“My daughter, have you been to see Mr. Brook?”
“Yes,’m, I have. I’ve dined with him. At the Astor House. In a private parlor. But that wasn’t the beginning of the story. You should let people begin at the beginning, Mother dear.”
“Begin at the beginning, Beatrice.”
The recital was given, amid the comments and illustrations of the youngest Beckwith; no details were omitted, and it ended with the question: “If this good friend of our grandfather’s finds some place that we could live in the country, would you go, Mother?”
“For my own part, I should be glad to go. But your education, the different careers which may be open to you here, my children, these must be considered first. All the young people are leaving the country places and flocking to the towns, if we are to believe the articles we read. If those who have been born and reared in the country cannot make a decent livelihood there, how can we expect to do so?”
“Well, you see, Motherkin! we’re all geniuses! That’s the theory we are living on now; and a genius can do what no less gifted mortal can! But all jesting aside, Mr. Brook agrees with the doctor that your health would be a great deal better in a country place than here; and I’ll risk the rest of the question for that great gain. So should you, if you love us.”
“Well, well, dearie. The question is not to be met to-night. But those oysters you brought in and dropped so disdainfully upon the floor will taste very nicely to us who have not dined at the Astor House upon roast turkey and other good things galore. Would you object to broiling me a few?”
After all, the day ended merrily. The Beckwiths had a faculty of making mirth out of trifles, and it kept them all from growing sour or cross-grained over the inevitable hardnesses of their lot in life. Roland brought out his banjo and forgot the day’s hopeless search for a new situation in the picking up of a melody that had caught his ear. Belle worked hard to make a realistic “study” of chrysanthemums from the two or three which Beatrice had left behind her that morning on her mother’s kitchen table. Mrs. Beckwith “outlined” a pattern against the next day’s finer embroidering; Robert played at jack-straws till he had “beaten himself” a satisfying number of times; while Beatrice moved everywhere about the little home, putting away scattered papers and books, dusting carefully each nook and corner, and finally sitting down to peruse a cook-book in the hope of finding some desirable dish for the next day’s dinner which would cost next to nothing in the concocting.
A busy week followed, busy for all save Roland, and yet even for him, though his labors were without apparent result; and then the postman brought the letter which all except Bonny had nearly forgotten, the letter that Mr. Brook was to write after consultation with his sister, Miss Joanna.
It was “Humpty-Dumpty” who received the communication from the messenger and flew upstairs with it, crying out: “I bet this is the country letter! I bet it’s Mr. Brook has found a home for us an’ a horse! Read it, won’t you, Motherkin, quick?”