 CHAPTER 49 TELLING ARTHUR Who should do the telling was the question which for some time was discussed by Frank and Judge Sinclair and Jerry. Naturally the task fell upon the latter, who went over and over again in her mind what she should say and how she should commence. But when at last the announcement came that Arthur was in Albany, it seemed to her that she had suddenly turned into stone for every thought and feeling left her and she had no plan of action or speech as she moved mechanically about Arthur's rooms making them bright with flowers, especially the Gretchen room which was a bower of beauty when her skillful hands had finished it. Slowly the day wore on, every minute seeming an hour and every hour a day until Jerry heard the carriage driving down the avenue and not long after the whistle of the engine in the distance. Then bending over Maud and kissing her fondly she said, Pray for me, darling, I am going to meet my father. Arthur had been very quiet during the first part of the journey from San Francisco and it was with difficulty that Charles could get a word from him. Let me alone, he said once when spoken to, I am with Gretchen. She is on the train with me and I'm trying to make out what it is she is telling me. But after Albany was left behind his mood changed and he became as wild and excitable as he had before been abstracted and silent and when at last Shannondale was reached he bounded from the car before the train stopped and was callering Robb the coachman and demanding of him what was the matter with Jerry and why he had been sent for. Robb who had received his instructions to be wholly noncommittal answered stolidly that nothing was the matter with Jerry but that Miss Maud was very sick and probably would not live many days. Is that all? Arthur said gloomily as he entered the carriage. I don't see what the old Harry has to do with Maud's dying and certainly Tom's telegram said something about that chap. I have it in my pocket. Yes, here it is. Come immediately, the devil is to pay. That doesn't mean Maud. There is something else Robb has not told me. Here you rascal, you are keeping something from me. What is it? Out with it. He shouted to the driver as he thrust his head from the carriage window where he kept it and in this way was driven to the door of the park house where Frank was waiting for him outside and where inside Jerry stood holding fast to the banisters of the stairs, her heart throbbing wildly one moment and the neck seeming to lie pulseless as a piece of lead. She heard Arthur's voice as he came up the steps speaking to Frank and asking why he had been sent for and the next moment she saw him entering the hall tall and erect but with the wild look in his eyes which she knew so well but which changed at once to a softer expression as they fell upon her. Jerry, you hear. He cried as he sprang to her side and kissed her forehead and lips while Jerry could scarcely restrain herself from falling upon his neck and sobbing out, oh my father, I am your daughter Jerry. But the time for this had not come and when he questioned her eagerly as to why she had sent for him she only replied, Maud is very sick but come with me to your rooms and I will tell you everything. Then there is something to pay. I thought so. He said as he followed her upstairs into the Gretchen room where he stood for a moment amazed at the effect produced by the flowers and vines which Jerry had arranged so skillfully. It is like Eden, he said, and Gretchen is here with me. Gretchen. He continued as he walked up to the picture and kissed the lovely face which it seemed to Jerry smiled in benediction upon them both as they stood there side by side her hands resting on his shoulder which she pressed hard as if to steady herself while he talked to the inaminate face before him. Have you been lonesome, Gretchen, and are you glad to have me back again? Poor little Gretchen. And now he turned to Jerry and said, it all came to me on the top of those mountains about Gretchen, who she was and how I forgot her so long. That is the strangest of all. And, Jerry, hear his voice drop to a whisper. I know for sure that Gretchen is dead. That came to me too. Yes, Gretchen is dead, Jerry answered him while her hands tightened their grasp on his shoulder as she went on. I have had a message from her and that is why we sent for you. Jerry's hands were not strong enough to hold him then and wrenching himself from her he stood confronting her with a look more like that of a maniac than any she had seen in him before and which might have frightened one with nerves less strong than hers. But she was not afraid and a strange calmness fell upon her now that she had actually reached a point where she must act and her eyes which looked so steadily into Arthur's held them fast even while he interrogated her rapidly. A message from Gretchen. Where is it? Give it to me quick or tell me about it. Where is she and when is she coming? Never, Jerry answered sadly. I told you she was dead. But sit here and she motioned him to a large arm chair. Sit here and let me tell you what I know of Gretchen. Something in the girl's manner mastered him and made him a child in her hands. Sinking into the chair, pale and panting with excitement he leaned his head back wearily and closing his eyes said to her, Begin, what did Gretchen write? Jerry felt that she could not stand through the interview and bringing a low Ottoman to Arthur's side seated herself upon it just where she could look into his face and detect every change in it. Let me tell you of Gretchen as she was when you first knew her, she said, and then you will be better able to judge of the tooth of all I know. He did not reply and she went on. Gretchen was very young, sixteen or seventeen when you first saw her knitting in the sunshine under the trees in Visbadan and very beautiful too, so beautiful that you went again and again to look at her and talk to her until you came to love her very much and told her so at last, but you seemed so much above her that she could not believe you at first. At last, however, you made her understand and when her mother died suddenly. Her mother was Mrs. Heinrich and kept a kind of fancy store, and her mother interposed as if anxious that nothing should be emitted. Yes, she kept a fancy store, Jerry rejoined, and when she died suddenly and left Gretchen alone you said to her, we must be married at once and you were in the little English chapel by the Reverend Mr. Eaton who was then rector. Here Arthur's eyes opened wide and fixed himself as wonderingly upon Jerry as he said, are you the old Harry that you know all this? But go on, don't stop. It all comes back to me so plain when I hear you tell it. She wore a straw bonnet trimmed with blue and a white dress, but took it off directly for a black one because her mother was dead. Did she tell you that? No, Jerry replied. She told me nothing of the dress only how happy she was with you whom she loved so much and who loved her and made her so happy for a time that hers seemed like heaven to her, and then... Here Jerry faltered a little but Arthur's sharp. What then kept her up and she continued. Then something came to you and you began to forget everything, even poor little Gretchen, and went away for weeks and left her very sad and lonely, not knowing where you were. And then after some months you went away and never came back again to the little wife who waited and watched and prayed and wanted you so badly. Oh, Jerry, oh Gretchen, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it. I surely didn't. May God forgive me for forgetting the little wife. Was it long? Was it months or was it years? I can't remember. Only that there was a Gretchen and I left her, Arthur said. It was years, four or more, and... and Jerry's breath came heavily now for she was nearing the point relating to herself and wondering what the effect would be upon him. After a while there came into Gretchen's life the dawning of a great hope which she felt would make you glad and wishing to keep it a secret till you came home, she only gave you a hint of it. She wrote, I have something to tell you which will make you as happy as it does me. Stop, and Arthur put out both his hands as if groping for something which he could not find, then he said, go on. And Jerry went on, slowly now, for every word was an effort and spoken so low that Arthur bent forward to listen to her. I don't know just where Gretchen's home was when she lived alone waiting for you. I only know that after a while there came to it a little baby, a girl baby, Gretchen's and yours. She did not get any further for with a bound Arthur was on his feet, every faculty alert, every nerve strung to its utmost pitch and every muscle of his face quivering with wild excitement as he exclaimed. A baby, Gretchen's baby and mine, a little girl. Oh, Jerry, if you are deceiving me now. Jerry too had risen and was standing before him with her hands upon his arm and her eyes, so like Gretchen's looking into his, as she said. I am not deceiving you. There was a baby born to you and Gretchen sometime in January 1800, blank, and it was christened in the little church where you were married by the Reverend Mr. Eaton. Oh, Mr. Arthur, how can I tell you, the baby is living yet, grown to womanhood now for this happened more than twenty years ago and the girl is twenty now and is waiting and longing so much for her father to recognize and claim her. Oh, don't you understand me? Look at me and then at Gretchen's picture. For an instant Arthur stood like one stricken with paralysis, his eyes leaping from Jerry's face to Gretchen's and from Gretchen's back to Jerry's and then with a motion of his hands as if fanning the air furiously he gassed. Twenty years ago. Twenty years ago. How old are you, Jerry? Twenty. She answered, but her voice was a whisper and her head fell forward a little though she kept her eyes upon Arthur who went on. And they christened my baby and Gretchen's, you say. What name did they give her? Speak quick, for I believe I am dying. They called her Jerryne, but you know her as Jerry for... for I am Gretchen's daughter, Jerry said. With a wild glad cry, my daughter, oh my daughter! Thank God! Thank God! Arthur sank back into the chair, fainting and insensible. For hours he lay in a state so nearly resembling death that but for the physician's reassurance that there was no danger, Jerry would have believed the great joy given her was to be taken from her at once. But just as the twilight shadows began to gather in the room he came to himself, waking as from some quiet dream and looking around him until his eyes fell upon Jerry sitting by his side. Then over his white face there came a look of ineffable joy and tenderness and love as he said with a smile the most winning and sweet Jerry had ever seen. My daughter, my little Jerry, who came to me up the ladder with Gretchen's eyes and Gretchen's voice and I did not know her, have not known her all these years, although she has so puzzled and bewildered me at times. My daughter! Oh, my daughter! He accepted her unquestioningly and Jerry threw herself into the arms he stretched toward her and on her father's bosom gave vent to the feelings she had restrained so long, sobbing passionately as she felt Arthur's kisses upon her face and his caressing hands upon her hair as he kept repeating. My daughter! Gretchen's baby and mine! There is more to tell. I have not heard at all or how you came by the information. He said when Jerry was a little composed and could look out and speak to him without a burst of tears. Yes, there is much more. There is a letter for you with those you wrote to her, Jerry said, but you must not have them to-night. Tomorrow you will be stronger, now you must rest. She spoke like one with authority and he did just what she bade him to do, took the food she brought him, went to bed when she said he must go and, with her hand locked in his, fell into a heavy slumber which lasted all through the night and laid into the next morning. It almost seemed as if he would never waken, the sleep was so like death, but the doctor who watched him carefully quieted Jerry's fears and told her it would do her father good and that in all probability he would awake with a clearer mind than he had had in years, for as great and sudden shock sometimes produced insanity so contrary wise it sometimes restored a shattered mind to its equilibrium. And the doctor was partially correct, for when at last Arthur awoke he seemed natural and bright with a recollection