Chapter II: Part 2

Moving out on the sunken stone of the door-step, she was still unable to tell with certainty whether the japonicas were actually budding. She stood peering helplessly, almost frowning in her effort to see. It was really important that she should know as soon as possible. The coming of spring was important to everybody in the Pennyroyal Region, where every man was a farmer--the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, and even the minister; and where every woman had a garden, large and rich like old lady Gordon's, or small and poor as Miss Judy's was. And the buds of the japonica were the gay little heralds of the spring, coming clad all in scarlet satin, while the rest of nature wore dull and sombre robes. Flashing out from their dark hiding-places at the first touch of the sun, the sight of them stirred the ladies of Oldfield as nothing else ever did. The men, too, always noticed this first sign of spring's approach. But it was the burning of the tobacco-beds on the wooded hillsides, the floating of long, thin banners of pale blue smoke across a wintry sky, which moved the men. It was only in the breasts of the gentle gardeners of Oldfield that the bursting forth of the japonica buds, these vivid points of flame, always fired a perennial ambition. For the housewife who could send a neighbor the earliest cool, green lettuce, or the first warm, red radishes might well be a proud woman, and was a personage to be looked up to and to be envied during all the rest of the year. And was it not rather a pretty ambition and even a laudable one? Have not most of us noted pettier ambitions and far less laudable ones in a much larger world?

Aside from this public and universal interest and anxiety concerning gardening time, Miss Judy had good private reasons for wishing to get an early start. Early vegetables were more profitable than late ones in Oldfield as elsewhere. Of course Miss Judy never thought of selling any of the things that grew in her little garden. She would have been shocked at the suggestion. No one in Oldfield ever sold anything, except Mr. Pettus, who kept the general store, and who sold everything that the Oldfield people needed. It is true that Miss Judy had a regular engagement with Mr. Pettus to exchange green stuff for sugar or knitting materials, or a yard of white muslin to make Miss Sophia a tucker, or a bit of net to freshen her cap, and occasionally even some trifle for herself. _That_, however, was an entirely different matter from vulgarly selling things. Mr. Pettus understood the difference quite as clearly as Miss Judy did, and he always took the greatest pains to show his appreciation of her thoughtful condescension in letting him have the vegetables. He was always most generous too in these delicate and complicated transactions. It upset Miss Judy somewhat, at first, to find him willing to give more sugar for onions than for genteeler vegetables, especially in the spring. But it was never hard for Miss Judy to give up when no real principle was involved; and necessity makes most of us do certain things which we disapprove of. So that, sighing gently, Miss Judy squeezed her heartsease and mignonette into a smaller space, and planted more onion-sets.

She was thinking about those onion-sets as she looked at the japonica bushes, trying to see whether they were actually budding. She could not, as a lady, admit even to herself how largely her sister's living depended upon the ignoble bulbs even more than upon the refined produce of the little garden. Her own living also depended upon this bit of earth; but that was not nearly so important, from her point of view. Miss Sophia came first in everything, even in the annual consideration of the problem of the onion-sets. Miss Judy, thinking that the house in which gentlewomen lived should never smell of anything but dried rose leaves, asked Miss Sophia if she did not think the same. Miss Sophia, who had thought nothing about it, and who objected to the odor of onions only because it made her very hungry, answered "Just so, sister Judy," very promptly and very decisively, as she always answered everything that Miss Judy said. Consequently the tidy calico bag containing the onion-sets was banished to the kitchen for the winter, to become a source of secret uneasiness to Miss Judy the whole season through. Merica, the cook, was not so dependable a personage as Miss Judy could have wished her to be. There was indeed something disturbingly uncertain in her very name. Miss Judy always thought it must be _A_-merica, but Merica always stoutly insisted that her whole real true name was Mericus-Ves-Pat-rick-One-of-the-Earliest-Settlers-of-Kentucky, and Miss Judy gave up all further discussion of the subject simply because she was overwhelmed, not because she was convinced.

Remembering that the onion-sets had been quite safe when she last looked at them, Miss Judy felt a renewed anxiety to know certainly whether the japonicas were budding. And the only way to know was to get her fathers far-off spectacles. These were privately used by both the little sisters upon great emergencies, such as this was. But they had never been put on by either in public; and Miss Judy was much startled at the thought of putting them on at the front door. Moreover, they were always kept carefully hidden in the left-hand corner, at the very back of the top drawer of the chest of drawers in the little sisters' room, and Miss Sophia was still asleep. Miss Judy could tell by the way the sun touched the sunken stone of the door-step that it wanted two or three minutes of the time when she always rolled the cannon-ball which held the door open, as a polite hint to Miss Sophia to get up. Under the unusual circumstances, however, Miss Judy felt justified in rolling it at once. It was a big ball weighing twenty-five pounds, and it was a good deal battered by distinguished service. It had come indeed from the battle-field at New Orleans, and there was a tradition that it was the identical cannon-ball which had killed the British general. Miss Judy, however, could never be brought to entertain any such dreadful belief. She was quite content and very, very proud to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that many of those gallant Kentuckians who rushed in at the last desperate moment--travel-worn, starving, ragged, and armed only with hunters' rifles--to do such valiant service in turning the tide of that momentous battle, were true sons of the Pennyroyal Region. Miss Judy was aware of the strange and unaccountable misstatement concerning the conduct of the Kentuckians, made by General Jackson in his report of the battle. But she was also aware that the general--who was not as a rule very quick to take things back--had corrected that misstatement so promptly and so thoroughly, that it had not been necessary for General Adair to ride from Kentucky to New Orleans to fight a duel with him about the slander, although that gallant Kentuckian was all ready and eager to go.

