Big Brother Part 4

When the work was all done he stood idly looking out of the window. He wanted to get away from the house where everything he saw made his heart ache with the suggestion of Robin.

"I believe I'd like to go to church to-day," he said in a listless tone.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Yes, I'd go if I were you," a.s.sented Mr. Dearborn readily. "Mother and me'll have to stay by the fire to-day, but I've no doubt it'll chirk you up a bit to get outdoors a spell."

He started off, plodding through the deep snow.

"Takes it easier than I thought he would," said Mr. Dearborn. "Well, troubles never set very hard on young shoulders. He'll get over it in a little while."

As Steven emerged from the lane into the big road he saw a sleigh coming towards him, driven by the doctor's son. As it drew nearer a sudden thought came to him like an inspiration.

"O Harvey!" he cried, running forward. "Will you take me with you as far as Simpson's?"

"Why, yes, I guess so," answered the boy good-naturedly.

He was not surprised at the request, knowing that Mrs. Dearborn and Mrs. Simpson were sisters, and supposing that Steven had been sent on some errand.

It was three miles to the Simpson place, but they seemed to have reached it in as many minutes. Harvey turned off towards his own home, while Steven climbed out and hurried along the public road.

"Half-way there!" he said to himself. He was going to town to find Mrs. Estel.

He was a long time on the way. A piercing wind began to blow, and a blinding snow-storm beat in his face. He was numb with cold, hungry, and nearly exhausted. But he thought of little Robin fifteen miles away, crying at the strange faces around him; and for his sake he stumbled bravely on.

He had seen Mrs. Dearborn's daughter several times. She was a kind, good-natured woman, half-way afraid of her husband. As for Arad Pierson himself, Steven had conceived a strong dislike. He was quick-tempered and rough, with a loud, coa.r.s.e way of speaking that always startled the sensitive child.

Suppose Robin should refuse to be comforted, and his crying annoyed them. Could that black-browed, heavy-fisted man be cruel enough to whip such a baby? Steven knew that he would.

The thought spurred him on. It seemed to him that he had been days on the road when he reached the house at last, and stood s.h.i.+vering on the steps while he waited for some one to answer his timid ring.

"No, you can't speak to Mrs. Estel," said the pompous colored man who opened the door, and who evidently thought that he had come on some beggar's mission. "She never sees any one now, and I'm sure she wouldn't see you."

"Oh, _please_!" cried Steven desperately, as the door was about to be shut in his face. "She told me to come, and I've walked miles through the storm, and I'm so cold and tired! Oh, I _can't_ go back without seeing her."

His high, piercing voice almost wailed out the words. Had he come so far only to be disappointed at last?

"What is it, Alec?" he heard some one call gently.

He recognized the voice, and in his desperation darted past the man into the wide reception hall.

He saw the sweet face of the lady, who came quickly forward, and heard her say, "Why, what is the matter, my child?"

Then, overcome by the sudden change from the cold storm to the tropical warmth of the room, he dropped on the floor, exhausted and unconscious.

It was a long time before Mrs. Estel succeeded in thoroughly reviving him. Then he lay on a wide divan with his head on her lap, and talked quietly of his trouble.

He was too worn out to cry, even when he took the soft curls from his pocket to show her. But her own recent loss had made her vision keen, and she saw the depth of suffering in the boy's white face. As she twisted the curls around her finger and thought of her own fair-haired little one, with the deep snow drifting over its grave, her tears fell fast.

She made a sudden resolution. "You shall come here," she said. "I thought when my little Dorothy died I could never bear to hear a child's voice again, knowing that hers was still. But such grief is selfish. We will help each other bear ours together. Would you like to come, dear?"

Steven sat up, trembling in his great excitement.

"O Mrs. Estel!" he cried, "couldn't you take Robin instead? I could be happy anywhere if I only knew he was taken care of. You are so different from the Piersons. I wouldn't feel bad if he was with you, and I could see him every week. He is so pretty and sweet you couldn't help loving him!"

She stooped and kissed him. "You dear, unselfish child, you make me want you more than ever."

