Brentwood (12 page)

The girls sat down and laughed till they cried.

“What shall we do with him?” asked Marjorie, suddenly sobering.

“Leave him there for the present,” said Betty. “I’ll get Father’s old coat and put it under his head. If we wake him up he may cry, and we haven’t any other place to put him, not till his crib is up. He probably won’t sleep long, anyway. I wonder where Ted is.”

“Couldn’t we put up the crib?” asked Marjorie, looking at the unassembled parts that stood against the dining room wall.

“Perhaps we could,” said Betty. “I never tried. Father always did things like that. This is the headboard. And those are the sides.”

Marjorie got down on her knees and examined the side pieces.

“These must hook into those sockets in the headboard,” she said briskly. “You hold the headboard, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“You ought not to be doing that,” said Betty, coming forward and setting up the headboard of the crib. “You’ll get your pretty dress all dusty.”

“It will clean,” said Marjorie indifferently. “There, see how easily that slides into place. Now, the other. Why, this is no trouble at all. Now, which is the head of these springs?”

They had it all together when Ted came in carrying a heavy load. Putting it down, he began to open it out, and it proved to be an army cot.

“Where in the world did you get that?” asked Betty, wide-eyed.

“Over at the Army and Navy store,” said Ted. “Bought it. Fifty cents. They were having a sale. I knew we hadta have something.”

“For pity’s sake!” said Betty, eying Ted in astonishment. “Where did you get the fifty cents? Not out of what I gave you to pay the grocery bill, Ted Gay?”

“No. Guess again!” grinned Ted, and he hauled the roll of bills out of his pocket that Marjorie had given him and grinned at her.

Betty looked from one to the other understandingly. Then she said to Marjorie, “If you stay here another day, we’ll have you fleeced.”

“Suits me,” said Marjorie with another grin. “Now, where is that Sunny boy? Will he howl if I pick him up?”

“Go get him, Ted,” said Betty. “He’s asleep in the pantry.”

“Good night!” said Ted, standing in the pantry door, laughing. “Where’d he get all the grub? Poor little kid, he’s been half starved for days!”

Ted put Sunny in the crib and then turned to the girls.

“Now, what do you want done first?”

Betty looked at her new sister.

“I’ll get dinner,” she said, “and you show Ted where you want Bonnie’s bed put.”

“I thought you girls could have my room,” said Ted, “and Bud can have the cot, and I’ll park beside Dad.”

“That will be fine for Betty tonight,” said Marjorie, “but as for me, I’m going to watch Bonnie and lie down on the couch between times.”

“You think she ought to do that, Betts?” asked Ted. “She isn’t usedta roughing it.”

“Indeed I am,” laughed Marjorie. “At least, I’m used to being up nights and caring for sick folks.”

“Well, she wants to,” said Betty with a troubled sigh, “and I’m sure I wouldn’t be much good at nursing. For Bonnie’s sake, I guess we’ve got to let her have her way.”

“Okay!” said Ted. “Well, where do we go from here? What do I do next? Peel potatoes or what?”

“We’re not going to peel the potatoes,” said Betty. “We’re roasting them. You can light the oven. We’re not doing any fancy cooking, just beefsteak and potatoes and a can of tomatoes. You can open the can. I’ll do the rest.”

“All right,” said Marjorie. “I’ll cut the bread and get the butter and pickles and wash some celery. Open a glass of currant jelly, too, Ted. That will be for dessert.”

Dinner was ready in a surprisingly short time, and the starved young appetites were ready, too.

Bonnie was still sleeping, and Marjorie fancied that she was not quite so hot as an hour ago.

They were just about to sit down when Sunny woke up, making an outcry. He had to be hushed and brought into the kitchen to quiet him.

Then Bud burst in, eyes wide with wonder at the unusual dinner.

“Gee! Where’d’ya get the meat! Real meat! Can I have a piece, too, or do we have ta save it for Mother ’cause she’s sick?”

“No, you don’t have to save it,” said Marjorie, “there’s plenty for everybody. Mother couldn’t eat meat tonight anyway, but maybe she can have some soon.”

Marjorie went out to the kitchen to get Bud his glass of milk while Ted attacked the big beefsteak with the carving knife, which had just been recovered from the pawn shop.

