The Girl from Sunset Ranch by AMY BELL MARLOWE (best ereader for manga .TXT) 📖

side and her glance quizzical. This, it proved, was typical of Mary Boyle.

"Deary, deary me!" she said. "You're a new girl. And what do you want Mary to do for you?"

"I--I thought I'd come and make you a little call," said Helen, timidly.

This wasn't at all as she expected to find the shut-in! Instead of gloom, and tears, and the weakness of age, here were displayed all the opposite emotions and qualities. The woman who was forgotten did not appear to be an object of pity at all. She merely seemed out of step with the times.

"I'm sure you're very welcome, deary," said the old nurse. "Draw up the little rocker yonder. I always keep it for young company," and Mary Boyle, who had had no young company up here for ten or a dozen years, spoke as though the appearance of a youthful face and form was of daily occurrence.

"You see," spoke Helen, more confidently, "we are neighbors on this top floor."

"Neighbors; air we?"

"I live up here, too. The family have tucked me away out of sight."

"Hush!" said the little old woman. "We shouldn't criticise our bethers. No, no! And this is a very cheerful par-r-rt of the house, so it is."

"But it must be awful," exclaimed Helen, "to have to stay in it all the time!"

"I don't have to stay in it all the time," replied the nurse, quickly.

"No, ma'am. I hear you in the night going downstairs and walking in the corridor," Helen said, softly.

The wrinkled old face blushed very prettily, and Mary Boyle looked at her visitor doubtfully.

"Sure, 'tis such a comfort for an old body like me," she said, at last, "to make believe."

"Make believe?" cried Helen, with a smile. "Why, I'm not old, and I love to make believe."

"Ah, yis! But there is a differ bechune the make-believes of the young and the make-believes of the old. You are playin' you're grown up, or dramin' of what's comin' to you in th' future--sure, I know! I've had them drames, too, in me day.

"But with old folks 'tis different. We do be har-r-rking back instead of lookin' for'ard. And with me, it's thinkin' of the babies I've held in me ar-r-rms, and rocked on me knee, and walked the flure wid when they was ailin'--An' sure the babies of this house was always ailin', poor little things."

"They were a great trouble to you, then?" asked Helen, softly.

"Trouble, is it?" cried Mary Boyle, her eyes shining again. "Sure, how could a blessid infant be a trouble? 'Tis a means of grace they be to the hear-r-rt--I nade no preacher to tell me that, deary. I found thim so. And they loved me and was happy wid me," she added, cheerfully.

"The folks below think me a little quare in me head," she confided to her visitor. "But they don't understand. To walk up and down the nursery corridor late at night relaves the ache here," and she put her little, mitted hand upon her heart. "Ye see, I trod that path so often--so often----"

Her voice trailed off and she fell silent, gazing into the glow of the fire in the stove. But there was a smile on her lips. The past was no time to weep over. This cheerful body saw only the bright spots in her long, long life.

Helen loved to hear her talk. And soon she and Mary Boyle were very well acquainted. One thing about the old nurse Helen liked immensely. She asked no questions. She accepted Helen's visit as a matter of course; yet she showed very plainly that she was glad to have a young face before her.

But the girl from Sunset Ranch did not know how Mrs. Olstrom might view her making friends with the old lady; so she made her visit brief. But she promised to come again and bring a book to read to Mary Boyle.

"Radin' is a great accomplishment, deary," declared the old woman. "I niver seemed able to masther it--although me mistress oft tried to tache me. But, sure, there was so much to l'arn about babies, that ain't printed in no book, that I was always radin' them an' niver missed the book eddication till I come to be old. But th' foine poethry me mistress useter be radin' me! Sure, 'twould almost put a body to slape, so swate and grand it was."

So, Helen searched out a book of poems downstairs, and the next forenoon she ventured into the front suite again, and read ta Mary Boyle for an hour. The storm lasted several days, and each day the girl from the West spent more and more time with the little old woman.

But this was all unsuspected by Uncle Starkweather and the three girls. If Mrs. Olstrom knew she said nothing. At least, she timed her own daily visits to the little old woman so that she would not meet Helen in the rooms devoted to old Mary's comfort.

Nor were Helen's visits continued solely because she pitied Mary Boyle. How could she continue to pity one who did not pity herself?

No. Helen received more than she gave in this strange friendship. Seeking to amuse the old nurse, she herself gained such an uplift of heart and mind that it began to counteract that spirit of sullenness that had entered into the Western girl when she had first come to this house and had been received so unkindly by her relatives.

Instead of hating them, she began to pity them. How much Uncle Starkweather was missing by being so utterly selfish! How much the girls were missing by being self-centred!

