Read the book: «Sisters»

CHAPTER I.
HOW IT BEGAN

Gold and blue were the colors that predominated on one glorious April day. Gold were the fields of poppies that carpeted the foothills stretching down to the very edge of Rocky Point, against which the jewel-blue Pacific lapped quietly. It was at that hour of the tides when the surf is stilled.

A very old adobe house surrounded on three sides by wide verandas, the pillars of which were eucalyptus logs, stood about two hundred feet back from the point. Rose vines, clambering at will over the picturesque old dwelling, were a riot of colors. There was the exquisite pink Cecil Brunner in delicate, long-stemmed clusters; Gold of Ophir blossoms in a mass glowing in the sunshine, while intertwined were the vines of the star-like white Cherokee and Romona, the red.

Mingled with their fragrance was the breath of heliotrope which grew, bushwise, at one corner so luxuriantly that often it had to be cut away lest it cover the gravel path which led around the house to the orchard. There, under fruit trees that were each a lovely bouquet of pearly bloom, stood row after row of square white hives, while bees, busy at honey gathering, buzzed everywhere.

Now and then, clear and sweet, rose the joyous song of mating birds.

A little old woman, seated in a rustic rocker on the western side porch, dropped her sewing on her lap and smiled on the scene with blissful content. What a wonderful world it was and how happy she and Silas had been since Jenny came. She glanced across the near gardens, aglow with early bloom, to a patch of ploughed brown earth where an old man was cultivating between rows of green shoots, some of them destined to produce field corn for the cow and chickens, and the rest sweet corn for the sumptuous table of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones.

Then the gaze of the little old woman continued a quarter of a mile along the rocky shore to a grove of sycamore trees, where stood the castle-like home of the richest woman in Santa Barbara township. Only the topmost turrets could be seen above the towering treetops. The vast grounds were surrounded by a high cypress hedge, and, not until he reached the wrought iron gates could a passer-by obtain a view of the magnificence that lay within. But the little old woman knew it all in detail, as she had been housekeeper there for many years, until, in middle-age, she had married Silas Warner, who managed the farm for Mrs. Algernon Poindexter-Jones.

For the past fifteen years the happy couple had lived in the old adobe house at Rocky Point, while at Poindexter Arms, as the beautiful estate was named, there had been a succession of housekeepers and servants, for their mistress was domineering and hard to please.

Of late years the grand dame had seldom been seen by the kindly old farmer, Si Warner and his wife, for Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had preferred to live in her equally palatial home in San Francisco overlooking the Golden Gate.

She visited Santa Barabra periodically, merely to assure herself that her orders were being carried out by the servants left in charge of Poindexter Arms and Rocky Point farm. Often Mrs. Si Warner did not catch a glimpse of their employer on these fleeting visits, and yet she well knew that the imperious mistress of millions was linked more closely than she liked to remember to the old couple at Rocky Point.

As she resumed her sewing, memory recalled to her that long ago incident which, by the merest chance, had made the proud woman and the humble, sharers of a secret which neither had cared to divulge.

It had been another spring day such as this, only they had all been younger by fourteen years.

While ploughing in the lot nearest the highway, Farmer Si had noticed a strange equipage drawn to one side of the road. He thought little of it at first, believing it to be a traveling tinsmith, as the canopied wagon was evidently furnished with household utensils, but, when an hour later, he again reached that side of the field and saw the patient horse still standing there with drooping head and no one in sight, his curiosity was aroused, and, leaping over the rail fence, he went to investigate.

Under that weather-stained canopy a sad tragedy had been enacted. On the driver’s seat a young man, clothed in a garb of a clergyman, seemed to be sleeping, but a closer scrutiny revealed to the farmer that the Angel of Death had visited the little home on wheels. For a home it evidently had been. In the roomier part of the wagon a beautiful little girl of three sat on a stack of folded bedding, while in a crude box-like crib a sickly looking infant lay sleeping.

