There was a most joyful evening in the old Leicester house. Everybody forgot to speak about Betty's going to bed, and even Aunt Mary was in high spirits. It was wonderful how much good a little excitement did for her, and Betty had learned that an effort to be entertaining always brought the pleasant reward of saving Aunt Mary from a miserable, tedious morning or afternoon. When she waked next morning, her first thought was about papa, and her next that Aunt Mary was likely to have a headache after sitting up so late. Betty herself was tired, and felt as if it were the day after the fair; but when she hurried down to breakfast she found Aunt Barbara alone, and was told that papa had risen at four o'clock, and, as she expressed it to Aunt Mary a little later, stolen his breakfast from Serena and gone down to Riverport on the packet, the tide having served at that early hour.

"I heard a clacketing in the kitchen closet," said Serena, "and I just got my skirt an' a cape on to me an' flew down to see what 't was. I expected somebody was took with fits; an' there was y'r father with both his hands full o' somethin' he'd collected to stay himself with, an' he looked 's much o' a boy's ever he did, and I so remarked, an' he told me he was goin' to Riverport. 'Want a little change, I s'pose?' says I, an' he laughed good an' clipped it out o' the door and down towards the landin'."

"I wonder what he's after now, Serena?" said Betty sagely, but Serena shook her head absently. It was evident to Betty's mind that papa had shaken off all thought of care, and was taking steps towards some desired form of enjoyment. He had been disappointed the evening before to find that there were hardly any boats to be had. Very likely he meant to bring one up on the packet that afternoon; but Betty was disappointed not to find him in the house, and thought that he might have called her to go down on the packet with him. She felt as if she were going to have a long and dull morning.

However, she found that Aunt Mary was awake and in a cheerful frame, so she brought her boots in, and sat by the garden window while she put some new buttons on with the delightful little clamps that save so many difficult stitches. Aunt Mary was already dressed, though it was only nine o'clock, and was seated before an open bureau drawer, which her grandniece had learned to recognize as a good sign. Aunt Mary had endless treasures of the past carefully tucked away in little bundles and boxes, and she liked to look these over, and to show them to Betty, and tell their history. She listened with great eagerness to Betty's account of papa's departure.

"I was afraid that you would feel tired this morning," said the girl, turning a bright face toward her aunt.

"I am sure I expected it myself," replied Aunt Mary plaintively, "but it isn't neuralgia weather, perhaps. At any rate, I am none the worse."

"I believe that a good frolic is the very best thing for you," insisted Betty, feeling very bold; but Aunt Mary received this news amiably, though she made no reply. Betty had recovered by this time from her sense of bitter wrong at her father's departure, and after she had talked with Aunt Mary a little while about the grand success of the Out-of-Door Club, she went her ways to find Becky.

Becky was in a very friendly mood, and admired Mr. Leicester, and wondered too at ever having been afraid of him in other years, when she used to see him walking sedately down the street.

"Papa is very sober sometimes when he is hard at work," explained Betty with eagerness. "He gets very tired, and then—oh, I don't mean that papa is ever aggravating, but for days and days I know that he is working hard and can't stop to hear about my troubles, so I try not to talk to him; but he always makes up for it after a while. I don't mind now, but when I was a little girl and first went away from here I used to be lonely, and even cry sometimes, and of course I didn't understand. We get on beautifully now, and I like to read so much that I can always cover up the dull times with a nice book."

"Do they last long,—the dull times?" asked Mary Beck in an unusually sympathetic voice. Betty had spoken sadly, and it dawned upon her friend's mind that life was not all a holiday even to Betty Leicester.

