XVIII
BUDD'S PROPOSAL
Before Mr. Clyde and Jack left the next day, Budd sought an opportunity to interview the latter on a subject, that, for a few weeks past, had been occupying many of his thoughts. The applause, with which his Christmas-day toast had been greeted, had encouraged him to seek an occasion for acquiring more definite knowledge on a subject which lay near his heart. It came when Jack was packing his dress-suit case in the guest chamber.
There was a knock on the half-opened door.
"Come in," said Jack, and Budd made his appearance.
"Halloo, Budd! What can I do for you? Any commissions in New York, or Boston?"
"Don't know what you mean by commissions," replied Budd, cautiously, thrusting both hands deep into the pockets of his knickerbockers, and spreading his sturdy legs to a wide V.
"Anything I can buy with that hen-and-jam money you helped to earn?–you did well, Budd, on that. I congratulate you."
"I have n't any of that money left. You see, we voted to give it to March to go to college with. But I 've got two quarters an' a dollar–Christmas presents, you know; an' that 'll do, won't it?" he asked rather anxiously.
"Well, that depends on what you buy," said Jack, with due seriousness.
"You 'll keep mum, Mr. Sherrill, if I tell you?" said Budd, inquiringly.
"Mum's the word, if you say so, Budd; out with it."
"Well, I want two things; one thing to make me feel grown up, an' I 've wanted it for a year."
"What's that, Budd?" asked Jack, immensely amused at Budd's swelling manhood–"A pair of long trousers?"
"No–" Budd hesitated for a moment, then went on in rather an aggrieved tone; "I hate to wear waists with buttons; it's just like a baby, an' a fellow can't feel grown up when he has to button everything on. I want to hitch things up the way March an' Chi do, an' I want you to buy me a shirt like that one you 're rolling up–only not flannel,–with a flap, you know, to tuck in."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Jack, endeavoring to keep his face and voice from betraying his inward amusement. "Well, I think you can get one for seventy-five cents–plain or striped?"
"I like those narrow blue striped ones like yours best," he replied, pointing to one of Jack's.
"Like mine it shall be, Budd; but you 'll want a pair of suspenders, or there 'll be too much hitching to be agreeable to you."
"March has an old pair, an' I 'm going to borrow them."
"That's an idea; now, what's the second thing?"
"A ring."
"A ring?" Jack looked amazed.
Budd nodded.
"For yourself?" Jack questioned further.
"No–for somebody else."
"Do you mean a finger ring?"
Budd nodded again emphatically.
"Engagement?" laughed Jack, at last, the fun getting the better of him.
Budd's mouth puckered into solemnity; "No–wedding."
Jack gave up the packing, and sat down, shaken with laughter, on the first convenient chair.
"Pardon me for laughing, Budd, but I can't help it. What do you want of a wedding ring? Is it for that 'first wife' of yours you toasted yesterday at dinner?"
Budd nodded again. "I don't see anything to laugh at," he said, with a reproachful glance. "You would n't if you was me."
"No, I don't think I should; you 're right there, Budd," he replied, sobering suddenly after his outburst of laughter. "When is the wedding to be?"
Budd looked thoughtful. "I have n't proposed yet," was his matter-of-fact answer.
"Well, why don't you?" Jack, sinner that he was, scented some fun at Budd's expense.
"I 'm going to when I know how," said Budd, humbly.
"Why don't you take lessons?" suggested Jack.
"I have."
"Of whom?"
"Chi."
Jack shouted. "What did Chi say?" he demanded when he had regained his breath.
"He said if he wanted to marry a girl, he 'd say what he wanted to–tell 'em he was fond of 'em."
"'Fond of them'–hm," repeated Jack, thoughtfully.
"What do you say?" questioned Budd, turning the tables rather suddenly on Jack.
"I don't say–never said," replied Jack, shortly.
"That's what Chi said. He said if I begun early I 'd find out how."
"You seem to be on the right road for it."
"Would you say 'fond of her'?" persisted Budd.
