CHAPTER XXXII
THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA
Here were no cool sea breezes in the Meadows. No sand toys, either, andeven if there had been, a big girl, going on eleven, in a house wherethere was sickness, had no time to play.
Jacqueline cooked and scrubbed and swept and tended babies, and keptNeil and Dickie in their places, too.
"You're the bossiest girl," Neil protested with some reason, more thanonce. "I wish you'd go back to Chicago where you came from."
"Then you'd get no more cookies," Jacqueline told him. "Aunt Marthahasn't got time to make 'em for you."
There she had the whip-hand of them all. For if she chose, she couldgive a fellow a broken cooky hot from the pan, and if she didn'tchoose--My, you should have seen her the day she caught Neil sneaking acooky! Smack, smack went her brown little hands, hardened in goodoutdoor exercise under the California sun, and schooled (to Aunt Edie'shorror!) in certain boxing tricks by the new Uncle Jimmie. Neil sniffledwith amazement and anger, perhaps, more than with pain. But he didn'ttell tales. They fought out their battles, he and Jacqueline, and on thewhole she gave him more cookies than smacks.
It was no joke, cooking in a hot kitchen, and sleeping in a room, warmedthrough with the sun. It was no picnic to be waked, just when the earlymorning hours were cool and refreshing, by the gurgling and cooing ofFreddie and Annie, and to face another day of endless step-stepping andchores that never seemed done. But there were compensations. Suppers,picnic fashion, to save washing dishes, in the side-yard, or theorchard, or the knoll by the river, where you could watch the sunset,while you ate maple-sugar sandwiches and chunks of blueberry cake.Berrying expeditions to far pastures, with Ralph at the wheel of theFord. A Sunday School party in Longmeadow, where Jacqueline felt as ifshe were at a masquerade in one of Caroline's faded, scanty ginghams anda freshly ironed hair-ribbon, but ate her ice-cream (three plates ofit!) and two kinds of cake, as heartily as the uninvited young man inthe limerick.
Of course what made the summer weeks, with their heat and hard work andmeager pleasures, endurable was the fact that Grandma Conway was all thetime getting better. Slowly, oh! very slowly, but surely. Ever since theday when she found her beloved old green-dragon cup at her lips oncemore, she had shown an interest in life, and so she had begun to liveagain. She sat up in bed now, and her patient smile was like her oldsmile, and her eyes twinkled and understood. You didn't talk with herlong, for fear of tiring her, and the children still played far from thehouse, so that she should not be disturbed. But she was the least bitstronger every day, and she began even to talk of the time when shecould leave her bed.
"Wish we had a wheelchair for her," Aunt Martha confided to Jacquelineover the peaches that they were preserving, in the cool of the morning."But if wishes were horses, beggars might ride."
"They wouldn't want to ride to-day," Jacqueline replied. "They'd allwant Lizzies, at the very least." To herself she made a promise: "I'llget a wheelchair for Grandma--the best wheelchair in all Boston--just assoon as Aunt Edie comes."
For Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie had promised to come in September. And ifthey didn't keep to their plans, well, at any rate Caroline would becoming back from the beach, and Jacqueline would be released from herpromise, and have her clothes, and her pocket money, and be able to dothings again in her old lordly way. She would do so many things then tomake Grandma and Aunt Martha and the babies happy! She always dwelt upontheir happiness, when she counted the days to September. She took greatpains not to think about Caroline. She had more than a suspicion thatpoor Caroline was going to be anything but happy.
Naturally since she was Aunt Martha's right hand and mainstay anddependence, Jacqueline didn't go often to the village, in those Augustdays. Once she rode to town with Ralph and Freddie, and at the generalstore saw the youngster fitted to a pair of new sneakers, a delicatetask which she and Aunt Martha had agreed was beyond Ralph's masculinecapacity. Again she went to the village with the four young Conways tothe Sunday School party. Then quite unexpectedly came her thirdopportunity.