“It’s almost too pretty to cut, isn’t it?” he said. And then he heard a step behind him. They all turned, and there stood their father, staring at them all in wonder and sniffing the air.

“I smelled something so heavenly,” he said, and he smiled a tired little smile that made him look like Bud. “Where did you get the meat, Ted?” he asked, his eyes resting on the laden table. “It appears that you are having a feast. Did you succeed in getting any subscriptions, lad? They surely didn’t pay you enough commission on a few subscriptions to buy all this?”

“Sit down, Dad,” said Ted, laying down the knife and springing up to draw up a chair for his father. “You aren’t fit to stand up.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” he said, passing a hand over his forehead. “I just had a little dizzy spell, but Betty gave me some coffee, and I had a good sleep and feel better. I thought I’d go out and see if I couldn’t get an evening’s work. It might bring in a few cents and help to buy another bag of coal. You know some of the stores are keeping open evenings until Christmas, and they need extra help. I’ve heard they pay pretty well, too. I’ll just take a bite and go out. I might get a job for evenings for all this week.”

“My eye, you will!” said Ted. “You sit down and eat your dinner, that is, if you feel able to sit up. We were just going to bring you up a tray, but now you’re down you might as well eat in style. Shove over there, Bud, and give Dad more room. But you might as well understand right now, Dad, that you are under the doctor’s orders. You don’t stir a step out of this house till he says you can. See? And not then till I’ve gone and got your overcoat back. Where’s that pawn ticket, Dad? Hand it over. No, you don’t need to cut this steak. I can do it as well as you can. Not that I’ve seen any recently, of course, but I remember how you’ve cut it for years. I used to think I would really be grown up when I could cut the meat for the family, and this is about the first time I’ve had a chance to try. Get him a plate, Betts, and pour him a cup of coffee quick while I manipulate this beefsteak.”

The father sank back in the chair under Ted’s powerful young handling, and looked about, dazed.

“But you haven’t told me yet where you got all this dinner? Am I dreaming or is this a real dinner on the table? Betty, you don’t mean that you allowed welfare to furnish this, do you? I couldn’t bear to think we had come to that!”

“No, Father,” said Betty, with a twinkle in her eyes. “We didn’t have to go out and beg, either.” And then as she heard Marjorie’s step in the pantry, Betty suddenly grew sober.

“Father, I’d better tell you right off, quick. It’s all in the family. You don’t need to be troubled. My twin sister has come, and she got all these things!”

The father looked up with great startled eyes and turned perfectly white.

“Your sister has come? What do you mean, Elizabeth? Do you mean the little sister who was adopted? Do you mean that she has come and gone, and your mother and I did not see her?”

“No. Oh no, Father,” said Betty, half frightened at what her revelation had done to her father. “She hasn’t gone. She’s right here in the house. Here she comes now!”

Marjorie stood there, smiling, with a plate of bread in one hand and the glass of milk in the other, looking so at home, and so sweet and domesticated that he had to look twice to be sure she wasn’t Betty. And Marjorie met her own father’s eyes for the first time in her young life, and loved him at once.

Suddenly she put down the things she was carrying and went to meet the father who had risen to his feet and was staring at her. She went sweetly across the years into his arms and laid her golden head on his shoulder, looking up into his face.

“Father, I’ve come home! Do you mind?” she said shyly.

Hungrily his arms went round her, and his face came down softly and touched hers.

“Do I mind?” he said wonderingly. “Do I mind? Oh, my little girl, whom I have never seen before! My other little Betty. Do I
mind?
”

He touched her forehead with his lips, almost as if he felt she was not real, and then he looked up again, while all the other children sat and looked on in wonder. A sadness had come over that sudden radiance of his face.

“But what a home you have come to, my child! What a home! All the comforts gone!” Then suddenly he looked around and saw the familiar sideboard and chairs and table, and bewilderment came into his eyes.

“Am I dreaming, Ted? Or is all this real?” He turned troubled eyes on his boy.

Ted gave him a sharp look.

“It’s real all right, Dad, but you won’t be for long if you don’t sit down and eat some of this beefsteak pretty quick, and I mean it. Time enough to satisfy your curiosity after you have eaten this dinner. This is some dinner, I’m telling you!”