Why, see it right here in Mary Boyle's case! Nobody could associate with the delightful little old woman without gaining good from the association. Instead of being friends with the old nurse, and loving her and being loved by her, the Starkweather girls tucked her away in the attic and tried to ignore her existence.

"They don't know what they're missing--poor things!" murmured Helen, thinking the situation over.

And from that time her own attitude changed toward her cousins. She began to look out for chances to help them, instead of making herself more and more objectionable to Belle, Hortense, and Flossie.

CHAPTER XXI (BREAKING THE ICE)

 

As for Floss, Helen had already got a hold upon that young lady.

"Come on, Helen!" the younger cousin would whisper after dinner. "Come up to my room and give me a start on these lessons; will you? That's a good chap."

And often when the rest of the family thought the unwelcome visitor had retired to her room at the top of the house, she was shut in with Flossie, trying to guide the stumbling feet of that rather dull girl over the hard places in her various studies.

For Floss had soon discovered that the girl from Sunset Ranch somehow had a wonderful insight into every problem she put up to her. Nor were they all in algebra.

"I don't see how you managed to do it, 'way out there in that wild place you lived in; but you must have gone through 'most all the text-books I have," declared Flossie, once.

"Oh, I had to grab every chance there was for schooling," Helen responded, and changed the subject instantly.

Flossie thought she had a secret from her sisters, however, and she hugged it to her with much glee. She realized that Helen was by no means the ignoramus Belle and Hortense said.

"And let 'em keep on thinking it," Flossie said, to herself, with a chuckle. "I don't know what Helen has got up her sleeve; but I believe she is fooling all of us."

A long, dreary fortnight of inclement weather finally got on the nerves of Hortense. Belle could go out tramping in it, or cab-riding, or what-not. She was athletic, and loved exercise in the open air, no matter what the weather might be. But the second sister was just like a pussy-cat; she loved comfort and the warm corners. However, being left alone by Belle, and nobody coming in to call for several days, Hortense was completely overpowered by loneliness.

She had nothing within herself to fight off nervousness and depression. So, having caught a little, sniffly cold, she decided that she was sick and went to bed.

The Starkweather girls did not each have a maid. Mr. Starkweather could not afford that luxury. But Hortense at once requisitioned one of the housemaids to wait upon her and of course Mrs. Olstrom's very carefully-thought-out system was immediately turned topsy-turvy.

"I cannot allow you, Miss, to have the services of Maggie all day long," Helen heard the housekeeper announce at the door of the invalid's room. "We are not prepared to do double work in this house. You must either speak to your father and have a nurse brought in, or wait upon yourself."

"Oh, you heartless, wicked thing!" cried Hortense. "How can you be so cruel? I couldn't wait upon myself. I want my broth. And I want my hair done. And you can see yourself how the room is all in a mess. And----"

"Maggie must do her parlor work to-day. You know that. If you want to be waited upon, Miss, get your sister to do it," concluded the housekeeper, and marched away.

"And she very well knows that Belle has gone out somewhere and Flossie is at school. I could die here, and nobody would care," wailed Hortense.

Helen walked into the richly furnished room. Hortense was crying into her pillow. Her hair was still in two unkempt braids and she did need a fresh boudoir cap and gown.

"Can I do anything to help you, 'Tense?" asked Helen, cheerfully.

"Oh, dear me--no!" exclaimed her cousin. "You're so loud and noisy. And do, do call me by my proper name."

"I forgot. Sure, I'll call you anything you say," returned the Western girl, smiling at her. Meanwhile she was moving about the room, deftly putting things to rights.

"I'm going to tell father the minute he comes home!" wailed Hortense, ignoring her cousin for the time and going back to her immediate troubles. "I am left all alone--and I'm sick--and nobody cares--and--and----"

"Where do you keep your caps, Hortense?" interrupted Helen. "And if you'll let me, I'll brush your hair and make it look pretty. And then you get into a fresh nightgown----"

"Oh, I couldn't sit up," moaned Hortense. "I really couldn't. I'm too weak."

"I'll show you how. Let me fix the pillows--so! And so! There--nothing like trying; is there? You're comfortable; aren't you?"

"We-ell----"

Helen was already manipulating the hairbrush. She did it so well, and managed to arrange Hortense's really beautiful hair so simply yet easily on her head that the latter quite approved of it--and said so--when she looked into her hand-mirror.

Then Helen got her into a chair, in a fresh robe and a pretty kimono, while she made the bed--putting on new sheets and cases for the pillows so that all should be sweet and clean. Of course, Hortense wasn't really sick--only lazy. But she thought she was sick and Helen's attentions pleased the spoiled girl.

"Why, you're not such a bad little thing, Helen," she said, dipping into a box of chocolates on the stand by her bedside. Chocolates were about all the medicine Hortense took during this "bad attack." And she was really grateful--in her way--to her