Kit of Greenacre Farm Part 15

"Grandfather said that there was no cause for worry; it was just a case of pitch in and get your living out of the farms again."

"Yes," said Kit, with fine scorn, "get your living out of the farms.

That's all very well for him to say, when he's got everything to do with, and twenty of the best cows in Windham County, but we moved up there on hope and a shoe-string. And we've never really raised anything except chickens and children. You know, Billie, even with a small income, how you can play country gentleman to your heart's content in a little place like Gilead."

"Stanley says your place, if it was properly worked, would make one of the finest fruit farms up there, 'cause all your land slopes to the south as far as the river. He says if he had it he'd sell off the heavy timber for cash and put the money right into hardy varieties of fruit and hogs."

Kit laughed.

"Can't you see Helen's face over the hogs, when she has wanted to raise bulbuls and white peac.o.c.ks, with a few antelopes and gazelles wandering around. But I suppose one could keep the hogs out of sight, they wouldn't have to graze on the front lawn. Did he tell Dad that?"

"I don't know," Billie said, doubtfully. "You know, Uncle Jerry's kind of hard to get confidential with over his own affairs, but I wouldn't worry, Kit, if I were you. Things always come out all right."

"They do not," returned Kit, calmly. "Even Cousin Roxy says that you have to give Providence a helping hand now and then. I'm going to think up a way to start those hogs rambling over the southern slopes of Greenacre Hall."

Billie smiled at her mischievously.

"That's the new name, isn't it? You'll be a nice crowd of farmerettes next summer, won't you?"

"Maybe it'll happen before next summer," prophesied Kit, sagely. "Jean and mother like to call it Greenacre Hall, but I like Greenacre Farm, if we're going to do any business there. Thanks ever so much for telling me, Billie. You may have changed the course of destiny, because I can tell you now I'm going home."

After dinner that night Kit was out on the veranda alone for a while with only Sandy at her feet. There was a light in the study bay window. Miss Daphne had gone over to a meeting of the Women's War Chest committee at the Bellamys'. Kit was wondering whether it would be best to write first to her mother or to Jean. Jean would be leaving a few days after Christmas for New York anyway. How she longed to know just exactly what the family's plans were for the winter. But the worst of it was, one of the Robbins' failings or virtues as a family was for each member to spare the other members all the worry and bother possible, by carefully concealing any little personal troubles. To Kit this was all wrong. What on earth, she used to argue, was the use of being a family if you didn't all lean on each other and derive mutual strength and support?

Finally, she decided to write to Cousin Roxy herself. There was always something satisfactory in making her the court of appeal, on any point of doubt; even though her decision might not be a favorable one, you always felt sure you were getting it straight without any affectionate bias.

Accordingly, a confidential appeal went speeding east, and back came the reply, by return mail, as Kit had known it would.

"DEAR CHILD:--

"I had been thinking about you when your letter came, so I suppose our mental wireless calls must have crossed.

"There's no doubt at all but what your mother needs you badly right here, especially with Jean leaving right after Christmas.

What Billie told you was about the truth. Out of the wreck of matter and crush of worlds that happened at Shady Cove, when your father's business and health failed, they did manage to save enough to give them a little income. Then, as you know, it was mostly your mother's money that was paid down on Greenacres in a lump, so that stopped her share coming in.

"The fire didn't help matters along one bit, but the Judge took a first mortgage on the property, and the money went into the repairs.

"I don't see why you aren't old enough to know these things, 'cause land knows the time is coming soon enough when you will have to put your shoulder to the wheel, like Jean, and help. It seems too bad that some folks I could mention can't see their duty when it's right under their nose. Just as soon as the Lord sees fit to call him home, Ca.s.sius Cato Peabody will have to leave some of his money to his nephew, your father, Jerry. Of course, he may take it into his head to endow some sacred seat of learning on the banks of the Nile, where they can study all the stars and cats and cows they want to. For my part, I think if he'd look a little way beyond his nose this minute, and see his duty to the living, he'd be a good deal happier in the long run.

"Be careful how you open up the ashes of old Amenotaph. I don't see how he can keep the pesky things around. Makes me think of Eliza Ann Gifford, after the Deacon died. She had his ashes in a little bronze, brown box on the front room mantel, and fresh flowers on 'em every day of her life. Used to give one a fearful turn every time they called on her. So far as I'm concerned, I'm perfectly willing to wait for Gabriel's last trump to let my dust and ashes rest in a decent grave.

