Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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Belle K. Maniates >> Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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"Then," said the Boarder beamingly, "the bay winder shall be cut out
ter-morrer."
"Don't cut it _out_!" said Amarilly alarmed.
"I don't mean in a slang way," he said, laughing. "I mean cut out with a
saw."
When Lily Rose was brought over one starlight night in budding May to
see the beautiful aperture that would eventually become a bay window and
face the solitary tree, two dewy drops of joy came into her eyes. Before
them all she raised her pale, little face for a kiss which the Boarder
bestowed with the solemn air of one pronouncing a benediction, for Lily
Rose was chary of outward and visible expressions of affection, and he
was deeply moved by this voluntary offering.
The Annex grew rapidly, but its uprising was not accomplished without
some hazard and adventure. There was an exciting day when Cory fell
through the scaffolding where she had been climbing. She suffered a
moment of unconsciousness and a bump on her head.
"An inch nigher her brain, and it would have killed her!" exclaimed the
mother in tragic tones.
"An inch of miss is as good as a mile," said the Boarder
philosophically.
There was also a thrilling moment when Iry thrust his head through the
railings of the new porch. Satisfied with his outlook, he would fain
have withdrawn, but was prevented by an unaccountable swelling of his
pate. Flamingus, coming to the rescue and working seemingly on the
theory that his skull might be compressible, tried to pull him backward,
but the frantic shrieks of Iry caused this plan of ejection to be
abandoned.
"The rest of him is smaller than his head," observed Amarilly
practically, as she arrived upon the scene and took a comprehensive view
of the case, "Push him through, Flam, and I'll go around on the other
side and get him."
Iry, safely landed in Amarilly's arms, laughed his delight, and thinking
it a sort of game, was about to repeat his stunt of "in and out."
"It's time something was done to you," said Amarilly determinedly,
"before you get killed in this place. I am going to spank you, Iry, and
Co, too. I am going to spank you both fierce. And you are to keep away
from the new part."
In spite of wailing protests, Amarilly administered a spanking to the
two younger children that worked effectually against further repetition
of their hazardous performances. But Bobby tobogganed down the roof
during its shingling and sprained his ankle, which necessitated the use
of crutches.
"He can break his neck if he wants to," remarked Amarilly, when besought
by Co to punish him too.
Mrs. Jenkins lost a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud
sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were
cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle
to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so tenderly over every
part and plank of the Annex that there was no chance for mishap.
When the lathing and plastering were completed, the little bride-elect
began to tremble with timidity and happiness at the consciousness of the
nearness of her approaching transfer to the Home.
The plan of the Boarder had been to leave the walls rough and unfinished
till their settling process should be accomplished, but Amarilly,
absorbed heart and soul in this first experience of making a nesting
place, pleaded for paper--"quiet, pretty paper with soft colors," she
implored, Derry's teachings now beginning to bear fruit in Amarilly's
development of the artistic.
"Amarilly, we can't hev everything to onct," he rebuked solemnly. "The
paper'll crack as sure as fate, if you put it on now."
"Let it crack!" defied Amarilly. "Then you can put on more. You're away
nearly all day, and the rest of us are at work, but if Lily Rose has to
sit here all day and look at these white walls that look just like sour
bread that hasn't riz"--Derry had not yet discovered this word in
Amarilly's vocabulary--"she'll go mad."
"Amarilly," sighed the Boarder, "you'll hev me in the poorhouse yit!"
"Oh, dear!" sighed Amarilly. "I'll have to let you into another secret.
Mr. Meredith is going to give you and Lily Rose a handsome centre-table
and an easy-chair. There won't be any surprises left for you by the time
the wedding is over, but you're so set, I have to keep giving things
away to you."
"That makes me think," remarked the Boarder. "I was going to ask you
what I'd orter give the preacher fer marryin' Lily Rose and me. The
fireman of Number Six told me he give two dollars when he was spliced,
but you see Mr. Meredith is so swell, I'd orter give more."
Amarilly gazed reflectively into space while she grappled with this
proposition.
"Do you know," she said presently, with the rare insight that was her
birthright, "I don't think Mr. Meredith would like money--not from you--
for Lily Rose. You see he's a sort of a friend, and you'd better give
him a present because money, unless it was a whole lot, wouldn't mean
anything to him."
"That's so," admitted the Boarder, "but what kin I give him?"
Amarilly had another moment of thought.
