Sunshine Jane Part 20

"I'm taught that I must."

"Taught?"

"It's part of my suns.h.i.+ne work."

"That's why she's here," interposed Susan; "she thought of me and came right along."

Emily looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I could learn," she said.

"Anybody can learn anything," said Lorenzo.

"Wouldn't it be nice to all learn Jane's religion?"

"I've got it most learned," said Susan, "I'm to where I'm most ready to stand Matilda, if only we don't have to keep old Mrs. Croft."

"What is old Mrs. Croft doing now?" Emily asked suddenly.

"She's still asleep. She says that she sleeps late."

Then Emily rose to go. Lorenzo Rath rose and left with her.

"Jane," said Susan solemnly, after they were alone, "I'm afraid that religion of yours ain't as practical as it might be, after all. It's got us old Mrs. Croft, and I ain't saying a word, but now I'm about positive it's going to lose you that young man. You could have him if you'd just exert yourself a little, and you don't at all."

"I couldn't have him, Auntie."

"Yes, you could. Don't tell me. I know a young man when I see one, and Mr. Rath's a real young man. He loves you, Jane, just because n.o.body could help it, and if you weren't always so busy, he'd get on a good deal faster."

"I can't marry, Aunt Susan." Jane, with Madeleine's secret high in her heart, was very busy setting the kitchen to rights. "Some people are not meant to have homes of their own. It's the century."

"Fiddle for the century," said Susan, with something almost like violence. "I'm awful tired of all this hash and talk about the century.

About the only thing I've had to think of since Matilda made up her mind I was too sick to get up, was what I read in newspapers about the troubles of the century. Centuries is always in hot water till they're well over, and then they get to be called the good old days. I guess days ain't so different nor centuries either nor women neither. Fiddle for all this kind of rubbish,--it's no use except to upset a nice girl like you and keep her from marrying a nice young fellow like Mr. Rath.

Girls don't know nothing about love no more. Mercy on us, why, it's a kind of thing that makes you willing to go right out and hack down trees for the man."

Jane looked a little smiling and a little wistful. "I'll tell you what it is, Auntie," she said; "when my father died he left a debt that ought to be paid, and I promised him I'd pay it. I couldn't marry--it wouldn't be honest."

Susan's eyes flew pitifully open. "Good heavens, mercy on us, no; then you never can't marry, sure and certain. There never was the man yet so good he wouldn't throw a thing like that in a woman's teeth. It's a man's way, my dear, and a wife ought not to mind, but one of the difficulties of being a wife is that you always do mind."

"I know that I should mind," said Jane quietly, "and, anyway, I don't want to marry. I'm much happier going about on my sunbeam mission, trying to help others a bit here and a bit there." She smiled bravely as she spoke, for all that it takes a deal of training in truth not to waver or quaver in such a minute. She had to think steadily along the lines which she had worked so hard to build into every brain-cell and spirit-fiber of her make-up. "Auntie," she went on then, after a brief reflection that he who works in truth's wool works without fear as to the breaking of one single thread, "you and I are trying dreadfully hard--trying with all our might to do exactly right. We're trying to break your chains by the only way in which material chains can be broken,--by breaking those of others. We can't go astray. If old Mrs.

Croft should stay here till she died, and if I should work till I died at paying the debts of others, she'd stay for some good purpose, and I'd be working in the same way. Be very sure of that."

For a second Susan looked cheered--but only for a second. Then, "That's all very well for you and me, who want to be uplifted--at least you want to be, and I think maybe I'll like it after I get a little used to it.

But Matilda doesn't know or care anything about planes, and it's Matilda I keep thinking of." There was another pause, and then she added: "And it's Matilda I'll have to live with,--along with old Mrs. Croft. Oh, Jane, I'd be so much happier if you'd marry Mr. Rath and let me come and live with you!"

Jane went and put her arms about her. "Auntie, it isn't easy to learn my way of looking at things, because you have to keep at them till they're so firm in you that nothing from outside can ever shake or uproot them.

But what I believe is just so firm with me, and I won't give anything up,--not even about Mrs. Croft. We're all right and she's all right and everything's all right, and I don't need to marry any one."

Susan winked mournfully. "If there was only some way to meet Matilda on her way home and kind of get that through her head before she saw Mrs.

Croft. You see, she always shuts that room up cold winters and keeps cold meat in there. I've had many a good meal out of that room."

"You must not cast about for ways and means," said Jane firmly. "Life is like a suns.h.i.+ny warm day, and our part is to breathe and feel and thank G.o.d,--not to look for the sun to surely cease s.h.i.+ning."

"But it does stop," wailed Susan, "often."

"Yes, thank Heaven," said Jane, "if it didn't, we'd be burnt up alive by our own vitality."

"Oh, dear," said Susan briefly, "you've an answer for everything. Well, let's get dinner."

They went into the kitchen.

CHAPTER XII

EMILY'S PROJECT

AFTER dinner that day Emily Mead came with her work. Emily Mead was one of those nondescript girls who seem to spring up more and more thickly in these troublous, churned-up times of ours.

Too pretty to be plain, too unattractive to be beautiful. Too well-to-do to need to work, too poor to attain to anything for which she longed.

Too clever to belong to her cla.s.s, not clever enough to rise above it.

Altogether a very fit subject for Jane to "suns.h.i.+ne," as her aunt put it.

"How do you get along with old Mrs. Croft?" she asked, directly she was seated.

"She's asleep yet," Jane said; "she was so restless all night."

"She always sleeps days and is awake all night; didn't you know that before?" queried Emily, in surprise. "Some one ought to have told you."

"It doesn't matter," said Jane serenely. There was never any bravado in her serenity; it was quite sincere.

"That was what made Katie so mad," Emily continued. "She said it gave her her days, to be sure, but, as she couldn't very well sleep, too, all day, she never really had any time herself."

"We'll get along all right," said Jane quietly; "old people have ways, and then they change and have other ways, and the rest must expect to be considerate."

"Mercy on us, I wonder what she'll change to next," said Susan, with feeling. She had just returned from listening at the invalid's door.

"Don't worry, Auntie,--just remember!" Jane's smile was at once bright and also a bit admonitory.

"I'm trying to believe that everything's all right always, too," said Susan to Emily, "but, oh, my!"

They went out on the shady side of the house to where a little table stood, which was made out of a board nailed into a cut-off tree stump.

Jane and Emily carried chairs, and Susan brought her darning basket. It was delightfully pleasant. From time to time Jane or her aunt slipped in and listened at the door, but old Mrs. Croft slept on like a baby.

"I do wonder if Katie Croft has really gone for good!" Emily said to Susan, while Jane was absent on one of these errands.

"I can't trust myself even with my own opinions," said Susan reservedly; "I haven't much time to get changed before Matilda comes, you know, and I want to believe in Jane's religion if I can. It's so kind of warm and comforting. I like it."

"Jane," Emily said, turning towards her when she returned, "I've come to-day on an awfully serious errand, and I want you to help me."