"I've always come--ever since I was big enough to climb the hill. I--I used to steal grapes sometimes," she confessed, "before I knew it was wrong."
"You can have all the grapes you want," he laughed. "I'll send you a basket every day, if you want them, as long as the season lasts. Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I--I never thought," she answered. She might have added that she was not accustomed to the idea of any sort of gift, but she did not put the thought into words.
"Come over here, Rosemary. I want to show you something--tell you about some new plans of mine."
He led her to the group of workers' houses back of the pines. A great deal of repairing had been done and every house was habitable, if not actually comfortable. They had all been furnished with quiet good taste, and had been freshly whitewashed, both inside and out. There was a great pile of cots and a stack of new blankets.
The Hospital
"What is it?" asked Rosemary, much interested.
"The Marsh Tuberculosis Hospital," he answered. His face was beaming.
"I--I don't understand."
"Don't you? Well, it's simple enough. If I hadn't been all kinds of an idiot and blindly selfish I'd have thought of it before. One of the men who came to pick grapes this year has a wife at home with tuberculosis. All she needs is to lie on a cot outdoors and have plenty of fresh eggs and milk. He's coming to-morrow, with her, and his two children. The girl will learn housekeeping from mother daytimes and the boy will go to school. I have room for several others if I can find them, and I have people in town hunting them up for me. See?"
"Oh!" said Rosemary. "How beautiful! How good you are!"
"Not good," said Alden, shamefacedly, digging at the soil with his heel. "Merely decent--that's all." He took a spring cot out of the pile, spread a blanket upon it, and invited Rosemary to sit down.
"It is beautiful," she insisted, "no matter what you say. How lovely it must be to be able to do things for people--to give them what they need! Oh," she breathed, "if I could only help!"
The Gift and the Giver Alden looked at her keenly. "You can, Rosemary."
"How?"
"I don't know, but there's always a way, if one wants to help."