a little fire behind the bra.s.s andirons on the hearth. Then Nancy handed Peter a loosely bound sheaf, saying: "To light this fire I give you a torch. In it are herbs of the field for health of the body, a fern leaf for grace, a sprig of elm for peace, one of oak for strength, with evergreen to show that we live forever in the deeds we have done. To these we have added rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thoughts."
Peter crouched on the hearth and lighted the fire in three places, then handed the torch to Kathleen as he crept again into his mother"s lap, awed into complete silence by the influence of his own mystic rite.
Kathleen waved the torch to and fro as she recited some beautiful lines written for some such purpose as that which called them together to-night.
"Burn, fire, burn!
Flicker, flicker, flame!
Whose hand above this blaze is lifted Shall be with touch of magic gifted, To warm the hearts of chilly mortals Who stand without these open portals.
The touch shall draw them to this fire, Nigher, nigher, By desire.
Whoso shall stand on this hearth-stone, Flame-fanned, Shall never, never stand alone.
Whose home is dark and drear and old, Whose hearth is cold, This is his own.
Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame!
Burn, fire, burn!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Florence Converse.]