Chapter IX: June's Perfect Days

"DO you know we love the Ark?" said Happie to Margery, as they opened the back door to let in all the glorious outdoors June time, having at last succeeded in their ambition to get down one morning ahead of Rosie.

June had come softly, swiftly over the mountains, bringing all her wealth of beauty to the exiles from the lesser treasures of the city, a beautiful surprise in every hour. Robins were nesting in the gnarled apple trees; Happie looked into their homes every morning when she arose, sharing the happiness of the brooding mothers whose secrets she jealously guarded.

Grass and clover were beginning to blossom to be ready for harvesting on the fourth of July, cherries were reddening in the long sunshine of the perfect days, and nature generously seconded the efforts of the newcomers and of the carpenters in repairing and concealing damages to the neglected buildings of the new-old home.

Ralph and Bob were busy building chicken houses and tinkering on sheds. Miss Bradbury, in the innocence of her heart, had decided that it would be good to keep chickens, and they had been added to the stock of the Ark.

Rosie was most competent, slightly cross as quick workers are apt to be, but she took the direction and care of the household upon her shoulders, and Miss Bradbury was glad to overlook a snappishness which was, as Margery said, "merely the snapping of the crust; not one bit from her heart." It was worth while for the sake of being steered through the waters of her inexperience of farm life. They all felt that Penny was justified in her gravely uttered opinion that Rosie was "a lovely lady."

The family had discovered that Rosie had had her share of sorrow, represented by five child graves in the Methodist churchyard, and a living husband who occasionally called upon her. This Mahlon was working on a farm seven miles distant. Bob asked if he were employed as a scarecrow, for a more limp, lazy, incompetent creature was never seen outside The Wizard of Oz. He had a trick of standing on one leg, and swinging the other in unison with the arm on the same side which was an inexhaustible amusement to the children when he came to the farm. He talked in a high, monotonous whine which gave his long thin face the effect of a penny whistle emitting the sound--altogether a sharper contrast to energetic Rosie that he was would have been hard to imagine. The Scollards gathered that her struggle for existence when her children were coming, and quickly going to fill those little graves, had been harder than she said. They were glad for her sake, as well as their own, that she had closed her forlorn house, sent off her Mahlon to work in Zurich according to his ability, and had come to work for them according to her own, very different ability.

Competent as Rosie was, however, she was but one woman, and there was enough left for the girls to do to help her. Happie, on the whole and allowing for those days when the grasshopper is a burden, reveled in her tasks and sang about them all day long, getting brown and plump and prettier for her activity. Margery never reached the point of enjoying her share of the labor, which made it the more creditable that she quietly performed it each day, never complaining, still less shirking, for Margery had that fine conscientiousness which asks: "Should I?" and never: "Would I?"

Rosie came down in less than ten minutes after the girls, and altered the draughts of the stove instantly. Rosie always changed slightly anything done by another, being imbued with doubts of others' competency.

"What got you up so early?" she asked. "My alarm went off, but I laid a minute plannin' my work for the day."

"I couldn't sleep, I was so excited about that horse," said Happie. "I suppose I woke Margery, though I thought I was trying not to waken her. Just as soon as breakfast is over, and the work done I want to go over to tell Gretta about him."

Happie had gone on since she had scraped acquaintance with Gretta, cultivating her all down the fence line as she painted. When the posts were all done, and the double line of wire connecting gorgeous fresh red posts, Happie had completely exorcized Gretta's shyness. She had even followed her up when duty called her to decorate the posts nearest to the house, and had braved the forbidding glare of Gretta's cousins' eyes with such beaming unconsciousness of the possibility of any one's objecting to Gretta's having a friend that she had escaped being ordered away, as Gretta had prophesied that she would be.

"I'd hate to have them say anything to you," Gretta had said anxiously.

And Happie had laughed with a pat on Gretta's arm that was meant to be reassuring, but which sent a great blob of red paint on the flagstone walk.

"They won't say anything to me, Gretta," she had declared. "No one ever does. I'll smile so sweetly, they can't reflect back a frown."

"I'll have to get that off with coal oil," Gretta remarked, regarding the spot on the walk ruefully. "You don't know my cousins; they're not very good looking-glasses. They frown anyway, and they don't reflect you, no matter how you smile."

It was true that they did not reflect Happie's smiles, but neither did they frown. They regarded her with icy impassivity, glad in their hearts of a chance to see near by "one of the new folks" about whom they felt so much curiosity, and reserving their right to prevent Gretta's enjoying her when they saw fit.

