Sunshine Jane

CHAPTER X

OLD MRS. CROFT

OLD Mrs. Croft arrived the next afternoon about half after four. She was rolled up in her chair, and her small trunk followed on a wheelbarrow.

"How old you have grown!" she said to Susan, by way of greeting, as she grated up the gravel. "My, to think you ever looked young!"

They wheeled her into the hall. "Same hall," she said, looking about, "same paper you had thirty years ago. Oh, my, to think of it. I've papered and papered and scraped off, and papered and papered and scraped off, and then papered again in those same thirty years."

They got her into the room on the ground floor, which had been prepared for her. "I suppose this was the most convenient place to put me," she said, "and so you put me in it. Put me where you please, only I do hope you haven't beetles. It makes me very nervous to hear 'em chipping about all night, and when I'm nervous, I don't sleep, and when I don't sleep, I just can't help lying awake. It's a way I've got. I caught it from my husband when he was a baby. He'd wake up and give it to me."

Susan went out with Jane to get her some supper. "I never thought much about Katie Croft," she said, "but I never doubted she had a hard time."

"Yes," said Jane, "and one of the nicest things in this world is to be able to give some one who's had a hard time a rest."

"Wouldn't it be dreadful if she died, though, while she was here?"

"Who? Old Mrs. Croft?"

"Oh, no, she won't ever die. I meant Katie. Everybody says she's going to run away, but if she don't do that and dies, we'll be just as badly off as if she did it."

"Oh, Auntie!"

"Well, Jane, we'd have to keep old Mrs. Croft till she died."

"I guess there's not much chance of that," Jane said; "she won't die. She has come here to do us good and to receive good herself, that's all."

Susan looked appalled. "Surely you don't expect to sunshine her up, do you?"

"Yes, I do."

Then Susan looked amazed. "Well, I never did! I thought she was just here to do us good. I – "

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a piercing shriek. Jane flew.

"I'm so happy I just had to let it out," Mrs. Croft announced. "I can't hold in joy or sorrow. Sorrow I let out in the low of my voice – like a cow, you know – but joy I let rise to the skies. You'll hear to-night."

Jane looked at her and smiled. She looked like a story-book witch in a nice, white, modern bed. "I thought that perhaps you wanted something," she said, turning to leave the room again.

"No, indeed, I never want anything. I ain't by no means so bad off as is give out."

"I guessed as much. You can make a fresh start now, and we shan't remind you of the past."

"Oh, then I'm coming to the table," exclaimed Mrs. Croft, "and I'm going to be helped like a Christian and feed myself like a human being. This being put to bed and just all but tied there with a rope isn't going to go on much longer, I can tell you."

"Don't speak of it at all," said Jane; "you just do what you please here, and we'll let you. I'm going to get you your supper now."

"Stop!" cried old Mrs. Croft sharply. "Stop! I won't have it! I won't stand it. Oh, I've had such a time," she went on, bringing her clenched fist down vigorously on her knee under the bedclothes and raising her voice very high indeed, "such a time! I had a beautiful son that you or any girl might have been proud to marry, and then he must go and marry that Katie Croft creature. There ain't many things to cut a mother's heart to the quick like seeing her own son marry her own daughter-in-law. Such a nice raised boy as he was, so neat, and she kicking her clothes under the bed at night to tidy up the room. Oh!" cried Mrs. Croft, lifting her voice to a still more surprising pitch, "what I have suffered! Nothing ain't been spared me. I lost my son and the use of my legs from the shock and – "

"Supper is all ready," Jane interrupted sweetly and calmly.

"What you got?"

"Sardines – "

"I never eat 'em."

"Toast."

"I hate it."

"Plum preserves."

"Lord have mercy on me, I wouldn't swallow one if you gave it to me."

Jane stood still at the door.

Susan, having heard the screams, came running in.

"Oh, Mrs. Ralston," cried Mrs. Croft, "I had" – Jane rose, approached the bed, and laid a firm hand on her arm. "What do you want for supper?" she asked in a quiet, penetrating tone.

"I don't want nothing," cried Mrs. Croft; "days I eat and days I don't. This is a day I don't eat, and on such a day I only take a little ham and eggs from time to time. Oh, my husband, how I did love you! It's just come over me how I loved him, and I love him so I can't hardly stand it – "

"We'll go out and have supper ourselves, then," said Jane.

"Eat, drink, and be merry while you can," fairly yelled Mrs. Croft. "The handwriting is on the wall and the Medes and Persians is in the chicken yard right now. Oh, what a – "

They slipped out and shut the door after them. Susan turned a scared face Jane's way. "Why, she's crazy!" she said. "Katie always said so, and folks thought she was just talking. It's awful."

