ON THE EDGE OF THE OPPOSITE BANK STOOD THE QUAINTEST, PRETTIEST GROUP THAT HER EYES HAD EVER BEHELD.
Marian climbed the high, narrow outside steps that led to the tiny play-house on stilts, and entered the low, red doorway, feeling as if she had climbed Jack's bean-stalk into fairyland. Inside, the martin-box was even more fascinating. It boasted just three rooms. The largest room, gay with Mother Goose wall-paper and rosy chintz, was obviously the realm of Edward, Junior, and Thomas Tucker. The next room, with its cunning miniature fireplace, its shelves of books, its pictures and photographs, and its broad high-piled desk, was their parents' abode; while the third room boasted fascinating white-painted cupboards and sink, a tiny alcohol stove, and a wee table daintily set.
"Aren't you shocked at folks that eat in their kitchen?" drawled Sally Lou, observing Marian with dancing eyes. "But all our baking and heavy cooking is done for us, over on the quarter-boat. I brought the stove to heat the babies' milk; and, too, I like to fuss up goodies for Ned when he is tired or worried. Poor boys! They're having such an exasperating time with the contract this week! Everything seems possessed to go awry. We'll have to see to it that they get a lot of coddling so's to keep them cheered up, won't we?"
"Why, I—I suppose so. But how did you dare to bring your little children down here? They say that this is the most malarial district in the State."
"I know. But they can't catch malaria until May, when the mosquitoes come. Then I shall send them to a farm, back in the higher land. Mammy will take care of them; and I'll stay down here with Ned during the day and go to the babies at night. They're pretty sturdy little tads. They are not likely to catch anything unless their mother is careless with them. And she isn't careless, really. Is she, Tom Tucker?" She snatched up her youngest son, with a hug that made his fat ribs creak. "Come, now! Let's brew some stylish afternoon tea for the lady. Get down the caravan tea that father sent us, Mammy, and the preserved ginger, and my Georgian spoons. And fix some chicken bones on the stoop for Miss Northerner's puppy. This is going to be a banquet, and a right frabjous one, too!"
It was a banquet, and a frabjous one, Marian agreed. Sally Lou's tea and Mammy's nut-cakes were delicious beyond words. The bright little house, the dainty service, Sally Lou's charming gay talk, the babies, clinging wide-eyed and adorable to her knee, all warmed and heartened Marian's listless soul. She was ravished with everything. She looked in wonder and delight at the high sleeping-porch, with its double mosquito bars and its duck screening and its cosey hammock-beds. ("Ned sleeps so much better here, where it is quiet, than on that noisy boat," Sally Lou explained.) She gazed with deep respect at the tiny pantry, built of soap-boxes, lined with snowy oil-cloth. She marvelled at the exquisite old silver, the fine embroidered table-linen, the delicate china. And she caught her breath when her eyes lighted upon the beautiful painting in oils that hung above young Burford's desk. It was a magical bit of color: a dreamy Italian garden, walled in ancient carved and mellowed stone, its slopes and borders a glory of roses, flaunting in splendid bloom; and past its flowery gates, a glimpse of blue, calm sea. She could hardly turn her eyes away from the lovely vista. It was as restful as an April breeze. And across the lower corner she read the clear tracing of the signature, a world-famous name.
Sally Lou followed her glance.
"You surely think I'm a goose, don't you, to bring my gold teaspoons, and my wedding linen, and my finest tea-set down to a wilderness like this? Well, perhaps I am. And yet the very best treasures that we own are none too good for our home, you know. And this is home. Any place is home when Ned and the babies and I are together. Besides, the very fact that this place is so queer and ugly and dismal is the best of reasons why we need all our prettiest things, and need to use them every day, don't you see? So I picked out my sacredest treasures to bring along. And that painting—yes, it was running a risk to bring so valuable a canvas down here. But doesn't it just rest your heart to look at it? That is why I wanted it with us every minute. You can look at that blue sleepy sky, and those roses climbing the garden wall, and the sea below, and forget all about the noisy, grimy boats, and the mud, and sleet, and malaria, and the cross laborers, and the broken machinery, and everything else; and just look, and look, and dream. That is why I carted it along. Especially on Ned's account, don't you see?"
"Y-yes." At last Marian took her wistful eyes from the picture. "I wish that I had thought to bring some good photographs to hang in Rod's state-room. I never thought. But there is no room to pin up even a picture post-card in his cubby-hole on the boat. I must go on now. I have had a beautiful time."