"Ever so long," answered Betty briskly; "but you see I have my mending and housekeeping when we are in lodgings. We are masters of the situation now, papa always says; but when I was too small to look after him, we used to have to depend upon old lodging-house women, and they made us miserable, though I love them all for the sake of the good ones who will let you go into the kitchen yourself and make a cup of tea for papa just right, and be honest and good, and cry when you go away instead of slamming the door. Oh, I could tell you stories, Mary Eliza Beck!" and Betty took one or two frisky steps along the sidewalk as if she meant to dance. Mary Beck felt as if she were looking out of a very small and high garret window at a vast and surprising world. She was not sure that she should not like to keep house in country lodgings, though, and order the dinner, and have a housekeeping purse, as Betty had done these three or four years. They had often talked about these experiences; but Becky's heart always faltered when she thought of being alone in strange houses and walking alone in strange streets. Sometimes Betty had delightful visits, and excellent town lodgings, and diversified hotel life of the most entertaining sort. She seemed to be thinking about all this and reflecting upon it deeply. "I wish that papa and I were going to be here a year," she said. "I love Tideshead."

Mr. Leicester did not wait to come back with the packet boat, but appeared by the stage from the railway station in good season for dinner. He was very hungry, and looked well satisfied with his morning's work, and he told Betty that she should know toward the end of the afternoon the reason of his going to Riverport, so that there was nothing to do but to wait. She was disappointed, because she had fancied that he meant to bring home a new row-boat; perhaps, after all, he had made some arrangements about it. Why, yes! it might be coming up by the packet, and they would go out together that very evening. Betty could hardly wait for the hour to come.

When dinner was over, papa was enticed up to see the cubby-house, while the aunts took their nap. There was a little roast pig for dinner, and Aunt Barbara had been disappointed to find that her guest had gone away, as it was his favorite dinner; but his unexpected return made up for everything, and they had a great deal of good fun. Papa was in the best of spirits, and went out to speak to Serena about the batter pudding as soon as Aunt Barbara rose from her chair.

"Now don't you tell me you don't get them batter puddings a sight better in the dwellings of the rich and great," insisted Serena, with great complacency. "Setting down to feast with lords and dukes, same's you do, you must eat of the best the year round. We do season the sauce well, I will allow. Miss Barbara, she always thinks it may need a drop more."

"Serena," said Betty's father solemnly, "I assure you that I have eaten a slice of bacon between two tough pieces of hard tack for my dinner many a day this summer, and I haven't had such a batter pudding since the last one you made yourself."

"You don't tell me they're goin' out o' fashion," said Serena, much shocked. "I know some ain't got the knack o' makin' 'em."

Betty stood by, enjoying the conversation. Serena always said proudly that a great light of intellect would have been lost to the world if she had not rescued Mr. Leicester from the duck-pond when he was a boy, and they were indeed the best of friends. Serena's heart rejoiced when anybody praised her cooking, and she turned away now toward the pantry with a beaming smile, while the father and daughter went up to the garret.

It was hot there at this time of day; still the great elms outside kept the sun from shining directly on the roof, and a light breeze was blowing in at the dormer window.

Mr. Leicester sat down in the high-backed wooden rocking-chair, and looked about the quaint little place with evident pleasure. Betty was perched on the window-sill. She had looked forward eagerly to this moment.

"There is my old butterfly-net," he exclaimed, "and my minerals, and—why, all the old traps! Where did you find them? I remember that once I came up here and found everything cleared away but the gun,—they were afraid to touch that."

"I looked in the boxes under the eaves," explained Betty. "Your little Fourth of July cannon is there in the dark corner. I had it out at first, but Becky tumbled over it three times, and once Aunt Mary heard the noise and had a palpitation of the heart, so I pushed it back again out of the way. I did so wish that you were here to fire it. I had almost forgotten what fun the Fourth is. I wrote you all about it, didn't I?"

"Some day we will come to Tideshead and have a great celebration, to make up for losing that," said papa. "Betty, my child, I'm sleepy. I don't know whether it is this rocking-chair or Serena's dinner."

"Perhaps it was getting up so early in the morning," suggested Betty. "Go to sleep, papa. I'll say some of my new pieces of poetry. I learned all you gave me, and some others beside."

"Not the 'Scholar Gypsy,' I suppose?"

"Yes, indeed," said Betty. "The last of it was hard, but all those verses about the fields are lovely, and make me remember that spring when we lived in Oxford. That was the only long one you gave me. I am not sure that I can say it without the book. I always play that I am in the 'high field corner' looking down at the meadows, and I can remember the first pages beautifully."

