Chapter XI: The Shadow of Parting

“Oh, dear, dear!” sighed Isabel watching the retreat of Kathie and Dolly, who stalked away so wrathily that “they looked as if their backs were calling names,” Isabel said. “They are staying mad. I hoped they’d be over it when they’d had a night’s sleep. Mother says never to let the sun go down upon your anger, but they did, and they let it rise again, and still they’re mad!”

“Well, I don’t think their not speaking is half as much consequence as that voice that did speak,” said Mark, who could not get up great interest in Kathie and Dolly’s doings. “I’d like to know who, or what that was.”

“I should--think--so!” Prue spoke with slow and awful emphasis. “It gets worse every minute I remember it. I just about can’t stand it! Everything is getting so queer! I wonder if we’re asleep and dreaming these things? It’s like a queer, mixed-up dream.”

“All of us asleep, and dreaming the same thing?” laughed Mark. “And how could we know what the rest of us were dreaming?”

“We couldn’t. But we could dream we were all together and heard the voice, and saw that little man. And then I’d only be in your dream, or Isa’s, and you’d only be in my dream--Oh, mercy! I’ll go crazy!” Prue clapped her hands to her head and shook it hard, burrowing her chin into her neck wildly.

“And how could we tell which was the one dreaming?” Isabel cried gleefully; she dearly liked this sort of game. “There’d only be one real one, the other two would be the dream, and how should we know which they were? And there’s Poppy.”

“Where?” cried Prue.

“I mean she saw the queer little man, and the only reason she didn’t hear the voice is because she wasn’t there, so she had one-half the dream and not the other half,” Isabel explained. “I sort of think that proves we are awake, but I don’t know how it does it. First we saw a queer little man without a voice; then we heard a voice----”

“Without a queer little man!” cried Mark. “It’s like Alice and the Cheshire cat! She said she’d seen cats without a smile, but never a smile without a cat.”

“If you don’t stop talking about crazy things I’ll go crazy myself!” Prue warned them sharply. “It’s making me feel all crawly inside me. It almost has sense, but it hasn’t any! It’s like trying to catch the wet soap in the bath tub. I’m so scared when I think of that awful, awful voice I could curl up and die. I declare I think Greenacres is getting dreadfully funny!”

“It wasn’t an awful voice, though; it was a pretty nice voice, telling us where to find Kathie’s coins,” Isabel reminded her.

“What puzzles me is why the man--or the beast, or the bird, or the ghost, whoever that voice belongs to--stole the box, and then right away told us where to get it! What’s the use?” Mark observed.

“Probably he didn’t steal it; just happened to find it and took it.” Isabel clearly saw the difference in these two actions, though it might seem to another much the same. “Where’s Poppy?” she suddenly demanded; it was odd for Poppy to absent herself for so long.

“I don’t know; queer, isn’t it?” said Mark. “When we were coming up out of the secret passage I just barely saw her tearing off through the trees, ever so far down the middle path through the woods. ’Tis queer she doesn’t come back, now I think of it.”

“Dare you to go home that way, Prue, and see what she’s up to,” said Isa.

“I’m scared,” Prue admitted honestly, “but we’ve got to keep on going into the woods, or else there wouldn’t be any use in living at all. So I’ll go. You’re probably just as scared as I am, anyway, Isabel Lindsay! And the way you’ll do is hold it down, and then not go to sleep to-night.”

“Oh, well, I never pretended not to mind, and of course it’s much worse to be afraid of something you can’t understand than of burglars, or rats, or anything sensible,” Isabel did not shrink from admitting her nervousness.

“Let’s go home through the woods, Prue. We can play we are pioneer mothers daring wild beasts and Indians; that will help a whole lot. If we put off going it will be much worse when we do go, as you said. And let’s start _now_.”

“Mark, Mark dear, will you come here? I want you,” called Motherkins.

“Oh, I was going part of the way with you,” said Mark regretfully. “Now I can’t, so good-by. I’ll see you after a while, maybe.”

“We’d rather not have you come; we’ve got to get used to being brave alone,” said Prue. “Good-by. If anything should happen to us, why, you know where we went.”

“Oh, gracious, Prue, don’t!” shuddered Isabel, profoundly disturbed by the awful picture of herself and Prue lying wounded in the woods which this suggestion at once called up.

Prue and Isabel wound their arms around each other for mutual support in their adventure, but resolutely faced the woods and walked toward them, not hurrying, but not loitering, with that steady pace that betokens steady purpose.

“Let’s go the longest way, past Château Branche, then we’ll know we didn’t get out of one thing because we were ’fraid-cats,” proposed Prue.

“Well, if here isn’t Bunkie coming to meet us!” cried Isabel surprised. “I left him at home because he might get lost in the secret passage, I always think. How could he know we were coming here when we didn’t know it ourselves?”

The little dog came tearing toward Isabel, ears streaming backward, tail wagging as fast as it could at the speed he was making. He leaped up to his mistress with a great show of joy, gave Prue a rapid, but cordial welcome, then turned in the direction from which he had come, looking back to see that they were coming. At that moment the little girls heard a sound of wailing and stood still.

