Leslie and Allison!

Julia Cloud stood gazing out into the west, while the whole sky lightened and sank away into dusk with a burning ruby on its breast. The gloom of her spirit glowed into brightness, and joy flooded her soul.

Leslie and Allison! What round little warm bodies they had, and what delicate, refined faces! They had not seemed like Ellen’s blowsy, obstreperous youngsters, practical and grasping to the last extreme after the model of their father. They had starry eyes and hair like tangled sunbeams. Their laughter rippled like brooks in summer, and their hands were like bands that bound the heart. Cookies and stories and long walks and picnics! Those had made up the beautiful days that they spent with her, roaming the woods and meadows, picking dandelions and violets, and playing fairy stories. It had been like a brief return of her old childish days with her boy comrade. She remembered the heartache and the empty days after they had gone back to their Western home, and the little printed childish letters that came for a few months till she was forgotten.

But not really forgotten, after all. For some link of tenderness must still remain that they should think of her now after all these years of separation, and want to visit her. They remembered the cookies! She smiled 20 reminiscently. What a batch of delectable cookies she would make in the morning! Why, to-morrow would be Wednesday! They would be here to-morrow night! And there was a great deal to be done!

She turned from the belated sunset unregretting, and hastened to begin her preparations. There were the two front rooms up-stairs to be prepared. She would open the windows at once, and let the air sweep through all night. They had been shut up a long time, for she had brought the invalid down-stairs to the little sitting-room the last few months to save steps and be always within hearing. The second story had been practically unused except when Ellen or the children were over for a day or two.

She hurried up-stairs, and lit the gas in the two rooms, throwing wide the windows, hunting out fresh sheets and counterpanes. She could dust and run the carpet-sweeper over the rooms right away, and have them in order; and that would save time for to-morrow. Oh, it was good to have something cheerful to do once more. Just supposing she had yielded––as once that afternoon she almost had––to Ellen’s persistent urgings, and had gone home with her to-night! Why, the telegram might not have reached her till after the children had come, and found the house empty, and gone again!

Julia bustled around happily, putting the rooms into charming order, hunting up a little picture of the child Samuel kneeling in the temple, that Allison used to like, going to the bottom of an old hair trunk for the 21 rag doll she had made for Leslie to cuddle when she went to sleep at night.

Mrs. Ambrose Perkins across the way looked uneasily out of her bedroom window at half-past nine, and said to her husband:

“Seems like Julia Cloud is staying up awful late to-night. She’s got a light in both front rooms, too. There can’t be company. I s’pose Ellen and some of her children have stayed down after all. Poor Ellen! She told me she simply couldn’t spare the time away from home any longer, but Julia was set on staying there. I never thought Julia was selfish; but I s’pose she doesn’t realize how hard it is for Ellen, living that way between two houses. Julia’ll go to live with Ellen now, of course. It’s real good of Herbert Robinson to ask her. Julia ought to appreciate having relatives like that.”

“Relatives nothing!” said Mr. Ambrose, pulling off his coat and hanging it over a chair. “She’ll be a fool if she goes! She’s slaved all her life, and she deserves a little rest now. If she goes out to Herbert Robinson’s, she won’t be allowed to call her eyelashes her own; you mark my words!”

“Well, what else can she do?” said his wife. “She hasn’t any husband or children, and I think she’ll be mighty well off to get a good home. Men are awful hard on each other, Ambrose. I always knew that.”

Julia Cloud meanwhile, with a last look at the neat rooms, put out her lights, and went to bed, but not to sleep. She was so excited that the darkness seemed luminous about her. She was trying to think how 22 those two children would look grown up. Allison was nineteen and Leslie nearly seventeen now. Their mother had been dead five years, and they had been in boarding-schools. Their guardian was an old gentleman, a friend of their mother’s. That was about all she knew concerning them. Would they seem like strangers, she wondered, or would there be enough resemblance to recall the dear girl and boy of the years that were gone? How she clung to those cookies with hope! There was some remembrance left, or they would not have put cookies in a telegram. How impetuous and just like Allison, the boy, that telegram had sounded!

It was scarcely daylight when Julia Cloud arose and went down to the kitchen to bake the cookies; and the preparations she made for baking pies and doughnuts and other toothsome dainties would lead one to suppose that she was expecting to feed a regiment for a week at least.

She filled the day with hard work, as she had been wont to do, and never once thought of gray sunsets or dreary futures. Not even the thought of her sister Ellen came to trouble her as she put the house in order, filled her pantry with good things to eat, and set the table for three with all the best things the house afforded.

