  It was late afternoon when Jenny returned from Miss Dearborn’s home high in the foothills. As she drove up the long lane leading to the farmhouse, she saw three young ladies from Granger Place Seminary on horseback cantering along the highway toward the mansion-like home of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones. She was too far away, however, to be sure that among them was the girl whom she believed to be the daughter of the rich woman who owned the farm. Going to the barn, Jenny unhitched Dobbin, patting him lovingly and chatting in a most intimate friendly manner as though she were sure that he understood. “We’ve had a red letter day, haven’t we, Dob? First, early this morning we drove that poor Etta Heldt to the station and loaned her money to help her buy a ticket to Belgium.” Then, in silent meditation, the girl thought: “How I wish I had a magic carpet like that of The Little Lame Prince. I would love to be over on that quaint Belgian farm when the old people first see their granddaughter arriving.” Then as she led the faithful horse out to the watering trough under a blossoming peach tree, another thought presented itself. “Dobbin.” she again addressed her companion, “now that we have loaned part of the honey and egg money, wouldn’t it be dreadful if Mrs. Poindexter-Jones should decide to sell this farm?” She sighed. “Though I suppose that hundred dollars wouldn’t go very far toward buying it.” For a contemplative moment the girl gazed across the meadow where a pale green of early grain was beginning to show, and then at the picturesque old adobe partly hidden by the blossoming orchard. It was all the home she had ever known and it was hard to even think of moving to another. “Don’t climb over a stile till you get to it,” Grandpa Si had often told her. Remembering this, she turned her attention to her companion, who had lifted his dripping head. “My, but you were thirsty, weren’t you, Dob? Come on now into your nice cool stall. I’m eager to tell Grandma about that dreadful examination I am to take.” Later, as she walked along the path which led past the rows of beehives where there was ever a cheerful humming, through the orchard and to the side porch, her thoughts were varied. “How I wish I could tell Grandma Sue about Miss Dearborn’s romance, but that was meant just for me. Maybe it’s wrong, but I can’t help wishing that something will happen some day which will make it possible for that romance to end happily, as stories always should, whether they are real or in books.” At the corner of the porch she stopped to breathe in the fragrance of the heliotrope blossoms that grew on a riotous bush which seemed to be trying, vine-fashion, to reach the roof. “Home again, after a day crowded full of unusual happenings,” her thoughts hummed along. “I don’t suppose that anything more can happen in it.” But Jenny Warner was mistaken, for something of vital importance to her (though she little guessed it) was yet to happen on that day. Skipping into the kitchen, the girl beheld her grandmother busy at the ironing board. Self rebukingly she cried: “Oh, Grandma Sue, why did you iron today? You promised me faithfully, since I had to go over to the seminary, and then to my teacher’s, that you wouldn’t iron until next week, when I could help. Now you look all hot and tired, and as thirsty as Dobbin was. Please stop and rest while I make us some lemonade.” The flushed face of the old woman was smiling contentedly as she protested: “I like to iron, dearie. I’m not doing much, just pressin’ out our church-goin’ things. Grandpa Si needed a fresh shirt and I reckoned as how, mabbe, you’d like to wear that white muslin o’ yourn with the pink flowers on the bands, so I fetched it out an’ washed it an’ ironed it, an’ there ’tis, lookin’ as purty again this year as it did when it was furst made. Shouldn’t you think so. Jenny?” This a little anxiously—“or do you reckon we’d better buy you a new Sunday dress for this comin’ summer?” Jenny whirled toward the clothes-horse where hung the pink sprigged muslin which had been “church goin’” dress for the past three summers. The hem had twice been let down, but, except that the pink had somewhat faded, it was as pretty as it ever had been. “Oh, it’s a love of a dress.” The girl was sincere. “I hope I never will have to give it up. I’ve been so happy in it, and then it matches that sweet parasol Miss Dearborn gave me and the wreath on my white leghorn hat. I’m glad I may begin wearing it tomorrow, Grandma Sue, and it was mighty nice of you to iron it for me, but now, as soon as we’ve had our drink, I’m going to iron your Sunday go-to-meeting lavender dress. Please say that I may. I’ll do the ruffles just beautifully. You will be so vain!” “Tut! Tut! dearie.” Susan Warner sank down in Grandpa’s armed chair to wipe her warm face and rest while her beloved Jenny made lemonade. “It wouldn’t do to wear that dress to meetin’ if it’s goin’ to make me vain.” How the girl laughed as she squeezed the juicy lemons that grew on the big tree close to the back porch. Nearly all the year round that tree was laden with blossoms, green and ripe fruit at the same time. “The most obliging kind of tree,” Jenny had often said. “It provides a perfume, delicious lemon pies and a refreshing drink whenever its owners wish.” “There now, Granny Sue, if only we had ice to clink in it as Miss Dearborn has we’d think that we were rich folks, but it’s real nice as it is.” The girl drank her share with a relish. “That was mighty good tastin’,” Susan Warner commented. “I wish your Grandpa could have a drink of it. He’s cultivatin’ close to the high hedge. That’s a hot place when the sun is beatin’ down the way it has been all day. Couldn’t you carry a little pailful over to him, dearie?” “Of course I can and will, Mrs. Susan Warner, if you will promise me one thing.” The girl gazed down into the smiling