"Yes, I think I should," Jack replied with a peculiar smile; "but, of course, it would depend on the girl."
"Why, that's just what Chi said!"
"He did, did he!" Jack laughed; "Chi knows a thing or two."
"But I thought you 'd know more." Budd's face began to wear a puzzled look.
Just then Jack heard Rose's voice in the long-room asking where Mr. Sherrill was, and the sound brought home to him a realizing sense of the fact that there was but an hour before they left for the station, and every moment too precious to be wasted on Budd. Rising, and proceeding with his packing, he said with perfect seriousness:–
"Well, Budd, all I can say is, that if I were going to ask a girl to marry me, I should ask her if she thought enough of me to take me with all my imperfections and–"
"Where are you, Jack?" called Hazel, at the foot of the stairs; "Chi has to go an hour earlier than he said, and the sleigh is at the door."
In the hurry of Jack's good-byes and departure, the sentence was never finished, and the ring forgotten by him. But Budd remembered.
He was a sturdy little chap, broad of shoulder, strong of limb. His sandy red hair bristled straight up from his full forehead. His pale blue eyes, with thick reddish-brown lashes, were round and serious. His nose was a freckled pug, and his small mouth puckered, when he was very much in earnest, to the size of a buttonhole. From the time he had championed Hazel's coming to them, nearly a year ago, he had never wavered in his allegiance to her, and in his small-boy way showed her his entire devotion. Hazel had been so grateful to him for his whole-souled welcome of her, that she took pains to make his boy's heart happy in every way she could.
For Hazel, Budd was never in the way; never asked too many questions for her patience; never teased her beyond endurance. He found in her a ready listener, a good sympathizer, a capital playmate, and a loving girl-friend, who reproved him sometimes and, at others, praised him. What wonder that his ten-year-old heart had warmed towards her with its first boy-love? and that in his manly, practical way, he made of her an ideal?
"I love Hazel, and when I am big enough, I shall marry her," was what he said to himself whenever he stopped his play long enough to think about it at all. Naturally it seemed the wisest thing to tell her this when he should find the opportunity, and at the same time recall the fact.
Fortified by the testimony of Chi and Jack, he bided his time.
One Saturday afternoon in January, Rose said suddenly to Hazel: "I wish I could do some of the things that you do, Hazel." Hazel looked up from her book in surprise.
"What can I do that you can't do, Rose?"
"You dance so beautifully, and I 've always wanted to know how. I feel so awkward when I see you dance the Highland Fling."
"Is that all?" Hazel laughed a happy laugh. "I can teach you to dance as easy as anything, if you 'll let me."
"Let you!" Rose exclaimed, flushing with pleasure; "just you try me and see. But where can we practise?"
"Oh, out in the barn," cried Hazel. "It'll be lots of fun; of course, it's awfully cold, but the skipping about will keep us warm. I 'll tell you what–I 'll play on the violin, and you and March and Budd and Cherry can learn square dances first."
"What fun!" said Rose.
"What's the joke?" asked March, coming in at that moment with Budd and Cherry.
"We 're going to have a dance in the barn; Hazel's going to teach us. She says she can do it easy enough."
"Oh, bully!" Budd threw up his tam-o'-shanter, and Cherry, attempting to charge up and down the long-room as she had seen Hazel at the Fords', tripped on the rug and fell her length. When March had picked her up she rubbed her nose, which was growing decidedly pink, and sniffed a little, then asked suddenly:–
"Who 's going to be my partner? They always have partners in the story books."
"Sure enough," Rose laughed. "Whatever will we do, Hazel?"
"I never thought of that," said Hazel, ruefully. "Of course, it takes eight."
"Why can't we have chairs for partners?" said Cherry. "We can bow to them just as if they were alive, and make them move round, can't we?"
They all laughed at Cherry's inspiration.
"You 're a brick, Cherry Bounce?" said March, approvingly. "All choose your partners!" And, thereupon, he seized one of the kitchen chairs, and the rest followed his example. Hazel took her violin, and hooded and mittened and coated and mufflered, they trooped out to the barn, each lugging a wooden chair.
