“My! But I’m glad! Does seem as if some wonderful things has happened this day, just as you say. So many ’t I’m getting real nervous. I hope nothing more will till I get over this. We said ’twas to be a ‘rest,’ this trip, and I haven’t never had so many upsets in the same length o’ time before. Land of love! What next? There’s wheels coming down the road and nobody’s been to get in provision, if it happens to be company to dinner. Mrs. Calvert hasn’t much sense that way. Seems sometimes as if she’d like to ask all creation to meals without regard to victuals. Peek under that tree. Can you see? Don’t it appear like the doctor’s rig? It is! And there’s a man with him —two men! As sure as preaching I’ll warrant you your Aunt Betty’ll ask these folks to dinner!”
Dorothy obediently “peeked.” Then stood up and rubbed her eyes. Then peeked once more and with a wild cry of delight bounded over the gang-plank to the bank beyond, straight into the arms of a gray, vigorous old man, whose coming was the most wonderful event of all that day’s strange happenings.
CHAPTER XVII.
CONCLUSION
“Uncle Seth! Oh! is it you – truly – really – you darling Uncle Seth? Now, indeed, this is the most wonderful day in all my life! I am so glad – so glad!”
“Same little, dear, enthusiastic Dorothy! Well, my child, I reckon I’m as glad as you. But have you no greeting for your old acquaintance, Mr. Stinson? or a ‘Howdy’ for the doctor? He and I are old friends, let me tell you. I’ve known him since he was a mighty small boy.”
Dorothy released Mr. Winters and made her pretty obeisance to the gentlemen with him, while the good doctor added to his friend’s statement:
“Yes, indeed, since I was big enough to walk alone. It was he who taught me my letters, sent me to school at his own expense, gave me my start in life. What I don’t owe your grand ‘Uncle Seth’ couldn’t be told. But, hello! What’s up? Josephine? Eunice? So they’ve at last called upon my house-boat friends, have they? And – my eyes!”
As the three newcomers stepped to the ground and started across the gang-plank, the doctor did, indeed, rub his eyes and stare. He had not forgotten that this was the tenth anniversary of his wedding and knew that his wife would prepare some pleasant surprise for him, after her custom of celebrating, but he was more than surprised this time to see his father-in-law standing on the little deck, holding Eunice in his arms and – yes, actually smiling! But the physician was a man of few words. Shaking the Colonel’s hand in the most ordinary fashion he said: “Good morning, father;” and in that brief salutation the alienation of ten years was bridged, and was never referred to again by either side.
“Well, Cousin Seth. Better late than never;” was Aunt Betty’s characteristic greeting of her most trusted friend. But the light of relief that spread over her lovely old face was more eloquent than words.
Five minutes later, the doctor’s party had gone. Mrs. Calvert did just what Mrs. Bruce had prophesied she would – invited them all to dinner, but the invitation was declined.
“Our anniversary, you know. Cook has a grand dinner waiting for us at home and it wouldn’t do to disappoint her. Father, you get in with the doctor. Eunice and I will ride close behind. And look here, Wicky Stillwell! What’s to hinder you two boys, you and Corny, following along in your wagon yonder with the monkeys’ cage? You can share our fine fixings, just as we used when we were little and you ran away from home to ‘Joe’s,’ whenever there were ‘doings’ at the Manor House. Oh! I’m so happy! I feel like a little girl again and just be dear good little boys and come. Will you?”
Of course they went. Mrs. Josephine had a way of getting her will of other people, and this time it was a relief even to hospitable Aunt Betty to have only her own family about her. When the rumble of wheels had died away she called Mr. Winters from his inspection of the Water Lily and bade him:
“Give an account of yourself, please. Why haven’t you come before and why have you come now? Come everybody, come and listen. Let dinner wait till we learn what news this man has in his budget.”
So they gathered about him while he explained:
“I wanted to come at the very beginning of the trip but, also, I wanted to see what my Dorothy would do with her ‘elephant’ of a house-boat. Engineer Stinson, here, wrote me about the breaking of the engine and your plans for a simpler outing because of it. I tried to get him to come back to you and take the job in hand but he had other engagements and couldn’t then. So I reasoned that it wouldn’t do any of you a bit of harm to live thus quietly for a few weeks, till he was at liberty. He is now and has come, bringing all the necessary stuff to work with as far as Jimpson’s.
