Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 8

The book to-night was talks about Rome. Mrs. Van Dorn lived over again in her reminiscences, making sundry interruptions. "It was here I met such a one," she would say. "This artist from England or America was painting such a picture." And there were walks on the Pincio, lingering in churches, viewing palaces. And then--it was all real. Hadn't St. Paul written letters from Rome ever and ever so long ago? Somewhere he had "Thanked G.o.d and taken courage?" Yes. Rome _was_ real. Had her father ever seen it? She would like to see it some day. And if she could ever get to where she could teach school--Mr. Warfield had earned enough to go abroad, and she remembered hearing him say he had worked all one year with a farmer for the sake of eight months' schooling.

There was a gentle sound of hard regular breathing, not to be called a snore, but a sign of sleep. Helen went on with a dream. Why couldn't she stay somewhere in North Hope and work for her board nights and mornings and go to the High School? She was learning so many things now about history and literature, and the whole world it seemed. Occasionally she looked over the list of examination studies and caught here and there a fact she had not understood a few weeks ago. Why this was as good as a school.

She would not breathe her plans to a soul. If only Mrs. Dayton might, or could keep her! But early in October Mrs. Dayton shut up her house and went on a round of visits after her summer's work, and Joanna went to her sister's who had seven children, the eldest hardly fourteen. But some place might open. If boys could work their way up, why not a girl?

There was a succession of pleasant days with a bright reviving westerly wind. Driving was a delight. Sometimes they went out an hour or two after breakfast, and oh, how glorious the world looked.

For two days Helen felt she was a coward. She ought to go home, but she dreaded it somehow. Why wasn't Aunt Jane like--well, Mrs. Dayton for instance, glad that other people should have some enjoyment? Yes, she did enjoy Jenny's pleasure, but how often she threatened the others!

"Could we drive around by the Center this afternoon?" Helen asked a little hesitatingly.

"Why--I thought we would go to Chestnut Hill. I like those long faded yellow chestnut blooms that hang where there are to be no chestnuts. It is like old age hanging on to some forlorn hope."

"But you do not like old age," Helen said, with a bright smile.

"Not for myself. Not for people in general. But it is pretty among the cl.u.s.ters of green chestnut leaves. Mrs. Dayton could make a little sermon out of that--useless old age."

"We might come round that way on our return," ventured the girl.

"Are you homesick?"

"Oh, no." A bright flush overspread Helen's face, and the light in her eyes as she turned them on Mrs. Van Dorn was so beautiful it touched her heart. "Uncle wanted to take me back on Sat.u.r.day to stay over Sunday.

They think----"

"Did you want to go?" with quick jealousy.

"Not very much, oh, no, I'm not homesick at all. I like it so much over here. But I ought to go now and then."

"Well--we will see."

Helen had put on her last summer's white frock. She would rather have worn the blue lawn or the pretty embroidered white muslin, made out of Mrs. Dayton's long ago skirt, but some feeling withheld her.

How beautiful Chestnut Hill was to-day! It was not all chestnuts, though they were there tall and stately, but with a mingling of maple and beech and dogwood, and here and there hemlocks and cedars. A sort of wild garden of trees, but all about the edges common little shrubs and sumac stood up loyally as if the trees were not to have it all. And smaller things in bloom tangled here and there with clematis and Virginia creeper, and a riot of mid-summer bloom. They had brought along a volume of Wordsworth's shorter poems, and Helen read here and there in the pauses.

Mrs. Van Dorn was ruminating over a thought that had crossed her mind.

Wouldn't this girl be glad to go off somewhere and thrust her old life behind her? How much did she care for her people? Someone could make a fine and attractive young woman out of her, yes, there was a certain n.o.ble beauty that might be cultivated and bloom satisfactorily from twenty to thirty. Ten or twelve years?

"Take the lower road round by the Center," she said to the driver.

Helen raised her eyes in acknowledgment. They pa.s.sed the old farm houses, and at the gate of one of them stood Grandmother White, a small wrinkled old lady in a faded gown and checked ap.r.o.n. She nodded to Helen. Was that worth the living to old age? Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her shoulders. Thank Heaven she should not be like that when she came near the hundred mark.

