Читать книгу Growing Up - Nathaniel Mrs. Conklin - Страница 5

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“Let never day or night unhallowed pass;

But still remember what the Lord hath done.”

—Shakespeare.

“Judith, would you like to go up to Lottie’s room for an hour?”

Judith’s mother was still sitting before the grate with her feet lifted to the fender; the tall figure of Donald Mackenzie stood behind the wheel chair, bending, with his folded arms upon the back of the chair.

“Yes, mother,” replied the voice from the kitchen, a busy, pre-occupied voice.

Don had wiped the dishes for her, brought up coal, taken down ashes, and declared that his three chops were the finest he had ever eaten.

“Lottie and her books just went up,” said Judith standing in the door-way, and untying her kitchen apron. “Don, will you call me when you go?”

“Yes, Bluebird; I can stay but an hour; I have to call for Miss Marion; she has gone to a King’s Daughters’ meeting, and I told her I would stop on my way home; I have to pass the house,” he explained in reply to an impatient movement in the wheel chair. Judith went out softly and ran lightly up the stairway.

“Aunt Hilda,” began the penitent voice above Aunt Hilda’s head, “I have come to confess.”

“Don, I wish I had warned you.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, miserably.

“Because I thought you had common sense.”

“It is a case of common sense.”

Judith’s fingers tapped lightly on the third story door.

“Come in,” called a girlish voice.

“Are you studying? May I stay and study too?”

“You are always ahead of me,” grumbled Lottie.

“Because I take longer lessons, and mother has no one else to teach. But she was tired to-day, and I couldn’t ask her about that dreadful thing in square root. Did you find out?”

“Yes, and it’s as easy as mud.”

Both girls laughed.

“Bensalem mud isn’t easy; you think you are going through to China every spring when the roads are bad.”

Judith had brought her pencil and pad; for half an hour the girls put their heads together over square root; then Lottie Kindare threw her book across the small room to the bed.

“Judith, I know something new to tell you; Grace Marvin told me to-day at recess, and once it came true. I’ll show you.”

On the lowest shelf of the little book-case Lottie found her Bible; it was dusty, but she did not notice that.

With their chairs very near together, the Bible in Lottie’s lap, the girls sat silent a moment; Judith’s luminous eyes were filled with expectation.

“Now wish for what you want most,” commanded Lottie, impressively.

“I wish most of all for mother to be strong enough to go to Bensalem with Aunt Affy when she comes next week.”

Lottie colored and looked uncomfortable; this evening before she came up stairs, her mother had told her that the doctor had stopped down stairs to say that Mrs. Mackenzie must be urged to make no effort to go into the country; it was too late.

“Not that; something else,” said Lottie, impatiently, “not such a serious thing.”

“But I want that most,” said Judith, piteously.

“Then choose what you want second.”

“Then I want second to go to boarding-school.”

“That’s good,” exclaimed Lottie relieved, “now, shut your eyes and open the Bible and put your finger down, and if it touches: ‘And it came to pass,’ it will come to pass.”

“How queer,” said Judith delighted, “what an easy way to find out things. I wish I had known it before.”

“So do I, for then I might have known that I couldn’t have had a navy blue silk for Christmas; and I hoped for it until the very day.”

Without any misgiving, Judith closed her eyes and opened the Bible; her heart beat fast, her fingers trembled; she dared not open her eyes and see.

“No, you haven’t your wish,” said Lottie’s disappointed voice; “it reads: ‘And a cubit on one side, and a cubit on the other side’—that’s dreadful and horrid; I’m so sorry, Ju.”

So was Judith; sorry and frightened.

“Now, I’ll try. I wish for a gold chain like Grace Marvin’s,” she said, bravely. Judith looked frightened; but what was there to be afraid of? It was not like fortune-telling; it was the Bible.

Judith watched her nervously; she was disappointed if it said in the Bible that she could never go to boarding-school; but, oh, how glad she was that she had not asked the Bible if her mother would ever be strong enough to go to Bensalem. She could not have borne nothing but a cubit about that. She would hate a “cubit” after this.

“There!” cried Lottie jubilantly, “I have it. See.”

Over the fine print near Lottie’s finger, Judith bent and read: “And it came to pass.”

“Isn’t that splendid?” said Lottie, “but I wish you had got it. Do you want to try again?”

