Chapter X: Something About Old Times

By the time Tess and Dot Kenway arrived at the rambling old farmhouse at Ipswitch Curve, where Mr. Buckham lived, they were as chatty and chummy with the man who had shot the eagle as though he were a life-long friend.

Without any doubt Mr. Bob Buckham loved children--little girls especially. And Mrs. Bob Buckham loved them, too.

There was a big-armed, broad-shouldered country girl in the wide, clean kitchen into which the children were first ushered. She was the maid-of-all-work, and she welcomed Tess and Dot kindly, if she did scold Mr. Buckham for tracking up her recently scrubbed floor with his muddy boots.

"Now, you jest hesh, Posy," he told her, good-naturedly. "You know you wouldn't have work enough to keep you interested, if 'twarn't for me. Where's marm?"

"In the sittin' room, Mr. Buckham--and don't you darst to go in there without scrapin' your feet. And _do_ put that nasty, great bird down outside."

"Don't darst to," said Mr. Buckham. "The dogs'll tear it to pieces. I wanter fix this Tom Jonah's ear. He's a brave dog, Posy. If it hadn't been for him, I swow! Lycurgus Billet's Sue would have been kerried off by this old eagle," and he told the wondering girl about the adventure.

"Now, you take these little gals in to marm, while I fix up Tom Jonah," Mr. Buckham urged.

So Tess and Dot were ushered into the sitting room by the big girl, Posy. Mrs. Buckham was not likely to be found anywhere but in her chair, poor woman, as the children very soon learned. She was a gentle, gray-haired, becapped old lady who never left her chair, saving for her bed at night. She was a paralytic and could not walk at all; but her fingers were busy, and she was fairly surrounded by bright colored worsteds and wools, finished pieces of knitting and crocheting, and incompleted work of like character.

Out of this hedge of bright-hued fancy-work, Mrs. Buckham smiled upon the smaller Corner House girls quite as warmly as did Mr. Buckham himself.

"I do declare! this is a pleasure," she cried, drawing one little girl after the other to her to be kissed. "Little flower faces! Aren't they, Posy? Wish I had a garden full o' them--that I do!"

"My mercy, Mrs. Buckham! I'm glad you ain't," laughed the maid. "Not if they all favored Mr. Buckham and brought as much mud in on their feet as he does."

"Never mind, Posy," cried the very jolly invalid. "_I_ don't track up your clean floors--and that's a blessing, isn't it?"

Dot looked rather askance at the bright-colored afghan that hid the crippled legs of the good woman. The legs were so still, and the afghan covered them so completely, that to the little girl's mind it seemed as though she had no lower limbs at all!

She and Tess, however, were soon quite friendly with the invalid. Posy bustled about between kitchen and sitting room, laying a round table in the latter room for tea for the expected guests. Mr. Buckham, having scraped his boots, came in.

"Well, how be ye, Marm?" he asked his wife, kissing her as though he had just returned from a long journey.

"Just the same, Bob," she replied, laughing. "I ain't been fur from my chair since you was gone."

Mr. Buckham chuckled hugely at this old pleasantry between them. They both seemed to accept her affliction as though it were a joke, or a matter of small importance. Yet Mrs. Buckham had been confined to her chair and her bed for twenty years.

Before Ruth and Agnes, with Neale O'Neil, reached the farmhouse, driving over from Lycurgus Billet's chestnut woods, Tess and Dot were having a most delightful visit. Dot was amusing Mrs. Buckham with her chatter, and likewise holding a hank of yarn for the invalid to wind off in a ball; while Tess, of course, had got upon her favorite topic of conversation, and was telling Mr. Buckham all about the need of the Women's and Children's Hospital, and about Mrs. Eland.

"You see, she's such an awfully nice lady--and so pretty," said Tess, warmly. "It would be an awful thing if she had to go away--and she hasn't any place to go. But the hospital's _got_ to have money!"

"Eland--Eland?" repeated Mr. Bob Buckham, reflectively. "Isn't that name sort o' familiar, Marm?" he asked his wife.