“Now what’s that?” cried Prue sharply. “There’s something else awful, and it’s quite new.”

“Doesn’t it sound horrible? But maybe it’s a panther--no, there aren’t any! Maybe it’s a wild cat, and maybe they cry the way panthers do. They say you can’t tell a panther from a baby; they fool hunters; don’t you remember? In books I’ve seen that.” Isabel was trying to be cheerful, though her teeth almost chattered, but Prue was not appreciative.

“Yes, and maybe it’s an orphan asylum and they are real babies crying,” she said scornfully. “There are just as many orphan asylums in these woods as there are panthers and wild cats. Shall we go on, or do you say to turn off right here?”

“I say to go on,” answered Isa, pale but heroic.

Their decision rejoiced Bunkie, who while they hesitated had been imploring them by every sign he knew to come on.

The blood curdling wailing continued and grew louder as they advanced; it took strong resolution to proceed. Prue clutched Isabel’s arm so tight that she found it black and blue that night when she went to bed, though she did not feel it then, while Isabel held Prue’s side in a grasp that ticklish Prue could not have borne for a moment if her mind had not been too fully occupied to notice it.

Slowly, trembling from head to foot, these Greenacres heroines advanced, and their courage was rewarded, for in the midst of the wailing two words came out clear, and these words were: “Oh gosh!”

It was Poppy! There was no mistaking the way she uttered her favorite vent for her feelings, and Isabel and Prue laughed out in their relief, though in another instant they began to feel troubled to find Poppy like this, prone on her face, crying desperately, alone in the woods, in which she, as well as Isabel and Prue, were beginning to feel afraid to wander.

Bunkie darted ahead and up to Poppy, nosing her anxiously, but she ungratefully pushed him away, not being minded to accept his pity then.

“Why, Poppy! Why, Poppy dear, what is it? Is anything the matter?” cried Isabel and Prue together, running up and dropping on their knees beside Poppy’s prostrate, sob-shaken little body.

At this Poppy’s crying began afresh, so violently that Isa and Prue were frightened and there was no hope of getting a word from her.

“May as well wait,” said Prue, sitting back on her heels with a resigned despair.

“Oh, try to stop, try to tell us what is wrong, Poppy!” begged Isabel. “Is anything wrong?”

“Don’t you--don’t you know? Didn’t no one tell you?” Poppy managed to gasp, losing her hold on English.

“No, indeed!” Isabel said. “Tell us, quick!”

“It’s settled!” Poppy moaned, and fell back into worse crying.

“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed Prue impatiently. “What is settled, Poppy Meiggs?”

But Isabel had a sudden enlightenment.

“Oh, Poppy, is it really? Oh, Poppy!” she cried.

“Well, for pity’s sake!” Prue exclaimed again desperately. “Are you going to be a puzzle, too! How _do_ you know what she means?”

“She means it is settled that Mr. Hawthorne has to lose the money that Mr. Ditson left to him, and that they will have to give up that dear, dear house, and Motherkins’ garden and everything, don’t you, Poppy?” said Isabel pale to her lips over her shocking discovery.

Poppy nodded hard, raising her head to do so, and instantly burying her face in the moss again.

“That’s not the whole of it,” she said in a muffled voice.

“Oh, not, not that they’re going away!” cried Isabel.

“They are, too!” Poppy sat up suddenly and spoke out of a gust of anger. “We shall go away, away! Out of Greenacres! Mr. Hawthorne can’t get anything here, he said--he means work. He’ll be poor; he must work. They’ll go away, away! And I sha’n’t see you no more, Isabel, my darling, dear! But Hurrah! They can’t take him along, my own, own horse! They can’t feed him; it costs. And I love him more’n anything in all this world, and they’ll leave him here. Oh, Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” Poppy’s voice rose higher with each repetition of the name, till it became a shriek, and had the effect of cheering.

But Poppy was far away from a cheer. She fell down again on the ground and pulled up handfuls of mossy turf, kicking the while with such violence that her striped gingham skirt fluttered as if it were in a gale and one of her shoes flew off.

“There’s no use kicking, Poppy,” remarked Prue, picking up the shoe and stooping to replace it. “Hold still, and I’ll put your shoe on again. Goodness knows it makes me sick, if it’s true that Mark and all are going away. How do you know it is true?”

“I heard Motherkins and Mr. Gilbert talking about it. They said the lawyers had written a letter and said there wasn’t any show to help it. And Motherkins kind of cried a little, then she said never mind, Gilbert, because I shall not mind much, and I know you feel bad for me. And that was worse’n her crying. Nearly kills me when she bucks up brave that way! And they said they’d tell Mark’s soon as you two’d gone, and now you’re here they likely telling him. And, oh, Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” Once more Poppy gave herself up to the anguish of the thought of parting from her horse, whose cheerful name so ill-fitted this use of it.