"She's a little excited with the change," said Jane soothingly; "she'll be calmer soon. It's very bad to shut one's self off from others. It's better to fuss along with disagreeable people than to live altogether alone. She's grown flighty through being left alone. It's a wonder that you didn't get odd yourself."

When they went back after supper, Mrs. Croft was sound asleep.

"Don't wake her, for goodness' sake," whispered Susan, in the doorway. Jane left the room quietly, and her aunt took her by the arm and led her up-stairs. "This is pretty serious," she said. "I think Katie Croft ought to have told us."

"She didn't want her to come; we insisted," said Jane.

"I tell you what," said Susan, "we were too happy."

Susan's tone was so solemn that Jane had an odd little qualm. But the next instant she knew that all was right, because all is always right. "Auntie," she said, putting her hand on the older woman's shoulder, "you must try to realize that you've moved out of the world where things go wrong into the world where things go right. When you go out of the cold, dark winter night into a cosy, warm house, you don't fear that the house will turn dark and cold any minute."

"But old Mrs. Croft isn't a house; she's moved into us, instead."

Jane smiled her customary smile of tranquil sweetness. "She has come to show us ourselves," she said, "and to bring us to some kind of better things. I know it."

Susan's eyes altered to confidence. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said, "I'll try to believe that you know. I'll try."

They went to bed early, and Jane slept on the dining-room sofa. In the night Mrs. Croft, calling, woke her. She jumped up and went to her at once.

"I'm hungry. You didn't ask me here to starve me, did you? Oh, how hungry I am. I've never been so hungry before."

"I'll get you anything you like," the girl said. "What shall it be?"

Mrs. Croft shook her head lugubriously. "Whatever I eat is sure to kill me. I wish I was home. You don't know how good dear Katie is to me, Miss Grey. Nobody could, unless they lived with her year in and year out as I do. Something told me never to leave my sweet child, and I disobeyed my conscience which won't let me sleep for aching like a serpent's tooth. Oh, my little Katie, my pretty little Katie, my loving little Katie that I went and left at home! Take me to her."

"But she isn't at home," said Jane. "She's gone away on a little visit. She went last evening."

"I shall never see her again," said Mrs. Croft mournfully. "I shall never see no one again. Oh, dear; oh, dear. My eyes. My eyes."

"What shall I get you? A glass of milk?"

"It doesn't matter. Whatever you like. I was never one to make trouble. Whatever you like."

When Jane returned with the milk and some hastily prepared bread and butter, Mrs. Croft was praying rapidly. "I think I've got religion," said she, in a bright, chatty tone; "if you'll sit down, I'll convert you. It's never too late to mend, and so get your darning basket and come right here." She began to eat and drink very rapidly. "It's going to kill me," she said, between bites, "but I don't care a mite. What is life after all, – a vain fleeting shadow of vanity, – why, you ain't put no jam on this bread!"

"Do you like jam? I'll get you some at once."

"Oh, merciful heavens, waking me up in the dead of night to give me plain bread and no jam! I shall never see Katie again, and perhaps it's just as well, for she'd not stand such doings. Oh, you idle, thriftless girl, take me home, take me home at once."

"In the morning," said Jane gently.

"Oh, my, – why did I ever come! Katie, my Katie, my long-loving Katie; my dear little Katie that's gone to New York!"

Then, having swallowed the milk in great gulps and the bread in great bites, she shut her eyes and lay back again in bed.

"Shan't I bring you anything else?" Jane asked.

"No," said the invalid, "not by no means, and I'll trouble you to get out and keep out and don't make a noise in the morning, for I want my last hours to be peaceful, and I'm going to take a screw-driver and fix my thoughts firmly to heaven at once."

Jane went softly out.

CHAPTER XI

SHE SLEEPS

THE next morning Susan felt perturbed. "She'll take up a whole week of our happy visit, and I can't bear to lose a minute. The time's going too fast, anyhow."

Lorenzo Rath came in shortly after. He and Madeleine and Emily Mead were in and out daily to suit themselves by this time. "Do you know, Mrs. Croft has gone off, nobody knows where," he said gravely; "she's left no address, and people say she'll never come back."

Susan threw up her hands with a wail. "Oh, Jane, she has left that dreadful old woman on us for life; I'll just bet anything folks knew exactly that she meant to do it when they talked to me so. What will Matilda say when she comes back?"

Jane was silent a minute. "It's no use doubting what one really believes," she said finally. "I do really believe that I came here for a good purpose, and I know that I had a good purpose in inviting Mrs. Croft. I'm taught that to doubt is like pouring ink into the pure water of one's good intentions, and I won't doubt. I refuse to."

"But if you go back to where you come from and leave me with Matilda and old Mrs. Croft, I'll be dead or I'll wish I was dead, – it all comes to the same thing," cried poor Susan.

"Auntie," said Jane firmly, "I shan't leave you alone with Aunt Matilda and Mrs. Croft, you needn't fear."

