The Wyndham Girls

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER VII

  TAKING ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES

  Christmas morning dawned clear and cold, with a few errant snowflakesdrifting on the wind as if to show New York that the great Northwesthad not forgotten her, but had only delayed its Christmas box of winterweather for a little while.

  It is hard wholly to escape the universal joy in the Christmas air;and, in spite of anxiety, Jessamy and Barbara felt more hopeful thanthey had the night before. Then little crumbs of comfort floated theirway in the morning, as the snowflakes were floating without. Beautifulflowers came to Mrs. Wyndham from Mr. Hurd and other friends, and theexpressman had left some packages for the girls late the precedingnight, which the chambermaid with the chronically dust-branded foreheadbrought up the first thing in the morning.

  Relations had been strained between the three Wyndham girls and theless fortunate trio who sat opposite them at table; Jessamy, Phyllis,and Bab, finding their overtures of peace misunderstood and rejected,had given up making them. But this morning the Christmas spirit seemedreflected in the softer looks under the towering pompadours acrossfrom them, and, hearing May Daly say that she was "dreadful sorry theyhadn't any flowers for the dance that evenin'," Jessamy ventured tosuggest that her mother had received lovely roses, which she would beglad to share with her neighbors if they would accept them.

  "You're real kind," said Daisy Heimberger, flushing with pleasure. "Ifyou've got so many you'll have enough for your ma and we, they'd beabout 's nice a Christmas card as you could give us."

  "We'll accept them with pleasure, and be much obliged," added May Daly,who, the Wyndhams had learned, was more ambitious than either of herfriends.

  "We was sayin' this mornin' that it must be a sorrowful kind ofChristmas to you, and we'd like to show we thought of you if we knewhow, or you wouldn't be mad," added Fanny Harmon.

  "That was lovely," said Jessamy, heartily, flushing in her turn, andwondering that she felt so glad of a kind word from one of these girls."We have had a good many more merry Christmases, but we won't mind ifonly my mother and cousin get well--" She stopped abruptly.

  "Don't you fret," said Daisy Heimberger, coming around to pat dignifiedJessamy kindly on the shoulder. "I wish you was goin' to the danceto-night like us; but your turn'll come, sure, an' most likely your maand sister'll be all right in a day or two."

  "Thank you," said Jessamy, gratefully, while Bab added: "We're veryglad you are going to have a nice time, if we can't; but we shall behappier if we can add to your pleasure with the flowers. We'll sendthem down, and if you wrap them in wet newspapers and lay them outsideon your window-sill in the shade they won't open, but will be justright to wear to-night. We have lots, so don't be afraid to take whatwe send."

  "All right; we'll do something for you if ever we can," said May Daly."So long, and I hope you'll have something nice happen to you to-day."

  This little incident made both Jessamy and Bab feel that the sun shonebrighter; it is such a pleasant thing to feel one can add even a trifleto some one's happiness, and every one's good wishes and liking areworth having.

  Then the postman came and brought Christmas greetings for the girlsfrom several of their old friends, and a letter from Mrs. Van Alyn,with an ivy-leaf from Stratford-on-Avon for Phyllis, a photograph ofBotticelli's beautiful little picture of the "Nativity" in the NationalGallery for Jessamy, and for Bab an oak-leaf from the sleepy oldEnglish town whence the first ancestor of the Wyndhams had sailed awayto America two hundred years before. But, best and most wonderful ofall, he brought a note from Aunt Henrietta, which Jessamy read aloudto Bab after they got up-stairs.

  "'My dear nieces,'" it ran, "'I am concerned to hear that your motherand Phyllis are ill, though it would be more becoming if you hadacquainted me with the fact directly, rather than leave me to learnit circuitously through Mrs. Haines. I trust Phyllis is not going tohave typhoid, like the Haines child. Also that your mother will try toovercome her natural weakness. It is a pity she has none of the Wyndhamendurance.'"

  "Yet dear papa died, not Madrina," interrupted Bab.

  "'I should have been to see you,'" continued Jessamy, "'but that Imyself have been suffering. I have had a severe attack of bronchitis,and the doctor thought I should not escape appendicitis--'"

  "Mercy! They're not much alike, except in having that horrible long-isound!" exclaimed Bab, who grew what Tom called "Babbish" the momentpressure on her spirits was relaxed.

  "Do be still, Babbie," cried Jessamy, and read on: "'Escapeappendicitis, but the symptoms were caused, as you may conjecture, byacute indigestion. When I am able to be out, I shall go to see you. Inthe meantime, I send you each a small Christmas remembrance, which maybe useful to you in your present circumstances. Your affectionate aunt,Henrietta Hewlett.'"

