Greenacre Girls

  *CHAPTER III*

  *BREAKERS AHEAD*

  St. Valentine's Day came and went without the party. Once, andsometimes twice, a day the doctor's runabout turned into the broadpebbled driveway and the children went around with subdued voices andanxious faces. Even Tekla, down in her kitchen domain, wore an ominousexpression, and told Cousin Roxana that she had dreamed three times ofthree black birds perching on the chimneys, which was a sure sign ofdeath, anyone could tell you, in her own country.

  "Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," Roxy laughed back comfortably. "If Iwere you, Tekla, I'd take something for my liver and go to bed a miteearlier at night."

  All the same, her own face looked worried when she entered the sick-roomand looked down at Mr. Robbins' face on the pillows.

  "It seems ridiculous for me to be lying here, Roxy," he would say toher, with the whimsical boyish smile she loved. "Why, there isn'tanything the matter with me only I'm tired out. Machinery's a bit rusty,I guess."

  "No, nothing special only that you can't eat or walk or sit up withoutkeeling over." Her keen hazel eyes regarded him amusedly. "You know,Jerry Robbins, if it wasn't for Betty and the girls, I'd trot you rightback home with me."

  He looked from her to the window. Jean had just brought in a bunch ofdaffodils in a slender Rookwood jar and had set them in the sunlight.

  "You're not going soon, are you, Roxy?"

  Roxana seated herself in the chair beside his bed. As she would haveput it, there was a time for all things, and this seemed a propitiousmoment, for her to get something off her mind that had been weighingthere for some time.

  "I'll have to pretty quick. It looks like an early spring, Jerry, andthere's a sight to do up there. Of course Hiram knows how things go aswell as I do, but I've been away a month now, and I like to have theoversight of things. Men are menfolks after all, and you can't expecttoo much from them. I want to get the hay barn shingled, and some newhen runs set out before the little chicks begin to hatch, and all myberry canes need clearing out. You know that mass of blackberries alongthe stone wall in the clover patch below the lane--what's the matter,Jerry?"

  He had closed his eyes as if in pain, and his hand closed suddenly overher own as it lay on the counterpane.

  "It makes me homesick to hear you talk, Roxy."

  Their glances met presently in a long look of sympathetic remembrance ofthe dear old times at Maple Lawn.

  "If it were not for the girls," he went on slowly. "They are all at anage now when they need the advantages of being near the city."

  "Well, I'm not so sure of that," answered Roxy dubiously. "I supposeyou feel that you can do more for them down here, Jerry, and it is asightly place to live, but you did pretty well yourself up at the oldFrost District, didn't you?"

  He smiled and nodded his head.

  "I wonder what Betty would say to the Frost District school-house?" heasked. A vision of it arose out of the memories of the past, the littlewhite school-house that stood at the crossroads, with rocky pasturesrising high behind it, and the long white dusty road curving before it.He had been just a country boy, born and bred within a few miles ofMaple Lawn at the old Robbins' homestead. He knew every cow paththrough the woods about Gilead Center, every big chestnut and hickorytree for five miles around, every fork and bend in the course of thewild little river that cut through the valley meadows. Somehow, inthese days of weakness and fear that he was losing his grip on life,there had grown up a great yearning to be home again, to find himselfback in the shelter of the mothering arms of the hills. They had alwaysbeen the hills of rest to him as a boy. Over their margins the skylinehad promised adventure and bold emprise, but now they beckoned to him tocome back to peace and health.

  "She isn't country bred, is she, Jerry?"

  The question recalled him to the sick-room.

  "No," he answered gently, "no, Betty's from California. I believe herpeople went out originally from New York State, but she herself was bornin San Francisco. Later, she lived on her father's ranch for a while inthe Coronado Valley, but she was educated in the city. She doesn't knowanything about farm life as we do."

  Roxana's placid face looked nonplussed. California might just as wellbe Kamchatka, so far as her knowledge of it was concerned. It did seemrather too bad that Betty had come from such far-off stock, but still,she thought, a great deal could be excused in her on account of it,since it wasn't given to everybody to be born in New England.

  "Would she mind it for just a summer, do you suppose?"

  "It would have to be for a longer time than one summer, Roxy."

  Something in his voice made her suspicious. The nurse had gone out forher daily airing down the shore road. Mrs. Robbins had walked out tomeet the girls on their way from school, intending to accompany them toafternoon Lenten service at St. James's. A lone adventurous fly creptup the window curtain and Roxana promptly slapped him with a ready hand.

  "Pesky thing," she said; then, "What did you say, Jerry?"

  "I said that it would have to be for a longer time than just one summer.Things have not gone well with me for the past year. I haven't toldBetty or the girls about it."

  "You should have," said Roxy promptly. "It isn't fair to them not toshare your sorrows with them as well as your joys. Partner, that's whatit says, doesn't it? Partner of your joys and sorrows, you know,Jerry."

  "Betty has never seemed to understand much about money matters so I didnot want to worry her."

  "Just like a man. So you broke your health down and landed here in bedtrying to do it all yourself. Can I help you? How much money do youneed to tide you over?"

  He laughed unsteadily.

