Chapter XXI: An Exciting Time

"WHAT in the world is the matter now?" said Mrs. Tucker, a trifle sharply, for Christie's sudden start had made her prick her finger, and she looked for a bit of rag to wipe away the drop of blood.

"Oh, I am so sorry," said Christie, seeing the drop, "but, mother, Wells Burton's carriage has stopped at the door, and a lady and gentleman, and Wells himself, are getting out, and coming up the walk, and it must be his father and mother."

"For pity's sake!" said Mrs. Tucker, rising too, and beginning to hastily gather her work. "And the front room fire is all out! Pick up the rags, Christie, quick, and don't let them see such a litter as this."

Mrs. Tucker had only had a fire in her front room for a few weeks, but she was already beginning to speak of it as a thing that it was hard to get along without.

"It doesn't take long to get used to luxuries and call them necessities," she said almost fretfully. "It does seem a pity, when we have such a nice room."

Christie, too, was almost more fluttered than she had ever been before. The little Tucker house sat back from the road, and there was time to do quite a little talking before the company reached the door.

"Mother," said Christie, "I do wish they wouldn't come. I like Wells, but his mother looks proud, and her dress is all silk and velvet. She will think she must thank me, and I don't know what to say. I don't want any thanks."

Then came the knock.

"Go to the door, child," said Mrs. Tucker, stuffing the last scarlet rag frantically into the bag. "She won't bite you if she is in silk and velvet. And as for her thanks, it is natural enough for her to want to give them, since you saved the life of a boy like Wells."

By this time Christie was at the door.

"Good morning," said Wells. It was he who had knocked. "You did not expect me this morning, did you? I found papa and mamma at home when I reached there. They came last night, after all. Mamma, this is Christie."

Then he stood back, and Christie found herself taken possession of. A rustle of silk all about her, and herself folded in arms covered with velvet, and her cheeks and eyes and lips showered with kisses, while the tears stood in a pair of motherly eyes.

"My child," she said at last, and her voice reminded Christie of the notes of her piano, "I couldn't write it, and I can't say it. God only knows what you have done for me."

Was this thanks? Christie did not know. It certainly was not what she had expected, and it was very sweet.

Mr. Burton pushed his way in, and stood shaking her mother's hand and looking down on her, and saying, "God bless you, madam, for bringing up such a daughter!"

And then he turned to Christie, and bent his bearded lips and kissed her, as he might have kissed his daughter.

It was an exciting time. Wells stood apart, smiling, his eyes glistening a little. He had never been able to say much about that narrow escape of his—he had been very anxious to have his father and mother come and say it. The waiting had seemed long to him—had seemed almost an insult to Christie. Now that they had come, they did not seem to have much to say, but the boy was satisfied. He felt that both father and mother had thanked Christie in a way that she could understand.

Nettie came forward at last, gravely, to get her share of attention. She was used to a good deal of it. Mr. Burton at once took her in his arms and kissed her, and then he kissed the great doll with its wide-open eyes, and it was so plain that he did not know what he was about, that they all laughed. It was wonderful how much less embarrassed everybody felt after that. They all sat down somewhere, Wells bringing a chair from the front room for his father, and before she knew it, Mrs. Tucker was inquiring for the sick son, and telling about a remedy that they used East which she believed might help him.

Of course the whole story of the journey had to be gone over again—how the man in front of Christie came to explain about the ropes, and how she had laughed at the idea of stopping the train, and how she had seen Wells on the platform but a moment before, and then seen him disappear. How she was sure it was Wells, for Karl had often told her about him, and she had watched him herself many a time.

Then Mrs. Burton told of her anxiety when the train was delayed all day, and of her feeling when they brought Wells up the steps, and how he shouted, "Don't be frightened, mother, it is only a sprain, and I have had a doctor who has almost cured me already."

"He told me all about it," she said, "every little thing. How you bathed his ankle and took up a collection of handkerchiefs to bandage it, and then did it so nicely. And really the doctor said if it had been allowed to swell all day, with nothing done for it, it would have been a bad business.