"Make him a bookrack. Mr. Derry will draw you the design, and you can
carve it out. You can do it noons after you eat your luncheon, then you
won't lose any time building the house."
"That's jest what I'll do. So with the fee saved and the cheer and table
out, I kin paper the rooms. You find out what kind Lily Rose wants and
help her pick it out."
"She'll choose blue," lamented Amarilly, "and that fades quick."
Lily Rose was easily persuaded to let Derry be consulted. He promptly
volunteered to tint the walls, having studied interior decorations at
one time in his career. He wrought a marvellous effect in soft grays and
browns with bordering graceful vines.
Lily Rose by taking advantage of a bargain sale on suits saved enough
from her trousseau to curtain the windows in dainty blue and white
muslin.
Derry then diverted the appropriation for an ingrain carpet to an
expenditure for shellac and paint with which he showed Amarilly how to
do the floors. Some cheap but pretty rugs were selected in place of the
carpet.
At last the Annex was ready for painting. Lily Rose wistfully stated
that she had always longed to live in a white house, so despite the fact
that the Jenkins house proper was a sombre red, the new part was painted
white.
"'Twill liven the place up," Amarilly consoled herself, while Colette
breathed a sigh of relief that the Annex was not to be entirely
conventional.
At Amarilly's suggestion, the woodwork was also painted white.
"Hard to keep clean," warned Amarilly, divided in her trend of
practicality and her loyalty to St. John's favorite color. White won.
The moment the paint was dry and the Annex announced "done," the Boarder
took Lily Rose to view their prospective domicile. They were
unaccompanied by any of the family, but it took the combined efforts of
Mrs. Jenkins, Amarilly, and Flamingus, whose recent change in voice and
elongation of trousers gave him an air of authority, to prevent a
stampede by the younger members.
Lily Rose returned wet-eyed, sweetly smiling, and tremulous of voice,
but the Boarder stood erect, proud in his possessions.
Colette vetoed the plan for Amarilly to settle in the absence of the
groom and bride.
"If you have it all furnished beforehand," she argued, "there will be
just so much more room to entertain in on the night of the wedding."
And then Lily Rose confessed that "she'd love to be 'to hum' in her own
place."
"But they won't be furnished," argued Amarilly.
"Oh, yes, they will," assured Colette. "It's etiquette--" she paused to
note Amarilly writing the word down in a little book she carried--"for
people to send their presents before they come, and you can settle as
fast as they come in."
The wedding gifts all arrived the day before the wedding. The base-
burner, though not needed for some months, was set up, because the
Boarder said he would not feel at home until he could put his feet on
his own hearth. John Meredith sent an oaken library table and an
easy-chair. Derry's offering was in the shape of a beautiful picture
and a vase for the table.
The best man, who fortunately had appealed to Amarilly for guidance,
gave a couch. The Jenkins family, assessed in proportion to their
respective incomes, provided a bedroom set. Lily Rose's landlady sent a
willow rocker; the girl friends at the factory a gilt clock; the
railroad hands, six silver spoons and an equal number of forks. Lily
Rose's Sunday-school teacher presented a lamp. A heterogeneous
assortment of articles came from the neighbors.
These presents were all arranged in the new rooms by Lily Rose, and the
elegance of the new apartment was overwhelming in effect to the
household.
"It looks most too fine to feel to hum in," gasped the Boarder. "It
makes me feel strange!"
"It won't look strange to you," assured the bride-elect, looking shyly
into his adoring eyes, "when you come home and find me sitting here in
my blue dress waiting for you, will it?"
"No!" agreed the Boarder with a quick intake of breath, "'Twill be home
and heaven, Lily Rose."
CHAPTER XXIII
Shyly and perversely Lily Rose had postponed the trying on of her
borrowed wedding waist until the day preceding the great event.
"There won't be time to fit it," pleaded Amarilly.
And Lily Rose had smiled a faraway smile and said her veil would cover
it anyway. But finally Amarilly's pleas prevailed and the beloved
garment was brought forth.
Amarilly took it reverently from its wrappings and held it up to view.
After many exclamations of wonder and admiration, Lily Rose, who had
removed her dress, essayed to try it on.
"Why, Amarilly," she said, struggling to get her arm into the sleeve,
"there's something the matter! It's sewed together, or something."
Amarilly hastened to investigate.
"Oh!" she gasped, after thrusting her hand within, "to think it should
be in here, for I am sure this is what Miss King has been looking for so
long. Wait until I go and ask ma about it."
