Charles Roberts - Barbara Ladd

"Good-bye, Debby dear!" she murmured to the old woman, reaching down a caressing hand; "I'll come to see you in a few days, as soon as Aunt Hitty will let me!"

During the journey homeward Barbara threw off her languor, and became animated as the punt surged ahead under Doctor Jim's huge strokes. The conversation grew brisk, touching briefly such diverse topics as the new bay mare which the doctor had just purchased from Squire Hopgood of Westings Centre, and the latest point of exasperation between the merchants of Boston and the officers of the king's customs at that unruly port. This latter subject was one on which Doctor Jim and Barbara had already learned to disagree with a kind of affectionate ferocity. The child was a rebel in every fibre, while Doctor Jim had a vigorous Tory prejudice which kept his power of polemic well occupied in Second Westings. The two were presently so absorbed in controversy that the rocky point of the morning's attempted tragedy was passed without the tribute of a shudder or even a recognition. At last, with a mighty, half wrathful surge upon the oars, Doctor Jim beached the punt at the landing-place. As the distracted wave of his violence seethed hissing up the gravel and set the neighbour sedges a-swinging, he leaned forward and fixed the eager girl with a glare from under the penthouse of his eyebrows. Open-mouthed and intent, Barbara waited for his pronouncement.

"Child!" said he, waving a large, but white and fine forefinger for emphasis, "Don't you let that amiable and disreputable old vagabond, Debby Blue, or that pestilent rebel, Doctor John Pigeon, stuff your little head with notions. It's your place to stand by the Crown , right or wrong. Remember your blood. You know right well which side your father would have stood upon! Eh, what?"

The disputatious confidence died out of Barbara's face. For a moment her head drooped, for she knew in her heart how thoroughly that worshipped father would have identified himself with the king's party as soon as occasion arose. Then she looked up, and a mocking light danced in her gray eyes, while her mouth drew itself into lines of solemnity.

"I promise," she exclaimed, leaning forward and laying a thin little gipsy hand on Doctor Jim's knee, as if registering a vow, "that I won't harm your dear King George!"

"Baggage!" shouted Doctor Jim, snatching her from her seat and stalking up the beach with her.

Arriving at the Ladd place from the rear, by way of the pasture and the barnyard, they found Doctor John awaiting them. He was leaning over the little wicket gate at the back of the garden, eating a handful of plump gooseberries. With affected sternness he eyed their approach, not uttering a word till Barbara violently pushed the gate open and rushed at him. Then, straightening himself to his full height, – he had a half-head to the good of even the towering Doctor Jim, – he extended his hand to her, and said, civilly:

"Do have a gooseberry!"

At this Barbara shrieked with laughter. Doctor John always seemed to her the very funniest thing in the world, and his humour, in season and out of season, quite irresistible. At the same time she pounded him impatiently with her fists, and tried to pull him down to her.

"I don't want a gooseberry," she cried. "I want you to kiss me. I haven't seen you for more than a week, and you go and act just as if I had seen you every day!"

Doctor John stooped, but held her at arm's length, and gazed at her with preternatural gravity.

"Tell me one thing," he said.

"What?" whispered Barbara, impressed.

"Have you been taking any of Jim Pigeon's physic since I saw you?"

"No!" shrieked Barbara, with another wild peal of laughter. "Doctor Jim's a Tory. He might poison me!"

"Then you shall have one kiss – no, two!" said Doctor John, picking her up.

"Ten – twenty – a hundred!" insisted the child, hugging him violently.

"There! there! Enough is as good as a feast!" interrupted Doctor John, presently, untwining her arms and setting her down. Then, Doctor Jim holding one of her hands and Doctor John the other, she skipped gaily up the path toward the house, like a wisp of light dancing between their giant bulks.

At this moment the figure of Mistress Mehitable appeared on the porch; and Barbara felt suddenly abashed. A realisation of all that had occurred, all she had done, all she had suffered, rushed over her. Her little fingers shut like steel upon the great, comforting hands that held them, and the colour for a moment faded out of her cheeks. Doctor John and Doctor Jim both felt the pang of emotion that darted through her. She felt, rather than saw, that their big faces leaned above her tenderly. But she did not want them to speak. She was afraid they might not say the right thing. She felt that she must say something at once, to divert their attention from her plight. She looked around desperately and caught sight, in the barnyard behind her, of the hired man milking the vicious red 'mooley' cow that would not let Abby milk her.

"Why!" she exclaimed, with a vast show of interest and surprise, "there's Amos milking Mooley!"

On the instant she recognised the bald irrelevancy of the remark, and wished she had not spoken. But Doctor John turned his head, eyed Amos with critical consideration, and said:

"Goodness gracious! why, so it is! Now, do you know, I should have expected to see the parson, or Squire Gillig, milking Mooley. Dear me, dear me!"

At this, though the deeper half of her heart was sick with apprehensive emotion, the other half was irresistibly titillated, and she laughed hysterically; while Doctor Jim emitted a vast, appreciative guffaw. Before anything more could be said, the voice of Mistress Mehitable came from the porch, kindly sweet, familiar, and cadenced as if no cataclysms whatever had lately shaken the world.

"Supper is waiting," she said, and smiled upon them gently as they approached.

"We come, fair mistress!" responded Doctor Jim, modulating his voice to a deferential softness.

"We come – and here we are," broke out Doctor John, snatching up Barbara, dashing forward, and thrusting her into her aunt's not unwilling arms.

It was a wise device to surmount the difficulty of the meeting.

"I am truly most glad to see you, my dear child," said Mistress Mehitable, earnestly, pressing Barbara to her heart and kissing her on the forehead. Barbara looked up, searched her aunt's face piercingly for a second, saw that the gentle blue eyes were something red and swollen with weeping, and impulsively lifted her lips to be kissed.

"I am sorry I grieved you, Aunt Hitty," she whispered, "I'll try hard not to."

Mistress Mehitable kissed her again, almost impetuously, gave her a squeeze of understanding, and with her arm over the child's shoulder led the way in to supper.

After this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between Barbara and Mistress Mehitable. The lady made an honest effort to allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child brought up on a Maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled from the cradle. She tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien strain which mingled in Barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of the Ladds. But this alien strain was something she instinctively resented and instinctively longed to subdue. Moreover, she lacked imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both sides, the peace between herself and Barbara was but superficial, demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance. Barbara, on her part, strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated Mistress Mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship, and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of commending. But with the elaborate Dresden embroidery and intricate lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia" – a cutting of paper flowers – which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle breeding, Barbara had no patience at all. She scorned and hated them – and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the rigid and exacting pursuit of Latin grammar, which only masculine intellects were considered competent to acquire. In this she had had some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition of Doctor John, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant commendation of the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself.