Sunshine Jane Part 13

"Well, maybe; but I don't want any more." Susan's tone was terribly earnest.

"It's all over then," said Jane, slowly and with emphasis; "if you truly and honestly don't want any more, then it must be all over. The thing to do now is to build a firm connection between ourselves and it's being all over."

"I don't quite understand what you mean," said Susan, "but something's got to be done, of course, because otherwise she'll come home, and oh, my, her face when she sees me up and around!"

Jane knit her brows. "You see, Auntie," she said slowly, "there's only one thing to do. We've got to change ourselves completely; we've to get where we want her to come home and where we look forward to it--"

Susan stopped short and lifted up both hands. "Gracious, we can't ever do that! It isn't in humanity."

"Yes, we can do it," said Jane firmly; "people can always do anything that they can think out, and if we can think this out straight, we can do it."

"How?"

"It isn't easy to see in just the first minute, but I understand the principle of it and I know that we can work it, for I've seen it done.

You do it by getting an entirely new atmosphere into the house."

"But you've done that already," interrupted Susan. "It isn't musty anywhere any more, and there's such a kind of a happy smell instead."

"I don't mean that kind of an atmosphere. I mean a change of feeling in ourselves. We've got to somehow make ourselves all over; we must really and truly be different."

"But I am made over, and you were all right, anyhow."

"No, I'm not all right," said Jane firmly. "I'm very wrong. I'm letting silly thoughts with which I've no business torment me dreadfully, and I'm not driving them out with any kind of resolution. Then we're both doing wrong about Aunt Matilda. We're making a narrow little black box of our opinion and crowding her into it all the time. There's nothing so dreadful as the way families just chain one another to their faults.

Outsiders see all the nice things, and we have lots of courage to always live up to their opinions, but families spend most of their time just nailing those they love best into pretty little limits. You and I are so happy together, and we're changing ourselves and one another every day, but we never think that Aunt Matilda's also having experience and changing herself, too. We kind of forbid her to grow better."

"You won't find anything that will change Matilda very quick, Jane.

She's a dreadful person to stick to habits; she's drunk out of the blue cup and give me the green one for these whole five years."

"The change in the atmosphere of the house," said Jane slowly, "must be complete. We must never say one more word about her that isn't nice, and we mustn't even think unkind thoughts. We must talk about her lots and look forward to her coming back--"

"Oh, heavens, I can't," gasped Susan.

"We'll begin to-day on her room--"

"Then you'll make her madder than a hatter, sure; she can't bear to have her room touched."

"I'm going to make it the prettiest room in the house," said Jane resolutely. "I'm going to brush and clean and mend and fix all those clothes she's left hanging up, and I'm going to love her dearly from now on."

Susan sat still, her lips moving slightly, but whether with repressed feeling or trembling sentiment it would be impossible to say. "She looked awful cute when she was little and wore pantalettes," she said finally.

"Bravo!" cried Jane, running to her and kissing her. "There's a fine victory for you, and now,"--her face brightening suddenly,--"I've got an idea of what we can do to lift us right straight up into a new circle of life. What do you say to our making the little back parlor over into a bedroom, and--"

"--taking Mr. Rath to board?" cried Susan joyfully. "Oh, I am sure that he wanted to come all along."

Jane laughed outright. "No, indeed, the very idea! No, what I thought of was inviting that poor old Mrs. Croft here for a week and giving her and her daughter-in-law a rest from one another."

Susan gave a sharp little yell. "Why, Jane Grey, I never heard the beat!

Why, she can't even feed herself!"

"It would be a way to change the atmosphere of the house; it's just the kind of thing that would change us all--"

"I should think it would change us all," interrupted Susan; "why, she threw a cup of tea at Katie's back last week. Katie said she couldn't possibly imagine what had come over her,--she was leaning out to hook the blinds."

"It would be a Bible-lovely thing to do," Jane went on slowly. "You or I could feed her, and I'd take care of her. I'm a nurse, you know!"

"Jane! Well, you beat all! Well, I never did! Old Mrs. Croft. Why, they say you might as well be gentle with a hornet."

"Maybe she has her reasons; maybe it's,--Set a hornet to tend a hornet, for all we know. Anyway, it's come to me as some good to do, and when I think of any good that I can do, I have to do it,--else it's a sin.

That's my religion."

"That religion of yours'll get you into a lot of hot water along through life." Susan's tone was very grave. "And you've never seen old Mrs.

Croft, or you'd never speak of her and religion in the same breath.

They've got a cat she caresses, and some days she caresses it for all she's worth. I've heard the cat being caressed when it was quiet, myself, many's the time. You can't use that religion of yours on old Mrs. Croft; she isn't a subject for religion. She's one of that kind that the man in the Bible thanked G.o.d he wasn't one of them."

"My religion is what brought me here to you," said Jane gently. "You aren't really sorry that I learned it, are you, Auntie?"

Susan's eyes moistened quickly. She gasped, then swallowed, then made up her mind. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said resignedly, "when shall we get her?"

"We'll put her room in order to-morrow morning, and I'll go and ask her in the afternoon."

"Oh, dear!" said Susan, with a world of meaning in the two syllables. "I hope she'll enjoy the change."

Jane laughed. "Goodness, Auntie, I never saw any one pick up new ideas as quick as you do. I was months learning how to make myself over, and you do it in just a few hours. You must have laid a big foundation of self-control up there in bed."

Susan sighed, uncheered. "It kept me pretty sharp, I tell you," she said; "when you're always hungry and have to get your food on the sly and be positively sure of never being found out, it does keep you in trim being spry pretty steady."

"May we come in?" asked voices at the gate. It was Lorenzo Rath and Madeleine. "We wanted to see how you were getting on to-day," the latter called.

"We've been changing the furniture and the atmosphere," said Susan, trying bravely to smile. "Jane is turning everything around and bringing the bright new side out."

"If you'll come and help me wash the breakfast dishes and then make biscuits," Jane said to Madeleine, "I'll ask you both to lunch."

"I want to learn how to do everything, of course," said Madeleine.

"And why shouldn't we go down to the garden?" suggested Lorenzo to Susan. "You'll point out the things you want to-day, and I'll pull 'em up."

"But there are fences to climb," said Jane.

"Fiddle for fences," said her aunt; "he'll go ahead, and I'll skim over 'em like a squirrel. I never made anything of fences."

So they divided the labor.

"The house looks so pretty," said Madeleine, as she and Jane went through to the kitchen. "How do you ever manage it,--with just the same things, too?"

Jane glanced about. "Why, there's a right place for everything, and if you just stand back a bit and let the things have time to think, they'll tell you where to put them. There was an old blue vase in the dining-room that was pretty weak-minded, but I was patient and carried it all over the place till finally it was suited on top of the what-not in the corner of the hall. The trouble with most things is that we hurry them too much at first, and then we don't help them out of their false position later."

"Oh, Jane, you are so delightfully quaint. You must tell Mr. Rath that.

It's the kind of speech that will just charm the soul right out of an artist."