The Project Gutenberg eBook of Among the Lindens, by Evelyn Raymond This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Among the Lindens Author: Evelyn Raymond Illustrator: Victor A. Searles Release Date: May 09, 2021 [eBook #65290] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Library of Congress) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONG THE LINDENS *** AMONG THE LINDENS By the Same Author. THE LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. THE MUSHROOM CAVE. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles. A CAPE MAY DIAMOND. Illustrated by Lilian Crawford True. Square 12mo. Cloth, extra. $1.50. THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles. Square 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. BEARING IN HER ARMS THE BASKET OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS. Among the Lindens BY EVELYN RAYMOND AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE,” “THE MUSHROOM CAVE” “A CAPE MAY DIAMOND,” “THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE,” ETC. Illustrated BY VICTOR A. SEARLES BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1898 Copyright, 1898, By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. A Kindly Deed 1 II. Pink Petals and Bright Visions 13 III. A Chrysanthemum Dinner 28 IV. A Generous Conspiracy 41 V. In Old Trinity 54 VI. “Humpty-Dumpty’s” Novel Experience 67 VII. Dining in State 81 VIII. Propounding a Riddle 94 IX. The First Evening in the New Home 108 X. Another Little Episode 121 XI. Miss Joanna 136 XII. Bits of Natural History 150 XIII. Getting Down to Realities 161 XIV. Apis Mellifica 175 XV. Streaks of Human Nature 187 XVI. A Modern King Arthur 201 XVII. Roland’s Project 217 XVIII. Robert’s Occupation Gone 229 XIX. Robert’s Happy Guess 244 XX. Wistaria 261 XXI. Three Years Later.—The Result 277 ILLUSTRATIONS. FROM DRAWINGS BY VICTOR A. SEARLES. Page “Bearing in her arms the basket of chrysanthemums” Frontispiece “He cast a supercilious glance about upon the spectators” 94 “‘Wull, be you the egg woman?’” 145 “‘Let me ask you one or two things. May I?’” 184 “‘Why, folks! what’s all this?’” 233 “There was no answer, and Miss Joanna turned about swiftly” 267 “L AMONG THE LINDENS. CHAPTER I. A KINDLY DEED. OOK out! Oh, look out, sir!” “Is the man senseless?” cried a second voice. “This way, sir—this way—quick! Dear me! Are you hurt?” The school-girl who had uttered the first exclamation darted suddenly forward into the midst of the crowd, and pulled from under the very hoofs of the horses, attached to a heavy dray, the queer little old gentleman who had occasioned her outcry. Every New Yorker knows how thronged is that particular point, at the southwestern corner of pretty Madison Square, where Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street—all favorite thoroughfares of the shoppers—meet to shake hands, as it were; while each adds its complement of humanity on foot and humanity in vehicles to swell the current eddying about the corner. A gay and lively place it was, on that early afternoon. All the curbstone merchants had come out with their mechanical toys, forever getting under the pedestrians’ feet, tripping them up, and threatening more than one with mischance. Among such was an old gentleman whose dress was quaint and out of style, while his manner was that of one unused to scenes of confusion. For some moments he had stood upon the sidewalk, watching with curious interest what went on about him; but when a papier-maché monkey gave a realistic spring from the end of an elastic cord, and clasped his ankle, he stepped boldly forth into the whirlpool of wheels. For half the short distance between curbs all went well; then he slipped upon the slimy pavement, and just where hoofs and wheels were in most hopeless tangle, he fell. There was an outcry of horror from many throats. The policeman piloting a party of women over the crossing turned hurriedly, just in time to see what had happened, as well as a slim girlish figure spring to the rescue. “Stop! That’s dangerous! Why should two be killed?” There were groans and execrations from the drivers of carts and carriages, the swiftly forming blockade which follows any break in the routine of city transit, and the patrolman was back, seizing the old man’s shoulder and demanding why he should make so much more disturbance than was necessary by tumbling down in that