"Oh, I have wanted to come to you every day. And at night, sometimes, when I would get thinking of it, I would almost feel as though I could fly. I would have written, but every day I thought by the next I could surely come out. But my poor boy has been so ill, this is the first time that I could safely leave him, and wind and snow and rain have done what they could to keep Mr. Burton at the West. Oh, it has been a trying time!"

In the midst of all this, Wells slipped away. Christie wondered afterwards when he went, she did not see him.

And Mr. Burton after joining in the talk for a few minutes and finding that Mr. Tucker was in the upper lot, said he would go and see him there. And Christie, looking around for Wells, missed him then, and concluded that he had gone ahead, in search of Karl.

Meantime, there were some queer noises in the front part of the house. It was like something falling. She looked out of the window, but all she saw was Wells talking with Karl, and she concluded that the latter meant to slip in by the front door, and go through the front room to her bedroom and get his hands washed and his hair in order before he appeared. What could he be tumbling? She hoped it had nothing to do with her dear piano. What if he had tipped over the water pitcher and the new carpet was getting a wetting! She wanted to go and see, but Mrs. Burton was talking eagerly to her, and there was no chance to slip away.

The time passed, and Karl did not come. He must be in dreadful trouble, Christie thought. Neither did Wells, nor his father. She looked out of the window a good deal, but there was nothing to be seen but the Burton carriage being driven up and down to exercise the horses. At last even they went out of sight, for the Tucker house was on a corner where three roads met, and the carriage at last went around the house.

After what seemed to Christie a long time, Mr. Burton came back, bringing her father with him, and then a great deal of the talk had to be gone over, but she could not slip away, for Mrs. Burton had fast hold of her hand all the time. And when she asked her father where Karl was, all he had to say was, "he guessed he was around somewhere."

And from time to time came little noises from the front room. At last, Christie decided that Karl had resolved on building a fire so that the guests might get a glimpse of the glories of the front room. After that, she was quiet.

It was not so very long before he appeared, his hair not wonderfully combed, and his face flushed as though he had been taking a good deal of exercise. He sat down, though, without a hint as to a fire in the front room. Wells was behind him and did the talking.

"Mamma, have you asked Mrs. Tucker if she would agree to our plan? Christie, isn't it a nice one? I hope you think so; I do."

"Softly, my son," said Mrs. Burton, smiling, "you go too fast. We had not reached your plan yet. I'll suggest it now, though. Mrs. Tucker, Wells tells me that your young people are not in school."

"No," said Mrs. Tucker, her motherly cheeks growing red. "We are out of the district, you see, and we could not bring it about yet."

"And the school is not a desirable one, I hear. I have grown so nervous over Wells' going into the city every day that we have made a change and secured a teacher in the house for him, a noble young man who is a friend of the pastor here, Mr. Keith, and most highly recommended by him, and Wells wants Christie and Karl to join him at our house for four hours of hard work every day. Mr. Hosmer is also a fine musician, and Christie can commence lessons at once on the piano. Wells tells me she has a nice little one of her own. Now, Mr. Tucker, if you will lend your son and daughter to us every day for the next year, we shall really consider it a favour, for Wells does not like to study alone, and there are no young people here that he cares to have with him except Christie and Karl."

What was to be said to such a wonderful sentence as that! I don't wonder that it took even Mrs. Tucker's breath away, and that Mr. Tucker sat silent, his lips working strangely, and his eyes growing too dim to see even how pale Christie had grown, nor how she clutched at her chair as if she were falling. The mother saw it, and drew nearer and put her arm around her girl, while Mr. Tucker tried twice to speak before his voice would obey orders. Then it quivered suspiciously:

"If there is any one thing that their mother and I have coveted for our boy and girl, it was a chance to learn, and that we couldn't seem to manage nohow. They are smart, and we knew they were, and we knew if we could give them half a chance they would get along. Their mother has taught them a good deal, and she was a good scholar in her day, but it is all that we could do, and the way out seemed to be getting thicker all the time. And now to have such a chance as this, all of a sudden, it is most too much. I don't know what to say, nor how to say it."

