Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
She hurried in at the back door again. It was a quarter to six, and there was no time to waste. She cut the bread; got a plate of butter and a pitcher of fresh water; poured what milk was left into a pitcher; set out the pies to cool, putting one on the sideboard with three pie-plates beside it; took up the roast on its platter and set it in the warming-oven; made a beautiful bowl of rich brown gravy; and hurried upstairs to change her dress and obliterate all traces of her presence. Then with an anxious glance out the window she stole quickly downstairs again, hung her hat and hand-bag on a hook in the back kitchen, left the doors unlatched conveniently for sudden flight, made the coffee, and took up her watch at the hall window where she could command both the front and side streets.
It was ten minutes after six. She could hear the trolley car coming in the distance. Her father might come on that, perhaps, and she ought to take the return one which would come down toward the city in another five minutes. She held her breath and watched anxiously. Somehow, now that her work was completed, she longed to stay and see its effect; but something half like shame withheld her. And, besides, she was by no means sure of her attitude toward her father and brothers. She had done this today for them, but was not prepared to have more obligations placed upon her. She wanted to think out the situation before she saw them again. She was not sure she wanted to see them at all, to have them know that she had done this.
She glanced swiftly back around the pretty table, across the tidy hall, into the shadowy depths of the living-room. It was still lonely and desolate, but nothing like what it had been when she came. She sniffed the luscious pie on the sideboard, thought of the white, warm beds upstairs, and was glad she had come. Then she looked back to her window, and saw a bus drawing up to the curb and her two brothers in working-garb getting out. They must be working over at the locomotive works.
She turned and fled to the kitchen. There was time to get the roast on the table. She flew to the table with the platter. A glance from the window showed her that her brothers were pausing to talk with one of the men who got off the bus. She could bring the succotash and perhaps the gravy.
As she set down the gravy boat, she saw they were to come in. One more trip with the potatoes! She could risk it, for they had to unlock the door yet, and they might not find the potatoes till after dinner if she didn’t put them on the table. The coffee she could leave on the stove, for they would smell it.
As she paused to turn the gas jet low under the coffeepot, she heard the key grate in the lock, and she fled precipitately out the back door into the laundry, closing it noiselessly behind her. She put on her hat with trembling hands. Picking up her bag, she tiptoed down the back steps, pulling the door softly shut behind her, and slid around at the side under the old cherry tree where no one could see her. She could hear the trolley car almost here now. She must hide until it had passed, and then run down the side street a few steps and cross over where she would not be noticed.
With the dress held back she peeked cautiously around the corner of the kitchen. The trolley car was stopping. Yes, her father was getting out. The conductor was steadying him as he went down the steps, as if he were old or sick. Ah! Did he stagger as he went out toward the curb? Her heart sank heavily. She watched with straining eyes. He was coming up the gravel walk, slowly, dejectedly, as if he did not care, with uneven steps, as if his mind were not on his walking.
With something like a sob in her throat the girl turned in panic, and fled noiselessly over the long, matted grass to the side street. She half expected them to come out after her, and walked almost halfway down the block before she dared look back to see that no one was following. Then simultaneously she heard the distant whir of the returning trolley car, and realized that she must hasten if she would get back to the corner before it reached there. She crossed the street and hurried along, keeping well in the shadow of the hedges, and scarcely daring to look toward her home lest some one should be watching for her and recognize her.
But the house was very quiet. A sudden fear gripped her heart lest they should not discover the dinner before it grew cold; but the trolley was almost at hand. She could not linger to see. Then, as she turned to step out and signal the car, she saw a light flash up in the dining-room, and two—or was it three?—dim figures standing motionless in the middle of the room. Just that brief glimpse she caught as she climbed into the trolley and was whirled away cityward.
I
t was Eugene who unlocked the front door and entered first. Jack lingered with a wistful look behind him at the sunset. Every night it was the same. Jack dreaded to enter that drear abode. He delayed the sight of the desolation as long as possible, and once inside the door put on a gruff, surly attitude toward everything, ate what supper he could get together in silence, made a frantic toilet in his cluttered room, and hastened away to spend the hours of leisure in whatever festivity presented itself in the dull little suburb.
