Partners (20 page)

"Oh, no, I'm perfectly all right," Gillian assured him. "I feel as if I were on my way to heaven," she said with a look of childish happiness that made her resemblance to Noel plainer than ever.

"Oh, not heaven just yet, I trust!" laughed Reuben. "I'm glad it seems delightful to you, but we don't want you to leave even for heaven at present, do we, Noel?"

Noel turned startled eyes to his.

"Oh, no! Not my Gillian! Not for a long, long time!" And then he looked fearfully back toward his sister as if to assure himself that she was all right.

But Gillian and Reuben suddenly laughed, a sweet clear laugh, which somehow seemed to bring them both together and make them feel more intimate.

"That's all right, son, don't worry!" said Reuben as he saw that the anxiety was still in the child's young eyes. "Can't you see how pink her cheeks are? She's all right. She only meant she was having a nice time!"

A slow smile began to dawn on Noel's face, and he turned to Gillian again. "Is that right, Gillian? Are you only having a nice time?"

"Yes, dear, I'm having a wonderful time," she reassured him. "And so are you, aren't you?"

"
Oh, yes!
" said the child with emphasis and a great sigh of satisfaction. "I wish--I wish--it could be--like this, always!"

"Why, yes," said Reuben heartily, "that would be nice, wouldn't it?" And suddenly in his heart he felt that was the truth. This was a very happy occasion for him also, a combination that gave rest and peace in the heart and a kind of rare anticipation of what was to come the rest of the day. He didn't stop to analyze that feeling and wonder why it was there. It was enough to take this day and enjoy it and feel that in no way would he have it differently. This sweet girl and her dear young brother there in his care, wholly dependent upon him, just out to have a good time together. Yes, he wouldn't at all mind if this were to go on forever. Even if he never saw Agnes again, nor went to that wedding at all. He had gotten along for several pleasant years without Agnes, and though she might be a very fine girl and have grown up wonderfully, why should he worry about her? He was just happy today, and as for that Glinden girl, well, he had always been doubtful about her. She might be all right in her own environment, but it was a far cry between her environment and his, and why bother about her? Not today anyway!

They passed the airport and stopped to see a plane take off and another one come in, and enjoy Noel's wonder over them. They passed a field of flowers brightly colored and lush. They went into a thick grove of trees and then came out to a quiet miniature lake where waterlilies lay on its mere surface, their chins resting on wide, motionless green leaves. Noel wished he could go out and pick one and wanted to know if he could wade out there and get one.

"No, that lake would be too deep to wade in, but perhaps sometime during the summer we'll find a chance to go waterlilying where there is a boat. They sometimes have such ponds at the shore. Maybe there is one not too far away from the shore where we are going, and when I come down to see you, I'll try to see if there is a boat we could get to have a try at some lilies!"

The bright little face was full of joy at the thought.

"And perhaps there'll be some swans. Did you ever see swans?"

"Did I, Gillian? I don't remember."

"No, I don't think you have ever seen swans except in picture books."

"Oh, yes, once in a picture book!" said Noel. "They have long curly necks like white snakes, don't they?"

"Something like that," said Reuben with a grin. "Well, I think we'll have to make it our business to hunt up some swans sometime and let you get acquainted with them."

And then as they went on under clear skies and into the sunshine, there came a tang in the air.

"I smell the ocean, Reuben," said the little boy. "I do, don't you? Gillian, did you know the ocean had a smell? You smell it, don't you, Reuben?"

"Oh, yes," said Reuben. "It smells of salt here and fishes having a nice time swimming in the waves, and sand, and little branches of seaweed."

"Yes," said Noel. "I thought that, too, only I had no words to match, you know. But you always have words. And then there would be little white sandpipers, too, and lovely big gulls. Wait till you see them, Gillian. You'll like it, oh, how much!"

"Yes, I shall like it!" said Gillian, twinkling her eyes in response, and Reuben looking back caught her lovely expression and was stirred to sudden wonder over her unexpected beauty. She was really a beautiful girl, with that little pink in her cheeks and her eyes so bright and her hair blowing in soft tendrils of curl about her face. She looked so different from the girl he had brought away from the office that it almost seemed she could not be the same.

