the morning after the bee oswyth was washing dishes and prue was wiping them, while roberta polished the stove, whistling in cheerful oblivion of the large polka-dot of blacking adorning her cheek.
mrs. grey came in from the dining-room, which she had been brushing up, her dust-pan in one hand, her whisk-broom in the other, held straight out like parentheses, and said, without preliminary, out of her busy thoughts: "i don't see, dear girls, what we shall do this fall unless we have an extra hundred dollars. and still less do i see where we are to get even an extra five dollars. i have been lying awake nights contriving, but no suggestion comes. the coal money went to repair the roof, and bought the flour and other things—all necessities—but it must be made up, and i cannot see how. besides, you need, each of you, warm coats this[34] winter. i suppose prue can wear wythie's old one, but wythie and rob must have something."
prue made a wry face, but rob cried: "sufficient to the season is the coating thereof, mardy. winter coats don't appeal to me strongly this sultry morning."
"don't worry, mardy; i am sure we can manage," said wythie, lovingly. "but coal—well, i don't see how that can be dodged."
"no, nor paid for," sighed her mother. "ah, well! we have lived for a good many years, and through several crises which in prospective looked impenetrable, so i suppose we shall find a way."
"like sentimental tommy," added rob. "i'm sure of it."
"perhaps papa will get into business by that time," suggested prue.
"and throw up the invention?" cried rob, quickly. "that would be foolish!"
"i wish i could do something to help," said oswyth, sadly. "i wonder if i ought not to go in town this fall, even if i could only get a place in a store."
"and earn but six dollars a week, out of which you would have to pay your board? we have[35] gone over that many times, dearie, and decided you are more useful here, even if i could allow a young girl like you to go alone into a city boarding-house," said her mother. "you are such a help to me, daughter, that i could not spare you, and you must frame your wish another way."
oswyth looked pensively at her dimpled hands as she held them up over the dish-pan and let the water drip off of each of her ten fingers.
"i am going to do something perfectly original right here in fayre; it is going to bring us money, and be a triumph of several sorts. i have no idea what it will be, but that's my plan," announced rob. and as her family laughed at a "plan" so very loosely constructed, she waved her brush dramatically for further elucidation, and upset the saucer of blacking, spattering its contents broadcast over the spotless, though worn, oil-cloth covering the floor.
"now, that's just like you, rob," said prue, severely. "you're more likely to do mischief with your schemes than to help much."
"that is hardly kind or true, prudy," said her mother. "rob's schemes usually come to something practically helpful. she's a daring girl, but not a rash one. never mind, rob dear; the[36] blacking will easily wipe up. i shouldn't be at all surprised if you hit on a way to get us into a land flowing with milk and honey some day. but you are only sixteen now, and we must find a way to keep us alive in the desert while you finish growing up."
a long shadow fell across the door, and the four feminine members of the family looked up to greet its head with a smile. clad in dark blue serge that hung loosely on his thin frame, mr. grey stood surveying the group, smiling back, but not entering. he was tall, handsome, his eyes dark and dreamy, yet with an eager expression in them, as if they had vainly sought that on which they could never rest. he was startlingly pale, except for a bright red spot high on each hollow cheek. roberta more closely resembled him than either of the other girls, but in expression her rippling, alert brilliancy was wholly unlike the far-off, vague look of the father she worshipped.
"oh, patergrey," cried roberta, springing to meet him, forgetful of her recent disaster and blackened hands, and giving him the caressing title—pronounced as one word—which she had long ago conferred upon him. "where have you been 'one morning, oh, so early, my beloved,[37] my beloved?'" rob ended in the refrain of a song she loved.
"i went to the post-office, and i stopped at mrs. bonell's—she waylaid me," said mr. grey.
"you're keeping back something!" cried rob, holding up her forefinger in a reproach that would have been more impressive if the forefinger had been whiter.
"he has a basket behind him," cried prue, darting upon him. "what's in the basket, papa?"
"'ware, prue! marked: fragile. don't handle," teased her father, holding prue off with one hand. "mrs. bonell is going away."
"where? for long?" asked mrs. grey, as wythie exclaimed: "oh, i am sorry."
"to europe, for many months," said mr. grey. "and i've told her we would take a boarder."
"a boarder! why, sylvester!" cried his wife.
