Beyond the Stars

by Eleanor H. Porter

 

Beyond the Stars

 

By Eleanor H. Porter

 

ILLUSTRATED BY H. M. BUNKER

 

MISS PRISCILLA MURDOCK bent forward and flicked a bit of dust from her neat brown skirt—Miss Murdock disapproved of dust. The next moment she leaned back in her parlor-car chair, turning her eyes to the window, and her thoughts to her rapidly approaching visit.

It had been with many misgivings that she had accepted Mary Earle Perin's invitation to spend two weeks in her Ohio home. At college fifteen years before, Mary Earle, brilliant, talented, and affectionate, had been her most intimate friend. Since then their only intercourse had been by letter, as Mary had married at once and gone West, while she herself had remained in the East, steadily advancing in her chosen work so that even now she occupied an enviable position in the world of science and literature through her widely discussed book on “Fixed Stars.”

As for the letters—to Priscilla Murdock they had grown more and more unsatisfactory. She told herself that she did not expect Mrs. Perin to keep posted as to new stars and the reappearance of comets; but she did think the once brilliant college girl might write of something besides a baby's tooth or a boy's first trousers!

Miss Murdock did not care for children. To her they meant noise, disorder, weariness; she preferred quiet, tidiness, and rest. It was because of this that there had come the misgivings. She could not remember just how many children there were in the Perin nursery; there were two, at all events—possibly three. Before her eyes at that moment rose a vision of her friend's last letter. Mrs. Perin had written:

I should feel simply lost, Prixy, without my children. I should not know what was worth doing—all my reading, planning, studying is for them. Yesterday I finished a paper on “Play.” I am to read it before the child-study class to-morrow. You have no idea how interesting that class is—you'll find out, though, for you shall go with me when you come.

As she thought of that letter now Miss Murdock frowned. “Know what is worth doing, indeed!” she muttered, and took up her book, a profound study of the nebulae.

An hour later, at the little country station, Miss Murdock was met by a man and a note. She read:

Dearest Prixy: Mr. Scott, our neighbor, will give you this. It breaks my heart not to meet you, but a telegram from father just received says that mother has had a shock. I have barely time to catch the train. Am writing this on way to station. The children and Mr. Perin will give you a warm welcome, and I will write at once from Dayton. Am so glad to leave the children in such good hands as yours. Betty, in the kitchen, is a treasure, but of course has not your good judgment. I trust that mother is not so bad as we fear, and that I may soon return.

Your loving
Mary.

Miss Murdock crushed the note in her fingers, and dropped her arms with a gesture of despair.

“When is the next train—east?” she demanded feebly.

“East!” exclaimed the man. “Why, there isn't any until to-morrow. Sure, you're not beginning to talk of going back so soon!”

“I—I don't know,” murmured Miss Murdock, her eyes longingly fixed on the twin rails disappearing in the distance.

At the end of the short drive to her friend's house Miss Murdock found two boys and three girls who dashed down the steps and executed a wild dance about the buggy.

“It's Aunt Prixy, it's Aunt Prixy! She's come, she's come!” they chorused gleefully.

Miss Murdock's back stiffened. She had never liked the name “Prixy”; and it was particularly obnoxious now, linked as it was with that absurd title of “aunt,” to which she had no right, and for which she had less desire. Before her foot touched the ground, her temptation to leave the next day had become a determination. She told herself that she had her opinion of a man who would allow his children—to say nothing of the neighbors' children, for of course they weren't all his!—to make so rude an onslaught upon a guest, and a stranger at that.

Miss Murdock had intended to be very cold and dignified, but no sooner had she reached the ground than she was clutched and encircled by ten young arms and almost carried up the steps and into the hall. There she was plumped unceremoniously into a chair while five pair of hands attacked her coat, her gloves, her veil, and her hat; and all amid a deafening clamor of shouts and chatter.

“There!” ejaculated the tallest girl, after the coat and gloves had been tossed into one chair, and the hat and veil into another. “Now you're all fixed comfy, and mother said you were to make yourself right at home, and that we must love you and tend right up to you, because you'd be lonesome without her!”

“What'd you bring uth?” demanded the smaller boy, flinging himself into her lap.

With some effort Miss Murdock freed herself from the clinging arms and jerked herself to her feet, thereby tumbling the astonished child to the floor.

“You don't mean—you don't all live here?” she gasped.

“Of course we do!” asserted the five children. Then the tallest girl added gleefully: “This is Ted—he's ten; here's the twins, Bess and Belle—they're seven; that's Budge—he's five; and I'm Kitty, and I'm thirteen.”

“If you please, ma'am, tea is served,” interposed a pleasant-faced maid from the doorway. “I'm Betty, ma'am. Mrs. Perin said she'd tell you.”