of all which had happened the day before and an earnest desire for the letters and the rest of the story which Jerry told him with her arm across his neck and her cheek laid occasionally against his as she read him the letter directed to his friends and then showed him the certificate of her birth and her mother's death. Born January 1st, 1800, blank, to Arthur Tracy and Marguerite, his wife, a daughter, Arthur repeated again and again and as often as he did so he kissed the bright face which smiled at him through tears, but there was almost as much sadness as joy mingled with the reading of that message from the dead. Just what Gretchen's letter to Arthur contained Jerry never knew except that it was full of love and tenderness with no word of complaint for the neglect and forgetfulness which must have hastened her death. Oh Gretchen, I can't bear it, I can't. Arthur moaned as he laid his hand upon Jerry's shoulder and sobbed like a child. To think I could forget her and she's so sweet and good. Everything came back to him for a time and he repeated to Jerry much which was of interest to her concerning her mother but with which the reader has nothing to do. While Jerry in her turn taught him all she could remember of her life in the old house where Gretchen had died. Then she asked him why he had never told them that she was his wife. It might have helped to clear up the mystery with regard to Manny and myself, she said, and he replied. Yes, yes it might, and I don't know why I didn't. When we were first married I was going to write Frank about it, but Gretchen persuaded me not to. She had an idea that I was as much above her as a king is above his subjects and that my friends would be very angry with me and perhaps when my love from her. I think this idea so strong with her must have found a place in my maddened brain and kept me from telling who she was. I remember having a feeling that I must not tell until she came when I knew her sweetness and beauty would disarm all prejudices there might exist against her. I was sane enough always to know that my wife would not be acceptable to either Frank or Dolly. But oh, I wish I had told them the truth at once. Poor Gretchen. Poor Gretchen. He began to pace the room rapidly and to beat the air with his hands as he always did when roused and excited. But Jerry quieted him at last and then gave him his own letters addressed to Gretchen. But at these he barely glanced muttering as he did so. How could I have written such crazy bosh as that? And then suddenly recollecting himself he asked for the photograph mentioned in Gretchen's letter to his friends in which he seemed to think had come with the other papers. Taking it from the bag Jerry handed it to him while his tears fell like rain as he gazed upon the face which was far too young to wear the sad one look it did. That is as I remember her. Jerry said, referring again to the strange ideas which had filled her brain and made her sure that not the dark woman found dead at her side was her mother but another and far different person whose face haunted her so continually and whose voice she sometimes seemed to hear speaking to her from the dim shadows of the far off past when they lived in the little house in V's badden where the picture hung on the wall. Arthur remembered the picture well and when it was taken though that too had faded from his mind until Jerry told him of it. We will go there together Jerry, he said, and find the house and the picture and Gretchen's grave and bring them home with us. There is room for them at Tracy Park. He was beginning to talk wildly again but Jerry succeeded in pacifying him and taking up the box of diamonds opened it suddenly and held it before his eyes. In reading the letters he had not seemed to pay any attention to the diamonds but when Jerry said to him, these were mothers, you sent them to her from England, he replied, yes I remember, I bought them in Paris with other things, dresses I think, for her, while into his face there came a troubled look as if he were trying to think of something. Jerry who could read him so well saw the look and guessing at once its cause hastened to say, father, do you remember that you gave Mrs. Tracy some diamonds like these and that someone took them from her? Try and think, she continued, as she saw the troubled look deepened and the fire beginning to kindle in his eyes. It was years ago, just after a party Mrs. Tracy gave and at which she wore them. You were there and thought they were Gretchens, did you not? Yes, he answered slowly, I believe I did. What did I do with them? Do you know? I think you put them in your private drawer. Suppose you look and see. Abedient to her as a child Arthur opened his private drawer bringing out one thing after another, all mementos of the old Gretchen days and finally the diamonds at which he looked with wonder and fear as he said to Jerry, did I take them? Will they call it a steal? I thought they were Gretchens, I remember now. Jerry did not tell him then of the trouble the secreting of the diamonds had brought to her and Harold but she said, no one will think it a steal and Mrs. Tracy will be glad to get her jewels back. May I take them to her now? Take them to her? No, Arthur said decidedly. She has another set, I bought them for her and she wears them all day long. Ha, ha, diamonds in the morning with a cotton gown and he laughed immoderately at what he thought Dolly's bad taste. Take them to her? No, they are yours. But I have mothers, Jerry pleaded and I cannot wear two sets. Yes, you can, one to-day, one to-moral. I mean you shall have seven, one for every day in the week. What has Dolly to do with diamonds? They are for ladies and she is only a whitewashed one. He was very much excited and it took all Jerry's tact to soothe and quiet him. Father, she began and he stopped at once for the sound of that name spoken by Jerry had a mighty power over him. Father, listen to me a moment. And then she told him of the suspicions cast upon Harold and said, You do not wish him to suffer any more? Harold, the boy who found you in the carpet bag, Amy's boy. No, never. Where is he that I have not seen him yet? Does he know you are my daughter? Jerry had not mentioned Harold before but she told her father now where he was and why he had gone and that she had written him to come home on Maud's account if on no other. Yes, Maud, I remember, but Harold did not care for Maud. Still he had better come. I want him here with you and me and you must stay here now, day and night. Select any room you please. All is yours, my daughter. But I cannot leave Grandma, Jerry said. Let her come too, Arthur replied. There is room for her. No, Jerry persisted. That would not be best. Grandma could not live with Mrs. Tracey. Then let Dolly go at once. I'll give the order now and Arthur put out his hand to the bell cord. But Jerry stopped him instantly saying to him. Remember Maud, while she lives her mother must stay here. Yes, I forgot, Maud. I have not seen her yet, Arthur replied, subdued at once and willing that Jerry should take the jewels to Dolly who deserved but little forbearance from her. Up to the very last Mrs. Tracey had, unconsciously perhaps, clung to a shadowy hope that Arthur might repudiate his daughter and call it a trumped-up affair, but when she heard how joyfully he had acknowledged and claimed her she lost all hope and her face wore a gloomy expression when Jerry entered her room and told her in a few words that her own diamonds had been found and where they had been secreted and that she had come to return them. When your father was the thief, Dolly said with that rasping, aggravating tone so hard to hear unmoved. Call him what you please, a crazy man is not responsible for his acts. Jerry answered calmly as she walked from the room leaving Dolly to her own morbid and angry thoughts. Not even the restored diamonds had power to conciliate her. I'll never wear them because she has some like them, she said to herself, and then the thought came to her that she could sell them and add to the sum which her husband had invested in his own name. Yes, I'll do it, she continued, but even that will hardly keep the wolf from the door for Frank is growing more and more imbecile every day and Tom is good for nothing. He'll have to scratch for himself though I can tell him. Here her very characteristic soliloquy was brought to an end by a faint call which had the power to drive every other thought from her heart for the mother-love was strong even with her and going to Maud she asked what she wanted. Uncle Arthur, Maud replied, I have not seen him yet, and Jerry too. She has scarcely been here today. Maud's request was made known to Arthur who two or three hours later went to her room and told her how sorry he was to find her so sick and that he hoped she would soon be better. Frank was with Maud sitting upon the side of her bed near the head with his arm across her pillow and his eyes fixed anxiously upon her as she held her conference with his brother. No, Uncle, she said, I shall never be any better in this world, but pretty soon I shall be well in the other. And I want to tell you how glad I am for you and Jerry and to thank you for your kindness to us all these years when Jerry should have been here in our place. Yes, yes, Arthur said with a wave of his hand, only I didn't know, if I had. It would have been so different, Maud interrupted him. I know that, but I want you to be kind to poor father still and forgive him, he is so sorry. And— Oh, Maud, Maud—came like a groan from Frank as he laid his hand on Maud's lips while Arthur replied. Forgive him for what? He couldn't help being here. I sent for him. He did not keep Jerry from her rightful position as my daughter. If he had I could never forgive him. Why I believe I'd kill him or any other who, knowing that Jerry was my daughter kept it from me. He was gesticulating with both hands, and Jerry, who had come in with him, took hold of them as they were swaying in the air and said to him softly, Father—the word quieted him, and with the gasp his mood seemed to change at once. Maud is very tired, Jerry went on. Perhaps we'd better go now and come again tomorrow. Yes, yes, that's best, child. I'm not fond of sick rooms, though I must say this is very free from smells, Arthur replied, then stooping down he kissed Maud and said to her as he arose to go. Don't worry about your father, he is my brother and he was kind to Jerry. I shan't forget that. Come, my daughter. And putting his arm around Jerry he left the room. CHAPTER FIFTY AND FIFTY ONE OF GRETCHEN by Mary Jane Holmes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER FIFTY THE FLOWER, FADETH It was some days after Arthur's return before the household settled down into anything like order and quiet, for Arthur was so restless and so happy, and so anxious for everyone to recognize Jerry as his daughter. Miss Tracy, he called her when presenting her to the people who had known her all her life, the St. Clairs and the Athertons, the Crosbees and Warners, who came to call upon and congratulate him. Even Peterkin came with a card as big as the back of Webster's spelling book and himself got an up-and-address coat with lavender kids on his burly hands, which nearly crashed Arthur's as he expressed himself, tickled her than he ever was before in his life. And I think I was the means-on, he said, for if I hadn't of kicked that darned old table into slivers when I was given Aunt the Jerry, she'd never have known what was in that dumb-dread hole. I was a little too obstruulous, I suppose, but I'll be darned if she didn't square up to me like a catamount till my hair rids right up, and I concluded the tramp-house was no place for me. Would I respect her for it? Yes, I do, and by George, old chap, I congratulate you with my whole soul, and so does May Jane, and so does Anne Lizzie, and so does Bill, and so does the whole caboodle on us. This was Peterkin's speech which Arthur received more graciously than Jerry who, remembering Harold, could not be very polite to the man who had injured him so deeply. As if dividing her thoughts, Peterkin turned to her and said, Now one word, Miss Tracy, about hell. I ain't one to go halves in anything and I was meaner to him than bustly, but you'll see what I'll do. I've met with a change. I swole I have. And he laid his lavender kid on his stomach. He never took them diamonds nor may Jane spin nor nothing, and I've blasted it all over town that he didn't, and I've got a carriage hired and some chaps and