Aunt Martha was going to the north end of the town to see Mr. AsaWheelock, who might perhaps lease a portion of her land next season. Shemeant to stop on the way and buy a lot of little things that were wantedat the house--cheesecloth, the coarse kind that you need when you strainthe nice hot fruit juice that cools into jelly, bone buttons for thechildren's underwear, five yards of elastic to run into little rompers,a spool of black sewing silk and one of white cotton, and some boracicacid and a cake of good white soap for Grandma, and a box of talcumpowder. Ralph never in the world would get them right.
But Aunt Martha's little trip was called off, for Mr. Asa Wheelockthoughtfully telephoned that he had to drive south that afternoon, sohe'd stop in as he passed the Conway farm.
"That'll save just so much gas," Aunt Martha said in a pleased voice.You know the price of a gallon of gasoline is worth considering, whenthere is a long illness in a house where the income is nonelastic. "ButI did want that cheesecloth right away."
"Let me go and get it," volunteered Jacqueline, eager for adventure."Like as not I can beg a ride, and if I can't, why, I don't mind thewalk one little bit."
Dickie was eager to go, too. The public library would be open thatafternoon, and he wanted to return the Boy Scout book that he hadfinished, and get out another. In the end Aunt Martha consented, and offthe two children started, as soon as the dinner dishes were clearedaway. They had not walked half a mile, when they were overtaken by afriendly Polish neighbor, and perched hazardously on his running board,they reached the village Post Office while the afternoon was stillyoung.
Dickie vanished into the public library, not to be seen again tillclosing time, and Jacqueline went about her errands. She bought theboracic and soap and talc at Cyrus Hatton's general store, and thecheesecloth at the Post Office, but for the buttons and elastic andthread she went into Miss Crevey's shop. She had had no call to go theresince the day when she pledged Caroline's gold beads for the preciousdragon cup that had been such a life-bringer to Grandma. She darted aglance at the dusty secretary in the corner, and remembered how she hadwatched Miss Crevey lock up the beads in one of its drawers.
"Five yards of elastic," chanted Miss Crevey, as she measured off thecommodity. "I'm all out o' white, but black's just as good, for it won'tshow anyhow. Can't give you bone buttons that size, but these smallerones'll slip into the button-holes ever so much easier, and I won'tcharge you no more. Black silk? I'll have some in next week, maybe. Butthere's plenty of thirty cotton. Hadn't you better take two spools aslong as I have it?"
Jacqueline thought not.
"Well, there's no suitin' some folks," muttered Miss Crevey as shebundled up the small wares. "By the way," she made a sudden pounce, andJacqueline suspected that she had been making ready to pounce ever sinceshe saw her enter the shop, "have you brought along the five dollarsthat you owe me for that old cup?"
"Brought the five dollars?" Jacqueline echoed blankly. Then sherecovered from her amazement. "Why, no," she said sturdily. "I said I'dhave the money in September, and you said all right, and it isn'tSeptember yet."
"I've got some bills to meet," said Miss Crevey, in a resentful voice."I need the cash right now."
"But I haven't got it," Jacqueline repeated. "I told you it would beSeptember, and that suited you all right, when you took the beads."
"The beads ain't no good to me," said Miss Crevey. Her sallow cheekswere reddened, and she spoke very fast. "Cash is what I want, and what Imust have." She hesitated the merest second. "I've got a chance to sellthem beads," she launched a thunderbolt.
Jacqueline stared at her. For a moment she could do nothing but stare.
"But you can't sell those beads," she said in a scared whisper.
"Now look here," Miss Crevey spoke on, in her rapid, nervous voice. "Iwouldn't deceive you. I'll tell you just how 'tis. Mrs. Enos Trowbridgewas in here day before yesterday, and h
er cousin was with her. They waslooking at some old things I got laying round, and they spied them beadstucked away in the secretary. That cousin's just set on having 'em.Seems they're the identical same as some old ones of her mother's shelost in a fire."
"But she can't have those beads!" Jacqueline cried in a panic. "I won'thave it! Don't you let her!"
"I wouldn't cheat you," Miss Crevey repeated shrilly. "She'll give mesix dollars for 'em. I'll keep the five you owe me, and you shall havethe dollar for yourself."