"Oh," said Susan, her face undergoing a lightning transformation, "if you'll stay here, I'll keep Mrs. Croft or anybody else, with pleasure."

"What, even me?" laughed Lorenzo.

"I'd like to keep you," said Susan warmly. "I think you're one of the nicest young men I ever knew."

"I'd like to stay," said Lorenzo, looking at Jane.

She lifted up her eyes and they had a peculiar expression.

Just then Emily Mead came in. "Only think," she said, directly greetings were over, "people say Mrs. Croft drew all their money out of the bank before she left. Everybody says she's deserted her mother-in-law completely."

"Jane, it really is so," said Susan; "she really is gone."

Jane looked steadily into their three faces. "If I begin worrying and doubting, of course there'll be a chance to worry and trouble, because I'm the strongest of you all," she said gravely, "but I won't go down and live in the world of worry and trouble under any circumstances. I know that only good can come of Mrs. Croft's being here. I know it!"

"I wish that I could learn how you manage such faith," said the young artist. "I'd try it on myself, – yes, I would, for a fact."

"It's not so easy," said Jane, looking earnestly at him. "It means just the same mental discipline that physical culture means for the muscles. It takes time."

"But I'd like to learn," said Lorenzo.

"So would I!" said Emily Mead.

"I've begun already," said Susan; "every time I think of old Mrs. Croft I say: 'She's here for some good purpose, God help us.'"

"Tell me," said Emily Mead, "what possessed you to have her, anyway? Everybody's wondering."

"Jane thought that it would be a nice thing to do. And so we did it."

"Do you always do things if you think of them?" Emily asked Jane.

"I'm taught that I must."

"Taught?"

"It's part of my sunshine work."

"That's why she's here," interposed Susan; "she thought of me and came right along."

Emily looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I could learn," she said.

"Anybody can learn anything," said Lorenzo.

"Wouldn't it be nice to all learn Jane's religion?"

"I've got it most learned," said Susan, "I'm to where I'm most ready to stand Matilda, if only we don't have to keep old Mrs. Croft."

"What is old Mrs. Croft doing now?" Emily asked suddenly.

"She's still asleep. She says that she sleeps late."

Then Emily rose to go. Lorenzo Rath rose and left with her.

"Jane," said Susan solemnly, after they were alone, "I'm afraid that religion of yours ain't as practical as it might be, after all. It's got us old Mrs. Croft, and I ain't saying a word, but now I'm about positive it's going to lose you that young man. You could have him if you'd just exert yourself a little, and you don't at all."

"I couldn't have him, Auntie."

"Yes, you could. Don't tell me. I know a young man when I see one, and Mr. Rath's a real young man. He loves you, Jane, just because nobody could help it, and if you weren't always so busy, he'd get on a good deal faster."

"I can't marry, Aunt Susan." Jane, with Madeleine's secret high in her heart, was very busy setting the kitchen to rights. "Some people are not meant to have homes of their own. It's the century."

"Fiddle for the century," said Susan, with something almost like violence. "I'm awful tired of all this hash and talk about the century. About the only thing I've had to think of since Matilda made up her mind I was too sick to get up, was what I read in newspapers about the troubles of the century. Centuries is always in hot water till they're well over, and then they get to be called the good old days. I guess days ain't so different nor centuries either nor women neither. Fiddle for all this kind of rubbish, – it's no use except to upset a nice girl like you and keep her from marrying a nice young fellow like Mr. Rath. Girls don't know nothing about love no more. Mercy on us, why, it's a kind of thing that makes you willing to go right out and hack down trees for the man."

Jane looked a little smiling and a little wistful. "I'll tell you what it is, Auntie," she said; "when my father died he left a debt that ought to be paid, and I promised him I'd pay it. I couldn't marry – it wouldn't be honest."

Susan's eyes flew pitifully open. "Good heavens, mercy on us, no; then you never can't marry, sure and certain. There never was the man yet so good he wouldn't throw a thing like that in a woman's teeth. It's a man's way, my dear, and a wife ought not to mind, but one of the difficulties of being a wife is that you always do mind."

"I know that I should mind," said Jane quietly, "and, anyway, I don't want to marry. I'm much happier going about on my sunbeam mission, trying to help others a bit here and a bit there." She smiled bravely as she spoke, for all that it takes a deal of training in truth not to waver or quaver in such a minute. She had to think steadily along the lines which she had worked so hard to build into every brain-cell and spirit-fiber of her make-up. "Auntie," she went on then, after a brief reflection that he who works in truth's wool works without fear as to the breaking of one single thread, "you and I are trying dreadfully hard – trying with all our might to do exactly right. We're trying to break your chains by the only way in which material chains can be broken, – by breaking those of others. We can't go astray. If old Mrs. Croft should stay here till she died, and if I should work till I died at paying the debts of others, she'd stay for some good purpose, and I'd be working in the same way. Be very sure of that."