a brass band and a procession, and when hell comes, there's to be an oblation to the depot, with the bugle of play and hail to the chief, and them hired chaps, a-hissing him into the carriage with the star-spangled banner floating over it, and a-drawn him home without horses. Who would he think of that for high? And he chuckled merrily as he repeated the program he had prepared for Harold's reception. Jerry shuddered, mentally hoping that Harold's coming might be at night and unheralded so as to save him from what she knew would fill him with disgust. That call of Peterkins was the last of a congratulatory nature made at Tracy Park for weeks, for the shadow of death had entered the grand old house, the doors and windows of which stood wide open one lovely September morning about a week after Arthur's return. But there was no stir or sign of life except in the upper hall near the door and in the room where Maude Tracy was dying. Jerry had been with her constantly for two or three days, and the conversation the two held together would never be forgotten. Maude was very peaceful and happy and sure of the home beyond where she was going, and very lovely and sweet to those around her, thinking of everything and planning everything, even whose hands were to lower her into the grave. Dick and Fred and Billy and Harold, she said to Jerry one day. Something tells me Harold will be here in time for that, and if he is, I want those four to put me in the grave. They can lift me, for I shall not be very heavy, and with a smile she held up her wasted arms and hands not as large now as a child's. And Jerry, she went on, I want the grave lined with boughs from our old playing-place, the four pines, you know, and many flowers, for I shudder at the thought of the cold earth which would chill me in my coffin. So heaped the grave with flowers and come often to it and think lovingly of me lying there alone. I am thinking so much of that poem Harold read to me long ago of poor little Alice, the May Queen, who said she should hear them as they passed with their feet above her in the long and silent grass. Maybe the dead can't do that, I don't know, but if they can I shall listen for you and be glad when you are near me and I know I shall wait on the golden seat by the river. Remember your promise to tell Harold that it was all a mistake. My mind gets clear toward the end and I see things differently from what I did once and I know how I blundered. You will tell him. Again Jerry made the promise with a sinking heart not knowing to what it bound her, and as Maude was becoming tired she bet her to try to rest while she sat by and watched her. The next day at the same hour when the balmy September air was everywhere and the mid-afternoon sun was filling the house with golden light and the cricket's chirp was heard in the long grass and the robins were singing in the treetops another scene was presented in the sick room where Frank Tracy knelt at his dying daughter's side with his face bowed in his hands while her fingers played feebly with his white hair as she spoke to Arthur who had just come in. They had told him she was dying and had asked for him. And with his nervous horror of everything painful and exciting he had shrunk from the ordeal. But Jerry's will prevailed and he went with her to the room where Frank and his wife and Tom were waiting. Tom, standing, with folded arms at the foot of the bed and looking with hot dry eyes into the face on the pillow where death was setting his seal, the mother half-fainting upon the lounge with the nurse beside her, and Frank oblivious of everything except the fact that Maud was dying. Kiss me good-bye, Uncle Arthur, she said when he came in, and come this side where father is. Then as he went round and stood by Frank she reached her hand for his and, putting it on her father's head, said to him, forgive him, Uncle Arthur. He is so sorry, poor father, the dearest, the best man in the world. It was for me. Say that you forgive him. Only Frank and one other knew just what she meant, although a sudden suspicion darted through Jerry's mind, and when Arthur looked helplessly at her she whispered to him, never mind what she means her mind may be wandering, but say that you forgive him no matter what it is. Thus adjured Arthur said to the grief-stricken man who shook like an aspen, I know of nothing to forgive except your old disbelief in Gretchen and deceiving me about sending the carriage the night Jerry came, but if there is anything else no matter what it is I do forgive you freely. Thanks! came faintly from Maude who whispered, remember it is a vow made at my deathbed. She had done all she could this little girl whose life had been so short and who as she once said had been capable of nothing but loving and being loved, and now turning her dim eyes upon Jerry she went on. Remember the promise and the flowers and the golden seat where you will find me resting by the river whose shores I am now looking upon, for I am almost there, almost to the golden seat, and the tree whose leaves are like emeralds and where the grass and flowers are like the flowers and grass of summer just after a rain. I am glad for you Jerry, good-bye, and you dear father, good-bye. That was the last for Maude was dead, and the servants who had been standing about the door stole noiselessly back to their work with wet eyes and a sense of pain and loss in their hearts, for not one of them but had loved the gentle girl now gone forever from their midst. It was Jerry who led Frank from the room to his own where she left him by himself, knowing it would be better so, and it was Arthur who took Dolly out, for Tom had disappeared and no one saw him again until the next day when he came down to breakfast with a worn, haggard look upon his face which told that he did care, though his mother thought he did not and taunted him with his indifference. He had gone directly to his room and locked the door and smoked and smoked and thought and thought and then, when it was dark, he had stolen out into the park as far as the four pines and smoked and looked up at the stars and wondered if Maude were there with Jack sitting on the golden seat by the river. Then going back to the house when no one saw him, he went into the room where Maude was lying and looked long and earnestly upon her white still face and wondered in a vague kind of way if she knew he was there and why he had never thought before what a nice kind of girl she was and why he had not made more of her as her brother. Maude, he whispered with a lump in his throat, if you can hear me, I'd like to tell you I am sorry that I was ever mean to you and I guess I did like you more than I supposed. Then he kissed her pale forehead and went to his room where he smoked the night through and in the morning felt as if he had lived a hundred years since the previous night and wondered how he should get through the day. Then it occurred to him that it might be the proper thing to see his mother and after breakfast he went to her room and was received by her with a burst of tears and reproaches for his indifference and lack of feeling in keeping himself away from everybody as if it were nothing to him that Maude was dead or that there was nothing for him to do. Thunderation, mother, Tom exclaimed, would you have me yell and scream and make a fool of myself? I sat up all night long which was more than you did and I've been meditating in the woods and have seen Maude and made it square with her. What more can I do? You can see to things, Mrs. Tracy replied, your father is all broken up and has gone to bed and it is not becoming in me to be around. Somebody must take the helm? And somebody has, Tom answered her. Uncle Arthur is master of ceremonies now. He is running the ranch and running it well too. And Tom was right for Arthur had taken the helm and aided and abetted by Jerry was quietly attending to matters and arranging for the funeral which Dolly said must be in the house as she would not go to the church with a gaping crowd to stare at her. So it was to take place at the house on Friday afternoon and Arthur ordered a costly coffin from New York and nearly a carload of flowers and floral designs for Jerry had explained to him Maude's wishes with regard to her grave which they lined first with the freshest of the bows from the four pines filling these again with flowers up to the very top so that the grave when finished seemed like one mass of flowers in which it would not be hard to lie. Dolly had objected to Billy as one of the pallbearers. He was too short, she said, and not at all in harmony with Dick and Fred and Paul Crosby, the young man who in Harold's absence had been asked to take his place. But Arthur overruled her with the words, it was Maude's wish, and Billy kept his post. The day arrived and the hour and the people came in greater crowds than they had done when poor Jack was buried or the dark woman Nanine with only Jerry as chief mourner and the procession was the longest ever seen in Shenondale and Dolly even while her heart was aching with bitter pain felt a thrill of pride that so many were following her daughter to the grave. Arrived at the cemetery there was a halt for the mourners to alight and the bearers to take the coffin from the hearse. A halt along with the necessary it seemed to Jerry who did not see the young man making his way through the ranks of the people crowding the road and straining every nerve to reach the hearse which he did just as the bearers were taking the coffin from it. With a quick movement he put Paul Crosby aside saying apologetically, Excuse me, Paul. I must carry Maude to her grave. She wished it. Even then Jerry did not see him or dream that he was there but when toward the close of the service she took a step or two forward to look into the grave before it was filled up and he put a hand upon her shoulder and said, Not too near, Jerry. She started suddenly with a suppressed cry and turning saw him standing by her tall and direct and self possessed as he faced the multitude some of whom had suspected him of crime but all of whom were ready now to do him justice and bid him welcome home. Oh, Harold, Jerry said as she grasped his arm. I am so glad you are here. I wish you had come before. Harold could not reply for they were now leaving the spot and many gathered around him. First and foremost Peterkin who came trapping through the grass puffing like an engine and unmindful of the time or place slapping him upon the shoulder as he said, Well, my boy, glad to see you back. On my soul I be. But you frustrated all my plans. I was meaning to give you an oblation. Got it all arranged and you spiled it by taking us on a wares like a thief in the night. I beg your pardon, he continued, as he met a curious look in Harold's eyes. I'm a blundering cuss, I be. I didn't mean nothing. I've never meant nothing. And if I have, I'm sorry for it. Harold did not hear the last for he was handing Jerry into the carriage with her father who bad him and her two saying they would leave him at the cottage where he wished to go as soon as possible. There was no time for much conversation before the cottage was reached and Harold alighted at the gate and no illusion whatever was made to Jerry's changed relations until Harold stood looking at her as she kept her seat by her father and made no sign of an intention to stop. Then he said as calmly as he could. Do you stay at the parkhouse all together now? Oh, no, she answered quickly. I have been there a great deal with Maude but I am coming home tonight. I could not leave Grandma alone, you know. She acknowledged the home and the relationship still and Harold's face flushed with the look of pleasure which deepened in intensity when Arthur with a wave of the hand habitual to him said, I must keep her now that you are here to see the grandmother but will let you have her tonight. Come up later if you like and walk home with her. I shall be most happy to do so. Harold said and then the carriage drove away while he went into his grandmother who had not attended the funeral but who knew that he had returned and was waiting for him. Chapter 51 Under the Pines with Harold It seemed to Harold that it had been a thousand years since he left Shannondale so much had come into and so much had gone out of his life since he said good-bye to the girl he loved and to the girl who loved him. One was dead and he had only come in time to help lay her in her grave. While the other was some might think farther removed from him than death itself could have