Mother Carey\'s Chickens - Kate Douglas Wiggin
MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS
By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
CONTENTS
I. MOTHER CAREY HERSELF
II. THE CHICKENS
III. THE COMMON DENOMINATOR
IV. THE BROKEN CIRCLE
V. HOW ABOUT JULIA?
VI. NANCY'S IDEA
VII. "OLD BEASTS INTO NEW"
VIII. THE KNIGHT OF BEULAH CASTLE
IX. GILBERT'S EMBASSY
X. THE CAREYS' FLITTING
XI. THE SERVICE ON THE THRESHOLD
XII. COUSIN ANN
XIII. THE PINK OF PERFECTION
XIV. WAYS AND MEANS
XV. BELONGING TO BEULAH
XVI. THE POST-BAG
XVII. JACK OF ALL TRADES
XVIII. THE HOUSE OF LORDS
XIX. OLD AND NEW
XX. THE PAINTED CHAMBER
XXI. A FAMILY RHOMBOID
XXII. CRADLE GIFTS
XXIII. NEARING SHINY WALL
XXIV. A LETTER FROM GERMANY
XXV. "FOLLOWING THE GLEAM"
XXVI. A ZOOLOGICAL FATHER
XXVII. THE CAREY HOUSEWARMING
XXVIII. "TIBI SPLENDET FOCUS"
XXIX. "TH' ACTION FINE"
XXX. THE INGLENOOK
XXXI. GROOVES OF CHANGE
XXXII. DOORS OF DARING
XXXIII. MOTHER HAMILTON'S BIRTHDAY.
XXXIV. NANCY COMES OUT
XXXV. THE CRIMSON RAMBLER
I
MOTHER CAREY HERSELF
"By and by there came along a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's
own chickens.... They flitted along like a flock of swallows, hopping
and skipping from wave to wave, lifting their little feet behind them so
daintily that Tom fell in love with them at once."
Nancy stopped reading and laid down the copy of "Water Babies" on the
sitting-room table. "No more just now, Peter-bird," she said; "I hear
mother coming."
It was a cold, dreary day in late October, with an east wind and a chill
of early winter in the air. The cab stood in front of Captain Carey's
house, with a trunk beside the driver and a general air of expectancy on
the part of neighbors at the opposite windows.
Mrs. Carey came down the front stairway followed by Gilbert and
Kathleen; Gilbert with his mother's small bag and travelling cloak,
Kathleen with her umbrella; while little Peter flew to the foot of the
stairs with a small box of sandwiches pressed to his bosom.
Mrs. Carey did not wear her usual look of sweet serenity, but nothing
could wholly mar the gracious dignity of her face and presence. As she
came down the stairs with her quick, firm tread, her flock following
her, she looked the ideal mother. Her fine height, her splendid
carriage, her deep chest, her bright eye and fresh color all bespoke the
happy, contented, active woman, though something in the way of transient
anxiety lurked in the eyes and lips.
"The carriage is too early," she said; "let us come into the sitting
room for five minutes. I have said my good-byes and kissed you all a
dozen times, but I shall never be done until I am out of your sight."
"O mother, mother, how can we let you go!" wailed Kathleen.
"Kitty! how can you!" exclaimed Nancy. "What does it matter about us
when mother has the long journey and father is so ill?"
"It will not be for very long,--it can't be," said Mrs. Carey wistfully.
"The telegram only said 'symptoms of typhoid'; but these low fevers
sometimes last a good while and are very weakening, so I may not be able
to bring father back for two or three weeks; I ought to be in Fortress
Monroe day after to-morrow; you must take turns in writing to me,
children!"
"Every single day, mother!"
"Every single thing that happens."
"A fat letter every morning," they promised in chorus.
"If there is any real trouble remember to telegraph your Uncle
Allan--did you write down his address, 11 Broad Street, New York? Don't
bother him about little things, for he is not well, you know."
Gilbert displayed a note-book filled with memoranda and addresses.
"And in any small difficulty send for Cousin Ann," Mrs. Carey went on.
