Hildegarde's Holiday Part 19

"Oh, no, ma'am!" Bubble hastened to a.s.sure her. "It was splendid fun!

splendid! I never had such a good time. I could fish for a year without stopping, I do believe."

Miss Wealthy's sympathetic look changed to one of mild disapproval, for she did not like what she called "violent sentiments." "So exaggerated a statement, my boy," she said gently, "is doubtless not meant to be taken literally. Fis.h.i.+ng, or angling, to use a more elegant word, seems to be a sport which gives great pleasure to those who pursue it. Dr. Johnson, it is true, spoke slightingly of it, and described a fis.h.i.+ng-rod as a stick with a hook at one end, and--ahem! he was probably in jest, my dears--a fool at the other. But Izaak Walton was a meek and devout person; and my dear father was fond of angling, and--and--others I have known. Go on, my lad, with your lively description."

Poor Bubble was so abashed by this little dissertation that his liveliness seemed to have deserted him entirely for the moment. He hung his head, and looked so piteously at Hildegarde that she was obliged to take refuge in a fit of coughing, which made Miss Wealthy exclaim anxiously that she feared she had taken cold.

"Go on, Bubble!" said Hildegarde, as soon as she had recovered herself, nodding imperatively to him. "How many fish did you catch?"

"Oh, a great many!" replied the boy, rather soberly. "Dr. Flower is a first-rate fisherman, and he caught a lot every day; and the other two doctors caught some. But Mr. Packard,"--here his eyes began to twinkle again, and his voice took on its usual cheerful ring,--"poor Mr.

Packard, he did have hard luck. The first time he threw a fly it caught in a tree, and got all tangled up, so 't he was an hour and more getting his line free. Then he thought 't would be better on the other side of the stream; so he started to cross over, and stepped into a deep hole, and down he sat with a splash, and one of his rubber boots came off, and he dropped his rod. Of all the unlucky people I ever saw! I tell you, 't was enough to make a frog laugh to see him fis.h.!.+ Then, of course, he'd got the water all riled--"

"All--I beg your pardon?--riled?" asked Miss Wealthy, innocently.

"All muddy!" said Bubble, hastily; "so he couldn't fish there no more for one while. And just then I happened to come along with a string of trout--ten of 'em, and perfect beauties!--that I'd caught with a string and a crooked pin; and that seemed to finish Mr. Packard entirely. Next day he had rheumatism in his joints, and stayed in camp all day, watching Marks making snow-shoes. The day after that he tried again, and fished all the morning, and caught one yellow perch and an eel. The eel danced right up in his face,--it did, sure as I'm alive, Pink!--and scairt him so, I'm blessed if he didn't sit down again--ho! ho! ho!--on a point o' rock, and slid off into the water, and lost his spectacles.

Oh, dear! it don't seem as if it could be true; but it is, every word.

The next day he went home. _He_'ll never go a-fis.h.i.+ng again."

"Poor man! I should think not!" said Rose, compa.s.sionately. "But is Dr.

Flower--are all the others still there?"

"Gone home!" said Bubble. "We came out of the woods three days ago, and took the train yesterday. I never thought of such a thing as stopping; supposed I must go right back to work. But when the brakeman sung out, 'Next station Bywood!' Doctor just says quietly, 'Get your bag ready, Bubble! You're going to get out at this station.' And when I looked at him, all struck of a heap, as you may say, he says, 'Shut your mouth!

you look really better with it shut. There is a patient of mine staying at this place, Miss Chirk by name. I want you to look her up, make inquiries into her case, and if you can get lodgings in the neighborhood, stay till she is ready to be escorted back to New York. It is all arranged, and I have a boy engaged to take your place for two weeks. Now, then! do not leave umbrellas or packages in the train!

Good-by!' And there we were at the station; and he just shook hands, and dropped me off on the platform, and off they went again. Isn't he a good man? I tell you, if they was all like him, there wouldn't be no trouble in the world for anybody." And Rose thought so too!

CHAPTER XV.

THE GREAT SCHEME.

