Caddie Woodlawn (24 page)

“Us in the
parlor!”
whispered Warren. “Golly! He must have sumpin' to say!”

Yes, he had. Father sat behind a little table on
which was spread the open letter which had come across the sea. His face was very grave.

“Children,” he said, “we have come to a crossroad in our lives. Today I have received a letter from a source which I had thought closed to me. Once this letter could have meant a great deal to me, but now it has come almost too late.”

“Oh, no, Johnny!” cried Mother quickly.

“Perhaps Mother is right,” he went on. “The letter can still do much for us if we wish it. Children, an uncle, whom I have never seen, has died in England. He was Lord Woodlawn after my grandfather. Since his death, it appears that the family lawyers have spent some time in tracing his successor. At last they have found him. He turns out to be the son of a little seamstress, a boy who used to dance in red breeches and clogs to keep from going hungry. It seems, however oddly, that
I
may be the next Lord Woodlawn.”

“You, Father!” the children cried, and Clara clasped her hands and said: “Oh, the big house with the peacocks, Father, will it be yours?”

“Yes, the big house with the peacocks, Clara,” said Father slowly.

Caddie thought of the big house with the peacocks, too, and she tried to see in her mind just how it looked. But try as she would to see it clearly, the iron bars of
a closed gate were always between, just as they had been when Father had first described it.

“There is one condition, however,” continued Father, “which I must tell you about. The title and estates in England come to me only if I will give up my American citizenship and all my American connections and return to England to live. This requirement was a part of the late Lord Woodlawn's will, and if I do not wish to comply with it, the land and title will pass on to another more distant relative who is living now in England.”

“But, of course, you will,” said Mother and Clara together.

“I suppose it would be foolish not to,” said Father slowly, and he passed his hand across his forehead as though he were brushing away a cobweb or an unruly bit of hair. Then he folded the letter and put it back in the envelope and stood up, smiling. “In any case our decision must not be hasty,” he said. “We must be sure that we are right.”

“But it seems to me in a case like this that there can be only one right thing to do!” cried Mother warmly.

Father laid his hand on her arm, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Think, Harriet. Think before you speak,” he said.

“Couldn't we ever come back here to the farm?” asked Tom.

“No, Tom.”

“Who'd see to the mill at Eau Galle?”

“They'd get another man. The machinery is all installed. Anyone else could keep it in order.”

“Would we have to leave Betsy and the animals?” asked Caddie.

“Yes, Caddie. Probably there would be many fine horses awaiting us in England.”

Then another thought occurred to Caddie. “Father, how soon would we have to go? Would it be before John came back for his dog and scalp belt?”

“Yes, Caddie, I think it would. If we go, it will be soon.”

“
If
” cried Clara. “Father, how can you say an
if
to such a splendid thing!”

“It is only right to look at all the sides of an important question, Clara.”

When they came out into the sunshine again, they were a little dazzled. The parlor had been dark and cool, and, in the few moments they had stood there in dark coolness, the whole future had suddenly changed for the little Woodlawns. How strange, how unbelievable it was! No wonder they blinked at the sun when they came out. But suddenly Tom saw something
which brought him out of his daze. Hetty was setting off across the fields toward Maggie Bunn's.

“Bring her back,” yelled Tom, and Caddie and Warren raced along with him to catch her.

They weren't long in overtaking her, and Tom said fiercely: “You hold your tongue, Hetty. Don't you go telling anyone we're English until you're good and sure.”

“English?” said Hetty. “But we aren't English, Tom!”

“We will be if we go back there. Didn't you know that, you little silly?”

Hetty stopped struggling to be free, and looked earnestly from one face to another. “Will we? I thought we'd always be Americans. Then, I guess, I don't want to tell after all,” she said, and the four of them went silently back to the house together.

That evening at supper Annabelle, Clara, and Mother did most of the talking. Annabelle, particularly, was full of most delightful plans for their life in England.

“Of course, you shall be presented to the Queen,” she said, “and there will be balls and concerts and all manner of elegant things. Just think of the splendid clothes you can wear! The very latest fashions and more buttons than anyone else in London if you like,
and no sheep to eat them off, and all the handsome noblemen simply languishing for dances with you. Oh, I do so envy you, you lucky girls! I do hope you will have me to visit you in England! Perhaps I shall change my mind about the Boston clergyman, after all, and have the English lord for first choice. Wasn't it funny that I should have said that this very afternoon, and all the time Uncle John already knew he was to be one? Fancy an English lord coming from Dunnville! Was ever anything more absurd?”

Father said very little, and once, when Caddie glanced at him, she caught a troubled look in his eyes. It made the uncomfortable little ache in her own heart sharper.

