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CHAPTER III

No one came to ask concerning the strangers, and she was laid away in the Wells burial lot, and Miss Eliza paid the bills that necessarily followed.

Mrs. Kilgore and Dr. Dullmer, with Squire Stout standing by and looking on like a bird of ill omen, went over every article of the attire of woman and child in the hope of finding some means of identification. There was a small traveling bag of fine leather. It contained the articles necessary for a journey of several days. There was a small drinking cup, a child’s coat, comb and brush. There were neither tickets nor checks, nor a cent of money. This led Miss Eliza to believe that somewhere there must have been a second purse. She went with the men over the scene of accident and retraced every step from the time she had first seen the woman sleeping in the shade of the bushes. But nothing was found to help them out of the unfortunate situation. Still, they believed that checks and tickets were somewhere. A tramp might have picked them up, or some dishonest, careless person found and retained possession of them. But after a careful search, all hope in that direction was given up.

The dead woman’s clothes were ordinary. A coat-suit and shirt-waist of cheap material, underwear with a bit of hand-made lace of the old-fashioned kind. Her hat was cheap and rather tawdry; but everything about her was clean and whole. All gave the appearance of her being a self-respecting person in poor circumstances.

Two things belied this, however. The dress which the little child wore and a second one in the traveling case were exquisite in quality and handiwork. The little petticoats were dainty and showed expenditure both of money and good taste. The little beauty pins which fastened the dress were solid gold with the monogram E. L.

In the traveling case was a small box containing several quaint rings and a brooch.

Miss Eliza knew little of jewelry. The people with whom she had been reared had never been financially able to indulge themselves along this line and had consequently put upon it the ban of their disapproval. Her experience had been so limited that she knew no values. The articles were rings and pins, and were pretty. That was as far as she gave them thought. They had no dollar mark attached to them.

There was only one course left to her to follow. She put every article which the child wore, the traveling case and all its contents safely away with the few legal documents and valuables she possessed. She had the business instinct and forethought sufficient to mark each one, and to write a full letter of explanation as to how they came into her possession.

“You’re taking a heap of trouble,” said Mrs. Kilgore sadly. She had been following Miss Eliza over the house, always keeping a few steps behind her. She put on a big, green-checked apron when she dressed in the morning, and wore it until she prepared for bed at night. She never took it off at other times unless she had an errand to the store or post-office. Then she merely removed the work-marked one for that which was fresh from the iron.

She always had a broom in her hand. She followed in the footsteps of Eliza and brushed up after her, or stopped to pick up a thread or bit of lint, or straightened out a misplaced book, or flicked away a bit of dust with the tail of her apron.

This gave the impression that Mrs. Kilgore was a conscientious, indefatigable housewife who busied herself from morning until night with duties. It was all in appearances. Her house was a litter. Garments hung from parlor to kitchen, from attic to cellar, at every place where a nail might be driven in wall, beam or door.

She sighed and looked doleful and “put upon” every time she stooped to pick up a stray bit of lint, but deep in her soul she was happy. She was posing as an over-worked martyr and was not doing enough to tire herself. She was getting barrels of credit for a tin cup of effort.

“You’re taking a heap of trouble,” she repeated. “It’s more than I’d take.”

“I’m taking a little now to save a great deal for some one when I’m not here. The time may come when the girl’s own kin may be found. I want things to be in order so that they’ll not doubt that she’s their own. I’m of the opinion that she belongs to folks that are something. Her little white dress is enough to make me think that. Sometime, somebody will be coming along to look her up.”

This was a new idea to Mrs. Kilgore. It appealed to the sentimental side of her nature. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the child’s kin appearing in splendor and bearing her away with them. Another element of the case presented itself to her. She paused in her “sweeping up” and looked at Miss Eliza. She looked at her in a new light.

“They may do a heap for you for being so good to her and burying her mother decent and respectable in your own folks’ lot and not in the poor field. They may do a heap for you.”

“I’m not thinking of that. I had a right to do what I did. It was the very least I could do, and I’ve got to provide for the little girl until some one comes for her. It was my fault that she’s dead. I hain’t finding fault with myself for asking her to ride back with me. Any Christian woman would have done the same; but I didn’t do right to touch the whip to Old Prince. That’s where I was at fault; but” – pensively, “who would have thought that an old worn-out brute like him could have had so much ginger in him. It was my fault at not knowing and not understanding a brute animal that I’d driven for six years. No; I’ll be good to the child – as good as I can be. I’ve hurt her a powerful lot by taking her mother from her. I’ll do what I can to make up for it. It won’t be for long. Her kin will come to claim her.”

