“I’m Mary Milton, with you,” Mary then got a chance to say. “And Ruth Pinch, and Dinah Craik, in ‘Adam Bede,’ you know, and Florence Nightingale, and Madam Butterfly, and Pippa—the Pippa who passed. I like that one, an Italian peasant dress, and just go happily along singing softly: ‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right in the world.’ And madrina wants me to be Mother Hubbard, in a nice, little tucked-up gown, with Chum following me around after a bone. But I’m afraid the crowd would be more frightful to Chum than the bone would be attractive. You never could imagine the lovely things madrina will be and do! She’s going to wear about seven of her costumes. We’ve got to find names for each part. People can’t guess, it wouldn’t be fair if she were just ‘A Child’; it must be some particular child, and so on. But we can arrange that. Madrina is so happy over it, Mr. Moulton! She isn’t a bit lonely now.”
“Own up, my Mary! You are not doing this for a charity in the first place, but for your mother’s sake—or perhaps you think charity should begin at home?” Mr. Moulton accused Mary, a hand on her shoulder.
“Madrina must not dwell on her lost voice, dear Guardian,” said Mary, with a deprecating look. “Do you think Mrs. Moulton could be persuaded to represent Cinderella’s godmother? We could have a dear Cinderella group if she would.”
“I think nothing short of chloroforming her and setting her up, unconscious, to fill a lay figure’s rôle could get my wife into anything distantly resembling tableaux, or amateur theatricals!” laughed Mr. Moulton.
“I suppose I knew that,” sighed Mary, then smiled, dismissing her regret. “We’re terribly rushed rehearsing; madrina is training some one every minute. I’ve got to go now, Mr. Moulton. I need practice as Pippa.”
It was perfectly true that the Garden girls were “terribly rushed rehearsing.” The Garden of Dreams took on nightmare aspects at times, it required so much anxious discussing, so much actual hard work, added to which the heat of August, sultry and heavy, made hammocks alluring and naps hard to ward off. But on the whole even the unexpectedly arduous preparations were enjoyable, Mrs. Garden was in her element, and the outlook was all for success. One important happy result had already been attained from the mere rehearsing of the Garden of Dreams. Jane had developed under her mother’s training such instinctive talent for the dramatic singing required to accompany impersonations that Mary and Win were amazed, and Mrs. Garden was greatly excited. At first the excitement seemed to hold something of regret; it would have been hard to say whether Jane’s mother was glad or sorry to find her second child inheriting her talent, intensified.
“Jane, why Jane! You are extraordinarily good at this!” she cried. “You act well, really well, you know! And your voice! Your voice is going to be better than mine ever was! Jane, Jane, what can you mean by it? You can sing and I cannot! Your life lies all before you, and mine is over and done with!” She dropped into a chair as she spoke, and burst into weeping, great sobs tearing her slender form, her thin shoulders heaving.
Jane flew to her, with a distressed glance over toward Mary.
“Little girl-mother, don’t mind, please don’t mind!” Jane begged, on her knees before her mother, gathering her shaking little body into her firm young clasp. “I’ll never sing a note unless you want me to; truly I won’t! And don’t you see your life isn’t over and done with if I can do this? That’s nonsense, of course; I mean your life being over when you seem younger than we girls! What I meant was about the singing. If I could sing, if I have a voice, it came from you, and when I sang it would be you singing still, through me. It would be beautiful, I think, if it were so, because then you would go singing on and on, when you thought you’d never sing again! If I sang you could say: there’s my dear voice that I loved so and never expected to hear again! Jane’s taken it out to exercise it for me! And when you wanted to sing, you could say: Jane, use my voice for me; I want to sing ‘Good-bye, Sweet Day,’ or whatever you would sing that special minute. Couldn’t you feel that way about it? It would be so lovely! But if you’d rather, I’d take a clam vow right away and keep it, never to sing any more than a clam does, humming in my bed—do clams sing in their clam beds, do you suppose?”
Mrs. Garden’s moods were beginning to be less amazing to her girls; they changed with darting rapidity, swinging from despair to laughter at a word. Now she sat up and laughed, a little tremulously, but still she laughed, drying her eyes and hugging Jane with a funny childish little chuckle.