Chapter IV: The Cloud in the Sky

“Say, Isa, I’m perfectly sure something is bothering dad,” Mark said drawing his brow into an anxious knot.

“So am I,” Isabel agreed. “He thinks and thinks, not pleasant thoughts. He frowns and looks straight through you as if you were cheesecloth, and he is pale. You don’t suppose he is sick, and knows it, and is worrying about you and Motherkins?”

“Oh, no-o-o!” Mark shook his head so hard that the negative came out in syllables. “There’s nothing like that the matter! I can always tell when dad doesn’t feel well. It’s bother. I wonder what can be worrying him now, when everything has come out so just right!”

Isabel and Mark were on their way to get certain flower seeds which Motherkins needed to plant her old-fashioned flower garden with all the kinds of flowers which she had grown in that same garden long before Mark was born. Then this great house had been her home; in the meantime it had been lost to her, and now that she had got it back through the return of her lost son, with a modest fortune with which to buy the old place back, she was happily restoring her beloved garden in its old place, with its old flowers.

The children had offered to help Motherkins with her planting. Prue stayed with Poppy, getting ready the seeds already on hand, while Isabel and Mark went to supply deficiencies from the store and also to buy a new hoe and rake “to tuck them into the bed,” Mark said.

They came back sooner than they were expected, each with a long-handled tool over their shoulder, and quite breathless and heated from hurrying.

Their haste was explained by the pasteboard box which Mark carried by its tape handle. It was a treat for the stay-at-homes--strawberry and vanilla!--to square accounts; Isa and he had eaten their cream in the drug store and did not want to take advantage of their friends.

Isabel and Mark sipped cold water and watched Prue and Poppy eat their ice cream, recovering breath meanwhile. Then all four went out and began to dig and hoe vigorously in the garden that lay under the eastern wall of the house under the direct rays of the morning sun, in the best possible place for the well-being of flowers.

It had grown warm as the sun mounted. The dining room windows were open and Motherkins sat in one of them studying a seedsman’s catalogue when her son came into the room.

She looked up to greet him, and must have been struck by the troubled look on his face which the children had been seeing, for they, working below the window in the garden, heard her exclaim in a startled voice:

“Why, Gilbert, dear, what is wrong? You look distressed!”

Mr. Hawthorne dropped wearily into a chair opposite to her and rumpled his hair in a way he had when things went wrong. Then he rumpled Semp’s hair; he had come after him and was leaning against him.

“Oh, distressed is a strong word, small mother!” he said laughing at her with no sound of merriment in the laugh. “I’m all right.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me about it, Gilbert?” said Motherkins quietly, as if he had said that he was not all right. “I have noticed that you looked anxious, as if something were on your mind, for several days, but when you came in just now you startled me. You’d better tell me, dear.”

“You’re a great little woman for seeing what lies behind people’s foreheads!” said her son. “When I was a child you always knew what I didn’t tell you quite as well as what I told! I remember believing firmly that you had a sort of X-ray wireless apparatus--only I couldn’t have called it that--which looked through me and caught my thoughts. Well, then, I’ll own up! I have been somewhat troubled for a few days over what must prove to be nonsense, and to-day I had a letter that increased the worry.”

“A letter from----?” Motherkins waited for him to complete her sentence.

“From a firm of lawyers of shady reputation as to honor, but with a reputation for skill in winning cases by their tricks. I have been keeping off telling you, but I suppose you’ve got to know.” Mr. Hawthorne looked disgusted, but he settled back in his chair to tell the story, pulling Semp’s ears as he talked.

“You know, mother, I saved the life of young Maurice Ditson. He was the son of James Ditson, who was the wealthy manufacturer--you know all that, and how to prove his gratitude Mr. Ditson left me all the money Mark and I have, except Mark’s small inheritance from his mother. Well, Maurice Ditson turned out so badly that I’m afraid if his father had lived to know about it he’d have felt that it would have been better if I hadn’t saved his son, that it would have been better if he had died innocent rather than lived to disgrace his father’s honorable name. In any case, Maurice could spend all that his father and several other millionaires could give him, and he wants now to get away from me the money his father left to me. He’s trumped up a tale that is too long to go into, that would set aside the will, if it could be proved. He’s engaged Sharp and Geiger to take the case, and they have plenty of skill and no conscience at all. So I don’t know! It’s an outrageous attempt, of course, but that’s not saying it may not succeed, and if it does----” Gilbert Hawthorne paused and looked at his mother.

“If it does,” she said, “we shall lose this dear place and be poor again?”

“Oh, mother dear, that’s exactly what would happen!” cried Gilbert.

