Partners (10 page)

"Well, maybe I will surprise you sometime, who knows?"

"Oh yeah?" came the answer.

"You haven't changed much, have you, Aunt Ettie? But say, how about taking a little vacation yourself? How are you these days? Feeling pretty well?"

"Yeah, I'm all right. Been straightening out things and getting in shape. Thinking of renting a room. It's kinda lonesome all by myself since Ellen's gone."

"Oh, Aunt Ettie! Is your sister Ellen gone?"

"Yeah. She passed on last week. I was going ta write ye sometime soon and tell ye, but I been cleaning up an' getting the room ready in case I was ta find somebody I was willing ta hev around all the time."

"Well, I should think that it might be a good idea, if you insist on staying away off up there out of the world. But why don't you rent that whole place and come down into the real world? I might even be able to buy me a house sometime and let you be housekeeper."

"Deary me! Now, ain't that something!" she said in a pleased voice. "A-course I know ya don't mean it. But say! I did hev an offer ta sell me place a few days ago. Yes, I really did! Wha'd'ya think o' that? Only I figgered, where would I go? I'm too old to begin all over again."

"Why, I think that would be fine," said Reuben, pondering a plan. "Say, Aunt Ettie, how about trying it out for the summer to see if you would like it? Can't you rent your house with the privilege of buying at the end of the season, if you would decide to sell? I've been thinking of renting a little cottage at the shore, or somewhere in the mountains nearby. If I had you to run it, I believe I would. Of course, I couldn't be there much myself, probably, but I could run down weekends now and then. And I know a young girl who is desperately in need of rest. She works for our firm, and she's got a little brother dependent upon her, about the age I was when you first came to our house, and that kid needs to get out in the open. He's pale as a lily, and a great little kid! If I thought I could get you to come for a while, I would try and persuade them to come and take a bit of rest. The girl thinks she ought to go back to work right away, but if she does, the doctor says she won't last long. She fainted in our office the other day, and she's not been eating enough nor resting enough. Been working overtime to try to take care of the kid. They both need some good food, the kind you know how to cook! If I could arrange it, would you be willing to help me out, Aunt Ettie? I kind of think it is something Mother would have done."

There was silence for a minute at the other end of the wire and then Aunt Ettie's voice, very wary and suspicious.

"Oh! A g-u-r-l! You gotcha a g-u-r-l!"

Reuben laughed. "No, Aunt Ettie, you don't get me right. This is not my
girl
! In fact, I haven't any special girl myself. And I didn't know this girl even by sight till day before yesterday, when she fainted away in the office and my boss asked me to see that she got to the hospital. I found she was near crazy about the little brother who was in the day nursery, and no one to meet him when he was brought back to their room, so I promised to go and get him and look out for him till she could come back. But now it turns out that she's not going to be allowed to come back to work right away. She's run herself down eating so little she can scarcely stand up, saving it all for the kid. So I thought if she could have a week or two of your mothering, it would do wonders for them both. You see, Aunt Ettie, I have to go out West on a trip. At least that's what I planned to do, and I thought if you could look out for them while I have to be away, by that time the girl could likely take things in her own hands again. If you knew the kind of day nursery where I found that boy, I'm sure you'd take pity on him. He's rare. And he's only five years old! But don't get any idea of romance about this, Aunt Ettie, for that's the end of it all. The girl wouldn't stir a step if she thought
I
was doing it. I don't know that she will now. I don't know her very well. She's awful proud and reticent, sort of independent, and her folks are all dead. I'd have to invent some tale about you wanting someone to stay with you for a little while because you are lonesome or something."

"Well--" said the old lady's voice, "that all sounds very interesting except the girl. I don't like the idea of the girl. Girls are so up in the air these days, and they most of them don't act like ladies to me. I wouldn't be much at dealing with 'em."

"But you see, Aunt Ettie, this girl isn't that kind. She's shy and frightened and sad. I think even you would admit all that if you would once see her. I'm counting on you to do a lot for her, put her on her feet sort of, if she'll let you. Couldn't you see your way clear to trying it just for a few days?"