Then she hesitated. She could not decide a matter involving so much in a moment's time. Steven, she felt, would be a comfort to her, but Robin could be only a care. Lately she had felt the mere effort of living to be a burden, and she did not care to make any exertion for any one else.

All the brightness and purpose seemed to drop out of her life the day that little Dorothy was taken away. Her husband had tried everything in his power to arouse her from her hopeless despondency, but she refused to be comforted.

Steven's trouble had touched the first responsive chord. She looked down into his expectant face, feeling that she could not bear to disappoint him, yet unwilling to make a promise that involved personal exertion.

Then she answered slowly, "I wish my husband were here. I cannot give you an answer without consulting him. Then, you see the society that sent you out here probably has some written agreement with these people, and if they do not want to give him up we might find it a difficult matter to get him. Mr. Estel will be home in a few days, and he will see what can be done."

That morning when Steven had been seized with a sudden impulse to find Mrs. Estel he had no definite idea of what she could do to help him.

It had never occurred to him for an instant that she would offer to take either of them to live with her. He thought only of that afternoon on the train, when her sympathy had comforted him so much, and of her words at parting: "If you ever need a friend, dear, or are in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you." It was that promise that lured him on all that weary way through the cold snow-storm.

With a child's implicit confidence he turned to her, feeling that in some way or other she would make it all right. It was a great disappointment when he found she could do nothing immediately, and that it might be weeks before he could see Robin again.

Still, after seeing her and pouring out his troubles, he felt like a different boy. Such a load seemed lifted from his shoulders. He actually laughed while repeating some of Robin's queer little speeches to her. Only that morning he had felt that he could not even smile again.

Dinner cheered him up still more. When the storm had abated, Mrs.

Estel wrapped him up and sent him home in her sleigh, telling him that she wanted him to spend Thanksgiving Day with her. She thought she would know by that time whether she could take Robin or not. At any rate, she wanted him to come, and if he would tell Mr. Dearborn to bring her a turkey on his next market day, she would ask his permission.

All the way home Steven wondered nervously what the old people would say to him. He dreaded to see the familiar gate, and the ride came to an end so very soon. To his great relief he found that they had scarcely noticed his absence. Their only son and his family had come unexpectedly from the next State to stay over Thanksgiving, and everything else had been forgotten in their great surprise.

The days that followed were full of pleasant antic.i.p.ations for the family. Steven went in and out among them, helping busily with the preparations, but strangely silent among all the merriment.

Mr. Dearborn took his son to town with him the next market day, and Steven was left at home to wait and wonder what message Mrs. Estel might send him.

He hung around until after his usual bedtime, on their return, but could not muster up courage to ask. The hope that had sprung up within him flickered a little fainter each new day, until it almost died out.

It was a happy group that gathered around the breakfast table early on Thanksgiving morning.

"All here but Rindy," said Mr. Dearborn, looking with smiling eyes from his wife to his youngest grandchild. "It's too bad she couldn't come, but Arad invited all his folks to spend the day there; so she had to give up and stay at home. Well, we're all alive and well, anyhow. That's my greatest cause for thankfulness. What's yours, Jane?" he asked, nodding towards his wife.

As the question pa.s.sed around the table, Steven's thoughts went back to the year before, when their little family had all been together. He remembered how pretty his mother had looked that morning in her dark-blue dress. There was a bowl of yellow chrysanthemums blooming on the table, and a streak of suns.h.i.+ne, falling across them and on Robin's hair, seemed to turn them both to gold. Now he was all alone.

The contrast was too painful. He slipped from the table un.o.bserved, and stole noiselessly up the back stairs to his room. The little checked ap.r.o.n was hanging on a chair by the window. He sat down and laid his face against it, but his eyes were dry. He had not cried any since that first dreadful night.

There was such a lively clatter of dishes downstairs and babel of voices that he did not hear a sleigh drive up in the soft snow.

"Steven," called Mr. Dearborn from the foot of the stairs, "I promised Mrs. Estel to let you spend the day with her, but there was so much goin' on I plum forgot to tell you. You're to stay all night too, she says."

The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burning with a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom he questioned could not tell.

"Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he was ushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on the edge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fear she might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybe her husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had been too busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamities presented themselves.