Jewel's Story Book

Mrs. Forbes, Mr. Evringham's housekeeper, answered the telephone one afternoon. She was just starting to climb to the second story and did not wish to be hindered, so her "hello" had a somewhat impatient brevity.

"Mrs. Forbes?"

"Oh," with a total change of voice and face, "is that you, Mr. Evringham?"

"Please send Jewel to the 'phone."

"Yes, sir."

She laid down the receiver, and moving to the foot of the stairs called loudly, "Jewel!"

"Drat the little lamb!" groaned the housekeeper, "If I was only sure she was up there; I've got to go up anyway. Jewel!" louder.

"Ye-es!" came faintly from above, then a door opened. "Is somebody calling me?"

Mrs. Forbes began to climb the stairs deliberately while she spoke with energy. "Hurry down, Jewel. Mr. Evringham wants you on the 'phone."

"Goody, goody!" cried the child, her feet pattering on the thick carpet as she flew down one flight and then passed the housekeeper on the next. "Perhaps he is coming out early to ride."

"Nothing would surprise me less," remarked Mrs. Forbes dryly as she mounted.

Jewel flitted to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

"Hello, grandpa, are you coming out?" she asked.

"No, I thought perhaps you would like to come in."

"In where? Into New York?"

"Yes."

"What are we going to do?" eagerly.

Mr. Evringham, sitting at the desk in his private office, his head resting on his hand, moved and smiled. His mind pictured the expression on the face addressing him quite as distinctly as if no miles divided them.

"Well, we'll have dinner, for one thing. Where shall it be? At the Waldorf?"

Jewel had never heard the word.

"Do they have Nesselrode pudding?" she asked, with keen interest. Mrs. Forbes had taken her in town one day and given her some at a restaurant.

"Perhaps so. You see I've heard from the Steamship Company, and they think that the boat will get in this evening."

"Oh, grandpa! grandpa! grandpa!"

"Softly, softly. Don't break the 'phone. I hear you through the window."

"When shall I come? Oh, oh, oh!"

"Wait, Jewel. Don't be excited. Listen. Tell Zeke to bring you in to my office on the three o'clock train."

"Yes, grandpa. Oh, please wait a minute. Do you think it would be too extravagant for me to wear my silk dress?"

"No, let's be reckless and go the whole figure."

"All right," tremulously.

"Good-by."

"Oh, grandpa, wait. Can I bring Anna Belle?" but only silence remained.

Jewel hung up the receiver with a hand that was unsteady, and then ran through the house and out of doors, leaving every door open behind her in a manner which would have brought reproof from Mrs. Forbes, who had begun to be Argus-eyed for flies.

Racing out to the barn, she appeared to 'Zekiel in the harness room like a small whirlwind.

"Get on your best things, Zeke," she cried, hopping up and down; "my father and mother are coming."

"Is this an india rubber girl?" inquired the coachman, pausing to look at her with a smile. "What train?"

"Three o'clock. You're going with me to New York. Grandpa says so; to his office, and the boat's coming to-night. Get ready quick, Zeke, please. I'm going to wear my silk dress."

"Hold on, kid," for she was flying off. "I'm to go in town with you, am I? Are you sure? I don't want to fix up till I make Solomon look like thirty cents and then find out there's some misdeal."

"Grandpa wants you to bring me to his office, that's what he said," returned the child earnestly. "Let's start real soon!"

Like a sprite she was back at the house and running upstairs, calling for Mrs. Forbes.

The housekeeper appeared at the door of the front room, empty now for two days of Mrs. Evringham's trunks, and Jewel with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes told her great news.

Mrs. Forbes was instantly sympathetic. "Come right upstairs and let me help you get ready. Dear me, to-night! I wonder if they'll want any supper when they get here."

"I don't know. I don't know!" sang Jewel to a tune of her own improvising, as she skipped ahead.

"I don't believe they will," mused Mrs. Forbes. "Those customs take so much time. It seems a very queer thing to me, Jewel, Mr. Evringham letting you come in at all. Why, you'll very likely not get home till midnight."

"Won't it be the most fun!" cried the child, dancing to her closet and getting her checked silk dress.

"I guess your flannel sailor suit will be the best, Jewel."

"Grandpa said I might wear my silk. You see I'm going to dinner with him, and that's just like going to a party, and I ought to be very particular, don't you think so?"

"Well, don't sit down on anything dirty at the wharf. I expect you will," returned Mrs. Forbes with a resigned sigh, as she proceeded to unfasten Jewel's tight, thick little braids.

"Just think what a short time we'll have to miss cousin Eloise," said the child. "Day before yesterday she went away, and now to-morrow my mother'll braid my hair." She gave an ecstatic sigh.

"If that's all you wanted your cousin Eloise for-to braid your hair-I guess I could get to do it as well as she did."

"Oh, I loved cousin Eloise for everything and I always shall love her," responded the child quickly. "I only meant I didn't have to trouble you long with my hair."

"I think I do it pretty well."

"Yes, indeed you do-just as tight. Do you remember how much it troubled you when I first came? and now it's so much different!"

"Yes, there are a whole lot of things that are much different," replied Mrs. Forbes. "How long do you suppose you'll be staying with us now, Jewel?"

The child's face grew sober. "I don't know, because I don't know how long father and mother can stay."

"You'll think about this room where you've lived so many weeks, when you get back to Chicago."

"Yes, I shall think about it lots of times," said the little girl. "I knew it would be a lovely visit at grandpa's, and it has been."

She glanced up in the mirror toward the housekeeper's face and saw that the woman's lips were working suspiciously and her eyes brimming over.