And was there not also that remarkable song, celebrating the part taken by "The Hunters of Kentucky" in the battle of New Orleans? Everybody was singing it when Miss Judy was a girl; and although she could not sing she had often hummed the ringing chorus:--

"Oh, dear Kentucky,
The Hunters of Kentucky;
Dear old Kentucky,
The Hunters of Kentucky."

And she had even repeated the five stirring verses without making a single mistake:--

"You've read I reckon, in the prints,
How Pakenham attempted
To make Old Hickory wince
But soon his scheme repented;
For we with rifles ready cocked,
Thought such occasion lucky;
And soon around our general flocked
The Hunters of Kentucky.

"The British felt so very sure
The battle they would win it,
Americans could not endure
The battle not a minute;
And Pakenham he made his brag
If he in fight was lucky,
He'd have the girls and cotton bags
In spite of old Kentucky.

"But Jackson he was wide awake
And not scared at trifles,
For well he knew what aim to take
With our Kentucky rifles;
He led us to the cypress swamp,
The ground was low and mucky,
There stood John Bull in martial pomp
And here was old Kentucky.

"A bank was raised to hide our breast--
Not that we thought of dying--
But we liked firing from a rest
Unless the game was flying;
Behind it stood our little force,
None wished that it were greater,
For every man was half a horse
And half an alligator.

"They did not our patience tire,
Before they showed their faces,
We did not choose to waste our fire,
So snugly kept our places;
But when no more we saw them blink
We thought it time to stop 'em--
It would have done you good, I think,
To see Kentucky drop 'em."

Then gentle Miss Judy, repeating these lines, used to grow almost bloodthirsty in trying to repeat the things which she had heard her father say about this,--the part played by the hunters of Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans,--as having been the first recognition of marksmanship in warfare. Miss Judy had no clear understanding of what her father had meant, but she usually repeated what he had said about the sharpshooting of the hunters whenever she spoke of the battle. She thrilled with patriotism every time she touched the cannon-ball. It was so big that both her little hands were required to roll it into the hollow which it had worn in the floor of the passage.

Miss Sophia obeyed the solemn rumble of the cannon-ball as she always obeyed everything that she understood--docile little soul. She was almost as slow of mind as of body. A round, heavy, dark, uninteresting old woman, utterly unlike her sister, except in gentleness and goodness. On Miss Sophia's side of the bed were three stout steps, forming a sort of dwarf stairway, and down this she now came slowly, backwards and in perfect safety. But Miss Sophia's getting to the floor was yet a long way from being ready for breakfast. It was hard to see how so small a body, so simply clothed, could get into such an intricate tangle of strings and hooks and buttons on every morning of her life. Miss Judy's sweet patience never wavered. She never knew that she was called upon to exercise any toward Miss Sophia. The possibility of hurrying Miss Sophia did not enter her mind even on that urgent occasion, when her need of the far-off spectacles made it uncommonly hard to wait. Finally, there being no indication of Miss Sophia's progress, other than the subdued sounds of the struggle through which she was passing, Miss Judy timidly approached the door of the bedroom. It was open, but she delicately turned her head away as she tapped upon it to attract Miss Sophia's attention, before asking permission to come in. Miss Sophia invited her to enter, giving the permission as formally as Miss Judy had asked it. Miss Judy apologized as she accepted the invitation, saying that she hoped Miss Sophia would pardon her for keeping her back turned, which she was very, very careful to continue to do. She did not say what it was that she wanted to get out of the top drawer. The far-off spectacles were rarely mentioned between the sisters, and Miss Sophia never questioned anything that her sister wished to do.

Still scrupulously averting her gaze, Miss Judy found what she wanted, and sidled softly from the room, thanking Miss Sophia and holding the spectacles down at her side, hidden in the folds of her skirt. Stepping out on the door-stone, she looked cautiously up and down the big road. It was still deserted, not a human being was in sight. Only a solitary cow went soberly past, with her bell clanging not unmusically on the stillness. Nevertheless, Miss Judy gave another glance of precaution, surveying the highway from end to end from the tavern on the north to Sidney Wendall's on the south. As the little lady's eyes rested for a moment upon the house on the hillside, a girl came out as though the wistful gaze had drawn her forth. Miss Judy's blue eyes could barely make out the slender young figure standing in the dazzling sunlight; but she knew that it was Doris, and she did not need the sight of her sweet old eyes to see the wafting of the kiss which the girl threw. Miss Judy's own little hands flew up to throw two kisses in return. She straightway forgot all about the spectacles. She no longer cared how large the huge frames might look on her small face, nor how old they might make her appear.

