Greenacre Girls. Forrester Izola Louise

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СКАЧАТЬ doesn't it? Partner of your joys and sorrows, you know, Jerry."

      "Betty has never seemed to understand much about money matters so I did not want to worry her."

      "Just like a man. So you broke your health down and landed here in bed trying to do it all yourself. Can I help you? How much money do you need to tide you over?"

      He laughed unsteadily.

      "Dear old Roxy. You'd give anyone your left ear if they needed it, wouldn't you? You don't understand how we live. It takes nearly every cent I earn to cover our current expenses. As long as I could keep well, it did not matter, but three months' illness shows breakers ahead. I am wondering what we are going to do, and I dread even speaking to Betty about it."

      "Then let me do it," said Miss Robbins promptly. "I'd love to. Better yet, call a family council and talk things over if you are strong enough to do so. How long can you hold out here?"

      "I'm not certain." He looked weary and bothered. "We only rent the place, as you know. The lease is up the first of May. It is $1800 a year."

      "You can buy a good farm up home for that, Jerry; house, barns, pasture, haylands, wood lots and all," said Roxana thoughtfully. "It's a nice place here, but it's fearfully extravagant."

      "Do you think so, Roxy?" he smiled up at her with a glint of fun in his eyes like Kit's. "Betty and the girls want me to take over the estate below here along the ocean front at $2500 a year because they like the ocean view and the private beach. It really is quite moderate too, considering we're on the North Shore. Property on Long Island is expensive."

      She looked out at the clean park-like territory around the large modern house. Winding drives swept in and out. Each residence stood in its own spacious grounds. High rock walls with ornamental entrance gates surrounded each one. There was an artificial pond where the children skated in whiter and the country club crowned the hill with golf links sloping away to the shore on the north.

      Down in the ravine stood the artistic gray stone railroad station matching the real estate office over the way, and farther along were the village stores, the new High School of stucco and tile, and the two churches. Back and forth along the smooth highway slipped a never-ending line of motor cars coming and going like ants over an ant hill. Roxy turned her head towards the bed once more and asked:

      "Would you rather do that than go up home with me?"

      "It isn't what I'd rather do. It's what we may have to do unless I gain my old strength."

      "You'll never get a mite better lying there worrying over unpaid bills and new ones stacking up. I'm going to talk to Betty."

      He shook his head with a little smile of doubt.

      "But it would never be fair to take them away from this sort of thing, Roxy. You don't understand. They have their church and their club work and their special studies. Jean has been taking up a course in Applied Design and Modeling, and Helen has her music. Kit's deep in school work and belongs to about five clubs outside of that. Dorrie's about the only one disengaged, and she has a dancing class and the Ministering Children's League over at church. Betty's on more committees and things than I can count, and she believes that we owe it to the children to give them the best social environment that we can. Perhaps we can get along in some way. There's a little left at the bank."

      "How much?" demanded Roxana uncompromisingly. "I mean, after you've paid up everything. I'll bet there isn't five thousand left."

      "Five thousand! I doubt much whether there is one thousand. Don't tell Betty that. I have never bothered her about such things, and there are a few securities I might sell and realize on."

      "And you think that you've been a good husband to her. Land alive, what are men made of! Here she stands a chance of being left alone in the world with four children to bring up and you've never bothered her about your business. The sooner you get to it, the better, I think." Roxana stood up and adjusted her eyeglasses resolutely. She had seen what he could not, Betty coming leisurely up the box-bordered walk, a loose cluster of yellow jonquils in her arms, and the girls following, all except Kit. "There they come now. I won't say anything till you do, Jerry."

      Suddenly Kit's voice sounded at the door. Her short curls were rumpled and towsled, and her eyes wide with excitement, as she hugged a hot water bottle to her face.

      "I've heard almost every word you said," she burst out. "I had neuralgia and stayed home this afternoon, and I've been asleep in there on the couch. Please don't be sorry, Dad. I'll help you every blessed bit I can, and I think it would be glorious for us all to go up into the country."

      She stopped as the door below, in the front entrance hall, banged and Doris came upstairs on a run, a herald of love and joy.

      "Well, child, keep your mouth shut till we know where we're at," counseled Roxy quickly. "Go back and lie down. Here they come."

      But Kit stood her ground, and Jean and Helen seemed to catch from her the fact that there was something unusual in the wind as they came in behind their Mother.

      "It was a lovely walk," said Mrs. Robbins, drawing off her gloves as she sat down beside the bed and smiled at the patient. "We went down to look at the Dunderdale place, Jerry. It is simply lovely there even in winter. You can see the summer possibilities. I never saw so many shrubs and trees and such beautiful grouping. It made me think of our Californian places."

      "Or an Italian garden, Mother dear," Jean added eagerly. "Why, Dad, it's exactly like some of Parrish's pictures, don't you know; tall poplars over here, and then a hedge effect and a low Roman seat tucked in every once in a while. Why, it's just as cheap as can be."

      "You'd enjoy the garden so this summer, and there are enclosed sleeping porches, and an inner court like a patio garden. The garage is small, but it will do if we don't get a new car this year."

      Right here Cousin Roxana sniffed, a real, unmistakable sniff. She was a believer in quick action. If you had anything to do, the quicker you did it and got over it the better, she always said. So now she raised her head as they all looked at her, and sprang her bolt right out of a clear sky.

      "You won't get a new car this year, Betty, my dear, and you're not going to move into any two-thousand-five-hundred-dollars-a-year bungalow, either. I'm going to take the whole lot of you to Gilead Center, and see if Jerry can't get his health back up in those blessed hills of rest."

      CHAPTER IV

      THE QUEEN'S PRIVY COUNCIL

      There was a queer silence, fraught with suspense for each person in the room. Mrs. Robbins looked down at the wearied face lying back on the white pillows with a startled expression in her usually calm eyes. Instinctively both her hands reached for his and held them fast, while Jean laid her own two down on her mother's shoulders as if she would have given her strength for this new ordeal.

      "You mean for a little visit, don't you, Cousin Roxy?" she asked eagerly.

      "No, I don't, Jeanie. I mean for good and all, or at least until your father has time to get well, and that can't be done in a few days."

      "But Doctor Roswell says he's gaining every day," Mrs. Robbins said. She waited for some reassuring answer, her eyes almost begging for one, but Cousin Roxana was not to be dismayed.

      "Jerry, tell what the doctor said to us this morning. Not that I take much stock in him, but he may be on the right track."

      "Nothing special, Motherbird and robins all," smiled back Mr. Robbins; СКАЧАТЬ