"Now I 'll give you the first four changes," said Hazel, illustrating, as well as she could in trying to be two couples at once, the first movements. "Form your square and get ready."
They obeyed with alacrity, and Hazel drew her bow across the strings.
"All curtsy to your partners!" she shouted, and the chair-partners received a bow, and, in turn, were made to thump the floor by being laid over on their backs, and righted suddenly.
"First couple forward and back!" shouted Hazel, and away went Rose dragging her chair after her to meet March and his chair–thumpity-thump–thumpity-thump.
They were in dead earnest, and the chairs were made to behave in a most human way.
All went well until they came to the Grand Right and Left; then there arose such a medley of shrieks of laughter, wild wails from the violin, thumps from sixteen chair-legs, and stampings from eight human ones as was never heard before. In a few minutes all was inextricable confusion, and the noise might have been best compared to a Medicine Dance among the Sioux Indians.
Upon this scene Mr. Blossom and Chi, on their return from the wood, looked with amazement.
"They seem to be havin' a regular pow-wow," Chi remarked dryly, as the exhausted dancers and musician sat down, panting for breath, on their wooden partners. "Rose-pose is about as young as any of 'em–but it beats all, how she's shootin' up into womanhood."
"She 's no longer my little Rosebud Blossom," said her father, rather sadly. "I dread the time when the birds begin to fly from the nest, and I see it coming with March and Rose."
Just then Rose caught sight of her father, and ran to him linking her arm in his. "We 've had such fun, father! We 're learning to dance; you must be my partner sometime, for Hazel's going to teach us the schottische next."
Rose never forgot the look of love her father gave her, nor the feel of his hand as he laid it on her hooded head: "Be my little Rose-pose, as long as you can, dear; you 're growing up too fast."
She recalled afterwards that this first dance in the barn marked the last time that she abandoned herself to the children's fun with a girl's careless heart.
The winter twilight was fast closing about the Mountain and the children just returning to the house, when Chi went out to milk. Leaving his lantern, stool, and pails in the first stall, he entered the third one to tie one of the cows to a shorter stanchion. Before he had finished he heard Budd's voice, and, looking over the partition, saw him standing with Hazel in the circle of light about the lantern. In another minute he began to feel like an eavesdropper.
"What did you want me to come here for, Budd?" said Hazel, dancing on the barn floor to warm her feet.
"I want to tell you something," said Budd, blowing on his cold fingers.
"Well, hurry up and tell; it's simply freezing here. Is it a secret?"
"Kinder," replied Budd, blowing harder; then, suddenly ceasing the bellows movement, he drew a step nearer to Hazel, and, putting the tips of his pudgy fingers together to make a triangle, he puckered his mouth solemnly and said, looking up at her with earnest eyes:–
"I 'm very fond of you."
Hazel laughed merrily. "Why, of course you are, you funny boy; you 've always been fond of me, have n't you? I 'm sure I 've always been fond of you. Is that what you kept me out here in the cold to say?"
"Not all;" Budd nodded seriously. "I 'm very fond of you, an'–an' if you 'll take me with all my perfections–I think that's the way it goes–if I have n't got the ring yet, it will be just the same, you know." He paused, and in the circle of light Chi could see the entire earnestness of his attitude.
"Goodness me, Budd! What do you mean about rings and things?"
"I want to marry you when I 'm big–an' I thought I 'd speak 'fore anyone else did to get ahead of 'em." Budd hastened to explain, as Hazel showed signs of impatience.
"Oh, is that all!" Hazel breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought something was the matter with you. Why, of course you 're fond of me, Budd; but I could n't marry you, for I 'm older than you, you know."
"I never thought of that," said Budd, beginning to blink rather suspiciously, "I thought–"
"Now, look here, Budd," said Hazel, in a business-like way; "I think everything of you, too, and I 'll tell you what you can be–"
"What?" interrupted Budd, eagerly, balancing himself on the tips of his toes.