Whenever Mrs. Silas Warner recalled that long ago day, she again experienced the varying emotions which had come to her following each other in rapid succession. She had been ironing when she had seen a queer canopied equipage coming up the lane which led from the highway. Believing it to be a peddlar, who now and then visited their farm, she had gone to the side porch, there to have her curiosity greatly aroused by the fact that it was her husband Si who was on the seat of the driver. Then her surprise had been changed to alarm when she learned of the three who were under the canopy. Awe, because she was in the presence of death, and tender sympathy for the little ones, who had evidently been orphaned, mingled in the heart of the woman as she held the scrawny, crying infant that her husband had given to her. Even with all these crowding emotions there had yet been room for admiration, when the little three-year-old girl was lifted down. The child stood apart, quiet and aloof. She had heard them say that her father was dead. She was too young to understand and so she just waited. A rarely beautiful child, with a tangled mass of light brown, sun-glinted hair hanging far below her shoulders, and wide, wondering brown eyes that were shaded with long curling lashes.

But still another emotion had been stirred in the heart of Susan Warner, for a most unexpected and unusual visitor had at that moment arrived. A coach, bearing the Poindexter Arms, turned into the lane, and when the liveried footman threw open the door, there sat no less a personage than the grand dame, Mrs. Algernon Poindexter-Jones, on one of her very infrequent visits to the farm which belonged to her estate. She had been charmed with the little girl, and after having heard the story, she announced that she would keep the child until relatives were found. Then she was driven away, without having stated her errand, and accompanying her, still quietly aloof, rode the three-year-old girl. A doctor and coroner soon arrived, having been summoned by Mrs. Poindexter-Jones. The latter had searched the effects of the dead man and had found an unfinished letter addressed to a bishop in the Middle West. In it the man had told of his wife’s death, and that he was endeavoring to keep on with his traveling missionary work in outlying mountain districts, but that his heart attacks were becoming threateningly more frequent. “There is no relative in all the world with whom to leave Gwynette, who is now three, and little Jeanette, who is completing her first year.” No more had been written.

After the funeral Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had announced that she would adopt the older child and that, if they wished, the farmer and his wife might keep the scrawny baby on one condition, and that was that the girls should never be told that they were sisters. To this the childless couple had rejoicingly agreed. The doctor and coroner had also been sworn to secrecy. The dead man’s effects were stored in the garret above the old adobe and the incident was closed.

Mrs. Poindexter-Jones left almost at once for Europe, where she had remained for several years.

Tenderly loved, and nourished with the best that the farm could produce, the scrawny, ill-looking infant had gradually changed to a veritable fairy of sunshine. “Jenny,” as they called her, feeling that Jeanette was a bit too grand, walked with a little skipping step from the time that she was first sure that she would not tumble, and looked up, with laughter in her lovely eyes, that were the same liquid brown as were her sister’s, and tossed back her long curls that were also light brown with threads of sunlight in them. And ever after, there were little skipping steps to her walk, and, when she talked, it seemed as though at any moment she might break into song.

Jenny had never questioned her origin. She had always been with Granny Sue and Granddad Si, and so, of course, that proved that she belonged to them. She was too happy, just being alive, to create problems for herself to solve, and too busy.

There had been too few children on the neighboring ranches to maintain a country school, and Jenny had been too young to send on a bus to Santa Barbara each day, but her education had not been neglected, for a charming and cultured young woman living not far away had taught her through the years, and she had learned much that other girls of her age did not know.

When the weather was pleasant Jenny, her school books under her arm, walked to the hill-top home of her teacher, Miss Dearborn, but during the rainy season her grandfather hitched their faithful Dobbin to the old-fashioned, topped buggy and drove her to her destination in the morning, calling for her in the late afternoon.

But on one wild March day when Jenny had been thirteen, an unexpected storm had overtaken her as she was walking home along the coast highway.

Luckily she had worn her mackintosh, but as she was passing between wide, treeless meadows that reached to the sea on one side and a briary hill on the other, there had been no shelter in sight.

