The Tangled Threads Part 26

"Of course they can't call on every one, Cousin Mary," she said airily to John's wife; "and like enough they 're not the kind of folks I would care to know, anyhow."

Sarah was not the only member of the family who had found trials by the way. Ethel and Fred had entered school, and at first they came home each afternoon with woeful faces. New methods of study, recitation, discipline, and even of recreation puzzled and frightened them. They regularly begged each morning not to go back; but as regularly their mother's diplomatic bantering and systematic appeals to their pride conquered, and they started off at half-past eight, heads high, and chins bravely up-raised.

To Caleb, the city was a thing of noise, hurry, and more people than he had thought existed. Early and late he worked in the store. To the "early" part he did not object--it even seemed late to his farm-bred ideas of early rising; but to the evenings--Caleb never understood the rush and confusion that entered the big market and grocery with the lighting of the flaring gas jets. To him it was a time for quiet meditation and sleep--not for haggling over the price of sugar and beans.

"I don't like it," he would say sometimes to his wife; "I don't like it, Sarah. This doling out a peck of potatoes and two quarts of apples--why, Sarah, just think of the bushels and barrels I 've grown myself! It's so small, Sarah, so small!"

"Of course it is now," comforted Sarah, "but only think what 't will be later on--only think."

December, January, February, and March pa.s.sed; and the first of April brought a letter from the lessee of the farm asking if he was to have the place through the summer.

"Of course he can have it," declared Sarah. "Just as if we wanted it again!"

"Yes, yes, of course," murmured Caleb. "I--I'll write later on. He said if he heard by the middle of the month, 't would do."

It was an early, and a wonderfully beautiful spring that year. Warm, moist winds came up from the south and stirred the twigs and branches into life. The gra.s.s grew green on sunny slopes, and the tulips and crocuses turned the dull brown beds into riotous color and bloom.

Caleb went out of his way each day that he might pa.s.s a tiny little park, and he always stopped there a motionless two minutes--he would have told you that he was listening to the green things growing. Sarah grew restless indoors. She even crawled out on to the fire escape and sat there one day; but she never tried that but once.

Downstairs, on each side of the big front door was a square-yard patch of puny, straggling gra.s.s; and it was these two bits of possibilities that put a happy thought into Sarah's head. For three days she said nothing, but she fell into the way of going often in and out of that door, and always her eyes were hungrily fixed on one or the other of those squares. On the fourth day she bought a trowel and some flower seeds and set resolutely to work. She had dug the trowel into the earth four times, and was delightedly sniffing the odor from the moist earth when the janitor appeared.

"Did ye lose something, ma'am?" he asked suspiciously.

"Lose something?" laughed the woman. "Of course not! I've found something, William. I 've found a flower bed. I 'm going to have the prettiest one ever was."

"Oh, come now," began the man, plainly disturbed, "that ain't going to do, you know. I'll have to--"

"Oh, I'll tend it," she interrupted eagerly. "You won't even have to touch it."

The man shook his head.

"'T won't do, ma 'am,--'t won't, really, now. I'm sorry, but the boss won't stand it."

"Won't stand it!--not even for flowers!" she gasped.

"No, ma'am"--the janitor's tone was firm but regretful. A queer feeling of sympathy came over him for this gentle little woman on the top floor whom he had always liked. "There hain't none of the tenants no business with them yards; he said so."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Dalton, "I--I'll go then." And she picked up the trowel and rose to her feet.

She pa.s.sed the janitor without a word, her head held high, and her eyes looking straight before her; but once in the seclusion of the halls, her head drooped, and her eyes rained tears that rolled down her cheeks unceasingly all the way to the top floor.

It was that night that Caleb brought out the paper and pen to write the letter which would lease the farm for another six months. Twice he dipped his pen in the ink, and paused with no word written. Finally he spoke.

"I--I'm going to give him some hints, Sarah. He won't know how to run some of the things, I 'm sure. If he should plant the meadow lot to potatoes, now, it--"

"And, Caleb," cut in Sarah, "be sure and send word to his wife about the roses; if she don't spray 'em real early, the bugs and worms will get an awful start. Caleb, don't you remember how lovely that crimson rambler was last year?"

Caleb nodded; his eyes were fixed on the wallpaper.

"I--I wonder if this warm weather has made the leaves start out on it,"

resumed Sarah. "I hope not--you know we always have frosts up there."

"Hm-m," murmured Caleb.

There was a long silence; then Sarah drew a deep breath.

"Caleb, do you s'pose it 'll get up to the front-chamber window this year--that rosebush, I mean?"

"I don't know, Sarah." Caleb's eyes were still on the wall-paper.

There was another long silence, broken this time by the children's entrance.

"Mother," began Fred discontentedly, "don't they ever go fis.h.i.+ng down here, or swimming, or anything?"

Sarah sprang to her feet with a nervous little laugh.

"Caleb, we--we might go up home just for--for a visit," she said.

"Hurrah!--let's!" crowed Fred; and Ethel clapped her hands.

"I'll do it," cried Caleb suddenly, bringing his fist down hard on his knee. "I'll write that we 'll go up next week for three days. There's lots of room, and they can tuck us away somewhere for just that little time. We can show 'em things better than we can tell 'em, and I can close the deal when I get there."

It was a jubilant four that left the North Station a few days later, and it was a still more jubilant four that arrived in the village at the foot of the green hills. The Dalton's intended visit had been heralded far and near, and the progress from the train to the farmhouse was a succession of hand-shakes and cordial greetings.

"Oh, don't it look splendid and roomy!" cried Sarah, as they reached the turn where they could see the farmhouse. "And don't the air smell good!"

"Hm-m," murmured Caleb, and turned his face away with set lips.

How crowded to overflowing those three days were! Caleb valiantly tried to give his intended suggestions, but the most of his time was spent in joyous tramps from one end of the farm to the other, that no favorite field nor pet pasture should escape his adoring eyes. Sarah, when not gloating over every tender shoot and starting bud in her flower garden, was being feted and fed by the entire neighborhood.

"Oh, how good it is to just talk!" murmured Sarah, as she went to sleep that first night.

As for Fred and Ethel, they were scarcely seen at the farmhouse.

Just at dusk on the third day Caleb found his wife in the old summer-house. Wrapped in shawls, she was fastening vines to the trellis.

"Well, Sarah, I--I s'pose I'd better settle up with West, now. I hain't yet, you know."

Sarah nodded, without speaking.

"I hain't seemed to amount to much about telling him things," continued Caleb. "Somehow, I did n't get time. He's careless, too; I'm afraid he ain't going to do well."

"She is, too," moaned Sarah. "She don't know a thing about roses.

Caleb, do you think that rosebush will get up to that window?"

"I don't know," returned Caleb absently. Then, with a choke in his voice, he said: "Things look first-rate, now, but--I've got my doubts of West. I--I wish I could handle them myself."

Sarah threw a quick glance at his averted face.

"Well--why--don't you?" she almost whispered.