Papa's eyes were already shut, and by the time Betty had said

"All the live murmur of a summer's day"

she found that he was fast asleep. She stole a glance at him now and then, and a little pang went through her heart as she saw that his hair was really growing gray. Aunt Mary and Aunt Barbara appeared to believe that he was hardly more than a boy, but to Betty thirty-nine years was a long lifetime, and indeed her father had achieved much more than most men of his age. She was afraid of waking him and kept very still, so that a sparrow lit on the window-sill and looked at her a moment or two before he flew away again. She could even hear the pigeons walking on the roof overhead and hopping on the shingles, with a tap, from the little fence that went about the house-top. When Mr. Leicester waked he still wished to hear the "Scholar Gypsy," which was accordingly begun again, and repeated with only two or three stops. Sometimes they said a verse together, and then they fell to talking about some of the people whom they both loved in Oxford, and had a delightful hour together. At first Betty had not liked to learn long poems, and thought her father was stern and inconsiderate in choosing such old and sober ones; but she was already beginning to see a reason for it, and was glad, if for nothing else, to know the poems papa himself liked best, even if she did not wholly understand them. It was easy now to remember a new one, for she had learned so many. Aunt Barbara was much pleased with this accomplishment, for she had learned a great many herself in her lifetime. It seemed to be an old custom in the Leicester family, and Betty thought one day that she could let this gift stand in the place of singing as Becky could; one's own friends were not apt to care so much for poetry, but older people liked to be "repeated" to. One night, however, she had said Tennyson's ballad of "The Revenge" to Harry Foster and Nelly as they came up the river, and they liked it surprisingly.

Papa reached for the old guitar presently and after mending the broken strings he began to sing a delightful little Italian song, a great favorite of Betty's. Then there was a step on the stairs, Aunt Barbara's dignified head appeared behind the railing, and they called her to come up and join them.

"I felt as if there must be ghosts walking in daylight when I heard the old guitar," she said a little wistfully. When she was seated in the rocking-chair and Betty's father had pulled forward a flowered tea-chest for himself, he went on with his singing, and then played a Spanish dancing tune, with a nod to Betty, so that she skipped at once to the open garret-floor and took the pretty steps with much gayety. Aunt Barbara smiled and kept time with her foot; then she left the prim rocking-chair and began to follow the dance too, soberly chasing Betty and receding and even twirling her about, until they were both out of breath and came back to their places very warm and excited. They looked strangely alike as they danced. Betty was almost as tall and only a little more quick and graceful than her grandaunt.

"It is such fun to be just the same age as you and papa," insisted Betty. "We do everything together now." She took on a pretty grown-up air, and looked at Aunt Barbara admiringly. It was only this summer that she had begun to understand how young grown people really are. Aunt Mary seemed much older because she had stopped doing so many pleasant things. This garret dance was a thing to remember. Betty liked Aunt Barbara better every day, but it had never occurred to her that she knew that particular Spanish dance. An army officer's wife had taught it to Betty and some of her friends the summer she was in the Isle of Wight. Becky had been brought up to be very doubtful about dancing, which was a great pity, for she was apt to be stiff and awkward when she walked or tried to move about in the room. Somehow she moved her feet as if they had been made too heavy for her, but she learned a good deal from trying to keep step as she walked with Betty, who was naturally light-footed.

Mr. Leicester put down the guitar at last, and said that he had an errand to do, and that Betty had better come along.

"Can't you sit still five minutes, either of you?" maliciously asked Aunt Barbara, who had quite regained her breath. "I really did not know how cozy this corner was. I must say that I had forgot to associate it with anything but Serena's and my putting away blankets in the spring. I used to like to sit by the window and read when I was your age, Betty. In those days I could look over this nearest elm and see way down the river, just as you can now in winter when the leaves are gone. I dare say the three generations before me have played here too. I am so glad that we could have Betty this summer; it is time she began to strike her roots a little deeper here."