She hurried to the kitchen precinct of the house.
"Oh, Ma, do you know how this came in Miss King's lace waist? The one
that was here through the fever?"
"Why, didn't you ever take that home?"
"Yes," informed Amarilly, "but she made me a present of it, and I put it
away to keep till I was--grown up. And I want to lend it to Lily Rose to
be married in. And when she went to try it on, she found this in the
sleeve."
Mrs. Jenkins paused in the sudsing of a garment.
"Let me see!" she said, surveying the object with reminiscent scrutiny.
"Oh, yes, I remember now. I found it on the floor the day she was here,
afore the waist was ready for her. I thought she had dropped it, and so
I pinned it in the sleeve of her dress, and was goin to tell Gus to give
it to her, but he didn't take the waist hum, and then so much happened,
it went clean out of my mind."
"I'll go right over to her house with it now," said Amarilly.
Lily Rose, adorned in the filmy, white waist, entered the kitchen.
"See, Amarilly," she said delightedly. "It's a beautiful fit!"
But Amarilly had something on her mind of more moment even than Lily
Rose's wedding garments.
"I am glad it fits," she said hurriedly, scarcely vouchsafing a glance
toward Lily Rose as she caught up her hat, and hastened as fast as the
street-cars would take her to Colette. Orders had been given for the
admittance of Amarilly at any hour and to any room her young patroness
might chance to be occupying. This morning she was in her boudoir.
"Oh, Miss King!" cried Amarilly, her face aglow. "I guess I have found
it!"
Colette's heart began to flutter and the wavering beat became a steady
throb when Amarilly handed her the long lost article.
"Oh, Amarilly, you darling! Yes, yes, this is it! And it evidently has
not been touched. Where did you find it? Who had it?" Amarilly related
the story of its discovery.
"Then, but for your generosity, Amarilly, this would have been in the
waist for years, so I am going to reward you. You shall make Lily Rose a
wedding present of the waist, and when you are married, I shall give you
a real, white wedding gown of white satin with a bridal train!"
"Oh, Miss King! I must get married then, even if I have to do it in a
leap year!"
"Of course you will marry. I shall pick out the bridegroom myself. I
feel like doing almost anything for you, Amarilly."
"Do you, truly?" asked Amarilly. "Then I wish you would--"
"Tell me, dear!" urged Colette. "I'll do anything for you to-day."
"Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little peacemaker.
"Amarilly! I will, indeed--nicer than you can imagine, or he either. And
tell me, is Lily Rose still happy--very happy?"
"Yes," replied Amarilly. "So happy, and so scared-like, and she's going
to dress at our house and could you come early and fix on the veil? We
don't just know how it goes."
[Illustration: "Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little
peacemaker.]
"Of course I will. And now will you take a little note to St. John for
me on your way home?"
"Yes, Miss King. And are you going to tell him it is found?"
"No, Amarilly; not until to-morrow night, so don't say anything about it
to him."
The rector looked up with a welcoming smile when Amarilly was shown into
his study.
"I came with a note from her," she said with a glad little intonation in
her voice.
John took it eagerly. His face fell at the first few words which told
him not to call for her to-morrow night on the way to the wedding, but
it brightened amazingly when he read the reason--the adjusting of Lily
Rose's bridal veil; it fairly radiated joy when he read:
"I am not going to be disagreeable to--anyone to-morrow. I shall 'let my
light shine' on Lily Rose and--every one. If you will keep your carriage
to-morrow night, I will send mine away and ride home with you."
CHAPTER XXIV
On the night of the auspicious occasion, Mrs. Jenkins's home presented a
scene of festivity. Neighbors had loaned their lamps, and the brakeman
had hung out his red lantern in token of welcome and cheer. It was,
however, mistaken by some of the guests as a signal of danger, and they
were wary of their steps lest they be ditched. Mrs. Hudgers ventured the
awful prognostication that "mebby some of them Jenkins brats had gone
and got another of them ketchin' diseases."
When they entered the house there was a general exclamation of
admiration. The curtain partitions had been removed, and the big room
was beautifully decorated with festoons and masses of green interspersed
with huge bunches of June roses.
Derry and Flamingus received the guests. Upstairs the Boarder and the
brakeman were nervously awaiting the crucial moment. The door into the
Annex was closed, for in the sitting-room was the little bride, her pale
cheeks delicately tinted from excitement as Colette artistically
adjusted the bridal veil, fastening it with real orange blossoms.