And now they were coming into the region of summer resorts. Long stretches without trees, tall thin grasses by the way, coming separately out of the white, white sand, and a far line of thin blue against the skyline.

"There's the ocean!" said Reuben in an eager voice. "See it, Noel? Over there, and there's a couple of ships! Can you see them sailing along?"

"Yes! Yes! I see them! Look, Gillian! Look quick! Those are ships! Real ships!" called the excited child.

And then they drove into the little seashore town and down the street where they first had entered, straight down to the ocean that Gillian might get a whiff of real sea air and see the ships before they sailed away out of sight.

Gillian sat up and drew in long breaths of good air.

"Oh, this is enough to make anybody well if they were very sick!" she said as she put back her shoulders and drew in another deep breath. "Oh, it is so long, so long since I can remember smelling salt air!"

"Well, now," said Reuben at last, "I think we had better go and find our cottage and Aunt Ettie. You are getting too tired, I'm afraid, and you need to lie down and shut your eyes and forget everything but just breathing."

Smiling, he turned the car up the beach and drove until they could see the white cottage standing on its bluff, looking out to the sea, its green shutters folded neatly back, like a lady waiting for guests.

"There it is! There's the cottage, Gillian! Look!" cried Noel. "Isn't it pretty? See the porch and the little evergreen trees, and the window boxes in the windows with real flowers in them!"

And so they drew up in front of the little white dream cottage that Gillian had tried to envision all the way down. She saw that it was real and just as pretty as they had said. And there came Aunt Ettie bustling out the screen door, shutting it carefully behind her, and then hurrying down the little front path, rolling her sleeves down from her elbows to receive her guests properly. And she looked just as Reuben had said she would.

For the first few sentences Aunt Ettie was entirely occupied with Reuben, scolding him for being a half hour behind the time he had said he would be. And then she turned to Noel and sized him up.

"You're for all the world like this man useta be when I first went to live with his mother a great many years ago," she said, and Noel looked up and smiled as if she had just crowned him king. That won her entirely, and she said: "Well, hop out and let's begin to live. There's a plate of cookies in on the dining room table----oh, I forgot, there isn't any dining room--but you run in and you'll find them----and I'll warrant you'll be hungry by now, no matter how late you had your breakfast. Good healthy boys are always hungry!"

Then she turned her attention to Gillian, and Gillian looked into her true, kindly eyes and smiled. Not a smile that claimed anything for herself but just a smile of thanks for the kindness toward her little brother, and Aunt Ettie was won at once.

So Reuben helped Gillian from the car and up the walk to the pleasant doorway. Gillian exclaimed with pleasure over the sight of the sea from the porch, and then they went in and Aunt Ettie bustled about getting Gillian settled, much against her will, in bed. Gillian lay there and looked around on the still, clean little room with the white curtains blowing out into the air and the salt smell heartening her, and then Aunt Ettie came bustling in with a cup of hot tea for her to drink. She made Reuben come and lift Gillian high on the pillow so she could drink it. It was all so homelike and pleasant that tears of joy came into Gillian's eyes.

"Oh," she said, through her tears, "this is all so good, just like the way Mother would have had it!" And that went straight to Aunt Ettie's heart.

"Bless your dear little soul!" she said lovingly. "I'm glad you've come to keep me company. It's going to be wonderful to have a little girl like you to mother, and that blessed little boy, too. I might have known my boy Reuben would have just the right person to send to me, and I needn't have worried a mite. Now ain't that something. How one does worry over things that never happen. I worried a lot over you, and here I am as pleased as Punch. Now, you lie down and shut your eyes and take a real nap while I go and look after things. You know, we just moved in last night and aren't half in order yet, so there's plenty to do."

"Oh," laughed Gillian, "but I should get up and help you! I can work. I really can."

"I haven't a bit of doubt of it," said Aunt Ettie severely, "but I've got orders from your doctor. Reuben just gave them to me, and I'm not to let you do a lick of work for at least a whole week. So, you just lie still. I don't want to lose my reputation of being a good nurse and a good manager."