  The small Christmas remembrance was a check for twenty-five dollars foreach member of the family. Jessamy snatched them up greedily. No oneknew how she had dreaded applying to Aunt Henrietta for a loan, and nowAunt Henrietta herself had precluded the necessity. A hundred dollars!It would carry them more than two weeks beyond the New Year, when theirinterest came in; and perhaps before this windfall was used up theymight be able to dispense with the nurse. It is difficult to be hopefulabout anything with money anxieties to corrode one's heart, and for thefirst time Jessamy and Bab looked down on their two dear patients withcourage, and pressed each other's waists with their encircling arms,feeling very grateful for the relief Christmas had brought them, andsomething very like love for Aunt Henrietta, who, in spite of ways allher own, had done a really beautiful thing.

  Mrs. Black rose to the requirements of the festival, and gave "herguests" an unwonted feast. Mrs. Wyndham took little bits of thedelicate meat around the turkey wishbone with more relish than she hadshown for anything since her breaking down.

  After dinner Ruth Wells came down, her basket on her arm, like ahappy combination of Little Red Riding Hood and Little Mabel, whose"willing mind" could not have been as ready to serve others as kindlyRuth's. Out of her basket she produced a veil-case for Jessamy, ahandkerchief-case for Bab, a glove-case for Phyllis, all embroideredin tiny Dresden flowers and wreaths on white linen, not in her sparemoments--for Ruth had no spare moments--but in the moments she hadpilfered from her work for her friends. And for the sick ones wereclear jellies and a mold of blanc-mange, with bits of holly stuckblithely in the top.

  "Oh, Ruth, how could you make all these, and how did you get them downhere?" cried Jessamy.

  "That comes of having one's flat, and not boarding," laughed Ruth. "Atleast, as far as the making goes. As to getting them down, a littlemore or less, once you have a basket, doesn't matter. Your mother looksever so much brighter."

  "Yes; she ate with a little appetite to-day. But Phyllis doesn't seemto change. And, oh, Ruth! They have cut off her hair!" said Bab.

  "Well," said Ruth, stoutly, "what of it? You speak as though it wereher head. I suppose it won't be like the raveled-yarn hair on theknit doll I had when I was a little tot; I cut that once when he wasgoing to a party, and was dreadfully grieved that it never grew again.Phyllis's will, I suspect."

  "Come and see her," said Jessamy. Ruth followed. She really was awonderfully comforting girl. Not a shadow of regret could Jessamyand Bab, watching her closely, detect as she looked on poor shornPhyllis, lying quietly just then, the delirium past. Instead, Ruth saidcheerily: "It will probably grow out in little soft curls all over herhead, and how pretty she will look!"

  And, as if to reward Ruth for her goodness, Phyllis opened her eyes,smiled faintly, and said: "I'm lazy, Ruth."

  It was the first sign of recognition she had given since she becameunconscious, and Jessamy and Bab clutched each other with speechlessjoy. To be sure, Phyllis said no more, but dropped away again intothat mysterious space wherein the sick seem to exist, and Tom was gonehome to keep the holidays with his family, so they could not fly, asthey longed to do, to ask some one just how good a symptom this mightbe. But the nurse told them that though
it might mean little, it wasencouraging; and Jessamy and Bab resolved to take it at its highestvaluation--to get all the joy they could out of a Christmas which wasnot too bright at best.

  Bab went out with Ruth for a breath of air, and they walked up town,passing one or two elevated-road stations which Ruth might have used,but that she preferred keeping Bab company. They came to a littlechurch; its doors were ajar, and Bab proposed entering. "I think I feellike church," she said, and Ruth understood that tired Babbie cravedsupport and help. So she did not suggest that she was due at home, butwent in willingly. A strong odor of spruce and pine filled the air,together with a kind of close sweetness, the lingering reminder ofincense used in the morning service.

  "It must be a Catholic church," whispered Ruth. "What do you supposethat is on the side where everybody is kneeling?" The girls followedtwo women who had preceded them up the aisle, and came to a curiousscene at the altar-rails. On the right side a small grotto of firs hadbeen made, with rocks represented by unmistakable painted canvas. Atthe back of the grotto were little figures, dressed in bright colors,mounted on camels, coming in procession down the rocks toward theforeground. And in that foreground were far larger figures, someshepherds with lambs on their shoulders, an ox and an ass, a manleaning on a staff, a young woman dressed in blue, with a white veilfloating backward, all adoring a tiny infant, lying, with little handsclasped, on straw in the middle of the group.

  "It must represent Bethlehem, and the birth of Christ," whisperedBarbara.

  "Isn't it queer? And do see those funny little Wise Men on the camels,and the big tinsel star," returned Ruth.

