Big Brother
A >> Annie Fellows Johnston >> Big BrotherSometimes he took him up early to the little room under the roof, and,
lying on the side of the bed, made up more marvellous stories than any
the book contained.
Often they drew the big wooden rocking-chair close to the window, and,
sitting with their arms around each other, looked out on the moonlit
stillness of the summer night. Then, with their eyes turned starward,
they talked of the far country beyond; for Steven tried to keep
undimmed in Robin's baby memory a living picture of the father and
mother he was so soon forgetting.
"Don't you remember," he would say, "how papa used to come home in the
evening and take us both on his knees, and sing 'Kingdom Coming' to
us? And how mamma laughed and called him a big boy when he got down on
the floor and played circus with us?
"And don't you remember how we helped mamma make cherry pie for dinner
one day? You were on the doorstep with some dough in your hands, and a
greedy old hen came up and gobbled it right out of your fingers."
Robin would laugh out gleefully at each fresh reminiscence, and then
say: "Tell some more r'members, Big Brother!" And so Big Brother would
go on until a curly head drooped over on his shoulder and a sleepy
voice yawned "Sand-man's a-comin'."
The hands that undressed him were as patient and deft as a woman's. He
missed no care or tenderness.
When he knelt down in his white gown, just where the patch of
moonlight lay on the floor, his chubby hands crossed on Big Brother's
knee, there was a gentle touch of caressing fingers on his curls as
his sleepy voice repeated the evening prayer the far away mother had
taught them.
There was always one ceremony that had to be faithfully performed, no
matter how sleepy he might be. The black dancing bear had always to be
put to bed in a cracker box and covered with a piece of red flannel.
[Illustration]
One night he looked up gravely as he folded it around his treasure and
said, "Robin tucks ze black dancin' bear in bed, an' Big Brother tucks
in Robin. Who puts Big Brother to bed?"
"Nobody, now," answered Steven with a quivering lip, for his child's
heart ached many a night for the lullaby and bedtime petting he so
sorely missed.
"Gramma Deebun do it?" suggested Robin quickly.
"No: Grandma Dearborn has the rheumatism. She couldn't walk
up-stairs."
"She got ze wizzim-tizzim," echoed Robin solemnly. Then his face
lighted up with a happy thought. "Nev' mind; Robin'll put Big Brother
to bed _all_ ze nights when he's a man." And Big Brother kissed the
sweet mouth and was comforted.
During the summer Mr. Dearborn drove to town with fresh marketing
every morning, starting early in order to get home by noon. Saturdays
he took Steven with him, for that was the day he supplied his butter
customers.
The first time the boy made the trip he carried Mrs. Estel's address
in his pocket, which he had carefully copied from the fly-leaf of the
book she had given him. Although he had not the remotest expectation
of seeing her, there was a sense of companionship in the mere thought
that she was in the same town with him.
He watched the lamp-posts carefully as they went along, spelling out
the names of the streets. All of a sudden his heart gave a bound. They
had turned a corner and were driving along Fourth Avenue. He took the
slip of paper from his pocket. Yes, he was right. That was the name of
the street. Then he began to watch for the numbers. 200, 300, 400;
they passed on several more blocks. Mr. Dearborn drove up to the
pavement and handed him the reins to hold, while he took the crock of
butter into the house. Steven glanced up at the number. It was 812.
Then the next one--no, the one after that--must be the place.
It was a large, elegant house, handsomer than any they had passed on
the avenue. As long as it was in sight Steven strained his eyes for a
backward look, but saw no one.
Week after week he watched and waited, but the blinds were always
closed, and he saw no signs of life about the place. Then one day he
saw a carriage stop at the gate. A lady all in black stepped out and
walked slowly towards the house. Her long, heavy veil hid her face,
but he thought he recognized her. He was almost sure it was Mrs.
Estel. He could hardly resist the inclination to run after her and
speak to her; but while he hesitated the great hall door swung back
and shut her from sight. He wondered what great trouble had come to
her that she should be dressed in deep black.
The hope of seeing her was the only thing about his weekly trips to
town that he anticipated with any pleasure. It nearly always happened
that some time during the morning while he was gone Robin got into
trouble. Nobody seemed to think that the reason the child was usually
so good was due largely to Steven's keeping him happily employed. He
always tried to contrive something to keep him busy part of the
morning; but Robin found no pleasure very long in solitary pursuits,
and soon abandoned them.