Ten young feet raced across the floor to the dining-room door, leaving the visitor standing alone.

“But I don't—I can't—where is Mr. Perin?”' demanded Miss Murdock faintly.

“He's gone, ma'am.”

Miss Murdock fell back a step. The bottom seemed dropping out of her world.

“Gone!” she cried.

“Yes, ma'am. He had to go to Chicago. He sent a message, but Mrs. Perin didn't get it. It came after she'd left. He didn't get, hers, either—he'd gone, too. If I might make so bold, ma'am, it's lucky indeed that you're here!”

“But I can't—I want—I must——” Miss Murdock's dry lips refused to say more.

“Mrs. Perin said she wasn't a mite afraid to leave them with you, ma'am,” resumed Betty respectfully. “She——”

“Aunt Prixy, Aunt Prixy, where are you?” demanded an indignant chorus from the dining room.

Scarcely conscious of what she was doing, Miss Murdock walked slowly to the dining-room door. There she was laid violent hands upon, pushed into a chair, and plied with rolls, sauce, and cold meat, none of which could she eat, owing to the fact that Budge had appropriated her knees and was eating bread and milk from a bowl placed squarely in the middle of her plate.

Upon asking for her room after supper, Miss Murdock was noisily conducted to a pleasant chamber overlooking the garden.

“There, this is your room,” volunteered Kitty; “but as long as there isn't anybody here to-night, of course you'll take mother's room so you can be near us.”

Whereupon there ensued a wordy battle as to who should sleep with “Aunt Prixy”'; and Miss Murdock, from sheer inability to speak, found herself suddenly given over to Budge for a bedfellow.

Several things happened in the next half hour. Teddy cut his finger; Budge fell downstairs; Bess upset the ink bottle upon her nightgown while insisting on writing a letter to her mother; and Belle flapped the lace curtain into the gas jet, frightening every one almost into hysterics with the blaze that followed. But in time the finger was bandaged, the bumps were bathed, the nightgown was changed, and the fire put out; then Miss Murdock went through the unusual experience of having one white-robed form after another kneel at her feet with clasped hands and tightly closed eyes for the evening prayer.

“I am not your mother. I am not even your aunt.”

By the time Miss Murdock had satisfactorily settled a sharp dispute as to who should have the last good-night kiss, her nerves were on edge, and her patience was strained to the breaking point. Supposing that now, surely, her task was completed, she drew a long breath and turned toward her own room. At the hall door she was arrested by an eager voice from the girls' quarters.

“We're all ready now, Aunt Prixy.”

“'Ready!'”

“Yes, for the story, you know,” explained Kitty. “Mother always tells one. You want to sit in that chair by the door, then we can all hear in the different rooms.”

There was an ominous silence. Miss Murdock was gathering strength.

“I have no story to tell,” she said coldly after a time. “You will have to do without it to-night.” And she went out and closed the door. Behind her she left the silence of stunned amazement.

Miss Murdock did not sleep well that night. First there were her smarting hands and wrists, mementos of the blazing curtain. Then her bed—or, rather, Mrs. Perin's bed—wide as it was, seemed remarkably small. She wondered how one little body, no larger than that of Budge, could take up so much room. Twice she was dropping off to sleep when the thrust of a small foot in her stomach or of a smaller fist in her face brought her thoroughly awake. It seemed at times that Budge must have more than the usual complement of legs and arms, so omnipresent were they. She even rose on her elbow once to make sure that he had not. After that she rose frequently on her elbow, wondering, as she pulled up the blanket, how Budge could manage to uncover himself so often. Yet above all, and over all, and through all, was her dismay at the situation in which she found herself. To go, now that Mr. Perin was away, was out of the question; yet to stay seemed to Miss Murdock, in the face of her evening's experience, equally out of the question. She knew very well, however, that stay she must, and would.

The next day brought a telegram from Mrs. Perin. There was no change in her mother's condition, and Mrs. Perin could not think of leaving.

For twelve hours Miss Murdock submitted to the inevitable as best she could. The children—petted, indulged, and all their lives taught to consider themselves and their interests the only things of importance in the world—unhesitatingly demanded of their guest the devotion to which they were accustomed. In return they lavished upon her the demonstrative love of affectionate hearts that had never known a rebuff.

To Miss Murdock the day was a revelation. Remonstrance on her part was vain; she met always that ever-silencing “mother does it.” Long before the day was over she came to have the most unflattering opinion of the intelligence of her old friend and schoolmate. She even caught herself wondering if the woman's mind could be sound.

