"I "only have" one!" laughed Rhoda, hurrying after it.
The whole little room when they left, like the pins in the pincushion, spelled "WELCOME."
Aunt Olivia got up earlier than usual one day and went about the house for a survey. The valise and the little carpetbag she carried downstairs and out on to the front steps. Her face was whitened as if by a long night"s vigil. When she called Rebecca Mary it was with a voice strained hoa.r.s.e. The beautiful being Olivicia watched her with intent, unwinking gaze. Could it be Olivicia understood?
"Hurry and dress, Rebecca Mary; there"s a good deal to do," Aunt Olivia said at the door. She did not go in. "Yes, in your second-best--don"t you see I"ve put it out. You can wear that every day now, till--for a while." Something in the voice startled Rebecca Mary out of her subdued ecstasy and sent her down to breakfast with a nameless fear tugging at her heart.
"You"re going to stay at the minister"s--I"ve paid your board in advance," Aunt Olivia said, monotonously, as if it were her lesson. She did not look at Rebecca Mary. "I"ve put in your long-sleeve ap.r.o.ns so you can help do up the dishes. There"s plenty of handkerchiefs to last.
You mustn"t forget your rubbers when it"s wet, or to make up your bed yourself. I don"t want you to make the minister"s wife any more trouble than you can help."
The lesson went monotonously on, but Rebecca Mary scarcely heard. She had heard the first sentence--her sentence, poor child! "You"re going to stay at the minister"s--stay at the minister"s--stay at the minister"s."
It said itself over and over again in her ears. In her need for somebody to lean on, her startled gaze sought the beautiful being across the room in agonized appeal.
But Olivicia was staring smilingly at Aunt Olivia. ET TU, OLIVICIA!
If Rebecca Mary had noticed, there was an appealing, wistful look in Aunt Olivia"s eyes too, in odd contrast to the firm lips that moved steadily on with their lesson:
"You can walk to school with Rhoda, you"ll enjoy that. You"ve never had folks to walk with. And you can stay with her, only you mustn"t forget your stents. I"ve put in some towels to hem. Maybe the minister"s wife has got something; if so, hem hers first. You"ll be like one o" the family, and they"re nice folks, but I want you to keep right on being a Plummer."
Years afterwards Rebecca Mary remembered the dizzy dance of the bottles in the caster--they seemed to join hands and sway and swing about their silver circlet and how Aunt Olivia"s b.u.t.tons marched and countermarched up and down Aunt Olivia"s alpaca dress. She did not look above the b.u.t.tons--she did not dare to. If she was to keep right on being a Plummer, she must not cry.
"That"s all," she heard through the daze and dizziness, "except that I can"t tell when I"ll be back. It--ain"t decided. Likely I shan"t be able--there won"t be much chance to write, and you needn"t expect me to.
No need to write me either. That"s all, I guess."
The stage that came for Aunt Olivia dropped the little carpetbag and Rebecca Mary at the minister"s. In the brief interval between the start and the dropping, Rebecca Mary sat, stiff and numb, on the edge of the high seat and gazed out unfamiliarly at the familiar landmarks they lurched past. At any other time the knowledge that she was going to the minister"s to stay--to live--would have filled her with staid joy. At any other time--but THIS time only a dull ache filled her little dreary world. Everything seemed to ache--the munching cows in the Trumbull pasture, the cats on the doorsteps, the dog loping along beside the stage, the stage driver"s stooping old back. Aunt Olivia was going to the city--Rebecca Mary wasn"t going to the city. There was no room in the world for anything but that and the ache.
Rebecca Mary"s indignation was not born till night. Then, lying in the dainty bed under Rhoda"s pink quilt, her mood changed. Until then she had only been disappointed. But then she sat up suddenly and said bitter things about Aunt Olivia.
"She"s gone to have a good time all to herself--and she might have taken me. She didn"t, she didn"t, and she might"ve. She wanted all the good time herself! She didn"t want me to have any!"
"Rebecca Mary!--did you speak, dear?" It was the gentle voice of the minister"s wife outside the door. Rebecca Mary"s red little hands unwrung and dropped on the pink quilt.
"No"m, I did--I mean yes"m, I didn"t--I mean--"
"You don"t feel sick? There isn"t anything the matter, dear?"
"No"m--oh, yes"m, yes"m!" for there was something the matter. It was Aunt Olivia. But she must not say it--must not cry--must keep right on being a Plummer.
"Robert, I didn"t go in--I couldn"t," the minister"s wife said, back in the cheery sitting room. "I suppose you think I"d have gone in and comforted her, taken her right in my arms and comforted her the Rhoda way, but I didn"t."
"No?" The minister"s voice was a little vague on account of the sermon on his knees.
"I seemed to know--something told me right through that door--that she"d rather I wouldn"t. Robert, if the child is homesick, it"s a different kind of homesickness."
"The Plummer kind," he suggested. The minister was coming to.
"Yes, the Plummer kind, I suppose, Plummers are such--such PLUMMERY persons, Robert!"
