What a wonderful meal that was, and how the good things did vanish down those five hungry throats!
The man at the head of the table looked on in dumb amazement, and he was still speechless when, after dinner, five children set upon him and dragged him out to see the bird"s nest behind the barn.
"An" we found the pigs an" the chickens, Mister, jest as they said we would," piped up Tommy eagerly, as they hurried along.
"An" a teeny little baby cow, too," panted the smaller girl, "an" I fed him."
"Well, I guess you could n"t "a" fed him if I had n"t held him with the rope," crowed Bobby.
"Or if I had n"t scared him with my stick!" cut in Tilly. "I guess you ain"t the only pebble on the beach, Bobby Mack!"
"Good Heavens!" groaned Mr. Wentworth, under his breath. "And have I got to keep two of these little hoodlums for a whole fortnight?
Er--children," he said aloud, after the bird"s nest had been duly admired; "er--suppose we go and--er--read."
Into the house trooped the five chattering boys and girls in the wake of an anxious, perplexed man. Some minutes later the children sat in a stiff row along the wall, while the man, facing them, read aloud from a ponderous calf-bound volume on "The Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion."
For some time Mr. Wentworth read without pausing to look up, his sonorous voice filling the room, and his mind wholly given to the subject in hand; then he raised his eyes--and almost dropped the book in his hand: Tommy, the cripple, sat alone.
"Why, where--what--" stammered Mr. Wentworth.
"They"ve gone out ter the barn, Mister," explained Tommy cheerfully, pointing to the empty chairs.
"Oh!" murmured Mr. Wentworth faintly, as he placed the book on the shelf. "I--er--I think we won"t read any more."
"Come on, then; let"s go to the barn," cried Tommy. And to the barn they went.
There were no "Fundamental Causes of the Great Rebellion" in the barn, but there were fundamental causes of lots of other things, and Mr.
Wentworth found that now his words were listened to with more eagerness; and before he knew it, he was almost as excited as were the children themselves.
They were really a very intelligent lot of youngsters, he told himself, and the prospect of having two of them for guests did not look so formidable after all.
From the barn they went to the garden, from the garden to the pond, from the pond back to the yard; then they all sat down under the apple trees while Mr. Wentworth built them a miniature boat; in days long gone by James Wentworth had loved the sea, and boat-making had been one of his boyhood joys.
At four o"clock Mrs. Wentworth called from the house:
"James, will you come here a minute, please?"
A slow red stole over the man"s face as he rose to his feet. The red was a deep crimson by the time he faced his wife.
"How are you going to send them home, dear?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"But it"s four o"clock, and we ought to be thinking of it. Which two are you going to keep?"
"I--I don"t know," he acknowledged.
For some unapparent reason Mrs. Wentworth"s spirits rose, but she a.s.sumed an air of severity.
"Why, James!--have n"t you told them?" she demanded.
"Mary, I couldn"t; I"ve been trying to all the afternoon. Er--you tell them--do!" he urged desperately. "I can"t--playing with them as I have!"
"Suppose we keep them all, then?" she hazarded.
"Mary!"
"Oh, I can manage it! I "ve been talking with Hannah--I saw how things were going with you "--his features relaxed into a shame-faced smile--"and Hannah says her sister can come to help, and we "ve got beds enough with the cots in the attic."
He drew a deep breath.
"Then we won"t have to tell them!" he exclaimed.
"No, we won"t have to tell them," she laughed, as she turned back into the house.
What a fortnight that was at "Meadowbrook!" The mornings--no longer peaceful--were full of rollicking games; and the long, drowsy afternoons became very much awake with gleeful shouts. The spotless order fled before the bats and b.a.l.l.s and books and dolls that Mr.
Wentworth brought home from the store; and the methodical routine of the household was shattered to atoms by daily picnics and frequent luncheons of bread and b.u.t.ter.
No longer were the days ordered with a precision that admitted of no frivolous deviations, for who could tell in the morning how many b.u.mped heads, cut fingers, bruised noses and wounded hearts would need sympathetic attention before night?
And so it went on until the evening before the two weeks were completed; then, after the children were abed and asleep, the man and his wife talked it over.
"Well, this ends to-morrow, I suppose. You must be tired, Mary; it"s been a hard time for you, dear," he began.
"Not a bit of it, James," she demurred. "Hannah and Betsey have done all the work, and you "ve been with the children so much I "ve not felt their care at all."
The man stirred uneasily.
"Well, I--I wanted to relieve you as much as possible," he exclaimed, wondering if she knew how many boats he had built for the boys, and how many jackknives he had broken in the process.
"Do you know?--I think I shall be actually lonely when they are gone,"
declared Mrs. Wentworth, without looking up.
The man threw a sharp glance at his wife.
"So shall I," he said.
"James, I"ve been wondering, could n"t we--adopt one of them?" she suggested, trying to make it appear as if the thought had but just entered her head.
Again the man gave his wife a swift glance.
"Why--we--might--I suppose," he returned, hoping that his hesitation would indicate that the idea was quite new to him--instead of having been almost constantly in his thoughts for a week.
"We might take two--company for each other, you know!" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Hm-m," he agreed pleasantly.
"The only trouble is the selecting, James."