In the Way (6 page)

AT last there came an answer from Sally the cook. Yes, she would come gladly and would be there soon. Ruth's heart was set at rest about her housekeeping. When a few days later Sally arrived, strong, capable, willing, and warm-hearted, Ruth relaxed the high strain she had been under and began to think that things would really settle down into something like order pretty soon. The house had been thoroughly cleaned from garret to cellar by the woman David had secured for the purpose, and a good deal of the drudgery had also been taken from her, but she had felt she must do all the cooking herself, for the woman seemed not to know how to do things in the right way, nor, what was worse, to care to learn. She had a way of her own which she considered was the only way, and Ruth found, like many another, that it was easier to do things herself than to try to teach another.

              So with Sally's coming came an opportunity to rest a little and look about this new home of hers. She knew it indoors pretty well now, but had hardly ventured out at all as yet. She began to wonder how long it would be before she would go to church and know the people and be known in the village. Two Sundays had passed, but on the first she was so thoroughly exhausted by her unusual efforts at housecleaning that she did not feel able to go; and the second it had been so exceedingly stormy that the subject had not been mentioned. She did not know yet that it had never occurred to either of her brothers as a subject of conversation. They seldom went any more themselves. She had yet to bear the disappointment of that discovery.

             
A day or two after the arrival of Sally, there was some business to be done at the county scat, not far away, connected with the farm and the sale of some cattle. Heretofore David had been the one who had taken these trips, which occurred once or twice a year. It usually kept him three or four days, or sometimes a week. This year when the matter was spoken about, Joseph declared that he would go. He told his brother quite gruffly that he would not stay there with those two women, and besides, he thought it was his turn to go; he could sell the sheep quite as well as David. Now, David had been not a little troubled about leaving his sister alone just now, fearing lest Joseph might make her uncomfortable by his silent, unpleasant way, so, while he was somewhat anxious about the way in which his brother might perform the business part of the trip, anxious also as to where he might spend his time during his absence and what companions he would choose, he nevertheless saw no other way but to let him go. Indeed, Joseph was so determined, that his brother felt sure he would go away somewhere if he did not consent. So it was settled that Joseph should take the trip.

             
Ruth upon hearing that he was to start in three days hastened to carry out one of her own plans for which she had been waiting her opportunity. After consultation with David she dispatched a letter to a firm in her old home, which very soon brought her a large package by express. Her orders had been explicit, and she knew well the man with whom she was dealing, so that the contents of the package was exceeding satisfactory. Joseph started early the next morning, and about an hour afterward there arrived from the village paperers and a painter.

             
David seemed as interested and happy over the plan as if it were his own. He hovered near while Ruth talked with the painter, and helped him to mix and match tints, and while the package was opened and the paperers went to work with scissors and paste on the smooth rolls of paper. Ruth had ideas, and was very particular. The village painter declared to one of the paperhangers that he never did see such a queer style in paintin' in his life, that he s'posed he'd got to do the way that girl said, but it would look mighty queer, accordin' to his notion. Nevertheless he worked, and so did the others, as the strange young woman with the sweet voice and determined mouth ordered, and, behold, by night there was a change wrought, the like of which Summerton had never seen before.

             
It was in Joseph's room where the changes began. That was the fun of it all, to surprise Joseph when he should return. If only the furniture would come before his return. David and Ruth went up to survey after the workmen had finished and gone. To David it was a marvel. How could paper and paint make so great a change? The ceiling was a sunny cream tint, plain and simple, shading at the edges into a deeper yellow sunlight, bordered with maidenhair ferns, which by some mysterious skill of designers fitted the ferns in the border of the paper on the walls. The tint of the walls was a soft, hazy green, like the suggestion of an orchard bursting into leaf, and a deep dado, about which Ruth had been explicit in her orders to Browning & Co., was massed over with palms, so lifelike as to almost deceive the eye. Ruth intended when it was all finished to have a real palm standing in just the right place by this dado, to increase the distance and make the room look as if it stretched away to endless groves of palm. But to David, whose imagination had not been cultivated, it was sufficiently wonderful as it was. The woodwork had a beautiful blending of the cream and sunny tints, which the reluctant painter had charily acknowledged “Wa'n't so bad, considerin', only nobody in earth ever see the like before. It was somethin' new, certainly, though fer my part I prefer good, solid, substantial color all through.” The floor glistened in a border of hard-oil finish, sufficiently deep for the green mossy rug that was to lie over it.

