Rosemary

J >> Josephine Lawrence >> Rosemary

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"Give it to me this instant," cried Winnie, swooping upon the
small girl.

"Oh, I've eaten it," declared Sarah pleasantly. "I thought you'd
make a fuss."

Winnie looked at Mrs. Hollister, who was moving toward the door.

"All I have to say," said the visitor majestically, "is Heaven help
the young doctor."

CHAPTER III

AUNT TRUDY COMES

"Are you going to the station, Sarah?" Sarah, stretched in luxurious
comfort on the porch rug, raised a rumpled head above her book and
frowned.

"Why should I go to the station?" she drawled.

"You know perfectly well," answered Rosemary with some impatience.
"Aunt Trudy is coming on the 4:10 and Hugh asked us to meet her."

"You go--you're the oldest," said Sarah calmly. "I want to read
about sick rabbits."

"Sarah, you know you promised mother to be good and to do the things
you thought would please her. Come on and meet Aunt Trudy--we'll all
go, you and I and Shirley," wheedled Rosemary, beginning to roll up
her knitting.

"Where's Hugh--why doesn't he go?" asked Sarah who usually exhausted
all arguments before giving in.

"Hugh's down at Dr. Jordan's and he won't be home till dinner
time," replied Rosemary. "Mother would want us to be nice to Aunt
Trudy, you know she would."

"Well, I'm going to be nice," insisted Sarah, scrambling to her feet
and hurling the book under the swing where she kept the larger part
of her dilapidated library. "I'll go to the station if I can go as I
am--I have to clean the rabbit hutch when I get back and I won't
have time to be dressing and undressing all the afternoon."

"You can't go as you are!" Rosemary surveyed her sister
appraisingly. "Your face is black and your dress has a grease
spot across the front. And you haven't any hair ribbon."

"I'll go as I am, or I won't go at all," repeated Sarah coolly.

Rosemary stabbed her long needles into her half-finished sweater and
hung her knitting bag on the back of her chair.

"Then you can stay home," she said crossly. "I'll go up and get
Shirley now and we'll go without you."

She ran upstairs, coaxed the protesting Shirley from her play of
sailing boats in the bath-tub, and was buttoning her into a clean
frock when Sarah came tramping through the hall. She occupied a
room with Shirley, while Rosemary had a room to herself connected
with the younger girls' room by a rather narrow door.

"Wait a minute and I'll go," said Sarah, jerking down her tan linen
dress from its hook in the closet.

"Is Aunt Trudy's room all ready, Winnie?" asked Rosemary, as the
three sisters stopped in the kitchen to notify that faithful
individual of their departure. "Do we look nice?"

It was impossible to look at the three faces without an answering
smile. Rosemary glowed, pink-cheeked, star-eyed, in a frock of dull
blue linen made with wide white pique collar and cuffs. Her hair
waved and rippled and curled, despite its loose braiding, almost to
her waist. Rosemary was simply going to the station to meet the 4:10
train, but nothing was ever casual to her; she met each hour
expectantly on tip-toe and, as her mother had once observed, laughed
and wept her way around the clock. Sarah smiled broadly--going to
the station to meet Aunt Trudy had, for some inexplicable reason,
resolved itself into a joke for her. Sarah was not excited and she
represented solid common-sense from her straight Dutch-cut hair to
her square-toed sandals, for no amount of argument from Rosemary
could induce her to put on her best patent leather slippers. And
Shirley--well Winnie picked up Shirley and hugged her fervently,
which was the emotion Shirley generally inspired in all beholders.
She was a young person, all yellow curls and fluffy white skirts
and tiny perfect teeth and distracting dimples.

"Miss Wright's room is in perfect order," reported Winnie, setting
Shirley down and straightening her pink sash. "I put on the
embroidered bureau scarf and the best linen sheets and pillow
cases, just as you said, Rosemary."

