Winterbound (13 page)

“Well, well, so you've got a new job these days! Not enough to do up home, huh? How's the family?”

“All fine. Caroline's back at school again.”

“Good.”

Garry enjoyed these daily visits. She liked Miss Hussey's brisk cheery ways and amusing gossip, and hurried to get her work forward so that she could watch the bathing and dressing rites. It was all good experience, for she had never had anything to do with a baby as tiny as this, and she learned a lot that she had not known before. Anything small and young Garry loved; baby animals, baby plants, she was used to tending and handling, but this human specimen was something new and every detail of its care absorbed her.

Mrs. Collins, her first shyness worn off, was friendly and talkative, glad of Garry's company as well as her help. Both she and her husband were newcomers in the neighborhood; before their marriage Mr. Collins had worked for a firm of nursery gardeners and had only started in business for himself three years ago. He was a kindly, rather silent man, lame from a shell wound in the War; Garry rarely saw him except at mealtimes, or when he tiptoed in once or twice during the morning to look at the baby and perhaps stroke its small hand gently
with the tip of one finger as though it were some rare and delicate seedling that he was almost afraid to touch. Most of the time he was busy in the greenhouse or potting shed.

Garry longed to talk to him about his work but never quite found the courage. The greenhouse where he raised his plants and cuttings had been built onto the house and opened directly from the small living room; as Garry stood at the kitchen sink rinsing clothes or washing dishes she could see the rows of flowerpots behind the glass panes and whenever the door was opened a warm breath of earth and moisture filled the house. Many a time she was sorely tempted to cross the floor and open that door herself, just to take a sniff and look inside, but she reminded herself sternly that she was there to do chores and keep house, not to indulge her own particular hobby. Still the temptation was very strong and one morning she gave in to it. Her hands happened to be still soapy; the doorhandle slipped unexpectedly in her grasp and she all but fell down the two steps on to Mr. Collins's broad back as he stooped over a tray on the lower shelf. He looked taken aback at this entry but relieved to find it was not an urgent summons for help, and grinned as he pulled her to her feet.

“Those steps are a bit tricky when you aren't used to 'em,” he said. “Did you hurt yourself any?”

“Not a bit. I'm awfully sorry, but I just had a minute to spare and I've so wanted to have a look at your plants. I love greenhouses and I hardly ever get a chance to poke round in them.”

“Look at all you want to,” said Mr. Collins.

He stopped his work goodnaturedly to show her round, explained how the house was heated and the moisture controlled, let her linger over the rows of potted seedlings and the cuttings set to root in trays of wet sand. Following him as he limped down the aisle between the growing plants Garry found that here was a man who loved his work and could forget all his awkwardness in talking about it. She was full of eager questions and real understanding, and the time flew till she suddenly remembered the potatoes on the stove and the unset dinner table.

After that she was free of the greenhouse whenever there were odd moments to spare, and as Mrs. Collins was now sitting up and the district nurse's visits becoming fewer, Garry could generally manage by working at extra speed to gain a little time. When the baby was fed and sleeping, Mrs. Collins settled for her afternoon nap, and the dishes put away, she would slip out and help Mr. Collins. There were plants to spray and water, sometimes seedlings to be re-potted or rooted cuttings set out, empty pots to be scrubbed and stacked away, or potting mold
mixed in the big trough at the end of the greenhouse—jobs she enjoyed far more than scraping saucepans and mopping floors.

“Well, I'll give you a regular job any time you want it,” he said one day jokingly, and Garry took him up at once.

“Would you let me work here, if you want extra help later on?”

“Well, there's always plenty to do, come spring. But I don't know as you'd call it a young lady's work, exactly, except once in a while like now, when you feel in the mood.” He seemed to overlook entirely the kind of work Garry had been doing, this last week. “Handlin' earth and pots an' that isn't any too good on your hands.”

“I've handled plenty,” Garry told him. “I'm only a beginner, Mr. Collins, and I wouldn't want you to pay me. But there's a whole lot I could learn working with you, and I'd be glad to do it. I could take care of some of the easier jobs and leave you more time for the rest.”