"Yes," said Mr. Leicester, "but I can't do without her, my only Betsey!" and they all laughed, but Betty had a sudden suspicion that Aunt Barbara would try to keep her altogether now. This frightened our friend a little, for though she loved the old home dearly, she must take care of papa. It was her place to take care of him now; she had been looking over his damaged wardrobe most anxiously that morning, as if her own had never known ruin. His outside clothes were well enough, but alas for his pocket handkerchiefs and stockings! He looked a little pale, too, and as if he had on the whole been badly neglected in minor ways.

But there never was a more cheerful and contented papa, as they walked toward the river together hand-in-hand, in the fashion of Betty's childhood. They found that the packet had come in, and there was a group of spectators on the old wharf, who were looking eagerly at something which proved to be a large cat-boat which the packet had in tow. Mr. Leicester left Betty suddenly and went to the wharf's edge.

"Did you have any trouble bringing her up?" he asked.

"Bless ye, no, sir," said the packet's skipper; "didn't hinder us one grain; had a clever little breeze right astern all the way up."

"Look here, Betty," said papa, returning presently. "I went down this morning to hunt for a dory with a sail, and I saw this cat-boat which somebody was willing to let, and I have hired it for a while. I wish to look up the river shell-fish a bit; it's not altogether play, I mean you to understand."

"Oh, papa!" cried Betty joyfully. "The only thing we needed was a nice boat. But you can't have clutters in pots and pans at Aunt Barbara's, can you, and your works going on? Serena won't like it, and she can be quite terrible, you know!"

"Come on board and look at her," said Mr. Leicester, regardless of the terrors of Serena's disapproval. The cat-boat carried a jib beside a good-sized mainsail, and had a comfortable little cabin with a tiny stove and two berths and plenty of lockers. Two young men had just spent their vacation in her, coasting eastward, and one of them told Mr. Leicester that she was the quickest and steadiest boat he ever saw, sailing close to the wind and answering her rudder capitally. They had lived on board altogether and made themselves very comfortable indeed. There was a light little flat-bottomed boat for tender, and the white cat-boat itself had been newly painted with gilt lettering across the stern, Starlight, Riverport.

"I can ask the Out-of-Door Club one day next week," announced Betty, with great enthusiasm. "Isn't she clean and pretty? Won't Aunt Barbara like her, papa?"

"I must look about for some one to help me to sail her," said Mr. Leicester, with uncommon gravity. "What do you think of young Foster? He must know the river well, and his fishing may be falling off a little now. It would be a good way to help him, don't you think so?"

Betty's eyes shone with joy. "Oh, yes," she said; "they do have such a hard time now. Nelly told me so yesterday morning. It has cost them so much lately. Harry has been trying to get something to do in Riverport."

They were busy anchoring the Starlight out in the stream, and now Mr. Leicester helped Betty over the side into the tender and sculled her ashore. Some of the men on the wharf had disappeared, but others were still there, and there was a great bustle of unloading some bags of grain from the packet. Mr. Leicester invited one of his old acquaintances who asked many questions to come out and see the cat-boat, and as Betty hurried up the street to the house she saw over her shoulder that a large company in small leaky crafts had surrounded the pretty Starlight like pirates. It was apt to be very dull in Tideshead for many of the idle citizens, and Mr. Leicester's return was always hailed with delight. It was nearly tea-time, so that Betty could not go over to tell Mary Beck the good news; but one white handkerchief, meaning Come over, was quickly displayed on the pear-tree branch, and while Betty was getting dressed in a much-needed fresh gown for tea Becky kindly appeared, and was delighted with the good news. She had seen the Starlight already from a distance.

"My father used to have a splendid sailboat," said fatherless Becky with much wistfulness, and Betty put her arms round her and gave her a warm kiss. Sometimes it seemed that whatever one had the other lacked.

XVI.
DOWN THE RIVER

There was a great stirring about and opening and shutting of kitchen doors early the next morning but one. Betty had been anxious the day before to set forth on what she was pleased to call a long cruise in the Starlight, but Mr. Leicester said that he must give up the morning to his letters, and after that came a long business talk with Aunt Barbara in the library, where she sat before her capacious secretary and produced some neat packages of papers from a little red morocco trunk which Betty had never seen before. To say truth, Aunt Barbara was a famous business woman and quite the superior of her nephew in financial matters, but she deferred to him meekly, and in fact gained some long-desired information about a northwestern city in which Mr. Leicester had lately been obliged to linger for two or three days.

