Part 42 (2/2)

”Mother baked currant bread, miss,” I said, ”and Madam Winthrop's gardener gave me a spotted kitten, and I have a string of blue beads and the day to myself. I'm thinking I'll go up to The Cedars and Mrs.

Williams will let me read some of the books from the library for the afternoon.”

”Why, that's where I live--The Cedars!” she says, surprised. ”Madam Winthrop is my aunt, and Mrs. Williams dresses me! Come into the phaeton and I'll drive you there!”

She had forgot the errand she came on, bless her, with the excitement, and if mother hadn't come out to inquire, there'd have been a great to-do. There was a maid all over blotches at The Cedars, and a doctor and nurse was wanted, and mother was ready very quick, as she always was. So I got into the phaeton and Miss Lisbet drove me to The Cedars, and I had a birthday dinner with her: roast fowl and mashed potatoes and new peas and a frozen pudding with figs and almonds in it. I can see her now, at the head of the table, with me and Mrs. Williams on either side, and the macaw, all indigo and orange color and scarlet, on his perch opposite! She had on a worked muslin frock with lace-trimmed pantalets, blue silk stockings, and black French kid ankle-ties. Her hair, a light golden brown, was all in curls, and a blue velvet snood kept it back: the young girls today wear ribbons about their heads something like it. Her eyes were a dark, bright blue, and her cheeks, like most American children's, a sort of clear pale, that flushed quick with her feelings. She was tall and slim and looked quite three years older than me, that has always been stocky-like and apple-cheeked, even at sixty-four!

She had been away at a school for two years, having lost her father and mother, and old Madam Winthrop had adopted her, in a sort of way, being her great-aunt, and was to leave her all her money.

While we were eating, old Dr. Stanchon pops in, leading a little red-haired boy, very plain and clever-looking, by the hand.

”Can this youngster have a bite with you, Mrs. Williams?” says he, looking worried like. ”That precious girl of yours has the fever, and I'll be busy some time. I promised him the fish pond for a treat, for it's his birthday, to-day, and now perhaps Miss Elizabeth will take him there--h.e.l.lo, little Rhoda! How fine we are!”

The little lad pulls out a great pocket-knife and lays it on the table.

”I am d.i.c.k Stanchon, and I'm ten years old to-day!” says he very quick.

”I have this Barlow knife and the 'Arabian Nights,' and I'm to be a doctor, like my father. Do you have frozen pudding often, here?”

Well, you can see how startling it would be to three children to be at the same birthday together! We couldn't be tired talking of it.

”We will all be firm friends for the rest of our life,” said Miss Lisbet, very excited, ”and never have secrets from each other. And when I get Aunt Winthrop's money, I will divide it into three parts, one for each. And we will do a great deal of good in the world.”

”Come, come,” says Mrs. Williams, sour-like, ”not so fast, missy.

You've not the money yet, nor shouldn't speak of it, and as for being friends, it's all right so far as d.i.c.k Stanchon is concerned, but I doubt if Madam will feel the same as to Rhoda Pennyfield! So make no more plans till we know.”

But of course we did make plans, for all her stiffness. We sat in the red cedar grove, playing at tea-parties with a beautiful china tea-set, and Master d.i.c.k was to marry her, and I was to live with them and be nurse to the children, with one named for me!

Dear, dear! I've forgot much that's come in between and many that's been kind to me (more shame to me!) but I can see the sun on her curls now and him sharpening his new knife on the granite rocks that were so thick in the grove.

”Rhoda and d.i.c.k,” says she, very solemn, after a little, ”I'm going to tell you a great secret. Come close to me.”

You can believe we listened with all our ears; we wors.h.i.+pped the ground she trod on, both of us, do you see, even then.

”I mean to do a great deal of good in the world before I die,” says she, ”as I mentioned before, at dinner. I don't mean just ordinary _being_ good, you know, but _doing_ it. At school I always meant to go as a missionary, and I was saving all my money for a fund for it, but I couldn't seem to keep it, somehow. Two or three of the girls were poor girls, and if they hadn't their birthdays remembered, it would have been dreadful. And the cook's little boy was lame in his spine and he was so fond of flowers! And I hadn't so much money, anyway. Then, all my time was full, because we had to do things every hour, just so. But now I'm to have a governess and I shall have a great deal of time, so I can study hard for a missionary and perhaps go to South America--if there are any heathens there, as I suppose there are.”

”Yes, miss,” says I.

”So now my new life is beginning,” she says very low and solemn, ”and I feel that everything will be different. I wish I could be _sure_, though, that it would be!”

”Why don't you try the larkspurs, miss,” says I. ”They'll tell you.”

My mother, you must know, was a great believer in signs. Not being much educated, she went by them, I suppose, the way plain people will, be it ever so. There's no use saying it's against religion--mother was as religious as any one, take who you will--they will do it. If a bird flew into the house, there was death for sure, and she never would let three candles be lighted, no matter whose the house. And so my sister and I had many of these ways and signs, and always told how things would be by larkspurs. So I told Miss Lisbet how to strip them off for ”yes, no, yes, no,” and she asked her question very solemn:

”_Larkspur, larkspur, tell me true,_ _Or never again I'll trust to you!_

Is there to be a great change in my life?” And she stripped them off, mumbling-like to herself, ”Yes, no, yes, no”--and the last off was ”no.”

And then she cried, poor thing, and I with her, for we both believed in 'em, but d.i.c.k only laughed and said it was all foolishness.

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