removed her. But Harold did not feel so. He had faith in Jerry that she would not change and when he read the judge's letter in the privacy of his room at the Tacoma he rejoiced with an exceeding great joy that her home and birthright had been so strangely restored. He never doubted the story for a moment but felt rather as if he had known it always and wondered how anyone could have imagined for a moment that blue-eyed golden-haired Jerry was the child of the dark, coarse-looking woman found dead beside her. I am so glad for Jerry. He said without a thought that her relations to himself would in any way be changed. Once when she had told him of the fancies which haunted her so often he had put them from him with the fear that, were they true, Jerry would be lost to him forever. But he had no such misgivings now and when Jerry's letter came urging his return both for her own sake and mods he wrote a few hurried lines telling her how glad he was for her and have his intention to start for the East as soon as possible. Tomorrow perhaps, he wrote, in which case I may be there before this letter reaches you for the bails are sometimes slow and the judge's communication was overdue three or four days. Starting the second day after his letter Harold traveled day and night while something seemed beckoning him on and when between St. Paul and Chicago there came a detention from a freight car off the track he felt that he must fly so sure was he that he was wanted and anxiously looked for at Tracy Park where at that very time Mod was dying. The next afternoon he left Chicago and with no further accident reached Janondale just as the long procession was winding its way to the cemetery. He had heard from an acquaintance in Springfield that Mod was dead and of her request that he should be one of the Paul bearers together with Dick and Red and Billy and I will do it yet he said with a throb of pain as he thought of the little girl who had died believing that he loved her. Once or twice he had resolved to write and tell her as carefully as possible of her mistake but as often had changed his mind thinking to wait until she was better and the chance for explanation gone forever but he would if possible carry out the wish he had expressed with regard to himself. Striking into the fields from the station he reached the cemetery in time to take his place by Billy and then he looked for Jerry and felt an indefinable thrill when he saw her on her father's arm and began to realize that she was Jerry Tracy but all that was over now he had talked with her face to face and had found her the same Jerry he had always known and he was going to see her in her own home at Tracy Park the daughter of the house the heiress of Arthur Tracy and of more than two millions it was said for despite Frank's extravagance all of which Arthur had met without a protest his money had accumulated rapidly so that he was a much richer man now than when he first came home from Europe. Harold found the family at dinner Mr. and Mrs. Tracy and Tom in the dining room and Arthur and Jerry in the Gretchen room to which he was taken at once. Come in come in my boy you are just in time for dessert Arthur said rising with alacrity and going forward to meet him while Jerry too arose and took his hand and made him sit by her and questioned him of his journey and helped him to the fairest peach and the finest bunch of grapes and felt so proud of him and of her father too as they talked together and Harold showed no sign of any inequality even if he felt it which he did not. A fine young man with the best of manners and carries himself as if he were the Lord High Chancellor Arthur said when after dinner Harold left them to pay his respects to the other inmates of the family whom he found just leaving the dining room. Dolly bowed to him coldly at first and was about to pass on when with a burst of tears she offered him her hand and said, Oh Harold why didn't you come before? Mudd wanted to see you so badly. This was a great deal for Dolly and Tom stared at her in amazement while Harold explained that he had come as soon as he possibly could and tried to say something of Mudd but could not for the tears which choked him. Frank was unfainately glad to see him and told him so. Our dear little girl was fond of you Hal. I am sure she was and I shall always like you for that. Heaven bless you my boy. He said as he wrung Harold's hand and then hurried away after his wife leaving Harold alone with Tom awfully afraid he should break down said indifferently. Glad to see you Hal. Wish you had come before Mudd died. She wasn't a tear in way to see you. Have a cigar. Got a prime lot in my room. Will you go there? Harold was in no mood for cigars and declining Tom's offer sauntered a while around the grounds where he found himself constantly expecting to find the dead girl sitting under a tree waiting for him with the light whose meaning he now knew kindling in her beautiful eyes as she bade him welcome. He was glad now that he had not written and told her of her mistake and he felt in his heart a greater tenderness for the Mudd dead than he ever could have felt for the Mudd living. It was beginning to grow dark when he returned to the house where he found Jerry in the hall ready to go home. Arthur was at her side with his arm thrown lovingly around her and as he passed her over to Harold he said, Make the most of her tonight, my boy, for tomorrow she comes home to stay. For a time Harold and Jerry walked on in silence but when they reached the four pines Jerry halted suddenly and said, Let us sit down, Harold. I have a message from Mudd which I promised to deliver the first time we were alone together after you came home. Jerry's voice trembled a little and after they were seated she was silent until Harold said to her, You are going to tell me of Mudd? Then she started and replied, Yes, she wanted so much to see you and tell you herself. I don't know what she meant but she said she had made a mistake and I must tell you so and that you would understand it. She had been thinking and thinking she said and knew it was a stupid blunder of hers. That was what she called it a stupid blunder and she was sorry for you that she had made it and bad me say so and tell you no one knew but herself and you. Dear little Mudd, I wish she had not died. Jerry was crying and perhaps that was the reason she did not mind when Harold put his arm around her and drew her so close to him that his brown hair touched her golden curls while the pines moaned and sighed above them for a moment and then grew still as if listening for what Harold would say. Yes, he began slowly. I think I know what Mudd meant by the mistake. Did she say I must tell you what it was? She said you would tell me but perhaps you'd better not, Jerry replied. Yes, I must tell you, he continued, as a preliminary to what I have to say to you afterward and what I did not mean to say quite so soon but this decides me and he drew Jerry closer to him as he went on. Did you ever think that I loved Mudd? Yes, I have thought so. Was Jerry's answer? She thought so too. Harold continued, and it was all my fault, not hers. She was so sweet and good and so interested in you and all I wanted to do for you that I regarded her as a very dear friend, nothing more. And because I looked upon her this way I foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another and ask if she thought I had a chance for success. I must have bungled strangely for she mistook my meaning and thought I was speaking of herself and in a way she accepted me, and before I had time to explain her mother came in and I have never seen her since. That is what Mudd meant. She saw the mistake and wished to rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to tell you then and dared not. Jerry trembled violently but made no answer and Harold went on. It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerry Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it now that she is Jerry Tracy and I do not understand it myself. Once when you told me your fancies concerning your birth a great fear took possession of me lest I should lose you if they were true. But when I heard that they were true I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, for as I am, with nothing but love to give you. Will you, Jerry? His face was so close to hers now that her hot cheeks touched his but she made no reply for a moment and then she said, Oh, Harold, it seems so soon with Mudd only buried to-day. What shall I say? What ought I to say? Shall I tell you? he answered. Say the first English word you ever spoke in which I taught you. Do you remember it? S came involuntarily from Jerry in the quick lisping accent of her babyhood when that was all the English she could master and almost before it had escaped her Harold smothered it with the kisses he pressed upon her lips as he claimed her for his own. But Harold, she tried to explain between his kisses, I meant that I did remember, you must not, you must not kiss me so fast, you take my breath away. There, I won't stand it any longer. I'm going straight home to tell Grandma how you act. And so am I. Harold said, rising as she did but keeping his arm around her as they went slowly along in the soft September night with the stars which were shining for the first time on Mudd's grave looking down upon them and a thought of Mudd in their hearts and her dear name often upon their lips as they talked of the past, trying to recall just when it was that friendship ceased and love began and deciding finally that neither knew nor cared when it was so great was their present joy and anticipation of the future. End of chapters 50 and 51 Chapter 52 Of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 52 For Better, For Worse Grandma, Jerry has promised to be my wife, Harold said to his grandmother that night, and, Father, I have promised to Mary Harold, Jerry said to Arthur the next morning as she stood for him with Harold's hand in hers and a look in her face something like what Gretchen said warn when Arthur first called her his wife. Lord bless you, I knew it was coming but didn't think it would be quite so soon. You shock my nerves dreadfully, Arthur exclaimed, springing up and walking two or three times across the room. Then, confronting the young couple, he said, going to Mary Harold, I knew you would all the time. Well, he will do as well as anyone to look after the business. Frank is no good and Colvin is too old, so get married at once, within a week if you like. I'm off for Germany next month to find Gretchen's grave and the house and the picture and everything, and as I shall take you with me I shall need someone with brains to look after things while I am gone. But, Father, Jerry began, if I go to Germany Harold will go too and if he stays here I shall stay. Arthur looked at her inquiringly a moment and then as he began to understand, replied, Ah, yes, I see. Where thou goest I go and where thou and so forth and so forth? Well, all right, but you must be married here in your father's house and soon, too. I'll engage passage at once in the Germanic which sails the fifteenth of October and you shall be married the tenth. That's three weeks from today and we'll give you a few days in New York. I'll leave Frank here till we return and then he must go, of course, and the new mistress step in with Mrs. Crawford to superintend. We will get some nice man and woman to stay with her while we are gone. He had settled everything rapidly but Jerry had something to say upon the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while Mrs. Tracy was there, she said, and preferred to be married in the cottage, the only home she had ever known. I shall stay with you all day, she continued, but go home at night. And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see. Arthur said laughingly but assenting finally to her proposal. It was Jerry now who planned everything with Harold's assistance and who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park. What provision? Arthur said. I guess he has made provision for himself all these years when my purse has been as free to him as myself. Colvin tells me there's been an awful lot of money spent somewhere. Yes, Jerry replied, but you gave him permission to spend it and it would hardly be fair now to leave him with little or nothing and he's so broken down. When Mott thought she was going to die and before she knew who I was, she wrote a letter for her father and you, asking him to give me what he would have given her and