Kay Lyttleton

“ All the same, her own face looked worried when she entered the sick room and looked down at Mr. Craig’s face on the pillows.
“It seems ridiculous for me to be lying here, Becky,” he would say to her, with the whimsical boyish smile she loved. “Why, there isn’t anything the matter with me only I’m tired out. Machinery’s out of whack is all.”
“No, nothing special only that you can’t eat or walk or sit up without keeling over.” Her keen hazel eyes were amused as she looked at him. “You know, Tom Craig, if it wasn’t for Margie, the girls, and Tommy, I’d take you straight home with me.” ”

“ Jean was making plans for a party. The list of names lay before her, and she tapped her pencil on her nose thoughtfully as she eyed it.
“Now, listen, Jean,” Doris proposed. “I’ve got an idea. Why not roll up the living room rug and push the furniture back out of the way, so that we can play records and dance. We can ask all the kids who have records to bring a few with them. That way we won’t have to keep playing our same old records over and over. Don’t you think that would be fun?” ”

“ Doris put in.
“How about Dad?” Kit demanded. “Seems to me that he’s got the hardest part to bear. It’s bad enough lying there sick all the time, without feeling that you’re dragging the whole family after you and exiling them to Elmhurst.”
“It’s a riot, kids,” Jean said all at once, her eyes softening and her dimples showing again. “Just the minute any one of us takes Dad’s part, someone springs up and gives a yell for Mother, and vice versa. We won’t be lonesome up there so long as we have ourselves—you know we won’t—and if things are slow, then we’ll start something.” ”

“ Jean declared that she had learned more about cooking in the few weeks she had lived at Maple Grove than in all her life before.
“Well, there’s cooking and cooking, girls,” Rebecca had replied placidly, fishing for brown doughnuts with her long, hand-wrought iron fork. “It’s one thing to cook when you’ve got everything to do with, and quite another when you are eternally figuring out how to make both ends meet. ”

“ Etoile sped away to the tall rows of white and purple lilac bushes, and broke off two large bunches to give to Jean and Sally. Then Mrs. Chapelle remembered that she must send over to her new neighbor a pat of her butter. Such beautiful butter never anyone see, never. Jean must ride around through the lane and see the three Jersey cows browsing there in the clover field, Henriette, Desiree, and Susette.
Last of all came the Icelandic farm, and here Jean found only the hired men, two grave-faced, light-haired transplanted vikings, who eyed her curiously and silently. ”

“ Jean cried passionately. “I suppose it’s the only thing to do but did you see Mom’s face? It was utterly tragic. Dad’s been a country boy, and he’s going back home where he knows all about everything and loves it, but Mother’s so different.”
“I think Mom’s a darling, but she’s adaptable too, and she’ll go, you see if she doesn’t. And it won’t kill any of us. The really great mind should rise superior to its environment.”
“Let’s tell Kit that the first time she gripes about dishwashing,” Doris said. “I didn’t hear anything about Lydia going along, did you, Jean?” ”

“ Even if we are going to live five miles from nowhere with the eye of Rebecca forever resting upon us, there’ll be lots of fun ahead. What’s that about the world making a pathway to your door? I’m going to be famous some day and there’ll be a nice, well-worn path leading from New York up to Elmhurst, worn by the feet of faithful admirers.”
“It’s so nice having one genius in the family,” Jean answered, leaning her chin on one hand. “Now I don’t mind leaving the house behind, or the car, or anything like that. ”

“ Jean exclaimed. “You always seemed just sweet and feminine. I—why, somehow I never felt you were interested in such things.”
“If we mothers are not interested in them, who should be?” she asked, her eyes full of a beautiful tenderness and compassion. “And you are going to do your share right here in Elmhurst, making a circle that shall join together the hands of all these boys and girls from different races. We’ll give a party soon and get acquainted with them all. Now let’s pay attention to chickens, for I think this must be the house.” ”

