"Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the next place and get a train back to Omaha."
"Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?"
"No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get to Red Oak?"
"Forty minutes. You"d better make up your mind, so I can tell the baggageman to put your trunk off."
"Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven"t got any," the boy added, blushing.
"Run away," the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach door behind him.
Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand to his forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head was aching violently. "Oh, what shall I do?" he thought, as he looked dully down at his big shoes. "Nils will be ashamed of me; I haven"t got any s.p.u.n.k."
Ever since Nils had run away with his brother"s wife, life at home had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and faultfinding, constantly wounding the boy"s pride; and Olaf was always setting her against him.
Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always been fond of her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote him long accounts of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and Nils took through Bohemia to the little town where her father had grown up and where she herself was born. She visited all her kinsmen there, and sent her father news of his brother, who was a priest; of his sister, who had married a horse-breeder--of their big farm and their many children. These letters Joe always managed to read to little Eric. They contained messages for Eric and Hilda. Clara sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take home and which poor little Hilda never even saw, though she loved to hear Eric tell about them when they were out getting the eggs together.
But Olaf once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika"s house--the old man had never asked the boy to come into his saloon--and Olaf went straight to his mother and told her. That night Mrs. Ericson came to Eric"s room after he was in bed and made a terrible scene. She could be very terrifying when she was really angry. She forbade him ever to speak to Vavrika again, and after that night she would not allow him to go to town alone. So it was a long while before Eric got any more news of his brother. But old Joe suspected what was going on, and he carried Clara"s letters about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out to see a German friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, sitting by the cattle pond in the big pasture. They went together into Fritz Oberlies" barn, and read the letters and talked things over. Eric admitted that things were getting hard for him at home. That very night old Joe sat down and laboriously penned a statement of the case to his daughter.
Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt that, however closely he was watched, he still, as they said, "heard." Mrs. Ericson could not admit neutrality. She had sent Johanna Vavrika packing back to her brother"s, though Olaf would much rather have kept her than Anders"
eldest daughter, whom Mrs. Ericson installed in her place. He was not so highhanded as his mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might better have taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna away. Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced in honey, the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her.
At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, enclosing a postal order for money to pay Eric"s pa.s.sage to Bergen, and one from Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric in the offices of his company, that he was to live with them, and that they were only waiting for him to come. He was to leave New York on one of the boats of Nils"
own line; the captain was one of their friends, and Eric was to make himself known at once.
Nils" directions were so explicit that a baby could have followed them, Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, Iowa, and rocking backward and forward in despair. Never had he loved his brother so much, and never had the big world called to him so hard. But there was a lump in his throat which would not go down. Ever since nightfall he had been tormented by the thought of his mother, alone in that big house that had sent forth so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her loneliness so great. He remembered everything she had ever done for him: how frightened she had been when he tore his hand in the corn-sh.e.l.ler, and how she wouldn"t let Olaf scold him. When Nils went away he didn"t leave his mother all alone, or he would never have gone. Eric felt sure of that.
The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly.
"Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in three minutes."
"Yes, thank you. I"ll let you know." The conductor went out, and the boy doubled up with misery. He couldn"t let his one chance go like this.
He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils" letter to give him courage. He didn"t want Nils to be ashamed of him. The train stopped.
Suddenly he remembered his brother"s kind, twinkling eyes, that always looked at you as if from far away. The lump in his throat softened. "Ah, but Nils, Nils would _understand_!" he thought. "That"s just it about Nils; he always understands."
A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the train to the Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, "All aboard!"
The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman"s knitting was on her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond of the little pasture.
Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, where no one could see him. He set his telescope down softly in the kitchen shed, and slipped noiselessly along the path to the front porch. He sat down on the step without saying anything. Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the frogs croaked on. At last the boy spoke timidly.
"I"ve come back, Mother."
"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson.
Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the gra.s.s.
"How about the milking?" he faltered.
"That"s been done, hours ago."
"Who did you get?"
"Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you."
Eric slid along the step nearer to her. "Oh, Mother, why did you?" he asked sorrowfully. "Why didn"t you get one of Otto"s boys?"
"I didn"t want anybody to know I was in need of a boy," said Mrs.
Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her mouth tightened. "I always meant to give you the home farm," she added.
The boy stared and slid closer. "Oh, Mother," he faltered, "I don"t care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, maybe." He hung his head and got no further.
"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart.
THE TROLL GARDEN
Flavia and Her Artists
As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to wonder why she had consented to be one of Flavia"s house party at all. She had not felt enthusiastic about it since leaving the city, and was experiencing a prolonged ebb of purpose, a current of chilling indecision, under which she vainly sought for the motive which had induced her to accept Flavia"s invitation.
Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia"s husband, who had been the magician of her childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian fairy tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the especial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to study that remarkable woman in her own setting.
Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was in the habit of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found it impossible to take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence and insistence with which Flavia demanded it. Submerged in her studies, Imogen had, of late years, seen very little of Flavia; but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New York, between her excursions from studio to studio--her luncheons with this lady who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer who had an evening concert--had seen enough of her friend"s handsome daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such violence and a.s.surance as only Flavia could afford. The fact that Imogen had shown rather marked capacity in certain esoteric lines of scholarship, and had decided to specialize in a well-sounding branch of philology at the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly placed her in that category of "interesting people" whom Flavia considered her natural affinities, and lawful prey.
When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and a.s.surance of attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into a high tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver"s cushion beside her, gathered up the reins with an experienced hand.
"My dear girl," she remarked, as she turned the horses up the street, "I was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted upon coming up by boat and did not arrive until after seven."
"To think of M. Roux"s being in this part of the world at all, and subject to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the world did he come over?" queried Imogen with lively interest. "He is the sort of man who must dissolve and become a shadow outside of Paris."
"Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people," said Flavia, professionally. "We have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. He was ill in California at the close of his concert tour, you know, and he is recuperating with us, after his wearing journey from the coast. Then there is Jules Martel, the painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor Schotte, who has dug up a.s.syria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian chemist; Alcee Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; and Will Maidenwood, the editor of _Woman_. Then there is my second cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero"s comedy last winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. _Have_ you read her?"
Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld, and Flavia went on.
"Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those advanced German women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough to permit of my telling you her history. Such a story! Her novels were the talk of all Germany when I was there last, and several of them have been suppressed--an honor in Germany, I understand. "At Whose Door" has been translated. I am so unfortunate as not to read German."
"I"m all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss Broadwood,"
said Imogen. "I"ve seen her in nearly everything she does. Her stage personality is delightful. She always reminds me of a nice, clean, pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold bath, and come down all aglow for a run before breakfast."
"Yes, but isn"t it unfortunate that she will limit herself to those minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this country? One ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word "best,"
the most worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made her obdurate.
"I don"t at all agree with you," she said reservedly. "I thought everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss Broadwood is her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough in her profession."
Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed to regard it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored unbecomingly. Now she changed the subject.