 | CHAPTER XXVIII.
WELCOME HOME. Outpost |  |
28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
WELCOME HOME.
“Time they was here, ain't it, miss?” asked Mehitable
Ross, wiping the flour from her bare arms, and coming out,
upon the step of the door.
“Yes,” said Dora: “I expect them every moment. Is
tea all ready?”
“All but the short-cakes. I hain't put them down to
bake yet, because they're best when they're first done. But
the cold meat is sliced, and the strawberries dished, and
the johnny-cake a-baking.”
“Well, keep them all as nice as you can; and I will
walk out a little, and meet the wagon.”
“Take Argus along, you'd better, case you should meet
one of them tiger-cats Silas told on.”
Dora smiled, but called, “Argus!” and at the word a
great hound came leaping from one of the out-buildings,
and fawned upon his young mistress; then, with stately
step and uplifted head, followed her along the faint track
of the prairie.
The young girl walked slowly, and, at the distance of
some rods from the house, stopped, and, leaning against the
stem of a great chestnut-tree, stood looking earnestly down
the path as it wound into the forest and out of sight. Then
her eyes turned slowly back, and lingered with a strange
and solemn joy upon the scene she had just left; while from
her full heart came one whispered word that told the whole
story of her emotion, —
“Home!”
For this was Outpost, Dora's inheritance from her friend
and father, Col. Blank; and she felt to-night, as she waited
to welcome home the family whose head she had become,
that her duties and responsibilities were indeed solemn and
onerous. Not too much so, however, for the courage
and strength the young girl felt within her soul, — the energy
and will so long without an adequate field of action.
“Plenty to do, and, thank God, plenty of health and
strength to do it. Experience will come of itself,” thought
Dora; and from her throbbing heart went up a “song without
words,” of joy and praise and high resolve.
It was June now; but the house at Outpost had only been
Mrs. Ginniss complacently.
“I was thinking more of what other people would call
him,” said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. “Some friends
of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,
— somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school,
and the West is the place for a young man who means to
rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be
very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate,
and to help you about settling in a profession, or in
trade, as you like.”
Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although
his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between
them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven,
called down such a shower of blessings from so many and
varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen
refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed
to comprehend more than the half of it.
“I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much
as it can you,” said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence
of the other's manner and language.
“I can't say what I want to, ma'am,” spoke a low voice
beside her; “but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait
after mile of prairie, limitless, apparently, as ocean, and, like
ocean, solemnly beautiful in its loneliness and calm.
The house faced south; and eastward from its door, across
the lawn and into the rustling wood, wound the faint wheel-track,
leading back to civilization, ease, and safety: but
Dora, standing beneath the chestnut-tree, fixed her dreamy
eyes upon the setting sun, and, half smiling at her own
fancy, thought, —
“I wonder if God doesn't make the western sky so beautiful
just to draw us toward it. There is so much to do
here, and so few to do it!”
A distant noise in the forest attracted her attention; and
Argus, who had been dreaming at the feet of his mistress,
started up with a short bark.
“Hush, Argus! It's the wagon; don't you know?” explained
Dora, as she hastened down the path, and, at the distance
of a few hundred rods, caught sight of the black heads
of Pope and Pagan, and, the next moment, of the wagon and
its occupants.
These were Karl, Kitty, and Sunshine, the two last of
whom had remained all the spring in Cincinnati, while Karl
and Dora had vibrated between that city and Outpost; for
and opening of the farm operations in person, had not wished
to expose her cousin or the delicate child to such discomforts
as she cheerfully and even gayly bore for herself.
Kitty, moreover, had found the change from her native seclusion
to a gay city very pleasant; and had made so many
acquaintances in Cincinnati, that she declared it was a great
deal worse than leaving home to abandon them all.
“Oho! here's the general come to meet us! Whoa,
Pope! don't you see your mistress? Now, then!” shouted
Karl; while Kitty cried, —
“O Dora! I'm so glad to see you alive!” And little Sunshine,
jumping up and down in the front of the wagon, exclaimed,
—
“Dora's come! Dora's come! Karlo said we'd come to
Dora by and by!”