Sometimes when Jack was feeling very lonely at the thought of the house and the dreary life they lived, especially when there were low gray clouds in the west and there was no sunset, he would think of his mother’s coffin there in the parlor as it had been five years ago. He could press his eyelids and bring back the white still features and the sweet young look that was not she, but some bright thing related to her and reminding of her, so far, so very far away! At such times Jack was fairly savage, and often went off without his supper.
Tonight Eugene halted as he reached the hallway, hesitating in the dusk, as if something imperceptible had put forth an unseen hand and stopped him. It was too near dark in the house to tell what had happened, but he knew at once by all his senses that something had. Things did not assert themselves in the same way as they usually did. The sense of confusion was gone. The dusty, musty smell had departed. He did not become aware at once of how much everything needed cleaning up. He felt a sudden calm; he might almost have called it peace if he had been analyzing it. And, speaking of smells, what mingling of delicious savoriness was this that greeted his famished senses? Not coffee with an aroma like that! They made coffee for themselves, and it never sent forth fragrance of such a sort. Could his father have come home first and had an unusual spirit of unselfishness? The odor began to differentiate itself. Was that roasting meat? When had they had a roast? It suggested Christmas and other days of long ago. But that other spicy fragrance? What was it? Newly baked bread? Gingerbread? What? He could not tell, but something sweet and succulent and toothsome that recalled far-distant days of festivity.
And last his faltering mind took in the sense of a sweet foreign influence, he might almost think a presence, so much so that he stood still and held his breath to listen for a stir of garments, or a voice to speak. But the only real sound that came was the contented bubbling of the coffee in the kitchen. Without any reason he felt sure that, whatever presence was or had been about, it was not his father. Something sweet and tender and brooding was in the atmosphere, and how he knew all this without even putting it into thoughts he could not have told. It just entered his consciousness like the joy of a day that one has expected to be grim and gray and suddenly the sun bursts through and glorifies everything. So stood Eugene Hathaway in the doorway of his home and took in the difference.
He stood still till Jack, with his head turned to get the last glimpse of crimson in the west, ran full into him and halted with an exclamation that denoted shock rather than any other emotion. Jack’s highly strung temperament was always keyed up to the highest pitch when he entered the door of his home, he dreaded it so.
Then there happened to him, too, that wonderful sense of something new, the perception of cleanliness and comfort, of something good to eat and good cheer; and he too stepped in beside his brother, and stopped looking around in the gloaming, as though in a mood of thoughtlessness he had stepped unaware into a sanctuary and found the people worshipping. He stood abashed, and looked around.
The car had stopped, and their father’s step was heard uncertainly, aimlessly coming up the gravel walk before they bestirred themselves. It was Eugene who made the first move into the strangeness and lighted up. Then both stepped forward with a curious look about them as if they were exploring new regions, on into the hominess of the dining room where that delicious dinner sat inviting them to eat!
Clean tablecloth! Napkins! Clean dishes! A glass salt shaker! These were things that spoke eloquently of the newness. A great roast, steaming hot, and brown as velvet! Gravy, real gravy! Steaming, too. Potatoes cracking open, and ah! That delicious spicy sweetness, more definite now and more alluring! It was Jack who first discovered the pie, and tiptoed over to stoop down and smell again, as if he might scare it away if he did not walk lightly. They stood and gazed in silence, gazed again as famished travelers sometimes dream of all the good things they would like to eat, and see them in mirage; so they feasted their eyes upon it, as on something that might vanish in a moment.
It was Jack again who, feeling that sense of a foreign presence, stole into the kitchen to investigate, and came back with awe in his young face, and stood once more gazing.
