Spice Box (25 page)

“Why, I will,” said Janice pleasantly, “if you will all come over when you have time. How about tomorrow afternoon, Martha? It’s a good story for Sunday.”

“By all means,” said Martha, smiling. Her extravagance was doing its work, all right. There ought to be enough in one of Janice’s stories to help those boys a lot.

So the boys shuffled away, chiming forth “So long” at the door as they went out.

After they were gone there was a patter of velvet feet and Ernestine came and stood in the archway, the first time she had ventured alone into that room since the horde of awful strangers fell upon their house and devastated it with their poundings and sawings and rendings and thumpings. And so this was what they had done to it! If Janice and Martha hadn’t been there she wouldn’t have recognized a thing in that place. She felt her whole world had come to an end. Such a vast space where there used to be narrow walls! Such myriads of little wooly mats where an ugly carpet used to be! Such grand chairs upon which to curl up and take a nap! She had never read of Aladdin’s Palace or she would have thought herself in it, surely. She uttered a low “Meow” and advanced over the slippery polished floor till she was safe beside Martha. From this haven she took a survey, sniffed the new odors of plaster and leather and varnish, gave a glance at the bay windows and the big staircase with its landings, and then her eye fell upon the fireplace, and straight to it she went with almost a sigh of joy, and stood there looking. “Meow!” she said, as if to say, “This is what I have longed for all my days and dreamed of all my nights. I am content!”

Then on a little old rose rug she curled, rumbling a joyful purr, and sat staring into the empty grate.

“She wants a fire,” said Ronald and dashing out to the kitchen, came back with some wood shavings and matches and a small stick of wood. In a moment there was enough blaze for Ernestine to realize what life was going to be like that winter.

It was then that Janice threw her arms around Martha’s neck and cried out, “Oh Martha, it’s so wonderful! Your dear house and everything! I’m so happy to be a part in it.”

“Yes,” said Martha happily, “I’m glad, too. I’m glad you and Ronald are both here with me. I’m thinking if it hadn’t been for Ronald, I never would have had this made-over house. He was the one that put it into my head. And I’m so glad. I think it’s lovely, don’t you, Ronald?”

“Swell!” said Ronald joyously, tickling Ernestine’s ear.

And about that time Dr. Howard Sterling stood in the wide entrance hall of the hospital at Enderby, saying good-bye to the nurses and interns and the new house doctor.

Now that the time to leave had come, he was feeling sad about it. This was the place he had come to begin his work, and the place in which one of the sweetest experiences of his life had occurred. He hadn’t known he would feel sorry to leave it. The nurses smiled and watched him and wondered if he was going to see Rose Bradford before he left that part of the state. They whispered that he looked tired and awfully handsome, and it was such a pity he was leaving. And then Sam drove up with the house car and he was whirled away.

“Yes ma’am,” said Sam when he got back from the station and was being questioned by the nurses, “he took the same train to go to Martins’ bof times, but I couldn’t say whether he were going to Bradford Gables or not.”

But Sterling did not go to Bradford Gables. Instead, he took the taxi to the cemetery at Willow Croft.

At the gate he left the taxi and walked in the moonlight through the gate and over to where Louise Whitmore Stuart and her baby girl were buried. He stood there, alone by the side of that dead unknown sister, thinking of the girl he loved who had gone from him, whom he perhaps would never see anymore. Before he left he knelt by that sister’s grave and said aloud, “Oh God, take care of her!”

Then he walked back to the Junction and took the late train that brought him, a little after midnight, into the distant city that was his goal, and there he found his old friend Ted Blackwell waiting for him.

They drove to Blackwell’s quarters and had a long talk, and when they parted for the night Blackwell said, “I’ll never forget this that you are doing for me, Howard! It’s as if you were giving me a hope of life again, for I’m satisfied that without this operation I cannot live. And now there are three or four patients I want to take you to see in the morning, or during the day, and the next day I’m off, if all goes well. I hope you won’t have too rotten a time of it carrying on for me. I have some very good friends among my patients I want to introduce, and I know you’ll like them. And good night! I’ll see you in the morning.”

T
he new piano arrived that Saturday night and was put in place where its voice could be heard to best advantage, and Janice and Martha had hard work to drive themselves to bed that night, it was so interesting to listen to, as Janice rippled off different portions of melody out of her past. Ernestine was really startled at first and looked at Martha as if to say, “Now what do you think Aunt Abigail and Uncle Jonathan would think of having a thing like that in the house?” But after a little she settled down and tried her voice with it, deciding that it would be all well enough for her to sing to if they played
her
tune. She couldn’t be expected to learn newfangled tunes, like ragtime or swing, or modern music. She didn’t hold to that.

And so the piano was there in the room when the boys entered that first Sunday afternoon. It startled them, because they didn’t know anything about its coming. Except Ronald, of course, who always knew beforehand everything connected with the house.

The boys came in in awkward silence following Ronald. Coming there in their old clothes to place the furniture was one thing, but coming there all dolled up in what they called their Sunday best and seeing that room in all its finished glory with other people present was entirely another story. They felt for the first minute or two as if they wouldn’t have come at all if they had realized. And then they got so interested in looking around and getting the amazing effect of all that had been done that they forgot to be awkward and just sat and enjoyed.

The Robertses and three workmen had asked if they might come, too, and hear the story, and they were sitting back by the kitchen door, unobtrusively, enjoying all the changes that they had helped to bring about in this commonplace house.