             
Said David, as he stood spellbound: “This fits you, Ruth. You ought to have this room yourself and let Joe take another. You can't ever get anything as pretty as this for anybody else.” But Ruth laughed in her pleasure, and said she had plenty more plans for the other rooms, that his was to be even prettier than this. And then she wished again the furniture would hasten on its way, and she ran away to give some direction for breakfast. And the furniture did come the very next morning. They told each other that it was really wonderful for it to arrive from such a long distance, considering how long freight was sometimes on its way. They forgot to take into account that the man who had sent it on was a friend, and had spoken to another friend in a freight office, which had hastened things a little. They forgot also that the Holy Spirit was guiding the whole affair, and that perhaps God wanted Ruth's plan for Joseph to succeed even more than she did. We have a habit of thinking our nice little plans arc all against God's way, and of asking his help much as if we expected he would naturally refuse or let something hinder them. We forget that if we are letting him guide our lives in everything, it is very often his own gracious Spirit which gives us the thought of these plans, and it is God who has given us the intellect and skill to plan. Even when he lets our plans fail apparently, it may be that their very failure has been their success in his eyes.

             
David had tried to arrange for the freight to be brought from a quiet little station two miles up the road, from the village, that the whole neighborhood might not know everything that was going on, but it had proved impossible. For some reason the cars could not be left on the right side-track. So through the eager little village the hauling wagons toiled back and forth, back and forth, an incredible number of times, emptying the great freight car. Mrs. Chatterton could hardly get her work done that day, so afraid was she that she would lose count of the wagon loads, but when the night came her record was correct, she was sure. Not much satisfaction had she from her watch, however, for everything was so carefully packed by professional packers that its shape and design were hopelessly covered. A crowd of boys and older men, and even a few curious women, had made errands down toward the station, that they might see these city things nearer, and some papers were picked a little just to see the woodwork on a bedstead or the upholstery on a chair. There were great stories afloat, and much wonder. But there was nothing to go on but hearsay and surmise. David was always “close-mouthed,” the neighbors said, and they did not like to ask him questions, and Joseph had gone to the fair to sell sheep. If Joseph had been home they felt sure they might have found out something. One old man with a ragged, discolored beard, where a river of tobacco juice ever and anon flowed down, even said he shouldn't wonder if there was trouble up there with that highflier of a city girl, or Joe never would have gone; he never went before, and this was reported as true by the postmaster to three friends of his as he sorted over the mail to go east.

             
But at the farmhouse there was eagerness and pleasant hard work. David got his own necessary work out of the way as soon as possible that he might help. As the loads came in they were deposited here and there, out of the way, in rooms that were not to be used immediately, and Ruth selected the things she wanted for Joseph's room at once. David opened the boxes and helped to uncover the swathed furniture, and carried up and arranged. He did not wish to trust the men with this more than he could help. Some things he found pretty heavy, however, and was obliged to have help, so he kept John Haskins.