"The Aden girl married an Eland," said Mrs. Buckham, quickly. "He died soon after and left her a widow. Is it the same? Marion Aden?"

"Mrs. Eland's name is Marion," said Tess, confidently. "She signed it to a note to us. Didn't she, Dot?"

"In the apple," replied Dot, promptly.

"What does the child mean--'in the apple'?" queried the laughing Mrs. Buckham.

"That's how she sent us our invitation to her party," said Dot.

"Only to an afternoon tea, child!" exclaimed Tess, quickly. "That isn't a party." Then she explained to Mrs. Buckham about the apples and the one that came back with the note inside. Meanwhile the farmer was very quiet and thoughtful.

"So," finished Tess, breathlessly, "we're going to stop at the hospital on our way home from school next Monday afternoon. Aren't we, Dot?"

"Ye-es," said the smaller girl, this time doubtfully. "If Mrs. MacCall finishes my Alice-doll's new cloak. Otherwise she can't go, and of course I can't go without her. She hasn't a thing fit to wear, now it's come fall."

"You ask Mrs. Eland," broke in Mr. Buckham, "if she happens to be any relation to Lemuel Aden."

"Now, Bob!" said his wife in an admonitory undertone, "never mind raking up dead and gone happenings."

"But I'm just curious--just curious," said the farmer. "Nothing to be done now about it----"

"Bob!"

"Well," subsided the farmer, "a man can't help thinkin' about money that he's lost. And that five hundred dollars was stole from us as sure as you're alive to-day, Marm."

"Never mind," his wife said lightly. "You've earned several five hundreds since that happened--you know you have, Bob Buckham. What's the good of worrying?"

"Ain't worrying," denied the farmer, quickly. "But I do despise a thief. I was brought up on the motter:

"''Tis a sin
To steal a pin;
'Tis a greater
To steal a' 'tater!'

Ain't that so, children?" he concluded, chuckling.

Now, Ruth and Agnes were being ushered into the room by the broadly smiling Posy just as Mr. Buckham recited this old jingle. Agnes flushed to the roots of her hair, and then paled with alarm. She expected, then and there, to be accused with the heinous offence of having picked strawberries without permission in Mr. Bob Buckham's field!

"Oh! what a pretty girl!" cried the invalid. "Come here, my dear, and let me pinch those cheeks. You need not blush so; I'm sure you've been told you were pretty before--and I hope it hasn't spoiled you," and Mrs. Buckham laughed heartily.

"I should know you were little Theresa's sister," continued the lady, as Agnes tremblingly approached. "She will be just such another when she gets to be as old as you, I am sure.

"And of course, this is Ruth," and she welcomed the oldest Corner House girl, too. "Four such splendid girls must make their mother's heart glad."

"I hope we did make her glad when she was with us," Ruth said quietly. "But we have no mother now; and no father."

"Oh, my dear!" cried the invalid, in quite a shocked tone. "I had no idea----"

"We miss our mother and our father. Even Dot can remember them both," said Ruth, still calmly. "But it happened so long ago that we do not cry about it any more--do we, girls?"

As the oldest sister spoke, the other three seemed to be involuntarily drawn to her. Dot took one hand and snuggled it against her soft, dark cheek. Tess put both arms about Ruth's neck and warmly kissed her. Agnes already had her arm around her elder sister's waist.

"I see," said Mrs. Buckham, with sudden appreciation. "The others do not miss the lost and gone mother, for a very good reason. I am sure you have done your duty, Ruth Kenway."

"I have tried to," Ruth said simply. "And they have all been good children, and helped."

"I ain't a doubt of it--I ain't a doubt of it," repeated Mrs. Buckham, briskly.

Agnes was watching the changing expression of the old lady's face, wondering if--as Neale had said--Mr. Buckham could not write, the invalid had sent in the list of girls' names to the principal of the Milton High. The old farmer himself might be unlettered; but Mrs. Buckham, Agnes was sure, must have had some book education.

Right at the invalid's hand, indeed, were two shelves fastened under the window sill, filled with books--mostly of a religious character. And their bindings showed frequent handling.