"And I put a bowl of lilacs on her table this morning," said
Rosemary happily, "so I guess everything has been attended to.
Do you want us to get anything up town? We're going to the
station, Winnie."

"No, my dinner's all planned," answered Winnie with pride. "What
train's Miss Wright coming on--the 4:10?"

"Yes, and Hugh said to have Bernard Coyle bring us up to the house
with his jitney," said Rosemary. "I suppose Aunt Trudy will have
some bags and parcels. You'll be round when we get back, won't you,
Winnie? I don't know exactly what to say to her."

"Bless you, child, you'll do all right," Winnie encouraged her.
"Doctor Hugh will be home to dinner and 'tisn't as if your aunt was
a total stranger."

"But she really is a total stranger," commented Rosemary, as they
began their walk to the station. "Of course she has been here a
couple of days last summer and she spent New Year's with us; but
Mother entertained her and we only saw her now and then, mostly at
the table."

"Well, we have to make the best of it now, because Hugh says we
can't upset Mother," said Sarah. "I know she will be an awful lot of
trouble and she won't know the first thing about animals."

"Maybe she'll read all the time," offered Shirley in her soft, baby
voice. "Dora Ellis has an aunt who reads books all the time and Dora
can do just as she pleases. She told me so."

"Well, don't you listen to everything Dora Ellis tells you," said
Rosemary severely. "Mother doesn't like you to play with her and
Hugh said you were not to go across the street without asking
permission; doesn't Dora Ellis live on the other side of the
street?"

"Yes, she does, but I didn't go over in her yard, not for weeks and
weeks," explained Shirley earnestly. "She told me 'bout her aunt
last year, in kindergarten."

"All right, honey, I'm not scolding," declared Rosemary, giving her
a kiss. "There's the station clock and it says half-past four. But,
pshaw, that clock never keeps time."

It was not half-past four they found, when they consulted the clock
in the ticket office, but it was close to ten minutes past and when
the three girls stepped out on the platform the smoke of the train
was already visible far up the track.

There were several people waiting, most of them Eastshore people,
and these came up and asked about Mrs. Willis. Rosemary, assuring
them that her mother was definitely declared to be out of danger,
was fairly radiant.

"Rosemary!" a girl about her own age hailed her. "I'm so glad to see
you. Daddy told us last night your mother is better, but I didn't
like to call you up because I thought perhaps you still had the
phone muffled. Mother and I are going down to the beach to stay till
after Labor Day."

"How lovely!" cried Rosemary. "You have the nicest things happen to
you, Harriet. Are you going on this train?"

"Yes, and don't I wish you were coming!" responded Harriet warmly.
"Couldn't you come down next month, if your mother is well enough to
leave?"

"Oh, goodness, Mother has gone away, to be gone a year," said
Rosemary hurriedly. "I can't go anywhere, you see. Besides Aunt
Trudy Wright is coming on this train, and Hugh is going to be
home all summer. There's your mother beckoning--run, Harriet,
and be sure you write to me."

They kissed each other and Harriet ran back to her mother and was
lost in the anxious pushing group that surrounded the steps of the
slowly stopping train.

"Hang on to Shirley, while I try to find Aunt Trudy," directed
Rosemary, with a sudden panicky feeling that she couldn't remember
what her aunt looked like.

But, as soon as she saw her, she recognized her.

"Well, Rosemary darling, you came to meet me--that's lovely I'm
sure," cried Aunt Trudy, panting slightly from her leap off the last
step of the car, to the conductor's unconcealed amazement. "And
Mother is much better, the telegram said. As soon as I heard, I
resolved nothing should keep me from you--Oh, there's Shirley and
Sarah, the dears!"

Shirley responded affectionately to her aunt's caresses, but Sarah
stood like a wooden image and submitted to being kissed with bad
grace. Aunt Trudy was too excited to be critical.

"What do I do about my trunks?" she fluttered. "And these bags are
both heavy--I've brought you girls each a little something. Is Hugh
home? And Winnie is still with you, of course?"