[Illustration]
Once he took a ball of yarn from the darning-basket to roll after the
white kitten. He did not mean to be mischievous any more than the
white kitten did, but the ball was part of Grandma Dearborn's knitting
work. When she found the needles pulled out and the stitches dropped,
she scolded him sharply. All her children had been grown up so long
she had quite forgotten how to make allowances for things of that
sort.
There was a basket of stiff, highly colored wax fruit on the
marble-topped table in the parlor. Miss Barbara Dearborn had made it
at boarding-school and presented it to her sister-in-law many years
before. How Robin ever managed to lift off the glass case without
breaking it no one ever knew. That he had done so was evident, for in
every waxen red-cheeked pear and slab-sided apple were the prints of
his sharp little teeth. It seemed little short of sacrilege to Mrs.
Dearborn, whose own children had regarded it for years from an
admiring distance, fearing to lay unlawful fingers even on the glass
case that protected such a work of art.
He dropped a big white china button into the cake dough when Molly,
"the help," had her back turned. It was all ready to be baked, and she
unsuspectingly whisked the pan into the oven. Company came to tea,
and Grandpa Dearborn happened to take the slice of cake that had the
button in it. Manlike, he called everyone's attention to it, and his
wife was deeply mortified.
He left the pasture gate open so that the calves got into the garden.
He broke Grandpa Dearborn's shaving-mug, and spilled the lather all
over himself and the lavender bows of the best pin-cushion. He untied
a bag that had been left in the window to sun, to see what made it
feel so soft inside. It was a bag of feathers saved from the pickings
of many geese. He was considerably startled when the down flew in all
directions, sticking to carpet and curtains, and making Molly much
extra work on the busiest day in the week.
But the worst time was when Steven came home to find him sitting in a
corner, crying bitterly, one hand tied to his chair. He had been put
there for punishment. It seemed that busy morning that everything he
touched made trouble for somebody. At last his exploring little
fingers found the plug of the patent churn. The next minute he was a
woebegone spectacle, with the fresh buttermilk pouring down on him,
and spreading in creamy rivers all over the dairy floor.
These weekly trips were times of great anxiety for Steven. He never
knew what fresh trouble might greet him on his return.
One day they sold out much earlier than usual. It was only eleven
o'clock when they reached home. Grandma Dearborn was busy preparing
dinner. Robin was not in sight. As soon as Steven had helped to
unhitch the horses he ran into the house to look for him. There was no
answer to his repeated calls. He searched all over the garden,
thinking maybe the child was hiding from him and might jump out any
moment from behind a tree.
He was beginning to feel alarmed when he saw two little bare feet
slowly waving back and forth above the tall orchard grass. He slipped
over the fence and noiselessly along under the apple-trees. Robin was
lying on his stomach watching something on the ground so intently that
sometimes the bare feet forgot to wave over his back and were held up
motionless.
With one hand he was pulling along at a snail's pace a green leaf, on
which a dead bumble-bee lay in state. With the other he was keeping in
order a funeral procession of caterpillars. It was a motley crowd of
mourners that the energetic forefinger urged along the line of march.
He had evidently collected them from many quarters,--little green
worms that spun down from the apple boughs overhead; big furry brown
caterpillars that had hurried along the honeysuckle trellis to escape
his fat fingers; spotted ones and striped ones; horned and smooth.
They all straggled along, each one travelling his own gait, each one
bent on going a different direction, but all kept in line by that
short determined forefinger.
Steven laughed so suddenly that the little master of ceremonies jumped
up and turned a startled face towards him. Then he saw that there were
traces of tears on the dimpled face and one eye was swollen nearly
shut.
"O Robin! what is it now?" he cried in distress. "How did you hurt
yourself so dreadfully?"
"Ole bumble!" answered Robin, pointing to the leaf. "He flied in ze
kitchen an' sat down in ze apple peelin's. I jus' poked him, nen he
flied up and bit me. He's dead now," he added triumphantly. "Gramma
killed him. See all ze cattow-pillows walkin' in ze p'cession?"
So the days slipped by in the old farmhouse. Frost nipped the gardens,
and summer vanished entirely from orchard and field. The happy
outdoor life was at an end, and Robin was like a caged squirrel.
Steven had his hands full keeping him amused and out of the way.
"Well, my lad, isn't it about time for you to be starting to school?"
