"Milly," said aunt Emily, suddenly turning to my sister, "will you come down to the Yorkes' with me?"
Milly assented readily; and the two kindred spirits set forth together.
"The blessed creatures!" said Fred Winston. "What unlimited possibilities the arrival of this infirmary opens up to them. I knew that they would be off at once to inquire into the condition of the sick and wounded."
"And to find out how many candidates there may be for the hospital cottage and other refuges," I added.
But the two good Samaritans, as they afterwards reported, were not so appalled by the state of things at the Yorkes' cottage, as Mr. Winston's tale had prepared them to be. Perhaps matters had improved since he had left two hours since, or the stricken family had at once accommodated themselves to the change in their circumstances. Certain it is that aunt Emily and Milly found peace and serenity reigning: Mrs. Yorke with the little cripple in her capacious lap, coddling and petting her as the good soul well knew how to do; the captain piloting the blind child about the house and garden, familiarizing him with different objects, by which he might learn his own way about by his acute sense of touch; the youngest—a teething, not consumptive, baby—fast asleep; and even the recalcitrant "Matildy Jane" tolerably pleasant and good-natured beneath the fascinations of a handsome, sturdy urchin four years old, who, undaunted by her hard face and snappish voice, insisted upon following her around, and "helping" her in her manifold occupations. He was a boy who did not know how to be snubbed, and had fairly won his way with his ungracious aunt, by sheer persistence in his unwelcome attentions. To all her hospitable intimations that he and his family had brought an immense addition to her cares and labors,—which certainly was true,—he opposed smiles and caresses, and assurances that so long as he was there he would share and lighten all these; appearing to think that she complained and scolded only to draw forth his sympathy and aid.
Who could stand out against such a fellow? Not even "Matildy Jane." And she had succumbed; at least, so far as he was concerned.
The mother of the helpless group, pale, feeble, and careworn though she was, had already shown herself eager to lessen, so far as possible, the burden she had brought upon the family of her husband, and sat peeling potatoes from a huge basket on the one side, while a pan of apples, duly pared and quartered, stood awaiting the oven upon the other. Plainly Matilda Jane had had no scruples of delicacy in availing herself of the services of her newly arrived sister-in-law.
"What are you going to do with them all, Captain Yorke?" asked Milly, pityingly, as she stood beside the old sailor in the porch, while aunt Emily interviewed Mrs. Yorke and the widow. "This is such a care for you."
"Do with 'em?" repeated the veteran, apparently quite undismayed by the prospect before him. "Waal, I reckon we've got to be eyes an' backs an' lungs to 'em, for they've run mighty short of them conveniences. Let alone Theodore, an' that feller over there,"—nodding towards the kitchen-door, within which Matilda Jane was to be seen mixing biscuit, with the boy beside her, his round, fat arms up to the elbows in the dough, with which he was bedaubing himself and every thing about him, unrestrained by his subdued aunt,—"let alone that feller over there, there ain't the makin' of a hull one among 'em. I guess they've got to be took care of; an', if the Almighty hadn't a meant us to do it, he wouldn't a sent 'em here. Them's my opinions, an' me an' Mis' Yorke we ain't the ones to throw back his orderin's an' purposin's in his face. They do seem a bit like a hospital full, though, don't they?" he added, unconsciously expressing Mr. Winston's view of the situation. "Me an' Mis' Yorke, we foun' out the truth of the Scriptur' sayin', how sharper than an achin' tooth it is to have a thankless child, an' Tom,—I don't min' sayin' it to you,—he was thankless enough, though he's dead an' gone, an' his old father ain't the one to cast stones at him now. But me an' Mis' Yorke, we don't want to make out the truth of that other Scriptur', that the sins of the father shall be visited on the children,—leastways, not Tom's children; they ain't to blame for his short-comin's; an', meanin' no disrespec' nor onbelief, that Scriptur' do always seem to me a little hard on the children. Maybe—who knows—them youngsters will ha' brought a blessin' with 'em; an' my opinions is they has, when I see Mis' Yorke a cuddlin' an' croonin' over that little hunchback. Now she's awful contented an' easy-minded like to have somethin' to pet, for she's allers a hankerin' after babies an' them sort of critters. We was kinder took aback, for sartain, when Maria,—her name's Maria, Tom's widder's is,—when she come right in with the hull crowd followin', an' John Waters' wagon, what they come from the station in, standin' at the gate, an' all the luggage in it; an' them gentlemen was here gettin' bait an' askin' about the fishin', an' Matildy Jane she kinder flew out, an' one of the little ones was hollerin',—an' it was all kinder Bedlamy. But it's all come right now; an' Maria, she's a willin' soul, an' if Jabez," the old man's son-in-law, and a power in the household, "if Jabez an' Charlotte don't be grumpy over it, we'll all get along as pretty as a psalm-book. Jabez, he an' Charlotte has gone to Millville for the day, an' all this is unbeknownst to them."
Clearly, the captain was somewhat in dread of Jabez and Jabez's opinions; but Milly had no fear that the strangers would be sent adrift in deference to these.