  "Don't, Ruth," said Bab. She saw that the representation was childish,far from artistic, and yet that it had another kind of beauty. For oldwomen and men were kneeling around it at prayer, with rapt faces orwet cheeks, evidently carried back to the first Christmas; and littlechildren came and went hand in hand, kneeling a brief time before thisquaint reminder of Bethlehem, then going decorously away. Sometimes, asthe girls watched, funny round tots, in faded hoods or with tatteredcaps in hand, would rise from kneeling on the altar-step, so high tothem that their shabby shoes stuck straight out in the air, and makea bobbing curtsy of farewell with the best of intentions, but withtheir backs frequently turned toward the Bethlehem where their seriousfaces should have been. It was droll, but it was touching. Barbara wasendowed by nature with the simplicity and love which enabled her tosee beyond the ugly colors, the tinsel, the inartistic figures, andgrasp the love and faith they were meant to awaken. It was a simplerepresentation, for simple people, and Barbara saw for what it stood.

  She knelt in a pew, watching the strange scene, and feeling as thoughsome magic had transported her far from New York to a distant Europeanvillage; but as she watched and wondered, wordlessly her heart prayedtoo among these imploring visitors to the manger. "Mama, Phyllis; mama,Phyllis," she thought, but the thought was a prayer, every pulse andheart-beat crying out for those she loved.

  At last they left the dark church, lighted only by the reflector behindthe star and a light above the altar. "Did you ever see anything likeit?" said Ruth, who had been less touched by the scene than Barbara.

  "No; it is so foreign and queer, but I think I see what it means," saidBab, slowly. "Only fancy there being such quaint things among us! If wewent to Europe, and saw what we have seen on Christmas, we should writelong letters home, and probably you would think it pretty in Italy,Ruth."

  "Well, I don't see how it could be pretty, but I suppose it has a kindof beauty, too. I am glad we went in. I'll take the train here, Bab,for I'm late already. Keep up heart; everything is coming right foryou, and Phyllis is better, or she wouldn't have known me."

  "Thank you, Ruthy; you're so heartening. I wish mama could take you fora tonic. I'm sure I don't know any other equal to you," said Bab. Andshe went her way alone, quickening her steps, for it was growing dusk,and feeling comforted by the quiet quarter of an hour in the little dimchurch, where she had poured her heart out silently and it had comeback to her refreshed.

  The last seven days of the year slipped by with alternations of hopeand fear for Phyllis filling Jessamy and Barbara's moments,--forPhyllis, because the question of whether she was to throw off the feveror settle down to long typhoid was determining, and Mrs. Wyndham'scondition involved no present danger. On the whole, hope predominated;the times in which Phyllis had lucid moments grew more frequent andlonger. Doctor Jerome looked more cheerful each day.

  But finally, as if she knew that the time of good resolutions andamendment had come, on the closing night of the year Phyllis threw offthe last trace of her fever and lay weak and white, but smiling andconscious, to greet the New Year's dawn.

  Tom and Nixie came back just in time to hear the good news and rejoicewith the grateful girls, bringing cheer with them; altogether, Jessamyfelt that night, when she lay down to sleep, that her troubles werenearly over, and she saw light ahead.

  She had yet to learn that the long days of convalescence held trialsgreater than those she had borne, though the haunting fear that hadhung over her during Phyllis's danger was relieved.

  In the first place, the January days fulfilled the old prophecy ofincreased cold, with longer hours of light; and the little stoves, towhich she and Bab offered up holocausts of knuckles and finger-tips,tried them almost past endurance.

  "It really isn't the stove which bothers us," said Bab, falling back onher heels as she knelt before it, and raising a discouraged and smuttyface to Jessamy. "The stove is like the rest of us--it would workbetter if it could get something to consume."

  That was true; it took constant battling to keep coal on hand toreplenish the fire. Mrs. Black was not interested in fuel, or, morecorrectly, she was interested in it to keep the supply low, and theresult was that the swift-drawing cylinder stoves were precariouslynear being fireless half the time.

  The matter of getting food for their convalescents kept Jessamy andBarbara's nerves quivering. Even when they sacrificed their owndinners, and toiled upstairs again with clumsy trays, hoping to get awarm chop, bowl of soup, or slice of beef to their mother or Phyllis,who was pathetically hungry and begged for plenty to eat, they failedin their object, though they went hungry themselves to attain it.

  They bought chops and gave them to Mrs. Black to be cooked, bribing thecook to do them nicely; but the meat that had looked so succulent andjuicy when it was cut, reappeared dry and blackened, with congealingfat around the edges of the plate, or else was so rare that Phyllis'shungry eyes filled with tears at the sight of it.

  They bought beef and glass jars, and tried extracting the juice incold water and salt, as Mrs. Wells taught them to do; and they got abroiling-fork and cooked chops over the coals in their stoves till theirascible old man below them and Mrs. Hardy, who disapproved of theWyndhams' friendship for Tom, complained to the landlady of the odorof broiling. Jessamy began to have a little line between her eyes,and her sweet voice grew almost sharp from nervous strain, while Bab,though she really struggled hard to "be good," as she said, found hernaturally quick temper roused beyond her ability to curb it in theeffort to obtain justice, if not kindness, for her dear patients, whoserecovery depended on proper care.

