CHAPTER I

WHEN THE MAIL CAME IN

“Beth Bristead, did you tear--how did you tear your apron so?” demanded Beth’s aunt. She held up the accusing rent to explain the change in the form of her question; it left no room for doubt that the apron was torn.

Beth, small and quiet for her eleven years, answered unexpectedly:

“I didn’t tear it, Aunt Rebecca. It tore itself--kind of.”

“Kind of! Elizabeth Frances, aprons do not tear themselves, and you have always been perfectly truthful--I brought you up so,” said Aunt Rebecca sternly.

“Yes’m,” said Beth, flushing all over her sweet little round face. “I’ll tell you,” she began, forced to explain by her habit of obedience and her truthful upbringing, “I took it off and hung it on the low boughs of the tree when I climbed it--it was the apple tree, the old Baldwin apple tree down by the well we never use. And when I came down I was in a hurry, so I guess I took it off snatchified, because it caught and tore. I suppose if I’d have been slower I’d have felt the caught place and unhooked it, but--it just slit.”

“It looks as if it did! You’ll have to mend it neatly, put a patch under it and fasten the frayed edges before you sew. What were you doing up in an apple tree, a great girl like you?” said Aunt Rebecca.

“Oh, dear! must I mend it? It’s a three-cornered tear!” sighed Beth. “I s’pose I ought, because it’s my apron--though I’m sure I never wanted it.”

“It’s your tear, too,” observed Beth’s aunt dryly. “You haven’t told me what you were doing up in the apple tree, nor why you had to take off your apron when you climbed.”

Beth looked around the familiar room and glanced appealingly down at the worn carpet footstool. Then she looked higher, at the big rocking-chair with the cushion tied on its back, the cushion that always went flip-flap above Beth’s head when she sat in that chair, because she was not quite tall enough to lean against it. Then her eyes rose to the narrow mantelpiece above the resolute stove, faithful to its office, but hideous to look upon. She looked at the blue vase with the pink roses, at the pink vase with the yellow chrysanthemums on it which stood, a pair, yet not matching, one on each end of the shelf. She looked at the clock that stood in the middle, with Time and his scythe reclining on its top, at the chubby china boy with a muffler around his throat and a match box on his back, and at the china lamb, which flanked the clock on either side, but none of these lifelong friends gave Beth any suggestion for her explanation. There was nothing to do but explain without help, though she knew that Aunt Rebecca would not understand.

“I climbed the tree, Aunt Rebecca, because I was playing ‘Watchman, tell us of the night,’” Beth said slowly. “I was the Watchman and Shep was the Traveler-o’er-yon-mountain-height--there wasn’t anybody else to be it--don’t you see?”

“I certainly do not see,” said Aunt Rebecca in a tone which implied that her not seeing was much to Beth’s discredit. “That is a hymn, not a game, and what can it have to do with climbing trees?”

“I was the Watchman,” explained Beth patiently. “I had to climb a tree, or something, to get up high enough to be him. Don’t you know what it says, Aunt Rebecca? I saw a picture once like it; the watchman is up in a high thing, like a square steeple, walking back and forth--I couldn’t walk back and forth in a tree, but it was the highest thing I had. Don’t you know, Aunt Rebecca?”

“I knew that hymn and many another long before I was your age, Beth; I took the Sabbath school prize for the greatest number of hymns, as well as the greatest number of Bible verses committed to memory, when I was not quite ten,” said Aunt Rebecca with a sort of humble pride. “But I fail to see why you took off your apron, even if you were turning that hymn into a game--and it never occurred to _me_ when _I_ was a little girl to do such a thing as that.”

“You couldn’t possibly be a Watchman telling us of the night with a great, long blue gingham apron on, Aunt Rebecca!” said Beth earnestly, though hopelessly.

“Then I advise you to play something else,” said Aunt Rebecca. “Now you will have to mend your apron, and most likely it will take so much of your playtime to do it that you won’t play anything to-morrow.”

“Aunt Rebecca,” Beth burst out with a vehemence unlike her subdued little self, a vehemence that crimsoned her face to her straight light hair, brushed tightly back and braided beyond all chance of a lock escaping into disorder, “Aunt Rebecca, I hate aprons!”

“Do you?” remarked her aunt. “Well, they’re fitting and proper for you to wear, none the less. You’ll find that there are a great many things that are good for you which you may not like.”

“I’ve found it out already,” sighed Beth. “I found it out when I was young, but I knew it ’way down in my stomach last summer when I was sick and the doctor left me medicine. But aprons are not good for me; they’re only good for my dresses, and I really don’t see what’s the use of dresses when they’re always covered up in aprons. When they come out of aprons they’re always outgrown, and you give ’em to Emmy Jackson. My Sunday dress is the only one that has the least, wee chance to show. I think aprons are cruel--that is they are if your dress is pretty. Sometimes to get along with it at all, I have to play that my dress is a princess and my apron a wicked fairy smothering her.”

“All good little girls wear aprons,” said Aunt Rebecca somewhat at a loss how to answer Beth’s remarks, which were prompted entirely by a sincere desire to let light into her aunt’s mind, and not in the least by the spirit of disobedience, or a desire to rebel against the order of things as they were, including aprons.

