Chapter XI: Just Friends

It was on the very day after the funeral that Miss Sophia had an unexpected caller, in the person of Cynthia’s father, the proprietor of the largest dry-goods and grocery store in Laurel. She privately wondered what he had come for, but received him with a civility as chilling as the atmosphere of her shrouded “best room,” and as unbending as the tall, spare figure in its gloom of unrelieved black.

Mr. Parker was a man of business, and went straight to the point.

“I hope you’ll excuse my calling so soon, ma’am! I should be very sorry to intrude, but the fact is, I am particularly interested in—ah!—in a present member of your family.”

Here Miss Sophia visibly stiffened, and the gentleman cleared his throat, and made a fresh beginning.

“If I may be allowed to refer to the prospects of your—ahem! of the late Mrs. Waring’s charge, I understand that it is proposed to—that her return to Dakota is—ah!—under consideration?”

“As to Stella,” reluctantly responded Miss Sophia, “I do not quite see—begging your pardon, Mr. Parker—why my plans for the girl should be of particular interest to my neighbors. However, I have no objection to answering your question. Stella is sixteen—quite old enough to go to work, and, thanks to my sister’s possibly mistaken kindness, has a far better education than either her antecedents or her circumstances call for. It is high time, in my opinion, that she was getting in touch with her own people, and becoming accustomed to their mode of life, to which she has so long been a stranger.

“Her own inheritance from an ancestry of savages, Mr. Parker, betrays itself in such escapades as Stella indulged in on the night of my sister’s death, when she ran away to the woods in a violent thunderstorm, was found by your dog, I believe, and brought home after dark by Mr. Silas Wolcott from his place on the Bay road. Such distressing outbreaks render it desirable, certainly, from my point of view, that her return be not delayed too long.”

“That’s about as I supposed, ma’am,” gravely assented Mr. Parker, “and it is on that understanding that I have come here to-day to make a definite proposition to Miss Stella, and to you, as her guardian. It is simply this: that I offer her a home with me, as my daughter’s companion, for the next two years, or until she graduates from Laurel academy. She will be treated precisely like my own daughter, if she comes. I shall make her an allowance for dress, and so forth, and of course pay all of her expenses.”

Poor Miss Sophia was taken entirely by surprise, and had to moisten her dry lips more than once before she could inquire:

“And what, may I ask, is your reason for this—this extraordinary offer?”

“Miss Stella, ma’am,” responded Mr. Parker, with unmoved politeness, “is, as you are perhaps aware, my daughter’s most intimate friend. Cynthia is an only child, and, I am sorry to say, rather a lonely one. She has her little peculiarities, Miss Spellman, like the rest of us, and her mother and I have every reason to be satisfied with your ward’s influence.” (Here Miss Sophia indulged in an unmistakable sniff.)

“In addition to this, my daughter firmly believes that Miss Stella saved her life from the Wolcott bull, not a great while ago, which of course puts us all in her debt; and, in short, Cynthia says that she will not graduate without her.” (Another sniff.) “And besides,” firmly continued Mr. Parker, with perhaps a secret enjoyment of the situation, “the fact is, ma’am, her friends all feel that Miss Stella is a girl of—ahem!—unusual abilities, and ought by all means to complete her education.”

“Of course, Mr. Parker, I shall require some time to think this matter over.” Miss Sophia spoke rather feebly, after a long pause. “The suggestion is an unexpected one, and—and—However, I shall mention it to the girl, and—By the way, Mr. Parker, you may not be aware that my sister left her by will all of her personal property, and a sum in savings-bank amounting to something over three hundred dollars. Stella is not exactly an object of charity.”

The storekeeper was quite aware of this fact, as was everybody else in the village. The will had been drawn up by the local lawyer, who had deemed it necessary to keep his counsel no longer than till the funeral was over. However, Stella’s friends did not think the legacy of great importance, as bearing on the question in hand. Three hundred dollars was a nice little nest-egg for her, to be sure; but it would not cover her board, clothing and school expenses for two years.

He simply bowed, therefore, and took up his hat as he replied, civilly:

“Certainly, certainly, ma’am; take all the time you wish to talk the matter over with the young lady. When you and she have made up your minds, may I ask that you will communicate with me?”

At Miss Sophia’s front door, the merchant encountered Doctor Brown. Almost a personal encounter it was, for the big Doctor was in a hurry, as usual, and had stopped in upon urgent business, on his way to a patient. Miss Sophia was just on the point of escaping to her room, to consider this unprecedented interference with her plans—rank impertinence, she was inclined to call it—when he bluntly detained her.