However, a low gray car had soon appeared around a bend and the driver, a youth whose face was hidden by cap, collar and goggles, had offered her a ride. Gladly she had accepted and had been taken to her home, where, to her surprise, Grandmother Sue had welcomed the lad with sincerest pleasure. That had been the first time Jenny Warner had met Harold, the only son of their employer, Mrs. Poindexter-Jones.

His visit had brought consternation to the little family at Rocky Point, for, inadvertently, he had told the old man that his mother planned selling the farm when she could find a suitable buyer.

The old woman sitting on the side porch dropped her sewing to her lap as she recalled that long-ago scene in the kitchen.

The farmer had been for the moment almost stunned by the news, then looking up at the boy with a pitiful attempt at a smile, he had said waveringly:

“I reckon you see how ’tis, Harry-boy. We’ve been livin’ here at Rocky Point so long, it’s sort o’ got to feelin’ like home to us, but you tell your ma that the Warners’ll be ready to move when she says the word.”

The boy had been much affected, and, after assuring them that perhaps a buyer would not be found, he had taken his departure.

When he had gone, Jenny had cuddled in her grandfather’s arms and he had held her close. Susan Warner remembered that the expression on his face had been as though he were thanking God that they had their “gal”. With her irrepressible enthusiasm the girl had exclaimed:

“I have the most wonderful plan! Let’s buy Rocky Point Farm, and then it will be all our very own.”

“Lawsy, child,” Susan Warner had remonstrated, “it’d cost a power o’ money, and it’s but a few hundred that we’ve laid by.”

But Jenny had a notion that she wanted to try out. “Granny, granddad,” she turned from first one to the other and her voice was eager, earnest, pleading: “Every Christmas since I can remember you’ve given me a five-dollar gold piece to be saving for the time when I might be all alone in the world. I want to spend them now.” Then she unfolded her plan. She wanted to buy hens and bees. “You were a wonderful beekeeper when you were a boy, granddad,” she insisted. “You have told me so time and again, and I just know that I can sell eggs and honey to the rich people over on the foothill estates, and then, when we have saved money enough, we can buy the farm and have it for our very own home forever and ever.”

The old couple knew that this would be impossible, but, since they had not the heart to disappoint their darling, the scheme had been tried. Every Saturday morning during the summer that she had been thirteen, Jenny, high on the buckboard seat, had driven old Dobbin up and down the long winding tree-hung lanes in the aristocratic foothill suburb of Santa Barbara. At first her wares were only eggs from her flocks of white Minorka hens, but, when she was fourteen, jars of golden strained honey were added, and gradually, among her customers, she came to be known as “The Honey Girl” from Rocky Point Farm. And now Jenny was fifteen.

Susan Warner was startled from her day-dreams by the shrill whistle of the rural mail carrier. Neatly folding her sewing (and Granny Sue would neatly fold her sewing if she were running away from a fire), the old woman went to the side porch nearest the lane where the elderly Mr. Pickson was then stopping to leave the Rural Weekly for Mr. Silas Warner and a note from Miss Isophene Granger for “The Honey Girl.”

“I reckon it’s a fresh order for honey or eggs or such,” the smiling old woman told him. The mail carrier agreed with her.

“I reckon ’tis! There’s a parcel o’ new girls over to the seminary,” was his comment as he turned his horse’s head toward the gate, then with a short nod he drove away.

Susan Warner went back into the kitchen, and, feeling sure that the note was not of a private nature, she unfolded the paper and read the message, which was couched in the formal language habitually used by the principal of the fashionable seminary.

“Miss Isophene Granger desires six dozen eggs to be delivered this afternoon not later than five.”

The old woman glanced at the clock. “Tut! Tut! And here it’s close to three. I reckon I’d better be gatherin’ the eggs this once. Jenny says it’s her work, but it’ll be all she can do to get there, with Dobbin to hitch and what not.”

Taking her sunbonnet from its hook by the kitchen door, the old woman went out to the barnyard where, in neat, wired-in spaces, there were several flocks of white Minorka hens. After filling the large basket that she carried with eggs, Susan Warner returned through the blossoming orchard, and although she was unconscious of it, she smiled and nodded at the bees that were so busily gathering honey; then she thought of her girl.

