"Dear, dear, Nathan!--did I? Oh, dear, what _will_ Alma say?"

"It don't make no diff'rence what Alma says, Mary. Don't ye fret,"

returned the man with sudden sharpness, as he rose to his feet. "I guess Alma'll have ter take us 'bout as we be--'bout as we be."

Yet it was Nathan who asked, just as his wife was dropping off to sleep that night:--

"Mary, is it three o' them collars I've got, or four?--b'iled ones, I mean."

At five o'clock the next afternoon Mrs. Kelsey put on the treasured black silk dress, sacred for a dozen years to church, weddings, and funerals. Nathan, warm and uncomfortable in his Sunday suit and stiff collar, had long since driven to the station for Alma. The house, brushed and scrubbed into a state of speckless order, was thrown wide open to welcome the returning daughter. At a quarter before six she came.

"Mother, you darling!" cried a voice, and Mrs. Kelsey found herself in the clasp of strong young arms, and gazing into a flushed, eager face.

"Don't you look good! And doesn't everything look good!" finished the girl.

"Does it--I mean, _do_ it?" quavered the little woman excitedly.

"Oh, Alma, I _am_ glad ter see ye!"

Behind Alma's back Nathan flicked a bit of dust from his coat. The next instant he raised a furtive hand and gave his collar and neckband a savage pull.

At the supper-table that night ten minutes of eager questioning on the part of Alma had gone by before Mrs. Kelsey realized that thus far their conversation had been of nothing more important than Nathan's rheumatism, her own health, and the welfare of Rover, Tabby, and the mare Topsy. Commensurate with the happiness that had been hers during those ten minutes came now her remorse. She hastened to make amends.

"There, there, Alma, I beg yer pardon, I'm sure. I hain't--er--I _haven't_ meant ter keep ye talkin' on such triflin' things, dear.

Now talk ter us yer self. Tell us about things--anythin'--anythin' on the table or in the room," she finished feverishly.

For a moment the merry-faced girl stared in frank amazement at her mother; then she laughed gleefully.

"On the table? In the room?" she retorted. "Well, it's the dearest room ever, and looks so good to me! As for the table--the rolls are feathers, the coffee is nectar, and the strawberries--well, the strawberries are just strawberries--they couldn't be nicer."

"Oh, Alma, but I didn't mean----"

"Tut, tut, tut!" interrupted Alma laughingly. "Just as if the cook didn't like her handiwork praised! Why, when I draw a picture--oh, and I haven't told you!" she broke off excitedly. The next instant she was on her feet. "Alma Mead Kelsey, Ill.u.s.trator; at your service," she announced with a low bow. Then she dropped into her seat again and went on speaking.

"You see, I've been doing this sort of thing for some time," she explained, "and have had some success in selling. My teacher has always encouraged me, and, acting on his advice, I stayed over in New York a week with a friend, and took some of my work to the big publishing houses. That's why I didn't get here as soon as Kate Hopkins did. I hated to put off my coming; but now I'm so glad I did. Only think! I sold every single thing, and I have orders and orders ahead."

"Well, by sugar!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man at the head of the table.

"Oh-h-h!" breathed the little woman opposite. "Oh, Alma, I'm so glad!"

In spite of Mrs. Kelsey's protests that night after supper, Alma tripped about the kitchen and pantry wiping the dishes and putting them away. At dusk father, mother, and daughter seated themselves on the back porch.

"There!" sighed Alma. "Isn't this restful? And isn't that moon glorious?"

Mrs. Kelsey shot a quick look at her husband; then she cleared her throat nervously.

"Er--yes," she a.s.sented. "I--I s'pose you know what it's made of, an'

how big 'tis, an'--an' what there is on it, don't ye, Alma?"

Alma raised her eyebrows.

"Hm-m; well, there are still a few points that I and the astronomers haven't quite settled," she returned, with a whimsical smile.

"An' the stars, they've got names, I s'pose--every one of 'em,"

proceeded Mrs. Kelsey, so intent on her own part that Alma's reply pa.s.sed unnoticed.

Alma laughed; then she a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of mock rapture, and quoted:

"'Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, Fain would I fathom thy nature specific; Loftily poised in ether capacious, Strongly resembling the gem carbonaceous.'"

There was a long silence. Alma's eyes were on the flying clouds.

"Would--would you mind saying that again, Alma?" asked Mrs. Kelsey at last timidly.

Alma turned with a start.

"Saying what, dearie?--oh, that nonsensical verse? Of course not! That's only another way of saying 'twinkle, twinkle, little star.' Means just the same, only uses up a few more letters to make the words. Listen."

And she repeated the two, line for line.

"Oh!" said her mother faintly. "Er--thank you."

"I--I guess I'll go to bed," announced Nathan Kelsey suddenly.

The next morning Alma's pleadings were in vain. Mrs. Kelsey insisted that Alma should go about her sketching, leaving the housework for her own hands to perform. With a laughing protest and a playful pout, Alma tucked her sketchbook under her arm and left the house to go down by the river. In the field she came upon her father.

"Hard at work, dad?" she called affectionately. "Old Mother Earth won't yield her increase without just so much labor, will she?"

"That she won't," laughed the man. Then he flushed a quick red and set a light foot on a crawling thing of many legs which had emerged from beneath an overturned stone.

"Oh!" cried Alma. "Your foot, father--your're crushing something!"

The flush grew deeper.

"Oh, I guess not," rejoined the man, lifting his foot, and giving a curiously resigned sigh as he sent an apprehensive glance into the girl's face.

"Dear, dear! isn't he funny?" murmured the girl, bending low and giving a gentle poke with the pencil in her hand. "Only fancy," she added, straightening herself, "only fancy if we had so many feet. Just picture the size of our shoe bill!" And she laughed and turned away.

"Well, by gum!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man, looking after her. Then he fell to work, and his whistle, as he worked, carried something of the song of a bird set free from a cage.

A week pa.s.sed.

The days were spent by Alma in roaming the woods and fields, pencil and paper in hand; they were spent by her mother in the hot kitchen over a hotter stove. To Alma's protests and pleadings Mrs. Kelsey was deaf.

Alma's place was not there, her work was not housework, declared Alma's mother.

On Mrs. Kelsey the strain was beginning to tell. It was not the work alone--though that was no light matter, owing to her anxiety that Alma's pleasure and comfort should find nothing wanting--it was more than the work.

Every night at six the anxious little woman, flushed from biscuit-baking and chicken-broiling and almost sick with fatigue, got out the black silk gown and the white lace collar and put them on with trembling hands. Thus robed in state she descended to the supper-table, there to confront her husband still more miserable in the stiff collar and black coat.

Nor yet was this all. Neither the work nor the black silk dress contained for Mrs. Kelsey quite the possibilities of soul torture that were to be found in the words that fell from her lips. As the days pa.s.sed, the task the little woman had set for herself became more and more hopeless, until she scarcely could bring herself to speak at all, so stumbling and halting were her sentences.

At the end of the eighth day came the culmination of it all. Alma, her nose sniffing the air, ran into the kitchen that night to find no one in the room, and the biscuits burning in the oven. She removed the biscuits, threw wide the doors and windows, then hurried upstairs to her mother's room.