It was always so. At the sight of Doris, Miss Judy always ceased to be an old maid and became a young mother. For there is a motherhood of the spirit as well as the motherhood of the flesh, and the one may be truer than the other.

IV

THE CHILD OF MISS JUDY'S HEART

It is among the sad things of many good lives, that those who love each other most often understand each other least.

No mother was ever truer than Sidney Wendall, so far as her light led. None ever tried harder to do her whole duty by her children, and none, perhaps, could have come nearer doing it by Billy and Kate, given no better opportunities than Sidney had.

It was Doris, the eldest child, and the one whom she loved best and was proudest of--the darling of her heart, the very apple of her eye--that Sidney never knew what to do with. From the very cradle she had found Doris utterly unmanageable. Not that the child was unruly or self-willed; she was ever the gentlest and most obedient of the three children. It was only that the mother and the child could not understand one another. That was all; but it was enough to send Sidney, whom few difficulties daunted, to Miss Judy, almost in tears and quite in despair, while Doris was hardly beyond babyhood.

"You can always tell a body in trouble what to do," she appealed to Miss Judy. "Maybe you can even tell me what to do with that child. I know how rough I am, but I don't know how to help it. I'm bound to bounce around and make a noise. I don't know any other way of getting along. And then there are Billy and Kate. They won't do a thing they're told unless they're stormed at. Yet if I shout at them, there's Doris turning white, and shaking, and looking as if she'd surely die. I tell you, Miss Judy, I feel as if I'd been given a fine china cup to tote and might break it any minute."

Miss Judy, the comforter of all the afflicted and the adviser of all the troubled, said what she could to help Sidney. Doris _was_ different from other children. There was no doubt about that and about its being difficult to know how to deal with such a sensitive nature. Miss Judy said that she did not believe, however, that any other mother would have done any better than Sidney had--which comforted Sidney inexpressibly. The little body could not think of anything to advise. She did not know much about children, and she had not much confidence in her own judgment in matters concerning them. So that, at last, after a long talk and for lack of a clearer plan, Miss Judy proposed that Sidney should bring Doris the next morning when setting out on her professional round, and should leave the little one with Miss Sophia and herself. Miss Sophia might think of the very thing to do; without living in the house with Miss Sophia it was impossible to know how sound and practical her judgment was--so Miss Judy told Sidney. The kind proposal lightened Sidney's heart and she accepted it at once. She had her own opinion as to the value of Miss Sophia's ideas, but she responded as she knew would please Miss Judy; and she was sure at all events that Miss Judy, who was just such another sensitive plant, would know what to do with Doris.

Miss Judy on her side was not nearly so confident. When Sidney had gone and she began to realize what she had undertaken, she was a good deal frightened. She not only knew almost nothing about children, as she had confessed to this troubled poor mother; but she had always been rather afraid of them. It had always seemed to her an appalling responsibility to assume the forming of one of these impressionable little souls; she had often wondered tremblingly at the lightness with which many mothers assumed it. And here _she_ was--rushing voluntarily into the very responsibility which she had always regarded with awe--almost with terror. More and more disturbed and perplexed as she thought of her foolish rashness, she nevertheless mechanically set about getting ready for taking charge of Doris during the next day, and perhaps for many other days, until she had at least tried to see what she could do for the child. As a first step in the preparation she climbed the steep stairs to the loft, which she had not entered for years, and brought down an old doll of Miss Sophia's, and dusted it and straightened its antiquated clothes; putting it in readiness for the ordeal of Doris on the following morning.

"She can sit on the home-made rug, you know, sister Sophia," said Miss Judy, nervously.

"Just so, sister Judy," promptly and firmly responded Miss Sophia, who never noticed where anybody sat.

"And don't you think it would be a good idea to have Merica make a pig and a kitten out of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse the child, and keep her from crying. A half pint of flour would be quite enough, and we _have_ to have the fire anyway because it's ironing day. Then Merica picked up a big basket of chips behind the cabinet-maker's shop this morning."

"Just so, sister Judy," answered Miss Sophia, who left all provision for fire and for everything else wholly to her sister. "And she might make _us_ some gingerbread too, while she's about it."

"To be sure!" exclaimed Miss Judy, looking at Miss Sophia in loving admiration. "So she can. How quick you are to see the right way, sister Sophia. I never seem to think of things as you do."

But even as she spoke, a thought flashed uneasily across her mind, causing her sweet old face to beam less brightly. What if the child would _not_ sit on the home-made rug? She had never been used to carpets--poor little thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread all over everything, as Miss Judy had seen children do, time and again! The thought of such desecration of the carpet that her mother had made, for which she had carded the wool and spun the warp and woven the woof, all with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy feel almost faint. The risk of such danger threw her into more and more of a panic. She hardly slept that night, troubled by dread of what she had so thoughtfully undertaken. She was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney brought Doris and left her early on the following day.