you to do the same. So now I want you to give Mott's father what you would have given me for Mott's sake. Bless my soul, Jerry, Arthur said. What a beggar you are. I don't know what I should have given you. All I am worth, perhaps. How much will satisfy you for Frank? Tell me and it is done. Jerry thought one hundred thousand dollars would not be any too much, nor did it seem so to Arthur, who placed but little value upon his money and Jerry was deputed to tell her uncle what provision was to be made for him and that, if he wished, he was to remain at the park until his brother's return from Europe. Frank was not in his own room, but Mrs. Tracey was, and to her Jerry first communicated the intelligence that she was to be married and go with her father to Germany. The look which the highly scandalized lady gave her was wonderful, as she said. Married. Almost before the crepe is off the door or the flowers wilted on Mott's grave. Well, that shows how little we are missed and I am not surprised, though I think Mott would be at Harold certainly. I suppose you know there was something between them, but a man will do anything for money. I wish you joy of your husband. Jerry was too indignant to explain anything and hurried off in quest of her uncle whom she found in Mott's room where he spent most of his time, walking up and down and examining the different articles which had belonged to his daughter and which at his request remained untouched as she had left them. Her brushes, her comb, her bottle of perfumery, her work-box, her Bible, her little half-finished sketch, and the soft bed-slipper she had worn when she died and one of which he held in his hand when Jerry went into him. It is so like Mott, he said with quivering lips, and when I hold it in my hand I can almost hear the dear little feet which I know are cold and dead coming along the hall as she used to come and will never come again. I think I should like to die here in this room and go where Mott has gone and I believe I should go there. I am sure God has forgiven me and Mott forgave me too, for I told her. You did? I thought so, Jerry said. Yes, I had to tell her, he continued, and I am glad that I did and she loved me just the same. You saw her die? You heard what she said to me. She must have believed in me and that keeps me from going mad. I told Dolly, too, and she said she'd never speak to me again as long as she lived and she didn't either until last night when I was alone in here crying on Mott's bed. Then she came to me and called me Frank and said she was sorry she had been so hard and asked me what we were going to do. I'm sure I don't know, do you? He was so like a child in his appeal to her that Jerry's tears came fast as she told him of her approaching marriage and what her father intended doing for him. Then Frank broke down entirely. I don't deserve it and I know I owe it to you whom I have injured so much. He said while Jerry tried to comfort him. I must go back now to father, she said at last, and she went out into the hall where she encountered Tom just coming from his mother's room. Hello! Tom cried with an attempt at a smile. And so you are going to marry Harold. Yes, Tom, I'm going to marry Harold, Jerry replied, unhesitatingly as she laid her hand on Tom's arm and walked with him down the stairs. It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world that she should marry Harold and she was not at all abashed in speaking of it to Tom. And when they saw Harold coming up the walk the color rushed to her cheeks and her eyes grew wondrously bright with a love-light which shone in them as she dropped Tom's arm and hurried to Harold's side. Bye, George, I believe I'll go and hang myself, Tom said under his breath as he stalked moodily away. But instead of that he went across the fields to Lebatot where he sat for an hour, talking with old Peterkin and waiting for Anne Eliza who had gone to Springfield her father said after a new gown for which she was to pay two hundred dollars. Think on it, he continued, when we was fast married and run the Liza Anne the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mariner or balsarine, dumb to find out what you call it, that one in nine pants a yard. But now, Lord Land, what's a two hundred dollar gown to me? Anne Eliza can have forty on him if she wants to. There she is. There's the carriage. Bye, gosh, though ain't she a neat little filly? And the father's face glowed with pride as he washed his daughter alighting from the carriage to which Tom had hastened in order to assist her for she was still a little lame and limped as she walked. He saw the two hundred dollar gown for Peterkin would have it displayed and admired it, of course, and wished that he had half the sum it cost on his own right and wondered if he could stand it as he walked slowly home where he heard from his mother that they were still to remain at Tracy Park for a while and that his father was to have one hundred thousand dollars settled upon him. I guess now I'll wait a spell and let old Peterkin go to thunder. He decided and for two weeks and more Anne Eliza watched in vain for his coming while Peterkin remarked to his wife that if Tom Tracy was going to play fast and loose with his gal he'd find himself brought up stand and mighty lively. The news that Harold and Jerry were soon to be married and go with Arthur to Germany created some surprise and some talk too in town where many of the people had believed that there had been an understanding if not an engagement between Harold and Maude. But Tom put that right with a few decided words. There had never been an engagement, he said. Maude had liked Harold very much and he had liked her but had always preferred Jerry. In short matters had been as good as settled between them long ago. This last was a little fiction of Tom's brain but the people accepted it as true and began to look eagerly forward to the approaching marriage which took place in Mrs. Crawford's parter with only a few intimate friends present. Grace Atherton, the St. Clairs, Anne Eliza Peterkin and the Tracy's with the exception of Dolly who could not do so great violence to her feelings as to attend a wedding. Billy was not there but he sent a magnificent emerald ring to Jerry with the following note. Dear Jerry, I can't see you married although I am glad for you and glad for Hal. God bless you both. I shall never forget you as long as I live and when you come back maybe I can bear to see you as Hal's wife but now it would kill me. Goodbye. Jerry read this note with wet eyes and then passed it to Harold to whom she told of that episode under the butternut tree when Billy asked her to be his wife. I am awful sorry for him but I can't let him have you, Jerry. Harold said, passing the note back to her and kissing her tenderly as he added, that is my last for Jerry Tracy, my little girl of the carpet bag. When I kiss you again, you will be my wife. Come, children, we are waiting. Came with startling distinctness from Arthur at the foot of the stairs and then Harold and Jerry went down to the parter where they were soon made one, Arthur giving the bride away and behaving pretty well under the circumstances. He had been very flighty the day before, insisting that Jerry should be married in white with a blue ribbon on her bonnet just as Gretchen had been and when she reminded him of Ma's recent death he replied, Well, Gretchen will wear colors if you don't. And he brought out and laid upon his bed the dress which had been waiting for Gretchen on that stormy night when he heard the wild cry of the dying woman above the wintry gale. She was with him again in fancy and when he went out to the carriage which was to take him to the cottage he stepped back and stood a moment by the door as if to let someone enter before him and during the ceremony those nearest to him heard him whispering to himself, I, Arthur, take thee Gretchen and so forth. But when it was over he seemed perfectly rational as he kissed his daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law to whom he gave a check for ten thousand dollars saying as he did so that young men must have a little spending money. It was a very pleasant wedding and everyone seemed happy even to Dick whose spirits, however, were rather too gay to be quite natural and whose voice shook a little as he called Jerry Mrs. Hastings and told her he hoped to see her in Paris in the spring as he thought of going over there with Nina to join the Raymans. Oh, I hope you will. Nothing could make me so happy as to meet you there. Jerry said, looking at him with an expression which told him she was thinking of the pines and was sorry for him. The newly married pair were going directly to New York where Arthur was to join them on the fourteenth as the Germanic sailed the fifteenth. All the wedding guests accompanied them to the station, Tom accepting a seat in the coop with Anne Eliza who wore her two hundred dollar gown and was, of course, overdressed. But Tom did not think much about that. He was ill at ease that morning though trying to seem natural and when the train which took Jerry away disappeared from view he felt as if everything which had made life desirable had left him forever and he cared but little now what he did or with whom his lot was cast. So when Anne Eliza said to him, It is such a fine day. Suppose we drive along the river. It may dispel the blues. He assented and soon found himself bowling along the smooth turnpike with Anne Eliza whom he thought rather interesting with the tears shed for Jerry on her long light eyelashes. I shall miss her so much and be so lonely without her. I hope you'll call often, she said to him, when at last the drive was over and Tom promised that he would and kept his promise too. For after Arthur left he found Tracy Park so insupportably dull with his father always in mod's room and his mother always in tears that it was a relief to go to Lebatot and be made much of as if he were a prince and treated to nice little lunches and suppers even if old Peterkin did make one of the party and disgust him so at times that he felt as if he must snatch up his hat and fly. And one night when the old man had been more than usually disagreeable and pompous he did start up abruptly and leave the house mentally vowing never to enter it again. I'd rather saw wood than listen to that infernal old brag he was saying to himself when he heard a weasy sound behind him and looking around saw the old brag in full pursuit and beckoning him to stop. I'm going to wag a spell with you, he said locking his arm in Tom's as he came up. I want to have a talk. Yes, Tom faltered with a dreadful thinking of the heart while Peterkin went on. You see, you've been a common to love or two off and on for mighty nigh a month and as the parent of a family it's time I asked your intentions. Intentions, Tom stammered trying to draw his arm from Peterkin's. But he might as well have tried to wrench it from a vice for Peterkin held it fast and went on. Yes, intentions, thunderation ain't a chap supposed to have intentions when he hangs round a gal who has money like my Aunt Liza. I tell you what, Thomas, and his manner became very insinuating and frank as nigh as I can calculate I'm worth three millions fair and square and there's three on them to divide it amongst. May Jane, Bill and Aunt Liza. Now, suppose and we say, threes into three million don't it leave a million? Tom acknowledged that it did and Peterkin continued. Just so. Now, ain't one of them mean skunks that wants his folks to wait till he's dead before they enjoys themselves. And the day my Aunt Liza is married I plank down a million in hard cash for her and her husband to do what they darned pleased with cut a dash in Europe as Hal is doing if they like or cut as flairage to hum it's all one to me. I call that square, don't you? Tom admitted that he did and Peterkin went on. Now then, I ain't a going to have Aunt Liza's affection strifled with and if I catch a fatter a doing it do you know what I'll do? Tom could not guess and Peterkin continued. I'll lick him within an inch of his life and then set the dogs on him and heave him into the river just see. It was not a warm day but Tom was perspiring at every pour as he saw presented to him the choice between a million or to be licked within an inch of his life and then dogged into the river. Naturally he chose the first as the lesser evil of the two and began to lie as he had never lied in his life before. He was very glad, he said, that Peterkin had broached the subject as it