"You won't be lonely, will you, Mrs. Forbes?" she asked; "because grandpa says you want to live with Zeke in the barn this summer while he shuts up the house and goes off on his vacation."

"Oh, yes; it's all right, Jewel, only it just came over me that in a week, or perhaps sooner, you'll be gone."

"It's real kind of you to be glad to have me stay," said the child. "I try not to think about going away, because it does make me feel sorry every time. You know the soot blows all around in Chicago and we haven't any yard, and when I think about all the sky and trees here, and the ravine, beside grandpa and you and Zeke and Essex Maid-why I have to just say 'I won't be sorry,' and then think about father and mother and Star and all the nice things! I think Star will like the park pretty well." Jewel looked into space thoughtfully, and then shook her head. "I'm sure the morning we go I shall have to say: 'Green pastures are before me' over and over."

"What do you mean, child?"

"Why, you know the psalm: 'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters'?"

"Yes."

"Well, in our hymnal there's the line of a hymn: 'Green pastures are before me,' and mother and I used to say that line every morning when we woke up, to remind us that Love was going to lead us all day."

"I'd like to see your mother," said Mrs. Forbes after a pause.

"You will, to-night," cried Jewel, suddenly joyous again. "Oh, Mrs. Forbes, do you think I could take Anna Belle to New York?"

"What did Mr. Evringham say?"

"He went away before I had a chance to ask him." Jewel looked wistfully toward the chair where the doll sat by the window, toeing in, her sweet gaze fixed on the wall-paper. "She would enjoy it so!" added the little girl.

"Oh, it's a tiresome trip for children, such late hours," returned Mrs. Forbes persuasively. "Beside," with an inspiration, "you'd like your hands free to help your mother carry her bags, wouldn't you?"

"That's so," responded Jewel. "Anna Belle would always give up anything for her grandma!" and as the housekeeper finished tying the hair bows, the little girl skipped over to the chair and knelt before the doll, explaining the situation to her with a joyous incoherence mingled with hugs and kisses from which the even-tempered Anna Belle emerged apparently dazed but docile.

"Come here and get your shoes on, Jewel."

"My best ones," returned the child.

"Oh, yes, the best of everything," said Mrs. Forbes good-humoredly; and indeed, when Jewel was arrayed, she viewed herself in the mirror with satisfaction.

Zeke presented himself soon, fine in a new summer suit and hat, and Mrs. Forbes watched the pair as they walked down the driveway.

"Now, I can't let the grass grow under my feet," she muttered. "I expected to have till to-morrow night to get all the things done that Mr. Evringham told me to, but I guess I can get through."

Jewel and Zeke had ample time for the train. Indeed, the little girl's patience was somewhat tried before the big headlight came in view. She could not do such injustice to her silk dress and daisy-wreathed leghorn hat as to hop and skip, so she stood demurely with Zeke on the station platform, and as they waited he regarded her happy expectant face.

"Remember the day you got here, kid?" he asked.

"Yes. Isn't it a long time since you came and met me with Dick, and he just whirled us home!"

"Sure it is. And now you're glad to be leaving us."

"I am not, Zeke!"

"Well, you look in the glass and see for yourself."

Just then the train came along and Zeke swung the child up to the high step. The fact that she found a seat by the window added a ray to her shining eyes. Her companion took the place beside her.

"Yes," he went on, as the train started, "it's kind of hard on the rest of us to have you so tickled over the prospect."

"I'm only happy over father and mother," returned Jewel.

"Pretty nice folks, are they?"

Jewel shook her head significantly. "You just wait and see," she replied with zest.

"Which one do you look like?"

"Like father. Mother's much prettier than father."

"A beauty, is she?"

"N-o, I don't believe so. She isn't so pretty as cousin Eloise, but then she's pretty."

"That's probably the reason your grandfather likes to see you around-because you look like his side of the house."

"Well," Jewel sighed, "I hope grandpa likes my nose. I don't."

Zeke laughed. "He seems able to put up with it. I expect there's going to be ructions around here the next week."

"What's ructions?"

"Well, some folks might call it error. I don't know. Mr. Evringham's going to be pretty busy with his own nose. It's going to be put out of joint to-night. The green-eyed monster's going to get on the rampage, or I miss my guess."

Jewel looked up doubtfully. Zeke was a joker, of course, being a man, but what was he driving at now?

"What green-eyed monster?" she asked.

"Oh, the one that lives in folks' hearts and lays low part of the time," replied Zeke.

"Do you mean jealousy; envy, hatred, or malice?" asked Jewel so glibly that her companion stared.

"Great Scott! What do you know about that outfit?" he asked.

The child nodded wisely. "I know people believe in them sometimes; but you needn't think grandpa does, because he doesn't."

"Mr. Evringham's all right," agreed Zeke, "but he isn't going to be the only pebble any longer. Your father and mother will be the whole thing now."

The child was thoughtful a moment, then she began earnestly: "Oh, I'm sure grandpa knows how it is about loving. The more people you love, the more you can love. I can love father and mother more because I've learned to love grandpa, and he can love them more too, because he has learned to love me."

"Humph! We'll see," remarked the other, smiling.

"Is error talking to you, Zeke? Are you laying laws on grandpa?"

"Well, if I am, I'll stop it mighty quick. You don't catch me taking any such liberties. Whoa!" drawing on imaginary reins as the engine slackened at a station.

Jewel laughed, and from that time until they reached New York they chatted about her pony Star, and other less important horses, and of the child's anticipation of showing her mother the joys of Bel-Air Park.

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