Without a Home Part 7

By and by Roger came from the barnyard in his working-clothes, and seeing no preparations for breakfast in the kitchen, exclaimed:

"So we heathen must sit down to the second table to-day."

"Yes, if you wish. Susan and me are going to take our breakfast in the sitting-room with Mrs. Jocelyn and her family."

"Am I not invited?" he asked a little anxiously.

"There's no need of any invitation. You have as much right there as I have, only I would not come in looking like that."

"They won't like it--this new arrangement."

"It seems to me that you have grown very considerate of what they like," put in Susan.

"Miss Jocelyn proposed it herself," Mrs. Atwood said, "and if you and father would fix up a little and come in quietly and naturally it would save a deal of trouble. If I can't get a little rest on Sunday I'll wear out."

Roger waited to hear no more, and went hastily to his room.

Mr. Atwood was more intractable. He distinguished the Sabbath from the rest of the week, by making the most of his larger leisure to grumble.

"I'm in no state to sit down with those people," he growled, after the change and the reasons for it had been explained to him.

"I'm glad you feel so," his wife replied; "but your old clothes have not yet grown fast to you; you can soon fix yourself up, and you might as well dress before breakfast as after it."

He was perverse, however, and would make no greater concession to the unwelcome innovation than to put on his coat. Mildred smiled mentally when she saw him lowering at the head of the table, but an icicle could no more continue freezing in the sun than he maintain his surly mood before her genial, quiet greeting. It suggested courtesy so irresistibly, and yet so un.o.btrusively, that he already repented his lack of it. Still, not for the world would he have made any one aware of his compunctions. Mrs. Atwood and Susan had their doubts about Roger, fearing that he would rebel absolutely and compel a return to their former habits. They were all scarcely seated, however, before he appeared, a little flushed from his hasty toilet and the thought of meeting one who had been cold and disapproving toward the belle of Forestville, but Mildred said "good-morning" so affably and naturally that he was made quite at ease, and Mrs. Jocelyn, who had seemed unapproachable, smiled upon him so kindly that he was inclined to believe her almost as pretty as her daughter. As for Belle and the children, he already felt well acquainted with them. Mrs. Atwood and Susan looked at each other significantly, for Roger was dressed in his best and disposed to do his best. Mildred saw the glance, and felt that the young fellow deserved some reward, so she began talking to him in such a matter-of-course way that before he was aware he was responding with a freedom that surprised all the family, and none more than himself. Mildred was compelled to admit that the "young barbarian,"

as she had characterized him in her thoughts, possessed, in the item of intelligence, much good raw material. He not only had ideas, but also the power of expressing them, with freshness and vivacity.

She did not give herself sufficient credit for the effects that pleased her, or understand that it was her good breeding and good will that banished his tongue-tied embarra.s.sment. The most powerful influences are usually the most subtle, and Roger found, as had Vinton Arnold and others, that for some cause Mildred evoked the best there was in him.

Poor Mrs. Jocelyn did not have very much to say. Her depression was too deep to be thrown off appreciably, but she replied to Mrs.

Atwood's remarks with her wonted gentleness. Belle's spirits soon pa.s.sed all bounds, and one of her wild sallies provoked a grim smile from even Mr. Atwood, and she exulted over the fact all day.

In brief, the ice seemed quite broken between the family and the "boarders."

The old farmer could scarcely believe his eyes when he went out to harness the horses to the three-seated wagon, for it was neat and clean, with buffalo robes spread over the seats. "Well," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "what's a-coming over this here family, anyway? I'm about all that's left of the old rusty times, and rusty enough I feel, with everybody and everything so fixed up. I s'pose I'll have to stand it Sundays, and the day'll be harder to git through than ever. To-morrow I'll be back in the kitchen again, and can eat my victuals without Miss Jocelyn looking on and saying to herself, 'He ain't nice; he don't look pretty'; and then a-showin' me by the most delicate little ways how I ought to perform. She's got Roger under her thumb or he wouldn't have cleaned up this wagon in the middle of the night, for all I know, but I'm too old and set to be made over by a girl."

Thus grumbling and mumbling to himself, Mr. Atwood prepared to take his family to the white, tree-shadowed meeting-house, at which he seldom failed to appear, for the not very devotional reason that it helped him to get through the day. Like the crab-apple tree in the orchard, he was a child of the soil, and savored too much of his source.

Roger was of finer metal, and while possessing his father's shrewdness, hard common-sense and disposition to hit the world between the eyes if it displeased him, his nature was ready at slight incentive, to throw off all coa.r.s.eness and vulgarity. The greater number of forceful American citizens are recruited from the ranks of just such young men--strong, comparatively poor, somewhat rude in mind and person at the start, but of such good material that they are capable of a fine finish.

Roger had grown naturally, and healthily, thus far. He had surpa.s.sed the average boy on the play-ground, and had fallen slightly below him in the school-house, but more from indifference and self-a.s.surance than lack of ability. Even his father's narrow thrift could not complain of his work when he would work, but while a little fellow he was inclined to independence, and persisted in having a goodly share of his time for the boyish sports in their season, and for all the books of travel and adventure he could lay his hands upon.

