Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

When we told father he said very faintly, “I shall not be here when he comes, but tell him that I have loved him like a son, and he must avoid temptation. He is easily lead. Tell him, too, about the boy.”

All the next day and the next we watched for some message from Carl, but none came. The third day, however, a telegram reached us from Norah saying, “I’ve run him down at last in Canada.” That evening there was another from Carl, saying, “Shall start to-morrow morning.”

Oh, how hard our father tried to live until Carl reached us. It was a fierce struggle between death and an indomitable will, and it was a question which would conquer. Jack kept up his courage and ours.

“If he left Boston at nine, as he probably did, he is in New York by this time,” he would say; and, later on, “He is in Washington now, and will be in Richmond to-morrow morning;” then the line of prevision was broken and we knew no more until the next day at noon, when there came a message from Richmond: “Train late. Have just arrived. Will be with you at four. Carl.”

Fan read it to our father, whose eyes shone for a moment with an eager light, while his paralyzed tongue tried to speak. But he had drifted too far away for anything to hold him longer, and when the old clock in the church tower struck one he was dead. I cannot describe our anguish as we kissed his cold, white face in the last good-bye, while his eyes, to the very last, looked so lovingly at us and his pale lips tried to whisper his farewell. Even now, after many years, my heart throbs with pain as every incident of that day comes back to me. The warm sunshine, the scent of the flowers, the song of the robin, the hum of the bees, the low murmur of voices in the room where the undertaker and his assistants were at work, Jack going in and out, occasionally consulting us but mostly doing what he thought best, and later on going with the phaeton and Black Beauty to meet Carl, while Fan and I sat on the piazza waiting for him just as we waited years before when he surprised us by coming on foot across the field and in at the rear door. Now he came more decorously, with Paul in his lap, one arm around his neck and his curly head nestling on Carl’s shoulder, while he talked continually. Paul had gone with Jack to the station, eager to meet his brother; but when a tall young man, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped upon the platform and came briskly towards him, he drew back, until Jack said, “That’s he that’s your brother; go and speak to him.”

Then he ran forward and looking shyly up at the stranger, said, “Is you my brother Carl? I’m Paul, and papa’s dead and Fan-er-Nan and Annie-mother and Katy has cried themselves sick.”

With the exception of a few presents at Christmas and an occasional mention of him in his letters Carl had never evinced any interest in Paul. But no one could withstand that upturned face and the little hands held out in welcome, and lifting the child in his arms Carl kissed him lovingly.

“Yes, I’m Carl,” he said, “and your brother, if you are really Paul; but, zounds! how you have grown. I have imagined you still a baby. What a stupid I must be.”

After that the acquaintance progressed rapidly, and the two were on the best of terms by the time the phaeton drew up to the door and Carl sprang out to meet us. The same Carl in some respects we had known as a boy, and in others so very different. Broad-shouldered, perfectly formed, six feet tall, with a heavy mustache, and an unmistakable air distingué, he impressed us for a moment as he had little Paul, and I felt half afraid of him. That feeling, however, vanished the moment I heard his voice, full of sympathy, as he kissed us and said, “I am sorry that I did not get here sooner. I’d give so much to see him alive once more. He was the best man I ever knew.”

I was crying and could not answer him. Just what Fan said I do not know, until I heard her exclaim, “Katy Hathern, why are you here? I told you not to get up.” Aside from the grief at the loss of our father there was a terrible fear haunting us lest Katy was coming down with the fever. For two or three days she had complained of her head, and just after father died she had been seized with a nervous chill. The doctor, whom we called at once, had ordered her to bed, and his face was very grave as he prescribed for her. She had refused to go to bed, saying she was only tired; but we persuaded her to lie down upon the couch in her room where I supposed she was until I saw her standing in the doorway, her eyes unusually bright and a deep flush upon her cheeks. She had been very small as a child, seeming younger than she really was; but within the last two or three years she had shot up rapidly, until at fifteen she was taller than either Fan or myself, with the loveliest face I have ever seen. Fan was beautiful, with a brilliant, glowing beauty like the gorgeous flowers of autumn, while Katy was fair as a lily, with a complexion like the pink-and-white shells fresh from the sea. Her eyes were large and blue as a bit of summer sky, the heavy brows and long lashes making them seem darker than they really were. Her hair, once almost yellow, was now a golden brown, with auburn tints upon it when seen in certain lights, and fell in curls upon her neck. No stranger ever looked at Katy once that did not look again, and now, as she appeared in the doorway, the purity of her complexion heightened by the black dress she wore, and her lips parted with a smile of welcome to Carl, it was not surprising that he sprang to his feet exclaiming, “Great Scott! This can’t be Katy! Why, I’ve always thought of you as a little girl in pantelets tumbling into the frog pond, and by Jove! I’ve brought you a doll.”