“we call our house a greenhouse, though it is made of red brick, because it grew all the gardens,” explained mary, when win brought their unexpected guest down to supper.
the boy was less pale for a vigorous towelling, but he looked uncomfortable, like one who could neither account for his being there nor feel that he ought to be there. mary saw at a glance that win had adopted him without reservation during their absence. win was a most definite person toward his acquaintances; one was never in doubt as to his attitude toward them. he loved, or he loved them not, and one never had to have recourse to a daisy to find out which it was. he kept his hand on the lame lad’s shoulder, as he entered the dining-room, and smiled at him with peculiar kindness.
“yes, we consider that a subtle bit of cleverness!” win supplemented mary. “the house21 is a greenhouse for growing the garden roses—see?” he waved his hand toward mary and jane. “it has grown other garden plants, for that matter. my grandfather, the girls’ great-grandfather, built it, and it was owned by my father, and then by my elder brother, their father. i was born in it; so were they. it went to two oldest sons; then that last one had nothing but three worthless girls to leave it to!” win scowled fearfully at them.
“it’s a dandy house,” said the stranger, looking around him.
it really was! the hall ran through the middle of it, with big rooms on either hand and windows catching the sun’s rays in turn, as the solid house was swung around him. the dining-room got the last of the daylight, facing westward as it did. a glowing sunset lighted up the round mahogany table, in the centre of the room, and its snowy damask, brilliant glass, and silver. fine old steel engravings of landseer’s pictures hung around the wall; the chairs were solid, high of back. the room gave an effect of cheer, and space, and plenty.
“i feel horribly uncomfortable, intruding,” said the guest, looking with convincing appeal and a flushed face at the girls.
22 “i don’t think you could call it intruding to stay when you are urged to—and wanted—do you?” asked mary.
“my only fear is there mayn’t be enough to eat!” said win.
“there is, then!” declared a new voice, and they all turned to see abbie abbott, bringing in a tray with creamed chicken garnished with parsley, and a steaming plate piled with flaky biscuits. abbie might have been almost any age between twenty-five and sixty-five; in reality she was halfway between those two ages, and a character.
“you’ve enough to feed six delegates to a convention—and they’re the hungriest things i ever come across, mr. win! mr. moulton and mis’ moulton called on the phome and said they’d be over to-night,” added abbie.
“we always say mr. and mrs. moulton called,” remarked jane, as abbie disappeared. “you don’t speak of every one together as you do them. i wonder why!”
“and you don’t hear people calling over the ‘phome’ unless you happen to be abbie abbott,” added win. “sounds like a sea song.
“i heard a voice across the foam:
to-night i’ll tread the garden loam;
helm hard a-lee, i’m sailing home!”
23
“win, you ridiculous fellow!” cried mary, with her merry laugh.
jane ran to him and shook him approvingly; jane could never approve heartily without violence. “you lovely idiot!” she cried.
florimel dashed into the room and collided with abbie bringing saratoga chips and tomatoes. “oh, gracious!” cried florimel, dropping into a chair.
“you may well say so!” said abbie sternly, as she skilfully saved her burden from wreck. “good thing it wasn’t next trip, with the coffee-pot steaming hot and the diddly cream jug!”
“now we are all here; we don’t have to wait any longer,” announced mary, with evident relief. “grubbing in the garden makes me hungry.”
“let me wait on mr. walpole, because i found him; chum was starving,” said florimel, and they all laughed.
“so am i,” said the guest, accepting the skipping saratoga potatoes which florimel aimed at his plate, or as many of them as arrived there. “but my name is mark.”
“nice, handy one, too; can’t be shortened,” said win. “we’ll all be first-name friends from now on. i’m the oldest of the lot and i’m only24 six years older than mark. what’s your specialty, mark? any special work you’re after?”
“paying work,” said mark, with a laugh. “i did intend to study a good while longer. i’m not prepared for any special work; not ready for it, i’m afraid, but it has to be found, if it’s wrapping grocery parcels. i’d like to work with a botanist; i know more about botany than anything else.”
“and mr. moulton is botany crazy, in an amateurish way!” cried mary.