The father found them so when he stepped into the lighted dining-room, his senses less alert than his sons’, and noticed nothing till he came full into the doorway. Then he drew back startled, passed his hand across his eyes, and looked again. Looked, and turned his head aside, and gave a great gasp like a sob. Turned back and gazed, shamedly, first at one son and then the other; saw they knew now more than he how this miracle had come to pass; then suddenly dropped into a chair, burying his face in his hands, with another gasp like a sob. The table had not looked so since his wife died, those five long years ago. His body shook with dry, inarticulate sobs. His sons looked at him and at each other, and were speechless. There were no words to meet the occasion. They knew without words what those sobs meant. It was the first glimpse they had had into their father’s soul since they were little lads.
But the embarrassment of the moment aroused Jack to action, and dismissed the sudden hush and awe that had come over his young spirit.
“Well, I say, let’s eat it, anyway! It’s here, and it’s getting cold. It was evidently meant to eat. That is, if it’s real. I’m not sure, but I mean to make a stab at trying it. Who’s going to carve! Here, you, Dad, sit up there at the head of the table, and carve! I’m hungry as a bear. We had spoiled fish at the restaurant at the works today, and I couldn’t eat a mouthful for the smell of it. Get on to your job, Dad, and slice her down.”
But the man lifted his head, and shook it helplessly. There were tears in his eyes and trickling down the furrows in his cheeks. They understood that he did not feel himself worthy to divide that banquet. They turned away, and sat down with more respect for him than they had felt for years. They would not look upon his shame and sorrow. It touched them that he should feel as he did.
But they were young and hungry, and the food was good. So Eugene went to the head, and cut the meat in an awkward way, and served it on the plates; and Jack went out to the kitchen, and brought in the coffeepot. They made their father draw up his chair, trying in sudden tenderness to extend a warmth which they had not felt for him of late. His breath was strong of liquor, but it had not affected him much. They had ceased to reproach him or to reason with him. It was useless. Let him go his way, and they would go theirs, endure the little contact necessary, and see that it was the least possible.
But now tonight in the strange new surroundings, with the delicious meal before them, they treated him as they might have treated a naughty child who was sorry and wanted to be comforted. And so they heaped his plate with good things, and made him sit up to the table. But he could not eat. He would sit and look at his plate, and try to take a mouthful; and then he would lay down his fork, still with the delicate bit of roast beef upon it, and say, “Did you do it, Jack?”
“No, Dad, I just got home.”
“Did you do it, Gene? You never liked to cook. You couldn’t cook like this.”
“No, Dad, I didn’t do it. I just got home, too. We just came in the door as your car came.”
“There’s only one could cook like this!” the father said, and bowed his head in his hands, so that they had to cheer him up again to make him eat.
They could see what he was thinking. In his bewilderment superstition had taken hold of him. He was going back to the days that were past. The food was miraculous to him. He could not eat it. He felt himself unworthy.
And when at last they had made him eat a little, and the comforting food had warmed his body and strengthened him, he sat and looked about on the rooms and at the table in a daze of wonder and sorrow.
They finished that pie thoroughly. The father ate only one small piece. The two boys ate all the rest, and easily. They could have demolished the other two, possibly, if they had discovered them in time. But at last they sat back satisfied.
“Some dinner!” approved Jack as he folded his napkin reverently, and carefully scraped all the crumbs from the tablecloth upon his plate. “Say, old boy, keep the table looking this way awhile! Let’s clear it off, and wash up the dishes, and get things in shape for tomorrow. There’s meat enough for a good spread, and succotash, too,” peering into the dish. “We’ll have a regular high-class Sunday dinner without much work. Come on; let’s tote the things out and wash up.”
When they turned up the light in the kitchen they were amazed to find that the cleanliness and order had penetrated there too. The disgusting flood in the sink had vanished, along with the accompanying smell. The range was washed clean, and the shelves were all in order. The kitchen table was arranged with the dishpans for washing the dishes, and there appeared to be something clean to wipe them with. A scratching at the laundry door led them to open it for the cat, which walked in lean and gaunt, sniffing the air offendedly. All this prosperity, and she not asked to share it? Her eyes fairly blazed with the indignity, but Jack had time to notice the order in the laundry before he shut the door behind her and came back to give her some scraps of beef and the potato-skins. She was not a dainty cat. Her experience had taught her better. This was a banquet for her.