"Well, seeing it's you, I might
think
about it, but I'm not so sure. If it was just you an' the kid, I'd jump at the chance. But a
girl
is a diffrunt proposition. I don't think I'd enjoy the idea of you having a girl, anyway.
Any
kind of a girl!"

"But I tell you she's
not my
girl, she's just
a
girl. She's just a plain girl, and she's taken an awful beating, too. But she's not
my
girl at all."

"Oh,
yeah
?" said Aunt Ettie incredulously. "Well, Reubie, seeing it's you, I'll promise to
think
about it, but I ain't saying what I'll think."

Reuben was almost angry, yet very much amused, too. And it was so like Aunt Ettie! Strange he hadn't thought of this and guarded against this idea.

"All right, Aunt Ettie," he said wearily. "I guess I can trust your good heart to come out on top. I'll call you up again tomorrow to get your answer, and meantime I'll be looking around for a cottage. Which do you prefer, the mountains or the shore?"

"
Shore!
" said Aunt Ettie promptly. "I'm fed up on mountains right now."

"Well, don't be disappointed if the girl turns the idea down. She's determined to get back to work and support her brother."

Reuben turned away from the telephone booth with a grin. Aunt Ettie was all right. She hadn't changed a mite. She would take in even a dying dog and nurse it up, but she'd never let anybody know she was going to do it. She would be docile as a petunia when he called her up again, but she always had to have her say. She would probably have decided what kind of curtains she wanted at the cottage windows by this time.

But there was a stiffer proposition before him yet than even Aunt Ettie represented, and that was the girl. She had a very firm little chin and courageous eyes.

His
girl! The very idea! He would certainly take great care that the girl knew he did not consider her his property.

He went back to the room upstairs. It seemed to him that he had been gone a long time, but he felt a thrill to see the light of joy in the little boy's eyes. He was glad to see him. And he could see by both faces that they had been having a good time together.

"Well," he said as he stood at the foot of the bed and looked at the frail girl lying there, "it's just as I thought. That Evelyn girl had your letters all finished and off. Those office girls, you'll find, are all pretty good sports when it comes to a pinch. There isn't anything they won't do to help another. I've found that out before. They may look silly and frivolous sometimes, but they are right there when there is a necessity. And they are bright as they make them."

Then he turned to Noel.

"And now, young man, don't you think it is about time that we went away and allowed this sister of yours to take a rest? She's had a lively morning, and she needs to forget it all. How is that, Nurse? Isn't that right?"

"Yes," said the nurse, coming forward with a spoonful of medicine poised above a glass, "I was just going to suggest that you must take a nap before lunch, Miss Guthrie."

So Noel tiptoed very quietly over to the bed and, stooping down, kissed Gillian's fingertips softly. Then he looked up at Reuben and smiled.

"Awright, Reuben!" he said, sliding his small hand inside Reuben's. Reuben grasped it warmly and looked toward the sister with a glance that showed he really liked it. Gillian's eyes thanked the young man for his graciousness to the child.

So they went away, and Gillian lay there thinking how wonderful it was that this young man had been so kind to them. It must be that God had sent him! And there was a look of more peace on her brow than had been there for a long time. Almost immediately she fell into a natural sleep, for once unhaunted by dreams of ugly uncles who kidnapped little boys.

Noel walked away quite happily with Reuben. His heart was set at rest about Gillian. He was not wise enough to realize how sick she had been and that she was not yet on the safe side. He had faith to believe that God and the doctor and Reuben were going to cure her, so he was free to enjoy the other good things that had come to him so unexpectedly.

"Now, where do we go?" he asked with bright, eager gaze.

"Why, I think we ought to go to your room and get those things your sister wanted. Did she tell you just what they were?"

The boy nodded.

