CHAPTER XVIII.

THANKSGIVING.

MARION'S recovery was very slow and tedious. What she gained one week, she lost the next. She was able to sit up a part of every day, and after a while to go to dinner and tea, and even to spend an evening in the parlour now and then, but she could not walk any distance or sit up on a straight chair. There were many days when her back and head were racked with pain, and she could only lie still in her darkened room and endure.

It was a severe trial to Marion, who had never known sickness, and there were times when she found it very hard to be patient, especially when her services seemed so much needed. Henry continued very unwell, and Aunt Eugenia grew more and more feeble all the time.

Betsy did not get up very well from the measles. Her eyes had been greatly affected by the disease, and in her hurry to get back to her beloved music, she had tried them too soon, so that they were now quite useless for reading or work. It must be confessed that under this infliction, Betsy became rather an infliction herself. She practiced the pieces she knew by heart, and went over her scales and exercises till they became a weariness to the flesh.

"There's one thing about it, Betsy," said Marion to her one day when she was lying flat on the floor before the open fire in Marion's room. "Cousin Helen says you are gaining in your fingering all the time."

"Yes, but just think how much I am losing in other ways!" said Betsy, dolefully. "If I had Stanley here to practice duets with, it would be something. I think she might have stayed."

"She couldn't stay any longer, you know. She would have lost her place in the school, and we should not like to have her do that."

"Of course not," said Betsy. "I'm not a selfish monster, I hope."

"Why, no, I hope not, certainly," said Marion, smiling. "I don't think it shows that you are one because you don't want Stannie away. I am sure I miss her enough."

"But isn't it too bad that I have to give up everything so?" said Betsy. "Come, now, Marion, do pity me a little. I'm hungry for some sympathy."

"I pity you very much," said Marion. "It is real hard to have to stop your lessons in the middle just as you are so engaged about them; but, Betsy dear, you haven't been obliged to give up everything, have you? Didn't I hear of your walking over to the run, and riding out with your father to measure the bark, and with Bram to salt the colts up on the hill lot yesterday? I should like to do some of those things pretty well, I think."

"To be sure, you poor old dear! I can run all over as well as ever, and you have to sit or lie here all day. I am a thankless old lobster," exclaimed Betsy, trying hard to find an appropriate epithet. "I ought to go blind entirely for being so unthankful. But, after all, your being laid up don't make it any easier for me, now, does it? Gerty said it ought to be enough for me that I wasn't born blind like Aunt Eugenia, but I couldn't see that her being born blind was any consolation."

"I must say I never do understand that sort of consolation," said Marion. "It makes me think of grandfather's story about the woman who lost her potatoes by the rot. When she was condoled with on the subject, she answered cheerfully,—

"'Yes, minister, but it's a great comfort that all the other folks's potatoes are much worse.'"

"Your grandfather must be lovely, I think," said Betsy. "I suppose he knows all sorts of Scotch stories. I should think you would have made him tell you hundreds of them."

"To tell you the truth, Betsy, I never half appreciated grandfather nor any of my other friends when I lived at home," said Marion sighing. "I was as full as I could be of all sorts of silly notions, and fancied I was very superior because I didn't take an interest in things about me. Oh dear! You don't know how I do want to see grandfather and Aunt Baby again!"

"There! Don't cry," said Betsy, alarmed.

"No, I won't, because I shall make my head ache and be more of a nuisance than I am now. But, Betsy, about your lessons. I don't believe but I might help you, or at least that we might help each other," said Marion, correcting herself. "I could read over the lessons to you—some of them, at least. We could go on with our English history and learn a French lesson every day, and that would be something."

"I should think it was," exclaimed Betsy, jumping up. "But about the Latin, Marie. Don't you hate to stop that? And yet I don't see how we could manage."

"I think I do. We will do our French one day, and the next we will learn some Latin by heart, or take a lesson in the grammar. Don't you know Harry says we are deficient in grammar, like all other girls?" said Marion, smiling as she repeated the remark with which Harry delighted to "aggravate" Betsy.

"Set him up, indeed! But on your sick days?"

"Well, on my sick days I shall have to be sick, I suppose; but they don't come nearly as often as they did."

"And won't it tire you, really? You are not doing it just because I have been making such a fuss or anything?"

"No, indeed; it is quite as much for my amusement as yours. I expect to learn a great deal."