In spite of scoldings and whippings he had st.u.r.dily held his own, and at last his father had discovered that Roger could be led much better than driven, and that by getting him interested, and by making little agreements, like that concerning the buggy, the best of the bargain could always be obtained, for the youth would then work with a will and carry out his verbal contracts in a large, good-natured way. Therefore Mildred's belief that he was good raw material for her humanizing little experiment had a better foundation than she knew. Indeed, without in the least intending it, she might awaken a spirit that would a.s.sert itself in ways as yet undreamed of by either of them. The causes which start men upon their careers are often seemingly the most slight and causal. Mildred meant nothing more than to find a brief and kindly-natured pastime in softening the hard lives and in rounding the sharp angles of the Atwood family, and Roger merely came in for his share of her attention.

Flesh and spirit, however, are not wood and stone, and she might learn in deep surprise that her light aesthetic touches, while producing pleasing changes in externals, had also awakened some of the profoundest motives and forces that give shape and color to life.

In smiling ignorance of such possibilities, she said to him as she came out on the porch dressed for church, "You have given your mother and me also a pleasant surprise, and we shall enjoy our ride to church far more, not only because the wagon is nice and clean, but also because of your thoughtfulness of our pleasure. The wagon looked so inviting from our windows that I have induced my mother to go, and to take the children. I think they will keep still. We will sit near the door, and I can take them out if they get tired."

Her words were very simple, but she spoke them with a quiet grace all her own, while pulling her glove over a hand that seemed too small and white for any of the severer tasks of life. As she stood there in her pretty summer costume, a delicate bloom in her cheeks relieving the transparent fairness of her complexion, she seemed to him, as Amelia Stone had said, perfect indeed--and the young girl could not suppress a smile at the almost boyish frankness of his admiration.

"You gave me a pleasant surprise, also," he said, flushing deeply.

"I?" with a questioning glance.

"Yes. You have brought about a pleasant change, and made breakfast something more than eating. You have made me feel that I might be less nigh of kin to Jotham than I feared."

"I shall imitate your frankness," she replied, laughing; "you are not near so nigh of kin to him as I feared."

"I have not forgotten that you thought me identical with him," he could not forbear saying.

"I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she answered, with deepening color.

"Oh, you were not to blame in the least," he said good-naturedly.

"I deserved it."

"You must remember, too," she continued, deprecatingly, "that I am a city girl, and not acquainted with country ways, and so have charity." Then she added earnestly, "We do not want to put a constraint on your family life, or make home seem less homelike to you all."

Mrs. Jocelyn with Belle and the children were descending the stairs.

"I misunderstood you, Miss Jocelyn," said Roger, with a penitent look, and he hastily strode away.

"I've disarmed him," thought Mildred, with a half smile. She had, a little too completely.

Belle claimed her old place with Roger, and their light wagon was soon lost in the windings of the road.

"Millie," whispered Belle, as the former joined her at church, "what could you have said to Roger to make him effervesce so remarkably?

I had to remind him that it was Sunday half a dozen times."

"What a great boy he is!" answered Mildred.

"The idea of my teaching him sobriety seemed to amuse him amazingly."

"And no wonder. You are both giddy children."

"Until to-day, when you have turned his head, he has been very aged in manner. Please let him alone hereafter; he is my property."

"Keep him wholly," and the amused look did not pa.s.s from Mildred's face until service began.

Dinner was even a greater success than breakfast. Mrs. Jocelyn had become better acquainted with Mrs. Atwood during the drive, and they were beginning to exchange housekeeping opinions with considerable freedom, each feeling that she could learn from the other. Fearing justly that a long period of poverty might be before them, Mrs.

Jocelyn was awakening to the need of acquiring some of Mrs. Atwood's power of making a little go a great way, and the thought of thus becoming able to do something to a.s.sist her absent husband gave her more animation than she had yet shown in her exile. Mildred ventured to fill her vase with some hardy flowers that persisted in blooming under neglect, and to place it on the table, and she was greatly amused to see its effect on Roger and Mr. Atwood. The latter stared at it and then at his wife.

"Will any one take some of the flowers?" he asked at last, in ponderous pleasantry.

"I think we all had better take some, father," said Roger. "I would not have believed that so little a thing could have made so great a difference."

"Well, what is the difference?"

"I don't know as I can express it, but it suggests that a great deal might be enjoyed that one could not put in his mouth or his pocket."

"Mr. Roger," cried Belle, "you are coming on famously. I didn't know that you were inclined, hitherto, to put everything you liked in your mouth or pocket. What escapes some people may have had."

"I never said I liked you," retorted the youth, with a touch of the broad repartee with which he was accustomed to hold his own among the girls in the country.

"No, but if I saw that you liked some one else I might be alarmed"--and she looked mischievously toward Mildred.