“Dear lovin’ child that she is!” The faded blue eyes of the old woman were tender. “Si and me never lets on that her plan can’t come to nothin’. ’Twould nigh break her heart. All told there’s not more’n seven hundred now in the bank, an’ the farm, when they come to sell it, is like to bring most that an acre, or leastwise so Pa reckons.”

But later, as Susan Warner was sorting the eggs and placing them in boxes holding a dozen each, she took a more optimistic view of the matter.

“It’s well to be workin’ and savin’, how-some-ever,” she concluded. “Our darlin’ll need it all an’ more when her granddad an me are took.” Then, before the old woman could wipe away the tears that always came when she thought of leaving Jenny, her eyes brightened, and, peering out of a window near she exclaimed aloud (although there was only a canary to hear), “Wall now, here comes Jenny this minute, singin’ and skippin’ up the lane, like the world couldn’t hold a trouble. Bless the happy heart of her!”

CHAPTER II.
JENNY

Susan Warner turned to beam a welcome at the apparition standing in the open door of the kitchen. With the sun back of her, shining through the folds of her yellow muslin dress and glinting through her light, wavy brown hair, the girl did indeed look like a sprite of the springtime, and, to add to the picture, she held a branch, sweet with apricot blossoms.

“Greetings, Granny Sue!” she called gayly. “This is churning day, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, ’tis, Jenny darlin’, or leastwise ’twould o’ been ’ceptin’ for a message Mr. Pickson fetched over from Granger Place Seminary. There’s some new pupils come sudden like, I reckon, an’ they need eggs a day sooner than ordinary. I’ve got ’em all packed in the hamper, dearie. You’ve nothin’ to do but hitch Dobbin and start.”

“Righto, Granny Sue; but first I must put these poor blossoms into a jar. I found the branch broken and just hanging by a shred of bark on that old tree ’way down by the fence corner.”

Jenny took a brown jar from a cupboard as she talked and filled it with water from the sink pump.

“They’ll be lonely for their home tree, like as not,” she chattered on, “but perhaps they’ll be a bit glad when they find that they are to brighten up our home for a few days. Don’t you think maybe they will, Granny Sue? Don’t you think when we can’t do the thing we most want to do, we still can be happy if we are just alive and doing the most beautiful thing that is left for us to do?”

This last was called over her shoulder as she carried the jar and blossoming branch toward the door of the living-room. Luckily she did not pause for an answer, for the little old woman always felt confused when her girl began such flights of fancy. Had she been obliged to reply, she no doubt would have said:

“Why, ’taint likely, Jenny, that branch of apricot flowers even knows it’s broken off, an’ as for that, the ones that are left will make all the better fruit with some of ’em gone.”

While the girl was placing the jar on the living-room center table, close to the book that she had been reading, Granddad Si entered the kitchen for a drink, and upon hearing of the message from Miss Granger, he hurried to the barn to hitch old Dobbin to the cart, and so, when five minutes later the girl skipped out, laughing over her shoulder at her grandmother’s admonition to go more slowly, lest she fall and break the eggs, there was Granddad Si fastening the last buckles. He straightened up, pushed his frayed straw hat to the back of his head and surveyed the girl with pardonable pride.

“Jenny, gal,” he began, and from the expression in his eyes she knew just how he would complete the sentence, and so, laughingly, she put her free hand over his mouth.

“Oh, granddad, ’tisn’t so, not the least bit, and you mustn’t say it again. A stranger might hear you some time, and what if he should think that I really believed it.”

But the old man finished his sentence, even though the words were mumbled behind the slim white hand of his girl:

“It’s the Gospel truth, Jenny. I’m tellin’ ye! Thar ain’t a gal over to that hifalutin seminary that’s half as purty as yo’ be. I reckon I know, ’cause I watch the whole lot of ’em when they go down the road on them parade walks they take, with a teacher ahead and one behind like they was a flock of geese and had to have a gooseherd along, which more’n like they are. A silly parcel, allays gigglin’.”

The last half of this speech had been more clearly spoken, for Jenny, having kissed him on the top of the nose from the wagon step, had climbed into the cart.