The culmination of it all came after supper when the children ordered her to take down her hair that she might the more easily be “scalped” in their game of “On the Frontier.” Miss Murdock rebelled then. Summoning the children before her with a sharp word of command, she said crisply:

“Children, it is high time we came to some sort of an understanding. I am not your mother. I am not even your aunt. I do not wish to hear that absurd Aunt Prixy another once. You may call me Miss Murdock, please; I prefer it. As for these foolish games, you must play them alone, or not at all. My mind—thank heaven—has been occupied with something other than amusing babies for the last fifteen years, and I positively refuse to bring it down to that level now. I will assist in your dressing and undressing. I will hear your prayers, and I will help you about your studying—if you ever employ yourselves in so sensible a manner. As for the rest, you must depend upon yourselves. Oh, and another thing: I will kiss you at night, or in the morning, just as you prefer. Once a day is sufficient, I think. Now, Budge, come here, please, and let me unbutton your shoes. It is time you went to bed.”

“I don't care!” she choked, and recklessly brought the tally up to a week and a half.

The children undressed that night in silence. While some of Miss Murdock's words had not been quite clear, there were yet enough left to convey her meaning in no unmistakable fashion. Even Budge understood so well that he refused to say his prayers. There was no clamoring that night for a place at Miss Murdock's side, and the lady slept—or lay awake—in possession of a wide, unshared bed.

A second telegram the next day told of little change in the sick mother, and a letter soon following said that Mrs. Perin dared not leave, particularly as she felt the children were so well cared for.

The twins cried when the letter was read aloud, and even Teddy blinked and turned away his face. By way of relief, both for herself and for the children, Miss Murdock suddenly determined to give them their daily kiss at this time instead of waiting until night; but, to her surprise—and to her chagrin, though she tried to think it was to her gratification—they turned their backs, Teddy even going so far as to leave the room.

One, two, three days passed. Daily letters from Mrs. Perin said that the sick woman remained about the same.

Miss Murdock grew day by day more restless, and the children more silent, furtive-eyed, and ill at ease. Twice Budge forgot and threw himself in the old way upon her lap, but a quick word from Kitty sent him scurrying away to the farthest corner of the room.

After a time Miss Murdock fell to watching the children. She found herself frequently slipping into the garden and listening to them in their play. She did not realize how interested she had become until one day a quaint saying of Teddy's sent an audible chuckle to her lips, so that the children heard and looked quickly over their shoulders. Seeing her, they fell silent, and a little later they crept away.

There was a queer choking feeling in Miss Murdock's throat then; indeed, a vague pain and unrest troubled her all that day afterward. She told herself that she must be a joy-killer indeed, and she tried to make amends by asking Budge that night if he would not like to sleep with her. Budge shook his head, and the ache still stayed in Miss Murdock's heart.

It was on Friday that the children failed to come in to dinner.

One, two o'clock came, but no children. Miss Murdock, now thoroughly alarmed, roused the neighbors and asked their aid. Men left their work and tramped the woods and fields far and near; but in vain. At half-past four a farmer driving into town brought a story of five children plodding along the highway not far from the nearest large town; and two hours later galloping horses brought to the door Kitty, Teddy, Budge, and the twins, frightened and hungry, but unharmed.

All five at once were in Miss Murdock's arms, and.she was kissing first one dusty face, then another, when Budge struggled free.

“Oh, Mith Murdock, Mith Murdock,” he shrieked. “You can't kith uth again for motht a week—you've kithed uth five whole timeth already!”

Miss Murdock flushed and hesitated.

“I don't care!” she choked, and recklessly brought the tally up to a week and a half—if a kiss a day were the limit.

“But why, why did you do it?” she asked later, when the children were fed, bathed, and snugly tucked into bed—all but Budge, who lay in her arms.

“We wath going to find muvver,” confided Budge softly. “We thinked you didn't love uth.”

“Oh, but I do, I do!” asserted Miss Murdock, with a spasmodic hug. “And, Budge, Teddy, all of you, I want you to call me Aunt Prixy—I want you to! And now I'm going to tell you a story,” she added, “just as mother does when she puts you to bed.”

Thus it happened that Mrs. Perin, arriving unexpectedly and coming softly up the stairs, heard the beginning of this somewhat astounding story:

“Suppose we choose for our subject, stars. You term any celestial body which appears as a luminous point, a star, children. Now some of these bodies are known as fixed stars, while others are called planets; but all are vastly interesting. For instance; suppose we were to consider first their distances from us. The various methods of ascertaining these distances depend upon three independent principles. The first method is from the parallax, by means of which the distance of the star is calculated by trigonometry.”

Miss Murdock paused for breath. The listener in the hall held hers, while throughout both bedrooms was the absolute silence of an amazed, but respectful, attention.