"When they go away on their wedding trip, the rice and old shoes will beat against it," groaned Helen.

"It will be at his bedside when he dies." Virginia's eyes filled with tears. "Were he a soldier it would be a badge of honor--a mark of patriotic suffering; but poor Charles Augustus was always that way and must always remain so unless some one will pay for an operation."

Virginia buried her tear-drowned eyes in her handkerchief.

The sympathetic Helen succ.u.mbed to the prevailing sorrow of the occasion and wept also.

From her watch tower at the kitchen window, Aunt Kate espied the sorrowing ones. "My sakes alive, what has got into those girls?" she exclaimed. "They must be hankering for a funeral." Hastening forth, she planted herself before them and viewed the weepers with stern eyes.

"What is all of this crying about?" she demanded.

They told her, abating no jot or t.i.ttle of gloom.

"Was Charles Augustus unhappy yesterday?"

"No," they admitted.

"Well then," Aunt Kate's voice rang forcefully, "what's the use of crying over happiness? Tears are to wash sorrows away." Her final remark pointed her thoughts in a practical direction. "You two can wash the surrey as well as for me to pay Tom fifty cents to do it. You can use some of those tears around here if you get tired of pumping water."

So the grief stricken arrayed themselves in bathing suits and tugged the surrey into the sun. They hitched the hose to the force pump and labored diligently amidst floods of conversation and torrents of water.

They polished and, inadvertently or with malice aforethought, turned water upon one another until peals of laughter echoed into the kitchen.

A complacent Aunt Kate gave but little heed to them until they presented themselves before her, much bedrabbled but in an exceedingly cheerful frame of mind.

She gazed over her gla.s.ses at them and said, "Mercy sakes, I told you girls to wash the surrey not yourselves. Get off those wet clothes before you catch your death of cold." As they disappeared towards the stairs she called after them, "You girls were bound to have a moist morning.

Now I hope that you are satisfied."

Days pa.s.sed which Aunt Kate, in her wisdom, saw were busy ones. At last an answer came to Virginia's letter to Mrs. Henderson. Hennie had a habit of accomplishing the things which she undertook and her response was most satisfactory. She had arranged for the operation upon Charles Augustus at the New York hospital. A place had been found for Mrs. Curtis to stay and tickets had been placed at the Old Rock station for her and her son.

Sufficient funds had been raised to cover everything but the operating fee. But as soon as the case came to the attention of the surgeon, he had suggested that, as the matter of age was a very important factor in the ultimate success of his efforts, the operation be performed at once.

He was quite willing to await the result of Mrs. Henderson's further exertions for the payment of his bill.

A very happy and delighted Virginia cried the good news aloud to Aunt Kate and Helen. "Right after lunch we will go and see Mrs. Curtis and Charles Augustus and tell them the good news," she planned. "Isn't Hennie perfectly splendid?"

Aunt Kate was making pies. Her eyes twinkled as she told Virginia, "I don't gather from this letter that your friend Mrs. Henderson spent much time weeping over Charles Augustus's crutch. She is going to get rid of the old thing. That line or two you wrote did the lame boy much more good than all the tears you and Helen wasted around here the other morning."

Virginia bobbed her head in agreement with the wisdom of her aunt. Then she climbed the stairs to make ready for her trip, lifting a sweet little voice in song.

As Aunt Kate heard her, she smiled gently; but her face grew suddenly stern as she muttered, "Until I settle brother Obadiah's hash, I'd better keep an umbrella and a mackintosh handy if I don't want to get wet"; after which she dusted the flour from her hands with great vigor.

The two girls gave little time to their lunch that noon, and soon afterwards started up the pond in a canoe. Helen was filled with energy.

She dug her paddle into the water and pulled mightily.

"Stop, Helen, we are turning around," protested Virginia.

"Paddle your share, 'V.'," retorted Helen with an air of injury.

"Remember, you are not a pa.s.senger."

By vigorously wielding her paddle, Virginia managed to hold the canoe on its course. "Please don't make me work so hard, Helen," she objected.

"We want to hurry and get there."

"We are doing that splendidly, 'V.' We can't go very fast if you want to sit and dream. Paddle, dear heart--work your way."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'YOU ARE MY SWEETHEART,' THE BRAZEN HELEN TOLD HIM"]

So it came to pa.s.s that Virginia paddled to keep up with Helen and that young woman paddled to make her cousin work, and thus the light canoe was driven over the water with speed and they soon reached the end of their voyage.