For a second Susan looked cheered – but only for a second. Then, "That's all very well for you and me, who want to be uplifted – at least you want to be, and I think maybe I'll like it after I get a little used to it. But Matilda doesn't know or care anything about planes, and it's Matilda I keep thinking of." There was another pause, and then she added: "And it's Matilda I'll have to live with, – along with old Mrs. Croft. Oh, Jane, I'd be so much happier if you'd marry Mr. Rath and let me come and live with you!"

Jane went and put her arms about her. "Auntie, it isn't easy to learn my way of looking at things, because you have to keep at them till they're so firm in you that nothing from outside can ever shake or uproot them. But what I believe is just so firm with me, and I won't give anything up, – not even about Mrs. Croft. We're all right and she's all right and everything's all right, and I don't need to marry any one."

Susan winked mournfully. "If there was only some way to meet Matilda on her way home and kind of get that through her head before she saw Mrs. Croft. You see, she always shuts that room up cold winters and keeps cold meat in there. I've had many a good meal out of that room."

"You must not cast about for ways and means," said Jane firmly. "Life is like a sunshiny warm day, and our part is to breathe and feel and thank God, – not to look for the sun to surely cease shining."

"But it does stop," wailed Susan, "often."

"Yes, thank Heaven," said Jane, "if it didn't, we'd be burnt up alive by our own vitality."

"Oh, dear," said Susan briefly, "you've an answer for everything. Well, let's get dinner."

They went into the kitchen.

CHAPTER XII

EMILY'S PROJECT

AFTER dinner that day Emily Mead came with her work. Emily Mead was one of those nondescript girls who seem to spring up more and more thickly in these troublous, churned-up times of ours.

Too pretty to be plain, too unattractive to be beautiful. Too well-to-do to need to work, too poor to attain to anything for which she longed. Too clever to belong to her class, not clever enough to rise above it. Altogether a very fit subject for Jane to "sunshine," as her aunt put it.

"How do you get along with old Mrs. Croft?" she asked, directly she was seated.

"She's asleep yet," Jane said; "she was so restless all night."

"She always sleeps days and is awake all night; didn't you know that before?" queried Emily, in surprise. "Some one ought to have told you."

"It doesn't matter," said Jane serenely. There was never any bravado in her serenity; it was quite sincere.

"That was what made Katie so mad," Emily continued. "She said it gave her her days, to be sure, but, as she couldn't very well sleep, too, all day, she never really had any time herself."

"We'll get along all right," said Jane quietly; "old people have ways, and then they change and have other ways, and the rest must expect to be considerate."

"Mercy on us, I wonder what she'll change to next," said Susan, with feeling. She had just returned from listening at the invalid's door.

"Don't worry, Auntie, – just remember!" Jane's smile was at once bright and also a bit admonitory.

"I'm trying to believe that everything's all right always, too," said Susan to Emily, "but, oh, my!"

They went out on the shady side of the house to where a little table stood, which was made out of a board nailed into a cut-off tree stump. Jane and Emily carried chairs, and Susan brought her darning basket. It was delightfully pleasant. From time to time Jane or her aunt slipped in and listened at the door, but old Mrs. Croft slept on like a baby.

"I do wonder if Katie Croft has really gone for good!" Emily said to Susan, while Jane was absent on one of these errands.

"I can't trust myself even with my own opinions," said Susan reservedly; "I haven't much time to get changed before Matilda comes, you know, and I want to believe in Jane's religion if I can. It's so kind of warm and comforting. I like it."

"Jane," Emily said, turning towards her when she returned, "I've come to-day on an awfully serious errand, and I want you to help me."

"I will certainly, if I can. What is it?"

"Do you really believe that wanting anything shows that one is going to get it? You said something like that the other day."

"I know that one can get anything one wants," Jane answered gravely; "of course the responsibility of some kinds of wanting is awfully heavy. But the law doesn't alter."

"Can you explain it to me?"

"Yes, that's it," said Susan, "you tell us how to manage. I want to get something myself. Or I mean it's that I want something I've got to go away again. Or I guess I'd better not try to say what I mean."

"But you won't either of you understand what I mean, when I tell you," said Jane. "It's just as I said before, it takes a lot of study to get your brain-cells to where they can hold an idea that's really new to you. Heads are like empty beehives, – you have to have the comb before you can have the honey, and every different kind of study requires a different kind of cells just for its use alone. When things don't interest us, it's because the brain-cells in regard to that subject have never been developed. That's all. That's what they taught me."

"I think it's interesting," said Susan. "I always thought that the inside of my head was one thing that I didn't need to bother about. Seems it isn't, after all. Go on, you Sunshine Jane, you."