“O you little darling! if Dora isn't glad to see you
again! Kitty, how do you do? I'm so glad to see you!”
She had jumped into the wagon as she spoke; and, after
giving Kitty a hearty kiss and hug, she took Sunshine in her
arms, and buried her face in the child's sunny curls.
“Am I your own little girl, Dora? and do you love me
same as you always did?” asked Sunshine anxiously.
you wouldn't care for us.”
“Oh! Kitty never meant that, dear,” said Dora quickly;
and Kitty, with rather a forced laugh, added, —
“Of course I didn't. It was only a joke, Molly. You
talked so much about Dora, I wanted to plague you a
little.”
The child looked earnestly at her for a moment; and then,
putting her arms about Dora's neck, hid her face upon her
bosom, murmuring, —
“I'm glad I've got Dora again!”
“Well, now everybody else is attended to, hasn't the
general a word for his humble orderly?” asked Karl, turning
to smile over his shoulder at the group behind.
“Why, you jealous old Karl! you know you've only been
away two weeks, and the girls I have not seen for almost as
many months: besides, I told you not to call me general, and
yourself orderly.”
“Oh! that reminds me of a new name for pet. You know
she persists in calling me Karlo; so I have given her the title
of Dolce: and the two of us together are going some day to
paint pictures far fairer than those of our great original.”
“Carlo Dolce? Yes: Mr. Brown told me about him
Dora simply
“I wonder, then, that you should have left it for Sunshine
to discover how appropriate the name is to me,” said Karl
with mock gravity.
“I'll call you sweet Charley if you like; only it must be
at all times, and before all persons,” said Dora roguishly.
“No, I thank you,” replied her cousin, laughing.
“Fancy Parson Brown's face if he should hear such a title,
or Seth's astonishment if you told him to call sweet Charley
to dinner! But isn't Dolce a pretty name? Let us really
adopt it for her.”
“Well, if she likes; but I shall call her Sunshine still,
sometimes.”
“What say, pet? will you have Dolce for a name?” asked
Karl, turning to pinch the little ear peeping from Sunshine's
curls.
“I don't know; would you, Dora?” asked the child,
gravely deliberating.
“Yes: I think it is pretty.”
“And Kitty sha'n't call me Molly any more; shall she?”
“Don't you like Molly?”
“No: because that man in Cincinnati asked me if my
last name was Coddle; and it ain't.”
“Oh, dear! what an odd little thing she is!” exclaimed
Kitty. “It was Mr. Thomson, Dora; and he is so witty,
you know! And one day he asked the child if her name
wasn't Miss Molly Coddle, just for a joke, you see; and we
all laughed: but she ran away; and, when I went to my
room, there she was crying, and wouldn't come down again
for ever so long. She's a regular little fuss-bunch about
such things.”
“Very strange, when you and I are so fond of being ridiculed
and laughed at!” remarked Karl gravely; and Sunshine
whispered, —
“Am I a fuss-bunch, Dora?”
Dora did not answer, except by a little pat upon the child's
rosy cheek, as she exclaimed, —
“Here we are! Look, Kitty! that is home; and we must
bid each other welcome, since there is no one to do it for us
both except Mehitable, and I don't believe she will think of
it.”
“Well, I must say, Dora, you've got things to going
a great deal better than I should expect,” said Kitty graciously,
as she looked about her. “Why, that sweetbrier
beside the door, and the white rose the other side, are
just like ours at home; and the woodbine growing up the
corner too!”
“They came from the old home, every one of them,” said
Dora, smiling happily. “I wrote in the spring, and asked
Mr. Burroughs to be so kind as to ask whoever lives in the
house to take up a little root of each of the roses, and send
them to me by express. You know he said, when we left,
that we should have any thing we liked from the place, then or
afterwards. So he wrote such a pleasant note, and said he
had sold the house to a cousin of his, a Mr. Legrange, who
had made a present of it to his wife; but I could have the
slips all the same: and next day, to be sure, they came, all
nicely packed in matting, and some other plants with them.