Had Eliza not felt responsible, she could have been nothing but good to the child. Mothers of the locality fixed the age of the little girl at about three. Others placed it as high as five. There she was dropped in among them without a name or even a birthday. She was a well-formed, beautiful child with brown ringlets clinging about her little plump neck; and eyes matching in color the blue of the midsummer sky. She was good-tempered and healthy. She smiled from the time she awoke until she fell asleep from sheer weariness. She prattled and hummed little tunes, only a few of the words of which she could remember. She followed Eliza wherever the woman went, and crawled into her lap and cuddled close to her the instant she seated herself. “Pity adee” was the only title she knew for Miss Eliza. After a few days, the name was fixed: “Adee.” The little girl could not be persuaded to call her foster-parent by any other name. A child can manage to thrive and yet have no birthday; but a name it must have. For several days Eliza referred to the stranger as “the little girl.” This was not satisfactory.

“She must be called something. It’s simply heathenish not to have a name of some kind. I’ll name her myself if I cannot find out what her name is,” concluded Miss Eliza. She set about to find the real name. The monogram E. L. on the pins was the only clue. The child might remember something. Taking her up in her lap, Eliza began a system of catechising.

“What shall Adee call you?”

“Baby.” She smiled back at her interlocutor until the dimples came and went.

“A prettier name than Baby. Shall I call you Elizabeth – Beth – Bessie?” She pronounced each name slowly, watching if it might awaken any show of memory. But it did not. The little girl smiled the more, even while she shook her head in negation.

“No, no – Izbeth not pitty name. Baby – ‘Itta one’ pitty name.”

Eliza would not let herself become discouraged. “Little One” and “Baby” were pet names given by some adoring fathers and mothers. Perhaps the child had seldom heard her correct name. Guided by the letters on the pins, Eliza repeated every name beginning with E; but it was without results.

“You must be called something,” she at last cried in desperation. “It must begin with E too. Elizabeth will do as well an anything else. It’s dignified enough for her when she’s grown up, and Beth or Bess will be well enough for a child. I’ve just got to call her something.”

So Elizabeth she became. Beth was what Eliza called her. Adee was the only title that the child could be induced to give to her foster-mother.

“Some one will claim her before the week passes,” Eliza had told herself again and again. She was hopeful that it would be so. A child is a great responsibility, and the woman had no desire to take it upon herself. July passed and no one came. August had come with all the glory of color and life rampant in yard and field.

Never before had flowers bloomed so luxuriantly even for Miss Eliza. The nasturtiums were blazing with burnt orange and carmine. Petunias flaunted their heavily laden stocks. The scarlet sages glowed from every shaded nook. There was braggadocio in every clump and cluster as though every flower being in flower-land was proclaiming, “See what we can do when we try.” High carnival of bloom! Gay revelry of color! Flaunt and brag! Flaunt and brag through all those wonderful days of August.

Eliza went from flower to flower and Beth followed. There was no need to tell the child not to step upon them or to pluck them ruthlessly. She picked her steps. Her fingers touched each petal caressingly. She loved them as much as the woman herself did.

Eliza was busy weeding. Bending over, she was patiently removing with the aid of a kitchen fork the sprouts of chick-weeds which would creep in among her treasures.

Beth, who had been following her closely, suddenly proved a laggard. Missing her at last, Eliza retraced her steps to the east side of the house where she had last seen the child. There she was down on her knees at the edge of the pansy bed and her head bent close over them.

“Whatever are you doing, Beth? Not hurting Adee’s flowers?”

“No, indeedy. I was ust a tissin ’em. A has so pitty itta faces. A ast me to tiss em.” There she was, putting her lips to each purple-yellow face, and talking with them as though they were real live babies. Eliza had nothing to say. She would have done that same thing herself when she was a child if she had dared. She knew exactly how Beth felt.

Sam Houston had come around the corner and had been a witness to the pretty scene. He had come over to borrow a hatchet and some nails. A board had come off his chicken-yard and the hens had destroyed what they could of his garden.

