University of Virginia Library

13. HOME AGAIN

It was with real sorrow, the sharp, poignant sorrow of childhood, that Arabella bade good-bye to Miss Alicia and her cozy, little home that remained forevermore engraved upon the girl's memory as the type of all that was comfortable and happy. She was somewhat consoled by Miss Alicia's cordial invitation to come again and spend some days with her, and by her promise to visit the homestead next summer. Arabella, indeed, beguiled the tediousness of the return journey with many delightful speculations regarding that summer and its doings.

At the station Silas Christie met them with "the team." Characteristically, he asked not a single question, nor did his wife at that moment offer any information. They drove silently home through the darkening landscape, with the pale stars gleaming out here and there through the November grayness, and the lights of the village twinkling from afar, or at intervals down the road, like the lesser stars of earth.

The homestead certainly looked to Arabella, and no doubt to Mrs. Christie, the most forlorn and desolate place possible. It had but one saving grace, a homely familiarity. It was a rude shelter, as it were, from the buffeting the uncertainties of that beautiful, brilliant world they had quitted. The two went indoors silently, while Silas drove around to the stable to unharness. In the hallway the woolly, brown dog, in raptures, welcomed Arabella by short barks and whines and frantic rushings up and down and leaping upon the beloved object. Had a human being so conducted himself he would most certainly have been considered daft. Arabella bent over him, feeling a certain warmth at her heart in the affection and greeting of this dumb creature. She caressed him and called him by name, whispering into his woolly ear. Mrs. Christie went on into the sitting-room and lighting the lamp, looked about her, as if she had never seen the place before.

"Well," she observed, with a sigh, addressing Arabella, "it ain't quite so grand as them houses we've bin seein' and it's a long way behind Alicia's place in coziness, but I'm kinder glad to get here, anyhow. For, after all, I'm used to it and it's used to me."

Despite the dreariness of the dwelling and the lack of comfort in their home-coming, Arabella had something of the same feeling, that sentiment, which, partly, at least, had caused her to refuse the luxurious life she might have had with any one of her rich relations.

Nor was the place ever quite so dreary again, as shall appear in the sequel. For that visit to the city, hitherto but dimly remembered, had opened Mrs. Christie's eyes, or rather it had been like putting on powerful spectacles. The supper was very coarse and rude, indeed, and Arabella noted the barren plainness of the table, with forks and knives and other appurtenances thrown on almost at random, the table cloth coarse and not too spotless, and the boiled beef and potatoes and the sodden bread pudding. At the table, Mrs. Christie threw out one or two crumbs of information. She knew Silas Christie's peculiarities, and had no mind to provoke his ire or incite him to grim sarcasm by long recitals of their experiences, while Arabella had already relapsed into the reticence of years. Mrs. Christie, indeed, looked at her curiously from time to time, perfectly aware of the difference, and feeling that this was scarcely the same child who had been so communicative with Alicia, or so merry and light-hearted in Frederick's motor in the park. She, however, made no comment but began to give Silas Christie homeopathic doses of news.

"Alicia, she's got a neat, pretty sort of little place there."

Silas made a sound expressive of assent.

"It's mighty nice and comfortable."

"Seems to me she'd get lonesome at times."

"No, I guess not. she lives in a lively quarter of the town."

Then there was dead silence, broken only for a considerable interval by the clatter of knife and fork.

"Arabella, here, she's got a pile of money."

"Yes," assented the man, indifferently, "I guess that's what took you down to town."

"She had the chance to stop there."

"She was a fool not to take it."

"She's got some mighty big relations."

"Most ways they're not much use to any one. Better without."

Silence again.

"Why didn't you ask Alicia to come up for a spell?" Silas Christie asked, after a while. He had pleasant recollections of his sister-in-law.

"I guess she may in the summer time."

"Afraid of the cold, is she?" Silas asked. "City folks always has it in their head that the country's colder than the town."

"It ain't that so much, but I thought summer would be the best time."

"Just as you please, mother," Silas agreed, and after that no more was said till the dishes were all cleared away, the cattle fed outside, and Silas took his clay pipe and sat down near the kitchen fire. The kitchen was a large, barn-like room; indeed, all the rooms might be thus described. There was not a single line of grace or beauty in the whole establishment. Before sitting down, Mrs. Christie finished her various tasks precisely at the same time and in the same way as if she had never been absent. Arabella sat demurely, with the woolly dog, contented and happy, curled up at her feet, and Silas Christie surveyed her occasionally from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was pondering deeply on the fragmentary information he had received.

"So you came back again to Kenoosha?" he observed.

"Yes," answered Arabella, uncomfortably, "I came back."

She felt far less at ease in the company of this rugged, bearded man, with his shaggy eyebrows, unkempt hair and shabby clothing than, for instance, with the genial Uncle Frederick.

"They asked you to stop down thar?" Silas inquired next.

