Betty Leicester: A Story For Girls

"Look at old Step-an'-fetch-it," said Seth. "She spears all the little winds with that peakéd sail o' hern. Ain't one on 'em can git by her." They kept company for a while, until in the broad river bay above Riverport bridge the Starlight skimmed far ahead, like a great white moth. Seth mentioned that folks would think they was settin' up a navy up to Tideshead, and just then the Starlight yawed, and the boom threw Seth off his balance and nearly overboard, as much to his own amusement as the rest of the ship's company's. Betty and Mary Beck stowed themselves away before the mast, and wished that the sail were longer. The sun was low, and the light made the river and the green shores look most beautiful. Miss Leicester suggested that they should sail a little farther before going in, and so they went as far as the next reach, a mile above the camp, on the accommodating west wind. It was a last puff before sundown, and by the time Harry had anchored the Starlight in deeper water than before, her sail drooped in the perfectly still evening air.

Once on shore everybody was busy; the spruce and hemlock boughs must be arranged carefully for the beds and the tents pitched over them before the August dew began to fall. Mr. Leicester was chief of this part of camp duty, and Miss Barbara, who seemed to enjoy herself more every moment, was allowed by the girls to help, just that once, about getting supper. It was growing cool and the fire was not unwelcome, but by and by a gentle wind began to blow and kept away the midges. Betty began to think that there would be nothing left for breakfast by the time supper was half through, but she managed to secrete part of her cherished buns, and reflected that it would be easy to send to Riverport for further supplies even if breakfast were a little late. Betty felt a certain care and responsibility over the whole expedition, it was so delightful to be looking after papa again; and she was obliged to tell him that he must not touch the river mud any more, or he would not be fit to go through the streets of Riverport next day, at which Mr. Leicester, though deeply attached to his old friends in that town, looked very distressed and unwilling.

The darkness fell fast, and the supper dishes had to be put under some bayberry bushes until morning. The salt air was very sweet and fresh, and it was just warm enough and just cool enough, as Betty said. The stars were bright; in fact, the last few days had been much more like June than August, and it was what English people call Queen's weather. Mary Beck said sagely that it must be because Miss Leicester came, and then was quite ashamed, dear little soul, not understanding that nothing is so pleasant to an older woman as to find herself interesting and companionable to a girl. People do not always grow away from their youth; they add to it experiences and traits of different sorts; and it is easy sometimes to throw off all these, and find the boy or the girl again, eager and fresh and ready for simple pleasures, and to make new beginnings.

Seth Pond had stolen out to the cat-boat on some errand of his own which nobody questioned, and now there suddenly resounded the surprising notes of his violin. It was very pretty to hear his familiar old tunes over the water, and everybody respected Seth's amiable desire to afford entertainment, even if he failed a little now and then in time or tone. He had mastered several old Scottish and English airs in the book Betty had given him, and already had become proficient in some lively jigs and dancing tunes, as we knew at the time of Betty's first party in the garden. The clumsy fellow had a real gift for music. Some stray fairy must have passed his way and left an unexpected gift. The little audience on the shore were ready to applaud, and two or three boats came near, while some young people in one began to sing "Bonny Doon," softly, while Seth played, and, encouraged by the applause, went on more boldly, and took up the strain again when Seth changed suddenly to "Lochaber no more." Miss Leicester was overjoyed when she heard such fresh young voices sing the plaintive old air so readily. It had always been a great favorite of hers, and she said so with enthusiasm. Mary Beck was sorry that she never had learned it, but by the time the last verse came she began to join in as best she could.

"I'll bring thee a heart with love running o'er,
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more,"

the words ended. Nobody who heard it that summer night in the starlight by the river shore would ever forget the old song.

"You must have influenced Seth's choice of music," Betty's father said to Aunt Barbara, who confessed that the droning of the violin over cheap music was more than she could bear at first, and she had been compelled to suggest something in the place of "The Sweet By-and-By" and "Golden Slippers." Luckily, Seth seemed to abandon these without regret.