Ted pushed his father down in his chair and handed over a plate with a fine, juicy piece of steak on it.

“There! Get on the outside of that as quick as you can. Betts, pass the potatoes and get Dad going or we’ll have to put him back in bed again.”

They laughed and kept passing their father things, quite confusing him, but succeeding in turning his thoughts away from the new child for the moment, till he really got a bite or two swallowed.

But he came back to realities presently.

“But I don’t understand,” he said, looking keenly at Ted. “How did you get such a dinner as this? You didn’t go somewhere and charge all these things, did you?”

“No, Dad. They are every one of them paid for,” said Ted as he handed out the last plate and sat down to enjoy his own dinner.

“You didn’t do anything that I wouldn’t approve, did you, Son?”

“Not a thing, Dad. Everything aboveboard and honorable. All the bills paid and everything going slick. Coal in the cellar, fire in the heater, gas in the range, water in the pipes, light in the wires, and the pantry full of food. Have some celery, Dad, and just be thankful.”

“But, my son, I cannot eat until I understand.”

“All right, tell him, Betts!” said the boy.

“Why, Father, it’s just that we have a fairy sister with pockets full of money, and she insisted on paying everything,” said Betty.

“Do you mean,” asked the father, laying his fork down beside his plate with a look of finality, “that we are feasting on Mrs. Wetherill’s money? I could not possibly do that, my dear.”

There was such pain and pride in his voice that Marjorie’s heart was thrown into a panic. Was pride after all to put an end to her new hopes and plans?

“Father,” she said earnestly, and did not realize how naturally she had called him that, “it isn’t her money at all. It is my money. It was left to me to do just as I liked with it. She even left me a letter suggesting that I would like to hunt you up and use my money in making you happy. I came here at once as soon as I heard about you. Well, I didn’t hear very much about you, only the address, and the fact that I was one of the twins, and that Mother wanted very much to see me and came after me once not so very long ago. That was about all Mrs. Wetherill knew. It was all she ever told me. And as soon as I knew I had a living own mother I came to find her. I didn’t know whether you wanted me or not, or whether anybody was alive or not, but I had to come and see. I had to find out if there was anybody who really loved me a little bit.”

There was the catch of a sob in her voice as she finished and a mist in her eyes. Even young Bud paused in his chewing for an instant and looked at her sympathetically.

“Tourse ve vants you,” piped up Sunny, with his mouth full of baked potato and butter.

Then the father came out of his sorrowful daze.

“
Want
you?” said he tenderly. “How we have wanted you! How we have longed for you, and talked about you, and tried not to blame one another, your mother and I, for having let you go! You will never know how we have suffered. How each of us has blamed ourselves! Your mother found out that I was desperately ill and ought not to work for a year or two, and she was weak and ill herself, and was over-influenced by Mr. Wetherill. He was kindness itself and very generous, but he was quite determined to have you. And when they came to me it was represented to me as a necessity that Betty have the care of an expensive specialist or she could not live the life of a normal, healthy child. So in a moment of weakness we both gave our consent and signed the necessary papers. But oh, how we have regretted it all these years, and we did our best to have the papers revoked and get you back.”

“Oh, dear Father!” said Marjorie, deeply stirred, and putting out a shy hand to lay upon his. “I’m so glad it is not too late for me to try to make up just a little for your suffering!”

He gathered her hand into his thin, nervous one and clasped it close.

“Does your mother know?” he asked of Betty.

“Not yet. I thought she ought to get a good sleep first before we excited her. Besides, there was so much to do to get things going right again,” explained Betty.

“Well, this will be meat and drink to your mother,” said the father, gazing intently at the new, unknown daughter. “I’d better go right up and tell her.”

“No, Dad! You sit still and eat your dinner. Mother’s asleep. You’ll have to wait until she wakes up. You don’t want to make her sick, you know. Come now, you’ve got to be sensible.” It was Ted who set up authority, talking as much like his father’s voice as he could, till they all laughed, even Mr. Gay.

Then there came a moan from Bonnie in the other room and Marjorie, with a quick glance at Betty, slipped out and went to her.

They heard the clink of a spoon in a glass as Marjorie coaxed the medicine into the child’s mouth, and then she was back almost immediately.

“I don’t think she’s quite so hot,” she said happily.