Tracy Park Part 44

'I was coming this way,' he said at last, 'and thought I'd stop and see how you stood the journey, and I've brought you some roses.'

He held them toward her, and with a bright smile she came forward to receive them.

'Oh, thank you, Tom,' she said, 'it was so kind in you. Roses are my favorites after the white pond lilies, and these are very sweet.'

She buried her face in them two or three times, and then, putting them in some water, resumed her position by the wash-tub.

'I'd like you to drive with me,' Tom said, 'but I see you are too busy.

Must you do that work, Jerrie? Can't somebody--can't your grandmother do it for you?'

'Grandmother! That old lady do my washing! No, indeed!' Jerrie answered, scornfully, as she made a dive into the boiler with the clothes-stick and brought out a pair of Mrs. Crawford's long knit stockings, and dropped them into the rinsing water with a splash.

'Grandma has worked enough,' she continued, as she plunged both her arms into the water. 'Harold and I shall take care of her now. He was up this morning at four o'clock, and has gone to Mr. Allen's, four miles away, to paint a room for him like mine.'

She said this a little defiantly, for she felt hot and resentful that Tom Tracy should be sitting there at his ease, while Harold was literally working for his daily bread, and also took a kind of bitter pride in letting Tom know that she was not ashamed of Harold's work.

'Yes,' Tom drawled, 'that new room must have cost Hal his bottom dollar.

We all wondered how he could afford it. I hope you like it.'

She was too angry to tell him whether she liked it or not, for she knew the speech was a mean one and prompted by a mean spirit, and she kept on rubbing a towel until there was danger of its being rubbed into shreds.

Then suddenly remembering that Tom had not told her of Maude, she repeated her question. 'How is Maude? She was coming to see me this morning I hope I shall be done before she gets here.'

'Don't hurry yourself for Maude,' Tom replied. 'She will not be here to-day. I had nearly forgotten that she sent her love and wants you to come there. She is sick in bed, or was when I left. She had a slight hemorrhage last night. I think it was from her stomach, though, and so does mother, but father is scared to death, as he always is if Maude has a pain in her little finger.'

'Oh, Tom,' Jerrie said, recalling with a pang the thin face, the blue-veined hands, the tired look of the young girl at the station. 'Oh, Tom, why didn't you tell me before, so I could hurry and go to her;' and leaning over her tub Jerrie began to cry, while Tom looked curiously at her, wondering if she really cared so much for his sister.

'Don't cry, Jerrie,' he said, at last, very tenderly for him. 'Maude is not so bad; the doctor has no fear. She is only tired with all she has done lately. You know, perhaps, that she was here constantly with Harold, and I believe she actually painted for him some, and for aught I know helped shingle the roof, as Billy said.'

'Yes, I know; I understand,' Jerrie replied, 'I saw it in her face yesterday. She has tired herself out for me, and if she dies I shall hate the room forever.'

'But she will not die; that is nonsense,' Tom began when he was interrupted by Mrs. Crawford, who called out:

'Oh, Jerry, here is Billy Peterkin, with his hands full. What shall I do with him?'

Dashing away her tears, Jerry replied:

'Send him in here, of course.'

In a few moments the dapper little man was in the woodshed, with a large bouquet of hot-house flowers in one hand and a basket of delicious black-caps in the other. For a moment he stood staring first at Tom on the wooden chair glaring savagely at him, and at Jerrie by the washtub with the traces of tears on her face--then, with a wind of forced laugh, he said:

'Be-beg pardon, if I in-tr-trude. Looks dusedly like l-love in a t-t-tub.'

'And if it is, you have knocked the bottom out,' Tom said, with a sneer.

Both jokes were atrocious, but they made Jerrie laugh, which was something. She was glad on the whole that Billy had come, and when he offered her the berries and the flowers, she accepted them graciously, and bade him sit down, if he could find a seat.

'Here is one on the wash bench,' she said, 'or, will be when I have emptied the tub;' and she was about to take up the latter, when Billy sprang to her a.s.sistance and emptied it himself, while Tom sat looking on, chaffing with anger and disgust.

After a moment Billy stuttered out:

'Ann Eliza sent me here, and wants you to c-c-come and see her rooms.

G-g-got a suite, you know; and, by Jove, they are like a b-b-bazaar, they are so f-full of things, and fl-flowers; half Va.s.sar is there. Got your basket of d-daisies, Tom, and when I asked her where she g-g-got 'em, she said it was n-n-none of my business. D-did she steal 'em?' and he turned to Jerrie, whose face was scarlet, as she replied:

'No, I gave them to her, with a lot of others; I could not bring them all and it was better to dispose of home flowers, as I can get them any time.'

Tom could have beaten the air, he was so angry. He had been vain enough to hope that his gift was carefully put away in some box or parcel; and lo! it was in the possession of that red-haired Peterkin girl, whose _penchant_ for himself he suspected, and whom he despised accordingly.

'Much obliged to you for giving away my flowers,' he was going to say, when Mrs. Crawford called again, and this time in real distress.

'Jerrie, Jerrie! you _must_ come now, for here is d.i.c.k St. Claire.'

For an instant Jerrie hesitated, and then ashamed of the feeling which had at first prompted her not to let d.i.c.k into the wood-shed, she replied:

'If Tom and Billy can he admitted to my boudoir, d.i.c.k can. Send him in.'

