Part 28 (1/2)
She never married and she hasn't much money, and she just loves pretty things, especially pretty colors. And so Madam Kittredge is sending her a rainbow basket. It ought to have seemed pathetic to see her handling the colored things and hear her telling about the pleasure she was sure her friend would take in them, when she couldn't see them herself, but somehow it wasn't. She doesn't seem to think of herself at all, and so she doesn't make other people. She said she made excellent use of her sight while she had it, and can picture everything clearly now. The basket itself was beautiful, a big green sweet-gra.s.s sc.r.a.p basket, with a great green bow. And inside were six parcels, each tied with a bow of ribbon, so that all the rainbow shades are there. The friend is to draw one each day for a week. Mrs. Kittredge undid them and let me look. She says she likes the feel of the soft paper and ribbon. First was a little red rose bush in a pot--”
”Is she going to send the thing that way? How can she?”
”I asked, myself, and she smiled and said she allowed herself some extravagances, and one was to carry out her little ideas like that without minding if they did cost rather more doing it her way. She said her friend would enjoy the rose ten times as much coming that way as she would if it were ordered from a Milwaukee florist, so she's sending it.
I like her independent spirit!”
”It might take an independent fortune as well,” remarked Dr. Harlow, ”but Madam Kittredge is fortunate enough to have that, or its equivalent, and she uses a good proportion of it in conventional charities, so she is safe from criticism if she chooses to a.s.sist the express companies. Perhaps she's a stockholder in one, for all I know!
What did she have for orange, Alice?”
”A box of tangerines, with those tiny, tiny ones like doll oranges; I forget what you call them. They looked so pretty in a nest of green. The yellow parcel was a little sunset picture, only a little colored photograph, she said, but with a charming glow. The basket itself was for the green stripe in the rainbow, and there was a lovely pale blue knitted scarf, which Madam Kittredge made herself. The indigo bothered her, but she sent her daughter searching everywhere till she found a beautiful Persian pattern ribbon with an indigo ground, and she made that up into sachets with violet scent.”
”That finished off two at once,” said Hannah. ”If I were Matty, I'd object. I thought you said there were six parcels.”
”One of the sachets was done up with dark blue ribbon and the other with violet. But there was still another parcel, a white one, the prettiest of all, for it held skeins of all the soft shades of embroidery silk you ever saw in a white silk case. I don't see how any one could help liking to look at them. Madam Kittredge said that what suggested the whole idea to her was Matty's writing about how she enjoyed having colored silk samples to look at, as she lay in bed. She does embroidery, too, when she is well enough, so she will like the silks to use, by and by.”
”What a charming basket!” Catherine drew a deep breath of pleasure. ”I should love to see it.”
”She said she shouldn't send it for a day or two, so if you go in to-morrow, you can. I'm sure she'd love to have you. She wanted one more thing to make it complete. You see, without intending it, she had put in something for every sense but hearing. There was color and fragrance and touch and taste, and she said she wanted to get some music into it, and she couldn't think how. Of course her friend is deaf, but that didn't matter. She said her mind's ear was as true as ever, and she wanted her to _hear_ something out of that basket. And wasn't it lovely! I happened to think of something which she said would do exactly!”
”What?” ”Tell us!” ”Think of having a hand in such a pretty present!”
The other girls leaned forward eagerly, and the boys looked almost as interested. Alice went on a trifle shyly, as she came to tell her own part.
”I suggested some little poem full of color words, and that delighted her and she thought a minute. I didn't know any, and I wished Catherine were there with her headful! But Madam Kittredge has a headful of her own. She had me get out two or three books and look up some that she thought might do, but they didn't just suit her; and then she had me open her clipping book and hunt for one called _Indian Summer_. It was just the thing and I loved it the minute I read it. She let me copy it for her, and make an illuminated initial with her water-colors. She seems to have everything imaginable in that big roomy desk of hers. I was glad of the chance to copy it, for I could learn it and I want to keep it always.”
”Please recite it for us,” said Dr. Helen, and, the others all joining in her request with words or looks, Alice repeated the beautiful lines lovingly:
”Faint blue the distant hills before, Yellow the harvest lands behind; Wayfarers we upon the path The thistledown goes out to find.
”On naked branch and empty nest, The woodland's blended gold and red, Dim glory lies which autumn shares With faces of the newly dead.
”Tender this moment of the year To eyes that seek and feet that roam; It is the lifting of the latch, A footstep on the flags of home.
”Now may the peace of withered gra.s.s And goldenrod abide with you; Abide with me--for what is death?
Pall of a leaf against the blue.”
Feeling that a benediction had been p.r.o.nounced, they all adjourned to the porch, Dr. Harlow sitting down by Archie and chatting with him in a friendly way about his own Andover experiences years before, while the girls talked quietly with Bert, who had dropped his nonsense for the time. Dr. Helen was sitting a little apart, but by and by Hannah slipped over to her chair.
”I'm not so very clever about things,” she said, ”and I always like to have them explained. So won't you tell me just what you meant by this afternoon? You know we all promised to use the prescription again, if we needed it.”
”Yes,” said Dr. Helen encouragingly, and waited.
”Well. You might have meant several things. You might just have meant that we needed a change. We had been sitting about and wis.h.i.+ng it was cooler and talking nonsense and gossip--almost!--and we hadn't been doing anything useful. Perhaps you wanted us to find out that we'd be happier if we did something for some one else, even if it looked disagreeable at first. I've always had that preached to me!”
”I didn't preach!” objected Dr. Helen.
”No, you prescribed. That's your way of preaching, though. You set us to preaching to ourselves, and it's much more objectionable. I can shut my ears when other people preach to me, but I can't get away from myself!
But I was wondering if, perhaps, besides all that, you didn't want us to see how cheerful and happy some people manage to be without much to make them so. Even that little girl with the spine plays she is an enchanted princess, Catherine says, and has lovely times, winding b.a.l.l.s of yarn and cutting paper chains. She has to get a certain number of them done before the enchantment will be broken. I know who suggested that idea to her,” said Hannah, looking searchingly into the doctor's face. ”I've found out a lot of things this afternoon about you, professionally.
Perhaps _that_ was what you were after! Just advertising!”