Karl brought them out and set them in April; and they
are growing beautifully, you see. Wasn't Mr. Burroughs
good?”
Kitty did not answer. She was bending low over the
sweetbrier, and inhaling the fragrance of its leaves. Karl
and Sunshine had driven to the barn, and the girls remained
alone. Dora glanced sharply at her cousin once, and then
was turning away, when Kitty detained her, and said in a
low voice, —
“My mother planted that sweetbrier, and used to call it
her Marnie-bush, after me.”
“I know it,” said Dora softly.
“And that was the reason you brought it here. And I
have been cross to you so much! But I did love her so,
Dora! oh, you don't know how much I loved my mother!
That is the reason I never will let any one call me Marnie
now. It was the name she always called me, though Kitty
belongs to me too; but she said it so softly! And to think
you should bring the Marnie-bush all the way from Massachusetts!”
“I thought you would like it, dear,” said Dora absently;
while her eyes grew dim and vague, and around her mouth
settled the white, hard line, that, in her reticent nature,
showed an emotion no less intense because it was suppressed.
Then her arm stole round Kitty's waist, and she whispered
in her ear, —
“We two motherless girls ought to feel for each other,
and love each other better than those who never knew what
it is; shouldn't we, Kitty?”
“We should that, Dora,” returned her cousin with emphasis;
“and I don't believe I shall forget again right
away. Let us begin from now, and see how good we can
be to each other.”
Dora's kisses, except for Sunshine, were almost as rare as
as sufficient answer to her proposition.
At this moment, Mehitable, who had, at the appearance
of the wagon, rushed home to give a finishing touch to her
toilet, was seen crossing the little interval between the two
houses with an elaborate air of unconsciousness of observation,
and carrying a large white handkerchief by its exact
centre.
“My! — how fine we look!” whispered Kitty.
“This is my cousin, Miss Windsor, Mehitable,” said
Dora simply. “I believe you didn't see her in Cincinnati?”
“No: she was away when we was there. — Happy to
make your acquaintance, Miss Windsor. How do you like
out here?”
“Well, I don't know yet. I never tried keeping house in
a log-cabin. You'll have to show me how, I expect,” said
Kitty rather loftily.
“Lor! I guess you know as much as I do about it. I
never see a log-cabin in my life till we come out here.
My father had a fust-rate house, cla'borded and shingled,
and all, down in Maine; and we alluz had a plenty to do
with of every sort: so I hain't no experience at all in this
sort of way.”
“But you have a way of getting on without it that is
almost as good. I don't know what I should have done
without Mehitable, Kitty; and I dare say she will help you
very much by telling all the ingenious ways she has contrived
to make our rude accommodations answer. You
know, as we are all beginning together, each must help on
the other; and we must all keep up our courage, and try to
be contented.”
“Well, I must say I never see one that kep' up her own
courage, and everybody else's, like her, since I was born
into the world,” said Mehitable, turning confidentially to
Kitty. “Talk of my helping her! Lor! if it hadn't been
for her, I never would have stopped here over night, in the
world. Why, the first night, I didn't do nothing but roar
the whole night long. Mr. Ross he said I'd raise the river
if I didn't stop: but in the morning down come Miss Dora,
looking so bright and sunshiny, that I couldn't somehow
open my head to say I wouldn't stop; and then she begun to
talk” —
“Mehitable, the short-cake is done. Will you speak to
Mr. Windsor?” called Dora from within; and Kitty
entered, saying, —
“How nice the tea-table looks!—just like home, Dora;
the old India china and all.”
“It is home, Kit-cat. Here is Karl, and here is little
Sunshine. Come, friends, and let us sit down to our first
meal in the new house,” said Dora: and Kitty, subduing a
little feeling of fallen dignity, seated herself at the side of
the table; leaving the head for Dora, who colored a little,
but took it quietly.
| CHAPTER XXVIII.
WELCOME HOME. Outpost | |