face of the old woman. “I have my suspicions that you’re trying to get rid of me so that you may iron the lavender dress. Is that the truth?” “Maybe ’tis,” was the smilingly given confession, “but if you’ll let me iron that one while you’re gone, you can do Grandpa’s best shirt when you come back.” Filling a quart pail with the lemonade, Jenny snatched her garden hat from its nail by the door and skipped away, although she had to walk more carefully when the ploughed ground was reached. “It makes me think of Robert Burns, and how, in far-away Scotland, his plough turned over the home nest of a poor little old field mouse,” she thought. “Oh, how glad, glad I am that Miss Dearborn is teaching me to love poetry. I can just see that tender-hearted young poet leaning over, ever so sorry because he had destroyed the little creature’s home and telling it not to be frightened. “‘Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa’ sae hasty Wi’ bick’ring brattle. I wad be laith to rin and chase thee Wi’ murd’ring prattle.’” “Jenny gal, what air yo’ sayin’, talkin’ to yourself that a-way?” The girl suddenly looked up, realizing that she had neared the high hedge that separated the farm from the mansion-like home and its grounds. Laughing happily, she replied: “What you’d call up to my old tricks, Granddad, reciting poetry that Miss Dearborn has had me learn. See, here is a pail brimming full of cool lemonade, if it hasn’t warmed while I crossed the field. I’m sure you must be as thirsty as Grandma and Dobbin and I were.” For answer the old man pushed his wide brimmed straw hat to the back of his head, lifted the pail to his lips and drank it all without stopping. Then said gratefully: “I reckon I kin keep on now fer a spell longer. I was most petered out an’ I do want to finish this field afore I quit.” The girl left at once, as she wished to hurry home to help with the ironing. She followed the hedge, as the walking was easier, but suddenly she paused and her hand went to her heart. She had heard the voices of girls talking on the other side of the evergreens and what one of them was saying greatly startled the listener. “Oh, yes, indeed,” a proud voice was saying, “we own about one hundred acres, Ma Mere, brother Harold and I. Our property extends along the seacoast to the highwater mark, then back across the highway up into Laurel Canon, and includes the farm just beyond the hedge.” Another voice commented, “If your mother should die, you and your brother would be very rich.” “Oh, yes, fairly,” this with a fine show of indifference. “But if I had my way, all of our country property would be turned into money, then we could live abroad ever after. Mother promised that when she comes in July she will consider selling the farm and the canon property at least. She would have sold the farm two years ago had it not been for my brother Harold. For some reason, which Ma Mere and I cannot in the least understand, he pleaded to have the farm kept. He even offered to take it as part of his share, that and the canon acreage, and let me have the home and estate.” “What did your mother say to that?” a third voice inquired. “Too utterly ridiculous to consider, and that, since she wishes to turn something into cash, if we are to live abroad, she will sell one or the other, and, of course, there will be a more ready market for the farm. It’s a most picturesque old place. That is, from a distance. I have never really been there. You see, we have practically lived away from our country home ever since I was born. I have always supposed that, because of our father’s long lingering illness here, Ma Mere has dreaded returning to stay, so imagine my surprise when she wrote that we were all three to spend this summer at the old place.” Jenny, who had stood transfixed, listening, though against her will, for she scorned eavesdropping, started to run across the ploughed field, stumbling and almost falling in her haste. Oh, what should she do? Should she tell Grandma and Grandpa the terrible possibility that, after all, Rocky Point Farm might be sold, and that very summer? No! No! She couldn’t do that. Oh, if only she had not loaned Etta Heldt part of the honey and egg money, and yet, with a crushing sense of depression, Jenny realized that it did not in the least matter about that paltry sum. If Mrs. Poindexter-Jones wished to sell part of her land, all that her grandfather had saved or could procure would be no inducement to her. When the orchard was reached, she stood very still for a moment, her hand again on her heart, as though to quiet its anxious beating that was almost a pain. “Jenny Warner,” she said to herself, “you must not let Grandma suspect that anything is wrong because, perhaps, nothing really is. If Harold does not want the farm sold, his mother may heed his wishes.” Two moments later a smiling girl entered the kitchen, hung her hat on its nail by the door as she said, “Well, Granny Sue, I was longer than I expected to be and you have started on the shirt. Let me have the iron. I’ll promise not to scorch it, the way I did that towel you let me iron when I was just head above the ironing board. Do you remember it? You were so sweet about it when I cried. I recall, even now, how you comforted me by saying that the two ends of the towel would make such nice wash cloths, hemmed up, and that it was lucky the scorch was in the middle of the towel because that would make the wash cloths just the right size.” The old woman had relinquished the iron, and, sitting near in Grandpa’s armed chair, she smiled lovingly at the girl, who continued: “That’s just the way you’ve overlooked all the mistakes I ever made. I do wish that every girl in all the world had a grandmother like you.” Jenny was purposely chattering to keep from telling what was uppermost in her mind. “What a proud, vain girl that Gwynette Poindexter-Jones must be!” Jenny’s