"Now I will drive around a little while you make your call. It must not be very long, or we shall be late for dinner."

Helen sprang out with an airy lightness. The front windows were all darkened as usual. She ran up the path, around the side of the house.

Aurelia was weeding among the late planted beets where dwarf peas had taken the early part of the season.

"Oh, Helen!" She sprang up with the trowel in her hand, "I'm so glad you've come. Are you going to stay all night? I miss you so much. I have such lots of work to do, and mother's cross a good deal of the time. We all miss you so. I s'pose its real nice over at Mrs. Dayton's, but I shall be so glad when you come back."

"No, I can't stay all night----"

"But the carriage went away----"

"'Reely, you come in and peel the potatoes. You ought to have had that weeding done long ago. Oh, Helen," as the girl had turned around the corner that led to the kitchen. "Well I declare! I began to think you had grown so fine that the Center would never see you again!"

She looked Helen over from head to foot and gave a little sniff.

"Are you coming in?" rather tartly.

"Why--yes," forcing herself to smile.

How different from Joanna's tidy kitchen! It was clean but in confusion with the odds and ends of everything. The green paper shade was all askew, there were two chairs with the backs broken off, the kitchen table was littered, the closet door was open and betrayed a huddle of articles.

"You don't seem to be very sociable, I must say. Why didn't you come over Sat.u.r.day? Your uncle felt quite hurt about it. Seems to me you're mighty taken up with those people," nodding her head northward.

"I couldn't on so short a notice. Mrs. Van Dorn had not been well. I read her to sleep nearly every night. And there are so many little things to do."

"Well, if she'd employ herself about something useful she wouldn't need to be read to sleep, nor want so much waiting on."

"That is what I am hired to do," Helen returned with a good-natured intonation that she kept from being flippant.

"Well, if I had ever so much money I couldn't find it in my conscience to dawdle away time and have someone wait upon me. And how's Mrs.

Dayton? All the boarders staying?"

"Yes, the house is full."

"Mrs. Dayton does have the luck of things! But she hasn't a chick nor a child, nor a husband and a lot of boys to mend for. I was foolish to let you go over there, Helen, when I needed you so much myself. It isn't even as if you were learning anything, just fiddling round waiting on a woman who hasn't an earthly thing to do. And I'm so put about, I don't know what to take up first. 'Reely, you hurry with the potatoes or you'll get a good slap."

There was a diversion with Fan and Tommy who shook sand over the kitchen floor. Fan's face was stained with berries but she flung her arms about Helen and kissed her rapturously, while Tom dug his elbows into her lap.

"Did you come in a horse and carriage?" asked Fan, wide-eyed.

"I came in the carriage."

"You know well enough what she meant, Helen. You'll get so fine there'll be hardly any living with you when you come back."

"When she came back." A tremor ran through Helen's nerves. Oh, must she come back!

"How is Jenny?" she inquired.

"Oh, Jenny's first rate, working like a beaver. There's a girl worth something, if she is mine! And the house is getting done up just splendid. Joe's crazy to be married right off, but Jenny's like me, when her mind's made up it's made up. There's a good deal of c.u.mmings in her.

Why don't you take off your hat? You're going to stay to supper?"

"No, I can't," Helen returned gently. "Mrs. Van Dorn was going to drive round a little----"

"She could have come in," snapped Aunt Jane. "We could have had the horse put out and you could both have stayed to supper. I dare say we have as good things to eat as Mrs. Dayton. She doesn't refuse our b.u.t.ter and eggs nor chickens when we have 'em to spare."

"They all think the b.u.t.ter splendid, Aunt Jane. And Mrs. Disbrowe wishes they could get such eggs in the city. She is sure what they get must be a month old," said Helen, with an attempt at gayety.

"I _do_ make good b.u.t.ter. Mrs. Dayton's folks are not the first to find it out," bridling her head. "And I'll say for Mrs. Dayton she's willing to pay a fair price. But I s'pose that old woman pays well?"