  "Dear old Roxy. You'd give anyone your left ear if they needed it,wouldn't you? You don't understand how we live. It takes nearly everycent I earn to cover our current expenses. As long as I could keep well,it did not matter, but three months' illness shows breakers ahead. I amwondering what we are going to do, and I dread even speaking to Bettyabout it."

  "Then let me do it," said Miss Robbins promptly. "I'd love to. Betteryet, call a family council and talk things over if you are strong enoughto do so. How long can you hold out here?"

  "I'm not certain." He looked weary and bothered. "We only rent theplace, as you know. The lease is up the first of May. It is $1800 ayear."

  "You can buy a good farm up home for that, Jerry; house, barns, pasture,haylands, wood lots and all," said Roxana thoughtfully. "It's a niceplace here, but it's fearfully extravagant."

  "Do you think so, Roxy?" he smiled up at her with a glint of fun in hiseyes like Kit's. "Betty and the girls want me to take over the estatebelow here along the ocean front at $2500 a year because they like theocean view and the private beach. It really is quite moderate too,considering we're on the North Shore. Property on Long Island isexpensive."

  She looked out at the clean park-like territory around the large modernhouse. Winding drives swept in and out. Each residence stood in itsown spacious grounds. High rock walls with ornamental entrance gatessurrounded each one. There was an artificial pond where the childrenskated in whiter and the country club crowned the hill with golf linkssloping away to the shore on the north.

  Down in the ravine stood the artistic gray stone railroad stationmatching the real estate office over the way, and farther along were thevillage stores, the new High School of stucco and tile, and the twochurches. Back and forth along the smooth highway slipped anever-ending line of motor cars coming and going like ants over an anthill. Roxy turned her head towards the bed once more and asked:

  "Would you rather do that than go up home with me?"

  "It isn't what I'd rather do. It's what we may have to do unless I gainmy old strength."

  "You'll never get a mite better lying there worrying over unpaid billsand new ones stacking up. I'm going to talk to Betty."

  He shook his head with a little smile of doubt.

&n
bsp; "But it would never be fair to take them away from this sort of thing,Roxy. You don't understand. They have their church and their club workand their special studies. Jean has been taking up a course in AppliedDesign and Modeling, and Helen has her music. Kit's deep in school workand belongs to about five clubs outside of that. Dorrie's about theonly one disengaged, and she has a dancing class and the MinisteringChildren's League over at church. Betty's on more committees and thingsthan I can count, and she believes that we owe it to the children togive them the best social environment that we can. Perhaps we can getalong in some way. There's a little left at the bank."

  "How much?" demanded Roxana uncompromisingly. "I mean, after you've paidup everything. I'll bet there isn't five thousand left."

  "Five thousand! I doubt much whether there is one thousand. Don't tellBetty that. I have never bothered her about such things, and there area few securities I might sell and realize on."

  "And you think that you've been a good husband to her. Land alive, whatare men made of! Here she stands a chance of being left alone in theworld with four children to bring up and you've never bothered her aboutyour business. The sooner you get to it, the better, I think." Roxanastood up and adjusted her eyeglasses resolutely. She had seen what hecould not, Betty coming leisurely up the box-bordered walk, a loosecluster of yellow jonquils in her arms, and the girls following, allexcept Kit. "There they come now. I won't say anything till you do,Jerry."

  Suddenly Kit's voice sounded at the door. Her short curls were rumpledand towsled, and her eyes wide with excitement, as she hugged a hotwater bottle to her face.

  "I've heard almost every word you said," she burst out. "I hadneuralgia and stayed home this afternoon, and I've been asleep in thereon the couch. Please don't be sorry, Dad. I'll help you every blessedbit I can, and I think it would be glorious for us all to go up into thecountry."

  She stopped as the door below, in the front entrance hall, banged andDoris came upstairs on a run, a herald of love and joy.

  "Well, child, keep your mouth shut till we know where we're at,"counseled Roxy quickly. "Go back and lie down. Here they come."

  But Kit stood her ground, and Jean and Helen seemed to catch from herthe fact that there was something unusual in the wind as they came inbehind their Mother.

  "It was a lovely walk," said Mrs. Robbins, drawing off her gloves as shesat down beside the bed and smiled at the patient. "We went down tolook at the Dunderdale place, Jerry. It is simply lovely there even inwinter. You can see the summer possibilities. I never saw so manyshrubs and trees and such beautiful grouping. It made me think of ourCalifornian places."

  "Or an Italian garden, Mother dear," Jean added eagerly. "Why, Dad,it's exactly like some of Parrish's pictures, don't you know; tallpoplars over here, and then a hedge effect and a low Roman seat tuckedin every once in a while. Why, it's just as cheap as can be."

  "You'd enjoy the garden so this summer, and there are enclosed sleepingporches, and an inner court like a patio garden. The garage is small,but it will do if we don't get a new car this year."

  Right here Cousin Roxana sniffed, a real, unmistakable sniff. She was abeliever in quick action. If you had anything to do, the quicker youdid it and got over it the better, she always said. So now she raisedher head as they all looked at her, and sprang her bolt right out of aclear sky.

  "You won't get a new car this year, Betty, my dear, and you're not goingto move into any two-thousand-five-hundred-dollars-a-year bungalow,either. I'm going to take the whole lot of you to Gilead Center, andsee if Jerry can't get his health back up in those blessed hills ofrest."