Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/66



spending several days wondering how she could best break the news to the children that their father was going to take them away, Mrs. Neal decided that she would wait until the last possible moment. Then she would tell them that their father had a Christmas present for them, nicer than anything he had ever given them before. It was something that could n’t be sent to them, so he wanted them to go all the way on the cars to his new home, to see it. Then, after they had guessed everything they could think of, and were fairly hopping up and down with impatient curiosity, she ’d tell them what it was—a new mother!

She decided not to tell them that they were never coming back to the Junction to live. It would be better for them to think of this return to their father as just a visit until they were used to their new surroundings. It would make it easier for all concerned if they could be started off happy and pleasantly expectant. Then if Molly had grown up to be as nice a woman as she had been a young girl, she could safely trust the rest to her. The children would soon be loving her so much that they would n’t want to come back.

But Mrs. Neal had not taken into account that her news was no longer a secret. Told to one or two friends in confidence, it had passed from lip to lip, and had been discussed in so many homes that half the children at the Junction knew that poor little Libby and Will’m Branfield were to have a stepmother before they knew it themselves. Maudie Peters told Libby on their way home from school one day, and told it in such a tone that she made Libby feel that having a step-mother was about the worst calamity that could befall one. Libby denied it stoutly.

“But you are!” Maudie insisted. “I heard Mama and Aunt Louisa talking about it. They said they certainly felt sorry for you, and Mama said that she hoped and prayed that her children would be spared such a fate, because stepmothers are always unkind.”

Libby flew home with her tearful question, positive that Grandma Neal would say that Maudie was mistaken, but with a scared, shaky feeling in her knees, because Maudie had been so calmly and provokingly sure. Grandma Neal could deny only a part of Maudie’s story.

“I ’d like to spank that meddlesome Peters child!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Here I ’ve been keeping it as a grand surprise for you that your father is going to give you a new mother for Christmas, and thinking what a fine time you ’d have going on the cars to see them, and now Maudie has to go and tattle, and tell it in such an ugly way that she makes it seem like something bad instead of the nicest thing that could happen to you. Listen, Libby!”

For Libby, at this confirmation of Maudie’s tale, instead of the denial which she hoped for, had crooked her arm over her face, and was crying out loud into her little brown gingham sleeve, as if her heart would break. Mrs. Neal sat down and drew the sobbing child into her lap.

“Listen, Libby!” she said again. “This lady that your father has married used to live here at the Junction when she was a little girl no bigger than you. Her name was Molly Blair, and she looked something like you—had the same color hair, and wore it in two little plaits just as you do. Everybody liked her. She was so gentle and kind, she would n’t have done anything to hurt any one’s feelings any more than a little white kitten would. Your father was a boy then, and he lived here, and they went to school together, and played together just as you and Walter Gray do. He ’s known her all her life, and he knew very well when he asked her to take the place of a mother to his little children, that she ’d be dear and good to you. Do you think that you could change so in growing up that you could be unkind to any little child that was put in your care?”

“No-o!” sobbed Libby.

“And neither could she!” was the emphatic answer. “You can just tell Maudie Peters that she does n’t know what she is talking about.”

Libby repeated the message next day, emphatically and defiantly, with her chin in the air. That talk with Grandma Neal, and another longer one which followed at bedtime, helped her to see things in their right light. Besides, several things which Grandma Neal told her made a visit to her father seem quite desirable. It would be fine to be in a city where there is something interesting to see every minute. She knew from other sources that in a city you might expect a hand-organ and a monkey to come down the street almost any day.