The Hero of Hill House Part 16

"Nell, we must go. We will find places for Lila and Doyle to stay for a few days, and we will hurry to them. Uncle Phil will not know what to do. It will be a terrible shock to him. He will need my help, and you can be a comfort to the poor children. How soon can you be ready!"

"It will not take me long. How soon can we get a train?"

"We can be out of here in less than two hours. Can you make it?"

"Yes," she said, and drying her tears she began her hasty preparations. At the appointed time they were on their way.

A few hours later they stood by the bier of their aunt and looked upon her toil-worn hands resting now so quietly, and touched affectionately the cold brow wearing at last a look of peace and rest. The years seemed to fall away from Austin and Nell and they were a little boy and girl once more by the side of their own dear dead. How it all came back to them; and with what sympathy they mingled their own tears with those of the new-made orphans!

Philip Hill had loved his wife, and leaned upon her. She had been strength and protection to him. Every perplexity and burden that had ever en-tered the home had lain more heavily upon her than upon him. He had been a careless man, and the poor little home and the roughened hands forever still told a story of hards.h.i.+p and poverty which his conscience told him might have been lessened. But it was too late now, and he could only pour out his heart in tears and sighs.

He was glad to see Austin and felt that his capable hands would remove from him present responsibilities till the dead was laid to rest. And the children clung to both Nell and Austin as their hope.

It was soon over and the neighbors and friends gone. Austin and his sister were yet in the home, and tonight were having a talk with their uncle to learn if possible his plans.

"What will you do, Uncle? The children will need care and attention. Helen is too young to take the place of housekeeper. Have you any plans for the future?"

"Austin, I do not know. Everything is a blank, a wall of darkness before me. I do not know where to turn, nor what to do. I hate to see the children scattered, but I do not see how I can keep them together as your father did you children. Can you give me any suggestion for my first turn? What shall I do with the children now?"

Austin sat in deep thought. The idea of children being scattered among strangers, never knowing family ties with their own, was like a monster to him. What he had fought so hard to hold from his own, now was being poured out upon his helpless little cousins. A thought of help and succor came again and again to his mind, but he remembered how frail Nell was for any added burden. Her sharp eyes saw the struggle and doubt in his mind, and she knew his thoughts.

"Austin, couldn't we take the three little ones home with us? Uncle could manage with the three older ones till he can make some arrangements."

"Nell, it would add much to your already full hands. It hardly seems fair to you," Austin said hesitatingly.

"I would certainly count it a great favor. As soon as I could I would end things up here and come to Weston with the others, and perhaps could find a way to care for them," said their uncle.

"We can not go away and leave the little things without some one to look after them," said Nell decidedly. So it was planned that Austin and Nell should take the three younger ones home with them. The oldest of the three was only six, and the baby was less than two years old. Nell did not realize then what she was undertaking. Their friends at Weston lifted their hands in dismay when they saw the increase in Austin's family. "Is the boy mad to undertake such a thing?" some of them asked. But Austin and Nell plodded on doing their best with their new responsibilities. It was already late in the week when they came home. The next Sunday morning Austin came into his place in Sunday-school with little John on his arm and with another tiny toddler at his side.

A few weeks pa.s.sed by and their uncle came with the three older children.

He seemed to drop them with a sigh of relief at Austin's door. Though it had been understood that the arrangement was only temporary, it was soon seen that Uncle Philip felt little more responsibility when he once had the children under Austin's hand.

Now, Nell was an authoritative little body, bearing, as she had, responsibilities all too heavy for a child. Lila and Doyle had found that she was an exacting mistress, and often even Austin had been puzzled to know how to curb and direct her authoritative inclinations. The coming of the three little ones had not been so hard, for the natural mother-instinct in her enjoyed caring for their helplessness. But Helen and her two brothers was another proposition entirely. She felt from the first that it was too much, and as her authority was completely set aside by her mischievous young cousins, they kept her in a continual ferment. Austin could not turn the children out of the house, nor could he prevail on his uncle to find homes for them.

At last Austin saw that the burden was entirely too much for his sister and that her health as well as her nerves and temper were breaking under it, and he demanded action of his uncle.

"Something will have to be done, or my home will be broken up. I can not keep house without Nell, and she will not stay with me much longer. Helen and Lila can not get along, and the boys are a constant source of annoyance to Nell. I can not be there and attend to my work also, and I never leave the house but they get into some kind of a brawl. You will have to do something, or I will." This brought his uncle to action; but a half dozen children are not distributed in a day, if proper homes are found.

Austin could not even in his perplexity demand impossibilities of his uncle, and must wait as patiently as he could till the six were properly located. Nell wept at giving up the baby; but Austin saw it was too much for her to try to keep him. At last they were alone again, just the four of them about their home table. Sundays brought Harry and sometimes Amy to dinner with them. Not many weeks pa.s.sed that some of Uncle Philip's children were not with them for a meal or two, for to them Austin's house seemed home.

Austin hoped that now the storm had pa.s.sed Nell would be herself again. But in this he was mistaken. Her nerves had been under too great a strain for her to regain her composure. It was evident that she needed a rest and change.

"Nell, would you like to take a few weeks' visit somewhere this summer, or a trip to some place of change and recreation?" asked Austin kindly one day.

"Oh, yes! I should like to go anywhere that would take me away from here. I want to be free of cooking and dish-was.h.i.+ng for a while. If I could only be a girl a while instead of a housewife! I am so tired of it all that I can hardly stand it."