At evening she stood once more beside the front window, looking out sunsetward. There was nothing gray about either sky or road or landscape now. There had been brilliant sunshine all day long, and the sky lay mellow and yellow behind the orchard, with a clear, 23 transparent greenish-blue above and a hint of rosy light in the long rays that reached their fingers along the ground between the apple-trees. In a few minutes the evening train would be in, and there would be rose in the sunset. She knew the signs, and the sky would be glorious to-night. They would see it as they came from the train. In fifteen minutes it would be time for her to put on her hat and go down to meet them! How her heart throbbed with anticipation!

Forebodings came to shadow her brightness. Suppose they should not come! Suppose they were delayed, or had changed their minds and should send another telegram saying so! She drew a deep breath, and tried to brace herself for the shock of the thought. She looked fearfully down the road for a possible Johnny Knox speeding along with another telegram, and was relieved to see only Ambrose Perkins ambling home for supper followed by his tall, smiling Airedale.

There was a shadow, too, that stood behind her, though she ignored it utterly; it was the thought of the afterwards, when the two bright young things had been and gone, and she would have to face the gray in her life again without the rose. But that would be afterwards, and this was now! Ten minutes more, and she would go to the station!

At that minute a great blue automobile shot up to the front gate, and stopped. A big lump flew into Julia Cloud’s throat, and her hand went to her heart. Had it then come, that telegram, saying they had changed their minds? She stood trembling by the window, unable to move.

But out from the front seat and the back as if ejected from a catapult shot two figures, and flew together up the front walk, a tall boy and a little girl, just as the sun dropped low and swung a deep red light into the sky, flooding the front yard with glory, and staining the heavens far up into the blue.

They had come! They had come before it was yet train-time!

Julia Cloud got herself to her front door in a tremor of delight, and instantly four strong young arms encircled her, and nearly smothered the life out of her.

“O you dear Cloudy Jewel! You look just the same. I knew you would. Only your hair is white and pretty,” Leslie gurgled.

“Sure, she is just the same! What did I tell you?” cried Allison, lifting them both and carrying them inside.

“Now, who on earth can that be?” said Mrs. Ambrose Perkins, flying to her parlor window at the first sound of the automobile. “It isn’t any of them folks from the city that were out to the funeral, for there wasn’t a car like that there, I’m certain! I mean to run over and borrow a spoonful of soda pretty soon, just to find out. It couldn’t be any of Tom’s folks from out West, for they couldn’t come all that way in a car. It must be some of her father’s relations from over in Maryland, though I never heard they were that well off. A chauffeur in livery! The idea of all that style coming to see Julia Cloud!”

“No, we didn’t come on the train,” explained Leslie 25 eagerly. “We came in Allison’s new car. Mr. Luddington––that’s our guardian––was coming East, and he said we might come with him. We’ve been dying to come for ages. And he’d been promising Allison he might get this new car; so we stopped in the city and bought it, and Allison drove it down. Of course Mr. Luddington made his man come along. He wouldn’t let us come alone. He’s gone up to Boston for three days; and, when he comes back, he’s coming down here to see you.”

Leslie was talking as fast as an express train, and Julia Cloud stood and admired her in wonder.

She was slim and delicately pretty as ever, with the same mop of goldy-brown curls, done up in a knot now and making her look quaintly like the little five-year-old on a hot day with her curls twisted on the top of her head for comfort. She wore a simple little straight frock of some dark silk stuff, with beaded pockets and marvellous pleats and belts and straps in unexpected places, such as one sees in fashion-books, but not on young girls in the town of Sterling; and her hat was a queer little cap with a knob of bright beads, wonderfully becoming, but quite different from anything that Julia Cloud had ever seen before. Her movements were darting and quick like a humming-bird’s; and she wore long soft suÈde gloves and tiny high suÈde boots. The older woman watched her, fascinated.

“And you’re sure we’re not being an inconvenience, dropping down upon you in this unexpected way?” asked Allison in a quite grown-up man’s voice, and looking so tall and handsome and responsible that 26 Julia Cloud wanted to take him in her arms and hug him to make sure he was the same little boy she used to tuck into bed at night.

“So soon after Grandma’s death, too,” put in Allison. “We didn’t know, of course, till we got about a mile from Sterling and stopped to ask the way to the house, and a man told us about the funeral being Monday. We weren’t sure then but it would be an intrusion. You see we left California about two weeks ago, and none of our mail has reached us yet; so we hadn’t heard. You’re sure we won’t bother you a bit, you dear?”

