This time, as before, there is a story to tell because of something braved and dared for Miss Julia’s sake; something that needed less nerve, perhaps, than the leap Courage took that night on the drawbridge, but something that called not only for a world of a different sort of courage, but for infinite patience as well, and that claimed the whole summer for its doing. The reason for it all lay in four little words—Miss Julia was dead. Beautiful, strong, radiant Miss Julia! why, no one had thought of death for her, save as years and years away in the serene twilight of a calm old age; and yet it had come, suddenly, after a week’s brief illness, and Courage was simply broken-hearted. She felt she had no right to her name now, and never should have again. Miss Julia had been teacher, mother, friend to her, one or the other almost since her babyhood, and to care for Miss Julia in return, now that she herself was grown up, to let every thing else “come second,” had been her only 014thought. And now to find her hands suddenly empty, and all the sunshine gone out of her life—was it strange that she felt despairing and desolate and that nothing whatever was left?
“But we are left,” pleaded a chorus of little voices, and Courage seemed to see four brighteyed little children; bright-eyed because God had made them so, but with faces almost as sad as her own. “Yes, we are left,” they continued pleading. “Miss Julia was going to do so much for us this summer; could not you do it in her place for her sake?”
Courage shook her head gravely as in answer to her own thoughts.
“No, I cannot,” she said, firmly. “Everything that I leaned on is gone; nothing is left to me—nothing.”
“But could you not try just for her sake?” chorused the little voices over and over in her heart, day after day, in all the sad hours of waking, and sometimes even in sleeping, until at last she bravely brushed the tears away and made answer, “Yes, for her sake I will!”
She remembered the day of her six-year-old christening, when her remarkable name had been given her and she had asked: “Is courage something that people have, Papa? Have I got it?” and he had told her, “Courage is 015something that people have, dear, something fine, and I hope you will have it.”
Yes, she would try, even in this dark hour, to live up to her father’s hope for her, and so her resolve was taken.
But the four bright-eyed little children knew nothing of any resolve; they would not have understood what it meant if they had, and as for their singing a pathetic little chorus in any one’s heart, they were altogether unconscious of that as well. But one thing they did know, and that was they should never see Miss Julia again in this world, and they thought they also knew that a beautiful plan she had made for them could never be carried out. The wisest thing, therefore, for these four little people was to put, so far as possible, all thought of the plan from their minds, and Mary, the eldest of the four, said as much to the others.
“Oh, don’t let us think about it any more,” she urged, earnestly. “If we only could have Miss Julia back what would we care for anything else? Besides, when you think what has happened, it seems selfish, and as though we did not have any hearts, to grieve over our own little plans for a moment.”
“But it wasn’t just over our own little plan,” insisted her younger brother Teddy, “it was 016Miss Julia’s plan for us, and I don’t think it strange a bit that we should grieve over it.”
“Neither do I,” urged Allan, who came next to Teddy in age. “Of course us boys, not going to the sewing-school, did not know Miss Julia as well as you, but I just guess there wasn’t a boy who thought more of her than I did. What’s more I loved her; not making a fuss over her, to be sure, like you girls, still I did really love her,” (emphasising the word by a shake of his head, and firm pursing of his lips). “All the same, I think it’s natural we should feel awfully disappointed.” Gertrude who was seven, and the youngest of the four, nodded in approval of the stand Allan had taken, and continued nodding, as he added, “We haven’t travelled so much, seems to me, or had so much change in our lives as to settle back to the idea of a hot summer here in town, instead of going to the country, without feeling it a bit; that is, I don’t think we have.”
Mary sighed and said nothing, as though ready to admit, after all, that perhaps it was natural that they should take their disappointment somewhat to heart, but the tears that had sprung suddenly into her eyes were from real longing for Miss Julia and not from the disappointment.
This quiet talk in which the little Bennetts 017were indulging, was being carried on from the backs of two horses—the two girls mounted upon one and the two boys astride the other—but they happened to be the quietest horses in the world; horses that never budged in fact, tailless and headless, and that belonged to the carpenter who lived on the first floor. The Bennetts lived on the top floor; but whenever there was anything to be talked over, down they trooped to the yard and climbed and helped each other to the backs of these high seats, and when all were able to declare themselves perfectly comfortable the conclave would commence. The little Bennetts were great talkers. They simply loved to discuss things, and this shows, when you stop to consider it, that they must be, on the whole, an amiable little family, for some little people that we hear of are quite too impatient and self-assertive to be willing to discuss things at all. But whatever may have been the faults of the little Bennetts they did have respect for each other’s opinions, and were generally ready to admit that two heads were better than one, and “Four heads,” to quote little Gertrude, “four times as better.” This habit of discussion, for it really amounted to that, was partly no doubt the outcome of a little strategy on the part of their mother. Mary and Teddy and Allan and Gertrude were 018just a “pair of steps,” as the saying goes, and sometimes the little living-room on the fourth floor seemed all too small for the noisy company, and then Mrs. Bennett would exclaim, and as though the most novel sort of an idea had occurred to her:
“Children, why don’t you run down to the yard and have a good talk?”
