The Young Surveyor Part 7

"And I presume," returned Mrs. Betterson, taking another reef in her shawl, "that you heard her tell a good deal about us; things that would no doubt tend to prejudice a stranger; though if all the truth was known she wouldn't feel so hard towards us as I have reason to think she does."

Jack hastened to say that he had never heard Vinnie speak unkindly of her sister.

"You are very polite to say so," said Mrs. Betterson, rocking the cradle, in which the baby had been placed. "But I know just what she has said. She has told you that after I married Mr. Betterson I felt above my family; and that when her mother died (she was not _my_ mother, you know,--we are only half-sisters), I suffered her to be taken and brought up by the Presbits, when I ought to have taken her and been as a mother to her,--she was so much younger than I. She is even younger by a month or two than my oldest son; and we have joked a good deal about his having an aunt younger than he is."

"Yes," spoke up Rufe, standing in the door; "and I've asked a hundred times why we don't ever hear from her, or write to her, or have her visit us. Other folks have their aunts come and see 'em. But all the answer I could ever get was, 'family reasons, Rufus!'"

"That is it, in a word," said Mrs. Betterson; "family reasons. I never could explain them; so I have never written to poor, dear Lavinia--though, Heaven knows, I should be glad enough to see her; and I hope she has forgiven what seemed my hardness; and--do tell me" (Mrs.

Betterson wiped her eyes) "what sort of a girl is she? how has she come up?"

"She is one of the kindest-hearted, most unselfish, beautiful girls in the world!" Jack exclaimed. "I mean, beautiful in her spirit," he added, blushing at his own enthusiasm.

"The Presbits are rather coa.r.s.e people to bring up such a girl," said Mrs. Betterson, with a sigh--of self-reproach, Jack thought.

"But she has a natural refinement which nothing could make her lose," he replied. "Then, it was a good thing for her to be brought up with George Greenwood. She owes a great deal to the love of books he inspired in her. You ought to know your sister, Mrs. Betterson."

The lady gave way to a flood of tears.

"It is too bad! such separations are unnatural. Certainly," she went on, "I can't be accused of feeling above my family now. Mr. Betterson has had three legacies left him, two since our marriage; but he has been exceedingly unfortunate."

"Two such able-bodied boys must be a help and comfort to you," said Jack.

"Rufus and Wadleigh," said Mrs. Betterson, "are good boys, but they have been brought up to dreams of wealth, and they have not learned to take hold of life with rough hands."

Jack suggested that it might have been better for them not to have such dreams.

"Yes--if our family is to be brought down to the common level. But I can't forget, I can't wish them ever to forget, that they have Betterson blood in their veins."

Jack could hardly repress a smile as he glanced from those stout heirs of the Betterson blood to the evidences of shiftlessness and wretchedness around them, which two such st.u.r.dy lads, with a little less of the precious article in their veins, might have done something to remedy.

But his own unlucky adventure absorbed his thoughts, and he was glad when Link vociferously demanded if he was to go and catch the mare.

"Yes! yes! do anything but kill me with that dreadful voice!" replied the mother, waving him off with her trembling hand. "Don't infer from what I have said," she resumed, gathering herself up again with feeble pride, "that we are poor. Mr. Betterson will come into a large fortune when an uncle of his dies; and he gets help from him occasionally now.

Not enough, however, to enable him to carry on a farm; and it requires capital, you are aware, to make agriculture a respectable profession."

Jack could not forbear another hit at the big boys.

"It requires land," he said; "and that you have. It also requires bone and muscle; and I see some here."

"True," simpered Mrs. Betterson. "But their father hasn't encouraged them very much in doing the needful labors of the farm."

"He hasn't set us the example," broke in Rufe, piqued by Jack's remark.

"If he had taken hold of work, I suppose we should. But while he sits down and waits for something or somebody to come along and help him, what can you expect of us?"

"Our Betterson blood shows itself in more ways than one!" said Wad with a grin, ill.u.s.trating his remark by lazily seating himself once more on the doorstep.

Evidently the boys were sick of hearing their mother boast of the aristocratic family connection. She made haste to change the subject.

"Sickness has been our great scourge. The climate has never agreed with either me or my husband. Then our poor Cecilia met with an accident a year ago, which injured her so that she has scarcely taken a step since."

"An accident done a-purpose!" spoke up Rufe, angrily. "Zeph Peakslow threw her out of a swing,--the meanest trick! They're the meanest family in the world, and there's a war between us. I'm only waiting my chance to pay off that Zeph."

"Rufus!" pleaded the little invalid from the lounge, "you know he could never have meant to hurt me so much. Don't talk of paying him off, Rufus!"

"Cecie is so patient under it all!" said Mrs. Betterson. "She never utters a word of complaint. Yet she doesn't have the care she ought to have. With my sick baby, and my own aches and pains, what can I do?

There are no decent house-servants to be had, for love or money. O, what wouldn't I give for a good, neat, intelligent, sympathizing girl! Our little Lilian, here,--poor child!--is all the help I have."

At that moment the bright little dish-washer, having put away the supper things, and gone to the spring for water, came lugging in a small but br.i.m.m.i.n.g pail.

"It is too bad!" replied Jack. "You should have help about the hard work," with another meaning glance at the boys.

"Yes," said Rufe, "we ought to; and we did have Sal Wiggett a little while this summer. But she had never seen the inside of a decent house before. About all she was good for was to split wood and milk the cow."

"O, how good this is!" said the invalid, drinking. "I was so thirsty!

Bless you, dear Lill! What should we do without you?"

Jack rose to his feet, hardly repressing his indignation.

"Would you like a drink, sir?" said Lill, taking a fresh cupful from her pail, and looking up at him with a bright smile.

"Thank you, I should very much! But I can't bear the thought of your lugging water from the spring for me."

"Why, Lilie!" said Cecie, softly, "you should have offered it to him first."

"I thought I did right to offer it to my sick sister first," replied Lill, with a tender glance at the lounge.

"You did right, my good little girl!" exclaimed Jack, giving back the cup. He looked from one to the other of the big boys, and wondered how they could witness this scene and not be touched by it. But he only said, "Have these young men too much Betterson blood in them to dress the fawn, if I leave it with you?"

"We'll fall back on our Dalton blood long enough for that," said Wad, taking the sarcasm in good part.

"A little young venison will do Cecie so much good!" said Mrs.

Betterson. "You are very kind. But don't infer that we consider the Dalton blood inferior. I was pleased with what you said of Lavinia's native refinement. I feel as if, after all, she was a sister to be proud of."

At this last display of pitiful vanity Jack turned away.

"The idea of such a woman concluding that she may be proud of a sister like Vinnie!" thought he.

But he spoke only to say good by; for just then Link came riding the mare to the door.

She was quickly harnessed to the buggy, while Link, at his mother's entreaty, put on a coat, and made himself look as decent as possible.

Then Jack drove away, promising that Link, who accompanied him, should bring the mare back in the morning.

"Mother," said the thoughtful Lill, "we ought to have got him some supper."

"I thought of it," said the sick woman, "but you know we have nothing fit to set before him."

"He won't famish," said Rufe, "with the large supply of sauce which he keeps on hand! Mother, I wish you wouldn't ever speak of our Betterson blood again; it only makes us ridiculous."

Thereupon Mrs. Betterson burst into tears, complaining that her own children turned against her.