Chapter V: Mrs. Fairchild Finds Her Mission

THE girl came when she promised, for a wonder, and proved a very nice, efficient person, and still Mrs. Fairchild stayed on at the mill cottage. Mrs. Antis was very ill, and Mrs. Fairchild was an excellent nurse.

"I don't seem to be much wanted at home," said she. "I can just run home now and then to see how the children get on and help Flora with the work, for it won't do for her to be hindered; though I do think," added Mrs. Fairchild, "that Flora is all the better for having something to do about house, instead of sitting all day over the machine."

"Oh, very well, ma, so long as you don't get overtired," said Eben. "It is very nice to have you here, and I am sure I don't know what Mrs. Antis would do without you. Mary is a real good girl, but she never could do the work and take care of Mrs. Antis too, especially when we are having so much company all the time."

"Grandfather used to say that tanners always kept tavern, and I think it seems to be a good deal so with millers," observed Mrs. Fairchild. "However, you needn't be troubled for me, Eben; I haven't felt anything like so well since I left the farm as I do now. I guess the air here is rather better than it is at our house. The house stands higher, you see."

"Maybe so," said Eben, smiling. He did not contradict his mother, but he could not help thinking that the improvement in her health was due to something else than the situation of the house.

While upon the farm, Mrs. Fairchild had been used to an active life, full of cares and interests. She was an excellent dairy-woman and a very successful raiser of poultry. "As uncertain as young turkeys," seemed to be a proverb that hardly applied to hers, she was so uniformly successful—or, as she said, lucky—with her birds, and she always had eggs to sell when eggs were scarce and high. Since the shock of her husband's death and the loss of her property she had led a very different life. The work of her small household would not have sufficed to keep her busy, even if the children, in mistaken kindness, had not taken it almost entirely off her hands, and left her nothing save to sit still and brood over her sorrows. She really suffered from want of exercise, and was in considerable danger of falling into a state of confirmed ill-health for want of anything else to do.

Since she had been with Mrs. Antis all this was changed. Mrs. Antis was very sick, and needed a great deal done for her. Mrs. Fairchild went up and down stairs a dozen times a day for one thing and another. Then, as she said, they kept a kind of tavern, for Mr. Antis was always bringing people home to dinner and supper. Mary was not very skilful in the finer kind of cookery, but she was anxious to improve. Mrs. Fairchild was a capital cook, and was wont to boast that she could make anything which could be made out of flour and eggs. She was as ready to teach as Mary was to learn, and the result was that Mr. Antis declared that he had never lived so well in his life.

Besides all her exercise indoors, Mrs. Fairchild found time to run down home almost every day to see Flora and look after her young ducks, now happily hatched and swimming in the outlet. The result of all was that the good woman grew once more cheerful, good-natured, and ready to look on the bright side of things, and to think that, after all, they might do very well, and so one cloud which had hung over the little family passed away.

Having once got into the way of nursing, however, Mrs. Fairchild seemed likely to be unable to get out of it. She had been at home only a week when Squire Dennison came after her for his wife.

Mrs. Fairchild hesitated, and said "Do tell!" a great many times, and didn't know what the children would do without her, but was at last prevailed upon to go, at least for a few days, till somebody else should be found. The result was that she stayed some time and came home in the best of spirits, with thirty dollars in her purse and a big box of honey, which Mrs. Dennison had insisted upon her taking "for the children."

"How well you look!" said Flora.

"Well, I do feel first-rate. I think nursing agrees with me—I really do—and if it wasn't for leaving you alone, Flossy, I should almost be tempted to make a business of it. Only think! If I could earn enough to help Eben through college, after all."

"I don't believe Eben would be willing to have you do that," said Flora.

"Oh, well, I don't calculate to. Still, you know, my dear, if anybody should want me very much, why, I might go, you know, and it all helps along, and really I do feel ever so much better for the change."

Flora smiled, and agreed that in such a case it would be no more than neighbourly to go, and so the matter rested.

One day Mr. Antis was standing in the mill door, when Eben came up to ask him some questions about the garden. Mr. Antis was looking earnestly down the road, and asked in his turn:

"Eben, is that our team coming down the hill? I am short-sighted."

Eben looked in the same direction. "It is our wagon, I am sure, and that is Tom driving, but those don't look like our horses. Yes, they are, too," he added, hastily, "but what in the world has happened to them?"