ridiculous manner. Or if the policeman did not put his inquiry in just those words he made it distinctly evident to Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook that visitors who could not conduct themselves any better than he had done might likely find themselves at the station-house, to be cared for at the public expense. “Come this way with me, will you? Come this way just for a moment!” cried the old gentleman, and seized upon Bonny’s hand so forcibly that, whether she would or no, she had to follow where he led. This was into the flower-shop close by, and she obeyed readily enough, after all; for she loved an adventure dearly and therefore—so her sister declared—was always meeting with one. Isabelle, who had been with her all along, now interposed: “Bonny! What are you doing? You must not go anywhere with a stranger. Come away at once!” and she laid her hand in firm remonstrance upon thoughtless Beatrice’s shoulder. “Yes, Belle; directly. But I must see if he is hurt. Come along, too.” “Yes, certainly; come along, too,” repeated Mr. Brook, turning toward the elder miss. “Thank you. It is impossible. Come, Bonny.” But fun-loving Bonny had already followed the man into the shop; where, with a smile of gratitude upon his very muddy face, he asked: “Who are you, my dear?” “Oh! no matter about that, sir. Are you hurt?” “Not at all, I think. Time will tell. I might have some cracked bones about my anatomy somewhere, and yet not know it, amid all this whirl and racket. Five-and-twenty years since I set foot in the streets of New York before, and I find them greatly changed. But I must know your name, please. I must know to whom I am indebted for my life. I should have been killed but for your courage, my dear; or have been arrested and sent to the lock-up, than which I would almost think death preferable.” “Bonny! Bonny Beckwith! Come at once! Mother would be very much displeased! The idea of your following a stranger about in this way!” cried Belle, now opening the door of the shop, and looking threateningly at her sister. “Directly, dear. Now, sir, can you tell me where you are stopping? If you are such a stranger here, I should think you would better take a carriage to your home—or hotel. After twenty-five years the town must seem like a new world to [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] you, or, I mean—” “Bonny!” “Can I serve you, miss?” asked a clerk, coming forward, and Miss Beatrice interpreted his tone to mean: “If I can I wish to do so at once. If I cannot I would like to have the store vacated. This is no rendezvous for adventurers.” “No, I need nothing,” said Bonny, and moved to the door, nodding her head brightly toward her old gentleman, but casting rather wistful glances at the counters full of beautiful blossoms as she passed them on her way. “Wait a moment! Wait a moment, my dear! I have heard your name, you see. Your sister spoke it. Here is my card; and if you will not tell me where you live that I may call and thank you, at least let me give you a posy before we part. Pick out what you like. Pick out what you like, my dear, and I will pay for it. Here is my card,—Philipse Chidly Brook, New Windsor, New York. Everybody thereabouts knows me, as everybody hereabouts used to know me half a century ago, ‘When I was young as you are young, And love-lights in the casement hung.’” Bonny dropped her hand from the door-knob. “Why, that is Thackeray, sir! So you know him, too?” “Beatrice Beckwith! Will you—or will you not—come? I—am—going!” cried the indignant Isabelle, moving slowly away from her ill-conducted little sister. She was greatly shocked and mortified by Bonny’s readiness to take up with anything and anybody, and was quite justified in her feeling; for in most cases there is danger in any girl following a stranger, for even so slight a distance as Bonny had done, in a great city like New York. But this time she happened to be safe enough. Old Chidly Brook was a gentleman if ever one lived; and queer and quaint as he now appeared, time had been when he was a great favorite even in the most exclusive circles of New York’s best society. “My dear, my age is sufficient guaranty of my honor. Do allow me to give you a little bouquet of some sort. No? Then —have you a mother?” “Certainly. I have a dear, dear mother, who will be troubled if I stay from home longer. Good-by.” “Her name? Her number? I must be