“What?” “Tell us!” “Think of having a hand in such a pretty present!” The other girls leaned forward eagerly, and the boys looked almost as interested. Alice went on a trifle shyly, as she came to tell her own part.
“I suggested some little poem full of color words, and that delighted her and she thought a minute. I didn’t know any, and I wished Catherine were there with her headful! But Madam Kittredge has a headful of her own. She had me get out two 242 or three books and look up some that she thought might do, but they didn’t just suit her; and then she had me open her clipping book and hunt for one called Indian Summer. It was just the thing and I loved it the minute I read it. She let me copy it for her, and make an illuminated initial with her water-colors. She seems to have everything imaginable in that big roomy desk of hers. I was glad of the chance to copy it, for I could learn it and I want to keep it always.”
“Please recite it for us,” said Dr. Helen, and, the others all joining in her request with words or looks, Alice repeated the beautiful lines lovingly:
“Faint blue the distant hills before,
Yellow the harvest lands behind;
Wayfarers we upon the path
The thistledown goes out to find.
“On naked branch and empty nest,
The woodland’s blended gold and red,
Dim glory lies which autumn shares
With faces of the newly dead.
“Tender this moment of the year
To eyes that seek and feet that roam;
It is the lifting of the latch,
A footstep on the flags of home.
“Now may the peace of withered grass
And goldenrod abide with you;
Abide with me–for what is death?
Pall of a leaf against the blue.”
243Feeling that a benediction had been pronounced, they all adjourned to the porch, Dr. Harlow sitting down by Archie and chatting with him in a friendly way about his own Andover experiences years before, while the girls talked quietly with Bert, who had dropped his nonsense for the time. Dr. Helen was sitting a little apart, but by and by Hannah slipped over to her chair.
“I’m not so very clever about things,” she said, “and I always like to have them explained. So won’t you tell me just what you meant by this afternoon? You know we all promised to use the prescription again, if we needed it.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Helen encouragingly, and waited.
“Well. You might have meant several things. You might just have meant that we needed a change. We had been sitting about and wishing it was cooler and talking nonsense and gossip–almost!–and we hadn’t been doing anything useful. Perhaps you wanted us to find out that we’d be happier if we did something for some one else, even if it looked disagreeable at first. I’ve always had that preached to me!”
“I didn’t preach!” objected Dr. Helen.
“No, you prescribed. That’s your way of preaching, though. You set us to preaching to ourselves, and it’s much more objectionable. I can shut my ears when other people preach to me, but I can’t get away from myself! But I was wondering if, 244 perhaps, besides all that, you didn’t want us to see how cheerful and happy some people manage to be without much to make them so. Even that little girl with the spine plays she is an enchanted princess, Catherine says, and has lovely times, winding balls of yarn and cutting paper chains. She has to get a certain number of them done before the enchantment will be broken. I know who suggested that idea to her,” said Hannah, looking searchingly into the doctor’s face. “I’ve found out a lot of things this afternoon about you, professionally. Perhaps that was what you were after! Just advertising!”