"Because--because you were n't _my mother_, you were theirs; but, oh! I wish you were mine! I love you so--" Hazel flung both arms around Mrs.
Blossom's neck and sobbed out,--"I 've wanted to call you Mother Blossom and hug and kiss you like the rest--but Cherry was so jealous--the first time I did it--that she--she stuck burrs in my bed and led me through the nettle-patch when we were raspberrying, because she knew I did n't know nettles; and Chi told me we 'd got to be brave if we joined the N.B.B.O.O., and I knew I ought to bear it--for I _do_ love to be here--and I love them all, for most of the time they 're lovely to me;--and I don't think you 've been horrid, Rose, only you did hurt my feelings when you would n't let me give you the blue silk--and--and it is n't my fault if I _am_ rich, and it is n't fair not to like me for it!"
[Illustration: "Hazel flung both arms around Mrs. Blossom's neck"]
"No more it ain't, Lady-bird," said Chi, who, after drawing the back of his hand across his eyes, was apparently the only dry-eyed one in the room. March had flung himself on the other end of the settle and buried his face deep among the patch-work cushions. Rose was sobbing outright with her head on her arms as she sat at the dining-room table.
Cherry, in her shame and misery--for she had come to love Hazel dearly without wholly conquering her jealousy--softly opened the pantry door and slipped inside where she sniffed to her heart's content. As for Budd, he stood over the wood-box, repiling its contents while the tears ran off his nose so fast that he saw all the sticks double through them.
"You may go to bed, children," said Mrs. Blossom, still holding Hazel in her arms. At this fiat, there was a general increase in the humidity of the atmosphere; and, knowing perfectly well when their mother spoke in that tone, that words, tears, or prayers would not avail, they, one and all,--for Cherry had been listening at the pantry door,--made a rush for the stairs and stumbled up, blinded by their tears.
Mrs. Blossom led Hazel still sobbing into her own little bedroom, and shut the door.
Chi, president of the vanished N.B.B.O.O. Society, was left alone. He gazed meditatively awhile at the little piles of money and the vacant chairs opposite each. Then he gathered them up carefully and placed them in orderly rows in the wooden box. His next move was to the shed door. As he opened it, a gust of wind extinguished the lamp on the table.
"Guess I 'll go to bed, too," said Chi to himself, coming back for the box, which the firelight showed plainly enough. "The barometer's dropped, 'n' it always makes me feel low in my mind."
He heaved a prodigious sigh and went out into the shed and up the back stairs. The wooden box he put under the head of the mattress; he barricaded the door and placed his rifle beside it against the wall.
Then he turned in and drew the coverlet up over his head with another sigh, so long, so profound, that it mingled with the wind as it swept through the cracks of the shed beneath, and made a part of the dismality of the night.
Mrs. Blossom returned to the long-room, and, sitting down in her low rocker before the fire, waited. She knew her children.
Soon, it might have been within half an hour, she heard Rose call softly at the top of the stairs:--
"Martie."
"Yes, Rose."
"May I come?"
"Yes, dear."
"O Martie! may I, too?" wailed Cherry.
"Yes."
"I 'm coming, mother," said March, speaking in a low, determined voice through the knot-hole.
"Very well, March."
"Come along, Budd," said March, and Budd was only too glad to grip his brother's pajamas and follow after.
Down they came, tiptoeing in their bare feet, Rose heading the penitential procession. She knelt by her mother's side, and March and Budd and Cherry knelt, too.
Then, to their mother's, "Are you _truly_ ready, children?" they answered heartily, "Yes, Martie."
Together they said in subdued but earnest tones, "Our Father;" together they prayed, "'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'"--and after the heart-felt, "Amen," each received a kiss by way of absolution; and together, until the clock struck ten, they talked the whole matter over and resolved to fight their Apollyons daily and hourly, and, with God's grace, conquer them.
These were the rare hours, the memory of which held March Blossom in the way of right and honor when he went out to battle for himself in the world. These were the hours, the memory of which kept him in his college days unspotted from the world. It was such an hour that ripened Rose Blossom into a thinking, feeling woman, and made Budd into a knight of the Twentieth Century.
It was for such an hour that Jack Sherrill would have given his entire fortune.
XIII
A SOCIAL ADDITION
It was a chastened household that gathered about the breakfast table the next morning; and for a week afterwards, every one was so thoughtful and considerate of everybody else that Mrs. Blossom said, laughing, to her husband; "They 're so angelic, Ben, I 'm afraid they are all going to be ill. I declare, I miss their little naughtinesses."
Several things had been settled during the week and, apparently, to everyone's satisfaction. At a very serious-minded meeting of the N.B.B.O.O., it had been decided to keep the larger part of the money in order to start March on his career. Not without protest, however, on March's part. But he was overruled. Rose argued that if he were going to college, he must begin to prepare that very winter, and if their earnings were divided among the five, no one would reap any special benefit from them, least of all, March.
"I can wait well enough another year, perhaps two," she said; "and, meanwhile, we 'll be earning more. But you, March, ought to be in the academy at Barton's this very minute."
"I know it," said March, dejectedly; "but I do hate to take girls'
money; somehow, it does not seem quite--quite manly."
"Better remember what your mother talked to you 'bout last Sunday, 'bout its bein' more of a blessin' to give than to get," said Chi, sententiously.
"I do remember, and there 's nobody in the world I 'd be more willing to take it from than from you, all of you, but--"
"Me, too?" interrupted Hazel, leaning nearer with great, eager, questioning eyes.
"Yes, you, too, Hazel," March replied gently, with such unwonted humility of spirit shining through his rare, sweet smile, that Hazel bounced up from her seat at the table, and, going behind March's chair, clasped both arms tightly around his neck, laid the dark, curly head down upon the top of his golden one, exclaiming delightedly:
"Oh, March, you are the dearest fellow in the world. I never thought you 'd give in so--and I love you for it! There now,"--with a big squeeze of the golden head--"you 've made me superfluously happy." Hazel took her seat, flushed rosy red in pleasurable anticipation of being allowed, at last, to give to those she loved, and wholly unmindful of her slip of the tongue.
"Now that's settled, I move that each of you keep three dollars of that money 'gainst the Wishin'-Tree business. Chris'mus 'll be here 'fore you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"
"Second the motion," said Budd and Cherry in the same breath.
It was a unanimous vote.
"There is just one thing I want to say," said March, who, in a bewilderment of happy emotions, had been unable to reply one word to Hazel, "and that is, that I want you to consider that you have lent it to me and let me have the pleasure of paying back, sometime, when I am a man."
"That's fair enough," said Chi. "I glory in your independence, Markis.
That's the right kind to have. Put it to vote."
Again there was a unanimous vote of approval, for they all knew that to one of March's proud spirit it meant much to accept the money, from the girls especially; and they felt it would make him happier if he were to accept it as a loan.
"I can save a lot by not boarding down at Barton's, and by working for my board at the tavern, or in some family," said March, thoughtfully.
"No you don't," said Chi, emphatically. "'T ain't no way for a boy to be doin' chores before he goes to school in the mornin' 'n' tendin'
horses after he gets out in the afternoon. If you 're goin' to try for college in two years, you 've got to buckle right down to it--'n' not waste time workin' for other folks that ain't your own. Here comes Mis'
Blossom, we 'll ask her what she has to say about it."
"Why, Martie, where have you been all this afternoon? I saw you and father driving off in such a sly sort of way, I knew you did n't want us to know where you were going. Now, 'fess!" laughed Rose.