There was no resisting this appeal, such untold delights were implied in Mrs. Bennett’s tone and manner, and the children seldom failed to act upon the advice, and what was more, seldom failed to light upon some interesting thing to talk about; and then, always as a last resort, some one could tell a story. The some one was generally Teddy, for he had the wildest imagination, and could upon any and every occasion invent most thrilling romances, which were quite as much of a surprise to himself as to his hearers. And so the children had come to love their perch in the corner of the city yard, with the uncertain shade of an old alanthus flickering over them in summer, and the bright sun streaming full upon them in its leafless winter days. And this was how it chanced that the Bennett children found themselves in their old haunt that breezy May morning, and were easing their heavy little hearts by frankly admitting to one 019another how very great indeed was their disappointment.
Better so, I think. Wrinkles come earlier and plow deeper, and thoughts are apt to grow bitter and morbid, when one broods and broods, and will not take hearts near and dear into one’s confidence. The day never dawns when truly brave hearts cry out for pity, but sympathy is a sweet and blessed thing the world over, and God meant not only that we should have it, but that, if need be, we should reach our hands and grasp it.
There was one little Bennett, however, who did not share in the general depression. Too short a time in the world to know aught of its joys or sorrows, Baby Bennett lay comfortably in his mother’s lap, having just dropped off to sleep after a good half hour of rocking, Mrs. Bennett, who had herself grown drowsy with her low crooning over the baby, glanced first at the bustling little clock on the mantel shelf, and then, leaning her head against the back of the chair, closed her eyes; but instead of falling asleep she fell to thinking, and then her face grew very sad and tears made their way from beneath her closed eyelids. So, you see, the mother-heart was heavy as well as the-child-hearts in the Bennett family, and for the same reason. It was not because they were 020not learning to face and accept the thought that Miss Julia, whom they so dearly loved, could not return to them; they were trying to be as brave as Miss Julia herself would have had them. But this was the day, the very day that they were all to have started, and they could not seem to forget it for a moment; neither could somebody else, and soon there came a gentle knock at Mrs. Bennett’s door.
“Come in,” she answered, forgetting the tears in her eyes; and, laying the baby in its little clothes-basket of a bed, she turned to greet the newcomer. Courage had mounted the four flights of stairs very bravely, but the sight of the tears in Mrs. Bennett’s eyes disarmed her, and, sinking into the nearest chair, she found she would best not try to speak for a moment.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Courage, that you should have seen me,” said Mrs. Bennett, with a world of regret in her voice; “it is so much harder for you than for anybody, but this was the day, you know, almost the very hour.”
“Yes, I know,” Courage faltered; “that was why I came.”
“It’s like you, Miss Courage; you’ve Miss Julia’s own thoughtfulness, but I’m thinking it will be easier for us all when this day’s over. I got rid of the trunk last week; it seemed to 021make us all so disheartened to have it standing round.”
“You didn’t sell it, did you?”
“No, indeed I did not, for it may be the children will have a chance yet some day, for a bit of an outing.”
“I have decided they are all to have it yet, Mrs. Bennett, this very summer, and just as Miss Julia planned, too. That’s what I came to tell you, if you will trust them to me.”
“Trust you! Oh, my dear! but it would be too much care for those young shoulders; too much by far.”
“Mrs. Bennett,” said Courage, so earnestly as to carry conviction, “I thought so at first, too, but the plan has grown to be just as dear to me as it was to Miss Julia, and now, if you do not let me carry it out, I do not see how I can ever live through this first summer.”
“Then indeed I will let you,” and then she added slowly, and with an accent on every word, “and you are just Miss Julia’s own child!” and Courage thought them the very sweetest words she had ever heard, or ever could hear again.
“May I tell the children?” she asked, eagerly. “Where are they?”
Mrs. Bennett did not answer. I believe she could not, but she opened the window and 022Courage knew that meant the children were below in their favourite corner.
“Oh, let me call them, please,” resting one hand on Mrs. Bennett’s arm and leaning far out over the sill.
“Children! come up stairs for a moment, I have something to tell you. Come up quickly.” Courage hardly knew her own voice, it rang out so cheerily.
“Oh, Miss Courage!” chorused four little voices, only this time the sound was in her ears as well as in her heart, and as she watched the children tumble helter-skelter from the horses in the yard way down below her, a smile that was almost merry drove the shadows from her face.