It was a day of clear hot sunshine and light breeze, not in the least a good day for sailing; but Betty was just as much disappointed to be kept at home as if it had been, and after breakfast she loitered about in idleness, with a look of dark disapproval, until papa suddenly faced about and held her before him by her two shoulders, looking gravely into her eyes, which fell at once.

"Don't be cross, Betty," he said quietly; "we shall play all the better if we don't forget our work. What is there to do first? Where's 'Things to be Done'?"

Betty dipped into her pocket and pulled out a bit of paper with the above heading, and held it up to him. Papa's eyes began to twinkle and she felt her cheeks grow red, but good humor was restored. "1. Ask Seth to sharpen my knife. 2. Find Aunt Mary's old 'Evenings at Home' and read her the Transmigrations of Indur. 3. Find out what 'hedonism' means in the dictionary. 4. Sew on papa's buttons."

"Those were all the things I could think of last night," explained Betty apologetically. "I was so sleepy."

"It strikes me that the most important duty happened to be set down last," said Mr. Leicester, beginning to laugh. "If you will look after the buttons, I will tell you the meaning of 'hedonism' and sharpen the jack-knife, and I am not sure that I won't read the Transmigrations to Aunt Mary beside, for the sake of old times. I know where those little old brown books are, too, unless they have been moved from their old places. I am willing to make a good offer, for I have hardly a button to my back, you know. And this evening we will have a row, if not a sail. The sky looks as if the wind were rising, and you can ask Mary Beck to go with us to-morrow down the river, if you like. I am going to see young Foster the first time I go down the street. Now good-by until dinner-time, dear child."

"Good-by, dear papa!" and Betty ran up-stairs two steps at a time. She had already looked to see if there were plenty of ink in his ink-bottle, and some water in a tiny vase on his writing-table for the quill pens. It was almost the only thing she had done that morning, but it was one of her special cares when they were together. She gathered an armful of his clothes, and finding that Aunt Mary was in a hospitable frame went into her room for advice and society, and sat busily sewing by the favorite cool western window nearly all the morning.

In the evening, when the tide was high, Betty and Mr. Leicester went out for a little row by themselves, floating under some overhanging oak-boughs and talking about things that had happened when they were apart.

Now we come back to where we began this chapter,—the early morning of the next day, and Serena's and Letty's bustling in the pantry to have a basket of luncheon ready, so that the boating party need not lose the tide; the boating party itself at breakfast in the dining-room; Mary Beck in a transport of delight sitting by her window at the other side of the street, all ready to rush out the minute she saw Betty appear. As for Harry Foster and Seth, they had already gone down to the shore.

On the wide sofa in the hall was a funny old-fashioned leather satchel with a strong strap-handle. It seemed full to overflowing, and beside it lay a warm shawl neatly folded, and, not to make too long a story, Aunt Barbara's third-best bonnet was close at hand, and these were her provisions for spending the day on the river. Mr. Leicester had insisted that she should go with them, and that if she found it tiresome there was nothing to prevent her coming back by train from Riverport in the afternoon. Aunt Barbara felt as if she were being a little adventurous, and packed her small portmanteau with a secret foreboding that she might be kept out over night; still she had always been very fond of boating, and had seen almost none of it for many years, in fact since Betty's father had been at home sometimes, in his college vacations. There was a fine breeze blowing already in the elms and making the tall hollyhocks bow in the garden, and when they reached the wharf and put down the creaking wicker basket on the very edge the tide was still high, and Harry Foster had already hoisted the Starlight's sail with one careful reef in it, and was waiting to row them out two at a time in the tag-boat. Nelly Foster could not go, as she and her mother were very busy that day, but Harry's face looked brighter than Betty had ever seen it, and she was sure that papa must have been very good, and, to use a favorite phrase of his, opened a new gate for him. Mary Beck was strangely full of fears, considering that she was the granddaughter of a brave old sailor; but after she was out of the unsteady smaller boat, and had been decoyed by Betty to the bows of the Starlight, and shown how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's assistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now, and they wished to get farther down river as soon as possible, since here, where the banks were often high and wooded and the stream narrow, it was gusty and uncertain sailing for so large a boat. They slipped down fast with the wind and tide, and passed the packet, which had started out ahead of them. She carried an unusual number of passengers, and was loaded deep with early potatoes. The girls waved their handkerchiefs and the men on board the packet gave a cheer, while Mr. Leicester saluted with the Starlight's flag, and it was altogether a ceremonious occasion. Seth said that he "guessed folks would think old Tideshead was waking up." Of all the pleasure-boat's company Seth was perhaps the best satisfied. He had been in a state of torture lest he might not be asked to make one of the crew, and it being divulged that although of up-country origin he had once gone to the Georges Banks fishing with a seafaring uncle, Mr. Leicester considerately asked for his services. Seth had put on the great rubber-boots and a heavy red woolen shirt that he wore on shipboard in March weather. He was already obliged to fan himself incessantly with his straw hat, as they were running before the wind, and presently, after much suffering, made an excuse to go into the little cabin, whence he reappeared, much abashed, in his stocking feet and a faded calico shirt, which had been luckily put on under the red one. Aunt Barbara held her parasol so that it covered her face for a few minutes, and there was a considerate silence, until Seth mentioned that he "had thought he knew before what it was to be het up, but you never knew what kind of weather 't was to be on the water."