At last the boats all disappeared into the darkness, and the little camp was made ready for night. The open air made every one sleepy but Miss Barbara, who consoled herself by thinking that if she did not sleep it would be little matter; she had been awake many a night in her life and felt none the worse. But in fact the sound of rippling water against the bank and the sea-like sound of the pine boughs overhead sent her to sleep before she had half time to properly enjoy them. She and Betty declared that their thick-set evergreen boughs and warm blankets made the best of beds. They could see the stars through the open end of the tent. One was so bright that it let fall a slender golden track of light on the river. Mary Beck thought that she had never been so happy. Camping-out had always been such a far-off thing, and belonged to summer tourists and the remote unsettled parts of country; but here she was, close to her own home, with all the delights of gypsy life suddenly made her own. Betty and Betty's friends had such a way of enjoying every-day things. Becky was learning to be happy in simple ways she never had before. She went to sleep too, and the stars shone on, and late in the night the waning moon came up, strange and red; then the dawn came creeping into the morning sky, and one wild creature after another, in the crevices of rocks or branches of trees, waked and went its ways silently or gay with song.

When Betty's eyes first opened she could not remember where she was, for a moment. Then she was filled with a sense of great contentment, and lay still, looking out through the open end of the tent across the wide still river down which some birds were flying seaward. It was most beautiful in that early morning of a new day, and from beyond the water on the opposite shore came the far sweet sound of a woman's voice singing as she worked, as if a long-looked-for day had come and held great joy for her. She was singing just as the birds sing, and Betty tried to fancy how she looked as she went to and fro so busily in one of the farm-houses.

Aunt Barbara did not wake until after Betty, which was a great joy, and there was a peal of delighted laughter from the girls when she waked and found their bright young eyes watching her. She complained of nothing, except a moment of fright when she saw her own bonnet at the top of a lopped fir which had been stuck into the ground at the foot of the bed, to hang her raiment on. Her wrap had been put neatly round the tree's shoulders by Betty, so that it looked like a queer sort of skeleton creature with every sort of garment on its sharp pegs of bones. Nobody had taken the least bit of cold, and everybody was as cheerful as possible, and so the day began. Seth Pond had trudged off to get some milk at one of the farm-houses, and had lighted a fire before he went and covered it with bits of dry turf, which served to keep it in as well as peat. Mr. Leicester complained that he had found the tent too warm, and so had rolled himself in his blanket and spent the night in the open air. Evidently he and Harry Foster had been awake some time, and they were having a famous talk about one of the treasured creatures in the muddy wooden pail. Harry had managed to learn a great deal by spending an hour now and then in a famous old library in Riverport, in which Miss Leicester had given him the use of her share; and Betty knew that her father was delighted and surprised with the young man's interest in his own favorite studies. She had felt sure all summer that papa would know just how to help Harry Foster on, and as she watched them she could not help thinking that she wished Harry were her brother. But then she would no longer have entire right to papa.

"Come, Elizabeth Leicester!" said papa, in high spirits. "I never had such a dilatory damsel to make my first tent breakfast!" So Betty hastened, and poked the fire nearly to death in her desire for promptness with the morning meal. After it was over Miss Leicester sat in the shade with a book, while all the rest went fishing and took a long sail seaward beside.

That evening they went home with the tide, in great delight, every one. Aunt Barbara was unduly proud of her exploits and a sunburnt nose, and the younger members of the party were a little subdued from their first enthusiasm by all sorts of exciting pleasures. As for Harry Foster, the lad felt as if a door had been kindly opened in the solid wall of hindrance which had closed about him, and as if he could look through now into a new life.

XVII.

GOING AWAY

Miss Leicester and her nephew, Betty's father, were sitting together in the library. Betty had gone to bed. It was her last night in Tideshead, and the summer which had been so long to look forward to was spent and gone. She had felt very sorry before she went to sleep, and thought of many things which might have been better, but after all one could not help being very rich and happy with so many pleasures to remember. When she thought how many new friends she had made, and how dear all the old ones had been, and that she had become very friendly even with Mrs. Beck, it was a great satisfaction. And now in less than a fortnight she was to be with Ada and Bessie Duncan and their delightful mother in London again. She certainly had a great deal to look forward to; still there was a wistful feeling in her heart at leaving Tideshead.

There had been a fire in the library fireplace, for the evening was cool, and papa and Aunt Barbara sat opposite each other. Papa was smoking, as he always did before he went to bed; and happily Miss Leicester liked the odor of tobacco, so that they were comfortable together. They were talking most affectionately about Betty.

"I think you have done wonderfully with her, Tom," said the aunt. "Nobody knows how anxious your Aunt Mary and I have felt at the thought of your carrying her hither and yon, and spoiling her because she couldn't settle down to regular habits of life."