             
Perhaps that was a providence too, for John Haskins was brother to Ellen Amelia, she who had admired the hat of the city lady at the station the day she arrived, and Ellen Amelia's heart was delighted, and her life was brightened greatly by the wonderful account of velvet carpets and downy chairs, which her brother John gave at the supper table. It may be that John's vocabulary was hardly suited to convey exactly correct impressions of all he had seen, and it may be that where he could not remember he drew somewhat on his imagination, but on the whole the account was a good one and eagerly listened to by the entire Haskins family, including the New York grandmother, who was pleased to be able to explain the uses of some articles described, though she was hardly familiar with them in her own home. But city people have opportunities, which gives them an advantage sometimes, and it pleased her to be able to air her little knowledge. As for Ellen Amelia, her “Fireside Companion” had just come, and she had finished reading “The Disguised Duke; or, From Poorhouse to Palace,” by the fading light, when her mother called to her for the fifth time that the table must be set that minute. And now her dreams were being carried on into realities by John's account. It did her good to think that there were such beautiful things in the world, and that they had come as near her as to be in Summerton. Thence-forward it should be her great desire to get into that house and see all those beautiful things. Perchance there might be something there which she could carry out in cheaper form at home. For Ellen Amelia was not all dreams. She was ambitious, and in her way she was not unskillful, but the poor child had few opportunities of any kind.

             
Meanwhile at the farmhouse things were growing interesting. Out of the chaos of the morning was evolved a room so beautiful that David as he went and came, bringing this and that at his sister's direction, fairly held his breath. The old cord bed was replaced by one of white and brass, and from this and that chest and bureau and packing box, Ruth brought linen and blankets and white drapery and made the bed, all white and lovely. The corner bookcase was there with a few books and a statuette and vase. Ruth unpacked in a reckless way. She was determined to have that room done before Joseph came, no matter how much she broke all laws laid down for movers and unpackers. She pulled a box of books all to pieces to find one which she knew was there and which she wanted Joseph to read sometime. She would have a certain picture for his room. She would have driven a less interested helper than David distracted with her searches after certain little things, which in the natural order of things might have been waited for till they turned up. Ruth wanted that room complete, and David was none the less an eager boy at play than she was a girl. There was a large, soft, luxurious couch covered with green plush, which looked like a mossy bank, and this accompanied by its many soft silk pillows was established near a window, and by its side a small flat-topped desk on which was a reading lamp with whitelined green shade. The palm was there, for Ruth had had some of the choice plants from the greenhouse sent on, and all the windows were draped in soft white swiss.

             
David, while he put up the little brass rods for the curtains and sawed and fixed a heavier pole in front of the closet door to hang a heavy dark green portiere where the door had been missing for many a year—so long that the reason for its disappearance had been entirely forgotten—wondered in his heart if he would have been a different being if he had been surrounded by such things sooner; wondered what Joseph would think, whether he would be offended or pleased; resolved to give him a lesson if he were not pleased; and wondered again what poor, economical Aunt Nancy would have said to all this luxury in the old farmhouse. He remembered the dazzling plush album in the parlor and smiled to think how tawdry and common it seemed to him now, though in former years he had looked upon it as an awesome treasure.

             
They stood back at last and looked at the finished room. Everything was in its place, even to the articles of toilet. “It is beautiful, beautiful!” said David. It stirred some-thing in him as he gazed at it completed that he did not understand. It made him long for higher, nobler things. It opened possibilities that he had not dreamed of. It made life seem rich and sweet, and, did it speak to him of heaven and his mother? Was not heaven something like this? It came nearer to his ideal than anything he had ever seen before. Perhaps it might stir Joseph with the same thought and make him want to be better, to please that mother who was up there, somewhere, among palms and songs. He closed the door softly as they went out as if they were stepping from some sacred place. As he lay awake that night in his own bare room he liked to think of that lovely spot and know it was near. It made heaven seem a fair reality and even a possibility for him. “And now what next?” he said the next morning with almost as eager a look on his face as Ruth wore. They had each been that morning for a silent peep at Joseph's room, just to see it by the daylight, finished, but neither guessed it of the other. Ruth had knelt a minute there and breathed a prayer that the Spirit of Jesus might hover over that room and influence the life of the occupant, and David's wish for his brother, unuttered, had been perhaps no less a prayer for him.