After supper Caddie and the boys slipped out to the

barn. Robert Ireton sat on a milking stool, tilted back against the barn, and strummed his banjo. His voice was plaintive tonight. He was singing about a beautiful maiden who had died of a broken heart and been buried under a weeping willow tree. Caddie sat on a loose pile of hay, her arms clasped around her knees. Above her the dark sky glittered and sparkled with thousands of stars. The Milky Way was a broad, white path across the sky. There was the North Star and another star which she loved because it was so bright. She did not know its name, but she had always called it hers. There would be stars in England, but would they be so bright, so beautiful? The smell of clover and new hay tugged at her heart. Would anything in England smell as sweet? And, when Indian John came back to find the treasures he had left with her, would she be gone?

Here under the bright stars, while Robert strummed and sang, Caddie knew that her old, wild past was ended. But suddenly she knew, too, that she wanted the future, whatever it might hold, to be here in the country that she loved, and not among strangers in a strange land.

The members of the family appeared on time for breakfast the next morning, and everyone wore an air of strangeness and expectancy. They knew that today Father would make his decision about going back to England, and until the decision was made they felt ill at ease and somehow like a group of strangers sitting together at the familiar breakfast table. Only Annabelle was perfectly at ease.

“Tom,” she said, looking at him with a new interest in her bright eyes, “when you are an English lord, you must not forget your little cousin Annabelle.”

“If you mean that you've given up your Boston clergyman,” said Tom bluntly, “you needn't count on me, Annabelle. I've got
my
girl all picked.”

“Tom! What nonsense!” said Mother. “Go on and eat your porridge.”

“I know! I know! I know!” buzzed Hetty. “Tom loves Ka—” Tom reached hastily for the bread and, by some mysterious accident, upset Hetty's glass of milk into her lap, so that the object of Tom's affections was never publicly revealed.

During the confusion of mopping up Hetty, Caddie sat silent. She had dreamed last night about England. There had been peacocks and towers and moats, and it had seemed that the Woodlawn children were to be presented to the Queen, but then all of the others had vanished and only Caddie had gone on alone, and then she had found herself holding the hand of a little boy—such a funny little boy with a sailor suit and a wide hat and red hair, and the little boy had been crying because he was hungry. And, when they had reached the Queen's palace, there had been a great barred gate, and through the gate they could see that the Queen had peacocks, too, but they could not get through the gate, and then soldiers had come and driven them away, and Caddie had wakened up and found that it was morning.

Father's voice broke through the memory of her dream. Caddie turned and looked at him, and she thought that he was nicer sitting thus at the head of
his simple table than he could ever be in any other place.

“I have been thinking,” he said, “that you children are old enough to have some part in the decision which we must make today. It would hardly be fair for me alone, or for Mother and me, to say, without consulting you, either that you must give up your American citizenship and return to England or that you should remain here, giving up a good deal of money and a high position in England. After all, Mother and I have already lived a half of our lives, and they've been worth the living, haven't they, Harriet?”

Mother smiled tremulously and nodded at him.

“But you young ones have all of your lives before you, and you already have some ideas of what you wish to make of them. It would be a pity for someone else to make a wrong decision for you. So I think it best that we should take a family vote. Since we are still on American soil and have always considered ourselves good Americans, we shall vote in the American way by written ballot. That is, each child shall decide for himself what he wishes to do. Then, without telling anyone else what he has decided, he shall write ‘Go' or ‘Stay' on a piece of paper which he shall then fold and place between the leaves of the family Bible in the parlor. We shall vote this afternoon at four
o'clock, and, in the meantime, I want you to discuss it among yourselves and to ask Mother and me as many questions as you like, and, above all, I want you to think each for yourself: ‘What will be best for my future? Where shall I be most useful and happy?' ”

“Shall I vote, too, Papa?” asked little Minnie, climbing onto Mr. Woodlawn's knee and looking earnestly into his face.

“Yes, you, too, little Minnie. Every Woodlawn shall vote except baby Joe, and his future we others must decide among us.”

At mention of his name the baby bounced in his high chair and banged his spoon upon his tray.

“You and I shall not be allowed to vote, baby Joe,” said Annabelle, “but never you mind, you'll be a little English gentleman before the day is over, I'll be bound.”

“Goo! goo!” said baby Joe and showed his two new teeth in a pink smile.

Then for a long time Father spoke to them quietly and earnestly, like an impartial judge, setting forth the advantages and the disadvantages of this move. He spoke of England more warmly than they had ever heard him speak before, picturing its beauties and the high place which they would be called to fill there. Then he spoke of America, and he did not say as many
fine things of it as he had often said in the past, and Caddie knew why. It was because his heart belonged here in Wisconsin and he did not wish to let his own preference prejudice his children. But he did speak briefly of the freedom which belonged to them in a new country, and he said that, although they might never be rich or famous in America, they would have the satisfaction of knowing that what they had they had made for themselves.

“An inherited fortune is never quite one's own,” said Father slowly, “and yet I want you to understand that money and power are also great things, and that great good may come of them, if they are wisely handled.”

Then he pushed back his chair from the table and took his hat and went out to see that the horses had a measure of oats.

“Do you think that Father wants to go back and be a lord?” asked Tom, as he and Caddie and Warren walked away to the lake.