CHAPTER XXXI
MRS. CAVERS'S NEIGHBOURS
O! the world's a curious compound, With its honey and its gall, With its cares and bitter crosses-- But a good world after all.
_----James Whitcomb Riley._
THE people of the neighbourhood were disposed to wonder why Mrs.Cavers lived on in the old tumble-down Steadman house after herhusband's death. "Why doesn't she go home to her own people?" theyasked each other--not in any unkindly, spirit, but because theynaturally expected that she would do this. Libby Anne had told thechildren at school so much about her mother's lovely home in Ontario,where her Grandmother and Aunt Edith still lived, that the people ofthe neighbourhood had associated with it the idea of wealth.Unfortunately, they were wrong about this. Mrs. Cavers's mother andsister lived in a pretty white cottage, just outside one of Ontario'slarge cities. Roses ran over the porch, and morning-glory vines shutin the small verandah. It was a home of refinement and good taste,but not of wealth or even competence. Mrs. Cavers's only sister,Edith, and the sweet-faced mother lived there in peace andcontentment, but every dollar of Edith's small salary as milliner'sassistant was needed for their sustenance.
Mrs. Cavers had never let her mother and sister know what hard timesshe had come through. It was her good gift that she could hide hertroubles even from them. Even now her letters were cheerful andhopeful, the kindness of her neighbours being often their theme. Shemade many excuses for not coming home to live. She was afraid thedamp winters would not agree with Libby Anne; she had not disposed ofall of her stock and machinery yet. These and other reasons she gave,but never the real one. She knew how hard it was to find a situationin Ontario, and now, faded and wrinkled and worn as she was, whatchance had she among the many? She would stay in the West and get aposition as house-keeper on a farm. She could earn her own living andLibby Anne's, and Libby Anne would go to school.
Mrs. Cavers was a brave woman and faced the issues of life without amurmur. She told herself over and over again that she should bethankful that she had her health and such kind friends andneighbours. But sometimes at night when Libby Anne was sleeping, andshe sat alone by the fire, the weariness of the years rolled overher. If she could only see, her mother, she often thought, and feelonce more that gentle touch of sympathy that never fails, if shecould creep into her mother's arms, as she had often done as a child,and cry away all the pain and sorrow she had ever known--she couldforget that life had held for her so much of ill.
The Watsons' gift of two hundred dollars came like a prisoner'srelease, for with it she could go home. She and Libby Anne would havea visit at home anyway. Then she would come back on the Harvesters'excursion and work for three months during the busy time, and perhapsgo home again. She would not think of the future beyond that--it wasenough to know that she and Libby Anne would go home in the spring.
It was in February that Libby Anne took a cold. When she had beenaway from school a few days Pearl Watson went over to see what waswrong. Libby Anne's flushed face and burning eyes so alarmed Pearlthat next day she sent a note by her father, who was going toMillford, to her friend, Dr. Clay.
Dr. Clay went out at once to see Libby Anne, and, without alarmingMrs. Cavers, made a thorough examination of the child's lungs. Hefound that one of them undoubtedly was affected.
Mrs. Cavers was telling him about their proposed journey east, whichthe generous gift from the Watsons had made possible. They would gojust as soon as Libby Anne's cold got better now--the damp weatherwould be over then.
The doctor's face was turned away. How' could he tell her? He couldnot tell her here in this forsaken, desolate little house. "Come fora drive, Mrs. Cavers," he said at last. "Let me take you and LibbyAnne over to see Mrs. Perkins and Martha. It will do you both good."
Mrs. Cavers gladly assented, but would going out hurt Libby Anne?
"Oh, no!" the doctor assured her, "the fresh air will do her good."
When they drove into the Perkins yard Martha and Mrs. Perkins warmlywelcomed them. The doctor had some calls to make across the river,but he would be back in time to take them home before dark, he said.When Mrs. Perkins had taken the visitors into the parlour the doctorfollowed Martha into the kitchen. He would tell Martha, for Dr. Clay,like every one else who knew her, had learned that Martha's quietways were full of strength. Martha would know what to do.
He told her in a few words.
"Has she a chance?" asked Martha, quietly.
"She has a good chance," he answered. "It is only in an early stage,but she must be put in a tent, kept in bed, and have plenty ofnourishing food; either that or she must be sent to a sanitarium."
"Where is there one?" Martha asked.
"At Gravenhurst, Muskoka."
"Oh, not among strangers!" she said quickly.
"But her mother can't be left alone with her," said the doctor.
Martha stood still for some moments with one hand on the tea-kettle'sshining lid. Then she spoke. "The tent can be put up here in ouryard," she said.