Mr. Dearborn would ask occasionally. "You know I agreed to send you
every winter, and I must live up to my promises."
But Steven made first one pretext and then another for delay. He knew
he could not take Robin with him. He knew, too, how restless and
troublesome the child would become if left at home all day.
So he could not help feeling glad when Molly went home on a visit,
and Grandma Dearborn said her rheumatism was so bad that she needed
his help. True, he had all sorts of tasks that he heartily
despised,--washing dishes, kneading dough, sweeping and dusting,--all
under the critical old lady's exacting supervision. But he preferred
even that to being sent off to school alone every day.
One evening, just about sundown, he was out in the corncrib, shelling
corn for the large flock of turkeys they were fattening for market. He
heard Grandma Dearborn go into the barn, where her husband was
milking. They were both a little deaf, and she spoke loud in order to
be heard above the noise of the milk pattering into the pail. She had
come out to look at one of the calves they intended selling.
"It's too bad," he heard her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set
her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such
a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but
he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He
always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see the
little fellow go."
"Yes," was the answer, "he's a likely lad; but we're gettin' old,
mother, and one is about all we can do well by. Sometimes I think
maybe we've bargained for too much, tryin' to keep even _one_. So it's
best to let the little one go before we get to settin' sech store by
him that we can't."
A vague terror seized Steven as he realized who it was they were
talking about. He lay awake a long time that night smoothing Robin's
tangled curls, and crying at the thought of the motherless baby away
among strangers, with no one to snuggle him up warm or sing him to
sleep. Then there was another thought that wounded him deeply. Twist
it whichever way he might, he could construe Mr. Dearborn's last
remark to mean but one thing. They considered him a burden. How many
plans he made night after night before he fell asleep! He would take
Robin by the hand in the morning, and they would slip away and wander
off to the woods together. They could sleep in barns at night, and he
could stop at the farmhouses and do chores to pay for what they ate.
Then they need not be a trouble to any one. Maybe in the summer they
could find a nice dry cave to live in. Lots of people had lived that
way. Then in a few years he would be big enough to have a house of his
own. All sorts of improbable plans flocked into his little brain under
cover of the darkness, but always vanished when the daylight came.
The next Saturday that they went to town was a cold, blustering day.
They started late, taking a lunch with them, not intending to come
home until the middle of the afternoon.
The wind blew a perfect gale by the time they reached town. Mr.
Dearborn stopped his team in front of one of the principal groceries,
saying, "Hop out, Steven, and see what they're paying for turkeys
to-day."
As he sprang over the wheel an old gentleman came running around the
corner after his hat, which the wind had carried away.
Steven caught it and gave it to him. He clapped it on his bald crown
with a good-natured laugh. "Thanky, sonny!" he exclaimed heartily.
Then he disappeared inside the grocery just as Mr. Dearborn called
out, "I believe I'll hitch the horses and go in too; I'm nearly
frozen."
Steven followed him into the grocery, and they stood with their hands
spread out to the stove while they waited for the proprietor. He was
talking to the old gentleman whose hat Steven had rescued.
He seemed to be a very particular kind of customer.
"Oh, go on! go on!" he exclaimed presently. "Wait on those other
people while I make up my mind."
While Mr. Dearborn was settling the price of his turkeys, the old
gentleman poked around like an inquisitive boy, thumping the pumpkins,
smelling the coffee, and taking occasional picks at the raisins.
Presently he stopped in front of Steven with a broad, friendly smile
on his face.
"You're from the country, ain't you?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," answered Steven in astonishment.
"Came from there myself, once," he continued with a chuckle. "Law,
law! You'd never think it now. Fifty years makes a heap o'
difference."
He took another turn among the salt barrels and cracker boxes, then
asked suddenly, "What's your name, sonny?"
"Steven," answered the boy, still more surprised.
The old fellow gave another chuckle and rubbed his hands together
delightedly. "Just hear that, will you!" he exclaimed. "Why, that's my
name, my very own name, sir! Well, well, well, well!"
He stared at the child until he began to feel foolish and
uncomfortable. What image of his own vanished youth did that boyish
face recall to the eccentric old banker?
As Mr. Dearborn turned to go Steven started after him.
"Hold on, sonny," called the old gentleman, "I want to shake hands
with my namesake."
He pressed a shining half-dollar into the little mittened hand held
out to him.