"The mere thought of her coming will make me toe the mark, I can tell
you that!" was Gilbert's rejoinder.
"Better than any ogre or bug-a-boo, Cousin Ann is, even for Peter!" said
Nancy.
"And will my Peter-bird be good and make Nancy no trouble?" said his
mother, lifting him to her lap for one last hug.
"I'll be an angel boy pretty near all the time," he asserted between
mouthfuls of apple, "or most pretty near," he added prudently, as if
unwilling to promise anything superhuman in the way of behavior. As a
matter of fact it required only a tolerable show of virtue for Peter to
win encomiums at any time. He would brush his curly mop of hair away
from his forehead, lift his eyes, part his lips, showing a row of tiny
white teeth; then a dimple would appear in each cheek and a seraphic
expression (wholly at variance with the facts) would overspread the baby
face, whereupon the beholder--Mother Carey, his sisters, the cook or the
chambermaid, everybody indeed but Cousin Ann, who could never be
wheedled--would cry "Angel boy!" and kiss him. He was even kissed now,
though he had done nothing at all but exist and be an enchanting
personage, which is one of the injustices of a world where a large
number of virtuous and well-behaved people go unkissed to their graves!
"I know Joanna and Ellen will take good care of the housekeeping,"
continued Mrs. Carey, "and you will be in school from nine to two, so
that the time won't go heavily. For the rest I make Nancy responsible.
If she is young, you must remember that you are all younger still, and I
trust you to her."
"The last time you did it, it didn't work very well!" And Gilbert gave
Nancy a sly wink to recall a little matter of family history when there
had been a delinquency on somebody's part.
Nancy's face crimsoned and her lips parted for a quick retort, and none
too pleasant a one, apparently.
Her mother intervened quietly. "We'll never speak of 'last times,'
Gilly, or where would any of us be? We'll always think of 'next' times.
I shall trust Nancy next time, and next time and next time, and keep on
trusting till I can trust her forever!"
Nancy's face lighted up with a passion of love and loyalty. She
responded to the touch of her mother's faith as a harp to the favoring
wind, but she said nothing; she only glowed and breathed hard and put
her trembling hand about her mother's neck and under her chin.
"Now it's time! One more kiss all around. Remember you are Mother
Carey's own chickens! There may be gales while I am away, but you must
ride over the crests of the billows as merry as so many flying fish!
Good-by! Good-by! Oh, my littlest Peter-bird, how can mother leave you?"
"I opened the lunch box to see what Ellen gave you, but I only broke off
two teenty, weenty corners of sandwiches and one little new-moon bite
out of a cookie," said Peter, creating a diversion according to
his wont.
Ellen and Joanna came to the front door and the children flocked down
the frozen pathway to the gate after their mother, getting a touch of
her wherever and whenever they could and jumping up and down between
whiles to keep warm. Gilbert closed the door of the carriage, and it
turned to go down the street. One window was open, and there was a last
glimpse of the beloved face framed in the dark blue velvet bonnet, one
last wave of a hand in a brown muff.
"Oh! she is so beautiful!" sobbed Kathleen, "her bonnet is just the
color of her eyes; and she was crying!"
"There never was anybody like mother!" said Nancy, leaning on the gate,
shivering with cold and emotion. "There never was, and there never will
be! We can try and try, Kathleen, and we _must_ try, all of us; but
mother wouldn't have to try; mother must have been partly born so!"
II
THE CHICKENS
It was Captain Carey's favorite Admiral who was responsible for the
phrase by which mother and children had been known for some years. The
Captain (then a Lieutenant) had brought his friend home one Saturday
afternoon a little earlier than had been expected, and they went to find
the family in the garden.
Laughter and the sound of voices led them to the summer-house, and as
they parted the syringa bushes they looked through them and surprised
the charming group.
A throng of children like to flowers were sown
About the grass beside, or climbed her knee.
I looked who were that favored company.
That is the way a poet would have described what the Admiral saw, and if
you want to see anything truly and beautifully you must generally go
to a poet.