made matters easier for him by showing him that his suit would not be rejected as he had feared it might be. You know, of course, Mr. Peterkin, he said, that I am now a poor young man with no expectations whatever for though Uncle Arthur has settled something upon father I cannot depend upon that and how could I dare to look as high as your daughter without some encouragement? Encouragement, boy? Great Scott! And releasing Tom's arm Peterkin hit him a friendly slap which nearly knocked him down. Great Scott, what do you call encouragement? When a gal is so flustified at sea in you that she tetters right up and down while her mother hunts heaven and earth for tidbits to tickle your palate with quail on toast, mushrooms, sweet breads, and the Lord knows what. Ain't that a sign they are willing? Thunder and guns, what would you have? And Liza can't up and say, Marry me, Tom, nor I can't up and say, Thomas, marry my daughter, can I? But if you want to marry her say so like a man and I swan, I'll meet you like a man and a father. Alas for Tom, he had nothing left him to do except to say that he wished to marry Anne Liza and that he would come the next evening and tell her so. It was Peterkin who answered his ring when he presented himself at the door of Lebatot, Peterkin more inflated and pompous than ever as she shook the young man's hand calling him Thomas and telling him to go right into the parter where he would find Anne Liza waiting for him and where they could bill and coo as much as they liked for he and May Jane would keep out of the way and give him a chance. Even then Tom cast one despairing glance toward the door with a half resolve to bolt, but Peterkin was behind him pushing him on to his fate which after all was not so very bad when he came to face it. There was nothing low or mean or coarse about Anne Liza who was by no means ill looking as she stood up to receive her lover with a droop in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks, for she knew the object of his visit into which he plunged at once. He did not say that he loved her but he asked her in a straightforward way to be his wife and then waited for her answer which was not long in coming for Anne Liza was no dissembler. She loved Tom Tracy with her whole soul and felt herself honored in being sought by him. Oh Tom, she said, it does not seem possible for you to love me but if you really do I will be your wife and try to make you happy and and she hesitated a moment and then went on. Save you as much as possible from father. We cannot live here. You and he would not get on. He means well and is the kindest of fathers to me but he is not like you and we must go away. She was really a very sensible girl Tom thought and in his joy at finding her so sensible he stooped and kissed her forehead as the proper thing for him to do while she the poor little mistaken girl threw herself into his arms and began to cry. She was so glad and happy. Tom did not know exactly what he ought to do. It was a novel situation for him to be in with a girl sobbing on his bosom and his first impulse was to push her off but when he remembered that she represented a million of dollars he did would have the men in the world would have done in his place. He held her close and tried to quiet her and told her he was not half good enough for her and knew in his heart he was telling the truth and felt within him the stirring of a resolve that she should never know he did not love her and that he would make her happy if he could. And so they were betrothed and Peterkin came in with May Jane and made a speech half an hour long to his future son-in-law and settled just when they were to be married and what they were to do. Christmas week was the time and he vowed he'd give him a wedding which should take the starch entirely out of Gusty Brown whose mother Mrs. Rosseter Brown would think Gusty was never married at all when she saw what he could do. Greatly he lamented that Harold and Jerry could not be present but they'll see it in the papers he said for I'll have a four column notice if I write it myself and pay for it too and when you meet him in Europe you can tell him what they missed. To all this Tom listened with great drops of cold sweat running down his back as he thought of the ridicule he should incur if Peterkin carried out his intentions to take the rag off the bush as he expressed it. The trip to Europe pleased him but the party filled him with horror from which he saw no escape and he was anything but a happy man when he at last said goodbye to Peterkin who slipped into his hand a check for two thousand dollars saying when he protested against taking it. Don't be a fool Thomas I'm to be your dad so take it you'll need it. I know your circumstances they ain't what they was and I don't suppose you've got enough to buy the engagement ring. I want a big one. A solitary. No cluster for me. I know what is to be poor. Take it Thomas. So Tom took it with a sense of shame which prompted him several times to tear it in shreds and throw them to the winds. But this he did not do for he knew he should need money as he had none of his own and when a few days before he had asked Calvin for some that worthy man who had never taken kindly to him had bitten him go to a very warm place for money as he had no orders to give him any. Your uncle he said settled one hundred thousand dollars on your father the more fool he and expects him to live on it. So my advice to you is that you go to work. Now Tom couldn't work and after a little Peterkin's gift did not seem so very humiliating to him although he could not bring himself to tell his mother of it when he announced his engagement to her which he did bluntly and with nothing apologetic in his manner or speech. I am going to marry Annalisa Peterkin sometime during the holidays and start it once for Europe he said and then brought some water and dashed it in her face for she immediately went into hysterics and declared herself dying. When she grew calm Tom swore a little and talked a good deal and told her about the million which he said was not to be sneezed at and told her what Calvin had said to him and asked what the old Harry he was to do if he didn't marry Annalisa and told her of the proposed party asking her to save him from it if she could. When she found she could not help herself Dolly rose to the situation and said she would see her daughter-in-law elect whom Tom was to bring to her as she could not think of calling it libato in her present state of affliction. So Annalisa came over and her mother came with her but the latter Dolly declined to see. She could not endure everything she said to Tom and was only equal to Annalisa whom she met with a bow and the tips of her fingers without rising from her chair. Still as the representative of a million Annalisa was entitled to some consideration and Dolly motioned her to a seat beside her and with her black bordered handkerchief to her eyes said to her, Tom tells me that you are going to marry him and I trust you will try to make him happy. He is a most estimable young man now and if he should develop any bad habits I shall think it owing to some new and bad influence brought to bear upon him. Yes, I am. Annalisa answered timidly and the great lady went on to talk of family and blood and position as something for which money could not make amends and to impress upon the girl a sense of the great honor it was to be a member of the Tracy family. Then she spoke of the wedding party which she trusted Annalisa would prevent as nothing could be in worse taste when they were in such affliction adding that neither herself nor Mr. Tracy could think of being present. Be married quickly without any display if you wish to please me, she said, and with a wave of her handkerchief she signified that the conference was ended. Well, Annie, how did you and my lady hit it? Tom asked, meeting Annalisa in the hall as she came out flushed and hot from the interview. We didn't hit it at all, Annalisa replied with a gleam in her eye which Tom had never seen before. She just talked as if I were dirt and that you were only marrying me for my money. She don't like me and I don't like her there and the indignant little girl began to cry. Tom laughed immoderately and passing his arm around her as they went down the stairs, he said. Of course you don't like her, whoever did like her mother-in-law, but you are marrying me, not my mother, so don't cry, petite. Tom was making an effort to be very kind and even lover-like to his fiancee who was easily comforted and who on her return to the bateau told her father plainly that the party must be given up as it would be out of place and deeply offend the Tracy's. Very unwillingly, Peterkin gave it up and sent word to that effect to Mrs. Rosseter Brown, who had already been apprised of the coming event and was having a wonderful gown made for the occasion. I find, he wrote, that it wouldn't be at all Rachel Shea to have a blowout whilst the family is in deep black, but when they get into lavender and the young folks is home from their tower, I'll have a terror. Peterkin tried two or three times to see Mrs. Tracy, but she put him off with one excuse after another until Tom took the matter in hand and told her she was acting like a fool and putting on quite too many heirs. Then she appointed an interview and bracing herself with a tonic went down to the darkened, cheerless room and by her manner so managed to impress him with her superiority over him and his that he forgot entirely the speech he had prepared with infinite pains and which had in it a good deal about family bonds and family units and Aaron's beard and brotherly love. This he had rehearsed many times to May Jane with wonderful gestures and flourishes. But I'll be bumped, he said to her on his return from the parkhouse, if I didn't forget every blessed word she was so high and mighty, lord as if I didn't know what she sprung from, but that's the way with them as was born to nothing. May Jane, if I ever get you, put an on ears because you're a Peterkin, I believe I'll kill you. After this, anything like familiar intercourse ceased between the heads of the two families until the morning after Christmas day when Frank and Dolly drove over to Lebatot where were assembled the same people who had been present at Jerry's wedding and where Peterkin insisted upon darkening the rooms and lighting the gas as something a little out of the usual order of things in Shannondale. Peterkin was very happy and very proud of this alliance with the Tracy's and his pride and happiness shown in his face all through the ceremony and when the clergyman asked, who give it this woman to be married to this man, his manner was something grand to see as he stepped forward and responded, I do sir, in a voice so loud and full of importance that Dolly involuntarily groaned while Tom bounded hard to refrain from laughing. Tom behaved very well and kissed his bride before anyone else had a chance to do so and called May Jane Mother and Peterkin Father after he saw the papers which made Anne Eliza possessor in her own right of a million dollars and when an hour later she handed over to him as his own a deed of property valued at one hundred thousand dollars, he took her in his arms and kissed her again telling her what was very true that she was worth her weight in gold. Tom had felt his poverty keenly and all the more so that Anne Eliza's engagement ring a superb solitaire had been bought with her father's gift as had their passage tickets to Europe but now he was a rich man made so by his wife's thoughtful generosity and he was conscious of a new set of feelings and emotions with regard to her and inwardly vowed that he would make her happy. They took the train for New York that afternoon accompanied by Peterkin who when the ship sailed away next day stood upon the wharf waving his hands and calling out as long as they could hear him God bless you my children, God bless you my children. Then he went back to Shannondale and called at Tracy Park and reported to Frank that the youngsters had gone and that Mrs. Thomas Tracy looked as well as the best on him in the ship and a darn sight better than some. After this the great houses of Le Betot and Tracy Park settled down into perfect quiet especially that of Tracy Park where Dolly shut herself up in her mourning and crepe and Frank spent most of his time in Maude's room with her photograph in his hand and his thoughts busy with memories of the dear little girl lying in her grave of flowers under the