"I know you will. Don't let Celia overdo. She will be so ambitious to run the household economically that she will set herself tasks she's not fit for. See that Jeff keeps steadily at his studies, and be lenient with Justin. He adores you--you can make the year do much for him if you take thought. And with my little Charlotte--be very patient, Lanse. She will miss us most--and show it least."
"I doubt that," thought Lanse, but aloud he said, "We'll all hang together, mother, you may count on that. We have our differences and our, eccentricities, but we've a lot of family spirit, and no one of us is going to sacrifice alone while the rest fail to take notice. And you're going to know all that goes on. We've planned to take turns writing so that at least every other day a letter will start for New Mexico."
"And if anything should go wrong?"
"Nothing will," asserted Lansing.
"That you don't know, dear," said the gentle voice, not quite so steadily as before. "If anything should come we must know."
"I'll remember," he promised, reluctantly, his hand under pressure from hers. But inwardly he vowed, "Anything short of real trouble you'll not know, little mother. Your children are stronger than you now, and they can bear some things for you."
At the train it took all Lansing's determination, sturdy fellow though he was, to keep up his cheerful front. The colour had ebbed away from Mrs. Birch's face once more, and as she put up her arms to her tall son, in the little state-room, she seemed to him all at once so small and frail that he could not endure to see her go away from them all, facing even the remote possibility that in the new land she might fail to find again her old vigour.
It had to be done, however. Lansing received her clinging good-by, whispered in her ear something which would have been unintelligible to any but a mother's intuition, so choky was his voice, gripped his father's hand with both his own, turned and smiled back at the two as he pulled open the door, and swung off the train just as it began to move.
He raced away over the streets to take a trolley-car for home, having dismissed the carriage, and craving nothing so much as a long walk in the cool September night.
At home he found everybody gone to bed except Celia, who met him at the door. She smiled at him, but he could see that she had been crying. Although he had carried home a heavy heart, he braced himself to begin his task of keeping the family cheered up.
"Off all right!" he announced, in a casual tone, as if he had just sent away the guests of a week. "Splendid train, jolly state-room, porter one of the 'Yassir, yassir' kind. Judge and Mrs. Van Camp were taking the same train as far as Chicago. That will do a lot toward making things pleasant to start with."
"I'm so glad!" Celia agreed. "How did mother get off? Did her strength keep up?"
"Pretty well--better than I'd have thought possible after all the fuss of that last hour. The new doctor braced her up in good shape. He seems all right. Didn't you like the way he acted? Neither like an old family physician nor a new johnny-jump-up; just quiet and cool and pleasant. Glad he lives next door. I mean to know him."
Lansing was turning out lights as he talked, looking after window fastenings, and examining things generally. Celia watched him from her place on the bottom stair. He was approaching her with the intention of putting out the hall light and joining her to proceed up-stairs, when he stopped still, wheeled, and made for the back of the hall, where the cellar stairs began.
"I'm forgetting the furnace!" he cried.
"It's all right," Celia assured him. "Jeff took care of it. He says that's his work, since you're to be away all day."
"Think he can manage it?"
"Of course he can. The way to please Jeff is to give him responsibility. He's old enough, and even having to look after such small matters regularly will help to develop him."
Lansing laughed; then, extinguishing the light, he came up to her on the stair, and putting his arm about her shoulders, began to ascend slowly with her.
"Shouldering your cares already, aren't you? Got to keep us all straight, and develop all our characters. Poor girl, you'll have a hard tussle!"
"I'm afraid I shall. Do you go to work at the shops in the morning?"
"Yes. Breakfast at six. Did you tell Delia?"
"Yes, but I'm going to let her go afterward. I arranged with her, when father first told us, to stay just till they had gone, and then leave things to me. I can't be too busy from now on, and I don't want to wait a day to begin."
"Wise girl. Sorry, though, that I have to get you up every morning so early. Couldn't you leave things ready so I could manage for myself about breakfast, somehow?"
"No, indeed! If I'm to have a day-labourer for a brother, I shall see that he has a good hot breakfast and the heartiest kind of a lunch in his pail every-day."
"You're the right sort!" murmured Lansing, patting his sister's shoulder as he paused with her in front of her door. "I must admit I shall prefer the hot breakfast. Better sleep late to-morrow morning, though."
"I shall be up when you are," Celia declared.
"Look here, little girl," said Lansing, speaking soberly in the darkness. "You know you haven't got this household on your shoulders all alone. It's a partnership affair, and don't you forget it. Now, good night, and take care you sleep like a top."
Celia held him tight for a minute, and answered bravely:
"You're a dear boy, and a great comfort."
Lansing tiptoed away to his own room, farther down the hall, feeling a strong sense of relief that the determination of the young substitute heads of the house to begin the new regime without a preliminary hour of wailing had been successfully carried through.
"We've got the worst over," he thought, as he fell asleep. "Once fairly started, it won't be so bad. Celia's clear grit, that's sure."
Alone in her room, Celia had it out with herself, and spent a wakeful night. But she brought a cheerful face to Lansing's early breakfast, and when the younger members of the family came down later she was ready for them with the sunshine they had dreaded not to find.
Everybody spent a busy day. Jeff and Justin went off to school. Charlotte announced with meekness that she was ready for whatever work Celia might find for her, and was given various rooms up-stairs to sweep and dust, her sister being confident that vigorous manual labour would be the best tonic for a mind dispirited.
As for Celia herself, she dismissed Delia, the maid of all work, with a kindly farewell and the letters of recommendation her mother had prepared, and plunged eagerly into business. She was a born manager, and loved many of the details of housework, particularly the baking and brewing, and she was soon enthusiastically employed in putting the small kitchen to rights.
At noon Charlotte and the boys were served with a light luncheon, with the promise of greater joys to come, and by five in the afternoon the house was filled with the delightful odours of successful cookery.
At that hour Charlotte, whose labours had been enlarged by herself to cover a thorough overhauling of the entire house--such tasks being her special aversion, and therefore to be discharged without mitigation on this first day
