Orchard Street is wide and sunny and pleasant; the river air comes over it and makes it sweet; and Miss Craydocke"s is a big, generous house, of which she only uses a very little part herself, because she lets the rest to nice people who want pleasant rooms and can"t afford to pay much rent; an old gentleman who has had a hard time in the world, but has kept himself a gentleman through it all, and his little cheery old lady-wife who puts her round gla.s.ses on and st.i.tches away at fine women"s under-garments and flannel embroideries, to keep things even, have the two very best rooms; and a clergyman"s widow, who copies for lawyers, and writes little stories for children, has another; and two orphan sisters who keep school have another; and Miss Craydocke calls her house the Beehive, and buzzes up and down in it, and out and in, on little "seeing-to"
errands of care and kindness all day long, as never any queen-bee did in any beehive before, but in a way that makes her more truly queen than any sitting in the middle cell of state to be fed on royal jelly. Behind the Beehive, is a garden, as there should be; great patches of lily-of-the valley grow there that Miss Craydocke ties up bunches from in the spring and gives away to little children, and carries into all the sick rooms she knows of, and the poor places. I always think of those lilies of the valley when I think of Miss Craydocke. It seems somehow as if they were blooming about her all the year through; and so they are, perhaps, invisibly.
The other flowers come in their season; the crocuses have been done with first of all; the gay tulips and the s...o...b..a.l.l.s have made the children glad when they stopped at the gate and got them, going to school. Miss Craydocke is always out in her garden at school-time.
By and by there are the tall white lilies, standing cool and serene in the July heats; then Miss Craydocke is away at the mountains, pressing ferns and drying gra.s.ses for winter parlors; but there is somebody on duty at the garden dispensary always, and there are flower-pensioners who know they may come in and take the gracious toll.
Late in the autumn, the nasturtiums and verbenas and marigolds are bright; and the asters quill themselves into the biggest globes they can, of white and purple and rose, as if it were to make the last glory the best, and to do the very utmost of the year. Then the chrysanthemums go into the house and bloom there for Christmas-time.
There is nothing else like Miss Craydocke"s house and garden, I do believe, in all the city of the Three Hills. It is none too big for her, left alone with it, the last of her family; the world is none too big for her; she is glad to know it is all there. She has a use for everything as fast as it comes, and a work to do for everybody, as fast as she finds them out. And everybody,--almost,--catches it as she goes along, and around her there is always springing up a busy and a spreading crystallizing of shining and blessed elements.
The world is none too big for her, or for any such, of course, because,--it has been told why better than I can tell it,--because "ten times one is always ten."
It was a gray, gusty morning. It had not set in to rain continuously; but the wind wrung handfuls of drops suddenly from the clouds, and flung them against the panes and into the wayfarers"
faces.
Over in the house opposite the Ripwinkley"s, at the second story windows, sat two busy young persons. Hazel, sitting at her window, in "mother"s room," where each had a corner, could see across; and had got into the way of innocent watching. Up in Homesworth, she had used to watch the robins in the elm-trees; here, there was human life, in little human nests, all about her.
"It"s the same thing, mother," she would say, "isn"t it, now? Don"t you remember in that book of the "New England Housekeeper," that you used to have, what the woman said about the human nature of the beans? It"s in beans, and birds, and bird"s nests; and folks, and folks" nests. It don"t make much difference. It"s just snugness, and getting along. And it"s so nice to see!"
Hazel put her elbows up on the window-sill, and looked straight over into that opposite room, undisguisedly.
The young man, in one window, said to his sister in the other, at the same moment,--
"Our company"s come! There"s that bright little girl again!"
And the sister said, "Well, it"s pretty much all the company we can take in! She brings her own seat and her own window; and she doesn"t interrupt. It"s just the kind for us, Kentie!"
"She"s writing,--copying something,--music, it looks like; see it there, set up against the shutter. She always goes out with a music roll in her hand. I wonder whether she gives or takes?" said Diana, stopping on her way to her own seat to look out over Hazel"s shoulder.
"Both, I guess," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "Most people do. Why don"t you put your flowers in the window, Hazel?"
"Why, so I will!"
They were a great bunch of snowy white and deep crimson asters, with green ivy leaves, in a tall gray gla.s.s vase. Rachel Froke had just brought them in from Miss Craydocke"s garden.
"They"re looking, mother! Only I do think it"s half too bad! That girl seems as if she would almost reach across after them. Perhaps they came from the country, and haven"t had any flowers."
"Thee might take them over some," said Mrs. Froke, simply.
"O, I shouldn"t dare! There are other people in the house, and I don"t know their names, or anything. I wish I could, though."
"I can," said Rachel Froke. "Thee"ll grow tall enough to step over pebbles one of these days. Never mind; I"ll fetch thee more to-morrow; and thee"ll let the vase go for a while? Likely they"ve nothing better than a tumbler."
Rachel Froke went down the stairs, and out along the paved walk, into the street. She stopped an instant on the curb-stone before she crossed, and looked up at those second story windows. Hazel watched her. She held up the vase slightly with one hand, nodding her little gray bonnet kindly, and beckoned with the other.