Gretta was blossoming out under the new happiness and companionship; she was full of a quiet humor that delighted Happie, and she imitated her little niceties of speech with a quickness that rarely needed a second hint. But Happie had not thus far been able to overcome her shyness sufficiently to get her to meet any of the other inmates of the Ark, whom Gretta avoided under one head, as "the rest." She had begun to despair of ever making her one of their jolly little band when Don Dolor Bonaparte came to her aid.

"What is it to-day, Happie?" asked Miss Bradbury, noting the symptoms of haste in her namesake's breakfast preparations.

"I am going to trap Gretta with Don Dolor, Aunt Keren," laughed Happie. "I want to run over and tell her there is a horse coming, and I hope I shall be able to get her here to see him. You know Gretta is more than fond of horses, and they say she knows more about them than half the men around here; she can drive anything. I think I can coax her to the Ark by pretending we want her opinion of Don Dolor Bonaparte."

"I'm afraid, judging from Mr. Hewett's letter, that her opinion of him won't be high, and I'm certain she wouldn't have to be a horsewoman to drive him," said Miss Bradbury. "But by all means bait your trap with Don Dolor, and troll your woodland maiden to the Ark. I am curious to see the girl that attracts you so strongly."

"I'm sure we shall love her if Happie does," added Mrs. Scollard. Her cheeks were gaining a June tint. Smiling back at her, Happie thought that it was not strange that they were all learning to love the farm that was restoring her to them.

Happie hurried through her morning tasks and raced over to see Gretta. She felt quite sure that at that hour she should find her carrying water to the young lettuce plants which her cousins, Eunice and Reba Neumann, were raising for the hotels five miles distant on the mountains, which in July and August would be thronged with guests.

"Gretta, Gretta!" cried Happie waving her hands as she leaped the garden fence. "Gretta, Aunt Keren has had a letter from Mr. Hewett, her agent in New York, and he has sent up a horse. Bob and Ralph are going down to the station this minute to bring him up. I think he must be pretty bad, because this Mr. Hewett wrote that we were not to judge him by our first impressions. He says he bought him for next to nothing, but if he survives the journey, and we feed him well, we'll see that it was not only a charity but an investment to buy him. He says he has blood, though at first sight we shall think he has only bones. He says his name is Don Dolor Bonaparte--only fancy! You've got to come back with me and receive him. We don't any of us know anything about horses, except Rosie, and you know a lot. So you come back with me, and tell me what you think of poor Don Dolor." And artful Happie smiled alluringly.

Gretta looked up with a laugh in her dark eyes. "Maybe I don't see what you're after!" she said. "You want to get me started coming; I know! Truly, Happie, I don't like to see the rest. I don't know them, and if I did get over being afraid of them, still, I would never get time to visit. You bring the horse down the road and I'll see him there."

Happie folded her hands prayerfully. "Please, please, Gretta, come home with me and see the new old horse! Look at me; don't I look pleading? Have you the heart to say me nay, when I beg you with my paws folded, like a nice little dog, and say _please_ so prettily?"

Gretta laughed. "You make folks do whatever you want," she said. "I'll come if you'll wait till I get these plants watered, and change my dress."

"I'll wait till the lettuce dresses itself for a salad and you for a visit, if you like!" cried Happie triumphantly. "Bob and Ralph have only just started for the station, and they won't get back for nearly two hours anyway; Jake Shale took them down, and you know that is slower than walking. So we've plenty of time."

"I've got to tell Eunice and Reba," said Gretta. "They may take a notion to make me stay home."

"I believe you hope that they will!" cried Happie reproachfully. "See here, Gretta, you'll find that the Scollards neither bark nor bite, because it is their nature to--not! They are the nicest things, every one of them! You'll like Margery better than me; that's my one fear in bringing you together."

"I guess not," said Gretta looking up at Happie from her knees as she weeded the lettuce with eyes full of dog-like devotion and admiration.

"You let me ask your cousins to let you go with me; they won't refuse you to me, for shame's sake. You've finished all your work for the morning," said Happie.

"Work's never finished," corrected Gretta out of her deeper experience. "And we haven't had dinner."

"Maybe it won't take long to look over Don Dolor; he may not be a large horse," suggested Happie. "Come along, Gretta."

Gretta ushered Happie into the fleckless kitchen. There were two gaunt women, looking past sixty, though neither could have been much past forty. One was stirring milk in a stone crock on the back of the stove, which was just thickening into perfection for schmier-kase, while her sister was tying on her sunbonnet with resolute jerks of the strings, and hunting for the basket to bring in more wood. Her movements were accompanied by a running fire of scolding about Gretta, to whose account she set down the absence of the basket, which all the time hung peacefully on a nail in full sight above the table.

"What's wrong with you?" demanded Reba, lifting the crock from the stove and setting it down with the emphasis of its weight. "It's easier using the wheelbarrow anyhow, but if you want the basket, there 'tis. I guess you're getting near-sighted."