Janice was there, and as they all settled down to look around, she stepped across to the piano bench and sat down, letting her fingers ripple over the keys in what seemed to them a marvelous shower of beautifully colored sounds. They sat and stared and stared and drank it all in, till the music suddenly broke into a well-known hymn that they all had heard more or less everywhere, even though they were not regular attendants at church. And when the music sounded through a verse and chorus, Janice turned toward her audience, smiling, and called a challenge, “Come on, let’s sing! You all know this, don’t you?” And she began to sing:

Suddenly she whirled about toward them and said engagingly, “Come on now, sing that chorus with me. I’m sure you all know it. Everybody knows that. And then I’ll sing the next verse and you all come in on the chorus. Now sing!” And she struck a great chord on the piano that fairly drew the song from their lips. One by one, the boys began to growl out a note now and then, till when they reached the last line, everyone was singing cautiously, trying not to be heard, but singing.

“Again!” she said, and they all sang it again, gaining in volume. Then sweetly her voice rang out alone:

This time the chorus was very good, and by the time the last verse was finished the whole roomful was singing heartily.

“That was good!” said Janice. “Do you know another as well?”

“‘Onward Chrisshun Soldiers!’” shouted Ronald helpfully, and Janice smiled and went into the melody, the whole company following her clear voice and making fairly good music. And the beauty of it was that none of them felt they were doing much singing themselves.

Ronald still had a high, clear soprano voice when he chose to use it, though usually he tried to growl a low uncertain bass, thinking it was more manly. But now he led off, and the chorus rang out:

They all sang the four verses with Janice’s help, and then she felt she had her audience right where she wanted them, and she swung around and went over to the round table where the lovely little head of Joan of Arc was standing, just where the light from the new bay window could shine across and show the exquisite profile.

Janice turned the marble head around, till the eyes seemed searching the eyes of the boys seated in front of her, and their mumbled talk was hushed as they looked at the statue and wondered what this story was going to be.

Janice was standing now not far from the lower steps of the stairs, the landing of which would shelter her somewhat, in case anyone should happen to come to the front door. She was facing the row of boys, and farther back were the Robertses and the workmen who were regarding her with eager eyes.

The Robertses had become very well acquainted with Janice during the stay at the shore and admired her greatly. She had been a great help to Mrs. Roberts all the time and dearly loved the baby. So she did not feel that they were strangers. The workmen were friendly fellows who had passed a pleasant word with her now and then going about their work every day.

But it was to the four boys that she began to tell her story. The others were just people who had slipped in because they wanted to. She smiled around upon them all before she began. With one hand softly touching the marble shoulder of the statue, she began.

“Joan of Arc was born in Domrémy, France, on January sixth, fourteen hundred and twelve!”

She paused a moment to let that fact sink in.

“That was just eighty years before America was discovered by Christopher Columbus,” she went on.

The boys looked duly impressed, gazed at the statue with awe and a soft drawing of the breath. That seemed to put Joan almost out of their comprehension.

The doorbell rang just then, as doorbells have a way of doing just at a critical moment, but the boys did not notice it. Their attention was entirely centered on that beautiful girl’s face. And Martha, with forethought, was seated very near the vestibule door. She softly slipped out, drawing the door shut behind her.

It was the doctor, with the new doctor in his wake! She greeted them pleasantly and explained what was going on. A hungry look came into Blackwell’s eyes.

“May we come in?” he asked. “We’ll be very good and not make any noise!” He gave her an affectionate grin. “Couldn’t we just slip in by this door, behind the stair landing, and nobody will see us? We’ll do it so quietly they won’t be disturbed.”

“Why yes, I suppose you may,” said Martha. “I don’t think anyone would really mind, only you know how shy boys get sometimes. But there are two chairs right here beyond the door, behind the landing. You’ll be entirely out of sight while the story is going on, and afterward I’m sure you’ll be forgiven.”

She laughed softly and slipped inside the door like a wraith ahead of the two men and went back to her own chair. The two doctors proved that they could be as silent as two cats. Not even Ernestine could have done it better, and there they were sitting within the room yet not in sight. Janice had no idea who had come to the door, or if anyone had come in, and not even the boys looked up to see if anyone was sharing their story. So Janice went on with her tale without losing even a fraction of the dramatic opening.

“Not much is known about little Joan’s childhood because it was so long ago, and her people were not very important people and therefore did not keep records of their children’s sayings and doings as young fathers and mothers do today. But we know that she was a sweet, good child. She lived next to a church and loved to go to church. Her mother taught her to pray, and prayer must have been a real thing to her, because she seems often to have had regular conversations with God. They called her pious in those days, but that is just an old-fashioned name for loving to learn about God and trying to please Him. A name for being a real, what we would call today, Christian. Nowadays the word
pious
is used to make fun of religion and discredit people who make a great show of their religious beliefs and yet do not live up to them, but in Joan’s day it did not mean that. It meant true religion, truly trying to please God and walk in His ways. And when they said it about Joan, they meant that she was sincere and real in her thoughts with God.”

Dr. Blackwell looked up at his friend Sterling to see what impression his young patient Janice was making on his friend, but was not prepared for the look of startled wonder and joy that radiated from Sterling’s face.

The voice, oh, that dear voice that he had listened for in his night watches! The little nurse Mary, who had vanished like a spirit. Had he found her at last? He couldn’t see her face because he was sitting behind the stair landing, but he bent forward and tried to look around the corner and see her, and he fairly held his breath, not to lose a single syllable.

The sweet voice went on.

“One day, when Joan was about thirteen years old, she was walking in her father’s garden and she heard a voice. Somehow she knew it was God speaking to her, telling her what He wanted her to do and how He wanted her to live. And while she was still out there in the garden, when their talk together was over, she made a vow or promise to God that she would live for Him always. That she would never marry but would make her life entirely devoted to His service. And after that she began to hear that voice again, sometimes two or three times a week!”