allowed to call and pay her my respects!” In his eagerness, which was almost childish, the old man laid his thin hand upon Bonny’s wrist. She glanced down upon it; its delicacy and refinement appealed to her; she longed to know more of its owner, and replied: “My mother is Mrs. Rachel Beckwith, Number Blank, Second Avenue.” Then she darted out of the shop and tried to look defiantly into the vexed face of her pretty sister Belle. But it was of no use. The defiance faded soon, and a whimsical humility took its place. “I’m sorry, I’m awfully sorry, dear, that I didn’t mind you. I’m sorry I didn’t let the dear old fellow lie there to be hurt. I— No, I don’t mean that. But I’ll try to behave next time. I truly will.” “H’m-m!” replied Isabelle; and vouchsafed nothing further till they had reached their home, a cosey if small and plainly furnished “flat” at the location which Bonny had given Mr. Brook. That old gentleman, left in the flower-store after his young rescuer had departed, turned at once to the clerk. “I saw the child cast her eyes rather longingly, I thought, upon that vase of salmon-colored artemisias. Are they for sale?” “Certainly,” replied the attendant, and moved the vase forward upon the counter. “They are the same thing as artemisias, sir, but the popular name is chrysanthemum. These are prize flowers, from the late show. A rare color. One of our own originating.” “H’m-m, h’m-m. Very pretty, but roses suit me better. However, she looked at these more than she did at the roses and pinks, and I’ll take them. How much are they?” “Seventy-five cents each.” “W-h-a-t? How—much?” “Seventy-five cents each. Chrysanthemums are the fashionable flower now. All the people at the horse-show—” “That’s what I came into town to see. Thinks I to myself, Old fellow, brace up yourself a bit and take one more look at life before you step behind the curtain. A great town, young man, and full of pitfalls.” “Yes, sir,” respectfully. “Will you take more than one of the blooms, sir?” “More than one! What do you think of me, lad? If you were going to send a posy to a pretty little girl, would you send her a pitiful, solitary blossom? If you would you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” The salesman laughed pleasantly, and awaited directions, which came promptly. “Pick me out the prettiest and biggest basket you have in the shop. Then fill it with these artemisias—if there are enough. If not, finish out with white ones. She looked just like a pretty pink and white blossom herself, with her rosy cheeks and white teeth. And what eyes she had—did she not? Yes, yes; a big basket of posies is a small price to pay for old bones saved from breaking! It must be of the best.” “How will this please you?” asked the attendant, showing a pretty willow affair, shaped like the baskets seen in old- [6] [7] [8] [9] fashioned “Annuals” as held by the hands of high-coiffured dames with sloping shoulders and simpering mouths. Mr. Chidly Brook was charmed directly. “That’s it! That is just the very thing! Some of the good old notions have survived these silly later fashions, then? Glad to hear it! I am exceedingly glad to hear it. Now, young man, will you lend me a pen and paper, if you have such a thing handy?” “Certainly. Will you, please, step to the desk?” “Just to write a little note, you know. A sort of billet-doux, as we called them in the old days. I was a hand—I was a master hand at writing billet-doux then. Let me see. Number Blank, Second Avenue. A most aristocratic neighborhood, is it not?” “Well—sir—I don’t know. It might be. It was once, they say. I—” “Enough. I hate these eternal ‘was onces’! No matter. What will do for a home for that little girl must be a pretty sort of place any way. On our farm, my uncle’s, it was just above that grand street of millionaire residents— Fourteenth— What are you staring at, sir?” “Nothing. Nothing whatever, beg pardon. But you must have known New York for many years. Fourteenth Street is now a synonym for a street of cheap lodging-houses and such; that is, the resident portion. The business part is fine enough. It will take about forty-three or five chrysanthemums to fill this basket. But we have smaller ones, sir, of the same shape. Will you look at them?” “I said the biggest. I didn’t mean the smallest. Thank Heaven, Philipse Chidly Brook is still able to pay for a decent basket of posies for his little lady, I