"Don't say anything, my friend," Mr. Burton broke in, "except to relieve this boy's anxiety." And here he put his arm around Wells, who had drawn a chair to his side. "He wants to see Karl and Christie in his schoolroom on Monday morning without fail; he worked all yesterday morning getting the study tables and chairs arranged exactly to his mind."

Well, there was more talk, and a little planning. The excitement lessened to the grown people. They had learned to take even astonishment in a calmer way than young blood can. But Christie could distinctly hear the loud thuds of her own heart, and was occupied in wondering some of the time whether it were possible that no one heard it but herself. This thing that had come to her seemed too wonderful for belief. She looked over at Karl, and rubbed her eyes, and wondered if she might not be dreaming. Karl actually looked sober over it.

Not sorrowful, by any means. There was a light in his brown eyes that seemed fairly to dazzle her, but his good strong face was as grave as a man's, and almost seemed to have a man's thought on it. Christie could not help thinking that Karl saw farther even than this wonderful going to school. It was all arranged in a very short time, considering the interests involved.

They were to begin on Monday at nine o'clock, and work until one; and on two days of the week, they were to remain until three, Christie to take a music lesson, and Karl to begin Latin and drawing.

"Of course they will lunch with us on those days," Mrs. Burton said, rising, and buttoning her velvet cloak as she spoke. "We lunch at two, and we shall be only too glad to have young faces about us so often. Wells tells me that Christie is a good walker, but you need not be troubled about her, Mrs. Tucker. Whenever it is in the least unpleasant, the carriage can come for them as well as not, the horses need exercise, and I shall always send them home in it when I think they ought not to walk. Indeed, Wells expects to have his own pony carriage here during the summer, and I presume he will insist on driving them. Oh, don't speak of obligation, Mr. Tucker, don't, you frighten us. Look at Wells, and think what might have been, but for your brave child."

"Even if his life had been spared," added Mr. Burton. And then after a moment he said, in a low voice, "We have one son who is helpless and a sufferer."

At last they went away. Christie was glad. It seemed to her that she could not have borne it another minute.

The moment the door closed after them, she laid her head in her mother's lap and cried as though her heart would break. And the mother smoothed back her hair, and tried to raise her, and said, "Why, what a little goosie she is, to be sure!" But she said it in a queer-sounding voice, and actually plashed a great tear on Christie's nose as she spoke.

When Mr. Tucker came back from seeing his guests to the carriage, he said, "Well, well, well!"

And Nettie who began to suspect that she really was not having her share of attention, climbed into his arms and besought him to look at her lovely dolly and not keep winking his eyes so. That made them laugh. Even Christie sat up and laughed, with her face tear-stained. Then the baby in the bedroom lifted up his voice and gave an unmistakable squeal.

"He means to do the crying himself," said the mother, hurrying away, glad, if the truth be told, to hide her face in the baby's neck for a minute.

"Perhaps he's got something to cry for," said the father, "but I don't, for the life of me, see what the rest of us mean. Karl, my boy, are you standing on your head, do you suppose? Everything is getting topsy-turvy. How about books, my boy? Can we think up any way to manage them?"

"Karl," said Christie suddenly, "were you in the front room? I thought I heard noises there like something tumbling. What could it have been?"

"Yes," said Karl, giving a quick start toward the door. "I was in there and something tumbled too. I had a great time. Come in and see."

They rushed away, and Mrs. Tucker, with the baby in her arms, rose up as if to follow them.

"Dear, dear!" she said. "I do hope nothing has happened to her piano. If there has, I don't know what will become of that child. She is getting the most ridiculous notions of fainting! Did you see her when they were here? She turned as white as that tablecloth."

Before Mr. Tucker was ready to answer, they heard a queer little squeal from Christie, and a louder one from Nettie, and then father and mother went to the rescue.

What they saw there was enough to make anybody in his senses squeal a little. The whatnot which had stood but an hour before with its rows of empty shelves was filled now from floor to its topmost corner with books. Books bound in red and green and russet brown, and brown and gold and black. How wonderful they looked to Christie, who had all her little life wanted books and never had any to speak of, I cannot even pretend to tell you. She stood in front of the whatnot, her hands clasped as if in awe, and her cheeks the colour of the red bindings which gleamed down at her. No fear of fainting just then.