"Mother and I will help Mrs. Cavers. I'll ask father and mother, butI'm sure they'll be willing. They never went back on a neighbour. Wemust give Libby Anne her chance."
The doctor looked at her with admiration. "Will you tell Mrs. Cavers,Martha? You're the best one to tell her."
"All right," she answered. "I will tell her."
The doctor drove away with a great reverence in his heart for thequiet Martha. Pearl had told him about Martha's hopes and fears, andthe great ambition she had for an education. "She won't have muchtime to improve her mind now," he said to himself. "She neverhesitated, though. She may not be acquainted with the binomialtheorem, but she has a heart of gold, and that's more important.I wonder what Arthur is thinking. He's foolish to grieve for thetow-haired Thursa when queens are passing by."
When Martha went to the stable to consult with her father she foundthat he had been having trouble with the hired man, the one who,according to Mr. Perkins, "ate like a flock of grasshoppers." Ted hadbeen milking a cow, when his employer came in to remonstrate with himabout wasting oats when he was feeding the horses. Ted made no replyuntil he had the pail half-full. Then suddenly he sprang up and threwit over his employer.
"You howld w'eat-plugger," he cried, "you drove Bud aw'y with yourmeanness, but you can't put hon me. Do your bloomin' choresyourself!"
When Martha reached the barn she found her father wiping his clotheswith an empty grain-sack. He told her what had happened.
"Jes' think, Martha, that beggar did not say a word until he got thepail half full, and then he soused it onto me, good hay-fed new milk,and from the half-Jersey too--he didn't care. This'll set ye back onechurnin' too. But he won't dare to ask me for this week's wages. Ipaid him up just a week ago--that'll more than settle for the milk.So it ain't as bad as it might be." He was shoving a red handkerchiefdown the back of his neck, trying to locate some of the lost milk."You wouldn't think that half a pail of milk would go so far, now,would you, Martha? but I tell ye he threw it strong."
Martha suggested dry clothes, and when he was dressed in them shetold him about Libby Anne.
"Certainly she can stay here," Mr. Perkins cried heartily. "No onewill be able to say that we went back on a neighbour. I always likedBill, and I always liked Mrs. Cavers, and we'll do our best for thelittle girl. George Steadman is the one that ought to take her, buthis missus is away, of course, to Ontario; they'd never take any one,anyway. People that don't look after their own ain't likely to dofor strangers. When old Mrs. Steadman, George's mother, was theresick, Mrs. Steadman followed the doctor out one day and asked himhow long the old lady would last; couldn't he give her a roughestimate--somethin' for her to go by like--for she was wantin' tosend word to the paperhangers; and then she told him that they wasgoin' to have the house all done over as soon as Granny was out ofthe way, 'but', says she, 'just now we're kinda at a standstill.'One of Bruce Simpson's girls was working there, and she heard her."
A few days after this Libby A
nne's tent raised its white head underthe leafless maples that grew around the Perkins home. It was a largetent, floored and carpeted, and fitted with everything that would addto the little girl's comfort or the convenience of those who waitedon her.
Dr. Clay told Mrs. Cavers that a friend of his had presented him withthe whole outfit for the use of any one who might need it.
The neighbours, moved now by the same spirit that prompted them toharvest Mrs. Cavers's crop, came bringing many and various gifts.Mrs. Motherwell brought chickens, Mrs. Slater fresh eggs, Mrs. Greena new eiderdown quilt; Aunt Kate Shenstone came over to sit up atnights. Aunt Kate had had experience with the dread disease, and feltin a position to express an expert opinion on it. There was no curefor it; Bill had not recovered, neither would Libby Anne--this shetold Mrs. Perkins and Martha. She knew it--it would let your hopesrise sometimes, but in the end it always showed its hand,unmistakable and merciless--oh, she knew it!
The doctor, knowing more about it than even Aunt Kate, was hopeful,and never allowed a doubt of the ultimate result to enter his mind.
Pearl Watson came in every night on her way home from school to seeLibby Anne, and many were the stories she told and the games sheinvented to beguile the long hours for the little girl. One nightwhen she came into the tent Dr. Clay was sitting beside Libby Anne'sbed, gently stroking her thin little hand. The child's head wasturned away from the door, and she did not hear Pearl coming in.
Libby Anne and the doctor were having a serious conversation.
"Doctor," she said, "am I going to die?"
"Oh, no, Libby," the doctor answered quickly, "you're just stayingout here in the tent to get rid of your cold, so you can go to yourgrandmother's. You would like to go to Ontario to see yourGrandmother and Aunt Edith, wouldn't you?"
