Little Signa, who was waiting on the table, giggled and fled to the kitchen. Alexandra's eyes twinkled. “That was too much for Signa, Lou. We all know that Ivar's perfectly harmless. The girls would as soon expect me to chase them with an axe.”
Lou flushed and signaled to his wife. “All the same, the neighbors will be having a say about it before long. He may burn anybody's barn. It's only necessary for one property-owner in the township to make complaint, and he'll be taken up by force. You'd better send him yourself and not have any hard feelings.”
Alexandra helped one of her little nephews to gravy. “Well, Lou, if any of the neighbors try that, I'll have myself appointed Ivar's guardian and take the case to court, that's all. I am perfectly satisfied with him.”
“Pass the preserves, Lou,” said Annie in a warning tone. She had reasons for not wishing her husband to cross Alexandra too openly. “But don't you sort of hate to have people see him around here, Alexandra?” she went on with persuasive smoothness. “He IS a disgraceful object, and you're fixed up so nice now. It sort of makes people distant with you, when they never know when they'll hear him scratching about. My girls are afraid as death of him, aren't you, Milly, dear?”
Milly was fifteen, fat and jolly and pompadoured, with a creamy complexion, square white teeth, and a short upper lip. She looked like her grandmother Bergson, and had her comfortable and comfort-loving nature. She grinned at her aunt, with whom she was a great deal more at ease than she was with her mother. Alexandra winked a reply.
“Milly needn't be afraid of Ivar. She's an especial favorite of his. In my opinion Ivar has just as much right to his own way of dressing and thinking as we have. But I'll see that he doesn't bother other people. I'll keep him at home, so don't trouble any more about him, Lou. I've been wanting to ask you about your new bathtub. How does it work?”
Annie came to the fore to give Lou time to recover himself. “Oh, it works something grand! I can't keep him out of it. He washes himself all over three times a week now, and uses all the hot water. I think it's weakening to stay in as long as he does. You ought to have one, Alexandra.”
“I'm thinking of it. I might have one put in the barn for Ivar, if it will ease people's minds. But before I get a bathtub, I'm going to get a piano for Milly.”
Oscar, at the end of the table, looked up from his plate. “What does Milly want of a pianny? What's the matter with her organ? She can make some use of that, and play in church.”
Annie looked flustered. She had begged Alexandra not to say anything about this plan before Oscar, who was apt to be jealous of what his sister did for Lou's children. Alexandra did not get on with Oscar's wife at all. “Milly can play in church just the same, and she'll still play on the organ. But practising on it so much spoils her touch. Her teacher says so,” Annie brought out with spirit.
Oscar rolled his eyes. “Well, Milly must have got on pretty good if she's got past the organ. I know plenty of grown folks that ain't,” he said bluntly.
Annie threw up her chin. “She has got on good, and she's going to play for her commencement when she graduates in town next year.”
“Yes,” said Alexandra firmly, “I think Milly deserves a piano. All the girls around here have been taking lessons for years, but Milly is the only one of them who can ever play anything when you ask her. I'll tell you when I first thought I would like to give you a piano, Milly, and that was when you learned that book of old Swedish songs that your grandfather used to sing. He had a sweet tenor voice, and when he was a young man he loved to sing. I can remember hearing him singing with the sailors down in the shipyard, when I was no bigger than Stella here,” pointing to Annie's younger daughter.
Milly and Stella both looked through the door into the sitting-room, where a crayon portrait of John Bergson hung on the wall. Alexandra had had it made from a little photograph, taken for his friends just before he left Sweden; a slender man of thirty-five, with soft hair curling about his high forehead, a drooping mustache, and wondering, sad eyes that looked forward into the distance, as if they already beheld the New World.
After dinner Lou and Oscar went to the orchard to pick cherries—they had neither of them had the patience to grow an orchard of their own—and Annie went down to gossip with Alexandra's kitchen girls while they washed the dishes. She could always find out more about Alexandra's domestic economy from the prattling maids than from Alexandra herself, and what she discovered she used to her own advantage with Lou. On the Divide, farmers' daughters no longer went out into service, so Alexandra got her girls from Sweden, by paying their fare over. They stayed with her until they married, and were replaced by sisters or cousins from the old country.
Alexandra took her three nieces into the flower garden. She was fond of the little girls, especially of Milly, who came to spend a week with her aunt now and then, and read aloud to her from the old books about the house, or listened to stories about the early days on the Divide. While they were walking among the flower beds, a buggy drove up the hill and stopped in front of the gate. A man got out and stood talking to the driver. The little girls were delighted at the advent of a stranger, some one from very far away, they knew by his clothes, his gloves, and the sharp, pointed cut of his dark beard. The girls fell behind their aunt and peeped out at him from among the castor beans. The stranger came up to the gate and stood holding his hat in his hand, smiling, while Alexandra advanced slowly to meet him. As she approached he spoke in a low, pleasant voice.
“Don't you know me, Alexandra? I would have known you, anywhere.”
Alexandra shaded her eyes with her hand. Suddenly she took a quick step forward. “Can it be!” she exclaimed with feeling; “can it be that it is Carl Linstrum? Why, Carl, it is!” She threw out both her hands and caught his across the gate. “Sadie, Milly, run tell your father and Uncle Oscar that our old friend Carl Linstrum is here. Be quick! Why, Carl, how did it happen? I can't believe this!” Alexandra shook the tears from her eyes and laughed.
The stranger nodded to his driver, dropped his suitcase inside the fence, and opened the gate. “Then you are glad to see me, and you can put me up overnight? I couldn't go through this country without stopping off to have a look at you. How little you have changed! Do you know, I was sure it would be like that. You simply couldn't be different. How fine you are!” He stepped back and looked at her admiringly.
Alexandra blushed and laughed again. “But you yourself, Carl—with that beard—how could I have known you? You went away a little boy.” She reached for his suitcase and when he intercepted her she threw up her hands. “You see, I give myself away. I have only women come to visit me, and I do not know how to behave. Where is your trunk?”
“It's in Hanover. I can stay only a few days. I am on my way to the coast.”
They started up the path. “A few days? After all these years!” Alexandra shook her finger at him. “See this, you have walked into a trap. You do not get away so easy.” She put her hand affectionately on his shoulder. “You owe me a visit for the sake of old times. Why must you go to the coast at all?”
“Oh, I must! I am a fortune hunter. From Seattle I go on to Alaska.”
“Alaska?” She looked at him in astonishment. “Are you going to paint the Indians?”
“Paint?” the young man frowned. “Oh! I'm not a painter, Alexandra. I'm an engraver. I have nothing to do with painting.”
“But on my parlor wall I have the paintings—”
He interrupted nervously. “Oh, water-color sketches—done for amusement. I sent them to remind you of me, not because they were good. What a wonderful place you have made of this, Alexandra.” He turned and looked back at the wide, map-like prospect of field and hedge and pasture. “I would never have believed it could be done. I'm disappointed in my own eye, in my imagination.”