CHAPTER XLIV
"HAPPY EVER AFTER!"
Not more than fifteen minutes later Caroline actually was riding awayfrom the farm in the gray-lined, soft-cushioned limousine. She satbetween Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope. She had Mildred on her knee,and her old suitcase rested on the rug at her feet. In the suitcase wereher comb and brushes and nightdress, the satin candy box that heldMildred's wardrobe, the old lacquer box, tied with a crumpledhair-ribbon, the little chintz cases, marked with the cross-stitchedinitials, F. T., which were her mother's initials, and the wornbed-shoes that her mother had crocheted for her months ago. All herother worldly goods Caroline had bequeathed to an astonished Nellie.
Aunt Martha waved a good-by from the doorstep.
"Seeing folks off seems to be a habit of ours this summer," she said toNellie and Dickie and Neil, who stood looking after the departinglimousine, too dumbfounded at the disappearance of yet another playmateto utter a single word.
Just then, at the very moment when it should have happened, somethingnice did happen to Aunt Martha and her brood. Ralph in the Ford cameclattering down the road, up which the limousine, with the happiestlittle girl in the world inside, was rolling so smoothly. He stopped thecar at the doorstep, and tumbled out in great excitement and took fromthe tonneau a box. It was quite a big box, addressed to Aunt Martha, andsent by parcel post from a New York store.
You had better believe there was an instant chorus:
"Open it, Mother, please! Right off! Please do!"
Aunt Martha had Ralph carry the box into Grandma's room, and thechildren all crowded round, from little Annie, on Grandma's knee, toRalph, who was as eager as the youngest. Aunt Martha untied the nicestout string very carefully and gave it to Grandma to roll up and save,and she removed the strong wrapping paper and folded it, to be put awayin the drawer of the old dresser.
"Candy!" cried Neil, as the corrugated paste-board (Aunt Martha savedthat, too!) was removed from a stack of dazzling white boxes. "I canjust smell it."
"Yumy-yumy!" sniffed Nellie in ecstasy.
It certainly was candy, and sent in the most thoughtful way, a box foreach member of the family, marked with his or her name. There werechocolate-coated peppermints and gum-drops, her favorite sweets (asSomebody knew!) in Grandma's box, and caramels of all kinds in Neil's.There were bon-bons of every luscious color in Nellie's box, andcrystallized fruit in the one marked Ralph. There were chocolates forDickie and Caroline (who wouldn't need her box!) and there werefruit-drops and chocolate-coated molasses chips for Freddie, and dearlittle striped sticks of all colors and flavors for Annie to suck. ForAunt Martha there was the most beautiful two-pound box of chocolates andbon-bons, and on top, among the candied leaves of violets, was a cardthat read:
"I hope this will poison any kid who goes and eats it up on Aunt Martha.
JACKIE."
"Why, of course it's Jackie," smiled Grandma. "Who else in the wideworld would ever have thought out everything so nice?"
"She shouldn't have!" gasped Aunt Martha.
"Oh, gee!" cried Ralph. "There's a letter for you, and I guess it's fromher, and I was forgetting it."
He took a letter from his pocket--a thick letter, written on the paperof a New York hotel. The writing left much to be desired in the way ofbeauty, but it was readable, and it was identical with the writing onthe card in Aunt Martha's box of candy.
"Of all the extravagant young ones!" Aunt Martha repeated, as she openedthe envelope. "Her folks shouldn't have let her."
Then she read the letter, but mostly to herself, for she was so"flabbergasted" that her voice gave out completely. This was the letterJackie had written:
"DEAR AUNT MARTHA:
I am here in New York at a hotel with a roof garden with my Aunt Edie and Uncle Jimmie and we sail on Saterday but it is not a strick school I am going to. I have been shopping all day with Aunt Edie and I boght some things and she said I could and helped me sellect them and I hope you will take them and let the children take them. They are un-Christmas presents and if you do not take them I shall think you are mad at me for what I did and I shall be dretful unhappy if I think you are mad at me so I hope you will take them please and if I was there I could show Neil how the magic lantern goes.
The things will be sent from the shops and they are all adressed to you but I will tell you which is for which. The wheel-chair is for Grandma of course and the red silk wadded gown is for her to. I got a cherful color and the long taled birds on it are not storks but cranes. The dishes are a present to the house and I tried to get green dragons but they do not seem populer any more so I got green leaves and pink rosebuds. The wooly rabbit is for Annie and when you press him he jumps and the bonnet is for her to because she will be so cunning with swans down round her face. The kiddy kar is for Freddie and the curly haired doll is for Nellie. The sutecase goes with the doll and there are three dresses and a coat and a hat and her shoes and stockings take off and she shuts her eyes. The magic lantern is for Neil and he doesn't need any more slides because you can use postcards like the directions say and I will send him odles of postcards from Europe. The Boy Scout suit is for Dickie. I think he is average twelve years old but if it isnt right you can send it back to the shop and they will change it. The belt is for Ralph and his initials are on the buckle so of course there could be no misstake and the fur gloves are for you in the car next winter if you will please accept them with my love. The little straw hat is for Mildred that is Carol's child and the winter coat with the fur collar is for Carol to and tell her please I will write her a long letter from the steamer. I can't write any more now because I have a crick in my hand and anyway it is prety near dinner time. I hope you are all very well and do not forget me and I remain as ever most respectfully
Your most affectionate JACKIE GILDERSLEEVE."