Mrs. Carey held Peter, then a crowing baby, in her lap. Gilbert was
tickling Peter's chin with a buttercup, Nancy was putting a wreath of
leaves on her mother's hair, and Kathleen was swinging from an
apple-tree bough, her yellow curls flying.
"Might I inquire what you think of that?" asked the father.
"Well," the Admiral said, "mothers and children make a pretty good
picture at any time, but I should say this one couldn't be 'beat.' Two
for the Navy, eh?"
"All four for the Navy, perhaps," laughed the young man. "Nancy has
already chosen a Rear-Admiral and Kathleen a Commodore; they are modest
little girls!"
"They do you credit, Peter!"
"I hope I've given them something,--I've tried hard enough, but they are
mostly the work of the lady in the chair. Come on and say how d'ye do."
Before many Saturdays the Admiral's lap had superseded all other places
as a gathering ground for the little Careys, whom he called the
stormy petrels.
"Mother Carey," he explained to them, came from the Latin _mater cara_,
this being not only his personal conviction, but one that had the
backing of Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable."
"The French call them _Les Oiseaux de Notre Dame_. That means 'The Birds
of our Lady,' Kitty, and they are the sailors' friends. Mother Carey
sends them to warn seafarers of approaching storms and bids them go out
all over the seas to show the good birds the way home. You'll have your
hands full if you're going to be Mother Carey's chickens."
"I'd love to show good birds the way home!" said Gilbert.
"Can a naughty bird show a good bird the way home, Addy?" This bland
question came from Nancy, who had a decided talent for sarcasm,
considering her years. (Of course the Admiral might have stopped the
children from calling him Addy, but they seemed to do it because
"Admiral" was difficult, and anyway they loved him so much they simply
had to take some liberties with him. Besides, although he was the
greatest disciplinarian that ever walked a deck, he was so soft and
flexible on land that he was perfectly ridiculous and delightful.)
The day when the children were christened Mother Carey's chickens was
Nancy's tenth birthday, a time when the family was striving to give her
her proper name, having begun wrong with her at the outset. She was the
first, you see, and the first is something of an event, take it how
you will.
It is obvious that at the beginning they could not address a tiny thing
on a pillow as Nancy, because she was too young. She was not even
alluded to at that early date as "she," but always as "it," so they
called her "baby" and let it go at that. Then there was a long period
when she was still too young to be called Nancy, and though, so far as
age was concerned, she might properly have held on to her name of baby,
she couldn't with propriety, because there was Gilbert then, and he was
baby. Moreover, she gradually became so indescribably quaint and
bewitching and comical and saucy that every one sought diminutives for
her; nicknames, fond names, little names, and all sorts of words that
tried to describe her charm (and couldn't), so there was Poppet and
Smiles and Minx and Rogue and Midget and Ladybird and finally Nan and
Nannie by degrees, to soberer Nancy.
"Nancy is ten to-day," mused the Admiral. "Bless my soul, how time
flies! You were a young Ensign, Carey, and I well remember the letter
you wrote me when this little lass came into harbor! Just wait a minute;
I believe the scrap of newspaper verse you enclosed has been in my
wallet ever since. I always liked it."
"I recall writing to you," said Mr. Carey. "As you had lent me five
hundred dollars to be married on, I thought I ought to keep you posted!"
"Oh, father! did you have to borrow money?" cried Kathleen.
"I did, my dear. There's no disgrace in borrowing, if you pay back, and
I did. Your Uncle Allan was starting in business, and I had just put my
little capital in with his when I met your mother. If you had met your
mother wouldn't you have wanted to marry her?"
"Yes!" cried Nancy eagerly. "Fifty of her!" At which everybody laughed.
"And what became of the money you put in Uncle Allan's business?" asked
Gilbert with unexpected intelligence.
There was a moment's embarrassment and an exchange of glances between
mother and father before he replied, "Oh! that's coming back multiplied
six times over, one of these days,--Allan has a very promising project
on hand just now, Admiral."