  For a month the two poor little heroines struggled on in a daily roundof petty annoyances that were not petty when one considered what theyinvolved.

  "We're getting awful, Jessamy," said Bab, tearfully, one night. "We'regetting sharp-tempered, nervous, hard, and where shall we end?"

  "Come in here, girls," called Phyllis's voice, still tremulous, fromthe next room. "Bring Tom."

  Tom and Nixie had resumed their old quarters since the nurse had gone,and they both came as readily as they always did when Jessamy andBarbara called them.

  "I heard what you said, Babbie," said Phyllis, motioning Tom to theseat of honor, and making Nixie welcome by her side in the big chair."I heard you say you were getting horrid, and I've been seeing what ahard time you were having, and I want to tell you what we
're going todo."

  "It sounds rather solemn, Phyl," said Jessamy, "summoning us to aconclave like this. If we're going to do anything bad, don't tell usto-night."

  Phyllis laughed. "Hand me that book, Bab, please," she said, and Babwonderingly gave her a volume she had been reading that afternoon.Phyllis produced from it a sheet of paper covered with figures. "Whatwe're going to do," she said, "or what I am going to do, is go tohousekeeping."

  There was a shout of laughter from her auditors, after a moment ofsurprised silence.

  "You look like housekeeping just now," said Bab.

  "I look less like boarding," said Phyllis, stoutly. "Ruth Wells isperfectly right; we should be far better off in a little home of ourown--'be it ever so humble.' It takes strong--no, I mean tough peopleto get on without home comforts. You and Jessamy are getting utterlyworn out, as nervous and fretted as you can be, and if you put half thestrength it takes to live this way into healthy housework you wouldhave everything you need and not be tired, still less cross."

  "Phyllis is right!" exclaimed Tom. "It's a miserable way to live."

  "Of course I'm right," said Phyllis; "only this isn't living. Now,I've been figuring," and she held up her sheet of paper. "It costsus fourteen hundred and fifty-six dollars a year to board as we areboarding now. Our washing is about three dollars a week--that is ahundred and fifty-six dollars a year--and that makes sixteen hundredand twelve dollars. Then, I don't know what you are spending besidesfor all these nourishing things auntie and I are having."

  "I do," said Jessamy, with a half-humorous, half-genuine sigh.

  "I am sure you do, and that it is awful," said Phyllis. "Well, now,listen; we are going to take a flat, wherever we can find it, and thebest for the money, at forty dollars a month. We are going to have awoman come in two days in the week, to wash, iron, and sweep, at adollar and a quarter a day, and that is a hundred and thirty dollars ayear. And we are going to cook on gas, and spend about six dollars amonth for our gas--Ruth said so--and that is seventy-two dollars more.And we're going to live plainly, but have nice, wholesome things toeat, and all we want, for six hundred a year--Ruth told me that too,and she knows--and that makes a total of thirteen hundred dollars,allowing a little margin. That's three hundred dollars less than wespend now; and who wouldn't rather live in her own dear little home,with all scratchy, maddening things and people shut out?"

  Phyllis stopped, breathless, and the others had listened in so muchthe same condition that it was a moment before any one spoke. Then Bableaped to her feet and ran over to hug Phyllis in rapture. "You dear,quiet, splendid old Phyllistine!" she cried. "It's just blissfullylovely. To think of you being the one to do it, when you're still soweak and forlorn!"

  "Ask me to tea, have me up to help, and let me catch the crumbs fromyour table," said Tom. "Phyllis, you're a trump, and you've saved theday!"

  "Crumbs from the table!" cried Jessamy, catching her breath. "That'sjust it. It is a dream, Phyl; but how in the wide world can we do it?There won't be any crumbs from the table, nor anything to eat; we don'tknow anything, any of us; I'm not sure mama understands cooking."

  "Auntie can direct a cook; I've heard her do it," said Phyllis. "Andas to anything to eat, we'll learn a few necessary things, and do themevery day if we have to. But I'm not afraid, with a good cook-book andRuth to ask. It's better than this at the worst, and we shall savemoney, too. As to that, if we failed we could have one servant andstill spend no more than we do now. You and Bab go out to look forflats to-morrow. You'll see I am right."

  Phyllis's last remark settled the question; if they could afford tokeep a servant in case they were forced to it, there could be no riskin the attempt. Indeed, Barbara would not admit that there was risk inany case.

  Tom was unselfishly enthusiastic over the scheme, though he said hedared not think of his loneliness if they left the "Blackboard." ButBab hospitably gave him the freedom of the new apartment, and beforethey separated for the night the place was rented, furnished, and theyhad moved in. And, best of all, Tom had promised Phyllis a kitten.