should hope! Thank you. I will have the note written by the time the basket is filled. And I wish to have especial care used in the delivery of the same. The billet-doux is important. I would not have it lost.” “It shall not be. But the filling of the basket will take some time, a half-hour at least.” “No matter. I am not pressed for time. Yet. I will wait.” He did wait, with what those better acquainted with him would have considered an unusual amount of patience; but the truth was that the old fellow had had a pretty severe shaking-up, and now that his excitement over the accident began to ebb, he was more and more conscious of pains and bruises. Finally, when the basket, perfect in its beauty, was tendered for his inspection, he rose very stiffly and barely looked at it. “Here is the bill, sir. Forty-three chrysanthemums at seventy-five cents, thirty-two dollars, twenty-five cents; one basket, five—” “The amount, lad! The amount! I hate detail.” “Thirty-nine dollars, twenty-five cents.” “All right. Two twenty-dollar pieces. Keep the change and buy one posy for your girl!” And with this fine sarcasm, as he considered it, the old gentleman left the flower-shop, entered the cab which a cash-boy had called for him, and gave the direction: “Astor House. At once.” [10] [11] [12] “Y CHAPTER II. PINK PETALS AND BRIGHT VISIONS. ES, Mother; if you cannot persuade Beatrice to behave herself upon the street, I really think she should not be allowed to go out. Her goings on are very mortifying to me, and she is sure to get us into some dreadful sort of scrape yet, worse than that small-pox scare last week—” “Sweet maiden, all severe! Don’t! That is a sensitive point with your unfortunate sister! The less said upon it the more agreeable!” interrupted Bonny, skipping across the narrow parlor of the Beckwith home, whither they had just returned, and catching the tall Isabelle around the waist with a persuasive little hug. “What have you been doing now, Beatrice?” asked the gentle little widow, looking up from a piece of wonderful embroidery, and fixing a half-amused, half-apprehensive gaze upon the younger girl’s face. “Nothing, dear Motherkin, but a simple act of charity. I happened to see a funny old gentleman tumble down in the middle of the street, and I pulled him out of harm’s way. Isn’t that a right sort of thing to do?” “But that is only the beginning,” added Belle. “She was not contented with a really kind and brave rescue, but she must go off with her protégé into a store and tell him all about ourselves, and—” “Isabelle! Not ‘all.’ I merely told him where we lived. And it was really an act of charity to ourselves. He will make a delightful and very salable model for Motherkin’s embroidery. Lend me your pencil, dear. Let me show you!” “Beatrice, have you done this foolish thing? Did you go with any stranger into a shop?” “Please don’t interrupt the flow of art, Motherkin!” “If you did, you must never do so again. Leave the person you have assisted to go his way and you go yours. And of all people to get into such affairs you are certainly the most unfortunate child I ever knew.” “I’ll try to be good, Mother dear. Only it will be very difficult. He was a nice old man. This looks very like him. You must do his legs in burnt sienna. See? And his coat—his coat was like a ‘picter.’ All tight down the back and very high- shouldered as to sleeves, which also were very long and narrow. Do his coat in Prussian blue. His ‘weskit’ was yellow ochre, touched up with umber; and his hat—alas! his hat had disappeared! His face—Motherkin, he had a nice face. A good face, a—” “Like the tramp you let into the house, while we were out, to steal our last half-dozen silver spoons! He, I remember, ‘had a good face, a really intellectual face’!” remarked Belle, gibingly. Her good nature was now quite restored by the pleasure of finding some excuse for teasing Beatrice, who liked to tease them all. “There, Motherkin! Isn’t that ‘sweetly pretty’? Can you not work him into a landscape of trees and cows and clouds and other country things?” demanded Bonny, ignoring her sister, and laying the really clever little sketch in her mother’s lap. “How do you get on with your singing, dear?” asked that lady, smiling, and taking time from her work to pat the soft cheek of her merry daughter. “Badly. There is a terrible discrepancy between my chest notes and my head notes. When T