"Glad to hear it! A delightful fellow, and straight as a die. I only
wish he could perform once in a while, instead of promising."
"He will if only he keeps his health, but he's heavily handicapped
there, poor chap. Well, what's the verse?"
The Admiral put on his glasses, prettily assisted by Kathleen, who was
on his knee and seized the opportunity to give him a French kiss when
the spectacles were safely on the bridge of his nose. Whereupon
he read:--
"There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
I looked, and looked, and laughed.
"It seemed so curious that she
Should cross the unknown water,
And moor herself within my room--
My daughter, O my daughter!
"Yet, by these presents, witness all,
She's welcome fifty times,
And comes consigned to Hope and Love
And common metre rhymes.
"She has no manifest but this;
No flag floats o'er the water;
She's rather new for British Lloyd's--
My daughter, O my daughter!
"Ring out, wild bells--and tame ones, too;
Ring out the lover's moon,
Ring in the little worsted socks,
Ring in the bib and spoon."[1]
[Footnote 1: George W. Cable.]
"Oh, Peter, how pretty!" said Mother Carey all in a glow. "You never
showed it to me!"
"You were too much occupied with the aforesaid 'queer little craft,'
wasn't she, Nan--I mean Nancy!" and her father pinched her ear and
pulled a curly lock.
Nancy was a lovely creature to the eye, and she came by her good looks
naturally enough. For three generations her father's family had been
known as the handsome Careys, and when Lieutenant Carey chose Margaret
Gilbert for his wife, he was lucky enough to win the loveliest girl in
her circle.
Thus it was still the handsome Careys in the time of our story, for all
the children were well-favored and the general public could never decide
whether Nancy or Kathleen was the belle of the family. Kathleen had fair
curls, skin like a rose, and delicate features; not a blemish to mar her
exquisite prettiness! All colors became her; all hats suited her hair.
She was the Carey beauty so long as Nancy remained out of sight, but the
moment that young person appeared Kathleen left something to be desired.
Nancy piqued; Nancy sparkled; Nancy glowed; Nancy occasionally pouted
and not infrequently blazed. Nancy's eyes had to be continually searched
for news, both of herself and of the immediate world about her. If you
did not keep looking at her every "once in so often" you couldn't keep
up with the progress of events; she might flash a dozen telegrams to
somebody, about something, while your head was turned away. Kathleen
could be safely left unwatched for an hour or so without fear of change;
her moods were less variable, her temper evener; her interest in the
passing moment less keen, her absorption in the particular subject less
intense. Walt Whitman might have been thinking of Nancy when he wrote:--
There was a child went forth every day
And the first object he looked upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the
day
Or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
Kathleen's nature needed to be stirred, Nancy's to be controlled, the
impulse coming from within, the only way that counts in the end, though
the guiding force may be applied from without.
Nancy was more impulsive than industrious, more generous than wise, more
plucky than prudent; she had none too much perseverance and no
patience at all.
Gilbert was a fiery youth of twelve, all for adventure. He kindled
quickly, but did not burn long, so deeds of daring would be in his line;
instantaneous ones, quickly settled, leaving the victor with a swelling
chest and a feather in cap; rather an obvious feather suited
Gilbert best.
Peter? Oh! Peter, aged four, can be dismissed in very few words as a
consummate charmer and heart-breaker. The usual elements that go to the
making of a small boy were all there, but mixed with white magic. It is
painful to think of the dozens of girl babies in long clothes who must
have been feeling premonitory pangs when Peter was four, to think they
couldn't all marry him when they grew up!
III
THE COMMON DENOMINATOR
Three weeks had gone by since Mother Carey's departure for Fortress
Monroe, and the children had mounted from one moral triumph to another.
John Bunyan, looking in at the windows, might have exclaimed:--
Who would true valor see
Let him come hither.
