Hildegarde's Home Part 20

Good-mornin', Miss Grahame! I'm tellin' Marthy Skeat she ain't very likely to see long skirts, comin' out in this damp air. You're peart, are ye? That's right! Ah! they can look peart as ain't had no troubles yet. I was jist like you oncet, Miss Grahame. I've had a sight o'

trouble! no one don't know what I've ben through; don't know nothin'

about it. You've fleshed up some since ye came here, ain't ye? Well, they do flesh up that way sometimes, but 'tain't no good sign. There's measles about, too, they say."

"How bright and pretty your plants are, Mrs. Lankton!" said Hilda, trying to make a diversion. "No, Jack!--I mean Jenny! you will have to take that out again. See those long st.i.tches! They look as if they were all running after each other, don't they? Take them out, dear, and make me some nice, neat little st.i.tches, stepping along quietly, as you do when you have on those new shoes you were telling me about. Lizzie, I wonder what turns your thread so dark? See how white my seam is! What do you suppose is the matter with yours?"

Lizzie giggled and hung her head. "Forgot to wash my hands!" she muttered.

"That was a pity!" said Hildegarde. "It spoils the looks of it, you see.

I am sure Mrs. Lankton will let you wash your hands in that bright tin basin. Vesta Philbrook, where is your violin?"

"Ma'am?" said Vesta Philbrook, opening her mouth as wide as her eyes.

"Your thimble I mean, of course!" said Hildegarde, blus.h.i.+ng violently, and giving herself a mental shake. "Now go to work, like a good girl.

Mary, here is the patchwork I promised you, already basted. See, a pink square, a blue square, a white one, and a yellow one. They are all pieces of my dresses, the dresses I wore last summer; and I thought you would like to have them for your quilt."

"Oh, thank you!" cried the child, delighted. "Oh, ain't them pretty?"

"Handsome!" said Mrs. Lankton, peering over the child's shoulder. "Them is handsome. Ah! I pieced a quilt once, with nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces into it. Good goods they was; I had good things then; real handsome calico, just like them. Ah, I didn't know what trouble was when I was your age, children. Wait till you've had lumbago, an'

neurology, an' cricks in your necks so's't you can't stand straight, not for weeks together you can't, and your roof leakin', an' dreepin' all over yer bed, an'--"

"Why, Mrs. Lankton!" exclaimed Hildegarde. "Surely the roof is not leaking again, when it was all s.h.i.+ngled this summer!"

"Not yet it ain't, dear!" sighed the widow. "But I'm prepared for it, and I don't expect nothin' else, after what I've been through. I was fleshy myself, once, though no one wouldn't think it to look at me."

"I wonder, Mrs. Lankton," began Hildegarde gently.

"You may wonder, dear!" was the reply. "Folks do wonder when they think what I've bean through. Fleshy was no name for it. There! I was fairly corpilent when I was your age."

"Oh!" said Hildegarde, in some confusion. "I meant--I am very thirsty, Mrs. Lankton, and if you _could_ give me a gla.s.s of your delicious water--"

"Suttingly!" exclaimed the widow with alacrity. "Suttingly, Miss Grahame! I'll go right out and pump ye some. It _is_ good water," she admitted, with reluctant pride. "I've been expectin' it would dry up, right along, lately!" and she hastened out into the yard.

"Now, children," said Hildegarde hastily, "I will go on with the story I began last time. 'So Robert Bruce was crowned king of Scotland; and no sooner was he king than'--"

By the time Mrs. Lankton returned with the water, every child was listening spellbound to the wonderful tale of Bruce at the ford, and no one had an eye or an ear for the doleful widow, save Hildegarde, whose "Thank you!" and quick glance of grat.i.tude lightened for a moment the gloom of her hostess's countenance.

So deep were teacher and pupils in Bruce and patchwork that none of them heard the sound of wheels, or the sudden cessation of it outside the door, till Mrs. Lankton exclaimed with tragic unction: "It is Colonel Ferrers! driving hisself, and his hoss all of a sweat. I hope he ain't the bearer of bad news, but I should be prepared, if I was you, Miss Grahame. Poor child! what would you do if your ma was took?" Hildegarde hastened to the door, but was instantly rea.s.sured by the old gentleman's cheery smile.

"Why did you move?" he said. "I stopped on purpose to have a look at you, with your flock of doves around you. Hilda and the doves, hey? you remember? 'Marble Faun!' yes, yes! But since you have moved, shall I drive you home, Miss Industry?"

Hildegarde glanced at the clock. "Our time is over," she said to the children. "Yes, Colonel Ferrers, thank you! I should enjoy the drive very much indeed. Can you wait perhaps five minutes?"

The Colonel could and would; and Hildegarde returned to see that all work was neatly folded and put away.

"And, Annie, here is the receipt I promised you. Be sure to mix the meal thoroughly, and have a good hot oven, and you will find them very nice indeed, and your mother will be so pleased at your making them yourself!"

"Vesta, did you try the honey candy?"

"Yes, 'm! 'twas dretful good. My little brother, he like t'ha' died, he eat so much."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Hilda, rather alarmed at this result of her neat little plan of teaching the children something about cookery, without their finding out that they were being taught.

"But you must see to it, Vesta, that he doesn't eat too much. That is one of the things an elder sister is for, you know.