"What a pity you can't go on with your drawing!" said Betsy. "Cousin Helen said you got on better than any pupil she ever had, and it was such a pity—Oh there, now! What have I done? Please don't cry, Marion."

"No, I won't," said Marion, bravely winking away the tears. "I don't see what makes me such a cry-baby."

"It's because you are so weak," said Betsy, with sympathy. "When I was sick, I cried because mother gave Bob an orange and wouldn't let me have any."

"It isn't only that, but—I'll tell you all about it, only you mustn't tell any one," said Marion; "or don't you care about hearing my worries?"

"Of course I do," answered Betsy, flattered by the proposal and seating herself on Marion's footstool.

"Well, I shouldn't mind, only you see I don't get any better, at least very little, and I can't help thinking how dreadful it would be if I should never be any better—if I should be confined to my bed or my chair for ever, like poor Miss Phelps in Rock Bottom, you know."

"Oh, Marion, you mustn't think of anything so dreadful," said Betsy, jumping up and putting her arms round Marion's neck. "I don't wonder you do, though."

"I know I ought not to borrow trouble, and I don't mean to do it," continued Marion; "but when my back aches at night and I can't sleep, or when I am alone a good while, it will come over me. Just think! Never to walk any more for ever!"

"It wouldn't be for ever, you know," whispered Betsy, holding Marion in a very close embrace.

"No, I know that. But twenty, or even ten, years isn't a very pleasant prospect."

"But, Marion, I don't believe there is any danger, do you?"

Marion shook her head:

"I can't see that I walk one bit better than I did a month ago, though I am better other ways. But I don't mean to dwell on it," said Marion, after a little silence and speaking more cheerfully; "only sometimes, you know, I can't help thinking about it, and it seemed as if it would do me good to say it out to somebody."

"Have you said anything to the doctor?" asked Betsy.

"No; I am afraid."

"I would ask him if I were you," said Betsy, with decision; "I'd know just what he thought about it. I dare say he would tell you it wasn't half so bad; and anyhow, I would know the truth."

"I believe you are right," said Marion. "I mean to ask him the next time he comes. There's the dinner-bell. Stay and have some with me. I am not going out to the table to-day, because all the Weilands are here, and I don't feel like facing company and being questioned by those girls. Please, mother, can't Betsy dine with me to-day?"

"To be sure," answered Mrs. Van Alstine. "I was going to propose Henry, who does not want to face company, either, but I can as well provide for three as two. I will send in the little table, and, Betsy, you must wait on Marion."

The small dinner-party was more cheerful than the large one, at least so the "middle boys" declared when they "burst in on the secret revellers," as Bram said.

"Lucky folks!" grumbled Frank, depositing himself at full length on Betsy's late couch, the hearth-rug. "I say, Marion, is there any tea left in that pot?"

"Plenty, you old tea-drinker. Give them some, Betsy."

"I declare, it is worth while to be sick, isn't it, Bram?" said Frank, sitting up to take his cup of tea.

"Betsy isn't sick; she is an impostor out and out; and I more than half suspect Harry of shamming to escape the Miss Weilands. Such fine young ladies!"

"Oh dear, yes! And how could we bear to live so out of the world? And she should die in a week, she knew she should," said Frank, in a lackadaisical tone; "she didn't see how people endured existence out of the city. Didn't Rob Roy take her down?"

"What did he do? Something dreadful, I dare say."

"Not a bit. But you know his way of cogitating over a matter and bringing it out after every one else has finished. So after mother had successfully turned the conversation to wide skirts or narrow, and it was sailing along prosperously, out comes the McGregor:

"'Miss Weiland, how did you endure existence when you lived at Butternut Run? Because you did live there ever so long.'"

"Good!" exclaimed Betsy. "What did she say?"

"Oh, she pretended not to hear, and father gave Rob a pinch. The Weilands used to be nice people before they got above their circumstances."

"What do you mean?" asked Marion.

"Oh, you don't know the story. Well, there was a certain lady over in Ivanhoe who was famous for her good cooking, and, above all, for her pumpkin pies. One day her husband 'struck ile' and made a great fortune. Some time afterward mother asked her for a recipe for the said pies.

"'Oh,' said Mrs. Derrick—that wasn't her name, though—with great majesty, 'since we got above our circumstances, we don't make any more such common pies.'"

