CHAPTER ELEVEN
"'Lit-tle ones to him be-long,
Vey are weak, but he is strong.'
"Mam-ma-a-a!" Mac's burst of psalmody ended in a roar.
"Yes, Mac. Here I am."
"Where?"
"Upstairs, packing."
Mac toiled up the stairs and into his mother's room.
"I fought maybe you wanted to see me," he observed. "What for you putting all vose fings into ve box?"
"Because we are going to see grandpapa and Aunt Teddy, and then we are all going to the seashore."
"What is ve seashore?"
"The ocean, the great, broad blue water without any edge to it, where the waves keep tumbling over and over on the beach."
"What's beach?" he demanded. Always used to the mountains, the phraseology of the sea was a new tongue to him.
"It's the edge of the water," his mother said absently, while she tried to fold an organdie gown to the best advantage.
"But you said vere wouldn't be any edge," he protested, for he was nothing if not logical, and he insisted upon logic from others.
"Well, never mind now. Run away, dear, and I'll tell you about it, some other time."
But Mac festooned himself across the open box couch.
"No; sometime isn't ever, and I wants to hear it now. I do 'clare, mamma, you've put in my best coat." And before she could stop him, he had pounced upon it and pulled it out, upsetting a superstratum of gowns in the process.
"Mac, let that be."
"But I want it, mamma. I want to wear it. I look just too sweet in it."
"Mac!"
"Well, vat's what Lizabuf said. Will Lizabuf go too?"
"No."
"Who will take care of me, and put me into my coatsleeves ven?"
"I shall."
"I'd ravver have Lizabuf. Oh, mamma, is vat your swishy dress? It's so beautiful!" This time, Mac lost his balance and plunged headlong into the trunk. For one moment, his chubby legs waved in the air; then his mother seized him and set him down in a chair at the farther side of the room.
"Now, Mac, I want you to stay there," she said with decision.
There was a brief silence. Then Mac remarked,—
"You act and look awful bangy, to-day, mamma, just as if you were going to sweep rooms right away."
Five days later, Mrs. Holden acknowledged to herself that she felt "bangy." It was her first long journey without her husband and, less independent than her sisters, she would have dreaded it in any case. Without Mr. Holden, the trip was an undertaking; with Mac, it was almost insupportable. She embarked with a lunch basket, with picture books and with theories. She landed, a chastened woman. Within twelve hours, the basket was empty, the picture books were in shreds, and Mac, bareheaded, coated with cinders and wreathed in smiles, was prancing up and down the car, heedless of her admonitions. By day, the other passengers petted him and encouraged him to all manner of pertnesses. At night, they murmured, not always among themselves, when he waked up and in stentorian tones demanded a drink. No child of three is altogether a desirable companion on a long journey, least of all McAlister Holden. Small wonder that it was a pale and haggard Hope who drove up to The Savins, one night in late June, while Mac was as vivacious as at the start!
He went through the introductions with the nonchalance of his years, though he resisted Theodora's efforts to kiss him, and sniffed disdainfully at Phebe who was trying for her sister's sake to conceal her dislike of children. By Mrs. McAlister's side, he paused and looked straight up into her face. Then he tucked his hand into hers confidingly.
"Are you my grandma?"
"Yes, dear."
"Why, you look too new," he said frankly, and then put up his rosy lips for a kiss. For the moment, the cherub side was uppermost, and his mother, as she reflected upon the permanence of first impressions, rejoiced that it was so, and she hurried the child off to bed, for fear he might do something to destroy the illusion.
"Mamma," he said sleepily, as she left him, to go down for her own dinner; "will you please tell me just vis much?"
"Well?"
"Were you a mamma when you lived here before?"
"No, Mac."
"And now you've grown out into a beautifully mamma. Good-night!" And he went to sleep with the saintly side of his character still uppermost.
The Farringtons and Cicely dined at The Savins; but, directly after dinner, Cicely excused herself and went home to do some practising.
"No; I suppose it could wait," she said to Allyn who followed her to the door; "but it must be done some time. It is ages since you were all here together, and you ought to be just by yourselves to-night."
"But you are one of the family," Allyn protested.
"That's nice of you, Allyn; but it isn't quite the same thing. Besides, if I practise now, I shall have more time for fun, to-morrow. Go back to your sister. Isn't she a dear?"
"Yes, Hope is a good one," Allyn said, though without much enthusiasm; "but Ted is worth ten of her, according to my notions." And Cicely nodded up at him in token of agreement.
By the time dinner was over, the evening had grown chilly, and the
McAlisters drew up their chairs around the open fire.
"All here once more, thank God!" the doctor said contentedly, as he settled himself between Theodora and Mrs. Holden.
"This seems just like the good old times," Theodora added. "It's five years since we were all here together, like this. Doesn't it make you feel as if you had never been away, Hope?"
"Yes, almost. If Allyn weren't quite so grown up and Billy so lively, I should believe we were children again. Ted, do you remember the first night that Archie came here?"
"The night I went slumming and stole the child? I should say I did. Archie didn't take it kindly at all, when he found the infant in his bed."
"That reminds me, papa," Phebe said abruptly; "Isabel and I want to take some fresh-air children, next week."
"Why, Babe, I don't see how you can," Theodora remonstrated.
"I didn't ask you, Teddy. I have thought it all over, and I can't see any objections. I should take all the care of it, and I want to do it."