Charles Augustus espied their approach afar off and hobbled down the meadow path to meet them with joyous outcry. "h.e.l.lo, you came to see me, didn't you?"

"Of course. You are my sweetheart," the brazen Helen told him.

"My!" he sighed, shaking his head after the manner of an elderly philosopher. "It's been a long time since I saw you. I expected you every day. Mother said that she guessed you were busy people."

Mrs. Curtis came to the door at the sound of voices. Her face lighted when she recognized them. "Charles has been watching for you each day,"

she told them. "I tried to persuade him that you might have interests besides visiting small boys; but I wasn't very successful."

Charles Augustus balked in the pathway, pulling at the hand of Helen.

"Don't let's go in. It's much nicer out here. Let's play as we did the other day."

Mrs. Curtis nodded understandingly when Helen bowed to her admirer's wishes, and led Virginia into the house. "It is nice of you to come and see me again so soon," she told the girl when they were seated in the front room; "especially after the way I must have tired you with my troubles and drowned you with my tears." Her forced gaiety could not deceive one to whom she had opened her heart. The marks of trouble and anxiety showed too plainly in her face.

Virginia saw the opportunity to transmit the good tidings she had brought. Its very bigness embarra.s.sed her. "I have some good news for you," she cried, and abruptly thrust the letter towards the older woman, her eyes big and tender with the joy of her message. "There!"

she stammered. "Read--read that, please."

Mrs. Curtis took the letter from Mrs. Henderson and began to peruse it.

It seemed to Virginia that she would never finish.

At last Mrs. Curtis turned towards the girl. Her face was pale and the stress of her emotion weakened her. "I can't thank you," she whispered in a queer strained voice. Suddenly her strength swept back to her. Under the force of the joy which enveloped her she spoke in a dead monotone, staring ahead of her with unseeing eyes. "My Charles will walk and play like other boys. In a few weeks--perhaps before Thanksgiving Day--he can throw aside his crutch."

Virginia, agitated by the intenseness of the other's feelings, watched in silence.

Mrs. Curtis had forgotten her visitor now. She was thinking aloud.

"What a happy day it will be for Joe and Charles and me," she murmured,--"the happiest since my husband died."

The gladness of the other thrilled the girl.

Like a flash there came a change in Mrs. Curtis's mood. Her joy came into conflict with a defiant pride. Her face became cold and hard.

"It's charity," she wailed, "just plain charity. Am I a beggar now?"

She turned furiously upon Virginia, transformed by pa.s.sion, "If my husband had lived--if I, a weak woman, had been given a fair chance to make an honest living in this land of the free," she sneered, "I too would ride in my automobile in silks and diamonds and extend charity to the poor. If there were justice among men I would not be in a position where people could offer me charity."

A bewildered Virginia listened timidly as the woman, almost beside herself, went on, "There is no justice--there is no right," Her eyes seemed ablaze to the startled girl. She thrust her arms above her head.

"The wicked prosper and the good are ruined. It's all wrong--wickedly wrong," she screamed and, rushing into an adjoining room, cast herself across the bed, sobbing convulsively.

Amazed at the effect of Hennie's letter, Virginia was tempted to run away. She hesitated, however. Through the doorway she could see the shaking form of Joe's mother upon the bed. Quickly the pa.s.sion died out of the sobs of the weeping woman and in its place came a note of pathetic helplessness which clutched at the girl's heart and seemed to call her.

In a moment Virginia was at the side of the bed. Leaning over, she took one of the toil worn hands into her own. There came an answering pressure and the girl seated herself by the bed-side holding the knotted fingers in her own. The sobs lessened, the quivering form became calmer, and at length Mrs. Curtis sat up and raised wet eyes to those of her visitor. "You must think me lacking in appreciation of the generosity of your friends," she choked, still shaken by the reflex of her sobs. "It's not true, though. That was a display of my silly pride. It's about all that I have left of the happiest days of my life. Forget my words, dear, and forgive me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for what you have done for my boy and me. To have him walk without a crutch, on my hands and knees I'd scrub the most crowded street in the world. There is no humiliation too great for me to undergo for him. I would glory in it." In the glow of mother love her face softened and became beautiful. Now she seemed to grasp the full significance of the news and to be filled with unrest as if afraid that the opportunity might escape. "When can we go?" she worried--"tomorrow?"

"Today, if you wish," Virginia explained.