In the Mist of the Mountains Part 9

'Oh, the bush is full of beauty, And the flowers are full of love,'

but I couldn't go any farther, 'cause there was nothing to ryum but that horrid duty."

"I think you could have made it very pretty, dear, with that word," said Miss Bibby. "And say rhyme, Lynn, not ryum. You could have said,--

'Oh, the bush is full of beauty, And the flowers are full of love, And if we do our duty, We----we----'

--something like that, you know, dear."

"'We'll soon get up above,'"

finished Lynn discontentedly. "No, I didn't want it to go like that; it was just going to be a springy sort of a song, with wild birds in it, not a lessony sort."

"Well, get on with your letter, my dear," said Miss Bibby, who was often helpless before the fine instinct for the value of words with which Lynn had been gifted.

So Lynn continued in a cramped hand, "I wish there were more nice words--duty won't do."

This was a sentence calculated to puzzle even parents intelligent as Judge and Mrs. Lomax imagined themselves.

Then the child turned over to her "free" sheet, on which she might write and spell as she pleased, and gazed at it wistfully.

Oh, to purr out her little heart upon it so that the mother so far away might hear her speaking, whispering, just as if she were cuddled up in the dear arms!

What a tragic thing this was in her hand, this red pen with the end sucked nearly white, so powerful, so powerless!

"I love you," she wrote, and then covered a line or two with black crosses, that meant a pa.s.sion of kisses. Oh, to catch at all the words that were surging in her heaving little breast, and to force them down on the white sheet, and to send them away red-hot across the sea!

She dipped wildly in the ink, she breathed hard and held the pen in almost a convulsive way. But the pitiful steel thing only spluttered, and left a few lines of black scribble. Could the mother understand that? Ah, perhaps, perhaps.

"I hop you are well, from Lynn."

And so concluded the bi-weekly letter, with a big tear as usual, for Lynn simply could not write to mother without crying a little, though for the rest of the time she was a merry little grig.

m.u.f.fie was still blissfully untroubled by the need of orthography, and scribbled steadily over four pages, her lips moving all the time to such tune as "'so we went down the gully and ferns, such a lot. And I got the best of all, and it's under the house for you in a tin from Anna, and all of it's for you in the bushhouse at our proper house and daddie.'"

After a time the Serenade began to get upon the nerves of all the room.

Eleven times did poor Pauline attack it and eleven times did she have a breakdown. It was not always the D flat that caused the downfall, though Miss Bibby found herself listening with nerves a-stretch every time the difficult bar approached. And she felt inclined to cry with thankfulness everytime the child went smoothly past. But then just as surely as her nervous tension released itself, and she began to comfort herself that the concluding page could not fail to go well, a stumble, a slip, a despairing cry from the piano stool, and the whole performance began again.

"Oh, make her stop, Miss Bibby," implored m.u.f.fie; "she intrupts me dreadf'lly, and I'm in the middle of telling about the fat lady that rides on a bicycle."

"Make her stop," said Max, she "intlups me worse. I'll never get my letter done." Max, except for a wavy line or two in red chalk generally confined his correspondence to enclosing tangible sections of things in which he was interested at the time. To-day he had stuffed into his envelope a clipping from the tail of Larkin's horse, one of the white daisies Trike was being nourished upon, some shavings of coloured chalks from a box on which he had just expended his final penny, and a few currants from his last drop cake.

"I'm getting all my chalks mixed up with her intlupting me," he complained, looking angrily towards the piano where the devoted Pauline still battled madly with the Serenade.

"Pauline, my dear child, I shall go out of my senses if you play the thing again," Miss Bibby said desperately, as Pauline for the twelfth time began the clas.h.i.+ng chords that opened the piece, and served as contrast for the gentler music of the Serenade itself.

"I've--I've _sworn_ to myself to get it right," said Pauline wildly. Her lips were quivering, her eyes were full of tears, her very hands were shaking with weariness.

"You shouldn't swear," began Miss Bibby.

"The butcher does," volunteered Max.

"I--I mean it is wrong to bind oneself by a promise one may not be able to keep," Miss Bibby added hastily. "And you are not to talk to the butcher, Max. Shut the piano now, Pauline, and another time when you are quite calm----"

"I've got it w-w-written," sobbed Pauline, fighting with the keys through a mist of tears.

"You can easily start another letter," said Miss Bibby distractedly; "don't mention your music this time--your mother won't mind."

"No, I can't stop; I can't stop," wailed Pauline, playing on as if under a spell.

At this point Anna stalked into the room.

"Which I'm quite aware it isn't my place, Miss Bibby; but I'm here to look after the children as well as you," she said, "and them down with whooping cough that dreadful they can't eat potatoes, and getting punished like this till the very kettle in the kitchen is ready to scream, and the Missus don't believe in punis.h.i.+ng, no, she don't, and it's a good deal longer I've lived in the fambly than some people, and knows the ways better, and the tears streaming down the poor child's face like you never saw."

Pauline had quivered once or twice during this heated speech, but as it finished she crashed on to D flat yet again, fell off her stool on to the floor, and rolled about screaming with laughter.

Even Miss Bibby was forced to smile a little, for Anna was plainly suffering keenly, and had bottled it up for some time.

"You mean well, Anna," she said quietly, "even if you don't express yourself well. You can put on your hat and take the children to the waterfall; it will do you all good, for it will be cool down there. I will go to the post, lock the side door, and put the key under the mat."

In ten minutes "Greenways" lay still and peaceful once more among its trees, as if no Serenade had ever troubled its repose. The children were scampering down the gully with Anna following warily, certain she heard a snake at every step.

And Miss Bibby, the letters under her arm, was b.u.t.toning her gloves inside the gate, and settling her veil for the walk up to the towns.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER VIII

ACROSS THE RUBICON

But Larkin came along, Larkin, his auriferous hair glinting in the sun, Larkin, with his empty grocery basket swung on his rein arm, and a sheaf of papers under the other.

Larkin came along. And the whole course of Miss Bibby's life was thereby changed.

"Good-morning, ma'am," said the boy; "anything I can fetch yer down fer tea?"

"No, thank you," said Miss Bibby.

"I'll post yer letters for you," continued the youth; "I'm going straight back."

Miss Bibby reflected a moment.

It would certainly save her some time if he did so, and she had nothing now to do until tea--yes, it would give her a chance to read Thomas's letter once more, and consider things quietly.

"It's a bit 'ot, walking," Larkin said encouragingly. She handed him the letters.