The Land of Content

by Edith Barnard Delano

Rosamund laughed; she would have laughed at anything to-day. "Not a riddle—an answer, Yetta! You and Timmy, Mrs. Reeves and I, are all going to live together in the brown house at the Summit! What do you think of that?"

"Sho', now! That's the very ticket!" said Mother Cary. "How come you didn't think o' Mis' Reeves yesterday, lamb? But—ain't she held by that Mis' Hetherbee?"

"Yes, she is; but I think we can persuade Mrs. Hetherbee to let her come."

"Gee! I'd be glad to get away from that old one, if 'twas me!" said Yetta, in an aside which the others thought best to ignore.

"Pap," said Mother Cary, "if so be you'll put the harness on Ben, Miss Rose and me'll drive over an' begin cleanin' the house this mornin'!"

The old man put down his knife and fork, looked from his wife to Miss Randall, and back again. "It do beat all how you women-folks jump into the middle o' things the minute you get started," he said. "The house ain't even empty yet!"

"Land, I forgot all about them Marvens," said Mother Cary. "No matter! It gives us all the more time to get good an' ready, honey-bird!"

Rosamund very soon began to realize that she needed time. First of all, she sent for her man of business, an excellent person who lacked imagination, and was later found to disapprove of purchases of little brown houses or of anything else that could never bring interest or increase in value. But his disapproval of that investment was as nothing to the objections he made to another. It was not until Rosamund reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone, releasing the Randall property from all trust and making it now her own, and declared that if he refused to obey her directions she would be obliged to ask someone else to look after her interests, that he reluctantly consented to it.

Then there was the delicate matter of bringing Eleanor to consent to her plans.

DARLING ELEANOR [she wrote]: I have decided that Timmy must be adopted. I make the announcement first of all, because I know that if I did not mention him at once, you would skip all the first part of my letter until you found his name, and only read on from there. And I have a proposition which needs to be presented right end foremost. So—Tim must be adopted. He has his heart set upon it; and he has turned out to be such a darling little boy. He cannot be sent back to the Charities, to be looked over and refused by people who would not appreciate him, anyway. Doctor Ogilvie says that he must stay here another year, if he is to be made entirely well; but unless he has the best of care after that, and is made happy, he will not live to be the good and useful man we should like to see him. Doctor Ogilvie is a great believer in the curative powers of happiness; and you know he is a very good doctor. Well—I have already made over to Tim some money, to be held in trust for him until he is twenty-five. The entire interest is to be given, until said time, to the adopted parent of said Tim, according to said agreement, for the use and maintenance of said parent and said Tim, the entire amount to be paid over to him twenty-one years after the execution of the deed of trust. I do hope you are properly impressed by that legal phraseology, Eleanor darling. I put in all the 'saids' I could, just as the lawyers do. I want you to see what a fine and wonderful thing it is for Timmy, Timmy the waif, to be the subject of anything so impressive; and the sum of money I have given him will provide simple comfort for him and his parent-by-adoption; only, of course, I must be sure that his parent is a person whom I can trust to spend it as it should be spent, and so to bring up the boy that he will be worthy of his—let's call it his inheritance—when he finally receives it. So it has all been done subject to one condition. Unless that condition should be fulfilled, the child will have to go back to the Charities; I had a great discussion about it all with Mr. Leeds, my lawyer; and he only consented to draw up the paper subject to that condition. It is that—oh, Eleanor, don't say 'no'!—it is that you will adopt little Tim, let him fill that empty place in your heart, teach him to be a good man, and—I shall spoil it if I write another word, dear White Lady, sweet White Lady, White Lady that Timmy loves! See this blur, Eleanor—it is where he has pressed a kiss, to send to his White Lady. R.