"My knight!" said Hazel, triumphantly, "and wear my colors. I 'll give you a bow of crimson ribbon–I 'm Harvard, you know–and you must wear it till you die. And I have a white kid party glove I 'll give you, too, and that will mean I 'm your lady-love, and it will be just like the days of chivalry, you know we were reading about them the other day."
"And you won't mind about the ring?" queried Budd, rather wistfully.
"Not a bit–a glove is much nicer than a ring, and–"
"Moo–oo–oo–" came from the next stall.
"Oh, goodness gracious! How that made me jump. I 'm not going to stay out here another minute; so come along if you 're coming"–and the knight meekly followed his lady-love into the house.
XIX
A YEAR AND A DAY
"It seems queer to settle down the way we have, ever since Christmas. We had such fun up to that time." Hazel heaved a long sigh as she wrestled with her Latin and the Third Conjugation.
Rose looked up from her Cicero and smiled at the bored expression on Hazel's face. "I know, Latin is awfully dull at first, but when you can read it, you 'll like it. If only you could hear Cicero give this horrid Catiline–the old traitor–'Hail Columbia' as March says, you could n't help liking Latin. Then, too, if we had n't settled down, where would my French have been?"
But Hazel still pouted a little. "I wish papa had n't wanted me to study at all this winter–I don't see why, when Doctor Heath is always talking about its 'effect on my health–'"
She was interrupted by a merry laugh. Rose threw down her Cicero, caught away the grammar from Hazel, and, seizing her by the hand, drew her into the little bedroom. Then, taking her by the shoulders, she whirled her about until she faced the small looking-glass.
"There!" she exclaimed, still laughing, "look at that face before you talk about any 'effect on your health.'"
Hazel looked at the reflection in the mirror, and smiled in spite of herself. What a contrast to what she was a year ago! For to-morrow would be St. Valentine's day. There were real American Beauty roses on her cheeks; the dark eyes were full of sparkling life; the chestnut-brown hair fell in heavy curls upon her shoulders. She had grown tall, too, but rounded in the process, and the healthful, bodily exercise had given her grace of carriage–she was straight as an arrow, and as lithe as a willow wand.
"Perhaps I shall feel more interest when Miss Alton is here, for she is a regular teacher. When is she coming, Rose?"
"The very last of the month, when the spring term opens. It's our turn to have the district-school teacher board with us, and I 've never liked it before. But now I can't wait for Miss Alton to come. I think she 's lovely."
"She is n't half as lovely as you are, Rose," said Hazel, turning suddenly from the glass, in which she had been scrutinizing her reflection, and giving Rose an unexpected squeeze and a hearty kiss. "I think you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, I heard Doctor Heath say so; and–I told Jack so on Christmas night."
"I 'll warrant he did n't agree with you," said Rose, with a pleased smile. "You forget Miss Seaton."
"I know." Hazel shook her head dubiously. "He did n't say a word to me about you–I don't care if he did n't, Rose-pose, you 're worth all the Maude Seatons in the world, and I 'd give anything to have you for my real cousin instead of her, if only Jack–"
"I don't know what you are talking about, Hazel," said Rose, interrupting her shortly and sharply.
"And I don't know why you are speaking to me in that tone, Rose Blossom," retorted Hazel, both angry and hurt. "I 've said nothing I 'm ashamed of, and I shall say it whenever I choose and to whomever I please, so now." She flung out of the room, but not before Rose had laid a firm hand upon her shoulder.
"Hazel Clyde, if ever you speak of that again to anyone, I 'll break friendship with you, see if I don't."
"Break then," Hazel twitched her shoulder from under the detaining hand. "I 'll speak whenever I choose. I only said I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and I wished that you were going to be my real cousin, instead of Miss Seaton, and you need n't get mad just because Jack does n't happen to think as I do–"
"Hazel Clyde!" Rose stamped her foot, "don't you speak another word to me; I 'll not hear it." Rose stuffed both fingers into her ears, and beat an ignominious retreat to her own room, where she shut herself in, and was invisible until tea-time.