"Well, it is a great pity of the Weilands," said Harry. "They used to be nice, jolly plain people, and now they are neither one thing nor another. I don't think the girls are quite as unbearable as Tom, though. Think of his asking me if any gentlemen were to be found at Princeton! He had understood the men were mostly farmers' sons, quite from the masses."

"And now, young men and maidens, you will please vacate Marion's room and leave her to her nap," said Mrs. Andrews, coming in to look after the invalid. "I concluded I should find you here. Your father says Marion's room is a great convenience in one way. When he wants a boy, he knows just where to lay his hand on him."

[Illustration: _Heiress of McGregor._ A centre of attraction.]

"That shows how agreeable Marion is."

"Tell Cousin Helen what we were talking about, Betsy," said Marion as Bram wheeled her chair round and helped her on the bed. "I mean about the lessons."

"I will; and I say, Marion."

"You what?" said Cousin Helen, whose mission it was to keep Betsy from becoming altogether a boy in manners.

"No, I don't say, then; but, Marion," and Betsy bent over the bed and whispered, "I'll call you 'aunt' now if you want me."

"Nonsense!" answered Marion, pushing her away. "I am not quite such a goose now, I hope."

It was a certain fact that Marion's room was becoming a centre of attraction. The large south parlour, which joined Mrs. Van Alstine's room, had been made into a bedroom for her, to the amazement of Gerty, who wondered how Mother Van Alstine could think of such a thing. But Mrs. Van Alstine answered quietly that one parlour and dining-room answered very well, and that Marion could not go up and down stairs. Here she had her bed and dressing-bureau, her reclining-chair, and other special possessions. Hither came the middle boys with new specimens of fish, flesh, and fowl, and the Scotchman with lessons to learn, stories to read, and carving to execute. Here Mr. Van Alstine was pretty sure to stop before he went out after dinner, and here he often read his paper after tea. If Marion had still coveted "influence" as much as she had done at one time, she might have been pleased with the thought that she was at last in a fair way to obtain it.

But Marion had done with such dreams for the present. During her long days of pain and weakness, when she could bear neither reading nor conversation, she had gone over her own life from as far back as she could remember, and the retrospect had not been agreeable. Groundless pride, self-adulation, wasted opportunities, ingratitude,—she saw these things in their true colours at last. She was grieved and wearied and at times almost crushed by the weight of her sins. The remembrance was grievous to her, the burden intolerable. At times, guided by the gentle counsel of Harry or Bram's earnest sympathy, she could lay the burden where it belonged. At others she was ready to despair and to think that she should never be good for anything.

"We are none of us good for anything, except as it pleases our Master to make use of us," said Harry one day. "We must make up our minds to that, and then be thankful if he lets us do ever so little."

"But wasted time can never come back, and I may never have the chance to do what I might have done at home."

"We can all say that; but, Marie, I would not waste time or strength in vain regrets. Try to do the thing that comes to be done now, whether great or small, and let the dead past bury its dead."

"I don't know that I shall ever have anything to do again," said Marion.

"Never fear for that. It is a good deal to lie here patiently as you do—quite enough for the present, I think. And other work will come as you are able to meet it. People are never left without work, if only they are willing to do little things."

One of the little things had come to Marion in the way of helping Betsy with her lessons. (Elizabeth Margaretta's everyday name was properly Bessy, but somehow or other, neither that nor Lizzy nor Betty seemed to answer the purpose. As she herself said, Betsy was the only name that would stick.) The arrangement was found to work very well with a little of Cousin Helen's supervision and care to keep Marion from being overworked in Betsy's zeal to get on. For as was to be expected, Betsy was not always perfectly reasonable in her requirements, and did not know when to stop.

"She had just heard Rob's parsing, and I don't see why she couldn't hear mine," she grumbled one day when Cousin Helen quietly checked her.

"She has just walked ten miles; why can't she just as well walk ten more?" said Cousin Helen. "What kind of logic is that, Betsy? The fact that she has just heard Rob is reason enough why she shouldn't hear you. Shall I quote to you ancient proverbs about the last drop and the last feather?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't want to be the last feather in the bucket that breaks the camel's back," said Betsy, recovering her good-humour, which was seldom mislaid long at a time. "Marion ought to tell me when she is beginning to feel tired."

"You must not leave that to her, but watch for yourself," said Cousin Helen. "Invalids don't like to be or seem ungracious, and for that reason they often overtask themselves and suffer for it afterward."