winter snow. End of Chapter 52 Chapter 53 of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 53 After two years Two years since Harold and Jerry went away and it was October again and the doors and windows of the Park House were all open to the warm sunshine which filled the rooms where the servants were flitting in and out with an air of importance and pleased expectancy. For that afternoon the master was coming home with Harold and Jerry and what was more wonderful and exciting still there was in the party a little boy born in Feastbad in six months before and christened Frank Tracy. They had gone directly to Germany Arthur, Harold and Jerry for the former would not stop at day until Feastbadden was reached and there overcome with fatigue and the recollections of the past which crowded upon him so fast Arthur fell sick and was confined to his room at the hotel for a week during which time Jerry explored the city with Harold and a guide finding every spot connected with Gretchen and her life even to the shop where Frau Heinrich had sold her small wares. As soon as her father was able she took him to them one by one. Hand in hand for he seemed weak as a little child they went to the bench under the trees where he had first seen Gretchen knitting in the sunshine with the halo on her hair and here Arthur took off his hat as if unconsecrated ground and whispered, May God forgive me. Then to the little shop once kept by Frau Heinrich where Arthur astonished the woman by buying out half for his talk which he ordered sent to his hotel and afterward gave away. Then to the English Church where he knelt before the altar and seemed to be praying though the words he said were spoken more to Gretchen than to God. Then to the house where he had lived with his bride when heaven came down so close that she could touch it or rather to the sight of the house for fire had done its work there and they could only stand before the ruins while Arthur said again and again, May God forgive me. Then to the house where Jerry had lived and Gretchen had died and where the picture still hung upon the wall a wonder and a light to all who had rented the place since Marion's parents lived there. Jerry recognized it in a moment and so did Arthur but he could only wring his hands before it and saw, Oh Gretchen, my darling, my darling. Changed as the house was Jerry found the room where she had played and her mother had died. The big stove stood here, she said, indicating the spot and mother sat there writing to you when Nanine opened the door and that the firelight shine upon the paper. I can see it also distinctly and over there in the corner was the bed where she died. Then Arthur knelt down upon the spot and as if the oft repeated ejaculation, May God forgive me, were wholly inadequate now, he said the Lord's prayer with folded hands and streaming eyes while Jerry stood over him with her arm around his neck. Oh Gretchen, he cried, Do you know I am here after so many years? Arthur, your husband who loved you through all. Come back to me, Gretchen, and I'll be so tender and true. Tender and true. My heart is breaking, Gretchen, and only for Jerry, our little girl baby, I should wish I were dead like you. Oh Gretchen, Gretchen, sweetest wife a man ever called his, and yet I forgot you, darling, forgot that you had ever lived. May heaven forgive me, I could not help it. I forgot everything. Where are you, Jerry? It's getting so dark and cold, and Gretchen is not here. I think you must take me home. Jerry took him back to the hotel where he kept his room for three days and then they went to Gretchen's grave beside her mother, which Jerry had found after some little search at inquiry. Here Arthur stood like a statue holding fast to Jerry and gazing down upon the neglected grave on which clumps of withered grass were growing and blowing in the November wind. Gretchen is not in this place, he said mournfully with a shake of his head. She couldn't rest here a moment for she liked everything beautiful and bright and this is like the potter's field. But we'll put up a monument for her and make the place attractive, and by and by when she is tired of wandering about she may come back and rest when she sees what we have done and knows that we have been here. We will buy that house too, he said, as he walked away from the lonely grave and the next day Harold found the owner and commenced negotiations for the house which soon changed hands and became the property of Arthur. Just what he meant to do with it he did not know until Jerry suggested that he make it an asylum for homeless children who should receive the kindest and tenderest care from competent and trustworthy nurses hired for the purpose. Yes, I'll do it, Arthur said, and we'll call it the Gretchen Home. Maybe she will come there some time and know what I have done. This idea once in his mind Arthur never let go of it until the house was fitted up with school rooms and dormitories and filled with little ones rescued from what and misery. The general supervision of this home was placed in the hands of the English rector, the Reverend James Hart, whose many acts of kindness and humanity among the poor had won for him the subricade of St. James and with whom the interests of the children were safe as with a loving father. There is money enough, Arthur said, when giving his instructions to the matron a good-natured woman who he knew would never abuse a child. Money enough, so give them something beside bread and water for breakfast and mush and molasses for supper. Children like cookies and custard pie and if there comes a circus to town let them go once in a while. It won't hurt them to see a little of the world. Frau Hirsch looked at him in some surprise but promised compliance with his wishes and when in the middle of December he left Wiesbaden for Italy he had the satisfaction of knowing that the inmates of the Gretchen home were enjoying a bill of fare not common in institutions of the kind. It was not difficult to find in Wiesbaden people who remembered Gretchen and the grand marriage she had made with the rich American who afterward abandoned her. That was the way they worded it and they remembered too the little girl Jereen whom after her mother's death the nurse Nanine took to her father's friends since which nothing had been heard from her. Thus had there been in Arthur's mind any doubt as to Jerry's identity it would have been swept away but there was none. He had accepted her from the first as his daughter and he always looked up to her as a child to its mother whom it fears to lose sight of. The winter was mostly spent in Rome where Harold and Jerry visited every part of the city while Arthur stayed in his room talking to an unseen Gretchen who afforded him almost as much satisfaction as the real one might have done. In May they went to the lakes and in June drifted to Paris where Jerry was overjoyed to meet Nina and Dick who were staying with the raiments at a charming chateau just outside the city. Here she and Harold passed a most enjoyable week and before she left she was made happy by something which she saw and which told her that Dick was forgetting that night under the pines and that some day not far in the future he would find in Marion all he had once hoped to find in her. In Paris too she came upon analyze at the Bon Marché with silks and satins piled high around her and two or three obsequious clerks in attendance for la petite américaine was well known to the tradespeople who eagerly sought her patronage and that of my lord monsieur who impressed them greatly with his air of importance and dignity. Tom was enjoying himself immensely and was really a good deal improved and very kind to his little wife whom he always addressed as petit or madame and who was quite a bell and a general favorite in the American colony. Following a fashion which Tom was sure had been made for his benefit she had cut off her obnoxious red hair and substituted in its place a wig of reddish brown which for naturalness and beauty was a marvel of art and skill and became her so well that Tom really thought her handsome or at least very stylish and stunning which was better than mere beauty. They had a suite of rooms at the Continental and there Harold and Jerry dined with them in their private parlor for Tom was too fine a gentleman to go to tabla dote with the common herd. Analyza's grand maid Doris was with her still and had come to look upon her young mistress as quite as great a personage as the Lady Augusta Hardy whom she had ceased to quote and who with her mother Mrs. Rosseter Brown was now in the city attended it was said by a Polish count who had an eye upon her money. Once when they were alone Jerry asked Tom when he was going home and with a comical twinkle in his eye he replied, when I hear that my respected father-in-law has gone off with apoplexy and not before. Jerry thought this a shocking speech but she was glad to see him so happy and as she told Harold so much more of a man than she had ever supposed he could be. That summer Harold and Jerry spent in Switzerland with the Raymans and St. Clairs and Tracy's while Arthur went to Wiesbaden to see the Gretchen home which he found so much to his taste that he remained there until Harold and Jerry after a trip through Austria and Germany joined him in November when they went again for the winter to Italy coming back in the spring to Wiesbaden and because Arthur would have it so taking up their abode for a while in the Gretchen home which had been greatly enlarged and improved and now held 30 deserted and homeless children. Here in April Jerry's little boy was born in the same room and corner where Gretchen had died and where Arthur again went down upon his knees and said the Lord's Prayer to which he added a fervent thanksgiving for Jerry's spared and a baby given to him. I hoped it would be a girl, he said, for then we should have called it Gretchen but as it is a boy, suppose we name it Heinrich. No father, Jerry said decidedly, baby is not to be Heinrich or Arthur or Harold although I think the last dearest name in the world and she put up her hand caressingly to the brown beard of the tall young man bending over to kiss her pale face and look at his son. We will call the baby Frank Tracy. And so Frank Tracy was the name given to the child who was more like its father than its mother and who Martha called Tracy which he liked better he said than he did Frank. They remained in Wiesbaden until June then went to Switzerland and Paris and in October sailed for home where the park house was ready for them with no mistress to dispute Jerry's rights and no master except the lawful one. Just out of town on a grassy ridge overlooking the river a gentleman from New York had built a pretty little cottage which as his wife died suddenly he never occupied but offered for sale with all its furniture and appointments. Let's buy it, Dolly said to her husband, we must go somewhere before Arthur comes home and we can live there very respectably and economically too. She was beginning to count the cost of everything and was almost pernurious in her efforts to make their income go as far as possible so they bought the pretty place which she called Ridge Cottage but Frank did not live to occupy it. After Tom went away and left him alone with his wife who was not the most agreeable of companions he failed rapidly both in body and mind and those who saw him walking about the house with his white hair and bent form would have said he was seventy rather than fifty years old. Every day when the weather permitted he visited Maud's grave where he sometimes stayed for hours looking down upon the mound and talking to the insensible clay beneath. I am coming Maud very soon to be here beside you he would say everybody has gone even to Tom and your mother is sometimes hard upon me because of what I did and I am tired and cold and old and the world is dark and dreary and I am coming very soon. Then he would walk slowly back taking the post office on his way to inquire for letters from the folks as he designated the absent ones. These letters were a great comfort to him especially those from Jerry who wrote him very often and told him all they were doing and seeing and tried to make him understand how much she loved and sympathized with him. Not a hint had been given him of the baby and when in June he received a letter from her containing a photograph of the little boy named after him he seemed childish in his joy and started with the picture at once for Maud's grave. Nealing down with