At the next bend of the river the wind made them much cooler, while the boat sailed even better than before. There had been plenty of rain, so that the shore was as green as in June and the old farm-houses looked very pleasant. Betty had not been so far down as this since the day she came to Tideshead, and was looking eagerly for certain places that she remembered. Aunt Barbara and papa were talking about John Paul Jones and his famous river crew, some of whom Aunt Barbara had known in their old age, while she was a girl. Harry Foster was listening with great interest. Betty and even Becky felt proud of Harry as he steered, looking along the river with quick, sure eyes. They did not feel so familiar with him as usual; somehow, he looked a good deal older since the trouble about his father, and there was a new manliness and dignity about him, as if he knew that his mother and Nelly had no one but himself to depend upon. It was plain to see that his early burden of shame and sorrow had developed a strong character in the lad. There was none of the listlessness and awkward incapacity and self-admiration that made some of the other Tideshead boys so unattractive, but Harry Foster had a simple way of speaking and of doing whatever had to be done.

There was a group of wooden pails on the boat, and a queer apparatus for dredging which Mr. Leicester had made the afternoon before with Seth's and Jonathan's help. They had implored a flat-iron from Serena for one of the weights, and she had also contributed a tin pail, which was curiously weighted also with small pieces of iron, so that it would sink in a particular way. It was believed that a certain uncommon little creature would be found in the flats farther down the river, and Mr. Leicester told the ship's company certain interesting facts about its life and behavior which made everybody eager to join the search. "I have been meaning to hunt for it for years," he said. "Professor Agassiz told me about it when I was in college; but then he always roused one's enthusiasm as no one else could, and made whatever he was interested in seem the one thing in the world that was of very first importance." Betty's heart glowed as she listened; she thought the same thing of papa. "He was such an inspirer of others to do good work," said Mr. Leicester, still thinking lovingly of his great teacher.

Sometimes the river was narrow and deep and the Starlight's course lay near the shore, so that the children came running down to the water's edge to see the pretty boat go by, and envy Betty and Mary Beck in the shadow of her great white sail. Some of them shouted Hollo! and the two girls answered again and again, until the little voices sounded small and piping and were lost in the distance. Halfway to Riverport, where the houses were a good way from any village, it seemed as if these old homes had remained the same for many years; none of them had bay-windows, and the paint was worn away by wind and weather. It was like stepping back twenty or thirty years in the rural history. Aunt Barbara said that everything looked almost exactly the same along one reach of the river as it did when she could first remember it. The shores were green with pines and ferns and gray with ledges. It was salt water here, so that they could smell the seaweed and the woods, and could hear the song-sparrows and the children's voices as they passed the lonely farm-houses standing high and fog-free above the water. From one of these they heard the sound of women's voices singing.