Rosemary wisely did not attempt to answer all these questions and,
considering that Winnie had been in the Willis family for
twenty-eight years and Aunt Trudy had unfailingly put this question
to some member of the family at every meeting for the last
twenty-seven, this particular query might be said to be more a
comment than a question.

"We'll go up to the house in Bernard Coyle's jitney," said Rosemary,
leading the way around to the side platform. "He will take your
trunk checks, Aunt Trudy, and the express man will deliver them."

Bernard Coyle ran two of the three Eastshore jitneys and personally
conducted the least ancient of his two cars. He welcomed the
prospect of four passengers with a glad smile and swung Aunt
Trudy's bags to a safe place under the seat at a nod from Rosemary.
While they climbed in, he departed with the trunk checks and
returned in a few minutes to report that the three trunks would be
in the front hall of the Willis home within an hour.

Then he took the wheel of his wheezy little car and without another
word drove frenziedly and rackingly through the quiet streets till
the Willis house was reached. Winnie, mindful of Rosemary's plea,
came out to the curb to meet them.

"Well, Winnie, I'm glad to see you again," was Miss Wright's
greeting. "You and I are to keep house and look after these flighty
young folks, I understand."

"Yes'm," nodded Winnie. "Your room's all ready, Miss Wright--the one
you always have, next to Mrs. Willis'. And Doctor Hugh said to tell
you he'd be home at quarter of six."

Aunt Trudy Wright was a rather short, dumpy woman and inclined to be
stout and short of breath. She had iron-gray hair, near-sighted dark
eyes and very pretty, very plump small hands. She exclaimed over her
room when she saw it, said that everything was lovely and insisted
on kissing the three girls again. Sarah promptly left at this point
and was discovered by her brother when he came home, lying flat on
the porch rug and absorbed in a book which dealt, in detail, with
the health and welfare of rabbits.

"Well you look comfortable," he said good-humoredly. "Aunt Trudy
come? Who went to meet her? Where are the other girls?"

"Uh-huh," grunted Sarah, interested at that moment in a description
of a balanced diet for her pets.

Dr. Hugh laughed and went on. The house seemed strangely quiet to
him, though he could hear Winnie humming in the kitchen and
appetizing odors promised a dinner on time. In the upstairs hall,
Rosemary tip-toed to meet him, her eyes dark with mystery.

"Hello, where is everyone?" asked her brother, giving her a kiss.
"What has happened to Aunt Trudy?"

"She's getting ready for dinner," explained Rosemary. "She's been
crying in Mother's room for almost an hour and then her trunks came
and she thought she'd change her dress."

"Crying in Mother's room--what for?" demanded Doctor Hugh quickly.

"Oh, because memories were too much for her," quoted Rosemary
solemnly. "She made Shirley and me cry, too, but Sarah went down
stairs when she tried to kiss her, so she didn't hear her talk."

"I'll give Sarah credit for good sense," said Doctor Hugh grimly.

He strode down the hall to his mother's room, took the key from the
inside and locked the door and dropped the key in his pocket.

"And that's that," he announced, smiling a little at Rosemary's
puzzled face.

CHAPTER IV

DR. HUGH TAKES COMMAND

Miss Wright appeared at dinner in rustling black silk, and kissed
Dr. Hugh affectionately. In her plump arms she carried three
packages.

"I brought each of the girls a box of French chocolates," she
explained, smiling. "They're simply delicious and there is just one
shop in town which imports them."

Rosemary dimpled as she untied her package, Shirley shrieked with
glee and even Sarah's "thank you, Aunt Trudy" had an unusual depth
of warmth in it. Two-pound boxes of chocolates did not appear at
dinner every day.

Dr. Hugh put down his carving knife as Shirley lifted the lid from
her beribboned box.