"I'm sure I hope Marion won't," said Betsy, in alarm. "I'm afraid she was too tired yesterday, and that was what made her head ache. Do you know when Mamma Van Alstine expects an answer to her letters?"

"She heard from the Campbells yesterday, and I believe she expects an answer from Holford to-day," answered Cousin Helen. "Doctor Campbell will come if the rest do, and he has written to his brother to urge him to arrange matters."

"There comes Rob with the mail this minute," exclaimed Betsy. "Can't I run down and get the letters?"

"Yes, do so, and bring them to the dining-room if there are any. You know Marion is not to know anything till the matter is all settled. Suspense would not be very good for her just now."

"Are you rested, Marie? Have you had a good nap?" asked Betsy, coming in on tiptoe. She had begged and obtained the privilege of being the messenger of good news to Marion.

"Oh yes, charming," answered Marion, rubbing her eyes. "I have had such a nice dream about Holford and grandfather."

"Wouldn't you like to see him."

"Yes, indeed," said Marion; "nobody knows how much I want to see him and Aunt Baby and Uncle Alick."

"Just suppose—only suppose—they could come here to keep Thanksgiving."

"It would be too lovely for anything," said Marion; "but I don't suppose that is to be thought of for a moment."

"Why not?" asked Betsy.

"Oh, because grandfather is so old and uncle and aunt could not leave the farm; and oh, there are many reasons."

"Everything can be brought together except mountains," said Betsy, quoting a French proverb. "Just suppose—now, only just suppose—that they were really coming."

"Betsy, you don't mean it?"

"Yes, I do. Father wrote to Doctor Campbell some time ago and begged him to try to persuade your other uncle, and somehow they have arranged it. And Doctor and Mrs. Campbell are coming on Saturday, and the rest on Monday. And your grandfather and Miss Barbara will stay and make a good long visit, and so will Doctor and Mrs. Campbell, but the other uncle can only stay a week, because of the farm, you know."

"But what will become of the farm and the cows and things?" asked Marion, bewildered.

"I don't know. They have arranged somehow—got some man and his wife to stay in the house, I believe."

"Donald Campbell, I dare say. But I don't know how to believe anything so perfectly delightful. I never dreamed of such a thing."

"I have known it all along," said Betsy. "But mother thought we had better not tell you anything till we were sure, so I didn't say a word."

"And that is the incredible part of it," said Bram, who had slipped in to enjoy Marion's surprise—"that Betsy should know anything and not tell it. One can believe anything after that."

"Now, Bram, you sha'n't tease her," said Marion, pulling Betsy down to her on the bed.

A year before she would have resented being kept out of the secret and treated like a child, as she would have said. Now she appreciated the kindness which had shielded her from suspense and possible disappointment.

"Oh, I don't mind them; they are only boys," said Betsy, with an air of magnificent disdain.

"Only boys! Just hear her!"

"Betsy always says that," said Rob, rather aggrieved. "I don't see why boys are not just as good as girls; and if they are not, they can't help it."

"Of course they can't; it's their misfortune, not their fault," returned aggravating Betsy.

"Elizabeth Margaret, if you don't behave, I shall feel it my duty, in a spirit of brotherly love, to come and pull your ears," said Bram, solemnly.

"You won't do anything of the kind," returned Marion. "You young gentlemen will please vacate the room immediately and let me get up and get ready for tea, and then you may return and attend me to the festive board if you like. I mean to go to supper."

"How nice Marion is nowadays!" said Rob to Bram in the hall. "She isn't a bit as she was when she first came here. Do you think it was falling into the old hemlock that did it?"

"Did it? Did what, Rob Roy?"

"Made her so nice."

"Well, no, not altogether that. Suppose you try it on the one Jem cut down yesterday."

"But that is not down a bank, as Marion's was," objected Rob, whose literal way of taking everything was a continual source of good-natured amusement to his brothers and cousins. "Do you really think it was that, Bram?"

"No, Robin, I don't think the fall had very much to do with it," answered Bram, more seriously. "I think Marion sees now that she was wrong in some things, and so she is trying to do better. Perhaps her accident helped by giving her time to think."

"It is very nice, her being so good-natured and having her room to whittle in, and all," observed Rob Roy, after another pause of consideration; "but I wish she could run about again."

Saturday and Monday came and brought the expected guests. Grandfather seemed to Marion's eyes to have grown somewhat older and to stoop a little. He was an object of instant and intense admiration to all the small fry, especially to solemn little Dotty Overbeck, who studied him on all sides, and then went and whispered to his mother:

"May we call him grandfather, mamma?"