Mr. Collins considered.

“There's rock-garden plants,” he said. “Folks are crazy about them, right now. If I had money it would pay me to go in for the real Alpines, but there's plenty others that I'm beginning to have a steady sale for, for there's one thing they can't always raise from a packet of seed. Divisions they increase from, mostly. I've got a lot
of young plants on hand in the cold-frames and I thought I might do a good bit in that line this year. That'll call for a lot of dividing and settin' out, and I don't know but you might try your hand at that, if you'd care to. But we'll see later on. Come spring you'll have plenty doing in your own garden.”

“I couldn't get a promise out of him,” she told Kay that evening, “but I mean to try again in the spring. It's just the chance I need and I don't mean to let it slip.”

There was little doing in the way of business at Roadside Nurseries just now. So far not a single customer had stopped by during the week that Garry had spent there, but towards the end of her stay one car actually did draw up, a smart sedan with two well-dressed women in it. Mr. Collins had gone to town that afternoon; Mrs. Collins was giving the baby her two-o'clock bottle, and Garry had just finished her third batch of diapers and was hanging them on the line behind the kitchen stove.

“Good afternoon. I got such nice cyclamens here last year, and my friend was wondering if you had any more.”

Mrs. Collins looked flustered.

“Mr. Collins would know, but he's out just now. That's too bad. I suppose you couldn't …”

Garry turned promptly.

“There are some nice ones just coming into bloom. Would you like to see them?”

She left the washtub, gave a businesslike hitch to her overalls, and led the way into the greenhouse. Roadside Nurseries wasn't going to miss its one sale of the week if she could help it.

“They're down at the end here. Mr. Collins had to go into town to see about a new consignment of plants, but I expect I can help you just as well.”

Mr. Collins's trip had been to arrange for a renewal of his bank loan, as Garry very well knew, being by now practically a member of the family, but that explanation wouldn't sound quite so impressive. The cyclamens (Garry thanked heaven it was an everyday plant she did know, not something unusual with a long Latin name) were on a warm shelf at the far end of the house, and she led her visitors purposely by the aisle where the best-looking plants and seedlings were ranged. The elder of the two women happened to be a genuine gardener; she had taken a fancy to Garry's voice and appearance and was inclined to linger more than once on the way to chat about this or that.

“They're all very nice,” said the younger woman presently, as Garry reached down pot after pot to set before her. “I don't like dark red so much, do you, Mary? There's a white one up there … is that the only one you have? It looks rather …”

Garry patiently took the last pot down from its shelf.

“The only one; I'm sorry. But this pale pink is lovely, and it's full of buds. It ought to be perfect in just a few days.” (What, oh what did Mr. Collins charge for cyclamens?)

The young woman still hemmed and hawed, turning the pots about.

“I saw some just like this in town. They were asking forty-five cents. Isn't that what you paid last year, Mary?”

Garry looked at the elder woman's smooth ringed hands, at her companion's costly fur coat, and thought of the Collins baby, asleep at this moment in a clothes basket under two cheap cotton blankets.

“These are seventy-five cents each,” she said firmly. “They ought to be more, really, but they're the last we have.”

“That seems very dear, doesn't it?”

“Detestable female!” thought Garry, and added aloud: “These are particularly well-grown plants, Mr. Collins won't stock anything that isn't good.”

“Hm. …” Her eyes rested on Garry inquisitively. “Do you work here all the time?”

“Only when Mr. Collins is short-handed.”

In the end she chose three after much deliberation, while the elder woman, left to wander by herself, had discovered other things that she wanted. Garry swathed
the pots carefully, carried them out to the back of the car, and returned proudly to lay six dollars and a fifty-cent piece on the baby's blanket.

“That'll help to buy her something useful, I guess!”

“How much did you dare charge them?”

“Seventy-five for the cyclamens and two dollars each for the little evergreens. There are plenty more of the same kind, but those two happened to be standing all by themselves and she took a shine to them. She was so pleased I was scared after that I'd undercharged her, but I'm pretty sure I didn't,” said Garry. “And I let her have a strawberry begonia for a quarter, just to make up.”