"If I were you, Kit, I'd have a heart-to-heart talk with the Dean himself, and I know your mother will be just as relieved as can be to hear you're homeward bound."

CHAPTER XX

HOGS AND HORACE

Kit was delighted over the whole spirit of the letter, and went directly to the Dean with its message. He was deeply engrossed in getting up his first notes and commentaries on the urn and statue. It had not seemed for the past two or three weeks as if he resided any longer in Delphi at all.

Kit told Miss Daphne she was positive he was wandering through Egypt all the time, the Egypt of five thousand years ago. And it was only the shadow of his self that seemed to sit closeted for hours in the study.

He hardly glanced up now as she came in, but smiled and nodded when he saw who it was, keeping on with his writing.

"Just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the door.

Second volume, 'Explorations in Upper Egypt.' Look up Seti I in the index."

Kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one end of the desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his attention. The little statuette of Annui smiled grotesquely down upon her from its pedestal. The urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the desk itself as the Dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it.

"I hate to disturb you, Uncle Ca.s.sius," Kit began, with the directness so characteristic of her, "but I really think I ought to go back home. You've been wonderful to give me such a long visit, and I've enjoyed the school work immensely, but somehow I begin to feel like a soldier who has been away on a furlough. It's time for me to get back to the firing line, because mother needs me."

The Dean glanced up in surprise, and came slowly out of his dream of concentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him.

"Why, my dear child," he exclaimed, "this is very sudden. There has never been any question about your going back, at least----" He coughed deprecatingly. "Not since we became acquainted with you. Has anything happened?"

"Why, nothing special--I mean, nothing tragic. It's only this, Dad's lost a lot of money all at once. He did have a little income, enough so we never have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that has been swept away. I suppose it will come back some time after the war, but as I understand it, the stock he had has stopped paying dividends."

"Jerry never had any head for business." The Dean tapped one hand lightly with his tortoise-sh.e.l.l rimmed spectacles in an absent-minded musing way that nearly drove Kit frantic. "But what can you do about it, my dear?

Surely by returning at such a time you merely add to your father's burdens."

"No, I won't," Kit answered, decidedly, "because I've got a plan that I've been thinking about for ever and ever so long. I'm going to try and persuade Dad to let us put in hogs."

"Hogs," repeated the Dean, in a baffled tone. "Hogs, my dear. Who ever heard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all? I'm sure that Horace never tried hogs on his farm."

Now it just happened that Kit had a smattering knowledge of Horace, gleaned from Billie. In the old days back home, when they had studied together, they had seemed to always get the personal side of the old heroes and people of fame. And just now the only thing she could remember about Horace popped up in her mind.

"Well, I'll bet a cookie there was many a time when he wished he had.

Don't you remember how he wrote,

"'Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread and liberty.'

"We've had our hollow tree, and I'm afraid unless we get right down to business now, we'll have all the crusts of bread and liberty we fancy. I just can't stay here in this beautiful place with nothing to worry over, while the family are practically in a lifeboat with breakers ahead."

If the Dean had known Kit better, he would have realized that in emotional moments she was p.r.o.ne to exaggerated similes, but as it was, he felt impressed.

"Why, G.o.d bless my heart and soul," he exclaimed, "I had no idea it was as bad as this. I thought Jerry was very comfortably fixed."

"Oh, we were at the Cove. We had everything we wanted, but father was sick an awfully long while after his breakdown, and he's never been able to do any work since."

"But how ridiculous for a man to bury himself and all his capital in a place like Gilead," the Dean protested, somewhat testily. "He could have done a great many other things, I should imagine."

Kit leaned over and looked at him, right in the eye.

"Uncle Ca.s.sius, what would you do if everything was just swept away from you, health, money, home and your work; what do you suppose you would do?

If there was any spot of earth that was peaceful and restful, and that you loved best, wouldn't you want to go to it? That's what Gilead means, 'the place of healing.'"

There was silence in the old study. The Dean was looking straight at Annui as if for inspiration, and yet it was not the old image which he saw, but a vision of Gilead as he remembered it in his boyhood, a vision of green hills spanning the horizon, of fertile valleys and many watercourses.

Memories stirred in his mind of Jerry Robbins' mother, his sister.

Sometimes Kit reminded him of her, in her buoyant self-reliance and optimism.