“Yes, dear, I know. Jeannie told me.” She went straight over to the stool. And she did just the one right thing. That was the marvel of Mrs. Craig, she always seemed to know naturally what a person needed most and gave it to them. She took Jack in her arms, his head on her shoulder, patting him while he began to cry chokingly.
“Never mind, child, now,” she told him. “You’re home.” She lifted him to her lap and started to untie his worn sodden shoes. “Tommy, get your slippers, dear, and a pair of wool socks. Warm the milk, Kit, it’s better that way. And you cuddle down on the couch by the living room fire, Jack, and rest.”
Mrs. Craig had gone into the living room and found a gray woolen blanket in the wall closet off the little side hall. From the chest of drawers she took some of Tommy’s outgrown winter underwear. Supper was nearly ready, but Jack was to have a warm bath and be clad in clean fresh clothing. Tucking him under one wing, as Kit said, she left the kitchen, and Jean told the rest how she had rescued him from Mr. Briggs’s righteous indignation and charitable intentions.
“Got a good face and looks you square in the eye,” said Doris. “I’d take a chance on him any day, and he can help around the place a lot, splitting kindlings and shifting stall bedding and what not. He and Tommy seem to be good friends already.”
The telephone bell rang and Jean answered. Rambling up through the hills from Norwich was the party line, two lone wires stretching from telephone pole to telephone pole. Its tingling call was a welcome sound. This time it was Rebecca at the other end. After her marriage to Judge Ellis, they had taken the long-deferred wedding trip up to Boston, visiting relatives there, and returning in time for a splendid old-fashioned Thanksgiving celebration at the Ellis home. Maple Grove, Becky’s former home, was closed for the winter but Matt, the hired man, decided to stay on there indefinitely and work the farm on shares for Miss Becky, as he still called her.
“And like enough,” Becky said comfortably, when she heard of his intentions, “he’s going to marry somebody himself. I wouldn’t put it past him a bit. I wish he’d choose Cindy Anson. There she is living alone down in that little bit of a house, running a home bakery when she’s born to fuss over a man. I told Matt when I left, if I were he I’d buy all my pies and cake from Cindy, and then when I drove by Cindy’s I just dropped a passing word about how badly I felt at leaving such a fine man as Matt to shift for himself up at the house, so she said she’d keep an eye on him.”
Over the telephone now came her voice, vibrant and cheery, and Jean answered the call.
“Hello, yes, this is Jean. Mother’s right in the living room. Who? Oh, wait till I tell the kids.” She turned her head, her brown eyes sparkling. “New York cousins over at the Judge’s. Who did you say they are, Becky? Yes? Beth and Elliott Newell. I’ll tell Dad right away. Tomorrow morning early? That’s swell. ’Bye.”
Before the others could stop her, she was on her way upstairs. The largest, sunniest room had been given over to her father. The months of relaxation and rest up in the hills had worked wonders in Mr. Craig’s health. As old Dr. Gallup was apt to say when Kit rebelled at the slowness of recovery, “Can’t expect to do everything in a minute. Even the Lord took six days to fix things the way he liked them.”
Instead of spending two-thirds of his time in bed or on the couch now, he would sit up for hours and could walk around the wide porch, or even along the garden paths before the cold weather set in. But there still swept over him without warning the great fatigue and weakness, the dizziness and exhaustion which had followed as one of the lesser ills in his nervous breakdown.