"Yes, she put them on my fingers. The first is her robe, the pretty blue one of our mother's. It hangs inside the curtain in the corner of the room. The next is a little box of clean clothes on the floor of the closet. There aren't many. Just in a pasteboard box. And I'm to put our mother's and father's pictures from the bureau in the box and carry it very carefully. And then on my middle finger was her handkerchiefs and her little white collar, and the mother-of-pearl pin, because she was afraid someone might get in and steal it. It is the only nice thing she has left of Mother's. I'm to pin it on a clean handkerchief that's in the middle bureau drawer, and get a clean pair of stockings. And then on my little finger is her hairbrush and toothbrush."

He was counting them out on his fingers most seriously, and Reuben watched him amusedly.

"And then," he went on, "we put my things all on the hand. I've got some clean things, a pair of socks and a necktie. She said I might bring that, only I don't know how to tie it very well."

"Well, I guess we can manage that." Reuben smiled indulgently.

"There's an old sweater, too. She thought I might need it if it got any colder at night, but she said it wasn't very respectable. She said ask you what you better bring for me."

"All right," said Reuben. "We'll manage, I guess. I have to get a new suitcase for myself, and we can get it before we go there and carry the things in that."

"That will be nice!" said the child happily. "Can we take the things to her today?"

"Oh, yes, we'll run in for about five minutes toward night. We mustn't tire her, you know."

"No, we won't tire her!" And the eager little boy gave a skip or two as he hurried along beside Reuben.

They got the suitcase and then took a taxi to the plain, barnlike rooming house where Gillian and her small brother had made their home for some months past. Reuben's heart was wrung when he climbed the steep stairs, three flights of them, to think what that frail girl had gone through.

The little room was scrupulously clean when Noel unlocked the door with his key that hung around his neck and they stepped within, but there was so very little in it that sudden tears came to the young man's eyes. How had these two existed?

The closet was a calico curtain hung from two nails to hide a row of nails driven into a board on the rough wall. There were two cots, just canvas stretchers. Poor children! What beds. Coarse sheets, cheap cotton blankets, an old thin wool blanket for Noel's bed. A pine bureau whose drawers opened crazily, a box with a tin basin and pitcher for a washstand, and on another box a rusty old hot plate with a tin teakettle and a saucepan for cooking. Reuben was appalled at the scarcity of what he had always considered necessities. And yet in the midst of all that poverty there were two handsome miniatures standing on the bureau, a man and a woman, both with fine faces; there was a worn Bible, and there was a pearl pin! It all told a sorrowful story and revealed a lot of character in the girl who had dared to run away from her persecutor and take on herself the responsibility of a small child. It was heartbreaking.

Reuben helped Noel gather up his things and put them all in the new suitcase, and just as they were about to leave, Noel said: "Oh, yes, there was one more thing. There is a little tin box in the bureau drawer with some papers in it. Gillian told me to be sure and bring it. She put a kiss on my chin to remember it before I left the room."

They found the tin box that was fastened with a tiny padlock.

"Are you sure your sister has the key for this box, Noel?" asked Reuben.

"Oh, yes, I'm sure!" said Noel. "She wears it around her neck on a ribbon."

What a child! And what a life theirs must have been!

"Now," said Reuben as they went down the long flights of stairs, "we are going to get some lunch, and then we'll spend a few minutes in the toy department of that store where we got the suitcase. Will you like that?"

"Oh, I will. Gillian always said that sometime, if she could ever afford a day off, she would take me. She did take me once to see a store window full of toys last Christmas, one evening. It was all lighted up pretty and had a Santa Claus in the window. It was very nice. Only Gillian had to hurry home to finish some envelopes she had to address, and we couldn't stay long enough to see everything."

"Well, we'll stay and see a lot of things, and then some other day, we'll go again and see some more, so you won't get too tired today. Remember we have to go to the hospital for a few minutes yet before dark."

The child was tired but happy, and after lunch he seemed to bloom right up again and be all eager for the toy department, so they went their rounds, and on the side Reuben purchased three or four games that he thought the boy could play and took them with him. They would have a game tonight perhaps after they returned from the hospital. Really, Reuben was enjoying all this as much as Noel.

All too soon for Noel it came time to get back to the hospital, and even Noel was glad to climb into a taxi and rest his head back. It was hard work, this shopping, when you weren't accustomed to it!