The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: or, There's No Place Like Home

"Why it's quite a green-house," he said delightedly. "Now, if I can only make them blossom all winter!"

The first spare Saturday he went over to Salem to see Mr. Thomas. He was rather diffident, and did not like to explain his economical arrangements, but said that he was likely to have some flowers for sale. Mr. Thomas took him through his green-house again; and, though there were a great many more plants, Hal thought he could show almost as much bloom.

"I'll take your flowers," he promised, "provided you do not have too many, and if we could manage it this way: sometimes I receive a large order nearly a week beforehand, and I could let you know, in order that you might bring me all you had which were really fine. And, to be frank with you, I cannot afford to pay as much as you might get at Newbury or New York."

"I should like to know some of the prices," Hal remarked.

"It depends a good deal upon the demand and the season; but prices never vary a great deal."

They went round, and Hal learned a good deal in the course of his tour.

"Do you know of any place in Newbury where I could dispose of flowers?" he asked.

"There is a Mr. Kirkman, – one brother keeps a confectionery, and the other supplies flowers. But perhaps I may be able to do as well by you. However, I will give you his card."

Hal and Mr. Thomas parted very good friends; and the florist gave him some valuable advice.

"That fellow will succeed," he said to himself, watching Hal's retreating figure. "His whole soul is in the flowers; and he blushes over them as if they were a sweetheart. Looks pale and delicate, though."

Truth to tell, Hal had been working pretty hard. The school was a great tax upon him; and the labor with his plants had been severe. Kit and Granny tried to save him all they could in the way of getting in winter vegetables, and looking after the chickens.

Ten days after his visit to Salem, he received a little note from Mr. Thomas on this wise.

"Bring me on Thursday morning, if you have them, three dozen roses, assorted colors, heliotrope, and fine sprays of fuchsia, if yours are still in bloom."

"F. Thomas."

Hal was delighted. Through September they had managed to get along on the proceeds of their garden, and the fruit; but his first month's pay had to go for clothes. It almost broke Granny's heart to take it.

"Why, I shall earn some more!" Hal exclaimed with his gay laugh. "It is just what it is for, Granny, to spend. I'm thankful to be able to earn it."

It was the middle of October now; and there had been some severe frost already. Tender out-doors plants were a mass of blackened ruins.

"You will have to go over for me, Charlie," said Hal, "because I cannot leave school. The stage starts at nine."

Charlie was in ecstasies. She rose by daylight on Thursday morning, to curl her hair, Kit said; and could hardly wait for Hal to cut and pack the flowers.

"I am sure I shall be left!" she declared twenty times at least.

Hal thought of it all the way to school. It seemed different from any other earnings, and gave him an exquisite pleasure. His own lovely darlings, his dream actually coming to pass.

Charlie was superbly generous, and left the stage at the Cross-roads, when she might have ridden half a mile farther.

The children were just being dismissed: so she rushed in full of excitement.

"O Hal! he said they were lovely, and the carnations magnificent. He wondered how you raised them. They were a great deal prettier than his."

Hal blushed like a girl. He had sent the carnations at a venture.

"And here's the bill and the money."

Charlie was as proud as if it had been her own. Hal's fingers trembled as he opened it. There they all were: —

"Oh!" exclaimed Hal with a glad cry: "it's just splendid! And he liked them all?"

"Yes. There's going to be a great wedding in Salem. Such hosts and hosts of flowers! And Jim Street took me for fifteen cents!"

"So there's more than three dollars profit," Hal returned. "Now you must run home, Charlie, and get some dinner. I have not enough for two."

"I don't see why I can't stay. I should like to see your school, Hal, when all the children are in."

"But Granny will be troubled. Yes, you had better go, Charlie. You have been so good this morning, that you must not spoil it all. And then she'll be glad to hear."

Charlie went reluctantly. Granny was overjoyed The three dollars looked as large to her as a hundred would have to many a one.

Hal could hardly wait until four o'clock. He hurried home, and ran up stairs; but the poor flowers had been shorn of their crown of glory.

"I can't bear to look at 'em," said Granny with a quiver in her voice. "The poor dear things, that seemed jest like human creeturs! I used to talk to 'em every time I came in."

