The Cricket Part 35

"Would thee like to stay, Isabelle?"

"Like it? I'd adore it!" cried that young person, with the explosive over-emphasis of youth.

Mrs. Benjamin smiled and patted her hand.

"We would like it, too. I will write thy mother."

So it was arranged, and Isabelle stayed on. Two other girls were to remain also. By special pet.i.tion to Wally Isabelle was permitted to have the Peruvian horse to spend the summer with her.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten holiday for those three girls. They took part in all the activities of the farm. They picked fruit and helped Mrs. Benjamin and the cook to can the big supplies of jam and jelly for the school. They helped in the garden with the vegetables or worked and weeded Mrs. Benjamin's beloved flowers. They pitched hay, they drove the rake and the gra.s.s cutter. They were busy in the open from morning until night and as happy as field larks.

Lessons had stopped, but education went on. They read aloud with Mrs.

Benjamin; they studied and learned, first hand, of Nature's prodigality or n.i.g.g.ardliness. Always there was the cultivation of the spirit. Love and fair dealing made the foundation upon which these simple Quaker folk had builded their lives, and no one could live in the home of their making without feeling that these were as essential to life as breathing.

Isabelle had long, wild gallops over the hills on her horse, during which she pondered "the long, long thoughts of youth" and brought the resulting problems to Mrs. Benjamin in the weekly letters, or in some of their intimate talks.

"It is hard to believe that this is the freakish sullen child who came to us less than a year ago," Mrs. Benjamin commented as the girls went off to bed one night.

"No, it is wonderful. Thou hast made a new being of her."

"Thou hast done it as much as I have. It is evidently her first experience of being understood and loved."

"What strange excrescences do grow up on our so-called civilization," he said.

"Is thee calling the rich an excrescence?" she smiled.

"I know that they are just human beings like ourselves, but how do they get things so awry? They put such a slight upon parenthood, with their servant-made children."

She nodded, and he went on developing his thought.

"It is ominous when the basic relationships are so abused--marriage held so lightly, children disdaining their own parents, as our Isabelle does.

Where is it leading us, Phoebe?"

"Dear knows--dear knows!" she sighed, shaking her head.

It was a well-worn theme with them. They had to ponder deeply these tendencies, for it was their work to try to counteract these destructive forces--to build up in the hearts of these servant-made children, as Mr.

Benjamin called them, a respect for G.o.d and man and the holy things that grow out of their relationship.

The summer pa.s.sed almost without event. The three girls, hard and brown as Indians, were beginning to plan for the fall, when the others would return.

It was in early September that the blow fell upon Isabelle. A telegram from Wally had appraised his daughter of their arrival in New York. They were to spend the fall at the Club house near The Beeches. He hoped she was well. Did she want him to come and see her?

She answered this briefly, also a note from her mother. As Mrs. Bryce rarely troubled to write letters to any one, Isabelle pondered the reason for this amiable epistle. It was soon to be explained. Mrs.

Benjamin received a letter from Mrs. Bryce saying that notification had arrived that Isabelle would be admitted this October to Miss Vantine's Finishing School, where her name had been entered for years. She wished the girl sent directly to this address in New York on the last day of September, as she was to board at the school for the present until it was decided whether the Bryces would open their town house.

Mr. Benjamin shook his head sadly over this letter, and carried it to his wife.

"Adam--Adam, we cannot let her go to _that_ school! It will be her ruination," she exclaimed.

"My dear, it is the most fashionable school in New York," he replied, with a sigh.

"It is shoddy, and artificial and false!" she protested in unwonted heat. "My poor, dear Isabelle! Adam, couldn't we make a plea for her?--tell her mother how she improves here, how fast she progresses?"

"Phoebe dear, dost thou think that that would interest this lady?"

"But we can't let her go without one effort to save her. I think it is as serious as that, at this stage of the girl's development."

"Suppose thee writes a letter to Mrs. Bryce."

"I will. Let us not speak of it to Isabelle until I have her mother's answer."

"Very well, dear heart."

Mrs. Benjamin wrote and re-wrote the letter. Finally one was despatched and she anxiously awaited the reply. It was long in coming, and it fell like a blow on her heart. Mrs. Bryce was glad to have such a good report of Isabelle, but her plan had always been that the girl should spend, at Miss Vantine's school, the two years previous to her debut, as she herself had done. All the girls of her daughter's set went there, and she wished Isabelle to be with them. Thanking Mrs. Benjamin for her interest, etc., etc.

The Benjamins had a conference of disappointment over it, and it was decided that Isabelle must be told. Mrs. Benjamin's face was so rueful over it that her husband offered to do the telling. He and Isabelle were going off on an expedition together, which would give him an opportunity, and Mrs. Benjamin could provide the comfort that must follow.

He found it no easy task. As he looked at his st.u.r.dy young companion, listened to her picturesque talk, he felt that he was called upon to tell a young vestal virgin that she was to be sacrificed to the G.o.d of mammon.

"This is good air, isn't it!" she said, breathing deeply. "How do people live in cities, do you suppose?"

Mr. Benjamin longed to shirk, but he took himself in hand.

"I have had a letter from thy mother, Isabelle."

She glanced at him suspiciously.

"What does she want?"

"She wants thee to go to a school in New York this winter."

She stopped and faced him in alarm.

"To leave Hill Top?"

"I'm afraid so, little sister."

"But I won't! I won't go away from here. I love it here, I love you and Mrs. Benjamin. Oh, why does Max always interfere with me? I hate her!"

she cried, pa.s.sionately.

Mr. Benjamin laid a steadying hand on her shoulder, and walked beside her.

"I understand what a blow this is to thee, and how unhappy it makes thee. But one of the things that we want our girls to learn is to honour and respect their parents," he said gently.

"But how can I respect Max, Mr. Benjamin? She never respects me."