"To be sure you may, my bonny man," said Hector McGregor, overhearing the whisper; "I shall be proud of such a family of fine lads and lasses."

"And are the aunts and uncles ours too?" pursued Dotty, who liked to have everything explained.

"You may call them so, my dear."

Gerty and Asahel had promised to spend Thanksgiving with some of Gerty's friends. Their absence was borne with resignation. Everybody was sorry to miss Asahel, but Gerty was not a pleasant element in the family party, and in fact was apt to be the "gravel in the pudding," as grandfather would have said.

All the rest agreed admirably. The Campbells and Mrs. Andrews met like old friends, for she had worked in Persia, while the Campbells had been in Syria and Turkey. They had once spent a few hours together in Constantinople and knew many of the same people. Any one who has witnessed a similar meeting can guess at the kind of conversation which took place.

Doctor Campbell was at once claimed as their own special property by the middle boys, introduced to their precious collections of plants, stones, and woods, and taken into counsel as to the best method of arrangement. The doctor liked nothing better, and not only entered into the subject zealously, but contributed some valuable specimens to the cabinet and promised more.

For a while Aunt Baby could think of nothing but her thin, pale-faced, languid darling, so changed from the bright, rosy girl she had sent away six months before. The rest of the family thought Marion looked much better, as indeed she was, but to Aunt Baby's eyes she seemed passing rapidly away to the silent land.

"But she really is a great deal better, Baby," said Eiley, beginning to feel as if she had not been anxious enough about Marion. "She comes to tea every day now, and often to dinner, and she is able to do a great deal more than she was. If you had seen her a month ago, you would appreciate the difference."

But Aunt Baby had not seen her a month ago, and could hardly think that Marion was able to have all those great boys and that bouncing lass Betsy in and out of her room all day long. She seemed to feel Betsy's red cheeks an affront by the side of Marion's pale ones and to resent the activity of her motions, whilst Marion was confined to a cautious progress from her room to the dining-room or from one sofa to another.

Thanksgiving was always a great day at the valley. The week before, all the turkeys in the neighbourhood were bought up by Van Alstine & Overbeck. A carload, more or less, of raisins, apples, and canned peaches came up from New York, and the morning before the feast there was a solemn distribution to all the factory, saw-mill, and farm hands of all these good things. The peaches were always greeted with great enthusiasm, for, whatever else grew in Hemlock Valley, peaches obstinately refused to flourish.

"They were just like real, fresh peaches," said the people; and I suppose they thought so.

Marion was not able to attend the distribution, as she had hoped, but she heard all the particulars from the boys. She was keeping herself very quiet that she might be able to go to dinner next day.

On Thanksgiving morning a short service was held in the chapel, which everybody attended. According to custom, Mr. Van Alstine made a short address recounting the principal events of the past year in the little settlement. Henry played the harmonium, and there was some excellent singing, and then a general handshaking all round.

Then everybody went to dinner, and had, as Frank said, as good a time as they knew how. Twenty persons sat down to dinner in the long dining-room, all members of one family save Doctor and Mrs. Fenn, whose two soldier-boys were away, one in New Mexico, the other in Montana.

The dinner was nice enough to put an end to all Aunt Baby's long-cherished misgivings as to Eiley's housekeeping qualifications. The feast indeed seemed perilously extravagant to her Scotch-New England notions of thrift and economy. There was so much silver and glass and china and napery, all of the best, and such rich cakes and puddings and preserved fruits and jugs of solid cream, that she confided to Christian that she hoped they were not living beyond their means.

"Oh, I don't believe they are," said Christian, who had seen entertainments on a good deal larger scale than her sister. "I don't believe Mr. Van Alstine is the man to go beyond his means."

Marion was able to sit up to dinner, and afterward to lie back in her reclining-chair in the drawing-room, listening now to the conversation between the two doctors, now to Aunt Baby's home gossip about the farm and the village and old friends and schoolmates, and again to her grandfather telling Scotch stories to the children.

"It has been a lovely Thanksgiving," said Betsy when the party broke up; "hasn't it, Marion?"

And Aunt Baby, listening for the answer, was glad to hear Marion say, with a heartiness which there was no mistaking,—

"Yes, indeed; I think it has been the pleasantest Thanksgiving I ever spent in my life."