“ But Tommy’s curiosity got the better of his caution and he coaxed Sally away to hunt for the lilies of the valley hidden away under the hazel bushes.
It was Sally, too, who took them up the hill to the rocky sheep pasture and showed them where arbutus bloomed around the edges of the gray, mossy rocks. And it was Sally, who pointed out to them the wintergreen, or checkerberry, as she called it, with its tiny pungent berries.
“She’s perfectly wonderful,” Kit declared that day at lunch. “She knows the exact spot in this entire township where every single flower bobs up in its season. ”

“ Jean thought aloud, her hands deep in the pockets of her gray flannel slacks. “We’ll have to make a business of living, and learn how to do things we hate to do with the least effort.”
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“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you’re just a bluffer, Jean Craig,” exclaimed Doris suddenly, “just a bluffer. Anyone would think to hear you talk that you actually enjoyed going without things. Of course when we’re with Mother and Dad, or even Becky, we have to put on a whole lot, but when we’re alone I do think we might at least be sincere with ourselves. We all know how we feel at heart about this sort of thing.” ”

“ Becky’s gray eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “Going to be an artist?”
“Not exactly pictures,” Jean answered with dignity. “Textile design.”
“Well, whatever it is, I guess it will hold over for a year while you go up to the country and learn to keep house. Kit here can go to high school. It’s seven miles away, but there’s a school bus that picks up those who live too far away to walk. It’s real handy.”
Kit’s eyes signaled to Jean, and Jean’s to Doris and Tommy. A fleeting vision of that “handy” trip to high school in the dead of winter appeared before them. ”

“ Becky Steps In
Saturday came and went without the party. Once, and sometimes twice a day the doctor’s car turned into the broad pebbled driveway and the children went around with subdued voices and anxious faces. Even Lydia, down in her kitchen domain, looked foreboding, and told Rebecca that she had dreamed three times of three blackbirds perching on the chimneys, which was a sure sign of death, anyone could tell you, in her own country.
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t,” Becky laughed back. “If I were you, Lydia, I’d take something for my liver and go to bed a little earlier at night.” ”

“ Hedda, the daughter, and her mother had driven over to sell two young pigs at the Finnish place.
“Oh, golly,” laughed Jean, “let’s go home. I feel as if I had been riding like Peer Gynt, all over the world, just touching at countries here and there. Let’s go right straight home, so I can talk to Mother and get a perspective on it all.”
“Better ask the Mill girls over while you’re about it,” Sally suggested, so they made one last stop at the red sawmill in the valley below Woodhow. “They’re Americans. My friend lives here, Lucy Peckham. ”

“ And here we are planning a party for the day he gets home.”
“Dad always insists that we go ahead and not upset our plans. He says he feels better knowing we’re happy,” replied Jean.
Kit stared out of the window again, thinking. At fifteen she was far more energetic than Jean at seventeen. Her agile mind easily found its way in and out of difficulty. With her curly hair cut short, she seemed more like another boy in the family. She, more than the others, even Tommy, resembled their father in many ways, lighthearted, gay, carefree. ”

“ But Abby only smiled mysteriously and gave the girls to understand that red pepper was the very latest weapon for vanquishing ghosts.
Jean had told each girl to bring a blanket. These were spread down and rolled up army-fashion until they looked like life buoys, then slung over the girls’ shoulders. The commissary department consisted of Kit, Hedda and Ingeborg, who counted over their supplies. There were jam turnovers and deviled-egg sandwiches, loaf cake and cheese, ham-on-rye sandwiches, cherries, and gingerbread. ”

“ She laughed and so did Jean. “So we called ours Elva and Sylvia. We say Elvy and Sylvy for short. Anne and Charlotte are twelve and nine and the twins are only five. They’re too cute for anything. Wish you’d all come down and see us Sunday afternoon.”
“Lucy’d ask the whole world to supper Sunday afternoon,” Sally said as they finally turned up the home road. “She’s just a dear, and she has to work all the time. She never has a single day to herself, and she doesn’t mind it a bit. ”

