Across the Years Part 18

"Why, mother!"

Mrs. Kelsey stood before the gla.s.s, a deep flush on her cheeks and tears rolling down her face. Two trembling hands struggled with the lace at her throat until the sharp point of a pin found her thumb and left a tiny crimson stain on the spotlessness of the collar. It was then that Mrs. Kelsey covered her face with her hands and sank into the low chair by the bed.

"Why, mother!" cried Alma again, hurrying across the room and dropping on her knees at her mother's side.

"I can't, Alma, I can't!" moaned the woman. "I've tried an' tried; but I've got ter give up, I've got ter give up."

"Can't what, dearie?--give up what?" demanded Alma.

Mrs. Kelsey shook her head. Then she dropped her hands and looked fearfully into her daughter's face.

"An' yer father, too, Alma--he's tried, an' he can't," she choked.

"Tried what? What _do_ you mean?"

With her eyes on Alma's troubled, amazed face, Mrs. Kelsey made one last effort to gain her lost position. She raised her shaking hands to her throat and fumbled for the pin and the collar.

"There, there, dear, don't fret," she stammered. "I didn't think what I was sayin'. It ain't nothin'--I mean, it _aren't_ nothin'--it _am_ not--oh-h!" she sobbed; "there, ye see, Alma, I can't, I can't. It ain't no more use ter try!" Down went the gray head on Alma's strong young shoulder.

"There, there, dear, cry away," comforted Alma, with loving pats. "It will do you good; then we'll hear what this is all about, from the very beginning."

And Mrs. Kelsey told her--and from the very beginning. When the telling was over, and the little woman, a bit breathless and frightened, sat awaiting what Alma would say, there came a long silence.

Alma's lips were close shut. Alma was not quite sure, if she opened them, whether there would come a laugh or a sob. The laugh was uppermost and almost parted the firm-set lips, when a side glance at the quivering face of the little woman in the big chair turned the laugh into a half-stifled sob. Then Alma spoke.

"Mother, dear, listen. Do you think a silk dress and a stiff collar can make you and father any dearer to me? Do you think an 'ain't' or a 'hain't' can make me love either of you any less? Do you suppose I expect you, after fifty years' service for others, to be as careful in your ways and words as if you'd spent those fifty years in training yourself instead of in training six children? Why, mother, dear, do you suppose that I don't know that for twenty of those years you have had no thoughts, no prayers, save for me?--that I have been the very apple of your eye? Well, it's my turn, now, and you are the apple of my eye--you and father. Why, dearie, you have no idea of the plans I have for you.

There's a good strong woman coming next week for the kitchen work. Oh, it's all right," a.s.sured Alma, quickly, in response to the look on her mother's face. "Why, I'm rich! Only think of those orders! And then you shall dress in silk or velvet, or calico--anything you like, so long as it doesn't scratch nor p.r.i.c.k," she added merrily, bending forward and fastening the lace collar. "And you shall----"

"Ma-ry?" It was Nathan at the foot of the back stairway.

"Yes, Nathan."

"Ain't it 'most supper-time?"

"Bless my soul!" cried Mrs. Kelsey, springing to her feet.

"An', Mary----"

"Yes."

"Hain't I got a collar--a b'iled one, on the bureau up there?"

"No," called Alma, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the collar and throwing it on the bed.

"There isn't a sign of one there. Suppose you let it go to-night, dad?"

"Well, if you don't mind!" And a very audible sigh of relief floated up the back stairway.

The Bridge Across the Years

John was expected on the five o'clock stage. Mrs. John had been there three days now, and John's father and mother were almost packed up--so Mrs. John said. The auction would be to-morrow at nine o'clock, and with John there to see that things "hustled"--which last was really unnecessary to mention, for John's very presence meant "hustle"--with John there, then, the whole thing ought to be over by one o'clock, and they off in season to 'catch the afternoon express.

And what a time it had been--those three days!

Mrs. John, resting in the big chair on the front porch, thought of those days with complacency--that they were over. Grandpa and Grandma Burton, hovering over old treasures in the attic, thought of them with terrified dismay--that they had ever begun.

I am coming up on Tuesday [Mrs. John had written]. We have been thinking for some time that you and father ought not to be left alone up there on the farm any longer. Now don't worry about the packing. I shall bring Marie, and you won't have to lift your finger. John will come Thursday night, and be there for the auction on Friday. By that time we shall have picked out what is worth saving, and everything will be ready for him to take matters in hand. I think he has already written to the auctioneer, so tell father to give himself no uneasiness on that score.

John says he thinks we can have you back here with us by Friday night, or Sat.u.r.day at the latest. You know John's way, so you may be sure there will be no tiresome delay. Your rooms here will be all ready before I leave, so that part will be all right.

This may seem a bit sudden to you, but you know we have always told you that the time was surely coming when you couldn't live alone any longer.

John thinks it has come now; and, as I said before, you know John, so, after all, you won't be surprised at his going right ahead with things.

We shall do everything possible to make you comfortable, and I am sure you will be very happy here.

Good-bye, then, until Tuesday. With love to both of you.

EDITH.

That had been the beginning. To Grandpa and Grandma Burton it had come like a thunderclap on a clear day. They had known, to be sure, that son John frowned a little at their lonely life; but that there should come this sudden transplanting, this ruthless twisting and tearing up of roots that for sixty years had been burrowing deeper and deeper--it was almost beyond one's comprehension.

And there was the auction!

"We shan't need that, anyway," Grandma Burton had said at once. "What few things we don't want to keep I shall give away. An auction, indeed!

Pray, what have we to sell?"

"Hm-m! To be sure, to be sure," her husband had murmured; but his face was troubled, and later he had said, apologetically: "You see, Hannah, there's the farm things. We don't need them."

On Tuesday night Mrs. John and the somewhat awesome Maria--to whom Grandpa and Grandma Burton never could learn not to curtsy--arrived; and almost at once Grandma Burton discovered that not only "farm things,"

but such precious treasures as the hair wreath and the parlor--set were auctionable. In fact, everything the house contained, except their clothing and a few crayon portraits, seemed to be in the same category.

"But, mother, dear," Mrs. John had returned, with a laugh, in response to Grandma Burton's horrified remonstrances, "just wait until you see your rooms, and how full they are of beautiful things, and then you'll understand."

"But they won't be--these," the old voice had quavered.

And Mrs. John had laughed again, and had patted her mother-in-law's cheek, and had echoed-but with a different shade of meaning--"No, they certainly won't be these!"

In the attic now, on a worn black trunk, sat the little old man, and down on the floor before an antiquated cradle knelt his wife.

"They was all rocked in it, Seth," she was saying,--"John and the twins and my two little girls; and now there ain't any one left only John--and the cradle."

"I know, Hannah, but you ain't _usin'_ that nowadays, so you don't really need it," comforted the old man. "But there's my big chair now--seems as though we jest oughter take that. Why, there ain't a day goes by that I don't set in it!"

"But John's wife says there's better ones there, Seth," soothed the old woman in her turn, "as much as four or five of 'em right in our rooms."