When the horses came up they did indeed present a woeful spectacle. They were wet, and covered with mud to their ears, panting and tired to death, and one of them had both knees cut and bleeding.

"Well, I couldn't help it," said Tom, sullenly. "The horses ran away and got into the creek, and I had hard work to get them out."

"Ran away!" said Mr. Antis, in surprise. "How did that happen?"

"I'm sure I don't know; because they are vicious, ugly brutes, I suppose."

"They are neither ugly nor vicious—not half so much as you are," said Jeduthun, who always regarded the "mill" property as his own, and resented any imputation accordingly. "If the horses ran away, it was because you was fooling with them, or didn't tie 'em as you ought."

"Oh, of course! I never can do anything right!"

"Were you in the wagon when they ran away?"

"No, I wasn't," replied Tom, sulkily, "and lucky for me I wasn't."

"I dare say you left them standing without being tied at all," said Jeduthun, "or else you left them alone when the train came along."

It turned out that this was really the case. Tom had left the team standing unfastened at the door of the sawmill in Shortsville, while he gossipped, or, as Jeduthun said, "loafed," about the train, notwithstanding he had been warned against that very thing. The engine whistled sharply "down brakes;" the horses started, and there being no one to check them they ran directly into the stream, and but for the most energetic assistance would have been drowned. As it was, they were both hurt, and one of them so badly that it died during the night. It was a valuable animal, and Mr. Antis was naturally indignant, especially as Tom showed no sort of regret or repentance.

"Well, I've got my walking-paper," said Tom, coming into the garden where Eben was picking cucumbers for pickling, "and I ain't sorry, either. I expect father will scold, but he may as well scold about that as anything else."

"Got your walking-paper?" repeated Eben, looking up. "You don't mean that Mr. Antis has discharged you, do you? Take care I don't step on the cucumber vines."

"Bother your cucumber vines!" said Tom. "Yes, I am discharged, and I wish I had discharged him first. That's all I care about it. I never did like the mill, anyhow, and I'm glad to be out of it. Now, you see if I don't get a place in Hobartown."

"But what was it about? The horses, I suppose?"

"Yes, of course. Mr. Antis has been over to Shortsville, and they told him that it was all my fault, and a lot more about my racing horses on the road. I don't care; I couldn't help their running into the creek."

"But you could have helped leaving them unhitched," said Eben. "You know Mr. Antis tells us never to leave any of the horses without hitching, and that team especially. He told us we must always stand by their heads when the cars were coming."

"Well, I wanted to see whether anybody I knew was on the train, and besides, it isn't very pleasant to stand holding a frisky horse for half an hour. Mr. Antis wouldn't like it himself, I guess."

"He would never stop to think whether he liked it or not," said Eben, much disgusted. "I shouldn't think it would be very pleasant, as you say, to think that you had killed a valuable horse, and such a good, kind creature as Billy was, too. Mr. Antis cried about it when he told how the poor fellow tried to lift up his head and whinny as he used to when his master came into the stable."

"More fool he, to cry about a horse," said Tom, brutally; "and besides, I didn't kill him—he killed himself—and I'll thank you not to say I did, unless you want to get up a fight."

"Get up a fight, indeed!" said Eben, in a tone of great contempt. "Don't you know that I could settle you with one hand? And I will, too, if you say any more about Mr. Antis!" added he, exploding all at once, as very quiet and self-restrained people sometimes do. "Get out of this garden and take yourself off. What do you mean by coming here and hindering me?"

"Dear me, Eben you needn't be so touchy!" said Tom, backing off and looking as much astonished as if the old house-dog had suddenly been transformed into a wolf. "I'm sure it is nothing to you; Mr. Antis is no relation of yours, is he?"

"Clear out!" was all the answer Eben vouchsafed him, and Tom took himself off. "I am a fool to mind him, that is a fact," said Eben to himself, "but he is so mean. After all Mr. Antis had done for him, and all the mischief he has done, to talk so about him. I wonder if Mr. Antis will give me his place? I believe I will wait a little, and see whether he says anything about it. I would rather he made the offer himself."

Eben waited for two or three weeks, but Mr. Antis said nothing about the mill, and Eben began to think he was to be disappointed again, when one day, as he was going to break fast, Mr. Antis called him from the office-window:

"Come in, Eben; I want to see you."

Eben obeyed, his heart beating a little faster than usual.