But the child sat quite still on the rug where her mother had placed her; and she did not cry when Sidney went away, as Miss Judy feared she would, although her lips quivered. She soon turned to look at the doll, which Miss Judy hastened to give her to divert her attention,--looking at it as tender little mothers look at afflicted babies. Then she gave her attention to the gingerbread kitten, and, later, to the gingerbread pig; and Miss Judy was pleased, though she could hardly have told why, to notice that Doris ate the pig first and hesitated some time before eating the kitten.

Miss Judy gave an involuntary sigh of relief when both the pig and the kitten had disappeared without leaving a crumb. She instinctively turned toward Miss Sophia with a pardonable little air of triumph, and was disappointed to find her asleep in her chair. Thus Miss Judy and Doris were left alone together, and presently the quiet child lifted her grave brown eyes to the little lady's anxious blue ones and they exchanged a first long, bashful look. Doris was not old enough to remember what she thought of Miss Judy at that time; but Miss Judy always remembered how Doris looked--such a wonderfully beautiful, gentle little creature--as she sat there so gravely, looking up with her mites of hands folded on her lap. After a time, as Miss Sophia slumbered peacefully on, the shy child and the shyer old lady began to make timid advances to one another. Doris undressed the forlorn old doll with cautious delight, and Miss Judy dressed it again with exquisite care while Doris leaned on her knee, hardly knowing what she did, so intense was her breathless interest in what Miss Judy was doing. The shyest are always the most trusting, if they trust at all. When Sidney, returning from her rounds, came by at nightfall to take Doris home, the child was no longer in the least afraid of Miss Judy; and Miss Judy was not nearly so much frightened as she had been at first.

Yet it was, after all, surprising, considering how timid they both were, that they should so soon have become tenderly and deeply attached to each other. But every day that Sidney brought Doris and left her, she was happier to come and more willing to stay; and erelong the day on which she had not come would have been an empty one and dull indeed for Miss Judy. One bright morning they had been very, very happy together. Miss Sophia nodded as usual in her low rocking-chair, and Miss Judy was darning her sister's stockings while Doris played at her feet.

"Miss Dudy," the child said suddenly, raising her large, serious eyes to Miss Judy's sweet face with a puzzled look; "was it you or my mammy that borned me?"

Miss Judy started,--blushing, smiling, looking like a beautiful girl,--and bending down she gathered the little one in her arms and held her for a long time very, very close. From that moment her love for Doris assumed a different character.

It was a love which grew with the child's growth; which watched and fostered every new beauty of character as the girl blossomed into early womanhood, beautiful and sweet as a tall white flower. Gradually Doris became as the sun and the moon to Miss Judy, the first object when she arose in the morning, her last thought when she lay down at night. Yet this devotion to Doris, and absorption in the girl's interests and future, did not lessen in the least her devotion to Miss Sophia, her ceaseless watchfulness over her welfare, her tender care for her happiness. Her love for Doris never touched her love for her sister at any point. The two loves were so distinct, so unlike, so widely apart that there could be no conflict. It is true that Miss Judy's love for Miss Sophia was also strongly and tenderly maternal. But Miss Judy's gentle heart was so full of this mother-love--single and simple--that some of it might have been given to the whole human race. Her love for Doris was something much more exclusive, something infinitely more subtle than this, which is shared in a measure by every womanly woman. It was the romantic, poetic love which is given by loving age to lovable youth when it recalls life's dawn-light to the twilight of a life which has never known the full sunrise.

With ineffable tenderness Miss Judy yearned to lead Doris toward the best, the finest, the highest, toward all that she herself had reached, and toward much which she had missed. The quaint, the antiquated, the absurd, the enchanting things that the little lady taught the little child, the young maiden! There was nothing so coarse as Shakespeare and nothing so commonplace as the musical glasses. Shakespeare seemed to Miss Judy, who knew him only by hearsay, as being a little too decided, a little too distinctively masculine. It was her theory of manners that girls should learn only purely feminine things. The musical glasses she would have deemed rather undesirable as being less modish than the guitar, and consequently not so well adapted to the high polishing of a young lady of quality, of such fine breeding as she had determined that Doris's should be. The guitar which led Miss Judy to this conclusion had belonged to her mother. Its faded blue ribbon, tied in an old-fashioned bow, still bore the imprint of her vanished fingers. The ribbon smelt of dried rose leaves, as the old music-books did too, when Miss Judy got them out of the cabinet in the darkened parlor, and gave them to Doris, smiling a little sadly, as she always smiled when thinking of her mother. Miss Judy preferred Tom Moore's songs, because they were very sentimental, and also because they were the only ones that she knew. She had never been able to sing, but she had very high ideals of what she called "expression," and she could play the guitar after a pretty, airy, tinkling old fashion. So that Doris, having a low, sweet voice of much natural music and some real talent for the art, learned easily enough through even Miss Judy's methods of teaching; and came erelong to sing of "Those endearing young charms" and "The heart that has truly loved" in a bewitchingly heart-broken way; while the faded blue ribbon fell round her lovely young shoulders.