Their aunt assured them rapturously that their coming was the most blessed thing that could have been just at this time.

“Oh! then I’m relieved,” said Leslie, throwing off her hat and dropping into the nearest chair. “Allison, tell that man to put the car somewhere in a garage and get back to the city. They said there was a train back about this time. The man who directed us told us so. No, dear, he doesn’t need any dinner. He’s not used to it till seven, and he’ll be in the city by that time. He’s in a hurry to get back. Cookies? Well, yes, you might give him a cooky or two if you’re sure there’ll be enough left for us. I’ve just dreamed of those cookies all these years. I’m so anxious to see if they’ll taste as they did when I was a child. May I come with you and see if I remember where the cooky-jar is? Oh, joy, Allison! Just look! A whole crock and a platter full! Isn’t this peachy? Allison, do hustle up and get that man off so we can begin our visit!”

It was like having a couple of dolls suddenly come alive and begin to talk.

They talked so fast and they took everything so delightfully for granted that Julia Cloud was in a tremble of joy. It seemed the most beautiful thing in the world that these two strong, handsome, vivid young things should have dropped into her life and taken her into their hearts in this way as if she really belonged, as if they loved her! She was too excited to talk. She hardly knew what to do first. But they did not wait for her initiative. Allison was off with his car and his man, munching cookies as he went, and promising to return in fifteen minutes hungry as a bear.

“Now let’s go up-stairs, you dear Cloudy Jewel, and I’ll smooth my hair for dinner. I’m crazy to see if I remember things. There was a little red chair that I used to sit in–––”

“It’s here, in your room, dear, and the old rag doll, Betsey; do you remember her?”

“Well, I should say I did! Is Betsey alive yet? Dear old Betsey! How ducky of you to have kept her for me all these years! Oh, isn’t it perfectly peachy that we could come? That we’re really here at last, and you want us? You do, don’t you, Cloudy, dear? You’re sure you do?” Lesley’s tone was anxious, and her bright brown eyes studied the older woman’s face eagerly; but what she saw there was fully satisfactory, for she smiled, and rattled joyfully on in the old babbling-brook voice that reminded one so of years ago.

“I’m not to tell you what we’ve really come for till Allison comes, because I’ve promised; and anyway he’s 28 the man, and he wants to tell you himself; but it’s the dandiest reason, perfectly peachy! It’s really a plan. And say, Cloudy, dear, won’t you promise me right here and now that you will say ‘Yes’ to what he asks you if you possibly, possibly can?”

Julia Cloud promised in a maze of delight.

She stood in hovering wonder, and watched the mass of curls come down and go up again with the swift manipulation of the slim white fingers, remembering how she used to comb those tangled curls with the plump little body leaning sturdily against her knee. It seemed to be the first time since she was a child that youth and beauty had come to linger before her. All her experience had been of sickness and suffering and death, not life and happiness.

There was stewed chicken and little biscuits with gravy for supper. It was a dish the children used to love. It was all dished up and everything ready when Allison came back. He reported that the car was housed but a block away, and the man had gone to his train, tickled to death with his cookies. Allison was so glad to be back that he had to take his aunt in his arms again and give her a regular bear-hug till she pleaded for mercy, but there was a happy light in her eyes and a bright color in her cheeks when he released her that made her a very good-looking aunt indeed to sit down at the table with two such handsome children.

Just at that moment Ellen Robinson in her own home was pouring her husband’s second cup of coffee.

“Don’t you think I’d better take the car and run 29 down for Julia before dark?” she said. “I think she’ll be about ready to come back with me by this time, and I need her early in the morning if I’m going to begin cleaning house.”

“Better wait one more night,” said Herbert stolidly. “Let her get her fill of staying alone nights. It’ll do her good. We don’t want her to be high and mighty when she gets here. I’m boss here, and she’s got to understand that. She’s so mighty independent, you know, it’s important she should find that out right at the start. I’m not going to have her get bossy with these children, either. They aren’t her children.”

Four pairs of keen little Robinson eyes took in this saying with quick intelligence, and four stolid sets of shoulders straightened up importantly with four uplifted saucy chins. They would store these remarks away for future reference when the aunt in question arrived on the scene. They would come in well, they knew, for they had had experience with her in times past.

“Aunt Jule ain’t goin’ to boss me,” swaggered the youngest.

“Ner me, neither!”

“Ner me!”

“I guess she wouldn’t dast try it on me!” boasted the eldest.