A hasty step outside and a quick rap at the door brought Nell face to face with a messenger boy. He held a telegram in his hand, and asked, “Is Austin Hill here?”
“Yes. Austin,” she called, for he was in the house. In a moment he was beside her and had taken the message from the hand of the boy and was reading it. After a hasty perusal he looked anxiously at Nell and said, “It is from Uncle Philip Hill. Aunt Minnie died this morning. There is no return message,” he said turning to the boy and paying him his fee.
“Oh, Austin! Aunt Minnie dead! It can not be. Think of all those little children. What will Uncle Philip do?” and Nell’s face showed the sorrow and concern she felt.
“It is certainly a shock. I did not know that she was ill. I do not know, Nell, what he will do. He is such a helpless man, and has depended on Aunt Minnie as Papa did on our mother. Poor Aunt! She has carried her burden as long as she could, and had to lay it down before her task was done. The poor little children have lost their best friend.” Austin’s face was grave and sad, for his heart was touched in sympathy with the bereaved little ones.
“Six of them. Think of it, Austin! And Helen is not more than thirteen. She is only a few months older than Lila. Little John can not be two yet, and all of them without a mother!” Tears were bathing Nell’s face as she spoke.
“Nell, we must go. We will find places for Lila and Doyle to stay for a few days, and we will hurry to them. Uncle Phil will not know what to do. It will be a terrible shock to him. He will need my help, and you can be a comfort to the poor children. How soon can you be ready!”
“It will not take me long. How soon can we get a train?”
“We can be out of here in less than two hours. Can you make it?”
“Yes,” she said, and drying her tears she began her hasty preparations. At the appointed time they were on their way.
A few hours later they stood by the bier of their aunt and looked upon her toil-worn hands resting now so quietly, and touched affectionately the cold brow wearing at last a look of peace and rest. The years seemed to fall away from Austin and Nell and they were a little boy and girl once more by the side of their own dear dead. How it all came back to them; and with what sympathy they mingled their own tears with those of the new-made orphans!
Philip Hill had loved his wife, and leaned upon her. She had been strength and protection to him. Every perplexity and burden that had ever en-tered the home had lain more heavily upon her than upon him. He had been a careless man, and the poor little home and the roughened hands forever still told a story of hardship and poverty which his conscience told him might have been lessened. But it was too late now, and he could only pour out his heart in tears and sighs.
He was glad to see Austin and felt that his capable hands would remove from him present responsibilities till the dead was laid to rest. And the children clung to both Nell and Austin as their hope.
It was soon over and the neighbors and friends gone. Austin and his sister were yet in the home, and tonight were having a talk with their uncle to learn if possible his plans.
“What will you do, Uncle? The children will need care and attention. Helen is too young to take the place of housekeeper. Have you any plans for the future?”
“Austin, I do not know. Everything is a blank, a wall of darkness before me. I do not know where to turn, nor what to do. I hate to see the children scattered, but I do not see how I can keep them together as your father did you children. Can you give me any suggestion for my first turn? What shall I do with the children now?”
Austin sat in deep thought. The idea of children being scattered among strangers, never knowing family ties with their own, was like a monster to him. What he had fought so hard to hold from his own, now was being poured out upon his helpless little cousins. A thought of help and succor came again and again to his mind, but he remembered how frail Nell was for any added burden. Her sharp eyes saw the struggle and doubt in his mind, and she knew his thoughts.
“Austin, couldn’t we take the three little ones home with us? Uncle could manage with the three older ones till he can make some arrangements.”
“Nell, it would add much to your already full hands. It hardly seems fair to you,” Austin said hesitatingly.
“I would certainly count it a great favor. As soon as I could I would end things up here and come to Weston with the others, and perhaps could find a way to care for them,” said their uncle.
“We can not go away and leave the little things without some one to look after them,” said Nell decidedly. So it was planned that Austin and Nell should take the three younger ones home with them. The oldest of the three was only six, and the baby was less than two years old. Nell did not realize then what she was undertaking. Their friends at Weston lifted their hands in dismay when they saw the increase in Austin’s family. “Is the boy mad to undertake such a thing?” some of them asked. But Austin and Nell plodded on doing their best with their new responsibilities. It was already late in the week when they came home. The next Sunday morning Austin came into his place in Sunday-school with little John on his arm and with another tiny toddler at his side.
A few weeks passed by and their uncle came with the three older children. He seemed to drop them with a sigh of relief at Austin’s door. Though it had been understood that the arrangement was only temporary, it was soon seen that Uncle Philip felt little more responsibility when he once had the children under Austin’s hand.
Now, Nell was an authoritative little body, bearing, as she had, responsibilities all too heavy for a child. Lila and Doyle had found that she was an exacting mistress, and often even Austin had been puzzled to know how to curb and direct her authoritative inclinations. The coming of the three little ones had not been so hard, for the natural mother-instinct in her enjoyed caring for their helplessness. But Helen and her two brothers was another proposition entirely. She felt from the first that it was too much, and as her authority was completely set aside by her mischievous young cousins, they kept her in a continual ferment. Austin could not turn the children out of the house, nor could he prevail on his uncle to find homes for them.
At last Austin saw that the burden was entirely too much for his sister and that her health as well as her nerves and temper were breaking under it, and he demanded action of his uncle.
“Something will have to be done, or my home will be broken up. I can not keep house without Nell, and she will not stay with me much longer. Helen and Lila can not get along, and the boys are a constant source of annoyance to Nell. I can not be there and attend to my work also, and I never leave the house but they get into some kind of a brawl. You will have to do something, or I will.” This brought his uncle to action; but a half dozen children are not distributed in a day, if proper homes are found.
Austin could not even in his perplexity demand impossibilities of his uncle, and must wait as patiently as he could till the six were properly located. Nell wept at giving up the baby; but Austin saw it was too much for her to try to keep him. At last they were alone again, just the four of them about their home table. Sundays brought Harry and sometimes Amy to dinner with them. Not many weeks passed that some of Uncle Philip’s children were not with them for a meal or two, for to them Austin’s house seemed home.
Austin hoped that now the storm had passed Nell would be herself again. But in this he was mistaken. Her nerves had been under too great a strain for her to regain her composure. It was evident that she needed a rest and change.
“Nell, would you like to take a few weeks’ visit somewhere this summer, or a trip to some place of change and recreation?” asked Austin kindly one day.
“Oh, yes! I should like to go anywhere that would take me away from here. I want to be free of cooking and dish-washing for a while. If I could only be a girl a while instead of a housewife! I am so tired of it all that I can hardly stand it.”
“I see how you feel, Nell, and I have been planning a way for you. The Freeman’s have told me they would be glad to take you with them on their trip this summer, and I should like to have you go, if it pleases you.”
“But what will you do? Lila can not keep house. She is too young, and she could not manage Doyle. He is all I can manage sometimes.”
“Doyle has never gotten rid of that desire to go to his father. It occurs to me that he ought to have a chance to try it out. I could send him down there for the summer, and Lila and I could make out very well. If you wish to go, do so, and stay as long as you want to. Only remember you have a you decide.”
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