The family were late in sitting down to the table, for Mrs. Blossom wanted to wait for Chi, who had driven down to Barton's River to take Mr. Blossom to the train, and had arranged to bring March home with him.
It was seven already. "We won't wait any longer, children," said Mrs. Blossom. "Something must have detained Chi. Budd, you may say 'grace' to-night?" she added as she took her seat.
Budd looked up in amazement. "Why, Martie, Rose is here and you always–"
"That will do, Budd," said his mother, quietly, ignoring the flame that shot up to the roots of Rose's hair, and the cool look of indifference on Hazel's face. Budd folded his pudgy hands and repeated reverently the words he had heard father, or mother, or sister say ever since he could remember. Scarcely had he finished when Tell's deep note of welcome sounded somewhere from the road, and the sleigh-bells rang out on the still air.
"There they are!" cried Cherry. "May I go to meet them?"
"Yes–but put your cape over you, it's so chilly to-night."
In a minute Cherry was back again, every single curl bobbing with excitement.
"Oh, Martie! Chi's bringing in something all done up in the buffalo robe, and March won't tell me what it is."
She was followed by March, who walked up to his mother, put both arms about her and gave her a quiet kiss.
"There, little Mother Blossom, is my valentine for you," he said half-shyly, half-proudly, and placed in her hands his first term's report and a set of books.
"Oh, March, my dear boy!" said his mother, rising from the table and placing both hands on the broad, square shoulders of her six foot specimen of youth, "I 'm afraid I 'm getting too proud of you. Did you get the first Latin prize?"
"You bet I did, Martie." March's rare smile illumined his face. "There is n't another fellow at Barton's, who can boast of such a mother as I have, and I was n't going to let any second-class mothers read those books before you did. By Cicky!" (which was March's favorite name for the famous orator)–"But I 've worked like a Turk, and I 'm hungry as a Russian bear. Why, Rose, what's the matter with you? You look awfully glum, and Hazel, too. Here comes Chi; he's bringing something that will cheer you up. The truth is, mother, these girls miss me."
"Indeed, I do, March?" said Hazel, looking straight up into his eyes and showing the amazed lad tears trembling in her own.
"Guess there 'll be some breakin' of hearts, this year, Mis' Blossom." Chi's cheery voice was welcome to them all for some unknown reason. He came in loaded with huge pasteboard boxes.
"Your arms will break first, Chi," said Mrs. Blossom, hastening with March to relieve him.
"It ain't the heft of 'em, it's the bulk. Valentines are generally pretty light weight. Romancin' 'n' sentiment don't count for much, nowadays, though they take up considerable room." He deposited the last box on the settle. "'N' there's a whole parcel of things come by mail. I ain't looked at the superscribin's–you read 'em out, Rose-pose."
Rose read the addresses; there was more than one missive for each member of the family.
"Let's have supper, first, mother," said March, "then, after the table is cleared, we can sit round and guess who they 're from."
This proposition was welcomed by Budd and Cherry. Rose and Hazel gave a cordial assent, but there was a frigidity in the atmosphere which the outside temperature did not warrant. Chi and March were aware of this so soon as they entered the room, and Mrs. Blossom had known it the moment she saw the girls' faces at the table. She thought it not wise to interfere, but let matters straighten themselves in good time. She felt she could trust them both to see things in their right light, without the aid of her mental glasses.
"Now let's begin," said Chi, rubbing his hands in glee as, directly after supper, he piled the boxes on the table while March laid the envelopes in their proper places before each member of the family. "This top one says 'Miss Hazel Clyde.' Show us your valentine, Ladybird."
"They 're violets–from Jack, I know. He always sends them. What's yours, Rose?" She spoke rather indifferently.
"Oh, roses!" Rose was having the first look all to herself. "The loveliest things I have ever seen. Look, Martie!" Rose held up the mass of exquisite bloom, and the children oh'ed and ah'ed at the sight.
"They 're from Mr. Sherrill," said Rose, trying to speak in a most common-place tone, but, in her excitement, failing signally.
