Part 2 (1/2)
This simple observation, which had not yet occurred to anyone, called forth looks of surprise.
”That is quite true!” exclaimed Mr. Lambert.
”But of course!” cried his wife.
”I see the beneficent hand of Providence in this,” said Mr. Lambert, who was fond of thinking that Heaven had his domestic affairs very much in mind. ”Yes, we must prepare to welcome our nephew. I hope, my dear, that he will not prove difficult to manage. I hope that he is not lacking in a grateful heart.”
”Poor child. No father or mother, and so young,” murmured Mrs. Lambert, her eyes again filling with tears. ”And I never even knew that Franz had a child. I had forgotten even that he had married.”
”Yon can put a cot in Carl's room,” suggested Mr. Lambert; ”I presume that the boy will arrive in a day or two. And now, children, it is a quarter past seven.”
Everyone rose from the table, and the day's routine began again in its accustomed groove. Mr. Lambert departed for the warehouse. Elise helped the fat young servant girl to clear away the dishes; Carl went out to bring in wood for the stove; even the twins had their household tasks which had to be finished before they started to school at eight o'clock.
But Jane went off to find her Grandmother. Behind the counter, in the bakeshop, the old woman was sitting, weeping quietly; and the slow tears of age were trickling down her wrinkled, brown face, while she strained her eyes to read the crooked awkward lines of her son's letter.
”He was a good boy,” she said, taking Jane's little hand in her gnarled old one. ”I understood him, never fear. He was a brave, fine boy-and he always loved his old mother. I know that. Didn't he send me this pretty shawl-”
”But Granny, darling, he may get well. Don't cry, Granny. Don't you cry.” She kissed the old woman, and patted her, feeling awed and oppressed by this aged sorrow that she could not share.
After a minute, she quietly left Grandmother Winkler, and in an unusually silent, and subdued mood, went away to help the twins.
CHAPTER II-BUSYBODY JANE
At half past eight, Elise had seen that the two little girls had their books and their packages of sandwiches, and started them off to school, Carl and Jane marching behind.
”Oh, and Janey!” she called, hastening back to the doorway. ”Will you remember to give those patterns back to Lily Deacon for me. I'm going to be _so_ busy. Any time this afternoon will do. I put them in your school bag.”
”All right,” said Jane, and Elise, always busy, always placid and gentle, went back to her work.
”Well, what do _you_ think about it?” Jane asked, presently. She had quite forgotten her recent friction with Carl, for quick tempered as she was, she rarely remembered a quarrel ten minutes after it occurred.
”Think about what?” said Carl, gruffly.
”About Paul's coming, of course. It's awfully sad about Uncle Franz-but it _is_ sort of exciting having a new cousin to stay with us, I think.”
”You wouldn't think it so awfully exciting if _you_ had to share your room with someone you never saw in your life,” returned Carl, sulkily.
”I don't see why one of the store-rooms couldn't be cleared out for him.
All I know is that I won't stand for it a second if he tries to sling my things around, or scatter his all over the place.”
Carl was never very enthusiastic about sharing anything with anyone (though in this instance one might sympathize with his annoyance) and his fussy love of neatness reached a degree that one would far sooner expect to find in a crabbed old maid than in a boy of sixteen years.
Jane did not reply to this indignant objection.
”What do you think he'll be like?” she asked next, scuffling through the piles of ruddy brown leaves that lay thick on the uneven brick walk.
”I think he'll be a big, roistering bully. That's what I think,”
answered Carl savagely; his lips set in a stubborn line, and the lenses of his spectacles glinted so angrily, that Jane decided to drop the subject.