“Oh, no, Aunt Rebecca,” said Beth eagerly. She took the worn footstool and sat down upon it, folding her hands to discuss the matter thoroughly. “That isn’t a contradicting contradiction; I just mean--well, I mean _no_; all good little girls do not wear aprons, truly. I have seen pictures and read stories of little girls that were as good as they were lovely--you could see it in the pictures, and the stories always told you so--who never wore aprons at all. In the stories you often read exactly what the girls wear, and they are perfectly be-au-ti-ful dresses, but not a single apron. If they wore aprons the story would sometimes say: ‘Reaching her arm up ’most out of joint she buttoned her apron as she went down-stairs.’ Or, maybe: ‘Her mother called her down to see the minister, and she pulled off her apron to be fit to be seen.’ But they never say anything except something about her throwing her hat off, or pulling off her coat, or putting on her gloves, or something nice--never a single apron in a story. And it’s the same in pictures. I don’t know a picture of a girl in an apron. And in the fashion books you never see a girl in an apron. They are always all fluffy and sweet, but they don’t cover it up. And these books say they are ‘Styles for Girls of Eight to Twelve.’ That means they show what girls wear, doesn’t it? And not an apron!” Beth’s voice rose triumphant. “If you could wait, Aunt Rebecca, I’d get some of the books Miss Tappan left when she sewed here last week, and show you.”

“Never mind,” said Aunt Rebecca. “Those are stories and fashions for children who don’t live as you do. Their lot is not your lot.”

“Oh,” sighed Beth.

It was a saddening sort of an explanation, but it seemed to cover the ground. She had received this answer, or something like it, a great many times when she showed signs of discontent. This did not happen often, for Beth was a contented little soul, naturally good and docile. Sometimes, but not often, she wistfully wondered what it would be to have life more flowery, so to speak; she wondered if mothers made things brighter. Aunt Rebecca--her great-aunt--had brought her up kindly; Beth was grateful, but Aunt Rebecca had not a mind that considered the merely ornamental, the merely pleasant things, worth cultivating. And Beth loved pretty things, and joyous things like a sweet-loving humming-bird; she was like a little humming-bird, flying about in a stony place.

“Some people’s lot is to be like the lilies of the field, or the butterflies,” said Aunt Rebecca severely. “They live careless, gay lives, spending a great deal, and never considering. You should be glad, Elizabeth, that your lot is different.”

“My lot is a lot of aprons,” said Beth. “Do you think butterflies can help it, Aunt Rebecca?” Then, without waiting to make clear her not-particularly clear question, Beth hurried on. “Sometimes, Aunt Rebecca, I like to make believe that everything happens wonderfully. I make believe we are rich, as rich as Greasers----”

“Crœsus, child,” corrected Aunt Rebecca with a short laugh.

“Oh,” said Beth. “And we can have everything on earth we want--only I don’t know just what you would like, Aunt Rebecca, to have a perfectly glorious time. So I always just hurry over that, making believe you can have every single thing you want, so you can decide that yourself, and I can go on making believe for myself, without worrying about you. And, my goodness, what don’t I have! Dresses--oceans of them, and I wear the splendidest ones every day, and don’t mind at all whether they fade, or get spotted, or what happens! And I live in a palace, and hardly walk at all, just order the horses, you know, and go! And I travel, and I eat such lovely things that ice-cream isn’t worth talking about, and I smell flowers all the time, because I have acres of them, even in winter, and---- Oh, mercy! It’s a beautiful make-believe, but there isn’t much danger of its coming true. There aren’t any fairies nowadays; I guess there never were any in New England, and it would take fairies and fairies to bring it true! Do you think it’s a lovely make-believe, Aunt Rebecca?”

“No. I think it’s very bad for you to let yourself covet luxury that isn’t possible for you to have, Beth,” said Aunt Rebecca. “You will grow up a discontented, envious woman if you allow your mind to dwell on riches which can never be yours.”

“It doesn’t make me feel wicked, Aunt Rebecca,” said Beth slowly. “It is like a great secret garden where I go to play. It’s fairy-land; there aren’t such lovely things anywhere as I make believe I have, so I don’t think it makes me wicked, Aunt Rebecca. It’s just dream things. Of course I know I’ll never see them, so I don’t think of them that way.”

Now this is a workaday world, and Beth was quite right in saying that there are not fairies, at least not at work on many mortal lives, but this is what happened just as the little girl ended with a wistful, yet happy sigh.

Lydia Tappan, the village dressmaker, came up the street, and in her hand she held a letter. She turned in at Aunt Rebecca’s gate and walked up the flagged walk, and opened the door in the simple fashion of the place, without the ceremony of knocking. She entered the sitting-room before Beth could get up from her footstool, as she hastened to do, like the polite child that she was, respectful to her elders.

“I was down to mail a letter, Rebecca,” said Miss Tappan, “and I thought I’d bring up your mail. You’ve got a letter from New York; I wasn’t aware you knew anybody there.”

