Green Valley Part 19

"It isn't exactly all mine to tell. But some day I dare say I shall."

Grandma rose and glanced mischievously at the girl.

"Nanny, I'll tell you the day you come to me and tell me you're in love. Not engaged, you understand, but in love."

Again Nanny whitened and caught her breath and then looked quietly at Grandma in a way that made the dear old soul say hurriedly:

"There, there, child, I didn't mean to meddle or hurt."

To herself she added, "We're all blundering fools at times. And why is it that youth always thinks that all the world is blind and stupid?"

Grandma's penitent mind then recalled the box of pictures that Cynthia's son had brought down to show her the night before. It still stood on the living-room table. So the wise and tender soul sent Nanny in to fetch it.

They sat on the back steps and looked at pictures of Cynthia in her far-away home in India. There were pictures of her husband and the brown babies and of their neighbors. But mostly the pictures were of a boy, a drolly solemn little fellow. Nanny exclaimed again and again over these and the one of the boy holding a pet hen in his arms she fairly devoured.

"What a darling kiddy he was," she laughed tenderly. "No wonder his mother loved him so."

"He ought to be a fine boy. His mother paid a big price for him,"

Grandma told her.

But Nanny didn't hear. She had just discovered that there were two of those boy and hen pictures and she wondered if--

Just then Grandma spied a hen in her lavender bed and went off to shoo her out. And while her back was so providentially turned Nanny Ainslee, an honorable, world-famous diplomat's only daughter, coolly and deliberately tucked the picture of a little boy and his pet hen down into the bosom of her gown.

Shortly after Nanny said she guessed she'd have to be going, that it was getting late and that she had had an argument with her father just before she came and had been short an answer. But that she had just this minute thought of something to say.

Grandma let her go without a word because she thought that, like herself, the girl had seen Cynthia's boy coming down the hill and wished with girlish shyness to be out of the house when he came. But Nanny had not seen him, had not been watching the roads, so taken was she with her guilty secret. Her surprise when she almost ran into him was genuine enough.

His face lighted at sight of her.

"I spent the afternoon up on the hill. I thought maybe I should find you there. It was rather lonesome."

He had evidently forgotten and forgiven her rudeness on the hilltop that day when they had been up there together. Nanny was suddenly so happy and confused that she could think of nothing to say except to make the formal little confession:

"I have been visiting Grandma Wentworth and looking at pictures of you.

You were a mighty nice little boy in those days."

The new softness in her words made him look at her wistfully for a second but the hint of laughter that went with it made him cautious.

This lovely, laughing girl had hurt him several times and had laughed at him. He meant to be careful. So he said gravely and politely:

"Did you see the pictures of my mother?"

"Yes. She must have been a wonderful and an adorable mother."

That made him happy. He wanted very much to turn and walk back with her, this girl whose presence always brought him such pleasure. But she had forbidden him to do this. It seemed that in his home land women were wonderfully independent creatures.

So he let her go on alone and with a disappointed heart. For Nanny had hoped that he would ask and she had meant to let him. With the disappointment came the taunting memory of her words to Grandma Wentworth: "Honesty is best. A dozen words would do it."

That evening when her father clumsily tried to make amends Nan said carelessly:

"Never mind, Dad. I _am_ in love--with a little boy and his pet hen."

But she had the grace to blush. And that night as she slipped the picture under her pillow she said a little defiantly:

"Well--what of it? All is fair in love and war."

CHAPTER XIII

AUTUMN IN GREEN VALLEY

Joe Baldwin was standing in front of his little shop. He was bareheaded and that meant that he was worried. For it was only in moments of mental distress that Joe laid aside the black cap that gave him the look of a das.h.i.+ng driver of the Twentieth Century Limited.

In the autumn dusk a chilly little wind played about the street corners and wailed softly through the thinning tree-tops. The big lamp above Joe's workbench was unlighted so the little shop was in darkness except for the fitful wavering of the ruddy wood fire in the big stove.

The streets were empty and quiet. It was an hour after supper and Green Valley was indoors sitting about its first fires and talking of the coming winter; remembering cold spells of other years; thanking its stars that the coal bin was full and wondering whether it hadn't better put on its heaviest underwear.

Joe knew just about what Green Valley was thinking and saying. From where he stood he could see what a part of Green Valley was doing. For this early in the evening Green Valley never pulled down its shades.