“i wonder how a person is an amateur lunatic,” murmured jane.
“now, who’d expect you, of all people, to ask that, jane?” said win suggestively. “mr. moulton is at work on a tremendous book, more tremendous than it will ever be book, i’m afraid. he’ll never finish it! ‘a study of the flora of new york,’ he calls it, and he’s making a herbarium as big as the book. maybe he’d take you to help on it.”
“if i could do it,” said mark doubtfully.
“if nobody can possibly eat another bite, nor drink another drop, suppose we go out and watch the stars come out, and wait for mr. and mrs. moulton to come over,” suggested mary.
“if it was anybody else, or we were anybody25 else,” said florimel, “and mr. and mrs. moulton was their guardian—mr. moulton, really, but mrs. moulton does more guarding than he does—we’d call them uncle austin and aunt althea, but we never do. mr. and mrs. to them means just as much as uncle and aunt do when other girls say it to people who aren’t any relation. mr. and mrs. moulton like us to call them what they really are; not relations, when they’re not.”
mark laughed, and win said: “strain that, kiddums, to clear your remarks. they’re badly mixed.”
mary explained to mark: “florimel means that we never fell into the way of calling people who weren’t related to us uncle and aunt, but mr. moulton and mrs. moulton are two of our cornerstones. i do wish mr. moulton would let you help him. very likely his book will never be published, but i’m sure it’s fine, and as interesting as it can be to work on. mr. moulton would be so happy if a young person were working with him. all we can do is listen when he tells us about it, or reads us bits, but he knows quite well that we don’t understand any more about the scientific part of it than a telephone receiver would, and that must be discouraging.”
26 “i don’t know what your mr. moulton would want of me, but i’d be glad enough if he could use me. you see i meant to go on studying, go to college and specialize and maybe teach, and do something worth doing in botany. but that’s knocked on the head.” mark tried to speak carelessly, but the tang of disappointment was in his voice.
“no telling which is the short cut to your destination when you’re young and all roads stretch out before you, my son,” said win, answering this note in the younger lad’s voice and laying a hand on his shoulder with a mock paternal air. “come on outside, and take a course in botany and astronomy, sitting in our garden watching the stars come out.”
“just a moment, win,” murmured mary. she laid a detaining hand on win’s arm, and mark followed jane and florimel through the door that led directly into the garden from the dining-room.
“aren’t we to keep him overnight?” mary asked. “it may be he hasn’t much money for lodgings, and morning seems the right time to set out.”
“why, of course, lady bountiful,” win concurred heartily. “sure thing we’re going to27 keep him to-night! he’s a mighty nice little chap, if he is out seeking his fortune, and florimel did pick him up—like the dog!”
“he’s very nice,” mary agreed. “he has lived among nice people. but he isn’t a little chap, win; he’s taller than you are.”
“what are inches?” demanded win. “when you are twenty-four, my child, you will understand that eighteen is mere infancy.”
“in fancy! yes, it is!” cried mary saucily. “in reality twenty-four is nothingness.”
“disrespectful to your uncle! bringing his dark hairs in sorrow to the gray!” growled win, stalking after the others to the garden.
mary ran out to look for anne, whom she knew she should find at that hour helping abbie get the supper dishes out of the way.
“anne, anne dear, anne kennington!” she called as she came.
“mary, lass, what is it?” anne answered, coming to meet her.
she was a tall englishwoman of about thirty-five, with the brightness of her youthful brilliant colouring beginning to fade. the red in her cheeks was hardening as the whiteness around it browned, but her eyes still flashed fires out of their depth of blue, and her hair was almost28 black. she moved with a free, indifferent swing as if she had been born under the declaration of independence instead of the english queen. but her devotion to the garden girls partook of the loyalty of a subject, while it was, at the same time, all maternal.
“we have a guest for the night, a nice boy a year older than i am, who came to vineclad looking for work. florimel met him and brought him home with her to see mr. moulton. is the little room in order?” asked mary.
“little room, and big room, and middle-sized room, all the guest-rooms are in order,” said anne, resenting the question. “but staying the night here, mary? a tramp!”