"I think I'll have to take charge of these boxes," he said quietly.
"Aunt Trudy is very generous to remember you so bountifully, but I
can not let you make yourselves sick. I'll keep them carefully for
you in the office and you may have a safe number every day I
promise you."

"Oh, Hugh!" Rosemary's voice was reproachful.

"I won't be sick," said Shirley with cheerful confidence.

Sarah did not speak, but she thrust her box under the edge of the
tablecloth.

"It's perfectly pure candy, Hugh, and won't hurt them," Miss Wright
assured him briskly.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I believe that the purest and most expensive
candy taken in sufficient amount, will upset the digestion of an
ostrich," said Doctor Hugh firmly. "Put the boxes on the serving
table till after dinner, Rosemary."

"And I hope you'll keep 'em under lock and key," observed Winnie as
she passed the creamed potatoes. "Sarah will be eating chocolates
for breakfast if there's none to interfere with her."

Winnie considered herself a member of the family, as indeed she was,
and she frequently took part in the table conversation except when
there were strange guests present.

Rosemary gathered up the boxes and put them on the side table and
dinner proceeded pleasantly enough. Aunt Trudy was a social soul and
seldom at a loss for something to say. She sat in the absent
mother's place and beamed upon the little circle, Dr. Hugh across
from her, Rosemary at his right, Shirley next to her and on the
other side of the round table, Sarah the silent. Sarah was certainly
a child of few words and she was never troubled by any idea that
something might be expected from her in the way of a contribution to
the general talk. To-night she sat stolidly, her dark eyes roving
now and then to the candy boxes which were behind Rosemary.

"So you're going to practice right here in Eastshore, Hugh?" Miss
Wright was saying as Winnie brought in the salad, "your mother wrote
me, before she was ill, that you expected to take Doctor Jordan's
office; has he retired?"

"No, not retired exactly," answered Hugh, "but he is planning to
take a long and much-needed vacation. He left for Maine this
afternoon. We both thought it better for many reasons to make no
change in the office--I'll take his just as he left it. Of course
I'll have some kind of a place here, too, but not many patients will
call here."

Sarah created a diversion by pushing back her plate and slipping
down from her chair.

"Where are you going, dear?" her aunt asked in surprise. "Don't you
want any dessert?"

"No, it's cornstarch pudding," said Sarah calmly.

Miss Wright apparently accepted the explanation, but Doctor Hugh
spoke sharply.

"Sarah, come back here--dinner isn't over yet."

Sarah stopped and faced him defiantly.

"I don't want any pudding," she declared, scowling. "Winnie knows I
don't like it and she always makes it."

"Come back and sit down and wait until you are excused--" Doctor
Hugh's level gaze seemed to draw the rebellious Sarah back to her
chair. "If you don't care for the pudding you needn't eat it, but
don't criticise anything that is placed before you."

His staccato tones seemed to have a tonic effect on Sarah, for she
ate the pudding when it came, without further discussion. But the
moment her aunt rose from the table, she made a bee-line for the
candy boxes.

"It's mine, Aunt Trudy gave it to me," she insisted when her brother
interfered.

"Two apiece, of such rich candy, is enough for any one," he
declared. "And one for Shirley--take the kind you want, sweetheart,
and then I'll show you where I am going to keep them for you."

"I must say I think you're too fussy, Hugh," commented Aunt Trudy,
as Shirley made a lingering selection and Rosemary passed her box to
her aunt and Winnie and then chose two of the enormous candies for
herself. "All children are fond of candy and I read only the other
day that a craving for sweets is the mark of a healthy appetite."

Doctor Hugh made no direct reply.

"Sarah, have you eaten your candy?" he asked pleasantly.

"If I can't have my own box," said Sarah with emphasis, "I won't eat
any."

"I'll put them away for you, then," declared her brother equably.
"Come and see where they'll be--in the glass cabinet in the office.
You may have two apiece after dinner till they are gone. They'll
last twice as long that way, Sarah," he added, smiling at her as he
turned the key in the cabinet and replaced his key ring in his
pocket.