“Laws, Eliza!” he exclaimed. “You’ll not be able to get much from that child. She’ll not be practical. Common sense and not sentiment is what is needed in this world. She’ll be for settin’ out flowers an’ lettin’ cabbage go. I declare to goodness.” He was yet watching Beth kissing the pansies. “She’ll be as big a fool as you are about posies an’ sich like.”

“Do you really think so?” cried Eliza joyously, her face brightening up as though she had been paid a great compliment. Sam sniffed, “I’ve come over to get the lend of your hatchet and some nails. Those dern chickens got out somehow. The wimmen-folks must have left the door open.”

During July, Eliza had prefaced the duties of each morning with the reflection, “Her own kin will come for her before the week is out.”

During August, she changed her views. “’Tain’t likely they’ll come this week. The weather is so uncertain. There might be a downpour any hour.”

But it was not until September set fairly in that the hope was fixed. She grew fearful that they would come. Her anxious eyes followed every strange vehicle which came down the road. She gave a sigh of relief when it passed her door.

“We’ll have a nice winter together – Beth and me. ‘Hain’t likely that they’ll come at winter time.”

So she satisfied her longings and kept the child with her.

CHAPTER IV

The months passed. Before Eliza was aware of it, the winter had passed. They had been strange months, filled with new experiences to the woman. When twilight fell, Beth had always crawled up into her lap and, snuggling close, demanded a story.

Eliza had never been fed on stories. She knew absolutely nothing about them. She had never tried to make up any, for the demand for them had never come.

“Tory, Adee. Tory, Adee.” There was no resisting that little appeal. There could be no denial for the tender caressing hands, and the sweet rose-bud mouth.

“What shall I tell about?” asked Eliza pausing for a time.

“Anyfing. F’owers what talk and tell tories; efefants, and Santa Claus and fings like that.”

Eliza gasped for breath. Flowers were the only things she knew about. She did her best with the material on hand. She told a story of a poppy which was proud and haughty because its gown was gay and because it stood high above the other flowers. In its pride it ignored the humble, modest little violet which could barely raise its head above the sod. But when the second morning had come, the petals of the poppy lay scattered. Its glory was gone; but the violet yet smiled up from its lowly place and gave color to all about it.

“I’s booful, Adee. Tell me – a more one.”

Eliza put her off. One story at bed time was quite enough. A strange sensation of thrills had gone through her body while the story had been growing. She had never believed herself capable of anything half so fine. She had created something. The sensation of power was tingling through every nerve and muscle. She did not know it; neither did the child whose eyelids were closing in slumber; but with this experience she had crawled from the shell of dead customs, hide-bound, worn-out ideas and laws. There had been a real self hidden away for many years. It had never found a way for self-expression until now.

The black silk gown had undergone renovation since the day of the accident. A new sleeve had replaced the torn one, and the torn breadth in the skirt had been hidden by a broad fold. It was quite as good as ever.

The first time Eliza put it on, Beth took exception to it. The child stood in the middle of the room at a distance from her foster-parent, and could not be induced to come near her.

“Ug-e, ug-e dwess. Baby don’t like ug-e dwess.”

“Don’t you like Adee’s Sunday dress?” asked Eliza. The child shook her head to and fro, and persisted in calling it “ug-e dwess”.

“Then I shall wear another,” said Eliza. She made her way upstairs and Beth toddled after her. Going to the closet, the child began to tug and pull at a cheap little gown of dimity. Eliza had paid a shilling a yard for it the season before and had made it for “comfort”. But she could not keep the artist soul from showing in it any more than she could keep it from showing in the living room and gardens. The neck was just a little low and the sleeves reached just to the elbow. The ground was white with sprigs of pale pink roses scattered over it.

“Pitty dwess – pitty dwess,” Beth kept repeating. To please her, Eliza took it down and put it on. She looked at herself in the mirror and was better pleased with what she saw than she had been with the reflection of the black-robed figure. While she was dressing, Beth danced about her, exclaiming with delight at her pretty lady and the pretty dress.

So two things became fixed habits in the new household, – a story before bedtime and the pretty dresses in place of black.

So the year passed. The Jersey cow, the chickens, the vegetables from the summer provided for their needs. They needed little money. Wood was supplied from the trees on Eliza’s land.

Beth needed clothes; but her dresses were yet so small that little material was needed, and the shoes were so tiny that they cost but little.

