Re-Creations (36 page)

“Beefsteak!” he said with satisfaction. “That looks good! I’m hungry tonight.”

Cornelia reflected that this was the first time she had heard him speak of being hungry since she came home. She looked curiously at him again, and once more that feeling of wonder at the young look in his eyes touched her. All through the meal, as their parent talked and smiled and told happy little incidents of the day, the children wondered, and finally, when the dessert was almost finished, Carey looked intently at him and ventured, “Dad, you look as if you’d had a raise in your salary.”

“Why, I have!” said Mr. Copley, looking at his son smiling. “I’d almost forgotten. Meant to tell you the first thing. By the way Cornelia, I’d like it if you’d get up some kind of a fancy supper tomorrow night. I’d like to bring—ah—an old friend home with me. Have chicken and ice cream and things, and some flowers. You’ll know what. You might ask the minister’s daughter over, too, and Arthur Maxwell. I’d like them to be here. Can you fix it up for me, daughter?”

Cornelia, bewildered, said, “Yes, of course,” and immediately plunged into questions concerning the increase of salary.

When did it happen? Was it much? Was his position higher, and did he have to work any harder?

“Yes, and no,” he answered calmly, as if a raised salary were an everyday happening and he were quite apart from it in his thoughts. “I shall have practically the same work but more responsibility. It’s a kind of responsibility I like, however, because I know what ought to be done, and they’ve given me helpers enough to have it done right. The salary will be a thousand dollars a year more, and I suppose, if you should want to go back to college by and by and get your diploma, we could manage it.”

“Indeed, no!” interrupted Cornelia with a rising color in her cheeks and an unexplained light in her eyes. “I’m quite well enough off without a diploma, and I’m too deep in business now to go back and get ready for it. What’s a diploma, anyway, but a piece of paper? I never realized how trivial, after all, the preparations for a thing are compared to the work itself. Of course, it’s all right to get ready for things, but I had practically done most of my preparation at college, anyway. The rest of the year would have been mostly plays and social affairs. The real work was finished. And, when I came home, I was no more ready to go out into the world and do the big things I had dreamed than I was when I entered college. It took life to show me what real work meant and how to develop a life ideal. I truly have got more real good from you dear folks here at home than in all my four years’ course together. Though I’m not saying anything against that, either, for of course that was great. But, Father, I’m not sorry I had to come home. These months here in this dear little house with my family have been wonderful, and I wouldn’t lose them out of my life for all the college courses in existence.”

She was suddenly interrupted by resounding applause from her brothers and sister and smothered with kisses from Louise, who sprang from her seat to throw her arms around her neck.

“We all appreciate what you have done for us and our home,” said the father with a light in his eyes. “Your mother will tell you how much when she has an opportunity to see what you have done here.”

“But, Dad,” interrupted Carey, as he saw his father rise and glance at his watch, “aren’t you going to tell us about your raise? Gee! That’s something that oughtn’t to be passed over lightly like a summer rain. How did it happen?”

The father smiled dreamily.

“Another time. I must hurry now. I have an appointment I must keep, and I may not be home till late tonight. Don’t wait up for me. It was just a promotion, that’s all. You won’t forget about the supper tomorrow night, Cornelia, and be sure to get plenty of flowers.”

He hurried out, still with that preoccupied air, leaving his children sitting bewildered at the table.

“Well, I’ll be hanged! What’s Dad got up his sleeve, I’d like to know? I never saw him act like that, did you, Cornie? Just a promotion! That’s all! A mere little matter of a thousand more a year! Mere trifle, of course. Tell us the details another time! I say, Cornie, what’s up?”

But Cornelia was as puzzled as her brother.

“Perhaps he’s going to bring home one of the firm,” she said. “We must make the house as fine as possible. Father doesn’t have many parties, and we’ll make this a really great occasion if we can. Strange he wanted to have others present, though. I wonder if he really ought. Hadn’t I better talk it over with him again, Carey? If it’s one of the firm, he would think it very odd to have outsiders.”