It is easy to go wrong in a wicked world, but there are certain
circumstances under which one is pledged to virtue; when, like a knight
of the olden time, you wear your motto next your heart and fight for
it,--"Death rather than defeat!" "We are able because we think we are
able!" "Follow honor!" and the like. These sentiments look beautifully
as class mottoes on summer graduation programmes, but some of them,
apparently, disappear from circulation before cold weather sets in.
It is difficult to do right, we repeat, but not when mother is away from
us for the first time since we were born; not when she who is the very
sun of home is shining elsewhere, and we are groping in the dim light
without her, only remembering her last words and our last promises. Not
difficult when we think of the eyes the color of the blue velvet bonnet,
and the tears falling from them. They are hundreds of miles away, but we
see them looking at us a dozen times a day and the last thing at night.
Not difficult when we think of father; gay, gallant father, desperately
ill and mother nursing him; father, with the kind smile and the jolly
little sparkles of fun in his eyes; father, tall and broad-shouldered,
splendid as the gods, in full uniform; father, so brave that if a naval
battle ever did come his way, he would demolish the foe in an instant;
father, with a warm strong hand clasping ours on high days and holidays,
taking us on great expeditions where we see life at its best and taste
incredible joys.
The most quarrelsome family, if the house burns down over their heads,
will stop disputing until the emergency is over and they get under a new
roof. Somehow, in times of great trial, calamity, sorrow, the
differences that separate people are forgotten. Isn't it rather like the
process in mathematics where we reduce fractions to a common
denominator?
It was no time for anything but superior behavior in the Carey
household; that was distinctly felt from kitchen to nursery. Ellen the
cook was tidier, Joanna the second maid more amiable. Nancy, who was
"responsible," rose earlier than the rest and went to bed later, after
locking doors and windows that had been left unlocked since the flood.
"I am responsible," she said three or four times each day, to herself,
and, it is to be feared, to others! Her heavenly patience in dressing
Peter every few hours without comment struck the most callous observer
as admirable. Peter never remembered that he had any clothes on. He
might have been a real stormy petrel, breasting the billows in his
birthday suit and expecting his feathers to be dried when and how the
Lord pleased. He comported himself in the presence of dust, mud, water,
liquid refreshment, and sticky substances, exactly as if clean white
sailor suits grew on every bush and could be renewed at pleasure.
Even Gilbert was moved to spontaneous admiration and respect at the
sight of Nancy's zeal. "Nobody would know you, Nancy; it is simply
wonderful, and I only wish it could last," he said. Even this style of
encomium was received sweetly, though there had been moments in her
previous history when Nancy would have retorted in a very pointed
manner. When she was "responsible," not even had he gone the length of
calling Nancy an unspeakable pig, would she have said anything. She had
a blissful consciousness that, had she been examined, indications of
angelic wings, and not bristles, would have been discovered under
her blouse.
Gilbert, by the way, never suspected that the masters in his own school
wondered whether he had experienced religion or was working on some sort
of boyish wager. He took his two weekly reports home cautiously for fear
that they might break on the way, pasted them on large pieces of paper,
and framed them in elaborate red, white, and blue stars united by strips
of gold paper. How Captain and Mrs. Carey laughed and cried over this
characteristic message when it reached them! "Oh! they _are_ darlings,"
Mother Carey cried. "Of course they are," the Captain murmured feebly.
"Why shouldn't they be, considering you?"
"It is really just as easy to do right as wrong, Kathleen," said Nancy
when the girls were going to bed one night.
"Ye-es!" assented Kathleen with some reservations in her tone, for she
was more judicial and logical than her sister. "But you have to keep
your mind on it so, and never relax a single bit! Then it's lots easier
for a few weeks than it is for long stretches!"
"That's true," agreed Nancy; "it would be hard to keep it up forever.
And you have to love somebody or something like fury every minute or you
can't do it at all. How do the people manage that can't love like that,
or haven't anybody to love?"
"I don't know." said Kathleen sleepily. "I'm so worn out with being
good, that every night I just say my prayers and tumble into bed
exhausted. Last night I fell asleep praying, I honestly did!"
"Tell that to the marines!" remarked Nancy incredulously.