Then Aunt Ettie went out and shut the door, but the great salt breeze continued to go through from one window to another and sweep the air clean with every breath, so that the nice soft old blanket of homespun real wool that Aunt Ettie had drawn up around her shoulders felt good to her, and she sank into a most restful sleep.

But Noel was down on the beach with Reuben picking up a delightful collection of delicate shells, which he meant to offer his sister as a gift when she woke up. His cheeks were pink, his curls blowing wildly in the fine sea breeze, and his eyes like stars.

"Now, Noel, isn't that enough shells for this time? Suppose you put them in this big handkerchief of mine, and let's go back to the cottage and see if Aunt Ettie doesn't need us to help in some way. You know, she has to get supper, and this is the first night and it will likely be hard work. She's hardly got things unpacked yet."

"Oh, I would like to unpack for her!" said Noel, ready to go at once.

"Well, we'll go and see what she wants. Perhaps she would like to send us to the store for something she needs."

"Yes? I will go to the store for Aunt Ettie. Where is the store?"

"Well, suppose we go first and find out if Aunt Ettie wants something tonight, and then if she does, I'll go with you and show you where it is so that you can go by yourself sometimes if she should happen to need something when I'm not here."

"Oh, yes, that will be nice!" And Noel went happily with Reuben.

Yes, Aunt Ettie wanted some sugar; she seemed to have brought almost everything else she needed at present from the farm back home. She had brought eggs and new-made butter, several bottles of milk and cottage cheese, two roasted chickens, a slice of home-cured ham, a loaf of homemade bread, another of gingerbread, and an apple pie. She had kept them all fresh by packing them in a tub of cracked ice on the way and putting them at once into the refrigerator when she arrived. But she hadn't a scratch of sugar. Not a grain, she said.

So Noel and Reuben went to the store, and Reuben gave Noel careful directions about care in crossing streets and waiting till traffic was clear. Not that there was any great amount of traffic, but he wanted to make sure that Gillian had no more worries than was necessary.

"You must feel that you are to guard your sister anytime I'm away," he said earnestly.

"Are you going to be away, Reuben?" asked the anxious little voice.

"Well, occasionally, now and then," said Reuben.

"Then it won't be much fun, after all, will it?" He sighed.

"Oh yes," said Reuben, with a sudden regret that he had to go. "You'll be taking your dear Gillian to walk on the sand pretty soon, and you will have to be the man of the house and take care of Aunt Ettie and the yellow cat. You haven't seen the yellow cat yet, but Aunt Ettie loves her very much and takes her everywhere she goes."

"Yes, I like cats very much," said Noel politely, and then after quite a pause, "When do you have to go away, Reuben?"

Now, Reuben's first plan had been to go to the city the next day and attend to one or two matters, and perhaps the next day run down to Glindenwold for the weekend. But since he had arrived at the shore with these two dependent upon him, and Aunt Ettie so wholesome and like old times, he had a strange urge to stay here a little longer. After all, why should he hurry away? He could just as well put off his going a few days.

"Well, I was thinking of going day after tomorrow," he said cheerfully.

"Oh!" said Noel sadly.

Then after a long pause: "Do you
want
to go away, Reuben?"

"Well, no, I don't know that I do. But--there are things that I sort of
have
to do," he finished lamely.

"Yes," said Noel sadly. "I suppose there will always be things like that! My sister has 'em, too. But I'm just afraid that after you're gone, she will think she has to go back to work. I think you would be the only one who would be able to make her understand that she ought to stay here."

"Well, now, buddy, don't you worry about that. We'll see if we can't make her understand that it is positively necessary for her to stay here. And besides, I'll be coming back again, you know, perhaps several times."

"Oh, will you?" The smiles beamed out again. "Well, then, that's all right!"

And when they got back with the sugar, his sadness had all disappeared.

 

 

 

They had a wonderful evening. Gillian got up for dinner--stuffed roasted chicken, little new green peas out of Aunt Ettie's home garden, little new potatoes also out of the home garden, coleslaw made from new cabbage out of the same garden, and juicy fat tomatoes, ripe and red from the same place.