“The first sale in ages.” Mrs. Collins smiled gratefully. “Wait till George hears about it. I guess you brought us luck!”

“The older woman will be back again; she said so, and she likes the place. She's interested in rock plants, too. I wouldn't care if we never saw the other one again. Wearing a three-hundred-dollar coat and wants to save thirty cents on flowers!”

“Lots of 'em are that way,” said Mrs. Collins, who had had experience. And she added: “I wish you could stay here always.”

So did Garry. In these ten days she had come to feel so much a part of the little household that when she
pulled her rubber boots on for the last time, hung up her apron, and stooped to kiss the small curled fist lying outside the covers it seemed as if she was leaving a part of herself behind. It was with an empty almost homesick feeling that she climbed the hill that evening with ten dollars in her pocket (she had stubbornly refused to take more for the extra days), a promise to stand godmother to small Julia when the time came, and a store of new experience and self-confidence that was worth far more to her than any wages.

Much of the snow had melted, but a new light fall had come to cover the unsightly patches of bare earth. It was a soft misty night; there was no wind and though the mercury stood at just about freezing the air felt mild. Just the night for fox hunting, Neal announced. He had long promised the two boys a moonlight fox hunt, and the moon would rise about nine.

When Garry reached home she found Martin all excited. He fairly bolted his supper and was ready long before Neal and Jimmie knocked at the door.

“You wrap up well,” Kay admonished.

“Walkin'll keep 'em warm,” drawled Neal. “We ain't settin' out for the North Pole. That leather jacket's all you need, son, with a good sweater under it, and I bet you find that too much. I'll look out for him all right.” He
winked at the two girls. “Sorry you ain't coming, Garry. I reckon if we git one fox apiece that's all we'll want to carry, but maybe if we meet up with a fourth one and he's extra good, we might bring him back for you.”

“I'll bet you don't get one!” Garry scoffed.

“Is that kind? Didn't I pick this night special? Moon just right, everything just right, and old Sam fairly bustin' hisself to get out on the job. Wait till you hear him singin', once he hits a good scent. We're goin' out over Crooked Hill and work round towards Bear Hollow and the big ledges. I ain't hunted over there yet this winter and I bet you we pick up something before we're through.”

His deep leather pockets bulged with a package of sandwiches on one side and a thermos flask on the other. “See you later,” he nodded as he picked up his gun from the corner by the door.

“Why didn't you go along?” Kay asked when the door had closed behind them.

“It's Martin's party,” Garry said. “Besides, I don't like seeing things shot, even if Neal does the shooting. … Well, it seems funny to be home for keeps again.” She opened the stove door and pushed a fresh log into Big Bertha. “Remember how we hated this stove when Penny first brought it home? I bet if there are any auctions in Santa Fe she's having the time of her life. Think
of all the things she'll want to bring back with her!—Kay, I want to make something for that baby down the road, and I've got to think what.”

“There was that pink sweater wool,” Kay debated. “Only I gave it to Caroline to learn knitting with when she was sick and I guess it's pretty mussy by now—what's left of it.”

“Uh-uh. I hate knitting anyway. I'll go and take a look round.”

She went upstairs, where Kay could hear her dragging trunks out in the room overhead.

“Just the thing,” she exclaimed when she came down again. “That peach robe I got Christmas before last. The front's worn but the back is all right, and I had it cleaned just before we came up here. It'll make a grand cot cover.”

“Are you going to cut that up?” Kay looked ruefully at the shimmering quilted silk.

“Can you see me trailing a peach silk negligee around this place—or anywhere else for that matter! It's lamb's wool inside, so it will be beautifully warm.” She took the scissors and began to slash. “If I piece a bit more in these two top corners and just turn the edges in all round it makes quite a good-size spread. I can use that pink sewing silk out of your workbox. Kay, now that Penny has to stay longer than she thought, don't you think it would be
fun to get the house fixed up a bit by the time she gets home?”