"The only way is not to let one's habits become irregular," answered Betty's papa. "I found out long ago that I could have my hours for work and for exercise, and could go on with my reading as well in one place as in another. I have tried not to let Betty see too many people in town life, yet pretty soon she will be sixteen. She has always seemed to look at life from a child's point of view until last spring. I don't mean that she doesn't still have many days when she only considers the world's relation to herself; but on the whole she begins to be very serious about her own relation to the world, and is constantly made to think more of what she can give than of what she can get. This is a very trying season in many ways, the first really hard time that comes into a boy's or a girl's life."

"Yes, and one is constantly learning those lessons in one way and another during all the rest of one's life," sighed Aunt Barbara. Then her face lighted up, and she added, "Just in proportion as she thinks that she does things for other people she is making steps upward for herself."

"I always think that Betty looks like Bewick's picture of the robin redbreast; you remember it? There is an expression to its little beak which always reminds me of my girl."

Aunt Barbara was much amused, but confessed that she remembered it, and that Betty and the bird really resembled each other. "I think there is a very good print of it in the large White's 'Selborne' which you sent me," she said, going to one of the bookshelves and taking it down. "Yes, they are certainly like one another," she repeated. "You see that this copy has been used? I lent it for a long time to my young neighbor, Henry Foster."

"I am very much interested in that lad!" exclaimed Mr. Leicester. "I don't know that among all the students I can remember I have seen one who strikes me as being so intent and so really promising. Betty has written about him, but I imagined that he interested her because he had a boat and could take her out on the river. I supposed that he was one of the idle fellows who evade their honest work, and, with a smattering of pretty tastes which give them plenty of conceit, come to no sort of use in the end. Betty knows enough of my hobbies to talk about his fish a little, and I thought it was all girlish nonsense; the truth is that she has shown real discernment of character,—young Foster is a fine fellow."

"Can you do anything for him?" asked Miss Leicester. "I pity his poor mother with all my heart. She is very ambitious for her son. I wish that he could earn enough for their needs, and still be able to go on with some serious study. Mrs. Foster and the daughter would make any sacrifice, but they must have something to eat and to wear. I cannot see how they can absolutely do without him even if his own expenses are paid. They will not accept charity."

"I could learn by talking with him this evening that he is able already to take some minor post in a museum. He would very soon make up what he lacks in fitness, if we could put him where he could get hold of the proper books. He must be put under the right influences, for though he seems to have energy, many a boy with an unusual gift gets stranded in a small town like this, and becomes less useful in the end than if he were like everybody else."

"I think it has been a great thing for him to be developed on the every-day side, and to have care and even trouble," said Miss Leicester. "Now I wish to see the exceptional side of him have a chance. I stand ready to help at any point, you must remember."

"I can give him some work at once, with the understanding that he is to study at Cambridge this winter. I have plans for next summer in which he could be of great service. We will not say too much, but keep our own counsel until we watch him a little longer."

Aunt Barbara nodded emphatically, but for her part she felt no doubt of Harry Foster's power of keeping at his work; then she proposed another subject of personal concern, and they talked a long time in the pleasant old library, among the familiar books and pictures, until the fire had given its last flicker and settled quietly down into a few red coals among the gray ashes.

Every one was glad to know that Harry's collection of fishes and insects and his scientific tastes had won great approval from a man of Mr. Leicester's fame, and that the boy was to be forwarded in his studies as fast as possible.

Who shall tell the wonder of the town over a phonograph which Mr. Leicester brought with him? In fact, the last of the summer seemed altogether the pleasantest, and papa and Betty had a rare holiday together. Aunt Mary and Aunt Barbara, Serena and Letty, and Seth and Jonathan were all in a whirl from morning until night. Serena thought that the phonograph was an invention of the devil, and after hearing the uncanny little machine repeat that very uncomplimentary remark which she had just made about it, she was surer than before. Serena did not relish being called an invention of the evil one, herself, but it does not do to call names at a phonograph.

"It was lonely when I first came," said Betty, the evening before she was to go away, as she walked to and fro between the box-borders with her father, "but I like everybody better and better,—even poor Aunt Mary," she added in a whisper. "It is lovely to live in Tideshead. Sometimes one gets cross, though, and it is so provoking about the left-out ones, and the won't-play ones, and the ones that want everything done some other way, and then let you do it after all. But I thought at first it was going to be so stupid, and that nobody would like any of the things I did; and here is Mary Picknell, who can paint beautifully, and Harry Foster knows so many of the things you do, and George Max is going to be a sea-captain, and so is Jim Beck, and poor dear Becky can sing like a bird when she feels good-natured. Why, papa, dear, I do believe that there is one person in Tideshead of every kind in the world. And Aunt Barbara is a duchess!"

