"Don't cry, mother! Dearest mother Martha, please, please, don't cry! You've never done it, never; in all my life I haven't seen you, no matter what happened. If you cry we can't do anything, and I'm going to help you. Maybe we won't have to go away. Maybe something perfectly splendid will happen to prevent. Maybe darling father will get well, just resting from his mail route. Surely, nobody could fix him nicer nourishments than you can, if we can afford it. Maybe we shall be able to afford—Oh! if only I could tell you something! Something that would make you happy again!"
Mother Martha ceased weeping and smiled into the tender eyes of the devoted child who had so well repaid her own generosity. Then she wiped both their faces and in quite a matter-of-fact way bade Dorothy sit down, quietly, while she told her some necessary things. One: that in the morning she should be sent to the post-office, to receive the envelope containing the ten dollars due for her own board. Mrs. Chester had arranged with the new postman about it and there would be no difficulty. There was never a word written with these payments. The postman's address was on the outside the envelope, which was never registered, had never gone astray, and had never held more than the solitary crisp ten-dollar bill expected.
"We shall need all the money we can get in hand, for the expenses of our moving will be heavy—for us. I'm going to see some real-estate men and decide whether it is best to sell, or rent, this house. I shall be very busy. John isn't to stay at the hospital but a week, and so by the end of this coming one I want to be in our new home. I rather dread the journey, though we can easily make it in a day—or less. But your father thinks he can get along real well on crutches, that we'll have to buy, of course; and I've noticed that people on the street cars, even, are always kind and helpful to invalids. John believes that it's a good, jolly old world, and you and I must try to believe the same. He says there's lots of truth in the saying: 'He that would have friends must show himself friendly.' I reckon nobody ever turned a friendlier face toward others than John has, and that's why everybody loves him so.
"Now, dearie, fetch me my Bible and I'll read awhile. I don't feel as if I'd had any real Sunday, yet. Then, by and by, you may make me a cup of tea and we'll get to bed early. Of course, there'll be no more school for you here, though I shall want you to step in and bid Miss Georgia good-bye. That's no more than polite, even if you don't love her as you should."
Dorothy made a little mouth, which for once her mother did not reprove: and presently they both were reading. At least, Mrs. Chester really was, while the peace of the volume she studied stole into her troubled heart and shed its light upon her face. Dorothy, also, held her book in her hand and kept her eyes fixed on the printed pages; but, had her mother chanced to look up and observe, she would have seen no leaves turned; though gradually an expression of almost wild delight grew upon the mobile features till the girl looked as if she were just ready to sing.
However, she said nothing of her happy thoughts and watched her mother fall asleep in the drowsy heat of the late afternoon, and from the fatigue of a sleepless night and a busy day. Then she crept on tiptoe out of the room, noiselessly removing her slitted shoes before she rose from her chair, and presently had gained the kitchen at the rear. Here she lighted a little gas stove and put on the kettle to boil. Then she did what seemed a strange thing for a girl as strictly reared as she, on a Sunday evening. She caught up her short skirts and, after the manner of pictured dancers upon wall-posters, began to whirl and pirouette around the little space, as if by such movements, only, could she express the rapture that thrilled her.
"There, I reckon I've worked myself down to quiet!" she exclaimed, at length, to the cat which entered, stretching its legs in a sleepy fashion and ready for its supper. "Now, I'll feed you, Ma'am Puss, though you ought to feed yourself on the rats that bother our garden. Queer, isn't it? How everything 'feeds' on something else. I hate rats, and I hate to have them killed. Killing is horrible: and, I'm afraid that to have my roses killed by the creatures is worst of all."
Ma'am Puss did not reply, except by rubbing herself against her mistress's legs, and, having filled a saucer with milk, Dorothy went out into the garden and stayed there a long time. There many thoughts came to her, and many, many regrets. Regrets for past negligencies, that had caused the drooping—therefore suffering—of some tender plant; for the knowledge of her coming separation from these treasures which both she and father John had loved almost as if they were human creatures; but keenest of all, regrets for the lost activity of the once so active postman. Mother Martha's griefs and her own might be hard to bear, but his was far, far worse. Nothing, not even the delightful surprises she felt she had in store for him, could give him back his lost health.
She had no propensity to dance when she went indoors again. It was a very sober, thoughtful Dorothy C. who presently carried a little tray into the parlor and insisted upon the tired housemistress enjoying her supper there, where she could look out upon the cheerful street with its Sunday promenaders, "and just be waited on, nice and cozy."
Both inmates of the little home slept soundly that night. Sleep is a close friend to the toilers of the world, though the idle rich seek it in vain: and the morning found them refreshed and courageous for the duties awaiting. There would be few tears and no repining on the part of either because of a home-breaking. Bitterer trials might come, but the depth of this one they had fathomed and put behind them.