"I guess!" retorted Eunice derisively. "Why didn't you hang that there basket alongside the stove? Here I've been a-huntin' and a-huntin' for it," she added, catching sight of Gretta, and quite ignoring Happie.

"Good-morning, Miss Neumann," said that young lady, somewhat daunted by the difficulties of this beginning, but holding to her courage. "My aunt has a horse just arrived, and I'd like to have Gretta come over to see him, please. You'll let her go, for a little while, won't you?"

"A horse? From the city? What good does she expect a city horse to be on these mountains?" demanded Eunice. "She'd better bought one up here, and saved the express on him yet!"

"Oh, I think this horse was sent into the country for his health," laughed Happie. "You will let Gretta come over, won't you?"

"How do you make out with Rosie Gruber?" inquired Eunice. "She's got such a temper, folks say, Mahlon can't stay home. She hain't clean; not what we call clean."

"Why, Miss Neumann!" cried Happie, shocked into undiplomatic defense of Rosie. "She hasn't a bad temper; she's only a little, wee bit snappish, and as to Mahlon, if it wasn't for Rosie he wouldn't have a home to stay in--but of course you know that even better than I do! And she's the cleanest woman! She's made our tumble-down old house as clean as wax. Rosie's a treasure."

"That house you seem to think so poor of hadn't ought to be yours anyhow," said the agreeable Eunice. "Old Bittenbender hadn't any right to give it over to your folks. There's cheatin' somewheres, but we couldn't never prove nothin'. 'Twan't his to give; we're certain of that. It ought to belong to Gretta here, and if she had it she could rent it out, or maybe take a couple of summer boarders after a year, or a couple of years more, instead of bein' a cost to us who need all we kin make for ourselves! Gretta, you git off that there bonnet and git up the potatoes. What you standin' round fer? Hain't there always work to do, I'd like to know?"

Gretta did not answer. She hung up her sunbonnet with quiet obedience, and took the tin basin in which to fetch potatoes. She seemed to recognize at once the uselessness of further pleas for her visit.

But Happie, seeing the clouding of the dark eyes and the look of shame on the pretty face of her new friend, cried out: "Oh, Miss Neumann, Gretta wouldn't be gone long! Won't you please, _please_ let her come home with me? She hasn't been once! Are--you are going to let her come, aren't you?"

"Well, I guess she hain't goin' visitin' before dinner!" said Eunice. "She'd better not go no time. I tell her she'll find out what she'll git, makin' friends with a city girl like you, that'll git tired of her 'soon's you've got used to her, and then where'll she be, with her head all filled up with foolish notions, and tryin' to talk fine, like you yet? I've got my eyes open; I see just what you're doin' with Gretta. She'd better stick to her own folks, that's what _she'd_ better! She come into the world to work, and she's got to work all her life. You won't do her no good, makin' her discontented and then leavin' her. I've been warnin' her, but she's like all girls--thinks she knows more'n older folks! I'm glad I've got the chanct to tell you to your face you'd better leave Gretta stay where you found her. I bet you laugh at her now when you git home with the rest!"

Happie's eyes blazed. She took a step towards Eunice, drawing herself up to the woman's height in her righteous indignation. Gretta quailed, even while she rejoiced that this time Eunice had met one who did not fear her.

"Miss Neumann," said Happie, trying to speak quietly, remembering that this woman was much her elder, and the imprudence of angering her further, for Gretta's sake. "Miss Neumann, I can't allow you to accuse me of being double-faced. When I say I admire and like Gretta I mean it, and when I speak _of_ her, I speak as I do _to_ her. If I were so treacherous, so mean as to pretend to be her friend and then went home and laughed at her I should be severely punished; my mother would have no mercy on a hypocrite. But why should I laugh at Gretta? She is pretty, gentle, refined, good, and patient as I never could be. I like her very much, and she knows I do. I'm not going to drop her, and I won't forget her. I wish you would not try to teach her to mistrust me; it's not fair. And even if she did come into the world to work--I suppose she did, because everybody has to work, one way or another--she came into it for lots else, and I mean to help her find the rest. It almost seems as if you grudged her love and pleasure. Of course you don't, because you couldn't, but it almost seems so. Anyway you will please never speak of me again as you did just now, because I can't possibly be called double-faced."

Gretta's heart thrilled as she listened to her friend pouring out her words more rapidly than her cousins had ever heard any one speak, but clearly, and with a dignity that struck precisely the right note of outraged honor and of self-restraint.

Eunice turned away her eyes from the girl's glowing ones; she felt the force of Happie's justice and her own meanness.