“ Jean said. “One of the girls in the art class found a job designing wallpaper the other day, and another one is making ceramics. When the fortunes of the Victorian family suddenly crashed, the humble but still genteel family usually took in paying guests, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but it went out of style ages ago, Jeannie,” Kit kicked off her shoes and stared at her blue angora socks. “We’ll not take in any boarders at all. I see myself waiting on table this summer at some hillside farm retreat for aged and respectable females. If we’ve got to work, let’s pitch in and help at home first.” ”

“ I think that you children are very fortunate to be born in an age when these queer old earth lines, these race barriers, are being torn down and the idea of one world is coming forth. Up here in our lonely hills, we are going to face this same problem that all nations are coping with, and we in our small way can help open the gates of the future. ”

“ We’ll never find just what we want—never, Mom. Jean wants a rose garden. I want at least a tennis court, even if we have to remove the hay fields. Doris wants wisteria arbors and a very large vine-covered porch. Tommy wants a dog, four cats, a hive of bees, a calf, and a pony. You want a house facing south, far back from the road, barn not too near, dry cellar, porch, century-old elms for shade, modern kitchen, indoor plumbing, and option of purchase, not over sixty-five dollars a month. ”

“ Craig amusedly.
“She is just exactly that,” Kit answered earnestly. “I never met a girl with so many ideas up her sleeve. And they’re as poor as churchmice. Sally told us so herself. And here she is, cooped up in Elmhurst without any outlet at all. She knows what she wants to do, but we girls can tell her how to do it.”
“Sally’s going to peddle our rhubarb for us,” Kit went on. “I think that rhubarb is a most wonderful plant. It seems to spring up everywhere and pay compound interest on itself every year. ”

“ Craig as though she could not believe it. “But we couldn’t think of going up there and all living with you, Becky.”
“You’re not going to,” answered Rebecca. “Thank the Lord, I live in a land where houses and food are comparatively cheap and there’s room for everybody. We don’t tack a brass doorplate on a rock pile like I saw there in New York, Margie, and call it a home at about ten dollars a minute to breathe. I’ve been telling Tom you’d better rent a farm near me, and settle down on it.” ”

“ For some reason she always waited for Jean’s judgment and opinion.
“Yes, I do, because it isn’t really a farm and still we can have a garden and sell the hay and get out wood and raise all we need for ourselves. I don’t think we can do much else the first year, can we, Becky?”
“If you do all that you’ll be getting along fine. I’m going to start you off chicken raising with a lot of little ones from my incubator. You can buy all you want for ten cents apiece, and if you get about fifteen last year pullets and a rooster, you’ve got your barnyard family all started.” ”

“ Craig told her. Then came a chat about her own father’s ranch in California, and when Sally came back after her mother, she found her animated and interested over Buzzy’s future.
Kit and Etoile were arranging a jam session for alternate Saturday afternoons, the ones between to be given up to tennis and basketball. Those who couldn’t dance would be taught by the others. Ingeborg and Astrid and Hedda Hagerstrom stood listening and agreeing with shining eyes and eager faces. Hedda was short and strong-looking, with the bluest eyes possible and heavy blonde braids. ”

“ The Judge never lets him have any pocket money, so he’s always trying to earn a little. He’ll come and try to sell you a tame crow, most likely, or a trained caterpillar. I was driving over toward their place one day and I declare if I didn’t find him lying flat in the middle of the road. Ella Lou barked and I asked him what he was doing. ‘Don’t drive in the middle of the road, Miss Craig,’ he said, ‘’cause I’ve got some ants here, taming them!’ Real good-looking boy he is too.”
“Gee, but he sounds like fun,” Kit remarked fervently. “I almost feel like hunting him up, don’t you, Jean?” ”

“ Suddenly Kit fled out the back door and over to the pasture where Princess rambled.
“Kit’s fretful, isn’t she?”
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“She thinks she’s getting into a rut,” answered Jean. “We all do. Some days I get so homesick for the kids back home and everything that we haven’t got here—the library and the art museum and the movies and the symphony concerts. I think we ought to write down and ask some of the girls to come up.”
“I don’t. Not until Dad’s well.”
Tommy was out of hearing. Jean looked over at Doris, who in some ways always seemed nearer her own age than Kit. ”