The Heart of Arethusa Part 14

Just at present, Arethusa was busily engaged in committing to memory "The Babbling Brook."

But her brook did not babble just precisely as Miss Let.i.tia's did.

There was something far more fantastic and wild about the runs the younger musician made on the tinkling square piano; runs which Miss Let.i.tia considered were not at all in keeping with the character of the music she was playing. Effort had been expended by both to bring Arethusa's brook to the state of really flowing as a brook should flow; but it seemed so far to be hopeless.

Arethusa played it through once and Miss Let.i.tia kept time for her with a threaded needle.

"No, dearie," she shook her head, "you don't get it at all. You play just a bit too fast sometimes, and not quite fast enough others."

So it was played all over again from the beginning by the pupil; but still it was no better. Miss Let.i.tia looked troubled.

"I just don't see how I can make you do it differently."

Miss Asenath liked Arethusa's way of playing this particular piece and she did not want it changed.

"Perhaps," she suggested gently, "the child is tired. It's been a very hot day, and it's very hard to do anything just right on such a day. It seems to take all the life out of one."

Miss Let.i.tia agreed. "It does so. Well, she can learn it the right way before she leaves. There's plenty of time still."

"Play something else for us, dear," said Miss Asenath. "Play some of the ballads."

Arethusa turned again to the piano and filled the room with the soft sounds of "Auld Robin Gray" and "The Low-backed Car" and "Annie Laurie."

Under cover of the music Timothy slipped in and found a chair close to Miss Asenath. He had been spending a very miserable time down by the Branch. And he would never have come near the house had he not heard the piano, for Timothy loved music intensely and he could never resist following its sound. If Arethusa was still angry with him, he had no intention of bothering her again; he only wanted to be allowed to listen.

Miss Eliza came back to the sitting-room and settled once more to her sewing. Miss Asenath closed her eyes and gave herself over to dreaming.

It was her book of ballads, and she had used to, long ago, play them softly in just such twilights for another Timothy. Miss Let.i.tia's busy fingers worked away and her head nodded time.

The late summer evening with its myriads of sounds and that feeling of restless settling down for the night that it always seems to have in the country, slowly deepened into darkness and Arethusa still played on. Perhaps her execution was not of the best and her fingering may have been questionable; but she seemed to feel some of the real spirit of the quaint old tunes she played and she put a soft expression into them that was far more to her circle of listeners than brilliant execution or perfect fingering. None of them could have found the smallest fault: the music spoke to each one of them in that way each one most wanted.

So she played on softly until Mandy came, announcing supper.

Timothy must stay, Miss Eliza insisted. But Timothy declined, even though Arethusa, with rather strange cordiality considering what she had said at the Branch, joined her voice to Miss Eliza's. The music had spoken to Arethusa herself, to soften. Timothy's mood, however, was not inclined for conversation on general topics, and at Miss Eliza's supper-table one nearly always conversed on general topics.

CHAPTER X

The only persons at the Farm who did not go to the station to see Arethusa off for her Trip were Miss Asenath and Nathan. Even Mandy went, on the front seat of the surrey with Blish.

Nathan was Mandy's better half, a darkey of a deeply religious nature.

He considered a town, everything in it, and everything connected with it, snares of the Evil One to lead men astray. Although in his youth, and up almost until early middle age, he had been the terror of the county seat the Sat.u.r.day nights he had been paid off, he had "gotten religion" along about the time of his marriage to Mandy, and now nothing on earth could take him anywhere near any of his former haunts.

He had even refused to drive Miss Eliza to town when on one or two occasions his services had been required. And he was the only human being on record who had ever opposed her thus successfully.

But it happened most fortunately in this case, this feeling of his about town, for he could remain with Miss Asenath and Mandy could go to the station with Arethusa. Otherwise, she might have had to stay at home, and this would almost have broken her heart.

Timothy and Timothy's mother and his aunt, who made her home with them, also drove the six miles 'cross country to the little town of Vandalia where Arethusa was to take the train, to bid her good-bye. They were already present when the Farm delegation arrived, as early as it was when they came, for Timothy wanted as many as possible of these last moments with Arethusa. His mother had been sure it was far too soon to start when Timothy called her, but she suffered from a chronic inability to oppose any of his wishes, even by suggestion, so she had left her housewifely counting of preserves and pickles without a word of complaint to go with him.

Miss Let.i.tia became a little tearful in her leave-taking.

"Letting the dear child go off all alone by herself this way for the very first time!"

For in spite of Miss Eliza's decided and oft loudly expressed disinclination to have her do so, to Arethusa's unbounded delight, she was actually going alone.

Thanks to that flight of Elinor and Ross to the seash.o.r.e, the State Fair had been only a memory for more than a month. But diligent search by Miss Eliza, in the way of inquiries at church and when in town, had discovered a friend who was going to Lewisburg later in the Fall to shop, and who would be more than glad to take the girl under her wing.

Then almost at the very last moment this promised company was forced to abandon her trip and Arethusa was left high and dry. The fate of her Visit trembled in the balance for a few days. Miss Eliza was strongly inclined to postpone the whole affair until she could arrange things to go with her niece herself, but she finally gave in to the pleading that Arethusa was entirely ready. Why should she wear the first freshness off her outfit before she made this Visit?