"I don't see what you're going to do about it whatever I say, and I hain't goin' to leave no one tell me what to talk about," she muttered. "I don't care what Gretta does. We took her because we had to, and she hain't never been grateful to us. If she wants to hang around you I won't stop her, but she can't let her work undone. Gretta, when are you goin' down cellar after them potatoes?"

"Now, Eunice," said Gretta. There was a new note in her quiet voice, and she immediately turned to Happie. "I've got to help with dinner now, Happie, and I may be busy a while after that, but I'll come over this afternoon to your house."

Reba looked up quickly from the cheese which she was straining through a cloth. "Yes, you go, Gretta," she said, and Happie went away wondering.

She was not sufficiently versed in human nature to know that Gretta's sudden accession of decision had come from two things. First, she was emboldened by Happie's encounter with her cousin, but still more was she forgetting herself, her dread of visiting, in the desire to prove to her champion that she held to her faith in her unshaken, and that she wished with all her loyal heart to make up to Happie for her cousin's hatefulness. In her desire to show her confidence in her friend and her gratitude to her, at last the fear of that vague "rest" of the Scollards had been lost.

Happie reached home so excited by her adventure with Eunice that she did not rush out to see the new horse as she had planned doing. Instead she regaled her family with the story, almost forgetting to eat, she talked so fast.

"Well, dear; I hope you weren't impertinent, but from what you tell me I think you weren't," said her mother, when the long tale was finished. "For Gretta's sake as well as your own you were obliged to vindicate yourself from the charge of insincerity. And more years do not warrant imputations on another's honor."

Rosie Gruber, taking part as usual in the family councils, here interposed. "Of course she wasn't saucy; Happie's never saucy. The idea of telling her to her face she was two-faced yet! You send them Neumanns to me! I'll tell 'em how you're always talking about Gretta and planning to help her! Two-faced, you! That's a good hint you give her about grudging Gretta friends; you hit her there, and she knew it. There never was such a jealous-hearted woman as Eunice Neumann. She hates to see any one havin' a good time. When Reba was young she had a beau--Eunice never did; there wa'n't a man in the township would have darst to keep comp'ny with Eunice, but Reba had a beau. And if that woman--girl she was then, but just the same's now at heart--if she didn't hint round and fuss round till she got him to stop goin' with her sister, then my name isn't Rosie Heimgegen, Rosie Gruber now! Reba'd be different if she lived somewheres else. Eunice nags and nags till Reba gits to snappin' back--there hain't many things so ketchin' as snappin'. Eunice grudges Gretta her board and keep, though she earns it good. She's mad to think Gretta's happier this summer. There is folks like that, all sour and clabbered like schmier-case----My days! That puts me in mind! I went off and let that pot too far front on the fire! I wanted to hurry it a while, but I guess it's hurried too much." And good Rosie rushed out to the rescue of her schmier-case, to which she was trying to convert the family, hurried so fast that Jeunesse Dorée fled to the windowsill for safety, a puff of nervousness.

Miss Bradbury looked at her namesake sternly, but there was a belying twinkle in her eye. "What do you mean by embroiling me with my neighbors, Keren-happuch?" she demanded.

"If the horse is Don Dolor, you are Donna Quixote, Happie," added Ralph before Happie could reply to the inquiry of the head of the house.

"Oh, well, Aunt Keren, Happie thinks you might as well be embroiled with this Eunice, I suppose, because she is making Gretta's life a roast," said Bob coming to his sister's rescue. "I am curious to see this field-flower--she must be a daisy!"

"She is," laughed Happie. "My goodness, she's coming now! She must have hurried off right after her dinner! I was afraid her courage would fail her when the time came. Bob and Ralph, slip out to the barn and don't show yourselves until you come around with the horse--then there'll be something to talk about, and she won't be shy with you. Margery, you come out after me, soon, and speak to her without my introducing you--you know how. Smile at her and speak in your soft voice, and she'll never be frightened. I'll take Penny out with me; Gretta loves babies, and Polly is too little to mind, so she can do what she likes. And mama and Aunt Keren might slip out when we are in full swing with Don Dolor, and Gretta may not realize she's meeting you. I guess she won't be shy if we sort of leak out, and don't all face her at once. Oh, Laura! Well, I think you'd better follow me at first."

"And what am I to do?" asked Rosie, amused, yet pleased with the pains Happie was taking to launch Gretta smoothly on social waters.

"Oh, you can do whatever you please, and help us out. You understand her, and she knows you. You make us laugh, Rosie. Come on with Happie, Penny-tot."

"Cabbages and kings!" cried Bob. "It's worse than snaring a timid fawn, or catch a dicky-bird with salt! I hope she's worth the trouble." And he departed stableward with Ralph to carry out their part of Happie's programme.