IV
THE BROKEN CIRCLE
The three weeks were running into a month now, and virtue still reigned
in the Carey household. But things were different. Everybody but Peter
saw the difference. Peter dwelt from morn till eve in that Land of Pure
Delight which is ignorance of death. The children no longer bounded to
meet the postman, but waited till Joanna brought in the mail. Steadily,
daily, the letters changed in tone. First they tried to be cheerful;
later on they spoke of trusting that the worst was past; then of hoping
that father was holding his own. "Oh! if he was holding _all_ his own,"
sobbed Nancy. "If we were only there with him, helping mother!"
Ellen said to Joanna one morning in the kitchen: "It's my belief the
Captain's not going to get well, and I'd like to go to Newburyport to
see my cousin and not be in the house when the children's told!" And
Joanna said, "Shame on you not to stand by 'em in their hour of
trouble!" At which Ellen quailed and confessed herself a coward.
Finally came a day never to be forgotten; a day that swept all the
former days clean out of memory, as a great wave engulfs all the little
ones in its path; a day when, Uncle Allan being too ill to travel,
Cousin Ann, of all people in the universe,--Cousin Ann came to bring the
terrible news that Captain Carey was dead.
Never think that Cousin Ann did not suffer and sympathize and do her
rocky best to comfort; she did indeed, but she was thankful that her
task was of brief duration. Mrs. Carey knew how it would be, and had
planned all so that she herself could arrive not long after the blow had
fallen. Peter, by his mother's orders (she had thought of everything)
was at a neighbor's house, the centre of all interest, the focus of all
gayety. He was too young to see the tears of his elders with any profit;
baby plants grow best in sunshine. The others were huddled together in a
sad group at the front window, eyes swollen, handkerchiefs rolled into
drenched, pathetic little wads.
Cousin Ann came in from the dining room with a tumbler and spoon in her
hand. "See here, children!" she said bracingly, "you've been crying for
the last twelve hours without stopping, and I don't blame you a mite. If
I was the crying kind I'd do the same thing. Now do you think you've got
grit enough--all three of you--to bear up for your mother's sake, when
she first comes in? I've mixed you each a good dose of aromatic spirits
of ammonia, and it's splendid for the nerves. Your mother must get a
night's sleep somehow, and when she gets back a little of her strength
you'll be the greatest comfort she has in the world. The way you're
carrying on now you'll be the death of her!"
It was a good idea, and the dose had courage in it. Gilbert took the
first sip, Kathleen the second, and Nancy the third, and hardly had the
last swallow disappeared down the poor aching throats before a carriage
drove up to the gate. Some one got out and handed out Mrs. Carey whose
step used to be lighter than Nancy's. A strange gentleman, oh! not a
stranger, it was the dear Admiral helping mother up the path. They had
been unconsciously expecting the brown muff and blue velvet bonnet, but
these had vanished, like father, and all the beautiful things of the
past years, and in their place was black raiment that chilled their
hearts. But the black figure had flung back the veil that hid her from
the longing eyes of the children, and when she raised her face it was
full of the old love. She was grief-stricken and she was pale, but she
was mother, and the three young things tore open the door and clasped
her in their arms, sobbing, choking, whispering all sorts of tender
comfort, their childish tears falling like healing dew on her poor
heart. The Admiral soothed and quieted them each in turn, all but Nancy.
Cousin Ann's medicine was of no avail, and strangling with sobs Nancy
fled to the attic until she was strong enough to say "for mother's sake"
without a quiver in her voice. Then she crept down, and as she passed
her mother's room on tiptoe she looked in and saw that the chair by the
window, the chair that had been vacant for a month, was filled, and that
the black-clad figure was what was left to them; a strange, sad, quiet
mother, who had lost part of herself somewhere,--the gay part, the
cheerful part, the part that made her so piquantly and entrancingly
different from other women. Nancy stole in softly and put her young
smooth cheek against her mother's, quietly stroking her hair. "There are
four of us to love you and take care of you," she said. "It isn't quite
so bad as if there was nobody!"