"That's for good luck," he said. "I was a boy myself, once. Law, law!
Sometimes I wish I could have stayed one."
Steven hardly knew whether to keep it or not, or what to say. The old
gentleman had resumed conversation with the proprietor and waved him
off impatiently.
"I'll get Robin some candy and save all the rest till Christmas," was
his first thought; but there was such a bewildering counter full of
toys on one side of the confectioner's shop that he couldn't make up
his mind to wait that long.
He bought some shining sticks of red and white peppermint and turned
to the toys. There was a tiny sailboat with a little wooden sailor on
deck; but Robin would always be dabbling in the water if he got that.
A tin horse and cart caught his eye. That would make such a clatter on
the bare kitchen floor.
At last he chose a gay yellow jumping-jack. All the way home he kept
feeling the two little bundles in his pocket. He could not help
smiling when the gables of the old house came in sight, thinking how
delighted Robin would be.
He could hardly wait till the horses were put away and fed, and he
changed impatiently from one foot to another, while Mr. Dearborn
searched in the straw of the wagon-bed for a missing package of
groceries. Then he ran to the house and into the big, warm kitchen,
all out of breath.
"Robin," he called, as he laid the armful of groceries on the kitchen
table, "look what Brother's brought you. Why, where's Robin?" he asked
of Mrs. Dearborn, who was busy stirring something on the stove for
supper. She had her back turned and did not answer.
"Where's Robin," he asked again, peering all around to see where the
bright curls were hiding.
She turned around and looked at him over her spectacles. "Well, I
s'pose I may's well tell you one time as another," she said
reluctantly. "Rindy came for him to-day. We talked it over and
thought, as long as there had to be a separation, it would be easier
for you both, and save a scene, if you wasn't here to see him go. He's
got a good home, and Rindy'll be kind to him."
Steven looked at her in bewilderment, then glanced around the cheerful
kitchen. His slate lay on a chair where Robin had been scribbling and
making pictures. The old cat that Robin had petted and played with
that very morning purred comfortably under the stove. The corncob
house he had built was still in the corner. Surely he could not be so
very far away.
He opened the stair door and crept slowly up the steps to their little
room. He could scarcely distinguish anything at first, in the dim
light of the winter evening, but he saw enough to know that the little
straw hat with the torn brim that he had worn in the summer time was
not hanging on its peg behind the door. He looked in the washstand
drawer, where his dresses were kept. It was empty. He opened the
closet door. The new copper-toed shoes, kept for best, were gone, but
hanging in one corner was the little checked gingham apron he had worn
that morning.
Steven took it down. There was the torn place by the pocket, and the
patch on the elbow. He kissed the ruffle that had been buttoned under
the dimpled chin, and the little sleeves that had clung around his
neck so closely that morning. Then, with it held tight in his arms, he
threw himself on the bed, sobbing over and over, "It's too cruel! It's
too cruel! They didn't even let me tell him good-by!"
He did not go down to supper when Mrs. Dearborn called him, so she
went up after a while with a glass of milk and a doughnut.
"There, there!" she said soothingly; "don't take it so hard. Try and
eat something; you'll feel better if you do."
Steven tried to obey, but every mouthful choked him. "Rindy'll be
awful good to him," she said after a long pause. "She thinks he's the
loveliest child she ever set eyes on, but she was afraid her husband
would think he was too much of a baby if she took him home with those
long curls on. She cut 'em off before they started, and I saved 'em. I
knew you'd be glad to have 'em."
She lit the candle on the washstand and handed him a paper. He sat up
and opened it. There lay the soft, silky curls, shining like gold in
the candle-light, as they twined around his fingers. It was more than
he could bear. His very lips grew white.
Mrs. Dearborn was almost frightened. She could not understand how a
child's grief could be so deep and passionate.
He drew them fondly over his wet cheeks, and pressed them against his
quivering lips. Then laying his face down on them, he cried till he
could cry no longer, and sleep came to his relief.
Next morning, when Steven pulled the window curtain aside, he seemed
to be looking out on another world. The first snow of the winter
covered every familiar object, and he thought, in his childish way,
that last night's experience had altered his life as the snowdrifts
had changed the landscape.
He ate his breakfast and did up the morning chores mechanically. He
seemed to be in a dream, and wondered dully to himself why he did not
cry when he felt so bad.