try to stretch one up and the other down, something appears to give way—cr-r-rick-crac-c-k-screech! Shall I illustrate, Mother dear?” “No, no, I beg! My nerves are in bad condition to-day. But if you’ll sing something without nonsense, I shall be glad to hear you. It would rest me, I think.” Beatrice’s gay face sobered instantly, and Isabelle laid down her book. “Are you so tired, Motherkin?” “Oh! no, indeed! Only it is a bit monotonous stitching, stitching all day with nobody to talk to. Never mind. Here comes Roland. I wonder why so early.” The inquiry was in her eyes as she raised them to meet her son’s when he entered, full three hours before his usual time of home-coming. But she saw instantly that he was not ill, and, that anxiety allayed, she smiled brightly upon him. “Well, my boy! what good fortune has given you a holiday?” “Ill, not good fortune, Mother. I—I have been discharged. I have lost my place.” Then, indeed, did a significant silence fall upon the family group. Lost his place! Could anything have been more unfortunate! “Why, ‘Laureate,’ have you been writing more soap-poetry?” “No, Bonny; but I had a row with the boss, and he talked to me so rudely that I made up my mind no gentleman would stand it. So I bolted. That’s all. I was going to leave, anyway, after the holidays.” “Oh, you were, eh? Going into soap-poetry for a business? If it pays as well as your first venture—” “Be still.” “Yes, my dear. But I’ll just make a note of your new words. You will have quite a vocabulary if you keep on. ‘Row,’ ‘boss,’ ‘bolted,’ will rhyme admirably with ‘cow,’ ‘toss,’ ‘moulted.’ I shall take to writing for soap-prizes myself soon. I’ve always had a notion that my genius would develop in a direction not at present suspected by my family. Mother [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] thinks I am an embryo prima-donna; Belle knows I am a fine dressmaker; Bob is sure I was born for no other purpose than to make boys’ kites, and Roland must acknowledge he never would have won the soap-poem prize if I hadn’t furnished at least one missing rhyme. But—” “Bonny, do keep still! If I were as fond of talking as you, I’d—” “Talk! Hark! There goes the door-bell. I hope nobody has come to call, for—” The chatterbox did not wait to express her inhospitable reasons, but darted down the narrow passage to answer the summons, and was back almost directly, bearing in her arms the basket of chrysanthemums which Mr. Brook’s messenger had just brought. “Beatrice!” “For mercy’s sake!” “What in the world!” “What’s that?” “Oh, oh, oh!” cried the delighted girl, dancing about so that nobody could get more than a glance at her burden of lovely blossoms, until she finally dropped in a little heap at her mother’s feet and placed the basket on the drawing she had laid upon her mother’s knee. “Such a handy table your lap makes, Motherkin!” she often remarked; but the truth was that everything must be shared with this sympathizing woman or it lost in value. “Isn’t it lovely, lovely?” “Lovely, indeed! But it cannot possibly be meant for you, dear. Where did it come from? How did you get it?” “Of course it is meant for me. It came from the store I visited in company with my old gentleman. And I took it out of a messenger boy’s hand. Oh! the beauties! the darlings! Now, Miss Isabelle Beckwith, don’t you wish you had not been so impatient? Maybe his royal highness—he must be that, at least, or he couldn’t afford such a gift—would have sent you one wee blossom all for yourself.” “But I do not understand. I do not know that it is right for you to keep it, dear,” remarked Mrs. Beckwith, between the rapid exclamations which fell from the lips of all three young people. “Now, Motherkin! Of course it’s right! It’s the very prettiest compliment I ever had in all my life. Don’t go for to spoil it with your proper notions, that’s a good Mother! But—see here! Here’s a billet-doux! or I’m a sinner!” If Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook could have witnessed the delight with which his offering was received, and could have heard the running comments bestowed upon it, he would have been repaid a thousand times. For when his courtly little note, with its old-fashioned writing, was read aloud, even the careful mother had no further reproof for her adventure- loving Beatrice, not all whose chivalrous escapades ended as comfortably as this. Fair, Kind, and