So when the lights flared out in the Wendells' west front up-stairs window Joe saw Mrs. Wendell go to the clothes closet and bring out various newspaper parcels. Joe knew very well that those parcels contained furs.

Furs and ferns were Mildred Wendell's two pa.s.sions. She had furs of all sizes and colors and weights, beginning with the little m.u.f.f and tippet her favorite aunt had given her long ago when she was only five to the really beautiful and expensive set her son, Charlie, had given her for her last birthday. As for ferns, she had so many that Green Valley always went to her for its wedding and funeral decorations. And she was only too happy to lend her collection of feathery beauty.

From where he stood on his doorstep Joe could look down three streets and see Green Valley in its s.h.i.+rt sleeves and slippers and its gingham ap.r.o.n, so to speak. He could look over the white sash curtains right into Mert Hagley's kitchen for Mert lived behind his store. Joe saw Mary, Mert's wife, turning the pages of the evening paper and studying the advertis.e.m.e.nts. And he knew as well as he knew his own name that Mary was talking to Mert about a new heater, begging him to buy a nice new hard-coal heater instead of the second-hand hot blast stove he was thinking of buying from some man in Spring Road.

John Henderson had another one of his bad headaches for Joe saw him lying on the dining-room couch. His wife was applying cold-water bandages and tenderness to that bald pate of his when she knew better than any one that what he needed was a stiff dose of salts and castor oil and a little self-control on the nights she had ham and cabbage for supper.

Over in the Morrison cottage Grandma Whitby was knitting stockings for the little Morrisons at a furious rate and every once in a while sending one of the children out for more wood or a fresh pail of water or some more yarn. Joe could see the children sitting around the dining-room table with their books and games and arguing with each other every time the grandmother made a new request.

Grandma Whitby was a dictatorial old soul. She not only was eternally busy herself but she kept everybody around her forever on the jump.

Mrs. Morrison was her only child and once in a moment of bitterness said that her eight children seemed like a houseful until they got to running errands for mother and that then she realized that eight wasn't anywhere near enough. And the Morrison's second boy, John William, once explained to Joe that he wore out his shoes, "running errands for Granny."

Alice Richards' baby was ailing again. Joe could see Allie walking the floor, could almost hear her comforting the restless mite in her arms.

Somebody came hurrying down the street and as they pa.s.sed a street lamp Joe saw that it was Mrs. Downey, taking Tommy to the dentist. Doc Mitch.e.l.l was a nice enough chap but as Joe watched Tommy's legs saw the air he thought the doctor might be a little mite gentler with the boy orator. But Doc was getting old and he was probably tired. These first autumn days before the snap and sparkle and snowy gleam of real winter sets in always told on the older folks. They sort of seemed tired and worried and sad.

So Joe stood there, looking at the purple and green and magenta-pink lights of Martin's drug store, the sleepily winking lights of the little station and the mellow golden glow of Sophie Forbes' yellow parlor lamp. Then he turned and looked straight down his own street, past the post-office, the tin shop, the dry-goods store to the spot where a faint light seeped through drawn curtains and faint rowdy noises came from behind closed doors.

It was what he guessed was behind those closed doors that had brought Joe out of his shop bareheaded and caused him to feel as Doc Mitch.e.l.l maybe felt--a little old and sad and tired and even a bit helpless.

Usually on this first night of autumn Joe's shop was crowded with noisy feet and voices of all sizes that squeaked one minute in a shrill soprano and in the next sank to a ragged ba.s.s. Joe's shades were never drawn and all the world could see the boys playing Old Maid and Rummy, shooting caroms or sitting on the counter, swinging their feet, eating apples and cracking nuts for themselves and Joe who was questioning them about the day's happenings.

But to-night--involuntarily Joe turned and looked back into the soft darkness of his little shop where the firelight flickered softly, tenderly through the gloom. His heart cramped. Then he looked again to the place where heavy curtains were drawn over dirty windows. He caught again that m.u.f.fled rough noise of young voices. And his mind was made up.

He stepped back into his shop, turned on all the lights, put the basket of ruddy apples on the counter, straightened the pile of old magazines and pulled out the carom board, the box of chess and checkers. He took a last housewifely look around, then put on his hat and coat and started out. There was pain and anger and a terrible determination in his usually gentle face.

But as he stepped to the door it opened, admitting Mrs. Jerry Dustin.