"i really thought you would like this one," said mr. grey. "it seemed very hard to say no. you see mrs. bonell said there was no one else in whom she would feel sufficient confidence to intrust this boarder to them, and when such a pretty young creature as she is flatters a weak man so, how can he resist? she says she knows[38] we would never fail to the very end of his life to take care of him. she feels sure we are not the cruel sort of folk who would go away and leave him to shift for himself, nor put him out in the cold on winter nights when he had been in the warm house all day, and if he were sick that we would nurse him lovingly, and if he were suffering and past recovery we would chloroform him still more lovingly—in short, that we were ideal guardians of a cat. so i felt obliged to accept a rôle nature had evidently designed us to fill."
"a cat! oh, bless you!" cried three rapturous girl voices, and wythie added: "it isn't her lovely, white little billee?"
"we have only seven cats taking their meals here now," suggested mrs. grey.
"my dear, those are humble dependents; of those i hope we shall always have a store, for i want the little grey house to be the asylum for homeless creatures it was in my mother's day," said mr. grey, busying himself with the basket-strap. "but a cat, all our own, and one of the family, we have lacked since the day when poor old nellie grey went to the reward of cats of blameless character. yes, oswyth; this is, indeed, snow-white billy, and i consider it a great honor that his mistress will intrust us with her[39] pet." mr. grey had unfastened the strap by this time, and, lifting the basket-cover, displayed a half-grown kitten, snowy white and odorous of violet sachet, cowering, trembling, with dilated eyes, on the pale blue knitted shawl with which his loving mistress had tried to soften his departure.
"now, don't jump at him," said mr. grey, who understood and loved all animals. "remember, a cat is the most nervous creature on earth, and this one is dreadfully frightened."
"i've often petted him at mrs. bonell's; he may remember me," said oswyth. "let me take him." very gently she raised the downy creature, who immediately put his forepaws around her neck and clung to her, his poor little heart thumping wildly against wythie's throat. "dear billy, you gentle, sweet, little kitten," wythie murmured, sitting down to rock him, while rob and prue looked on longingly.
"you don't object, lady grey?" said mr. grey. "he's so much of a pet already, and so very white, he can't bother you."
"why, you know, sylvester, i'm quite as much of a goose about pets as the children—or as you are," laughed mrs. grey, and so billy was adopted.
[40]
"i'd like to call him kiku—that's japanese for chrysanthemum. i wonder if mrs. bonell would mind? it would be so lovely to say: 'o kiku-san,' when we called him," said rob.
"she would never mind," said prue, while wythie began to sing to the old lullaby tune of greenville: "o billy-san, o kiku-billy-san; o kiku-san, o kiku-billy-san." as she rocked to and fro in perfect content, frightened, puzzled little billy shut his eyes and clung to her, his heart beating less tumultuously as he began to realize that here, too, were gentle hearts and hands.
"i want you when you can come, rob, my son," said mr. grey, going toward the room which had been set apart for his special uses. it was a well-worn, but well-wearing, joke between roberta and her father that she was his son rob, his mainstay and dependence. "and i'd like to be able to see you when you come," he added, as a parting shot. "just now you are in partial eclipse from blacking."
rob laughed and ran upstairs. presently she returned, and went to her father's room, carefully closing the door behind her.
it was a curious place, a mixture of study, library, workshop, and laboratory. it had been[41] built for the kitchen of the little grey house when it was new, a hundred years ago. its walls were wainscoted to half their height in panels of grained and varnished wood. the fireplace was made of narrow panels, with little cupboards above the high, narrow, wooden mantelpiece, and the handles of these cupboard-doors were tiny brass knobs. the old rush-bottomed chairs sitting around the walls, and the tables as well, were littered with papers. between the windows, where the light was strongest, sat a common kitchen table, and on it stood a model of the bricquette machine, and models of its component parts. two tall bookcases, one filled with scientific and mechanical books, the other with novels, essays, and poetry, stood opposite these models, and across the room on another table standing close to the sink and small portable stove, were scattered chemical apparatus.
rob was perfectly at home in these queer surroundings; among them she had spent a great deal of her childhood, creeping, "mousy-quiet," to sit on a stool by her oblivious father, her chattering tongue silenced and her busy brain full of loving awe.
her father looked up now as she entered. "ah, rob, come in," he said. "i want to go over[42] this with you. you read to me what i have written here, while i move the model according to those directions, and see if i have made it clear and correct."
"yes, patergrey," said rob, taking the closely written manuscript which he handed her, well used to this sort of service. and then she began to read.
sometimes, not fully understanding what she read, rob paused and watched her father manipulate the model, and refer to its sections, until she comprehended perfectly what the words were intended to convey. so far from this interest on her part annoying the inventor, it delighted him, and largely explained what was unquestionably true—that rob was his favorite daughter.