Her face was like flame as she snapped out the words. Those bills thatshe must meet, the wretched, driven, little old woman that she was! Shemust think only of those bills. She mustn't admit even to herself thatshe was cheating a child. For Mrs. Enos Trowbridge's cousin had offeredher twenty-five dollars for those quaint old beads.
"You can get yourself a whole lot of candy for a dollar," wheedled MissCrevey.
"No, I can't," said Jacqueline bluntly. "I couldn't get more than half apound of decent candy. And I don't want candy, and I don't want your olddollar. I won't have those beads sold. I never said you could sell them.I won't let you."
"Oh, you won't, hey?" sneered Miss Crevey. "How are you going to stopme, Miss?"
"I'll tell Aunt Martha," said Jacqueline superbly. "And I'll tell theconstable, maybe. You made me a promise, and you've got no right tobreak it. You can't sell those beads."
Miss Crevey's flushed face was white, like the white of a tallow candle.Jacqueline would never know in all her days how that allusion to theconstable had struck terror to the very soul of the guilty, worriedlittle old woman.
But Miss Crevey recovered herself quickly.
"I guess," she sniffed, "I've wasted 'bout all the time I mean to wasteon a thankless, sassy young one. You can just take your cheap brassbeads off my hands. I won't have 'em cluttering up my shop."
"All right," said Jacqueline indignantly. "I'll be glad to take 'em."
Miss Crevey leaned across the counter and spoke with a smile that partedher thin lips above her false teeth.
"And you can bring me back my cup," she said.
For a second the shop went spinning round Jacqueline. How was it, sheasked herself, that people felt before they fainted dead away? At agreat distance, as it seemed to her, she heard her own voice speaking:
"I--can't. Don't you _see_? Not that cup! Why, it would _kill_ Grandma."
"Likely," sneered Miss Crevey. She turned her back elaborately and beganto rearrange the articles on her untidy shelves.
Jacqueline clutched at the edge of the counter. She really felt as ifshe were going to fall.
"You didn't--mean that?" she implored.
Miss Crevey wheeled about and faced her.
"Mean it?" she cried. "Why shouldn't I mean it? What good are them beadsdoing me now? You bring me back that good cup I let ye take, or you letme sell them beads for what's offered me, or you bring me the fivedollars, like you promised me. I don't care which ye do, but you got todo one or t'other and do it quick."
There were footfalls on the worn step outside the screen door, and thesound of women's chattering voices. No time to talk further, and no usein talking!
"You make up your mind before to-morrow night," bade Miss Crevey in afierce whisper, "and don't ye go bawling and crying in here!"
Fiercely Jacqueline blinked back the tears that had gathered in hereyes. Proudly she turned her back on Miss Crevey, and walked past thechattering customers, out into the street.
What was she going to do, she asked herself over and over again, as sheheaded blindly homeward? Take away Grandma's cup? Ten thousand times,_no_! Let Caroline's beads be sold? Why, that was to make herself athief! Caroline's precious beads that she had kept hidden away with hermother's picture--Caroline's mother's beads--to let them be sold wouldbe almost as dreadful as to take Grandma's cup! And the only way to savethe cup and the beads from the ogreish Miss Crevey was to find fivedollars, somewhere, somehow before to-morrow night.
There was no time to write to Judge Blair for the money, even ifJacqueline had been willing at last, in her desperate need, to betraythe secret that was one-half Caroline's. There was no hope of reachingCaroline. Jacqueline could go to Aunt Martha, but Aunt Martha hadn't anyfive dollars to spend even for cups, and Aunt Martha, with all her caresand troubles, mustn't be worried. Only in the last extremity could sheturn to Aunt Martha. Only to-morrow night, when every hope was surelygone.
But before to-morrow night, somehow, she herself must find the way out.How, she wondered desperately, how? And while she wondered, she hadwalked southward, like one in a daze, down Longmeadow Street, and now,when she came to herself, she realized that she was at the very gate ofThe Chimnies. She paused and looked through the iron grill work, andthen, as if in answer to her un-worded prayer for help, she saw that theshutters were open, and the windows flung wide, and life at last, andhope for her, had come into the silent house again.