It was really a pity that no one except Miss Sophia saw or heard those lessons--which must have been so well worth seeing and hearing. Miss Judy and Doris were both so entirely in earnest in all that they were doing. Both were so thoroughly convinced that the things being taught and learned were precisely the things which a young gentlewoman should know. Yet nobody but poor Miss Sophia, who was asleep most of the time, ever had so much as a glimpse of all that was constantly going on in this forming of a young lady of quality. It was another part of Miss Judy's theory of manners that everything concerning a gentlewoman, young or old, must be strictly private. When, therefore, it came to such delicate matters as walking and courtesying--as a young lady of quality should walk and courtesy--not even Miss Sophia was permitted to be present. Miss Judy took Doris into the darkened parlor and raised the shades only a cautious inch or two, so that, while they could see to move about, no living eye might behold the charming scene which was taking place. And there in this dim light, the dainty old lady and the graceful young girl would take delicate steps and make wonderful courtesies--grave as grave could be--all up and down, and up and down that sad old room.

Let nobody think, however, that Miss Judy thought only of accomplishments, while she was thus throwing her whole heart and mind and soul into the rearing and the training of this child of her spirit. The substantial branches of education were not neglected. Miss Judy tried untiringly to help Doris in gaining a store of really useful knowledge. She did not know so well how to go about this as she did about the music and the courtesy. She knew little if any more of the hard prosaic side of the world than Doris herself knew--which was nothing at all. But she had a few good old books. Her father had been a true lover of the best in literature, and her mother had been as fond of sentiment in fiction as in real life. These books, thick, stubby old volumes bound in leather, gathered by them, were Miss Judy's greatest pride and delight. She therefore led Doris to them in due time, impressing her with proper reverence, and thus the girl became in a measure acquainted with a very few of the few really great in letters, and learned to know them as they may be known to an old lady and a young girl who have never had a glimpse of the world.

Miss Judy had but one book which was less than a half century in age. That one book, however, was very, very new indeed and so remarkable that Miss Judy held it to be worthy of a place with the old great ones. She had already read it several times, and yet, strange to say, she had not given it to Doris to read. Of course she had told her about it as soon as it came from the thoughtful friend in Virginia who had sent it. But, for certain reasons which were not quite clear to herself, she was doubtful about its being the kind of a book best calculated to be really improving to Doris. She had read it aloud to Miss Sophia (who tried her best to keep awake), and she was confidently relying upon her judgment, which she considered so much sounder and more practical than her own, in making the decision. It was quite a serious matter, and Miss Judy was still earnestly though silently considering it after breakfast on that morning in March.

"The more I think of it the surer I feel that the main trouble with Becky was that she had no proper bringing up, poor thing;" remarked Miss Judy suddenly and rather absently, as if speaking more to herself than to her sister.

They sat side by side in their little rocking-chairs as they loved to sit, and they were busily engaged in sorting garden seeds. That is, Miss Judy was sorting the seeds while Miss Sophia held the neat little calico bags which Miss Judy had made in the fall, while Miss Sophia held the calico. Still, Miss Sophia's cooperation, slight as it seemed, really required a good deal of effort and very close attention. It was all she could do to keep the bags on her round little knees; nature, who is niggardly in many things, having denied the poor lady a lap.

"Who?" asked Miss Sophia, staring, and struggling with the seed-bags. "_What_ Betty?"

"Why, Becky Sharp, of course," said Miss Judy.

She was much surprised, and a little hurt that Miss Sophia should so soon have forgotten Becky, when they had talked about her until they had gone to bed on the night before, to say nothing of many other times. But she was only a bit hurt, she was never offended by anything that Miss Sophia did or said, and she went on as if she had not been even disappointed. "We must make up our minds as to the advisability of giving Doris the book to read before long. I was just wondering whether _you_ thought as I think, sister Sophia, that if Becky's mother had lived she would have been taught better than to do those foolish things, which were so shockingly misunderstood. I firmly believe that if Becky had been properly brought up, poor thing, she might have made a good woman. I have been waiting for a good opportunity to ask _your_ opinion. What would _we_ have been, without our dear mother?" she urged, as though pleading with Miss Sophia not to be too hard on Becky. "And she was always so poor, too. Mercifully _we've_ never had actual poverty to contend with, as--poor Becky had. Most of the trouble came from that--Becky herself said it did, you remember, sister Sophia."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, warmly, and without a shade of reserve, although she had but the haziest notion of who Becky was, or had been, or might be; and speaking with such firm decision that Miss Judy felt as if the matter were really about decided at last.

V

AN UNCONSCIOUS PHILOSOPHER

There is much more in the way that a thing is said than we are apt to realize. Miss Sophia always repeated her vague and unvaried formula, whenever Miss Judy seemed to expect a response, and she always did it with such an effect of firm conviction as renewed Miss Judy's confidence in the soundness of her judgment and value of her advice. In this satisfactory manner the little sisters were again discussing the new book several weeks later, when the spring was well advanced. They had thus debated the serious question of Doris's being or not being permitted to read the new novel, for an hour or more; and they might have gone on discussing it indefinitely, as they did most things, had not Sidney Wendall come in quite unexpectedly.