“Let us hope and pray that the wickedness will be foiled. It would be cruelly hard when we are so happy, so gratefully, cloudlessly happy in our old home! Somehow I think the plot can’t succeed. But in any case I have you, my son; nothing can take from me my greatest joy in having you again. And with you our dear lad, who seems to give me you again twice over! So at the worst I shall not be as I was before, heartbroken, alone! You must do all that may be done to prevent this dishonesty from succeeding, dear, and after that we will try not to worry,” said the brave little mother.

“You little wonder!” cried her son, jumping up to pick his small mother up bodily and hug her hard in his relief that she took his dreaded revelation so quietly. “You may be sure I’ll do all I can to defeat Maurice Ditson! Why, mother, the few thousands his father left me, and which the fine old fellow wanted me to have--and more!--was nothing out of the great fortune which he left Maurice, and which he has already wasted!”

“No. Mr. Ditson was deeply indebted to you; it was justice to prove his gratitude. Well, dear, in the meantime the garden is to be sown, I hope for us to enjoy, but whatever is to come, to-day the garden is to be sown and planted! Will you help us? Try to put this whole dismal matter out of your mind. It is a lovely day to be making a garden!”

Little Mrs. Hawthorne arose as she spoke and crossed over to gather up from the table the boxes into which Prue and Poppy had put the envelopes of seeds which they had assorted. She was a tiny woman, almost like a creature all soul and no body, but the spirit in that little frame was high and brave; it knew how to meet prosperity or misfortune.

The children beneath the window had clearly heard every word that had been said by the mother and son. They had made no pretense of working, but had stood listening, horror-stricken, to what had been said.

Now Mark, white-faced, with blazing eyes, threw down the hoe upon which he had been leaning.

“It can’t happen, you know!” he whispered hoarsely. “It would be too awful. It can’t possibly happen.”

“But you know, Jack-in-the-Box, the things too awful to happen are the ones that do happen, quite often. It frightens me!” said Isabel, and her dilated eyes showed that it did frighten her.

“If you had to leave this dear, dear old house----” began Prue, looking grim, but Poppy interrupted her with a scream of rage, dancing up and down in a frenzy.

“We won’t, we sha’n’t, we won’t!” she cried. “We’ll get guns and drag ’em up the secret passage! We’ll boil water and pour it on ’em! We’ll chuck ’em in the cellar with straw on top ’em and set ’em afire! Let ’em try to take this house! And if they took it I’d earn money for Mis’ Hawthorne, ’nough, too! I’ll get that nice glass bottle man, what deals in ’em, over to Hertonsburg, what picked me up the day I went off, long ago, last year, and took me home to his house, to show me how to make money out of bottles, or something. His wife was awful smart--and nice. I’ll take boarders. Oh, Mark, Mark--Oh, Motherkins, Mr. Daddy, don’t let ’em take your money and your life!”

Poppy hurled herself upon little Motherkins and her son as they came into the garden, ending her appeal with a form of words which she must have somewhere heard and retained.

“Oh, dear, we forgot the children, especially Poppy!” said Mrs. Hawthorne in dismay. “Of course they heard every word! Poppy, child, it’s far better to be poor than not to be able to control yourself. You must learn to be quiet. You are shaking and are cold! None of us is excited. You never will be helpful, a useful, wise, strong woman, if you fly off like a Fourth of July sparkler over everything that stirs you. But I know it is because you love me.”

Motherkins stooped to stroke the frizzy, flaming hair and to kiss the quivering face.

“All little Motherkins’ pills are sugar coated,” laughed Mark.

Poppy choked, and shook, and swallowed hard for a few moments, while Motherkins continued to soothe and smooth her. Then she straightened herself and said:

“I will, I will, honest to goodness, I will! I’ll keep the lid on. That time I ran off and stopped over night to Mr. Thomas Burke’s, my nice bottle man’s--906 North Street, Hertonsburg, is where ’tis--he told me I’d be fine if I’d only keep the lid on, so I shall. I’d love to have you poor if I could earn tons of money and give it to you, to sorter pay back.”

“I shouldn’t be poor, Poppy dear, if you gave me tons of money,” laughed Motherkins. “Don’t worry, child! You are too little a girl to worry, and I’m sure we shall all be happy till the stars have eaten up the moon because it is made of green cheese!”

The four children laughed over this suggestion, then Prue frowned and began to say: “But it isn’t, you know, Mrs. Hawthorne,” when Mark drowned her out, crying:

“They’ve begun to nibble at it already, Motherkins! There’s only a half piece in the sky; I saw it last night. Does the Dog Star--Sirius--eat the most?”

“Silly thing!” said Poppy, with a grown-up manner. “There’s terrible much place for garden everywheres on this place. I wish I could have a piece to raise stuff to sell, if we get poor.”

“Why, so you may!” cried Mr. Hawthorne, kindly refraining from pointing out the fact that if they became poor the place would no longer be theirs.

“Help yourself, Poppy! Pick out the spot you like best and I’ll have it dug up for you and raked smooth and we’ll see what sort of a farmer you’ll be.”

“I’ll be a very good raiser, I know that, because I ain’t lazy,” said Poppy, with no mock modesty. “If you want to raise things you’ve got to work like everything, that’s what you have. And I ain’t--am not lazy.”

“We could help you,” remarked Isabel wistfully, her eyes and voice betraying how much she would like a share in this enterprise.

“Mr. Daddé,” as Isa used to call Mark’s father when she first knew him because his name was a secret and she only knew Mark’s name for him--Daddy, “Mr. Daddé” saw that Isabel envied Poppy her promised garden, and he also saw what profitable pleasure there might be in a garden apiece for them all.

“Instead of helping Poppy, why don’t each of you take a piece of land and see what you can get out of it? I’ll spade the gardens myself, four of them, each wherever its owner prefers it, and then do whatever you like, each of you; plant what you please, make your garden the kind you’d rather have. We’d have a sort of county fair of our own when they all got bearing!” he said.

“Say, daddy!” cried Mark struck with admiration.

“I’d perfectly love it!” Isabel spoke with bated breath. Immediately she added: “And I’d raise mignonette and sweet peas in mine----”

“Me for lettuce!” shouted Prue excitedly.

“Radishes! Red ’uns, like me!” shouted Poppy. “And peas--to eat, not your no-good kind, Isa.”

“Well, string beans seem about all I can choose,” said Mark. “I suppose as long as I’m Jack-in-the-Box I may as well be Jack and the Bean Stalk, too.”

“Splendid!” cried Mr. Hawthorne. “No two alike, so each of you can be first in your own class. Come along and pick out garden sites.”

“Oh, Gilbert, my poor flower seeds!” his mother remonstrated.

“Well, daddy!” cried Mark. “Walk right off like that and leave tiny Motherkins to shift for herself! Come on, girls. I’ll make a trench and you come over the top and take it, and fill it up with whatever our General-in-chief, Motherkins, says. We’ll pick out gardens after we plant this one. What’s in the front trench, General Motherkins? That’s the most dangerous line.”

“Brave little dwarfs, Mark--candytuft. They’re not afraid of the enemy,” said Motherkins entering into the play-work, and giving the three little girls each a paper of seeds to scatter in the shallow trench which Mark made with a stick and stood ready to cover as they sowed.

So they went on sowing in rows, in squares, in circles, the entire garden full of old-fashioned flowers, fragrant and modest, flaunting and graceful, tall and short, “Just as I used to have it years ago!” sighed Motherkins contentedly. Then she sighed again anxiously, remembering that Gilbert had said that it was possible that she might lose again this beautiful old place, and that if it did happen the parting from it would this time be final.

At last the garden was sown and all the seeds “tucked into their beds,” Isabel said. Dirty and tired, but with their enthusiasm unabated, the four children followed Mr. Hawthorne across the grass to inspect the various sites for possible gardens. Semp--Semper Fidelis, living up to his name--Bunkie, and round, gray Pincushion, who adored Bunk, all of whom had superintended the laying out of Motherkins’ garden, marched behind their human friends to seek for more gardens to lay out.

There was considerable difference of opinion as to the best spots. The discussion stood in some danger of growing unpleasant because Poppy was tired enough to be more than ordinarily inflammable, and Prue was tired enough to have less patience with her than ordinarily--and at best Prue had not great patience with excitable little Poppy.

The decision was made easier by Isabel, the peacemaker, who suggested that it would be far pleasanter to have all four gardens close together.

“You see,” she said, in her sweet, soothing voice that always fell on the ear like the soft touch of a cool hand on a fevered head, “we’d be tired to death working and working when it got hot, all by ourselves, where we couldn’t call over to one another, back and forth. If Daddy-dear doesn’t mind, why not divide off that nicest easterly field into quarters, and give us each a corner quarter?”

“Daddy-dear” did not mind; he cordially approved, and so it was done. By the next day the ground was plowed, harrowed and raked fine, and the gardens, one exactly as good as the other, were apportioned. Thus the children were installed as gardeners, precisely as if there were no threat of the Hawthorne place being lost to its owners.