“mercy, no! a gentleman and very really!” mary set her right. “his home was burned, his father was killed in the fire, and, instead of being left well-off, he had nothing. he is from massachusetts, he didn’t say where; his name is mark walpole. win thinks he is fine—it isn’t merely girls’ judgment.”
“and winchester garden is only a big boy; what does he know of reading character? though he would be a good judge of breeding,” anne conceded. “i suppose a night of him won’t ruin the place, though what with florimel29 bringing home that dog and now a boy, there’s no telling what the end will be! of course i knew he was at supper; he looks a nice sort; i’ll grant him that. go on, mary; mr. and mrs. moulton are this minute crossing over. i’ll see that the ewer is filled in the boy’s room, and more than that it doesn’t need done to it; that, and a pair of towels.”
“there’s no housekeeper like our anne! you can’t catch her napping,” laughed mary, hastening out to help receive her guardian and his wife.
the garden girls and their absurdly un-uncle-fied young uncle had a habit of sitting out in their garden in the evening from such an early date in the spring that everybody croaked “malaria,” till so late a date in the autumn that, figuratively speaking, the neighbourhood clothed them in shrouds and got out its own funeral garments.
but vineclad, sitting some fifteen miles back from the hudson river, never administered malaria to its trusting children, and the old garden garden could never have been persuaded to harm its three girls, between whom and it was a love profoundly sympathetic.
mary found jane, florimel, win, and mark,30 with chum nearby, in the comfortable wicker chairs which stood about on the grass with which the garden emphasized its paths, permitting it to grow as a small lawn on the west side of the house. mr. and mrs. moulton were just coming toward them through the broad path which led directly from the side gate.
mr. moulton was not above medium height. his hair was grizzled, as was his short-cropped moustache; he stooped and peered at the world through large-lensed glasses, as if he regarded everything, collectively and separately, as specimens. mrs. moulton, on the other hand, carried herself so erect that she might have been protesting that the specimens were not worth while. no one had ever seen her dishevelled, nor dressed with less than elegant appropriateness to the time and occasion. the result was that she conveyed an effect of elderliness though she was not quite fifty years old, which is young in this period of the world’s progress. her light-brown hair showed no thread of gray, her aristocratic face was still but lightly lined, and her complexion was fair, yet one thought of her as of a person growing old, though doing so with great nicety.
the three garden girls sprang up to meet these31 arrivals with the alacrity and deference which was the combination of manner that mrs. moulton liked. florimel damaged the effect this time by overturning her chair and stepping on chum’s tail. both chair and dog bounded as this happened and chum howled, too newly adopted to be sure the injury was not intended.
“a dog, my dear?” asked mrs. moulton of jane, at that moment kissing her cheek. but she looked beyond chum at mark, as being, in every sense, the larger object.
“yes, mrs. moulton,” said jane, curbing her desire to laugh. “florimel found it lost, and brought it home. we have adopted it as a friend; it seems to be obedient and good tempered.” she flashed a look at mark, calling upon him to appreciate this doubly accurate description. her hair, rumpled by the breeze, seemed to flash with her eyes; it looked like a part of the afterglow in the west now illumining the garden.
“dog!” said mr. moulton, who had not discovered chum. “looks like a boy to me, a boy i don’t know.” he peered at mark through his large glasses.
win presented mark, instinctively feeling that it would incline mr. and mrs. moulton more32 favourably toward mark if win, and not the young girls, assumed the responsibility for him.
“walpole, did you say?” mrs. moulton repeated after win. “mark walpole? what was your father’s name? i knew of walpoles in massachusetts—what was your town?”
“worcester, and my father’s name was cathay. my grandfather was in india, and was pretty tired of it. he named my father cathay because he felt as though he had been there a hundred years, had ‘a cycle of cathay,’ you know. hard on my father to get such a name, wasn’t it?” replied mark.
“that’s the walpole i meant!” mrs. moulton triumphed. “the very one! i didn’t know him, but a friend of my girlhood did; one couldn’t forget that name. suppose you sit here and talk to me.” she led the way to a bench and motioned mark to a place beside her.