Eliza made the little dresses. She went to the Bend for patterns and material. She even bought a book of styles to see how a child should be dressed. When she sat in the big living room with needle and thread, Beth sat beside her sewing diligently at doll clothes, or cutting fantastic shapes out of paper.

Beth quite fell in love with the pictures in the fashion plates and selected the finest ones of all as Adee.

“’Is is Adee and ’is is Adee,” she would repeat again and again, laying her finger on the representations of splendid womanhood shown on the pages.

Eliza began to look beyond the year. She felt now that no one would ever claim Beth. She would have the child always. She was glad of that. She would need money to educate her. She would need more each year as the child grew older. So she watched the pennies closely. She wore shabby gloves all year in order to lay the money by.

“We’ll both need new clothes by summer time,” she told herself. “There’ll not be much. We’ll get along on little.”

Indeed they needed little. The people about them had enough to keep them warm – and no more. So Eliza and the little girl needed, for the time, only necessities. The flowers which filled the bay windows; the great fire-place with its burning, snapping logs; Old Jerry, the cat, who made up the domestic hearth; Shep, the dog, who played guard to them, and the stories at twilight were sufficient to develop the cultural, sentimental side of life.

During the winter, few callers came. The roads were not good. Sometimes for days the drifts would fill them. It was impossible to go out at night, for no way was lighted. There were services of some kind each Sunday morning; Sunday-school and prayer meeting combined. Twice a month the supply minister came from one of the adjoining towns and held regular services, yet in spite of being alone, these two were never lonely.

The following summer, Eliza found that she would find an unexpected expense in her household account. The sugar box was emptied more quickly than ever before. Sometimes, she would fill a sugar bowl after the midday meal and would find it empty before supper time.

Yet Beth did not care for sugar. She would not touch it in her victuals, if it were there in sufficient amount to be noticeable.

One afternoon, Eliza found Beth standing on a chair before the shelf which bore the household supplies. Her little fists were crammed with sugar.

“What are you doing with it, Beth?” asked Eliza.

“I’se feed’n em. Ey wikes it. Tome and see.”

She made her way out the back door, crossed the yard and garden to where, at the border of the woodland, was a slight elevation.

Eliza followed. The slopes of the hill were alive with ants hurrying to and fro, each carrying a burden. Round about the entrance to the ant hills, Beth had made a circle of sugar.

“Ey wike it so. Ey is so very hungry.” Eliza did not scold her. She herself had been repressed along such lines when she was a child. Although she had long since forgotten the experience, the sympathy and understanding still remained with her.

Later she explained to Beth about not helping herself from the household store. She compromised, however, by promising to fill, and place where Beth could reach it, a small tin cup of sugar with which to feed the ants for the day.

Two years passed in such fashion. There came a time when Beth was undoubtedly of school age. The township school was a mile or more from the old Wells place.

Eliza thought little of that. A mile meant little to one accustomed to walking. She remembered something of the conditions of the school in her own childhood. She herself had been of such a nature that she had not been contaminated. Her presence had repudiated all that was not pure and fine. From the standpoint of a woman, she saw the matters in a different light. She visited the school several times. Forty children were packed in one small room. There were classes from primary to grammar grades. The poor little tots in the chart class sat on hard seats until their backs ached. At recess and noon – almost all carried their dinners – they were turned out to play without restraint, the rough and boisterous with the gentle and timid, the vicious and unruly of older age with the tractable little folks whose minds were as a sheet of clean paper upon which no impression had been made.

Miss Eliza decided then that that particular school was not what she wished for the little girl she was to train for womanhood. For some months, she had learned all she could of new methods of teaching. For the first time in her life, she knew that the A, B, C’s were out of date and that children were taught after a different fashion.

The school at the Bend had grown during the last five years. A supervisor with new ideas, and trained progressive teachers were making the grades equal to the best in the country. Eliza had heard of the work. Because she was interested, she had questioned and investigated.

The Bend was too far away for a child of Beth’s age to walk alone, but Eliza was not one to give up easily.

“If the main road’s closed against me, I’ll find a foot-path or – I’ll break a way through the underbrush,” she was accustomed to say. She did that very thing now.

She visited the primary grades at the Bend. She sat an entire afternoon drinking in everything she could about teaching children. When the pupils were dismissed, she talked long with Miss Davis.