"Go and look at them," Karl was saying, just as his father and mother appeared on the scene. "Just you open the covers and take a peep inside. You'll see some fine writing, I can tell you. That boy can write beautifully, and he says he is going to take lessons this term." Karl's eyes added, "So am I," but he wasn't yet ready to trust his voice to say such a wonderful thing as that.

"There's an arithmetic, let me tell you—the latest kind—two of 'em. He said it was awkward, sometimes, for two people to use the same books. And do you see that broad flat book away down under the whatnot? It was too wide for any shelf. That is a geography and atlas—great coloured maps, beauties! And there are histories, and stories about the sea and the moon, and oh! I can't tell you! Why don't you go and look at them?" For Christie still stood with clasped hands and swift-coming breath and silent voice.

"Look here," said Mrs. Tucker, seizing hold of Karl, "what is all this about? Where did those books come from, and how did they get in here?"

Karl laughed. "They came out of that box, mother, that lies out there on the stoop. And we put them in the shelves, Wells and I. We had to work like troopers, for we expected every minute that Christie would be rushing in to see what the noise was, though his mother had promised to keep hold of her if she could. A whole armful of them tumbled at once, and it seemed to me that they made a noise like an earthquake. Father, do you see now how we are going to manage about books?"

There were a great many questions to answer, of course, and Karl was willing and ready to answer.

"Why, mother, he says these are his present. That the going to school part is his mother's plan, and that it isn't a present, because it will be a good deal nicer for him than to study there alone, and that his father and mother say from what they hear of our family, they would rather he would be with us than anywhere else, and that, he says, is just selfishness—it's the nicest kind of selfishness that I ever heard of," and Karl gave a genial laugh—"but that is the way he pretends to look at it. And these books, he says, are his present, given because he wants to give them. A good many of them are from his own library. He says he has had them so long, and read them so much, that he is kind of tired of them, and will be glad to have them out of the way. So that is selfish, too, I suppose—" with another laugh—"but, father, did you ever hear the like?"

"No," said Mr. Tucker, speaking slowly, and wiping his forehead with his red handkerchief, "I must say I never did in my life. And there seems to be no end to it, and nothing to say. I've used up about all the language that I ever learned, and still it keeps coming. I'll tell you what it is, my girl, it looks as though that journey which you took to your Uncle Daniel's was going to be the greatest trip of your life. Well, well, well!"

When Mr. Tucker said that, the family knew that there was nothing more to be expected, excitement had reached its height, and he must have a chance to be quiet.

After a time, Christie brought herself to the delight of handling the wonderful books, examining them inside and out. Looking at the illustrations and the authors' names and the publishers' names, devouring, indeed, everything about them. Not the least interesting part was the story on the fly-leaf:

_Miss Christie Tucker. From her grateful travelling companion._

Or:

_Christie, from Wells._

Or:

_For my distinguished Surgeon, in Memory of many Pocket-handkerchiefs._

_Miss Christie Tucker—From one who escaped the down train._

These were some of the inscriptions. The boy had exhausted his invention in writing in each some reference to the eventful day when their acquaintance began. The tears which had been pushed back by excitement were creeping very near the front again, until Christie opened a large, beautifully-bound volume of Abbott's delightful history, and read on the fly-leaf—

_Christie—In memory of Sarah Ann._

Then she laughed and the tears went back.

It was Mr. Tucker who finally found his voice again after discovering baby at the piano just as he touched the key once, making it give forth a sound that turned Christie suddenly from her books.

"Look here, mother, do you suppose we can any of us do such a kind of every-day thing as to eat some dinner? In case we should want to, how are we going to get it, I wonder? I hear the clock striking twelve!"

Whereupon Mrs. Tucker, who had been divided between her attempts to show Nettie the pictures in a book, and to keep baby's eager hands from it after he had been led away from the music, uttered an exclamation that seemed to mean a great deal to her, and suddenly vanished.