“and suppose you sit here and talk to me!” echoed her husband, drawing a chair close to the one he took and inviting mary to it. mr. moulton availed himself of most opportunities to appropriate mary, his favourite of the three girls whom his friend had left to his guardianship, dear as they all were to him.
but the conversation did not divide itself off33 into duets. mr. moulton ceased to draw from mary her story of the doings of the garden household since his last report, and jane and florimel, neither of whom was often silent, joined in listening to mrs. moulton’s catechism of mark and his answers.
“it isn’t as if i were all right, you know,” mark said quietly, when he had told her of his aim to make his way in the world, though his hope of preparing to follow the course he would have chosen had been wiped out. “i’m lame. it doesn’t bother me much, but it will probably get in the way of lots of things a sound boy might do. i got my foot smashed when i was a little chap and it couldn’t be mended to be as good as new. but i’m sure i’ll limp into something—something that will keep me out of the bread line!”
“mark was telling me, mr. moulton,” interposed win, seeing his chance, “that he had gone quite far in botany, already he was planning to specialize in it, when he was thrown out of his own place in the world. i thought that would interest you.”
“why not?” said mr. moulton, turning from mary to scrutinize mark anew, scowling at him nearsightedly. “as to being thrown out of your place in the world, my lad, there’s no power on earth can play you that trick; it’s every man’s work to make the place he’s in his own place. it’s a consoling truth—and most absolutely a truth—that a man often grows bigger himself for having to fit himself to a smaller place than he had expected to fill. as to this ambition of yours interesting me, touch a man on his hobby and there is not much question of interesting him! i’m a botanist by choice and profession, though luckily for me i could afford to be! i live in spite of it, not by means of it. i’m working on a vast herbarium and a big book: ‘a study of the flora of new york.’ now if you knew enough to help me—i’m not sure it would be just to your future, but—i could use a clever youngster who had what i’d call botanical common sense as well as sympathy. come and see me to-morrow morning! i can measure you if i have you in my study, but not here. from the beginning a garden, a garden with even one girl in it, proved fatal to planning for a happy future!” mr. moulton twinkled behind his owl-like lenses. his wife arose to go.
“when mr. moulton becomes facetious i say good-night,” she remarked. “i have a few chapters of my library book to finish before i35 sleep. we came only to be assured the garden children still blossomed. fancy finding cathay walpole’s boy here!” she arose with a rustling, impressive dignity, and her husband meekly arose also.
“another reminiscence of that first garden—i do what the woman bids me,” he said.
the three girls kissed both their guardian and his wife, and offered their own cool cheeks to receive their good-night kiss. then they escorted them to the gate, while win strolled beyond it with them, accompanying them home. jane and florimel joined hands and danced like nymphs up the walk. it was always a strain upon them to keep up to mrs. moulton’s standards of propriety during one of their visits. mary ran after the two, having lingered a little to say a last word to their old friends. jane switched her skirts, held out in both hands, as she danced alone around the lawn. florimel took chum’s forepaws and tried to get her to dance, but the big puppy growled a protest and florimel gave it up.
“chum knows the hesitation, all right,” observed mark.
florimel caught mary as she came and swayed her in a mad dance of her own devising.
“mrs. moulton knew your father! mr. moulton is going to love you for old botany’s sake. i’ve been lucky fishing to-day!” florimel chanted. “and to-morrow you’ll go to see mr. moulton, and i’m going to give chum a bath.”
mark laughed, and looked admiringly at her brilliant beauty.
“what is it about helping lame dogs over stiles? that’s been your job to-day, miss gypsy florimel!”
“we always have nice times,” said mary, as if good luck for mark and rescue of chum had been her personal gain. “come into the house.”
“such a kindly, motherly house; i love it,” said mark.
“it’s the greenhouse, you know, for us garden slips, so it has to be warm and sort of hospitable,” jane reminded him.
they all passed in through the wide door, into the broad hall, and the light from the bend of the wide staircase fell on four happy young faces, and, mark rightly thought, on three of the prettiest girls he had ever seen together.
“it’s a lucky greenhouse with its specimens,” he said shyly, but with a smile at mary.