'By George, this is jolly!' d.i.c.k said, as he bent his tall figure under the low door-way, and seated himself upon the inverted washtub which Billy had emptied. 'Have you all been washing?' 'No,' Jerrie answered, proudly. 'I am the washerwoman, and all those clothes you saw on the line are my handiwork.'

'By George!' d.i.c.k said again. 'You are a trump, Jerrie! Why didn't you wear that dress when you were graduated? It's the prettiest costume I ever saw.'

'Th-that's what I think, only I d-didn't d-dare t-tell her so!' Billy cried, springing to his feet and hopping about like a little robin.

'How is Nina?' Jerrie asked, ignoring the compliment.

'Brisk as a bee,' d.i.c.k replied, 'and sends an invitation for you to come over to a garden-tea to-night to meet Marian Raymond, Fred's sister.

Awful pretty girl, with an accent like a foreigner; was over there several years, you know. I was going to the Park House to invite you and Maude,' he continued, turning to Tom, 'but as you are here, it will save me the walk. Half-past five sharp.'

Then as his eye fell upon Billy, in whose face there was a look of expectancy, his countenance fell, for Nina had given him no instructions to invite the Peterkins, and he felt intuitively that there was nothing in common between Ann Eliza Peterkin and the refined and aristocratic Marian Raymond, who had seen the best society in Europe, and in whose veins some of Kentucky's bluest blood was flowing. But d.i.c.k was very kind-hearted, and never knowingly wounded the feelings of any one if he could help it; and, after an awkward moment, during which he was wondering what Nina would do to him if he did it, he turned to Billy and said, as naturally as if it were what he had been expressly bidden to say:

'Why, I shan't have to walk over to Le Bateau either. I'm in luck this hot morning, if you will take the invitation to your sister--for half-past five.'

'Th-thanks,' Billy began; 'b-but am I left out?'

'Of course not. I'm an awful blunderer,' d.i.c.k said, adding, mentally, 'and liar, too, though I didn't say anybody would be happy to see them.

Poor Billy, he is well enough, and so is Ann Eliza, if she wouldn't pile that red hair so high on the top of her head and wear so much jewelry.

Well, I am in for it, and Nina can't any more than kill me.'

By this time Jerrie was bustling about, putting away the washing paraphernalia and sweeping the wood-shed, thus indicating that she had no more time to lose with her three callers, two of whom d.i.c.k and Billy, took the hint and left, but not until she had explained to the former that it would be impossible for Harold to be present at the garden-party, as she knew he would not be home until late, and would then be quite too tired for company.

'I am sorry that he cannot join us. I counted upon him,' d.i.c.k said. 'But you will come, of course, and I offer my services on the spot to see you home. Do you accept them?'

Jerrie seemed to see, without looking, the disappointment in Billy's face, and the wrath in Tom's; but as she greatly preferred d.i.c.k's society to theirs in a walk from Gra.s.sy Spring to the cottage, she accepted his offer, and then said, laughingly:

'Now, good-morning to you, and good riddance, too, for I am in an awful hurry, I am going over to see Maude as soon as I can get myself ready.'

She had not thought that Tom would wait for her, and would greatly have preferred to walk; but Tom was persistent, and moving his chair from the wood-shed outside into the shade where it was cooler, he sat fanning himself with his hat, and watching the long line of clothes, which Jerrie had washed, flopping in the wind, with a feeling of mortified pride, as if his own wife had washed them. He knew that his mother had once been familiar with tubs, and wash-boards, and soap-suds, but that was before his day. Twenty-seven years had washed all that out, and he really felt that to be a Tracy and live at Tracy Park was an honor scarcely less than to be President of the United States, and Jerrie, he was sure, would see it as such when once the chance was offered her. She could not be so blind to her own interest as to refuse him, Tom Tracy, who was so much sought after by the belles of Saratoga and Newport, where he had spent a part of two or three seasons. He had been best man at the great ---- wedding in Springfield, and groomsman at another big affair in Boston, and had scores of invitations everywhere. Taken altogether, he was a most desirable _parti_, and he was rather surprised himself at his infatuation for the girl whom he had found in the suds, and who was not ashamed that he had thus seen her. This was while he was watching the clothes on the line, scowling at three pairs of coa.r.s.e, vulgar stockings which he knew belonged to Mrs. Crawford, and the pair of blue overalls which were Harold's.

'Yes, I do wonder at my interest in that nameless girl, whose mother was a common peasant woman,' he thought; but when the nameless girl appeared, fresh, and bright, and dainty, as if she had never seen a wash-tub, with her hat on her arm, and two of his roses pinned on the bosom of her blue muslin dress, he forgot the peasant woman, and the lack of a name, and thought only of the lovely girl who signified that she was ready.

It was very cool in the pine woods, where the heat of the summer morning had not yet penetrated, and Tom, who was enjoying himself immensely, suggested that they leave the park and take a short drive on the river road. But Jerrie, who was not enjoying herself, said 'No!' very decidedly. It would be hot there, and she was anxious to be with Maude as soon as possible. So they drove on until they reached the grounds which surrounded the house, and which Jerrie thought more beautiful than she had ever seen them. The gra.s.s was like velvet, with ma.s.ses of flowers and shrubs, and urns, and bits of statuary here and there, while over a little brook where Jerrie and Maude had often waded, and where poor Jack had had a little water-wheel, a rustic bridge had been built, with a pretty summer-house just beyond. Frank Tracy was a natural gardener, and had lavished piles of money upon the grounds, in which he often worked himself, and where he was busy now with a clump of roses when Tom drove up with Jerrie.