his face in the long grass he whispered, Look Maud, Jerry's baby boy named for me Frank Tracy. Do you hear me Maud? Frank Tracy for me who wronged her so. God bless Jerry and give her many years of happiness when I'm dead and gone which will not now belong. I am coming very soon Maud, sooner than you think and shall never see Jerry's little boy. God bless him. That night Frank seemed brighter than usual and talked a great deal with his wife who to the last day of her life will be glad that she was kind to him and humored all his fancies and once when he lay upon the couch with the baby's picture in his hand she went and sat by him and ran her fingers caressingly through his white hair and asked if he were not better. Yes Dolly, he said taking her fingers in his hand and holding them fast. A great deal better. Jerry's baby has done me good and you too Dolly. You don't know how nice it seems to have you smooth my hair. It is like the old days at Langley when we sang in the choir together and you were fond of me. I am fond of you now Frank. Dolly replied as she stooped to kiss the face in which there was a look she had never seen before and which haunted her long after he had said good night and gone to Maud's room where he said he would sleep as he was likely to be restless and might keep her awake. The next morning Dolly took her breakfast alone for Frank did not join her. Let him sleep she said to the servant who suggested calling him but when some time later he did not appear she went herself to Maud's room into which the noonday son was shining for every blind and window was open and the light was so dazzling that for a moment she did not see the still figure stretched upon the bed where with Maud's picture in one hand and Jerry's babies in the other her husband lay calmly sleeping the sleep which knows no waking. On his face there was a look of rapturous joy and on his lips a smile as if they were framing the loved name of Maud when death came and sealed them forever. Around him was no sign of struggle or pain for the covering was not disturbed and the physician when he came said he must have died quietly and possibly instantly without a note of warning. They buried him beside his daughter and then Dolly was alone in the house which became so intolerable to her that she left it in early August and took possession of the cottage on the ridge which did not seem haunted with the ghosts of the dead. And so it happened that Mrs. Crawford alone stood in the doorway to welcome the travelers when late in the bright October afternoon they came tired and dusty but so glad to be home once more and to feel that now it really was home to all intents and purposes. I was never so glad in my life and if Uncle Frank were here I should be perfectly happy. Jerry cried as she threw herself upon Mrs. Crawford's neck hugging and kissing her awhile and then taking her baby from the nurse she put it into the old lady's arms saying as she did so. Another grandson for you. Harold's baby. Isn't he a beauty? And little Tracy was a beautiful child with his father's features and complexion but Jerry's expression and ways and Mrs. Crawford felt as she folded him to her bosom that he would be the crowning joy of her old age. At first Harold puzzled and perplexed her he was so changed from the Harold who had shingled roofs and painted barns and worked in Peterkin's furnace. Foreign travel and prosperity set well upon him and one could scarcely have found a more refined or polished young man than Harold as he moved about the premises with a smile and pleasant word for everyone whether of high or low degree. He had known what poverty meant with slights on account of it and had risen above it all and remembering the days when he worked in the Tracy Fields and envied his companions their leisure and freedom from toil it had resolved that if possible some portion of mankind should be happier because of him. All Shannondale hastened to call upon the travelers and no one was louder or more demonstrative in his welcome than Peterkin who called himself their kin and was very proud of the connection and of his son Thomas for whom he made many inquiries. It did not take long for the family to settle down into everyday quiet Jerry proving herself a competent and thorough housekeeper while Harold was to all intents and purposes the head to whom everyone deferred and went for directions. Arthur who had half died from seasickness had at once taken to his rooms and his old mode of life telling Harold and Jerry to do what they liked and not bother him. One change however he made. He put Harold into the office in the place of Colvin who had done his business for so many years and who was glad to give it up while Harold was glad to take it as it gave him something to do and did not greatly interfere with his law studies which he immediately resumed applying himself so closely that he was admitted to practice within the year and in time became one of the ablest lawyers in the state. For another year the Ramons and St. Clairs remained abroad and then just before they sailed for home there was a double wedding one morning in London when Fred and Dick were the bridegrooms and Marion and Nina were the brides. Dick had not forgotten the night under the pines but he had ceased to remember it with pain and when he asked Marion to be his wife he told her of it and of his old love for Jerry while she in turn told him of a grave among the Alps by which she had stood with an aching heart while strangers buried from her site a young artist from Boston who had he lived would have made it impossible for her to be the wife of Dick St. Clair but Alan was dead and Jerry was a wife and a mother and so across the graves of a living and a dead love the two grassed hands and forgetting the past as far as possible were content with the new happiness offered to them. Nina's home was to be in Kentucky but Marion stayed at Grassy Spring and became Jerry's most intimate friend and a constant visitor at Tracy Park where she is always welcome. It is five years now since Harold and Jerry came home and toddling about the house is a little girl whom they call Gretchen and who has all the soft beauty of the Gretchen in the picture together with Jerry's stronger and more marked features. This little girl is Arthur's idol and has succeeded in luring him from his room in which until she came he was staying closer than ever. Now however he is with her constantly either in the house or in the grounds or sitting under a tree holding her in his lap while he talks his strange talk to the other Gretchen and the child listens wonderingly with her great blue eyes fixed upon him. This is our grandchild he will say nodding to the space beside him while little Gretchen nods too as if she also saw a figure sitting there. Our grandchild and Jerry's baby and you are its grandmother. Grandma Gretchen that's funny and then he laughs and baby laughs and says after him lispingly. Then Ma Gretchen that's funny. Then Tracy comes up with his whip and his cart and his straw hat hanging down his back and Arthur points him out to the spirit Gretchen as her grandson who he says is all hastings with a very little Tracy and not a grain of German in him but very very nice and you are his grandmother too and I am his grandfather whom he once called an old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little alligator which is Aunt Dolly that's Mrs. Frank Tracy sent him from Florida. Well you be crazy ain't you the boy says seating himself upon the bench and nesting his brown head against the arm of the man who replies I don't know whether I am or not but if to be very happy in the companionship of the living and of the dead and to have one as real as the other is craziness then I am crazy but God is good and when he took Gretchen from me he sent me your mother in the carpet bag praised be God and then for the hundredth time he tells to the boy and to the baby too the story of the carpet bag and the little girl their mother whom the boy their father found in the tramp house one wintry morning years ago and carried through the snow and Tracy who is very chivalrous and very brave and old for his ears starts to his feet with dilating eyes and says I just wish I'd been there I'd carried mama and wouldn't let her drop in the snow as papa did where was I then grandpa but grandpa does not answer and begins the story of the cherries and the latter which Tracy likes even better than that of the carpet bag particularly the part where the sun bonnet appears in the window and the shrill voice calls out mr. crazy man mr. crazy man don't you want some cherries this Arthur makes very dramatic and real and Tracy holds his breath and sometimes when the question is more real than usual little Gretchen puts out her hand and says yes give me some then the boy and the old man laugh and Tracy runs after a passing butterfly and Arthur goes on with his talk to the baby until she falls asleep and he takes her to the crib he has had put in the bay window under the picture which smiles down upon the sleeping infant whose guardian angel it seems to be the tramp house has been repaired and renovated the table mended and the rat hole stopped up and the trio frequently go there together for it is the children's playhouse where Arthur is sometimes a horse sometimes a bear and sometimes a whole menagerie of animals just as the fancy takes the restless act of Tracy once or twice Arthur has been the dead woman on the table with little Gretchen beside him in the carpet bag and Tracy tugging with all his might to lift her out but after the day when he let her fall and gave her a big bump on the forehead that kind of play ceased and the boy who had inherited his mother's talent for acting was compelled to try some other make believe than that of the tragedy on the wintry night many years before Billy Peterkin has never married and never will but he and Jerry are the best of friends and he is very fond of her children whom he often takes out in his dog cart holding Gretchen in his lap while Tracy sits beside him with the lines pretending to drive Tom is still abroad waiting for that fit of apoplexy which is to be the signal of his return but the probabilities are that he will wait a long time for Peterkin who is himself afraid of apoplexy has gone through the banding process which has reduced his weight from 50 to 75 pounds and as he is very careful in his diet Tom may stay abroad longer than he cares to do unless an Eliza's persuasions bring him home to his dreaded father-in-law there was a little girl born to them in Rome whom they called Maude but she only lived a few weeks and then they buried her under the daisies in the Protestant burying ground where so many English and Americans are lying and Eliza sent a lock of the little one's hair to her father who had it framed and hung in his bedroom and wore on his hat a band of crepe which nearly covered it while his wife was draped in black from head to foot and looked as Peterkin said about as Gentile as the Witter Tracy herself Dolly still calls the rich cottage her home but she is not often there for a mania for traveling has seized her and she is always upon the move in search of some new place where she hopes to find rest and quiet she still dresses in black relieved at times with something white but she has laid aside crepe and sports her diamonds which she did not find it necessary to sell and which attract a great deal of attention they are so clear and large one year she spent in Europe with Tom and An Eliza the latter of whom she made so uncomfortable with her constant dictation and assumption of superiority that Tom at last came to the rescue and told her either to mind her business and let his wife alone or go home as she could not do the former she came home and joined a Raymond party to California but soon separated herself from it as the members were not to her taste she said and were constantly doing something to offend her aristocratic ideas every summer she goes either to Saratoga or the seaside or the mountains and every winter she drifts southward to Florida where at certain hotels she is as well known as the oldest habit she has a mate and as far as possible keeps herself aloof from the common herd consorting only with those who she knows have money and position at home for foolish dolly who has forgotten Langley and its humble surroundings there are many like her in real life but only one in our story to which we now write the end of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes recorded by