Heart of Gold Part 8

"Pshaw! As if you could have forgotten all that, dear! But even then, it is never too late to learn, you know."

"That's so. And maybe after a bit it would be easier. I--guess I'll--try to learn--again, Aunt Pen. May I keep this little poem so's I won't forget any more? It's really mine, for she wrote it for me, didn't she?"

"Yes, indeed, darling. That's your message. You helped your Lilac Lady, and now she is going to help you."

CHAPTER VI

THE PARSONAGE TWINS

"Peace, Peace, guess what's happened!"

Allee tore across the smooth, green lawn as if racing for her life; and Cherry, following hard upon her heels, panted protestingly, "I'm going to tell her. It's my right. I heard what he said first."

"I don't care if you did," retorted Allee. "I reached her chair first.

So now!"

It was just a week since Aunt Pen's visit to the President's house, but already a remarkable change had come over the little invalid in her wheel-chair prison. The dull indifference had disappeared from the thin face, the hopeless look from the somber eyes; and though there was still a sadly pathetic droop to the once merry mouth, she seemed to have shaken off the deadly apathy which had gripped her for so long, and to have taken a fresh hold upon life again. True, it was hard work to smile and look happy with the dreadful knowledge tugging at one's heart that one must be a helpless cripple for the rest of her days, but the first smile had made it easier for the second to come, and gradually the old merry disposition came creeping back. Aunt Pen was right,--her real self had only been in hiding, and with the lifting of the cloud the suns.h.i.+ne of that gay spirit burst forth again.

She was tired of being idle, and with characteristic energy that very morning had surprised and delighted the whole household by demanding something to do,--some real work with which to fill the long hours. And Miss Smiley had promptly suggested Indian baskets, spending many precious minutes of a busy forenoon teaching the weak fingers how to weave. Peace was a-tingle with pride over her accomplishment, especially when she was told of its possibilities and scope; and straightway began planning to send her first finished product to the State Fair which was to open its gates soon.

So as she wrestled with the damp raffia sad willow sticks after Miss Edith had left her, she so far forgot her trouble that the old, familiar laugh bubbled up to her lips, and once she paused in her work to answer a trilling bird in the branches overhead. She was all alone on the wide, shady lawn, and so engrossed in her own thoughts that she never heard the chug-chug of a motor-car gliding up the river road, nor saw the black-frocked figure leap nimbly from the machine and scurry up the walk to the kitchen door, as if in too big a hurry to enter the house in the proper manner. But she did hear the boisterous shouts of Cherry and Allee a few moments later, as they burst through the screen door and raced through the short, sweet clover toward her, each clamoring to tell her the news which stuck out all over them.

"I reached her first!" Allee repeated, waving the older sister off.

"Pig!" returned Cherry. "You always--"

"Tut, tut," interrupted a voice from behind, in tones of mock severity.

"Are you girls _quarreling_? I'm ashamed of you. Peace, what is it all about?"

Mr. Strong, light of step and radiant of face, appeared on the scene by another path; and Peace, flinging down the raffia basket which her busy fingers were weaving, stretched out eager arms in welcome. "It's something they both wanted to tell me, St. John, but they stopped to sc.r.a.p about it, and I hain't heard what it is yet."

"Bet you meant to steal my thunder, didn't you?" He turned merry, accusing eyes upon the pair of culprits, and they flushed guiltily. "But you just aren't going to do it this time. _I_ shall tell her myself. It is my news, you know."

Both heads bobbed solemnly, and Peace, excited and not understanding, cried imperiously, "Tell me quick. I'm half dead with curiosity. Has old Tortoise-sh.e.l.l got some more kittens or--Say, you haven't put Glen in _pants_ yet?"

"No," he laughed delightedly and the two sisters giggled in glee. "Guess again. It happened last night."

"Somebody sent you a present?"

"The most wonderful gift!"

"Two of 'em," put in impatient Allee, but the minister held up a warning finger, and she quickly subsided.

"Two!" repeated Peace, much mystified. "What _can_ they be? Oh, I know--monkeys!" For ever since the day that Peace had brought the sick, half-dead monkey home to the parsonage, it had been Glen's fondest dream to own one himself.

"No!" Mr. Strong and the other two girls exploded in a gale of laughter.

"Give it up then," Peace promptly retorted. "I mightn't guess in a hundred years and I'm fairly bu'sting to know."

"Well, girlie, the angels brought us two little babies last night for our very own. Two! Think of it!"

"Twins!" gurgled Allee, ecstatically hopping from one foot to the other.

"Both girls!" added Cherry, hugging herself from sheer joy at being part bearer of the glad tidings.

"Truly, St. John?" asked Peace, almost too amazed for words.

"Truly, my lady."

"Well, what do you think of that! I bet you were s'prised. Now weren't you? What do they look like? Are they pretty?"

"I can't say they are very beautiful to look at yet," admitted the fond father. "They resemble sc.r.a.ps of wrinkled red flannel more than anything else just now. But they will improve. Glen did, and he was a caution to took at when he was a day old."

"Are they big or little?"

"Neither is very large, but one is tinier than the other,--weighs only four pounds. She isn't such a brilliant scarlet as her sister, and we _think_ she will have dark eyes and black hair. The reddest one has blue eyes now, is bald-headed, and possesses a most excellent pair of lungs.

The Tiniest One has cried only once so far, but its twin makes up for it."

"What are their names?" The three girls hung breathlessly on his answer.

"That's one reason I am here now," the minister replied gravely.

"Elspeth and I couldn't discover any suitable names for the twinnies, so she sent me down here to consult with Peace--"

"O--ee!" squealed the girls.

"Mercy!" whispered Peace in awed amazement. "Does she really want _me_ to name her babies?"

"Shouldn't you like to?"

"O, so much! But most mothers would thank other folks to let them do their own naming. Or, if the mothers didn't mind, prob'ly the children themselves would kick when they grew up. There was our family, for one.

Grandpa Greenfield named the most of us, and see what a job he made of it. He went to the Bible for us, too."

The minister's lips twitched, but Peace was so very serious that he dared not laugh; so, after an apologetic cough behind his hand, he suggested politely, "Then suppose we arrange it this way,--if the first names you select don't suit, we will tell you so, and you can pick out some others."

"O, don't I have to think them up today? I s'posed you would want 'em right away. Grandpa named us the first time he looked at us, Gail says."

"Well, we needn't be in such a big hurry as that, girlie. It took us a month to decide what we should call our boy, and if you want that long a time, take it."

"I don't think I shall," she replied, viewing her unusual and unexpected privilege with serious eyes. "Not being a mother or a father, I don't expect it will take me more'n a few days to find very pretty names."

Then, as if struck by an important thought, she asked, "But how will you _Christian_ them, s'posing I don't hit on some likely names before a month is up?"

"Christian them!"

"Yes. Like they did Tommy Finnegan's baby brother. He was only seven days old, but he had to have a name before the priest could Christian him."