"I see how you feel, Nell, and I have been planning a way for you. The Freeman's have told me they would be glad to take you with them on their trip this summer, and I should like to have you go, if it pleases you."

"But what will you do? Lila can not keep house. She is too young, and she could not manage Doyle. He is all I can manage sometimes."

"Doyle has never gotten rid of that desire to go to his father. It occurs to me that he ought to have a chance to try it out. I could send him down there for the summer, and Lila and I could make out very well. If you wish to go, do so, and stay as long as you want to. Only remember you have a welcome home whenever you want to come. So study it over and tell me what you decide."

CHAPTER 27

THE FAMILY CIRCLE NARROWS

"Lila, little sister, how would you like to be my housekeeper this summer?

I am thinking of sending Nell away for a good rest and change. Amy and Harry will seldom be here, and you would have the house all to yourself."

Nell was out for the afternoon, and Doyle was busy down the street, leaving Lila alone in the house. Austin had chosen this quiet time to have a good heart-to-heart talk with Lila.

"But Doyle! I fear I could not manage him. He does not like to obey Nell, and I could not do a thing with him. He is a naughty boy when you are away.

I am afraid he would plague me nearly to death." Lila spoke frankly, not because she did not love her brother, but because what she had to say was truth. Doyle was too active a boy to be shut up in the narrow quarters his town home afforded.

"We could hardly expect Doyle to obey you who are so little older than he.

He does tease you and Nell dreadfully, I know; but he has so little to occupy his mind, and he hates the housework Nell gives him to do. No boy thrives on dish-was.h.i.+ng. We will not blame him too severely for his naughtiness. I am thinking of letting him go down to Papa's this summer, and if he wishes to stay longer he may. He desires to go I am certain, and on the farm he would have plenty to keep him busy. If you also would rather go away for the summer, I think either Wilbur or George would be glad to have you go to his home for a good visit. In fact, ever since George made us that visit he has felt it would only be right for him to have one of you girls. You would have a very pleasant time in either home. But if you prefer to remain here with me, we can keep house well enough. I can help you with the heavy work out of my work-hours, and will arrange to have some one with you at night when I have to be away. Besides, I intend to get a piano, and you may have lessons on that while the girls are away. What do you say?"

"I will stay with you. And I shall enjoy the music-lessons. Are you really going to get us a piano? I would rather be here with you than anywhere else. And the housework will be fun when I can manage it to suit myself.

Nell always wants to boss it, and I almost hate it sometimes; but I shall like to manage."

Austin laughed at Lila's earnestness before he said, "I fear there is a streak of bossiness in every one of us. I am well developed on that line, Amy and Nell are my close seconds, and here you are getting the same characteristic. Well, if you stay with me you can 'boss' to your heart's content."

"Austin," and Lila spoke confidentially, "why does Doyle want to go down to the farm? I do not want a new mother. She could not be like our own mother.

And I hardly know Papa."

"Doyle does not remember his own mother at all, and he has longed all his life for a mother's love. He wants a father and mother like other boys have, and I can not blame him. Then he loves the farm and would rather be there than anywhere else. All his talk is about a farm and farm-work. I think it will be better for him to go. Papa is not drinking now, and will do very well by him. We must not think that Papa has no love for his children, nor that he would not have any of us with him. He was lonely, and had much to discourage him in the past."

"I had not thought of it in that way," said Lila softly. "Perhaps Papa does love us a little after all."

"Doyle," said Austin one day when they had a chance for a quiet talk alone, "do you yet wish to go to your father and his new wife?"

"Yes, Austin, I do," answered the boy earnestly.

"Why are you dissatisfied with your home here? Have I not made it comfortable and homelike for you?" questioned Austin, who could hardly help feeling that the boy's sentiments reproached him.

"It is not that, Austin. I am happy enough here, and satisfied with all you have done for me. But I want a father and a mother. I see other fellows with their parents, and it makes me lonesome. I feel as if I were not getting my share. There can be no one to really take the place of a fellow's father and mother, can there? I want to be with them and call them Father and Mother."

"You are right, Doyle. There can no one take the place of a mother, and it ought to be that way with a father. I have tried to fill both places to you children, but after all I am only a big brother. I have a proposition for you. I will let you go to your father this summer as soon as school is out, and you may stay till fall, and then if you like it better than you do here you may remain with your father. You know what life is here, and when you have tried that out, decide what you will do. I shall hate to give you up, but if you want your father and he wants you, I have no right to keep you apart."

"Oh, Austin, thank you!" exclaimed the boy. "There is nothing in town. I want to go to the country, where I can drive and ride the horses and bring in the cows, and go hunting, and climb trees. There is everything out there, and nothing here but to help Nell with the housework, and I hate that."

"You get tree-climbing here, if I may judge from your torn coats and trousers; but of course the other things belong to the country. You may try it out. We are going to give Nell a rest for the summer, and with you gone Lila and I can make out very well. How do you think you will like the new Mother?"

"All right. Harry has been down there, you know, and he says she is nice, and wants me to come. Have you written Papa yet to know if he wants me?"

"Yes, and he is eager for you to come. He gets lonely without any of us children since he is settled in his new home. They will make you welcome, and I believe you will like it."

The little boy skipped off, eager to impart his good news to some of his friends. He was going to have the dearest wish of his heart fulfilled in going to his country home.