"I want to go to my grandmother's," she said slowly, "but I'd like tosee Bud first. I'm Bud's girl, you know," and a smile played over herface. "Bud said I must never forget that I am his girl. Have you agirl, Doctor?"
The doctor laughed and looked up at Pearl. "No-body ever promised tobe my girl, Libby," was his reply.
"I wish you had one, so you could tell me about it," she said, quitedisappointed.
"I can tell you what it is like, all right--or at least, I canimagine what it would be like."
"Would you stay away from your girl and never come back, and forgetall about her?" she asked wistfully.
Looking up, the doctor noticed that Pearl had picked up a newspaperand appeared to be not listening at all.
"If I had a girl, Libby Anne," he said, very slowly, "I might stayaway a long time, but I'd come back sometime, oh, sure; and while Iwas away I'd want my girl to lie still, if she had a cold and was outin a tent trying to get better to go to her grandmother's, and I'dwant my girl to be just as happy as she could be, and always be surethat I would come back."
"I like you, Doctor," she said, after a pause, "and if I wasn't Bud'sgirl I would like to be yours. Maybe Pearl Watson would be your girl,Doctor," she said quickly. "I'll ask her when she comes, if youlike?"
"I wish you would, Libby Anne," he said gravely.
When he looked up Pearl had gone.
It was a week before the doctor saw Pearl. One night he met hercoming home from school. It was the first day of March, and it seemedlike the first day of spring as well. From a cloudless sky theafternoon sun poured down its warmth and heat.
The doctor turned his horses and asked if he might drive her home.
"Pearl," he said, with an' unmistakable twinkle in his eye, "I wantto see you about Libby Anne. I hope you will humour her in any wayyou can."
Pearl stared at him in surprise--then suddenly the colour rose in hercheeks as she comprehended his meaning.
"Even if she asks you to do very hard things," he went on.
"She hasn't asked me yet," said Pearl honestly.
"Is it possible that Libby Anne has forgotten me like that? Well, Ibelieve it is better for me to do it myself, anyway. How old are you,Pearl?"
"I was fifteen my last birthday."
"Don't put it that way," he corrected. "That's all right when you'regiving your age in school, but just now I'd rather hear you say thatyou will be sixteen on your next birthday, because sixteen and threemake nineteen, and when you're nineteen you will be quite a grown-upyoung lady."
"Oh, that's a long time ahead," said Pearl.
"Quite a while," he agreed, "but I am going to ask you that questionwhich Libby Anne has overlooked, just three years from to-day. We caneasily remember the date, March the first. It may be a cold, dark,wintry day, with the wind from the north, or it may be bright andfull of sunshine like to-day. That will just depend on your answer."
He was looking straight into her honest brown eyes as he spoke. Itwas hard for him to realize that she was only a child.
"I don't like dark days," Pearl said, thoughtfully, looking awaytoward the snow-covered Tiger Hills, that lay glimmering in the softafternoon sunshine.
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. Then suddenly Pearl turnedand met his gaze, and the colour in her cheeks was not all caused bythe bright spring sun as she said, "I think, it is usually prettyfine on the first of March."
* * *
Before Libby Anne had been a week in the tent Mrs. Burrell came tooffer consolation and to express her hopes for Libby Anne's recovery.Mrs. Burrell considered herself a very successful sick-visitor. Inthe kitchen, where she went first, she found Martha preparing achicken for Libby Anne's dinner.
"It's really too bad for you to have so much to do, Martha," shebegan, when the greetings were over; "a young girl like you should begetting ready for a home of her own. Living single is all right whenyou're young, but it's different when you begin to get along in life.There's that young Englishman--, what's his name?--the one that hisgirl went back on him--he couldn't do better now than take you. I'veheard people say so."
"Oh don't!" Martha cried, flushing Martha lacked the saving sense ofhumour.
Mrs. Burrell did not see the pain in the girl's face, and went onbriskly, "I must go in and see Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers. Of courseI think it is very unwise to let every one go in to see the sick, butfor a woman like me that has had experience it is different. I'll tryto cheer them up, both of them."
"Oh, they're all right," Martha exclaimed in alarm. "They do not needany cheering. Pearl Watson is in the tent just now."
Martha's cheeks were still smarting with the "cheering" that Mrs.Burrell had just given her, and she trembled for Libby Anne and Mrs.Cavers.
Mrs. Burrell went into the tent resolved to be the very soul ofcheerfulness, a real sunshine-dispenser.
Mrs. Cavers was genuinely glad to see her, for she had found out howkind Mrs. Burrell really was at heart.
"Oh, what a comfortable and cosy place for a sick little girl," shebegan gaily, "and a nice friend like Pearlie Watson to tell herstories. Wouldn't I like to be sick and get such a nice rest."