“No,” hesitated Judith, “it frightens me, and I’m afraid it’s wicked.”

“Wicked,” laughed Lottie, “how can it be wicked?”

“I cannot explain how—but I’m sure mother would not like it.”

“But your mother is so particular,” explained Lottie, “everybody isn’t. She thinks there’s a right and wrong to everything.”

“But isn’t there?” persisted Judith.

“No,” contended Lottie boldly, but with a fear at her heart; “there isn’t about this. This is right.”

“I hope it is,” said Judith, brightening.

“We tried it at noon recess one day, and John Kenney came and looked on. He didn’t say what he thought.”

“Who is John Kenney?”

“The brightest and handsomest boy in the High School. He’s up head in Latin and everything. He was at my New Year’s Eve party. Don’t you remember? He sang college songs.”

“He’s the big boy that found a chair for me, and gave me ice cream the second time. I shall always remember him,” said Judith, fervently. “I did not know his name; when I think about him, I call him John. John is my favorite name for a man; it has a strong sound, a generous sound, and I like the color of it.”

“The color,” repeated Lottie, amazed.

“Don’t names have color and sound to you?” asked Judith, surprised. “John is the deepest crimson to me, a glowing crimson. John belongs to self-sacrifice and generous deeds. John is a hero and a saint.”

Lottie laughed noisily. Judith was the queerest girl. Her things were always getting mixed up with thoughts. Lottie did not care for thoughts. School, dress, parties, Sunday-school, summer vacations, John Kenney, dusting and making cake, jolly times with her father, and home times and making calls with her mother, were only “things” to this girl of fifteen; if there were “thoughts” in them, she missed the thoughts. She was daring and handsome; Judith admired her because she was so different from herself.

“I don’t believe my mother would care,” said Lottie, honestly, as she laid her Bible in its place upon her book-shelf.

“But your mother is different,” pleaded Judith.

“Yes, my mother is well; I suppose that makes the difference.”

With a sigh over her disappointment, for, somehow, she thought the Bible could not be wrong, Judith went back to pad and pencil and another hard example in square root.

“Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home,” chanted Don’s voice in the hall below.

“He has a different name for you every time,” said Lottie. “Don’t tell your mother if it will worry her.”

“I never tell her things that worry her,” replied Judith; “I’ve been waiting three months to tell her that I have burnt a hole in the front of my red cashmere and do not know how to mend it. When I go to Sunday-school she sees me with my coat on, and after Sunday-school I hurry and put on a white apron.”

With her arithmetic and pad, and a very grave face, Judith hastened down stairs.

“Your mother is full of hope about Bensalem,” comforted cousin Don; “I have said good-bye, for I expect to sail for Genoa on Saturday. She gave me your photograph to take with me. I will write to you at Bensalem; and if anybody ever hurts you, write to me quick and I’ll come home and slay them with my little hatchet.”

“Are you going—so soon?” she asked, in an unchildish way; “what will mother do without you?”

“She will have you and Aunt Affy. I wasn’t going so soon, but I found it is better. Kiss your cousin Don.”

“Shall you stay long?”

“Long enough to go to London to buy me a wife,” he laughed; “kiss your cousin Don.”

She kissed her cousin Don with eyes so filled with tears that she did not see the tears in his eyes. The street door fastened itself behind him; in the quiet street she heard his quick step on the pavement.

Her mother was sitting in the firelight with her head resting upon her hand.

“Mother, Don’s gone,” burst out Judith.

“Yes, for a while. He will never forget his little cousin.”

“Genoa is a long way off.”

“Only a few days’ travel. It is good for him to go. He is engaged to do some work on a paper, and he has always desired to see the world afoot. It is good for him,” Don’s Aunt Hilda repeated.

“But it isn’t good for us, mother.”

“I hope it is not bad for us.—But I would be glad for him not to go—just yet,” she sighed.

“Will Miss Marion, his brown girl, like it?” inquired Judith, unexpectedly.

“She is not—why do you say that?”

“I don’t know, I saw her; I shouldn’t think he would like to go and leave us all,” said Don’s little cousin, chokingly, keeping back the tears.

“He has a heartache to-night, poor boy. Now, little nurse, mother’s tired. We will have prayer and go early to bed.”