We Ten Part 28

Felix has got back the use of his fingers since we've been in the country; he can paint or play his violin for a little while at a time, but his legs are still useless. The doctor, though, declares he can see a slight improvement in them. He says now that perhaps--after several years--Fee may be able to get around on crutches! Betty and I felt awfully disappointed when we heard this,--we've been so sure Fee would get perfectly well; but Fee himself was very happy over it. "Once let me a.s.sume the perpendicular, even on crutches," he said, smiling at Phil, who sat sadly beside him, "and you see if, after a while, these old pegs don't come up to their duty bravely. I may yet dance at your wedding, Philippus."

Max comes up to the Cottage quite often, and stays from Sat.u.r.day to Monday. He's just as nice and kind as he can be,--why, he doesn't seem to mind one bit going off on jolly long drives in the old depot-wagon, or on larks, with only Nannie and us children; and he's teaching Madel how to manage G. W. L. Spry and make him go, without being thrown off.

Phil and Felix and Max had a long talk together the first time Max came up, and I have an idea 'twas about Chad, for Max looked very grave. I don't know what he did about it, but the other day I heard him tell Nora that Chad had positively made up his mind to go into business.

"He says he has broken loose from a very bad set he was in," Max said, "and seems very much in earnest to make the best of himself,--which is, of course, a great relief to me. I hope his good resolutions will amount to something."

"Perhaps they will," Nora answered, rather indifferently, but her cheeks got real red. I shouldn't wonder if she thought Chad'd done it because she advised him to.

We have a way this summer, on Sunday afternoons, of all sitting with Felix under the maple-trees, talking, and singing our chants and hymns there instead of in the parlour. We were all there--the whole ten of us--one afternoon, when papa came across the lawn and sat down in the basket-chair that Phil rushed off and got him. We'd just finished singing, "O Mother dear, Jerusalem," Fee accompanying us on his violin, and we didn't begin anything else, for there was a queer--sort of excited--look on papa's face that somehow made us think he had something to tell us. And sure enough he had.

"My children," he said presently, and his voice wasn't as quiet and even as it usually is, "I have this to tell you,--that last night I finished my life work; my History is completed!"

The Fetich finished! we just looked at each other with wide-open eyes.

Then Nannie knelt down by papa's chair and kissed him warmly, and Phil, who was sitting on the edge of Fee's lounge, leaned over and shook hands with papa in a kind of grown-up, manly way.

"Allow me to congratulate you, sir," Fee said earnestly, with shining eyes. "It is a great piece of work, and your children are _very_ proud of it and of you."

The rest of us didn't know what to say, so we just sat and looked at papa.

"I began it years ago," papa said after a minute or two, in a dreamy voice, as if talking more to himself than to us, and looking away at the sunset with a sad, far-off expression in his eyes, "_years_ ago; just after I met--Margaret. But for her encouragement--her loving help--her perfect faith in my ability--it could never have been accomplished. Now it is finished--I am here alone--and she--is far away--at peace!" Papa's lips were working; he put his hand up quickly and shielded his eyes from us.

We were all very still; we older ones felt very sad. And then, soft and low--almost like an angel's voice--there came from Fee's violin the sweet strains of Handel's "Largo." The music rose and fell a bar or two, and then Nannie and Nora and Phil sang together very softly:--

"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of G.o.d. There shall no sorrow touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; but they are in peace, for so He giveth His beloved sleep."