Killykinick Part 28

"Gee!" said Freddy, in a much troubled voice. "We'll be right bad off for a real home, after all, daddy."

"Perhaps we can find a nice old black mammy who will take care of us all,"

observed daddy, his eyes twinkling almost as they used to twinkle in the days of little Boy Blue.

"Yes, I suppose we can," said Freddy, with a wistful little sigh, "I suppose that is what we will _have_ to do, daddy. But I wish--it's going to be such a pretty house every other way,--I wish we could have a pretty lady to sit at the head of the table and pour our tea."

"Would _I_ do, Freddy?" asked Miss Stella, stealing a soft little hand into his.

"You, Miss Stella,--_you_,--_you_?" gasped Freddy. "Oh, that would be rip-roaring, sure enough! But you couldn't,--you wouldn't!"

"I might," was the low answer; and Miss Stella arose and drew little Boy Blue to her loving heart. "I might come if you want me very much, Freddy,--so I promised daddy last night."

"For there is no real right home without a mother, son," said daddy; and his arm went around to meet Miss Stella's until Freddy was locked in their double clasp. And, looking from one glad face to the other, a thousand rainbows seemed to burst upon his troubled sky, and little Boy Blue understood.

So there was a wedding in the little church at Beach Cliff when the hydrangeas were in bloom the next summer,--a wedding that drew the Forester clan from far and near. Even the two grandmothers, after they had inspected the Neville family tree through their lorgnettes, declared their satisfaction that Stella was going to do the proper thing at last.

Daddy was the daddy of old times, before the dark clouds of doubt and despair had gathered around him and he had drifted about, the derelict Mr.

Wirt; while Miss Stella, veiled in soft mists of tulle, looked what she had been, to him, what she would ever be to him--his guiding star. Polly, who was the only bridesmaid (for so Marraine would have it), carried a basket of flowers as big as herself; Father Tom said the Nuptial Ma.s.s; and Freddy stood at daddy's side, the very happiest of "best men." And Dan who was off on his summer vacation at Killykinick, came down in the "Sary Ann," with Captain Jeb slicked up for the occasion in real "store clothes." And there was a wonderful wedding feast at the Forester home, with a cake three stories high, and three tables full of wedding presents; Captain Carleton's diamond star, that he _would_ send, shining with dazzling light among the rest.

And, then, such a house-warming followed as surpa.s.sed Freddy's wildest dreams with a real fire leaping on the hearth, with the rugs and curtains and cushions just right; for Miss Stella (or Marraine as she chose that Freddy should call her,--for, as she said, "Your own dear mother is in heaven, my boy"),--Miss Stella had picked them all out herself. And Father Tom beamed happily on his reconstructed family; and the Fathers and Brothers and boys from St. Andrew's dropped in without ceremony; for Marraine had welcome for all, now that she was a fixed star in her real home and her real place.

Though dear Aunt Winnie has dropped at least ten years of her life, and old Neb's whale oil has done more for her rheumatism than all the store medicines she ever tried; though more joy and comfort has come into these sunset years than she ever dared hope, she still sits on her little porch in the evening, with a look in her old eyes that tells she is dreaming.

"What do you see, Aunt Win?" asked Dan one evening as after a tough pull up the Hill of Knowledge, he bounded up the Mulligan stairs to drop at her feet and lay his head in her lap.

"Sure it's not for an old woman to spake, Danny dear!" she answered again as of old. "It's too great, too high. What was it that holy saint, Father Mack, said to you, alanna? Sometimes I forget the words."

"That it would be a hard climb for me against winds and storms," said Dan.

"And, golly, it will! I am finding that out myself, Aunt Win."

"Go on, lad! There was more,--there was more," said the old woman, eagerly.

After a moment's pause, Dan added, in a voice that had grown low and reverent:

"That G.o.d was calling me to His own. And, Aunt Win,--Aunt Win" (there was a new light in the blue eyes uplifted to her face), "I am finding that out, too."

But it is a long way to the starlit heights of Aunt Winnie's dream,--a long, hard way, as Danny knows. We leave him climbing st.u.r.dily on over its rocky steeps and sunlit stretches, but finding many a sunlit resting place on the way. Brightest of all these to Danny is Killykinick, where he goes every summer to spend a happy holiday,--to boat, to swim, to fish, to be "matey" again with the two old men, who look for his coming as the joy of the year.

"It's hurrah! hurrah, Aunt Win!" he wrote jubilantly one glad summer day.

"Your Danny is at work before time, doing a little missionary business already. Two real true converts, Aunt Win,--baptized yesterday! It was the 'Padre's preaching' that set Jeb thinking first, and then he got hold of some of Great-uncle Joe's books. I sort of took a hand, and altogether we've got the dear old chaps into the fold. Peter and Andrew,--they chose the names themselves, even good old Neb's dull wits seeming to wake at his Master's call. Brother Bart's prayers for his old friends have been answered. The Light is shining on Killykinick, Aunt Win,--the Light is shining on Killykinick!"