The telephone rang and Winnie answered it. The doctor was wanted and
it was eight o'clock before he returned. Aunt Trudy was reading
under the living-room lamp--for the nights were still a little too
cool to be comfortable on the porch--Rosemary knitting, and Shirley
and Sarah playing dominoes on the floor.

"What time does Shirley go to bed?" the doctor asked, standing in
the doorway.

Rosemary looked up, a little troubled.

"Why she always went to bed at half-past seven when Mother was
well," she answered, "but since she was sick, Shirley got in the
habit of staying up till Sarah goes and sometimes Sarah won't go
till I do."

"And what time do you go?" inquired her brother.

Rosemary blushed and began to knit faster.

"I'm supposed to go at nine," she admitted, "but sometimes it
is--later. Honestly, Hugh, I don't see why I should go to bed at
nine o'clock like a little girl; I'm twelve, you know."

"Half-past eight would be better," said her brother, coming over to
sit on the arm of her chair, "but if Mother didn't object, we'll
still say nine. You are a little girl, dear, in spite of your great
age, you see. What about Sarah?"

"You ask more questions than any one I ever knew," cried the
exasperated Sarah with bitter frankness. "I wanted to read my rabbit
book, but Shirley teased and I played dominoes to please her. And
now I suppose you'll be saying I ought to go to bed!"

"Rosemary?" said Doctor Hugh.

"Sarah is supposed to go to bed at eight o'clock," announced
Rosemary reluctantly. "She used to argue with Mother nearly every
night. No one ever wants to go to bed early, Hugh, and lots of the
girls stay up till ten."

"Then I'm sorry for lots of girls," rejoined the doctor. "Shirley is
going to be my good girl and go to bed every night at half-past
seven, aren't you, dear? Sarah at eight and Rosemary at nine--and
that's all settled. Put up the dominoes, children, and run along for
it's twenty minutes past eight this minute."

"I don't want to go to bed," wailed Shirley.

"I'll go up with you, darling," promised Rosemary, putting down her
knitting. "I'll tell you a story about the little brown bear."

"Don't want a story," said Shirley with finality.

Aunt Trudy put down her book and surveyed her youngest niece
sympathetically.

"What's the matter with my sweetheart?" she asked, her voice tender.
"Is she afraid of the big dark?"

The doctor made an impatient exclamation.

"That's nonsense, Aunt Trudy," he said curtly. "No child of my
mother has ever been frightened of the dark; we were not brought up
that way. Every one of us has been trained to go up to bed alone at
the right time, as a matter of course. Sarah, put away those
dominoes and go upstairs to bed with Shirley."

Sarah tumbled the game into the box and stalked from the room
without a word to any one. Shirley simply threw herself flat on
the floor and cried with anger. She was sleepy and tired and she
resented this summary curtailment of her privileges. For the last
two weeks she had been going to bed when Rosemary did and she liked
the plan.

"I hope you will excuse us, Aunt Trudy," said the harassed Doctor
Hugh, scooping his small sister up from the floor and carrying her
toward the door. "We're in sad need of a little discipline, I'm
afraid."

"And you're not going to enforce it," he said grimly to himself as
he marched upstairs with the screaming Shirley. "I seem to have my
work cut out for me--I wonder how about Rosemary?"

When he came downstairs again, having seen both Shirley and Sarah
quiet and asleep, he found his sister and aunt deep in the problem
of "narrowing off."

"I just waited to say good-night to you, Hugh," said Aunt Trudy
brightly. "I'm tired from the trip and I want to start the day
well to-morrow."

She kissed him and rustled out of the room, and Rosemary folded up
her work as the deep chime of the hall clock sounded nine.

"Shirley was tired, Hugh," she said, a little timidly. "She hardly
ever acts that way. And Sarah doesn't mean to be obstinate, but she
just can't help it."

