Part 16 (1/2)
Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred were unperverted; they were womanly in every fibre, and the interest with which they planned, consulted, and dwelt upon each detail of their small household economy is beyond my power to interpret. They could have made the stateliest mansion in the city homelike; they did impart to their two poor rooms the essential elements of a home. It was a place which no one could enter without involuntary respect for the occupants, although aware of nothing concerning them except their poverty.
”Mrs. Atwood and Susan actually cried when we came to go,” Mrs.
Jocelyn remarked as they were all busy together, ”and even old Mr.
Atwood was wonderfully good for him. He and Roger put a great many harvest apples and vegetables in a large box, and Mrs. Atwood added a jar of her nice b.u.t.ter, some eggs, and a pair of chickens. I told them that we must begin life again in a very humble way, and they just overflowed with sympathy and kindness, and I could scarcely induce them to take any money for the last week we were there. It was funny to see old Mr. Atwood: he wanted the money dreadfully--any one could see that, for a dollar is dear to his heart--but he also wanted to be generous like his wife, and to show his strong good-will. They sent heaps of love to you, Millie, and cordially invited us to visit them next summer; they also offered to board us again for just as little as they could afford. Even Jotham appeared to have something on his mind, for he was as helpful as an elephant, and stood around, and stood around, but at last went off muttering to himself.”
”Millie,” said Belle indignantly, ”I think you treated Roger shamefully. After we returned from seeing you off, mamma and I went mooning up to that hill of yours looking toward the south, because you and papa were in that direction. Suddenly we came upon Roger sitting there with his face buried in his hands. 'Are you ill?'
mamma asked, as if his trouble might have been a stomach-ache.
He started up and looked white in the moonlight. 'She was cruel,'
he said pa.s.sionately; 'I only asked for friends.h.i.+p. I would have given my life for her, but she treated Jotham better than she did me, and she thinks I'm no better than he is--that I'm one of the farm animals.' 'Mr. Atwood,' mamma began, 'she did not mean to be cruel'--he interrupted her with an impatient gesture. 'The end hasn't come yet,' he muttered and stalked away.”
Mildred sat down with a little perplexed frown upon her face.
”I'm sure I meant him only kindness,” she said; ”why will he be so absurd?”
”You had a queer way of showing your kindness,” snapped Belle.
”What would you have me to do? Encourage him to leave home, and all sorts of folly?”
”You can't prevent his leaving home. Mark my words, he'll soon be in this city, and he'll make his way too. He's a good deal more of a man than your lily-fingered Mr. Arnold, and if he wants to be friendly to me and take me out sometimes, I won't have him snubbed.
Of course all my old friends will cut me dead.”
”Oh, if he will transfer his devotion to you, Belle, I'll be as friendly as you wish.
”No, you've spoiled him for me or any one else. He's fool enough to think there's not another girl in the world but Mildred Jocelyn, and he'll get you if you don't look out, for he has the most resolute look that I ever saw in any one's eyes. The day before we came away something happened that took away my breath. A man brought a young horse which he said no one could manage. Roger went out and looked into the beast's eyes, and the vicious thing bit at him and struck at him with his forefoot. Then as he tried to stroke his back he kicked up with both hind feet. Oh, he was a very Satan of a horse, and they had a rope around his head that would have held a s.h.i.+p. Roger went and got what he called a curb-bit, and almost in a twinkling he had slipped it on the horse, and without a moment's hesitation he sprang upon his bare back. The horse then reared so that I thought he'd fall over backward on Roger. Mamma fairly looked faint--it was right after dinner--Susan and the children were crying, his father and mother, and even the owner of the horse, were calling to him to get off, but he merely pulled one rein sharply, and down the horse came on his four feet again. Instead of looking frightened he was coolly fastening the rope so as to have it out of the way. After letting the ugly beast rear and plunge and kick around in the road a few minutes, Roger turned his head toward a stone wall that separated the road from a large pasture field that was full of cows, and he went over the fence with a flying leap, at which we all screamed and shouted again. Then away they went round and round that field, the cows, with their tails in the air, careering about also, as much excited as we were. At last, when the horse found he couldn't throw him, he lay down and rolled. Roger was off in a second, and then sat on the beast's head for a while so he couldn't get up when he wanted to. At last he let the brute get up again, but he was no sooner on his feet than Roger was on his back, and away they went again till the horse was all in a foam, and Roger could guide him easily with one hand.
He then leaped the tamed creature back into the road, and came trotting quietly to the kitchen door. Springing lightly down, and with one arm over the panting horse's neck, he said quietly, 'Sue, bring me two or three lumps of sugar.' The horse ate them out of his hand, and then followed him around like a spaniel. His owner was perfectly carried away; 'Jerusalem!' he exclaimed, 'I've never seen the beat of that. I offered you twenty-five dollars if you would break him, and I'll make it thirty if at the end of a month you'll train him to saddle and harness. He wasn't worth a rap till you took him in hand.' 'It's a bargain,' said Roger coolly, and then he whispered to me, 'That will buy me a pile of books.' That's the kind of a man that I believe in,” concluded Belle, nodding her head emphatically, ”and I want you to understand that Roger Atwood and I are very good friends.”
Mildred meditatively bit her lip, and her cheeks had flushed with excitement at Belle's story, but she would make no comment upon it in words. ”What does he want with so many books?” she asked, after a moment.
”You'll see before you are gray.”
”Indeed! has he taken you into his confidence, also?”
”That's my affair. I believe in him, and so will you some day. He already knows more Latin than you do.”
”That's not saying a great deal,” replied Mildred, with a short, vexed laugh. ”How came he to know Latin?”
”He studied it at school as you did. The fact is, you are so prejudiced you know nothing about him. He's strong and brave, and he'll do what he attempts.”
”He'll find that I am strong, too, in my way,” said Mildred coldly.
”He said something that hurt me more than I hurt him, and all I ask of him is to leave me alone. I wish him well, and all that, but we are not congenial. Complete success in his wild ambition wouldn't make any difference. He ought to remain at home and take care of his own people.”
”Well, I'm glad he's coming to New York, and I hope for my sake you'll treat him politely.”
”Oh, certainly for YOUR sake, Belle. Let us all stick to that.”
”Belle's a mere child,” said Mrs. Jocelyn, with her low laugh.
”I'm sixteen years old, I thank you; that is, I shall be soon; and I know a real man from the ghost of one.”
”Belle,” cried Mildred, in a tone she rarely used, ”I will neither permit nor pardon any such allusions.”