As the Oldfield front doors set open all day, there was not much ceremony in the announcement of visitors. The caller usually tapped on the door and entered the house forthwith, going on to seek the family wherever the members of it were most likely to be found. Sidney now gave the tap required by politeness, and then, hearing the murmur of voices, went straight through the passage and into the room in which the sisters were sitting. They both glanced up with a look of pleased surprise as Sidney's tall form darkened the doorway. Miss Judy could not rise to receive Sidney on account of having an apronful of late garden-seeds. Her sister was holding the calico bags, as usual; and then Miss Sophia's getting out of a chair and on her feet was always a matter of time and difficulty. But their faces beamed a warm welcome, and Miss Judy called Merica away from the ironing-table in the kitchen to fetch the parlor rocking-chair for Sidney to sit in, which was in itself a distinguished attention, such as could not but be flattering to any guest. And when Sidney was seated, Merica was requested to draw a bucket of water fresh from the well, so that Sidney might have a nice cool drink.

Sidney, whom no one ever thought of calling Mrs. Wendall, was a large, lean, angular woman. She had come in knitting. She always knitted as she walked, carrying the big ball of yarn under her strong left arm. Her calico sunbonnet was always worn far back on her head. She took it off that day as soon as she sat down, and hung it on the knob of the chair. Then she removed the horn comb from her hair, let it drop, shook it out, twisted it up again with a swish--into a very tight knot--and thrust the comb back in place with singular emphasis. Everybody in Oldfield knew what those gestures meant. Nobody seemed to notice what wonderful hair she had. It was long, thick, silky, rippling, and of the color of the richest gold. It was most beautiful hair--rich and dazzling enough to crown a young queen--and most strangely out of place on Sidney's homely, middle-aged head; with its plain sallow face, its pale shrewd eyes, its grotesquely long nose, its expression of whimsical humor, and its wide jester's mouth.

The Oldfield people were so well used to seeing Sidney take her hair down, and twist it up again, even in the middle of the big road, that they had long since ceased to observe the hair itself. It was the meaning of the gestures that instantly caught and held the eager interest of the entire community. For, whenever Sidney took off her bonnet, and let down her hair and shook it vigorously and swished it up again into a tighter knot, and put the comb back with a certain degree of emphasis, everybody knew that there was something interesting in the wind. Poor Miss Sophia, who was not quick to understand many things, knew what _those_ signs meant, and when she saw them that day she straightened up suddenly, wide awake, and breathing hard as she always was when trying her best to keep the track of what was going on, and forgetting all about the seed-bags, which abruptly slid over the precipice, wholly unheeded. Even Miss Judy, who so disliked gossip, could not help feeling somewhat agreeably excited and turning quite pink, as she remembered that she had never known Sidney's news to do any harm, to wound any one, to injure any one, or to make mischief of any description. She had often wondered how Sidney _could_ talk all day long, day after day, year in and year out, going constantly from house to house without doing harm sometimes through sheer inadvertence. She now looked at Sidney in smiling expectancy, turning a rosier pink from growing anticipation.

The mere fact of an unexpected visit from Sidney was enough to throw any Oldfield household into a state of delightful excitement. Sidney's visits were like visits of Royalty; they always had to be arranged for in advance, and they always had to be paid for afterwards. It was clearly understood by everybody that Sidney went nowhere without a formal invitation given some time in advance, and an explicit and sufficient inducement. Yet there was nothing in this to her discredit; she was far from being the mere sordid mercenary that Royalty seems now and then to be. Sidney was an open, upright worker in life's vineyard, and did nothing discreditable in holding herself worthy of her hire. It was necessary for her to earn a living for five needy souls; for her three children, her husband's brother, and herself. There were not many avenues open to women-workers in any part of the world in the day of Sidney's direst need. There were fewer where she lived than almost anywhere else throughout the civilized earth. She did what she might do; she learned to earn bread for her family by the only honorable means in her power. She studied to amuse the people of the village who had no other source of entertainment. She raised her adopted profession until it became an art. It is probable that she had the comedian's talent to begin with. She certainly possessed the comic actor's mouth. And then she doubtless soon learned, as most of us learn sooner or later, that it is more profitable to make the world laugh than to make it weep. At all events the part that she played was nearly always a merry one. Only once, indeed, during the whole of her long professional career, was she ever known to come close to tragedy; but those who were present at the time never forgot what she said, how she said it, nor how she looked while saying it.

It happened one night at old lady Gordon's, over the supper table. The party had been a gay one, and Sidney had been the life of it, as she always was of every gathering in Oldfield. She had told her best stories, she had given out her latest news, she had said many witty and amusing things, until the whole table was in what the ladies of Oldfield would have described as a "regular gale." It was not until they were rising from the supper, still laughing at Sidney's jokes, that she said, in an off-hand way--as if upon second thought--that she would like to have some of the dainties, with which the table was laden, to take home to her children. Before old lady Gordon had time to say, "Certainly, I'll fix up the basket," as everybody always said whenever Sidney made that expected remark, Miss Pettus blazed out:--

"How _can_ you!" she cried, turning in her fiery way upon Sidney. "How can you sit here, eating, laughing, and spinning yarns, when you know your children are hungry at home--and never think of them till now?" Her little black eyes were flashing, and she looked Sidney straight in the face, meaning every word that she said.