"But they'll soon be lovely again; and it pleases me so much to think that I can make a little money. I shall have the green-house some day; and you won't have any thing to do but walk round in it like a queen."

Granny smiled. Every plan of Hal's was precious to her.

The heliotrope appeared to be the better for the pruning; and some of the tuberoses shot up a tall spike for buds.

Then Hal had a few demands from the neighbors round. Mr. Thomas's next call was early in November, when he asked Hal to bring all the flowers that were available. It being Saturday morning, he went in with them himself, and became the happy recipient of five dollars and a quarter. Then he took a ramble in a bookstore, and, being attracted by the first few pages of "Charles Auchester," purchased the book.

Kit went nearly wild over it. Hal read it aloud; and he held his breath at the exquisite description of Charles's first concert, and the tenderness and sweetness of the Chevalier. Though part of it was rather beyond their comprehension, they enjoyed it wonderfully, nevertheless.

The little room up stairs became quite a parlor for them. The stove kept it nice and warm; and they used to love to sit there evenings, inhaling the fragrance, and watching the drowsy leaves as they nodded to each other: it seemed to Hal that he had never been so happy in the world. He ceased to long for Florence.

They did very well on their chickens this year, clearing forty dollars. Granny thought they were quite rich.

"You ought to put it in the bank, Hal! it's just a flow of good luck on every side."

And, when he received his pay for November, he actually did put fifty dollars in the bank, though there were a hundred things he wanted with it.

The latter part of December Hal's flowers began to bloom in great profusion. The alyssum and candytuft came out, and the house was sweet with tuberoses. There being more than Mr. Thomas wanted, he took a box full to Newbury one Saturday morning, and found Mr. Kirkman, to whom the flowers were quite a godsend. Eight dollars! Hal felt richer than ever.

He had set his heart upon buying some Christmas gifts. At first he thought he would break the fifty dollars; but it was so near the end of the month that he borrowed a little from Dr. Meade instead. He came home laden with budgets; but both Kit and Charlie were out, fortunately.

"Now, Granny, you will keep the secret," he implored. "Don't breathe a hint of it."

Very hard work Granny found it. She chuckled over her dish-washing; and, when Dot asked what was the matter, subsided into an awful solemnity. But Wednesday morning soon came.

They all rushed down to their stockings, which Kit and Charlie had insisted upon hanging up after the olden fashion. Stockings were empty however, as Santy Claus' gifts were rather unwieldy for so small a receptacle.

Kit started back in amazement. A mysterious black case with a brass handle on the top.

"O Hal! you are the dearest old chap in the world; a perfect darling, isn't he Granny? and I never, never can thank you. I've been thinking about it all the time, and wondering – oh, you dear, precious fiddle!"

Kit hugged it; and I am not sure but he kissed it, and capered around the room as if he had lost his senses.

Charlie's gift was a drawing-book, a set of colored pencils, and a new dress; Granny's a new dress; and Dot's a muff and tippet, a very pretty imitation of ermine. How delighted they all were! Kit could hardly eat a mouthful of breakfast.

Granny gave them a royal dinner. Altogether it was almost as good as the Christmas with "The old woman who lived in a shoe."

Yet there were only four of them now. How they missed the two absent faces!

Shortly after this they had a letter from Joe. He had actually been at Canton, seen John Chinaman on his native soil in all the glory of pigtail and chop-stick. Such hosts of funny adventures it would have been hard to find even in a book. He meant to cruise around in that part of the world until he was tired, for he was having the tallest kind of sport.

February was very pleasant indeed. Hal stirred up the soil in his cold frames, and planted some seeds. His flowers were still doing very well, the slips having come forward beautifully. On the whole, it had proved a rather pleasant winter, and they had been very happy.

Granny declared that she was quite a lady. No more weaving carpet, or going out to work, – nothing but "puttering" about the house. She was becoming accustomed to the care of the flowers, and looked after them in a manner that won Hal's entire heart.

Easter was to fall very early. Mr. Thomas had engaged all Hal's flowers, and begged him to have as many white ones as possible. So he fed the callas on warm water, with a little spirits of ammonia in it, and the five beautiful stalks grew up, with their fairy haunt of loveliness and fragrance. Dot used to look at them twenty times a day, as the soft green turned paler and paler, bleaching out at last to that wonderful creamy white with its delicate odor.

Outside he transplanted his heads of lettuce, sowed fresh seeds of various kinds, and began to set slips of geranium. On cold or stormy days they kept the glass covered, and always at night. It was marvellous, the way every thing throve and grew. It seemed to Hal that there was nothing else in the world so interesting.

Kit had begun to take lessons on his violin; but he soon found there was a wide difference between the absolute drudgery of rudiments, and the delicious dreams of melody that floated through his brain. Sometimes he cried over the difficulties, and felt tempted to throw away his violin; then he and Hal would have a good time with their beloved Charles Auchester, when he would go on with renewed courage.

After Easter the flowers looked like mere wrecks. Hal cut most of the roses down, trimmed the heliotrope and fuchsias, and planted verbenas. His pansies, which had come from seed, looked very fine and thrifty, and were in bud. So he mentioned that he would have quite a number of bedding-plants for sale.

Indeed, the fame of Hal's green-house spread through Madison. It was a marvel to everybody, how he could make plants grow in such a remarkable fashion, and under not a few disadvantages. But he studied the soil and habits minutely; and then he had a "gift," – as much of a genius for this, as Kit's for music, or Charlie's for drawing.

But with these warm spring days Hal grew very pale and thin. It seemed to him sometimes as if he could not endure the peculiar wear and anxiety of the school. There were thirty-five scholars now; and, although he tried to keep respectable order, he found it very hard work. He had such a tender, indulgent heart, that he oftener excused than punished.

His head used to ache dreadfully in the afternoon, and every pulse in his body would throb until it seemed to make him absolutely sore. The gardening and the school were quite too much.

"Granny," said Charlie one evening, "I am not going to school any more."

Granny opened her eyes in surprise.

"I am going to work."

"To work?"

It was astonishing to hear Charlie declare such sentiments.

"Yes, – in the mill."

"What will you do?"

"Sarah Marshall began last fall: it's cleaning specks and imperfections out of the cloth; not very hard, either, and they give her four and a half a week."

"That's pretty good," said Granny.

"Yes. I shall have to do something. I hate housework and sewing, and – I want some money."

"I'm sure Hal's as good as an angel."

"I don't want Hal's. Goodness knows! he has enough to do, and it's high time I began to think about myself."

Granny was overwhelmed with admiration at Charlie's spirit and resolution, yet she was not quite certain of its being proper until she had asked Hal.

"I wish she wanted to learn dressmaking instead, or to teach school; but she isn't proud, like Flossy. And now she is growing so large that she wants nice clothes, and all that."

Yet Hal sighed a little. Charlie somehow appeared to be lacking in refinement. She had a great deal of energy and persistence, and was not easily daunted or laughed out of any idea.

"Though I think she will make a nice girl," said Hal, as if he had been indulging in a little treason. "We have a good deal to be thankful for, Granny."

"Yes, indeed! And dear, brave Joe such a nice boy!"

Hal made a few inquiries at the mill. They would take Charlie, and pay her two dollars a week for the first month, after that by the piece; and, if she was smart, she could earn three or four dollars.

So Charlie went to work with her usual sturdiness. If they could have looked in her heart, and beheld all her plans, and known that she hated this as bitterly as washing dishes or mending old clothes!

On the first of June, Hal took an account of stock. They had been quite fortunate in the sale of early vegetables. The lettuce, radishes, and tomato-plants had done beautifully. For cut-flowers he had received fifty-two dollars; for bedding-plants, – scarlet and other geraniums, and pansies, – the sum had amounted to over nine dollars; for vegetables and garden-plants, eleven. They had not incurred any extra expense, save the labor.

"To think of that, Granny! Almost seventy-five dollars! And on such a small scale too! I think I could make gardening pay, if I had a fair chance."

Dr. Meade admitted that it was wonderful, when he heard of it.

"I'm not sure that a hot-house would pay here in Madison, but you could send a great many things to New York. Any how, Hal, if I were rich I should build you one."

"You are very kind. I shouldn't have done as well, if it had not been for you."

"Tut, tut! That's nothing. But I don't like to see you growing so thin. I shall have to prepare you a tonic. You work too hard."