Upstairs under the pink quilt the rigid little figure relaxed just enough to admit of getting out of bed and fumbling in the little carpetbag. With her diary in her hand--for Aunt Olivia had remembered her diary--Rebecca Mary went to the window and sat down. She had to hold the cookbook up at a painful angle and peer at it sharply, for the moonlight that filtered into the little room through the vines was dim and soft.
"Aunt Olivia has gone to the city and I haven"t," painfully traced Rebecca Mary. "She wanted the good time all to herself. I shall never forgive Aunt Olivia the Lord have mercy on her." Then Rebecca Mary went back to bed. She dreamed that the cars ran off the track and they brought Aunt Olivia"s pieces home to her. In the dreadful dream she forgave Aunt Olivia.
It was very pleasant at the minister"s and the minister"s wife"s.
Rebecca Mary felt the warmth and pleasantness of it in every fibre of her body and soul. But she was not happy nor warm. She thought it was indignation against Aunt Olivia--she did not know she was homesick. She did not know why she went to the old home every day after school and wandered through Aunt Olivia"s flower garden, and sat with little brown chin palm-deep on the doorsteps. Gradually the indignation melted out of existence and only the homesickness was left. It sat on her small, lean face like a little spectre. It troubled the minister"s wife.
"What can we do, Robert?" she asked.
"What?" he echoed; for the minister, too, was troubled.
"She wanders about like a little lost soul. When she plays with the children it"s only the outside of her that plays."
"Only the outside," he nodded.
"Last night I went in, Robert, and--and tried the Rhoda way. I think she liked it, but it didn"t comfort her. I am sure now that it is homesickness, Robert." They were both sure, but the grim little spectre sat on, undaunted by all their kindnesses.
"When thy father and thy mother forsake the," wrote Rebecca Mary in the cookbook diary, "and thy Aunt Olivia for I know it means and thy Aunt Olivia then the Lord will take the up, but I dont feal as if anyboddy had taken me up. The ministers wife did once but of course she had to put me down again rite away. She is a beutiful person and I love her but she is differunt from thy father and thy mother and thy Aunt Olivia. Ide rather have Aunt Olivia take me up than to have the Lord."
It was when she shut the battered little book this time that Rebecca Mary remembered one or two things that had happened the morning Aunt Olivia went away. It was queer how she HADN"T remembered them before.
She remembered that Aunt Olivia had taken her sharp little face between her own hands and looked down wistfully at it--wistfully, Rebecca Mary remembered now, though she did not call it by that name. She remembered Aunt Olivia had said, "You needn"t hem anything unless it"s for the minister"s wife--never mind the towels I put in." That was almost the last thing she had said. She had put her head out of the stage door to say it. Rebecca Mary had hemmed a towel each day. There were but two left, and she resolved to hem both of those tomorrow. A sudden little longing was born within her for more towels to hem for Aunt Olivia.
It was nearly three weeks after Rebecca Mary"s entrance into the minister"s family when the letter came. It was directed to Rebecca Mary, and lay on her plate when she came home from school.
"Oh, look, you"ve got a letter, Rebecca Mary!" heralded Rhoda, joyfully.
Then her face fell, for maybe the letter would say Aunt Olivia was coming home.
"Is it from your aunt Olivia?" she asked, anxiously.
"No," Rebecca Mary said, in slow surprise. "The writing isn"t, anyway, and the name is another one--"
"Oh! Oh! Maybe she"s got mar--"
"Rhoda!" cautioned the minister.
This is the letter Rebecca Mary read:
"Dear Rebecca Mary,--You see I know your name from your aunt. She talked about you all the time, but I am writing you of my own accord. She does not know it. I think you will like to know that at last we are feeling very hopeful about your aunt. We have been very anxious since the operation, she had so little strength to rally with. But now if she keeps on as well as this you will have her home again in a little while.
The doctors say three weeks. She is the patientest patient in the ward.
Yours very truly, Sara Ellen Nesbitt, Nurse" Ward A, Emmons Hospital
That was the letter. Rebecca Mary"s face grew a little whiter at every line of it. At every line understanding grew clearer, till at the end she knew it all. She gave a little cry, and ran out of the room. Love and remorse and sympathy fought for first place in her laboring little breast. In the next few minutes she lived so long a time and thought so many thoughts! But above everything else towered joy that Aunt Olivia was coming home.
Rebecca Mary"s eyes blazed with pride at being a Plummer. This kind of courage was the Plummer kind. The child"s lank little figure seemed to grow taller and straighter. She held up her head splendidly and exulted.
She felt like going up on the minister"s housetop and proclaiming: "She"s my aunt Olivia! She"s mine! She"s mine--I"m a Plummer, too! All o" you listen, she"s my aunt Olivia, and she"s coming home!"
Suddenly the child flung out her arms towards the south where Aunt Olivia was. And though she stood quite still, something within her seemed to spring away and go hurrying through the clear air.
"I shouldn"t suppose Aunt Olivia would ever forgive me, but she"s Aunt Olivia and she will," wrote Rebecca Mary that night, her small, dark face full of a solemn peace--it seemed so long since she had been full of peace before. She wrote on eagerly: