Chapter XIX: Link's Wood-Pile

The dinner, though late that day, was unusually sumptuous, and Betterson and his boys brought to it keen appetites from their work. Vinnie's cooking received merited praise, and the most cordial good-will prevailed. Even little Chokie, soiling face and fingers with a "drum-stick" he was gnawing, lisped out his commendation of the repast.

"I wish Aunt Vinnie would be here forever, and div us dood victuals."

"I second the motion!" cried Link, sucking a "wish-bone," and then setting it astride his nose,--"to dry," as he said.

"One would think we never had anything fit to eat before," said Mrs. Betterson; while my lord looked flushed and frowning over his frayed stock.

"You know, mother," said Lill, "I never could cook prairie chickens. And you haven't been well enough to, since the boys began to shoot them."

"Lincoln," said Mrs. Betterson, "remove that unsightly object from your nose! Have you forgotten your manners?"

"He never had any!" exclaimed Rufe, snatching the wish-bone from its perch.

"Here! give that back! I'm going to keep it, and wish with Cecie bimeby, and we're both going to wish that Aunt Vinnie had come here a year ago--that is--I mean--pshaw!" said Link, whose ideas were getting rather mixed.

Poor Mrs. Betterson complained a great deal to her sister that afternoon of the impossibility of keeping up the style and manners of the family in that new country.

Vinnie--who sat holding the baby by Cecie's lounge--asked why the family had chosen that new country.

"Mr. Betterson had been unfortunate in business at the East, and it was thought best that he should try Illinois," was Caroline's way of stating that after her husband had run through two small fortunes which had fallen to him, and exhausted the patience of relatives upon whom he was constantly calling for help, a wealthy uncle had purchased this farm for him, and placed him on it to be rid of him.

"I should think you might sell the farm and move away," said Vinnie.

"There are certain obstacles," replied Caroline; the said uncle, knowing that Lord could not keep property from flying away, having shrewdly tied this down by means of a mortgage.

"One thing," Caroline continued, "I have always regretted. A considerable sum of money fell to Mr. Betterson after we came here; and he--wisely, we thought at the time, but unfortunately, as it proved--put it into this house. We expected to have a large part of it left; but the cost of building was such that all was absorbed before the house was finished."

Such was Caroline's account of the manner in which the "castle" came to be built. Vinnie was amazed at the foolish vanity and improvidence of the lord of it; but she only said,--

"There seems to be a great deal of unused room in the house; I should think you might let that, and a part of the farm, to another family."

Caroline smiled pityingly.

"Lavinia dear, you don't understand. _We_ could never think of taking another family into _our_ house, for the sake of _money_! though it might be well to let the farm. Besides, there is really one more in the family than you see. I think I haven't yet spoken to you of Radcliff,--my husband's nephew."

"You mentioned such a person in your letter to me," replied Vinnie.

"Ah, yes; when I was giving some of the reasons why we had never had you come and live with us. Well off as we were at one time,--and are now in prospect, if not in actual appearance,--we could not very well take you as a child into our family, if we took Radcliff. He was early left an orphan, and it was thought best by the connections that he should be brought up by my husband. I assure you, Lavinia, that nobody but a Betterson should ever have been allowed to take your place in _our_ family."

Vinnie pictured to herself a youth of precious qualities and great promise, and asked,--

"Where is Radcliff now?"

"He is not with us just at present. He is of age, and his own master; and though we make a home for him, he's away a good deal."

"What is his business?"

"He has no fixed pursuit. He is, in short, a gentleman at large."

"What supports him?"

"He receives a limited allowance from our relatives on the Betterson side," said Caroline, pleased with the interest her sister seemed to take in the illustrious youth. "He is not so stylish a man as my husband, by any means; my husband is a Betterson of the Bettersons. But Radcliff has _the blood_, and is _very_ aristocratic in his tastes."

Caroline enlarged upon this delightful theme, until Cecie (who seemed to weary of it) exclaimed,--

"O mother, do see how Aunt Vinnie soothes the baby!"

Indeed, it seemed as if the puny thing must have felt the flood of warmth and love from Vinnie's heart bathing its little life.

That afternoon Rufe and Wad sawed and split the wood, and Link (with Chokie's powerful assistance) carried it into an unfinished room behind the kitchen,--sometimes called the "back-room," and sometimes the "lumber-room,"--and corded it up against the wall. An imposing pile it was, of which the young architect was justly proud, no such sight ever having been seen in that house before.

Every ten or fifteen minutes he called Vinnie or Lill to see how the pile grew; and at last he insisted on bringing Cecie, and letting her be astonished.

Cecie was only too glad of any little diversion. She could walk with a good deal of assistance; Vinnie almost lifted the poor girl in her loving arms; Link supported her on the other side; and so they bore her to the back-room, where she leaned affectionately on Vinnie, while Link stood aside and pointed proudly at his wood-pile.

"We never could get him to bring in a stick of wood before, without teasing or scolding him," said Lill.

"This is different; there's some fun in this," said Link. "Rufe and Wad have been at work like sixty; and we wanted to see how big a pile we could make."

All praised the performance; and Mrs. Betterson so far forgot herself as to say she felt rich now, with so much nice, dry, split wood in the house.

"But what a remark," she added immediately, turning to Vinnie, "for one of _our_ family to make!"

"I was never so proud of my brothers!" said Cecie. "If I was only well enough, how I should like to help pile up that wood!"

"Dear Cecie!" cried Vinnie, embracing her, "I wish you _were_ well enough! And I hope you will be some time."

The wood was all disposed of that afternoon, and the boys concluded that they had had a pretty good time over it.

"Now we can loaf for a whole week, and make a business of it," said Wad.

"There's one more job that ought to be done," said Rufe. "That potato-patch. We can't keep the pigs out of it, and it's time the potatoes were dug."

"I s'pose so," said Wad. "Wish we had a hired man."

"It isn't much of a job," said Rufe. "And we don't want to be seen loafing round, now _she's_ here."

"We can go up in the woods and loaf," said Wad.

"Don't talk silly," said Rufe. "Come, I'll go at the potatoes to-morrow, if you will. We'll dig, and make Link pick 'em up."

"I was going to shoot some more prairie chickens to-morrow. We've no other meat for dinner."

"We'll get father to shoot them. Come, Wad, what do you say?"

Wad declined to commit himself to an enterprise requiring so large an outlay of bone and muscle. All Rufe could get from him was a promise to "sleep on the potatoes" and say what he thought of them in morning.

The next morning accordingly, before the cattle were turned out of the yard, Rufe said,--

"Shall we yoke up the steers and take the wagon down into the potato-patch? We can be as long as we please filling it."

"Yes, we may as well take it down there and leave it," Wad assented; and the steers were yoked accordingly.

Lord Betterson was not surprised to see the wagon go to the potato-patch, where he thought it might as well stay during the rest of the season, as anywhere else. But he _was_ surprised afterward to see the three boys--or perhaps we should say four, for Chokie was of the party--start off with their hoes and baskets.

"We are going to let _you_ shoot the prairie chickens this forenoon," said Rufe. "You'll find the gun and ammunition all ready, in the back-room. We are going at the potatoes."

Link went ahead and pulled the tops, and afterward picked up the potatoes, filling the baskets, which his brothers helped him carry off and empty into the wagon-box; while Chokie dug holes in the black loam to his heart's content.

"We might have had a noble crop here," said Rufe, "if it hadn't been for the weeds and pigs. Wad, we mustn't let the weeds get the start of us so another year. And we'll do some repairs on the fences this fall. I'm ashamed of 'em!"