"you will be as well able to exhibit this as i shall when it is done, rob, my son," mr. grey laughed, well pleased, as, her point cleared up, roberta read on, pausing only at a word from her father. "wait a moment, rob; this isn't quite right." "mark that with the blue pencil, rob; i'll say that more briefly." "slowly, rob; my fingers won't move as fast as your tongue."
at last they were through, and mr. grey[43] threw himself into his big chair with the shabby cushions, sighing contentedly.
"that's all right, rob," he said. "next autumn will see the machine completed—december at the latest, i hope. what a help you are, rob, my son!"
"it's a comfort to hear you say that, like a sort of grace, every time we get through, patergrey," said rob. "but if i am a help to you, i wonder if i can get you to do something for me?"
"yes, you know you can," said mr. grey, anticipating a request to be taken fishing, or to go for a long stroll in the twilight. but rob, who would never allow anyone to insinuate that her father could accomplish more than he did, had other plans in her teeming brain. with a sensitive flush, fearing to wound her father, she said:
"didn't you tell me, patergrey, that a magazine had asked you to write a special article for it on something or other scientific, and offered you quite a sum of money if you'd do it?"
"why, yes," said mr. grey, startled into animation by the unexpected question. "on fuels and means of heating and lighting in the future, and the world's storage of such fuel; they thought i should be prepared for such an article—as i am. yes, they asked me—why?"
[44]
"because dear mardy is worried over present prospects; she lies awake planning, and can't see her way out—she told us so this morning," said rob, bravely. "she says we must have an extra hundred dollars—and she has no idea where it can come from. we've used up the coal money—you know she divides her poor little pennies into piles for different things—and if we get coal late it will cost more, besides, how can we get it later any better than now? so i never said a word to the rest, but i thought of the article, and i made up my mind i'd get the dear daddy to put a wee bit of his cleverness on paper, and surprise the blessed lady grey by giving her her hundred—do you suppose it could be as much as that, patergrey?"
"they offered me a hundred dollars for three thousand words," said her father, adding quickly, as rob clapped her hands rapturously: "but it will take my mind off the invention, rob, and i don't want to delay that a day. something seems to impel me—compel me is better—to finish it as soon as i can, and anything that retards it is a mistake, my dear."
"but you are all prepared—you said so, patergrey—and you are so clever you can do it in a week," coaxed rob, getting up to kneel beside[45] her father, and crinkling her flexible face into a maze of irresistible puckers, as if he were a little child.
her father laughed. "a week, you silly puss! three days, at the outside," he said.
rob cried out triumphantly: "then you can't say no! only three days! it can't make much difference with the machine, and isn't it worth three days' delay to relieve mardy darling's mind? poor mardy! she's so brave and cheerful, but, oh, she does have to squeeze hard to keep us all fed and housed."
to rob's distress her father dropped his head on his arms, laid over the back of the chair, and groaned.
"you're right, roberta. it makes me sick at heart to think of what it has cost her to be so faithfully, patiently loving with me all these years. poor, bright, pretty mary winslow, who might have shone in any setting! yes, child, i'll do the article—set about it to-day. i know i make life hard for her, but i do my best. some day you'll all see, rob, i did my best."
tears were raining down roberta's cheeks. "papa, patergrey, i know, i know all about it! why do you say that to me?" she cried. "and[46] mardy doesn't have a hard time—she'd never forgive me if i let you say that! she loves you so much that it would have been cruel to have given her all the world, without you."
"how can you understand that, roberta?" asked her father, startled by the girl's insight.
"because anyone feels that way when they love someone," replied rob. "wouldn't i rather be roberta grey, your daughter, than the richest girl in the world with another father? don't grieve, patergrey. it's all right for all the greys, and we'll show all those people who talk and don't know what they're talking about, we'll show them—you and i and the bricquette machine—some day, won't we?"
"i hope so, rob, i hope so," said her father. "but i can't help wondering, little daughter. i sometimes feel as though i were losing my hold. but, yes; we will prove ourselves right, rob, my son," he added, straightening himself, the red spot burning under his glowing eyes. "and in the meantime you shall have the article this week, rob. tell your mother not to worry; my article on fuel shall give us ours. tell her you woke me up to my duty."
"i'll tell her nothing about it, patergrey," said rob. "you shall hand her the hundred dollars[47] and surprise her when it comes. and don't say i woke you up to your duty. it makes me sound perfectly horrid, and feel worse than i sound. now i must go help get dinner. thank you, patergrey." and rob kissed her father, and slipped away, glad to have succeeded, yet with the vague pain at her heart which of late she often carried with her from one of these pleasant mornings with the dear, pathetic father.