“Now, Poppy, I’m going to tell you something,” said Isabel in her sweet little womanly way, putting aside her own sharp pain over this news to try to comfort Poppy. “If you don’t want to leave Hurrah, you needn’t. My father and mother were talking about this, what would happen if the Hawthornes had to give up the money, and father said--they both said--that you could come to live with us, if you wanted to, and stay right on in Greenacres, and keep on in our same school. And father said he’d keep Hurrah for you; he said he was sure you’d feel perfectly terrible to give him up. So now you know all about it. You needn’t give up Hurrah, nor Greenacres, if you’d rather not. You can stay with us and Hurrah’ll be yours just the same.”

Poor Poppy! She was in a bad state of nerves from grief and her tempestuous crying, and at best she too easily flew into a temper.

Now she sprang up like a rocket, on her feet, and waved her arms up and down, as if she wanted to hit something either in the sky, or beneath it.

“I guess I won’t! I guess I won’t! I guess I won’t!” she screamed. “What d’jer think I am! Leave Motherkins! Leave her! Didn’t she take me in when she was poor’n poorhouses, and take care o’ me when nobody wouldn’t, but her, but went and took all the rest o’ the Meiggses, ’cause there wa’n’t none of ’em red headed and freckled noses but me? I guess I won’t live with your folks, not if I do love you cartloads, Isabel Lindsay, and I won’t stay, not with no horse, Hurrah, nor nobody, ’stead o’ Mis’ Hawthorne--Motherkins. So there!”

“Well, Poppy, I’m sorry,” faltered Isabel sincerely. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. You said you loved Hurrah best of anything, so I thought you’d like to know you might have him if you really did love him best. That’s all.”

“Any gump’d know I didn’t mean Hurrah ’stead of Motherkins,” said Poppy still disgusted and offended. Then with one of her sudden changes, she threw her arms around Isabel and half crushed her in a tremendous hug, crying, but with a new and gentler misery, as she did so.

“Oh, you darling Isa,” she moaned. “I’m the nastiest! I’m sorry, Isa! And how shall I ever stand it without you?”

“Well, Poppy,” said Prue, who found Poppy trying, as she so often did, “do you think you’re the only one feeling bad? Don’t you suppose we care? Isn’t Mark--isn’t Mark--our own Jack--Jack-in-the-Box?”

Prue had great difficulty in getting to the end of her sentence, and when she did haltingly reach it her own tears were flowing, but quietly.

“Shall we sit in Château Branche just a few minutes to get rested so we can go home? I feel sort of weak,” said Isabel, and Prue saw that she was as white as a white rose petal, even her lips colorless; it was Isa’s way to take a blow silently, but with tragic intensity.

They climbed up into their house in the great pine, each one thinking how beautifully Mark’s father had prepared this for them, as well as so many other things which they enjoyed. And Isabel, looking off with great tears on her lashes, her gray-blue eyes black from their dilated pupils, with black hollows below them, realized how she and Prue might come here by and by--provided they had the courage to come--and sit here, as to-day, without Mark, forever without Mark. The thought was unbearable.

Down went Isa’s head on her knees, which she was clasping with tense fingers.

“Oh, it’s too awful, too awful!” she murmured. “It can’t be true! I’m going to hope something will happen! I’m going to pray for it! Let’s all pray for something to happen to let us keep our Jack-in-the-Box.”

“But it won’t,” said Prue dismally.

“It might!” cried Isabel, raising her head and tossing her hair out of her eyes. “We must believe it will, and pray hard!”

“It could, couldn’t it, Isa?” cried Poppy, enkindled by the idea. “Should we call this Church Branche, instead of Château Branche, and pray and pray, right here?”

“Oh, here comes Mark! See how slowly he’s coming, and Semp marching beside him! Oh, it must be true when he comes so very slowly!” said Prue, before Poppy’s question could be answered.

“Are you up here?” asked Mark preparing to swing himself up into Château Branche.

“We’re coming down, Mark,” said Isabel. “Don’t come up; we have to go home.”

The three little girls descended, Mark quietly offering each his hand. It was as if he had grown up since they had last seen him, so grave, so kind, so gentle was his manner.

Isabel was last to get down. She stood where she alighted and looked at Mark, and quietly Mark looked at her, his lips twitching.

“It is all true,” said Isabel slowly. “I hoped Poppy was mistaken. It is all true that--that--you are going away, Jack-in-the-Box.”

“Hard luck, Isa,” muttered Mark. “But daddy has no chance at good business here, and he has in Boston. Yes, Isa, it is true. Daddy and Motherkins told me themselves. I--I--I’m horribly sorry, Isa, but we’ve got to stand it the best that’s in us.”

“If we can stand it at all that’ll be the way we must,” said Isabel. “It will take the best we can do even to live, let alone stand it! Will--will you go soon, Jack-in-the-Box, dear?”

“About September first, daddy thought,” said Mark.

“Oh!” cried Isabel brightening; her mind had been keyed up to a parting at once. “A lot can happen before then. We’re going to pray for something to stop it, and that gives us time!”

She smiled quite cheerfully, as if the working of a miracle was made more probable by allowing more time for it.