The Cinder Pond Part 3

CHAPTER IV

WHAT WAS IN AN OLD TRUNK

"Where you been?" demanded Mrs. Shannon, crossly, from the doorway of the shack. "Hurry up and put Sammy and Annie to bed and don't wake Patsy. Your pa wants you to say your lessons, Jeanne. I gotta go up town after yeast. Come along, Mollie, we can go now. Here's Barney with the boat."

Her family tucked into bed, Jeanne slipped into her father's room.

"Here I am," said she. "I'm not a bit sleepy, so you can teach me a lot."

Jeanne seated herself on her father's little old leather trunk--the trunk that was always locked--and patted it with her hands.

"There's my spelling book on the table, Daddy. There's a nice pink clover marking the place."

Her father looked at her for a moment, before reaching for the book. He _liked_ to look at her; it was one of his few pleasures.

A soft clear red glowed in her dark cheeks and her eyes were very bright and very black. She was small and of slender build, but she seemed sufficiently healthy.

"Father, why do I have to speak a _different_ language from Mollie's?"

(She had never called her stepmother by any other name, since her fastidious father had objected to "Maw.") "What difference does it make anyway, if I say I _did_ it or I _done_ it?"

Here was rebellion! Her small dark father looked at her again. This time not so contentedly.

"Arise from that trunk," said Mr. Duval, whose speech retained a slight foreign touch that most people found most pleasing. "I think I shall have to show you something that I have been keeping for you."

Jeannette hopped up, gleefully. She had always wondered what that trunk contained. Now, it seemed, she was about to find out. From a crack in the wall, Mr. Duval fished a small key, fitted it to the lock, turned it, and lifted the lid. There was a tray containing a few packages of letters and a small box.

Her father opened the little box and drew from it something that had once been white, but was now yellow. Something wonderfully fine and exquisite, with a strange, faint perfume about it. A lace handkerchief.

Even Jeanne, who knew nothing of laces, felt that there was something especially fine and beautiful about the filmy thing in her hands.

"Was it--was it--"

"Your mother's," a.s.sented Mr. Duval. "Is it like anything of Mollie's?

Well, your mother wasn't like Mollie. She was fine and exquisite like this little bit of lace. Now, here is something else for you to see."

Mr. Duval placed in his daughter's hand a small oval frame containing a wonderful bit of painting. A woman's beautiful face. The countenance of a very _young_ woman, with a tender light in her brown eyes. And _such_ a pretty mouth. And oh! such dainty garments, so becomingly worn.

"Your mother," said the little man, briefly.

"Why!" gasped Jeanne. "She was a _lady_!"

"Yes," admitted her father. "She was a lady."

"And when she died, you married _Mollie_!"

"When she died, I died too, I think. I was ill, ill. I walked through the streets with you in my arms one day, here in this strange town when your mother's sickness compelled her to leave the steamboat. You were two years old. In my illness, I fell in the street near the door of Mollie's mother's house, near the cemetery where they had laid your most beautiful mother. They took me in and cared for me and for you. For weeks I was very, very ill--a fever. I did not improve--I _wanted_ to die. But slowly, very slowly I grew better. Your mother had married against her father's wishes. Her father, I knew, would not receive you; and _I_ would ask no favors.

"Mollie was young then and very good to you. I knew almost nothing about her except that she was giving you a mother's care. For that reason, when Mrs. Shannon said it was the thing to do, I married her. You understand, my Jeanne, it was not because I cared for _her_--it was just because I cared for _nothing_ in the whole world. Perhaps not even very much for you. I seemed to be asleep--numb and weak. It was two years before I realized what I had done for myself. Then it was too late. Of course I could not take Mollie and her mother to the town where I had lived with your mother; so I was obliged to find work here. I tried to be good to Mollie. She has always been kind to you. And now do you know why I want _your_ speech to be different from Mollie's?"

"Yes, yes," cried Jeanne. "I'll _never_ say 'I done it' again! Or 'I should have went' or 'I ain't got no money.' Oh, I _wish_ I'd _never_ said them. Daddy! Do you s'pose I _could_ grow up to be a _lady_?"

Her father looked at the eager young creature.

"Yes," he said, "I believe there's a way. But it's a hard, heart-breaking way for one of us."

"If _you're_ the one," said Jeanne, "I guess I'll stay just me and _not_ be a lady. Anyhow, a girl has to grow up first, doesn't she?"

"Of _course_," returned Mr. Duval, with a sudden brightness in his dark eyes and something very like a note of relief in his tone. "There's still time for you to do a lot of growing. But these things had to be said. Now let us put the treasures away and do our spelling, or Old Captain will get here and put an end to our lessons."

"Will you show me the picture again, some day, Daddy?"

"Some day," he promised, opening the spelling book at the pink clover.

The next day was bright, the weather was warm, and the little Duvals, to put it frankly, were very, very dirty. Jeanne, who had charge of the family while lazy Mollie dozed in one of the frowzy bunks, decided to give her charges a bath. There was a beautiful spot for the purpose along the edge of the Cinder Pond. The bottom at that place was really quite smooth and sandy. A tiny bit of beach had formed below the sloping bank of fine cinders and never were young trees more useful than those in the two clumps of shrubbery that screened this little patch of sandy beach. The shallow water was pleasantly warm.

"Me first! Me first!" shrieked Annie, who had wriggled out of her solitary garment, and was already wading recklessly in.

"Ladies first, _always_," said Jeannette. "Mike, you and Sammy go behind that bush and undress. Then you can paddle about until I'm ready to soap you. Here, Patsy! Keep out of the water until I get your clothes off.

There, Annie, you're slippery with soap. Go roll in the pond while I do Patsy. Don't get too far away, Sammy, I want _you_ next."

"Annie make big splash," said that youngster, flopping down, suddenly.

"Annie jump like hop-toad."

"Now, Annie, you've hopped enough. You watch Patsy while I do Sammy.

Sammy! Come back here. Michael! Bring Sammy back. Goodness, Sammy! How wet you are--don't put your hands on me."

"Wonst," remarked Sammy, eying the big bar of yellow soap, thoughtfully, "I seen _white_ soap--white and smelly. The time the boat with big sails on it was here."

"Once I _saw_," corrected Jeanne. "Old Captain said that was a yacht. I liked that lady with little laughs all over her face. _You_ remember, Michael. She took us aboard and showed us the inside. My! wasn't that grand! She showed us the gold beds and nice dishes and everything."

"What for did the boat come?" asked Sammy.

"They broke something and had to take it to a blacksmith to be mended.

They stayed here most all day."

"Sammy tried to _eat_ their smelly soap," said Michael.

"Aw! I didn't," denied Sammy. "I just licked it like I done the cheese that was on the cook's table. He gimme the cheese. But I'd ruther a-had the soap--it tasted better."

"You sure _needed_ soap," teased Michael.

"I'd like to be all smiling on my face like that pretty lady," said Jeanne, wistfully. "And she hadn't any holes in her clothes."

"_Oo_ got a pretty face," a.s.sured Annie, patting it with one plump hand.