This teacher, who thought only of the help she might be to the child, copied the work she had laid out for the month, gave a first reader and slate to Miss Eliza, and explained how “Willie has a slate” should be taught for the first lesson.

Eliza started in her work. At the close of each month she visited Miss Davis and copied the teacher’s plan for the next four weeks. So the second year of Beth’s life with Miss Eliza passed. The child learned the numbers to twelve. She knew the stories which the first grade children should know, and she read the reader through from cover to cover. Added to this was a vocabulary of fifty words which she could write.

Miss Eliza was happy. The child had ability to learn. Eliza had a great admiration for book knowledge. She had lacked so much in that line herself. It was the unattainable to her; consequently she put great value upon it.

Miss Davis and her corps of teachers taught Eliza more than methods in teaching first grade work. They were fully as old as Eliza herself; but they wore gowns which were quite up-to-date. They arranged their hair to bring out the very best of their features.

They talked about skating and literary clubs, and calls, and afternoon teas. One had even gone out with her pupils and coasted down hill, and not one was shocked or even thrilled when she related it.

Eliza listened. She was not a dullard. To use the vernacular of Shintown, “Eliza Wells was no one’s fool, in spite of her queer old ways.” Her queer old way was loving flowers, giving artistic touch to the dullest places.

She showed her best qualities now in listening and culling the best from these teachers whose opportunities were broader and whose lives were fuller than hers had been.

They found her enjoyable; for she had a quaint wit, and a refined, gentle manner.

That night when she went home to Beth, she cuddled her close in her arms.

“What story to-night, Adee dear?” was the first question.

“A make-believe story which is really true,” she said.

Beth gave a little sigh of satisfaction. The make-believe stories which were true were better even than fairy stories which never can be true. This was the story she told:

The Wood Baby.

Once upon a time, the angels brought from heaven a little child and placed her in a little house in the woods and gave her a plain old farmer and his wife as parents.

The hut in which they lived was small – only four bare walls, a door and a window. It was night when the angel carried the child to its new home. The child was asleep. It lay in slumber in the arms of its mother. The neighbor folk came and looked at it, and spoke dolefully of the cold, unpleasant world into which it had come.

The child awakened, but it did not open its eyes. It lay and listened.

“It’s only a poor bare hut with smoke-covered walls that I have to give as a home for my baby,” the mother was saying.

“It will find only work and trouble here,” a neighbor wailed. “It’s a hard, hard life.”

The baby heard, and being nothing but a baby and knowing nothing of the world, believed what it heard. It grew as the days and months passed. The time came for it to walk, but it would only creep upon the floor. It would not raise itself on its feet to look from the window. It would not open its eyes. It had never done so since the night that the angel had carried it to its new home.

Years passed. The baby, now a woman in years, moved about between the four walls which its great-grandparents had built. Yet she opened not her eyes; she never let a ray of light enter.

“What is the use?” she told herself. “Is not the world dark and miserable and barren? Why should I look at anything which is so painfully homely? As to walking, why should I take the trouble? I cannot go beyond this hut which my great-grandparents built. Creeping will do very well.”

Then one morning something happened. —

Eliza paused in her story. She knew what effect it would have on her listener. Beth immediately sat bolt upright with her eyes brimming with interest and curiosity.

“What happened?” she cried. She gave a little gasp for breath, she could wait no longer.

“Something happened,” continued Eliza. “It was a beautiful morning, but the woman did not know it. Suddenly she heard a song of a bird at her door. She did not know it was a bird; but the sound was sweet, alluring, enticing. She listened an instant. Then she got upon her feet and hurried to the door and flung it wide open.

“A wonderful sight met her eyes. A world, a glorious world with ripening grain, exquisite coloring of flowers, soft breezes laden with the most delicate perfume, and the song of birds everywhere.”

“And then – then what did she do?” asked Beth.

“For a time, she stood and felt sorry for herself that she had kept herself blind for so long. Then she said, ‘But here is all this beauty for me to enjoy – me and the little song-bird which made me open my eyes.’ Then she took the bird in her hand and held it close up to her cheek, and went with it out into the beauty of the world, and the little bird sang all the while.”

“O-o-h,” sighed Beth. “That is beautiful. Who was the baby the angels brought. Who was the woman? Did you know them?”

“I was both the babe and the woman, and you the little song-bird that called me out to see the sunshine and hear the music.”