"They are lovely," Hazel remarked, shooting an indignant glance at Rose. "They're just like the ones he sent Miss Seaton last year, only they were formed into a great heart. Papa gave me one just like it; he got his idea from Jack."
Rose suddenly put down the flowers, in which she had buried her face to inhale their fragrance, as if something had stung her.
"Mr. Sherrill is very impartial with his favors," she said in a tone that increased the pervading chill of the domestic atmosphere.
"Why, Rose!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "It is not like you to receive a favor so ungraciously; you 've never had flowers sent you before, and I 'm sure you would never have them again if the donor could witness your reception of them."
"I don't care for them again, thank you." Rose retorted with flaming cheeks; "I 'd give more for this of yours, Chi–" she opened a huge yellow envelope, and took from it a scarlet cardboard heart, with a small, white, artificial rose glued to the centre and a gilt paper arrow transfixing both rose and heart.
Chi hemmed rather awkwardly, thinking: "Beats the Dutch what's got into Rose-pose to-night. I ain't ever known her to treat a livin' soul so shabby as that in all her life. Beats all what gets into women 'n' girls, sometimes; when a feller thinks he's doin' 'em just the best turn he knows how, they up 'n' get mad with him, 'n' turn the cold shoulder, 'n' upset things generally." But aloud he said:
"I 'm glad it pleases you, Rose. Can't most always tell when it's goin' to please a girl or not. I suppose Jack, now, thought you 'd be tickled to get those posies just in the dead of winter. They don't grow round here on our bushes. What's in the other box?"
"Why!" Hazel exclaimed, laughing rather half-heartedly, "it's addressed to 'Miss Maria-Ann Simmons'–and just look, Mother Blossom! See what that dear old Jack has sent her! He's just too dear for anything." She added emphatically;–"I 'd like to give him a kiss for thinking of that poor girl all alone over there on the Mountain. I don't believe she ever had a valentine before. Look! Oh, look!"
She took out of the many layers of wadding a mass of yellow tulips, their closed golden cups shining in the lamp-light as if gilded by sunbeams.
"Sho!" was all Chi said, leaning nearer to examine the beautiful blossoms.
"You 'll take them over in the morning, early, won't you, Chi?" said Hazel, replacing them.
"First thing, Lady-bird; guess you 're right, Rose, about that young feller's bein' 'n all-round man with his favors. Don't seem to be much choice between you and Marier-Ann, 'n' that Miss Seaver. Kind of a toss-up, hey, Rose-pose?"
But Rose was too busy with another package to answer Chi. She grew wildly enthusiastic over the calla lilies that Alan Ford had sent her, and caressed their white envelopes, and praised their pure loveliness, until Hazel, growing jealous for poor Jack and his discarded gift, rose to put the neglected beauties in water, saying as she did so:
"I 'm sure, Rose, if Jack had known you cared so much for lilies, he would have sent you some Easter ones, they 're out now. I 'll tell him to next time."
"Hazel!" Rose burst forth indignantly, "do you mean to tell me you told Mr. Sherrill to send me these flowers for a valentine?"
Then Hazel, stung by the tone and the words, yielded to temptation–for it had been the last straw. "What if I did?" she said with irritating calm, "he 's my cousin. I suppose I can say what I choose to him."
Rose answered never a word; but, rising, took the La France roses from the pitcher in which Hazel had just placed them, and, going over to the fireplace, deliberately cast the mass of delicate pink bloom into the fire.
Mrs. Blossom looked both puzzled and shocked; this was wholly unlike Rose. What could it mean? The children were too awed by the proceeding to speak or exclaim. March looked gravely at Hazel, who burst into tears–it was such an insult to Jack!–and rushed into her bedroom and shut the door.
"I 'm going to bed; good-night, Martie," said Rose, quietly, after she had watched the last leaf shrivel in the flame, and, kissing her mother, she lighted her candle and went upstairs. Mrs. Blossom, following her with her eyes, felt that she had lost her "little Rose" in that hour.
