第11章

THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Phoebe watched the two unhappily, sighed when they disappeared around the corner of the house, and set her bowl of butter upon the broad, flat rock which just missed being overflowed with water, and sighed again.

"I'm afraid it isn't going to work," she murmured aloud; for Phoebe, having lived much of her life in the loneliness which the West means to women, frequently talked to herself. "She's such a nice little thing--but the boys don't take to her like I thought they would. I don't see as she's having a mite of influence on their manners, unless it's to make them act worse, just to shock her. Clark USED to take off his hat when he come into the house most every time. And great grief! Now he'd wear it and his chaps and spurs to the table, if I didn't make him take them off.

She's nice--she's most too nice. I've got to give that girl a good talking to."She mounted the steps to the back porch, tried tho kitchen door, and found it locked. She went around to the door on the west side, opposite the gate, found that also secured upon the inside, and passed grimly to the next.

"My grief! I didn't know any of these doors COULD be locked!" she muttered angrily. "They never have been before that I ever heard of." She stopped before Evadna's window, and saw, through a slit in the green blind, that the old-fashioned bureau had been pulled close before it. "My grief!" she whispered disgustedly, and retraced her steps to the east side, which, being next to the pond, was more secluded. She surveyed dryly a window left wide open there, gathered her brown-and-white calico dress close about her plump person, and crawled grimly through into the sitting-room, where, to the distress of Phoebe's order-loving soul, the carpet was daily well-sanded with the tread of boys' boots fresh from outdoors, and where cigarette stubs decorated every window-sill, and the stale odor of Peaceful's pipe was never long absent.

She went first to all the outer rooms, and unlocked every one of the outraged doors which, unless in the uproar and excitement of racing, laughing boys pursuing one another all over the place with much slamming and good-natured threats of various sorts, had never before barred the way of any man, be he red or white, came he at noon or at midnight.

Evadna's door was barricaded, as Phoebe discovered when she turned the knob and attempted to walk in. She gave the door an indignant push, and heard a muffled shriek within, as if Evadna's head was buried under her pillow.

"My grief! A body'd think you expected to be killed and eaten,"she called out unsympathetically. "You open this door! Vadnie Ramsey. This is a nice way to act with my own boys, in my own house! A body'd think--"There was the sound of something heavy being dragged laboriously away from tho barricaded door; and in a minute a vividly blue eye appeared at a narrow crack.

"Oh, I don't see how you dare to L-LIVE in such a place, Aunt Phoebe!" she cried tearfully, opening the door a bit wider.

"Those Indians--and that awful man--"

"That was only Grant, honey. Let me in. There's a few things Iwant to say to you, Vadnie. You promised to help me teach my boys to be gentle--it's all they lack, and it takes gentle women, honey--""I am gentle," Evadna protested grievedly. "I've never once forgotten to be gentle and quiet, and I haven't done a thing to them--but they're horrid and rough, anyway--""Let me in, honey, and we'll talk it over. Something's got to be done. If you wouldn't be so timid, and would make friends with them, instead of looking at them as if you expected them to murder you--I must say, Vadnie, you're a real temptation; they can't help scaring you when you go around acting as if you expected to be scared. You--you're TOO--" The door opened still wider, and she went in. "Now, the idea of a great girl like you hiding her head under a pillow just because Grant asked old Hagar to apologize!"Evadna sat down upon the edge of the bed and stared unwinkingly at her aunt. "They don't apologize like that in New Jersey," she observed, with some resentment in her voice, and dabbed at her unbelievably blue eyes with a moist ball of handkerchief.

"I know they don't, honey." Phoebe patted her hand reassuringly.

"That's what I want you to help me teach my boys--to be real gentlemen. They're pure gold, every one of them; but I can't deny they're pretty rough on the outside sometimes. And I hope you will be--""Oh, I know. I understand perfectly. You just got me out here as a--a sort of sandpaper for your boys' manners!" Evadna choked over a little sob of self-pity. "I can just tell you one thing, Aunt Phoebe, that fellow you call Grant ought to be smoothed with one of those funny axes they hew logs with."Phoebe bit her lips because she wanted to treat the subject very seriously. "I want you to promise me, honey, that you will be particularly nice to Grant; PARTICULARLY nice. He's so alone, and he's very proud and sensitive, because he feels his loneliness. No one understands him as I do--""I hate him!" gritted Evadna, in an emphatic whisper which her Aunt Phoebe thought it wise not to seem to hear.

Phoebe settled herself comfortably for a long talk. The murmur of her voice as she explained and comforted and advised came soothingly from the room, with now and then an interruption while she waited for a tardy answer to some question. Finally she rose and stood in the doorway, looking back at a huddled figure on the bed.

"Now dry your eyes and be a good girl, and remember what you've promised," she admonished kindly. "Aunt Phoebe didn't mean to scold you, honey; she only wants you to feel that you belong here, and she wants you to like her boys and have them like you.