For a few minutes neither spoke again, then Monty suddenly asked: "How many you catch, Un-un-uncle Mose?"
"Enough for breakfast. But I missed ye, sonny, I missed ye. An' I'm real glad you wasn't killed. As for that t'other one, I declare, I wish't she hadn't come. 'Peared like Eunice would lose her seventy senses, a-worryin' lest the child take cold or get hurt or somethin'. And there she has landed on her feet sound as a cat. Though speakin' of cats, Sir Philip has had the bout of his life, and he looks pretty peaked to me. But here we are to home, an' your grandma ain't likely to scold you none if you just mention to her 'Foxes' Gully.' 'Twas one of the Sturtevant calves got killed there, the very first off, an' she will remember. As for me, a respectable hired man, kep' out of my bed like this – why, sonny! Soon's you get over it I'll teach you a lesson you'll remember!"
So, still grumbling and petting, Moses set his burden down in Madam Sturtevant's presence, and saw her open her lips to reprove her erring grandson, then as suddenly close them again and strain the boy to her heart, while her stately figure shook like an aspen. But Moses knew the lady's temperament of old, and how her alternate severity and indulgence had been bad for the child she idolized, and, fearing that severity might have the upper hand now, when it was least needed, he remained long enough to mention:
"Nothin' much the matter with the little shaver, Madam, only he fell down Foxes' Gully, and is – he's sort of tuckered out."
Then he quietly withdrew, and of Montgomery Sturtevant he had no further glimpse during what he himself termed "a consid'able spell."
As for Katharine, she was sound asleep long before Moses returned from Madam Sturtevant's. To the anxiety and reproof with which she had been received, she had, fortunately, but little to say beyond the statement that, "I went to apologize, and I stayed to – to fish, I guess." The relief of being safe indoors again was all she realized, just then, and she submitted to being warmed, blanketed, and dosed with hot sage tea, with a meek humility that won her pardon.
Indeed, when at last the dark curls rested on the pillow, and the childish face softened in slumber, she looked so like Aunt Eunice's lost "little John," that the lady stooped and kissed her for his sake. But she confided to the faithful Widow Sprigg, who had also watched and waited:
"I'm afraid, Susanna, that our peaceful days are over. While she was out to-night, and I knew not where, and I was so troubled and anxious, I felt that it would be wrong, really wrong to burden myself with such a charge. For years her father left me ignorant of how his life was passing, and it seemed to me he had no right to impose the care of his daughter upon me, just because I had once tried to be good to him and he had once seemed to love me. And I knew it would be hard for you and Moses, too. We're all old together; and to rear another child – such an odd child, at that – I wonder, is it right?"
Now it so chanced that old Susanna had been entirely won by the manner in which Kate had chosen to be undressed and tended by the servant rather than the statelier mistress. Also, in the old days when "Johnny" had been with them, though the aunt had loved she had, also, reproved him; but childless Susanna, whose own little son had died, simply loved and never reproved. She now answered, promptly:
"Yes, Eunice Maitland, it's as right as right. She wouldn't have been sent if she hadn't been meant, would she? And she's the cut an' dried image of her own pa, bless him. Send her off? Course you'll do nothin' o' the kind. If you do, I'll leave, an' you can get somebody else to take my place. So there, that's my say-so, an' you're welcome to it."
At the thought of Katharine's mobile little face being a "cut and dried image" of anybody Miss Eunice smiled, and her perplexity vanished – for the time, at least. Then, hearing the kitchen door unclose, she remarked:
"Well, I hear Moses coming in, and we three old people must get to rest. I am surely obliged to you for the help and comfort you are to me, Susanna, and to Moses, too. We'll do the best we can, and day by day."
"Certain, Eunice. That's the way to live, an' all's well 'at ends well, as we hope she will – this little orphant thrust upon us without no druther of our own, an' a bad beginnin' gen'ally makes a good ending; an' I 'low I'd best take one more peek into the sittin'-room chamber, afore I go to bed myself. Good night. Don't worry. I've fixed fish-cakes for breakfast."
With which comforting assurance for the morrow, the Widow Sprigg took herself out of the room, and quiet fell upon the old home.
CHAPTER V.
CHESTNUTS AND GOLD MINES
"May I help? I think I could do that. It doesn't look hard," said Katharine, wandering into the kitchen where Susanna was seeding raisins – more raisins than the girl had ever seen together, save at a grocer's counter. "What are you doing it for?"
"Fruit-cake. For Thanksgivin' an' Christmas. I ought to of done it long ago, but the weather kep' so warm, an' one thing another's hendered. I'm all behind with everything this fall, seems if. I've got to make my soft soap yet, and – Laws, child, what do you lug that humbly dog all round with you for? A beast as ugly favored as he is ought to do his own walkin', and would, if he belonged to me."
"That's just why, I suppose. Because he 'belongs.' And because he isn't old. Not so very. He isn't gray, anyway."
The Widow Sprigg looked over her spectacles and saw such a dejected face that she immediately suggested caraway cookies. A delicacy which had used to bring smiles to "Johnny's" countenance, even after he had suffered that worst of all boyish trials, – a "lickin'," – and if there was anything in heredity should restore cheer to the heart of "Johnny's" daughter.
"No, thank you. But I'd like to help. I shall – shall burst if I don't do something mighty soon," said Kate, excitedly. "I am hungry, but it's for folks, not cookies. And why do you make cake for Christmas now when it's forever and ever before it will come?"
"'Tain't so much for Christmas. Marsden folks don't set no great store by any other holiday than Thanksgivin'. Another why is that fruit-cake ain't fit to put in a body's mouth afore it's six seven months old at the least. This here won't be worth shucks, but Eunice says better late 'n never, an' if it ain't ripe then t'will be for Easter. We never used to hear tell of Easter, here in Marsden, till late years. Though Madam, she always kep' it. She's met with a change of heart, however, sence she became a Sturtevant, an' I'd ruther you wouldn't mention it, as comin' from me, but – " here Susanna leaned forward and whispered, sibilantly – "they say she used to be a Catholic when she was a girl! Nobody lays it up ag'in her, an' folks pertend they've forgot it; and if there is a good Christian goin', I 'low it's Madam Elinor Sturtevant. Your Aunt Eunice – though she ain't your real aunt at all, only third cousin once removed – she was promised to Schuyler Sturtevant, Madam's husband's brother, but he was killed out on a fox-hunt, an' she ain't never married nobody sence. That's one why she an' Madam are such good friends, most like sisters; as they would have been hadn't things turned out different. But there, my suz! Don't stan' there lookin' so wishful. Put the dog in the lean-to an' shut the door. There's a strong air comes through it an' I feel it, settin' still. Then you can tie my check apern over your white frock. Don't you never wear no other kind of clothes, Katy? 'Cause I don't know who'll do your washin' an' ironin', if you don't."
Having finished a certain portion of the raisins, Susanna rose, washed her hands and tied the apron around Katharine's neck, bringing the strings forward under the arms with such firmness that the band choked the girl, and made a puffy blouse of the gingham. The whole arrangement was so uncomfortable that it was promptly taken off and hung upon its nail.
"I can't endure that, you know. If I must wear an apron, like a coon, I'll have one that fits. Why do I need it, anyway? This dress is only white piqué, and wears like iron. I heard stepmother say so when she gave it to the dressmaker. She never bought me anything but piqués and ducks and things that would stand wearing without tearing. I mean – May I do this many?"
Susanna fairly snatched the dish away and shook her helper's fingers free from the cluster of raisins she had lifted, exclaiming:
"Why,