Amarilly hovered near in an ecstasy which was perforce silent on account
of her mouth being full of pins.
"There's Mr. St. John's carriage," she managed to murmur as she peered
from the window.
Colette dropped her paper of pins, went hastily into the adjoining
bedroom and slipped out again before John Meredith was ushered in where
the surplice immaculately laundered, was waiting to be donned by its
original owner.
After slipping it on, John's hand from force of habit sought the pocket
and there encountered something. He drew it forth wonderingly. It was a
small, silver-monogrammed envelope sealed and addressed to him in
Colette's handwriting. He read the note once, twice, thrice. Then there
was a knock at the door that led into the Annex sitting-room. He opened
it to admit Amarilly.
"Are you ready?" she asked. "You're to go in with them. They--"
She paused and stared at him. The transformation in his face was
wonderful.
"Yes, I am ready, Amarilly," he replied, and something in his voice
sounded strange to her.
He followed her into the next room where the Boarder, awkward in his
Sunday clothes, but regal in his pride in the little, white-veiled
figure at his side, was awaiting him.
John walked out into the Jenkins's part of the house with them, while
Amarilly slipped home by way of the Annex bedroom.
The entrance was certainly effective to the neighbors.
"Ain't she a lily though!" "Look at that long veil onct!" "Jest like 'a
picter!" "What a swell waist" "That big bo'quet!" "I niver seed sech
flowers afore." "That surplus makes it look like picters!"
All these comments were sweet music in Amarilly's ear. Only one person
had regrets. Mrs. Hudgers was visibly disappointed.
"I thought they'd hev candles a-burnin'," she confided to Mrs. Huce.
"Don't you know no better than that?" scoffed Mrs. Huce with a superior
air. "Them things is only used by Irish folks."
Derry's dancing eyes looked to Colette for appreciation of this
statement, but her eyes and attention were entirely for John.
The ceremony began. John's impressive voice, with its new pervading note
of exultant gladness, reached them all, tempering even Derry's light-
hearted mirth. It gave courage to the little bride whose drooping head
rose like a flower, and a light shone in her eyes as she made the
responses sweetly and clearly. It found echo in the Boarder, whose
stooping shoulders unconsciously straightened and his voice grew clear
and strong as he promised to have and to hold. It found a place in
Colette's heart which sent illumining lights into her starry eyes.
When the solemn ceremony ended, and the Boarder and Lilly Rose were
pronounced man and wife, the guests flocked forward to offer
congratulations. Then they were bidden to adjourn to the Annex that they
might view the bride's domain, while Mrs. Jenkins assisted by many
helping hands set the long tables, a small one being reserved for the
Boarder, the bride, Mr. Cotter, and Mrs. Jenkins and Iry.
"I thought they could eat more natural," whispered the considerate
little Amarilly to Colette, "if there weren't no strangers with them."
Colette, John, and Derry were also honored with a separate table. Mrs.
Hudgers and Amarilly "dished up and poured" in the woodshed, while the
boys acted as waiters, having been thoroughly trained by Amarilly for
the occasion.
"Do you know," laughed Derry, "I was so surprised and relieved to find
that the Boarder had a cognomen like other people. It never occurred to
me before that he must of course have a name."
Colette smiled politely but perfunctorily. She was living too deeply
to-night to appreciate wit. John, too, was strangely silent, his eyes
resting often and adoringly upon Colette. Shrewdly Derry divined the
situation and relieved it by rattling on with a surface banter that
demanded no response.
"These refreshments," he observed, "are certainly the handiwork of my
little maid. They have a flavor all her own. I am proud of Amarilly's
English, too."
"I wonder," said Colette, "if you are doing quite right, Mr. Phillips,
in improving Amarilly to such an extent? I am afraid she will grow
beyond her family."
"No; even you, pardon me, Miss King, don't know Amarilly as I do. She
couldn't get beyond them in her heart, although she may in other
directions. Her heart is in the right place, and it will bridge any
distance that may lie between them."
John looked up attentively and approvingly.
"Amarilly has too much aptitude for learning not to be encouraged, and I
shall do more for her before long. We have pursued a select course of
reading this winter. She has read aloud while I painted. We began
stumblingly with Alice in Wonderland and are now groping through
mythology."
After refreshments had been served, Lily Rose went to her bedroom to don
her travelling gown, and when the happy couple had driven away amid a
shower of rice and shouts from the neighbors, John's carriage drew up.