Hal smiled faintly.

"You must let gardening alone for the next six weeks. And the school isn't the best thing in the world for you."

"I've been very thankful for it, though."

"If you stay another year, the salary must be raised. Do you like it?"

"Not as well as gardening."

"Well, take matters easy," advised the good doctor.

The tonic was sent over. Hal made a strong fight against the languor; but the enemy was rather too stout for him. Every day there was a little fever; and at night he tossed from side to side, and could not sleep. Granny made him a "pitcher of tea," her great cure-all, – valerian, gentian, and wild-cherry, – in a pitcher that had lost both handle and spout; and, though he drank it to please her, it did not appear to help him any.

It seemed to him, some days, that he never could walk home from school. Now and then he caught a ride, to be sure; but the weary step after step on these warm afternoons almost used up his last remnant of strength.

"Now," said Dr. Meade when school had ended, "you really must begin to take care of yourself. You are as white as if you had not an ounce of blood in your whole body. No work of any kind, remember. It is to be a regular vacation."

Hal acquiesced from sheer inability to do any thing else. The house was quiet; for Dot never had been a noisy child since her crying-days. She was much more like Florence, except the small vanities, and air of martyrdom, that so often spoiled the elder sister's sacrifices, – a sweet, affectionate little thing, a kind of baby, as she would always be.

Her love for Hal and Granny was perfect devotion, and held in it a strand of quaintness that made one smile. She could cook quite nicely; and sewing appeared to come natural to her. Hal called her "Small woman," as an especial term of endearment.

But they hardly knew what to make of Charlie. Instead of launching out into gayeties, as they expected (for Charlie was very fond of finery), she proved so economical, that she was almost stingy. She gave Granny a dollar a week; and they heard she was earning as much as Sarah Marshall already. In fact, Charlie was a Trojan when she worked in good earnest.

"What are you going to do with it all?" Hal would ask playfully.

"Maybe I'll put it in the bank, or buy a farm."

"Ho!" said Kit. "What would you do with a farm?"

"Hire it out on shares to Hal."

"You are a good girl, Charlie; and it's well to save a little 'gainst time o' need."

Which encomium of Granny's would always settle the matter.

Hal did not get better. Dr. Meade wanted him to go to the seaside for a few weeks.

"I cannot afford it," he said; "and I shouldn't enjoy it a bit alone. I think I shall be better when cool weather comes. These warm days seem to melt all the strength out of me."

"Well, I hope so."

Hal hoped so too. He was young; and the world looked bright; and then they all needed him. Not that he had any morbid thoughts of dying, only sometimes it crossed his mind. He had never been quite so well and strong since the accident.

For Granny's sake and for Dot's sake. He loved them both so dearly; and they seemed so peculiarly helpless, – the one in her shy childhood, the other on the opposite confine. He wanted to make Granny's life pleasant at the last, when she had worked so hard for all of them.

But God would do what was best; though Hal's lip quivered, and an unbidden tear dropped from the sad eye.

O Florence! had you forgotten them?

CHAPTER XV

HOW CHARLIE RAN AWAY

"Where is Charlie?" asked Hal as they sat down to the supper-table one evening.

"She didn't go to work this afternoon, but put on her best clothes, and said she meant to take a holiday."

"Well, the poor child needed it, I am sure. To think of our wild, heedless, tomboy Charlie settling into such a steady girl!"

"But Charlie always was good at heart. I've had six of the best and nicest grandchildren you could pick out anywhere, if I do say it myself."

Granny uttered the words with a good deal of pride.

"Yes," said Kit: "we'll be a what-is-it – crown to your old age."

Granny laughed merrily.

"Seven children!" appended Kit. "You forgot my fiddle."

"Eight children!" said Dot. "You forgot Hal's flowers."

Hal smiled at this.

"I may as well wash the dishes," exclaimed Dot presently. "I guess Charlie will stay out to tea."

After that they sat on the doorstep in the moonlight, and sang, – Dot with her head in Hal's lap, and Hal's arm around Granny's shoulder. A very sacred and solemn feeling seemed to come to them on this evening, as if it was a time which it would be important to remember.

"I do not believe Charlie means to come home to-night," Hal said when the clock struck ten.