“No, no; I can’t sit down. I sha’n’t keep you a minute. It’s just this. Stella Waring must have her chance. She must graduate from the academy, in the first place, and her little bit of money won’t do the trick. My wife and I aren’t rich, as you know, but there’s room under our roof for the child, especially if she’s willing to make herself useful—and I know she is, bless her heart!

“She can come to-morrow; we need her to wait on mother, help my wife about the house and be company for Doris, so she’ll give as much as she gets. Stella’s proud, Miss Sophia, and wouldn’t consent to be a burden to anybody. I want her to understand that she’ll be doing us a favor by coming. Talk it over with her, and let me know. Good day!”

* * * * *

Well, there was no way out of it; the whole matter must be laid before the girl herself. Distasteful as the task was, Miss Sophia must explain to her both offers and give her her choice; yes, and the further alternative of remaining where she was for two years longer. Upon mature consideration, and with her eyes fully opened, at last, to Stella’s position and value in the community, this stiff-necked elderly Puritan was compelled to face the fact that the girl’s services were worth as much to her as to any one else; and the further fact that it would not “look well,” in the eyes of her lifelong neighbors and townsfolk, if her dead sister’s foster-child should be obliged to find another home in Laurel. She could scarcely be packed off to the reservation willy-nilly; not with such influential friends on her side.

Besides, it would be _some_ satisfaction to get the better of that scheming Mr. Parker. Let him take his own medicine, and see how he liked it. And besides, when you really came down to it, what would she, Miss Sophia, do without her light-handed and swift-footed little attendant? Poor Lucy was gone, and Stella was the only one, now, who knew all their ways. Must she be at the mercy of a Mrs. Maloney in her old age? So for hours she sat and thought till her old head fairly spun, and the subject was broached to a subdued and red-eyed Stella that very evening.

* * * * *

“Oh, Jibby darling! to think of your really and truly coming to live with us! Oh, isn’t Daddy the very nicest man that ever lived? He never refused me anything; not if I had set my heart on it, you know. And I told him that if you didn’t graduate, then I wouldn’t, either; and the very day I was eighteen I was going out to Dakota to join you on your own land, and run that ranch we always talked about. He only said: ‘Tut, tut, daughter; we’ll do better than that.’

“And even mother’s glad, because I do bother her sometimes when she has a headache, and now she can play bridge all day, if she likes. You and me’ll see to everything, won’t we, Jibby? You _are_ coming, aren’t you, darling dear?”

Thus Cynthia in one breath, flinging herself upon her friend’s neck the next morning, in the prim garden of the old Spellman homestead, among the old-fashioned posies, day-lilies and bleeding-heart and wonderful rose-hued peonies, while Scotty, with the demonstrative jealousy of his kind, stood upon his gaunt hind legs and thrust his cold nose between the loving pair.

Doris, prettier than ever in all the dignity of her ankle-long skirts and “Psyche knot” of honey-colored hair, noted Stella’s hesitating silence and cannily began, feeling her way:

“You know, Jibby, Grandma is getting old and feeble, and she does like you better’n ’most any one. She won’t let even me do for her as she will you, Stella Waring! I don’t see how you manage to bewitch everybody the way you do.

“Uncle Si says, dummed if he wouldn’t like nothing better than for you to come out there and be his little housekeeper. Think of that! He never forgot that breakfast you got for him the day Cynthia was chased by the bull; and he says that for nobody else in this endurin’ world would he have hitched up the critters long after bed-time of a wet night. I don’t know when he’s been out after eight o’clock ’cept that night he took you home. Well, aren’t you ever going to speak? We _all_ want you, Stella; now which is it going to be?”

Yellow Star faced her two friends with almost a tragic gesture of out-flung arms, and the rare tears in her soft, black eyes.

“Darlings,” she cried, “you are all too sweet for anything, and I shall never forget it as long as I live. To think that I have such friends! But do you know, the most wonderful part of it all is, _Miss Sophia wants me too_!

“She’s getting old, you see, and she isn’t used to doing for herself, and she really does need me, girls. Don’t look like that, Cynthia; she’s my dear, dear Mother Waring’s only sister—the only near kin she had in this world—so she used to say. Girls, I know I should be perfectly happy with either of you, but I can’t leave Miss Sophia—she’s _folks_. I know I can take care of her, and here is where I _belong_.”

And, of course, that settled it.