CHAPTER II
AN EXCURSION TO HOPE

Helen was up at five the next morning. They were early risers in the summer time at the Mulfords', except Fan and little Tom. Mrs. Mulford didn't want young ones about bothering, when they could be no sort of use. Mr. Mulford had quoted the advantage of good habits, and that you never could begin too soon.

"When I have need of their habits I'll see that they have 'em," she replied with a confident nod. "Plenty of sleep is good for 'em."

Helen and 'Reely had reached the period of "habits." Mrs. Mulford always called out sharply at five o'clock.

Oh, what a beautiful world it was! Over east was a chain of high hills, blue in the morning light, except where the sun struck them. They seemed part of another world. Between were bits of woodland, meadows, orchards and the creek that was laid down on the State map as a river, but no one called it that. Nearer was a cluster of houses, two or three factories stretching out to South Hope and the railroad station. Oh, why were beautiful things always so far off?

She hurried on her gown and twisted up her hair in a knot. It was a faded cambric of last summer, rather short in the skirt for such a large girl, but then it was pretty well worn out. She helped with the breakfast, she laid out the dainties for Jenny's lunch, she ran to do things for Uncle Jason, the world was just full of odds and ends jumbled together. She wondered why people had to eat so much. Why hadn't they been made so one meal a day would suffice?

Jenny took her little lunch satchel and trudged on with a cheerful good-morning. Nearly a mile to walk, and then to work all day in the hot stuffy place full of unfragrant smells, and the gossip about beaus and what was going to be the fashion, and perhaps unfriendly comments or common teasing jokes. That was what they talked about when they came to see Jenny. They were no great readers, these girls. And was her lot to be cast with them? Oh, had school days really come to an end? She had known their worth such a little while, only during the last year, the last three months she might say. School was a period everyone went through, but now, to her it had unfolded its magical labyrinth, and she wanted to roam there forever. Yet though she had shed bitter tears last night, she did not feel at all like crying now. An exultant life seemed throbbing within her.

"Now, Helen, you just go upstairs and sweep, and look out for the corners when you wipe up, and shake the mats out good and hard. See how quick you can get through."

Aunt Jane always said this Saturday morning. "Just as if I couldn't remember when I've done it for two years," Helen thought, but she made no reply. She worked away with her mind on a dozen other things, and her work was well done, too.

The great oven was heated on Saturday, an old-fashioned brick oven. Pies and cake and bread, and a big jar full of beans went in it to come out done to perfection. And the towels and handkerchiefs and stockings were washed on that day, it saved so much from Monday's work. Nathan and 'Reely weeded in the garden, then peeled apples for sauce, and picked raspberries to can, making what Aunt Jane called a clean sweep of them. Dinner again for a hungry host.

"I'm going over to Hope this afternoon," said Uncle Jason, "I s'pose there's some butter ready to take. Now what do you want?"

"Oh, my! What I don't want would be less. Some of that green and white gingham, spools of thread, shirting muslin good and stout, and Jenny said if anyone went over there was a list of things she wanted. It's in her machine drawer."

"Oh, I never can look after so much. Come mother, go along yourself."

"On Sat'day afternoon! Jason Mulford!"

"Well you can't go on Sunday," and he laughed.

"Yes, I could go over to church on Sunday," she retorted sharply. "Thank the Lord there's one day you don't have to cook from morning to night, though like the old Israelites you have to do a double portion on Sat'day. Dear me, I sometimes wished we lived on manna."

"What is manna?" inquired 'Reely.

"Bread and honey," said her father.

"No, twan't bread and honey either. Jason, why do you say such things! It's what the children of Israel had to live on forty years in the wilderness, and they got mighty tired of it too. It's my opinion, 'Reely Mulford, you'd rather have bread and cake and potpie and baked beans and berries and such."

'Reely stared with her big brown eyes.

"And – didn't they have any – "

"You're big enough to read the Bible, 'Reely. When I was twelve I had read it all through, except the chapters with the names which mother said didn't count. But we didn't have Sunday school books then, and that was all there was to read on Sunday."

Helen thought everything that happened to Aunt Jane happened before she was twelve. She had made her father some shirts, she had pieced several quilts, made bread and cake and spun on the little wheel and could do a week's washing.

"Well, about Hope?" They seldom said North Hope, or tacked Hope on to the Center.

"Oh, I couldn't go."

"Well, I can't get all those things. See here, let Helen go."

Aunt Jane looked at her. Helen knew by experience that to want a thing very much was a sure way of being denied, so she merely went to the machine drawer and brought the list Jenny had written out, in which were several mispelled words.