The very breath was taken out of the company. The ladies were stricken speechless with amazement and dismay. Even old lady Gordon had not a thing ready to say. Sidney, too, stood still and silent for a moment, resting her hand on the back of her chair. She turned white, standing very erect, looking taller than ever, and very calm--a figure of great dignity.

"I think of my children first, last, and all the time," she said quietly and slowly after an instant's strained silence. Her cool, pale eyes met Miss Pettus's hot black eyes steadily.

"But I don't think it best to talk about them too much;" she went on calmly. "Do any of you ladies think my children would get their supper any sooner if I came here whining about how hungry they were? Would you ever invite me to come again if I did that--even once? Would you, Mrs. Gordon? Would you invite me to _your_ parties, Miss Pettus? Wouldn't you, and you, and all of you"--turning from one to another--"begin right away to regard me as a tiresome beggar and my children as paupers? I am afraid you would. It would only be human nature. I'm not blaming anybody. But--I don't intend to risk it. I think things are better as they stand now. I amuse you and you help me. I give you what you like in exchange for what my children need. It's a fair trade; you're all bound by it to regard me and my children with respect."

Miss Pettus was crying as if her heart would break long before Sidney was done speaking. She fairly flew at her and, throwing her arms around Sidney's neck, begged her forgiveness with a humility such as no one ever knew that hasty, hot-tempered, well-meaning little woman to show over any other of her many mistakes. Never afterward would she allow Sidney to be criticised in her presence. She quarrelled fiercely with the doctor's wife for saying that she really could not see how Sidney got her news, and for quoting the doctor's opinion that it must come over the grapevine telegraph. Miss Pettus would have had her brother send Sidney's children a portion of everything that his store contained. But Sidney would not accept from any one a pennyworth more than she earned. If Miss Pettus wished to send the Wendall family a pound of candles after Sidney had supped with her, spicing the meal with news and anecdote, all very well and good. Or if, after Sidney's making a special effort to enliven one of Miss Pettus's dinner parties in the middle of the day, that lady suggested giving Uncle Watty a pair of her brother's trousers, Sidney was glad and even thankful. To get her brother-in-law's clothes was, indeed, the hardest problem she had to solve. And then, when Uncle Watty had done with the trousers, they could be cut down for her son, Billy. Under such proper circumstances, Sidney accepted all sorts of things from everybody--anything, indeed, that she chanced to want--with as complete independence and as entire freedom from any feeling of obligation, as any artist accepts his fee for entertaining the public.

The obligation commonly imposed by hospitality had consequently no weight whatever with Sidney, and in this, also, she was not unlike some other celebrities. She did not hesitate to express her opinion of old lady Gordon, whose supper she had eaten on the previous evening, when Miss Judy, knowing about it and wishing to start the conversational ball rolling, now asked how things passed off. Sidney had swapped her spiciest stories for old lady Gordon's richest food. Old lady Gordon was perfectly free to think and to say what she pleased about those stories (provided she never mentioned them before Miss Judy); and Sidney, on her side, held herself equally free to think and to say what she thought of her hostess and of the supper too, had that been open to criticism--which old lady Gordon's suppers never were.

"That old woman is a regular _Hessian_," was Sidney's reply to Miss Judy's innocent inquiry.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Judy, quite startled and rather shocked. "Really, Sidney, I don't think you should call anybody such a name as that."

"Well, I'd like to know what else a body is to call an old woman who hasn't got a mite of natural feeling."

"But we have no right to say that either of anybody. We can't tell," pleaded gentle Miss Judy.

She was wondering, nevertheless, as she spoke, what could have occurred at old lady Gordon's on the night before. It was plain that the news which Sidney was holding back for an effective bringing forth must have had something to do with the visit. However, it was always useless to try to make Sidney tell what she had to tell, until she was quite ready. Even Miss Sophia was well aware of this peculiarity of Sidney's, and, breathing harder than ever in the intensity of her curiosity and suspense, she leaned forward, doing her utmost to understand what was being said in leading up to the news. Miss Judy, of course, understood Sidney's methods perfectly, through long and intimate acquaintance with them; and then, aside from the fact that Sidney could not be hurried, Miss Judy always tried anyway to turn the talk away from unpleasant themes.

"Did you remember to ask Mrs. Gordon about Mr. Beauchamp?" Miss Judy now inquired, adroitly bending Sidney's thoughts toward a delightful subject in which they were both deeply interested. "Did she know whether he used to be a dancing-master in his own country, as we have understood? I do hope you haven't changed your mind," she added earnestly. "It is really most important for Doris to learn to dance."

"No, I haven't changed it a bit. I've got the same Hard-shell, Whiskey Baptist mind that I've had for the last forty years. But it isn't as _I_ think about dancing, or anything else that Doris is concerned in. It's as you think--"

"No--no, you mustn't say that," protested Miss Judy.