Posy brought in the steaming tea urn. "Come on now, folks," said Mrs. Buckham. "I'm just a honin' for a cup of comfort. That's what I call it. Tea is my favorite tipple--and I expect I'm just as eager for it as a poor drunkard is after liquor. Dear me! I never could blame them that has the habit for drink. I love my cup of comfort too well."

Posy was putting Tess and Dot into their chairs. The farmer awoke from his brown study, got up, stretched himself, and, with a smile, wheeled his wife's chair to the table.

"There ye be, Marm," he said. "All right?"

"All right, Bob," she assured him.

"Yes," the farmer said, turning to the children with a broader smile, "you ask your friend, Mrs. Eland, if she's related to Lemuel Aden. Seems to me she is his brother Abe's darter. Lem was a sharper; but Abe was a right out an' out----"

"Now, Bob!" interposed his wife. "That's all gone and done for."

"Well, so 'tis, Marm. But I can't never forget it. I was a boy and my marm was a widder woman. The five hundred dollars was all we had--every cent we had in the world," he added, looking about at the interested faces of his visitors.

"Abe Aden was a lawyer, or suthin' like that. He was a dabster at most things, includin' horse-tradin'. My father had put all the money he had in the world in Abe's hands, in some trade or other. We tried to git it back when father was kill't so sudden in the sawmill.

"Just erbout then Abe got inter trouble in a horse-trade. He was a good deal of a Gyp--so 'twas said. He left everything in Lem's hands and skedaddled out West. But he didn't leave no five hundred dollars in Lem's hands for _us_--no, sir!" and the old man shook his head ruminatively.

"No, sir. He likely got away with that five hundred to pay his fare, and so escaped jail."

"You don't know that, Bob," said his wife, gravely.

"No. I don't know it. But I know that my marm and I suffered all that winter because of losin' the five hundred. I was only a boy. I hadn't got my growth. She overworked because of that rascal's dishonesty, and it broke her down and killed her. I loved my marm," he added simply.

"'Course you did--'course you did, Bob," said his wife, briskly. Then she smiled about at the tableful of young folk, and confessed: "He begun callin' _me_ 'marm,' like he did his mother, right away when we was married. She'd been dead since he was a little boy, and I considered it the sweetest compliment Bob could pay me. I've been 'marm' to him ever since."

"You sure have," declared Mr. Buckham, stoutly. "But that ain't bringin' my poor old marm back--nor the five hundred dollars. We never did hear direct from Abe Aden; but by and by a leetle gal wandered back here to the neighborhood. Said she was Abe's darter. He and her mother was lost in a big fire in some Western city; and she'd lost her sister, too."

"Poor child!" sighed the old lady. "You couldn't hold a grudge against the child, Bob."

"Who says I done so?" demanded the farmer. "No, sir! I never even seed the child more'n once or twice. But I know her name was Marion. And I heard her tell her story. The Chicago fire was a nine days' wonder, and this fire the gal's parents were lost in, was much similar, I should say. She'd seen her father and mother and the house they lived in, all swept away together--in a moment, almost. She and her sister escaped, but were separated in the refugees' camp and she couldn't never find the other child again. This Marion was old enough to remember about her Uncle Lem, and where he used to live; so the Relief Committee sent her here--glad ter git rid of her on sech easy terms, I s'pose. But Lem Aden had drapped out o' sight before then, and none of us folks knowed where he'd gone to."

"And that little girl was Mrs. Eland?" Ruth ventured to ask, for the farmer's remembrances of old times did not interest the little girls. Posy was heaping their plates with good things to eat. The picnic dinner in the woods had been forgotten.

"Yes. I reckon so," Mr. Buckham said, in answer to Ruth's inquiry. "She was kep' to help by some good people around here--just as we took Posy, marm and me. The child drifted away later. She got some schoolin'. I guess she went to a hospital and l'arned to be a nurse. Then she married a man named Eland, but he was sickly. I dunno as she ever did see her Uncle Lem."