Larkspur — A Closer Reading

I. An October Day II. The Captain’s Story III. Renée Finds a Home IV. Gardens V. First Aid VI. Eagles and Golden Eaglets VII. Aunt Pen Plans VIII. Breadwinners IX. The New Lodger X. A Scout’s Honor XI. Young Wings XII. The Game XIII. The Christmas Party XIV. Hill-top XV. Pat’s Pride and Its Fall XVI. Good Turns XVII. Angeline XVIII. For His Country XIX. A Letter From France XX. The Lost Baby XXI. Renée’s Box XXII. Surprises XXIII. The Best of All

On an October day--a sunny day, and except for the yellow leaves that quivered on rapidly bearing branches, very like spring--Patricia Everett, from the window of her home, watched an automobile drive out of sight, carrying her mother and sister away to Florida, and confided to the empty room that she was the very unhappiest girl in the whole world!

Conflicting emotions tormented the soul of the little lady. She disliked very much seeing anyone depart from anywhere without her! Then, too, so hurried had been the departure that nothing in the shape of candy, books or toys had been left behind to comfort her! And saddest of all, at the last moment her mother had decided that she must not return to Miss Prindle’s because of an epidemic of measles!

The curious quiet that had fallen upon the house after the bustle of departure added to Patricia’s loneliness. With a heart bursting with pity for herself, she wandered up the stairs to her room--a pretty room, its windows hung in flowered chintz, a bird singing from a cage hanging in the sunshine.

When his little mistress walked into the room Peter Pan trilled more gayly than before--it was as though he bade her come to the window and look across the way!

If she had looked she would have seen in the kitchen window of the shabby brick house, across the intersecting street, Mrs. Mary Quinn and her daughter Sheila rocking in one another’s arms and laughing like two children!

Mrs. Quinn’s house was old and shabby, its fences tumbling down; hard times often knocked at her door, but with it all her smile was always as bright as the gay geraniums blooming on the spotless sill of the kitchen window that faced the Everett house.

Fortune had come to the Quinns that day in the guise of a new lodger. He had taken the second floor bedroom which stretched across the back of the house. Because this room was very big and had a queer, rickety stairway leading to it from the outside of the house, it had never been rented. But with the other lodgers who lived in the front rooms and the tiny side bedroom and the parlor, which had been converted into a "light housekeeping suite," Mrs. Quinn managed to keep her little family most comfortably and to have a bit left over for such luxuries as the flowers, a few books, pretty pictures and crisp muslin curtains.

"Faith, Sheila," she had cried, coming into the kitchen where her daughter was preparing apples for the oven. "It’s just as though Dame Fortune knew it was your birthday! Now you shall have your music!"

"Oh, mother!" cried the girl, dropping her paring knife. "How wonderful!" Then, hesitating: "But maybe I hadn’t ought to! That much each week would make things easier if----"

But Mrs. Quinn snatched bowl, apples and knife from her daughter’s hands. "Don’t let’s be worrying over what’s ahead, sweetness! We’ll just take what comes! Didn’t I have my bit of music when I was a girl and don’t I know the longings that are in you to have things that other girls have, lassie? It’s a good daughter you are to me and it’s you that has always made the hard things easier----" She stopped suddenly as though something in her throat choked the words. For answer Sheila caught the rough hands that knew only work now and kissed them.

Then these two, arms around one another, the bowl tipping dangerously between them, laughed together as though there had never been a single hardship in the world.

"We’re two sillies--that’s what we are! Now we must be about our work or the gentleman will come and the room won’t be ready!"