Most Respected Miss,—Allow me to present you with this slight token of my gratitude; which I hope to express more fully when I call, this evening, to make my regards to your Mother and her family. I have the honor to subscribe myself Your Obedient Servant, Philipse Chidly Brook. Of New Windsor, N. Y., November Twenty-third, Eighteen hundred and eighty-one. To Miss Beatrice Beckwith. “My obedient servant! My blessed old Prince of Givers! That’s what he should have signed. Seventy-five cents each, Motherkin mine! All lavished on your troublesome girl!” Mrs. Beckwith did not immediately reply. She took the note from Bonny’s hand and gazed at it musingly, as if trying to clear some confusion of memory. “I have heard that name before—somewhere—besides in history. Let me think!” “I hope you will hear it again—‘somewhere’! Here comes my ‘Humpty-Dumpty’! I was wishing he could enjoy this.” “Hello! Bon! What the dickens is that?” “Hello! Bob! It’s chrysanthemums, not dickens!” “Whose is it?” “Mine!” “Stuff! That can’t be yours! Where did you get it?” “It can be mine, it shall be mine, it is mine. It is a reward of merit, the first instalment of many I hope to receive.” “Tell a feller!” pleaded the eight-year-old boy, who was very like Beatrice, only that his hair was a little rougher, his dark eyes even brighter, his general appearance a trifle more dilapidated. “I have told a ‘feller,’ and if a ‘feller’ can’t believe I am not to blame.” “Don’t bother! Tell the hull concern!” [18] [19] [20] [21] Beatrice slipped her arm around the little chap as affectionately as if his costume were not plentifully bedaubed with street mud, and kissed his retroussé nose squarely on its tip; after which she gave him a history of the afternoon’s incident, told as only Bonny would have told it. “Jimminy-cracky! He must be richer’n thunder!” “Robert! Where do you learn such talk? Why will you use such words?” “Dunno, Mother. They seem to grow somehow. Say, Bon! That basket is worth a heap of money!” “My brother, you should not look a gift horse in the mouth!” “You’re doing it yourself, aren’t you? I saw you counting all the time you were talking. So was I. But some of ’em seemed to get away. I bet they is more’n forty. S’pose they cost much as five cents apiece?” “Five cents! Seventy-five is the price of that particular shade everywhere. Think of it! Do it,—a nice little sum for a nice little boy for a nice little girl who pulled a nice little man out of a nice little crowd on a nice little corner of a nice—” “Bonny, Bonny! Don’t be silly! But, indeed, I don’t wonder! The sight of so much beauty has raised my own spirits till I feel able to fight the world afresh—for you, my children! But Bonny is right; don’t, don’t ‘count the teeth’ of this lovely ‘gift horse,’ dears. Put the basket on that white cloth I just finished embroidering, right in the centre of the table. Then let us gather about it and study it. We will all work the better for the lesson.” “Motherkin! you are the dearest, wisest body in the world. Here’s your chair—right up front. And say! let’s every one tell what she or he sees in the flowers. I suppose that present represents something different to each; don’t you?” “I suppose with all your practical sense you are still a fanciful child!” responded Mrs. Beckwith, smiling fondly upon the active Beatrice, who was, indeed, her mother’s “right hand” of dependence in their every-day life. “Well, if I am, I think it is a case of heredity—like I was reading about in last night’s paper. When you were left to make faces at fortune, with four troublesome youngsters pulling at your skirts, you might have dropped your mouth- corners and put on a doleful expression—but you did not. You just rolled up your sleeves and put on your thimble and shut your eyes to the old dame’s frowns and went to work. I remember, Motherkin, once when ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ was in the cradle, and I was rocking him to sleep, you sang so loud and so long that I told you I wouldn’t rock him any more if you didn’t keep still; and you turned on me with such a look! Your eyes were full of tears and your lips were trembling; but yet you were smiling as brave as could be. ‘I dare not stop, darling!’ you said; ‘if I did I should cry!’ I tell you, Motherkin, I never forgot that, and I never will! But what do you see in the ‘posy,’ dear Mother?” “I see an old-fashioned garden, with an old-fashioned dame walking in it. An old-fashioned gentleman is bending before her, and presenting her with chrysanthemums—of just this shade. It is early winter—or late, late fall. There is hoar-frost on the dead leaves in the path, hoar-frost upon the hair of these two people, and a touch of winter’s cold has nipped their thin cheeks. Yet they smile and are lovingly courteous still. They know that the chrysanthemums will fade; that the hoar-frost will change to ice on which they must slip downwards over the dead-leaf path—out of sight. But they will be brave and beautiful to the end; and their memory will be like the strange and spicy fragrance of their chosen flowers.” “Oh, how pretty, Mother! Call the picture ‘Artemisias.’ That is the old-time name for ‘Mums.’ And I hope when it is done some rich, rich person who has leisure to study the meaning of beautiful things will buy your drapery and hang it on a wall alone, close to a cheery wood fire; and that he will sit down before it many times and learn all that you have put into it.” “Belle, next! What says the basket to you, Miss Beauty?” “I see a big, big ball-room. It is filled with handsome women and gentlemanly men. They are all, like Bonny’s ‘rich one,’ at leisure and at rest. They say courteous things to one another, and they feel them. The women have never known what it means to wear patched shoes and soiled gloves. They have travelled everywhere. They know everything that happy mortals need to know. They have never heard that there was poverty in the world which they could not relieve, nor suffering they could not soothe. They have never had their tempers spoiled and their faces lined by want of any sort. I am there in the midst of them, as care-free, as beautiful, as soft-spoken as any of them. As happy, too. I wear a lovely gown of just that chrysanthemum shade, but no jewels. I have the blossoms in my hair, on my corsage, in my hands. I love them. I am wholly, wholly content. I have nothing left to wish for.” “Happy mortal! Come, ‘Laureate’! But cut it short. Because, you know, my poet, you are inclined to be a little long- drawn-out sometimes.” “Hush! impious spirit! Fright not the muse away!” retorted Roland, in a very unpoetic tone. “I am in Japan. There are lovely fountains, perfect gardens, beautiful maidens—and lots of time! I don’t get up in the morning till I choose. I write soap or even stove-polish poems, unrebuked by my irreverent sister. I have plenty of money to buy my mother gowns covered with embroidery which she doesn’t have to do herself, and to fill the cupboard with food which she doesn’t have to cook. There are wonderful kites which Bonny does not make, but which ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ does fly, from the top of a funny little house as tall as a table, into a blue sky which rests on the top of his head—” “Enough! Now, Bob?” “Oh! I dunno. No school, fer one thing. No grammar talk when I get home. Plenty of fire-crackers an’ pistols an’ guns an’ turkey an’ everything I want! Say, Bonny Beckwith! Ain’t we never a going to have any supper?” [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] “At once, small sir. It is a matter of economy to feed you immediately you feel the need of being fed. The longer the delay the greater the cavity. Now, dreamers, all move back, please. Your humble servant has the floor, and must have the table, seeing that it is the only one the house of Beckwith possesses.” With a smile they all pushed back; but the gentle widow laid her hand caressingly upon Beatrice’s shoulder with the question: “Had the chrysanthemums no visions for your eyes, sweetheart?” “Heaps of ’em, Motherkin! But some other time.” “No fair, no fair, Bon! What do you want?” “A home in the country!” “Whew! I reckon I’ll get my Japanese tour first!” said Roland, as he placed the basket of flowers upon the top of the sewing-machine amid a pile of unmended stockings. “Gracious! How much depends upon surroundings! That isn’t half as suggestive up there!” “Hark! What’s that row in the street? Hear that awful thumping!” cried Bob, seizing his hat and bounding down the stairs, two steps at a time. Bonny also hurried to the window, but turned from it in instant dismay. “For the goodness’ sake! It’s my old gentleman, and a policeman has him by the collar!” And before anybody could interpose she had followed her small brother. [27]