Aunt Rebecca took the letter, opened it and began to read. “Mercy upon us!” she murmured, turning over the sheet to see the signature. Then she went back to the beginning and read steadily on to the end. Beth thought that she had never seen Aunt Rebecca look so excited as she did when she let the letter fall into her lap at last, and sat staring at the little girl.

“Well?” hinted Miss Tappan impatiently, eager to be let into the mystery.

“It’s from Beth’s mother’s brother,” said Aunt Rebecca.

“Isn’t that an uncle?” cried Beth instantly sharing Aunt Rebecca’s excitement.

“Well?” repeated Miss Tappan.

“He is James Cortlandt; he is worth millions,” Aunt Rebecca went on, ignoring Beth. “He has a family of three children, two girls and a boy. This letter is from him and his wife. They want I should let Beth go on to them to spend the winter. They say they want to know their sister Nannie’s child and want her cousins to know her. I don’t know what to think, Lydia. Of course they have everything heart could wish, but I don’t know them, and I don’t want Beth to be spoiled. It’s the thin edge of the wedge, Lydia.”

“You couldn’t spoil Beth so easy,” said Miss Tappan. Neither woman seemed to remember that the small person they were discussing was waiting, wide-eyed and marveling, for what should come next. “They make a good deal of Beth here, in school, everywhere, and she’s always the same sensible, steady, old-fashioned little soul. She’d take the splendor just as she takes everything, with a pleasant, obliging smile, and be happy in it, just as she’s happy when folks here are good to her. I guess I’d risk it. Besides, you don’t seem to me to have the right to keep her from getting acquainted with her mother’s folks, if they want her. It will be a great advantage to her to see the world.”

“H’m! That’s as it may be,” said Aunt Rebecca. “There’s some sides of the world better unseen.”

“The world’s round, Rebecca; it hasn’t any sides. To fit it you’ve got to be sort of rounded yourself. I always felt it was a pity we stayed so close right here all our lives. How’ll you get Beth there?” asked Miss Tappan. She knew Aunt Rebecca well enough to see that she had decided that Beth was to go.

“They’ll send a maid on here to fetch her, if I say she may go,” said Aunt Rebecca. “Do you understand what’s happened, child?” she added, turning to Beth. “Your Uncle Cortlandt, in New York, has asked you on to visit him for this winter. Do you want to go?”

Beth ran over and threw her arms around Aunt Rebecca. To her surprise her aunt’s arms closed around her plump little figure uncomfortably tight; Aunt Rebecca was not given to embraces.

“It would be lonely, Aunt Rebecca; I’m afraid I’d be homesick often. But one winter isn’t long when it’s so near Christmas already--only seven weeks off! And if I was dreadfully homesick I suppose they’d let me come home. Don’t you think it must be wonderful in New York? Miss Bradley was there on her trip last summer; she told us about it in school. They have so many things, railroads in the air, and railroads down under the ground, and ferry-boats, and big churches, and parks of wild animals, and statues, and fishes in places where they keep them--all kinds, and buildings so high you get a crick in your neck looking up at them. Miss Bradley said we were to remember it was next biggest to London. Janie and I were crazy to go when Miss Bradley told our class about it. I think, even if I was a little homesick, I’d just love to go, Aunt Rebecca, if you don’t mind,” said truthful Beth.

“Well, I suppose you have to go; I don’t suppose what I want has anything to do with it, nor homesickness either,” said Aunt Rebecca crisply. “I shall write and tell them to come after you on--let me see!--say the twentieth; that will be in about ten days from the time they get my letter. Your aunt says she prefers to buy your winter clothes there; I suppose she thinks you wouldn’t be fitted out here the way her children are; neither would you. I guess you’ll be one of those children you were talking about, who don’t wear aprons, this winter, Beth,” Aunt Rebecca ended with a laugh that did not sound amused.

“I’ll wear them if you want me to just the same as if I was home!” cried Beth catching the note of regret in her great-aunt’s voice and generously responding to it. Then the magnificence of what had happened rushed over the little girl, almost overwhelming her. “Oh, it has come true, it has come true! And I thought it never could!” she cried. “It will be my make-believe land, and I’ll be in it, alive, really me, just Beth Bristead! Oh, I’ll write you, Aunt Rebecca, I truly will, though I de-spise writing, so you sha’n’t miss me! And I’ll come back so good you will be thankful, and I’ll remember everything you ever told me to do, and I won’t forget a single thing I see, so I’ll be better than newspapers next summer. Oh, Aunt Rebecca, to think such a little while ago when I was telling you about it we never thought it could come true, and now it has, it has! May I go right away and tell Janie Little that I’m going? What will she say! What will all the girls say! Oh, Aunt Rebecca, I think I’ll never live to get to New York, I’m so glad. It will be a wonder-winter!”

Beth flew off to get her hat. Aunt Rebecca and Miss Tappan heard the front door slam and looked out of the window. They saw Beth wildly struggling into her jacket as she tore off down the street to find her best beloved playmate and tell her the great good fortune that had befallen her. They knew that the child trod upon air, that it seemed to her that fairies were speeding her flying feet, showering upon her gifts beyond belief. They were glad in her joy, but Aunt Rebecca knew that she would sorely miss her little Beth.