In the latter days of August came a hot wave. It started, we will say, from the Gulf, which was heated sevenfold on purpose, and which simmered and hissed like a gigantic caldron. It came rolling up over the country, scorching all it touched, spreading its fiery billows east and west. New York wilted and fell prostrate. Boston wiped the sweat from her intellectual brow, and panted in all the modern languages. Even Maine was not safe among her rocks and pine-trees; and a wavelet of pure caloric swept over quiet Bywood, and made its inhabitants very uncomfortable. Miss Wealthy could not remember any such heat. There had been a very hot season in 1853,--she remembered it because her father had given up frills to his s.h.i.+rts, as no amount of starch would keep them from hanging limp an hour after they were put on; but she really did not think it was so severe as this. She was obliged to put away her knitting, it made her hands so uncomfortable; and took to crocheting a tidy with linen thread, as the coolest work she could think of.

Hildegarde and Rose put on the thin muslins which had lain all summer in their clothespress drawers, and did their best to keep Benny cool and quiet; read Dr. Kane's "Arctic Voyages," and discussed the possibility of Miss Wealthy's allowing them to shave Dr. Johnson.

Bubble spent much of his time in cracking ice and making lemonade, when he was not on or in the river.

As for Martha, she devoted herself to the concoction of cold dishes, and fed the whole family on jellied tongue, lobster-salad, ice-cream, and Charlotte Russe, till they rose up and blessed her.

When Flower-Day came, the girls braved the heat, and went to Fairtown with the flowers; Miss Wealthy reluctantly allowing them to go, because she was anxious, as they were, to know how the little patients bore the heat. They brought back a sad report. The sick children were suffering much; the hospital was like a furnace, in spite of all that could be done to keep it cool. Mrs. Murray sighed for a "country week" for them all, but knew no way of attaining the desired object, as most of the people interested in the hospital were out of town.

"Oh, if we could only find a place!" cried Hildegarde, after she had told about the little pallid faces and the fever-heat in town. "If there were only some empty house,"--she did not dare to look at Miss Wealthy as she said this, but kept her eyes on the river (they were all sitting on the piazza, waiting for the afternoon breeze, which seldom failed them),--"some quiet place, like Islip, where the poor little souls could come, for a week or two, till this dreadful heat is past."

Then she told the story of Islip, with its lovely Seaside Home, where all summer long the poor children come and go, nursed and tended to refreshment by the black-clad Sisters. Miss Wealthy made no sign, but sat with clasped hands, her work lying idle in her lap. Rose was very pale, and trembled with a sense of coming trouble; but Hildegarde's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shone with excitement.

There were a few moments of absolute silence, broken only by the hot shrilling of a locust in a tree hard by; then Zerubbabel Chirk, calmly unconscious of any thrill in the air, any tension of the nerves, any crisis impending, paused in his whittling, and instead of carving a whistle for Benny, cut the Gordian knot.

"Why, there is a house, close by here," he said; "not more 'n half a mile off. I was going to ask you girls about it. A pretty red house, all spick and span, and not a soul in it, far as I could see. Why isn't it exactly the place you want?" He looked from one to the other with bright, inquiring eyes; but no one answered. "I'm sure it is!" he continued, with increasing animation. "There's a lawn where the children could play, and a nice clear brook for 'em to paddle and sail boats in, and gravel for 'em to dig in,--why, it was _made_ for children!" cried the boy. "And as for the man that owns it, why, if he doesn't want to stay there himself, why shouldn't he let some one else have it?--unless he's an old hunks; and even if he is--" He stopped short, for Rose had seized his arm with a terrified grasp, and Hildegarde's clear eyes flashed a silent warning.

Miss Wealthy tottered to her feet, and the others rose instinctively also. She stood for a moment, her hand at her throat, her eyes fixed on Bubble, trembling as if he had struck her a heavy blow; then, as the frightened girls made a motion to advance, she waved them back with a gesture full of dignity, and turned and entered the house, making a low moan as she went.

"Send Martha to her, _quick_!" said Hildegarde, in an imperative whisper. "Fly, Bubble! the back door!"

Bubble flew, as if he had been shot from a gun, and returned, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, to find his sister in tears, and his adored Miss Hilda pacing up and down the piazza with hasty and agitated steps.

"What is it?" he cried in dismay. "What did I do? What is the matter with everybody? Why, I never--"

Hildegarde quieted him with a gesture, and then told him, briefly, the story of the house in the wood. Poor Bubble was quite overcome. He punched his head severely, and declared that he was the most stupid idiot that ever lived.

"I'd better go away!" he cried. "I can't see the old lady again. As kind as she's been to me, and then for me to call her a--I guess I'll be going, Miss Hilda; I'm no good here, and only doing harm."

