Sara Lee

“ With complete self-knowledge comes complete knowledge of others; Mrs. Rinehart can go straight to the American heart and does it in The Amazing Interlude, that story of Sara Lee Kennedy, who went from a Pennsylvania city to the Belgian front to make soup for the soldiers. Here is romance so heady and strong that most readers overlook, purposely and gladly, the improbability of Henri’s return to Sara Lee and the little house of mercy after daybreak discovered him, delirious and in a Belgian uniform, dangling on the German wire. ”

“ Beyond the once solid wall strange figures move on—a new mise en scène, with the old blotted out in darkness. The lady, whom we left knitting by the fire, becomes a fairy—Sara Lee became a fairy, of a sort—and meets the prince. Adventure, too; and love, of course. And then the lights go out, and it is the same old back drop again, and the lady is back by the fire—but with a memory.
This is the story of Sara Lee Kennedy's memory—and of something more.
The early days of the great war saw Sara Lee playing her part in the setting of a city in Pennsylvania. An ugly city, but a wealthy one. ”

“ And every man in that thin, dishevelled line felt his heart throb with the exultation of action long desired and long delayed. Every man but one, and he the one on whom rested the responsibility of the attack.
“Anybody but Lee!” Dunn had said with a groan, when he heard who was to lead the attacking column. And Richard, having gone with him to report some scouting work to the council of officers, and recalling Lee’s fierce opposition to any plan for battle, groaned too.
“His envy of General Washington and his imprisonment among the British have made him half Tory. ”

“ This time it was old Adam Standish who rowed Sara over the bay to Norcross,—Adam, unchanged in lineament or costume,—while faithful friends, as before, watched from the beach. Again she looked back with tear-dimmed eyes; for tender memories of father, mother, baby-brother, and all childhood's associations, tugged at her heart-strings—but there was now no dread and fear to paralyze her.
She faced an uncertain future, it is true, but one bounded by tenderness and care, whose horizon-line glowed before her with rosy visions, which stretched away in glad promise to the infinite deeps of Heaven! ”

“ She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn’t read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books—great, big, fat ones—French and German as well as English—history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. She ought to play more with dolls.”
“Papa,” said Sara. ”

“ I am happier there than I have been since mother died."
"That is good!" said Sara.
"And only think," continued the pleased girl, "she is talking now of going to the seashore. You don't know how I long for a sight of the ocean! The only trouble is, she can't find a place quiet enough to suit her—she hates to go to a great hotel, or where there is a crowd."
Sara looked up with a sudden thought.
"Killamet would be quiet enough—how nice it would be if she'd take my house there!"
"Your house! Have you a house?" ”

“ That there does seem real now, doesn’t it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook she’s like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss—tell me about the subt’ranean passage we’ve dug under the walls.”
“I’ll tell you something warmer,” shivered Sara. “Get your coverlet and wrap it round you, and I’ll get mine, and we will huddle close together on the bed, and I’ll tell you about the tropical forest where the Indian gentleman’s monkey used to live. ”

“ Sara was their first child, and upon her the young mother lavished untold tenderness. When, at the birth of the twins, nearly seven years later,—two infants having died between,—she yielded up her own gentle life, her last words had been,—
"Don't forget, Reuben, that Sara is to have an education. I can see already that she is going to care for books, and she'll need it more than ever, now—promise me, husband!" and the good man would sooner have cut off his weather-beaten spear-hand than break his promise to that dying wife. ”

“ She could do nothing. She had no relatives in Carlisle except her mother, and her mother did not approve of the school library project, and would not give Sara a cent, or put her in any way of earning one. To Sara, this was humiliation indescribable. She felt herself an outcast and an alien to our busy little circle, where each member counted every day, with miserly delight, his slowly increasing hoard of small cash. ”

“ There were places where it seemed that one could run or climb or stand and wait to see what next was coming—until, perhaps, as it all melted, one could float away. At least it seemed so to Sara, and nothing had ever been quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the table—her body half out of the skylight—the sparrows twittering with sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to twitter with a sort of subdued softness just when these marvels were going on. ”

“ He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises or throw heavy objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a very nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air, with his bright eyes fixed on Sara, he had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating him as an enemy. ”

“ I was a passive instrument in wiser hands." "As we all are, more often than we think—-well, good- by, and when you long for a sight of the old home, and the sea, you will always be welcome here."
It was Sara's only visit to the cottage, for her stay in Killamet was necessarily short. She spent all the time possible with her dear old friend, who she could plainly see, was losing in vigor daily. But though she frankly referred to her approaching marriage, and discussed her future plans in detail, it was not till the last day that either touched upon the subject as affecting Jasper. ”