"I do say it, I mean it, and I intend to abide by it," declared Sidney, laying her knitting on her lap and loosing rings of yarn from her big ball and holding them out at arm's length. "You've always known better what was good for Doris than I ever have. When it comes to a difference of opinion I'm bound to give up."

Miss Judy blushed and looked distressed. "It is really such an important matter," she urged timidly. "A young lady cannot possibly learn how to walk and how to carry herself with real grace, without being taught dancing. If I only had some one to play the tune, I might teach Doris the rudiments myself; or sister Sophia might, if she hadn't that shortness of breath, and if I could play any instrumental piece on the guitar except the Spanish fandango. That tune, however, is not very well suited to the minuet, which is the only dance that we ever learned. Mother taught us the minuet, because she thought it necessary for all well brought up girls to learn it just for deportment, though she knew we should probably never have an opportunity to dance it in society."

Thus reminded of the many things that they had missed, Miss Judy turned and smiled a little sadly at Miss Sophia, as though it were the sweetest and most natural thing in the world to speak of Miss Sophia's dancing the minuet,--poor, little, round, slow Miss Sophia! And Miss Sophia also thought it sweet and natural, her dull gaze meeting her sister's bright one with confiding love as she murmured the usual vague assent.

"And did you think to ask Mrs. Gordon whether Mr. Beauchamp--" Miss Judy hesitated at the Frenchman's name, which she pronounced as the English pronounce it, and delicately touched her forehead.

"She said he was perfectly sane except upon that one subject, and the kindest, honestest soul alive," said Sidney, whisking the ball from under her arm and reeling off more yarn.

Miss Judy's sweet old face and soft blue eyes wore the dreamy look which always came over them when her imagination was stirred. "How romantic it is and how touching, that he should have believed, through all these years of hard work and a menial life, that he is Napoleon's son, the real King of Rome."

"Well, it don't do any harm," Sidney, the practical, said. "He don't dance with his head. It seems to me, too, I've heard that lots of crazy folks were great dancers. Anyway, you may tell him, as soon as you like, that I'll knit his summer socks to pay him for showing Doris how to dance, and you may say that I'll throw in the cotton to boot. I always like to pay the full price for whatever I get. If he still thinks that isn't enough, you might tell him I'm willing to knit his winter ones too, but he's got to furnish the yarn--there's reason in all things."

"You are sure that Mr. Beauchamp used to be a dancing-master?" asked Miss Judy.

"Old lady Gordon told me she had heard something of the kind, but she said she had never paid any attention. She never does pay any attention to anything unless she means to eat it," Sidney said.

"Poor old lady Gordon," sighed Miss Judy. "She hasn't much except her meals _to_ attend to or think about. She must be very, very lonely, all alone in the world."

"I've never seen any sign of her being sorry for herself," responded Sidney, knitting faster, as she always did when warming to her subject. "I never heard of her making any such sign when her son and only child went away and died without coming back. I never heard or saw her show any anxiety about _his_ son and only child, that she's never laid her eyes on, though he's now a grown man. I never heard a hint from her about him last night--till she had eaten the last ounce of the pound-cake; and drunk the last drop of the blackberry cordial. Then she remembered to tell me that this only grandson of hers is coming at last."

Here was the news! Miss Sophia settled back in her chair with a deep breath of satisfaction. Miss Judy exclaimed in interested surprise. Very few strangers came to Oldfield, consequently the advent of a young gentleman from a distant city was an event indeed. No wonder that Sidney had made as much of it as she could. Miss Judy, and even Miss Sophia, felt the high compliment paid them in being the first to whom Sidney had taken the thrilling intelligence. It was, in fact, the highest expression of Sidney's gratitude to Miss Judy, and fully recognized as such by both the little sisters, who appreciated it accordingly.

When Sidney was gone on her way to distribute the great news at the various points which promised the largest results, Miss Judy went into the darkened parlor, the other of the two large rooms which the house contained. It was rarely opened, and never used except when, at long and rare intervals, a formal caller, of whom there were not many in that country, was invited to enter it and to feel the way to a chilly, slippery seat. There were two good reasons for the room's disuse. One was that social preeminence in the Pennyroyal Region demanded a dark and disused parlor, although it did not militate against a bed in the living room. Formal visitors expected to grope their way through impenetrable gloom to invisible seats. Accidents sometimes happened, it is true, as when, upon one occasion, old lady Gordon, in calling upon Miss Judy shortly before Major Bramwell left for Virginia, sat down in a large chair, without being aware that it was already occupied by the major, who was a very small man. The second good reason for the room's not being used was that in cool weather Miss Judy could not get fuel for another fire. It was all that Merica could do, all the year round, to find enough wood for one fire; the stray sticks dropped from passing wagons, an occasional branch fallen from the old locust trees which lined the big road, and the regular basket of chips picked up behind the cabinet-maker's shop, barely sufficing to keep up a small blaze in the corner of the fireplace in the living room, which was also the sisters' bedroom.