"I never saw so grand a duchess as your Aunt Barbara in her very best gown," said Betty's papa, "but I haven't seen all the duchesses there are in existence."

"Oh, papa, do let us come and live here together," pleaded the girl, with shining eyes. "Must you go back to England for very long? After I see Mrs. Duncan and the rest of the people in London, I am so afraid I shall be homesick. You can keep on having the cubby-house for a very private study, and I know you could write beautifully on the rainy days, when the elm branches make such a nice noise on the roof. Oh, papa, do let us come some time!"

"Some time," repeated Mr. Leicester, with great assurance. "How would next summer do, for instance? I have been talking with Aunt Barbara about it, and we have a grand plan for the writing of a new book, and having some friends of mine come here too, and for the doing of great works. I shall need a stenographer, and we are"—

"Those other people could live at the Fosters' and Becks'," Betty interrupted, delightedly entering into the plans. She was used to the busy little colonies of students who gathered round her father. "Here comes Mr. Marsh, the teacher of the academy, to see you," and she danced away on the tips of her toes.

"Serena and Letty! I am coming back to stay all next summer, and papa too," she said, when she reached the middle of the kitchen.

"Thank the goodness!" said Serena. "Only don't let your pa bring his talking-machine to save up everybody's foolish speeches. Your aunt said this morning that what I ought to ha' said into it was, 'Miss Leicester, we're all out o' sugar.' But the sugar's goin' to last longer when you're gone. I expect we shall miss you," said the good woman, with great feeling.

Now, everything was to be done next summer: all the things that Betty had forgotten and all that she had planned and could not carry out. It was very sad to go away, when the time came. Poor Aunt Mary fairly cried, and said that she was going to try hard to be better in health, so that she could do more for Betty when she came next year, and she should miss their reading together, sadly; and Aunt Barbara held Betty very close for a minute, and said, "God bless you, my darling," though she had never called her "my darling" before.

And Captain Beck came over to say good-by, and wished that they could have gone down by the packet boat, as Betty came, and gave our friend a little brass pocket-compass, which he had carried to sea many years. The minister came to call in the evening, with his girls; and the dear old doctor came in next morning, though he was always in a hurry, and kissed Betty most kindly, and held her hand in both his, while he said that he had lost a good deal of practice, lately, because she kept the young folks stirring, and he did not know about letting her come back another summer.

But when poor Mrs. Foster came, with Nelly, and thanked Betty for bringing a ray of sunshine into her sad home, it was almost too much to bear; and good-by must be said to Becky, and that was harder than anything, until they tried to talk about what they would do next summer, and how often they must write to each other in the winter months between.

"Why, sometimes I have been afraid that you didn't like me," said Betty, as her friend's tears again began to fall.

"It was only because I didn't like myself," said dear Becky forlornly. It was a most sad and affectionate leave-taking, but there were many things that Becky would like to think over when her new old friend had fairly gone.

"I never felt as if I really belonged to any place, until now. You must always say that I am Betty Leicester of Tideshead," said Betty to her father, after she had looked back in silence from the car window for a long time. Aunt Barbara had come to the station with them, and was taking the long drive home alone, with only Jonathan and the slow horses. Betty's thoughts followed her all along the familiar road. Last night she had put the little red silk shawl back into her trunk with a sorry sigh. Everybody had been so good to her, while she had done so little for any one!

But Aunt Barbara was really dreading to go back to the old house, she knew that she should miss Betty so much.

Papa was reading already; he always read in the cars himself, but he never liked to have Betty do so. He looked up now, and something in his daughter's face made him put down his book. She was no longer only a playmate; her face was very grave and sweet. "I must try not to scurry about the world as I have done," he thought, as he glanced at Betty again and again. "We ought to have a home, both of us; her mother would have known. A girl should grow up in a home, and get a girl's best life out of the cares and pleasures of it."

"I am afraid you won't wish to come down to the hospitalities of lodgings this winter," said Mr. Leicester. "Perhaps we had better look for a comfortable house of our own near the Duncans."

"Oh, we're sure to have the best of good times!" said Betty cheerfully, as if there were danger of his being low-spirited. "We must wait about all that, papa, dear, until we are in London."