"Now, whose turn is it to sweep up the threads and sc.r.a.ps? Yours, Euleta? Well, see how careful you can be! not a thread must be left on Mrs. Lankton's clean floor, you know."

Soon all was in order, workbags put away, hats and bonnets tied on; and Hildegarde came out with her doves about her, all looking as if they had had a thoroughly good time. With many affectionate farewells to "Teacher," the children scattered in different directions, and Colonel Ferrers chirruped to the brown cob, which trotted briskly away over the smooth road. The Colonel was deeply interested in the sewing-school.

Hester Aytoun had had one for the village children, and there had been none from her death until now. He asked many questions, which Hildegarde answered with right good will. They were dear children, she said. She was getting to know them very well, for she tried to see them in their homes once a fortnight, and found they liked to have her come, and looked forward to it. Some of them were very bright; not all, of course, but they all _tried_, and that was the great thing. Yes, she told them all the stories they wanted, and they wanted a great many.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE GAVE ME A LUNGE IN QUART."]

"Speaking of stories," said the Colonel, "I find I have work laid out for the rest of _my_ life."

"Hugh?" said Hildegarde, smiling.

"Most astonis.h.i.+ng child I ever saw in my life!" the Colonel cried. "Most amazing child! to see how he flings himself on books is a wonder. I don't let him keep at 'em long, you understand. A brain like that needs play, sir, play! I've bought him a little foil, and--Harry Monmouth! he gave me a lunge in quart that almost broke my guard, last night. But stories! 'More about kings, please, Sire!'--he's got a notion of calling me Sire--ho! ho! can't get Saul out of his head, d'ye see? I feel like Charlemagne, or Barbarossa, or some of 'em. 'More about kings when they were in battle.' He's learned 'Agincourt' by heart, just from my reading it to him. 'Fair stood the wind for France,' hey? Finest ballad in the English language. Says you read it to him, too. And if I am busy he goes to Elizabeth Beadle and frightens her out of her wits with sentences out of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Now this boy--mark me, Hildegarde!--will turn out something very uncommon, if he has the right training. That scoundrelly knave, Ephraim Loftus, wanted to make a gentleman of him! Ho! Ephraim doesn't know how a gentleman's shoes look, unless he has been made acquainted with the soles of them. I kicked him myself once, I remember, for beating a horse unmercifully. This boy will be a great scholar, mark my words! And whatever a.s.sistance I can give him shall be cheerfully given. Why, the lad has genius! positive genius!"

"Oh!" said Hildegarde, her heart beating fast. "Then you think, Colonel Ferrers, that a--a person should be educated for what seems to be his natural bent. Do you think that?"

"Harry Monmouth! of course I do! Look at me! D'ye think I was fitted for a mercantile life, for example? Never got algebra through my head, and hate figures. The army was what I was born for! Born for it, sir!

Shouldered my pap-spoon in the cradle, and presented arms whenever I was taken up. Ho! ho! ho!"

Hildegarde began to tremble, but her courage did not fail. "And--and Jack, dear Colonel Ferrers," she said softly. "He was born for music, was he not?"

The Colonel turned square round, and gazed at her from under brows that met over his hooked nose. "What then?" he said slowly, after a pause.

"If my nephew was born for a fiddler, what then, Miss Hildegarde Grahame? Is it any reason why he should not be trained for something better? I like the boy's playing very well, very well indeed, when he keeps clear of Dutch discords. But you would not compare playing the fiddle with the glorious Art of War, I imagine?"

"Not for an instant!" cried Hildegarde, flus.h.i.+ng deeply under the Colonel's half-stern, half-quizzical gaze. "Compare music, lovely music, that cheers and comforts and delights all the world, with fierce, cruel, dreadful war? Look at Jack, with his mind full of beautiful harmonies and--and 'airs from heaven'--they really are! making us laugh or cry, or dance or exult, just by the motion of his hand. Look at him, and then imagine him in a red coat, with a gun in his hand--"

"Red is the British colour," said the Colonel.

"Well, a blue coat, then. What difference does it make?--a gun in his hand, shooting people who never did him any harm, whose faces he had never even seen. Oh, Colonel Ferrers, I would not have believed it of you!"

"And who asked you to believe it of me, pray?" asked the Colonel, as he drove up to the door of Braeside. "To tell the truth, young lady, war is very much more in your line than in my nephew's. Harry Monmouth! Bellona in person, I verily believe. My compliments to your mother, and say I shall call her Madam Althaea in future, for she has brought forth a firebrand."

Instantly Hildegarde's ruffled plumes drooped, smoothed themselves down; instead of the flas.h.i.+ng gaze of the eagle, a dove-like look now met the quizzical gaze of the old gentleman. "Dear Colonel Ferrers!" this hypocritical girl murmured, as, standing on the verandah steps, she laid her hand gently on his arm. "Thank you so _very_ much for driving me home. You are always so kind--to me! And--and--I want to ask one question. Can you tell me the first lines of Dryden's 'Song for St.

Cecilia's Day'?"

"Of course!" said the simple Colonel.

"'From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began.'

Why do you--oh! you youthful Circe! you infant Medea, you--" he shook his whip threateningly.

"Good-by, dear Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hildegarde. "I am so glad you remembered the lines. Aren't they beautiful? Good-by!"