When the work was all done he stood idly looking out of the window. He
wanted to get away from the house where everything he saw made his
heart ache with the suggestion of Robin.
"I believe I'd like to go to church to-day," he said in a listless
tone.
[Illustration]
"Yes, I'd go if I were you," assented Mr. Dearborn readily. "Mother
and me'll have to stay by the fire to-day, but I've no doubt it'll
chirk you up a bit to get outdoors a spell."
He started off, plodding through the deep snow.
"Takes it easier than I thought he would," said Mr. Dearborn. "Well,
troubles never set very hard on young shoulders. He'll get over it in
a little while."
As Steven emerged from the lane into the big road he saw a sleigh
coming towards him, driven by the doctor's son. As it drew nearer a
sudden thought came to him like an inspiration.
"O Harvey!" he cried, running forward. "Will you take me with you as
far as Simpson's?"
"Why, yes, I guess so," answered the boy good-naturedly.
He was not surprised at the request, knowing that Mrs. Dearborn and
Mrs. Simpson were sisters, and supposing that Steven had been sent on
some errand.
It was three miles to the Simpson place, but they seemed to have
reached it in as many minutes. Harvey turned off towards his own home,
while Steven climbed out and hurried along the public road.
"Half-way there!" he said to himself. He was going to town to find
Mrs. Estel.
He was a long time on the way. A piercing wind began to blow, and a
blinding snow-storm beat in his face. He was numb with cold, hungry,
and nearly exhausted. But he thought of little Robin fifteen miles
away, crying at the strange faces around him; and for his sake he
stumbled bravely on.
He had seen Mrs. Dearborn's daughter several times. She was a kind,
good-natured woman, half-way afraid of her husband. As for Arad
Pierson himself, Steven had conceived a strong dislike. He was
quick-tempered and rough, with a loud, coarse way of speaking that
always startled the sensitive child.
Suppose Robin should refuse to be comforted, and his crying annoyed
them. Could that black-browed, heavy-fisted man be cruel enough to
whip such a baby? Steven knew that he would.
The thought spurred him on. It seemed to him that he had been days on
the road when he reached the house at last, and stood shivering on the
steps while he waited for some one to answer his timid ring.
"No, you can't speak to Mrs. Estel," said the pompous colored man who
opened the door, and who evidently thought that he had come on some
beggar's mission. "She never sees any one now, and I'm sure she
wouldn't see you."
"Oh, _please_!" cried Steven desperately, as the door was about to be
shut in his face. "She told me to come, and I've walked miles through
the storm, and I'm so cold and tired! Oh, I _can't_ go back without
seeing her."
His high, piercing voice almost wailed out the words. Had he come so
far only to be disappointed at last?
"What is it, Alec?" he heard some one call gently.
He recognized the voice, and in his desperation darted past the man
into the wide reception hall.
He saw the sweet face of the lady, who came quickly forward, and heard
her say, "Why, what is the matter, my child?"
Then, overcome by the sudden change from the cold storm to the
tropical warmth of the room, he dropped on the floor, exhausted and
unconscious.
It was a long time before Mrs. Estel succeeded in thoroughly reviving
him. Then he lay on a wide divan with his head on her lap, and talked
quietly of his trouble.
He was too worn out to cry, even when he took the soft curls from his
pocket to show her. But her own recent loss had made her vision keen,
and she saw the depth of suffering in the boy's white face. As she
twisted the curls around her finger and thought of her own fair-haired
little one, with the deep snow drifting over its grave, her tears fell
fast.
She made a sudden resolution. "You shall come here," she said. "I
thought when my little Dorothy died I could never bear to hear a
child's voice again, knowing that hers was still. But such grief is
selfish. We will help each other bear ours together. Would you like to
come, dear?"
Steven sat up, trembling in his great excitement.
"O Mrs. Estel!" he cried, "couldn't you take Robin instead? I could be
happy anywhere if I only knew he was taken care of. You are so
different from the Piersons. I wouldn't feel bad if he was with you,
and I could see him every week. He is so pretty and sweet you couldn't
help loving him!"
She stooped and kissed him. "You dear, unselfish child, you make me
want you more than ever."
Then she hesitated. She could not decide a matter involving so much in
a moment's time. Steven, she felt, would be a comfort to her, but
Robin could be only a care. Lately she had felt the mere effort of
living to be a burden, and she did not care to make any exertion for
any one else.