Part 27 (1/2)

Her mother nodded her head as she wiped her eyes on her gingham ap.r.o.n.

'I wondered if you saw it coming?' the girlish voice went on. 'You never let on, and the kids never teased me any. So I thought perhaps you told 'em not to. I haven't felt like being teased about Jim, some way. It's been too wonderful, you know.'

Not until that moment did Emmeline Black acknowledge the defeat of her dreams. Wonderful! To love and be loved by Jim Forman, of whom the most that could be said was that he was steady and a hard worker, and that there were only two other children to share his father's farm!

'Don't cry, mother,' implored Victoria, 'though I know why you're doing it. I feel like crying, too, only something won't let me cry to-night. I guess I'm just too happy ever to cry again.'

Still her mother had not spoken. She had stopped crying and stood twisting her ap.r.o.n with nervous fingers.

'Mother,' said Victoria, suddenly, 'you like Jim, don't you?'

She said it as if the possibility of any one's not liking Jim was preposterous. But, nevertheless, there was anxiety in her voice.

Her mother nodded her head.

'Then why aren't you really glad? I thought you would be, mother.'

There was no resisting that appeal in Victoria's voice. Never in her life had she failed her daughter. Was she to fail her in this hour?

'You seem like a little girl to me, Victoria,' she found voice to say, at last. 'I guess all mothers feel like this when their daughters tell them they are going to leave them. I reckon I never understood until just now, why my mother acted just like she did when I told her your father and I were going to be married.'

Victoria laughed joyously. 'I'm not a little girl. I'm a woman. And, mother, Jim is so good. He wants to be married right away. He says he can't bear to think of waiting. But he said I was to tell you that if you couldn't spare me for a while, it would be all right.'

There was pride in her lover's generosity. But deeper than that was the woman's pride in the knowledge that he could not 'bear to think of waiting.'

'It isn't that I can't spare you, dear,' said her mother. 'But, O Victoria, I'd wanted to have you go off and study to be a fine musician.

I've dreamed of it ever since you were born.'

'But I couldn't go even if it wasn't for Jim. Where would we ever get the money? Anyway, mother, Jim is going to buy me a piano. What do you think of that?'

'A piano?'

'Yes. He has been saving money for it for years. He says I play too well for an old-fas.h.i.+oned organ. And on our wedding trip we're going to Chicago, and we're going to pick it out there, and we're going to a concert and to a theatre and to some show that has music in it.'

In spite of herself, Emmeline Black was dazzled. In all her life she never had gone to the city except in her dreams. Until that far-off day of magic when Victoria should be a fine musician, she had never hoped to replace the squeaky little organ with a piano.

'He says he has planned it ever since he loved me, and that has been nearly always. He says he can just see me sitting at the piano playing to him nights when he comes in from work. I guess, mother, we all have to have our dreams. And now Jim's and mine are coming true.'

'Have you always dreamed things, too?' asked her mother.

It did not seem strange to her that she and this beloved child of hers had never talked about the things which were in their hearts until this night. Mothers and daughters were like that. But there was a secret jealousy in knowing that they would not have found the way to those hidden things if it had not been for Jim Forman. It was he, and not she, who had unlocked the secrets of Victoria's heart.

'Why, yes, of course, mother. Don't you remember how you used to ask me what was the matter when I was a little girl, and would go off sometimes by myself and sit and look across the fields? I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know just what it was. And don't you remember asking me sometimes if I was sick or if somebody had hurt my feelings, because you'd see tears in my eyes? I'd tell you no. But some way I couldn't tell you it was because the red of the sunset or the apple trees in blossom or the crescent moon, or whatever it happened to be, made me feel so queer inside.' She laughed, but there was a hint of a sob in her voice. 'Isn't it strange, mother, that we don't seem able to tell folks any of these things? I couldn't tell you even now, except that I always had an idea you'd felt just the same way, yourself. I seemed to know I got the dreams from you.'

'Hush,' warned her mother. 'There's some one coming. Oh, John, is that you?'

'Yes. Why don't you two go to bed?' answered the boy. 'It's getting late, and there's lot to do to-morrow.'

'It is bed-time, I guess,' said his mother. 'Run along, Victoria. And sweet dreams.'