There was a bowl of yellow chrysanthemums blooming onthe table, and a streak of sunshine, falling across them and onRobin's hair, seemed to turn them both to gold. Now he was all alone.The contrast was too painful. He slipped from the table unobserved,and stole noiselessly up the back stairs to his room. The littlechecked apron was hanging on a chair by the window. He sat down andlaid his face against it, but his eyes were dry. He had not cried anysince that first dreadful night.
There was such a lively clatter of dishes downstairs and babel ofvoices that he did not hear a sleigh drive up in the soft snow.
"Steven," called Mr. Dearborn from the foot of the stairs, "I promisedMrs. Estel to let you spend the day with her, but there was so muchgoin' on I plum forgot to tell you. You're to stay all night too, shesays."
The ride to town seemed endless to the impatient boy. He was burningwith a feverish anxiety to know about Robin, but the driver whom hequestioned could not tell.
"Mrs. Estel will be down presently," was the message with which he wasushered into the long drawing-room. He sat down uncomfortably on theedge of a chair to wait. He almost dreaded to hear her coming for fearshe might tell him that the Piersons would not give Robin up. Maybeher husband had not come home when she expected him. Maybe he had beentoo busy to attend to the matter. A dozen possible calamitiespresented themselves.
Unconsciously he held himself so rigid in his expectancy that hefairly ached. Ten minutes dragged by, with only the crackle of thefire on the hearth to disturb the silence of the great room.
Then light feet pattered down the stairs and ran across the broadhall. The _portiere_ was pushed aside and a bright little face lookedin. In another instant Robin's arms were around his neck, and he wascrying over and over in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, it's Big Brother!It's Big Brother!"
Not far away down the avenue a great church organ was rolling out itsaccompaniment to a Thanksgiving anthem. Steven could not hear thewords the choir chanted, but the deep music of the organ seemed to himto be but the echo of what was throbbing in his own heart.
There was no lack of childish voices and merry laughter in the greathouse that afternoon. A spirit of thanksgiving was in the veryatmosphere. No one could see the overflowing happiness of the childrenwithout sharing it in some degree.
More than once during dinner Mrs. Estel looked across the table at herhusband and smiled as she had not in months.
Along in the afternoon the winter sunshine tempted the children out ofdoors, and they commenced to build a snow man. They tugged away at thehuge image, with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, so full ofout-breaking fun that the passers-by stopped to smile at the sight.
Mrs. Estel stood at the library window watching them. Once, whenRobin's fat little legs stumbled and sent him rolling over in thesnow, she could not help laughing at the comical sight.
It was a low, gentle laugh, but Mr. Estel heard, and, laying aside hisnewspaper, joined her at the window. He had almost despaired of everseeing a return to the old sunny charm of face and manner.
They stood there together in silence a few moments, watching the tworomping boys, who played on, unconscious of an audience.
"What a rare, unselfish disposition that little 'Big Brother' has!"Mr. Estel said presently. "It shows itself even in their play." Thenhe added warmly, turning to his wife, "Dora, it would be downrightcruel to send him away from that little chap."
He paused a moment. "We used to find our greatest pleasure in makingDorothy happy. We lavished everything on her. Now we can never doanything more for her."
There was another long pause, while he turned his head away and lookedout of the window.
"Think what a lifelong happiness it is in our power to give thosechildren! Dora, can't we make room for both of them for her sake?"
Mrs. Estel hesitated, then laid both her hands in his, bravely smilingback her tears. "Yes, I'll try," she said, "for little Dorothy'ssake."
That night, as Steven undressed Robin and tucked him up snugly in thelittle white bed, he felt that nothing could add to his greathappiness. He sat beside him humming an old tune their mother hadoften sung to them, in the New Jersey home so far away.
The blue eyes closed, but still he kept on humming softly to himself,"Oh, happy day! happy day!"
Presently Mrs. Estel came in and drew a low rocking-chair up to thefire. Steven slipped from his place by Robin's pillow and sat down onthe rug beside her.
Sitting there in the fire-light, she told him all about her visit tothe Piersons. They had found Robin so unmanageable and so differentfrom what they expected that they were glad to get rid of him. Mr.Estel had arranged matters satisfactorily with the Society, and theyhad brought Robin home several days ago.
"I had a long talk with Mr. Dearborn the other day," she continued."He said his wife's health is failing, and their son is trying topersuade them to break up housekeeping and live with them. If she isno better in the spring, they will probably do so."
"Would they want me to go?" asked Steven anxiously.
"It may be so; I cannot tell."
Steven looked up timidly. "I've been wanting all day to say thank you,the way I feel it; but somehow, the right words won't come. I can'ttell you how it is, but it seems 'most like sending Robin back homefor you and Mr. Estel to have him. Somehow, your ways and everythingseem so much like mamma's and papa's, and when I think about himhaving such a lovely home, oh, it just seems like this is aThanksgiving Day that will last _always_!"
She drew his head against her knee and stroked it tenderly. "Then howwould you like to live here yourself, dear?" she asked. "Mr. Estelthinks that we need two boys."
"Oh, does he really want me, too? It's too good to be true!" Stevenwas kneeling beside her now, his eyes shining like stars.
"Yes, we both want you," answered Mrs. Estel. "You shall be our ownlittle sons."
Steven crept nearer. "Papa and mamma will be so glad," he said in atremulous whisper. Then a sudden thought illuminated his earnest face.
"O Mrs. Estel! Don't you suppose they have found little Dorothy inthat other country by this time, and are taking care of her there,just like you are taking care of us here?"
She put her arm around him, and drew him nearer, saying: "My dearlittle comfort, it may be so. If I could believe that, I could neverfeel so unhappy again."
Robin and "ze black dancin' bear" were not the only ones tuckedtenderly away to sleep that night.
The sleigh bells jingled along the avenue. Again the great churchorgan rolled out a mighty flood of melody, that ebbed and flowed onthe frosty night air.
And Big Brother, with his head pillowed once more beside Robin's, laywith his eyes wide open, too happy to sleep--lay and dreamed of thetime when he should be a man, and could gather into the great house hemeant to own all the little homeless ones in the wide world; all thesorry little waifs that strayed through the streets of great cities,that crowded in miserable tenements, that lodged in asylums andpoorhouses.
Into his child's heart he gathered them all, with a sweetunselfishness that would have gladly shared with every one of them hisnew-found home and happiness.
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