“Grace Kendall isn’t an outsider!” blustered up Carey. “No, don’t bother Dad about it any further. He told you what he wanted; ask them, of course. Max didn’t cut his eyeteeth last year, either; they both know how to keep in the background when it’s necessary. Anything I can do tonight before I go to choir rehearsal to help get ready for tomorrow?”

They bustled about happily, getting the house in matchless order. It was something they had learned to do together beautifully, each taking a task and rushing it through, meanwhile all singing at the top of their lungs some of the hymns that had been sung at the last Sunday’s service or a bit of melody they had sung the last time Grace and Maxwell had been over. One voice would boom out from the top of the stairs, where Harry was wiping the dust from the stair railing and steps; another from the living room where Carey was adjusting a curtain pole that had fallen; Cornelia’s voice from the kitchen and pantry in a clear, sweet soprano; with Louise’s birdlike alto in the dining room, where she was setting the table for breakfast. They were all especially happy that evening somehow. A raise! A thousand more a year! Now Mother could be given more comforts and get well sooner! Now Father would not have to work so late at night going over miserable account books for people, to earn a little extra money.

There was a song in Cornelia’s heart as well as on her lips. She was remembering the words of her little brother and sister in that despairing conference she had overheard the first morning after her arrival and comparing them with what had been said to her tonight, and she was thinking how thankful she was for her homecoming just when it had been and how she would not have lost the last five months out of her life just as it had been for worlds.

With tender thoughts and skillful hands, Cornelia prepared the festive dinner the next evening and arranged a profusion of flowers everywhere. A few great luscious chrysanthemums, golden and white, lifting their tall globes in stately beauty from the gray jar in the living room; wild, riotous crimson and yellow and tawny brown, of the outdoor smaller variety, overflowing vases and bowls in the window seats and on the stair landing; a magnificent spray of brilliant maple leaves that Harry brought in from the woods before he went to school gracing the stone chimney above the mantel; and on the dining table, glowing and sweet, a bowl of deep-red roses, with a few exquisite white buds among them, the kind she knew her father liked because her mother loved them. There was nothing ostentatious or showy about the simple arrangement, nothing to make the member of the firm feel that extra thousand dollars would be wasted in show. It was all simple, sweet, homelike, and in good taste.

There was stewed chicken with little biscuits and currant jelly, mashed potatoes, and succotash, and for dessert, ice cream and angel cake. A simple, old-fashioned dinner without olives or salads. She knew that would please her father best, because it was her mother’s company dinner. It was the dinner he and Mother had on their wedding trip and would always continue to be the best of eating to his old-fashioned mind. Doubtless the old-fashioned member of the firm would enjoy it for the same reason. So Cornelia hummed a little carol as she went about stirring up the thickening for the gravy, stopping to fasten Louise’s pretty sprigged challis dress with the crimson velvet ribbon trimming, and smiling to herself that all was going well. She could hear Carey upstairs getting dressed, and Harry was already stumping downstairs. Everything was all ready. There were five minutes to spare before Father had said he would arrive with his company. Grace had gone up to smooth her hair after being out all the afternoon in the wind, and Maxwell had telephoned that he was on the way and would not delay them.

Then, just as she finished taking up the chicken and went into the living room to be sure Carey hadn’t left his coat and hat lying around on the piano or table, as he sometimes did, a taxi drew up at the door.

At first she thought it was Maxwell’s car, and her cheeks grew a shade pinker as she drew back to glance out of the window. Then she saw it was her father getting out and in a panic flew back to shut the kitchen door.

“They’re coming!” she called softly to the brothers and sister chattering at the head of the stairs.

Pulling down her sleeves and giving a dab to her hair as she went, she hurried back to open the door. But before she could reach it, it was flung open, and there on the threshold of the pretty room stood Mother! A new, well, strong mother, with great happiness in her sweet eyes and the flush of health on her cheeks. And close behind her, looking like a roguish boy, was Father, his eyes fairly dancing with delight.

“Dinner ready?” he called. “Here’s our guest, children, and we’re both hungry as bears! There, children what do you think of your mother? Doesn’t she look
great?”