"Sit down a minute," said Mr. Antis, busily writing meantime. "There's yesterday's paper if you like to look it over." Eben took the paper and looked over the news, but I suspect he did not "take the sense of it" to any great degree. Presently, Mr. Antis sealed his letter and laid down his pen.

"Well, Eben, I suppose you know that Tow Wilbur has gone for good?"

"Yes, sir. He told me so the same day. He said he had got his walking-paper."

"Did he seem to be sorry?"

"No, sir, I can't say he did. He never liked the mill, and I think he was rather glad to get away from it."

"I am sure I was glad to get rid of him," said Mr. Antis. "I don't think, however, I should have discharged him on account of the horses if he had showed any sorrow for what he had done, but he did not seem to care in the least. What did he say to you? I have a particular reason for wishing to know," he added, as Eben hesitated; "unless I had, I should not ask you such a question, for I don't believe in tattling."

"Well, he didn't seem to care, I must say," replied Eben. "He said it wasn't very pleasant to stand at the head of a pair of horses for half an hour, and so on. I got real mad myself and ordered him out of the garden, which I suppose I had no business to do," said Eben, in a tone of apology, "but he riled me so I couldn't stand it."

"I am glad you did," said Mr. Antis. "Yes, there's just where it is. 'Not very pleasant' will always be reason enough for Tom, no matter how necessary or desirable the business may be. No, I won't take him back," added he. "My mind is quite made up to that. He'll never be good for anything. I never could trust him. Well, the next thing is, do you want his place?"

Eben coloured, and did not exactly know what to say.

"Yes or no," said Mr. Antis, "because if you want the place, why, the place wants you, and if you don't, why, I must look out for somebody else."

"I do want it, of course," replied Eben, finding his voice. "You know I was just coming after it the day you hired Tom. It isn't that I don't like it where I am, but—"

"But you want to earn more money," said Mr. Antis.

"Yes, sir, and besides that, I would like to be learning something about the business. Maybe I can be a miller some day, if I can't be a doctor, and anyhow, I like to be learning all I can."

"Good for you!" said Mr. Antis. "I think you and I will suit as well in the mill as we have done in the house. I expect Mrs. Antis will be furious with me for taking you away from her."

"She won't need me so much now that she has Mary," said Eben, modestly. "Mrs. Antis has been very good to me. I shall never forget it. I guess, maybe, I can find time now and then to help her about her flower-garden."

"Very likely, though you will see we shall have busy times from now on to December. Are you good at figures, Eben?"

"I guess so. I have been twice through the arithmetic."

"That may be. I have seen people who had been through the algebra, and yet could not run up a column of figures correctly, or cast the interest on a note. However, that does not so much matter. You see, Eben, the thing is, I want somebody that I can trust—somebody that I can send over to Hobartown to the bank, or to the city, if necessary—somebody that I can trust with the team, or to collect accounts of the farmers when I cannot go myself. Jeduthun is just as honest and good as gold, but he can't be spared from the mill, and does not understand figures, and besides—I don't know why—he hates to have anything to do with money. Now, I believe that I can trust you. I have watched you carefully ever since you have been at our house, and I see that whatever you undertake to do you do thoroughly and well. I believe that, as the Scripture says, 'He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much.' I am willing to trust you, and to pay you thirty dollars a month."

Eben's breath was almost taken away. "That is a great deal, Mr. Antis," said he. "I did not expect nearly so much."

"It is a great deal more than I gave Tom, I know, and I expect the old man will make a fuss about it, but I shall expect a great deal more of you than I did of Tom, and you will have more responsibility. Well, what do you say? Will you try it?"

"Yes, indeed, sir; I shall be glad to do so, if you think I can satisfy you. I will do my best."

"That is all I can ask," replied Mr. Antis, kindly. "Now go home and tell your mother and Flora all about it."

"Mother isn't at home just now," said Eben. "She has gone to take care of young Mrs. Badger."

"She seems to make quite a business of nursing."

"Yes, sir. We don't exactly want her to do it, but she likes to think that she is earning something, and her health is so much better when she has something to interest her that we have about concluded to say nothing against it."

"I would let her have her own way," said Mr. Antis. "It is rather lonely for Flora, though, isn't it?"

"Well, she doesn't seem to mind it very much, especially since Mary Clarke boards with us. She wanted to board somewhere and go to school, and she and Flora are great friends, so it comes just right. Everything comes just right for us, I think. I never believed we should be half so happy again."

"Well, run and get your breakfast, and come back as soon as you can," said Mr. Antis.