March looked grave, complained of feeling tired, and said he would go to bed, too, as to-morrow was the last day of school and there were two more examinations to take. Budd and Cherry kissed their mother twice, bade her good-night in suppressed tones and crept upstairs. "It's just as if somebody was sick in the house," said Cherry, in an awed voice. Budd's was sepulchral:–
"It's just as if somebody was dead and all the flowers had come for the funeral."
Across the dining-room table, loaded with boxes and brilliant with valentines, Chi looked at Mrs. Blossom, and Mrs. Blossom looked at Chi. The whole affair was so incomprehensible, and the result so painfully disagreeable, that, for a while, they found no words with which to give expression to their feelings. Chi broke the silence:–
"Well! I wish I was one of those clairivoyants they tell about, 'n' could kind of see into the meanin' of this flare-up of Rose-pose's. Don't seem natural for Rose to go flyin' off at a tangent that way. What's she got against him, anyway? He 's about as likely as you 'll find. Beats me!" Chi leaned both elbows on the table, unmindful that he was crushing some of the flowers, sank his chin in the palms of his hands and thought hard for full a minute.
"I know Hazel and Rose have had some little trouble this afternoon–the first quarrel they have had–but Rose is too old to allow herself to lose her control in that way. I can't imagine what made her–" Mrs. Blossom broke off suddenly, for Chi had raised his head and sent such a look of intelligence across the table, handing her, as he did so, Jack Sherrill's card, which Rose in her confusion had neglected to read, that, in a flash, something of the truth was revealed to Mrs. Blossom.
She took the card. On the back was written, enclosed in quotation marks:–
"For I am thine
Whilst the stars shall shine,
To the last–to the last."
"O Chi!" was all Mary Blossom said; but the tears filled her eyes, and, reaching across the table, her hand was clasped in Chi's strong one.
"I wish Ben was to home," sighed Chi, so lugubriously that Mrs. Blossom laughed through her tears.
"Oh, it is n't so bad as that, Chi. Girls will be girls, and grow up, and hearts will ache even when we 're young. We won't make too much of it. I don't understand the ins and outs of it, but I do know Hazel has said her family thought he was engaged to Miss Seaton. I 'm sure I 've thought so all along, and it never occurred to me there could be any danger for Rose under the circumstances. The mere fact of his name being connected so closely with Miss Seaton's would be a safeguard. Then, too, I fear he is spoiled by women on account of his riches."
"I don't know about that Miss Seaver,–but if it's as you say, I kind of wish Rose could cut her out."
"Sh-sh, Chi!" said Mrs. Blossom, reprovingly.
"Well, I do," Chi retorted with some warmth. "She ain't fit to tie Rose's old berryin' shoes, 'n' I saw her lookin' at her feet that day we was sellin' berries down to Barton's to the tavern, 'n' snickerin' so mean like, 'n' Rose just showed her grit–'n' I wish she'd show it again 'n' cut her out. I do, by George Washin'ton!" Chi rose up in his wrath, lighted his lantern, and started for the shed. At the door he turned:–
"I wish Ben was to home," he said again. "There 's goin' to be the biggest kind of a snow-down before long, 'n' he 'll get blocked on the road, sure as blazes."
"He 'll be back in two days, at the most, Chi; I would n't worry."
"I ain't worryin'; I 'm just sayin' I wish he was to home," repeated Chi, doggedly, and shut the door.
Mrs. Blossom smiled. She knew Chi's crotchets. When there was any disturbance of the family peace, Chi was apt to be depressed, and sometimes despondent. She put away the flowers in the cold pantry, smiling as she tied up Maria-Ann's box:
"He is universal," she said to herself. "I know it irritated Rose to be classed with her and Miss Seaton; but things will work around right with time. I can trust to Rose's common-sense.–Not a prayer to-night!" she added thoughtfully. "Well, we 'll make it up to-morrow." She took up the prize books. "That dear March! What a manly fellow he is getting to be–and so handsome. I wonder–" here Mary Blossom checked herself, laughing softly. "Goodness! if Ben were here what a goose he would think me–a regular old Mother Goose–" And again she laughed as she put out the light.