He pulled clumsily at the veil over Mrs. Copley’s hat, helped her off with her traveling coat, and set her forth in the middle of the room. The children, after a gasp of astonished delight, swarmed about her and fairly took her breath away. And when any one of them became momentarily detached from her, he took up the time in whooping with joy and talking at the top of his lungs.

At last the greeting subsided, and Mother became an object of tender solicitation and care again. They placed her in the biggest chair and brought her a glass of water, looking at her as at something precious that had been unwittingly too roughly handled and might have been harmed. In vain did she assure them that she was well again. They looked at their father for reassurance.

“That’s right!” he said. “The doctor says she’s as good as new. She might have come home sooner, but I told him to keep her till she was thoroughly well, and he did. Now children, it’s up to you to keep her so.”

They swarmed about her again and threatened to have the greetings all over once more, till Cornelia suddenly remembered her place as hostess and straightened up.

“But, Father, the company! When is he coming? And our other guests.” She looked cautiously up the stairs to where Grace was discreetly prolonging her hairdressing and lowered her voice.

“It’s too bad to have anyone here this first night. Mother will not like to have strangers.”

But Mother smiled royally. “No, dear, I’m anxious to meet your friends. Father had told me all about them. It’s one of the things that has helped to make me well, knowing that everything was going well with my dear children.”

“Oh, Mother!” said Cornelia with a sudden succumbing to the joy of having Mother home once more. “Oh, Mother!” And she knelt beside her mother’s chair and threw her arms again around the little mother whom she had been without so long and never knew till now how she had missed.

It was the sound of Maxwell’s car at the door and Grace Kendall’s lingering step upon the stair that roused her once more into action. Springing to her feet and glancing from the window, her face growing rosy with the sight of Maxwell coming up the walk, she exclaimed, “But father, where is your guest, your friend? I thought you were going to bring him with you.”

Father stepped smiling over to Mother’s chair and stood with his hand resting softly on her ripply brown hair. “This is my guest—my friend,” he said, tenderly looking down at his partner of the years with a wonderful smile, which she answered in kind. “This is the one I asked you to prepare for, and I wanted her to meet our young friends. I wanted her to get an immediate taste of the atmosphere of our home as it now is, as it has been during her absence, thanks to you, Cornelia, our blessed eldest child.”

The look he and her mother gave her would have been reward enough for any girl for giving up a dozen college graduations. But, as if that had not been enough for the full and free way in which she had given herself, she lifted her eyes, and there beyond them, standing in the doorway, stood Maxwell with such a look of worshipfulness in his face as he witnessed this girl receiving her due from her family as would have repaid a girl for almost any sacrifice.

Grace Kendall, coming slowly down the stairs into the pretty room, watched it all contentedly. Everything was as it should be. The mother was the kind of mother she had hoped she would be, and she liked the way Carey sat on the arm of her chair with his arm around the back protectingly. But suddenly Carey lifted his eyes and saw Grace, and the light of love swept into them. He sprang up and came to meet her eagerly. Taking her hand as if he were about to present a princess to an audience, he led her to his mother and said, “Mother, meet the most wonderful girl in the world,” and laid Grace Kendall’s hand in his mother’s. Mrs. Copley took Grace’s rosy face between her two soft white hands, and reaching up, kissed the sweet girl tenderly amid a little hush of silence that none of the family realized they were perpetrating, until suddenly Father awoke to the young girl’s sweet embarrassment, and reaching out a boyish hand to Maxwell, drew him to his wife’s chair and said roguishly, “Mother, and now meet the most wonderful man in the world!” And the little silence broke into a joyous tumult while they all went out to the waiting dinner and did full justice to it with a feeling that that evening was just the real beginning of things.

Late that night, as they were going up to bed, Cornelia, lingering for some small preparation for the morning, heard Harry say to his younger sister, “Gee! Lou, it’s good to have Mother home again, isn’t it? But somehow even she can’t take Cornie’s place, can she? Didn’t Cornie look pretty tonight?”

“She certainly did,” responded the little sister eagerly. “And she certainly is great. We can’t ever spare her again, can we, Harry?”