"But she has on her best clothes. She wouldn't wear 'em to the mill."

So they waited a while longer. No Charlie. Then they kissed each other good-night, and began to disperse.

Hal looked into the deserted flower-room, which was still a kind of library and cosey place. The moonlight lay in broad white sheets on the floor, quivering like a summer sea. How strange and sweet it was! How lovely God had made the earth, and the serene heaven above it!

Something on the table caught his eye as he turned, – a piece of folded paper like a letter. He wondered what he had left there, and picked it up carelessly.

"To Granny and Hal."

Hal started in the utmost surprise. An unsealed letter in Charlie's handwriting, which had never been remarkable for its beauty. He trembled all over, and stood in the moonlight to read it, the slow tears coming into his eyes.

Should he go down and tell them? Perhaps it would be better not to alarm them to-night. Occasionally, when it had rained, Charlie spent the night with some of the girls living near the mill: so Granny would not worry about her.

O brave, daring, impulsive Charlie! If you could have seen the pain in Hal's heart!

He brought the letter down the next morning.

"How queer it is that Charlie stays!" said Dot, toasting some bread. "O Hal! what's the matter?"

"Nothing – only – You'll have to hear it sometime; and maybe it will all end right. Charlie's gone away."

"Gone away!" echoed Granny.

"Yes. She left a letter. I found it last night in the flower-room. Let me read it to you."

Hal cleared his throat. The others stood absolutely awe-stricken.

"Dear Granny and Hal, – You know I always had my heart set on running away; and I'm going to do it now, because, if I told you all my plans, you would say they were quite wild. Perhaps they are. Only I shall try to make them work; and, somehow, I think I can. I have sights of courage and hope. But, O Granny! I couldn't stay in the mill: it was like putting me in prison. I hated the coarse work, the dirt, the noise, and the smells of grease, and everybody there. Some days I felt as if I must scream and scream, until God came and took me out of it. But I wanted to earn some money; and there wasn't any other way in Madison that I should have liked any better. I've had this in my mind ever since I went to work.

"I can't tell you all my plans, – I don't even know them myself, – only I am going to try; and, if I cannot succeed, I shall come back. I have twenty-five dollars that I've saved. And, if I have good luck, you'll hear that too. Please don't worry about me. I shall find friends, and not get into any trouble, I know.

"I am very sorry to leave you all; but then I kissed you good-by, – Hal and Kit this morning, when I said it softly in my heart; and Dot and you, dear Granny, when I went away. I had it all planned so nicely, and you never suspected a word. I shall come back some time, of course. And now you must be happy without me, and just say a tiny bit of prayer every night, as I shall for you, and never fret a word. Somehow I feel as if I were a little like Joe; and you know he is doing beautifully.

"Good-by with a thousand kisses. Don't try to find me; for you can't, I know. I'll write some time again. Your own queer, loving.

"Charlie."

"Well, that's too good!" said Kit, breaking the silence of tears. "Charlie has the spunk – and a girl too!"

"Oh!" sobbed Granny, "she don't know nothing; and she'll get lost, and get into trouble."

"No, she won't, either! I'll bet on Charlie. And she was saving up her money for that, and never said a word!"

Kit's admiration was intense.

"It's about the drawing; and she has gone to New York, I am almost sure," said Hal. "Don't cry, Granny; for somehow I think Charlie will be safe. She is good and honest and truthful."

"But in New York! And she don't know anybody there" —

"Maybe she has gone to Mrs. Burton's. I might write and see. Or there is Clara Pennington – they moved last spring, you remember. I'm pretty sure we shall find her."

Hal's voice was strong with hope. Now that he had to comfort Granny, he could see a bright side himself.

"And she has some money too."

"She'll do," said Kit decisively. "And if that isn't great! She coaxed me to run away once and live in the woods; but I think this is better."

"Did you do it?" asked Dot.

"Yes. We came near setting the woods on fire; and didn't we get a jolly scolding! Charlie's a trump."

So they settled themselves to the fact quite calmly. Charlie had taken the best of her clothes, and would be prepared for present emergencies.

Before the day was over, they had another event to startle them.

Dr. Meade tied his old horse to the gate-post, and came in. Granny was taking a little rest in the other room; and Dot was up stairs, reading.