"John," asked Colette, after a happy little moment in his arms, "did you
read my note and did you see what the date was?"
"Colette, surely it was the dearest love-letter a man ever received. If
I could have had it all these dreary months!"
"Do you wonder that I feared its falling into strange hands?"
"Tell me its history, Colette. How you recovered it, and why you thought
it was in the surplice in the first place?"
"I wrote it the day after you asked me--you know--"
There was another happy disappearance and silence before she resumed:
"I was sentimental enough to want to deliver it in an unusual way. I
took it to Mrs. Jenkins's house the day your surplice was to be returned
to you, and I slipped it inside the pocket. I wanted you to find it
there on Sunday morning. I didn't know what to think when you looked at
me so oddly that Sunday--yes, I know now that you were wondering at my
silence. And when we came home in the fall and I learned from Amarilly
that strangers might be reading and laughing at my ardent love-letter,
which must have passed through many and alien hands, I was so horrified
I couldn't act rational or natural. I was--yes, I will 'fess up, John,--
I was unreasonable, as you said and--No, John! wait until I finish
before you--"
"You want to know how and where it was found? It seems at the same time
your surplice was laundered, a lace waist of mine was at their house. I
didn't care for a 'fumigated waist' so, like you, I made Amarilly a
present perforce. She laid it away in its wrappings to keep until her
wedding day. Out of the goodness of her generous little heart she loaned
it to Lily Rose and yesterday, when they were trying it on, Amarilly
found my note in the sleeve. Mrs. Jenkins was appealed to and remembered
that when the things were ready to be sent home, she found the note on
the floor, and supposing it had fallen from the waist slipped it inside
and forgot all about it. I decided that it should be delivered in the
manner originally planned."
"But, Colette," he asked wistfully, a few moments later, "if you had
never found it would you have kept me always in suspense and never have
given me an answer? I began to hope, that night I called, that you were
relenting."
"I was, John. Amarilly had been telling me of the Boarder's love for
Lily Rose, and it made me lonely for you, and I determined in any event
to give you your answer--this answer--to-night. And so I did, and--I
think that is all, John."
"Not all, Colette."
CHAPTER XXV
The dairy business continued to prove profitable to Gus, the cow
remaining contented, loving and giving. One night, however, there came
the inevitable reaction, and the gentle creature in the cow-shed felt
the same stifling she had rebelled against on the night of the stampede
when she had made her wild dash for liberty. Moved by these
recollections, the sedate, orderly cow became imbued with a feeling of
unrest, and demolishing the frail door was once more at large. In a
frenzy of freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat
impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line,
was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung,
veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas
horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it
twined itself like a white wraith about the horns.
Then the sportive animal frisked over the low back fence and across the
hill, occasionally stepping on a released end of the surplice and
angrily tearing her way through the garment. She made her road to the
railroad track. That sight, awakening bitter memories of a packed
cattle-car, caused her to slacken her Mazeppa-like speed. While she
paused, the night express backed onto the side track to await the coming
of the eastbound train. The cow, still in meditation, was silhouetted in
the light of a harvest moon.
"This 'ere," a home-bound cattleman was saying to a friend on the
platform, "is nigh onto whar we dropped a cow. I swar if thar ain't that
blasted cow now, what? Know her from hoof to horn, though what kind of a
Christmas tree she's got on fer a bunnit, gits me! Ki, yi! Ki, yi!"
At the sound of the shrill, weird cry, the animal stood at bay. Again
came the well-known strident halloo. A maelstrom of memories was
awakened by the call. Instinctively obeying the old summons she started
toward the train, when from over the hill behind her she heard another
command.
"Co, boss! Co, boss!"
The childish anxious treble rose in an imploring wail.
The cow paused irresolute, hesitating between the lure of the old life
on the plains and the recent domestic existence.
"Co, boss!"
There was a note of entreaty, of affection, in the cry.
After all, domesticity was her birthright. With an answering low of
encouragement the black cow turned and trotted amiably back to meet the
little dairyman.
"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the cattleman, as the train pulled out.
"I'd a swore it was old Jetblack. Maybe 'twas. She was only a milker
anyway, and I guess she's found a home somewhere."
Gus with arm lovingly about the cow's neck walked home.
"Bossy," he said in gently reproaching tones, "how could you give me
such a skeer? I thought I'd lost you, and I'd hev sure missed you--you,
yerself--more'n I would the money your milk brings us."
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