The young girl started from her seat.
In another minute Hazel saw them together in the doorway.
There was a blush and a smile, and an eager brightness in the face, and a quick speaking thanks, that one could read without hearing, from the parted lips, on the one side, and the quiet, unflutterable gray bonnet calmly horizontal on the other; and then the door was shut, and Rachel Froke was crossing the damp pavement again.
"I"m so glad Aspen Street is narrow!" said Hazel. "I should hate to be way off out of sight of people. What did you say to her, Mrs.
Froke?" she asked, as the Friend reentered. Hazel could by no means take the awful liberty of "Rachel."
"I said the young girl, Hazel Ripwinkley, being from the country, knew how good flowers were to strangers in the town, and that she thought they might be strange, and might like some."
Hazel flushed all up. At that same instant, a gentle nod and smile came across from window to window, and she flushed more, till the tears sprung with the shy, glad excitement, as she returned it and then shrunk away.
"And she said, "Thank her, with Dorris Kincaid"s love,"" proceeded Rachel Froke.
"O, _mother_!" exclaimed Hazel. "And you did it all, right off so, Mrs. Froke. I don"t see how grown up people dare, and know how!"
Up the stairs ran quick feet in little clattering heeled boots.
Desire Ledwith, with a purple waterproof on, came in.
"I couldn"t stay at home to-day," she said, "I wanted to be where it was all-togetherish. It never is at our house. Now it"s set up, they don"t do anything with it."
"That"s because it "_looks_"--so elegant," said Hazel, catching herself up in dismay.
"It"s because it"s the crust, I think," said Desire. "Puff paste, like an oyster patty; and they haven"t got anything cooked yet for the middle. I wonder when they will. I had a call yesterday, all to myself," she went on, with a sudden change of tone and topic.
"Agatha was hopping and I wouldn"t tell her what I said, or how I behaved. That new parlor girl of ours thinks we"re all or any of us "Miss Ledwith," mamma included, and so she let him in. He had on lavender pantaloons and a waxed moustache."
"The rain is just pouring down!" said Diana, at the garden window.
"Yes; I"m caught. That"s what I meant," said Desire. "You"ve got to keep me all day, now. How will you get home, Mrs. Froke? Or won"t you have to stay, too?"
"Thee may call me Rachel, Desire Ledwith, if thee pleases. I like it better. I am no mistress. And for getting home, it is but just round the corner. But there is no need yet. I came for an hour, to sit here with friend Frances. And my hour is not yet up."
"I"m glad of that, for there is something I want you to tell me. I haven"t quite got at it myself, yet; so as to ask, I mean. Wait a minute!" And she put her elbows up on her knees, and held her thumbs against her ears, and her fingers across her forehead; sitting squarely opposite the window to which she had drawn up her chair beside Diane, and looking intently at the driving streams that rushed and ran down against the gla.s.s.
"I was sitting in the bay-window at home, when it began this morning; that made me think. All the world dripping wet, and I just put there dry and safe in the middle of the storm, shut up behind those great clear panes and tight sashes. How they did have to contrive, and work, before there were such places made for people!
What if they had got into their first scratchy little houses, and sat behind the logs as we do behind gla.s.s windows and thought, as I was thinking, how nice it was just to be covered up from the rain?
Is it all finished now? Hasn"t anybody got to contrive anything more? And who"s going to do it--and everything. And what are we good for,--just _we_,--to come and expect it all, modern-improved! I don"t think much of our place among things, do you, Mrs.
Froke?--There, I believe that"s it, as near as I can!""
"Why does thee ask me, Desire?"
"I don"t know. I don"t know any whys or what fors. "Behold we know not anything,"--Tennyson and I! But you seem so--pacified--I suppose I thought you must have settled most things in your mind."
"Every builder--every little joiner--did his piece,--thought his thought out, I think likely. There"s no little groove or moulding or fitting or finish, but is a bit of somebody"s living; and life grows, going on. We"ve all got our piece to do," said Rachel.
"I asked Mrs. Mig," Desire pursued, "and she said some people"s part was to buy and employ and encourage; and that spending money helps all the world; and then she put another cushion to her back, and went on tatting."
"Perhaps it does--in spite of the world," said Rachel Froke, quietly.
"But I guess n.o.body is to sit by and _only_ encourage; G.o.d has given out no such portion as that, I do believe. We can encourage each other, and every one do his own piece too."
"I didn"t really suppose Mrs. Mig knew," said Desire, demurely. "She never began at the bottom of anything. She only finishes off. She buys pattern worsted work, and fills it in. That"s what she"s doing now, when she don"t tat; a great bunch of white lilies, grounding it with olive. It"s lovely; but I"d rather have made the lilies. She"ll give it to mother, and then Glossy will come and spend the winter with us. Mrs. Mig is going to Na.s.sau with a sick friend; she"s awfully useful--for little overseeings and general touchings up, after all the hard part is done. Mrs. Mig"s sick friends always have nurses and waiting maids--Mrs. F---- Rachel! Do you know, I haven"t got any piece!"
"No, I don"t know; nor does thee either, yet," said Rachel Froke.