"O Lordy!" ejaculated Uncle Jason.

"Before all these children too! No one would think you were a church member, Jason," said his wife severely.

"Well, if you want all them things you'll have to send Helen along to remember. An' I dunno's I have time."

Uncle Jason rose from the table. So did the hired man and Sam. Helen picked up the list and put it back in the drawer, brought the cloth to wash Tom's hands and began to pile up the dishes, her heart in a tumult of desire.

"Jason, what time you going?"

"'Bout two. I've got to see Warren at three. And isn't there butter to take over?"

"Yes, to Mrs. Dayton. Well – I think it is best to send Helen. Now, Helen, you wash up the dishes quick and do it well, too. Then wash yourself and dress. You know it puts Uncle Jason out to wait, he hasn't the longest temper in the world."

Helen was both quick and deft. Aunt Jane took the credit of this to her own training, but there was an instinctive delicacy in the girl that made her wish she had finer and prettier dishes to wash. She did not truly despise the work so much. She really loved to read advertisements of fine china and glass, Berlin and Copenhagen wares, Wedgewood and Limoges, and hunted them up in the big school dictionary.

She was standing on the porch five minutes before two, a wholesome, happy-looking girl with two braids of light brown hair, tied together half-way down with a brown ribbon, and some wavy little ends about her forehead that would curl when they were wet. Her straw hat had a wreath of rather soiled daisies that sun and showers had not refreshed, but her blue cambric with white bands looked fresh and nice, though it had been made from Jenny's skirt, turned the other side out. Aunt Jane had made her add her wants to the list, so she wouldn't forget a single thing. The butter was a nice roll wrapped in a cloth and shut tight in an immaculate tin pail.

With many charges they started off.

"I wish mother'd learn there wan't any sense in fussin so much, but land! I suppose people are as they grow. Mebbe they can't help it."

"But if one tried? Isn't it like learning other things, or unlearning them?"

"Well – no, I guess not. You see all these habits and things are inside of one, born with him or her as you might say, while the book learning is just – well determination I s'pose. And so's farming."

That wasn't very lucid.

"But if you found some better way of farming."

"There aint many better ways. Keep your ground light and free from weeds and fertilize and get the best seed and then keep at it."

"And if you do a wrong or foolish thing, try not to repeat it."

"That's about it. But folks are mighty sot in their opinions, and hate to change. If I find a better way I take it up. Land! We couldn't farm in some things as people did a hundred year ago."

There was a splendid row of shade trees on the road to North Hope, mostly maples, but here and there an elm or a chestnut. There were farms and gardens, and old settlers who did not want any change. Then the railroad had established business lines outside the Center, while that had hardly changed in fifty years. But it kept a quaint beauty of its own. Here and there was an old well sweep, then a long line of stone wall covered with Virginia creeper or clematis. And then a tall row of hollyhocks in all colors, or great sunflowers with their buds stretching out of close coverts. It was so tranquil that the tired girl lapsed into a kind of dreamy content. She used to think in later years this was a sort of turning point in her life, and yet she had no presentiment.

"Now the thing you better do, Helen," said her uncle, "is to get out here and go straight over Main Street and do your tradin'. Land sakes! I wouldn't look up those forty botherin' things for a handful of money. I'll drive round and leave the butter, and then you go to Mrs. Dayton's when you're through. I may be a little belated. Be sure now you don't forget anything."

Helen sprang out, holding her satchel with its precious contents very tightly. The stores were really quite showy, and on Saturday afternoon everybody who could, went out. She met some of her schoolmates. Ella Graham and her mother were buying pretty articles for their sea-side trip. Many were just looking. The day was not so very hot, indeed now it began to cloud over a little, just enough to soften the atmosphere.

She kept studying the list. She couldn't match the edging, but she took two samples that were nearest to it, and she couldn't find the peculiar blue shade of sewing silk. She made believe now and then, that she was ordering some of the lovely lawns and cambrics, and that she didn't have to consider whether they would wash well, and how they would get made. She chose ribbons and laces to trim them with. And oh, the pretty hats, the fresh crisp flowers!

Then she made a sudden pause. Finery went out of her head. A book and picture store, and in the very front, the post of honor, a most exquisite Mother and Child – the Bodenhausen Madonna.

Mr. Warfield had two or three in his collection, and the Sistine Madonna had gone to her heart. But this child with his mother's eyes, and the tender clinging love as if he was afraid some hand might wrest him from his mother's clasp, the love unutterable in both faces filled her with a wordless admiration. It seemed as if she could stand there forever, as if all her longings were lost in this rapture.