“ Sara is a nice girl. She's only eleven, and her mother is dreadfully strict. She never allows Sara to read a single story. Just you fancy! Sara's conscience is always troubling her for doing things she's sure her mother won't approve, but it never prevents her from doing them. It only spoils her fun. Uncle Roger says that a mother who won't let you do anything, and a conscience that won't let you enjoy anything is an awful combination, and he doesn't wonder Sara is pale and thin and nervous. ”

“ Sara advanced a step toward her.
“I want her because I know she will like to see the presents,” she explained. “She is a little girl, too, you know.”
Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other. [74]
“My dear Sara,” she said, “Becky is the scullery-maid. Scullery-maids—er—are not little girls.”
It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. Scullery-maids were machines who carried coal-scuttles and made fires.
“But Becky is,” said Sara. “And I know she would enjoy herself. Please let her stay—because it is my birthday.” ”

“ I fear that a certain person has too great, and that not a happy, influence over her. But Sara is a richly gifted and truly interesting girl, out of whom something very good may be made, if—if——She gives us, indeed, anxiety at times, for we are as much attached to her as if she were our own child. She has a most extraordinary talent for music—you must hear her. There really is much that is very distinguished and truly amiable in her; you will see it, as you remain so much longer time with us."
"Yes, thank God!" said Henrik, "I can now reckon on that, on remaining some months at home." ”

“ If there was time only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an instalment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterward and sometimes lay awake in one’s bed in the attic to think over. Sara—who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver—had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart ”

“ She took her seat in an arm-chair like the one on the other Post, and Sara noticed that her kerchief was exactly the size of one of Mother's hemstitched sheets. She was indeed a handsome, venerable and distinguished-looking old lady, if you stood far enough away to see her all at once.
"Well, Sara, should you like to see the cousins?" asked Pirlaps, when this interesting manoeuvre had been completed and the other Grandmothers began to disperse. "We'll be just about in time for the drill." ”

“ The tea-pot had tea in it, ready for the boiling water from the little kettle; one plate had toast on it, another, muffins.
“It is real,” said Sara. “The fire is real enough to warm me; I can sit in the chair; the things are real enough to eat.”
It was like a fairy story come true—it was heavenly. She went to the bed and touched the blankets and the wrap. They were real too. She opened one book, and on the title-page was written in a strange hand, “The little girl in the attic.” ”

“ So the Kewpie was rewarded for being good, and the Baby was rewarded for being bad, and Sara slipped through the ivory doors with both of them tucked under one arm.
Almost immediately a Gunkus in livery stepped up and handed her a note from Avrillia. He made a low bow, holding his shoe in his right hand over his heart.
It was written on a rose-leaf, of course, and it had a delightful faint odor, not only of roses, but of isthagaria. Sara opened it, and read,
"We're leaving on the early boat. Would you like to go with us? We'll be gone all day." ”

“ By this time Beautiful Sara had somewhat awakened from her dreams, and she gazed at the hills on the shore, on the summits of which lights of castles were gleaming, and at the foot of which the mist, shimmering in the moonlight, was beginning to rise. Suddenly she seemed to see her friends and relatives, as they, with corpse-like faces and flowing shrouds, passed in awful procession along the Rhine.... The world grew dark before her eyes, an icy current ran through her soul, and, as if in sleep, she only heard the Rabbi repeating the night-prayer slowly and painfully, as if at a deathbed. ”

“ The richly embroidered stuffs of velvet and silk seemed fairly to speak to Beautiful Sara, and to flash and sparkle strange wonders back into her memory, and she really felt as if she were a little girl again, and as if Aunty Täubchen had kept her promise and taken her to the Frankfort Fair, and as if she were now at last standing before the beautiful garments of which she had heard so much. ”

“ But Sara gave him leave at once.
“Can you get across?” she inquired.
“In a moment,” he answered her.
“Then come,” she said; “he is flying from side to side of the room as if he was frightened.”
Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. Then he turned to Sara [144] and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. ”

“ But suddenly in the midst of these pleasant tales, which began to send forth notes of music and to gleam with lovely light, Beautiful Sara heard the voice of her father, scolding the poor aunt for putting such nonsense into the child's head. Then it seemed to her as if they set her on the little stool before her father's velvet-covered chair, and that he with a soft hand smoothed her long hair, smiling as if well pleased, while he rocked himself comfortably in his loose, Sabbath dressing-gown of blue silk. ”

“ Sara felt a little awkward.
“I think he engaged her,” she said, “because he—he thought I would like her, Miss Minchin.”
“I am afraid,” said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile, “that you have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine that things are done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you to learn French.” [20]
If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite to people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But, as it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. ”

“ Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and, though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as “fillin’” as the meat-pies.
A few weeks before Sara’s eleventh birthday a letter [68] came to her from her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted by the business connected with the diamond-mines.
“You see, little Sara,” he wrote, “your daddy is not a business man at all, and figures and documents bother him. ”