"But the house is so full, Babe," Mrs. McAlister said. "There isn't any room for one."
"It could sleep on the lounge in my room. I wouldn't let it trouble you any. It is a fine charity, and this is such a good place for a child to play. Isabel will take one for a week, if I will, and I said I would. There is just time, before I go away," Phebe said with an air of finality which would have ended the subject, had it not been for Allyn's last shot,—
"They'd better get its life insured, then, for there's no telling how long it will be before Babe takes it as a subject for her scalpel."
"Don't be foolish, Allyn," Phebe returned; but Hubert interposed,—
"Isn't Archie going to come on at all, this summer, Hope?"
"I'm afraid not. Summer is his busy time, and he will be out in camp till snow flies."
"I don't see the use of having that kind of a husband," Phebe observed severely.
"You like the kind like me better; don't you, Babe?"
"No; I should get sick of having you everlastingly around the house, Billy. I want a man to have hours and stick to them, not keep running in and out. I sha'n't marry. If I did, I would insist on a ten-hour law; then I could be sure of getting some time to myself."
"Archie lives on a ten-month law," his wife said regretfully. "Of course, I can go out to camp to be with him; but it's not good for Mac. He picks up all the talk of the miners and retails it at inopportune times, and runs wild generally. Archie usually comes home for a day, every two or three weeks; but, this year, he is too far out for that, so I thought it was best for me to come East now."
"You had an easy journey; didn't you?" Hubert asked.
"Yes; at least, as easy as it could be with Mac."
"I think you have slandered Mac," Mrs. McAlister observed. "He seems as gentle as a cooing dove."
Hope and Theodora exchanged glances, as Hubert said laughingly,—
"That's because he paid you a compliment. Your judgment isn't a fair one."
But Hope only added,—
"Wait and see what the morrow may bring forth."
The morrow brought forth Mac, rested, refreshed, ready for mischief. Before breakfast was on the table, he had had an unfriendly interview with Patrick, had come into collision with Melchisedek, and Mrs. McAlister met him hurriedly retiring from the kitchen with both hands full of fried potatoes. The next that was seen of him, he was playing horse on the front lawn, and Allyn was the horse. Even in his brief survey of the family, the night before, Mac had come to a decision upon two points. He did not like his Aunt Phebe; he did like his Uncle Allyn. And Allyn, unaccustomed to children though he was, promptly became the slave of his imperious young nephew.
"Oh, Hope, it is good to have you here," Theodora said, with a tempestuous embrace, when Mrs. Holden appeared at the door of the writing-room, that morning.
"Then I am not in the way?"
"Not a bit. I'm not writing, to-day; I can't settle myself, when I know you are within reach."
"Perhaps I'd better go back to Helena," Hope suggested.
"No; I shall calm down in time; but I never get used to having you so far away. It never seems quite right, when the rest of us are all here together."
"I am a little terrified at the prospect of the coming week," Hope said, as she sat down on the couch and looked across the lawn to where Mac was playing.
"What now?"
"Babe is to have her fresh-air child."
"Hope! You don't mean it?"
"Yes, she has coaxed papa into giving his consent. Is it a new idea to you?"
Theodora dropped her duster, and sat down beside her sister.
"It's new to us all," she said despairingly. "We never heard of it till last night. What will that girl do next? She detests children, and she has about as much idea of discipline as she has about—raising poultry. It is Isabel St. John's doing, I know. She is Babe's best-beloved friend; and where one leads, the other will follow."
"Babe seems to be in earnest about it," Hope said charitably.
"She's in earnest about everything—by fits and starts. It only doesn't last. She seems to be losing something of her medical fervor, and probably this is taking its place. I suppose she has met somebody who slums for a living, and the idea enchants her. I used to have aspirations that way, myself; but I am coming to the conclusion that for me charity begins at home, and that it counts for more to make Billy comfortable than to make his life a burden with my hobbies."
"Blunt as ever, Teddy?" Hope's laugh had no sting.
"Yes. I haven't reformed yet. Things 'rile' me, just as they used to, things and people. I'm a good hater, Hope." There was a suspicious glitter in her eyes; but it vanished, as Hope's hand touched her own.
"And a good lover, too, dear. I wasn't criticising, for I think you are in the right of it. But Babe really seems rather practical. She only wants the child for a week, and she agrees to take all the care of it and give it its meals away from the table."
"Yes; but what will she do with it?" Theodora's tone showed her perplexity. "There's no telling what may happen in the course of a week. She will test all the theories of all the cranks on the one poor baby, one theory a day, and by the end of the week, there won't be any baby left to send home again."
"My chief worry is for Mac," Hope said resignedly.
"Oh, I don't think the child will hurt him," Theodora reassured her.
"They won't dare send a very bad one."
"No; but it may work the other way about. I am a good deal more worried in regard to Mac's effect on the child, and—"
"Mam-ma!"
"No, Mac. I told you that you mustn't come here. This is Aunt Teddy's house, and people don't come here, unless she invites them."
The door swung open a little way, and a chubby face appeared in the crack.
"Ven please 'vite me now, Aunt Teddy."
"You may come in, Mac."
Mac came in, wriggled his fat little body into the narrow space between his mother and his aunt, and gave a sigh of relief.
"Vere," he said gravely; "we're all fixed nice, Aunt Teddy, just ve way my mamma does when she's going to give me somefing good to eat."