"Be quiet, Bubble!" said Hildegarde, smiling in the midst of her distress. "You shall do nothing of the kind. And, Rose, you are not to shed another tear. Who knows? This may be the very best thing that could have happened. Of course I wouldn't have had you say it, Bubble, just in that way; but now that it _is_ said, I--I think I am glad of it. I should not wonder--I really do hope that it may have been just the word that was wanted."

And so it proved. For an hour after, as the three still sat on the piazza,--two of them utterly disconsolate, the third trying to cheer them with the hope that she was feeling more and more strongly,--Martha appeared. There were traces of tears in her friendly gray eyes, but she looked kindly at the forlorn trio.

"Miss Bond is not feeling very well!" she said. "She is lying down, and thinks she will not come downstairs this evening. Here is a note for you, Miss Hilda, and a letter for the post."

Hildegarde tore open the little folded note, and read, in Miss Wealthy's pretty, regular hand, these words:--

MY DEAR HILDA,--Please tell the boy that I do not mean to be an old hunks, and ask him to post this letter. We will make our arrangements to-morrow, as I am rather tired now.

Your affectionate cousin, WEALTHY BOND.

The letter was addressed to Mrs. Murray at the Children's Hospital; and at sight of it Hildegarde threw her arms round Martha's neck, and gave her a good hug. Her private desire was to cry; but tears were a luxury she rarely indulged in, so she laughed instead.

"Is it all right, Martha," she asked,--"really and truly right? Because if it is, I am the happiest girl in the world."

"It is all right, indeed, Miss Hilda!" replied Martha, heartily; "and the best thing that could have happened, to my mind. Dear gracious! so often as I've wished for something to break up that place, so to speak, and make a living house 'stead of a dead one! And it never could ha'

been done, in my thinking, any other way than this. So it's a good day's work you've done, and thankful she'll be to you for it when the shock of it is over." Then, seeing that the young people were still a little "trembly," as she called it, this best of Marthas added cheerfully: "It's like to be a very warm evening, I'm thinking. And as Miss Bond isn't coming down, wouldn't it be pleasant for you to go out in the boat, perhaps, Miss Hilda, and take your tea with you? There's a nice little mould of pressed chicken, do you see, and some lemon jelly on the ice; and I could make you up a nice basket, and 't would be right pleasant now, wouldn't it, young ladies?"

Whereupon Martha was called a saint and an angel and a brick, all in three breaths; and she went off, well pleased, to pack the basket, leaving great joy behind her.

Late that evening, when Hildegarde was going to bed, she saw the door of Miss Wealthy's room ajar, and heard her name called softly. She went in, and found the dear old lady sitting in her great white dimity armchair.

"Come here, my dear," said Miss Wealthy, gently. "I have something to show you, which I think you will like to see."

She had a miniature in her hand,--the portrait of a young and handsome man, with flas.h.i.+ng dark eyes, and a n.o.ble, thoughtful face.

"It is my Victor!" said the old lady, tenderly. "I am an old woman, but he is always my true love, young and beautiful. Look at it, my child! It is the face of a good and true man."

"You do not mind my knowing?" Hildegarde asked, kissing the soft, wrinkled hand.

"I am very glad of it," replied Miss Wealthy,--"very glad! And in--in a little while--when I have had time to realize it--I shall no doubt be glad of this--this projected change. You see"--she paused, and seemed to seek for a word,--"you see, dear, it has always been Victor's house to me. I never--I should not have thought of making use of it, like another house. It is doubtless--much better. In fact, I am sure of it. It has come to me very strongly that Victor would like it, that it would please him extremely. And now I blame myself for never having thought of such a thing before. So, my dear," she added, bending forward to kiss Hildegarde's forehead, "besides the blessings of the sick children, you will win one from me, and--who knows?--perhaps one from a voice we cannot hear."

The girl was too much moved to speak, and they were silent for a while.

"And now," Miss Wealthy said very cheerfully, "it is bedtime for you, and for me too. But before you go, I want to give you a little trinket that I had when I was just your age. My grandmother gave it to me; and though I am not exactly your grandmother, I am the next thing to it.

Open that little cupboard, if you please, and bring me a small red morocco box which you will find on the second shelf, in the right-hand corner. There is a brown pill-box next to it; do you find it, my love?"

Hildegarde brought the box, and on being told to open it, found a bracelet of black velvet, on which was sewed a garland of miniature flowers, white roses and forget-me-nots, wrought in exquisite enamel.