“To make a long story short: I propose; ‘everybody willing and nobody saying no,’ as Dolly used to premise in making her plans, to pole back there; to get the engine into first-class order; and then to take a real cruise in this beautiful Water Lily all down this side the Bay and up along the Eastern Sho’. Cousin Betty shall visit her beloved Severn; we’ll see the middies at Annapolis; touch here and there at the historic points; do anything, in fact, that anybody most desires. For, by and by, these idle days must give place to days of discipline, when our small hostess, here, will resume her education in the faraway northland of Canada. What will befall her there? Ah! well. That we must wait to learn from time, and from the forthcoming story of
“Meanwhile, the autumn is at its best. October on the old Chesapeake is just glorious, with occasional storms thrown in to make us grateful for this safe, snug little craft. Mr. Stinson says he wouldn’t be afraid to trust it on the Atlantic, even, but we’ll not do that. We’ll just simply fill these remaining days of Dorothy’s vacation with the – time of our lives! All in favor, say Aye. Contrary – no.”
As he finished the “Learned Blacksmith” drew his beloved ward to his side and looked into her sparkling eyes, asking:
“Well, Dolly Doodles, what say?”
“Aye, aye, aye!”
“Aye, aye, aye!” rose almost deafening from every throat.
“Then, Mrs. Bruce, since all that is settled bid Chloe get to work and give these travelers the very best dinner ever cooked in our little galley;” said Mrs. Calvert, in her gayest manner.
Yet as she spoke, her eyes rested lovingly upon the beautiful Copse and the sadness which any parting brings to the old fell upon her. Till cheerful old Seth, her lifelong friend, sat down beside her, with Dorothy snuggling to him and talked as only he could talk – always of the future, rarely of the past.
“Look ahead – lend a hand.”
They were to do that still. And in this “look ahead” Dorothy was asked:
“What shall you do with the Water Lily, when this year’s cruise is over?”
“Is it really, truly mine, to do with exactly as I want?”
“Surely, child, your Uncle Seth isn’t an ‘Injun giver’!” he answered, smiling.
“Then I want to make it over to somebody, whoever’s best, for the use of poor, or crippled, or unhappy children and folks. Darling Elsa said in the beginning it would be ‘a cruise of loving kindness’ and seems if it had been. I don’t mean me – not anything I’ve had a chance to do – only the way you’ve always showed me about ‘leadings’ and ‘links in the chain of life’ you know. So many such beautiful things have happened beside all the funny ones. The Stillwells finding out about each other, and Mr. Corny ‘turning over a new leaf’ to take better care of his folks; Gerald and Aurora learning to be gentle to everybody; those Manor House people making up; and darling Elsa growing happy, just like other girls. None of these things would have happened if the dear old Water Lily hadn’t brought them all together. I’d like Elsa and her father to be the real heads of it, with that sweet Lucetta and her babies next. They should keep it just for charity, or goodness – to whoever needs that! What do you say? Aunt Betty, Uncle Seth?”
What could they say but most heartily commend this unselfish wish. This approval made Dorothy so glad and gave her so much to think about that she almost forgot to be sorry when she took her last glance at beloved Deer-Copse upon the Ottawotta.
“Look ahead.”
It was all still to come; the fine trip which Mr. Seth had planned and the joyful return home; the bestowal of the house-boat for its winter’s rest; a little time of preparation; and then the new life at Oak Knowe, the great school in the north which was to mark the next change in Dorothy’s happy life.
Swiftly the future becomes the present, then the past; and it seemed to all the voyagers upon the Water Lily that they had hardly sailed away from Halcyon Point, to begin their eventful trip, than they were sailing up to it again, whistle blowing, flags flying, and every soul on board, from Aunt Betty down to little Metty, singing with all fervor:
“Home, sweet, sweet Home!
Be it ever so humble – there’s no place like home.”