Libby Anne smiled. "You can come and stay with me," she saidhospitably.
Mrs. Burrell put her basket on the bed. "Everything in it is forLibby Anne," she said, "and Libby Anne must take them out herself.Pearl will help her."
Then came the joyous task of unpacking the basket. There were candydogs and cats, wrapped in tissue paper; there were pretty boxes ofhome-made candy; there were gaily dressed black dolls, and abeautiful big white doll; there was a stuffed cat with a squeak init, a picture book, and, at the bottom, in a dainty box, a fivedollar bill.
"Oh, Mrs. Burrell!" was all that Mrs. Cavers could say.
Mrs. Burrell dismissed the subject by saying, "Dear me, everybody iskind to Libby Anne, I'm sure--it's just a pleasure."
Then Mrs. Cavers told her of the wonderful kindness the neighbourshad shown her. That very day, two women had come from across theriver--she had never heard of them before--and they brought LibbyAnne two beautiful fleecy kimonos, and two hooked mats for the tent,and a crock of fresh butter; and as for the doctor's kindness, andMartha's, and
Mr. and Mrs. Perkins's, and Arthur's and the Watsonfamily's--only eternity itself would show what it had meant to her,and how it had comforted her.
Tears overflowed Mrs. Cavers' gentle eyes and her voice quivered.
"They love to do it, Mrs. Cavers," Mrs. Burrell answered, her owneyes dim, "and Mr. Braden, too. He's only too glad to show hisrepentance of the evil he brought into your life--he's really areformed man. You'd be surprised to see the change in him. Hetold Mr. Burrows he'd gladly part with every cent he had to seesomebody--" pointing to the bed--"well and strong; he's so glad tohelp you in any way he can; and I overheard him tell Mr. Burrellsomething--they were in the study and Mr. Burrell closed the doortight, so I couldn't hear very well, but I gathered from wordshere and there that he intended to do something real handsome forsomebody"--again pointing with an air of great mystery to the littleface on the bed.
Mrs. Cavers was staring at her with wide eyes, her face paler eventhan Libby Anne's.
"What do you mean?" she asked in a choked voice.
Mrs. Burrell blundered on gaily. "It's nothing more than he shoulddo--he took your husband's money. If it had not been for his bar youwould have been comfortably well off by this time, and I am sure hehas so much money he will never miss the price Of this." She pointedto the tent and its furnishings.
"Do you mean to say--that Sandy Braden--bought this tent--for mylittle girl?" Mrs. Cavers asked, speaking very slowly.
"Yes, of course," replied the other woman, alarmed at the turn theconversation had taken, "but, dear me, he, should make somerestitution."
"Restitution?" the other woman repeated, in a voice that cut likethin ice--"Restitution! Does anyone speak to me of restitution? Cananything bring back my poor Will from the grave? Can anything givehim back his chance in this world and the next? Can anything make meforget the cold black loneliness of it all? I don't want SandyBraden's money. Let it perish with him! Can I take the price of myhusband's soul?"
Mrs. Cavers and Mrs. Burrell had gone to the farther end of the tentas they spoke, and Pearl, seeing the drift of the conversation, hadabsorbed Libby Anne's attention with a fascinating story about hernew dolls. Yet not one word of the conversation did Pearl miss.
Mrs. Burrell was surprised beyond measure at Mrs. Cavers's words, andreproved her for them.
"It's really wrong of you, Mrs. Cavers, to feel so hard and bitter. Iam astonished to find that your heart is so hard. I am really."
"My heart is not hard, Mrs. Burrell," she said, quietly, her eyesbright and tearless; "my heart is not hard or bitter--it's onlybroken."
That night when Mrs. Burrell had gone, Pearl told Martha what she hadheard. "You see, Martha," she said, when she had related theconversation, "Mrs. Burrell is all right, only her tongue. It wasnice of her to come--the things she brought Libby Anne are fine, andthere's nothing wrong with her five dollars; if she'd a been borndeaf and dumb she would have been a real nice woman, but the troublewith her is she talks too easy. If she had to spell it off on herfingers she'd be more careful of what she says, and it would give hertime to think."
The next time the doctor came, Mrs. Cavers insisted on paying him forthe tent and everything that was in it. There was a finality in hermanner that made argument useless.
The doctor was distressed and earnestly tried to dissuade her.
"Let me pay for it, Mrs. Cavers, then," he said. "Surely you arewilling that I should help you."
"Aren't you doing enough, doctor," she said. "You are giving yourtime, your skill, for nothing. Oh doctor, don't you see you arehumiliating me by refusing to take this money?"
Then the doctor took the money, wondering with a heavy heart how hecould tell Sandy Braden.