"Well, I'm glad you think to-night isn't an average performance,"
declared her brother humorously. "You're a sweet older sister,
Rosemary. The girls couldn't do better than to pattern after you."

"Oh, Hugh! You are nice--" Rosemary's voice rose in a crescendo of
pure pleasure. "But I'm not a good example--you won't say that when
you know me. I get as mad, as mad--as--Shirley."

"The more shame to you," said the doctor unbelievingly, kissing her
vivid little face. "Go to bed, child, and don't talk to me about
losing your temper."

At eleven o'clock the light was still burning in the office and
Winnie knocked lightly on the door.

"I brought you a glass of milk and a sandwich, Hughie," she said,
using the old pet name she had given him when a little lad.

"Well that's mighty thoughtful of you, Winnie dear," he said,
smiling at her. "I've been doing a little thinking this evening
and that's hungry work."

Winnie regarded him, wisdom and pride in her eyes.

"I'm thinking that healthy folks is more of a problem than sick
ones," she observed sagely. "But you're enough like your mother, to
be able to manage all right, never fear. You've her understanding
and the endurance and will of your father, Hughie, and you'll be
needing it all, but you'll work it out. Shirley is spoiled and we're
all to blame--it wasn't all done in these two weeks, either; your
mother gave in a little at a time for she was tired and her illness
has been long coming. 'Tis nothing to set right a little wrong when
the heart is pure gold like Shirley's. And you'll soon set Sarah in
her place--she needs to be set frequent-like, though if you find
the way to her liking, she'll be fond enough of you in time. It's
Rosemary I'd speak to you about at the risk of seeming to meddle."

The doctor stirred a little, but his face encouraged Winnie to
go on.

"A rose in the bud--that's Rosemary," said Winnie who scorned to
read poetry and often employed poetical fancies in her rather quaint
phrasing. "A rose in the bud and a flower of a girl. A temper that
blazes, a quick pride that bleeds at a word and a passion for loving
that sometimes frightens me. The sick and the helpless and the
young--Rosemary would mother 'em all. And she's hurt so easy, and
she dashes herself against the stone wall so blindly--you'll be
careful and patient, won't you, Hughie? For she has the Willis will,
has Rosemary and times there is no holding her."

Doctor Hugh smiled into the anxious eyes, dim with the loving
anxiety of many years.

"I'll be careful, Winnie," he promised. "And you'll help me. Thank
you for telling me--what you have."

CHAPTER V

WINNIE'S VOLUNTEERS

For the first few days after Miss Wright's arrival it seemed that
the proverb, "Many hands make light work" was to be the household
motto. Winnie was fairly swamped with offers of help and "Miss
Trudy" as she had asked Winnie to call her, and the three girls vied
with each other as to which should be the most industrious.

"For I want to be useful, Winnie," said Aunt Trudy, a winning
sincerity in her kind voice. "Only tell me what to do, because I
don't want to interfere with your daily schedule."

"And Sarah and I will make the beds and dust," promised Rosemary,
looking up from copying music.

"I'll run all your errands," chirped Shirley and was promptly
rewarded with a hug.

Winnie was a shrewd and practical general, as her answers proved. A
less experienced person would have made a vague reply, put off the
offers with a promise to "let you know when I need you" or politely
told them "not to bother." Not so Winnie.

"Well, I'll tell you, Miss Trudy," she said capably, "I don't mind
saying if you'll plan the meals, you'll be taking a load off my
shoulders. I can cook and I can serve and I can keep things hot when
the doctor is late as he'll be many a time; but unless I can have
the three meals a day printed right out and hung on my kitchen door,
I'm lost-like. It drives me wild to have to figure out what we
should eat, when it's nothing at all, to my way of thinking, to
cook it."

"I'll be glad to plan the menus," Aunt Trudy assured her. "Home I
write out the meals for the whole week every Saturday morning; I'll
do that for you without fail, Winnie."

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