"Yes," said Arabella, "the lawyer asked me."

"But did your folks ask you themselves?"

"Yes, they did," replied the little girl.

There was a gleam of curiosity in the eyes, usually as impassive as Mrs. Christie's own, that glowered from under the shaggy eyebrows, as Silas asked:

"Why did you come back here, then?"

"Because I wanted to."

Silas was silent over that for several minutes, blowing out wreaths of smoke and pondering once more.

"So you didn't want to leave the Missis?" he resumed, at last, with an odd, softened kindliness in his tone.

Arabella shook her head.

"And strange, too," Silas said, thinking aloud, "how set most folks is on home, even when it's the uncomfortablest place in creation."

There was a long silence after that. The man seemed to have forgotten the quaint little figure of the child sitting so quietly on the opposite side of the table.

Mrs. Christie soon came to take her accustomed place in a stiff, high-backed chair, where the click, click of the needles made themselves heard.

Long after Arabella had retired that night and had counted over her treasures, and glanced into the pages of her fairy book, and felt the odd sense that what is most familiar seems unfamiliar after absence, the two below sat for the most part in a grim silence, such as they had sat in for years. Only their vigil was prolonged that night, an unparalleled thing, for so long after Silas' bedtime, and an occasional question was put by him and a terse and telling answer given by his better half. In the meantime Silas had heard, spasmodically, and without any continued narrative, almost all that there was to tell.

He knew of the scene at the Winslow's when Arabella had made her decision, of the girl's introduction to her cousins, of the shopping excursions, and of the drive in Uncle Frederick's motor car, and the luncheon at his apartments, of her own talk with Mrs. Winslow, and the latter's determination to put Arabella's education, if possible, into the hands of the Purple Lady. Last, but not least, for Mrs. Christie was wise in her generation and possessed the wifely sagacity born of long years of married life, she seized the present favorable opportunity to tell him of Arabella's proposal to remodel the house.

Silas in his undemonstrative fashion showed his pleasure at her return and was, consequently, more disposed to listen and to talk than he had been many times in this thirty odd years of matrimony. Therefore, when she told him of Arabella's offer, he did not relapse into his gruff humor, as his wife had expected, nor protest emphatically, against such doings.

"It's a good offer," he said, deliberately, "and it shows that the girl's got a head on her shoulders and a heart. By jingo, it does. I don't say just now as I'll accept of it, nor allow her to make my house her'n. But I've got a notion in my head, and I'm pretty well satisfied that it's a good one."

Mrs. Christie was too wise to put a direct question, so she kept silent, her needles clicking away more busily than ever, as if they were her thoughts.

"And my notion is," added Silas Christie, "to let the girl have her home and us ours."

"But," objected Mrs. Christie, aghast at this ruthless destruction of the hopes she had secretly entertained, "don't you understand, she's set on stayin' right here with us?"

"That's all right," said Silas. "And I don't say as we're not mighty glad to keep her here. And it do seem right. You've had the trouble of rearin' her, and you had oughter have some good of her money."

Once more Mrs. Christie was silent and waited, Silas being, as rarely happened, in a loquacious mood. She felt sure he would tell what was in his mind. She laid down her needles, however, and drew over the lamp on the table, and snuffed the wick, carefully replacing the chimney and shade. After which she resumed her interrupted stocking. Great clouds of smoke were, meanwhile, being sent forth from the clay pipe and completely enveloping the smoker.

Presently he moved his hand to disperse them and blow them away, as a magician might disperse the dreams of enchantment. There was a suppressed sparkle of eagerness in the eyes of the wife, while she expected the unfolding of that project at which Silas had mysteriously hinted. What could it be? With all her years of training she could scarce restrain an impatient exclamation which rose to her lips and the eager question burning upon her tongue.

"My notion is this," Silas said, again, giving a preliminary cough.

"For the land's sake!" cried Mrs. Christie, "tell us what your notion is, and don't beat around the bush."

Mr. Christie stared. He narrowed his eyes under their bushy brows as he said, slowly, "I believe I'll wait till to-morrow. It's gettin' late now."

Then Mrs. Christie rose in her wrath, though never, for many a long year, had she controverted her husband's views.

"Silas Christie," she cried, "you tell me right now. It won't take any more'n a few minutes, any way, and I want to know."

She was half afraid herself of this open defiance. She stood with her hands on the back of the chair and gazed at him, while he sat wreathed in smoke, like some grim geni. He regarded her for a few seconds in bewildered silence. He could scarcely remember when she had disputed his arbitrary will before, except, perhaps, as a slip of a girl. Then he burst out laughing.

"So," he said, "I reckon it won't do to let you go down to town often. You'd get demoralized, I guess, like some of them women that are stumpin' the country makin' tarnation fools of themselves. But mebbe for this once I'll let you have your way. So sit right down and listen."

Mrs. Christie silently did as directed, and her husband proceeded to unfold his views.