But if she was going alone, she was going fully-equipped so far as advice was concerned. Miss Eliza had spent several conscientious hours of instruction and counsel. Arethusa had been told a dozen times over just what she was to do, and that she was to leave the train only when it stopped for the very last time to stay, without going on. The terminus of the line was Lewisburg.

"And if you sit there a half an hour, you make sure," said Miss Eliza, firmly.

A great many people, added she, especially young people, get lost by leaving trains at wrong stations.

Miss Let.i.tia contributed her quota also, though it was more in actual preparation for contingencies that might arise than advice. Arethusa's name and address had been sewed in everything she had on, "in case of accident." Miss Let.i.tia had had a dream one night of an unidentified body lying by a railroad track after a wreck. She dreamed the body to be Arethusa's. Then she had read, very often, of folks whose sense of their own ident.i.ty had been taken from them most completely by a blow on the head; this also had happened in wrecks. Should there be a wreck and the dream come true, or the other horrible thing happen, in either case they would never know what became of Arethusa. The thought harrowed Miss Let.i.tia. Fortunately, she had only dreamed the dream the one time, so there was not quite so much danger of it being fulfilled.

Had she dreamed it three nights, Arethusa should never have gone a step on this trip. But even had the other dreadful thing occurred, it would have been the most careless searcher who would have failed to discover just who Arethusa was and where she belonged, after Miss Let.i.tia had finished her labeling, in slanting, old-fashioned letters on neatly bound-down squares of white linen.

The traveller carried a small packet of baking-soda, tucked into a corner of her satchel by the long-sighted Miss Let.i.tia, "in case of car-sickness." There was nothing so good for nausea as soda.

Arethusa wore the dark blue suit Miss Let.i.tia had made her, with its plain, full gathered skirt, all lined for better warmth, and its double-breasted coat, trimmed with the b.u.t.tons from one of her great-grandfather's broadcloth suits. Her traveling waist was pongee.

"Pongee is the best material to travel in that I know of," said Miss Eliza. "It never shows the least bit of soil."

It was b.u.t.toned modestly to her throat, ending in a straight line, neither high nor low which would have been most trying to nearly everyone, but above which Arethusa's flower face rose as lovely as ever. Her hat was a plain round felt trimmed with two really beautiful turkey feathers that Miss Eliza had been saving carefully since the winter previous. Arethusa had never had a feather on a hat before (only ribbons, the year round), and she considered these feathers the height of elegance. Her hair was fixed on the top of her head for the very first time in her life, a graduation from the long red plait just for this glorious Visit. Her feeling about that heavy, unbecomingly arranged roll, and the hairpins which held it in place, was an indescribable mixture of pride and elation and satisfaction.

Clutched tightly in one white, cotton-gloved hand was Mandy's contribution, a small, neatly tied-up box of lunch. Her extra money was in a little bag on a string around her neck, where Miss Eliza had also deposited the trunk check. There was only the tiniest possible amount of change in her purse. She carried a hand-satchel so ancient in appearance that it might have been the forerunner of all hand-satchels, and her trunk was a wee round-topped affair of red leather with a canvas cover. It was a trunk which had been last viewed by the public when Miss Eliza and Miss Let.i.tia attended the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Miss Eliza was not one to expend money for anything, when what she already had was still perfectly good, albeit a trifle out of date.

Miss Eliza scorned to show her feelings as did Miss Let.i.tia when she told Arethusa good-bye. Consequently, she was even gruffer than usual as she adjured the departing one not to make a fool of herself.

Mandy wept openly. Putting her head into a lion's mouth held no more unknown terrors for Mandy than the making of a journey.

And Timothy prepared to wring Arethusa's hand almost off when it was his turn to say farewell; he thought it was the most expression of his affectionate unhappiness at seeing her leave them that would be permitted him. But she held her face up to him in the most natural manner to be kissed, just as she had held it up to Miss Eliza and Miss Let.i.tia and his mother; so Timothy, after a brief moment of hesitation and remembrance of what Arethusa had said so emphatically about kissing, took what the G.o.ds were offering and imprinted a very modest salute on the sweet, upturned face.

Arethusa was so excited that she scarcely heard all of Miss Eliza's last instructions, and she bade some of her party adieu more than once.

Timothy claimed the privilege of helping her on the train and escorting her into the coach, and he deposited her satchel on a seat he turned over to face her so she would be sure to have plenty of room.

She chattered away, these last few precious moments, as merrily as if Timothy were companioning the adventure of this trip to Lewisburg, but he found no tongue to reply. It is true that he was not allowed very much chance, but even if he had been, there was no heart in him for talk. Timothy was finding the actual reality of parting with Arethusa for heaven-only-knew-how-long-a-time, far worse than its antic.i.p.ation, as bad as that had been.

The conductor called, "All a--bo-ard!"

And in sudden, desperate utterance of a wild little wish. Timothy leaned close to Arethusa.

"Kiss me good-bye again, Arethusa," he coaxed, all his young heart in his blue eyes. "Please!"

Arethusa stared at him, frankly amazed at such a remarkable request.

"What's the matter with you, Timothy Jarvis? Kiss you good-bye? Why, the very idea! And what on earth do you mean by 'again'?"