“I dunno what Judson’ll say,” returned Aunt Mandy, somewhat sadly. “He’s got so wonted to her, he’ll be heart-broke, I’m afraid.” And so the consultation closed.
The matter did not end here, for Aunt Abby, “sot in her way,” as Uncle Jud had often said, yet in reality only advocating what she felt was best for this homeless waif, now began a persuasive campaign. She enlarged on Christmas Cove, its excellent school and capable master, its social advantages and cultured people, who boasted a public library and debating society, and especially its summer attractions, when a few dozen city people sojourned there. Its opportunities for church-going also came in for praise, though if this worthy woman had known how Chip felt about that feature, it would have been left unmentioned.
“The girl needs religious influence and contact with believers, as well as schooling,” she said later on to Aunt Mandy, “and that must be considered. Here she can have none, and will grow up a heathen. I certainly think she ought to go back with me for a year or two, at least, and then we can decide what is best.”
“Thar’s one thing ye ain’t thought ’bout,” Mandy answered, “an’ that’s her sense o’ obligation. From what she’s told me, ’twas that that made her run away from whar she was, ’n’ she’d run away from here if she didn’t feel she was earnin’ her keep. She’s peculiar in that way, ’n’ can’t stand feelin’ she’s dependent. How you goin’ to get round that?”
“Just as you do,” returned Aunt Abby, not at all discouraged. “We live about as you do, as you know, only Mr. Bemis has the mill; and she can help me about the house, as she does here.”
But Chip’s own consent to this new plan was the hardest to obtain.
“I’ll do just as Uncle Jud wants me to,” she responded, when Aunt Abby proposed the change; “but I’d hate to go ’way from here. It’s all the real sort o’ home I’ve ever known, and they’ve been so good to me I’ll have to cry when I leave it. You’d let me come here once in a while, wouldn’t ye?”
As she seemed ready to cry at this moment, Aunt Abby wisely dropped the subject then and there; in fact, she did not allude to it again in Chip’s presence.
But Aunt Abby carried her point with the others. Uncle Jud consented very reluctantly, Aunt Mandy also yielded after much more persuasion, and when Aunt Abby’s visit terminated, poor Chip’s few belongings were packed in a new telescope case; she kissed Aunt Mandy, unable to speak, and this tearful parting was repeated at the station with Uncle Jud. When the train had vanished he wiped his eyes on his coat sleeves, climbed into his old carryall, and drove away disconsolate.
“Curis, curis, how a gal like that ’un’ll work her way into a man’s feelin’s,” he said to himself. “It ain’t been three months since I picked her up, ’n’ now her goin’ away seems like pullin’ my heart out.”