As she was driving away, she called back to him: “Wrong you are, Granddad, for I am only an egg and honey vender, while they are all aristocrats. Good-bye.”

Then, a second later, she turned again to sing out:

“Tell Granny I’d like a chocolate pudding tonight, all hidden in Brindle’s yellowest cream.”

Long after the girl had driven away, the farmer stood gazing down the lane. An old question had returned to trouble him:

Was it honest not to tell her that she wasn’t their own kin?

He couldn’t do it. It would break all of their hearts. She was their kin, somehow. No own grandchild could be dearer. Then he thought of the other girl, Jenny’s sister. He had heard something that day about her, and he had been mighty sorry to hear it.

When his “gal” disappeared from sight, up one of the tree-shaded lanes leading toward the foothill estates, Farmer Si turned and walked slowly back to the kitchen. He delivered Jenny’s message about the chocolate pudding to his wife, who, even then, was preparing the vegetables for supper. Crossing to the sink pump, the old man began working the handle up and down. A rush of crystal clear water rewarded his effort and, after having quaffed a long refreshing draught of it, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Then, after hanging his hat on its nail by the door, he sank down in his favorite arm chair close to the stove and sighed deeply as though he were very weary. His wife looked at him questioningly and he said in a voice and manner which were evidently evasive:

“Powerful poor weather for gettin’ the crops started. Nothin’ but sunshine this fortnight past.”

Susan Warner was briskly beating the eggs needed for her darling’s favorite pudding. When the whirr had ceased she turned and smiled across the room at the old man whose position showed that he was dejected. “What’s worryin’ yo’, Si?” The tone of the old woman’s voice promised sympathy if it were needed. “’Tisn’t about the farm yo’re really cogitatin’. I can tell that easy. Thar’s suthin’ else troublin’ yo’, an’ yo’ might as well speak out furst as last.”

“Wall, yo’re close to right, Susan, as I reckon yo’ most allays are. I was mendin’ the fence down by the highway when ol’ Pickson drove up an’ stopped to pass the time o’ day, like he generally does, an’ he says, says he, ‘Si, have yo’ heard the news?’ I w’a’nt particular interested, bein’ as Pickson allays starts off that a-way, but what he said next fetched me to an upstandin’, I kin tell you.”

Susan Warner had stopped her work to listen.

“What did Mr. Pickson tell you, Si? Suthin’ that troubled you?” she inquired anxiously.

“Wall, sort o’ that way. Mabbe it won’t be nuthin’ to worry about, and mabbe agin it will. Pickson said as how Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had gone to some waterin’ place over in France for her nerves, an’ not wishin’ to leave her daughter in the big city up north alone with the servants, she’d sent her to stay in the seminary down here for the time bein’, an’, what’s more, a flock of her friends from San Francisco came along of her. Them are the new pupils you was mentionin’ a spell ago, as being the reason extra eggs was needed.”

The old woman stared at her spouse as one spellbound. When she spoke her voice sounded strained and unnatural. “Si Warner, do yo’ mean to tell me our Jenny has gone to fetch eggs for her very own sister an’ her friends? They’re likely to meet up wi’ each other now, arter all these years, an’ neither will know who the other really is. Oh, the pity of it, that one of ’em should have all that money can buy, and the other of ’em ridin’ around peddlin’ eggs and honey.”

But the old man took a different view of the matter. “Susan,” he said, “if our gal had the pick of the two places, I reckon she’d choose stayin’ with us. I reckon she would.”

Susan Warner’s practical nature had again asserted itself. “Wall, there’s no need for us to be figurin’ about that. Jenny shall never know that she has a sister. Who is there to tell her? An’ what’s more, she’ll never have a chance to choose betwixt us and the Poindexter-Joneses.” Then, as a tender expression crept into the faded blue eyes, the old woman added, “Jenny wouldn’t leave us, Si. No, not for anyone. I’m sartin as to that, but I’m hopin’ she’ll never know as she isn’t our own. I’m sure hopin’ that she won’t.”