thoughts were very different from her spoken words. “How cold and superior the tone of her voice when she informed her friends that she had never visited the farm, but that it looked very picturesque from a distance.” Jenny’s cheeks flushed as she indignantly told herself that she certainly hoped that the farm never would be visited by——. Her thought was interrupted by her exclamation of dismay. “Grandmother Sue. Here they come!” The old woman rose hastily from the armed wooden chair. “Who, dearie? Who is it you see?” No wonder she asked, for the girl with the iron safely upheld, that it might not scorch the shirt front, was staring with a startled expression out of the window toward the long lane. Susan Warner had not seen the missionary’s older daughter in many years, and so she did not recognize her as being the young lady in the lead mounted on a nervous, high-stepping black horse. Following were two other girls in fashionable riding habits on small brown horses. But the old woman did not need to be told who the visitor was, for at once she knew. There was indeed a resemblance to her own Jenny in the face and the very build of the girl in the lead. However, a stranger who did not know the relationship would think little of it because of the difference in the expressions. One face indicated a selfish, proud, haughty nature, the other was far more sensitive, joyous and loving. Jenny was again ironing when the old woman turned from the window to ask, “Do yo’ know who they be?” “Why, yes, Granny; the one ahead is Gwynette Poindexter-Jones, and the two others are her best friends, the ones who came to Granger Place with her from San Francisco. You know I saw them all close up this noon when I waited on table over at the seminary.” Susan Warner had stepped out on the side porch when the young lady in the lead drew rein. She wanted to close the door, shutting Jenny in, but since the door stood open from dawn until sunset each day, she knew that such an act would arouse suspicion. But how she did wish she could prevent Jenny’s meeting her very own sister and being treated as an inferior. The girl at the ironing board listened intently, strainingly, that she might hear if the selling of the farm was mentioned. Gwynette was saying, “My mother told me to ride over to our farm some day and ask you to see that the big house is put in readiness for occupancy by the first of July. Ma Mere said that you could hire day labor to have the cleaning done, but that she prefers to engage our permanent servants after she arrives.” How unlike her dear grandmother’s voice was the one that was coldly replying: “I reckon your ma’ll write any orders she has for me. She allays does.” If Gwynette recognized a rebelliousness in the remark and manner of the farmer’s wife, she put it down to ill-breeding and ignorance, and so said in her grandest air, “Kindly bring us each a drink of milk.” Then, turning to her friends, she added, “All of the produce of the farm is for our use, but since we are seldom here, it is, of course, sold in the village. I suppose Ma Mere receives the profits.” “Aren’t you being unnecessarily rude?” Beulah Hollingsworth inquired. Gwynette shrugged. “Oh, nobody heard,” she said in a tone which implied that she would not have cared if they had. But she was mistaken, for Jenny had heard and her cheeks flamed with unaccustomed anger. “Are the bees yours also?” Patricia Sullivan inquired, glancing back at the orchard where a constant humming told that swarms of tiny winged creatures were gathering sweets. “Why, of course,” was the languidly given reply. “We’ll take some of the honey back with us. These people have to do as I say. They are just our servants.” To the amazement of the three, a flashing-eyed girl darted out on the porch as she cried, “You shall not call my grandmother and my grandfather your servants. And those bees do not belong to you. I bought them, and the white hens, with my very own Christmas and birthday money.” Susan Warner, coming from the cooling cellar with three goblets of milk, was amazed, for very seldom had she seen a flash of temper in the sweet brown eyes of her girl. “Never mind, dearie, whatever ’twas they said,” she murmured in a low voice. “Go back to your ironin’, Jenny; do, to please your ol’ granny.” Obediently the girl returned to the kitchen, but she felt sure, from the fleeting glance she gave the companions of Gwynette, that they were not in sympathy with her rudeness. After drinking the milk, the three rode away, and from the indignant tones of one of them the listeners knew that the proud daughter of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had been angered by the attitude of her mother’s servants. Jenny’s heart was indeed heavy as she contemplated the dreary possibility that her angry words might hasten the day when her loved ones would lose their home. Sadly she finished her task and put away the ironing board. Then she recalled that an hour before she had assured herself that nothing else of an unusual nature was apt to happen in that day already crowded with events, but she had been mistaken. She had met Harold’s sister and had quarreled with her. Then, and for the first time, she realized that she had half hoped that the daughter of their next door neighbor and she might become friends. Jenny had never had a close girl friend, and like all other girls she had yearned for one. “Dearie,” her grandmother was making an evident effort at cheeriness, “if you’ll be settin’ the table, I’ll start the pertatoes to fryin’. Here comes your grandpa. He looks all petered out, and he’ll want his supper early.” Jenny smiled her brightest as she began the task of consoling herself with the thought that Harold Poindexter-Jones was their true friend, and how she did wish that she might see him and ask him if the farm was to be sold. |
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