"My land!" said Aunt Martha, when she had finished and found her breath."They shouldn't have let her--big presents like that--and I ought not tolet you children----"
"Has my doll real hair that I can brush?" Nellie interrupted, withshining eyes.
"A red silk gown with long-tailed birds on it!" Grandma shook withlaughter. "I'll look like the Queen of Sheba. Lord bless the child! Atmy time o' life!"
She peered into her box of sweets, and chose herself a plump sugarygum-drop.
"I'm going to let you take 'em, just the same," said Aunt Martha, withdecision. "There's no sense in standing on your pride to the hurt ofother folks' feelings when it's kindly meant and the things a realGodsend. She must have taken a lot of thought and time--and that's morethan money!--picking out presents for all of us, and just when she'd befull of her own plans and pleasures, too! She's a dear, good child."Aunt Martha blew her nose quite savagely. "Only you don't need to goimitating _all_ her qualities, remember!"
"She's a crackerjack." Neil spoke as well as he could with his mouthfull of caramels.
"Now put up that candy, every one of you, till morning!" Aunt Marthatucked away her handkerchief and was her brisk self again. "I can't haveyou all sick on my hands. And put Caroline's box to one side. It's hersand must go to her, whether she's here or at the Gildersleeves."
But what was a box of chocolates to Caroline in that hour? The limousinehad rolled up to the porch, down which she had stumbled in heart-brokenflight, not a week before. She stood again in the dim spacious hall,with its gleam of gilt-framed mirrors and its tall, flaming gladioli indull green jars. She had gone up the stairs into the room with the palegray furniture, the fairy-tale pictures, the canary shapes thatglittered amid the green.
"It will always be your room now, dear," said Aunt Eunice, and pattedCaroline's hand that she had kept fast in hers, ever since th
ey foundeach other at the farm.
Cousin Penelope pulled open a drawer of the bureau. She took out thingswhile Aunt Eunice gasped, as amazed and as delighted, too, as Carolineherself. There were white frilly underthings for a little girl ofeleven, and socks of black silk, and shoes of black patent leather, withbuckled straps. There was a frock of fine brown and white checkedgingham, with flame-colored silk stitchings on the belt and cuffs andcollar, and a little chemisette of sheer white lawn.
"I got these in the city," said Cousin Penelope, smiling and unashamed."I was going to send them to you, Carol, as a present for Sunday wear.There's a little coat, too, in the closet and a fall hat. To-morrowwe'll go to the city, and get you more things, and we'll go to thedentist's, too, and Madame Woleski will take you for a lesson the lastof the week."
And when the sun went down on that Saturday night, in great splashes ofcolor into the sea, Jacqueline was a happy little girl, as she stoodwith feet firmly apart on the deck of the great ocean liner, at herUncle Jimmie's side, with new sights and new experiences in a new worldbefore her. But she was not half so happy as was Caroline, all clean andfresh in clothes that were her very own, not Jacqueline's, as she sat atthe table in the softly lighted dining room at The Chimnies and beamedat Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope. For Caroline was telling herself:
"They want me--really me myself--not Jackie. I'm theirs--and they loveme, but oh! not more than I love them, and will love them all my days."
But if you'll believe it, Cousin Penelope was as happy as anybody. Forshe had changed back to her old place at the table, and she lookedstraight at Great-aunt Joanna's portrait. Blood will tell--once more shesaid it defiantly! Weren't the Taits and Conways and Gildersleeves andHoldens, all those sturdy pioneers who were her forbears, just as muchthe forbears of little Caroline?
"Do you know, Mother," said Cousin Penelope serenely, "Caroline reallylooks very much like Great-aunt Joanna?"
Caroline twisted round in her seat. She didn't feel afraid to look atGreat-aunt Joanna, now that she wasn't pretending to be hergreat-grandniece.
"She looks fiercely proud, doesn't she, Cousin Penelope?" she said.
Cousin Penelope laughed. They were all three very quick to laugh thatevening, perhaps because they could as easily have cried.
"Well, pride's a good thing," said Cousin Penelope, and the look thatpassed between her and Aunt Eunice was a look of new understanding."That is, it's a good thing if you know when to use it--and when to loseit."
The Turned-About Girls Page 45