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Read Ebook: Sunshine Jane by Warner Anne Richards Harriet Roosevelt Illustrator
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Ebook has 1375 lines and 43702 words, and 28 pages
away on a real holiday, going back to the place where she had taught school before the summons had come to cherish, love, and protect her only sister, who was not strong and had property. It seemed like a dream,--a wild, lively, and joyful dream. She almost smiled as she thought of what was at hand.
Jane descended, her small trunk came bang down beside her in the same instant, and the driver was paid and drove off. The aunt and niece then turned to go into the house.
"Well, and so it's you!" Matilda's tone and glance were slightly inquisitorial, and more than slightly dictatorial. "I'm glad to see you're strong. You'll need be. She's an awful care. She ain't up much now. Isn't up at all sometimes for weeks. Sleeps considerable. Take off your hat and coat and hang them there. That's the place where they belong."
Jane obeyed without saying anything. But her smile spoke for her.
"Hungry?" inquired Matilda.
"A little."
"I surmised you would be and waited supper. Thought you'd see how I fixed hers then. She's eating very little. Less and less all the time. There's a garden to weed, too. Awful inconvenient out there across two stiles. But she won't give it up. She pays me to tend it, or I'd let the dandelions root it out in short order. But I tend it."
Jane sat and watched, still smiling.
"Mr. Rath, the artist, came down in the stage with you, didn't he?" Miss Matilda went on. "What kind of a young man was he? Somebody'll tell you, so it might as well be me, what's brought him here. Mrs. Cowmull's trying to marry off her niece, Emily Mead. There aren't any men in town, so she advertised. She gave it out that she wanted a boarder, but everybody see through that. That's what marriage has come to these days, catching men to board 'em and then marrying them when they're thinking of something else. I thank Heaven I ain't had nothing to do with any marriage. They're a bad business. There, that's your supper."
Jane started slightly. Her own cold fish and lukewarm tea sat before her. "Shan't I take Aunt Susan's up first?" she asked, recollecting that she still had some lunch in her bag, and that Matilda would be leaving early in the morning.
"No need. She likes things cold. You ought to see her face if she gets anything boiling in her mouth. It's no use to give her nothing hot. You'd think it was a snake. I give it up the third time she burnt her."
"But I ought to go up and see her, I think; she hasn't seen me since I was such a little girl."
"No need. You go ahead and enjoy your supper without bothering over her. She knows you're here, and she isn't one that's interested in things. She'll read an old shelf paper for hours, but carry her up a new paper and like as not when you get to the bed with it, you'll find her asleep. She sleeps a lot."
Jane--thus urged--picked the chilled fish with a fork and considered.
"I'll show you about the house after you've done eating," the aunt continued presently; "it's easy taken care of, for I keep it all shut up. Just Susan's room and mine and the kitchen is open. The neighbors won't bother you, for I give them to understand long ago as I wasn't one with time to waste. There isn't any one in the place that a woman with any sense would want to bother with, anyhow."
"I don't fancy that I'll have time to be lonesome," smiled Jane, bravely swallowing some tea.
"You'd have if it wasn't for the garden. I don't know whatever in the world makes Susan set such store by that garden. She will have it that it shall be kept up in memory of her husband, and you never saw such weeds. I've often sat down backwards when one come up--often."
"I can't see it at all," with a glance out of the window.
"You can't from here. And it's got to be watered, and she counts every pot full of water from her bed. She can hear me pumping. The birds dig up the seeds as fast as I can plant 'em, and I never saw no sense in slaving in the sun over what you can buy in the shade any day.--Are you done?"
"Yes, I'm done."
"Then come on."
"Can I spread the tray?"
"Tray! She doesn't have a tray. What should I fuss with a tray for, when I've got two hands?"
Jane rose and stood by the table in silence, watching the cup filled from the standing teapot and the plate ornamented with a lonely bit of fish and a slice of bread. "Don't you butter the bread?"
"She's in bed so much she mustn't have rich food," Matilda answered; "there, now it's ready. Come on."
"Shan't I carry anything?"
"I can take it, I guess. I've carried it alone for five years; I guess I can manage it to-night."
Jane followed up the stairs in silence; Matilda marched ahead with a firm, heavy tread.
"Shall I knock for you?"
"I don't know what for. She yells anyway, whenever I come in, whether she's knocked or not. Just open the door."
Jane opened the door gently, and they went in together. The room was half darkened, and only a little sharp nose showed over the top of the bedquilt.
"Here's your supper," said the affectionate sister, "and here's Jane."
A shrill cry was followed by two eyes tipping upward beyond the nose. "Oh, are you Jane?" There was a lot of pathos in the tone.
The girl moved quickly to the bedside. "I hope that we're going to be very happy," she said; "we must love one another very much, you know."
The invalid hoisted herself on to an elbow and looked towards the plate which Matilda was holding forth.
"Oh, my! Fish again!" she wailed.
Later--on their way back to the kitchen fire--Matilda said significantly: "Most ungrateful person I ever saw, she is. But just don't notice what she says. It's the only way to get on. I keep her room tidy and I keep her house clean and I keep her garden weeded. I'm careful of her money, and she's well fed. I don't know what more any one could ask, but she ain't satisfied and she ain't always polite, but you'll only have three weeks of what I've had for five years, so I guess it won't kill you."
"Oh, I think that I'll be all right," Jane answered cheerfully.
"The stage is ordered for seven in the morning, and I shall get up at half-past four," the aunt continued. "You can sleep till five just as well. I'm going to bed now, and you'd better do the same thing."
"Yes, I think so," said Jane cheerfully; "good night."
MATILDA TEACHES
MATILDA seated herself bolt upright on one of the kitchen chairs and drew a hard, stiff sigh.
"It'll be a great rest to get away," she said, "more of a rest than any one but me will ever know. You see, she's left all she's got to me in her will, so I'm bound in honor to keep a pretty sharp watch over everything. I can't even take a chance at her sinking suddenly away, with the room not picked up or a cobweb in some high corner. I've seen her will, and she ain't left you a cent, so you won't have the same responsibility. It'll be easier for you."
"I'll do my very best," said Jane.
"The trouble is I'm too conscientious," said Matilda. "I was always conscientious, and she was always slack. It's an awful failing. It's a warning, too, for now there she lays, snug as a bug in a rug, and me with New Asthma in my arm from tending her and the house."
"You'll get over all that very soon," said the niece soothingly.
Matilda glanced at her suspiciously. "No, I shan't. I may get better, but I shan't get over it. It's a nerve trouble and can't never be completely cured. A doctor can alligator it, but he can't cure it. I'll have it till I die."
Jane was silent.
"You wrote that you were some kind of a nurse. What kind did you say you were?"
"I'm a Sunshine Nurse."
"A Sunshine Nurse! What's that? Some new idea of never pulling down the shades?"
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